by D. P. Oberon
That night, as Saradi immersed herself inside the gel-foam of her bed, she told her AI to dial up the hardest level battle simulations. She didn’t want to think about Bheemasena’s dog tag or her family, it all just hurt too much. She was beginning to feel comfortable in battle, the rush of it was like peace flowing through her.
Chapter 23 – Chocolate Pie
Selection, Week 8
Bravo Two Zero ran along the soft snow while holding up the aero-sled. It weighed four hundred kilograms. They wouldn’t have been able to even lift it during their first week, but now, in week eight, their upgrades had kicked in and they were much stronger.
“Inferno Week is going to commence in two weeks’ time and you think you’re going to make it with that pitiable effort?” Instructor Ali barked at them. Gone were Saradi’s thoughts about Instructor Ali becoming more relaxed, in the last week she had chewed them out over even the smallest mistakes. She’d even terrorized Bravo Two Six, whom Saradi thought had been untouchable until now.
Sweat poured down Saradi’s face; each step shoved her boot deeper into the snow. Her full SOHIC armor stuck against her like melted caramel, and her head pounded.
“One, two, three, four,” Saradi counted. Her team echoed her count after she finished.
Four other squads surrounded them. Each marched, straining under the weight of the aero-sled. All of them strained to reach the top and the promise of an aero-sled ride down.
Instructor Ali ran alongside them carrying an aero-sled all to herself.
Nobody said a word when Instructor Ali passed all of them, heading for the mountaintop. She stopped there and put her aero-sled into the snow.
As the squads stumbled to the shoulder of the mountain, Ali said, “Now we run back. But for this I want you to run backwards, like so.” She hefted the aero-sled and proceeded to run backwards so she couldn’t see where she was going.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Buckingarra muttered. “What next? Cartwheel down while carrying an aero-sled?”
Saradi’s next few hours were filled with pain in her shoulders, a coldness through her limbs, and a pounding headache.
Things didn’t get better when they returned to their barracks.
“Barracks inspection!” Instructor Ali shouted as she followed Bravo Two Zero into their barracks.
The squad’s gear caked with snow and the slushy mud from lower down the mountainside. SOHIC didn’t permit its students any serv-bots or self-cleaning utilities.
Saradi stood at attention. Instructor Ali walked right up to her.
“Your boots are filthy,” she said. “Are you an animal?”
Before Saradi could even answer Instructor Ali had turned to Peng, rounding on him so quickly that he flinched. “Your bed is filthy. Are you an animal?”
Peng made the mistake of answering. But Saradi knew that’s what Ali wanted.
“It’s clean,” Peng protested.
Saradi still wore her boots caked with mud an inch around.
“Squad Leader, hand me your boots,” Ali said.
Saradi sent a thought via her AI to her boots. The sensors alongside her boots clicked open.
Ali took Saradi’s boots and cleared the side of them along Peng’s bed, smearing it with mud and gunk.
“It is not clean,” Ali said.
She strode to Buckingarra and stared up at him. “Cartwheel? Do you think this is a circus?”
“No, instructor,” he replied.
“Then why does it look like a circus?” she asked, pulling his drawers open, and dumping his pressed uniforms to the ground. She upended every single drawer around him so that he stood in a pile of clothes.
“Yoriko,” Ali said, pushing her face close so that they were nose to nose. “I heard Japanese people were neat. So why is it that these barracks are covered in shit?”
Yoriko swallowed. She didn’t answer, just stared right ahead.
Ali took out a synthplast bag that filled with something black and viscous. It stank. She made an incision in the bag and she walked while the contents dripped all over the room, making the barracks reek.
“Squad Leader, have you prepared your squad adequately for Inferno Week?” Instructor Ali asked as she stopped by Saradi, and as Saradi began to answer, she took the black liquid and smeared it over Saradi’s neck.
Saradi gaged at the stench and wanted to wipe it off. Was it shit?
Instructor Ali said, “You’re not allowed to wipe this from your necks until I come back and decree it so. Failure to obey will result in instant dismissal. Further, if any of you vomit then I will keep repeating this exercise on an hourly basis until you stop.” She repeated the procedure by smearing the black liquid across Buckingarra’s, Peng’s, and Yoriko’s necks.
Ali stood at the doorway and held up the synthplast bag filled with brown sludge. “That is your shit from the past day. I will not have a filthy barracks. You have fifteen minutes to have this spotless for the next inspection.” She left.
After three seconds of silence Yoriko broke down and screamed in rage. The Japanese woman shook. “I can’t take it anymore,” she said. “I can’t take it. I’m leaving.” She grabbed her helmet from atop the bed and ran outside.
Saradi squeeze her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. This was too far. But a voice in her head said, what if the enemy got you? Don’t you think they would do more than smear shit over you? She ran outside, and yelled back at Peng and Buckingarra who whore disgusted looks on their faces, “What are you to staring at? Start cleaning!”
Yoriko’s diminutive form ran through the wide pathways. Saradi ran after her yelling her name but the Japanese woman wouldn’t stop. They reached the courtyard and Yoriko threw her helmet with such force it scattered the other helmets piled at the head of the courtyard.
“Arrgh!” Yoriko shouted, kicking at the pile of helmets, scattering them. She scrapped the shit from her neck. “Uggh.” Her fingers flicked it away.
“Yoriko, wait.”
“I’m done,” she said. Her pale face took on a translucency in the night against the light of moon. Her body shook, tears trickled down her cheeks. Saradi stepped forward but Yoriko flung her head side to side scattering her short gray hair.
Saradi said, “Michiko went through this.”
“I can’t even wipe my face because my fingers are covered in shit.” Yoriko’s lower lip trembled, she fell to her knees.
“Yoriko, your daughter was with my brother.”
Yoriko shook her head. “What’s wrong with you Saradi? Didn’t you tell me that you had a daughter and that she’s alive? Go back home. You’re crazy to even be here when you have her.”
If somebody else would’ve said it then Saradi might have reacted differently. Yoriko had lost her daughter, and Saradi worried about losing Novalie.
“I’m going to rescue Bheem,” Saradi said. “He’s alive.”
“Really? Have you seen him? What if his dog tag was hacked? AAEDEF have got you Sara. A level ten upgrade and one of the most powerful women in the corporate world. What do you think they were fishing for? Your ovaries are bigger than Trisdale’s balls. They’re grooming you, Sara.”
A cold sweat broke over her face and the sweat across her neck beaded with the shit she’d been forbidden to wipe away. Grooming me? she thought. For what?
“Bheem is alive. I know it, Yoriko. Your daughter, Michiko, was in his squad. Why did you join?”
“Because I wanted to see her!” Yoriko screeched, spittle flying from her lips. “I wanted to see my daughter.”
Standing there in the dark with her hands outstretched to the most valuable member of her squad, Saradi found herself wondering if she would ever love Novalie like Yoriko loved Michiko.
“Michiko could be—”
“Sara, don’t. Michiko is dead.”
“Bheem could tell you what happened.” Saradi let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping. “Maybe we’ll find signs of Michiko.”
“Sara, you told me
the dog tag was red the first time you saw it. Then green. Now it’s turned yellow. What makes you think it’s not red right now?”
Saradi began to head to their barracks. She stopped and caught herself. Her hand shook as she held it up.
Yoriko waved her hand in apology. “Michiko was argumentative, disobedient, and she fell in love with the leader of the Samukuzas. The last time I saw her we fought.”
A pain cascaded over Saradi’s head like an invisible vice gripping it, squashing it. The last moment she had with Novalie flashed through her mind. Her daughter’s anger and retreat.
“What is it with girls?” Saradi asked, shaking her head.
Yoriko laughed. “Since she was little I wished she was a boy. Then when I lost her I thought … what does it matter now?” She threw her hand up.
“This was your pilgrimage wasn’t it?” Saradi said, shock and surprise flowing through her like gigawatts of electricity.
A silence stretched out of the courtyard and the pile of helmets looked like skulls. Saradi stepped closer. Yoriko stood up.
“I wanted to walk all the paths Michiko had trod. I wanted to see what my daughter had seen. I wanted to live the life my daughter had lived.” She wailed. “I can’t even do that. She was much stronger than me. I was wrong.”
Saradi clasped Yoriko close holding her as the woman sobbed. It was a lesson Saradi would never forget for the rest of her life. How much a mother could love her daughter and how much hell she’d endure for it. And how not to take her daughter for granted.
“Sara?”
“Yeah?” Saradi cradled Yoriko, burying her head against the woman’s hair.
“You smell like shit.”
They both laughed. Joyous, uplifting laughter.
Saradi and Yoriko made it back to the barracks in time to help with the cleaning. There were no serv-bots on hand, this was done old-school style, using mops, towels, and buckets. It felt like it was designed to feel: extremely annoying, futile, and very frustrating.
The third time Instructor Ali came into a spotless barracks and emptied another bucket of shit all over the room Buckingarra nearly lost it.
“This is fucking bullshit, man!” shouted Buckingarra. “I cleaned this shit like three times already.” He kicked at his bed hard enough to make the gel within wobble.
“Yeah, he’s right,” said Peng. “This is bullshit.”
If Saradi hadn’t been as tired and sick of dealing with other people’s problems as she was, she probably would have found Peng’s aping of his ‘older bro’ Buckingarra to be funny. But she did not.
Saradi wiped a sliver of shit using a towel and dumped into a bucket of hot water, swishing the cloth. She’d put on her gauntlets instead of gloves, they were just as flexible. They had almost used up all the disinfectant and Saradi’s nostrils stank with its strange eucalyptus smell and shit. It wasn’t one of the high moments in her life. She wrung the wet towel.
She said, “Remember what Ali said at day one, the ones who make it past Selection have stronger minds. Remember what the general said, take it one step at a time and never look forward. Right now we clean this shit. That’s it.”
Buckingarra and Peng had both stopped cleaning. Saradi stood up and nodded at Buckingarra’s bucket which was empty and needed a hot water refill.
“Get hot water in that bucket and resume cleaning, Buckingarra,” she said.
Peng grudgingly took his own bucket and headed towards the kitchenette at the corner of their room but Buckingarra remained standing with his hands crossed.
“I’ve cleaned enough. While you and Yoriko were taking a sweet stroll outside, me and Peng cleaned up. You can clean the rest.” He made to move out, but Saradi stopped right in front of him.
Yoriko said. “Don’t fight. That’s what Instructor Ail wants. She’s testing us.” She looked around at her team. The shit streaks on their neck had worn away due to the sweat but still Instructor Ali hadn’t allowed them to wipe it. They had all began to dread the torture might end up all night.
Even Ganmi looked upset. The engineer-bots were banned from helping.
“Bucki, pick up that bucket and go refill it with hot water,” Saradi said. She remembered what happened the last time she had beat the shit out of him. She didn’t want that to happen again. Couldn’t chance it. But he would have to call her bluff.
They stood there eye to eye.
Buckingarra picked the bucket and Saradi let out a tiny sigh of relief. But all he did was slam the bucket against the wall and then storm out of the barracks.
Saradi had just stepped outside to follow him when Yoriko’s voice from inside called her. “Don’t Sara, it’s not worth it. Let’s just finish this.”
Saradi came back in and got her anger under control. “Yoriko, you’re right. You’re the one who should be squad leader, not me.”
It turned out they had to clean the barracks eight times — four times without Buckingarra’s help and by the time they finished it was twenty one hundred hours. They were all tired by the end and each took a long super-hot shower. Even after that they smelled faintly of shit and disinfectant.
Saradi slumped on her bed, feeling tired. Yoriko sat at the edge of her bed staring at the air. Ganmi talked to Peng trying to cheer him up. Of Buckingarra there wasn’t a sign. And good damn riddance, Saradi thought, as she stared at the doorway.
“Anyone hungry?” Saradi asked.
Peng perked up. He could always eat. “I am,” he said.
“I could do with whatever Chef Ananda has in micromix,” said Yoriko. “I think he made soba. I should go and get Bucki?”
They all stood, stretching to take the tiredness out of the long day, when right there in the middle of Bravo Two Zero’s barracks came an ultra-priority call for Saradi. It blinked red and the call came right through taking Saradi mid-stride.
And elderly woman’s face appeared in the air. The holo-vid showed her head and half her upper body. She had light brown skin like Saradi’s, an oval face and an elegantly fluted neck. She might have been a beauty once, but now time and stress eroded her features.
“Ma?” Saradi croaked. Wattana’s head swivelled around to stare down at her. Peng and Yoriko had come to a complete stop. The holo was fuzzy as if low res and quite grainy and it was rectangular showing a dim green background. Saradi’s heart dipped when there wasn’t any sign of Novalie.
“Ma, where’s Nova? Is she still upset at me? It’s been eight weeks. Why hasn’t she called?” Saradi felt like everybody in the world hated her right then.
Wattana blinked and her hand reached out as if to caress Saradi’s face. Her hands shook badly, her mouth opened to speak but then she faltered and began to cry.
Saradi stopped breathing. “Ma, what’s happened?”
Instead of answering her mother stepped away from the camera and adjusted it.
The holo-display panned and revealed a beeping ECG with the glowing chart. The beep so loud it jarred Saradi’s ears. The camera showed the sterilized environment of a hospital, it kept swivelling. The bottom of a bed, the small legs, the chest, and the food tray, and then up it went and Novalie’s head slumped on a pillow with tubes running into her nostrils. Her head had been shaved and a large red scar split her face from the left ear diagonally up.
“Ma, what’s happened?” Saradi asked.
“Novalie has got air-tinge level three.”
“How?” She heard her voice scream. “How? She’s always been inside the protection zones.”
“Nova ran away. We found her in an unsealed zone. I think … I think she tried to kill herself.”
“Nooo!” Saradi screamed.
Her mother said, “The doctor’s prognosis is that Novalie has two years.”
Saradi didn’t even realize she had closed the connection. Didn’t even realize she had stood and headed towards the door until Buckingarra came running in almost slamming into her.
“Well, what the fuck is it now?” Buckingarra bellowed at her. Hi
s breath fetid with the stench of alcohol.
Saradi snapped. She punched him right in his gut and then followed with an elbow. He roared and buckled and swung his arms wildly. She read each punch and ducked, came up hard butting her head against his chin. She grabbed at him and gritted her teeth as they both went down and slammed onto the floor.
Saradi cushioned the ground-jarring fall by landing on Buckingarra’s chest. He bellowed and threw his hands up but her anger and rage boiled over. Elbow, cut, elbow cut, and then she threw him to the side, took his neck in a figure four hold and squeezed.
Something, something trickled down her neck. She caught a glimpse of blue electricity dancing at the edge of her vision and then blackness.
Chapter 24 – SOHIC Disciplinary Committee
Saradi woke to every single one of her muscles, tendons, and bones feeling like they burned. A dark world with the barest motes of light swam before her. She groaned, her hand reaching for her head. Only she couldn’t. A chain rattled against her left wrist. Her eyes opened and the room slowly resolved itself.
She squatted at the edge of the room against a gray wall. The entire room was gray. Thick plastorex manacles bit into Saradi’s wrists and legs. She tugged at them and they rattled.
The memory began to coalesce and she groaned. The door to the cell slid open and Instructor Ali stepped into the room. She didn’t look impressed.
Another person stepped in after her, a man who sported a black SOHIC uniform and wore a red beret with the letters ‘SDC’ emblazoned on the beret.
“Unchain her,” Instructor Ali said.
“Penelope, the SDC escort is supposed to do that,” he replied in a tinny voice.
Instructor Ali stepped close to him. “We already have one soldier in intensive, let’s not add another. I will escort recruit Anantadevi.”
“Fine, but I need to read her charge first,” said the man.
