A Martyr turned and drew his knife in a feeble attempt at resistance. Roland caved in the man’s sternum with a fist and squashed his heart like a junebug. Ten meters ahead he saw three soldiers, preparing to make their stand behind an overturned flatbed truck. As he ran, Roland grabbed a discarded rifle off the ground. A Thompson submachine gun, he realized. It didn’t feel like a reproduction either. Roland brought the gun up to his shoulder–

–the Thompson gun bucked in his hand. Roland laughed as he danced through the charnel house that had once been a forward operating base. Most of the National Guardsmen were dead, but his nose told him one of them was still in the game. Roland turned past a Hesco and saw the young man, half propped up against a pile of sandbags. The boy held a hand to the bleeding hole in his gut. His black face was bloodless-pale and young. SO young. Roland didn’t know if he’d ever seen a soldier who looked that young. There was something familiar about the boy’s face.

“R– Roland?” the kid said. And recognition dawned in Roland’s eyes–

–and then he was back. He was about fifty yards further ahead than he’d been before he blacked out. The Thompson gun was still in his hand, pointed at a man twelve yards to his left who was scrambling to get a wire-guided rocket launcher into a firing position. Roland put a bullet through his brain. He turned, past the burning wreck of a semi truck. A dozen bullets impacted his chest and side. Then three Martyrs charged him, their bayonets fixed–

–the hit wasn’t bad. Nothing but a flesh wound. Skullfucker Mike looked worse; he’d lost most of his left arm. Topaz had taken three rounds to the dome but she was still firing her Dragunov. Roland’s mind stretched into the city of Dallas around them. There were a lot of men coming their way. But those men were mostly police, SWAT officers. Nothing substantial. No one who could stop them from getting this bomb where it needed to–

“–go!” Roland screamed as he broke his Thompson gun over the skull of another Martyr. Then he reeled back and dropped the gun. That last memory had felt different, like he’d unlocked something. Roland shook his head. The last Martyr in front of him broke and ran. Roland didn’t even think to chase him. His head hurt, in a way he couldn’t remember it ever hurting before. What the hell is going on? It had all started the second he’d thought about–

“The bomb is small as nukes go. Just about one megaton. It matches the ones at Fort Leonard Wood. The Guardian already released the hacked documents, showing the government considered bombing several of the separatist camps. I think we can trust the American people to put two and two together.”