Robotech: One Week

By Jeremy "Ginrai" Kaufmann

ginraiATmasterforce.org

http://www.masterforce.org

Apocalypse Plus One

Yesterday the world ended. Today I stand on a dead world. Three days ago everything seemed to be going well. Now a lot of us are thinking maybe we should quit while we're ahead. Everyone's already calling it "the last battle", but that's dumb because an hour ago a bunch of Zents charged in with small arms. Well, small to them. My Valkyrie survived the big one intact, and some alien who didn't know when to quit shot off its arm.

So now it's me and Frank, and everyone else in our squadron is dead. Me and Frank, two limping, half-dead mecha, and a journal stained with my own blood.

This morning I started feeling sick, which sounds to me like radiation poisoning. Not that I'm shocked. So Frank is going to stay here and I'm going to fly this wreck to the stupid ship and see the doctor. Hooray. I'm gonna be in line for hours and I'll probably be bleeding out of my anus and be totally bald by then. And I'll have cancer.

Apocalypse Plus Two

Okay, so I don't have cancer or even radiation sickness. Not yet, anyway. No. I have a stomach flu. Can you believe it? I survive full scale alien annihilation and I come down with the flu! Our glorious leaders sent me back into the field, of course. Me and Frank are lucky enough to have new Valkyries. Now there's this huge surplus of mecha because that fight took care of the surplus of pilots right quick. So, we got to fly combat patrol. I thought that was rather superfluous seeing as we killed everyone, but it turns out I was wrong. The attack yesterday should have given me a clue. We flew two hundred miles and found a smoking Zent ship. It was empty. Yeah, someone also stripped it of its weapons, and I don't know any humans strong enough to carry a Zent's gun.

It's gotta be around midnight . I'm sitting in front of a fire near the feet of our Valkyries. Frank is already asleep on a rotten log we dug up. We're about a quarter of a mile from a town we found that miraculously has some survivors in it. We're somewhere in North America , for sure, but the topography doesn't match the maps anymore. Hey, maybe it'll match maps of the moon now.

The fire is down low now. I woke up and couldn't figure out why for the longest time and it finally hit me. I don't have any cigarettes left, and neither does anyone else. Hey, I guess the government finally figured out a way to get us to stop.

Woke up again. Frank was sobbing. I pretended to sleep until he stopped, and then I waited for him to drift off again, and now I'll never sleep. I'm just sitting here with my pen and a stained notebook, watching the sun come up. Guess we're not quite to the point where we can mess that up yet.

Apocalypse Plus Three

The town is called St. Marie. It used to have 10,000 people living in it. Current estimates have it at something about 250. There was no war here, but a lot of people lost family or panicked or left seeking a religious experience or something. This old man with a tattoo of Christ on his shoulder told me a bunch of people got trampled, including his twelve-year old granddaughter. I can't even bring myself to feel bad for her. It's just. damage on such a wide scale. I can't seem to get my brain around it. Maybe it just takes time.

The town was attacked late this afternoon, but not by Zents. I couldn't tell if they were looters or crazy or what. I'm not proud, but I actually shot them. Frank couldn't stop crying. I called base about it after he went off to find something to blow his nose on and they told me to send him back. I haven't told him yet, and I'm not going to until after dinner. We're eating rations, by the way. It's better than radioactive fish I suppose, but I'd rather eat something out of a can. This is really sugary and heavy. There's this thing that I think is supposed to be a granola bar or something, but it's like a hunk of brick. When I ate one yesterday, it sat in my stomach forever. God. Maybe I'll give mine to Frank today.

A supply truck is coming tomorrow. Over the radio they told me they were going to evacuate the town, so in typical military fashion there's enough food to last for a month on its way right now.

Some of the people in the town are starting to resent us. At first they were happy because we could protect them and feed them, but now they're blaming us. Some woman with a dead little girl tried to tell me I killed her. I said, "Look lady, my girlfriend and our son were living in the blast crater that used to be Detroit . I don't like this any better than you." She spit in my face.

I'm starting to think I've gone numb. I never cried or anything. I don't know, maybe what I said before was right. It's just too big to figure out. I have to get out of here.

Near 2 AM . No way I'm sleeping unaided. Frank got up and vomited. In our packs we have these sleeping pills. Every time I've ever taken them I had these horrible dreams, like the kind you get when you have a high fever and fall asleep on the couch watching TV.

I'm taking the pills.

Apocalypse Plus Four

Woke up to Frank vomiting again. Well, at least he's going home soon. Well, maybe not home. That stupid ship is a wreck, but I guess it must be home. We were on it for too long, though.

We have to fly half way there and escort the convoy and then Frank is gonna escort it back, and I get to stay with the town another day by myself until the town's evacuated. I'm not looking forward to this.

Guarding the convoy was incredibly dull, except that Frank kept radioing me every ten minutes to ask if I felt okay. I think my flu is long gone. I never threw up, but Frank's been doing it a lot. Puking and sobbing. Maybe he's useless now, but I don't blame him. I feel guilty that I'm not the one sobbing and puking.

I gave the man with the tattoo a can of peaches when we got the supply line here, and he acted like I had just walked on water for him. I told him I was just doing my job and some jerk with a blue blazer punched me in the back and knocked the wind out of me. The tattooed man helped me up. The guy who hit me ran away before I could do anything, and I decided to let it go. Maybe I even deserve it a little. Maybe we all do.

A lot of people are finding God. Frank talked to me right before he left to escort the convoy back (and I bet see a shrink). He said that his crazy grandma was right after all and God really was pissed off at us. I don't know. The whole "hail Mary, mother of God" thing rings a bit hollow these days. I started ignoring the news coming over the radio on the first day. I really don't want to know some expert's guess at the number of people who died. I bet Frank is listening to it right now. Listening and praying. Well, good luck Frank.

Apocalypse Plus Five

Tattoo man's name turned out to be Morrison. I made a crack about rock stars and he said it was the first joke he'd heard since 1999. Then he told me it wasn't even funny, but he appreciated the sentiment. He dug up a deck of cards and we played blackjack. We wagered cities. He would bet Alberta and I'd raise him Detroit and hey, it's not like anyone else is using them. They may as well belong to us. Everything belongs to us. We have inherited this husk.

Well, Morrison owns North America , but it's okay because most of western Europe is mine.

I heard over the radio that the evacuation was pushed back. Great. Well, maybe the food thing was a good idea. I started to think the town was getting used to me, but when I drifted off after lunch some teenage kid tried to steal my handgun.

I don't really know how it happened, or what I was doing, but I shot him. So help me, I shot him. Right in the gut. I haven't seen Morrison since, and the town has shut itself away from me.

I still haven't cried. I still feel numb. What's wrong with me? Maybe I'm the one who needs to go back and see a shrink.

Apocalypse Plus Six

Well. Today was certainly eventful. My Geiger counter started getting a little high and headquarters told me they were pushing the evacuation back up. I told them to make up their minds and no one had a problem with my insubordination.

I found a note stuck to my Valkyrie's foot. It was from Morrison. It was a suicide note. He didn't know the kid I shot, but the note said he didn't want to live in a world where things like this had to happen. He also said that it wasn't my fault and not to blame myself. Well, that's fine, because I don't. I can't figure it out. I'm not really sad that Morrison is dead, I just miss playing cards. Well, that's something.

I guess I've been avoiding this, but I may as well be thorough. Three battlepods attacked around sunset. It was carnage. I was napping in cockpit fortunately, or I'd be dead. Like most of the town. I was awake faster than I ever remember getting there, but I was pretty confused. My shots kept missing, and hit a couple of houses. I took out all three pods, but two of them fell over and spilled out giant alien like a bag of groceries spilling apples or some frilly metaphor like that. I guess I'm getting a little sadistic, because I stomped on their heads. It was a horrible mess. Jesus, I didn't think about it beforehand, but there is a lot of blood in one of those things. I know it's morbid and ghoulish and all that, but I had to face the reality of cleaning this off of my mecha. Well, I just ended up dragging my Valkyrie's feet through the desert. Now I have caked blood stuck to my mecha and the town smells just awful.

There's ten people left, and they had plenty of leg room in their evacuations. Someone in command wants to give me a medal for this mess, but I just want to sleep for days and days. Everything's better when I sleep, except when I take those pills.

Apocalypse Plus Seven

Jesus. Someone thought it would be a good idea to rebuild Macross City outside of the fortress. Brilliant. This is like some sick joke that just won't end. Because of my "act of heroism" yesterday, I was privileged enough to get my very own doublewide on the radioactive edge of a blast crater. Hey morons. It's been a week and the fortress is still smoking. Don't you think we should go somewhere else?

This is seriously a trailer. We've been to Pluto and back, and now we're living in the trailer park of the damned. If this is a joke, it's a really sick joke.

I swept ash off of my floor three times today, and then treated myself to some canned fruit cocktail and canned chop suey. I don't have anything to heat it with, but I'm not really complaining. I have neighbors, but they're quiet. Probably still in shock. Get used to it folks. This is the way it is from now on.

I went to bed at 7 PM . I woke up at 10 PM . And now I'm writing this. I wish I knew someone that wasn't dead, except for Frank. Frank really is with the shrinks. I heard a rumor from the housing officer that he tried to stab someone with a plastic fork. That's telling them, kid.

God. Time for my pill.