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Something spattered him, hard and cold, dirt, the sound of the missile strike hitting just after the debris and a wave of heat that tossed him sideways. Luke smacked the ground, the impact ringing through his knees and skinning his palms. He scrambled to stand, reflex taking over, shouting to take cover, to get away from the trucks, not that anyone could hear him, not that there was any cover to take. He couldn’t even hear himself over the screaming whistle-and-boom of finger missiles raining into the earth, each bomb tossing bodies silhouetted against ragged fireballs, and then a missile caught the nearest eighteen-wheeler, the gas tank bursting with a shocking violence that threw him down again, backward this time, the heat blistering his skin, sound fading to a ringing hum underlying the whistles-and-booms and whistles-and-booms, earth showering upward in clouds against the greasy black smoke of gasoline fires, the trucks going one at a time, bucking and jumping like rodeo bulls with broken backs, supplies bursting from them, a rain of canned food and blanket scraps and burning paper. He made it to his feet only to have something heavy hit him and drive him down again, smashing the wind from his lungs, the thing heavy and wet, and he went to shove it off and found one of his hands inside Ronnie Delgado’s remaining half of a head, what he could see of the man’s expression a strange sort of surprise, like he finally got the big joke that had been out there all along, and then Luke was crawling, someone’s boot trampling his back, another on his hand, the faint pop of gunfire all around. Men were aiming at the sky, trying to take down the drones, a ridiculous waste of ammunition given the altitude and speed they’d be flying, not to mention the fact that they’d been shielded against the EMP and so were unlikely to be damaged by bullets, and then smoke and swirling dust hid the world, and he squinted and closed his mouth and shoved out from underneath what was left of Delgado, the former national guardsman and ranch hand and comedian whose brother had been the first in their family to go to college, and he was on his feet, cough-choking, waiting for more whistle-screams and the deep ground shake that followed them, the fire and blood and smoke.

None came.

None came.

None came.

He straightened, look around. His head throbbed and vision pulsed, his hand was torn and bleeding, his back clenched, and standing took effort. In the sudden absence of explosions, mostly what he heard was the ringing in his ears, and past that, the crackle of flames from the trucks and the screams of men torn apart.

And then the voice of God, booming again across the desert:

FIRING WILL RECOMMENCE SHORTLY.

WALK AWAY.

BETTER STILL: RUN.

Luke broke into a smile. Goddamn, but Miller was right.

Something ran into his eye, and he wiped the blood away. He had to find the general. If Miller had died in the bombardment, everything would fall apart. The whole plan. Luke had proposed a hundred strategies to protect him: keeping him in the rearguard, choosing men as decoys, a team of bodyguards to throw themselves atop him. Miller had refused them all.

“When it comes,” the general had said, “I’ll take my chances like everyone else. We’ll just have to ride it out.”

“And then what?” Luke had replied.

“Then we’ll show that the emperor is naked.”

Luke pushed through men scattered and rising, past smoldering craters and burning trucks. He had to find Miller, had to, because otherwise the abnorms’ bluff would win the day—

“EPSTEIN!”

The voice wasn’t nearly so loud as God’s. But the bullhorn, backed by the full force of General Sam Miller’s lungs, still punched right through the ringing in his ears.

Luke turned, saw his old friend. The crazy sonuvabitch had climbed on top of a semi, one of those that wasn’t burning, though the trailer had taken a hit, the SUPPLIES part gone, leaving just FINEST, and a gaping hole with packaged food spilling out.

“I’M RIGHT HERE, EPSTEIN!”

Move, Luke told his legs, and they did. First a stagger-walk, then a trot, and finally a run that took him to the semi’s front bumper.

“YOU WANT A TARGET? WANT TO END THIS?”

Luke scrabbled up the hood, gripped a chrome exhaust pipe that singed his fingers, held on long enough to pull himself atop the shipping container. Miller saw him, flashed him a grim smile.

It was the same look he’d worn two days ago, when they’d made the plan. Sitting in Miller’s tent, the never-ending wind tugging at the canvas, the general had said, “Okay, strategic analysis. You command a technologically superior force with significant defensive capabilities. However, your offensive matériel is limited. You’re attacked by a large and determined enemy, and you don’t have the armaments to wear them down slowly. Simply put, you’ve only got so many bombs, because you weren’t supposed to have any at all. What do you do?”