Blood Fluke

Jaz stretched and yawned. Iris looked over, wishing they weren’t here for the moment. For one, it wasn’t fun to stand around, and for two, Sergeant ‘Sleepy’ was notorious for being late and droning on and on, half-asleep until he’d had about six cups of coffee. Based on the number of ticks from the wall clock behind them, Iris’s mental timer had him at five minutes overdue already, a punishable offense for any corporal or individual without a very good excuse. And sometimes punishable even with an excuse. 

The briefing room was getting restless. Iris and Jaz’s squad was cursed with an absurdly acute sense of time as each second passed by. Their paired squad sensed this even if they didn’t have quite the same sensitivity.

It could be worse, Iris considered frequently. Other government armed forces had much stricter hierarchies and protocols. (Then again, maybe Sergeant Sleepy would be on time in other agencies.)

He finally showed up, a large coffee in hand and got to the front of the room.

“At ease,” he grumbled, almost too quiet to hear. With a sigh of relief the squads sat down.

Iris snuck a glance at Jaz, who was focused on the front of the room as the Sarge started his ramblings. This platoon hadn’t had many active missions yet, most of the members just coming to age in the past few months. But their squads were both complete, so it was time for them to start getting real work. Dangerous work, even.

Today’s briefing was all about an upcoming recovery mission that didn’t bring them too far away from the facilities here. Sarge Sleepy wasn’t doing a great job explaining anything, so Iris would be going over the paper handouts quite a bit later. Jaz at least tried to stay focused through the briefing, though.

It was a pretty straightforward assignment. Some assets needed recovery, and the worm children were deemed suitable enough to do it.

Iris fought back a sigh toward the end of the briefing, after Sarge Sleepy had woken up a bit and was polishing up the briefing with some images of the map with more detailed instructions on it.

This sucked, she thought. It was simple, easy, even. But she didn’t want to do it. Who would want to go out into the world like that just to run dumb errands for the government? They acted like they could do whatever they wanted with you simply because they claimed full responsibility for your entire existence. And of course, that also meant they were overbearing with ‘behavioral issues.’

“Dismissed,” came Sarge Sleepy’s final remark, snapping Iris out of her thoughts. He was quick to lumber out of the room, probably to go nap somewhere else.

The two teams murmured for a moment. Jaz reached over to put a hand on Iris’s forearm, drawing her attention.

“What’s up?” Iris asked tiredly. She hadn’t gotten too much sleep last night (or this morning) and was now thinking about hunting down a sugary source of caffeine to keep her awake for their practice sessions.

“Do you have plans for later?” Jaz asked. “You know, after our requisite activities.”

Iris shook her head. “Not really,” she said.

Their corporal had gotten up now and was stretching each of her legs in turn, preparing to drag a bunch of grumpy older teens down to the training area.

“How about we go on a little date?” Jaz offered. “I kinda want to spend some time with you.”

Iris nodded. It would be nice to spend some time with just the two of them. It had been a while since they had an opportunity.

Corp Brooke looked over at where they were starting to lag in an already unenthusiastic herd. It was enough for them to start moving toward the exit with the rest.

“Where did you have in mind?” Iris asked. 

“Maybe that cafe in the downtown area. You know, the one with the fishtank.”

Iris nodded, understanding. “Yeah, that sounds fun…”

Jaz watched her carefully. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

Iris gave her a smile. “I’m perfectly fine,” she lied. “Just tired.”

Jaz’s expression didn’t change. That girl could detect a lie better than any trained expert in the field. But she also knew Iris well enough to gleen it was something their superiors couldn’t overhear. Some things were not excusable and it wasn’t like they could just let worm children go. Iris didn’t want to be one of those worm children that vanished from all records.