Julia's chaffeur picked up Sean in the unearthly hours between midnight and dawn. Today Sean would be remotely monitoring the Doomtrooper demo in the Caucascus located eight hours ahead of EST. Asking Kaitlyn's mom for a ride today was out of the question. When he'd enquired into Zero Sum's reimbursement policy on Uber rides, Julia had waved dismissively and sent her car instead. The Bentley Continental GT inexorably ate up the miles to New Haven. There was little traffic at this time. Sean stared out with sleep-deprived eyes at the slumbering suburbs flashing by, feeling uneasy.

No matter how the demo went today, it wasn't his problem. He was just an unpaid highschool intern for a week. No one could seriously expect him to be responsible for weapons contracts, right? All he had to do was watch through the drone's eyes from thousands of miles away, safely ensconced in a bunker in urban New Haven. But Dawn didn't have the luxury of safety at the edge of a conflict zone. Sean shook his head. His tendency to obsess over pretty women was a liability.

”Almost there, sir,” Sean blinked groggily as someone shoved on his shoulder. The woman at the wheel - Sean appreciated that she seemed extremely fit - was rigorously wiping her jacket with tissue. Did she really have to glare at him so disdainfully? So what if he didn't look his best, he was still half asleep for pity's sake. Ohhh... had he dozed off and drooled on her uniform? Never mind.

The car swept past Zero Sum’s darkened glass facade and turned into a side alley. An overhead sign bearing the institute’s logo proclaimed “Shipping and Receiving : Unauthorized Vehicles Will Be Immobilized” below which a winding ramp sloped down from street level. The driver keyed in a combination on the dash. The forbidding spikes spanning the ramp entrance retracted into the pavemement and the car glided into the bowels of Zero Sum. The massive steel porticullis at the bottom of the ramp grated open and they entered a circular loading dock with automated gun turrets in the ceiling that tracked their car. Julia's obsession with security was almost amusing. But Sean couldn't bring himself to laugh. His broken arm was evidence enough of potential downsides of a security breach. The car stopped at a guard post dug into the concrete wall. The hardened veteran who was expecting them studied Sean's face against a handheld. There was an identical garage door across the rotunda - large enough to admit a semitruck - leading to the munitions basement that Sean was waved into. Julia's chaffeur turned around and drove away.

The Sean walked into the cavernous armory as the steel door descended shut behind him. Motion activated lights switched on in the ceiling. The staggering variety of weapons mounted on the wall greeted him in mute testament to human savagery. What the heck am I doing here, he hesitated at the makeshift drone operator console, I have no clue. Everything was as Sean had left it.

Quick Start Guide : DoomTrooper Version 3.2 'Alpine Rose' - Tactical ThermoNuclear Defense

The training manual lay open on the first page, all its contents absorbed at a touch. Sean now knew the manual more thoroughly than its authors. Julia could do worse than pick him as a backup pilot, even if she didn't know it. The CPU's cooling fans hummed to life as Sean slipped on HUD goggles. Thumbstick studded controller wands in each hand. No arm motion - only thumb action - was needed to control the drone, which was lucky for Sean given his cast. The HUD field of view was pitch dark for a moment, then lit up with video feed. His earpiece crackled. The view showed an unremarkable corridor that belonged in a hospital: florescent ceiling lights, worn cinderblock walls and anonymous doors with stencilled numerals. White-coated medical personnel wandered the hallway. Muffled noises of children yelling, laughing or crying sounded behind doors. Guards in uniform - presumably South Caucasus infantry - loitered carrying carbines. The point of view swung down to look at cracked vinyl floor, where the walker's foot had stepped on an abandoned doll. A dull boom sounded from far away, causing dust to drift down from the ceiling.

"Hello..." Sean raised his voice, "can you hear..."

"Bitch! Dial it down... nearly busted my eardrums," Bryson's voice swore quietly, "These customers are jittery as fuck. Don't want some noob conscript shooting me."

"Sorry..." Sean whispered, "where's Dawn?"

"Whisked off to see her boyfriend somewhere on base," Bryson grumbled, "In a fucking limo. I had to ride in a fucking truck with broken suspension, though."

"They let you transmit from inside?" Sean frowned, "Are you piggybacking on the DoomTrooper uplink? "

"DoomTrooper isn't online yet," Bryson grunted "There's a radio comm hub on base transmitting my signal as courtesy."

"Nice of them," Sean tried to relax as the video feed trembled from another loud boom.

"No, you chump," Bryson chuckled, "it's for my boss at Gibbs to greenlight any deals above my paygrade."

The soldier leading the way knocked on one of the doors, then took position outside. Bryson stepped into a conference room with decor from the 70s. A group of uniformed men and one woman stood around a long table of peeling laminate on which a large scale contour map was spread out.

"Ah, Master-Sergeant Bryson, welcome to Kazbuk Children's Hospital and Forward Operating Base," a squat bald man wearing a spotless uniform and a silver beard smiled genially from one end of the table with heavily accented English, "Your timing is perfect. Our counter-offensive is underway."

Behind him on the wall was a large LCD monitor displaying the feed from Bryson's camera, a duplicate of the feed that Sean was receiving.

"General Sarov," Bryson's viewpoint tilted for a moment with a curt nod, "You sure this isn't a bad time for the demo?"

"Not at all. I'm counting on it to be the decisive factor," Sarov bared his teeth, his fluffy beard neatly trimmed square gave him a Santa Claus vibe if Santa Claus had been a serial-killer, "I hope you won't disappoint me."

Some of the officers at the table flinched at the last sentence. They looked tense, unlike the general. The camera view panned to the door. A uniformed grunt entered with a long duffel bag which was placed on the far end of the table that butted against a large glass pane.

"Line of sight to the demo?" Bryson queried.

"The window commands an excellent view," the woman at the table glanced an antiquated clock, her accent stronger, "Your techs better be done mounting the warheads, General, unless they want a transfer to a penal battalion."

The last sentence was spoken in the local tongue which Sean's HUD tagged as a Kartvelian-Caspian dialect while automatically captioning the translation in English. Her tone was bored, without hint of bluster. Sean frowned under his goggles. There was an austere grace to the woman's face, a hardness that reminded him of Agent Murphy from the DOE.

"It won't come to that, Ludmila," General Sarov smiled indulgently. Ludmila's knee-length military jacket was devoid of insignia unlike the shiny epaulettes on the men around her. Oddly enough, the men located closest to her had adopted poses suggesting they wanted to be as far away from her as possible.

Bryson's hands assembled the tripod-mounted umbrella antenna with practised ease. The glare of daylight washed out Sean's video feed for a second as Bryson pressed his nose against the glass. The window overlooked a rugged valley. Dark forest cloaked the lower slopes where a stream meandered at the bottom. The terrain rose to a jagged snowy ridge, exposing bare scree above the treeline. Puffs of smoke unfurled like fiery blossoms on the far ridgeline where a road snaked like a carelessly cast string. A convoy of vehicles, tiny in the distance, writhed under the smoke like a demolished ant hill. On the near slope another mountain road carried military traffic descending past a bare plateau where a truck in winter camoflage idled next to a dismantled crate. Wood panels and dolly carts were spread around a metallic form built like a grinning humanoid tank. The DoomTrooper unit dwarfed the soldiers who were working on its arm in frantic haste.

"Handshake protocol with demo unit...," Bryson was muttering, "Booting in... 3... 2... 1. Unit is online."

Bryson's camera feed collapsed into a smaller corner window as the HUD view changed to an outside view. A squad of South Caucasus soldiers were clambering into the back of a truck which was slowly merging with a main convoy of similar trucks making their way down to the valley. A text overlay was counting down at the top of Sean's HUD.

Payload(s) Detected: 3 Encryption: Yachta-143 Payload #1 Ready in T minus: 00:14:03

The mountain vista to his right was identical to that seen from Bryson's viewpoint from inside the base. Sean tried to turn his head or rather the drone's head with his HUD, only to see a wall of blackness outside the fixed view. The drone wasn't accepting his actuator input.

"Huh... Bryson," Sean whispered, "I can see through the drone's eyes. But can't control it."

"Hmm," Bryson grunted, "If the uplink telemetry works so should the downlink. Let me..."

The smaller picture-in-picture feed showed Bryson grabbing a game controller slotted into his dish tripod. Sean's main HUD view shifted looking up the mountain he - or rather the drone - was standing on. Four large buildings, scattered across the slope and widely separated by terrain. Rows upon rows of identical dark windows stared broodingly from three cubical monoliths in concrete grey. The fourth building was a squat disc-shaped structure like a flying saucer rimmed by a viewing balcony, its roof bristling with satellite dishes and antenna array. A gigantic sickle-and-hammer insignia in faded red paint marked the only spot on the outer face not interrupted by the balcony. The old Soviet emblem was partly obscured by a large banner - flag of the South Caucasus Republic - splayed over cracked concrete. Access roads patrolled by soldiers branched off to each structure from the arterial highway carrying military traffic. The highway climbed past a picturesque town spread like a quilt of quaint roofs and crenellated medieval ruins.

The drone stepped forward in lurching steps and lifted its arms. Three dark green cylinders bristling with fins were attached to jury-rigged pylons on its left forearm. The symbols CCCP * painted red ran along one cylinder's length. The stubby nosecone displayed a black trefoil centered in a yellow triangle. Cold war era cruise missiles tipped with tactical nukes. Sean felt a chill. Shiny scratches gleamed around access panels near the jet nozzles. The propulsions systems had been well maintained, apparently.

"MASER link is working," Bryson muttered, then raised his voice, "Excuse me, General, did your men report problems with signal reception? On the EHF bands specified in my correspondence."

"Not at all, reception was perfect," Sarov smiled, "That's why we are jamming those channels. Surely you didn't think we'd permit a foreign power to co-pilot our atomic munition platform."

"General, the co-pilot is a highschool kid in Connecticut interning at Zero Sum," Bryson sounded exasperated, "the same people who brokered this deal. You have their employee as hostage on this base. Your design spec explictly called for the drone user-interface to be intuitive enough for a teenager to pilot it with minimal training. See for yourself."

Sean groaned. The only reason he had gotten up so early was supposedly as a backup pilot. And the client had nixed that. Fuck this shit. He debated tossing the headset and just going home. But Julia's driver had left and there was no one at this unearthly hour to give him a lift. Maybe he should call a rideshare and send the bill to Julia.

"Miss Dawn is an extra piece of insurance," Sarov nodded smoothly, "And a lovely piece I might add. But we have our own candidate."

"We're wasting time, General," Ludmilla clucked testily, "Summon the test pilot."

Sean reluctantly decided to stay, to assure himself that Dawn was alright. Sarov spoke into a intercomm.The door opened shortly after to admit another guard carrying a shoulder-slung submachine gun and a little girl clinging to his hand who couldn't have been more than seven or eight. The girl shuffled up to the table dragging one foot stiffly. Her pyjamas were patterned in white camo with a shoulder patch showing a missile nocked in a bow. A large label with the name Mariam was sewn to the front. Her other hand held a Barbie doll. What the heck was this, Sean frowned and sat up straighter.

"Is this a joke?" Bryson demanded coldly.

"Hand over your control goggles, Master-Seargent," Ludmilla ordered, "And standby for consultation. Mariam here will pilot the drone. She's is extremely good on the simulator. Isn't that so, Mariam?"

"Yes, Ludmilla," the girl looked up with large liquid eyes that were reddened as if she'd been crying recently. Her brown hair was tied in a short bunch on top reminiscent of a coconut. Sean frowned when he noticed her left cheek twitching rythmically.

"Aunt Ludmilla," the woman corrected curtly. Mariam didn't reply.

"No joke, Master-Seargent," Sarov seemed amused, "The production version of our spec requires the DoomTrooper's remote piloting system to be replaced with a child-sized cockpit. Warhead telemetry will be integrated into the cockpit, of course."

"General" Bryson's voice was low and controlled, "You must know that the DoomTrooper is not a child's toy. Secondly, the modification you describe will make the plaform top heavy, throwing off the balancing algorithms. It took the code monkeys long enough to get the bipedal motion..."

"No, the changes are mass neutral," the little girl piped up in accentless English, "I don't weigh much. Cockpit is mostly empty shell. I bet I can drive a Mecha better than anyone. I'll show you!"

"W-what?" Bryson blurted in surprise, then after a pause, "um, you speak English?"

"I speak 27 human and 12 computer languages," Mariam nodded dismissively, "I can fix the Mecha locomotion if I need to." She tossed the Barbie she was holding on to the table. The doll twitched for a second and then neatly flipped itself on its feet. It walked purposefully, gracefully skipping over scattered pencils, stopping when it came to table edge. Sean blinked in surprise.

"I'll be... no way you built this, little girl," Bryson scoffed as he peered down, his videofeed zooming on the doll. The Barbie had been extensively modified with gleaming articulated joints bulging with tiny stepper motors, a sensor web cleverly woven to look like a sequined dress and a backpack fabricated from a Raspberry Pi Zero circuit board and AAA cells.

"I did too!" Mariam retorted, her little fists bunching in frustration, "the only thing I can't fix is my leg."

"Your goggles, Master-Sergeant," snapped Ludmilla.

Bryson's videofeed vanished from Sean's HUD and when it came back on he saw Bryson from a viewpoint of someone much shorter.

"...don't understand why," Bryson sounded plaintive, "Why give up remote piloting? You think someone can hack the drone? There's no fucking way the MASER line-of-sight can be..."

"Line-of-sight is too limited for long range missions, Master-Sergeant," Sarov shook his head wearily, "Look at the terrain outside. And before you say it, using a satellite for drone control is not viable for us. Not when NATO or Russia can blow it out of the sky anytime they feel like it. No, what we need are autonomous drones a lot cheaper than what Fuller Dynamics charges for them... which is the price of a Boeing 737."

"Autonomous drones," Bryson said flatly, "that's what this little girl is about. A disposal meat brain for the drone. Like the Japanese Kamikaze."

"Exactly, Master-Sergeant," Sarov beamed, "you are most perceptive. You see, an adult pilot demands too much life support for extended operation which negates the point of a drone. But a child prodigy on the other hand can survive on far less, long enough to do the job. And we have acquired know-how to breed child prodigies..."

"General..." Ludmilla's tone held warning.

"...which not even our Soviet masters could achieve," Sarov finished smoothly.

"The risk is too high," one of the officers around the table spoke up, a middle-aged man who glanced at Ludmilla with a flicker of disdain, "a child's loyalty is too untested to entrust..."

"She will obey orders without question," Ludmilla smiled unpleasantly, "or she won't see her mother again. But if it will set your mind at ease, Colonel, perhaps a quick demo will suffice."

Ludmilla turned to the wall monitor which showed the outside view from the drone's viewpoint, as well as the inside view from Mariam's viewpoint in a smaller window.

"Mariam," Ludmilla commanded, "see if you can look into the valley and spot enemy personnel."

Sean's HUD view swung around to the valley floor and magnifying greatly as Mariam zoomed in. A stream meandered through a wheat field dusted with light snow. A long line of people shuffled along the stream's bank. The men were dressed in threadbare winter jackets and the women in blankets. Some of the blankets were wrapped around children that the women dragged with them. The DoomTrooper's optics were impressively telescopic. Sean could see the lines of misery on the refugees' faces. Mariam zoomed out a bit. The column stretched forever.

"These will do," Ludmilla's voice interrupted like a whiplash, "Fire on them."

"No!" Sean yelled into his mic.

"Who is this?" Mariam's squeaky voice sounded surprised in his headset from the other end of the link.

"I'm the backup pilot," Sean spoke quickly, "Don't shoot those people. Please."

"I have to," Mariam muttered sullenly and raised DoomTrooper's right arm, the barrels of the Gattling spooling up in the HUD's view where range contours appeared. Sean hammered on the thumbstick in futility, trying to standdown the "mini-gun", desperately hoping his control channels were miraculously unjammed. The Gattling gave an terrible burp, the vibration crackling in his headset via internal accelerometers, despite the lack of external audio on the DoomTrooper. Red dots clustered thickly like an obscene snake overlaying every man, woman and child on the wintry field. The entire refugee column collapsed like puppets with their strings cut as smart bullets found their mark. Sean heard a distant scream that seemed to go on for ever.

"Stop yelling in my ear," Mariam's voice snapped Sean out of his mindless shriek.

"This wasn't part of the deal," Bryson said slowly, staring at the wall display monitor, "the demo was supposed to be against anticipated enemy infantry."

"All in good time," Sarov purred, "Our counter offensive has pushed enemy infantry beyond the range of your drone's gun. Ludmilla had to improvise. A hundred percent fatality rate among fleeing enemy civilians sends its own message, I think."

"Your reaction is hypocritical, Master-Sergeant," Ludmilla observed tartly, "considering the American military is no stranger to civilian casualities. But I digress. Mariam, do you have control of missiles yet?"

Payload #1 Ready in T minus: 00:00:09

Payload #2 Ready in T minus: 00:05:23

Payload #3 Ready in T minus: 00:05:55

"Nine seconds," whispered Mariam.

"Have you memorized primary and secondary targets?" Ludmilla demanded and Mariam nodded, "Launch when ready."

Sean watched numbly as the first warhead's status counted down to zero. Mariam raised the DoomTrooper's left arm and the first missile ignited launching itself over the valley. Sean took a quick inventory of likely targets: Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the southwest and Azerbaijan to the southeast. He didn't think Russia to the north was a feasible target, not unless General Sarov was suicidal. Two more windows appeared in his HUD tracking the cruise missile's progress: a camera feed from the missile's point-of-view and a map view that showed the missile's trajectory in three-dimensional space. The missile's initial eastward path was turning south. At its current heading it would cross into Azerbaijan's airspace in seconds. The manual had stressed that these missiles were NOT fire-and-forget. They were very short range, requiring line of sight to the DoomTrooper and a continuous authentication signal from the drone pilot to keep the warhead armed. Whether this was a limitation of interfacing with Cold War tech or a safety feature wasn't clear.

"General Sarov," Mariam spoke suddenly, "You have locked up someone named David Leonidze. Tell me which building he is in. It's only me and other kids on this floor. And Stephan checked and ruled out other floors in this building."

For a moment Sarov stared blankly at the little girl, then his face glowered at the guard holding Mariam's shoulder protectively, "How did you... Private Stephan is it? I'll have you shot for careless talk..."

"What business is it of yours, Mariam?" Ludmilla demanded ominously.

"GORGON wants me to eliminate this David Leonidze before you hand him to the Americans," the words sounded obscene coming from a seven-year old. Ludmilla's eyes widened. The guard named Stephan - a boy barely out of his teens - raised his submachine gun and carefully shot the officers in short bursts, sparing only Ludmilla, Sarov and Bryson. The smoking barrel was shoved against Ludmilla's forehead. Shouts sounded outside the room, followed by pounding at the door.

"Your gun, Ludmilla," Mariam spoke quickly, "No tricks."

Ludmilla's pistol clatter to the floor, her face twisted in fury, "Your mother..."

"Mother abandoned me!" Mariam shrieked so loudly that Sean grimaced in pain, "Angel told me what General Sarov did to my mother to make her stop loving me." Tears ran down her face from under her goggles.

"What," Ludmilla blinked, her eyes narrowing, "General, what's she talking about?"

"The lovely young woman was too attached to her child to give me the attention I needed," Sarov shrugged, "So I gave her a special shot that suppresses vasopressin and oxytocin. Surely I have the right to any female inmate."

"The mothers are the only control I have over the children, you stupid prick. The Directorate will have your head for this..." Ludmilla was working herself into a fit, then turned to Mariam, "wait... who is Angel?"

"The Angel of Many Souls," whispered Mariam reverently, "the lady from GORGON. You called her Katrina."

"You fool," Ludmilla snarled at Sarov, "you allowed the GORGON delegation access to children in the pipeline?"

"Chairwoman Malenkov wanted to inspect her crop," Sarov replied sullenly, "how was I to refuse."

"Last chance, General," Mariam yelled shrilly, "tell me which building?"

"Go to hell, brat," snarled Sarov, "by the time I'm done with your mother..."

Stephan squeezed off another burst. The general sprawled dead over the maps of his ambition.

"The hard way then," Mariam's mouth tightened, watching Ludmilla. The pounding on the door intensified followed by the sound of automatic weapons fire. The door lock splintered. A squad of soldiers smashed through and then froze when they saw the carbine muzzle against Ludmilla's head. There was no clear line of fire that would spare her.

"Drop your weapon and surrender, Private," barked an officer.

"You know what the Directorate will do to you if their Commissar dies," Stephan warned. The officer swung his rifle towards Mariam.

"No," screamed Ludmilla, "don't shoot her. The child is Directorate property."

Sean watched with the surreal sense of a lucid dream. His HUD showed Mariam turning around the missile's trajectory to a full circle. A blinding sun bloomed on the mountain side outshining the one in the sky. Sean's HUD blacked out for a second and came back on. Where the communications hub had stood, a glowing mushroom cloud was rising up like a titan's fist. A Geiger indicator chattered urgently in his headset. He reflexively jerked back in his seat before registering that he wasn't physically there. A gale force wind howled from the radioactive cloud sweeping away men, vehicles and anything that wasn't affixed to the ground. The DoomTrooper was the exception. The drone shuddered alarmingly as it leaned into the nuclear wind, it's sheer mass and stablization reflex keeping it anchored. Sean stared open-mouthed as the entire truck convoy slid over the side of the road, falling into the valley below. Two of the trucks narrowly missed the drone as they went tumbling to their deaths. The other three concrete buildings remained intact except for blackening of the walls and missing glass. Low-yield nuke, Sean nodded, ferverently hoping Dawn hadn't been taken to the vaporized hub. Smoke crackled from the pyre of the picturesque surrounding town.

The LCD wall display went dark at the moment of impact. Bryson, Stephan and Ludmilla threw themselves to the floor following Mariam's lead. The guards didn't catch on quickly enough. The window pane disintegrated into shards flying like bullets, slicing and shredding the assault sqaud. Alarm's blared in the corriodor.

"Oh no, no, no, no." Ludmilla moaned and sat up slowly, "what have you done, you little fiend."

"One down, two to go," Mariam muttered, getting up and limping over to the table to inspect Bryson's MASER antenna for possible damage. She adjusted the antenna realigning it to the drone outside and carefully kicked away Ludmilla's pistol on the floor beyond the Commissar's reach. Sean felt a stab of admiration over his pity. The little girl was far too competent for someone so young.

"You are a soldier of the Republic," Ludmilla looked over her shoulder at the kneeling Stephan, "why commit treason?"

"He liked my mother a lot," Mariam walked over and threw her arms around Stephan's neck. The innocence in her tone broke Sean's heart.

"Ah," Ludmilla's shoulders slumped, "My mistake to not rotate the guards."

Bryson got to his feet dusting off glass pieces. He was laughing, a sound of mad exhilaration, "Since DoomTrooper has performed flawlessly, ma'am, my business here is concluded. Hey little girl, Mary-Ann or whatever your name is, it was nice meeting you and all. But I really need to scoot. Customers to meet, deals to make, yadda yadda. Are we cool?"

"Go," Mariam nodded.

Bryson gave Ludmilla a mock salute and carefully stepped over bodies. He paused just outside the door and turned to stare at Mariam, "Do what you got do it, kid. Don't worry about me."

Then Bryson was gone. Sean sat pondering his parting comment and then stiffened in realization. The comment had been meant for Sean, not Mariam. Wait, that communications hub had been jamming his satellite control... He flexed his thumbstick and the drone turned to his command! He had finally acquired co-pilot control.

Payload #2 READY FOR LAUNCH

Payload #3 Ready in T minus: 00:00:03

Sean launched the second warhead. Mariam swore something in her tongue that the HUD couldn't translate. Sean pulled back his stick gaining altitude, then pulled harder to guide the missile into a loop-the-loop.

"What do you think you are doing?" Mariam demanded as she launched the third warhead.

"Drop the missile and walk away," Sean ordered, "Or..."

"Or what?" Mariam challenged.

"I'll destroy your building," Sean promised, " I can't let you blow up David Leonidze. A girl I know is in there with him."

"Hmm... do you know which building I am in?" Mariam taunted, "Didn't think so. One third chance you'll hit your girlfriend. Feeling lucky, punk?"

Sean steadied the missile's descent. It's projected path on the HUD intersected one of the concrete monoliths. But which one was Mariam in? There was no way for Sean to tell, from the brief glimpse of the outside he'd seen from Bryson's video feed. He couldn't simply target one at random. An icy fear caressed him. Dawn was going to die. He might simply end up finishing what Mariam had started, if he nuked one of the three standing buildings at random. Mariam's missile was mimicking his own trajectory not far behind as she began to steady her descent, picking one of the two buildings that Sean wasn't targeting. In a few seconds it would be over, one way or another.

A sudden yearning for dear Mei-Ling's company hit Sean like a blow. Wise loyal Mei-Ling who had put up with his teen angst for so long. Tears pricked his eyes. He missed her motherly wisdom. Time seemed to slow for Sean, his mind automatically dredging up everything he'd learned on estimating odds, matching patterns. Then it clicked. He didn't know which of the three buildings Mariam was in, but Mariam did.

There had been a game show called the Monty Hall show, where the host would ask the participant to pick one of three closed doors. Only one of the doors held treasure and only the host knew which one. After the participant selected a door, the host would open one of the other doors which was always guaranteed to be empty and ask the particpant if he wanted to stick to his first selection or switch to the other closed door. Most participants would say no, seeing no advantage in switching doors, and in doing so would fail to realize that the host wasn't picking the empty door at random. The host knew which door held the prize. Just as Mariam knew which building she was in, and could see which building Sean was targeting. Sean's prior chance of targeting her correctly was only 1/3. There was 2/3 chance that she was in one of the other two buildings. And since she would never target her own building, there was 2/3 chance that Mariam was in the building that neither Sean or Mariam had targeted. Sean was making a Bayesian update on his odds based on the opponent's knowledge which was utterly non-intuitive to most people.

"Found you," Sean snarled, veering the missile away sharply towards his new target, a moment before impact. Mariam screamed shrilly. An atomic sun blossomed again, a twin to the first. Mariam's trajectory vanished from the HUD, her missile auto-disarming and slamming harmlessly into it's target. The new mushroom cloud and its larger sibling illuminated the remaining two buildings in hellish light. Dawn and her boyfriend must be in one of these. Probably. Sean ripped the HUD off his face to wipe away his tears, but they kept flowing. He sat for a long time in the armory, sobbing his heart out, thinking of precocious little Mariam who'd never had a chance at a normal life. The child he'd vaporized to save Dawn.

END OF CHAPTER