The Future War

'God, man.' Snog looked around his office, his hands wandering as though he didn't know what to do with them. 'This is such a shock!'

Connor shrugged. 'Sorry, man, but it's necessary. Um.' He looked down for a moment. 'Do you have an assistant or something? I know you'll want to spend as much time as you can with your family before you go. So maybe we could have someone else brief me on what you've got going.'

'Sure, sure,' Snog said dazedly. He tapped an intercom.

'Shad Cho, report to the main office.'

'Listen, you don't have to stay,' John said. 'You've got to break this to… your wives and kids. I can introduce myself.'

'Yeah, yeah, thanks, man.' Snog rose and moved around the desk, gave John an amazed look, and left.

Muttering furious curses, John went around the desk and sat down. One or two tries at the computer proved it to be beyond his ability to break in to. He sat and waited. If he had to go through this complex one person at a time, he would find someone capable of running it.

Cho tapped the door twice and entered. At first sight, John suspected that this was the first sane person he'd seen here today. A few quick questions confirmed this fact, as did the man's superior personal hygiene. It turned out that Cho had been running the complex for the last four months. With intermittent interference from Snog.

'I think that he was just overworked and kind of cracked up.

Nobody noticed, so he kept on working and getting crazier and crazier.' Cho put a hand on his chest. 'Now, I'm no shrink, but getting him away from here is probably going to do him a world of good. And it'll sure make life easier for the rest of us. That techno-shaman stuff probably did wonders for inspiring the resistance—'

'Yeah, it did,' John said. 'Having a Good Wizard helped a lot.

It's why Snog isn't being marched off in handcuffs right now.'

Cho squirmed a little, embarrassed. 'Don't get me wrong.

Snog's still brilliant when his head is straight. He taught me all I know, and no false modesty, but I know a lot. It's just that…'

'He started believing the propaganda,' John said, nodding.

'Now, tell me about the chameleon fabric…'

John had assigned two of his people to ask around the complex and report back to him. Within twenty-four hours he'd organized a complete change of personnel and hoped he'd rooted out the whiftees.

Twelve hours before they were scheduled to leave, John confronted the shaman, still in his scarlet regalia. 'How's the new wardrobe coming?'

Snog shrugged cheerfully. 'My ladies are looking around, but so far, no luck.'

'Tell you what, Snog. Tell them to look harder because you're not wearing that thing when you come with me. I imagine you'd get kind of cold running around naked.' He turned to go, then said over his shoulder, 'Oh, lose the hair.'

The next morning Snog showed up shorn and wearing blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a hangdog expression. His many wives and children sniffled and sobbed and waved sad good-byes as they drove off in a convoy of vehicles with dazzle-stealth coverings. Jeez, John thought, no wonder he cracked.

For the first two weeks the self-proclaimed techno-shaman was left to his own devices. Which meant enjoying the tiny library and chatting with off-duty personnel. He was shielded from the incoherent messages he was receiving from his extended 'family,' which Cho said were the result of all of his wives coming down from some pretty heavy home-brewed drugs.

It was clear that some of these women were never going to be, and perhaps never had been, normal—not that that was so very unusual, these days.

'But some of them are slowly coming down to Mother Earth,'

Cho said over the satellite link. 'Whether they'll still want to be part of a harem once they've sobered up remains to be seen.

How's Gandalf the Geek?'

'Getting cold and sober and doing well on the lower-fat diet common to the rest of humanity,' John said. 'In fact, he's already a lot more like the Snog I knew of old…'

* * *

After a while Connor assigned his old friend the task of teaching science to the orphans under the supervision of Snog's own personal psychologist. He finally allowed Snog unlimited e-mail access to the saner members of his family. But he'd already informed Cho that he wasn't to take any orders from him unless they made sense.

Things were already going more smoothly in Quebec and John breathed a sigh of relief. Now he could get on to simpler issues.

Like fighting the war.

MISSOURI

SEVEN YEARS LATER

'Okay, folks, those are our goals for this patrol. It's all pretty routine, but…'

The whole group recited together, 'There's no such thing as routine.'

Jesse grinned at Kyle, excited to be going out on his first mission. Kyle was excited, but it was more a nausea-inducing kind of excitement. And he wished Jesse wasn't coming on this

'routine mission.' His friend had gotten orders to report to Quebec, where he would receive advanced technological training.

And would be safe.

Kyle envied him. There were very few places in this world that might be called safe, but the Quebec facility was one of them.

Wouldn't mind being assigned there myself, he thought. Though the winters might be nasty. But his mind didn't have that special spark. He could use technology, and he was an excellent shot, but Jesse had something else, something special.

Still, everyone had to do certain things. Going out like this was one of them, kind of a rite of passage. Their teachers claimed that it put everyone on the same footing and in case of emergency gave everyone an idea of how to act.

He suspected that Jesse was young for patrol; you were supposed to be a minimum of seventeen. But nobody knew his friend's age, not even Jesse. So when he claimed to be as old as Kyle, who could argue?

'Okay, check your gear one last time and we'll move out.'

The boys checked each other, although they knew there was no need. Jesse worked in electronics repair and Kyle in supplies.

They'd chosen what they knew was the best gear for themselves with the practical self-centeredness of teenagers.

Kyle tried to return Jesse's grin, but he was too nervous. They lined up with the other soldiers and headed for the outside.

* * *

Forty-eight hours later Jesse was no longer smiling. Kyle was having daydreams about hot soup.

He shook them off and pulled up the hood of his camouflage cloak. It dulled his hearing a bit, but he couldn't hear anything except the subdued hiss of the rain and the patter of drops falling from the trees above anyway; he couldn't see much past ten yards either, unless he jacked the sensitivity of his goggles way up.

And I'd have thought that being this wet would make you clean, he thought, shifting his plasma rifle from one arm to the other beneath the dank weight of the cloak. Nope. Smell like wet dog. Very wet, very unbathed dog.

It had rained for the whole time they'd been out on patrol.

Otherwise it really had been routine. Nothing had happened, nothing had been seen. Frankly, nothing could be seen through the damn rain and fog. And it had been cold. Not freezing, just cold. The squad was on its way back, and the two friends were trying not to shiver too obviously. They'd already been smiled at by their more experienced companions far too much.

Kyle and Jesse were in the middle of the column, if you could call the staggered formation a column. Kyle was keeping his eyes on the narrow path before him, too stunned by cold even to care that he was walking on the edge