Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

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

*****

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

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

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

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

“Sit down!” Mason barked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They declared in unison that it was all quite clear.

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

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

And he liked to drink.

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

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

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

“Alright then. I’d like to hear your introductions next. Name, age, place of birth and why you joined the Army. Yes, that would do just fine.” The lieutenant considered, and he turned to his right, towards a recruit not too dissimilar to him in appearance.

The classroom’s current seating arrangements had placed the most senior recruit to the extreme left of the front row. The recruit sitting there abruptly stood.

“Ian Templeton, nineteen years old and Leibenese. I joined because I was told to.”

The recruit promptly sat down without another word. If the Lieutenant was surprised by Ian’s reasons for joining, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead he nodded curtly to the girl behind him.

“Rakaia Tani, I’m eighteen and I come from the Terminator Research Hub. I, um, joined so I could get out of there.” She finished awkwardly before returning to her seat.

Her awkwardness surprised Toni. The only time he had tried to speak to her, the Terminator spawn had given him a cold look, oozing hostility until he had put a safe distance between them. There was something about her pouting lips and widely-spaced doe eyes that had fooled him into thinking she was approachable, but she had wasted no time in ridding him and the remainder of the platoon of that impression. Everyone just called her the Terminator now.

Lieutenant Templeton nodded and asked “So, what do you think of the day-side?”

“It’s brighter ...” Rakaia answered quietly. The boy behind her sniggered softly before standing.

“Raymond Rosa, sir. Twenty two and born in Leiben. I joined ‘cause I wanna be a Hammer Driver.” He sat back down with a haughty expression, having earned a soft smile from his lieutenant.

Ray was a troublemaker. Which was why Toni liked him so much. They were fast becoming mates, their friendship having received a recent boost due to the seating arrangements.

“Tell me, Raymond,” Templeton asked, “what have you been doing those long years since you left school?”

“Been helping my pa at the mines, sir.”

“I see. Alright, next ...”

As the following student stood to introduce himself, Toni noticed Mason giving Ray a cold look. He found that odd, owing to the fact that Raymond and their drill sergeant hailed from the same neighborhood. He made a mental note to ask Ray about it at first opportunity.

Aside from Ian and Ray, none of his fellow recruits had been raised in Leiben, despite all having been born there.

No one was born outside of Leiben, despite the furthest research center, the Terminator Hub, distancing more than 8000 kilometers from the city. That was the reason why, when someone asked where one was from, one never answered with his place of birth. That was a privilege reserved only for those who had actually grown up in the city.

There were many reasons why all births took place in Leiben, all having been duly explained to Toni in high-school. He remembered only the most important one, however.

The fact was that human births in a Capicuan atmosphere sometimes tended to get a little complicated. As a result, almost half of Leiban’s Central Hospital Complex consisted of a very well-financed and equipped Pediatric and Obstetrics Departments, and possessed a maternity ward entirely sealed in a low carbon dioxide atmosphere. Despite most newborns having inherited exogenous genes rendering them impervious to the quasi-poisonous atmosphere, every once in a while a baby would pop out without said genes having been correctly expressed, or even missing them entirely, thus becoming fully dependent on the maternity ward’s artificial atmosphere until the problem was corrected.

Then there was the case of the naturals, like those of his father’s family. The Miuras did not believe in genetic manipulation, preferring to place their faith in the proverbial hands of natural selection. Which was foolish, Toni thought. His father had lived for several years in the hospital, his lungs forced to gradually adapt to successively higher concentrations of CO2 until, at age six, he had finally been rolled outside for his first look at the wider world. He had at the time been small, skinny and very fragile.

It had taken him another eight years to get rid of the oxygen mask.

“YO TARDY, WE’RE WAITIN’FOR YA!” Toni heard a familiar voice roar.

There were a few sniggers across the room and Toni shook the image of his father’s emaciated form out of his mind, realizing that the entire classroom was staring at him. He glanced forwards, only to find the Lieutenant sitting silently, expressionless except for a pair of slowly rising eyebrows.

“Oh!” Toni exclaimed, and hastily he stood.

“Toni Miura, eighteen, raised on Mushima farm, Leiben district, uh, I’m also here to be a Hammer driver.” He declared, not managing to state it quite as stylishly as Ray had. Nevertheless, as he sat down, his friend gave him a confident thumbs-up sign along with a whispered “alright!”.

“Hannah Arakaki, I come from the Northern Wetlands Conservation Hub and I’m eighteen years old. Oh, and I’m here ‘cause my dad said it would be good for me.”

The person speaking behind him was also familiar. It was the femme known as Happyface and, unsurprisingly, she was smiling again.

It was a mystery how Hannah had managed to be admitted to Suit Instruction training. Yet there she was, smiling as if she was there merely in passing, and that in only a few minutes she would be sharing coffee and biscuits with the Unit commander himself.

Maybe that was her secret, he supposed. He didn’t know whether it was confidence or sheer naivety that propped up her attitude, but somehow the northerner had managed to coast along just fine over the course of the last two weeks.

“Sueli Cassel, I’m twenty years old and I come from the North Thaumantias Research Hub. I joined so I can do this for a living, sir.” The third and last of the platoon’s femmes stated.

Sueli could not have been better seated, having claimed the front desk ahead and to Toni’s right, allowing him to easily gaze at the contour of her features without drawing attention to himself. Sueli was at the moment the principal star of his nighttime fantasies, although he suspected he wasn’t the only one with an eye on her.

The introductions proceeded steadily, Toni taking care to occasionally interrupt his stream of thoughts to take note of the progress. He didn’t want to be harassed by the Screamer again, and indeed the bastard glowered at him every once in a while, as if suspecting that he wasn’t paying complete attention. When the last recruit had introduced himself, the lieutenant set off explaining the rules and regulations on base. They were handed several summarized documents, with choice articles of law underlined and minute annotations referring them to yet other choice articles.

Lieutenant Templeton skimmed through the rules, stopping several times to ask whether there were doubts or questions, never showing anger at having to explain things more than once. By the time every document had been handed out and every line of text read aloud, more than two hours had elapsed. Toni couldn’t say for sure how long it had been, since the only recruit permitted to carry a watch was Ian.

He found it odd how the lieutenant had asked Ian to introduce himself; they were obviously related and must know each other very well. Yet it made sense if one took into consideration the platoon leader’s apparent nature. The LT certainly didn’t seem the type to play favorites.

The lieutenant finally rapped his fist on one of the desks before him, beckoning all to quiet down.

“There is one last thing I would like to say before we end this class, and it regards the gentleman’s agreement that may be celebrated between a platoon and its drill team.” He began.

“As you may have noticed, the Disciplinary Code we’ve been studying,” he raised the thick blue book in his hand, “clarifies that just about every infraction will result in administrative punishment. Although during your training no disciplinary infraction will survive to be a part of your permanent record, certain violations will get you kicked out of the MEWAC without chance of return. However, should we celebrate the pact I just referred to, some screw-ups, if not too serious, may be resolved in a non-administrative manner.