Chapter 8B

The nearest MPG recruiting office was forty blocks away, in the south portion of Helvetia Heights. They rode the public transit train there, utilizing one of the transport tokens that came with their monthly welfare allotment. They stepped off at the nearest station nervously, knowing that they were now deep in enemy gang territory, an act that could easily lead to their deaths if they were discovered.

Sure enough, they made it no more than two blocks from the station before a group of Thrusters stepped out of the lobby of a public housing building and blocked their path. There were six of them, all young, dangerous looking, hardened veterans. They surrounded them menacingly, eyeing the Capitalist tattoos on their quarry's arms, their hands playing in their waistbands where their guns would be holstered.

"A little out of your turf?" one of them, the apparent leader of the group, inquired plainly, his face expressionless.

Neither Jeff nor Matt said anything, both knowing that they were caught, neither wanting to give their foes the satisfaction of hearing them whine.

The leader continued to stare at them, his hand continuing to fondle the concealed handgun. "You got a lot of balls just walking around over here like this," he told them. "A lot of fucking balls. Where you heading?"

They remained silent, both glaring defiantly at the faces around them.

"Let's take 'em around the back and pop 'em," one of the younger members suggested.

"Yeah," another put in, "then we'll drag their fucking bodies back to the border tonight and dump 'em."

"We might just do that," the leader said thoughtfully. He took a step closer to Jeff, fingering the tattoo on his arm. He then looked over at Matt's. "You're retired?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jeff grunted, since some reply seemed necessary.

"Over eighteen then?"

He nodded.

"Where you heading?" the leader repeated. "You didn't come all the way into our turf like this with only the two of you looking for a fight. And you ain't here sellin' dust either. So what the fuck you doing out here? Didn't you know that we was gonna find you?"

"We knew," Jeff told him. "We ain't here to make trouble. We're heading for 104^th and Stevens."

The leader nodded. "The MPG recruiting center," he said. "You going to sign up?"

"Yeah," Jeff confirmed.

The leader looked over at Matt. "You too?"

"Yeah," Matt grunted as well.

He nodded again, his face remaining without expression or nuance. He turned to his people. "Let 'em through," he said. "They're going to sign up."

There was no argument, no hesitation. They simply stood aside.

"Get your asses on down there," the leader told them. "You have safe passage through our turf for that. We catch you anywhere except between here and there though, you're dead meat. Got it?"

"Got it," Jeff told them.

Their bodies flooded with nervous adrenaline, they started walking once again. They didn't look back. They were harassed no further on their trip.

The recruitment center had been hastily set up the night before in the lobby of a commercial building that catered to the welfare class retail industry. It was home to the welfare food mart, the welfare clothing store, welfare intoxicant shops, and many other stores that accepted government subsidy dollars. Like any such building there were thousands of square meters of vacant space. It was in the remains of a former rent-to-own establishment that had been closed the year before for lack of sufficient profit margin that the MPG had brought in desks, computer terminals, and recruitment specialists. A squad of infantry had also been brought in as a security measure.

Jeff and Matt did not get near the recruitment center or even the building itself for quite some time however. A line of people stretched from the main lobby doors for three blocks in both directions. There were males and females alike, most between the ages of eighteen and thirty years old, all of them wearing welfare clothing, most sporting gang tattoos on their arms. They stood patiently in groups of two and three and four, many smoking cigarettes, a few even sipping from Fruity bottles. Amazingly enough many of the former gang members were from rival gangs, some of the rivalries as bitter and long-lasting as that between the Capitalists and the Thrusters. They stood shoulder to shoulder in many places with no apparent conflict or strife. Some even seemed to be conversing.

"Goddamn that's a lot of fuckin' people," Jeff said as they approached the tail end of it. "How long is this shit gonna take?"

"Quite a while it looks like," Matt said. "Come on, let's get in line."

They got in line. It was a slow moving one and it took them nearly three hours before the building was even in sight. At last they made it to the front and were brought before a desk where a weary looking sergeant in standard indoor garb asked for their identification. They provided it for him and he ran their names through his computer.

"You boys have been in a little trouble in your lives now, haven't you?" he asked lightly, with the air of one who had already asked that more than a thousand times that day.

"Just the normal shit for the hood," Jeff responded. "Is that gonna keep us from signing up?"

The sergeant smiled a little bit. "If we eliminated everyone around here because they had a criminal record we wouldn't have anyone at all." He scrolled up and down through the screen for a moment. "Let's see what we got here... possession of dust, assault and battery, carrying a concealed weapon, possession of stolen property, possession of illegal chemicals. That's all the usual stuff all right. No murder convictions, no sexual crimes, no assaults against peace officers. Those are the big eliminating factors. Have either one of you ever worked before?"

"Naw," Jeff said. "Ain't too many jobs around here."

Matt shook his head in the negative as well.

"No job training skills or anything like that?"

Again they both answered in the negative.

"Ok then," the sergeant said. "If you two will head on upstairs for me you'll find corporal Jennings who will set you up on a computer to take the ASVAB test."

"The az-vab?" Jeff asked. "What the fuck's that?"

"Armed services vocational assessment battery," the sergeant explained. "It's an exam that tells us what your strengths and weaknesses are so we can determine what assignment would best suit you."

"Shee-it," Jeff said toughly, "just give me a fuckin' gun and point me to the fuckin' Earthlings."

"Well, we like you spirit," the sergeant responded. "But we still have to give you the test. So if you'll just head upstairs for me."

They headed upstairs. Once there they found another two-hour wait until a computer terminal was free.

The test itself took only an hour. The first section consisted of a series of multiple choice questions in such subjects as math, English, reading comprehension, spatial relations, and general knowledge. They both answered everything to the best of their abilities and then were automatically moved onto the second section, which was a standard psychological examination. The questions here were widely varied and many of them bordered on the bizarre but — in accordance with the instructions at the beginning — both did their best to answer truthfully instead of in a smart-ass manner, which was what their gang instincts cried out for.

Both finished at roughly the same time. The computer screens they were using thanked them for their participation in the process and gave them appointments with recruiters. Matt's was in six days at the very recruiting center that they were now sitting in. It included a free two-way pass for the public transportation system. Jeff's appointment however, was a little different. It was in two days at the MPG deployment center itself.

"Why do you think we have different appointment places?" Jeff asked as they headed back through Thruster territory to the train station. "And why would they send you back here why they send me all the way over to the other side of the city? That don't make no fuckin sense."

"Maybe it has something to do with that test we took," Matt suggested with a shrug. "They said it was for placement."

"Shit," he said, "if they try and make me clean out biosuits or something like that I'm fuckin walkin. That's not what I signed up for."

"Maybe they want to put you in tanks or something," Jeff suggested.

"I'd go for that," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "I ain't gonna clean out no fuckin biosuits though. They better not even ask me that shit."

Meanwhile, at the MPG deployment center, Lisa Wong was on duty behind her computer terminal in the administration part of the building. Her leg was healing up nicely from the shrapnel injury she'd received in the firefight at the main gate to EMB but she still had a bulky bandage wrapped around it, a bandage she wore with a certain amount of pride. She had been wounded in battle! In an actual, knockdown, drag-out battle with WestHem marines! After that the accounting and inventory tasks she was performing — even though the demand for them had quadrupled in the last week — were now unimaginably dull. She stared at her screen listlessly, looking at rows and columns that listed where combat equipment was stored and at what rate it was being used, vowing that she would not fight the war by doing this.

She looked at her watch, seeing that it was 1510, twenty minutes before her scheduled appointment with Captain Jennifer Stanley, the commanding officer of the accounting and receiving department. The appointment had been made the previous day, shortly after the vote count had been announced, in response to an email that had been distributed to all MPG members from General Jackson himself. The memo had stated that all MPG members requesting either removal from the MPG on grounds of non-support of the revolt or reassignment within it to move into or out of combat branches should contact their respective commanding officer. Lisa, obviously, was going with the latter option. Since Governor Whiting had banished the sexual barrier for combat branches, she sure as hell wanted in on it.

At 1518 she could wait no longer. She got up from her desk and made her way to the elevator, where a trip up three floors brought her to the main administration nerve center for the base. The doors opened on a spacious lobby furnished with plain but functional desks, couches, and chairs. Other MPG members awaiting their own appointments with their own commanding officers occupied most of the chairs. A civilian secretary sat behind a desk, answering computer calls and putting in an endless stream of appointments for others.

"Name?" the secretary, a young Asian descendent with a particularly thick Martian accent asked.

"Corporal Wong," Lisa told her. "I have a 1530 with Captain Stanley."

"Hold on a sec," she said. She completed the call that she was currently handling and then put someone else on hold. She then checked through another screen on her computer and tapped it with her finger. "Should be about another five minutes or so. Go ahead and grab a seat."

She thanked the harried looking secretary and then plopped herself down on one of the couches. The woman sitting next to her was someone she knew. She worked in the outfitting department a floor below hers and had been part of the makeshift platoon that had pinned in the marines. They chatted while they waited, talking of Lisa's wound and their hopes for reassignment.

"I want tanks," the woman told her, almost hungrily. "I want to be in the machine that blows those Earthling fucks back to their landing area."

"I just want someone to give me a gun to fight with," Lisa responded vaguely, not mentioning her real hope for fear that she would laugh it off.

Right on schedule Lisa was invited into the captain's office for the meeting. She walked through the doors a little nervously, into a small room with a standard plastic desk and a few potted plants. Pictures of a smiling girl of about twelve were displayed on the top of the computer terminal. Stanley was sitting in her chair, looking a little frazzled herself. She was a handsome woman of about forty years old, a ten-year member of the MPG and a low-level accountant for MarsTrans in her civilian life.

"Let me guess," she told Lisa as she took a seat before the desk. "You're here to request reassignment to a combat branch."

Lisa smiled. She had always liked her CO who, in the tradition set by General Jackson, was an approachable, personable leader to her troops. "You must be psychic, Captain," she told her.

"I must be," she said with a sigh. "You're the fifteenth member of accounting that's met with me today. From what I hear I have similar appointments taking up most of my time tomorrow as well. Not only am I not getting any work done, I'm losing all of my best people. I don't suppose that you'd reconsider and man that desk for me instead of an M-24?"

"Not a chance, Captain, sorry," Lisa told her.

"Can't say that I blame you," she said with a shrug. "I put in my own request for reassignment yesterday with Colonel Culligan. Unfortunately my request was denied. Seems they need me a little too much over here in accounting."

"Well... someone has to do it, don't they?"

"Just not you," she said with a hint of sarcasm. "I know the feeling, believe me. So, where can we put you? Do you want tanks? Infantry? Flight training maybe? I haven't checked your qualifications yet."

"Well... actually," she said slowly, hesitantly, "I was thinking of... maybe... uh..." she trailed off, unable to get the words out of her mouth.

"What?" Stanley asked patiently. "Spit it out, girl."

"Special forces," Lisa finally blurted, feeling herself blush.

Stanley raised her eyebrows a tad. "Special forces?" she said. "Wong, I know you're hot to get into combat and all but the qualifications for special forces are pretty stringent. Those positions are only open to existing MPG members that have combat unit experience. At this particular moment in time that only includes the men. Maybe in a year or so, after you..."

"Begging your pardon, Captain," Lisa interrupted, "but that isn't exactly what the requirements say. I read them very carefully."

Another raising of the eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Yes," Lisa confirmed. "They read previous combat unit experience or an equivalent experience. I think I might qualify under the equivalent experience umbrella."

"Equivalent experience? Are you talking about police work?"

"Exactly," she said with a smile. "I have basic police academy training, three levels of advanced weapons and tactics training, and almost eight years of street patrol time. I'm qualified as expert in the M-24 and the 4mm pistol as well as the MP-7 and MP-9 assault rifles. That is all in addition to my MPG basic infantry tactics training."

Stanley nodded thoughtfully. "That is pretty impressive," she admitted. "But as to whether or not that counts as equivalent training or not would not be up to me. I'd have to kick your request over to Colonel Bright's office for consideration."

"Could you do that for me?"

"I'll need a resume of some sort first," she told her.

Lisa smiled. "I just happen to have one already composed on my PC," she said. "I can download it onto your computer right now."

"Very good then," she said, turning her screen towards Lisa to allow her to access the download port. "Put it in. And for what its worth, I'll even send off a letter of recommendation."

"Thanks, Captain," she said gratefully. That was going to be her next request.

"Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into if they accept you though? You would be one of very few women in special forces. God only knows what the men would think about that. Are you sure you can handle it?"

"I've worked Helvetia Heights, Collerton, and downtown in a police cart," Lisa said. "After that I can handle anything that they can throw at me."

Brett Ingram sat quietly at a chair, staring out the window at Mars floating below. He was in a bachelor officer's room on the outside wall of the base; a room intended for one occupant that he was sharing with three others. The surroundings were comfortable but the door was locked and armed MPG troops patrolled outside. Spacer Sugiyoto, one of the other Martians that had been stationed aboard the Mermaid was one of his roommates, as were two other native Martians he'd never met until two days ago when they'd been separated out from the rest of the WestHem naval personnel that were being held prisoner in the enlisted dormitory. The fact that they were all Martians did not escape them, nor did they think it a coincidence.

After all, they knew what was going on on the planet below. Even when they'd been crowded in with the other prisoners in the dorm, they had known about the revolution and the vote and the declaration of independence. Their captors had allowed them access to video terminals in their captivity, terminals that showed both MarsGroup broadcasts as well as WestHem big three broadcasts. In the room they were in now the main terminal mounted on the wall was available for their viewing pleasure twenty-four hours a day, on any network that they wished to view. The only capability that had been removed from it was transmission of information or email to the Internet.

The four of them had been watching MarsGroup almost continually since being placed in the room together. In between newscasts that showed MPG soldiers patrolling city streets and huge lines before recruitment centers and industries, they had speculated on just what the reason for their segregation might be. All four had come to the conclusion that the Martian authorities — namely General Jackson, Laura Whiting, and the small group of planetary legislature members that were loyal to them — simply didn't know what to do with them.

"They know we're greenies but they don't know if they can trust us because we're WestHem naval personnel," Sugiyoto had surmised on more than one occasion.

"They were nice enough to separate us from the Earthlings but not quite nice enough to just let us go," was Ingram's opinion on the matter.

"Or let us vote in the independence vote," added one of the others at this point in the conversation. "The most important fucking vote this planet has ever engaged in and we weren't allowed to take part in it."

These same points, as well as a few others, were what were being rehashed for the thirtieth or fortieth time when the door to the outside hallway suddenly slid open on its track. A pair of MPG infantry soldiers stood there, their uniform full battle gear, their M-24s cradled down low in a manner that was almost, but not quite, non-threatening.