Lights Out

{|style="width:100%; color:#FFF;" Thinking was a luxury that the shouts and stun batons of the drill instructors rarely afforded. But after 2300, there would be no chaos, no mind-numbing stress and strain… just the faint hiss of air circulating in and out of the enclosed unit that served as a bed. There were seventy-five units in total, each with a single child inside. The room was dark, and the MPs that guarded the exits were concealed from view. The boy inside Unit 052 pressed his face to the transparent wall and exhaled, watching as his breath fogged up the glass.
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Jorge remembered when they’d had actual racks instead of cages, but that was before the near-successful escape attempts. Now they were stuck like this. Earlier, the children who resisted getting into the cages were forced inside, and they were probably nursing bruises from the struggle. He didn’t envy them. He preferred to cooperate in such instances, mostly because getting beaten up made PT the next day harder than it already was.

He scratched the top of his head, feeling the stubble that had come up since his last “haircut,” then shifted positions. He settled into a cross-legged hunch and yawned. Attempts to interact with the others were useless, as the units blocked noise and it was too dark to use hand signals properly. Besides, they were all asleep by now – he could barely make out Isaac-039 to his left, and Serin-019 to his right. How Serin managed to sleep facedown baffled him, and he might have been worried, but the containment units monitored their vital signs. If any child had a medical issue, the staff would come and address it.

A flicker of light caught his eye. Seven units down on the row opposite his, one of the kids had turned on their unit’s lights. It was an infraction that would piss Mendez off to no end, but once Jorge saw who it was, he wasn’t surprised. The occupant of Unit 117 wasn’t exactly known for his humble nature, and had a willful streak that made him extremely hard, if not impossible, to beat in a fight. The boy’s name was John, and Jorge watched as he sat with his hands clasped around his knees, staring out at nothing in particular.

117. It was a number that stood out in Jorge’s mind. The first day of boot, 117 had been responsible for his team losing the Ring-the-Bell contest; Jorge recalled watching John, Sam and Kelly as they sat forlornly in a corner of the mess hall, while the other children gorged on dinner. But that had been a year ago, and now those trainees were some of the best. Kelly was the fastest trainee, Sam was one of the strongest, and John… well, Jorge wasn’t sure what exactly John had. He wasn’t the smartest, or the friendliest, or the most popular.

So why, then, did Doctor Halsey take such an interest in him?

Spartans weren’t supposed to be jealous – it was a lesson Mendez pounded into them time and time again. But Jorge couldn’t help feeling a pang of something when he saw Halsey lingering on the sidelines while they trained, marking things down in her notebook, only taking the time to speak to a few of the trainees. Always the same few. Always him. Frederic, Jerome, Kurt… and John.

Why do I care?

Jorge had been an orphan before the Spartan-II Program rewrote his entire existence. The day Halsey had shown up and asked him if he wanted to help protect humanity, he’d answered yes without hesitation. He’d seen the vids, watched the news, learned of the terrible things Insurrectionists did on Reach and on other colony worlds. One of his orphan friends had lost her parents during a terrorist attack in Quezon; six-year-olds weren’t supposed to be able to comprehend that kind of senseless violence, but Jorge knew it was wrong and it needed to be stopped. Halsey had offered him the chance to stop it.

Even now, after all the beatings and hunger and pain, he knew it was the right thing to do. Halsey and Mendez were always telling them they were training for important work, enduring things no one else could so they would be able to survive and help people. He liked that. The life he had known was a blur in the back of his mind, and he didn’t really miss it. Halsey had been the first person to actually want him for anything; plenty of couples had already passed him up for adoption, and she’d taken him away from that rejected feeling. Now he belonged to something bigger than he’d ever imagined, and it was enough to fill the empty place the parents he couldn’t even remember had left behind.

''But she hardly ever says anything to me. It’s like there are so many of us, but only a few matter.'' It was childish sentiment, but his seventh birthday was only a few months past. He laid down on his stomach and folded his arms, still watching 117. ''I wish I could be him. I don’t know what he has that I don’t, but I want it. I want to be one of Doctor Halsey’s favorites. I want to be…''

His brow furrowed. What was it he wanted, really? He remembered watching other orphans as they left hand-in-hand with their new parents, beaming with joy. He’d wanted that more than anything once… now, it seemed alien to him, as did the concept of mother and father. But the itch was still there, the need for acceptance. For love. Mendez had already informed the recruits that love was something Spartans didn’t indulge. It was something civilians experienced, and something Spartans gave up in order to protect the rest of humanity.

He didn’t want to be less of a Spartan, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be overlooked or ignored, either.

John shifted in his unit and turned his head, glancing at the other units. Jorge remained perfectly still. John was rarely one to show vulnerability – he’d been one of the quickest to master self-control – but as his pale blue eyes moved back and forth, his face relaxed and Jorge could see clearly the uncertainty there. For one moment, he wasn’t a Spartan trainee, he was a seven-year-old boy trapped in a cage and he probably couldn’t sleep because he had nightmares. Jorge sat up and John caught the movement, and though it was too dark to be sure, it seemed their eyes met.

What does he have that I don’t? Jorge didn’t know. But he had a feeling they both shared the same feelings of fear, and loneliness, and…

He gave a small wave. After a second of hesitation, John returned the gesture.

John continued to stare into space for another fifteen minutes, then he turned out the lights and curled up on his side, his back to Jorge. Jorge eased down onto his back, yawning again. Tomorrow would be another grueling test of the trainees’ limits, another series of tricks and traps and torture, another step toward becoming a Spartan. He needed to sleep – thinking was a luxury, but luxuries made you soft. The last thing he wanted to be was soft.

Maybe Doctor Halsey had her own reasons for taking an interest in only a few of the children. It wasn’t John’s fault, or Fred’s, or any of the others’. Adults did things for reasons only they knew, and it wasn’t a soldier’s job to question why, but to do.

''Maybe if I try harder, do my absolute best, maybe then she’ll notice me more. That has to be it. I just haven’t been doing my best.''

He drifted off to sleep while contriving ways to improve his performance, his small snores drowned out by the hissing of his unit’s air scrubbers.