VI. Hot Body

After a cold meal of an unidentifiable starchy loaf and tofu, Collin returned to their bunks with the trainees. He’d ordered Symms and Crow to stay and hang out in rec. It was better that way because they would probably gab the whole rest period and keep everyone else awake.

Collin had to chuckle when he saw Carrie sprawled face down on her mat, covered in a blanket decorated with teddy bears. Then his face shadowed at a pale, well muscled leg that lay uncovered, marred by even more bruises that stopped where her boot would start. The calf was circled by a darker contusion that was almost a photographic image of four metallic digits. He shook his head. He’d rather take a plasma bolt than get up close and personal with a terminator like that. A clatter arose behind him; one of the puppies must have tumbled over his own feet. He turned to hush them.

“Brad, you’re like a bull in a china shop. Can’t a girl get some shut eye?” Carrie mumbled, rolled onto her side and covered her head with her blanket.

“Who’s Brad?” Devin whispered.

“Shush! Probably her old team lead. Now get your boots off and into your sack. We’ve got a couple of hours to sleep. Make good of the time”, Collin mildly scolded them.

She could still feel the heat of her anger, and hissed “Damn you, Cress!” However, her mind was still clear on the mission and her eye glued to the scope of her rifle. She had the aerial HK in her sights, aimed right in the proper place to kill it if she could group three rounds in the proper place. She squeezed off the first round, but didn’t feel the recoil as she was yanked back by a painful grip on her right leg and thrown against the berm ten feet behind her. She struggled to catch her breath, writhing as the Terminator stalked towards her. She fought to free her Desert Eagle, her right arm refusing to function, her fingers fumbling. It might be a toy against this monster, but she could possibly get lucky. Her mind was beginning to unfog as she noticed its slow movement as it picked up her rifle with its single functioning arm…

Collin’s knee dug into Carrie’s upper arm and his elbow into her upper back. She had a fistful of his T-shirt sleeve twisted in her fingers.

“What the hell, Brad?” she cried, her eyes opening wide.

“It’s Wall, Carrie,” he said calmly, closely in her ear.

Her quick breathing slowed, she blinked a few times, winced and then let out a sigh, “Shit,” she untangled her hand from the faded black fabric and Collin rocked back on his heels. Carrie untangled herself from her blanket, wincing as she flexed her arm and leaned against the rough wall. She held her blanket in a ball at her stomach, wrapping her arms around her bare legs.

“I’m sorry I had to do that. You were reaching for your sidearm,” he explained.

“Not your fault. I had to do that for Bradley more times to count.” She shook her head, frowning, gazing at and running her hand over the bruise on her calf, “I’ve never done it before, myself, though.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He probed. “You kept saying ‘it has only one arm’?” He hoped he wasn’t pushing too much.

Her head jerked up. She wondered what spectacle she had put on and just now noticed Aral and Devin furtively watching from their pads, “One was plenty.”

He grunted and took that as a no. “There’s the food Aral brought back for you. Then we can get to cleaning up for debriefing.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She reached for the paper wrapped bundle that was on her neatly folded fatigue pants, next to her Desert Eagle. As she chewed she eyed it warily and realized that she might need to rethink where she stowed her sidearm when she slept.

Level Four was beginning to buzz with the activity of returning troops. Carrie pulled her pants back over her bruised legs and shoved her feet back into her boots without lacing them. She stood and buttoned her fly, stretching and feeling a couple of new bruises. “We should wash up before the water stations get too busy.”
Aral looked at Carrie expectantly as they arrived at the long tin trough along the concrete wall. “You act like you’ve never seen water before.” Then she thought that maybe he hadn’t quite like this. She grabbed a basin from the shelf above the sink, motioning him to follow suit and turned the small tap. Water spit from it then a slow, cloudy stream filling the plastic tub. Aral still looked like a deer frozen in headlights and Carrie sighed.

“You’re my trainee, not my baby. I’m not going to wash you like one!” She then laughed and shook his shoulder. She realized he was a clean slate and she was going to have to lead him in everything, otherwise she’d have one grubby puppy at her heels all the time. “OK, just follow me.”

Carrie took off her t-shirt and stood in her sports bra, dampened the corner of her t-shirt and started wiping off the dust and grime from their walk. She liked washing up after a mission, like her mother used to make her wash up after a hard day’s playing. She wasn’t washing resin from tumbling around the pine needles of the mountains of Tennessee off of her; she was washing the dust of crumbled buildings, houses and lives. Even with those thoughts, this habit still made her feel good, because it was tied to memories of before Judgment Day. Many people got melancholy when they thought of their everyday lives before, mostly she didn’t. Her mood began to lighten; she never was one to wallow in bad moods.

She watched Aral swipe at his grime and grinned. He was a scrawny kid, most that age were, but she thought maybe he’d turn wiry. She could maybe imagine a wiry Aral hauling around thirty pound tank rifle. Cress wasn’t much taller, but was strong. She then wiped that thought from her mind. “You missed a spot.” She reached out and scrubbed behind his ear.

“Not the Mama Bear type, huh?” Collin spoke up behind her. He was concentrating on his image in the filmy, polished metal mirror above the sink, trying to scratch away his stubble with his knife.

“He could have grown potatoes back there.” She snickered, even more nostalgic thoughts of the origins of that phrase cascaded through her mind.

“You’ve got your own vegetable patch starting,” Collin gestured at her back with his improvised razor.

“Where?” She craned her neck. When Collin reached out she shrugged and gave him her shirt. He wiped at a spot between her shoulder blades, but it was stubborn. However, so was Collin and he seemed determined to gently remove the mark. He placed his other hand on her shoulder and Carrie felt her face turn pink. She bit the inside of her cheek and rubbed a spot between her brows.

She let him take one more wipe then couldn’t help but start to giggle. She looked over her shoulder and at his questioning eyes, “It’s a birthmark!” She laughed her eyes twinkling.

Collin scraped at his face with his knife; it was sharp, but he still didn’t like hacking at his growth. That is why he always let it go as long as possible before he took on the task of shaving, and it wasn’t always that you had enough water to do it properly with. However, if Carrie said the new Captain wanted a shiny face, he wanted to get in his good graces.

When Carrie had taken off her shirt he’d found himself studying her back, and again the pattern of blues and blacks, as well as an old plasma burn. There was nothing immodest about standing around uncovered in this day and age. Modesty had gone away the day you had to share a basin with a hundred other people, if you were lucky enough to be in a place that had enough water for washing. However, Collin found himself admiring the shape of her shoulders, and he quickly turned back to the mirror.

He quietly observed Devin at his side obviously had a fastidious foster mother and didn’t need as much coaching as Aral. He found himself amused by Carrie’s handling of Aral, she seemed to know the right tack to take with him and he thought they’d make a good pair. Despite her protestations, she was acting just like a Mama Bear and he had to say it, and her funny saying inspired him.

“You’ve got your own vegetable patch starting,” he replied.

Her eyes and grin held a challenge as she passed him her shirt and turned her back to him, and he was never one to resist a challenge. He carefully wiped at a brown patch, not wanting to scrub at the bruises, but it wouldn’t budge. He placed his hand up on her shoulder and instantly regretted it. He felt her muscles tense, her heat rise, which was met with a pulling deep inside of him. Luckily, that awkward situation was broken when she started to shake with laughter; he met her eyes, confused.

“It’s a birthmark!” her eyes sparkling over her other shoulder. He could only smile sheepishly and hand back her shirt, he didn’t trust himself to say anything coherent. He watched her pour water over her head and thought a cold shower would do him good, too.
Carrie and Collin stood against the wall people watching while once again waiting to get into Captain Barber’s presence. At this time of the duty day the pace was not as leisurely and men and women were busily moving about their business trying to shuffle all the information they’d received during the night’s patrols. Maps were unfurled on tables and some soldiers, still dusty from their walks or even fire fights were huddled around detailing important news.

Collin turned to Carrie, “So, clue me in. Does Captain Crispy want salutes and such?”

Carrie’s eyes grew wide as she looked over his shoulder, stood straight and saluted, “Good morning, Captain Barber.”

Collin spun around, dreading his fate and found no one. He turned back to Carrie who was covering her smile with her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes belying her apology.

Collin chuckled, “I’ll have to watch my step with you,” and then added, “I guess you’re feeling better? I hadn’t seen this side of you yet.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s just good to be home; when I’m not home I’m all business. And, since we aren’t home a lot, we have to squeeze a lot of fun into a short period.” Carrie grinned at Collin. Then she cleared her throat, “Anyway, the captain likes to keep things straight and his soldiers clean, but he’s not big on the bowing and scraping. You won’t see a lot of saluting here. He’s a straight shooter and a hands-on kind of leader.” Looks over Collins shoulder again, raises eyebrows, then smiles and says, “And, this time, it’s the real deal. Good morning, Captain Barber.”
Captain Barber ushered Carrie and Collin into his spartan office, and they sat opposite the tall, black officer at the map table. Barber sized them both up for a few seconds, he knew Porter of course, however after her obvious beating things could change. She didn’t have the wary eyes of a soldier that was soon to go over the edge and sat easily and patiently in her chair. Wall was an unknown, however the way he saw Porter interacting with him was good and he also seemed attentive, yet calm.

Barber hadn’t gotten to head a base as a Captain by being a fool, as most were headed by Colonels. He also didn’t care to move up to a Colonel that fast, because that fast a promotion usually meant too much ambition, ambition meant too much risk and risk meant you lost a lot of people for not a lot of gain. You had to take risk, but balancing risk was what he was good at. He did that by choosing good people, and making sure he had good intelligence to send those people on the right missions. He regretted that he might have sent Porter on a bad mission, but that happened sometimes, too; he was also a realist.

“Porter, I got your debrief from Liberty. I’m sure it’s thorough, but anything you want to add to that?” Barber asked.

“No, sir. That report about covers it.”

“Okay, then. On to your travel over, any incidents?” Barber looked to Wall.

“Yes, sir,” Collin began, “Carrie can show on the map where that warren was?”

Carrie leaned forward and put a marker on the area, “We’ll need to mark that warren off and inform people. I scrubbed it.”

Wall detailed the events with the two Ogres and terminators for Barber. “Our concern was that we’ve never seen small units like that out and about. We’ve seen large scale assaults, and single infiltrators, but nothing like that.” Collin concluded.

Barber rubbed his chin and nodded, “We’ve been seeing a lot of this lately in this area, something is going on and we need information” then shook his head. “I had to fight to get any scouts back up here. They weren’t going to let me have you back, Porter.”

Carrie sat back stunned, partly because she was surprised she was the only real scout here and also that he’d fought to get her back here when she thought she wasn’t coming back at all when she woke up at Liberty.

Barber continued, “Anyway, Wall, I know you’re not a scout, but I asked down there and they said you’re good and quiet, and your guys are good and quiet. I see you have a couple of trainees, and that might be troublesome, but we can work around that. We need more scouts. Do you think you can do that?”

Collin didn’t hesitate, “Of course, sir.” Collin’s philosophy was to always say you can do it, and then figure out how to do it.

Barber leaned forward, “I believe in General Connor, but I think a lot of things are happening up in the Canyons. He keeps his own counsel, but I think he’s looking in the wrong place. I understand he’s like a beacon, and moths like to burn themselves out on him. I already survived the fire, and I want to keep surviving. I don’t want to burn myself up, so I’m going to fly my own way. I want to burn Skynet and I think something’s up there that’s going to bite us in the ass if we don’t get up there and find it.”

Barber started laying out markers on the map, “I’ll give you three days to get settled in here, and then you can start. These are the areas of interest. We aren’t going to go in shooting it up, I just want intel- movements, numbers…” Carrie and Collin both nod and listen.
“What do you think about being a scout?” Carrie asked as they navigated the busy stairwell.

“It’s an interesting career change,” Collin answered, “I was kind of blindsided.”

Carrie laughed, “Yeah, and here I thought I was going the other way myself.”

They were about to stop at Level Four but Carrie offered, “Let’s go to rec, there will be lots of folk there.”

Collin raised an eyebrow and chuckled, “Folk?”

Carrie laughed, “People. It’s like y’all, get used to it… come on.” And she continued in a trot down the stairs.

A wave of sound hit them as they exited the stairwell; the open area was crowded with soldiers sitting around in groups on the floor, as well as some civilians from the lower levels. Collin was almost overwhelmed by the atmosphere, but Carrie grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along. She finally spied Symms and Crow sitting with the trainees and she moved towards them, returning greetings as she went.

“I see y’all have made yourself a home,” she grinned at them and their bottle as she sat down cross-legged, making their circle bigger.

Symms laughed, “Your friends are very hospitable,” he held the bottle out to her with raised eyebrows.

“Who gave it to you?” She asked curiously taking the bottle and an experimental sip. Sometimes you had to take a few sips to kill your taste buds before you could actually drink it. It seemed humanity would always have its intoxicants, even if they were foul tasting.

“Your blond fella over there,” Crow nodded and looked to his left.

Carrie looked in that direction, and spotted who she knew she’d see. Davies smiled at her, she nodded, “That’s Davies, he’s just a friend.” She took a bigger swallow of the bottle and passed it to Collin.

Several people passed and welcomed her back; a couple pounded her on the back, bringing winces which she tried to covered as smiles. “Please pass that bottle back, I’ll need some pain killing!” She took a couple large swallows, grimaced, then relinquished the bottle, “People don’t know their own strength.”

Collin looked concerned, “You OK?”

Carrie laughed, “Yeah, if the terminator couldn’t kill me, a few pats on the back won’t, just give me a sec, I think someone hit one of the ribs.” She brought her knees up and laid her forehead against the top of them and wrapped her arms around her legs and waited for the alcohol to work its magic.

Collin turned to Symms and Crow, “You haven’t found any friends yet?” he asked.

Crow answered mockingly, “Symms keeps running them off with his girlish laughter.”

“No, it’s your constant crying that you want your mother that drives them away!”

“Why don’t you just admit your undying love for each other and end your agony?” Carrie spoke from between her arms.

Symms and Crow looked at each other, eyes open in mock amazement, and cracked up when they realized that maybe Carrie is some fun after all. Collin then realized that maybe he’s gotten three of the biggest jokers left on the planet, and he wonders if he’ll survive both the war and the recreation room. He decided to risk the hooch, since it couldn’t be worse than the jokes, and took a big swig of the bottle and almost choked on the taste. All three adults looked up at him and laughed loudly.

“Mind if I join this party?” Standing over Carrie was Davies.

“Well, you provided refreshments, so it’d be impolite to refuse,” Carrie made a place for him and he sat close to her. She made introductions around, “This is Paul Davies, he works logistics.”

Conversation turned to their new assignment and Crow and Symms seemed eager to get into it.

Davies leaned in and whispered into Carrie’s ear, “You like your new Sergeant.” Carrie turned to him eyes blazing and mouthed “No”

He smiled and laid his hand lightly against her lower back, he spoke quietly close in “Carrie, you are so worked up right now you are ready to jump.”

She closed her eyes as he ran his hand up her back, she rubbed her temple, hiding her face from everyone but him, “It just been a while, that’s all.”

“Then let’s go” He smiled against her ear. She took a couple of breaths and couldn’t help but glance at Collin, who caught her eye. She looked away quickly, then nodded to Davies. He stood quickly and offered a hand up to Carrie.

“I’ll see y’all later.” She offered as she wiped dust off her pants. As they walked off she couldn’t help looking over her shoulder.
Collin watched Carrie make introductions and wondered about her relationship with this guy. She called him a friend, but she would barely even look at him, and he was eating her up with his eyes. Then when the whispering started Collin had trouble holding up his end of the conversation with Crow and Symms.

Collin watched Davies hand run up her back and looked away, but then when he looked back Carrie was looking at him, but glanced away. He watched her walk away, and he really didn’t like the feeling he got seeing Davies with his hand holding her elbow like that. He really wasn’t sure what to think when she looked over her shoulder at him, and she appeared like she felt guilty. This guy really bugged him and Collin tried to tell himself that it was because he was really protective of his team.

“So, what kind of friend is he?” Crow asked.

“The kind that wanted to throw her down right here and ravage her in front of us all.” Symms answered.

“Kind of like the Sarge did” Crow added.

“What the hell?” Collin turned on them.

“Damn, Sarge, you were about panting over her.” Crow didn’t know when to stop.

“Shut the fuck up!” Collin warned, and they knew they’d gone too far.

Chap V: Warm Bed

Chap VII: Cool Heart