Part one: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1049125.html
Part two: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1049392.html

The woman from “NABU” was pounding on Sting’s door. NABU, NABU. He pulled up a search window and flipped around. Nothing. The pounding was getting louder.

NABU, secret. ARMY. Right, he didn’t want to do this on brainware. He fired up his old-tech machine, conscious of the fact that he was doing this with secret Army people right outside of his door. There wasn’t technically anything wrong with looking up information incognito, except that it meant you had something to hide.

There was something a little closer to wrong with using the backalley searches he was about to use, but they weren’t quite illegal. They could do bad stuff to your brainware if you didn’t know what you were doing – and maybe even if you did – but that was different than illegal. Technically.

He plugged in a password, a second password, his authentication, and the pounding was still going on. It was disturbingly rhythmic, like a heartbeat, knock-knock, knock-knock. He ran a couple searches, Army, NABU, secret organizations within the Army…

“Woah, shit.” It took him four tries to get anything at all. What he found, he was half-convinced was a hoax. Sure, tech had improved a lot in the last decade, but for NABU to already be recruiting, if they were… It had to be a hoax. Someone had taken screen shots of mechs from some video game he hadn’t seen yet.

It was almost tempting… He turned off the old-tech, unplugged it, and put it back in the closet. The woman was still knocking on the door. He unlocked it and opened it again. “No.”

Her fist stopped in mid-air and fell to her side. “No?”

“No, not interested. I know I just turned eighteen but the whole point of a draft card is not the army shows up at your door.”

“But you don’t know what we’re offering yet.”

He was pretty sure he did. “Still not interested. Good-bye.”

Part Four: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1054666.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1051270.html. You can comment here or there.

Part one: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1049125.html

“My test results.” Sting looked at the woman on the porch. The uniform was military, she was wearing at least two weapons, but he couldn’t see any insignia at all. “I know I kinda blew on the SATs, but I didn’t think I blew chunks. Ma’am.”

“You did better than you might think on the SATs, but we’re here about your PQR’s.”

“…the speed run? That wasn’t a test. That was just some online contest.” He looked at the shoulders of the soldiers with her. That was a very wide protected data cable running down their backs. If this was a hoax, it was the weirdest hoax ever.

“It was.” She nodded solemnly. “And you did quite well. In addition, you’ve scored quite well on several other assessments.”

She was standing out in the rain. Water was dripping down her face, plastering her short hair to her scalp, and she didn’t seem to mind at all. Sting looked back into the house – warm, dry, safe – and then back at them. “Uh. Do you have any ID? I mean, not to be rude, but…”

“Caution is acceptable.” She unfolded part of her belt to reveal a shield and photograph. NABU was written in big blue letters across the bottom of the photograph. She flipped it again to show a second ID reading ARMY. “We’re a secret branch of a secret organization within the US ARMY. We’ve been monitoring your progress for some time.” She had no expression at all.

“Me? What did I do?” Was she wired in? All her visible ports looked empty…

“You hit our radar when you joined the Boy Scouts.” Still no expression, not even a smirk.

“I was eight!“

“Many people hit our radar. Very few of them last past their eighteenth birthday. You, Sterling Marydel, are one out of a thousand. And we need you to come with us.”

Sting slammed the door in her face and threw the deadbolt.

Part three: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1051270.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1049392.html. You can comment here or there.

It was supposed to be the first day of summer vacation, and it was pouring outside. Sting was playing Metal Commando IV instead of climbing the Anterior Cliff, which probably would make his mother happy if she knew but was a surprisingly lame substitute for actual air and hills.

Despite being lame, it was still engrossing, and the doorbell had probably rung three or four times before the sound got through his headphones. Grumbling and swearing – and secretly hoping it was Dave and Cari saying “screw the rain, let’s climb anyway,” Sting opened the door.

“Sterling Marydel.” There were three people on the porch, all looking quite annoyed to be standing in the rain, all wearing some sort of military uniform that Sting didn’t recognize. The woman in front had short-cropped grey hair and three visible data jacks in her hairline. “We’re here about your test results.”

Part 2: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1049392.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1049125.html. You can comment here or there.