Welcome to the Marines (Corporate Marines Book 2)

by Tom Germann

  The first security checkpoint is the worst. They code us all through at one time and no one carries on until the last person is done. It takes us ten minutes to fully code in each person. We are there for a while and I can’t help but get bored and wonder what is beyond. We are finally all coded in and then we have to use our codes to pass through individually.

  Finally, the last of us code in after a few glitches. Everyone gets it right on the second try, and the one retinal scan that was failed was a glitch. The door slides open and we carry on past a security checkpoint that holds two armed guards. I also se wall- and floor-mounted metal disks. I’m guessing that they cover weapon systems of some sort.

  I don’t want to know. I just don’t want an up-close-and-personal demonstration.

  Every checkpoint is similar, but we move through them quickly.

  As we move along, our guides don’t say very much and we are only told when something is relevant to us. Most of this part of the complex is not relevant to us.

  Unlike the main complex, this part only has the one main hallway. There are doors leading off of the hall but they are all closed and there is no traffic.

  After what feels like an hour-long walk but was likely a lot less, we come to a large elevator. One of the goons pushes the call button and then the doors slide open. This elevator is as big as the one we came in on originally, but it is not as nice. It feels like a freight elevator.

  There are only four buttons, and they are labelled one to four. The same goon that ordered the elevator pushes the three and the doors slide shut and then we are zooming down. I don’t know how far we move but it’s a good distance.

  The doors open to a much larger hallway that is not meant for the general public. It is pure industrial, with a smooth floor, but everything else looks rough and made to last.

  Our escorts take off at a run and we all take off after them. Armour is flanked on either side by her two goons so they are running down the hall in a V formation. We form up right behind them and it is effortless to run with them in two ranks. We move maybe three hundred meters into a larger round room that has a hallway continuing on the far side. There are two large steel doors on either side of the room. She turns and points to the group behind one of the goons and jerks her thumb at the door sliding open. Then she looks at the other and nods. Both goons move fast toward the different opening doors and we tag along behind them into the large room. I have Kellye in my group just ahead of me. We enter the room and then the lead stops and looks at us. There are seven of us in this group.

  We move into a half-circle around him. He looks us over. Behind him is a huge lab with a lot of big machinery. It’s all sterile and there are a lot of people in lab coats spread out, standing by sets of machinery.

  Our goon opens his mouth. “Spread out and move to a work station. The technicians there will take you in hand and begin your preparation. Ask no questions and only speak if they ask you something. Do everything they tell you to do as they tell you to do it. If they ask you for questions, then you can ask. Sizing and fitting armour is complex. If you cause problems, it will take you longer to be fitted and this means less time to acclimatize to your armour. Move now.”

  His voice is gravelly and I think we are all in shock. We had never heard the two male instructors talk before. I didn’t even think that they could talk.

  I shake off that shock and move to one of the farther stations. I nod at the technicians and move to directly in front of the main machine as they direct me.

  I don’t know what they do, but the whole thing lights up and dozens of sensor pods pop out and start scanning me. The basic body mod upgrade that I have is always muted in the complex, but I can feel myself being scanned.

  More importantly, I notice that Kellye is in the middle of the group next to me.

  I almost grin, but keep it smothered. That feeling quickly leaves, though.

  I have to do contortionist movements for twenty minutes, followed by calisthenics and a series of strange stretching exercises.

  Then this ends and I am told to just stand while the four technicians fumble around the screens around the back. I look around and everyone else is in the same position. I don’t think any of us have been asked anything or have done any talking.

  We are just more machinery to be manipulated by the technicians.

  Then the machine shuts down and the technicians leave and go over to a workstation and all of us are completely ignored.

  I hear the main door open and our goon is back. He motions to us. “This way, move now.”

  We move at a jog out into the hall and, without waiting, we move off further into the complex. We travel maybe another hundred meters down the hall and then stop at another large door. It slides open and we walk in.

  It is some sort of medical wing and it looks nastier than what we had been through earlier. Our scary female instructor is there and she motions us over. We are the first group in, so we are going to be waiting. When we move over, both she and the goon ignore us and just seem to zone out. I try it. I can’t do whatever they are doing, but thankfully the door opens again after a minute and the other group comes in.

  We do this for days and I slowly start going insane doing the same things over and over again. It is made worse by the occasional weird question that they ask.

  None of it makes any sense.

  Being constantly watched by our trainer doesn’t make it any easier. She is a machine and is constantly evaluating us, day in and day out. Before, I had thought of her as Armour because she was the individual who always led the group of scary instructors that were going to do our armour training. Now I start thinking of her like the armour itself. Expressionless, ready to move at a minute’s notice, and just needing the direction to strike.

  I had started calling her ‘Armour’ in my head a long time ago and never even realized it. I’ve even slipped up in conversation with the rest of the candidates, during the few times that we actually have a conversation anymore.

  I can always feel the blood and hear the screaming. It never blocks out that one piercing shriek that I had never been there to hear. My mind keeps filling it in, though, and that is worse.

  I am getting worse.

  I’ve noticed that there are times when Armour has been almost human to us. By that I mean that she has shown some emotion, like anger, as she yells at us over something we did done wrong. It’s strange how she is always watching us. I wonder if she ever sleeps, or is she just plugged in to a recharge station for an hour a night?

  I wonder regularly if she is insane.

  Maybe we all are insane now. I don’t know.

  We have done this for five days now. At the end of every day, we file out and head back to carry on with our evening. This night is different. As I go to pass Armour, she puts an arm up to stop me.

  “You. After dinner in the gym. Physical fitness training; be ready for it.”

  She moves her arm and I keep on walking. Off to eat a light dinner now, as it probably won’t stay down for long. As soon as I finish eating, I am out the door and down to the gym.

  Armour is already there in her bodysuit. She is stretching it out and talking to a guy in a business suit. I recognize him from the night that I was drugged before the procedures. That was a lifetime ago. I don’t think about why he’s here. I just focus on Armour.

  I don’t know what to expect. Maybe some hand-to-hand combat, even though we shouldn’t be doing that. Maybe she knows what I did and is going to beat the hell out of me to get me to quit. I just don’t know.

  She motions me over and steps toward the large mats that we use for padding. I think others are coming in behind me but I can’t look. If I take my eyes off of her for a second she’ll be on me and I’ll be out. She can move like greased lightning and I am terrified of her strength and aggression. One good hit and she can kill me.

 
She stops at the end of the mat and looks at me.

  “You did it, didn’t you?”

  I stare at her blankly. “I did what?” She doesn’t even correct my mistake in not addressing her correctly.

  “You killed those kids. All four of them. Two boys and two girls. They made for cute couples. Did you enjoy cutting them up?”

  I can feel the anger rising up and I can hear the screaming. I have to get through this.

  “Come on, candidate. Everyone here is an adult.” She spreads her arms out wide, indicating everyone around her. “Did you like killing those kids and cutting them into pieces?”

  She looks me up and down. “You know what? I know you enjoyed it. I don’t think I like that in a person, though. So I am going to get on this mat and kick your ass.”

  She starts moving toward me and I started backing away. I can hear the crackling of the flames now and hear the begging. Faintly I can hear screams.

  “Step off the mat and you are off this course and I’ll have you off-planet doing hellhole jobs faster than you can blink.”

  I hear noise from behind me. But it doesn’t matter.

  I stop. I’m at the edge. She means it. I can see it in her eyes, her face and the hate-filled way that she walks toward me. I move sideways, working to keep space between us.

  “You know, I read all the news reports. Did your daddy ‘like’ you? Did he abuse you? Did he hurt your sister? Did you watch and do nothing, or did you help him?” She is spitting the words out at me. They burn like acid. I fail.

  Flames are everywhere, and blood. I can hear my father telling me to be good and work hard, to look after my sister. We need to have a better life. My sister is screaming for me and my daddy is covered in blood on the floor where he sat down after working two shifts so that we could have a bit more and I could go to a better school and then a trade school or maybe college…

  I scream and lunge forward for the bitch. I come in fast, striking for her neck, but she’s not there.

  As she sweeps my legs out from under me, I flatten my body and as I hit, I roll. Not away from her but toward her. I kick out and take out her leg. It’s the worst attack position and I would fail in class for that, but it works. Her leg buckles and she is going down. But I’m too close for a good strike.

  There are voices yelling. Ignore them. Go for the throat or an arm. Kill or incapacitate.

  Suddenly she’s up and she’s picking me up and lifting me over her head. She screams with rage and then hurls me down to the mat. I bounce and then she’s on my back, holding me still and I can hear her voice coldly saying, “Did you enjoy killing them?”

  I snap.

  “Yes! They killed my father and sister!” The scream is torn from me and I feel empty of everything as I collapse sobbing. I don’t care if she kills me or sends me anywhere. I would scream and just flail at her, but she has me pinned and I can’t move.

  The tears are coming out of my eyes in a downpour as I scream out all the hatred that has been sitting in me for months now. “They killed my family and I wasn’t there ‘cause I was out with some friends having fun! They burned everything to cover it up. No one cares about the projects! Then at school they all laughed at me and showed me pictures!”

  The hands let me go but I didn’t feel that. I just saw the picture of my little sister and father covered in blood and the flames licking at our cheap furniture.

  “I killed them and I would do it again! They screamed when they realized I was serious. They threatened me! That stupid bitch, grinning next to my sis like she was a doll covered in red, she said she was going to sue me!”

  I stop; it doesn’t matter anymore.

  I can still feel the hands on me, but they aren’t gripping me. They just are there.

  She leans in and quietly says, “I know what they did to your family. I saw the file after you got here. Their parents did everything they could to delete evidence of what they had done. The Corporation went looking for the truth. There were six of them.”

  The hands leave me and I can see her standing off to the side, out of reach. She is watching me with a calm look on her face. Behind her the rest of the candidates are standing on the wall and they look horrified. Mouth is staring at me and her hand is over her mouth.

  I must disgust them.

  I see a pair of shoes coming toward me and realize it’s the guy in the suit. He comes around the side and offers me a hand, which I take. He helps me up to my feet with a grunt and smiles at me.

  He turns to Armour. “Seven, do you want me to brief him?” She nods and starts walking toward the candidates, gathering them up and leaving with the others.

  I’m going to collapse in a second. The suit waves me over to benches on the side of the gym and I sit down with a thud.

  He slowly walks back and forth in front of me, watching me. Then he starts.

  “This is going to be a lot of information for you but I think you’ll be able to process it. I run recruiting for the CM project, along with a number of other people. Your name came up and was flagged as high on the chart of possible successes. At a meeting with the senior people in the company, your name came up again. I watched some bad news footage. I mean, really poorly done. It was pretty clear it had been edited, and not well. The Corporation looked into the background on this and found out the truth. A lot of people are losing their jobs over this because they were doing favours for the boss. Including several police officers and a certain reporter.”

  I hear the words, but I don’t understand what he is saying or means. Everything is a blur.

  “You did kill those ‘people,’ and you did it as they described. There is no changing that. However, the circumstances are such that it makes sense, in a way.”

  The man looks at me with a sympathetic smile. “I can’t offer you absolution or take away your guilt. But we can make sure that both sides of the story are known and the parents will not get away with their abuses. You have made it through the training. You need to pull yourself together.”

  I nod at him while rubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand.

  He stands up to go. “You need to get back to your room when you’re ready.” Then he turns and leaves.

  I sit there for a minute and then stand up and exit the gym.

  I head back to my room, roll onto my bed still in my body suit, then think better of it. I roll off again, strip down, and go to bed. I’m out immediately.

  THE EVALUATION ROOM

  “Seven, that was dangerous what you did there. You pushed him right to the breaking point and past.” The suited man is upset.

  Seven doesn’t have a chance to say anything before the man from the gym sitting next to her speaks up. “Exactly. That was the perfect thing to do here and now. All the evaluations showed Slate as being a top candidate. He is also on the edge of a complete break. If he has that break in armour later, then we lose a Marine? Or do we lose a section and maybe a starship? It was the right thing to do.”

  The other man frowns and leans forward over the file that sits open on the table. Before he can say anything, Seven stops him.

  “Let me be clear. There is no careful use of drugs or hypnotherapy at this point to rebuild what may be a shattered ego or damaged psyche. You hammer it. If it grows back normally, then the member is stronger for it. If not, then we know now and can keep the member back here as a backup Marine. Anything else is a failure on everyone’s part. I will not send broken people out to deep space.”

  She takes a deep breath.

  “He has vented it all out. He will be fine tomorrow or maybe the day after. He is in the program. Now let’s get him finished his training. He is going to have to get adjusted to the issues of being in a section in deep space soon enough.”

  Seven stands up and her partner joins her. The seated man looks at both of them with some annoyance, then he snorts a laugh
out. “So you two are going to go for dinner now and make goo-goo eyes at each other?”

  Seven lifts an eyebrow. “No. I am going to take this young man to dinner to make sure that he is fed, and then I am going to screw him till he can’t move and I’m satisfied. Any other questions?”

  He just throws up his hands in surrender as the two leave the office with the other suited man chuckling.

  Outside in the hall, Timothy calls out, “Billy, are you still listening in on us?”

  The facility’s AI pops up on a screen that they are walking by. “Well, yes, Timothy, I’m always listening. You know that.”

  “Did we give the nice man in the office a heart attack after Seven’s show?”

  “No, not at all. He’s just grumbling like he usually does. I must say that you two are so much more refreshing than most of the others here. Well, except for those instructors that we have. They have been after me to run black hole computations. I just told them, flat out, no. Imagine that? They want to form a black hole, here? Really.”

  Seven speaks up. “Billy, what do you think about candidate Slate?”

  “Mr. Slate is a perfect candidate and has been vetted by… higher. He is already a Marine. The way you dealt with his issues was excellent, Seven, and he is as close to normal as he could be now.” The AI pauses. “You are aware that he may suffer a relapse if under the correct stresses?”

  Seven nods.

  “Oh, Timothy, Seven?”

  “Yes, Billy?”

  “I’ve rearranged your schedules for tomorrow so you have the morning free. Just in case you’re too tired from your… sporting activities.”

  “Thank you, Billy.”

  “You are sooooo welcome, Timothy.”

  The two leave the smaller wing of the facility and head for their room.