WELCOME TO CHATTERBURG, the wooden sign said. It was supposed to be a town, but it looked more like piles of rubble and half-finished buildings placed at random. Did the Scarvino army bomb this place already? There was no sign of people or even animals.

I noticed there were tricycles everywhere, and they were adult-size. Puffy explained to me that after sanctions were placed on the Zymogi economy, the Zymos Purity Party decided to replace all cars and motorcycles with big tricycles so they wouldn't have to depend on oil imports. Of course, that meant a lot of people would have to wake up much earlier to get to work on time, since tricylces were slower than scooters and cars, but the people got used to it.

I overheard some of the women call the enemy soldiers 'Zippers', after the ZPP, and I began to use that word as well. Giving the enemy a nickname made them seem less threatening, and I preferred to say 'Zipper' than 'Zee Pee Pee'. Shooting at zippers sounded a tad less gross than Zee Pee Pees.

We sent out scouts. None of us had ever been in a Zymogi city before, and we needed to make sure we weren't walking into city full of booby traps. I chose Lifta and a distressingly-thin cat-lady named Wren, as they were the best runners in our group. I gave them one hour to explore before reporting back. They were to let us know if they found anything important in the town, or at least in the first few streets ahead of us. The pair saluted despite the fact we were all the same rank (a rank lower than dirt) and sped off towards the north.

After about ten minutes, Wren returned alone. “Where's Lifta?” I asked.

Wren was trying to catch her breath while trying to give me a coherent answer. “Sni... Sniper... (pant pant)... up in a hotel at the end of the street... Er, Tallwind Street. Follow me.” She almost stumbled as she showed us the way.

When we arrived, we saw a street littered with dead bodies. A few of them were children, who couldn't possibly be older than ten. They all had holes the size of grapefruits. Whoever the sniper was, they were lacking in empathy and were over-supplied with bullets.

I scanned the street and saw Lifta lying in a pool of her own blood. Without exchanging a single word we all agreed we should go and save Lifta.

I shouted “LIFTA! IT'S US! WE'RE GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF THERE!”

Lifta was unable to shout, but she managed to reply with a strained voice. “Sam. The sniper's in the hotel, fifth floor...”

Just before I could get a good look at the hotel, a bullet was fired and it went past my cheek. I reflexively pulled my head back and quickly asked if anyone had a mirror. Puffy checked her pockets and found her little box full of cotton balls, which also happened to be made of really well-polished metal. It was good enough.

I held out the box past our piece of cover, and tried to find the sniper in the windows. I saw a glimpse of light being reflected off of a scope in the third window from the left on the fifth floor. Found her.

“Any ideas?” I asked the other ladies. The street was covered in bodies and a few broken tricycles, but there were huge gaps between pieces of cover. Trying to get close to that sniper would require some really fast running, or a smoke grenade, which we lacked. We were thirty women, minus Lifta, but having all of us charge into the hotel would undoubtedly result in at least a dozen of us getting killed, and I decided that would have to be the absolute last resort.

Hilda quickly gave an answer “Why don't we use the goat?”

“What?” I asked.

“The goat that's following us. Burger. We could use it as a distraction!” said Hilda.

“That's a stupid idea,” Drew said in response. “There is no way Burger would provide enough distraction for us to get to the end of the street!”

“We should try it, at least!” Hilda shouted.

Hilda's idea was so crazy, it just might get us all killed. I looked around for another way. Maybe a ladder or a window, something could let us move through the buildings without exposing ourselves.

I noticed a window,six feet up. I told Hilda to boost me up and she did so with a few grunts and some minor whining about using Burger the goat. I climbed in, and saw what remained of a butcher's shop. Rotten meat hung from the hooks (from what animal, I couldn't tell) and some rusty blades lay all over the floor. Whoever the owner was, they left in a hurry.

“Is it safe?” asked Drew from the other side of the wall.

I spent a few seconds looking in every direction I could, and gave a shout “Yeah, it's safe. It's clear. I need at least three more soldiers to come with me; I want people to watch my back, in case that sniper's not alone.”

An unfamiliar voice said “I'll go,” and a slightly overweight woman with a ponytail squeezed in through the window. Her name was Greta, from the capital. We shook hands, and I could feel her awesome grip.

A pair of cousins then emerged from the window, Anna and Claire. They were both covered in purple scales and had small wisps of flame coming out from their nostrils. Dragon-kin, I figured. Tough scales and sharp nails. We shook hands as well, and we worked our way through the damaged building towards the sniper's nest.

Slowly, carefully, we crept towards the hotel. We feared the worst; booby traps, an ambush, something unpleasant that might be waiting for a group of conscripts like us.

The whole row of buildings was some sort of shopping complex. The butcher's was connected to a bakery, and that was connected to a home appliance store. There were no escalators or elevators, just stairs, and there were no light fixtures either. Lots of litter too.

“Look at that bakery," Greta noted. "That oven there, it's really old and has lots of patched-up parts. I used to run a bakery m'self, and I'd have thrown out that thing ages ago.”

Anna spoke as well: “This place hasn't been properly maintained. The overfilled dustbins, the rusty heating pipes, the rotten paint. This place may have been bombed, but it looks like it was a ruin before that happened.”

I had a look at the merchandise they were selling in the appliance store, named 'The Butler Shoppe'. The rice cookers were knockoffs of decades-old models. Same thing for the toasters, the microwave ovens, the electric grills; most of it was stuff that could burn your house down due to faulty wiring or improperly-manufactured electronics.

I remembered that the rest of the city was like this place, too. I was just so focused on rescuing Lifta that I didn't think about the state of the infrastructure. Potholes, blocked drains, bent road signs... The Zipper government was said to have a lot of wealth at its disposal, but it seemed little of it was used for anything not directly related to the military.

There's something wrong with your country when your soldiers get to ride state-of-the-art tanks but the average citizen can't even buy a decent toaster.

We reached the hotel's lobby, half-surprised that we didn't step on any booby traps. The sniper must have not expected anybody to be able to get past their kill-zone. I looked out the glass doors, and looked again at the dead people on the cracked, pothole-ridden street.

One of them was a little rat-girl holding an improvised white flag made out of handkerchief and a metal rod. Her face was split in two by the bullet's impact. Her tiny purple purse was open and its contents were scattered all over the street. A tiny prayer charm. A few coins.

Whoever the sniper was, I hoped they had a neck small enough for my hands to crush.

Just like the shopping complex, the hotel had no elevators either. We had to climb up the stairs, as quietly as we possibly could. Still no booby traps. Either this sniper was a rookie or was simply not equipped with anything to serve as defensive measures. Good for us, either way.

Sneaking around reminded me of the bad old days. I used to be a thief, and there were times when I snuck into people's houses to steal. A few times I got into a hotel and took a piece of luggage small enough to hide under a coat but looking nice enough to be worth something. Most of what I stole was clothing, but sometimes I'd find a passport I could sell off to a forgery workshop. I think about eight immigrants had me to thank for getting into my country.

I didn't care much for the rich, not before I met Farrah von Haus. I couldn't care less how many meetings or trade deals or lavish parties they missed because of their missing passports.

Suddenly, we heard machine guns firing outside. I returned to the present. Hilda and the others might have lost patience and started opening fire. A single, loud 'bang' followed, and the tell-tale sound of a rifle being reloaded.

You scum, you better not have actually hit anyone.

We were closing in on the sniper, who was somewhere inside hotel room 512. Anna and Claire stood next to the door, and I pointed my rifle at the door while Greta watched our backs.

I wasn't sure what exactly the 'right' way to open a door in this situation was, but I was pretty certain that knocking on the door would be a bad idea. I signaled to Claire, and she slowly twisted the (mercifully unlocked) door knob. No creaking. This hotel was well-kept before things turned topsy-turvy.

I peeked in through the crack, and I saw something vaguely person-shaped wearing a big grey cloak lying in front of a window. I could see the long rifle protruding out of the cloak, and the boxes of ammunition right next to the sniper.

I did not hesitate to pull the trigger. A bullet flew out and slammed into the cloak. Whoever was under it did not scream. A dark red circle started to appear on the fabric. I walked into the room, with eyes darting into every nook and cranny. Anna and Claire were right next to me, and I could see their hands trembling as they aimed their Fangbolt rifles at our enemy. I grabbed the grey cloak and pulled it off.

It was a girl.

A cat-person. The hole I made was in her spine, between her head and waist. Dressed in soiled blue clothes, she wasn't wearing a uniform at all.

What the hell?

She couldn't have been older than fifteen. Her pale yellow fur was flea-ridden, with patches of hair missing. She clearly hadn't bathed in weeks. I didn't notice it before, but the room reeked. I looked around and realized that this tiny killer had been sharing her room with a dead man, also a cat-person with similarly-colored fur.

The corpse had a ruined leg, infected by purple fungi. Was this man her father? Her brother? Cousin? Uncle? There was no way to be sure. The clothes were definitely not military; what kind of soldier would wear an apron into battle?

Inside the hotel room's bathroom there was a pair of dead Zippers, clad in bloodstained uniforms. One had multiple stab wounds, another one had a single, large scratch on his neck. We searched them and found a note detailing their mission:

BY ORDER OF THE ZYMOS PURITY PARTY

TO SNIPER SECTION 7-993

CHATTERBURG INFESTED WITH REBELS, KILL ALL WHO DEFY NIGHTLY CURFEW.

IF ENGAGING INVADER UNITS, RESIST FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN.

CANNOT SPARE ANY MORE REGULAR ARMY TROOPS TO DEFEND THIS REBELLIOUS CITY

MUST RELY ON POLICE SUPPORT

PROTECT YOUR RADIO AT ALL COSTS

DESTROY RADIO IF DEFENSES FALL

Rebels? We had no idea this city had people fighting the Zippers. Wait, but does that mean... we killed one of them? Was this girl and her companion a pair of rebels who were able to take over a sniper nest? But if that's the case, why would she open fire on us? Weren't we both fighting a common foe? Why would she shoot a little girl holding a white flag?

Maybe she had been alone for so long she had lost her mind and just started killing anyone coming down the street. If this was a movie there'd be a note or a diary that would shed some light on how this girl became a murderer, but there was no such thing. A total stranger who shot at us for reasons we'll never know.

Greta was the last to enter the room. She threw up immediately upon seeing the dead little girl, her vomit adding to the stench. Anna gave the heaving woman a pill she managed to hide in her helmet; some kind of medicine for calming nerves. My street-smarts told me it was an illegal drug, but I couldn't care less about that.

I got up to the window and waved. The others saw me and got to work getting Lifta's wound patched up. We didn't have another wheelbarrow, but Lifta was able to convince our tag-along goat to let her ride it. Lifta felt a bit guilty making Burger carry her, but Burger didn't seem to mind all that much.

Doing our best to ignore the smell, we took the sniper rifle away from the dead girl's hands along with the boxes of ammo. Hilda and Drew said that the rifle was a Stan Gear-52, an old but reliable relic of the last war the Zymogi fought. It was surprisingly clean and well-maintained, in a totally opposite state from its former owner.

Puffy wanted it, so I gave it to her. Her original rifle was actually broken since yesterday; she just carried it around hoping we could find something to fix the firing mechanism.

Puffy looked through the scope, and then checked the weapon's buttstock. The cleaning kit was still in there, as well as a tiny manual that detailed how to do a field strip. This rifle was clearly something built in a good factory and wasn't something you'd give to any rookie.

We looked for the radio the note mentioned, but we couldn't find one. Maybe another rebel took it. Shame, we could have used that radio to call for help or something. The hotel did have some regular, working radios though. One of them was portable and solar-powered, something left behind by a hotel guest who was some kind of journalist. Ours now.