“I’m sure I can find chow,” Thomas said. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Nadia.”
“You as well, sir,” Nadia said, shaking his hand. This was clearly a first. “If you have any questions, I’ll be right here.”
“Got it,” Thomas said, typing. It wasn’t a strong skill, but he could do it.
There were questions after the screen was filled.
“Have you ever been a member of the military of any nation or a member of law enforcement?”
He thought about that for a second and clicked “No.” That was looking for zombie fighters. One of the things they were looking for was boat captains. He’d decided that was what he wanted to do. And he had enough experience, he could probably fake his way to it. He’d kill zombies if it came up. Plenty of zombies to kill and plenty of time.
New Screen: “Mark any skills for which you have formal training and experience.”
There were a bunch of those. He clicked “civilian offshore boating,” “knot tying,” knowing he couldn’t conceal the skill for long he clicked “civilian shooting,” “mountaineering” for the heck of it-what the hell it was true and he’d trained people in it-“Commercial Driver’s License” and “linguistics. ” He left off “electronics,” “computer programming,” “explosives or demolitions,” “professional diving,” “operations management,” “helicopter pilot,” “strategic analysis,” “intelligence gathering,” “intelligence analysis,” “strategic intelligence analysis,” “executive level operations” and “business management.” But he found it interesting they were on there.
Thomas followed the signs to the HR office. There was a desk in the corridor manned by a young woman behind a computer and a short line. The people were dressed pretty much the same as he was but he could tell they weren’t fresh off a boat.
He waited until he got to the woman.
“Like to see an HR counselor,” he said.
“Are you with compartment R-765?” the woman asked. Another Russian chick.
“No, I just got off the boat,” Thomas said. “L-1438. I just signed in.”
“Oh,” the girl said. “Name?”
“Thomas Walker,” he said.
“You are just off the boat,” the girl said. “Are you sure you don’t want to take some time?”
“Positive,” Thomas said. “And I don’t even mind cleaning compartments to get a job. I’ve been sitting on my ass for six months.”
“Go to the open cabin and have a seat,” the girl said. “There are computer terminals. On the areas that you listed as being qualified there are short quizzes. Answer the quiz then a counselor will see you.”
“Okay,” Thomas said.
He went to the cabin and all the computers were busy so he took a seat.
“I don’t know you,” the guy next to him said. “Not my compartment.”
“No,” Thomas said. “I’m fresh off the boat. Didn’t take the three days.”
“You should have,” the guy said. “It was nice. Almost like the cruise I bloody paid for. Yank?”
“Yes,” Thomas said.
“Well, you’re in for a bit of all right, then,” the man said. “The Yanks are in charge. I’m sure you’ll have a cushy office job in no time.”
“I’d rather clean compartments,” Thomas said. A person got up from a computer and he waved for the man to take it. “Your turn.”
“Already done,” the man said. “Por vous.”
“Merci, mon ami,” Thomas said.
CHAPTER 27
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm
The computer did, indeed, have a number of quizzes. There weren’t any on mountaineering. The knot section was multiple choice on how to tie certain knots. There was a note that there would be a second, hands-on, test. He finished the test and was mildly annoyed that he’d only gotten a ninety-five. He must have missed one. He made a note to pay closer attention.
“Civilian shootings was interesting. Most of it was the written portion of the NRA personal defense with firearms test. But there were other questions that were odd and even off the wall. Some of them were phrases well known in the shooting community. “Be polite to everyone and… ” He picked the correct answer: “Have a plan to kill them.” Although he almost clicked “shower the world with random acts of kindness and gentle mercy” just for the hell of it. Some were almost philosophical. “1911 or H amp;K USP?” “AK or M4?” “Kukhri or chainsaw?” There was one question: “.45 or 9mm” that had only one answer: “.45 because there’s no.46.” He almost chuckled on that one.
He scored a 100 with the note: “This test is based upon the experiences of personnel currently involved in operations against infected and, therefore, your answer(s): 1911 has been judged INCORRECT. But we gave you a pass on it since it’s a cult thing with you guys and the Constitution allows for freedom of religion. Even if you’re WRONG. P3L Faith Marie Smith, USMC.”
“P3L?” Thomas said, leaning back. It wasn’t a rank he’d ever seen and he’d seen pretty much every rank. Then he nodded. “Oh. So a Provisional Third Lieutenant is telling me what gun to use, huh?”
He also found it interesting that “AK” and “Kukhri” were correct.
The boating one was the most extensive. It started with a short test that covered basic boating safety and nautical terms. He scored a one hundred on that one. Then a second test came up. He’d seen it, somewhere, before but he wasn’t sure where. He’d never taken this particular test but he’d seen it. Somewhere. He realized about half way through that it was from the master mariner’s course book.
He couldn’t answer all the questions which annoyed him. He’d read the book, once, on a deployment when it was about the only thing around to read. But that had been… during Desert Storm on that barge in the Gulf. He started remembering some of the questions after that, his memory was like that, and went back and checked to find the ones that he’d guessed. He found himself humming The Doors “Riders on the Storm” and remembering more. The SEAL lieutenant commander on the barge was a Doors fan and he played it constantly. The song triggered more memories and he went back and basically started the test all over again.
Others had gone to computers and gotten up as he was working on his tests. A new group had come in and a lady came over as he was working on the master mariner’s test.
“Sir, are you nearly done?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “I’m still only on the mariner portion. There’s truck driving and a couple of other things to go. How long is the linguistics test?”
“There are three questions on the language,” the lady said.
“Okay, be a while there,” Thomas said. “And some of these marine questions are tough. Could you give me a few minutes?”
“Take as much time as you wish,” the lady said. “We weren’t sure… Just take your time… ”
He finally finished the maritime questions and was pleased to see that he’d scored an eighty-nine. That should give him a shot at one of the boat crews. That sounded like more fun than being a linguist.
Then came the linguistics questions. The first question was a screen with click boxes that asked the user to click what languages were “fluent written and spoken.”
Thomas paused at that one. The screen had a few he couldn’t speak and a bunch were missing that he could. Finally he clicked German, French, Russian and because they were in the Canary Islands and they were going to Gitmo, Spanish. He thought about Chinese, Tagalog and Indonesian. But that would probably leave him translating the rest of his cruise and that was the last thing he wanted to do. They also had Arabic and Japanese but, well, the list was longer of what they didn’t have that he spoke and could read and write in cases where they had a written language. They were missing Urdu, Dari, Pashtun and Tajik for example. Not to mention Swahili, Kikongo, Lingala… The list was longer of what they didn’t have…