Chapter 37: Fair Game

None of the zeros dared speak on the walk back, stunned after the crucifixions in the trees. Once the pain ended, they instead seemed to focus on their impending end. When they reached the top of the slope, one wept, almost unrestrained, like the beads of moisture in a new crack in a dam. His legs trembled, and Liu held him under his arm.

Dozer shook the water from his trousers. Errorist and Model did the same while they waited for the zeros to get far enough ahead. The dead men deserved some privacy. None of them knew what to say to them, anyway.

With huge breaths, Buttstroke breached the surface of the water.

Errorist pressed his arms against his chest to keep the heat inside his body. “What’re you doing?”

Buttstroke lugged his minigun out of the sludge. Putrid filth dropped from the barrels. He reached under and hefted the ammo pack over his shoulder.

“I’m not leaving this behind.”

***

Dozer blocked out the blinding light outside with his hand. Enough sunlight came through the cloud cover to overwhelm Dozer’s retinas. The recruits gathered around the entrance. A group of about forty orderlies in their white uniforms stood off to the side. Every other one held a stretcher balanced on its end.

Once all the recruits took the elevator down Mt. Hollow, the DI listed off at least twenty names. “... Dunn, Kayode, and Sinclair. Could you all line up in front here?”

The three zeros from Filipek’s fireteam joined the rest of the zeros and formed a line. Filipek hid behind Buttstroke’s bulk. Dozer’s heart dropped. He suspected everyone in that line also didn’t get level 1, a formation of the doomed.

The DI started at one end and shook each zero's hand. “It has been an honor. It has been an honor. It has been an honor…”

His face became a slab of granite, but his eyes trembled. Moisture slid under his pupils. The trees around reflected in the black of his irises.

Some zeros broke down after they shook hands. Others looked off into the forest to take in the beauty of the last moments of creation. When the DI made it to the other end, he saluted. All the zeros fell on cue in a collective thump, rag dolls once held upright by sentience.

A shudder washed over the recruits like a wave. Filipek cringed, his jaw taut and mouth pulled into a grimace. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Everything Dozer thought to say would have sounded fake, like he had found it on a digital greeting card. He wanted to do something, anything to reach out to the poor guy. By his decisions, Filipek had caused three of his friends to fail the exercise, to head to the recycler, but nothing Dozer came up with would help.

The DI lowered his arm from the salute, sharp and crisp. He still looked over the bodies of the fallen recruits. “I expect you all to return your weapons to the sergeant-at-arms and be ready for your debriefing in thirty minutes.” His voice stayed just on this side of controlled.

After the DI marched off toward the camp, the recruits parted around the line of lifeless corpses. Dozer and some others saluted the casualties, with fingers curled and elbows down. If he couldn’t make them live again, he would give them a modicum of respect in death. Errorist and Model followed suit. More looked on the corpses and pressed their arms to their bodies as if an icy breeze engulfed them. Filipek whispered a throaty “I’m sorry” to his teammates.

Stolen story; please report.

Buttstroke strode up to bodies, right up the middle, and stepped over the inanimate flesh like garbage in a casteless street. He sped up, head high. For a moment, Buttstroke looked into Dozer’s eyes. A glint appeared behind Buttstroke’s pupils; a roar of blood crashed against the shoreline of Dozer’s inner ear.

I’ll be damned if I ever let a sick fuck like you lead me.

The recruits halted to watch Buttstroke stride by. The flesh under Model’s narrowed eyes twitched, while Errorist couldn’t tear his eyes away from the corpses behind them.

***

“This is the worst part of the job.” The DI stood in front of the holo-table with his hands behind. “It is time to commit our comrades to the recycler.” He stepped aside.

The holo-table lit up. It showed twenty-three boxes in a grid. The translucent green lines showed the unconscious faces of each of the zeros, close up inside their sarcophagi. They obscured the grim faces of the second and third class DIs in two rows behind.

Twenty-three. That means someone is going to be without a fireteam.

Dozer took Model’s usual seat on the outside, farthest away from Buttstroke, to sit beside Filipek. Now alone, the man had latched onto Dozer and the fireteam. His face held a grimace, but he still looked on the depictions of his soon to be deceased teammates.

“You might wonder if it is necessary to watch the recycler take our fellow recruits.” The corners of the DI’s mouth pulled down underneath the whiskers of his beard. “It is. Some previous recruits have held the view that their teammates were alive and out there somewhere. That is why we must watch. This will disturb you.”

The eyes of the zeros stayed shut, save for one. Liu darted his eyes around. The camera must have been infrared since Liu seemed not to see anything in the pitch black of the sarcophagus. He hyperventilated and let out a silent scream. If the sarcophagus had a mic, it didn’t include the audio. Still, the thrashing in the tight space made Dozer’s stomach churn. His body lay in a sarcophagus, the same as him.

Liu’s mouth snapped shut while his face dropped away from the camera. The bottoms of the sarcophagi seemed to open downward, all at once. Dozer caught sight of Liu’s fingers clawing at the interior before his weight swept him into the darkness.

Errorist’s breath seemed to get caught in his throat. Buttstroke checked him out from the corner of his eye and focused back to the video feed, a blank look on his face.

The cameras switched to show empty chambers. In each box, a recruit slammed into the floor headfirst. Their necks bent away from their bodies at unnatural angles. Black patches in the holographic green—blood—flowed from where their scalps. A twitch shook Liu’s body. His head had landed with his face turned from the camera, but his jaw moved.

Bright green—the caustic solvent of the recycler—flowed from the vents above down the walls. Liu must have smelled it. His head shook, and his mouth opened in an assumed scream. The solvent pooled around the flesh of his scalp, and his head shuddered in pain while it submerged. Soon, his body collapsed into the rising reservoir. The recycler had eaten Liu and the rest of the zeros.

He was awake for it. Holy fuck. He. Was. Awake.

The DI cleared his throat. “Let us have a moment of silence for our fallen.” He and the other DIs closed their eyes and lowered their chins to their chests.

Dozer couldn’t shut his eyes after he witnessed the ghastly spectacle. The muscles of his stomach tightened and threatened to send the contents inside outward. Some other recruits looked away. All others stared at the still green of the hologram.

Filipek had sat up ramrod straight. He shook his head and swallowed. His hands trembled. “It ain’t right.” The words came out almost inaudible.

He pushed off the seat and stood with shaky legs. “It ain’t right,” Filipek said, louder.

The DIs focused on him but said nothing.

The shadows in the crags of Filipek’s face seemed to darken. “Liu got three kills.” His voice trembled, loud and close to hysteric. He pointed to himself. “I only got one, but he failed. I didn’t. He’s dead, and I’m not. It ain’t right!”

Everyone in that room focused on Filipek, but none dared say anything. Filipek searched their faces, as if desperate to find something. Dozer stood and put a hand on Filipek’s shoulder. He put a bit of pressure to communicate Filipek should sit down.

His eyes had a pleading in them. A blush burst onto his cheeks as if he realized he had made a spectacle of himself. Filipek’s gaze dropped to the floor. Dozer sat and pulled Filipek back down with him.

The DI ran his fingers through his beard. “Perhaps we should move onto naming our new level ones.”