Chapter 355 - Far Future Ch. 65 – You’re in the Army Now (1/2)

Jomrin Min sighed as he stared at the cot next to him.

He was doing his mandatory two years required for Citizenship, and just prayed that he wouldn't get sent to any active duty company. He hadn't tested out with the reflexes needed for flying, artillery required better math skills, and the tank corps wanted guys with driving experience and was extremely competitive. He didn't have the mechanical skills to be in repair and maintenance straight off, nor the accounting and computer skills to be in logistics.

He was a gravball player and athlete, one of the best in his schola, but what that translated to in the military was an infantry grunt.

Worse, there were rumors going around that the company he was assigned to was a penal company, and the officers running were only assigned there because there was nowhere else to send them that they couldn't fuck up more. If it ever did become time to fight, the last thing he wanted was that kind of person in command...

”Company Tats! Move it out if you want your company tats today, or tomorrow when you're fucking exhausted and just want to get your three hours of sleep! Move it, recruits!”

The woman's force was sharp and piercing, almost driving him to his feet. He took a look out the doorway of his temporary quarters, saw two women walking down the hall, pounding on the walls with impressively strong blows, repeating the same words. They pointed behind them, at another soldier at the end. ”Move, recruits!” the one in the lead snarled out, which somehow made her exotic cheekbones, the blue-black tats, and pointed ears all the more fetching. Her dark eyes met his, and he straightened despite himself as she jerked a finger over her shoulder. ”Move it out! You're in Company Waltz, get your Tat before I have to drag your ass in there tomorrow and listen to you scream then!”

Jomrin swallowed despite himself, wondering what he was in for, and headed for the end of the corridor, where a stony-faced soldier with ganger tats shoved him down a line after the first group.

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Half the mess hall had been cleared, and numbers of young women were sitting at different tables, with simple kits open next to them, and glowing lights around their hands. Jomrin stared with all the other men and women at the golden claws covering their hands, looking like razor gauntlets tipped in dye that danced over the shoulders of the recruits sitting in the chairs next to them.

Nymphals? All of them? Mindblades? Mindclaws?, he corrected himself, dumbfounded. What were so many psions doing here? Didn't they go to a special division or something?

He shuffled from foot to foot, both astounded by the sight of so many gorgeous women at work doing Tats, and overwhelmed by seeing so many psions together. No, they couldn't be psions, or they'd be Mentats. They were just wearing uniforms like normal soldiers, nothing special about them.

And then one of the inkers lifted her arm, and her subject did the same. She bent and twisted it to the side, and the recruit yelped and did the exact same thing.

A blue-green claw snapped up around his arm. Jomrin felt his eyes almost pop out.

What the hell? Did she... make him a mindbl-claw?

”Dude,” he nudged the guy in front of him blankly, who was also gaping. The guy was shorter, with a round, honest face, currently with eyes wide.

”The fuck?” was the immensely informative reply, which Jomrin could only agree with.

There was a score of the women at work, taking about three minutes per recruit. The line flinched when the guys getting Tatted punched the claws on their right hand into the palms of their left hands, and all of them screamed in shock. Their hands quivering as their mindclaws faded away, and the Tats on their arm smoked and hissed for a moment, they staggered away, back to their cribs.

It was only six minutes before Jomrin found himself being hand-waved over, as a petite girl staggered away, trying not to cry as she did so, but also staring down at her hand in amazement.

”I am your Platoon Leader. Tomorrow you will find me and line up behind me,” the woman said, as the razored claws on her hands dipped into a different ink each, flowing up her claw in multi-colored threads. She had golden hair and hazel eyes, and the nymphal cheekbones, ears, and those blue-black Tats similar to what he'd seen on the other one. Her nametag said HARI. ”Don't move.”

”Can I-” She swatted his mouth, and he shut up as she began carving into his shoulder. He winced, started to move, and her hand clamped down on his shoulder so hard it took his everything not to scream at the power in her grip.

”You try to move and I'll render you unconscious, then I'll strip you and put your underwear on your head to indicate what a shithead you are.” Jomrin went white and tried very, very hard not to move.

There was something like an electric shock, and a surge that went right through his skull and made his head go blank. There was a bright shining door there.

-Do this.- The command reverberated in his head, laced with iron and razors, and he couldn't even think of refusing. His arm went up, came down as he found himself reaching down there, and with a head-splitting, nauseating wrench, he grabbed something there, and twisted and sent it out into his hand.

There was a hum as a green-white mindclaw snapped into place around his right hand, just above his fingers.

He gawked at it, even as a drop of blood came out of his nose. He'd naturally been tested for psi when he was young, but he'd tested blank, even though he had an uncle who was in the lower order Mentats.

-And this.- The command was so rote and overwhelming that he didn't even think, and plunged the index finger of his new mindclaw right into the center of his other hand.

Something white-hot seemed to pop and come gushing out a hole in his hand, like the biggest blister ever getting forced through a tiny opening. He screamed like a little girl despite himself.

”You're done.” Despite the fact she looked so slender and younger than he was, he was yanked up to his feet and sent stumbling away, his mindclaw dissipating as he lost concentration.

-You will report to me tomorrow.

-You will manifest your Mindclaw a minimum of one hundred times before muster.

-If you want to be barely competent, you will do it two hundred times.

-If you want to be competent, you will do it five hundred times.

-If you want to be fucking awesome, you will do it one thousand times.-