Chapter 9: Rows of Yellow Boot Prints

John doubted that there was any paradise on Paradise Island. The lake that separated it from the rest of Cocoon City looked deep, murky, and clogged with algae. The transport flew low over some one-story buildings and touched down on a flat square of concrete. Hydraulics underneath hissed steam and took on the weight of the transport. On the far side of the cloud, a group of recruits, all bald and wearing the same gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, had gathered in the center of the square.

The guard, the thug that had gotten John in the face, stood. He pulled off a glove and placed his hand to a panel on the side of an aisle seat in the first row. Their latches opened with a series of thwacks. The chains rang with a promising song of freedom.

“First row stand.”

They did as ordered, still cuffed, and shuffled into the aisle, dragging their boots along the floor. Once they had filed past the guard at the front, the guard put his hand to the side of John’s chair. The asshole watched John from behind his facemask. “Second row stand.”

John stood, staring the man down. The NPC dropped his gloved hand to the baton. There was nothing John could do but glare back. If the guard wanted to, he could keep tasing John until the battery in the baton ran out—if those things even had batteries. They looked sturdy enough to crack someone’s head open, too. John would be damned if he let the NPC intimidate him. It was the only thing he could do. John shot a quick breath out of his nose.

“Would you mind getting out of the way?” The guy beside him, Elroy, spoke over John’s shoulder.

John dropped his gaze, which must have pleased the guard. He just would not win, not even this impotent show of defiance. With Elroy behind, John followed the other two. Stale air blew in from the open portal. The dust tasted of industrial pollution.

A man, his green camouflage combat fatigues stretched across blocks of pectoral muscles, wearing a matching cap, stood by the door. “Present your hands.” He had coppery, Middle Eastern skin, a thick black mustache, and looked as tall and as wide as Aiden, his old star gutterball player—maybe even more so. The individual muscle fibers of his forearm flexed with the twist of the key in the cuffs. The soldier handed the chain to someone behind him. Never had John seen anyone in such peak physical fitness. Not in the real world, anyway.

Free of the cuffs, the guy in front plodded over to the rest of the group, rubbing his wrists.

“Present your hands.” The guy in front of John held them up. Across from the first soldier was another, squatting to unlock the ankle cuffs. He had similar brown skin and body type—no—the same brown skin and body type. Under his brim, it looked like the same mustache, the same face. They were identical twins, as far as John could tell.

The freed man in front scurried away, also rubbing his wrists.

“Present your hands.” The first soldier fixed a steely glare on him, but it wasn’t malevolent like the guard’s. More like the man could break John’s spine over his knee and he knew it.

Behind him, a third man in uniform had the handcuffs and chains draped over his arm. Again he looked almost exactly like the other two, but a younger version, without a mustache or hat. The sides of his scalp were shaved, and the top buzzed.

John held out his cuffs.

“Do we fascinate you, recruit?” The one supposed to open his cuff bellowed. The volume shook his eardrums with force.

John brought his attention back to the one speaking. “What?”

The one behind him screeched. “Do we invoke your homoerotic desires, recruit?”

The one that had been squatting stood. “Do you want to fuck us, recruit?”

John felt almost blown back and forth like the words had force behind them. “What? No.”

All three blasted in unison. “The first and last words out of your mouth will be ‘sir’ and ‘sir.’ Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Wrong!” The first soldier belted out the word like a hammer over his head. “The correct answer is ‘sir, yes, sir.’ So let’s try this simple procedure again. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

All three assaulted him with volume again. “Louder!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

The troops were watching the display of humiliation. They didn’t laugh or comment to each other. The stress pulled their eyelids wide.

“When addressing the drill instructor,” the soldier’s uvula vibrated in the back of his throat, “you will use the highest volume you can muster! Do you understand, recruit?”

John gathered his power and projected it out of his voice. “Sir, yes, s—” The last ‘sir’ squawked out like the breaking voice of a teenage boy. It echoed off the buildings.

All three paused. A red flushed the first one’s cheeks. “Your moronic ramblings have held up the line. Present your hands!”

The handcuffs fell away.

“Get the fuck out of my face!”

John took a step. His legs were free. He stretched his legs with full strides. A high-pitched tone from the aural barrage mixed with noises around.

Another transport unloaded another line of recruits on the far corner of the square. One of the three soldiers, two with mustaches and caps, one clean-shaven, with the same cloned faces, also gave their recruits a dressing down. “When I say, ‘present your hands,’ you present your hands!”

John closed an eye and focused on him. Over his green silhouette, the info followed the red skull and crossbones: 2nd CL. DI Zahir Sowriver(NPC) - 77.

The two drill instructors with mustaches had second-class in front of their names, but the one collecting the chains, the unshaven ones, had third class. And—what the hell?—every one of them had the same name: Zahir Sowriver. John turned to check out the trio that unlocked his cuffs. They were all Zahir Sowrivers, too.

John joined the outskirts of the group. He asked the closest recruit, “So, is this the game?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

John massaged his wrists like all the others coming off the transport. He let go as soon as he realized.

Elroy came up behind. “Have you ever seen uniforms like that?”

John rubbed the back of his neck. There was nothing there but skin. “Isn’t that like asking if I’ve ever seen a dinosaur?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Another recruit stuck his head in. “And what was with all the ‘fucks’?”

Elroy glanced back at the drill instructors. “Primitive.”

“Or they’ve got a problem with fucking.” John shrugged.

Something yellow poked out from under John’s boot, painted on the concrete. He lifted his foot off of the pair of boot prints. Weird.

Sylvester stopped rubbing his wrists to give John a wave. The guy didn’t seem too perturbed by the beating. Perhaps faced with the unknown, John was the devil Sylvester knew. “So, is this the game?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” John said the same words said to him. They came out before he noticed. “That, or they recycled us.”

Why was Sylvester here? When John thought about asking, it was like the floor threatened to fall away. John couldn’t help but think he was responsible for trapping Sylvester in the game with him. He wanted to know, but he dreaded knowing even more.

Instead, he joined the rest of the group in their stunned silence, in their gawking at the place they found themselves in. It was expansive enough to have clouds above, the gray tinged with chlorine green. Above them, the orange sunlight emitters broadcasted their photons. It looked like the afternoon in this place. From here, the ceiling looked almost flat, betrayed only by the haze where the ceiling curved away. At the polar end of the cylinder, half a mountain climbed the gigantic wall. The summit, gray and rocky, stood above the roof of one building.

One of the mustached DIs—impossible to tell them apart—screamed from the edge of the square. “Why are you flocking together? If a mortar landed in the center, it would be a fucking lamb chop explosion. Now find some boot prints. Put your boots on them.” His voice rang out. Even the recruits farthest away understood what he said.

No one moved. Everyone stood around frozen like the gamers in the café.

The DI exploded. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do I have to tell you what leg goes where when you’re putting on your diapers?” He pointed out the closest recruit and to a set of yellow boot prints. “You stand there.”

All the DIs swarmed around the recruits, screaming the same order. “Boots on the boot prints!”

John turned and matched his boots to the prints underneath before he got the order. Elroy and Sylvester did the same beside him.

One of the DI’s leaped up onto a platform at the front of the square. “When I call ‘attention,’ all you limp-dicked morons will stand,” he demonstrated with ramrod posture, “as straight as your cocks used to.”

‘Used to’?

While the DI explained the intricacies of standing at attention and at ease, John checked the other recruit’s faces. If any of them caught that last part, they focused on the DI instead. The man lectured down to them, explaining in exceeding detail how to hold their hands behind their back like they were all kindergarteners.

‘Stand as straight as your cocks used to’? John fought back the desire to blubber like a kid lost on the first day of school. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“A-ten-shun!” The DI barked out the order like it was three separate words. Boots hit the ground, some faster than others, a smattering of thick raindrops.

With the recruits arranged into neat rows, the DIs streamed through. If any of the recruits on one side slumped, they got a ‘back straight!’ If any on the other side let their belly’s sag, they got a ‘tighten those abs!’

Sylvester’s breaths came from one side, but John didn’t dare see what was up. He didn’t move a muscle. A drill instructor clomped from the other side. The muscles in John’s back squeezed tighter. The mustache sped by. John had avoided the wrath of the DIs if only for a minute. The stress had almost drained out of his muscles before the stomps halted in front of Sylvester. John’s sphincter tightened and cramped.

“Tighten those abs, recruit.” The boots clomped off down the row.

Sylvester’s breathing turned shallow and quick, while John let out the breath he hadn’t realized he held. A bead of sweat trickled down between his eyebrows, along the bridge of his nose, and hung off the end. His arms stayed exactly where they were. John blew a sharp puff of air and sent the sweat flying. One of the DIs in the row in front seemed to catch sight of it, but he kept on marching. All the teeth on one side of John’s jaw ached.

“All of you mental cripples will listen up to our commander-in-chief’s address.” The DI on the platform bellowed. “If any are wondering, yes, she will see and hear you.”

Why wouldn’t she be able to see or hear us?

On the stage behind the DI, a titanic form appeared, made of a series of translucent green, horizontal lines. The hologram showed the top half of a middle-aged woman, with wavy, possibly chestnut hair, wearing a light-colored formal jacket. The image towered over the rows of recruits.

She did a quick scan of the toy-sized people in front of her. “Welcome to the Cocoon City State Armed Forces. Call me Ma’am. While I appear human, in reality, I am the artificial intelligence responsible for facilitating the resources of Cocoon City, including its Armed Forces. You are no longer prisoners. Consider yourself now conscripted into our struggle with the Pithite Nation. For the entirety of our recorded history, we—the last pocket of humanity on Existence Station—have been at war with the mechanical Pithites.”

Mechanical. Robots? Were they at war with robots? And an AI is in charge of the people?

John’s lips mouthed “you’ve got to be kidding—” before he caught himself. Sylvester gasped. Without turning his head, John strained his eyes in Sylvester’s direction.

“You!” The DI on the stage, nostrils flared and teeth bared, pointed at Sylvester. He must have had the same reaction. “And you!” To John. Ice water splashed on his innards. “You two lovebirds can finger each other’s assholes after lights out. But while you are being addressed by the commander-in-chief, it's eyes forward! Do you understand? And the answer better be ‘sir, yes, sir’!”

John and Sylvester belted out, “Sir, yes, sir!”

Ma’am peered down her nose at the tiny conflict, face devoid of humor. “Shall I continue?” She watched over the whole of the recruits. “The Armed Forces have given you all bodies with physicality capable of enduring the rigors of war. The next six weeks will determine whether your minds are strong enough to command those bodies. At the moment, you all are level zero. To graduate boot camp, you must achieve at least level three. Failure to graduate means you will be sent back to the reality you came from, where you will be recycled. Is that understood?”

The tendons in the DI’s neck pulled taut. “The answer is, ‘Sir, yes, sir’!”

They all replied in unison. Sylvester’s voice sounded hoarse.

Ma’am lifted her chin. “Excellent. I hope to see you all in six weeks. Welcome to Bravo Company.” The hologram winked off.

Three levels in six weeks. One level every other week to avoid death. How hard could it be?

“At ease!” The DI demonstrated for the recruits. It was a miracle none of them screwed up standing shoulder-width apart with their hands held behind their backs.

The DI called out again. “Ma’am has given you a mission. You can access it when you close your eyes through the Warfare Interface. Called WarFace for short. None of you close your eyes until I give the order. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Is that what they called the AR? WarFace?

The DI held out his hand. It looked like he was going to signal the order, not say it, until it was obvious he was getting the other DI’s attention. He pointed behind John. The DIs came in from both sides, fast and quiet, their boot clomps softened. There was a brush of fabric real close. John jumped. They were going to take him down—no, not John. The recruit right behind him. His stomach churned. Never did John have to process so much adrenaline.

“That’s the least terrible thing that could have happened.” The DI returned to at ease. “Let that be a lesson to you all. Disobeying orders will get you killed. Using the WarFace in an unsafe environment will get you killed.”

Sylvester cleared his throat.

“Close your eyes.”

An exclamation mark inside a triangle floated in his vision. It pulsated orange when he focused on it.

“Concentrate on the icon and squeeze your forehead downward to select.”

A double-click reverberated in John’s perception. The text started in the upper left-hand corner:

Graduate From Boot Camp

◆ Achieve level 3 before the end of boot camp.

◆ Type: mandatory

◆ Privacy: public

◆ 1000 XP. Failure means real-world death.

Underneath was a box labeled ‘understood.’

How hard could it be?