18. The Nth Rotations

[0400]

Maintenance crews showed up, hauling folding cots and footlockers into Barracks 7 with a cold efficiency. By the time the siren hit, our fourteen-person tin can had been restructured to fit twenty-six. The distance between the bunks had shrunk considerably.

I lay on my bunk and watched them work.

The new recruits trickled in throughout the early morning. Kids from Barracks 4 and 12, carrying their kits, wearing the same grey fatigues. A week of the same grinder, just different instructors and different configurations.

My bunk gave me a front-row seat to the debacle. Most of the new faces blurred together—tired kids sizing up unfamiliar bunks and unfamiliar neighbours. A few from Barracks 4 moved in a tight cluster behind a tall kid who walked like he expected the room to rearrange itself around him. He picked his bunk without checking if it was taken.

Then I saw a familiar face, lanky, bags under his eyes, uniform slightly too small. Tomás spotted me at the same moment. A grin broke across his face.

“The bravest slash dumbest bastard in camp.” He dropped his kit on a bunk three down from mine. “Still alive.”

“Still here.”

“I heard about the Gauntlet.” He sat on the cot. “Heard the Rabbit drill got someone’s leg broken.”

“News travels fast,” I said.

“In a place like this? Faster than a Seraph.” He leaned forward, voice dropping. “Also heard your deviation came back Null.”

The word still felt strange in someone else’s mouth, like hearing your own name mispronounced.

“Firmware modularity on an F-Grade,” he continued, shaking his head. “A shame.”

“That’s what Vance said.” I shrugged.

“Vance is a smart man.” Tomás paused, studying me. “Though— you don’t look bothered.”

“Should I be?”

He held my gaze for a moment, then shrugged. “Guess not. You’ve got that look.”

“What look?” I chuckled.

“The one that says you know something nobody else does, or you’ve gone completely mental. Honestly, it could be either. That seems to be your thing, huh?”

A few of the Barracks 12 transfers had gathered near his bunk—three kids who clearly knew him. He waved them over.

“This is Marcus. The Rabbit I told you about.”

“The F-Grade?” A stocky girl with cropped hair looked me over. Her name, I’d learn later, was Jin.

“The one and only.”

“Thought you’d be bigger,” Jin said.

“Sorry to disappoint.” I tried with an awkward smile.

“She means it as a compliment,” said a quiet boy behind her. Pale and slight, with glasses that looked like they’d survived the week through sheer stubbornness. “If you were big, the Rabbit thing wouldn’t be impressive.”

“That’s Park,” Tomás said. “He overthinks everything.”

“And that’s Tomás,” Park replied. “He underthinks everything.”

[0630]

The merged unit was assembled for the first time. Twenty-six bodies in tight formation. Vance stood at the front, flanked by a sergeant I didn’t recognise—a compact woman with a shaved head.

“New faces. Sergeant Okafor will be co-instructing for the remainder of basic. Address her as Sergeant.”

He ran us through the Gauntlet. Same rules—Rabbit runs, pack chases.

The first run was chaos. The new arrivals didn’t know the course, hitting walls at wrong angles and bunching at the rope climb. But the real problem wasn’t unfamiliarity—it was command. Miller started barking orders the way he had last week, splitting the pack into flanking groups. Thirty seconds in, the tall kid from Barracks 4 was shouting over him.

“Ignore that—two teams, pinch at the nets!”

“I said left flank, cut him off at—”

“Who the hell put you in charge?”

The pack stuttered. Half followed Miller. Half followed the Barracks 4 kid. The two groups collided at the cargo nets, tripping over each other while I sailed past beneath them. It would have been funny if the stakes weren’t breakfast.

By the fourth run, they’d reached an uneasy truce—Miller commanding the veterans, the Barracks 4 kid handling his own people, both groups coordinating through a grudging necessity. Fingers brushed my collar at the cargo nets.

Close, but not close enough, heh.

“Everyone eats,” Vance said. “Mess hall. Thirty minutes.”

Miller’s crew took their usual table; a few of the new transfers had already migrated. The Barracks 4 group clustered around their own leader, maintaining distance.

Tomás dropped his tray across from me. Jin sat beside him, and Park appeared a moment later.

“So,” Tomás said between mouthfuls. “Your unit’s been doing Kael’s combat rotations, yeah? System-designated patterns for skill XP?”

“Not yet, actually, I think they were waiting for everyone to awaken first. How about your group?”

“Yeah, since the start. We’ve been working on more defensive rotations. They’ve been drilling the patterns nonstop.” He took another bite. “My Close Combat hit Level 3 yesterday.”

Level 3. In a week? That’s actually really good for a D-Grade.

“What about you?” he asked with the careful casualness of someone who already suspected the answer.

“It doesn’t seem to work for me. The skill XP, I mean. Nothing registers.”

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“Nothing? As in—”

“As in nothing, Tomás.”

He studied me for a beat. I could see him deciding not to ask the obvious follow-up.

“Huh.” He resumed eating. “So how do you keep up?”

“Prep-academy training mainly, and a healthy amount of stubbornness.” I gave a forced smile.

“That’s going to have a shelf life, Marcus.”

“I know.”

Jin looked between us, reading the temperature. Park adjusted his glasses and studied his paste with sudden intensity.

Movement caught my eye. Ren, crossing the mess hall with his tray, scanned for a seat. He passed Miller’s table without slowing. Passed the Barracks 4 group. Passed three open spots closer to the door. Then he set his tray down at the far end of our table.

Nobody commented. Ren ate in silence, but he was there.

Tomás glanced at me, and I gave the smallest shake of my head.

[10:00]

Kael stood at the front of the training yard. Twenty-six of us in a wide semicircle.

“For those joining from other barracks—I’m Instructor Kael. I teach cultivation and combat integration.” His voice carried without effort. “What I’m about to explain will formalise what the veterans have been practising and introduce the new arrivals to the foundation of everything that follows.”

He stepped up to a training dummy and threw three strikes. Left hook, right cross, rising knee. Each impact landed with a precision that made it look effortless, but something about the way he moved between strikes caught my attention. A fluidity that didn’t match the rigid pattern he was demonstrating.