the first line of defense. By definition that meant that the tactical experts who’d created the Rift Defense System planned on things getting through.
Above the towers flew Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with laser targeting for the offsite medium range missiles, as well as video cameras capable of operating in Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR), Starlight, optical spectrum and radioactive modes. As another line of first offense, each carried three AGM–114K II Hellfire missiles with High Explosive Metal Augmented Charges.
Satellites were rumored to be on station even farther above, capable of reigning down Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles if they became desperate. Andy occasionally found himself glancing skyward, but he could no more prove the existence of satellites, than he could prove the existence of God. Still, he hoped that all the conspiracy theorists and evangelists were right and that there was something watching over them other than the hot desert sun.
***
That night Andy dreamed of his childhood. Tarzan cavorted through the trees high above a forest where he swung from vine to vine. Beneath him the earth was rent in much the same manner as it was in Sonora. But where in Sonora the darkness hid everything from the visible eye, Tarzan’s gaze pierced the shadow, revealing converging armies of Ant Men, Golden Lions, Leopard Men, Snake People and Winged Invaders, just as they’d appeared on the covers of his old, cherished paperbacks.
These creatures, first introduced to Andy from Edgar Rice Burroughs books and the unauthorized Barton Werper volumes, glittered in the darkness as they stared back at their Lord of the Jungle nemesis. But fear found home in their eyes. Tarzan was too much for them. He’d done battle with each of their ilk and cast them back into the dusty confines of their paperback prisons long ago.
Andy turned in his sleep and groaned happily, safe with the knowledge that as long as Tarzan watched over them, he’d be safe.
Then he awoke to screams.
He twisted free from his blanket and crashed from his upper bunk six feet to the concrete floor. The claxons and emergency lights had sent everyone into frenzy. He scrambled to his feet, grabbed his boots, and struggled into them, as he tried to hop and run at the same time. The door to the bunker had been left open to let in the breeze. As he approached it, he bumped into the guy in front of him who’d stopped to stare at the sky.
A hundred black silhouettes shot from the Rift into the night, tracer rounds from the Vulcan cannons stabbing them as they rose. Great black insects with glowing orange wings, each was as large as a World War II Japanese Zero. Rising, falling and slashing sideways, they twisted and twirled to get away from the fusillade of angry rounds fired from the air-cooled Gatling cannons.
Transfixed by the aerial death match, everyone jumped as a Predator drone strafed the action, unleashing its payload of three Hellfire missiles that exploded in awesome tornadoes of orange, red and green fire.
They stood for ten minutes watching the life and death struggle as the creatures tried to make their way free of the Rift. Each man wore only boots and underwear, expressions agog at a sight that only made sense to little boys with Tarzan dreams who spent their Saturday mornings watching cartoons.
While everyone’s eyes were on the creatures, Andy’s gaze rested on the darkness from whence they came. He felt the Rift watching him. The great gaping hole in the earth was like the eye of that Serbian soldier who’d held Andy’s life in his hands. The capriciousness of Andy’s existence wasn’t lost to him. Any moment, he wondered if the soldier of his memory wouldn’t decide to fire, the bullet transporting through time to jerk him back to that moment where he’d die and be buried in the ditch with all the other villagers.
One minute the night was filled with unearthly screams and the sounds of battle, the next all was silent. Two Predators took off south after something, but otherwise everything was still. Sometime during the battle the claxons had been turned off but Andy hadn’t noticed until now. The desert was now eerily quiet. The only sound was the breathing of the soldiers standing in the doorway of the bunker, all in rhythm as they stared into the night.
Finally someone chuckled.
“Let’s get some sleep.”
They turned and headed back to their bunks. Andy remained motionless, unable to simply turn off what he’d seen. The others pushed by