Welcome to the Marines (Corporate Marines Book 2) (17 page)

I blink. I felt better. Much better. My fear and paranoia is mostly gone and I find myself shocked that I had seriously considered killing others so that I could make it through. All the thoughts that I had running through my head had felt strange and foreign and when I carefully think out the inner checks through my mods, I can see, over the day, how out of sync my systems had moved and now I am mostly back to normal.

I shudder again at the thought of all the blood that I had seen every time I closed my eyes.

Normally Mouth is the questioner and I always hide. But I have to know.

I put my hand up but don’t stand as I don’t trust my legs to hold me. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

She looks at me and her perfect eyebrow goes up while she considers me. “Go ahead.”

I take my hand down. “Why are you the one briefing us on this and not one of the scientists?”

She smiles. “Those eggheads? They can tell you all the technical mumbo-jumbo on how and why these changes are happening to your body now and why. They can tell you not to worry about it. I am here because I have been through that when I was a candidate, and the process was not as refined as it is today. Plus, I have combat time in a section. I have gone through the godlike powers that we seem to have and know how it can pull you in. It doesn’t want to let you go, either. If you end up weak in combat, then it would be so easy staying in that heightened sense of awareness and to just keep killing the enemy like a god of war.”

Her voice had been almost dreamlike and she had been smiling.

The smile drops away; the mask is back and her voice is cold. “If and when you stay there, you will let your section down and risk every armoured Marine. You will let the Corporation down, all the staff that have supported and trained you, and you will be letting yourself down.”

Now her gaze is like a laser strafing over us. It is like she is burning this knowledge into our minds, or at least trying to. “Never do that, or you are a failure.”

She lifts herself up off the floor with just her hands and then twists so her body is parallel to the ground. She slowly straightens her legs so that her whole body is parallel to the floor and then she brings her legs down and then pushes off with her hands so that she is standing staring on the stage.

She wipes her hands on her pant legs and nods. “You are dismissed tonight. Tomorrow you begin hands-on armour training in different environments so that the sim knowledge is in line with reality. My suggestion is to get a good night’s sleep as you may have nightmares. This is a warning for you. Your body and mind are damaged and will recover quickly. Do NOT open yourself tonight to each other or you are almost guaranteed to force a deep-bonded connection with each other. You are going to want to desperately. Normal humans can be dependent on each other. Armoured Marines
cannot
be emotionally dependent on anyone or they will be flawed. Dismissed.”

We all stand up and file out of the auditorium and head for the cafeteria. For some reason we are hungry.

I want to talk to just about anyone, but that warning is sitting there. So we eat quietly, avoiding eye contact and finishing quickly.

We then head back to our rooms. None of us meet the others’ eyes.

I am feeling bad for how I had desperately wanted to betray the others to make it. I’m pretty sure that they feel the same.

I turn in my doorway and see Kellye looking at me, watching me. I try to smile and nod at her. She nods back and me and then steps back into her room and closes her door. I do the same. I go to lie down on the bed. I feel like I will never sleep.

The next morning I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow from the night before.

ARMOUR TRAINING

The next morning we get all cleaned up and then head for breakfast. After that, the scary trio shows up to take charge of us and we go deeper into the complex than we had ever been before. We go to an area that had been restricted to us before; we pass through several electronic checkpoints. We are programmed in by a lab coat-wearing guy we had never seen before. At the checkpoint are two wall-mounted boxes on either side of a shiny metal door. You come down a hallway and then stop in this small space; the doorway is offset from the hallway so it is not a straight line. You have to walk up to one of the two boxes and get scanned and answer security questions.

This far inside and security is as tight as it is on the surface. We have to do a voice print, a retinal scan, and they scan our entire hand. The ever-present cameras are everywhere, like in the rest of the complex. Here there are five that I can see. One per corner, and one all-around model that is ceiling-mounted. I wonder what other sensors and defences are here that I cannot see.

The first security checkpoint is the worst. They code us all through at one time and no one carries on until the last person is done. It takes us ten minutes to fully code in each person. We are there for a while and I can’t help but get bored and wonder what is beyond. We are finally all coded in and then we have to use our codes to pass through individually.

Finally, the last of us code in after a few glitches. Everyone gets it right on the second try, and the one retinal scan that was failed was a glitch. The door slides open and we carry on past a security checkpoint that holds two armed guards. I also se wall- and floor-mounted metal disks. I’m guessing that they cover weapon systems of some sort.

I don’t want to know. I just don’t want an up-close-and-personal demonstration.

Every checkpoint is similar, but we move through them quickly.

As we move along, our guides don’t say very much and we are only told when something is relevant to us. Most of this part of the complex is not relevant to us.

Unlike the main complex, this part only has the one main hallway. There are doors leading off of the hall but they are all closed and there is no traffic.

After what feels like an hour-long walk but was likely a lot less, we come to a large elevator. One of the goons pushes the call button and then the doors slide open. This elevator is as big as the one we came in on originally, but it is not as nice. It feels like a freight elevator.

There are only four buttons, and they are labelled one to four. The same goon that ordered the elevator pushes the three and the doors slide shut and then we are zooming down. I don’t know how far we move but it’s a good distance.

The doors open to a much larger hallway that is not meant for the general public. It is pure industrial, with a smooth floor, but everything else looks rough and made to last.

Our escorts take off at a run and we all take off after them. Armour is flanked on either side by her two goons so they are running down the hall in a V formation. We form up right behind them and it is effortless to run with them in two ranks. We move maybe three hundred meters into a larger round room that has a hallway continuing on the far side. There are two large steel doors on either side of the room. She turns and points to the group behind one of the goons and jerks her thumb at the door sliding open. Then she looks at the other and nods. Both goons move fast toward the different opening doors and we tag along behind them into the large room. I have Kellye in my group just ahead of me. We enter the room and then the lead stops and looks at us. There are seven of us in this group.

We move into a half-circle around him. He looks us over. Behind him is a huge lab with a lot of big machinery. It’s all sterile and there are a lot of people in lab coats spread out, standing by sets of machinery.

Our goon opens his mouth. “Spread out and move to a work station. The technicians there will take you in hand and begin your preparation. Ask no questions and only speak if they ask you something. Do everything they tell you to do as they tell you to do it. If they ask you for questions, then you can ask. Sizing and fitting armour is complex. If you cause problems, it will take you longer to be fitted and this means less time to acclimatize to your armour. Move now.”

His voice is gravelly and I think we are all in shock. We had never heard the two male instructors talk before. I didn’t even think that they could talk.

I shake off that shock and move to one of the farther stations. I nod at the technicians and move to directly in front of the main machine as they direct me.

I don’t know what they do, but the whole thing lights up and dozens of sensor pods pop out and start scanning me. The basic body mod upgrade that I have is always muted in the complex, but I can feel myself being scanned.

More importantly, I notice that Kellye is in the middle of the group next to me.

I almost grin, but keep it smothered. That feeling quickly leaves, though.

I have to do contortionist movements for twenty minutes, followed by calisthenics and a series of strange stretching exercises.

Then this ends and I am told to just stand while the four technicians fumble around the screens around the back. I look around and everyone else is in the same position. I don’t think any of us have been asked anything or have done any talking.

We are just more machinery to be manipulated by the technicians.

Then the machine shuts down and the technicians leave and go over to a workstation and all of us are completely ignored.

I hear the main door open and our goon is back. He motions to us. “This way, move now.”

We move at a jog out into the hall and, without waiting, we move off further into the complex. We travel maybe another hundred meters down the hall and then stop at another large door. It slides open and we walk in.

It is some sort of medical wing and it looks nastier than what we had been through earlier. Our scary female instructor is there and she motions us over. We are the first group in, so we are going to be waiting. When we move over, both she and the goon ignore us and just seem to zone out. I try it. I can’t do whatever they are doing, but thankfully the door opens again after a minute and the other group comes in.

We do this for days and I slowly start going insane doing the same things over and over again. It is made worse by the occasional weird question that they ask.

None of it makes any sense.

Being constantly watched by our trainer doesn’t make it any easier. She is a machine and is constantly evaluating us, day in and day out. Before, I had thought of her as Armour because she was the individual who always led the group of scary instructors that were going to do our armour training. Now I start thinking of her like the armour itself. Expressionless, ready to move at a minute’s notice, and just needing the direction to strike.

I had started calling her ‘Armour’ in my head a long time ago and never even realized it. I’ve even slipped up in conversation with the rest of the candidates, during the few times that we actually have a conversation anymore.

I can always feel the blood and hear the screaming. It never blocks out that one piercing shriek that I had never been there to hear. My mind keeps filling it in, though, and that is worse.

I am getting worse.

I’ve noticed that there are times when Armour has been almost human to us. By that I mean that she has shown some emotion, like anger, as she yells at us over something we did done wrong. It’s strange how she is always watching us. I wonder if she ever sleeps, or is she just plugged in to a recharge station for an hour a night?

I wonder regularly if she is insane.

Maybe we all are insane now. I don’t know.

We have done this for five days now. At the end of every day, we file out and head back to carry on with our evening. This night is different. As I go to pass Armour, she puts an arm up to stop me.

“You. After dinner in the gym. Physical fitness training; be ready for it.”

She moves her arm and I keep on walking. Off to eat a light dinner now, as it probably won’t stay down for long. As soon as I finish eating, I am out the door and down to the gym.

Armour is already there in her bodysuit. She is stretching it out and talking to a guy in a business suit. I recognize him from the night that I was drugged before the procedures. That was a lifetime ago. I don’t think about why he’s here. I just focus on Armour.

I don’t know what to expect. Maybe some hand-to-hand combat, even though we shouldn’t be doing that. Maybe she knows what I did and is going to beat the hell out of me to get me to quit. I just don’t know.

She motions me over and steps toward the large mats that we use for padding. I think others are coming in behind me but I can’t look. If I take my eyes off of her for a second she’ll be on me and I’ll be out. She can move like greased lightning and I am terrified of her strength and aggression. One good hit and she can kill me.

She stops at the end of the mat and looks at me.

“You did it, didn’t you?”

I stare at her blankly. “I did what?” She doesn’t even correct my mistake in not addressing her correctly.

“You killed those kids. All four of them. Two boys and two girls. They made for cute couples. Did you enjoy cutting them up?”

I can feel the anger rising up and I can hear the screaming. I have to get through this.

“Come on, candidate. Everyone here is an adult.” She spreads her arms out wide, indicating everyone around her. “Did you like killing those kids and cutting them into pieces?”

She looks me up and down. “You know what? I know you enjoyed it. I don’t think I like that in a person, though. So I am going to get on this mat and kick your ass.”

She starts moving toward me and I started backing away. I can hear the crackling of the flames now and hear the begging. Faintly I can hear screams.

“Step off the mat and you are off this course and I’ll have you off-planet doing hellhole jobs faster than you can blink.”

I hear noise from behind me. But it doesn’t matter.

I stop. I’m at the edge. She means it. I can see it in her eyes, her face and the hate-filled way that she walks toward me. I move sideways, working to keep space between us.

“You know, I read all the news reports. Did your daddy ‘like’ you? Did he abuse you? Did he hurt your sister? Did you watch and do nothing, or did you help him?” She is spitting the words out at me. They burn like acid. I fail.