Five minutes forty-three seconds, and one of the recruits in Mark's squad dropped his bag and began heading for the surface. Mark dropped his bag and silently lunged, snagging the recruit by the ankle and using his own weight to drag him back down. I was thinking Mark's second in command should probably help his squad leader with the recruit; a quick BrainPal check informed me that the recruit was his second in command.
Six minutes. Forty recruits dropped their bags and punched to the surface. Mark let go of his second in command's ankle and then pushed him from underneath to make sure he would break the surface first, and get the latrine duty he was willing to get for his whole platoon. I prepared to drop my sandbag when I caught Alan shaking his head.
Platoon leader — he sent. Should stick it out—
Blow me — I sent.
Sorry, not my type — he replied.
I made it through seven minutes and thirty-one seconds before I went up, convinced my lungs were going to explode. But I had made it through my moment of doubt. I believed. I was something more than human.
In the second week, we were introduced to our weapon.
"This is the CDF standard-issue MP-35 Infantry Rifle," Ruiz said, holding out his while ours sat where they had been placed, still within protective wrapping, in the parade-ground dirt at our feet. "The 'MP' stands for 'Multi-Purpose.' Depending on your need, it can create and fire on the fly six different projectiles or beams. These include rifle bullets and shot of both explosive and nonexplosive varieties, which can be fired semiautomatically or automatically, low-yield grenades, low-yield guided rockets, high-pressure flammable liquid, and microwave energy beams. This is possible through the use of high-density nano-robotic ammunition"—Ruiz held up a dully gleaming block of what appeared to be metal; a similar block was located next to the rifle at my feet—"that self-assembles immediately prior to firing. This allows for a weapon with maximum flexibility with minimum training, a fact that you sad lumps of ambulatory meat will no doubt appreciate.
"Those of you who have military experience will remember how you were required to frequently assemble and disassemble your weapon. You will not do this with your MP-35. The MP-35 is an extremely complex piece of machinery and you cannot be trusted to fuck with it! It carries onboard self-diagnostic and repair capabilities. It can also patch into your BrainPal to alert you of problems, if any, which there will be none, since in thirty years of service there has yet to be an MP-35 that has malfunctioned. This is because, unlike your dipshit military scientists on Earth, we can build a weapon that works! Your job is not to fuck with your weapon; your job is to fire your weapon. Trust your weapon, it is almost certainly smarter than you are. Remember this and you may yet live.
"You will activate your MP-35 momentarily by taking it out of its protective wrapping, and accessing it with your BrainPal. Once you do this, your MP-35 will truly be yours. While you are on this base, only you will be able to fire your MP-35, and then only when you are given clearance from your platoon leader or your squad leaders, who must in turn get clearance from their drill instructors. In actual combat situations, only CDF soldiers with CDF-issued BrainPals will be able to fire your MP-35. So long as you don't piss off your own squadmates, you will never have to fear your own weapon being used against you.
"From this point forward you will take your MP-35 with you everywhere you go. You will take it with you when you take a shit. You will take it with you when you shower—don't worry about getting it wet, it will spit out anything it regards as foreign. You will take it to meals. You will sleep with it. If you somehow manage to find time to fuck, your MP-35 damn well better have a fine view.
"You will learn how to use this weapon. It will save your life. The U.S. Marines are fucking chumps, but the one thing they got right was their Marine Rifle Creed. It reads, in part, 'This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. And I will.'
"Ladies and gentlemen, take this creed to heart. This is your rifle. Pick it up and activate it."
I knelt down and removed the rifle from its plastic wrap. Notwithstanding everything Ruiz described about the rifle, the MP-35 did not appear especially impressive. It had heft but was not unwieldy, was well balanced and well sized for maneuverability. On the side of the rifle stock was a sticker. "TO ACTIVATE WITH BRAINPAL: Initialize BrainPal and say Activate MP-35, serial number ASD-324-DDD-4E3C1."
"Hey, Asshole," I said. "Activate MP-35, serial number ASD-324-DDD-4E3C1."
MP-35 ASD-324-DDD-4E3C1 is now activated for CDF Recruit John Perry, Asshole responded. Please load ammunition now. A small graphic display hovered in the corner of my field of vision, showing me how to load my rifle. I reached back down and picked up the rectangular block that was my ammunition—and nearly lost my balance trying to pick it up. It was impressively heavy; they weren't kidding about the "high density" part. I jammed it into my rifle where instructed. As I did so, the graphic showing me how to load my rifle disappeared and a counter sprang up in its place, which read:
Firing Options Available
Note: Using One Type of Round Decreases Availability of Other Types
Rifle Rounds: 200
Shot Rounds: 80
Grenade Rounds: 40
Missile Rounds: 35
Fire Rounds: 10 Minutes
Microwave: 10 Minutes
Rifle Rounds Currently Selected.
"Select shot rounds," I said.
Shot rounds selected, Asshole replied.
"Select missile rounds," I said.
Missile rounds selected, Asshole replied. Please select target. Suddenly every member of the platoon had a tight green targeting outline; glancing directly at one would cause an overlay to flash. What the hell, I thought, and selected one, a recruit in Martin's squad named Toshima.
Target selected. Asshole confirmed. You may fire, cancel, or select a second target.
"Whoa," I said, canceled the target, and stared down at my MP-35. I turned to Alan, who was holding his weapon next to me. "I'm scared of my weapon," I said.
"No shit," Alan said. "I just nearly blew you up two seconds ago with a grenade."
My response to this shocking admission was cut short when, on the other side of the platoon, Ruiz suddenly wheeled into a recruit's face. "What did you just say, recruit?" Ruiz demanded. Everybody fell silent as we turned to see who had incurred Ruiz's wrath.
The recruit was Sam McCain; in one of our lunch sessions I recalled Sarah O'Connell describing him as more mouth than brain. Unsurprisingly, he'd been in sales most of his life. Even with Ruiz hovering a millimeter from his nose, McCain projected smarminess; a mildly surprised smarminess, but smarminess all the same. He clearly didn't know what got Ruiz so worked up, but whatever it was, he expected to walk away from this encounter unscathed.
"I was just admiring my weapon, Master Sergeant," McCain said, holding up his rifle. "And I was telling recruit Flores here how it almost made me feel sorry for the poor bastards we're going up against out—"
The rest of McCain's comment was lost to time when Ruiz grabbed McCain's rifle from the surprised recruit and with one supremely relaxed spin clocked McCain in the temple with the flat side of the rifle butt. McCain crumpled like laundry; Ruiz calmly extended a leg and jammed a boot into McCain's throat. Then he flipped the rifle around; McCain stared up, horrified, into the barrel of his own rifle.
"Not so smug now, are you, you little shit?" Ruiz said. "Imagine I'm your enemy. Do you almost feel sorry for me now? I just disarmed you in less time than it takes to fucking breathe. Out there, those poor bastards move faster than you would ever believe. They are going to spread your fucking liver on crackers and eat it up while you're still trying to get them in your sights. So don't you ever feel almost sorry for the poor bastards. They don't need your pity. Are you going to remember this, recruit?"