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An excerpt from Powerhouse
Brig Interview Room 1
14:40S 11 MAY
Glare slashed across Jack’s eyes and stabbed right into his brain. He grunted as his strained neck muscles locked into cramps, and then he swallowed blood. The empty tooth sockets were finally starting to bud.
Darkness returned. Captain Jefferson sat on the bench next to the closed hatch. Jack could see him clearly. He didn’t have the superb hearing of a B-variant, or the sensitive nose of a W, but he had the full T-series visual spectrum.
The captain was waiting. Jack tried to speak, tried to voice the lies he had practiced, but they would not come. Adrenaline surged. The aches faded. His calves twitched, and so did the long muscles in his back, always the first ones to respond. Run. Fight. Move. Hit. Hurt. Punish.
He overcame the reaction with a wrench of willpower and got the breathless panting under control. Darkness made it easier. In the dark there was no failure, no pain, no screams. Darkness was safe.
“You said you were ready to talk. Heavy breathing is not talking.” The captain leaned forward. “I will find out what sent your squad into rampage, Corporal. Two can keep a secret if one is dead, that’s the saying., and there’s nine of you. I’m told Tees can survive a nuke hit given sufficient healing time and supportive care. You had Cooper’s brains on your knuckles, but the docs swear he’ll live. Someone will tell me the truth.”
Jack choked down the guilt, but memories came up again on a surge of nausea and adrenaline. He couldn’t stop the shakes this time. His vision hazed red. Muscles prickled and twitched. His pulse hammered in his ears, in his gut, in his bones, and his hands gouged furrows into the concrete flooring when he grabbed at the deck.
The captain snapped, “Relax, Marine. That is an order. Sit back. Eyes shut. Listen up.”
The rising tide of emotion slammed into the solid necessity of obedience. Jack put his hands in his lap and bowed his aching head, and he closed his eyes as ordered. “I’m listening, sir,” he whispered.
“Let me tell you a little bedtime story,” said the captain. “It’s about my grandfather. He was a Marine too, way back in WWII. People called his grand-daddy property, but the Marines gave Pappy a rifle and made him one of the few and proud. You know your history?”
“Not much, sir.” He hadn’t tried for education points in years. Waste of time, the registrars told him. Early-onset. Sure to die before the Corps got its investment back. “I know the Corps was different then.”
“All male, for one thing. All white, for another. Mostly young, too. A unit of black men? That was revolutionary. I wonder sometimes, where we would be today if the President’s cousin hadn’t hit onset in the middle of a state dinner. But she did roll over, and so did a hundred thousand others between ’43 and ’45. Eighty percent of that first wave were women, and a huge share of them were T, R and P powerhouses. FDR signed the orders to form Mercury Battalion to stop the destruction on American soil, and the Corps took on the task of training volunteers who could fight fire with fire. Literally, in some cases. Those women and men kept the home front safe so the rest of the country could win the war, because the changes hit everywhere, of course.”
The portable AC unit ticked over in the silence. The darkness behind Jack’s eyelids wasn’t red now, but his brain felt foggy. Had he missed a question? Was he supposed to speak?
The captain said, “Would you ever think a woman was an inferior soldier because of her plumbing? I doubt it, but it was assumed, once upon a time. Not so long ago, dark skin meant you weren’t human to some folks. Sexuality was a thing, as my niece would say. Only seventy years ago. Plenty of places that’s still true, but now a third of the population changes color, sprouts new parts, or develops weird talents midway through life. Half the civilian reboots in Mercury don’t even look human. The ratio runs 60-40 women to men. Do you think any of that changes what it means to be a Marine?”
That one, Jack could answer without hesitation. “No, sir. It does not.”
“No, Corporal, it does not, and a good Marine would never let criminals walk free so that he could plot his own private revenge. Not even if the criminals deserve worse than hanging. Honor your oath, Corporal Coby. Talk to me.”
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