I'd been shackled and locked up and generally treated like a grave threat to anyone around me for the last four days, so it surprised me when Captain Jack turned around and just said, "Follow me."
"How do you know I won't just jump you and take off the minute we're out of here?"
He didn't turn, but I could hear the amusement in his voice when he said, "I'll just have to take that chance."
I didn't realize it then, of course, but Captain Jack could have killed me in an instant. I thought I was pretty tough, but after years of marine training I have a good idea of how many different ways he could have dropped me without working up a sweat.
We walked through the building, took the elevator down to the lobby, and stepped out onto the street. Captain Jack had an anti-grav waiting right outside. It was a sleek gray vehicle with the U.S. Marine Corps logo on the side. We stepped through the open door and sat down in the spartan, but comfortable, seats. Captain Jack barked out a quick command to the driver and with a whoosh the door closed and we took off.
I'd never been in an anti-grav copter, and I was plastered to the small window, watching as we climbed high over the Manhattan streets. We banked right and headed downtown, and in just a minute or two we were passing over the South Wall.
To the right I could see the rubble-strewn edge of the Crater. It had been almost 150 years since half a million New Yorkers were killed by history's worst terrorist attack, but you could still get a bad dose of radiation just standing next to the edge.
The semi-abandoned areas south of the Protected Zone were similar to those in the north, except for the old financial district, where the buildings were much taller. A few of them had collapsed, but the rest still stood defiantly, abandoned relics of a past time. The whole area still had an unhealthy level of radioactivity, but there were still a few people who eked out an existence among the crumbling cityscape. There were jagged, water-filled trenches everywhere - apparently there had been more underground train lines down here than in the north.
We banked left and I suddenly got a view of the Protected Zone, its kilometer-high towers gleaming in the sun. It was beautiful, and it seemed the very image of prosperity and vigor rather than the dying relic it truly was. It was the last time I would see it for a long time, and when I finally did visit again I would be utterly and irrevocably changed, and New York wouldn't be my home anymore.
The copter streaked across the sky, passing swiftly over the streets of Brooklyn. I looked down on row after row of old, poorly maintained buildings. Brooklyn appeared to be a moderately nicer version of the Bronx, with things not in quite the same desperate condition. There were more people milling around in the streets, and I could make out a few trolleys running down the main thoroughfares, so it looked like Brooklyn still had some level of city services. Nothing like the MPZ of course.
We were heading for a huge structure built in the middle of a large cleared area. The outer perimeter was surrounded by a large plas-crete wall with several guarded entrances. The building itself was trapezoidal, kind of like a pyramid with the top third sheared off.
We landed on the roof and took an elevator down several levels. Finally, Captain Jack broke the silence and said, "You've got to be tired. Orientation starts tomorrow at 0500, so let's get you someplace you can get some rest."
He took me to a small windowless room with drab gray walls and a bunk. The door closed behind him as he left, and I couldn't see any kind of controls to open it from inside. Another cell, but far more comfortable than the last one I'd been in.
I was exhausted, but also wired. My body was a jumbled combination of adrenaline, fatigue, and wild emotions. Anger, fear, confusion. I'd been minutes from death, only to be whisked away at the last instant. It was surreal and hard to get my head around. I had no idea what to expect, and while I was well aware I'd be dead by now if it hadn't been for Captain Jack, I certainly didn't plan to whip myself up into a patriotic frenzy for the old Western Alliance. Fatigue won out in the end, and I fell asleep pretty quickly and didn't stir until they woke me up to start whatever it was I was starting.
Basic training was everything you'd expect it to be, and then some. But before I even got to camp, I experienced some of the busiest and most hectic days of my life.
It started with a comprehensive medical exam, and I do mean an extensive one. I was poked, probed, and prodded in every spot and orifice on my body. They took samples and then more samples. Blood, DNA, spinal fluid, urine, stool, skin, saliva, semen, blood marrow, and just about every variety of tissue in my body. They put me through every manner of imaging and scanning device, and when they were through they plugged a bunch of monitors into me and put me through the most vigorous exercise I had ever experienced.
But they were after more than my body, and the physical tests were followed up by a series of mental and emotional exams. I sat at a terminal for hours taking one test after another. Some seemed to evaluate my logical responses, others just my store of knowledge. Still others were completely baffling in purpose, asking odd questions like, "If mankind could possess only one, what is more valuable, an inexhaustible energy source or a drug that cures all disease?"
Then came the batteries of psych testing, and some of this was really bizarre. It started with normal interviews, questions about my childhood, my beliefs, my thoughts on all sorts of things. I got a little uncomfortable talking about my years with the gang, as I had done some really bad things. But they didn't seem to care about that. I guess being a teenage killer was good prep for a marine career.
They did a series of tests under a variety of stimuli. I was drugged and questioned very aggressively about a wide and seemingly random variety of things. I was stripped naked and strapped to a chair in a freezing cold room and interrogated for two hours about everything from my thoughts on the government to why I don't like sweet potatoes. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd seen a sweet potato, but they managed to get me to confess to an aversion for the things.
They finished up by sending in an officer to inform me that my testing indicated I was not suitable for marine service and that I was to be taken immediately to the Justice Center for my capital sentence to be carried out. He then got up and walked out without a word while they monitored my reactions for 20 minutes before telling me it was only a test.
Sore, exhausted, and disoriented, I was finally taken back to my room and told I could sleep, which I did for the next 20 hours. I woke up ravenously hungry, and I had just gotten up and started toward the door with the intention of banging on it until someone let me out, when it slid open and Captain Jack walked in.
"You look well rested," he said with an obnoxious little smile on his face. I think he could see that I was trying to come up with something nasty to say, because before I could open my mouth he went on. "Relax, Erik, we all got the same treatment you did…and we've all been through everything you're going to be dealing with."
I didn't catch the half mocking, half sympathetic tone at the time, but looking back it was definitely there. Of course every marine starts the same way. Every one of us goes through the same recruiting and training, and if we get through it, we all make our first assault as privates. It was no different for me than for anyone else.
The whole thing struck me as odd when it was first explained to me. I didn't have any military history education at the time, but if I'd thought about it at all I would have assumed that the senior officers were members of the political classes or some other privileged elite. The terrestrial armed forces were set up that way, but that's not how the off-world military worked. I'd learn a lot more about all of that much later on, but at the time I had no idea what to expect.