Eric Nylund - The Fall of Reach

Dr. Halsey clicked on her microphone. “Bring them in now.”

“Aye aye,” a voice replied from the speakers in the ceiling.

“They’ll adapt,” Dr. Halsey told Déjà. “Or they won’t, and they will be untrainable and unsuitable for the project. Either way I just want to get this over with.”

Four sets of double doors at the top tier of the amphitheater swung open. Seventy-five children marched in—each accompanied by a handler, a Naval drill instructor in camouflage pattern fatigues.

The children had circles of fatigue around their eyes. They had all been collected, rushed here through Slipstream space, and only recently brought out of cryo sleep. The shock of their ordeal must be hitting them hard, Halsey realized. She stifled a pang of regret.

When they had been seated in the risers, Dr. Halsey cleared her throat and spoke: “As per Naval Code 45812, you are hereby conscripted into the UNSC Special Project, codenamed SPARTAN II.”

She paused; the words stuck in her windpipe. How could they possibly understand this? She barely understood the justifications and ethics behind this program.

They looked so confused. A few tried to stand and leave, but their handlers placed firm hands on their shoulders and pushed them back down.

Six years old... this was too much for them to digest. But she had to make them understand, explain it in simple terms that they could grasp.

Dr. Halsey took a tentative step forward. “You have been called upon to serve,” she explained. “You will be trained... and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies.”

A handful of the children sat up straighter, no longer entirely frightened, but now interested.

Dr. Halsey spotted John, subject Number 117, the first boy she had confirmed as a viable candidate. He wrinkled his forehead, confused, but he listened with rapt attention.

“This will be hard to understand, but you cannot return to your parents.”

The children stirred. Their handlers kept a firm grip on their shoulders.

“This place will become your home,” Dr. Halsey said in as soothing a voice as she could muster. “Your fellow trainees will be your family now. The training will be difficult. There will be a great deal of hardship on the road ahead, but I know you will all make it.”

Patriotic words, but they rang hollow in her ears. She had wanted to tell them the truth—but how could she?

Not all of them would make it. “Acceptable losses,” the Office of Naval Intelligence representative had assured her. None of it was acceptable.

“Rest now,” Dr. Halsey said to them. “We begin tomorrow.”

She turned to Mendez. “Have the children... the trainees escorted to their barracks. Feed them and put them to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mendez said. “Fall out!” he shouted.

The children rose—at the urging of their handlers. John 117 stood, but he kept his gaze on Dr. Halsey and remained stoic. Many of the subjects seemed stunned, a few had trembling lips—but none of them cried.

These were indeed the right children for the project. Dr. Halsey only hoped that she had half their courage when the time came.

“Keep them busy tomorrow,” she told Mendez and Déjà. “Keep them from thinking about what we’ve just done to them.”

0530 Hours, September 24, 2517 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Military Complex, planet Reach

“Wake up, trainee!”

John rolled over in his cot and went back to sleep. He was dimly aware that this wasn’t his room, and that there were other people here.

A shock jolted him—from his bare feet to the base of his spine. He yelled in surprise and fell off the cot. He shook off the disorientation from being nearly asleep and got up.

“I said up , boot! You know which way up is?”

A man in a camouflage uniform stood over John. His hair was shorn and gray at his temples. His dark eyes didn’t look human—too big and black and they didn’t blink. He held a silver baton in one hand; he flicked it toward John and it sparked.

John backed away. He wasn’t afraid of anything. Only little kids were afraid... but his body instinctively moved as far away from the instrument as possible.

Dozens of other men roused the rest of the children. Seventy-four boys and girls screamed and jumped out of their cots.

“I am Chief Petty Officer Mendez,” the uniformed man next to John shouted. “The rest of these men are your instructors. You will do exactly as we tell you at all times.”

Mendez pointed to the far end of the cinderblock barracks. “Showers are aft. You will all wash and then return here to dress.” He opened a trunk at the foot of John’s cot and pulled out a matching set of gray sweats.

John leaned closer and saw his name stenciled on the chest: JOHN-117.

“No slacking. On the double!” Mendez tapped John between his shoulder blades with the baton.

Lightning surged across John’s chest. He sprawled on the cot and gasped for breath.

“I mean it! Go Go GO!”

John moved. He couldn’t inhale—but he ran anyway, clutching his chest. He managed a ragged breath by the time he got to the showers. The other kids looked scared and disoriented. They all stripped off their nightshirts and stepped onto the conveyor, washed themselves in lukewarm soapy water, then rinsed in an icy cold spray.

He ran back to his bunk, got into underwear, thick socks, pulled on the sweats and a pair of combat boots that fit his feet perfectly.

“Outside, trainees,” Mendez announced. “Triple time... march!”

John and the others stampeded out of the barracks onto a strip of grass.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the edge of the sky was indigo. The grass was wet with dew. There were dozens of rows of barracks, but no one else was up and outside. A pair of jets roared overhead and arced up into the sky. Far away, John heard a metallic crackle.

Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked, “You will make five equal-length rows. Fifteen trainees in each.” He waited a few seconds as they milled about. “Straighten those rows. You know how to count to fifteen, trainee? Take three steps back.”

John stepped into the second row.

As he breathed the cold air he began to wake up. He started to remember. They had taken him in the middle of the night. They injected him with something and he slept for a long time. Then the woman who had given him the coin told him he couldn’t go back. That he wouldn’t see his mother or father—

“Jumping jacks!” Mendez shouted. “Count off to one hundred. Ready, go.” The officer started the exercise and John followed his lead.

One boy refused—for a split-second. An instructor was on him instantly. The baton whipped into the boy’s stomach. The kid doubled over. “Get with the program, boot,” the trainer snarled. The boy uncurled and started jumping.

John had never done so many jumping jacks in his life. His arms and stomach and legs burned. Sweat trickled down his back.

“Ninety-eight—99—100.” Mendez paused. He drew in a deep breath. “Sit-ups!” He dropped onto the grass. “Count off to one hundred. No slacking.”

John threw himself on the ground.

“The first crewmen who quits,” Mendez said, “gets to run around the compound twice—and then comes back here and does two hundred sit ups. Ready... count off! One... two... three... .”

Deep squats followed. Then knee bends.

John threw up, but that didn’t buy him any respite. A trainer descended on him after a few seconds. John rolled back over and continued.

“Leg lifts.” Mendez continued like he was a machine. As if they all were machines.