The Cyclops Initiative by David Wellington

Author:David Wellington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

SOUTH HILLS, PA: MARCH 23, 21:47

One by one the others told their stories, each claiming they’d had it worse than anyone else, that they’d been lucky or unlucky in various measures, each one ending with how they’d come to meet Top. There were only two exceptions. One was an airman missing both legs below the knees. He started out strong. “Your stories ain’t shit,” he said. “You want to talk real suffering—­”

But then he stopped. Chapel saw a look in the man’s eyes he knew all too well. The airman couldn’t see anything but the past. The worst moment in his life. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“That’s okay,” Suzie said. “Nobody wanted to hear it anyway.”

Some of the others chuckled.

Rudy, the other exception, was the last one to speak. “I’m afraid you’ve all got it wrong,” he said. “All these tales of woe. Talking about how unlucky you sods were. Nonsense, every bit of it.”

“Let me guess,” Chapel said. “You had it worse than us.”

“I wouldn’t say as much,” Rudy told them. “By fuck, I’d say you’re all a bunch of sad sacks that make my own troubles seem like minor inconveniences by comparison. But I know you’re the luckiest sons of bitches who ever lived. That antitank round, the helicopter blade that got you, Suzie my dear, the ammunition cooking off in your Stryker,” he said, nodding at a veteran with a white plastic hand. “In my day, those things would have killed you all stone dead. You’re all here because medical technology has come so far we can save ­people who should have died.”

“You saying I should be dead?” Ralph asked.

“Son, your very existence is a blessing on us all,” Rudy said. He shook his head. “No, I’m saying you got lucky enough to be born when you were, that’s all. I watched a lot of boys with injuries less severe than yours die back in ’Nam. There was a time when I wished I’d been one of them. I suppose there are times I still do. I couldn’t handle it, you see. All the death. Every time one of my friends caught a bullet or stepped on a punji stick or just disappeared out in the jungle . . . I knew it wasn’t going to stop. That kind of thing gets into a man’s head. I came back from Southeast Asia without so much as a scratch on me, you know that? At least, none I could point to. No Purple Heart. No medals at all. But I came back and found that I’d brought a souvenir with me. No matter where I went here in the States, every time I met someone I’d look them in the eye and think, Are you going to die today? Are you? I couldn’t care about anyone. I couldn’t get attached, because they were just going to disappear, so I treated them like they already had. Made it rather difficult to find a job. Made it rather easy to find a bottle, since when I drank it didn’t seem so bad.

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