Chapter 7: The Roommate
The walk back from Conditioning Bay was a slow, painful pilgrimage through sterile corridors. Kaelan moved like a marionette with its strings tangled, each step sending fresh jolts of agony from muscles he hadn't known existed twelve hours earlier. The cool, processed air of the ventilation system did nothing to soothe the fire in his lungs, a lingering burn from the three-mile run that had left him collapsed on the rubberized track, the electronic timer flashing a number that meant nothing and everything.
79. WALKER, K. - 79.
The leaderboard was a ghost haunting the periphery of his vision, the numbers seared onto his retinas. Last. A perfect, objective, and absolute measure of his failure. It was a position so familiar it felt like a birthright, yet here, in this hyper-competitive hell, it carried a new, sharper sting. He was not just unsuccessful; he was quantified. Documented. The worst.
He became aware of a presence beside him. Sergeant Holt had fallen into step, his own pace measured and silent, a predator matching the stagger of wounded prey.
"Walker."
Kaelan didn't stop, but slowed his painful shuffle.
Holt's voice was a low, gravelly thing, meant for his ears only. "The Commander," he began, the title laden with unspoken criticism, "does not make personal picks. His work is strategic. His time is valuable." They turned a corner, the yellow line unwavering. "When he breaks protocol, we expect to see something. A spark. A diamond in the rough." He finally stopped, forcing Kaelan to halt and face him. Holt's eyes, the color of chilled steel, performed a slow, dismissive inventory of Kaelan's scraped knuckles, his slouched posture, the faint tremor of exhaustion in his hands. "Not... this. Whatever this is. Right now, you are a liability. A question mark the rest of the unit has to work around."
Kaelan said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was a liability everywhere he went; this was just a new venue.
Holt's jaw tightened. "But the investment has been made. The paperwork is signed." He reached into a pocket on his fatigues and produced a new, white keycard, pressing it into Kaelan's palm. "Barracks A. Room 14. It's slightly larger. You'll be with another one of Vance's... special cases." The pause was deliberate, heavy with implication. "Maybe you can motivate each other. Or at least, try not to drag each other further into the gutter."
He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing with finality. Kaelan stood alone, the new keycard feeling alien in his hand. A change. In his experience, change was never for the better. It was merely the prelude to a new, more creative form of misfortune.
The journey to Barracks A felt longer than the morning's run. The door to Room 14 hissed open to reveal a space that was, as promised, a marginal upgrade. It was still a cell, a concrete box designed for function over comfort, but it was a few feet wider. A small, reinforced window, set high in the wall, offered a sliver of gray, overcast sky, a rectangle of muted light that was infinitely preferable to the absolute darkness of his previous cell. A faded, generic poster of snow-capped mountains was bolted to one wall, its colors washed out by time and fluorescent light, a pathetic attempt at inspiration.
The most significant change was the bed. A heavy, unpainted steel double bunk bed dominated the room, replacing the solitary cot he'd expected. The top bunk was clearly occupied. The gray wool blanket was pulled tight, hospital-corner neat, and a single, spare set of folded fatigues sat at the foot. It was a space that was lived-in, claimed. The bottom bunk was bare, a stripped vinyl mattress waiting for its next occupant. Him.
Kaelan dropped his single, half-empty duffel bag onto the lower bunk. The vinyl sighed under the negligible weight. The silence here felt different from the crushing emptiness of his old cell. This was not an empty silence; it was a temporary one, a quiet that was waiting to be filled. It was the silence of a shared space during one occupant's absence. He could smell a faint, clean scent of industrial soap and, underneath it, the distinct, human smell of another person. It was unnerving.
For a while, he just sat there, listening to the hum of the facility. He traced the seams in the cinderblock with his eyes, a familiar meditation. His body throbbed in a dozen different places—the deep ache in his thighs from the run, the sharp sting in his palm from the rope, the persistent burn in his shoulders from the failed deadlift. Each pain was a receipt, proof of payment for his failure. He wondered who this "special case" was. Another statistical anomaly? Another doomed soul Vance had plucked from obscurity for reasons known only to him? He found he didn't care. Another person was just another variable, another witness to the inevitable collapse.
The door hissed open.
Kaelan didn't startle. He simply looked up.
A recruit stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright hallway light. He had a lean, wiry frame that seemed built for motion rather than brute force. A shock of unruly brown hair defied any attempt at regulation neatness. He was wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his gray fatigues, his chest rising and falling with steady, even breaths as if he'd just come from a light jog, not the soul-crushing assessment they'd all endured.
"Hey," the guy said, his voice casual, unsurprised. He stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind him. He tossed a military-issue datapad onto his bunk with a familiarity that spoke of routine. "You must be the new guy. Walker, right?" His eyes, a warm, intelligent brown, flicked to the duffel on the bottom bunk and then back to Kaelan. "Claimed the good spot, I see. Smart. Less climbing when you're dead tired. Or when you have to piss at 3 AM." A quick, easy grin flashed across his face.
Kaelan just gave a slight, non-committal nod.
The guy—Jax, he'd called himself—bent down and started unlacing his boots. "I'm Jax. Been enjoying the luxurious accommodations of this five-star suite for about a week now." He gestured upward with his thumb toward a faint, brownish water stain on the ceiling tile. "It's got... character. And a window that mostly shows a concrete wall. You get used to the view. Sometimes a bird flies by. It's a big event." He kicked his boots off, placing them neatly side-by-side at the foot of his locker.
He sat on the edge of his bunk, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "So, you're the one who managed to get on Sloane's bad side by... what was the story? Breathing too close to his air?"
Kaelan met his gaze. The guy's expression was open, curious, but not mocking. "Something like that," Kaelan murmured, his voice rough from disuse.
Jax barked a short, genuine laugh. "Yeah, he's a real charmer, that one. Had a full-blown meltdown in the showers last week because someone dared to use the bar of soap he'd mentally claimed as his ancestral birthright." He shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. "So, rough first day on the job, huh? Don't let it get to you. My first day, I projectile-vomited during the warm-up laps. I mean, we hadn't even started the real PT yet. Sergeant Holt looked at me like I'd just personally insulted his entire bloodline. The man's got a resting face that could curdle fresh milk."
This time, Kaelan felt the corner of his own mouth twitch, a faint, involuntary spasm he quickly suppressed. He looked down at his own hands, studying the fresh scrapes.
Jax seemed to take the silence in stride. He wasn't put off by it; he treated it as a natural part of the conversation. "Anyway," he continued, leaning back and stretching, "the food's a culinary crime, the beds are medieval torture devices disguised as furniture, and at least half the instructors look at us like we asked to be here." He raised an eyebrow, his gaze direct but not challenging. "But hey, the company's... well, it's about to get more interesting, I guess." He paused, his head tilting. "You always this quiet, or are you just saving your energy for more important things? Like figuring out how to actually enjoy the protein paste?"
Before Kaelan could even consider formulating a response, the intercom in the room chimed, its tone jarringly cheerful.
"All recruits, report to the Combat Pods for tactical fundamentals. Five minutes."
Jax let out a long, dramatic sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. He swung his legs off the bunk and stood up, his body moving with a loose-limbed grace that Kaelan found both impressive and mildly irritating. "And so it begins," he announced to the room at large. "Time to go get virtually blown up for the motherland." He grabbed his datapad and headed for the door, then glanced back over his shoulder at Kaelan, who was still sitting on the edge of his bunk. "You coming, or are you planning on failing the attendance checks too? I hear that's a fast track to a one-way ticket out of here."
Kaelan pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in unified protest. He followed Jax out into the brightly lit corridor, falling into step beside him. Jax was immediately talking again, his voice a steady, low stream beside him.
"...the targeting system in Pod 4 is completely glitched, by the way. If you get assigned there, just hug the left wall. The sensors don't pick up anything in the far corner for some reason. And avoid the virtual barrels. They're supposed to be cover, but half the time they just explode if a shot lands within three feet of them. Useless..."
Kaelan walked beside him, a silent shadow. He didn't speak, didn't nod, didn't acknowledge the advice. But he listened. He heard the specifics about Pod 4, noted the warning about the barrels. The words, unsolicited and freely given, wove a crude, preliminary map in his mind.
The yellow line on the floor stretched ahead, leading them toward another unknown trial. But for the first time since the heavy gate of the Anvil had sealed behind him, the path didn't feel like it was leading him alone into an abyss. The line was just paint on concrete. The footsteps echoing beside him were just sound. And the voice, a constant, running commentary on faulty programming and explosive barrels, was just noise.
But it was noise that filled the silence. And as he walked, the ghost of the leaderboard—79—seemed, for a moment, a little less solid, a little less final. It was still there. He was still last. But he wasn't, for the moment, entirely alone in the fact. It was a small, fragile thing, but in the economy of Kaelan Walker's life, it was a fortune.