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"Sure.""Heard your boys tried to frag that jerk-off Lieut. How'd it go?"
"A real Mongolian cluster-fuck. See, I laid down some mines on a trail in the border of our sector. Passed the word to Section Leader White, so he'd keep his bunch off it, and I made it obvious enough that the old hands 'd spot it right off. Some Brazilian boot tracks on the path, a dropped pack of cigs, real obvious stuff that no pros would leave behind. Yunno, crap a ROT-Cee'd usually fall for.""Quit bogarting and pass that thing. So what happened?"
"Like I said, total cluster-fuck. Ignorant new hand, Pvt. Joplin comes boppin' down the trail, ahead of the frag-ee. Puts one foot on one of the mines, blows half her toes off, and starts screaming murder and fire. Then one of the Rot-Cee's pals comes up and he steps on a mine, and then one of the other guys who shoulda known the frag was happenin' unslings his AR to finish him off, and he steps back into a mine and buys it too.""Fucking Christ."
"Yeah, so the Rot-Cee finally rounds the bend in the trail and sees all this, and I guess he's not quite dumb enough to fall for it. Guess he can tell a land mine, even if he's not smart enough to disarm them.""Maybe your guys unslinging their weapons in his general direction had somethin' to do with it?"
"Oh, yeah, could have been. Anyway, he took off running off-trail through the j-bush. Dropped his rifle so he could run faster, but at least that way he made it out of range.""And the Indios or the 'Zilians gonna run into him sooner or later, and he's got no gun."
"Too fash.""So you gonna wait for them to send you a new ROT-Cee?"
"Fuck no. We're on the edge of the Deep Country here, you know what I mean?""Yeah, I heard some stories."
"We been talking to some of the Indios -- they're pretty friendly if you catch 'em right. We boosted a bunch of arms from base, and we makin' a deal with the Yano's -- they come pick up the mines, put the casuals's heads on spears if they want'em. We trade 'em some extra guns -- the Lieut's, and some we boosted -- so they can fight the 'Zilians. They take us to the edge of the swamp, and give us a guide. Come moonrise tonight, we sniff that Yopo they got and drink the drink, and we dance right through the trails and the phase shifts. We'll be at the Black City by sundown the next day.""You really gonna try it?"
"
Fuck yeah. There's a whole world in there. We got guns, drugs, some food, what we need -- dahzit. Look, you know who's in my squad, right? You get a chance to send any messages state-side, pass it on to their families, OK? Tell 'em we were headed Inward.""Will do. Lucks?"
"Lucks."-- Pope C
Genevieve Williams, then posting as Janis Joplin, was new to t.b and its evil ways (though starting to post good things.) She walked right into a particularly offensive misc.test trap which I'd set for Jeff Witty. I emailed her and apologized profusely. Then it occurred to me it just had to be a real story.
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