by David Ryker
I ground my teeth together, pain lancing through my jaw. “Not exactly how I’d describe it.”
Sax cocked his head.
“He jumped me. I didn’t want to fight him. Kepler pulled him off me. He would have killed me.” The words tasted sour on my tongue.
“That’s not what he’s saying.” He looked over toward where I guessed Jonas was sitting, and then back.
“Well, he wouldn’t.” I tried to spoon more oatmeal into my mouth.
“So there’s not going to be a decider?” Sax seemed disappointed.
“Only if he corners me again.” I dropped the spoon. It was too painful. “I’ve got no intention of fighting him, because I’ve got nothing to prove.” I sighed. “We’re all probably going to die on our first mission anyway, Jonas included. There’s a fair chance he’ll catch a bullet the second he hits the ground. It’s just how it is. Don’t know why anyone wants to make their time before then any worse. I certainly don’t.” I rubbed my weary eyes gently. The early wake-up and getting my ass kicked were both catching up to me.
Sax opened his mouth, but closed it again without speaking. He nodded. “I get it.” A strange smirk flickered on his lips for a second before he got up from the table. He clapped me on the back and a jolt of pain leapt through my ribs. “You know all that stuff… You know like the pranks — the hazing? You know that was just a joke, right?”
I turned and stared at him through my one good eye for a second. I wasn’t sure if it was pity, or fear maybe — but something had changed. I nodded. “Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night,” I growled, hoping he might take the hint and fuck off.
He smiled at me for a moment, forcing it up his cheeks while he stared at mine, bloodied and bruised, and then made his way back to his table. Some of the people he was sitting with turned to face me as he approached, then started whispering. When Sax sat with them, they huddled over the table like hens at a grain pile and cast looks at me. I stared at the cold oatmeal in front of me, listened to my lips throb, and felt sting of a headache creep into the base of my skull. I rubbed my forehead and got up. I wasn’t anyone’s sideshow, and I certainly wasn’t getting into any sort of back and forth regarding this ongoing feud. I was trying to lay low, and so far, was doing a shitty job of it. I’d cut back on the smart-ass remarks, or maybe just realized they weren’t as funny as I thought. I’d done my best to stop interrupting people, and I’d been trying to do well in my classes. I didn’t know what else I could do other than leave. I stared into my gloopy oatmeal and thought about slamming my face into it and inhaling. The thought passed, thankfully.
I dumped my tray and headed for the door. I checked around quickly, but I couldn’t see Jonas. I doubted he’d been pulled up for it, but I couldn’t see him. Probably off somewhere regaling people with how we’d met up for round two and he’d given me a thrashing. At least one part of it was true.
I threw open one of the doors and stepped through it, grimacing at the thought. The scab on my lip split and began to weep and I swore, touching my finger to it. This was going to be a pain in the fucking ass. It’d never heal, especially with training not slowing down.
I made my way to the bathroom and ran the cold tap, reaching for a paper towel to sponge the blood off my chin. I had my head in the sink when the door opened. I stood up so quickly I almost fell over. The thought of Jonas walking in almost burst my heart in my chest.
I turned on my heel, hands rising instinctively, but it wasn’t Jonas, and he wasn’t coming at me. Kepler was standing against the door, leaning back, arms folded, one knee raised and foot planted on the steel. She had her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek and she was scowling, as always. “You must have a fucking deathwish,” she scoffed.
“What, you’re going to take a swing at me now too?” I dropped my hands and fished the soggy towel out of the sink, hurling it into the bin.
She shook her head, pushing off and coming towards me. “Not me, dipshit. I want to see you bounced out of here, but not dead. Seems you don’t share my sentiment though.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, breezing past her. The last thing I was in the mood for was a lecture. My head was starting to pound.
She put her hand on my chest to stop me, but it wasn’t the dominating, rough gesture that I’d expected. Her fingers touched the front of my jumpsuit and I paused. She had her head side on, her eyes full, and without any of the bite they usually carried. “If you keep pushing him, he’ll kill you. Polgarians aren’t wired the same as us. They don’t like to let things go. If I hadn’t have been there this morning, then—”
“What the hell are you going on about?”
“Jonas.” She furrowed her brow and I couldn’t help but study the minute lines of her face, her smooth olive skin.
“What about him? That’s fucking done. You won’t see me trying to pick another fight with him. I never want to see the guy again.” I sighed. I could feel my lip bleeding.
“Then…” She trailed off and shook her head. “Everyone’s saying you’re gunning for him.”
“What?”
“I just heard it. Sax — is it Sax? The kid with glasses, came back over to his table, saying that you were going on about putting a bullet in his back the first chance you get. As soon as you land on your first deployment, that you’re—”
I cut her off, swearing. “Shit.” I rubbed my face with my hand harder than I meant to and tried to stifle the wince I knew I was doing a shitty job of hiding. “That’s not what I meant — I mean — It’s not what I said.”
She arched an eyebrow and let her hand fall from my chest. “Well, it’s what everyone’s saying. These kids are all fresh out of the academy, it’s the first time they’ve ever had any autonomy. They all grew up thinking they’re better than the normal corps. They don’t know what it’s like out there — they’ve been fed propaganda to get them riled up. They’re all dying to go out and kick some ass — spill some blood for the Federation. They’re ramped up to see some now. They’re just trying to stir some shit up for entertainment.”
“And you’re not?”
She looked offended. “Listen, Maddox, I didn’t have to come in here, alright? I did it because I thought you’d gone and done something as stupid as publicly sworn revenge on a Polgarian on the very same day he nearly killed you.”
“Oh what, you’re concerned now, huh?” I gestured to my face. “Things getting a little too real for you?”
She screwed up her face and squared on to me. “I never wanted this. What Jonas did—”
“Was a direct result of your actions. You waltz around here like you’re king of the fucking shit heap, fucking with people’s lives. You don’t think I’m worthy of being here? Tough fucking luck. I’m passing the exams. I’m scoring high enough to earn my place. You want me bounced out? You know as well as anyone, Miss-Top-of-the-Class, that landing in the regular corps is a fucking death sentence. You slit my throat right here, or you get me thrown down there with the rest of them, it’s by your hand either way. So don’t you give me that high and mighty routine.”
She scowled, her pupils flitting back and forth across my battered face as she searched for a retort.
“Ask yourself,” I said, dropping to a whisper. “How long did you wait, honestly, before you ran over and pulled Jonas off me? How long did you watch him pummeling me before you felt that little twinge of guilt in your guts?”
She pursed her lips, her eyes still searching my face for something. “Your lip is bleeding,” she said after a second, quietly, with something between concern and loathing in her voice.
I wiped it off with the back of my hand and walked away. “I’m not fucking surprised.”
11
By the morning of the sim, my face was practically healed. I’d gotten myself up to Medical after realizing I couldn’t eat lunch, and was met with a little animosity. The doctor on duty sighed, no doubt sick of stitching up recruits that had ‘gone
a little hard in training,’ which is the cursory remark he made to explain away my face. He didn’t ask for specifics, and prodded me a little less gently than I would have liked. He gave me a face-sleeve that I had to wear for a couple of days, packed with little nanobots and stem-gel to expedite the healing process. I’d expected some painkillers, but the Federation medical advancements were obviously a lot further ahead when it came to the military, in comparison to what was available on the colonies.
I gave everyone a wide berth for the days I was recovering, taking my meals right at the end of the mess periods, spending my downtime in the library, and getting my training in in that golden period between the patrols stopping and breakfast. I’d spent the last few nights reading up on what to expect for the Sim-Exam. In a word, it wasn’t pretty.
The full immersion simulation was a totally visceral experience. Groups of recruits were all put in a shared simulation, but were hooked up to nerve stimulating electrodes, an IV drip, and were given a sedative. The process lasted over twelve hours, but inside, it’d feel like weeks. This was a full exercise, in full gear, except it was all in your head. No one knew what to expect — the missions changed every year, and there were rumblings that this year’s would be a doozie. Rumors circulating through the recruits, all trying to hedge their bets by studying exam patterns through the years, eavesdropping near officers’ tables and open doors when they could.
We shuffled onto the upper training deck in a throng of bodies. I hadn’t risked speaking to anyone since Kepler cornered me in the bathroom, in case they tried to twist my words like Sax had. I hadn’t seen Jonas since, either, but then again I’d been actively trying to avoid him. The ship was pretty huge, and even though the training section for the Mechanized Corps only occupied a part of it, it was still a mess of corridors and levels. If you wanted to stay out of someone’s way, it was pretty easy. All you had to do was check a class schedule, and every corner you came to.
I could feel my heartrate rising as we all filed in. The floor had been filled with sim pods all lined up in neat rows. There were hundreds of them — enough for every recruit there, by the looks of it. The training deck, which was practically a hangar, was totally filled with them, and recruits were already beginning to file through the corridors.
Meyers, the officer I’d met on my first day, was standing on a set of steps, directing the traffic. “Find your number — that is your pod. Do it quickly, do it quietly. This is an examination,” he called. “If you have not taken your issued medication, it’s now too late, and you will be failed.”
I stared at the piece of paper in my hand. There was a number and letter printed in it, 11E. I could see the pods all had their denotations printed on the side. They were arranged in lines, ahead of each other. Each row was a letter, each column a number.
“When you reach your pod,” he continued, “climb inside and take your chair immediately. The examination starts in eighteen minutes. Anyone not in their pod at that time will be failed.”
Everyone balked at that and picked up their pace. It wasn’t even eight in the morning yet, and everyone was still shaking off the dregs of sleep. I made my way past Meyers to row E and then edged down towards Pod 11.
When I got there, most of the recruits were already climbing in. I looked up and down the line. I could see Kepler about three pods down, facing away. When I turned to face the back, Jonas was grinning maliciously at me from fifty feet away. I sighed and tried to seem indifferent, climbing inside.
The full immersion pods were different from the others. Instead of a headset, omnidirectional treadmill, and fake rifle, this time, it was a reclined seat. I slid onto it and listened to the plastic groan under me. On the headrest was a helmet on a runner that pulled down over the head and the arms of the chair had tubes that you put your hands into, with haptic gloves on the other end.
A screen lit up in front of me, displaying the message, ‘Please remove your shoes. Bare skin contact necessary.’ I cocked an eyebrow and pulled my boots off, tossing them into the corner. I planted my feet on the stirrups and felt the cold lick of steel on naked flash. My feet started to tingle. There was current running through the pads.
The message changed. ‘Place your head back and await imaging.’
I obliged, shoving my hands into the tubes. The helmet descended until it covered my face, and then tightened over my head until the outside world disappeared. There was no sound or sight and my breathing sounded hollow in my ears. I swallowed hard and felt them pop in the pressurized helmet. Something cool touched my temples and warmth started running down my spine. The words ‘Neural Link Active’ appeared in front of me and a wave of nausea washed through my guts.
A sharp pain in my wrist made me cry out, but the sound died in the darkness. That was the IV going in. The same tingle ran through my fingers and I realized I couldn’t pull them out of the gloves.
My heart was beating hard now, and a strange noise had kicked up, like running water. I tried to breathe, tried to calm myself, but it was no good. I was trapped in the darkness, totally at their whim. I blinked and my body lurched, like the floor fell from under me. I was spinning, all my blood moving into my face, my fingertips. I made a long, low gutteral noise just short of a retch, and then was pulled out of consciousness.
The snow was falling slowly through the birch forest.
The trees snaked into the air overhead, gnarled by the fallout and frozen in time. I blinked a few times, picking out the distant wispy branches against the tumultuous sky overhead, seething in shades of brown and gray like an upended ocean.
My first breath was soft, no more than a gentle gasp. The ashy snow hugged me from beneath, cold and damp against my jumpsuit. I wiggled my elbows and my hips to make sure I was all still there, and then sat up, feeling the cold, stagnant air in my lungs. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I shivered.
A fire crackled gently, paltry and small in a depression dug in the permafrost. Rushed hands had scraped back the blanket of snow and tossed a couple of dried sticks into the depression. Around it were logs, daypacks, blankets spread on the ground. Mounds of snow kept some of the wind out. Night was closing in, but beyond the camp, the outlines of cooling towers stuck out of the earth like tumors. There were eight bodies around the fire in all. Five were still, lying in Federation winter gear, gray pilot jumpsuits with a thick cloak and woolen collar, heavy boots and pocketed trousers packed with extra rations. They were like the dead, still and dusted with snow.
Somehow, I’d managed to roll half off my sleeping mat and out of my cloak. How, I couldn’t say. I rubbed my neck and then pulled up my sleeve, searching for the needle mark, but it wasn’t there. Shit, this was a simulation.
My brain stuttered as I looked around, felt the chill in the air, smelt the death hanging off the trees. It felt so real — much more than the training sims. In those, you never got a sense of air pressure or touch. The rifle always felt lighter than it should, the explosions less dangerous, no more than blasts of air coupled with bass notes generated inside the pod. This was different. This was in my head, my nerves. I shivered, but I wasn’t sure whether it was the cold or not. I’d read up on Full Immersion Sim training. It was the most effective way to prepare recruits for battles. Pain was real. Danger was real. My mind was plugged into the machine, my hands and feet hooked up to electrical stimuli that teased at the nerves and skin. I ran my fingers over the woolen collar, felt at the fibers of the fur there, rubbed them between my fingers.
“It’s real,” came a familiar voice.
I turned back to the fire and my eyes fell on Kepler. She was leaning forward, elbows on knees. In one hand, she had an energy bar, in the other she had a stick that she was prodding the fire with. There was one figure opposite, wrapped up in their cloak, but I couldn’t see their face.
“What?” I said, quietly, conscious that I’d wake the others.
“It’s real, the collar, what you’re feeling.”
I furrowed my
brow and pushed myself to a stance. “This is a simulation.”
She smirked, green eyes glittering in the firelight. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.” She watched the flames intently.
“That’s exactly what it means,” I sighed, sitting myself down on a stump across from Kepler’s log. “None of it’s real.”
She shrugged. “Depends what you regard as real. If real’s what you see, and hear, and feel, then this is real. You feel the air, it’s cold. If you stuck your hand in the fire, it’d burn you. You’d feel the pain like it was real.” Her hand moved quickly and her pistol leapt from her thigh holster, aimed at me, center mass. “If I shot you now, in the gut, you’d feel the bullet go in, you’d feel the hot blood running over your hands as you tried desperately to stop it. You’d feel the creeping sense of dread and terror that life was slipping away, regardless of where you think you really are.” The pistol raised. “If I shot you in the head, you’d die. The others would wake up and find you dead, with a bullet in your skull. And are you willing to bet your life you’d just wake up if I did? If so” —she dropped the pistol and spun it effortlessly, offering me the grip — “then shove this in your mouth and pull the trigger, and spare us all the pleasure of your company.”
I stared at it, and then at her, unsure whether she was just having a bad day or if this was her game face. I said nothing. She chewed the energy bar slowly, and then holstered her gun.
“That’s what I thought.”
I cleared my throat and shifted on the log, warming my naked hands on the flames. The person across from me had a hat on — a woolen cap pulled low enough to cover their eyes. Their collar was done up and nearly touching it. I could see them shivering. “What’s, uh,” I started, aware my voice was thin and hoarse, “wrong with him?”
Kepler stopped chewing. “Simulation sickness.”