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raised.
    “All right boys, don’t shoot me now,” the Doomsday Warrior said, walking toward them. “I’m here to surrender.” They looked up, startled at the sound of the voice. Then their eyes lit up like Christmas bulbs on the trees of their ruddy faces.
    “Holy shit, as I live and breathe,” Detroit Green’s ebony dark face broke out in a wide grin. The bull-like man said, “He done returned from the dead.” He spoke in a mocking southern accent, almost dropping the piece of venison he held in his hand. They just sat there looking up, their jaws hanging open as if struck dumb. McCaughlin, Archer, even Chen couldn’t make a sound.
    “It’s me boys, but you look in such a somnabulant state right now that if I make a speech I’m afraid you might pass out.” They jumped up and rushed over to their leader, the man they were sure had been killed. The team gathered around him, slapping the Doomsday Warrior on the back, wanting to make body contact with Rockson, to make sure it wasn’t just a pipe dream, to touch the flesh of his breathing body.
    “How the fuck did you—” Detroit began, tilting his ebony face sideways above the broad sweatshirt-covered chest.
    “It’s a long story,” Rock said. “Too long. And you? I was sure you all were a group of charcoal statues I found.”
    “We saw ’em, too,” Chen piped in, running his hand along the dark mustache that curved down across his Oriental mouth, below the deep almond eyes. “In fact when we scoured these hills we found scores of them.” The Chinese martial arts master was nearly invisible in his neck-to-toe black ninja suit. Only the flames of the fire flickering over his face showed the presence of a man.
    Rock turned to Archer. The huge near-mute was smiling with a grin as broad as his watermelon-sized face. He cradled his immense steel crossbow in one arm and squeezed Rockson around the shoulder with the other, almost lifting him off the ground. At seven feet plus and at least four hundred pounds, although no one had ever really been able to weigh him, the man had the strength of a grizzly bear.
    “He likes you, Rock.” Detroit laughed. “He was sure looking blue in the face when we all thought you wasn’t around no more. We were thinking of electing a new team leader, but we all just looked at each other and said—no way.”
    “Wasn’t the same without you, Rock,” McCaughlin piped in back at the fire where he was tending his venison à la campfire. “Kinda’ like steaks without no steak sauce.”
    “I’m touched,” Rockson said, putting his hand with the shotgun pistol across his chest.
    “Well, if we waited for a signal from you to tell us things were all right,” a woman’s voice suddenly said from the edge of the clearing, “we’d be up there all night.” Kim and Langford walked over to the fire. The men all saluted with respect. They had been at the Re-Constitutional Convention as well and knew who Charles Langford was. They stood at attention, even McCaughlin rising. They were all freefighters and as such, part of the newly formulated United States Army. It sounded good—the U.S. Army.
    “Please, please!” Langford said, waving his hands for them all to sit down. “No formalities out here. It seems ridiculous.” The president stood on one leg, rubbing the other. Now that they had stopped walking, cramps were beginning to set in.
    “Here sir,” Chen said, offering his log seat to Langford. “Sit down—we have food ready.”
    “Good, good.” Langford smiled, dropping to the log with a long exhale of relaxation. The moon was starting to rise now casting a ghostly glow over the assembled freefighters. But at least for now they were safe. And there was food. Things could be a lot worse. And would be.

Five
    I n Washington, President Zhabnov, supreme commander of the United Socialist States of America—the U.S.S.A.—tossed and turned in his large feather bed trying to wake himself from a nightmare. Two young