A state of disobedience

Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

Crenshaw awoke as a crew of Army medics bustled his stretcher aboard a "dust off" bird. His shock was so great that he could not speak, could not acknowledge the softly spoken, confident, "You'll be fine. It isn't a bad one," the medic reassured him with as he gave the wounded ex-Marine a shot of much needed morphine.

Even with the morphia, Crenshaw screamed, once, as a medic accidentally jostled the barbed spear sticking into and from his leg.

"I'm sorry, Captain. Sorry. I couldn't help it."

Crenshaw tried to reassure the man that he understood, that it was all right. Tried, but lacked the strength.

In any case, the medic was gone to the other side of the bird before he had a chance to do so. And then Crenshaw felt the sudden surge of the helicopter lifting with its burden of broken parts.

Maybe I'll make it. . . .

The helicopter flew away a distance to the northeast and then turned, heading west to a Fort Worth hospital. The PGSS man watched the smoking building recede. Everything went suddenly dark and he knew his vision was blacking out again.

* * *

It was dark down in the subterranean levels of the Currency Facility; dark with smoke but also simply dark from the electricity having been cut off. The only lights were the usual red-filtered emergency ones. These were enough to show a dirt- and blood-begrimed Pendergast the last dozen worn out survivors of the defense force. One man, Fontaine, held the only entrance in or out.

Well . . . this is about the end, thought the sergeant major. There might be a few of us still kicking and gouging, here and there, but this is about it. A faint chatter of rifle fire, followed up by two grenadelike explosions, confirmed his judgment.

He glanced at the weakened Captain James, barely keeping his head up. He looked at the shocked and dazed few that remained. He looked to the small device with playing cards wired to it.

Doesn't seem right, somehow, to just blow these guys up. "Suicide's a sin," the nuns always taught.

Pendergast shook his head, ruefully, and walked over to James and the device. He shook the captain to a semblance of alertness. "Sir, we're gonna charge. I'm gonna hand you the 'aces and eights.' You hang on as long as you can, then just let go, okay?"

James forced a hollow smile. "Okay, Top . . . I me . . ."

"Top's just fine for this, sir." He handed the captain a device that looked like nothing so much as the torsional steel hand-grip exerciser from which it had been created. "Get a good grip, sir," he advised. Seeing that James had as good a grip—though, in truth, it wasn't all that good—as he was capable of, Pendergast removed the steel oval that had held the device safe. He laid the cards down on a desk—aces and eights.

"All right, you apes," he shouted loud enough even to wake the zombies under his command. "The captain is live. We're gonna charge now. On three . . . one . . . two . . . THRR—"

James lost his grip and eleven tons of Ammonium Nitrate-Fuel Oil finished the job the PGSS had begun. Along with eight hundred and forty seven of the PGSS that had been in the building.