The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 02: First Day on the Job

Jack walked through the brilliantly lit, chromed corridors of Mars City, his head feeling like it was twisting and shifting.

Jenkins had, mercifully, been quick with his shower, and Jack had had enough time for a very quick washing down. He would have liked to have enjoyed a half-hour long shower after being stuck on that fucking transport for two days, but he was taking what he could get now. While he'd been waiting, he'd looked through his PDA. It didn't have much. There was a generic introduction video, Welcome To Mars City, that he'd stopped watching only a minute in. There was also a slightly less generic video from the guy who was apparently in charge of the military outfit on Mars, Master Sergeant Kelly.

He intended to watch them through, simply because he was an information junkie. More information tended to mean it was easier to stay alive. Not that he was actually planning on fighting for his life up here. Well, not in the traditional sense. He might have to fight to save his sanity. Now, he was walking through the base, heading for his local Space Marine Security Center. As the corridor came to an end and opened into an open area that granted access to other portions of the base, he glanced back over his shoulder.

Jenkins and almost all of the Marines he'd come in with, he realized suddenly, were following him. What the fuck, why? He also noticed they all kind of hesitated when he stopped. Suppressing a sigh, Jack figured it would make sense that, well, someone has to be at the front of a crowd, but there was definitely a kind of deliberateness to it. He found the Security Center they were supposed to report to and cut across the open area, just wanting to get this next part over with. The sooner he was on duty, the better.

As miserable as it was, as painful and humiliating and frustrating as it was to be a fucking Private in the goddamned Space Marines, he was familiar with duty. Even if it was just patrolling or standing guard. The door whooshed open, sliding into the wall instead of the ceiling this time, and he led his crowd of Space Marines into the room beyond. It was a fairly big room. The back of it was flat but the side walls and front created a kind of half-hexagon that was covered in banks of monitors and workstations manned by more Marines.

Sergeant Blackmore was up front, looking over a large screen, facing away from them. Jack could see doors that led to other portions of the Security Center to his left and right. As all of them filtered into the room, (they remembered to form a line this time), Blackmore finished up whatever it was he was doing, spun around on his heel to face them and began crossing the room. He stopped halfway and sized them up.

"Two of you are missing!" he snapped.

There was a long silence.

He shook his head. "Jesus fucking Christ." He reached up and ran his hand down his haggard face. "Okay, your PDAs have been updated with maps, clearances, and orders. You're going to be paired off and get to work. Get used to today, because it's going to be representative of the rest of your time here on Mars. Now, your security armor is through there, your weapons are through there," he said, pointing first to his left, then to his right. "You show up here every day, grab your armor, then grab your sidearm, then get to work. It's real fucking simple people, so don't screw it up. Now get to it!" he snapped.

Jack began to turn and head for the armor suit-up room, but stopped as he felt Blackmore's gaze burning into him. He looked back at the man for a few seconds, then turned and started walking. What was that about? Well, he probably knew all about Jack's reason for getting shoved up here. Probably resented having someone like Jack up here in his collection of burnouts and green-as-grass recruits that made for easy pushovers to someone of a higher rank. Space Marine BS aside, Blackmore knew that he and Jack were basically the same rank.

But Jack wasn't planning on making any waves. He didn't want to fuck this up. The United Marine Corps was all he knew. He was still confused about a lot, and he was disgusted by what had happened, but if he dug down to his core, he knew he wasn't strong enough to walk away from this life on moral grounds.