Chapter 2

Saturday dawned hot and sunny, a typical late May day in the Sacramento Valley. Mark spent most of it at work, hauling loads of groceries to all corners of the western Roseville area for a variety of customers. As he worked, the stiffness in his back that he had awakened with—stiffness that was a result of being slammed into the side of the water tank during the explosion the night before—gradually worked its way from an annoying pain to a dull, almost pleasant throb. He had noticed an area of bruising over his kidney region when he'd gotten dressed and was forced to wonder if sitting on the tower during air raids on the train yard was really such a smart thing to do. Maybe they should at least go around to the other side.

Soon however, the thoughts of what he was going to be doing that night drove thoughts of personal safety from his mind. Knowing that he had a dinner date for the night he kept his food intake at a minimum, wanting to be good and hungry by the time he made it to Diane's house. The young widows were very much impressed when the young delivery boy they were trying to seduce gorged himself on their food. The drawback of this however was that by the time he pulled his bike into the garage of his house at 5:00 PM, he was nearly ravenous with hunger. He was also very much in need of a shower.

He found his father perched before his computer screen in the den, going over his own financial figures for once instead of those belonging to an Asian-American. He didn't seem particularly happy by what he was seeing there.

"How's it looking, Dad?" Mark asked him, eyeing the four empty beer bottles sitting on the desk near the printer.

Jeff looked at his son expressionlessly for a moment before taking a swig out of his latest beer. "About what you'd expect," he said. "We're keeping our heads just above the waterline. The money from you and your brother helps a lot."

Mark knew that the money he and his brother Jacob contributed to the household was more than just helping, it was absolutely necessary. The Whiting clan these days was constantly teetering on the edge of losing their house to foreclosure. It was an expensive house in a nice suburb that had been purchased during much happier times. It was also a house that had relied upon the income of two full-time jobs in order to make the payments. When his mother had died they received no monetary compensation of any kind for her death. Though a $500,000 term life insurance policy had been in effect and currently paid up at the time the A-6 had made its fatal plunge into the schoolyard, they had never received a penny of that money. Mary Whiting's death had been caused by an act of war and acts of war were specifically excluded in the terms and conditions of both life insurance policies and homeowner's policies. It was a little portion of the contracts people signed that, if they bothered to read at all, they used to chuckle over, perhaps shaking their head a bit at how strange that sounded. Not covered if the result of an act of war? What moron put that in? But the insurance companies had not been dumb. They had known that in this world we call home, just about anything could happen. Those little exclusions had saved them untold billions of dollars in claims since the war's outbreak.

"I had a pretty good week," Mark told his father. "I should be able to give you most of my check and live off my tips until next payday."

"Thank you, Mark," he said a little sadly. "That should help a lot. The electricity and the internet bills are coming due as well as the mortgage payment."

"No problem Dad. Glad to help out."

His dad shook his head a little. "I'm sorry that you have to give your money to me," he told him. "It shouldn't be that way. You should be able to do whatever you want with your money, spend it on girls, on cars, on college, but this damn war is screwing everything up for you."

Mark didn't like it when his father became morose like this, something that was happening with increasing frequency these days. "No flak, Dad," he said dismissively. "The opposition is what the opposition is, right?"

"That's what they say I guess," he said, taking another swig. "What should we do for dinner tonight? Money's a little tight for pizza again. Maybe I could put together some spaghetti out of what's in the pantry."

"Well, actually," Mark told him, "I have a date tonight. I'll grab some dinner while I'm out."

"Another date?" he asked, perhaps a little suspiciously. "Who is it with?"

"Just a girl from school," Mark lied. "It ain't no big offensive or nothing. We're gonna go catch a movie or something. I shouldn't be out too late."

Jeff looked at him for a moment, as if debating whether or not to say something. Mark suspected that his father suspected what he was really up to on his dates, and knew instinctively that he would disapprove of the activity if it were confirmed. But finally his father turned his attention back to the computer screen, dismissing the subject.

"I'm gonna go shower up and start getting ready," Mark said. "Catch you on the resupply."

"Right," his father said. "On the resupply."

Mark showered in the upstairs bathroom, taking a long, luxuriant soak that completely drained the hot water tank of its bounty. He scrubbed his body clean of the sweat and grime that riding around on a bicycle all day produced and double washed his short hair, adding a dose of conditioner just for good measure. He dried off and shaved his face as smooth as he possibly could, knowing that the more baby-faced and innocent he looked for the widows, the more of a thrill it seemed to give them. Finally, his laundry stowed in the hamper and a towel wrapped around his waist, he exited the steamy bathroom and made his way to his bedroom.

It was typically messy for an eighteen-year-old boy's living quarters. The twin bed was unmade, the covers tossed back near the foot in a heap. Two days worth of laundry littered the floor along with a few glass soda bottles. The desk, where his main computer terminal/television set was mounted, was covered with CD cases, loose discs, a few more soda bottles, and two pairs of socks. On the walls of the room however, were some atypical decorations for someone his age. Instead of posters of military equipment or rock stars, he had posters of buildings and other structures and printouts of some of his favorite blueprints. The shelves contained a variety of his engineering concoctions, including his mock-up of the water tower.

With a sigh he cleared off his desk a little, tossing the soda bottles to the floor and the socks to a semi-permanent pile near the door. He looked at the terminal. "Power on," he told it.

Instantly the voice recognition software activated the machine and sent it through its series of self-checks. At last the screen displayed his wallpaper; a high-resolution digital photograph of the now abandoned International Space Station.

"Bring up net-radio," he told it next.

"Net radio on line," the computer's female voice told him a second later.

"Station three," he said.

From the speakers came the sound of the rock group Annihilation singing their popular ballad Train Ride, which was about leaving the woman you loved behind while you went off to war.

As I gaze from the window

It's time for me to fight

Mark smiled a little at the words, his foot tapping on the carpet to the rhythm. He sang along with the chorus, thinking that if he didn't have to fork over too much of his next paycheck to his father, he might be able to break loose enough funds to download the CD. He had meant to do that this weekend but the acquisition of the marijuana had cut a little too heavily into his account status.

After adjusting the volume on his computer to a suitable level he reached up onto one of his shelves and removed a replica of a two-story house that he had built with Popsicle sticks and glue a year before. The model was nearly two feet tall and had required more than eight hundred of the small, wooden sticks for its construction. He carried it to his bed and set it down, sliding his fingers up beneath the eaves of the roof and triggering a hidden lever. With a pull he opened the model up sideways, swinging it apart on interior wooden hinges. Inside of it was the bag of marijuana that Darren had bought for him and a bizarre concoction that Mark had designed and built himself. It was a contraption made from a piece of half inch PVC pipe and some plumbing fixtures that he had scavenged from a bombed out house near the rail yard. Mounted to it were parts from an electric toothbrush, a remote control car, and an old blow dryer that had belonged to his mother. The power supply consisted of two D cell batteries. He pulled his device and his smoke out of the Popsicle stick house and set them on his bed. He unrolled the baggie of marijuana and took a very small pinch from it. This he placed in a copper plumbing fixture on top of the device, tamping it down and then closing a small metal lid with tiny holes drilled in it.

Like anything else he enjoyed in life, Mark had sought out and discovered the best possible method of using marijuana. From writings on the internet he had learned that almost a third of the active ingredient in the drug was wasted when it was smoked in the conventional fashion, since burning the buds was an inefficient means of releasing the THC. With that thought in mind he had devised a way to inhale the THC without actually burning it with flame, therefore achieving almost perfect THC utilization. If marijuana ever became a legal intoxicant he intended to patent his device and make billions from it.

He put the end of the PVC pipe to his lips and then pushed a small button mounted near the bowl. Electricity coursed into the insulated copper of the bowl, quickly heating it up to a temperature that was just below the combustion point of the bud. The THC boiled out of the plant and was sucked down the pipe into Mark's lungs. The plant material itself shriveled up into a compact, dried-out ball. Unlike with burning the marijuana, there was no smoke with this method, only the strong taste of acrid steam. For this reason there was no smell to leak into his room, therefore alerting his father. And since heating was much more efficient of a usage, it only took two hits before Mark felt the familiar sensation of marijuana intoxication surging through his brain.

Smiling, his eyelids already drooping, his mouth already drying out, he cleaned out his device and stowed it back where it belonged along with the baggie. He cranked up his tunes a little and then dropped the towel to the floor. After digging around in his dresser for a moment he finally found a pair of plain blue jeans and a simple, non-camouflage patterned T-shirt. Singing to the music, he got dressed for his date.

Once he was presentable he checked his watch and saw that he still had well over an hour before it was time to leave. He killed this time by watching a television show on the development of the F-22 fighter. In between sections of the show he was exposed to five armed services recruitment commercials. Three of them were the standard ads that simply aimed for the younger generation, encouraging them to join the military for the good of their country. These featured catchy modern music and handsome, M-16 toting young men in cammies riding on tanks or APCs in the battle zone. These images were meshed with other pictures of the young men's proud parents looking at photographs of them in their class-A uniforms back home. There were of course no references to the fact that four out of ten of these young men would be killed their first month in the combat zone or that another two out of the remaining six would be killed before their two-year tour of combat duty was up. That information, had it been imparted to the viewers, certainly would not help the voluntary recruitment rate. The other two however were the ads pushing the armed services' buddy program.

These commercials were played on every show that the 15-18 year old market was likely to watch. The most common one showed two handsome young men, one Caucasian, one African-American, dressed in their high school graduation caps and gowns, presumably just after the ceremony. They discussed how they had been best friends since grammar school and how, since they were both signing up for enlistment (of course), that it was a shame that they would probably not get to see each other until it was over.

"Wouldn't it be static," the African-American then asked the Caucasian, "if there was some way that we could serve our country together?"

"Yeah," the Caucasian would then say, dejection at the thought of losing touch with his friend for the duration of the war clearly showing on his face. "But I guess that's just impossible."

"Wrong," a voice-over would then cut in, catching both of the young men's attention. "Now, with the armed forces buddy program, there is a way for you both to serve together."

"There is?" they would ask in unison, their eyes showing exaggerated interest.

The voice then went on to explain just how the buddy program worked. Any two people that met the service qualifications could declare themselves "buddies" to the recruiter. Provided both passed the physical requirements, the armed forces would then guarantee in writing that the two buddies would attend basic training together and be assigned to the same platoon together once they graduated.

Having had this explained to them, the two friends would then break into huge grins and put their arms around each other. "Looks like we're going to serve together, buddy," the Caucasian would say happily. The next shot would show them in their camouflage gear with their weapons, climbing onto a C-130 for transport to some unmentioned posting. Another voice-over would then spend a moment summarizing the buddy program for those that had been too stupid to follow the plot of the commercial. Just before the fade, while patriotic music was playing and the aircraft was being sealed up, small print at the bottom of the screen, hardly noticeable unless you strained to see it, would then point out that: "some restrictions apply."

Though both Mark and Darren had seen these commercials a thousand times or more, neither had ever thought to wonder just what those restrictions might be.

By the time the F-22 program was over and the next one—a biography of the M2 battle tank—began, it was 6:30, time for him to fly.

"Shut all programs down," he told his computer, "and power off."

He then picked up his PC and headed out the door.

The dinner that night went almost exactly as he had expected it would. Diane answered the door dressed in a knee length summer dress that showed off her legs quite nicely while hiding the slight widening of her hips. She served him a burgundy beef stroganoff that was just short of divine and he hungrily devoured two helping of it, washing it down with the wine she served.

After dinner and a few more glasses of wine, she sent the children to bed and began her seduction. Mark played his part well, behaving just like a shy young man who is gradually realizing what his hostess has on her not-so-innocent mind. By nine o'clock she had enticed him to her bedroom where they spent the better part of an hour copulating in various positions. She was very good in bed, her passion fueled both by the extended length of its restraint and by the growing skill of her seductee, who was definitely not as innocent as she'd suspected.

"My god," she breathed on more than one occasion, her face sweaty, her eyes gazed with surprised lust, "where did you learn to do that?"

"I read a lot," he would reply to her, and then continue with his work.

Afterward he found that she was one of those that felt guilt over what she had done. About half of the widows turned out to be this type. Naked, the sweat still drying on her skin, her body still flushed from the four orgasms she'd experienced, she broke into sorrowful tears at the corruption that she'd heaped upon the young lad who had come to her house expecting nothing but dinner.

"It's all right," he told her soothingly, stroking her shoulder, and then launching into a pre-planned speech that Darren had taught him for just such occasions. By the end of it he had her smiling once again, reassured that she hadn't corrupted him too badly and even open to the possibilities of having him over again some day before he went off to fight the war.

He left her at 10:30, biking his way slowly home, his body aching pleasantly, his mind satiated in the way that only comes from sexual release.

An hour later he was up in his bedroom, still too keyed up to sleep. He was sitting at his computer terminal, reading through an electronic book that he had owned for more than two years now and had already read start to finish no less than ten times. It was a comprehensive beginners guide to the principals of electrical engineering as it related to the operation of municipal water systems. Not exactly one of the staples of teenage popular literature, true, but it was one of Mark's favorites for the sheer informational value it presented. As he paged through the text, looking at circuit diagrams and pump operation schematics, the net radio was playing in the background at a moderate volume. He was pleasantly stoned as he sat there, having just taken a few hits of his still ample marijuana supply, and was sipping from a bottle of his father's beer he had swiped from the refrigerator.

His computer terminal suddenly began to buzz, indicating an incoming call. Automatically his textbook was dropped into the background and the communications software took its place. The caller identification window informed him it was Darren Caswell ringing in, but he didn't really have to look to know that. Darren was pretty much the only person that called him at all, let alone this late at night.

"Answer," he told his computer, scooting closer to the screen.

"Coming on line," the computer's voice shot right back. The web cam on his desk activated, a green light illuminating atop it. At the same time the screen lit up with Darren's face, the image taken from his web cam back at his house. Mark could tell just by looking at his eyes that Darren was stoned too.

"What's up, sarge?" Darren asked him casually, giving the customary nod of greeting. "I figured you'd still be awake."

"Oh yeah," Mark replied. "Smoked a little bud earlier and I'm just mellowing out. Just got home a little while ago."

Darren grinned knowingly. "So how'd your dinner date go? Did you tap her?"

"Several times," he assured him, grinning back. "She was nasty in the bedroom, I'm here to tell you."

"You the commander," he said, giving him a thumbs up. "So let's hear it. Give me the briefing."

He gave him the briefing. It was a long-standing tradition with them that they share every detail of their sexual conquests. They had in fact been doing that even before there had been sexual conquests to share, having made up spectacular and sometimes physically impossible exploits back in their pre-experience days. But now the stories were much more interesting because both knew they were real. Mark described his encounter with Diane in a crude, step-by-step dissertation while Darren listened raptly.

"She was one of the guilty ones huh?" Darren said sadly after the tale reached its end. "That's a retreat. Did the speech work on her?"

"Like a charm," he replied. "She went from crying to being proud to serve one of our future fighting men in his time of need."

"Goddamn," Darren said proudly, "sometimes I amaze even myself." He paused, taking a drag from a cigarette. "So you want to play some Infantry Attack? I'm in the mood to kill some chinks."

Mark thought it over for a second or two and decided that a nice game of Infantry Attack—a virtual reality combat game—would go down pretty good about now. "Let's do it," he said.

"Static," Darren said. "Get it set up and I'll meet you on the battlefield. You call me."

"Got it," he answered, pushing his finger to the hang-up tab on his screen.

Darren's face blanked off and the communications software dropped back to the background once again, recalling the textbook. Mark instructed the computer to close all active programs and links and to put the communications program in notify mode. He then reached into one of his desk drawers and pulled out a pair of virtual reality goggles. They were not the best VR glasses available, just the standard set that came with the computer, equipped with only forty-five degrees of peripheral view, but they served their purpose. He plugged them into the terminal and then set them down on the desk. Next he reached beneath the desk and removed the two hand controls that were part of the game hardware. They were attached to a sanded one meter length of 1x3 inch lumber, situated far enough apart to simulate the hand grips on an M-16 rifle. The contraption looked nothing like an M-16 rifle but that was irrelevant once the game was rolling. He plugged this into the computer as well.

"Computer," he said, "bring up program Infantry Attack and activate."

"Program loading," the computer replied.

As the nine hundred gigabyte hard drive of his computer began to whir and spin, recalling the seventy-six gigs of information that was required to run the game, Mark picked up the VR glasses and put them on. They fit snugly to his head and he spent a moment adjusting them until the two screens within lined up perfectly, allowing him to see the red and white test pattern in near perfect 3-D. He then adjusted the two earpieces, shifting them until they were comfortable. The last step was to bend the microphone piece down to his mouth. By the time he was done with all of this, the hard drive had given up its bits and bytes and the opening scene of the program was floating before his eyes, making it appear that he was outside of a barracks building on an army base. In his ears the simulated whistle of the wind could be heard beneath the faint patriotic music that set the soundtrack. Using foot pedals on the floor beneath his desk, he moved to the building marked: ONLINE GAME and went inside.

"Good afternoon, Private," a very attractive blonde computer secretary dressed in cammies addressed him. She was sitting behind a desk and smiling up at him with her slightly grainy face. "Where would you like to fight today?"

"Connect with Caswell," he told her, speaking into the microphone.

"Very good, Private," she replied, leaning down and tapping a simulated computer keyboard on her desk. "Attempting to locate now."

Mark waited without speaking, without moving. He had long since grown bored with trying to touch the computer secretary or engage her with sexual slurs. All she would say in return was: "Please, I'm a married woman, Private."

"Connecting," she said a moment later, again offering her simulated smile. "Awaiting confirmation."

"Static," he mumbled.

"Connection made. Please stand by."

A second later Darren came walking into the tent from the opposite door. Of course it wasn't really Darren, it was just a simulated computer character that was being controlled by Darren. The face of the character was a tough looking, though very generic representation of a Caucasian male. It was without expression, the eyes non-blinking and fixed in place. The computer Darren wore a complete camouflage uniform and pack. A helmet rested upon his head and an M-16 rifle was slung over his shoulder. It turned its head and looked at Mark, following the movements of its master two streets over. When it talked, it was with Darren's voice though the mouth only moved a little. "You ready?" it asked.

"Hell yeah," Mark replied. "Let's do it." He reached forward and grabbed the hand controls on his desk by feel since he couldn't actually see them. As he picked up the piece of lumber and put his fingers on the controls, a simulated M-16 barrel swung out before him, the sights sticking up. He moved it back and forth a few times, making sure the movements coordinated well. When he swung the stick to the left, the barrel swung neatly to the left. When he moved it up, it followed almost exactly in that direction as well.

"Let's do an offensive operation," Darren suggested, his own M-16 swinging up into firing position as he picked up his own lumber back at his house. It swung back and forth a few times as he got the feel of the motions.

"You want to do the tank snipe mission?" Mark asked, stepping forward a few feet.

"Yeah," Darren replied. "That's a cool one for warm-up." He spun around towards the secretary and leveled his rifle on her. She ignored it completely. "Hey, baby," he said to her. "How about a little head?"

"Please," she said, looking up at him. "I'm a married woman, Private."

"Bitch," Darren mumbled, lowering the rifle barrel. He knew better than to shoot her. While it was true that the rifle would fire in this portion of the game and would successfully cause her head to fly apart in a spray of simulated blood, the computer would then court martial your character and force you to go to all the trouble of creating a new one.

"C'mon, sarge," Mark said, using his foot pedals to walk to the door of the tent. "Let's go kill some chinks."

"Right behind you, brother," Darren replied.

Mark walked out of the tent and turned right, walking through a row of similar tents, each of which was labeled with a different mission. He walked into the one that read TANK SNIPERS and found himself facing a computer simulation of a lieutenant. He looked up at them as they entered.

"So," he said, his voice tough and condescending. "You two think you can handle this mission?"

"Override description," Mark said. "Go directly to battle."

"Fuckin aye," Darren said next to him.

Had they let him, the computer lieutenant would have explained that their mission was to carry their AT-9 missiles and warheads through enemy territory to a hill overlooking the avenue of advance. From there they were to each take out four tanks and then fight their way back. They would also be subject to air attack both from helicopters and attack aircraft. For this they were given two anti-air missiles apiece, which could be fired from their AT-9 launchers. Though the mission was not a very realistic one—after all, the army was not in the habit of sending two soldiers to do such a thing, especially carrying nearly twice as much weight as they could physically handle—it was still fun.

Since Mark had overridden the instruction phase, the scene immediately dissolved before them and they found themselves standing on a hill overlooking a grove of trees. On the other side of the trees was a rise with more trees upon it. A trail led through this forest, branching out once it got inside. The graphics were not terribly realistic up close. When you got close to a tree or looked directly at the ground, the pixels that made up the animation could be easily seen. Though they were immersed in the virtual world of the battlefield, it was a far cry from being mistaken for reality. In their ears however, the sound was almost perfect. The whistle of the wind and the far off thumping of artillery could be heard. Occasional bursts of automatic weapons fire—AK-47s and M-16s—were also part of the background. The soft crunching of leaves beneath their feet and the muted clank of steel weapons being shifted accompanied each step they took.

"I'll take the point," Darren said, raising his rifle and beginning to head towards the tree line.

"All yours," Mark answered back, raising his own weapon. They had long since learned that they stood a much better chance of surviving their mission if Darren was in front.

They began to move towards their objective. As they walked and trotted, alternating between pieces of cover and concealment, the tree line grew bigger before them. Mark twisted the crouch lever on the back handpiece with his thumb a little, causing his character to put his head down. Though they had run this mission of the game perhaps fifty times before, the enemy were programmed to be in different places every time. Their success rate with it was about seventy-five percent.

"So how much of the buds do you have left?" Darren asked as they split up around a rock formation and closed in on a mound of earth.

"I smoked a lot of it," he replied, turning his head back and forth, looking for the faint silhouettes of the Chinese computer soldiers. "But I still have enough for a few joints."

"Mine's almost gone," he said. "I fuckin' spilled some of it when my dad came home from work early."

"No shit?" Mark asked, as if he believed him. He knew that Darren was just trying to establish that he was out of pot and wanted to smoke his.

"Yep," he said, twisting a little to the right and holding. "I think there's a chink over there about ten o'clock."