Paranoia ✓

V: Joe - Check-Out

The ruckus of laughter disrupted the music that filled the atmosphere of the bar. Four men were the cause of the disruption. The biggest guy in the group, Joe, tried getting everyone back under his attention.

"Alright guys listen up," he instructed like a drill sergeant. He certainly looked like one too. He must've listened to his grandmother's nagging about always sitting up straight, because, even slightly drunk, he sat upright like a statue—a statue commanding respect. His arms were ripped and his body was fat with muscle. In fact, he was a bit too big, almost like he would need assistance for something as simple as scratching his back. Yet Joe was an intelligent man when he wanted to be. It was hidden beneath his appearance—the contacts he wore hid the need for glasses to prevent people from confusing him for a nerd. The scars on his arm looked almost like a small person tried scaling his right arm with a pickaxe. They were jagged hap-hazardously across his arm: one at the wrist, one in the forearm, one close to the elbow, and one near the shoulder blade. Yet Joe took pride in his scars. He doesn't even attempt to hide them with his tank-top shirt. His arms were exposed while the rest of his muscles suffocated against the cotton of his clothes.

Once he had gathered their attention he had but one thing to add. "You've should've seen their bodies fly."

One of his friends, Stan, after having a couple of shots of Jack Daniels was already slurring his words. "Youwww should tell us how yowww kilt dose assholes."

His friends agreed.

Joe asserted, "I already told you, I blew them up." When he finished he reached for another shot, his fourth one today.

"Come on," insisted one of his other friends named Michael. "You know what we mean. Tell us what's it like to fly those things."

"That's classified," Joe noted and reached for another drink.

"But we're your best friends," Victor pleaded. "We can keep secrets, especially for the safety of our country."

That got an obnoxious round of agreements from the four men.

Joe reached for another shot and drank. Six shots down, now he could say he was inebriated enough to spill the beans. After he put down his sixth shot he growled as the burning alcohol slowly inched its way down his throat like lava.

"Alright, alright. But you guys can't say anything, or I'll kill you before they get the chance to lock me up."

They all nodded their heads, and Stan slurred on. "Be—gun."

Joe thought for a second, then smiled. "Flying a drone is like playing a complicated video game, only when you die it takes hours and millions of dollars to respawn."

And then he went into the events leading up to the strike.

The plan was to root out the rats from their holes by creating such a distraction the rats would come out and see what was going on. That was what the jets were for. They laid to waste the areas around a small town up in the mountains of Yemen, believed to be harboring high-ranking members of the Kabish. Some innocent causalities occurred, but that was expected with an operation like this. Once the airstrikes were done, the members of the Kabish, thinking it was over, would come out to investigate the damage—or to flee. Either way they would leave their caves and get spotted by drones positioned around the mountains.

Lucky for Joe, it was his drone that spotted the radicals emerging from their caves. He began targeting their base in the mountains. His missile positioned itself for launch, relinquishing his camouflage; but then he spotted three other people, most likely civilians climbing up the mountain towards the area of attack. They would be within the blast radius and most likely killed directly by the missile attack or by an avalanche of rocks crushing them to death. This hesitation left him exposed and uncloaked.

The men in the base spotted him and started firing at the drone. The drone was not built to withstand much of an assault, even against tiny bullets. Of course most of the bullets couldn't reach him, but Joe knew that they had some weapon in their camp that could. Whether it be one of those new vehicle locking RPG3s or a sniper. One sniper bullet could seriously cripple his drone.

So he had a decision to make. Destroy the camp and risk more causalities or let the terrorist get away and risk putting his family and friends back home in more danger. Joe quickly made his decision—guilt by association. If these towns were harboring terrorists, then they were as guilty as the terrorists. They put themselves in danger by being nice to these assholes.

Then there were the three climbing up the mountain, a mother and two children. Most likely she was fleeing to the safety of her terrorist lover. Those kids would be bred to become terrorists as well. But one missile can end all of that. One missile could protect his country today and lessen the enemy's numbers for tomorrow.

Once Joe realized that the civilians were just as guilty, and most likely associated with the terrorists, he fired. The base ruptured like an artery spewing terrorists left and right. Bodies and pieces of food mixed with wood and cloth from tents, and metal and powder from ammunition, into one huge stew of destruction. Rocks added a natural flavor to the stew as the mountain shook loose hundreds of large rocks and boulders.

Joe relished the sight of the terrorists being blown to pieces. Yet he did notice that the Earth piled on top of the mother, who was holding onto her daughter in their final pose. But Joe was a soldier; he couldn't let things like that get to him. They were just additional innocent civilian casualties. He remembers one man who said 'the death of a million people is a statistic, the death of one man is a tragedy.' Whoever that man was, he must've be a steel case warrior—someone Joe would highly respect. [3]

He realized that the boy was nowhere to be found. Eventually, after a couple of minutes, he found the boy lying dead at the edge of the cliff.

That's when Joe turned his attention to another Kabish outpost stationed in another mountain across the valley. This time, there were no civilians climbing up the mountain, so he let loose with all his might, bringing the mountain down with ease.

"Successful strikes," he heard over his headpiece. "Bring her on home."

As he turned the drone around, he couldn't help but stare at the mountain through an attached rear-view camera. He gazed intently at the place where the dead boy hung over the edge. As the mountain fell out of reach from the mirror, he could've sworn he saw the small dot that was now the young boy flinch and move around.

Of course Joe left out the part about the family in the mountainside. He had a reputation to keep—a reputation of making tough decisions with no remorse.

Victor clarified. "So let me get this straight, you blew up nearly an entire village of terrorists from the comfort of your own chair here in Arizona?"

Joe nodded. "Just sending a parting gift—from one desert to another."

Michael laughed. "More like from one desert to a newly deserted place—thanks to yours truly."

"All in a day's work," Joe concluded. "Now who's gonna pick up the tab?"

Footnote

[3] The man Joe was referring to was a former leader of the Soviet Union named Joseph Stalin.