A lot of the guys had been pretty standoffish since I joined the unit, but now people who had barely said two words to me in the past four months were coming up and asking me how I was and congratulating me on the mission. A few of the privates from the first squad invited me to play poker while we waited. I won about 15 creds.
After my examination I headed down to my billet. It was about midnight, ship time, but there was a message waiting. I was to report to the landing bay in full dress uniform immediately.
My mind raced. What had I done? I figured I must be in trouble. My heart was racing as I threw on my dress blues and hurried down to the bay.
I was in the corridor outside the bay when the lights went out. I felt at least two pairs of hands grab me from behind and someone threw a sack over my head. They dragged me into the bay and threw me down to the deck. Someone pulled the sack off my head and then the lights snapped on.
The entire platoon was standing in a circle. Sergeant Harris was standing over me holding a small container. No one said a word. He leaned over and poured a few drops of the contents on my forehead. At first I didn't know what it was, but then I realized it was blood. I figured it was animal blood of some kind. I was wrong, but I didn’t find that out until much later. Everyone in the bay started cheering.
The sergeant reached out his hand and helped me to my feet. The blood ran down my face as I got up. I nearly retched when a few drops trickled down to my lips, but I held back the impulse. I was beginning to understand. This ceremony had meaning - it was a baptism. I had proved my worth to them in battle. I was one of them. After so many years on my own, I had finally found a home.
Chapter Two
The marine corps saved me.
I was born Erik Daniel Cain in 2232 AD in Lenox Hill-Fargus hospital. My father, John Cain, was a project manager for Metadyne Systems Corporation, and we lived in a company-owned apartment block in the Midtown Protected Zone of Manhattan. My family wasn’t rich, but we weren’t poor either, and we lived better than most people in 23rd century America.
New York was the third largest city in the country, with over a million residents, though you could tell that this was a small fraction of the number that had once lived there. North of the Protected Zone, outside of the 77th Street gate was the semi-abandoned northern sector, and beyond that the badlands of the Bronx, a wasted area filled with centuries-old factories still producing basic goods and decrepit ancient apartments occupied by the lowest strata of workers. The whole area was ruled at night (and day) by the Gangs, who owned the illegal narcotics trade and terrorized and preyed upon the outcasts living beyond the armed bastions of the Protected Zone.
Below the 10th Street gate was a forbidden buffer area and 500 meters further south, the Crater, the still radioactive pit remaining from the worst terrorist attack in human history.
Between these two urban no-man's lands was a clean and well-ordered cityscape where law and order reigned. The Protected Zone was the home of the educated workers who ran a modern, high tech society, and if there were some murmurs that past generations had enjoyed far higher living standards and much greater personal freedom, these were never more than hushed whispers. Certainly such things were never taught in school, where we studied how modern America and the whole Western Alliance was the highest pinnacle yet reached in the development of the human condition. If anyone had any doubts, all they had to do was take a look outside the gates of the Zone to appreciate what they had. And keep their mouths shut.
Manhattan was crowded, but there was enough food, more or less, and there were plenty of diversions to keep people busy in their free time. Twenty-third century bread and circuses, though I never thought of it that way back then. If laws were strict, the mail monitored, and people conditioned to accept the wisdom of their leaders without question, in return they were fed (well enough), entertained, and protected from the harsher realities facing those unfortunate enough to live outside the walls of the Zone.
The northeast corner of the Zone was called Sector A, and it was the home of the Political Class and their Corporate Magnate allies. Most of the residents of Manhattan never set foot inside the inner walls that separated Sector A from the rest of the Zone. I did, but that was years later under circumstances I could never have imagined as a child, and I can tell you that no one in America lives like the politicians and their corporate cronies.
My parents managed something extremely rare for anyone outside the Political Class – they had three children. Reproduction rates were strictly controlled everywhere in the USA, but they were especially restricted in crowded Manhattan where the legal limit was two – and that only for the most skilled workers.
My parents got around the limitations in a pragmatic way. Three years after I was born my mother gave birth to twin girls, Beth and Jill. A compulsory abortion would have been standard procedure, but in a bizarre turn of events the technician did not identify the second fetus at the single pre-natal exam my mother’s health care ration allowed. So my sisters, both born alive and healthy, were something of a surprise.
With my father in a responsible position for a major government contractor, he was able to obtain a waiver legitimizing the births. We were lucky – a post-natal termination would have been mandatory for a less educated and affluent family.
My childhood was a pretty normal one for the middle class. My father worked long hours, but his position allotted us almost 70 square meters of living space within the safety and comfort of the Protected Zone. We were happy and content, and my early memories are pleasant ones of family and childhood. That happiness came to an abrupt end shortly after my eighth birthday.
When they were four years old, my sisters became infected with the G-11 super-virus. Developed as a bacteriological weapon during the Unification Wars, the virus caused a deadly disease that was commonly called the Plague, though it was far deadlier and more difficult to treat than its historical namesake. Although the frequency of infection had declined dramatically in the decades since the virus had last been employed in war, it was still a serious health problem throughout the world. Advances in medical technology and treatment had resulted in a reduction in the mortality rate from 100% to approximately 50%, but no outright cure had ever been developed. In many cases the survivors suffered serious damage to vital organs and other bodily systems.
My sisters were young and strong, and they both survived the disease itself. Unfortunately, though Beth recovered fully, the virus had virtually destroyed Jill’s liver. Her only hope of survival was a transplant or regeneration. While organ regeneration had been perfected in the previous century and offered a virtually 100% success rate, it was extraordinarily expensive, and my family’s health care ration was nowhere close to allowing the procedure. In fact my sister’s medical priority rating was extremely low, so even a transplant was out of the question. In the government’s analysis my sister’s life simply wasn’t worth the resources required to save it, particularly since my parents would still have two other children.
My parents didn’t give up though. Black market organs and cut rate transplants were readily available outside the Protected Zone. Though illegal and dangerous, it was the only way to save Jill’s life, and my father and mother didn’t even think twice.
A black market transplant was still expensive, and my parents sold everything we owned and borrowed every credit they could. My mother even tried to go back to work. She had been an assistant chef at the Plaza Hotel before she married my father, but with more than 50% of the population unemployed the government allowed very few two income families. When my parents were married my mother lost her work permit.