"Blah blah"
"Etc..."
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.| means said at the same time.
Warning: Unhappy ending. Do not read last chunk if you are prone to crying a lot.
I never wanted to be a soldier. I only joined because my older cousin and slightly younger brother had forced me. I was always the mathlete of the family. I honestly don't know how I acquired this personality trait, for my own parents had not cared for their own education nor have they pushed the three of us toward success.
My brother, Cameron, and my cousin, Verna, have always been sporty. Ever since Verna's father was convicted of felony, and she started living with us, they would both pressure me into physical activity. To this day, I cannot run without my body reverting to it's habits of exhaustion caused by the trauma of being held against my own will to play sports instead of curling up by a computer and writing a story book. I probably could have finished college, and still have money left over, if only they had left me alone.
The three of us continued our life together by joining the NUSC. Of course, I had no choice in this decision. Training was relentless, and I was unable to quit. There'd always be some reason to stay, like protecting my family. Men and women had been separated as training persisted, and it had become a rarity to see Verna once again. Whenever I had gotten the chance to see her, she had been noticeably different (mostly physically instead of mentally). All the fat that she complained so much about in high school had transformed into muscle. She had become the perfect picture of health. Cameron, as well, had lost contact with his six pack of pudding cups. Unfortunately, it had become easier to tell the two of us apart, for I still kept a hold onto my scrawny figure and was nearly unable to grow muscle. Just like Captain America before he got into that machine thingy majigger.
I constantly went off to the side lines and would methodically sneak junk food and hack into military computers to keep up with the weird, geek stuff like the next chapter of a comic or "leaked" information on the latest video games. I never got caught computer-wise, but I did get in trouble for a different mistake.
"What the hell is this?!" The Drill Sergeant held a Hostess snack that I had hid underneath my mattress.
"I-it's a Hostess Honey Bun, Sir." I responded, shaking, afraid of what punishment may become.
"Alright then," The man spoke with a not so calming, rigid voice, "Thanks to Honey Bunny over here, y'all just won five laps around the base! Starting now!" Everyone started to run outside as I followed. This sucks! One lap around the base alone was five miles. Twenty-five miles non-stop is just hell, "Hold up a minute there, stick figure!" he rest his hand on my shoulder, "You're sitting out for this one. I'll show you where you can sit until everyone else is finished." That night, I had been the victim of my first blanket party.
Shortly after training was over and done, Project Freelancer had offered me, Verna, and Cameron a placement. Of course we had to show our abilities to whomever was judging us. I wasn't fazed, because I knew that, even if I failed, Cammy boy would still beg for a reconsideration. I just wish he didn't. So, here I am now, exploring the Mother of Invention with my mentor, Agent Vermont. I had been dubbed Agent Arizona. Verna got the name change of West Virginia and Cam had received his new title; New Mexico. We were merely three of the few who took place in the new Project Freelancer.
Project Freelancer is being slowly, and methodically, rebuilt. Shortly after the presumed death of the Director, the project had been disband. Fortunately for us, the Counselor took charge and the Mother of Invention took flight once more.
Around the time I turned twenty-one, I had actually met someone who had not devoted his life to physical activity. The name he had been born with was Malik Zen, but everyone formally called him by his assigned name; Alaska. He wore white armor, but didn't wear his helmet unless on a mission. He had crew cut, brown hair and heterochromia of green and blue. He was one year older than me, but has less military experience. He was stronger than even I could surpass, which was just unfair. I work my buttocks off day and night with my cousin and brother, yet I've only seen him in the mess hall reading comics or roaming the halls. What could be worse? Even Vermont likes him better than me! My own, freaking mentor!... Well, our mentor. Because Vermont is no longer teaching the three of us, he was told to teach Alaska... but he's still my mentor. The kid doesn't even seem like he's been through basic training, so how did he get in?
"You alright there, Bro?" Cam interrupted my trance of envy.
"What do you want, Cameron?" I looked up from my lunch tray to make eye contact with the boy, who looked back at me with a face of concern.
"I haven't seen you this mad since that girl dumped you the day before prom for someone more popular." A grin came across his face, as if remembering something, "So, tell your brother what's wrong?"
"I'm fine." I sighed as I shoveled a spoonful of mystery food into my mouth.
"It doesn't look like it." He looked up towards the ceiling, probably thinking of a new topic of conversation... he still had that perverted grin, that I was all too familiar with, across his face, "You know, we've been on this 'Mother of Invention' for about three years."
"What are you getting at?"
"I'm just saying... So far the only woman on this forsaken place is our cousin, and there's no way I'll satisfy my needs with her."
"H-how could you even think of that?" I was caught off guard. Yes, I know he's perverted, but he never really talked about these things... Is he trying to make me feel uncomfortable?
"Can't blame me. It's not like you'd understand, what with you being a virgin and all."
"You are too!" I defended myself, watching his smile grow, "I'm not even going to ask."
"You shouldn't have skipped prom." So that's what he was smiling about, "Girls were all over me that night. If you just acted sporty, then you would've had a shot. We are identical, after all."
"I'd prefer to revert the the three or four years you stayed silent about this."
"Lighten up." He whined like a child.
"I think this has been our awkward conversation of the month."
"I don't find it awkward."
"That's because you have no shame."
His head moved around for a good five minutes, "Testing for placements has become more strict. The more who test, the less who get in."
"That's because most of the placements have already been filled. They want the best of the best on Freelancer." I laughed an airy laugh.
"Which places are left?"
"If I remember right," I looked towards the ceiling, closed my eyes, and slowly inhaled, "Tennessee, Virginia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Kentucky."
"Didn't Verna take Virginia?"
"No. She took West Virginia. Why else do you think they call her W.V.?"
"I thought that meant Whiny Virgin."
"No, Cam. It doesn't mean that." I pressed my index finger and thumb against the bridge of my nose, "And why would you thing that if you were the one to find her pregnancy test shortly after she graduated."
"That's why I was always confused whenever someone called her W.V." I felt something crush the sides of my head.
"You little asshole." An angry growl reverberated from behind me, intonating every syllable.
"Hey Verna!" Cam cheered.
"Hey." She sighed, spinning me around the bench seat, "I thought I told you not to take advantage of your brother, he's very impressionable."
"We've never had that discussion, Vern. You know I'm Lazarus and not Cameron, right?" I ran my fingers through my dirty blonde hair.
"Whichever." She huffed, "You know I can't tell the two of you apart."
"You're kidding, right?" Cam and I said at the same time.
"Don't tease me."
"He has more muscle than me."
"He's more nerdier than me"
"Check your grammar."
"You're damn right!"
"See!" She sat down next to me, "Now, who was the asshole who said W.V. meant Whiny Virgin?" She had been staring at me intensively.
"First off," I spoke up, "intelligent people have no need for cursing, and I know you're smarter than that." She glared daggers into me, "S-second,"
"If you're going to act like that, I can always organize a blanket party. Quit procrastinating."
"It was Cam!" I pointed at my brother. I felt a painful thump at the back of my head, arched my back, and held my hands at where the damage had been dealt, "What was that for?!"
"Ratting out your brother." She stood up.
"You asked!"
"You only told me because you were threatened." She started to walk off, "If you were held captive and gave out information, all of Project Freelancer would be fucked." She stopped and turned to face us once again, "And Cam, I'll talk to you later... We can see how much garbage in that head of yours we can remove to hopefully make it so you don't speak everything on your mind."
"Laazaaruuus!" I could hear Cameron behind me immediately before tackling me down toward the ground.
"What do you want, Cam!" I tried to push him off, but the brute wouldn't allow it.
"Guess what! Guess what!" He was really chipper this morning. Did a squirrel die?
"What?" I tried to calm him down by running my fingers through his hair. That seemed to work while I was observing him with one of his girlfriends.
"Please don't touch my hair." He said calmly, backing away from me, "Only girls get to touch my hair."
"And the barber." I laughed, making my way toward a standing position, "So, what's the news?"
"Oh, right! We have a new mission!" He cheered once again, but remained on the floor.
"Alright, but why are you so eager about it?"
"If we succeed, we'll get our tags!" Determination spread across his face, "Which means we can't fail."
"Actually, your logic is flawed."
"Alaska got his tags within the year he's been here, so how hard could it be?"
"Well, our first successful mission was about the fifth one we received, then the second was the last mission. We've been at this for about four years. Alaska just got lucky with the teams he had been assigned to."
"You're crushing my dreams." He pouted.
"Fine, have it your way. What type of mission is it?" I barely listened to him after he simply said 'I don't know.' I let him talk himself senseless. Perhaps we could run an experiment. Maybe he could exhaust himself.
"Are you sure she's eligible?" Verna watched the small girl who stood behind Alaska.
"Yeah. She's a bit... erm... short." I tried to find the right adjective for her.
"Forget short, man. She's fucking young." Cam laughed.
"Please watch your language." Alaska spoke up. Funny, I was going to say that, "She's still ten."
"I don't know if you're head is screwed on properly, Alaska." Verna sighed, removing her helmet.
"Didn't Vermont say something about how children are the future?" Alaska joked.
"I'm sure he meant that in a different way." I laughed, taking my helmet off at the same time as my twin brother.
"Are you part of the Aryan race?" The child ducked her head down and hid behind Alaska.
Cameron knelt down in front of her, "Now how are you even able to learn about a tragedy like that when you're in a place that teaches you about nothing but God and pacifism?" How did he learn about a tragedy like that while we were in a real school that taught us real things.
"I knew a guy who also used to smuggle in the PlayBoy magazine for the older boys. He helped me get some magazines and textbooks while he was out. It didn't help that I stayed in the same room for most of the day at that God forsaken place." Dang. Kid's got a bit of a tongue.
"I wouldn't call it 'God forsaken.'" Alaska scowled, "I think a place like that would be considered the exact opposite... And which magazines did you read if that boy was passing out PlayBoy?"
She pulled a wrinkled pile of paper out of her backpack, "This right here."
"I didn't know we had a magazine." Verna seemed surprised. I thought she knew everything going on with this Project.
"Yeah, Cousin. I though all our stuff was top secret." I sighed, losing faith in my peers.
"It's mostly comics portraying how awesome we are." Alaska chuckled, "Not anything that we hadn't previously released into the public. If there were a leak, then we would've had some issues to deal with."
"Quit groveling, Mexico." Verna pulled my brother by his short hair, forcing him to stand up, "There's no reason to make her anymore scared. You could at least introduce yourself."
"Can you go first, Cuz?" He was shaken.
"It really doesn't matter." She knelt down, "You may refer to me as Agent West Virginia or W.V. Which ever floats your boat. These two dumb a- I mean numbskulls behind me are Arizona and New Mexico. Please don't let them be your influences." She smiled a dull smile then stood up.
"Alright. Thanks for introducing us... I guess." I moved my hand to the back on my neck, trying to sooth a strain.
"Hey Bro? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Cam started laughing.
"And what may that be?" I turned to face him.
"I wanna see what spunk this girly has. Do you think they'll let her use the training room for evaluation."
"Probably. My fear is that she probably doesn't have and skills in hand to hand or weaponry." My eyes drifted back towards the girl. There's no way they'll let a child join Project Freelancer. There are only four openings left (Tennessee, Virginia, Minnesota, and New Hampshire). They wouldn't risk any of those spots on a kid.
"Hand to hand, probably. Weaponry, hell no. She was raised in an orphanage not a military base like us"
"Of course, though, you're not planning on putting her in a room with actual people, right."
"Fuck no."
"You better not be planning on turrets either." Alaska intervened.
"Do you think we'll leave a little girl alone in a room with X amount of turrets?" We practically said in sync.
"It's hard to tell with your crack-pot schemes, anyway." Verna laughed, making her way out of our conversation and to probably a different room.
"Alaska?" I spoke up, allowing my voice going quieter, "Are you sure the ildchay should even try to get acementplay in ojectpray eelancerfray?"
"I don't know the concept of Pig Latin, if that's what you're aiming for." The younger man laughed at my incompetence.
"Then how did you know it was Pig Latin?"
"Because it's the only other language you know." Cam laughed.
"Shut up. You were born dumb." I joked.
"Why thank you." He made a dumb face.
We went off to the training room that they wanted the child to test in. We waited in the observation deck and watched as Alaska left her alone in the room. Why he'd do that, I have not a clue. The poor girl was shaking, not knowing what to do. I only noticed the baker's dozen of testing dummies by the time Alaska had gotten back.
"Those things are poorly made." I muttered, watching the child pacing back and forth, while watching the testing dummies.
"She's a kid." Verna laughed, "They're not going to have her test on the metal like they had us do."
"Yeah. I remember I broke my hand on one of those." I laughed, remembering our testing day, "And yet, Cam still made them take me."
"You two are inseparable, and Cameron didn't want it to change."
"Is that really why? He never told me."
"Round begin." F.I.L.I.S.S spoke up, announcing the start of testing. Everyone on the deck grew silent. She seemed to have snapped into it. She realized that it was the goal to knock those things down, since she lunged forward and punched where the stomach would be, if it were real, causing the dummy to collapse.
"Like I said, poorly made." I laughed, "The base is as thin as a pencil and at elevated just enough that it could collapse under it's own weight."
"She had pretty decent form, though." Cam laughed, turning to face Alaska, who had been standing behind us, "How did you find her?"
"They were eating lunch at the orphanage when I visited." He started his story, "A boy took some of her food, and she attacked him. When one of the Nuns went to punish her, she said she did it to increase her rate of survival." His face softened, "Poor girl, though only tried to survive in order to see her mother, who abandoned her at that orphanage."
"So, she's smart?" Cam turned to face me, as if asking whether or not he used the word correctly.
"She's dumb if she can't accept fate." I sighed, not noticing I had been leaning against the glass. I just watched the girl. She did have good form, considering her age. Some work could be done, but who was I to judge.
"Round over in fifty five seconds." F.I.L.I.S.S.'s voice went off. Perhaps the A.I. was mistaken, for even if the training dummies were poorly manufactured, there's no way a child could finish in that much time, "Name saved." Oh no, "Welcome, Agent Tennessee."
"Good luck, kid." I muttered... she'll probably die within the first mission.
"Mr. Arizona? Mr. New Mexico?" Our newest agent ran up to us as we were eating.
"Yeah, Tennessee?" Cameron held a calming smile.
"Where's Alaska?" I asked, for she doesn't usually leave the man.
"Um..." She ducked her head down, not knowing which question to answer first, "H-how do you get the... um..." She pointed at her neck.
"What?" Cam laughed a bit.
"Do you mean the dog tags?" I asked the girl.
"Yes! Those! How do you get those?" She smiled, still keeping her head low.
"Third successful mission," Cam turned to face me, "Right?"
"Yeah. We got ours but a month or two ago."
"How good do I have to be in order to get a mission?" Her eyes twinkled. No, really. They were sparkling right in front of us, defying logic.
"I think they may want to wait until you're a teenager, since you are still fairly too young." I sighed, knowing it's hard to crush a child's dreams.
"You're probably right." She sighed and made her way to a training room.
"Way to go, smart guy." Cam laughed.
"I don't feel smart, right now."
"You alright, Laz?" Cam interrupted the silence between us in the wash room. I always found it awkward, since the wash room was the only place where men could take a shower on this ship... and it was just the worst whenever anyone else was there, brother or not.
"Eh... yeah, I guess." I sat down on the floor, letting my muscles relax in the luke warm water.
"You seem more... lovestruck." He had a wry grin, "Don't go falling for me now." He's some what right. I have been thinking about the new girl. Virginia. Her assigned name echoed through my head. No, it's not Verna. She was assigned to WEST Virginia.
"Well-"
"Y-you aren't actually falling for me, are you?"
"Heavens no!"
"That's a relief." He sighed, "That was just meant to be comedic relief... So if it's not me, then who?"
"The new girl."
"You don't mean Tennessee, right? Don't be a pedifile."
"No. I mean Agent Virginia."
"She's been in Freelancer as long as us... and we grew up with her, so that's fucking weird."
"Verna has the title West Virginia. The new girl with black hair's name is Virginia."
"What's the difference? It's the same state."
"Have you ever seen a map?"
"Not really. You know I never paid attention to the school stuff." He reached for a towel and turned off the water.
"Obviously."
"You coming back to our room? You need your sleep."
"I'll catch back up with you later." I sighed, watching the water head towards the drain.
Agent Virginia left Project Freelancer and Tennessee left with Minnesota on a mission at Blood Gulch. The previous few years were just too bland. There was such a lack of missions we were assigned to. We did have a mission a few days ago, but success results from tragedy... Verna was killed in action, and Cam and I have practically become helpless. We wouldn't have been where we are now without her.
"Lazarus?" Cam whimpered as he continued to eat his sandwich.
"Yeah, bud?" I smiled. I was the stronger one of us two.
"I wanna go back to our room."
"Alright. You can go ahead. I can get some junk food and we can watch a movie, alright?"
"Okay. I'll see you then." He stood up and slowly made his way out of the mess hall.
I ran over to the cupboard and grasped as many Oreos as I could, because there's nothing like an Oreo to bring a smile to someone's face, right? Making sure that I didn't drop a single package, I too made my way to my bedroom. Carefully, I reached for the door handle with my left hand. Bang! My heart dropped.
"Oh God, please don't be what I think it is." I muttered as I slowly opened the door. My legs gave away as I found the bloody mass in front of me. Suicide. He had given up, leaving his light blue armor with orange highlights in a neat pile. If only I made it a few seconds sooner, then I could've stopped him. I'm alone in this horrible world. All I wanted was to share it with my family... but I stayed strong, and that is why I'm alive today.