OR2-EP1: Perun Awakens (9)

The decision to flee had been formed in haste by McNeil, who had never looked favorably on American military operations in the Eastern Ukraine and believed that the NATO coalition forces would fall by the wayside against the already cornered Russians because of their hamstrung approach. However, until he and Sgt. Salas and his party were sent on a reconnaissance mission to the northeast, he had not seriously considered escaping from the battlefield. First of all, McNeil despised the act of running away; he himself had yet to make an unauthorized retreat without orders from his superiors at any time in his eighty years of life, and sometimes he would hold on for dear life even when his superiors asked him to leave. Secondly, even disregarding this moral layer, escape is simply not possible in a modern army; they are quickly recaptured and punished.

However, in the face of cold reality, all concerns evaporated. Since superpowers were named magic and existed in the world, McNeil believed that anything more bizarre was possible. If before entering Eastern Ukraine he still thought he could successfully follow the U.S. army to fully restore order in Eastern Ukraine, his internal assessment of the U.S. army's chances of victory had dropped to 10 percent after they had struggled mightily to reach the front line across the vast snowy plains under the Russians' drone attacks. The Russians were more cunning than McNeil had perceived them to be, and this United States was weaker than its GDI contemporaries. The cost of maintaining overseas hegemony over a long period of time was steep, and the United States currently had the feel of a ragtag aristocracy holding up the facade, as evidenced by the drastic decline in the quality of its military personnel. McNeil's original plan was to find out the real reason why the friendly forces in the north had lost contact, but when he realized that the Russians were most likely experimenting with a new type of weapon, he immediately abandoned all other plans and the only route to survival was to escape. Since the Russians were able to test the new weapon without the complete knowledge of the United States' intelligence agencies, the American troops at the front were afraid of suffering.

The only obstacles in his way were his officers. These soldiers did not have a strong will to fight, and besides, McNeil did not have to say the word escape unambiguously, as long as he covered it up with some other excuse, and when the war situation in the Eastern Ukraine became clear, they could choose for themselves whether to return to their units or continue to escape. He intended to retreat with his comrades to the west while evading the Russians, and as long as they dragged on in the wilderness for a few more days, McNeil would be able to verify his suspicions. If Sgt. Salas saw through him and tried to stop McNeil by force, the young soldier would have no choice but to use force.

However, Sgt. Salas didn't seem to be firm, and after McNeil symbolically said something that shook the heart of the army, he would agree with McNeil's idea and decide to run away together, which was really out of McNeil's expectation.

"Hey, I have a small problem." The sergeant in the duffle coat shivered as he returned to the end of the line, "What would you have done if I hadn't wanted to run away with you guys and claimed that I would have reported the news to the chief?"

Sgt. Salas had heard about the murder case that had occurred not too long ago where three soldiers selling drugs had killed their officer after he had detected them, they had fled the scene just in time to be caught red-handed by McNeil, and the trio had then disappeared on their way to be escorted by McNeil to a nearby airport. Many felt that the sergeant had died a very undeserved death, and that if he had circled the three human soldiers for a while, he might have been able to lure the snakes out of their holes. This vicious incident made Sergeant Salas much more careful as well, and he decided to run away with McNeil, half believing McNeil's story, and half fearing that in a moment of annoyance McNeil and Tom would decide to kill someone. Over the past few days, they still hadn't been able to make contact with their superiors, and Sergeant Salas had to come to terms with that fact.

In front of them was a line that could not be seen at first glance, the same Ukrainians who stood numbly advancing in the cold wind were being inspected by the guards. These Ukrainians had fled from the areas where the fighting had been most intense, abandoning their homes where their grandparents had lived for generations and deciding to move to a safer place. Most have little family property worth saving, and believe that working in the cities or making good use of the modern Internet economy will make up for the financial losses they have incurred by being uprooted from their homes. No one can get around these tools of human life, not even the old timers who claim the Internet is poison, and they don't have the same courage as the hermits to abandon the modern way of life completely. Whenever McNeil saw the so-called gurus who called for a return to the basics living in air-conditioned rooms all year round, he felt nothing but amusement. The line of people disguised as refugees hid at the end of the line, hoping that the Ukrainian soldiers would let them through.

"... That kind of thing doesn't happen." McNeil, realizing that the sergeant was a bit shaken, hastened to say something soothing to the other man, "You see, we haven't been able to resume communications with our superiors so far, which means they really did have an accident ..."

"Well-"

"There's no point in envisioning different developments in the past, the past is over." McNeil dropped the comment and stopped answering the sergeant's query.

It was now pointless to pursue the question of why McNeil had judged that the American army was bound to lose; the three of them were on the road to escape, and there was no turning back to choose from. These Ukrainians who were only concerned about fleeing might have noticed the looks of the three men; these three guys of unknown origin must be foreigners. To reduce the suspicion of the others, McNeil found replaceable clothes from a group of pedestrians freezing to death in the snow halfway across the country, changed out of his military uniform, and disguised himself as a far-flung explorer. He hoped that this line of argument would fool the soldiers up ahead who were checking the identity of the refugees; the United States had its fair share of explorers who were willing to put themselves in harm's way, who had given up a comfortable and restful life in order to push the boundaries and gamble their lives to prove that mankind had not degenerated into cowards who could only hide behind high walls.

"Who speaks Ukrainian?"

"Not me, don't look at me." Tom held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"I couldn't either ... Russian? I do know a few words." Sergeant Salas sighed, "McNeil, we can't disguise ourselves as Ukrainians, they're bound to find out who we really are and report it to their superiors, and in the end they'll notify our army to come and collect us ... We're all exposed."

McNeil felt a little bad luck. He had come up with a whole line of reasoning to deal with these Ukrainian soldiers; they were citizens from the United States of America, and of course they should have superior treatment in Ukraine. As long as they weren't explicitly involved in criminal activity, he thought the Ukrainians wouldn't be able to take coercive measures against them. But, standing in the snow like that any longer, they were going to freeze completely. The trio hadn't dared to take the main roads in order to avoid the blockades and guard posts, and the consequences of hypothermia were severe enough that even McNeil, who considered himself physically strong, admitted that he needed to find a warm room to rest for a few days. It appeared that the Ukrainians would not provide them with such a place, and even the Ukrainians themselves had to continue trudging through the snow.

The last time they were in the city they had already seen Ukrainian civilians lined up for food collapsing in the snow from cold and hunger. So, when McNeil realized that several more Ukrainian civilians had fallen in the snow without a word, he didn't even move his already frozen legs. Doing good is a luxury when it's hard to defend oneself, and McNeil is convinced that he must live to tell the tale to have room to talk about charity. Tom followed the two men along, half asleep, while Sergeant Salas pondered how to organize a suitable lie. They were deserters after all, and for whatever reason it was he, the officer, who had made the final decision to run away; McNeil's advice was only advice after all, and no one would believe in court that a private could convince a sergeant to run away. Sergeant Salas regretted it a little, but the fear triggered by his escape faded as he thought that staying at the front might have ended in his being wiped out by the Russians' mysterious weapons along with those unaccounted-for friendlies. It was enough that he was alive, and didn't have to die a senseless death in the snow like these Ukrainians.

The line finally shortened, and McNeil gestured toward his companions, stepping forward to take the initiative in receiving inquiries from the Ukrainian soldiers.

"Ви не українець. Американський?"

"Можливо, це американські солдати. Є багато з них, які намагаються втекти. Війна це пекло.

For Ukrainian soldiers, learning English is mandatory - otherwise they have no way to communicate with their allies. Soon, several Ukrainian soldiers came out of the rear checkpoint, and after talking for a while with the soldiers in charge of checking the refugees, they turned their attention to the three foreigners in front of them.

"Hello, welcome to Ukraine." One of the Ukrainian soldiers looked quizzically at the fat looking outfit McNeil was wearing, "It looks like you all have run into a close call ... Do you need our help?"

"We're actually just here for the tour-" a frozen and shivering Tom shouted from the back.

"Don't listen to him!" McNeil looked away in feigned annoyance, "Hello, we're war correspondents for a small media company of little repute in the United States ... In fact, we came back from the dead in a Russian raid on the front line, and lost our equipment and identifying documents. If you intend to escort us back, that's certainly a good thing ... but perhaps the Russians won't carefully identify which targets are civilians."

McNeil saw confusion and a slight wince rise to the faces of the Ukrainian soldiers. The soldiers didn't know if what they were saying was true, but it was always unlikely that the Americans were spies for the Russians, and besides, none of the three men in front of them looked like Slavs, so surely the native-born Americans wouldn't have been bought off by the Russians. The half-truths prompted the Ukrainians to make an immediate decision that since these Americans weren't afraid of death and didn't want anyone to know about their actions - like children who are afraid of their parents knowing about their antics - there was no need for them to mind their own business. As long as these Americans didn't run towards the war zone, they didn't have to take any responsibility.

After leaving the checkpoint, the relieved trio stood alongside the highway, discussing where to flee to next. Sgt. Salas advocated heading south, where there were forward bases for American and Ukrainian troops, a line of thought that was summarily rejected by McNeil. McNeil believed that the Russian forces at Kherson must be preparing for a full-scale attack and that a vicious battle would break out in southern Ukraine. They couldn't afford to throw themselves into the crossfire, and it was still safer in Kiev.

"Why the hell is there still no signal?" Sergeant Salas glumly looked at the spinning screen.

"Notice the power, don't run it out."

"I want to check the news, we don't even know what the hell is going on right now."

The three of them argued on one side and moved on, finally arriving at a gas station around noon. It was better to call it a gas station than a charging station, but people still followed the original name. The gas station staff, who had nothing to do, saw the three unkempt downtrodden men walking this way, and, fearing that they were robbers, rushed forward with chainsaws. This scared the hell out of the trio, no one expected the swarthy Ukrainians to greet them in such a way, and it took the three soldiers taking a surrender stance in unison to get the staff to let their guard down. After a broken exchange in different accents of English, the staffer, who was bigger and stronger than Sgt. Salas, decided to leave them to rest for a while at a nearby convenience store.

"Look at you, scared as a rabbit-" the sergeant looked at McNeil, who had grabbed the door handle, and made a few dismissive criticisms.

"So are you, looks like you should be allowed to lead the surrender next time." McNeil sneered back and opened the door to the store, allowing the other two to go in first and get warm. It was reasonably warm inside the very small store, and they quickly revitalized and began to discuss the recent battle enthusiastically. Once the internet signal was back to normal, the trio gathered around their tablets and tuned in to the local Ukrainian and United States coverage of the latest situation in the war. There wasn't any obvious bad news, and Sgt. Salas breathed a sigh of relief.

He went to the shelves, looked at the price tag on the bread, and disappointedly returned to the two men who were still watching the news.

"The situation is not as bad as we expected, I think we should consider returning."

"This news report is quite an old-fashioned routine." McNeil sneered, "Not talking about the enemy's losses nor ours, just emphasizing the advantages in a general way without naming which cities ... have been controlled recently Sorry, this kind of statement is fake at first glance."

He himself knew the ins and outs, of course, and a general who had been involved in concocting fake news knew the importance of controlling the media better than a layman. The media could be left to their own devices on other issues, all news related to the war must be strictly controlled. It was a necessary evil, and the stability of the situation trumped everything else.

Upon hearing this statement, Sergeant Salas' confidence vanished again, and he looked uneasily at the two men watching the news intently, hesitantly discarding his original idea. He was just a soldier and couldn't accurately judge the direction of the war, and while he didn't think that McNeil's judgment would be any more reliable than his, the way the situation was unfolding seemed to prove that McNeil's thoughts were correct. After watching the news related to the war itself, McNeil decided to move on to the news coverage of the internal situation in the Ukraine in the last few days. When he saw in the replay of the program that people carrying flags of all colors were taking to the streets, he understood that his suspicions were correct, although he had no joy inside.

The young soldier pointed to the footage of the parade playing on his tablet and said:

"Sir, if we really won the battle, then why are these people showing up?"

None of the three men present understood Ukrainian, but they knew that these civilians marching in the streets would never be a pro-war group. There was a violent clash between the civilians and the police who were maintaining order, the Ukrainian police under the command of their officers evicting the increasingly agitated crowd, when suddenly shots rang out all around them, and a citizen holding a Ukrainian flag fell to the ground and looked like he had been shot. The crowd of agitated citizens swarmed the scene, which instantly spiraled out of control, and with another police officer shot and down on camera, the broadcast was cut off as the camera shook violently for a few moments.

"Oh my god." Tom was silent for a long time, dryly giving a simple comment.

The media of the United States, on the other hand, avoided many details, saying only that the chronic shortage of supplies was making the citizens more and more dissatisfied, and beyond that there was no follow-up on the state of the Ukrainian civil population. The Ukrainians' own media are fanning the flames, with each side trying to make the forces they support look more legitimate. The last published report on Ukraine is that armed militias have recently seized the municipal building in Kiev and are negotiating with the authorities, and EU authorities believe that the situation in Ukraine is out of control and that NATO's military action will be thwarted.

After their meal, the trio said goodbye to the gas station staff and continued along the highway. They needed a car, but grabbing someone else's car was undoubtedly a criminal act that could easily attract unwanted attention. McNeil didn't think it would be a waste of time to walk down the highway; he needed precisely as much delay as possible, and as soon as news of the defeat came from the front, their escape became normal. There was no telling when they would next come across a rest area, and Tom, who was not in the best of spirits, soon drifted off to sleep, relying on McNeil and Sgt. Salas to drag him along.

"Rust Belt youngsters shouldn't be so weak." The sergeant complained to McNeil.

"What's a Texan doing being weak?" McNeil was a bit disgruntled, "He's not been in the military as long as you have ... We're both new recruits."

Sergeant Salas looked at the two men and shook his head with a bitter smile. No one would believe that McNeil was a new recruit, his fighting instincts seemed to be something that only veterans possessed, and that slick trick of being good at staying alive on the battlefield had some traces of it in him. Thomas Thomas is a veritable newbie, McNeil not so much. Considering that the dark side of the world was always populated by tools who had been trained to kill since childhood, perhaps McNeil had more experience in this area than Sergeant Salas.

Seeing that Tom was in bad shape, the two men reluctantly decided to stop and recuperate as soon as they reached the next rest area. Instead of seeing a rest area or gas station, they spotted what appeared to be an abandoned public restroom on the side of the road. Sgt. Salas pointed away from the public restroom nestled on the left edge of the highway and gestured for McNeil to take Tom there for a break.

"That's a public restroom." McNeil emphasized.

"There's no other venue."

Michael McNeil reluctantly put down his backpack and crossed the highway to the public restroom door. He tried to push the unlocked door, which seemed to be held up against something on the inside. Seeing this, Sgt. Salas dragged Tom near the public restroom and slammed the door with McNeil. The door opened and they were greeted by blackened muzzles as McNeil's nominal top man in the company raised a pistol and pointed it at his head. McNeil, who had not been able to discern the enemy at the first opportunity, immediately seized the other man by the wrist and attempted to disarm the unknown fellow, who somehow managed to break free. The whole thing seemed to happen in a flash, and McNeil had no recollection of deliberately letting his guard down, as the captain, who had been in front of him, retreated to the end of the public restroom washroom in a flash and reared his pistol.

Sgt. Salas saw this and stepped forward with the intention of explaining, but the soldier hiding behind the door pressed his pistol against his forehead.

"Don't move."

"Such a long time, sir." McNeil greeted him with an awkward smile.

The Captain walked over to the two men and searched them; he saw Tom, who had fallen unconscious outside the door, and ordered his men to drag Tom inside the public restroom. McNeil and Sgt. Salas could finally breathe a sigh of relief when they saw that the two friendlies were not clearly hostile.

"He hasn't been taking in enough calories lately, fortunately we have some rations left here." The Captain muttered to himself, "... Where did you guys escape from?"

"Huh? That, sir, we're not deserters-"

"Northeast." McNeil gave the answer in place of Sergeant Salas, "Running away from the Russian weapons lab, to be exact; I think you've seen the enemy's methods on the front lines."

The Captain with an indifferent expression didn't retort, he just asked his men to feed the still unconscious Tom.

"I do not want to talk about this matter, we are all the same ... are deserters, no one cares about the reason." The captain let the two men walk into the public restroom and casually closed the door, "We're defeated, saving our lives is barely enough, where else would we dare to think otherwise."

Half an hour later, the soldiers sitting in the public restroom washroom each talked about their recent encounters. The captain said that the American troops had indeed been attacked by the Russians' new weapons of mass destruction on the front line, and that their casualties were unprecedented; they were no longer able to organize their offensive effectively, and the remaining troops were routing in groups toward Kiev. Therefore, he wasn't going to blame McNeil or Sergeant Salas, who was also a deserter.

"By the way, that was a beautiful move you made just now, and I'd like to ask for your advice." McNeil brought up the way the Captain had miraculously escaped from him. "I'm interested in close combat fighting and would like to learn your techniques."

"That is what you cannot learn." The Captain smiled in a rare moment, "It's a talent, not a gap that can be bridged by virtue of acquired effort."

"So this is what the public calls magic." McNeil gave his answer, "If I'm not mistaken, the peltier you keep on your right side is actually a spell-casting tool."

The unknowing Sgt. Salas hoped that the two would recreate the scene they had just witnessed. As McNeil grabbed the Captain's left arm once again, the Captain, who had his right hand in his holster, broke free of McNeil and reached the other side of the restroom in the blink of an eye. If this had been a real battle, he would have had plenty of time to draw the real gun he had placed on his left side and shoot it, or choose to run away if the enemy had no gun.

"In fact, I'm cheating." The Captain explained with a slight apology.

"There is no cheating in war, there are only winners."

TBC

Chapter Notes：

The transformation of state-to-state confrontation into individual-to-individual confrontation implies more uncertainty.

If most of the early Magicians were created as a result of human experimentation, it might not be wise to batch these tortured personnel with questionable loyalties and mental states into battle.