The Real (Fake) Housewives of Washington DC
Chapter 1: Anchorage

On December 24th, 2076, the living souls buried beneath the frigid Anchorage snows in Bunker 27-Alpha numbered two-hundred and sixteen. By Christmas Day, the last Christmas the civilized world would ever experience, that number had dropped to one-hundred and seven.

The Anchorage Reclamation was in its death-throes. For the first time, it seemed as if the United States might finally beat back the Reds... but the War was as bloody, if not bloodier, than it had been ten years before. When the guns finally fell silent that day, most of the survivors put down their weapons and went straight to the showers to wash. They were smeared with blood from top to toe: their blood, the blood of their friends, the blood of the Chinese threat. It all ran off their clothes and sweat-slicked bodies, down into the stink and darkness of the sewers, lost forever in a frigid stream of unspeakable sludge.

The grunts, trembling with exhaustion and shock, laid in their beds empty-eyed and restless. Only one among them slept with any kind of depth—Corporal Lee Rhynes, twenty-four, a three-time veteran of the Anchorage Reclamation. This tour was far worse than the last. Most of the higher-ups worried that Corporal Rhynes would not be able to handle active combat. Corporal Rhynes disagreed. "Twenty-six years ago, Anne Crowley proved that women are capable of surviving basic training. Three years ago, I proved that I'm capable of surviving Anchorage. I proved it again last year, and I can do it a third time."

So they sent her, the only infantrywoman enlisted at the time, to Bunker 27-Alpha and CO Reed's company. There was a peculiarity about Leanne—who would go by Lee to her friends if she had any—a kind of hardness. Though she stood only two inches above five feet in height, and weighed a little over a hundred pounds soaking wet, Lee would fight like a man of a far bigger size. She liked very few of her co-workers, not that anyone could tell who she liked in the first place.

The soldiers of 27-Alpha, from the greenest recruit to the most seasoned veteran, did not give a single shit who Lee liked or hated. She was just some dame, an overgrown runt who played soldier the way some girls played with dolls, a woman who wore combat boots instead of high heels and did not know her place. At best, the men forgot she was different. At worst, they were sickened by her presence, disgusted by her essential femininity. Just like the first drill sergeants who saw her stumble off the bus, a terrified eighteen-year-old draftee in badly-fitting clothes, they could see no outcome for Lee Rhynes but failure. Someday soon they would be rid of her.

Like those first drill sergeants, the soldiers of 27-Alpha got their wish . . . but not in the way they expected.

The radio in the bunker's radio room emitted a short burst of static, piercing the sullen silence that had hung around the room for weeks. There was only a single radioman left to hear the first transmission from the American base in days, and he was far too tired to wonder how the communications had spontaneously begun functioning again. It seemed everything in the bunker operated purely on chance. Diligently he copied the message down and took it to the company leader, Sergeant Reed.

The man was still awake, typing on his terminal in the weak lantern light. The ghoulish green glow from the terminal screen flickered in the hollows of his face. Allan Reed was thirty-six years old, but looked twenty years older. A Chinaman had attempt to walk off with his scalp one night in the middle of a skirmish, but only succeeded in slicing the man's forehead straight to the bone. The resulting scar gave him a permanently pissed-off appearance. Fitting for a man who was permanently pissed-off.

"Sarge?"

"Hm?" His eyebrows lifted. Reed would never use five words where one, or a grunt, would do.

The radioman, whose name was Treadman, offered the message transcript to his sergeant. He took it, held it between two thick, gnarled fingers, and read it as the anxious Treadman waited. With each word, Reed's face grew longer and longer. At last, he set it down. "Tell no one about this," he ordered Treadman, standing up. "I have to talk to Rhynes."

"Sir, did you—"

Reed cut him off. "No, this is not my fault. Something's going on—Washington bullshit. Rhynes will just have to find out. Don't spread lies just to give everyone something to bitch about."

Treadman, who would die sixteen days later from a Chinese bullet in his eye, swore he wouldn't say a word.

Lee Rhynes awoke to the sound of explosions.

She sat up in her Army-issued cot, moving before her eyes had even fully focused. Eager hands seized her gun, stalwart companion of many miles and fire fights. The Howitzers only fired in time of extreme needs—had the situation degraded so much as she slept? Had they—

"Rhynes!"

She jumped out of bed. Bare feet slapped the freezing concrete floor. Shivers raced up her spine. "Yessir!" she shouted. She threw the heavy door open, narrowly missing Sergeant Reed on the way out, and had sprinted ten feet down the hall before a second shout sent her skidding to a halt. She wheeled around, gun held aloft, and came face-to-face with her superior. The sight of his expression made her falter. Why did he look so goddamned angry? And why was he standing around? It was time for action!

"Rhynes. There's no danger. At ease."

Her muscles were locked, trembling, poised on the edge of action. Slowly, under his baleful glare, she came down off her adrenaline. Reed waited it out, looking her up and down with a pitiless eye. She wore the thinnest of underclothes even in these conditions, and no shoes or socks. Most of her visible body was peppered with scars. Rhynes was damaged, no doubt about it. Even if she lived through her time in the army, no man would ever want her. No, Rhynes was marked in a way none of the others were (not even Steiler, the lady mechanic shuffled off to the front lines to fix robots and toasters in relative safety). Even if she found some expensive procedure to erase the scars on her skin, she would carry that mark for the rest of her life.

"Ready to listen, Rhynes?"

She nodded. Suddenly realizing how cold her cramping toes were, she shuffled in place, until Reed's hateful gaze fell upon her again.

"You're being reassigned, Rhynes." He waited for her to protest, to demand why the fuck they were sending her away. When no such protests came, he resumed. "Washington wants you to come home."

Lee did not reply. Slightly unnerved at her silence, he added, "All of your performance reviews have been exemplary. No one's said a bad word about you, not here or anywhere else."

After a long moment, Lee spoke. Like Reed, she used as few words as possible, and only spoke when what she had to say was important enough to risk getting her ass chewed by those she spoke to. It was one of the few things Reed respected about her. "Are you giving it to me straight, Sir?"

If anyone else had asked him that question, insinuating that his information was useless and his word meaningless, he might have struck them across the face. But this was Rhynes. It must have been eating her up inside to dare opening her mouth. He nodded instead. "I feel like it's important that you know. There's a lot of people who'll see your record and still look at you like you're dogshit on a new pair of boots. And you can't do a thing about it, because you're a woman instead of right."

She opened her mouth, but he overrode her. "It ain't fair, and you'll never be honored for what you've done here, but I'm grateful for your service nonetheless." He held out a hand to her, a hand that had ended and saved countless lives since long before scrawny brats like her even dreamed of places like Anchorage. For a long moment, she did not shake. "Come on, Rhynes. Don't bite the hand that feeds you the truth. Be the bigger man."

At last, she shook. His grip was hard, uncompromising, but she did not flinch. Pain was pain. It came and went. He looked her in the eye, nodded his approval, and let go. "Vertibird's going to take you to an oil rig out in the ocean, then head back to DC."

"Why the stop off?" she asked.

"You'll be briefed out there, in the ocean."

"International waters," she muttered, rubbing her head. Outside of any jurisdiction. Away from prying eyes and listening ears. No army gossip-mill to make a big deal out of it. What the fuck was happening?

"Anything could happen," he said, nodding. "Get your shit together."

"Yessir."

"It's been a pleasure working with you. Watch your ass out there."

She nodded. A bit of humor touched her hard mouth. "You watch yours."

He chuckled, rubbing the scar on his forehead. One close call was enough. "I'll do my best."

As Reed walked away, Lee watched. Her gun hung useless at her side, silenced for good. A transfer. After two-and-a-half tours in the most hellish place on Earth, they were removing her.

Lee was glad Reed had walked away. She had been moments from shouting at him, or worse, breaking down into tears. That old son of a bitch, telling her what she had heard a thousand times before. It was probably an attempt to inspire her fury, one last goad. Well, fuck Reed. She would be fine in DC. There was more to winning a war than throwing grunts at a problem until it stopped.

She packed her few personal belongings and walked down the long hall toward the tunnels that would take her to the 'bird. A few people saw her walk out with her head held high and her shoulders squared. Their whispers followed her down the long halls, but if they saw a tear or two frozen to her face like gaudy gems, they made no comment.

The new Vertibirds parked on the hidden helipad made the clunky old plane that had transferred Lee's company look and feel like a kid's toy. The roar of the engine was a constant throb in her temples, even before the hatch at the end of the tunnel opened. The piercing wind from its powerful rotors swept her hair back from her face and made her eyes water. Snow and ice swirled around her, a tornado of glittering fragments that stung her face like shards of glass.

The helipads were located in the shadow of a brooding peak the soldiers liked to call You're Fucked Mountain (being in Anchorage at all meant You're Fucked, so why not name a mountain after it?). To construct the pads, the army had simply sliced into the surrounding mountainside, creating a pocket hidden on all sides by rock overhangs. Many "war experts" and aviation specialists had argued that the descent was too unforgiving, that the allowable margin of error was too small to permit even the most skilled pilot to land there. The wind that scraped over the rock and dipped into the hole should dash any aircraft against the walls. Surprisingly, miraculously, no one had crashed.

Lee crossed the slick concrete to the bird, boots solidly planted on the ground, and tried not to feel like she was slinking away from Anchorage and her duty. No one paid any attention to her, except to tell her how to strap herself into the bucket seat. They had better things to do—this flight was for the injured to be transferred back home, for some to die in relative comfort, surrounded by their loved ones. Lee understood. Her brother, also in the Army, had lost his leg and nearly died of the resulting infection before being shipped home to live with his wife. She sat quietly, her eyes squeezed shut, until the doors closed and the engines cycled up. There was a momentary feeling of strain, the air vibrating... and then lift. They were airborne.

Lee kept her eyes shut. She had no interest in looking out the windows and watching the battlefield retreat from her vision. This was simply another unexpected occurrence. Roll with the punches. Unbidden, the ghost of a memory six years dead arose. She seemed to hear the soft squeaking of shoes on a polished floor, before she kicked the memory away.

Let's see. Graduate high school. Check. Get drafted... accidental check. Retire from the army with full honors after a long and distinguished career... going to have to call a fail on that one. The dog tags around her neck clinked gently. RHYNES, LEANNE M. Her social security number, blood type, and of course religious preference. She could recite the information on them in her sleep. It was, after all, her entire life in a single piece of stamped metal. Her mind kept circling these thoughts—metal tags, blood in the snow, a gymnasium floor—as the Vertibird flew into the dark.

A soldier, thinking she slept, gently shook her shoulder. Hazel eyes flew open, fixing on his face with a combination of alarm and curiosity. "We'll be touching down in a few minutes," he said apologetically. The name on his chest read "Parker".

She nodded, favoring him with a weary smile, and glanced out the window.

The "oil rig" was a rusty spar with an attached helideck. A derelict-looking structure lying wistfully and still among the waves. An American flag was secured to the crane. Turrets mounted on every available surface tracked the Vertbird's progress as it landed with a slight bump on the helipad. From the window Lee could see people emerging from the low, blocky, concrete crew quarters: soldiers with medic armbands.

The moment the doors opened, Lee stood. She was shuffled immediately into a tide of bodies. Medics filled the space, helping the injured out first. Lee went last, following a young soldier with bandages around his head. Clean salt air, tinged with aviation fuel and the sharp tang of metal, filled her nose. Lee didn't care. It was the best thing she had smelled in years, beating out cordite, smoke, and death by a long shot. For a moment, she turned her nose up to the revivifying cold.

"Corporal?" Parker put his hand on her arm.

She glanced at him. "Yeh?"

"If you'll come with me, please."

She nodded. Parker nodded back and walked off, wordlessly guiding her across the windy deck. She followed him down the stairs and through endless metal hallways painted battleship gray. At some point, the group of the injured went left, and Lee and her guide went right.

"This ain't—isn't—an oil rig, is it, Parker?" The people that squeezed past them in the halls all wore sailors' garb—working blues, coveralls, safety boots. Lee felt the curiosity and revulsion in their gaze like acid on her skin. She nodded to them, a silent and standoffish reply to their scorn.

"No, ma'am," he said apologetically. He had a young, round, permanently-anxious face. "I'm not really at liberty to explain the capabilities of this facility to you, ma'am—"

"That's okay, Parker. I get it."

He mumbled, nodding. Deep in the belly of the beast, he stopped and opened a watertight hatch. "Go on in."

She stepped over the knee-knocker and into the compartment. It was empty save for a metal table, two battered government-issue chairs, and a monster—no, a man, writing in a notebook. Fluorescent lights overhead played with the highlights in his smooth auburn hair. Nervously, she stood before him, not precisely at attention. Though he commanded authority, and carried himself as a fighter would, he wore civilian clothes. With muscles like that, I bet he could pop a seam in his sleeve, Lee thought, before panic hastily killed any further commentary.

At last, he lifted that great head of his. Beneath the hair was a pale face, a strong lantern jaw, and piercingly green eyes. If his face had not looked so foreboding and dead of emotion, it might be handsome. "Sit."

She obeyed. Her mother had raised no fools. There was simply no fucking around with a man-mountain in the room. As she took a seat in the hard aluminum chair, he moved his massive hands and slid a packet of paper across the table to her. "Sign."

"Uhh..."

"Sign."

Lee grumbled, skimming through the packet. He might crush her for wasting time, but damn it, even a behemoth would not keep her from being obnoxious and reading something before she put her signature on it. "The hell is this?"

"A job offer."

"I have a job," she protested, head shooting up. "Sir, my performance records have been exemplary in Anchorage—"

"I don't care, Corporal." No change in emotion. "This is not a punishment."

"Then what the fuck is this?!" she demanded, standing. This trip—this whole goddamn day—had worn what little was left of her nerves to the bone. No one would tell her anything, not even why they had torn her away from the only life she knew. Now this prick sitting before her like he owned the joint thought he could order her around?! Abso-goddamn-lutely not! "Don't I deserve any goddamn consideration?!"

The man watched her, waited for her fury to echo out into the silence. At last, as rage disappeared and shame took its place, he spoke. Each word was colder than an Anchorage snow, as dense as a boulder in Lee's ears. "My superiors believe you are the perfect candidate for an investigative division based out of Washington DC, despite—perhaps because of—your gender."

"Investigative?" she asked, bewildered. Her anger fizzled, derailed by the utter absurdity. "What kind of secret-agent-TV-show bullshit is that?!"

She cringed even as she spoke, expecting another lashing, but the big guy didn't even twitch. "The real kind of secret-agent-TV-show bullshit, Corporal Rhynes." He slid the paper closer to her.

No more shitty Anchorage weather? No more dead kids mowed down like grass in a high wind? Deep disquiet burned like embers in her belly. Was it wrong to take this job while her fellows suffered? If she took this job, could she end their suffering? That would be worth it. The faces of the injured on the bird reoccurred to her: their bandages, their haunted expressions, their burns and bruises. Could she stop all that? Maybe not alone, but... maybe someone like her could make a difference.

"Fuck it." She bent over the desk and signed her name in childishly-perfect cursive. As she did, distantly, she could hear Lieutenant Reed's laughter echoing in the dimmest corners of her mind.