The Expatriate-the story of a Prodigy

7. The Military

Alex watched the scene outside alertly, memorizing the course that he would have to take in an emergency to race back home-though the military was highly unlikely to let him go. Just in case, he thought, and just-in-case-s were very important to Prods.
Everything was peaceful-till they reached a steel fence with barbed wire. Andrew took a deep, pained breathe and squeezed his eyes shut as the driver of the bus leaned out and shouted for some invisible guards to open the doors. Alex just watched, wondering how he would get through that in case of an emergency-maybe he could climb over the fence, or just pull some joysticks on a machine or force the guards to open the doors for him, then escape...
The door opened aside with a creeeaaak.
Andrew's head sank and he seemed ready to puke as the bus moved on into the camp. The doors closed shut as soon as the bus' tail was over the line.
They were in.
The bus was now completely quiet, while there had been a tiny hum of pause-talk-pause conversations before. Alex leaned over to peek at No.1-he was grinning. Brother, he thought.
There were a second pair of doors waiting for them. It took shorter since the guards at the first door had already informed the guards here.
Ok, now they were in for sure.
The bus shot forward to a group of low buildings. Alex's eyes were busy taking photographs. The forest lurched around the entire base, and there was a 'yard' in the back of some buildings with grey pavement, probably for out-door training. The rest were all white or black. Oh, and guards. They stood everywhere, looking at the the bus with fascination and boredom.
They pulled up in front of the largest building, and the bus lurched to and fro 3 times before it stalled completely.
No.1 hopped off again and his battle yell filled the bus as he leaned back in.
"We're here, newbies," It should have ended with an exclamation point, but his voice was just loud and it hadn't been an exclaiming statement, so let's don't add it.
Alex got up as the others did. Andrew seemed to be near tears. So how did he got chosen to come here? Maybe a high physical score can make up to a terrible mental score, Alex thought as Andrew extended a hand and he pulled the other up.
They exited last with No.1 right behind.
A man in another kind of uniform stood in front of the black building with a dozen prizes and badges sparkling on the left of his chest. All of them stood in a straight but awkward line in front of him. Alex decided to call him No.tw-
"I'm General Fawkes. Welcome to your military base, and we are happy to see you-but we're not at a zoo. Matters are real serious here, and I'm going to be honest. Well, you all need to refreshen up for today," General Fawkes said. "As you came here for, you'll all have privileges as a starter here. Follow me to your rooms," Well, he was kinder then I thought, Alex thought. The man's eyes met each of them as if to analyze each to the bone, and Alex could swear that a few others shivered. But he'd couldn't find a reason why they were frightened by the man-the guy was just tall and in a uniform-that was all. His eyes weren't cold and hawkish like No.1.
The man met his, and he stared back, trying to be a bit softer instead of looking too bold and arrogant.
The man turned around after staring for zero-point 6 seconds longer at him than at the others. He walked into the shade of the building, and the 18 teens followed like baby ducks on their first trip to 'real' world.

They were led into a cool, huge 'lobby' where a lot of soldiers were idling in. But unfortunately, there were no lifts, so the group still had to walk up the stairs. They all single filed up a few floors to the top one-it was the 3rd floor. It was like an ancient hotel up here-stained walls and stained carpets. Still, there was a proper showering booth and a few chairs along the walls.
"These are the room mates you'll sleep with for a few weeks," The general said. He pulled out his phone-huh, the modern military was so generous even for a general to keep his phone, you'd say.
"Albert with Thomas, John with Nick..." Alex droned out his voice. Boring and a waste of time to listen to others' matters, it was.
"Alex with Andrew..."
His head flicked up and he looked at his friend-he looked smug and still, a bit sick.
They were allotted into a room at the end of the short hall, Alex went in first, in big part because Andrew was still a bit numb and couldn't move his limbs nor fingers properly.
The room was worth expecting. It was huge with two big separate beds, a huge living room, and a tv. The bathroom was neat and modern and there was even a refrigerator containing all sorts of food.
"Come on, Andrew, look at that," Alex said. Andrew kind of softened up a bit at the scene and his limbs moved. He stepped to the fridge and emptied a water bottle in 5 seconds into his mouth. "This's better than I thought," He croaked.
But as Alex Mars looked around the room and at his content friend, he felt confused. Soldiers were supposed to be fit and really strict, and now look at the tv, bed and fridge...
He decided to forget it and sat on the edge of a bed and looked around without moving his head-the Martyr had said that this woud made a person behind him believe that he was staring straight-but now, his eyeballs rolled, looking at every corner of the room. There were no cameras, thankfully. He relaxed a bit from his 'not being a Prod' mood and also walked over to the fridge and grabbed an energy drink.
Andrew was now unpacking his stuff-while Alex had had nothing to bring nor had wanted to, the other boy had brung a bundle of photos and a few books, though excluding Damien. There were magazines and sci-fi novels--only created for human entertainment, Alex thought as he saw them.
"Newspapers?" He just inquired to filll in the empty space in the air with words. Andrew's head snapped in his direction, then followed Mars' glance at the TIME edition of last week. He shrugged. "Just wanted to remind me that a world exists out there, which is a world where I used to exist as part of a happy society, but has just been separated from me for long," He ended with a sigh.  "Good choice of words," Alex said, a bit surprised. Andrew didn't usually say those stuff, at least in school.Was it just humor? Or was he 'his kind'?
The second possibility is highly unlikely, he thought, then doubted himself.
While Alex was swept in a sudden world of wondering about his companion, Andrew dived onto the other bed and started to read The Goner, Where No One Exists, a crazy, super-super unrealistic sci-fi book. No Prod would read that... Alex thought. But no one normal would read books for fun when they just had arrived in the army, either...
He jumped off the bed and buzzed all around the room, searching for secret cameras. None.
After the second examination of the room was finished, he went back to stand in front of Andrew, who had his eyes buried completely in the book.
"Andrew, it's safe to tell me," Alex said, though it was a risk. It could expose that he himself, the inquirer, was a Prod, and he could get killed that day. His hands shivered with anticipation.
"Huh? I mean, I heard the question-tell you what?"
He internally sighed in relief and shook his head, trying not to sound pleased. "Nothing. Well, I already read that, I was saying," Alex said quickly, pointing at The Goner.The lie was very hard to believe, Andrew knew-but since the sentence had come out from the smart kid's mouth, he believed. "You read a lot," Well, Alex had read the stupid book, yes, in 30 minutes. "Yeah. What page?" "179," "Ah, where Luke Marks gets prepared to put him along in the Mars shuttle," "OK, that's it, you're right-though, don't spoil the details-I love this novel," Love that junk? Ok, he couldn't be a Prod, Alex thought.
He was right.

They were called for lunch after an hour of reading The Goner and meditating. The general was standing outside, staring at a plant in a pot next to the stairs while waiting for his newbies to gather in front of him. Mars got to him as the first. The man looked down at his clothes--T-shirts and jeans-and gave an unhappy 'hrm '. Alex stood in a rigid posture since his clothing wasn't going to satisfy his general for now.
"Alex Mars, huh?" The general asked just before the others came rushing out of each of their rooms.
"Yes, sir," Alex answered, just as all the others piled up behind ALex in a strange, snaky line, some out of breathe, some rubbing sleep from their eyes.
The general looked away and led them down to the 2nd floor where a tiny 'cafeteria' was located. Well, you had to dump food on a tray there-and the thing was, the food was only soup and bread(at least for that day's lunch), and it was very meager. The place was already packed with rigid soldiers clanging the trays with their spoons, and the big soup bowl had been wiped clean a long time ago. As they stood in another awkward line, Andrew seemed to be ready to turn on his faucet once more. Well, Alex also was a bit depressed-he was reminded of how well the foods he himself and his mom had made back home...
The soup was finally refilled and the line moved forward.
Alex got a seat at a plastic table with steel, old chairs, the type that's heavy to lift and makes all the screechy sounds in a room. Andrew automomaticllay sat beside him. Maybe he was going to be my only friend here, Alex thought. Not that he cared, though he was more used and comfy without friends.
They dipped plastic spoons into the bowl and sipped, though Andrew fidgeted at first a bit. "Wonder how the gov allowed these plastic spoons," He jutted his jaw out to the spoons when he couldn't find another excuse for Alex to not touch his soup rather than because he was 'collecting his thoughts for the meal'. Alex had already wondered that and answered like Wikipedia as Andrew had described him-"The plastic spoons used here apparently have dent marks in them, so the military must be reusing them for long instead of discarding them for environmental issues," "I see," Andrew said, sighed, and now completely void with an excuse, dipped his head down to have a sip.
They ate in silence, neither of their eyes moving to the others, who seemed to have sat at a big table and were grouping themselves up. Well, Alex thought that groups were the worst of every kind of possible friendships-when you got caught, the rest of the group also had to get caught and scolded. And they had to allot the things they received equally and were prompted to apologize by the others when you fought with another guy, who usually was a member of the group simply because he was a friend of a friend of a friend of a...
"I think the general's name came from Harry Potter," Andrew murmured as he forced a sip down his throat. "I already noticed that," Alex grumbled back. "At least he doesn't yet seem to be the guy to yell us all around and kill us," Well, they do kill Prods here, Andrew, Alex thought. But instead, he said, "Yeah. But you know what, Andrew Stewart? Everything is a yet here, yet," Alex said.
-And possibly yet to be discovered as a Prod, Alex Mars grimly added to his own sentence.