“The head is the hardest to crack. The skull is thick and can survive 500 pounds of pressure. But it’s the insides that are hardest to crack.” Sergeant Carrigan was issuing commands to the sound cannon on the roof of the armored van, typing on the console.

Specialist Nichols edged forward and studied his input commands, remembering a few of them from the training course. “Most of the protesters brought headphones this time. Won’t that defeat the purpose of the sound cannon?” Nichols could almost feel the approaching crowds from the back of the truck. The thundering, shouting voices were chanting for violence. A pack of insurgents was one thing but this was a whole horde of American civilians, on an American street. His training didn’t prepare him for conflict against his own people. He didn’t even want to peek around the corner of the open truck door.

Carrigan touched Nichols’ shoulder. “It’s a distraction. Sonic weapons have always been garbage. The sound machine is part of phase one. Phase two are these little things.” He pulled out three canisters from his belt, about the size and shape of ball point pens. “The other squads don’t know about these bad boys so keep your mouth shut. We’re on a special mission. Need to know.”

Nichols brushed off the arm awkwardly. Just because they were friends didn’t mean he could touch him. “We?”

“Well, me, but I can’t do this by myself. The pedestrians are spreading across McHale Streets and these things have a small blast radius. They work best when you can hit the crowd with these on both sides.”

Nichols had an incredible urge to close the truck’s back door but only a coward would do that. “What the hell are they supposed to do?”

Carrigan held one up, showing that the chemicals inside were clear. “They’re experimental. Once deployed the nerve gas attacks the amygdala, heightening the person’s flight-or-fight, leaving it partially inflamed. It also disconnects core brain function from the cortex, making it harder to make normal, thought-out decisions. I can’t wait to try this stuff out. They’ll disperse pretty quickly with this.”

Nichols stared at the Sergeant and was glad to be his friend. But something felt off. The word “experimental” kept running across his mind. Nothing experimental ever seemed to go as planned. “You think the civvies will be okay with us experimenting on them without their knowledge? They’re protesting against unfair healthcare. What do you think they’ll do when they find out about this stuff?”

“They’ll never know. It has a range of thirty feet but the blast is like one of those poppers you get at fireworks stores. They’ll just think someone threw a rock.” Sargent Carrigan laughed and gestured for him to take one.

He lifted the canister up. “Substance H8.” He read. “Hate. That’s a weird name.”

“Yeah, the boys in the lab thought it was funny I guess.” Carrigan punched in a few more commands on the console and moved toward the back of the truck door. “Named after a minor side effect. It makes people really pissed off, like super pissed off. Your fight-or-flight goes into overdrive. Sometimes you get scared and run, sometimes you want to stand and fight. But that’s supposed to be offset by the cortex disconnect. Their sense of logic gets screwed up and they can’t focus.” The crowd was getting louder. “We gotta get out there. Squad 4 is moving up.”

Nichols clutched the canister to his chest. He didn’t like this at all. Pissing off a crowd of protesters didn’t sound like a reasonable action. Violence had never been his first option. He was trained to de-escalate situations with words and empathetic listening skills. Outside he could hear the shouts and tumult, the clanking of metal against wooden barriers, the protest chants of inequality and pleas for affordable healthcare. He slipped the canister grenade in his front pouch, grabbed his rifle, and leapt into the open air.

The chaos of people in colorful clothing, some in rags and plastic bags as if pretending to be poor, banging against the wood barriers, were only about fifty meters away. Carrigan looked back with a knowing smile and moved up to the right, pointing to the left of the mass of civilians. The crowd had formed at the intersection of McHale and Garman, opposite the county courthouse steps. Before the National Guard arrived and set up a barrier in front of the steps several local officials were injured in the looting only a few blocks away. Nichols wasn’t afraid of the protestors; they seemed content with their “Healthcare Kills” and “Where’s my coverage?” signs. He was afraid of the Guards in uniform approaching the crowd with batons. The protesters were already likely unhappy that the Guard was there in the first place. This could turn ugly at any moment, considering there were more and more people joining the protests along McHale, almost too many to count. People were pushing on the barriers, slamming their fists and using their throats like a megaphone.

His camo uniform made him feel like a bull matador, teasing the raging bull like a red cape. He stood there while they screamed and shouted, his legs becoming weaker knowing he had to engage them soon. Carrigan made a hand signal to move to the left flank of the crowd. It was time to see if these weird grenades could work. And if they didn’t…He imagined the bloodshed that would occur. The hordes of shuffling and hate-filled civilians coming for him and the other five soldiers. How were they supposed to contend with pure and uncontrolled hate?

Nichols heard the sound of wood cracking and the four soldiers to his right were using their hands to press back the shouting mobs, their hands disappearing in a mass of shoulders, faces, and hands. Other crowds were pushing forward from the back of the previous group of protesters and the ones up front were being crushed. The mass was like a heaving, breathing thing, consuming, huffing, gasping for air, devouring anything it could reach.  The barrier let out a sickening snap under their weight.

“Oh sh…” Nichols fumbled for the canister in his pouch. The two soldiers at the front were sucked into the crowd while the other two were pushed back. The barriers along the sidewalk in front of him were holding but a few men who saw and heard the breaking wood started to push on these. Where the hell are the other squads? thought Nichols.

“Now!” came Carrigan over his comm earpiece. He couldn’t see the sergeant over the heads of the people. But he threw it into the crowd anyway after pressing the button on the side.

He heard a small pop but couldn’t see where the device had landed. Presumably people had trampled over it and hadn’t noticed. The squad to his right were nearly at the stairs, being pushed back, a look of defeat in their eyes. Several burly men were pushing, staring at him, as Nichols backed away. Their faces were outstretched, mouths wide, wrinkled with rage but then something changed…A small puff of smoke, or vapor spread out over the heads in the crowd. It was almost transparent, like a soft cloud but very noticeable. Some looked up in confusion, some coughed, while others grit their teeth and narrowed their brows. Nichols waited in a leaning posture ready to flee, waiting for the stuff to work. But the crowd never abated, never stopped pushing.

The barrier closest to him snapped. But before the few civilians up front could get through the burly men started pummeling the heads of their fellow protesters, punching with large fists, breaking arms. “What the….” Nichols exclaimed while watching a five-foot woman break the neck of a man wearing a doctor’s coat. He ran. The protesters behind him surged forward but quickly became a pile of bodies, ten at least, all pressing, groping, punching, slapping, kicking, and crushing as the angry faces came for him.

People were screaming; haunting screams in broad daylight. And then there were the angry shouts and howls, like a heavy metal concert for hundreds of unruly fans pressing the stage. The few protesters nearer to the court house stairs were now looking behind them, also curious about the screams and sudden mosh pit. Nichols pulled the soldier that had freed himself and dragged him to the truck. But to his right he could see another group of scowling protesters breaking through and causing havoc by swinging their arms. This was the effect of Carrigan’s grenade. Two men from the crowd surged forward and grabbed the soldier from his legs and pulled him away from Nichols. His heart raced and he wanted to shout but at this point the men wouldn’t have listened, blinded by hate.

Nichols closed his teary eyes and jumped into the truck. A hand grabbed the truck door. “Well, that didn’t work…” Carrigan’s voice was surprisingly jovial. How he was able to keep himself composed disturbed Nichols. “Another group showed up on Garman Street. Had to get out of there.”

Nichols shielded his face from the sergeant, wiping away the tears. “We have a man down. The crowds are just…fighting each other.”

“Yeah, it’s crazy.” said Carrigan, palming another canister. Nichols had the incredible urge to run. It would be safer inside the court house. There were too many people, too much hate in the crowds, too much confusion.

The truck started to shake, becoming jostled by the horde of bodies pressing against it. “We have to go!” Blood was spilling onto the sidewalk in front of Nichols.

“One more!” Carrigan was shouting as the specialist moved back outside, ducking under a swinging arm. He saw the canister being tossed into the crowd, disappearing over their heads. The protesters, the ones that turned into mindless rioters, collided with him and threw him to the ground. The truck was turned at an angle when he fell behind it. He dove forward and crawled along the sidewalk curb, desperate to escape the shoving and sweaty hands. An aching groan emanated from the truck as it was pushed sideways. He looked back and heard the familiar bang of the canister going off at the end of the truck, the smoke cloud visible. Someone from the crowd must’ve tossed it back and now he saw Carrigan’s boots standing in it….

He crawled along the tipping truck, passing over the grime of the city street, feeling like a dead body with the coffin closing over him. The soldiers would have abandoned him by now and so too would Sargent Carrigan who was likely being torn apart by angry, abusive hands.

He reached the end of the truck, the passenger door pinning him down, preventing him from going any further. The legs and feet of confused and angry civilians passed by him. He clutched his hands together and hoped no one would see him trapped where he was, vulnerable, shaking, unable to reach his handgun. He closed his eyes and tried not to imagine what would happen if any of them did see him…

After several moments of quietly waiting, of holding his breath and seeing his mother’s face in his mind, someone did see him. It was Carrigan and he was holding a piece of wood, broken off from a protest sign, spiked with blood. He had a furled brow like the others and an open-mouthed frown. As soon as he saw Nichols, he arched his arm back and swung it down, striking Nichols in the shoulder. He yelped in pain, the wood splintering in his skin. He wanted to plead with his friend but he knew there was no point. Carrigan was affected by the canister vapor. It was clear in the man’s face as he started punching Nichols’ head and shoulders. The hits were wild and aggressive as if the sergeant was trying to kill him. His arms were stuck on the weight of the truck and he couldn’t defend himself against the volley, slowly and violently having his senses knocked out of him. What hurt the most however, was the fact he could never have imagined that his friend would attack him so furiously, so eager and determined to end his life.

The world started to fade to black as the hits kept coming. Nichols saw his mother’s face again, telling him that it would be alright and that all scars heal over time. The images blurred. Carrigan’s face became red, warped, and crooked. He begged the sergeant for forgiveness, without knowing why, and choked, “Please…stop.”

A woman screamed and through bloodied eyes Nichols looked up and saw a woman charging for Carrigan, jumping on his back and pulling him to the ground. She had a hammer and proceeded to bash the sergeant without taking a moment to breath, only screeching continuously.

Nichols said thank you but again he wasn’t sure why. His head was a ton of bricks when he tried to lift it, watching the woman in a doctor’s frock pummel his friend to death. He tried to hang on but he slowly started to pass out, half knowing that the crowd would surely finish him.

The bending of metal stirred him some time later and he opened his bruised eyes to see several soldiers helping him up. The second thing he saw was the eviscerated face of his friend, Sergeant Carrigan, with the body of a woman lying on him, also dead. But he was numb, both in body and mind, and couldn’t react with tears or regret. The woman didn’t have a choice. None of them were given a choice to speak. But it was his fault, at least partially. He knew that. He had a choice and so did Carrigan. So did whoever designed this experimental weapon and forced him to test it out. The pain he was feeling, the pain he would feel in the future, he deserved it. The gurney was softer than the gutter he had been laying in and he wished they would have kept him there, mindless, limb, cold, and filled with hate.