My pads kept me from getting too banged up on the pavement, but now I was behind my men. I needed to be leading from the front. I scrambled upright and resumed my charge.

A small contingent of police in riot gear were stationed around the MRAP. Enforcers crashed into them and a savage rumble ensued. I ran for the fire hydrant the cannon was drafting from.

Fortunately, the USA was not yet the totalitarian state most people in government wanted it to be, and police departments didn’t have the purpose-built crowd control trucks many other countries could deploy. Those were armored tanker trucks with remote-controlled water cannons. They carried about 9,000 liters of water and were hardened to the point that civilians normally had no means to counter them. This, however, was an armored combat vehicle (bad enough in a once-free country) with a firefighting cannon mounted up top, which needed a substantial water source to draw from, and had to remain static while pumping.

I slid along the wet asphalt for the last few meters, hit the curb, rolled up onto the sidewalk and dug in my pants pocket for the multi-tool I’d brought just in case I had to do something like this.

The fire hose was tough, but I gave it a quick, vicious slash and water exploded everywhere, soaking me from head to foot.

I recovered my stick and knife, which were fumbled in the deluge, and scrambled away from the hydrant.

The stream of water from the cannon fizzled out and patriots cheered. My radio was ruined from all the water; but I located my lieutenants and we went about trying to un-gaggle what had become of our expeditionary force.

An Enforcer clapped me on the shoulder and handed me his binoculars, pointing toward the horde of remaining Antifa. I positioned the binoculars and sighted down the line of his extended arm.

By the bank of the river, a mob of Blackshirts had set ablaze what looked like a pile of garbage. Two of them stretched an American flag over the flames.

The Enforcer coughed out some tear gas and rasped, “Oh say, can you see…? Think that might be the flag we’re lookin’ for?”

With words and gestures, I ordered the Enforcers to march on the garbage fire. As usual, many other patriots mixed in to march with us.

Lightning cracked the sky over the river, so close that we couldn’t help but flinch in surprise. The thunder was almost instantaneous, and deafening. An icy gust of wind blasted right through my wet clothes, making me shiver. Then the sky opened up and dumped on us like piss out of a boot.

The torrential downpour had two positive effects right away: it checked the spread of the tear gas, and it doused out the fire, ensuring Old Glory would not be burned any time soon. But it made us miserable, impaired our vision and our ability to communicate with each other.

We marched on.

The rain was the last straw for most of the Blackshirts, who had suffered a pretty bad day already. They evacuated the area in droves. The hardcorps element among them, however, noticed our approach and consolidated for their last stand at the river bank.

The weight of our soaked clothing and gear made us ponderous. Nevertheless, we waded into the fray.

Antifa’s level of desperation had risen. One of them charged us with an axe. Not an axe handle—an axe, with a blade. A blow from that thing would easily kill somebody. I whacked him in the neck with my stick and another Enforcer shield-rammed him off his feet. A patriot confiscated the axe and gave him a few stomps in the gut for good measure.

They attacked us with pipes, machetes, and even a sickle. One Blackshirt clicked open a switchblade and stabbed a patriot in the groin.

An Enforcer wearing a football helmet jumped atop an older car parked nearby and snapped off the whip antenna. He dropped to the ground on the other side and stalked the guy with the switchblade. An old car antenna was a deadly weapon in a street fight, and he probably cut the Blackshirt to ribbons, but I had my own fighting to do and lost track of him.

The fog of war became a factor as we closed with the enemy and both sides got churned together. The heavy rain and dim light made it hard to tell friend from foe.

The riot cops, reorganized, moved in from the west. They obviously wanted to trap the patriots between themselves and Antifa, but they now had trouble identifying targets too, in the low visibility and weather-compounded turmoil.

My stick rose and fell; rose and fell. Fatigue was getting the best of me, but it seemed the enemy was giving way. Then I saw the Star-Spangled Banner dangling from a tree branch a few meters past the sodden garbage pile. There was no sign of the thieves—they must have abandoned it.

I slogged toward our prize. A crazed, skinny Blackshirt came at me with a belt. I body-checked him off his feet and stomped his nose without losing momentum. I had almost reached the colors when somebody moved to cut me off.

It was Dreadlocks.

He was dressed a bit different, but I was sure it was him. He wore a raincoat, rain pants, and a bicycle helmet. He held nunchuku in one hand, and something hung from a belt around his rain jacket, though I couldn’t tell exactly what.

A blurry figure that must have been a patriot charged him. Dreadlocks dropped him with a kick to the face. Somebody else rushed him. Dreadlocks tripped him, but before the patriot fell, Dreadlocks spun in place, generating tremendous torque that drove the nunchuku into the back of the guy’s skull with a pop that was loud even amid the downpour and the din of battle. The patriot stumbled past and crashed face-first onto the ground, either unconscious or dead.

“If it ain’t Hockey Man!” Dreadlocks greeted me, with a nod.

“You guys lost,” I said. “Crawl back under your rocks. All I want is the flag.”

“Don’t care what you want, dawg. Wachu gon’ get is da ass-whuppin’ a’ yo’ life.”

“You sure about that?”

He nodded. “Oh, I’m sho’, fool. An’ you gon’ be sho’ in a minute.”