Grayman Book One: Acts of War

by Michael Rizzo

2

  March 17th.

  Scott Becker:

  This one is a surprise.

  Which is saying, because I figured I had the home-field on all the other grunts, at least in this phase: I’ve seen all the sims, I know what they’ve been running for VR immersion training. Or I thought I did. But I hadn’t seen this one in the evolutions before. Still, I know it well: It’s Wiesbaden.

  They’ve made Grayman’s debut a training sim.

  I shake off the shock as quick as I can: I’ve got a pretty well rendered Wab sticking a gun in my face and shouting like he’ll pop me any second and the clock is running. I get slammed by the rush of the stress drugs as they get pumped through my IV and I want to scream right back at him. At least I know what I’m supposed to do, how it’s supposed to go, so I figure I’m way ahead of anybody else who gets dropped in this. So I just breathe, flash on the hand-to-hand series I just finished with Captain Ram (or at least a sim version of him, but just as frosty-scary), and go for it just like he did.

  I get shot the first four times anyway. Twice by Shouting Man, twice by the second Wab that comes running in when I’m wrestling with Shouting Man. I’m sucking. But then on take five, I manage to get control of the gun and remember Shouting Man is pretty transparent as a human shield against an AK-47 and I manage to pop AK as he kills shouting man for me and I keep shooting until AK goes down cold.

  Then the mission clock flashes at me to get moving for Phase Two: four more targets returning imminently with a hostage.

  Not fair. The real Grayman had time to go soak in a nice hot shower—why can’t they put that in the sim? Me, I’ve got barely two minutes to raid their weapons supplies and set up for them (at which point the grunts will take the advantage back because I bet they all know how to rig a Claymore and use all the guns the Wabs have stashed).

  I get shot the first time when the Claymore doesn’t take enough of the Wabs down. The bastards make me run the whole thing from Start…

  Take Two: I overcompensate with the Claymores and kill the hostage. Start over.

  Take Three: I get the first two but get popped by Leader-Wab as soon as I make my entrance.

  Take Four: I get everybody but the girl. And I hesitate when she gets all beggy and pleady and crying and then the bitch shoots me dead.

  Take Five: I get it all right. I break Shouting Man and pop Number Two (hard and fast—I’m getting tired of this) and get the Claymore set (I wonder if any of the grunts used the Claymores?—home field advantage rocks…) and come out fast and blazing and pop all four (including the girl right in her smug bitch face) and count ‘em cold and I don’t care if I gets points off for failing to gather intel.

  “And?” I demand when I’m done, because the proctors just leave me looking at the mess, trying to catch my breath, realizing—despite the drugs or because of them—that I feel pissed and tired and good and strong all at once.

  Then they take it away from me. “Reality” starts to spin and melt.

  “SCENARIO CLEARED. RESETTING FOR NEXT IMMERSION.”

  Fuck you.