Worlds War One

iii [Quest]

Quest Ramírez sat with the rest of the greenies in a meeting room usually used to host people a lot more important than a simple Army grunt. Quest had been stationed out west and had never even been east of the Mississippi River. They'd flown him far away from home base. This mission had been an order and not a request. The trip had happened so fast he hadn't even had time to say goodbye to his fathers.

He wasn't the only one. All the greenies had similar scenarios. The four soldiers had spent the last two hours alone together in this room with nothing else to do but swap stories. Their biographies made Quest consider his fathers' junk drawer in the kitchen full of utensils and miscellaneous tools that didn't fit anywhere else—those oddball accessories that come in useful under only certain conditions. The thing these greenies had in common was none of them fit in their own drawer. What "certain conditions" necessitated their use?

A timid civilian came in every half hour and offered refreshments. When he came in the last time, Airman Treyvon Fox pressed the civvie in the suit about their situation—"C'mon, bro, it's been two hours. What are we waiting for?"

"Who, not what," the civvie answered. His hands were shaking and a warble weakened his voice.

The blonde soldier was Private Callie Golden. She featured no hint of make-up. Callie wore her hair chopped into a pixie cut meant to make her look boyish but only accented her lupine neck and flawless features. Her blue eyes were so bright Quest wondered if she maybe wore tinted lenses. She was the unlikeliest enlisted person he had ever seen. She could've been a model or a movie star, and instead she'd put on a uniform.

"I don't like waiting," Callie said. "I like doing."

"We could've been allotted more time to say goodbye," Seaman Ji-Sung Choi said. "They picked me up right off my battleship stationed along the coast of Massachusetts. I didn't even have time to call my parents. They should at least let us use a phone."

"I think this is top secret stuff." Trey searched around, looking for a clue in the bland conference room. "My sergeant gave me an hour to say goodbye to my girl. He didn't even tell me where I'm going. Not even sure where I am now that I'm here."

"I bet it isn't even on a map," Callie said. "Probably some black site compound in the middle of nowhere." She fidgeted in her seat like she'd had too much caffeine. But none of them had asked for coffee despite the civvie offering refreshments every thirty minutes.

"What do you think they want with the four of us?" Trey asked. "We come from different branches of the armed forces. Different parts of the country. What could we have in common?"

Quest wasn't the only one who wondered about the makeup of this crew.

"Maybe we're all expendable," Ji guessed.

"Really, Choi?" Trey retorted. "Pessimistic much?"

"I prefer to consider myself mordantly observant. And call me Ji. I'm a simple guy."

"Then call me Fox," said Fox.

"A lot of the guys in my unit called me Sugar," Callie said. "But only once. After that, they called me Callie, or something worse. No one thought I was sweet after they made the mistake the first time."

The three men nodded. Understood.

"We gotta call you Quest," Fox said. "That name is too cool to ignore."

Quest shrugged. Fine with him. It was the name he'd picked for himself. His parents were progressive people. His fathers considered themselves agents of acceptance. When Quest was younger, he'd thought maybe they were superheroes because everyone referred to them as social justice warriors. He'd never seen them in capes, although they were fond of knitted shawls when the wind was particularly nippy. When they'd adopted him as a baby, they'd called him simply "Sweetie" until he became old enough to pick his name. Feeling like a superhero himself at five, he'd announced he wanted to be Quest. Otherwise, he couldn't imagine these soldiers being so eager to call a fellow warrior "Sweetie".