The crowd was stunned into silence for a moment, then surged forward as one.

Looking back, I don't think there was anything personal about it. They'd just had a taste of hope, and hope makes you stupid. Still, when that mass of stupid flesh crushed me into the gate, I wanted bullets to push back. Without a working megaphone, all the USPF could do was yell and wave their rifles, but nobody gave a shit.

'Warning shots?' I was close enough to hear one of the guards say.

Mashed against the chain-link, I couldn't move my arms, but looking down saw my ID cards under someone's foot. A young blonde woman, smartly dressed, with makeup starting to run under sweat and tears. I tried to make her understand, I really did, but all she could focus on was the pressure of the crowd and wouldn't stop screaming.

'Negative,' the guard's CO shot back. 'Get the shit sprayer!'

I braced myself against the gate, surged back, and in that second of breathing room smashed my fist into the woman's face. That one action turned the crowd. Half of them wanted my blood, but for the other half it was like I'd let their nastiest instincts out to play. All I cared about was that it let me stamp down on the ID cards and flick them under the gate.

It was hopeless. The crowd drowned out anything I could shout at the guards, and my arms were pinned again. Fights had broken out, with more than one punch finding the back of my head. By that point, they may as well have been a massage. I was too numb to feel anything anymore. The guards had wheeled up a water cannon, and I knew my day was about to get much worse.

Being friends with a DC guard had allowed me to experience 'Musk' once before, and left me with nothing but the desperate hope I'd never experience it again.

I took a deep breath and knotted my fingers into the chain-link.

'Cut the cheese!' the CO yelled.

A jet of cold, cloying liquid washed over us. For a split second, my brain registered it as refreshing, then my nose caught up. I gagged, turned my head away. Tried to ignore the air burning in my chest. The crowd broke into huddled, retching figures, shoving and trampling each other. Some lashed out like they were fighting for their lives. You could power through Musk, but not without good reason, and never the first time.

I took a breath before my lungs exploded.

Now, bear in mind, the country already stank. Which means Musk had to be extra foul. What reached down my throat was an open sewer; rotting meat and stagnant water; clothes lived in for years; something so noxious and foul that it had to be poison. I wish I could say it was an iron will that kept me stuck to that fence, but muscle spasm was more likely. I coughed so hard my head pounded, and the world dissolved into a watery haze.

'Hey, congrats buddy. You made it through. Here's your reward.'

I turned, seeing the blur of a guard raising his rifle butt, then was smashed unconscious with professional ease.

.

o0o

.

I was expecting a thunder-burst of pain to be wake me up, but came round to the feeling of cottony numbness. Fluorescent lights snapped at my eyes, so I concentrated on other senses. The mattress was good enough to sleep but not linger on. Government comfortable, as my co-worker Louis might say. Faint smell of antiseptic and I could hear the murmur of a PA system in the distance. My arm felt like it was caught on something, so I squinted down and found it connected to an IV drip next to the bed.

All of it seemed oddly distant, like I was watching or listening to a recording.

I tried to speak and almost choked, which at least caused the medic to appear.

Couldn't remember his name, but from my introduction to Firebase One I knew he was a hard-ass. Adjusting the bed so I was sitting up, he popped a couple of pills in my mouth, tilted water down my throat, and said 'You are one sorry looking son of a bitch.'

'I want a second opinion,' I croaked.

He snorted, producing a pen-light and shining it into my eyes. This close to me, his white crew-cut caught the fluorescents like a halo. 'You've got a concussion, most likely. Normally, I'd pack you off to the hospital for a CT scan, but things aren't normal. Can't offer you much rest, either. Malloy is losing his shit at the network being down, so he'll want you on it ASAP. I'll check on you when I can, if things aren't too bad here.'

I nodded to the water and he gave me another drink.

'Any good news?'

He ignored that. 'Bad bruising all over your body, so you'll be walking like you've shit your pants for the next few days. You also have heatstroke and some of the worst sunburn I've seen in a while. The saline drip should take care of your dehydration, and the co-codamol I've given will help with any pain. There's a bottle of moisturizer on the side, take it when you go and keep your skin from turning into parchment.'

I finally spied the name-tag on his fatigues, "Miller", as he looked at me and sighed.

'What the hell were you thinking walking here? Without even any sunscreen?'

'I wasn't thinking,' I said, and those words brought the sheer stupidity of the past forty-eight hours into sharp focus.

Miller disconnected the drip, removed the catheter from my arm, and taped a cotton ball over the puncture wound in one smooth set of motions. 'Doubt you were. Psychological shock, most likely. Should've seen how relieved everyone in here was when the power came back on. Embarrassing. Ask me, all we've done is buy some time.'

I lifted the blankets, looking down at a medical smock. 'My clothes?'

He gave a hoarse chuckle. 'Are covered in Musk. I can try and get them back before they hit the incinerator, if you'd like?'

'I'll pass.'

'There's some clothes on the seat next to your bed. Standard USPF uniform, and I have to help you into it. So I guess neither of us is happy.'

After Miller bent and shoved me into the uniform, he handed me a container of pills; the moisturizer; a steel walking stick; my recovered ID cards; and a pair of chunky plastic sunglasses. Thankfully the one thing USPF fatigues weren't short of was pockets.

'You'll have problems with bright lights and noises for the next few days. Wear those whenever you can. These are more co-codamol. Take two every four hours as you need them. Don't just nod. Say it back to me.'

'Two every four hours as I need them,' I repeated.

'Oh, and maybe you could explain this.'

Miller showed me the plastic vial of cocaine.

My stomach dropped `till it was level with my balls. I held up a hand as if he already had a gun on me. 'It's..uh..'

'Immediate deportation is what it is,' Miller said, glaring at me. 'So explain.'

'I found it on the way here. In the glove-box of some rich guy's car. I…I didn't know what I'd find when I got to the DC. Had no idea we'd actually have power. So I took it for barter.'

He said nothing, kept staring.

'I'm a network tech, for fuck's sake!' I blurted. 'What the hell else was I going to trade out there?'

Miller took my defense and silently turned it over. Scrutinized it in a way that hurt more than anything I'd felt that day. He looked me up and down like a farmer assessing livestock, and I really did feel the world was destined to break me in half. Miller must've felt so too, as he slowly lifted his hand off the butt of his pistol, balled it into a fist, and somehow resisting driving that fist into my face.

'We agree on one thing,' he said, with the taut calm that only comes when you're really angry. 'That soon enough all your smarts might not count for shit. Take it. I never saw it.'

Miller held the vial out, and as I was taking it said: 'Thank me and I'll break your neck.'

I shut my mouth, nodded, then turned and limped to the door. 'One more thing.'

He looked ready to break my neck regardless, 'Jesus, what now?'

'Can I use the VR interface?'

He was thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head. 'I wouldn't recommend it.'

'And if Malloy insists?'

Miller gave a humorless smile. 'Anyone would think you just started working here. I said I wouldn't recommend it, not that you shouldn't do it.'