The timer hit zero, and a buzzer sounded through the gym. Aidan collapsed from the last push-up he had squeezed out and then rolled to his back while gasping for breath. He had finished the workout, but it felt a little more challenging to stay in shape every year. His joints hurt, and his body ached from three decades of constant abuse.
As if in contrast, one of the instructors of his cross-fit-styled gym walked over smiling.
“Great job today, Aidan.”
Aidan couldn’t summon the oxygen to respond for a minute, so he weakly waved his arm to indicate acceptance of the compliment. The trainer, Juan, gave a friendly nod before moving on and congratulating or encouraging the other members of his early morning class.
Aidan waited for a few more gasping moments before clawing himself upright. His entire body was soaked with sweat, and little droplets fell on the padded floor below him. He watched it drip with a subdued sense of satisfaction before looking around at the other members of the class.
In this area of Virginia, practically everyone was either currently in the military, a veteran, or an employee from one alphabet soup agency or another. They ranged in ages, but none looked better off than Aidan himself. It was a fact that increased his sense of muted satisfaction.
Aidan checked his smartwatch and softly cursed at the time. He needed to get a move on if he was going to make it in time for work. He took the early morning classes at this gym because Virginia traffic was its own special hell.
Grunting with effort, Aidan rose to his feet and shambled over to the cubbyhole, where he stashed his gear for class. He shared a smile or encouraging comment with the other class members.
As he grabbed his keys and phone, Juan stopped him with a lowered voice.
“Hey, Aidan, you’re constantly killing it in class. You ever think about joining our gym as an instructor? The certifications are pretty easy, and we need another early-morning instructor. It isn’t anything more difficult than your time in the military, and you could earn a couple of extra bucks on the side.”
Aidan met Juan’s eyes and gave a small smile. The instructor had no idea what Aidan had done in the Marine Corps, and it was taboo in this kind of crowd to ask.
“Nah, Juan. I don’t need the cash and these early mornings are hard enough already. I hate working out in the afternoon, anyway.”
“Cool, no worries, man. Just let me know if you change your mind.”
Juan walked off after a friendly pat on the shoulder.
Aidan wistfully watched Juan’s departing back. Sad to say, but he missed running morning PT with his guys. He had always enjoyed coming up with more and more sadistic ways to squeeze out some sweat, but the kind of teams he had run with while in the military had always asked for more.
No matter how much he missed the military, becoming a CrossFit gym instructor would be a poor replacement for the excitement and camaraderie he was craving. He would have to settle for his job with Lockheed Martin.
After collecting his things, Aidan exited the gym and headed for his vehicle. It was still dark outside, and the Autumn Virginia air was soothing to ravaged lungs. The parking lot wasn’t particularly full, but the industrial-style gym was nestled in the middle of a dense thicket of trees, and there wasn’t adequate light to illuminate the entire lot.
That was why Aidan hadn’t immediately noticed a man standing near his green Jeep despite the relatively empty parking. When he did, he reflexively reached for a pistol that wasn’t there, and it took a fraction of a second for Aidan to size up the man and lament his missing weapon.
The interloper was a white male in his early thirties with brown hair and dark eyes. He wore a black business suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. A slight bulge under one shoulder hinted at a concealed weapon. Despite the firearm, Aidan’s tensed shoulders immediately relaxed—it was a Fed.
Aidan had seen their type while in the military and after. They liked to catch people off guard by showing up where they were least expected. However, Aidan had nothing to worry about; he had never done anything to jeopardize his clearances, nor did he have any dirty laundry he was worried about being exposed.
Aidan’s gait immediately turned more languid, and he walked toward his vehicle as if the Fed were no more interesting than the surrounding trees.
“Morning,” Aidan quipped as he unlocked his Jeep.
The man smiled, recognizing the posturing for precisely what it was.
“Good Morning, Captain Steele,” the man replied cooly.
The style of address made Aidan frown. He stowed his stuff in the Jeep before closing the door and turning back to the man.
“Let me guess, FBI? CIA? NSA? Some other three-letter agency?”
The man shrugged, “something like that.”
Aidan didn’t want to be late to work and found the man’s tone and posture annoying. He looked around the parking lot, but none of his fellow gym members had yet made it outside. They were likely gulping down water and asking themselves why they put themselves through an early morning workout day after day. Realizing that the untimely arrival of another person wouldn’t save him, Aidan sighed.
“So what do you want?” There was a pause as both men sized each other up.
“Do you miss being in the military?” The Fed suddenly asked.
Aidan unwillingly thought back to his thoughts just a few moments before exiting the gym.
“Sometimes,” he allowed.
“That’s good. You’re about to have an opportunity to serve your country again. I’m taking the opportunity to warn you: don’t miss your chance.”
Cryptic message seemingly delivered, the man turned and strode deeper into the parking lot. Aidan watched him go in pensive silence before getting inside his Jeep and driving home.
Aidan made it to his spartan apartment, a short distance from the gym. When he unlocked the door, no one greeted him—no girlfriend, no dog, not even a stray cat. There hadn’t been someone to greet him since his only family had passed away a year prior after a vicious bout with cancer. Since then, he had just been trying to get by. He was a hamster on a hamster wheel, running through the same motions day after day in the hope that maybe all that exercise would be worth a damn in the future. There was nothing there that would miss Aidan when he was gone.
The lack of life in the apartment didn’t bother him much. At least, that’s what he told himself. His apartment was merely a location on the map where he slept, played the latest war or military video games, and made himself something to eat. After making a quick breakfast, Aidan showered, got dressed, and left for his office in King George.
The red brick building near the Potomac didn’t look like much. Then again, none of these government contractor buildings advertised the secrets within. They appeared just as bland and uninteresting as their government and military counterparts. Aidan was convinced they got their office furniture from the same sources. His beaten-up desk, ancient computer monitor and laptop, and hideously patterned chairs looked like the ones he used while in garrison. No matter what changed in his life, his security clearances and ugly furniture remained the same.
As Aidan entered his office, he shut the door behind him and dropped his backpack on one of the aforementioned chairs. He circled his desk and plugged his access card into his laptop. It booted up at its typical snail-like pace, and while Aidan waited, he picked up the TV remote on his desk.
“Well, one advantage of a boring job is that no one cares if you watch TV,” Aidan commented to no one in particular.
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He flipped on the TV and turned it over to the news. The chyron at the bottom boldly announced that North Korea was sitting down with representatives from China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States to discuss peace talks and opening the country to foreign investment.
Aidan frowned at the news. The integration of North Korea into the larger world was the latest of a string of surprising peace negotiations over the past nine months. For the first time in recorded history, the Middle East was at peace, and pockets of war all across the globe were starting to settle down. The military veteran could read between the lines. Something was going on that the world governments weren’t advertising to their regular citizenry.
A quick knock on his door jarred Aidan from his thoughts. He muted the TV before replying.
“Come in.”
Linda blew into his office like a spring breeze.
“Hey, Aidan,” she paused to turn to where his eyes were pointing and sighed.
“We’ll be out of business soon if all these peace deals keep happening.”
Aiden shrugged as he replied. “Unlikely, Ray from accounting says the government is practically stuffing our division with cash.”
He took a look at Linda as she winked a peridot-colored eye.
“You’re not supposed to be talking to Ray about things like that.”
Aidan frowned as he gave Linda a once-over. She was a young, twenty-something Coast Guard veteran. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a professional bun, with only a carefully selected strand of hair allowed to escape and frame her face. The intentionally cultivated hairstyle matched her perfect workplace attire that didn’t so much as boast a wrinkle or crease.
The black blouse and white skirt symbolized a woman who did things by the book. From the top of her professional bun to the bottom of her matching black pumps, Linda Bailey epitomized the rule-following administrative specialist that made government and corporate bureaucracy run on time. It was a role in which she took satisfaction.
As essential as women like her were, Linda had never been “in the shit,” so to speak, and so had never really understood the gray line between what was “need to know” and what information might save lives on the battlefield.
Aidan might have left the military, but for people like him and Ray, information about what was coming down the line was vital, and they hadn’t let middle age and office politics rob them of their touch.
Still, he couldn’t blame her for following the rules.
“You’re probably right,” he reluctantly admitted.
“I know I am,” she said with a chuckle. “By the way, you got a call just before you came in.” She checked a sticky note in her palm—another bad habit, Aidan noticed—before continuing.
“A Colonel Guzman called to ask you to stop by the compound today. He wants a few of his teams to get some practice in with one of our weapon systems.”
Aidan nodded and glanced at his computer, which had just finished powering up. There was probably an encrypted email in his inbox asking for the same.
“Thanks, Linda.”
“No problem.”
Linda shifted her weight from one foot to the other instead of leaving as Aidan expected. He glanced back over at her.
“What’s up? Someone else call?”
“No,” she paused. “It’s Friday, and some of the team are going to the bar this afternoon to grab drinks and hang out. You thinking about coming?”
“Hmm,” Aidan gave himself time to think before gesturing at his computer.
“If I get out of Quantico early enough to make it, I’ll show up for a beer or two.”
Linda’s smile brightened up the dreary room.
“Great, I’ll see you there,” she gushed before quickly leaving the room and closing the door behind her.
Aidan mused at the closed door. Was Linda flirting with him? He couldn’t tell, and he was wildly out of practice. He was a decade older than her, and the only dates he had been on since leaving the service had been random Tinder hookups easily forgotten.
“Whatever,” he sighed before unmuting the TV and turning back to his computer.
As he expected, his old friend Guzman had sent him a relatively cryptic email.
Hey Steele,
The boys want to practice with the fancy space guns. We’ll be on Range 18.
See you there,
Sparky
Col. Guzman, Jesus (USMC)
Director, Research and Development
Joint Special Operations Command, MCB Quantico
“Well, at least today will be fun,” Aidan commented as he quickly replied that he’d be there.
He was ostensibly just a field service technician on behalf of Lockheed Martin and served as a liaison between the company and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
The job title belied what his actual role was. It sounded like he was there to troubleshoot or repair existing weapons for settled government contracts. While that was part of what the former Marine did, he was there more to sell Directed Energy Weapons or lasers to some of the friends Aidan had served with while he was still on Active Duty. The pay was excellent, and he had needed the money when his mom had gotten sick a couple of years ago.
As for the revolving door between military service and government contracting, Aidan hadn’t cared much. The military-industrial complex would keep turning whether he was a participant or not. Principles tend to go out the window when your loved ones are dying.
Aidan locked the door to his office before opening the small closet afforded to him. Inside was a spare change of professional business attire, a set of workout clothes, and a set of tactical gear for days such as these.
From years of practice, he switched out of his work clothes and hung them on waiting empty hangers. He pulled on gray cargo pants, a black athletic polo shirt, and lightweight combat boots. His plate carrier—void of actual plates, a thigh holster with his trusty Glock, multi-tool, and IFAK all got thrown into a nondescript duffel in the bottom of the closet.
He zipped the bag closed and tossed it over a shoulder while he straightened. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that he looked like every other government contractor that had ever existed. The polo-cargo pants combo was its own kind of uniform. He was missing only the obligatory tattoos that marked him as a veteran.
He had yet to find the time for them. They had been heavily discouraged from getting tattoos or getting married in the academy. When he hit the fleet, getting visible tattoos was commonly known to result in getting passed over for promotion. Uncle Sam wanted his Officer class to look like pristine members of society. The irony of wanting pristine-looking killers wasn’t lost on Aidan.
Besides, in between combat deployments, work-ups for the next deployment, and training in garrison, he didn’t have the time or desire to get a tattoo or a wife.
He was about to turn around and leave before he noticed new wrinkles at the corners of his iron-eyed gaze. Despite working out, eating well, and drinking water, he couldn’t stop the progress of time. There was some salt in his pepper-colored hair and beard, and now and again, he noticed a new line to mark the years he had left the Marine Corps.
A light shake of his head cleared his maudlin thoughts, and closing the closet door hid away the offending mirror. Aidan didn’t consider himself vain, but that didn’t mean he needed the reminder that he was getting older. He could run and gun just as well as the younger guys. At least, that’s what he told himself.
He pulled his access card from the computer and watched it power down before turning to leave his office. He locked the door before continuing down the hallway. The clicking of keyboards and muted voices accompanied his journey to the vault.
Thankfully, the gear he was taking to the range was stored on-site. Lockheed had a few other weapon systems that required more security and coordination to take to the field. DEWs were practically mainstream by this point. The company even advertised the older models on their websites. According to public information, the American military could disable an enemy vehicle from space or shoot down enemy missiles from Navy ships.
The laser weaponry Aidan was retrieving was far more advanced than that. There were handheld pistols, carbines, and sniper rifles that could melt an enemy combatant from a mile away. The power packs still needed to be slimmed down to be used in theater, but it wouldn’t be long before the eggheads at MIT or DARPA figured out a way to bring space lasers to a combat zone near you. Until then, projectiles were still the most commonly used weapon on the battlefield.
Aidan pressed his access card against a pad on the vault door. It took about half a second for his access to be noted and authorized by the vault door. The pad beeped and flashed from red to green. It took another few seconds for the heavy bars behind the steel shell to retract. When they fully disengaged, he turned the circular handle that opened the vault door.
Inside were shelves of neatly stacked Pelican cases of various weapon systems around a central metal table. Aidan was familiar with everything in the room and easily navigated his way to three containers in particular. He pressed his card against their respective check-in/check-out pads to automatically log his removal. Once the security was out of the way, he pulled a small, medium, and large case from their shelves and placed them on the central table.
Another press of his access card and the cases neatly unlocked to reveal the weapons within. He had a LMDP-2, a directed energy pistol with the associated power bricks that replaced a pistol’s traditional magazine; a LMDC-3, a carbine with the same technology and matte gray coloring; and a LMDS-3 sniper rifle that Aidan lovingly called the Widowmaker. He hefted the carbine and looked down its sights to ensure they hadn’t been tampered with since his last check-out.
After checking their contents and accounting for all the various components, Aidan packed them away again and placed them on the dedicated dollie in the corner of the room. He could’ve just checked the access logs and verified that he was the last employee to take them out of the building, but his military training overrode his laziness. It had been drilled into his head since he entered boot camp to check his weapons before taking them to the range or into the field. It was a habit that saved him more than once in combat.
Satisfied with his inspection, Aidan exited the vault and allowed it to close behind him. While leaving the building, he took the keys to a company vehicle and headed to the parking lot behind the brick offices.
He was required to use the black, nondescript company vehicle instead of his battered Jeep for security purposes. He hated the boring car nearly as much as he hated his office. They shared the same blandness that marked the rest of his life.
He used the keys to chirp his vehicle, and once he located it, the former Marine headed for the trunk. The compartment was only accessible via an access card, and an embedded incinerator would destroy the contents rather than allow them to fall into the hands of an adversary. Sure, the car would likely go in the blaze too, but that was a risk the company and the government were willing to take. Here, Aidan stowed the weapons and his duffel before hopping into the driver’s seat.