Second Lieutenant 35B, Augustine, and I started our trek through the foggy wood in silence. There was not much to say. We were trained to be perfect brainwashed soldiers for a war that would never end. Talking would spoil the illusion. Which was fine with me. I could use this time to recall the thinly veiled propaganda my teachers called history class.
Klothgars Wood was named after Klothgar Vul'dan, the general who founded the training center some two hundred years ago. Before the holo-gym was completed, the forest was used for mock battles. It was a ten mile diameter filled with trees, rocks, ponds and various bird species. At the center of the wood was an amphitheater where the graduation ceremonies were held. I figured that was where we were going.
The Bright side of being on the Omega Team was having a clear path to follow. Though the fog was dense, Yellow florescent lamps lined the stone path forwards. Second Lieutenant 35B led the way, with Augustine and me walking behind him side by side. We walked in silence for forty-five minutes, covering two-thirds of the distance to the mysterious signal.
"Okay junior privates, you may rest for fifteen minutes before we continue." 35B said in his gruff monotone. If you must relieve yourselves, do not walk further than ten paces from the trail. In case you haven't noticed, the fog is dense and there's only so much the enhanced vision my goggles provide can do." we all sat down in a circle, saying nothing. Augustine took the canteen from his belt and drank. 35B did the same. I did not. i held my canteen in front of my face, the blurry mirror reflecting back a distorted frown and empty eyes.
I wondered if there could be more to life than war and fear. I never knew my father, and my mother kept me a secret from High Command. She couldn't bear the thought of losing me after she lost father on the battlefield, because everything on this planet revolved around the battlefield. There was no escape from it. Every poem, every song, every film was about the glories of war, the importance of the high command war effort, and the beauty of sacrificing your life for the country. If you didn't support the war, you were a traitor. By keeping me a secret, my mother became a traitor. She kept her secret well, until my twelfth birthday. I don't know how they found out, but shortly before noon, half a dozen Secret police officers crashed through my attic bedroom. They grabbed me so fast. I was kicking and screaming and crying when they put a cloth over my mouth that made me sleepy. The last thing i remember hearing before i passed out was "Asset secured."
I never saw my mother alive again. When I first came to the academy, I received a letter from her. She was in prison but she was okay. She told me to keep my chin up and to "honor her by serving my country." I knew they were fake before i read that. It wasn't her handwriting. I got a few more but i never opened them. Eventually they stopped coming all together. That was fine by me. I'd rather believe my mother died then believe a week in prison would change everything she stood for. She was made of stronger stuff than that.
Even now as I write this, I burn with anger. For nearly three years I have been told I'm a valued citizen of Scrag. Yeah right. To the High Command, I'm not a person, I'm an asset. That's what High Command thinks we all are. We are not sentient beings capable of compassion and higher thinking, we are automatons, Programmable cogs in a vast war machine that must constantly turn turn turn to fight another vast war machine until one or the other breaks. I'm so sick of fighting, and I haven't even been to a proper battle. The propaganda beats my brow like the oppressive heat of the sun. The teachers have eyes like hawks and the patience of buzzards, ready to dive at a moment's notice to rip the flesh from my bones over the smallest error. Now and then I think it would be so easy to give in. To lose my individuality and become one with the masses. It's so tempting and sometimes I almost do. If it wasn't for the promise i made to my mother, I might have long ago.
I have no privacy. I cannot risk camaraderie. Not anymore. Augustine taught me that. All I want is to breathe. Breathe in the little attic that used to be my world. It may have been cramped and dim, but in that little space I was free.
"Is something wrong Dominus?" 35B asked. "You've been staring at your canteen for ten minutes and thirty-seven seconds."
I looked up at him. His eyebrows were raised to communicate concern. I didn't buy it, but I had to play along. I had to tread lightly here. I couldn't say something along the line of 'apologies, I was lost in thought' or 'Oops, guess my mind was elsewhere.' Not only would those lines be met with 'thinking is unnecessary and unbecoming of a soldier', but I would probably be punished as a result. But i could not lie either, as 35B's goggles were attuned to scanning his soldiers faces for my tells. At the training center, there was a twisted logic in communication. You could be as open and honest as you wanted, as long as your expression was completely detached from any emotion deemed 'aboriginal'. So I did my best to answer his question without revealing my incriminating aboriginal thoughts.
"Yes 35B, something is wrong." I explained as dispassionately as I could.
"Explain."
"I would not like to."
"Why not?"
"I am afraid I will be punished."
"You will not be punished for reporting a problem. Now explain it or there will be consequences."
A rest in the conversation grew as I tried to think my way out of this.
"Dominus, You should report what is troubling you. I promise, what you have to say will not be grounds for punishment." Augustine replied robotically. I stared at him, his pupils constricted, the tell tale sign of "Alpha programming."
I didn't detail what happened between me and Augustine at first because it was too raw. too soon. But after that giant rant, I might as well tell the sad tale.
Augustine was my best friend when I joined Beta Squad. He helped me adjust to the various cruelties of the academy and tutored me in all the things my mother didn't teach. I started to develop feelings for him, but I never got a chance to act on them. part of transferring from beta to alpha squad is mandatory programming. they sit you in a chair, pump you full of drugs so you can't feel them stick a nanotube into your ear to inject medical nanites into your brain. The nanites build and destroy synapses to make you more compliant with Top Brass. while this happens, you are exposed to propaganda on a screen, six inches away from your eyeballs. this happened two weeks ago. Four weeks from now, the same would happen to me on my fifteenth birthday.
Suffice to say, hearing those words coming from Augustine's lips was a stab to the heart. It wasn't the same person, I knew that. I could see that in his permanently constricted pupils. That didn't change the fact i still found comfort in his baritenor voice. Part of him may still be there, but I could never be sure.
I looked at the two brown and black clad men. It was now or never. I had to give them something. I took a deep breath to calm myself (1 , 2 , 3) and let it all out (4, 5, 6) and began to talk.
"Everything and everyone I have ever-" I began, before the alarm started going off on 35B's goggles.
"That's great, Dominus" 35B said as he tapped the side of the goggles. He and Augustine stood up, and I quickly followed. "You may resume your report when we reach the anomaly zone in approximately thirty-seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds." And with that, he turned around and began to walk again. I did as well, stunned into silence, wondering how I would get out of this.