Chapter 2 - Someone Had Prepared The Room For Me
Walter shut down training.
Officially, Mason and I had created an unsafe environment.
That part was fair.
I had hit him.
He had started it.
Neither fact made the room usable afterward.
The soldiers were released for lunch.
I followed the youngest-looking one into the hallway.
“Corporal.”
He stopped.
“Ma'am.”
“What year did you arrive at Fort Warren?”
He looked nervous.
“Last year.”
“You knew me before today?”
“No, ma'am.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then why did you salute?”
His eyes shifted toward the training-room door.
“Corporal.”
“We were told to.”
“By Walter?”
“No, ma'am.”
“Mason?”
“No.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
Then:
“Staff Sergeant Ortiz.”
Dana.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“What exactly did she tell you?”
He looked increasingly uncomfortable.
“That if you performed a specific sequence during the session, we were to stand at attention and salute.”
“What sequence?”
“The one you did.”
“How were you supposed to recognize it?”
“She demonstrated enough of the beginning.”
That explained the synchronization.
It made the mystery worse.
Dana had prepared the room before I arrived.
“Did she explain why?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She said we'd understand later.”
I looked toward the stairwell.
Dana was coming down.
She saw us.
The corporal immediately straightened.
I dismissed him.
Dana waited until he left.
“You used them.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“You set that up.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the closed training room.
“Because Walter spent eighteen months saying that sequence never meant anything.”
“What does it mean?”
Dana looked at me.
“What do you remember about August seventeenth?”
“Which year?”
“Two years ago.”
Nothing surfaced.
I hated how visible that must have been.
Dana's expression softened.
I disliked that more.
“Don't.”
“What?”
“Look at me like that.”
She nodded.
“What happened August seventeenth?”
“A visiting command team came to observe the combatives program.”
“And?”
“You were supposed to lead part of the demonstration.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Did I perform that sequence?”
“Yes.”
“Did everyone salute?”
Dana took a second.
“Not everyone.”
“Mason?”
Her eyes shifted.
“No.”
Interesting.
“Walter?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Twelve soldiers.”
“How many of those twelve were in the room today?”
“Four.”
“So the rest today were theater.”
Dana stiffened.
“That's not how I would describe it.”
“How would you?”
“A repeatable signal.”
“For whose benefit?”
“Walter's.”
I laughed softly.
“You turned me into a button.”
Her face tightened.
“Yes.”
At least.
“Why me?”
“Because tomorrow Colonel Hayes is receiving an end-of-tour commendation.”
“What does that have to do with a salute from two years ago?”
Dana looked through the narrow glass panel in the training-room door.
Inside, Walter and Mason were arguing.
“He's being credited with correcting a training problem he spent months insisting never existed.”
“What problem?”
She looked back at me.
“I want you to remember before I tell you.”
My anger arrived immediately.
“No.”
“Rachel—”
“You don't get to control the sequence because I have holes in my memory.”
Dana absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“You're right.”
“Tell me.”
She opened her mouth.
Mason came through the training-room door.
“Don't.”
Dana turned.
He looked at me.
“If she tells you her version first, you'll build your memory around it.”
I laughed.
“That's apparently everyone's favorite hobby.”
Mason's face tightened.
“Then start with something neither of us gets to interpret.”
He walked toward a bulletin board beside the old equipment cage.
A framed photograph hung there.
Twelve soldiers standing around the red mat.
Walter in the center.
Dana near the left side.
Mason beside her.
Me on the opposite end.
I looked younger.
Confident.
Smiling.
A handwritten card beneath the frame read:
AFTER-HOURS READINESS CIRCLE — PILOT COHORT.
I stared at the words.
“What's the Circle?”
Mason looked at me.
Dana went quiet.
Walter emerged behind him.
Too late.
Mason tapped the glass over the photograph.
“You built it.”
The hallway seemed to narrow.
“I what?”
“You and me.”
Walter said:
“Mason, stop.”
He ignored him.
“You came back believing you uncovered some dirty little program.”
May you like
Mason looked straight at me.
“You were the program.”
