Steel World Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Here’s your disk back.”
    He slid the tiny sliver disk across to me, and I pocketed it.
    “You keep that handy. That’s your ID.”
    “Okay,” I said. “What do I do now?”
    “Whatever you want. We don’t ship out until morning.”
    “In the morning?”
    “Yeah. That’s why Ville sent you to Varus, isn’t it? We’ve got a hot contract, and we’re short a few men.”
    I stared, opened my mouth, then closed it again. This wasn’t what I’d been expecting. In movies about joining up with a legion, there was always a lengthy training session on Earth before any new recruit’s first mission.
    “What should I do until morning?” I managed to ask.
    “You got a place to stay tonight?”
    “Uh, no.”
    “Here,” he said, slapping a token down on the counter.
    I picked it up. “What’s this?”
    “A sky-train token, yokel,” he barked. When I didn’t move away, he glared at me. “Well? I’m not going to carry your bags for you!”
    There was no handshake, no orientation, nothing. I had a thousand questions in my head, but I didn’t want to antagonize a veteran on my first day.
    “Thank you,” I said evenly. “I have a lot to learn. Is there any kind of brochure or website I can—”
    “No. There’s no faq, either. You can’t access anything like that until you’re on the ship. You can sleep on the lifter—we prefer that actually, because you can’t be late that way. It will leave for orbit at 0600 hours. You’ll get your training en route to our next mission. Use that token by ten pm, the sky-train to the spaceport closes down after that.”
    I stared at the token for a second.
    He glared at me. “Anything else?” he growled, his tone daring me to ask another question.
    “Uh, no.”
    “Then get out of here, McGill!”
    I left. I walked to the tracks, but the sky-train was absent. I checked the time and realized I had a few hours before I had to head for the transport.
    I felt a little strange. Things had all moved along so quickly in the end. I wondered if I was in some kind of shock.  One minute, I’d been wandering around thinking I had no future, and the next I had one—six years of service with a unit I knew nothing about.
    An odd feeling grew over me. I thought now that I should have read up on every legion, not just the famous ones. It had simply never occurred to me that something like this was going to happen. I guess every guy assumed he was going to join up with an outfit that was on the nightly news streams doing cool things.
    I thought about getting out my tablet and researching Varus, but I didn’t quite have the heart. I’d already signed, after all. There was no point in making myself ill with the details now.
    Recalling a refreshment stand that sold beer up on the first floor, I changed directions and headed for the escalators. I hadn’t touched alcohol since I’d decided to sign up. That sort of thing always showed up in bio tests. But now that I had signed, there was no reason to hold back. And I needed a drink immediately.
    On the way up, I came face to face with one of the few people I recognized. It was none other than Carlos, the guy who’d annoyed me since I’d first met him.
    He was standing at the top of the escalators, looking downward. He looked worried, like he didn’t know if he should go down or not. I released a snort of amusement. I knew in an instant what his story was. No one had wanted his sorry ass any more than they’d wanted mine. I could only imagine what kind of grim analysis the psychs had stamped on his records. The word “asshole” had no doubt been prominent in the write-up.
    “Hey! Carlos!” I boomed, greeting him.
    He looked startled. I could tell he hadn’t even noticed me as I came up the escalator toward him. He stared at me, then his face lit up with recognition.
    “Hey look!” he said. “It’s tall, dark and stupid! What’s up, man?”
    I forced a grin and clapped him on the back. He grunted slightly and looked up