I feel like I’m falling and it wakes me up. It feels scary familiar. I don’t know how I got here, but I remember how I got here. I’m staring at my service jacket; It cost me a fucking repro fee of 960 dollars.
I’m staring at a picture of a body lying in a pool of blood at the edge of a street. Fucking HR, draft quality on the cheapest plastic-coat “paper.” Where the fuck did my money go if they’re going give me a shitty print job on shitty paper?
Even with the shitty quality, I recognize the body. It’s me. There’s the police report, pedestrian accident. White male, early twenties, there I was, the pedestrian.
I’m crying now, hard, real hard, snot and everything, sobbing into my service record. I try to wipe away the thick syrupy tears from my face, but I just smear the grossness all over. I look at my hands through my blurred vision. The wet slicked across my hands shifts faint hues between sunset ambers and sea greens.
For the paper, the toner, and the HR “advisor” to press the print button, that cost me a grand. Oh, and the manila envelope it came in. And I guess there’s a lot of toner that went into those [redacted] bars.
I think I’m starting to remember what’s under those bars. I’m glad they’re there.
I died in the Fall of ’98, crushed under the wheels of a Geo Metro, but I got a second chance at life in the Fall of ’18 when my corpse was acquired by Disposable Heroes, Incorporated (DHI).
After a solid hour cry, I start to pay attention to where I am. Where the fuck am I? What’s that droning? Fuck, am I on a plane? I’m in a jump seat in the cargo hold of cargo plane?
I fumble at cargo webbing for what looks like a safety card. It’s in Cyrillic, but my brain dredges up recognizes the silhouette. A Candid, a Il-76 airlifter, this one smells like it’s is a real paleolithic beast from back before Moscow got nuked, maybe even from way back in the old Soviet Union.
After a solid hour cry and a trip to the toilet to clean myself up, time to sort myself. Yep, definitely Old Soviet Union plumbing.
I sit back down in my seat and open my papers again, trying to piece together how I got here. Dead and frozen in ’98, cryotrust ran out of money in Q3 of ’18, body sold to and revivified by DHI in Q4. Dumped into Slumberland beginning of ’19, dumped out halfway through ’20. Six months of bargain basement basic training. Four years of service, heavy infantry, achieved the rank of “Master Soldier.”
I can only remember the last six years, sort of, and even then it’s like I was in the back seat in a car seat trying to figure out where Mommy is driving us.
960 dollars: Inflation has gone up 1633% since 1996
between sunset ambers and sea greens: electroglobin, the xeno protein that powers an array of genetic enhancements, is present in 98% of enhanced individuals.
Disposable Heroes, Incorporated (DHI): Conflict resolution, on a budget. First war crime is free.
mydeadhorsenow 