Look, all I want is your name," the man suggested. "I'm trying to give you a big, generous tip, and all I want is your name." He tried again to grab the girl's hand, and again she pulled it away from him.

  "I don't need a tip from you. I need to get back to work. So please move," she demanded.

  He didn't move from where he blocked her way to the door. He shook his head at her and said, "I don't know why you're acting so stuck up. All I did was pay you a complement and ask for your name." He tried to rest his hand on her arm, but she shook him off and took a step back.

  Alice watched on from beneath the shade of a tree, unsure of what to do.

  She had walked there from her apartment in search of a job. She'd seen an online posting for a "prep cook/server" position at a local, family-owned caterer, filled out a digital application, and scheduled an interview. And now, here she was, hiding behind a tree, watching as one of the employees of that same caterer was harassed by a creepy client.

  She had seen the exchange from afar. She'd seen a girl about her age come out of the building holding several bags of food. She'd carried the food out to a man who'd stopped his car in the middle of the parking area in front of the business, his convertible top down. The girl had tried to simply give him the food and leave, but he'd jumped out of his car, followed her up the path to the doors of the business, and blocked her way in. He'd reached out and touched her several times, something she was clearly not comfortable with, each time showing more and more aggression. Her clear distaste for his advances had not discouraged him, but made him more determined and angry.

  But this girl was no shy violet. She'd stood her ground against him, told him boldly and in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with him, but Alice was afraid it would take more than words to convince this man to leave the girl alone.

  Before she knew it, she was crossing the parking lot towards the argument.

  "I told you before," the girl warned him, "I don't want to talk to you." She raised a finger to his face, an expression of fury on hers. "I don't want you to touch me. My family is in here, and they won't like you treating me like this."

  Alice stopped walking. She was beside his car now, and her hands were twisting together as she tried to think of what to do. She watched the girl, and suddenly realized that she was far more confident about all this than Alice was. She was the one being confronted with a persistent, malicious creep-o, and yet it was Alice, with powers that made her sound like a comic book character, that was nervous about all this.

  Should I just do nothing? Maybe she has more control over this situation than I would.

  It was then that the man reached out a hand and snatched the girl's wrist, refusing to let go this time.

  "You were really rude to me," he hissed at her. "And I was trying to be really nice. I think you should apologize and make it up to me."

  Alice could see the hint of a smile on his lips hidden beneath a thin mask of offended hurt. She could see a sudden look of terror on this girl's face, as she realized her confidence wasn't enough to keep her safe. Finally, Alice could feel the rising urge to do something, anything, to help. It was fast, uncalculated, and as consuming as if someone had lit her clothes on fire.

  She looked down and noticed she was still standing beside his car. And it was a nice car. A very nice car. It was fire-engine red and immaculately cared for, and probably very new.

  Alice thrust out her hip, which connected hard with the driver's side headlight. The light shattered, and the metal buckled in, shoving the car two feet sideways across the pavement, the tires emitting a short, shrill squeak. Then she ran right at the two of them, waving her arms and doing her best to call out in an appropriately concerned voice. The lie came to her more naturally than she thought it would.

  "Sir? Sir!" she cried to him, "I think someone just hit your car and drove off!"

  The man saw her, confusion on his face. Then he seemed to forget about the girl. She pulled herself away from his grip as he jogged back to his car, a look of confusion and frustration both mingled on his face.

  "What? How?" he yelled. He grimaced at the damage to his car, then frantically searched the parking lot for any sign of the car that had done this. "Where did they go?" he shouted, but the two girls had already disappeared into the building. They left him scratching his head and wondering how he could have been so absorbed in his conversation with that stuck up girl that he could have not noticed someone hitting his car and driving away.

  Inside the catering building, a family business called Morena Rose, Alice was suddenly hit with the warm smells of corn tortillas, cinnamon, cilantro, and roasted meat. It was the signature smells of fine Mexican food, of tacos and churros and salsa verde and a hundred other dishes that made her mouth water. She'd followed the girl into the building to explain herself but had become distracted by the sudden wall of appetizing aromas that greeted them.

  When she finally came back to herself a moment later, she saw that the girl was staring out the window. They were in a room furnished with a few empty tables. People often came here to eat lunch, but the lunch rush had been over by about two hours, and the seats were empty. A long counter separated this small dining area from the kitchens, where cooks bustled back and forth with trays of food and dirty dishes and cleaning supplies.

  Alice followed the girl's gaze and saw the man outside. He was climbing into his car as he spoke furiously into a cell phone. He was waving his hands like a lunatic, pausing every once in a while to gesture wildly at the damage Alice's hip had done to his convertible, as though the person on the phone with him could see the damage. At least she'd been right on how to hit this guy where it would hurt most.

  Some hero I turned out to be, she thought. If wrecking his car hadn't been enough, what would I have done? Could I have done more? Am I too afraid of confrontations?

  It started to dawn on her that if she was going to make something of herself, if she was going to live up to her father's sacrifice, she might have to be willing to do some very, very uncomfortable things from time-to-time.

  Soon the man had driven away at speed, and Alice could hear the girl let out a sigh of relief.

  "Thanks," the girl said to her, the barest, slimmest hint of an appreciative smile forming on her wide mouth. "That was a little scary."

  Alice nodded, not knowing what to say.

  "Did someone really hit his car and we just didn't notice?" the girl asked, a sudden look of curiosity on her face.

  Alice shrugged. "You two were starting to get kinda loud. Plus, it was scary, so I imagine it would have been hard to notice anything else going on."

  The girl stared at Alice, a look of curiosity still there. "I guess so," she admitted. "But thanks for making sure he noticed. You really helped me escape."

  "You seemed nice, and he didn't. I figured you could use a little distraction."

  The girl nodded, and then seemed to remember something. "I'm sorry, I'm Christine. I work here. Are you here to pick up an order?"

  "Uh, no. Actually, I came here for an interview. I'm Alice."

  Christine smiled even wider and put her hands on her hips. "So, you're the girl they're interviewing for the prep cook position? Come on back."

  She led Alice behind the counter and into the bustling, steaming kitchen. Alice thought they were headed for some kind of back office first, but Christine made a beeline for the nearest cook, a young man that Alice realized looked a lot like Christine, from his caramel complexion to his wide, expressive mouth. He was almost certainly a sibling.

  Christine slapped the boy on the arm hard, almost causing him to drop a tray of tightly rolled taquitos still waiting to be cooked.

  "Where were you two minutes ago?" she demanded, punctuating her question with a punch to his chest. He winced at the blow, a confused, shocked expression in his wide eyes, a deer about to be run over by a very large truck.

  "I'm doing my job...ow! Quit it! Why? What are you doing?" he protested.

  "I was getting harassed by some frat-boy pig who wouldn't stop grabbing me! I was right outside the door!" She pointed her finger, and Alice found herself ducking out of the way of her gesture as though it might slice her in half. Christine kept shouting, "He put his hands on me, Martin! Where were you?"

  A look of realization and indignant fury washed over his face, and he slammed the tray on a stainless steel countertop, scattering some of the taquitos. He began stomping towards past the counter, his fists full of the apron he'd just pulled over his head.

  "Too late, Dum-dum," she called after him. "He's already gone." She pointed to Alice with her thumb. "She was able to distract him so I could get inside. But this is why I keep telling Mom and Dad we need security cameras around the outside of the building."

  Christine led Alice away, leaving Martin standing there with his apron in his hands, staring out the window as if he were still hoping to catch the man who had assaulted her. As the two girls reached the door of an office in the back, Christine paused to give Alice a smile.

  "That's my big brother, Martin. He's a cook. And my parents work back here. They own this place. I really hope you do well in your interview. It'll be nice to have someone around I can count on," she said.

  Alice smiled too. Sure, she hadn't acted the part of a hero, or at least not heroes like Divinity or any of the other Champions, but she hadn't let down someone who needed help. That was something.

  As Christine opened the door to the office, Alice could see a man and woman inside—presumably Christine's parents and owners of Morena Rose—watching a TV screen. It was on the news.

  "Mom, this girl is here for an interview," said Christine, trying to get their attention.

  Her mother, her eyes still glued to the news feed, waved her hand at her daughter as if to quiet her. "Hang on, Christine," she said, "Something happened in Africa."

  As Alice watched the news, she saw that it had something to do with a ship and crew being rescued from pirates off the coast of Somalia. A moment later, she realized what was happening, and her heart began thump hard against her throat.

  I'm not alone, she realized.

  **********

  Ethan stuffed the black mask inside his pocket as he boarded the Black Swan through its open cargo hatch right behind his teammates. As he did, another team of RaTS, these just members of the support team, quickly exited the way Ethan had entered.

  The inside of the massive aircraft was spacious enough to hold a whole company of army battle tanks, and if the occasion called for it, it would. At the moment, it was partitioned into several smaller areas by low walls bolted to the floor. There was a weapons cache, where stacks of crates held all the munitions and combat gear the rescue team would need. There was an ops center, where maps, diagrams, and other information was displayed on banks of large, flat monitors and computers manned by intelligence officers. There was a temporary sick bay, where a row of small, clean cots was quickly filling with the injured members of the ship's crew, including the captain and three of the four security guards.

  Athena emerged from another one of the Swan's many compartments close to the cockpit. She was followed by Levi, the only member of Ethan's team to stay aboard the Swan during the mission. Both of Ethan's teammates that had followed him onto the ship, Priscilla and Joshua, immediately removed the masks from their body gloves and stood at attention as the woman entered. Under the black fabric and insectoid eyewear, the two of them were fair-skinned with identically copper hair.

  Ethan didn't see the point in formalities, so he leaned against a stack of storage containers with his arms crossed over his broad chest. It's not like Athena would be any more pleased with him if he acted as formally as the others, so what was the point, really?

  "We're leaving immediately," she informed the team without greeting them. "Bravo team can stay while we get the injured to the mainland."

  Athena's dark, sharp eyes rested on Ethan, who shifted uncomfortably and put his hands on his hips. Suddenly, he found the grated floor beneath his feet very interesting.

  "When I give you a job, I expect you to do it right the first time," she said as she looked up at him. Ethan stood a full foot taller than she, but her height made her no less intimidating. Her voice was as steady and cold as blued steel. "There was nothing about your performance in that operation that even remotely resembled perfection. You remember our conversation earlier today about perfection, don't you?"

  How could he forget? Any conversation that kept him pinned underneath the Megaton was a memorable one. Ethan kept his eyes on the floor, his teeth grinding together in frustration, the muscles in his squared jaw bulging. Still, he seemed to have no words with which to answer. He knew he'd somehow missed a pirate when he'd attempted to clear the stern of the ship of all threats. A pirate with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, no less. He'd been in such a rush to join the others towards the bow of the ship that he hadn't checked those spaces thoroughly enough. He knew it was a mistake that threatened the hostages and his teammates, even if that pirate posed no real threat to him, weapons or no weapons.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  He tried and failed to slip the tatters of his tee shirt back onto his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry," he tried, still looking at the floor.

  "I don't care about your apologies," the woman said in a voice that could have been used to cut glass. "I want you to follow simple instructions. I want you to complete the assignments you're given."

  Ethan looked up into her eyes. He found it nearly impossible to endure her gaze. He looked to his teammates, each of whom were looking straight ahead as though he didn't exist and they weren't just listening to him being verbally crushed into powder. That's what he got for working with the military.

  "C'mon, Athena," he pleaded. "It's not like the mission was a failure."

  "No," she agreed, "but it's not like the mission was a success because of you, is it?"

  Ethan could find no words to answer her. He knew, somehow, that this whole thing was entirely unfair, but he couldn't explain how, just as he knew, somehow, that any attempt he made to defend himself would just make things worse for him.

  "Don't be so hard on yourself," she said suddenly, her voice softening.

  Ethan looked up at her, suddenly hopeful.

  "This isn't a problem," she continued. "It's a learning opportunity. There is a valuable lesson to be learned here, a lesson we will reinforce with extra training when we return. A few extra turns on the Megaton will help you retain that lesson, lest you forget and endanger the mission and your teammates again."

  Both Joshua and Priscilla winced, their only sign of empathy since Ethan's chastisement had begun. Ethan guessed that would be as much understanding as he would get from them.

  Athena finally dismissed the team, disappearing into the interior of the huge aircraft. Joshua and Priscilla finally relaxed, each of them leaving Ethan where he stood without a word. Joshua began to walk among the row of cots filled with injured crew members, stopping here or there to talk to them or the medics that were treating them.

  His sister didn't join him but parked herself on a bench against the bulkhead and turned on her personal Motherboxx. ORIGIN offered its employees the latest cutting-edge gadgets, often modifying them to suit its purposes. The Motherboxx was just one of the latest toys to make it into their hands. The small, flat, rectangular device was like a smart phone in that it could make phone calls, access the Internet, and much besides, but it had no screen on its surface. Instead, it could project a holographic screen in midair, with no need for a physical screen behind it. Priscilla's Motherboxx glowed to life and began projecting a holographic screen in front of her face. As Ethan came closer, he could see she was losing herself in an old television sitcom from the early two thousands.

  "Hey Prissy," he said, trying his best to sound confident, "let's get something to eat together once we get back."

  Priscilla's eyes left the screen to glare at him, and her Motherboxx automatically paused the show for her.

  "Beaker, don't ever call me 'Prissy'. I hate being called that."

  Ethan started at that. "Your brother calls you that all the time," he protested.

  "Only because he knows I hate being called that," she corrected him, returning her eyes to the screen.

  "Well, I don't like being called 'Beaker'," he countered, "but you all do it anyway."

  She didn't look away from her show this time. "Well, that's your call sign, isn't it? And it's also kinda your name, Ethan Beaker-man."

  Ethan clenched his jaw again. He hated being teased, especially by girls, though he didn't know that many. With a speed Priscilla could not have hoped to match, Ethan snatched the Motherboxx from her fingers and held it above his head, where the device automatically went dark.

  Priscilla eyes went wide with surprise, and then narrowed with razored disdain as she looked him in the eye. She didn't rise from where she lay against the bulkhead.

  "Give it back, Beaker," she hissed.

  He didn't back down, no matter how much it cut him for her to look at him that way. After all, if he was going to earn the respect of others, he had to be tough, didn't he? She would thank him once he showed her a good time, he was sure.

  "No," he drawled. "Not until you stop acting you're better than me."

  She sighed and dropped her hands into her lap with frustration.

  "What do you want?" she asked, her voice still full of poison. She knew she couldn't take it from him by force. Any other man would have been on the floor by then, probably screaming in pain as she taught them the merits of chivalry with her fists, but Ethan was the frustrating, infuriating exception to that rule.

  "Say you'll go out with me tonight," he persisted with her Motherboxx still held above his head. "I'll show you how fun I am. You'll have a good time. I promise. Or say goodbye to your Motherboxx."

  "I'm busy. When we get back, my brother and I are meeting some friends in town." She glared at him with a tinge of a viscous smile on her lips. "But even if I didn't have plans, even if you weren't acting like a psycho, even if I liked going on dates with a giant man-child that refuses to grow up, it's not like you would be able to take me out tonight, is it? I mean, when was the last time you even left the base? Where were you going to take me, the galley?"

  Ethan felt his face growing hot.

  "Shut up," he warned her. "It's not easy having to stay on the base all the time."

  "It's your own fault that you can't leave, Beaker."

  Ethan winced at being called by his call sign again. He hated it. More than that, he hated that this girl would prefer to hang out with her brother than him. He hated it that she thought he was being childish just because he was being assertive. Most of all, he hated it that she was so pretty and that she didn't have that same attraction to him, all of his good looks and sense of humor notwithstanding. It wasn't fair.

  "Oh, and the next time you try to ask me out," Priscilla added, "which I hope will be never, could you at least do it wearing a shirt?"

  Ethan looked down at the tatters of his tee shirt. His face burned as he resisted the urge to slip it onto his shoulder.

  "You hang out with Josh all the time," he tried again, unable to ignore the heat in his own cheeks. "Why would you go out with your brother? He's always got his nose in his medical texts. You don't even like him. Face it, he's a loser."

  "Loser?" repeated someone behind him, and Ethan turned to see it was Joshua. "Did you just call me a loser? Prissy, what's going on here?"

  Priscilla sneered with a mouth full of shiny, white teeth.

  "Nothing. Beaker's just bothering me to go out with him again."

  Joshua looked up to see the Motherboxx in Ethan's hands. Ethan suddenly felt like he'd been caught doing something very embarrassing, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong here or why he felt so bad about it.

  Before Joshua could articulate a threat, Ethan tossed the Motherboxx back into Priscilla's lap.

  "I don't know why I even asked you. You're too stuck up for me!" he snapped before he stormed away.

  He was chased by the sound of Priscilla's laughter as she called him "such an idiot" and Joshua's warning to "stay away from my sister, Beaker."

  Ethan found a quiet, empty compartment where he could sit and listen to nothing but the scream of the Black Swan's engines muffled to a smothered roar by the aircraft's hull. He lounged across several of the bench seats and turned on his own Motherboxx but found nothing he wanted to watch.

  He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut as he bumped his own head against the bulkhead with a clang. His head was beginning to hurt. He had hoped Priscilla would say yes to his invitation.

  "Ethan," came a voice from everywhere. It was Clawson's deep gravelly voice again. "Ethan, we're waiting for you at the debriefing."

  Ethan ignored the voice, saying nothing as he sagged onto his seat. There he did his best impression of a dead man, deaf and blind to everything around him.

  "If you're going to act like a child, we'll treat you like a child," warned the voice from the hidden speakers. "If you want to start proving to me that you're ready to lead this team, you'll be at the debriefing in the next five minutes."

  There was a click, the sound Ethan knew meant the PA had turned off, and he knew he was as close to being alone as he would ever be in this place. He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. There was a searing pain, a throbbing lance that cut through his skull at the eyes. He clenched his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as though he were trying to crush a nut with his eyelids.

  A moment later, he'd powered on his Motherboxx and sent a message, barely able to see the lettered holographic keys as he typed with trembling hands.

  I need another one.

  Ethan

  It didn't take long to get a response. Two minutes later, the words danced in the air above the device.

  Report to the MedBay when you return.

  -Jolly

  So, he would have to ignore the pounding behind his eyes for the rest of the flight. At least six more hours.

  Almost without thinking, his fingers found his cargo pocket and fished out the folded photograph of the young couple and the baby. He stared at it again, the picture shaking like a leaf in the wind in his unsteady fingers, wishing that he had another life beside this one, wondering if he ever could.

  **********

  Mahmoud winced as he dragged the boat onto shore by himself. The wound in his forearm was serious. He'd only stopped it from bleeding by stuffing it full of ragged pieces of his own torn shirt. It would need proper attention when he returned to his village, or it would fester, he would catch a fever, and he'd die.

  When he'd set out to take that freight ship, he'd had eight men, rifles and ammo for each of them, the special package given to him by the Americans, boobytrapped drones to remove the security, and his boat. After he'd taken control of the ship and done what the Americans had asked him to, he'd convinced the captain to open the safe, and he'd had a good amount of American money as well. It wasn't as much as he would have gotten for ransoming the ship and the crew back to the shipping company, but it was good money anyway.

  But when those soldiers appeared, the ones in strange masks and armor, he lost everything. The one that flew shot him. The others did for his men. He was the only one left. He'd lost all the money. He'd dropped his rifle getting back to his boat. They'd shot at him as he fled, and now the boat had holes in it. He was lucky to make it back at all. And now, because he'd had to stop the bleeding, he didn't even have the shirt on his own back. He had less than what he'd started with, and all because he'd chosen to do business with those Americans!

  Mahmoud's village was a collection of shanty shacks made from whatever building materials they could scavenge from the abandoned construction sites in the city. It was close to the beach, and Mahmoud's home was on a sandy dune that gave him a good view of the ocean horizon, all the better to spot unsuspecting ships. He would call his father's sister, his only living relative, and have her do what could be done for his arm. Then he would drink until no amount of pain could wake him from a long night's sleep.

  But when he pulled aside the blanket that hung over the door to his little house, he knew something was wrong. There should have been a woman here cooking for him on a fire, but there was no woman, no fire, and no food. It was entirely too quiet for his liking. He was suddenly aware of just how foolish it had been of him to lose that rifle.

  "I'm glad to see you made it back," someone said in English.

  Mahmoud spun on his heel and nearly fainted from the blood loss. There was a man sitting at his table in the corner. He'd been so quiet and so still that he'd seemed to be one with the shadows, even with skin as pale as milk.

  "Easy now, friend," said the American. "Why don't you take a seat?"

  Mahmoud hesitated, but his injury was enough to help him overcome his distrust of the American. He pulled up another chair, the only other chair he owned, and sat at the round table across from the man in the shadows.

  Mahmoud could see the man's sleeves on his sand-colored shirt were rolled up to the elbows. There was a tattoo there that squirmed as the knotted muscles in that forearm flexed and moved. He'd seen it the last time he'd seen this man, when he'd accepted the job to take the freight ship, but he hadn't seen it so clearly. His English was poor, but he thought he understood the words to mean "No Gods". Well, on that he and Mahmoud could agree at least. If Allah was God, he wouldn't have let Mahmoud lose his men and his rifle and the money and the boat.

  "Your name is Virgil, right?" Said Mahmoud in English. The name sounded strange in his mouth. If it was an American name, it wasn't one he heard very often. Then again, Mahmoud didn't know any other Americans. "You are here to pay me?"

  Virgil smiled. "That depends. I want to hear about the job."

  Mahmoud shrugged, and instantly regretted it. His arm was on fire. He would have to collect his pay from this fool and call his aunt as soon as possible.

  "I did what you asked, but there were..." Mahmoud didn't know the word for it.

  "Complications," Virgil offered.

  Mahmoud didn't know what that word meant, but he was sure Virgil understood. "You will need to pay more," he said. "There were not just guards. There were soldiers. Strange soldiers. I lost all my men."

  Virgil nodded, not in the least bit surprised at this news. "I know," he said. "I watched the whole thing."

  Virgil grabbed something rectangular and flat that lay on the table. As he unfolded it, Mahmoud could see it was a laptop computer, an older model. He thought that was odd. Most Americans nowadays liked holographic screens, but this one didn't.

  The display on the screen was split into dozens of smaller ones, each showing some kind of camera feed. Mahmoud watched as figures in uniform, some of them armed, some of them not, moved in and out of those feeds. The background seemed familiar. Then it occurred to him. He was watching a live feed of the cargo ship.

  "Those small things you gave me," he said, pointing to the screen, "to put on the ship. Cameras?"

  Virgil nodded.

  Mahmoud had only cared if the little devices in the package he'd been given were dangerous. He'd seen men die by poorly made explosives before. When he'd been assured they hadn't been bombs, he assumed they were something so technologically advanced they would be beyond his understanding or concern. He had no idea the little black domes he'd magnetically clamped to the walls and structure of the ship were simple cameras.

  "You saw us," said Mahmoud.

  Virgil nodded.

  "You knew the soldiers would come. You didn't warn us."

  "Yes," Virgil admitted. He didn't seem apologetic at all.

  If Mahmoud still had his rifle, he'd be painting the walls of his home with this American. As things were, he would have to wait. Even though his eyes were adjusting to the gloom of his shack, he could not see if the American was armed or not. Maybe he could call the men of his village to kill this treacherous fool as soon as Mahmoud collected his pay.

  "You will pay more," Mahmoud demanded, "for my men."

  "What was he like?" Virgil asked, ignoring Mahmoud's demand. He was leaning forward on the table now, his eyes wide with interest.

  Mahmoud shook his head. "Who?"

  "The metahuman," said Virgil. When Mahmoud showed no sign of understanding that word, Virgil said, "The Superman."

  Mahmoud was silent for a moment. Then, he said, "there were only three soldiers I could see. Very dangerous. They had machines." He pointed to his own arms and legs. His English was not so good that he could describe the technology he saw that day, the mechanical body armor that seemed to give those soldiers superhuman strength and speed.

  "Not this one," corrected Virgil. "There was one without a combat frame on. Just normal clothes. He would have been strong. Very strong. And impossible to kill."

  Now that Mahmoud thought about it, there was one different than the others. He'd only been wearing a shirt, with no body armor Mahmoud could see. He'd seemed unkillable, even though Salim had hit him with a rocket. Nothing should have lived through that.

  Mahmoud nodded his head. "I saw him," he answered.

  Virgil seemed excited. His expression seemed almost wild in the shadows, like a demon from hell laughing at Mahmoud's pain. It made Mahmoud very uneasy. He would have to kill this man soon.

  "What was he like?" Asked Virgil.

  Mahmoud remembered seeing the man emerge from the tumbled stacks of shipping containers as he motored away on his little boat.

  "He was a monster," he whispered.

  Virgil nodded, as though Mahmoud had just said something very wise indeed. The words "No Gods" squirmed and writhed, as though agitated at the mention of the unarmored soldier.

  Mahmoud tore his eyes away from the ink and glared at Virgil. He was done with these games. He wanted his money and to kill this arrogant, crazy American before he cost Mahmoud anything else.

  "I am tired," he growled, "and injured. Pay me my money and go!"

  The American seemed to come to himself, as if suddenly remembering where he was and what he was doing.

  "That's right. Your payment," he agreed. "I need to give you what I owe you."

  Mahmoud heard the repeating crack of gunfire in the distance. There was often gunfire in the village. Gun dealers often demonstrated the potency of their wares, and those few religious zealots left sometimes liked to shoot in the air as they proclaimed their beliefs. Mahmoud imagined he could probably go find them to take care of the American if he cut them in on some of the pay.

  Then he realized just how late it was for gunfire. The dealers were not usually doing business this late. The village was usually quiet as people went to sleep. Then he listened as the beat of gunfire continued. They didn't sound like any weapons usually sold in these parts.

  Then he began to hear the screams.

  "What is this?" He demanded. A chill was creeping up his back, despite the summer heat. "What are you doing?"

  Virgil had stood to his feet. There was a pistol strapped to his thigh in the fashion of American soldiers. Virgil reached down with his tattooed arm and slowly drew it from its holster.

  "Don't kill me," said Mahmoud. He then realized he'd said it in Somali. He said it again, but in English.

  "Every man dies, Mahmoud," said Virgil. "The comfort I give you is that you will die for a noble cause."

  Mahmoud stumbled backwards off his chair and crashed into the ground. He wanted to crawl away, but his arm burned, and his fear made his other limbs go cold. He was too frightened now, realizing just how helpless he was. The gunfire continued, closer now, and the screams of the villagers rose in chorus.

  "We are building a better world, a world without them," Virgil said, raising the gun. "As you say, they are monsters."