Young Writers Society

Chapter 13:

“Come in command, come in. This is medical officer Dufrain. I have reached Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha, do you read?” A man in purple armour was standing on a cliff edge overlooking the canyon. He was trying to contact his superiors via his headset radio. He held in his hand a green device that was oddly shaped like a gun.

A gargled voice replied through the transmission, but he couldn’t understand what it was saying.

“Say again, command. I do not read.”

The voice spoke again, but he still couldn’t understand what it was saying.

“Command, please boost your transmission to match communication protocol Echo Bravo-”

“Yo, I hear ya, calm down, dude. What’s goin’ on? Hello yo, can you hear me? Hello.”

“Uh, roger that command.”

“Sorry about that, I was in the elevator. This thing doesn’t work so well in there. What’s goin’ on, dude?”

“Roger tha… eh, is this really command I’m talking to?” the man in purple armour asked.

“Oh yeah, man! Sure, totally! What’s goin’ on?” There was music playing in the background. It sounded like rock but it was turned down low enough to hear the man’s voice.

“…You’re sure? This is the real command base?”

“Hey dude, take it easy. You called me, I didn’t call you.”

“No, I know, it’s just-”

“It’s just what, dude?”

Dufrain sighed and said, “Never mind, I’m just letting you know I’ve reached Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. I’m going to make contact with the Sergeant and his squad members.”

“Blood Gulch, huh? Alright, let me look and see what it says here.” The sound of papers flipping could be heard over the sound of the man’s voice. “Blood Gulch, Bloo… B… L… Blooo, here we go. Blood Gulch, okay! Says here you wanna make contact with a man named Serge, if that’s not possible you should look for his second in command, Private Simmons. Ask ‘em about their wounded dude.”

“Roger that, any other orders?”

“Anything else? Okay, yeah, says here whatever you do, don’t- oh… Okay, never mind, dude, I’m not supposed to read you that part. Okay, just uh… you’ll be okay, just, uh, be very careful. That’s all.”

“…Great.”

“Alright then, it’s our goal here at command to provide excellent customer service and I hope that I’ve done that today. Uh, if you have any further questions about this radio transmission you can just, uh, you know, call back and say, ‘Dude, I got some questions, what’s goin’ on?’ Over and out.”

“…Okay.” With that, Dufrain turned off his radio headset and looked at one of the bases over yonder. “Private Simmons…”

Meanwhile, back at the base…

“Come on, I’ll give you ten bucks to do it,” D said.

“Thirty,” Grif said.

Grif and D were standing in front of the teleporter on the base’s roof. D was back in a silver armoured body. He was trying to get Grif to walk through the teleporter.

“Fifteen,” D said, “and that’s as high as I go.”

“I’m not going through that thing for just fifteen bucks!” Grif said.

“Come on, Grif, we’ve tested it the teleporter, remember?”

“Tested?” Grif asked. “We tossed rocks through it, and they came out the other side smoking hot and covered in black stuff!”

“Alright,” D said, “Twenty bucks, and that’s my final offer.”

“Fine,” Grif said, “but I’d better get the money.” He turned to face the glowing green gateway, taking a deep breath to steady himself. He counted to three and ran through. D went down the cement ramp and stood in front of the base so he could get a better look at the teleporter’s exit point. Grif appeared by a few trees north of the base where the teleporter’s exit point was located. He could hear him scream, “JESUS, THAT HURTS!!!” His armour was covered head to toe in black stuff. Grif turned to face the base and screamed, “YOU JACKA**!!!”

D was laughing his ass off by the time Grif walked all the way back to the base. He handed him the money and said, “You have no idea how funny this is,” D said.

Grif snatched the money from D’s hand. “I’ll remember this, D.”

“Stop your whining, you’re alive aren’t you?”

Simmons and Caboose came out of the base at that moment. They saw the black stuff on Grif’s armour and immediately raised their guns. “Don’t move!” Simmons yelled.

“Simmons, it’s me!” Grif said.

Simmons’ gun wavered a bit. “Grif? What’s with your armour? Why is it black?”

“D made me go through the teleporter.” Grif scratched some of the black stuff off his arm to show them what it was. “My armour is covered in this crap.”

“You went through the teleporter?” Simmons asked. He and Caboose finally lowered their guns.

“I just said that.”

“Grif, why are you such an idiot?”

“Shut up!” Grif said.

“Anyway,” Simmons continued, turning to D, “we have a problem.”

“I am not your mother,” D said. “So don’t come tattling to me every time one of you does something that the other one doesn’t like! That’s what Serge is for.”

“I’m telling you, he’s crazy!” Simmons said, pointing to Caboose. “He keeps threatening me and talking in a scary voice.”

“No I didn’t!” Caboose said.

“Oh, so you’re saying you didn’t threaten to cut off my head and give it to D as a birthday present?”

“You know, I think you’re taking my words a little out of context.”

“What?” Simmons asked, “What context?”

“Listen guys, this competition thing has got to stop, okay?” D said. “I thought we’ve established by now-”

“Excuse me?” a voice from behind D said.

D looked over his shoulder to see a guy in purple armour. “Hey pal, one second, okay? I‘m in the middle of something here.” He turned back to Simmons and Caboose. “I thought we’ve established by now that I don’t like either of you, okay? So competing for my attention is not going to do you any good.”

“Excuse me?” the man in purple said again.

D turned to face the man. “Okay, yes, hello. Who are you?”

Caboose looked at Simmons and whispered, “Don’t ever be alone…”

“He’s doing that thing again,” Simmons said. D ignored both of them to listen to what the new guy had to say.

“My name’s Dufrain, uh, are you Private Simmons?”

“No, I am not Private Simmons, my name is D.” He jerked a thumb toward Simmons. “This is Private Simmons.”

“Yo,” Simmons said.

“And this guy covered in black sh*t is Grif.”

“Hey.” Grif barely even raised his head to meet the new guy’s eyes. He was too busy trying to scrape the black stuff off his armour.

“And that guy is Caboose, or O’Malley, or whatever the hell he’s calling himself.”

“Why did you introduce me third?” Caboose asked.

“Because he hates you,” Simmons said.

“I received your call for a medic,” Dufrain said.

“Medic?” Grif asked, finally prying himself away from the black stuff on his armour. “That was, like, three months ago.”

“Yeah, what’d you do, crawl all the way here?” Simmons asked.

“I came as quickly as I could, where’s the patient?” Dufrain asked.

“Well,” D said, “He’s about fifty yards behind you and six feet straight down.”

Dufrain turned around to see two graves in the ground. “Oh, I’m sorry about your loss.”

“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, thanks man, it was tough, but, well, what’re you going to do?”

“Who was the guy in the first grave again?” Caboose asked.

“Private Flowers,” Grif said, “The guy who had that heart attack, then Simmons stole his job.”

“Hey, I did not steal his job,” Simmons said. “I was the next in line to be second in command.”

“Oh, Private Flowers! I miss him, he was a nice guy,” Caboose said.

“What are you talking about, Caboose?” Grif asked. “Flowers died before you ever got here!”

“I know,” Caboose said, “but I still think he was a nice guy.”

“Who’s in the other grave?” Dufrain asked.

“That’s, uh, that’s me,” D said. “I’m in that grave.”

“…Uh-huh… Of course.”

“See,” Caboose started, “he got killed by this, uh, crazy runaway tank.”

“Or by the idiot driving it,” Simmons said.

Caboose continued, “Oh, yeah, then he became this really mean ghost and took over a Mexican robot’s body… Oh, and then we had to spray paint him to make him silver and now he is alive again!”

“Right,” Grif added, “it took us a week to get his Spanish setting turned off.”

D turned to face Grif. There was a click inside his helmet before he said, in Spanish, “Not entirely turned off, moron.”

Grif sighed and said, “I’ll go get the Spanish dictionary.”

“Wait,” Dufrain said, “so no one here is hurt?”

“No, we’re fine,” D said. “In fact, I feel better than ever! See, now whenever these three idiots really start to bug me,” he motioned toward Grif, Simmons and Caboose, “I can always just turn my ears off. I couldn’t do that before.”

“You said they were shorting out,” Caboose said.

“I’m sorry, what was that Caboose? I. Can’t. Hear. You.”

Serge came around on the jeep at that moment. He parked the warthog beside the group and climbed out. “Simmons, have ya seen any sign of Lopez?” he asked. The four of them had managed to convince Serge that Lopez had ran away after the tank blew up. Oddly enough he didn’t question why D was alive. In fact, he didn't seem to care.

“No, sorry sir. I haven’t seen him.”

“Dagnabit! How hard is it to find one Mexican robot in this small canyon?” He finally noticed the blackened Grif. “ENEMY!” He took the but of his shotgun and smashed it across Grif’s face. The soldier fell like a bag of rocks.

“Uh, sir? That was Grif,” Simmons said. D was snickering under his helmet.

“What?”

“It’s Grif. D dared him to go through the teleporter and now he’s covered in black stuff.”

“Oh, I see…”

Grif groaned as he got back to his feet. “Oww… My head…”

Serge turned to him and yelled, “ENEMY!” and smashed him in the face again.

“Serge, I just told you that’s Grif!” Simmons said.

“I know,” the sergeant in red armour said, “I just wanted to have a little more fun.” He noticed the purple guy standing beside D. “Who’s that?”

“I’m medical officer Dufrain,” he said. “I was sent here by command to help in anyway I can.”

“What do we need a medic for?” Serge turned to D and asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be the medic?”

“No, I’m a soldier,” D said.

“I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Soldiers kill people, medics keep them alive.”

“Well, that makes sense.” Serge looked down at Grif who lay by his feet. “Might as well get started on Grif, hit’n him’s no fun if he can’t feel it.”

“Alright, I’ll get right on it,” Dufrain said as he kneeled beside Grif and pointed his gun shaped instrument to Grif’s chest.

“Hey, what’s that thing you’re using?” D asked.

Caboose was fascinated with the green glowing part on the end. “It’s pretty…”

“I’m going to use this tool to check his vitals before I do anything to help him,” Dufrain said. “Once I’ve finished with him I’ll check all your vitals and be on my way”

Caboose turned to Simmons and said, “I bet I have better vitals than you.” He was silent for a moment, then he turned to D and asked, “What’s a vital?”

“On your way?” D asked. “I don’t think so, bud. Aren’t you here to join our squad?”

“No, I’m just here to help out with Flowers and then assist in the canyon as needed.”

“First of all, great job on the Flowers thing, mission accomplished. Secondly, the way that we need you to assist is to help us kill all the guys on the other team.”

“Well, even if my orders didn’t prohibit me from doing that, I still wouldn’t. I joined the army as a conscientious objector.”

“A conscie- who?” Simmons asked.

“…I’m a pacifist.”

“You’re a thing that babies suck on?” Caboose asked.

“No, Caboose,” Serge said, “that’s a pedophile.”

“Serge, I think he means a pacifier,” D said.

“Watch yer mouth, Private, or you’ll end up like Grif over here,” Serge said, pointing at Grif who still lay on the ground.

Dufrain took a few moments to check everyone’s vitals. It turns out Grif didn’t have any serious head injuries from when Serge hit him in the head, twice, so he was okay. “Well, everyone here checks out. I’ll come back and check on you before I leave the canyon. Can you tell me which way to the other base?”

“Why?” Simmons said, “You said you weren’t going to fight them.”

“I’m not,” the purple medic said, “resources are low so I’m on loan to both armies to help whichever side needs me at the time.”

“Man, that is so freaking lame!” D said.

“I’m just going to go to the other base and see if they need any help.”

“Well, if you’re planning on going over there, I recommend putting away that little medical thingy of yours,” D said. “If they see you walking up carrying that thing they’re going to shoot it right out of your hand.” As if on cue, a sniper bullet came and hit Dufrain’s medical device, knocking it out of his hand. “Yeah, just like that.” Another bullet flew past their heads and hit the wall behind them. “SCATTER!”