Rhodes eased out of his capsule the next morning and stared down at his feet. He started to put together everything that happened to him and everything he still had to do today.

A loud cough startled him into looking up. He stared down the row of capsules and had to readjust his version of reality when he saw Fuentes, Thackery, and Lauer waking up.

Rhodes had been living in these barracks alone for so long. The other recruits’ presence interrupted his usual morning routine. He didn’t get a chance to put his boots on.

He went into the washroom to look at himself in the mirror, but before he got there, he heard yells rising from the other side of the barracks.

Fuentes got straight out of bed, went to the terminal, and started attacking it again. He jammed his finger into it way too hard and muttered curses at the device.

His voice started rising. “Come on! This is all wrong! What the hell is wrong with this stupid thing?”

“It doesn’t do outside communications,” Thackery called over from her capsule. She still sat on the edge running her fingers through her hair. “Captain Rhodes told you that already.”

“You shut up!!” Fuentes snapped. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“I bet I know more about computers than you do,” she countered.

“SHUT UP!!” Fuentes bellowed.

Rhodes turned around and started to say, “Rudy….”

Fuentes rounded on Rhodes in a rage. “SHUT UP!! You don’t know what you’re talking about!!”

“You better watch your tone talking to the captain like that, Corporal,” Lauer growled.

Fuentes didn’t hear him. “SHUT THE HELL UP—ALL OF YOU!!”

Rhodes moved a little closer. He barely made it through the washroom door before Fuentes ripped the terminal off the desk and hurled it at Rhodes full force.

Rhodes raised his arm and the terminal bounced off his right arm’s metal housing. The terminal crashed onto the floor and shattered into a million pieces.

Lauer and Thackery stood frozen in shock. Fuentes roared in fury, turned to the bookshelf, grabbed it, and tried to rip it off the wall.

He would have toppled it into the room. His implants gave him the strength to break its anchor bolts.

Rhodes couldn’t watch any longer. He charged the kid, grabbed Fuentes around the shoulders, and pinned his arms to his sides.

Fuentes exploded in an even more hysterical rage, kicked and thrashed, and tried to fight his way out of Rhodes’s grip.

Rhodes had to use all his new strength to restrain Fuentes. “YOU BASTARD!!” Fuentes roared. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!!”

“Help me, Fisher!” Rhodes yelled over the noise.

“What would you like me to do, Captain?” Fisher asked.

“Interface with him! Knock him out if you have to! I don’t care! Just shut him down!”

“Is that advisable…..?”

“JUST DO IT!!” Rhodes roared.

Rhodes didn’t understand what Fisher did. A blast of blinding pain and searing heat stabbed into Rhodes’s brain, but it didn’t knock him out.

Fuentes went limp in Rhodes’s arms. Lauer and Thackery both flinched. Thackery’s hands flew to her head and she grimaced in pain.

The next instant, it was all over. Fuentes hung lifeless in Rhodes’s arms. His body weighed a ton.

Rhodes let out a shaky sigh. “Thanks, pal. I owe you one for this.”

“I may have damaged him irreparably,” Fisher murmured.

“I’d say he already has been.” Rhodes carried Fuentes back to his capsule and laid him down on the mattress. He’d been awake less than ten minutes.

Rhodes stood back with another heavy sigh. Now what was he supposed to do?

He couldn’t stand by and watch another one of these people go down. There had to be another way. God only knew what it was.

Neither Lauer nor Thackery said a word. Thackery left the barracks, came back with a broom, and started sweeping up the shattered remains of the terminal.

Rhodes sat down on Thackery’s bed to keep watch over Fuentes. Thackery’s capsule was the next one down the row. She didn’t say anything against Rhodes sitting on it.

Lauer scowled at everyone. Rhodes couldn’t read Lauer’s reaction and didn’t want to pry.

“Is there any way to orient Fuentes better than this?” Fisher asked.

“I’m wide open to suggestions, pal,” Rhodes replied. “I’m fresh out of ideas.”

No one said anything after that. Rhodes, Thackery, and Lauer waited in silence for Fuentes to wake up.

Rhodes didn’t ask what Fisher did to knock Fuentes out. Rhodes knew one thing, though. He could never ask Fisher to do that again.

Whatever blast Fisher used might harm Rhodes or one of the other soldiers. Rhodes couldn’t risk that.

Whatever that blast was, it wasn’t a long-term solution. There was no long-term solution to whatever was wrong with Fuentes.

Whatever was wrong with Fuentes was wrong with all of them, including Rhodes. That was exactly the problem and it wasn’t a solvable problem. It was just the shitty reality they all had to live with.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Fuentes woke up three hours later, groaned, and rolled onto his side in bed. He rolled in Rhodes’s direction so Rhodes could see the boy’s face.

Fuentes kept his eyes shut for a minute. Then they suddenly popped open. He stared straight in front of him. Then his eyes darted sideways to lock on Rhodes.

Fuentes lost it the minute they made eye contact. Fuentes writhed the other way, howled in anguish, and started rage-sobbing again.

Rhodes didn’t move. He couldn’t do anything about this. He knew exactly how Fuentes felt because Rhodes felt exactly the same way. He just coped differently.

One glance at Lauer’s deep scowl told Rhodes loud and clear that Lauer felt the same thing. He didn’t say so out loud. He never said a word about whatever his life had been like before this.

He buried his pain and anguish under a mountain of solid granite. Lauer protected himself better than Rhodes, but nothing could hide it forever.

Rhodes wished now that Thackery didn’t act so chipper about all this. Her presence really made this so much harder.

Rhodes didn’t blame Fuentes for hating her. Rhodes wished more than anything that she hadn’t woken up at all.

He kicked himself for thinking that, but having one person in the room who didn’t sympathize made this so much worse.

What was Rhodes supposed to do—kick her out of the battalion? He couldn’t do that. She had nowhere left to go. None of them did.

Fuentes tossed and thrashed in his capsule for a minute, but that didn’t satisfy him. He shot to his feet, cast one wild glance around the barracks searching for someone or something to attack, and hurled himself at the nearest available object.

He tried to grab the capsule cover, but not even his mechanical arms could budge it. He yanked it, and when that failed, he hurled himself at it.

He slammed his head and chest down on it twice before Rhodes realized what was happening. Fuentes bounced off the cover and threw himself at the wall. He slammed his face and body into it three times before Rhodes got there.

Lauer responded just as fast and got there a fraction of a second after Rhodes.

Rhodes lunged for Fuentes, pinned him hard against the wall, and held him there. “Stop it, Corporal!” Rhodes yelled. “Stop it right now! That’s an order! Keep still! I said keep still!!”

Fuentes didn’t hear him. He tried half a dozen more times to slam himself against the wall. Lauer moved in to help Rhodes, but Rhodes held Fuentes down alone.

“Do you think you’re the only one who feels this way?!” Rhodes snapped. “Do you think your pain is so much worse than ours?! You better snap the hell out of it, boy!”

Fuentes burst into tears all over again.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!” Rhodes barked. “Look at me, Corporal!”

Fuentes looked at him for a split second and then twisted his head away.

Rhodes jammed his elbow harder against Fuentes’s chest. Rhodes didn’t have any problem holding Fuentes down.

“Look at me, Corporal!” Rhodes roared. “Do you think I’m not going through the same thing? My wife and children are out there—my parents and brothers and sisters. Do you think I’m not hurting? Do you think I don’t want to end it?”

Those words cost Rhodes everything he had, but he had to say them.

They hurt more than anything he’d gone through yet. That pain made him furious. He wanted to kill someone, maybe even himself.

He grabbed Fuentes by the jaw and forced him to turn his head. Fuentes struggled, but Rhodes didn’t let up until he wrenched Fuentes’s head around and locked eyes on him.

Fuentes’s mouth screwed up in torturous shapes. His tears made his eyes blaze. He rasped through bared teeth for every breath.

Rhodes could think of a lot of things to say to this kid, but that moment of eye contact said it all.

Fuentes didn’t want to look at Rhodes because Fuentes saw. He saw in Rhodes’s eyes all the torture and anguish Fuentes had been suffering all this time.

“Look at me, boy,” Rhodes snarled even though Fuentes already was looking at him. “Look at Lauer.”

Rhodes didn’t have to turn around to see the expression on Lauer’s face. Rhodes slackened his hold on Fuentes’s jaw just enough for Fuentes to turn his head and see Lauer’s features spasming.

Lauer turned away immediately, but that moment was enough.

Fuentes let out a broken howl of agony, but he didn’t try to struggle anymore. He didn’t fight Rhodes’s hold.

Right at that moment, at the worst possible moment, the barracks door opened and the three doctors waltzed in.

“If you wouldn’t mind coming with us, Captain,” Dr. Neiland breezed. “It’s time to wake up the rest of your unit.”

Rhodes spun around fast. “What—all of them?”

“We’ve decided to shorten our timeframe,” Dr. Montague replied. “The Emal threat is becoming more pressing. We need to activate the battalion sooner than we thought.”

“But these three haven’t finished training. They haven’t learned how to use The Grid to modify their shapes.”

“You’ll be able to train the whole unit together,” Dr. Neiland replied. “It will step up the timeline….”

“It will also increase the risk of a catastrophic malfunction,” Rhodes countered. “You realize that, don’t you? The battalion won’t be as effective with fewer people.”

“That’s a risk we’re willing to take,” Dr. Montague replied. “Come with us, Captain. We need you present when we wake up the rest of the recruits.”

Rhodes didn’t want to leave—not right now. He didn’t trust Fuentes not to try something else the minute Rhodes turned his back on him.

The doctors’ presence left Rhodes no choice. He eased his elbow off Fuentes’s chest and the kid buckled on the spot. His knees folded and he collapsed on the floor sobbing his eyes out.

None of the doctors reacted to Fuentes’s outburst. None of them acted as if Fuentes’s behavior was anything noteworthy.

Rhodes took a step back. He still hesitated to leave, but maybe this was for the best.

If Fuentes killed himself, at least Rhodes wouldn’t have to take a potentially unstable soldier onto the battlefield.

Fuentes would as likely get killed there if he couldn’t function or think clearly. Why delay the inevitable?

Rhodes couldn’t risk Fuentes putting someone else in danger. Rhodes wouldn’t be able to keep Fuentes under constant watch or anyone else who might snap at a moment’s notice.

Rhodes’s mind went through every one of those nightmare scenarios. Of all the bad ideas in the history of bad ideas, this was the worst he’d ever encountered.

He couldn’t imagine a worse scenario than going into battle with a bunch of damaged, emotionally unstable mental patients all armed with super strength and the most sophisticated weaponry in the sector.

He couldn’t waste any more time on Fuentes—or anyone else. If they didn’t pull it together, he just had to let the chips fall where they may.

God only knew Rhodes had enough to cope with just managing his own emotional state right now.

Things would get a whole new level of complicated when he went into a real battle with alien hordes shooting at him.

He glanced over at Lauer. Lauer faced the room again. He’d straightened his expression into another brutal scowl.

Now Rhodes knew with absolutely no doubt that Lauer had a family out there somewhere, too. Lauer was going through exactly the same inner turmoil. He just didn’t let anyone else see it.

Lauer glared down at Fuentes. Lauer only took his eyes off the boy for a split second to make significant eye contact with Rhodes.

That moment told Rhodes more than words could ever say. Rhodes could leave the room now because Lauer was here. Lauer would keep an eye on Fuentes—not that it mattered anymore.

Rhodes turned away to follow the doctors out of the barracks, but he paused on the threshold to look back.

Fuentes sat huddled in a ball on the floor. He turned his face toward the wall and pressed his forehead into the concrete so no one could see him, but everyone present could hear him sobbing. His whole body shook with sobs.

“Can you detect any malfunction in him?” Rhodes asked Fisher. “Are the implants causing this…..or is it something else?”

“Is there a difference?” Fisher asked. “There’s no malfunction…..but the implants are causing this either way. Aren’t they? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to tell me all this time?”

“I guess so.” Rhodes still found it impossible to leave. “Are his brainwaves functioning normally?”

“His brainwaves are erratic, but I’ve been detecting the same patterns in all of you—you, Lauer, and even Thackery. I can’t tell anymore if they’re normal or not. I’m not sure anymore what normal is when it comes to any of you.”

Rhodes sighed. He already knew all that. Of course Fisher was right.

One of these people malfunctioning—what the hell difference did it make anymore what caused it?

Of course the implants caused all this distress. They didn’t need to malfunction to cause distress, disorientation, and even total mental breakdown.

The implants caused all that especially when they were functioning normally. It wasn’t possible for them to do anything else.

He turned away for the last time and left the barracks. He couldn’t help any of these people. He couldn’t even help himself, so what was the point in trying?

End of Chapter 14.