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.