The voice from the radio grew louder and more agitated, punctuated by bursts of static:

“… not… time… peat… now! Go, GO NOW!”

An agonized scream came over the radio, followed by a brutal crunching noise. The voice went silent; only static issued from the radio. Waltz and the others stiffened, fearing that they had just heard a comrade die in battle. Tre crossed himself.

Slightly further up the track, Ford peered warily into the mouth of the tunnel. Was it just his imagination or could he faintly make out some sort of the movement inside the tunnel? From what he’d gathered, the second MUTO couldn’t possibly fit inside the narrow passage, but something appeared to be heading toward them, surging out of the blackness.

He quickly raised his rife and aimed it at the tunnel. The flashlight beam failed to penetrate the darkness. He started to shout a warning, just as a blast of dust and leaves and forest litter exploded from the tunnel, propelled by a luminous electric pulse. The flying dirt and twigs buffeted Ford, driving him backward. His flashlight instantly shorted out and so did all the lights on the train, car after car. The radio on Tre’s back went dead, too, killing the static. Startled troops shouted in the dark:

“What the hell was that?”

“What happened?”

“Hey, where are the lights?”

But Ford understood. Instinctively, like a child in a lightning storm, he had started counting to himself under his breath.

“…three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, five-one-thousand…”

A triumphant howl, echoing from the other side of the mountain, cut him off. The din of the nearby battle ceased, so that only the unsettling screeching of the female MUTO could be heard. There were no more bombs or explosions, no tracers or lasers visible beyond the ridge. Brushing the leaves and twigs from his face, Ford realized what the sudden cessation of hostilities meant.

The battle was over—and the MUTO had won.

That same realization was shared by Waltz and the rest of the troops. The frantic shouts trailed off, replaced by a stunned hush that was finally broken by the master sergeant.

“Corporal,” he ordered a nearby communications expert, “get Snake Eyes on the line again. I need to know how close that thing is.”

Ford had already counted that out. “Five miles.”

Waltz turned toward Ford and squinted at him through the dark. It was hard to make out the master sergeant’s features, but Waltz nodded as though impressed. Ford refrained from bragging that this was hardly his first run-in with a MUTO’s electromagnetic pulse. He was practically becoming an old hand at this.

Lucky me, he thought.

“Lieutenant,” Waltz addressed Ford, sizing him up. He gestured at the deep black cavity of the tunnel entrance. “Wanna join us. We’re going in to check that tunnel.”