"Go toss your ugly, rotten carcass in an incinerator"

Mark Levin, Lance Corporal of the UEM Marines, whooped with mirth as several more of the odd burrs fell away. Whoever planned this prank was a genius! Platoon Six-Two had its share of troublemakers and self-proclaimed comedians, but never something this well planned or executed... or nearly this fun. Of course, he owed the perpetrator a beating for it - malicious and mid-shift to boot - but maybe he'd limit it to a light beating, since he hadn't been this amused since... well, since joining the Marines.

It would've had to be someone in engineering. The way his suit had malfunctioned... Mark hadn't seen anything like it - all readouts green, everything active, generator purring, no shorts, no problems, but the suit just wouldn't move! The computer was convinced the armor was fine, but it might as well have flared out - A PAS-227 "Hoplite" was just a half-ton of titanium and wiring if it didn't want to move for the soldier inside, and his comms system was just as unresponsive. He'd had to climb out and proceed on foot, trekking through the woods like a rookie at boot, aiming for the Beimeni military compound near Tallahassee.

It had been so long since he'd trekked bare that he'd forgotten a lot of the natural hazards of the forest - for instance, the patch of burrs he'd stumbled into. What a pain! They'd latched on like piranhas, stinging his skin even through his jumpsuit, and no matter how he clawed at them, they wouldn't come off! He finally fought his way out of the burr patch and spent several minutes picking at the ones on his skin, but his only reward was cuts on his fingers. The stinging cut through his patience quickly, and he started cursing...

...and each time he did, a burr fell off!

Getting the rest of them off was quick and fun. Mark discovered quickly enough that once he used a line, it wouldn't work again, so he'd started rattling off some of the better quotes from around the base, with some of the better curses getting two or three burrs off at once. Someone had put a lot of work into the little things - probably microcomputers, with sound recognition and networking. Curse burrs, he called them, laughing up a storm at the idea. Someone could make a lot of money in the gag market with them.

He looked at the last burr on his arm, shook his head. "Screw you," he said with a grin, and watched it fall, defeated and deactivated, to the ground. Then he shoulderd his emergency pack and continued his walk through the forest, determined not to fall into another trap so easily.


Mark had left his suit behind around midday, and it was edging on evening when he finally found a path. The day had been mostly quiet, and he'd spent most of the march contemplating how the phantom prankster had managed to confuse a computer into thinking that clearly malfunctioning armor was still in perfect working order. It was no mean feat - the security systems were top-notch and absolutely noone but the head tech specialist and his assistant was allowed access. Mark was certain neither of them had planned this, since neither of them had the slightest sense of humor.

He hadn't been taking more than a passing notice of the flora around him, so it came as an awful surprise when, walking along the newfound path, he came upon a small and often-used campsite centered around a small tree which appeared to be budding... pies.

Pies?

He stared at it in confusion for several moments, the majority of his brain puzzling over the idea of pies growing on a tree while a smaller portion noted that the tree was budding, even though it was the middle of fall. This mild shock lasted until the wind shifted, and brought the scent of fresh-baked fruit pies to his nostrils, at which point his stomach decided the brain was taking far too long to comprehend the situation and took executive control of the rest of the body.

Nightfall found Mark sitting with his back against a tree, checking over his blaster, his stomach full of apple pie and his mind abuzz with the odd events of the day. His conviction in the idea that it was all a prank was somewhat shaken - no genetic engineering program he'd ever heard of had planned to, or even could, create a tree that grew pies... especially not ones that tasted almost exactly like the ones his grandmother made. There had to be a rational explanation somewhere, but it was better at hiding than Mark was at being seeker.

Of course, Mark reflected, it didn't matter - tomorrow would find him at Beimeni, and he'd be able to get answers. Maybe he'd stumbled upon some top secret genetic experiments, or something of that nature. It wouldn't be the first time the American Protectorate had lied about its research goals.

Suddenly, a nasty thought struck him - how in the world would he explain pie trees to his sergeant?

As the night progressed, Mark finally calmed his mind enough to slip into an uneasy sleep, filled with strange nightmares of being stuck in immobile armor while his sergeant yelled at him for eating pie, the rant causing curse burrs to fall off the sergeant's body in droves.


Mark woke before sunup. After three years in the military, that was one habit that was hard to break; even on leave, even after staying up past midnight to hang out with friends, he'd always woken up at five in the morning. This particular morning felt a lot like his mornings during that particular leave - his mind still foggy from sleepiness, and his body moving sluggishly. He pulled a bottle of water from his pack and drank half of it, then splashed the rest on his face, the cold liquid bringing him from the realm of half-sleep to that of nearly-awake. He wished, not for the first time, that he could override his habits and get just a couple more hours of shut-eye.

Still, despite his desire to get more rest, Mark was rather glad he'd woken up the same time as usual - he always enjoyed watching the sunrise, and there was a little hill not far down the path where he'd have a nice vantage point. He might even be able to see Beimeni from there.

After his morning exercises, Mark picked out a cherry pie (which, in complete defiance of the second law of thermodynamics, was warm in the crisp morning air), and jogged toward the hill to watch the sky. The horizon was still dark, which puzzled Mark slightly - the first glow of morning should have been visible by now. Maybe he'd woken up earlier than he thought?

As he looked down to glance at his watch, a massive, deafening ripping sound rolled over him, causing the entire earth to shake! He leapt to his feet and looked up at the sky, expecting to see enemy bombers - and gazed, dumbstruck, at the scene before him.

From the horizon the the apex of the sky, a huge, jagged crack ripped the night in half. Through it, the warm light of morning speared out over the forest, and the rising sun peered over the horizon. Even as Mark watched, the crack widened and spread, and within moments, the dark night sky had dissappeared past the horizon, leaving the morning behind.

A single thought bobbed to the surface of Mark's mind, floating atop the confusion.

The crack of dawn...