Anon De La Anon's stuff

“Its the stupidest thing you can do, man,” Pfc. Sommers said to me, as we gazed out at the red and purple mesas in front of us, a harsh sun pounding everything in sight with its harsh, unhindered rays. Below us stretched hundreds of miles of an invasive algae species, a teeming mass that had obliterated American life as we knew it. It was hypnotic to watch, the constant fluctuations of color as the algae pests reacted to the ores underneath the soil, as we whizzed by at a hundred Amerimeters an hour.. “I can’t do train duty anymore on the Rust Belt. Its melting my mind, just sitting here doing nothing, looking at all of this shit,” I said, my shouts made a whisper in the wind, my hoarse throat trying to hold a conversation that wasn’t meant to be. Pfc. Sommers had been cupping his ears in the hopes that a lack of wind would help, but was now reduced to lip reading, as I lost my voice. “Out here, your head isn’t being melted at least,” he yelled back, slapping the ergonomically considerate, leathery handle of the several-ton swiveling turret he sat behind for emphasis, before adding, “look here Rogers, we’re the safest people in the entire world. We get our rations, we live outside the megacities, we live outside the jungles, I mean, what are you missing here?” I shook my head, before exhaling. I toggled my radio, and after making several gestures with my hand to signal what channel to go to, Kyle promptly tugged out his radio, dialed the frequency in, and I said, “I want to get into an actual profession. I can’t sit on armored trains the rest of my life.”

Pfc. Sommers chuckled, before saying, “This is a profession though - and an in-demand one. Without us, Amerimetro would go back to the days of highway robbery. You know how much rations we get in the Civil Service for doing the same exact thing we’re doing right now? Three times as much! You can have a skinny wife and a kid on those kinds of rations, not to mention what you get if you’re pensioned out.” I shook my head, as I leaned back in my naugahyde quilted-leather reclining seat, tugging at my goggles and fur hat to make sure they didn’t fly off. I toggled my radio, and replied with, “I get all that, but you haven’t spent nine years doing this. I haven’t touched tits in almost a decade, Sommers. It doesn’t matter what you say anyhow, I’ve already requested to transfer out.” Pfc. Sommers shook his head angrily, pursing his lips, before replying with, “y’know how many people pass Special Forces school? And then decide to become a fucking nurse of all things? Everyone here is going to be laughing at me, for just knowing you.” I shook my head, before replying with, “I get a real profession out of it, man. 26 weeks, to become an actual nurse. 4 years of service after that, and then I get become a combat vet. Then, I can work in a real hospital” Pfc. Sommers shook his head, looking at me like I was an idiot, before ducking below the turret’s wind barrier, a metal cylinder that extended up to our shoulders. He was probably right about what he thought, but I didn’t have the funds to go to a normal school after G.I. Bill was slashed and couldn’t do this for 30 more years. Everyday I sat down in this turret, I prayed for things to shoot at, for bugs to slap me in the face as they flew by, for just anything to happen.