Chapter 10: No "I" in Fireteam

Like the rest of the recruits, John and Sylvester stood at ease, lined up in front of their footlockers. By some cosmic coincidence, they got assigned the same bunk bed. No way was that an accident. Whoever was running the game must have known to pair them up. John snagged the top.

A pair of second class DIs and a matching pair of thirds stood against the far wall. The one closest to the open door called, “A-ten-shun!”

The recruit’s boots hit the floor, a single beat from many drums.

Great footsteps thundered through the doorway. The DI marched in from one side of John’s vision. He looked like the others, albeit older, with a square beard, his chin framed in grey whiskers. He adorned his head with a wide-brimmed campaign hat, the same dusty green as his fatigues. A quick blink and the WarFace showed his info over his green silhouette: 1st CL. DI Zahir Sowriver(NPC) - 77.

The DI marched to the end of the barracks and stomped his way back to the center. “All of you—every single last fucking one of you—has done despicable things to your fellow man.” He didn’t raise his voice, but somehow his words filled every meter of the barracks. “Some of you committed crimes to climb the social ladder, some to satisfy your wants, and some because your lives are black holes of self-pity. Those days are over.” The DI punctuated with a fist pounded on a nonexistent desk. “You are now the property of the Cocoon City State Armed Forces.”

Sylvester’s breaths came out hard like there was some phlegm deep inside his lungs.

“Your selfish desires brought you here to me.” The DI marched back. “From this moment on, you will not use the word ‘I.’ Instead, you will say ‘this recruit.’ For example, if you are about to shit your drawers, you will ask the DI, ‘Sir, this recruit requests to take a shit, sir.’ What do you say when you need to take a shit?”

John with the rest of the recruits said, “Sir, this recruit needs to take a shit, sir!” Sylvester and a few of the other recruits still blurted out ‘I’.

“Pathetic!” Spittle flew from the corners of the DI’s mouth. “If you want to live a long and full life with your sphincter not wrapped around my boot, never make me repeat myself. We will attempt this again. What you say when you want to take a shit?”

A second class DI jumped in. “The answer had better be, ‘Sir, this recruit requests to take a shit, sir’.”

The recruits sang in unison, “Sir, this recruit requests to take a shit, sir!”

“Again!” He pounded the invisible desk once more.

“Sir, this recruit requests to take a shit, sir!”

The phlegm in Sylvester’s lung sounded like it broke off and was rattling around inside.

“Again!”

They replicated the same phrase maybe twenty times. Seemed like a hundred. The individual words lost their meaning. While John’s mouth spewed the series of meaningless phonemes, he listened to Sylvester. The poor guy’s voice degraded from hoarse to harsh.

“On the off chance I deem your bowel movement necessary, then and only then will you take a shit. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Their voices coalesced into one.

“Congratulations. You gaggle of intellectual malfunctions managed to follow the most basic of commands. Still, I’m not sure most of you will make it through boot. I reckon most of you fat bags of zeros will end up in the recycler.”

You know we’re in a game?

The DI froze. “Who said that?” He spun on his heel. “Who said we’re in a game?” The question came out in a roar. The roar demanded an answer.

Wait. Did I? Was that me?

John had blurted nothing like that before. It was his own voice, and yet he had listened to it like he was outside himself. For the second time, the world seemed to go off its axis. Must’ve been the stress of the day.

“Who fucking said that?” The more the DI repeated himself, the more spittle flew out onto his beard. There was only one thing to do.

John spoke through the ache in his throat, the constriction. “I did, sir.”

“‘I’?” The DI strode up to John. “’I’? Did I hear you fucking say ‘I’?”

John gathered his thoughts. “Sir, this recruit said it, sir!”

Sylvester’s breathing sounded pained.

“Seems you’re asleep at the wheel? Let me wake you up.” The DI slammed his sledgehammer fist into John’s stomach, up into his diaphragm. Explosions of agony shot up John’s throat. Bile splashed his tongue. He tried to breathe, but the muscles in his chest refused to cooperate. John dropped to one knee. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. The silhouette of the DI’s boot had turned red.

“Get up, recruit.”

The last thing John wanted was to stand. No, that wasn’t to the truth. The full weight of that fist inside his guts was the last; standing was a close second. John took the last of his will and used it to drag himself upright. The spasms in his diaphragm almost doubled him over again.

“I don’t want to hear about any game. That clear, recruit?”

John tried to reply but couldn’t. His voice, his diaphragm, hell, his entire chest had seized.

Like a slab of metal on one end, Sylvester hit the ground, flat. He didn’t even put his arms out. His head bounced off the floor.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” The DI loomed over Sylvester’s collapsed form. He called towards the door. “Medic!”