INTERIM · BEN PARISH | ✓

Two

"I CALL BULLSHIT!" Stiletto yells at the top of her lungs.

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. "Stiletto, look. Vosch moved us to Barracks 10 for a reason. There's always a perfectly good explanation for everything." I don't care about him moving us, I care about the fact we're going to slip in ranks when it comes to shooting. We're second in obstacle course and a few other events, but we're starting to decline, I know it. Ringer, Musket, and Scarecrow are the best shots. Ringer's gone and the squad can't just depend on them to keep us in higher ranks.

It's early morning in the processing hangar and I'm sweating in my suit, but I keep quiet, telling Stil to shut up every once in a while. Zombie is still mad that I called his squad's bluff. I don't know when I started being so cocky. I think Reznik's shitty influence rubbed off on me.

Ringer looks quiet and reserved, but that's not how she was with us. It looks weird, having Ringer say nothing when she used to have a lot to say. It was mostly weird beliefs that recruits turning "Dorothy" was part of some plan. Pluto worshiped her.

The three squads are finally headed to eat breakfast after a few hours of scary peacefulness in the hangar and Ringer catches up with me. "You know how I said that I was working on a theory? Reznik and Vosch may be using this pressure to turn against each other and-"

"Ringer, please, stop. The enemies are Teds. Not us."

She just doesn't get it. "Red, you're not listening to me. We make ourselves the enemy and kill ourselves off. One by one."

"Yeah, right," I scoff.

"Think the competitive exclusion principle on a global scale, influenced by stupid aliens."

"Yeah, I'll totally think about that next time the infested infiltrate our base," I snap sarcastically. "I gotta go now. Bye, Ringer."

Just as I'm about to catch up with my squad, I hear someone say, "Well well well. The Red girl comes back to her lover Ringer."

That's it. I whip around and knee the guy right where it hurts. "Shut up." Bonus points for hitting Zombie.

"Or..." Zombie wheezes, but he's still laughing, "or what?"

"You'll end up in the processing hangar, just like your former squad member."

"Ooh, I'm soooo scared," he mocks.

I calm down, tell myself that it's not worth it. I turn back around and catch up to Barrel, and Zombie calls after me twice before giving up.

"Hey, did you talk to Ringer?" Barrel whispers.

"Why are you whispering?" I mutter back to him.

"She tried to talk to me about her theory stuff!" he bursts. "For God's sake, she's probably holding back her thoughts of going off to see the wizard!"

"Going Dorothy? Seriously? She's not in our squad, and we shouldn't worry. We should just play along and then see what happens in about a week or so," I suggest, pulling Barrel down so he can hear without me having to talk like I'm speaking into a microphone. "Tell the others in case she goes to them too."

He nods and proceeds to tell them as the squads file in for breakfast.

•••

I call our training room the Mats, because they're basically what covers 95% of the room. The weapons room fall underneath the training category, but I still would call it the weapons room. My favorites are the SKS Rifle and my special, hand-given Ruger 10/22, but I think I do fairly well with a Kalis. I stole the SKS and the Kalis on my second day, and the four of us have been inseparable since. Gotta love my weapons.