Compared to the torpid walking pace he'd maintained, the speed of the snowmobile was exhilarating. The wind stung Rogers' eyes, swept back his hair, drove ice right to the very core of him.
Over his shoulder black smoke was billowing into the sky from the ruined fuel depot. Every now and then another explosion would shiver through the air. Rogers thought about the injured Oceanians in the Quonset hut. Hoped that they were alright. They didn't deserve to burn to death.
But those thoughts faded from his mind as he roared further and further down the road, headed south. He had a full tank of fuel, he could go a long way on it.
He tried to remember just how far his part of the Laurentian Range (he would call it by its proper name, Rogers decided, the Oceanians held no claim over the mountains to his right) was from the U.S. border. Found that he didn't entirely know.
It couldn't be too far, certainly no more than two hundred kilometers. Probably less.
But the distance didn't concern him nearly as much as the fact that he didn't know what was ahead of him on the road anymore. He was about to cross the edge of the map he'd taken off of the Oceanians. Beyond here was uncharted territory. For him at least.
He kept going, mind working steadily away, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
...
Comrade Waters was a tall man. Slender. Built in a delicate, almost effeminate way. He was grim faced, eyes slitted against the wash from the rotors of his helicopter.
They had landed not far from the dark hulk of a downed Victory Air Guard helicopter, tipped onto its side, one jagged nub of a rotors sticking straight into the air like an accusing finger.
Waters exited the helicopter first, gripping at the scarf wrapped around his neck, particles of snow and ice stinging exposed skin.
"Brother?" One of the men accompanying Waters asked. Waters made a half turn, shook his head slightly. The men in the shadowy interior of the helicopter stayed put. Waters proceeded alone.
He could see the contents of the downed Air Guard bird before him. Saw that some was damaged, some missing. Very little remained intact.
Ungood.
But of the intact articles before him Waters could see a medic and a co-pilot, both lightly injured. Both with a jaundiced expression of fear creeping into their eyes as they watched his approach. Both had snapped into a salute: arms crossed at the wrist above their heads, fists clenched, forming the V of Ingsoc. Of Victory.
"Brother," the co-pilot said, slowly dropping his salute, voice shivery and rough with cold and privation, "we…" He seemed to be trying to force something ugly from his mouth. An admission of error perhaps.
Waters had seen this before. Men whose fervor for the Party lasted only until they themselves were at risk. Men who were unwilling to admit fault. Men who did not realize that if it was not them in error then it was the Party.
And the Party was never in error.
Never.
"It was a crash comrade. Nothing more." Waters said, taking another step forward, eyeing the cluster of frost rimed wounded on the ground as he did so. They were badly indisposed. Damaged articles of inventory. Broken arm on one. Bruises and cuts and evident internal injuries on others. Plusungood.
The crash, Waters thought to himself, had to have been a bad one.
"Uncrash, brother," the medic said quietly, "we were attacked."
Waters stopped moving.
Attacked?
"By who?" He asked.
The co-pilot tried to say something but couldn't quite convey it in Newspeak. Waters waved one gloved hand impatiently.
"We'll use English for now comrade," he said, voice clipped, "who attacked you?"
"We were flying to the test site, comrade," the co-pilot began haltingly, eyes flickering down to the ground, shame in his voice, "we saw a man walking down below. We called for him to leave. He disobeyed. We landed and tried to kill him…" The co-pilot trailed off, jaw clenching reflexively at the memory.
Waters watched more than listened. Paid special attention to the co-pilot's eyes. How they fled from the emissary of the Party and sought refuge instead in the blankness of the snow. How his tone reeked of pity for himself rather than sorrow for the lost dignity of Oceania.
"How was this man dressed?" Waters asked. Wondered idly if this mysterious attacker was a Eurasian spy, sent to cause mischief on the Oceanian home front.
"In the manner of a capitalist, brother," the co-pilot said, and now his eyes were back on Waters, "he dressed in red, white and blue. He had a shield with a white star in the center."
Waters considered that. Considered that the co-pilot was looking back at him now. As if he had never doubted the Party.
What a deceiver he was…
"Where did he go?" Waters asked.
"South." Said the medic.
Waters nodded curtly. Knew that that last question was almost needless. A man dressed in counter-revolutionary garb, holding a shield that screamed of failed oldstate perversions and decadence, couldn't remain quiet for long.
"Turn and face the mountains." He said, voice mild. The medic did so immediately. The co-pilot hesitated for a flickering shadow of an instant, then obeyed.
"What will you do now, brother?" The co-pilot asked.
Waters reached into his coat. Withdrew a little black pistol. Flicked the safety off.
"Inventory adjustments." He said.
Shot them both in the back of the head, one after the other, quick enough that neither man had the slightest time to even begin to turn around.
The medic fell face-first into the snow, a tendril of smoke rising from the hole in the back of his head. The co-pilot remained standing for just a moment longer, made a strange croaking noise, then toppled onto his side.
Waters executed the wounded in much the same way.
He climbed back into the helicopter once he was done and looked to the man sitting opposite him.
"They would have become thought criminals soon." Waters said to him.
"Goodthink, comrade." His fellow agreed.
They lifted off, and were soon little more than a dark speck receding into a clear cornflower sky.
