In fact, why should I cloud my mind with even more discourse at such a crucial hour? I have always trusted the Party, they have always done me good. I must trust their collective agreement over my selfish whims. I must be strong. But still, out of longing curiosity, I ask Mr. Martin, “What would you possibly suggest me to do, sir?”
“You can’t run from the government sadly. We live in a time where you are always monitored, known. But you can become a force of change. That is what you are destined to do Peter. That is what I would have sent you off with my best luck if things were different,” he pauses, “Don’t let this war destroy you.”
“Surely I will die.”
“Peter,” Mr. Martin squares his shoulders directly parallel with mine, forcing me to make eye contact with him, “What I speak of goes far deeper than your physical being. First, you must believe, fight for, your right to live and make it through this war. But more so, don’t let this war destroy you. Who you are,” he points at my heart, “don’t let that ever happen. If you die, die as who you are. The greatest loss will be if the war takes that away. Not what you are, a bag of flesh and bones that will die eventually, but who you are. Remember that Peter. I will pray, I will beg any and all of the celestial beings out there to bring you home safely. May all of good fate be with you.”
With that I leave, giving my final farewells. I leave down my usual hallway of my favorite part of college, for the last time.
I meet Isaac at the main entrance, his belongings all slumped around him. He is smoking an ancient and tapping a leg fast. “Hey.”
“Wanna do the route one last time?”
“Of course. May be the last.”
We get into my mustang and leave onto the route.
“I’ll miss you Wang-Stang,” says Isaac, breaking the silence. It returns quickly, heavy like our minds.
We pass through downtown. It’s late morning so none of the bars are open, and most of the town is empty. We continue onwards through the state park.
“Let’s stop at that one place we did last time,” says Isaac.
We pull over at the turnoff, and walk to the meadow.
“Sure is beautiful,” says Isaac.
“Yeah, I’ll miss it, along with all the other little things around here.”
“It’s a good little town.”
We sit down in the soft tall grass, taking in the last of our freedom before we are shipped off to a new world. But I can’t enjoy it, it’s like I am already on a starship leaving. A convict eating his last meal.
“Peter, we gotta take care of each other when we’re out there, bud,” he looks up at the sky, at the invisible stars hidden under the bright day.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t we?”
“I know, I’m just saying. You’re all I got. All I got out there. You’re my brother.”
I look at Isaac. “Same.” I can’t imagine losing him.
We leave after a while to the Recruitment Center in the town over. It’s packed with a line of other young men. Eventually we make it through the doors to a crowded room filled with papers all over the ground.
“SS please,” says a man behind a desk. I hand him my card and he gives me a number. Next, Isaac and I are called into a group with other people to enter a room.
“You from NCS too?” says Isaac to a guy next to us.
He lowers a red notebook he was writing in and turns. “Yeah, Vance is my name.”
“Isaac,” he nudges me, “and this is Peter. We dormed together.”
“Listen up!” The room quiets as an officer walks in. “We have a ton of job openings in the Marines. Sure we still need some in the Army, but our Marine Core is practically nonexistent as it hasn’t been used for half a century. I am correct to say that most of you are students from North Carolina State?”
There’s some muttering of agreement.
“Well then, if you sign up in the Marines, you can go in together, as a school outfit.”
Many hands go up.
“What do the Marines do?” says Vance.
“First to fight.”
All hands go down.
“Let me be clear,” says the officer. “The military has a huge request for additional Marines. Many of you may and try to hold onto luck for something else, don’t count on it. You’ll probably be sent into the Marine Core anyway. But it will be random, with no one you know. I am giving you an option to fight with fellow faces you have met over the years.”
I look at Isaac. We stand up with some others, including Vance, and go to the front table by the officer. I sign my name on the contract oath. Before my signature is the ink of hundreds of others names. But they’re all alien to me. Even my own name. I glance back at the paper one last time as I lower the pen. I don’t remember putting my name there. On that sheet is me, but it’s a different Peter now. A Peter I am quickly forgetting. We get back in my car and leave, leave our town, leave our lives.
V
Isaac hands the paper back to me, and I read what he wrote, the last word being Karma.
Kenneled anger recreates more anger,
Now my turn.
And no greater emotion resonates,
I hand the paper back to him.
“Now entering Dolus system,” announces the intercom. Red lights flash and emergency sirens blare in the ship corridors.
“So this is it,” says Isaac.
This is it. Shit, this is it. This is where I discover what I am made of. What I can do to help change the course of the war, and what is left of myself that I can hold onto. The hardest thing to come to resolution with was that dilemma of my pacifism verses fighting for the greater good.
We march to our first day of combat training where our Drill Instructor already waits. My torn apart conciseness refuses to leave me alone. You can’t do this Peter, violence is wrong. I’ve never hated anyone in my life, or ever really been in a fight. Actually, the only fight I guess I had ever been in before basic was back in elementary. A sixth grader wouldn’t stop throwing leaves at me and I had recently learned the word, fuck. So I told him off with the former, and sure enough, I got my ass kicked, badly.
Ever since, I have been a practicing pacifist and intend to stay that way. A man of peace and of progression and advancement. My ideals and dreams, ones I wanted to grow and implement towards the world to make it a better place. No one can take that away from me: my morals, my spirit, my essence and purpose in life. Maybe I won’t have to fight, even on the battlefield. But I have to, the Party and military expect me to, I must do my part to help win. But even then, maybe I could just shoot near the Herculeans and not at them. Kind of just tag along and be there enough to get through it.
“How many of you shot a gun before?” says our Drill Instructor.
Our entire platoon is present. Three hands go up.
“And what were they!”
Tommy, a stalky Georgian, and one of the guys from my unit speaks first, “The Private shot a carbine for hunting once, sir!”
“A carbine?” The Instructor stomps forward facing Tommy and hisses into his face, then speaks very quietly that it’s hard to hear him till he asks the next question. “I am guessing that wasn’t some military grade shit was it?”
“No, sir!”
“I didn’t think so! What decade was it from?”
Tommy remains blank faced. He left high school at sixteen to work his father’s ranch and farmland. He was not the brightest one here, not because he was dumb, but because he was ignorant of having a higher education.
“I said what decade was it from!”
“The Private does not know, sir!”
“Goddamn, you fucking idiot!” The Instructor continues pacing down our two lines. “How many of you are against guns. Or how about, how many of you are those fucking progressive-st, that faint from seeing a raw steak at a restaurant!”
I know better than to answer. So does anyone else.
“Don’t be sh
y! I want the truth from my soon to be Marines. Honesty, integrity, these are some of the expected traits my Marines are to have upon graduation. So let me ask again, who here is a liberal latte toting bitch!”
The Instructor paces back and forth once more as we stare at the eyes of the recruit in front of us. We take shelter in the fear of each other’s scared shitless pupils. All of us dare not break that eye contact with the man across, as it is the only safe place to look; otherwise you risk the wrath of the Drill Instructor.
“Let me ask one last time, for I know some of you here are. Hell, most of you probably are. I also know that most of you came from those colleges paid for by the government. Sheltered and ignorant to a real day’s work. But there is another side to the Party and this country you evidently don’t know. That is the sweat and sacrifices our warriors made to protect and serve this country! Are any of you worthy enough to become one! So in fact, if I have to ask one last time, all of you will be doing the Crucible twice just so I can sleep soundly knowing I got rid of the weak.”
I doubt he has the authority to do that, but nevertheless, all of us that are applicable raise our hands.
And of course, he bee-lines straight for me.
“Ah, so here is one of you fucking pansies! Were you also part of the disarmament movement?”
“The private was part of that, sir!”
“Good god. The world expects us to win with you fuckers? Let me guess again, you’re a pacifist too, huh?”
“The Private is also a pacifist too, sir!”
The Instructor spits on my boots and makes a tsk noise for a few moments. “There is a vital piece of information you missed there, you were a pacifist.”
How could he really expect me to change? I may pretend and play along. But he would never take my morals away. I would like to see him try.
The Instructor paces again as he talks. “You see boys, this is a different time than when your great grandfathers fought. Shit, we got aliens to fight now! And the movement to create the war machine we need to win against those E.T fuckers is not adequate enough. As in we don’t have the capabilities and resources to fight them completely traditionally. Most of all, we don’t have the time. The President expects you boys to be in fighting condition and on those starships in little over two months. That is a tall order, especially when most of you are fucking pussy’s that don’t know the difference between a rifle, and the dildo your boyfriend shoves up your ass!”
He reaches the end of our row and turns around. “So we have a new weapon. Performance drugs. Stimulants. Drugs that will create the warrior in you that would take years, shit, even lifetimes for most of you to ever achieve. To show how effective these drugs are, our very own pacifists will go first.”
We are summoned forward, I, Isaac, Vance who is also from my unit, and any others that rose their hand. The Instructor turns around to an arena behind him, where quarterstaffs rest in the middle.
“Private Peter and Isaac, you will go first,” says the Instructor.
We reach our sides of the arena, and are halted by the Instructor as an NCO comes to each of us. They carry syringes—these must be these drugs he is talking about—and stand beside us.
“These,” speaks the Instructor to the rest of our platoon watching, “are called Buzz. That’s the basic lingo at least, they’ve got a sophisticated scientific mumbo jumbo bullshit title but you won’t remember it, so don’t worry about it. Buzz will cause controlled anger and mental dedication to eliminate your enemy—at your commanding officer’s digression of course. They will increase agility and stamina, they will remove battle fatigue and second guessing,” he pauses to stare each of us down personally before continuing, “things that will kill you out on the field. They will most importantly, remove the fear you are sure to have of these Herc’s if you were not being aided by these drugs. We don’t know what type of psychological fuckery the Herculeans can do, but these are guaranteed to make you resistant to anything they may try as well. Anyway, without further to do, shoot them up and begin the fight.”
The NCO whispers in my ear as the other does to Isaac on his side. “That Private across the arena is a Herculean sympathizer.”
This is ridiculous. I try hard to not laugh, that I almost don’t feel the needle go in my arm and inject its dose. Isaac is practically my best friend, and besides, he is even more opposed to this war than I am.
The NCO continues his absurd speal, but within seconds I feel a rage growing within inside me. It is a feeling of warmth, of surging energy that I never knew I had before—it feels fucking amazing. Next, there is a buzz as everything zooms in towards me, then out back to its normal shape, but now with a new clarity and meaning. It is my objective. My battlefield to hold and win, and I remember the NCO’s words.
Images of Isaac telling the Herculeans where innocent civilians are hiding pop into Peter’s mind. They slaughter helpless humans in their cellar as Isaac laughs outside.
“That motherfucker,” says Peter.
Peter screams with rage and charges Isaac with his weapon, wishing it was a real rifle so he could kill that Herc lover. Their blows are fast and painful. Peter strikes his side, Isaac lunges at his gut. Soon they are a mess of sweat and bruises. Their noses and lips cracked and bleeding as they cuss and scream, wishing the other would die. Then they are hit with something from behind.
I feel a sting on my back, and suddenly feel lazy and dazed.
“That is DepressTabs my boys,” says the Instructor. “The condensed title that is. It calms you and makes you docile, allowing us to control you after your war rage.”
I sit down by Isaac in the arena. Sweat pours down my face. What is going on?
The NCO’s come to us and they inject another syringe into our arms.
“That is NT, they almost look the same as DT when abbreviated on the vile, but they do very different things. It works like DT in controlling your emotions, but instead, it returns you back to a sober state. Kind of like a systems detoxer.”
In seconds, we are really back to our normal selves with our original dispositions and morals. Calm down, calm down Peter—no! What the fuck! He actually made me hate someone. He actually made me fucking hate another person. Something I have never experienced in my life so intensely before. And my head, god, it hurts, my thoughts all mushy. The whole fight felt like an out of body experience.
“I see you look at little sour about it Private,” says the Instructor at me with a smirk. He looks back at the rest of our platoon, “This is how you will all be fighting for now on. See, I said I could turn a pacifist into a warrior. The rest of you, get in two lines and prepare to fight!”
We lie exhausted on the field after Buzz training. Blake, our unit Sergeant stands before us. He has a crooked nose that leans to the right, or his left I mean. Isaac told me it was from when he was a police officer, from a guy who resisted arrest. Blake grabs our attention, “Up and ready! Our Platoon Commissar is coming!”
“Nut to butt!” says Captain Tarnus. “Don’t be queer about, or do.”
We get into two neat compacted lines. I can feel the breath of the man behind me against my neck. The rest of Love is organized by their Sergeants, and Captain Tarnus inspects us unit by unit. His large bushy eyebrows flounder about above his beady eyes while reviewing us—somebody please cut that shit. He moves on to the next unit, we passed.
I stand limp and sweaty. I mutter to Isaac, “They couldn’t have done this another time?”
Isaac loosens his neck to lean back and reply, but instantly tightens up into strict order. I lean over to see why, and quickly do the same. A man with a dark overcoat and white shoulder armor caps walks towards us. His beret also white—like all Party Reps—with NFFP smack red bold on the center stares at us. A large revolver dangles overtly from his hip where the overcoat parts—clearly intentional—and his right hand rests comfortably atop the handle while he walks up and down our line. The sunlight dances off the revol
ve handle and blue gold trimmed stars that adorn his chest pockets and beret top.
He pauses facing the middle line, his legs stretched out, his face sharp and lean and handsome. “Hello Love Platoon. I am Commissar Herus. Your embedded Party Representative.” His voice is cool and smooth; he must have practiced this speech multiple times before the sink mirror. “I am here to make sure all Party Morals and Ideals are followed on the battlefield. I am also your medium for any concerns you may need to tell me, such as of traitors or unParty like activities that could compromise the cause we are embarking on. Ultimately though, I am just your brother, like you all are to each other, like we all are as members of the Party, as citizens of America. I will be there to aid and assist you morally when things get hard, to give an outstretched hand to raise your spirits when the fighting turns to its darkest hour. To remind you of what you are fighting for and why. I am excited and eager to participate on this great mission to aid our fellow humans, with you brothers. To spread the good of the Party to new worlds. Thank you for receiving me, you are dismissed.”
Blake confirms we can be at ease, we all walk back sore and tired to our barracks. I collapse onto my bunk, and take a shit load of painkillers to remove this headache. Whatever those drugs are, they really fucked with me. Every time it was my turn to fight again, every time it was my turn to receive the Buzz dose, I tried holding on to my convictions as hard as I could…but it didn’t matter.
Every time the cold needle enters my skin, I lose the desire to fight for my beliefs, to want to even hold on to them. I just become something new, different. I am still the same person, but my mind is replaced with new opinions and beliefs. It’s as if I am listening to someone with the exact same morals and ideals as myself when I am sober, but I disagree with them vehemently while under Buzz. I shake them off as silly or ignorant like I once did to the warmongers and others that held different views than me. But the weirdest part though, is that it’s not a different person I am disagreeing with, but I.
Travesty (SolarSide Book 1) Page 5