The earth kept shaking. Incoming Projectile? I looked around for something to cling to, then looked up. In the distance an Interceptor lifted off, slow, majestic, and rumbling. Perched on an orange flame pillar, it arrowed skyward from blooming white smoke.
Silhouetted against the smoke and fifty feet from me Metzger stood, arms folded and grinning, a regular recruiting poster. His Class-A’s were blue and fancier than mine. He wore those plink flyboy ribbons on his chest. Okay, the Rocket Jocks were saving the world. He deserved them.
He walked toward me, silver captain’s tracks on his shoulder boards. I saluted automatically, and he returned it, sloppy the way the Space Force does. Ord made us press our tattered fatigues like they were Armani tuxes. World War II pilots thought nothing of burning aviation gas, flying beer to thirty thousand feet to cool it. Maybe flyboy ribbons were plink after all.
He rested his hands on his hips, looked me up and down, and whistled. “You got in shape.”
I shrugged. “Infantry runs for its life.” I guess I could have punched his arm or hugged him or something.
I had my head tipped back, still gawking like a hick at a skyscraper.
He jerked a thumb at the Interceptor, now a speck atop a curving contrail, white against the cold, gray Florida sky. “Rocket Jocks fly from here, from Vandenberg on the West Coast and Lop Nor in China. Johannesburg covers the Southern Hemisphere alone. Not a lotta targets to protect south of the equator.”
He reached across the space between us, took my duffel, and led me to his car. Vanity tags read rokjok on a Kia Hybrid.
I whistled. “These cost the brick!”
“She’s fine on batteries, and she flies when she’s on gasoline.”
“You can get gasoline?”
“Rocket Jocks get everything.” He tossed my bag in the back seat “Get in. The girls are meeting us at the party.”
“Oh.” My social life since puberty consisted of doubling with every zit-faced, prude sidekick of every cheerleader who ached to lose her virginity to Metzger. Of course, my dates probably saw me the same way.
“No Your date’s cream. Honest.” That was the nice thing about being with somebody you grew up with. You could talk without saying much.
We passed few cars. Nobody else got a Rocket Jock’s fuel ration. The cars we saw drove lights on to penetrate the impact-dust twilight. We didn’t even need our lights because Metzger’s car had a night-vision heads-up display.
The perpetual overcast and the lack of traffic made the civilian world quieter. Or maybe it was the funerals.
Metzger’s hands on the wheel seemed older, more surgical. He asked, “How’d you swing leave?”
I told him. The whole mess. Walter. The admin hearing.
“Oh.”
I knew he meant it sounded bad.
I shrugged. “So, how’s Large Ted and Bunny?” He wouldn’t have brought up his parents because it sucked that my mom died just for taking a trip to Indianapolis. I had to ask about them.
He grinned. “Still living in Denver. Saw them last month. Large Ted still thinks you made a good choice with Infantry.”
Metzger lived off post in Greater Orlando. Disney Universe had closed down for the duration, but the Orlando Metroplex was the closest thing to a playground left in the US. Temperatures still got up to sixty in Florida some days. We rolled past condo complexes fronted with palm-tree trunks hung with brown, drooping fronds.
“Metzger, you think we’ll ever go after the bad guys? Really win this thing, instead of just slowing down the end of the world?”
“Maybe.” He looked down and sideways. The last time he looked away from me like that was when a babe I idolized passed him a note that I had wolverine breath. But she made him swear not to tell me. He knew more than he could say.
“Oh.” My reply told him I knew he knew something.
The party was in a gated community with dark streets. Well, all streets were dark, now.
The party house was more like a hotel, set behind vast lawns with its own gate and a grumpy, tuxedoed bouncer out front. He leaned into the car, smiled at Metzger’s uniform, shrugged at mine, and waved us in.
You could have played ball in the house’s foyer, but we chased the live music through it and back outside to the pool deck. A couple hundred guests glittered poolside in sunshine.
Sunshine?
I looked up. From the still-green fronds of the palms that lined the deck shone man-made sunshine. Days ago in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, the survivors had been burning candles at noon. There was something about the sleek, bronzed crowd. Bronze. Since the war, the bare, Caucasian butts in barracks showers and the faces in Philadelphia bread lines were the color of risen dough. But these people afforded suntans.
My jaw dropped, and I grabbed Metzger’s elbow and hissed. “Whose place is this?”
“Aaron Grodt’s. The holo producer.”
The band played an excellent cover on a Cannibal hit. I looked again. It was Cannibal. They finished and left the muted buzz of clinking crystal and laughter. Metzger and I were the only ones in uniform, and heads turned.
Our dates were already there, cocktail-dressed in spiderwebs of fabric that would have frozen them anywhere else on the planet. Metzger introduced me to his girl. Shelly had the most perfect face and the best shape I’d ever seen.
Until he introduced me to Crissy. She was blond and stood as tall as I did, on Everest-high heels. I smelled perfume when she pecked my cheek and as she bent forward other Himalayan comparisons leapt to mind. She drew back and ran her eyes up and down my uniform. Uh-oh. Ground-grant green, not Rocket Jock blue.
Her eyes widened. “Metz says Infantrymen have incredible stamina. That absolutely makes my tummy flutter.”
Mine, too.
“So, Crissy, what do you do?”
“Can’t I just show you later?” She giggled. “Really, I model. Lingerie and swimwear. Not for the big weblogues. They say my breasts are too large.”
Thank you, God.
The buffet would have been impressive before the war. Filet mignon so real they left it pink in the middle. Pyramids of roasted quail. Whole bowls of fresh fruit. Apples. Bananas. You name it.
As the four of us balanced our plates and looked for a table, I spotted a redhead, my age and as perfect and empty-looking as Crissy. She hung on a bearded, tuxe-doed guy Ord’s age but soft and round. They glided toward us, and the old guy took Metzger’s hand in both of his. “Captain! Wonderful you could come!”
They say holos add twenty pounds but I did recognize him from the Oscars. It was Aaron Grodt.
He held his champagne flute above his head, then tinged it with a sterling fork. Everyone shut up and stared toward us.
“Here’s me man who made our picture possible! Even if he wouldn’t play himself.”
I rolled my eyes. Hollywood was making a holo about Metzger while I was humping a machine gun through the woods. Story of my life.
Grodt kissed Metzger on both cheeks, then said to everyone, “We all owe so much…”
My stomach chilled, and my plate felt heavy. How could I be so stupid? These days, not even a Hollywood producer could throw a bomber like this without collecting a cover. Cannibal, alone, probably cost as much as a house. Between me and my date, I’d just blown a month’s pay and allowances.
Grodt dragged me next to Metzger, an arm around each of us. Instead of whispering what the tab was, he said, “Where would we be without brave men like these?”
People applauded. One by one, they came up to us, shook our hands and thanked us for serving. It was nice, and nobody knew I was such a hick I’d thought I had to pay for the party.
I read in a history chip that during one of the ancient wars, Vietnam I think, some GI on leave was at a party like this. A flat-screen star came over and spit on him. And the other guests clapped for the movie star.
It just goes to show you can’t believe everything that’s burned on a chip. I mean, America could never have been that ass-backward.
For the next couple hours, Metzger danced with his date and got talked to by important-looking people. I drank too much free champagne, listened to the band, and watched Crissy giggle and nearly fall out of her dress.
Metzger had been visiting with our host, Aaron Grodt. Grodt came and sat between Crissy and me, in Metzger’s empty chair. The producer laid his hand on my shoulder. “Captain Metzger tells me your military experience hasn’t been good lately.”
Experience? If the man could read a chest, he’d see the only thing on mine was the oft-awarded, seldom-earned
Expert Rifle badge and a ninety-day-service ribbon. I shrugged.
“We have a number of military-based projects in development I need technical advisors.” He raised his eyebrows.
“You mean I’d get assigned—”
He shook his head. “I need independent advice. I know people who could arrange your discharge.”
I stiffened. Behind Grodt, Crissy’s eyes were wide as she nodded rapidly and repeatedly.
Grodt squeezed my shoulder. “The pay would seem spectacular after the military.”
“I—” How could I explain to someone who hadn’t been there what it was to feel committed to service?
“Look, you seem like a nice kid. Captain Metzger thinks you deserve a break. The world is going down the toilet, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. You can spend the years you have left digging mud, or you can spend them like this.” He spread his arm like he was sowing glitter on his guests.
“If you want the job, let me know before you leave. If not, there’s a waiting list.” He stood and smiled like nobody sane would turn him down.
After he left, Crissy squeezed my hand. “My God! Jason! Aaron Grodt just offered you a job !”
Committed? To what? Why? Two days before, I had been ready to desert rather than continue in the army. If Grodt was as connected as he seemed to be, he could not only get me out of the army legally, he probably could square my departure with Judge March, too. The opportunity of a lifetime spread before me. So why was I wondering what to do?
As I pondered, Crissy led me back into the house, up-stairs and down a carpeted hallway that seemed as long as a company street. Moans and the sweet smell of dope, the illegal kind, leaked from behind closed doors.
“Aaron has, like, forty bedrooms. There’s anything you want.” At the moment, the one thing I wanted was to solve mysteries under her dress. She wobbled from the champagne as she opened a door and led me into a pink room with a canopy bed. She hopped on the bed, her Himalayas heaving, drained her champagne, and stretched to set the empty flute on a nightstand. Her hem rode halfway up her thigh, and she rolled on her back and patted the silk beside her. I sat and wondered why I doubted Grodt’s job offer.
“Think about whatever it is tomorrow, Jason.” She reached up and traced my ear with her finger.
I hadn’t so much as smelled a woman in months. And the last one who had touched my ear was a doctor when I had an earache before I turned twelve. I breathed faster. Think about what tomorrow?
She breathed into my ear. “Very hard?”
“Huh?”
“Your training.”
“It is. Was.”
She scooted closer, slid up her dress, and snapped off tiny, pink lace undies with promising athleticism. I froze. If I moved, she might vanish.
She drew back and pouted. “‘M I boring you?”
“No. God, no!” I shrugged. “It’s just—I have responsibilities.”
She fingered the ninety-day-service ribbon on my tunic. “Jason, get real! Metzger’s got responsibilities. You’re a grunt!”
Then she cocked her head. “Unless—Are you going for The Force?”
If The Force was anywhere between her knees and her collarbone, I surely was. “What?”
“Didn’t you watch the news?”
Not in the back of a truck.
“It’s on everywhere.” She passed her palm above a remote, and Grodt’s holo fired with no hint of dust-induced static. One more thing money could buy.
A newsreader stood on the carpet before us while the Holo News Network logo swirled around her.
“Already, volunteer applications for the UN’s Ganymede Expeditionary Force are piling up. The world’s best soldiers are clamoring to be selected. Officials conceded only today that plans for a massive spaceship to transport thousands of Infantry troops and carry the fight to Jupiter’s largest moon are far advanced.”
I shook my head and wished I wasn’t so drunk.
The newsreader continued. “The ship’s keel may be laid as soon as next spring, at a location undisclosed for security reasons. Speculation centers on the Arizona desert or the Sahara.”
Her coanchor nodded from the corner of the room. “Any timetable?”
“Sources expect to embark trained Infantry troops within five years. Hopeful news.”
The Vegas line was even money the human race would be extinct in four years. Hopeful, my ass.
Crissy waved off the holo. “You’re upset, Jason.”
My head spun as much from the news as from the champagne. Infantry. There was a chance for Infantry to make a difference in the world. There was a chance for me to make a difference. Or there had been until I screwed it up. Jacowicz had said I’d get crap assignments. The Ganymede Expeditionary Force was going to be the toughest ticket in military history. This was the Mother of All Screwings. I ground my teeth.
“Jason?”
“Huh?”
Crissy grasped my zipper between manicured fingers and slid it down. “Whatever it is, I can make it better.”
No, she couldn’t. The only thing that could was me getting assigned to the Ganymede Expeditionary Force, and that wasn’t her department.
However, Little Jason was doing my thinking, and he had urgent ideas. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to me.
She giggled. “Izzat a pistol in your pocket, soldier?”
Her lines weren’t original, but her attitude was flawless.
Rap! Rap!
The door knocks barely died before it swung open.