Titan

Jim

The dark green hull of the plane made Jim McNulty feel sick. It was the color of pea soup vomit and battle fatigues. Everything else on the plane was green too: the uniforms, seats, boxes, and netting. But it probably wasn't really the color making Jim sick.

No, Jim was sick because he was just letting it happen.

Behind Jim, two grim-faced men sat with rifles in their hands. Their uniforms were unmarked without names, ranks, or medals. They might as well not have existed. As far as the military was concerned, they didn't. Faceless men. Phantoms.

Jim had never ridden in a military transport and, if he ever had a say in it, he never would again. The passengers sat in what amounted to a wide, long, open cylinder. For some reason, it reminded Jim of a cigar holder with seats and cargo. Considering the circumstances, that thought seemed silly.

Silly.

Being silly.

It was a luxury he didn't have anymore. Jim wasn't sure he would ever be silly again. Not now. Not since...

God, I hate my parents.

If they hadn't shipped him off, this wouldn't have happened. He would be at home hunched over his computer watching something stupid on "YouTube." But no. He was on a C130 flying from Wyoming to Washington, D.C., under cover of night. Was it night? He wasn't sure, but it made sense. These people did everything at night.

A few fucking C's and off to Wyoming. Off to this. To these men. To the Shadow Man. Maybe Jim would have worked harder in school if he'd known this would happen. Though, he doubted this was the deterrent his parents had in mind. They probably thought he'd get structure and discipline. Jim got plenty of both.

He also got injections.

Every Tuesday, five o'clock... what were they for?

"Just a flu shot, son. There's a nasty one goin' round," the old man in the scrubs had said.

But that was a big needle. Jim had never gotten a flu shot from anything that big. It was like a dissecting probe. When Jim persisted, the old man just smiled, "We're the Army. We do everything big, son."

At that, Jim had laughed. The old man had an easy way about him. He'd never given Jim his name or anything but shots, but he was kind. None of the other cadets got their shots from him, though. Just Jim. Not that he had noticed anyway.

Jim was so blinded by loneliness and anger that he never questioned the needles too much. It didn't occur to him. Not right away. Besides, he saw cadets in and out of the medical office all the time. Why would he get special treatment? Somehow, the stress of being three-thousand miles away from home and away from his friends, his girlfriend, his bed, and his car left his mind feeling like Swiss cheese.

Or was it the shots? What were they giving me?

Jim didn't think anything was wrong until one night weeks after he had started getting the shots. It was just before Christmas. He had felt feverish and his joints ached all day. Between classes, while walking in the hall, his legs crippled him with pangs of agony and drove him to the floor. The pain was beyond anything he'd ever experienced, but it was gone as quickly as it came. Later, with a clearer mind, he thought it felt like extreme growing pains.

Like my bones were ripping apart...

A man had helped Jim to his feet almost instantly. Jim had never seen him before.

Where did he come from? Was he following me?

Jim never did see his face. At that point he was still seeing red, his skeleton throbbing with heat and agony. Simply moving felt like grinding glass shards in his limbs. The edges of his vision were rainbow colored explosions. Whoever the man was, he took Jim to the old man again.