Bits of broken glass and gravel crunched beneath Sergeant Alexis al Mboya’s boots as she stepped gingerly through the rubble-strewn streets of Nairobi. The rebuilding of the once-great city had sputtered and stalled in the face of the resurgent plague, leaving streets choked with debris from the battles between Victoria and Uganda. Pacification Soldiers, like Alexis, were forced to patrol the streets on foot, their vehicles unable to pass through all too many of the key streets. The city was under quarantine, and the Pacification Soldiers were the ones tasked with enforcing it. It was unhappy work, requiring them to patrol the Infected Zones and enforce the curfew that Colonel Mboya had decreed.
The streets were silent and dark, and the only thing Alexis could hear was her own breathing, trapped by her protective mask. Her soldiers were spread around her, close enough to support one another in case of combat, but far enough not to present an easy target for the improvised explosives that had greeted them early in the city’s occupation. That it had been months since the last such explosive meant little to them, they remained on guard against potential dissent.
“Sir,” one of her soldiers said, catching her attention. Justine al Mboya gestured to an alley, shining her light on one of the walls, red paint glinting in the beam.
Alexis shone her light down the alleyway, checking it for people. When she was confident that no one was still there she stepped into the entrance and over to the paint. Close up she could read it easily. “Well, shit,” she said under her breath, “looks like someone’s not happy with us.” The words spelt out the painter’s belief that Victoria had brought the plague, that it had killed the city. “James, mark the location. We’ll have to be more careful around here.”
The soldier she’d spoken to jotted down the street they were on, and the alleyway they’d found the paint in. He flashed her a hand sign when he finished.
“Alright,” Alexis said, “let’s keep going. We’re almost done with this patrol anyway.” She waved her group forward again, and they returned to crunching through the desolate streets of Nairobi. They met no one in the streets for the rest of their walk, though the occasional shape of a person flitted behind a window, the lights going out as they approached.
She preferred when the streets were this empty. So long as everyone stayed away, so long as her route was boring, things were going well. So long as things were going well, she didn’t have to shoot citizens. She’d had to shoot more than she wanted to already, and she felt a deep sense of unease over that. Citizens were supposed to be protected. Her job was to make areas safe for citizens. But now her job included shooting citizens so that she could keep other citizens safe. The German Flu was a horrendous weapon for this reason alone, that it turned neighbour against neighbour, and warranted such drastic measures to stop its spread.
The patrol route she was assigned took her through several streets of an Infected Zone but looped back around to end at one of the gates to the slowly expanding Clean Zone. Every day the Red Cross went out to treat more people, to verify that a house was clean, to bring the ill to treatment centres. And as they worked, more of the city was reclaimed. The Infected Zone was strewn with rubble, debris, and trash. The Clean Zone was a Victorian settlement.
Alexis always became tense as she reached the Clean Zone gate. It was the last place for trouble, and she suspected it would be the most likely place for it. If someone was going to try to break through the quarantine, doing so at the gate during a patrol’s exit or return was the best chance for them. Her return was uneventful though, and she stood by while her troops stepped through into the decontamination rooms beyond. She only began to relax when the gate had closed behind her, its spotlights continuing to sweep across the open square that led up to it.
She took her mask off, along with the rest of her equipment, and put them in the bins that were there for just that purpose. “Thank God,” she said, breathing deep in the sterile air of the decontamination room. She passed through the first room and into a large shower, where her soldiers were already scrubbing themselves clean. She stepped into the water and let it wash over her, her muscles relaxing under the flow.
“Here ya go, Sarge,” Justine said and handed her a bar of soap.
“Thanks,” Alexis said. She savoured every moment of her decontamination shower. It always felt like she was cleaning away the fear and the guilt of Pacifying her own people. And it eased her mind about the spread of the virus. “I’m going to go to the tea shop tonight, you all should join me,” she said. She watched them tense up and knew why. “Don’t worry,” she reassured them, “I’ll pay.” That brought on smiles and laughs and words of agreement.
She finished her shower and stepped into the next room, pulling on the clean uniform that waited. She made sure her equipment was stowed, and that her mask was in easy reach. “Right, let’s go,” she said.
The walk to the tea shop was short. It was near to the Clean Zone gate. The shop had been someone’s house before the war. An enterprising member of House Mboya had knocked out the internal walls and made it into a favourite stopping point for officers returning from patrol. Inside, on the first floor, was a large sitting room with cushioned chairs and pillows scattered about. Tea sets rested on tables, and hookahs were passed around between patrons. The second floor still had bedrooms for soldiers who wanted to release tension together.
Alexis settled herself on one of the pillows on the floor and waved over a server, a young man who served as a Private during his duty shifts. “Tea,” she said, “and shisha.” He counted the soldiers as they all settled around the low table, smiled at her, and picked up the teapot from the table. He bowed and made his way back to the kitchen, where the tea was prepared.
“Ahhh,” Oliver said, stretching across two cushions, “This is great. Wish I had enough coin to come here on the regular.”
“Heh,” Alexis responded, “I don’t even have enough shelt to do that. You’d need to be a Lieutenant at least. Probably a Captain, if you really wanted to do it proper.”
She was just glancing up to watch their server returning with a bundle of shisha when the lights flickered and a deafening roar shook the building. Plaster dropped from the ceiling and tea sets tumbled to the floor. Every soldier in the tea shop knew what that noise and the shaking meant. A bomb had gone off, and close.
Alexis threw herself to her feet, already pulling her mask on and making sure the filter was properly seated. She glanced once to see that her soldiers had done the same, then raced out the door. Other soldiers had already left the building, spilling tea and coins across the floor. They all had weapons drawn and were making their way to the flames that lit the night.
When she got to the site of the explosion she was horrified. The gate to the Clean Zone had been destroyed. In its place was a ruin of twisted metal and burning bodies. Fire still burned in several places, crackling and throwing up sheets of acrid smoke that blocked her view of the Infected Zone. One brave soul had already climbed the Clean Zone wall to get a look beyond and shouted down, “we’re all clear!” The gathered soldiers leapt to work, trying to rescue any of the men and women who had been on duty who might still be alive.
In the morning Alexis would learn that dissidents had created mock-ups of the Pacification Squad uniforms and used them to get close enough to detonate their bomb. A message left at the scene, partially destroyed by the attackers’ own weapon, promised more destruction to come.
