When we were still sitting through the powerpoint, the one's who'd been OC certed before were already starting to get watery eyes. Me and the other cherries had been talking about how it was supposed to feel. Bad sunburn. Satan's piss. Satan's semen. Microwave.

I thought about how the Stars and Stripes quoted a Silver Star recipient in Helmand Province after he pulled someone out of an MRAP. Said the screams of a man on fire would haunt you forever.

600-Bravo (greensuiter) and PM9-Mid (bluesuiter) finish passing the riot extinguishers to all snatch n' grabbers. I check the extension on my SX-36. Pin's set. Look back up to see the shield men already taking knees and the lucky ones with Mossbergs pumping the second round of beanbags in.

I volunteered for this when my brother called on the DSN, shouting from the inside of a wailing NYFD engine to tell me that Mom and Dad never found out how to get to the keyhole behind the safe's keypad back in Arizona, right before I listened to what must've been his arterial blood shorting out the handmike.

Wading into the screams and protests crowding the gate--they have to be human, the infected wouldn't have made it this close to us so quickly--a ten-year-old rolling on the asphalt's grabs my ankle and undoes the blousing. Boy? Girl? I can't tell, the child's too young, but I can make out freckles against his face turning blue. At least the part that isn't covered in foam we sprayed. One of the beanbags've completely dented in his undeveloped sternum. And the Mk-46 tanks we're using got upped to .30% concentration. When I got certed, I never got anything past .18%.

Fog and tears under my helmet's spit mask are from the residual fumes going around. Something moving too slow for someone covered in so much chemical irritant is a couple steps ahead. I jab its stomach before I remember what I'm doing, and take it off at the knees before the end of the SX-36 buries itself into the remaing good eye, and I wrench the grip like a prybar. Don't have to listen to what it sounds like. One of the shotgun detail just hit someone a couple steps behind me, where I was a moment ago. Maybe it was the boy. I've decided it was a boy.

Without turning around, I shoot back a thumbs up as the sound of plexiglass edges scrape closer to the gate. We're advancing.

Right after high school, in the summer that I turned 18, I remember when my eldest aunt hooked me a internship where she worked over at Fort Detrick and National Cancer Institute. I stuck out as one of the only male junior counselors in a staff of menopausal military mothers, taking care of soldiers' and scientists' kids. Ten bucks an hour and it was the most money I'd ever made as a post-adolescent.

Academic dismissal, two deadbeat roommates, MEPS, OSUT, and a deployment later, I stare at the dot of blue paint on the first hollowpoint in my magazine before I palm it into my sidearm and slingshot the slide.

"Weapon is red status and on safe, sir--sergean--uh, Specialist." M9 goes into the Uncle Mike's and I manage to crack half a smile at the platoon guide while I click the thumb break into place. He performs a salute which I answer with only a nod, before executing a perfect about-face. Him and those under him all vary under eighteen years of age.

I light a menthol light wide as the males and females in front of me load their arms, and inspect each others' gear. The gun shop at Freedom Crossing was one of the first things to collapse prior to the initial outbreak. Scouting details in the regular component managed to ruck it down the I-10 West all the way to Academy in Sunland Park. The fact that we even have scouting parties would be reassuring if not for who I'm in charge of right now.

Pink-stocked 10/22s and Circuit Judges with a slug in every chamber. Some of the teens have their parents' ARs, at least the ones that can handle government ammo. A couple lever-actions, bolts. Fair enough. It's the uniforms that I can't get used to, and likely that's a good thing.

I was never a Wolf Cub or Brownie or whatever, so if there's a difference between their merit badges and whatnot, I can't tell. Some kids have clothes from private school, Catholic crosses, patent leather and all. The ones in families that hunt have their field camo sans safety vests. Everyone's shit is pressed and washed, tinged around the edges where the detergent didn't get the bloodstains out. It's a wonder the base still has running water, gas, and electricity, off-the-city-grid notwithstanding.

LBVs in ACU pattern are standard. I count six individual juveniles with AAM and ARCOM ribbons pinned to right chest pockets, where I've ordered the Military Dependent IDs to be carried. One Bronze Star. There are no Purple Hearts.

Gone are the days of School Age Services. After all the mutinies, desertions, and summary executions, the last letter 's' in 'Services' has been dropped per memorandum from the post CG and I guess that's the best way he can show his gratitude to the mothers and fathers in uniform that stood their ground against the infected for Uncle Sam and paid the no-longer-ultimate price. Extended BAH per each drafted minor within the household. Money still means something to some people, I'd guess.

A separate memorandum that didn't come in print form popped up in my AKO. Regarding his two sons, who he wouldn't name. No one in front of me shares his surname and I haven't had any luck yet. His fault for being in Bragg prior to the breakout.

I mutter something to the platoon guide, and immediately he orders second and fourth ranks to fall out and post on him. Fall out. These are the faster kids whose primary weapon is an X26, M26, or C2. Secondaries are baseball bats, axe handles, rubber-duck M16s with rusting bayonets, and unsavory projects devoloped by the motor pool involving what used to be tanker bars. These are the same kids who have followed my "Shock and buttstock" TTP drill to the letter, and have seen with their own eyes the results inflicted upon the infected with their own hands.

Put on ACUs and your MP gear on, and these same eyes still go a little bit wide, a little bit awed and fearful when they see you up close.

One of the new kids I don't recognize.
"Mr. P? Is that you?" One of the new kids I don't recognize because I recognize her from a time when I was still a civilian. Madeline. Miss Madeline. Parents were researchers working for NCI who went to the same Chinese church my aunt did.

That was five years ago. She can't be more than ten now.
"Negative, citizen." I turn around, and as the platoon guide takes initiative and falls the two ranks back in, I have to lean back and pinch the bridge of my nose, as the flood of memory briefly relieves the sting of cigarette smoke and sand and dehydration from my eyes, soaking into the tips of my gloved fingers.