by Ginger Booth
Imagine that.
Ava teased Jenn just as cheerfully and brutally as Jenn had teased her moments before.
They spent five backbreaking days and four nights in Brooklyn, cleaning up after the tsunami, performing one donkey job after another. Cleaning and repair for newly re-colonized housing. Sweeping streets. Salvage. Guard duty. Mountains of laundry. After her watch at night, Ava would drop down onto the cold asphalt, just to give her back the relief and pleasure of lying flat for a bit. As a seat-mate, cramped into a children’s school bus, the enormous Cookie left a lot to be desired. The recruits groaned when the Brooklyn Resco restored curfew to twenty-one hundred hours. The evenings, when so many set forth hoping to get laid, were the best chance to get a whole bench seat to sleep on.
Clarke required the recruits to ask for a pass before spending the night out past curfew. Calderon promptly spent the night AWOL to illustrate that Clarke was a pushover. Clarke enjoyed a good night’s sleep on Calderon’s bench, and conceded the point. Mostly, the recruits were just expected to stay on the block, in case of recall.
Finally back at West Point, they picked up again with the most fun weeks of Basic. They honed their marksmanship, mastered unit maneuvers, and – Ava’s favorite – blew stuff up.
One of the key curriculum goals of this phase was to teach the recruits to stay steady in the chaotic ‘fog of war.’ Despite their best efforts, the drill instructors could induce neither chaos nor confusion among the apples. They tried separating out the Upstate and South Jersey recruits, the better to stress and befog them. They yelled and barked, abused and harangued. It didn’t work. The gang rats and gavis had already trained the newbies too well. The entire cohort appeared to be fluster-proof. The drill instructors were duly impressed.
The best days of all were spent in a condemned neighborhood in Jerseyborough, practicing urban combat. The drill instructors weren’t surprised there. The recruits not only excelled, but insisted on staging harder scenarios to pit one unit against another. The sergeants were more resigned than surprised when the recruits insisted on learning to make IEDs – improvised explosive devices – as well as disarm them. The students had a point. Hudson supply lines could be iffy. And car bombs were remarkably effective in tight quarters.
Ava and her friends passed all this with flying colors, and had a ball.
The national news was touch-and-go for a while. The tsunami sent shock waves through the plans of the successor super-states of the ex-United States. But West Point kept the recruits focused on the task at hand. They missed the broadcasts for days at a time, out on field maneuvers, or just playing overtime.
Guzman meshed that Dima was back in the ville, working in hydroponics again. She lived with her boss now, one of the better seniles, who kept an eye on Dima around the clock. The girl seemed to be on the mend, able to cope with a quiet life. She didn’t say much, but she spoke. She wore hijab, always. For Ava and her home table crew, that was a huge relief, that Dima was out of danger.
Fakhir had several long talks with Gever about going to visit Dima, that he shared haltingly with home table. The Kurdish woman veteran made him promise to stay away, and give the girl time to stabilize. As a fellow Muslim, Gever discouraged him from thoughts of matrimony. Dima would likely never be that well. Fakhir should seek a partner more equal to him in strength, and work from that firm foundation to help others. Gever and her husband lived that message, so she made a real impression.
Ava thought of Frosty a lot, and missed him. She didn’t hear from him, but she expected that. It was a huge weight off her mind just to know he wasn’t angry with her, that he’d be with her if he could. She smiled and laughed a lot more. Whole days passed when she didn’t need to handle a panic attack by breathing out.
For the first time in a long time, Ava was truly happy.
Except for ruck march training.
A quarter of the school, 600 recruits, waited in the lines filling Central Area to be issued their load-out. This was it, the tactical ruck march, 10 kilometers, over 6 miles. Or rather, this was the practice event. The full 15 kilometers, with a 50 pound backpack, would happen three days later.
The combined lead Rescos had assailed General Houston, head of the regular Army, with pleas to downgrade this test. They won a partial victory. The recruits wouldn’t be subjected to the full Special Forces selection – a forced march instead of a tactical one, starved and exhausted and abused beforehand. But the Army hadn’t budged on 50 pounds.
Ava waited, quietly grim, with her crew from home table, near the end of the lines serving her battalion.
They took a lot of tests in basic training. Army values. Etiquette with officers and non-coms. The Uniform Code of Military Justice. Withstanding a poison gas attack. First aid for sucking chest wounds. Marksmanship. Patrols. Timed tests on tent skills, both erecting them, and taking them down and packing them neatly. Escape and evasion, and withstanding interrogation. Map-reading – they were dumped in the woods Upstate with a compass and map for that one, to find their way from nowhere to somewhere else they’d never seen, 12 miles away. Ava passed them all with flying colors.
She dreaded the ruck test, though. At now-102 pounds, a 50 pound rucksack sounded like a lot. That wasn’t even the whole load. She could see people at the front of the lines starting to emerge. Ruck, water, helmet, M4 carbine held at ready position. She bet there was ammunition to go with that gun, plus accessories. All together, that was more like 60 pounds.
This was going to suck. But she had faith in Sergeant Calderon and her training.
Boots were key. Calderon had them shower in their boots a couple months back, and wear them for two hours wet to mold them to their feet. Then when they were dry, they polished the boots thoroughly to waterproof them and hold their shape. Her combat boots fit perfectly, women’s size 5, the smallest the Army could provide. As advised, she tied her boots with two shoelaces apiece, so she could tighten the foot separately from the leg. They’d known the march was due any time now. She wore socks accordingly, a first layer of smooth polyester, then thick boot socks, to prevent blisters.
She’d faithfully done her training for months now. Every other day she trained in running and squats and lunges. Her legs were banded with muscle, butt and lower back as well. Granted, with a twenty-two inch waist and thirty-three inch hips, there was only so much space for muscle on her lower back. But what she had, was strong.
Most of all, she trusted Calderon. Her fitness trainer was systematic and thorough. Off the training circuit, he might be laid back, with a richly cynical sense of humor, and little respect for Army authority – Ava loved that about him. But when it came to their physical development, Calderon was a sharp-eyed pro. Like everything else they’d learned at West Point, he would carefully shepherd them up to the hard stuff.
Today was just the next stage.
Ava smiled at him as Calderon himself stepped up to her in line, the first of her squad. He didn’t smile back. He leaned down, and marked her pants leg with a chalk diagonal across her right thigh. He marked Yoda the same way.
“Sergeant, what is this?” she asked, naturally enough.
“Not now, Panic.” Calderon continued marking pants legs, on six of the squad. The smallest quarter. The weakest quarter.
No! She started scuffing the chalk mark off her pants.
“Huh?” Yoda asked. “Aw, c’mon, Panic, don’t piss off Calderon.” Along with her excellent string of test scores, Ava also earned the squad more than her fair share of demerits along the way.
“How are we pissing off Calderon?” the sergeant himself asked. He took in Ava’s chalk-smudged pants leg, and added another stripe. “Shut up and obey orders, Panic. Don’t mess with the mark.”
Ava started bouncing on the balls of her feet. She blew out. Just blow out. The body breathes in by itself. “Don’t do this to me, Calderon.”
“Over there, recruit,” Calderon ordered, pointing to an emptier patch of the asphalt quadrangle. “The r
est of you, stay here.”
When Ava looked mulish, he dragged her out of the line by her biceps, then gave her a shove to propel her out of earshot.
“You’re out of line, recruit.”
“You dragged me out of line, sergeant,” she hissed back. Each time she thought she was far enough, he shoved her again.
“You just don’t know when to shut up. Here will do.”
She wheeled and glared at him, hands bunched into fists. “You marked me as weak. Why did you do that?”
Calderon held her eye. “That mark tells them to issue you a thirty-five pound ruck, not fifty –”
“I can do it, sergeant! Do not count me out!”
“No. The risk of injury is too high. Panic, listen! Remember your hamstrings. What happens if Cookie injures his back, huh? He goes home to mommy’s farm, lays low for a couple months. Tell me, Panic, what happens if you injure your back? Or screw up your knee? And can’t work?”
Still shaking mad, Ava pursed her lips and looked away. Guzman liked her. She’d get proctor at a lunch room, if she was lucky. Some job only the infirm or elderly could do, at half rations.
“Half rations?” Calderon guessed. “Less if they can’t find you an invalid job? And you’d accept that lying down, right? Fuck, no. I know you, Panic. You’d be right back out on the streets. You’d sell poisoned drugs for the death angels. Turn tricks in Chinatown. Whatever it took.”
She licked her lip. He was right. But she shook her head. “No. I went straight.”
“Bullshit. You went straight while it worked for you. Second it doesn’t work, you’ll bolt.”
She glared into his eye. “You would, too, Calderon.”
“Damned right I would. That’s why you can’t lie to me. Look, Panic, I’m doing you a favor –”
“You’re flunking me out! I can’t make Army if I don’t pass the ruck march!”
“Shut. Up. And listen! Panic, you pass this march with fifty pounds, you know what you get? Apple Garrison to put down protests and fight gang rats. Now what happens if you pass with thirty-five pounds? That’s all the U.S. Army required. So you don’t make Army. You get an honorable discharge. You go back to your shitty little ville. But you get a job as militia, full-plus-half rations, and respect. Same pay. Same respect. More freedom. And you don’t injure yourself permanently.”
He made sense, but – “I trusted you!”
“Yeah, well, the Army trusted me too. And you? You’re no soldier, Panic.”
“I’d be good at it!”
“Panic, you’re a walking insurrection. You’d be a disaster in an Army unit. You’re too smart to be a soldier. That’s not an insult!”
To compound her fury, tears welled in Ava’s eyes. “I wanted to escape the city! I want a life!”
“You’ve got a life. Panic, you’ve done good here. Look, we don’t have time for this. You trusted me. Trust me now. You have no choices here, recruit. You put on a thirty-five pound ruck, and you walk six miles. Whatever future you have, is on the other side of that march.”
“I want a fifty-pound ruck!”
“And I won’t give it to you. Dammit, Panic, you still won’t make the cut for Army. All you’d do is hurt yourself. The only prize left is honorable discharge. Or dishonorable discharge, right here, right now. Gear up, recruit. Now. That was an order.”
“God, I wish I could take a swing at you!”
Calderon shook his head and strode back to the squad.
Ava got her gear, aching inside. This was supposed to be a victory lap, the final marches, the final week of Basic. They were supposed to come back and congratulate each other, show off their blisters and rashes, vie for the worst screw-up story along the route.
But she failed before she even started.
And dammit, a 35-pound ruck plus water, gun, and ammo was heavy as hell. Ava couldn’t even pretend to herself that she could have done it with 50 pounds. Calderon was right, in every particular. And the worst of it was, by his own lights he’d been perfectly trustworthy, both to the Army and to her. He decided what was best for both, and for Hudson.
She was last into formation. Calderon led them in a marching song. Yoda tried to wheedle the story out of her, but Calderon ordered them to sing, not talk. He marched with them, wearing tactical vest, helmet and gun, but no dead-weight pack. The sergeant was free to jog circles around their plodding pace if he wanted.
Before the Calm Act, the U.S. drove Basic recruits out somewhere and had them march back. No one wasted transportation fuel like that now. West Point offered plenty of lovely hilly wooded road to march on. The desiccating cold gale had blown almost without pause since the tsunami, and didn’t let up today. The barracks kept the wind off them in Central Area, but their march flowed out across the Plain, the wide lawn between the statue and the river. They were fresh, and Calderon set a stiff pace, while Ava struggled to compensate for the wind pushing her off-balance. She needed to keep that weight centered. Doing so was a lot harder than it looked.
There were a lot of things she could do in the Soho Ville militia, she imagined. As the first gang rat in the militia, she’d be in a formative role again, defining the job for those to come. In camouflage uniform just like the Army, none of the gang rats would screw with her. Attacking militia was a death penalty, same as looting or rape or price gouging. She could be a beat cop, be proactive. Drift through the teenage parties. Keep tabs on the factions. She could build her rep on not carrying tales. She could arbitrate disputes, earn their trust. She could become the ambassador to the gang rats that Guzman wanted in the first place, when she came in from the gangs.
Maybe Frosty…? No. Frosty repeatedly told her to succeed in the Army. Whatever secret scheme he might have, required Ava to pass Basic first.
Ow. She’d almost twisted her ankle, and had to favor it carefully for a few minutes. She needed to pay better attention to the pavement she marched on. No one had bothered fixing pot-holes and frost-heaves in years. The crushing weight on her back encouraged her to drag her feet, but that would trip her for sure. She shrugged her pack to center it yet again, and strode on.
She didn’t have to join the militia. With her vaunted military experience – hah! – she might make a pitch for salvage crew supervisor. The pay was the same. She could lead a group of younger kids. Not the revolving door of the regular crews, but a steady team. She’d make it the kind of team she favored in White Supreme, where everyone was appreciated for their own strengths, and stood up for each other. She could incorporate some study into the day, coach them all to pass the voter test. That would strengthen her proposal.
Ow. She’d applied the anti-chafing powder this morning. She wore her exercise outfit under her uniform as usual, sports bra and t-shirt and boy shorts. And unlike Basic for the U.S. Army Before, Hudson was cold. Marching like this through a Georgia or Texas summer must have been hell. She could still feel the sweat forming under her uniform, the rash rising. Sunscreen, applied every morning, helped keep the cold wind from chapping her face. Her feet were OK so far, or at least, no blisters forming yet. Damn that pack was heavy.
After 45 minutes, Calderon called a 15 minute break. That was part of what made this a ‘tactical march’ instead of a ‘forced march.’ Ava dumped off the ruck and kicked it. She circled it warily, chose another spot, and kicked it harder. Then she downed a quarter of her canteen, slowly. She lay back on the road, knees up, pressing the small of her back into the asphalt for relief.
And she breathed out. She breathed out into every part of her that hurt. Calderon announced that they were a bit less than a third of the way. She breathed into that news. Yoda tried to talk to her, then Puño, then Cookie. She kept her eyes closed and breathed into them, too. Would she even be able to keep those friendships? She had so much fun here at West Point, having friends again, people she could bank on. Don’t push them away! she begged herself.
She breathed that thought away, too. And after 15 minutes, she got up and donned her ruck ag
ain. It felt heavier than when she put it down. The next segment was 50 minutes, followed by a 10 minute break. She changed her socks at that break. Calderon taught them to keep a spare pair of socks handy at all times, stuck in a leg pocket, no doubt in preparation for today.
She didn’t think at all anymore, just endured. She focused on each step, breathed into each aching muscle, and did it again and again.
Eventually, it was over, and she handed in her gear leadenly.
“Good job, Panic,” Calderon told her, as he checked her off to go to lunch.
She nodded at him blankly, as at a stranger, and passed on.
“What’s with you?” Puño demanded, as she collapsed into her chair at home table.
Yoda didn’t demand anything, she noted. He leaned his face on one arm on the table, and tried to rub his spine with the other hand. Ava took over kneading the small of his back, and he sighed with relief onto both arms. Puño looked achy, stretching his neck and kneading around his weaker knee. But he wasn’t as trashed as the rest of them. Marquis was off ministering to one of his flock from LES ville at another table.
Ava explained, “Yoda and I got thirty-five pound packs instead of fifty.” Yoda stiffened under her hand. “We’re out. We finish the marches, then get honorable discharges.”
“No way!” Yoda jerked upright in his chair, winced, then pushed his back into the straight chair back for relief.
Puño narrowed his eyes. “What are we going to do about this?”
“Applaud you at graduation,” Ava said. It came out snarky. She hadn’t meant it that way. “And mean it. And hope you’ll keep in touch. Friends.”
“We can fight this,” Puño said.
“Damn straight!” Cookie said.
“Don’t make it harder for them,” Doc intervened. “Panic, Yoda, absolutely. We’ll stay friends. Count on it.” He nodded respect to them.