GODS TERMINAL MASTERPIECE; THE FRONT LINE LIBERATION CORPORATION Part 5

‘NBCBN got a transmission problem with the Khyber Pass, Captain; they don’t want to lose out on pictures.  No big deal.  All going to plan.’

Everything is always going to plan here in the shadows of the great vehicles and in the shadows inside the great vehicles, a murderous herd of giant beasts grazing greedily north.  Everything is on film; everything is on Gods great screens; everything documented history as soon as it happens.  Banners at the bottom of the screen sometimes scroll the weather update, mostly overcast and raining, and the body count that’s been too big to say for a long time.  Rapidly escalating since Washington.

I pull my battle blouse tighter against the blowing wind, my pockets of culling grenades and bulky ammo clips a fine comfort, holding my righteous wrath still in stamped metal.  I pull the butt of my Electrolux Media tighter into my shoulder; wipe matter from the thick featureless barrel and the impassive lens.  I watch the tree line and the explosions from the Correspondents long guns shake the very earth we live on, shock waves come at me through the smoky air.  I smoke my cigarette through my gas mask, try to keep still, full of jumping nerves I sip water and pills from my canteen.

‘Sound off squad!’  I yell.

‘Sir.’  McManus from the half-track.

‘Sir!’  Youthful enthusiasm from Jr. Lt. Jr.

‘Johnson sir!’  Baps McFadden.

‘Fuck and Jesus, sir.’  Alf Laden, keen to get some.

‘Easy Alf.’  I say.  Danzig and the twins, Krychek and Hipowitz.  I was due five replacements and three from coming up the slope too.

‘What’s the delay, sir?’

‘NBCBN.  The Khyber Pass again.’

‘’Course it fuckin’ is!’

‘Down five, sir.’

‘I know it, Jr.’

‘Don’t forget Caine, Niven and Burton coming up the slope, sir.’

‘I know it, Alf.’

‘Down eight.  Fuckin’ Dickey!’  

An NBCBN screen on a Media Tank near us, the FLC Bush-Bush, shows the south, the black and red, burnt and bleeding valley. Fragments of steel and brass glint dull in the low light out there laying in the past; a valley finished with except for supply lines scavenging; legless survivors searching with lists, clouded with smoke and steam in the wake of churning metal noise.  A POX screen on the Human Shield shows squad after squad of 101^st Fodder Infantry sitting in the dirt by their transports, waiting, trying to keep still full of jumping nerves.  Themselves watching the screens showing carnage from further down Frontline on the big screens, shots of rockets standing poised for less than a second on tails of thick fire, twitching minds trapped in horrible downtime as the anchor talks on finger in his ear.

            The Blood Major climbs high up the Media Command Tank to smoke a cigarette and talk to Murder Major Singh.  Faces and profile on the Thatcher’s screens and elsewhere, the PA wails feedback as they talk into the field radio, the anchor with a prosthetic finger to his ear, thoughtful face speculating. 

I was eager to advance, tired of this open plain with its chill breeze bringing the smell of the enemy’s cooking up the shallow slope with the smell of the dead meat out there cooling in the too red dirt.  The Frontline, a long line of green spiky poetry engines ticking over in neutral, is uncomfortable in stasis.  Everyone in dirty green bulky with offensive tools holding their rage in check waiting under the stamped metal crucifixes high on the craft wreathed in smoke and clinging dirt, flares lighting deaths head emblems and painted swirls of flame. 

Tank crews busy gouging flesh and bone from their tracks fill the nearest POX screen split with a naval engagement on the coast, distant bristling slabs sailing in an ocean on fire.  Close up of the FLC Jutland launching silver jets.  The coast clotted thick with dead sea life washed up decaying.  The anchor commentates on the Divine Wind Air Arm attacks, those flyboys!  You got to be born out at sea on a Navy Fortress to get in the Air Arm; I was born on Frontline in the Breeding Church Human Shield.  At least I have Washington.

Sitting here I can hear babies wail over the ringing in my ears and the low bombs and the screaming silver Jets.  Hear deathware clink and settle.  Hear the breathing of thousands of tense soldiers eager to liberate.  The Blood Major climbs down from the Thatcher and walks over, smoking in the downtime, mask off.  He takes a drink from my canteen.