013 Twisted

Character: The ODSS

Eleven soldiers stowed away their supplies in their new footlockers. They didn't speak, none of them sure what they should say. They'd all just been sent here, not sure who all these other people were but being informed that they'd be working with them for the foreseeable future.

"All right, I'll break the ice." Tym took a step toward the center aisle of the barracks. "I'm Tym Mackros and if you need any evidence burned, I'm your man."

The others all just looked at him, apparently not wanting to take part in the classic first-day-of-school activity. "All right, I'll ask the question I think we're all wondering." Luke turned his gaze toward the only woman in the room. "Why the hell is a chick in the men's barracks. Unless you're like a pre op tranny or something."

The woman was across the room before Luke could react. Her fist hit his stomach and he doubled over, allowing her to driver her elbow down on his back. "You want to say that again, ass hole?"

"Damn, I could have made a lot of money off of that. Next time don't be so quick to hit him." Peter shook his head and Emily frowned at him. "I mean if you had waited then I could have taken bets on who was going to win and they all would have bet against you so I would have gotten a ton of credits."

"I'm not here for you to profit off of. I'm here to be an ODST." Emily lifted her foot and put it against the cot, suddenly pushing the cot toward Peter.

The man jumped out of the way, onto another cot but rolling across it and hitting another of the soldiers. "Hey, come on, man. I don't want to be a part of you getting your ass kicked by a girl." Matthew pushed Peter away from him.

"I don't really think he meant to hit you. I mean, I think his goal was to do something cool and roll away from the attack but he's an idiot and failed miserably." James chuckled a bit and Peter shot him an annoyed look.

"Does anyone know at all why we're all here? I mean, I haven't been told anything." David sat down on his cot and felt the sheets, frowning at how stiff the cot was.

"If anyone has a datapad I could hack in and find out what's going on. They took mine away after I changed one of the Sergeant's military picture to be a pig on a motor bike." Patrick scowled, not happy with his property having been taken away.

"I've got one that you could use." Max, who was sitting on the cot beside Patrick's reached into his footlocker and found his datapad, handing it over to Patrick. "Just don't break it. I've got a lot of medical studies on there and I'm only like part way through reading them."

Luke had finally gotten himself up onto his cot though he was still leaning over. "So then you're a medic? What are you doing in ODST training then? Flunked out of medical school?"

"Are you always an ass or are you just trying to get beaten up bad enough on the first day that you get sent home?" Peter frowned at the man, moving around and sliding his cot back into place.

"Do I need to break your nose?" Peter turned to Emily as she spoke, ready to tell her that he hadn't done anything wrong. He stopped when he realized that she wasn't talking to him. She was talking to another man who was on the cot beside a blond haired man who hadn't said anything.

"What? No, what did I do to get threatened?" Tobias looked to the silent man for assistance but the man didn't seem to care at all. Tobias groaned and turned his attention back to Emily who was taking a few steps to move around the cot. Tobias put his hands up, trying to stop any attack.

"You've been staring at me for a while. What's your problem?" Emily crossed her arms over her chest and waited for an answer.

"I was just thinking about something you said." Emily stared at him, waiting for more of a reply. "I mean you said you were sent here for ODST training. That's what I was told as well. Is that what you were told?" He looked to the silent man and the other soldier only nodded. "Well where's all the other trainees. Eleven is too small for this based and I haven't seen any other soldiers."

"You know he has a point," Tym spoke up. "When I went to normal boot we were met by a drill instructor. Here I just sort of showed up and they told me to go here. I haven't seen any other boot groups and usually there should be at least a few."

"That's what's bugging me. I mean, was anyone told anything?" No one said anything so Tobias continued. "There doesn't even seem to be any of us that are in charge. If none of us are here for anything other than training, then who's going to train us?"

"First names." The soldiers all looked to the silent man who had finally spoken. "Our fatigues only have our first names on them." The other soldiers moved to their footlockers to check.

"Damn, he's right." Tobias looked down at his first name stitched on the patch. "Why wouldn't they put our last names? My last uniform had only my last name, not my first."

"You know, I've heard rumors that when ONI recruits people into secret programs or experiments they remove their last name so it's harder to trace the soldiers used and that way the scientist don't feel as attached." Patrick moved from his footlocker back to his datapad, getting to work. "It will take me a bit longer if I have to hack ONI security."

"So wait, are you saying you think this might be some sort of experiment?" James looked around at the others. "That's really twisted. I mean, dropping us off with no information against our will to be a part of some experiment."

"That's ONI for you," Emily muttered. "Better just make the best of a crappy situation." She lay down on her bed and glanced over at the man beside her before turning her gaze to the ceiling. "I'm Emily, by the way. Shouldn't be that hard for you Neanderthals to remember as I am the only girl."

"Emily?" The man beside her paused for a moment. "Edward." Emily looked to him and nodded, acknowledging that she now knew his name.

"I'm Tobias, and that was pretty good, earlier. I mean, I've never seen someone move that fast. Maybe you could slow yourself down a bit and I could spar with you."

"We'll see about it. I don't know what's going to happen next though I look forward to finding a chance to kick your ass." Emily smirked a him, obviously looking forward to a fight.