Tales of Soldier

“Oh god, am i in the god’s pissed sheet?” Tang Long was complaining to the air, with a mouth full on food, after a long grueling day. “Man, these psycho drill instructors, where did they get all their training schedule from, the ancient archive of the Alexander’s Library? Why are they still focusing on physical training these days?”
 

Tang Long was sitting in the mess hall eating lunch and whining, today was the 3rd day since he arrived at the 23rd, and all he did was weighted-running, swimming, push up, squat, hand stand, all the physical training from basic to advanced curriculum. The training that was dished out by the drill instructor did not cater to the current physique of Tang Long, every request, every punishment was like reaching-for-the-stars level, and if – which was most of the time – Tang Long unable to comply completely to those requests, what comes next was a torrent of whips. Take, push up as an example, the basic requirement was 100, if Tang Long unable to complete before lunch time ends, then what he gets to chew was not food, but a whop ass with a whip by a psycho and heartless drill instructor. Even Tang Long was surprised that he can lasted until now, even if ‘now’ was just 3 days later.
 

+
This is because Tang Long’s complaints are not without merits. In this day and age, only 2 branches of military services required physical fitness, and therefore having an advanced physical training part of the compulsory subjects, they are: fighter pilot and Marines. The rest does not really need that, and therefore was not part of the compulsory in the Academy.
In current warfare, fighter pilot need core body strength strong enough for them to withstand the rapidly shifting g-force during flight and fight, and maybe ascend or re-entry. For Marines, they mainly trained for close quarter combat, or CQB, because they are key component in the forced-boarding operation when they wish to take over the enemy’s spaceship, preserving them instead of blowing them ships into space dust. SAS only work on secret projects, so they trained for anything, and their training is state secret.
For the rest of the member, all they need to do was to press some button, do repair works, meaning the muscle they need to train the most was their brain.
+
 

Every time after meal, there will be a 1 hour down time, looks like the android knew that for human, intense activities after meal was a bad idea. So, Tang Long was trying to looking for something fun to do during that down time.
 

^1
“Hehehe, not in a million years that I thought a cadet will get a sidearm,” Tang Long was touching the gun in the holster, gazing down the darkened hall with a stiff expression. After Tang Long make a hole on the hall using the RKG Launcher, the power supply will go off, randomly. The drill instructors did not press on the matter, and no disciplinary action was taken, instead they gave him a sidearm. Scared of darkness, the sidearm acted like a chill pill for Tang Long, but Tang Long kept remind himself not to unholster it unnecessarily as to avoid that becoming a habit. The experience he had yesterday was felt, every time he thinks of it will cause a little twitch on his calves, the repercussion of accidentally shooting his drill instructor.
 

As he gazed into the canvass of black ink, the finger slowly slipped itself into the trigger. Of course, Tang Long knew well enough not to pull it out, but the idea of “staying vigilant” and finger ready on the trigger gives him the confidence to walk across the dark hall into his room.
Damn I really scare of dark, even there are literally no other soul in this god forsaken bootamp.
 

Tang Long did not really want to leave the mess hall, but now his room was dark as hell, and if the power was down, randomly, on the mess hall, the door will shut itself off too. There would be no way for Tang Long to leave if that happens again, because the hole that were made by the RKG was already repaired by the camp’s auto maintenance system. Meaning, at this moment, the only one place left to go was the entertainment hall.

“Motherfucker, the location changes again!” If memory serves him correctly, the entrance to the entertainment hall should be here, but for not sure what reason, it shifted. In darkness, Tang Long had to sense his way through, inch-by-inch to locate the latch for the hall. 

+
Tang Long did not understand the entrance for entertainment door need to be open manually, he thought that maybe it was because of electrical issue or busted actuators. But Tang Long thought wrongly, the chances of a failed electrical system in a military base was 0.000001%, and if one wished to disrupt the electrical system, one can either destroy the generator or destroy the base. Because they rest of the relay and switches have multiple layer of redundancy with self-repair capability.
+

“Now who the fuck was the pissed brained that design the door latch so low? What am I supposed to train my lower back muscle too?!” Tang Long with one hand on the gun and another hand feeling his way of the wall trying to find the door latch to the entertainment hall.
“OK, found it”

+
The entertainment hall was very difficult to locate, Tang Long need to search room-by-room, and when he finally found it the down time was over. Because this was such a waste of time, Tang Long decided to mark the entrance with the sidearm beam holes. But unfortunately, because the training hall was equipped with self-repair capability, the beam holes was be self-repaired in no time. 

But Tang Long did found a permanent solution for that, he took a full magazine and emptied out all 100 rounds on the same spot to create a deep gouge, then he jammed the empty magazine onto the gauge he created. The system was unable to repair such an extensive damage, and he got himself a permanent marking of the entrance to the entertainment hall.
+

Tang Long was eager to get into the gaming pod because he wanted to break yesterday’s game recording. 

*thung

Without really looking at what was in front of him, Tang Long hit his head on something hard and fall hard on the ground. When he looked up, he saw a skeleton, panicked, reactively crawled backward frantically and draw out the sidearm. Just right before Tang Long pull the trigger, the sense come back to him and he paused, looked up and saw the familiar green light. It was the lights that hunter him during sleep, during waking hour, he knew what that lights was.
Tang Long holstered his gun, stand up awkwardly, “Sir…Sir…Good Day Sir.”

The skeleton nodded lightly, “Very good, Cadet Tang Long, you’ve managed to control your trigger finger. Did you know what would be the consequences for 2nd attempt of fragging your superior officer? Heheheh”. The green lights shine brighter, akin to how a predator seen his prey: hmmm…interesting.

Tang Long subconsciously understand the meaning behind that burst of green light, sends a real chill down his spine, the only reaction he could think of was to stand, really still.
“Cadet Tang Long, what are you afraid of?”

*click clang
The sound of the android arms resting against its back gives Tang Long a severe case of goosebump. 

Why the hell does a robot want to know about this? OK, fine.

“Sir, Report Sir. Sir I am afraid of slimy and crawly stuff. And…and… also ghosts! Sir!” Having to went through nightmarish training, Tang Long knew too well that he could not just turn his head to read the reaction from his superior. Instead, he shot a glace without moving his head.

They had trained Tang Long so well that in military netiquettes that it turned from reactionary to reflexive.
“Oh?! So invertebrate and fictitious object?” The android was crossing his arm on the chest and stroking its chin, a very human-like reaction.
Tang Long never noticed the signs of sentiency on his android instructor, because did not really dared to look him straight.

*click *clack
The sound of metal hitting metal went pass him and further away each time, and Tang Long only dared to move after the sound was barely audible. And immediately, Tang Long jumped into the gaming pod, trying to focus on the game and shake off the ominous feeling he had since instructor asked him that question.
*Loading…10%
*Loading…50%
*Lading…100%
*Welcome player


*piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Just as the game hit the landing screen, the screeching sound of the whistle beckoned for roll-call and the end of down-time. Unwillingly leaving the pod, Tang Long walked towards the training hall. But the training hall was different this time around, it was not brightly lit like usual, but maintaining a suspicious dark surrounding. 

That sense of ominous intensify into a feeling of uneasiness as he gazed at the dark training hall, the light was flooding from the entertainment chamber, casted a long shadow of the outline of Tang Long. As Tang Long pondering whether to step out, the lights from the chamber turned off, and now the entire bootcamp was engulfed in darkness. Tang Long subconsciously placing his hand on the sidearm and pulled it out.
 

*click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack
*click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack
*click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack
*click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack
*click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack *click *clack
 

Sound, mixture of different metal hitting each other’s’ was coming from not too far away and the sounds was approaching Tang Long. In the veil of darkness, Tang Long saw faintly several green lights afloat like onibi, then the green onibi revealed to be the eyes of the 5 drill instructors.
 

*dunk
Tang Long loose the grip of his gun and it fell onto the floor, he did not picked it up, he was too terrified to do anything.
Tang Long just stared at the 5 android instructors, what struck him this time was that they are shirtless, actually, no single thread or cloth was found on their body. 

It just looked at a scene from a very old movie called “Terminator” where a bunch of robots was approaching the base to try and slaughter all human that was hiding in it, not a pretty picture.

“Ten Hut!”
 

“Sir!” Tang Long reacted subconsciously.
 

“At ease, Cadet Tang Long.”
 

Tang Long spread his leads and rest both of his palm on the back.
 

“Now we will announce the training goal for Cadet Tang Long for the next quarter! One, courage training, two, physical training, three, evasive training. Speak up if you have any questions!” Tang Long did not know who had spoken those words.
 

“Sir, Question Sir! What is courage training?” Curiosity triumphed fear at that moment.
 

“…”
 

“…”
 

“…”
 

“…”
 

“…”
 

“…”
 

It was a total silence; no instructor answered his question. Instead, the dark room began to change into a tropical jungle, it was also night time with some ambiance light.
 

“Well, this scenery is way better than the total darkness just now.”
Then, oh Tang Long wished that the scenery reverted back to just total darkness, because in the faint of light, he saw something on the ground coming towards him.
 

No wait, not one thing, but many things, some are reflecting light, some are hairy, some are soft, some are hard-shelled, some are slimy, all crawling,
 

Crawling,
 

Crawling,
 

Crawling,
 

Crawling on the spot.
 

The horror does not stop there, beyond the disgusting invertebrate, Tang Long saw – wait, hold on, are you fucking serious, those are – zombies. A horde of zombies with the stench of rooting smell with its flesh dropping and falling off the skeleton, was limping towards Tang Long, too!
*splat
*drip
*splat
*drip

Wait, how can I smell them?
What that was, the worst ever nightmare of Tang Long, multiplied by 42 orders of magnitude.
 

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”
 

*whip
*whip
*whip
*whip
*whip
*whip
 

Tang Long did not care how many whips he had gotten; no amount of whip can calm the state of terror that Tang Long was in.
 

“As a soldier you are afraid of something unreal? Are you calling yourself a soldier? Pay attention Cadet Tang Long. From now, for one month, you will live in this simulation, the mess hall will operate at the exact time, and if you did not eat during that time, then you will remain unfed. You will use weapon of the ancient to defend yourself in this environment and you will have to defend yourself because they will find you, and they will attack you when you are found. Although this is a simulation, you will still feel pain, you will still suffer, you will smell what you supposed to smell, and sense what you supposed to sense because all the sensory will be forced into your brainwave through electromagnetic signal.”

*thunk
After the long speech, one of the android instructors threw a steel machete and all 5 disappeared into the darkness.

Tang Long was at the brink of losing consciousness, but forced himself to pay attention to what the instructor was staying. Based on the available information Tang Long knew what it is about, the scene was from the game “Teror”.

+
As a gaming enthusiast, Tang Long knew what “Teror” was. It was a fully immersed game created many yeas ago. That game generated so much hype back then was because of its new emission technology. The emitter they invented mapped each player’s electrochemical signal of the entire body, and during gameplay, emit an electromagnetic signal, or pulse, that will resonate and piggy back on the sensory nerve of a human. When the emitter was paired with a fully immerse VR or VA (Visual Augmentation) system, it enabled the user, or rather, the player to not just experience it visually, but with all the sensory feedback. But in the case for Tang Long, they used a 3-D imaging system with darkfield to eliminate the need for using any goggles or lens.
 

When the game developer releases the alpha, 100 participants was selected as the alpha testers. Half way through the beta testing, the entire program was forced to shut down, because 90% of its testers had gone insane in the game, all tester suffered some kind of psychological damage that was even beyond the repair of psychosurgery and nanobot neuro-correction. The psychological damage was very intense because, if someone’s hand was chopped off by a monster, the emitter will generate not just the sensory of pain, it will give the user the whole-nine-yard-full-package experience, bleeding, pain, reduced sense of weight on the hand, you know what I meant. It was so effective that the physical neural-chemical reaction in the nerve of the actual hand ceases to function in most of the players.
 

Later years when the game company gone bust, that technology was re-adopted, into flight simulation, car racing simulation, the same issue occurred, if the player crashes, they died in real life too. In the last attempt to market this system, one company tries to migrate it into sex game, and the outcome was also predictable, players – whom mostly male, live along with not much social interaction – died masturbating. After the shocking news release, the government mandate that the system tune down its simulation intensity and modify so that it came closer to 3D game. It did have good success during early release, but the ones that quit the game, later in life was unable to differentiate between game and reality.
 

This was how well the product has functioned even on the watered-down version, and that was why this technology was called “the Shinigami System”, and the incomplete game “Teror” was also known as “The Shinigami Game”.
+
 

Not in a million years would Tang Long thought that the android instructors will use the Shinigami Game to train their new recruits to “overcome fear”, because they are actually real risk of death when playing “Teror”.

When a human face with insurmountable challenge, like facing his/er greatest fear, there are only 2 possible outcomes, either they come out on top, or they come out on the bottom.
Fear only invites more fear.
 

Tang Long was faced with the fear of his life; yet he knew that it was a bad idea to be fearful in this game, because the system continuously analyzing your brainwave, and then give you what you feared the most, talked about touché.
 

“The game will begin in 10 seconds, players ready”
 

All the bugs, creepy crawlers, and zombies was walking, but did not move forwards,

“9”,

Because the game not yet started, 

“8”,

But they will,
“7”,
 

Soon,
“6”,
 

Very soon,
“5”,
 

“4”, 

“3”, 

“2”, “1”

Like the invisible barrier that holding all the bugs and monsters had gone.
The creepy crawlers begin to creep towards Tang Long.
The snake began to crawl towards Tang Long and wrap itself around the steel machete.

He slapped away the snakes, picked up the only weapon in the vicinity, turn around and ran.

“You motherfucker son-of-a-robot-whore asshole, and fucking damn your entire general to hell. Fuckkkkkkkkkkk. Imma going to bust you all up and sell you as a scrap metal.”
“Fuck!”
“Shitfuck”
“Die you mutherfucker, DIE!”
“Arrrrrrrrrrr…I am going to chop you into pieces!!!!”
Tang Long’s cuss, mixed with sound of shriek, scream and shout radiated the forest.

- End of Chapter 3 Part 1. 

- Part 2 will be upload, in the coming week.