Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
AN: Gotham's favorite Vigilante is back...with a vengeance.
Tuesday, September 3rd
19:30 EST
Candidly Cameras
I exit the store, and within seconds Karl and Ji Yeon's reluctance to say good-bye makes perfect sense. We could die tonight, Karl said. I thought he was speaking rhetorically what with all the Chaos let loose in my city…
But I was wrong—wrong about all of it. Karl wasn't afraid of death, he was confronting it head on. He knew it was coming sooner of later, and instead of running he honored Gordon's request and took a last stand. Fought for his city and everything that was his, spent his last day putting back together the life he'd spent so long making. And that's why he had the balls to share his story with some random stranger: he has the assurance-small comfort though it may be-that if he died tonight, there'd be someone out there who knew he died the hero.
I shouldn't've left. With a witness in the store, the mobsters are bound to be a bit more subtle if they want to go undetected. Not that these have made any attempt-every single last one of these bastards has dressed the part to a film noir T in tacky black suits and fucking knock-off designer shades that scream Organized Crime Syndicate from a mile away.
Six of them. Unarmed from what I can tell, not wanting to risk getting jailed at a National Guard checkpoint for carrying an unregistered gun. Same here. But I'm also guessing these ill-disguised hitmen don't need firearms to elicit either fear or pain.
It's getting dark out, just enough to hint that the Night is on her way, but already the streets are clearing. The hustle and bustle of traffic is at a low, distant murmur, and aside from me and these Kkangpae pricks the avenue is empty. I stop. Stare. Conscience and that Monster within me compel me: it's been a good, long while since she's tasted blood. Its sharp scent is sudden and warm in the wind, and now she's salivating at even the thought of the thrill. Goosebumps raise on my flesh, and a slow, seductive shiver runs down my spine. I've been plotting from the shadows long enough. It's time for these predators to become my prey.
One by one they sense my prolonged gaze and scowl, but I'm unperturbed and suddenly patient. I plop gingerly onto a white-painted park bench and watch them go in…
…but mostly I wait for them to come out.
Candidly Cameras
Fifteen minutes. I can only guess what went on in there—even through my telephoto lens the sheet plastic Karl tacked on distorts the view. Finally Ji Yeon exits flanked by two of those motherfuckers. Her youthful face set but tearful, and they cross the street to a nearby ATM. Ji Yeon swipes her debit card, but I'm guessing it's still broken from the riots three days before because she begins to sob in earnest. She takes a slap to the face that has my cheeks stinging and falls on her knees. Bastards always know how to hit just right so you're blinded and seeing stars. They raise her up and begin to manhandle her back towards the store…
It's an execution march. And I've seen it before.
Waziristan, January 2011. Operation Enduring Freedom is nearly ten years in. Both Peace and Osama bin Laden continue to evade us. Baradar is eleven months captive, and the Raymond Allen Davis incident has left the country screaming for blood. Wikileaks has shown ISI to be the Taliban's Number One Ally—while our government continues to pour billions of dollars in aid money into their pockets. The Haqqani Network has NATO shitting their collective pants while publicly calling for more "Pakistani cooperation".
…it's little wonder the CIA calls it the most deadly place on the planet. The Pakistani government wants nothing to do with the province, and the tribal leaders are under fire from us and from the Taliban. ISAF in 2006 sent more troops, more police, and more manpower to the region for stability.
That was five fucking years ago. Three years ago this entire region almost went nuclear after some moronic prank caller from Mumbai. Stability, my ass.
ISAF sent us here to scout out the area. We're deep in FATA, and there's friendlies mixed with bad guys. Not that the local tribesmen care—we're uniforms, outsiders, carrying guns. If they find you on your own, they shoot you dead, NATO and Pakistani alike. "It's not right," Masterchief explained during briefing, "not wrong, either. It's their land, their culture, and their law." Yeah, and their government has decided the fuck with it, and to "respect their tradition" when on their land. The local sentiment is clear: Outsiders aren't welcome, and if the US of A or any other organized government or regime is too dense to see otherwise, they'll get what's coming.
We'll get what's coming.
Lost. Local police unit we were sent to help out put us on a scouting mission 'to familiarize ourselves with the territory'. Yeah fucking right. If they had Al Queda sympathies and wanted to kill off a whole batch of green US soldiers unfamiliar to the terrain, they couldn't have had a cleaner plan: drop them off in the mountains and let the Pashtun locals sort it themselves.
"Maybe if we're lucky the locals'll find us first," Bear grunts. Our mission got bogged down by insurgents five days ago. Forced to separate, backtrack, and we missed the rendezvous point. If, as Bear pointed out, there ever really was a rendezvous point. We lost the sat phone when we abandoned the jeep…then during the night our guide abandoned us. The sky is rent with invisible drones overhead, yet no one has come to retrieve us. Perhaps they've seen us, but just don't know we're lost, Bear had argued. Either way, we still can 't risk the flares. Now after three days of hiking in what Red claims is a "generally base-like direction" on an empty stomach and huddling together during the freezing nights a bullet to the head is starting to sound positively goddamned heartwarming. I tuck the greasy, ratted ends of my ponytail back under the nape of the lightweight helmet. I'm in full combat armor and camouflage, sure, but there's nothing like long hair that screams female through a rifle scope even half a mile away.
…and I want to be ambushed. Shot. Not wind up like Louisa. You don't have to be in a warzone to know there's shit worse than dying.
From the chopper it looked like mountains and forest, yeah; down here on the ground in the fading evening light landmarks seem to move, and the eerie silence starts to eat at you until you're jumping at the sound of your own footfalls. Out here the rest of the word could've perished in a nuclear holocaust and we wouldn't know it for centuries. The same laws and peoples have ruled this place since before Muhammad, events such as Pakistani statehood and electricity are nothing but ripples swallowed up in the stream of their existence. Our own presence is just as futile: the land—and her people—will outlast us, swallow us, forget us
"This place is like the Land that Time Forgot," Red whispers as we make 'camp' for the evening. The last vestiges of red sunlight trickle mournfully through the Eastern Hindu Kush like dying, desperate fingers relinquishing their grasp.
"Roger that," I return, unrolling my bundle. "Fucking dinosaurs could live here and we'd never know it."
"Dinosaurs ain't our problem, sister." Bear snorts, shouldering his SAM-R to take first watch. "We'd hear them comin'."
I offer no retort. With supplies, patience, and blood sugars running low, the less said, the better. We've barely spoken for three days. Tonight will be no different.
Hungry. Achy. Thirsty. Just this morning Bear suggested urinating in our canteens to save the fluid, which is easier than it sounds, both pissing into an aperture several centimeters wide and forcing down your own piss alike.
"You thirsty?" Red whispers beside me through cracked lips. I know what he's offering.
"Not enough." I figure if salt-water kills you, piss can't be much better. Not when it's already a dark, reddish brown and you can smell the salt just from the stream. It might moisten your mouth, sure; but it's not doing your kidneys any favor. We're dying, I tell myself for the hundredth time, and I'd rather go with a little dignity than just prolong the inevitable.
His freckled hand finds mine, and gives a tight squeeze. I don't let go. He doesn't speak again. The sky is cloudy above, and not even the moon's stark glare pierces its cover. Red doesn't speak. Bear is motionless in the darkness nearby. Rocks dig into my back and the dry, scratchy blades of bunchgrass graze my face and knuckles.
There's a letter in a locker back on base with Jon's name on it. It's got all my goodbyes, and somehow I still want to add more. Should have said how much I love you baby, I fucking love you at least one more time…
Can't sleep. Can't think. Can only wonder how many nights my man lay awake, just like this, wondering the same damn thing. In five years I've never asked him. Perhaps I never will.
Wind whistles through dried grasses and broken branches, whipping through the air above our heads. No birds, no chirping insects, no motors…nothing.
When gunshots finally pierce the night, the sound is goddamn welcome.
"That's an M-16, I'm goddamned sure of it!"
"And you're dehydrated and desperate," Red reminds me, ever-cautious, even now. "Let's make sure."
Bear disagrees. Wants to go charging off in the darkness. It's been our best—and only—lead in days. We might not have many more of either.
"And even if it's friendlies, you think charging out of the dark is a smart idea?" I snap. "We close in, lay low, and if it's US or NATO forces, we yield. Anyone else, we disappear."
"Anyone else and we follow them," Bear says. "Might lead us to water."
"Or a village full of foreigner-hating locals who'll kill us and rape us and if we're lucky, in that order," I'm tired. Thirsty. Hungry. Terrified. Travis Bingham might be dead, but there are many, many men like him. I've been afraid. Afraid of rape, of sexual assault, afraid of Men this entire time. The dying I can take…it's what comes before that has me pissing.
"Paltron," Red remonstrates.
But everyone's thinking it. I'm just saying it. "You know it's true," I snap. "That happens, do me a favor and knife me first." He blanches, but Bear only grunts. KA-BAR, seven inch steel blade. He'll jab my kidney and I'll barely feel a thing. Not a bad way to go. I set my jaw. Nod him thanks. Thought I had friends in high school as a civilian. I was wrong. A friend isn't someone who has your back—he's someone who'd rather slit your throat than let you suffer.
Swift and silent as shadows we slink through the night, Red taking lead. We snake through foothills, crawling over the summit of a steep motherfucker when we see it: light. Fire. Civilization…or not.
We trade glances, begin to ease our way down. It's everything I have—everything each of us has—not to take off at a dead run. I can feel every goddamned fissure in my lips and tongue.
Red passes the NV goggles, never saying a word lest a whisper betray us. Bear stares down, long and hard into the blackness before handing them to me. At least thirty people. And there's a vehicle. Truck-sized, with the engine running on the far side of their encampment.
Their eyes are bloodshot yet determined in the dark. Even if it's not NATO forces, we might have a chance to commandeer that truck. We slip back into the night, keeping their camp on our left, the hills again between us and their light. Red slithers up the next sloping hill solo, and Bear takes my hand.
Semper Fi, he mouths.
Fuck, I mouth back. He squeezes my fingers, and I clutch his hand tightly. It seems an eternity passes before the grass rustles gently and Red re-appears.
Raised voices. Screaming. More shots. Wherever we are, whoever these people might be…they're not friendly. I just hope whatever butchery they're up to will keep them distracted enough for us to reach the safety of that canvassed truck.
His face is haggard. Worn. Weary. I fear he'll have us turn back, but instead he motions us on.
We use the NV again, mashing dirt against the lenses to lessen the chance of a reflection. Makes the resolution shit, sure, but it's better than getting shot. The truck's still running, not thirty yards ahead. But it's surrounded, armed men swarming about. I can feel frustration and fear growing thick in my throat.
Then—
English. Someone speaks goddamn English. A string of curse words, a loud guffaw. I whip my head to Bear, and it's clear he's heard it too. Not a mirage. Not a hallucination. Not hunger and fear and exhaustion and thirst playing tricks on me. Still we wait, listening, hoping…we catch snippets of conversations, watch what must be their leader begin an interrogation. It's Waziri, but still wrong. Crude. Harsh. I only took a crash-course in local language but you don't have to be a genius to know the accent's wrong.
…And American.
Bear surges forward. It's all Red and I can do to restrain him. I shake my head, grit my teeth. Reluctantly, he follows.
My heart is pounding. Stomach sick. I know what I have to do. We put one of those foothills between us again, spirits soaring as we dare to hope. I fumble with the LW helmet straps, wrench out of my MTV, set down my M405A. They look on, confused. I tear my hair down, tease it, tuck my shirt in pulled so tight…
Red begins to understand. Nods. Bear glares, vehement.
Me first, I mouth, slapping his hands when he tries to restrain me. And it has to be me. The woman. They'll be less likely to shoot an unarmed woman, even in frightened instinct or orders. If Red or Bear walked out of the darkness they'd be just as likely to wind up dead of bullet holes as dehydration.
My friends. My band of brothers. Fellow soldiers, patriots, soul mates. I'd die for them, any day. Today. I hold them both, so tight, so tight…then abruptly turn away. I will not look back. Cannot look back, lest my cowardice consume me into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, forever immobile.
"Hey, hey, help!" The shout scratches at my aching throat, but it does the trick. Men begin to rush about, weapons raised. "The fuck is that?"
Hands over my head I advance towards their firelight. "I'm Private Gwen Paltron—"
Shots ring out. Bullets riddle the sand in front of my feet I cry out in terror, fall to my knees.
"Identify yourself!"
"P-private Gwen Paltron of the United States Marine Corps! Mortalis division! We were—"
"A woman," their leader spits, striding forward, "Armed?"
"N-no."
"Then talk."
"I'm Private Gwen Paltron of the United States marine Corps," I state, braver.
"I got that part already, sweetheart. What the fuck are you doing here? Are you alone?"
"My unit got ambushed," I evade his question. "Four days ago."
"Where's the rest of your uniform? Your gun?"
"In the hills."
"Why?"
"Thought you were less likely to shoot me if I looked like a girl," I tell him. "Identify yourself."
"Mind games," he spits. "That's intelligent. But I really don't appreciate people fucking with my head. Now I'm going to ask you one more time: You alone?"
"You haven't identified yourself." But it's obvious now. He's not military. Not even Private Contractors. They're in native garb carrying Kalashnikovs to blend in with the locals. They're either special forces, or clandestine.
…oh, shit, girl. What the fuck did you just walk into? Whatever's happening here, whatever he's up to…CIA or SEALS, doesn't matter, it's something classified much higher than my security clearance. Those shots? That screaming?
…Am I next?
"Private!" He barks. "Are. You. Alone?"
He'd only search the hills anyways. And he'd find them. His men are fed, hydrated, rested. Lying is futile. "No."
"How many with you?"
"Two."
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
"Just two."
"They armed?"
"Yes."
"They watching?"
"Yes."
He grunts. Then a stinging, searing pain stretches my scalp, I shriek, and he drags me up by my hair as I scream, scrabble, wrench and sob. The muzzle of his rifle is ice against my chin.
"Now you've got ten seconds to get your worthless asses down here, unarmed, or G.I. Jane takes a bullet straight to the fucking face!" He cries. "One—!"
"Don't shoot!" Red's hoarse voice carries. "Just don't shoot!"
Only once they cross the firelight does he toss me aside. I fall on my face, whimpering.
"Sorry about the theatrics, Private," he apologizes tersely as Bear and Red are frisked. "I just had to be sure."
"You're US special forces!" Bear grits his teeth, incensed. Red hauls me to my feet. "You're on our side!"
Tensions. Tempers. Things are about to get ugly, I cling to Red. Then someone in the shadows decides to take advantage of the distraction, makes a run for it from that awful camp. An old man, wrinkled and bearded, terrified, takes off into the night. Straight shot to the neck, brainstem pouring out his gaping throat. He falls, never felt the bullet that killed him.
Back of the neck. Sniper's wet dream, clean kill.
Bear loses his ire. We're surrounded, outgunned, outranked. We're at their every—every—mercy. He closes back to us. The gesture is futile, but heartfelt. Semper Fi, he'd whispered to me, Semper Fi…
They laugh. Spit. Roll the corpse over, defame, disgrace, and defile it. I've seen enough bodies by now, warring tribes and factions…their gear, their clothing…this is a cover-up. A pretense. A farce. I don't know enough about the FATA cultures, too dark, too untrained to tell the ethnicity of the family lying scattered in the glen, too ignorant, too weary to wonder what plans or purpose this clandestine hit could possibly carry. I only know it was senseless, wasteful, cruel.
"He wasn't armed," Red chokes as the men do their work. "You didn't have to shoot him."
"No survivors, Kid."
"You could have taken him for questioning," Red argues. "To prison…"
"Yeah. I've seen Extraordinary Rendition, too, Kid. You have any idea how much it costs to keep one of these Ragheads in Gitmo? Old man didn't have anything worth knowing. Had to be done."
"You fucking executed him. No, no you murdered him!" I protest.
"It's the Middle-East, bitch," he shrugs. "So who gives a damn about another dead Rag-head?"
"They're not Rag-heads! They're human beings!"
"Relax, blondie," our captor orders, with a tone like pity, as if my ignorance has saddened him. "They're Taliban. The whole lot of 'em. Heroin smugglers, too, or we'd just have dropped a bomb and been done with it. Doesn't matter if we keep 'em or hand 'em over to the Pakistanis. Either way the Rag-heads'll just cry Jihad and sponsor more US killings. Trust me. We just did the whole world a favor."
"By killing an old man."
"By killing his entire family," he corrects bluntly. "I look like fucking Jack Ryan to you, honey? This place believes in blood feuds. Qisas. Diyya. You seen this Davis thing? And no way is the US of A going to pay. Only way to end it is to make sure every last damn drop gets spilled. Only way this thing'll ever end."
"He was a civilian!" I step away from Red's protection. "It's against the articles of war!"
"We not at war, sweetheart," Not-Jack Ryan snarls. "We're a 'peacekeeping force', remember?"
Maybe it's Dehydration or my Idealism. Maybe it's his sneer or his prejudice. Maybe it's my innocence snapping as the bare truth of what my nation does in the guise of justice overwhelms me. I punch him. Hard. I am shrieking, babbling, screamingclawingscratching—
And suddenly I'm on the ground, seeing stars, with my nose bloodied and the wind knocked out of me.
I retch. The night, if possible, grows even more still.
"You really got a hard on for these bastards, don't you?" Not-Jack Ryan finally spits. "Congratulations. You're the first boyscout I ever met with a cunt."
"Don't you EVER call her a cunt," Bear bristles.
"You alright?" Red lifts me to my feet as we're tossed a canteen.
I spit hair and sand. Wipe the blood trickling from my nostrils. "Fucking fine."
"Get the three musketeers here some water," our rescuer orders. "Then hood them."
"Motherfucker," Bear returns. "You shoot unarmed men in the back, and you hit defenseless girls! Fuck you."
Not-Jack Ryan bites his bloodied lips. "We ain't in Kansas anymore, Toto," he climbs into the cab of that truck as we're jostled into the back. "You'd best get used to it."
Base. Debriefing. Endless hours, locked room, interrogation. Over and over again we repeat our story until it becomes covert, and let the brass sort out the goddamned classification and who fucked up. I get a salute and a hug from Masterchief, and a quick kiss on the cheek that was meant for Katie. No heroes' welcome, no fanfare, no fuss. Our ambush and subsequent abandonment is hushed up to hide the CIA involvement in our return…and with the local politics. When pressed I say nothing, not even to Masterchief. My conscience is rankled and soured, but I'm not stupid. The war's worst-kept secret is what happens to US whistleblowers.
They say the US Army used to trade smallpox laced blankets to first nations. I wonder if anyone ever warned the Pakistani people what poison would come with our so-called peace.
The CIA isn't the only one tearing this peace to pieces. Blackwater—or Xe—as those pussies are calling themselves these days, got themselves too much bootlegged liquor on their time off, went AWOL and we've heard reports of a possible skirmish with the locals. The pictures coming back from drone fly-overs are inconclusive given the forested and mountainous terrain, but they haven't been promising and they haven't been pretty. Investigate, Reconnaissance, and Report were Masterchief's orders on the downlow. Do NOT Engage.
I am Soldier. I will obey.
Bleating goats. Swishing underbrush. We hike the deodar shrouded hill in silence. Yellow eyes blink in the foilage, and disappear. In the distance, a lonely wolf howls. We sense the carnage before we can see it. We round a corner in the ravine and the sheer sight of it is enough to stop us in our tracks. It's like goddamned Nanger Khel. My Lai. My Khe.
I've seen women stoned for adultery in Pakistan. Investigated their rapes on a protected military base. Grew up in the violence and corruption of Gotham City…still nothing prepared me for this.
She's strung up naked, arms out of socket, only the height of her hanging protecting her from the carnivores below, a wake of hissing vultures taking flight from her skeletonized skull and shoulders, bare breasts sagging and sodden with crusted milk…and at her feet, laid at her feet…
"Fuck," Bear mutters.
It's almost a skeleton now. Scavenged by wolves and griffons alike, strewn apart. Just a small bundle splayed at her feet, the stringing corpse of her infant child.
"Is, is that what I think it is?" Red whispers to me.
I am silent. Investigate. Reconnaissance. Report. I am Soldier, I soldier on.
We follow their trail through the narrow gully to find the village, or what's left of it. The wolves, vultures and cold got to them before we did. Frost-bite black as though burnt, limbs and faces mauled raw, joints dismembered, frozen entrails and the rising stench of human shit. The animals only did what animals do, the dust waiting for them to return, the frost and snow a respectful shroud. Nature has weathered them, yes; but the bullets and the sprays of pink splatters name their killers.
"Maybe it was locals," Red attempts to console himself.
I take the KABAR from my belt. Dig a 62-grain EPR from the thick hide of a cedar, at head-height. Even Red cannot deny it. The evidence lies burning in my palm.
A dark, dark idea is forming. It's sinful and it's wicked, but it's that woman's face I see, dried, sour-smelling milk crusted down her naked breasts, nipples fissured, chapped, and wind-burnt in the wretched winter…that shriveled, frozen infant's body, nothing more than a pile of bones a wolf wouldn't want. How many days had she hung there? How long did it take for her baby to die? What did she think, what did she do, as the animals reduced the body to carrion? Did she cry out to her God as she froze to death? Or did she curse him, curse him for killing her son and herself, for His divine Qu'ran that brought the Great Satan to her doorstep, only to abandon her? What did these murdering bastards trade for two souls? Family jewelry, arms, perhaps a few hundred in cold, hard cash, nothing more. Is that the price of human life? The precious soul of a baby—a fucking baby!
Justice wears a blindfold. Too often we forget she wields a sword.
They're all drunk, or high, or simply exhausted from the effort of enjoying their spoils. It's like the fucking Delaware on Christmas morning, and Washington's here…only this time he's not fighting over taxes and tariffs. This time he's here for blood.
There are weapons mixed in with the carnage, fallen amongst the dead. The Kalashnikovs and black market Soviet weaponry the CIA traded with the locals during that long-forgotten Cold War. I tracked a rapist and I helped to execute him. I didn't pull the pin…but this time I will pull the trigger. "Either of you ever read the Three Musketeers?" I ask.
"It was required reading at my high school," Red says, trying to ease the tension. "So naturally, no."
"Sparks notes," Bear grunts.
"It was just a fucking baby," the words fall unbidden into the cold winter air. "and they let it die."
"Motherfuckers let it die." Bear wrests a rifle from the nearest corpse. His smoldering eyes find mine. "Ain't never read that book, Sister, but I know how it ends."
"How does it end?" Red asks. "Guys? Guys—!"
I kneel. Wrench another from a man's rigor and snow stuck hands. I ram a magazine in, catching with a ka-chok! "If you don't want to be part of it, stay out of our way."
Red gawks, open-mouthed. "You can't be serious!"
"Deadly fucking," I snarl.
"That's what juries are for! And judges! An-an-and court marshalling, for heaven's sake—!"
"These Blackwater bastards, this CIA scum, they be mercenaries, Brother!" Bear's arms fly, his height, his size, his ire rendering him as terrible as that nickname. "Get your head outta your ass! They don't answer to fucking no one. They do what they want, whenever they want and damnfuckingdamn the consequences. And our government, they let them come, they let them loose like mad dogs over here and everybody just turn a blind eye. The rapes? The killings? I be sick of it, man, just fucking sick of it!"
"Guys, guys!" Red pants after us, frozen breath hanging in clouds of fog in the silence, "if you do this, if you go in there a-an-and kill them," he yelps the word kill, "how the Hell will you be any different than they are?"
"I dunno, Bear," I hiss. "You see any unarmed infants here?"
He jams the magazine into the gunstock, the pieces clicking with solemn finality. "No," he turns to Red."Do you?"
We stand on the precipice, gazing down into bloody hell, to the pit where all of man's disgusting depravity lays utterly bare. An eerie, swirling void of nothing, then light, and a serpent twists around Eve's shoulders as the garden withers and Men cover their shame with the blood of animals, Cain kills Abel and the ground drinks his blood, drinks his blood and like man's greed it is still starving, famished, lusting for more. But it's not enough. An innocent's blood is not enough…to be satisfied, glutted, the earth must have the guilty's as well.
I look at them, my friends, brothers, fellow soldiers: the Three Musketeers. Bear is grim and determined. Red's face has gone so pale I can count every last one of his goddamn freckles, but he is the first to break the silence. "I'm in," he grits his teeth. "I'm in."
"Don't do this if you don't want to," Bear growls. "There ain't no going back."
"We're the Three Musketeers," Red tries to laugh, but frightened tears leave tracks down his face. "All for one and one for all, you know?" He wipes his eyes on his sleeve, raising a rifle and adjusting his sights. "Fuck."
We're the Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all. Fuck. Hell. Jesus Christ. The evidence is presented, the trial, short. The jurors are unrelenting, the Judge, merciless. Sentencing is swift, and justice—true Justice—even swifter.
I am Woman. Soldier. Killer. I am America: Justice-bringer, Freedom-singer, the Great Equalizer. I am disgusted, I am weeping, I am thousands of miles away from home and only God knows why. And to me—like that Pakistani woman left to die alone in agony—He deigns give answer. Though a century and a continent might separate us, I find myself reflecting on the words of a man who died the year before I was born: I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.
How wretched, how unjust, that we should never meet…and yet be understood so perfectly. It's little wonder the US hasn't definitively won a war since September 2nd, 1945. We've been fighting, simply fighting for so long, we no longer know how to end one.
The sound of our shots travels for miles, lost in the wilderness, swallowed by cedars. Back at base no one even reported hearing any insurgents fire. At 08:00 hours, an airborne drone saw a cloud of buzzards rise into the air above the forest, then settle gently back to earth.
All was quiet on the western front.
This is Gotham, not Pakistan. The US of A, not some eternal war zone in the Middle-east. It's 2030, not 2011…but these bastards, these scum-suckers, these bottom-feeders and leeches, these mercenaries and war-mongerers…they're here. Still fucking here.
But even now, like then, Justice is coming. It's only a matter of when.
Shit. What to do? Do I let them drag Ji Yeon back into the privacy of Candidly Cameras to rape and kill her? Do I break cover, save her? But what would happen to Karl when the motherfuckers in the store realize their buddies aren't coming back? I know what Jimmy Connolly would have done and damn the consequences, but he was innocent, naïve, and incapable of watching human suffering. He didn't have the heart or stomach to watch idly as violence beget more violence. It's not that he lacked the will power necessary for this kind of stake-out…my Angel simply just didn't—couldn't—imagine how.
But both Ji Yeon and I are saved from this moral dilemma by good old-fashioned greed. It's plain as hell she and Karl have the money, just not in cash, at least not today. Hardly their fault the store was looted and all the ATM's were robbed. These pricks want their money, but in order to get it they need them—at least one of them—alive. Instead they compromise, and settle for good beating.
A beating so loud it carries through the sheet plastic and duct tape and out onto the street. Smart choice.
...But I am Adrasteia: Inescapable. Implacable. Irredeemable. A lone act of mercy in a career of corruption won't be enough to save them.
Paltron's quote and the final sentence from the flashback are from Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front."