Cry Pilot

by Joel Dane

  I frown but don’t look at her. How’d she turn on my messaging? How does she know what they’re offering me? She’s better than “not bad” at hacking.

  “Now that the smart ones are gone,” the HR Sergeant says, “the rest of you sorry splices follow the directions of your lenses. Confirm.”

  “Confirm!”

  The arrow flashes on my lens, telling me to shift to the side. I step into a new spot, tightening up the formation. Pico is to my right, a white-haired woman is to my left, with Ting behind me and Rana in front.

  After we settle, the HR Sergeant says, “Recruit Jagzenka!”

  “HR Sergeant!” the jaguar-marked woman answers.

  “Does the JST train shock troops?”

  Jagzenka keeps her expression steady, though she’s got to be wondering why he’s picking on her. Maybe he doesn’t like extinct animals. “That’s what I heard, HR Sergeant.”

  “Most soldiers never pull a trigger outside of a training range, but you’re the lucky few. You’ve been inducted into a pilot project.”

  A chill touches me: pilot sounds like cry pilot, and cry pilot still sounds like the grave.

  “You’ll see action.” The sergeant’s gaze slides from Ting to Rana. “This company is packed with both ends of the spectrum, from incompetent to outstanding. You’ll help us answer the question, is it more efficient to send our best or our worst? Confirm.”

  “Confirm!”

  The HR Sergeant’s voice softens. “Remember this. There isn’t an Executive Admiral in the service who didn’t once stand where you’re standing.”

  He walks away, and there’s a hint of expectation in the air. Maybe tension. Smart or stupid, we’re ready to start this.

  However, the JST doesn’t care what we’re ready for: a desk extrudes from the wall, and a woman in a paralegal uniform takes a seat and ignores us.

  Survey questions appear on my lens, covering every known fact of my life. None of the unknown facts, though, which gives me a jolt of smug satisfaction. Place of birth, guardians, addresses, education, assets, MYRAGE footprint. This is pointless busywork, but I check the boxes for an hour, keeping in position, ignoring the ache in my feet.

  The vesting contract says that if I successfully complete Phase One of basic training, the contents of six paychecks will be credited into my account. I’ll get another four upon completion of Phase Two. There’s a bonus for completing what’s called Anvil Month, when you’re seconded to a hot-conflict zone to support veteran troops. Plus, if I complete eight to twenty-four additional weeks of Advanced Departmental Training, I’ll get additional checks . . . and I’ll vest in the corporation.

  A single share, but a complete change of legal status. A share is a ticket to life in the enclaves.

  It’s not a ticket I’ll ever use. I’m not here to buy myself a new civilian life; I’m here to pay for my old one. There’s some legal language about the pilot program, but I can’t decipher it. Doesn’t matter. I’ll agree to anything.

  A gawky clean-cut kid apparently doesn’t feel the same. “Um, excuse me?” He looks toward the woman at the desk. “Er, san?”

  “You’ll know a corporate officer when you see one,” the woman tells him. “They’re the ones you call ‘san.’ I’m a Paralegal Specialist. Your surname is Voorhivey. Mine is on your lens. That’s what you call me.”

  “Oh, s-sorry,” Voorhivey stammers. “Um, but what’s this about a pilot program?”

  “It’s a new training regime.”

  “For what?”

  The paralegal consults a projection. “The details are classified.”

  “So we’re agreeing to something without knowing what it is?”

  “Welcome to the JST, slipper.”

  “Oh, okay,” the kid says, flushing.

  She takes mercy on him. “It’s probably a new tech or a proprietary strategy for remort control—something like that.”

  Voorhivey thanks her and keeps reading. I skim to the end and sign the contract with a retinal print.

  Three percent chance of success? We’ll see about that.

  CHAPTER 12

  We stand there for another ninety minutes, staring at the wall. What if this is some kind of experiment to test the mindless obedience of a cross-section of the populace? Will we stand here until we collapse? Will we wait for two full days? For three?

  I promise myself one thing: I won’t break before Rana.

  She’s four feet in front of me, her posture perfect. Shoulders strong, spine graceful, feet braced. She radiates good breeding and patient ease, and resentment is bitter in my mouth.

  What does she know about patience? She’s never waited for rations in a warzone or a refugee camp, she’s never—

  The white-haired woman suddenly pivots and walks away. But with purpose, not like she’s quitting. Then another recruit leaves, and another. Ting leaves, and a half dozen more follow before my lens sends me after them. I march through the shuttle terminal into an elevator big enough for the remaining forty-six of us to stand evenly spaced.

  We drop underground. I can’t tell how far. Maybe five stories, maybe ten. The hallways are as sealed as a Doomed city. We strip and shuffle through medical scanners. Feet in the grooves. Hands over your head.

  Higher.

  Higher.

  Don’t move.

  Adhere the film to your skin.

  Most of the platoon moves on, but the nursurgeons examine a few of us more closely, including me. My refugee status must’ve raised a warning flag, or my residence in the gutter floors. Or my bruises and my repaired middle finger. When they finish, I’m one of the last recruits to reach the supply room. Ting is another. I’m surprised that she passed the medical at all, given her stem use.

  I try to keep some distance between us—associating with her won’t help my three percent chance of success—but my lens directs me to precede her to the distribution lockers.

  On the way there, we pass a squad of fifteen or sixteen recruits, wearing silly blue fabric booties, jogging in a tight formation. Except the formation changes every two paces; they weave around each other without missing a step. It’s almost a dance, but despite the colorful footwear, they look lean and tough and focused.

  We stare after them until our lenses light up with instructions.

  At a bank of autocarts, I’m given a duffel rig with Kaytu/5323/dekka-2 temprinted on the side. My lens tells me the rig contains fatigues and a pair of weave overalls, toiletries. Patch kits, a multi-tool, camo parka, and aerosol underwear.

  There’s also a complimentary breath mint, courtesy of Lhasa Industrial Glazing.

  I’m not sure what to make of that.

  We’re given everything except boots, because instead of boots, we get our own bright blue booties, and a nickname: “slippers.” That’s what recruits are called for the first month.

  Our lenses give us seven minutes to dress. The first thing I do is eat my complimentary breath mint. Tastes great, especially considering it came from an industrial glazing department. Ting eats hers too, and I’m still enjoying the aftertaste when I realize that nobody else ate theirs yet.

  “Slow down, prez,” Pico tells me. “Mess hall comes after barracks, they’ll feed us proper.”

  Shit. I’m trying to keep my distance from Ting, but of course the two gutter roaches immediately shove free food in our faces.

  “I’m fastidious about my breath,” I say.

  “And a fan of industrial glazing?” he asks.

  “Big fan,” I tell him.

  A patch on his shirt says Pik-Cao. He sees me looking and says, “Everyone calls me Pico.”

  “I’m Ting!” Ting says, appearing at my shoulder. “That’s my first name, too. Ting Ting is my full name, I mean. Well, my first name was Tingting, but I guess nobody knew my second name, so they cut it in half and use
d both bits.”

  Pico glances at her, his eyes twinkling. “I’m glad they didn’t waste any.”

  “They’re parsimonious.” She tugs at the sleeve of her fatigues, which are baggy and green. That’s the default setting. There’s also a gauzy gray setting and a dull black camo design. “At least, if ‘parsimonious’ means what I think it means. Like frugal? Or thrifty. Because they reused the name, I mean.” She blinks at Pico. “I’m explaining your joke to you, aren’t I?”

  “You’re mostly driving a stake through its heart,” he says.

  My lens sends me to stand in formation, and conversation stops. I’m unsurprised when nothing happens for another hour. Then six TLs—Training Liaisons—march into the room and start barking orders, most of them insulting and contradictory.

  Some of the recruits—sorry, the slippers—cringe in fear or bristle in anger, and others get the faraway look of someone praying for strength. For once, I’m ahead of the game: nobody who lived in a Freehold gutter gets rattled by shouts.

  After twenty minutes of abuse, the TLs break us into three groups: Aleph, Bay, and Gabrielle. I’m in Aleph, and my Lead TL is a grizzled woman with Nordic scarification. Her Admin is a bony man with fatigues set to a businesslike mocksuit. They harry my group into our barracks, a rectangular room with six triple bunk beds beside eighteen deep lockers.

  “Where’s HR Sergeant Zhu?” Ting asks.

  “He’s not your babysitter,” the Lead TL says. “We are not your babysitters. Did you have permission to speak, slipper?”

  “No, san. I mean, not san. I’m not supposed to say san, am I?”

  “You’re on latrine duty,” the Admin TL tells Ting.

  “There are latrines?” she asks, her eyes widening. “Like actual old-fashioned actual latrines? That is so pa—”

  Ting snaps her mouth shut at a message on her lens. She wrinkles her pointy nose, then moves into place in front of one of the bunks.

  My lens directs me in front of another, and Rana stands beside me. I wonder if she feels out of place in basic training with the rabble, instead of starting in a high-level internship. I guess there’s corporate cachet in graduating from shock training, though. It’ll probably help her skip a few steps.

  I don’t wonder for long, because the Admin TL starts machine-gunning military rules at us. He rattles off corporate guidelines and mission statements for fifteen minutes.

  “Old-fashioned is right,” the TL finally says, belatedly responding to Ting’s question. “In the JST, slippers are our laborsaving devices. Are any of you rated as mechanics?”

  Half the recruits raise their hands. I spent many hours in my grandmother’s workshop as a kid, but I keep that information—and my hand—to myself.

  “Good.” The TL points to two recruits with their hands raised. “You and you. You’re assigned to cleaning the showers. How about pilots? Any of you know how to fly?”

  Two hands lift, including Rana’s.

  “Orbital vehicles?”

  Just Rana remains.

  The TL scowls at Rana. “Spacefaring, too?”

  “I am not licensed for spacefaring flight, TL,” Rana says.

  “You’re on latrine duty with the gutter girl.” The TL rattles off questions about our backgrounds and assigns jobs utterly unrelated to our answers. To drive home the point, I guess, that we’re starting from nothing.

  I don’t claim any skills, so I’m assigned dorm overwatch, which means I’ll guard the barracks during my shift. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be guarding it from, but I know better than to ask.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Lead TL walks the line, stopping in front of each recruit. Her lens shines. After she finishes, she returns to a recruit on one end, a big woman with a shaved head and mean face.

  “Calil-Du,” the Lead TL says. “You are the barracks chief.”

  The big woman’s brow creases. “Yes, TL!”

  “Calil-Du is your new chief!” the Admin TL barks at the rest of us. “Confirm.”

  “Confirm,” we answer.

  The Lead TL eyes the mean-faced woman, who stares straight ahead. “Calil-Du, request that Group Aleph secure their duffels in their assigned lockers and return to their current position within twelve seconds. Enact.”

  While Calil-Du blinks at her, processing the order, the nervous-looking recruit named Voorhivey starts toward the lockers to secure his duffel.

  Admin TL sidesteps in front of him, forcing him to stop. Silence falls for a few seconds as they stand there. Then Admin TL says, “Recruit Voorhivey.”

  The guy straightens into attention, chewing his lower lip. He’s lanky and clean-cut, and looks like life never wrapped a belt around his neck and dragged him into an alley.

  “A training liaison who believed in you might berate you for breaking rank,” the Admin TL tells him. “That TL might correct you. That TL might hope to increase your chance of achieving minimum competence. I am not that training liaison. Return to formation, Voorhivey, and await orders.”

  Voorhivey slinks back into place, his eyes downcast.

  “Chief-of-Barracks Calil-Du,” the grizzled Lead TL repeats. “Request that Group Aleph secure their duffels in their assigned lockers and return to their current position within twelve seconds. Enact.”

  “Um—” Calil-Du says, apparently having trouble following all that.

  “Now,” the Lead TL snaps.

  “D-do what she said!” Calil-Du shouts. “Move, move, go!”

  A mad scramble erupts in the barracks. For once my lens offers no guidance, but by chance I find my locker almost immediately. I shove my duffel inside, slam the door, then race back to place with two seconds to spare.

  Six of my group members don’t make it, including Ting.

  I cringe, waiting for punishment or abuse, but the TLs simply turn and leave without a word. Then Calil-Du—obviously responding to cues on her lens—shouts at us to start again.

  This time, only Ting doesn’t make it. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry . . .”

  On the third attempt, Ting and two others fail: a hapless guy named Hefco, whose locker door sprang open, and a white-skinned woman named Gazi with nursurgeon prints on the backs of her hands. Apparently medical training doesn’t help with locker-wrangling.

  The fourth time, it’s only Ting again, and Calil-Du punches her in the stomach.

  While Ting retches, Calil-Du tells the rest of us, “Group Gabrielle already finished. They’re winning, you fucking fucks. They’re beating us like gutter dick. They’re on the way to the mess hall right now.” She grabs Ting’s arm and drags her into place. “Screw us one more time, and I will break both your pinkies.”

  “Y-yes, chief,” Ting whimpers.

  “Beggar,” Rana tells me, without moving her mouth. “Open your little friend’s locker before yours. I’ll close it.”

  “She’s not my friend.”

  “Do you want her pinkies broken?”

  “What do you care?”

  “We’re scored as a group,” she tells me.

  So the next time Calil-Du marks time, I hurl myself down the wrong aisle, fling Ting’s locker open, sling around a bunk, and tuck my own duffel away. I check that my locker’s closed—if they’re not latched, it doesn’t count as secure—then lunge back into line.

  Rana shoves Ting into place and reaches her spot beside me in the nick of time. She stands at perfect attention, her eyes forward, her breath steady and her neck smooth.

  “You reek of officer material,” I murmur.

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Do they teach that in cadet training? Or were you born with it?”

  She still doesn’t respond.

  “Aiming for the Flensers,” I guess. “You said you’re not licensed for spaceflight, but you’ve taken the controls a few times.”r />
  “Just stay out of my way, beggar,” she tells me.

  Is that a hint of a smile on her lips? Maybe. Hard to tell. And why do I care? Not because she’s beautiful. There are members of Aleph who are better-looking: a chiseled older man named Basdaq, and a mop-headed prettyboy named Shakrabarti who wears his uniform like it’s the latest fashion. But Rana is so . . . different from me, so foreign. There’s something alluring about that.

  Or maybe I just like the curve of her neck and the cool of her eyes.

  It’s probably not a smile, though. None of us smile much that day, with the exception of Pico, who laughs at exhaustion and mocks frustration. He never misses a step, though, during the eight hours of “welcome exercises”: disassembling the furniture in our room, running a mile to an identical room, and reassembling everything there.

  By the time we’re done, Ting’s mouth is bleeding from Calil-Du’s punch and we’re starving. Because Groups Bay and Gabrielle secured their duffels quicker than we did, we miss our chance to visit the mess hall until dinner.

  Our work shifts start after we finally eat. “Dorm overwatch” isn’t just standing at the door. Instead, my lens directs me where to stand, when to patrol. Exactly how many steps to take before turning. When to check the corridors. When to cross the north side of the barracks, and when the south.

  A sharp-eyed guy named M’bari is also assigned to overwatch that first day, and we pass each other every few minutes. We’re mirror images, cogs in some primitive machine. He’s average height, average build, copper skin. He looks like “Recruit #12” in a MYRAGE play, completely default, but I can almost see the wheels turning in his mind.

  This one’s a planner.

  My mind, on the other hand, switches off after an hour. I’m marching and turning, my left foot here my right foot there, following the instructions on my lens, when my earbug starts droning a lecture about competence, entrepreneurship, teamwork, and “the corporate warrior ethos.” By the end of my shift, my body responds automatically to the lens instructions while my brain is adrift in a sea of jargon.