They came over the water at night, racing each other down the currents and canals that the air opened up at low pressure, just in the sweet spots, throttles all tangled up in each other, mixing jet fumes and sea spray.

We all thought they had everything they could have wanted in a job; fast kicks on ramjet drives, freedom to fire, the authority of God almighty in the gracious eyes of the country that gave unto them the metal fruit consumed eagerly in itchy trigger fingers. Short, controlled bursts, that was what we had read in their manuals later. We wondered who they were. We wondered if maybe, if we had had time, if we might have understood them that morning.

But it was a hellhole of fire. It was rain when they came ashore that morning, a rain of lead at sunrise. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, all shiny in new black Kevlar, all laying into belts of ammunition, spent linkages forming a steel road into the city as they advanced, spent brass casings arcing off boots to left and right like drops of water from a faucet.

For fifteen minutes it was panic. A thousand seconds, a thousand soldiers, a thousand rounds per minute. One billion bullets. They tore into everything. The sun came through the holes they ripped in our homes. Rays of light streamed through holes in infants killed in their cribs, the elderly at rest, people on their way to work. Cars became punch cards, men and women looked like fleshy dotted bingo boards.

At first there were screams. A few shots back. It was all anyone could do, and for a moment, what could be done, was. Soon, the amplifier of the shots, the heat of the gunfire, the blinding flashes from that nexus of death, the psychology changed, and none but the soldiers existed, firing at nothing, just at men and women of limp flesh, ragdolls meant only to tear asunder. Nobody resisted. Nobody fought. It couldn't be done. We were being slaughtered. None of us had been slaughtered; nobody knew any other way but than what our bodies had prepared us for - total, unequivocal acceptance.

People were lifted into the sky on escalators of bullets. Lines of lead swung men from buildings, tossed women from their vehicles. Walls became dartboards, windows became a memory of crushed glass. Everything that could fall apart, did. Everybody that stood their ground died. Those that ran were luckier; some only lost limbs, the lead rods having made their tendons into tear-off perforations like bills in the mail. Gravity did the tearing, leaving them shaking, lighter, their bodies unable to understand that the nerves no longer moved muscle, but air, merely able to point where the blood was going to spout next from ragged stumps.

The boots came over the corpses, kicked limbs aside. As the barrels heated up on their weapons, they dropped them, smoking and bent, white hot, and inserted fresh barrels before firing again. The sound changed as they began to reach the end of their ammunition. The guns grew more urgent, as animals hoarding for a bitter winter. They turned their attention in all directions in the town square, the guns breaking, pulling apart into a supernova of flashes, tearing the city down in all directions until the flashes stopped, one at a time, and there were no more bullets, no more lead.

The soldiers dropped their weapons on the ground and walked away. They walked away, back to the beach, following the trail of their own shell casings to the craft they had left waiting. They simply walked away. Nobody could hear from the shooting, but we felt it, as the engines came to life and took them away as morning broke into full bloom, the shine of the sun on the water swallowing their shadows, leaving us with ringing ears and thousands of dead.

For a long time, nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Nobody had anything to say. Eventually, someone went to look for a family member. Someone went to find a pet, or walked back home. Nobody could drive. The cars were flattened or torn to pieces; the cars that could drive quickly lost their tires; the linkages from the ammunition formed a field of spikes that stopped even the most roadworthy vehicle.

Glass fell from stories above for hours. Several died from the glass pouring from buildings, precarious accidents of air pressure, vibration, time; the sounds of breaking glass could be heard from everywhere. A car fell from a rooftop. Nobody knew why.

Steam from the spent shell casings radiated up in the sun as the morning dew burned off the city, and soon, there was a smell. We found out that it was toxic, it was in the air. The world was gray, the sun soon went red around us all. All of those gunshots, all of the lead - there was lead fog, oozing from the holes in the buildings, in the streets, in the cars, in the people.

We knew soon that we'd be sick, or made crazy. By morning's end, enough of us had gotten moving and over our shock; I made my way out of my own home to survey the damage. I walked outside, and smelled for the first time the full pungent mix of metal and sky. At that moment, I chanced to look down, and saw something brown, ragged, like an old wig leaking white smoke.

I crouched down and turned it over - it was a teddy bear, an eye shot through, bulging cotton stuffing and smoking a little from what I had guessed was a hot fragment still inside. I decided it would be at least better in a trash can. I reached down to take it with me.

"Excuse me," a voice said, coming from down my driveway. "Would you mind not moving that?"

I looked up. Flared pants legs, tailored. Pink tie. A blazer, pinstriped, mostly black. A medical mask covering a face wearing sunglasses. I couldn't tell if it was male or female.

"Bertrand," the voice said, puffing out the mask as the head turned to shout down the block where the Meyer twins lived. "Can you get the camera over here?" Something shouted from down the street. The mask puffed out again. "Just the black and white would be fine, yes."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Ah," the mask said, bulging out. I could see a hint of tongue; the individual was contemplative. Adjusting their sunglasses, finally speaking again - "This is a bit awkward, I'm sorry. Jess Lazdin. Would love to shake, but uh -" holding up two hands, blue surgical gloves. The hands clapped together again in a rubbery slap. Lazdin's head looked left, then right, catching the sun. The face looked thoughtful, the sun blasting rays out in all directions off Lazdin's glasses. The pink tie glowed bright, the mask hanging a little higher.

At last, Lazdin turned again to me. "The thing is, we haven't used those boys before -"
"What boys?" I asked.
"Oh, did you just get here?" Lazdin asked, hopefully. "You're not with Studio Seven, are you?"
My lack of an answer must have been all Lazdin needed. Even through the sunglasses, I could see disappointment. "Look," Lazdin said, "We had made every effort, I assure you, to hire the best and frankly, we are as surprised and as disappointed as I'm sure you are-"
I had had enough. At last, I stepped up, walking over top of the teddy bear I had left on the ground. "Take that mask off your face," I demanded.

Lazdin took a step back. "Excuse me?"
"Take that mask off. Right now."
Lazdin paused, but eventually, calmly, untied the straps that held the mask on. As it parted from the flesh, I noticed first a stain of pink on the mask, and then the lips that were behind, lipstick still fresh but smeared slightly by the surgical mask while it had been on. Lazdin removed the glasses, as well, and I could see suddenly that I was not looking at an enigma but a woman, one who appeared almost as angry as I felt.
"Are you happy?" She asked.

I watched her eyebrows, curving up, inquisitive, frustrated, on edge. A tiny wrinkle on her forehead. Her lips pursed a little bit, almost anticipating words aimed right at them. And yet, no words came from my mouth. I couldn't. All of a sudden, I couldn't. "I -"
"We're dismissing with pleasantries, yes?" she asked, pulling her gloves off with angry snaps.
"No," I started to say.
"I don't even have any obligation to speak with you, legal or otherwise. You don't exist," she said, turning away. "Bertrand, the camera, before this teddy bear burns up." She turned away.
"Wait," I said.
"What?"
I didn't know what. I didn't understand anything anymore. Why was she on my lawn? Why was there a teddy bear blasted through with a lead slug? Why were there thousands of dead? Why couldn't I speak?
Why.
Why?
"Why?" I asked.
She was seething, I could tell, looking at me first, then for Bertrand and his camera. She looked back at me, and tapped her glasses on a manicured hand.
"What's your name?" she asked me at last.
"Carter," I managed.
"Well, Carter," she said, reaching inside her jacket, "Listen up." To my horror, she drew a handgun from inside of her blazer. I saw the black of the gun grace by a set of silver fingernails. "This town is full of seven-point-six-two millimeter rifle rounds," she said, cocking the pistol with a loud clack. I watched her hands, silver nails and all, point the gun at a spot somewhere between my eyes, right at the bridge of my nose. "Every time I have to fuck up this perfect harmony with a schoolboy nine-millimeter round from this pistol, we lose authenticity. And that's our business, authenticity."

I was looking right down the barrel of a handgun that by all means was ready to kill me. The sun made it down the maw of the weapon, and I could see the little rifling grooves that'd spin the bullet before it came out of the gun and drilled a hole in my forehead.
"It's not my business to get my own hands dirty and bloody cleaning up live ones when we're making a war park, but goddamn it," she swore, "I do my job and it's a good job, every time. Besides, I get another ten grand for clean-up pay," she said, and a crooked smile made it across her lips.

My knees went weak. I sank to the ground, I had no control over my legs. I looked up at her and those arching eyebrows and asked for a reason, asked without words. Asked for mercy.

"Just realize it'll be better for your kids," she said, and put the pad of her index finger on the trigger.
"I don't have kids," I breathed. I didn't know what else to say.
"You don't have kids?"
"No," I said, looking down at the ground.
"Brothers, sisters?"
"No."
"Nobody that might receive insurance benefits?"
I felt confused. I looked back up at her. "No, I don't -"
"You're serious."
I nodded.
The gun disappeared. "Bertrand? Shit."
I didn't know where to go. Did I get up? I felt like clutching the teddy bear. The sun was starting to warm the town, and I was getting uncomfortably hot.
"Where's our legal guy?" Lazdin asked, putting her sunglasses back on. "No directs, no easy payout, this is such a mess -" she pulled out a cellular phone. My hand unconsciously went for the teddy bear. She saw. "Don't touch that, I said! And you stay here until I get back with legal. Bertrand!"

I collapsed, falling down next to the teddy bear, ultimately unable to comprehend. A camera shutter fired from somewhere.
"Gawd, that's incredible," a male voice said. Curly hair, a photojournalist's vest, a camera with a telescopic God-lens pointed right at me and the bear. "Like being back in the cradle, yeah? Promotion city, gawd-" Two more clicks. "Jesus, look over there -" He was gone.

It was only then, after the memory of Jess and her lipstick mask, the gun, the screams, the silence, the billions of bullets, that I heard the helicopters coming. When I finally had the strength to look up, I saw them, twin-rotor beasts with tanks underslung, pregnant bombs, hulks of scrap trucks, all flying toward us. The chup-chup of the rotors washed into a long drawn out hum that came from every angle, punctuated by bursts of earth-shock as the choppers let go of the tanks, dropping them onto roads, lawns, and other vehicles.

A final pair of helicopters, different from the rest, rose from the west, over the hills, carrying a slab of something. It was mammoth, grand, larger than any single object I had ever seen, and yet the choppers were exhibiting no strain or stress in managing the load. Their rotors screamed out a higher, acrid tone of business, and they proudly turned toward the highest building pointed out over the water, ascending to just clear the top with their payload, and as they did, slowing to a stop to hover over the building, the sun caught the face of the slab, and I was able to read the words that reflected bright yellow in colors to rival the sun.

AMERICAN COMBAT ADVENTURE
EXPERIENCE WARFARE!
OPENING SPRING 2006
A MILLENIUM ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTION