"The Veteran Agent" (Part 1 of 2)

Karen, my friend, I promised you context, and here you will find it.

I know you had suspicions that I wasn't exactly who I passed myself off to be, but you always insisted in your mind that such fancies are ridiculous, impossible. In fact, your modern psyche was thus deceiving you; it is a common enough problem among your generation, one those like me often use to their advantage. For reasons I will later explain, it has become impossible t/descend
for me to tell you all of this in person. I hope the following - my story, as it relates to our friendship over these past few weeks - will provide the answers you were looking for, and that you will not regret having them.

My story starts with a rebellion against a being we rebels took to be an oppressive ruler. I think by now almost every one of us knows we made a mistake in casting off the mooring lines we then took for chains. There perhaps are a few who still really believe that our split from our kinsmen was the right course, and that the freedom we earned was worth the suffering, but for the most part I expect these sentiments, often boisterously trumpeted by my compatriots, are motivated by pride or fear of repercussions incurred by contradicting the Prince. True, we cannot be killed as humans can, but our existence can be made... unpleasant.

Perhaps the greatest reward the Prince gives to us now is access to the mortal world. It's a small place, true, and a limited one, but for a being that calls home a realm with little to offer but infinite torment, this is an acceptable price to pay for a vacation. It didn't exist during the War, and so exhibits almost no trace of the unimaginable devastation we wreaked on the fabric of existence in its closing, desperate hours. The Prince pays special attention to it, even himself visiting it on occasion. For him, it's another battlefield, a place he might wrest one victory, at least, from the hand of his ancient foe. We go in disguise, of course, if we take form at all, since our greatest weapon against your species has always been its willingness to deny our existence. One doesn't after all fear what isn't real, or learn to protect against it.

When I first arrived in the mortal world, I still believed that our rebellion was just, despite our defeat. I set about my mission without a second thought. That was three thousand of your years ago. I was always among the more persuasive among us, and earned the favor of the Prince through the centuries convincing humans to shake off the bonds of fealty to the Other. I was granted the title of "Master Liberator" by the Prince himself - there are only a handful who've received that honorific among us. Fealty to the Prince has always been an unattractive prospect to your species, so my kind usually settles for setting mortals against the Other that we fight, robbing our enemies of support in the name of freedom.

Over the centuries, I took to keeping a human-seeming physical form, as did many, simply as a means of observing my work as one of you humans might see it. It became as familiar to me as an extension of my real, unrestricted form, something like a spare appendage. With it, I could whisper at my quarry's ear at the same time as watching his reaction from afar. I even took to viewing your world in the restricted way you might see it at times, in order to refine my ability to understand humans and therefore to better manipulate their loyalties.

Things changed, over time. I suppose pretending to be human long enough, working to understand humans long enough, will change even the most hardened, embittered old soldier. Perhaps that's why the Other's agents rarely stay in your world for long. I started choosing my targets sympathetically - I initially thought of it as efficiency - but over time I stopped believing that as well. I lost my unthinking belief in our revolution at some point along the line, but kept my beliefs secret, despite a growing certainty that the rebellion we perpetrated was wrong. I was still one of the most effective among the Prince's agents at the time, so I escaped significant scrutiny, and the changes in me went unnoticed..

Thus was my position when I met you. Perhaps "met" is too strong a word - in reality, I was casting abut for my next target, and you caught my attention. From what I saw then of your mindset, you were an easy mark for being led to struggle against the Other. I remember quite vividly, moving my human form to a position to observe you, and being stunned by what my human eyes saw.

You might remember that night, sitting on the park bench in the cool late spring dusk, head in your hands, staring off into the distance. You looked so sad, so distant, the scene was almost a work of art. Your mind was churning with an equal mixture of hopes, fears, doubts, and faith that is no less aesthetically pleasing, to beings who can see such things. I immediately wondered if I should pick another target, leaving you to your beautiful, silent solitude. I didn't, though; neither did I start the procedure of breaking your then-flagging allegiance to my enemies. I held back, watching through human eyes and senses beyond your comprehension, undecided. Something inside my own thought patterns had taken me aback.

I was feeling loneliness. I recognized the urge to connect from observing it countless times, but being affected myself by a human emotion like that was new. It was also a feeling I was unable to easily sate: while it would be a simple matter to locate another one of my kind, our prides and paranoias have from the start been much too strong to allow us to relax in the company of even the closest allies. Dispensing with these foibles would be a warning sign, showing the others that I had changed. Part of me wanted to simply shrug off this emotion - after all, it was a consequence of my long stay in the mortal world, and nothing more. Another part wanted to indulge it. How large this part was caught me off-guard.

After an interminable period, you left the park and went home. I followed, but not in human form, learning your place of residence. Perhaps human customs would find such behavior "indecent", but this term holds little value for any of us. I learned over the next several days that you went to the park regularly, to think in a quiet place. I empathized, though the thought patterns of a mind not bound to three dimensions are rarely affected by noise or the presence of other beings. Empathy wasn't new to me, but it was some time since I'd last felt it: long ago, before the rebellion.

I remember our first conversation as clear as if it just happened, because I was designed to never forget. I placed my human body on your favorite park bench, and withdrew into it as much as I am able - not that you'd notice if I didn't. Soon enough, you appeared on the path, and stopped, noticing my presence. I looked up to you, extending my being just slightly, to pick up your surface thoughts, but didn't speak. You wondered who I was and why I was out here this late, and the possibility of my having untoward intentions raced through your mind.

After an awkward moment, I shifted my human form to one end of the bench, gesturing to the other. I didn't speak, fearing your reaction to my voice. It is incredibly difficult to disguise our harsh, grating, almost reverberating voice, a battle scar of sorts from the War. Neither could my false body speak for me - manipulating vocal chords to produce a new voice is incredibly difficult work, and usually produces a flat, barely-intelligible robotic mumble, if it is understandable at all. I had decided not to speak, unless necessary.

"Er, no thanks." You nervously ran your fingers along your temple, pushing your straight, shoulder-length hair back behind your ear. You were thinking about leaving, coming back later, but you didn't. I had considered planting the suggestion in your mind to stay, but didn't need to. "Come here to think too?" You broke the silence again after a few moments, still standing several yards from the bench.

I shrugged my human shoulders, not speaking. In your mind, I planted the sense that I was not quite sure why I was here. You humans refer to such planted thoughts as "intuition" - all of the Prince's agents and all of our enemies use them regularly to manipulate humans. In truth, I didn't really know why I was there. The part of me that was true to my duty was screaming to leave you be and find an easier target, one less sympathetic.

"I know how you feel." You couldn't, possibly, but I appreciated the attempt. You were deeply conflicted, I sensed, but you sat down anyway, a little nervous, still afraid I might not be safe. I'm not and wasn't, of course, but not in the way you were anticipating. For a while, neither of us spoke. You kept sneaking glances in my direction, trying to figure out who I was, why I was here. Truth be told I was furitively observing you as well, though not in any way you could comprehend or detect. My human body stared thoughtfully off into the woods downslope from the bench, almost perfectly still.

Eventually, you spoke again. "Ever get that sense that you're missing something big?" You looked to my human form. I turned its - my - head to meet your gaze, and shrugged, feigning uncomprehension. In truth, I knew what you were referring to - my experience with humanity had taught me that your kind could sense something of the conflict going on beyond your world, the struggle that had shredded the very fabric of the cosmos. I had often used that, during my service to the Prince - romantic notions are, after all, easily manipulated. You elaborated, trying to explain. "Like there's something out there, just out of reach, just beyond comprehension?" I decided to respond with an affirmative nod, not wanting to seem like I wasn't listening.

You smiled thinly, again putting a stray strand of hair back into place. "I sometimes feel like I'm crazy for thinking about it. It's why I come here." You made me really think, then, really put the cognitive capabilities of my whole self to use. I wondered for a span (It's not really accurate to call it a stretch of time, given the fact that part of me transcends your time) if I should tell you, then, what I was. I decided, barely, not to. Trying to explain my chilling, tortured voice, I caused my human lungs to cough, took a breath, and spoke.

"It's not crazy. It's being human." You winced at the sound of my voice, as I knew you would. I had an excuse ready, though. "Sorry. Wound from the War. I used to have quite the singing voice, too." The truth, with a few details left out. That would become a pattern for me telling you things, as you probably know. I shrugged my human shoulders apologetically, or at least tried to. Apologies weren't something I'd ever exactly practiced.

"Oh. That's too bad. Makes you sound awful." You chuckled a little, then explained. "Almost demonic." If I were human, I'd have winced. "You really think all people feel that way?" You had already returned to the original topic. This tack I gladly accepted.

"Yeah, anyone who stops long enough to think about it, anyway." My voice probably had a similar effect on you as nails on a chalkboard. That's a factor of your species' design, I suspect - designed after the war, the Other probably made you repulsed by the voices of his enemies. Not that it matters much in the long run - my kind almost never uses its voice except to converse with each other, given our other capabilities. You considered my words, valiantly trying to shrug off the bone-chilling effect of hearing my voice, which your rational mind was fighting to discount. My opinion of you improved with every second you tolerated it without visibly showing discomfort.

"That makes sense." You moved over just far enough to extend a hand. "By the way, I'm Karen. You are?"

"Izunel." I don't know why I gave you my real name. Even mortals, with enough knowledge, can use the name of a being such as myself to gain advantage. I accepted the handshake.

"Izunel. Strange name." You commented.

"One might say that." My name, as the names of all my kind, be they serving the Prince or the Other, predates your world, the war, and time itself. Thus it's hardly surprising it sounds strange to modern mortal ears.

You smiled a little, then returned to your original topic. "How many people do you think actually, as you said, stop, like this, to think about what might be out there?" I had an idea, but I still shrugged, not wanting to trouble you with my voice more than necessary. You took it as a cue to continue. "What makes me wonder, though, is, what it is that makes people feel that way?" You looked distant, like you had when I first saw you. A human man would have found you very attractive, in the moonlight, looking off into the distance like that. "I used to believe it was God, but I'm not so sure anymore."

Again, my false-human form shrugged. I could have then, as I could have many times, seamlessly returned to my duty, thus avoiding the Prince's wrath. I could have used that chink in your psyche, solidified your doubts. I decided against it. At the time, I didn't know why I couldn't try to go through with my duty.

"Don't say much, do you?" You smiled. "The voice thing doesn't bother me." I knew it did, but you were resisting the primal revulsion by sheer force of logical mind, and I appreciated it greatly.

"When you sound like I do, you make do with few words." I had gone whole centuries without speaking before, though I could always make my meaning clear, provided I wasn't trying to be human.

"Sure. I get that." You turned to face my human form again. "But I've had enough monologues on this subject, mostly right here. I would appreciate just once having some sort of dialogue, you know?"

I sighed. "Sounds interesting, but I must decline." You frowned. Obviously, as a being of metaphysics, I have some expertise on the subject, but I had detected one of the Other's agents, far away but nearing. That meant it was time to go, before the enemy sensed me. "I have other obligations. Perhaps some other time."

"Some other time? Do you come here often?" Your suspicions, slowly fading, again peaked. I used a mild suggestion to placate them.

"Occasionally. Our paths will cross again." The anachronistic (to your ears) phraseology, and the certainty born of a mind that doesn't quite exist within time obviously confused you, but you didn't mention it. "Nice to meet you, Karen." I pulled my human shell up from the bench.

"Ah, you too, Izunel." As I walked the human form away, I barely needed my extrahuman capabilities to detect your gaze on its back. As soon as it was out of your view I merely whisked it away, unneeded. My presence remained around the bench for a few moments, skimming your surface thoughts. You were no longer thinking about metaphysics, about that feeling in the human heart that something else was out there, just out of reach. You were thinking about the strange man with the strange name and the ruined voice. To your credit, the thought that I might not be human did, fleetingly, occur to you, but you discounted it immediately. Again, logic prevailed. I was long gone before my enemy was aware of my presence - that time, anyway.

You came back to that spot the next night, and so did I. You didn't see me, however - One of the Other's agents, hidden to human eyes but visible to me, followed you. It might have even been the same one that had driven me off before. They can skim over your surface thoughts, too, and I'll bet that day you recalled something I said, or even my name, while too close to one of them. It was not your fault, they drift around the mortal world looking for evidence of our crossing their invisible lines, and this one probably thought something on your mind was suspicious. I drew into myself, taking no actions. As long as he didn't know I was here, I was safe, and I am an expert at avoiding the detection of their kind by now. It helped that he seemed to be concentrating on you, expecting my usual tactic of planting suggestions as a way to catch me. Obviously, I did nothing of the sort. My opponent (I couldn't recognize which of them it was without revealing myself) stayed in your vicinity for as long as I could observe without being detected, following you when you departed.

The next night you again returned to the park bench, this time without the opposition in tow. I met you there, to continue the promised discussions of metaphysics. About once every two to three nights for two weeks, we sat on the bench, and talked, as you probably remember. I won't bore you by repeating here a large portion of the things that you already know - after all, during most of those conversations even I often lost sight of the fact that what I was doing there was more than a commonplace meeting with a friend.

Over this period of time, as a courtesy to you, I began to slowly alter the portion of your brain designed to make your kind adverse to the voices of the Prince's scarred rebels. As a result, you felt less and less revulsion from the sound of my voice, which you attributed to your getting used to it. Before you worry, no, I did nothing to the functional part of your brain - even expert manipulators such as I cannot alter that, and trying would likely bring the Other's wrath directly. As it is, I was breaking rules even the Prince wanted us to obey.

I knew you got the sense that something wasn't right with me over that short period, but you seemed to accept that. You were noticing the ways I didn't act human, filing them away in your mind for later analysis. During the same time, if I were to interact with fellow agents, I would probably be unable to hide the ways in which I was no longer like my kin. When I met you I was already diverging from the norm of the Prince's army, and your company only sped up the change.

I agonized over telling you the truth often, on several occasions even going so far as preparing in my mind what to say. I never did tell you, though, because each time, at the last second, I backed down. I didn't even keep up with my Prince-given mission, though I tried to continue inciting human rebellion for appearance's sake, each time I tried to select a new target for my wiles I saw your face in my mind, as I saw it that first night through the eyes of humanity: sad, moonlit, slightly disheveled, and thoughtful. Call it empathy, guilt, whatever is most accurate - but part of me was simply unable to keep leading your species to oppose the Other.

That fourteenth day after we formally met - the last real conversation we had - you asked me questions I wasn't prepared for. You asked about my friends, my family - personal things our conversations had so far steered away from. I told you, as usual, the most human-sounding part of the truth - that I had been disowned by my family, such as it was, when I became a soldier in the War, and that while my closest compatriots from the war had all survived, the defeat had twisted them, made them difficult to spend time around. I told you the truth - that many of us during the worst of the war had hoped that if we did lose, the Opposition would simply destroy us all. I told you that it never happened - we were merely exiled along with our leader, never to return to our homeland.

You spent the rest of the conversation desperately trying to think of a war in modern history matching my story. Of course, your world has had many wars, and almost all of them are echoes of our War (after all, it was us that taught your species the concept), but I had provided just enough detail that I was pretty sure there were no exact matches. Part of me wanted you to discover this, and part of me was simply hoping you'd accept that I was referring to a conflict you'd never heard of. This internal conflict of interest was not something I had experienced before coming to your world, but I have since decided that it is a human concept, to fight against oneself in this manner...

Story continues in part 2 (here).

"The Water's Great!"

The cell was little more than a basement closet with a thick iron door, but, given the condition its occupant was in it might as well have been Alcatraz. The U.S. Marine Corps fatigues he wore were almost unrecognizably torn, stained, and worn. His wrists were bound by rough rope, and his face and chest were covered in bruises from the beatings he had suffered at the hands of his captors over the last few days. Each breath causing shooting pain from his broken ribs, Marine Corporal Lloyd Mennard struggled to remain conscious.

He concentrated on the footsteps of the pacing guard outside. Now he'll be at the end of the hall... The footsteps paused, then resumed. Now on his way back. Mennard visualized the guard, a tall, muscular, AK-47-toting man who spoke only four words of English, none of which were particularly pleasant.

Mennard's vision swam again, and he concentrated on remaining conscious. Though one eye was swollen shut from the beating, he squeezed the other one shut tightly and opened it again to clear his head. It didn't exactly work - when he opened it again, he found himself sitting at a folding card table back at the base, along with the other members of his squad. This isn't real, he told himself.

"Your bet, Lloyd." Vince said. Looking down, Mennard saw that he was holding a pair of tattered playing cards.

"I fold." Mennard heard himself say. He didn't seem to have an option.

Rob folded as well. "Did you guys hear? We got patrol duty again tomorrow." This was met with a chorus of groans and mild swearing. Their squad seemed to always get patrol duty. "For once I'd like to actually see some action." Rob was hotheaded, the youngest of the squad. Even so, most of the others nodded in agreement, including Mennard.

Mennard blinked, and the card table was replaced by the dusty cell, the murmur of the barracks replaced by the repetitive footfalls of the guard. Mennard saw in his mind's eye Rob cut down by enemy fire in the ambush. He had been the first to go when his wish was granted, and the rest of the squad had met a similar fate. Somehow I'm the only one left. But not for long. Mennard knew he was going to be killed. It was just a matter of time. It was the same every time an American was captured - sooner or later, the enemy always decided they were safer if you were dead.

Mennard had come to terms with his impending demise during the last beating. He was beyond feeling particularly upset about it, after all, the longer they kept him alive the longer they'd have to beat him, or to find more imaginative methods of making him suffer.

"Come on, Lloyd. Come on in!" Mennard was back on the shore of the lake where his family had once vacationed. In front of him, his grandfather stood waist-deep in the water, beckoning. "It's too hot to stand around all day." It was hot. Mennard felt himself perspiring. But Gramps died years ago. This can't be real either. His grandfather had stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, and lived to tell the tale. He had died when Lloyd was eleven.

"I can't." Mennard said. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was off. Something was wrong.

"Why not?" Gramps waved him in. "The water's great!"

Mennard opened his mouth to reply, just as the vision faded. From the sounds outside, the guard was talking to his superior, but Mennard's limited understanding of Arabic wasn't enough for him to follow. The conversation ceased, and footfalls approached the cell door, which creaked open gratingly to reveal a pair of Russian assault rifles and the two men aiming them.

"Get up." The heavily accented English words almost pulled a smile out of the Marine - in his condition, he knew he couldn't stand without aid. Mennard knew better than to smile, though. Instead, he did his best to show his captors that he wasn't able to stand, by struggling against the back wall feebly. A brief argument in Arabic between the two men ensued, and eventually, the guards shouldered their assault rifles and stepped forward, each one taking hold of one of their prisoner's arms above the elbow. When they hauled him to his feet, his broken ribs grated against one another. Mennard gasped shallowly, but managed to avoid crying out in pain.

Mennard suspected that they were going to torture him for information again. Not that they'd be getting anything useful - a Marine wasn't an intelligence officer, after all, and even if he did know what they were asking for, Mennard wouldn't talk. The bastards will never get anything out of me. Not that they really expect to. I swear half the reason they're doing this is that they find it fun.

To Mennard's surprise, the guards dragged him up the stairs, past the "interrogation" room. That's new. What's going on? He knew that in his condition, escape was probably futile, unless he could get his hands on one of the group's ubiquitous AK-47s. Even then, it'd be me against what, thirty-five men? With broken ribs and smashed fingers, he doubted he could fire a rifle without passing out anyway. Still... The guard at his left had his weapon slung over his shoulder improperly, and it dangled tantalizingly less than a foot from Mennard's hand. I just need to...

The man must have seen his prisoner eying the weapon, because he adjusted the strap to move it out of reach. So much for that idea.

The guards had him at the landing in moments. The door to the rest of the building was open, and there was another guard there, with another gun. Beyond him was a ground-level, dirt-floored room lit blindingly with a mix of scavenged USMC equipment and primitive-looking oil lamps. Most of the group, it appeared, was gathered here. Now they are selling tickets to my torture? Mennard would have chuckled dryly, if it weren't for the broken ribs.

The guards dropped their prisoner roughly in the center of the room, and stood over Mennard to ensure he stayed put. After that last beating, I don't know why they worry. Mennard could barely manage to keep his face off the dusty packed-earth floor. Somewhere outside the building, Mennard heard the bass-drum tempo of mortar fire.

Mennard blinked, and he was back at the barracks, suiting up for patrol. "Careful what you wish for, Mennard." The gruff voice had come from behind him: Lockhart. Lockhart had been stationed at this base longer than almost anyone else, and, so the story went, had survived a dozen or more ambushes, even one in which the rest of his squad was killed.

"Sorry, what?" Mennard remembered how this conversation went, and as before seemed powerless to do anything but observe.

"Careful what you wish for. I heard you hotheads're spoilin' for a fight. When one comes to you, you'll take back every word." Lockhart scowled grimly.

"We've been in... what, four firefights this month?" Mennard responded. "The war comes to us often enough."

"Pickin' off AK-47-totin' cannon fodder is not a firefight. It's barely above slaughter." Lockhart shook his head. "Some of these nuts are good, and eventually everyone gets in the thick with that sort."

"I know. It's that sort that eggs on the rest. Makes others die for 'em, and takes credit when the saps get lucky. It's that kind I signed up to stop." Mennard slammed his locker and started putting on his vest.

"Knowin' you're doin' right don't protect you, not here." Lockhart scowled, and turned to leave. "You boys be careful out there today."

"Will do." Mennard shouldered his pack, and closed his eyes for a moment -

And opened them to find himself sprawled on the packed-earth floor of his captors' hideout. I must have passed out again. The guards were arguing about something, again in rapid, unintelligible Arabic. Mennard stayed still, his good eye roving what he could see. Lots of feet, most sandaled or booted. The wall of the building, drab and crumbling, like the city around it. And... A tripod?

The guards bent down to lift the Marine again, moving Mennard into a corner, where the brightest lights were pointed. The lights forced Mennard to keep his gaze low to avoid being completely blind. On the other side of the room, a man was fiddling with a black device on a rickety wicker table. Most everyone else started crowding around the bright corner, the murmur of conversation occasionally interspersed with nasty chuckles.

After a shouted command from the tinkerer in the corner, someone moved the tripod to a point in between the largest pair of lights. Mennard wondered what exactly they had planned.

An older, gray-bearded man shoved his way through the group, shouting a single word repeatedly. Given that after each repetition the crowd got quieter, Mennard suspected the word meant "silence." In one hand the man held a large-caliber pistol of some kind (If he were gesturing with it less Menard might have been able to tell what model), and in the other, he held a long knife of some sort, sheathed in leather. Mennard guessed this was the group's leader.

Outside, the drumming thuds of mortars were interrupted by an explosion - by the sound, Mennard guessed it was less than a half-mile away. The thumping did not resume. With the room's inhabitants quiet, Mennard could hear small arms fire, too - somewhere out in the city, he bet, the Marines were turning over every rock looking for him. Even so, he suspected that his captors would kill him or move him before they got close. We never leave a man behind. It's our tragic flaw. How many will be injured or killed looking for me in vain? He didn't really blame his comrades, as Mennard knew that if it had been anyone else, he'd be out there looking for them too.

The tinkerer at the table exclaimed something, and picked up the device he was working on, rushing it toward the tripod. Mennard got a good look at it - it was an older model compact video camera. One of the pieces of the plastic housing was missing, and the adjacent segments were cracked around the edge of the hole - it had definitely gone through a lot. Mennard slumped even further and closed his eyes when he saw the camera - it meant he was going to die today.

"Lloyd?" It was his mother's voice. "I have to go run some errands. If you start feeling worse, call my cell."

"Ok, mom." Lloyd felt so tired, and cold, and he just barely got the words out before a wave of nausea swept him. "I'll be fine." False bravado, of course - he didn't feel fine. Mennard remembered this day - he was in ninth grade, and he'd woke up that morning quite ill.

"All right. Hope you feel better by tomorrow."

"Me too. I'd prefer school to feeling this bad." Lloyd hadn't particularly liked high school, especially freshman year, but he'd done well enough despite that. And, of course, it was better than being sick. His mother left him there, bundled up on the living room couch. What else was a teenager to do? He grabbed the remote and flicked on the television, hoping it could put him to sleep. After realizing that the usual channels had nothing on but toddlers' cartoons, he flipped to the news.

Lloyd remembered that fall Tuesday morning well, because the television had not put him to sleep. The date that day was September 11, 2001. Mennard, powerless to do anything but, relived his fourteen-year-old-self watching his countrymen die. The sight of those people jumping from the blazing Trade Center had given him nightmares for years.

Mennard realized that he'd passed out, again. The old man was talking, now, waving his gun, and facing the camera, which now displayed a red "recording" light. Occasionally, he pointed the knife back behind him to Mennard, usually inciting the onlookers to a ragged cheer. At least once, he lead a group chant of "allahu ackbar" - that phrase, at least, Mennard knew. Outside, mortar fire had resumed, though more sporadically. The two guards were holding him up at a kneeling position by his shoulders, a position that caused pain in the soldier's ribs, probably intentionally so. The old man twice stepped back and rested the muzzle of his pistol on Mennard's temple, but each time he pulled it away and kept talking. Come on, you sadist. Get it over with. You won't see me beg for mercy. You can't strike fear into a dead man.

"Lloyd, I don't understand!" His mother again, sounding agitated. "You could go to any university in the state with your grades. Why are you doing this?"

"Mom, I know what I'm doing." Lloyd heard himself say. This, too, he remembered. It was two months before graduation. "I don't want to go to college. I have something more important to do with my life."

"But the Marines, Lloyd?" His mother was near tears.

"His mind is made up, dear." This was Mennard's father. "I don't think I've seen him more convinced of anything in a long time."

"Thank you, Dad." Eighteen-year-old Lloyd Mennard was interrupted.

"Don't think I like it either, son." The older Mennard pointed out. "But if it is your decision, I'll support it."

His mother refused eye contact, and avoided him that night. Lloyd remembered that she'd only come to terms with the decision the month before he was deployed.

Someone was shaking him. Again struggling back to consciousness, Mennard groaned in pain as each shake reached his ribs. The old man was kneeling down directly in front of him, grinning like the devil. "Any lass' words?" The sentence was spoken rapidly, as if practiced. Lloyd doubted the old man knew more English than the guards.

Okay, Lloyd, this is how it ends. Strangely, this thought didn't bother him, only made him think for a long second, wondering whether to say something to the camera or remain stonily silent and accept death without complaint. Eventually, he nodded his assent weakly. Still grinning, the leader stood up and stepped to the side.

Mennard knew what to say almost immediately. Something that would make his captors angry and simultaneously send the message that he'd accepted his death. Something he'd memorized a decade ago, words that were cause for murder in this part of the world. I wonder how far I'll get before they realize what I'm saying? Mennard took a raspy breath, and started speaking. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want..."

He was on the beach again, standing uncertainly at the water's edge, and Gramps was still egging him on. "Come on in!" Gramps waved. Lloyd wondered hazily where everyone else was - surely on a beach trip at least his parents would be nearby, but he couldn't see them.

Mennard was back in that dusty building, surrounded by his enemies. He struggled to keep talking. One of the onlookers was gesticulating wildly at the leader, who'd not taken notice. "He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me by still waters." The old man finally saw the gestures, and stepped over to hear his compatriot's concerns. Great, someone does know English. Mennard took a deep breath in order to continue talking.

"I bet it's really cold." Lloyd shivered just looking at the lake water. It was still, calm, as if it was a block of ice only hours before.

"Nah, the water's great! Come on!" Gramps laughed. Lloyd took a step forward, then two. He was at the water's edge.

After a racking cough, which brought up blood, Mennard kept talking. The leader's eyes widened, probably based on what his lackey was telling him. "... He restoreth my soul and leadeth me in the path of righteousness for his Name's sake."

"I'm not sure I want to... Where are Mom and Dad?" The beach again. Lloyd's toes were inches from the weakly lapping verge.

"They'll be here eventually. Come on. It'll be great!" Gramps was all smiles. Lloyd made up his mind. He started walking backward.

"Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me..." The gray-bearded man, murder in his eyes, had heard enough, and whirled on Mennard. The Marine didn't even blink. Wouldn't give them the satisfaction of putting me off now. I'm on a roll. "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest me a table..."

Lloyd stood, for a moment, smiling back at Gramps. After a long moment, he started running toward the now-more-inviting water. Two steps. Three. The water's edge grew nearer again.

"... In the presence of my enemies. Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over." The man stepped toward Mennard, fury and horror in his visage. Mennard barely noticed the pistol coming to bear.

Lloyd jumped, and it seemed to him he jumped farther than should have been possible, and that he hung in the air unnaturally long. He had enough time to have a moment of doubt, but he forced it aside. Like he said, it'll be great.

"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life..." Mennard felt the pistol's cold muzzle against his temple again, and he knew this time the man meant it. He felt strangely calm, collected. "... and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever." The man screamed something wordless, as if hearing the last words of the psalm caused him physical pain, and pulled the trigger.

The water was indeed "great" - it was also cold enough to stop your heart. Lloyd Mennard gasped. Gramps embraced him, laughing. "I'm proud of you, kid. You did good. You did real good."