The Volunteer

by J B Cantwell

  I would survive.

  We were all famished once the late night lesson ended, but it was too late to get any food. I found myself wishing I was back in the silo munching on whatever nutrition squares Jeremy had left. But we would have to wait until morning.

  I went into the bathroom, this one only for women, and stripped off my wetsuit, goose bumps rising up on my skin. Hanging it up to dry, I pulled on my fatigues over my wet body. Soon, I was warm again. And exhausted.

  I met the others back by the side of the pool. Abrams stood with them, just on the edge. I wondered if he knew how to swim, too. Had he, himself, even tried the tasks that we were being set with?

  “Good job, soldiers,” he said, a rare compliment. “We will get back in the pool tomorrow at 0800 hours. Dismissed.”

  I was relieved to be free. The scuba lesson wasn’t so bad. It was fun, even. But now all I wanted was to land face first onto my bunk and blot out the world with sleep.

  As we walked back, Alex fell into step beside me.

  “So, you did okay, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It was easier than I thought it would be. What about you?”

  “I don’t know. I know I was happy when I first jumped in, but my jets were less powerful than yours. I couldn’t keep up.”

  I frowned, thinking. “I guess that’s because of your size. I didn’t think about that being an issue.”

  “Well, it won’t be an issue as long as we make it a safe distance before the grenades blow. We’ll just need to make it back to the boat.”

  We both fell quiet as we walked. Kyle and Hector were well ahead of us. I wondered how Hector was doing. He’d seemed more nervous than all of us put together. I guessed that, for all of his bragging, he was just as scared as the rest of us. Maybe more.

  We made it back to the small barracks, all of us sitting down at the foot of our bunks. I knew I needed to speak, being the soldier in charge, but I wasn’t sure what I should say.

  Hector sat with his shoulders slumped.

  “Hector. You alright?”

  He was sitting still, his eyes in a daze, staring straight ahead.

  He didn’t answer.

  “All of us will be okay,” I said, unsure if I was lying or not. I knew that the mission would be dangerous, but focusing on that now would be suicide. We all needed to keep our wits about us if we were going to make this work.

  “We have two more days, full days, to train before we head out.”

  Kyle moved to sit next to Hector on the bed. He slapped his shoulder hard, and Hector seemed to come out of his daze.

  “We’ll be alright,” Kyle said. “I’ve done missions like this before. It’s a piece of cake.”

  “You’ve done them underwater?” I asked.

  “Well, no. But I’ve set explosives above ground before, many times. You and me, right bud?” He slapped him on the shoulder again, and Hector turned.

  “You said that the explosives were way more deadly in the water. What if we can’t get out of there in time? This isn’t a simple grenade that we can run from.”

  “No,” Kyle went on. “We can’t run from it, but we can shoot ourselves away with our jets. These bombs will be on timers to delay the explosions. We’ll have plenty of time to get out of the way.”

  As he spoke, my stomach filled with butterflies.

  Would we?

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m nervous, too. But this is just another mission. It’s better than getting shot at.”

  “You got that right,” Alex piped up.

  I sighed, irritated. Alex had always had the best that the Service could offer. Body armor, guns, grenades. And who knew? Maybe his suit would be outfitted with extra special mechanisms. Maybe he would have more air, more fuel for his jets.

  Maybe I would, too.

  “We’ll be okay,” I said again. “We’ll look out for one another.”

  “Yeah,” Hector said. “But isn’t that sort of against the rules? I mean, this is just a game to see who will survive their term. It makes me wonder if we’ll make it out at all. We just learned how to swim.”

  He was right. From an outside perspective, we were grossly unprepared for this mission. A few days of splashing around in the pool would be very different than the currents of the giant lake.

  Hector put his head in his hands, refusing to look up again.

  “Hey,” I said, standing up. “Don’t you start crying. That’s not going to fly with me. All of us are scared. But as long as you’re under my command, you’ll stand up straight and do the best you can. Every time. You got that?”

  He slowly raised his head, looking at me, nodding.

  “Alright, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Time seemed to fly by much faster than before as we practiced with our suits. Our afternoon lessons were followed by more underwater training in the darkness after the sun had set. Each night, Abrams would pull the lever to shut off the overhead lights in the pool room, and we would be plunged into the black once again.

  We learned how to move around in the dark, how to use our headlamps without blinding each other, and how to glide with our jets more effectively.

  But the days were ticking down, and we could all feel it. The familiar sensation of both excitement and a hard knot of dread filled my stomach.

  Battle was coming. A battle unlike any other. I wondered if it was a suicide mission, if we would, in fact, always be seen as expendable by the Service. If we failed, we would be left behind. Left for dead. Just like before. But was that really true this time around? Was there a line of soldiers waiting to take our place if we blew ourselves up? Or would the forces that had transferred me to this unit be able to somehow keep me safe out in the field?

  Maybe I would get lucky.

  In the deep end of the pool, I watched the bubbles escape from my helmet and float innocently to the surface of the water. I stood upright on the bottom, held down by the weight of my tanks. I grabbed hold of my jets and pressed the levers, racing across the bottom of the pool to the other end and back again.

  Over the past few days, all of us had become comfortable in the suits. Even Hector. He hadn’t returned to his regular, heckling self, but his breathing was easy now from within his helmet. He had finally left his fears behind him. At least in the pool.

  I wondered how we would all fare once we hit the deep, dark waters of the lake. Would our confidence remain, or would it sink like us into the murky depths of Lake Erie?

  The entire last day of our training was spent learning how to set the explosives.

  “They’re not live,” Abrams assured us as he tossed several dummy grenades into the water for us to catch. They sank like rocks in the pool. Despite his words, I still didn’t trust him, and my breath caught and held for nearly a minute after the grenades hit the bottom. When they didn’t blow, I let my breath out again and gasped for a minute, trying to catch it again.

  “Taylor,” he said. “Keep it together. It would be crazy of me to toss you a live grenade at this point in the game.”

  Yes. Of course that was true.

  “You all need to prepare yourselves for the real thing,” he went on. “Tomorrow will be your last day of training. Then, as the sun sets, you’ll board the ship and go live. Now, practice attaching the grenades to the sides of the pool, as deep as you can get. Then, pull the pins. That’ll set the clocks on countdown to explosion. You will each have two full minutes to get out of there once time starts ticking down. Don’t forget that. Each of you must communicate while you set the bombs so that they all explode at the same time. If you fail at this, you risk losing team members, or even your own life.”

  My breathing sped up, and I could hear Hector huffing through his microphone again, almost as badly as he’d done on his first day in the scuba gear.

  One breath at a time.

  “Take it easy, Hector,” I said, trying to calm myself as much as him. I shoved one of the grenades
into his hand and held it there until I felt his fingers grasp it. His vision seemed to clear, and he looked at me again, eyes still wide. I nodded my head, and he stared blankly at me. Then, reluctantly, he nodded back.

  Yes. We would all be just fine.

  But the next night as we boarded the boat, I started to question my own assuredness. The gentle waves of the lake moved the boat up and down, and I was reminded of the last time I’d been on the water. During that voyage, I’d been shoveling the waste of the ocean into the deep hold of a ship. During that voyage, I had watched two seemingly innocent men be arrested for reasons I couldn’t fathom. During that voyage, I’d started to understand the Service, and the fact that we really were on our own.

  The gangplank was removed, and the boat drifted out into deeper waters. As I led the team behind Abrams, I felt Alex’s hand close around mine from behind. He would be there with me. Together, we would be safe.

  I wondered if our connection, our protectiveness, would extend to the others if push came to shove.

  As the motors of the vessel kicked into life, Abrams lined us up along the edge of the railing. The air was cold, November nearly over now. I shivered, and suddenly realized that I was anxious, even excited, to get into the water. I was looking forward to being on the other end of this mission.

  “We’ll be on the water for the next two hours,” Abrams said. “Get inside and get ready to go. Make sure you each take the motion sickness tablets you received earlier today. The last thing any of us needs is for you to get sick during the mission. We need you alert and well. You will be handling live grenades this time, make no doubt about it. Now,” he turned, “follow me.”

  He led us through a door into a central room, and a wave of heated air washed over us. I took a deep breath of it, relieved that we would spend the majority of our time on the boat in the warmth of this place.

  “Take a seat here,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  I stripped my pack from my back and pulled out my motion sickness pill, swigging from my water bottle and washing it down. We were already in our wetsuits, but I still shivered as I slowly got used to the warmth of the room. I sat down on one of the benches lining the walls. Hector was wearing that look again, the terror of being thrust out into the unknown outcome of battle. Kyle seemed serene. Alex looked excited, pumped up like the super soldier that he was.

  But surely, there would be no battle at all. This was a covert operation. There was no intention for us to engage the other side in any sort of firefight.

  Alex seemed unable to calm himself, and stayed standing as the rest of us sat.

  “You’re going to make me nuts,” I said, watching him pace.

  He punched one fist into his other hand as if he were getting ready for a boxing match.

  “It’s going to take more than your fists to succeed in this mission, you know.”

  “Maybe,” he said as he stopped pacing. “But nothing is certain. Who knows what we might meet out in the water? Do you really think they won’t be defending their access point to the lake?”

  I hadn’t even thought about this. Defenses on the ground, sure. But other soldiers in the water?

  It was the dark of night, and not a single light on our boat was shining.

  They’ll never see us coming.

  But I knew this was a lie.

  “So what are we supposed to do to defend ourselves in the water? All we’re going to have is grenades.”

  Abrams strolled back into the room then. “Oh, you’ll be armed with more than just grenades.” He pointed to a far wall, difficult to see in the darkness.

  As my eyes adjusted, I saw what he was pointing at. A wall full of firearms.

  Relief flooded through me.

  “They’re not all waterproof, but many of them are.” He pointed to the right side, and I saw a variety of shotguns and pistols draped upon the wall like a curtain.

  I stood up and walked in his direction, holding onto the railing above my head as the boat bucked beneath our feet, the sound of a steady rain beating against the window.

  When I was close enough to take one, I stopped, considering.

  A pistol would be easy to carry, easy to conceal. And it wouldn’t impede my motions in the water. But an automatic shotgun could hold more rounds, enabling me to send a spray of bullets in the direction of the enemy.

  I shook my head slightly as I thought about this. Our enemy. Everyone just trying to get by in our damaged world.

  But I didn’t have a choice. That day that I’d signed up for the Service, I had made a choice to play my part in a sickening game of war. And for what?

  It was too late now.

  I chose a pistol.

  The rest of the crew came up behind me and chose their weapons. Then, when everyone was armed, we all went back to our seats. This time, Alex sat next to me, his excitement about the mission somewhat tempered by the realization that guns would likely be necessary. He looked at me sideways, and I stared back at him.

  I could tell he hadn’t bargained on this. Wherever his allegiances lay, he wasn’t expecting the real threat of death, wasn’t expecting that I might die. That we both might.

  “I’ll be in the front with the captain,” Abrams said as he pushed his way back through the room. “Ready yourselves. It won’t be long.”

  And he was right. The next hour and a half seemed to fly by faster than I had thought possible.

  Alex was sitting with his head in his hands, an alarming gesture for someone so well trained to take out the enemy.

  “What gives?” I asked, nudging him. He looked up at me and shook his head.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said. “I thought you would be safe here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He leaned in.

  “Chambers. He promised me that you would be safe.”

  “What?”

  “He told me that if he stationed us both here, that I would be able to protect you. I mean, look at me.” He gestured at himself, at his huge, hulking mass. “But I can’t do that if we’re going to be shot at underwater. Setting a timed explosive is one thing. Doing it while taking fire is something else.”

  “When did you talk to Chambers?” I whispered, unbelieving. Either Alex was telling the truth, or … or what?

  He moved closer and whispered in my ear.

  “In Manhattan. He found me that day the Service had me follow you. He told me everything.”

  “Told you what, exactly?”

  “That I would be stationed along with you. That I would be put here to protect you. But I can’t protect you against this. I was told we would not be heading into battle. He promised me …”

  My heart was pounding again, but this time out of anger.

  Chambers had talked to Alex? About me? Hadn’t I been the one wandering around Manhattan, hoping for a chance to talk to him? For a chance to figure out what the plan really was for me?

  Well, there wasn’t a choice now, was there? Chambers must have had some power over where I was stationed, though I couldn’t figure out how a medical doctor could arrange for something like that.

  I swallowed hard and tried to push the whole idea out of my head. It didn’t matter how he’d gotten in touch with Alex. It didn’t matter what he’d thought about the supposed safety I might enjoy while being stationed at the silo.

  Either he was an idiot, or he was smarter than either of us knew.

  Maybe this was it. Maybe I would be able to escape the clutches of the Service. Here. Now.

  But I knew that couldn’t be the truth. Jonathan’s guidance had told me that. I had a bigger role to play.

  I turned away from Alex, my mind full of questions. But there was no time now. I stuffed my pistol into a loop on my wetsuit. It wasn’t a proper holster, but it would have to do.

  Then, all of the sudden, it was time.

  Alex’s face had grown stoic, resolved. There was no more excitement in his eyes. No more desire to figh
t.

  This time it was Kyle who looked nervous. Kyle, who had been steadfast through all of our water training. Kyle, who had already paid a terrible price for his participation in the explosives program.

  “We’ll be okay,” I called over the din of the motor. “We know where to go and what to do. Then, we’ll meet up back here.”

  I looked up to the right of my lens vision and pulled down a map of the lake. Our boat showed brightly on it, closing in now on the other side of the lake.

  “Take a look at your maps. Keep them in your field of view. We need to be able to find our way back to the boat when it’s over.”

  I stood up and made my way to the wall of guns again, this time picking up an extra pistol. I turned on the safety and stuffed it into the other side of my suit. Then, I dropped to the floor and and shimmied my way into a backpack of oxygen and jetpack tanks.

  It was difficult, but I stood up on my own steam, determined to play the role of leader to which I’d been assigned.

  “Come on, then,” I said. I could feel the boat slowing, the undulation of the waves below rocking us more forcefully now.

  This would be no swimming pool.

  Then, a loud banging sound threw me. It took me several long moments to realize that it was the sound of bullets ricocheting against the side of the boat.

  Oh, my God.

  It was happening now. And fast. Faster than any of us could have imagined.

  “Get over here!” I shouted over the banging. One bullet found its way into one of the windows lining the wall of the room, crashing through it, littering the floor with broken glass. “Now!” I bellowed.

  Little red dots swam against the wall where we had been sitting, and I realized just how specifically we were being hunted. Somewhere out there, a group of snipers was searching for us, their targets.

  “Get down!” Another hail of bullets broke through the rest of the windows and hit the wall, nearly catching Alex in the face as he dropped to the ground.

  I dropped down and hoisted the next set of tanks in Alex’s direction. He lifted them easily and strapped them to Hector’s back, then a set to Kyle’s. I shoved the last one toward him, and he pulled it on, snapping the straps together around his massive body.