Cyberpunk (17 page)

said, ignoring our little sideshow. “I am Colonel Ernst Von Schlager,

founder and commandant of the Von Schlager Military Academy!

“You? You are the New Spartans! Young! Strong! The leaders of

tomorrow. Blessed with the good fortune to have parents who recognize

the value of a sound military education!

“Just as the Spartans of old were looked down upon for blah blah

blah and blah blah,” he paused, smiled conspiratorial, “and yes, for their

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southern accents—”

Scott made with a yawn so big you could see his molars.

“
You
must be the blah blah honored history blah blah proud

traditions blah my country ‘tis of centuries come and go blah blah they

did not stop to blah a nation never values its soldiers until blah blah heirs

to a three-thousand-year-old warrior caste blah.” He spoke. And drank

rapidly a glass of water.)

After all of that, we got the
real
orientation.

Colonel Von Schlager and his homeboys marched off. Payne

stepped around to the front and started reading names off a clipboard

some Grade Four handed him. “Borec! Nordstrom! Jankowicz! Schmidt-

Boulé! Harris!”

Bingo
.

There were another ten or so names on his list, and not a jarhead in

the bunch. When Payne got to the end he barked out, “Front and center!”

Taking our cue from Borec, we all sort of sauntered over slow. “Move it

move it
move it
, lardbutts!”

He turned to the Grade Four. “Mister Jefferson, lead the rest of the

unit to the mess hall.” Bright and eager, the jarheads formed up and

jogged off. When they’d cleared out, Payne turned back to us.

“You boys,” he said soft, “are
Involuntaries
. This is the last time I

will use that word. But I want you to know that, while the Von Schlager

Academy is an accredited military school, it is also a fully licensed

psychiatric treatment facility
.” He detached a sheaf of papers from the

clipboard, started handing them out.

“These are copies of the
in loco parentis
forms your parents signed.

You will note that they also double as medical treatment release

authorizations.

“Operating as the Von Schlager Institute, we are qualified to use

aversion therapy, behavioral modification, and any and all means

including electroshock
to treat: chemical dependency,” he handed a

sheet to Jankowicz, “family violence,” he handed a sheet to Borec,

“clinical depression,” somebody I didn’t know, “juvenile delinquency.”

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He handed a sheet to me.

He said more. I know he did; I saw his lips moving. But somehow I

missed the rest of what he was saying, ‘cause right then, for a couple

black, dizzy minutes, the whole universe folded in on itself and got

compressed down to two square inches of paper. Dad’s signature down

at the bottom of the sheet.

No question about it, I’d spent enough time trying to copy it to be

absolute certain that was the real thing. Dad’s signature: clear, and bold,

and signed with a goddam
flourish
.

And right below it, mom’s.

#

Supper was—aw Hell, I don’t even want to
guess
what it was. A

brief interrupt in all the shouting and running around, mostly. By the

time Payne finally let us hit our bunks around dark my feet were

burning, my legs were two solid cramps, and my head—

Well, let’s just say I still didn’t have a real firm lock on step one of

my escape plan.
Okay, Mikey; tomorrow. We’ll bag a few Z’s tonight.

There’ll be time to work on the plan tomorrow
. I pulled off my boots,

peeled off my socks, loosened my shirt and climbed up on my bunk. The

pillow felt like a burlap bag stuffed with pine cones.

I didn’t care.

Someone somewhere threw a master power switch; all the lights

went out; I didn’t care. Bats came flapping by the windows. A cricket

the size of a house started chirping. I didn’t care. I felt the beginnings of

a little itch on my wrists and vague remembered something about poison

ivy.

I didn’t care, I just wanted to
sleep
.

Someone giggled, in the dark. Someone whispered a dirty joke. And

then the farting contest started.

#

Piggy Jankowicz tried to run away that first night. That’s how we

found out that the nearest town is Fort MacKenzie, across three hundred

miles of roadless forest. Air really is the only way in or out of the Von

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Schlager Military Academy.

We also learned that the Academy has a fleet of helicopters and a

top class of cadets called Grade Fives, who live in the woods, can see in

the dark, and can smell a runaway half a kilometer off. A bunch of them

ran Piggy down, did a Deliverance-style roughup on him, and had him

back in camp by breakfast.

I decided to put off doing the escape until my plan was
perfect
.

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Chapter 0/C

By the time my poison ivy cleared up, I was starting to get the hang

of the daily routine. Every morning around dawn two Grade Fours came

storming in, braying like football coaches, and gave us five minutes to

fall out of bed, get dressed, and fall in on the quad. Five exact minutes

later, when most of us were out there, one of the Grade Fours would give

the order to snap to, and we’d all just stand there like we had

broomsticks up our buns while Payne came marching down from the

DI’s quarters, crisp, precise, and dressed perfect. When he got down to

us he’d slow, walk up and down the line a few times inspecting us close

and personal, all the while telling each one of us in excruciating loud

detail just exactly how sloppy, stupid, and unfit we were.

It was worse than being stuck in the house while Mom was on the

rag. Someday I’d like to take Payne’s brain apart, just to get a look at the

algorithm that let him do it every morning without falling into loop

mode.

Of course, someday I’d like to take Payne’s brain apart, just for the

fun of it.

By the time Payne had worked down to our boots, inspection was

just about over. Damn, I hated those boots! I spent half an hour polishing

those suckers every night before lights out. I had those damned things

shining like a pair of black mirrors and they
still
never passed

inspection!

But eventual Payne would finish criticizing our boots and admit,

grudging, that he’d have to work with us the way we were--I think the

whole point of inspection was to condition us to shout “Sir! Yes, sir!”

every time Payne opened his mouth—and order us to face the flags and

say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Real early on, I learned about this thing called LPRM: Least Painful

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Response Mode. You didn’t want to do anything slow and casual,

because that was good for twenty pushups. You didn’t want to crack any

jokes on the inspection line, because that was good for twenty more.

And above all, no matter what they let you do in school back in The

World, you did
not
want to putz around with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our Butthole Skinheads tried that one day. They ended the pledge

with heel clicks, German salutes, and a loud, “Sig heil!” Then they

turned around, grinning like they’d mooned both Popes, and Payne

didn’t say a thing.

Before he hit them. He just stepped smart up to them, gave one a

backhanded left across the face, the other a hard right in the stomach.

Knocked ‘em both flat.

The two Grade Fours closed up to flank Payne, and you could

almost
see
his brain fighting to regain control over his reflexes. The

Butthole Skinhead who’d caught it in the gut lay on the ground,

moaning, but the other one sat up, rubbing his jaw, and looked mad

enough to mix it good. Payne took a step closer and dropped into a

fighting crouch. Then he sort of seized up with his face screwed into a

dark red fury and his fists clenching and unclenching like spasmodic

hearts.

The Butthole Skinhead took a good long look at him and decided to

think about it some more. Payne’s brain eventually won out, and he

managed to stop hyperventilating and start speaking. “You proud of

yourself, boy?” he rasped soft and low.

“Nossir.”

“What was that?”

The Butthole Skinhead licked his lips and spit some blood. “Sir. No,

sir,” he said louder.

“Fine. Get up.” Payne relaxed a notch, and nudged the other

Butthole Skinhead with his foot. “You too. On your feet.” The guy with

the cut lip helped the other one stand. Payne took a step back, and

looked them both over.

Geez, you coulda powered a radio station with the tension in that

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air! Payne just stood there,
looking
at them. And we all stood there,

looking at
him
, wondering what he was gonna do! A zillion pushups

didn’t seem like it’s be enough to satisfy Payne; maybe he’d make them

do laps for the rest of their lives. We couldn’t even
start
to imagine what

he’d do.

Payne took a little sniff, then let out a disgusted snort. “What’s that

smell?” he asked, quiet. We all went into the ‘Who farted?’ drill, but

then Payne learned close to the Butthole Skinheads and sniffed again.

“Why, it’s you!” said, acting surprised. “You boys make this unit
stink
.”

He turned, and pointed to the bunkhouse. “You’d better go stand over

there,” he said, gentle. “I wouldn’t want one of the men stepping in you

and getting his boots dirty.”

They looked like they would have preferred getting punched out

again. Payne’s soft chew was just too humiliating; the guy with the

bellyache started crying.

Payne turned to one of the Grade Fours. “Mr. Jefferson? Will you

take over the
men
?”

The Grade Four saluted. “Sir! Yes, sir!” Then he turned to us. “Left

face! Double time!” It was actual relief to follow orders and not think

about what was gonna happen to those two kids. The other Grade Four

took the lead, Jefferson fell in behind us, and we started off to jog a few

laps around the parade field.

In a minute or two, Scott managed to drop back and get next to me.

“D’ja see that, dude? They got out of drill! Just one teensy love tap, and

they’re excused from drill! I think I’ll try that myself, tomorrow.”

At mess call that evening, we found out that Payne had detailed the

two Butthole Skinheads to clean a latrine pit. With garden trowels.

Nobody ever messed with the Pledge of Allegiance again.

#

Most days we followed inspection with laps, then half an hour or so