The air inside the Veridian Army Recruitment Office was a stale cocktail of cheap coffee, industrial cleaner, and faint anxiety sweat. It was a world away from the hallowed halls of military glory Kyle had imagined. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, flickering slightly, illuminating motivational posters with slogans like "BE ALL YOU CAN BE!" and "THE FEW. THE PROUD. THE VERIDIAN." The carpet was a worn, battleship grey, and the waiting chairs were hard plastic, bolted together in rows.
Kyle sat perfectly still, back straight, hands on his knees. He'd been waiting for forty-seven minutes. He'd counted. To his left, a lanky boy with a bad complexion fidgeted constantly, tapping his foot and cracking his knuckles. To his right, a bulky farm kid stared blankly at the wall, his jaw working on a piece of gum. They were all there for the same reason, but Kyle felt a galaxy apart from them. This wasn't a choice for him; it was a destiny.
"Kyle Wilson?"
A staff sergeant stood in the doorway to an inner office. He was built like a fireplug, with a shaved head and a demeanor that suggested immense boredom. Kyle stood up immediately. "Yes, Sergeant."
The sergeant glanced at a clipboard. "Follow me."
The office was small and utilitarian. File cabinets, a desk, two chairs. The sergeant, whose nameplate read "GARRISON," sank into the chair behind the desk, which groaned in protest. Kyle remained standing at attention until Garrison waved a dismissive hand.
"At ease, kid. Sit. Paperwork first. Then we'll see if you're worth the oxygen." He slid a thick stack of forms across the desk.
Kyle filled them out with the same meticulous precision he used to clean his rifle. Name, date of birth, social ID number. Garrison watched him, saying nothing. When Kyle got to the section marked "Parent/Guardian," his pen hovered for a second. He wrote his mother's name, deceased for a decade. Then, under "Occupation of Father," he wrote: "Sergeant Major Rhys Wilson, Veridian Army. Killed in Action."
He slid the completed forms back. Garrison picked them up, his eyes scanning the pages with practiced speed. He stopped at the same spot. His eyes flicked up to Kyle, then back down to the paper. The bored expression didn't change, but the air in the room shifted subtly.
"Rhys Wilson's boy," Garrison stated flatly. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Sergeant."
Garrison leaned back in his chair, which gave another pathetic squeal. "I knew your old man. Tough son of a bitch. Good soldier. A real shame." The words were the right ones, but they sounded rote, like he'd said them a hundred times before. He studied Kyle. "You're fifteen."
"I turn sixteen in three months, Sergeant. My test scores are in the packet there. The ASVAB pre-test. I was told there could be an age waiver, given the circumstances."
Garrison's eyebrows raised a millimeter. The kid was prepared. He spoke like he'd already read the rulebook. He pulled another file from a drawer. Kyle's school records and the pre-enlistment aptitude test. Garrison whistled softly through his teeth as he scanned the numbers.
"Ninety-eight percentile. Hell of a score, kid." He looked at Kyle, a glint of professional interest in his eyes now. The commodity he traded in wasn't grief or patriotism; it was potential. And Kyle was dripping with it. "Says here you could go into signals intelligence. Cyber. Something with brains. Your father would have wanted you to have a good posting."
Kyle's jaw tightened. "With respect, Sergeant, I want Infantry. Like my father."
Garrison stared at him for a long moment, then a slow, cynical smile spread across his face. It didn't reach his eyes. "Of course you do. Every hero's kid wants Infantry. You think it's about honor. About continuing the legacy." He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "Let me give you some free advice, Wilson. The 'legacy' gets you buried in some dust-blown shithole like Kresh. A brain like yours? That gets you a desk in an air-conditioned room in the capital. Think about it."
Kyle didn't need to. The image of the folded flag was seared into his mind. A desk job was a betrayal. It was hiding. His father hadn't hidden. "Infantry, Sergeant."
Garrison's smile vanished. He shrugged, as if to say your funeral. He stamped the forms. "Fine. You'll get your waiver. Processing and basic medical today. You ship out to Fort Caldera for Basic Combat Training in seventy-two hours."
The next three days were a blur of medical examinations—eyes, ears, blood, a humiliating physical—and signing more forms. He was issued a coarse, olive-drab duffel bag and a travel voucher. He spent his last night alone in the silent house. He didn't pack anything personal. No photos, no mementos. The only thing he took from his old life was the folded flag. He placed it at the bottom of the duffel bag, a secret weight, his talisman.
The bus to Fort Caldera was a rattling, roaring beast filled with thirty other young men. The air was thick with the smell of diesel fuel, nervous sweat, and cheap deodorant. The loud ones were already trying to establish dominance, boasting about girls they'd bedded or fights they'd won. The quiet ones, like Kyle, stared out the windows as the cityscape gave way to rolling, forested hills and then to the stark, fenced perimeter of the military base.
Fort Caldera wasn't pretty. It was functional. Barbed wire coiled atop high fences. Barren parade grounds the color of dust. Rows of identical, low-slung buildings painted a sickly, institutional green. The bus shuddered to a halt in a vast parking lot.
The change was instantaneous.
The door hissed open, and the world exploded.
"GET OFF MY BUS! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"
The sound wasn't a voice; it was a weapon. It hit them like a physical force. Two figures in wide-brimmed campaign hats, their faces contorted into masks of pure fury, stood screaming at the steps.
"YOU HAVE THREE SECONDS TO BE STANDING ON THOSE YELLOW FOOTPRINTS BEFORE I START PERSONALLY THROWING YOU OFF!"
Chaos. Boys scrambled, tripped over bags, shoved each other to get down the steps. Kyle moved with swift, deliberate purpose, his duffel bag held tight. He found a set of faded yellow footprints painted on the asphalt and stood at attention, his eyes fixed straight ahead.
All around him, the new recruits—now "dickheads," "maggots," and "ladies" according to the screaming Drill Sergeants—stumbled into ragged lines. The Drill Sergeants, one a tall, whip-thin man with a razor-blade nose (Drill Sergeant Vance), and the other a shorter, brick-shaped man with a neck thicker than his head (Drill Sergeant Hicks), prowled the lines.
"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, MAGGOT?" Vance screamed, his face an inch from a petrified farm kid, who immediately wet himself, a dark stain spreading down his trousers. The Drill Sergeants didn't even seem to notice. The humiliation was just part of the landscape.
Hicks stopped in front of Kyle. He looked him up and down. Kyle held his breath, his gaze locked on a distant water tower.
"Well, well," Hicks said, his voice a low, dangerous growl compared to Vance's shriek. "We got ourselves a statue. You think you're special, pretty boy? You think you know how to stand?"
Kyle said nothing. Never speak unless spoken to directly. Another rule from his father.
Hicks leaned in closer. "I asked you a question, maggot!"
"No, Drill Sergeant!" Kyle barked, the response ripped from his throat.
"'No, Drill Sergeant!'" Hicks mocked. "You got a name, statue?"
"Recruit Wilson, Drill Sergeant!"
"Wilson," Hicks repeated. He circled Kyle like a shark. "I knew a Wilson once. Tough bastard. Died a hero's death. You related to that Wilson, maggot? You riding his coattails in here?"
The question was a trap. Answer yes, and he was claiming special privilege. Answer no, and he was disrespecting his father's memory. Kyle's mind raced, calculating the correct response in a split second.
"The Sergeant Major was my father, Drill Sergeant! I am here to earn my own place, Drill Sergeant!"
Hicks stopped his circling. A flicker of something unreadable passed behind his eyes. Surprise? Respect? Annoyance? It was gone in an instant, replaced by the standard-issue fury.
"Earn your place?" he bellowed, for the benefit of the entire platoon now. "You haven't earned the right to breathe my air yet, maggot! You see this hat?" He tapped his brown campaign hat. "This hat means I am your god, your mommy, and your daddy for the next three months! The only thing you will do is exactly what I say, when I say it! Do you understand me?"
"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"
"LOUDER!"
"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!" Kyle screamed, his throat raw.
Hicks gave him one last, lingering look, then moved on to his next victim. The initiation continued for another hour under the blazing sun. They were screamed at, insulted, and run ragged. They were taught how to stand, how to turn, how to speak. Individuality was systematically stripped away.
Finally, they were herded into a barracks building—a long, cavernous room lined with fifty identical metal-framed beds, each with a thin mattress and a single grey wool blanket. A footlocker sat at the end of each bed.
"You have sixty seconds to find a bunk and stand next to it at attention!" Vance shrieked. "GO!"
Another mad scramble. Kyle picked a bunk near the center of the room, not in the front, not in the back. A neutral position. He stood ramrod straight at its foot.
The Drill Sergeants stalked down the central aisle, their boots echoing on the polished concrete floor.
"This is your new home, you disgusting collection of civilians!" Vance announced. "You will learn to make it spotless! You will learn to make your beds so tight I can bounce a five-verid coin off it! You will learn that your buddy's dirt is your dirt! His failure is your failure!"
He stopped at a bunk where a recruit had left his duffel bag on the mattress. "WHOSE BUNK IS THIS?"
The recruit, a skinny kid named Jenkins, stammered, "M-mine, Drill Sergeant!"
Vance picked up the duffel bag and dumped its contents all over the floor. "It's not your bunk, maggot! It is the Veridian Army's bunk! And you just defiled it!" He turned to the rest of the platoon, his eyes blazing. "EVERYONE! DOWN! PUSH-UPS! UNTIL I GET TIRED!"
The platoon dropped. Groans echoed. Kyle hit the cold floor and began counting in his head, his body moving mechanically. One. Two. Three. Around him, boys were already struggling, their arms shaking.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Hicks yelled. "YOU COUNT THEM! LOUD AND PROUD!"
"ONE, DRILL SERGEANT!" fifty voices screamed in ragged unison.
"TWO, DRILL SERGEANT!"
"THREE, DRILL SERGEANT!"
Kyle's arms burned, but he focused on the count. This was a test. Not of strength, but of will. He could hear his father's voice. Pain is temporary. Quitting is forever.
As he pushed his body up from the grimy floor, the screaming Drill Sergeants circling him, the reality of his choice crashed down upon him. The romantic ideals of service and honor were gone, replaced by this brutal, degrading reality. This was the forge. He was the raw iron.
And he knew, with a cold, terrifying certainty, that he would not break. He would endure. He would become harder than the steel of his father's rifle.
He was no longer Kyle Wilson, the boy from the suburbs.
He was Recruit Wilson.
And he was home.