Warren Murphy: The Color of Fear

All the commander understood was that he was to hold his ring of steel in place, tightly and without faltering, so that none could exit the hellish enclave of American junk culture.

He did not expect a wave of forces sneaking up from his rear to wash over his ring of steel and retake the park. The objective was not to defend Euro Beasley, Commander Crocq later pointed out to the military board of review. If they had wanted him to defend the park from external threats, as well, should that not have been included in his orders?

So pleaded Commander Crocq in vain before they court-martialed him.

There were many other reasons Commander Crocq was not responsible for what later transpired.

First there were crowds. They came by auto, by truck-even by metro line. The terminus of the A RER train line was called Parc Euro Beasley. Daytrippers who came to sample the place of cultural perfidy employed it. Although the park was under cultural quarantine, still they came to look, to gawk, perhaps to catch a glimpse of Mongo or Dingbat or one of the others who dwelled here no more.

It was a festive time, so when men dressed as soldiers of Napoleon III began to appear among the growing crowd, it was not a cause for concern, never mind interest. And since all attention was focused inward, not outward, just as his orders dictated, Commander Crocq was completely oblivious to the increasing preponderance of soldiers dressed in the fashion of a bygone century.

That is, until they attacked.

THEY CAME SCREAMING unintelligible sounds. Not curses, not imprecations, not defiance. Just sheer bloodcurdling noise.

This arrested the attention of all in the awkward moment when they came pouring over ring of steel in waves of blue and gray.

They carried no guns, no rifles, no pistols. To that, Commander Crocq swore to his dying day.

But when they poured under the ring of steel, the ring of steel lay helpless. Multiton tanks and APCs could not move as fast as a man. Not from a cold start. Not when parked snout to rump and vice versa.

"Defend your positions!" Commander Crocq cried. Too late. Their position had already been overrun. Soldiers of the past, including fez-hatted Zouaves not seen since the 1800s, poured into the gates of Euro Beasley.

"Fire at will!" Commander Crocq sputtered when he realized his line had been breached before he could respond to the insult.

That was when the horrible event transpired.

His men were chambering their weapons. Not a shot had been fired. Not by either side. That was the remarkable thing, the terrible thing.

The infiltrators turned, dropped into crouches and pulled masks of lead over their eyes. The peculiar quality to these masks was that they bore no eyeholes. The infiltrators were digging into defensive positions utterly blind.

Then they unleashed the terrible power of what looked from the near distance like universal remote controls.

There came flashes, pulses, strong lights. All hues and colors imaginable were represented. The lights bombarded Commander Crocq and his unflinching Foreign Legionnares like a light show with the kicking power of a thousand mules.

Some men ran for their lives, unhurt. Others lost their nerve and their consumed rations before succumbing to vivid green flashes. Still others, subjected to red, became beside themselves with anger, which they took out on their comrades-in-arms.

It was a horrible, unearthly thing. The ring of steel held strong, but the men manning it collapsed like paper dolls before a firestorm. A firestorm of rainbow colors.

For his part Commander Crocq, who sat high in the turret hatch of his tank, ducked down and pulled the hatch after him. He would later protest this was not an act of cowardice, but the reasonable response of a commander who needed to preserve his wits in order to marshal his forces.

For all the good it did him, Commander Crocq might as well have taken his medicine like a soldier of France.

The awful lights penetrated the tank's thick plate armor, showing the utter futility of France's engines of war before new technologies.

He received a simultaneous burst of pink and yellow.

Commander Crocq leaped from his tank and ran off into the scattering crowds of onlookers. He was very, very frightened by the yellow light that seemed to have deep-fried his brain in sizzling butter.

But under that mindless fear lay a peaceful feeling that all would be right once he got far away enough. It was a very peaceful feeling. And somehow it was pink.

MARC MOISE SAW the French defenders fall back in confusion and a wide spectrum of emotions. A few, pinked, actually came toward them. They were hued by cavalry who had control of the yellow universal units or by artillery, which had red.

They fell back, fighting among themselves.

When the commotion had died down, Marc led his Zouaves into the Sorcerer's Chateau and down into Utilicanard, while the California Summer Vacation Musketeers and the Florida Sunshine Guerrillas stood picketed at all approach roads.

The smell in Utilicanard was very ripe. Marc had to pink himself just to keep going. The Zouaves took it in stride. They had come for a fight, fresh from their triumph at the Third Battle of the Crater.

When Marc got to the main control room he found drying vomit and smashed hypercolor controls. Frowning, he got on the satellite phone and reported to the first person who answered.

"Cheatwood is gone. And someone smashed the controls."

"Any idea what happened?" a gruff, frosty voice demanded.

"No. But there's vomit. Could he have greened himself?"

"Not in his own control room. Check the video logs."

Marc replayed the tapes until he saw Rod Cheatwood succumb to his own video screen. The flash of green in the tape was enough to make Marc feel a little queasy, but he held down the food he'd last eaten. It wasn't hard. Although train fare, it was French.

"Looks like the French acquired the technology," he reported.

"Was it a woman?"

"Yeah, looks like."

"Damn her eyes. She must have figured out how to make the orb operate. Okay, hold the fort. We're coming in."

"Sir?" said Marc. But the line was already dead.

So Marc Moise sat down in the chair before the main viewer, trying to reconcile the crusty voice that had spoken to him with the childhood memory of Uncle Sam Beasley.

Uncle Sam was coming here. But why? That hadn't been in Marc's premission briefing.

FRENCH MINISTER of Culture Maurice Tourette was the first to hear of the rout at Euro Beasley.

"Who?" he sputtered. "Who is responsible for this outrage?"

"According to reports," the informant told him, "the attackers were dressed after the style of Napoleon III."

"Napoleon III?" Tourette chewed the leathery inside of his cheek as he processed that bit of intelligence. This was absurd; therefore it could not be. But it was. Therefore, it was an American absurdity. And checking the latest Le Monde, he saw the photographs of what the French press were calling l'affaire Crater.

The soldiers had come from America, he concluded. They had come to further insult the French Republic. And for that they would pay.

Picking up the telephone, he put in a call to the general of the air army.

"Mon General, I have distressing news. But if you act in a timely manner, all might be saved. The cultural Chernobyl has been retaken. Perhaps this matter can be settled once and for all by turning it into a true Chernobyl. Do you, by chance, have any nuclear weapons at your disposal? Ah, you do. Very good. Now listen..."

THE HELICOPTER was jet black and skimmed low over the outlying farms and hills of Averoigne before settling into Euro Beasley.

Marc Moise watched it by manipulating the surveillance cameras. When the craft had settled, he was not surprisedbut still it was a shock-to see Bob Beasley step out of the helicopter, look around and help Uncle Sam Beasley from his conveyance.