Free Terms of Enlistment 01.2: Measures of Absolution by Marko Kloos

upper-class gated communities. You’re attack dogs, and you don’t even know who is holding your leashes. When people see you tromping down the street in the PRC, they don’t see law and order . They don’t see civilization . They see an occupying army.”
    Lazarus gets up, puts the chair back into the corner of the room, and looks at the door in front of him, fists clenched. Then he turns around, and for the first time Jackson can see emotion through his disciplined, collected expression.
    “Just so you know, Anna McKenney was one of my platoon leaders. She was the kindest person I’ve ever known. Hell of a fighter, too. She was Navy, you know. Never had a lick of infantry training. We were together. If I had something like a soulmate in this life, she was it.”
    Jackson feels her face flush, and she’s glad her skin color doesn’t make it obvious to Lazarus.
    “I’m telling you this so you can appreciate how hard it is for me to not just go outside, fetch a rifle, and shoot you right in the forehead.”
    He turns around and leaves the room. The door falls into its lock in his wake. Jackson doesn’t even realize she has been holding her breath for the last few moments until she exhales shakily.

 
     
     
    Chapter Eight
    Choices
     
     
     
    The noise of the door opening shakes Jackson out of her sleep. Two of the uniformed civvies walk in. One stands by the door with a rifle, the other tosses a set of fatigues and a pair of slip-on shoes onto the bed.
    “Get dressed,” he says. Then he steps up to the foot of the bed and snips her plastic restraints with a tool. “You try any funny shit, Olsen’s gonna go full auto on your ass.”
    She gathers the clothes they gave her and gets out of bed. The pain in her side is still there, still just this side of tolerable. She wonders if anything got broken permanently.
    The uniformed civvies don’t look like they have any intention of letting her get dressed in private, so she puts on the clothes while they’re watching her. She glances at their gear and the way they’re positioned, then concludes that she won’t be able to drop the closer one before the rifleman by the door mows her down with the M-66 he’s aiming at her.
    When she’s dressed, they step out of the room and wave her forward.
    “We’re moving. Go in front of me. Olsen will be behind us. You turn toward him, he’ll shoot you. Now move.”
    She obeys and leaves the room, careful not to give Olsen an excuse to twitch his trigger finger.
    Outside, there’s a narrow hallway that looks like it’s in a basement somewhere. Jackson follows the first civvie as instructed. The hallway leads out into a spacious vestibule. Out here, at least a dozen armed civvies in partial battle rattle are gathered, Lazarus in the middle of the group. He’s wearing chest and back plates, a sidearm on a drop holster, and a harness with magazine pouches. When she steps into the vestibule, it seems that every pair of eyes in the room is on her.
    “Corporal Jackson,” he says. “We are relocating. Please follow along and don’t give anyone a reason to shoot you. Trust me when I tell you that most of them would be glad for an excuse. Let’s move out, gentlemen.”
     
    They rush through a maze of corridors and vestibules, Lazarus’ men keeping a wary eye on her every time she strays close to one of them. Jackson’s side hurts, and she feels something stabbing into her chest every time she takes a breath, but she knows it would be pointless to ask them to slow down.
    Then someone in front throws open a set of doors, and they’re outside.
    It’s nighttime, and Jackson sees that they’re in the middle of a residence block. There’s a droning noise in the air, and the reason for the sudden rush becomes clear when she sees a Hornet-class drop ship coming out of the night sky and circling around the top of a nearby high rise tower. The dirty nighttime sky is ablaze with the searchlights from more drop ships. Whatever TA