Fixed by Beth Goobie

Nellie trotted at the tail end of her team, fighting the anticlimax by pumping her breathing in the required war-beat rhythm. When she reached her group’s van, she ran on the spot to keep focused while Lt. Sanders slid open the side door. Every second counted, everything a foot soldier did — the way she breathed, the rhythm in which she let her feet touch the ground, even the thoughts she let run through her brain — was an essential part of the preparation for war. Today’s activities might be called games, but all was light to a soldier of light, every second on the Outside an important moment in the great ongoing war against the Dark.
    The central garage door shot upward and the first van slipped into the tunnel that led to the surface. Two vans back, Nellie leaned against a window, feeling the reverberations of the convoy’s long echoing roar as it passed along the tunnel. On a few occasions she’d traveled to Street Games that had been held in other Interior cities, taking the trains that sped deep beneath the surface at over two hundred miles per hour. It was only at times like these, on a subterranean train or in a van rising toward ground level, that she actually thought about living underground. Up on the surface, everything was different. There, children lived with their mothers and spent their time in school learning entirely foreign subjects. When she was aboveground, Nellie sometimes caught a glimpse of that difference, or rather a sense of what it could mean — something alien and unknown that vibrated through her like an ache.
    At the surface checkpoint the convoy paused briefly, waiting as a second door slid upward, leaving a rectangular space of blinding light. Pressed to her window, Nellie blinked rapidly. Though the underground complex was well lit, it faded to a dim murkiness compared to the mind-searing sunlight they were headed toward. As her van passed into daylight, she eagerly scanned the scene before her. To her left a large truck was being unloaded, and beyond it were parked several rows of military vehicles. Ahead loomed the towering concrete walls that separated the aboveground section of the Detta complex from the city of Marnan. As Nellie watched, the first van slowed and the driver extended his wrist for the scanner at the outer gate. A few words were exchanged with the guard at the booth, and then a shudder ran through the ground as the huge double gates swung open. A second smaller shudder ran through Nellie’s body as the van started forward. It was like this every time — that moment at a scanner when her breathing stopped and life stood still, waiting for approval.
    “Soldiers of light, have you prepared yourselves?” demanded Lt. Sanders. Stopping the van at the booth, he extended his wrist for thescanner. Quickly Nellie straightened with the others, pumped up her breathing and began to chant, “Soldiers of light! Soldiers of light!” But in spite of her determined efforts at chanting, she still found herself tensing as the van drove through the gate and the invisible security beam passed through her body. What if the guard in the booth screwed something up, what if he turned on the kill signal by mistake? Acid sweat filmed her skin and her blood screamed in silent panic. Then, without incident, they were through the gate, and the Detta complex was fading like ugly vibes behind them as the van headed through Marnan’s streets toward the city center.
    Ramrod straight, pumping her breath and chanting with the others, Nellie stared eagerly through the window. Everywhere she looked, she saw people hurrying along sidewalks: mothers with young children, teenagers in T-shirts and shorts. Street vendors plied a busy trade, and on one corner a theater troupe was performing a Goddess legend for an admiring crowd. Since it was the peak of summer, school was out and many of the girls were wearing swimsuits and sandals. A pang hit Nellie and she bit her lip. Obviously her sex-goddess