He hadn’t understood what they were doing there, why they had returned, what mission they were on. Soldiers come back from the grave to haunt him—why? But after a time, he had come to realize their purpose. It wasn’t so difficult to understand. Deep Rock was their home, the final resting place of their corporeal remains, which were still locked away in one of the storage rooms . . . although their bodies were beginning to rot now, he had noticed, even with the refrigeration units operating on high. In any event, it made sense that they should return. Deep Rock was their home, just as it was his. Until he joined them, of course. Which wouldn’t be all that long.

Which was why they had come back for him.

When you were a soldier, you never left your buddies behind. You always took them with you. It touched him deeply that they would care that much about him, and he told them so repeatedly. Well, he told Perlo and Abramson, anyway. He didn’t talk that much with the woman, and she didn’t seem much interested in him, in any case. She only seemed interested in poking about through the complex, as if searching for something she had mislaid. He thought it might be the code that would have allowed them all access to the surface and freedom. But he couldn’t be sure. He would have welcomed a chance at escape, even at this point. He would have taken it gladly, gone back to the surface, gone out into what remained of the world, even if it was just long enough to breathe the air and feel the sunlight on his skin. He cried about it sometimes. He missed it so.

Most of it, he had long since forgotten. Time’s passing had erased the particulars from his memory bank, and all he had left was a dimly remembered happiness at how it had made him feel. He asked Abramson and Perlo if it was like that with them, too, but they only shrugged. That was pretty much all they ever did when he asked them questions. But at least they were paying attention. Anderson never even did that.

“Got to make the rounds,” he told them as he walked down the corridors of the missile complex, moving from room to room, checking the computers, the monitors, the screens, the windows to what remained of his connection to the outside world. Routine was important, he reminded them. Routine was what kept you busy and engaged. Routine was what kept you from going insane.