Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]
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@kisupure You certainly know how to write size erotica well…that was so powerful and sensual
It’s also fascinating to watch their relationship as it grows and to wonder what the consequences of that relationship will be. -
CHAPTER 10
Sentry positions are to be held with the utmost attention paid to one’s surroundings. Speaking at volume, indulging in distractions, and sleeping for more than seven (7) hours per night is indicative of poor performance and may result in transfer to another Corps division. Repeated or particularly egregious violations of good corpsmanship may result in the need for retraining.
— HDC Manual, Section 12 § 18
The corpsman stood there in the dark, straining to see how long her ears could detect him. But he was a talented bastard, and she counted eleven seconds before she lost track of the Anak giant.
Gray went to wipe the Anak’s taste from her mouth, and found her fingers smelling strongly of sex. “Shit,” she muttered, and crouched down to quickly muss her hands around in the dirt just as she heard the plodding steps of the patrol come up the path, accompanied by hushed conversation.
“Hey.” Gray nodded at the pair when they came into view. They paused and eyed her.
“What are you doing up here?” one asked.
She swallowed, trying to look appropriately cool and disinterested. “The usual,” she shrugged. “Trying to think up a way to end the war.”
The other, a ninth-year, snorted and flicked some ash from his smokestick. “Sounds like you’re gunnin’ for a medal or something, corpsman.”
Gray smiled sardonically and began the trek back to camp. “Any metal but lead.”
* * *
She went to bed as quickly as possible that night, as she’d need to ruck out for Wesson’s spiteful assignment at nearly the crack of dawn. In her cot, it was difficult to sleep. Gray felt a little giddy, almost, thinking about whether the sentinel would visit her at the blind, if he could ever steal further into Fox and visit her here. Abduct her from her tent in the dead of night, and drag her off to be thrown against a rock somewhere and…
That’s when she decided her imagination was getting away from her, and flopped over to try and get some sleep. Gray made sure to set the weak, quiet alarm on her watch to give her enough time to barter a friday for a few books in the morning. She was going to need them.
* * *
At 0530, Gray headed over to the Gold Fox tent, looking for a ninth-year named Craft. She found his flap and gave a hiss.
“Hey, you awake in there?”
There was a groan inside, and the creak of a cot frame. “Depends what you want.”
“Looking for some books.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Gray popped her head inside.The ninth-year was sitting up in his cot, rubbing his tired face. She didn’t feel too bad about waking him up, because the lucky bastards were only two to a room, so they had the space to begin accumulating personal belongings ahead of release. She spotted the crates under his cot, fitted with locks, and she knew they were packed to the rim with artifacts from the outside world.
“Friday?” she offered.
“Just one?” Craft held out his arm impatiently, clicking his tongue. “Let’s see it.”
She handed the slip over, and he inspected it briefly before stuffing it into the breast pocket of his beige overshirt. “Alright, you know how it goes, youngyear. Out, out.”
Gray ducked back out, letting the flap close behind her as she heard him unlock the crate and rummage around. “If you had smokes,” he called out to her, “I could get you one that didn’t have pages missing in the middle.” The lock clicked, keys jangled, and the crate was slid back into place before he peeked out and handed her two ragged copies of something. “I’ll buy ‘em back from you when you’re done for two minutes of water.”
Gray sighed. “Deal.”
She turned the books over in her hands as she walked back towards the Brown Fox tent to gather up her gear. They had clearly passed through many hands, smelled like old sweat, and the covers were long gone, but they were just the distraction from her distraction that she’d need for the next few days.
By 0600, she was signing herself out at the checkpoint with a belly full of coffee.
“Off already, huh?” came a groggy, but familiar voice.
Gray turned to see Harper coming along with a cup of his own. He looked very tired; he’d probably been up all night at the wire.
“Yeah, the captain couldn’t decide between giving me the rock or the hard place. So I got both.” She signed her EIN in the watchman’s book. “You won’t be seeing me for another six days.”
Harper sighed bitterly. “I’m sorry, Gray.” Then, he looked tired again. “I’ve been trying to steer clear of him too. He hasn’t been right since the engagement, and Finch…”
She swallowed. “Keep an eye on her this weekend, will you? Something stinks and it ain’t pheromone.”
“I had to notify Alpine of the visitors, they’ll be staying for four days. Then after that, it’s brass.”
Gray’s brows shot up. He was referring to the majors and colonels, the most lavish of guests that a camp could host.
“And they’re bringing forty-seven bondsmen with ‘em.”
“Holy shit!”
Harper just shrugged. “We’re still down more than two-hundred. We need the boots, and it’s better to train ‘em all at once.”
She couldn’t argue with that. But it would take days to process that many people. And with brass here, the camp would once again be a prime target for ‘Nak hostility. Even brigs would be interested in making off with a few unwary bonds if they could get close enough.
“Not sure if I wanna be here for that or off on another six-day watch again,” she chuckled weakly.
“Wesson will have to clean up his act for the brass, that’s for sure. Especially since he doesn’t have his mark yet, they’ll be holding him to the letter.”
“Just… watch out for Finch. Friday night, especially.”
Harper just drew his mouth into a line and nodded.
Gray handed back the clipboard and exchanged it for a radio. It was a bulky device, about the size of her foot, and its face was fitted with a few sturdy buttons and dials. She strapped it to her belt.
“And send another book with my water delivery, will ya?”
The broad corpsman broke into laughter and Gray smiled back. She had to, she didn’t want her last memory of the place before going back into solitary confinement to be grim and dour. But maybe she wouldn’t be alone after all. There was that chance.
* * *
Dawson by Dusk was, by all measures, a terrible story. It was a typical Westie: characters were either cowardly or stone-faced, and the men were all leathery and tough, while the women either beautiful and docile or shrill and just as leathery as the men. Well, she couldn’t complain too much; corpsmen were a pretty leathery bunch as well.
The biggest problem with them, though, was that they didn’t last long. She’d only been reading for a few hours on her second morning and she was already a third done with the damn thing. When she closed the book, the renegade hero had just come upon the comely daughter of a dredge owner suspected of murdering a U.S. Marshal, whatever that was. Even with the missing bits of context, it was quite predictable so far.
She sighed and closed the book, beginning to settle in. Blind 14 was on an exposed ridgeline with a view of the lowlands, and it was part of a string of solitary posts networked together to keep an eye on movement below, to the south-west. Gray hadn’t done one of these since well before the relocation, and she almost forgot to “check-in” with the other positions at 2130 that night. In the small kit provided, she pulled out a flashlight, snapping on the requisite red night lens, and crept out of the small raised shelter. Yawning, Gray looked to her right where, about half a klik away in the distance, another blind was located. At exactly 2133, she looked hard and against the darkness spotted the all-clear sign: four solid bursts of light. Then turning left, she counted down the seconds until 2134, and gave her own. Down the line they went, a string of 6 posts working together to hold down the territory. A few minutes later, and the signal was communicated from left to right.
If something was wrong, she’d see a different pattern, followed by more information in Morse. Luckily, it looked like things would be quiet tonight.
Gray slipped back into the blind, a small A-frame shelter made from the rough-cut wood of small trees and thatched with grasses. It was better than the unprotected platform up in the tree, but being lower to the ground she would have to hang her rations from one of the scraggly trees behind her to keep the mice away, and periodically smoke the shelter to keep the bugs out. Especially those nasty, fat-bottomed widows. Waking up next to one of their tough, messy webs would give any seasoned corpsman a good scare. She wondered how Rice did it.
Rice. Gray laid on her back and looked up, her belly doing a little tumble at the thought of him. He was out there, somewhere, never too far away it seemed. She wanted to ask him how much ground he was required to cover, how big his territory was. She wondered if he’d tell her. Gray craved him now more than she wanted to admit, longed for him to step out of the night like some supernatural creature to rescue her from her boredom. Gray never remembered being this bored, or this restless. It’s as if her tolerance for quietude was disappearing, and for the second time in her life, she was experiencing a deep hunger for something.
The last time this happened she joined the Corps.
She tried not to think about her life before escaping very often. The memories were jumbled now, distant, but at points alarmingly clear. She remembered the silky mud between her toes as she helped to dig a grave along the side of the road in pouring rain. She remembered the closest thing she had to a mother: a stern old woman named Cleo, another bond who died from a scorpion sting when Gray was 11. The most remarkable thing about Cleo, though, was that she was a child in the years before the Disruption. When the masters were asleep, sometimes Gray would get to hear stories of the old world, of the house that Cleo was raised in, with its water and electricity, and the machines that made the air cool. She spoke of screens, like mirrors, that could show you faraway places, books, the faces of others instead of your own. She said that everyone always had at least one, and that they were thought of as precious, like water.
Gray wondered if Rice knew anything of the pre-Disruption world. Or if he even cared about it at all.
She rolled over, trying to keep from picturing him, from remembering the way his massive hand felt in her hair. She focused on the sounds of night around her instead, and tried to fall asleep. The crickets helped.
* * *
There was another check-in in the morning at 0800, and another at noon. Every four hours, up and down the line they went, with either flags during the day or red lights in the dark. A wide, three-mile gap in the hills was monitored this way, with as few bodies spared for the job as possible. It was brutally efficient.
Gray finished her first book on day three, and almost found herself wishing that she was a weaker reader just so they would last longer. She knew some corpsmen who would take ten minutes to read a page from the Manual. And that included needing help with some of the more esoteric words.
The sentinel must’ve known how to read; he wouldn’t have gotten very far keeping track of a Corps camp without being able to peek in on duty rosters through a pair of binos. Or maybe he didn’t. Would would have taught him? Was he born knowing?
Behind the blind, in the scattered shade of some wide, scraggly tree she didn’t know the name of, Gray had made a “dust bath” - a spot to cool down when the air just got too hot to do much else. She kicked off her pants, tossed off her shirt, and scraped away at the top few inches of sandy soil to make a shallow trough long enough for her to lay down in. She sighed when she did, enjoying the much cooler dirt against her skin. Gray almost fell asleep.
Almost.
Her eyes flew open at the smell of tobacco smoke, a surge of excitement suddenly invigorating her. But when she sat up, looking around for the man she was sure would be smoking it, she quickly found that the source was a butt on the ground next to her, still weeping a tendril of smoke.
Gray started, immediately noticing that it was still hot. Without thinking, she smashed it to bits with her hand until she was sure that every last tiny ember had gone out. It was a reaction that was well programmed into her: the Corps took fire very seriously. As they were one of the few things more dangerous than an attack, arsonists and their friends were dealt with swiftly and severely, no matter how small the blaze, and turned out into the wastes with a bright red letter A tattooed next to their freeman’s mark. No one wanted to deal with fires, not even the Anakim.
She stood up, eyes scanning the area for any trace of him. This wasn’t how she imagined him making his entrance.
“You ass,” she called out into the bush, and like that, he revealed himself from where he’d been crouched, still as stone. “You know what they’d do to me if this ridge caught fire?”
“Leave you for the brigs,” he called, stepping out from behind a rocky outcrop. “Not much fuel for a blaze here, though.” He kicked at the bare dirt around the tree to prove his point.
She shook her head and sat down in the shade, surprised when a second later he ducked down to sit next to her. Her head only came up to his bicep, but already she was getting used to it. She didn’t want to get used to it.
“A little dangerous to be here in broad daylight, isn’t it?”
She was expecting innuendo, a kiss, something. But Rice just reached into a pouch and produced another hand–rolled stick, lit it and took a drag. Gray watched as he blew the smoke away from her, the faint wisps coiling around in the air and disappearing. Where did he get all of those, anyway? It took a lot to trade for genuine tobacco.
He checked his watch. “Your water delivery left camp about 20 minutes ago, he’s still 2 hours away. Corpsman in blind 13 over there brought a bunch of shine with him and has been sleeping between whatever that thing is that you do every four hours. And blind 15’s practising the harmonica. Be glad you can’t hear it from here.”
“How’d you know all that?”
“Gathering information is what I was designed to do,” he chuckled. “Besides, eavesdropping around a Corps camp isn’t that hard. You guys act like no one’s ever listening.”
She narrowed her eyes at the horizon and folded her arms. Why was he being this way? Wasn’t this supposed to be a tryst? “Yeah, well, with you in charge, it doesn’t seem to matter what we do,” she huffed.
Rice grinned wider, holding the little brown stick between his lips as he stretched out his massive legs and put his hands behind his head against the tree.
“You don’t have a damn clue what I do out here, do you?”
She wasn’t sure what came over her, but she suddenly reached up, snatched the smokestick from his smug face, and brought it to her own mouth.
“Yeah, you smoke up and fuck humans, you fuckin’ chucklehead.”
Gray sucked it down, feeling the smoke hit the back of her throat, and exhaled like she knew what she was doing. But a beat later it burned, and she erupted into a coughing fit.
Rice just laughed as she gave it back, hacking.
“Whatever,” she rasped, and coughed some more. “I’m great at sentry. And for the record, the rest of your kind are about as easy to spot as a bull elk in rut.”
“The brownbands?” he snorted, referencing the color of their armbands, of which he wore none. “They’re useless in the bush.”
He took another long drag, held it for a few seconds, before letting it out again.
“And I don’t doubt you do your job well. Unfortunately for the Corps, give a sentinel enough time in one place, and he’ll eventually notice everything.”
Gray sighed quietly, eyes dropping to look at her booted feet. Then she glanced at his: enormous, strong, deeply treaded for traction. She couldn’t tell what color they were supposed to be through the dust. The excitement of his presence was wearing off a little, the warmth in her belly fading for not being put to use. Maybe Rice was only here to chat, if she could call it that. The thought disappointed her.
“So why haven’t you reported us yet? You know our positions, our movements.” Gray just shrugged. There was nothing more to say.
The giant didn’t take his eyes off the horizon. “Because smoking up and fucking humans is a hell of a lot more fun than fighting,” he said, confirming part of her theory.
Then his smoky breath was on her hair when he lifted up her chin, and a moment later he was kissing her on the mouth. Finally.
He tasted like ash. Gray just looked him in those blue eyes, wondering if she should take him at his word. Of course there was a lot he wasn’t telling her. The question was how much.
“You’re a lousy soldier,” she said.
Rice’s expression had a bitter edge to it but he shrugged. “Probably.” Then he kissed her again. There were no gloves on his hands, she realized, when his fingers wandered down to the waistband of her underwear.
She put her hand on his arm, but it didn’t stop him. “If somebody sees us, we’re both dead.”
Rice undid her pants and snaked his fingers slowly down between her legs. “Didn’t stop you last time.”
True.
Gray reached out to palm his building arousal, but he seemed to ignore her as he pushed her into the dirt. He rubbed her through her underpants, feeling her heat. When she spread her thighs for him he pulled the garment aside and stroked her skin directly. Gray moaned.
“Next time I’m going to find us a spot where we can get away for a couple hours,” he said, watching her face as he continued touching her. “Where I don’t have to cover your mouth.”
Gray shivered and tilted her hips into him. “Fuck that sounds hot,” she sighed. Then: “Y-you’re hot.”
He plunged two fingers into her, and Gray gasped. “Never thought I’d hear that from one of you. There’s a lot of fucked up people out in the waste, but I thought the Corps taught you better,” he smirked.
“We’re taught a lot of things.”
“So are we.”
Already she was keening, pushing her hips against his big hand. He worked in three massive fingers, rubbing circles around her little clit with the pad of his thumb. It wouldn’t be long.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” she murmured, the words coming out between little moans. Unfortunately, she realized too late that this made her sound hopelessly sentimental. He cocked a brow at her but didn’t even slow down.
“You have?” There seemed to be a little enjoyment there at her expense.
“You know what I meant.”
Rice scoffed and picked up his pace in just the right way. He had her bucking like a pony, and in no time orgasm rolled through her like a cresting wave of heat.
Squirming, panting, mewling, she came against him, until all that was left was that hazy warmth as she lay limply in the dirt, looking up through the leaves at the clear blue sky. Gray glanced at Rice, who brought his hand to his mouth and stuck his finger in to taste her.
“Bet you’re even sweeter after a shower,” he said with a grin.
She blushed fiercely and yanked her underwear back into place. “Thanks, asshole. You don’t look so fresh yourself.”
He laughed, which made her scowl even more. “Yeah, no kidding. That’s why I’m not whipping it out for you.”
Gray sat down again and looked out at the view, thinking. She was struggling to reconcile her image of him, and who this… Anak actually was. Somehow, deep in her bones, she knew she could trust him. But she still had no idea what he wanted. And that not knowing was making her uneasy this time.
“What the hell is your deal, Rice? What is this game you’re playing with me?”
The giant looked at her and his smile disappeared. He rose, ducking out from under the tree, and wandered over to her blind, taking another long drag of the stick. Then he reached inside and pulled something out, something dwarfed by his huge fist. A second later and there was a sider tossed in the dirt between her feet. The look in his eyes reminded her that he was a ‘Nak.
“Humans play games too, don’t they?”
She looked at the dusty weapon for a few silent seconds, picking it up and turning it over in her hands. She set it down again. “Guess we are pretty shitty soldiers.”
Rice’s eyes narrowed at the horizon. “No, we’re good soldiers. It’s this war that’s shitty.”
Suddenly, a few more pieces clicked into place, and she looked at him, feeling a bit smug herself for figuring it out. The way he spoke to her earlier made her want to get one up on him, even the smallest bit. “So you’re a rebel, then? Get your kicks from giving the middle finger to the Algo, shirking orders and doing what Rice wants to do.”
He was quiet for a minute, and she saw his expression beginning to harden. “Sounds like you know me better than you thought.”
“What I don’t get is the interest in me,” she boldly continued. “It’s not personal, is it? It’s just ‘cause I’m the first corpsman that hasn’t shot you yet. After so many years, you’ve finally gotten to fuck the uniform.”
“You really are fuckin’ dense.”
There was something in his voice that shut her up immediately. Something dangerous, authoritative. A knowing. Rice checked his watch, then began to walk away.
“W-where are you going?”
He was already making his quick, silent way down a game trail and she found herself trying to keep pace as he disappeared into a small copse of red, wiry manzanita shrubs.
“Slow down!” she called after him.
Rice stopped and when she caught up she was suddenly in the air, and then there was a very spacious, but very uncomfortably armored shoulder under her belly. It was not a fun ride when he picked up his pace again, and it wasn’t without some protest.
“I’d let you walk, but you’re too slow and too loud.”
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
“Far enough to be out of sight of those blinds. Got something to show you.”
It was one thing to watch him walk, but another thing entirely to be slung over his shoulder like that as he took his long, swift strides across the soil, expertly sidestepping noisy brush and the small, flat leaves of the sparse manzanita grove. Most of the plants only had a few inches on him, but the Anak seemed to move with all the deftness of an animal through the landscape and she knew that he would be difficult to see for sure.
After a good amount of time, long enough for her side to start hurting again and then some, they came to a dry stream bed, and followed it for a few hundred yards as it cleft its way around a small bluff. In the shade of a single old oak tree leaning precariously over the edge, he finally set her down.
“Get up top behind that tree. Don’t move, don’t make a sound.”
Gray nodded, desire gone and replaced with the edge of a trained soldier. Finding purchase along the face of the bluff, she carefully made her way up and waited in the tall grass at the base of the oak.
They waited a while, probably ten minutes. Rice stood, lit up a third stick, his eyes studying the ground in silence. Then she heard it: heavy boots. And soon after, she felt it. Pheromone. Rice had stopped suppressing.
She watched him, noticed the small changes in body language. He squared his shoulders, set his feet apart, folded his arms in such a way that made them look absolutely huge. Was he signaling uprank dominance? He had to have been. What was curious is that it looked more to her like it was deliberate more than instinctual, a finely-tuned image of what he was expected to be.
Off to her right came three brownbands. An odd number like that was strange, she’d never seen it before.
“Late,” Rice said. His voice seemed louder and harsher, but she couldn’t be sure if it was the pheromone playing tricks on her.
“Sorry, sir. We got your delivery.”
One of them was carrying something special on his back. Rice sat down on a boulder, undid the straps of his vest to let it fall away, then pulled up the side of his shirt to reveal those tight muscles that Gray had enjoyed so much the week before. The same brownband that was carrying the pack got closer, kneeling beside him. Rice felt around the side of his abdomen with a pair of fingers, looking for something. The corpsman watched, fascinated. Something told her that she was witnessing an exchange few humans got to see.
The attending brownband handed Rice something, a small spray bottle, and he gave his skin a spritz as the other Anak readied a tube connected to his pack, and replaced a head on it. When Rice was ready, the nameless Anak pushed the tube to his skin, and a beige liquid proceeded to flow from the pack.
Rice held still, eyes closed, and he breathed slow and steady. Gray could see from here that he did not enjoy what was happening, and that he wanted it to be over with. What was this vaguely grotesque ritual?
After a minute passed in complete silence, the brownband with the strange contraption pulled out the tube with a single, decisive motion, and Rice was quick with a rag at the spot. In the split second between them, Gray saw blood.
Rice wasn’t concerned by it, and after dabbing at the spot a few times, he pulled his shirt back down and stood.
“Alright, your orders from Central,” he said, and the three brownbands stood at attention.
“557, you’re to go rendezvous with the 44th company by tomorrow. You’ll be replacing their Gamma. Be ready to receive new instructions within the week about your new section.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to the brownband with the special ruck.
“619, report to G Waypoint, also within the week. You’ve been deemed worthy enough to be put in the queue for pairing.”
Pairing?
“Th-thank you sir, it’s an honor. If you can tell Central that I—“
“Central doesn’t care what you have to say, soldier.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rice then looked to the last of them.
“And as for you, 701, Central acknowledges your attempt to organize outside the command of your Alphas, and has deemed you unfit to serve.”
This Anak looked taken aback, and Gray saw him begin to panic.
“S-sir, I… it was a football game, sir. A simple game!”
But the sider was already in Rice’s hand, and a second later, the insubordinate giant was flung to the ground with a hole between his eyes. Gray covered her mouth with her hands to keep them from hearing her horrified gasp.
Rice ground the last of his smokestick under his heel and turned to the remaining pair. “We’ve been having problems with the Tobins lately,” he said dispassionately. “Report anything unusual about them to your Alphas and Betas. Central is working on a gene patch in the meantime.”
Gray couldn’t tell if it was the strange cruelty she had just witnessed, or if it was the accumulating pheromone, or something else altogether, but she didn’t want to be here anymore. But she had to be. And not even for the fact that she’d be dead the instant any of them saw her. It was because Rice had specifically wanted her here.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get him out of here. Dismissed.”
Quietly, the pair of brownbands lifted the immense weight of their dead comrade, and hauled him away. As soon as they were out of sight, Rice took a moment to consider the red stain sinking into the dry, pebbled earth, before heading around and up the bluff. He didn’t go to her, though. He passed her by and, on the other side of the tree, was his pack. He dug through a small pouch on the top and pulled out something no bigger than a poker chip, connected to the pack by a curly wire. She realized that it fit snugly into the shell of his ear.
“This is R-402,” he said out loud, just as coldly as before. “Current assignments complete. C-557, A-619, and T-701 all green. C-557 and A-619 moving now to assigned sections.”
A pause.
“Understood. R-402 underway.”
He returned everything to its place and stood to lean back against the trunk of the old tree, staring out, though it didn’t appear he was looking at anything. Gray saw that his fists were closed, but restless. He didn’t acknowledge her for a few long moments.
“Rice?”
The giant blinked, glanced at the time once more. “Let’s get you back,” he said quietly.
http:/sizekink.com
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Fingering is underrated. It always scales up in my head.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” she murmured, the words coming out between little moans. Unfortunately, she realized too late that this made her sound hopelessly sentimental. He cocked a brow at her but didn’t even slow down.
“You can’t?” There seemed to be a little enjoyment there at her expense.
“You know what I meant.”
I’m guessing there’s a draft where Gray’s first line is “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“You really are fuckin’ dense.”
Someone oughta tell Rice that negging isn’t cool.
I have some guesses about why Rice rucked her out on that little field trip, but the bottom line is that he wanted to show her why he hates fighting for the Algo.
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@kisupure More glimpses into Anakim society…I really like the small details that you include throughout the chapter (I’m guessing that the strange contraption that they attached to Rice was some sort of feeding tube or regeneration serum?) The fact that so many questions are unanswered — Rice’s motivations and background, for example — leave me eager for the next chapters.
P.S. I had to laugh when Gray describes the Western that she was reading because I’ve read so many books like that.
P.P.S. Giants carrying smaller people over their shoulder are the best.
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P.S. I had to laugh when Gray describes the Western that she was reading because I’ve read so many books like that.
P.P.S. Giants carrying smaller people over their shoulder are the best.
I haven’t actually read any Westerns that I can remember, believe it or not… but I do have me a sizeable Jack Higgins collection and I can imagine that with a mere swap of settings, a lot of the tropes are the same!
And yeah, I do love me some shoulder carry. That’s one of the fun things only minigiants can really do!
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CHAPTER 12
((Not a fun chapter. I know yall aren’t squeamish, but there’s some brief torture in this one.))
The Corps cannot function without an effective command structure. Therefore, forging bondship status or otherwise impersonating an individual of any other rank, platoon, or social demographic is strictly forbidden. Corpsmen falsely identifying themselves in a way that contradicts their information on file will be met with severe punishment without release.
— HDC Manual, Section 8 § 24
He did not pick her up this time, and Gray was left to walk behind him, though he had slowed down enough for her to keep up. He was still producing pheromone, a fact she was painfully aware of, even now, as he was some kind of raw and vulnerable. They walked in silence for ten minutes, fifteen. Gray wondered if she should say anything at all. Maybe he was waiting for her to.
She spoke when they had reached another patch of shade. “Hey.”
Rice stopped, looked over his shoulder.
“You’re still scenting,” she ventured.
“Sorry.”
He took a deep, slow breath, and closed his eyes, willing his body to relax. After a moment he waved his great hand through the air, trying to disperse the invisible weapon.
“Better?”
Gray closed her own eyes and breathed. Already she felt a little less on edge, felt like she was in the company of something a little more human.
“Better.” A pause. “Can I… see your side?”
He knelt, vest still hanging from his belt, and he pulled up his shirt again. Gray just now realized that it was a plain t-shirt under all that gear, nothing special. She saw the spot of blood on his side, already dry, and ventured to gently feel with her own fingers. There was a small, barely noticeable shape under the skin.
“It’s a port,” Rice rumbled.
“What did they put in you?”
“20,000 calories.”
Gray could piece together the rest. It never occurred to her that the feeding tube jokes could be real. Or rather, real like this.
She took a step back. “I’d hate it too, you know.”
It looked as if there was more he wanted to say, but didn’t. Her answer seemed to satisfy him, and he nodded. Actually, he grabbed her by the chin and bent forward to deliver a rough kiss before breaking away to stand and strap his things back together.
“Can you find your way from here?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be loud and slow.”
The corner of his mouth twitched into the faintest resemblance of a smile. “You’ve got chops,” he murmured, voice so deep that it sounded more like the growl of a machine than not. “You’re definitely good enough to train rooks. If you wanted to stay with the Corps, that is.”
“Thanks, but I’m not staying. I need to get out.” Then, she said something that surprised her. “Maybe even leave the Southland, if I can.”
“Southland’s a big place, a thousand miles square. You gonna walk?”
“Maybe.”
His thoughts were drifting, and so were hers.
“Rice, what’s a pairing?”
If he had begun to loosen up, then his edge returned again.
“You don’t wanna know.”
“I don’t wanna know, or you don’t wanna tell me?”
That got a weak smile out of him.
* * *
She didn’t hear from the sentinel for the rest of her time at blind 14, but she wasn’t expecting to. Between the glimpse he had given her into into the severity of his duties and the Westie Harper had made sure to send with her water, Gray was sufficiently occupied until the end of her sixth day came around. Her relief came a little after 0730, and she shouldered her ruck to head home.
Gray didn’t know what to expect when she returned, though she had a few hours to think about it as she picked her steps along the trail. Things would be tense—the brass had arrived—and when she finally signed in at the checkpoint and the vast flood basin came into view, aglow with oil lamps and the occasional electric floodlight, she noticed Camp Fox showing off its colors at every pole: the Corps standard was white, with a blue fist holding a bundle of arrows out of one side, and lightning bolts out the other. Encircling it was olive branches, symbolizing the “hope for a peaceful future”. Conveniently, the Manual had a diagram explaining it all.
The first thing she did was use up a luxurious amount of water in the shower, more than five minutes—being away from camp for almost two weeks meant that she could afford it, since cards were reissued at the beginning of every month, no matter how many minutes you had left.
At the end, Gray stared at her feet in the stall, getting lost in the sensation of water dripping down her arms, her back, her legs. It was going to be a long few days. She didn’t want to look at the board. So she didn’t. Not yet, at least.
She found herself being drawn to the rope cordoning off the west end of camp, the shadiest part of the basin in the blasting heat of late afternoon. Gray poked around, noticed the line of horses. There were five majors and two colonels, she could tell by their tack and saddles: majors had black leather with white blankets, and colonels had red leather with blue blankets. Gray didn’t even know where blue dye came from, it was so rare. They also had saddlebags, decorated and personalized. These weren’t Corps issue, they were from civtown. Two ninth-year corpsmen guarded the horses.
Gray swallowed. Where were the bonds? They must’ve been crammed into an entire guest tent or two, and would probably begin processing in the morning.
She jumped when a hand clapped onto her shoulder. “Shit! You son of a…!”
When she turned, it was the captain.
“Hey, easy there!” he said, letting her go.
“Christ, Wesson, I almost pissed myself.” He had surprised her so completely she’d forgotten how mad she was supposed to be.
“You didn’t come to see me tonight.”
She frowned. “I was going to pop in for my debrief… tomorrow.”
“Look, Gray, I just… I want to apologize for last week. It wasn’t professional of me. And I wasn’t being fair.”
The seventh-year looked him in the eye, wondering what was going through that straw-haired head of his. He must’ve noticed the look on her face, because his hand was on her shoulder again.
“I mean it,” he continued. “I rearranged the roster, you’ve got three days off now.”
That was generous.
Gray glanced back over to the guest tents, hearing an explosion of laughter all of a sudden. Then a guitar picked up.
“Hey, not even a thank you?”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Would you stop throwing that in my face? You know where we are, you know how this works.”
“I thought I did,” she murmured.
Wesson sighed. “Where you headed? You can’t gawk at the brass all night.”
“I’d like to get some sleep, actually.”
“I’ll walk you back.”
Please don’t.
He kept his hand on her shoulder for the stroll back towards their—his, and in the possessive sense—toon tent. They walked in silence for a minute and then he stopped them.
“Actually, you wanna see my new quarters?” Wesson asked. There was an odd grin on his face, as if this were awkward for him, but he wanted it anyways. Gray was distinctly reminded of a young boy. “Most captains are with the camp guests, there won’t be hardly anyone over there. C’mon.”
Gray licked her lips and put her hands up. “Look, Wesson, I don’t think it’s… smart. I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea if they see us.”
“What do you mean? I’m an officer, you’re downrank; it’d look like I ordered you to come with me.”
She sucked her lip between her teeth and stared at his chest. “That’s exactly what I don’t want it to look like. Sir.”
He looked genuinely hurt at that, and it almost got her. Almost. But she put a pace between them, and was about to wish him a good night, when he grabbed her by the arm, firmly but not hard, and drew her close again. Her heart immediately began to pound against her ribs when he bent his head as if to kiss her and–
…he grabbed the threadbare collar of her undershirt to give it a sniff.
Her heart pounded even harder.
Oh god.
Fuck.
Did she smell like him? She’d washed up, but never thought it could soak into her clothes, never thought it could linger enough for someone more sensitive to detect. The rag that the recruitment officers had to test the new bonds was kept soaking in a disgusting mix of dead ‘Nak’s sweat and alcohol to preserve the pheromone’s effects. She hadn’t thought anything of it otherwise. Gray’s hands began to tremble as organic fear welled up in her, and she listened to Wesson sniff once, twice, before righting himself. She was glad for the darkness otherwise he might’ve seen that she’d gone sheet white.
“Didn’t know you started smoking,” he said.
Gray let out her breath with a ragged, nervous laugh. “Oh, that, yeah. I uh…”
Wesson released her arm. “Let me know if you need matches.” He dropped his voice. “Or tobacco.”
“You can get me toby?”
“It’s not cured long, but it’s toby. I can get you a lot of things, Gray. You really don’t believe me, do you? Is that what this has all been about, that you don’t trust me anymore?”
Trust! What the hell was that anyway?
But that was when it dawned on her that she might not have ever completely trusted him. Or Finch. Or even… Harper. None of them had ever done any one thing to betray it, but when you grew up out in the desert, you knew to take nothing and no one for granted. Gray had to pick her words carefully.
“I trust you because I trust the Corps. You wouldn’t have gotten this if you didn’t deserve it.”
He stopped them again.
“Gray, wait. Are you… you’re not jealous, are you?”
And what was this now!
Sure, maybe a she was a little jealous. But she was jealous of everyone who made it, everyone who was free to do what they wanted, come and go as they pleased. So jealousy was hardly the point, and the idea that he thought it mattered offended her.
He went on. “Because you’re talented as fuck, Gray. I know you’ve always said you didn’t want a promotion, that you always wanted to get back out to the waste. But you could make it. You have everything they’d want out of an officer. You’re a good shot, you handle people well… and you’re proof that you can make ten years in one healthy, beautiful, piece. The boots would have no choice but to respect you.”
“I’ve still got two years of this,” she said quietly. “So don’t get your hopes up.”
Wesson grabbed her by the arms again, and harder this time.
“Gray, I’m telling you. If you want freedom, this is where it is. It’s not out there. You don’t want to live in fear for the rest of your life.”
“You think no one’s scared here, captain?” she found herself hissing back. “Corpsmen go through a drum of shine every day, and we get whipped for nicknaming our friends. Piss off an officer enough times and he’ll add another year onto your service or have you shipped out to fuck knows where for retraining.”
“Have you ever had to sleep with a gun under your pillow? Holed up in your shack because a bunch of brigs have turned your bombed-out village into their personal warzone? Ever walked five miles with a broken leg just to find a doctor in the next town over?” He looked at her, and hard. “Ever seen a caravan ripped apart by marauding ‘Naks? Seen one snap a horse’s neck with his bare hands as the young and the strong are tied up and dragged away?”
Her heart began to pound again.
“No one’s free out there, Gray. And no one can give you what we can: time to let your guard down. There’s no R&R in the waste. No taking three days off because your captain had something he wanted to prove to you by it.”
There was nothing to prove, and she didn’t like how he was making her feel all of a sudden. Wesson seemed to sense this, and he let her go for the last time with a sigh. He’d gotten a little carried away.
“Goodnight, sir,” Gray finally said. “You can debrief me in the morning.”
“My offer still stands, you know. If you want matches, all you gotta do is ask.”
* * *
Gray had just come out of the latrine the following morning when she heard a clerk coming down the street.
“Priority lesson! You know the drill, corpsmen, now move it!”
“Another one?” she groaned, wondering what poor idiot would be getting it this time. But her belly was empty still, and she didn’t see the hurt in making a quick detour to the mess for a cup of coffee at least.
“Priority lesson, people!”
She sluiced through the crowds of grumbling corpsmen, squeezed in through the netted flap of the big mess tent, and had just curled her fingers around a clean cup when something came down sharp and stinging on the back of her head.
“Ow!”
“You think we’re playing games, corpsman?” came the rough voice of a ninth-year clerk as he grabbed her shirt and yanked her away from the coffee warmer.
“Hey! I’m just-!”
“You’re doing as you’re told! Now get your ass out there!”
The bigger, older man practically hauled her out the door one-armed, throwing her into the crowd. He shouted at the few remaining corpsmen lagging behind in the mess as well, but Gray didn’t stick around long enough to leave with them.
“What’s his problem?” she asked another face she knew.
“Brass are here, remember?”
Gray had almost forgotten.
Up on the platform beside the commander’s tent stood three corpsmen. One of them she immediately remembered as being on patrol that night in the canyon when she met Rice. He was a ninth-year. Ninth-years rarely got in trouble, they’d been at the game so long. They knew what behavior would put them at risk, and that was besides the fact that officers tended to overlook their more minor infractions anyways.
But she knew this wasn’t a normal priority lesson, because off to the side, lounging on canvas chairs and puffing pipes, were the visiting brass. In the morning light, she could finally get a good look at them.
Three of the majors were women, dressed in regal reds dyed from cochneal and trimmed with gold. Their clothes fit them well, and the women had hats on, elegantly shaped, that kept the sun out of their eyes as they sipped coffee from porcelain. The men too, had hats, but they were smaller, and more brutish looking.
The three colonels were even more impressive. Blue jackets that matched their horse tack, fitted to make them look lean and broad, were festooned with colorful ribbons and shiny bits of metal shaped like stars, circles, triangles. They had ropes loosely wound at the shoulder, purely decorative, and wore white gloves. That anything could stay white out here was a feat in itself, but the colonels also wore white pants, tucked into clean boots that ended just below the knee. All three of them had swords strapped to their belts, gleaming in the early light, though Gray had no idea how they could possibly be useful in a fight. One of them smoked a long pipe, and the other wore glasses, something she hadn’t seen in over a decade.
Hitch was also in his best-looking tans, wearing his cap as well. He stood beside the group of his superiors, making small talk with them as the corpsmen finished gathering. Eventually, Hitch strode calmly to the center of the boards and held up his hand for quiet. The crowd did as it was told.
“It saddens me,” he began, surveying everyone. “That we should be here again so soon. But in my twenty-three years of service with this proud organization, I have learned that it is better to reckon with our mistakes than to let them go unnoticed for the sake of comfort; for the sake of appearances.
“So today, we remember another of the Corps’ priorities: providing the downtrodden with opportunities to improve themselves. And what better way to do this than to exact the toll that a mistake demands so that we can learn, we can forgive, and we can move on? Now. Who can tell me what our purpose here is?”
“To protect and defend the human race from oppression!”
Gray didn’t say anything.
“Good,” Hitch barked. “I’m proud to hear that you remember. Today, we have three crimes to exhibit and atone for, I’m sorry to say. But these corpsmen will be held accountable for their mistakes so that tomorrow, we may get back to the task of keeping the Anakim at bay like the dogs they are.”
There was hooting and cheering, but Gray knew that the corpsmen didn’t care—they just wanted to see blood.
Hitch beckoned to the first row of the crowd. “Captains, assume responsibility for your men.”
She couldn’t see who he was speaking to until they stepped up onto the platform. There was Captain Rashid of rose toon, Captain Alder of black toon, and… Captain Wesson of brown toon.
Gray didn’t like this, not one bit. She glanced around, trying to recognize someone, anyone she had a close rapport with so that they could at least bear witness to this together. But none of her friends or acquaintances were anywhere in sight. She swallowed and folded her arms tightly.
The ninth-year from rose was instructed to take off his shirt, and Captain Rashid was handed the switch.
He got fifteen for popping cody while on-duty, and was dragged from the boards a wheezing, bloodied mess shortly thereafter. The second corpsman, she knew, would not be getting a lighter punishment.
“And here we have a soldier who was caught bartering with a brigand while on-duty. You’ve met with this individual before, haven’t you, Stearns?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Which means you’ve lied on your debriefings too, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Alder, you have the honor.”
The black toon captain frowned deeply, but he did not hesitate drawing the knife from his belt and grabbing the corpsman by the ear. The offending black foxer stammered and shook badly, trying to twist away even though he knew this was inevitable.
Gray looked away when Captain Alder sliced off the man’s earlobe. He hollered in pain, gasping, and when Gray looked up again, he was clutching the side of his head as blood gushed quite spectacularly down his neck.
“Get him to the med tent,” Hitch ordered.
Then she looked over to the assembled brass. She didn’t know why, something told her she knew what she’d find there. But she did anyway, and was angered when they looked on, grinning and talking among themselves as they watched the spectacle. Sure, there were corpsmen who enjoyed the brutality of lessons, gawked and cheered at the blood, but at least they had skin in the game. When was the last time an officer was dragged over and beaten in front of a crowd? Never.
“And as for this corpsman.”
Gray’s attention was turned back to the remaining boot on the platform, petrified with fear. Hitch saved the worst for last, and Gray suddenly wished that she was back in that blind.
“We’ve caught this young woman in a plot to escape with fraudulent credentials.” Few understood what those complex words meant, but he was going to illustrate for them. The commander grabbed her roughly, twisting her around and fisting her hair to expose her neck to the crowd. Right in the very back was a bandage, and Hitch ripped it off, revealing raw, bloody skin. “She was trying to cut in line, corpsmen!”
Shouts and jeers filled the air, and someone even threw something at her. Gray knew immediately what the self-inflicted wound was: when a corpsman became a free man upon release, the Corps tattooed the arrow and lightning-fisted insignia on the back of every neck in blue. This was intended to prevent anyone from purchasing, capturing, selling, or owning any such marked person ever again. For some unfortunate free individuals, they did somehow end up in bondship a second time, and their freemark removed by cutting or burning. Many owners, including the Corps, would turn away any bond with such a scar, or risk their reputation.
It was because of this that those scars would sometimes be deliberately produced on someone without a mark. This youngyear was dumb enough to think she could have gotten away with it.
“Captain Wesson.”
Reminded that he was here, that this was his toon, that this was his corpsman, Gray’s breath caught in her throat and she almost gagged. No. No, she didn’t want to see this, and she definitely didn’t want to see Wesson do this.
Hitch’s assistant handed Wesson a hatchet and a sledgehammer, and her eyes fell on him in horror. He looked dazed, just the way she remembered him looking after getting his promo.
The assistant also dragged out an old block of wood, stained from use, and grabbed the terrified youngyear by the wrist to place her hand on it. She sobbed and begged for mercy, but Hitch’s man was bigger and stronger than the teenager, and not moved by her tears.
The crowd hushed and Gray could hear Hitch explaining where to place the hatchet blade: right above the second knuckle on the smallest finger. He was to bring down the hammer quick, with as much strength as he could to make a clean break. They wanted this wound to heal as well as possible so that she could get back to serving out the rest of her years.
It felt like the air was thick with pheromone, and Gray found it hard to breathe. Wesson closed the distance between him and the cosprman being forcibly held to the block, and she watched him slowly, haltingly, position the blade as the girl cried.
Gray couldn’t look. She couldn’t. Hitch was growing impatient, he barked an order at Wesson. Her body tensed up painfully, shoulders rounded. The seconds ticked by.
“Do it now, captain!”
It was over in an instant.
She jumped when she heard the sudden clang of metal on metal, and thought she tasted bile when it was followed by a long, agonized scream. If there were any other sounds coming from the crowd, she didn’t hear them. All there was now was the thunderous pounding of her heart and the image of Wesson with the bloody hatchet in his hand. Suddenly, her body tingled in an ugly and familiar way, and Gray found herself pushing through the standing bodies to reach the edge of the quad as the brass applauded the display. Holding on to a light post like her life depended on it, she retched. Nothing came up.
* * *
Gray cashed in her friday as soon as the priority lesson was over. She didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want to talk, either. All she wanted was to stare down into her cup of shine and let the noise of Harrison’s help keep some of her darker thoughts away.
Why was it that this only seemed to get harder as the years wore on? The switch, the lash, that was one thing. But this was altogether different. That girl hurt herself to try and get out, and it was Corps policy to hurt her more. The Corps made sure you knew that it could always hurt you more if it needed to.
That was the machine that Wesson was now part of. The machine that Wesson loved. The machine that, just last night, he wanted to convince her more than anything else was safe.
She just kept circling back around to the Corps policy of transferring new officers away as quickly as possible. That had to have been part of the reason the brass were here, to evaluate his performance. See if he had what it took to help keep a sweat farm of 2000 bonds in line.
Or maybe they didn’t care and this was all just some performance put on for their entertainment. Like soiled doves in a Westie dance hall.
Was it better when it was Burke slashing ears and taking fingers? She never knew Burke, none of the boots did. Maybe that helped, or at least made it feel like it helped. After two years of training at Camp Jay, Burke was the only captain that Gray knew. How long had that woman been with the Corps? How long had she been mutilating the people under her command? How did she react to her first order to mete out punishment? Did she hesitate, or did it seem like the most natural thing in the world?
Gray got sick of staring at the reflection in her cup and threw back the rest of the shine.
She sat there for a good ten, fifteen minutes more, thinking about Rice. She wondered if he had watched this, if maybe he’d done it through a pair of binos. Distance would make it all seem so small and simple, she guessed, like watching bugs tear each other to pieces in a ring of stones. She wondered if his stomach ever turned from the cruelty of things. Or maybe that wasn’t how his kind experience disgust.
But what he had been forced to do to that ‘Nak, that brownband, still seemed better than this. There was no pomp, no suffering. It was quick and efficient, much more so than Hitch could ever expect from a 25-year old with an ax and a hammer.
Eventually, there was a hand on her shoulder and Gray jumped.
“Hey.”
She looked up to see the somber faces of her two remaining friends. They sat down quietly, each with their own cup. Gray opened her mouth a few times to say something, but nothing came out. She didn’t quite have the words yet.
“I don’t think he’s ready,” Finch said after a while.
Harper’s frown deepened. “I don’t think I’d ever be ready.”
“Well, somebody’s gotta do it.”
Was that really true, though?
“And he’s trying. The guy’s only had a few weeks, and they spring this on him. It’s not fair.”
“None of it’s fair,” Gray said.
Finch took a swig. “Of course its fair. It’s all laid right out in the Manual. If we try to cheat the system, we know exactly what’s going to happen if we get caught. That girl gambled and lost.”
“Maybe the system needs to be changed instead of cheated.”
“There’s always going to be cheaters, Gray. You could make the service requirement three years instead of ten and there’ll still be people trying to lie their way out of it. The price of freedom is paid in blood, remember? There’s no changing that.”
“Don’t quote General Pierce at me.”
“Then take your head out of your ass.”
“He probably didn’t even exist. I’ll bet the Corps made him up.”
“So what if they did?”
Gray didn’t have an answer. She’d let Finch have this one.
Harper had been sitting quietly during the exchange, but took the opportunity to gesture at the sixth-year. “Let’s have those cards, Finch. I think we could all use a game about now.”
“You in for some rummy?”
Gray shook her head. “What I need is another friday.”
“Saiyeh has one if you want to patch up her socks,” Harper offered.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll do whatever.”
Finch had been shuffling the deck, but slowed. She didn’t look up. “I got a couple from Wesson in exchange for some favors.”
Harper turned to her. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not my keeper. Got a couple other things too.”
The man frowned. “Like what?”
“Like ‘screen,” she murmured.
Gray’s mouth almost fell open. Screen was harder to come by than toby, and she’d never heard of an enlisted corpsman getting their hands on any. Finch could trade a small tin of the stuff for ten fridays. Maybe more.
“Wesson said that it would help keep me from blistering in the sun because I’m so pale.”
“How in the hell…?”
“Won it in a card game.” Finch was still avoiding eye contact.
“With who?”
“I’m not supposed to say.” She looked to Harper suddenly. “How about some crib since it’s just the two of us?”
Harper didn’t say anything.
“C’mon, help me find the table with the holes in it.”
Finch got up, grabbing the bigger man by the arm to drag him away. Once she was halfway across the room, she finally glanced over at the seventh-year.
“The captain will be around in the office in a few hours if you want to talk to him. He keeps his promises, Gray. And he might appreciate the company.”
Gray headed out without another word, looking for Saiyeh.
-
The priority lesson scene was marvelously well-done. The foreshadowing of the arrival of the dreaded brass effectively illustrated how the officer class is a vastly different tier of Corps society. Sipping tea while corporal punishment was administered was like something out of the Belgian Congo. Wesson was the true subject of the demonstration, as the transition from slave to overseer cannot be easy or painless. That dude must be really messed up. Mandatory transfer seems like it would be a mercy.
As complete as the officers’ control over the corpsmen is, Wesson grabbing Gray and sniffing her undershirt still seemed like an excessive liberty. Couching the whole exchange amongst Gray’s fears that her treason would be discovered was a deft misdirect. If she’s clever, Gray can throw Wesson off the scent by masking the greater betrayal with the lesser.
Gray imagining Rice observing the priority lesson was another good feint, as we didn’t know until the last moment who from Brown Toon was getting punished, and the reader was free to suspect it was Gray. If it was Gray up there with the chopping block, would Rice try to save her? Gray probably doesn’t think she deserves to hope for such a deliverance, but she obviously would anyway. Like I said, doomed.
Finch is a puzzle. The standard trope is that she should be possessive of her special relationship with Wesson, but here she seems to want Gray to join her in trading favors, possibly so it won’t feel so dirty to her. Or maybe she’s just trying to earn the position of Most Cynical Bitch in the Toon.
“Rice, what’s a pairing?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
Like hell we don’t.
All my M/f stories and discussions can be found here.
-
@olo Thank you! In my original draft, I dangled the brass as a threat, but never made good on it. I’m really glad I decided to use them as a control group of sorts for how fucked up everything is. Besides, I think they’re going to come in handy later.
And yeah, Wesson is… beyond fixing. And he might’ve been beyond fixing long before the start of this story.
Gray’s trying very hard to be clever, but like a lot of my protagonists, he’s not as good of a liar as she needs to be to pull it off. Much of her life has been defined by apathetic transparency, and suddenly playing sneaky doesn’t suit her. Worst part is that she doesn’t exactly have a choice.
Finch is really fun though tragic, and I honestly get the heebie-geebies from her subtle arc the most. She’s a much more important barometer than Gray is for the state of things because she has no other frame of reference for the developments going on in her world, while Gray has glimpses to the outside - the real outside - and can compare her worldview with something totally foreign.
The pairing idea is still in situ… oh lawd I pray I do it justice.
-
(( I’m not sure how to feel about this chapter. It has important things going on, but it very much a first draft in need of samurai editing. The end originally played out as-is, and the decision to turn it into a recall was impromptu, borrowed heavily from an earlier version of the story where Gray and Wesson had much less of a dance going on between them and more of a steadily disintegrating relationship. However, I think this paints his character in a much starker, more effective light. ))
CHAPTER 12
The empty oil drum was going to leave rust stains on the seat of her pants, but Gray didn’t really thunk much of it as she drew a needle through the heel of a sock. She was not very good at darning—the tension was difficult to get right—but she’d at least managed to track down a smooth enough stone to help keep the sock’s shape as she repaired the missing weave.
Her appetite had never come back even though she had nothing in her belly but a cup of shine. It tore through her hungry, exhausted body, and Gray was taking this opportunity to straighten up again before going off to attempt anything even remotely important. She drew the last bit of thread through, remembering not to knot it, and instead wove the several inches of leftover thread around the hole to create a smooth, seamless repair. Well, it was seamless to the touch—there was now a brown, coarsely-woven heel against a finer beige. But it would do the trick.
Saiyeh came up, sipping coffee. She was an interesting corpsman, a seventh-year about Gray’s age, and like Gray, tried to keep a low profile. The both of them were also wiry andneither tall nor short, but Saiyeh had a different complexion, and dark, almond-shaped eyes. Like Finch, she preferred to keep her hair cut short, hacking it off with whatever was most convenient and as a result the black hair usually stood on end in all directions. Saiyeh’s popularity was almost exclusively due to the fact that shine made her sick, and was often keen on trading away fridays. Gray always liked her dry sense of humor, though, and she prayed her fellow soldier had something witty to say about now.
“Jeez, Gray, didn’t realize how awful you looked.”
That would have to do.
“Didn’t you know? Getting drunk is hard work around here.”
“Drinking enough water?”
“Doubt it.”
“Here.”
Saiyeh handed Gray the cup of coffee, and though Gray didn’t want it, not on an empty stomach, having something to wet her mouth didn’t sound so bad about now. She took a sip and winced; the stuff was even more bitter than usual.
“That was some fuckin’ lesson this morning,” Saiyeh said after a moment.
“Yeah.”
If the corpsman hadn’t seen it, Gray wasn’t going to mention the nausea. It was something to be embarrassed of. They’d all seen so much violence already, what was a little corporal punishment? And it’s not like she knew the youngyear, anyways.
“What’d Wesson say about it?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t seen him yet.”
“Hey, I just thought you knew each other.”
Gray scoffed. “Yeah, Knew each other.”
“I’m friendly with Captain Benevidas,” she shrugged. Gray noticed an impish grin spread across her face. “Showed him mine and he showed me his.”
Gray set down the stone and the sock just a little too hard. “So that’s how you get all those slips.”
“And I’m sharing the bounty with the rest of yins. It’s win-win. Hey… something wrong?”
“You ever feel like you’re not cut out for this?”
“Not really. I’m still here, aren’t I? Don’t fall for the seventh-year blues, Gray, we’re on the home stretch. Just think: everything that happens here, it doesn’t matter on the outside. And there’s always gonna be ‘Naks anyways, whether you’re in here or out there. They’re like fleas. Really big fleas.”
“It’s amazing that whoever made the Algo—all those governments, those business people—didn’t see this coming,” Gray mumbled. “It’s like they got tired of managing their own shit and gave up. Here,” she mimed. “It’s the golden age of mankind, take all the power. But don’t ever do us dirty, alright?”
Saiyeh laughed. “Gimme everything I want and nothin’ I don’t.”
“I wonder what it would take to win this war.”
“A lot more than we got.”
“OK, what would it take to lose it?”
“More than they got.”
“So it’s not really a war, then.”
“What else would it be?”
A breeze picked up and Gray could smell the mules now.
“I don’t want to see him,” she finally admitted. It was the piece of lead lodged in her that she was putting off removing. But it had to come out.
“Why not?”
“Because he was my friend, Saiyeh.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“I know.”
* * *
Wesson’s tent was small and squat, but it still managed to loom over her as she stood in front of it. A sharp breeze kicked up, sending leaves and dust across the ground. Gray blinked and looked in the direction it was coming from—south-east—to instinctively check for rain clouds. There were none, at least none yet, but the season was on its way out and fall was around the corner. And with fall came the rains.
Even the smell on the air was new and ominous: a wind from faraway places, churned over the white and beige rocks of the Southland, baked in the sun, sluiced through thickets of gray oaks and blood-red manzanitas, and arrived here, for her to smell. Wherever this air was from, it only came this time of year.
Something about it made her feel a little more alive, a little braver. If it was hard to count the days out on a solitary watch, this was a reminder that the seasons were still changing, and Wesson, her estranged companion, would soon be gone.
This isn’t forever.
Gray stepped up from the dirt and onto the raised wood foundation at the flap, pausing just outside when she heard voices.
“…you did a fantastic job,” said a woman. She spoke with a slight accent, not the throaty drawl Gray was used to. “Now really, is there anything to be upset about that?”
“It was truly exciting.” This time it was a man. “Things can get so repetitive at the estate. It’s good to come down once in a while and see what the men are up to. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, yes. Even my little Archer keeps asking when he can visit the camps, too. I told him that he needs to wait until he’s older, and that he’s expected to memorize the Manual like anyone else. You should have seen the fit he threw!”
The man chuckled. “Well, the boy’s only eight, Mrs. Redding. What do you expect?”
Missus? What rank was that? Was it a specialty?
“At any rate, Captain Wesson, you have our strongest approval for your promotion. You’ll make a fine officer!”
Then, weakly, she heard her friend’s voice: “Thank you, sir.”
“Oh don’t look so grim, boy. Here, I’ve got just the thing.” Gray heard some rummaging. “A little something for the nerves, a sip will do the trick. Any more and you’ll be flat on your back!”
“What… is it?”
“Think of it like morphine… or morph, or whatever you call it.”
“Thank you, sirs.”
“Feeling better?”
“I think so?”
“Good. Now as you were, soldier. Continue to do Alpine proud.”
Gray skittered away from the tent flap when she heard footsteps approaching. Quickly, she fumbled around in her pockets for something to occupy herself with, and found a friday.
When the pair of majors left, Gray pretended to study the slip of paper as they passed her. Then she entered the tent. Slowly.
There Wesson was, slumped over his desk and on his elbow, looking as though he weighed as much as an Anak. He was studying a small flask, no bigger than the palm of his hand, but she startled him and he put it away.
“What are you doing here?”
“Finch told me you might want company.” Gray almost cringed when the words left her mouth. She sounded pathetic. “But besides that, no idea.” That was a little better.
“Those majors thought I did a good job,” he said. “Came by before starting with the bonds. They didn’t have to do that, they didn’t have to speak to me at all.”
“Lucky you,” Gray muttered.
“Alright, just… don’t. Don’t start with this again.”
“Start with what? You were up there on those boards today, sir.”
He jumped up suddenly, and Gray stopped. There was a wild edge to his eyes.
“I did what I had to do.”
She stayed quiet.
“I did exactly as ordered.” Wesson brought his fist down on the desk, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Because unlike you, I actually believe in what we do here. I know that we do our part against the Algo. Did you know that the enemy has been losing 6% of its combat efficacy every year? That means less ammo, less armor… less fighting. That’s real, Gray. Something fucking real. And I—“
He swayed a bit and reached for the chair. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him.
“What did they give you, Wesson?”
“Nothing. I just need a coffee. C’mon.”
The young man righted himself and grabbed Gray by the ripped sleeve of her fatigues on his way out. They didn’t say anything on their walk to the mess tent, and after Wesson stepped in to grab a cup, they didn’t say anything afterward either.
The look he gave her told her to follow him, though, so she did, and warily. They fell behind a small crowd of corpsmen headed towards the firing range, where the bond inspections were beginning to take place. Their raised, wooden stage at the quad wouldn’t come close to accommodating that many bodies.
There were two recruiting officers working the line of prospects, clipboards in hand as they processed everyone as quickly as possible. With so many cots to fill, Hitch couldn’t afford to be picky. Off to the side in more chairs set out just for them, were the brass looking on. Hitch himself stood, his arms folded as they observed the proceedings.
Something touched her arm. It was Wesson handing her his empty cup, and Gray balked, but took it silently.
“And you can read?”
“Y-yessur. I can spell my name too.”
“Good enough.” The officer moved up the line. “And you?”
“I can read Shakespeare, sir.”
“I don’t care if you read fuckin’ Archie comics, bondie. I asked you a yes or no question.”
“…Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He moved to the next filthy teenager. “And you?”
Gray didn’t know how long she stood there with Wesson, but it seemed like hours. She watched as a bond was turned away for his limp. Another for knock-knees. A third for already missing a few fingers on his shooting hand.
Eventually, the officers managed to process the entire group of bonds, with a small handful failing to pass muster. There was still one test left, though: the pheromone.
The recruiting officers pulled out the stinking rags, holding them away from their own faces. There was no verbal abuse, no showmanship, not like Gray’s recruitment and inspection. There were just too many, and it was already getting hot.
“Alright everybody, your job now is to hold still. Anyone who tries to run or fight will be walking home today.”
She thought about the spectacle earlier, and a bitter taste filled her mouth. She also remembered that she hadn’t eaten yet. Maybe she could leave.
“I’m hungry,” Gray whispered. “Gonna grab a bite, OK?”
“Not now.”
“What?”
“Watch.”
The bastard, making her stay here with him for this stupid thing.
But she had technically asked him if she could go eat, hadn’t she? And when he declined, she obeyed. Like a good little corpsman. Maybe the change in the wind hadn’t made her braver after all.
Her frown deepened, but she only shifted her weight on the rough, uneven ground. She was still holding his cup, even. Still falling in line so effortlessly, mindlessly. Gray realized that she didn’t know how to act around him, anymore. It was awkward enough before all this, when they stopped sleeping together. But Wesson, in spite of his smooth talking and dreams of leadership, had a knack for making things awkward. He would go hard acting smoother than usual, smile wider, talk louder. There was a look he got when his place in the pecking order was threatened. It took her a few years to spot it, but she could clearly see that he was wearing it all the time now. It made her want to stand well out of arm’s reach. Something about it made her feel acutely vulnerable. Seen.
And not in a good way.
Ten yards off rags were being pressed to the noses of the first bonds. They passed the test in silence, and so did the next four, six. Gray watched the cords in their necks tighten, the sweat bead on their brows, the slow pulling away like the rag was a heavy ruck and they were sagging under its weight. One bond cried out, fell to her knees and was dragged, kicking, off to the side. Another bond disqualified himself by emptying his breakfast out onto the ground.
Gray wondered if Rice saw something arousing in this physiological response, this pure, unadulterated reaction of a small body surging with fear. Maybe he found it pitiable.
Or maybe Wesson was the one that liked it?
Out of the corner of her eye she surveyed him, stealing a glance long enough to read his posture. He stood almost painfully rigid, and there was color in his cheeks, more than normal. The captain stared with a strange intensity, like he was learning something, and the way he rubbed his chin was slow and repetitive, as if he’d forgotten his fingers were there.
Who was this man?
She was lifted from her thoughts by scattered applause. One particularly small girl was currentlytaking the pheromone without so much as moving, and when the inspection officer pulled away, she continued to hold her chin high. Gray was impressed. If the Anakim were experimenting with stronger scents, they’d need more recruits like that.
“She’s good,” Wesson muttered, as if to himself. “C’mon, give her to brown…”
No, it really was to himself. Gray never knew Wesson to do that.
“He’s not bad either,” the captain continued. “The girls are nicer to look at, though. Let’s see. One, two, three…”
Wesson counted twenty-six bonds that were so far passing inspections, and he kept his count with every one that passed the fear test. In the end only thirteen bonds appeared to be unfit, and they were soon tied up with ropes behind their backs to be led silently, solemnly away.
“Wesson, I’m fucking starving,” Gray whispered, wanting desperately to leave. “Can I please go eat?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure. Dismissed. Make sure to take that with you.” He gestured vaguely to the cup in her hand, then turned back to the bondsmen.
Gray wouldn’t walk away fast enough.
“Am I the one going crazy?” she muttered as she beat it back to the mess. When she got there, the seventh-year disposed of Wesson’s cup as if it were too hot to touch.
A few bodies were scattered around the largetent, most of them grabbing a bite before the first shift ended at 1400 and a lineup formed, but it was still difficult to find a table to eat at alone. Camaraderie was the quickest fix for boredom around here, and she only got a few precious bites in before a girl from gold toon set down her tray across the table.
Gray masked her frustration. There was truly no place a corpsman could go to be alone around here without looking suspicious, was there? Nowhere to go to just think; the place was crawling with people, bored and harried at the same time. The maddening part was that Gray doubted it was even intentional. Camp wasn’t a place to ponder things, it was a place to eat, sleep, and train. A personal life was the carrot they dangled at you from across the chasm of ten years of hard goddamn graft.
The corpsman went about her business, blissfully unaware of Gray’s angst. And it started to bother her. What about her posture said she wanted company? Gray scooped up a bite of food, letting her foon loudly hit and scrape the tray a few times. The older girl didn’t seem to pay any notice.
Gray glanced up to scowl at the oblivious intruder, hoping to make eye contact. Instead, she saw the older corpsman take a handful of something from her pocket and smash it into her serving of wet ration.
Maybe interrupting her would do the trick.
“What’s that?” Gray asked flatly. She recognized the black little fruits as a kind of wild berry, but always heard they were toxic.
“Nightshades,” she said, then chuckled. “Mellows out the “scum” in our pond-scum pate. And they’re good for ya, too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup. They got vitamins.” She said it like she were in on a privileged secret. “Vitamins keep you from gettin’ sick, ya know.”
Sick. As in, what, a cough and a runny nose for a few days during the rainy season? If only that was the worst of her problems.
Gray continued to take measured bites of her unadulterated slurry, mostly wishing that Taylor or Tucker or whatever her name was would hurry up and finish.
“How d’you know they got vitamins? I thought those things were poisonous.”
“Oh the toxic thing? That’s a…” The gold foxer lowered her voice. “That’s a lie. The officers don’t mind us putting stuff in our rations, but the Nightshades are tricky. They’re only safe when they’re ripe, so to keep half the camp from shitting their guts out, they just say they’re poisonous. And besides, the officers eat them like candy. Those guys never get sick. And I’d know, Captain Berg pays me in fridays to forage his.”
The conversation had suddenly taken an interesting turn, and Gray found herself perking up.
“You’re not a ninth-year, are you?”
Of course she was, the five slim bars on her lapel was plain as day.
“Yup.”
It was Gray’s turn to lower her voice. “Does the Corps really treat ninth-years differently?”
“Well, you didn’t hear this from me, but—”
Would be hard to, seeing as how Gray didn’t know her name.
“—They do. Some of us, at least. Even if you’re not after a promo, getting friendly has its perks, right?”
To hear it so plainly was a surprise. It was a well-worn complaint that often snaked through the rumor mill by bitter downranking enlisted, but this was the first time that she’d actually asked a ninth-year about it and gotten an answer. Hm. Maybe it was time to go fishing.
“Well, my captain seems to like me a lot, but I’m only a seventh-year,” she explained. “I’m afraid he’s going to get the both of us in trouble for rubbing shoulders with me while we’re on-duty.”
The ninth-year glanced at Gray’s tattered left sleeve, and noted the color of her camp emblem: a brown, snarling fox’s head with three Anak bullets in its mouth. The tenth-year nodded.
“That new promo,” she said, going back to her food. “He’s got it tough, believe it or not. After promotion, the Corps usually sends its new captains to Alpine for training before being assigned to a camp. He’s learning on the fly.”
“He’s dedicated, though.”
“He is. I’ve heard a lot about him. Seen him this morning, too.”
Gray squashed the gross feeling in her stomach.
“So if you were in my shoes…?”
The ninth-year dropped to a whisper again. “You can’t turn him down, you should know that much. If a captain sees something in you, you’re theirs to groom. And if all you want is to get out of bondship…” She nodded sagely and finished her tray. “Then things just got a little more complicated.”
Gray stayed quiet for a minute, staring at her hardtack. Complicated. She turned the word over in her head, deciding that it was accurate enough. Accurate for the purposes of this conversation.
She decided to ask another innocent question. “What do I do if I don’t trust him?”
The ninth-year laughed. “Your problem, not his! Look, don’t think about it too hard,” she said, gathering up her tray. “There’s worse things out there than a captain getting sweet on ya.”
Gray smiled wryly. “I dunno, having a ‘Nak get sweet on you doesn’t sound so bad.”
She snorted and crossed the mess to dump her tray and foon into a tub of dirty dishes. “Yeah, until he decides you look prettier with a hole in your head!”
Gray laughed, but only so.
And as soon as the ninth-year was gone, her face darkened, and she poked at the wet ration, sinking back into her thoughts.
So there was nothing she could but lean into the discomfort, the strangeness. The idea gnawed at her, and her heart pounded. What recourse did she have? As far as anyone else could see, Wesson was following orders to a tee, and playing games that he as an officer couldn’t lose. He was the perfect little soldier.
She pushed the tray away, unable to finish. The image of him bringing down the hammer with every ounce of his strength haunted her, replaying a dozen times all at once. But then another memory surfaced: Kessler’s face when she told him that her entire exchange with Rice was a hallucination. His eyes.
Maybe she should have just shot him; it probably would have hurt less.
There had to be a way for her to use this to her advantage. It seemed that staying alive out here long enough to make it to nine years was difficult, and though the Manual stated that the average survival rate was currently 22%—one out of every five corpsmen would live to get their freemark—Fox typically had 800 or more first-years, with less than 100 ninth-years. Gray knew nothing about math, but Harper did. And he said that 1 out of 8 is a lot less than 22%. With fewer and fewer longyears, each survivor only becomes more valuable, more visible. Easier to single out, easier to get to know.
So what happens? You cozy up with a captain or two. You can make suggestions or get what you need, like get a few codys for an injured friend or an extra bit of food.
You can lie about playing a game of cards with Finch and some outsiders and win her a tin of screen.
Gray swallowed.
Or maybe you could get posted to sentry positions that make it easier to rendezvous with a certain Anak sentinel.
* * *
“Guys, they got the projector working!”
“No fuckin’ way!”
“Yeah, the brass brought parts with ‘em!”
“And they’re playing two movies tonight!”
At around 0900, just as the hot, molten core of the sun burbled along the far horizon, Gray found her way to the quad after a quick rinse. A few groups of corpsmen were busy hauling benches and tables from the mess, with other groups already laying claim to them. A few arguments broke out; some guy punched another guy in the face over a bench near the front and won it. Gray chuckled to herself. This was the kind of violence she preferred: the harmless variety.
Saiyeh had given her two fridays earlier, one for each pair of socks successfully darned, and though it always took her more than an hour to do a pair, it was a trade she’d make again in the future for sure. The caustic liquid always burned too good on its way down and dulled her senses in just the right kind of way.
She had one more day of R&R before heading out again. She wasn’t sure what shape Wesson was going to be in when she returned from her next post, and she wanted to at least attempt to plant a seed while he still wanted her to.
Finch and Harper came up then.
“Boy when you don’t wanna be found, you don’t wanna be found,” the man said.
Gray turned to Harper and cocked a brow. “Really? I was dozing off by the water tank for an hour,” she said, trying to inject a little good nature into her mood. “Hey, I think there’s a spot over there for us.”
Harper had a bedroll with him, and they laid it out on the ground off to the side. Finch pulled out her cards, and soon Saiyeh and Clark joined them for a game of something while they waited for the movie to start. Nobody mentioned the morning’s lesson again—it was already ancient history.
“So you miss patrols yet?” Saiyeh asked as she looked over her hand.
Finch did the same, organizing them. “Yeah. But it’s only until this fuckin’ thing heals.”
Her arm was no longer in a sling, but the wound was still only beginning to look a bit less ugly.
“She’s gonna be practicing with a sider again for next exercises,” Harper said, sounding relieved. “And she’ll be doing target practice before Wesson’s transferred, and we won’t have to worry about what the next captain will think.”
Just then there was a loud whistle from up the road and most everyone turned to see three corpsmen from the guardhouse escorting a pair of dismounted riders and their horses. These two weren’t exactly elegant, and even in the dying light of dusk she could make out worn their worn leathers and sweat-stained clothes. ‘Nak fighters from civtown, maybe.
“Guess it’s a party tonight,” Finch said, sitting tall to see over Gray’s head.
A pair of captains came over, waving their arms, and though she couldn’t hear them it was clear that the wastelanders were being turned away. A lively discussion ensued and a minute later the commander strode over with a colonel at his heels. Hitch began speaking, but the colonel cut him off—from his body language, Gray could see that the riders were being welcomed for the time being. The accompanying corpsmen were instructed to, she assumed, ready food and accommodations for them.
Their horses were taken, and the riders were invited to sit at the front of the crowd with the brass, passing by Gray and the others. Their group fell silent as they passed. The corpsmen eyed them curiously, warily, and even admiringly. Saiyeh’s eyes followed one of the riders, and with a grin she whispered that she always liked a man in chaps. Finch and Gray bit back laughter while Clark and Harper rolled their eyes.
Soon, Hitch stood at the front to ask for silence, a soft order which was mostly obeyed, and the movie started.
The sound came from the front, nearest the brass and officers, so it was difficult to hear. They decided to quietly keep playing, glancing up every once in a while to see what trouble Errol Flynn was stirring up to this time.
It didn’t take long to see him in chaps either. Gray let her eyes linger.
A few hands later, someone else invited themselves to sit down on the bedroll. In the dark it took her a moment to see that it was none other than Wesson, and her heart skipped a beat. There was a large cup in his hand. It was made of glass.
“You never saw me here,” he whispered with that famously clean smile of his.
The corpsmen looked at each other.
“What? It’s dark, no one will see me.”
Saiyeh was the first to excuse herself. “Good to see you, sir. Was on my way to the latrines, though. Wish me luck.”
Wesson scoffed as she left. “Well that was rude. Was just about to offer you guys a drink of this.”
Gray was immediately on edge. Surely it wasn’t…?
“Harrison calls it whiskey. And it’s up. Way up.”
Up; a word usually referring to either good sex, or a gun that fired especially straight. She’d never thought to use it to describe a drink, especially something from Harrison. Shine was never up, but maybe whiskey wasn’t shine. And if it came from Harrison’s, then it wasn’t whatever those majors gave him either.
Either way, Gray needed to play it smooth. She had seeds to plant.
“What’s whiskey?” Harper ventured. Wesson shoved the glass at him, and in the cold light of the Westie, the captain’s teeth shone a brilliant white.
“No idea. Just try it.”
Cautiously, Harper did. Gray watched as he went from suspicion to surprise after a single sip.
“It goes down… easy,” the cableman said. “And it tastes like…”
Finch plucked the glass from him and took her own sip. She looked perplexed.
“Tastes like hot tobacco,” she noted. “Or… or…”
Clark was next. He was so surprised that he coughed, and held the glass to the light of the movie. It had an amber color to it, not like standard shine.
“Why’s it brown?”
“Harrison keeps it in a wood barrel,” Wesson shrugged. Then: “Gray? You want to try some?”
Did Gray want to try some? If she wanted to get on his good side, if she wanted to stop fighting him and roll with the punches, score her nepotistic brownie points, then this was as good an opportunity as any. So she took it, and gave it a sniff first. The sheer complexity of the smell alone shocked her. This stuff was a force to be reckoned with. Maybe it was worth trying after all.
The sip went down like something slick and sharp and at once warm and cold. Finch was close when she said it tasted hot. It was more like…
“A campfire,” she said. “Tastes like oak logs on a campfire.”
“Yeah! That’s exactly it!”
Wesson gestured with a sweep of his hand. “Go on, pass it around again. It’s on me.”
They did.
“Did Harrison just… give this to you? Because a friday doesn’t buy whiskey,” Harper noted after had had his second swig.
“Money buys whiskey,” Wesson said. “Check this out.”
From out of his pocket he produced something that Gray had seen on few occasions before, and never up close. It was a slip of money. He held it up to the light, and she saw that it was bigger than a friday, though made from the same stuff, and instead of blue it was marked in deep green. On the corner was a big number 1.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to be waving that around, sir,” whispered Clark.
“Look, I’m off-duty, just call me Wesson. And it’s fine, I’m an officer. They give me these now.”
Finch didn’t seem to care very much. “Hey, can I have one more sip?”
Wesson handed the glass to her and she threw down at least another finger of the stuff. And Wesson didn’t seem to care very much about that.
“If any of you want any of this,” he continued, lowering his voice even more. “Just let me know. I’ll be happy to trade for it.”
“Trade what?” Gray found herself asking.
“You know… favors. Take those two for example,” he said, nodding in the direction of the riders from the wasteland. “Maybe they want their leather shined, maybe they want a friendly face while they’re here. It might be my job to get it to them, and I’m nothing without my toon. There’s always stuff to do.”
Stuff to do.
“What if I wanted toby?” Gray ventured.
Wesson scooted himself closer. “Let’s talk.”
Clark let out a strained breath and stood up. “Think I need to hit the latrine too. Not sure if my stomach is liking that whiskey stuff.”
“Sorry to hear that. Don’t forget your patrol circuit tomorrow!”
“Uh, yeah. Of course, sir.”
Wesson turned back to Gray. “So you do smoke now!”
Finch cocked her head. “Since when?”
“Since, er… last week.”
“Sticks ain’t cheap,” Finch scoffed.
Wesson put a hand on Gray’s shoulder. “And that’s why I offered to help. Now what you got for me?”
“I-I…”
Think, stupid, think!
“I was wondering what you had for me?”
His hand drifted to her back, then, and she swallowed.
This should be easy.
Right?
The captain smiled. “Gimme time to think about it. For now, deal me something, Finch.”
http:/sizekink.com
-
* * *
When Gray woke in her cot later, she had a cutting headache. It was dark, and her bunkmates were fast asleep. There was something under her bare thigh.
With a groan she reached under herself, and whatever was there was thin and papery: fridays? There were five, six of them, and they stuck to her clammy skin. Where had they come from? What happened?
She settled back into her cot with a pained sound. Unfortunately for her, a wave of nausea kicked in, and she quickly staggered out the tent flap and away from her snoring comrades. Didn’t make it even halfway to the latrines before the meager contents of her stomach was emptied onto the ground. It was another minute of painful retching into the dirt before she looked around and realized it was dark, with a little light on the horizon. Was the sun coming or going? It had to be morning, right?
“You alright?” some lone corpsman asked, a silhouette standing a few feet away.
“I…”
Her mouth was bone–dry and not a lot of words were coming to her.
“Yeah.”
The corpsman shook his head and continued on his way. “At least clean it up when you’re done,” he muttered. Gray went back to her tent, swaying, but felt a little better. When she returned, she took stock of herself. Things were beginning to come back in pieces, like a bad dream.
There were cards, she remembered. And the movie playing in the background that, for some reason, no one was really paying attention to. And they played more hands than Gray could remember.
Poker. The game was poker, and Wesson was sitting beside her. Gray knew this because he kept trying to look at her cards and she kept having to hold them away from him. It was very annoying, but she tried her best to pretend otherwise. But it was important because they had started placing bets.
Gray didn’t know what was wagered, only that she and Finch got into a betting war that Gray eventually, miraculously, won. Is this where the fridays came from? No, it couldn’t be. Finch offered something else. What, exactly, was beyond her recollection.
Then Wesson’s hand was on her back. Yes, she remembered the way his fingers brushed along her spine, feeling the bones of her back and shoulders, because it reminded her of Rice’s touch, in a way. Its uncanniness stuck out in her memory. And strong on his breath was the whiskey.
What happened next? Gray shut her aching eyes and thought, thought. There was something, wasn’t there? A shift in mood, a change in the prevailing wind, something.
Right! That’s right.
Not to be outdone, Finch had set her tin of screen on the blanket. Doing so had made the object real, somehow. It wasn’t hearsay, it existed. There was a rare, foreign object in the corpsman’s possession. And it was up for grabs.
Maybe it was the shine, but Gray made a quip about it. Wesson wasn’t pleased. Gray made another quip.
Then there was backpedaling. Finch fell silent, her face lost in the deep silver shadows of a film reel in whites and blacks. Either way, Gray didn’t want to play for something like that, it was too personal, too dangerous. Could she have used it? Sure. But to her mind it was not a thing that should have existed in a Corps camp. And maybe the captain should never have given it to her.
“Did you even bother telling Finch what that game with the wastelanders was really about?” she’d said, feeling cornered. So much for her best laid plans.
Wesson strongly suggested that he and Gray speak someplace else, and she soon realized that she didn’t have much of a choice either way. At some point, they were back at his captain’s tent, and he was lighting the oil lamp. It had taken him a few strikes to get the match lit. The next part fell into place a little easier because she was on edge, senses heightened, when he reached into the desk to pull out that damn flask.
“I don’t need you making me look like a fucking idiot,” he’d said sharply.
Gray stood her ground, not remembering what words she’d used, or even if she’d said anything at all. Maybe she just stood there, unmoved, and that’s what set him off. Because after that he circled around the desk and took a quick sip from the flask before holding it out to her. He’d said something about his generosity, and his patience, and that she needed “a little retraining” to remind her of her place in the pecking order.
“Drink.”
She’d hesitated.
“That was an order, Gray.”
At that point, Gray definitely said something. She knew she did this time because she remembered the words:
“Is this how you got to Finch?”
Wesson lost it.
“I didn’t force her to do anything! She wanted it. She wanted it as much as she wants every 'Nak in the Southland dead.”
“But you’ll be happy to force me.”
“Because you just don’t know when to keep your mouth shut.”
“And why should I? If this is how you act at camp, I’d hate to see you lead the toon in a firefight.”
He laughed, looked at her wild-eyed. “You don’t get it, do you?”
She must’ve been a bit wild herself. The whiskey still felt warm in her gut, and it was coaxing words out of her that she would have never otherwise said.
“I get it well enough. What are you going to do, hit me if I don’t take a drink? Don’t pretend you don’t know where I came from, Wesson. I was shoved in a mineshaft when I was nine goddamn years old, while you were busy splashing in daddy’s pool in Greenspring. Only reason you’re here is because the old colonel was a punter and a lush, and managed to gamble away one of his own sons. Then you, what, shoveled mule shit for three years before joining up? So go on, hit me. See what happens.”
He didn’t, she knew that for sure.
He simply stood closer, close enough for them to feel the warmth of each others’ breath, and held the flask in front of her face.
“Drink. It.”
When he didn’t break character, when he didn’t bend against her defiance, that’s when she grew afraid. The man she knew had become unreachable, and the fire she had that depended on his interest in her was extinguished.
He wasn’t still in love with her, was he? The mental notes he’d kept about their past… could it all have just been a ledger?
Gray unscrewed the cap on the cold vessel, and gave a weak sniff. It had smelled sweet. Sticky-sweet. This should have been a red flag.
It still burned on its way down, tasting only vaguely like shine, while the rest of it confused her tongue. If she was honest with herself, the distant memory of sugar floated to the forefront of her mind. This alcohol had sugar in it.
“More.”
She’d done as ordered, shutting her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him while her heart pounded.
“Good.”
He snatched the flask from her and set it back on his desk. Then he took her shoulders into his hands and Gray remembered feeling distinctly warm not long after.
“Fuck you Wes,” she hissed.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, G.”
His voice was soft now, and she couldn’t trust it.
“We used to get along, remember? We’d just shoot the shit out by the water tanks, we’d get into those mud fights during the first rains… Remember that time we stuck Halprin’s dirty underwear under Hill’s pillow and he couldn’t figure out what the smell was?”
Gray’s hands grew cold as the rest of her continued to heat up and there was a strangely bitter taste in her mouth.
“That Wesson’s gone. All I see now is a snot-nosed little kid trying to fill a big man’s shoes.”
She should have stopped a long time ago, but some part of her was still daring him to hit her.
“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
He grew rough and bold.
“Get off me!”
She remembered his hands on her. She remembered the pain of him shoving her up against the edge of his desk and planting his knee between her legs so she couldn’t escape.
She remembered the way his hands crept up her shirt and snaked under the compression top to grope her breasts.
She remembered it feeling so… far away.
Things began to get fuzzy by then, sluggish. The office tilted, shuddering and twisting, and her mouth didn’t want to work. Nothing hurt. She couldn’t feel herself.
Her final memory was of being pushed out the tent and Wesson said something about the riders liking the way she looked in Corps fatigues.
The riders.
“Good girl.”
http:/sizekink.com
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This was great social scenery in Alpine. Wesson keeps running hot and cold, and I think you do an excellent job keeping Gray—someone we’ve come to know is worldly and competent—plausibly mired in self-doubt.
I’m a little uncertain what was going on with Wesson, his cup, and the bond inspection. I get that it was an opportunity for Gray to observe Wesson and make internal commentary, but why did Wesson want her there? By the end he had lost interest in her. Why did Wesson make a point of having Gray return his cup to the mess tent, and why did the mess corpsman not want to touch it? Was Wesson just trying to show everyone that Gray was his to command?
Missus? What rank was that? Was it a specialty?
Warrant officer, natch.The whole exploration of the ethics of trading favors with officers makes me curious if female officers similarly extract favors from corpsmen. Clark and Harper sound like they might be grateful for such an opportunity.
I was drunk when you posted this, and I’m hungover now, so the attempts at describing the flavor of whiskey were extra special.
On that note, I’m somewhat dissatisfied by the poker game being so blurry to Gray (and therefore to us). You write dialogue so well, and the Gray-Wesson-Finch triangle is so integral to this story that I think we deserve to hear all the quips and backpedaling. Particularly since the ultimate consequence is Wesson pulling a Cosby.
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“It’s amazing that whoever made the Algo—all those governments, those business people—didn’t see this coming,” Gray mumbled. “It’s like they got tired of managing their own shit and gave up."
I’m gonna think of this every time I read about how our society refuses to save itself from Covid-19.
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@nephilim Damn, internet searches are failing me! In art school, pretty much every film department classroom had a poster on the wall that instructed readers to “edit like a samurai”. It was explained to me once, but this was a long time ago now, and I was hoping google would fill in the blanks… tough tiddy, apparently. Though I think it’s a truism that likely goes back to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.
If I was a good editor, I’d be happy to let you in on my secret! Until then, I guess I’ll just continue scrutinizing every word I write as I reread things for the 287th time lol.
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