The n00b Warriors (4 page)

Dylan rolled his eyes.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Sixteen.”

Simpson peered at him, surprised. “You serious?”

Dylan nodded.

“Well, let me let you in on a recruiting secret.” He pointed at the buses. “There are four groups of buses—A, B, C, and D. A buses are for the strongest, D are for the weakest—we call the D bus the Guinea Pigs or, aka, the first to die. People on the D bus don’t go through training—they go straight to a risky mission, and they never come back.” He squeezed the muscle on Dylan’s arm and said, “You’re a puny little punk—you’ll either go on the C or D bus—it’s all determined by how you treat us.”

Dylan stayed quiet.

“Just apologize, Dylan,” Trinity said from where she was still gathering her things.

“I was just sticking up for you.”

“Stick up for me by apologizing.”

Dylan looked at the officers. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s a pretty sincere sorry,” Simpson smirked. “But you did lie about a superior officer picking on the girl—does Company C need a man like that?” he asked the other officer.

Trinity finished packing, stood, and then looked at both officers and pleaded, “All of us are just scared and edgy. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You sure you’re not his girlfriend?” Simpson laughed and then said to the other officer, “Show him the liar’s handshake.”

Red Hair socked Dylan hard in the stomach, and Dylan doubled over in pain.

“Welcome to the club!” Simpson said. “Mark him D.” As Red Hair pulled out a black marker and wrote a D on Dylan’s forehead, Simpson turned to Trinity. “Mark his ladyfriend D too—it’s good to be with a friend when you die.” He looked at the kids in line behind them. “Let him be a lesson to all of you—we’re your mamas and daddies from here on out—we own you. You want to live, then worship us.”

“Hightail it to the D bus,” Red Hair hollered at Dylan, pointing at the furthest parking lot.

Trinity helped Dylan stand up straight and walked with him to the D bus. As she left, Simpson said, “Look through all that garbage she left—see if there’s anything I can send home to my little sister.” His pants started falling down, and he pulled them back up, “And someone find me a uniform that fits me! There has to be someone closer to my size at the morgue!”

“Thanks for sticking up for her!” Dylan said as they passed Jeremy, who was still looking away.

“He did what you should have done—nothing,” Trinity said. “It was really stupid.”

“I just took a punch in the stomach for you—be nice.”

“It was really stupid.”

There were rows of B and C buses. A dozen that said A. And only four that were marked as D. They were parked away from the other buses.

As they got onto the bus, they were surrounded by kids. The youngest recruits were all sent to the D bus.

“I guess we’re the underdogs,” Dylan teased Trinity as they sat down.

“It’s not a joke, Dylan! Don’t you get that?”

“Come on, Trinity—look around you! This bus is full of little kids. We’ll be babysitters—we got it made!”

“You heard what he said.”

“It was just a scare tactic.”

“Well, it worked!” She crossed her arms and turned in her seat to face the window.

“So now you’re not going to talk to me?”

Trinity didn’t answer.

“Fine.”

Dylan looked out the window, hoping other kids his age would join him and Trinity on the bus. None did. Most of the kids were getting on the B and C buses; Dylan saw Jeremy go onto a B bus. The longer they waited, the more the kids in his bus began to cry.

Their bus was full within the hour, but they didn’t leave.

“Why do you think we’re not going?” Trinity asked.

“They’re waiting for night so we’re harder to see—in case there’s any Cocos.” He paused, and then hesitantly asked, “So are you talking to me now?”

“No.” Trinity put her head down and closed her eyes.

“You’re going to sleep?”

“I’m going to pray—do you mind?”

Dylan watched her pray from the corner of his eye, and he thought back to the first day they met. Trinity moved onto his street while Dylan was on winter break; it was a week before Christmas. He was in sixth grade and didn’t have any close friends. His mom offered Dylan’s help, because she didn’t want him sitting at home all day playing war video games.

Dylan was not good at war games, which made him unpopular. Unlike most kids, Trinity never seemed to mind. Although she was good with a rifle when she was forced to shoot during practice at school, she was against the war for moral reasons. Trinity had quickly become Dylan’s best friend.

When she opened her eyes, Dylan asked, “What did you pray for?”

“Protection.”

“I hope it worked.”

#     #     #

After nine o’clock, a soldier Dylan’s age climbed into the bus. Without saying anything, he got in the driver’s seat, started the bus, and, after warming up the engine, began to move out. Near the main gates, the officer with three stars was sitting in a low chair, smoking a pipe. He waved and smiled as they passed.

For a while, the bus traveled in a line of other buses, but slowly the line started breaking up as the buses started going different ways.

At Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, 20 minutes away, the bus stopped, and a man only a few years older than Dylan got on smoking a cigar. He was Asian and had long black hair that was slicked tightly back into a ponytail.

The man took a long drag on his cigar, then started to cough as he tried to swallow the smoke. “That thing tastes like garbage,” he said, looking at it in disgust and tossing it out the door.

In the walkway of the bus, he announced, “My name is Lyle Ridgemont. I’m your new team leader.” He turned to the bus driver. “Let’s move out.”

He was about to sit, but then paused and said suddenly, “Who has a PSP?”

A couple kids raised their hands. He stalked up to the closest. “Hand it over. This is going to be a long bus ride.”

Lyle sat in the empty seat in front of Dylan. In less than five minutes, he seemed frustrated with the game. He turned around to Dylan. “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Dylan Austen.”

Lyle grabbed Dylan’s neck and shouted, “That’s Dylan Austen,
sir
.”

“Sir! Dylan Austen, sir!” Dylan said, frightened.

“I’m just kidding you—had you scared though, right?” Lyle snickered as he let go.

Dylan nodded frightened.

“Kind of old to be on this bus, aren’t you?” Before Dylan could speak, Lyle concluded, “I guess you would be—you’re pretty puny.”

“So what’s her problem?” Lyle looked at Trinity, who hadn’t said anything since he’d gotten on the bus. “She ain’t a mute, is she?”

“Maybe I’m just being quiet!” Trinity snapped.

“Calm down, girl!” Lyle added, “I had a cousin who was mute—she made a fine soldier. Never made a peep.”

“Where are we going?” Trinity asked.

“We’re going to war! Where you’ve been?”

“I
know
that. I meant—”

“I know what you meant! Ease up, soldier!” Lyle paused, and said quietly, “Can you keep a secret?”

Dylan and Trinity both nodded.

“We’re going to Disneyland.”

“Disneyland?” Dylan said.

“Ssh! Keep it down—I told you it’s a secret.”

“Why?”

“I’ve already told you too much.” Lyle stood and walked to the front of the bus to talk to the driver.

The boy behind Dylan tapped him on his shoulder and said, “Hey, can you get my PSP back? He’s not even playing it.”

Dylan looked at Lyle. He was just holding the game, standing in the front of the bus and trading war stories with the driver. Then Dylan looked back at the boy; he didn’t look much older than his younger brother—probably 13—the same age as everyone else on the bus except Trinity and Dylan. The kid had thick, coke-bottle glasses that were scratched in several places and blonde hair that was parted neatly on the side. “I’m sure we’re almost there.” Lyle made him nervous; he was impossible to figure out—he either was a young kid just trying to gain the trust of his troop, or completely psycho—Dylan figured he was probably a little of both.

“But I’m bored,” the kid whined. “All the other kids get to play. It’s not fair.”

Dylan pulled his PSP from his bag and handed it back. “Play mine.”

“Really?”

Dylan nodded.

From behind, he heard a whisper. “I’m Hunter.”

Without turning, Dylan put his hand behind him. “I’m Dylan.” He felt Hunter’s small hands shake his, and he wondered if Hunter could even fire a weapon.

Trinity smiled at Dylan’s gesture. He caught her in the act and said, “That’s the first smile I’ve seen on your face all day—does that mean you forgive me?”

“I forgive you, but I’m still mad.”

“That’s progress.” He tried to reassure her again. “Wherever we’re going, it’s not going to be that bad.”

#     #     #

Almost an hour into the trip, city lights finally started to appear. In most areas, the power was cut at dusk, but there were scattered lights in this place. Dylan could tell it was Orange County, where his mom was from. He had been there several times before.

They got off the freeway at the exit for Edison Field, former home of the California Angels. The ballpark’s lights were off, but spotlights were on in the parking lot, where several helicopters were starting to take off. Much like Legoland, the parking lot was being used as a makeshift Army base, but on a much larger scale.

The bus finally stopped just outside of the Disney California Adventure Park. Lyle looked the bus up and down and then said, “Welcome to Disney’s California Adventure. We go after guerilla soldiers tomorrow—get some rest. Company D’s HQ is at the main entrance gift store.” Lyle pulled out his sidearm and fired a shot into the bus’s ceiling, then hollered, “Fall out.”

Several months ago, Coco Puffs had tried to take control of the Los Angeles area. They had held out their campaign for a long time, but rebel Frosted Flake troops eventually pushed them into Ventura. There were still, however, small guerilla forces doing damage in southern California. One such force, Dylan now knew, was inside of Disneyland.

They were led to the Grand California Hotel inside the park. Dylan tried to look around once they were inside, but it was too dark to see anything.

Next they were divided into groups of four boys or four girls to a room.

“I’ll meet you here in the morning,” Dylan said, memorizing Trinity’s room number as she and three other girls left the group.

Once Dylan and his roommates had been shown into their room, Dylan checked the door handle and discovered they were locked in from the outside. He turned and looked at the two beds, then at the three other boys
—
Hunter and two other 13-year-olds.

On the bus, despite making this out to be “babysitting,” Dylan had felt embarrassed to be grouped with a bunch of kids, but at least Trinity had been there, too. He didn’t want the three boys to think he wasn’t tough, so he said, “I’m the oldest, so I get one of the beds—you guys can fight for the other.”

Hunter immediately sat down with his PSP, which he’d begged Lyle to give back when they were leaving the bus. The other kids began to survey the room, looking through all the drawers and trying to get the TV, which had no picture but was softly playing music from popular video games, to change to actual video. Two minutes later, while they were still looking through the room, the power was cut, and everything but the music coming from the TV turned off.