So I'm most of the way done with Helloween Thirteen. My progress has picked back up again and I'm moving along. I keep trying to think up things to post here but I've been drawing a blank. So I've decided I should just post some of the book. I should probably write some kind of summary/blurb for it but it would have to contain spoilers and I don't really want to do it just yet. Maybe in a little bit. So here is chapter one of the fourth book in its entirety.
CHAPTER ONE
"Listen close, kids. We’re doing something different today." Travis strode down the line of officer cadets, all standing at ease in the cool mid morning air. "You’ll be running the full obstacle course… with an egg. Each one of you will be issued one egg. Once you have your egg, keep it on your person at all times. Hold it in your hand. Put it in your pocket. Balance it on your head. I don’t care as long as you keep it safe and have it with you at the end."
Travis stopped in front of one cadet and leaned in close to inspect his shoulder. A solitary piece of fuzz clung there. Was it new or had he just failed to notice it at the other lineups? He looked at the cadet who was staring blankly off into the distance and then back at the fuzz. Then he flicked the artifact to the wind, shook his head and continued down the line.
"The objective of this exercise is to make it to the end of the course under six minutes without damaging the egg. The ones that can accomplish this will receive a ration of water. The rest will receive… Well, I don't need to tell you that you never want to be the rest."
He shot a glance down. "Feet too far apart. That is not how you stand at attention." He yanked the cadet out of line by the shoulder. "On the ground. Twenty now. It's week three. I can't believe I'm still having to do this."
The cadet dropped to the ground with his hands in the dirt. Travis stood there above him. "Are these instructions clear to everyone?"
A unanimous "Sir, yes sir!" resounded from the line.
Cadets never asked questions. They were usually too afraid.
"Are we going to have a lot of fun today?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
Travis waited for his helper friend to finish handing out the eggs. He was getting special treatment for trying to stand out.
The cadets were all dismissed to the course. Travis retrieved an old battered book from his pocket and opened it. "Today’s reading will be excerpts from Thoreau’s Walden." He conjured up his reading voice which was much softer and more eloquent than his drill instructor voice. It was good practice for him to switch back and forth. It helped him keep it a persona which was what he wanted. Something he could turn off and on when he wanted.
"Solitude. This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in nature, a part of herself…" He spoke deliberately with careful annunciation and appropriate pauses into the tiny microphone which he had on his lapel. His words boomed through the outdoor PA system over the grunting men who were starting to sweat, some already bleeding from shallow barbed wire scratches. Very little of this sank in while they were in this state, he realized, but he liked to think that it at least made some kind of subliminal connection… though concepts like the solitude of nature were lost on most people in New Chicago.
Out of his peripheral vision he saw them, much slower than usual, sometimes pausing at obstacles to readjust their eggs according to what they thought was safest. There were many large pileups. The objective had changed. Being the quickest and most agile meant a lot less now that they had to protect something fragile.
Travis glanced up at the wall briefly in between sentences and saw a cadet at the bottom placing his egg on the dirt just against the side of the wall.
Travis snapped his book shut. "Foster!" he exploded. "In front of me, now!"
Foster turned with a start and began to run towards Travis.
"With the egg, Foster! With the egg!"
He quickly doubled back, snatched his egg from the ground and assembled in front of Travis.
Travis leaned in close to scream in his face. "What the fuck did I just tell you? Are you hard of hearing?"
"Sir, no sir."
"Did I not explicitly say never to leave your egg?"
"Yes sir, you did, sir."
"Then why did you leave your egg? Did you think I wouldn’t see? Do you think I’m stupid?"
"No sir, I don’t, sir."
"I have eyes in the back of my head! Smash that egg over your head, cadet!"
Foster took the egg from his side and slapped it over the top of his forehead. It exploded in his hairline and began to drip into his eyebrows.
"One more, cadet!" Travis handed him another egg which he took with great speed and smashed over the other one. "Apologize to the eggs!"
"I’m so sorry, eggs."
Travis had to fight back a smile. "Now run laps double time around the track until those eggs are fried. I like them burnt."
"Sir, yes sir!"
Travis sighed through his teeth and reopened Walden, muttering the words as he found his place again. He wandered over closer to the course and began to read once more. "For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men?"
The heaviest cadet scaled the wall. Panting and face flushed. He pulled himself over the top and attempted to lower himself down gracefully with the egg in one hand. He landed hard but on his feet, only stumbling.
Travis slapped him on the back roughly as he jogged by. He continued walking toward the end as he read, occasionally shooting suspicious glances at the cadets.
"Garret," came a firm voice from behind him.
He turned to see First Sergeant Lancer walking briskly toward him. They stopped and quickly exchanged salutes.
"You have a moment." It wasn’t a question.
"Yes," said Travis.
They turned to walk along the course.
"They really want you in that position," said Lancer in an unusually soft voice.
"I like where I am, though," replied Travis. "I’ll just end up behind a desk somewhere."
"You have a lot of experience that would be better appreciated in a higher position."
He didn’t know what he was talking about, thought Travis. The vast majority of his ‘experience’ would be wasted. It would be much better passed on to soldiers as an instructor. He wished he could say this opportunity was because he was highly qualified but he ultimately suspected that the only reason they were doing this to him was just to get his name attached to the facility as some kind of promotional trophy.
Ever since he had left Helios so many years ago, it had been difficult to regain the respect that he'd lost from becoming a deserter and not to mention perpetually looking like he was in his mid twenties. But now that he was aging again, he could at least look a little more experienced. This new assignment meant more money and a hell of a lot more time, and the time was by far the most enticing thing.
"And what about them?" He gestured to the course. "Would you just pull me out in the middle of week three?"
"Still early enough. Do you know how many NCOs we have floating around, ready to fill this assignment? The bottom line is that you’re the best we have for the position. If you’re only concerned about the continuity of the program, don’t be."
"Can I think about it some more?"
"Okay, but hurry."
"I’ll have my answer by tomorrow."
They parted ways and Travis jogged over to the end of the course. He waited there and watched as the first cadet climbed out of the dust. "Present egg."
The cadet handed over his egg. Travis took it and turned it over between his fingers as he inspected it. A crack on the side. He shook his head, "Oh, too bad."
The next cadet appeared.
"Present egg."
"I don't have it, sir."
"Then where the hell is it, cadet?"
"It fell on the ground back at the rope swings, sir."
"And you didn't bring it with you. Go keep Foster company on the track until you remember how to follow instructions."
This kind of taxing endurance training, was viewed as archaic and inefficient by many. But this was how he learned back in Greywall, and at a much earlier age. This was why he chose to work at a base infamous for its intense curriculum.
As it turned out, he had to send a disappointingly large number of cadets to the track. He began handing out the promised water bottles to those that had completed the challenge. They were small bottles but greatly appreciated as they twisted them open and began to chug them.
"Where's your egg, cadet?" He looked the egg over quickly and began to hand over the water but pulled it back abruptly from grasping hands. He squinted his eyes close to the surface of the egg, holding it up to the light and shook his head. "Tiny hairline crack right there, see? This water's mine." He twisted off the top and took a sip. Then he dumped the rest out into the dirt. He made an exaggerated sigh of refreshment and then turned to the rest of the line. "It takes around five days to die of dehydration and a month to die of starvation. That's a long time. Aren't we all thankful we only have to go one day?"
"Sir, yes sir."
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