Chapter 4: The Anvil
The SUV did not take him to a base, at least not one that looked like anything from a recruiting poster. The journey was a long, deliberate process of shedding the world Kaelan knew. They left the city, then the suburbs, then the state highway, turning onto a series of progressively worse roads that cut through dense, anonymous forest. The sky, visible through the tinted window, became a narrow strip of gray between the pine tops. It felt less like a journey and more like being digested, swallowed whole by some vast, green organism that was stripping him down to his component parts.
Miller and Davis had not spoken a word since he got in. The only sound was the hum of the engine and the crunch of gravel under the tires. Kaelan didn't try to make conversation. He watched the wilderness swallow them, the uniformity of the trees a welcome monotony after the chaotic, personalized hostility of the city. Out here, the curse felt… distant. Impersonal. Like it was waiting for him to arrive at a dedicated facility built just for him.
After two hours, they slowed to a stop before a gate. This one was heavier, reinforced steel, set between concrete pillars that looked like they could stop a tank. The fence behind it was ten feet high, topped with coiled razor wire that glittered dully in the filtered light. A single, weather-beaten sign was bolted to one pillar: RESTRICTED AREA - USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. No unit name. No proud emblem. Just a stark, bureaucratic promise of violence.
A guard emerged from a camouflaged booth, his face hard and impersonal. He carried his rifle not as an accessory, but as a tool he was intimately familiar with, a natural extension of his body. He didn't approach the vehicle. He simply stared, his eyes scanning the windshield, then Kaelan in the back seat, with a flat, analytical gaze. Miller lowered his window a fraction of an inch.
"Delivery for the Anvil," Miller said, his voice flat, a statement of fact.
The guard gave a single, sharp nod, his eyes lingering on Kaelan for a moment longer—a look that was neither curious nor welcoming, but purely analytical. Asset. Or problem. The gate slid open with a low, electric hum that seemed to vibrate in Kaelan's teeth, and they drove through.
The compound on the other side was a cluster of low, utilitarian buildings made of concrete and corrugated steel, all painted in dull, forest-appropriate greens and grays. It looked less like a military base and more like a prison or a remote, clandestine research station. There were no flags, no parade grounds, no groups of soldiers joking around. The few people he saw moved with a solitary, purposeful intensity, their eyes fixed on some internal or distant point. The air felt still and heavy, charged with a silent pressure.
The SUV stopped in front of a building marked only with a stenciled number: PROCESSING. Miller killed the engine. The ensuing silence was profound, broken only by the faint tick-tick of the engine cooling.
"Out," Davis said, the first word he'd uttered the entire trip. It wasn't hostile, just a directive, as empty of emotion as the surrounding buildings.
Kaelan slid out, duffel bag in hand, the cool, pine-scented air a shock to his system after the canned atmosphere of the car. Miller came around the vehicle. "This way. Leave the bag." He gestured to the concrete steps leading into Processing.
The interior was stark, designed to strip away identity: white cinderblock walls, polished concrete floors that reflected the harsh fluorescent lights, the air smelling sharply of bleach and the faint, metallic tang of ozone. It was the smell of sterility, of a place where organic matter was an inconvenience. They stopped at a small concrete booth, a cell within a cell. A severe-looking woman with a pinched face and corporal's stripes looked up from a computer terminal, her expression one of profound, institutional boredom.
"Name," she said, her voice a monotone, already disinterested.
"Kaelan Walker."
Her fingers, tipped with short, unpainted nails, flew over the keyboard with practiced efficiency. She looked at the screen, then back at him, her eyes doing a quick, impersonal inventory. "Hold out your right arm."
He did. Without any further warning, she picked up a device that looked like a heavy-duty industrial staple gun, pressed it coldly against the muscle of his forearm, and pulled the trigger. There was a sharp, pneumatic hiss-sss-click and a sudden, burning sting that made him flinch, instinctively pulling his arm back. A small, black polymer tag, like a high-tech dog tag, was now visible just beneath the surface of his skin, a foreign object lodged in his flesh.
Fuck!
"Tracking and identification marker. You are now Asset K-79. All your vitals, location, and stress levels are now monitored 24/7. Do not try to remove it," she said, the warning delivered with the same flat tone she'd used for his name. "Sit. You have inductions."
For the next three hours, Kaelan sat on the hard plastic chair in the booth. The world narrowed to this small, lit space. A series of personnel—a medic who took blood with impersonal speed, a psychologist who asked rote questions and typed his monotone answers without looking up, a supply sergeant who issued gear with the disinterest of a vending machine—cycled through. He was poked, prodded, and psychologically mapped. He was finally issued a stack of dense, acronym-filled manuals and a bundle of clothing: two sets of coarse, gray fatigues that felt like sandpaper, two pairs of stiff socks, two pairs of thin underwear, and a pair of boots that felt like they were made of petrified wood. All of it was used, smelling faintly of bleach and the sweat of countless strangers.
Finally, a man with a staff sergeant's rank and a physique that looked carved from oak entered. He moved with a quiet, contained power that was more intimidating than any show of strength. "Walker. I'm Sergeant Holt. You belong to the Anvil now. Follow."
Holt led him out of Processing and into another building, BARRACKS C. The interior was a maze of identical white corridors, a labyrinth designed to disorient. They stopped at a heavy metal door, number 79 stenciled on it in black. Holt unlocked it with a key from a large ring.
The room was a cube, eight by ten feet. It contained a single, narrow cot with a thin, vinyl-covered mattress that looked as inviting as a dissection table, a small, dented metal footlocker, and a stainless steel sink and toilet combo in the corner. There was no window. The only light was a single, caged bulb in the ceiling.
"This is your cell," Holt said, his voice echoing slightly in the bare space. "You will keep it spotless. Inspection is at 05:00. You fail inspection, you fail the day." He pointed to the fatigues Kaelan was holding. "Change. You have sixty seconds. I will be outside to take your civilian clothing. They are no longer yours." He stepped back and closed the door, the lock clicking shut with a sound of absolute finality.
The silence in the cell was immense, a physical weight. Kaelan stood for a moment, just breathing in the sterile air. He looked at the clothes in his hands. The fabric was rough, unforgiving. This was it. The threshold. He was being unmade.
He changed quickly, his movements efficient. The fatigues were stiff and scratchy against his skin, the pants too long, the shirt too tight across the shoulders. The boots were like blocks of wood on his feet, the rigid soles offering no give. He folded his old jeans and t-shirt, the last tangible artifacts of a life that already felt like it belonged to someone else, and opened the door. Holt was waiting, a silent sentinel. He took the clothes without a word, without a glance.
"Your personal effects from your duffel bag have been logged and stored. You will not see them again until you either quit, die, or graduate," Holt recited, his voice devoid of any feeling. It was a policy, not a personal statement. "You own nothing. Your first duty is the mess hall. It's 17:30. You have ten minutes to eat. Follow the yellow line on the floor. Do not deviate. Do not speak to anyone unless spoken to by an instructor. Go."
Holt turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing with a grim rhythm down the hollow hall.
Kaelan stood for a moment, disoriented in the maze of white. He saw the yellow line, a garish, fresh stripe of paint on the gray floor, a single, unambiguous command in a world of confusion. He started to follow it. The hallways twisted and turned, all identical, all empty save for the occasional numbered door. The yellow line took him around corners, down a flight of cold, concrete stairs, and finally to a set of double doors from which emanated the low, collective sound of chewing and the smell of boiled meat and potatoes.
He pushed them open and entered a large, cavernous room filled with long, Formica-topped tables. Dozens of other recruits, all in the same anonymous gray, sat eating in a silence so complete it was unnerving. The only sounds were the scrape of plastic utensils on metal trays and the occasional suppressed cough. No one looked up. No one made eye contact. The air was thick with the smell of bland food and a profound, shared exhaustion.
He picked up a tray from a stack and moved through the serving line. A man in a stained white apron, his face a blank mask, slopped a ladle of grayish-brown stew, a hard, pale roll, and a cup of water onto his tray without a word. Kaelan found an empty spot at the very end of a table, as far from anyone else as possible, and sat. He took a bite of the stew. It was tasteless, lukewarm, the texture vaguely gritty. He chewed mechanically, his eyes fixed on the scratched surface of the table.
He had taken three bites when a shadow fell over him, blocking the harsh light.
He looked up slowly. A recruit, a large man with a thick neck and a face flushed with what seemed like a permanent state of low-grade anger, was standing over him. The number 42 was stenciled on his chest in faded black ink.
"You're in my spot, New Fish," the man growled, his voice a low, threatening rumble that cut through the silence.
Kaelan looked at the empty bench stretching for feet on either side of him. "It's all empty."
The man's face darkened, a vein throbbing in his temple. "I sit here. That's my spot. Now move." His tone made it clear this was not a request, but a test of the primitive pecking order that existed even here, in this place designed to strip them all down to numbers.
A few other recruits glanced over, their expressions a mix of boredom and a faint, predatory interest. This was a ritual. Kaelan felt the old, familiar numbness rising to meet the challenge, a defensive fog settling over his mind. He had no energy for this. No will to fight over a square foot of bench space in a room that felt like a tomb. All he wanted was to be left alone, to finish his miserable meal in miserable peace.
He picked up his tray to move. Just let it go. Don't engage. It's not worth it.
Of course.
As he stood, turning to slide off the bench, his elbow, moving with a clumsy, exhausted awkwardness he hadn't felt before, knocked solidly against his cup. The plastic tumbler tipped, water sloshing out in a wide arc, splashing across the table and soaking the front of Recruit 42's fatigues.
The man looked down at the dark, spreading wet stain on his gray shirt, then back at Kaelan, his eyes wide with incredulous, sputtering fury.
"You spilled on me, you piece of shit—"
A cold certainty washed over Kaelan, colder than the water. This stupid curse. He thought, Not even an hour in. Can't even just move. Can't have one single, simple thing. Not even the peace to be left alone.
"WHAT IS THE DISRUPTION?"
The voice was a whip-crack of pure authority, silencing the mess hall instantly, freezing Recruit 42's tirade in his throat. Instructor Shale was standing at the entrance, her compact frame radiating an intensity that filled the room. Her icy blue gaze swept over the scene and fixed on them. She walked over, her steps silent and precise on the concrete floor.
Recruit 42 immediately snapped to a rigid, trembling attention. "Instructor! The new recruit, ma'am! He took my spot and then assaulted me with his water!"
Shale's eyes, devoid of any interest in his outrage, moved to Kaelan, who was still holding his tray, the water dripping from the table's edge. "Number?"
"Seventy-nine, Instructor," he said, his voice flat, the numbness a shield against her gaze and the curse's latest masterpiece.
"Seventy-nine," she repeated, the number a label, a diagnosis. She looked at him not with anger, but with a cold, clinical assessment. He was a variable. An anomaly. A walking statistical error. They all were. "You have been here for less than one hour, and you have already introduced chaos. The Anvil does not tolerate failure. It purges it. You will not finish your meal. You will report to the grinder. Now."
Kaelan set his tray down on the table, the stew congealing in the bowl. He didn't look at Recruit 42, whose face now held a smirk of vicious, simple-minded satisfaction. He didn't look at any of the other recruits.
They were watching me. Of course they were. The universe set the stage, that meat-headed recruit played his part, and I, as always, provided the perfect, fucking punchline.
He turned and walked towards the doors, following the yellow line back the way he came, Shale's gaze a cold spot between his shoulder blades. He didn't know what "the grinder" was. It didn't matter. The curse had seamlessly transferred to its new venue. The Anvil wasn't just a training program. It was the universe's new, state-of-the-art torture chamber, and he had just been served his first official sanction.
Damnit