Floyd’s application for transfer had been approved.

  After a period of training, he was posted to the 412th Theater Engineer Command, headquartered in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

  It was a wide-ranging role. Floyd got to travel often. The 412th had a broad remit—construction support, humanitarian projects, and overseas operations. They took part in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Joint Endeavor in Bosnia, and Joint Forge in Kosovo. He also found himself in several former Warsaw Pact and Soviet countries.

  The 412th supported missions and exercises in Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and the Marshall Islands. During the East Timor crisis, they provided engineering support to the United Nations.

  Floyd saw some terrible sights in Iraq—the aftermath of war. Things he didn’t care to remember, and even less to speak of. The smells of death, destruction, and burning oilfields clung to every breath. It haunted the senses. The images stayed.

  “This is all about the oil,” Floyd thought grimly. “If there was no oil, we wouldn’t be here. This blasted heath has become a blasted oilfield.”

  One of the worst assignments was clearing the road from Kuwait City to Basra—the infamous Highway of Death.

  “The devil’s barbecue lit by man,” Floyd would call it later. That stretch of scorched earth would return to him in years to come, uninvited.

  He’d always had respect for the Veterans of Foreign Wars Association, but that respect deepened tenfold when he realized he’d only had a small taste of what others had endured in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

  There was one moment of levity amidst the horror.

  They were due to rendezvous with a Royal Engineers unit from the British Army. Floyd’s troop had arrived at the coordinates and was waiting. Their officer radioed the British and asked for an update.

  The reply crackled in:

  “Still in the middle of MMFD. ETA 90 approx.”

  The officer scanned the map.

  “MMFD? It’s not marked anywhere.”

  When the British arrived, their officer explained with a grin:

  “MMFD? That’s Miles and Miles of Fucking Desert, old boy.”

  Floyd and the British sappers laughed hard about that one.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Floyd’s first time in Asia was in the Philippines. He disembarked at Clark Air Force Base on the island of Luzon.

  The heat hit like a punch. It felt like a warm wet blanket had wrapped around him the moment he stepped off the aircraft.

  The first thing he noticed was the sheer number of motorcycles. Thousands of them, weaving through the streets—most of them small 100 or 125cc models.

  “They’re like ants going about their business,” Floyd remarked.

  It was the same in Thailand, Vietnam—motorcycles, motorcycles, motorcycles.

  Floyd was there on a US goodwill mission. The main tasks: road and access construction, and building weirs across streams and waterways. These helped control flooding and provided reliable water sources. The resulting ponds and reservoirs were stocked with fish, adding a vital food source to the communities.

  But even in the heat of the jungle, the memories followed.

  He could be mid-swing with a pickaxe when a flashback would hit:

  —A blackened skull, belonging to the tank commander of a destroyed APC, half out of the turret.

  —The helmet fused to charred bone.

  —White teeth catching the sunlight like a grin carved by fire.

  At night, the skull came back.

  It would visit him in dreams, screaming silently, the teeth shining against scorched bone.

  “You did this. You’re responsible. I despise you. You will never rest.”

  Floyd would wake soaked in sweat, tangled in sheets.

  His roommate, half-asleep, would mutter:

  “Just a dream, Floyd. See the doc. Get something to help you sleep.”

  He did. The doctor gave him pills.

  They helped. But not always.

  During the goodwill mission, Floyd had a stroke of luck.

  Sian Surner was performing live at the Philippine Arena.

  As far as Floyd was concerned, Sian Surner was the hottest thing on two legs—loud, proud, and unapologetically brilliant.

  He swapped duties with another member of the troop and joined 55,000 others in the crowd that night. The stadium was electric. Sian absolutely rocked the place—vocals, energy, lights, the whole production. Floyd soaked it all in, ears ringing and heart pounding.

  It would remain one of the best nights of his life for a long time to come.

  The following year, he was back in the Philippines—but under very different circumstances.

  A devastating typhoon had swept through. Entire regions lay flattened.

  Floyd stepped out into what looked like a war zone—but unlike Iraq or Kuwait, this devastation hadn’t been caused by bombs or bullets. Mother Nature had done this.

  “She really went for it,” Floyd thought grimly. “Didn’t spare a thing.”

  Whole buildings: gone.

  Trees: uprooted.

  Water: contaminated or nonexistent.

  Power: out.

  Smoke still curled lazily from the smoldering remains of fires that had flared up in the aftermath.

  Clearance work was dangerous. The electricity was supposed to be off, but that didn’t always turn out to be true. They bulldozed everything off the roads—whatever was left standing or lying in the way. It had to go.

  During one particularly long day, a mosquito bit Floyd.

  He thought nothing of it at first—until the fever hit.

  His sodium levels crashed.

  His white blood cell count plummeted.

  His back, shoulders, and legs throbbed like they were trying to detach from his body.

  He was put on sedatives to help him sleep.

  The doctors were watching him closely—he nearly needed a white cell transfusion—but just as things were reaching the edge, Floyd began to improve.

  He spent a week in the base hospital recovering.

  Before he was discharged, the doctor sat him down.

  “You’ve now got long-term immunity to this strain of dengue,” he explained, “but not to the other three types. Each reinfection is more dangerous than the last. If you get it again—especially a different strain—your immune response could actually make things worse. It’s called antibody-dependent enhancement. And it can be fatal.”

  Floyd blinked.

  “So… I’m immune, but not really?”

  “Exactly.”

  He muttered as he left the room:

  “Bloody hell. Very small… but very dangerous. I really hate mosquitoes now.”