Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

He looked around. On his sandstone were the ten choppers he and his staff arrived in. He turned to his general. She looked back.

“Load the chopper,” he said softly. “Leave me one. Do what you can for our men.”

His general saluted him. “The West needs you, my lord. Get out while you can.”

General Priscilla Cortez and Roger’s staff of many years piled into the choppers without hesitation. Without a single glance of bitterness. The choppers lifted and charged into the battle.

Roger didn’t turn back out to watch the choppers fight. He clamped his eyes shut, held them while his artillery gave what final measures the West had left.

It was the loudest the battle became. He didn’t cover his ears. He didn’t open his eyes until his ears stopped ringing.

There was silence now.

He brought his radio to his mouth. “Infantry, come in… Lieutenants, report in… Sergeants… Artillery…” He tried to control his breathing. “…Francis…” he looked into the empty sky. “…Frank…”

He turned to the battlefield. It was over. He looked for any of his men who might have been falling back, hiding. Nothing. Just a mass of black things marching back into form over the dead, beneath a fading black smoke.

His radio fell to his feet.

“ Somebody !”

One of the black below heard him. Then they all knew he was there.

The biggest cannon out there rose to greet him.

He sprinted to the lone chopper in the center of the sandstone. His lungs burned.

A short burst far behind him. A long whistle from above.

He was thrown to the air and slammed against the ground, his face and palms grinded into the rock, as a chunk of the sandstone slid away behind him.

He stumbled to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth.

He kept running.

Another burst. Another whistle.

His hands slapped against the chopper door. He climbed inside. Everything shook to another explosion. It felt like the chopper went airborne. Chunks of rock came down around him.

He pushed a button, pulled the throttle.

The propellers turned. Spun.

Another whistle.

The chopper lifted.

He was high enough before a third explosion took the choppers place on the stone. He hovered, scanning the horizon.

No Harold. Just a beautiful, faded line of distant hills and sandstones.

When Roger Mercado accepted something, he supported it, built all his planning around it. Sometimes, this method brought him miracles. Other times, it brought disaster.

But maybe this was for the best. Maybe Harold was just a smarter man… and for all Roger knew, a better man.

He turned his attention. Pulled the throttle. Dove.

Nose to the ground, he flew over the edge of the broken sandstone. Over the black army.

Bullets tore past the chopper. Through it. Through the windshield.

He pressed his thumb on the throttle. Three mini-guns opened in a brilliant light onto a patch of black uniforms beneath him, pulverizing them to hash.

He leveled the chopper. Ahead lay the artillery cannon. It was indeed the greatest on the field.

“We deserved better.”

He let two missiles fly. They twirled with one another like they were on the ends of a baton, slammed against the cannon.

Then something gave out. A bullet in the right place or too many or whatever. He lost control. He tried to bring the chopper into a vehicle or a large group of soldiers. He could only get one—one screaming soldier, firing to the end.

Was it enough? Roger wondered that in the final split-second of his life. This massive, fuel-filled weapon for just one enemy soldier? Had it been enough?

One less guy. One less gun on Grakus’s side. Hundreds less bullets flying at innocent people. One less brainwashed instrument of hate. One more notch in humanity’s odds.

It was enough.

A heavy wind had taken the smoke away, carried a blanket of sand over the dead. Only the larger scraps of metal and the occasional body part stuck out across the desert.

The general wore heavy black gear over his body and face. He stood on a rock, looking over the littered plain.

This had grown so tiring.

So many people destroyed. People who could have been destroyed in such better ways.

There was plenty left from the battle. Especially when it came to the long-range hardware. This wouldn’t take much longer.

Some captain approached him. “All that remains is assembled, sir. Ready to move on your command.”

The general watched the wind flick wisps of sand across the field.

Deseret was nearly finished with Los Angeles. They would be on their way north by nightfall.

“Sacramento has better civil protection than Los Angeles did. But with our backing the tribes, the capitol will fall just as helplessly.”

“What if Del Meethia comes to their aid?” the captain asked.

The helmet on the general’s shoulders turned slowly side-to-side. “Harold didn’t end the war here. He won’t end it in Sacramento.”

They had scattered too thin to be considered. They traveled many miles from Chicago, across the lands they knew, past the armies of the West. They came together in a forest at a corner of the world.

The tens of thousands of them were waiting at the edge of Los Angles.

The one who commanded them had been there long in advance, standing underneath the Hollywood sign. There, he had spent the night watching the city shine beneath the stars, had watched the dawn break the sky, had raised his hand to the fading stars, held it over a city that would soon be empty.

Now the stars were long gone. The sun had cleared the horizon.

There he stood, his hand stretched to the sky.

He swung it down.

The ground rumbled. The sound of explosions filled the city.

People getting ready for work or school looked out from their windows. Many ambled out their front doors, affixing neck ties or sipping coffee in their bathrobes. They looked around from their yards and driveways, from their streets. They looked north, to the mountain, to the iconic sign illuminated by the morning light.

The letters were falling.

As the first O broke apart into the ravine below, the army ran forward. They hit the suburbs from Santa Monica to Pasadena, sweeping south.

They poured flames into homes, dragged children, products of failure, onto the streets and bled them. Husbands and wives were desecrated side by side in their beds as the walls around them burned.

They raided stores big and small, pouring food and drink onto the floor or down the throats of employees.

Many tribals died of stupidity as they set fire to cars and gas stations.

The one who commanded them watched as the letters lay scattered around him. From where he stood, it was such a slow and soothing process: like embers crossing a dry leaf.

They would spend the day continuing south, destroying everything, exhausting the city’s every resource. They would chase the survivors through the Moreno Valley farms, into the desert. Every crop would burn. The survivors would have nothing to return to.

Angela’s army spread far to comb survivors out of the ruined East. Chicago’s refugees were joined by those who had fled Pittsburgh in panic, missing their chance to go with Adrian.

When Manhattan fell, Long Island was flooded with hundreds of thousands of people. A once prosperous land became a war zone with newly-formed cartels fighting over its resources. The desperate refugees were absorbed into these warring factions.

Angela did what she could to bring as many people out of there as possible. She was not as successful as she thought she’d be. Far from it.