Lieutenant Kyle Maes took a drag of his cigarette and stared into the night. It was pitch black outside, and the sky was dotted with thousands of stars.
A bright light suddenly blossomed into existence, illuminating the man’s face and the dirt trench he stood in. An enemy rocket had been intercepted by one of his military’s own, detonating high above the battlefield. The resulting ball of fire hung in midair for a brief moment, before fading away into the darkness.
“Got a light?” A gruff voice asked from behind the man. Maes turned his head slightly, acknowledging the the figure of Sergeant Erik Holwuff. “Sure thing,” He fished around in a pocket before pulling out his cigarette lighter and handing it to the soldier.
“Much obliged, Lieutenant,” the soldier said, lighting the wooden pipe in his mouth. “Nice night out, eh?” He stared up at the sky, taking in the same view as Maes. “Don’t know why they’ve got us out here though.”
Maes sniffed slightly. “I don’t know why either. When you have an invincible army, it doesn’t really make sense why they need to station so many of us halfway around the world.”
The older man behind him chuckled. “Invincible… it’s a beautiful word. Who would have thought that we could drive back the entire KRS force, without losing a single man of our own? Shows you that the U. S. of A. is truly a force to be reckoned with,” There was another distant explosion and flash of light.
“I’m grateful for it,” Maes said. He tossed the cigarette butt to the ground, stomping it into the mud beneath his feet. “I’ve got a family waiting back home for me. My wife Miranda and my two kids. I miss them like crazy. Want to see them?”
Holwuff tilted his head and nodded. “Sure, why not.”
The lieutenant reached up to the back of base of his neck and tapped the flat side of his NeuraCell, the small black device embedded in his skin. The was a slight tingling sensation as he shared several photos with the sergeant, wirelessly transferring the files to the other man’s device.
The older man blinked as the images scrolled across his cornea. He smiled. “You have a beautiful fam-”
Before he could finish the sentence, a stray rocket fell from the sky, embedding itself in the wall of the trench. Both men had barely registered what had happened when it detonated, killing them instantly.
A short while later, a squad of military personnel arrived at the scene. All of the figures were dressed in black, with similarly-colored oxygen masks covering their faces.
There was a large crater where the two men had been. Both bodies were laying at the bottom, mangled and torn, laying in a pool of their own blood.
“Looks like we’ve got two of them, a… Lieutenant Maes and Sergeant Holwuff, according to their NeuraCell IDs,” said one of the figures. “Orders, sir?”
The figure at the front of the group shook his head. “Standard John Doe Protocol. Spray the bodies, have them wiped from the NeuralNet. No traces.”
The first speaker nodded, then gestured at the rest of the figures toward the crater. They made quick work of the area, spraying the corpses with a chemical agent that quickly dissolved the tissue and bone until what was left of the men had melted into the ground.
A complete deletion of the online records erased all traces of the mens’ existence. Soon, the only remains of either one was the now-red soil they once had stood on, a colorful dot of death in a bleak landscape of war.
Miranda Maes awoke suddenly that next morning. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, only the unsettling feeling of a fleeting dream. She’d been dreaming about… her husband? But she wasn’t married, she’d never been married.
The remnants of the dream quickly faded. She got up, quickly got dressed, and headed downstairs. Her son and and daughter were sitting in front of the TV, watching cartoons.
Why did she have children? Miranda’s brain struggled for an answer. Oh, right. She had adopted them several years ago. As the newly-created memory settled in her head, she chided herself for having forgot that.
She picked up a framed picture and smiled. It was of her and her children posing for a family portrait. They looked so happy together. As she admired it her brain completely ignored the empty space next to where she stood in the picture.
There was an ad on the TV, loud enough to distract Miranda. She looked up. It was for the U.S. Army.
Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? The opportunity to serve your nation in history’s first invincible military? To see the world and fight to protect your freedom and the freedoms of others? Plus, receive the benefits of tuition reimbursement! A complete health plan! And the honor and glory of fighting alongside this country’s finest. Join the invincible U.S. Army today, and see why we haven’t lost a single soldier!
This ad brought to you by the U.S. Army and Manfred-Kiyoshi Media.
A soldier. There was a flicker of a memory in the corner of Miranda’s mind; a face, for a split second, that she could almost picture. She gave a slight wince as she felt a slight pain in the back of her head, right where the NeuraCell was. The pain quickly disappeared, and with it, the last pieces of the memory she’d tried so hard to remember.
Why couldn’t she remember?
No one ever did.
ctrl.alt.dystopia 