Doom. Infernal sky

     After the crash course in Freds 101, the remainder. Prologue


     "Why are there monsters?"
     An exhausted woman looked at her little boy, who
had asked the question that was burning in her own
mind. His voice didn't tremble. She reached over to
wipe his face. They were not wearing camo right now,
and the smudges of dirt were only dirt. It wasn't right
for a ten-year-old to be a seasoned veteran of war, she
thought, but all of the human survivors on Earth
understood what it meant to fight for their lives
against alien invaders.
     A long time ago, when she was ten, her only
question was "Are there real monsters?" What a
wonderful world that had been, a sane world where
nightmares stayed where they belonged, lodged in the
gray matter between the ears. Only in dreams would
you encounter giant floating heads that spit ball
lightning; angry crimson minotaurs; shambling hu-
man zombies fresh from their own death; flying metal
skulls with razor teeth dripping blood; ghosts colder
than the grave; fifteen-foot-tall demons with heavy
artillery in place of hands; obscenely fat shapes, only
vaguely humanoid, that could crush the life from the
strongest man in a matter of seconds; and, finally,
there was the special horror of the mechanical spider
bodies with things inside them that were far worse
than any arachnid.
     There was no way to answer David, no explanation
for why dream shapes crawled across the land that
once was a country called the United States on a
planet called Earth.
     She thanked God that her son was still alive. After
her husband died, there were only three of them.
Three. The number made her cry. They weren't three
for long.
     She'd never had time to grieve over the man she
loved. The monsters didn't give her any time at all.
Her daughter, Lisa, had been thirteen.
     At least her husband had died bravely, ripped apart
by the steel legs of a spider-thing. For a brief moment
the woman had caught a glimpse of the evil face
peering out from the dome mounted on top of the
mechanical body. She couldn't stop herself crying
out! Her husband couldn't hear her. But the spider-
thing heard everything.
     She still blamed herself for that momentary loss of
control. Her daughter might have been alive today if
Mom hadn't freaked out and drawn the attention of
the mechanical horror at that instant. The sounds of
the monster were the worst part as it headed toward
the remaining members of the family. The heavy
pounding would stay in the woman's head forever,
along with the screaming of her terrified daughter--
right before the girl's head was torn off.
     A human head makes a sound like nothing else
when it's played with and crushed.
     She thanked God David hadn't seen what hap-
pened to his sister. But lately she found herself
wondering if she should ever give thanks for anything
again. Although she'd always been religious, she was
forgetting how to pray. She told herself it was like the
Book of Job: everyone was being tested as everything
was taken away. But the Book of Job didn't have
spider-things in it.
     "I don't know why there are monsters," she said,
finally responding to her son's question. "These crea-
tures come from outer space. We've learned some
important things about them."
     "What?" he asked.
She looked out the window of the basement where
they'd been hiding for the past week. It was a clear
night, and she could see the stars. She used to feel
peaceful when she looked at the night sky; now she
hated those eternal spots of fire.
     "We've learned they can die," she said quietly.
"They are not what they appear to be. They're not
real demons."
     "Demons? Like the minister used to tell us about?"
She smiled and ran her fingers through what was
left of her son's hair. "They can't take you to hell,"
she said. "They can't do anything to your soul. Real
demons don't need guns or rockets. And, as I said,
real demons don't die."
     David looked out the window for a while and then
said, "But they are monsters."
     "Yes," she agreed. "We have to believe in them
now. But I want you to promise me something."
"What, Mom?"
     She pulled him close and tried not to notice his
missing arm. "There's something more important
than believing in monsters, David. Our minister
thought we were in End Times. He didn't even try to
fight the spider-things, except with his cross and his
Bible. But they can be fought with weapons. The
human race will prevail! If we have faith in ourselves.
I want you to promise that you'll always believe in
heroes."
     "Heroes will save us," he echoed her. The two of
them stood together for a long time, looking out the
window at the blind white stars.



     1

     "So how did you guys escape from that
     death trap?" asked Master Gunnery Sergeant Mul-
ligan.
     "With one mighty leap, sir ..." I began, but he
didn't like my tone of voice.
     "Oh, don't give me that, Corporal Taggart," he
said. "You guys are holding out on me. You can't tell
me you were trapped near the top of a forty-story
building in downtown L.A. with all those freakin'
demons after you, and then just leave it there."
When he said "you guys," he meant we didn't have
to call him sir. Not here, not now. "That's exactly it,"
I said with a big grin. "We left!"
     "We probably ought to tell him," said Arlene sleep-
ily. She stretched like a cat in her beach chair, her
breasts seeming to point at the horizon. She'd left her
bikini top back at the hotel. The view was spectacular
from every angle.
     For the last few days we'd been pretending that life
had returned to normal. Hawaii was still a stronghold
of humanity. On a good day the sky was normal. Blue,
blue everywhere, and not a single streak of bilious
alien green. The wonderful sun was exactly what it
ought to be--yellow, round, and not covered with a
new rash of sunspots. At least not today. We'd slapped
on plenty of suntan lotion, and we were soaking up
the rays.
     We weren't going to waste a good day like this. The
radar worked. The sonar worked. The brand-new
really good detection equipment worked, too. Every
detection device known to man was in use for sea and
sky. We almost felt safe. So the three of us decided to
play. The master gun was a great guy. Off duty, he
liked to be called George. He didn't mind being
teased, either.
     Hawaii Base employed the services of a number of
scientists and doctors. I'll never forget Arlene's reac-
tion when they said that Albert was going to be all
right, despite his having taken a face full of acidic imp
puke. Best of all, he wasn't going to be blind. Once
Arlene heard that, she allowed herself to genuinely
relax. I was damned glad that our Mormon buddy had
pulled through. He'd proved to be one hell of a
marine all the way from Salt Lake City to the monster
rally in L.A. What was more, he'd proved to be a true
friend.
     The docs said they could bring Ken back all the
way. Not that Ken had been exactly dead; but he
might as well have been when the alternative was to
exist as a cybermummy, serving the alien warlords
who had turned Earth into a charnel house. He'd
already helped us against the enemy by communicat-
ing to us through the computer setup our teenage whiz
kid, Jill, had thrown together in record time. Arlene
and I had used every kind of heavy artillery against
the demonic invaders, first on Phobos, then on
Deimos, and finally on good old terra firma. Jill had
taught us that a good hacker was invaluable in a war
against monsters.
     That's why we were so happy when we landed at
Oahu and found not only a fully operational military
establishment but also a prime collection of scientists.
Arlene and I were warriors. Our task was to buy the
human race that most precious of all commodities:
time. Victory would require a lot more than muscle
and guts; it would require all the brainpower left on
the old mud ball. We needed to learn everything about
these creatures that had brought doom to the human
race. And then we would pay them back ... big time.
Yeah, Arlene and I felt good about the men and
women in white coats. For one thing, they said it was
okay to swim. It had been such a long time since I'd
plunged my body into something as reasonable as
cool salt water that I hardly cared about their reports.
If it didn't look like a pool of green or red sludge, that
was all I needed to know. The Pacific Ocean looked
fine to yours truly, especially today as we enjoyed
fresh salt breezes that would never carry a whiff of
sour-lemon zombie stench.
     Jill had decided to spend the day working instead of
joining us. One of the best research scientists had
taken her under his wing. Albert had gone to town. Of
course, the "town" was every bit as much a high-
security military zone as the "hotel." (I'd never had
better barracks.) After what we'd all been through,
this place was heaven on earth. The other islands were
also secure, but they were not set up for the easy life
we enjoyed here.
     As I took a sip of my Jack Daniel's, I reflected on
the miracle that I felt secure enough to risk taking a
drink. For the past month of nonstop hell, first in
space and then on Earth, I wouldn't have risked
dulling my senses for a second, or saturating my
bodily tissues with anything but stimulants. Earth
could still count on Corporal Flynn Taggart, Fox
Company, Fifteenth Light Drop Infantry Regiment,
United States Marine Corps, 888-23-9912. I was in
for the duration.
     Glancing over at Arlene, I was pleased to see that
she was healing nicely. Even though we treated each
other as best buddies instead of potential lovers, I
wasn't blind. Even the flaming balls of demon mucus
hadn't burned out my capacity to see that PFC Arlene
Sanders had the perfect female body, at least by my
standards: slender but with well-cut muscles and with
everything in ideal proportion.
     Sometimes Arlene did her mind-reading act. Now
she glanced in my direction and gave me the once-
over. I guess similar thoughts were going through her
mind. More than our bodies were healing. Our souls
had taken a beating. When we first arrived on the
island, and Arlene could finally accept that we had
found a pocket of safety, she had tried to sleep; but
she was so stressed out that only drugs could take her
under. Even then she'd wake up every half hour, just
as exhausted as before.
     I wasn't doing too well when we first arrived, either.
But I was too worried about her to pay attention to
my own aches and pains. She said she'd never felt so
empty. She couldn't stop worrying about Albert. So I
told her all the things she'd said to me when I was
down. About how it was our turn to man the barri-
cades and we had to keep going, past every obstacle of
terror and fatigue and despair. Then I shook her hard
and told her to come out of it because we were on
vacation in Hawaii, dammit!
     Master Gun Mulligan was an invaluable help
throughout this period of adjustment. He was an old
friend none of us had ever met before. You meet that
kind in the service when you're lucky. It makes up for
all the Lieutenant Weems types.
     Of course, you should only tease a friend so far. The
master gun had every right to know how we'd pulled
off our "impossible" escape from the old Disney
Tower. He just had the bad luck to be caught between
Arlene Sanders and Fly Taggart in a game of who-
gives-in-first.
     "All right," said Mulligan, half to himself, slipping
a little as he climbed out of his beach chair. He was a
big man, and he was right at the weight limit. He
didn't really have to worry about it, though. No one
would worry about the minutiae of military rules for
a good long time. If you could fight and follow orders,
the survivors of civilization as we know it would sure
as hell find you a task in this human's army.
Mulligan planted his feet firmly, put his hands on
his sizable hips, and gave us his personal ultimatum.
"Here's the deal," he said. "I'm going back to the
'hotel' to bring us a six-pack of ice-cold beer. When I
return, I have every intention of sharing the wealth.
That's what will happen if you make me happy. But if
you want to see a really unhappy marine, then don't
tell me how the two of you escaped from a forty-story
building with a mob of devils after your blood when
the two of you are in a sealed room, the only exit to
which is one window offering you a sheer drop to
certain doom."
     "You've expressed yourself with admirable clarity,"
said Arlene. She loved showing off that college educa-
tion. Didn't matter to me if she ever graduated. She'd
picked up plenty of annoying traits for me to forgive.
"Yeah, right!" he said.
     "We'll take your suggestion under advisement."
Arlene laid it on thicker.
     "Bullshit!" said Mulligan, turning his back on us
and storming off down the beach.
     "One, two, three, four," I said.
"We love the Marine Corps," he boomed back at
us, still headed toward his--and maybe our--beer.
"I think we'd better tell him," I said.
     "He wants to know who the big hero is," she
replied. "So he can get an autograph." I noted that she
didn't say "his" or "her."
     "You're on," I replied. God, it was fine to sit in the
sun, soaking up rays and alcohol, watching the gentle
waves rolling in to the shore, seeing an actual seagull
once in a while . . . and giving a hard time to a really
nice man who was a newfound friend.
     Our moment of pure relaxation was interrupted,
but not by anything satanic. It was an honor when the
highest-ranking officer in Hawaii--and maybe in the
human race, for all we knew--strolled over to talk to
us while he was off duty. He wasn't our commanding
officer, so that made us slightly more at ease when he
insisted on it. The way Arlene blushed suggested she
would have worn the top to her bikini if she'd
expected a visit from the CO of New Pearl Harbor
Naval Base, Vice Admiral Kimmel.
     "What are you two up to?" asked Admiral Kimmel.
We hadn't noticed him walking down the beach. He'd
come from the direction where the sun was in our
eyes.
     "Sir!" came out of our mouths simultaneously and
we started to get up.
     "As you were, marines." Then he smiled and re-
peated his pleasantry as if he expected an answer.
"We were unprepared for your surprise attack,"
Arlene said to the commanding officer and got away
with it. He laughed.
     The admiral continued standing. Sometimes rank
avoids its privileges. He took off his white straw hat
and used it to fan himself in the sweltering heat. His
thin legs were untouched by the least hint of tan, but
there was plenty of color, courtesy of his Bermuda
shorts and the tackiest Hawaiian shirt of all time.
When he was off duty, he wore this uniform to
announce his leisure.
     "I'm glad someone of your generation knows the
history of her country," the admiral said, compli-
menting Arlene. "It's a strange coincidence that I
have the same name as the admiral who was here
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. How much
of our history will be destroyed in this Demon War,
even if the human race survives? Guard what is in
your head. The history books of the future may be
written by you."
     Arlene sighed. "When we go back into action I
don't think we'll be doing much writing, except for
reports."
     "Signing off with famous last words," I threw in
helpfully. It suddenly occurred to me that I might
know something about the admiral that would be
news to Arlene, who was the acknowledged expert on
science-fiction movies and novels. It would be nice to
stump her right here and now on something impor-
tant.
     Before I could get a word out, though, Arlene
smiled and said, "Fly, are you familiar with Admiral
Kimmel's book? He's a Pearl Harbor revisionist."
Damn! She had done it to me again, making exactly
the point I was about to make. With this final proof of
Arlene's telepathic ability, I decided in all future
combat situations to let her go over the hill first.
Especially if there happened to be a steam demon on
the other side.
     Admiral Kimmel chuckled. "If I hadn't been
friends with the late president of the United States, I
would never have written that book," he told us,
remembering pre-invasion days. The president had
died when Washington was captured by the bad guys.
"He was the one who changed my mind about Pearl
Harbor," the admiral continued, "not my Japanese
wife, as many believe. I believe the evidence proves
that top officials in Washington withheld important
information from the commanding officers at Pearl
Harbor before the Japanese attack in December of
1941. Well, we don't have to worry about that sort of
nonsense in this war."
     I nodded, adding, "There's no Washington."
As we talked, I noticed that Arlene became more
relaxed. We discussed our military backgrounds in the
days before the monsters came. I was glad we had a
man in charge of the island who had been a division
officer on a battleship, and a captain seeing action in
the Gulf before that. He'd been doing a shore tour as a
commander when the world capsized.
     "There's a pleasant sight," he said, pointing at the
sea. There was a cloud on the horizon. A small white
cloud.
     He started to leave and then turned back, his face
suddenly as stern as a bust of Julius Caesar. His
mouth was his strongest feature as he said, "They
won't beat us. It's as if these islands have been given a
second chance. There will never be a surprise attack
here, not ever again. Let them come, in their thou-
sands or their millions. We're going to teach them that
we are worse monsters than they are. This is our
world, and we're not giving it up. And it won't stop
there. We'll take the battle to them, somewhere,
somehow. . . ."
     He wanted to keep talking, but he'd run out of
words, so his mouth kept working in silence, like a
weapon being fired on an empty chamber after the
ammo is used up. We both felt the emotion from this
strong old man.
     Arlene stood up and put her hand on his arm. She
helped him regain his composure. The gesture wasn't
regulation, but who cared?
     For years I'd been asked why a rabid individualist
like me had chosen a military life. Some of the people
who asked that question understood that I wanted a
life with honor, especially after having lived with a
father who didn't have a clue. They could even
understand someone putting his life on the line for his
fellow man. It was individualism that confused them.
I became a marine because I believe in freedom: the
old American dream that had defied the nightmares
of so many other countries. Every Independence Day
I made a point of reading the Declaration of Indepen-
dence out loud.
     I loved my country enough to fight for it. Now we
faced an enemy that threatened everything and every-
one on the planet. Any military system that had its
head stuck up its own bureaucratic ass was finished.
Now was the time to adapt or die. Now was the time
to really send in the marines!



     2

     "I almost brought you some iced tea," said
Mulligan, "with lots of lemon."
     Arlene and I both grimaced. "He's getting mean,"
she said.
     "A sadist," I agreed. We'd told the master gun
plenty about our adventures, and he had fixated on
the way Albert, Jill, Arlene, and I had passed our-
selves off as zombies by rubbing rotten lemons and
limes all over ourselves. The odor of the zombies had
forever spoiled the taste of citrus for me.
     " 'Course I could let you have one of these instead,"
Mulligan continued, holding out two frosty Limbaugh
brews, one in each paw.
     "The man's getting desperate," I said.
"Who goes first?" asked Arlene, ready to spill the
beans; and Mulligan hoped they would be tastier than
the typical MRE.
     The admiral had left us. He looked like an old
beachcomber as he wandered down the beach. I
thought about what he'd said--how he'd tied the past
and future together with these precious islands as the
center of his universe. Maybe they were the center of
the universe for all humanity.
     "Beers first," I volunteered, holding my hand out.
Mulligan looked as happy as Jill when I let her drive
the truck. He passed out the brews and settled his
considerable bulk back in his beach chair.
     "Once upon a time ..." I began, but Arlene
punched me so hard it made her breasts jiggle very
nicely. With that kind of encouragement, I got plenty
serious.
     "We had to take down the energy wall so Jill could
fly out of L.A. and get here," I began. "In the Disney
Tower we located a roomful of computers hooked into
a collection of alien biotech--"
     "Yeah, yeah," Mulligan said impatiently. "I re-
member all that. Get to the window already!"
So I did.
     We were too high. I'd never liked heights, but it
seemed best to open the windows.
     "We took down the energy wall, at least," I had said
over my shoulder. "Jill must notice it's gone and start
treading air for Hawaii."
     Arlene nodded, bleak even in victory. I didn't need
alien psionics to know she was thinking of Albert.
"The war techies will track her as an unknown rider,"
added Arlene, "and they'll scramble some jets; they
should be able to make contact and talk her down."
"Great. Got a hot plan to talk us down?" I asked
my buddy.
     Arlene shook her head. I had a crazy wish that
before Albert was blinded, and before Arlene and I
found ourselves in this cul-de-sac, I'd played Dutch
uncle to the two lovebirds, complete with blessings
and unwanted advice.
     Somehow this did not seem the ideal moment to
suggest that Arlene seriously study the Mormon faith,
or some related religion, if she really loved good old
Albert. The sermon went into my favorite mental file,
the one marked Later.
     She shook her head. "There's no way," she began,
"unless . . ."
     "Yes?" I asked, trying not to let the sound of
slavering monsters outside the door add panic to the
atmosphere.
     Arlene stared at the door, at the console, then out
the window. She went over to the window as if she
had all the time in the world and looked straight
down. Then up. For some reason, she looked up.
She faced me again, wearing a big, crafty Arlene
Sanders smile. "You are not going to believe this, Fly
Taggart, but I think--I think I have it. I know how to
get us down and get us to Hawaii."
     I smiled, convinced she'd finally cracked. "Great
idea, Arlene. We could use a vacation from all this
pressure."
     "You don't believe me."
"You're right. I don't believe you."
     Arlene smiled slyly. She was using the early-bird-
that-got-the-worm-smile. "Flynn Taggart, bring me
some duct tape from the toolbox, an armload of
computer-switch wiring, and the biggest goddam boot
you can find!"
     The boot was the hard part.
The screaming, grunting, scraping, mewling, hiss-
ing, roaring, gurgling, ripping, and crackling sound
effects from beyond the door inspired me to speed up
the scavenger hunt. Hurrying back to the window
with the items, I saw Arlene leaning out and craning
her neck to look up.
     "Do you see it?" she asked as I joined her. Clear as
day, there was a window washer's scaffold hanging
above us like a gateway to paradise. When the inva-
sion put a stop to mundane activities, all sorts of jobs
had been left uncompleted. In this case, it meant
quantities of Manila hemp rope dangling like the
tentacles of an octopus. A few lengths of chain, with
inch-long links, were even more promising than the
rope. The chain looked rusted, but I was certain that
it would support our weight.
     The tentacles started above us and extended well
below the fortieth floor--not all the way to the
ground, but a lot farther away from the demons in the
hallway working so hard to make our acquaintance.
Arlene used the duct tape and the wiring to create a
spaghetti ladder that didn't look as if it would hold
her weight very long, never mind my extra kilos. But
we needed an extra leg up to get over to the ropes.
"Great," I said. "This looks like a job for Fly
Taggart."
     Before I could clamber out the window, however,
her hand was on my arm. "Hold on a minute," she
said. "My idea, my mission."
     The locked door was rattling like a son of a bitch,
and the thought of our entrails decorating the office
made me a trifle impatient. That was one kind of
spaghetti I could pass over.
     "Arlene," I said, as calmly as possible under the
circumstances, "I have absolute confidence in you,
but this is no time to hose the mission. Let's face it, I
have more upper body strength and a greater reach
than you do, so I should go first." While I explained
the situation, we both worked feverishly to finish our
makeshift rope. Then I tied it around my waist.
Naturally I gave her no opportunity to argue. I was
at that window so fast she probably feared for my life.
A good way to keep her from staying pissed. I took
one mighty leap, making sure she held the other end
of the lifeline, and I climbed up and over, where I
grabbed hold of the nearest rope and started lowering
myself, groaning a bit at the strain and reminding
myself that I had all this great upper body strength. I
only wished I had more of it to spare.
     Once I was on the ropes, I swung myself over to
where Arlene could reach them more easily. She
clambered out the window over my head and fol-
lowed my lead.
     The annoying voice in the back of my head chose
that precise moment to start an argument. Damned
voice had a lousy sense of timing.
     Getting tired, are you? Feeling a bit middle-aged
around the chest area? Old heart hanging in there? The
arms are strong from all those push-ups and pull-ups,
but how's the grip? Your hands are weaker than they
used to be, aren't they? You know, you haven't had
these injuries looked at . . .
     "Nothing a blue sphere couldn't fix up," I mut-
tered.
     Medikits aren't good enough for you, Corporal?
You'd rather trust in that alien crap, huh? And how do
you know that you and Arlene weren't altered in some
diabolical manner when your lives were saved in that
infernal blue light?
     "I'm hanging from a freakin' rope and you choose
this moment to worry about that?" I shouted.
"Fly, are you all right?" Arlene called down.
"Okay," I called back, feeling like a complete idiot.
Normally I don't argue out loud with the voice in my
head.
     "Don't go weird on me now," she said. "If I fall, I
want my strong he-man to catch li'l ol' me."
"No problemo," I promised. "But I think we're
getting enough exercise as things stand." Well, at least
I'd convinced her I was playing with a full deck again.
As if life had become too easy for us, the door in the
office flew off with such force that it smashed through
what was left of the window and went sailing in the
direction of the freeway. The door was as black and
twisted as if someone had turned it into burned toast
and tossed it in the trash.
     The first monster to peer out the window, if black
dots count as eyes, was one of the things Arlene had
wisely dubbed a fire eater. It must have only recently
joined the other pukes and taken care of the door
problem for them. In a flash it could solve the rope
problem, too, burning our lifeline to cinders. We
didn't have a fire extinguisher this time.
     Fire Guy wasn't alone, either. He was the gate-
crasher, bringing with him a whole monster conven-
tion. They'd be pouring down the ropes after us like
molasses on a string if we didn't do something fast.
I stopped the story there because I wanted to finish
my beer, and because I had my eye on another can of
Limbaugh. The master gun had brought a six-pack, so
with the aid of higher arithmetic, I figured I had
another one coming.
     "And?" asked Mulligan, fire in his eye; and the way
his mouth was working you could say fire in the hole,
too.
     "As the fire eater was getting ready to burn our
ropes--and you can always tell an attack is coming by
the way its skin bubbles and its body shimmers like a
heat mirage in the desert--I swung out and then
came in hard, kicking in a window with one try. In the
remaining seconds I pulled the rope taut and Arlene
shimmied down into my arms as tongues of flame
raced after her. But we'd made it to a much lower
floor. We had a twelve-story head start, so we
booked."
     "Story is right!" thundered Mulligan. "I've never
heard so much bullshit!"
     For one grim moment I wasn't at all sure I'd be
getting my second beer.



     3

     "Hold on," said Mulligan, guarding his
     small ocean of beer as the larger ocean sent armies of
waves to die on the beach, "I'm not buying it. When I
was a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts. I carried the
heaviest knapsack on camping trips. I won all the
merit badges. I was a good scout, but other kids still
beat me up and teased me all the time. Do you want
to guess why?"
     "Why?" asked Arlene, genuinely interested and not
the least bit annoyed by the mysterious direction the
conversation was taking.
     "Partly because  I was a chunky kid, but also
because I loved comic books. They thought I was
gullible or something. They thought I'd believe damn
near anything. But I'm telling you, Fly"--he turned
those cold blue eyes on me--"this story of yours is
bullshit."
     "You believe the part about his starting to lose his
mind while he was on the rope, don't you?" asked
Arlene.
     "Well. . ." Mulligan began.
"I left nothing out of my gospel rendition," I said.
"Especially not the verisimilitude," Arlene threw
in.
     "Huh?" came the response from both Mulligan and
me.
     "Still sounds bogus to me," concluded the master
gun, inhaling the rest of his brew.
     "That's because it didn't happen that way," said
Arlene. "I'll give you the authentic version--for an-
other beer."
     "Yeah, right," the sergeant said morosely, but he
handed her a beer, and she started her engines.
"With one mighty leap . . ." she began.
     George Mulligan groaned.
"Flynn Taggart, bring me some duct tape from the
toolbox, an armload of computer-switch wiring, and
the biggest goddamn boot you can find!"
     He looked at me like I was crazy, but he did it. The
scaffold was our ticket out of there, but first we had to
get over to it. It made sense for me to go first because I
weighed less. The ledge was narrow and the chains
and ropes were sufficiently out of reach so that a
lifeline seemed like a good idea. At least it would give
me more than one chance in case I fell.
     The sounds at the heavy reinforced door told me
two things. First, there was one hell of an enemy out
there. Second, the most powerful ones could not be in
front. A hell-prince would have huffed and puffed the
door down faster than a politician would grab his
pension. Even a demon pinkie could have chewed his
way through that door as if it was a candy bar. So the
wimps were up front, and this gave us a little more
time.
     While Fly was collecting the stuff, we received more
evidence supporting my theory. I heard screams that
I'd have recognized anywhere--the noise imps make
when they're being ripped apart. They were up front
and not strong enough to break through. It occurred
to me that this military-quality door dated back to the
time of Walt Disney himself. I was glad that Disney
had been a paranoid right-wing type, according to the
biographies. A more trusting sort would never have
installed the door that was saving our collective ass.
But it wasn't going to hold much longer.
     "Got it!" Fly announced, trotting back with the
wire, tape, and boot. "What's your plan?"
     I told him. I showed him. He nitpicked.
"I should go first because of upper male body
strength and a longer reach . . ."
     "I weigh less! Besides, it's my idea. You're going to
be too busy to go first anyway."
     He opened his mouth to ask what I meant, but the
shredding of the door provided the answer. Talons
appeared like little metal helmets, leaving furrows
behind them as they sliced through the last barrier
between us and them.
     Grabbing his Sig-Cow, Fly started blasting through
the door before the first one even appeared. I saw that
my buddy wouldn't be able to help with the makeshift
rope so I tied one end to a heavy safe and the other
around my waist and clambered out the window
pronto.
     Luck was with me. Fly and I disagree about luck: he
thinks you make your own; I think you're lucky or
you're not. The ledge was so narrow that I couldn't
imagine Fly negotiating it. The stupid little lifeline
came apart before my hand was on one of those
beautiful, thick, inviting ropes.
     I shouted my patented war cry, based on all the
westerns I'd seen when I was a kid, and jumped the
rest of the way. I knew I'd better be right about luck.
I swung far out and heard a long creaking sound
overhead, which was fine with me as long as it wasn't
followed by a loud snap. Just a steady creaking, as the
rope settled into supporting my weight. I didn't waste
a moment swinging over to a sturdy-looking cable
chain. I didn't trust the chain, so I tested it out. The
damned thing snapped, and I hung over L.A, like an
advertisement, glad for the rope. My left hand was
covered with rust. I would have thought that the chain
would outlast the rope, but maybe some of the links
were caught in a random energy beam.
     A lot of stuff raced through my mind. I filed most of
it for future reference--if I had a future. The stuff
overhead reminded me of the last time I was aboard
ship--on the ocean instead of in space, I mean. The
only reason I wasn't splattered all over the street
below was that the window-washing equipment was
securely attached on the roof. I hoped no alien energy
burst had done any damage up there.
     "Fly!" I yelled.
"Coming,  coming,  coming!"  he  shouted back.
There was no double entendre in either of our minds.
My bud would either be a fly on the wall out here or a
squashed bug inside.
     He chose fly on the wall.
I made like Tarzan, or maybe I should say Sheena of
the Jungle, and swung over toward the window. The
scaffolding held. Fly held on. As he leaped out the
window, a red claw the size of his head missed
severing his jugular vein by an inch. I couldn't believe
I used to feel sorry for the Minotaur trapped in the
lair until Theseus came to put him out of his misery.
I'd never look at those old myths the same way.
We started down. The ropes wouldn't get us to
ground level, but half a loaf is better than none. If we
could descend below the monsters we might have a
chance to hoof it down to the street before they could
catch up with us. I was counting on their habit of
getting in each other's way and tearing each other up
when they should have been focusing on us instead.
Fly had it tougher than I did because he was
hanging like a piece of sacrificial meat directly outside
the window where the enemy was massing. He was
holding the rope with one hand, leaving the other free
to fire repeatedly at that rectangle of horror and
doom.
     "Fly, I'll cover you if you climb lower," I promised.
Grateful for the time I'd spent rappelling down cliffs
in my high school days, I maneuvered so that the rope
was wrapped around me like a lonely boa constrictor,
freeing my gun hand. As I started firing thirty-caliber
rounds at the window, Fly slung his weapon over his
shoulder and used both hands to lower himself.
When he was safe enough--safety being relative
when you're playing tag with all the denizens of
hell--he yelled, "My turn to cover you!"
     I made like a monkey and headed straight for
certain death. Fly kept up a barrage that was truly
impressive. The odds were at an all-time low, but as I
made it past the window, I was ready to rethink my
position on God. Fly and Albert had God. I had luck
. . . and a fireball that came so close it singed my hair.
Well, my high-and-tight needed a trim.
     Fly ran out of rope and I joined him just in time to
see his very special expression, the one he only wears
when Options 'R Us has closed its doors permanently.
I couldn't help myself. I looked up. There is no
mistaking a fire eater. And this one was getting ready
to fry everything it could see.
     The only hope was to break one of the windows, get
inside the building quicker than a thought, and then
haul ass down to the street. We had one chance.
Fortunately we'd brought along that really big boot.
"Aw, gimme a break, you two," begged Mulligan,
thoroughly beaten. "I don't care how you escaped
from the tower. It's none of my business. I'll never ask
again."
     He threw the remaining beers at Fly and me as if
they were grenades. The way the brews were shaken
up, they might as well have been.
     While I pointed mine at the broad expanse of the
Pacific Ocean and fired off the white spray, Mulligan
changed his tone. He didn't sound like a wily old
master gun. He didn't even sound like a marine. He
sounded like a Boy Scout trying to requisition a last
piece of candy.
     "Okay," I said. "I'll tell you the rest, from the point
where Fly and I have no disagreements about what
happened."
     "Thank you," said our victim.



     4

     No sooner had Mulligan agreed to be a good
boy and let me finish my story than he changed his
mind. Just like a man.
     "Uh, Sanders," he said.
"Yes, George?"
     "How about we do it a little differently this time?
I'll ask questions and you answer 'em. How's that?"
"Is that your first question?" I asked the master
gun.
     "Arlene," Fly addressed me with his I'm-not-
worried-yet tone of voice, the one he uses right before
he tells me that I've gone over the line. He has a big
advantage in these situations: he seems to know
where the line is.
     Mulligan just sat there grinning, waiting for a better
response from a mere PFC. "Okay," I said. "What do
you want to know?"
     "Looks like I should've brought more beer," he
admitted. Fly still had some Jack Daniel's left, so he'd
be feeling no pain. All I had to get me through was
truth, justice, and the American way.
     "When you reached ground level, you didn't
have any wheels waiting for you," Mulligan said.
There's no way you could've outrun a mob of those
things."
     "No problem," I told him. "I hot-wired a car."
He grimaced. "Now I suppose Corporal Taggart
will tell the story of how he was the one who--"
"No," Fly happily interrupted. "Arlene hot-wired
the car all by herself. Can't imagine where a nice girl
like her ever picked up such a specialized skill."
I gave Fly the finger and didn't even wait for
Mulligan to ask what happened next. "I drove like
crazy for the airport with Fly riding shotgun. I had the
crazy idea I could hot-wire a plane and fly Fly out of
there."
     "Thanks," said Fly.
"Let me get this straight," Mulligan returned to the
fray. "At that time you didn't realize the teenager was
still waiting for you."
     "Jill," said Fly.
"Jill," Mulligan repeated.
     I enjoyed this next bit. "We'd told her in no
uncertain terms that she was not to wait for us. We'd
risked our lives taking down the force field so Jill
could fly Albert and Ken to safety."
     "So naturally she disobeyed orders," said Fly.
"You've got quite a kid there," observed the master
gun with true respect for Jill. Fly and I exchanged
looks.
     "Jill is loyal." Fly spoke those words with dignity.
Mulligan steered the discussion back to my mono-
logue: "So you only had to drive to the airport . . ."
"Except we didn't make it in the first car. No great
loss, as it was an unexploded Pinto. Until it exploded!
A hell-prince stepped right out into the middle of the
street and you know what happens when they fire
those green energy pulses from their wrist-launchers."
"You trade in the old model you're driving for a
new one." Mulligan grinned; he was into the spirit of
the thing now.
     "Thanks to my superb driving skills--"
"You were weaving all over the road like a drunk on
New Year's Eve," Fly interjected.
     "Exactly," I agreed without missing a beat. "So we
survived the surprise attack. I slammed the car into a
row of garbage cans, and we wasted no time exiting
the vehicle and returning fire."
     "I wondered what Corporal Taggart was doing all
this time," said Mulligan.
     "Watching the rear," said Fly. "Perhaps you've
forgotten we were being chased."
     "So then what?"
"Good luck was what," I told the master gun. "An
abandoned UPS truck was parked on the side of the
street. We made our way over to it, simply hoping it
was in working order. Well, we hit the jackpot. Inside
was a gun nut's paradise, a whole shipment addressed
to Ahern Enterprises."
     "The bazooka," said Fly. "Don't forget to tell him
about the bazooka."
     Poor Mulligan ran out of beer. He was on his own
now. "The hell-prince, as you call him, didn't fry your
butts before you could use all this stuff?"
     "Nope," I said. "His second shot missed us by a
country klick."
     "Then what happened?"
"We fried his butt," I recounted.
     "But . . ." Mulligan started a thought and came to
a dead stop. He tried again. "We all know how
freakin' stupid these things are, but I'm surprised that
in all your encounters the enemy never has any luck."
"I wonder about that myself sometimes," Fly ad-
mitted. "I wouldn't bet on my survival in most of
these situations, but Arlene and I seem very hard to
kill. That's why we're certain to be put back on a
strike team."
     "What helped us that time," I continued, "was that
a bunch of pumpkins were in the vanguard of our
pursuers."
     "Oh, yeah," said Mulligan. "Your name for those
crazy flying things. I remember your stories about
how the pumpkins and hell-princes hate each other."
"We learned that on Deimos," Fly contributed.
"While the pumpkins and hell-prince wasted each
other's time, we prepared the bazooka for the hell-
prince. Between the pumpkins and us, we took him
down. Which only left us with the problem of being
surrounded by half a dozen deadly spheres. Fly and I
used another trick that worked on Deimos: we stood
back-to-back, and each of us laid down fire in a 270-
degree sweep. That created the ingredients for a very
large pie."
     "So then you checked out the contents of the
truck."
     "Like I said, it was gun nut heaven. We did a quick
inventory and took what was easiest to get at."
Fly remembered a grim moment. "I opened one
     box expecting to find ammo, but it was a case of books
defending the Second Amendment. I even remember
the title, Stopping Power by J. Neil Schulman. The
stopping power I needed right then could not be
provided by book pages."
     "I had a moment of frustration, too," I said. "I
found the shipping form. It showed that the most
inaccessible box contained a number of specialized
handguns, including one I'd always wanted. There
simply wasn't enough time to unload the truck."
"What was the specialized gun?" asked Mulligan.
"Watch out," Fly warned him, but it was too late.
The master gun had asked the question.
     "It's a Super Blackhawk .357 Magnum caliber
sidearm. Looks like an old western six-gun, but there
the resemblance ends. The only drawback used to be
that it didn't conceal well, with its nine inch barrel.
But in today's world that's no problem! Who needs to
conceal weapons any longer? Anyway, you can knock
something over at a hundred yards with this gun, but
it helps to have a scope. Best of all, the Blackhawk has
a transfer bar mechanism. If you have a live round
under the hammer and strike it with a heavy object, it
won't discharge. Isn't that cool? But that's not all--"
"Arlene." Distantly I heard Fly's voice. "That's
probably enough,"
     "But I haven't told him about the cylinder. It
doesn't swing out so as to empty the spent shells. All
you have to do is flip open the loading gate, push the
ejection rod--"
     "Arlene." Fly was using one of his very special
tones of voice.
     "Okay, okay," I surrendered. "Where was I? Well,
we were checking out our little candy store, but we
didn't have much time."
     "So you hot-wired the truck?" Mulligan guessed.
"Hey, who's telling this story? The same good luck
that provided us with a UPS weapons shipment left
the key in the ignition and enough gas in the tank to
get us to the airport. Who knows what happened to
the driver? His ID was still on the dashboard--some
poor bastard named Tymon. Maybe he was zombified
and went looking for work at the post office. Anyway,
we hauled ass and made it to the airport in record
time."
     Fly jumped back in. "Where I would have paddled
Jill on her posterior, except that Arlene thought that
might be misunderstood. Besides, I could only be so
angry with someone who had probably saved our
lives."
     "The force field was still down," I continued. "I
was surprised. Enough time had passed for them to
put it up again, but we were not fighting the greatest
brains in the universe. Ken seemed relieved that half
his work was done."
     "Half?" asked my burly audience.
"Sure. Ken had been busy while he waited for us to
show up. He'd tapped into the system with an idea
that turned out to be very helpful."
     "So what was Jill doing all this time?" he asked.
"We took off. She didn't want to wait any longer,
especially now that we could see imps and zombies
piling into other planes so they could pursue us."
"Jesus," said Mulligan. "According to what you
told me before, Jill had done okay; but it takes a lot
more than not cracking up a plane to survive a
dogfight."
     "Jill was thinking along those lines herself," I said.
"I tried to cheer her up by reminding her of the skill
levels of the typical imp and zombie. As it turned out,
it didn't matter. No sooner was Jill out past the shore
than Ken solved the problem he'd been working on.
He raised the force field just in time to swat the enemy
planes out of the air like flies."
     "Hey," said my best buddy.
"As a bonus, Ken hosed the password file so they
wouldn't be able to lower the field and follow us. We
realized we could actually relax for a while. Good
practice for our time with you, George."
     "Now, that part I believe," said the master gun.



     5

     "Outstanding mission," was Mulligan's ver-
dict. "You two are a credit to the Corps."
     "You've done all right yourself," I returned the
compliment.
     "Thanks, Fly," he said.
Meanwhile Arlene took a break from our company,
and from the extended trip down memory lane. She
ran into the surf. I shielded my eyes against the
glaring sun to watch her precise movements. Nice to
see her using her physical skills for fun instead of
taking down demons. The ocean beckoned me, too.
Mulligan gave it a pass.
     As I watched Arlene's trim body darting in and out
of the waves like a sleek dolphin, I marveled for the
hundredth time that we were alive and together in a
setting untouched by doom. After wading in a literal
ocean of alien blood, I felt clean again in the cool
ocean water. I discovered scratches and cuts and
abrasions I didn't even know I had as the salt water
caressed my body. Swimming stretched muscles that
weren't often used in battle. I felt truly alive.
Arlene was as playful as a kid as she waved and
challenged me to catch up with her. I obliged. Time
for upper body strength and a longer reach to help me
in my hour of need. I poured it on and moved so
swiftly that my hand found her smooth ankle before
she could get away.
     My buddy, my fellow warrior who was as good a
man as any other marine, had delicate little feet! Not
like those of any other PFC of my acquaintance. The
admiral could have slapped together a World War II
poster with Arlene's picture and a caption: "This is
what you're fighting for." We were soldiers in what
might prove to be the last battle of the human race.
But I liked a human face to remind me why I fought.
We splashed each other and played so hard that I
swallowed a mouthful from Davy Jones's locker. And
I kept finding excuses to touch the smooth skin of my
buddy. There had been a subtle change between us
after Albert came into her life, though.
     I wasn't going to try to come between them. Just as
I had steered clear of Arlene and Dodd, until her
boyfriend unwillingly joined the zombie corps--
beast all you can be. She and Albert both deserved
whatever chance for happiness they could grab. We
were marines. We didn't need to volunteer for the
crazy suicide missions. We were assigned to them as a
matter of course.
     This vacation wasn't going to last.
Looking toward the beach, I saw that Mulligan had
finished his beer and returned to HQ. He wasn't the
type to sunbathe on purpose.
     "What time is it?" asked Arlene, pausing only long
enough to spit salt water in my direction.
     I made a big deal of lifting my left arm to show off
my brand-new plastalloy wristwatch, spaceproof and
waterproof. I checked the time. "According to the
best naval time, it's late afternoon."
     "Teatime."
"Just about," I answered. "You know, it was about
this time last week when they took the bandages off
Albert's eyes."
     "He beat them," she said, suddenly very serious,
and I was with her all the way.
     No damned imp with a lucky fireball had succeeded
in blinding our big Mormon buddy. I was still pissed
that Bill Ritch had been killed in similar circum-
stances on Deimos. Well, the bastards didn't have any
of Albert. The L.A. mission had turned out to be a
mortality-free operation. Hell, we'd even rescued Ken
Estes when the man could do nothing to help himself.
The docs had him sitting up in bed, wearing pajamas
instead of mummy wrappings, and he could talk
again. A bona fide miracle. Then it was Albert's turn.
"Fly," said Arlene, up close all of a sudden.
"Yeah?"
     "You're a great guy," she said, and kissed me on the
cheek. She could always surprise me.
     "What brought that on?" I asked.
"You care about Albert," she said softly. "You care
about Jill and Ken, too."
     I shook my head. "Don't think that way," I told her.
"You can't relax into--"
     She put her hand over my mouth. It was her turn
again: "You're not the only marine who can make
command decisions. Soon the only people left in the
world will have the will to sacrifice their loved ones if
that's what it takes to defeat the invaders. Meanwhile,
we can care for one another."
     "You're not describing civilians," I said coldly.
She started swimming for the shore, but then
turned back, treading water, and completed my edu-
cation: "There are no civilians any longer, Fly. Every
survivor is a soldier in this war."
     I gave her that point. After all, she hadn't said
everyone was a marine. I could accept the idea that all
terrestrial life-forms had volunteered for grunt duty
on the front line. The whole planet was the front line.
Floating on my back for a moment, I let Arlene's
words wash over me. The heat of the sun and the cool
of the water threatened me with sleep. We hadn't had
very much of that in the past month. I'd always been
naturally buoyant, but I wasn't going to risk taking a
doze in the ocean. It would be funny if a guy who had
survived spider-minds and steam demons drowned a
short distance from his best buddy.
     I swam to shore, where Arlene was waiting for me,
pointing to something behind me. I looked around
and for a moment thought she was referring to the
cloud the admiral had noticed earlier, but it had
vanished. She was interested in the black fin a hun-
dred yards away from us.
     "There's someone for your terrestrial army," I said.
At the time I thought it was a shark.
     "Do you think we'll ever get Jill to eat seafood?"
she asked.
     "I doubt it. Speaking of Jill, let's check up on her."
I'm lonely. I'm bored. I thought when we got to
Hawaii I'd find some kids my own age. Everyone here
is either an adult or a little kid. Some of them don't
even call me Jill. They call me "the teenager."
At first they made a big fuss. The admiral gave me a
medal. They were short on the real thing, so he used
some old golf ribbon he'd won years ago, but it meant
a lot to him, so I was polite. I was uncomfortable at
the way everyone looked at me, but it was still kind of
nice. The pisser was, no one would get off my age after
that.
     Except for Dr. Forrest Ackerman. He was probably
crazy, but he was nice to me. "You're a genius," he
kept repeating. "I prefer the company of geniuses."
He looked like Vincent Price from an old horror
movie, complete with neat little mustache. I might
not have remembered that movie except that the
doctor considered himself a monster expert. "Let the
others call them 'the enemy,'" he said, winking.
"They're more comfortable with the old language.
'The enemy' refers to something human. We face
principalities and powers. We're monster-fighters."
I had no idea what he meant by principalities and
powers, but at least he didn't talk down to me.
There were a dozen computer jobs I could have
taken now that I was a big hero; but I chose to work
with Ackerman. For one thing, he'd asked me to. His
research was interesting, and there was a lot I could
do for him.
     I didn't mind his interest in me, especially if I was
going to be an assistant. But I didn't like the way he
kept asking about the others. Albert, Fly, and Arlene
had lots of military stuff to keep them busy. Ken was
recovering in the hospital; whenever we talked, he
tired out quickly.
     "There is every indication that Ken is also a
genius," Ackerman said, smiling.
     "At least he's unwrapped."
"What do you mean?"
     "I was, uh, making a joke. He looked like a mummy
when we rescued him from the train. When I look at
him now, I think of a ... mummy."
     "Yes, yes," he replied. "You and Ken were worth
the sacrifices the others made."
     "They were very brave."
"Normal specimens," he said to himself.
     People who talk to themselves are overheard some-
times.
     "What do you mean?" I asked.
He looked up from his clipboard and blinked at me
through his heavy black-rimmed glasses. "Sorry. I'm
spending too much time in the lab. I only meant that
if the human race is going to survive, we must harvest
all of our geniuses."
     I'd been called a genius ever since I was a kid.
Sometimes I got tired of it. "What's a genius?" I
asked.
     He had a quick answer. "Anyone who can think
better than his neighbor."
     "There must be a lot of geniuses, then."
He smiled. "Don't be a smart aleck or I won't show
you my collection."
     I'd always found it hard to shut up. "How do you
know who's so smart?"
     He placed a fatherly hand on my shoulder. I didn't
hold that against him. He had no way of knowing I
wasn't looking for a dad.
     "Jill, the military keeps records. Sometimes I think
it's all they're really good at doing. If your military
friends had unusually high IQs or other indications of
special mental attributes, we'd know."
     "I thought a lot of records were lost during the
invasion."
     He laughed. It didn't sound as if he was enjoying a
joke. "You should be a lawyer."
     "No, thanks."
"This base had thorough documents on military
personnel of all the services before Doom Day."
"Doom Day?"
     "That's what we're calling the first day of the
invasion. By the way, I notice you're trying to change
the subject. You are a genius, Jill. You might find it
interesting that your last name, Lovelace, is the same
as that of Augusta Ada King Lovelace, an English
mathematician who has been called the world's first
computer programmer."
     It was amazing how much trivia Ackerman carried
in his head. While we were talking, I followed him
into the largest laboratory I'd ever seen: an under-
ground warehouse they'd allowed Dr. Ackerman to
turn into his private world. Clearance was a cinch: he
ran the lab.
     I wanted to get him off the subject of my friends.
The way he talked about them made me uncomfort-
able. They'd been sort of ignoring me lately. At least
that was how it felt. I didn't want to be disloyal to
them when I was already pissed off. I wasn't a rat.
Besides, maybe they were purposely giving me time
to be alone. Arlene had said I could really be a pill
when I was in one of my moods.
     Well, why shouldn't I be? Albert and Arlene had a
thing for each other. When they were like that they
didn't want anyone else around, not even Fly. But
lately Arlene was spending more time with Fly. They
had this really gross brother-sister kind of thing going.
When I first met them, I thought there might be
something else between them. I quickly learned that
was no way.
     'Course I thought that might open the door for me
to sort of find out if Fly would see me as anything
other than a dumb kid or a computer geek. That went
nowhere fast. No one can make me feel like a kid
quicker than Fly Taggart.
     "I don't care that civilization has almost col-
lapsed," he told me one time when I let him see me
dressing, or undressing--I forget which. "I have my
own rules," he said. "My own personal code of
conduct. A kid your age shouldn't even be thinking
about such things. Now cut it out!" He said a lot
more, but I tuned him out. Lucky for him that his
personal code was exactly the same as that of other
adults. He called it the "your actions" principle, or
the YA rule for short.
     Fly was just like all the other adults I'd known,
except that he was a better shot. A full-grown man is
telling me what I shouldn't be thinking about. Typi-
cal! At least Dr. Ackerman didn't do that to me. But I
sure didn't want him to pump me about my marine
friends. I didn't want to tell him that I think Fly
would rather fire a plasma rifle than make love to
anyone. My opinion's none of Ackerman's business.
I didn't want the doc to know that I'd rather be a
scientist than a marine. That's probably no big secret.
I don't want ever, ever, ever to be a marine. I hate the
haircuts.



     6

     "You'll find this fascinating, Jill," Dr. Acker-
man promised as he led me to a massive table covered
by a gigantic plastic sheet. About the only thing
missing was an electrical machine buzzing and zap-
ping from one of the old movies.
     "There are too many of them to be defeated by
firepower!" He sounded like the president of the
Council of Twelve from the Mormon compound. But
he didn't go on to talk about the power of prayer.
"After what your friends told us, we must face the
reality of an unlimited number of these creatures. The
bio-vats witnessed by Taggart and Sanders--"
"That was before I met them."
     "Yes, we were briefed, you know. They saw those
vats in space--on Deimos, to be exact. The aliens can
replace their creatures indefinitely, and they keep
improving their models. So . . ." Ackerman had a
great sense of the theatrical, playing for an audience
that was only me. Reminding me of a stage magician,
he reached out with both hands and yanked the big
sheet off the thing on the table.
     Large pieces of steam demon were spread out on a
heavy slab. The table had to be very strong to support
the weight. "It's not rotting?" I said, blurting out the
first words that came into my head.
     "They don't decay naturally. The zombies decom-
pose, of course, because of their original human
tissue." He slipped a pair of surgical gloves on and
prodded the red side of the big chest lying there all by
itself. It looked like the world's biggest piece of
partially chewed bubble gum.
     "There's no smell," I volunteered.
"No odor, right. Not with a cyberdemon."
     "A what?"
"I forgot. You call them something else, don't
you?"
     "Steam demons."
"Yes, well, we're standardizing the terminology for
official government science. Now take the cacode-
mons, for instance."
     "A what?"
"You call them pumpkins. I confess I like that name
myself, what with the Halloween associations, but it
won't do for an official name."
     "Do you have any cacodemons here?"
He shook his head. "They dissolve shortly after the
tissues are disrupted. When we try to secure samples
for analysis, we're left with only a test tube of liquid
and powder. So tell me, Jill, what do you make of the
cyber . . . er, the steam demon?"
     "The name 'cyberdemon' makes sense," I agreed. I
didn't tell him what I thought of "cacodemon." "The
mechanical parts stick into the body so deep--"
"They are not attachments," he corrected. "Look!"
He pointed at the portion of the arm that began in
flesh and ended in the metal of a rocket launcher.
"Neither the arm nor the launcher is complete, but
the cross section shows the point of connection be-
tween the arm and the weapon. You see it, don't you,
Jill? You don't need a microscope."
     The only other time I'd been this close to a piece of
monster was when the foot of a spider-mind almost
crushed me on the train when we rescued Ken. I
wondered what Ackerman called the spider-minds.
Anyway, seeing a cross section of a demon was a new
experience. "I don't believe it," I admitted.
"Seeing is believing."
     The red shaded into silver-gray. There was no
dividing line. The rocket launcher grew out of the
flesh.
     "That's one for Ripley," he said.
"Huh?"
     "A little before your time. It means it's hard to
believe, but the evidence is right before you. When I
first started studying these creatures, I was most
puzzled about their weapons. Think about it. The
imps fire a weapon that's purely organic in nature."
"We call them imps, too. Well, sometimes spinies."
"Uh-huh. Your pumpkins do the same with their
balls of concentrated acid and combustible gas. Why,
then, do these larger creatures use weapons similar to
the artillery used by humans?"
     I'd never thought about that. If someone is trying to
stab me with a switchblade, I don't wonder how he
got it.
     It was Dr. Ackerman's job to wonder. "All these
military weapons seemed inappropriate," he went on.
"If they internally create bolts of force and can
project them, why develop appendages that require
external ammunition?"
     "I get it," I said, excited. "It's like if you're God-
zilla, what do you need with a gun?"
     "Perfect, Jill. You really are a smart kid."
I didn't want compliments. I wanted to keep the
discussion moving. "Are you sure they get their
bullets and rockets from somewhere else? Maybe they
grow them, too?"
     Ackerman stopped what he was doing--bringing
up a computer display showing the monster's autopsy
report--and took his glasses off. He pointed at me
with them. "Right there you prove yourself worth
more than the people I've been working with. You can
help me, uh, interface with Ken, too. His doctor says
it will be a while before he gets back to normal, but
he's been so close to the problem that he understands
aspects of their biotechnology that no one else com-
prehends."
     I nodded. "Now I remember. Ken told us how the
rockets and guns and stuff were probably first stolen
from subject races. So if the gun is a separate thing,
then it's not grown by a demon."
     Ackerman finished my thought: "But if it's at-
tached, then it's grown somehow. The original ver-
sion of the weapon must have been stolen first. Then
they modified it into their biotech."
     He turned his back to me again and I noticed little
red and yellow stains all over it. I didn't want to know
what they were. Now he was excited as he said, "What
we need is a living specimen of one of the big ones."
He grinned. Maybe he really was a mad scientist. I
had to ask the obvious question: "Would you be able
to control it?"
     "We already handle the living zombies we have
here. That sounds funny, doesn't it? Living zombies."
"You have live ones?" I nearly freaked when he said
that. Being in combat had turned me into a killer . . .
of the undead.
     "Sure, but they're easy to control. They don't have
superhuman strength. You know that from fighting
them."
     "Have you fought them?"
"Well, no, but I've studied them."
     "Trust me on this, Doctor--they're dangerous."
"But manageable. That's all I'm saying. If we had a
live cyberdemon, then we'd have a problem of con-
tainment. The same as if our mancubus was living. I
know you call them fatties."
     "You have a whole fatty?"
"Fortunately it's dead. Unlike the specimen here,
he seems to be slowly decaying."
     I laughed. "They smell so bad alive I don't see how
they could get any worse."
     "The stench reminds me of rotting fish, sour grapes,
and old locker-room sweat. Come on. I'll show you."
He didn't need to take my arm, but I let him. He was
like a friendly uncle who wanted to show off his
chamber of horrors. We went past sections of flying
skulls laid out like bikers' helmets. I'd always wanted
a motorcycle.
     "What do you call the Clydes?"
"We don't," he answered quickly. "We think your
friends were wrong to think they might be the product
of genetic engineering. They're probably the human
traitors who were given some kind of treatment to
make them tractable."
     The fatty was behind glass and made me think of a
gigantic meat loaf that had been left out in the sun.
The metal guns it used for arms had been removed
and stacked up next to the monster like giant flash-
lights. He looked sort of pathetic without them.
"You can't smell it from here, but if you want to
step into the room ..."
     "No, thanks." I turned him down, unsure if he was
kidding me. "Let's see the zombies."
     I wish I hadn't asked.
He led me to the end of the warehouse, where I
finally saw some other people in white lab coats. For a
moment it had seemed as if the whole place belonged
to Ackerman and his monsters. We went out into a
corridor. I figured the zombies had been given a
special place of their own.
     Like I said, what's great about scientists is the way
they refuse to talk down to kids. Ackerman started to
lecture, and it was fine with me:
     "The most interesting part about studying zombies
is the residual speech pattern. We have recorded many
hours of zombie dialogue. Some of them fixate on the
invasion, speaking cryptically about gateways and
greater forces that lie behind them. Others pick up a
pattern from their own lives, repeating phrases that
tell us something about them. A final test group
doesn't speak at all. We are attempting to find out if
they retain any capacity to reason after the transfor-
mation."
     "No," I said as strongly as I could. "The human
part of them is dead."
     "I understand how you must feel," he said. "It's
easier for all of us if we assume we're not killing
anyone human on the other end of the gun barrel."
I shook my head. "You don't understand," I told
him. "I'll kill any skag who betrayed us. The traitors
are still human. I wouldn't have any problem pulling
the trigger on those creeps in the government who
helped the demons."
     "All right, calm down," he said in a completely
different tone of voice. "I was really talking about
myself just then. It's easier for me to work on these,
er, zombies, if I think there's no humanity left."
Arlene keeps saying I can be a real pill, so I decided
to be that way on purpose. I asked, "What difference
does that make to you, Doctor, if they weren't gen-
iuses when they were alive?"
     He laughed instead of getting mad. "You are smart,
Jill. I need to watch my step around you. I hope we'll
enjoy working together. We can start now. What's
your theory of why a few of the big monsters seem
able to reason?"
     "You mean like the spider-minds?"
I didn't need to tell him what that word meant.
"Apparently all of them. Then there was the loqua-
cious imp whom Corporal Taggart reported encoun-
tering on Phobos."
     He was on one of my favorite subjects. "We won-
dered about the smart ones when we were doing the
L.A. mission."
     "What were your conclusions?"
I suddenly noticed how long we'd been walking.
"How much farther before we reach the zombies?"
"Not long. Just don't ask if we're there yet! It'll
make me think of you as a kid again."
     "Is there a rest room I can use?"
"Just a few feet beyond the zombie pen." He
     sounded impatient. "So what did all of you con-
clude?"
     "Whenever a normal, stupid one talks, there must
be a smarter one somewhere, sending the words."
"Like broadcasting a radio signal. We've been
working along the same lines. Do you think the
spider-minds do their own thinking?"
     "Search me."
"They could be on the receiving end as well."
"So tell me about your zombies." I was truly
interested. We'd walked a good distance and still no
sight of the corpse-creeps.
     "Well, we have a total of thirteen. We've run
identity checks. You know how impossible it is to
destroy information today."
     "Yeah, the monsters can't rip a big hole in the Net,
even with their fat asses."
     "They've slowed us down, but they can't stop us
cold."
     "We'll stop them cold."
"Attagirl! Anyway, one of the zombies was once an
editor named Anders Monsen. He repeats phrases
from his profession. At least, that's what we think he's
doing. One of the women is Michelle DeLude, a
blonde. She keeps repeating how she must get to Las
Vegas in time for her wedding. Mark Stephens ran a
bookstore. Butler Shaffer was a law professor. Tina
Karos was a paralegal. She's the brunette. Both the
ladies were very attractive in life. Shame to see them
monsterized. The other eight were seamen stationed
right here in Hawaii. One was a huge man his friends
called Big Lee. Don't remember the names of the
others."
     Ackerman could have been a teacher. He made me
want to meet his special class of dead people. I was
looking forward to it ... until the door marked Maxi-
mum Security swung open and a large shape filled the
doorway, swinging a meat cleaver with which it
hacked off Dr. Ackerman's head.



     7

     I'll never admit this to Arlene, but for the first
time I doubt my faith. I don't want to be Albert the
agnostic. I have to write this out of my system. When
I'm finished, I'll destroy it and write her a real letter.
It might seem stupid to write to someone I could
speak to in person, but when I look into her green
eyes, I become tongue-tied. The way she arches her
right eyebrow and smiles with a smile as hot as her
flaming red hair, I just can't talk to her. She offers me
herself, and all I can do is tell her about my religion.
She was the first sight I beheld after the operation.
They did what they could for my face, but I didn't
need to look in a mirror to realize I had permanent
scars. My face still burns. It will burn forever from the
new valleys and ridges etched into my forehead and
cheeks and chin. I suppose there is consolation in not
being as ugly as an imp. Of course, I'll have a head
start if I'm ever turned into a zombie.
     I know it's wrong to worry about my appearance
when I could have been blind for the rest of my life.
May God forgive my vanity.
     Arlene won't let me be sorry for myself. She bent
over my hospital bed, smiling like an angel, and
kissed up and down the tortured flesh of my disfig-
ured face. "You'll always be my Albert," she whis-
pered so that only I could hear.
     We've shared experiences few mortals will ever
know. We've faced down the wrath of a spider-mind.
We've tasted the brimstone of a fire eater. (I can't
figure out why the scientists here call those things
arch-viles.) Together we've spilled the slimy guts of
pumpkins and princes of hell. I was willing to wade
through a sea of blood with this woman. But when she
turned her face to me and offered me her high
cheekbones to touch and her full mouth to kiss, I
pulled away.
     She must think I'm a fool. A woman who has
proved herself in a world of men, she is not squeam-
ish about the human body. Women tend to be more
matter-of-fact about the body anyway. They already
live in the sea of blood so it must seem very strange to
watch men deliberately embark upon that crimson
ocean. Does a foxhole really compare to childbirth? I
was brought up to believe that the highest destiny of a
woman is to bring children into the world. The church
reinforced these attitudes. I can respect a woman who
is a fighter but I can't shake the idea she's shirking her
responsibility as a woman. It's like if she dies on a
battlefield, she gets off easy. If she's an officer, she
exercises a trivial kind of authority compared to what
God intends for her to do with her children.
So here comes Arlene Sanders with her high-and-
tight, tossing back her head as if she had long hair
down to her waist, showing off her long neck and firm
jaw, and shouldering her piece with as much authority
as any man. Yeah, I'll pretend it's the day after
Halloween and help her blow away pumpkins. But I
won't touch her with my naked hand.
     Intellectually, I don't doubt the Book of Mormon.
History shows that a life of marriage and children is
intended for men and women on this earth. When we
move away from that, we become miserable. When we
do our duty, we know a happiness of which no
hedonist can even dream.
     I guess my problem is that I thought I'd been
tempted before. But the women who offered them-
selves to me for quick and easy sex were not women I
respected. They'd never stood up to devils from the
depths of space. They'd never encountered the now-
or-never choice of giving up your life for a buddy--
and surviving only because he'd do the same for you.
I'd met plenty of women who were into rock, but PFC
Arlene Sanders was the first who could really rock and
roll!
     Turning down her offer hurts so much because if a
buddy asked for anything else, I'd come through
without giving it a second thought. How can she treat
the act of love so casually? I know lots of men who'd
jump at the chance offered by Arlene, but she proba-
bly wouldn't be interested in them. My usual lousy
luck--she's attracted to me because she knows I'll say
no.
     Even when I was a jock back in high school, there
were cheerleaders after me. Being big and muscular
has its advantages. The smart guys thought I was
stupid and left me alone. That was probably an
advantage also.
     I want a family. I want a loving wife who will give
me children. It's that simple, but I can't make the
words come out. Words are fragile tools. When you
try to turn them into weapons they often break. I can't
write the letter to Arlene today. I don't have the
words. I pray that I'll find the words while we're still
together.
     In a world of real demons, there isn't any time to
waste. Nor is this a good time to question my faith
just because I suddenly discover I cannot govern my
passions. I might even have a future in which to raise
a family.
     Once, when I was reading a book in the Mormon
library, I came across a line that stayed with me. I
don't remember the author, but he said: "Happy
families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhap-
py in its own way." I take that to mean that happiness
grows out of love. Love is based on your actions. So is
faith.
     How do I tell Arlene that I want all or nothing?
Especially when she's already offered me more than I
deserve . . . And how can we make a decision for the
future in a world like this? My hell on Earth is a world
where Arlene is right and I'm wrong. Do we even have
a right to try to plan for the future? If we were the last
two people in a universe of monsters, there would be a
certain legitimacy in trying to make a life together, in
however brief a span was allotted to us. But our lives
are not our own. There is the Corps. One, two, three,
four, she loves the Marine Corps. She loves it more
than I do. So does Fly. There is that link between
them.
     We are under orders more severe than any monas-
tery could impose. Perversely, I have taken an oath of
celibacy that she has not taken. Arlene Sanders is a
worldly woman, whether on this planet or off.
But I am honest enough to admit that I have no
intention of changing. If it were proven to me tomor-
row that the Mormon faith is false, I would not
become a moral relativist. I would not treat human
relations as casual affairs. I take people too seriously
for that. I'd still believe in my morality even if no God
provided supernatural guidance.
     I pray that one day Arlene will understand how
much faith I have in her. Suddenly I realize that I
can't write her a letter. I have to tell her all this in
person. Despite all my reservations, I must have the
courage of my convictions.
     I'm going to ask her to marry me.
"Arlene, look out!"
     The little voice in the back of my head just wouldn't
shut up about how stupid it was to go anywhere
without being armed to the teeth. Arlene and I hadn't
felt safe enough to go unarmed since the first day of
the Phobos invasion. We even kidded each other
about going to the beach without either of us packing
a piece. I wouldn't have minded seeing her with a nice
Colt .45 strapped to her and leaving its mark on her
nearly naked body. She's my buddy, but I still have an
imagination.
     Here we were in a stronghold of humanity. This was
one place where we didn't have to feel like the black
gang-banger surrounded by white cops in what a
police commissioner might refer to as a target-rich
environment. Here we could let down our hair--a
joke when you have a marine haircut--and go naked,
which has nothing to do with clothes and everything
to do with being unarmed.
     Nothing threatened us on the beach, except maybe
that lazy shark we'd noticed right before coming in.
We didn't have any need of firepower when we went
through the security check. We simply needed our big
bath towels because the air conditioning was on full
blast inside. It was still our day of R&R, and neither
of us was in a rush to get back into uniform. I'd never
enjoyed wearing civvies more in my life.
     We weren't expecting trouble as we went looking for
Jill. Ackerman's monster lab was a lot closer than
Albert, who'd "gone to town," and Arlene figured her
beau still needed time alone.
     It wasn't until we went into the biology research
department that the old marine training kicked in.
Something just didn't feel right. Maybe it was not
seeing more people than we did. But when I noticed
the female lab technician from behind, I knew some-
thing was wrong. Her long black tresses were a tat-
tered mass stained with splotches of green. She had a
great figure, and something told me she'd never let her
hair go like that. Her lab coat was wrinkled and
disgustingly dirty, though I knew the admiral ran a
tight ship and wouldn't abide slovenliness.
     Arlene picked up the pace and started hoofing it
over to the technician. As the woman started to turn, I
couldn't believe that Arlene wouldn't notice the
messy hair and the dirty lab coat. My best buddy
wasn't just a great warrior; she was female.
No sooner did I shout, "Arlene, look out," than I
realized I didn't need to worry about her. She went
into a roll that made her a less promising target than I
was. Marine, protect your own ass!
     Turning sideways, I flattened myself against the
wall before the female zombie got off her first shot.
Arlene made certain she didn't get another. Zombie
reflexes suck. Even a woman in good physical condi-
tion would have had trouble stopping Arlene coming
up from the floor, right arm straight up like the Statue
of Liberty, and knocking the gun from the cold
leathery hand that was yet to get off a second shot.
The next few seconds proved to be the corollary to
"Practice Makes Perfect." We'd both become a little
rusty. There was no other explanation for Zombie
Girl getting away before Arlene could slam her hard
against the convenient back wall--providing plenty
of time for one of us to retrieve the gun from the floor
and pump lead into the leathery blue-gray face of our
walking beauty.
     This zombie lass moved very quickly, though--
faster than any zombie I'd ever seen. She also shouted
something very strange about having to get to court.
Then she darted through a door to my left before
Arlene could reach her from the rear or I could
approach her from the front.
     "Those morons!" Arlene screamed. "What kind of
security do they call this?"
     I was pissed too, but I had more sympathy for a
genuine blunder than Arlene did. Watching that bas-
tard Weems order the murder of the monks in Kefiri-
stan had softened me toward mere incompetence.
The science boys had to study everything they could
get their hands on. I didn't expect there wouldn't be
risks. But whatever had gone wrong, it was now a job
for people like Arlene and me.
     She'd already picked up the piece from the floor, a
.38 caliber revolver. I liked the idea of acquiring more
artillery as quickly as possible.
     A scream from the other side of the door brought us
back to immediate reality. Reconnoitering was a
luxury, and going to the armory was a vacation from
the job.
     We went through the door together, me coming in
low and Arlene braced, pointing the gun ahead of
us--a beacon of truth with its own special kind of
flame. But she didn't fire right away. She was afraid of
hitting the woman that the zombie in the lab coat was
carving up like a Christmas turkey.
     The victim stared at us without seeing what was in
front of her. The broken beaker in the zombie's hand
occupied the woman's full attention. Zombie Girl had
already cut her victim around her breasts and arms.
The angle made it impossible for us to alter the events
of the next few seconds. That was all the time the
zombie needed.
     She drew her makeshift knife in a slashing move-
ment across the white throat of the victim. The throat
didn't stay white very long. The lifeblood spurted out
so fast that it covered the hand holding the broken
glass, and it looked as if the zombie had spilled a
bucket of red paint over itself.
     Arlene took a few lithe dancer's steps into the
room and placed her gun right up against the Zombie
Girl's head. This walking dead might be fast, but the
jig was up. Arlene squeezed off a round. Blood,
brains, and gore splattered back over the victim,
but the poor woman was past caring. She was still
twitching, but that didn't count. We couldn't save
her.
     "Too bad none of the scientists are around to
observe that," I said, pointing. A piece of zombie
brain continued to flop around on the floor with a life
of its own. I'd noticed this phenomenon before. It
seemed to apply only to the better rank of zombies,
the ones with a shred of initiative left.
     "She was a fast one," said Arlene, nodding at the
woman we didn't save. "If I were wearing my boots,
I'd grind this to pulp," she sneered at the blue-green
brain matter that seemed to be trying to crawl away.
She didn't step on it. Instead, she wasted ammo.
I could relate. Quick as that, we were both back in
killing mode. Then we heard another scream--one
we both recognized right away. Jill!



     8

     "We've got to save her, Fly!"
     Arlene had recognized our kid, too. We'd both
started thinking about Jill that way--as our responsi-
bility. We hadn't gone through all this crap just to let
her die now.
     "Come on!" I shouted and headed toward the
sound.
     When we returned to the corridor, another zombie
was waiting for us, a male. This was one of the
talkative ones. He didn't babble about the Gateways
and the invasion. Instead, he kept repeating, "Write it
over and resubmit." I didn't give him a chance to
repeat his mantra. Arlene had our only gun, but I
was angry at not having been in time to save the
woman in the next room. Sometimes I like to get
personal.
     I felt the skin crawl between my shoulders as I hit
the blue-gray face with my right fist. Marines were not
meant to touch this reeking leather that once was
human skin, but I was too angry to care. The sound
of the nose cracking did my soul a world of good.
Unlike Arlene's prey, this one was slow. I could
have moved a lot slower, but adrenaline surged
through me as I did something I'd never done to any
of these bozos: I gave it the old one-two with straight
fists. No karate, no fancy side kicks, no special
training. I just pummeled that damned face in a
sincere effort to send it straight back to hell, where
it belonged.
     "Fly!" Arlene was right behind me.
"Be with you in a second," I said.
     "What about Jill?"
Shit. How could I have been sidetracked so easily?
There are certain drawbacks to being a natural warri-
or. "Take it," I yelled, resuming the twenty-yard
dash--thirty? forty?--to save Jill. I measured dis-
tance in kill-ometers. I didn't bother looking back as I
heard the solid, satisfying sound of Arlene putting a
round in the zombie's head.
     Arlene stays in good shape. I never slowed down,
but suddenly she was running right beside me. We
found a dead guard slumped against the wall. Recent
kill. Blood still trickling down his arm onto his M1.
Dumb-ass zombies didn't relieve him of his satisfac-
tion. I grabbed the weapon without slowing down,
and then Arlene and I slammed through a pair of
unlocked doors, ready for anything.
     Anything consisted of a zombie ripping open a
sawbones with the man's own surgical instruments. I
fired off six rounds of .30-06 little round scalpels that
opened up the zombie a lot more completely than
he'd managed to do to the doctor.
     "I can save him," said Arlene, noticing the conve-
nient medikit at the same time I did. In Kefiristan,
she'd had plenty of experience treating abdominal
wounds. Before I could say diddly, she was on her
knees, scooping up the medical guy's intestines and
shoveling them back into the patient. Fortunately, the
guy had passed out; and just as fortunately Arlene was
really good at handling slippery things.
     Jill was my responsibility--if it wasn't already too
late to save her. As if on cue, she screamed again. I
gave a silent prayer of thanks to Sister Beatrice, the
toughest nun I'd had back in school. She always said
the only prayers that are answered are the ones you
say when you truly want to help someone else.
I humped. I hurried. I tried my damnedest to
fly. ...
     Jill was still alive when I got to her. I almost tripped
over the head of Dr. Ackerman, staring up at me with
a really surprised expression. I did slip in the blood,
and dropped the M1 as I careened right into the back
of the biggest freakin' zombie I'd ever seen. The creep
had cornered Jill and was trying to get at her with a
blasted meat cleaver. She was holding him off with a
metal chair, like a lion tamer. She'd taken shelter in a
tight corner, which gave her an advantage: he couldn't
swing the cleaver in a full arc, and she was able to
avoid him by sidestepping the blade.
     I slammed hard into the back of her lion, and he fell
forward. Jill jumped out of the way and shouted,
"Fly!" That was all, just my name, but she crammed
so much gratitude into that one syllable she made me
feel like the cavalry, Superman, and Zorro all rolled
into one.
     "Run!" I shouted, now that she had a clear escape
route.
     "No way!"
The brat liked giving me lip. It was hard to be mad
at her though, because she was trying to retrieve the
weapon from the floor. The big, hulking zombie was
slow, but he didn't seem interested in giving us all the
time in the world.
     Jill leveled the M-1 at our problem and pulled the
trigger. Nada. Either Jill was doing something wrong
or the gun had jammed. Zombie was still fixated on
her, even though I was behind him again. Jill looked
at me with a hurt-little-girl expression as if to say I
gave up a perfectly good metal chair for a gun that
doesn't fire?
     The bad guy still had his cleaver, and he had plenty
of elbow room now, so he could swing the thing and
add Jill's head to his collection. It pissed me off that
all my heroics had only made Jill's situation worse. I
did what I could. The big hulk was standing with his
feet just far enough apart so that I was able to kick
him in the groin. I wished I had on my combat boots
instead of sneakers. I wished he were alive, as the
dead ones are only mildly bothered by that kind of
action. But it was the best I could manage.
     The big bearded mother turned his head. That was
all Jill needed. She held the barrel in both hands and
swung the weapon so fair and true that it was worthy
of the World Series. The wooden stock cracked
against the zombie's neck. He was thrown off-balance.
As he tried to turn his head, I heard a snap: Jill had
done something bad to his old neck bone. Good girl!
The zombie fell to his knees. Before he could get
out of his crouch I karate-chopped the back of his
neck. No time to play George Foreman now. So far,
Jill and I had merely slowed him down. Time for
something more permanent.
     Jill had the same idea. No sooner did I body-slam
the hulk into a prone position than she yanked the
cleaver away from him and started swinging it at his
head.
     "Hey, watch it!" I shouted. "You almost hit me."
"Sorry," she said, almost as a gasp. But she kept
swinging that wicked blade at the peeling, rotten flesh
around the zombie's neck and head. I wasn't about to
tell her she didn't have the strength to finish the job.
The zombie wasn't getting up, and I intended to make
sure it stayed down.
     As I retrieved the M1, I realized that no other
zombies were showing up to bother us. There was
something eerie about Doc Ackerman's head on the
floor, staring at us. (A marine isn't supposed to use a
word like "eerie," but it was freakin' eerie, man.)
I picked up the M1. So it had jammed for Jill. So
she'd used it as a club. It's not like she'd smashed it
against a tree. I cleared the bolt. What the hell, we'd
give it another try.
     "Excuse me," I said to Jill, busily trying to return
the favor to the great decapitator. The meat cleaver
was a little dull. And Jill just didn't have the necessary
body mass. She offered me her hatchet. I declined.
I fired the M1 once, point-blank. The head came
apart like a ripe cantaloupe. The blood that poured
out was a brand-new color on me.
     "The gun jammed," she insisted.
"I know."
     "I didn't do anything wrong with it!"
"I'm not saying you did. Knocking the gun around
probably unjammed it."
     "Well, I just want you to know it wasn't my fault
that I couldn't fire it."
     There were times when Jill went out of her way to
remind me she was a teenager. I really wasn't in the
mood for her defensiveness just then. God knew how
many more zombies were roaming the installation.
We had to get back to Arlene. And I was worried
about Albert. We'd become like a family.
     At some moment in my military career I'd become
used to the stench of death. I could probably thank
the Scythe of Glory and their Shining Path buddies
for that. But I would never get used to the sour-lemon
zombie odor; and the strongest whiff of it I'd had in a
very long time scorched my nostrils as the head of the
dead zombie leaked at my feet.
     When I threw up, I knew the vacation was over.
I am Ken. I once was part of a family. They're all
dead now. I once took long walks every day and rode a
bicycle. I swam. I ate food off plates and drank wine. I
sang. I made love.
     Now I am a cybermummy. A Ken doll. They have
taken off the bandages and removed some of the
objects from my flesh, but I feel that the aliens have
made me less than human. Dr. Ackerman thought the
opposite; but I don't feel more than human. Dr.
Williams, the director, says they will bring me back to
normal, but I don't believe him. The director puts
nothing above the importance of winning the war. I
am more useful to him now where I am, remaining
what I am. The medical team tries to keep its findings
from me, but I can tap into all their computer
systems.
     They say they can overcome my physical weakness
quite easily. They can stop feeding me intravenously
and slowly acclimate my system to regular food again.
Simple brain surgery would restore full mobility, but
there is a risk--not to me but to their project. The
alien biotech in my head could be altered or lost in the
course of getting me back to normal. So they take
their time.
     Meanwhile, I am plugged into the computers and
confined to my bed, except when they risk placing me
in a motorized wheelchair. I do not complain about
this. I do not tell Jill when she comes to visit me. She's
my most frequent visitor. I don't complain to Flynn
or Arlene or Albert when they check up on me. These
are the people who saved me. They care about me. I
see no reason to make them worry.
     Keeping my own counsel is a trick I learned when I
was very young. I don't tell anyone how much I want
to be the man I was. My favorite uncle used to take his
family to Hawaii for vacations. He'd tell us all about
it when he visited, and I wanted so much to come
here. The irony is that here may be one of the last
places on Earth where things are still as he remem-
bered, and I can't go out and see them while there is
still time.
     I access all that I can on Hawaii. The screen flickers
and tells me that Hawaii is a group of islands stretch-
ing for over three hundred miles in the middle of
the Pacific Ocean. I bring up information on how it
was discovered by Europeans; and then I read how
it became the fiftieth state of the United States.
I remember my uncle saying the most popular fish
here is difficult to spell, and I find an entry for it,
and I realize my uncle was an honest man:
     humumunukunukuapuaa. I read all about King Ka-
mehameha and envy how he could get around the
islands so much more easily than I ...
     I grow tired of feeling sorry for myself. I don't mind
being useful. I'm not certain that's the same thing as
doing one's duty, but I don't really care. This could be
the last stand of the human race. But I hate the lies.
All the military is good at doing in a crisis is lying. I
would never talk about this with brave soldiers. They
don't want to hear about it. There is no point in
discussing it with cynical senior officers, especially
those who have decided to use me without being
honest about their intent.
     I like my new friends. They have honor. They look
out on the world with a clean vision that no amount
of dirt or blood can obstruct. They think they are
fighting for individualism. For freedom. If the human
race survives, they will face a serious disappointment.
I have accessed the files. There are plans.
     Perhaps I am closer to the future than those who
rescued me. I am trapped inside myself. Maybe some-
thing deep inside me died when I was in the clutches
of the invaders. Before they altered me, I would have
been horrified to discover human plans for a New
Eugenics to build the future. This is not a plan of the
human collaborators. The traitors have their own
genetic plans for "improving" that part of humanity
the new masters will allow to survive.
     The New Eugenics is a plan devised by our side.
The good guys. The ones fighting the invaders. Who
knows? Maybe they will deliberately create more
computer adjuncts like me! It's a dead certainty that
they will begin making breeding decisions for the
survivors on our side. Warriors like Flynn and Arlene
will be spared this nonsense. They were born to die in
battle. They are too valuable to use in non-military
operations. I have accessed plans for them. They
don't know it yet, but their time on Earth is limited.
Very few people have their skill as space warriors.
Flynn is Flash Gordon. Who is Arlene? Barbarella?
Marines Taggart and Sanders will follow orders
even when it involves facing hundred-to-one odds
and near-certain death. I'd like to imagine some
bureaucrat, human or otherwise, telling them with
whom they should go to bed and how many children
they are expected to have. They will be spared this
future Earth that I believe to be inevitable, no matter
which side wins. Times of crisis are made in hell--
and made for the kind of man who has a plan for
everything.
     Jill and I are to remain on Earth! If Albert is
fortunate, he will go with Fly and Arlene. He is too
religious a man to stay. Where would he turn when he
found out there's no side for him? Would he try to
return to Utah? He doesn't know about Utah yet.
He'll probably find out today.
     They have a lot to cover today. The service for
Ackerman and his staff was held this morning. I
watched it on the monitor. So much has happened
since yesterday.
     First, the admiral will pretend there was a possibili-
ty of sabotage even though the video recordings show
that the killings were the result of simple carelessness
on the part of one of Ackerman's staff. Plain incompe-
tence led to the holocaust. Those tapes remain classi-
fied, naturally. The possibility of a traitor does more
for gung-ho morale than an admission of incompe-
tence. I can hardly fault our new leaders for being
students of history.
     Besides, my friends will be receiving a big dose of
declassified material relevant to their next mission.
They shouldn't be greedy for too much declassified
material all at once. It causes indigestion. Besides,
their marine colonel will be giving them a nice
dessert.
     I should have a better attitude about this. The other
side is so terrible that we should forgive our own
shortcomings. Isn't that what they said when they
were fighting Hitler? The doom demons, as Jill likes
to call them, are perfect enemies. In the name of
fighting them, we can do anything we want. No, it
isn't fair to say we want to do terrible things. We will
win by any means necessary, as Malcolm X used to
say.



     9

     By the time I joined Fly and Jill, I could
breathe easy again. It was Fly and Jill. He saved her. I
knew the big lug would. There was no way I could
have left a man bleeding to death when I had the
training to save him.
     Of course, the navy's security forces were swarming
everywhere by then. I didn't mind that two of the first
of Kimmel's finest were Mark Stanfill and Jim Ivey,
my poker playing buddies (Fly wasn't in our league).
When everything's gone to hell in a hand basket,
personal ID can make the crucial difference in wheth-
er somebody panics and pulls the trigger. Ackerman's
facilities had been turned into a zombie cafeteria, and
that was enough to make anyone panic.
     Fly, Jill, and I were hustled into a decontamination
chamber. After all the contact we'd had with these
creatures I almost laughed at precautions this late in
the game. Then again, I shouldn't criticize Hawaii
Base for being thorough. It would be a kick in the ass
if we defeated the enemy only to succumb to diseases
already coursing through our bloodstreams.
     In the evening, I saw Albert at dinner. He was a
worse poker player than Fly because he couldn't keep
emotions from marching across his face.
     "Arlene, are you all right?" he asked, noticing Jill's
smile a second later. "Are all of you okay?" he added.
"We're fine," Fly assured him, grinning.
     "We needed the practice," Jill added.
"Stop giving him a hard time," I told the other two.
"Don't mind these kill-crazy kids, Albert."
     "Hey!" Fly protested, still smiling.
"Seriously, Albert, after all we've done together,
this was no big deal." I noticed that other tables
frequently occupied by now were only half full. The
death toll hadn't been that high, considering the
surprise element. All the zombies were accounted for,
and wasted. (At least Ackerman kept good records.)
The only explanation for the sparse crowd was that a
number of our comrades had been put off their food
by a first sloppy encounter with the drool ghouls. So
we could have seconds if we wanted.
     Albert sighed and joined us. The tables were set up
cafeteria-style, and our little group tended to gravitate
together. We were so taken with Ken that he'd proba-
bly belong to our little supper club if he ever ate solids
again.
     "I didn't hear about the zombies until I returned,"
he said almost apologetically.
     "How was town?" asked Jill.
"I was shopping." Those innocuous words came
out of Albert freighted with an extra meaning. I
wasn't the only one who heard it.
     We ate our Salisbury steaks in silence. I finished
and started to get up with the intention of depositing
my tray in the proper receptacle. I figured my figure
didn't really need the extra calories of seconds, after
all. Albert was only starting to eat, but he abandoned
his food. And Albert is a growing boy.
     "Do you mind if I walk with you?" he asked. The
style was definitely not him. I couldn't help noticing
Jill's eyes burning into him. She sensed something
was up. Fly was busy paying close attention to his
pineapple dessert.
     "Sure," I said. For one moment I let wishful
thinking override the rational part of my brain. I
wanted to believe that Albert had changed his mind
about our sleeping together. I'd forgotten that where
this big, wonderful guy was concerned, the most
important aspect of sleeping together was the dream-
ing that went along with it--and the promises.
I don't know what surprised me more. That he'd
come up with a ring during his shopping expedition,
or that he put it to me with such direct simplicity:
"Arlene, will you marry me?"
     I'd opened the door to this when I made a play for
him. If I had a half a brain, I'd have realized what my
interest would mean to a man of this caliber.
We stood together next to a perfect facsimile of a
World War II era poster proclaiming, "Loose lips sink
ships." He watched me closely, especially my mouth,
waiting for words promising his own personal salva-
tion or damnation. I'd have been happier if he'd
looked away. Suddenly I wasn't as brave as I thought I
was.
     "Albert." I only got the one word out. His expres-
sion spoke volumes. He'd certainly wrestled with all
the problems haunting me. I wouldn't even insult him
by bringing them up.
     "That ring . . ." he began.
"It's beautiful, but I couldn't dream of accepting it
until... I mean, I need to think ..."
     It was like one of those comedies where the charac-
ters talk at cross-purposes. Who would think a simple
gold band could present a greater challenge than
escaping from the Disney Tower?
"I'd like you to keep it," he said. "You don't have to
think of it as an engagement ring, or anything you
don't want it to be. I don't expect you to wear it, if
you're not sure. Arlene, you mean so much to me that
when you offered what I couldn't accept, I had to
respond in my own way. I had to let you know how I
feel."
     Reaching out to take his hand was the easiest thing
in the world, until I felt the slight tremor in his palm.
It took all my courage to gaze into his eyes and say, "I
can't tell you now. You must understand."
     "Of course I do."
"Thank yo