“Because I would end the war. That’s what destruction does. This war ends, then so do the taxpayer-funded contracts, the drumbeats in the media, the nice Combatant faces, and the patriotic cause to lull the civilians and shame the dissenters. The other thing that comes to an end is all the justification for why this country’s run the way it is. People will wonder why their paychecks are still getting halved to pay off the men who own their utility companies, their roads, their national parks. They’ll wonder why they’ve got to work eighty-hour weeks to support the folks who took their houses and destroyed the middle-class jobs. There’s not going to be an enemy to point a finger at anymore. People will see the real problem.”

“Or a new enemy can get created. A new war could get started,” Tom pointed out, remembering what Neil always said on this subject.

Marsh rubbed his fingers over his chin, still gazing up at the moon. “You know, when I was a cadet, there were thirty thousand drones in US skies. Now there are thirty million. People protested by the thousands against the brand-new, all-US firewall. Now, the DHS dispatches a drone or two, fires a microwave weapon into the crowd, and no one will stick around when they feel that burning sensation. All these changes were done because someone cried wolf. Over and over. But you know how that story ends?”

Tom shook his head. He wasn’t sure what Marsh was talking about or where a wolf had come into this converstion.

“It ends when the boy meets a real wolf and no one comes to help him. . . . The thing I fear is, it may already be too late. There are too many drones, there is too much surveillance. Sometimes I think that even if the game ended today, it would be too late to get back the country we once had. The world’s enough of a prison for the rest of us that it won’t matter to our elite if no one comes running to fight the next wolf—we may not matter enough to make a difference now.”

Tom watched the dark trees swaying in the distance, thinking of his own spot on the terror watch list. So that’s the sort of thing Marsh meant by “crying wolf.” Apparently, he was a wolf now.