IWW2 Dispatches

You might be wondering how we knew to dig in where we did. After all, no one had ever sussed a pattern in the way the walkers dispersed from a cylinder. I don’t know the answer, but I’ve seen enough of the Army to puzzle out a theory. One, the cylinder that fell came down somewhere to the southwest of Atlanta proper. Two, walkers usually moved toward higher population density once they reconned the area. Three, walkers didn’t tend to stop or change direction once they’d gotten started, and Lord knows, nothing we could throw at them could dictate otherwise. So the smart money would bet that the walkers would get out of their cylinders – really, would have done it before we even reached Norcross – and then drift in the direction of Atlanta and keep moving through until they reached us.

But actually, I don’t think that was it. What I know of the service and of the politicos who control it, makes me think about point 4. Four, Pike Hill and environs were direct on the line linking Atlanta to Washington, and the very brass wanted to slow down anything headed toward the capital. If the walkers drifted the other way, well, that would be some ordinance Uncle Sam would save. Who the hell cares what happens to some farmer’s field in southwest Georgia? Officially, they couldn’t say that of course, but it isn’t too hard to read between the lines.

Over everything else, of course, you have to remember: As far as we knew at the time, the walkers had a week, maybe eight days before Grace would get ‘em. It wasn’t going to be no turkey shoot – if those walkers came across us, we were going to give them hell and probably still lose – but long term, the problem would solve itself.

Norcross was crowded with refugees when we arrived, but they’d already reached high tide. Anyone who could flee the city had done so; the stream of wretched people dwindled to a trickle even before we had unloaded the train. By the time we’d set up our defensive line on Pike Hill, there wasn’t anyone left to come. No refugees crossed that line. It was eerie, waiting inside our spiderholes, peering out in the direction of Atlanta. Nothing still – not people, not even wildlife. We could see the city burning. You couldn’t tell at this distance: Had someone just been careless in their evacuation? Or had Marty let fly with his heat ray and finished the job Sherman started? A pall of acrid smoke hung over the city and drifted over our line.

“Black Smoke!” someone cried and soon the dreaded words were flashing up and down the line, hopping about like the embers we could see through the binoculars.

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“Black Smoke!” I don’t care how hot the Georgia sunshine was supposed to be. At those two words my blood ran cold. We’d heard all about Black Smoke, both in the official briefings and in the horror stories that filtered out of the first war and the CPs. Dime store novels liked to lay out in lurid detail the gruesome effects observed in anyone exposed to Black Smoke. There were a thousand ways it could get you: Your skin might bubble and boil and slough off, or your lungs fill with an ill black goop that crushed the life from you from the inside. Some people had their hearts burst in their chests, or the blood vessels burst in their brains. Some people just… expired, no visible trauma on them. It seemed that the Black Smoke had as many different effects as there were people to suffer them. But they all had one thing in common.

They were all uniformly fatal.

According to our briefings, the professors were still arguing over whether the Black Smoke was a chemical agent or a germ action. Hell, it was an open question whether there was just one Black Smoke. or whether Marty had many different weapons whose deployment he covered in the Smoke. The brain trust did assure us that the new anti-gas gear and procedures would protect us completely. I thought it funny that the brass never saw the intellectual whiplash caused by having the scientists admit they didn’t know anything and then having those same scientists swear by the new gear.

Add in the fact that any anti-gas equipment would have been bought by Uncle Sam from the lowest bidder, and you could see why the words “Black Smoke” could inspire such panicked frenzy. Someone would profit from the professors’ work, but it wasn’t likely to be us grunts.

On the other hand, any port in a storm, right? And low-bid equipment or not, I wasn’t going to face the Black Smoke without at least trying to save my life. So when that call went up, I scrambled into my gear as fast as anyone. From behind the close-set glass lenses, I watched the evil smoke drift toward our line, sidling up to us as if aware, looking for our weak spots. The silence was unnerving – in addition to the unnatural quiet of the morning, the gas mask itself muffled most sound. Eventually the cry of alarm had traveled all the way to the rear. Those of us in the front line just watched in silent anticipation as tendrils of that vile fog crawled toward our positions.

I could hear my own labored breaths as I struggled to inhale through the activated carbon filter – that is, when I remembered to breathe at all. The wisps of smoke mesmerized me the way a snake paralyzes its prey. I watched it inch closer to men I knew, men I’d trained with and played cards with and swore with. I could only watch in fascinated horror and wonder what their screams would sound like, and whether my own would sound braver or more cowardly when my own turn came a few minutes later. I almost longed for their screams; the slowly building silent anticipation was on the brink of driving me mad.

And then suddenly a noise – a shout, a cry! But not in pain or death. “The canaries!” bellowed someone from the frontmost spiderhole. “The canaries, they live!” This news flashed through the lines in exact emulation of the first panic. “It’s not Black Smoke – it’s just smoke. The canaries are alive!” With exultation, I tore off my mask and drank the hot Georgia air like it was the coolest spring water.

“Y’know,” drawled Deek Mumford, the grunt in the spiderhole next to mine. Deek acted the unsophisticated bumpkin but he had a mind like a steam machine – always wheels within wheels with Deek; always playing at a higher level. I guess that’s why he eventually got breveted to the officer corps. “Y’know, if I was Marty, what I’d do is this. I’d wait till the wind was from the southwest, then I’d fry some buildings and waft the harmless smoke towards us. And then, just as everyone saw the canaries still alive and began to relax, I’d follow it with a burst of real Black Smoke and catch everyone with their masks off.”

I’d disliked a lot of people in my life till then, some for reasons and others for none. I’ve beat up men for business. I’ve felt the scorn of a unreturned love and I’ve seen my fiercest foes succeed on my effort. But I had never hated anyone until that moment. I hated Deek as if he was the cause, as if it was his fault I couldn’t relax at the All Clear. I hated Deek for being right.

I hated him, but I got the d*mn mask back in place.

Tags: Black Smoke, Gwinnett, campaigns, weapons //