Proxy War

by Adam Sampson

  Thor let that sink in for a while, then said, “Right now we are going to start giving out cuffs and helping you out with your first selection. It will be your first constitution buff, which will make you tougher. Once you have your selection made, Lauren here will assign your bunk and Rex will bring a late night snack.”

  At the mention of night, Peter looked out the window to see that the sun had set while they were in the meeting. That was quick.

  “Hey! That ain’t my job,” said Rex. Thor glared at him, and Rex sighed and left to get the snacks.

  “Those standing in the back, since you don’t have a seat, you get to go first. You will get in two lines, one in front of me and one in front of James. We will put a cuff on your right forearm and we will grab your left hand and select your first upgrade for you. Over the next few days, you will get training on how to use it yourself, but for today, just let us pick this one for you,” Thor said as he motioned everyone into place. Rex and Lauren left the room and people started lining up in two lines behind Thor and James.

  In the back someone rose their hand and asked loudly, “What if we don’t want this cuff thing? Can we go to manufacturing or the cafeteria or something?”

  Thor smiled sadly and said, “Once you absorb your first orb, your fate is sealed. From now on you need orbs every so often to survive. Your body needs orbs now, without a steady diet you will die. You are a soldier, no turning back. The best we can all do is work with what we are given. And this cuff really is a blessing if we use it wisely.”

  Then Thor and James started the assembly line of applying cuffs to everyone in the room. The cuff was applied, and after a small pinch, the blue light was drained into the cuff. The soldiers would whisper something into their ear and their blue interface screen would appear. Left hand to the button and then they were sent out of the room to find Lauren and Rex.

  Peter was the first one in his group to get his cuff. As the cuff was applied he felt a pinch and stared at the cuff, sure that it had just injected him with something. Then Thor whispered into his ear, a word so strange that his mind couldn't retain a memory of it. A blue screen appeared, full of writing, a jumble of words with no clear organization. Thor took his hand and selected a button, and sent him out of the room.

  Before he even left the room, he was starting to feel better. It was like a massive aspirin was taking effect, all of his minor scrapes and bruises from the day were fading. He saw Lauren at the junction of a corridor walked up to her. Before he could say anything, she held up her hand and looked behind him.

  She was obviously waiting for the recruit behind him to get to her before she started speaking, “Behind me is the cafeteria and out that door are the outhouses. Down this corridor here are your cots. You two are in room 12. Remember that, room 12.”

  As she spoke, Peter could see a little bathroom symbol on one door and a food symbol on the other. Fairly simple, shouldn’t be too hard to remember.

  Lauren continued, “Rex should have dropped off the snack by now, go ahead and eat but leave enough for the rest of your roommates. You are free until morning, about 9 hours from now. Get as much rest as you can, you are going to need it. Don’t wander around, just stay in your room until your group leader comes to get you in the morning. This is for your protection, just stay there until your group leader comes to get you for breakfast in the morning.” She waited for nods of assent before she motioned them down the hallway to their room.

  Peter took a look at his roommate for the first time. He was an older black guy, bald with a gut, but had obviously been fit when he was younger. Peter was below average height, and this man was shorter still. Peter reached out to him as they walked down the hallway and said, “My name is Peter, what is yours?”

  He looked at his hand for a moment, almost distrusting, and said, “Frank.” Then he took Peter’s hand and shook it once. They walked down the hallway and could see people through the windows in the doors, those rooms obviously already taken. Frank got to the room first and opened the door with the number 12 on it.

  The room was spartan, two rows of cots, one on either side of the room. A total of 12 cots in the room. A footlocker stood at the foot of each cot, utilitarian and simple, but newer looking and without wear. At the front of the room near where they stood was a simple metal table on the right, and a curtained-off section on the left. Peter checked behind the curtain to see two couches and a desk there. Opposite the door was a single window, high up. The bottom edge of the window was above eye level. They could only see the night sky, and Peter was startled again to see it was a dark red instead of the dark blue he was expecting.

  Frank moved to the table and Peter belatedly saw that it was full of food. Basic sandwiches, veggies of all kinds, and bags of chips with Chinese writing on them. Peter couldn't remember the last time he ate, so he grabbed a plastic plate and loaded it up. Not seeing anywhere to sit, he walked over to a footlocker closest to the table and use it as an impromptu seat. Peter turned to say something to Frank but saw that he had gone to the other end of the room and sat on a cot with his back to the corner. Frank was looking towards the front of the room, but devoid of expression, obviously not interested in talking.

  Just then, Yoon and a young girl came in. Peter greeted Yoon warmly and motioned to the food. Within a few minutes, their whole team was here, along with others, filling the room to capacity. They ate and talked, carefully avoiding the events of earlier that day. Yoon and Dima sat near Peter and ate in silence. Lola and Jonas sat and faced two young teenagers as they talked. The teenagers were blonde and acne covered, clearly siblings, if not fraternal twins. They were talking about a video game they both liked but didn’t seem bothered that no one was paying attention to what they were saying.

  After Frank’s cold shoulder, Peter didn’t feel like talking to anyone else. Three others obviously felt the same way, staking out cots opposite the door and eating in silence.

  Dima felt the cot under him and said idly, “These are very comfortable. If we are to stay here for many months, it is nice that they are comfortable and padded.”

  “Yes, it is good that they consider us real soldiers now, they are willing to spend the money to feed and care for us,” replied Yoon.

  Peter’s right hand started shaking, a small tremor. He tried to stop it, but he couldn't. He grabbed his right hand with his left, but it didn’t help. He stood up and said softly, “Why can’t I stop shaking, what is wrong with me?” Peter started crying in frustration too.

  Yoon seemed alarmed at his outburst, but after a small hesitation, she stepped up to Peter and gave him a hug. Peter stood there with his hands at his side as she gave him a wordless hug. Lola saw what was happening and came and gave him a hug too.

  “It is ok, it is ok,” said Lola.

  Dima put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and Jonas stood near them. Peter calmed down and stopped crying and shaking.

  “Everything is alright, Peter, it’s all good,” said Jonas.

  Peter laugh/sobbed and said, “No, it’s not all good. But it is ok.” He looked at everyone and said, “Thanks guys.”

  There was an awkward silence after that and someone suggested that it was time to go to bed. They cleaned up and shut off the lights. Peter lay there silently and slowly calmed down in the dark. Even if the world was out to get him, at least he was around nice people.

  No one came to check on them to make sure they had gone to bed, and Peter found that strangely comforting. If the leadership trusted them that much, it meant that this wasn’t a prison, and perhaps the leadership cared enough to grant them little freedoms.

  As he lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, Peter decided he was going to live. He would do whatever it takes to survive and return home. He wasn’t going to passively go through life, he was going to take every chance to grow stronger and be one of the soldiers that survived the war. Whatever tomorrow threw at him, he would take it and throw it right back. He was going to live.

 
Chapter 5

  Often after a long day, the morning comes far too quickly. That was not the case this time though. Most of the room, except the teenagers, had slept as long as they wanted and were waiting on their beds after a short trip to the outhouse. Jonas was talking with Dima, trying not to talk too loud and wake the teenagers who were still asleep a few cots down.

  “It is strange that they are leaving us alone for so long,” said Dima.

  “Yeah?” replied Jonas.

  “Yes, this is not my first boot camp after all. It has been many years, but I remember distinctly that we never had enough sleep. It was part of the training, they would fill our every waking moment with work. All the bad habits and wrong thinking would fall away and all that was left were Seamen. I find it odd that we have been left on our own for almost 9 hours.”

  “I wondered about that too, things have been easy for us since we got here. After surviving that hell hole, they have been making it easy on us. Maybe they just giving us an easy first day, and the real training won’t come till tomorrow?”

  “Perhaps. We shall see I suppose. I have been trying to study my cuff, but it will do nothing for me.”

  “Yeah, me neither. Maybe you need to know that magic word from yesterday? I can’t remember what it was that Thor whispered into my ear.”

  “Heh,” Dima smiled.

  “What?”

  “In my country, men do not admit that other men are whispering in their ears,” Dima said with an even wider smile.

  “Oh you know it wasn’t like that. Besides, you let him whisper in your ear too,” Jonas said good-naturedly.

  Peter came and sat near them, having overheard the conversation from his bed and wanted to join in. He said, “Hey guys, how is it going?”

  “Good, we were just discussing Jonas’s boyfriend. He has taken quite a liking to Thor,” said Dima.

  “Hey, I said no such thing, I’m straight,” Jonas said indignantly.

  “No, no, I understand. Thor is very handsome. That long blond hair and Nordic look is very appealing to certain people,” Peter said with a smile.

  “Humph. I didn’t say I thought he was cute. Besides, he isn’t my type. I usually go for the older ones,” Jonas said as he turned and looked at Dima, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “Ah little one, do not start things that you cannot finish. You would make my husband jealous,” Dima replied.

  Jonas sputtered, “But you said, you started this, I’m not that way, I...”

  Dima and Peter just laughed.

  Peter showed him mercy and changed the subject. “It is kind of weird that we don’t have running water here. We obviously have electricity and this building looks like it was built to last, but we still have to walk outside and do our business in a latrine.”

  “Latrine?” Dima said, tilting his head to the side.

  “The outhouses, latrine means outhouse, I think it is weird we have to poop outside,” explained Peter.

  “Meh, I am not surprised we have electricity and not running water. Plumbing takes a lot of infrastructure, not just the pumps to make the water flow, but processing plants to treat the water. Electricity is easy, just hook up a generator and you are done,” said Jonas.

  “Huh, I guess. At least I didn’t have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night on a strange planet,” said Peter.

  “Yes. I have noticed several changes to my body. It was very nice not to have to get up often to go to the bathroom, my bladder is usually so weak,” Dima said, oblivious to the fact that the others did not want to talk about his bathroom habits. He then continued, “Today was also the first day in years that my left knee has not been sore and painful. Pain has been part of me for so long, it was strange to wake without it.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but I am wearing my shirt normal because my claw marks are healed up now,” said Jonas as he pulled up the blood-stained shirt to show a smooth chest.

  Peter hadn’t noticed until he pointed it out, and said, “Oh, uh, yeah. I noticed that you didn’t have it bandaged anymore, glad to see it is fully healed. These cuffs are something else, huh?”

  They all stared at the cuffs for a moment. These cuffs were changing them in a deep way. Who knows how far the changes would go, who would they be by the time the cuffs were done with them? Yesterday Rex said that they were now dependent on orbs to survive. Would they ever really be free even if they survived the war?. At least, that is what Jonas and Peter were thinking.

  Dima was staring at his left leg, extending it and lowering it, smiling all the time.

  Later, the teenagers were up and the sun was starting to peek in through the window when Rex walked in the room and smiled at everyone.

  “Howdy y’all. Good news, I have been assigned to be your trainer. That means I will be your boss, your head honcho, the man in charge. You guys are going to love it, and we are going to be the best team,” Rex paused to look around the room, “Now, have you had breakfast yet?”

  “They told us that we were supposed to stay in our room until you came and got us,” Frank said from the back of the room.”

  “Of course. Glad you followed directions. Well, now I am here, let's go get breakfast,” Rex said. He noticed Peter looking at his watch and said, “You might as well put your watch away, it will only confuse you. The days here are 26 hours long, your watch is already wrong. It is a longer day, but we give you 9 hours to sleep, so you get used to it quickly. Anyway, let’s get going, lots to do today.”

  They followed Rex to the cafeteria to find it half full of quietly talking people. There was a buffet table set up full of breakfast foods, and they got in line. Peter wondered if they were the last ones up before another group walked in behind them.

  Looking at the food, Peter was almost disappointed with its normality. He could look out the bank of windows on the far side of the cafeteria and see an alien vista rising above the complex, but in here it was all so ... normal. Bacon and eggs, fruit and bread, all the same things you could find at a terrible motel’s free breakfast. He grabbed a plate and loaded a few things. Absentmindedly he followed Lola to an empty table.

  The teenagers from his room sat next to him on the other side, and Peter decided it was time to learn their names instead of just thinking of them by their age. He turned towards the closest one and said, “Hi, I’m Peter, what’s your name?”

  “Oh hey, Peter. I’m Simon. My brother here is Chris,” Simon said as he waved at his brother sitting next to him. Peter could tell that Simon was a few years older than his brother.

  “Morning Chris,” said Peter as he looked around his brother.

  “Mmh,” replied Chris.

  “Don’t mind him. He is just grumpy. I think he is still mad at me that we picked the wrong train,” said Simon.

  “You picked the wrong train,” Chris said vehemently.

  “Yeah, ok, I picked the wrong train. Whatever. Story of our lives. Crappy stuff happens all the time. Maybe they would have caught us anyway if we had got on the right train,” said Simon.

  “At least we would have been on Earth still,” said Chris.

  “What do you mean, the right train? Did you board the wrong train on accident?” Lola asked.

  “Yeah kinda. I was sure we got on the train to London, I don’t know how we ended up on the one going to Germany. Chris thinks this is all my fault.” said Simon.

  Dima had sat at the table by this point and joined the conversation by saying, “Oh, I think I see. There was a connection train in Dresden going to London. I was on that connection too. Didn’t your tickets say the connection info?”

  Simon turned to his brother and said, “Did you hear that? We did get on the right train!”

  “They would have caught us before we could transfer anyway, we didn’t have tickets,” Chris replied.

  “Maybe, whatever. Still isn’t my fault we ended up here. I picked the right train,” Simon said triumphantly.

  Frank had sat at their tab
le and glared at Simon and said, “I wouldn’t be so happy if I were you. Your dirtbag ways have caught up with you. You brought your brother along to the worst day of your life, and we will all probably die in this stupid war.”

  “Whoa, that was way too harsh Frank. There is no way any of us could have guessed that the train would end up being a tribute train,” Peter said.

  “They are just kids, man. Everyone makes mistakes at that age,” Lola enjoined.

  “Yesterday wasn’t the worst day of my life anyway,” Simon said and looked at his brother, as asking permission to continue. Chris shook his head no and looked at his food.

  Simon continued anyway, “The worst day of our lives was last year back home in California. Chris doesn't like talking about it because no one remembers. We lived in California, and California has wildfires, so no one remembers this particular fire. It was August 9th, two years ago, when a wildfire took out a hundred homes in Newborn, California. Everyone remembers the fire someone set in the White House a few years ago, and no one died in that one. But no one remembers the fire that took our parents. My freakin uncle didn’t even remember the anniversary last month.”

  No one knew what to say to that.

  “Way to overshare, bro,” Chris said about the awkward mood Simon had created.

  The group ate the rest of their meal in silence.

  When Rex came to pick them up at the end of breakfast, Peter asked, “How come our food is just Earth food? Why don’t we have alien potatoes or zergling steaks?”

  “Simple, it is all poisonous. Every single bush, flower, and root is poisonous. And the monsters are super poison,” Rex said with a smile.

  He made sure that all twelve of his group were following him and Rex led them out of the building. Seeing their somber mood he said, “Come on, this really will be fun. You get to pick out your weapons and today is the first day you get to see what your bodies can do.”