Star Squad - Chapter One

 

He had pluck they said.

He had gumption they crooned with admiration.

Because the one thing every nineteen year old needed in this man's army was pluck and gumption.  What they did not need was a Ranger with nine fingers, and so they processed him out.

He didn't even rate a hospital bed while they did it, just a plastic chair in a tiny waiting room, nine stitches where his pinky used to be.  His hand was numb, as was the crook of his elbow where the medic shoved a ten gauge needle into a vein and pumped him full of saline and antibiotics.  The young Sgt. winked and gave him a half dose of morphine too, which made him care less about the pain and let his mind flow in funny ways.

All he ever wanted was Army.  All he ever wanted was to be the best.

His Dad had been the best and then his Dad died when he was a kid and he grew up with the ghost of the best in a picture on the mantel.

That ghost had a stolid face and high cheekbones.  That ghost excelled in football and academics and joined the Army right out of high school. He went on to be a Ranger and once a Ranger, made a baby and got himself killed in battle.

Jack's legacy was a pyramid flag in a mahogany box and medals he never looked at but hoped to one day earn himself.

"At least it was your left hand."

He jumped.

The man in the chair across from him seemed to appear from nowhere, but that could just be the morphine.

Jack blinked at him.

When he stayed in the chair, he blinked again and held up his bandaged left hand for examination.

"You are right handed, aren't you?"

Jack stared at his right hand for a moment and flexed the fingers on it. 

All five fingers worked and moved.

"I am," he agreed as if it took him by surprise.

"Then sign here."

He stuck a manila folder folded open on Jack's leg. 

The fatigues were still damp with lake water from his drop off the ropes course, but that didn't seem to bother the man.

He tried to make sense of the words, but the big block of text looked like a solid wall of letters and no matter how many times he blinked, he couldn't make sense of them.

"What am I signing?" he asked.  "Discharge papers?"

"Something like that," the man smiled.

His smile was solid steel and didn't touch his eyes.

Jack wondered again if the man was real, or if the juice from the plastic bag over his right arm was pumping him full of the funny stuff, that his shock state brain was making up the man.

"I bet you're wondering if this is real?"

Jack startled in the chair, his legs twitching.

"Can you read minds?"

"God no," the man chuckled.  "That's not my division.  You just have that look on your face.  The look of a man who wonders if the world around him is something other than what he sees.  Do you wonder that sometimes Jack?"

His leg twitched again.

Jack concentrated on the cold spread of saline as it entered his arm, his slow heartbeat pumping it warm, and shivered.

Shock, he thought.  I'm in shock and this is some doctor trying to talk to me, some Army guy trying to tell me I'm out.

That I don't have the pluck.  That my gumption is in the belly of a fish along with my pinky finger.

"I can see your confusion," the man leaned forward. 

He placed the elbows of his black suit on the black pants leg and stared into Jack's eyes. 

"It's okay to be confused.  All will be revealed."

"What?" Jack slurred.

What the hell was in that morphine?

"You took some tests Jack. Don't worry, we give them to everyone.  And we were glad you made Ranger school, even more excited when you almost made it through.  This was an unfortunate accident, but just because the cup is chipped doesn't mean you throw it away."

"What tests?"

The man leaned back and crossed his legs.

"Oh, this one, and that one here and there."

Here and where?  What was this guy talking about. 

Jack reached for the needle in his right arm, but he couldn't manipulate his fingers with the bandages.

He tried to blink away the blur.

"You're going to fall asleep," the man's voice was hypnotic and slow. 

"When you wake up, we'll have some answers for you.  And coffee."

Jack felt his head droop on his chest.  Something moved his right hand.  He fought to open his eyes and saw a pen clenched between his fingers.

"Sign first," said the man in black.  "Please."

Jack scribbled his John Hancock across the page because that was his real name.  A cruel joke played on him by his dead Ranger dad.  John "Jack" Hancock passed out in the chair.