'You will learn to live in these suits for days at a time. This suit will save your life. This suit will become like a second skin to you.' Grant was lecturing us, gesturing at his own gear. Milo stopped in front of me with a scowl and adjusted the webbing around my torso. Apparently Milo had never had to make a suit for somebody as big as I am, and it had been a bit of a challenge to come up with Kevlar sheets for a sixty-two-inch chest.
'Psst… Milo,' I whispered. 'Since these are supposed to be like second skins, where's yours?'
'Screw that. It's hot,' he answered.
And he invented the darn thing. Testify brother, I thought.
'One time this suit saved my life. You can see right here where I was clawed by a golem. See, right there on the abdomen. Surely this would have been a mortal blow, but I was able to shrug it off and stay in the fight. I dispatched the monster and was able to rush to the aid of my team and save them from certain death,' Grant told us, lifting up the front of his armor so we could all see his sculpted abs. The man must do crunches in his sleep to look like that. Grant had been talking forever, and unlike the other instructors, did not have a drop of humility in his soul. I was about ten minutes from a heat stroke, and we were stuck suffering in the sun while our teacher blathered.
Milo rolled his eyes and went back to adjusting straps. 'Some golem. It was three feet tall,' he muttered under his breath so it was barely audible to just me, 'ass.'
The armor was a modular system that could be configured by the user depending on what kind of threat we were going to face. A thick layer of stab-proof Kevlar covered the vital organs. Though not much heavier than regular thick clothing, the sleeves and pant legs had the same fibers sewn into the fabric. There was a neck guard that could be raised to resemble a turtle neck to protect against bites. Most of the threats we would face would involve teeth or claws, so unlike regular body armor, ours was designed for that rather than for bullet resistance. Milo informed us that the torso was rated the same as a traditional level IIIA bulletproof vest, able to stop most pistol rounds. There were pouches on the front and back designed to hold ceramic plates that could stop rifle rounds if the threat warranted it, and if the user didn't mind the extra weight. The system incorporated load-bearing gear and pouches for magazines, weapons, tools, medical kits, or whatever other useful things the Hunter might need.
There were two different types of gloves that came with the suit. One was a basic shooting glove that offered a small amount of protection, but still allowed good dexterity. And the other was a heavy armored gauntlet for when you needed maximum protection and just had to wade in and crush some heads. The heavy units could be attached to the end of the sleeves. There were also two types of helmets. The first was simply a modified hockey helmet, good basically to keep you from banging yourself in the skull when blundering around in the dark. The second, an armored monstrosity that looked kind of like a motorcycle helmet with a full visor and face shield, could be attached to the neck guard. With the heavy gloves and big helmet, a suited Monster Hunter could become a chew toy for a pile of zombies and come out gnawed on, but unbitten. Unfortunately for me, Milo did not have a helmet that would fit my enormous head so he had special-ordered one. Hopefully nothing would try to eat me before then.
The armor had lots of extras designed just for the people in our peculiar business. A CO2 cartridge was carried in the shoulder harness. In case of emergency it could be activated and the harness would inflate. Handy if you got dumped into deep water, because it was difficult to swim while strapped with piles of gear. My understanding was that Sam, our former SEAL, had insisted on that device. Each suit also had a GPS unit for navigation, which occasionally came in handy to locate a Hunter's body when the bad guys won.
The armor could be ordered in whatever color you wanted, as long as it was black, olive drab, or coyote brown. There was not a lot of use for festive colors in monster hunting, nor were there a lot of suppliers of heavyweight military strength Cordura in any other colors. I had gone with brown. Grant had gone with black. He probably thought it made him look tough. I thought he looked kind of like a silly version of Darth Vader. I took comfort in the fact that he had to be cooking in the sun right about now, though the bastard did not even give me the satisfaction of looking uncomfortable.
'Pay attention,' Grant snapped at me. Milo rolled his eyes again. I snickered. Grant stormed toward us like a bulldog.
'Pitt. I don't like your attitude.'
'Trust me, Grant. It's mutual,' I snapped back.
'What did you say?' He poked me in the chest with his trigger finger. I couldn't feel a thing through the armor, but that did not change the fact that I did not like getting poked. It was hot, I was tired, and frankly in no mood to put up with any nonsense. Milo wisely moved aside.
'I said it's mutual. Meaning I don't like your attitude either.'
'I'm trying to teach you Newbies how to stay alive.'
'Then teach. All I'm hearing is stories about how great you are. I came here to learn how to kill stuff, not to join your fan club.'
He stabbed me again. 'I'm a pro. You need to shut your stupid Newbie mouth. You think you know so much. I saw that video. You got lucky with that werewolf, and now you think you're hot shit.'
'You had best take that hand off of me,' I said. The rest of the class was gradually spreading out around us. The group could sense trouble brewing and were ready for some entertainment. Apparently I was not the only one in a foul mood.
'Or what?' And he poked harder. It was really kind of a useless gesture considering the armor could stop a battle-ax. With years of experience bouncing rowdy people from bars, I had a good sense of when somebody was itching for trouble, and Grant was itching bad.
'I'll take it off and feed it to you.' I smiled at him and winked. That really seemed to anger him. Grant's movie star face turned bright red. He was as tall as I was, but not nearly as big or as strong. I had no doubt that I could beat him mercilessly.
'I could have you kicked out of here like that.' He took his hand away long enough to snap his fingers, then he went back to poking me.
'For what?' asked Milo, arms folded, studying the other instructor. Milo was by far the senior in experience, and in the amount of respect he received from the trainees. That was easy though, Milo Anderson was a likable guy. Grant on the other hand…
'Insubordination,' Grant hissed. 'One word to the Boss about your attitude and you're gone.'
'If I'm going to get kicked out, believe me, I'm going to have some fun doing it.' I felt my body tense as the adrenaline began to flow. If Grant wanted a piece of me, I was prepared to give that preppie piece of trash what he wanted.
'Grant.' Milo spoke quietly. 'That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You're picking a fight with somebody who outweighs you by a hundred pounds of muscle. Insubordination my butt. You say anything to the Boss and my side of the story will be that you were trying to commit suicide by accountant.'
'I could take him,' the junior instructor stated coldly. 'He isn't as tough as everybody thinks.'
'Grant, I could kick your ass. Pitt would make you his bitch.'
That took the wind out of Grant's sails. I could see the realization dawn in his blue eyes, the realization that I could probably turn him into pulp. I just kept smiling, still prepared to mess up his pretty face and give him the opportunity to digest some of his perfectly white teeth. He had already pushed too far, though. He could not back off now without looking bad. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear.
'Stay away from Julie, you son of a bitch. I've seen you looking at her.' I was surprised. So that was what this was all about. I had barely even seen her since training had started.
'Bite me,' I replied.
'Enough!' Milo shouted. 'Class is over. It's too hot and everybody's tempers are short. You've been working hard. Go grab some lunch.'
Grant stepped back and glared at the little man. Milo met his gaze evenly. I think that my nemesis quickly realized that the other instructor had just given him a window of opportunity to back out of his potential beating and not look like a wimp in front of the others. Grant Jefferson may have been a prick, but he was no dummy.
'Fine. Class dismissed,' Grant sneered. 'I'll be seeing you around, Pitt.' He spun on his polished boots and haughtily strode away.
'Looking forward to it,' I rumbled under my breath as the group began to disperse. Milo shouted for all of us to turn our suits in to his workshop for adjustments before we left the compound for our weekend off. There were
