Page 1

1

JACKSON

I'm in that little spot my mind goes to when I'm tired as shit, but my consciousness refuses to give up to the black abyss of sleep falling over me like a heavy blanket. It's like being in two worlds at once, and I'm watching the coming dream on a feed inside my head as I hold on tight to whatever shred of wakefulness I have left.

I never fully go dark. I haven't in a long time. It's one of the first habits we all pick up in an active warzone. Sleeping with one eye open can often mean the difference between life and death. And sometimes, even when the fight is finished, the things you've seen and done refuse to leave your head. They don't care if it's bed time.

Clarke and McScott...

Shit... How long ago was it before this crazy reality took hold of me? I can't remember. Feels like forever, almost like my life on Earth—before phoenixes, magic powers, and getting goddamnman-preggers—is just a fading dream. Nah, my whole life is just a series of faded segments, one shitty ending after another.

Pop. Speak of the devil. That little dream monitor in my head is on. I can still feel the low drumbeat thrum of the aircraft prison around me, can still smell the tar and musty timbers, like the hull of some old pirate ship. I'm not asleep. I'm watching the dream.

Clarke and McScott...

A gray naked forest under a crisp blue sky with a falling sun. My breath comes out in thick clouds, and the air smells like moss and birch bark. My right hand tightens around the familiar shape of my DDM4 carbine's textured grip while my left rests across the rifle's lower receiver, keeping it steady against my chest as I walk.

McScott...

Ah—this isn't one of those "I can fly" dreams. I'm reliving a memory. I'm back in Zhovnipol, in the International Vanguard.

"Bird. Bird! You fuckin' dreaming?"

I turn around and see Roy Clarke and Jim McScott walking up to me from the abandoned school we've taken as a base of operations. Clarke is grinning at me. I pull the headphones offmy head. The tinny sound of Linkin Park drifts from the black foam earpads before I hit the pause button.

"He sleeps with his eyes open," he tells McScott. "I've seen him do it before."

"Bloody 'ell," McScott groans. "Last thing we need is this bastard on the gate."

The two join me, with Clarke coming up on my left and McScott on my right. McScott pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and plugs the end of a bent stick into his mouth. He doesn't light it.

McScott is from London, England, and Clarke from Las Vegas, Nevada. We'd all arrived on the same commuter flight and quickly picked each other out as soldiers, and it hadn't taken long before we were all getting drunk at a shitty little bar and swapping war stories. And in just two weeks, enough bullets had flown in our direction for us to become as close as brothers.

"Music," I tell them. "And I wasthinking. I know it's a foreign concept for you."

"You still lugging around that ancient hunk of plastic?" McScott says. I pull the portable Sony CD player out from a pouch on my MOLE vest and hold it up proudly. "Fuck me," he mutters under his breath. "Swear to God, it's been ages since I've seen one of those."

Clarke reaches over and tugs on one side of the headphones around my neck, and it snaps back and smacks me in the Adam's apple.

"Hey, dammit, careful," I say. "They don't make these anymore."

"Yeah, no shit," he replies. "They make AirPods now. I know your ass owns an iPhone."

I tuck the CD player and the headphones away into my vest.

Clarke bumps his shoulder against mine. "We found this left in a desk drawer. Score."

He pulls a bottle of vodka from his pocket and shakes it in front of my face. When he smiles, the scar on his cheekbone arches up, and the two little freckles above it make it look like a little frowny face. It's something I noticed a while ago, and the way it makes me feel pisses me off every time. I shouldn't be picking out details like that about another man's face.

I quickly push the bottle away. "Hell nah. I know how you like to drink."

"Bro, this is our last chance. Tomorrow we're going to get new orders, and I'm pretty sure we're gonna be getting into the shit."

McScott finally lights his cigarette. "Reckon we're heading down to back up the boys in Malyi Sorych. Need to shore up the defenses there."

"Fuck," I say. "About damn time we get something interesting."

"That's what I said," Clarke agrees. "So. We finishing this, or what?" He unscrews the cap.