Some Fine Day (19 page)

Harold Chu has been the commandant’s aide since before I was born. He’s a small, neat man with an ageless face and acute political instincts, making him the ideal gatekeeper. They say all gossip on the base begins and ends at Chu’s immaculate Queen Anne desk. His husband is the Academy quartermaster, so between the two of them, they wield an inordinate amount of power.

“I’ll tell her you’re here,” he says with a wink.

Usually, the commandant likes to keep her supplicants waiting at least half an hour, if not longer. A gentle reminder that she is a very important person and you, sadly, are not. But it’s late, so I’m led to the inner sanctum right away.

She’s standing by one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves leafing through a leather-bound book. The commandant is a collector, and the contents of this room are probably worth more than my parents’ house. All publishing is digital now, but many of us still cling to the old ways, and the preservation of pre-Transition printed books is one of those things that certain people find unbearably romantic.

Not that I would call the commandant a romantic.

She looks up as I enter and stand at attention by the door. Like Chu, her eyes linger on my bun.

“You look like hell, Nordqvist,” she says without preamble.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She puts the book back on the shelf and removes her granny glasses. “At ease, cadet.”

I relax slightly and clasp my hands loosely behind my back.

Commandant Beata Kozlowski looks like a supermodel, which leads most people to drastically underestimate her cunning and ruthlessness. It’s not a mistake anyone makes twice. She’s about six feet tall, with spiky white-blonde hair, perfect bone structure and spectacular breasts.

Her pale blue eyes, however, inform you that she will not hesitate to have you killed if the mood strikes her.

“Glad to have you back. I understand it’s been a tough few months. You may not be aware of it, but there was a strong difference of opinion among the faculty regarding whether you should be permitted to take your final exams. They covered quite a lot of territory in the last term. Territory that you, Nordqvist, missed.”

She says this in a faintly accusatory tone, as though I had been cutting class.

“However, you may be gratified to know that I was one of those who recommended that we waive the credit requirements and give you an opportunity to demonstrate the skills that have kept you consistently at or near the top of your class. As a result, I feel personally invested in your success and expect to see you shine. The alternative would be most regrettable. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good, moving on then. I detect certain alterations to your appearance since last we met.”

Here it comes.

“The scrawniness is understandable. We’ll bulk you up again in no time. But Section Five, subparagraph (c) of the Training Manual on uniform grooming practices states that the hair of a female cadet shall be neat and conservative. You stick out like a sore thumb, Nordqvist, and I don’t like sore thumbs. In fact, I’ve been known to chop them off.”

“Yes, ma’am. But, if I may speak . . .?”

She nods brusquely.

“It doesn’t actually specify a particular length. It just says ‘the hair shall not present a ragged, unkempt, or eccentric appearance’ and that ‘headgear must fit snugly and comfortably’.” I studied the manual on the train. “If I keep it pulled back, I believe I still conform to regulations.”

“Are you making an issue of this, Nordqvist? Think hard before you answer.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gives me a weary look.  “Sometimes you remind me of myself at your age. All balls, no brains. OK, so be it. You’re leaving us in two weeks anyway, at which time you can adopt a beehive for all I care. Dismissed.”

I give her a smart salute, but she’s already turned back to her books.

“How’d it go?” Chu says softly as I pass his desk.

“I get to keep my hair.”

He claps his hands in glee.

“As long as I ace my tests. Otherwise, I think I’ll end up in a shallow grave somewhere.” I’m only half-joking.

“She always did like you, Nordqvist.”

“Maybe just a public flogging, then.”

He hands me a dossier with my schedule and bed assignment, and offers to call for a car, but I tell him I don’t mind walking. It’s only about a quarter mile to the dormitories. They’ve dimmed the lights to simulate night, although it never gets fully dark at the Academy because of the security perimeter. I wonder what it looks like six thousand feet up. It could be raining, or sunny. There could be a full moon. For all I know, one of the hypercanes could be on top of our heads right now. But down here, it’s still and quiet.

I cross the hard-packed dirt of the sparring yard, the low walls of Obstacle Course B off to my left. The air at the Academy has a distinctive smell, a combination of sweat, blood, gun oil and army food. It always triggers strong emotions in me when I come back from being on leave; simultaneous feelings of anxiety and belonging, if you can imagine that. I’ve spent more of my life here than anyplace else.

My bed is in the last dormitory, the one reserved for seniors. In our final year, we’re allowed folding partitions that create some semblance of privacy, at least compared to the open dorms of the younger cadets. I sign in with the matron, who gives no sign that I haven’t done the same thing every night for the last four months, and follow the numbers on the floor until I find thirty-two. Faint snores drift through the room, and the shifting creaks of a hundred bodies on a hundred metal cots.

My cubicle is about ten square feet. The furnishings are army basic: cot, small dresser, metal chair and desk with a laptop and com pad pre-loaded with the material we’ll be covering in class. On top of the pad is a plastic wristband. I’ve worn one for most of my life. It measures heart rate, blood pressure, body temp and a bunch of other things, and sends the data back to a central computer where it becomes part of our permanent record. There’s no doubt in my mind it also has a tracking chip, though they’d never admit it. I strap it on.

The first thing on my schedule the next day is PT – physical training. This consists of calisthenics followed by a half marathon. Before breakfast. It suddenly dawns on me just how soft I’ve gotten. I haven’t even run a mile in months. I hiked with Will, but it’s not the same. Not even remotely.

After PT is firing range, obstacle course, lunch, advanced hand-to-hand, and finally some classroom time on unconventional warfare, which is the true purpose of the Academy.

Two weeks to graduation. I feel hopelessly ill-prepared. But I’d better pull it off. Or Kozlowski will eat my liver for brunch, and give the rest to her dogs.

The Moho, or Mohorovičić Discontinuity, is the point at which Earth’s crust meets the mantle. Seismic measurements indicate a rapid acceleration of waves passing through this zone.

When we turn out in the yard just before dawn, I realize that I’m something of a minor celebrity. I’d been naively hoping to slink unnoticed into the crowd. But that’s not how it works around here. Especially not when the tension and fear and cutthroat competition surrounding the final is already thickening the air like a poisonous fog. The eyes of every cadet follow me as I take my place in line. I don’t see Jake because I keep my head down, but I know he’s there somewhere.

They set the ambient air temperature colder at the Academy, more like fifty-five, to keep us alert. All I know is that I’m not used to it and my arms are pimpled with gooseflesh under the grey T-shirt and shorts we have to wear for PT.

Our instructor is Sergeant Hassan, who I remember from a sabotage course in junior year. He’s not a martinet, like some of them, and only barks when it’s required. We do push-ups and sit-ups, an ungodly number of squats, and more crunches than the human body was built to endure.

That’s the warm-up.

I’m already in pain when the run begins, not a good sign, and straggle along as cadet after cadet passes me. They’re not even breathing hard. One boy slows enough to spit at my feet, then scampers off with the rest of the antelopes. I have to walk the last two miles, and come in with one of the worst times ever recorded in the history of the Academy.

I expect to see you shine, Nordqvist
. The thought evokes a dismal laugh.

At breakfast, I wolf down a double-helping of everything, then promptly throw it up in the latrines. 

“You don’t look so good,” remarks a cadet named Libby, one of the few who’s ever treated me like a human being, as we walk to the firing range.

“I’m fine,” I say, rearranging my face into what I hope is a confident smile. “Just a little out of shape.”

“I’m serious. Don’t kill yourself.” She lowers her voice. “We all know what happened. You got nothing to prove to these people.”

Oh, but I do.

Once we get to the range and settle in, I start to feel better. I’ve always been good with weapons of all varieties, and I’ve trained on them for so many years the skills are like second nature. Plus it only involves moving my arms and hands.

Obstacle course completely destroys me, as I expected it would, but this time my double-helping of food stays put. A small victory, but one I cling to when I’m beat down like a six year-old in the pairs fighting.

I used to dislike classroom time. My grades were good because I liked to read, but the lectures bored me. I wanted to be out in the yards,
doing
something. Today, I couldn’t be more thrilled to sit motionless in my seat while the instructor drones on about subversion and propaganda, eroding enemy morale, and food blockades to promote economic hardship. It’s pure heaven.

On my way out of the last class of the day, I feel a hand on my arm. A large hand. The fingernails have been chewed to the quick.

He’s gaunter than I remember, with lines in his face that weren’t there before. The wound must have been a bad one.

“Go away, Jake,” I say, shaking him off.

We have one hour of downtime before dinner, which is followed by a mandatory two-hour study session. I just want to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” he asks, appearing genuinely confused.

Other cadets push past us, and I feel them watching. Not much goes on here that everyone doesn’t know about.

“Nothing to say.”  I walk away, heart pounding in my chest. I wonder how many he killed that day. I wonder if he was in the woods, hiding behind a black balaclava.

The mess hall is in Building C, which is about halfway between the commandant’s office and the dormitories. I join the stream of cadets emerging from other lecture rooms. The light is starting to dim in a simulacrum of dusk. They do it very cleverly, just like day and night, and rain and snow, if we had those things here at the Academy. It’s that way in the cities too. You can’t really tell where it’s coming from except above somewhere, and you can’t see the ceiling. Just a smooth indefinite glow. Apparently, even after all this time, people don’t like being reminded that they’re so deep underground. They find it disturbing.

No one speaks to me at dinner. I clean my plate – synth meatloaf, mashed potatoes, buttered rolls, peas and carrots – and wander over to the rec complex. It has hologames and ultra ping-pong and armchairs for reading, but the main attraction is a giant four-D screen against one wall. About a dozen cadets are slouched on sofas or the floor watching the HYPERCANE NETWORK! (“Nature’s Wrath, in Your Face”).

Fortunately, none of the worst ones are here tonight. I hit the simulator for a while, selecting a flight path across the Andes. I know there’s no snow left anymore but I order the computer to paint the mountains in thick white drifts, circa the early twenty-first century. It’s beautiful and perfectly quiet except for intermittent bursts of radio chatter from the tower at El Alto. Flying always helps my mind let go of whatever bone it’s been gnawing on – in this case the encounter with Jake and all the attendant memories it dredged up – and I exit the cockpit feeling calmer than I have since I arrived.

The hour is still early. Going back to stare at the walls of my cubicle is a depressing prospect so I find an empty armchair and sit down by the TV. A couple of the cadets glance over, then
eWhenhhhh
return to the action. They’re watching Kelaeno, named after the Greek storm goddess. Some are placing bets about where she’ll hit in two, three or four weeks. At this moment, she’s moving through the North Pacific Quadrant, with a sustained wind speed of six hundred and sixty miles per hour.

I don’t mention that I’ve stood on a beach and watched her approach in real life.

“Twenty says she’ll turn and take a bite out of the Sino-Russians,” says a sky-scraping blonde named Murdoch. “They’re due for a good scouring. Can’t dodge the beast forever.”

The odds master is a skinny, whip-smart kid named Perez. He records all the wagers on his com pad, collects the dues and pays out the winners. I’ve known Perez since he was eight and he’s always had his hand in a variety of black market enterprises. In a place as nailed-down as the Academy, being a fixer is a lucrative sideline.