Acceptable Casualties

At the first siren wails, Rose thought that someone had taken an unchecked book through the university library security gates behind her. Then an ascending klaxon echoed throughout the skybridge speaker system. Deep droning, like enormous egg-filled flies, joined in.
        “No! No! No! No! No!” a man screamed, shoving Rose against the glass wall in his panicked sprint towards the student centre. He was thin and bald and fast, but not fast enough. The partition shields were already descending.
        Rose ran after him, not liking her chances under glass either. She ducked one partition, hunched under a second and scraped under a third. The lithe bald man slid feet-first for the closing blast door to the student centre. Rose, stopped by plastic-lined flexiglass, saw he wasn’t going to make it. The carpet’s friction was slowing his final slide. A tile or vinyl floor might’ve glided him through by the width of a non-existent hair. 
        He screamed as the blast door came down on his throat. His head popped off in a champagne-bottle bloodspurt and rolled into the flexiglass partition two away from Rose. She clamped her hand over her mouth and turned away from his forever-horrified face.
        A puffing young woman in the next partition clasped her baby bump. “Will this take long?” she wondered aloud, pushing back her dark hair. “I’ll need the restroom soon.”
        A military cadet one partition over sighed, “War doesn’t wait on any schedule.”
        Someone called to him, “Where are you stationed?”
        “Outside Sydney,” he replied, paling. “Fighting broke out there this morning. I’m due to report to the Med Centre. If I’m judged AWOL...”
        Rose winced. “I’m so sorry.”
        The soldier smiled bravely. The expectant mother looked chastened.
        A windshield glint from a car speeding north on State Highway One caught Rose’s eye. She wondered what it’d feel like to be forever moving in a gypsy pod. Some people did that to beat the odds of being caught in a virtual battlefield.
        Cities had depopulated rapidly when battlefield selection was skewed towards more crowded areas. Buildings had been disassembled, their materials taken to small towns to recombine into dwellings for dispersing urbanites. Urban monuments stayed and were maintained by those who still lived there.
        Rose wondered whether the pod folk travelled to see such monuments and were off to visit the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
        An electronic voice boomed through the speakers. “In accordance with the Global Population Control Constitution of 2072 and the Virtual War Protocols of 2075, offensive action has taken place at the University of Ohau. All persons have been confined.”
        A tall strip on the wall opposite Rose began glowing yellow. A row of diodes at eye level twinkled across the strip, reminding her of a cross. Or a sword.
        “Please stand and await assessment of drone strike casualties.”
        Rose could almost feel the invisible scans over her body, transmitting her personal data to a war machine in an underground complex a continent away. It’d reveal her lies to her own government’s AI, which would deem her a parasite and place her at the top of the casualty list.
        And, yet, facing the worst, Rose found that she wasn’t afraid.
        “I’m not a student,” she said clearly, for her personal recording. “I’m not even an auditor in my classes. University admin didn’t send my record to the unemployment office after I failed too many exams. I’ve been pretending I passed to my family and friends for months.”
        The brunette gasped and turned away. The soldier looked at Rose with pity.
        “I made so many mistakes,” Rose confessed. “I should’ve taken the state-sanctioned gap year after high school, or audited a range of classes to see which I was best in. I should’ve consulted a careers advisor. I never even took an aptitude test.”
        Along the skybridge, others were recording their possibly-final messages to loved ones. Head hanging, Rose noticed blood spatters on her sneakers. Her gaze skidded along the thickening blood trails to the bald man’s horrified gaze.
        Rose dragged her attention away from the dead man’s accusing eyes. “My high-school boyfriend and I broke up before I left for first year. We should’ve stayed together. Keeping faithful to him would’ve prevented me from a messy distracting relationship.”
        The soldier faced her. “A long distance relationship could’ve become messy too.”
        Inhaling unsteadily, Rose wiped away tears. “We would’ve planned it. We could’ve met each other’s emotional needs while apart. Instead I dated a party boy and ruined my grades. Ever since, I’ve been sneaking to classes, to prove to myself that I can succeed academically.”
        The pregnant woman twirled a diamond ring on her left hand. “How’d you keep your status secret?”
        “I keep electronically quiet,” Rose replied. “I enter the lecture halls through the auditors’ entrance so my presence isn’t logged. I read in the library and never check out books. I bought paper meal tickets in cash and always choose the least popular meal options so the catering staff are too grateful to object to my old-fashioned card.”
        “Bravo!” The soldier applauded.
        Others joined in. Through the sharp clapping, Rose felt a surge of solidarity from people she’d always been careful to hide from.
        An electronic voice cut through the cheers. “People of Australasia, your government has changed. The People’s Morality Party are now in charge. Current war assessments will now reflect their values.”
        “A random coup,” the soldier groaned.
        “Well, one of the major parties will seize back power soon, right?” a woman asked from the middle of the skybridge. “Right?”
        “It won’t make a difference to us,” someone else pointed out. “We’ll be assessed before then.”
        “What are the PMP’s core values then?”
        “Every liberal movement’s worst nightmare,” came a whisper. “A fully stratified homogenous dystopia that suppresses diversity and forces people into traditional roles.”
        Someone whimpered. “So educated, unmarried women would top their casualty criteria?”
        No one answered. Rose looked outside at the blue sky. She wished she hadn’t run into the student centre’s shadow. She wanted to feel the sun on her back one last time. She envied the people in the outdoor capsules on the Concourse below.
        The diodes and assessment strip on the opposite wall glowed accusatory red. An electronic voice stated, “This is not a state-sanctioned pregnancy.”
        Rose belatedly realized the computer wasn’t addressing her, but the woman beside her.
        The brunette defiantly raised her engagement ring. “I’m getting married in a month, after finals.”
        “Name the father,” the war machine demanded.
        “Professor Michael Joel Collins.”
        Someone groaned.
        “Come here, baby,” a woman crooned near the library entrance. “Hold tight and look away.”
        “What?” the brunette asked, glaring down the skybridge.
        The war machine answered. “Michael Joel Collins is married.”
        “What?!” the brunette shrieked. “No! He’s divorced! We’re engaged!”
        “No such engagement has been registered.”
        “That lying bast-”
        “Constance Rhodina Baines, you’ve been designated a casualty-”
        “No! There’s been a mistake!” the brunette screamed.
        “You have five seconds to record your final statement.”
        “We’re having a son!” she shrieked and looked up fearfully at a nozzle descending into her flexiglass cubicle.
        With a sharp hiss, gray-white vapor shot throughout the brunette’s partition, hiding her instantly.
        “Rose Maude Pepperell,” came the electronic voice. Rose tensed and held her breath. “Your presence has been designated an anomaly. Your assessment, therefore, will be determined randomly after non-random assessments have been completed.”
        A vacuum engine hummed within the brunette’s partition. Gray plastic crackled heavily into a humanoid shape. With a final click, the gray cocoon separated from the ceiling and fell with a muffled thump! to the carpet.
        Rose and the soldier met gazes. Twelve more thumps resounded within the skybridge.
        The soldier, leaning back against the wall, smiled grimly. “Welcome to the second wave,” he whispered. “We’re more likely to be injured than killed now.”
        “Officer Cadet David Arnold Phipps,” came the electronic voice. The soldier leaped to attention. “You’ve been injured in the Battle of Bilgora and are currently being treated in a front line aid station.”
         Officer Cadet Phipps exhaled explosively.
        “Your right tibia has been irreparably shattered. With limited resources, a medic has made the decision to amputate.”
        Nozzles descended into his cubicle. He swallowed heavily, then sat on the floor, leg outstretched. Scissors sliced up the outer leg seam of his uniform trousers. A tourniquet strapped itself above his knee. He winced when a thick needle stabbed into his thigh. Other implements descended. Needles clicked and a saw buzzed in a glittering surgical frenzy. When they finally retreated, the soldier, ashen-faced and breathing shallowly, sat on the carpet with a gray plastic package at his side.
        “Leonard David Marks,” the war machine intoned behind Rose.
        She turned, horrified, and saw the nozzle two cubicles away had turned the disembodied head to face the glowing red strip in the opposite wall.
        “You’ve suffered a misadventure,” the electronic voice said, as plastic shrank from the flexiglass walls and encased the bald head. “Your name has been added to the casualty list. The People’s Morality Party thanks you for your sacrifice.”
        The soldier chuckled darkly.
        “Rose Maude Pepperell.”
        Rose turned to the glowing strip, closing her eyes.
        “You’ve been injured by falling masonry. You’ve been assigned one week in intensive care, two weeks in a general ward, six months’ home confinement and twelve months of physical therapy. You’re expected to make a full recovery. The People’s Morality Party thanks you for your sacrifice.” A slip of paper buzzed from a slot above her.
        “Please present your physical appraisal to emergency services,” said a much more friendly electronic voice.
        The public address system began sounding the all-clear. “The drone strike on the University of Ohau has concluded. All casualties have been fulfilled.”
        The partitions were rising. The survivors began shuffling towards the student centre stairs.
As Rose helped the soldier up, someone shoved her other shoulder hard. A red-faced blond glared at her. “You should’ve been the one to die!” he shouted. “Parasite!” He spat at Phipps. “You too, Warmonger!” He strode off before either could say anything. A PMP badge bounced on his backpack.
        After a hard descent on the stairs, the elevators being unavailable, they emerged onto the Concourse. Rose inhaled the air deeply and felt the sun on her face.
        Homeguard militia were cordoning off the skybridge, student centre and library. Emergency services were stacking plastic-wrapped packages into white vans. UN casualty inspectors scanned the tagged packages and checked lists on their handheld notepads.
        “One’s been counted twice,” a bland-faced inspector called. “Head and body.”
        “Count a pregnancy as two,” replied a sharp-faced woman. “Eurasia allows that, and it’s easier than assigning an unharmed survivor.”
        Officer Cadet Phipps, keeping as little weight on Rose’s shoulders as he could, exchanged a glance with her. They hobbled on, towards the ambulance buses. A bored-looking medic beside one didn’t look at Rose’s physical appraisal printout. “Your buddy needs a proper ambulance,” he said, waving her towards the descending steps beyond the admin block.
        Phipps inhaled wearily and, with Rose’s help, continued stoically.
        Waiting ambulances drew a line between the admin block stairs and a cacophony of press vans. One major media reporter’s voice overrode the crowd: “A drone strike at the University of Ohau has left over three hundred dead and fifteen hundred injured in the latest series of attacks in the Eurasia/Australasia War. This is in direct contrast to the UN’s proposed ceasefire and peace talks scheduled for next week. Experts say that this does not necessarily mean a renewal of hostilities.”
        Phipps glowered at the ground as they hobbled past brightly-coloured tailored jackets into more sound bytes.
        “The Ministry for War has just declared our strong economy and nearly universal employment rate as true measures of the success of the Virtual War Protocols. They’ve called them a successful avoidance of the horrors of war and an effective, humane means to control global population.”
        “It’s estimated that sections of the university will take several months to repair. Most students will be permitted to shift to online learning.”
        Rose helped Phipps to the first ambulance, only for the driver to snap, “University casualties only!”
        Sweating, Rose gripped Phipps more tightly and walked on, past a well-groomed journalist in sunny yellow.
        “In other news, the People’s Morality Party have been overthrown after their coup put them in power for thirty-seven minutes. Party leaders are now facing charges after their uploaded manifesto dramatically altered casualty selection criteria in seventeen conflict situations. If convicted, they could face life imprisonment.”
        Rose scoffed but it came out as a sob.
        The reporter turned. Her annoyance cleared when she saw Rose and Phipps. She scurried towards them, her camera drone closely following.
        “Here we have two airstrike survivors!” she beamed. “The Prime Minister’s recent speech at the Unified Nations’ War Summit has praised virtual war, with its lack of blood, rubble and innocent casualties, as a civilised and less traumatising experience for law-abiding citizens. What do you say to that? Would you agree that it’s a humane way of removing the undeserving from our society?”
        Her smile faltered at Rose’s appalled blink and Cadet Phipps’ growled, “No comment.”
        With a huff, she shut off her drone camera. “Honestly!” she griped, striding away. “You’d think they’d been in a real war!”

.

Carol Dixon cherry-picked courses at Massey University and emerged with a BA in History and English, a Bachelor of Defence Studies and a Masters in Defence and Strategic Studies: all so she could create lush settings and original fantasy wars. She runs Pen Haven Writers’ Group, where she shares with other writers information she wishes she’d known when she began writing. Her short story, ‘Wedding Day’ was published by Regulus Press in ‘The Art of Death: Winners of the 2021 Literary Taxidermy Writing Competition’, edited by Mark Malamud.