CHAPTER SIX

 

“TODAY, CADETS, IS brought to you by the letter K. Anyone want to guess why?” Judge Fox shouted from the centre of the cadet circle, a large brown satchel hanging over his side. They’d been on the Marsh Pit that day, one of six ‘mini-terrains’ meant for combat training. It wasn’t half as much a pain in the ass for Ezekiel than the Sand Box or even the Sea Circle, but it didn’t come without a heavy toll on manoeuvrability.

K is for knife training, Cadet Jones thought, glancing around the circle at the other cadets. Knowledge—bartered with the senior cadets—was the only real power at the base. Barter wasn’t permitted, of course, but permission is only a consideration if you were caught. For Cadet Jones, who worked the kitchens and could sneak sugar and spices out beneath the waistband of his uniform, it was a constant stream of what to expect in the coming classes, traded for the invaluable chance to stomach bland potatoes and boiled chicken with a bottle of sriracha. Before the Academy, he’d never expected condiments to be worth their weight in gold.

“Knife training sir,” one of the cadets shouted out.

“Nice. Cadet Jordan, was it?” Fox said with a chuckle. “The scum-lickers you’ll be protecting our citizens from will sometimes be too close to get your gun out, or you’ll be caught out of ammo, or a million other things you will fuck up because, tragically, we can’t bleed out all the old failures you brought here.”

Jones and the other cadets began to unsheathe their blunted daggers from the gear belt around their waist, but stopped when Judge Fox raised a hand for them.

“No, you little turd-nuggets. Welcome to year three; time to take off those training wheels.” Judge Fox dropped the sack to the wet ground beneath his boots and kicked it open, spilling out a pile of uniform onyx blades with silvery hilts. One by one they came and selected their freshly sharpened blades, before returning to their place in the circle.

“We don’t get long with you maggots; or not now, at least. If Fargo had his way, we’d get a hold of you before the world dulled you down with its lies. As it is, we’ll work with you gash-sweats until we can hopefully weed a few of you out that won’t die your first year in the field. To do that, you’ll have to take risks! Are you sorry butt-brownies ready for that?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Are you ready to make yourselves the order of the world?”

“Yes, sir!” the cadets cried.

Considering he’d been the only cadet amongst his peers to use lethal force prior to graduating, Jones didn’t think too much of using live weapons, be it a gun or something more archaic like the blade in his hand.

The exercise was less chaotic than Ezekiel hoped. They partnered up and ran through drills meant to quickly take down a criminal beast by non-lethal means. Ezekiel and Ocasio, per the usual, deciding to work with one another. It’d been four months since they’d first found one another in the same bed, generally Ocasio’s of course, as Ezekiel had some sort of allergy to bedding sheets, or the alien concept of ‘pillows.’

Generally, in the night, after they finished falling into one another, there was something to see by in the darkness of their room. When the light lay still, there was something like illumination, of a truth that Ezekiel felt foolish for finding each time.

There was Ezekiel’s mother, and he’d shed the slate face he’d held for hour after hour in the training ground, lines breaking as he spoke about her mind wandering in a concrete coffin of a home while he gambled on Fargo. There was Ocasio’s brother, who ran with a local gang in Chicago; who died so cold, so far and so unbearably heavy that even as tightly as Ezekiel’s arms were around his fidgeting body, they felt inconsequential to anything.

Beyond the bunk though, in the sand box, or the mess hall, or the Marsh while running through drills, they were just cadets, and terrible liars.

Judge Fox strode around each of the groups, giving them direction, or something a little less kind. Cadet Jones focused on his training partner, not batting an eye at the instructor, ignoring the sound of a broken finger to his left, a sliced ear to his right. Hearing the harsh cries of his peers made knowing Fox’s alphabet of arms in advance worth every trade.

When Judge Fox passed Ezekiel and Ocasio, he’d not said a word. They relaxed, at first, but Fox’s attention returned to them again and again. He’d wander around the two, sizing them up, a kind of pleasure tucked under the ginger mustache.

The rest of the cadets had continued, but their eyes eventually drifted away from their partners and fell over Ezekiel, Ocasio, and the Judge who stared at them so intently. The trick to the Marsh was in the footing. If a cadet could properly adapt to the sinking land, how it stole speed and balance, then it became a simple dance of precision. Though Judge Fox, knowing this, and prizing hazing above orgasms, decided it was time to see what the two could really do.

Faster, he’d command, and they would obey. Faster. The two obeyed again. Faster! Again, they obeyed, and the knife grew closer and closer to Ocasio’s face as he lurched back to dodge, closer to his hand as he avoided Ezekiel’s disarm.

Faster, you turtle-dicks!

Ezekiel obeyed.

Which isn’t to say Ocasio wouldn’t, but he didn’t have the nights sneaking out in black to train. To understand.

To judge.

Ocasio fell back as Cadet Jones’s feet plucked effortlessly from the sinking bog, bringing the blade up with the same speed Cadet Ocasio fell. Ocasio raised a hand over his face, and Ezekiel couldn’t help but grin as the blade stopped centimetres from Ocasio’s fingers. The cadets cheered, the rare sound jarring Jones for a moment before he reached a hand out to help Ocasio up.

“Show-off.” Ocasio chuckled.

“I guess K was for kiss my ass,” Jones whispered, through a smile, under everything that could take them to dust.

“Stay down, cadet!” Fox screamed from five feet away. Ezekiel seemed to weigh the order for a moment, but ultimately returned to a stone stance, hands at his side and bunkmate slowly sinking into the muck.

“Cadet Jones, why did you stop your attack?” Judge Fox questioned, taking steps between them with his back to Ocasio.

“Sir?”

“Did you not hear me, cadet? I guess some of you maggots lied on your physical exams, then? Here I am thinking I’m teaching future Judges, Judges, who have no room for hereditarily unfit citizens that—”

“Sir, I hear you, sir! I finished my attack; the target has been subdued!” Jones shot back, his eyes struggling not to fall over Cadet Ocasio.

Judge Fox held a hand out flat. “Your weapon, cadet.”

Ezekiel broke through the pieces of steel and brick and harder things he thought couldn’t be blown down before glancing down at the empty hand. He complied with the order.

“Cadet Ocasio,” Judge Fox started, before turning to the muck-covered cadet. “Please, share with your classmates the brilliant strategy you used to protect yourself from an oncoming attack.” Ezekiel’s eyes spilled down, bulged and begging that through some kind of telepathy he’d never had, he’d be able to tell Ocasio No, take a reprimand, take a week in the Cube, take anything but that order.

Cadet Ocasio slowly, carefully raised a hand to cover his face. It happened so fast, blood bursting out with Ocasio’s screams before he keeled over, half his face folding into the wetness of the mud.

Judge Fox spun to meet Cadet Jones’s eyes, expecting him to make a move against him, to reach for his training partner, to do anything but be the good little cadet he was. Cadet Jones stayed solid, staring forward and pushing everything into a small brushfire in his mind.

“This is a subdued aggressor, Cadet Jones. Do you see the difference?” Judge Fox asked innocently, as if he’d only smacked a ruler to the back of Ocasio’s hand. Cadet Jones nodded eventually, unsure if he even had that much in him.

It wasn’t enough for Fox, it seemed, who leaned in to Ezekiel’s ear, dropping his voice for only the two of them to hear.

“Take your bottom to the medical wing. Your new bunkmate will be assigned within the hour.”

Spit clung to Ezekiel’s ear. Jones met the Judge’s eyes, filling them with every mistake they tried to strip away, and then nodded once more, taking one of Cadet Ocasio’s arms over his shoulder, carrying him off to the medical wing without words, only knowing that he’d be packing for more than one cadet’s departure that night.