Chapter 8

ENCOUNTER


02/02/66

Baker, Hafen and I waited in the center of the courtyard, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new recruit. Several squads of troops were departing from the base to attend their patrols, the majority of whom did so with little enthusiasm. It was unsurprising. It was a fairly humid Wednesday, so I could imagine that being unlucky enough to work on such a dull day couldn't have been all that fun. Commanding officers and their men stuffed themselves into their jeeps and departed swiftly, leaving huge clouds of dust and dirt in their wake. We were due for a patrol around town later that afternoon, but the arrival of our new squad member forced Chalmers to modify our timetable for us, which was something I was in no rush to complain about.

"I wonder what this guy will be like?" I was intrigued by Hafen's decision to strike up a conversation, which was something that he tended to avoid.

"Beats me," Baker replied. "But, I did a little bit of digging with Peter here, and this guy doesn't seem to be a very obedient fellow."

By god did I agree. Anthony Walker's personal record was filled to the brim with sewer patrol duties, and he had been convicted multiple times for theft, vandalism of property and verbal harassment. The men working in Hope usually got away with murder compared to anyone else serving in the army, but this was going too far. A man fighting in Vietnam with these many infractions would have been declared an enemy of the state several times over. However, as you probably know by now, General Stillwell was against the idea of disbanding men stationed in Hope for such petty crimes, considering that he needed every man he could get. "He's probably spent half of the last year working in the sewers," I suggested.

Hafen shrugged. "I've never seen anyone called Anthony Walker while I was down there." Of course he didn't. According to Chalmers, Hafen constantly whined about the smell of the sewers while he served there, even to the point that he was reassigned to the southern part of the town's sanitation system just to get him to shut the fuck up. "I don't know if we should have a guy like him in our squad."

"Sure," I agreed. "We already have to put up with you. We don't another pain in the ass."

As always, Hafen brushed it off by rolling his eyes and muttering some random profanity, but he had hardly any time to finish muttering the last few curses as Chalmers' Willy MB sped past the courtyard gate. The vehicle skidded to a halt, spraying a small dust storm in our direction, the majority of which had hit Hafen right in the eyes.

"Son of a bitch," he yelped, shielding his face from the oncoming load of dirt.

"Might teach you to watch your language," Baker sneered, before beckoning me and walking towards Chalmers' transport.

I could feel my eyes strain as I laid my eyes upon the jeep. It was the exact same jeep I used to transport Anne Fisher to the field hospital back in August, minus the blotches of blood that covered the passenger seat. "I remember this piece of shit all too well," I grumbled.

Chalmers removed his key from the slot, and the jeep's engines died down with a resounding crack, a sound that reminded me all too much of the racket coming from the machine when I first commandeered it. He approached us, slamming his needlessly large black boots on the dirt road. "Alpha two," he saluted, flexing his tiny forearms as he brought his hand to his head.

"Sir." We returned the salute, with a slight giggle coming from Baker as he attempted to greet the Sergeant Major.

"This is the day you've all been waiting for," he added. "I've taken the liberty of doing all the paperwork for you. No need to thank me," he grinned, raising his stubby fingers, implying that we were willing to do it in the first place.

"Thank you sir," Baker replied with all the modesty he could muster.

"Very well then." He pointed at the gangly looking figure fastened away in the back of the vehicle. "Private Walker, why don't you come over here and introduce yerself?"

"Oh shit, this should be interesting," Baker whispered to me, cocking his eyebrows as Walker made his way out of the vehicle and approached us.

I could feel a sharp smile trying to force its way onto my face as his physique became clearer to us. He was an astoundingly skinny individual, even slimmer than Fisher himself, wearing a shirt and pants that seemed to be a size too large for him. He wore a pair of round glasses, which had been supposedly fogged up by his journey in the MB. He had an incredibly untidy patch of brown hair, which gave me a fair indication of how long his last sewer patrol was.

"Private Walker," Chalmers continued, placing his arm around the Private's shoulder. "This is Sergeant Alan Baker, your new commanding officer and a good friend of mine. This is Corporal Peter Johnson, one of the bravest men I know." I found myself taken aback by Chalmers' compliment, but Baker was quick to put me down before I could start bragging about it. Chalmers pointed at Hafen, who was still rubbing his eyes out. "And this is... Private Mark Hafen," he shook his head disapprovingly. "Private, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Rubbing my eyes out obviously," he retorted, pausing for a moment to observe Walker. "You're pretty small for a criminal, eh?"

Baker and I looked back at Hafen in sheer horror, before turning back to face Walker. I reckoned that if this man was anything like what his service record suggested, another brawl was going to be on our hands. I tightened my jaw as Walker glanced at Hafen and proceeded to walk towards him. I raised my hand in an attempt to intervene, before Baker latched onto my wrist. "Just let it play out for now," he whispered, clearly intrigued by Walker's behavior.

Walker strolled closer to Hafen, but he remained unnervingly silent as he did so. Hafen stood his ground, but any man could have easily seen that he was scared. Having such an eccentric looking fellow approach you after you boldly insulted him couldn't have been something to be excited about. Walker stopped, maintaining a distance of just a few centimeters from his target. If there was a perfect time to start throwing punches, that would have been the time.

Walker stared at Hafen, motioning his lower lip, trying to come up with something to say. Hafen wasn't a particularly difficult man to contradict, so I was anxiously awaiting Walker's erratic response, before he raised his hand to Hafen. "Mighty pleased to meet you, sir," he grinned, revealing the direst set of teeth I have ever seen. He opened his hand, signaling for Hafen to shake it, before he backed away from the friendly gesture.

"No, I ain't that fucking stupid," Hafen growled. "You're a criminal. I've seen your damn record."

"I have a record? But I ain't a musician," he replied, making use of the worst kind of Southern accent I have ever heard.

"Don't mind him, Private Walker. He's a bit special," Baker added, walking out to greet him. "I'm Sergeant Baker. Welcome to fireteam Alpha two."

Walker glanced up at Baker and smiled from ear to ear, highlighting the hideous gap between his front teeth. "Mighty pleased to meet you too, sir."

I couldn't help but think that maybe Hafen was right to act so cautious. What if this guy was just bullshitting us? What if he was just acting stupid in order to win our approval, in the hope that we would overlook his nasty reputation and accept him as one of our own? I couldn't quite decide if this guy was trustworthy, so I decided to play it safe. Even the friendliest and most harmless of individuals could be dangerous, which was something that Fisher had managed to prove months prior.

Walker approached me with the same overcrowded smile that had been plastered on his face for over a minute. "Mighty pleased to meet you, sir."

His hand was cold and easy to squeeze. I figured it wouldn't have taken much to break this man's bones, but I decided to play along and not let his appearance fool me. "Yeah. Mighty pleased to meet you too, Private."


08/02/66

Hafen and I took it upon ourselves to keep a sharp eye on Walker. I wasn't one for trusting Hafen's word. Hell, I would have been more likely to make fun of anything Hafen would say let alone have taken it seriously, but I found myself sharing the same feelings as he did. Walker seemed innocent, and was by far one of the most absentminded men I have ever met, but it was a persona that could have easily just been an act. It sounds childish to have been acting so superficial, but while I was in Hope my knack for gathering information had gotten me into trouble on multiple occasions, and all it took was a bit of caution to keep me alive.

Hafen and I sat in our squad's bunkroom. Hafen spent the afternoon scanning through his pornographic magazine, while I was busy having a fruitful conversation with the wall. Just because I shared Hafen's suspicions didn't mean that I had to co-operate with him over it, so staring at a huge slab of white concrete was the only thing that kept me entertained.

After a few minutes of meaningful banter with the wall, Baker and Walker finally returned from the mess hall. I looked up as they walked in, scowling at Baker's content expression while Walker trailed behind him with our laundry and lunch in his hands. "What the hell are you doing?"

Baker looked at me and smiled broadly. "Oh, he's just giving me a hand with the load."

I shook my head at Walker as he unloaded our uniforms into onto his bed and started folding them. "So you just give them whole thing to carry?"

Baker shrugged. "Well, I asked him to, and he did it without saying a word."

"Not unlike you," I added, which was something that clearly offended him despite his best attempts to conceal it, before I walked over to Walker and helped him with the clothes. "Here, let me give you hand," I insisted, taking a pair of combat trousers and straightening them out.

"Why, thank you very much sir," he said, using the same irritating yokel accent he was accustomed to.

Hafen started to dig into his sandwich, spraying crumbs all over the skinny model he had been drooling over for the last ten minutes, before he diverted his eyes to watch us organizing the clothes.

"By the way, Anthony, any clothes with jizz marks on them belong to Hafen," I sniggered.

"Go fuck yourself," Hafen growled, barely audible over Baker's hefty laughter.

"This guy's a real clown, Anthony," Baker commented, patting me on the back with more force than I would have appreciated.

Surprisingly enough, Walker's friendly disposition didn't seem to have been kicking in at the time. "Why would he have jizz all over his own clothes, Sarge?"

"I guess Walker doesn't know about the birds and bees," Baker chortled at me, his laughter cut short by the astonished look on Walker's face.

"I mean, does he masturbate over his clothes or something?"

Hafen stood and threw his magazine to the ground, before rambling on with a series of random profanity. "How fucking obvious can you be?"

"Keep it cool Private," Baker ordered.

"Sarge, how can you be fooled by this guy? Hell, even Johnson knows that this guy is full of shit," he bellowed, staring down at Walker as he resumed sorting out the clothes. "Look at him, pretending to work just to make himself look innocent. He's a fucking criminal, just like Clark!"

"Shut the fuck up, Private!" Baker retrieved the magazine and gripped the front pages, before tearing them out with praiseworthy force and moving onto the other ones. Hafen roared additional profanity as Baker vandalized the contents of the magazine, but made no physical attempt to stop him. "I won't stand here and let you compare a good soldier to a man like Richard Clark! No fucking way am I letting you do that to another man," he snarled, before throwing the remains of the paper onto the floor. "Go fetch a broom and clean that up."

"You're the one who tore it up," Hafen replied with noticeably less nerve than before.

"I don't give a shit. You've been staring at that thing all day." He pointed to the door, where a pair of soldiers had been gazing at them as they argued. "Now get moving!"

Hafen swallowed the last few lumps left from his sandwich and made his way out of the room, violently shoving the other men aside, before being followed by Baker.

Despite the unexpected outburst by Hafen, Walker merely shrugged and resumed working on the clothes, and had already managed to put away most of our shirts and jackets within a short amount of time. "Does he masturbate to his clothes, Corp?"

I ignored the ridiculous nickname and patted him on the back. "No, Anthony, that was a joke," I explained, concealing my amusement at his oblivious behavior with a sympathetic smile.

"Oh right," he nodded, before resuming with his work.

"Hafen was in a bit of a fight around a month ago and he's been really shaken up ever since. He ain't...usually like that," I said, silently cursing myself for standing up for him.

"Oh, it's alright, Corp. I understand."

I couldn't help but feel bad for ignoring him for the whole week. Despite Hafen's angry rant, Walker didn't lose face and remained as complacent as the first time he arrived there, a trait that pushed aside a bit of my initial prudence. "I never really got to have a conversation with you yet. Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?"

Walker nodded and finished folding the last pair of pants on the bed and neatly placed it in Baker's locker. "Alright then, Corp," he beamed, a light whistle emitting from the gap between his front teeth. He sat down on the bed and gazed at me, acting as if he had just turned up for an important job interview. "My name is Anthony Walker. I was born on the tenth of August in..." He paused, grimacing as he struggled to remember his full birth date.

"It's okay, I only want to hea-"

"No, no, no. I can get it. I won't let you down, sir." He paused again, growing increasingly frustrated as he attempted to recall the year he was born in. "What in tarnations was the damn year I was born in? It was in the forties. Charlotte was born in '42, a year before her daddy went to Asia and I..." He had started counting the years on his fingers, and I intervened right before he could try to remove his boots to refer to his toes.

"Anthony, listen to me. I just want to know about your personality and your interests. Not when you were born, or what damn star sign you are or whatever."

My reassurance seemed to calm him down, before he extended another ugly smile at me. "Alright then, sir." He folded his arms and went into an episode of deep thought, staring at the wall to seek inspiration. (This was something I tended to do as well, so I couldn't really criticize him for it.) "My name is Anthony Walker," he started off. "I'm from Oklahoma and I joined the army two years ago." He paused for a moment, before giving me another one of those dreadful smiles. "I like guns. I really, really, really like guns, Corp. I also like shooting things as well."

"That's nice," I grinned, trying to avoid gagging over the sight of his massive canines. "Reminds me of an old friend of mine." However, whether or not he was as careless as Fisher was an issue I had to investigate. "Go on."

"I like helping people. Especially the people of our great country." A trait that explained why he was so willing to carry both our laundry and lunch all at once and then immediately start putting them away without any assistance.

I nodded and paused to consider what to ask him next. "How long have you been in Hope?"

"About a year and a half right now. I think. It can be kind of boring here sometimes though," he chuckled.

"Why did you come here in the first place?"

"They said they'd give me a lot of money. A lot more than the guys fighting the commies are getting." Which was true for me as well. Only the insane or extremely desperate volunteered to work in Hope, so the government had to up their game with higher wages and free health care, but even that wasn't enough to attract much more than one hundred soldiers and a few hundred civilians. Unfortunately I fitted into both of those categories perfectly, so I applied without thinking about the repercussions. However, the shortage of personnel meant that less money from the taxpayers were going to be wasted on food and salaries, so it wasn't all that bad.

"I see. You have anyone here with you?"

He nodded and grinned again. "My highschool sweetheart Charlotte is here with me."

"Are you married?"

"Nope," he snorted, much to my chagrin.

"And her family was completely cool with her taking part in this project?"

He nodded, taking no notice of the point I was trying to make. "Well, yeah. Whatever is left of it. All she has now is her aunt and her cousin. Her daddy died fighting the Japs, and her mommy died of some weird disease when she was a kid."

I lowered my head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. It must have been awful for her."

He shrugged, failing to understand why I was apologizing. "She's cool being here. You don't have to be sorry for that."

"I see. You have any kids?" A question I was most reluctant to ask, but it never hurts to be certain.

"Nope," he replied cheerfully, to my unspoken relief. "And I don't want any right now."

"How do the scientists feel about that?"

"Well, they've asked us if we've done it," he mumbled, shrinking into his seat as the topic of sex came into the conversation. Contraception was forbidden in Hope, and anyone caught smuggling would get a month in the sewers, and I had yet to see anyone try to smuggle anything in. It was hell for some of the men on campus, but they were in no position to complain since it was one of the few items that the government was not willing to make an exception for. "We can't though," he moaned.

"I see. That must be pretty hard for you," I said lightly, gripping his shoulder. My wife was often starving for love whenever I got the chance to go home, so it wasn't an issue for me. However, as a man, I can understand that being forced to withhold your desires can be painful.

"It's alright," he sighed. "I just use an orange and some toothpaste. It's the closest you can get to the real thing," he giggled, revealing the most unnerving smile I had ever seen.

After a moment of some painfully harrowing imagery, I shook my head and proceeded with my questions. "What do you think of the REDLIGHT virus?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I think it's kinda weird how they injected everyone in the town with it, and how they use babies for testing now, but the doctors say they need it to fight the commies," he explained. "If it helps America, then I'm cool with it." At that moment, my personal avidity to admit what had happened to Fisher reached its peak capacity. I could feel my fingers shake as I tried to resist the impulse to tell him how 'helpful' this virus really was. "You alright, Corp?"

"If only you knew, Anthony. If only you knew."

"Knew what?" His oblivious nature was beginning to irritate me at that moment.

"Nothing," I sighed angrily. I felt like ending the line of questioning at that point. He didn't seem to be a harmful individual, aside from his apparent desire for firearms and toothpaste filled oranges for uses that I don't even feel like reciting right now. However, there was still his very negative military record. Out of everyone in Hope, he has spent the most time in the sewers, and the multitude of convictions on his personal file was definitely a call for concern. "I've noticed that you've spent a lot of time down in the sewers."

Whilst the average man would have avoided answering such an inquiry out of sheer embarrassment, all he did was give me the same damn smile that he loved to show off. "Yeah, I did. Chalmers says that I've been down there the longest," he said, speaking in a tone suggesting that he was actually proud of spending such a long time in that excrement infested pit.

"Why did you end up spending so much time down there?" I deliberately evaded speaking directly about his convictions, hoping that he could provide some additional insight.

He opened his mouth, another whistle emitting from his teeth gap. "Because I took the blame for my friend, Richie," he stated.

"Corporal Richard Clark?"

"Yeah. That was the guy Hafen was talking about a minute ago."

So Walker was initially part of Sergeant Monroe's squad, and he took the hit for Clark's crimes. I guess having a hair trigger temper wasn't Clark's only problem. "So, the counts of theft, vandalism and harassment were actually his crimes?"

Walker nodded. "Yep. He'd usually get pretty pissed off at people, and then he'd go and do all sorts of stuff. Breaking chairs, stealing food, saying nasty things to our Sergeant. That sort of stuff."

"But you spent so damn long in those sewers, to the point that almost no one around here recognizes you. How often did he get you into trouble?" Although I already had a fair idea of what the frequency was.

"About once or twice a month," he said.

I couldn't believe it. I'd go ballistic if I had to cope with that kind of shit, but he just shrugged it off with another disgusting smile and giggle. "Why did you take the blame for him?"

"Because he asked me to," he shrugged. "I like helping people in need."

I grabbed him by the arm out of impulse more than anything else and pulled him towards me. "Are you kidding me? He wasn't in need, he was just too afraid to face his punishment like a man! Are you stupid or something?" I released him and tried to calm myself, before I continued in a much less critical manner. "Look. I know you like to 'help' people, but the sort of shit he was doing wasn't good shit, y'hear?"

He shrugged again. "I know that, but he was my friend."

"No, you can't be friends with those kind of people," I lectured, silently dreading the realization that I was starting to sound more and more like my wife. "Look, the difference is that you can't help people who do bad things. That includes assault, vandalism, harassment and of course, stealing."

He nodded and grinned, surprisingly delighted by my ranting and raving. "Alright then, Corp. No problem."

That was that. I was relieved at the discovery that Walker wasn't nearly as bad a person as we thought he was. He was just a very confused man, and even I'm being generous by just calling him confused. There were probably a dozen or so terms I could have used to describe his sheer lack of common sense, but I decided to leave that out.

"That's good to hear." I exhaled heavily. In spite of my satisfaction of Walker's redemption for his underwhelming display of intelligence, I was in the mood for a cup of warm tea, right until I decided to throw a little test in his direction. "I'm in dire need of a big cup of tea." I turned to him and smiled, which he returned with one at least three times the width of my mouth. "Any chance you could get me one?"

"No problem, Corp," he shouted, with as much enthusiasm as Baker whenever he managed to get his hands on some pork chops. He threw himself off the bed and sprinted out into the hallway, leaving behind only the echoes of his footsteps as he proceeded towards the mess hall. I rested my back on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling.

"He better not drop it on the way back."


28/02/66

"So you don't know how to do a push up then?"

Walker gazed at me, bewildered by my suggestion that he perform a few push-ups to demonstrate his physical capabilities. "Well, I do," he muttered, with more whistling sounds coming from his teeth gap. "I just don't know how to do them properly."

I shook my head. Push-ups were an extremely basic form of physical exercise. They took some getting used to, that much was true, but they were easy to pick up compared to jogging or doing pull ups, which were exercises that required a lot more effort, and especially a lot more for him. "How can you not do them properly?"

"I dunno," he shrugged. "Sergeant Monroe always said that I could never do them right or something. He just never explained how I did them wrong." Why a commanding officer would criticize one of his own men over such a basic exercise and yet not take the time to show him how to do it was really beyond me.

Sergeant Killian Allan and his subordinates leaned against the concrete wall, watching me teach my comrade in the oncoming sprinkles of rain. I looked up at the blankets of grey cloud that covered the entire area. "You might want to pick up the pace a bit, Johnson," he shouted. "You want any help?"

"No, I'm fine," I replied. I glanced down at the saturated dirt road we stood on and sighed heavily. "Show me how you do it, Anthony."

"Sure thing, Corp," he said. Walker crouched, taking no notice of the blotches of mud covering his trousers, before throwing his legs back and his arms forward. I observed the positioning of his body and shook my head.

"Keep your arms at shoulder length," I ordered, indicating the ridiculously long distance between his hands.

"Oh come on," Hafen moaned, trying to cover his head from the rain. "It's so fucking easy to do. The rain's starting to pick up."

"He needs to learn." I approached Walker and helped him position his legs. "Otherwise, it'll just look like he's having sex with the ground." Walker remained immobile, while his hands and feet were beginning to sink into the dirt as the oncoming rainstorm started to pick up its pace. "Alright, come on. Bend your arms until your nose touches the ground."

Walker nodded and proceeded to lower himself to the ground, dipping his prominent nose into the mud, presumably because he took my command a tad too literally, before pressing himself back up. "All done, Corp," he panted, turning his flushed face in my direction. "It's mighty difficult, Corp."

"Of course it is," I agreed, patting him on the back. "You just have to get used to it."

"He bent his legs." I looked up to find that Jason O' Mara had started running towards us, small sprinkles of rainwater bursting as they landed on his jacket. "He's not supposed to bend his legs," he affirmed, before dropping himself to the ground to demonstrate the correct technique.

"Alright then," I said, right as O' Mara finished his fifth repetition. "One more time, Walker."

Walker nodded and readjusted his legs. He then proceeded to bend his lanky arms, flexing what few muscles they harbored, before shoving himself back up with more difficulty than before. "All done, Corp," he huffed, before dropping himself to the ground in exhaustion.

"Sarge always says to keep practicing until you can do at least three sets of two reps," O' Mara advised. He looked down at Walker, whose jacket had been smothered in dirt. "He'll probably have to do a set or two a day until he improves."

"That's fine," I said. I waved at Allan. "Thanks for your help."

He waved back and called out to O' Mara, before they made their way inside.

"Right then," I continued. Walker scrambled to his feet, rubbing some mud from his reddened face. "I was going to get you started with some pull ups, but I'm afraid we're going to have to call it a day for now."

"Then come on. I'm fucking starving," Hafen moaned, right as he helped Walker up and started to make his way to the courtyard.

Walker remained behind and started scraping the mud from his jacket and trousers, his oblivious nature no doubt helping him ignore the drops of rain pelting down on his head. "Say, Corp?"

I turned, trying as hard as I could to resist nagging him out of the rain. "Yep?"

"How can you have sex with the ground?"


01/03/66

Walker settled in with little to no incident. Our patrols with him were surprisingly tolerable, and his personal belief that doing our laundry and fetching our dinner for us was all for the good of mankind was really starting to pay off. Although, I often found myself nagging the living hell out of Hafen and Baker whenever they ordered him to do something just for the sake of their entertainment. Such incidents typically involved asking him to climb up onto the roof of the base and shout obscenities at nearby soldiers, or Baker's chilling attempt to get him to recreate Fisher's infamous friendly fire incident which had resulted in Hafen losing almost half of his left ass cheek the year prior. Regardless, I enjoyed his presence here, and I doubted that any criminal would have been able to spend an entire month doing our chores for us in a futile attempt to cover up his real identity. Thus, I had no reason to exercise further caution around him, aside from the frustration of having to explain every joke we made to him in ridiculously precise detail.

After our last gate patrol, we had decided to make our way to the base and treat ourselves to a nice, hot meal. While the variety of meals available were fairly lacking for a Tuesday, we were still happy to be out of the stormy weather and into a shabby, putrid military base that felt like paradise by comparison. As we started to tuck into our meals, whilst attempting to ignore the distinctive splutters from Baker as he gnawed on his pork, we started to discuss the whole issue of the newborns. Something I hadn't the chance to talk about since Hafen got thrown into the sewers.

"I never got the chance to ask this," I began. "What do you guys think of what we've learned about Hope's children?"

Allan and his squad, who had decided to join us for our meal, looked at me curiously as I made the inquiry. O' Mara cocked his eyebrow at me, completely unaware of the lumps of gravy dripping from his spoon onto his shirt. "We haven't much to say," he replied. "Other than we have absolutely no idea about what they're trying to learn from these kids."

Allan nodded. "Jason's right. We don't know the whole story with what they're doing to those poor kids, but what I do know is that what they seem to be looking for isn't what we've been told about before."

One of Allan's men, who I recalled to be Private Fletcher, leaned in on the conversation. "They've told the papers that this is a base for defending against the commies or something."

"But that's what I'm getting at," Allan interrupted. "How is fucking night vision supposed to keep us safe from nuclear bombs? I don't like shit talking people like this, but the government is really starting to annoy me with this whole newborn crap."

Walker reached his thin, elongated fingers up to my shoulder and beckoned me. "I think night vision would be kind of cool," he chuckled, much to the unspoken disgust of O' Mara and his fellow troops. "What? Did I do something wrong?"

"Anthony," Baker whispered softly and pointed to the brown patch on O' Mara's shirt, which the Private attempted to cover up upon realizing how noticeable his clumsiness was. "Why don't you fetch us a few napkins from the canteen?"

"Sure thing, Sarge," Walker shouted with the usual display of unnecessary enthusiasm, before jumping up and making his way to the crowd around the food stalls.

"Sorry, he's a bit slow in the head," Baker explained. "You were saying, Killian?"

"No harm done," he smiled. "I was just hoping that after all of the shit that the people here have gone through, that we would get a bit more from the research team. I mean, having to build this town and keep it staffed for the last year must have cost a pretty penny or two."

"It all seems a bit pointless. Nothing that important has really happened around here, aside from a few kids with some major growth spurts, but that has nothing to do with keeping our country safe," O' Mara added. Baker and I exchanged looks, indicating that we were both thinking of John Doe and his deceased wife, which was something that was definitely connected to the children. But I always managed to keep my mouth shut about it at the time.

"Maybe the scientists have more going on behind the scenes," Allan shrugged. "I just wish they weren't so fucking quiet about it."

"Well, it's better than the commies finding out and trying to steal what we've come up with." It was a sound point from Baker. With the Vietnam War going on at the time, tensions between both superpowers were at their highest peak in years, so incidents of espionage were all too likely. However, as you probably expect, my insatiable desire to learn more about REDLIGHT wasn't going to make me accept the secrecy of the project that easily.

"What do you think, Hafen?" A pointless question, but I figured that at least attempting to get him in on the conversation would make him familiar with Allan's squad, since they were the only group of men that we spent much time with.

"I've nothing to say," he grunted, acting as aloof as ever.

"There's no point in trying anymore," I said to Baker. "Hey, Walker's taking his time with those napkins."

"I know. I might go have a look for-"

Baker's response was cut short by an angry yell coming from the food stalls. We glanced at one another in confusion momentarily, before we surfaced from our seats to observe, and it wasn't long until Hafen and Allan's squad followed us.

"You fucking told them?" Corporal Clark looked up at his former squad mate, before reaching out to grab his baggy shirt. Walker remained standing, seemingly clueless as to what he had done to anger him.

"Yeah, I did. What's wrong with that?" Walker looked at the crowd of men that started to form around them, who were anticipating for a fight to start.

"I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut about it! You're the most gullible dipshit I've ever met," he roared, throwing Walker back towards us as we approached the scene.

"That's enough," Baker screamed. I ran to Walker and secured him from any further advances by Clark. "Where's your commanding officer?"

Clark remained quiet, his face growing blood red from his sudden surge of anger. He looked at Hafen and O' Mara as they arrived. Both Privates made a conscious effort to remain out of the line of sight, which forced a wicked smile onto Clark's face. "Good to see you again, Jason. How's that big head of yours doing?"

"We asked you a damn question," Allan yelled, forcing O' Mara out of the way. "Where the hell is Monroe?"

"I don't know," he shrugged impeccably, despite his earlier tantrum. "I just came here to get some lunch until that little prick turned up."

"And you think throwing him down like that is acceptable?" This was probably one of the few instances that Baker was willing to deal with the problem physically, so Allan had to hold him back as he confronted Clark.

"I don't care." Clark pointed at Hafen, who flinched as he laid his eyes upon him. "That fucker already got me another mark on my record. One more won't hurt."

Baker shook his head, looking even more irritated than before. "Get your food and go back to your bunkroom. Lord knows what I'll fucking do once I see Monroe," he threatened.

After exchanging another few dirty looks with O' Mara and Hafen, Clark made his way to the canteen, fetched a few sandwiches and strolled into the main hallway.

"Alright. Show's over people," Allan shouted, rounding up the nearby men. "Let's go. Pick up the pace, guys."

I helped Walker pick himself up from the floor, expressing a strong bout of relief when I confirmed that he was uninjured. "At least you're still alive. What the hell happened back there?"

"He asked me if I said anything about the bad stuff he did, Corp." It was a question that he probably answered without much hesitation. "Then he grabbed me and started yelling at me."

Baker walked up to us. "You alright, Private?"

"All good, sir," he smiled, unaffected by the conflict. At least it wasn't going to be long until he would forget about it all, which wasn't something I could say for Hafen and O' Mara. "You still want those napkins?"

"No, we're fine for now," Baker grinned, placing his hand over Walker's shoulder and leading him back to our table.

I looked back at Allan and his squad, who were busy telling off a few men who refused to return to their seats. I walked up to Hafen, who was stuck beside O' Mara as they rounded up the last of the men. "You alright, Hafen?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine," he stuttered, surprisingly neglecting his tendency to follow up with some predictable chorus of profanity.

"Still beat up over Clark?"

"No," he exclaimed, making a hilariously poor show of covering up his nervous behavior. "I don't give a flying fuck about him."

"Don't worry about it. I was the same when he was still in your squad," O' Mara added, recoiling at the recollection of his brawl with Clark.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Baker told me about that a while back. He said you got beat up pretty bad."

"Yeah, he did some damage." He looked down, fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket. He looked at Hafen. "You'll get over him soon enough."

"Really? You seemed pretty insistent on avoiding him," I suggested.

Taking no offense from my comment, O' Mara merely shook his head. "Doesn't mean that I give a shit about him anymore. What's done is done, as Sarge would say."

"And besides, no one wants to be near that fucking freak," Hafen groaned, reverting back into the turbulent man that he had always been.

I decided to hold my questions for the moment, and we returned to our table to resume eating our food. I could feel the eyes of the other men lapsing onto us as we made our way across the room, which was a feeling that Hafen himself also shared, only that his response was a tad more obscene.

As I sat and resumed digging into my plate of pork and gravy, I started to summarize the most recent events in my mind. Here we were with a new adversary, made worse by the fact that we had his former dimwitted accomplice on our squad. I thought that having to deal with Higgins and his lies were enough of a problem at the time, but I had yet to see how much worse the whole situation was about to become.


15/03/66

"It's been a hell of a fortnight, baby."

"How's that recruit of yours doing?" Gemma paused for a moment, following by the clanging of some metal in the background, suggesting that she was in the middle of making dinner. Since it had been over two weeks since I last heard her voice, I was somewhat let down by how making dinner took priority over her husband.

"Fine. He's been a great help," I murmured into the phone. "Settling in just fine."

"Is he any good at poker?"

"No," I sniggered. "I'm still the champ around here."

"Of course you are," she replied. Rarely have I ever heard Gemma speak to me in such a soft manner. It was a welcome break over her nagging marathons we had during almost all of our conversations. "Your uncle called over. He misses his gambling buddy."

"Tell him to sign up then. It's a goldmine over here." I wiped a trail of rainwater dripping down from my fringe. Hope's weather had been a nightmare for patrol squads in the town over the last two weeks. The rainstorms had been getting worse with each passing day, so I was lucky that the bad weather eased up when I approached the town, otherwise I would have passed out on my way down there.

"Tyler got into another fight last week," she said, loading something else into the oven.

Great. Even my own damn kids were getting involved in fracas. I was getting sick to death of these brawls. Another quarrel broke out the day before between two Privates over comparing the quality of their bowls. It was brief, and nothing beyond a few kicks and shoves occurred, but it made living in Hope much harder than it already was at the time. "Send him to bed without any dinner. Maybe give him a hiding or two. That should put him out of business," I suggested.

"Right," Gemma replied, and if she had any doubt in what I was saying, she was doing a pretty good job covering it up. "I'll do what I can." She finished loading up whatever delicacy she was stuffing into the oven, before she returned to phone. "When are you due home?"

"I don't know. I still have to get my hands on my new timetable, so I might not find out for a while." Williams was being as indecisive as always, so we were subject to more timetable modifications. I found myself constantly praying that our squad wasn't going to be getting another night shift, but I wasn't going to find out until a week later, only for another change to be made the week after.

"Alright then," she sighed. "I have to get dinner for the boys. I'll talk to you soon."

"Alright then, baby."

We passed on our farewells and good wishes, before I killed the line and placed the phone back on its holder. I rubbed my eyes and stepped out of the booth, trying to ease myself from the exasperating thoughts of our new timetables. "I'm not paid enough to deal with this shit."

"Get the fuck away from me!" The cry of despair came from the booth next to mine. I wandered outside and looked into it, before my instinct kicked in at the right time and allowed me to narrowly dodge Hafen as he was thrown away from the phone booth. Corporal Clark remained inside, his face as blood red as ever, before he screamed some embarrassingly generic insults into the phone and hung up.

I ran to help Hafen up, who had been thrown almost halfway across the room. "Are you alright?"

Hafen raised his hands and pushed me away from him, before he hoisted himself up and charged at Clark, approaching him at great speed. "Get the fuck away from my Daisy!"

Right as Clark started inputting a series of numbers into the phone, which I later found out to be the telephone number of his father, he dropped it and landed a punch right into Hafen's groin. Yelling in pain, Hafen jerked backwards, clenching his stomach to lessen the impact it had on his digestive system. He gagged for a moment, before keeling over and lying still on the ground, gripping his stomach even tighter than before.

"What the hell is your problem? He was in the middle of a damn call," I shouted. I was never one for defending Hafen's honor, since I usually preferred to diminish it myself, but seeing another brawl initiate did nothing to lighten the weight that was already on my mind.

Clark stuck his head out of the booth, which presented a staggering contrast between it and the rest of his relatively short body. "You want to be next, asshole?"

"Maybe I do," I retorted sternly, stepping towards him. "Then we can see what Chalmers has to say once he sees the security footage." I gestured to the surveillance camera tucked away in the corner of the room.

Clark glanced at the device, appearing slightly confused for a moment. "That stuff ain't worth shit." He emerged from the booth and walked towards me, before reaching out his stubby hands and grabbing me by my collar. He held me with commendable strength, while I could feel his fingers tightening on my jacket.

I put on a brave look, hoping that I managed to cover up my panic-stricken reaction as effectively as I thought I had. "Really? I hear nowadays they can record what those cameras see on some kind of tape." I forced an uneasy smile as his face started to vibrate with rage. "And I hear the quality is pretty good too. That wouldn't look too good for you, since you don't have Walker around anymore."

Clark gazed back at me, his eyes widening as he struggled to control his torrid state of mind. He loosened his grip and tossed me behind him, forcing me over Hafen's hunched body. My head collided with the dusty wooden floor, and as I attempted to adapt to the pain of the sudden injury, I could feel my consciousness slowly start to slip out of my control. I lifted my head up, trying to see through the blurs and colors floating around my field of view. I could barely make out Clark as he stepped over us and jogged to the door, probably hoping that he could flee before we were found by Baker.

Despite not taking his injury too well, Hafen rose from the ground while maintaining his hold on his stomach. "You alright, Peter?"

I blinked and nodded, before I eventually regained the strength necessary to sit up. I pulled myself up from the floor, slightly disgruntled by Hafen's lack of decency. "I'm alright. I just hit my head pretty hard, no need to help me up or anything," I said sarcastically.

"Go fuck yourself. I'm fucking hurting here," Hafen grunted, overriding any sympathy he was willing to express.

The door behind him opened, revealing Baker and Walker. "You guys finished yet?" Baker stopped as he observed the scene, his jaw dropping in shock as he identified the mess Hafen's phone booth had been left in, before he looked at me. "The fuck happened?"

I blinked again and tried to maintain my balance, but with little success. "I got into a bit of trouble."

Hafen stepped forward and pouted. "What about me? I got attacked as well."

Baker observed Hafen's injury and blew him off. "Tsk. You'll live. It's Peter that I'm worried about." He walked towards me and grabbed me by the arm. "You look like you're going to pass out. Anthony, give me a hand here."

Walker nodded and smiled, ignorant of the severity of the situation but willing to follow orders as always, as he approached me and supported me by the other arm. With their aid, I managed to skulk my way back into the front room, before they brought me and laid me down on one of the town hall's benches.

Baker ran up to the receptionist and exchanged a few words with her, and he returned with a glass of water in his hand. "Tell me what happened," he said.

I wrapped my fingers around the ice cold glass. The cool sensation that enveloped my hands eventually swept through my entire body as I took a sip from it. It did a fine job of waking me up a bit, despite the nagging pain at the back of my head that continued to discomfort me. "I was just finishing up on the phone, when Clark came around and tossed Hafen out of his booth."

"Richie was here?" Baker looked at Walker, who was unsure of what Baker was glancing at him for.

"You didn't see him, Sarge? He came in almost five minutes ago," Walker stated, revealing the same innocent, yet horrible smile.

"I was chatting with the receptionist. That's probably how I missed him." I couldn't blame him for it either. The receptionist was a strikingly attractive woman, and her long black hair combined with her ocean blue eyes caught the eyes of many officers who passed by the town hall.

"He wanted to use the phone booth. I guess he didn't see the other five unoccupied ones that were right beside it," I snorted, taking another sip from my glass.

"He probably just looked for an excuse to attack me again," Hafen suggested, after he finally ceased caressing his exaggerated wound.

Baker shook his head in disapproval. "Richie won't be getting away with this. I can promise you that."

"Ah, gentlemen." I glanced at the entrance of the building, squinting in pain as the movement of my head added to the throbbing pain, before I blinked in order to identify the individual walking towards us.

"Professor Higgins," Baker saluted, confirming him for me. Higgins was wearing a fancy sleeveless jacket, with a snow white shirt underneath. The lab coat that made it easy to identify him in a crowd was absent, indicating that he wasn't in the middle of work at the time.

"Ah, Sergeant Baker. How very nice to see you." Higgins looked at me, appearing slightly uncomfortable with my presence, before he observed me in greater detail. "Are you alright, Private?"

"I'm a fucking Corporal," I snapped. "And no, I'm not alright." I gulped down what was left of my water, before I called out to Walker. "Would you mind getting me another glass of water, Anthony?"

Walker grinned and fetched the glass from me, before sprinting towards the reception. I could see the receptionist wincing as he opened his mouth, exposing his horribly displaced teeth, before she politely accepted the glass and walked out to the back room.

"Well, I won't look for any further details. I'll just leave you to go about with...whatever it is you're doing," Higgins stammered. He was about to turn to leave before I called out to him.

"I'm sorry to delay you, sir, but when is the next conference meeting?" Baker gave me a very strong stare as I questioned Higgins, suggesting that he knew bloody well that I was about to embark on an information spree.

"Well then, Corporal," he began, deciding to take better care with stating my rank. "I'm not too sure at the moment. It's usually the Lieutenant Colonel who determines when we should have a meeting, and he informs me of an upcoming meeting at least a few weeks in advance. That way, we can decide what information we can share with the public." He started cleaning his glasses with a cloth he had in his pocket. "I haven't spoken to the Lieutenant Colonel for a few weeks now, so I assume we won't be having one for a while."

"That's a shame," Baker added. He glanced at his wrist watch, before grabbing Hafen and I and pulling us off the bench. "Anyways, it's getting late and we have a gate patrol in a few hours. You'll have to excuse us, Professor."

"Of course. No problem," Higgins said in a very relieved tone, but I wasn't willing to let him go that easily.

I pulled away Baker's hand and moved away from him. "It is a shame that we can't hear more about these newborns," I quipped, crossing my arms and maintaining a very serious look at Higgins. "Specifically, maybe something more interesting than a few growth spurts and how a kid can see in the dark."

Baker tugged at the hem of my jacket. "Come on, that's enough."

I ignored his warning and proceeded to harass Higgins. I had no intention of letting the wrinkly bastard get away scot free. "Or maybe how this damn virus messes with people's heads."

"I haven't the faintest clue about what you're talking about," he gulped, pausing to think of something intelligible to respond with. "I haven't. No. Wait...I..."

"How a good friend of mine lost the career that kept him sane," I continued. I refused to give him a chance to respond. He needed to realize the full extent of the impact his work was having on the people in this town. "Or how an innocent man got his head split open by the men that were supposed to be protecting him." I could feel my fingers shake in anger as he continued to gawk at me, even to the point that the dizziness that plagued me for the last few minutes was nothing more than a mild inconvenience at that point. "Or how a virus had driven that same man to murder his own wife?"

"I said that's enough!" Baker grabbed my sleeve and tried to pull me towards the entrance. "Hafen. Outside, now." It was an order that Hafen followed without question, taking no interest in what I was babbling on about, but I had no intention of stopping my little speech. I wriggled my way out of his grasp and inched away from him.

Higgins raised his eyebrows, intrigued by my determination to confront him, but he was still acting as timid as ever. "Please, Corporal Johnson. We can't have progress without taking some risks," Higgins stated, hoping that some feeble attempt at a philosophy lesson would calm me.

"Have you taken any risks, Professor?" I strolled closer to him, but my path was impeded by Baker's gigantic arms, before he dragged me back towards him. "Anything besides that big scar on your back?"

"I gave you an order, Corporal," Baker roared, taking his aggression to its fullest extent. He wrapped his arm around my neck and forced me into submission.

With my neck restrained, I found it difficult to resist any further. I could feel my heart sink as Higgins became nothing more than a blurry silhouette once Baker had managed to pull me out of the building. "Walker, shut the door," Baker ordered, right as the bewildered Private emerged from the building with the glass of water I had requested. Despite his absence, he made no attempt to question Baker and proceeded to shut the double wooden doors of the town hall, before he sprinted towards me with the glass.

"Your water, Corp," he grinned, holding out the glass excitedly, subconsciously spilling a few drops on my jacket.

"Get the fuck away from me!" I raised my hand and knocked the glass out of his hand, backing away slightly as it collided with the ground and smashed, sending small pieces of glass flying all over the pavement. "All of you, get away from me!"

Despite his display of hostility a few minutes prior, Baker stood his ground. He bit his lower lip and kept his eyes on me as I continued to yell at my squad mates.

"I've had enough of this fucking town," I yelled, kicking a lump of glass towards Hafen, which he avoided by mere millimeters. "I've had it with this damn virus. This damn army. This damn fucking country!" I struggled to sedate my gradually increasing anger, but I must confess that trying to calm myself only served to make things worse. Images of Fisher flashed through my mind. Vivid recollections of his crime at the hospital tampered with my mentality, leaving a painfully strong sensation that left my head pounding even more than it already was. "How long is it going to be before those fuckers realize what they're doing to the people here?"

"How long is it going to be before you realize that you're killing our only chance at going home?" I gazed at Baker as he spoke, slowly breaking down as I deduced the point he was calmly trying to make.

"Fuck," I groaned. My initial burst of rage morphed into an overwhelming sense of regret. I inadvertently mentioned the desecrated wife of John Doe. The photo Baker had shown me was not supposed to have been leaked, hence why even he was hesitant to show it to me at first. Understanding that Higgins was aware of my risky knowledge of the scenes behind the research, I figured that I had pretty much shot down the only opportunity I had to see my family. Of course, the same thing went for Baker. "What was I thinking?"

"I don't know," Baker replied, acting surprisingly calm in spite of my absurd display of intelligence. "But now there's no point getting worked up over it. There's nothing we can do now." He rolled down his sleeves and pointed at Hafen. "Come on, let's go." He looked back at Walker and I. "You two stay here and clean up that little mess you made, and then come back to the base when you decide to calm down." Visibly content with the idea of going home after all the ruckus we just got involved in, Hafen ran to Baker's side and accompanied him back to the base. I remained behind, staring at them as they walked off, until their outlines faded into the yellow mist surrounding the nearby buildings, being overlooked by the setting sun.

"You okay, Corp?" Walker rubbed my back and offered some comforting words, ignoring the fact that I was almost on the verge of assaulting him just a few minutes prior. "You look pretty shaken up."

"I'm fine." I crouched down and proceeded to gather up some of the glass, flinching as one of the stray pieces pierced the skin of my thumb. "We'll probably need a brush. Could you fetch one?"

Walker nodded and smiled without uttering another word, before sprinting back inside to fetch whatever cleaning equipment he could salvage. I glared at the setting sun, admiring the beams of light protruding from the gaps between the buildings across the plaza. I closed my eyes, trying to push away the thoughts that continued to compel what little sense I still possessed, but to no avail.

"I need to see him again."