The wires around his wrists cut into his skin, kept him awake, and glowed at night. Raccoon was still out in the hills, watching him and the others probably on an old iPad taken from one of the original species. He could just see Raccoon now, tracing the trails left by the little green dots on the screen and tapping with her chipped fingernails on the cracked console. Marty’d been wearing a heavy, lead helmet and a lead neck brace but he could still feel her tracking him and he was sure it was through the wires.

When he got to the stream he disrobed and pushed off into the cold water. It tasted metallic. The wires on his wrists were still glowing, even underwater. He tried to swim deep down and drown himself but each time he tried he floated right back up and popped out, sputtering, into the daylight.

Why didn’t you follow me? It was Scout. He saw her reflection in the water but her actual body was invisible. You could have still made it. He dunked down and tried to reach the bottom. Again, up, and coughing out the dirty water. Scout was gone but there was a white dog on shore sniffing around where he’d left his clothes. The dog bit into the cotton and dragged the pieces off. Hey! Marty shouted. HEY!

By the time he got to shore the dog was gone and there were only a few torn scraps left of his garments. He sat in the gravelly mud and scanned up and down the beach. There was one of the abandoned turrets at one end and he strode off in that direction, stark naked.

The turret was mossy stone, with the barrel of its gun aimed out over the water at the memory of enemy armadas that used to come down from Hedden. Marty pulled a rusty metal ring attached to the turret door and it swung open. There was a rush of cold smoke. Marty stepped inside but immediately the wrist wires heated to the point of burning and he shouted, RACCOON! RACCOON! Take your damn wires! But no one was in there and the door slammed shut behind him.

From outside the turret banging and scratching could be heard. The white dog walked by and sniffed the slit under the door. Finally the noise quieted down.

When it was night Raccoon came down from he hills in her Jeep. She jumped out and took an M-16 from the Jeep’s rear storage compartment. She leaned her shoulder against the wooden door. You ready, Marty? He was quiet. Ready?

She unclipped a small plastic box from her belt. She slid open its cover and pressed a red button. There was a shout from inside the turret. Then Raccoon kicked the door in. When the smoke cleared there was Marty, naked, standing still and looking at her with piercing red eyes. Wrists glowing. She aimed the M-16 at his stomach. You coming? The white dog was back and looked in at Marty.

With some karate he knocked the gun out of her hand. But the white dog leapt and tore through his supple neck. After an ugly struggle Marty lay on the floor bleeding and the dog limped away. Raccoon had her gun again and aimed it down at Marty’s temple. You coming, Marty?

She had to shoot him though in the end and she hoisted his corpse into the back of her jeep. The white dog pulled itself up into the seat beside her, licking at its wounds.

As Raccoon drove back up the hill, Marty’s eyes popped open. The electric current spiked from the wire on his wrists and he convulsed. He sat bolt upright. Raccoon looked back and their eyes locked. Marty asked: What would you like, Master?

Stahne slid into the missile compartment and pulled the titanium panel closed. Red numbers flashed by on a display directly in front of his face. There was the smell of gunpowder and Indian curry. He suspected Markil had been enjoying curry in the missile before being dragged out by the Teltas.

The timer appeared to speed up when it got to the single digits, and once it reached zero everything exploded, blowing the launcher to hell.

Why the missile never left the turret was anyone’s guess. The detonation was partial- Stahne was roasted, but alive. When the Telta creatures found him he lay face down on the burnt metal, plastic melted into his skin. The plastic had welded metal shards to his arms and legs and head, giving him the appearance of a spiked monster and as he lurched to his feet the creatures drew back.

He made it to the decontamination doors, pressed a few buttons before the burnt skin of his back was punctured by a thousand tiny arrows. The Telta creatures didn’t like anyone employed by the government and, even though he was just a Necturus worker, he qualified.

You poor dear, Maximussa cooed, gliding from the outer office in tight grey overalls as he staggered toward her, his mouth welded shut by plastic. She closed the decontamination doors with a tap of her nail before the next volley of tiny arrows tinked on the glass and clattering to the ground just outside. Lousy creatures, she hissed at them. Where are your manners?

Stahne fell, in slow motion, crashing and double-bouncing on the slick metal floor. When he landed bits and pieces of shrapnel shot off in all directions and Maximussa covered her eyes.

He was out cold for the next several hours and she carefully picked out the broken metal and plastic shards, cutting some away with an X-Acto knife. There was minimal bleeding and soon a naked slab of a government employee lay before her.

Why… he started, coming back to life.

Why did I help you? Well, darling, it’s the least I can do. After all, it was your father who developed the plans for the first manned Necturus missile launch and without him we’d all still be in the rainforest with the bamboo and the bad monkeys. Frankly, I couldn’t be more grateful to your father and your brothers, and, by extension, you.

She stood over him, watching as his eyes found hers. I’m a wreck, he said.

I know you are.

He got to his feet and she helped steady him down the hallway. I don’t know what went wrong, he said. The timer? The osphometeric?

It was me, Stahne. I stopped it, she whispered. You? he tried to pull away but she held him fast.

Yes, I didn’t want you to blow up with that bomb. I wanted you for myself. And for Russia. His bare feet slid on the metal, his skin a network of scars and gashes. He wrestled her back against the wall. I think I love you, he said. And they kissed, neither of them hearing the gunfire or the dull thumps of explosions in the distance.

When I got older living in a radiation shelter out West my mother took to visiting me. But it wasn’t my mother now, it was my mother when she was fifteen, my 1950’s mother. When she still wore makeup and had her hair done. She rapped her knuckles on my metal door and the sun burst in when I opened it. She was slight with intense eyes and coal black hair. She’d sit and play the piano while I made myself a drink, watching the radiation levels rise and fall on the various readouts. I’d offer her a soda and she’d give me an odd look, fingers still moving on the keys.

Last Tuesday when my young mother went to leave I gave her a science fiction paperback- one that I remember her reading to us when we were kids. She took it and laughed, dropping it into her leather purse. I’d never seen my mother with a purse or anything made out of leather. I guess she’d shed those things later. I closed the door gently and heard the gravel crunch under the tires of her car as she left.

When I was fifteen myself I remember waiting outside the house of my future daughter, me smoking a cigarette, hung over. I wore steel-capped boots and the same exact plaid shirt every day that I’d taken from my father’s storage in the attic. I finished a bottle of beer, set it beside the steps, and rapped on the metal door.

She wasn’t home yet so I sat and waited. Her dog, a big, fierce-looking three-headed mastiff, rested all three of its heads on my thigh and stared up at me until I scratched behind its ears.

When my adult daughter returned in a convertible with her new husband and some loud friends I lost my nerve and slunk back down the porch, crouching behind an Adirondack chair as the merry group bustled into the house.

But when I left I found myself feeling elated -just at seeing her having such a good time. I strolled down the dirt road alongside the cornfield, bobbing my head to punk rock on my headphones and thumbed a ride all the way back to the city.