Runs With Scissors dropped the furnace, beans and all, and jumped down from the Stallion’s wheel. The black objects slowly resolved themselves into a terrifying swarm of aircraft. Large and black, they hummed across the intervening sky, lights flashing from their wingtips. Emblazoned on each wing was a symbol, one that struck terror in all those who remembered it. It had been displayed on the fuselage of every bomb. The machines had returned.

Runs With Scissors was too young to remember the devastation, but he knew the stories. Every boy in every tribe knew the stories. It was a warning from the past, one that should never be forgotten.

The tribesmen sheltered in their Tribal Pods, igloo-shaped inflatable structures, designed to resist attack by all but the most lethal ordnance. Runs With Scissors ran to the nearest TP as the first bombs fell.

They weren’t bombs. As they hit the ground, the metal tubes unfolded, transformed, became robotic creatures, some humanoid, some not. They lurked outside the domes.