Ranger and the Red Stripes

Over the ashen fields, underneath an eternal gray sky, and through the rubble of the past, two young travelers trek in silence. The older keeps their head on a swivel, scanning through a complex helmet and gas mask. The mask collects airborne chemo-prints through a filtered cartridge when inhaling. When exhaling, a valve diverts the captured air through a lattice of tubes connecting to nerve-pins around the body. They carry a dilapidated pack with a recycled-carbon staff attached at its handle. 

The younger, half as tall, swings his arms while running around the bricks of a collapsed wall. He picks up a brick and holds it to his face as if speaking through a phone. When the older traveler walks past, the boy drops the brick and runs to catch up. He keeps running until he reaches the top of a hill, where he stops and waves at the older traveler.

“Ranger! Over here!” he yells. When Ranger reaches the top of the hill as well, the two gaze at a desolate square surrounded by ruins no taller than a couple feet. 

 “Is this the place?” the boy asks.

Ranger steps ahead, scanning the square. They turn to the boy and, through a series of hand gestures, tell him, “Yes. Here is my old living area.”

“Huh?”

After a long exhale, Ranger signs, “My home.” Calling it that much still feels weird, even though it’s technically true. They turn back to the square, attempting to conjure a memory of when it was full. 

The boy runs ahead, turning his head before his body in random directions. “What happened to it?” he asks. 

Though more attentive to their thoughts than the gestures that depict them, Ranger describes their life from long ago. “Lots of bad things. The chemical levels are lower than before, but it’s still dangerous to be here.” Ranger slows down their breathing, hearing only the hiss of air through their mask. Their nerve-pins pop, jolting their arm into spasm. There are chemo-prints present, consumable only through faulty nerve-pins. As painful as they are to wear, the alternative would be eating chemo-printed food and breathing chemo-printed air. 

Ranger gets the boy's attention and crouches near them to be eye level. They sign, “LD, are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

LD nods excitedly, “Yeah! I’m gonna climb that pile.” He points to a heap of dirt, ash, and scattered bricks, then tries to run for it. Ranger blocks his path with an arm and moves him back into their sight.

“Not yet. Answer me, first. Do you feel a burn anywhere?”

“No.”

“An itch? A sting? Does anything hurt at all? Do you feel sick?”

“I said I’m fine!” LD yells loud enough that an echo returns. Ranger reacts by covering the boy’s mouth. They wait for a moment, checking their surroundings, until they release LD.

“Don’t shout,” Ranger warns. “They’ll hear you.”

“Who? The space robots? I can just hide. I do it all the time.”

Ranger shakes their head. “There’s more of them now. They don’t care about me but they absolutely cannot find you. So please, stay quiet and follow me.” 

LD nods. The two walk away from the square into the narrow paths of what may have been side streets. Ranger stops walking when they reach the faint outline and remaining scrap wood of a destroyed shack. 

“What’s wrong?” LD asks. 

Ranger kicks a board aside, shuffling through the remains. They crouch near the center of the shack’s outline. LD walks around the outline, slowly approaching to face Ranger. He settles into a crouch as well, waiting for what to do next.

“It was here,” Ranger signs. “My house used to be right here.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

After a sigh, Ranger responds, “It’s okay. I don’t remember what it looked like. I don’t remember who else lived there. It was a long time ago.”

LD nods while poking at the dirt. “How do you know it was in this spot?”

Ranger stands and paces away from the lot with LD following. They stop and point at the jagged terrain composing the horizon with a mound set alone against the ashen sky. “That hill blocked the sunrise every morning.” They walk across the lot in the other direction. They reach a pile of litter across the path. “That broken metal mesh used to be a chicken coop.” They watch as LD follows with intent ears ready to hear a history never spoken in a place long lost. “That wooden beam used to be a water shop.” Even Ranger feels a smile forming underneath their mask.

“Do you miss living here?”

LD waits for an answer while Ranger searches for one. Missing the place requires liking it in the first place, and there wasn’t much to like. Maybe the company was nice. While this memory stirs in hopes of a silver glint, a brick slides down the pile that LD was pointing to earlier. Ranger abandons searching for the memory and tunes into their surroundings. 

A mechanized voice chimes in over a small radio. Ranger drops their pack, fetching the carbon staff. LD reaches to grab their arm, but a white gauntlet grabs him first. He yells as an armored individual shoves the boy into the dirt with his arm folded behind his back. Ranger rushes forward swinging the staff, but another armored unit grabs it out of their hands on the backswing. A heavy hand impacts Ranger’s gut, then shoves their head against the ground. 

The attackers are blurred and spinning in Ranger’s vision. They still know exactly who these attackers are due to the shape of their helmets and the red stripe over white armor that breaks into text that says “Mar. Re-Co,” short for Martian Re-Colonizer. Ranger tries to sit up and fight back, but the Re-Co shoves a pistol to their face and presses them against the ground. Out of their periphery, Ranger can see a third Re-Co examining the carbon staff through a gold-plated visor.

The third one says in a static voice layered with an intimidating robotic modulator, “You two are in violation of Terra Boundary Law 37.b6. Do not resist and answer all questions with absolute honesty.” They crouch over Ranger, waving the staff as a taunt. “Do you understand?”

“They can’t talk!” LD shouts, “Leave us alone!”

 The Re-Co holding him down presses his arm near its breaking point. The free Re-Co steps over and kicks the boy’s ribs. LD’s scream boils Ranger’s blood until all they feel is a burning hatred for these red-striped maniacs.

Referring to LD, the Re-Co says, “Sergeant, this one has no protective layering. No mask, no suit, no nerve-pins. Please advise.”

“If he doesn’t have a mask, he’ll die within minutes. Keep him secure until that happens or shoot him. Your discretion.” 

“Yes, sir.”

Ranger bursts with rage and slips out of the Re-Co’s grip. They knock the gun aside and reach for a latch underneath the Re-Co’s helmet. The latch pops open the helmet’s visor, exposing cybernetic eyes flickering into a wide panic as they gasp through chem-printed air. Ranger pulls out a hidden knife attached to their hip and runs to the Re-Co holding LD. Ranger grasps a bundle of tubing connecting the Re-Co’s helmet to their respirator and severs the connection with a single swipe. While the Re-Co flails for their severed tubes, LD crawls away into the debris.

Ranger turns to the Sergeant but ducks away when he pulls out an automatic weapon. They hide behind a broken stone structure under the gunfire. Between bursts, they check the surrounding debris for LD.

“Terra scum! Mutants! Show your freakish faces before I return this place to dust!” 

Ranger tries to peek around the structure, to which the Sergeant fires a wild burst again. “Surrender now or we will flay and dissect you. You and that mutant freak child of yours!”

LD climbs the brick pile behind the Sergeant, holding one over his head. The Sergeant turns to face the screaming child, but the brick comes down to crack his golden visor. Behind him, Ranger picks up their carbon staff and swings it wide for a final strike to shatter the visor. The Sergeant falls, grasping at their exposed helmet. 

Ranger steps over him, pulls his head close to theirs, and stares directly into the wide cybernetic eyes. In a strained and raspy voice, Ranger says, “You…are freaks…here.” 

The Sergeant falls limp as the light in his eyes flickers out. Ranger drops him and falls into a coughing fit while LD helps them to their feet.

Before they leave, Ranger stops LD and signs, “Those are the people that destroyed everything here. After what I’ve seen them do, I never wanted to come back. They will keep falling to this land, destroying places like this until we’re all gone. That’s why you need to stick with me.”

“Okay. Did you see me climb that pile?”

Ranger checks the pile and nods, “Yes.”

“And did you see me hit that robot guy’s face? Wasn’t that cool?”

This statement worries Ranger, considering the three lifeless bodies behind them. No one should aspire to be a killer, even against other killers like the Re-Co’s. Then, Ranger realizes that they are the killer in this scenario, not LD. “Yes. I guess it was pretty cool.”