He sat up. Half of the Greens lay sprawled where they had thrown themselves. They were all tired from eluding the patrol the previous evening.
Travis checked his arm. From his belt he took out a set of tools. He made some field repairs. The arm wasn't badly damaged. He soon had it working.
Bill-boy, who was sentry, looked at him and winked. Travis got up and rummaged in his pack. Time for his pills.
First he took Bio-lok(TM) for his arm, a drug to suppress his immune system's natural urge to reject the complex neural linkages that enabled him to control an arm of teflon, kevlar and fibre-optic nerves. Next a neurotransmitter enhancer which enabled the protein based computer at the top of his spine to take orders from his brain and transmit them to his limbs. Finally some vitamin tablets. Just to keep him fit and healthy. The first two were the chains the CIA used to bind him, keep him coming back.
Without the drugs he would be a cripple.
His preparations had disturbed the Greens who came awake instantly and quietly around him. It astonished him that they could do that. Go from being completely at rest to combat readiness in a moment. Still it was only part of the design that made them into what the Pentagon believed was the soldier of the future.
He reviewed the facts; grown by accelerated cell division in culture vats, educated by neural induction helmet. They had stomach bacteria modified to enable them to digest cellulose, live off the land. They could eat wood if necessary. They had sub-dermal pigmentation sacs which gave them natural camouflage.
They were stronger, faster and cheaper to mass produce than comparable human soldiers. At least such was the hope. These were the field trials, he was the observer.
The Greens had clustered around something, watching with alert fascination. He strolled over to look. On the ground a raiding party of ants were locked in combat with a large beetle several times their size.
The beetle was massively armoured with huge jaws but it was doomed; the ants swarmed over it spraying formic acid.
Travis watched the reactions of the Greens closely. Bill-boy smiled and nodded happily, Carlo shook his head and walked away. Chad's face might have been carved from stone for all the expression it carried. Stef looked puzzled.
"Watch them," Saunders, the CIA man, had said back in the Camp. "Anything unusual, no matter how trivial, report it."
The ants had finished the beetle. Bill-boy stood up and looked around pleased. Then he brought his foot down and ground the ants under his heel.
He smiled.
"Let's eat," he said. Travis stared at him. A prototype, he reminded himself. He's just a prototype. A small, mocking voice inside his own head said just like you were. His feelings of unease increased.
4. Ambush.
The Sandinista never knew what hit them. They had been following the trail, straggling along in a line, three men on point. Travis had let them go ahead until the main body of troops were over the anti-personnel mines which he had seeded the trail with.
Travis detonated the mines himself because they were a weapon he hated, had done ever since Beirut.
Men were torn apart by the small explosives. The rest were shocked and disorganised. They fell to a hail of fire from the American assault rifles.
Some of those at the back escaped the mines and dived for cover, firing a fusillade of shots into where they thought the enemy were. They hit their own men for the most part. Travis and the Greens quickly flanked them and chopped them down.
In the confusion a young boy armed with a bayonet leapt on Travis from the undergrowth. Travis desperately deflected the blade with a sweep of his arm. He saw the look of horror on the boy's face when his knife bounced drawing no blood. Travis stood there looking at him, trying in that moment to forget the brief flash of human contact as their eyes met and bring his gun round. The boy drew his rifle back for a second swing.
The boy went down. Chad's long knife protruded between his shoulder blades. Chad showed him a wolf grin then turned to pursue the fleeing humans. Travis himself suddenly overcome with a berserk fury part guilt, part tear, part joy, charged into the jungle searching far prey.
Afterwards they surveyed the scene of the carnage. Twelve dead, many injured. The Greens took no prisoners. Travis and his men had an assortment of cuts and bruises. Only Carlo had taken a wound, a glancing shot along his temple. His head was swathed in a turban of bandages under his helmet.
Flies hovered over the bodies. A terrible stench filled the air. Travis and the four Greens stood in silence contemplating their handiwork. Travis was part appalled and part elated, his usual reaction to surviving a combat.
He could not tell what the Greens were thinking from the expression on their faces.
The patrol were wearing a motley assortment of uniforms. They had carried disparate weapons. Travis lifted a rifle from the hands of a dead girl.
She was no more than twelve. It was a Brazilian copy of a Soviet assault rifle. It had digital sights. Travis checked them. They were faulty. He crushed them with his armoured fist.
He hated this war. He decided that this was his last mission. No matter what the cost, once this was over, he was getting out.
5. Another Night Move.
The moon was full. 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.