Channings enthusiastic burbling about his magnificent job was simply madness. It made no sense to him or judging by the corporals expression anybody else either. The EMT’s had immobilised Cliffords ankle and then dragged him away in handcuffs for the first of many visits to an orthopaedic ward. The plan was to do the same with Oliver but due to suspected spinal injuries they were being much more methodical about it. Detective Sergeant Murray had just been taken to hospital too high on painkillers to give a statement and only two of the other three had been caught. This was by any measure a fiasco of the sort people would be laughing about for many years to come unless they had been the victim of it. Praise was not the feedback expected.
It could have been the media he supposed but they had been kept back and anyway seemed to be more interested in the Corporal. The inspector had come over and thanked him for his efforts but his senses were augmented and it had taken some pretty specific threats from Channing to make that happen. All he could conclude was that Channing had not really had permission to bring him out and this whole mess was something he was trying to spin into a positive. If that meant he wasn’t going to be in the trouble he so richly deserved then good luck selling that he supposed.
If Channings praise after the event was odd the press interview was laughable. He had been sat down in front of this 50 year old mutton dressed as lamb reporter who had asked him questions like “how did you get to be so brave” and “does it feel good to be doing the right thing by protecting the country from dangerous rogue specials”. As if that was not absurd enough Channing had interrupted all the answers with effusive praise. How this was going to be edited into anything even resembling an interview was a mystery to which he just played along. Until he knew what sort of circus this was it was probably not wise to ruin it. So he did interviews, he did photographs, he smiled on cue.
His enhanced senses kept telling him things he was sure he was not supposed to know. The most disturbing happened when they had returned to the hotel to relax and he listened attentively trying to work out when the hammer would fall. Instead of that he heard Corporal Patel in Channings room discussing him. “Sir todays operation, I mean it was a mess right? Why did you praise Oxbridge, I mean he’s untrained and on his first op acting solo so he has excuses but why praise him?”
Channing Snapped back straight away “I don’t recall hearing you request permission to speak freely Corporal”.
The salute could almost be heard in her voice “Beg pardon Sir. Permission to speak freely on evaluation of personnel performance in the light of failure to complete mission goals as stared. Sir.”
Channings response was equally fast “Denied. Corporal this mission was a complete success and Private Oxbridge was an exemplary team member. Is that clear?”
“No sir, would the Major please enlighten the corporal as to what parts of Private Oxbridges performance were such that the corporal should try to learn from and emulate them?”.
“Corporal how is your sisters treatment. I understand much can go wrong in Chemo but she is well is she not?”
“Yes sir Jacquie is fine sir”
“Good remember that when praising Private Oxbridge in your reports. Dismissed.”
Thinking on that he wondered how many people were volunteers and how many were pressed. Not all pressure was obvious and he knew exactly nothing about the world he had been dragged into. Changing into the casual civilian clothing he had picked up oh so long ago at the hospital discharge facility most of it no longer fit. He had filled out especially in the shoulders and thighs but could he have grown a bit In height as well? The trousers once catching on his shoe heels were now barely reaching his ankles. Ignoring the absurdity of his appearance he made his way to the hotel bar to listen to music and relax. He had seen the piano earlier and there was a note up stating performance times so the music was not a surprise. The surprise was the corporal in a short slinky yellow dress belting out Sinatra tunes. Both the music and the dress were unexpected pleasures. There were only a few people about so his entrance was noticeable and she gave a quick nod of her head to him while he charged a drink to his room and sat down. She did three more songs before sitting down at his table and asking where her drink was. “Waiting to find out what it was” he replied and then got the wine spritzer she asked for.
They sipped for a while and then she turned “thinking about your work today I feel compelled to say that you did an excellent job and should be proud of your efforts” which Morgan turned over in his head. He admired the fact that not a word of it was a lie, she was compelled to say it and he wondered how to respond. While he was busy crafting a subtle and clever remark his mouth opened and words came out “Yeh I heard, why is your sister on chemo?”
Patel went very still. Her head turned to stare at him quizzically then realisation dawned. “Sensory core?” she guessed and he nodded. “How often do you do that? Anyway she has bowel cancer. Responding well to treatment, polyps removed and Chemo to kill any blighters not found on the scans.” “It sounded like a threat when he asked after her.” Morgan replied. Patel snapped back “I prefer to think he was reminding me of how much I have to be grateful for. SCAR applied pressure and she got bumped up the waiting lists. Thats all.”
Morgan took a drink to avoid comment and then said “I must be mad, sitting next to the prettiest and apparently most talented lady in the room, grateful she’ll talk to me and the only thing I want to discuss is work. Corporal can you tell me which of today’s objectives I actually met?”.
She grimaced and then “you kept yourself alive. That’s not just a good fundamental on any mission the major specifically briefed about your status as an irreplaceable asset” Morgan immediately blurted “so why am I in the field then? If I’m an observer put me somewhere safe, if an operative give me a better briefing. Or maybe just put bullets in my gun”.
Helen looked at him “you are never going to be an operative. Plain and simple. Even if you weren’t the key to augmenting all the SCAR specials and allowing a select few to level and presumably get to be individually uber mensch you still have your million core problem. Until that is sorted –oh and I think it may be worse than you thought – until that is sorted you are just another soldier, oh stronger faster perhaps but still not a tactical pivot. Not a significant addition to any set of tactical options. So too valuable to waste as just another squaddie and too weak for anything else. Get me another drink.” Doing just that Morgan wondered if she had a boyfriend speculating that if so he was either a saint or a doormat.
Settling down he asked “so why is my million core problem worse than I thought? I mean truthfully I wonder if there even are a million different core concepts and if so how long will it take me to think of that many unique possibilities. If its that well ahead of you on the despair and frustration”.
She nodded saying “yeah that is a stumper alright but no its levelling. It took me what just over nine hours I think to level eighty six cores three times. Call it 258 upgrades right? During that time I was unconscious. How long will it take to level a million cores once. How long will you be out, who is going to look after you whilst you are spending probably years in a white room doing what amounts to paperwork. Oh oh and you don’t know what your XP total is until you get to the levelling menu. I jumped straight to third and was very nearly fourth. Whose to say that you will only be doing one level.”
Morgan thought for a second then shrugged “Wonderful, another problem. Do you think SCAR realises what a waste of potential I am?”. Pulling a face she replied “I think they’re delighted. If they had known how valuable you were there’s no way they would have put you through basic. Who wants treasure that fights back. Or maybe who wants treasure that bites the hand that feeds it? Anyway the point is the less powerful you are the more comfortable the top ranks are. Constant SCAR problem, why do you think we make people go to the “you are easy to kill” lectures? Scared people are supposed to be less likely to start an uprising. Oh I mean we tell people that its to make them cautious because we value them as assets but there are other ways of doing that”.
An awkward silence followed which Morgan filled by asking how she had managed to pack such a lovely dress in a rucksack. She had responded by asking which charity shop he had raided to look so stupid and out of style. This eventually led to a promise to take him shopping for clothes if he was ever allowed off base. She did three more sets of singing during the night displaying an eclectic taste of music not matched by a narrow vocal range particularly butchering Elvis Costello but nobody else was trying so who really cared. They made their way to the lift together and she leaned on him taking her heels off seemingly unbalanced due to being a bit tipsy. He saw her teeter off down the corridor to her room and then went to bed himself.
All three were up bright and early and if Corporal Patel was hung-over there was no evidence. There was no banter and Channing was very monosyllabic with his replies to everything making the drive back awkward in the extreme. At the services whilst standing at the car waiting for him to return he had asked why Channing was in such a bad mood to which Patel had suggested that maybe he had briefed the colonel on how well the op had gone. For some reason that had sent them into peels of laughter which only got worse when he returned making him get even more annoyed. To make it worse every time he got more annoyed that just made them laugh again, eventually the giddiness wore off but it seemed his fury was still there. The rest of the drive back was awkward.
They got back to Perderville and Channing parked the car. As they started to get out he told them to stop and he turned to face Morgan in the back seat. “I brought your concerns to the higher ups, we eventually agreed that you needed space. Heres what we are going to do, you’re being kicked out of this intake. You have missed too much and the science boys still want to have you to work with. The next intake is in eight weeks. You will be assigned to that. The science boys will be permitted to work with you but only from 08:00 to 17:30 and reasonable comfort breaks are to be scheduled. The rest of the time is yours and you will be permitted access to all civilian and trainee areas on base. To go off base contact me and give me notice so that an escort can be arranged. Your sessions with Corporal Patel will continue as they seem to benefit the efficiency of both of you. In essence, we are prepared to give you time to get your shit together. You will be allowed to hurry up and wait. Do you have any questions?”, Morgan considered then “if I’m not in my squad any more where will I be sleeping”. Channing pulled out a sheaf of papers from the glove compartment and said “present these to SPS, you will be assigned civilian housing for the long term. It will be held empty for you whilst you are reinducted in eight weeks so make yourself comfortable there for the foreseeable”. Without waiting for further questions he left then slamming the car door, his only concession to his actual emotions.
Giving him some time to get clear they both got out and Patel turned to him – “ok lets get you to SPS and see what they give you”. She led the way to an office called Staff Personnel Support who took the documents without comment. After a few minutes of hanging round a middle aged woman in greys came out holding a set of keys. She had that heavyset look of women who have done intense physical labour for their whole life and instead of slimming down had bulked up as a result. Russian shot putters and some farmer’s wife’s came to Morgans mind. She indicated they both should follow and she walked them to a housing unit wordlessly. It was a fair old walk but they came to an immaculate set of housing two up and two down with well tended gardens. Finally she spoke “Here we go number 38, Sign here.” She handed the keys to Patel and the clipboard to Morgan who dutifully signed anything and everything. “Married quarters, basic. Small but a good start for a young couple like yourselves, do I need to go through regs on maintenance and decor?” They both gawped and then while Patel shook her head Morgan interjected “not married, she’s just helping me out. Sorry”. Undeterred the lady kept talking “Oh well maybe one of you in the future will stop wasting time. Regs. Do I need to go through them?”. Patel quickly left and Morgan was shown through a house that would be small for a couple but for a bachelor was just fine all the while having directions about maintenance and cleanliness shot at machine gun speed. Taking advantage of his abilities Morgan paid no attention just recording it for later perusal.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
As he hung his clothing in the wardrobe it still looked depressingly empty. Never a fashion icon he had usually had at least the basics. Clothes shopping was always a chore usually consisting of a day trudging behind some woman making his choices for him. Really his style periods could be described as mum, Goth chick, Student girlfriend at uni, Asian girlfriend, Joanne. Helen had offered to take him shopping but the SPS officers crack about marriage made him shy away from that. Trouble was he really did not know where the shops were round here. An escort was probably the best idea who could do that for him. Whilst arranging three pairs of underpants and three pairs of socks all regulation into three draws a knock came at his door.
A pleasant looking middle aged lady with red hair and just enough fat to have curves not yet getting to plump stood at the door beaming. When he opened the door she just swept in and looking round with a cynical eye smiled and said “still moving in then. Ok my name is Poppy and I am here to present you to the officers wife’s association. Is your no doubt lovely wife here?” As Morgan explained that he had no wife, no he wasn’t gay or divorced her smile became more and more brittle. Finally after he wound down she put her hands on her lap staring at her clipboard. “Alright Mr Oxbridge. Its all very irregular but part of my role is to help new arrivals settle so” she dramatically tossed her clipboard to one side “what can I do to help you?”. Grinning he replied “local guide. No stuff that wasn’t issued by the army or fished out of a charity bin –long story- so I need to buy stuff. Where do I go for groceries? Shoes? Booze? God forbid civilian clothing that fits”. She sat back frowning and then smiled “well theres a lovely lesbian couple that moved in a few months ago still also settling in. If I introduce you then maybe you can explore together.”
Poppy with a task to do left quickly promising to introduce them tonight. Morgan attempted to make a mark on the place but lacked the materials to do much. Eventually he had an idea. All this time and he had no idea about his funds, so far everything had been issued or given to him but if he was going to shop it might be an idea to see what he could afford. Eventually he found an internet connection and logged onto the account James in Discharge services had set up a while back. There was some funds in there but with no idea of current prices it wasn’t actually much use in setting expectations. With some more faffing he managed to log on and using his service number find a military bank account with his trainee pay available. It was twice the amount James had organised and he doubted trainees got rich so that gave a bit more data about his funds. Finally he clicked on a flag that was blinking. Apparently he was due a payment premium as a “special resource contributing to society” something that he remembered Dr Scott mentioning before. No payment had been made though because he had been refereed to evaluation and a rate would be set once he had been categorised.
Nothing to do and all day to do it he decided to go hassle the SPS about his back pay. The walk back was fine and the guy on the desk seemed perfectly willing to help. He just couldn’t. The problem was that he had quote “been categorised as uncategorisable” and as such no rate had been set. He needed to go to his assessing officer and chase it up. Forty minutes later he was at the science building trying to talk to either Graham or Michael. After 15 minutes of stonewalling by receptionists and security someone who recognised his name showed them into the lab with Michaels blackboard and told him to wait for either of them to become available. Looking round he decided to look at the blackboard that Michael spent so long staring at. Looking at it a Core notification appeared and was dismissed but presumably not coincidentally the gist of the problem was starting to be clear. How was energy distributed in a quantum system to create phenomena that exceeded the size of the wave function of the quantum system. Essentially it seemed that he was trying to work out how these nanites created things in much the same way as a cartoon character would pull a battleship out of its pockets.
Prompted by that understanding he flipped the blackboard and started writing. He was sure that one of those expressions needed to be expanded as there was an error somewhere and it was annoying him. Another aspect was that he was genuinely surprised that this was something he could do. Even while furiously scribbling it occurred to him that while combat was bound to be a part of his future if he lived long enough civilian skills and trades were more likely to be important more often. After a few minutes of doodling he flipped the blackboard back round. No need to mention that, Michael did not need to humour amateurs after all. When Graham came in he was juggling whiteboard markers whilst whistling what he thought was a piece by Elgar. After checking that there was no problem Graham quickly scribbled a note and stapled it to the backpay form. When he returned to SPS they told him that it was quite a nice number and would be credited to him in three working days. He went back to his house content that he had in no way caused trouble today.
When he got back there was a note on his door from Poppy asking him to pop round to 56 which he did. Opening the door Marie squealed with delight and hugged him. “How did you find me” she asked dragging him inside. Inside Poppy was chatting to Dr Scott and turned to him “here the lovely couple I was talking about”. Wendy turned round and groaned “there goes the neighbourhood”. Poppy was quickly but politely ejected by Marie who with the air of someone aware its a waste of time told her they were not a couple. Wendy on the other hand was in no way polite when it came to ejecting Morgan “Get out. You’re not welcome here now or in the future.” delivered in a flat monotone. Marie pulled her to one side and they had a whispered hissing argument the gist of which was Marie wanted him here and it was as much her house whilst Wendy just kept referring to him as a menace and she wanted him out. Morgan stood up, apologised for the problems and then asked Marie if she would like to see his accommodation instead of him seeing hers.
As they walked back to 38 he asked Marie “look I get that she doesn’t like me but that seems well it seems a bit mental to be honest. What is it about?” Marie grimaced “being a doctor does not mean you are any better about accepting that stuff is your problem. Her life was on plan. Nice house, nice husband, kids planned, and then you arrive. We get drunk do something stupid get arrested and sentenced to work here as a form of community service. Don’t get me wrong its easier for me, I did not give up anything to get here and if I can get myself trained up as a Specials clinical speciality then I am basically made for life. There are people who would give up a finger to be trained here. But Wendy? Hubby stayed at that nice home. Nice secretary of husband is now also visiting said nice home.” Morgan tutted “ooh that’s not good”. She continued “no its not. She hates the work here, she wanted a nice solid job listening to people bitch about having nice lives that gave them no good reason to be seeing a doctor and being paid 200 an hour to pretend to care. Instead of which she has actual problems to deal with.” Morgan spoke slowly “if nice secretary and nice husband are visiting regularly as you say its not been so long” speeding up he continued “things must have been at least been thought about for it to be this quick”. Marie agreed “yes but its always easier to blame something that isn’t you. Even a psychiatrist can fall for that. And then comes you with all the mayhem that swirls around you. As your daughter apparently says you cant even die properly”.
Morgan approached the house and let her in. She looked round and then with forced cheeriness “well minimalism is a design aesthetic”. Morgan looked at her and agreed “yes, yes it is. So is making a virtue out of a necessity. Why I came round to yours actually looking for a native guide to take me round the shops. I just don’t know where anything is”. She started to make a tea and then said “well I suppose I should be grateful that you haven’t mastered maps on your phone. When were you thinking of going?” That led to a conversation about back pay and then the debacle he was apparently to be praised for. They arranged a shopping trip in four days and when she heard about his bonus rate for specials he apparently agreed to take her for dinner as his treat to thank her for the help she was giving.
They chatted for a while after that but eventually Marie had to leave and get ready for work. Extracting a promise she would pop round again he waved her goodbye. That night with a TV for the first time in ages he started channel hopping but despairing of the crud he found actually went through each room replaying the lecture about maintenance I his head and would then go through each room picking up items and replaying the specific instructions related as he held each item. Some he guessed would call it cheating but it worked for him. Eventually running out of even that level of work he called it an early night.
Next day after dropping a note off with Channings secretary he went to the science building and sorted junk. He was supposed to be deciding which items could be activated but with a grand total of zero items found to be useful all day it was just sorting junk. The request to visit Channings office was actually a relief and he went promptly. He had a discussion with the secretary about when and where he was planning to leave the base and promised to be more specific next time.
The next day he was told to read an internet forum which was about what sort of powers were and where not possible. Apparently he was supposed to find ideas for new cores amidst the paranoid ramblings of these strange people. At the end of the day he was surprised to note that he had received a large number of notifications and he resolved to keep checking the discussion group in his own time. Maybe being crazy helped them to be creative.
The day after that was his twice weekly beatings day with Patel. There was a difference today though as the members of his old squad were there as well. After a mutual round of backslapping Patel informed them all that given they had now stabilised from the procedure Morgan had performed she was being required to assess the overall increase in effectiveness it had wrought.
The day went how he remembered his first occasion going for his team mates and he felt a quiet thrill at being better than they at anticipating what was going to happen next. Schadenfreude to one side it was surprisingly relaxing to be hearing them talk themselves up as they readied for whatever the training was going to be.
First was a foot race, winners get to brag and the last three do the ironing for a week. Morgan and the corporal left the others in the dust barely breaking a sweat. The last three Arthur, Harold and James demanded a rematch. The day was spent that way, in civilian life you would say playing stupid pointless macho games but to these soldiers in training testing themselves was a serious endeavour.
The foot races soon changed into a game of brutal tag. Not enough to touch someone you had to bring them to the ground. This lasted for a while and everyone including the corporal were going to be testing how quickly healing would remove bruises. More impressive was when you looked round how much damage had been done to the flora and fauna around them. Essentially the ground had been churned to mud and just about every stationary object had been run into. Comparing lumps and bumps they all claimed to be the best and laughing at the absurdity of even their own claims.
To the corporal however it seemed less a macho undertaking more a chance to make everybody else do her work for her. A few hours later whilst tallying up who owed what she sat grinning. As the only person who had won every game this was just pure entertainment to her. Morgan had kept his losses to dusting the wardrobes while Isaac was probably never going to finish his chores despite eventually using his 1 inch levitation to run with his feet clear of obstacles and claiming in tag that he had never been brought to the ground. Despite the outcomes everyone’s morale was high and raised when she announced hand to hand in three days.
Going back to his house he pulled up the internet and skimmed the powers forum. A new thread had started but it only took half an hour to read all the new posts. After that he pulled up online teaching courses and tried to see how many would have an army discount, time to broaden his skills from military to academic endeavours. After requesting a dozen or so prospectuses he started to read through trying to decide which three would give him the most diverse range of subjects. This was going to be a start on gaining civilian skills and qualifications and he might as well start while he had the discount available to serving personnel.
His next day was spent going to the commissary and buying odds and sods for the house. Though he had intended to restrict himself to the practical, mostly kitchen items he also bought some spare bed linen. Though he spent some time surfing video clip sites by the end of the day he started to feel a bone numbing boredom settle in.