Orphanage

by Robert Buettner

  She grumbled but extended her hand back to me, poking her trigger finger out through the firing slit in her right mitten.

  I slipped the alligator clip on. Her hand was as delicate as a child’s. And shaking.

  “Well?”

  “It’s 98.5. So far so good. But your battery dropped 9 percent in the first hour. You’ll be cold meat in ten hours.”

  She didn’t say a word. She just turned and hugged herself to me, burying her face against my chest.

  After a couple minutes, she said, “Don’t think I’m enjoying this.”

  “Me either. This sucks.” I thought it was a credible lie. She smelled wonderful.

  Four hours after we were dropped off, Mr. Wire emerged from swirling snow and squatted alongside our hole, wind whipping fur parka trim around his bare face. He was just an instructor, not part of GEF, which meant he had the bad fortune to have a living family. SEALS drew this duty because being cold was their business. Well, okay, much as it pains me to admit it about squids, they’re also probably the world’s best troops.

  He motioned us to hold up fingers and took his own readings on each of us. “Mr. Wander, you seem just dandy.”

  “Hooya, Mr. Wire.” The SEALs may be good, but they are as full of crap as any unit. They insisted we say “Hooya” in place of “yes.” It built esprit de corps. They thought

  Wire turned to the Munchkin. “Ma’am, I’m not gonna bullshit you. Your body temp’s sketchy, and it looks like you’re gonna run out of battery juice sometime middle of tonight. I can’t make you drop out, but I really don’t see the point in your continuing this exercise. No reflection on you personally. It’s just physics. You sure you want to hang in?”

  “Hooya!” Her voice quavered already, and we had twenty hours to go.

  He slapped palms on his thighs and stood. “Hooya, ma’am. Carry on.” He turned to me. “Wander, you keep an eye on her. Hypothermia’s nothing to screw with.” He disappeared into a gauze of snow.

  Munchkin pounded fists against the rocks.

  “Look, I know you want this. We all do. Bad. But Wire knows what he’s talking about.”

  “He plays games of the mind with me. He wishes me to quit. I will not quit.”

  She knew better. We all did. Neither the SEALs nor anyone else played mind games with the future of humanity at stake. The only reason to wash out a soldier from GEF was to protect the mission. The human race had too much invested in each of us to wash out a single one for laughs or prejudice. But there were going to be training accidents, changes of heart, performance failures. There was a shadow force training in parallel. If a soldier stumbled, five thousand stood ready to replace her.

  “Why do you want this so bad?”

  “Eight reasons. My mother, my father, my six sisters.” Her voice caught.

  I pulled her against me again while I watched the sky. The sun was weak these days, but I could tell it was going down.

  Wire visited us two more times that miserable night during his rounds of the foxhole line.

  Each time Munchkin’s battery was drawn down farther than schedule. Each time she shivered and seemed to shrink even smaller before my eyes. Each time Wire asked her if she insisted on continuing. Each time she snapped out a faded “Hooya.”

  I finger-clipped her again. The needle on the battery meter didn’t move. I thumbed the readout button to show her body temperature. It was down a half degree since last check.

  I felt like crap. But Munchkin was dying. “Munchkin, what’s four times three?”

  She stared through me and her lips quivered, but she said nothing. A first symptom of hypothermia was the inability to answer simple questions.

  “That’s it. Let’s go to the command post. You’re done, Munchkin.”

  She might have been on the edge of hypothermia, but through her fog she understood.

  “N-no!”

  “We still have six hours to go. Wire will pull the plug on you next time he comes by if I don’t.”

  I grabbed her under the arms and heaved her up.

  “No, you bastar‘!” Slurred speech, too. Another symptom. She pushed out her arms and legs against the foxhole walls, wedging herself in like a cork.

  “I’m not a bastard! I’m trying to save your life!”

  Weak as she was, she thrashed and kicked. My frozen shin burned where her boot toe thwacked it.

  “What life, Wander? This is all I have left. Think what it would be like if you didn’t have something, somebody.”

  I thought about it every day. Until now I believed I was the only one.

  I stopped tugging at her and thought. What if roles were reversed? If I was going to lose my spot in the Force? There had to be a solution.

  I finger-clipped myself. I had 40 percent juice left in my battery, and my body was humming at a toasty 98.6. “Turn around.”

  “Wha?”

  I slung her like a flour sack, unzipped the battery compartment on her fatigues, and snapped her dead battery out of the socket.

  I pretzeled my arm to pop my own battery out, plugged it into her socket and popped her dead one into mine.

  “Whaju do, Wander?”

  “Nothing. Snuggle up, Munchkin.” I wondered whether I could feel more miserable.

  Three hours later I knew I could.

  I shook inside my field gear so hard that I thought I would rattle Munchkin’s teeth loose. The wind had picked up and howled as it drove snow in the darkness. But her body temperature had risen a hair.

  Wire’s flashlight bobbed toward us through the night.

  “Hooya, troops! Anyone for a cold beer?”

  “F-fuck you, Mr.Wire!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” He squinted at her. “Don’t we sounc perky all of a sudden.”

  He finger-clipped Munchkin, read his meter, ther shook it and read it again. He looked at her, then at me.

  “Munchkin, what’s three times two?”

  She didn’t shake as she looked him in the eye. “Six.”

  He finger-clipped me. “My, my. Wander, you have beer busy. Your battery is stone-dead. And your body tempera tore is falling. It’s gonna be close, but I mink you wil barely make it to End-of-Test. And with 40 percent juice left, Munchkin will, too. How fortunate for both of you.”

  Wire paused and rubbed his fleece face mask. “Wander, please step out of your hole and join me over here.”

  He cupped a mittened wave as he walked out of Munchkin’s earshot.

  Crap. Crap, crap, crap. Why did I always get caught? Metzger never got caught.

  Wire turned and faced me. The snow blew so hard I couldn’t even see our foxhole. He shouted over the gale. “Wander, did you swap batteries with Munchkin?”

  Judge March said that if the truth wouldn’t set you free, lie your ass off. “Negative, Mr. Wire!”

  “I’m not asking for the bullshit teamwork answer. Did you?”

  “Negative, Mr. Wire.”

  He looked down and scuffed snow with his boot toe. “If she sucks batteries like that in combat, she can’t function. She’ll die. People in her unit will die when she doesn’t do her job. Worse, she will jeopardize the mission. This exercise isn’t hazing.”

  “This exercise is bullshit. When we get Eternad batteries—”

  “If you get ‘em! If you get ’em, maybe they’ll change this exercise and she can get reassigned to GEE”

  “You know anybody that falls behind will never catch up.”

  He looked away. “It isn’t up to you or me to decide who stays and who goes. Look, I know you people stick together, and I’m not saying I want to trade places.”

  He surely did want to trade places. SEALs trained a lifetime hoping to be part of a mission like GEF’s. They were the best soldiers on the planet. SEALs like Wire had the bad luck to have live families. So the politicians had pulled the rug from under them in favor of neophyte orphans like me and Munchkin. Life’s a bitch.

  “We’re in the places we’re in, Mr. Wire. For better or
worse, Munchkin’s my family. She wants to stay in.”

  He nodded. “So. You’re already soldier enough to know mat in combat we don’t fight for duty and honor and country. We fight for the soldier next to us. That’s admirable. But mere’s no room for chivalry or for covering up a buddy’s weakness. If Munchkin’s not mission-capable, she should be dropped.”

  “When we get better batteries she’ll be mission-capable.”

  He sighed. “You can cover for her now. I can’t prove you swapped batteries. But you can’t cover for the whole training cycle. Protecting her now just prolongs the agony for her and endangers your unit. I respect your reasons for your decision. But I’ll watch you and Munchkin with special interest for the duration of this cycle. Are we clear?”

  “Hooya, Mr. Wire.”

  “This is the stupidest abortion of a training stunt I’ve ever seen! Just to give a stubborn half-pint a chance to get her ass shot off!” He paused, then shook his head. “A SEAL would do that.”

  That was about as big a compliment as Wire was capable of to a non-SEAL.

  “So. Because I do respect you people—and that’s no bilge—the additional physical training you’ll do to make up for what you missed during our little philosophical discussion here will be reduced. Push out one hundred for me.”

  If somebody had pulled on me the stunt I’d just pulled on Wire, I’d have made ‘em do a thousand push-ups.

  After the TET exercise ended, Munchkin and I limped stiff into the mess hall. We sat across from one another, shivering, and wrapped our fingers around coffee cups that couldn’t be too hot. We didn’t even think about taking off our parkas.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I shrugged and spread my fingers. “No frostbite.”

  “Not just for taking the cold. I know Wire must have interrogated you. You must have lied for me. They might have thrown you out.”

  Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “I will never forget what you did. No brother could have done more.”

  Brother? I was hoping for sexually irresistible bedmate.

  She reached across the table, peeled my fingers off my cup and rubbed them, to bring back circulation. Like a sister.

  It was then I knew that Munchkin and I would love each other, but we would never be lovers. We had grown too close for that, as combat soldiers do.

  We trained for two more weeks. Munchkin and I grew closer, as soldiers and as friends. Then Metzger showed up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Metzger grinned as he leaned against the frame of my barracks-room door. I dropped the manual I was studying as I jumped up from my bunk.

  Before I could ask, he said, “I’m on leave.” That explained his civvies. “I’ve been down in Denver, visiting Large Ted and Bunny. They send their love.” He looked around the room and focused on Ari.

  “You’re Metzger. I’ve seen your picture.” Everybody had seen Metzger’s picture, even Munchkin. Ari stood and shook his hand. Jeeb, on Ari’s shoulder, held out a forelimb, and Metzger tweezed it between finger and thumb like he was handling a worm.

  Nobody from General Cobb on down got time off from GEF training. But when you’re a war hero, not only can you get a weekend pass, you get a weekend pass for your buddies. Metzger had passes for me and my roommate. He also had a car and a condo with hot tub reserved over in Aspen. Ari declined on grounds that taking Jeeb off post was a security risk. I suspected he really just wanted more sleep. Metzger got Ari’s pass transferred to Munchkin, and we picked her up twenty minutes later at the women’s barracks.

  Metzger and I leaned against the rental car’s fender so long we nearly wore out the plasteel. Finally, Munchkin came to the car carrying an overnight bag, coat over her arm. She wore a clingy red dress, the first time I’d seen her in one, high heels, and her hair down, framing her face. My jaw dropped. A girl would freeze her ass off to look good, but this was my Munchkin.

  I introduced Metzger, but she knew him from his pictures, just like Ari had. They just stood there shaking hands like two dopes and smiling at each other.

  Finally, we all started shivering, especially Munchkin.

  I punched Metzger’s arm. “Let’s go, huh?”

  The rest of the weekend was great I had the hot tub to myself. Inexplicably, Metzger and Munchkin sat in the condo living room and talked by the hour. More beer for me.

  Metzger barely got us back by lights on Sunday night.

  Three days later I was cleaning weapons in the armory when an orderly stuck his head in the door. “Wander! You got a holo. They’re holding!”

  Camp Hale’s quarters may have been thrown together, but they were up-to-date. The day room had a brand-new bumper-pool table, on which I taught Munchkin the game’s angles and thereafter got whipped daily. It also had two AT&T holobooths as well as a big-tank holo with all the premium channels and massage recliners from which to enjoy same. A cold cabinet was stocked with free soft drinks and even nonconcentrate fruit juice. Real upscale treatment, at last.

  Up-to-date didn’t change basic economics, though. At holo rates, nobody went on hold except maybe the president It couldn’t be good news. My heart pounded. I double-timed down the corridor, crossed the day room in two strides, found the booth with the blinking light, and popped the door.

  Inside, Metzger leaned against the wall wearing sky-blue Space Force flight coveralls. My heart skipped. He flickered just a little.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. What is it?” I looked him up and down. No wounds.

  He shrugged. “I figured they’d pull you off most any detail if I holoed. I get a thousand free, donated minutes every month.”

  A thousand? Free day-room Coke plummeted down my list of upscale perquisites.

  “So you’re okay?”

  “Never better. I go up in an hour. How’s GEF?”

  “Cold.”

  “So I heard. I got the Aspen condo again for this weekend. I can get passes. You wanna come over and we’ll veg? Free beer. And the Broncos are on.”

  “I’m there.”

  He shifted his weight. It was already dark at Canaveral and his Interceptor stood floodlit behind him. “Y’know, it’s a shame to waste that third bedroom. Why don’t you ask your gunner, whatzername, if she wants to come?”

  Whatzername? I’d seen Metzger study the periodic table of the elements for four minutes before a quiz, then recite it backward with his eyes closed. “You remember her name. Munchkin doesn’t drink, and she thinks American football is barbaric, so why…”

  He bit his lip and fidgeted.

  “Oh my God!” Ever since Metzger and I had figured out that girls weren’t just guys who couldn’t throw a spiral, he had been the aloof, pursued stud. I flitted from one unrequited crush to the next while Metzger fended off women with a pole. I let my grin spread. “You’ve got a thing for Munchkin.”

  He purpled. “I do not! I just thought—”

  I poked his belly, or the air where the image of his belly flickered. “You’ve got it so bad that you’re too shy to ask her yourself!” I puckered up and made a kissing noise.

  “Grow up, Jason!” He sighed. “Did she, you know, say anything about me?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “You mean like carve your initials in her homeroom desk?”

  “Don’t be a dick, Jason.”

  No chance of that after all those years of watching the women of my fantasies throw themselves at Mr. Indifferent

  “She said you were an arrogant blue-suit fruit.”

  His face fell so far that my glee vanished.

  “Okay. Truth is I haven’t said two words to her since you left.”

  “But you could ask her to come this weekend?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jason!” He whined.

  “Okay.”

  “And, you know, put in a word for me?”

  The man was a genius with a holostar’s looks and money. He had a chestful of medals and a smile that made women mail him
their panties. He needed a word from me like a tuxedo needed a toad. “Sure.” A tech knocked on the clear door of Metzger’s booth in Florida. The fog of liquid-oxygen boil-off swirled in the darkness.

  “Gotta fly, Jason.”

  “Be careful up there.”

  An hour later I found Munchkin sitting at a desk in the women’s barracks day room. We studied there together, evenings. I read military history. She mosty studied the training schedule. She could be anal about what she had to do next.

  She pointed at her screen. “We’re supposed to have twenty weeks of individual and small-unit training, yes?”

  I nodded.

  She pointed at the screen. “And they always post six weeks in advance. But now it goes blank four weeks from now.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they’re revising.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t like changes.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me and stretched. “So. Tell me about your Rocket Jock friend, whatzisname.”

  Whatzisname. Munchkin was no more amnesiac than Metzger.

  I let the silence thicken.

  “You hot for Metzger?”

  “I just think he’s got an interesting job.”

  “I just think you want to peel off his shirt and lick his chest like a Popsicle.”

  She turned pink.

  Oboy. Metzger and Munchkin smitten with one another. I licked my lips. This was the triple-hot-fudge sundae of harassment opportunities.

  “He holoed me today,” I said.

  She turned toward me, then tried to look away.

  “He’s got more passes for this weekend. And that condo. Don’t suppose you’d want to come along?”

  She studied her boot toe and shrugged. “Maybe. I wouldn’t mind spending time with Major Metzger if the chance should arouse.” She squeezed her eyes shut and glowed red. “Arise.”

  I grinned. “Munchkin Metzger. Such a nice name. You writing it inside your Chip-pad covers, already? Your new in-laws’ names will be Ted and Bunny.”

  She threw a chair cushion at me.

  None of us three ever saw the Aspen condo again. The next morning at 6:08 Mountain Time the Denver Projectile hit. We used the passes to attend the memorial service for Metzger’s parents.