Toni was unceremoniously ushered into the dimly lit interview room, confident that he had committed all possible contingencies to memory. Then he laid his eyes on the interview team.

Oh Gods, no.

Sitting nonchalantly behind an impeccable beige table, supporting his weight on his elbows as he closely inspected his fingernails, was the Screamer himself. Lifting his eyes heavily towards the newcomer, a ghost of a smile played across the sergeant's face as he appraised the recruit's expression. To his right sat a perky female Lieutenant. Blood drained slowly from Toni's face. Mason gestured with a careless hand for Toni to take a seat. Suddenly very self-conscious, the recruit quickly took it, trying very hard to relax his facial muscles as he did so.

"So. Mister Tardy. How are we doing today?" Mason asked pleasantly.

Surprised by the lack of venom, Toni replied with honesty.

"I guess I'm a little nervous, Sergeant."

"I think so too. Boy, do you realize that, as you were waiting in the corridor a few minutes ago, you were talking to yourself? Moments ago a member of the administration came in here and warned me. Apparently he was quite concerned about your emotional health. Tell me, boy, how long have we been holding conversations with ourselves?" he asked with mock concern.

The Lieutenant beside him pressed a palm against her mouth to hide the smile beneath it. The smile was a dagger to his heart.

Toni found himself momentarily unable to articulate words. Hastily he opted to forget all rehearsed answers and hazarded a wild foray into honesty.

"Well, sir, I honestly wasn't aware I was doing that. As I said, I'm a little nervous and, since I have never been interviewed before, I was trying to think up answers for some questions I thought might come up, that was all. I just didn't realize I was mouthing the answers," he replied solemnly, watching closely as a comprehending and benign expression began to present itself on the sergeant's face. He decided to ignore the woman; her reactions to the swordplay were beginning to fray his nerves, and his previously drained face had begun to suffer a rapid influx of blood.

"Yes, I see. I see. And why do you need to memorize your answers, boy? Is the truth not enough for me? What I'm trying to say is, why would you need to deceive the Army?" he inquired politely.

Bastard, Toni thought. The man's face did not betray his intentions, yet Toni could see uncompromising hostility hidden behind his half-smile.

"Sir, I understand my mistake. It's simply that, since I joined against my family's wishes, I thought there would be some questions regarding that. This is important to me, sir. Maybe I was trying too hard," he replied.

Toni was saying much more that he had ever planned to, and he hated himself for it.

"Yes, I see. Trying too hard, yes. Well, shouldn't you perhaps have followed your family's wishes?"

It was not a question. He had stated it as a question, but it had been meant as a statement of fact.

The sergeant looked pointedly over Toni's shoulder to the door behind him, and then back to him, and then held his hands outwards in an apologetic gesture. Toni realized what he was trying to say. The Lieutenant beside him was no longer smiling.

Toni reminded himself of every single mistake he had made dealing with the man. And he understood, finally, how it all had come to that moment. Mason wasn't a man to be dealt with; he fancied himself the dealer, maker and breaker of men, and he would never have forgiven Toni's flaws any more than Toni could forgive him for what he was doing now. He accepted that fact with the sad recognition of someone who had just discovered an important secret too late for it to make any difference.

And yet he found himself unable to stand and leave.

"Sir, was that a question?" he asked innocently.

"No, son, it was not. It was a statement. A statement you have no need to comment on. The door is over there."

"I apologize, sir. I mean, I wasn't aware you required a comment, sir. My father's advice to me was to forget about the Capicuan Defense Force. His opinion is that an institution that hasn't waged a single war in two hundred years is unable to justify its existence, and that it should be disbanded.

"I simply don't agree with him, sir. I think that the defense force is here to prevent wars, first and foremost. And as I see it, the best argument in favor of the CDF is the fact that there have been no wars up until today. Very few people consider that, I think. I'm here because I believe in the CDF, and because I believe I can be useful here. I only need the chance to prove that, sir." he finished.

For the life of him Toni couldn't imagine from where he had conjured the words. He had never considered himself to be articulate, but damned he was if he hadn't seen a sudden spark of interest in the lieutenant's eyes.

"I see," Mason exhaled. "So your family's pro-abolition, and you're a rebel to their cause. But boy, oh boy, if you want to serve, then by all means serve. But tell me why you can't serve in the foot infantry. Or in the Command and Services Companies, for that matter. Do you have any compelling reason to justify being handed a hundred and twenty thousand Credit war machine?" Mason asked, his face expressionless, his tone reasonable.

Son-of-a-bitch, Toni thought.

He decided to give insane honesty one last try.

"No sir, I don't, except for the fact that I want this," he said.

The answer sounded horribly wrong to his ears. Mason's lips curled into a wicked grin and he began to laugh.

"HAH! Want this? Because you WANT this? Boy, that just doesn't cut it here! Everyone wants to be the hero, nobody wants to make the sacrifices. That's rich! HAH! Boy, listen to me and listen carefully, because this is the honest truth. The Army is not a fair institution. If you wanted fairness and justice you should have gone to Varsity and studied Law. The Army cares about only one thing. Putting the right man in the right place so it can get the mission done! And, sorry kid, but I just don't see you there, I just don't see you inside a Suit. Have a nice day!" he finished, snatching up a clipboard and brandishing his pen, a satisfied smile on his face as he searched for Toni's name on the roster.

Toni didn't move a muscle.

The Lieutenant had lightly touched her delicate fingers upon Mason's muscled forearm, causing the sergeant to freeze as if stopped in time, digital pen hovering a centimeter above the clipboard's data-slate.

Toni noticed the Lieutenant's nametag, finding only her first name there. Her name was Rose.

"Good morning, Mister Miura, are you all right?" she asked politely.

"Yes, Lieutenant, quite fine," he replied quietly.

"I see you have amber eyes. Almost golden, in fact. Not exactly an ordinary eye color, is it?"

"No, Ma'am, it isn't. My mother's family has had a lot of transgen modifications going back a few generations."

"And your father?" she inquired.

"My father's a natural. He spent his first years in an artificial atmosphere. Step-by-step adaptation. Six year regimen."

The Lieutenant's pretty eyebrows furrowed, as if the news was particularly upsetting to her.

"And what does he think of transgenetic procedures?"

"He's against them. He – his whole family believes that human adaptation to Capicua's conditions should be a natural event."

"I see. It seems your father seems to be against a lot of things, doesn't he?"

"That's my father in a nutshell, Ma'am."

"I am a transgen myself," she confided in him as she perused the briefs before her, "and so is our sergeant, here. Every driver out there is a transgen, although exactly what genes are at play is very important for this particular line of work. Your physical performance results are quite impressive. Unnaturally impressive. Especially regarding reflexes, coordination, rapid problem-solving, among a few others. I've taken a look at your mother's file. She has inherited some impressive abilities, but it seems some of your results don't entirely correspond to her, um, characteristics. So tell me, are you truly your father's son?"

That was too much for Toni. He tried to cover his mouth, but the smile kept spreading under his hand anyway. A chuckle escaped from his mouth before he could smother it.

"Can it, boy!" Mason growled menacingly.

"I'm sorry, sir. Ma'am."

"It's alright," the lieutenant answered lightly, still smiling at his reaction.

"Ma'am, I'm his son for certain," Toni answered confidently. "We look too much the same, by far. Even people who've only just met us usually make the connection. I might not like it, sometimes, but I am definitely his son. A photo should be in my father's file, shouldn't it?"

"No. Your father did not apply for military service and, since the CDF doesn't have access to citizens' personal information, all I know is what you're telling me.

"Strictly speaking, your mother doesn't have a file with us either," she added. "What she does have is a service record."

"Service record?" he echoed.

"Yes. Your mother fulfilled five years of military service before beginning her civil work with the government. Didn't you know?"

"N-no, I didn't."

"Well, in any case, either your father is a closet transgen, which he can keep a secret if he likes, or you have at some point in your life been the subject of a genetic procedure. Either way, we'll know what you are once the genetic profiling results come in." She studied a document intently as she spoke, ignoring the look of astonishment on the recruit's face.

"So, you want to be a Suit driver, do you?" she asked him directly, finally looking up.

"Y-yes."

"Good. You will shortly be informed of our decision. Thank you." she added, giving him a smile before returning to her reading.

The only sign that Mason was in any way upset came from the twitching muscles on the forearm the lieutenant had touched. Otherwise, he simply glared from beneath his shaven brows as the recruit silently left the room.

The Interview was the ultimate challenge after two weeks of blood extractions, painful tissue extractions, urine and stool contributions, full body scans, neural mapping exams, vascular mapping exams, motor reflex and coordination tests, along with a barrage of logic, memory and rapid problem-solving tests that had occupied the first week. Spanning the three days before the interview, the recruits had fallen victim to a second barrage, comprised of personality tests whilst attached to a temperamental neural scanner that kept going into automatic shutdown.

Toni spent the evenings trying to get along with his fellow hopefuls, as well as reading from the meager partition of the base library reserved for those in limbo. Aside from outdated propaganda pamphlets, Toni had discovered a wealth of technical and mechanical literature, and slowly came to understand that he would eventually be expected to possess intimate knowledge of the Suits' functions. The realization depressed him, especially when he considered his academic performance at Leiben High. On the other hand, it was with relief that Toni came to realize that the members of his provisional platoon harbored no hostility towards him, apparently preferring to reserve such feelings for the sergeant.

Screaming Mason drank only at night, seeing as there existed some leniency on-base regarding the pastime, just as long as it was after-hours and off-duty. At three AM sharp in their first night on-base, an impressively drunk First-Sergeant had elected to drag a casernful of sleepy recruits out of their beds and stand them at attention, giving them each an empty stare as the stench of alcohol slowly occupied the compartment.

The Sergeant had then launched into slurred discourse on the chief military virtues, counting them off one-by-one with his fingers until he miscounted, got confused and gave up entirely, and had then proceeded to explain how his niece currently exceeded all those present in combat preparedness, adding as an afterthought that she was currently twelve. Toni's eyes had become irresistibly drawn to a crack on the opposite wall, and he had stared blankly at the imperfection for the remainder of the sermon, tuning out the sergeant's chafing voice until it was no more than background noise (his father had trained him well). The monologue lasted for an impossibly long hour before an unsteady Mason finally abandoned the casern, braying one last insult over his shoulder as he did so.

The sergeant kept up his nighttime visits with regularity, varying only in hour, number of accompanying corporals, and level of intoxication.

The day after Toni's fateful interview, however, the Genetic profiling results finally came in, and before the afternoon's end he was informed that he would be expected in uniform at 08H00 sharp Monday morning at MEWAC's Suit Instruction Company.

The report added that, in answer to Toni's form declarations, the medical department had scanned his genome and not found any defective genes relating to the metabolization of Folic Acid, and so there would be no need for supplementation or therapy.

A sizable part of Toni wondered whether some administrative official had somehow botched things and listed him in the Inducted List instead of the Eliminated List. He made no effort, however, to correct their mistake.

He also realized with some satisfaction that he would no longer have to suffer the Screamer's abuse.

*****

First-lieutenant Matthias Templeton was a man whose physique did not suggest a military background. Though of respectable height, his slim build and narrow face suggested a fragile constitution, and his well-combed blonde hair and lagoon-blue eyes provided strangers with the impression of an upper class sophisticate.

The manner in which he carried himself, however, ram-rod straight and with a distinctive energy in his step, quickly belied such an impression. There was a confident, well-mannered nobility in the way he walked and observed his surroundings, and the treatment he received from the subordinates who knew him bordered on reverence. Screaming Mason, for one, seemed to regard him as the coming messiah.

The sergeant was grinning broadly as he preened beside his new lieutenant, both men quietly taking stock of the platoon they were supposed to forge into armored Suit drivers.

A resigned Toni was still adjusting to the dim quarters' interior, the yellowish lighting above doing a poorer job of illuminating the classroom than the sunlight that shone in through the high windows. There was a desk for each recruit to sit behind, although the group presently stood at attention as their new platoon leader appraised them. The lieutenant signaled to his drill instructor with a discreet nod.

"Sit down!" Mason barked.

There was a momentary racket as sixteen wooden chairs scraped against the concrete floor. The general consensus by now was that just about everything on base not made of wood was made of concrete.

The lieutenant took his own seat on a stout chair of his own, Mason preferring to stand at ease beside him as the officer spoke.

"First of all, I'd like to welcome all ladies and gentlemen to our esteemed institution," Templeton began without a hint of emotion.

"Although you have all been here for the last two weeks, everyone's been so occupied with physicals and psychologicals that I believe you haven't yet realized where you've landed. I'd like to make that all very clear, so no one can claim ignorance when the screw-ups begin. But before that, I'd like to introduce myself. I am First-lieutenant Matthias Templeton. You will refer to me as either "Lieutenant" or "sir". There is no third option hidden in there," he paused for a moment and stared into the abyss, rubbing his hands together as the silence underlined his words.

"I am twenty and nine years old and this will be the eighth time I take babies off the tit. What I have just said, in case none of you caught it, is code for 'I have already heard every sob story out there'. If I want to hear your sob story, I'll ask about it. But you can rest assured that I won't. The only victims I recognize are those who have ceased to breathe. The remainder are either soldiers or those who haven't the courage to be one.

"I've been a Suit driver for the last ten years, and I will say the following about what I've learned over this time. No armored Suit driver is more of a soldier than a foot soldier is. If anyone tells you otherwise, tell them you have it on good authority that they are wrong. You can even quote me, if you'd like. Anyhow, if you disrespect a footman and it reaches my ears, you'll find yourself among their ranks faster than you can say 'chimpanzee', and that, my comrades, is a promise. Besides being your platoon leader, I am currently the senior subaltern in the Suit Instruction Company, liaison officer for the Leiben Army Education Program, assistant in the Physical Education Department, and manager of the Officer's Mess. Many of you may wonder if these are what are commonly referred to as 'shitty assignments'. No, they are not. They are perfectly respectable tasks and I perform them with the diligence required of a MEWAC officer." The Lieutenant paused once more, eyeing them as if expecting someone to disagree. Faced with the persisting silence, he continued.

"But due to these assignments, it is possible I may sometimes be forced to be elsewhere during your training. And so I expect all to regard our First-sergeant as speaking with my voice when I am absent. His words are my words, except maybe a little louder. Is that clear?"

They declared in unison that it was all quite clear.

At his Lieutenant's beckoning, sergeant Mason introduced himself, although by now it was a futile exercise; they already knew his vital statistics by heart.

Mason was the proud inhabitant of Leiben's May 23rd neighborhood, a working-class community that was renowned for producing about as many soldiers as it did trouble-makers (which often meant the same thing, according to the sergeant). He was forty three, thrice divorced, the father of three boys, each from a different mother, one of which was serving as a cavalryman in the North Thaumantias Research Hub.

And he liked to drink.

"... and in '68 I received my fifth, and last, commendation, from the hands of Colonel Masters himself. I hear he'll be retiring soon, isn't that right, Lieutenant?" Mason finished, turning to his platoon leader. If Toni's memory wasn't failing him, that would just about mark the end of the first-sergeant's introduction.

"Yes, that's right, in a few months the colonel will be getting the rest he thinks he deserves," Templeton replied distractedly as he inspected his hands. There was the lightest of smiles on his face as he spoke, but a moment later it was gone.

Toni had noticed how that smile popped up occasionally over the course of Mason's monologue. He wondered what the Lieutenant truly thought of his sergeant.