Graham clapped his hands together and then said in a loud voice “Ok everyone good news. Come here let me tell you”. He was of course ignored as the squad had gotten used to ignoring anything short of a bellow, a bellow that Patel was happy to provide. “FALL IN AND ATTENTION TO MR SINCLAIR YOU BUNCH OF CROWS”. They all rushed to fall in and Morgan hissed to Harvey “crow?” to which he hissed back “useless untrained waste of space. Stands for civilian recruit on warfront”. Filing the acronym away he stood to attention.
Graham waved his hands asking them to relax which was ignored until Patel called at ease. Graham kept his hands moving as he started “well I just want to say that you are all doing well. So well in fact that we are going to move onto the next stage of this little endeavour. Mr Oxbridge here has demonstrated an ability to activate new cores in individuals which is something you and at least one other group has benefited from. To date there has been no adverse outcomes so we intend to progress this squad to the stage that the corporal here has already tested out. Specifically after Mr Oxbridges intervention each of you still has a number of unassigned cores, in the corporals case activating all the cores had an unanticipated effect that was entirely beneficial and we want to see whether everyone will enjoy that selfsame effect. Now you will be allowed two days to plan what you want to receive from Mr Oxbridge and subject to approval from us you will be granted those activations.” He paused clearly waiting for a response but the squad all stayed mouths shut looking forward. After a few awkward moments he continued “after this training session you will be given 15 minutes to ask questions of Mr Oxbridge and Miss Patel”. He paused again and the silence stretched out again, finally it just got too awkward and he left.
Patel stood at the front and watched him go. After he was out of sight she said “well a whole 15 minutes eh? Guess you are going to struggle with how to fill the spare 14 minutes after I tell you not to worry your pretty little heads about life changing decisions.” Everybody immediately relaxed and it sounded like it was James who shouted “Told you she thinks I’m pretty” to much laughter. Patel Projected her voice “Ok Sunday is supposed to be a day off, I suggest we leave Hand to Hand until then and talk about this bombshell” turning to Morgan she asked “Did you know?” When he shook his head she sighed and told everyone to sit down on the grass and get comfortable.
The next twenty minutes was filled with Patel explaining about core function and the essentially limitless choices available to them. Morgan was explained as each special was unique and he had for some unexplained reason got the special ability to help other specials. There were some frowns at that but it seemed like that was a plausible explanation so everyone just carried on. After that came the discussion about levelling up. Patel presented herself as the source of the information about core function and the options available to level depending which function inside which core was augmented for which Morgan was grateful not wanting yet more questions about his knowledge.
The idea of multiple effects from a core was initially exciting but dominance discussions soon had people frowning about the tradeoffs between flexibility and reliability. Then they started talking about specifics. Patel asked Morgan to scan each and determine what they were looking at for options available. Each of them differed on how many unassigned cores were available so Isaac and James had the fewest with six each after that Harold with eight, Brody with nine, Arthur with ten finally Ronnie and Harry both had 12 free cores. There did not seem to be a pattern about how many cores people had and Isaac in particular just seemed to have had a bad hand dealt to him with both the lowest number of active cores and the lowest number of free cores available for assignment.
Once everyone knew what was going on with them Patel called them all to a huddle. “Ok lets pick Isaac because he is the simplest to talk about with the least options. I understand that so far the choices have been respected so lets assume that’s going to continue. Even so I understand that the idea behind level squads is a rapid reaction force so I am going to suggest endurance, healing, fast reactions and camouflage which if he takes me up will leave two options. With his health, strength and sensory augmentation those should leave him able to fight most things or hide if things go to hell. Assume that he wants to stay distant and hit hard he could take lightning bolts like James and some sort of barrier variant to give himself a portable shield. Even without levelling that seems badass to me”. Everyone laughed and with much back slapping agreed he was going to be a tough nut to crack. Morgan refrained from pointing out that everybody else could do the same and more besides, it was good to see Isaac standing proud.
Everybody was soon feverishly planning the cores they would have whilst Isaac came to talk to Morgan. “You seem to talk to the Corporal a lot. I like her idea mostly but camouflage seems a bit cowardly to me, do you think she would mind if I picked something different?” Morgan thinking in particular about a recent discussion replied “You know surviving a mission is usually part of the mission parameters. Sometimes even if its the only one you meet make sure you meet it. Look the choices are yours, it’s me doing it and I won’t screw you guys over but think it through ok?”. A pattern soon emerged, people came to Morgan to ask for advice and they went to Patel for approval. It somehow seemed right, Morgan found himself feeling paternal to all these kids even though some of them looked older than he did.
The time allotted ran out long before the discussions did and Patel cautioned them that this ability to augment was not yet common knowledge so keep mouths shut. Patel then looked at her watch “I have a few minutes. How’s Marie?” Wincing Morgan realised that he had not sent a thank you message and set himself a reminder to do that “we haven’t talked’ then to change the subject “does this all seem a bit quick to you? Thought we were taking this slow.” With a shrug she replied “me too” and then left with a wave.
At a loose end he walked back towards the base following behind her. After a few moments she slowed and they walked in silence for a while. The companionable silence was broken a few minutes later when she asked “so any plans for the day? I have to inventory targets for the range and then check the majors jeep is ready for rapid response but I should be finished by five”.
Morgan thought for a second “now that’s an eclectic range of tasks. No I was going to watch old TV news bulletins for a while then go talk to Rupert about meeting Annie. After that go back and surf comic websites pretending that’s work. I mean if you have a better idea, and it’s hard to imagine you don’t, if you have a better idea then please go ahead”.
“Ooh that all sounds thrilling, you really will have to explain your comic work you know. Actually I was wondering if you would like to go to the Gym here. We could spot for each other. Not many can spot for me and I presume you have or at least will have the same problem”. A time was arranged and then they split up and given where he was he went to see Rupert.
Rupert had a nice yellow right side of his face from the healing bruise that no matter how much you tried not to notice it was hard to ignore. Despite this he seemed cheerful and listened to the issue with Annie frowning in thought. Eventually he held his hand up to stop the talk and thought out loud “so the issue is getting a safe venue for you both to meet. Ok now the tech is out of her arm her value has dropped considerably and with the duff arm wont be in SCAR anytime soon. You on the other hand for some reason got to meet the king and still warrant an escort. From a security standpoint it would be better for her to come to you leaving you in a safe location. Then the problem becomes the hospital. Mmm. Ok leave it with me, you are free basically all the time right? No training scheduled?” At Morgans nod he waved him out with vague reassurances.
Deciding not to waste the opportunity he decided to go back home and then get ready to do a run on the parkour course and the standard military obstacle course depending which if any were free. Jogging back he contemplated ever voluntarily doing this much exercise as a sixty year old. His life may be odd but he had to admit he had come out ahead. Going through the obstacle course cleared his head and let him think about his situation. The parkour course being used he went home and started in on this days allocation of old news programmes.
The rumblings of the slow rolling disaster to come were obvious with the benefit of hindsight, loss of shipping and increase in prices scarcity brought. It was somewhat depressing really. After that he checked his post and put the prospectuses to one side for two of the three courses he had inquired about. There was a handwritten note from Carly who he assumed was the domestic science lady for the wives club to come round to house 11 and discuss his needs. There being no time like the present he headed off.
Carly was a lady who looked like she was in her forties and had maintained her figure by dint of stress. After he introduced himself she pushed her fringe out her eyes and invited him in. Once settled she got right down to business “so you look like a young man, I assume you have never cooked for yourself and need the basics. Prepping vegetables, cooking meat, avoiding mixing food storage for food poisoning, meal planning, different types of cooking, pantry organisation, the difference between baking and roasting, casseroles and stews, griddles and hobs, types of pans and so on”. Morgan sat back and gave a quick chuckle “So you’ve given that speech a few times then. If I was trying to mess with you I’d ask the difference between a pantry and a larder but no I am older than I look and not a chef but I think an omelette or a roast is not beyond me. My wife though did the cooking for thirty years so I am out of practice. Especially with the shopping”. Carly looked at him for a second then mused “thirty years. Ok definitely a special. Any dietary requirements I should know about medical or special .Oh and both store food but a larder is temperature controlled.”
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Carly was not a pleasant person to be around. She was critical sarcastic and demanding with her only redeeming quality being she was an extremely good instructor in the basics of cooking. Taking him to a huge kitchen Morgan was able to keep her entertained by stories of life before the internet and the TV stations turning off at night. She on the other hand filled her time with criticism, no advice about how he was doing things. He was holding the knife too tight, move his hand down the handle for a tighter grip, don’t store chopped onion there, different shapes to cut veg, wash the knife after use and on and on and on. After a while she told him to go and she would finish prepping for tonight’s cooking group.
It was with some regret that he said he could not be there as he had arranged to go to the gym that night. Carly instructed him to make sure he was available tomorrow or she would not put up with him anymore . It was odd that despite what could be fairly described as a torrent of abuse he actually felt he liked her. She really did have reason to call him useless and no reason to be nice about it. The acid test would be if he improved would she, basically was she nasty because it was called for or just a function of her personality. He supposed he could find her husband and find out if he looked hen pecked but honestly not really worth the bother. Returning to his house he repeated the morning exercise routine voice had set him and let time pass until the cooking lessons could begin again. Checking his cores he had received a number of skill assignments about prepping food, knife usage – sub category maintaining and food storage but none about actual cooking itself.
Getting to the Gym was fairly easy as it was central to the facilities. Arriving with twenty minutes to spare he got changed slowly and started to stretch while waiting for the corporal. She joined him soon and to his surprise she was wearing some tight fashionable gym unitard clothing rather than like him being in army PT kit. Whilst it was not revealing with the mesh being sensibly located like the dress at the hotel he was forced to do a quick evaluation of how he thought about her. And he was thinking about Patel as a her, not as his superior. Mentally pushing past the insidious effects of testosterone they planned the workout. It appeared to be leg day for Helen so a lot of squats with very little reason for him to be there. Helen apologised and said that she had just wanted to be sure he was reliable, she was going to do core and shoulders tomorrow. Not being a problem they both did a leg workout and chatted amiably. Taken aback by the numbers he was squatting it was comforting to see someone else squatting 190 kilos for reps. He was constantly taken aback by what he was managing to do. He resolved to ask voice later whether this sort of training was valid or whether its effects would be overwhelmed by the function cores. The Workout went quickly and while at it he asked Helen about how she had chosen to join SCAR.
She laughed at that and said “most people don’t “choose” to join SCAR. We get recruited either in a courtroom or at the point of a gun. I mean look at your training squad Harvey, Harold, Arthur and yourself all coerced into joining. For the other four if I remember right two were on the dole and we offered training, one was transferred from the royal engineers when he gained abilities and one is just wanting to mess his wives alimony payments by deliberate sabotage of his accountancy career. Specials are a small minority and we terrify people. Dangerous soldiers people can understand. Dangerous pop stars struggling for a break who accidentally irradiate a sound studio? SCAR kept me safe and made sure that my family gets regular checkups for cancer”. Morgan grimaced “Sounds tough. What sort of music anyway? Any videos I can dig out and bop along to?”. She pulled a mock fierce expression “don’t you dare look mister. Actually no not yet, I mean a few promos I sent to studios but serious professional? No. Anyway that was eight years ago and I am like you making the best of a bad job”.
He pondered while doing lunges and then asked “If nobody wants to be here how do you leave? What’s the discharge regs like?” Taking her turn at the lunges she huffed her way through the answer. “The regs exist but are rarely used. You have to show that you are a fully safe member of society. Theoretically honourable service is taken as evidence but it needs ten years of service and specials have only been around for nine and a bit years. SCAR is eight years old. I will probably be a test case, recruited after the studio incident at sixteen years old and serving now just over eight years. High profile public career and poster girl for army keeping people safe. So yes little miss test case”. Other than wishing her luck there seemed little to add so he asked her did dancers date musicians? This led to jokes about worst boyfriend material but she did in the process confirm she had no current boyfriend. After the training session and a shower they went and had a drink of coffee together. Morgan talked about the music of his youth and Helen pretended to not recognise any of the bands or songs. When he pointed out that she had been singing music in the hotel some twenty years older than his selection it was suggested that was because she had taste. Feigning injury at the mock insult they finished the drinks and promised to do it again.
When he got home Morgan thought about the gym session. He was a thick-headed man just like all the rest of us but even he saw this as an invitation to explore possibilities. Gently and subtly done but the message was unmistakeable. What he wondered had changed, as a young man he had the usual struggles for the fairer sexes attention and now unless he was seriously misreading two ladies at once making themselves available. He just had no idea how to deal with this but he had a sinking feeling there was no right answer. Reminding himself that he was being rude he sent a text to Marie hoping she was well and asking when could they meet again.
Going to bed he hoped voice would have a more sensible plan for training in the morning.
It did not involve torture. Reflecting on how low his standards had got Morgan repeated to himself that impact training was not torture. Repeatedly being hit to accustom himself to impacts and using that to train balance, healing and recovery made sense. It wasn’t torture. It wasn’t. Voice liked him and he was getting better every day. Checking the training times at the gyms boxing club he resigned himself to getting a reputation as a punching bag.
Having organised that and after performing his ablutions he settled down to watch the next in his set of old TV news programmes. The first rumbles of discontent were starting to be heard about cancellations of flights due to plane crashes. Nobody it seemed was saying out loud that the planes falling out of the sky and the apparent alien ships were linked but it was going to be fascinating to see how long that absurdity held. Looking at a clock he realised cooking lessons would soon be on and headed out.
Arriving at eleven the door was open and with a quick knock he walked into the living room. There were five women other than Carly but unfortunately one of them was Dr Wendy Scott. She looked good in a jeans and T shirt but all of that was ruined by the disgust at his presence. Before he could decide how to cope Carly clapped her hands together “Ok all here now, pair off, Wendy you’re no longer the noob so you can look after our geriatric teenager here.” As they made their way to the kitchen she started sniping at him “Why are you trying to improve yourself this way? There are so many other much more fundamental things you can improve.” Morgan decided to try to be civil “well have to start somewhere. What are we cooking today, do you know?”. The answer it turned out was twenty shepherds pie in huge trays that would eventually be given to local church groups for dissemination presumably to the needy. Each would have to make it three times and Carly would demonstrate by making the first two then go round “helping” peoples efforts.
This was obviously normally as much a social occasion as a teaching opportunity but the mood was soured quickly by Wendy and her comments towards Morgan. It was not just Morgan who was getting irritated by the comments either. After half an hour Carly walked up to them both and apologised “Look there’s clearly some history between you two, I am sorry and I wont pair you again. Can you keep it quiet for now though?” When both quickly agreed she left to ask someone could they not smell burning? Wendy sniffed “Marie won’t be fooled by a soufflé you know. She will dump you as soon as the novelty wears off”. Morgan closed his eyes, counted to ten and then did the stupid thing anyway “Really. I assume that’s what happened to you then? Once he knew enough about you the secretary got to do some dicktation. Gotta say soufflé won’t help you either.” He saw the slap coming in plenty of time but really deciding he did not care enough to dodge it landed with surprising force. Deciding to dodge the next he refused to rub the area just glared at her.
Carly came over at a rush “Ok both of you out. Yes Wendy I know it was horrible but we have all listened to you needle him, just be grateful he didn’t smack you. You Mr Oxbridge this is not how we behave. Get out”. Frankly it was fair and he started to clean up, after a bit Wendy joined in. Under Carly’s disapproving gaze they had the area sort of clean in moments and then were bustled out together. Standing outside they looked at each other and Morgan started first “It wasn’t right to talk about something I knew nothing about” She looked away and after a moment he continued “My daughter wrote to me, claimed she couldn’t think of anything bad that had happened to her because of me. Poor memory obviously but I don’t think you can think other than this incident right now of anything bad caused by me that you have suffered” She still said nothing staring at the ground and finally Morgan said “this is the part where you agree with me and we talk it out”. At that she looked up “no this is the part where I agree with you but have no desire to talk it out” with which she heel turned and walked away. Shaking his head he wondered how long it would be before she would realise that was the wrong direction and then left himself. Tempting as it was to see what she would do when she reached the dead end it didn’t seem constructive.
He may have to grovel to Carly, Poppy or both for cooking lessons now with or without Dr Bitch present. Oh well it seemed inevitable that his next scheduled activity was boxing lessons where he would go out of his way to get hit.