Chapter 32. First Day at the Awakened Camp

The bus came to a stop with a heavy pneumatic sigh, and in that same instant harsh, blinding floodlights flared outside the window. We had arrived.

The view fit perfectly into every Hollywood action cliché about army life. Before me stretched a closed military base: endless rows of gray concrete blocks, barracks for recruits that looked as functional and joyless as possible. A little farther away stood more respectable buildings with neat facades, presumably officers’ quarters. A massive parade ground, laced with pull-up bars and obstacle structures, disappeared into the darkness. Night had fully taken over, and it was impossible to see anything beyond the lit perimeter, which, frankly, I did not particularly want to do.

The door opened with a hiss. The driver, dressed in a perfectly pressed uniform, rose from his seat and stood in the aisle, blocking the way. His voice, loud, devoid of emotion, and deliberately neutral, filled the bus.

“Welcome to the Awakened Training Center. Here you will be forged into specialists. You will learn to control your abilities and be trained in basic military disciplines. From this moment until the end of the course, leaving the camp without written authorization from the commandant is strictly prohibited. My colleagues are waiting for you at the exit, they will provide initial instructions. Any questions? Is everything clear?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied first. I could not sit in the stuffy bus any longer, my body had gone numb and demanded movement.

“Hey, where’re my powers?!” Ted suddenly shouted, panic in his voice as he clenched and unclenched his fists. “What the hell, nothing’s working!”

“Mine too…” Nick said, confused, extending his hand forward as if he was trying to push an invisible object, but the air remained still.

“Yo también,” Luisa echoed, her voice trembling.

“A suppression field is active within the camp. Your abilities are blocked,” the driver stated dryly without even looking at them. “Access will be restored exclusively during training sessions.”

The teenagers froze in genuine shock. Apparently, their supervisors had preferred to omit this small detail so as not to frighten them ahead of time. Danny had not presented it to me outright either, but considering how many questions I had pressed him with, the information had surfaced eventually.

The only one who remained completely calm was Mary. She simply adjusted the strap of her backpack and headed for the exit first. It seemed her supervisor had been far more honest or talkative than the others.

We stepped out under the blinding lights. Two sergeants were already waiting for us: a tall man with a face carved from stone and a fit woman with a piercing gaze. Without unnecessary words, they divided us. The boys were led in one direction, the girls in another. To my surprise, no one started yelling, no one tried to grind us into the dirt or demand push-ups until collapse, as is usually shown in movies.

The barracks greeted us with military austerity. Rows of single beds, minimal windows, perfect cleanliness, and the distinct smell of chlorine. On each bed lay a neatly folded set of clothes: simple loose pants and a pristine white T-shirt. When I opened the package, that sharp, factory-new scent hit my nose. I tried on the shirt, it fit perfectly. Remarkable. I had undergone a medical examination just a few hours ago, and they had already selected clothing exactly to my measurements and delivered it to the barracks. That was logistics done right.

Next to each bed stood an individual locker with a code lock. The army clearly cared about preventing recruits from tearing each other apart over stolen socks. Remembering advice from a forum, take only what you can afford to lose, I casually tossed my two books inside. No one would steal them anyway, so I did not bother setting a code.

Ted and Nick, on the contrary, approached the matter with full seriousness. They stuffed their backpacks inside and spent a long time fiddling with the locks, glancing around suspiciously as if they were hiding gold bars. What could they possibly have brought that was so valuable? Their smartphones had been confiscated back at the enlistment office.

“The barracks are locked from the outside after lights out. This is purely for your safety,” the sergeant said in a friendly tone, demonstrating a heavy key. His manner was more instructive than commanding. “Restrooms and showers are available around the clock. If you’re hungry, there’s bottled water and hardtack in the lockers. Breakfast in the mess hall is on schedule.”

I listened to him and felt the template in my head beginning to crack. Danny had said the camp was not hell, but I had expected a catch. In my mind, the army had always been a place where you were broken down completely. And here… honestly, the conditions were far worse in the summer camp my mother once paid a fortune for, and the counselors had been meaner.

“Don’t stay up too late, guys,” the sergeant added with a final nod. “Reveille’s at six sharp. Get some rest.”

The door closed, and we heard the distinct click of the lock.

“Damn, it’s only eight,” Ted flopped onto his bed, immediately tearing open a pack of cookies and crunching loudly. “This is so boring. I could die.”

“And there’s nothing to read…” Nick sighed, gloomily adjusting his glasses. “I knew they’d take our phones. I brought an e-reader and a player without internet access, even printed out the manual to prove it’s useless. Didn’t matter. They still took them.”

“You can take my books,” I said, starting to remove my outer clothing, enjoying the feel of the fresh shirt. “They aren’t allergic to paper editions here. They’re in the locker.”

“Oh, really? Thanks!” Nick perked up and immediately rushed to my shelf.

“No problem. Just don’t fold the pages or break the spine.”

“Are you guys seriously gonna read right now?” Ted jumped up, scattering crumbs across the issued blanket, and pulled a deck of cards from his locker. “How about we play some poker? For cookies?”

“No,” I cut him off. The mere thought of spending the evening gambling with a fifteen-year-old was enough to provoke a dull irritation. “I’m going to sleep.”

I did not want to engage in discussion or explain why I was not interested in his company. I simply closed my eyes and activated [Special Command: Instant Sleep].

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Perhaps I should have forced myself to socialize, as Danny had advised. But at that moment, the prospect of slipping into deep unconsciousness and bringing tomorrow closer was far more appealing than trying to fit into a group of teenagers.

The world went dark instantly.

***

I woke up exactly at four in the morning. No drowsiness, no heaviness in my eyelids, the instant sleep effect had worked flawlessly, pulling me from nothingness into a state of absolute alertness. The barracks lay in dim light, broken only by faint night illumination and the steady, not particularly melodic snoring of my classmates.

There were still two full hours before the official reveille, a luxury I decided to use with maximum efficiency. Ted and Nick were fast asleep. One was tangled in his blanket like in a cocoon, the other sprawled across his bed, having dropped my book onto the floor. Quietly, trying not to make the floorboards creak, I gathered my things and headed to the showers. Hot water in the army surprised me once again. Afterward, I took my time putting myself in order, had a small snack of the ration, that same hardtack, and immersed myself in reading, enjoying the silence.

At exactly six in the morning, the silence was shattered by the harsh scrape of a key in the lock. The door swung open with a heavy thud against the wall.