Growing into the Job, Post 516: A Meeting in the Woods

The fire crackled and spit embers up into the cold November night, its glow barely warming the circle of men huddled around it. Beyond the firelight, the woods loomed - tall, skeletal trees swaying in the blustery wind, their bare branches whispering against one another like old conspirators. The abandoned summer camp sat in a wide clearing surrounded by a scattering of darkened cabins, a mess hall with boarded-up windows, and a sagging rec center. A rusting flagpole stood sentinel above it all, where once upon a time troops of bright-eyed little scouts might have pledged loyalty to something bigger than themselves.

Tonight, though, there were no kids. No flags. Just these guys. And not all of them really wanted to be here, really.

Twenty men, maybe more if you counted the stragglers on the outskirts, some still making their way through the woods from the parking lot. Some sat on overturned logs, others leaned against the damp wooden picnic tables, cold beer bottles dangling from gloved hands. The air smelled like wet leaves, woodsmoke, and stale sweat. Someone had dragged a cooler out here, stocked with cheap beer - probably the only smart logistical decision made so far.

They were supposed to be a unit, Cell IL5, but the group wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine. Scattered conversations, muffled grumbles, a few guys bitching about the cold. Every now and then, someone cursed, stomped their boots, or threw a stick into the fire just to watch it burn. This didn't look like some elite underground militia, like their de-facto leader would describe them. Instead, this seemed like a bunch of pissed-off men who had nowhere else to be.

And at the head of it, trying to look in charge, was a guy with a buzzcut. Codename: "Buzzcut".

He stood just beyond the fire’s reach, arms crossed, jaw set, his face flickering between shadow and flame. His real name wasn’t important - not anymore. He’d made it clear that names were a liability (thus the, uh, codename). But his high-and-tight haircut, the overconfidence of a guy who had taken one too many jiu-jitsu classes at the VA gym, and his ever-present M40 sniper rifle had over time cemented his authority. That, and his ability to yell louder than anyone else.

“Alright, listen the fuck up,” he announced, once all the stragglers were assembled.

Some heads turned. Most didn’t. Someone cracked open a beer. Another guy - a hulking man-child that sat hunched over his tricked-out AR-15, smelled vaguely of cat pee, and insisted on the code-name "Ned" - was scrolling his phone, probably looking at some stupid post about his stupid video games. A man of gray complexion, with gray hair, and dressed in - well - gray, muttered something to the group’s resident tech guy, a bespectacled weirdo who called himself "Anderson". Anderson sat on an old log and looked like he wanted to disappear into his too-big parka.

Buzzcut clenched his jaw. “Hey, Gray! I said shut the fuck up!”

That got more attention. The general murmur died down into reluctant silence, broken only by the pop of burning wood. A few men shifted uncomfortably, rubbing their hands together for warmth.

Buzzcut let the silence stretch, letting them feel it. He'd learned psychological tricks like that from his military years, in Coast Guard Unit Numb- <<THAT'S CLASSIFIED YOU FUCKERS>>

“First Order of Business..!” he announced, voice cutting through the night, again letting a pause bring weight to the moment. “Well...first, let me thank all you guys for coming, I know it's late. We really appreciate it. But - Second Order of Business...! The word is out, from Global HQ, from the guys at the top: We are no longer just ‘The Resistance’..!”

That got some reactions. Mostly confusion. A few exchanged glances, brows furrowing.

“What do you mean?” someone asked.

"Yeah. And, uh...why?" asked someone else.

“What’s wrong with ‘The Resistance’?” came the gray man.

Buzzcut squared his shoulders. He knew he had to frame this right. “It’s weak. It’s generic. It sounds like a bunch of goddamn nerds in a Star Wars movie.”

A few chuckles. Not many.

"I like Star Wars..." someone muttered.

Buzzcut pressed on. “It doesn't matter what you hose-heads think. From now on, we are..." He paused again, let the anticipation build. They were going to love this. ‘...The Sons of Resistance.’”

Silence.

Then-

“Kinda sounds like a biker gang,” Ned said, frowning, hitching his rifle on his shoulder.

“Yeah, why does adding ‘Sons of’ make it better?” asked another.

“It’s about legacy, dumbass,” Buzzcut snapped. “Our grandfathers fought in wars. They built this country. We are their sons.”

More complaints murmured through the group. “You mean, uh, ‘grandsons’..?” “Yeah then should we be ‘The Grandsons of Resistance’?” “That’s even more stupid.”

Someone raised a hesitant hand., a skinny guy with pimples, “Uh, not to be that guy, but…what about those of us who don’t have kids?”

A few more murmurs. Buzzcut pinched the bridge of his nose. That doesn't make any fuckin' sense. “Jesus Christ, Pimples, it’s not literal. It’s, like, symbolic. And we’re not going to be ‘The Grandsons of Resistance!’”

"Um," came Pimples' retort, "I don't like that na-"

“I mean…" cut in Gray Man, "we just got the website set up with the old plain ‘Resistance’ name...”

Pimples spoke up again. “No, I mean my nickn-”

"...and we just had the baseball hats made..." offered someone else.

Buzzcut shot Gray Man a look. “You think a name on a website - which, what the fuck? Why do we have a website?? Take it down! - Jesus…” Buzzcut took a deep breath. “…or some baseball caps? You think that shit’s what’s important?!”

A skinny guy, shaved-bald but with a wicked-cool mustache - who had been quiet up until now, hunched over his beer - shrugged. “I like it,” he said, his voice reedy, “Sounds better than just ‘The Resistance.’ That was in a movie.”

"Yeah somebody already said that."

"What movie?"

"I think it was Star Wars."

Buzzcut exhaled sharply, clearly trying not to lose his shit. “Look. We’re at war. And if you wank-ass fuckers want to be part of it, then you better start acting like it.”

Silence.

The men stared at him, some thoughtful, some skeptical. At least they’d stopped arguing.

He squared his shoulders.

“Alright. Now that that’s fucking settled - let’s talk about taking the fight to the enemy.”

As if on cue, the fire popped, sending a flurry of glowing embers up into the black sky. A gust of November wind that made the sparks dance rattled through the bare trees, skeletal branches groaning under the weight of the cold. It cut through the ragged circle of men, slicing past their layers of thrift store camo, surplus jackets, and knockoff tactical gear. A few hunched deeper into their coats, hands shoved under armpits for warmth, but no one dared to say they were cold. Not out loud. Not right now while Buzzcut was speaking.

Ned took out his phone again.

A pair of eyes and ears in the dark of the woods, beyond the clearing, pulled in a bit closer.

Buzzcut stood just beyond the fire’s reach, feet planted wide, arms crossed, expression severe. Behind him, the looming silhouette of the abandoned mess hall stood dark and lifeless, a relic of summers long gone.

“This,” he said, gesturing at the men around the fire, the woods, the cold night itself, “is what they’re leaving us, the women. This is what we have left.”

A pause, before someone spoke up. “Yeah,” they blurted, “like we’re fucking cavemen.”

A few of them shifted uncomfortably.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Buzzcut continued, voice low, simmering with anger. “The world is moving on without us, without real men.”

Someone grunted in agreement.

“They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our government. They’re taking over all our businesses and banks and schools. And now?” He let the silence stretch, staring into the fire like he saw something the others didn’t. “Now they’re coming for us.”

A bitter murmur rippled through the group.

Ned - massive, unshaven blob that he was - had put down his ridiculously overloaded AR-15 to now fiddle exclusively with his phone. “Yeah, well,” he grumbled, shifting his weight. “My girl left me last month. Said I ‘wasn’t ambitious’ enough. Now she’s dating some dude who teaches pilates.” He snorted, a wet, squelching sound. “A pilates guy.”

Some of the men grunted, shaking their heads.

“My girlfriend started hitting the gym,” another guy muttered. “Wouldn’t stop talking about some chick trainer there. Swear to God, she said she’s gonna get stronger than me - and I fucking believe her, the way she lifts, the way she eats now. It’s getting weird, man. She’s already started looking at me different.”

“So - did you start going to the gym?” the guy next to him asked, plainly. 

“Well, no but that’s not the p-“

“Yeah, same, my wife’s looking at me different too,” another piped up. “She checked our pay stubs. She makes more than me, now, I guess. And you know what she said? She said I should be scared of her cutting off my allowance.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “Like, the fuck does that mean?”

Murmurs. Grumbles. Heads nodding in grim agreement.

Buzzcut smirked inwardly - this was good. Let them stew. Let them feel it, sure. But he needed them to more than feel it, now.  “So, what did you all do about it?” he pressed, looking at the men who had just spoken - Ned, and the other two.

Silence. No one had an answer.

Buzzcut’s smirk vanished. He stepped closer to the fire, letting the light carve deep shadows into his face. “That’s the problem,” he said, voice sharpening. “We sit around, watching it happen. Watching them get stronger. Watching them take what’s ours. And we do nothing. Worse - we jerk off to them, we fucking love it.”

As Buzzcut’s words hung in the frozen air, Gray Man suddenly put away his phone, at which he had been glancing. Then someone spoke. 

“We are doing something,” a guy in a hunter’s cap (we’ll call him ‘Hunter’, thought Buzzcut) said hesitantly, shifting on his log. “I mean…we’re here, aren’t we?”

A few nods. A couple of guys mumbled agreement.

Buzzcut’s jaw tightened. “We’re not a fucking book club. Just showing up isn’t enough,” he snapped. “Look at what our brothers in Europe pulled off. They sent a message.”

He let that hang for a second. Blank stares met his steeled gaze.

“The bombing at the Valkyrie Motors offices in Sweden?” he spoke (it was actually Switzerland, dear reader, but that’s besides the point), “Any of you butt-monkeys ever hear of a thing called the news?”

A hushed murmur rippled through the group. They didn’t seem to mind the insults, and were listening to Buzzcut pretty intently now. Even Ned looked slightly more interested.

Buzzcut nodded solemnly. “A bunch of patriots, just like us, took the fight to them. Hit ‘em where it hurts.” He’d left out the parts about how half of them got arrested on the spot. Or how the two who got away were shot dead a day later in a sting operation. That also wasn’t the point. 

More nods. Someone took a slow pull from a beer.

“We need to step up,” Buzzcut continued. “We need to show them that we’re not just sitting around here in America, letting women walk all over us. We have to do our part, we have to hit back.”

He paused, feeling the energy from his ragtag group of brothers start to coalesce. They were getting into this. Some of them blurted out ideas:

“We could, uh, take down their social media. Get some hackers.”

Buzzcut nodded but - That’s not how hacking works, dumbnuts. Or, wait…is it?

“How about we get poison into, like, makeup or something?”

“Tampons!”

“Yeah!!”

Jesus Christ I have a platoon of morons. 

“We should hit the fucking White House, man.”

Yeah. Great idea, Bradl- I mean - “Marauder”. You go ahead and get started on that.

Buzzcut paused, as the men around the fire murmured, tossed out idea after idea, each more ridiculous than the last. Then, he saw a new guy come out of the woods, start approaching the fire. Buzzcut smiled, and nodded. “I’ll tell you exactly what we’re gonna do,” he spoke up, drawing the attention of SoR Cell IL-5 back to himself, “Camera Guy, c’mere!”

The fire crackled. The wind howled through the trees. The source of the crunching footsteps that had come from the woods, the dark figure, stepped into the firelight and pulled up beside the fat guy sitting next to the crazy-ass rifle. A few hands tightened around beer bottles.

“Hey guys, I’m Derek,” said Derek.

“You’re Camera Guy around here,” cut in Buzzcut, “No real names.”

“Hey I’m Ned,” said Ned, offering a meaty, sweaty handshake.

Buzzcut, able to ignore the exchange, still grinned. “Right on time, Camera Man,” he said.

Derek looked around uneasily at the assembled group, at the fire, at the rough collection of men watching him with expectant, glassy-eyed stares. His camera bag was slung over one shoulder, his coat zipped up tight against the cold. Already part of him missed the way he felt two hours ago, tied down to Marta Walker’s bed and gag-smothered by one of her enormous bras. That had been her idea of a ‘date’. At least it had been warm. “Didn’t think this was gonna be outside,” he muttered, rubbing his hands together. He also hadn’t expected a half-mile hike in through the woods.

Buzzcut just smirked. “Well,” he said, clapping a hand on Derek’s shoulder, “you’re about to warm up real fast, buddy.” Then he turned back to the group, expression hardening. “We’re gonna show these bitches we’re not afraid.” He nodded toward Derek. “And thanks to our friend Camera Man here? We’ve got our target all locked and loaded.”

He let that sink in. He looked across the group. People didn’t know what he was talking about.

“You noodle dicks ever heard of Far Horizons?” Buzzcut asked them, “The new medical place, right outside the city?”

Silence.

“Yeah?”

More silence. The fire burned brighter. The wind roared through the trees.

“Kinda? It’s…just for women, right?”

For the first time all night, the Sons of Resistance were truly listening. Buzzcut grinned anew.

“Yeah, that place, it’s been on the news. Around here they’re ground zero for all this. They’re making freakish, overgrown women. They’re pumping out medicines, they want to make guys shrink, they’re running… brainwashing shit,”” he answered, hand still on the shoulder of Derek, the newest member of Cell IL-5, “Camera Man here spent the day inside it, filming everything. We have the whole layout, know everything about their staff and security and-”

“Um, I don’t know about that, Buzz-” Derek began, but was quickly spoken over.

“-and now we can hit them where it hurts. There’s a giant bitch inside, and that’s what we’re going after.”

“Like, shooting her?” asked Pimples, on bated breath, picturing the girl from TV. This had suddenly got serious.

“No, a bomb,” answered Buzzcut.

If things were starting to feel serious before, they just took an even more acute and ominous turn. If it weren’t for the crackling of the fire, and the whispers of the wind, one could hear a pin drop. Gray Man scratched his neck. Mustache shifted uncomfortably, looking conflicted - this was his workplace they were talking about; they let him live in the basement. Anderson was nervous, looking at his feet, as if just now realizing how dumb and really dangerous these guys were. Derek quietly wondered if he was in over his head.

“Who here knows how to make a bomb?” someone asked, from across the fire.

“Yeah, are there, like, YouTube videos we can…?”

Aside Buzzcut, Ned pushed something on his phone. 

For a half-second, night turned to day.

>>BOOM.<<

Deep in the woods, a fireball ripped into the sky and punched through the trees, igniting the underbrush with an angry, churning bloom of flame. The ground bucked like a living thing, a low, concussive tremor rolling through the clearing. Beer cans rattled, the firepit coughed up sparks, and someone - maybe Anderson, maybe Gray Man - let out a strangled yelp as they staggered back from the sheer force of it.

Then the shockwave hit, a hard, gut-punch of wind slamming through the camp, pushing the nearest bushes, snapping branches, and sending a dozen cheap cans of beer flying. The fire in the pit, though sturdy, guttered and threatened to go out, the embers hissing angrily as the hot gust rolled over them.

Some men had been knocked to their asses. Many were cursing. All were looking up, their faces bathed in red light.

Above the trees, the explosion bloomed, rising.

A thick column of smoke, tinged with red fire at the base, curled upward into the freezing November sky. Not just smoke - a small but unmistakable mushroom cloud. 

For a long second, no one spoke.

Even Ned, standing there with his phone still in his hand, looked a little wide-eyed, a little gape-mouthed - like maybe he hadn’t entirely known how big this would be.

“Know how to make a bomb? I guess I do…” he answered, still wide-eyed watching what he had done.

Hearts raced. Someone said “holy shit”, and a pair of female eyes in the forest - having gone wide themselves - was moving away.

And then, finally, from across the fire, a slow, deliberate chuckle.

Buzzcut, grinning.

The firelight danced over his face, casting deep shadows, making his sharp features look even sharper. He exhaled, long and slow, then clapped his hands together once. Loud. Final.

“Boys…I think we just stepped up our game.”

==============================================