EXPIRATION DATE

The soldiers were silent. They already knew this answer. They had accepted it when they agreed to march.

The night before the battle. Camp in the ruins of the mall.

The fire burned quietly, almost smokelessly - they used special fuel to avoid attracting attention. Stone sat on a broken concrete slab, looking at the flames and thinking about what he never said aloud: he did not believe they would win. He did not believe they would survive. But he believed their sacrifice would matter. He believed that when the morning news channels of the corporations showed footage of the destroyed Neura-Infra center, in every city, in every cell of New Eden, someone would whisper: "They are still here. They are fighting." And that would be the spark from which one day a fire would blaze.

His deputy, Colonel Garrison, sat down beside him. He was thirty-five, young for his rank, but he had been with Stone all these years - from the first refusal to the corporations to this day. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, but there was no fear in them.

General, - said Garrison, - we know they have Locusts. We know they have turrets. We know they can destroy us within minutes once we enter their zone. Why do we still go? Wouldn't it be more logical to retreat into the mountains, wait, gather strength, wait for them to weaken?

Stone turned to him. His voice was quiet but hard as steel.

Because if we do not go now - they will never weaken. Every day we wait, they grow stronger. Every month of delay - another million people growing accustomed to their order, ceasing to see slavery. We must strike, even if it is our last. We must show them resistance is possible. Our deaths will be a signal. A signal that not everyone surrendered. That there are those ready to die for freedom. And when that signal is heard - others will follow us.

Garrison nodded, his jaw tightening. He placed a hand on Stone's shoulder.

I am with you to the end, General. To the very end.

Stone looked at the fire.

I know, son. I know.

They sat in silence, listening to the crackling fire and the wind playing through the broken glass. Tomorrow they would die. But today - they were free.

Dawn. July 23, 2071.

Stone stood at the head of the unit, his silhouette sharp against the gray, half-asleep sky. Behind him - one hundred and fifty fighters. Ahead - Washington, no longer their capital. He raised his hand, made a sharp gesture forward, and they began to move.

They marched toward Neura-Infra headquarters. They marched to die. But they marched not as victims - they marched as soldiers of the last army of the free world.

SCENE 2. THE "LOCUST" DRONES

July 2071. Neura-Infra Headquarters. Silicon Gulch.

The building towering over the valley looked like a giant monolith of glass and polished metal - cold, shining, flawless. Its facades reflected the gray morning sky, making it almost invisible against the clouds. Inside - absolute sterility: white corridors, soft light, the smell of ozone and antiseptic. Here, on twenty floors, were server rooms, data management centers, communication nodes that connected all continents into a single network. This was the brain of the corporate empire - if a strike landed here, the world would go blind for a moment, communication between corporations would break, and chaos would reign for a few hours where absolute order was accustomed. For the resistance, this was their only chance. For the corporations, their main vulnerability.

In the control center, on the thirteenth floor, behind a wide panel of twenty holographic screens, sat Colonel Marcus Wayne. He was forty-five, wearing the dark gray uniform of the PMC "Neuro-Strike" with silver patches denoting his rank. His face - smooth, shaved, without a single wrinkle - expressed nothing but professional focus. Wayne had started his career in the US Army twenty-five years ago, before the corporations finally took power. He remembered the oath he had sworn to the Constitution. But he also remembered how in 2047 his unit was disbanded, and he was offered a contract with Cyber-Fund. He signed it because he had a family and no choice. Now he commanded a unit of mercenaries guarding Neura-Infra headquarters. He did his job well and asked no unnecessary questions.

But today he felt a slight unease. Reconnaissance drones launched at dawn had detected movement in the old suburbs - thermal traces, about one hundred fifty points, moving in compact groups. They did not look like civilians - too organized, too fast. They were heading straight here. Wayne knew who these people were - he had heard rumors of General Stone and his unit, the last remnant of the old army that had refused to surrender. He even felt something like respect for them. But respect did not prevent him from carrying out orders.

They are coming, - said Wayne without turning. His voice was even, emotionless, like a robot's. - Distance - fifty to seventy kilometers. Speed - about eight kilometers per hour. They will be here in six to seven hours, if they do not stop for rest.

The head of security of Neura-Infra, a man of about sixty in an immaculate white shirt with an expression of permanent mild disgust on his face, stood behind him. He had no idea what war was - he was a financier, a manager, a man used to resolving issues through contracts and negotiations. But now he was nervous, because his office, his servers, his perfect world could be under threat.

How many? - he asked, trying to sound confident.

One hundred fifty to two hundred, - Wayne replied, studying the data. - Old weapons: M-27 rifles, early-model grenade launchers. A few armored personnel carriers from the 2030s running on diesel - we can track their heat signatures from ten kilometers away. They are not a threat in military terms.

Then why should I be worried? - the director irritably adjusted his tie. - If they are not a threat, just destroy them and report completion.

Wayne finally turned to him. His gaze was cold, sharp as a blade, and lingered on the director's face for a moment.

There is always a threat, - he said calmly. - Even if they only have stone knives. They can reach the building if we underestimate them. They could launch a virus through a physical connection to the server if they breach the lower levels. They could blow the foundation if they have powerful enough charges. Underestimating the enemy is a mistake we cannot afford. I recommend deploying Locusts at full power and destroying them before they approach the first perimeter.

The director hesitated. Locusts were an expensive resource; their use required approval from the board of directors. But in case of a direct threat, he had the authority to make the decision himself.

Proceed, - he said. - Total annihilation.

Wayne nodded and turned to his operator - a young woman with short hair and headphones.

Activate the Locust swarm, - he ordered. - Mode - total. No warnings, no prisoners. Complete elimination of all thermal traces within a twenty-kilometer radius of the central building.

Yes, sir, - the operator replied, her fingers flying across the touch panel. - Swarm initiated. Launch in thirty seconds.

On the main screen, a diagram of the building appeared - the roof, hatches, launch systems. Thousands of silver dots that had been in standby mode began to glow green. The drone control system performed an automatic diagnostic: battery charge, navigation status, hull integrity. All indicators were normal.

Ready, - the operator reported.

Open hatches, - Wayne commanded. - Launch.

Above the building, with a metallic hiss, twenty aluminum panels slid apart. From them, with a barely audible hum, silver dots began to fly out - first one at a time, then by dozens, hundreds, thousands. They rose into the air, forming a dense, rotating spiral, like a tornado of metal and microchips. "Locusts" were miniature killers, the size of a man's palm, equipped with low-power explosive charges and thermal targeting systems. They were programmed with one single algorithm: find a living body and destroy it, flying into the chest, head, or abdomen. They left no chance of survival. They took no prisoners.

The swarm rose to an altitude of three hundred meters and hovered, waiting for coordinates. The entire formation - a perfectly even grid, without gaps, without errors.

Wayne looked at the main screen, where Stone's unit's thermal traces were highlighted in red. They were moving across open terrain, between the ruins of old warehouses, unaware they had been watched for hours.

Attack, - he said.

The swarm moved. Thousands of drones surged forward, silently, like ghosts, slicing through the air. Their speed - two hundred kilometers per hour. In three minutes they would be there.

In the field behind the old warehouses. Stone's unit.

The general was the first to notice movement in the sky. At first it was just a silver shimmer on the horizon, like a flock of birds, but too even, too synchronized. Then he heard that sound - a high-frequency hum, unmistakable. He already knew what it meant. His heart skipped a beat.

Take cover! - he shouted, his voice cracking. - Everyone take cover! Drones! Locusts!

The soldiers reacted instantly. They were trained, they knew what to do - but knowledge did not help when the enemy was faster and more precise. They scattered in different directions, trying to find any cover: concrete blocks, remains of walls, rusty containers. But there was too little cover, and too many of them.

The first drone slammed into the chest of a young soldier who had not made it to the wall. The explosion was quiet, almost inaudible, but lethal. The boy fell onto his back, his eyes wide open, but they saw nothing. The second drone found another - he tried to shoot at the swarm, but bullets passed through them, causing no harm. The drone pierced his shoulder, tearing tendons, and he fell to his knees, screaming in pain.

Stone watched his people die one by one. He tried to shoot at the drones, but each shot brought down only one, and there were thousands. They circled over the field like locusts, seeking, finding, killing. Some tried to run, but a drone caught them in seconds. Others hid behind metal sheets, but a drone slipped through a gap and exploded behind them. The field became a graveyard.

Retreat! - Stone shouted, but his voice drowned in the hum. - Retreat to the forest!

The survivors tried to fall back toward the treeline, but the forest was too far. The drones gave them no chance. They systematically, methodically, with surgical precision, destroyed everyone trying to escape. Explosions sounded every few seconds. Silence fell only when no one remained.

Stone fell to his knees. He looked at the sky, where drones circled, checking for survivors. His chest burned with pain - one drone had grazed him, tearing his body armor, and he felt blood soaking his shirt. He looked at the field, littered with the bodies of his soldiers. No one moved. No one breathed.

He closed his eyes and whispered, almost inaudibly:

Forgive me. I failed. I could not protect you.

He waited for death. It came in the form of a drone that had found his last thermal trace. The machine approached, hovered a couple of meters from his face, scanned his pupils, checked against the database to confirm he was the one to destroy. Then it accelerated and slammed into his chest.

Stone felt no pain. He simply fell forward, face-first into the dirt, and stopped breathing. Around him - only bodies, blood, and silence, broken only by the distant hum of the returning swarm.

Control Center. Neura-Infra Headquarters.

Forty minutes after the attack began, the drone swarm returned to the rooftop hives. Each machine reported a completed task - two hundred eighty-seven thermal traces detected and destroyed. No survivors. No escape. All clear.

Wayne looked at the screen. In the field, where people had moved just an hour ago, only motionless points remained - cooling bodies. He felt nothing but fatigue. He switched to high-resolution cameras, zoomed in, and saw General Stone's face. Old, gaunt, with open eyes still gazing at the sky. Wayne knew he could have ordered him taken alive, interrogated, but he had not. Because he was afraid to hear what he himself had long wanted to say but never dared.

The director approached him, nodding approvingly.

Well done, Colonel. Report to the board of directors - the threat has been neutralized. The battle is won.

Wayne slowly rose from the table and looked at the director. His eyes were empty, lifeless, like those of a man who had long lost himself.

Yes, - he said quietly. - Won.

He turned to the window and looked down at the city that was once called Washington. Where there had been a forest that morning, now lay a field littered with bodies. One hundred and fifty people who fought to the end. One hundred and fifty free people. He looked at them and thought: "They died for what they believed in. And I? What will I die for?"

But he did not say that aloud. He simply raised a glass of water from the table and took a sip. The water was tasteless, like everything in this world. He set the glass down and returned to work.

SCENE 3. HELL ON EARTH

July 2071. Silicon Gulch. The battlefield.

When the last drone of the swarm disappeared into the headquarters' hatches, that special silence fell that only comes after mass death. No birds, no wind, no insect chirping - only the hum of cooling engines somewhere in the distance and the heavy, metallic smell of blood mixed with burnt plastic and ozone. The field, which an hour ago had been covered with withered grass and wild shrubs, now resembled an alien wasteland: not a single living plant remained where drones had exploded - the earth was scorched down to gray stone. One hundred and fifty bodies lay in unnatural, twisted positions, scattered across an area of several hundred square meters, like figurines carelessly shaken from a game board. One hundred and fifty lives. One hundred and fifty deaths. One hundred and fifty names no one would ever record in the annals of history.

General Michael Stone lay on his back, arms spread wide, his eyes wide open and fixed on the gray, cloudless sky. He looked almost peaceful - the wrinkles on his face smoothed out, his jaw relaxed, even the gray stubble no longer seemed harsh. In his chest, slightly left of center, gaped a ragged wound the size of a fist - a drone had struck him at full speed, tearing through his body armor, shattering his ribs, and turning his lungs into bloody pulp. Blood still oozed from the wound in a thin stream, soaking into the earth, but Stone no longer felt pain. He died as he had wanted - in battle, facing the enemy, weapon in hand. Free. He had not signed contracts, not begged for mercy, not betrayed his oath. His last word, whispered, was to his fallen soldiers: "Forgive me." And that word, like all others, dissolved into the air, leaving no trace.

Around him - his army. They lay in various poses: some face down, fingers clawing at the earth as if trying to crawl away from the swarm; others frozen on their knees with raised hands, as if trying to protect their faces; others turned onto their backs, their glassy eyes staring at the sky like the general's. The drones had spared no one - they acted with surgical precision, striking the most vulnerable points. Most soldiers had their heads penetrated - neat holes in their temples, backs of heads, foreheads, from which dark, thick blood still oozed, mixed with gray matter. Others - their chests: drones struck the heart or lungs, leaving ragged wounds from which the last warmth of life slowly drained. Others - abdomens: fragments of plastic and metal tore through internal organs, leaving only bloody pulp and horror on their faces. There were no mass explosions, no fire, no columns of smoke here. Each body was like a separate work of art. The art of death, created by soulless machines programmed for destruction.

Over the field, twenty minutes after the swarm left, cleaning drones appeared - large, bulky, with metal claws and wide containers. They worked silently, methodically, without emotion: grab a body, load it into a container, move to the next. Their task was to erase all traces. Within an hour, no blood, no fragments, no even footprints on the ground would remain. The field would look as if no one had ever been there. No traces. No evidence. No names. The cleaning drones did not ask whose bodies these were, did not record them in registries, did not send notifications to relatives. They simply loaded them into containers that would be taken to a crematorium, where everything would turn to ash and be scattered over the ocean. Because these soldiers had no families waiting for them. No homes to return to. They did not even have official names - in corporate databases they were listed as "illegals," "lost identification," or simply "anomalous thermal traces." They were the last army of freedom. And they disappeared, leaving behind nothing but emptiness and memories in the minds of those who destroyed them.

Neura-Infra Headquarters. Main conference hall. Two hours later.

The board of directors assembled in full. Around a long table of black glass, inlaid with glowing gold lines, sat fifteen people - top managers of the four largest corporations: Neura-Infra, Solar-City, Cyber-Fund, and Green-Matrix. Their faces showed no emotions, only professional restraint and mild impatience. They awaited a report. A large holographic screen in the center of the table streamed video from the battlefield - footage captured by reconnaissance drones during the attack. The video played without sound, because sound was unnecessary. On the screen - flickering shadows, flashes of explosions, falling bodies. None of the directors looked away. They watched as they would watch a report on production indicators.

The CEO of Neura-Infra, an old man with a sharp, blade-like face and pale blue eyes, slowly rose from his chair. He was past seventy but looked about fifty - expensive procedures, gene therapy, implants. He wore an impeccable dark blue suit worth more than a year's income of an entire block of New Eden. He scanned the assembled and began to speak, his voice dry, calm, lifeless, like an announcer on the news.

Ladies and gentlemen, - he said, lightly touching the table with his fingertips. - As you can see from the presented footage, the threat has been fully neutralized. The last army of loyalists - the remnants of the former armed forces of the United States, led by General Michael Stone - was destroyed during Operation Clean Slate. Resistance is broken at all levels: no more combat units, no coordination centers, no leaders capable of organizing a new attack. This was the last drop in the vessel of the old world. It has been spilled, and the vessel is empty.

He paused, letting his words settle in the minds of those present. Silence in the hall. No one applauded, no one smiled. They simply looked at him, awaiting further instructions. For them, this was not a victory - it was merely a stage. A point in a plan to be noted and moved on from.

This was the last step, - the director continued, his voice dropping slightly, almost confidentially. - States no longer have any power. Armies are gone. Resources for resistance are gone. We can move to the final stage of Project Unity. Treaty 404 will be signed within a month. All regional administrations have already been notified of their dissolution. The transition period will last no more than two years, after which the governance structure will be completely rebuilt according to our standards. Any questions?

He scanned the faces of those present. One of the Cyber-Fund directors, a woman of about fifty with short platinum hair, raised her hand to ask a question. The Neura-Infra CEO nodded to her.

I understand we are discussing practical aspects, - she said. - But I would like to ask: should we record at least something for history? We have won. This is an important moment. Perhaps a video message, an archive for future generations? So they know how we built this world.

The Neura-Infra CEO looked at her for a long second, and his eyes grew even colder, if possible. He tilted his head slightly and replied, raising his voice a little:

No need, - he cut off. - History will be written by us. We will decide what to remember and what to forget. We will decide which events enter textbooks and which disappear, like this unit we just destroyed. It does not matter what was. What matters is what will be. And in our future, there is no place for stories about those who tried to stop us. They do not deserve memory. They deserve oblivion.

Silent nods in the hall. The directors exchanged approving glances. They no longer looked at the screen, where the battlefield footage still played. They shifted their gazes to the future - to diagrams of new cities, to resource redistribution plans, to contract signing schedules. For them, General Stone and his one hundred and fifty soldiers were not heroes or martyrs. They were merely statistical noise, obsolete data successfully deleted from the system.

The screen went dark, and in its place appeared a holographic map of the world - already familiar, all blue, without a single red spot. New lines began to appear on it - administrative boundaries of corporate sectors, logistics chain routes, control zones. The people who once lived in these cities were now just dots on the map - resources to be distributed, assets to be accounted for. And none of them would know that today, on this field, the last hope that they might one day be free again had perished.

Outer perimeter. One hour after cleanup.

The field looked as if nothing had ever happened there. The grass was flattened but already beginning to straighten. The earth was slightly darker where blood had been, but by tomorrow even that would be gone. The wind raised dust, blew it across the empty space, and the only things left of the last army of freedom were a few footprints, quickly covered by sand.

Somewhere in the distance, on top of a hill, stood an old water tank once used by farmers. Its paint had peeled, and through the rust, an inscription made in white paint many years ago was visible: "We will not forget." Who had written it and when was unknown. But now it seemed like a mockery. Because within a week, no one would remember the names, the faces, or the voices. Not only the soldiers would disappear - the very memory that they had ever existed would vanish.

By dusk, stray dogs came to the field. They sniffed the earth, looking for food, but found only the smell of death. They whimpered and left. The wind grew colder. Night descended on Silicon Gulch, and nothing reminded of the battle that had taken place that morning. Only silence - deep, absolute, funereal.

SCENE 4. THE WORLD'S REACTION

July 2071. The world watches.

That day, July 23, 2071, at 2:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time, all screens in the world turned on simultaneously. Every monitor, every holographic panel, every communicator, every public display in squares and stations - all switched to a single channel of the Neura-Infra corporate network. There were no warnings, no announcements, no announcer's voice to explain what was about to happen. Just an image: the battlefield, shot from a bird's-eye view, from a dozen different angles, in ultra-high resolution that allowed every detail to be seen. And on that field - people. One hundred and fifty people running, falling, screaming (no sound, only picture), and thousands of silver drones circling above them, methodically destroying them one by one. The camera did not look away, did not soften details, did not censor. Everything was shown in minute detail: how a drone crashed into a soldier's chest, how he fell, how blood spread across the ground, how another drone found the next target. The corporation's operators did not hide the brutality - they demonstrated power. Because power needs no justification; it needs only spectators.

Millions of people around the world watched this live. In every city, every village, every module of New Eden, screens broadcast the same thing. In cafes serving synthetic coffee, customers froze with cups in hand, staring at walls turned into panoramic displays. In parks where children had once played, adults stopped, raised their heads to holographic screens built into lampposts, and fell silent. In offices where people worked with data, employees looked away from their tasks to watch through windows that had also become screens. No one spoke a word. The silence was absolute, as if the world had held its breath.