Phagocytosis

Jolene's two-step texas bar!

Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America, June 2037

The bar smelled like old wood and cheap whiskey, same as it always had, even in 2037. I sat at the end of the counter, nursing something that gave me away as a tourist without the barman even hearing my accent. Cowboy boots still clacked the same, watching the dance floor fill with a slow-moving constellation of boots, hats, and rhythm. There were teenagers trying to impress each other, gray-haired couples who'd been dancing that same two-step since before the internet, and everything in between. A few spots were filled out by holograms — flickering projections of dancers who never missed a beat, just there to make the place feel full. One guy was matching the moves of his partner made of soft blue light.

Caleb Jensen gives me a warm handshake, clasping my shoulder with his other hand. I can't hear what he's saying over the music, but I can feel the strength in his grip—the quiet power of the lightweight exoskeleton that lets him walk again after his spine was shattered at the end of the war. It only weighs about ten kilos, but the grip it gives at the hand feels like steel wrapped in kindness.

He guides me to his office, one of seven he owns.

"Excuse the mess, hard enough to run five businesses in town the old way by juggling offices," he says, pulling out a chair for me with a genuine smile. Before I can even ask, he's already poured me a cup of water and set a small plate of homemade treats on the desk—quiet reminders that hospitality is just part of how he runs things.r

"Thank you! You shouldn't have!" I say awkwardly.

"Please, you saved me from a house full of in-laws. Even the work excuse doesn't work anymore. My mom told me I should have married some girl from my church," he answers while texting before putting his phone on silent.

"How did you like the bar?" He asks.

"My brother is writing a thesis on the revival of americana, I'll send him your way to study the crowd!" I answer.

"So, why horses?" I ask, trying to get to the heart of the subject.

"Well, we were a cavalry unit. Four of us in a Bradley. Before the war, it got up to seven, but hey, what are you going to do? We had enough problems putting fuel in it, let alone finding some good old American boys to sit in it. Infantry had priority on replacements and fresh troops. Scouts like us were literally supposed to get into trouble and face all the horrors that entails. If the brass wanted you to drive down a road and see if anything would shoot you, you did it. Best to waste a Bradley than the entire company waiting for your desperate calls on the radio just a few miles behind."

North, West, and Southern Germany had been "liberated." The long-range combat groups—the brigades that had landed in northern Germany with the Koreans, were doing thundetrruns left and right, but they didn't have enough manpower to effectively take Berlin and the rest of Eastern Germany. They were running circles around the crabs; hitting them in the back really helped us win that war. I don't care what the GOP says, we have to thank the commies for doing something so stupid it could only have worked. So, while we were waiting in the outskirts of Hannover for spare parts and fuel, Jordan, my gunner, a guy from the worst suburb of Lafayette who somehow knew how to work with horses, spotted a group of Hanoverians. Beautiful horses. They had probably been set free by their previous owners when everyone fled. Which is weird, because a lot of refugees actually took their horses with them, but hey, I'm not one to look a gifted horse in the mouth.

We moved slow, careful not to spook them. Jordan took the lead, his voice soft and steady as he called out in low tones, nothing loud or sudden. Those Hanoverians eyed us from a distance, muscles tense, ready to bolt, As if they had never seen a black teen from the south before. But Jordan and me knew horses like they were people, we let them see we weren't a threat. We dropped our weapons, sat on the ground, and waited, letting the horses get curious instead of scared. After a while, a few stepped closer, nostrils flaring, snifffing the air. Jordan reached out, fingers twitching just enough to invite, not grab. One by one, they let us near, noses brushing our hands like they were testing the waters. It was like breaking a code, a quiet, mutual agreement that maybe we were okay. And unlike the crabs and horrors they had to deal with, we were alright. The saddles were a different story. No fancy gear out here, just scraps of leather, rope, and some old metal bits we scavenged from broken vehicles and abandoned barns. We worked under the dull light of a fading sun, stitching torn straps and reinforcing worn padding with whatever we had. We had two days, two days before we would have had to do the journey east towards berlin. Past all the cities and villages on Humvees that barely ran better than the bradleys or god forbid, on foot.

Horses hanged around. We fed them. Got them to stay close. We had no choice but to scrounge whatever we could find in the city. Saddles weren't exactly handed out, so we did a bit of begging, a bit of borrowing, and yeah, some straight-up stealing. Broke into enough farms in that cursed village we were staying to actually find something. Encountered MP's a few times. Good luck explaining to a German Military police officer you're actually looking around for saddles and not 4k tv's or Rolexes.

None of them matched, none of them were pretty, but that didn't matter. We had four horses and four saddles, more than enough to get moving.

Back at the edge of the city, we laid out the mismatched gear. Jordan and I worked quick, tightening straps and rigging broken stirrups with strips of leather and scrap rope. The horses shifted nervously as we pulled the saddles over their backs, adjusted the cinches, and checked the fit. One horse flinched at the rough edges of a saddle, but Jordan soothed him with a quiet word and a gentle hand.

Finally, the four Hanoverians stood saddled, a ragtag cavalry ready to ride, if only barely. Not the cleanest setup, but solid enough to carry us. There was me, Jordan, Kim some Korean guy from LA, and Jim, guy was from Montana. I actually was lucky enough to have four guys in my platoon that knew how to ride. LT was onboard with the idea, partly because he was half alive because of bronchitis.

You should have seen the look on our company commander's face, hell, the faces of everyone in the command post in downtown Hanover when we rode in for our orders. Looking back, it was a miracle that the horses Jordan and I rode weren't scared out of their minds by the noise and rumbling of the few armored vehicles that were actually still running.

I asked, "Was the situation really that bad?"

He shook his head. "Dude, it was a complete mess. Like 1945 all over again. The U.S., French, BENELUX forces, German remnants, and UN battlegroups were all trying to coordinate in a chaos of miscommunication and competing agendas. Supply lines were tangled, no one knew who was responsible for what, and spare parts and fuel were disappearing faster than they showed up. It felt like we were trying to put together a puzzle with half the pieces missing, all while the enemy was still fighting tooth and nail. Nobody expected to win so quickly, so no one planned properly for the aftermath. It was a nightmare.

The pre-war NATO pipeline, the one that pumped gasoline all the way from Belgium to Eastern Europe, had not been repaired yet in Germany. The backlog of supplies being shipped into the continent was weeks long.

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So, I suppose they were pretty happy to have us ride in with a solution for our particular problem. But I politely told them to fuck off when they asked us to fix more horses and saddles, and they returned the favor when I asked for hay.

That's the good thing about horses. As long as you don't overwork them, they can rest like you do, grazing on grass and snacking on apples when you're lucky. Mud isn't half as bad a problem for them as it is for us humans trudging through it all day. They've evolved to handle rough terrain and unpredictable weather better than most machines, and they don't need fuel, just patience and good care. The trick is knowing when to push and when to let them catch their breath, something me and Jordan seemed to understand better than anyone.

I had learned that in the blazing sun of Utah, at Latter-day Saints teenage camps, the only part I adored was the afternoons spent riding. Jordan wasn't as lucky. His teenage outreach program was for at-risk youth in the heat and humidity of Louisiana. Like me, he disliked everything except the horses themselves. Two sergeants and two corporals. What more do you need for America.

I make it sound easy, but it wasn't. Dolly, mine, struggled with one of her feet. Every step she took was a remindede me that these weren't machines; they were living, breathing, stubborn creatures. And I do mean stubborn. Jordan's horse had its own quirks, but at least it was sound. Kim's was half deaf. Jim had an old bite at one of her thighs which I don't want to guess what it was from. We had to learn to listen to them, to read the small signs that told us when to push and when to back off. Otherwise, we risked losing more than just time out here.

We did have one quadrotor drone with us, and one set of JIM COMPACT thermal sights, but we rarely used it. Battery life wasn't that good on the drone. But the JIM COMPACT were the shit. Only when we had to designate targets for fire support. Himars mostly. One good thing about the fall of that year, we had more HIMARS strikes available than we knew what to do with them. So, mostly, it was me and the squad on horseback, moving quiet and low like the scouts back in the Civil War. We'd spread out in small groups, keep the horses steady, and use the terrain to stay hidden. No roaring engines or bright lights, just boots in the dirt and the soft clip of hooves.

Groups of four, we'd split up from time to time. Never too far from each other. Let's say we had a village to survey: me and Kim would take the west, Jordan and Jim the east. I carried the long-range radio, so I always had to stay closer to Command. We'd scout targets, keep an eye out for hotspots. The crabs couldn't hide well. Plus, the horses knew.

"The horses knew?" I ask.

"The horses knew. Yes, that's what I said." Caleb laughs as he repeats it.

"They'd been running loose for what, two years? They knew the land better than we did. They were like our Indian guides, in a way. I could tell a village was going to be trouble just by riding a kilometer toward it. Dolly would start pulling back. Like she was saying, 'Man, I wouldn't do that if I was you.' Any closer, and she'd flat out refuse to budge."

"Too much trouble but not enough intel. We'd regroup, two of us stayed with the horses, and the other two would move in on foot. Me, my boonie hat, a silenced M4, and some guy from Koreatown who, unlike Jordan, never said a word."

"Yeah, I had a guy like that in my platoon," I say, chuckling.

"A Korean?" he asks.

"No, just a guy who never spoke. I thought he hated my guts when we were on watch together. Asked around, turns out the guy just didn't talk. Even now, at reunions, he's got a wife, coaches little league football, and he's running for mayor in some town. But the guy still never speaks."

"Must be the 'tism." he answers with a laugh."

"Yeah who knows."

We had our work cut out for us—two hundred and fifty kilometers between Hannover and Berlin. Two hundred and fifty kilometers of forests, farmland, rivers, and more rivers. Most of the bridges had been blown years earlier, and in October the ground was already turning to mud. With the infrastructure left untreated for so long, drainage systems were clogged or destroyed, riverbanks were weakened, and every heavy rain flooded the lowlands worse than the last. What used to be manageable terrain turned into a mess of washouts and deep water traps, making every kilometer harder than the one before. At first, the rest of our platoon, other squadrons, other reconnaissance battalions, thought our horses were just tacky gadgets, more of a propaganda tool than anything. At first, they were kilometers ahead. But when their Bradleys, Humvees, and Oshkoshes got stuck in the mud, we closed the distance, slipped past them, and all they saw was our asses,pardon my French. Same ass that was on fire, along with my back. Yet we rode and rode.

Slept rough, abandoned barns if you were lucky, but those were far and in between. Four of us meant you could only sleep three hours at a time. Still, your body was crying for sleep, your mind was on edge. Being on horses also meant resupplying was a mess, carrying supplies was too. Hell I must have lost 20 pounds in a month and a half. At least the horses ate better than us.

We got into some real trouble a few times. And it wasn't always your horse nearly falling and risking a broken neck. I remember it clear as day—the first time things went bad. We were riding along some dirt road, nothing in sight for days. Just trotting downhill, relaxed.

One thing led to another, and I should've called it out when I saw something move in the darkness of an open barn window up ahead. Whether it was sleep deprivation or plain stupidity, I kept quiet and we just kept going.

By the time we reached the barn, the big door burst open. Out came a crab. The thing looked emaciated, like it hadn't eaten in weeks and was just about ready to feast on us. It was so weak it could barely lift its blaster.

Kim was on point. He saved us. While I fumbled with my rifle and my horse, dancing in place, Kim just kicked his forward, stood on the stirrups like he was riding a shock absorber, body steady while the horse galloped. He raised his M14, silenced, sure, but you never lose an argument when you're chambered in 7.62.

Three shots. First and second found their mark. That thing just collapsed on the spot.

Despite the gunfire, our mares bolted. We were off that road and halfway to the treeline in less than forty seconds. I still remember how Kim spun his horse, going from twenty-five miles per hour to a dead stop, one hand gripping the reins, the other holding the front of his rifle, as if checking whether the white man was still behind him or not. Called in an artillery strike on that place five minutes later. Just in case.

A dozen HIMARS strikes, a battlefield commission, and a cover story in the New York Times later, we reached Potsdam, the western gateway to Berlin. I still remember that picture of Kim from behind , standing tall in his saddle, looking down toward Berlin with binoculars in hand, as if he weren't already six foot two off the ground, completely trusting his horse beneath him. We had reached it and achieved our objectives seventy-two hours ahead of the other motorized and mechanized units. Unlike theirs, we didn't wake up the dead or the crabs from miles away with roaring engines. We spotted them quietly and worked tirelessly, fueled by some heavy-duty Adderall that kept us going for that month and a half. But, irony of fate, right as we got to the city, our stock ran out. Still, even on that frosted grass, I slept like a baby, my back resting on Dolly's warm stomach to keep me warm.

Man, I loved that horse. The moment I laid eyes on her, I was hooked.

That second picture of our, the one everyone knows, the one where high command arranged a meeting between our scout unit and the Chinese Fifth Reconnaissance Battalion in Lublin less than a year later? That wasn't Dolly. Something got to her. Maybe it was a sickness she'd been carrying for a long time. Maybe I just rode her too hard.

The Chinese pulled some strings of their own to make sure their horse unit showed up. It turned into an impromptu propaganda photo op, both sides eager to show the world that horses still had a place, even in a war of drones and exoskeletons.

Something could have taken her down in a few ways. Horses in the field face all kinds of risks, she might have caught a lingering infection or disease, something like eqquine influenza or even a parasite that went untreated because of the chaos around us. The stress of constant riding, poor nutrition, and exposure to cold nights didn't help either.

It's also possible she suffered an injury, maybe a strained tendon or an old wound that never fully healed. Out there, even a small problem could turn serious without proper care.

Whatever it was, it wore her down over time. Maybe I pushed her too hard, or maybe it was just bad luck. Either way, she wasn't the same. Had to put her down. She just didn't have it in her anymore. One day, she just, refused to stand up. Maybe refused isn't the right word. She wanted to. I know she didn't want to be left behind. Even as I was crying, a slobbering mess, she kept trying to stand. She just couldn't. Like the Ukrainians and Russians, like the Poles and Germans, there's only so much you can give. Only so much you can sacrifice. At some point, your legs give out. At some point, there's no one left to put in a uniform. At some point, you just can't stand anymore, no matter how hard everyone else wants you to.