Lubitsch stares at the comic, blinking, not really seeing it. For a moment, he's somewhere else, in a war room, watching monitors. Watching great big holes cut up the world. His orders had been to keep an eye on the screens. But it hadn't been the one big scary bomb the government and the army though it would be. One big "Look at us, we're the Big Dog" bomb that ended the war with a scare.
Everyone was a Big Dog in the Go-Away War, and after the one bomb dropped...they all did. ICBMs scattering them through the world like pennies, because apparently every country had struck on the same science at the same time.
And after, after the world ended and they were forgotten, he'd watched silver waves of the Stuff, creating the idea of war, sweeping through the Elective Theater. He'd crawled through the Katiri sand, wasps singing and stinging through the air - the sensation of bullets zipping by, over bodies of the dead. Dead from the present, but also the past, dead soldiers from World War I, World War II, Vietnam...
To this day, he still had three images of General Copsen, layered side by side in a triptych. One image of him alive and alert sitting in his chair in the command room, shouting the orders that dropped the first bomb. Then sitting in the chair outside his tent, eyes blank and glassy, occasionally murmuring "Aye, soldier" to anyone walking by. Then sitting in the same chair, eyes blank and glassy, a vacated shell with a gunshot to the head, his pistol still in hand.
He'd checked out early. And Lubitsch had made the call, telling everyone Copsen had given the bug out order while still alive.
"He said all units evacuate. Break singly or in groups, make for high ground and cover, radio one another if they find a safe place. Live, that's an order."
Then Gonzo, he took over getting them out of there. Thank God he took over getting them out of there.
It is very clear that Lubitsch is somewhere else for a moment, his breathing faster, and then he's back, blinking, reorienting himself, putting the comic down.
"The Stuff, it's not nanites or anything like that. It's... noospheric. It was made by technology but weird technology."
He thinks back to how Professor Derek explained it.
"The world is made of overlapping forces and matter, yeah?" He links his fingers to make them overlap each other. "Matter, energy, gravity, all that business."
no subject
Everyone was a Big Dog in the Go-Away War, and after the one bomb dropped...they all did. ICBMs scattering them through the world like pennies, because apparently every country had struck on the same science at the same time.
And after, after the world ended and they were forgotten, he'd watched silver waves of the Stuff, creating the idea of war, sweeping through the Elective Theater. He'd crawled through the Katiri sand, wasps singing and stinging through the air - the sensation of bullets zipping by, over bodies of the dead. Dead from the present, but also the past, dead soldiers from World War I, World War II, Vietnam...
To this day, he still had three images of General Copsen, layered side by side in a triptych. One image of him alive and alert sitting in his chair in the command room, shouting the orders that dropped the first bomb. Then sitting in the chair outside his tent, eyes blank and glassy, occasionally murmuring "Aye, soldier" to anyone walking by. Then sitting in the same chair, eyes blank and glassy, a vacated shell with a gunshot to the head, his pistol still in hand.
He'd checked out early. And Lubitsch had made the call, telling everyone Copsen had given the bug out order while still alive.
"He said all units evacuate. Break singly or in groups, make for high ground and cover, radio one another if they find a safe place. Live, that's an order."
Then Gonzo, he took over getting them out of there. Thank God he took over getting them out of there.
It is very clear that Lubitsch is somewhere else for a moment, his breathing faster, and then he's back, blinking, reorienting himself, putting the comic down.
"The Stuff, it's not nanites or anything like that. It's... noospheric. It was made by technology but weird technology."
He thinks back to how Professor Derek explained it.
"The world is made of overlapping forces and matter, yeah?" He links his fingers to make them overlap each other. "Matter, energy, gravity, all that business."