Chapter 2
I woke up flopping onto the ground retching because of the horrible throbbing in my head. Someone was talking but it sounded like they were at the extremely far end of a long tunnel. Slowly I was able to stop and bring myself onto all fours as the pain subsided. "Lieutenant you are safe, and the pain will go away after a few minutes. Stand up when you can and I will have someone show you to your quarters.". I pant on the ground for several more minutes and was finally able to find my legs. One of the figures near the door made a motion to beckon me along. Walking down the corridors everything still seemed the same, but I started to notice some signage after a little bit. It took on the remarkably familiar appearance of a typical military in-processing station only mixed with a hospital.
We turned down a hallway headed away from that area at a projection on the floor that said officer quarters. "We are almost there Lieutenant" I broke the silence that I had been in since I got out of that machine "You people keep calling me Lieutenant, I'm a sergeant". He abruptly stopped and turned to me and I saw something lighting up in his eyes. "You were posthumously promoted to 2nd Lieutenant because you were about to be taken from your place of duty and put to officer candidate school". I blinked in surprise as memories flooded into my mind of my commander telling me that he had a surprise for me when I got back from patrol
"That must be what Captain Sing was hinting at before I left for patrol".
He gave me a warm smile "Well congratulations on your promotion Lieutenant."
As he turned around to continue down the hallway I muttered under my breath "Yeah all it took was getting killed". I reflexively tried to remember how I died and winced as my head throbbed and got dizzy. I stumbled but he didn't seem to notice. A short time later he stopped at a door with the number 576 shown on it.
"This is your room LT Reigns, inside you will find the equipment issued to you. You were alive around the early to mid 21st century by what your records show, so it shouldn't be too surprising to you the automation assistants that will be servicing your quarters and the station. You will have access to the network through your terminal so feel free to take a look through it and gain your bearings. You will start your retraining tomorrow morning and will get more information then. If you have no other questions I will say, we are glad to have you back and I hope you will be able to reach the end of your contract". He smiled again and stepped past me. That last sentence stuck with me. Why would he wish that?
As I step up to the door it smoothly slides open. Stepping through the doorway I take in the room, seeing that it is slightly larger than what the old army would have given me, but slightly smaller than what a civilian would expect. There is a bed about 4 feet by 7 with storage cabinets over top to the right of the door and across from the door is a desk with a terminal and next to it a locker. It seems cozy to me but that might be due to years of being in the military. I'm not terribly tired at this point but I feel like they want me to sleep. I walk over and pull back the chair noticing that it is still attached to the floor though not by a track from what I can see. I sit down and it gives the feeling of deflating like it's shaping to my body. As I look at the screen of the terminal it comes to life showing a utilitarian appearance. It takes a moment for me to get my bearings and realize that it is a touchscreen. As I start to reach for the screen the calendar opens up showing the itinerary for the week as if it is a very good mind reader. Guess I was wrong. It is broken down in a very intuitive way making it easy to read. Tomorrow I have to go to medical to get a checkup and, from what it's saying, installation. I don't like the sound of that. Before that it's showing in about nine hours, I have to go to an officers meeting for the Charlie company, 24th Mechanized Infantry battalion. So that's my unit. This makes the machine open up a different window showing a breakdown of the units going up to the Army level. They have a little over 200,000 troops. It shrinks down to show my company and battalion and the breakdown of it. I can see that I have 27 troops under me.
My examination of these facts is interrupted by a message coming across my screen from a CPT Rebecca Sloan reading "We will have an impromptu meeting at morning at chow to meet one another, I have sent a event to all of your accounts that will guide you to the area where we will be having it." ending with her signature block.
Not able to think of anything else that I might need from this terminal for the moment I get up and start to poke around the room. Opening the locker shows some armor on a rack. I try to take the helmet off of it and the walls slowly pulse red. I'm a little alarmed when a voice comes out of nowhere "You are not permitted to utilize this equipment until you have undergone installation Lieutenant Reigns" it says coolly.
Recovering from being startled I turn my head up speaking "Who are you?".
It doesn't reply for a moment but finally comes back "I am the artificial intelligence for this station. You may refer to me as Alice" it says with slightly more positive inflection. I think for a moment and say "Your designation is Alice?".
"It is to you" she replies with what might be a slightly snarky air.
"I pattern my interactions to the individual that I am talking to. As I get a better idea of what patterns are the most effective I will change slightly. If you need anything just refer to me by my given designation" silence overtakes the area again. I shrug and continue rifling through the locker. It has several cubbies and drawers that have what looks like additional pieces of the armor. Over top the armor is a kind of hutch that swings down to show what can't be mistaken for anything but a weapon. It has a bar across it which I'm sure will not be able to be moved. Bored, I shut the locker and fall over on my bed. The curiosity of everything that I have seen in the past couple of hours is overwhelming to say the least. Before I can think much more about what is going on I fall asleep
"Lieutenant Reigns, It is time for morning wake up. You have a meeting in an hour and fifteen minutes with the company commander and the other platoon leaders. I anticipated that this is the time that you would require to get ready for the day" she said with a pleasant inflection.
I slowly sit up, yawning and rubbing my eyes. It doesn't matter how long you spend in the Army, nothing can magically make you a morning person. As I look around I notice a panel on the back part of the desk flip down and fold open showing a cup and what looks like coffee starts to fill it from the top portion of the new object. Without questioning it I walk over and take the cup placing it under my nose and sniffing its wondrously earthy aroma. Setting it down to let it cool for a moment, I look in the locker for some fresh clothes and open a drawer that I thought I saw some in last night.
"Alice, where can I put my dirty clothes and where are the showers?" she responds with only enough of a delay to make her seem human.
"You can place your dirty clothes in the same drawer that you just got the clean ones out of, and the shower will fold down from the far wall from your bed" she said as a screen lit up on the wall.
I walk over to it and look through the menu. It seems to have options for everything that I might want from personal hygiene to recreational things like a sort of TV screen. It even has a part for me to practice marksmanship virtually. I toggle the part that says shower and parts flip down like they did with the coffee and a trench falls away in the floor.
As I strip down and step into the newly added shower a curtain falls from the ceiling and the cascade of water starts directly from the wall startling me. I ask Alice to give me a 25 minute
warning thinking that it probably won't take much more than ten minutes to get to the chow hall. I enjoy my shower and get dressed then look at information on the terminal about the battalion in preparation of the meeting until Alice alerts me. I close out the terminal, shut it and leave for my meeting, only a little bit of anxiety in my chest.
YOU ARE READING
Reclamation
Science Fiction"You can rest when you are dead" is a famous line from movies and drill sergeants. But what happens when that isn't really the truth. Andre Reigns and hundreds of thousands of military members from wars all through the 21st century are about to find...
