Chapter 5 – Watching Out for Each Other
It’s not easy staying up during the night even though the pay for the job lets me quit my normal job. I’m still not used to staying up long nights listening in to the conversations of my neighbors and friends. My husband, Saul, stays up with me along with other groups of Neighborhood Watchers for signs of traitors in our community. So far, no one has spoken up against the Church nor have they spoken any kind of false doctrine that the Church doesn’t agree with. The Church has displayed her great power for over a year now and is still waging war with those still foolish enough to oppose her. It makes me wonder why our group was formed in places like our community, which has been full of faithful Catholics for generations.
Can’t be too careful, I guess. We must always stay vigilant, especially after our own. It’s why I got this job. Mainly to serve God and watch over my family while also being sure of our safety. There are rumors that the enemy will try to make us fight each other so they can overcome us. I don’t think that will happen because we’ve learned our lesson from the many internal conflicts that the Church has gone through for centuries. Besides, the faithful of the Church have a common enemy in the other empires. The aristocrats have a group to place their blame on while filling their pockets with the spoils of war while the peasants enjoy working knowing that the people above them are actually doing something productive. Of course, this can only go on for so long before our common enemy is obliterated, but I don’t think that time will be soon.
“Kezia, are you alright? Do you need to take a rest? I can take it from here,” Saul says.
“No, I can handle it. Also, I don’t think you can handle listening to two listening stations at once since you have trouble listening to me and Tamara at the same time.”
“Haha, who can handle that?”
Tamara is our sweet child who is in her early teens. Since we know what’s going on around the area, we let her go out by herself with her friends and members of our family. Sometimes I’ll mostly listen to what she’s doing and switch to other channels for a bit before going back to what see and hear she’s talking about. Ah!
“Don’t get too touchy there, missy,” I say to her through the speaker.
“I’m allowed to give my guy friends hugs, mom! Stop watching us so much!” she says back.
“You know you shouldn’t be abusing your privilege like that,” Saul points out.
“Oh, please. The other parents do it too and there’s no rule saying we can’t explicitly do this. In fact, I think the rules encourage it because we’re keeping our kids in line as they say.”
“Stop making up excuses and leave her alone.”
“Okay, boss.”
For the rest of the night, nothing happens, which is what we write in our report. I only sleep for a few hours so Saul and I can prepare breakfast for Tamara. He does coffee and cleans the dishes while I make the food. We say our family rosary after breakfast along with our morning prayers then send off Tamara to go to school.
“Welp. I’m going to go take another two minutes,” I say as I begin to head upstairs for bed.
“Two actual minutes or two minutes in your time?” Saul asks.
“You know me. You should be getting some sleep too, big guy.”
“I’ll be up soon. I just want to see the news.”
“It’s the same thing as always.”
“Doesn’t make it any less informative.”
“If you say so.”
Going up to my room, I fall on the bed and almost immediately fall asleep. After what feels like a second, I am woken up by the sound of large ships entering the city. Today is the day we’re supposed to be receiving…stuff or whatever it is. I’m too tired to remember, so I go back to sleep only to be woken up for what must be an actual second as I hear explosions outside. Looking to see what is happening, I see that we’re under attack by one of our own trading ships.
Saul barges in and says, “Get your armor, gun, and let’s go!”
“Okay!”
He probably means to go and get the citizens to safety. As a member of the Neighborhood Keepers, we have to ensure their safety first before our own. Hopefully, someone is taking care of Tamara. It looks like someone has turned on the manual air defenses since our turrets don’t automatically shoot down allied ships. The turrets shoot down the ship and it crashes down into the city.
“All military and law enforcement personnel are ordered to secure the rogue ship once the civilians are in their protected shelters. The Neighborhood Watchers who are on in surveillance stations should stay in place and work with those on the field to direct them. The other watchers are to support the military and law enforcement going to the crash site. Once you reach the crash, arrest the survivors and execute those who resist arrest,” command says from our radios.
Our section of the neighborhood is secured so we head over to the crash site. I’m severely tempted to go look for Tamara and I’m sure Saul is too. We then hear laser fire and head over to the area to see soldiers, guards, and watchers fighting the people from the crash. It looks like many of them survived so Saul and I join the fight from afar. The number of enemies is thinned out within minutes and they retreat into the city. We all split up into groups to chase after them.
“Kezia!” It’s Neriah. My neighbor and one of the fellow watchers.
“Neriah, it’s good to hear from you.”
“Same to you. You’re entering my sector of the neighborhood. I’ll be directing you where those dirtbags are while my husband directs yours.”
I look over to Saul who is talking to Neriah’s husband. He gives me a thumbs up to indicate that we’re both on the same page.
“Okay, Neriah. Tell me where they are.”
“They’re going to the food market. It looks like they’re setting up so they can make a plan.”
“Got it.”
We head to the food market, which is eerily quiet with the only thing breaking up the quiet is the occasional sound of fighting every now and then. Please God, let that be us winning against them.
“Okay, they’re in-”
Before Neriah can say anything, we are shot at from all sides. We take cover until the shooting subsides.
“Everywhere it seems,” I whisper.
“They’re resisting arrest, which is going to make this easier.”
“You call this easy?”
“Set your guns to silent and do exactly as I say.”
I look over to Saul next to me and he nods before taking off our masks to give me a kiss.
“Okay, we’re ready.”
“You two are so cute. Anyway, go around to the back of the pasta store. There’s one in the back behind the corner fixing his communications equipment.”
Saul and I do as we are told and shoot the one we are told about. I’ve never shot anyone in my life before, but this is easier than I thought it would be. Maybe it’s because of what this person is a part of or the protective mother part of me kicking in.
“Good job. The rest of them haven’t moved yet, so go to Lilian’s vegetable store three doors down and go through the windows to take the two there by surprise. They have the door rigged to blow if you open it,” Neriah says.
We do as Neriah says then go in to eliminate the two at the same time.
“I can’t believe they ate some of the vegetables while they were hiding there,” Neriah says.
“Eh, I never really bought any of this stuff unless we had to fast,” I say.
“I’m not going to start another argument because of your taste in cooking again, Kezia, so move to the cooking store next at the end of the street.”
Saul laughs then looks at me before we go to disarm the trap at the back door. Leaving the story, we head to the end of the street and into the cooking store.
“There are two upstairs and two downstairs. Proceed with caution.”
Saul and I go upstairs first and are about to go to the different sides of the floor to flank the two hostiles here, but the floor falls out from under me.
“The store must’ve suffered damage from the attack and weakened the floor! Be careful you two! They’re onto you.”
I can hear two people walking towards me, so I crawl underneath a table and wait for them to come. They arrive from the two sides of the table and appear to be looking around. Because I know they’re going to be looking around soon, I take this opportunity to shoot their stomachs from under here then finish them with a shot to the head. Above, I can hear the sound of a body fall and then another.
Saul then gives me a thumbs up and quietly says over the comms, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’ve got trouble, you two. Six of them are coming out of their hiding spots and heading over to where the communications guy was. I recommend going to both sides of the streets and going full auto on them to eliminate them all at once.”
“Roger.”
We do as Neriah says and switch our pistols to submachine gun mode then execute all six hostiles at once. Thankfully, they don’t get a shot off because of our surprise attack.
“That’s it in this area. Good job. I’m hearing word that we got everyone else,” Neriah says.
“That’s amazing news!” I say to Neriah.
“I knew we’d beat them,” Saul says as he hugs me.
We take off our masks to kiss.
“Oh, stop showing off for the cameras, you two, and report to the guardsmen’s office to give your report.”
Saul and I go to the guardsmen’s office and tell them what we did. In the office, we also see that a few of the people who attacked us are captured and are being questioned.
“Have those people told us why they attacked us yet?” I ask the guard at the desk.
“We’ll know soon enough. I hear that they’re going to be publicly executed after being given the chance to confess and receive communion.”
Part of me understands and wants to see it while the other part wants to execute them myself for what they did. After giving our report, we go to the shelter where Tamara is since the all-clear is issued. Thankfully, she’s alive without a scratch on her. Unfortunately, a lot of citizens died because of the attack. More died when the ship crashed into the city, but I’m sure that the idea to shoot it down was better than leaving it to cause whatever destruction they wanted to.
Later, we learn that the people that attacked us were defectors from the Ecclesia that didn’t like the direction it was going in along with a few heretics who helped them. These people are executed on live TV and a warning is issued to other traitors within the Church that this will be their fate too if they betray Holy Mother Church. Tamara watches the execution and doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.
“Tamara, are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Those people got what they deserved,” she says with a satisfied tone to her voice.
“Remember, we can’t hate these people. We can only pity them and hope they repented for their sins.”
“I know.”
She sounds a bit dismissive, but she’ll learn. At least I hope she does. After today, the parts of the city that were damaged are being repaired while the Neighborhood Watchers are vigilant over our neighbors and the people around us.
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