Red White and Blue

Reaching up into the trees, I had a hell of a time hooking my pruning shear on to the nylon cord holding the two supply pods up in the grouping of blue pines about a 10 minute walk from the house. Last week when I was out this direction it was dead silent, but now I could hear the low consistent rumble of automatic weapons all the way in the house now. The rumble was occasionally punctuated by some kind of heavier, clearly defined explosion. I was beginning to feel like I could taste the aerosolized pine in the air.

"Ah!" I shouted as I finally got a hook on the cord. Hauling down on the telescopic aluminum pole, the two airbag clusters worked their way through the branches and eventually down to the forest floor. As promised, Jack had arranged for an extra pod of supplies. Pulling out my hunting knife, I had no problem cutting through the polyurethane airbags which I stuffed under the curl of my aluminum toboggan I'd brought along.

After placing each of the pods on the back half of of the toboggan, taking a second to look at the red, white, and blue stripes emblazoned below the Rubbermaid branding, I took a minute to glance at the feed from the camera looking at Matthew. He was still on the Japanese mat, with the pillow I'd given him, still watching the classic movie channel, staying in the warmth of my wood stoves.

The truth is that I couldn't stand him thinking I was some Vermonter come north, or worse, some Westerner working for 'The Cause'. I explained to him that this was the only way I could make a living and keep my land from becoming fully Americanized. "Je me souviens le Canada," I told, "Je me souviens le Canada libre."

He caught me off guard when he was able to say something along the lines of "What are you going to do about it?"

Once he got that off his chest, he was open for conversation. I explained to him how things were working out here, and that I wasn't some raider or something, and this was strictly a business transaction.

"Generally speaking," I told him, "you get picked up, your photo taken, you get a set of clothes, then they trade you back over for someone they want, and you'll be home in a couple days. It's all in the Gee Neck Pee. I get what I want, you get a vacation to Syracuse or something, and you'll be back in a week, tops, don't worry."

After convincing myself that was true and convincing myself that I'd convinced him, I threw on the Scorsese marathon that was running that day, and headed outside to grab the drop to avoid talking about it too much. I really had no idea what happened to my house guests after they were picked up. What I did know is that the steady drops of food and supplies, even if they were Yankee in origin, were better than bear meat and snow melt.

My breath hung in the air as I exhaled, hauling the toboggan behind me as I walked back to the house. While it wasn't nearly as cold as yesterday, this morning was warm enough to bring in more snow. Jack told me it was likely he'd delay pickup by another day when I spoke to him yesterday, but they had enough of a window to do my resupply drop today.

Matthew was at least a decent house guest, though. He wasn't a picky eater or anything, and was more than happy to sit on the Japanese mat and watch movies instead of forcing me to play warden. A few weeks earlier, that James guy. who kept trying to pull the chains off the mounts, even after I hit him with the stun baton... terrible manners. Matthew was safe to leave unattended, at least.

I stop the toboggan at the kitchen door and after propping it open, I'm able toss the supply pods inside with my replicant arm, but after that, it's all she wrote. The arm fell dead to my side as I felt the "low power" notification come in. After maneuvering my way out of my snowsuit, I was able to keep my balance as I went upstairs to put my arm back on its charging cradle.

From outside my window I heard the high pitched buzz of a drone going by.

Heading back downstairs, and hearing the din of gunfire off in the distance, I set a kettle on to boil. After a minute of rummaging through my pantry, I was able to come up with the final sachet of President's Choice Dark Roast Instant & Microground Coffee. rendering unto me a cup of black coffee to drink while I go through the pods.

Opening the main foil pack in the pod marked CA-9, I see my usual stock of frozen and freeze-dried proteins, and a surprisingly decent looking frozen salmon fillet, some juice concentrates, a bottle of what looks like white rum, nice, but a distinct lack of more coffee. A few packs of frozen vegetables, and to my delight, in a FreshPac, some actual decent looking fresh citrus. and three mouth watering cosmic crisp apples. Down in the very bottom of the pod, I find a couple 20-packs of Mars Wrigley branded Coff-e-Chews, rated at 45 mg apiece.

Banana flavour.

War is hell.

I savor one of the final sips of the hot black liquid in my cup.

The other pod had my shipment of shotgun shells in a packet marked Y-9, and, as promised, Jack or whoever managed to pop in some unwrapped boxes of tracers.

After putting the groceries away, I took the boxes of ammunition down to the basement. Matthew watched me come down the stairs, and walk past the elliptical trainer into my storage room where I took a moment to unpack the various boxes of shells and tracers, including some 5.56x45mm for my C7 and .243s for my old Browning hunting rifle.

Once those were away, I headed back outside to the shed for another few logs for the wood stove. More gunfire, and the distant sounds of snowmobile technicals whipping through the woods sounding less distant by the minute.

Exhaling deeply, I walked back into the house, leaving the wood next to the boot tray and grabbed my Milwaukee battery and radio, then walked over to my kitchen junk drawer for the fob.

8-7-3-3.

I could hear the shots getting closer.

1-1-8-7.

I pushed send. No answer.

I looked back down at the fob.

9-4-1-7.

2-2-8-6.

Send.

Jack picked up this time.

"Mitch, amigo, I sent out your pack and a bonus and it should be in the woods by now. But I have some good news!"

"I got the pods, yeah. Listen, it's pretty noisy here today, Jack. I thought you said you weren't coming by the farm."

"That's the good news. One of my guys with a PMC had some availability today. We brought them in on the train, and they're coming over to you for pickup."

"Oh." That explained the noise outside. PMCs weren't known for their subtlety, nor their trigger discipline.

"Look, they know that you're friendly so it shouldn't be a problem. They'll come get your fellow Canadian, and hey, because of the trouble, and because I couldn't be there myself, I'll throw in another bonus pod next time too."

"That doesn't make me feel any better about this."

"I know pal, but keep your radio on. If there's any trouble you can get a hold of me. Gotta go pal, bye!"

The line crackled dead, but I left it running like Jack asked.

I started to walk downstairs to tell Matthew what was going on, but before I could, I heard my living room window break, and before I could see it, my vision blacked out and I hit the floor with my ears ringing. When I could finally see again, I was being hoisted up and shoved against my kitchen counter face first, held in place by an arm wearing surplus dark urban camouflage.

I could see four more kitted out men with mismatched equipment and uniforms, which was a telltale sign that these were Jack's Good News PMCs come to do his dirty work in the dirtiest way possible.

For what I assumed was no reason other than cruelty, I felt a steel toe boot against my calf, forcing me down on to my knees, facing my cleaning cabinet and the muzzle of a pistol pressed to my head.

With my ears starting to recover, I heard one of them shout "Woo!", as I turned to see them pull Matthew out of my basement, one masked guy with an obvious beard was holding a pair of bolt cutters.

"This is our guy," the bolt cutter said, "The other guy can go."

My assailant let me go, and as he followed the rest of the team of four or five guys out, I finally got a good look at his red white and blue striped face mask and wraparound Oakley sunglasses.

Getting to my feet and looking out the kitchen window, I could see them wrestle Matthew's body, delivering a few body blows after they flexi-cuffed him, shouting "Shut the fuck up, Canuck!" and other shit like "Parlay voo Frenchie?" His face was already starting to bruise, and blood was streaming out of his now broken nose, dripping across the stark white snow as they shoved him over into the back of a treaded side by side.

Two of them high-fived, I heard another "Woo!", and with Matthew loaded up, the rest mounted their Polaris sleds, speeding off through the woods with their bounty.

After a while, I was able to assess what had just happened. The living room was covered in broken glass from their flashbang and needed sweeping. Not only that, I needed to get some tape and some cardboard or something to patch the window.

The kitchen door was knocked in by a battering ram, which now sat on my linoleum next to a cigarette butt with a matching scorch mark.

It seemed that all my shit was knocked around, and mud seemed to be on every surface possible.

From the looks of things, even with the frozen ground, the side by side managed to carve a sharp cut into what was my vegetable garden last summer, and beside that, I could see the shit and oil where the snowmobiles all sat idling while my house was ripped apart.

Heading back into my desecrated kitchen, I opened my pantry cupboard to get my bag of BC Strawberry, grinder, pipe, and lighter, and sat in the relative silence as I thought about my next move.

After a while, the Milwaukee radio rang, and when I picked it up, I heard Jack express his exuberance at how fast it was over. I expressed my displeasure.

"Charlie told me it took all of 5 minutes."

"Charlie, was he the one who threw a flashbang at me, or was he the one who held me at gunpoint?"

"I don't know. Charlie's guys can be a little rough but they get it done, that's for sure."

"Get it done sure. Listen, you're gonna need to pay for this mess."

"Yeah no problem, I'll be there in a few days to take pictures for insurance and we'll get you covered."

"Fucking insurance, for real?" I stammered, "and like, it's not just about the mess."

Jack let me sit in silence.

"What's gonna happen with Matthew, anyway? Or any of these guys I get for you. I mean, I get paid, and you tell me they go back home during a swap, but is that really what happens?"

Jack let me sit in silence. I heard him chewing something, and then I heard him suck whatever it was off of his teeth.

"Why do you care?"

As I heard two air superiority fighters burn at the speed of sound overhead, I realized that I didn't have an answer. not yet anyway.