2071 UNPC Universal Calendar
Installation 058, Augment Training Base.
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As far as bad days went, this one took the cake. Which was really saying something, considering she'd thought that every day for the last two weeks. She'd had a grand total of 30 hours of sleep over the past 14 days.
She was soaked, cold, every square inch of her body caked in sandy mud. Today they'd made her swim a thousand meters in the pool, then get out and run five miles on their ruck marching trails. She'd started out wearing a tee shirt with "Schmidt" printed in large letters front and back, her grey short running shorts, and standard issue running shoes.
That was when she started, seven hours ago. She now wore nothing but "Schmidt" sharpied on her bare back and chest. Between being made to get into the pool and swim, to being forced to get right back out and run a half dozen times, she'd lost it all, and was still on her feet, er, well, stomach, and moving along.
Before that it was ruck marching for twenty miles, then being dropped at random off the back of a cargo truck and made to do map and compass land nav on 90 minutes of sleep during the ride. It took her all night and most of the day to collect all of the code words and find the small camoflauged PVC tubes they were written on. Some were hidden in trees, one was even on an island in the middle of a lake. She'd finished in second place, behind Parker. One trainee was found sleeping in a bush and got reycled.
She was naked, but nudity meant nothing to her, or the forty two others around her. The only thing that mattered was staying on the move and not quitting. Not a one of them had a shred of clothing between them. It wasn't like she was exposed, she was covered in caked on mud and sand.
She'd never swam or ran so far in her life. She'd seen other trainees drop unconscious both on the trails and in the pools, and the medical personnel were always right there to pick them up and cart them off. The barefoot running made her want to cry, her plantar fascia tendon was screaming at her, even now. Two had dropped immediately upon hearing it described by the instructors that one morning a little over two weeks ago, an "extreme endurance test" they'd called it.
This crawling was new, this was hard, after getting kicked in the teeth by swimming and running, every muscle overworked and sore... It was torture, plain and simple. It had gotten to the point where every time she or one of her fellow trainees had to urinate, they were required to do it into a cup so it could be tested and checked for color. Twice she'd seen someone get medically recycled due to Rhabdomyolysis. That was when you were overworked to the point of muscle death. It could lead to kidney failure and even death.
Getting recycled, no matter the reason, meant going all the way back to the start of training. The thought made her want to weep. Having to do it all again. The worst part was that even if you passed, you had to get selected. You could go through the entire four month program and pass the physical part with flying colors, but if you didn't have the brains or they decided you wouldn't fit well, they'd drop you and you'd be forced into whatever job they thought you'd do well in.
You could sign up to be an augment and end up being a cook. That thought weighed over her every passing second of training.
The last time she'd eaten was five and a half hours ago, a single Meal Ready to Eat main meal, and she was starving, her stomach carving a hole in her abdomen as she crawled, no, squirmed forwards. Her hands were bound behind her back at the wrist with a zip tie, and her ankles were tied together too. Every movement was a herculean effort. She'd felt as if she was running on fumes for days. Every moment of rest too short, every bit of food or water too small.
She'd been out of breath for the past six hours, and her heart rate hadn't come down below 100 beats a minute for probably double that. Her hands were numb, and now one of the instructors was screaming at her again.
There was one instructor per four trainees. Sixty four to start, meaning 16 instructors. "Pick up the fucking pace Shit!" They screamed in her face. They thought they were funny giving everyone nicknames. Kate's last name sounded like the expletive when screamed, so it was low hanging fruit.
"Yes instructor!" She screamed, and tried her best to go faster.
"What is the maximum effective range of the M4 rifle?" They asked, stooping to get right in her face, their tone low. She knew if she got such a basic question wrong or took to long to answer she'd get smoked, or recycled. Her heart skipped a beat before she replied.
"The effective firing range of the M4 rifle is five hundred meters or five hundred and fifty yards at target and six hundred meters or six hundred sixty yards at area target instructor!" She screamed back. She surprised herself with how she spit out the word soup so clearly and correctly with how tired she was.
They said nothing, just marched off, going to make some other trainees day even worse. Thank god. She wasn't sure if she could answer another question like that again.
She kept crawling, she didn't know how much distance she'd covered, nor how far she had to go. She just kept moving. Muscles she didn't even know she had were on fire, the exercise meant to stress the body in ways no one can train for, no doubt.
Eventually it was over. The boot in her back was almost inviting as the zip ties holding her hands and ankles were cut while she breathed heavy into the mud and sand, the left side of her face pressed against the ground, her neck muscles finally catching a break.
"Everyone on your feet!" One of the instructors barked, and she did as she was told, standing. Her entire body was shaking, and it took a conscious effort to calm down and breathe slowly, slowing her heart rate and making the shakes subside, even if they never fully went away. She knew what was coming, and mentally braced herself.
One of the water hoses that was previously used to wet the sandy mud they'd just crawled through was turned on them. She wanted to cringe away from the cold water, but forced herself to stand there at attention while they rinsed her off. The water stung in areas, and she knew she had scrapes there from rocks in the mud. She was so thirsty, she'd break every finger on her right hand to be allowed to drink from that hose right then and there.
There was a table with boxes on top, probably 100 feet from where they stood. She idly wondered what was in them. The boxes were opened, the top leaves hanging open, but their contents obscured.
"I quit!" One of the trainees said, breaking her from her train of thought. In an eyeblink, they were carted off, and never seen again. Just that quick, not letting a quitter effect the morale of the team. That was the job of the instructors.
She was first in line for the medical checks, and a three person team descended on her, cleaning her abrasions with hydrogen peroxide and drying them with nonstick gauze, before brushing liquid bandage on them. She wanted to scream as it dried, but she swallowed it and retained her bearing. She didn't want to get her ass ripped because she whimpered.
The instructors upended the boxes onto the table, revealing MRE's and one liter bottles of water. They were "rat fucked." Meaning they'd been opened, the "contraband" removed, and then resealed and given to them. The coffee or tea, caffiene gum, anything with too much sugar, the peanut butter and jalapeno cheese spread removed, etc. Anything that was a stimulant or that could raise morale was taken out. Even the little chemical reaction bag thing you put the food into to heat it up was removed. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had hot food.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Twenty eight days ago one of the trainees was caught with instant coffee they'd stolen from somewhere, and had been smoked for over ten hours straight, pushups, jumping jacks, situps, burpees, etc. Right up until they couldn't take it anymore. The slightest slip up, hesitation, or oversight meant extreme punishment or ejection from the program.
"Eat. You have twenty minutes." One of the instructors told them. Their voice was soft, and that meant something was up. She was sure she'd find out soon. There are forty two of us left. She kept a running count in her head of who was still there, one of the many games she played with herself, trying to keep her mind active and her thoughts away from sleep, or quitting. Just get to tomorrow, you'll feel better tomorrow, it'll be easier tomorrow.
She stumbled towards the table and grabbed one, along with a bottle of water then started chowing down. She winced when her forearm brushed against her left breast. She idly wondered if she'd ripped a nipple off, but surely the nurses would catch that.....
She looked down at herself, and saw that her left nipple was swollen. She had inverted nipples, something noted during her physical, but ignored because it was easily fixed, and presented a non issue during training. The rock that found its way into there sure felt like an issue when she squeezed it out with an accompanying thimbleful of sand. She ignored the pain, and ate another MRE.
It was odd, she was nude, and sitting criss cross in the grass with forty two others who were also naked, but there wasn't a bit of self consciousness or apprehension about it in her mind. They had a bond, they'd all been through it together, seen, and learned things about each other that couldn't be forgotten. Every one of them had a shaved head, and from behind, most of them looked androgynous or very nearly, though she knew every one of them by name, and therefore gender.
The twenty minutes flew by, and she and her 41 shivering goosebump covered companions stood at attention, formed up in a relatively orderly square, waiting for what came next. They stood there for what felt like hours. That was one of the instructors' favorite games to have them play. A little over a month ago they stood them out in the rain, then the cold night, then in the beating sun at attention, no water, no food.
Three people had quit then, and one had passed out and gotten medically recycled. Then next day they did the same thing, only with drill movements every once and a while, or being told to start doing pushups with no stop command for hours. Just a single instructor sitting in a fold up chair reading a newspaper watching them. One more quit then, and afterwards their uniforms were inspected, and their ass ripped for every slight infraction.
After what she'd guess was an hour, a beat to shit OD green dual rear wheel 3500 pickup truck with dents and bullet holes all over pulled up in front of them while they stood in formation. It parked with it's nose pointing off to her right, leaving her to look at the right side of the vehicle with her peripheral vision. Peripheral vision was something she was very good at now.
Once she'd tried to read a sign on the side of one of the trails while ruck marching to cadence by moving her eyes, and one of the instructors had caught her. They made the entire class mark time on the double while she did pushups to failure and beyond with her half body weight ruck on her back. "Now just how in the fuck do you think you're going to check your six when you're looking at a target through a sniper scope!?" The instructor had screamed in her face.
The bullet holes and dings looked like they'd just been painted over with a rattle can of OD green. The pickup looked about 100 years old, and was a 4 door with a long bed brimming with gear. It looked like it had half a dozen people's TA-50 in it. The passenger door then opened, and a multicam uniformed UNPC Marine got out, and walked off somewhere she couldn't see, carrying a metal clipboard with manilla pages fluttering in the cool breeze, made colder now that she didn't have her carapace of mud and sand to protect her.
The interior of the truck looked like a grenade had gone off inside of it. The upholstery was ripped in odd areas, and the vinyl flooring looked like it had been dragged behind a semi down a country mile of bad road before being put back into the truck. It had no headliner, and the dashboard was beat to shit, without even a glove box.
The driver's door opened, and over the top of the truck she could see the helmet of the Enhanced Combat Armor system. Then, an honest to god Augment walked around to the front of the truck and leaned against the grille. She'd never seen one in person before, and this one looked about as old as the truck he got out of. He was about 6'4'', looked Mexican or Puerto Rican, and had that "old strong" look about him, and the way he carried himself portrayed that.
Through his partially opaque amber colored visor she saw his face, he was at least 45 to Kate's eye, and carried a flamethrower on his back, immediately putting a million questions into Kate's head about who he was and what he did. His face was.... Interesting. A long scar went vertically down his right side, and the eyebrow looked immobile due to nerve damage. In layman terms he was butt ugly.
He took a small green notebook out of a pouch on his ECA chestplate. He flipped through the pages, no small feat due to the heavy leather gloves he wore, but they didn't look as if they slowed him down at all. He started listing off names. Five in, and he said "Kate Schmidt." She wondered what that meant. Why is an augment calling my name? Did I pass? Med recycled?
After he was finished with the names, of which he said thirty, he put his notebook away and then addressed the group. "If I have said your name, you have been recycled." Kate's heart sank, and she wanted to quit right then and there. It's okay I can do it again, it just means I'm good at it now. She thought, her mind racing. "You will restart training either immediately, or after recovery if medically necessary." The augment said, his voice a rasp. He really does look like he screams a lot. She struggled to reel in her thoughts, they were all over the place, she needed to listen and pay attention.
Kate wanted to puke. I can't do all that again, not like this.... I'm so tired.... My nipple hurts...
"Weiser, Pulgarin, Mitchell, Parker, and Schmidt, you will be riding with me." He said. "Everyone else, get on that bus, if your name was not called, await further instructions." He seemed to smirk after that, the right side of his face twitching for nanosecond while he gestured towards an idling greyhound bus that she hadn't noticed before. The air drier for the brakes chose that moment to hiss. What do you mean I ride with you?
"Well!? Fucking MOVE!" One of the instructors barked at all them, making them spring into motion.
Kate rushed into the passenger seat of the trashed pickup truck after Parker, who was a bit shorter than her, and considerably thinner. Parker took the middle seat and Kate buckled up in the passenger seat. She sat at sitting attention, her back straight, and palms flat against her thighs.
The three other women and the one man joined her in the cab of the truck. The weirdest thing was the rear of the driver's seat was missing. It took Kate a second to put two and two together and determine that was so the augment could comfortably drive without having to take off his flamethrower tanks.
The augment got in, and shut the door. "At ease." He rasped, and they didn't move much, just put their hands in their laps like they'd been taught. He cranked the engine, which ticked for a second before it got oil pressure to the top end.
He put the transmission in drive, and pulled out of the area they were in. The training grounds looked different to her now, through the windows of the pickup truck. Rolling hills and forest with obstacle courses and trails. She wondered now if she could do it again. Every one of those obstacle courses had been barely doable in the par time, and that was when she was fresh....
"First of all, you're not getting recycled." The augment told them, a grin on his face. Kate's stomach instantly lifted, and she felt like 100 pounds had just come off her chest. "You all passed with flying colors, and you're headed to installation one to get your augmentations." He explained. Fucking mind games.
His casual tone threw her off, she was used to getting screamed at or chewed out in a soft Human Relations like voice.
"The ones who were getting on the bus are getting recycled, and the ones who's names weren't called are getting sent wherever the UNPC feels they belong." He continued. "Your shit is in the back." He hooked his thumb over his shoulder. "Per usual, none of your uniforms were salvageable, so you'll get some new ones when we get to double oh one." He said. "Sorry." He shrugged.
There was an uneasy silence as the augment merged onto the highway. Is this all a mind game? Are we really getting recycled?
"You guys know you can talk, right?" The augment said. "My name is Kugler, I'm Bravo Four." He said.
"What happens now?" Kate heard herself ask.
"You all passed the physical training, you crawled through hell and now you get your augmentations." Kugler shrugged. "Welcome to the augment corps, simple as that." He said. "There's still like a dozen specialty schools you need to go to, but you're an augment now, all things considered."
"Are we allowed to sleep?" The male, Charles, asked.
"I sure as shit would. It's a three and a half hour drive." He chuckled. "let me know if you need to use the restroom, there's a roll of toilet paper under the middle seat back there."
She hoped this all wasn't an hallucination and she'd wake up to an instructor screaming in her face. Sadly, that had happened once before, and she knew she'd quit if it happened again.
Right before she closed her eyes, she pinched her arm to make sure it wasn't a dream. After that mental check, she was asleep in seconds.