The Man with the Robot Wife

Gage's Recurring Nightmare

A man marches with a group along an expansive flooded rice paddy. The sky is low and pale gray. A thin layer of misty rain coats his camouflaged clothing. Sweat traces the line of his jawbone despite the chill in the air. His thighs ring with a familiar ache. A bloated blister nags at the inside of his boot. A tingling itch rides beneath his helmet. His shoulders pinch under the weight of his gear. He is thirsty. He reaches for his canteen and discovers it half empty. He refrains from drinking. He would need the water even more later on.

The person in front of him stops and splashes down to one knee. He stops and drops to one knee in turn. The person in front of him conveys a series of hand gestures that relay possible enemy presence with no visual contact. The group takes up the best defensive position possible on the open field.

The person in front of him is still and this makes him uneasy. He reaches across his back, pulls his rifle down to his shoulder, and uses his scope to look around. The tiny spec of a bird flies through his sites, then another, and three more follow. His heart explodes against his rib cage and his veins fill with neurochemicals designed to send him into fight, flight, or freeze mode. His Marine training dictates he reacts to these chemicals not by instinct but by the orders received from his superiors.

Bubbles dance along the surface of the ankle-deep water at his left. He turns his head away from his rifle and sees a creature skitter toward him. It looks like a large metal beetle poorly constructed with tape and wires sticking out at angles.

The short pops and whistles of gunfire shatter the silence. Bang. Bang. Zip. Bang. The metal beetle stops at his feet and he sees a red light on its backside flash once--twice--BOOM! His ears ring and the gray sky turns black.

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