There was alcohol at the reception after the first day of my debriefing ordeal, a substance I hadn't enjoyed before since I left Earth on the space elevator. It was a bad idea for me to order a rum and Coke. My thinking was that, after a long day being interrogated, I needed something with caffeine in it, hence the Coke. The rum just sounded so good, I had to go for it. And it was good. Also dangerous. After one delicious sip of the rum and Coke, I set it down behind a plant, and asked the bartender to give me a club soda with a lime. Sergeant Kendall nodded her approval. I did, after all, have in my pocket the Big Red Button. As long as I had that responsibility, I was on duty 24-7, and I shouldn’t be drinking anything stronger than water.

People seemed not to know what to do with me, a buck sergeant who wouldn't even be there, except for the saving the world thing. Which made people feel awkward, not knowing what to say to me. I ended up hanging out by the bar, talking to the bartender, an Army private from Texas named Matt. Between his cowboy drawl and my Downeast twang, we had to speak slowly to understand each other. It made me miss Cornpone and Ski and Sergeant Koch, and the guys in my own old fireteam, and wonder how they and the rest of UNEF doing, as prisoners of the Ruhar.

I looked around the room, and saw a group of scientist types talking and casting glances at me. One of them, a tall guy with longish brown hair, a turtleneck, tweed jacket and brown loafers, kept smirking at me. He looked like Nerdy Professor Number Five from any sci fi movie I'd ever seen. The kind of guy who managed to work a mention of his Nobel prize into the first minute of every conversation. He was smart, and respected, and clearly belonged there as much as I did not. I was jealous, and I instantly hated him from across the room. Then he and his smirky face walked over to the bar.

"Can I get you something, Doctor Constantine?" Matt asked.

"No, thank you," Constantine said, without even a cursory glance in Matt's direction, "I wish to speak with Sergeant Bishop."

In my limited experience, when a civilian refers to you by rank, and your rank isn't at least captain or above, it's sometimes done to point out how low you are on the totem pole. This guy said 'sergeant' like it was something he would scrape off his shoe. "I hope you know how fortunate you were to have met the AAIB." He pronounced it like 'Abe' as in Abe Lincoln.

"The what?"

"A-A-I-B. The Advanced Artificial Intelligence Being. We were directed not to use the term ‘device’ when referring to it.”