As the street emptied, a hastily coded beta app kicked in and painted a woodpile just ahead of his man fluorescent orange.

“Terry! Trap!”

Too late. The sound of the explosion was heavily filtered by his unit’s processors, but the blinding flash wasn’t. Smith dove to the ground, causing the massive camera anchored to his shoulder to slam painfully into the side of his flimsy helmet. Visual enhancement kicked on, penetrating the smoke and showing his man and a number of civilians down.

The only thing moving was a hazy human outline coming directly at him. He struggled to get his rifle sighted but when the figure emerged from the smoke, it morphed into a tall, athletic woman wearing jeans and a formfitting black tank top.

She stopped and looked down at him, waving impatiently at the smoke. The tactical overhead view still running in his peripheral vision showed three of his team moving in on his position and another two moving south fast—probably in pursuit of their target. He concentrated on the word “time” and a dim display overlaid the woman’s elegantly curved torso.

4:48 p.m.

“All right,” he said, struggling to his feet with the shoulder camera teetering on a broken strap. “Let’s call it a day.”

Bystanders began appearing from the cover they’d fled to and burqas started coming off, revealing women in U.S. Army fatigues and the occasional smaller-than-average man that their system was still failing miserably to identify.

By the time he’d dusted himself off, the only people left on the street were the woman in front of him and Terry, who was still sitting next to the woodpile where the flash grenade had detonated.

“Congratulations,” Randi Russell said, pointing at the massive camera on Smith’s shoulder. “You may have invented the least practical piece of combat equipment in history.”

“It’s a spectrum analyzer that can identify explosive residue to about fifty meters. And believe it or not, it actually seems to work.”

“Yeah, all fifty pounds of it.”

“Seventeen. And we think we can get it down below four, with most of it in your pack.”

Her skeptical expression remained for a moment but then she looked around and broke into a dazzling smile. “I gotta hand it to you, Jon. This place is pretty impressive. There’s actually a real donkey back there.”

“Only the finest when the taxpayer’s footing the bill. Simulations are all about the details.”

The smoke had cleared and she sniffed at the air. “Doesn’t smell right, though. Still smells like Nevada.”

Smith considered that for a moment. “You make a good point. I’ll work on it.”

They looked at each in silence for a few moments before she spoke again. “I’m not sure I like this new world, Jon.”

He reached a dirty hand out and brushed back her short blond hair. No studs. “Still holding out?”