My eyes slowly came into focus, exposing my disorderly tent and one of my men, Sergeant Kaplan. New to my platoon, his clean and whole uniform attested to this fact. My groggy mind barely stifled the urge to salute his pristine form. My eyelids blinked to clear the fog that clung to my lenses, restoring color to my world.
"What's up?" I asked, already knowing. After the final battle, the remaining neo-Nazi forces headed south to St. Louis and the KKK enclave in Indianapolis. Along the way, they tore up the south, sending refugees toward Chicago in droves known as "trains." Three days did not go by without sighting a tired column of farmers and small town residents. However, failure to ask would result in exposing Kaplan to my cynicism, something I tried to spare all of my troops.
"One of the scout units has reported a column of refugees heading our way." He swallowed audibly as I swung out of bed and pulled my boots on. "They number over two hundred, sir." I looked up to see him try to suppress an anxious and frightened face. Even with simple rifles, two hundred people could butcher my small platoon. All newbies felt a little sick for the first few refugee trains. Eventually, you tire of worrying about it. I did.
After finishing with my laces, I reached for my jacket, draped on the small folding chair that accompanied the bed as the only furniture in my tent. Outside, I could hear the rumble of engines and shouts of sergeants as my soldiers readied the roadblock. Experience made me unnecessary for preparations. I stepped outside, with Kaplan in tow.
A Chevy pickup sped past, carrying four soldiers and an M-60 machine gun. The Chicago Guard got the regular armor and vehicles; we made due with whatever we found. A bitter wind whipped around me, making the closing of my jacket difficult and more urgent. I headed toward the observation stand, a platform of stacked logs that allowed me to visually inspect incoming trains. Kaplan followed, his hands tucked deep in his pockets.
"How many do we have?" I asked. Kaplan consulted his comp board.
"Thirty-three here, sir. Four of the scouts are escorting the train, so thirty-seven all together." He paused. "Including you and I, sir." Kaplan ran the new communications computer and had a tendency to put a little too much faith in numbers. I smiled to reassure him. He weakly returned it, more for my benefit than his.
"Don't worry so much," I told him. "We're doing them a favor, remember." I climbed the ladder that led to the top of the platform. Looking southeast, my eyes settled on a slow-moving shape that wound through the Indiana hills.
"Binoculars," I ordered, my voice all business. He quickly slapped a high-powered pair of commercial binoculars, scavenged from a sporting goods store, into my outstretched hand. After a moment of adjustment, the shape came into view, disintegrating into a moving crowd of frightened Hoosiers.
I picked out a few at random. A displaced farmer, his face purposely obscured by an anonymous hat. A young girl clinging to her mother's arm. A balding, middle-aged man in the remains of a three-piece suit. All different, yet all the same. I lowered the binoculars after a few minutes. Sympathy was a luxury I could not afford.
After readjusting the binoculars, I examined my fortifications. I stood at a fork in the road, facing a clearing ringed with log barriers. A truck and several extra troops guarded each prong of the fork, with the others soldiers manning the side fortifications with machine guns and snipers in the trees. The way in was left clear of obstruction, preventing the penned in feeling that often leads to riot. It also reminded the train that they could go back at any time without trouble. Few did.
My troops wore worn camouflage fatigues and riot masks, eliminating any sense of humanity that might be latched onto by desperate refugees. They stood tall in spite of the harsh wind. I discovered that they get very contemplative before the arrival of a train, blanking thoughts of mercy and compassion. I guess a bitter cold can help in this regard.
Only the inspectors could have any feelings. The eight men and women whose job it was to sort the train depended on hope from the refugees to get cooperation. They huddled below my platform, clad in civilian clothing to separate themselves from my faceless enforcers. A good cop, bad cop routine played on the surviving population of a state.
Ten minutes passed before the first refugees appeared. The hopeful ones, they always led the trains with an optimism that most considered insane. Usually strong and healthy, they would be processed and accepted without any problems. A large, muscular man seemed to be the leader. He urged those near him on, a smiling young girl perched on his right shoulder.
As they walked toward the fake smiles of the inspectors, the four scouts that had guided them in broke off and disappeared among my other troops at the side fortifications. The rest of the train slowly pulled in, a few turning back at the sight of guns and makeshift armor. It could not be helped.
The inspectors got to work, threading their way between the refugees. They stopped at the head of each family and talked for a while. The term "family" has a different meaning since the collapse. In a nation where half the population has died in two years, a family is any group that provides what it takes to live. One by one, families broke off from the train and headed into the woods behind my platform to receive orders. They were the lucky ones, considered ideal by the inspectors for their skills or "perceived overall production potential," as my orders put it.
The inspectors carefully grouped the remaining families to keep track of who had been evaluated without letting them know of their status. Meaningless extra interviews confused them and kept them from rioting before completion of the sorting. Each refugee received a colored ticket, its meaning obscured by the number of colors and lack of writing. Drifting back to my platform, the inspectors signaled readiness. The ball was in my court.
"Megaphone." Kaplan handed me the instrument with a look of confusion. "Now we have to separate the wheat from the chaff," I explained. His eyes grew a little wider and he looked over the crowd of remaining families, now half its original size.
"Attention!" I announced with the megaphone. The refugees stirred at the sound of my voice. "I'm sorry, but we can't take you all. Limited resources force us to only take a select few. Each of you has a family member that cannot be taken in. Those with blue, red or yellow tickets must continue right, down this road." I pointed to it. "Perhaps you will find other communities in other parts of Illinois. Those with tickets that are not blue, red or yellow can continue to the left toward Chicago or stay with their family and go right. I'm sorry." As I finished, Kaplan looked up in shock. "We can't take them all," I told him.
"Sir, I think you're wrong," he stated.
"We cannot accept every refugee! I told you, 'We must separate the wheat from the chaff.' You will have to learn to live with it."
"It's not that, sir," he quickly replied. "You have the roads wrong. The right one goes to Chicago, not the left."
"I know."