Bus Number Nine - Novel Ch.1

Chapter One



I’ll probably get executed for writing this. I haven’t told anyone I’m doing this, but I think it’s important for people to know how all this shit works and why so many people are dying. I don’t think anyone outside of the Bus system knows how they work. Not really. They only know what they saw on fucking commercials, reality show, tweets, or some Facebook shit they read. And none of that amounts to jack-shit, really. My name is Jake Moller, Private First Class. I’m a guard on a Bus for the Milgov. I got some German heritage in me, so they call me “The Kraut” for short, or sometimes just “Kraut” or “K-man”.



Okay, so where do I start with this? I’m assuming that you know some basic history here. I’m assuming that you know what’s happened before, say, 2014 and the terrorist attacks.  The military coup in the U.S. led by General Davidson in 2014 changed the whole fucking game. Everyone calls them the “Milgov”. They have eyes and ears on anything everyone says or does. Some people even say the Milgov can tell when someone is going to do something before they do it. Just from body language, body sensors, and statistical analysis and what-not. We joke that they know when you’re gonna take a shit before you feel that tingle in your ass. Milgov runs the courts, the police units, the Homeland Police, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA. Well, you get the picture. They run the whole game from Washington. They aren’t stupid though. The whole thing is run in cells. The Commander-in-Chief calls the shots through his Generals, who run each of the departments. Obviously the biggest and most important department is Homeland Security. We call it HomeSec for short. The Homeland Organization and Management for Emergencies department (we just call ‘em HomeDep) handles supplies and rationing: housing, food, water, everything. You need something, you have to get it through either HomeDep or take your chances on the black market. HomeDep manages all the housing projects and co-funds the Buses along with HomeSec. No chance of clusterfuck there. Yeah, right. I’ll get to what the Buses are later. They’re kinda what this is all about. They’re the only form of secure transportation left anywhere.  Drones are the only things flying in the skies these days. No commercial flights are allowed any more – its too dangerous. The drones watch everything on the ground all the time. Twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five, as they say. They’re always watching you. Not that it stops anything bad from going on, you understand. But they have to watch. It’s what they get paid to do, so they kinda have to make it look good, you know? I would’ve liked to have been one of those remote drone pilots. Comfy-ass job if you ask me. It’s like sitting around all day playing a video game. No bucket to piss in, no blood to wash up, no strangers’ guts stuck to your kit. It’s just a real cushy pull if you ask me. Certainly better than riding the Bus.  I just don’t have the aptitude for it, so they say. My test scores weren’t good enough to pull that kind of work. So I got Mechanized Infantry, in the Bus Brigade. If it wasn’t for the Ragheads and the Traitors, I’d probably do a few years driving convoys or pull some other mechanic job or something, but the way things are, I guess it could be worse. I could be Street Meat. Those poor assholes walking around, out on the streets. They don’t stand a chance. Little if any armor or weapons to protect themselves with.  They’re even worse off than the Pedestrians. At least the Peds have their armor and gear, but they’re like big walking targets. Anyone with enough cheddar to fork over for armor and guns, must be important enough to roll.  Street Meat are called that for a reason: they don’t usually last long.  Meat is all over the damn place when we make our run. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Meat older than about twenty.  They just dump ‘em in the streets wherever is easiest. When I say “they” I mean the Ragheads or the Traitors, of course, whoever does all the killing of the Meat. I’ll get to those fucking guys later.  The Pedestrians get killed once in awhile on our route too. Sometimes, we pick ‘em up and give ‘em a lift, but not very often, and not very far. See, they haven’t paid for the ride. The Peds think they’re better off on their own. That or they’re up to no good and don’t want Milgov breathing down their necks.  They’re in the shit up to their noses. They all look scared as hell. And I don’t blame them. Every once in awhile, we tune the Bus comms into some of the local radio chatter and listen in. That’s when you know the shit really has hit the fan. The kinds of shit we deal with will turn the whitest motherfucker whiter, if you know what I mean.



In case anyone reading this doesn’t know what a Bus is, I’ll break it down for you: The streets aren’t safe any more. Haven’t been in some time. Between the Traitors fighting against the Milgov and the Ragheads blowing shit up every chance they get (along with themselves), it just ain’t safe anywhere any more. So, folks started getting together into communities. Kind of like those old-school gated communities, but with bigger walls, better security, and not as nice-looking. No more civilian flights, buses, cars, or trains. Only top Milgov people and the corporate bosses can afford private cars or trucks any more.  So, the Buses are the only way to travel around unless you want to take your chances on the street with the Meat.  After awhile, Milgov sent in HomeSec and HomeDep to take control of the communities and started the Buses to “ensure the safety of the citizens”.  Some communities are better than others I guess, but they all look about the same from the outside. They all look like heavily armed fortresses. Electrified razor wire on top of reinforced concrete walls, CCTV cameras everywhere, and remote controlled gun turrets in little pillboxes on top of the walls and beside the gates. The gates usually have one or two concrete barricades to prevent Raghead carbomb attacks. You can tell the cheap communities from the high-end ones because the cheap ones just have regular razor wire, concrete walls, and kill holes in the walls for guards to shoot through. The fancy ones have the same stuff, but they also have automated drone gun turrets, drone ATVs, CCTV, flood lights, anti-bomb barricades, and multi-stage entrances. The poor communities are the ones that usually get hit the worst, of course. That’s also where most of my family lives. Most soldiers live in HomeDep Class C housing. Class C is short for “shithole”.  Hell, almost  everyone that works on my Bus (my crew) has family that live there except for Lieutenant Eclaire. The officers live in Class B unless they’re generals or such, in which case, it’s oh-so-sweet Class A for them.  I think even Sergeant Ex lives in Class C. That reminds me about the names I’m throwing at you: we have nicknames or “signs” for everyone working on the Buses.  Sometimes I forget that civvies don’t know the inside of the military.  For example, we call him “Sergeant Ex” but that’s just his sign, His real tag is Staff Seargent Wyatt Judge. The Leuitenant: “Eclaire” isn’t her real name. It’s Leuitenant Claire Hernandez. Eclaire has her head so far up her ass, she’s going to be lucky to make through a single quarter on this Bus. Milgov pumps out officers faster than we shit out this mornings’ MRE.  Eclaire just replaced the last officer who was stupid enough to get off the bus to clear some Peds. Except they weren’t Peds, they were Traitors, and they were waiting for us in an ambush. I’ll get to that story later though. It’s a good one. It’s a good lesson for other officers, too, if any of them read this before they send me to the firing squad. I don’t know what the hell they teach them in officer school, but hopefully they’ll start training them smarter than that last asshole. His name was Leitenant Robert Lee. We don’t even talk about him any more. He’s just one more dead asshole who fucked up and got killed. Anyhow, none of us has too much faith in this new officer either. She’s just like the last asshole, except greener. She’s book-smart and all, but not very street-savvy. Sergeant Ex is supposed to look after her, break her in, but that isn’t going too well, I can just tell. The way he sneers at her and salutes when he feels like it. You can tell who’s really in charge on this Bus, and it ain’t Lt Eclaire.



I think I got off-topic there. I was supposed to be telling you all about the Buses.  That’s right. The Buses are a lot like the communities: some are better than others. The ones that service Class B and C all look about the same: roughly painted dark green and grey with stenciled warnings and reminders all over them in military style. They’re armored vehicles about 20 feet long or so and about 6 feet wide. Standing room only inside, with the drivers compartment separate from the passengers – just in case. The only windows are thick, bullet-proof glass sights in the front for the driver (a set of three), another set of three angled glasses in the rear, and one to each side. In the middle of the Bus, we have a forward gunner cuppola (run by Seargent Page, and a rear gunner cuppola (run by PFC Meteor). The gunners sit back-to-back, but can engage their own targets in their own powered turrets. They also have forward and rear-facing grenade launchers. We usually use those to pop smoke and get the hell out of some shit, but we have some high explosive (HE) rounds, and anti-personnel (AP) rounds too, just in case. The wheels are all solid rubber run-flats that can take an RPG hit and we can keep on rolling. Lt Eclaire sits just behind the drivers compartment on the left side of the Bus. Beside her, Seargent Ex on the right side of the Bus with the aisle down the middle. I guard the front door, and PFC Ash Can guards the rear door and handles crowd control outside the bus. 



More about Staff Seargent Wyatt Judge. He’s a Lifer. He’s been in Milgov since before he finished high school and will die in Milgov.  He’s a huge asshole, but he knows his shit. He’s been shot several times, blown up, cut, broken, bashed, and rolled, but he’s still alive. We call him “Seargent Ex” which is short for “Executioner”. See, his last name being Judge, and with the way he deals with some of the Meat, like he’s the jury and the executioner. It makes sense, right? The man is built like a ton of lead. White, six-foot six (or maybe six-foot eight) and probably 270 pounds of muscle, mean, and scars. And not just the kinds of scars that show on a physical exam. He’s just plain mean. Nobody fucks with Sgt Ex. Nobody. Not even brass. He’s earned it. He’s been in the shit so long, everybody is scared of him, but they know he knows what the score is. He’s got a kill count that makes us newbs jealous, and keeps the lawyers working. At least once a week, Seargent Ex is in some court or another pleading his innocence about another “tragedy” involving some Meat or Ped or something. He’s made like teflon though – nothing sticks. More on Sgt Ex later though. Sgt Ethan LePage is our next most-senior NCO.  We just call him “Page” because he just keeps turning. Nothing phases this guy.  He’s got a joke for every situation and there isn’t anything that isn’t funny to him.  He’s also our logistics guy as well as gunner. If he can’t get supply, nobody can. Weed, coke, whiskey, hookers, you name it, he can get it. None of that stuff is legal but just about everyone has a vice these days, and the black market supplies it all. It’s about the only thing that keeps people sane. Its like a little R&R from reality, you know? The shit you see out in the streets can hurt you. It can hurt you really bad if you let it. And not just from bullets or mortars or rockets or shit. The kind of hurt when you see a Ragheads’ kids blowing themselves up in front of you, or Traitors ramming a barricade and gunning down the Peds scrambling to get into the safety of their buildings. Or the aftermath of a Raghead Purge. When the local Raghead warlord gets rid of the families he doesn’t trust by butchering them and leaving the bodies in the street. Men, women, children. It doesn’t matter to those assholes. You’ll never be the same person once you’ve seen that. I don’t give a shit how hard you think you are, you’re never the same inside again.

Anyhow, Page is a good guy. He takes care of us and makes sure the Bus kicks ass, and we have lots of ammo and beers for after shift. We take care of him and he takes care of us – that’s the way it flows. The way I see it, that’s what we get paid for. That’s why we put our lives on the line every day. The Peds don’t want to have to deal with the shit outside their door. But people have to work. They have to shop. They have to live their lives, but they can’t just be walking around unprotected. There’s too many people that want Peds dead. But fuck the Peds! We don’t do it for them. That’s just the Milgov propaganda shit. We do it because its what we can do and what we’re good at. And who else would protect them? The Meat? Also, each Bus is like a family. A fucking disfunctional, messed up family, but a family just the same. We look out for each other because nobody else gives a flying fuck.



Okay, more about the Buses. The Buses run day and night, making sure Peds get to where they need to go, alive. It doesn’t always work out, but you stand a better chance than being on your own with the Meat. It costs money, so usually only the well-off suits get a ride, but it also makes us a target for every fuckhead along the route. The longer the route, the greater the chance of mistakes or an ambush. We take the suits between their work complexes and their communities. We also do “special” runs. Special runs are for VIPs only or for special cargo. “Hush-hush” stuff. We only know where we’re going and enough intel to get the VIP or cargo there. It doesn’t always work that way, but I’ll get to that later.



The rest of the B9 crew runs down like this: PFC David Daniels (AKA “Daredevil”). I’ve been best friends with this guy since high school.  I trust him with my life. We even did Basic together.  Dave is our main gunner. Crazy as shit, and half deaf on the left side from an IED hit a year back. In case you don’t know, “IED” means, “Improvised Explosive Device”). Daredevil’s constantly smoking weed too. I don’t remember ever seeing him not high. More on him later. PFC Chris Meteos (AKA “Meteor”) is our other gunner. Quiet guy, does his job, but there’s something off about him. I don’t know if I trust him or not. It’s not normal for a guy to like killing people so much.  PFC Ashon Williams (AKA “Ash Can”). Our anti-personnel weapons operator. It’s this guys’ job to make sure nobody is hitching a ride, if you catch my drift. Before we make a run anywhere, anyone touching the outside of the bus is going to pull back a stump because of Ash Can. Or worse. I’ve watched liqoured-up bums explode by leaning against the bus. Every pedestrian knows you don’t ever touch a bus with its doors closed. Ever. There are warning signs on every side of the bus for safety, but once in awhile, someone gets stupid or is too drunk or high to know what they’re doing, and that’s that.

Finally, there’s Cpl Maggie Jones (AKA “Fatale”). She’s our token black female NCO and medic. She’s also been my girlfriend since high school. We rely on her to patch us up when we get in the shit or patch up the passengers if needed. Not a very reassuring handle for a medic though, if you ask me. Much more on her later, trust me.

Each Bus has a route, and each Bus has a number. My Bus is Bus Number 9, and this is the story of her crew. My crew. My story.