Free The Remaining: Trust: A Novella by D. J. Molles

empty parking lots where soldiers were dousing heaps of trash in diesel fuel and tossing road flares into them. Trash collection and general public sanitation were basically still nonexistent in the Greeley Green Zone. Another one of the “top priorities,” depending on who you asked. Right along with water treatment plants, power grids, oil pipelines, and everything else that people missed.
    They reached the warehouses, and here again were the men in black and green, with only a few soldiers in ACUs standing around to watch them. Abe wondered how long it would be before the soldiers were not needed anymore and the men from Cornerstone were in complete control of everything.
    Control , Abe thought. It all comes down to control.
    He who has the gold makes the rules.
    Except for nowadays, it’s food. Food and medicine.
    Tyler pointed the Humvee toward one of the warehouses, and the Cornerstone men opened a large rolling door for them. Abe stared at them. Reading the writing on the wall. Seeing the signs as clear as day.
    “Let me out here,” he said.
    Tyler stopped the Humvee.
    Abe opened his door, glaring baldly at the mercenaries.
    “You okay, boss?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah.” Abe stepped out, slammed the door behind him. “I’ve got some shit to take care of.”
    *  *  *
    He entered the command center, helmet in hand, sweat-covered, smelling of dust and the musty smell of gun smoke when it permeates your clothing and sits on your skin. Corporal Nunez was still in the command center, and he half stood up, looking a little surprised to see the major.
    Abe glanced around, saw they were alone. “Corporal, I need you to do me a favor.”
    Nunez followed Abe’s cautious glance. He seemed to understand instantly what the look meant, and that what he was about to be asked would be…sensitive. “Yes, sir,” he said with a note of hesitation. “What do you need?”
    Abe went to Nunez’s desk, set his helmet down, and then began fishing in his pockets. “You have access to the Green Zone census lists up here, right?”
    Nunez’s index finger tapped nervously at the side of his keyboard. “Uh…yes.”
    “Can you plug in a ration card number and tell me what shows up?”
    “Yes.”
    Abe waited.
    Nunez stared.
    “Okay.” Abe pointed at the computer. “Do it.”
    “Yes sir.” Nunez spun in his chair and hunched over his computer. Cursors flew and the keyboard was rattled on and windows popped up on the screen and gave way to other windows. Abe watched but didn’t really follow. He’d never really mucked around with the census lists, which were strictly civilian. Come to think of it, he didn’t even really know how many people were in the Greeley Green Zone.
    Imagine that , he told himself. A Coordinator who doesn’t know how many people he’s taking care of.
    Because he wasn’t taking care of them anymore.
    He wasn’t in control.
    That had been taken from him. It had been whittled away in subtle chips and scrapes by something called Good Intentions. And Complacency. He’d been complacent. He’d allowed it all to happen because it was easier. It was easier to just give in to full bird colonels and acting presidents. But what the fuck was he supposed to do about it now?
    “Okay,” Nunez said. “What’s the number?”
    Abe brought the ration card out of his pocket. He read the number, deliberately refusing to look at the designations under it. The man’s wife and children. Who would be alone. Who would wonder tonight, and the next night, and the night after that, what had happened to their husband and father.
    He brought it on himself , Abe tried to tell himself.
    But he failed to convince himself.
    “Alright.” Nunez leaned forward, squinting at the screen. “Number comes back to Donahue, Blake. Family of four. Wife and two kids, it looks like.” Nunez shrugged. “But the number got terminated two weeks ago. It’s not even good anymore.”
    Abe sucked on his teeth. Looked on with a stony