Subterrene War 03: Chimera Read Free Page A

my carbine across my legs, and began to peel off my helmet—not even caring when the stink assaulted me. As soon as I lit the first cigarette, it all melted away. The mission was over. From there I’d motor across the sea into Armenia, then board transport back to the States until I got the next call, Wheezer and me grinning at each other as we ran across some tarmac and onto a waiting transport. Missions were the reason to live, the only things worth doing, and Wheezer was a good partner to have.
    It wasn’t clear how I’d make it, having to wait for the next one, because I’d been home once in the last three years. And home didn’t work for me anymore.
    “No,” I said.
    “Are you sure?” the kitchen asked. Its computersounded arrogant, made me want to put a fist through the wall and find its circuits, rip them out one by one to taunt the thing, and let it know that the end was near. “Egg yolks contain harmful cholesterol. Medical records indicate a thirty percent chance that your arteries could become dangerously obstructed within the next ten years.”
    I shut off the voice function and sighed.
Home.
Beatrice had relocated to one of the reclamation sites, a frontier city in the west, the region hardest hit by the years of war and famine, an old city that the government was trying to repopulate. It was a second front of sorts. Fighting for peace meant fighting against nature and the aftereffects of nuclear war, and someone in the government thought that by plopping down a few thousand people to stake its claim that maybe things would take care of themselves. It had been three weeks since I’d first returned, and already I was sliding down into my thoughts, drowning, so that when the call had come at 3 a.m., I nearly laughed out loud. But that would have woken her and the kid, and I didn’t want her to see me so happy—relieved that I’d be heading back out on a new mission.
    You could cross our apartment in ten steps, and it had a tiny kitchen plastered with advertisements for the marvels of self-contained living—like the one above the sink, a sticker declaring that the Government Omni-Unit was smaller, more efficient, and less expensive to install than other modular brands. I rinsed the measuring cup. The moisture collectors came to life, humming like trapped hornets to remind me that in the west, life existed on a knife’s edge, where reuse wasn’t just a slogan but something that could mean the difference between having enough water or not. I unbuttoned my uniform tunic andsmoothed it over a chair to make sure that I didn’t get it dirty while cooking. Then I shivered, not wanting to think about water, and switched the voice back on.
    “… And the use of butter for cooking is ill-advised both from health and rationing perspectives. Your allotment for the month is almost gone, Sergeant Resnick.”
    “I know!”
    Half an hour later, the alarms went off in both racks. Phillip emerged first. He bounced out of his bed as I watched, and like a kid, the boy didn’t bother to say anything before he plopped in front of the holo station, where he swayed back and forth and ran both hands through the projections.
    “Use less, want less,” he sang with a commercial. “Less waste means more for space. Opportunity is what we make of it!”
    “Good morning, Master Phillip,” the kitchen said. “Today’s a big day for your father.”
    I stiffened at the reminder, wondering if Phillip would know it meant I’d be leaving, and watched Beatrice pull herself out of bed.
    “Jesus.” She moved to the side and waited for the master rack to retract into its wall. “I’m still exhausted. You’re up early.”
    “I got the call last night. Deployment’s in an hour.”
    “So that’s it.”
    I flipped the last omelet and lowered the heat on the stove. “That’s it. You and the kid need money, Bea. It’s the only job I know.”
    She lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “We moved here last year. I