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The eggheads always said we'd never do it, but they never once said it wasn't possible. Sitting on my knapsack in a mud-filled trench, this seems like a ridiculous thing to ponder, but the thought lodges in my brain as soon as our Captain gives word the monsters are restless. They'd never said we couldn't do it. They'd only trusted us not to be stupid.

And we'd failed in spades.

Next to me, Joe chews a wad of tobacco-free chaw and rubs his flamethrower with a cloth that looks about as clean as my boots. Nervous, that kid, but who could blame him? We didn't sign up for this. Not really. We put our names down, sure, but back then our heads had been overflowing with humanity's last stand, with glory and victory and all the abstractions that real warfare hid behind.

Ideals might spawn bravery in the recruitment meetings, in back alleys and empty schoolrooms, but they feel like a thin shield now. An abstract, tissue paper barrier between our trenches and the enemy. We're right, of course. We have to do this, but here in the mud, it's a lot harder to believe we'll succeed.

Harder to believe we'll survive, win the war, save the humans.

The night sky lies thick and black above us. No stars and nothing but a pale outline to show us where the Rockies stand. No moonlight. No idea what we're facing or when tonight's action will start.

At the beginning, we'd expected it to be easy.

"You need a dip yet, Mack?" Joe holds his chaw tin out, rattles it too loudly.

"No." I whisper it, only a breath of sound and still the hairs along my forearms lift. Proper sparse hairs. Nothing at all like the Augmented, and yet a shiver takes my spine, a memory flashes through my head.

Becky had started with the eyes. Maybe they all do. Maybe that's the first place it shows up when you muck about with a person's DNA. Who knows, really? Who cares? Point is she came home from work one day, skipping with joy to show me her new eyes. Cat's eyes. Creepy as fuck, and of course I screwed it all up.

I kick one boot against the other to dislodge the filth and try to remember she's a freak now. It doesn't matter if we fought about her eyes. The eyes had only been the beginning.

"You hear that?" Joe again, too loud for the frontline. Maybe the last frontline.

We've been at this for over a year now, and each week etches another layer of optimism from our hearts. We had them out-armed, outnumbered at first, but then half the folks back home, you know, the ones we're here risking our asses for, well they all up and took the augmentation.

Like lambs to slaughter.

Now we don't even know who we're fighting for. Maybe ourselves. Maybe as the last dregs of ordinary humanity we just can't bring ourselves to stop.

The first skirmish proved disastrous, of course. We'd expected to fight a war, expected the enemy to be civilized, to shoot back at us. I've changed units four times since then. They shuffle us around so we don't know how few of us are left. Makes sense, I guess.

But that first night, we'd been ready to win. We'd had piss and fury in our veins, huddled behind our fancy barricade with superior weapons and a heap of righteousness on our side. Until they came at us.

Until we heard the growling.

We had no idea how unlike us they'd become until we saw it in action. Teeth and claws and no fear at all in their first rush. Who wouldn't have run from that? Most of us ran. Hell, I ran.

Still heard them tearing us apart. Still heard the damn noises they make.

We didn't even start shooting until the shock wore off. Until it was too damn late.

They're calling this the last front. Nothing left past the Rockies, and the damn Augmented hold everything behind us. So we'll go out trapped, I suppose. Maybe. Unless we can hold them here. But I can already hear the guns firing in the dark, already hear them snarling.

#

The Pinkies had had a lot to say before the first battle. Afterwards, all we could hear was their whimpering. All we could smell was the piss they'd shed in fear.

I nudge Jerry in the rib and he shows me a fangy grin. We got 'em, that smile says, and the swish of his tail confirms it. His pelt's like smoke in the night, and only the gleam of his teeth and the shine off his rifle give him away.

Except I can smell the jackass. He's too damn excited for his own good.

I scratch behind one ear and tilt my head, catch the sound of whispering from their desperate little trenches. Tobacco scents waft sweet tendrils between the stench of terror. God, they always stink of that. Like we're some kind of demons, like they didn't start this whole thing.

We just wanted to be left alone, to live as we liked, do what we wanted with our own bodies. Nobody needed to die, not one person. Now, so many deaths trail behind us that I fear we'll lose our humanity before we win. I glance at Jerry, so excited to kill.

How can we get back to the ordinary world now? How can we go back to the office, go home again, and pretend this hasn't changed us? Damn Pinkies forced our hand, and maybe, they made us into what they'd always feared we were.

Animals.

Wrong again, Pinkies.

Captain Mayes stalks between our lines, hooves clipping against stone and rubble. He's going to order us out soon. I can feel it. But he's worried too. He tosses a suspicious glance at Jerry. Us preds make him nervous. Hell, after the first few frays, we make ourselves nervous. They keep us out of the brass now, keep us in the lines where we can let the instincts do the most good.

Sure hope we can rein it back when this hell is over. Won't be a win at all if we have to become what they hated to get it. Even if it is their fault. Still can't come home to the missus with a bloody muzzle.

I still don't get how we ended up here. Why the pinkies had to go all superior. So much weaker than us, and yet so sure they should own everything. They're so convinced we're a mistake that they tried to lock us up, undo us. Their laws and bans and boxes pushed us to it, in the end.

Not our fault, Pinkie. This is on you. You're not so superior now, are you? You've heard the howls at midnight.

Now they know their reservations will never hold us. Their doctors will never cure us.

They cannot unmake our kind, cannot wish us away.

I don't even think we lost one soldier that first fight. Not our unit at least. Mayes marches past again, swishing his oxtail and flexing both arms behind his back. Prey or no, he's still a scary dude. He'll give them hell as much as Jerry will. Horns like razors and a damn tough hide under his IBA.

He stops and raises one arm high over his head. He'll signal the assault any second, but he spares one last look at Jerry. At me too I suppose. The wolf in me wants to snarl at him, to curl my lip and show him what's to come. I rein it in, though. I've got a lot more control than Jerry.

_His_throat warbles a low purr. Ready to go.

We're ready for anything.

Except, maybe, going home when this is over. Maybe, we'll never be ready for that.

#

We got in a few that time. I know we did. I can still catch the stink of singed fur on the wind. The fire worked like a charm, but the screaming was horrendous. I huddle beside the first fire we've been able to build in days and tell myself the shivering is from the cold.

It just proves they're not human, the noises they make. No reason to have doubt about that. Once you hear the bastards howling, you have to know it. You chant it in your sleep afterwards. They're not people any longer, and it's not like we didn't warn them. The damn reservations were for their own good.

I've lost Joe. Damn kid got too cocky and ran ahead. A bear-man took him down, a huge hairy bastard with claws like... Poor kid. Captain wants me to write his wife. Shit. Dear Mrs. Jones, I'm sorry to inform you your husband was torn to pieces by a bear-man.

No. it was a bear. They don't deserve the _man_anymore. We tried to be reasonable, to provide a safe place for them to keep their freak-of-nature bodies out of our society. We don't care. Just don't want to have to see it. Be animals if you want to be animals.

Now, they can just be dead.

Captain says only one of us is going to make it out the other side of this war. I believe him, I do. I'm just not sure anymore that it's going to be us walking home after the dust settles. Rumors going 'round about augmentation rates in the cities, scary numbers. They swear it's just Augmented propaganda, lies to scare us out of fighting.

No way everyone can possibly want to be a freak.

Just my Becky.

#

The caveman has rediscovered fire. Son-of-a-bitch. They burned half of Omega Squad before we worked out what they were up to. Fire. And they call _us_animals. Scared the shit out of me when I saw the flamethrowers. Not just ordinary scared either, deep bone-level scared.

Made me want to run. Ha! No way am I saying that aloud. But still, you know, the wolf thing. Captain Mayes says it won't be a problem. Now that we know what they're up to, we can hang back. We can let them burn out their fear on the cold ground. We can wait.

When their napalm runs out, then they'll be ours again. Too many good men dead, though. Too much carnage already. They've drawn their blood, Mayes says. Now we'll show them how to really do it. It makes me uneasy when he says it, makes me twitch a little.

Earns me another suspicious look.

Well, he's the one that says it. Kill them all. His mouth makes the words. I just imagine doing it. Jerry too, if his tail is any indication. My housecat's used to twitch like that. Mr. Sprinkles. He'd make that noise too, right before he pounced.

We'll make sure none of them come out the next round in one piece.

It's us or them. All or nothing. I just want it to be over.

#

The new captain sends our unit in first, scouting sort of, but pushing the line forward a little as we go, testing the boundary. He wants us to work out where they're hunkering, I suppose. Doesn't take long.

The beasts come at us before we hit the suburbs, and it's a massacre. They've figured out the flames and they wait just out of reach for us to burn the fuel off. Stupid. Doesn't matter how much you shout, hold your fire, when they're snarling and scratching like that. Everyone shoots. Everyone goes dry.

Sometimes, the bastards don't wait. They run right through the flames. Maybe they're not human_or_ animal.

I get separated from my unit and end up facing this big guy. He's part cow or some shit. Horrible horns coming right out of his hair. He snorts, and I know I'm going to buy it. This is it for me. Game over. We're standing a good ten paces apart when he sees me too. Nothing but dust and rubble between us. He's faster. He has hooves for Christ's sake. I'm out of fire and hand to hand is not an option.

I've got a standard issue pistol in my belt, but we both work that out at the same time. The bull bastard charges when I reach for it. His hooves rattle my bones, death music. I imagine the letter they'll send home. Gored by a bull-man. Except there's no one to send it to.

My Becky is one of them.

The pistol sticks and my vision narrows to a tunnel. At one end, I'm gearing up to die. At the other, a monster is bearing down on me. His head lowers. How does he brush his hair around those things? Does he have his hats specially tailored? Insane laughter bubbles from my lips. I stagger my legs and bring my left arm up.

My right is busy trying to free a pistol that may not even slow this asshole down.

His horn goes right through my arm. I think it scrapes a chunk out of my side also, but the pain is so thick and I'm screaming so loud that I can't be sure. His head jerks and tries to tear free, but the son-of-a-bitch is stuck and I'm too close to passing out to do anything but scream and strike at him with the pistol in my free hand.

I slam it against his temple twice before I register that it's there. In my hand. I just want his head to stop moving so bad, but... Things are going dark fast. Still, I get that thought out and there's nothing to do but press the gun into his fuzzy hide and pull the trigger.

His eyes roll, white at the edges and full of nothing but fury. Nobody's home, and not just because I've blown his brains out. Never going to forget those eyes.

Never.

#

The science jerks may be right about the aggressive thing. I hate to admit it. I saw Jerry bite through a guy's shoulder in the Denver fray. He just sank his teeth right into the jackass and tore him up. Even after the guy stopped kicking.

It burns into your head, something like that, watching your best mate gnaw on a body. Maybe the pred thing is getting out of hand. Maybe. It still gives us the edge. It still keeps them on the fly. Cause they're really running now. Maybe, they'll never stop running.

The new brass is predicting total domination in a month or less. They're talking about reservations for the remaining Pinkies. It would serve them right, locking them in their own cages. Find out how they like being rounded up. I can't see there being many of them left, though.

This never was a survivable fight.

Jerry's stalking through camp like a peacock, proud as hell and ready to eat them all if he has to. I wonder if he knows. Red stains on the fur around his muzzle. Creepy shit. I wish he'd stop crowing and take a wash. Show some trace of remorse. Wash off the blood, Jerry, and sit down. You look like an ass, like an animal.

Besides, I can smell it.

Hope I don't end up eating anyone.

I'm probably gonna be sick if I do.

#

I'm on my own. Got separated again. There's just too much panic when they start roaring and rushing at us. I'm in the trees now, but I can hear them. I can hear the crunching, the shots in the distance.

And I'm bleeding a lot.

I don't know who's left, either. Maybe it's just me. Maybe this is the spot where humanity bites it. It's not funny, but I laugh anyway. Maybe I've already lost my mind.

All our power, our weapons, the sum total of human intellect, and we're still decimated. We still lose. There's no denying that now. We're losing this shit hard.

Maybe I should have liked her new eyes, the tail even. Was that where I went wrong?

I hear branches cracking, too close. Voices that growl too much to be my unit. Doesn't really matter where I fucked up now. Doesn't even matter if we were right or not.

I just hope they shoot me.

God, please don't let them eat me.

We completely destroyed them, but I'm not sure it feels like it should. I mean, they tried to herd us up, lock us away. Still, this is massive, way worse than anyone expected, I think. Even the brass. Then again, nobody could have predicted these numbers.

I lost my shit in the last fray. Don't even want to talk about what I did, but that's war, right? We all do things we don't talk about after. I think that's how it works.

My left leg is hamburger. Stepped right into a last ditch grenade. The medics swear it can be rebuilt, but the transgenic docs in this place are more worried about rebuilding me. The pred heavy factor, they're calling it. We scared the shit out of them out there. Now they want us all to add a meeker animal just to be safe. Like I want to be a damn squirrel, for fuck's sake.

Maybe they'll let me pick something cool like a mongoose or one of those nasty Tasmanian rodents.

Anyway. We won. Still think it should feel better somehow. Mostly, I'm just really glad it's over. Over. Now we get to work out what to do with the shit we won. All the shit.

Nobody like them left in the cities even. A whole fucking Augmented Nation.

Maybe they'll let me be part badger.

#

They said we wouldn't stop until they had the last man. Well, I think I might be him. They've got me in some transgenic hospital in Denver. New Denver, they're calling it. Everyone's talking about the future here as if there is one.

My nurse looks like a cat. She reminds me a lot of Becky, really, but her fur is orange and she's got little black tufts on her ears. I probably should have known Becks wouldn't stop at just farting around with contacts. I shouldn't have kicked her out when the tail grew in. When the fur showed up.

The guy on the next bunk's in worse shape than I am. His leg is ruined, but he doesn't even notice. Massive guy, and the fur. Shit. It's making me want to sneeze, but he'd probably strangle me if I did.

He keeps arguing with the staff, too. Wolfie doesn't want another augmentation it seems. Huh. Maybe their new nation isn't the paradise they think it is.

The cat nurse wants him to pick a bunny or some shit. Not this guy. He's a fighter. He might even be the wolf who ate Travis in that last round. He doesn't want to be a rabbit, that's for sure. Hey, genius, a badger isn't a rodent.

The doctors come to council him. They pull a curtain across like it's going to help. I hear them arguing, but it's obvious Wolfie isn't going to win. Not like he can run away on that leg. When he shuts up, it's my turn.

My doctor's a dog... for real.

His nose twitches when he talks to me. Do I stink, Fido? You got any idea what damp fur smells like, asshole?

He informs me they are offering two options. I can die of my wounds or I can let them fuck with me. No choice at all, is it? My body's too sore to fight, too damn tired to battle infection or mend itself. I imagine shooting him in his furry face, and he smiles. He assumes I'll choose augmentation, of course. His furry fingers pull open the curtain and he leaves with a final promise the nurse will help me make my selection. The one who could easily be Becky.

How would I know anymore?

#

My Pinkie roommate is a piece of work. This guy. I'm stuck getting a ground squirrel minor augmentation and he's got the balls to whine about having a proper animal. Sad sack he is. Stinky. He smells like fear and judgment. I suppose I should feel bad for the asshole. I mean, his side lost. Last of his kind and all. Last man standing.

Did we go too far?

He's nervous, I guess. I remember when I got my wolf. I'd wanted to impress the boys down at the pub. All of them were fawning over Jerry's panther. I wonder where Jerry is now. Haven't seen him since the last fray. Since the medics found me and dragged my sad carcass to transgenics.

I sure hope Jerry made it out all right.

The whiny guy takes the catalog from the nurse, a hot kitten with orange fur and a cleavage worth writing home about. Anyway, he doesn't even open it, and I catch him glancing my way. Maybe he thinks he's being subtle. Maybe he's going to take a slow death after all.

I tell him not to sweat it. The pity I offer is probably half guilt, but he looks terrified of a damn paper catalog. "Whatever you pick, buddy, it can't be worse than a squirrel."

I can see he doesn't want to laugh, probably doesn't even want to talk to me. Too bad.

"Ground squirrels aren't the same as tree squirrels." He's a natural smartass.

"Whatever." I shrug and try to impress him. "I doubt I'll still be hung like a horse when they're done with me."

Pinkie actually laughs at that.

He glares at his catalog, and the nurse comes back to take me to prep.

"Sayonara, buddy." I let my nerves keep me talking. "Good luck."

He laughs and tells me to hang onto my junk.

No kidding.

I hope I don't end up with a cocktail frank. Stupid Pinkie reminds me of more than that. I forgot how nervous I was the first time. I forgot how it felt to touch bare skin until I'd grappled with that guy in the last battle. Weird. I'd forgotten that too. Maybe the pred heavy factor was real. The animal had gotten in my head. Maybe.

I forgot a lot out there.

#

I peek at the catalog after they drag my new mate off to be neutered. Poor sack. He was shaking like a squirrel when they wheeled him out. Now that's funny. Somehow I can't picture that furry bastard enjoying a nut or two on the neighbor's lawn.

But I can't picture myself with a tail, either, with fur and eyes like Becky had showed up with.

Nothing in this catalog looks like Wolfie. I suspect they don't want me with anything that powerful. Just a token change for me, something to make me one of them. To wipe out the last of ordinary humanity.

Maybe I should take the death. I probably should. It would have been easier, somehow, out in the trees with the gunfire and the howling. The hospital bed is too normal. Even with nurse kitty attending. The time for noble sacrifice has passed. I think I might want to live now, even if it means a tail.

I imagine the wolf asshole with a huge squirrel tail and can't help but smile. It'd serve him right. But I'm just trying to distract myself and not doing a good job of it, either.

Nurse kitty makes a few suggestions. I tell her skunk is right out, and she manages to make me laugh. When she giggles, the human shows. Her hands too. They're furry but long fingered. Human, even with the claws at their tips. If you focus on her normal bits, she's not bad looking.

Nice smile. Only slightly fangy.

"So what'll it be?" She grins.

There's a housecat in my catalog, but maybe that's too ordinary for her. Maybe they like to mix it up. How would I know? I didn't keep Becks around long enough to find out. God, I can't do this. How the hell am I going to fit into a society I know dick about. I consider asking the nurse what she thinks. Will that make me sound like a pussy?

Not even funny in my head.

"Why'd you do it?" I hear my voice, but I hadn't meant to say it. Maybe I'm not asking her. It's Becky I think of.

"Because I wanted to." Nurse Kitty sounds just as pissed as Becks had.

I can't stop myself. "Then why are you all so touchy about it?"

She leans forward and wrinkles a nose just like Becky would have. "Maybe because we can smell how much you don't like us."

"You can smell that?"

"It's like a superpower." Nurse Kitty stands up and gives me a look. Not angry, but not happy either. Do I really stink?

"That's kind of cool." I mutter it, but her eyes widen. "I mean, I didn't know you'd get extra senses and stuff."

God. I sound like an idiot.

I wonder if Wolfie is half squirrel yet, if his Johnson will shrink up right away or if it takes a while. The catalog claims there's a geneticaccommodation period. It uses terms like transition and scares the shit out of me. Maybe they'd put a bullet in me if I asked. Nurse Kitty might.

Except now I see more sympathy in her gaze. She's softened a bit. Maybe I smell scared too. Or nervous. Either way, she brings me a valium and smiles when I swallow it without arguing. She takes the catalog from me and thumbs through it. Shows me a picture or two.

"How about a rodent?"

I shake my head. "You got any horses in there?"

It's funny that time. I could show the wolf guy my horse junk and get the last word in.

Nurse Kitty has a pretty laugh.

"I think I'd make a lousy vegetarian," I tell her.

"Maybe something, omnivorous?" She holds the catalog open facing me and taps a picture of a Raccoon with her finger. I almost manage not to notice the claw. "This one's cute."

Cute, she says. It looks like a bandit, but maybe the mask does it for her. Maybe she's into bad boys.

"Fine." I nod. Cute it is.

Just not a squirrel.

We lost the Transgenic War, even if they said we'd never have one. We lost ourselves, or maybe, we just found a new self. Something different. Superpower senses and a different kind of future. Either way, I'll have a future. It turns out I really do want to live.

And when Nurse Kitty smiles and goes to tell the doctor my decision, I can't help but imagine what it will be like to smell fear.