The Genie Out of the Vat

by Eric Flint

  "Hey, Oink. SmallMac says you gave two instructors a hiding at once," he said. There was a testing quality to his voice. He was used to thinking that he was the toughest man in the squad.

  Fitz shrugged. Best to try and deal with it peacefully. They had barely two more days of Boot before they were posted out. He just had to get through to Tuesday. "I know a trick or two, Marc. We can go over to the gymnasium and I'll show you. Friendly, of course."

  Marc Ewen shook his head, and smiled. He was considerably larger than most of the Vats, and had been a meat-packer before his call-up. He was as strong as one of the bulls whose carcasses he used to heft around.

  "This I'd like to see, Oink. But we'll keep it friendly."

  A few minutes later the squad and a few others were in the gymnasium, and on the mat Fitz showed Marc Ewen—more or less gently—how to use a meatpacker's strength against him.

  Ewen stood up. Nodded. "Okay. I guess SmallMac told it straight. Run me through that again, so—"

  His sudden silence was caused by the entry of a crowd, mostly from B company. They seemed to have padlocks with them. Attached to their belts. And the belts were in their hands, not through their belt-loops. "Well, well. There he is. Golden boy Shareholder," said the leader of the mob, B-Company's official bruiser, a gorilla called Bennett. "We'll take over, Ewen. We'll do a proper job."

  Marc Ewen faced them, hands on hips. He shook his head. "Butt out, Bennett. This is our affair. Got nothing to do with you B-Company goons."

  The man snorted. "He's a fucking Shareholder. We heard it from the guys who were on duty last night. And Sarge Lenoir confirmed it. He was there when that little shit admitted it himself. Move out of the way, Ewen. He's going to have an accident."

  Fitz tensed. There wasn't any way out of the gymnasium, except past the mob. But he was damn well going to take a few of them with him.

  To his surprise the broad Marc Ewen stood his ground "Take yourself and your crew back to your tents, Bennett. He's one of us. If anyone takes it out of him it'll be us. And it's not going to happen."

  "You're full of shit, Ewen. He's a fucking Shareholder. He admitted it!"

  SmallMac nodded. "So what if he is? He's sweated and bled with us. He's done full kit drill with us, and ended up in the guardhouse just for helping Margolis—who was from B-Company, I might remind you beggars. You boys take him on and you'll have to take us on too."

  There was a tense silence. There were a good forty of them to twenty of Fitz's company. And the others had padlock-weighted belts.

  Fitz cleared his throat and pushed his way forward. "Look. I was a Shareholder. Once. But now I'm a private the same as the rest of us, in the same army as the rest of us. I'm part of A company, tent 17. And I'm damned if I'm going let my squad-mates bleed for me. I'll fight you one at a time or all together, first. Any one of you got that kind of guts?"

  The pack had come hunting, expecting the prey to run. This was something entirely different. But Bennett wasn't going to back off. "Sure. This is going to be a pleasure. An education for you, namby-pamby Shareholder."

  "Don't do it, Oink. He's a killer," warned Ewen.

  Fitz just took off his shirt, assessing his opponent as he did. Bennett took off his shirt too, in a deliberate camp mockery of Fitz. The man had more body hair than your average Gorilla, and muscles that would have done that creature proud too. He would probably weigh in at two hundred and forty pounds against Fitz's one-eighty.

  "Watch out for his head," said one of Fitz's squadmates, taking his shirt. "He likes to close and head-butt. And watch out for your eyes with those thumbs."

  Fitz nodded and stepped forward. He'd been in camp with these men for nearly six weeks now. He was no longer naive enough to believe his martial arts skills would simply overwhelm Bennett. The dojo was quite unlike real fighting.

  But he was unprepared for the suddenness and unpredictability of the assault. He had no intention of getting into a clinch with the man. And then he was. Bennett had managed to grab him and was pulling him in by the shoulders, his forehead coming down to smash Fitz's nose to pulp. Desperately Fitz ducked sideways. Bennett's head cracked against his eyebrow-ridge instead.

  Bennett threw Fitz over his hip.

  It was a foolish move. Had the big man kept Fitz in the clinch, things could have ended nastily and very quickly. As it was, Fitz rolled clear and was back on his feet as Bennett landed, hard, on his knees where he'd expected Fitz to be.

  "Get him while he's down, Fitzy!"

  "Kill him, Oink!"

  Fitz stepped back instead. Blood was trickling from the cut above his eye. "Get up, Bennett," he said, keeping his voice cool. The man could plainly fight and fight dirty. He was fast and had the weight advantage. Taunts would mean nothing to him. Disdain however... might make Bennett mad. And hopefully that wouldn't help his fighting or his judgement.

  Bennett lunged forward. Fitz danced aside, and gave him a sweeping kick that assisted Bennett's forward progress. The man sprawled again. "Up, Bennett. I'm not finished with you."

  "I'm gonna rip your damned Shareholder head off." This time he stood up slowly, expecting Fitz to wait.

  Fitz did not oblige. He found himself, to his alarm, enjoying the fight. He'd had weeks of abuse and this was the first time he'd been able to plan to strike back at anything. There was none of the aseptic sterile and controlled atmosphere of the dojo fights here. This man would kill him if he could. And the crowd too, were hungry for blood. Still, the sensei's advice was as clear as a neon sign. Never do quite what the opponent expects. And make him pay for each breath, while you keep your own breathing steady. Bennett's stomach muscles were like iron.

  But no-one's kidney's are that well protected.

  "Up, Bennett."

  This time his opponent was more wary. He expected attack. He was watching for dodges and kicks. He lunged, arms wide to catch the expected leap. Fitz stood right where he was and hit him. Punching for a point on the other side of Bennett's face.

  The man had a jaw like an ox. But he wouldn't be smiling for a while. Not without pain.

  Fitz kept hitting him. Keeping out of the reach of the shorter, heaver man.

  "Break it up," hissed someone from the doorway. "The captain and Lieutenant Belsen are coming across. Break it up now or we're all for it. Grab both of them."

  Fitz backed off, and Bennett fell to his knees again. "Get him up against the wall-bars." Fitz pointed. "Bennett. I'll fight you any time you like. But not now. Later."

  The big man looked at him through dulled eyes, as three of his friends hauled him upright and over to the wall-bars. "Later."

  "Hold onto the bars. And don't look at them. Your face is a bloody mess."

  "Ten-shun!" yelled someone from the door.

  Fitz stood rigidly facing the wall-bars, blood trickling down his face.

  "As you were. Carry on." The captain walked slowly around the room. Fitz did some slow pull-ups on the bars. He saw, from the corner of his eye that Bennett was doing push-ups. Well, that was one thing all of them could probably do by now, even if punch-drunk. And it kept his face down.

  It was a long exercise session, until someone at the door said "all clear."

  Bennett stood up. His mouth was bloody. It would be badly swollen by nightfall. His rebroken nose did not make him look any less like a gorilla. "What's a Shareholder doing here anyway?" he asked, awkwardly feeling his nose.

  Fitz watched him, warily. The man didn't look as if he was about to attack again, but he'd been fooled once. "I volunteered."

  The Vats in the gymnasium gawped at him.

  "Why?" said one finally.

  Fitz shrugged. This might save him continuing this fight or having too many others. "I am supposed to have killed a man. He was in a coma last I heard."

  "Who?"

  "Talbot Cartup."

  ***

  Fitz hadn't been prepared to find himself a hero. He hadn't realized just how notorious Cartup's "Specials" were among the V
ats. In fact, as a Shareholder, he'd barely known the Special Branch existed.

  ***

  "Atten-shun!"

  The camp commandant surveyed them. Walked along the line. Paused in front of the rigid Fitz. "Where did you get that black eye from, Fitzhugh?"

  "Slipped in the shower, Sir."

  The commandant looked at Bennett. "And I suppose you slipped in the shower too?"

  The hulking man nodded. "Eth Thah," he slurred.

  The commandant shook his head. "You damned Vats have no self-control. Well, you can try fighting the Magh' for a change, instead of each other. You're being posted out. You'll get a twenty-four hour pass to wrap up your last affairs in the civilian world. Posting lists are up on the central notice board. Dismissed. Fall out."

  NCO training course. Camp Dendro

  Fenton, Brett

  24031232334000

  Fither, Miguel

  24003107455000

  Fitzhugh, Conrad

  24950101803371

  It had been inserted by hand. And it was initialed by Major Ogata and the camp commandant.

  Fitz gaped. That was the list he hadn't bothered to look at. This man's Army had not posted a single list in alphabetical order, with the posting listed afterward. That would have been far too simple and logical. No, instead there had been a number of lists, depending on the unit. Your name could be on any one of them, so you had to search each one.

  This had been the one he'd least expected. It had certainly not been one he'd put his name down for.

  SmallMac's name wasn't in the Equestrian unit either. It was on the same list as Fitz's.

  Inserted and initialed in the same way. So were the other two who'd been there that night.

  ***

  That first pass had an almost surreal feel to it. Walking out of the camp gates... The air was just too crisp, the sunlight too beautiful, the grass too green. And nobody was yelling at them. Strolling down the road in a casual, deliberately out-of-step snaggle of other dazed but happy looking squaddies from tent 17, Fitz wasn't even fazed that he'd have to walk a couple of miles to get to a bus-stop, instead of having the Aston-Martin. It was just great to be out. There was also an "eye-to-the-storm" feel about it. The life expectancy of front-line troops was short, and everyone knew it.

  "I am going to drink myself into a stupor, wake up, stay in bed and get drunk again," announced Ewen with great satisfaction. "I don't see myself getting to spend much of my pay where I'm going."

  "You're abnormal!" said one of lads. "I haven't seen a woman for six weeks. Even the colonel's bulldog bitch was starting to look sexy."

  Ewen laughed. "Women get posted to the front too. And if one eighth of what my cousin Dimitri told me is true, we'll catch up on our shagging. Everyone is scared and everyone is bored. There is nothing much else to do but shag and die. But booze... Enlisted men are allowed two blasted beers a night—if you're not in front-line trenches. Dimitri said they end up buying the stuff from those rats. Reminds me. You guys had better buy whatever chocolate you can get and smuggle it in. The rats will pay through the nose for it."

  "I hear there are a lot of places in town that won't admit men in uniform," said another one of the men, cracking his knuckles suggestively.

  "Keep out of trouble, Isaacs," said SmallMac. "The town's crawling with MPs. I've heard they get a bonus for every Vat they beat up and toss into the cells."

  "Huh. They'll have to catch me first. So what are you going to do, SmallMac? Kiss a horse or two?"

  "That's not a polite thing to say about my wife and daughters," said SmallMac, looking indecently happy.

  It left Conrad Fitzhugh feeling indecently sad instead. SmallMac was one of the few that got regular mail. Somebody out there loved him. Which was both sad and frightening at the same time. Fitz hadn't spoken to his father for two years, since his mother's death. Who else did he have to see? They were either in the army or belonged to the other life that that stranger Conrad Fitzhugh, Shareholder, had led. Or both. SmallMac had someone that he could go back to. And to whom it mattered if he was killed.

  Fitz wondered now, from a dispassionate distance, what Candy would have said if he had killed himself. Or if he was killed in the war. He hadn't thought about her much in the last six weeks. He resolved to go and straighten things out. After all, Cartup was either dead or he wasn't. One way or the other it didn't really matter now. And he'd go around and see his father too.

  He caught a bus into town. Took another to Van Klomp's apartments on Clarges Street, on the off-chance that Bobby's army plans had gone awry. Besides, he hadn't a lot else to do, except look at the girls on the street. It was quite amazing how beautiful they'd become over the last six weeks.

  The door opened. Meilin, Van Klomp's factotum, manager of his small electronic repair business, general fix-it woman and fanatically loyal Vat-servant, looked at Fitz blankly. Fitz had been a regular caller for the last five years.

  "Where is Bobby?" he asked with a grin.

  "I am sorry, Sir," said Meilin stiffly, doing her best Vat-butler imitation. "Mr.. Van Klomp is not home. He's at military headquarters. He is due back this afternoon, if you would like to call again?"

  "He's not got that parachute regiment formed yet?"

  Meilin sniffed. "He believes that it may be happening today, Sir. That's what Mr. Van Klomp believed yesterday, and the day and the week before too, Sir." Meilin spoke with an urbanity that betrayed how Van Klomp must have been making the walls shake for the last while. "If I might have your name, Sir? I will tell him that you called."

  Fitz shook his head. "Don't you know who the hell I am, Meilin? Conrad Fitzhugh."

  The factotum—who did everything from packing parachutes, repairing electronic cameras and writing invoices for Van Klomp—blinked. Her mouth fell open, and she hauled Fitz in to the apartment, neatly kicking the door closed. "Good Lord, Mr. Fitz! The boss has been trying to track you down, discreetly. I'd never have recognized you in a month of Sundays. You've changed."

  "I've had a haircut."

  "No." She shook her head firmly. "It's your posture. Well, you're tanned, and your face is thinner. And the uniform and the haircut, I suppose. But you don't look like... well, the youngster you used to be."

  "The spoiled Shareholder brat, you mean." Fitz grinned.

  "Oh, you were never as bad as some of them, Sir."

  "Damned with faint praise," said Fitz, laughing now, flopping down into a chair. "Anyway, do you know what happened to Cartup? And has Bobby got any drink left in this place?"

  Meilin gave him a wink. "I hide it. Otherwise that useless bunch of Shareholder friends of his drink it up. And Talbot Cartup recovered three days after you disappeared."

  "So I'm in the clear after all! Well, well." He stood up again. "Hold the drinks, Meilin. I'm going to pop in on my old girlfriend. Clear the air. Tell her I wish her well. Y'know, there's nothing like six weeks of boot camp to give you a new perspective on life."

  "Do you think that's a good idea?" asked Meilin worriedly. "She did try and have you arrested, Fitz. Why not wait until Van Klomp gets home?"

  Fitz shook his head. "When he gets home I'll be back with a few decent bottles. I'm going to see Candy, see my Old Man. Get things off my chest."

  He went out onto the streets of George Bernard Shaw City, whistling. Took a cab across town. He really must get the Aston-Martin out of hock. The fines on it must be astronomical by now. He walked up the stairs to Candy's rather pretentious penthouse apartment door. He felt in his pocket. He still had the key in his wallet. Then he paused. He must remember to give it back to her. After all, he had no rights to it any more. He knocked politely on the imitation oak-paneled door.

  She opened it, and stared as blankly at him as Meilin had.

  "Afternoon, Candy."

  She gave a little squeak of pure, unrefined terror. "Conrad! Don't. Please. I promise..." she panted, backing away.

  He shook his head at her. "I haven't come to hurt you. I jus
t came to say goodbye, good luck and I hope you're happy. I'm off to NCO training and then probably the front. There's a chance I'll get killed, so I'm clearing things up. I just came to say goodbye. And no hard feelings. Anyone could make a mistake. I suppose it was natural you should think that I'd done it."

  "You—you’re not—" she whispered, hands still ready to thrust him off.

  He shook his head, walking calmly into the familiar apartment, a bubble of unholy amusement at her reaction making him grin. "No. I'm not even mad that you accused me. I suppose it was a natural thought."

  "Oh, I know it wasn't you, now. It must have been one of Talbot's enemies, who did it to shame him. It was half dark and I made an awful mistake. Look, Conrad, I... I'm most terribly sorry. I'm just a weak woman. Talbot organized it all... He made me break up with you. I promise. Of course I'm really still in love with you, darling." She stepped up to him and embraced him, plastering herself onto him.

  As she rubbed her breasts and thighs against him, and lifted her beautiful face to be kissed, Fitz had to admit that maybe Van Klomp had called the shots remarkably closely. What a damn fool he must have been. All the same, it was distracting to have her body this close, after six weeks of sweaty male company. He pushed her away, but gently.

  "It's all right, Candy." He rather enjoyed calling her that, now. "You don't have to fake it. Look, it's over. I just came to say... well I've got over it. I wish you happy. I guess you got what you really wanted. I'll be going now."

  She looked consideringly at him. "Must you? Yes, I suppose you'd better. Look, sit down for a minute. There are a few things you gave me that I want to return. They're in my bedroom... unless you want to fetch them with me?" she asked, licking her short upper lip.

  Was that an invitation? Now? After all this? Suddenly, Fitz knew he'd rather bed a viper. "I'll wait."

  He sat down.

  And about two minutes later someone smashed the door in. Three of them. They were firing as they came barreling in.