ALICE

Chapter 24 - BASIC

Chapter 24: BASIC

 Alice was in an enclosed area behind the fort. This was the training compound, and where Alice would spend the better part of the next 2 months. The man in charge of training was called Nikolai. He had a heavy Russian accent, and was from the far East forest. You called him sir, or you slept outside. Even if Alice was a general, Nikolai made her feel like a slave. If she was a slave, Nikolai made her feel like a lizard. Her task, along with several other young men and women, was to complete a brutal looking obstacle course as quickly as lizardly possible. In his words, the briefing went rather like this.

 "Hello slogs, you vill be doink an obztacle courze vor me. Ze vone who vinishes virst, eatz." He didn't mention the ones who didn't finish.

 The course looked simple enough, (Alice loved to be so sarcastic in her thoughts that she sometimes fooled herself.) a rope ladder spelt the way up to a skinny walkway about 30 feet off the ground and some dodgy looking saftey nets underneath, (No railing.) a 9 foot drop (Easy.) a rope to climb, (To 20 or so feet up.) onto another platform (with a railing) and then a very, very high drop onto a what looked liked a tattered crash-mat at the bottom. (Fantastic.) This was actually similar to a route she had taken when the girls and their boyfriends back home had been after her blood, and were chasing after her with a very simple objective: to make her suffer. The route had been through a construction site. The bullying had been relentless. Abigail's boyfriend Dave had once lunged at her with a flick-knife, and she probably would have died if it weren't for a baggy jacket and a can of MACE that she had bought for a few dollars at an army surplus store. 

 "Go." Nikolai said. Alice was the first to react. The others were talking amongst themselves, about how harsh Nikolai was, who was getting off with who, the war. Alice had been loitering around the starting line, waiting to go. When 'Sir' said the word, the other kid's looked at him like he had just told a sick joke about an adorable cat, a semi truck, and a rusty hacksaw. Alice was already a quarter-way up the ladder. Nikolai gently told them; "Go" again.

 The brighter ones started to stride towards the ladder, but Alice already had them beat. She was climbing up like mad, but being careful to keep a pocket of energy for the most demanding part of the course. The rope. By the time the second person to take off was halfway up on the ladder, Alice was already clambering up the walkway. She got her feet undernath her, and started to carefully walk across the walkway, balancing by sticking her arms out on either side. She walked briskly, quick enough so that she kept up a good pace, but slow enough so that she didn't lose her balance and fall. As she put her foot on the wider board that led to the 9 foot drop, a pair of hands pulled a body up onto the platform. It was a boy who couldn't have been much older younger then Alice, maybe 14. He had a  black eye, and a few drops of blood were collecting on his knuckles. It seemed he had come out on top of the brawl to get up the ladder. Alice could hear the row, and knew it wouldn't be long until the others got up. She looked at the drop. These were always so much higher when you were on the edge. She swallowed her fear, and jumped.

 As Alice was in midair, she saw a tiny projectile fly through the air beside her foot. She curled it up to avoid it, and landed like that, one foot in the position you're in when your ankle buckles. Her foot felt like a nail was going through it, and she was seriously doubting her ability to move her toes, let alone get up and put weight on it. Alice had felt this enough to know that she had just sprained her ankle. As she tried to stand up, she clattered to the ground from the immense pain. Alice heard Nikolai yell: "New vrule, if you are hit by a paintball, you ztart ze courz again."

 Alice knew she couldn't do another run-through. So she painfully got back up, narrowly missing another paintball. She took an agonizing step, then another, and soon she was hobbling to the rope. Alice put a hand on, then a foot, another foot, and her other hand. She let her left foot, the bad one, dangle so that it did as little work as posssible. She started to haul herself up, painfully aware that one slip and she would probably snap her ankle in half. A quarter way up the rope, a tiny, grey, shiny ball exploded on the rope right in front of her face, splattering her in purple paint. Alice was tempted to turn her head and tell Nikolai right where he could stick his paintball gun, but she didn't want to spend anymore time on this rope then she had to.

 Alice's grip went into a white-knuckled frenzy as she felt the rope swaying. "Can't climb with a little movement girly?" It was the boy with the black eye. "Stop." Alice said firmly, it was true, she was only able to move slowly when the rope was dead-still. He was a wiry little bugger, and Alice considered hopping down and showing who was boss, but Nikolai beat her to the punch. Three quick clicks hit the boy with the black eye in the spine, knocking him onto the safety nets below where his body went into a spasm. Alice thought she saw tears on the boy's face, either from pain, or the concept of going through this again. She felt sorry for him both ways.

Another three hands up the rope, and the ledge was in grabbing distance, she poised her arm to jump up and grab hold, and would have too if not for a girl that hadn't thought and started to climb up after Alice. Alice's hand snapped back to the rope like it was magnified. She clutched the rope in the fetal position, curled up in a little ball, and while this helped to keep herself from falling, it maximized the chances of getting hit by a paintball. As the other girl grew closer, Alice formed a quick plan, and she hoped for the girls sake that she got shot first. But she didn't, and Alice either was going to not eat breakfast, do the course over and not eat breakfast, or eat. Alice chose the third one. By the time the girl was just one handhold below Alice, she was starting to get frustrated with her not moving. "Get the clock out of my way!" Alice chose this moment to spring. She let go with her hands, and let her feet slide down onto the girls tightly gripped hands like a knot in the rope, almost immediatley bouncing up and landing on the final platform. While this vicious tactic worked perfectley in Alice's favour, the girl had lost her grip on the rope, and it's hard to hold onto some knotted tree fibres with your feet. She fell backwards, landing on her upper back, neck, and head on the lower platform, making a sickening thud. Alice kept moving, and let the injured girl gnaw away at her conscience.

The drop hadn't been to scary looking at first, but up-close, Alice was terrified. It must have been thirty feet, and the skimpy crash mat with holes on it didn't encourage her. But she jumped. "Bloody hell." Alice murmured as she did so.

 It was scary, but the sense that, unless you had a time machine, there was no turning back, gave her a serene, calm feeling. She landed alright, off her ankle, and recieved little immediate pain. Nikolai was there, with a paintball pistol in both hands, and a machine gun type one slung over his shoulder. He shot Alice once with each, making her wince, then helped her up.

"Just for good measure. But zat vuz VERY impressive!" He roared. "I liked the way you dealt with that girl and got yourzelf up at the same time!" Alice felt queasy, she had meant for the girl to fall, and for Alice to finish first, but it was almost like someone else had taken control of her body. It was feral instinct or something.

"Really?" Alice asked meekly.

"No, not really." Nikolai said. He held down the trigger on both guns and with no shot seperation lever, he sent a full-auto barrage of paintballs at her. She hit the dirt with a thud, and after a few moments, was amazed to find herself paint-free. Alice sat up; "Holy Mother of God..." She said out loud. Nikolai's eyes were bulging, his brain unable to comprehend what he had just seen. He could only stutter: "Enjoy your breakfast! ALL OF YOU!" He boomed. "I'm feeling extremeley generous today.