Feral Recruit (Calm Act Book 5)

by Ginger Booth

  Sauce nodded agreement. “Almost envy you. Hell, my luck, they’ll send me to snow brigade.”

  Ava quirked up one lip into a sad smile of thanks. Then she sagged onto the table, hoping Yoda would take a turn and massage her back. Cookie did it instead.

  35

  Interesting fact: Women served in the U.S. Army since the Revolutionary War. By the end, women comprised nearly 15%. However, combat roles were closed to women until 2016. Gender-integrated infantry basic training began in 2017.

  Near lights-out, Ava mesh texted Guzman, and told him that she was about to flunk out. ‘Honorably discharged.’

  She lay in her lower bunk, propped on a pillow, knees up to relieve her back. She still roomed with Cookie and Doc, and had throughout Basic. Major Thurston granted the recruits the right to decide their own bunkmates. Most chose stability. After today’s grueling march, the guys passed out the moment they hit their beds. Ava had too much on her mind, with a new life to invent. She was a little surprised and disconcerted to notice how much she’d handed that responsibility over the the Army the past few months. Comfortable and convenient, yes. Smart, no.

  Guzman texted back to assure her that it would be great to have her home. Someone had taken her studio on Sullivan, but he could swap them out if she didn’t find anything she liked better. He missed having her as a neighbor.

  He would say that, she thought, then decided that wasn’t fair. Guzman could have said a lot of things. What he did say didn’t dwell on her failure, but instead on their personal connection, and Soho Ville as home. She realized with a jolt that she’d now lived at West Point longer than Soho Ville. And her home in Chelsea was gone. She had no home. Except, Hudson tied her right to live and work and vote to one community, Soho Village.

  Good leader, Guzman.

  Actually, come to think of it, she’d lived in Greenwich Village with her family, too. The longest they lived anywhere together, was three blocks from Guzman’s place. Washington Square Apartments seemed forever ago, and nothing to do with Soho Ville, irrelevant. She was a citizen of Soho Ville because she liked Guzman better than the Cocos of the other nearby villes.

  She texted Guzman back her career ideas for militia patrol among the gang rats, or being a stable work crew supervisor and mentor for pre-adult kids. In multi-threaded texting conversation fashion, where each party tapped a short response to the second-to-last thing the other said, they chatted back and forth about that.

  The alternate conversation was about the upcoming wedding extravaganza, expected to rival the Calm Park dedication and Project Reunion Thanksgiving for sheer party size. Apparently Rescos Margolis and MacLaren liked to compete on public spectacles. MacLaren was back in charge of the Apple Core, Margolis taking over the eastern side of Upstate. Poor North Jersey would remain under regular Army control for now, not a Resco. Ava had to concede the evolutions in the city sounded interesting, even if she wasn’t enthused about going back.

  Guzman thought both Ava’s job suggestions sounded great. But strategically, militia was the first thing he’d pitch to the DTM. If the voters turned that down, he reasoned, they’d likely feel guilty and back her crew supervisor pitch. Whereas if they turned down the crew supervisor proposal first, they’d be even less likely to vote her the police role. Guzman was a shrewd politician.

  Too bad Guzman was the only person she really cared about in Soho Village. Well, Dima too, but Ava needed to be careful around Dima, not remind her of the Army. Chelsea Free was more tempting, in terms of trying to create a unique kind of ville, with young people calling the shots instead of the seniles. But to have any clout in Chelsea she’d need to join a gang again, and apply to transfer residency. She didn’t know that any gang would take her. She joked about it with Maz over solstice, whether she’d be welcome back in White Supreme. Maz said no, and he wasn’t joking. Butch wouldn’t like it either. That would be a hard sell.

  She didn’t want to be in White Supreme without Frosty, anyway. And she wouldn’t like to hurt Guzman that way.

  Sorry I let you down, Guzman. On the Army.

  She should have said that earlier, she thought ruefully.

  Don’t be. You succeeded in all I wanted. Better than. GED, broke in the Army program. A democratic Army is hilarious. Helped me pick next recruits. Got trained for militia. I didn’t want to give you to the Army. I wanted you back for us. You come home sooner. Great!

  She smiled sadly. That was nice. Then she considered. It was probably true as well as nice. Guzman probably did get what he wanted out of her abortive tour in the Army. Did she?

  No. She wanted to escape the city. Rebuilding the vast depopulated city into pretty little green villes was interesting. But she didn’t think she could ever love that city. She thought she’d always see the Epidemic, the Starve, her dead. She didn’t consciously notice how much those shades had already faded.

  Ava wanted power, even to join the organization pulling all the strings, the shadowy masters she suspected stood behind the military power. But first-year soldiers didn’t have power. Oops. In the civilian world, at least there was some chance to skip a rung or two on the long ladder from bottom to top. Not in the Army.

  Moot point. She was falling off the Army ladder at the bottom. In excruciating slow motion, literally. Every muscle ached from today’s 10 km march, and she had to repeat it for 15 km in three days. And she’d have to go through all the motions, with exquisite military courtesy, controlling her temper in a vise grip, for five more days, to win that honorable discharge. And applaud her class-mates who succeeded where she failed.

  God, this sucks.

  Calderon wandered in to issue painkillers. He noted that Doc and Cookie were sound asleep, and squatted by her bunk.

  “Making plans?” he inquired.

  She nodded slightly, and accepted the pills without argument. She washed them down with a swallow from her canteen, stored an easy bend and stretch under her bunk.

  Calderon’s eyebrows rose. “You’re moving pretty well. What did you do tonight?”

  “Yoga.” Gever still held her martial meditation classes a few times a week, for whoever showed up. Ava and Puño wouldn’t miss it, especially not sore from the march. Half the recruits would have sat there stretching for an hour, anyway, so Gever selected yoga accordingly.

  “Good choice.”

  Calderon still squatted there, looking awkward. Obedience and one-word answers weren’t going to get rid of him. Besides, something was owed. Ava sighed.

  “Sorry I snapped at you, Calderon. You didn’t deserve that. The medicine just went down hard.” She swallowed, and gritted out, “Thank you.” She didn’t feel up to looking at him while she said it.

  He hung there a moment, then bopped her upraised knee lightly with a fist. “Yeah,” was all he said. He straightened up, and woke her room-mates to force pills on them. He’d explained this theory to them before. When they knew their muscles were going to seize up from abuse, it was better to take a painkiller before the pain set in.

  Ava’s meshnet exchange with Guzman was over, and she couldn’t start another with Calderon still in the room. His presence still bothered her too much. She hadn’t felt humiliated at West Point in a long time. To be humiliated before Calderon, and to leave here, leave him, feeling like this, was intolerable.

  Maybe he felt the same way. Calderon bent down over her again, propping himself with a hand on the upper bunk, not squatting down again.

  “Panic, I’m proud of you. You’ve grown up a lot. You’re not the person you were when you got here. I shouldn’t have said that stuff earlier.”

  “Still queen bitch,” Ava denied.

  He laughed softly. “Yeah, and I’m still the kid in juvie. All the people we’ve been, Panic. They’re still in us. But now you’ve got someone else you can be, too. Disciplined. Mentally tough. Stronger. Calmer. Good shot. Team player. More options. Use me as a reference, any time. Stay in touch.”

  Ava still couldn’t meet his eye. “Y
eah. Thanks.”

  “Get some sleep, Panic.” With that, mercifully, he continued to the next room, leaving her door ajar for the night watch.

  Ava’s turn tonight was at twenty-three hundred. Once upon a time, she’d have struggled and pleaded with herself, and flipped and flopped and failed to sleep until then. Now she simply acknowledged that sleep wasn’t in the cards before oh-one hundred. And she owed another text.

  Cade, I won’t get into the Army. Hope for honorable discharge. I can’t pass the ruck test, 50 lb, 15 km. I’m sorry. Love, Ava

  Who knew when he’d see that, or when she’d see him again. The meshnet responded that her text was queued, pending a connection.

  Ava considered who else to tell, and how. She tapped out a note to Maisie Mora next, the ex-gavi reunited with her Resco dad in Connecticut. As a civilian, maybe sometime she could visit Maisie and meet her cows. She bet Connecticut was pretty when the weather didn’t suck. The cold dry gale couldn’t last forever. Or at least she hoped not. Hudson was in deep trouble if the crop season was a no-show.

  To her surprise, Frosty replied within 10 minutes.

  Screw the Army! Secure that honorable. Expect a job interview.

  Huh? He wasn’t so damned cryptic in person. She considered a plaintive Explain? But she knew he wouldn’t.

  Sorry disappointed. CU soon! Love, Cade

  Soon? But no further details were forthcoming.

  The painkiller tabs – or maybe emotional relief – were taking effect. She fell asleep after all. Yoda woke her for watch, and walked with her for the first half hour. They chatted softly in the halls about their plans for after discharge.

  Yoda was more relieved than disappointed. Like Ava, his main ambition for the Army was a better job after he left. In his view, they came out way ahead – they got the training and better jobs, and were off the hook for Army scut work 12 months early.

  At first Ava thought Yoda’s perky outlook sounded too good to be true. But Yoda seemed not only sincere, but sincerely delighted that Ava would be back in Manhattan, too. He conveyed that Fox expected to be nearby as well. Sergeant Gonzo told Fox that MacLaren guaranteed militia jobs for any North Jersey recruits the Army didn’t want. Fox could learn her militia ropes in the relatively benign Manhattan or Jerseyborough before going home.

  Yoda pointed out that they wouldn’t even miss the action. The recruits who graduated would be stuck on garrison and border duty. They’d serve to free up veteran troops for combat roles. But almost all armed conflict in Hudson started with a militia skirmish. The Army was dragged in for backup as needed. Urban combat opportunities abounded in Manhattan. Happy thought.

  Ava was still ornery enough to resent failing Basic. But maybe Calderon and Guzman and Yoda were right, and flunking out was the winning combo. Huh.

  It would be easier to meet up with Frosty when he was available, if she were out of the Army. After Yoda peeled off to bed, the main future Ava dwelt on, was Cade Snowdon, her past.

  “You’re not going to fight it?” Lieutenant Janette Mattey, Ava’s company executive officer, looked crestfallen. She and Zapple – Sergeant Alyssa Weinzapfel – had pulled Ava away from home table to talk insurrection.

  Zapple unsurprisingly had more female recruits than any other platoon sergeant at West Point, over half and half. She was the ranking female noncom. Across her battalion, pure Long Island during fitness camp, ‘problem girls’ were passed to Zapple. “Panic, do you know how few female recruits can pass that fifty pound ruck at this point in their training?”

  “Two, in my squad,” Ava returned. “They survived the ten k, anyway.” She glanced toward Jenn, the Upstate recruit, at another table. Jenn looked awfully rough today at morning drills. She hoped Calderon wasn’t pushing her to injury. Insofar as she cared. Ava and Jenn were colleagues, not particularly friends.

  “Out of six,” Ava clarified. Only six girls had made it this far, and three were from Upstate, out of 25 in the replenished squad. Lotus, Dima – over half the girls from Lower Manhattan had bombed out before Basic. The other squad was worse, with only Fox and one other girl left standing from North Jersey, neither of them fit to shoulder a 50 pound ruck.

  “Why aren’t you fighting it?” Zapple demanded. “I’m spitting mad! I’m so insulted! On behalf of my women soldiers, and myself! This is an affront to every woman in the Army!”

  “I can’t risk the honorable discharge,” Ava said. “Besides, Calderon’s right. If the Army wants horsepower, I’m not a horse. And I used up my mutiny card at the beginning of Basic.”

  “You’re right on that,” Mattey allowed. “But if we could get you reinstated, though. Get this stupid rule overturned, make thirty-five pounds the standard again, retroactive. You’d come back, right?”

  “I wouldn’t be coming back here,” Ava pointed out. “West Point was a blast. Some garrison? I don’t know. If I had my old sucky job back in the city, sure. But I think I’ve got better jobs to choose from. I’d probably honor my new commitments.”

  “She’s too smart for grunt,” Zapple told Mattey. “Panic’s officer material.”

  Mattey sighed. “Who knows when we’ll get officer candidate school up and running. Pure mustang program, last I heard the plan. Minus the college degree.”

  For Ava’s benefit, Zapple explained, “Mustang is an enlisted who bucks to switch track for commissioned rank, instead of noncom.” Zapple clearly disapproved. Noncoms like her considered the sergeant ranks the pragmatic, superior calling. Sergeants got things done. Officers filed paperwork and relayed orders. A baby officer like Mattey needed a sergeant as a nanny.

  Mattey smirked at Zapple. “Alright, Panic. I guess I should be happy that you’re adjusting to the bad news. But dammit. It’s not just the Army, you know? This whole world After. There’s a big danger of women’s roles backsliding. Wherever you go, promise me you’ll fight for women?”

  Ava tamped down a smile. “Promise. Always have. And thank you, both, for fighting for me.” She saluted them. They returned the salute, heartfelt.

  Ava returned to home table wondering if that was good-bye, whether she’d ever talk to Mattey and Zapple again. With Gever, they were her female role models here at the Point.

  In the event, she saw Mattey again just a few hours later, when she pulled Ava out of afternoon workout.

  “Do your cool-down, then hit the showers. Dress for inspection and report to the company office ASAP. You have a job interview by video!”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know. This one’s secretive.” Mattey waggled her eyebrows up and down, then scurried away.

  36

  Interesting fact: Although Rescos – military resource coordinators – were part of the Calm Act plan from the beginning, the term became a household word around the time the United States dissolved. The Rescos were popularized by Project Reunion, so much so that General Sean Cullen of New York–New Jersey promised his citizens ‘Rescos everywhere.’

  When Ava arrived in the company office for her interview, Lieutenant Mattey guided her to an unused room. A desk and chair had been extracted from orderly piles of furniture, wiped down, and placed in the center. A computer and headset with microphone awaited her. Ava sneezed at the disturbed dust in the air. She’d grown accustomed to cleanliness at West Point.

  “There’s a questionnaire waiting for you on the screen,” Mattey pointed out. “You can work through that until your interviewer joins you. He said twenty minutes from now. You’re not to be disturbed.” With that, she left.

  Fascinated, Ava sank to the seat to see this questionnaire. What have you learned at West Point? How have you changed as a result of this experience? They seemed to be short essay questions. She hoped they put the most important ones first. Twenty minutes wasn’t much time, and her keyboarding was rusty.

  She decided to do a quick first pass and jot in talking points, then go back and shape those thoughts into well-formed paragraphs, just to demonstrate she could, given time. Te
am member, not just leader. Friendship skills. Restored strength and health. GED.

  These were good questions, Ava reflected. Other recruits, at least from Zapple’s GED class, would enjoy spending some time on them. During the hectic Basic schedule, Zapple focused on science review. Ava passed that segment last week. She had only the English section left to complete her high school diploma.

  How has your perspective on killing changed during your training? That question caught her up short. Her first reaction was, Got better at it, but that was skills, not perspective. Her eyes roamed the room while she tried to think of a perspective. They paused on the red light of the camera above the screen. She rose, stretched her aching back a little, and noted another camera on the furniture stack, positioned to her right, also active. That would show her from the side. She stared into that one, and straightened her uniform. She sat back at the desk and minded her posture.

  Maybe the cameras were unattended except for the interview. But she would act as though someone was watching her.

  Orders vs. moral choice, she typed in for her ‘perspective on killing,’ plus her initial reaction, Got better at it.

  Moving along, the next question was, What are you loyal to? Ava scowled and typed in, Who, not what. She didn’t take time to enter names.

  Was the culling of New York City justifiable? Ava stilled, into the kind of calm she learned in the karate dojo, the still focus that could erupt into sudden precision violence. Better to cull than be culled, she typed in.

  The screen reconfigured itself, 10 or 15 minutes before expected. The questionnaire was replaced by a video call tableau. Ava was displayed on the left, her caller on the right, his image blurred out. But she could tell he wore a camouflage uniform, just like hers. Belatedly, she donned the waiting headset, and verified that she knew which camera to look into. She folded her hands into her lap, and kept her karate poised mental state.