And one,…

[He centers his beam on a second subject.]

And two…

[He moves down the swarm, tagging each one with a nonlethal shot.]

Kills me not to kill them. I mean, I know the whole point is to study their movements, set up an early warning network. I know that if we had the resources to clear them all we would. Still. . .

[He darts a sixth target. Like all the others, this one is oblivious to the small hole in its sternum.]

How do they do it? How are they still around ? Nothing in the world corrodes like saltwater. These Gs should have gone way before the ones on land. Their clothes sure did, anything organic like cloth or leather.

[The figures below us are practically naked.]

So why not the rest of them? Is it the temperature at these depths, is it the pressure? And why do they have such a resistance to pressure anyway? At this depth the human nervous system should be completely Jell-O-ized. They shouldn’t even be able to stand, let alone walk and “think” or whatever their version of thinking is. How do they do it? I’m sure someone real high up has all the answers and I’m sure the only reason they don’t tell me is …

[He is suddenly distracted by a flashing light on his instrument panel.]

Hey, hey, hey. Check this out.

[I look down at my own panel. The readouts are incomprehensible.]

We got a hot one, pretty healthy rad count. Must be from the Indian Ocean, Iranian or Paid, or maybe that ChiCom attack boat that went down off Manihi. How about that?

[He fires another dart.]

You’re lucky. This is one of the last manned recon dives. Next month it’s all ROV, 100 percent Remotely Operated Vehicles.

There’s been a lot of controversy over the use of ROVs for combat.

Never happen. The Sturge’s got way too much star power. She’d never let Congress go ’droid on us.

Is there any validity to their argument?

What, you mean if robots are more efficient fighters than ADS divers? Hell no. All that talk about “limiting human casualties” is bullshit. We never lost a man in combat, not one! That guy they keep talking about, Chernov, he was killed after the war, on land, when he got wasted and passed out on a tram line. Fuckin’ politicians.

Maybe ROVs are more cost-effective, but one thing they’re not is better. I’m not just talking about artificial intelligence; I’m talking heart, instinct, initiative, everything that makes us us. That’s why I’m still here, same with the Sturge, and almost all the other vets who took the plunge during the war. Most of us are still involved because we have to be, because they still haven’t yet come up with a collection of chips and bits to replace us. Believe me, once they do, I’ll not only never look at an exosuit again, I’ll quit the navy and pull a full-on Alpha November Alpha.

What’s that?

Action in the North Atlantic, this old, black-and-white war flick. There’s a guy in it, you know the “Skipper” from Gilligan’s Island, his old man. He had a line… “I’m putting an oar on my shoulder and I’m starting inland. And the first time a guy says to me ’What’s that on your shoulder?’ that’s where I’m settling for the rest of my life.”

Quebec, Canada

[The small farmhouse has no wall, no bars on the windows, and no lock on the door. When I ask the owner about his vulnerability he simply chuckles and resumes his lunch. Andre Renaid, brother of the legendary war hero Emil Renard, has requested that I keep his exact location secret. “I don’t care if the dead find me,” he says without feeling, “but I care very little for the living.” The former French national immigrated to this place after the official end of hostilities in western Europe. Despite numerous invitations from the French government, he has not returned.]

Everyone else is a liar, everyone who claims that their campaign was “the hardest of the entire war.” All chose ignorant peacocks who beat their chests and brag about “mountain warfare” or “jungle warfare” or “urban warfare.” Cities, oh how they love to brag about cities! “Nothing more terrifying than fighting in a city!” Oh really? Try underneath one.

Do you know why the Paris skyline was devoid of skyscrapers, I mean the prewar, proper Paris skyline? Do you know why they stuck all those glass and steel monstrosities out in La Defense, so far from the city center? Yes, there’s aesthetics, a sense of continuity and civic pride… not like that architectural mongrel called London. But the truth, the logical, practical, reason for keeping Paris free from American-style monoliths, is that the earth beneath their feet is simply too tunneled to support it.

There are Roman tombs, quarries that supplied limestone for much of the city, even World War II bunkers used by the Resistance and yes, there was a Resistance! Then there is the modern Metro, the telephone lines, the gas mains, the water pipes. … and through it all, you have the catacombs. Roughly six million bodies were buried there, taken from the pre-revolution cemeteries, where corpses were just tossed in like rubbish. The catacombs contained entire walls of skulls and bones arranged in macabre patterns. It was even functional in places where interlocking bones held back mounds of loose remains behind them. The skulls always seemed to be laughing at me.

I don’t think I can blame the civilians who tried to survive in that subterranean world. They didn’t have the civilian survival manual back then, they didn’t have Radio Free Earth. It was the Great Panic. Maybe a few souls who thought they knew those tunnels decided to make a go of it, a few more followed them, then a few more. The word spread, “it’s safe underground.” A quarter million in all, that’s what the bone counters have determined, two hundred and fifty thousand refugees. Maybe if they had been organized, thought to bring food and tools, even had enough sense to seal the entrances behind them and make damn sure those coming in weren’t infected…

How can anyone claim that their experience can compare to what we endured? The darkness and the stink … we had almost no night vision goggles, just one pair per platoon, and that’s if you were lucky. Spare batteries were in short supply for our electric torches, too. Sometimes there was only one working unit for an entire squad, just for the point man, cutting the darkness with a red-coated beam.

The air was toxic with sewage, chemicals, rotting flesh… the gas masks were a joke, most of the filters had long expired. We wore anything we could find, old military models, or firefighting hoods that covered your entire head, made you sweat like a pig, made you deaf as well as blind. You never knew where you were, staring through that misty visor, hearing the muffled voices of your squad mates, the crackle of your radioman.

We had to use hardwired sets, you see, because airwave transmissions were too unreliable. We used old telephone wire, copper, not fiber optic. We would just rip it off the conduits and keep massive rolls with us to extend our range. It was the only way to keep in contact, and, most of the time, the only way to keep from becoming lost.

It was so easy to become lost. All the maps were prewar and didn’t take into account the modifications the survivors had made, all the interconnecting tunnels and alcoves, the holes in the floor that would suddenly open up in front of you. You would lose your way, at least once a day, some-times more, and then have to trace your way back down the communications wire, check your location on the map, and try to figure out what had gone wrong. Sometimes it was only a few minutes, sometimes hours, or even days.

When another squad was being attacked, you would hear their cries over the radio or echoing through the tunnels. The acoustics were evil; they taunted you. Screams and moans came from every direction. You never knew where they were coming from. At least with the radio, you could try, maybe, to get a fix on your comrades’ position. If they weren’t panicked, if they knew where they were, if you knew where you were…