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THE MEDIC HELD UP HIS scanner and said, “You’re going to need a new hip, Mr. Warren. The ball joint is shattered.”
“No problem,” I said. And it really wasn’t. They’d shot me up with a heavy dose of something really, really good. The guy could have said I needed my dick removed and I would have agreed to the procedure. “No problem at all.”
I waited in an aboveground triage tent. They wanted to do a patch job until I was well enough to undergo the hip-replacement procedure. I had absolutely no idea where I was or what time it was or what planet I was on. I floated on morphine clouds and dreamed of painkiller lollipops.
Millie showed up at some point and placed a cool hand on my forehead. Next to her appeared a heavily bandaged Staff Sergeant Patrick, who glowered at me as if I was a malingering private. People rushed around, doing important things. I smiled and enjoyed the feel of Millie’s soft palm.
I closed my eyes for a second, and the next thing I knew daylight streamed in the open tent flap. Patrick and Millie had been joined by Franklin Rogers and Momma Rose. The four of them hovered over me like a squad of angels... or judges.
“Who died?” I croaked, instantly regretting my own smart mouth. Too many good people, was the answer. “Sorry, that was stupid. Did we get Ramirez?”
Millie leaned over and tucked the sheet around my shoulders. “Ramirez got away. We put down the two Revivants you... activated?... and secured all the Vx, but the tunnels are a write-off until we can detox them. We’re not even sure how to do that.”
“The good news,” Momma Rose soothed, “is that John Marsh is hanging on.”
“What?” My eyes popped open wide. “The big guy’s alive?”
Happy smiles confirmed it.
Well.
Shit.
I blotted my eyes with a sheet and tried to blink away the blurriness. “So is the fight over?”
Rogers turned grim. “No, young man, I’m afraid it’s not. The United States has all but collapsed. We have rioting, looting, mass murder, and crimes both petty and horrific with which to contend. The country’s burning, my friend, and it’s anybody’s guess how long until the Chinese, or Russians, or hell, who knows, the goddamned Costa Ricans march across the border and try to take over.”
“The American experience is on the brink of extinction, Joe,” Millie said. Her blue eyes flared brightly. “The freest people on earth, the most powerful nation in the history of the world, the greatest ideals of men like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, have all but been destroyed by self-serving greed and stupidity.”
“You need a band to give a speech like that.” I grinned.
Millie’s smile faltered at birth. “I don’t know how we’re going to get back what we’ve lost.”
“Get it back?” I squeezed her hand in mine. “We don’t have to get it back, we just have to get it right. We fuck up, we fix it. That’s what Americans do.”