Checked In

The Allertec began to kick in and my eyes came out of the haze I'd been in for what seemed like weeks. The drowsiness I feel all the time came in handy when I was sleeping outside at the farmhouse, or inside with the Forceys watching me. It didn't really matter, either, while I was in hospital riding the hydromorphone dragon, but now that I was out and about, I immediately could tell the difference.

Say what you will about mercenaries having control over significant portions of Southern Ontario, they're more than willing to give you top-quality pharmaceuticals and send you on your way after they blow you up.

With my eyes thrown open for the first time in weeks, I was able to fully assess the situation I was now in. Andy dipped a fry into what remained of his Sweet and Sour sauce, polishing off what was left in the plastic container. Oliver had a crumpled sausage and egg McMuffin wrapper on the tray in front of him. I was finishing a hash brown. It was salty and delicious.

The McDonalds on the MerCo hospital campus was surprisingly large, and in a central area of the Hospital I'd not seen while bedridden or on the way to the physio lab where they'd test out my Nanotex repair job.

A staff entrance led outside to the helipads, which I thought was where I was heading with Andy and Oliver. Above us, a twelve foot tall Ronald McDonald grinned from on high.

Andy closed his Big Mac container and crushed it, saying "All right!" just a little too loudly; his body throwing off what, to me, seemed to be a bright red aura.

"You good?" Oliver's green aura was somewhat soothing, but shifting to an agitated purple, with underlying tone of yellow anxiety. "I've got to tie you up. If you're good, I'll cut you free in a bit, but we gotta keep up appearances, yeah?"

"Yeah yeah yeah." I offer my hands up which Oliver puts in a pair of PlastiCuffs and pulls them a little looser than usual. Andy, being a gentleman, took our trays to the composter bin and fed it our organics, and took care to remove the paper liner and neatly stacked our trays.

Walking away from the food court and into the heliport complex, I saw a set of four helipads, two of which were vacant. The helicopter nearest to the door was a huge twin-rotor Chinook, which had an orange and white search and rescue paint job. From the rear ramp, a group of MerCo medics were piling out with wounded mercenaries being loaded on to stretchers. From the noise of the rotors, I could only make out vague vowel sounds.

Near the back of the complex, the black, single-rotor helicopter sported some kind of autocannon on its underbelly. Based on the fade pattern from the UV damage during its lifespan, I could tell that this was likely retrofitted news helicopter.

What also struck me was the amount of dust kicked up by the wash, which was very uncomfortable to walk in. Andy stepped in the helicopter first, with his MP7 swung around to his back, he helped me up using both hands, followed by Oliver who got in last, and sat opposite Andy and I, taking his MP7 off completely, slinging it on to a 3M Command hook that was stuck to the Lexan separator between the pilot and us. He was sitting in what I assumed was the cameraman's seat, which had been adapted to hold some kind LMG with a whole-ass ammo box on it, pointed up toward the ceiling on, I guessed, what was the Steadicam or whatever.

Andy threw a headset on me and turned it on and up before putting his on, Oliver too care of his own.

The pilot looked back at us from behind a pair of Pit Viper sunglasses. "You guys ready?" The voice in my headset matched the movement of the mouth behind the olive green gaiter. Oliver gave a thumbs up and the pilot looked forward.

The rotor began to scream louder as we left the ground. Once we're clear, we pitch forward and start to move, which my stomach did not appreciate.

"Hey Oliver?"

I held up my arms, showing him the PlastiCuffs. "I solemnly swear that I unlikely to cause a mid-air incident."

"Solemnly?"

"Totally."

Oliver pulled out a spring-assisted knife and liberated my wrists.

Sitting back down in his seat, my headset crackled on as Oliver said"—'nt bee too long before we get there (whrrr) It's supposed to be pretty nice," I saw him directly speaking to my face but hearing him only in my ears at the same time.

After I processed that, I felt my stomach churn. The color drained entirely from my face and my head began to bob a little bit.

Andy noticed first, "Hey! (shht), you ok?"

"(shht) I think he's gonna puke, (shht) Hey, you got a bag?"

The pilot got a plastic bag back, which I got around my mouth 0.78 seconds before I finally let loose the sausage and egg McMuffin I'd had twenty minutes earlier.

The noise I made was loud, perhaps disconcertingly so, and audible, I was told, over the rotor. I'm nothing if not accurate, and I'd managed to get it all into the blue utility bag I'd been handed in the nick of time. Tears formed in my eyes. I felt warm liquid come out through my nose.

"Eughhghhh," was all I could say, my tongue fully locked in place.

"MATT, YOU OKAY?"

I waved my hand at Oliver, indicating yeah I was alright. Fuckin' hell. He handed me a few Kleenex that accompanied my breakfast in the bag after I wiped up.

Eventually we evened out a bit more and the lava, or I guess magma, inside of me had cooled to the point where I felt okay to talk.

"Hey, can you tell me something? That guy," I pointed at the pilot, "Where's he from?"

The pilot chirped in, "(shhht) I'm from Dayton, Ohio."

I forgot he could hear me.

"You don't sound like you're from like, here, either. Andy's... You're all American, right?"

"Yep."

"So why are none of you like... military."

"We're corporate. Well, not him," Oliver threw his thumb back indicating the pilot.

"Yeah, ZeroWorries PMC– private military contractor, I get it. Where's he from?"

"It's a secret. I'm certainly not a qualified US Army pilot working in support of a mercenary force. No way."

I sat in silence for a second.

"Okay, but like... When we, like, us Canadians, other than our media, this whole thing," I gesture around, "Doesn't even make the news anymore. These days it's all about the war in the Darien, the Caribbean blockade, and the Europe stuff. And the trade deals being made with Western Canada and Cascadia."

Oliver was kind of changing the subject on me, I could tell, "I got some friends actually near where we're gonna be at, and it's literally just slogging through people's old homes. It's pretty depressing, I hear."

"But the pay's the same no matter how you feel about it, really." Andy added, "And six weeks paid vacation."

"Why you guys though?"

"Actually I checked this out," Oliver said, "It works out that it costs about $1200 in labor a day to put us out here, that's base. We get a budget of, for us today on this sortie, 60 rounds, with access to this asset," he patted the LMG, "in case of emergency. But this isn't part of our budget, this is transport operating expenses, which..."

"Amercian tax dollars?"

Oliver nodded, "So you're looking at all in, for all of us here, without counting the pilot,"

"Uh huh."

"Andy and I get about, like I said, $1200 plus about $300 on delivery, and $200 in outfitter credits today for this escort."

"Okay."

"Meanwhile, full regular salary with benefits with the adjustments, you're looking at basically all of that cost for this is way cheaper than a full deployment."

"The rumor is," Andy cut in, "With commitments overseas and all the shit going down in the Darien, this contract is way better, even if we don't get a pension or whatever. I don't want swamp foot, and being on a boat doesn't really appeal to me."

"Nor a land war in Asia," Oliver said.

The chit-chat continued like that for a while. Oliver was married, but no kids. Andy had a kid, but not married. I talked about my kids, without going into specifics.

Without warning, we pitched back up to level and began our descent. Oliver produced another pair of PlastiCuffs and slipped them over my wrists, this time, tightening them in a way that I was actually restricted. He picked up his MP7 from the command hook and slid open the side door of the helicopter just as we touched down.

In front of me were another half dozen PMCs with a mishmash of equipment. They didn't have anything pointed at me, per se, but the effect was the same.

Oliver and Andy popped out with me.

"All right," Andy said, "Let's get you checked in."