1 "This compound is now under full containment," the voice boomed out of
2 the loudspeaker. I continued along the path through Forest Meadows
3 Park where it felt like 10 degrees, the gravel crunching beneath my
4 boots. "Any personnel attempting to leave the compound, including
5 those found within the compound without authorization, will be
6 terminated immediately" the voice boomed loudly.
8 I get to the barracks just past midnight and walk in to the main door.
9 The guards are there. There's a bunch of guys standing around in
10 uniforms, their faces covered by bandanas and ready to go on shift
11 with a few people getting off shift. Without missing a beat I look to
12 the officer that's working the front desk. He's a middle aged older
13 guy with a beard and thick black hair. I notice at least two men
14 talking to him. He nods to me and I continue on to the central area.
16 Grabbing a towel, I toss it over my shoulder and push past the
17 officers. Walking in to the shower I take a seat in the corner to
18 relax and let the water wash over me. It doesn't feel right to be
19 lying down at a time like this but my head's full and pounding after a
20 two day shift and I'm looking forward to a few hours of
21 unconsciousness. Freshly cleaned, I make my way to my bunk.
23 I bunk with four of my teammates in a room with a chair. They're all
24 standing around talking about playing some football in the middle of
25 the night when I arrive. "Not me", I tell them, "I've made two runs
26 around the compound and I'm beat." Still, I take a few minutes to walk
27 outside with my teammates before going to bed. I can't sleep because
28 my head feels like it's going to explode any minute but I can see my
29 eyes glazed over. I tried a few different pills to bring some relief.
30 It was hard because while they certainly helped not all of their side
31 effects were worth the trouble.
33 "The perimeter has been breached," I heard the voice saying urgently
34 over the radio. It felt as it my head had just hit the pillow but
35 looking at the clock I see it had been about 5 hours. "The area has
36 been secured. No movement within the vicinity." They were ordering me
37 to report to Area 26. In my grogginess I thought it might be a drill,
38 but quickly realized it wasn't.
40 I walked past four or five of the five guards stationed at the
41 perimeter. It was a large steel fence, and when I reached it, I saw
42 nothing but a red line going leading up to it. "What's going on?" I
43 asked them. The guards stared at each other for a while before one
44 eventually said "That was Rodrìguez sir. They drug him out through the
45 fence." I felt the sting in my stomach. Rodrìguez was my best friend.
46 We've known each other our whole lives. I had to be the one to tell
50 Copyright (C) 2019 Jason Self <j@jxself.org>
51 You can redistribute and/or modify this under the terms of the GNU
52 General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
53 either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later