Soon we'll look different, Jon thought. I'll have my hair sheared off. I won't look like Dad anymore. But I'll always have Mom's blue eyes. Paul had blue eyes too.
"Oh, be quiet, Ronald," Mother said, slapping her husband. "Now's not the time for stupid jokes."
"Now's the best time for jokes!" Father said. "Jokes are what got me through the army, you know."
Mother didn't answer. Awkward silence filled the Toyota. They were all thinking the same thing.
They were thinking about Paul.
His grave was still fresh. And maybe, very soon, Jon would join him underground. And they were joking. Trying to maintain some sense of normalcy in a mad world of mourning. And in his father's eyes, Jon saw the terrible, crushing grief.
They drove into the recruitment center in silence. Soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint. Somebody searched their trunk. Another soldier checked Jon's draft papers.
"Don't worry, sir," the wiry soldier said to Father. "We'll take good care of your son. We'll bring him back to you in one piece."
I wonder if my brother came back in one piece, Jon thought. They never let us open the coffin.
His parents pulled over by a concrete building. Other cars were stopping too, spilling out teenagers. Jon recognized many from school. All those who had turned eighteen this year. All those ready for the meat grinder.
Jon got out of the car. He stood on the asphalt, his long dark hair hanging past his shoulders, his Wolf Legion shirt faded with a hundred washes. You could barely see the band anymore. In his pocket, he carried the folded music sheet, the one Kaelyn had signed with a kiss.
Jon's parents stepped out too. But they left the engine running.
"Well, son." Father cleared his throat. "I suppose this is it. You'll be all right, huh?"
But the jazz player's eyes were red and damp. He had already lost one son. Now he was sending another into the fire. Two sacrifices on the altar of Earth's empire.
"I'll be all right," Jon said. "I promise."
Another promise he could not keep?
Mother burst into tears. She pulled him into her arms, and she wept, clinging to him, telling him to be good, to be careful, and that she loved him.
"Come on, Ma," Jon said. "You're embarrassing me in front of the guys."
She wiped her eyes. "Oh, you're just like your dad. Stupid jokes."
Jon kissed her cheek. "Love ya, Mom."
He shook Father's hand. Formally at first, almost coldly. But then his dad pulled him into a crushing embrace, and they both shed tears.
And then the car was rumbling off. And another car replaced it, spilling out another child for the war. Another sacrifice to Moloch. Hundreds were gathering here.
Cannon fodder, Jon thought. The jungle beast needs to eat, and we're fresh meat.
* * * * *
He spotted George in the crowd of teenagers. It wasn't hard. The ginger giant towered over everyone.
They say the Bahayans are smaller than Earthlings, Jon thought. George will look even bigger there.
"Georgie boy!" Jon called out, worming his way along the crowded sidewalk.
He didn't see Kaelyn anywhere. He had hoped she would come say goodbye. Maybe she had already driven off, and Jon had missed her. Or maybe coming here had been too difficult.
Jon kept elbowing between people. Hundreds of teenagers lined the sidewalk outside the recruitment center, clogging the entrance to the building. They were entering one by one through a security checkpoint. The bottleneck would probably last a while.
"George!" Jon cried again.
But his friend didn't seem to hear. The giant spun from side to side like a trapped animal.
"Stop it!" he said, then yelped.
Jon frowned. He shoved his way through the crowd, moving faster. And then he saw it.
Several teenagers surrounded the giant, jeering. A pasty boy with limp blond hair was poking George with a stick. A bucktoothed girl brayed with laughter, spraying spittle.
"Dance, giant!" said the pasty blond boy. "Dance like the bear you are."
"He must be retarded," said the bucktoothed girl. "Hey, giant! You retarded?"
Jon finally reached them. "Leave him alone!"
The thugs turned toward him and guffawed. There were five of them. Jon recognized their faces. High school dropouts and hooligans. He had seen them around town—smoking under bridges, robbing shops, even torturing stray cats and squirrels, constantly exploring the limits of juvenile delinquency.
The ringleader stepped toward Jon. It was the boy with limp blond hair. He wasn't as tall as George—nobody in town was—but he was burly, built like a refrigerator. His face was wide and fleshy, and his blue eyes were far set, giving him a strange alien look.
Jon knew him. Everyone in Lindenville knew this one, even the adults, and especially the police. Here stood Clay Hagen, infamous town thug.
With a wide callused finger like an old cigar, Clay jabbed Jon in the chest.
"Hey, you're the fucking ballerina, aren't you?"
"He's a composer," George said, not helping much.
The thugs burst out laughing.
"A composer, huh?" Clay said. "A composer of shit!"
The brute puffed out his chest, proud of his witticism. Nobody laughed until Clay glared at his fellow thugs. Taking the cue, the underlings laughed and patted Clay on the back.
"Good one, boss!" said the bucktoothed girl.
"Shut up, Bucky!" Clay shoved her, then spun back toward Jon. "You listen to me, you fucking ballerina. If I want to poke the bear, I will poke the bear!"
Madness filled those wide-set eyes. The boy's beefy fists curled up. They looked like two roast hams. Jon decided it best to diffuse the situation.
"Ah, come on, the bear is harmless," Jon said. "He's just a big dumb ginger. Save your energy for the Bahayans."
But Clay flushed red. His lips twitched, and a vein throbbed on his neck.
"You think I'm scared of slits?" Clay said. "You think some yellowfaced gooks are too much for me? Do you know who I am, ballerina?"
Jon nodded. "Clay Hagen. I've heard of you."
In fact, Jon had more than heard of Clay. Years ago, Clay had bloodied his nose on Halloween—all to steal some candy. The brute had probably forgotten the encounter. Jon never would.
"Of course you fucking heard of me!" Clay said. "You know where I spent the past year?"
"In juvie," Jon said. Everyone in town knew about that.
"In fucking prison!" Clay said. "It was a real prison. With adult prisoners. I was there for a year for killing a man."
Jon remembered the newspaper stories. Clay had just gotten his driver's license. After a night of hard drinking, he ran over an elderly man, then drove off. Clay spent a year behind bars. Jon wished they had left him there.
"Well, then you shouldn't have any trouble killing slits," Jon said.
"You're goddamn right!" Clay grabbed Jon by the collar. "And if you ever talk shit to me again, I'll kill you too, I—"
A roar washed over his words.
George grabbed the blond brute with two gargantuan hands. He yanked the thug away from Jon, then hurled him aside. Clay stumbled, nearly falling onto the sidewalk. The bucktoothed girl had to catch him.
"I got you, boss!" she said.
Clay shoved her away. "Don't touch me!"
"And you don't touch my friend!" George roared. "You hear that, Clay Hagen? You don't hurt him!"
Clay straightened, scowled at the giant… then guffawed. Laughter seized him, and soon he was shaking with it. His henchmen glanced at one another nervously, then burst out laughing too.
"Look at those two fairies!" Clay said. "You a couple? Which one goes on top?"
Bucky brayed with laughter. "Good one, boss!"
Clay shoved her. "Shut up!"
The hooligans wandered off, roaring with laughter, poking one another in the ribs. Soon they vanished in the crowd.
George shook his fist after them. "Bunch of losers
."
"Jesus, George, you're bigger than all of them combined," Jon said. "Why did you let them pick on you?"
George lowered his head. "I got scared."
"You didn't seem scared at the end. You seemed kind of terrifying, actually."
"Yeah, well…" George stared at his feet. "They were going to hurt you. And you're my best friend and all. I had to do something. Sorry if I made you look bad."
"Ah, fuck those guys," Jon said. "Assholes like Clay don't last long in the army anyway. I'm sure he'll find some way of getting his head blown off." He paused, looked around, then back at George. "Did Kaelyn…"
George lowered his head. "She didn't come. My parents dropped me off, but… It was hard for her. After Paul died, she…"
Jon understood. It hurt. He had wanted to see Kaelyn this morning. Maybe the last time forever. But he understood.
If I die in the war, my last memory of Kaelyn will be kissing her under the tree, he thought. That's a good memory to die with.
Buzzing filled the air. A little drone, no larger than a dinner plate, flew toward Jon and George. It was painted in military green and labeled "Human Defense Force Property." The machine hovered before the two friends, and a mechanical voice emerged from its innards.
"Recruits! Enter Fort Emery Recruitment Center for processing. Dallying will be punished."
"Oh yeah?" Jon said. "Big threat from a flying Frisbee. I bet I—Ow!"
The drone shot Jon with an electric bolt. He rubbed his arm, wincing. When he looked around, he noticed that only a few kids remained on the sidewalk. Everyone else had entered the concrete building.
"Enter Fort Emery Recruitment Center for processing," the drone droned on. "Dallying will be—"
"I know, I know!" Jon said, still rubbing his arm. "Goddammit, I heard ya the first time." He waved the drone away. "Now get lost."
The drone gave a mechanical huff, shocked Jon again for good measure, then flew off to harass another group of dallying recruits.
"Son of a bitch!" Jon rubbed his arm. "I think he got me in my new tattoo."
"We better go inside," George said, eying the drone nervously.
Jon patted George on the back. "All right, buddy. Let's step inside. It's time to be soldiers."
* * * * *
The next few hours passed in a blur.
Countless teenagers filled Emery Recruitment Center, coming from across New Jersey. They flowed through a labyrinth of concrete. Drones kept buzzing everywhere, zapping recruits, herding them from room to room. Like cows in a slaughterhouse, the teenagers passed from station to station, poked and prodded and terrified. Like cattle—moving slowly toward death.
At one station—a medical exam. The recruits lined up and stripped down. A doctor checked their throats, their eyes, their ears. He weighed them, listened to their lungs, and he cupped and squeezed their balls.
"Sorry, kid, gotta check ya for hernias," the doctor said to Jon. "Promise you'll still love me in the morning."
A drone zapped Jon. "Proceed to next station. Dallying will be punished."
"Goddamn it!" Jon shouted as the drone shocked him. He scampered off, tugging up his pants.
At another station, they slapped an iron blanket over Jon, and they took x-rays of his teeth.
"See, kid, if the Bahayans blow you into hamburger meat, we can fish your teeth out of the pulp," the technician told him. "It's how we'll identify you. Hey, we can even send the teeth back to your mom."
"Do you brush them first?" Jon said. "My mom's always bugging me about that."
"Proceed to—" a drone began.
"I know, I know!" Jon said, waving the pesky machine away. He yelped as it shocked him.
At another station—an interview. They showed the recruits strange ink blots. They asked them to identify the stains. Jon didn't see anything but abstract shapes. He wondered if he was failing the test.
"This looks like a fucking slit," said Clay Hagen, taking the same test near Jon. The brute smirked at the ink blots. "And this one looks a fucking slit. And this one looks like a fucking slit. All slits to kill." He winked at Jon. "Maybe I'm gonna kill some ballerinas too."
Jon flipped him off. "Hey, what does this look like?"
Clay leaped from his seat and lunged to attack. It took two sergeants to pull him back.
"Assholes," George muttered, then returned his eyes to his own test. He gasped. "Hey, this inkblot looks like a taco! Great. Now I'm hungry."
At another station, they received their dog tags.
"Sweet, free jewelry!" George said, slipping the chain around his neck. The metal tags hung against his chest.
"Some jewelry." Jon slipped on his own tags. "If they can't even find teeth after the enemy blows you up, maybe they'll find these tags in the pile of ashes."
"That's actually pretty metal," George said.
Jon raised the devil horns. "Death Tags. There's the title of our next album."
They both laughed. Jon knew they were both terrified. Laughter helped. That was the meaning of humor, after all.
It's a coping mechanism, he thought. Humor is a flower that grows from the ashes of fear and misery.
But he couldn't suppress a shudder.
Scattered teeth, metal tags, and bad jokes. That's all that remains of some soldiers.
He thought back to his brother's funeral. It had been a closed casket. Jon wondered what had been inside that coffin. Maybe nothing but teeth, dog tags, and piles of ash. Maybe that's all that would remain of Jon too.
The day went on and on. More medical exams. More psychological tests. Interviews. Vaccines. More tests.
"Goddammit, are we soldiers or medical experiments?" Jon muttered.
They shuffled onward through the labyrinth, lost souls in the swarm. Finally they entered the fort's barbershop. Well, perhaps calling it barbershop was stretching it. It just was a concrete room where weary-eyed soldiers stood shearing recruits.
Jon settled down in a seat. He ran his hands through his long, shaggy hair. "Just a bit off the top."
A uniformed barber raised a buzzing razor. "Don't worry, kid, I'm sure you have a beautiful head in there. Somewhere."
Jon had been growing his hair for years. It flowed halfway down his back. After all, he was the composer, lyricist, and keyboard player of a symphonic metal band. He was a rock star in training. He needed to have long, luxurious hair, didn't he? Now he watched long, luxurious locks fall to the floor. The barber kept buzzing, shearing Jon like a sheep, hair and beard alike.
When the work was done, Jon stared at himself in a mirror.
He barely recognized himself.
His head seemed smaller. Without his beard, thin as it might have been, his chin seemed weaker. He looked younger. Just a skinny boy with a head of dark stubble.
George walked up beside him. "Bloody hell, bud. You look like a shaved alpaca."
Jon turned toward his friend. George's glorious red locks were gone, shaved down to stubble.
"And you look like somebody mowed a mountain," Jon said.
The giant touched the side of his head. "I don't like people seeing my scar."
Jon remembered that day. George undergoing brain surgery. The scar was still there, snaking around the skull.
Jon patted his friend on the shoulder. "If we emerge from this war with nothing but a few scars, we'll be lucky. Come on, bud. Let's become real soldiers."
* * * * *
They entered the next room, another station along the concrete path. It was a huge warehouse filled with uniforms, boots, and helmets.
Jon had to admit, this part was kind of cool.
He had seen photos, videos, paintings, even action figures of his heroes from the Alien Wars. Many kids on Earth grew up admiring Einav Ben-Ari, the Golden Lioness who had led fleets in battle; or Marco Emery, the War Poet, who fought aliens across the galaxy; or Addy Linden, the heroine with flowing blond hair, a crooked smile, and a smoking gun always in her hand. Those heroes had fought a century
ago, members of the Great Generation, those who had rebuilt Earth from the ruins of alien invasions.
And to be honest, they all looked rather shabby.
In the photographs, those legendary heroes just wore tattered olive drab uniforms. Nothing fancier than what soldiers wore in the ancient photographs from World War II. After all, Earth had been dirt poor during the Alien Wars, barely surviving the devastating invasions from space. The military had operated on a shoestring.
Well, that was back in the twenty-second century. Today in the twenty-third century, Earth commanded a veritable empire. Human power stretched for light-years around, ruling many asteroids, moons, even planets, all rich with resources. And the army had upgraded its wardrobe.
Jon gazed around the warehouse with wide eyes. These looked less like army uniforms and more like, well, superhero outfits.
He picked one garment off a shelf. At a glance, it looked a little like a rubber diving suit. But on closer examination, the fabric was formed of millions of tiny scales, vaguely reptilian. And unlike a diving suit, armored plates covered these uniforms, navy blue and metallic. There were hooks to snap on various attachments—perhaps ammunition.
These were secondhand uniforms, Jon noticed. Somebody had polished the armored plates, smoothed out dents, and crudely painted over scratches and scars. But Jon could still see signs of old battles. A burn mark here. A scar there. He wondered if anyone had died in these suits, and a shudder ran through him.
"Whoa, these are cool!" George said. "You reckon they have one in my size?"
The shelves seemed to be sorted by size, small to large. Jon pointed. "Go all the way to the back. Top shelf. And suck in your gut."
Jon struggled to pull on his uniform. Other soldiers around him faced similar struggles. Finally Jon figured out there were buttons to loosen the armored plates, allowing him to wriggle into the suit. With a few juicy curses, he managed to pull it on. It fit snugly. Embarrassingly so. The armored plates stretched across his chest, back, and limbs, creating the illusion of gleaming metallic muscles.
The Earthling (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 1) Page 5