I spun, shocked. I thought the farm was deserted. An older lady stood there, watching me. She still looked pretty good for being forty or something, and she held a bunch of flowers in her hands.

“It’s a disguise, ma’am,” I said. True enough, and she looked too smart to believe a lie.

“Disguise for what?”

“A mission.”

She nodded, but she still stared at me. “You look hungry. Do you have time to eat? I have soup on.”

As soon as she said it, I realized I was starving. Lots of times in the trenches I went a day without eating, so I was used to it. But the last thing I’d had were those beers, and my stomach twisted when she talked about soup.

“I’d appreciate it, ma’am,” I said and followed her into the house.

She sat me down in her kitchen. The windows hadn’t been blown out back there and they were sparkly and clean, like diamonds in the sun. Those windows might just be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I sat and stared at them while she poured the soup and put the flowers in water.

We talked about stuff I didn’t have to lie about: her windows and the cold weather and how she waited in line at Oklahoma City for the beans and how sad she was that there were no more animals on her farm. Her voice was smooth and drawly, like Norwood’s. I liked it.

“How long have you been on the Crusade?” she asked.

Something about the question put a spark of alarm in me, like an icicle shoved in my gut.

I featured I’d keep to the truth as best I could to keep my story straight. “A year. I’m halfway through my tour.”

She paused, and then nodded. “You’re young to be a sniper.”

I still had the cloak on. It was cold in the kitchen, even with the windows and her stove going. I said, even though it wasn’t a question, “I learned to shoot in Boy Scouts.”

“Where are you headed?”

I figured there was no harm in telling. She was just a farm-wife or something. “Oklahoma City.” I paused, but the quiet made me nervous. “I’m going to hear General Norwood speak.”

She didn’t seem interested in that, though, because she changed the subject. “It’s been a while since you had a haircut, huh?”

I shrugged and grinned. My hair hung to my shoulders. “There’s no barbers in the trenches, ma’am.”

“Do you want one? A haircut?”

It seemed cagey. Why would she want to give me a haircut? “I...I guess so.”

“You wait here,” she said. “I’ll go get my scissors.”

She got up and started to leave the kitchen, and added over her shoulder, “You might want to take your shirt off. It’ll be easier to clean up the hair.”

I sat there for a minute, thinking, but I couldn’t feature a hitch with letting her cut my hair. It would make me blend better with the Crusaders, anyway. Most of them kept their hair really short. So I pulled off my cloak and my t-shirt and my armor and dropped them in a pile on the floor.

It was pretty cold sitting there with no shirt on, but she came back and started right away. She even brought a little mirror. She cut it as short as they did at Basic. I stared at myself in the mirror while she brushed all the hair from my neck and shoulders and back. I felt like a different person.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now you look like a proper Crusader.”

She left to put the scissors away. I got dressed again and waited for the tingly feeling from her fingers to go away.

“Thanks for the meal,” I said when she got back. “And the haircut.”

She walked me out to the GI-Tran and I got in.

“You know,” she said, and I waited. “My son died two years ago in the trenches near Kansas City. He had just turned nineteen.”

I stared at my steering grip and told her I was sorry.

“I’ve thought a lot about the war,” she said. “I think God hates all this killing.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I had no idea what God wanted.

“Of course, you’re probably young enough that you don’t remember this country the way it was before. How old are you? Sixteen?”

I don’t know why I didn’t lie. “In May.”

She smiled, really sad-like, and I knew she was thinking I wouldn’t live long enough to turn sixteen. But I was a pretty cagey trench-rat. I knew better than to get up when I was taking a piss.

Of course, there weren’t any trenches where I was going.

“Thanks again,” I said, and I drove off.

That haircut got me into Oklahoma City, no hitch. Everyone was clean-cut there. If I’d had long hair I’d have been blown for sure.

I hung around the churches for two days, just listening. When I finally heard where Norwood would speak next, I went and scoped it. The church was huge, with two balconies. It fit hundreds of people. I wondered where I could pose without being seen and how I was going to get away afterward. Finally, I decided the light booth was the best place. I had no idea how to work the lights, but I’d just have to bully the guy in the booth into doing it while I took my shot. I left my gun on top of a ceiling tile and went to go sleep, though I couldn’t. All I did was stare at the ceiling of my GI-Tran, wishing the dry, hollow feeling in my throat would go away.

I felt better once I had my gun back in my hands. Turned out there was no lights guy—the whole thing was run by processor. Norwood got on the stage. I listened to him for a while, and it surprised me how he talked so much like our general, except for all the praying. He had black hair, really short, and he wore little rectangular glasses.

When everybody bowed their heads to pray again, I took my shot. His glasses stayed on his face, just under the hole I made. His blood splashed on the big cross that hung behind the table, and all over the floor. I’ve seen a lot of guys die, but he had a lot of blood in him.

This panicky scream went up from the people like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It made me sick to my stomach, but I climbed up through the ceiling tiles to hide without waiting to see what the crowd was doing. It smelled dusty up there, and I had to fight not to sneeze. Old rafters over the tiles went all the way across the sanctuary. I crawled along one in the dark, trying not to think how far down the ground was. I heard voices forever, first the crowd, and then investigators. Every time a door slammed I hugged my beam tighter, but no one ever lifted a ceiling tile.

I didn’t dare move for hours, until I was more tired than scared and my watch glowed four a.m. I thought I’d have to break out of the church so late at night, but who knew churches were left open all the time? I climbed down and headed for the door.

“What are you doing in here with that?”

I stopped and turned around. My heart already started pounding hard again, but it was just a bald guy in jeans and a t-shirt. No gun. No knife. “I, um...”

He tipped his head and looked at me closely. “It’s just that we usually ask that you leave your gun in the foyer rack.”

I looked down at myself and saw my gun strap across my t-shirt. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“A simple mistake.” He didn’t smile, though. “You didn’t answer my question.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

“It’s been a difficult day. Seeking solace is natural,” he said, finally. “Never be afraid to admit you’re praying.”

Praying. I sucked in a breath, trying not to be too noisy about it. “Um, ok.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and rubbed it. “Do you want to talk about it? Might help you feel better.”

“No.” I had to fight not to twist away. “I have to get back to my company. Thanks, though.”

“Okay,” he said, and dropped his hand to his side.

I beat it out of there and got in my G-Tran and drove away. I put the heat on full blast, but I couldn’t quit shaking.

I stopped at the intersection and looked down the dirt road toward the farm, even though it was late at night. I could just make out the house. I thought of the diamond windows and how the soup had smelled. Before I knew it, I had to open the door and throw up. I stumbled out of the Tran and waited on my hands and knees for it to stop. I shouldn’t have eaten anything while I waited in the ceiling, I guess.

Getting back into SIA terra with no creds was harder than leaving. I wasted the crosses and armor and t-shirt before I got to the barricade, but they didn’t like my haircut.

“Look,” I said. “I was on a mission. I can’t take creds into enemy terra.”

“A mission, he says,” the guard said. “Next he’s gonna be saying he’s the one who shot Norwood.”

I tightened all over. I really didn’t like his attitude. “What if I did? You got a hitch with it?”

The guard rolled his eyes. “You snipes think you are some cagey shit, with your fancy haircuts and NTN ops. You’re nothing but a glorified trench-rat.”

I shouldn’t have been insulted by that, but something in me snapped. “At least I’m not working barricade instead of really fight—”

Two guys dragged him off me, but not before he’d ripped me pretty good. He broke my nose because I started bleeding worse than the guy who got shot next to me in the trench.

“Go on,” one of the guys said to me. “Get out of here.”

I drove through the barricade, even though my nose hurt so much I could barely see. My stomach flipped over again, and I gagged until I shook, but there was nothing left. Somehow it all didn’t seem worth it.

The second piece of bad luck I got was that our general was in Seattle and had no plans to come to Kansas or the Midwest anytime soon. I found out in Hutchinson. There was no way I was driving all the way to Washington just to kill the guy.

The third was that my line had heated up and might get pushed back again. Norwood dying had riled the Sacreds.

I went back to the bar and cleaned myself up in the bathroom as best I could.

“Mission accomplished?” the bartender asked.

I shrugged and took a drink of my beer.

“Looks like you took a beating,” he said. Real observational-like.

“I’m all right.”

“Going back to the trenches?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am.”

“How long you got left on your tour?” he asked.

“Half-way through. I got a year left.”

“Aren’t you glad you aren’t fighting on the other side? Their tours are three years long.”

The farm lady had questioned me about my tour.

The air went out of my chest like when the crowd had screamed. I had to swallow hard to keep my beer down.

She’d known. She’d known, and she’d helped me anyway.

“You all right?” he asked. “You look sick or something.”

“Yeah,” I said, slowly. “I’m glad I’m not fighting on the other side.”

It took me the whole walk back to calm down, and by the time I quit shaking I could barely keep my eyes open. I found Sarge in the cache-hut when I got there.

“Where have you been? Get in a fight?”

I was too tired to lie. “I went to Oklahoma City and shot Norwood.”

“Oh, yeah?” He didn’t believe me, but he was willing to play along. “Why would you want to do that?”

“To stop the war.”

He laughed until his eyes watered and he rubbed my short hair, hard. “Cagey rat. You think there isn’t somebody who will come right behind Norwood and keep the whole thing going?”

Everything sort of stopped right then. I heard the other sniper banging away, the twang of the bowstrings, a shell that landed way down at the end of our line, and a deep scream when somebody got hit, but it sounded like it was a recording on a personal. It didn’t sound real.

“I didn’t… I didn’t think of that.”

Sarge stopped laughing. After looking at me for a minute, his voice went steady, like he was explaining something hard to understand. “Look, kid, it seems like it’s all for nothing when you’re stuck in a trench and the enemy keeps refilling in front of you. But it’s not. It’s for freedom.”

I looked up at him. Sarge was a pretty tall guy. He was older, too, like twenty-seven. I’d heard a rumor that he was married and had kids. I wondered if that was true.

“The Sacreds think it’s for God,” I said.

Sarge nodded, still quiet and gentle. “But, God doesn’t hold with killing, so they’re wrong.”

“You believe in God, Sarge?”

“Fuck yeah, I believe.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but I felt really stupid all the sudden. My head ached, like I was coming down with something. Or maybe it was from getting my bells rung by that barricade guard. “You gonna report me?”

Sarge shook his head. “Get back to your trench and do your job.”

I started to walk out of the cache-hut, but he stopped me.

“How many bullets you got?” he asked.

I answered without thinking. “Seven.”

“I thought you said you were out.” He grabbed a box and tossed it to me. “Whatever. You’re gonna need some more.”