Do you acknowledge

After we touched down, I was able to take a long look at what had once been a lakeside resort, converted into some kind of militarized pseudo-religious complex of what looked like luxury condominiums and restaurants converted into operational outposts, worship centres, and of course, a bunch of MerCo folks walking around in plate carriers. I even saw a few women for the first time in a while, which I took note of.

Not like that. I mean like... most of the MerCo I'd seen were all men.

What had once been a feature restaurant near the water now had turned into some kind of worship area. Off to the side, behind a concertina wire topped fence, I saw some anti-aircraft cannons, as well as a makeshift motorpool behind that, with a few mercenaries maintaining equipment.

Once we touched down, I saw a couple of LAVs pulling in through the main gate and winding their way down a hill somewhere toward the north end of the the complex. The place seemed kind of familiar, but I was becoming more and more agitated about the situation. I could've used a joint right around then to take the edge off.

Oliver and Andy piled out of the helicopter and marched me past a park with a bunch of kids on a play structure, laughing and dong their thing, a few more playing four-square or whatever, which seemed weirdly out of place with so many guns around. Oliver and Andy had their game faces on, and reminded me that they'd need to check me in and do so in "Asshole Mode".

Truthfully, Oliver, Andy, and I got along pretty well on the flight over. Oliver, from Colorado, was a grad student signed up with a PMC to pay his student debt, and Andy, from Juneau, joined up because he thought he'd be assigned somewhere like Venezuela, Colombia, or "anywhere else in South America, attached to a US Military unit er something. Wherevr's warm." I didn't think that was an Alaskan accent. Then again, I'd never met anyone from Alaska who hadn't bleached whatever local accent they might have had.

I told Andy, "Here's not so bad in the summer if you're looking for heat. It's that deep oppressive heat though, the heat that soaks your lungs. That is when there isn't smoke. I've never really wanted to go to South America, though they have poisonous snakes or bot flies or anything."

"Bot flies?"

Oliver chuckled, "Yeah they like burrow into your skin and you gotta like dig 'em out with a knife. I saw a documentary on 'em a few weeks ago. Apparently when you go down there, you need like nine hundred shots and it's a whole different game. Here's pretty much the same as home, and unless you're in like Quebec, everyone speaks English."

I started to zone out as Oliver went on, watching the forests below me disappear into houses, which disappeared into hydro lines, which traced their way across farm fields.

Eventually I zoned back in to hear Andy mid-sentence, "the snakes but like," he held a hand up and mimed pulling a trigger, "Pop-pop. No problem. Carry a machete. Bugs though... the mosquitoes here are a bad enough but they don't... my-ay-as...." he showed Oliver his phone  "'Is the infestation of the body of a live animal by fly larva that grow inside the host while feeding on'... yeah. Fuck, gross bruh. Straight up nasty."

After touchdown, they were all business, and even had their sun visors down and gaiters up to provide a kind of impersonal anonymity, I assumed, as part of protocol. When I caught up with them later, they said they mostly did it so they'd feel not as bad about the handoff. "You know, man, I was really feeling it," Andy later told me, "I didn't wanna hand you over to the Marines, and the nuke? I felt bad."

The "Nuke", I later learned, was the modular nuclear reactor that had was recently taken into possession by the United States Marine Corps, dressed in their finest little green men uniforms. Tattoos are tattoos though, and I'd read enough Jane's as a kid to recognize what I was looking at when I had a chance to have a good look these guys, but I'll get to that later.

Right that second the only thing I astutely observed was the muzzle of Andy's MP-7 at the ready, while Oliver led me past the baseball diamond covered in desert camo Quonset huts, along with a few humvees emerging from an underground parking garage, driving over bollards that were cut down at some point to make way for the giant wheelbase. I watched as it just barely cleared what had once been a dividing island, directing traffic in and out through rollerdoors that had long been scrapped, again, I assumed, for the convenience of the humvees.

I also saw a whole bunch of robot dogs roaming around, too, operating in some kind of autonomous patrol mode. Some were heading out towards a dock that had been clearly newly fenced off with more chain link fencing topped with razor wire. From where we were walking I could see a small spring loaded kind of gate that allowed the dogs in and out, along with some perfunctory armed guards with bigger weapons than Oliver and Andy. Full on carbines.

Before I could get too reoriented, I was brought into a makeshift concierge area that had once clearly been a wine bar, where a MerCo employee, Kaitlin, motioned for us to take a number and wait for the deli counter to call us, N-102, and, I guess, 'check in'.

It was hard to tell when exactly we'd be called though, because they were calling a seemingly random assortment of letters and numbers including N-101 and N-103, which I took personal offence to.

By the time it was my turn, I was so relieved I didn't care what was next for me in life. I hated it at Service Canada. I hated it at the MTO. I hate it still to this day.

Andy handed over a few forms which he indicated for me to hand over.

"Hi."

"Hi." Kaitlin flipped through the paperwork without looking up. "Okay, few questions here..."

Name, date of birth, last residence, that kind of thing. Eventually, I saw in the reflection in her glasses, she was looking at like Instagram or something, and clicking through to a few more photos.

"Sorry, what city?"

"Ottawa."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She looked behind me and got Oliver's attention, motioning him over.

"Where did you pick this guy up again?"

"Peterborough. Zero paid for transfer."

"Okay, I see that. He was with these other guys before... have you ever heard of FOUC?"

"FOUC, no. We just did the transfer work. I'm uh, clearly not one of those guys. I just follow and do what I'm told."

I speak up "Yeah, Force of Upper Columbia... they picked me up near Bracebridge from someone who grabbed me at a train crossing."

"Someone?"

"Yeah some guy, Mitch something."

"Well whatever. This is the wrong guy, but I guess it doesn't matter."

"What do you mean the wrong guy?"

"I mean based on what he's telling me, he's either lying, or..."

"Or?"

"Hang on."

Kaitlin tapped at her computer some more, and she looked up, and asked a question I couldn't believe.

"Do you have any tattoos on your chest?"

"Whoa, do you?"

I nearly fell over. This shit again.

"We have to look."

"Yeah that's policy."

Just like in Calgary four million years earlier, when I used to want to go to the United States.

"Christ Almighty. Okay, where do you want me?"

It's a jumble of Andy and Oliver's equipment, as they move me over toward an enclosed medical thing that reminded me of getting a COVID test. But, like the last time this happened, I whip my tits out, and Oliver and Andy are satisfied when they see my chest hair and nothing more.

We walk over towards Kaitlin, and she can tell there was no tattoo.

"All right, let's get him checked in anyway with a room." With an air of disappointment in he voice, she looked at Andy and Oliver, "Boys, really."

"Don't look at us, we didn't fill in the forms. Those FOUC guys probably wanted– what's the other guy?"

"Privacy."

"Higher pay though, right."

"Maybe."

"Someone from out west though, right?"

"Maybe. Okay. Matthew," she said turning to me, "you are now being held by MerCo Limited at Friday Harbor."

Suddenly I was immediately oriented. In a flash, I realized I was on Lake Simcoe, and the fencing, I guessed, were a control zone.

"If you head thru there, you'll be able to grab a change of clothes. Meals are fed at 12, and 7, delivered to your room in accordance with GNACC protocol. You will be held for a nominal period for processing," she hushed her voice, "given the shit going down, between you and me, it might take a while," without taking a breath she returned to her normal volume, "Do you acknowledge what I've just said to you?"

"I... yeah? Sorry what?"

"Are you chuckleheads his witness?"

"Hey!"

"All right, witnessed, and signed by me here," scribbled something, "And there we go. All right, Guys, do me a favor and take him to the building at Sea Ray and Sun Reef."

Having had the 'veil pierced' by Kaitlin, Andy and Oliver relaxed out of Asshole Mode and back into a more relaxed posture, but still had their gaiters up and visors down. Once I was changed and cleaned up, I popped a modafinil from my hospital pharmacy stash to put myself online for a little while so I could get better oriented and sus thinking I might as well, and headed back out to where Andy and Oliver were standing, gaiters down, visors up, joking around with Kaitlin.

When they saw me, Oliver cleared his throat.

"Ready?"