My desire for refreshing and sufficient sleep fought a helicopter and lost. I saw nothing. My room was on the wrong side of the compound.

--

Captain Carstens nodded to his favorite spy, being joined by him on a roof-top terrace yet to be opened for breakfast

S: One of them is the fulcrum. How long?

C: A few hours. Till the later afternoon maybe. An unexpected concentration. The enemy is not moving as predicted.

S: Do I need to tell an officer that no plan survives contact with the enemy?

C: You plan for that. They in a sense do. That is why you keep sufficient reserves.

S: What has changed?

C: Your own briefing. What attracts monsters?

S: Human presence and movement. I’ve been told that those who do not evacuate would be left to suffer the fruits of their foolishness. Surely we cannot have breakthroughs into zone B so soon?

C: We had three so far actually, but that is not what it is.

S: Movement … The Windmills!

C: Hindsight is a curse and a blessing, isn’t it?

S: I need him. Can you delay?

C: Sure. You’ll be amazed how much paper work can be invoked when handing out equipment to civilians.

--

Our instructors having been called away in a manner inimical to sound sleep the captain decided to hand out the equipment earlier. It explained how that high a defense budget bought so little bang.

Much of it looked like it had been in storage since the seventies and the methods used to keep track of it matched that. They did not have our shoe sizes. Amazon would have known that. So we were ordered in order of the numbers drawn on the first day. A few people did not remember them. And the list of the people who had washed out had not been used to correct the old list. Then they actually measured our feet. Then we had to reorganize by shoe size, because apparently army combat boots in the civilian version (without the symbol of the armed forces) come in crates of uniformly sized boots.

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

Then we had to watch an instructional video on gas mask usage. It came on a freaking VHS tape. Being under pseudomilitary discipline took a lot of the fun out of watching two technicians struggling to attach a honest to god VHS recorder to a brandnew video setup.

By that time I was relieved that they had not made two versions of the tape with the section on proper shaving taken out of the female version. The ladies present shared that sentiment. None complained.

The seventies were a truly hairy time. I now know how to wear an official army hairnet in a manner compatible with the hood of a gas mask.

Have I mentioned that I no longer need eyeglasses? Nobody did. Did they skip over the section on glasses under gas masks? What do you think?

Why, o why, did everybody have to affirm by signature that the iodine tablets received were to be taken only if a order to do so was given out either by radio, TV or an authorized person?

I now have several sets of olive underwear and socks and a big safety pin with space to stencil your ID number into used to keep socks together when using communal laundry facilities. Not a bad idea, actually. Our sleeping bags are jackets for cold weather at the same time. Nifty. Having to demonstrate to a grinning sergeant that you can fold and bag it correctly, not so much. Signature again, of course.

We were halfway through being handed first aid packages (extended version for use in the field), when the sound of a helicoper broke the monotony of having to sign twice, once for the package itself and a second time for acknowledging the war time exception for being allowed to handle the narcotics in the extended package, promising to give them back after the war.

--

Thomas had gotten around the need to demonstrate his proficiency. We were assembled into training sections with some of them missing their trainers. Von Bülow stood in front of us in black tactical armor, a slash on his left hip and his hair shorter and wrinkled on the same side. Still an utterly impassive face. Tough bastard. I am still ready to give him that to this day.

Carstens addressed the crowd.

It is now time to send you out. Asking you to have enjoyed your stay here is too much. We did our best and I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the staff of this hotel. I do hope that you feel pride whenever you think back to these days and keep in mind what good you will have done, if and when you will be offered an opportunity to use the unique abilities you were given in a way to serve our country in a way yet to be announced.

It is possible to stand straight and impassive in an angry manner.

I am pleased that new legislation allows me to present those of you whose ability does not directly allow you to protect yourself with magical weapons, swords mainly and even a few firearms.

Von Bülow finally grunted.

Do you have anything to say instructor von Bülow?

Sir,

my family has been serving in the Network since the time of Friedrich I to protect the whole world and the weapons you are giving out to rudimentarily trained civilians will be missed on the field, where we lost a good man today.

Carstens remained silent for long seconds.

Is that all? Well, your feelings are clear. I remind you, recruits, that the rules about secrecy will apply permanently. Dismissed.