Nuclear fire. Radioactive ash.

  The sky was a dead gray or orange-red; the ground was painted with the same final duality. Ash rained as hard as snow had fallen hours ago—gray and warm. The instant the door opened, the smell of gunpowder and blood was smothered by ozone.

  Blood’s feet hit the ground. Thin radioactive dust buried her to the knee and invaded her lungs. The tingling of ionizing radiation on the back of her tongue tasted sweet. The ash felt soft and welcoming on her skin, and the pain in her feet finally lost its bite. The tired wind rasped a welcome. A nearby fire paused its feast and bowed to her. Nuclear ash embraced her like a long-lost friend, coating her skin and suffocating what little was left of her past self.

  She dropped to one knee and scanned her assigned sector through her reflex sight.

  12 o’clock, 30 meters: tactical objective. Everything else a click out was smoldering debris.

  The building’s original purpose was impossible to guess. Half of it leaned away; the other half had already toppled. Its marble face had been reduced to a black, amorphous mass. Statues of angels that once adorned the luxurious windows now wept black solidified glass. Their white feathers had mutated into black gargoyle folds. Their spears had melted into jagged tridents, and marble faces had melted into hungry maws, their eyes gone.

  A jagged hole jammed with smoking debris descended into the depths.

  Boots landed beside her. Weapons briefly scanned the building before lowering. Helicopter blades and gas turbines screamed overhead; the turbines sputtered, suffocating on the ash. A torrent of ash blasted around her as the helicopters committed to their descent. Her platoon slumped and cowered, but she held her hands apart, closed her eyes, and smiled.

  “Clean the fuckin' tunnel! Move the shit inside before we fry!” Carbide’s voice shuddered, distorted by the heavy NBC mask. He dashed toward the garage door, cutting a trail through the ash.

  “Move your huge ass!” A hand brushed against her back and yanked at her rig. Rain’s distorted voice.

  “Copy!” She slung her rifle and sprinted. She felt completely weightless. Each stride sounded like a mortar impact. The pain in her feet was gone. Did her voice sound different? She wasn’t sure.

  It used to be a garage entrance. Debris—warped, rusty steel jutting out of reinforced concrete—blocked the way. The front end of a mangled limousine protruded from the rubble, jagged reinforcement beams biting into the crumpled passenger compartment. A bleached skeleton’s hands had melted into the wheel. Its jaw hung limp, smiling. A mangled sign was half-buried in the mess:

  “Hell—”

  For Blood, the sign was debris. The skeleton was debris. She plunged her hands into the rubble and kept digging, sharp concrete and tortured steel biting her fingers, warning her of what she was becoming. A silent unease gnawed at her, but Rain’s gloved touch disintegrated it.

  Her new tribe joined the unburial with their entrenching tools, panting and cursing. The helicopters landed; there was no time to waste thinking about debris. Someone passed her an entrenching tool. It instantly bent to uselessness under her grip, earning her pats on the back and playful remarks. Bare hands plunged into the rubble and kept digging.

  Heavy, familiar steps echoed. Blood paused, aiming her sight at the origin of the sound. Four silhouettes approached quickly. One towered over the rest, its thermal signature overpowering the other contacts. Soon, Geiger’s image resolved in her thermal optics; he also wore no NBC gear.

  “Commander Geiger! You’re alive!” Blood snapped to attention, saluting.

  “Giga-roach! What the fuck happened, brother? Where’s Glassy?” Rain dashed the extra steps and extended a fist toward Geiger.

  “Glass is alive. You all have my apologies.” He saluted Rain and Blood, then joined the effort. His face completely blank and unreadable to Blood. Everyone stared at him for a long second. Wire tapped Morse code on Carbide’s hand; he brushed it away.

  “Molot!” Carbide raised a gloved fist and punched it toward the rubble. Bugeyes stared at Geiger, her hands balled into fists, until Semtex snatched her arm and yanked her toward the objective. Needle slowly complied, though he kept staring at the skull’s empty eye sockets.

  “Commander! What happened? Why were you late, sir?” Blood beamed. Geiger did not look at her.

  “Shut the fuck up and get to work, rookie!” Carbide grabbed Blood by the collar and pushed her away. She lowered her gaze and obeyed.

  The gas turbines went silent. Havoc and the three pilots in full NBC gear quickly exited the cockpits. They tossed a coil of towlines onto the deck and worked to install them on the front of each helicopter.

  “We gotta blow this shit up, Major!” a pilot thrust both hands at the rubble.

  “30 mil, no explosives! It’s barely standing. Move!” Havoc tapped the stock of her gun on the rotary autocannon of the attack helicopter. The pilot saluted and jumped back into the cockpit.

  “Move the fuck out of the way!” Havoc screamed, waving her rifle.

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  “It’s gonna get hosed! Clear the fuck away!” Needle slapped his platoonmates’ backs, screaming. Blood scooped up Rain and ran. Carbide raised a fist. His platoon instantly fell in line behind him as they retreated into the cabins of the transport helicopters.

  The pilot shut his canopy.

  Someone was cowering on the floor, covered by a blanket. Blood pulled at it, a small gene-warrior clad in an NBC suit; crawled in a fetal position.

  “G.. Glassy?” Blood stammered, Rain slowly reached for her. Glass hissed and covered herself with the blanket again. None else gave her any attention.

  “Rain.. Glass is..”

  “A casualty” Rain wispered in Blood's ear.

  "Hang in there killer, you.." He staggered back a step as he tried to take her hand; her gloves empty, useless.

  Blood stared at her and did nothing. An alien sensation slithered up her spine. I've been through worse. She lied to herself.

  The sound of metal groaning reverberated in the wasteland; the six-barreled autocannon started rotating. “Cover your ears, rook!” Rain pushed his palms against his ears. Everyone took cover except Blood. She peeked outside. Rain struggled to pull her in, but she barely felt it.

  It didn’t sound like any gunfire she had heard; the entire Talbot massacre sounded like a suppressed pistol shot compared to what followed. The ground shook. A torrent of fire erupted from the autocannon. Beer-bottle-sized smoking brass rained down, drowned by the ash on the ground.

  Blood embraced Rain, shaking. Her hearing was reduced to a dull whirring sound, like drones flying overhead.

  “Fuck!” she shouted, but she couldn’t hear her own voice. The entrance to the garage and the rubble were gone, replaced by smoke and dust. Burnt gunpowder, molten metal, and burning concrete finally overpowered the smell of ozone.

  She never heard Carbide’s order to move; she just followed him back toward the garage. A wall of ash and dust blocked the way as the Molot platoon dove in. The pilots and Havoc joined the frantic effort.

  The debris had been shredded into gravel. The largest pieces were punched through with fist-sized smoking holes. The limousine was mangled metal; its smiling inhabitant was gone.

  “Twenty minutes and then you roast like roaches, cocksuckers!” Carbide plunged his hands into the debris and shoveled. Havoc’s tiny frame struggled to make much difference, but she never stopped.

  One gene warrior Blood couldn't identify stepped back and looked at Needle. A lyrical female voice sounded through her mask: “The fuck is my sis, Prickles?”

  “She is dead, Frag,” Needle rasped through his NBC gear, not looking at her.

  “Fuck!” Frag threw her hands apart and covered her visor.

  “Funerals will wait! Get the rubble moving, goddammit!” Carbide shouted. Frag instantly went back to work.

  “We brought enough firepower to scrap a battalion and we didn’t bring power tools!” Blood whimpered.

  “Here’s our power tool!” Rain grabbed Blood’s ass.

  “Very rude and unrefined, Rain!” Blood softly slapped his hand away, smiling fully.

  The platoon’s distorted laughter momentarily defeated the impact of steel on concrete. Geiger and Needle did not join in. The Major’s eyes fell on Geiger, her fists clenching before resting on Needle.

  “Needle, report status,” Havoc said. Her distorted voice sounded nothing like her. It sounded almost… caring?

  “Able and ready!” Needle hissed.

  “Sister Zyklon’s ferocity will never be forgotten, soldier!” Havoc held four fingers over her heart and bowed. Needle mirrored the gesture, and the rest followed. Geiger was the last to repeat the act.

  “She was…” Needle thrust his entrenching tool into the debris. Havoc walked next to him and kept digging.

  Minutes passed. The Gen-7s pulled boulders as large as Havoc from the debris and tossed them aside. Geiger’s gargantuan shoulders sagged, his gaze glued to the floor, his movements mechanical. Blood, on the other hand, whistled and smiled, her eyes never leaving Rain. Each boulder she pulled was larger than the last, yet felt lighter. The dust storm they kicked up did nothing to slow her down; nods of approval from her tribe were all she needed.

  Wire coughed and threw her entrenching tool aside. “Take a breather,” Carbide said, catching her. His voice trembled inside the mask.

  “Fuck this shit…” Wire coughed again, flailing at the radioactive dust that had latched onto every inch of her suit. No one stared. “We’ll need some R&R after this ass-fuck, Major!”

  “Thought you liked that stuff, Haywire,” Carbide tapped her shoulder. He must have been smiling under the mask.

  “Eat my cunt!” Wire flipped him off and wiped the ash from her hands. Some laughed, some shook their heads; none stopped.

  “Requesting permission for some general R&R once we’ve secured this, Major,” Carbide panted. Havoc ignored him.

  “Major! We smoked a mechanized company, filled a bird with fuel, and shoveled five tons of roach-shit! Come on! Fuckin' R&R once we’re in!” Wire kicked a small rock.

  “You’ve got ten minutes until radiation sickness, twenty minutes until you're crippled, and thirty until you're a corpse. Shut your roach-hole and work!”

  “Maggots fuck your corpse,” Wire tried to whisper. Heads turned. Carbide grabbed her by the neck and lifted her clean off the ground.

  “Go keep company with the other cripple.” He let her go. Wire slumped to the ground and froze. Everyone kept digging. Geiger set down the boulder he was carrying and knelt next to Wire.

  “Honorable sister-in-war, Glass will be grateful of your assistance.” He extended four fingers toward her.

  “Pfft! Bag your cripple, traitor.” She stood up and walked toward the transport heli.

  Carbide threw his hands wide.

  “Your worthless cripple for our fuel! Our way back! You Scum!” Bugeyes screamed.

  Suppressed gunfire. Small caliber impacts hit the ceiling. Silence.

  “Next one who speaks and stops digging catches one in the eye.” Another short burst erupted from Havoc’s gun. “That clear?”

  None replied. Blood’s breath caught. She tapped “Glass status?” on Rain’s back. He didn’t reply. She didn’t dare disobey again.

  Before she went back to work, her eyes drifted to Geiger. His palms trembled, caked in ash. His eyes were green orbs. She couldn't tell if he was weeping, but if he was, the ash hid his tears. Carbide tossed a rock outside, cursing. Rain had turned his back to her. Needle’s thin palm brushed against the Major’s before everyone returned to the objective in total silence, save for the sound of their labor.

  Time passed. Gene warriors followed orders without question. Rubble was removed with each thrust of the shovel. They dug deeper into death’s domain.

  A hole at the top of the rubble finally became visible—barely enough for the smallest frame to squeeze through. Distorted cheers and curses spat from ash-clogged masks. They formed a ladder of bodies. Havoc climbed it, stepping on the hands and shoulders of her unit. They offered no protest.

  “It’s clear! Just a little bit more, Molot!” Havoc’s diminutive chest pulsed rapidly, starved of oxygen. Her voice was barely audible; the ash had almost completely claimed her lifeline.

  Bugeyes panicked first. Hands clawing at clogged filters, she convulsed on the floor. Ash stood ready for its next meal. Semtex picked her up. “Hang in there, Bugs! We’re almost through!”

  His voice was barely audible—each word forced through a straw. The Gen-6 warriors flailed at the wall of debris, because they never saw it for what it truly was.