Peter Clines - Ex-Patriots

The other bitch, Britney, goes up to him. Yeah, we’ve got a fucking cunt soldier named Britney in our squad. “What’d you hear?”

Ryan grabs a set of free weights and starts doing curls, too. Our muscles get stiff fast if we don’t keep using them. “I heard Colonel Shelly say they’re deploying the National Guard in nineteen cities,” he says. “They’re talking about martial law.”

I can’t believe that. Not here in the U.S. of A. “No fucking way,” I say.

“That’s what they were saying. It hasn’t happened yet but they think they’re going to have to.”

“Does the Guard even have that many people left in country?” asks Eddie. “Most of them are in Iraq, aren’t they?”

Ryan shrugs in between curls.

Kennedy wipes some sweat off her forehead. “Is it getting that bad? Are people looting or something?”

Gus slaps his plate on the bar and shakes his head. “I heard it’s not like a regular flu, whatever it is. People get sick but they keep walking around and infecting people.”

Monroe taps his plate into place. “I heard it was turning people into zombies.”

“Fuck that,” I say. “That’s bullshit.”

“My brother’s in Queens. He says he’s seen people wandering around biting other people.”

Kennedy leans back on the bench. “Hate to agree with Taylor,” she says, “but that sounds like bullshit.” She grabs the bar and takes in a few deep breaths. Her arms tighten and the bar comes off the stands. Nine-forty. Fucking cunt.

“What I want to know,” says Eddie, “is why aren’t they sending us out?”

“Because we’re not in the National Guard,” I say.

“Yeah, fuck that. If they’re locking down the base it means things are bad. People need help out there and it sounds like they need everyone they can get.”

“You want to go haul that flu virus off to Guantanamo?” says Britney with a grin.

“I don’t like sitting here on my ass,” Eddie tells her.

“Yeah, your ass looks well sat-on,” grunts Kennedy between presses. Most of them chuckle. She’s telling jokes. The bitch is telling jokes while she breaks my record. I want to throw one of my dumbbells at her head and see what happens.

It gets the attention back on her, which is what she wanted. Seven reps. Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten reps of nine-hundred and forty pounds. The bar clangs onto the stand and almost bounces off before Gus grabs it.

They’re all pounding her back and congratulating her. She’s got wide eyes. Runner’s high. I drop the dumbbells back on the rack with a clang. It’s my turn. Time to get my record back and—

And she flops back onto the bench. She’s staring up at the bar, and I swear to fucking God if she says what I think she’s going to say I will kill this bitch.

“Do it,” she says. “Two more.”

Fucking cocksucker bitch cunt whore !

They all stop talking and stare at her. It already looks like a cartoon barbell, there’s so much weight on it. There’s about three inches clear at either end. Just enough to fit one more plate.

“Sarge,” says Monroe, “you sure? That’s—”

“One thousand ninety,” she says. She nods. “Sorensen says we should be able to break a thousand. So let’s break it.”

There’s another moment of quiet and then they’re all hollering and stomping. Kennedy the she-bitch is still staring at the bar. Gus and Monroe trek across the gym, grab the last seventy-five pound plates, and lug them back across the gym. One plate is nothing to any of us these days. They’re carrying them one-handed. She’s got seven on each side of the bar now.

I’ve gotta admit, I’m pissed but I want to see if she can do it.

She swings her legs up, crosses her ankles, and we can all see her abs tighten. Her arms spread a bit and her fingers wrap around the bar. Gus and Monroe are standing on either side. That’s a fuckload of weight for one guy to spot. Even for us.

She takes in a deep breath. Then another. Her arms tense up and the barbell comes off the stands. The bar’s wobbling, there’s so much fucking weight on it.

It goes down real slow. She’s sucking in air while it comes down on her tits. Just brushes her nipples. Fucking little cock tease.

She breathes out hard and the bar goes up. One thousand and ninety pounds. Over half a ton.

The first rep is a little slow, but then the bitch does a second. And a third. And a fourth. She almost gets the fifth one up but her arms start shaking. Gus and Monroe lean in and she barks at them to back off. Sweat’s pouring off of her. You can hear it hitting the floor. And she forces the bar up. Five reps of more than half a ton each.

She rolls up off the bench and the whole squad is hollering and pounding her back and hugging her. She’s the fucking bitch hero of the moment. She goes through and punches everyone in the shoulder one by one. Her knuckles land right where Monroe slapped me, right where I got my shot. Fucking cunt probably did it on purpose.

There’s a rattle down at the far end of the gym, and we all turn to look. A bald black guy is using the other bench down there. A big guy. Six-eight, maybe six-ten, easy, and built like a fucking linebacker. He’s just hoisted his own barbell off of the rests. We’ve got every big plate in the gym so he’s loaded up his bar with thirty-fives. After so much time in the gym, we can all tell the plates apart on sight. He’s got three-twenty on there and he starts doing these clean, precise reps, one after another.

Britney looks at him, already getting her panties wet. “Who’s that?”

“Our new CO,” says Ryan. “Just transferred in. He’s in the program now, too.”

“Kind of late in the game, isn’t he?” says Eddie. “Take him forever to catch up to Sergeant Kennedy.”

They chuckle and punch her in the shoulder. She bats their arms away, stuck up bitch. I take the fucking high road, cause I’m such a nice guy and this guy looks like a real man. “Wasn’t that long ago we were all proud doing three hundred,” I say. “I bet by the time he’s done with his shots he’ll be blowing her out of the fucking water. No offense, sarge.”

“None taken,” she says. “He’s welcome to try.” And you can see in her eyes the bitch is looking forward to the fight.

Ryan looks at her, then at me. “You guys don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Ryan grins. A big shit-eating grin. “He hasn’t started yet.”

Sergeant Kennedy looks over at the big officer, pumping out rep after rep like a machine. He’s done twenty-five now, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to be slowing down anytime soon. “Hasn’t started what?”

“The process. Sorensen hasn’t done anything to him yet.”

We all watch him for a moment. He’s up to thirty reps, easy.

“All of us guinea pigs are already obsolete,” says Ryan. “You’re looking at the next generation of super soldier.”

He drops the barbell back on the stand at thirty-five reps. Thirty-five fucking reps of three-twenty. And he’s not enhanced yet. He sits up and looks at all of us, and that fucking look lets us know he could take any of us grunts right now, shots or no shots.

No fucking way.

Barry’s words were still echoing in St. George’s ear when the second Black Hawk dropped a belay line. The rope hadn’t even uncoiled before a soldier slid down fast. He was halfway down when the end of the line swung free, a good hundred feet over the Plaza lot.

“It’s too short,” said St. George, stepping forward. He focused, started to rise, and the soldier kneeling by the first helicopter opened fire with his rifle. The rounds hit hard. He imagined it was a lot like getting blasted by a firehose would be for normal people. The hero dropped back to the ground. He glanced up and the man on the belay line shot past the end and fell.