“He’s a good man. Or was,” the officer said darkly. “All our frontline units were wiped out, or near enough. The whole SDF’s been pushed all the way back to ciudad de muerta. If he’s alive, he’s a prisoner.” The man shook his head. “Sorry, chico. There’s not much I can do for you or your friend.”

“We need to get to Waco. I know there’s a hospital there; that must be where you’re sending the serious injuries, right? Dallas doesn’t have anything left with a full ER.”

The officer nodded. “These tracks are headed to the field hospital, in Oak Lawn. But we’ve got a couple deuce-and-a-half’s loading up at Firebase Jiminez. If you can get there on your own I’ll radio ahead and ask Major Peron if he’s got space.

“I know Peron!” Manny almost shouted. “I went to school with his nephew, Hector.” He couldn’t stop himself from wincing as he said, “If you’d give him my name, that might help.”

The other man’s eye cocked up in a really, motherfucker? look. But then the soldier asked, “And your name is?”

“Manny Sanchez.”

He nodded. “Good luck then, Manny. I’ll radio ahead. You and your friend get to the firebase…rapido, comprende?”

Manny nodded and turned to Reggie.

“We’ve got a ride. But it’s going to be a bit of a hike.”

It was less of a hike and more of a panicked jog. The streets around them were filled with dozens of people carrying their possessions in bags and rusted old shopping carts. Manny had never seen Dallas this crowded. Less than a million people still lived in the old metroplex but most of them seemed to be out in the streets to watch the world end. Sirens sounded, courtesy of the city’s old civil defense system, mixed every few seconds with the distorted voice of a woman reminding them that all motor-vehicle-use was prohibited.

“Any civilian vehicles on the road will be assumed hostile and targeted.”

The road traffic was all military. There was less of it than Manny would’ve hoped to see. In the space of a few seconds, he watched three pairs of Cougar assault vehicles race up toward the front, carrying squads of armored troopers in their open beds. He also saw one convoy of five anti-drone tanks. Each was the size of a four-door sedan, with two linked chainguns on a turret that scanned the sky in fast, jerky arcs. There was a troubling amount of dead space on the road between the two units.