Blood Fluke

The training grounds were the largest part of the facility. They were the size of several football fields, and cut far into the surrounding woods and encompassed some of them. Several mock buildings had been constructed and were now beat up with layers of paint and chips from pellets and rubber bullets pelting into them during various training exercises.

There were two squads operating on the grounds today, Corporal Brooke’s and Corporal Hill’s, but the squads would be functioning as one unit. With silent cooperation, the groups pulled on their protective gear. Helmets over their heads, visors over their faces, joint guards and pieces for everything else they didn’t want to get hurt during something as unimportant as a training exercise.

The feeling of fifteen extra pounds of clothing was familiar, even comfortable to Iris. She stuck close to Jaz, hoping Brooke wouldn’t separate them this time around, but it was highly probable. They ‘distracted’ each other sometimes.

Brooke’s squad all huddled together, their purple decals clearly visible on the equipment while Hill’s were all kind of idly circling around the area, eager to start and get everything over with. Their uniforms and equipment were all marked with jet black.

It was a little thing, but it drove Iris crazy that the colors on their clothing didn’t match the bits of color embedded in their skin. Worm children were named after the ‘parasites’ deposited under their skin during early childhood. Those worms grew to encompass almost every inch of their bodies but only came close enough to the surface to be visible in a few stripes of color.  That color didn’t match the shade of purple on their uniforms. All of Brooke’s platoon had the same purple colored worms, and all of Hill’s instead had deep black stripes on their inner forearms. It was one of the easiest ways to identify a worm child and what their specialty was.

Iris and Jaz both fell into purple ranks, the children that were made to be very good at scouting and fighting at long ranges. Their partner squad was the black ranks, made to break in and out with very little trace. 

For their exercises today, Iris was supporting a black-ranked boy who was tasked with breaking into a car and retrieving a package. Iris was perched up on a neighboring rooftop, watching through the scope of a mid-range rifle—well, actually a rather large paintball gun that didn’t really replicate how the actual thing would work, but they were doing their best. It wasn’t like Iris or anybody amongst her purple comrades had any trouble hitting their targets at the range anyways.

The routine was simple, and their groups ran through it many times. Some individuals from the other squads were wrapped in protective gear and forced out into their operating area to simulate potential enemies, while members of Iris’s squad and their partners perched on rooftops and searched for targets to eliminate. Iris hit each one, hearing their pained hisses and grunts as the bright purple colors spattered them. It was unfortunate to be put in that position, a potential punishment for low-level infractions, and she did her best not to hit anybody somewhere particularly painful. Not all of her comrades were quite that kind to their practice targets.

The sun was hot on her shoulders and the sweat was starting to cling to her hair in fine droplets. She shook her head, trying to get the stinging in her eyes to subside.

She couldn’t help but try to see Jaz from her rooftop, but she was too far away with too many obstructions.

“Iris?” came from her radio.

“Here,” Iris managed and dragged her attention back to her directives.

“I’ve got a bogey,” said her drill partner.

Her focus came back as she surveyed her operational space. She didn’t see the ‘bogey’ as he had called it.

“Is there a bearing?” she asked.

“My two,” came over the radio.

She traced the scope over his position and then in the two o’clock direction to look. The crosshair fell on a building wall perfect for cover, so she stopped and waited.

The poor boy on the other side didn’t have much of a chance, but unfortunately the first exposed bit of him was an unarmored calf as he began stepping out from behind the wall. The paintball itself smacked against the side of it and he fell because, paintball or not, anything moving at that velocity hurt. Particularly when it hit unprotected flesh. She flinched as he hit the ground, face twisted into pain behind his visor. Ouch.

The exercise repeated, again and again. Iris grew tired and bored and struggled to stay focused until the end. Finally, the whistle blew. The loud one that broadcast over the loudspeakers so every inch of the training grounds reverberated with it.

Iris sighed and dropped her head down to lean it against a forearm, feeling the sweat from her brow soak into the already-sweaty sleeve. She must be reeking to high hell right now.

“Line up for evaluation,” came Corporal Brooke’s voice over the radio.

She had to clamber down a fire escape to do so, her tired body complaining about the final jump to the ground.

With a shift, she positioned the rifle over her shoulder, wishing she didn’t have to carry it any further.

Their actual assignment would be about a twentieth of the effort she had just expended. Why did we have to go through so much effort for a mock operation that was so straightforward?

She got in line on a basketball court, again there purely for training environment diversity, though many of the worm children would slip in-between training exercises for a game or two. A fresh bead of sweat dripped down to her chin and she wiped it away.

Corporal Brooke came through along the purple rank and looked each of them up and down. On the other side Corporal Hill was doing similar, checking for paint spatter or crumpled messes that might indicate a hiccup they had missed during the operation.

Corporal Brooke came to stand in front of Iris again.

“Iris,” came her stern address.

Iris bit back the frustration she felt inside. “Yes, Ma’am,” she acknowledged instead.

“You got distracted and performed poorly today,” she stated.

Iris nodded. “I understand,” she said. Good performance was a much higher bar when you’d been trained from a very young age to shoot targets at long distance. 

“I want you to report to an extra training session for the next five Saturdays,” the Corp told her. “Strength and endurance training with one of the instructors. Am I understood?”

Iris nodded again. “I will report for training sessions every Saturday for the next five weeks.”

Corp Brooke moved on, addressing a few of her squadmates.

The Corporals swapped lines, Brooke going to address the black ranks and Hill walking down the purple ranks. He stopped in front of Iris.

Oh, come on, I wasn’t that bad, she thought.

“Iris,” he said. Part of her thought maybe he was doing this purely for his own pleasure but another knew she hadn’t been the best little soldier today.

She managed to swallow down her emotions for another few seconds and answered, “Yes, sir.”

“I’m assigning you to two rounds of endurance training every Sunday for the next five weeks.”

Iris saw Brooke turn her head to give him a glare, but their differences would be worked out between them later. In the meantime, Iris nodded with a somewhat despondent “Yes, sir.”