“Faster, recruit!” he bellowed.
I had no idea whether they were male or female. He punched me in the face, making me see stars as I slipped into unconsciousness. I fought against it.
You’re Salchar, the kid who dominated Mecha Assault One and Two. You’re not going to pass out in front of these people. I pushed myself up with sheer will until I was standing. More than one person had passed out. Two aliens who seemed identical to the first went through the grouping of humans, pulling people from the floor and forcing them into position.
Everyone was breathing heavily as our lungs fought for air, and we wanted to slump to the floor as everything seemed heavy. A few dropped, but they were set upon by the two wandering aliens and forced to stand.
The kids weren’t the only ones crying as reality was sinking in. After a few got beatings, no one else fell down.
“Get into two lines facing me!” the first barked, swatting someone who had paused to get his breath, dropping like a tree in the wind. Slowly but surely, people were forced into a position with kicks, punches, and yelling.
“You are the worst recruits I have seen in my entire service!” he barked as I studied him beneath hooded eyes. I couldn’t help myself—he was the first alien I’d ever seen in the flesh. He didn’t look anything like the one who had announced the Earth’s forced recruitment, other than his humanoid-like stature.
He had two arms and legs, but that was where the similarities ended. His pupils were slit vertically, his skin brilliant red scales. His mouth was more like four tentacles with razor-sharp teeth than anything human. Yet he talked in unaccented English, then Korean, Japanese, and every language of the people in the room. All I could think was, Well, someone was wrong about them being green. I continued to study him and the others in the room with an almost clinical view, seeing them and realizing the implications but not letting the emotional feedback cloud my judgment. As I found myself coming to terms with the alien presence in front of me, the one barking orders started to talk again. His body was like a statue as his eyes looked at us with as much disdain as someone would look upon mold.
“That said, it is my job to make you acceptable members of the Mecha Corps. From now until the end of recruit training, I am God. What I say is law. My name is Master of Arms Taleel, but you will refer to me as sir. Understood?”
There was a stuttering of yeses thrown in with a few sirs. The alien’s eyes seemed to darken. He lashed out at the nearest person, a small girl, no more than twelve years old, sending her sprawling.
“Do you understand?” He sounded as if he would find dealing with crap on his shoe would be better.
It took fifteen times before he was satisfied, all of us—including me—getting a fist to the stomach. My throat felt raw and itchy from yelling mixed with the atmosphere.
“Strip,” he said. After a few seconds, no one had moved.
“Help them,” Taleel said to the other two.
I doubled over as Taleel punched me in the stomach. I swayed on my feet, as I forced the foul air into my lungs.
“Strip!” he demanded again. We obeyed.
I made a small pile of my belongings in front of me. The children bawled as they were forcefully removed from their clothing and beaten for their perceived insolence. You’re a coward, Salchar. I stood there and looked at my clothes as children were beaten just feet away from me.
They should be playing games, out with their friends, and watching TV, not being beaten into soldiers, I ranted in the safety of my mind. Shame filled my body.
The two assistants took our clothes as Taleel talked.
“I am in charge of getting you implanted and able to fight with a Mecha and maybe be of some damned use at the end of this expensive trip paid for by the citizens of the free planets.” His voice ended in a growl.
“You are my squad. If you step out of line, I will deal with you personally.” His eyes stopped roving across the room, locking with me as a shiver went down my spine.
“Now we will begin implantation,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument.
“What is implantation?” I asked, my mouth working before my brain caught up to it.
He stalked right up to my face. “What did you say?” He looked happy.
“What is...”
He touched a black rod to my stomach, causing pain to radiate outward across my body as I dropped.
“Get up!” He kicked my head.
I was disoriented but I tried to follow his commands as he punched me in the gut. I doubled over, using the floor to support myself as he walked back in front of the squad and I quickly got to my feet.
“You will not bark out questions like an untamed dog. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir!” we yelled, the fear audible in our voices. I barely held my fear in anymore. I just want to be back with Mecha Tail. I was on the verge of tears, angry at myself for being so emotional.
“Neural implants and ports to upload to your Mecha’s as well as a basic translator, sleep teaching implant, audio and visual recorders, and a locator unit. Now come along,” one of them said. A door opened into a room with two more aliens and a seat. Cords like the ones that had been attached to the boxes but smaller rested around the seat. Everyone in the room automatically moved away from the doorway at the somehow ominous room.
“Get back in line!” Taleel sounded as if he already regretted a decision he’d made. Sighing, he brandished a prod that crackled. The other two bared identical prods as they herded us like cattle into lines again.
The young ones were crying as the three silent aliens beat them into line, only making the crying louder. I looked at the ground in embarrassment; to help would just get me beaten more.
“You first, since you’re so curious,” he said.
My face automatically turned into a calm mask. The facial and mannerism trainers were worth their weight in gold. I shrugged, trying to hide my very real fear.
“Very well,” I said, feeling none of the confidence I spoke with. Celebrity training that had come with being in Mecha Tail—the biggest gaming team in the world—had meant that I could easily hide my true feelings.
Hoping that I was still in control of my facial appearance and mannerisms, instead of showing how scared I was to the point of nausea, I walked into the room. My legs were weak as the door shut behind me. I guess that’s what I get for opening my big mouth.
“Please, take a seat, or you will be forced to,” one of the aliens said indicating to the chair in bored tones.
I hung my head, not saying anything, trying to cover myself as I sat down on the cold chair. The aliens grabbed my limbs, forcing them down into clamps as I tried to push them off; it was if I were trying to fight a tank with a pool noodle.
As soon as I was secured, they stepped back as more clamps covered my body and I was laid out on my back, perfectly vertical. Panic started to settle in as I couldn’t move an inch and the arms around the chair in my peripheral vision started to move.
Arms set to work on my shoulder, pulling off the bandage; it felt as if they’d poured liquid metal in my shoulder.
“Three years will be added to your military contract,” one said, obviously bored.
“I don’t want it added!” I yelled through gritted teeth, just barely holding onto consciousness within the alien atmosphere.
“Then you’re useless to us with an arm that doesn’t work. We might as well just throw you out of an air lock,” the alien who had been addressing me said, its face so close I could smell the rotting pieces of food stuck between its razor-sharp teeth.
“Do you want to be spaced?” His eyes bored into me.
I looked away, shame filling me. It was clear they didn’t care how many extra years I got added. “No.”
“Then you will have three years added to your military contract. Yes?” the medic asked, as if talking to a petulant child.
“Yes,” I spat, self-loathing filling me.
My shoulder burned even more a
s I heard a high-pitched humming, which increased as I tried to turn and see where the noise was coming from.
I screamed as the humming changed pitch and I could feel the humming as they cut into my flesh and spine. I’m going to die on this table with drills gouging through my back. I cried, feeling my bladder release in fear.
“Disgusting creatures. They spew waste on themselves at the pain. They are a waste of our time and training,” I half-heard one alien say to another as I cried and screamed.
Now, before, I’d heard of a spinal tap where someone gets a needle into their spine to gather spinal fluid. The person had volunteered for it and said it had been the most painful experience they’d ever had. This was worse than I had ever imagined—to have drills with heads the size of a pencil go into my spine down its length. My body was not my own. Drugs relaxed my body but not my nerves as they were grafted to implants. I lost my voice and I silently screamed, my body finally releasing me as I blacked out.
I opened my eyes and feeling returned to my body as I looked around. The alien stuck its face in mine, pushing my head around before releasing me. It grunted something in its guttural language to the other and looked away with a bored look, as if my living or dying was a non-issue.
I’m still alive, I thought angrily to myself. Just wait until I’m free. I regretted being conscious as things were shoved through the open wounds in my back and into the holes that had been drilled there. They had mated my nerves with an external port.
There was a spray of something cold as I felt the area around the wound numb. It turned to lancing fire as it had with my shoulder and my body fought the restraints as I arched in pain, every muscle flexing. My jaw shut, too tight to even scream; it felt as if I’d been electrified, and then it was over. Then the table was becoming a chair again as arms cleared away the waste I left behind. An alien bodily shoved me at another door.
“You have twenty seconds to clean yourself,” a disembodied voice said.
I touched the back of my neck, finding solid hexagons lining my spine. I quickly moved my hand away from the oddity as my pain was replaced with shame at having peed myself.
“You have eighteen,” the voice continued.
I walked in the room. A shower activated. It smelled like battery acid, but at least it was liquid. It even felt like battery acid as my skin interacted with it. I held in my screams, my throat hurting as I cleaned my lower half, my genitals feeling as if they would melt off my skin was so raw. The shower turned off as a door back to the main area my group was in opened.
I dried in seconds as I walked out, keeping my head high.
I walked through the door to Officer Taleel and the nineteen others. They gasped and made noises as they saw my back, pointing and talking.
“Stay in line!” Taleel growled, hitting the nearest to him. I saw Rick doubled over from the blow to his stomach as he took a few seconds to right himself. A girl who looked barely ten started to cry; another alien cuffed her, causing her to splay on the floor as he kicked her to get back in position. She cried more.
I felt something snap as I ran to her, not knowing what I was doing as I rammed the alien with my shoulder. It was like hitting a wall. All I got was a blow to the back of my head. It made me dizzy, but it left me in seconds as I turned to the girl and the alien hit me again.
“You need to get back in line,” I said softly, pushing her back into position. I got another cuff to the back of the head and my world went fuzzy, but I came back quickly as I felt some more fire-like pain where I’d been hit.
“The Hellfire is still rampant in his system; he’ll keep healing just as fast as we keep hitting him,” the other helper said.
“He should be slaughtered; the officers are drefini if they think that they can make anything out of these ignorant flesh bags.” He looked at me as if I were slime as I tried to hit him, his height and reach putting him too far away. I saw flashes of light and my lungs felt as if they were bursting.
Taleel’s eyes flashed as he moved next to the enforcer in seconds. “Talk about the officers that way and you will be the one who is out of the air lock next!”
I realized that there was now no lag between them speaking and English coming forth. My implants were now translating for me.
The alien seemed to droop as his arm slackened around my neck; I fell to the ground and I coughed my breaths.
“Yes, Officer Taleel.” The alien looked at the deck. Taleel went to the front of the line.
“Let’s see how much Hellfire can fix.” They began kicking and punching me with glee, leaving a few minutes later with my body and bones broken; I could feel them setting back into position painfully as muscle tissue repaired itself.
“Watch yourself, flesh bag.” The enforcer hit me and I passed out.
I woke up again minutes later. My body felt as if it were on fire as every muscle tensed painfully. I found myself unable to move as bones popped into place and reformed together.
After having the ports bored into my back, the broken bones being forced together was jarring. It was painful and weird, but it was bearable.
Rick came to me, helping me up slowly. His own nerve ports gleamed in the absurdly bright lights of the room.
“You okay?” Rick pitched his voice low so the others couldn’t hear him, wincing as his ports moved.
I put on my most winning smile, straightening myself, hiding the pain. Would I want to be lied to? I thought as I slumped. “It’s pretty painful and scary.” I looked at their scared faces. “But I know everyone can make it through it.” I smiled, hoping they gained some kind of confidence.
The younger ones were blatantly staring at my back.
“They’re so shiny,” one boy said, probably around fourteen.
“They are, huh? I can’t really see them,” I remarked as I made to look at my own.
“How much did it hurt?” an even younger girl asked, probably around eight.
“Quite a bit, but I know all of you can do it,” I said. If you want to or not, because Taleel will have you hauled in there.
Taleel gave me a strange stare as I backed away. I was dizzy from the pain in the increased gravity and the weird atmosphere, which was now hard to see in as well as hard to breathe in.
“We’ll be waiting for you when you’re done,” I said to them with a smile. Rick and I sat down near the exit from the showers. We were careful not to lean against the wall.
Rick turned to me, anger in his eyes. “What kind of fucked-up military does this to children?”
I didn’t think to remind him how children were used as soldiers all over Earth. I still agreed with him.
“One that needs to be ended,” I said, gauging his reaction.
He nodded as he touched his ports, flinching as he found cold metal. It was a moment before he talked again. “How do you look so confident?”
Gotcha, I thought as he wasn’t arguing the point now, but rather trying to figure out himself how he’d be able to mimic me.
“I just smile and act natural; we don’t want to scare them,” I said under my breath, my back to the others.
“But—” Confusion and insecurity warred across Rick’s face. He was an open book to me.
“Now laugh like we’re sharing a joke,” I said, following my own instructions. Thankfully Rick did as well, hiding his inner fear. It was interesting how much just changing your facial features could make you feel different.
I didn’t need a panicked group of people on my hands. My time in an orphanage showed me that scared people are the worst people to be around. I needed malleable and useful people.
He paused, as if in thought.
“They must be some kind of interface between our neural pathways and some piece of technology,” he surmised. A look of curiosity and excitement passed over his face.
“What part of the Air Force were you in?” I asked.
“I was a guard originally—you know, patrol airbases. Then, after a few comments to an engineer, I was
selected for a think tank.”
“On what?” I pried, suspicion coloring my mind.
“On developmental technologies.”
“I thought it might’ve been something like that.” I grinned.
“Why?” he asked with a perplexed look.
“Your eyes lit up as you began wondering about the potential for the technology. Most people would still be in the ‘oh shit I got kidnapped’ stage,” I said.
“Ah.” He looked a little embarrassed before he shrugged. “What can I say? New things interest me.” He grinned and I couldn’t help but return it. “Though these new things are quite uncomfortable,” he added, tilting his head to look at his nerve ports.
“Yeah, I’m as willing to try new things as the next person. But I don’t think I’d ever get these willingly,” I said, trying to find a comfortable place on the wall to rest so that my new ports wouldn’t touch it and elicit more pain.
“Why did you put up that charade?” Rick asked. Something in his voice stopped me from throwing him a white lie.
“I want them to be confident,” I said finally, looking to them.
“Why?” he asked, more intense now.
“Simply because I know them more than I know another group.” I think it was time to spin some bull—for the good of morale, of course.
“No matter what, we’re going to have to work together. There might be just us in here. We need to look out for one another, build up trust and create a team capable of breaking out of this prison,” I said. Breaking out from our new enslavement wasn’t going to be easy. Hell, I didn’t even know whether it was possible. But I knew one thing: hope is a damned powerful motivator.
Rick’s eyes lit up at this as he looked back at me. He nodded slowly before he looked away. I seemed to have passed some kind of test. The hope monkey had him. Now I had to get a few more loyal to me and I could start putting a plan into action—whatever plan I came up with, that is.
The door opened to the chair room as the shower opened. One of the smallest kids, no more than seven, came up to me. He probably recognized me as Salchar the gamer and latched onto me because I was something familiar from his regular life.
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