“On your head?” I said as kindly as I could.
He nodded, “On my head! Crazy, isn’t it? Memory. Anyway, we’ll go ahead and say it’s loaded and have someone deplete it before it goes into lock-up. Don’t worry, when you get it back we’ll be sure to reimburse you for the ammunition.” he said as pulled out a pen and clipboard.
Apparently noticing my confusion as I signed away my identity, the clerk clarified why they still used the archaic system, “It’s in case we get a black out or anything like that, we take your effects, pop ‘em in a crate and stick the paper to it. Much less likely that anyone’s gonna be able to claim your belongings then, unless you die of course, then they’ll be sent to your next of kin. I don’t reckon that’s going to happen to any of you though, best recruits I’ve seen in a long time.”
I simply smiled politely and nodded, before pulling my bag back over my shoulder and leaving the building and the reassuring liar to stand guard over our ‘knick-knacks’.
I turned left once I’d gotten out the door and saw Garrett and Feldon talking about something unimportant, “Sirs, when would we be able to go to the barracks?”
Feldon looked down at his watch that had been hidden under his sleeve, “We’ve got a few more hours where I’ll be going through most of the base again, explaining the rules while we’re on base and when and where you’ll be able to take leave, but if you feel confident that you know what you’re doing, you’re more than welcome to go get settled in.”
“Thank you, sir.” I said with a smile as I turned to walk away.
“Oh, before I forget, you’re bunked with Rothbear, so if someone comes knocking don’t panic.” Feldon said before returning to his conversation with Garrett.
That day just seemed to keep kicking me, but I wouldn’t let it win.
I decided that the best way to go would be for a little walk, just to clear my head and really come to terms with the fact that I was definitely not dreaming and that I’d actually made it.
The unmarked roads that made up the paths between all the various warehouses and facilities were for the most part completely barren. I checked a clock as I walked past a window and noted that it was about four in the afternoon, which probably meant all the recruits and privates were either in training or preparing for whatever they had to do tomorrow.
Occasionally an MP, indicated by the highly visible letters on their helmets or caps, would walk past and usually ignore me, but there were a few who would ask for my name, check it against a pocket PDA, then send me on my way.
In my travels I found a field where squads of recruits were marching and running drills without anyone shouting directions. They were certainly dedicated, and why wouldn’t they be? The only ones who got that far were the ones who wanted to be there. Some were there for the glory of battle, some were there because they truly believed in the war, and others were just there because they had nowhere else to go, which made them the least likely to screw it up.
One of the troops, a boy who looked about thirteen, caught my eyes with his, sending me a quick wave and a smile, which I reciprocated, before returning to his run.
I took that as a sign that I should move on. The idea of people starting to notice me made me a bit uncomfortable.
I’m not a particularly shy person, and I’ve rarely ever avoided conversation out of awkwardness, but to me getting noticed meant that I was a nuisance. I almost felt guilty for distracting the boy who waved.
Other than the voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once announcing that curfew would begin in an hour scaring me so bad that I started laughing, the rest of what was quickly becoming my night-time walk was uneventful. I liked it though, I felt like I was getting to know the academy much better than when Feldon was pointing everything out.
I found my way back to my barracks, a single storey building that looked like a cylinder had been half buried in the concrete, and pushed the button beside the door that made it shoot upward.
In front of me was a thirty foot long hallway lined with three doors on each side, and another at the end that I guessed led to the toilets. I walked down to the second door on the right where ‘ROTHBEAR, J’ and ‘XIAO, K’ were engraved on two thin metal plates near the top.
With a tired sigh I opened the handled door and immediately came face-to-face with a very topless and black briefs wearing Juno. “Oh! Wow… okay. Sorry.” I said in less than a second, automatically looking away.
“Just get in here and shut the door.” Juno snapped.
I nodded and followed her instructions, closing my eyes as I stepped in, “Yes, sorry. I’m sorry. I should go. I’m sorry.”
“Quit your stammering, and would you open your eyes? You’re making this weird.”
I really didn’t want to, but I did, and once again she was topless. I want to say I’d seen naked people before, and I had, but they were all drunks who’d decided clothes were the enemy, and they were much less… athletic.
“Okay, now it’s weird.” Juno said as she grabbed a baggy black shirt from her bunk and pulled it on, “Better?”
I nodded then stopped, “No, I mean yes, I mean-”
“Just shut up, okay? Gods, you’re like a twelve year old boy.” she said while falling backward onto her bunk.
I wanted to be offended, but I decided to brush it off and instead get to know what was to be my room for the next however long until they shipped us out.
It was sizable, about ten by ten feet with a single bed on either side of the room and a footlocker at end of each of them. As for the ‘bonuses’ there was a simple white blanket and pillow, and adjustable lamps built into the wall above the beds. It certainly wasn’t much, but it was more than I was expecting.
I dropped my bag on the ground and started to take off my boots, I had a feeling that the next day would have me getting used to communal showers.
“Do you want me to leave the room?” Juno asked sarcastically after I took off my shirt and started working on my bra.
“Yes, I would actually. Find someone else to bunk with while you’re at it.”
I’m not sure if she meant for me to see it or not, but the second I started pulling on one of my dad’s old shirts she made a mocking face and stopped once it was over my head.
“So, Kurla, right?” Juno asked after I’d pulled off my pants without quite abandoning her sarcasm.
“My friends call me Kurla, you can call me Sheriff Xiao.” Me climbing under the blankets to swap out my underwear somewhat undermined my tone, but I wasn’t at the level of comfort to be that naked in front of someone just yet.
“Okay, recruit Xiao,” she said spitefully, “why’d you join the army? You clearly could’ve kept going as the local law, why change?”
I found it odd that she’d made the sudden change to attempting to be somewhat sociable, but figured it’d make things worse if I kept going with the cattiness. So I came out from under the blankets and sat cross-legged on the mattress, reflecting Juno, “My sister got killed in action, and my brother’s still fighting. It seemed the thing to do. What about you?”
Her face went from shock to uncomfortable to quick exhale and a smile, “Wow, really puts me to shame, huh? I’m here because that’s what everyone on Yolaria does, go to war, show everyone how it’s done, go home. I’m in it for the long-haul though, the only way I’m going home is if we win or I die.”
And just like that my respect meter for her went up by about fifty percent.
“You got any family?” I asked to try and distract from the fact that, according to Juno’s body, it was cold, very cold. It wasn’t that I was attracted to her, it was just that I wasn’t not attracted to her either.
At some point in that twenty-four hour period the universe had decided to throw naked people into the mixing pot of emotions. Maybe it was its way of telling me that I was an adult and that I should start considering the possibility that I was going to start finding people attractive. Or, the more likely thing in my ey
es, it just wanted to watch me squirm.
“No, just me, parents wanted more, but... sometimes life just happens, and other times it doesn’t.” she said with a weak smile.
The night continued on like that for hours, unremarkable and useless questions that lead nowhere. It was something that I’d never really done, most of my socialising was done at the station and all that we really talked about was funny cases. Sure, I didn’t like Juno much, mostly it was her personality and who she was as a person, you know, useless stuff, but I was slowly finding that when you got with her one on one she was a really good person to talk to about nothing with.
And, as much as it pained me, for a few minutes here and there, between laughs and stories, I found myself forgetting about home.
Day One
“Rise and shine recruits!” an unfamiliar male voice shouted from our doorway.
Neither of us wasted a second, we were out of the bed, on the floor, standing bolt upright and awaiting orders almost instantly.
I don’t know how Juno felt after going to bed shortly before the sun came up, but I was exhausted and abundantly aware that I’d got less than an hours sleep. I didn’t let it show though, standing there with my back so straight you could put a ruler to it.
“Nicely done! Now get dressed, feed’s ready in thirty, and make sure you get yourselves washed up. Smells like the raw end of a cat in here. At ease!” the soldier said before disappearing into thin air.
At first my tired mind was bewildered at how such sorcery could occur, and then I realised, “Hologram?”
Juno yawned and stretched, “Hologram.”
Then another thought occurred to me, “But he said we smelled like… It’s just programmed to make us feel bad, isn’t it?”
Juno nodded, “Yep, just like my dad.”
I laughed at her joke and grabbed a pair of track pants, socks, underwear, bra, boots, and a white t-shirt. “Do you think we’ll be alright to get to the showers like this?” I asked, gesturing to my shirt which was more like a short dress.
Juno shrugged as best as she could with her arms full of clothes, “I don’t know, or care, I’d go everywhere like this if it didn’t get so cold.”
I shivered pre-emptively, the thought of opening the barracks door to the chilling Seros winds was not something I looked forward to.
Juno opened the door and I saw that the rest of the girls in our barracks were all getting out at the same time, and, with the exception of one girl in a set of long sleeved silk pyjamas, they were all wearing a similar ‘uniform’ as us.
“Outta the way,” Juno said as she pushed her way to the front of the shivering group with me right behind, “if you can’t handle the cold, then maybe this isn’t the place for you.”
As much as I was fighting off the cold that had already pierced the barracks I still noticed my right leg jittering slightly. It made me feel inferior to Juno, for maybe a split second until I realised that she had the cultural advantage, she’d always known the cold, the majority of us? The lowest we probably saw was five degrees Celsius, and in the ‘warmth’ of the indoors it must’ve already been twelve.
Juno got us to the door and paused before pressing to scoff at me, “You want a blanket?”
“Just get on with it.” I chittered.
She smiled and pressed the button, a flood of crisp morning air pouring into the hallway made almost all of us scream in a mix between excitement and freezing.
I’ll never forget that morning for as long as the Gods allow, it was like we were going into battle, barging out the door and fighting against the elements. Sure we were screaming like nine year olds, but we were going to best the cold if it killed us.
It was just a two minute run to the shower block, which was more or less literally a grey block with a door, and we were sprinting as fast as we could with arms full of clothes.
When the shower block came into view we discovered we were just behind the boys, all of which had a change of clothes that were more or less the same as ours, who were jogging leisurely toward the double doors.
Xario, topless with a pair of tight fitting black briefs uncannily similar to Juno’s, turned around and smiled, probably because one of the girls started giggling about the boxer and briefs wearing recruits ahead of us.
“Morning ladies.” he said, breaking off from the rest of the group with Jurol, who was wearing a baggy, red and black flannelette shirt and a pair of boxers, and started jogging on the spot until Juno and I caught up.
“H-h-how’d you sleep?” Jurol asked as we matched his and Xario’s speed. The poor guy was freezing, unlike Xario who, thanks to his muscular build, didn’t look like he was so much as chilly.
“Good thanks,” Juno said with a smile, “yourself?”
“N-n-not bad. Xario and I got bunked together, so we spent most of the night talking. Did you know that Xario’s technically roya-”
“Uh-buh-buh-buh. We can tell them later.” Xario said, either deliberately to torture Juno and I, or because we’d reached the doors.
I pushed the button to open it seeing as none of the others in our little group seemed to want to admit they were cold, and stepped inside to the sounds of just under two dozen very happy recruits and the soul warming steam penetrating my entire body.
Separating the door from the showers was a tiled wall that was about eight foot wide and stopped six feet from either wall. I thought this was going to continue down the middle, but when I went around the left side I found that the showers were gender neutral. Six walls lined the room with five showerheads coming from either side, and dozens of box lockers were built into the door’s partition wall on the shower side.
I found an empty locker and started packing my things into it, Xario, Juno, and Jurol all finding ones close to mine.
Xario, in an act of total comfortability, pulled off his briefs and stuffed them into his locker after unceremoniously dumping the change of clothes in there like a dump truck. “What do you think they’ll do for breakfast?” he asked the group.
Juno shrugged and similarly started undressing like it wasn’t a thing, “I don’t know, we might get lucky and get some stuff from one of the local farmers. Pretty sure they have a cattle ranch around here somewhere.”
Jurol nodded and started unbuttoning his shirt, “Yep, some of the best meat and milk in the quadrant comes from Seros. Most people think it’s this big family secret the way they get it so good, but it’s just because they treat the cows well here. That and the oxygen levels in some of the higher plains keep them calm and happy.”
In a bid to make sure I wasn’t the last one naked, I pulled off all my clothes at an unnatural speed, almost slipping over in the process. “Yeah, we get some back home, and it’s really good.” I said, trying to pretend I hadn’t just been a complete weirdo and wasn’t standing with my hands on my hips like a triumphant merry man.
More and more naked people were surrounding me every day, further proving that the universe was just trying to make me squirm, but I would not be defeated by the mere sight of the dangle-widdle and the nippled fat-sacks, no, no, I was an adult and I was not uncomfortable at all. And I could definitely say the real words, it’s not like I didn’t want to because it made them become more real, it’s not as if I was on the verge of either shutting down completely or laughing at everyone’s genitals. That would make me strange, and I was completely normal.
“There you go!” Juno said loudly, gesturing at my body, “The sheriff strips!”
“Ha-ha, you’re a comical genius.” I said, successfully tricking everyone into thinking I didn’t care.
Instead of saying something else, Juno just smiled and walked over to the showers and the rest of us followed, all finding one next to each other.
I stepped under the showerhead and turned the dial until the digital display showed ‘25°’ and pushed it in. Immediately the water splashed down over me, a soapy liquid that smelled of talcum powder mixed in with the stream acting as a sort of ‘w
ash-all’.
“Water, soap, and fluoride! All the things a growin’ young maggot needs!” the hologram shouted as it appeared in the middle of the block. “After your morning slop you’ll be issued a toothbrush and toothpaste, and be given the opportunity to brush those rancid chompers of yours! Anyone caught fashioning a weapon will be given a medal of commendation and a swift arse kickin’ from every soldier on base! Am I understood!?”
No one responded, figuring it was just a hologram and wouldn’t care.
Stupid decision.
Suddenly every shower in the block went from delightfully warm to stingingly freezing, a few shrieks echoing out as a result.
“Am I understood!?” the ‘hologram’ repeated.
“Yes sir!” came the echoed cry back.
“Mmhm, that’s what I like to hear! And Jenkins! You best pinch that stream o’ yours or Imma have someone do it for you!” he shouted before disappearing and turning the heat back on.
Xario chuckled from beside me as he scrubbed his hair, “Heh, I thought he was just a glorified alarm.”
The rest of us agreed with nods, Jurol speaking up when no one else did, “I think he’s the academy’s AI. I’d love to get a good look at his programming some time.”
“That reminds me,” Juno said the second Jurol finished up, “why are you here? I guessed that Xario here for the same reason as I am, it’s what people in our cultures do, but what about you? You’re clearly not a cop, and you don’t seem the type to volunteer just to volunteer.”
Jurol frowned, “I’m just as much a soldier as anyone else here, I’m going to do my duty.”
“I’m not denying that, it just seems weird to me.” Juno said in her ‘nice’ voice.
Jurol went to speak again, but then a bell rang and the AI came back, “Showers are shutting down in ten seconds, leave your dirties in the lockers, you’ll be able to grab ‘em later. Get ready for the spit ‘n’ polish!”
Before I could ask what in the Hells was a spit ‘n’ polish I got my answer, an intense spray of water followed by the showerheads shutting off, then getting blasted from the wall and the floor with warm air, drying us all in a few seconds.
Spectres (Æthyrium Rising - Spectres Book 1) Page 5