Thirty-EightWhen Machuzak got up and headed south with the dawn, he could find no reason for doing so except force of habit, and that hardly convinced him. He was dismayed but hardly surprised by a crowd of protestors and the National Guardsmen facing off again at the gate. “Let them in,” he said without expecting, or getting, a response, surprised nevertheless that the guards allowed him to pass. His badge operated the gate and the door to the MTF, but the pentagon units refused him entry. Death by deactivation.
He put up with frisking at the guard booth, not needing to ask where the order originated. The main lobby door was unlocked, but he tried his badge anyway and it functioned; someone, though, had already torn yesterday’s date from the calendar. He bounded upstairs to see other gua
