Machine Learning (Captain Allen and DPD SWAT POV)

SNAFU

"My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life."

People were talking. Well, talking would be giving them too much credit. More like participating in mindless chatter under a news broadcast that I couldn't understand because I didn't speak German. One word stood out, though:

"CyberLife."

I'd only heard it once prior and was already sick of it. The developing situation in Detroit was on every 5 minutes, every 5 channels-

Something popped. A balloon. Gum. A gun- I don't know. I jumped. Kept focus on the duffle bag tucked between my war-torn boots. I started blinking fast, breathing heavy, sweating like I'd just ran a mile.

These stints came at random times like this, usually triggered by anxiety, and there was only one other thing that made me more anxious than waiting for a plane to dock and take me to my family who I haven't seen in 15 months:

Waiting for the plane to dock to take me to a place that may take me from them forever.

It almost wasn't worth it, going to see them for such a limited amount of time. It just renewed the pain. Halted the numbness of missing them, of missing my little girl growing up, all of it. Like a wound that'd been seared shut, cut open, waiting to be burned closed again.

My knuckles were digging into the palm of the hand that covered them. I rocked back and forth on my heels, sitting down, trying to drown out all the commotion. Without thinking, I picked up my phone, a ROAMING warning on the screen before I dialed her number. Sadie answered, a tinge of worry in her voice.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. But I tried. I tried so fucking hard. But she knew, of course she did. She always knew.

"Breathe, David. In, and out...slowly. There you go."

I timed it with the rhythmic instructions in her voice, blood beginning to drain life back into my face.

"You're going to be home again soon."

The thought made me so happy I could have cried.

"And then you'll get to stay with me, and Tali. We can take the boat out again, like we did the first day you came back."

I kept breathing. I'd forgotten to. It was easy to forget to breathe, sometimes.

"I love you." I choked, mouth dry.

"I love you too. Now go get on your plane."

I looked up to see an English LED screen flashing, switching to English, "HANDICAPPED, SERVICEMEMBERS, AND PREFERRED FLYERS: NOW BOARDING" with the words blaring over the intercom.

"Only a few more months." I smiled, saying goodbye before I hung up.

I shouldn't have been that nervous. There was never an excuse, but it happened every single time I flew back.

Afghanistan was grating, and it took a splinter of who I was every time my boots hit the ground. Eventually, there would be nothing left of me to fly home to. I was waiting for the day Sadie wouldn't recognize who I was, and Tali would ask me where her father went. I had to keep telling myself I wasn't my father, and that wouldn't happen to me.

He just handled war differently, and he taught me how to not handle it.

But as the woman sat there, scanning my ticket, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Kamski walk across the television screen behind her, waving at the cameras one last time...and I thought to myself: