Chapter 142. The First Day

The moment the heavy barracks door swung open, a thick, tangible wave of P-SWAT barracks stink hit me. A mixture of stale sweat, cheap cigarette smoke, and bargain-bin cologne. The whole place looked like a carbon copy of a low-budget Hollywood military drama. Gray, long-unpainted concrete walls plastered at random with magazine cutouts of half-naked women. Two long rows of steel bunk beds, exactly thirty of them. At the foot of each bed stood a battered metal locker secured with a heavy padlock. And around fifty pairs of grim, assessing eyes. Most of the men were between twenty and twenty-five. Hard-bitten infantry, steeped in the kind of trench-born cynicism that came from too much time in the field.

The entire display of iron discipline was completely undermined by a massive wooden table planted right in the middle of the aisle between the rows of beds. Half a dozen guys, all around Corporal Lee's age, were laughing loudly, puffing on foul-smelling cigars, chugging Bud Light straight from the cans, and playing poker with complete abandon.

I glanced at my wristwatch. Morning formation was already thirty-two minutes late. So this was what Lee had meant by leniency in the regulations. This was not some way to decompress after difficult missions. It was nothing more than ordinary, unchecked sloppiness.

The younger soldiers, some five or even ten years younger than the veterans at the card table, had silently dispersed to their bunks. They stared blankly at their smartphone screens, breathing in the bluish layers of smoke lazily hanging beneath the ceiling without a word of complaint. Apparently, nobody here gave a damn about fire safety regulations or even the most basic respect for their fellow soldiers' personal space.

"Guys, pay attention. We've got some new blood," Corporal Lee said flatly, making no attempt to raise his voice over the poker players. "Get them up to speed while I head to the supply room for uniforms. Ross, what's your size?"

"L," I answered without hesitation.

"Then I've got an L too!" Ted immediately chimed in, waving a hand. "Get me one!"

"Squirt, if I bring you an L, you'll drown in it. You could hide in those pants with your bandana and nobody would find you," Lee said with a patronizing grin.

The first roar of collective, mocking laughter rolled through the barracks. Ted flushed to the roots of his hair, his fists clenching as an indignant, breathy whisper escaped him. "You'll see! Give me a month and I'll bulk up. I'll be just as huge as Tom!"

"Sure we believe you, rookie," Lee snorted, clearly amused by the kid's childish boasting. "Until then, I'll find you something that won't fall off you when you're on the pull-up bar. A couple sizes smaller."

The barracks erupted again, the laughter practically shaking the ceiling. Ted turned as red as a ripe tomato. It was time to put an end to this cheap circus. The screws needed tightening before the threads stripped completely.

"There's nothing funny about being skinny." My level, deep voice, amplified by modified vocal cords, cut cleanly through the laughter of fifty men. I enunciated every word. "The military exists to turn boys into soldiers."

The barracks went instantly silent. The laughter died in the middle of a burst as if someone had flipped a switch. Dozens of eyes stared at me with absolute, bewildered incomprehension. My biological age, the immaculate officer's dress uniform sitting perfectly on my frame, the Bronze Star on my chest, and the lieutenant's gold bars completely shattered their usual assumptions. At that moment, the whole crowd reminded me painfully of a herd of mountain sheep peacefully grazing until a full-grown African lion stepped onto their trail. They simply froze, unable to figure out what to do next: run for their lives or keep eating grass.

"Uh... You're absolutely right, sir," Lee muttered awkwardly, visibly nervous but the first to regain his bearings. "Take any empty locker. The locker number matches the bunk number. I'll be right back."

I gave a brief, almost imperceptible nod as I watched the corporal practically run out of the room. The poker players silently tossed down their cards. I had just wrecked their entire little routine, not only the poker game but also their favorite pastime of hazing the fresh meat. On the other hand, Ted had stopped sulking. He looked up at me with such wild admiration that you would have thought I was the best big brother in the entire universe.

I silently congratulated the Corps' assignment algorithms. My initial calculation had been correct: if the AI had not adjusted the dates on our orders, Ted would have become a local outcast within the first ten minutes and made himself a pile of enemies. Now the risks had shifted. For the moment, I was becoming the barracks' main enemy.

Of the thirty lockers, about ten were still vacant. They were all identical, covered in deep dents and chipped paint across their metal doors, an obvious sign that someone's head had regularly come into close contact with the steel. I picked the first working lock I came across and tossed my bag inside. The local combination lock struck me as laughably flimsy. If I wanted to, I could deform it with one hand, but I did not have a choice.

Predictably, Ted claimed the space beside mine. In the end, I got the bottom bunk in the corner against the solid concrete wall, an ideal position for monitoring the perimeter, while Ted took the top bunk.

A long, sticky wait stretched on. For someone with my level of patience, that kind of silence was simply part of the job. But the vacuum began suffocating the teenager's hyperactive mind within a couple of minutes. He could not take it anymore.

"Hey, everybody! Come on, let's get acquainted!" he announced to the entire barracks, hanging over the top bunk and stupidly kicking his legs. "I'm Ted! I'm sixteen, and I'm serving with you guys now!"

"Listen, kid, nobody gives a damn about your civilian name here," one of the poker players drawled lazily, the cigar still clenched between his teeth. "Know how many Teds like you have been hauled out of here in black bags? If we used real names, we'd lose track. Everybody here has a nickname. What did your buddies on the street call you, you little freak?"

"Nickname?" Ted squeezed his eyes shut for a second, his face tightening. You could practically see the gears grinding inside his teenage brain as he desperately searched for the most badass option possible. "I... Samurai! Yeah!"

"Samurai?" The poker player raised an eyebrow mockingly as he looked over Ted's skinny ribs. "And where's your sword, Samurai? Did you shove it up your ass when you came through the checkpoint?"

The table of professional slackers broke into another fit of wild laughter, and the wave of amusement instantly spread to the other bunks. Ted turned bright red, his fingers gripping the metal bars of the bed frame until his knuckles went white. Even a baby could have seen that he had simply blurted out the first "cool" word that came to mind. But Ted did not know how to back down. Stubbornness was one thing he had in abundance.

"Yeah, Samurai!" he shouted, desperately trying to yell over the crowd. "That's what everyone at school called me! And besides, everyone there was scared to death of me, got it?!"

I watched silently from my bottom bunk as he methodically dug his own grave. I could have cut off this stream of nonsense with a single word, but then Ted would never learn a simple lesson: nobody likes a liar. Besides, I planned to be his shield in a real crisis, not his permanent babysitter. His teenage ego needed its own therapeutic smack on the nose.

"So what exactly did you do to make the whole school scared shitless of you?" the cigar-smoking ringleader drawled with a predatory grin, leaning back in his chair as he shuffled the deck.

"Well, I... I ran the whole place!" Ted said, getting more worked up and completely carried away by the adrenaline. "Any bully who messed with me, I'd knock him out cold with a single left uppercut! I even knocked out the gym teacher once when he raised his voice at me!"

"Oh, really? So we've got ourselves a full-blown bare-knuckle champion here." The player's expression changed instantly. The amusement vanished, replaced by a hard, seasoned sneer. "Only thing is, we don't like bullshit artists around here. If you talk shit on this base, you're expected to back it up."

"What do you mean?" Ted blinked stupidly. The gears in his head had finally started turning in the right direction, but the trap had already snapped shut.

"I mean exactly what I said, Samurai. If you're such a badass ninja, then you know how to throw a punch. So tonight, during hand-to-hand training, you'll show us your kung fu. You'll go up against me and my boys. That's a piece of cake for a tough guy like you, right?" He gave a cynical grin as he watched the color drain from the teenager's face. "But if it turns out all that talk was just cheap bullshit... you're gonna pay for it."

"Pay for it how?" Ted nervously adjusted the collar of his jacket, feeling a cold sweat break out across his skin.

"Your entire monthly Corps paycheck," he said, his smile disappearing completely. "First, you give it to me. Next month, you give it to the guys at the table. Maybe that'll teach you to think twice before you open your mouth."

My assessment of this bunch had officially hit rock bottom. Common thugs in uniform. Right in front of everyone, they were shaking a sixteen-year-old kid down for half a year's pay. And these scumbags still had the nerve to talk about the brotherhood of assault troops.

The worst part was that the barracks did absolutely nothing. Some of the guys did not even look up from their smartphone screens, pretending it had nothing to do with them. Classic bystander mentality. The rest just grinned maliciously, already looking forward to the evening's entertainment.

Ted finally grasped the full scale of the disaster he'd brought down on himself. He hung his head over the edge of the top bunk and looked down at me, his eyes filled with a silent, primal plea for help.

And what exactly was I supposed to do, as the only adult in this barracks?

"So what did you do back home, old man?" The poker players, their adrenaline running high, lazily shifted their attention to me. "Why'd you show up all dressed up? What'd the boys in your neighborhood call you? What's your street name?"

"You're either blind, or you've finally smoked your brain into mush." I rose from my bunk, took three measured steps, and planted both palms heavily on the poker table.

The sharp crack sent the deck of cards scattering across the floor, and two of the players instinctively jerked backward. I loomed over them, fixing the ringleader with an icy stare.

"Are you incapable of recognizing the officer insignia on my uniform? From this moment until the end of your worthless service, you will address me only as Lieutenant Ross or sir. If your brain can't remember something that simple, I'll find a way to burn it into your muscle memory."

The local toughs stared at me sullenly. Their eyes held a dull, animal hatred, but they were clearly at a loss. My type was completely outside their usual frame of reference.

"We don't really... uh... salute around here," he finally said, desperately trying to save face in front of his friends. "We're all equal here. We've got our own rules. Nicknames."

"I couldn't care less about your street rules or the code of your degenerate little club," I said evenly, without a trace of emotion, moving my face closer to his. "You're in the regular armed forces of the United States, not sitting on a bench with a can of beer. You will follow the chain of command to the letter. Do you understand me, soldier?"

"Yes..."

"Yes what?" My voice cracked like a whip.

"Yes, sir," he hissed through clenched teeth, barely audible as he looked away.

Corporal Lee returned to the barracks at that moment with my PT gear. As I changed, I could feel dozens of hateful eyes boring into me, each one promising payback. In three minutes, I'd managed to turn every power player in the barracks against me. In my previous life, the mere thought would have sent me into a panic attack. Now I remained completely calm. My altered brain chemistry instantly broke down any hint of stress and converted it into cold, precise calculation.

I knew I had enough raw physical strength to tie this entire pack of scumbags into knots. Their superpowers could certainly cause some trouble, but I'd already checked them with [Analysis] before the confrontation began. Every one of their abilities was primitive and straightforward, like getting hit with the flat of a hammer: a burst of laser fire, a spit of acid, a single bolt of lightning. No sophisticated control or elemental manipulation like Danny had. Just basic one-shot offensive abilities. With my agility and reaction speed, avoiding their attacks would be effortless. No wonder the Corps had dumped all this low-grade deadweight here, at the very bottom.

The physical training that followed was a dreary carbon copy of boot camp. I cleared the obstacle course with a perfect score, and during an hour and a half of intense running, I never once lost my breath or even broke a sweat. For my new musculature, the workload was laughable. A complete waste of time.

The S-Armor piloting section was no less disappointing. I could only give a crooked smile when they rolled out an old training suit covered in deep dents. Squealing hydraulics, loose joints. Same as before. Once again, I was learning absolutely nothing new.

The mess hall left an equally bad impression. Lunch was awful. The soup tasted like dirty water, and the meat had been salted so heavily it seemed the cook was trying to hide the fact that it had been rotting for a week. The inevitable result: when yesterday's schoolkids are assigned to the kitchen instead of trained food-service professionals, the mess produces nothing but garbage.

Instead of primitive hand-to-hand combat, where I would have spent my time drilling basic throws, I chose military vehicle operation. At least that would give me some new data. I was not remotely surprised when Ted, pale as death after his morning boasts, tagged along with me to the training grounds to learn how to work the throttle on a heavy military motorcycle. The kid was looking to me for protection, and I let him stay close.

The hour of individual superpower training was thoroughly mediocre. They simply shoved us outside and left everyone to amuse themselves however they wanted. I did not overthink it. I spent the entire sixty minutes increasing my S-Power reserve.

When all was said and done, it had been a completely unproductive, gray day that added nothing but a hundred percent negative balance.

After lights-out, I instantly passed out on my new corner bunk.

[Warning! A life-threatening threat to the familiar has been detected. Tactical mode activated.]

The local wildlife had apparently decided to teach an overconfident lieutenant a lesson. Fine. It looked like my theory that knowing how to hit hard and hit properly was the key to surviving in this dump was about to get its first practical test within twenty-four hours.