“Hrmm. Nice, clean entry wound. What’d you hit it on?”
Rachel stepped in. “My cart fell over. I’m sorry.”
“Is that how it happened?”
“Actually, I’m the one who ran into her, but yeah, pretty much.”
“Right. Well, it’s not as bad as it looks. You’ll be fine,” Ferrell said, giving the back of my head a playful slap. A spray of blood flew from my brow, staining my shirt. Leaving me where I was, he walked over to the corner of the barracks and shouted, loud enough to scare the cicadas off the walls, “Yonabaru! Get your butt out here!”
“There some soldierin’ needs doin’? I’m here to-oh. Morning, Rachel. Sergeant, another fine day in the corps, I trust? So fine, it looks like the concrete up and sprouted potatoes.”
“Shut your piehole and get some men out here to pick these up.”
“Who, me?”
“Well he’s not going to be picking anything up, is he?” Ferrell nodded in my direction.
Yonabaru gaped. “Dude, what hit you? You look like you went twenty in the cage with a three-hundred- pound Irishman.” To the sergeant: “Wait, that means Keiji’s the one who knocked all these over?” Back to me: “Helluva way to start the day, goin’ and ruinin’ a guy’s morning like that.”
“What’s the matter, don’t you want to help?”
“Don’t be silly! For you, I’d pick up anything. Potatoes, pumpkins, land mines-”
“Enough. Is there anyone in this lousy excuse for a platoon whose head isn’t lodged securely up his asshole?”
“That hurts, Sarge. You watch. I’ll bring the hardest workin’ men in the 17th.”
“Kiriya! Quit standin’ around like a scarecrow and get your butt over to the infirmary! You’re excused from today’s PT.”
“PT? Who said anything about PT?”
“I did. Someone stepped in a knee-deep pile of pig shit in the PX last night. Now that may not have anything to do with you, but nevertheless, at oh-nine-hundred, you’re going to assemble at the No. 1 Training Field in your fourth-tier equipment for Physical Training.”
“You gotta be kidding! We’re goin’ into battle tomorrow, and you’re sending us off for PT?”
“That’s an order, Corporal.”
“Sir, we’ll report to the No. 1 Training Field at oh-nine-hundred in full fourth-tier equipment, sir! But one thing, Sarge. We been doin’ that liquor raid for years. Why give us a hard time about it now?”
“You really want to know?” Ferrell rolled his eyes.
Leaving the conversation I’d heard before behind, I escaped to the infirmary.
6
I was standing at the gate that divided the base from the outside world. The guard who checked my ID raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
There was an extra layer of security on the base thanks to the U.S. crew’s visit. Although the Japanese Corps oversaw general base security, the balance of power with the U.S. prevented them from interfering with anything under U.S. jurisdiction. Luckily, U.S. security didn’t have any interest in anyone that wasn’t one of their own.
Without leave papers from a commanding officer, Keiji Kiriya wasn’t getting off the base. But the U.S. soldiers could come and go as they pleased, and all they had to do was flash an ID. Everyone used the same gate, so if I got an American guard, he might let me through, no questions asked. All they cared about was keeping undesirables away from their precious Special Forces squad. A recruit trying to go AWOL wasn’t likely to catch their eye.
The guard must not have seen many Japanese ID cards, because he stared at mine for a long time. The machine that checked IDs just logged who passed through the gate. No need to panic. Why would they change the system up the day before an attack? The muscles in my stomach tensed. The guard was looking back and forth between me and my card, comparing the blurry picture with my face.
The cut on my temple burned. The sawbones who tended to me in the infirmary gave me three stitches without any painkiller. Now it was sending searing bolts of electricity shooting through my body. The bones in my knee creaked.
I was unarmed. I missed my knife, warm and snug under my pillow. If I had it with me, I could lock this guy in a half nelson and-thinking like that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I stretched my back. Gotta stay cool. If he stares at you, stare right back.
Stifling a yawn, the guard pressed the button to open the gate. The doorway to freedom creaked open.
I turned slowly to look back as I slipped past the yellow bar. There, in the distance, was the training field. The sea breeze, heavy with the scent of the ocean, blew across the field toward the gate. On the other side of the fence, soldiers the size of ants performed tiny, miniature squats. They were the soldiers I’d eaten with and trained with. They were my friends in the 17th. I swallowed the nostalgia that rose up in me. I walked, unhurried, the moist wind blowing against my body. Keep walking until you’re out of sight of the guard. Don’t run. Just a little farther. Turn the corner. I broke into a sprint.
Once I started running, I didn’t stop.
It was fifteen klicks from the base to Tateyama, a nearby entertainment district. Even if I took a roundabout route, it would be twenty klicks at most. Once I was there, I could change my clothes and lay in the supplies I needed. I couldn’t risk trains or the highway, but once I hit Chiba City I would be home free. Neither the army nor the police stuck their noses in the underground malls-turned-slums there.
It was about eight hours until Squad 1830’s meeting. That’s when they’d probably figure out I’d gone AWOL. I didn’t know if they’d send cars or choppers after me, but by dusk, I planned to be just another face in the crowd. I remembered the training we’d done at the foot of Mount Fuji. Sixty-kilometer marches in full gear. Crossing the Boso Peninsula in half a day wouldn’t be a problem. By the time tomorrow’s battle started, I’d be far away from days that repeat themselves and the brutal deaths they ended in.
The sun hung high in the sky, washing me in blinding light. Fifty-seven millimeter automatic guns sat covered in white tarps at hundred-meter intervals along the seawall. Red-brown streaks of rust marred the antique steel plates at their base. The guns had been installed along the entire coastline when the Mimics reached the mainland.
As a kid, when I’d first laid eyes on those guns, I thought they were the coolest things I’d ever seen. The black lacquer finish of their steel instilled an unreasonable sense of confidence in me. Now that I’d seen real battle, I knew with cool certainty that weapons like these could never repel a Mimic attack. These guns moved like the dinosaurs they were. They couldn’t hope to land a hit on a Mimic. What a joke.
They still had service crews assigned to these that came out and inspected them once a week. Bureaucracy loves waste.
Maybe humanity would lose.
The thought came to me out of the blue, but I couldn’t shake it.
When I told my parents I’d enlisted, they’d wanted me to join the Coast Guard. They said I’d still get a chance to fight without going into battle. That’d I’d be performing the vital task of defending the cities where people worked and lived.
But I didn’t want to fight the Mimics to save humanity. I’d seen my fill of that in the movies. I could search my soul till my body fell to dust around it and I’d never find the desire to do great things like saving the human race. What I found instead was a wire puzzle you couldn’t solve no matter how many times you tried. Something buried under a pile of puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. It pissed me off.
I was weak. I couldn’t even get the woman I loved-the librarian-to look me in the eye. I thought the irresistible tide of war would change me, forge me into something that worked. I may have fooled myself into believing I’d find the last piece of the puzzle I needed to complete Keiji Kiriya on the battlefield. But I never wanted to be a hero, loved by millions. Not for a minute. If I could convince the few friends I had that I was someone who could do something in this world, who could leave a mark, no matter how small, that would be enough.
