Motorpool Vehicle Repair Bays
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
29 October, 1987
2125 Hours

The tanker bar flew through my hands as I went through my options. I could wade into them with the tanker bar, but the M-16's shifted the balance in their favor if I did that. I could drop the bar and go for the pistols, but that give them a critical second or two to bring their weapons into play. They were off balanced, the one that was hit by the door tangling up with them, but the rearmost could simply step back, lift up his rifle, and clamp down on the trigger. Earlier if he was willing to take the risk of hitting his comrades.

ALERT! AUTONOMOUS COMBAT SYSTEMS OFFLINE! ALERT!

Throwing the bar gave me my best chance. Their attention fixated on the fifteen pound steel metal pole as it came at them, not paying attention as my hands snapped into my parka, pulled the pistols free, and I started firing, moving to the right, away from the spreading fire.

The left one's slide locked back on the fourth trigger pull and I slapped it back into the holster. I kept pulling the trigger, six shots, and when the slide locked back I quickly changed magazines, tucking the empty magazine upside down in the magazine pouch.

Three were dead, one was holding onto his stomach and screaming as I walked up to them.

The lizard was hammering on the button, trying to get it to engage, trying to take instinctive control of my combat systems.

Nothing happened.

He looked up right as I kicked him over on his back.

He was staring at me in hate, tears running from his eyes, his hands pressed against his stomach where I'd hit him twice, a third and fourth bullet punching through his friends and into his gut.

"Ya got a problem here, pumpkin," I told him.

"Bastard," He gasped.

"Ayup," I said, squatting down. "So where do you normally live?" He glared at me, reached for his rifle and I decided to handle it easy. I grabbed the middle of his upper arm, pressed the barrel of the pistol against his shoulder. "Whoops," I said.

His expression started to become confused.

I pulled the trigger.

He screamed as the bullet plowed through his shoulder, the expanding gasses pushing into the bullet wound, burning and tearing the tissue of his shoulder. I lifted the pistol and waved it back and forth to dissipate the smoke. I let him scream, clutch the wound that shattered his shoulder, and leaned back on my heels. I used my left hand to dig out my pack of smokes from my field jacket pocket, light one, then put the pack away.

The lizard was hammering on buttons and flipping switches, trying to get his boards to light back up.

"So, I've got a lot more bullets, you've got a lot more joints," I told him.

He kept screaming and I frowned.

"Hey," I said. He ignored me, still screaming. "Hey!" I tried a little louder. "HEY!" I yelled at him. He looked at me, but kept screaming.

I jammed the pistol into his elbow, grinding it down, and took a drag off my cigarette. "HEY! PAY ATTENTION!"

He kept screaming.

I sighed and pulled the trigger, the bullet shattering the joint, the expanding gases ripping it almost free of the upper arm.

He passed out.

...well shit...

I sighed, shaking my head. Nice job, Ant.

I stepped up, shot him once in the head, and reloaded the pistol as I moved into the tunnel. Christ, he should have been able to answer at least one...

"Ant, he's a normal man," Westlin said softly as we moved into the tunnel.

Behind me, the fire was roaring as the flames began to rise higher and higher at the wall where the fuel tanks were behind.

"He could have answered," I started.

She shook her head as I buttoned my parka. "No, Ant, he couldn't. You put four bullets into his gut, blew apart his shoulder, and severed that same arm at the elbow."

"Oh," I said. She was right.

"He's just a normal man," She said softly.

"You don't approve," I said. I didn't need to ask, I could tell.

She shook her head, "My disapproval doesn't have anything to do with you, sweety," She told me. I pulled the face mask up, then the goggles, then pulled the parka hood up over my head, grabbing the wooden catch and snugging it under my chin.

The lizard pulled open the panel, staring at the burnt wiring, carbonized circuitry, scorched circuit boards. He put a flashlight between his teeth and peered into the burnt mass of wreckage that used to be his controls.

Cool liquid fire rolled down by back as more adrenaline, endorphins, and norepinephrine pumped into my system.

"I'll stay with you, Ant," Westlin told me.

"Thanks," I answered, I stuck the rubberized tube in my mouth and made sure I could reach the valve to the O2 bottle, "I love you, you know that?"

She nodded slowly, "I know. You love me a lot now. We've gotten to know each other pretty well over the years."

"Yeah," I said, wincing as my knee suddenly twinged. I adjusted the way I was walking, knowing I was limping pretty heavily. "At least, with you, I'm never really alone."

She smiled at that, a bright smile that lit up my soul as I could see the exit of the tunnel.

"Gonna be bad out there, Ant," Westlin told me. She nodded at the mist. "Gotta watch out for the lightning out there."

"Yeah, but I gotta carry on with the mission," I told her. I shrugged, "The Conex is too far away from the fire to be effected, and there's no way simple fire will create the heat and pressure needed to fire those nukes off."

"Gonna check the barracks?" She asked me.

I shook my head. My feet were sinking pretty deep into the snow, the fire from the solvent and fuel getting hotter and melting the snow. I reached into the parka pocket, pulling out the gloves and a chem-light. I put the chemlight in my mouth, pulled on the gloves, then grabbed and snapped the chem-light before shaking it up.

"No. That's where most of them are. I am gonna check on the chow hall though. I might use the M-79 to blow apart the roof, let the night take care of them," I told her.

She nodded. "Most payout for least effort."

"Gonna check the chow hall first, then fall back to base to make plans. Maybe ride out the night up there," I told her.

She shook her head. "Want my advice, Ant?"

I glanced at her. The wind had swept the loose snow off of the frozen layer, revealing nothing but ice. I knew that the storm had thrown the loose snow down onto main post and below, the gusts almost knocking me off my feet.

I'd left my cleats on the side of my ruck and knew that if I wasn't careful, this was the perfect chance for the mountain to kill me. The wind would catch me, catch the insulated poncho I was wearing, slide me along the ice with high winds, and fling me off a damn cliff where I'd fly for a moment just like Wiley Coyote and with about as much success.

Right as I gathered my poncho around myself, pulling it tight to keep control of it, the wind knocked me off my feet and onto my side.

Westlin laughed, the wind not affecting her light flower print dress.

I kicked out twice with my left foot, managing to dig the ends of my makeshift knee brace into the hard ice, slowing my slide to stop.

I looked around, orienting myself on the distant landmarks. I was about two hundred meters from the SW guard tower.

When my knee bent, two of the metal straps that made up the thigh brace stuck past my knee. While each move made me grit my teeth, I used those metal points to dig into the ice as I started moving across the slick but uneven ice sheet that had formed under the powdery snow.

"This shit ain't fair," I grunted.

"Life ain't fair, Ant," Westlin laughed. Her long brown braid down her back swayed back and forth as she walked next to me. She sighed. "I miss dancing, you know that?"

"Then dance now," I grunted, wincing as my knee took my weight again.

"Really?" Her voice sounded like a little girl's.

"Sure, why not?" I said, then grunted again as I kept crawling.

The distance I'd have to crawl the length of two football fields. Each meter would require me to put my knee down three to four times. Between six and eight hundred times I'd have to put my weight on that knee.

The lizard got up and tried a few buttons and switches, but nothing happened, then ducked down and started examining the damaged components again, trying to figure out a way to create a bypass, to get his boards to light back up.

I watched Westlin dance wildly in the wind and cold, vanishing into the fog/cloud. The fog lit up twice, thunder booming around me, and I could feel the tingle of the ambient electrical charge dissipation as the lightning jumped from the ground up to the crowd. Both times there was a slight burning pain in my remaining teeth that had fillings, in my jaw where the surgically implanted teeth were located, and where the pins and rods attached to bones in my body were.

The third lighting haze caught me at the edge, throwing me face first into the ice. My nose suddenly tingled and flared with pain and I knew it was bleeding as I pushed myself back up.

Almost there.

I kept crawling, hoping that what happened to Nancy didn't happen to me. The lightning had cooked off several rounds from the magazine she'd had in her back pocket and left a bullet lodged in her ass.

Just remembering her made a sharp twinge happen in my chest.

Unbidden the memory of her reaching out and putting her hand against my chest when I'd gone to hug her when I'd finally come back to 2/19th after that goddamned island. a circuitboard shivered into a pile of ash at the lizard's touch How she had pushed me back and shook her head.

"Anthony, no. I'm married. Please don't make it difficult," she had told me.

Everything had just shut down. I could still remember it. Remember the way her rejection had felt, how it had just twisted something inside of me. How something inside of me had just collapsed and turned to ashes, how so many things went cold.

"Oh," was all I said.

The wind caught me and almost shoved me other. I thought about pulling out my bayonet and using it to anchor myself, but suddenly realized that doing that would compromise the ice and run the risk of the surface ice plate shattering and dumping me into thirty feet of goddamn loose snow, where I'd freeze to death or drown in the snow, suffocating in the white death.

"Can't we just be friends?" She'd asked me. I could still remember her hopeful expression as she kept the pressure up to force me to take a slight step back from her. "Please?"

"I'll always be your friend, Ant," Westlin said softly, rubbing my back with her warm hand.

"Sure," I saw on her hand my sister's ring. "Give me my sister's ring back."

I shivered as the wind sliced through my parka.

She shook her head, "We used it as our wedding ring, Anthony. the lizard twisted some wires together, huffing in pleasure at the sparks the shot out from inside the panel You gave it to me, it's mine to use how I want."

More collapsed. A bit of red rage flickered in the ashes, but I didn't snuff it out, I didn't encourage it either.

My knee twinged as I set it on an uneven bit of the ice and it drove a bump of it against the bottom of my kneecap, bringing tears to my eyes.

"You're not going to have a problem with this, are you?" She asked me.

I just moved past her. the lizard got a single board to flicker for a moment, then it all went dark, even the lights inside his little workspace Turning so I didn't contact her.

She called out for me as I headed toward my room.

I could taste blood from where my nosebleed was leaking blood onto my upper lip and into my mouth as I panted in the thin air.

And found out all my stuff had been shipped out and I didn't have a room. I'd moved into a room on the third floor, the lizard hammered on the panel, but the boards stayed dark using my master key and throwing everything into a locker before laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

I licked my lips, dry from panting in the thin air.

Panting.

I reached down and gave the valve a slight twist and O2 hissed into my mouth. I slumped slightly, putting my hands together in front of me and resting my forehead on my gloves, controlling my breathing.

Goddamn it was cold. I was shivering, even wrapped up the way I was.

Bomber had come up, and I found out that Nancy had gotten married less than a week after I'd vanished, figuring I had been finally grabbed by the mountain and killed.

His face had been grim the entire time. the lizard took a piece of metal and pried at the combat button. it popped off, the little push-switch underneath now stuck in the down position, the pole snapped off He asked me repeatedly if I was all right.

Thunder boomed and my whole body tingled with the nearness of the ion haze.

What was I supposed to say? I was fine. There wasn't anything in there to hurt.

My mind cleared up, and I didn't feel like I was dizzy any more. I took a couple more breaths, then turned down the valve so it was just a light trickle of O2.

The anger at Nancy flickered under the ashes of what the lizard hissed in frustration, opening a cabinet to find nothing but burnt spare parts my life had been, fed by the oxygen I had inhaled.

When I looked up, I only had about 50 meters to go. Another 150-200 crawling steps.

"Well, ain't gonna get there just staring at it," I told myself.

Off to my right Westlin laughed.

I kept crawling. Letting myself cry in pain, letting the tears flow. Tear would cause neurochemicals to be released that would ease the physical pain.

Cool fire slithered down my back as more norepinephrine, adrenaline, and endorphins were released into my bloodstream.

The lizard looked up, sniffing the air, and hissed, his fangs unfolding and dripping venom.

One screen was lit.

Aine was on it, her thumbs in her ears, waggling her fingers, her eyes crossed, her tongue stuck out at the lizard.

My head bumped something and Aine vanished with a snap, everything dissolving into static for a second.

...can't you just be happy for me, Anthony?...

Tera's voice. Nancy's voice. Blended together into one voice.

"No," I whispered. "No. I can't. Why is your happiness more important than my feelings?"

"Do you really want to know, Ant?" Westlin asked me. I raised my head, "I'll tell you, if you can get to safety," she promised.

When I looked up, my vision blurry from crying, I saw I was at the tower. I'd ran head-first into the lighting protection. I moved around, finding the entrenching tool slammed into the ice. It took a couple of wrenching tugs to pull it free from the ice. I used it to dig out the remaining loose snow and half slid half tumbled into the guard tower. I reached down, picking up the snow that had fallen into the tower, packing it back except for a hole about four inches wide that I could stick my arm through. Sure, there was a vent at the top of the tower, but I needed to make sure I had plenty of air. The lizard's panels were down, so I wasn't sure how good my blood-oxy level was and wouldn't realize it until I was panting and dizzy if I wasn't careful.

I got up (pop-sproing-ging) and limped over to the side. Earlier I'd gotten lucky, when the towers were not being used canvas sides were supposed to be dropped down, and this one one hadn't been fully locked down. One of the canvas sides was loose, and I buttoned it down.

"Not bad, Ant, not bad," Westlin said. I looked over and she was sitting cross legged on the floor, her Kevlar vest under her butt and her LBE next to her, her uniform muddy, a bottle of beer in one hand. She took a swig off it and pointed at me with a grin, "You showed the Actual spirit out there, Ant."

"Thanks," I told her, sitting down. I pulled my ruck over next to me, digging into it, and pulling an MRE out of it. I took the wet weather bag off from underneath, opening it and shaking it so that the extreme cold weather sleeping bag and the insulated sleeping pad slid out. I unrolled them with a single flip of my hand, then sat down on the cloth to keep from loosing body heat out of my ass and onto the cold wood floor.

My canteen wasn't completely frozen, but I knew that drinking it would lower my core body temperature significantly. I set it under one thigh, under my damaged knee.

"Take a pain pill, Ant," Westlin told me.

I nodded, digging in my ruck. I pulled out the bottle of Vicoden that the Dispensary was giving me to help control the pain in my knee and thigh. I dry swallowed one, then tore into the MRE.

Halfway through the Chicken & Rice I looked up at Westlin. "I made it, Westlin," I said. She nodded slowly. "Now, why are their feelings, why is more important I be happy for them, to ease their feelings, than my feelings? Why are their feelings more important than mine?"

She smiled sadly. "Are you sure you want to know?" She asked.

I swallowed another mouthful of food. "Yeah," I said, then put the foil package corner in my mouth and squeezed, getting another mouthful of Chicken & Race.

She shook her head. "All right, sweety, but remember, you asked."

I nodded.

"You're just a boy to them now. That's all," A single tear rolled from her eyes, one hitting that scrape and continuing to leave a pink trail down her cheek. "You know, just like I do, that boy's feelings don't matter."

She was right.

"Eat, Ant, there's a lot to do," Westlin said. "Can't go to sleep yet."

That made me nod. The plan wasn't to get some sleep, it was to regroup, refuel, and reorientate myself.

The MRE actually tasted good, and I knew that spelled trouble. It wasn't often that chicken and rice tasted like anything but cat food, but this time it tasted delicious. By the time I was done with the MRE, chewing the gum to help clean my teeth, already finished with my after meal cigarette, the canteen was warmed up. The pain pill had taken the edge off my pain, and the lemon syrup in the water made it taste good and cut the sticky slime from inside my mouth.

"Ready, Ant?" Westlin asked me, exhaling a cloud of smoke. A thin wisp of smoke rose up from the hole in her t-shirt, but I ignored it.

I nodded.

The lizard tried slapping the abort button, trying to cut that plan off.

"Yeah. Let's go kill all those dipshits in the chow hall, Westlin," I said, standing (pop-sproing-ging)  up. My knee twinged, but I was able to hold my balance. I grabbed the M-79 grenade launcher from where it was strapped to my ruck, pulled the bandoleer off the ruck and threw it over my shoulder before I put the 40mm over my shoulder and grabbed the rifle.

I swapped out the 20-round magazine, slapped it on the bottom, and racked the bolt, letting the round land on the sleeping bag.

"Let's kill some mother-fuckers," Westlin grinned.

"Actual all the way," I grinned back.