Elena, the Filipina office worker he had been sleeping with, tracked him down after all this. The base was gone, she said, and she’d lost her job. Her house was buried under ash. How were she and the child in her belly supposed to live? She pulled at his hand and begged him to take her to America. He told her it was impossible. So she took off a high-heeled shoe and whacked him in the face, knocking out two of his teeth.

Where are you now, my child? Baker wondered, gazing at the gray ocean. Are you living out your days with your mother in the slums of Manila? In a way, your father is fighting for your sake. Once the democratic government takes over in Russia after the war, NATO’s vanguard will be at China’s borders, and Subic Bay and Clark will once again become America’s Pacific naval and air bases, even more prosperous than they were last century. You’ll find work there! But most importantly, under NATO’s pressure, those Chinese just might give you folks what you’ve wanted for so long: those beautiful islands in the South China Sea. I’ve seen them from the air: snow-white coral surrounding the brown sand, like eyes in the blue sea. Child, those are your father’s eyes….

The major returned, cutting short the general’s woolgathering. Baker accepted the dentures on the paper towel, put them in, and after a few seconds, looked at the major in astonishment. “How did you do that?”

“Sir, your dentures were buzzing because of electromagnetic resonance.”

Baker stared at the major in clear disbelief.

“Sir, it’s true! Maybe you’ve been exposed to strong EM waves before, for example near radar equipment, but the frequency of those waves must have been different from your dentures’ resonant frequency. But now, the air is filled with powerful EM waves at all frequencies, which caused this condition. I’ve modified the dentures to make their resonant frequency much higher. They’re still vibrating, but you can’t feel it anymore.”

After the major left, General Baker’s gaze fell onto the clock standing beside the digital battle map. Its base was a sculpture of Hannibal riding an elephant, engraved with the caption EVER VICTORIOUS. The clock had originally inhabited the Blue Room of the White House; when the president saw his gaze straying again and again in its direction, he’d personally picked up the clock from its century-old resting place and gifted it to him.

“God save America, General. You’re God to us now!”

Baker pondered for a long time, then slowly said, “Tell all forces to halt the offensive. Use all our available airpower to find and destroy the source of the Russian jamming.”

JANUARY 8TH, RUSSIAN ARMY GENERAL
STAFF HEADQUARTERS

“The enemy has disengaged, but you don’t seem happy,” Marshal Levchenko said to the commander of the Western Military District, newly returned from the front line.

“I don’t have reason to be happy. NATO has concentrated all their airpower on destroying our jamming units. It’s really proving an effective countertactic.”