Feral Recruit (Calm Act Book 5)

by Ginger Booth

  Dinner was a lot of fun, reunited at home table after four of the nine had mysteriously been sent elsewhere. Marquis and Puño were ecstatic with their assignment, working kitchen inventory. The chances of a gang rat getting a job like that back home was nil. Such a position of trust usually went to tough women in their forties or fifties back in the villes, usually with restaurant management experience. But Puño especially was intent that Chelsea Free become a fully recognized official mini-city, with its own chosen government style, and as much right to food shipments as any other ville.

  Sauce didn’t give away Ava’s secret, but Puño was too quick as usual. “Yeah? When’s your birthday, half-pint? I thought you turn eighteen this week or something.”

  “Day after tomorrow,” Ava admitted.

  “Birthday cake night!” Puño crooned. The table would get a real cake to share on a birthday, made with sugar. Ava’s would be their first, but they admired others from afar. “For the ditz with the brain.” He toasted Ava with his milk glass. “My birthday is the twenty-second. Maybe they’ll let us have the cake before we go.”

  Sergeant Awalo stopped by their table before dinner ended. “Two things tonight. Your debut on PR News, the music video.” He grinned at them. “You can stay here and watch, but you’ll blow most of your free time. Twenty hundred – that’s 8 p.m. – platoon meets in the common room. Meditation training before lights out, forty-five minutes. Required. Twenty hundred. Got it?”

  “Yes, sergeant!”

  The common room featured a new toy, a free-standing hammock built for one. The Chelsea Free trio colonized it first. Two from Midtown threatened to pile on top of them, if they wouldn’t take turns. Everyone was in high spirits from the interesting day, new room-mates, the music video, and meshes from home from friends who’d seen them on the PR News broadcast.

  Ava received a couple meshes, too. Guzman said she looked great, and wondered if Dima’s personality changed when she took off the hijab. Apparently she’d pulled a 180 when he gave her the hijab in the first place.

  From White Supreme, Maz texted, ‘Lookin curvy!’ Frosty didn’t respond. Tyrone and Songkram and Samantha didn’t write, either. But it was Frosty her heart longed to hear from. He hadn’t meshed her back except that once when she left Manhattan.

  They cleared out the common room, stacking chairs and folded tables in the hallway, and arrayed exercise mats across the floor. As Ava sank to the floor, her heart sank, too.

  She’d never meditated. But she knew it involved sitting still and clearing her mind. What fun, she thought, something she’d suck at before bed. Her head spun from the events of the day.

  Marquis and Fang moved into her bedroom before she got back from the dining hall. Fang washed all his underwear and hung it to dry from the top bunk. Marquis kicked him out of the top bunk and told him to sleep under his own dripping underwear. They read their meshes out loud to each other. Marquis’ wife was a master of sexual innuendo. Lotus told Fang that Ava had no boobs and shouldn’t belly-dance.

  There was nothing wrong with Marquis and Fang. They were just boisterous men relaxing at home, in complete contrast to quiet Dima and silent Long.

  “…If you get anxious sitting still, take a turn on the hammock. Swing for two minutes, with slow breathing. Then return to your seat…” Awalo crooned. Sergeant Singh sat watch by the hammock.

  Ava thought Frosty could probably get an equivalency diploma just by showing up for the test and enduring the seven hours. No, he’d be in the same boat as most of her class today. He was nearing graduation two years ago, sure. But life hadn’t handed him applications for the quadratic equation, either.

  Ava wasn’t paying attention, and startled badly when the sound system started, her eyes flying open. ‘Brain entrainment audio,’ Awalo called it. Stereo speakers at the front of the room throbbed with seemingly three soundtracks laid on top of each other. A deep electronic bass pounded at a rate that seemed to grasp for her heartbeat to synchronize. A middle track sounded like canoe paddles slipping through quiet waters in the rain. While on top some high New Age chiming bells toned without rhythm or melody. Ava scowled, swallowed, and looked to the hammock. No one was in it.

  Don’t be a wuss. You haven’t tried yet. Within two minutes, she could see a black scaly gauntleted hand reaching from that bass line to grab and slow her heart, and she catapulted to her feet. Marquis and Puño beat her to the hammock, so she plonked up-fabric to slide down onto Puño. Singh politely tapped them to kick them out two minutes after Ava arrived.

  She sat again, and tried to focus only on the canoe paddles lapping, raindrops plinking in quiet water. She’d been canoeing like that once, on a family camping trip on the lakes of northern Minnesota. They lived in Minneapolis that year. It snowed a lot. Frosty would have loved it. No matter how cold they were, he loved the snow.

  Don’t think about Frosty. That was like saying, ‘Don’t think wolf.’ She started to rock back and forth, fingers splayed rigid on the mat beside her.

  Her eyes flew open again in shock. Calderon had quietly squatted beside Ava and took her wrist. Ava recoiled into Fox seated beside her. Fox simply shoved her back.

  Calderon shook his head while he timed her pulse. He hauled her to her feet and drew her into the hallway. “Take it,” he said, holding out not one but two sleeping pills.

  “I’ll get the hang of it.” Ava kept her arms wrapped tight. She realized she was rocking again and tried to stop herself, without success. She frowned.

  Calderon’s tone was gentler than his words. “I said take it. Then brush your teeth. I want you in bed before the pills kick in. That’s an order, Panic.”

  “That’s too much. What if they stop my heart beating?”

  “You’re having a panic attack, Panic. Open your mouth.”

  She couldn’t. She was willing enough. Well, not really. But she just couldn’t.

  Calderon pried her mouth open, placed the pills on her tongue, and made her swallow them with some water. The drill instructors always carried water. “Just stand and breathe for a few minutes.”

  Breathe out. Your body breathes in by itself.

  Stepping up beside her, Puño accepted his two pills and walked off without argument. Another recruit from Midtown. Two from Jersey. One of them was rocking even worse than Ava, the whites of his eyes showing all around the iris.

  Calderon turned back to her. “Panic, go brush your teeth now.”

  “I’m sorry, sergeant –”

  “Don’t.” He laid a finger on her lips, not knowing that was the way Frosty used to do it. “Everything is fine, Panic. Go to bed. We’ll come check on you. Trust me.”

  Awalo did come later to check on her. She knew that, because Marquis helped Awalo hoist Ava into her bed. She’d passed out huddled on the desk chair beneath her loft, phone clutched in her hand.

  The next time she was conscious seemed an eye blink later. Ava woke to herself restraining Dima, holding one arm twisted behind her back. Dima’s new room was a mirror reflection of Ava’s across the hall. Dima was shrieking incoherently. Fakhir sat on the ground, scuttled back against Marquis, who was trying to staunch the bleeding on Fakhir’s face with his T-shirt. Long, eyes wide, peered from his top bunk. Dima still clutched a vicious little paring knife.

  Ava blinked. She squeezed Dima’s hand to force her to drop the knife. Ava kicked the weapon toward the hall and yawned herself awake. She was unimpressed by Dima’s fighting skills. She could escape this arm-lock by simply turning. Apparently no one bothered to teach Dima that.

  “Dima,” she crooned, “it’s all over. Hush, now. You’re safe. Sh.” Ava twisted Dima’s other arm behind her as well for safekeeping. The girl wouldn’t stop shrieking, though.

  Doc hung in the doorway, keeping other people out. He toed the bloody knife against the wall to protect bare feet, but otherwise let it lay. Ava presumed Puño was still dead to the world from the sedatives, or the Chelsea Free ringleader would have already taken charge her
e. The night guards arrived, a couple regular soldiers. Doc pointed out the knife, then yielded the doorway.

  One of the guards took over securing Dima. Ava continued trying to calm the girl down, without success. So she grabbed Dima’s hijab scarf from a drawer, intending to gag her with it. But when she reached for Dima’s face, on inspiration she instead draped the scarf as a hijab, sort of. She didn’t know how a hijab fastened.

  Instantly Dima’s screaming stopped.

  “I’ll find her safety pins,” Ava murmured.

  The guard stopped her. “No pins in lockup. Thank you. We’ll sort this out in the morning.”

  “I’ll come with you. Let me pull some clothes on.”

  When Ava returned from her room, now dressed, the other guard told her, “This guy, Fakhir, claims he didn’t do anything. He got up for the bathroom, and the girl freaked. You believe him?”

  Ava met Fakhir’s pleading eyes and considered. “Ambiguous,” she replied softly. Fakhir’s eyes fell. He couldn’t blame her for that. Not when Ava was the one who cut him last time.

  She should have said something when she heard the room assignment.

  Dima went docilely to the brig on the ground floor, where she lay down, clutched her blanket around her and faced the wall. She hadn’t said a word.

  Ava climbed back to the fifth floor barracks and claimed the hammock to nap another hour to reveille.

  After breakfast, she begged Calderon’s permission to go talk to Dima, and be late for morning circuit training. He drew her aside and gently told her that Dima was non-communicative. Sergeant Clarke was sending her home.

  But I’m afraid I’m no better than Dima, Ava didn’t dare tell him. In fact, she feared she was much worse than Dima. Awalo’s joking aside, Ava probably could murder someone in her sleep. She was certainly adept at disarming people before she woke up.

  She continued on meekly to circuit training. Today was her strong suit of running and mobility. She tried to look forward to seeing the results of her GED practice test. But this morning her high school diploma felt as irrelevant as it had during the Starve.

  18

  Interesting fact: Hudson’s neighbor and ally to the east, New England, was considered a nation at this time, though their new Constitution was bogged down in committee. Maine transferred to Canada. The Boston-Providence area, including southern Massachusetts and Cape Cod, was only now emerging from behind population control borders like the Apple Zone’s, though no particular epidemic struck there. From Rhode Island to Cape Cod comprised the new state of Narragansett. Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire remained intact.

  Ava’s head popped up from her work the moment the lecture hall door opened. Once upon a time, she was a great student, able to concentrate through anything, pursue her own goals. Being queen bee trained her rather differently. Minding everyone else’s business was an ingrained habit.

  Inexplicable persons entered to speak with Zapple. The old officer, like over 40, looked pure Native American. He was accompanied by an Hispanic-looking teenager, too young for boot camp, wearing a cheerful baby-doll dress over black turtleneck, leggings, and hiking boots, with a bright red plaid hunting jacket, definitely not an urban look. He looked formidable, while she looked vivacious, scanning the risers for someone. They seemed familiar somehow, but Ava couldn’t place them.

  Zapple rapped her lectern. “Attention! Zulu, Daneel, Panic, Fox, please collect your things. Colonel, would you like to say a few words?” Zapple beamed. The stone-faced colonel inclined his head slightly.

  “Wonderful! Class, I’d like to present Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Mora, lead Resco of Connecticut, visiting from New England! You remember New England is Hudson’s neighboring nation and ally now, yes? And his daughter Maisie. You may remember Maisie from the news. She was trapped in the Apple Zone when the epidemic broke out. She fled to Long Island, where she lived as a gavi, with one of you, I think?”

  Maisie grinned and pointed at Zulu, one of Ava’s Long Island classmates. Well, that explained one of the four names Zapple called out, anyway. It also explained why the pair looked familiar. Ava remembered Maisie’s story from the news coverage of the Calm Park dedication ceremonies in the pouring rain at Halloween. That day Maisie had retraced her tracks through Queens with her dad, to where her mother and sister died of Ebola, leaving the then-thirteen-year-old girl alone. Father and daughter stood stoically at the memorial service at the closest Calm Park in Queens, possibly the final resting place of their wife and mother, daughter and sister.

  Ava remembered her tale so vividly because that was the gang rat dream during the Starve. To somehow be magically transported out of the nightmare, saved, reunited with their families like Maisie. Yet by the time it was possible, few older kids wanted to be found. They’d changed too much. Ava had no surviving family, but Frosty and Maz should. Ava frowned. She never did learn whether Frosty and Maz located their families outside. She was curious how Maisie had adjusted.

  “Hello,” the colonel greeted them. “I’m delighted to see young people pursuing their high school diplomas. The Hudson Army is providing you an exciting opportunity, and a wonderful campus. I envy you. I never studied at West Point myself. I’m sure it’s a big adjustment. But I hope you appreciate how lucky you are to be here. New England is watching this program with great interest. We hope to collaborate on joint training programs. Perhaps someday soon we’ll welcome apples like you to the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut.”

  “Thank you very much, sir!” Zapple preened. “Zulu, Daneel, Panic, and Fox, please take your things and meet with Colonel Mora and his daughter in the hallway. You’re excused from class for the rest of the day.”

  Ava arched an eyebrow at Fox as they rose, and got a shrug in reply. Daneel, from the student meshnet cabal, seemed equally at sea. But they filed out as ordered.

  In the hallway, Maisie grinned bashfully at Zulu. She asked and received permission for a hug. So apparently they weren’t especially close, either.

  “This way,” Colonel Mora gestured. “Maisie, hold off on explanations until we reach the lunchroom.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” the girl agreed. Instead she launched into banter with Zulu, asking what life was like at West Point. Ava had never heard more than a few words before from Zulu, a shy black recruit. That didn’t change now. Soon Daneel and Ava took over the conversation to let him off the hook.

  One floor up and out a different and deserted wing, they arrived at a seminar classroom. Lunch was spread on its single 20-person table. Captain Deluca, Lieutenant Mattey, and Sergeants Clarke and Calderon from Ava’s company, and a collection of similar officers and drill instructors, sat at the table waiting for them. They rose to abrupt attention to greet the colonel.

  Once they were all inside, Mora checked the empty hallway and closed the door. “At ease. Please be seated,” he invited. He handled introductions and started the food passing around the table, family-style.

  “I’d like to apologize for the stealth,” Mora said. “My daughter and I are here as emissaries from the Apple Zone lead Rescos. After Colonel MacLaren’s visit, they intended to follow up with experienced quarantine staff from Long Island to help you. Colonel Newsome blocked that initiative. He also forbade them to visit the campus. That’s being appealed. In the meantime, I offered Maisie and myself to check in with you. Being from New England, our visit was harder to refuse.

  “Oh, and I have this for you. Daneel, correct?” Mora pulled a flash drive from his coat pocket and handed it to the meshnet guru. “A gift from Amenac headquarters in Connecticut.”

  Daneel grinned and accepted the flash drive with alacrity. “Thank you, sir!”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said one of the Long Island recruit officers. “What was that?”

  “Just a little something to harden the student meshnet,” Mora replied. “Apparently your lead trainer, Captain Stevens, attempted to shut them down. The Rescos prefer their students to report back. Nothing you need to worry about.r />
  “Panic, Fox – Colonel MacLaren suggested I invite you. He thought you and Maisie might hit it off. You’re our excuse to escape Colonel Newsome for a couple hours.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ava smiled and nodded at him, and Maisie. Fox followed suit.

  “The idea here, is to give everyone an opportunity to ask questions. I’ll also report back to the Apple Rescos. I’ll go first. Have the recruits received medical attention yet?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Not even worm meds?” Maisie asked. “Everybody got worm meds in the Long Island quarantines. If the gavis have trouble gaining weight, they need to be de-wormed.”

  Forks hung arrested halfway to mouths among the drill instructors and officers.

  Daneel volunteered, “I think I’ve got worms again, from being around the gang rats.” He shrugged apologetically at Fox and Ava.

  “We’re used to them,” Ava murmured.

  Mora made a note of it. “I’ll ask to meet the doctor this afternoon. The staff will need to take the drugs, too. I trust you’ve been deloused?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ava assured him. “I haven’t seen any lice here.”

  “There was some lice in my squad,” Fox differed, “but Sergeant Singh took care of it.” Sergeant Clarke and Lieutenant Mattey nodded confirmation, looking a bit pained.

  Mora nodded matter-of-factly. “Early days for the recovery in North Jersey. Are you getting the help you need to regain your strength?”

  Fox didn’t like being singled out, but nodded curtly. “Our sergeants are nice. The first day sucked. But we’re getting stronger. We can’t compete with Long Island, though. Or even the Apple recruits, like Panic.”

  Ava frowned along with Fox. The unfairness of competing with the the Long Island gavis for a slot at Basic still rankled.

  Mora, stone-faced, shook his head slightly. “You have objective physical standards to meet. Shouldn’t be competing with anyone. But, I’m in the New England Army. Which has its own issues.”