"Marco," she whispered and kissed his cheek, then his forehead, then his lips. "Oh, Marco, it's really you. I can't believe it. I can't believe it!" A tear flowed down her cheek. "It's a miracle. It's a miracle from heaven, it has to be."
"How—" he began. "What—" He laughed, holding her hands. "I don't know what to say."
Kemi grinned—that huge grin he loved so much. "I've only been in military academy for three weeks, but it feels like an eternity. This is our first time outside of the academy, our first taste of command. I'm a cadet now, Marco. And look at you!" She tugged at his tiny pink shirt and baggy green pants. "Is this your uniform?"
"Well, they don't give us peasants fancy uniforms." He looked at Kemi's uniform—sensible white trousers, a blazer with brass buttons and cuff links, and a beret with a golden pin. A plasma pistol, sleek and silvery, hung from her belt. She still wore the pi pendant he had given her. "You look beautiful, Kemi. I missed you. You—"
He bit down on his words. What was he doing? Had he forgotten that Kemi had broken up with him, had chosen a life in the military? Had he forgotten Lailani—the woman who "ruved" him, who had slept with him, had gifted him a turtle only moments ago—a simple gift yet one that meant so much to him? Yet standing here with Kemi, as the helicopter hovered over the city, was so surreal it spun his head.
I'm a soldier, he thought, wearing a tiny pink shirt, with my ex-girlfriend as a cadet saving me from a fake disaster zone.
This was not how he had imagined the HDF.
The helicopter descended and landed by the medical tents Marco had seen from the bus.
"Soldier, return to your litter," said one of the medics. "Our exercise isn't over."
"Wait," Kemi said. "One more moment. Please." She turned toward Marco, bit her lip, then hugged him again. "Hey, I'll be in these ruins all day. I'll see you again here. All right?"
He nodded. "Yeah." And he refused to acknowledge the terror that this—here in this helicopter, with the medics tapping their feet—could be goodbye forever.
Kemi kissed his lips. "I love you, Marco Emery. I'm sorry for how we parted last time. I love you."
"I love you too," he whispered, and he was speaking the truth. He lay back on his litter.
Tears in her eyes, Kemi watched the medics carry him outside. As the helicopter rose again, she stood at the open door, watching him until she vanished behind a hill.
CHAPTER TWENTY
One by one, medics carried more recruits into the medical pavilions, where nurses and doctors bustled around them. Marco found himself with splints on his legs, and eventually Addy was carried in, an oxygen mask on her face.
"They stuck me with a needle, Poet!" she said, ripping the mask off. "A real needle. They're experimenting on me!"
"Maybe you have superpowers now," Marco said.
She punched him. "Yeah, super strength, so watch it."
The medics carried in the other recruits, some still acting their parts, others sleeping on their litters. Many were bandaged. The medics moved among them, consulting with doctors, discussing each case. Outside the pavilion, Marco could see guards with guns and armored jeeps. Helicopters kept buzzing overhead and lights flashed.
Two more medics entered the tent, carrying a body bag on a litter. The zipper was opened just enough to reveal Lailani's face. She stuck her tongue out at Marco and crossed her eyes.
"Dead!" she said. "I told you I wouldn't make it." She winked and flashed him a grin.
But Marco couldn't smile back. Not after knowing about Lailani's earlier suicide attempt and death wish. Not after falling in love with her. Not after meeting Kemi here, feeling so confused.
They waited in the medical pavilion for an hour, maybe two, when nature began to call in earnest. To all of them.
"I gotta pee so bad it's coming out of my nose," Caveman said, wiping snot on his sleeve.
Addy nodded. "Same here." She hopped off her litter. "Let's find a place."
Marco looked around him. He couldn't see any of their platoon's commanders. No corporals, no sergeant, no Ben-Ari, only a few medics smoking in a back chamber. He nodded. He himself was feeling the pressure.
"Let's go," Marco said. "Let's find some food too. I'm famished."
Addy raised an eyebrow. "Famished? What the fuck is that, British?"
"It means he's hungry," Lailani said. "He's an author. That's how authors speak. He's writing a book about a turtle. He told me all about it."
Addy's eyes widened, and she spun toward Marco with a grin. "You told her about Jarhead!"
"Loggerhead, Addy. Loggerhead. Come on."
They exited the pavilion and searched for a porta-potty but found none. They walked along the cobbled street, navigating between soldiers, other recruits in secondhand civilian clothes, and local Greeks who had exited their homes to gape at the affair. Those homes rose along the road, built of white stone, some topped with domes. The recruits spotted a low brick wall around a garden. Two oaks and a pine grew from the yard, shading a house.
"Let's go water those trees," said Elvis.
"That's somebody's yard," said Marco.
Addy was already climbing over the low wall. "Well, I hope they're not doing any gardening today."
As his friends climbed over the wall into the yard, Marco sighed and followed them. Lailani and Addy went behind the bushes, while the boys stood by the trees. Only a few weeks ago, Marco would never have been able to pee in public. Five weeks in the army had taken his shame, and he watered the tree with the rest of them.
As he was zipping up, Marco noticed the old woman sitting on the porch.
She was staring at the recruits, eyes wide, clutching a bible to her chest.
"Sorry, granny!" Addy cried, emerging from behind the bushes. "Bunch of soccer hooligans, these ones are."
"Go Santos!" said Elvis.
Addy punched him. "Alvarez!"
The grandmother rubbed her eyes and stepped into her home. The recruits were about to leave when the old woman returned, carrying a pot full of peppers stuffed with rice, beef, and diced tomatoes. Soon the recruits were sitting in the grass, feasting on the best damn meal they had eaten in six weeks—the best meal, Marco thought, he had eaten in his life.
"It's a damn whorehouse here," Elvis said, reaching for another pepper.
Beast nodded. "Whorehouse." The unfortunate slang had been spreading through the platoon.
Addy puffed on a cigarette. "We just need beer."
Lailani, despite her size, scarfed down four stuffed peppers. She leaned against Marco, patting her belly, her lips stained with tomato juice.
"This is the best day of my life," she said.
Marco slung his arm around her, remembered kissing Kemi, and hated the guilt inside him.
Soon Lailani was asleep, leaning against him, and they still hadn't seen any commanders. As Marco sat in the yard, he noticed Jackass sitting under a tree—thankfully, not one of the trees the recruits had dampened. For once, the girl was silent and still, not braying, dancing, or shouting hoarsely about how dainty and adorable she was.
Gently, Marco laid the sleeping Lailani down on the grass. She mumbled and stirred but didn't wake. Marco walked across the yard and approached Jackass.
"Hey, Hope, what's up?" he said.
"Jackass," she said. "That's what everyone calls me. Only my mom calls me Hope." She raised a book—a copy of The Sun Also Rises. "Just reading."
Marco's eyes widened. "You like Hemingway?"
Jackass nodded. "I do. It's a good book. I've been reading Hemingway this summer. Have you read him?"
And now more guilt filled Marco. With Jackass's appearance—the beaked nose, the unibrow, the crooked teeth—and with her hoarse voice, braying laughter, and long stints in the brig, he had assumed her uncultured, perhaps illiterate. He nodded and sat down beside her. "I've read The Old Man and the Sea."
"You'll like his other books too," Jackass said. "They're good."
Marco pulled his copy of Hard
Times from his pocket. "I've been reading Dickens. Well, trying to read it. I've only read a few pages so far. Not much more time in the army."
"I love Dickens," said Jackass. "Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist . . . But my favorite is David Copperfield."
"Mine too," said Marco. "I read that one last year."
"The way he just chronicles life," Jackass said. "The way he captures the society, those characters, immortalizing them on the page . . . that really inspired my own writing. Well, I'm not nearly as good, of course. My novels are shit compared to his." She shrugged. "But I like writing. I like reading. Passes the time, you know?"
Marco nodded. He knew. "Do the other recruits know that you're so well read, that you've written books?"
Jackass snorted. "Nah. They just think of me as the cute, adorable princess that I am. They don't know about my books or about the poems I sold to magazines. Besides, who cares? I won't know any of you for long. They always end up sending me to some military prison, then transferring me to another base." She shrugged. "Another reason I like books. They don't change on you."
They sat for a long time, talking about reading and writing. Marco had grown up in a library, was a self-professed bookworm, yet Jackass was better read, had written more words, had published poems, and Marco thought again about how St-Pierre had confessed her weakness to her officer, how Addy had slunk into his bed at night, shivering and afraid, how Beast missed his boyfriend and wept at night, how Sergeant Singh sometimes stifled a smile between shouts, how they all wore masks in this war. How they all hid behind armor.
"Why do you let them call you Jackass?" Marco finally asked, able to resist no longer. "You're intelligent, cultured, and—"
"And ugly," said Jackass. "I look like an ogre. I know what I look like, what I sound like. I hear what the others whisper." She shrugged. "So I embrace it. I play the jackass for them. I could cry all day, but I'd only be miserable. If I take it from them, if I claim that name, that character, then I have strength. Then I can't be hurt. It's what Lailani does too." Jackass nodded. "She's scared, Marco. She's so afraid. She's so sad. So she pretends to be so strong." She patted his knee. "You're a good boy, Marco. Look after Lailani. Look after all your friends."
Finally it was Corporal Webb who came walking down the street, moving gracefully on her metal prosthetics, and spotted them in the yard.
"Soldiers!" she barked. "Follow me. Regroup with our platoon. We've got new cards for you. We're doing another drill."
Throughout the day, Marco kept looking for Kemi, but there were thousands of people here, and he didn't see her again. At sundown, a captain—an officer with three bars on his shoulders—marched their company's four platoons toward a school gymnasium. Sergeants stood here, handing out blankets and wrapped sandwiches. Marco was unsurprised to discover they were Spam sandwiches.
"Seems like we're spending the night," Marco said to Addy.
She looked around at the large gym. "Just the right size for a soccer game. Maybe we'll play tomorrow morning."
Two hundred soldiers lay down on the laminate floor, wrapped in their blankets. After the long day, Marco would have given his left foot for a hot shower, a toothbrush, and even just a thin army mattress, but those were luxuries. He had already spent one night on the cold, stone floor of the brig. Laminate was softer than a water mattress.
Addy slept at his one side, her cheek resting on her palms. Lailani slept at Marco's other side, close enough for him to feel her warmth, not so close as to rouse hoots and hollers from the others. Yet as the lights turned off, plunging the gymnasium into darkness, Lailani's hand reached out in the darkness and held his.
This is the best day of my life, Lailani had said. Yet as Marco lay in the darkness, he remembered what Ensign Ben-Ari had said. The war was escalating. The scum were beefing up their attacks, preparing for a massive retaliation. Very soon this drill might become reality. These wounds—Addy choking, Beast crushed, Lailani dead—might soon be real. Marco held Lailani's hand more tightly, never wanting to let go, never wanting the dawn to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Damn it, Harris!" shouted Sergeant Singh. "Your boots are dusty. Your shirt's not tucked in. Your gun's dry. Get back into your tent, then come back here in your sleepwear. Go!"
"Aye, aye, Captain!" Hope "Jackass" Harris gave a mock salute, then disappeared back into the tent.
The Dragons stood outside their tents in the predawn darkness. At 4:30 a.m., the North African desert was cold, dark, and miserable. But finally their hell at Fort Djemila was nearing an end. After nine weeks of training, they had only a week of hell left.
In one week, Marco thought, standing at attention in the cold, we'll become privates. In one week we'll be true soldiers of the HDF.
Marco suppressed a shudder, not wanting to risk Sergeant Singh's wrath. As horrible as basic training had been, there was safety here. There were his commanders to guide him. Out there in the war, he wouldn't be shooting at wooden targets. Marco didn't know where he'd be stationed. He would be sorted after receiving his rank. He could be sent to guard some gate in the middle of a desert, perhaps given a cushy office job analyzing deep space data, or maybe even sent into space itself to defend the colonies and fight on the front lines. He had little say in the matter, but one thing was certain: his enemies would be a little more ruthless than Pinky.
"Captain Blackbeard, sir!" Jackass emerged from the tent, wearing her pajamas again—pink and embroidered with hearts. She held a teddy bear, and she gave a little curtsy. "Do you think I'm sexy, Sergeant?"
Behind his beard, Sergeant Singh's face turned red. "Harris! You've spent six months bouncing from one basic training base to another. Are you determined to spend your five years of service as a recruit? Get back into your tent, and come out here—presentable as a soldier—on my countdown. If you fail inspection this time, you'll spend the next week in the brig, then have to start your basic training from scratch."
"Jackass, just listen to him!" Addy blurted out. "One more week. You can do this."
Jackass danced back into her tent. Sergeant Singh called out the countdown. Finally Jackass emerged from the tent, wearing her uniform. Shoe polish stained her pants, which weren't bloused. Her gun wobbled between her legs like a tail, and her helmet was crooked.
Sergeant Singh sighed. "Do you think you look like a soldier, Harris?"
Jackass shook her head. "No, Sarge. But I think I'll be wonderful as an entertainer for the troops. You know, sort of like Marilyn, my idol." She began to sing. "Happy birthday, Mr. Sergeant, happy—"
"Shut up!" Pinky shouted from the ranks. "For fuck's sake, you fucking retard."
Even Elvis grumbled. "Jackass, just shut up and act like a soldier. You want to spend your life in the brig?"
"Ogre," muttered another recruit.
"Freak," spat another. "Get her out of our platoon."
Jackass only laughed and pirouetted. "It's all right! I love the brig. Nice and quiet, and nobody bugs me, and I can catch up on my beauty sleep."
"That one would need to sleep for a century," Pinky said.
Risking Sergeant Singh's fury, Marco stepped out of formation and approached Jackass. He placed a hand on her arm. "Hope, let me help you, all right? Come on, buddy. One more week. You've got this." He looked into her eyes. "All right?" He dropped his voice to a whisper. "You're not this person. I know the real you. I know the intelligent, sensitive Hope. Not just the Jackass. You don't have to be the Jackass anymore."
Her eyes dampened, and she shook her head. "This is all I can be," she whispered back.
But Sergeant Singh had heard enough, it seemed.
"Emery, back into line!" the sergeant said, then turned toward Jackass. "That's it, Harris. I warned you. Report to the brig, and tell them you're to spend a week there. You won't receive your rank with your comrades next week. When the week is done, you'll report back to RASCOM and be assigned to start basic training again at another fort. Is that
understood?"
"Aye aye, Captain Blackbeard!" She gave an exaggerated salute, chest thrust out. "Reporting to the brig!"
Jackass began dancing her way through the darkness, whistling a tune, her gun dangling between her legs.
"Good riddance," Pinky said. "Retard."
Marco sighed. He had hoped that finally, after half a year of bouncing from fort to fort, prison to prison, Jackass would finally complete her basic training with the Dragons Platoon, then maybe be assigned to guard some gateway or bridge and stay out of trouble. He shuddered to imagine having to start boot camp from scratch.
"All right, soldiers," said Sergeant Singh. "Settle down and present your rifles for inspection."
They held out their guns, and Singh moved between them, checking the chambers for oil.
"Good work, Fabian," said the sergeant. "Not oiled enough, Ray, that's your second time. Linden, why—"
A gunshot rang across the camp.
Marco started. He turned in the night. "That came from the brig," he whispered.
Sergeant Singh nodded. "Inspection is over. Linden, lead the morning exercises." He began walking toward the brig. "Stay here, and—Emery? Emery! Halt!"
But Marco ignored his sergeant. He ran through the darkness, his rifle clattering across his back. The gunshot still echoed in his ears. He raced through the sand, down a rocky path, and toward the brig.
A dark lump lay on the ground, a few feet away from the concrete prison. Marco raced forward and knelt.
"Hope," he whispered. "Oh god, Hope."
Hope "Jackass" Harris lay on her back, her rifle across her chest. Her jaw, her face, and half her skull were gone, splattered across the sand. Marco was thankful for the darkness.
"Hope," he said again. "Oh, damn it, Hope, why did you do this?" He lowered his head, shuddering, eyes damp.
He started when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You tried to help her, Marco. Come now. Come with me."
Marco looked up to see Sergeant Singh standing above him. Medics were already rushing forward with a litter, but it was too late for Hope. In the distance, Marco could just make out the Dragons Platoon doing their morning jumping jacks.
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