The Other Eight (17 page)

“That is correct. Please continue,” General
Siegel stated.

The doctor resisted the urge to shake his
head in disbelief.

“Primadonna has something of a superiority
complex, but she should still function well as part of a unit as
long as she’s made to feel her role is a prestigious one. The
Number’s competitive relationship with her borders on obsession. If
they are both placed on the same team, we can expect some friction
that will need to be worked through until the, uh,
emotional
tension comes to a head.”

“That won’t happen. I have my doubts that the
team needs one dancer. It certainly doesn’t need two. What about
the high scorers? Retcon, Undo, etcetera?”

“Well, as is the case with all of the
potential recruits, they suffer from a hero complex to some degree,
though none seem to be afflicted deeply enough to actually cause a
calamity in order to come to the rescue.”

“And what about Non Sequitur? He’s been
putting up disappointing numbers.”

“Ah, yes. That’s the last concern I had. I
looked through his personal history, I spoke to him, and I’ve
interviewed his mother. He has deep-seated abandonment issues
stemming from the loss of his father. Are you aware of the identity
and cause of death of his late father?”

Siegel grunted an affirmative. “I was given a
file. Given his lineage, you’d think he’d be doing better.”

“Well, had I known prior to the interview, I
might have warned you this could be the case. The loss was
traumatic, and it’s been exacerbated by a recent relationship that
ended on unpleasant terms. The rejection from the breakup is
probably what drove him to try out in the first place.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Broken hearts have
driven plenty of fine young men into the arms of the military.”

“You don’t understand. He’s at a
psychologically fragile point in his life. He has two intense but
conflicting emotional needs. On one hand he has the same desire to
prove his worth that all meta-humans have. On the other he feels
obligated to shield himself from the same fate that claimed his
father. I think, with proper therapy, he could—”

“Stop, stop, stop. You lost me at the word
‘fragile.’ If the man needs to be coddled to be effective, then he
isn’t effective, end of story. Thank you for your assessments,
Doctor. I believe I have everything I need to make the final
selections.” Siegel stood.

“But there are still a few days of training
and tests.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said, pushing in his
chair. “The way I see it, six of these recruits have the mind and
mettle to be proper soldiers. Two of them have a couple of parlor
tricks that will make the public satisfied they got their money’s
worth. The other eight are an ineffective, self-delusional sideshow
that I have no intention of letting anywhere near my fighting
force.” He cleared his throat with finality. “Now if you’ll excuse
me, I’ve got to go listen to a roomful of sniveling politicians
explain to me why it is somehow
my
problem that a cluster of
insane idiots went and did something insane and idiotic after we
rejected them for being insane idiots. Good-bye.”

In three quick strides he was out of the
room, the door slamming behind him. Dr. Aiken slumped in his chair.
“Well, say what you will about that man. He may not know much about
compassion, but at least he’s decisive.”

“You know, if
they were going to have us sit around in the mess hall all day,
they could at least have put food out,” moaned Gracias.

“It is boot camp, not a cocktail party,”
jabbed Chloroplast.

Ever since reveille that morning, most of the
hero hopefuls had been waiting. The only information they’d
received had been that the day’s activities would be focused on
group drills, and that, by the nature of the drill, they were not
permitted to watch others undergoing the tests until they
themselves had completed them. It was now past noon, and the
trainees had been peeled off two by two in cabin-based pairs until
only Non Sequitur, Nonsensica, Chloroplast, and Gracias
remained.

“So? Where does it say you can’t serve pizza
pockets during boot camp?” Gracias continued. “I think they’d get a
lot more recruits if that was a standard policy. ‘Join the Army: We
have snacks.’”

“What if what we do in here is part of the
test?” Nonsensica theorized. “Maybe they’re doing a psychological
thing, like a double-secret observational exercise, to see how we
handle the unknown.”

“Nah. They’d need cameras and microphones and
stuff for that.”

Chloroplast silently pointed to the video
crew. Gracias looked directly into the camera with
deer-in-headlights stillness, then turned back to the others.

“What’s all this snack talk, guys?” he said
in an awkwardly loud and theatrical manner. “We should be talking
about… guns. And tactics. And maneuvers. Things like that. What’s
your favorite maneuver? I’m a fan of the… uh…”

“Heimlich?” asked Chloroplast. “I’m only
asking because it seems to me like you’re choking pretty bad right
now.”

“Okay, I have to admit, that was a pretty
sick burn right there,” Gracias said appreciatively.

“Nonsensica and Non Sequitur, please follow
me,” came Sergeant Roberts’s voice from the doorway. As usual, none
had seen his approach.

“Sweet Jesus,” Gracias yelped. He turned to
Chloroplast and whispered, “We need to put a bell on that guy.”

Nonsensica jumped to her feet and snapped to
attention in front of Roberts, Non Sequitur doing his best to match
her behavior a moment later. The sergeant turned and marched
crisply toward the training area on the far side of the base, the
others a few steps behind. As they followed, Nonsensica allowed
herself to fall a few more steps behind him and tugged Non
Sequitur’s arm for him to do likewise.

“Listen,” she whispered low enough to avoid
alerting the sergeant. “This is it. This is a big one, okay. We’ve
both struggled a little so far, right? You more than me, but both
of us are in the middle of the pack. There’s only room for eight
when all is said and done, so we’ve got to get our butts in gear.
This being a recruitment drive for a
team
, I gotta believe
the
team
exercises count for more, so this one could make or
break us. You ready for this?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Not good enough. Hopefully you’ve been doing
your best all along, so I’m going to need you to do better than
that.”

“How can you expect me to do better than my
best?”

“A hero finds a way,” she said, stopping him
with a hand on his shoulder and turning him to face her. “Are you a
hero?”

“Well, I’m trying to be,” he said.

“Wrong answer,” she said, shoving him. “Are
you a hero?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m not convinced!” Now she was holding him
with both hands clasped tightly on his shoulders. Thanks to the
height difference, she had to reach up to do it. She shook him.
“
Are you a hero?
”

“Yes!”

“And are we going to win this!”

“Yes!”

“That’s right!” she proclaimed, raising her
fist for a bump. Once it was delivered, she gave him a sharp slap
on the butt. “Let’s win it!”

She turned to find Sergeant Roberts observing
with the same rigid expression that he’d likely been wearing for
the last five years. Nonsensica, unfazed, jabbed a finger in his
direction.

“Bring it on, Sarge!”

Their instructor turned and continued on his
way, Nonsensica strutting behind him and Non Sequitur a step behind
her. As invigorating as her little pep talk had been, the slap on
the butt had managed to completely derail Non Sequitur’s train of
thought. His brain was still in the process of rebooting when they
reached their destination.

It was a rectangular pool of water that Non
Sequitur had noticed a few times over the course of their training
so far. The pool stretched to probably a hundred yards or so long,
and maybe five yards wide. Until now, he’d thought it was a lap
pool for some sort of swimming trial they would be doing, but that
was clearly not the case. The fact that the water was murky and
brown would have been evidence enough, but more telling was the
bizarre apparatus now mounted over it. Attached to the tops of long
poles that emerged from the water at regular intervals was a sort
of elevated obstacle course. Planks, ropes, and assorted gadgets
were assembled like scaffolding, stretching from a small padded
platform on one side to a matching one on the other. Additional
padding ran the length of the pool on either side, and beyond that
was the sort of sand you would find in a playground to break the
falls of any clumsy children. The first pad had a cargo net leading
up to the more complicated elevated portion, and the final pad was
at the end of a zip line. At the far side of the pool the other
hero hopefuls gathered. Most of them were soaking wet or clearly
had been at some point that morning.

“This test is designed to appraise your
problem solving and teamwork. Above, you’ll find an obstacle
course. It cannot be safely or quickly navigated alone. At four
clearly marked points, you will find a numbered flag. Your task is
to navigate the obstacle course, collect each flag along the way,
and deliver them to the finish line at the far platform. Once you
have progressed past the initial platform, if at any point a part
of your body touches the water or the edge of the pool, you will
both need to start over. Your progress will be timed. Currently the
time to beat is four minutes, seven seconds. You may traverse the
course in any way you choose. The clock starts”—he signaled a
soldier standing at the far end—“now.”

“We don’t even get time to plan?” Non
Sequitur objected.

“Come on!” Nonsensica urged, dashing to the
net and clambering up.

Despite her heavy boots and cumbersome
gloves, Nonsensica was astoundingly nimble, managing to finish her
fifteen foot climb before Non Sequitur had reached the halfway
point.

“Okay,” she called down to him, surveying the
top of the platform. “Not much to see up here. There’s a pole here,
maybe ten feet tall. There’s a flag at the top. There’s also a
little rope bridge and a door. I’ll climb the pole, you see about
the door.” Without waiting for a reply, she launched herself at the
pole and began working toward the top.

Non Sequitur reached the platform. Sure
enough, there wasn’t much to it. It was square, about ten feet on a
side, made of plywood, and had a pole at its center that swayed
violently with Nonsensica’s ascent. Attached to the far end was a
bridge made from nylon ropes and wooden planks, and from the looks
of it, it was designed to be unstable. Measuring twenty feet long,
its two ropes acted as handrails, and another pair supported the
planks. The problem was that the walkway ropes were only a few
inches apart, meaning that a step that was even slightly off center
caused the whole plank to pitch to the side. Add to this the utter
lack of guy-wires, and the planks being spaced four feet apart, and
you were left with a structure that was absolutely eager to dump
its passengers into the water below.

He took a few shaky steps onto it,
immediately flashing back to the deathtrap of a playground they’d
had near his school when he was growing up. It had a bridge just
like this one, and, as tends to happen when children are left to
their own devices, the ‘games’ involving it all focused on trying
to cause grievous bodily harm to one another. Mostly the
neighborhood kids would try to run across while their friends tried
to knock them off. After dislocating the same shoulder twice and
spraining an ankle trying to stay on the playground bridge, he’d
gotten pretty good at navigating it.

“This I remember how to do. I can’t remember
half of high school, but my king-of-the-hill skills stand the test
of time,” he muttered to himself.

“Got the flag!” she called out from behind
him. “How’s it going down there?”

“I’ll let you know in a minute,” he
replied.

When he reached the end, he found himself
standing on another plywood platform, about as wide as the pool
below. A tall chain-link fence stretching across its entire width
blocked the path. In the middle of the fence was a gate secured
with a padlock, and above the platform was a plexiglass box held
shut by a tricky latching mechanism. A rope, which led to a pulley
near the top of the fence, ran from either side of the latch, then
off to another pulley on either end of the fence and down to a
handle. Inside the box, which was high enough to be out of reach,
was a flag and a key.

“What are you just standing around for?”
Nonsensica called. She’d made it to the bridge, and her lighter
frame made it much less troublesome to navigate for her.

“There are two switches. I’m going to try to
use my powers,” he said, rushing to the first lever and pulling it.
Both latches popped, and the bottom of the box dropped open,
dumping the flag and the key to the platform.

Nonsensica scooped them both up and set about
unlocking the door while Non Sequitur pulled the other switch.

“That’s one handy power you’ve got,” she
said, stuffing the second flag into one of the pouches on her belt
once she got the gate open.

“You’d be surprised how seldom it comes in
handy at a desk job,” he said.

“Just one more reason not to have a desk
job.”

On the other side of the gate lay a long
narrow plank leading down to a platform nearly level with the
surface of the water. It was reinforced with a network of struts
and pivoted like a seesaw near the center. Non Sequitur tested the
plank with his foot and found that it rotated freely on the pivot,
dropping sharply toward the water.

“Okay, I guess we just need to be careful on
this one,” Non Sequitur said.