It was a war. There was no point in pretending it wasn't. For the longest time, the government tried to keep it under wraps with their laws and regulations, but since the Resistance formed, our ability to delude ourselves had been greatly reduced. It was a war, and the muties were our enemies.

I guess I could see how they weren't happy being controlled as tightly as they were, but what they called "resistance" had gone far beyond the point of defence. I for one would have been happy to at least try and peacefully co-exist with them, but it seemed like they had other ideas. At least Salvador did. And it wasn't like we were just going to let him get away with it. They were terrorists, pure and simple, and these days it was us humans who needed a resistance force. And that's where I came in.

I used to live on the surface. I used to go to college. I used to wear my hair long and my skirts short and my biggest worries used to be the social dynamics of my peer group. Now my hair was short and I wore the same army fatigues as the rest of the gang. If you'd told me five years ago that I would be spending my 24th birthday in a small, cold, underground room, on a bunk bed with a can of baked beans in my hand, I probably would have laughed. But then five years ago nobody even knew who Salvador was.

I hadn't told any of them about my birthday. It would no doubt have started up a slew of practical jokes in poor taste. I guess, being the only girl on the squad, that had to be expected. Still, I didn't regret for a second transferring here. We were the best. We were the cutting edge of the Real Resistance; the guys who were most actively counteracting Salvador and his cronies, we had the chance of actually making a difference in this war. Because that's what it was. Two Resistances resisting each other, the conflict escalating every day. We were an army, no matter what anyone said. That's why everybody kept calling Ryder "sarge", even though he insisted he was not. Not just behind his back either; lots of the guys said it to his face. I think he didn't really care anymore.

Anyway, it was my birthday and there he was, walking into the room without even knocking. Ah well, the door was open.

"Kennedy, have you anything useful to tell me?"

He stopped right inside the door, crossing his arms across his broad chest. Must have just got back from his own mission, he looked kind of beat. I guess maybe he wasn't as young as he once had been -if he had ever been young. It was kind of hard to imagine our squad leader as anything but the stone-faced, grey-speckled hard nut that I was looking at. He was somewhere in the dim area of the mid forties to early fifties, and life had taken it's toll on his weathered face with its hard angles. It wasn't just the twin scars that sat on the left side of his face like a tall, slim X; I could imagine that his whole body was covered in scars, and not exclusively physical ones. But then what the hell did I know?

"Just confirming what we already know, really. The sabotage of the communications tower was the work of Salvador's special agent. The guards all survived, but they were freaked out. I'm telling you, Sir, five grown men carrying on like they had the bogeyman living under their bed. Whoever he is, he must be one special freak."

The Sarge just looked at me with that half-hearted disdain that he seemed to hold towards us all. I didn't know what his problem was, and I really couldn't care less. He had proven himself in battle, saved all of the squad's asses on one occasion or another, and they would have followed him through the gates of hell. I didn't doubt he was a good leader, but even if I trusted him with my life, I still thought that he was a grumpy old sod.

"Alright," he said, "I had a feeling it was coming to this. We're going to have to find out more about this special agent. He's clearly the ace up Salvador's sleeve, so it should be our primary target."

"Yes Sarge!"

I was happy that he said that. I had to admit I was more than a little curious about what kind of guy that could sneak in to a heavily guarded comm centre and take it out without even being seen properly by anyone and yet leave no fatalities.

"I'm not your "sarge", Kennedy, we're not in the army."

He looked at me, met my eyes properly for the first time since he came in. His eyes were ageless, his irises completely black, like highly polished gemstones set in his eyeballs. He was one of those people who could stare out a cat, not to mention every snotty-nosed cadet of the RR. I never felt comfortable meeting his gaze for long but I couldn't just look away, it was one of those things.

"Sorry Sir."

"Meeting's tomorrow at seven. I guess that's "seven hundred hours" to you."

He gave me an odd little smirk that sort of threw me. I had never heard him make a joke before, if that's what it was. Then again, I guess I wasn't here that long, only two weeks.

He left me with my cold beans and my cold bed, alone in the empty room where the damp stains were growing on the concrete.

At seven in the morning, we assembled in the main hall, which doubled as the meeting hall and the canteen. Naked light bulbs were swinging over a big, wooden table where countless RR members had carved their initials into the tabletop.

The sarge wasn't the one doing the talking; he left that to Tink, our intelligence link. Turned out he didn't know much more than any of the rest of us. After three years, all they had managed to find out was that Salvador's own "army" was nowhere near the size that we first thought it was. As a matter of fact, it might be as small as twenty to thirty people. When you're talking twenty to thirty muties though, that's a lot of trouble. And then there was Salvador's mysterious right hand man, or whatever he was. All we knew is that he was an expert with knives and stealthy as hell. Nobody had got a good look at him, for all we knew "he" could just as well be a woman.

In the end, it was revealed that the RR wanted to send in a small group of operatives to infiltrate the muties stronghold, the east end harbour. It was going to be tough going, it was going to be extremely high-risk. Everything I joined up for. Needless to say, I volunteered.

The group started out as four people. Ryder—of course—me, Stevens and Smith. Stevens was the medic, kind of a nerd, but a very nice guy. He was the oldest one of us, save for Ryder, and the first one to welcome me to the squad after I'd transferred. I still had a habit of pestering him with my troubles. I'm not sure why he volunteered for this mission, but I was glad to have him along.

Smith was just another hot-blooded enthusiast, like myself I guess, without any particular skills or specialities. He just loved to fight, a typical testosterone crazed twenty-two-year-old. The danger of heading into the thick of the enemy's den was almost enough to make him jump up and down with excitement.

We reached the surface as the last of the sun disappeared behind the concrete horizon. The city was eerily quiet, the silence punctured only by the occasional burst of gunfire in the distance. If you were to arrive through some magical means of teleportation into this city, you wouldn't immediately be able to tell there was a war going on. There were no bombs set off, no major structural damage. This war was fought on a personal level, individuals and smaller groups running into each other on an almost random basis. And most of the mutant freaks didn't need conventional weaponry to kill you; they were living instruments of destruction.

Most of the civilians tried to stay out of the confrontations, locking themselves inside, cutting themselves off from the outside world. Several of the major food chains had adapted quickly as they realised a greater profit could be made on the home delivery system. Armoured vans now ran regularly between the supermarkets and the homes of their customers. With the extended work from home initiative of the government, it was no longer hard to avoid ever having to venture outside.

We walked through the dark and silent city. The streetlights were out of operation; the result of some recent sabotage, and the windows of the houses all covered with black curtains to look like nobody was home. The streets were deserted. High above our heads, the sky was deepening from blue into black as the stars were twinkling into being. The biggest full moon I had ever seen hung at the skyline, too heavy to get any higher. It was so beautiful and serene; I should have known it couldn't last.

A shot rang through the silence somewhere close by, followed by a scream as Stevens tumbled to the ground, clutching his leg. My gun was in my hand before I had time to consciously react. I could see Ryder's head whip around, searching for the position of the sniper, but I couldn't see that he would have much hope to see anything in the darkness. We only had the moon to light our way, but the sarge motioned for Smith and me to take cover behind a nearby wall like he was confident that the shooter wouldn't be able to get us there. As we ran for the supposed cover, he bent down and scooped up the wounded Stevens. Stevens was quite a tall bloke, not as tall as the sarge, but still, he must have weighed at least 180-190 pounds. The way Ryder carried him it looked like he was practically weightless. He ran over to where we were crouching and dumped the squirming, bleeding medic on the ground, then pulled out his own gun and peered over the edge of the wall, into the darkness beyond.

"Sarge, unless this guy is glowing in the dark or something, I really can't see how you're going to..."

Smith was interrupted by the deafening report of Ryder's pistol going off three times in rapid succession. There was a muffled thud as something soft but heavy hit the ground. Ryder stood up, holding the gun at the ready, and walked around the corner of the wall, up to the place where the body had hit the ground. We could see him bending down to check for life signs, and then he stood up again and started walking towards us. Smith and I looked at each other in the dim light.

"Catch."

A piece of metal came flying towards me in the dim light, right into my hands, which moved of their own accord to pluck it from the air. It was a handgun, and what a gun. It was some kind of custom job with an infrared sight and perfect weighting. I didn't care that it had belonged to the enemy, who was now dead, it was beautiful. Smith was giving me some pretty sickened looks; I could almost see the envy running through his blood.

"For me?" I said.

Ryder just shrugged his shoulders.

"If you don't want it, get rid of it."

"No, I want it, I just..."

But he was already bending down to take a look at Stevens' leg, getting on with things with that unshakable cool that we had come to expect and respect. I guess nothing could faze that guy.

I had no idea where he had come from or what he had been doing before the war. None of the others in the squad seemed to know either. To say that he was the quiet type would have been an understatement, but you'd think somebody would have heard something, rumours if nothing else, but there didn't even seem to be any of those.

"Stevens, you're the medic, tell me what to do."

Ryder pulled out a knife and slit the fabric of Stevens' trouser leg up to the knee. Stevens was pale as a ghost, his face almost shining in the dark. On his leg was a large, dark patch, running tendrils of liquid to pool beneath it on the ground. Blood, of course, but in the moonlight it looked black.

"You'll need a light..." Stevens eventually managed.

"Not out here. I might as well put up a neon sign saying please kill us."

He was right. A lone light out here in the dark would draw mutant soldiers like moths to a flame. It would be suicide.

"I can't walk..." Stevens whined.

"So don't," Ryder answered, "Just tell me what stuff to put on after I take out the bullet. I'll need disinfectant, at least."

He had opened Stevens' medical kit and was picking out some items. It was too dark for me to see exactly what they were, they all looked like vague shapes to me.

"How are you going to take out the bullet when you can't even see it?"

Stevens sounded scared.

"Let me worry about that. You just concentrate on keeping quiet. No screaming."

"I don't..."

He was interrupted by Ryder pouring the contents of one of the little bottles over the wound. The sting made him bite down hard and clamp his eyes shut.

"Any painkillers I can shoot you up with?"

"Mhm... the little syringe to the left..."

"This one?"

He held up a shot. It was impossible to make out the writing in the darkness, but Stevens seemed willing to take the risk and let Ryder inject him with the contents.

"You two, keep a lookout."

Smith and I did as we were told. I could hear Stevens make small sounds of big pain, but he never screamed out loud. After about fifteen minutes, it was all over. Stevens' leg was wrapped in bandages and he was sitting there with the bullet in his hand. I have no idea how Ryder got it out of him.

"You realise this means you can't come with us any further," Ryder said to the medic.

"Yeah," Stevens said.

I don't know if that was disappointment or relief in his voice.

"I'll need one of you to take him back to the base. Who's going?"

Smith and I looked at each other again. This time neither of us were going to volunteer.

"No takers, huh? I guess it's up to me then. Smith, you'll go."

"But Sarge..." Smith protested.

"If you're going to call me that, you're going to have to treat me like one as well, and do as I say. You're stronger; you can carry him if you have to. It's not a discussion. Off you go."

Smith was clearly not happy about it, I could tell from the way he was chewing his gum as if it was the first thing he'd had to eat in days. Still, he didn't argue, just pulled Stevens to his feet, rather roughly. Without goodbyes, they started off in the opposite direction.