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SEP. Soldier Enhancement Program.
He didn't speak, but he rolled the words around in his mouth. Soldier. Enhancement? Program.
The “enhancement” part was a little vague.
Jack wasn’t used to planes yet. High up in the air, early spring, four-thirty in the morning. The sun wouldn’t be coming up for a few hours yet, so they cut through the dark, turbulent ocean instead of their sun-lit, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Those weren’t clouds, they were waves, and there were half a dozen deadly sea monsters staring him down from beyond the circular windows.
He closed his eyes. His nerves were hot like live-wires and his leg was jumping.
There are one-hundred soldiers in the program so far. You’re all assigned a number .
His cornflower blues popped open and glanced at his embossed silver dog-tag.
Seventy-six. His number was seventy-six.
Hushed conversation filled the cabin. He couldn’t hear the wind battering the plane, and he was thankful for it. Military service had hardened him, but never to plane rides. He’d thrown up a couple times. Wasn’t proud of it. His heart was pounding, steadily climbing through his ribcage and up into his neck, compressing his throat and his arteries. He tried swallowing it back down, but to no avail. Jack was on the verge of tears.
This program is a government secret. Experimental. It is entirely confidential, and if we find out you let the secret spill, you’ll be dead by the end of the day.
Is that a threat, ma’am?
Not a threat, son. A promise.
He closed his eyes. Arms crossed over his chest, he felt like he was dying. He was gonna forget how to be a civilian after this.
If there was an “after this”.
John Francis Morrison. He hated the name John, and he hated the name Francis, so he called himself Jack.
“Jack.” A firm handshake. “Jack Morrison.” It rolled off the tongue nicely, didn't it?
His comrades called him Corn Cob and Golden Boy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are fifteen minutes away from our destination. We are beginning our descent onto the runway. Please fasten your seatbelts.
Two military officers made sure that all was in order. He gave both a tight smile as they returned to their seats.
The plane was dead silent, despite the ocean crashing against it outside.
He’d always liked Golden Boy better. It sounded almost affectionate, if everyone didn't half-hate him for being a “teacher’s pet”, and didn't always come with a spiteful little bite towards the end of the phrase. He didn't see anything wrong with being a teacher’s pet. The rest of them were just jealous that he was successful, that he was favored. He would happily fulfill the role of the suck-up if it made his commanding officers happy.
And that had landed him here.
He was indifferent.
Jack had his eyes closed for most of the ride, but he didn't get a wink of sleep until they were landing and he was the last one to get off the plane. The air was warm, the tarmac was wet, and he smelled petrichor, something temperamental Indiana had familiarized him with.
Oh yeah. Indiana. He was called that, too. It seemed like a little staple of his base, referring to soldiers by their home states. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania. The rest of them were a blur of old maps and groaning because he swears the last time he genuinely looked at a map of the United States was in late middle school. He was a good speller, but he couldn’t spell Pennsylvania.
The lack of sleep was catching up to Soldier 76. The next few minutes bled into one another, a continuous stream of events that he either was too familiar with to pay attention to or weren’t important enough to care about. Jet lag punched him in the face and he was suffering a nasty headache. His thigh was sore from bouncing his damn leg the whole six-hour plane ride to their new base somewhere in the hot, hot southwestern states.
When he came to, he was sitting at a table in what looked like a mess hall, arms crossed in front of him and dog-tags hanging out of a black t-shirt.
“Seventy-six, right?”
Someone sat in front of him. He was so out of it that it took his eyes a couple of seconds to actually focus on who it was.
Someone he didn't recognize. Olive skin, brown hair shaved at the sides but long up top, and amber eyes so stark and beautiful the breath was punched out of him.
“What?” he croaked.
Amber Eyes cocked his head and propped it up on one arm. There was a small scar that ran across his forearm. “Your number is seventy-six, right?” he repeated. “Here, let me see your tag.”
Jack sat, dumbfounded, as the newcomer leaned his full weight across the table (he saw down his shirt through the valley of his pectorals his whole mind went blank) and grabbed his tags. He had big, soft-looking hands, completely devoid of calluses. Jack’s brows furrowed.
“”John Francis Morrison’,” Amber Eyes said. He sounded eased when he said it, like he’d been itching for his name and could finally relax now that he had it.
“Jack. I go by Jack.”
“Jack it is, then.” He reached back across the table with one soft hand. “Gabriel Reyes, Soldier twenty-four.”
They shook on it. Jack’s arms came undone and he relaxed into his soft, completely workless hand. He was warm.
Twenty-four. Gabriel Reyes. He thought he could remember that with ease, if those were the features his memory had to work with.
A slight smile crossed his bearded face. Gabriel had a goatee, opposite of always-baby-faced Morrison. “Seventy-six plus twenty-four equals one-hundred,” he said. “Sounds like we were destined for each other.”
That voice could’ve whispered the nastiest things imaginable in his ear and it would have lulled him to sleep anyway.
He snorted, but returned his grin. “Guess so. Pleasure to meet you.”
It really is. Pretty boy.