Patrol Caps

"Hang on a second," he said to me, putting his left hand on my chest. "What's in those?" The young man in the grey fatigue jacket points his FN P90 awkwardly at my sling bag and then my shoulder, indicating my backpack. I scan him up and down and read his laminated ID card that's slid into a clear plastic sleeve on his tactical vest.

JENKINS, Christopher
Security Contractor
Reliant Private Security

Looking him in the eye, I say, "A computer, and some components for the settlement to finish connection."

A unit of a dozen Reliant Private Security Corporation mercenaries staffed the outer gate leading into the New Galilee, a de facto autonomous Christian compound at the site of what was once a resort hotel and luxury neighborhood on the edge of Lake Simcoe.

Its leader, Father Kevin, had agreed to federate, and the consideration was that with his political sway, full federation of the region would follow soon after.

Christopher' unpolished outfit and nonstandard boot lace pattern indicated a lack of discipline, and his awkward grip on his FN P90 indicated a lack of experience with the weapon. With the sun shining and it being one of the first warm days of the year, Christopher was in a pleasant mood, and called over to his superior.

"Hank, what do we do with... these?"

The razor wire on the chain link fence shook as the swing gate opened, and another PMC soldier walked over to me carrying a Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun. Hank, as Christopher Jenkins had called him, looked substantially more put together. His patrol cap was olive, with the graphic of a circle with a z-shaped lighning bolt going across it, indicating he was from ZeroWorries. I took a quick survey of the seven or eight PMCs around, and all but Hank were Reliant, which gave me a quick idea of a pecking order beyond the gates and into the settlement area proper.

Hank took a look in my eyes, through his sunglasses, then stapped the flashlight from his MP7, shone the LED in my right eye, then my left carefully focusing in while shielding my face from the sunlight.

"I can never really tell without the scale, to be honest. Even then, were it not obvious, what to look for, I've seen some pass completely."

"Gives me the creeps, I can say that much."

"Are we expecting you?"

I nod.

"All right, let's go to the office, I'll call down to the back gate and get someone to get you"

Hank leads me back through the swing gate and into the larger of the three tent structures. The interior is a combination medical tent and command center, with a few SteroSheets around a gurney, some packages of sterile gauze, a bottle of injectable morphine, and some sealed forceps, scalpels, and various field medical errata, including a few prepackaged trauma kits.

The command area was a no-frills workstation with a construction-grade laptop, satellite phone handset, and electric kettle.

Picking up the satellite phone, Hank punched a few numbers in, and held the handset to his ear as he sat down. I read his laminated badge:

PETERSON, Hendrick
Senior Security Consultant
ZEROWORRIES PMC

"Hey, got a visitor here from... oh, yeah? Great. I'll let them through, yeah? Okay. You know... it's.. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure."

The call ended, and Hank said "They're sending someone."

Hank took something out of the desk, and walked me over to a side set of doors and into the outpost, which had been fenced off from view by privacy slats woven into the chain links.

Taking a look around, I was able to see the remaining Reliant PMCs, a few of them paying attention and doing their jobs, but more than anything, it was clear from the open cases of Molson Ultra and Kokanee that this wasn't a higher stress posting. Without any major alerts in the area, the peace added to the confidence behind the ability to federate the area in the coming weeks. With this area secured, no doubt people wanted to return to some sense of normalcy, no matter which government controls them.

Overhead, I could hear the din of a pair of PMC helicopters passing by. Looking up, I didn't get a good look a the tag numbers. Growing bored of watching me, two of the Reliant PMCs, wearing a MOLLE belts black t-shirts, went back to taking turns puncturing empty beer cans with a gas powered BB gun, swapping banknotes back and forth every so often.

After a few minutes I could hear the engine of an approaching vehicle, and a damaged Toyota Tacoma came into view. Stopping nearby, I took stock of the chain strap holding the front bumper on, and the smashed headlight cover. I placed my bags on the truck bed, and strapped them in with a bungee cord. The driver unlocked the door, letting me enter the vehicle, which sagged to one side as I took my seat.

"Wow. You didn't look that heavy," he said as I put my seatbelt on. "A seatbelt? Man, you are good. I'll take you the rest of the way to the camp."

As the engine shifted into reverse, then drive. We followed a section road through a forest of deciduous trees that were starting to bud, while old-growth evergreens provided a shade cover from the afternoon sun. The leaves from the previous fall were along the forest floor, having emerged recently from snowfall.

I read my driver's laminated badge:

DUNBAR, Clyde
Contract Coordinator
ZEROWORRIES PMC

"So these guys are a bit weird, even by today's standards."

I didn't reply.

"Like, it's one thing to have your beliefs, or whatever. I don't really know what I think, but these folks..." He trailed off.

"Anyway, the unit is on the south end of the shoreline. I'll take you through the resort and bring you to where you guys are set up. This is a good time to do it becuse they're all at service in the main building near the reactor. They gave us the AC unit we need, we just need you to activate the uplink and start the converter unit."

After a short drive, the driver stopped and I was able to immediately recognize a few of our regular units based on their posture alone, making the ZeroWorries contractors look like children in comparison, and were clearly here to supervise deployment from our side.

Approaching on foot, one of the engineer was working on something, while the other three soldiers talked amongst themsevles. Two were armed with standard issue carbines, while the other had a Franchi SPAS-12.

I began to upack and start to try to connect to the converter unit when a man in a black suit, white shirt, and red tie approached us, looking angry.

"It was a SIMPLE part of the agreement," he started, "no gasoline vehicle traffic during worship. You can walk, but no gasoline vehicle traffic!"

Clyde, who was the focus of his ire, put his hands up in a defensive posture, with his palms facing the man.

"David, I'm sorry. It's a long walk, and this unit's in high demand. It needs to finish the final hookup, and we'll be done here."

"I do not care if it takes 40 days. Our Father made it clear. The filth you move around in disgusts us, but we accept it."

The man looked towards me, and asked Clyde "What..."

"Oh him?"

"Him? Not it?"

"Well, it but, it looks like us, so... but yeah, we just started deploying them up here last year. We use them more in urban ares as disposable security, but for high-risk engineeing tasks in remote areas, they're also easier than stretching human specialists too thin, and they don't need training."

As Clyde was speaking, I began to peel back the SimulSkin cover from my left arm to install the diagnostic tool I needed to finalize configuration. Pulling the pin out of my forearm with my right hand, my standard arm fell to the concrete with a clatter.

With the connectors exposed, attached the interface arm I had brought in my backpack while the human engineered logged using the replacement computer he took from my other bag. Once I had the interface arm installed, I was able to connect to the uplink, and begin processing the cryptographic hashes to authenticate and secure the connection, allowing the engineer to finish his side of the calibration.

Once completed, Federation could begin.