Behind Locked Doors

  All the equipment in the weight room is pushed to the side; mismatched mats cover most of the floor, taped together with old, dry duct tape that has already started to peel in places. There's an overwhelming odour of sweat, perseverance and cheap aftershave that lingers in the old building.

  Bucket agreed to show and pick two recruits for his new squad. Technically, it goes against his 24-hour leave, but he's not about to discuss the rules with the Colonel. At least this way he has some say in who he gets.

  He arrived early, so he's spending the time using the Colonel's security codes to access the camera logs, reviewing the Cavern video footage on a portable digi-pad from the night Georgie bit the dust. It's a lot to scan through; it does appear Georgie stumbles, then falls over the edge. There is no footage of him hitting the dock below.

  Sargent Hawk and Sargent Fiver enter the room laughing. Both of them got their squads killed—and here they are recruiting more. Bucket thinks the Colonel should have just lined them up and shot them. It's not like she hasn't done it before.

  “Hey Bucket!” Hawk cheerfully greets him. Bucket nods and plasters a smile on his face. “I heard you lost your squad.”

  “If by lost my squad you mean they were reassigned, then yes. I heard you lost your squad, didn't hear it from your former squadmates though.”

  Bucket knows he shouldn't poke the bear; but when it comes to incompetence, especially when it leads to loss of life, he can't help it. Everyone in the whole settlement knows what happened to Hawk's and Fiver's squads. The settlement has 6000 people with a high percentage in the service, secrets are a luxury for the cunning and wily in the Cavern; these two possess neither traits.

  “Fuck you. You weren't there, you have no idea what went down.” Hawk says.

  Fiver pulls Hawk away, walking off to the other side of the room they start chatting in whispered tones.

  Hawk. What a stupid fucking code name for a Specter, Bucket thinks. The whole idea of a Specter is to remain hidden in the shadows, not flying in the air, in plain sight. He figures this jerk-off probably dreamed of giving himself this name his whole career; once he became a Sargent of his own squad, he could do as he pleased. Curious, Bucket looks up his file through the digi-pad. He lets out a short guffaw; his first squad gave him the code name Barfy. And here he thought Bucket was bad.

  But Bucket didn't change his code name. It was given to him by his squadmates. No one picks their own code name. You just don't change your code name because you can; it's disrespectful to the men and women that gave you the name, to the men and women that are no longer here, and it's disrespectful to the service.

  They sent them 20 potential recruits. Looking over the paperwork one of them stands out. She's no average soldier, he even met her old man. Looking through the digi-pad he confirms it; she's Baroness Tales.

  The recruits stream in and fall in line. She has to be the shortest soldier he's ever seen that wants to serve frontline, but she's built like a stimmed out badger. Her golden-amber eyes looks just like her fathers. He needs to play it cool to get the only recruit worth a damn in this room.

  “Well, do you see anyone you like Bucket?” Hawk turns to him. He's fishing. These fuckers try to reinvent the damn wheel with this shit. Time to play the game.

  “Landon and Jones. I need those two, you two team killing bastards can fight over the other 18.” Hawk storms over to Bucket and stands a few inches from his face. Bucket just looks up at him, no emotion on his face. “Back up boys, I ain't your momma Hawk, not gunna be baking you muffins.” He says, giving Hawk a wink.

  There is a snort from one of the recruits, the Baroness. Bucket likes her already.

  Another thing Hawk is known for is his mother. When he first joined 3 years ago she brought a tin of muffins to his barracks one day when he was out and she ended up, 'improving squad morale' one soldier at a time. It's been 3 years though, most have forgotten why they called him the Muffin Man behind his back.

  “What kind of name is Bucket anyways?” Hawk asks.

  Bucket just glares at him.

  He gives Bucket a shove. He stands with a sigh and stretches.

  “Very well Hawk.”

  They both walk over to the mat. Hawk hops around with his hands up. His form is terrible, Bucket figures he could have taken him out numerous times. He's moving fast and off balance circling Bucket, he doesn't move anything other then his head to look where Hawk is going, his hands at his side. He gets right behind Bucket and lunges at him. Bucket spins, grabs his arm, throws him over his shoulder, slamming him into the mat then twists his arm into an armbar.

  “Tap or I'll break it.” He taps his hand on the mat and stands, straightening his uniform to try to keep some form of dignity.

  “I don't have all day, can you pick please?” Bucket says.

  “Fine, I want Landon,” Hawk says.

  “I want Jones,” Fiver says.

  “My turn. Danial and whoever the girl is. Let's see what you got.”

  “It's on the list, Tales. You can fricken read, right? Last names Tales.” she says, with a cold look.

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  Bucket just nods at her, she didn't put up with crap and she wasn't a pushover.

  The two square up on the mat. He's a foot taller than her. But that's not the point. Bucket saw her in a taekwondo tournament a couple of years ago; she didn't lose a match. Half her matches were against the boys, she dominated her matches.

  They start.

  He yells and runs at her. She easily sidesteps. He turns, throws a flurry of punches, she blocks and dodges, the last punch tags her shoulder. They square up again, he unloads on her she dodges, bobs, weaves. She has yet to throw a punch. He catches her in the nose, she staggers, he hits her with a stomach shot, she drops.

  “That's enough,” Bucket says. She stands, blood running down her nose.

  Fiver laughs, “Now THAT was funny,” She whips her head around and glares at Fiver, her amber eyes burn with a primal rage, she's holding it all back though.

  “So, do you want on my team?” Bucket asks.

  “Of course, you're the best.”

  “Then why aren't you fighting?”

  “He's not good, and has no control. I'll injure him.”

  “From how you fought you are in no position to judge.” Hawk says.

  “Oh, you're terrible at hand-to-hand combat as well Hawk.” She says, “You two fricken arseholes would just get me killed like your last squads.” She didn't even take pleasure in saying that, she just stated a fact. Fiver and Hawk come marching over, yammering about her being insubordinate, threatening to teach her a lesson.

  “Well here's your chance, fight this time if you want in or piss off.” Bucket says. She just nods.

  Fiver approaches first. “Ok big mouth, let's do this.”

  She looks at Bucket.

  “Just don't kill him, the paperwork would be a bitch.” Bucket says.

  They square up. He lunges at her, his right arm cocked back, leading with his left shoulder. Her right foot connects with his jaw like a cannon with a loud, sickening crack, his momentum carrying him forward she side steps, he crashes to the ground, face first. His speech is garbled, he turns over, his jaw warped and misshapen, its shattered. One of the recruits vomits.

  “You know, there is a lot of middle ground between killing him and what you did.” Bucket says.

  “I did as ordered, I didn't kill him. And a squad won't have a dangerous commander for four months.”

  The Colonel drums her fingers on her desk. Hawk, Tales and Bucket are seated across from her in her office.

  “Cigarette.” She says. Hawk and Bucket both offer one to her; she takes both, placing Hawks behind her ear, Bucket lights the one he gives her. “So, Tales, you're officially applying to be a Specter?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn't ask me first?”

  “Do I need your permission to be an official member?”

  “Technically, yes. And of course you qualify, you've been operating above on your own for 2 years. You're a Baroness, although you're kind of acting like a Princess at the moment.” The Colonel glares at her with her cool, steel gaze—Tales counters her gaze with her fiery amber stare.

  “Are we going to talk about the fact she shattered Fiver's jaw?” Hawk says.

  “Why did you shatter Fiver's jaw?”

  “Because he's a friggin crap Sargent that gets soldiers killed; like Hawk.”

  “You have no right to say such a thing!” Hawk says.

  “Oh shut it, she's right. Based on what happened just now you did nothing to de-escalate the situation. In fact, you made it worse. We expect more from officers. Go pack your gear, I'm transferring you back to the mainland on the next ship out. Dismissed Hawk.”

  Hawk looks shocked, then stands and walks out.

  “So, we were talking about why you want to be a Specter all of a sudden.”

  “Bucket's with Nightfall, he needs people in his squad, I want to work with him and learn from him.”

  “Do you have anything to add Bucket?”

  “Nope. I need squadmates and she looks very competent.” She's laid low for some time, been working solo. Rumour is she often works up-top without an echo-suit. Bucket wants to figure out what her angle is.

  “I'll get you Motormouth for your third. I don't want to hear any moaning about it, he's good even if he does run his mouth a lot. He's on leave for another week. If you're with the Specters Jen, no more solo runs.”

  “Fine.”

  “OK. Well, welcome aboard. Now go fill out the incident report. Dismissed.”

  Tales glances at Bucket with a slight grin as she leaves.

  Bucket and the Colonel sit there, silently smoking their cigarettes, peering at each other, their smoke gently drifts about the room.

  “There is something off with her.” The Colonel says.

  “I wouldn't say off, I personally think she shattered his jaw on purpose.”

  “No, not Jennifer. Nadine. There's breaking rules and there's breaking rules. She convinced you to break rules that you have never broken, unless I missed something. Fraternizing with a HVE in the bio-purge that just went through a skinjack is forbidden for a few reasons. Being able to think for themselves for the first time ever then screwing the first available person can mess them up mentally. Yet, I don't see that being an issue with her. And THAT, I don't trust. I've read her evaluation, there's something off with her, she was added to the scout list and I can't trace it back to just who added her.”

  “Did you hear about Georgie?” Bucket asks. She takes a long drag of her cig and rolls her eyes.

  “Sure, switching topics, I guess. Yeah, it's a real shame about Georgie. He was a good man, he served under me until when he retired.”

  “Don't you find it odd the first time he drank he took a header off the dock?”

  “That does seem odd. Is there a particular reason why you're inquiring about Georgie?”

  “I wanted to ask him some questions about ghostshade modifications.”

  “Mhm.” She narrows her eyes, studying his eyes, “Tell me, do you know why you're here?”

  “To report on the readiness of the Specters.”

  “And that report isn't going to be glowing, correct?”

  “Well, more staff and more training is needed.'”

  “You need to look at the big picture. They've been trying to scuttle the Specter program for years. If you file a negative report they will work towards closing it down. If they close it down, 6000 people will be stranded in the Cavern. The submarines can only take 28 passengers a day, it'll take at least 214 days to get everyone out. This place will burn before they get everyone out.

  “That is a lot to consider. There are a few things to consider, or reconsider."

  “Look, I know you're going to go running to her when she's passed evaluation in 17 days—I don't care though, that disaster will be your business. You're discrete and that's all I'm looking for right now. That and you're the only one around here that I can get a Red Label from.”

  “You sound pretty sure that I'm going to lock the door. What if you're wrong? What if I want to smoke my own Red Labels? After all, I am an 'asshole'.”

  She smirks at his last words. “What if I know what you got last week but don't care because we both want you to lock that door?”

  “Do you think you know everything?”

  “I feel you're just, I feel you'll do the right thing, I recognize those traits because that's how I've lived my life for the last 20 years. I think I'm a sucker for a man with broad shoulders and pretty blue eyes but that's kind of an aside. What you do, after you shoot a Net Lord, not many Specters do that. It's, noble.”

  “It's the least I can do. The host never has a chance to live, might as well not let them suffer when they die. Laying there confused, being conscious for the first time as they die. Its so damn wrong. “

  “Agreed. So, two things, because I have a limited time window; first is don't do any major security breaches with my codes. There is a leak in the backdoor of your masking script, I'm watching what you're doing. I'm telling you this because I've been doing this a very long time, I feel you have your reasons for investigating Georgies death.”

  “So, what's the second thing?”

  She melodically drums her fingers on her desk, “Lock the door and I'll show you."

  He stands and saunters to the door. There is an audible click. He turns around, “You know, part of me thinks you're running some sort of PSYOP on me—the other part doesn't much care if you are."