Until the day I came down with some kind of low-grade upper respiratory virus, and I was up all night wheezing and drinking lots of water to try to keep the sore throat damped down. And it was a real cold night, so I didn't want to go out to the latrine for the discharge cycle, so I just sort of crossed my legs and tried to ignore my aching bladder and sat there, drinking more water, until around0/ 40/0/ when I finally kind of dozed off into a fitful sleep. Only to have Rogers wake me an hour later and order me to warm his boots...

Some temptations are just too strong to resist. I did KP for a month and spent another year in utter h.e.l.l, but dammit, it was worth it!

I learned a lot of things, that year. I learned to talk southern-fried when I wanted to blend into the woodwork, and to switch on the total cyberpunk lang when I wanted to make with the pain-in-the-a.s.s routine.

I learned that when the mess hall served up okra and grits it was a treat, not punishment like I thought at first. I learned to tie a full Windsor knot for my dress uniform, and I learned that A-200 Pyrinate comes in gallon jugs for inst.i.tutional use and smells like h.e.l.l, but it really does kill lice real good.

The biggest surpriser was learning that during the academic year, Payne was actually something a lot like a normal Phys Ed instructor.

The one you had to watch out for was The Colonel.

Forget fried chicken. Colonel Ernst Von Schlager, Real Army Retired (whose Army?, I kept wanting to ask), School Commandant, and Our Beloved Founder, was a true study in fossil Prussian arrogance. A tough, grizzled, remote old s...o...b.. with gray-bristle hair and steely blue eyes, we lower grades didn't mix with him much. Most times he was just141 the capstone on the Sunday a.s.sembly: after church services, the gruntherders would march us out to the quad and make us stand at attention while The Colonel went into some loud tirade about whatever had p.i.s.sed him off lately.

If the Colonel showed up for your cla.s.s, though, you were in for a real treat.

That's sarcasm, if you didn't recognize it.

Example: The Colonel struts across the gym, hands clasped behind his back, scowl on his face. He stops, pivots. "Consider the various liberation wars!" he bellows. "If you can see 50 yards in a jungle, it's not a jungle, it's a clearing!

"Consider the First through Fourth Jihads! The defenders had visibility out to two klicks, but the towelheads used human wave tactics.

You simply can't reload fast enough to stop a human wave!" He starts pacing again, cycling up for the next outburst.

"The unpleasant truth, men, is that excluding air power and crewserved weapons, the majority of battlefield killing takes place at ranges of under 100 yards. Combat is a close and personal thing. And what modern automatic rifles are best at is disarming their users' really fast!"

He pauses; his voice drops to a softer note.

"Now, in a few years some genius will probably figure out that the thing to do is to slow down the rate of fire and make the bullets smarter.

They've already done that with combat aircraft. Who cares if a Bats.h.i.t missile costs a million a pop, if it's virtually guaranteed that you can take out a thirty-million dollar aircraft with two shots?

"But in the meantime, remember that when you fire an M-29 on full auto, you disarm yourself in less than 3 seconds. Then it becomes very close and personal. The ugly truth, men, is that when it comes down to it, your best friend is your bayonet. That's why it helps to think of a rifle as a pikestaff that happens to shoot bullets.

"And that is why you work with pugil sticks!" He steps over to the back wall, picks up that blunt-ended staff, hefts it for balance and spins142 it around like a cheerleader's baton. "Now, who's first?" He looks us over, sharp and squinty, locks eyes on me. "You! Front and center!"

Getting your brainpan bashed in by an old grizzle is in some respects very educational, but it still hurts.143

Chapter 12.

Spring: The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Payne was braying. "Fall in! Form up!" We stopped kicking the soccer b.a.l.l.s around the airfield, dashed over, and tumbled into some kind of order.

"Dress that line!" he bellowed. "You call that a line, p.i.s.sants?"

While we were shuffling and fidgeting, a Grade Four carrying a big gun stepped out of the briefing shed. Payne made eye contact with the Grade Four. The Grade Four shot him a little nod.

"Ten-shun!" We snapped to so perfect we clicked.

"Thank you, sargeant," the Grade Four said quietly. Payne stepped back deferential, and the Grade Four walked up smiling. "Hi," he said to us, and smiled again. I relaxed a notch. My G.o.d, at last, a Grade Four who was halfways human.

"h.e.l.lo, lads," he said, a bit louder. "I'm Cadet Captain Johnson, and I'm here today to give you a little introductory lesson in large-bore rifles." He looked at the gun in his hands, then held it up over his head.

"This," he shouted out, in a parade-field bellow he'd obvious learned from Payne, "is a Russian Mosin-Nagant battle rifle! Designed in 1890 by Colonel Sergei Mosin and the brothers Emile and Leon Nagant, it was the premier Soviet infantry weapon through most of the twentieth century!" He dropped the rifle to port arms, slapped open the action. "A bolt-action box-magazine repeater comparable to the American '03 Springfield or the German '98 Mauser, it is, like most Russian small arms, a technically crude, yet extremely rugged and effective weapon!"

He closed the action, flipped the rifle over, popped open the trapdoor on the bottom of the magazine.

"Chambered for the seven-point-six-two by fifty-four millimeter144 rimmed cartridge-that's the same bullet as an AK-47 round, but in a case that's fifteen millimeters longer-it was perhaps the first of the modern high-powered military rifles!" Johnson unzipped his belt pouch and whipped out one truly enormous rifle cartridge. The jarheads all oo'ed and ah'ed.

Johnson dropped the round into the magazine. "Rifles and carbines based on the Mosin-Nagant design were manufactured by the Imperial Russian a.r.s.enals at Tula and Sestroretsk," he dropped another round into the magazine, "the French Manufactory at Chatellerault," he dropped in a third round, "the Swiss Industrie Gesellschaft at Neuhausen-am-Rheinfalls," he dropped in a fourth round, "the Austrian Osterreichische Waffenfrabrik at Steyr," he slapped the magazine trapdoor shut, "and by the American firms of Remington and New England Westinghouse." Flipping the rifle over, he hefted it, as if considering something. "As late as 1960, variants were still being manufactured by Finn SAKO and the ChiComm People's Armory."

Johnson cranked the bolt open again. I saw a shiny bra.s.s cartridge pop up into the action. "Beginning with the Russo-j.a.panese War of 1904 and the Russo-Persian War of 1911, the Mosin-Nagant rifle saw action in most of the major conflicts of the Twentieth Century! From the frozen plains of Russia to the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia, it has been proven time and again to be a reliable, accurate, and deadly weapon! For these reasons, you will continue to find Mosin-Nagants in service in the Third World to this day!" He slapped the action shut. The cartridge seated with an ominous thunk.

Raising the rifle to his shoulder and pointing it down the airstrip, Johnson squinted through the sights. Then he returned it to port arms.

"The Mosin-Nagant has two design flaws," he said. "The first-a relatively limited magazine capacity-did not prove relevant until the Vietnam War, and the advent of the American M-14 and M-16 automatic rifles.

"The second is more serious. Unlike comparable German and American designs, the Mosin-Nagant has no cross-bolt safety!" Johnson145 held the rifle out at arm's length and pointed to a large k.n.o.bby thing on the end of the bolt. "While the exposed firing pin does mean that the weapon remains combat-serviceable as long as the barrel and bolt are intact-if all else fails, you can always fire it by hitting it with a stick- "It also means that any sudden jar or impact," Johnson's voice choked off. The rifle slipped out of his fingers; he fumbled, bobbled, almost caught it. The b.u.t.t of the rifle hit the ground- "BLAM!".

By the time the sound stopped echoing back from the woods, I figured I was safe getting my face out of the dirt. Payne's boots were right there, two feet off my nose.

"Very good, Harris," he said. "You too, Spinelli. Howe. Chang." He stepped back, looked around, took a deep breath and warmed up for some bellowing. "The rest of you: What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?

Didn't you hear gunfire?

"Let's do this again. Drop!" The rest of the cla.s.s flopped down hard on the gra.s.s.

"Better. Now give me twenty."

My Tuesday afternoon History cla.s.s let out early. I ducked around the Admin Building to avoid running into Rogers and started down the back path through the woods to the library. Mr. Lewellyn had given me a doozy of a problem that Monday, and I didn't feel like waiting 'til my scheduled Wednesday study time to see if my answer checked out.

Plowing through the ferns in the gulley, I darted up the slope and bounced into the Library.

"Mister Lewellyn!" The door was open; the lights were out. The library was dark, empty. Odd. "Mister Lewellyn?" Cautious -I didn't want anyone to think I was sneaking someplace I didn't belong-I slipped through the stacks. The door to Lewellyn's office was ajar. I pushed on it, a little; old hinges turned with a slow groan.

He was lying, sprawled on the floor, next to a tipped-over stepstool and a scatter of books. His face was the color of cold, dead, ashes.146 One instinct told me to get out of there before anyone saw me; another said to get in there and do something. I listened to the second one. His skin was cold and clammy; his heart was beating slow, s-l-o-w, but it was still beating. His breathing was shallow, almost imperceptible.

I ran for help.

He never regained consciousness. They MedEvacced him to Calgary; I never heard what happened to him after that. A week later the new librarian-a tall, beak-nosed sourball named Fellows-showed up, and Lewellyn's Apple got crated up and sent to the storeroom.

"So you're that Harris kid," is how the new librarian introduced himself when I showed up. "I've heard about you." Then he informed me that the library was a privilege reserved for responsible cadets, and that I would need a signed note from an instructor before I would be allowed to study in the library.

The day I realized Lewellyn was never coming back was the last time I ever cried.

I wrapped up my first Grade One year with a lot of nice round numbers: zeroes in everything. Absolute complete flunkout. The plan didn't work, though. Dad just slapped down another tuition check and the Academy reenrolled me.

My surprise was total. All my life, I'd been taking compet.i.tive exams to get into better schools. It'd never occurred to me there might be such thing as a school you couldn't flunk out of. One night I woke up at 3 a.m. from a nightmare about being forty years old and still a Grade One cadet, and that's when I decided I'd better make minimum effort at pa.s.sing some cla.s.ses.

The summer I turned 15 was the worst summer of my life. I couldn't mix with my cla.s.s; after all, they all were Grade Twos, and I wasn't even a Grade One. I couldn't mix with the summer boys; after all, I'd been through that game already. Payne's summer boys did galley warfare that year, and I spent most of my time in the mess hall, cleaning up after their foodfights.147 Until the first week of August, when it occurred to me one day they were just about ready for the final trick. I insinuated my way next to a couple of them, tried to tell them about the battle of Aegespotami.

But who listens to a cyberpunk?

My second Grade One year was even worse than the first one, and for one major reason: Douglas Kemuel Luger. He'd gone home at the end of that first summer, and I'd bid good riddance to him then. Trouble was, I flunked out at the Academy, but good ol' Deke Boy flunked out of the real world. On the first day of the fall semester I fell in for inspection and found Deke standing next to me, smug and cold as ever, and it only took me a little contact to flag he'd picked up something new while he was back home: a mean streak a mile wide.

I decided, since I couldn't get anybody to like me, I was going to flip my toggles.

Sunday night, after I finished polishing Roid Roger's boots, I went to bed as Mikey Harris. Monday morning I woke up as Max a.s.shole, Def Cyberpunk.

During the winter of my Grade Two year, I took basic electricity and learned about Ohm's Law: resistance plus energy equals heat.148

Chapter 13.

One minute I was sleeping; next minute I was waking up all fury and derangement with a hand clamped over my mouth and an evil whisper in my ear. Then I recognized the Survival Instructor's voice. "Get your boots. Go outside. Maintain silence."

Hey, at age sixteen Harris, Michael A., former CyberPunk-me, to tag a constant-might be contending for Oldest Grade Two in camp, but this kid's no vidiot! Soon's I IDed that swine I knew precisely what kinda loaf had pinched on me and opted for Least Painful Response Mode: Instant Compliance.

After three rotten years at the Von Schlager Military Academy, I was finally starting to get the hang of LPRM.

This time it meant barefooting out of the barracks and into the cool and dewey late-May dawn-the pines were still; the owls had called it a night and the meadowlarks weren't ramped up yet -sitting down in the b.u.t.t-freezing damp gra.s.s, and velcroing my boots while the S.I. dragged four more blear-eye Grade Twos from their bunks. In a coupla minutes I was sharing the gra.s.s with skinny Murphy, in t-shirt, sweat pants, and sullen att.i.tude; hulking Buchovsky, in waffle weave, cut-offs, and cowlike calmness; snake-dangerous Kao Vang, in heavy black pajamas and Who-me-did-I-get-tipped-off? smile- And gruppenfuhrer Luger, in boxer shorts. Oh fritzing great, just the guy I wanted. Luger, at near 17 the reigning Oldest Grade Two in camp and my self-appointed mortal enemy. Luger, telepathing, "If I wasn't too tough to shiver I'd kill for that thinsulate jumpsuit, Harris." Luger: Murphy and Kao Vang grouped with him and hostilated at me. I could see already this was gonna be certified zero fun.

One by one we got our boots on and sneaked behind the trees to get149 the moss steamy. Then the S.I. popped past and gave us the silent signal to follow. Obediently, we fell in behind.

Don't ever quote me, but a three-klick run at dawn is real good for flushing the sludge out of your headworks. I was feeling alertness, total, by the time we got to the airstrip, so just before we ducked into the briefing shack I caught a shadow glimpse of the ground crew rolling out a helo and confirmed what I'd pretty much inferenced. This wasn't standard character-building hara.s.sment; we were doing The Colonel's Game, elimination round.

The briefing shed was lit, bright, and heavy with the smell of fresh coffee and doughnuts. A seriously pinholed tactical map covered most of the short wall opposite the door, and five small piles of name-tagged gear lay on the floor. I spotted mine, but before I could check it out the S.I. barked, "Attention!" and we snapped to. He walked past us, stern and inspecting, hooked himself a cup of coffee, sipped, grimmaced, added sugar ...

"This," the S.I. said at last, "in case you stupid sods haven't figured it out yet, is your Combat Survival Final Exam. In the next week we're going to find out what kind of stuff you're really made of.

"Whether you have the right," he sipped his coffee and eyed the doughnuts, covetous, "to call yourselves men, or if you're better off quitting the academy now and taking up hairdressing."

I flashed for a mo on this being an absolute perfect opportunity to flunk out and go home, but nah. It hadn't worked the first time I'd tried it, and I doubted Dad was any more receptive to the idea. It'd been over three years since I'd disappeared him, but the last letter I'd gotten from Mom said the Sears charge account was still b.u.g.g.e.red up.

Thinking about Dad's fight with Sears, I flashed a little half-smile. I take my victories where I can get them.

Lucky for me I caught the smile and toggled it off before the S.I.

spotted it. Oblivious, he pulled a collapsible pointer out of his breast pocket, extended it, and turned to face the map. "This square-," he150 used the pointer to trace around the red yarn perimeter, "-is the ComSurEx grid. Sixty-four square kilometers of wilderness; as you can see, it's mainly timber, some meadow, a small lake in the center. We drop you at roughly these points-," he tapped a pentagram inside the square, "-4 klicks apart." He slurped his coffee, then turned to us.

"Scenario: You're down in nonfriendly territory. You have the clothes on your back, a used 'chute, and the basic survival kit. Your job is to survive for seven days while neutralizing all nonfriendlies you meet. This means each other; there are no friendlies in ComSurEx!"

Putting down his coffee cup, he picked up a thick plastic ring, flat green color, from my pile. "You'll all be wearing tracking collars. They uplink to NavSat and constantly relay your position-," he looked at me, smirk c.o.c.ked, "-so we can recover your body when you flunk."

I stonefaced. He gave me one of his near-imperceptible eyebrow arches and continued.

"They're also how you score a takeout." With a little creaking sound he twisted the collar open, then put it around my neck and snicked it shut. "There's a wimp switch on the collar," he said, fingering a pull-tab under my chin. "To waste someone, yank his switch. This means you have to get close enough for hand-to-hand, and you have to win at handto- hand, and that brings up the first verboten: no knife fights! Too much paperwork when we send a cadet home in pieces." Murphy giggled. The S.I. glared at him, stern, and he shut up.

"We call it a wimp switch because, if you're injured or you want to quit, you can yank your own." To me personal he added, "I'll bet a brainy guy like you has lots of experience yanking your own."

To the others he said, "If the switch goes, you're dead. Worse, you flunk and have to take my course over again." He spun around and jabbed me in the chest with the pointer, shortening it a few inches. "We all know how eager you are to do that, don't we Harris?"

"Yessir." Conditioned response. Can't help it.

"Oh," he added, casual, "taking the collar off pops the switch, of course."151 He turned to the map and traced the square with his pointer. "I'd also advise against trying to leave the grid. The Grade Fives are conducting containment exercises along the perimeter. If they catch you running, they'll beat the p.i.s.s out of you. They don't like cowards."

The S.I. clasped his hands behind his back and resumed his swagger.

"You have two advantages over real soldiers: I gave you time to get your boots on, and you won't be making the actual drop. You can thank some gutless lawpimp for that: The family of that clumsy fool who broke his hip last month has filed suit. So no more low-visibility vertical insertions. For now." He smiled, crocodilian. "Questions?"

Doug Luger stepped forward, chest puffed, chin jutting out like the bow of the battleship Maine. "Sir! How come Cadet Harris is fully dressed, sir?" In my head I filed a priority to someday thank Luger proper for that question.

"Well?" the S.I. asked me, sharp.

The true/true answer was mom'd sent me the jumpsuit for Christmas, and I'd been wearing it to bed ever since the February night Luger decided I was an overeducated smarta.s.s and convinced my bunkies that a bare-b.u.t.t snowdrifting would improve my att.i.tude. I settled for, "I always sleep in a jumpsuit, sir."

"I believe I'll check that out," the S.I. said, and gave me his best Menacing Glare w/Implied Crucifixion. Then, as there were no more questions, he ordered us to mount up.

The sun's big red eye was just starting to peek over the horizon when we lifted out. At first we flew due east, which was s'posed to disorient us, then we cut back west-northwest. I tried to talk to Buchovsky and gave up 'cause of the fierce rotor noise, but as I strapped on my canteen I caught a garble of Luger and Kao Vang arguing. The disturber was hearing Vang clearly say, "No, I get to take Harris out!"

Before I could overhear more, the S.I. squeezed into our compartment and bellowed, "Listen up! This is a combat test! If I catch you cooperating, you both flunk! Understood?" Luger and Kao Vang152 were still shouting, "Sir! Yes, sir!" when the helo slowed to a hover and a crewman yanked the main hatch open. As we yawed around, I did a quick scan.

A smudge of smoke rising through the pines far to the southeast marked the academy, the only sign of human life horizon to horizon. We were maybe two klicks west-southwest of the lake, coming down over a clearing the size of a hot tub. No way, no way we were putting down in that; I decided the bit about not doing a jump was just another disorienter and cussed the S.I. for it. Then the crewman latched a rope to the hook above the door.

So we weren't chuting in. We were rappelling. Big fritzing improvement.

The S.I. smirked around at us, handed Murphy a pair of heavy leather gloves, and said, "You first." Murphy looked at the rope enthusiastic as a man being offered a seriously annoyed live rattlesnake, and the S.I. shouted, "Wait!" Murphy started breathing again.