by J. N. Chaney
Rev sat back as he digested what she’d told him. She was doing him a favor, giving him his best chance of surviving to get back home.
So, why wasn’t he jumping at that chance?
When his stepdad dropped him off . . . was it only two days ago? . . . he’d told Rev to do his best, to serve humanity faithfully. Was this how he was supposed to do it?
He was about to tell her yes. It was the logical thing to do. But something held him back, and an ember of anger flared up.
She felt she was doing him a favor because she thought he was going to fail if he tried for Direct Combat. His eyes hardened as he looked at her. All she knew was the damned test results, but those were just numbers. They weren’t him.
She said he had the tools, just not the desire. But he could feel the desire burning inside of him. Sure, he was out of shape. He’d let gaming and hanging out with friends absorb his free time. But he could get in shape. He could pass their damned course. He knew it.
All the frustration over the last few weeks, of being impotent in the face of the government, of having no say, started to boil over. This was one thing he could do. This was how he could take back control over his life.
“I want Direct Combat,” he said, putting all the steel he could into his voice.
“And if you fail? You’ll be a Ninety-Nine.”
“I won’t fail.”
She leaned forward again, her forearms on the table as she tried to read into his eyes.
“He does have the potential. Maybe it’s worth the risk,” she said quietly as if he wasn’t there.
Rev didn’t say a word.
Finally, she broke the gaze and entered something on her display.
“It’s your choice, Mr. Pelletier, but welcome to Direct Combat.”
5
“Grab my pack,” Bundy said, stepping in front of Rev and slowing down for him.
“I can make it,” Rev gasped out between breaths.
Only he wasn’t sure. The end was in sight, just to the top of Mount Motherfucker, but his body was failing him.
“Hell Week” was a misnomer. The real hell couldn’t be half this bad.
This had been the hardest thing Rev had ever attempted, and he regretted every doughnut, can of Coke—every sylsky he’d eaten over the last year, every hour he’d spent gaming instead of getting some exercise.
He regretted letting his ego take over and demanding Direct Combat two weeks ago, but that same ego wouldn’t let him quit now. He might have no choice, however. His body was shutting down.
The first week after being issued his limeys, the bright green singlet worn by Direct Combat recruits, had been easy. He’d been assigned a rack in the barracks and spent time in work parties, cleaning the camp and moving supplies while he and the rest of the conscripted recruits waited for the class to convene. The work was easy, the pace slow, and it was a good time to get to know his fellow limeys—including Cricket, Tomiko, Yancey, and Ten. All told, there were more than a hundred of them, both conscript and volunteers.
The peace lasted until midnight on Sunday when the shark attack he’d expected back when they arrived as poolees descended on them. DIs roused them from their racks in a blizzard of screaming and immediately launched the recruits into a fifteen-klick run. Rev struggled, but he managed to keep up. After that first run, the rest of them, the humps with full packs, the waterwork, the log drills, the obstacle course, the lack of sleep, all blurred into a never-ending fog of pain and exhaustion. The DIs settled into a less-confrontational posture, but that didn’t mean they’d let up on what they demanded from the limeys, and they demanded a lot.
Several limeys fell to injury, and thirteen quit or just couldn’t continue. The injured would be recycled. Those who quit would become Ninety-Nines. Each time someone quit, that gave Rev a jolt of energy to push on, but that jolt had become increasingly smaller each consecutive time.
Rev, along with Cricket, and others, became the tail-end-Charlies, always bringing up the rear. Initially a group of about twenty, they winnowed down to about ten or so as the week dragged on. The DIs constantly told them to close it up, but as long as they didn’t stop, that seemed to be enough to keep them in the program.
But now Rev was at the end of his rope, and the final steep climb to the top was just one obstacle too many. Tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks.
“Come on,” Bundy repeated. “We’re almost there. Just grab my pack.”
“No,” Rev ground out. He wasn’t going to accept any help, especially from Bundy.
It wasn’t that he disliked the man. No one disliked him. Rangy and thin, Bundy was the oldest limey in the class, somewhere in his sixties at least. He was beat up, limping with every step despite the corpsman’s best efforts to keep his torn-up feet together. He was continually circulating, encouraging the others. Rev hadn’t thought Bundy would last a day, but here he was, six days later, not only in sight of the finish, but offering to help him. All while he could barely walk himself.
But Rev wasn’t going to have it. His pride wouldn’t let him.
“You go on,” he said.
“We can do it together, Rev.”
Rev knew there had to be one or two more recruits in back of him, but with his pack loaded with 100 kg of river rocks, he couldn’t waste the energy to turn around and look. Ahead of him, a dozen of his fellow limeys were spread out along the remaining three or four-hundred meters to the top. The rest were up there just out of sight, done with Hell Week.
Every muscle in his body was screaming in agony, and each step forward drained whatever he had left. He knew he was done, but he was damned if he was going to quit.
“What are you doing, Pelletier?” DI Gracer asked, coming up beside him.
“I’m not going to quit!” he shouted, then fell to one knee as his left leg cramped up.
“Get up, Rev,” Bundy told him, reaching down for an arm.
Rev weakly swatted the older man’s arm away as he struggled to rise, keeping his leg straight.
“You might not quit, but it doesn’t look like you’re going to make it. And if you don’t, by Saint Chesty, I’m going to Ninety-Nine your ass. Did you struggle through all of this for nothing?” the DI asked, leaning in close, her voice a shaming rasp.
“Come on, Rev. You can do it,” Krissy Regis said as she slowly passed them.
“I can do it,” Rev said through gritted teeth, knowing it was a lie.
And it broke him. He’d never been in this position, helpless.
“You can’t do it if you’re unable to see what’s in front of you.”
Confused, Rev looked up at the DI.
“By the Mother, do I have to spell it out for you?” Gracer asked. She gave a quick look up the hill where other DIs were spread out. “Recruit Bundy here is offering help,”
she hissed.
“But—”
“But nothing, Pelletier! We can’t take on the fucking tin-asses one-on-one. We have to be a team, and if you’re ego’s too big to get help where you can, then screw you. You belong as a Ninety-Nine.”
She gave him a light smack alongside his helmet, then left him and moved on to the next laggard.
Rev was confused. He didn’t know why DI Gracer was on his case. He thought not being willing to quit and not be willing to put the load on another recruit were good things, not bad. It wasn’t his ego talking at all.
“You heard her,” Bundy said, holding out a hand.
Bundy was twenty kilos smaller than Rev, and he was puffing as well. Rev didn’t want to jeopardize the older man’s chances, but . . .
With a sigh, he took the hand and let Bundy help him up. He yelled out as he tried to take a step, his calf cramping, and Bundy took Rev’s left arm around his shoulder, absorbing some of Rev’s weight.
“We’ve got this. One step at a time.”
Easy for Bundy to say, harder for Rev to do. He refused to look up, knowing the steep slope could break whatever small reservoir of will
he had left. The final stretch became a series of small victories—one step here, two steps there. He was vaguely aware of shouts of encouragement. Several others had banded together as well for the last push, but his universe was focused on the piece of ground right in front of him. Nothing else mattered. He had to keep moving. If he stopped, he knew it would be over.
And then Bundy collapsed around him, falling in a motionless heap on the ground. Rev stared stupidly at him for a moment, ready to try the impossible and push on, but he couldn’t leave Bundy, not now. He’d carry him if he had to.
He bent over just to try and pick Bundy up when other limeys surrounded the two. The corpsman pushed through them and knelt by Bundy, then turned him over, asking for room.
Rev looked around, his mind muddled, but it finally dawned on him. They were at the top of Mount Motherfucker.
His leg took that moment to completely seize up, and he fell to his ass, the heavy pack jarring his shoulders. He didn’t care. Rev dropped the pack and pulled himself to where the corpsman was slapping a medpatch of some kind on Bundy’s neck.
The older man’s eyes fluttered a moment, then opened.
“I told you we’d make it,” Bundy said.
“Barely, and only thanks to you, old man.”
But barely was good enough. They both were going to be DC Marines.
6
Six hours later, Rev was feeling almost human again, thanks to the restoratives Navy medicine had pumped through him. Most of the class was out at the E-club, which was normally off-limits for recruits, but with Phase 1 completed and Phase 2 not to start until Monday, they’d been given special permission.
Rev didn’t go. Bundy hadn’t snapped back from the exertion as quickly. He would, the nurse had assured him. It was just going to take his sixty-seven-year-old body a little longer. And if Bundy wasn’t ready to go, Rev felt obligated to stay with him. He’d never have made it without the older man’s help. And with Rev staying, Cricket, Krissy, Tomiko, and Orpheus Talamage had decided to hang out in the barracks as well.
The thought of a cold beer was pretty tempting, but there was something to be said for a quiet evening playing cards after the almost six full days of Hell Week.
Rev had been shocked when he heard Bundy’s age. Sixty-seven was middle-aged for most aspects of life, but it was positively ancient for Direct Combat. And for Bundy to volunteer for service and pick DC, well, he didn’t understand it.
“Double slam,” Cricket said, slapping down the cards.
The edges of two of Rev’s cards lit up red, and with a sigh, he dumped them in the pit. He’d only needed a four or a nine and he’d have finally won a hand.
“You nervous about Monday?” Rev asked the table, but he was looking at Bundy.
“No. Why?”
“Getting the interface.”
Bundy laughed and twisted his body so that Rev could see the back of his neck. “Already got one.”
Rev was surprised, and he leaned in to look. “I don’t see anything.”
“You think I’m going through boot with an open jack? No. Got it sealed with plastiderm before reporting in.”
“They took mine out before reporting,” Cricket said. “Not that it matters. We’re getting military issue now.”
“Not jacks,” Rev protested. “Interfaces.”
“Like it makes a difference?” Krissy asked. “A jack is a jack. So, are you going to deal or not?”
Rev frowned as he pulled the cards in the pit and ran them through the shuffler. An interface was a tool. A jack was something to escape reality. They weren’t the same.
“All we need them for is to work our armor, right? Just a simple interface.”
“And run all our weapons, communicate, all of that. You’ve seen Twilight Soldier, haven’t you?” Bundy asked.
Of course he had. The series of six holovids had swept the galaxy a century before, then had a re-edited resurgence after the war broke out. The main characters were more robot than human, with powers that bordered on the supernatural.
“None of that was real.”
“Maybe not,” Bundy said. “But maybe it isn’t that far from the truth. Whatever we’re going to get, we’ll find out soon enough. High throughput jacks, medi-nanos—"
“I could have used the medi-nanos during Hell Week,” Orpheus said as he checked the cards Rev dealt him. “I don’t know why we didn’t get them first.”
“Too easy,” Cricket said. “Oh, and double slam.”
“Hell, we didn’t even pass yet,” Krissy said.
“Read ’em and weep.” But Cricket was right. He’d drawn right into another double slam, and this time three of Rev’s cards were ejected.
“Real nice deal there, Rev,” Krissy said with a frown as she emptied the pit and shuffled them.
“Anyone know what kind of nanos we’re getting?” Rev asked. “I mean, they’re just boosting what we’ve got, right?”
“Military grade, Rev. Military grade. You’re going to want something to stabilize you if the Centaurs take off an arm,” Cricket said.
Civilian medi-nanos, like what he still had coursing through his body, could diagnose what was wrong and inject a fair number of drugs when needed, but that was about it. Traumatic injuries were a little out of their scope. It made sense that his current nanos would be boosted with some specialized ones that had more capabilities.
Rev was OK with that, but there’d been a few rumors that there was much more that would be done to them, even augments. Which couldn’t be true. Corrective surgery for something like eyesight was one thing, but augments that enhanced the human body beyond the norm had been illegal since the Corolla Wars.
He just wished the DIs or the officers would be more open with them, and he didn’t understand why all the secrecy. They were the proverbial mushrooms of ancient lore: kept in the dark and fed shit.
“Recruit Pelletier,” the tech said, poking his head into the waiting room.
“Go get jacked,” Krissy said, giving him a slap on the upper arm. She knew what Rev thought about jackheads, and she’d been teasing him since reveille.
She’d been doing that a lot—teasing with a definite flirting aspect to it. Rev didn’t mind most of it—she was a good-looking girl with a great sense of humor—but he was taking the whole jack/interface thing personally.
“I told you, it’s just an interface, not a jack,” he growled as he stood up.
“Same damned thing,” she said to his back. “Best of luck, young fellah,” she chirped.
He lifted a single finger behind his back, hearing her laugh as the door closed behind him.
He knew by now that there was some truth to what she’d said. Okay, more than just some truth. But he wasn’t getting this to while the time away playing total immersion games and withdrawing from society. As Bundy had said during their card game on Saturday night, if he was going to be able to function as a Direct Combat Marine, he had to be able to connect to his armor and weapons. This was just an upgraded version of the interface he’d have gotten in the guild. Nothing more.
Still, he was a little nervous as he followed the civilian tech down the corridor to a small room dominated by a reclining table, a control panel, and an imposing-looking arm that hovered like a vulture over the table.
The tech told him to take off his singlet and underwear, then put them in a plastic bag and seal it. Once Rev was standing there naked, the tech waved at the table, telling him to lie down on the metal. Which he did, only to utter a hiss of protest. It was frigid on his bare back.
The tech rotely confirmed his name and birthdate. Satisfied that Rev was really Rev—once again, Rev didn’t know who else he would be inside a secure military camp—the tech sprayed a cold mist on his left thigh, making Rev jump.
“Awfully close to my balls,” Rev protested.
“Don’t care. Plenty more where those came from,” the tech muttered, then pulled a tube with a needle attached from the underside of the table.
> A rather large needle.
“Don’t move if you want to save your jewels,” he said as a light emerged from the tip of the tube.
Of course, Rev jerked, but the tube suddenly extended, the needle piercing his inner thigh. He yelped, but he barely felt it. Evidently, the mist had done its job. There was a slight burning, but not much else. The needle retracted, and the tube slipped back into place under the table.
“What was that?” Rev asked.
“Just some tracers.”
Which meant nothing to Rev.
The tech—Christopher Neu-Langsford, according to his nametag—moved over what looked like a vulture arm and fanned out a part that looked like the vulture’s beak.
Rev didn’t like the way it looked, and he felt extremely vulnerable lying there naked as the tech busied himself with the arm.
“Where’s the interface?” he asked, more just to break the silence.
“The what?”
“The interface. What you’re going to implant. I’d like to see it.”
The tech scrunched his eyebrows for a moment, then said, “Oh, the jack.”
It’s not a jack. It’s an interface.
“I don’t do that here. This is NM.”
Which, once again, Rev didn’t understand. He was about to ask what NM was when the tech stepped back and said, “OK, you need to remain still for this. So, we’re going to clamp you in place. Lay your arms flat against your side, palms down.”
Rev hesitated, but he really wasn’t in a position to argue. He did as he was told, and part of the edge of the table folded up to form a band over his wrist. If he felt vulnerable before, that had just doubled.
