Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

He tried to find comfort by giving himself to the consensus. He looked into the black line spread wide across the horizon, telling himself that halting its advance could forever end the human struggle. That by the end of this war, humanity would surrender its bitterness and look to those who would end the torments that came with existing in this world. It was as close to finding God as he had ever come.

Julian stood ahead of him, looking over the edge of the sandstone, his posture untouched by fear, pacing along the edge of a death fall.

“Wake the men,” the general said into his radio.

Del Meethia was running late, and there was very little they could do without knowing where he was. Including retreat. The terrifying likeliness was that this battle was going to start without him.

He lost track of how long he had been watching. At second glance, the coming battle seemed an hour closer. He could see the lines in the army spread across the desert before him, a dozen jets swirling through the clouds above them.

“Los Angeles,” said Julian into the radio. “Swing into formation.”

Roger’s voice came back. “Sacramento. Move out.”

It took less than an hour to bring both armies into a line that spread several miles from either side of the sandstone pass.

Chicago formed into an arrow to counter each opposing flank evenly, but leaving their center vulnerable. They weren’t expecting a third army. It was like they knew Harold wasn’t there. It was like they hadn’t even considered he would be.

Puffs of smoke appeared over the rear flanks of the black army. Whistling. Explosions began to dot the landscape one at a time. Two at a time. Neither Western army seemed to be affected. Not yet. But some of the shells got very close.

“Bring out the artillery,” said Julian. “Call in the air support.”

Roger’s voice followed. “Sacramento hardware—fire up the center.”

Francis turned his binoculars to every direction other than his enemy, looking for Del Meethia.

When he was a child, he would sometimes think about doing bad things to people. Sociopath or not, all children think about that kind of thing. To wonder what it would be like, what the consequences might be. When he became an adult, he did these things. Kidnapping. Torture. Murder. Of all the terrible things to do to someone, there was only one that Harold never considered as a child, not even as an adult. Not until now.

Betrayal.

He was in a Humvee riding with his army through Yosemite National Park. So much of the country’s beauty came together in this place.

Waterfalls into clear lakes. Lakes reflecting mountains. Mountains rising over valleys of autumn-turning trees. Trees as tall as skyscrapers and a thousand times as beautiful.

The smell of nature. The smell of life.

He found peace in none of it.

He sat back in his leather seat, a beer in his hand. It had warmed before his first sip, went flat before his second. He took his third as the beauty around him came to pass.

They were asking him to sacrifice every man in his army.

Harold wasn’t so detached from Rush that he couldn’t just grit his teeth and watch them die. But they were also asking him to leave his city undefended. A city he restructured, rebuilt. He couldn’t let that happen.

Francis and Roger’s armies would fall. And probably each lord with them. They’d weaken Chicago’s army, and Harold would defend his city.

He took a sleeping pill from his pocket. They seldom worked, but usually helped to calm his nerves. He slammed it down with his fourth and final sip.

When he accepted something, he supported it. That acceptance would often be mistaken for fondness, just as refusal to fear his enemies was often mistaken for arrogance.

Maybe, in some way, it was.

Artillery shells from both sides had slammed across the desert in the hours of Chicago’s advance, obliterating the occasional handful of men in a tedious overture.

In the days when Alabaster was vying for power in the West, rival politicians sent a man to his family’s home. A man in dark clothes, a gun in his hand. Maybe it was only to scare Alabaster. To teach him patience. Obedience. Whatever his intent, he was shot to death by Alabaster’s eight year-old son. Little Roger.

The West advanced to take position. They dropped barriers at their front—on the open sands and along ridges of elevated plates in the rock. Clouds of dust rose above the line. Soldiers knelt behind the barriers, mounted guns on top of them. Aimed.

Eight years old. He had never finished a novel, knew nothing of politics, hadn’t even memorized his times tables. But he had learned that there are times when you don’t have the right to be afraid.

The artillery stopped, its scourge replaced by the rumble of the coming army.

Roger took that lesson through his life. In grade school, defending Darius from bullies. In high school, watching Francis flirt with danger when he flirted with other men. On the chair of the skylord, when Karen risked her life at his command.

And when he realized Harold wasn’t coming.

He didn’t understand why. He didn’t particularly care to. The possibilities were as numerous as they were irrelevant.

The Chicago front drew heavy shields from their backs as they marched onward.

Fond of war? No.

He came home to his family each night because he had skills the cannon fodder did not. Rather, because his skills were recognized. How many men had he sent to die who could have done as good a job as he? Sometimes he wished he had Harold’s talent for not caring.

Both forces were within a mile of each other.

At half-a-mile, they were still far enough apart not to slaughter one another. The West began firing conservatively from cover, trying to slow Chicago’s advance, to stall for time.

Chicago did not comply. Nor did they fire back. They marched steadily, their guns jetting from the solid shield wall.

The West unloaded more ammo. The wall kept coming.

Less than a quarter-mile of sand between both forces. Right away and all at once, Chicago fired.

Roger could see the stream of bullets flowing from Chicago to the West; not as much so in the opposite direction.

He called down the jets, who swung from the sky as the armies of the world set fire to the desert. They swept within a hundred feet over the battlefield, sprayed heavy rounds over all that they could before Chicago’s jets came swinging back.

The Western jets evaded, spun around and charged at the enemy aircraft, their guns screaming over the haze of madness below. They met in a brawl that spiraled in seconds across land it took Chicago hours to travel, each pair of adversaries gyrating like horny birds. In minutes, they chased each other back into the clouds.

He looked below. Smoke was rising over the weave of flowing bullets spread across the land.

Western tanks rolled around the sides of the fray. Chicago’s tanks were rolling out to meet them. Each side lobbed their shells over the warring infantry. Chicago’s tank division was devastated. But it didn’t matter. The West’s was gone.

Roger had his heavy infantry divert their fire from Chicago’s infantry to the tanks. The tanks were held up for now, but fire from Chicago’s infantry doubled.

He looked to the sky. The dog fight had waned. In whose favor, he couldn’t tell. He would have been happy with a wash.

Tanks pounded at the rocks on which the West had fortified, overturning barriers. The black army drew closer and closer to Roger’s sandstone. Half the field commanders weren’t responding anymore.

“Artillery out!” Roger shouted into his radio. “Destroy everything!”