Droppers

Boot stood in line. He scanned about looking at the shapes and sizes of the different recruits around him. This was all Goves fault. Fuck Goves the cunt.

It all started, as many things do, in school. Boot hated school. It wasn't that he couldn't do it it was just that it bored him and as with all things that bored Boot he didn't put any effort in. Which meant he sunk to the bottom classes. The upshot was that Boot ran with the wrong crowd. Fortunately he hardly got into trouble unfortunately whatever brains he had he didn't use. As his teachers gave up on him Boot gave up himself. Or had given up a long time before it mattered.

As it was at that time Boot was destined to drift. One exam failed led to another exam to fail and coursework not to complete. Teachers came and went like a revolving carousel of b-movie stars in guest roles. The group Boot grew up with stayed and expanded and shrunk as people dropped down or moved into town or get expelled. Time continued its relentless march forwards and the group grew up. Boot glanced to his side, Wrench was still with him and somewhere in the line was Spade they were the three that had 'made' it to the Droppers. He didn't know what happened to the others. Now they weren't together he found he didn't really care.

All Goves fault.

It used to be so easy, turn up do nothing and take a minimal punishment. At the end of school there was a life of dodging work and cheating benefits to look towards. Either that or get a job doing something menial that would allow you to con as much money as possible out of people.

Perfect.

Then Gove had to fuck it all up.

Cunt.

Started with the decision. Once it was clear that we were not alone. That we were being judged it all went to hell in a handcart. Babies and bathwater were thrown out and plans were drawn up. The phony war began in earnest. The powers that be knew it would be a matter of time before they returned. So preparations were made. Secrets were revealed to the upper echelons of power and countries unified.

Nothing brings people together like a scrap. This one was for all of us.

Which brings us to the Gove test, and the fucking up of Boot's life plan.

School leavers suddenly had to take a test, the Gove test, pass it and you were a civi - your life was your own to do with as you pleased. Pass it well and you were 'tested' though Boot never knew what that meant. All Boot cared about was being a civi, having control of his life after so many years of being told what to do and resisting.

Boot failed.

Failures were grunts. Grunts were packed off as cattle to be 'processed'. Higher functioning Grunts went to be officers or sappers or fly boys. Lower ends who were displayed certain attributes required would be trained to be 'death heads' commandos to work behind enemy lines.

Boot was neither.

A promising start in life ruined because of a couldn't give a piss attitude. Boot bombed out. Not for the first time he hit rock bottom.

The 'droppers' or drop ship troops. Supposed to be shock troops trained to space jump into the enemies heartland. They knew what droppers really meant. Dropping like flies. High casualty rates and low life expediencies. Some didn't like those odds.

Boot hated it.

Boot resisted.

Boot was crushed.

How they found him he didn't know. How long he had been here he didn't know. He couldn't even remember his real name. Boot, he had not always been called Boot. He remembered vaguely awaking and being told that was his name, but it wasn't. This repeated itself, then they told him the rules. You only get fed if you admit your name is Boot. They showed them through their cells people getting carried off, dead people they said, starved themselves because they didn't admit the truth. The one truth.

Your name is Boot.

Your name is Spade.

Your name is Wrench.

You are an object.

You are a useful object to society.

Who you were was a waste, the waste is gone.

Your name is Boot.

Boot remembers the hunger. He remembers the joy of eating the first time he told them his name was Boot.

Boot stands as the drill instructor walks up and down the line. The man in front of Boot has been made from some nightmare toy chest. Legs lean and muscled like a lions, chest and shoulders stolen off a silver-back gorilla a neck like a bison's with a square head perched on top and the eyes. Boot had never seen eyes like it. Or if he had he couldn't remember. The eyes were piercing, and dead. Completely devoid of life. They didn't look so much at you but through you while at the same time stripping you down to the soul. It't the eyes though that Boot is taken by, no not the eyes, its the scars. Every inch of this mans body is crisscrossed with white veiny scars. Some shallow other deep and wide. His body looks like a mutated spider defecated webs all over him. It is possible that none of the mans body is original, all regrown in vats after missions. The only original factory part is his will to live, driving him through the pain, the missions, the wounds.

It's enough to make Boot question those eyes, are they human, what horrors have they seen?

His name is Clamp, here he is known as Boss. That's the right he has as their drill instructor. One smart-arse questioned who he was the first day they were let here. A day Boot remembers as being the first one outside since they got here, oh they smell, they all stank of shit and sweat from their confinement. One prick, Caliper was his name, he questioned Boss and no one questioned Boss since. The last Boot heard Caliper would live, but he will be eating and breathing through tubes for a while.

Boss finishes his inspection, if it can be called that. Its an inspection the way a hungry hyena would stare at battery farm chickens dropped on its door. Hungry piercing stare looking at prey, mentally picking off the weakest ones as easy as a fat kid picks up sweats to shovel down.

Boss speaks;

'A Dropper is like a tree.'

Boss looks around at his prey, Boot feels eyes looking at the man behind him whilst at the same time stripping his soul naked on the sacrificial alter of the military.

'A tree does not think, a tree does not feel and a tree does not question. A tree responds to stimulus, a tree grows, develops and becomes strong. When a tree is born it is weak, a sapling can be easily uprooted and snapped. However in the right environment, with the right amount of shit that tree could grow strong. A strong tree does not break, a strong tree does not yield and most importantly you puny fucking saplings'.

It only takes a second, but Boot can feel Boss staring at the whole assembled group and every man present growing at least an inch as a result. Or at least straightening up more!

'A tree tirelessly works so that other, and more fucking worthy creatures, are able to live. Do I make myself clear saplings?'

For the first time in a long time Boot understood something that someone was trying to teach him. That all the years of skiving, of doing the bare minimum, of being a shit to people who were trying to help him because he didn't think any of it mattered, well it all mattered.

This was his reward for a lifetime of trying to fail.

And it was going to cost him a whole fucking lot.

The question. - Currently needs editing.

I have been given a pad of paper and a pencil, the kind of thick pencil that makes me feel like a child. If you are reading this then these are my thoughts on the question. If there is anyone to read this, or if it makes it to someones eyes I hope it makes sense. I always find it is better to externalize internal monologue when making an important decision. Decisions don't seem to get more important than this one. Yet the question still comes down to a simple yes or no. When you scratch the surface of any question that is what they almost always boil down to.

Yes or no.

I aim to write down everything in my head. So I can answer the question. Or at least make sense of it.

I am currently pondering the question while sitting in a dimly lit room. I have a bed, single naturally, a table and chair. All single. All solitary. Much like myself. There is a plate with some crumbs from a cheese sandwich and a tea cup with staining inside and a small pool of cold tea with undissolved sugar at the bottom like syrup. Even though this is not my flat and these are not my belongings it feels very similar to home. Maybe that is the point?

I don't remember fully how I came to be here. I remember they treated me well and were very polite. Truth be told I don't even know who they are. The question though. I remember the question very well.

Yes or no.

I have taken one bite out of my apple. The apple came with my lunch, or was it dinner? I have no recollection of time. They said I could have what I needed within reason, I could take as much time as needed. If I needed something I only had to ask. I asked a question straight off.

Question 1: Why me?

They said because I was normal, a representative sample.

Brilliant. Oh to be run of the mill. TV, magazines, music, life has spent years telling me that I'm not normal. I don't do normal things. I don't live the life that other people seem to do. Yet here I am apparently I am normal. I work a dull office job, the kind of job where if I didn't do it someone else would fill my place and no one would notice. Only the manager would probably pay that person less. I have family, but my siblings all earn and seem to do more than I do. My parents seem to favour them because of this. It doesn't mean I don't love my family but, well there it is. Maybe I am normal. Centre of the bell curve. Middle height and age and weight and average looking.

Yes or no.

Average, normal and boring?

I look at my apple. It reminds me of a logo and a man. The man more so. His work led to the technology for the logo's company. He also rose to eminence because of his work during a war. Is this a test? Am i being tested to see if I am sentient like one of the mans tests? then I remember the mans latter days and the apple. It makes me sad. He was punished for loving men because it was deemed immoral at the time.

I have two columns on one of my pieces of paper.

Yes.

No.

My yes column has the mans name, my family and apples.

The no columns has a list of things which make me feel sad.

I screw up the paper. It feels like hours since I last moved. My room has lots of balls of paper everywhere. It is a strange because I don't remember starting again this much. I can't shake the feeling that this is a test. That I have been set up and recorded and the last few hours have been for nothing, or at least for the amusement of everyone watching me. Anger flares. Quickly as ever it is gone. I wander over to the door and knock. It opens before I have finished my first wrap. Obviously I am being watched.

Question 2: Can you prove I am where you said I am?

When I arrived they explained everything. where I was and what the question was. They told me I could have a room and time and left me. Eventually someone arrived and brought me food. I never questioned it. I was to dumbfounded by what they had said. Now though I don't believe them.

They are tall. These hosts of mine. They make me feel like a child. The pencil didn't help either. I ask for them to prove our location. They take me to a gantry. It's large. Multiplex cinema screen large. There are metal doors in front of it. They slide back.

I'm not prepared for what I see.

There is lots of rubbish written about space. What the rubbish doesn't prepare you for is how dark it is. Even with the Sun and the stars its bleak. My view is of the Earth. Although it's hard to make out continents really. Mostly its a big blue marble. I feel the universe narrowing down on me, that feeling of dizziness that normally comes before throwing up, clammy hands and sweaty brows. I steady myself. I hear another voice although it is my own ask if this is all the proof they have. I'm suprised that the voice I hear has some measure of strength because that can't be mine it, sounds like my voice but I'm not conscious of actually speaking. Words continue to come out steadily at first but becoming more erratic more higher pitched. Words come out my mouth that I would be ashamed to admit I knew. Eventually I hear a dull click. Then another. My escorts seem to be waiting for something.

The room bottoms out.

The first thing I am aware of is my stomach flipping. I have only had a cheese sandwich but I can feel it somersaulting in my gut. My chaperons stand unaffected. The clunking noises must have been some attachments or magnetic boots. I on the other hand am floating, spiraling, swirling, flying, feeling free.

I am in space.

I am staring down at my home.

The question.

All my family and friends, loved ones and acquaintances.

The question.

All the art, culture, science, civilization and progress.

The question.

All the hatred, anger, destruction and war.

The question.

The love, compassion, humanity and care.

The question.

The greed, the apathy, the holocausts and jihads.

The gravity is turned back on. Without meaning to I land on my knees.

I sink down.

I look up at my guides. They are so much taller than I am normally. Now from this vantage point I feel insignificant. I imagine if an ant was sentient and looked up at a gardener this is how it would feel.

The question burns. Ants burn. What about the rest of the world?

Question 3: What becomes of the rest of the Earth?

I am sat staring at my half eaten apple. I have no appetite anymore. The skin around the bite mark is starting to turn brown with age.  There will be apple trees, nature the rest of the Earth would be left untouched.

The planet keeps on turning in space, animals continue to run around, to hunt and fight and survive. Plants continue to grow. Life finds a way and continues to exist.

The question still exists as well.

I sit engulfed in my own mind. Staring at nothing in particular. Looking inward rather than out, flicking through all moments in my life. I have no frame of reference for this, no inclination as to what the right or wrong thing should be. I have nothing.

Zero.

How does one man come to a decision about the fate of many. Through history how have people made those decisions? Do they weigh one group against others before deciding which will be the one to support. Or do they let some level of conscious decide? Are people guided by morals or greed? Nurture or design.

My head spins.

If I had a coin would I toss it and let the decide. Or would I re-throw until I got what I wanted? Would their be random acts at play or confirmation bias?

Do I allow my emotions to take over or do I go with calm light of day rationalism? There is so much at stake but is there. Is there really a choice at all? Is it one of those moments where life will make its own decision regardless of my actions here and now. If my actions are to have the effect my hosts claim they will.

A smarter man than I would question whether I actually make my own decisions. Is this just a situation where I am on rails. Moving steadily towards a predetermined finale. That can't be right. I am in charge of this decision, I am in charge of my own life.

The door to my room opens. The extra light makes me wince slightly. A giants silhouette fills the doorway and is cast across the room towards me. I stare at the apple. The apple going off, no longer ripe or edible. The apple with the giant human bite taken out of it. How much that represents.

The silhouette becomes a shape and enters the room. The host, the guard the alien stands before me. Asks me if I have an answer.

In that moment I do. I look at the apple. I feel like the apple is in my throat.

I speak;

'Ask me the question again.'

I wait, his voice is like the rumbling of a storm overhead. Deep and threatening. He asks the question that has become my life, part of my being, in a very short amount of time;

'Your species, should we let them live?'