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"Don't move!" yelled Mcgee. "We're in a minefield. Don't anybody..."
Another charge popped.
"Thought I told you guys not to move!" Mcgee shouted at the Ecotopian platoon.
Cloud McGee, ex-Special Forces sergeant, was, as a rule, an easygoing instructor, but tat the moment he had a serious job to do. He'd seen men blown apart in 'Nam because they panicked---couldn't wait for a sapper to come up with a detector and work them through it. It was the only way. Slow but sure. If it came to a showdown between the Ecotopians and the C.O.G. (corporation-occupied-government), his men of 1st platoon A Company, Rachel Carson Regiment, might be under fire and in a minefield at the same time. No matter what the temptation, you had to freeze. Otherwise you'd lose a leg or arm or both. And if that'd been a real antitank mine that had popped, you wouldn't even find the pieces.
"How we gonna mark 'em?" one of the platoon's machine gunners called out as the sapper moved cautiously forward, sweeping the ground.
McGee grinned. "Now pay attention boys and girl. I learned this one from Norman."
"Yeah, yeah, we knows, Sarge. You served under Schwarzkopdf. Big deal. How we gonna mark the goddamn mines?"
Still grinning, McGee reached for his vest-load pack and took out a small can. Gillette shaving cream---odorless. Following the sapper, he squirted a white blob on the position of every mine. After 15 minutes he announced, bowing slightly, hands out welcomingly like some kind of butler. "Walk right on through, gentlemen."
"Very fuckin' clever," said the machine-gunner.
"Yeah, well," McGee returned nonchalantly, "come a showdown, Zen, it might save your sorry ass.
The story swept through the movement like a Montana wildfire, so that even as the clouds of civil war were gathering over America. Cloud McGee had become something of a legend to all Ecotopians, from Washington State to the Florida Everglades. From Maine to Hawaii.
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