I stand motionless on the doorstep of my housing unit. My hand grips the doorknob in front of me but finds itself unable to turn it. My mind was stuck reliving the mission that had taken place earlier tonight. The image of the two children lying on the floor bathed in their blood has been burned into my mind. Snapping back to reality I turn the knob on the door and step into my home.

Within the doorway of my housing unit lays a pressure plate linked to a small terminal. Stepping onto the plate the terminal lights up and displays a message, “welcome home Enforcement Officer Number 246, Michael Calhoun.” Every home is required to have these plates at every standard entry point, they are designed to log whenever people enter and exit their homes along with measures to see if they may be carrying any extra weight such as any unregistered items. I stand on the plate for several more moments as it verifies my weight to ensure it is consistent with what it was when I had left this morning. After it had finished running the numbers the message disappeared and the screen lit up green signaling that everything was in order, just as it did the lights throughout the unit clicked on. I step off the plate and proceed further into my home. 

My housing unit was the standard size single-occupant unit. It is only one floor and has only 4 rooms: the main living area, the bathroom, the bedroom, and the food distribution area. All furniture within the unit is the same as all other units of this size. The living room contains nothing but a couch, a coffee table, a wall clock, and a small television which only permitted the occupant to watch one hour of programs per day. I shamble towards the back corner of the living room where the doorway to the food distribution area sits. 

Pushing my way through the door reveals the small room. A small table with only one seat sits in the center of the room. A counter lays just behind the table with the meal dispenser sitting atop it. Due to the nation of my profession, I am allotted one extra meal ration in the event of extremely late or early hours. I continue to shamble further into the room and towards the meal dispenser. I tap the face of the dispenser and the screen lights up in a bright blue glow. A menu appears that allows me to pick between various flavors of rations. My hands still shake as I urge them forward to select beef on the screen, just then a small packet falls from the bottom of the machine along with a large bottle of water. My hands continue to shake violently as I pick up the ration and the bottle and proceed back to the table. I sit down and remove my helmet, as I shift to place it on the table, small clumps of ash drip off and spread across the surface in a thin film. The ash was no issue, everyday the sanitizers clean all the units so it will be gone tomorrow anyway, the memories of the events that led to that ash won't brush anyway so easily though. As I remove my gloves I spot a small splotch of blood on one of them, suddenly I am once again standing in the children's bedroom, their corpses staring up at me. The faces of the children are not ones of fear, they never even knew there was any danger until after they were already dead. 

I stare down at my packaged ration realizing I hadn’t even opened it yet. I pull the bright red tab on the front of the package which releases the contents onto the table. The meal ration is a perfectly rectangular slab that can easily be broken apart to be eaten, it is an unappetizing matte gray color. The flavor of the slab is carved into the top in large bold letters, “BEEF.” All the meal rations have been designed to be easily eaten with hands as silverware has long been outlawed. They believed that silverware such as forks and knives could easily be used as weapons by criminals and insurgents so it was only logical that they be entirely banned to prevent violent encounters. Knives especially were entirely outlawed, any citizen found using a blade of any kind outside of certain professions is to be put on trial facing a long prison sentence or even death. Knives were viewed as nothing but weapons and thus anyone found with one is a threat to society and must be dealt with accordingly. 

Exhausted from the events of the night, I limped towards the bedroom on the other side of my housing unit. It was a small room with nothing but a small twin-sized bed, a closet, and a nightstand with an alarm clock on top of it. I limp further towards the bed, stripping my uniform off as I walk. I climb into bed and I immediately drift off to sleep.

I may have fallen asleep easily but I did not stay that way for long. Throughout the night I was bombarded with images of the events that had occurred earlier that night. The same memory plays back in my mind like a broken record. I once again sit staring at the corpses of the children, I look back to Three-Eighty-Seven in the doorway and he repeats those same three words, “no loose ends.” Every time I wake up violently, sweat pooling on my blankets, I somehow manage to fall asleep once again only for it to repeat, in a seemingly endless cycle. 

After a long and sleepless night, the morning had finally arrived. The beams of light from the sun peeked through the small window across the room, illuminating the bed in a bright orange glow. I pull myself from the bed and stroll over to the nearby bathroom. While shaving I was suddenly thrust back to the mission last night. My hand shakes violently while pictured the corpses spread across the floor, my panic grows as the moment repeats itself in my hand. I feel a sudden spike of pain, I pull my razor away to examine it. My hand was splotched in a deep red. My hand continued to shake as I washed away the blood in the sink, the vibrations causing water to be propelled throughout the small bathroom. 

I exited the bathroom and proceeded towards my closet. In it was nothing but three of the same uniform, my uniform from last night still sits behind me on the floor. All citizens are assigned a certain uniform, there may be no deviation from this. Any form of individuality is viewed as a threat to the state, to ensure perfect equality within the proletariat, any form of a sense of identity must be removed. I pulled one of the identical uniforms from the closet and got dressed for the day.

I next moved over to the food distribution room. Once again I pressed the button to release a ration along with a large bottle of water. I finished the brick of supposed food, picked up my helmet which I had placed on the table, and slipped it over my head. The enforcement officer helmet was designed with three purposes in mind: to protect the user, to instill fear, and to obscure the identity of the officer. Enforcement Officer identities are never to be known except to those above them, the enforcers didn’t even know each other's real names. At home, I may be known as Michael Calhoun, but once I stepped through that door, I am nothing but Enforcement Officer Two-Forty-Six. I have become so adjusted to being called Two-Forty-Six that my real name had almost become an afterthought; something I wrote on forms and was occasionally called by a government official. I took a deep breath then trudged forward, over the pressure plate and through the front door. 

The District 349 Enforcement Officer HQ was a large futuristic-looking building. The building was lined with large bright billboards displaying various pieces of propaganda, “your neighbor could be an enemy of the proletariat, report any suspicious activity to a local enforcement officer,” one of the billboards read in big bold letters. I towards the building as I heard screaming from a nearby corner, a woman was swinging wildly as two enforcers dragged her towards a large black van. Passerbys simply ignored the commotion and continued with their days. The two officers finally managed to restrain the woman and place her in the back of the van, they slammed closed the doors and the sound of her screams disappeared. I always thought about what the people did to deserve such harsh treatment, I have been an enforcer for just about four years now yet I have never been able to rid myself of this curiosity. What could that family of four that we eliminated last night have done to deserve the harshest of punishments? I thought back to the makeshift knife that the parents had had. Its rough and jagged blade showed that it had been carved by hand, but that wasn’t what we were there for. They had torn the house apart as if they were searching for something, the wallpaper was torn from the walls, and the lighting fixtures had been smashed, that wasn’t normal protocol, we are only supposed to give a quick sweep of the house when someone is suspected but this was different. I was always the officer that knew the least, the commanding officers despised how often I asked questions. To them I was dangerous so I was kept as long on the chain of command as possible, that’s why after four years I still found myself at the lowest rank. 

I pushed my way through the heavy glass door at the front of station 349. The lobby was a small room with several checkpoints for suspects, along with citizens who wished to file a report. Behind the circular front desk sat Enforcement Officer Six-Twelve. He was a larger man and the only officer who was allowed to show his face except for the chief. They believed that citizens would be more likely to report crimes to someone who they view as an actual human being. After a leg injury in the field, Six-Twelve had volunteered for this position. He knew his injury would keep him out of the field forever so he might as well take the position that no other officer ever wanted. Once you took the position you could never serve in the field again, it was off-limits as once someone saw your face your anonymity was broken forever. In my opinion, though it was because they never wanted us to be relatable, they wanted us to be the boogeymen that made people disappear in their sleep, they needed us to be feared as something nonhuman.

I approached the desk where Six-Twelve sat eating his morning ration and vigorously typing on his computer. 

“Morning Six-Twelve, can you sign me in?” I inquired. He raised his gaze from the computer screen and looked up towards me, then pressed several keys on the computer signaling that he was logging that I had arrived.

“Morning Two-Forty-Six, how’d the mission go last night?” He asked, still rapidly typing on the keyboard.

“Family of four, the place was picked cleaner than I’ve ever seen, they must’ve done something pretty serious”, I said trying to hide my true feelings on the events. Just the mention of last night's mission sent imagery of the children through my mind, then it was gone just as the house was, disappeared in the air as if it had never existed. But the memories were still there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to poison my mind with the horrors which had occurred.

“Families are always the worst ones. A single person is easy, you just grab ‘em in their sleep, in and out without anyone noticing. With a family though it’s always messy, especially with kids.” The mention of kids once again shot me back to the children’s room, my hands resting against the blood-soaked carpet as I looked upon the scene in horror. “I hate dealing with kids”, Six-Twelve continued, “I never had a problem with the adults, but I always viewed kids as innocent, they don’t know any better why are we punishing them.”

“Have you ever had to kill a child?” I asked Six-Twelve, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Fortunately no, it’s against protocol anyway, we arrest kids but you know as well as I do that they’re not supposed to be killed in the field, why do you ask?” he said, hearing the tinge of emotion in my voice. I feel myself almost collapse to my knees as I recollect the events of the previous night, but I was able to compose myself. 

“I had to deal kids for the first time last night, two boys,” I said barely holding back my emotions,

“It always hurts to deal with kids the first time, it never quite sat right with me slapping cuffs on an eight-year-old but it's the job, the emotions will pass,” he said consolingly. 

“We didn’t arrest them,” I said in a low voice.

A sense of concern suddenly filled his voice, “what happened then?” We weren’t supposed to talk about missions after the fact, but I had learned to trust Six-Forty, he had many of the same reservations about the enforcement officers that I found myself having. 

“Three-Eighty-Seven, shot two boys last night,” I said shakingly.

“Something about that Three-Eighty-Seven never sat quite right with me, he’s well connected though, be careful with who you tell this you don’t want to stir up trouble.” I nod my head and turn away to walk away, “be careful”, I hear Six-Twelve say as I proceed further into the station. 

My desk sits in the corner on the second floor of the station. It is almost entirely barren except for a small computer and a small screen that lights up in the event of a mission. I am not on standard street patrol, instead, I am only sent on select missions that require a more qualified team. Next to my desk sits a large metal locker that contains all my weapons and equipment, only in the event of a mission would the lock be released and I will be allowed to access its contents. I sit down at the desk and begin to work on my computer, filling out various forms and reports from different missions I had recently participated in. After what seemed like an eternity of paperwork, the light on my desk lit up and the locker next to me clicked open.

I found myself seated in the back of a large troop carrier, every enforcer had a rifle slung across their lap except for the three immolators sitting towards the back, their large backpacks filled with fuel seated near their feet. No one said a word, the only sound came from the vehicle tearing its way down the street. One of our commanding officers stands up near the front of the vehicle and begins to address the group. 

“Listen up everyone, we have discovered a group of would-be revolutionaries who think they can threaten our very way of life”, He belted out in a large booming voice, “these are not our comrades, they are nothing but insurgents who will be treated as such. We will not be searching, the primary enforcer force led by Three-Eighty-Seven will enter, then the immolators will clean up what’s left.” I gulped and sweat rolled down my face underneath my helmet. This mission, every instruction he just gave is against protocol. My hands clutched my rifle tighter and I felt them shaking slightly, I hid my hands to prevent any of the other enforcers from noticing. The officer once again took his seat near the front of the vehicle and the ride remained silent for the rest of the trip.

The transport came to a sudden halt, the doors on the back ripped open and we filed out quickly making our way towards a nearby building. The building was a large concrete structure, unlike any housing unit I had ever seen before. It had a large cross that must have once been a bright red but over time had faded to a deep maroon, it hung off the building as if it was about to tumble to the ground. 

We stacked up in two lines on either side of the door. We all check the counters on our ammo and the immolators light their flamethrowers in anticipation. The breaching charge is planted on the door and I brace myself for the imminent explosion. The door bursts open in a large boom that shakes the very ground we stand on. The two lines rush forward and begin to clear the large seemingly abandoned building, Three-Eighty-Seven begins to give orders to various groups of enforcers, as they disperse the sound of gunfire erupts throughout the building. When he arrives at me he gives a signal for me to follow him. 

I stay close behind as he races down a large flight of stairs, our boots create a loud echo in the empty stairway as we run. Reaching what appears to be a basement, Three-Eighty-Seven and I click on the lights at the end of our rifle barrels. Without saying a word he signals for me to move right while he proceeds left. The room is pitch black except for the illumination from our flashlights, it is filled with old pieces of machinery, each one covered in a thick layer of rust. Suddenly I hear a small thump, I look around for the origin of the noise. I shifted my view wondering if Three-Eighty-Seven caused it but he was across the room searching through an old pile of what appears to be medical equipment. I shifted my light back towards the right side of the room and proceeded deeper into the darkness. Various jagged pieces of metal caught my uniform as I focused all my attention ahead of me. I once again heard a small thump, this time it was accompanied by the sound of a light shush. I proceed forward cautiously, now knowing that people lay in the path in front of me, they are an enigma to me, all I know is that the state has deemed them insurgents. I inch forward hearing more and more little taps and thumps as I approach. I peek around the corner, a group of people stands huddled against the back wall, several children can be seen in the arms of several of the adults. I shift around the corner completely and instinctively signal for Three-Eighty-Seven to move to my location. 

My hands shake as I raise the muzzle to face the group, “please, we’re not rebels we’re doctors, we just want to help people!” one of the insurgents pleads.

“The state refuses to help these people but we can't turn our backs on them!” another insurgent pleads. 

“How could you live with yourself if you killed a child!” The words of the third doctor struck deeply, I was once again reliving the moment in the bedroom. 

Three-Eighty-Seven tapped me on the shoulder, “good work Officer Two-Forty-Six, you’ll be commended for your work here today, now… rid the world of these rebels.” He motioned for me to fire on the crowd, I flipped my rifle to automatic fire and pressed the stock deeply into my shoulder, anticipating the recoil. I hesitated for a moment, “Do it already!” Three-Eighty-Seven yelled in an annoyed voice. I still stood motionless, my rifle outstretched towards the crowd. “I knew you weren’t strong enough for this, you hesitated with those kids last night and you’re hesitating now!” he screamed in an almost disappointed tone.

“This isn’t protocol”, I managed to squeak out in a low voice.

“Times have changed, the protocols mean nothing if our society falls to the likes of these liberals. You either adjust with society or you don’t, in which case society no longer has a purpose for you. You are nothing but a soldier trained to serve our people, a good soldier follows orders. Now... complete the mission, kill the subversives and you will be rewarded.” I remained motionless, my body now physically shaking with sweat running down the entirety of my body. I lower my rifle to my hip once again and turn towards Three-Eighty-Seven defiantly, “If you won't kill these radicals then I’ll just do it myself,” just then the screams of the group of terrified doctors and children can be heard as a loud explosion rings out echoing throughout the room followed by the sound of a thump against the cold floor. 

I stand motionless once again, small streams of smoke billowing out of the muzzle of my rifle. I shift my gaze towards the floor of the basement where a large body lay motionless with a pool of blood collecting around a single hole in their head. Looking down at the body of Enforcement Officer Three-Eighty-Seven, I feel a sense of both horror and triumph. I turn to face the crowd of people, many of them are shaking or crying due to what had just occurred as if they cannot believe that they could still be alive.

“You all won’t get another chance, if you want to live you have to get out of here,” I proclaim before turning away from the crowd and racing back towards the stairway. 

If I was to survive the day I have to escape this place as quickly as possible. Just as I reach the stairs I realize that I currently have no valid reason why I would be allowed to leave before the completion of the mission. I turn back towards the basement and head back into the darkness. I quickly find Three-Eighty-Seven’s body but when I look around for the group they have seemingly vanished, a nearby grate on the floor lay open with the sound of flowing water heard below. I turn back to Three-Eighty-Seven’s body, hold my rifle up and fire it into my leg. 

I feel the bullet tear through the muscle and exit striking a nearby piece of machinery. I hold back a scream of pain and quickly turn my attention back to the corpse in front of me. Our rifles have ID tags linked to them so I can’t simply switch the rifles. I release the magazine from my rifle and replace it with the one inserted in Three-Eighty-Sevens. The counter near the rear site quickly jumps from 28 back to 30 signalings that I have a full magazine. I take Three-Eighty-Seven’s rifle in hand and place it by the nearby open grate. If anyone asks what happened I can tell them that one of the supposed insurgents had gotten a hold of Three-Eighty-Seven’s rifle and had fatally wounded him along with injuring me but thankfully missing all bones and arteries. Happy with my work, I pressed my hand against the bullet wound in my leg, turned away from the scene, and limped back towards the stairway. 

As soon as I explained my version of the events to the other enforcers, I was raced back to HQ to be treated for my wound. I wasn’t as precise as I thought and the shot had damaged a small artery in my leg. The doctor proceeded to tell me just how much blood I had lost and that I was lucky to be alive. The doctor stepped out of the room and exhausted from everything that had just occurred, I drifted off to sleep in my infirmary bed.

My dreams were filled with the moment in the basement. A constant loop of Three-Eighty-Seven’s empowered speech is quickly followed by an image of his corpse. This moment, unlike the moment in the children’s bedroom, does not fill me with a sense of horror, instead, I am presented with an unexpected feeling of pride. For once in my life, I finally feel as if I am seeing this nation for what it truly is. 

I am awoken abruptly by the doctor who informs me that I have a visitor. Enforcers' faces cannot be seen even in the hospital. For my guest to see me I must cover my face using a balaclava which was provided to me. Six-Twelve steps into the room with a look on his face that was a mix of terror and relief. 

“How’re you feeling, you gave us a scare,” Six-Twelve asked, suddenly appearing much more chipper.

“My leg hurts,” is all I managed to say.

“Let’s skip the small talk, the chief told me to fetch, he wants to talk. It isn’t too often that an enforcer dies in the field so he wants you to run him through the story.” I have a sudden sense of dread, “Could the chief know that I was the one that shot Three-Eighty-Seven? No, it wasn’t possible, I covered my tracks.” Hiding my emotions I sat up and pulled myself out of bed, Six-Twelve helped me to a nearby set of crutches leaning against the wall. Once I was securely braced against the crutches, we left the room and made our way down the hall to the chief's office.

The chief’s office was a large room lined with paintings of famous events throughout history. In the center of the room sat a large dark wood desk with two large chairs seated at both sides.

“Enforcement Officer Two-Forty-Six reporting sir,” I announced. The man behind the desk motioned for me to take a seat. I hobbled into the office and took a seat at the closest chair. Across from the desk sat a plump, older man with a look of complete seriousness. He stared at me with a level of intensity as if he was staring into my soul. 

“So, Two-Forty-Six would be okay if I called you Michael”. I hesitated for a moment then nodded in approval. No one had referred to me as Michael for years now, my name sounded odd and foreign as if it was someone else's. “So, Michael, we have quite a strange situation here. An enforcement officer hasn’t been killed in our district in seven years, then suddenly we have one dead and another severely wounded. The other men have already briefed me on what you told them but I want to hear it from you, just to get the story straight,” he says in an almost fatherly tone. I nodded once again then I proceeded to recount the details of my fictionalized version of the events which had unfolded. I finish my story and the chief looks at me amused. “Now that’s one story, you’re lucky to have gotten out of there alive, you ought to be commended for your bravery.” I breathe a mental sigh of relief, “There’s just one detail that stands out to me though… your magazine was full and so were all your reserve magazines, did you not fire back after they shot both you and Three-Eighty-Seven. Now, why don’t you tell me what actually happened.”

“I-I-I,” I stuttered, unable to make a coherent sentence.

“Take that mask off Michael,” he bellowed in a commanding tone. I froze in shock, no one had seen my face since I joined the enforcers. The chief was the only person to have ever seen me with my mask off when he first recruited me. I slowly raise my hands towards the lip of the mask, my hands shaking once again. I grip a section of the fabric in my hand and slowly peeled the mask off revealing my face underneath. My hair is a deep chestnut brown, the only feature on my rather plain face is a small scar on my left cheek. An obvious look of terror is painted across my face and the chief's facade falls revealing a look of complete anger. “I won’t ask you again,” he commanded in a low voice, “why did you shoot Three-Eighty-Seven.”

“He had killed children and was going to kill me,” I suddenly blurted out.

“The work we do as enforcement officers isn’t pretty but it is necessary. I’m sure you’ve noticed, times are changing. Dissent runs rampant throughout the nation, we must adapt if we wish to quell this rebellion before it is stoked further”. The chief's words mirrored Three-Eighty-Seven’s speech from the basement as if they were reading from the same book. I felt like a stranger in a foreign land, unable to grasp what was just said to me.

“B-b-but, it’s against protocol,” Is all I managed to say before once again falling silent. 

“Children of insurgents are just future insurgents, killing them now just spares us the trouble of tracking them down late. It may be a shock to you but most children don’t tend to side with a government which killed their parents, killing them is the best way to truly rid our society of subversives.” He took a sip of a nearby glass of water then continued speaking, “If you had come to me with these concerns before all these dreadful events took place perhaps I could've educated you before harsher punishments were necessary, but now you have forced my hand.” He pressed a small button on his desk and I heard the door behind me open.

I turned to see a man armed with a pistol dressed in a uniform I have only seen a handful of times previously. “He’s an executioner”, I thought to myself. My mind told me to flee but I knew there wasn’t any escape, my fate had been sealed. There is still one thing that plagued my mind though.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I asked the chief, showing no fear of my now inevitable fate. 

“Ask away,” he said, sighing in a slightly annoyed tone. 

“That family from the mission last night, what did they do?” Without saying a word, he pulled a drawer and removed a bunched-up piece of cloth, then spread it across the desk to reveal it in its entirety. It’s an original American Flag. 

At the front desk, Six-Twelve sat typing on his computer attempting to distract himself. A muffled bang suddenly rang out from the second floor. Six-Twelve stopped typing. He closed his eyes as tears began to form. He opened them a moment later, looked to his monitor, and removed Enforcement Officer Two-Forty-Six from the roster.