"Chimalhuacán Slum restored!!"
A dozen Humvees sped through the main thoroughfare of Mexico, with megaphones blaring loudly.
Many were plastered against their windows, observing with varied expressions.
"Beckett, be careful not to stick your head out too much, or those bastard dogs will spot you," a voice, filled with anger, scolded a boy wearing a Snoopy shirt, as he lay on his bed peering outside.
The little boy was clean-cut with big eyes; he turned his head and saw his father, a shirtless truck driver, swearing.
The curfew had killed many businesses, and this had displeased him greatly.
"Can't you keep it down?" his mother complained from the side.
"Keep it down? Why should I! That bitch Victor and the damn government, let me tell you, someone will take him down tomorrow!"
Alcohol emboldened the man, leading him to talk big and thoughtlessly.
"Can you stop being so childish? How do you think others will judge if they overhear our quarrels?"
"Who cares what they think? The pretty boy downstairs or the spectacled teacher upstairs?!"
Beckett glanced back at his parents and then looked away; they'd been fighting ever since he could remember, and he was used to it.
His gaze returned to the Humvees flying by under the streetlight, the national flags fluttering, as if he could hear the flapping sounds in the wind.
He suddenly heard someone calling from below and poked his head out, seeing his classmate below, turning his head and waving desperately.
"Have you finished your homework?"
Bejite shook his head, "Not yet, isn't it still early? There are still three days left of the holiday."
"You better hurry up, my dad got me a few military camp visit tickets, you should come with me."
"Me?" Bejite hesitated, "What's so fun about it?"
"There's a lot of fun things, they say you can even see drug traffickers turned into specimens after being killed. Plus, my dad said those who go will get a commemorative badge with General Victor's face on it," his classmate shouted excitedly.
That name had almost caused Bejite to develop calluses in his ears, as it was chanted on the streets, in schools, at home, even at breakfast stands.
"We should respect him, calling him 'General' is proper, directly using his name is impolite," his classmate interrupted.
"Alright, you've got my word, we'll go together, don't forget."
Bejite watched as his classmate's head disappeared and frowned, puzzled as to why this new "Mister" was even more popular than Popovich.
The only difference he could think of was that the streets indeed had fewer gang members with tattoos of tigers on one side and dragons on the other, and far fewer people openly doing drugs. He once saw classmates surrounded and injected on their arms at the school gate.
He didn't see the appeal; when they spotted him, they ran off as fast as they could.
When was the last time he saw that drug-using classmate?
It must have been a month or so...
After the Northern Army moved in, he heard that the next day the classmate's entire family had been taken to the streets and shot by the Northern Army!
He wasn't sure whether Victor was a good man or a bad one...
After all, Bejite was only in third grade; many things were still unclear to him!
Suddenly a drop of water fell, hitting his head. He looked up, felt more rain coming down, and quickly withdrew his head to shut the window. Seeing his parents still arguing, now escalating to physical confrontation, he quietly closed the door, climbed into his blanket, and looked at the ceiling.
For some reason, Victor's figure filled his mind.
"Goodnight, General~".
Bejite whispered to himself.
The light rain quickly turned into a downpour.
God could no longer hold back the floodgates and started an unstoppable deluge.
"Get down, cover your heads!"
A group of crestfallen gang members, hands on their heads, bowing low, naked feet – all shoes had been stripped off – crouched on the ground, surrounded by soldiers in raincoats, armed, and looking on grimly.
"Be careful, Commander," Douglas Hague said to Goodrian, holding an umbrella for him.
Luigi Cardona, the deputy commander, watched coldly from behind, his eyes flickering. He did not despise the sycophantic behavior. After all, in the world of officials, if you don't bend down, there's always someone else willing.
In the era when Old Mexico's drug traffickers reigned...
Many had perhaps forgotten. Many officials who wished to climb the ranks would shamelessly fraternize with drug traffickers, not to ask for favors but hoping that when their rivals sought drug traffickers to take them down, they'd get advance notice to flee.
Goodrian pushed Hague's hand away, "You hold it; I have a raincoat on."
The latter wasn't embarrassed, just stood aside and smiled.
"How many prisoners do we have?"
"Over 3000," said a staff member nearby.
"That many," Goodrian frowned, pondering, when he heard a commanding voice; looking up, he saw a white man stand up among a formation of two hundred, shouting, "Brothers, stand up and resist! Those Mexican bastards have no intention of letting us go..."
Soldiers nearby rushed to hold him down by the shoulders, and many whites took the chance to cause a commotion, the situation looking on the verge of spreading.
Luigi Cardona glanced at the commander's face, turning iron blue.