As the dust settled

As dusk fell, the patrol moved out. Every evening the same patrol, the same mission directive.

Flush out the rebels, round them up, and kill the ones that resist or try to run.

Most of the rebels resisted or ran.

Nearly all of them ended up getting killed.

Soldier DR-13 followed, heavy footed, behind soldier HP-81. No names, no ranks, just serial numbers assigned to them upon induction.

He had been a soldier as long as he could remember, well almost as long as he could remember.

He was in possession of a persistent though brief memory of a woman whom he could only imagine to have been his mother.

He could not have been any older than four.

In the memory, she holds him in her arms and he looks up at her, his chubby fingers reaching out, entwining around the fine silver chain worn about her slender neck, the sunlight filtering golden through her shiny flaxen hair. She smiles and laughs. An expression in her eyes conveying an emotion he could only imagine to have been love.

That was before he was part of The Collective.

Before they took him and put him in the training program that they would all go through on their way to becoming soldiers.

He could not have been more than four in the memory, because he was just over four years of age when The Collective got a hold of him and put him on his path.

They kept great records, The Collective.

His file included full physical evaluations, front face and side profile pictures for each and every year he had been with them.

This year marked 30 years.

The 30th year in The Collective, was the last year a soldier could go out on patrol.

In a few weeks, he would graduate and move on from patrols to admissions.

He was not looking forward to it.

He had heard from others how boring admissions were. Nothing but dull desk work.

A pencil tapping paper pusher from there on out.

So he resolved, though now heavy-footed, to savor the last of these patrols as much as he could.

The hands of the soldiers in front of him went up one after another to signal a halt.

He halted and raised his own large square palmed hand.

Shots then rang out from a third story window above them, bullets peppered ground kicking up dust.

As the soldiers filed into the building, before he could step though the door, a thin gray looking form dropped from the window above.

It collapsed as it hit the ground.

He turned, lifted his weapon, and deftly sent two rounds of ammunition through the back of the figure's skull.

He heard shots echo from the room upstairs followed by two weighted thuds.

He paused waiting for the call to search the bodies.

When the call was made, he turned the lifeless gray figure over with the toe of his boot. He rubbed his large stubbly square jaw before rummaging through the pockets of the executed rebel's threadbare coat and trousers.

He found nothing of value.

Nothing to report.

The rest of the squad emerged from the building, carrying a few antique looking pistols, some blood spattered cans of food, and a handful of grimey old coins.

They all stopped to check out his precision execution.

Soldier MF-38 slapped him across his broad square shoulders

"Hate losing talent like yours to the great paperwork void, 13."

He smirked to himself. Of course they did, he thought.

The squad continued down the road.

They passed the site of a forgotten monument that had long since been destroyed, crushed under the boots of soldiers who had come before them. A once grand momento reduced to crumbling rubble, it's meaning now lost in decimation and decay.

As the squad pressed onwards, the shadows of two once resplendent structures overtook the horizon.

The formerly lavish towers that at one time loomed like tidal waves at the edge of the city, now sat blown to pieces. Stripped of their adornments, picked clean by members of The Collective and rebels alike.

Clearing and searching the ruined towers was part of every evening patrol. There were usually one or two rebels combing through the dusty remains.

The squad would split into two groups in order to search each ruin efficiently.

As they approached, every other soldier fell to the left or to the right.

He fell to the left, and filed in through the giant wooden door after the soldier in front of him.

The front door of the ruined tower led into a cavernous empty room, once a great hall, draped in crystal chandeliers and filled with the finest of furnishings.

Now heaps of trash cluttered the corners, and broken pillars blocked the massive staircase.

As the soldiers made their way towards the back wall, stomping and sweating through the trash in the corners, something leaped up from one of the rubbish heaps and scrambled towards the giant spiral staircase.

Soldier DR-13 raised his weapon without hesitation. Pausing only a moment, he found himself looking into the seemingly familiar eyes of an old woman with long grey hair, briefly illuminated as the last of the fading sunlight crept in through a crack above the staircase.

He squeezed his trigger, following his mission directive to the very letter.

He squeezed his trigger two times and sent two rounds of ammunition neatly through the center of her skull.

The old woman collapsed.

As the dust settled, he made his way towards the body, this time not pausing to wait for the call to search.

He knelt down beside the crumpled heap that was, just moments before, the old woman.

He turned her over with his large square palmed hands, and reaching out he entwined his thick fingers around the fine silver chain she wore about her frail neck. He gave the chain a sharp tug, and pulled out a silver heart-shaped locket from underneath her worn out sweater.

He opened the locket, and held it up to the very last scrap of light coming in through the crack above the staircase, revealing the photograph inside.

The photograph of a square jawed, square shouldered boy no older than four.

Of course he recognized the boy in the photograph. He had seen that boy's photograph on every page of his own file for the last 30 years.

And as he dropped the silver heart-shaped locket on its fine chain into his pocket, he thought about the report he would have to make on it.

And he found himself wondering if, in a couple of weeks time, he himself would then be the administrator of the paperwork, for the report he had to file. And if then, he himself would have to include it the file with the picture

of the same square jawed, square shouldered boy, he could barely remember being.

And in that moment he felt on his own face, an expression that must have conveyed an emotion that he could only imagine to be heartbreak.

And in that moment he felt on his own face, an expression that must have conveyed an emotion that he could only imagine to be heartbreak.