Cruz snorted.

"You guys just don't really understand what you'll be dealing with, do you?" said Mac. The boy was still trying to get through to them. Maybe he just didn't want to wear that kilt-skirt thing that the PSA had decided was the right outfit for this lot.

Agent Bott just looked offended. Agent Sternal at least tried to explain. He looked like a lot of people had explained things to him. Mostly jokes. "We've had the best historical research teams working on this, and based on what you and others have reported, we should be nicely inconspicuous."

"Let's start with getting this clear to you," said Mac. "When you get over there, none of this gear is gonna work. Our M16s didn't. And all the modern stuff that did work had converted itself into Greek-era goods. Only things which would have worked then, worked. Our water bottles became leather. A lighter became mothball-stuff."

"Your gear was examined, microscopically, when you got back," said Agent Bott, with a sniff. "It was some kind of hallucination, or maybe a switch. But we should deceive the aliens with the correct gear."

Mac sighed. "Listen. To. Me. It isn't gonna work. This isn't some covert op where you have to sneak things past the locals. Things change. They. Actually. Change."

"And trust me," said Cruz, leaning against the wall. "None of us could pass for locals anyway."

That got their attention. "So the kit is not quite authentic? What's wrong with it?" asked Megane.

"You guys are," said Cruz. "However, if you like we can fix it." He smiled nastily.

"Talk. ETD is set for the day after tomorrow, at eleven hundred hours."

"Well, you better get yourselves hair jobs. And beards. And fleas. And you need at least a week of no baths, and local food, to smell right. Then you get rubbed with olive oil and scraped with, what was that thing called, Mac? Oh yeah, a strigil. You've got to smell of old sweat and rancid olive oil."