John Flint cracked open a can of Diet Pepsi, taking a moment to admire the crisp sound of the tab puncturing the can, opening the drink. He sniffed the fizz, took a sip.

"Christ almighty, John." Jason Stoneberg was John's best friend, and his co-worker. "I've never seen any man invest so much emotion in a goddamn soft drink, I honestly believe you may propose to one of those someday."

"I admire a good product." John said, taking another sip. "Besides, it's the small things in life you have to enjoy these days."

"That is the lords own truth." Jason admitted, rubbing his brow. Leaning back in his chair, he snaked his head outside of the cubicle.

"Any managers around?" John asked as he set the Diet Pepsi down on the desk next to a computer screen which was slowly growing a cobweb.

"It's all clear." Jason sighed. "Say, how many cans of Pepsi do we have left?"

"I'd say we may have about thirty left Jason, but I thought you didn't like Pepsi." John tore a sticky note off a pad, doodled a smiley face on it, stuck it over the cobweb.

"Well, that's a fact, it is. I don't like Pepsi, no I don't. This is thirsty work though, and I could surely use something to wet my whistle. I do believe we're all out of the Coors." He smiled anxiously at his friend.

"Jason, you just had to ask bro." John slid the drink across the desk, Jason caught it deftly, took a large gulp, shoved it back.

"Thanks John. You know, I think it tastes better than I remembered." He smiled, shuffled through the yellowing stacks of newspaper under the desk. He did it every day, and always found the same article. "Red Sox Win World Series, 4-2 over Astros, The Curse is Lifted." He read.

Both men keeled over laughing. They did it everyday, but John had to admit that it was funny every time. These days you had to take humor where you could find it.

Their laughter was cut short by a crunching sound from the area of the lobby. "Manager?" John whispered to Jason.

Jason stuck his head briefly around the cubicle wall, whipped it back in. "I reckon it is." He whispered back, "just came up the staircase, he's using the reception desk for cover."

John slipped a couple of shells into his rifle. He always kept three in, but the extra shots might not hurt if he got a bad angle. He climbed onto the rolling chair keeping his knees tight to the backrest. "Give me a shove bro." He whispered to Jason.

Jason shoved the chair into the hallway. As it skittered into the adjacent cubicle, John managed to get off two shots at the huddled Chinese soldier. Both missed, and AK-47 rounds followed him into the other cubicle, one barely missing his shoulder, ripping the cloth of his jacket.

While the soldier focused on riddling John's cubicle with bullets, Jason stepped out of the original one, sited, and shot a neat hole into the soldier's forehead. The panorama on the wall behind the soldier was less neat, but both John and Jason were used to the side effects of violent death by now.

The two men waited for ten minutes, and when they didn't hear anything, got up to see what they could find on the soldier.

"Looks young." John said, trying to guess the age of the foreign boy. It was hard to tell, but he didn't look much more than sixteen. "Poor bastard, I don't know why they send their scouts into the buildings alone."

He searched through the pockets, found some spare ammo and a pack of Wintergreen chewing gum. "Western cultural influences persist even now." He held the gum up for Jason to see.

"Heh." Jason chuckled but there was no real humor in his laugh. "Omaha Command can probably use the AK-47, got some ammo too."

John and Jason picked the boy up, carried him over to the elevator on the far side of the lobby. They tossed him into the shaft, not stopping to listen how far he fell. Every time they killed one the drop was a little less.

"I thought they would stop the bastards out in California." Jason said as the friends walked back to their cubicle.

"So did I." John said. "But what could they do? Half the army was spread through the Middle East."

They sat back down in the cubicle. John took another sip of the Pepsi. Jason hefted the AK-47 and ammo. "I'm going to take this stuff to Omaha Command, they might have some goddamn beer there too."

"Take care." John drained the Pepsi can, crumpled it and threw it into the adjacent cubicle.

He cracked open another can of Diet Pepsi, taking a moment to admire the crisp sound of the tab puncturing the can, opening the drink. He sniffed the fizz, took a sip.

"It's the little things."