Gods of Anthem (14 page)

The magic fades, bringing me back to earth, and with a face full of mischief, Vero says, “I didn’t finish.”

My mouth gapes at the innuendo as we attempt to scramble to our feet.

Cory’s come over, chiseled face like a thundercloud. “Sleeping on the job?”

“No,” Vero and I say at the same time, and Cory’s wide eyed like a spooked horse at our lackadaisical attitudes.

We both realize our error and pull apart to snap at attention. “I mean, nothing, sir!”

“Nothing, sir,” Vero says.

Cory eyes us like we’re gum on his boot before spinning on his heel to stalk away. “Private Hernandez and Private Hatter,” he calls over his shoulder. “You’ll start the course again.”

We drag our feet to the first obstacle, and though I now feel great, all too soon after re-starting, Vero’s energy flags from using her Special.

When Cory’s not looking, I hunch over. “Put a foot in my hands, Vero. Come on, I’ll give you a boost.”

By the end of the course, I’m sluggish, too. In the pools, we’re the last ones to do laps, so we splash each other and mess around. The PT Sergeant is passed out in his chair, so he’ll probably fill in fake times to keep from being busted.

I climb out, while Vero porpoises alongside in the water. Her dark brown hair’s like a seal’s pelt when she breaks the surface.

She smiles up at me. “Hatter, you look … bigger. You weren’t small before, but in these last few months, it’s like you’ve filled out even more, if that’s possible.”

Vero’s “filled out” quite a bit herself, but I don’t say that and instead hand her a towel. “Just get out of the pool, GI Jane.”

“Who’s that?” she asks.

I laugh. “Never mind.”

After the flood of undead, most people didn’t keep up with old entertainment. But I’m a buff, and my library’s extensive. The UG paid us a good chunk to do their experiments and I’ve not really had a chance to spend any of it (where would I?), so I traded up items for a huge interactive flat screen that’s now in my barracks. Movies, music, and entire collections have been pulled off of old drives from various runs where we made good finds.

Vero and I dress and head back.

When we arrive, everyone’s waiting in formation, and Sergeant Nolan’s glaring. “Push-ups,” he says between chugs of his Mountain Dew, and we move to our hands onto the hot pavement.

Vero fizzles out quickly, so I slow down, trying to draw heat away from her. If we get sacked, we go down together.

Sergeant Nolan rushes forward, along with Cory, to spout insults into our faces.

“Get up, you worms!”

Vero starts back in, and I follow suit. We have each others’ backs like that.

I hope she can finish this. It’ll be my fault if she can’t.

Sergeant Nolan chuckles when he catches me checking on Vero. “I see we’ve got ourselves a couple of love birds, here.” He puts a foot onto my shoulder, forcing me down. “Well, c’mon, Romeo. We don’t have all day.”

I lift his added weight and begin counting again. By number three, though, my arms start to shake, and I jerk to the side, letting his foot fall, effectively spilling some of his soda.

Sergeant Nolan kicks me in the side, and my face scrapes the ground when I land.

He chuckles like it’s all too much fun. “Private, is it true you have some sort of crazy Special? I heard you turn uglier than a coyote with rabies.”

The platoon shuffles with muffled laughter.

“Sir, yes, sir.” I ignore the burning in my palms and begin to do push-ups again.

“You some kind of werewolf, Private?”

“Sir, no, sir.” Sweat drips off the tip of my nose in a steady stream.

“Then what is it?”

“Sir, it’s a genetic mutation, sir.”

“Well, forgive the hell out of me, Private. Do you see ‘doctor’ anywhere on my lapel? Do I look like one of those freak scientists? Answer me, Private!”

My teeth grit. “Sir, no, sir.”

“If you turn into something dangerous, tell me now, ‘cause I don’t need no bigfoot lab-rat screwing up my platoon.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

Sergeant Nolan leans in, his face next to mine. “You keep that kind of crazy locked up tight, you hear?”

“Roger that, Sergeant.”

He kicks me again, and I grunt. “You gonna do it now? Huh?” He kicks me a third time, and I feel a stirring inside. “What did you say? You want to challenge me, soldier?”

My vision shrinks, and my voice turns strained. “Sir … no … sir.”

There’s a darkness within me now, put there by the same scientists who’d electrocuted me before injecting every color serum imaginable until I thought I’d die. I’d wanted to at certain points. If the body is like a bag of sand, then the grains filling it under the skin had to be removed, to make room for …
it
…. They’d sieved some of me out and replaced my insides with something only imagined from the farthest and coldest galaxy, a consciousness so foreign and inhuman—both ancient and young—it’s there, primordial and evil, sifting through that sand, waiting for freedom.

I sense its shift now.

“Leave him alone!” Vero yells, then counts again, doing push-ups, fast.

Cory chucks her beneath the chin and shakes his head. “Looks like our virgin’s about to get his cherry popped, Sarge.”

“Virgin.” Sergeant Nolan puts a foot on my hand, stopping me. “Virgin…? You telling me monster boy here hasn’t so much as wet his whistle?”

The squad succumbs to choked hilarity.

Sergeant Nolan yells over the top of the laughter. “Answer me, soldier. Is your team leader correct?”

I keep pumping up and down, arms shaking, gut clenched. “Sir. Yes. Sir.” Sweat’s stinging my eyes, and I pretend it’s the only thing that’s making them burn.

Sergeant Nolan chuckles and spits something brown next to my hand before he moves his boot to my shoulder. “Keep going.”

A ringing begins in my ears. This is how it starts. “Roger.”

“Count,” he snaps.

“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty … fifty—” I collapse, face-first, feeling my energy leave in a rush.

“Don’t you quit on me, you pussy! You get the hell back up, or I’ll make you pay for a hundred years!”

“Roger, Sergeant!” But I’m only able to move about an inch upward.

“Get up! Get up, you worm!”

When I don’t, he backs off, telling me to stand. I do, and he moves toe-to-toe with me. “Private, tell me how it’s possible, when girls think the world’s ending and your pissant generation is gonna be the last so they’re passin’ it out like candy at Halloween that you still haven’t become a man?”

I mumble an answer, avoiding the platoon’s stares, Cory’s grinning face, and Vero’s pitiful glance. “I’m afraid that I’ll hurt her … sir.”

“What? What are you muttering about?”

“I’m afraid I’ll make—hurt—”

“Babababa! Talking like a baby, Private. Should I get you a bottle? Speak up, son, when you’re addressing a superior. If you like, we could heat up you and the entire platoon, too, an extra few hours.”

Groans roll through the squad.

I shift my eyes away, and spittle flies from his lips. “Get it out! Or so help me God—”

“I’m scared I’ll kill her, okay! I’m afraid I’ll break her in half! That I’ll wake up to a corpse in the sheets, blue and mangled. Is that what you want to hear, Sergeant? I turn into a monster five times your size, and he—it—craves … and she won’t be able to get away …
Do you have any
idea what I’m capable of
!”

The entire platoon has fallen silent, their eyes round, while my body stretches inside my shirt. Seams creak from the strain, and a button pops off to roll across the cement. We watch it circle until it stops before Sergeant Nolan tips his head back, laughing softly. He spits off to the side again. “Well, why didn’t you just say so, pencil dick?”

He nods at Cory. “Dismissed.”

Serena
’s asking me
something, but I’m only half listening. When my stare remains blank, she repeats her question.

“Do. You. Want to go to the movies?”

But it’s late, past curfew. “Wait—what? There’s a movie place here?”

She rolls her eyes. “Look, if you don’t want to go—”

“No, I do. But what about curfew?”

“They let us do this, like, once a month. Some kind of new program where they put out a couple of films. You wanna come or not? They bus us in and out, so curfew isn’t an issue.”

“Sure,” I say. It’s a much needed distraction, and I’m adding a hoodie over my black jeans that I’d splurged on and purchased last payday, along with some tennis shoes. Dress clothes get old after a while.

Serena’s right about the allowed extension of curfew. When we get to the alleyway, we find a line of people shuffling in the cold. Our raging heat wave has turned freezing in a matter of hours.

At last, a bus pulls up and we all get in, huddling for warmth. But the bus is too much like a train for my liking so, despite Serena’s snide giggle, I end up gripping the bar near my seat.

They drive us in a strange squiggle southward until we stop in front of a cement building with one glass door.

There, we get off and wait for tickets. Just before we step inside, a man in a fancy grey coat and perfectly gelled hair runs toward us. “Serena!”

He brushes back a non-existent loose strand, and his gold watch catches the moonlight. Such extravagance is mind boggling.

Serena seems irritated, and something else. “What are you doing here, Gregor?” she hisses.

“I couldn’t wait to see you. I hoped you’d come tonight. I have a ticket, too.”

He shows her the stub, and she shrugs before looking away. Only I’m seeing her small smile.

Now, I’m an awkward third wheel to the unexpected pair, and the crowd jostles us inside, where several movies play in small, packed theatres. We choose randomly, something I’ve never seen before. Not that I’ve seen many films, but a few float hazily through my memory.

Not long into the film I’m noticing uncanny likenesses: how the boyfriend walks the girl home before curfew, both dressed in grey. Only the guards are polite, keeping the couple safe, instead of threatening them like they do in reality.

And the citizens watch this propaganda as if it’s perfectly acceptable to remake entertainment to fit our pale lifestyle.