Chapter 2: Begin
The comm hissed with static. “John? You there, man?” It was William Murphy’s voice, tinny through the cheap speaker.
John let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Not a headhunter. Just Murph. “Yeah. Here.”
“You sound like you just got spaced. Everything cool?”
“Fine. Just… home.”
“Right. Listen, you doing anything? I’m two sectors over. Can I swing by? Got something to… I dunno, tell you.”
Twenty minutes later, they were wedged at the small fold-down table in the kitchen nook. John’s mom had silently placed two bowls of synth-stew in front of them—a thick, brownish lump of protein and textured vegetable matter that smelled vaguely of pepper and nostalgia. It was what they had.
Murphy shoveled a heap into his mouth. “Oh, man. Your ma’s stew. Still tastes like actual food.”
“It’s all she can get from the reclaimer,” John said, poking at his own portion.
“Still beats the nutrient blocks.” Murphy ate with the unselfconscious gusto of someone who’d grown up with even less. He was broad where John was lean, a solidness built from manual labor in the lower shipyards. They’d been friends since primary, two smart kids from the gutters who’d chosen different methods of survival: John with his books, Murph with his fists and a disarming grin.
“So what’s the thing?” John asked.
Murphy put his spoon down. He wiped his mouth, uncharacteristically slow. The grin was gone, replaced by a wary, bright energy in his eyes. “I got the nod, John.”
“What nod?”
“The nod. From the recruitment office. My application. I’m in. Provisional acceptance, pending final physical and neural, but… I’m in. Orbital Track. Mech Maintenance and Ordinance.”
The words landed like physical blows. John felt his face go perfectly still, a mask of calm plastered over a sudden, yawning void. The stew in his gut turned to lead. “Orbital Track. That’s… that’s straight to the fleet.”
“Yeah.” Murphy’s smile came back, shaky but real. “No ground-pounder stuff. Straight up the well. They said my practicals from the shipyards scored off the charts. Can you believe it?”
John could believe it. Murphy could strip and rebuild a Martian drivetrain blindfolded. He had the calluses to prove it. What John couldn’t believe was the ferocious, shameful bolt of jealousy that seared through his veins. It was acid. He managed a nod. “That’s… amazing, Murph. Seriously.” The words tasted like ash.
“I know, right?” Murphy leaned forward, his voice dropping. “My old man almost short-circuited. He was all, ‘they’ll chew you up and spit you out,’ but the look on his face… he was proud, man. For the first time ever. My little sister won’t stop asking about the uniforms.”
John forced a smile. It felt like cracking ice on his face. “When do you ship?”
“Two weeks. Conditioning on Luna first, then assignment.” Murphy finally seemed to register John’s stillness. The excitement in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a flicker of concern. “Hey. You okay? You’ve been quiet since I got here.”
“I’m good. Just tired. The academic track finals are coming up.” It was a lie, smooth and automatic.
“Right. The corporate ladder.” Murphy said it without malice, just a statement of fact. Their two paths, diverging in real time. He finished his stew, the conversation shifting to mundane things—a girl he liked, a new welding rig he’d salvaged. John responded on autopilot, his mind screaming.
After Murphy left with a back-slapping hug and a “see you at the top,” John stood in the silent compartment. The lingering smell of stew felt cloying, suffocating. He could hear his parents moving softly in the sleeping area, their worry a low hum in the air.
He went to his nook and lay down, but his blood was on fire. Marco Suarez would enlist. William Murphy had enlisted. They were moving, climbing, living. He was going to starve politely at a desk.
The injustice calcified into a cold, hard decision.
He pulled his personal datapad from his bag, its screen reflecting the dim, pallid light of a single glow-panel. He navigated past his academic files, his study schedules, his meticulously crafted career-projection charts—all the careful architecture of a future he now despised.
It took an hour of digging through blocked and re-routed networks, using code-breaks he’d learned in a forgotten corner of the undernet, to find it. The official EDF recruitment portal, core-access version. Not the public-facing propaganda feed, but the actual administrative interface.
There it was. The application.
Age Verification (Parental/Legal Guardian Consent Mandatory for Applicants Under 18 Standard Years).
He stared at the field. He was seventeen. Eighteen in seven months. Seven months was a lifetime. Seven months was watching Murphy leave, watching Suarez leave, watching his own life lock into place.
His eyes drifted to the small, solemn family holo pinned to the wall near his cot. His parents, younger, less weary, arms around each other. A real smile on his father’s face. He reached out, his fingers trembling slightly, and unpinned it. On the back, in his father’s precise, engineer’s script, was his signature. A sample of it, clean and perfect.
John’s breathing shallowed. He opened a graphics utility on his pad, a program for his design classes. He called up the scan of the signature. He began to trace it, then stopped. Tracing would look fake. He studied the flow of the ink, the slight pressure on the downstroke, the lazy curl of the ‘y’.
He practiced on a blank screen fifty times. His hand, usually steady, shook. He wiped his palm on his pants.
On the fifty-first try, it looked right. Not perfect, but believably hurried. The version of a busy man signing a form for his eager son.
He exported the image, converted it. His heart was a piston in his throat. With a final, held breath, he uploaded the file into the consent field on the EDF form. It looked… official. It looked real.
He filled in the rest. His academic scores auto-populated, a staggering wall of top percentiles. He listed his skills: systems analysis, logistics, high-pressure calculation. He avoided ‘ambition’ or ‘adventure.’ He wrote duty, contribution, strategic utility.
He skipped the personal statement. They wouldn’t read it anyway. They’d see the scores and the forged consent and slot him in.
His finger hovered over the submit icon. The pad’s glow lit his face in the dark nook. From the other side of the curtain, he heard his father cough in his sleep. A sound of unguarded humanity.
John closed his eyes. He saw the rusted tunnels. The flickering holo of the soldier. Murphy’s proud, bright eyes. The lifetime of gray, sanctioned drudgery stretching before him.
He opened his eyes.
He tapped the screen.
A single, soft chime echoed in the quiet. Application Received. Earth Defense Force Recruiting Division. Processing Time: 48-XX Hours.
He sat there in the dark, the pale light of the pad washing over him, making him look like a ghost already. The deed was done. There was no thrill, no surge of triumph. Only a deep, hollow quiet, and the metallic taste of a door clicking shut behind him.