by Richard Fox
“They’re gathering data on your nervous system,” she said. “See if you can take the plugs later on.”
“Figured. The combatives training isn’t too bad.”
“You win those?” She noted a number of scars on his face and hands.
“I have been.” Elias flexed his fingers. “These other guys maybe didn’t fight as much as I had to when I was a kid. They’re figuring out how to be aggressive, how to win. Meantime, I’ve laid a bunch of them out. Cadre haven’t asked me to hold back though.” He shrugged.
“You were a problem child?” she asked.
“I was a problem, that’s for sure. I got bounced around camps in Poland, Hungary and Germany. Took me awhile to pick up the language and when I did speak it, I had a Daesh accent. Crusade wasn’t that long ago. What the Daesh did was still on a lot of people’s minds and I looked the part.” He waved a hand over his face. “Didn’t matter that I was a Christian from birth or that the same monsters killed my family too.”
“I’m sorry,” Kallen said.
“Why? I fought through it. Made it to the States for training. America will grant citizenship to anyone that completes a tour, so I got that going for me. Feeling sorry never helped,” Elias said.
He looked to the guard shack then back up the road. “How’d you even get here?” he asked.
“You think my batteries ran out and I decided to make a career change?” she asked. “I’ve been planning this for years. Got checked out by every doctor I could find. Sent letters to Carius and any other armor senior leader I could find asking for a waiver…no luck there. I even tried to get Marc Ibarra’s attention, but that was a waste. So I applied to work for Atlantic Union personnel, figured I’d have a good chance of getting stationed here—especially since there’s one-of-a-kind handicapped-accessibility options on this fort.”
“Doesn’t every base have to have a level of compliance?”
“Yeah.” She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face. “I may have left that out when I put in my preferred job sites. I listed Knox and a bunch of reasons why this is the only place where I could work. The mushroom in charge of onboarding bought it.”
“Mushroom?”
“Cubicle dweller. Kept in the dark. Feeds on feces. Let me tell you something, Elias, don’t ever trust the personnel department to take care of you. If they could pick their nose and chew gum at the same time, they’d get promoted to regional manager,” she said. “So I got here. Saved up enough time off and now…” She raised her chin at the gate.
“And if Carius says no?”
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m going to be armor or I’m nothing.”
“I got it.” Elias looked back and Kallen heard footsteps in the grass. “You miss the bus?”
“No.” Bodel wiped sweat off his brow. “Made it just in time, then I saw your text. Got to stick with my battle buddy.”
“That’s for buck privates at basic training,” Elias said. “We’re warrant officers.”
“Provisional warrant officers,” Bodel said, raising a finger. “Besides, I…am curious.”
“Bodel,” Kallen said, “why are you here? Why’re you armor? Tell me what it’s like on the other side of that wall.”
The lanky man rubbed a sleeve across his face. “It’s not easy,” Bodel said. “Cadre don’t give a damn if you’re struggling and are always looking for a reason to cut you. We lost half the class in two weeks when we started tank trials. Know what those are? You climb in a sensory-deprivation pod filled with saltwater. It mimics what it’s like in powered-down armor. Thing is, they don’t tell you how long you’re going to be in there. Could be a few minutes. Could be days. Messes with your head. You want that?”
“I’ve gone years without moving,” Kallen said. “Years with just my thoughts to keep me busy.”
Bodel’s cheeks flushed, embarrassed.
“You want to ask,” she said, “then just ask.”
“What happened?” Elias asked.
“I was fourteen,” she said, “a gymnastics prodigy. There was a qualifying meet for the European championships a week away, and I snuck into the gym to work on my uneven-bars routine. I transitioned to the high bar to set up my dismount…and missed my grip. Bad landing. Real bad. If it had happened while someone was there, I could’ve been fixed, but ten hours passed before someone else showed up, and by then the nerve damage was irreversible.”
“Awful,” Bodel said.
“My own fault,” she said. “No one else to blame for this chair than me and I’m going to be the one that gets me out of it.”
“For me…my older brother died on Okinawa,” Bodel said. “He left Germany to volunteer with the American Army. Wanted to repay them for liberating Leipzig from the Daesh. He died holding the perimeter around Suzaki port as the last ships evacced Japanese and American forces and a bunch of refugees. We never got his body back. I was just a little kid when he left, but I remember the look in his eyes when he finished boot camp. He knew he was doing the right thing.”
“You want to be armor to honor him?” she asked.
“That…and to kill Chinese Commies,” Bodel said. “Mostly killing Commies. You know what they do when they take prisoners…or capture a city?”
“They’re not as bad as Daesh,” Elias said. “Least the Chinese kill quickly.”
“Bad segue,” Bodel said, “but you guys hungry? I can run to Anthony’s Pizza at the shoppette. ‘World’s Best’ according to the sign.”
“No,” Elias said. “Captain said no material support. If she doesn’t eat, I won’t either.”
“You guys should just go,” Kallen said. “Enjoy your leave.”
“I stay,” Elias said. “Bodel?”
“That pizza’s garbage,” Bodel said. “I’ll take good company over food any day.”
As sweat dribbled down Kallen’s temples, she looked to the horizon where storm clouds readied an advance.
“My boys,” she said, “I don’t need your pity. I’ve had more than enough from people since my accident.”
“No pity,” Elias said. “Pity is for those you don’t respect. You know what the washout rate is for armor candidates?”
“Eighty-eight percent,” Kallen said.
“And that’s after the med screenings,” Elias said. “What weeds them all out is willpower. Can’t get through the long dark of the tanks. Can’t focus the targeting systems in the mock-up frames. Can’t deal with the unending training evolutions. Sleep deprivation. If we were going for the Rangers or Strike Marines, we’d be getting smoked all the time. PT until someone quits.”
“You can’t have physical toughness without having it up here.” Bodel tapped the side of his head.
“But on the other side of that wall,” Elias said, mimicking Bodel’s gesture, “it’s all up here.”
“Why armor, Elias?” she asked. “You’re a tough-looking guy. Bet you wouldn’t have trouble in the Strike Marines.”
“He can walk and chew gum at the same time.” Bodel looked over both shoulders before adding, “He’s overqualified for the Marines.”
“I was eleven. Bought transport on a boat going from Danzig to New York City,” Elias said. “Ship took me and a bunch of other kids to Saint Petersburg in Russia. The tsar doesn’t care what crime happens so long as he gets a cut of the proceeds. Traffickers sold us to Daesh and we were thrown onto a truck. I was going right back to the hell I escaped.
“The Daesh trafficker was on the Crusade’s watch list. They ambushed my truck in the middle of the woods with a pair of the first-generation armor suits. I remember them in the night—giants emerging from the forest and shooting out the tires. Killing the slavers,” he continued, crushing an imaginary skull between his hands. “The Seneschal executed the one that bought us. Left all their bodies in the open as a message to the tsar. I was weak. Too weak to fight back. Too scared to save my own life.”
“You were a child,” Kallen said.
“Doesn’t
matter. I was afraid. Pathetic. The Crusaders brought me back to liberated Europe and I vowed I’d never be so helpless again,” Elias said.
“He’s choked out two instructors on the mat,” Bodel said.
“It’s worth it?” Kallen asked. “Everything you’re going through in there?”
“We just got these.” Elias tapped the nerve bridge on the base of his skull. “Long way from plugs and armor.”
A fat raindrop slapped against Kallen’s hand as the patter heralding a storm sounded around them. She looked to Elias and Bodel. Neither seemed bothered.
“Infantry must be out training,” Bodel said.
Thunder rolled over the sky and a curtain of rain approached from the distance.
“We can move you somewhere,” Bodel said. “There’s a doorway—”
“No,” Kallen snapped. “The next place I go is inside those walls.”
Bodel raised an eyebrow to Elias, whose countenance remained stony. Bodel shrugged.
“Either of you afraid of the plugs?” Kallen asked. “Afraid you’ll get through everything then have your nervous system fritz out after the surgery? The rejection rate’s still high, isn’t it?”
“It’s down to single percentage points,” Bodel said, “and what’s life without a little risk, right? If we get the plugs and our armor, we deploy to Australia, where the casualty rate’s a lot higher than that.”
“Redlining…” Elias looked to the approaching storm as rain struck his shoulders. “That’s what gets to a lot of candidates.”
“What’s that?” Kallen asked.
“Only happens when you’re plugged in,” Elias said. “Battle damage or pushing the suit to do something the human body can’t do creates a synaptic feedback loop that overloads the nervous system. There are wards in the base taking care of redliners, vegetables hooked up to life support. That’s not the way I want to go.”
“You’d think a risk like that would be more widely known,” Kallen said.
“Ibarra doesn’t want word to get out that the tech isn’t perfect,” Bodel said, “but everyone who gets through initial selection sits through the redline brief. They make us candy-stripe the wards too, make us see what happens if we don’t use the suits as intended.”
A curtain of rain advanced down the road and inundated the three moments later. Kallen felt water soak through her hat and into her hair. She chuckled, looking down at her soaked clothes and then to her equally wet companions. She broke into a laugh and turned her face up to the storm.
“Yeah, this is real funny.” Bodel shook his hands out to the side.
“This sucks!” Kallen shouted as rain came down so fast that a puddle formed around her wheelchair.
“At least she’s got the right mindset,” Elias said.
“Not to be a downer,” Bodel said, “but we should consider—”
Thunder cracked and a bolt of lightning struck nearby.
“That! Exactly that!” Bodel shouted as he ducked.
“My chair’s plastic composite,” Kallen said. “But you two are lightning rods so long as you’re standing out here with me.”
Elias went to one knee, his head almost level with hers. Bodel followed, his knee plopping into an inch of water pooling around the chair.
“If we get struck by lightning, we’ll never hear the end of it,” Bodel said. “Assuming we live. We’ll be mentioned in every safety briefing on Knox for years. ‘Recruits, don’t be like those armor candidates that were out running around in a thunderstorm, tempting Zeus to smite them.’ I can hear it now.”
Rain came down in sheets, obscuring the guard shack across the street.
Kallen’s lips trembled and she felt cold seeping into her face.
“You OK?” Elias asked.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ve got to smell better, at least.” She bit the inside of her lips, trying to quell the shaking.
The three stayed silent as the rain continued and a stream of runoff bubbled down the curbs.
“Is this what the long dark is like in the pods?” she asked. “Is it this wet?”
“It’s warmer in the pods,” Elias said as his breath fogged.
“No noise in the pods,” Bodel added. “Though after you’ve been in there awhile, you’ll start to hear things. The brain makes its own stimulus. What was it you hear, Elias? A choir?”
“Singing from the Berlin cathedral,” Elias said. “‘There Is a Green Hill Far Away,’ most of the time.”
“I hear Chinese,” Bodel said.
“That’s the cadre messing with you.” Elias exhaled sharply, blowing raindrops off his chin. “They do it to everyone.”
“Huh. I just thought I was going insane,” Bodel said.
A car pulled up next to them and the foggy driver-side window lowered just enough for a teenager to peek his eyes over the opening.
“Got a delivery for you,” the kid shouted.
“We didn’t order anything,” Elias shouted back.
“Ma Sisters Chinese Delivery.” The kid lowered the window some more and held up a paper bag, the bottom already stained with grease. “General Tso’s chicken. Egg rolls—”
“We didn’t order it!” Bodel waved a hand through the air, and water sloshed out of his sleeve and hit Kallen. “Sorry.”
“Like that additional moisture makes a difference?” she asked.
“Orders for…” the kid looked at the receipt stapled to the bag, “‘three idiots in a field.’ You’re the only three…three folks out here. It’s paid for!”
Bodel looked at Elias and shook his head. Elias ran to the delivery car, his boots stomping in the puddle. He reached into his uniform top.
The driver held the food out, but Elias reached right past the steaming-hot delivery and handed the kid some cash.
“There’s your tip,” Elias said. “Go give the food to the guard shack.”
“Sure, buddy, whatever you say.” The driver pulled his arm back into the car and drove off.
Elias came back to Kallen and knelt down again.
“Ma Sister egg rolls are legit,” Bodel said. “For future reference.”
Kallen shivered as her breath fogged. “Why is it so damn cold?” she asked.
“Don’t say that.” Elias shook his head. “Don’t ever complain about the weather.”
“Why? What could—”
“Nope!” Bodel raised a finger. “Odin will hear you.”
“I know paganism had a resurgence after the Crusade,” Kallen said, shaking her head, “but if you think there’s really an Odin that’s just waiting to smite us for commenting—”
“Forgive her,” Bodel said, looking up. “She knows not what she does.”
“Oh, please…” Kallen rolled her eyes.
The patter of the rain changed. Snaps and cracks joined in the din. The clouds seemed to lighten just a bit from the ambient light of the fort.
“Ow!” Bodel flinched. “What the hell was that?”
A ball of hail the size of a nickel struck Kallen’s forefinger while more hail struck the thin blanket over her lap. One slashed down the side of her ear and she grimaced.
Hail plopped into the puddle surrounding them, sending up tiny plumes of water.
Kallen pulled her head back as a ball the size of a quarter whacked against the back of her neck.
“Think she’ll convert now?” Bodel asked as he looked up, cursing as a ball whacked him in the cheek.
Elias unbuttoned and removed his uniform top, leaving him wearing a thin T-shirt from the waist up. He tossed the edge of his top to Bodel and they held it over Kallen’s head. Hail thumped against the improvised canopy and lightning broke through the sky.
“I can’t feel when it hits below the neck,” Kallen said. “Take care of yourselves.”
“Can’t,” Elias said as hail beat against his back and shoulders.
“I ain’t complaining,” Bodel said, “but this might cross that ‘material support’ line. And—son of a bitch! That one hur
t. What’re they doing up there? Making comets to throw at us?”
“Captain Martel wants to chew my ass for this, he can chew my ass,” Elias said.
Kallen looked up at the underside of Elias’ top as hailstones whacked against it.
Elias had his eyes closed. A line of blood traveled down one side of his face from a cut on the back of his head.
“Go,” Kallen said. “Stop doing this for me.”
“We’ll leave when you leave,” Elias said.
“Why? I’m nothing to you. You guys are already in the program,” Kallen said.
“Seen a lot of candidates drop,” Elias said. “Strong men and women. Combat vets. You know why they quit?”
Kallen shook her head.
Elias hit a fist to his chest over his heart. “They didn’t have this,” he said. “You…I see your iron.”
“We’ve been out here for hours,” Bodel said. “You haven’t asked us for a damn thing. Haven’t complained. You’re not a quitter. Get you in a suit and I’ll fight beside you until the end.”
“I’m just sitting here,” Kallen said. “It’s not like I’m—”
“You can call for pickup any time.” Elias looked at the screen on her armrest. “When you decide this ends, it ends.”
“I’m not leaving,” Kallen said. “I won’t live like this anymore. This chair is not my life. It will not be my life.”
“Then we’re with you,” Elias said. “Until the end.”
The hail faded away less than an hour later, but the rain lasted through the night.
Shivering kept Kallen awake. She longed to ask Elias and Bodel to take turns sharing their body heat, but asking them to break the rules even further felt like a betrayal.
Thunder boomed closer, louder. She looked up as she realized the sound was footsteps of armor suits. Armor came up to the wall, the helm and shoulders visible. The helm was fashioned after a medieval knight’s and optics glowed in the eye slits. A floodlight shined from a shoulder mounting, illuminating the trio.
Kallen had seen armor from a distance before, but never so close that should could make out details.
Elias and Bodel stood and pulled their feet and knees together, backs straight in the position of attention.
The thunder of more armor footsteps sounded over the wall. Dozens of armor came up to the wall at once, and Kallen felt their eyes upon her.
