Eyes of War
By Joshua Calkins-Treworgy
Author's Note: The motivation for this work of fiction was a writing prompt floated out in one of the various writers' Groups I'm a member of on Facebook, 'The Author's Table'. The prompt intrigued me, and to paraphrase, was thus:
Snipers and photographers both try 'Getting the perfect shot'. Without giving away which is which, have a photographer and a sniper each describe this pursuit.
Now, I did not use the exact phrasing of the prompt, but the spirit of it got the creative juices flowing.
I found it a perfect excuse to revisit Matthew Hayes, my narrator from Fire Drill, which is available for sale on the iTunes Bookstore and on BN.com. Beyond this point, the narrative begins.
Introduction
The last time I intended to do one of these kinds of longer articles, it ended up turning into a kind of obsession project, one that saw me heading back to my hometown of Deertrack, Georgia. That story, Fire Drill, ended up becoming a novel, though I had initially intended for it to just be a longer multi-issue piece for Lookback Magazine, a very fine publication indeed. I imagine the folks at Lookback were a little skeptical to find an email from one Matthew Hayes in their company inbox after that, but thankfully, they were intrigued enough by my proposal to let me submit this project to them.
The impetus of what follows here was actually a rather off-hand remark made by Jeremy Confeld, a colleague of mine for several years at the Star-Tribune who has spent the last couple of months covering the recent spate of riots in what remains of New York City. I'd heard some rumors of his return to the Twin Cities and reached out to invite him out for some drinks and some first-hand stories about his time in the tumultuous concrete jungle that has become the epicenter of what many are already calling 'The Grand Metro Removal'.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Jeremy is a photojournalist of the classical school, largely relegating himself to passive observation of events and taking occasional photographs of some of the most powerful moments in a series of events, using those images as lodestones for the accompanying stories he writes up. He brought with him to the bar a shoe box filled with printed copies of some of the images he captured during his time in New York, and as he talked to me about some of the things he witnessed on the ground there, I looked through them.
Some of those photos will haunt me for years, I suspect. There is no number of words to properly convey some of these images, and for the good of the nation's collective psyche, I genuinely hope he burns and deletes some of those pictures instead of uploading them to the Internet.
I will, however, attempt to describe one of them. Don't worry, I already secured his permission, since that evening, to do so:
The image is a look down a narrow two-lane side street, the city benighted, and a lone vehicle is in the middle-distance, a bright white Toyota Tundra pickup truck. The windows have clearly been smashed in, and there are furious scorch markings along the driver's side of the truck. The driver's side door hangs open, appearing to have almost been physically torn off the hinges. There are 'Samuelson 2032'' stickers on the bumper, and a solid American flag painted over the rear window.
The traffic control signals at the intersection this truck sits at, when Jeremy took the photo, are green, and some of their powerful illumination, as well as that of the nearby streetlights, allows one to see what lays at the middle of the intersection. That, dear readers, is what even a veteran photojournalist like Jeremy did not want to get any closer to.
What lays there is a half-torched human body, with a Samuelson flag stabbed down into his hindquarters, a barely visible pool of blood in a crescent circle around its mangled head. I don't know a great deal about firearms myself, but I know enough to say without hesitation that the damage one can see was not caused by one.
I was staring at this photograph in a horror born of two sources- the brutality Jeremy had captured in its aftermath, and my own lack of surprise that I should see something like this in 2032. After all, political violence has become more and more normalized in the last dozen or so years in the United States. That lack of surprise almost stunned me as much as the image itself.
Jeremy went on to relay to me just how much worse the situation was in New York than had been widely reported in both traditional and independent media. "The people that got assigned to me were telling me there are parts of the city where even they won't go now," he informed me. "It's an extension of the whole 'Hands Off' policy, I guess."
I won't re-tread that policy yet again; the American public has, I'm sure, heard and read plenty about it by now. Suffice it to say, it was quite popular with traditional Democratic and liberal voters initially, but has come under fire in the last three or four months as the self-named 'Cortezians' lose ground throughout the boroughs. Near the end of our get-together, I asked Jeremy if he'd spoken with anyone on either side of conflict directly about this policy.
"A few folks, yeah," he informed me. "A couple of the higher-ups of the Cortezians, they were furious about the N.Y.P.D. and National Guard refusing to ever step in and balance things out. But then, when I brought that up to some of the Sons of Freedom guys and gals I talked to, they were quick to point out how Cortez's people had been screaming about abolishing the police for a decade and some change. 'They're just getting what they asked for', one guy put it."
I was tested mightily to not show Jeremy how thoroughly I disagreed with the humor he found in this, but I managed.
And now, here I am, thinking back on that photo of the slain Samuelson supporter, murdered in the street. I had turned it to Jeremy, and even he seemed to shudder at it. "I hate to admit it, but with that one, I got the perfect shot," he had remarked. I've been thinking about that since I got home. 'Getting the perfect shot', as an expression, really only applies to two types of people in my mind- photographers, and snipers.
And thinking that, I've had an idea…..
Setting the Stage
From 2023 to today, in May of 2033, the United States has been engaged in a series of civil conflicts within its own borders, thanks in no small part to the decision by then-President Harris to remark on a hidden camera recording that she was looking for a way to designate former President Donald Trump an 'Enemy Combatant'. "At least then we could just drone his ass and be done with it," she had added, a remark which drew an audible groan of condemnation at her Senate impeachment trial the following month in July of 2023.
This is all territory that has been well-trod by now, and which most people agree was the definitive flash point at which a cold civil war within the United States shifted into an era which began seeing small-scale armed conflicts which, even today, continue to flare up in notable locations around the country.
Yet, the election of President Jocko Willink in 2024, a seemingly nigh-impossible, dark horse Independent running for the office, seemed to shock the overall system and nation just enough to bring the worst of the possible conflicts to a temporary halt. But again, this is all history that most of you will be familiar with.
Though it has only been seven years, however, I wonder how many of us truly know how bad things got in the winter of 2026, in the normally peaceful state of Iowa. I myself covered some of the early skirmishes, but I was by far not the only person who took to the home of the Hawkeyes to observe the fracas.
Trawling through dozens of blogs and social media posts from that time period, I have managed to pin down and reach out to two very different individuals who each have a story to share with us.
One is a sniper, and the other, a photographer.
After an initial e-mail to each of them explaining the basic concept for this piece, both have agreed to participate. For clarification, I will now present the basic premise to you, good reader:
I will perform an interview with [these persons] regarding their involvement in the 'Iowan Split' events of January and February, 2026. Caution should be exercised in both my word choice in my inquiries and in their responses, in order to avoid coming right out and saying which of them is the sniper, and which the photographer. It will be up to the reader to decide which one's which, and whether or not that's actually important.
The First Talk
[Formatting note: As readers of Fire Drill will remember, I often included narrative observations and notes peppered throughout my transcribed copying of audio records of the interviews performed for the book. I will be doing the same here. MH will stand for Matthew Hayes, i.e. myself, and in this first case, ER will stand for Edgar Reyes, my first interview subject.]
Edgar agreed to meet me at the downtown Minneapolis home of the Star-Tribune for our sit-down, and despite my invitation to procure coffee and something to eat given the early hour we agreed upon, he brought both for himself. An unassuming man in his mid-30's, Edgar Reyes appears at first glance like he could easily blend into almost any metropolitan crowd and simply vanish, which I imagine must be useful, given his line of work. Even his smile, a thin, tight-lipped smirk that shows no teeth, is so unremarkable as to seem almost barely an expression at all.
Blissfully, he doesn't have the kind of monotone drone one might fear makes for a dull speaker. I produced my audio recorder, and he gave me a nod to proceed.
MH: Please state your name and give us a little background on yourself. But, be mindful of the parameters of our little experiment here.
ER: [chuckles] Right, right. Well, my name is Edgar Steven Reyes. I's born and raised in Telamucha, Arkansas. Let's see,
[Here, Edgar's face scrunches up as he seems to carefully consider what to say so as not to divulge which he is, sniper or photographer]
I been doin' what I do since 2024, traveling all over the country and loving just about every minute of it.
MH: Just about?
ER: Well yeah, it ain't all coverin' myself in glory, you know?
[Commentary removed due to obvious inference to what Edgar does for a living]
Shit, sorry, man. That kind of gives it away, don't it?
MH: It's not a problem, I can edit that out and make a note. So, tell me about how you got involved in The Iowan Split.
ER: [leans back in his chair and lets out a long sigh, pursing his lips] Oof, yeah, that was bad. Winter of '26, right terrible stuff going on there. What made it worse was not really recognizing who was on what side all the time, you know? And the fact that there were all kinds of factions, and they didn't always even get along with groups who was ostensibly on the same side, generally speaking.
MH: How do you mean?
ER: Well, like for example, you might get to a 'Hot Zone' in a suburb around maybe Des Moines or Iowa City, and spot a whole bunch of guys in Hawaiian print shirts under unzipped parkas, ARs and M-16s slung over their shoulders. Now, a lot of times, these would be Proud Boys, and they would definitely be, generally speaking, considered right-wing. And then you'd see another bunch of fellahs who looked like militia, same kind of weapons, but they'd have a great big ol' black cross stitched to the back of their BDU jackets, and that's be Patriot Prayer, definitely considered right-wing by most folks. So, you'd think they'd get along, right?
MH: Didn't they?
ER: Not all the time, naw. And the black cross on the camo was actually Army of God, but a lot of folks got confused, because Patriot Prayer took to using a white cross to differentiate. That and, well, those Army of God people got reeeeeal spooky when they went underground in '25. The Savannah Discovery didn't help matters much.
[Interviewer's Note: This is not a widely known incident, so I'll take a moment to explain. On November 7th, 2025, ATF agents who had been investigating the activities of a cell of Patriot Prayer members in and around Savannah, Georgia, obtained a warrant to enter and inspect an automotive repair shop belonging to the militia outfit after four days of no observed activity inside. When they entered with their warrant, authorities discovered the bodies of twelve members scattered throughout the workshop, and no signs of an armed struggle. Homeland Security took over that investigation, and they have been a brick wall against anyone in my line of work finding out what the hell happened there.]
MH: So it wasn't easy to figure out who was who, then?
ER: Nope. That didn't have too much weight to it, given my job. I always had specific people to look for, and otherwise, just kept my eyes open for opportunities.
MH: How many separate incidents during the Iowan Split were you involved with?
ER: Three. That was about the average, you'll find. Most boys and girls who weren't natives of the state, they kind of felt like this wadn't their fight to be swingin' fists in, you know? I worked with one feller, soon's the Seattle City Scourge hit, he boogey'd out to the northwest, on account of growin' up there and having family in the crossfire.
MH: Understandable. Now, before I get to the core question here, I have to ask: did you work the Southern Freight Strike at all a couple of years ago?
[Here, Edgar just gives me a flat stare and a slow nod. He clearly doesn't want to actively discuss it, and I cannot blame him; it was one of the most brutal months in American history, and both economists and criminologists still have no clue how much financial and societal damage it caused to this day.] Sorry. Let's move back to the Iowan Split.
ER: Gladly.
MH: This is the 'Big Question' we discussed in our e-mail exchange. Can you tell me about getting the 'perfect shot' during your time with the Split?
ER: [Takes a long pull of his coffee] Sure can. I's with this National Guard unit at the time, a temporary assignment given to me by [Redacted to avoid telegraphing Edgar's job as either sniper or photographer]. They had Hands Off Observation orders with only a couple of exceptions, being to protect local political figures and law enforcement, who were having their own problems trying to keep things contained in Des Moines proper. Governor Tomkins didn't give a righteous shit if people in the city itself wanted to kill each other, but he didn't want to see it spread out to the suburbs like what happened in Philly and the surrounding towns a few months before.
Anyway, we shlep out toward Ankeny, this burb just beyond Des Moines itself, and we know we got problems already, because traffic on I-35 South is all kinds of fucked up. There's cars off in the ditches, and at first, we kind of assume it's because of the shit weather, ice on the roads. But after about the tenth car we spot, the transport stops, because somebody spotted evidence of fire on one of the wrecked cars. Someone was attacking motorists passing through; we found bodies in eight of the ten vehicles we went back to check out.
Now, seeing a dead adult, that's something you can get used to after the first few times. But seeing kids full of bullet wounds, man, that never gets easier. The deep freeze that winter made it worse, because the cold preserved the bodies, totally locked them in their last moments.
MH: Did the unit end up coming across whoever was committing these ambushes?
ER: They did. Their communications specialist ended up picking up chatter on a CB channel, a couple of long haulers warning each other about a rest station where they'd almost gotten themselves jacked by folks dressed up like riot cops and whatnot. This specialist, he hopped on the channel pretending to be a long hauler new to the job, asked if anyone knew the mile marker for this makeshift HQ these folks had set up for themselves.
When we got about five miles out, we pulled off the road and kitted up. Now, in my line of work, keeping your gear in proper working order is paramount. If you can't set up and see clear at a distance, you're sort of boned in these situations. And being early on in the Split, there was still a lot of folks who couldn't quite believe how hot things were already turning. But believe you me, even small groups like these raiders could be big trouble.
MH: Was there any particular reason for that?
ER: You bet. A lot of former military, defectors going AWOL to join up with these ideologues, they would frequently abscond with hellacious gear. We're talking crates of grenades, rifles, ammo out the wazoo. Didn't help either that 3D printing made some guns that could do a lot of damage too. Anyway, we get kitted up for the snow and blow, and right away I'm thinking, 'Well, this is gonna fuck me up pert good'. But the wind's inconsistent, comes and goes, so I'm feeling a little more hopeful. We stop every couple hundred yards to sweep the terrain, I'm looking around near the front since I've got the equipment to see a lot farther than the rest of these guys.
And at one point, I can see it, just barely ahead of the others. It was one of them kind of rest areas what's got the gas station attached to a couple of fast food joints, big ol' bathroom facilities with showers for over-the-road truckers. Huge place. And just before I pull down to tell the unit commander, I spot one, a sentry walking the perimeter. He's walking along, rifle slung over his shoulder, smoking a cigarette he likely pilfered from the gas station when they seized it.
I'm telling you, this kid couldn't have been more'n maybe 20, 21 years old, and he's just looking like he's having a winter walk and smoke like this is the most normal kind of day. And I'm stood there staring at him, wondering if he's maybe one of the folks what put live rounds through a family of four in a ditched minivan just six miles back the way I'd just come. Like, I'm wondering, 'Did you end some poor kid? All in the name of some cause you stuck yourself to like a barnacle on a boat'?
MH: So, what happened then?
ER: Well, I tell the commanding officer what I sees, and he has the unit kind of spread out, so we can all come at the place in a kind of horseshoe formation. I'm with him and a couple of other riflemen, and we sort of start this slow, creeping approach, right from beside the highway. I keep hauling up and looking ahead, and at one point, I freeze up. Everything goes dead still, because when we're only about fifty yards from the turn-off into the parking area, that guard I spotted before, we can sort of hear him yelling.
Three more of these guys come out of the station, dressed all in black, weapons in hand. And the kid, I can see he's pointing in our direction. The wind? I stop feeling it, but not the cold. The cold is all through me now, but it's from inside. It's always the same, these moments. It settles on me like a black blanket, reduces the whole of reality to just what I see through the lens. Everything else ceases to matter. There's nothing to smell, nothing to hear, nothing to feel but the one finger. That's all that matters. A single pull.
And I'm all lined up, and the kid's mouth is wide open, and these three other guys look like snarling demons through the lens, weapons coming up into hands ready to do terrible things once again.
And I take a deep, steadying breath, and I get my perfect shot.
The Second Talk
Timothy Starr, the second participant in this little experiment of mine, is a man who I could describe to you in many ways. I could tell you that he is vertically challenged, but as radiantly handsome and burly as one might think of Greek demigods as being. I could tell you that he is quick with witticisms and that his eyes dazzle with a kind of fae mischievousness that would birth a smile on the lips of all who meet him.
I could tell you these things, and if I did, you would be obligated through the use of your own senses and ability to observe reality as it actually presents itself to call me either the biggest liar since the serpent in the Garden of Eden, or else the modern equivalent of the inventor of Opposite Day.
Timothy Starr is a towering, lanky character whose presence and energy fairly drain whatever room he enters of a degree of its color and heat. There are whole Carrier brand air conditioning systems that cannot put out the kind of chill that seems to waft off of him. When he speaks, it is with an almost supernatural sense of calm, leaving one wondering if he is really even human.
For the sake of keeping you guessing whether he is the sniper or the photographer of this exercise's basis, I will refrain from informing you how I got into contact with him. Suffice it to say that when I reached out to a long-time contact in search of someone who was the personality opposite of Edgar Reyes, she did not in any way disappoint me.
Like Edgar, I had invited Timothy to a conference room here at the Star-Tribune offices to chat, and offered to grab coffee and breakfast. He graciously accepted the offer, and gave me a request that was very precise, specific. And not just in the 'where' for the food, but in the exact composition of that food:
Coffee, still steaming but with enough ice put in it to make it barely above room temperature. Two Egg and Sausage McMuffins, but with only egg whites, no yolk to be included, else he would not eat them. A single hash brown, left in the fryer long enough to be dark and brittle.
When I was messaged by the receptionist that Timothy (who prefers to be addressed by his full first name, never 'Tim', not even in print, per his request) had arrived for our interview, I had only been at my desk for perhaps a minute, having literally just gotten in from the little McDonald's just down the block from the building. I found this curious, as our e-mail exchange to confirm just the night before had put our agreed meet-up time a full forty minutes from the moment I'd sat down. I texted Eileen back to tell her to let Timothy on up to the third floor, to Conference Room 2.
I grabbed the to-go baggie and my voice recorder and notepad and hustled through the central cubicle space to Conference Room 2. I flicked on the lights and was barely able to get situated when I felt the air in the room disturbed; looking up from my notepad and pen, I watched as Timothy let the door slip shut behind him. Curiously, the normally creaking hinges had not made a peep when he snuck in behind me.
At least, I assume he snuck in behind me; I hadn't even heard the flicker of the L-shaped door handle when he came in.
"Tim Starr," I asked. He did not move, and did not blink, a sallow, pale creature whose hawkish nose barely moved despite the opening of his slash of a mouth to respond.
"Timothy, please," he responded. "Even in print, I cannot abide my name being shortened. If you would be so kind." There was such a lack of inflection in his voice that I was struck with the notion that this was not a real, living human being, but rather, some curious kind of energy-based lifeform that had decided to vacation on Earth in a meat suit, and was trying to figure out all of the basic controls before moving on to more complex operations, like holding a conversation like a normal, feeling person. His eyes appeared almost sunken in his face, shallow depressions set back in his skull to an almost cartoonish degree.
"Sorry about that. Timothy," I said, taking a note on my pad of this. I slid the coffee and bag across the table carefully, and with his eyes still lingering on me, he took a brief sip, lips pulling inward and quietly smacking.
"Acceptable," he remarked, unrolling the top of the bag and retrieving the McMuffins. He took the tops off of them, narrowed his eyes, and nodded. "Always good to see when people can follow instructions," he said. Timothy took one up, and collapsed about a third of it between teeth so white that they stood out in almost painful relief against his black coat, shirt and trousers.
As he ate, I looked over the questions I'd prepared for him, and checked the batteries on my voice recorder. I was ready to proceed.
MH: Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself a little?
TS[Timothy Starr]: Of course. My name is Timothy Bartholomew Starr. I was born and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, and despite my name, I am only a distant relation to the quarterback of legend. My father insisted upon the middle name.
MH: Big Packers fan, I take it?
TS: [With a roll of the eyes]Goodness, yes. Father was quite the sports enthusiast. Green Bay Packers, Detroit Red Wings, and the Milwaukee Brewers, that was his Holy Trinity. Mother was not as fanatical, but she certainly knew her players, statistics, and strategy on Sundays. But she also had an artistic streak that Father lacked entirely.
MH: What kind of art did she make?
TS: Poetry, chiefly. She dabbled some little bit in watercolors, but poetry is where she bloomed. [Here, Timothy takes another sip of his coffee, and seems to be waiting for me to prompt him with another question. He is far less gregarious than Edgar, and may require more on-the-spot questions]
MH: The Iowan Split saw a lot of people sort of pulled completely out of their comfort zones back in '26. Between the first minor skirmishes in Des Moines and Iowa City, to the bombing at the University of Iowa that finally saw federal forces descend to put a firm halt to all of the aggressions throughout the state, no less than 38,000 people died over a four month period in Iowa from January to April of that year.
TS: 38,384 to be precise. And bear in mind, that was only the official count of those who perished from direct assaults, such as gunfire, explosives, and the like. The disruptions to food, water and heating supplies claimed many, many more.
MH: I hadn't thought to consider that before.
TS: It doesn't make for a thrilling click-through headline on the news sites. 'Family of 4 Found Frozen to Death in Story City' doesn't generate the same traffic as '12 Gunned Down In Hyvee Shooting Spree'. I would point out that the vitality of that family of four is no less deserving of mourning than the folks who were just trying to get food supplies to try and wait out the conflict.
MH: No arguments there. Now, how did you first become involved in the Split?
TS: [Timothy takes a deep breath, looking aside as he carefully, neatly folds the McMufflin wrappers into tiny, compact squares, tucking them in on themselves like classic notes written on paper and passed between junior high students. He does this so automatically, I assume it's just a habit he has developed, part and parcel of a kind of self-imposed minimalism that seems to fit my impression of him.]
There had been a demand, around the start of February, for people in my profession to get to Iowa. Gigs were easy to find, especially online, and pay rates were competitive to say the least. I had my own equipment, like most people in my particular field. [Timothy says this with a sly little quirk of his lips, eyes sliding sideways to look directly at me] It's somewhat tricky, this setup of yours.
MH: How do you mean?
TS: Parsing my words very carefully, just to avoid giving away what I do for a living. It's, fun, in its own way. And not too unlike my own practice; controlling for lighting, ensuring a clear view, factoring in the myriad little variables that can yield success or failure. Yes, it's enjoyable. [Timothy coughs, clears his throat, and shifts slightly in his chair, folding his hands together on the table in front himself to face me more squarely.]
I responded to an inquiry on a popular message board, negotiating with some folks for my services in a minimum of e-mail exchanges. I don't care to waste a lot of time, and blissfully, neither did they. I gathered my required tools, and made my way to the township of Fairlane, near the border of Iowa and Nebraska.
There had been a great deal of chaos in and around Logan, a modest-sized city in that area, throughout the month of January. There were effectively three different groups vying for control- Patriot Prayer, The Red Unionists, and The Howling Minority. They weren't any of them being shy about attempts at recruitment, or what they'd do to get what they wanted. I mean, once you've carpeted enough streets with the bodies of civilians, law enforcement, and bullet casings, people tend to give up hoping it'll go any other way.
The National Guard could have rolled over all of them with barely an effort, but the Hands' Off policy was gaining a lot of traction, nationally. This was when a lot of people started talking about the 'Controlled Burn Theory'.
MH: I remember being appalled by that at first.
TS: A lot of people were. But then, people can adapt to even the worst things when they have no other choice.
Anyhow, I wasn't about to take a nice vehicle into a hot zone. I did a little digging around the suburbs just around Des Moines, where I'd be taking a flight into. I discovered with minimal effort a young man who was willing to sell me his old 2016 Ford Ranger, and he met me at the airport to deliver it.
MH: How were you able to pay to buy a vehicle that fast?
TS: Bitcoin. The drive from the airport to Fairline took about three hours, thanks to a combination of weather and damaged roadways. I was able to avoid Logan altogether by taking a lot of side roads and switchbacks, many of which hadn't seen plows regularly since the outbreak of open fighting.
My client had requested that I meet with them at Cottonwood High School, on the north edge of town, that I should call them when I arrived. I assume they'd been watching from somewhere nearby; I called, and nobody answered, but a green Dodge Caravan swung into the lot about a minute after I'd put the truck in Park.
Details were discussed. Information relayed. Expectations given their full explanation. Now, all that needed doing was figuring out where I'd be able to have the greatest impact.
MH: I assume the vagaries are to keep my readers from picking up on your profession.
TS: In part, yes. I also don't wish to bury us in needless minutiae before arriving at the climax of my portion of this project of yours. Such would not serve your aims.
MH: Ah. Well, I appreciate that. Leaves less room for my editors to trim down for word count limits.
TS: Quite. So, I set to the task then of driving about town, keeping an eye out for both the obvious and the subtle. For the most part, there was very little subtlety to be had. In the first ten minutes, in a residential area near the school, every other house on average had been marked, the winged Beretta handgun insignia that had become the emblem of Patriot Prayer painted near the front door. This was obviously not like so many other places around the country, where the fighting had been destructive but brief, or stopped by National Guard forces. Fairline was a battleground.
At one point, rolling through another little neighborhood, I pulled to the curb in front of a solid three-floor Brownstone. A Red Unionist flag hung from a pole on a deck fronting the house up on the third floor. The front door was gone, and the porch and steps were battered, pock-marked with bullet holes. Broad swathes of scarlet stained the steps, visible despite a thin layer of snow covering almost everything around town.
A brief walk-through of the house showed me that this had not been a simple exterior battle. Walls, furniture, and possessions inside the house had also been torn apart. Shotguns were primary from the look of the bodies inside. Smell was, less than pleasant. [Timothy's nose wrinkles here, as if he is smelling the corpses as he speaks to me]
MH: Any idea how long they'd been there?
TS: It was hard to be too certain. The interior had no heat, with the door blown in and the windows all destroyed. Cold did some work in preserving them. Not too long, I should think; no scavenging dogs had been at them, or the coyotes that seem to move in whenever these smaller towns descend into chaos.
Whatever weaponry and food supplies these Reds had been holding was entirely gone, and they had been a smaller unit, only four men and five women. No children, a small mercy. Even I don't do well with that, and I've been doing what I do for about six years at that point.
When I got back to the truck, I heard gunfire, not too far away. Short, sustained burst fire, controlled exchanges, so I assumed this was a solid confrontation. If it turned out to be just that, I would be able to complete my assignment, and make my way north to more stable territory, Minnesota generally speaking. Not wanting to risk damage to my transportation, I grabbed my gear out of the cab, and started toward the gunfire.
When you're moving in the direction of battle, the human body undergoes some, queer, adjustments. The chill of the winter air feels less foreign, less troublesome. The sounds of anything other than the fray you're heading for has its volume turned down, and that unseen hand twisting the knob, as soon as it's finished doing that, it wraps around the controls for your eyes. Everything sharpens, slows down. Colors gain a vibrancy that most people aren't accustomed to dealing with. The little imperfections on the inside of your shoes gain a level of reality that normally might be reserved for a psychedelic experience. Because right then, every sensation matters, way more than it normally would.
The moment you actively move toward the conflict, the human sensory suite comes on fierce, because you need to maximize all information to ensure survival.
I recognized the deterioration of the area as I drew closer to the shouting and gunfire, and started moving from cover point to cover point. This is something one becomes accustomed to doing in war zones. The battered shells of burned out cars or half-destroyed houses become more valuable than any currency, as the payoff is remaining out of clear lines of fire. Moreover, errant bullets are threats to be wary of.
I spotted what looked like a likely perch for myself another block closer to the area the sounds were coming from, and weaved a swift path to it- an unremarkable old Cape Cod, pale blue siding warped from some kind of firebombing that had wrecked a neighboring residence. I didn't want to risk intrusion of anyone hunkering down inside, though, so I knocked on the front door before entering.
MH: What would you have done if someone was there?
TS: The same thing I always do in a situation like that- pull the stack of one-hundred dollar bills I keep banded with a rubber band in my coat pocket and offer it up as an access pass. I rarely have to use it, but whenever I do, it ends up being more than worth the investment. You have to bear in mind, Mr. Hayes, money is just a tool.
In any event, I was lucky, as nobody answered. A brief inspection inside the house also showed me nobody was going to be returning anytime soon; the fridge and pantry were entirely empty.
I made my way up to the attic then, maneuvering around a dozen or so old, dusty plastic bins filled with holiday decorations. Halloween and Christmas, mostly, though I did spot a few Saint Patrick's Day items. At the north end of the attic stood one of those old circular windows with the fat wooden slats, angled slightly open to let in natural light.
I made my way over to it, and set up my equipment. I was able to use it to quickly catch sight of the battle, which appeared to be a group of Patriot Prayer members, using what I assume were stolen or repurposed Brinks Security armored trucks, as a shield wall to take cover behind. They were lined up in the middle of the street, and on the opposite side of that roadway, there was a diner and a small local credit union branch, both locations flying Red Unionist flags over their front doors.
Turf engagement. Patriot folks were at a distinct disadvantage, since the Reds had people on the rooftops. I recognized the arrangement from prior assignments, and I've got to say, it's clever. The Reds had set up makeshift gangways that connected several buildings via rooftop, allowing elevated movement to keep the advantage in a firefight with opponents on the ground. This also allowed them to keep a couple of their people in reserve, to act as cavalry if needed.
And I spotted a couple of them, about fifty yards down from the Patriots, crouched low on another building at an intersection, perfectly lined up and aimed down at the folks crouched behind those trucks. It was a prime opportunity.
I focused. Adjusted for lighting. Opened both eyes for a minute, so I could take in both the broad view, and the narrowed view. I channeled all of my will down into just one hand, one finger. And then, I got my perfect shot. All of that setup, all of that tension, released in a single squeeze of a finger. It was, marvelous. A single moment in time, the world holding perfectly still, and I, right at the pumping heart of all things.
There's nothing else quite like it, Mister Hayes.
Conclusion
And so there you have it, dear reader. Two very different men, two occupations that couldn't be more divergent. Yet, both Edgar Reyes and Timothy Starr have seen war through the same sort of lens, presenting us with two similar scenes from the same period of time, but with very different results. I'll leave it for you to determine which is the sniper and which is the photographer, and ultimately, to determine which of them has the better view of such events.
Either way, they have given us a look at the world through the eyes of war, and I'm not sure either paints a picture we want to spend too much time thinking about.
-Matthew Hayes
18th May, 2033.