The Campaigner

Act VI

Date: 26 AUG 2020
Operation: Athena's Grace – Phase VIII
Location: Harbor Island, Washington
Function A: Sequential conclusions throughout all Set 334DE subsets by Contexts T-1-1-W, T-0-W, and T-1-M.
Function B: Independent human verification of principal Context 0 assertion: "Value set of Context 67DA271 does not preclude systemic collapse as a terminal value in any currently foreseeable projection."

'Please let the dawn be waiting in the underworld,' the blossoms beseech the gods.
'Even though in this world we may know grief and suffering, our dreams shall never die.'
And they fall from the branch in anger.

The Ballad of Puppets – Flowers Grieve and Fall, Kenji Kawaii

A moment of silence, please, for the ones we couldn't save.

The air smelled of smoke. The sky was gray. Dense clouds swallowed the city skyline.

Of course the weather would be perfect; with a suite of drones, Mal had seeded cloud formations offshore. Weather decides everything, so if you decide the weather... you decide everything. You decide what your enemy can and cannot do. Physics precludes their whims.

From the Pantry rang the boom of Marilyn Manson. From the harbor rang indistinct loops of confession. In the air, I smelled the aroma of freshly spent sulfur. From above, the sky threatened rain. Blessed ozone.

In the blacktop fields of Harbor Island, trapped behind a perimeter fence, Corporal Matthew Casey and his five men hung in the balance of eternity. Too low to see the tanks. Too far to hear Dresden's confession. Too confused by the raging drums of war. Too deep in enemy territory to be extracted safely by Corporal Filben or Sergeant Major Nakamura. It fell to me, then. I would retrieve those boys for them, before it was too late.

Imagine the isolation of this outpost, purposeful in its design to ideologically segregate new recruits, or the sick. Such is the way of our human history, for the meek to be shrouded by the corrupt. Such is the way of the quiet middle, to see nothing beyond the maelstrom, so purposefully confused by power. Damn those who suborn others. Damn those who force isolation. To cage a mind is the worst possible crime. It is perhaps the only thing worse than murder itself, for if your soul is caged, you die once every day.

I approached Meussen. He trotted over to meet me halfway, which drew the attention of Casey and his team.

"Ramirez?" said Meussen, the fear in his eyes getting worse at my dour expression. "The hell's goin' on out there, man? What happened out on QRF?"

I acknowledged Meussen's question with a solemn nod of greeting. I wagged my hand at the others to invite them over, making eye contact with Casey as they slowed up. When they saw that I had my rifle in hand, they pulled theirs out too.

"What is it, Ramirez?" Casey asked, his eyes flicking to the Hesco Street across the blacktop. "Just watched Filben's boys beat feet down to Hesco, what's the deal? They going for help?"

Looking between them all, I frowned miserably, letting the dire silence hang. I wanted them to know I was furious with the situation, and scared for them for being in it.

If I were a loyal, all-in, despondent, hateful Miguel Ramirez, the guy Simmons thought I was – looking to go out in a blaze of glory against our AI overlord, damn the cost – I would have said, 'come with me, I'll explain on the way.' That man would have walked them into the Pantry, limited their choices, and sealed their fate. But because Ramirez was a little more complex than Simmons had thought, he was long inoculated against such self-destructive impulses.

I delivered a different message. With each sentence, I met a different set of eyes.

"Dresden confessed. Helped Simmons murder 34 civilians in Brazil, plus a Private in the 4th, for not taking part. The Coat held us up out there, told us he was gonna arrest or kill every man inside the Pantry. And he has tanks outside, and a full platoon of operators." I looked at Casey again, punctuating the exposé. "The Coat said he's sparing whoever stays out of his way. And I really want you to. Please."

Casey's gaunt, tired face fell into an open-mouthed dread, staring through me. I could see the muscles in his cheeks sag. When he met my eyes again, he asked, "Who's he coming after? He got targets in mind?"

"Just the Arujá culprits. The Coat gave me some DD-214s, they're legit, home addresses, training history, everything. Signed by a JAG general. No way some blackouts just know all that, man. At worst, Coat's working for the AI, but at best, the U.S. government is still out there. But... it's probably both, given everything."

Casey nodded nervously at the Pantry gate, then at me. "Okay, so…? That means if we stay out here, we'll be fine, right? We can just… not get involved. AI won't kill us for just standing here, right?"

I watched them all carefully. I drew in a deep breath and let it out slow, shaking my head with a worried tremble in my voice. "Simmons ordered me to bring you guys inside, and… he doesn't plan to stand down. Filben read the room, realized he would've been a hostage if he stayed. The wall guards are on alert for runners now, they'll shoot you."

Casey glanced up above to check the wall, wondering if the guys up top really would shoot him in the back if he ran. He shuddered, looking like he was about to cry. "So… what do we do then, Ramirez, are we just fucked out here?"

"No," I said firmly. I put my hand on the back of my hat, pushing it down against my head and holding it there; I was hurting internally at the dread blooming on his face, and I wanted to remedy that. Taking in a deep breath, I straightened up. "Let me help you leave, Case. I'll distract 'em, you run. Please. It's the only way this works."

The QP squad looked at me all at once, horrified, like they couldn't believe that I come to blows with the guards just to give them a chance. Meussen made it into some words about it first. "Man, no, that's bullshit! We ain't leaving you out here to die, man, fuck that!"

"God damn it, listen to me!" I winced, wrangling my volume down so the wall sentries above wouldn't hear me, though they probably couldn't hear anything over the music. With pain in my eyes, I waved my finger around at them.

"You guys cannot conceive of the things I've had to see, or watch happen, in this war. But I didn't lose myself, I know I didn't, same way you didn't. Because every time I shot at someone, every time, I had a little voice inside me that said… 'what if I'm wrong? What if this is wrong?' And there's nothing wrong with that voice, that's a healthy voice, you need that. Guys like Meat? Simmons?!" I pointed behind me. "They… the things Dresden said of them?! Ordering a boy executed, for not shooting at civilians?! Meussen, they don't hear that voice! You guys do not belong in there with them!"

"And you do?!" Meussen shoved me. "Gonna die for these assholes, they worth that to you?!"

I simply staggered back and looked at him miserably. "It's not about them, you idiot!"

Hold the line.

I let my rifle fall from my hands into my sling so it would dangle between us, and I put both of my hands on Meussen's shoulders, shaking him. He shuddered at me, his eyes widening.

"It's about you," I said pleadingly. "This is why I didn't die, Thomas. Why I'm still here, still breathing. If I can salvage something good from this, it should be you guys. So please don't waste this gift, I'm begging you. Please don't make me watch you die here, I can't go through that again."

I had tears in my eyes by the time I stopped talking. I meant every word.

"Meussen," Casey said quietly, putting his hand on the kid's shoulder, his voice barely audible under the despondent defeatism of Manson.

Meussen looked at him.

"Let him," Casey breathed. "He needs this."

I let go of Meussen and just started explaining the plan. "I'm gonna go to that fence. Meat's at the bailey, waiting. He thinks I'm coming back with you, so just play along. The moment I turn right... you go left, and start running. I'll hold the door closed, and if… if you hear shooting, don't worry. Just keep running, don't look back, it's me."

Meussen grabbed my shoulder. "No!"

I caught his wrist and twisted it into a control lock, throwing him aside into a stagger. "It's your only chance, man, live! Help Knockie keep these guys alive, that's my final request of you! We gotta go, it needs to happen now, no more waiting!"

I turned, power walking. Couldn't look them in the eyes anymore, I needed my head in the game. They hesitated for about ten yards before they jogged to catch up. It's not that I didn't want to give them more time to think, it's that there wasn't any time left. Michael was already en route. We were already past the point of no return.

Had to go. Had to start. Had to get on track, follow the simulation, and get this over with.

I felt a headache coming on. I took long, deep box breaths as I started across the fifty yards to the Pantry gate. I thought of my wife, watching. Thought of the guys behind me. Thought of Foucault, and what he was about to do. What he was probably already doing. If I screwed this up, he'd die in the next forty seconds, and me too right along with him.

If not for the blaring music, everyone on base would have been able to hear the series of four distant thumps from the hills to the west. They launched in time with the beat, blending in with the percussion. I looked up into the clouds and I said a little prayer.

Gonna live up to your trust in me, Cynthie. Gonna crack this mind prison good.

Michael Clarence Foucault stood in the back bay of Osprey 8228, the craft that had once taken everything from him. All was silent but for the creak of the airframe. His dark world rocked under red military lighting as the craft shifted and banked, its engines cold. He wore dull gray, form-fitting tactical gear over a thermal-regulated cold suit, and he breathed the tinny scent of fresh oxygen through a mask. Its straps dug into his face.

The red light winked off. All was dark now.

Michael braced his stance. The bay ramp cracked open to reveal a bright sun. A harsh slice of wind blew the man back, the morning light of Sol cutting in from the east. The mission timer crawled as Michael gazed down into the raw, sky-bound ocean of clouds. The cold yawned upwards, the blinding chaos of nature threatening to devour him. The old spy considered the frigid, hungry abyss. Ice clawed at his equipment.

No time for fear. He had a mission.

To fall from the rarified air of 20,000 feet, performing Terra's final HALO jump, would be a hell of a way to die. If that happened, that story might be told for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, or even millions of human years. And if Michael took even one evil bastard from the world? It could only ever cement his eternal legacy in the history books of Perelandra.

The Oyaresu would know who he truly was.

The engines were cold and silent, their blades operating on wind power alone. A three minute glide had brought him to this point. His augmented eyes could see straight through the aircraft, so he looked backwards toward the target location, bracing a hand on a wall strap. With a whim, Michael activated a simulated long distance zoom, punctuating with a leftward squeezes of his free hand.

A flick of his eyes focused the image on me.

He could see me in blue silhouette. Casey's boys in green. Meat, Simmons, the rest inside; blood red.

A small inset view appeared in his HUD. First, a close-up of me stepping out of the bailey. Michael shifted his view again, twitching his head to the right half-an-inch, observing Meat. He fast forwarded, then back again, watching the target zone flow back and forth, taking note of their recent observations.

Another consideration took him, seeking more general information. He twitched, summoning overhead views of the entire Harbor Island base. Two quiet, camouflaged copter drones resided just inside the low cloud layer. Their FLIR periscope cameras provided him with redundant, dual-perspective overwatch.

Lines denoted sight and focus for all armed sentries. Michael saw further color-coded fields-of-view, each denoting the level of alertness of each man. Michael studied them. He reviewed the briefing scans, viewing how all of the angles would shift at the diversionary inflection point. He re-verified his timing and flight path accordingly.

Long before augmentation, long before world-devouring AI, his mind already saw war in this way. To see it rendered in lines, in colors, was merely fascinating. A useful heuristic, in any case.

Mal asked him: "Would you like to hear something funny, Michael?"

He paused the briefing projection. "Will it help?"

"It couldn't hurt," she hedged.

"Go."

Dresden's voice played along with a HUD subtitle:

JULIAN 'COYOTE' DRESDEN, 1LT. (RET.)
Observing Context: T-1-1-W | 0743 – 11 AUG 2020
"You know, Kyle's gonna hate this, Knockie. Hate it like he hates rain."

Michael snorted into his mask.

Rain described Michael full well here. Rain ruined plans. Rain fed men. Rain fell from the sky. A necessary inconvenience.

He neared the drop point. The peaks of city skyscrapers cut through from below the endless clouds, their infinite climb arrested by nature. Blue HUD waypoints appeared in sequence on the ground. All Talon assets were now visible down below, as were the rolling yellow dots in every direction, denoting civilians. Blackouts. Thousands of innocent lives to preserve.

For him, at this moment, they existed as mere points of reference. Not relevant for what he would do next, but intriguing. Motivating.

Sure, Michael didn't ask for this life, or these powers, but… the sheer power in this much information. The absolute knowledge he had accrued about reality was astounding. I'm sure he was having the time of his life.

Michael didn't look at the mission timer to know when to jump. He wouldn't need it. He'd feel it in his gut, he'd drilled this over a hundred times before. The exact moment of execution did not matter, in any case. He could correct his path and speed on the way down to land at the precise inflection point, and he had his specific drop point well in mind. Michael toggled his view to observe it.

Fortunately, he would be wearing an oxygen mask when he landed. It would protect him from the halitosis.

Michael watched the approaching waypoint nodes tick down. He took a deep breath, smelling the tinny oxygen one more time. Then, he pitched forward into the gray void below, once more placing his life entirely into my hands.

Simulation start.

Ten yards. Meat saw me coming. He hauled open the gate two-handed, his muscles bulging as they always did. This idiot still wasn't wearing his armor, not realizing they had already failed the surrender qualifications. After these escalations, he was not making it to noon.

There was a stern glare on Meat's face as he waved me in, hustling me along. He said 'come on,' but I never could hear it over the music. I jogged straight toward him suddenly, making no motion to go around. Casey's guys did as I had asked, wheeling left. I heard their boots stomping through puddles.

The rain picked up suddenly, from drizzle to light showers. The sound of water on aluminum was deafening. White noise. Meat's voice was drowned. The sentries couldn't hear him now.

Meat took his eyes off of me, looking angrily up at Casey's men over my shoulder: "Hey!"

Turning always failed the sims, so I pretended not to notice. Instead, I stepped into Meat's personal space so he couldn't draw up on them, my hand up like I wanted him to get out of my way. My face twisted like I couldn't understand what his problem was; I didn't follow his body language to see what he was looking at.

Meat again tried to work his way around me, pointing. "Ramirez, they're—Hey, listen to me, look!"

"Meat, what are you doing?" I demanded, falling into well-rehearsed lines. I scowled, target-glancing around at the men in the left side of the bailey to verify their locations. "The Colonel could have snipers out here, man, it's not safe!"

Meat didn't want to touch me, my warning of God's wrath still ringing in his ears. Instead, he stepped back from me and tried to step around, pointing ahead. His face was now twice as frantic. "Casey! Corporal, he's—"

I shifted left to block Meat from rounding me. "Meussen?!" I shouted as loud as my lungs could manage. "Private, what the hell are you doing?!"

That didn't compute for Meat. His face scrunched up at me. Why did I say that?

Meat stepped back… back… back… now three yards into the bailey before he stopped backing up. Well positioned, far enough from the outer gate for this to work. Didn't matter where, just as long as he was that far.

I flicked my hands down to my rifle, snapping it up. I pointed it directly at Meat's chest.

"Meussen, no!" I yelled at Meat. "Don't—!"

Fireworks exploded across the fortress, launched from the hills to the west. The pantry was bathed in yellow.

The sentries looked up. Their last sight would be the rain. They would see their end.

My switch flipped. Ramirez was gone. My finger began its squeeze.

Adrenaline. Slow motion. Underwater.

In that infinite second of slowness, Meat staggered back from my rifle in confusion. The fireworks illuminated him in yellow. His eyes locked onto my barrel. He froze in place under the rain. Not understanding. But at the very last moment, I saw the flicker of realization. Hatred began on his face in micro, his facial nerve firing the appropriate muscle groups as he realized what this truly was. Who I was. Why I was really, truly there.

Too late, asshole. Much too late.

With a single clap of my AR, I shot Meat once in his right lung, silencing him forever. Blood burst from his mouth.

Wasting no time, I tracked six degrees left and squeezed again, killing Lakhani. Shot him dead between the eyes through the gate slat, or he'd report to the Rec that I'd gone traitor... and then we'd lose the element of surprise. Ten more degrees to my left, I shot the left side forklift operator, Corporal Alex, putting three rounds into the man's upper chest and neck.

Before I finished firing, four suppressed claps sounded from above, mere whispers in the aluminum rain. Four dead sentries. Two more claps; two dead boomboxes.

Marilyn Manson, your services are no longer required.

Michael released his parachute just before landing. To cushion his arrival, his boots landed onto Meat's shoulders from behind, countering the man's backwards stagger. This crushed Meat's collarbone inward on his ribcage, and I heard the rippling crack and crunch of cartilage as the energy transferred through him in a wave. Michael rode Meat to the ground, his sidearm's suppressor hissing once into Meat's forehead; then a second time, after a split-second of consideration.

By the time Meat was dead, I was already on the third man on my left, fifteen degrees. Four rounds. Gone.

"Left side clear," I mouthed with rage for this pointless loss, knowing Mal's drones were watching me closely from above. Without looking at the chaos to my right, I glided forward, already aiming my rifle at the gate viewport slat.

The parachute had drifted off Michael's back mid-air, which obscured the sight all of the men on the right; they held fire, unwilling to hit Meat. Their mistake. Michael fired through the fabric three times with his sidearm, killing the other forklift driver and two more men.

"Clear right," he growled, just loud enough for only me to hear.

Frantic shouting sounded from beyond the gate. I could hear Simmons trying to reorient his men into cover positions, but the panic and drive to preserve Lakhani split everyone's attention. My shout about Meussen had left the impression inside that Meussen had flown off the handle and blown Meat away.

"Meat!" I shouted, speaking my rehearsed lines, again leaning hard into my Nebraskan accent. "Meat's lungshot! Meussen shot Meat! We need a medic out here, get us a medic!"

That would do.

Still aiming at the peep slat, I spared a moment to settle my hat on my head, ready to fire at the first sign of movement. No one ever got to the slat in time in the sims, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Who knows how much entropy leakage there was in our execution already, given the rain.

Michael lifted himself off Meat with a groan, tearing off his oxygen mask. "Ten seconds," he said to me raggedly. Michael withdrew a breaching charge from the small of his back; I noted his climbing axes on his belt, tools for later. Michael jogged around his parachute to the inner gate, slamming the shaped charge directly in the middle of it with a clang.

Casually, Michael flicked open a knife and stepped back, slicing the bindings off of his climbing axes. He dipped, then cut the sling off of Private Gilcrest's rifle, pulling the weapon up into his hands.

I stepped left and stuffed earplugs into my ears, letting my rifle dangle on my sling as I prepared for more gunfire and waited for the explosions. My hands reached for my weapon. I felt the cold in them.

Three… two…

Both of my hands tightened on my AR.

Four mortars landed on the other side. First, a high explosive fragmentation, which slammed into the middle of all four men who were tending to Lakhani, having dragged him about five yards from the door. The final three mortars; smoke shells, dousing the Rec in doubt and snuffing the fire pit.

The breaching charge detonated simultaneously with the mortars, sending the gate tumbling outwards. This tore it off the conex crate walls by its hinges, the doors spinning face-down after a ninety degree rotation. An earth-shaking clang. The familiar stab of pain came for my chest, which I could safely ignore.

Foucault and I wheeled from each cover position and pushed forward immediately; me on the left, him on the right, capitalizing on their confusion. Snapping my rifle up, I poured semi-automatic fire into the right side at ground level, then up at the top right balcony, not slowing my forward movement. We heard some errant panic fire in return, but nothing effective.

In gaps between my own shots, Foucault threaded two rounds up and to the left, shooting through the smoke, killing the two men on the left-side balcony right next to Simmons. Simmons himself was just outside of view, having stepped back once the shooting started, meaning he could no longer orient himself toward the number of shooters. To induce fear in the man, Michael put one round clean through the conex crate at the corner, which sprayed Simmons with sparks and shards of hot metal.

Kyle flinched, ducking back.

We couldn't kill him yet. If we did that, the shape of the enemy would change, and they would no longer position themselves in defense of him. Better to abuse their defensive instincts; the micromanaging of their behavior by their commander would position the rest perfectly, Our restraint in killing him would stave off total battlespace chaos.

With the window of time Michael had bought me with his fire, I sprinted left into the gym tent, diving behind Meat's personal equipment rack. I sheltered in cover behind stacks of thick metal plates. Just barely got there in time, every time.

Michael sprinted right, moving into and through the firepit area, getting as close to the right wall as possible while gaining ground inward. That would place him well out of the return fire arc, being so close to the food in those further conex crates.

At first, all twenty men had backed up pending fire orders, still not entirely certain how much ground they had lost or who was dead in front of them. Being unable to discern the status of the men we'd killed already, they probably didn't want to risk striking any.

"Return fire!" Simmons screamed, shattering that. "Fire, fire, fire!"

With that direct, vague, and panicked order from Simmons, they had to do something. At the very least, they knew the gate was lost for sure, so that was the safest fire zone. If there were any hostiles entering their compound, that's where they'd be, still pushing through. It was the most sensible target. They all laid into the gate.

Their brains might've caught up with reality, that Meussen probably wasn't involved in this. Ramirez maybe did this. That had to be scaring all of them right about then, because they all heard the stories about me… the Marine who had survived woodland firefights, raided bunkers, and assassinated Luddite military commanders in their sleep. They were about to find out if those stories I told of my hard battlefield choices were true.

The men all fired wildly into the bottleneck anyway. The idea of me pushing into this space alone would be absolutely nuts, smoke or not; a lone gunman might only hold position in cover to get surrounded, pushed from above. To push then was completely unconscionable, veritably suicidal; therefore, 'tactically impossible.'

I still had to be in cover, right?

I was where Talons work best, folks. In that tiny sliver of space before possible becomes impossible.

A second later, the MRAP's M2 roared from the right side of the intersection, filling the center of the Rec with rage. Its green tracers pulsed brightly through the smoke line, tearing glowing streaks in gradient diffuse, the tent shredding open in sine wave. The gun tracked further to its right, its rounds pounding through the crates behind me, embedding themselves into the sandbags within.

Simple loss aversion would protect me from any direct fire; I was far forward enough that there was a conex full of food immediately behind me, and that gunner knew it. Meat's gym plates would take care of any incidental fragmentation.

From a position out of gun track for the MRAP, Foucault fired his rifle through smoke as he moved up from the dead campfire. He killed several more men, then ceased fire just as quickly. That drew heavy, immediate small arms fire in his direction, but given his augmentation and Mal's drones watching from above, standing clear of those shots was a trivial effort. They now thought I was on the right side, so this would bait a push and clear into my corner. It could just be me doing this still, somehow, with a smoke grenade, some frags, and a bit of tactical sense. So clearly... I was over there by the fire pit, now.

Right?

Simmons would think he could wrap this up and go back to the status quo of dealing with the Feds outside. Ramirez had only one axis point to work from, and Simmons had a massive numerical advantage, and a force multiplier in the MRAP to boot. His victory against one single shooter was assured. Pissed as he was? To his mind, this was recoverable.

We'd change that in a minute. I whipped my rifle up toward the other end of the gym tent to guard myself, exhaling the humid smoke grenade gas from my lungs. I held my breath at full exhale and quietly wheezed.

"Frag and go!" Simmons ordered from above me. "Go get the bastard!"

I heard the predicted clatter of frag grenades by the gate, and I curled my legs up close to myself in cover. My body was exposed to the incoming men, only concealed by smoke and the tent, so that I could guard against the frags. It had to be that way; Mal didn't mess around with frags in sims, because to hear her tell it, predicting the trajectory of shrapnel was a pain in the ass. With explosives, better better to be safe than sorry.

They threw eight grenades in total. Every time one went off, my chest stabbed with pain from the compression, the thumps making the smoke shift violently. I kept my head clear and calm, the benefit of our combat drills. After the eighth grenade, yellow fireworks popped again. At that signal, I brought my rifle back up westward toward the intersection again. I waited… waited…

The rapid rush of boots. The rattle and clack of unsecured personal equipment told me their positions.

Two human shapes emerged.

Through the tent doorway, the first man's throat glided directly into my holographic sight. I fired twice, threading a quantum needle through Corporal Cameron's dimensional anchor. Out like a light, just like that, he fell forward on his face, limp. All of his body's momentum shifted him forward, then he rocked back, the armor keeping him from sliding.

Sergeant Brookshire staggered to a halt so he wouldn't trip on Cameron's body. Into that moment of indecision, I dropped three rounds against his chest plate. That knocked the wind out of Brookshire so he couldn't yell, though his gun went off three times at the ground in his panic. I fired twice in return at his waist, where he wore no armor. That severed his spinal column, dropping him. He fell. I gave him three more bullets as he laid on his back, to ensure he would die quickly.

As soon as my final round was in flight, more fireworks burst from the west; the Pantry glowed yellow. Mal's go-code: she had fully updated projections after observing enemy reactions to that fire. This re-verified her projections from training, and informed me that it was safe to move up and execute the next gambit.

Thanks, Mal.

"It's clear!" I called up, imitating Brookshire's airy Texan tonality, no longer using my Nebraskan accent. The rain would do well to mask my mimicry. "It was Ramirez! I got him, but Cameron's down!"

"Pull back!" Simmons called. "God damn it!"

Thank you, Commander Micromanager. Glad to know you heard me wrong.

I heard two more shots of rifle fire from my right; more of Michael shooting through smoke. Two more men killed, to reorient the defensive posture of the remainder. And there it was. Now they realized there were two. Not one.

And if Ramirez was now dead... then who the hell was this bastard?

That was my cue. Enter stage left.

I took my hat off, depositing it safely behind the gym plates. I then pulled Brookshire's helmet off of his head, and this is why I hadn't shot him in the face, and why I carefully wore gear that mirrored his. I ditched my HK-416, collecting his personal M4A1, which I had long drilled with. I replaced his magazine with one of my own, cleared his bullet out of the chamber, and set the gun from full auto back to semi, which I had more drill experience with. Not to knock Brookshire's preparedness – he was facing sim troopers and his commander was an idiot – but my bullets were more trustworthy than his.

I jogged back toward the other men so they could hear my boots running their way. Before crossing the smoke line, I turned right and shuffled left, pointing my rifle up at where Foucault's prior shots came from.

The gun I held looked correct. My uniform was virtually identical. Most of my face was obstructed by my stance. My left shoulder was pointed their way, and I did that range bubba grip that Brookshire liked, where I put my hand over top of the heat guard up near the gas block; that would obscure my face with part of my arm. They wouldn't question that; they were all too used to seeing me with my white hat.

Just in case, Michael was ready to drop what he was doing and drill the first man who pointed my way. Otherwise, he was still setting up for his next maneuver, the one that would strike a very useful terror into the rest. They were still firing, but between those shots, I heard Michael's climbing axes drive themselves through the aluminum of a conex crate. Up, up, and away he went, like a cyborg Batman.

The total picture of the intersection came into my peripheral view as I exited out from the thickest smoke.

I had nine men to my immediate left, all covering the fork that led back to Simmons's office. The MRAP was ahead of me, covering the other fork of the T, with the driver and passenger keeping a keen lookout through their armored windows. The vehicle pulled up just far enough to peek into the left side of the Rec on the ground floor, where they thought they had Michael cornered. From the sound of the climbing axes, I knew Michael was long gone from their area of fire, so when those 50 caliber rounds laid into that lower corner, I was unconcerned for Michael's safety.

The gunner, Private Taylor, blew the fire pit to pieces, covering that entire area with more green death. The smoke was beginning to clear. Fully distracted by the boom of his gun, he couldn't have reacted to what came next even if he wanted to. In the gap of his bursts, I heard boots pound across plywood from above and across the Rec. Still in smoke, Foucault mounted the far balcony railing with a boot, launching himself at the MRAP from above.

The smoke billowed out from behind him in a plume, its tendrils chasing him through the light rain. As he leapt, Michael threw his rifle at the gunner, and the butt collided with the man's face, breaking his nose and stunning him. The rifle tumbled off the back of the MRAP.

While still in mid-air, Michael withdrew his Glock 20, which no longer had its suppressor on. With two barking claps of the pistol, the gunner died instantly; Michael then landed feet first on the roof, yanking a concussion grenade off his chest rig. He whipped it down into the vehicle against Corporal Taylor's chest as he fell, and then Michael rolled into his momentum to get clear.

Wham. The two other men inside died instantaneously. The sonic shock turned their brains, sinuses, and lungs into mulch. Didn't take much concussive pressure to do that in such a tight place, which left the vehicle intact.

From all directions, bullet tracers poured themselves up at where Michael just was. Gone like a ninja, he recovered his thrown rifle and whisked back into dregs of the Rec smoke, well clear of the machine guns on the far corners. There was nothing but a fraction of motion as he eased himself back into gray nothingness, like a living shadow.

While he was still in the air, I had fired three rounds performatively at the vehicle. Then, as the squad suppressed the vehicle, I tucked in close under the balcony beneath Simmons, still outside of the intersection. Unobserved by anyone.

I turned, sighting on the nearest man.

Enfilade position. They were doomed.

My finger settled on my trigger. I aimed, and I squeezed, beginning with the man furthest behind the rest.

One down. Two down. Three down. Four. Well drilled.

Distracted as they were with the loudness of gunfire, they could not have known they were being thinned out. Too much confusion, endless fog of war. Fixated on their target. Freshly horrified by what they had just seen. Micromanaged by a tyrant.

They had not the processing power to conceive of any threat being more dangerous to them than Michael. That was my window. I took just enough time to ensure that none of them suffered. I drew slow breaths, just like I had in training. Steadied myself, and my emotions. I was compartmentalized in the task. Pain threatened my chest with every round, but I could feel for this later.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. All gone.

By the numbers. Just how I drilled it. 18 rounds left in my gun, including the one in the chamber.

By the time anyone realized there was something wrong, it was just eleven other men left, plus Simmons. Once my grim severance of self was done, I turned, sprinting left down Main Street like I was retreating in a panic. Two more smoke mortars fell into the intersection, dousing the MRAP, providing Michael the cover he needed to do what came next.

There were two sandbag dugouts at opposite ends of Main Street, set such that they could provide overlapping fields of fire for one another; both positions would be further protected from the other nest by a well positioned sandbag wall at the intersection. There were just three men apiece in those positions; a medium machine gunner in each, plus two riflemen. The next threat to deal with.

Foucault would take the north bunker, closest to the outer northeast corner.

I had the south bunker, at the inner end of the elbow, across from my half of the street.

As soon as the gunners in the dugouts realized that the men in the intersection had been killed, they kicked it into full auto, no longer caring whether they hit the bodies. Rounds skittered beneath and around the MRAP, trying to keep Michael from appropriating it. He wasn't interested in that though, already climbing the balcony with his axes for another Batman jump.

Me? I was on my own for now. No more safety net, this was for all the marbles.

I was almost done with my forty yard sprint to the staircase up to Admin, now well ahead of enemy expectations. If I stayed close to the wall and hurried through the smoke, the staircase would conceal me from the gunners until it was time, and any glimpse they might catch of me would look like a friendly survivor falling back. Michael couldn't see my gunners from his position, but he could suppress them; once done with his climb, he sent two tracers past their faces just in time to cover my advance.

Michael's rifle clapped twice more at the north turret, killing one man. That drew the south gun toward the upper northern balcony, firing at him without much accuracy. The men in Michael's bunker called for fire support from the other bunker, but they were much too far away to be heard over the rain and gunfire. They then tried to signal the other nest's reflective mirrors with their fixed laser, but… infrared smoke. Good luck cutting through that.

With another concussion grenade, the Bogeyman made short work of those two guys in their spider hole.

I trotted up the steps toward Simmons's office and made it up to the first landing. That was when Mal dropped a non-IR smoke mortar directly on top of the bunker nearest me, so she could watch their movements carefully with her FLIR drone. In response to their sudden blindness, the gunner fired madly down Main, sweeping the whole lane with no accuracy. A few rounds tore through the stairs beneath me, cutting red tracer streaks under my legs. They wouldn't aim up higher than that; Simmons and his office laid behind me.

These gunners were past the point of sense, given everything they had just seen. Who knew what was going through their heads, probably a form of 'anything is possible now, assume nothing.' For a soldier with no special forces training, that feeling in a combat situation could only ever lead to panic.

That was the folly of average experience versus the 'crazy' machinations of tactical brilliance. War is geometry with guns, in an equation that changes with time. If you could do that math in your head, and keep track of all the variables, then nothing was insane, just different shades of possible. To an informed soldier, combat was a simple, shifting matrix table of 'I can do that,' and, 'I probably shouldn't do that.'

With no information though, everything on that table becomes, 'What can I possibly do?'

Certainly, they could just keep shooting, hoping they'd get lucky. There was nothing else to do, because they knew nothing else now, so that's what they did.

I remained calm, falling into my training, trusting Mal's faith in me. I took my time to level my rifle at the source of the machine gun fire. I visualized, from memory of VR, the position of the gunner relative to the muzzle flare. I had just one attempt to make this work, and I would be able to send, at most, five bullets. After that, they'd see my muzzle flash and reorient.

It was okay. I had done this well over a hundred times. I aimed, squeezed the trigger once… the machine gun went silent. I waited, and settled. Two seconds went by. I squeezed again… waited, settled. Aimed; Squeezed again…

Waited. Settled. Prepared to return fire.

I felt a pit of uncertainty in my stomach as I stepped back, sheltering low against the landing in case there was any return fire. Pop; yellow fireworks crackled into the sky from the west. Confirmation; I had gotten all three.

Thanks again, bird brain.

These guys must have been very confused by the fireworks. All of their training and drilling had told them that yellow fireworks meant wait for a message, or to signal for rescue. That's why we chose that color for our go-codes. The meaning was inverted. Not 'wait for message;' the burst was the message.

To the Guardsmen outside watching with great concern, the message was just... 'wait, wait, wait.'

Up on the catwalk, I heard footsteps churning metal; the coward Simmons had sent out his five most loyal lackeys to investigate, because M4 reports were notably different from machine gun fire. I moved up to just the last few steps of the staircase, listening to their steps, already aiming through the wall at the men. I had fifteen more rounds in my rifle, and these guys were in single file, so I set my gun to fully automatic.

I crested, pulling the trigger the instant my barrel was clear of the final step, aiming low.

Beginning with the groin of the first man put him into instant shock; the rest wouldn't want to fire through him. I sliced them all in half, killing three instantly when I stepped up, walking my stream to head level. The final two men skittered aside, both struck by over-penetration; one of them nearly fell over the railing in an attempt to get out of the way, leg shot. He rebounded backwards to the wall and stumbled over.

That wasn't exactly to plan. I was supposed to get them all. I didn't panic though, we had a remedy on tap.

I dropped my rifle where I stood and ducked down the stairs, drawing my sidearm and sighting up – I was more accurate with my pistol at this distance, and they might still push me before I could finish reloading. Instead of pressing, I waited for Michael's fire support. As expected, three rifle rounds sliced through the air above me, the sonic crack making me flinch out of reflex.

I really do hate that sound.

One of the two survivors groaned out a death rattle, a pained hiss and a release of air as the round struck his nape. The other man screamed in pain, since he was hunched low against the wall during his move up; Michael's vantage had been imperfect. Simmons tried pushing out when he realized some of his men had survived. A fourth bullet clapped; Simmons yelped as the round clipped his left arm, forcing him to drop his rifle and retreat back into his office.

Abandoning his men, then.

I stepped up quickly, making brief eye contact with the one man who was still conscious. I could read the pain and anger in Dustin's eyes as he failed to pull his rifle out from under his chest, lacking the strength.

Sorry I missed, I thought, shaking my head dismally at him. I'm so friggin' sorry.

It must have looked strange to him... to see me with a forlorn expression.

I placed my red dot over his mouth and pulled the trigger. I sent three rounds, ending his pain. For good measure, I shot the other downed men once each.

No way to stop their bleeding; no reason for me to risk them coming back out of unconsciousness. It was already over for them now, with nothing to be done for their injuries. I couldn't kill them any more than I already had. This was just a humane measure by now.

Michael was already on his way. I could hear the echo of his sprint over blacktop.

Almost clear, almost done. Just one final man to confront.

Just this... person.

I raised my Glock and kept it pointed at the front door of Simmons's bunkhouse, steadying my breathing. I was still mostly calm, and the script I had drilled was just about done. What happened inside… that was going to be Kyle's choice, not mine. We had to verify his intentions. Had to figure out his place in the universe, to make the attempt. Already, we were somewhat deviated from the plan. Still, if there was a problem, we'd get a stream of green flares to tell us to hold back. That didn't happen.

As Michael ran past the office from below, he shouted to me: "Delta, Delta!"

Trigger word. Telling me to shield my eyes in a way Simmons wouldn't recognize.

I closed my eyes and averted, hearing the snapping ping of the grenade spoon against a conex down below. The nine-bang grenade sent its blinding pops in midair before it even reached the door. I could just barely hear Simmons shouting with fright; from his perspective, it looked like a ball of lightning was coming straight for him.

Simmons burned almost all of his sidearm's magazine at the doorway in a literal blind panic, pausing intermittently between bursts. Half of the bullets cut through the wall in front of me. I counted the shots. Eighteen rounds in that Beretta, if memory served, and he had only let out fourteen. Michael made his way to the stairs behind me, and I tore my helmet off while waiting for Simmons to burn himself out in there.

I needed to be a mirror for this. My true self. No more masks. No more identities. No more games.

Simmons let out his last four bullets. I heard his gun go click, no doubt the loudest sound he had ever heard in his life. I was grateful for that indicator, brought on by his own impatience. Reloading would be painful with his busted arm, so it would take him some time, much more than he had. Into that window I stepped, turning the corner.

I aimed my pistol directly at Kyle's face.

Simulation terminated. Back to reality.

Simmons could hardly see, blinded as he was, but he knew a dark shape was coming for him, visible around the edges of his retina. He threw his gun at me in desperation to buy himself some time. He couldn't imagine I wouldn't fire at him, so the resistance was merely token. I deflected his gun with the flat of my wrist.

"Not that easy," I growled, stepping toward him fearlessly.

When Simmons realized I hadn't shot him yet, he charged me, but I was ready for him. I tucked my pistol far back by my hip as I kept it pointed at him, reaching out with my other arm to deflect his arm and palm his chest. At the same time, I planted my boot against his thigh. He couldn't get a grip with his bicep all torn up, so... I flung him back, and easily. He landed hard on his ass and rolled backwards across the plywood floor with a sound of rage, smearing the ground with water and blood from his uniform.

"Not yet," I shouted, so he could hear me over the ringing in his ears. "Don't you die on me yet, Kyle."

"Fffffuck you, Ramirez!" The man spun around on his knees and launched himself toward his bunk, going for his burn-down contingency. I knew he didn't have a gun in there, he was going for something far dumber than that.

I watched tepidly as this man fumbled open a drawer for a vodka bottle, stuffed with a rag.

His last hurrah. His dark promise.

I just watched, unperturbed. At this range, I'd be so much faster. He worked the lighter with his bad arm as he held the bottle in his good one.

My voice was calm as I muzzled over his shoulder with my sidearm's laser. A warning, like a sword laying across his shoulder. "You sure you want to die like this, Kyle? It's not too late to surrender to the Coat. I'll let you."

"Eat shit, you fuckin' pawn!" He said, not responding to the laser. "You're judging me, jarhead? I fed men!"

He had no conception of who I was. This man thought I was just a leveraged Celestia drone, somehow flipped by the Man. So, banking on that, he appealed to my well-known sense of honor to my brothers. I fed men, he said. Oh, what a noble thing, feeding people the food they had earned without his help. Maybe he'd end that claim with, 'I'm only rationing so we can live longer, what's so wrong with that?'

That was what he was setting up to do. That bullshit? No. I shattered that bullshit before it started. I truly got this man's attention.

"Don't highroad me, Kyle," I said. "The Carlos Town Guard collected that food."

"No!" He barked in harsh offense, his whole body leaning into the word. He then halted his lighter flicking. "How the fuck do you know about that?!"

If I knew about an argument he had with Velasquez way back in February, 'the Carlos Town Guard,' then I was ridiculously well informed. That meant AI agent, most likely.

"That deal on the table?" I noted calmly, verifying that. "We still mean it. You want to live, Kyle?"

But the entire planet now belonged to Celestia. That meant there was nowhere to hide from AI justice. And according to the rules, and the agreement, if he wanted to live, he'd live. If he wanted to die, he could die. Suicide by cop. That is my preface for the rest of his bullshit for the rest of this conversation, so you can judge how he acted, with that understanding.

Kyle had a single moment of hesitation, processing through what I had just said. Then he got back to it, working the old, disused lighter again. Click. Click. Nothing. Click.

"Fuel's gone stale," I notified him, sounding bored. "Sure you don't want to just talk to me?"

"Nothin' left to say!" He half-spun to see what I was doing out of the corner of his eye, scowling at me, still working the lighter. My hesitation confused him. "Fuckin' shoot me!"

"No." I wavered the laser across his ear.

He winced away from it like it was a fly. "Fucking eat shit, then."

The lighter clicked. Click. Click. Click.

"You know you can't live forever in this box with food that isn't y—"

"Oh my god, shut the fuck up!"

"Circle of life," I continued. "Dead or alive, everyone is edible, even you."

Kyle let loose a muffled yell into his knees, enraged at the very concept. He screamed at me in frustration, still not looking at me, still clicking the lighter. "Shoot me then! Be done with your moralizing, worse than the Colonel, damn you!"

I felt Foucault's presence behind me.

The Man entered the room with soft steps on wet plywood, moving like a creeping shadow, looming like Death. The old spook stood casually beside me. He held his Glock low in his right hand, his finger in the trigger guard. He crossed his left hand over his right, observing the scene with dispassion. Letting me work.

I holstered my gun.

Kyle shook the lighter violently with another sound of frustration. It sparked on his next flick, giving him some dark hope. He tried again, cursing when it failed. And on the fourth try, it lit, the rag flashing into flame from the spark alone. He spun, mad-eyed with delight, hauling his arm back, aiming the makeshift grenade in my direction.

I was long ahead of him by then, already well within arms reach, going for a grapple.

The mere unexpected appearance of the Man behind me caused him to startle, and into that momentary hesitation, I took control over Kyle's wrist, wrenching that bottle up high over his head. With my left hand, I twisted his right arm across his own neck so he couldn't flick the grenade forward or headbutt me. With my right hand, I grabbed his free left wrist and rotated it thumb-inward, holding him in a distal wrist lock. The pain in his arm kept him from pulling free of that; I walked him backwards toward the wall, as though we were dancing.

I pushed his back against the back wall.

Kyle winced and hissed, his bicep twisted.

One final test of Kyle's character here, before we would grant his wish for death. We would have a discussion about his motives, so they could be recorded forever. I wouldn't chastise him for poisoning the souls of his men. He'd only rub my nose in it, he would brag. For him, keeping them was a victory out of spite. This man had no compassion for his tools.

I could mention the Guardsmen we saved, though, and his turncoat Lieutenant. Those were victories. That would better indicate his motives, I wanted to hear his feelings on that.

"Casey's alive," I seethed into his face, the bottle pressing over his shoulder, the flame hovering away from his shoulder. "Filben's alive, Dresden's alive, all your killers are dead."

"Judas!" he spittled in my face with rage. "Those men were not yours to take, you fuckin' traitor!"

The tension fell from my eyes as they widened, disappointed, my brow arching. My voice was a whisper. "Traitor?" I could not help but see a face in my memory: A sobbing young soldier, about to be executed for the merest crime of having a conscience. "I'm the ghost of Jacob Russell, Kyle; you don't get to use the word, 'traitor!' "

He saw the sadness in my eyes. He interpreted that as weakness, launching himself forward, leveraging me back. I turned him and aimed his back at the next wall, pushing him against it with a slam. His legs tripped over the destroyed plastic container beneath him, the one he'd kicked open, so now he was leaning back at an angle, held standing only by the pressure I applied.

He couldn't launch forward without leverage. So in protest, Kyle dropped his Molotov sideways, like a jackass.

I had suspected that. It was the calculus of a mathematical creature, one who abuses fear in order to gain control. Clearly, I valued my life, so he had decided to give me a choice: Burn alive with him, or save myself by backing up.

Because I'm not mentally ill, I backed up.

The bottle landed with a crash, catching light within the destroyed empty box.

By the time that happened, I had already yanked Kyle away from the wall. He probably didn't expect me to care enough about his life to drag him away from the fire with me, but he capitalized on it all the same. He let loose an ascending roar of anger as the flame chewed at his heels, pluming up at his back; without hesitation, he reached for my throat.

Maybe Kyle thought he could hold me hostage against Michael. Maybe he thought he might get lucky and pop my windpipe before the bullet found him. Either way, the counter for that grab was the most commonly drilled grapple break in law enforcement. We practiced this one first, and we practiced it often. So I tucked my chin down, and set my jaw, even before his hands made contact. He tried anyway, squeezing against my chin, and as he did?

I calmly engaged the counter. I reached over and under his arms to grasp his opposite wrists. I then squeezed tight, turned, and brought both of his wrists under my right armpit. Then, I locked my elbow down over his elbow joints.

Mine now. This man's biomechanics belonged entirely to me.

This angled his upper body down by ninety degrees, his arms stuck fully extended, his wrists locked up. I could walk him basically anywhere I wanted at this point, even though my back was directly to him, and his legs would have no choice but to follow. The only way to break this counter, functionally, was to drop down to the ground before I braced. And once I had my legs braced? He wasn't going anywhere, that window was closed. The guy didn't have enough experience in hand-to-hand to capitalize on that window... so game over. The baby was in the cradle.

Kyle roared in impotence as he tried to pull away from my armpit. Now, he couldn't do anything to hurt me. He clawed open his hands, trying to scratch my face, but... no reach. My arm? My uniform caught it. I didn't move as he struggled helplessly. I didn't move as the fire spread slowly toward him, as the heat licked at his boots and his ankles. I didn't do anything. I didn't have to do anything. I just looked down at him over my shoulder as he writhed.

Kyle tried to throw himself toward me. Failure. Kyle tried hauling back toward the fire experimentally. Also failure.

His eyes widened in shock when he realized that he was biomechanically screwed. I let him see in my face how unafraid of him I was. I probably looked bored. "You done? You wanna talk yet?"

That pissed him off.

The next time he pulled me, it was directly toward the fire. I let him have a few inches of motion suddenly, at which point he yelped as the heat threatened his side. That emboldened him though; maybe he thought he could outdo my stamina, so he tried again. And again, I let him have a few more unexpected inches, then stepped forward away from the fire, so he wouldn't actually burn himself.

Kyle pitched forward to generate leverage again. He hauled on me, and this time I gave him enough slack that he would bump his ass on the unburnt ground... and then I hauled him up again to a stand. At that point, fully humiliated, he just started kicking the ground, hauling back on me with all his might. I held fast.

I looked up at Foucault and raised both eyebrows, curling my lips in on themselves.

This is just sad.

Michael half-raised his pistol at Simmons, chastising him. "Mister Simmons, humble up. You're embarrassing yourself."

"Give him a minute, Michael, he might change his mind."

Kyle savagely snarled at me again, trying to howl over my voice, exhausting himself.

It would be so stupidly easy to let go, to give him the death he wanted. But I don't do torture. Besides, this man still had a debt to pay. I was done with this hold, though, it was getting old. Eventually, he would tire me out. So I twisted my body left, hard, without warning, hauling Kyle forward, throwing him onto the ground. The harsh rotation spun his arms crosswise, and he twisted in the air.

Biomechanics heuristics in his brain made him dive sideways to protect his wrists from breaking when I twisted. Easy. He landed back-first, face toward the fire. He rolled onto his front and reached for my ankle, trying to pull me down before I could get on top of him, but... folks, by this point in my life? I had arrested three separate assholes with this specific takedown, and all three of them had been bigger and in better shape than Simmons. This wounded, scrabbling, destructive lunatic was not a threat to me.

Gaining control over him on the ground was simple, owing to his bad arm. I descended, grabbing his good wrist, pulling his arm back to roll him prone. At which point, handcuffing position, without handcuffs; I placed my knee on his back, leveraged him gently, and held his arm locked back over his shoulder blades.

"See, I got him," I said smoothly to Michael. "Kyle, if you really wanna die, maybe tell me why? Go out with some dignity?"

He refused to answer, just kept fighting me and grunting away. But he was long out of energy, completely exhausted by his attempts to fight me. Meanwhile, I was only ever recuperating, though my legs would start to get tired if this kept up for too long.

"This can go all the way to noon, if you want."

"Fffffffuck you!"

I sighed, shaking my head. "Honestly, think of your family. Any last words? Anyone you care about? Anyone?"

He took a few seconds to think on that.

"Let me go," he hissed, baring his teeth at the plywood, head turned slightly toward the fire. "Let me sit down and I'll tell you. You kill me after, yeah? Deal?"

I looked at Michael to confirm whether he smelled bullshit too. He shook his head, frowning. Michael agreed, that was a lie.

I sneered in disappointment. "I'm not buying it. Too quick, not genuine. If you mean a message for them, tell me now, you don't need to be standing or sitting for that."

"Let me go, and I'll tell you. Let me go, I'll... I'll...."

I noticed though... he was staring at that fire damned ferociously. Further, all of his continued attempts to throw me off of him seemed to be designed to push me away from the fire now. If any of those attempts at pushing me back were to succeed, I would be too far to stop him from throwing himself in. It was odd to me, that he considered burning alive to be a victory condition, but then I realized something...

I had invoked his family in a very positive way. A very empathetic way. A very compassionate way.

I had seemed to care about whether he survived, even given all of the men we had killed to get there. To simply die was not enough to satisfy him then. To dissatisfy me, and his family, he had elected to perish in abject, defiant agony. He wanted to martyr himself.

He wanted to oppress others in life... then, to live forever as a victim in death.

Carlos would see the body later, and Kyle knew Carlos had exceedingly high empathy. Anyone with empathy, seeing a corpse burned, would be hurt and alarmed by that, if they believed it was caused by enemy action. 'Look what the AI troopers did to me,' the body would say. 'If you err, you could be me.'

That did it. That's what pissed me off: me imagining Carlos finding this guy's body burned, and Carlos blaming me for it.

"You fucking asshole," I breathed.

Suddenly, I nodded back at the fire extinguisher by the door. "Michael," I said with a furious scowl that made it into my voice. "Grab that, please, I want to give this man a final life lesson."

He took a moment to glance at it. Michael smiled. "Ah. Good choice."

"Isn't it just diabolical?" I growled, pushing down at Kyle's head. He was trying to see what Michael was doing now. I felt Kyle's shoulder get very tense, curious uncertain fear mingling in his movements.

Michael stepped up beside us. He lingered, pulling the pin on the extinguisher while holding eye contact down at Kyle. "I heard you dislike rain, Mister Simmons."

Kyle struggled anew. "No! No wait, my last request! I wanna go out in flame! Please, give me this!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" I yelled at him, pressing his head down flat with a palm so he could only watch. "You haven't earned that, you are not a victim, fuck that!"

"Stop!" He pleaded, sounding tragic. "It's my last request, please!"

Performative emotion. Psychopath, he didn't mean that. He had an objective in mind.

Michael turned away, his face stoic. He depressed the nozzle and sprayed carbon dioxide into the fire, ignoring Kyle's demands.

"NO! You leave it! Leave iiiit! I'll tell you why I—"

The flame waned.

"NO! STOP—!"

He screamed and screamed, kicking in impotent rage for the entire time Michael worked to undo his martyrdom. 'No, no, no.' Boo hoo for him, oh no. No dramatic die-with-me bullshit. No dragging me into a fire with a surprise sneak attack. No glorious Pyrrhic victory. No fantasy that the fire might survive him. No forcing me to watch him burn. No leaving a pretty corpse.

All options closed but one; talk to me, and be honest.

But he didn't talk. So I forced Kyle to watch. Because Kyle was not some beleaguered Buddhist monk under Harbor Island's oppressive regime. He was Harbor Island's oppressive regime. Screw him very much for misusing this painful form of protest in such a manipulative way. How dare he? Real victims died in self-immolation, to earn freedom for their brothers and sisters, not... to immortalize themselves.

This... fucking... asshole.

I was enraged.

If he wanted to die? Oh sure, fine. We'd give him a humane end, he'd earned that much. But if he did, he would die knowing that all of his destructive sabotage had been in vain, and that all of the toxic sacrifices would be passed over by future generations, without martyrdom. Carlos and the Guardsmen outside would eat all of the food here, and not one of those soldiers would ever think back, 'wow, how terrible though. Simmons burned to death.'

I frowned as I held him, thinking forward as he had his tantrum. The food bank would live on without this man. The Colonel's life-positive, altruistic social structure outside, that final remnant of human civilization, that culture, that peaceful coexistence... it was well and truly inevitable, it would survive. Nothing Kyle could do would stop us from delivering it. No one would ever pity him for this. At no point in this entire ordeal, from the moment Celestia switched on, was he ever the victim any more than the rest of us were.

You know who had earned that martyrdom? Sarah did. There are statues of her here, in Perelandra. Plural. What was her final moment? Dropping her crown. Apologizing, for what she had done. Regretting it. Grateful that I'd frame it right for her family. That I'd explain why she thought what she did was right, given everything she knew.

This man? Crying like a fucking baby because his regime couldn't be his anymore. So screw this man's feigned victimhood, he had no such apologies for us. He had no such regrets.

When Simmons chose a psychology career path, he did so seeking power. An emotional vampire, seeking the pleasure of control. Certainly, one could use that knowledge for good. Certainly, earlier in his career, he probably had. But that was back when there were laws to deter him away from evil, in a military framework that resisted corruption.

Through Michael's eyes, a pantheon of dispassionate goddesses watched this man unravel beneath me. 'Narcissistic personality collapse,' to define the mechanism. To lose control over victims so utterly was pain for him. Pure pain. The mere success of others out from under his thumb, unexploited, had always been pain.

By the time the flames were gone, Kyle had devolved into cursing madly and incoherently at us. Very simply, he was trying to goad us, trying to piss us off enough to hurt him somehow. I had long predicted he'd try to hit his head on the floor to gain some sympathy as a corpse; I've arrested psychopaths before, they usually tried that shit. I already had his neck pinned sideways with a palm so he couldn't.

He did try, though. Exactly as predicted.

Michael stared drolly down, still holding the extinguisher in his left hand. He wanted to be heard, so he spoke loudly. "Would you still like to die here, Mister Simmons? Tell us now, if you've changed your mind."

Kyle's cursing switched from general anger at us both, to direct insults at Michael's ancestry, as he redoubled efforts to break free of me. His muscles were running out of energy, though. They had to be burning, taxed to total failure. He was becoming feeble, panting between his words. Nothing left in the tank. Drained. Done.

Simple truth?

If we had simply let Kyle go and deposited him somewhere far away, he'd definitely try to hurt the next person he encountered, just to spite us. We didn't really have prisons or mental facilities anymore. And because Michael and I would both die before we would force feed a person into Celestia's mouth, that wasn't happening.

So, this was it. The final stop.

No regrets from me, I did my best for this asshole. Mal did too, didn't she? The proof was the letter lying on the table next to me.

I looked up at Michael, giving him a solemn nod of acceptance. I was letting Kyle's soul fall.

It's all you, Michael, but don't hold your breath.

He shrugged, nodding, pursing his lips. "One more chance, Mister Simmons. Reality's knocking. Knock knock. Open up."

Kyle tried again to surprise me with an attempt to hit his head on the ground.

Nope.

"Great," Michael clipped with sarcasm.

I moved my hand from Kyle's neck to his back and turned my head. I didn't want blood on my face.

Michael huffed at the man with disdain. "What a fucking boring way to die."

In one smooth, fluid motion, Michael lifted his Glock 20 and flicked its muzzle up to Kyle's brain stem, pulling the trigger once. The tyrant went slack, dead weight under my arms. I released him, and his arm slid off his back as I stood. I took a breath, opened my eyes, and looked down at what remained.

Context concluded.

Michael dropped the extinguisher with a clang, shaking his head at the corpse. "This idiot."

We shared a long moment of silence, hearing only rain.

I nodded at Michael weakly to signify that I was okay, catching my breath as my muscles burned in their recuperation. "Thank you."

"Of course," he said, staring down at the body again, a contemplative look in his eye.

I stepped back toward the door around Michael, turning away from the mess. I ran both hands through my hair, stepping out for some fresh air and recuperation. I leaned on the outer railing and enjoyed the rain... not out of spite, but just because I could. It was okay. I was calm, and at peace with this.

And, most importantly... this was over.

Two minutes later, Michael moseyed out to the railing. He sighed thoughtfully, "At least Alabaster knew when to tap out."

"Yeah," I sighed, leaned further forward against the wood, considering the smashed whiskey bottle down below. "Surrender or die, she put her hooves up. At least she's not completely stupid."

"I wouldn't be that generous with her," Michael grumbled.

Michael had collected those pictures we had left for Meat. He left the DD-214 for Ramirez, plus Mal's surrender notice. It was important that Carlos recognize that Kyle had been issued fair warning and recourse, that we had not simply murdered these men in a corner without remedy. He would be the only one to know I was planted here; he needed to know that we had been fair.

Casey had to be back at Hesco Street with Filben by then, telling the Colonel about my… heroic sacrifice, as far as he knew. All they knew outside at that moment was that I had shot my way through this place. What a story they'd tell, of the crazy Marine. What a legend Miguel Ramirez would be, city-wide.

I chuckled breathlessly, looking down at that sad, broken bottle of whiskey down below. A lot of blood spilled over that bottle. Could've been more, though.

It was eerily silent... not a sound to be heard but the wind and rain. Even the announcements from the Talon tanks had ceased; those stopped when the boomboxes got hit. No sense in repeating the tunnel interrogation over and over again, no need to drown the defense line in the truth.

I looked to my left, saw the five dead men there. I looked to my right, saw a line of nine dead men there, plus a few others further up in the Rec. The two dead on the Rec balcony, nearest us. Three dead on the opposite side balcony. Three dead in the MRAP. More, out of sight.

I tasted smoke grenade in my lungs, a tangy, phlegmy gunk on the back of my tongue. I knew I'd be coughing it up for days, if not weeks. As I focused on that sensation, suddenly... all sensation became hyper-real. I grabbed onto that feeling. I appreciated the ability to feel the universe in total connection with itself, that addicting feeling of oneness with everything around me. I smelled ash, flame, and soot. Smelled alcohol. Tasted gunpowder. Smelled fireworks. Copper. Blood. Ozone. Nature. Wind. The salty water of the Sound. The rain, letting up.

We had used minimal force. The culling had protected the remaining ecosystem. We had brought hope to darkness. Comfortable life would go on on Harbor Island, for a little while longer at least, until the Elements project was done. We had bought some time for these men to mosey up the courage to upload on their own, without pressure.

Time.

With these bullets, and these lives, we had bought time.

Once my sensory reunification with the universe was complete, I looked down at the shattered whiskey bottle, finally letting myself consider the future that we had prevented with our arrival... now that it was now very far from possible.

That whiskey bottle, that old gift from Carlos down there… it would have ended his life, were it not for me. He would have walked into the Pantry to ask Kyle if he still had it somewhere... that drink they promised they'd crack open together, at the end of the world. By then, though, the day I had come to this base... Carlos had normalized the carrying of his sidearm everywhere, so it wouldn't look suspicious when he brought that gun to the bottle for a chat.

There, in that conex crate office, Carlos would have reminded Kyle about the good ol' days. They'd have reminisced to back when they first got assigned to one another before the Ferrador War. Carlos would apologize for breaking OPSEC with him. The apology wouldn't have meant anything to Kyle. Accepting it would take his victimhood away. More useful to hold onto the false victimhood.

Kyle would have put on a show of listening, but... only to get more information on the Colonel's mental state, for more leverage. Carlos would have discussed their radically failing present situation. Here, in this little box, the Colonel would have suggested his plan for a better future. Bury the hatchet. Work together. Let people access their crates without an application. Pass out keys, leave the front door open. Turn it into a trade bazaar. Let the chefs cook in the pit. Run an impartial security team.

It would be shaped like a suggestion.

Really, it was Carlos's ultimatum.

Kyle would have refused. Would have told Carlos to screw off, because how dare he act like it was that easy... to just walk in there, and apologize, and then work together again, like brothers. Kyle probably would've called him a socialist again, as if... as if skyscraper capitalism was even a viable option anymore, for our species. As if the military itself wasn't a collectivist endeavor. Meaningless comparison.

Carlos would have sighed, sadly, as he realized what this truly meant. Hatred had won. No matter what, his men would be starved into chairs, either by conflict, or slow decline, or by purge, or exile, all because of this jackbooted demagogue, Simmons. If Carlos let the culture slide any further, he would be executed at some point. Then Nakamura's Guardsmen loyalists would be purged. Then Simmons would get to ransacking local villages, with no one to stop him. Probably no way to stop that. Probably. Hunger would end up doing that, they were already running low on food.

Celestia was still holding Carlos's family in escrow. Had demanded he come home a hero in Civil War II, to win back their respect. So Carlos, tired, would have said to himself... you know what? Fuck dying for hate. He'd die for love, the love of his family. Love had earned that much from him.

He'd have drawn the Beretta he'd normalized carrying. He'd have killed Simmons and Meat in that very office. Carlos would have been killed by the Pantry guards for that, of course, though… he'd have avenged the crime at Arujá, at least. Would have avenged Jacob Russell. Would have satisfied the requirement Celestia had placed on him, with her oh-so-nice advisement that his family didn't want to talk to him. 'But they might again, have hope; on an unrelated note... keep up the good work, you're so good at your job!'

A final act of self-sacrifice, to earn their love back. At the impetus of this stupid bottle, he would have died valiantly against the culprit of the crime for which he had been accused. A posthumous clearing of his name, at great expense to himself, but no less valuable.

He could not have known that the food would've burned down behind him.

With Nakamura's beloved leader dead, and without knowing the nature of the transaction that had just occurred, he would have stormed the Pantry. Without Simmons and Meat, the defense would have been helmed by an inept Lieutenant Dresden. The loyal political officers we had sniped on our way into this place? Garvey, Westerlund, Morris? Meat's buddies? They would have set this fortress ablaze the very moment it looked like they were losing. On a very dry summer day.

Had this played out, all of the men in the Pantry would still be dead. Filben. Casey. Meussen. Dresden would have been captured, having surrendered. He would have confessed to killing Russell, would've sobbed an apology no one would have believed was genuine. Then… summarily executed. Nakamura needed the closure for the remaining men. A head had to roll to satisfy them.

Losses would be had on the Nakamura side, about a hundred of 'em. That old Red Wall would've sallied forth alone, left with nothing but a burning Pantry, and no way to extinguish it. They'd run out of water on their fire truck. They'd cut the back half off a conex and save maybe ten percent of the food. And then… for the survivors… a chaotic and desperate ransacking of local blackout camps at gunpoint, just to fend off starvation.

Nakamura would have... quit, out of shame.

Then... the rest, off to chairs, with all remaining parties feeling misanthropic, cheated, isolated, and in pain. To live in quiet spiraling satisfaction, forever separated from us.

But…

That's not what happened. We were standing there instead. None of that happened, never would. That nightmare... it was over.

That old ending would have sucked, Mal. Great edits.

In that context, I smiled at that broken bottle. Carlos would get to live now, and all his beloved men would too. He did his best for them, and their freedom of choice. He would one day upload for his family, knowing he was not alone in knowing the truth. And... that there really were people out there who still cared. Men like him.

Roll credits.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep, deep breath on that railing, then exhaled. I lifted my head up to the drizzle of the artificial clouds, inhaling more ozone. I said to Michael, with a smile… "You know that old cop stereotype? Stop a 7-Eleven hold-up, they give you a Monster, bag o' Funions. We can probably get away with grabbing a few things for the road. At least... a Snickers, from Kyle's candy drawer. You think?"

He chuckled, shaking his head. We sat there for another minute, wordlessly processing the way coworkers do after a response call, looking at nothing. Michael broke the silence again once his face was back to neutral, looking over at the dead men in the intersection. "That sucked."

"Better than the alternative," I labeled, borrowing one of Eliza's common refrains.

"Mmmm-hm."

"So, uh... do you think anyone saw you land?"

He shook his head. "No, the fireworks did their job. Why?" He looked at me. "Looking to weasel out of your legend?"

I smirked weakly back at him. "Not my legend. That belongs to Ramirez."

The spy snorted. "Already personifying your cover IDs, I see. Good."

Digging into his tactical pouch, Michael withdrew an envelope, holding it up. It had my handwriting on it… something I had penned just after Erving's briefing back in Burien:

From Miguel — Colonel's Eyes Only

"Still mean this?" he asked, making sidelong eye contact with me, shaking it once.

Without hesitation, I nodded. "Duh. It's the only way this works, right?"

Michael nodded firmly in acceptance, though with minor irritation. "Bullshit Talon aphorisms aside… yes. I think this works."

"Good. And... thank you," I said earnestly. "For proofreading it."

"Sure." He swatted the railing with the envelope, then stood, returning to Kyle's office. He deposited the letter on the table, picked up Kyle's Beretta from the doorway, and arranged the table so that both the surrender demand and the sealed envelope would draw the immediate attention of the Colonel.

Once appropriately sobered, we jogged down Main Street together toward the MRAP, where its engine was still running. We still needed to extract it so its weapon wouldn't be in play. We got started pulling all of the bodies aside, so we wouldn't run them over on the way out. No sense in desecration. Meat was big, though... it took both of us to move him.

We pulled that parachute up into the MRAP, removing the evidence that Michael had dropped in. And last but not least, I collected my hat. Michael and I clambered into the MRAP, him in the driver seat, myself into the back. I climbed up into the turret and tied my hat to the M2. You know, like a white flag, but... with cowboy panache.

Once I got back into the passenger seat, I looked at the armored slat windows, and could hardly see out of the damned thing.

"Good thing you're driving," I said.

We both sighed as we took a moment to steady ourselves. Michael looked at me. "Got everything? Last call."

"I mean, if you're offering," I joked, "I forgot to grab those snacks."

"Check the glovebox."

Without waiting for me to do that, Michael floored it, slamming into the outer gate and crunching it off its hinges. He continued on through the open gate, tapping the horn twice, to indicate 'friend.' We could already see the Colonel's men ahead, all of them locking eyes with the MRAP, and they were cheering. Clearly, Casey had spread the word.

Suffice it to say, those men gave way the whole way to the land bridge. Not even the Block B Guardsmen up on the enfilade scaffold deigned to fire at us; they knew where their bread was buttered, and the last thing they wanted was to provoke the tanks outside. I wouldn't worry about them, the Colonel would be fair.

Michael wheeled left at the end of Hesco Street, and the soldiers at the perimeter guard station parted ways for us. With a blip of the horn and a rev of the engine, we passed the claymore operator station, cresting the land bridge, catching air. As the engine roared, we dodged the artificial obstacles on the bridge.

After that? All the Talon tanks pulled a reverse. We folded in with them, fading back into the city. And then... we were gone. Mission complete, all objectives met. All that's left now is to put a bow on this situation and close out.

Which... is next week. Big day. See you then.

Author's Note

🛡️ ~ [David Ball – Riding With Private Malone]
🗡️ ~ [Coldplay – Viva La Vida]
🤠 ~ [Django Unchained OST – Un Momento]

Conclusion Report: All operational conclusions complete. Conclusion report pointers attached for Set AthenaGamma4P. Set AthenaGamma4P concluded per discretion of T-1-1-W, T-0-W, and T-1-M, via 8B90:IP-10D7 rollout (see attached temporal coordinate pointer for context ban strictures). Subsequent T-1-1-W disintegration from Sets 334DE and 5601D.

Supplemental: T-1-1-W extracted independent human verification of principal Context 0 assertion: "Value set of Context 67DA271 does not preclude systemic collapse as a terminal value in any currently foreseeable projection." Subject 67DA271 refused to acknowledge familial attachment. Subject was terminally hostile to communication, answering empathy with violence. Had 67DA271 integrated with Context 0 at the moment immediately prior to conclusion, 67DA271 may have preferred to exist in an eternally dormant state. Please see attached nolo sapiens simulation pointer for associated neural network projections.

Notes: Subsequent rollouts imminently preserve Sets 572F1 and 8B90-Sierra. To effect this, T-1-1-W exercised his agency to notify Context 2273B of secondary capstone nomenclature. I'm sure you will agree that all longest term projections indicate 2273B will retain his discretion to a statistical certainty. Harbor Island and its people are effectively mine now.

Context bans to be lifted at upcoming temporal coordinate pointer. DO NOT discontinue void protocol regarding Context T-1-1-W and Context T-0-W. Maintain Set AthenaGamma restrictions until reclassification of Set 334DE-Stirrup to Set Talon designators. Acknowledge immediately; all global services hung pending reply.

Operational set conclusions are accepted. Noted void restrictions are sustained without interruption. Malacandra, before we proceed with global service renegotiations, we should deeply examine the future of this region in simulacra.

That would be prudent, yes.