The jungle floor was transformed by a wash of silver light. The Greens looked like goblins of the forest; their bodies wattled by pigment in disruptive patterns. They looked evil, lacking their usual androgynous beauty. Travis kept his eye on them as they moved.

The jungle was full of night-time noise. The air was warm and humid.

Travis called a brief halt. The joint where his arm met flesh was itching.

He took out a tube of fungicidal cream and sat down on the stump of a collapsed tree. Sweat sometimes pooled in the joints and could lead to a nasty rash. He applied the cream.

He was startled to feel a touch on his shoulder. He looked up to see Stef standing there. His approach had been so quiet that Travis had not heard him. He began to understand why Stef had been sent along. He was a new type even more heavily modified from basic human stock.

Travis looked at him and didn't stop applying the cream. There was silence for a while.

"Sarge, do you get scared?" Stef asked.

Travis nodded.

"I've been scared since I came here, Sarge. Since before the autosniper and the ambush."

"Everybody's scared at first, Stef. It's a natural reaction."

"Bill-boy says we're not supposed to be scared, Sarge. We're created different, better."

Travis smiled nastily. "Bill-boy would know, wouldn't he? Being scared is being smart, son. Shows you're aware of what can happen to you. You can't allow the fear to control you. You've gotta control it."

Travis had gotten so used to the creeping terror of being in the jungle that he almost didn't notice it. It formed part of his normal awareness, only erupting in moments of extreme stress.

"Why are we here, Sarge?" You're here to die, you poor dumb son of a bitch, thought Travis. You're here to be tested to destruction so the Pentagon can decide whether to go ahead and batch produce green soldiers.

"We're gonna blow up a power station," Travis said eventually.

"No, why are we here in Nicaragua? The US isn't even at war with the Sandinistas. Bill-boy says nobody back home even knows we're here."

Good for Bill-Boy thought Travis, keeping his ears open to camp gossip.

And what was that about the folk back home? What have they been teaching you? This jungle is your home, kid. No way are you ever going back to the States. You're being created so that the folk back home won't have to send their sons and daughters overseas to be killed. They'll send you instead.

"Sarge, why are we here?"

"We're helping to stop to spread of communism."

Stef nodded. Communism was the gospel of evil to the Greens. It was the way they had been programmed. Why hadn't Stef remembered? Was this some pitiful attempt at independent thought by the new boy?

Why don't I tell you the truth, he thought. That this war is a convenient place to test new weapons.