"Some of the finest soldiers in history were homosexual," Ruiz said. "Alexander the Great. Richard the Lionhearted. The Spartans had a special platoon of soldiers who were gay lovers, on the idea that a man would fight harder to protect his lover than he would for just another soldier. Some of the best fighters I ever knew personally were as queer as a three-dollar bill. Damn fine soldiers, all of them.
"But I will tell you the one thing that pisses me off about you alclass="underline" You pick the wrong fucking moments to get confessional. Three separate times I've been fighting alongside a gay man when things have gone sour, and each fucking time he chooses that moment to tell me how he's always loved me. Goddamn, that's inappropriate. Some alien is trying to suck out my fucking brains, and my squadmate wants to talk about our relationship! As if I wasn't already busy. Do your squadmates a fucking favor. You got the hots, deal with it on leave, not when some creature is trying to rip out your goddamn heart. Now run!" Off they went.
"Who's a minority?" Ten recruits stepped forward. "Bullshit. Look around you, you assholes. Up here, everyone is green. There are no minorities. You want to be in a fucking minority? Fine. There are twenty billion humans in the universe. There are four trillion members of other sentient species, and they all want to turn you into a midday snack. And those are only the ones we know about! The first one of you who bitches about being a minority up here will get my green Latino foot squarely up your whiny ass. Move!" They heaved out toward the plain.
On it went. Ruiz had specific complaints against Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists, government workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, blue-collar joes, pet owners, gun owners, practitioners of martial arts, wrestling fans and, weirdly (both for the fact it bothered him and the fact that there was someone in the platoon who fit the category), clog dancers. In groups, pairs, and singly, recruits were peeled off and forced to run.
Eventually, I became aware that Ruiz was looking directly at me. I remained at attention.
"I will be goddamned," Ruiz said. "One of you shitheads is left!"
"Yes, Master Sergeant!" I yelled as loudly as I could.
"I find it somewhat difficult to believe that you do not fit into any of the categories I have railed against!" Ruiz said. "I suspect that you are attempting to avoid a pleasant morning jog!"
"No, Master Sergeant!" I bellowed.
"I simply refuse to acknowledge that there is not something about you I despise," Ruiz said. "Where are you from?"
"Ohio, Master Sergeant!"
Ruiz grimaced. Nothing there. Ohio's utter inoffensiveness had finally worked to my advantage. "What did you do for a living, recruit?"
"I was self-employed, Master Sergeant!"
"As what?"
"I was a writer, Master Sergeant!"
Ruiz's feral grin was back; obviously he had it in for those who worked with words. "Tell me you wrote fiction, recruit," he said. "I have a bone to pick with novelists."
"No, Master Sergeant!"
"Christ, man! What did you write?"
"I wrote advertising copy, Master Sergeant!"
"Advertising! What sort of dumbass things did you advertise?"
"My most famous advertising work involved Willie Wheelie, Master Sergeant!" Willie Wheelie had been the mascot for Nirvana Tires, who made tires for specialty vehicles. I'd developed the basic idea and his tagline; the company's graphic artists took it from there. Willie Wheelie's arrival coincided with the revival of motorcycles; the fad lasted for several years and Willie made a fair amount of money for Nirvana, both as an advertising mascot and through licensing for plush toys, T-shirts, shot glasses and so on. A children's entertainment show was planned but nothing came of it. It was a silly thing, but on the other hand Willie's success meant I never ran out of clients. It worked out pretty well. Until this very moment, it seemed.
Ruiz suddenly lunged forward, directly into my face, and bellowed. "You are the mastermind behind Willie Wheelie, recruit?"
"Yes, Master Sergeant!" There was a perverse pleasure in screaming at someone whose face was just millimeters away from your own.
Ruiz hovered in my face for a few seconds, scanning it with his eyes, daring me to flinch. He actually snarled. Then he stepped back and began to unbutton his shirt. I remained at attention but suddenly I was very, very scared. He whipped off his shirt, turned his right shoulder to me, and stepped forward again. "Recruit, tell me what you see on my shoulder!"
I glanced down, and thought, No fucking way. "It is a tattoo of Willie Wheelie, Master Sergeant!"
"Goddamn right," snapped Ruiz. "I'm going to tell you a story, recruit. Back on Earth, I was married to an evil, vicious woman. A veritable pit viper. Such was her hold on me that even though being married to her was a slow death by paper cuts, I still felt suicidal when she demanded a divorce. At my lowest moment, I stood at a bus stand, contemplating hurling myself in front of the next bus that came along. Then I looked over and saw an advertisement with Willie Wheelie in it. And do you know what it said?"
"'Sometimes You Just Gotta Hit the Road,' Master Sergeant!" That tagline had taken me all of fifteen seconds to write. What a world.
"Exactly," he said. "And as I stared at that ad, I had what some would call a Moment of Clarity—I knew that what I needed was to just hit the fucking road. I divorced the evil slug of a wife, sang a song of thanks, packed my belongings into a saddlebag and lit out. Ever since that blessed day, Willie Wheelie has been my avatar, the symbol of my desire for personal freedom and expression. He saved my life, recruit, and I am forever grateful."
"You're welcome, Master Sergeant!" I bellowed.
"Recruit, I am honored that I have had a chance to meet you; you are additionally the first recruit in the history of my tenure that I have not found immediate grounds to despise. I cannot tell you how much that disturbs and unnerves me. However, I bask in the almost certain knowledge that soon—possibly within the next few hours—you will undoubtedly do something to piss me off. To assure that you do, in fact, I assign to you the role of platoon leader. It is a thankless fucking job that has no upside, since you have to ride these sad-ass recruits twice as hard as I do, because for every one of the numerous fuckups that they perform, you will also share the blame. They will hate you, despise you, plot your downfall, and I will be there to give you an extra ration of shit when they succeed. What do you think about that, recruit? Speak freely!"
"It sounds like I'm pretty fucked, Master Sergeant!" I yelled.
"That you are, recruit," Ruiz said. "But you were fucked the moment you landed in my platoon. Now get running. Can't have the leader not run with his 'toon. Move!"
"I don't know whether to congratulate you or be scared for you," Alan said to me as we headed toward the mess hall for breakfast.
"You can do both," I said. "Although it probably makes more sense to be scared. I am. Ah, there they are." I pointed to a group of five recruits, three men, two women, who were milling about in front of the mess hall.
Earlier in the day, as I was heading toward the communication tower on my run, my BrainPal almost caused me to collide with a tree by flashing a text message directly into my field of view. I managed to swerve, merely clipping a shoulder, and told Asshole to switch to voice navigation before I got myself killed. Asshole complied and started the message over.
"Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz's appointment of John Perry as leader of the 63rd Training Platoon has been processed. Congratulations on your advancement. You now have access to personnel files and Brain-Pal information relating to recruits within the 63rd Training Platoon. Be aware that this information is for official use only; access for nonmilitary use is cause for immediate termination of platoon leader position and a courtmartial trial at the base commander's discretion."