Archive of Our Own

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At 0600 every morning, Master Sergeant Kim Minseok’s alarm goes off.  Today he slaps the clock radio into silence before he hears Gracie Slick sing a whole bar.  That doesn’t stop the song from looping in his head as he hoists himself up and into the chair braced beside his bed.  He wheels himself to the bathroom on autopilot, emptying his bladder, washing up, and rolling over to his closet without opening more than one eye (and that opened only the barest slit).

At 0615 every morning, when Minseok finally pries both eyes open after pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of swim shorts, the first non-blurry sight he sees is a sooty face highlighted with a rusty muzzle and matching pips over dark, intelligent eyes.  These pips twitch a bit as their owner regards him, sniffing the air slightly before tilting her head and lifting one rusty paw.

“Do I pass muster this morning, Tannie?” Minseok coos to his companion.  

In answer, the Jindo dog trots out of the bedroom, pausing in the hall to turn back and make sure Minseok is following.

Minseok snags his phone off the nightstand and rolls after his furry ranking officer.  He fills her dish with the stinky real-meat canned food she insists on eating before he fills the coffee maker with freshly ground beans.  There’s silence except for slurping and scarfing for a few minutes, then Minseok grabs his gym bag and hooks it over the back of his chair just as the door buzzer sounds.

At 0630 every morning, Minseok opens the door with a smile, handing Tan’s leash to a tall man in Marine-blue sweats who’s already holding a lead clipped to a small black poodle sitting politely by his feet.

“Morning, Sergeant Kim,” the man says, flashing a smile that makes his cheeks bunch and eyes curve, transforming his face from stoic to sweet.

“Morning, Lieutenant Jung.” Minseok smiles back, trading brief salutes.  This routine has been happening for over a year now and Minseok has given up saying things like we’re same age friends and not in uniform, please just call me Minseok and seriously thank you for walking Tan every morning at oh-ass-thirty, I know you have to take October out to piss anyway but I still really appreciate it.

Instead he lets his quietly friendly neighbor take the dogs toward the elevator while he rolls off in the opposite direction, exercising himself while his friend exercises his dog.  The major draw of this particular building—aside from the high number of fellow marines, current and former, residing here—had been the state-of-the-art gym located on the same floor as his new apartment.

It’s well-lit and fully equipped, including an excellent easy-to-adjust resistance frame that helps him keep torso, arms, and thighs toned, but that’s not why he’s excited to go to the gym every day.  The best part is that along with all the typical treadmills and stairclimbers that are next to useless to Minseok anymore, the gym has an endless pool in which he can swim and swim until he literally can’t move, clinging to the side and panting while all his muscles burn.

At 0730 every morning, Minseok’s done with his workout and his neighbor is done with his morning run, and the two meet outside Minseok’s door to trade custody of a much more relaxed Jindo, tongue lolling from tan lips pulled into the semblance of a smile.

“Thanks again,” Minseok says as he keys the code to his apartment to let Tan trot inside ahead of him to drain her water dish.

“No problem again,” his neighbor laughs, exchanging a final salute before entering his own flat.

And just as every other morning, Minseok showers and dresses for the day, making sure his BDUs are pressed and tidy and his cap is straight on top of his close-cropped black hair.  Then he makes sure Tan’s Marine Service Dog vest is on just as straight on top of her dense black fur before the two of them exit the apartment and go to work.

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Just like most mornings, Minseok is cleared through the checkpoint of the Experimental Operations complex just in time to see Colonel Kim Junmyeon’s white VW Golf disappear into the underground parking garage.  He salutes his fellow officers and enlisted as he enters the Enhanced Training building, everyone’s mottled gray-green camo or Marine-blue uniforms teeming against the white floors and whiter walls like a dark ocean of precision.  The polished steel of Minseok’s chair is a bright contrast, just as a disabled man and his service dog are a low contrast to the upright and able men and women around him. He’s never been a big man but now that he’s shorter than he’s been since grade school, guiding his sleek little chair down corridors with Tan trotting directly in his wake, people give him a berth wide enough for a sumo wrestler.

Minseok hates it.

Today he hates it even more than usual, because instead of tucking his truncated legs beneath a desk to mimic all the other data analysts evaluating training protocols and drill routines, Minseok will be participating in a more hands-on type of testing.  Testing that involves him stripping down to his boxer-briefs, exposing the gnarled red ends of his uneven stumps—sorry, residual limbs according to his no-nonsense PT—to yet more strangers, this time scientists instead of doctors.  

He is so not looking forward to this indignity.  In fact, he’d ignored the alerts posted both to his inbox and the walls of the mess hall asking for volunteers with tactical combat experience.  There weren’t many who’d gone from combat to number crunching, what with the UN calling on allies to help defend the people of the Levant from the terrorists claiming control of their land.  As another small nation that knows only too well what it’s like to be invaded and at the mercy of foreign aid, there’s no way Korea could ignore the call.

Fucking terrorists, ruining everything for everyone.  He blames them for the loss of his legs and the deaths of half his battalion.  He blames them for being sent home to work at a desk instead of in the front line or even the academy, his years of tactical experience meaningless in the face of the policy that it demoralizes recruits to make them stare at their possible future as an injured vet every day for months before sending them into combat.

So instead of doing the training himself, Minseok merely gets to analyze it, spending much of his time trying to find ways to politely and respectfully inform fresh-minted Lieutenants with heads full of science but no practical experience why their new ultra-effective training method is likely to be good only for getting recruits killed.  He blames the terrorists for that, too. But he can’t blame them for the personal invitation from this experimental project’s lead developer, one Captain Kim Jongdae.

Captain Kim has always been incredibly polite, treating Minseok with the utmost of respect despite his lower rank.  It’s not the kind of politeness that results in well-meaning but smothering “assistance,” but the kind that makes Minseok feel seen and heard for something other than the gleam of chrome or the whir of wheels.

So when Captain Kim had come up to him in the mess hall, all smiles and bows and please-Sir-will-you-kindly-lend-your-real-world-experience-to-aid-our-project’s-success, dropping into a chair to leave them eye to eye and looking at Minseok’s face the entire time, Minseok had said of course he’d be happy to assist the Republic of Korea in any way he could.

On second thought, nevermind—Minseok blames the terrorists for that, too. 

As Minseok lies supine on the narrow, stripped down version of a reclining hospital bed, a team of biomedical techs begins sticking cold electrode pads all over him.  Tan whines softly, lifting her front paws to the white vinyl to better sniff at him.

“I’m alright,” he says gently, whether to his dog or himself he’s not exactly sure.

“Master Sergeant Kim, your canine will need to wait outside,” one of the techs informs him.  With the translucent red shield over her face it’s hard for Minseok to tell her apart from any of the other three.  She reaches for Tan’s collar but the dog evades her grasping fingers in favor of dancing around the bed and putting her paws up on the other side.  She whines again, eyeing her master and this possible threat with equal concern, rusty eyebrows twitching.

Minseok shakes his head, causing the tech gluing wires to his hairline to suck in an objecting breath.  “Please don’t touch her. If you must move her, use the leash, but she’ll pitch a fit if she can’t see me,” Minseok warns.

“There are soundproof recording rooms—” another of the techs suggests, but she’s cut off by an incredulous sound.

“There’s no need for that when Tan will be perfectly behaved if allowed to remain at her master’s side,” a smooth baritone states.  “She’s a Jindo dog—they’re the definition of loyal and tenacious. We’d be remiss to punish her for the very qualities that make Jindos the Marine corps mascot.”  

The owner of the baritone steps into Minseok’s line of sight, murmuring endearments to Tan without trying to pet her.  Tan wags her tail a little but keeps most of her attention on Minseok, just like she always does. If ever a breed were one-master-only dogs, Jindos are it.  It makes them terrible police or military dogs, but if you want a half-meter tall, 25kg cat in a dog suit to supervise your disabled ass all day long, ignoring other people almost completely and occasionally deigning to bring you shit you drop or hit light switches for you—or if you just want a living embodiment of the branch of service for which you sacrificed your body to be a quiet companion as you attempt to come to terms with that sacrifice—a Jindo might do very nicely.  

“Master Sergeant Kim, when the techs are done applying all the sensors, they’ll lower the bed as close to the floor as it’ll go.  That way Tan can watch you comfortably.”

“Thanks, Captain Kim,” Minseok says, attempting a grateful salute that’s thwarted by the padded cuff encircling his wrist.

“It’s really no problem,” the Captain dismisses.  “If you don’t have any last-minute questions, we’ll begin as soon as the techs are finished.”

“Ready and willing, Sir,” Minseok reports.

“Excellent.  I’ll be monitoring you just as closely as Tan, though I won’t interfere with the simulation unless there’s a catastrophic glitch or your vital signs deviate from normal stress-induced parameters.  Good luck in there, Marine.”

Captain Kim salutes him, smiling at the twitch of a biceps as Minseok attempts once again to perform the gesture in response.  Then the Captain tells Tannie she’s a good watchdog before disappearing from Minseok’s line of sight.

Minseok’s line of sight is completely obscured—or rather transformed—as a tech straps VR goggles over his eyes.  Headphones enclose his ears and then the digital black swirls with light as the program loads.

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The digital room that manifests around him is massive, a round arena with huge arched doors lining the curved walls.  Minseok turns to take it all in, then his heart kicks as he realizes he’s moving his legs to do so. He looks down at himself, blinking at the limbs filling out the fatigues he’s evidently dressed in.  They reach all the way to the marbelline floor to end in the combat boots forever tucked beneath Minseok’s bed in the real world. He shifts his weight, marvelling at how natural and comfortable he feels standing up on these illusions even though he’s actually lying flat on his back.

“Are your legs to your liking, Master Sergeant?  Avatars are implemented according to personnel statistics on file, but for testing purposes this one can be altered at the user’s request before simulations begin.”

Minseok looks up at the bright bouncy voice even though it’s coming from the upper left corner of his vision regardless of the direction he faces.  There’s a white tiger-face emoji grinning at him from above a floating list of information including his current coordinates and directional heading (right now, both evidently ???) and time in simulation (a whole 37 seconds so far).

It’s a natural response to blink in an attempt to clear vision but Minseok still feels a little foolish for doing it—this is obviously some sort of heads-up display meant to mimic the navigational aids he’d have as an officer in the field.

He’s never been provided with a talking tiger before, though.  

He looks down at his hands—he doesn’t have any sort of physical interactive controls, so he supposes a voice-activated user interface makes sense.  They could have put it in a less-creepy package than an eerily-grinning feline—what was so wrong about the now-typical disembodied soothing female voice?   

“Er, no, this avatar is fine—I’m just not used to legs anymore, I guess.”  

Saying it out loud makes Minseok realize how true it is—even in his dreams he’s now either a wheelchair user or scooting around on the ground.  He’s not sure if this new self-knowledge is settling or disconcerting.

Looking around himself sure is disconcerting, though.  And disorienting, especially with the compass indicator continuing to flash question marks at him.  It doesn’t help that the closer he gets to the doors surrounding him, the smaller he seems to be in relation to them.

“Am I supposed to be able to open these doors?  Or are they meant to be sized for a giant to intimidate me or something?”

The cartoonish tiger face flickers.  “Apologies—this is the first live test of the training environment.  Please stand by for calibration.”

Minseok suppresses a snort at the fact that he can, indeed stand by within this digital world.  Everything pixelates for a moment and then he’s looking down on the arena from an alarming height even though his digital feet are still on the digital ground.

“Whoops!  Somehow an extra pair of zeros ended up in the code—”

Everything dissolves again and then Minseok is looking at a set of steel doors that are a much more familiar size.  

“There, 173 centimeters, not meters.   How embarrassing.”  The animated tiger looks flustered.  It’s even blushing.

Minseok can’t help but chuckle.  “Why am I talking to a kiddie cartoon?  Shouldn’t a military simulation have a less cutesy interface?”

There’s an entirely offended gasp.  “Kiddie cartoon!?   I am not a kiddie cartoon, I am the mighty emblem of South Korea!  I’m not cutesy—I’m fierce!”

Minseok raises a brow.  “I hate to break it to you, but if you have to tell people you’re fierce—”

“Silence, Marine,” the tiger barks.  “I am the Chaperone Entity, here to guide personnel through their training.  I was going to say you can call me ChEn, because you’re Test Subject Zero and we’ll be spending a lot of time together, but—”

“I’m going to call you Clippy,” Minseok decides.  “You’re just about as dignified. And you have the same googly little eyes.  I am seriously questioning the military’s branding choices at the moment if you’re what somebody decided should boss grown adults around.”

He grins when the tiger just gapes at him.  He frowns when it lasts long enough to suggest a bug rather than an animated expression.

“Whoops, did your programming glitch out?  I can see why this simulation needs a lot of testing.  It seems rather unstable so far.”

The Chaperone Entity sputters back to life.  “Unstable?   I’ll show you unstable, you insubordinate little—”

The door in front of him flies open and the floor beneath him tilts, dumping Minseok out of the arena and into midair.  There’s water below him, rushing up fast and like a well-trained Marine, Minseok assumes the safe entry position—body straight, feet first, legs crossed at the ankles, elbows pinned to his sides.  He keeps his eyes on the horizon (such as it is), crosses his wrists together over his chest, cups a hand over his lower face and clenches his ass just in time to keep the digital water from forcing itself up his digital holes.

“Good form, Marine,” the tiger’s voice praises, sounding very insincere.  “Now let’s see if your sass is enough to get you to shore before you try to drown and I have to pause the sim to save your grown-adult ass.”

Minseok spreads his limbs to slow his descent and begins to kick for the surface, rather impressed with the sim’s ability to make him feel like his waterlogged boots are trying to drag him back into the ocean’s black.  He keeps eyes and mouth closed until he feels himself break the surface, regretting wiping the water from his eyes when he opens them to see the tiger’s smirk at the corner of his visual field.

“Are you programmed to be a drill-sergeant dick to everyone or just Test Subject Zero?” Minseok asks before conserving his breath for the swim to the just-visible shore.

“I am programmed to analyze subject performance and extract maximum results,” ChEn sniffs.  “If I’m a dick it’s because your responses to stimuli indicate it’s most effective for me to treat you this way.”

Minseok doesn’t bother to respond to that, merely employing his many hours of swim training to settle into a sustainable stroke, rolling his eyes internally when he has to remind this digital body to kick properly since he currently has the semblance of legs.  His muscles burn after a while but there’s no way he’s giving up and giving the dumb tiger the satisfaction of— 

Fucking damn.   Evidently goading him into stubbornness is an effective motivation method.  Now he’s going to give the dumb tiger the satisfaction of being correct, which probably means Minseok’s in for more harassment.  Yay.

“Encouragement and positive reinforcement works just as well on me, you know,” Minseok grumbles as he hauls himself to his feet on the sandy shore.  

That’s how Tan had been trained for service, such as it is.  Jindos are too independent to be willing to do tricks for the sake of tricks, but he has no doubt the highly-intelligent dog understands what he wants and she’s very attached to him.  Usually this means she decides to obey his commands but occasionally she just looks at Minseok, blinking at him like a cat before returning to whatever doggy activity—or lack thereof—is more important than assisting her human.

Harsh treatment would make her even less likely to obey in the future, though, so Minseok has to just suck it up and struggle when Tan decides to ignore his requests.  This trait excludes Jindos from consideration for most who need a service dog—a blind person, for example, needs an assistant that will obey every single command every single time unless doing so would endanger the pair—but Minseok tries to see his companion’s independent streak as providing opportunities to push himself even when he really doesn’t want to.

Evidently this simulation is yet another of those opportunities, because ChEn just laughs as Minseok drags his tired, soggy ass down the beach, heading toward a plume of smoke he can see in the near distance.

“What situational analysis has led you to choose this direction, Marine?”

“Fires rarely occur on beaches via natural events,” Minseok pants.  “Getting closer will allow me to evaluate if this sign of human presence indicates an opportunity for aid, service, or engagement.”

“Very nice, straight out of the Manual for Good Marines, chapter: suck-up, page: teacher’s pet.”

“Pardon me for memorizing useful information,” Minseok huffs.  “It’s a good thing I did, because you don’t seem about to provide me with any.  Is this supposed to be an amphibious assault simulation? What’s my mission objective?”

“Survive and do the right thing.”

Minseok rolls his eyes up and left to regard the smug feline face.  “Thanks, Clippy. Super helpful. I’m definitely telling Captain Kim that one of his subordinates fucked up your programming as well as your stupid face.”

ChEn makes an indignant sound.  “My face is perfect. And what if Captain Kim is the one that, in your rude words, ‘fucked up my programming?’”

“No way,” Minseok dismisses.  “He’s way too polite and respectful to have written an AI so obnoxious.”

“You don’t even know him.  What if he’s an asshole out of uniform?”

Minseok laughs.  “He baby-talks to my service dog but never talks down to me.  Am I supposed to believe he’s secretly some animal-abusing, able-bodied elitist in his off hours?”

“Maybe he’s really rude to waiters in restaurants.”

“I doubt that.  He seems like the type to use deferential speech with anyone in a service profession.”

“I bet he never calls his mother.”

“Probably has it on his calendar so he doesn’t forget.”

“Probably scowls at little kids on the train so they cry.”

Minseok laughs again.  “He’s definitely monitoring this ridiculous conversation, so I’m absolutely not going to say anything rude about a superior officer, even if he weren’t so polite all the time.”

“Oh, so you’re respectful of those who outrank you but rude to the entity meant to assist you.  I bet you’re the one who’s rude to waitstaff.”

Minseok snorts.  “I respect all human beings, especially those helping me out in any way,” he asserts.  “You, however, are a cartoon kitty programmed to, in your own admission, harass the fuck out of me so you can evaluate my performance under pressure.  You’re gonna get all the attitude from me my human drill sergeants never did.”

“Then it’s too bad that I’m programmed only to address you by your name, rank, or ‘Marine.’  I can reference several drill-sergeant-preferred epithets that seem more than appropriate to call you.”

Minseok has to swallow a laugh as he nears the source of the smoke, dropping into a crouch and hoping ChEn’s voice is only occurring in his ears rather than something detectable by other entities.  He creeps closer, alert eyes constantly scanning the unusual scene for potential threats. Well, other than the one spray-painted on the side of the burning school bus.

Free our people or your children die! is scrawled messily in red against the ochre yellow, blackening along with the bus’s original paint as the flames engulf more of the vehicle.  There are no screams or any other signs of life within the bus, but there is a chaotic trail of many little footprints leading further up the beach.  On either side are larger trails of prints that seem to indicate two adults, one with noticeably bigger feet than the other.

ChEn’s voice purrs into his ear.  “How’s this for a mission objective: rescue a dozen schoolchildren from a pair of desperate, heavily-armed  terrorists. You lose points for each of the kiddos that doesn’t make it, and fail if all of them are killed.  Or, obviously, if you get killed.”

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“Do I get any equipment?  Weapons? Magic powers?” Minseok asks.  “Or do you really expect me to just saunter up and single-handedly Jackie Chan their asses?”

“You’re not single-handed,” ChEn retorts.  “You have squadmates. Aren’t they cute?”

Two combat-dressed Marines appear beside him, one tall and broad shouldered, one shorter and lean.  The tall one is staring at him blankly, but the other one is eyeing him with what seems to be derision.

“And since you asked so nicely, I’ll throw in all the fixings for free!”

This squeakily-sarcastic declaration is followed by a literal rain of guns, ammo belts, smoke grenades, and other riot gear, causing Minseok to yelp and crouch beneath his combat helmet.  He’s grateful for the protection but it still fucking hurts when a K2 assault rifle lands directly on his head.

“Now you’re injuring me on purpose?” Minseok growls.  “How the fuck is that supposed to produce results?”

“Suck it up, Marine,” ChEn taunts.  “You’ve survived worse.”

“I can fucking live without my legs.  My skull isn’t optional.”

“Good thing the Republic of Korea provided your delicate ass with a helmet, then.  Have fun!”

The tiger face fades to a barely-visible blur in the corner of his vision.  Minseok swears he can still see it smirking at him.

Putting the infuriating cat out of his mind, Minseok turns his attention to his digital comrades.

“Alright, men—we’re bringing all those kids back to their parents alive.  On my signal—”

“On your signal?” the lean-and-mean Marine protests with a sneer.  “Who the fuck made you the boss?”

Minseok blinks.  “I’m a Master Sergeant,” he points out, gesturing at the triple chevron on his sleeve.  

The sneering Marine looks down at his own insignia-free shoulder.  “Well, fuck.” He sighs. “Lead on, Master Sergeant.”

“I will, thank you,” Minseok clips, determined to ignore the man’s douchery.  “Spread out, advance with caution, use the usual signals if you run into anything.”

The douchebag moves off, mimicking Minseok under his breath.  Minseok rolls his eyes and goes to take point when he realizes the bigger Marine hasn’t moved.

“This isn’t a picnic in the park,” Minseok huffs.  “Get a move on, Marine.”

“Uh.  What are the usual signals?”

Minseok blinks at him.  “Did they not teach you this in Basic?”

“Um. I’m an AI?  I’ve never been to Basic.”

Resisting the urge to facepalm, Minseok silently decides that the I part of AI was evidently omitted in this case.

“We can’t waste the time it would take to teach you,” Minseok huffs.  “Just—go with Dee-Bag over there.”

“Okay,” the dumbass says agreeably, trailing off after his digital bro.

Minseok indulges in several breathy curses about the helpfulness of cartoon cats.

“I can hear you, you know.”

Lifting his brows in exaggerated surprise, Minseok makes a show of looking around.  “Who’s talking? I can’t see anyone,”

“Fine, if you’re gonna be like that, I have no reason to be helpful.”

“If you were helpful, I’d have no reason to be like this.”  Minseok stalks off down the beach, taking a few hasty steps to catch up to flank Dee-Bag and Dumbass and ignoring all further mutterings from Clippy.

At least Dee-Bag seems competent.  He signals Minseok when he spots their quarry, dropping to his belly behind a sand dune and waiting for Minseok to crawl up beside him.  Minseok is surprised at how annoying crawling is with all that extra leg trailing behind him and snagging seaweed with the unruly toes of his boots.  He shakes his head at the irony before giving Dee-Bag all his attention.

“Looks like the pair of terrorists have the kids corralled in that old seafood restaurant, Sir.   I recommend surrounding and surveillance, Sir.”

“Very good,” Minseok nods, ignoring the sarcastic form of address.  “Take Dumbass with you—I don’t trust him on his own.”

“Who?”

Minseok feels himself flush.  “Er—” he twists to read the name stitched to the big guy’s breast.  “Marine Park. Take him with you. Do not engage unless forced.”

“Yes, Sir,” Dee-Bag replies, then turns to tug at Park’s uniform.  “Come on, Dumbass. You’re with me.”

“Okay,” Park agrees, obediently following his fellow Marine.

Shaking his head, Minseok crawls off in the other direction.

░▒▓██▓▒░

The terrorists have holed themselves and the schoolkids up in a run-down building that evidently used to be The Seafood Shack, so maybe run-down is the aesthetic the original occupants were going for.  Regardless, Minseok is happy to take advantage of the decrepit condition to slither up and listen through a hole in the rickety wooden wall.

“Do you think someone will come negotiate with us soon?  I’m getting kinda hungry,” a soft voice asks with a hint of a whine.

“Well, ignore it,” a deeper voice commands.  “We’re not here to eat, we’re here to demand justice for our people.”

“But Tusk, there are so many of the little nippers.  Surely we can trade one for like, some oyster stew or something.”

“I said fucking ignore it, Hammer!  We’re negotiating freedom, not takeout.”

There’s a gasp.  “Tuskie, you shouldn’t curse in front of the children!”

And a sigh.  “I shouldn’t wave a gun at them or spout fiery insurrection in their sniveling faces either, but I am.  They’ll survive—unless the authorities refuse to negotiate, in which case, they’ll be fish food.”

This triggers squeaks of alarm that obscure anything else the pair might be saying, but Minseok’s heard enough.  The terrorists have guns, an agenda, and hostages. Minseok needs to deprive them of at least one of those things.

Thankfully, one of the terrorists doesn’t seem particularly bright, even if the other seems particularly determined.  But Minseok is determined, too, and he has the bonus of being clever and well-trained. He’s not sure if having Dee-Bag and Dumbass counts as a bonus, but he supposes that having questionably-useful comrades is at least something he and this Tusk seem to share.  He appreciates a somewhat level playing field.

He squirms back around to where his reluctant subordinates are lying beside a sand fence.  “Any intel?”

“Yeah—after close observation of the target, this surveillance team has determined that you’re ugly.”

“I think he’s handsome.”

“Shut up, Dumbass.”

Minseok briefly closes his eyes.  “Your opinion on my looks is noted.  Anything that might actually help us save the kids?”

“The big guy steps out to puff on a cigar occasionally,” Dee-Bag reports.  “Or rather, is pushed outside by the pretty one.”

“The big guy is probably Tusk,” Minseok deduces, easily imagining that if Hammer complained about cursing in front of the schoolkids he’d probably pitch a right fit about smoking in front of them.  “Which makes Hammer the, er, pretty one?”

“He’s so dreamy,” Dee-Bag sighs sarcastically.

“He really is,” Dumbass nods, face entirely earnest.

“Irrelevant,” Minseok dismisses.  “Clippy, what rules of engagement are we currently operating under?”

ChEn clears his throat.  “A UN peacekeeping operation should only use force as a measure of last resort. It should always be calibrated in a precise, proportional and appropriate manner, within the principle of the minimum force necessary to achieve the desired effect, while sustaining consent for the mission and its mandate.”

Minseok glares in an upper-leftward direction.

“You’re not the only one who can quote a rulebook.”

“What I meant was:  Can I snipe his ass when he steps out for another smoke?”

“Just to be difficult:  No.”

Minseok frowns.  “Why give me all these guns and ammo to haul around if you’re going to make me literally kick terrorist ass anyway?”

“You asked for guns,” ChEn retorts.  “It’s not my fault you asked for something useless.”

“I never asked for you,” Minseok mutters, but he sheds his heavy ballistic weaponry and readies the tactical baton Dumbass helpfully hands him.  Minseok blinks at it, then smiles up at the hopefully-grinning Marine. “Thanks, D—er, Park. We’ll stealth up and flank the door—I’ll blackjack the big guy, you two hold the other one at gunpoint and demand surrender.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed to shoot anybody?” Park asks.

“We aren’t, but they don’t know that,” Minseok explains, trying for a patient tone.  “We’re just going to threaten to shoot them, not actually do it unless we absolutely have to.”

“Oh.”  Park strokes his chin.  “But how will I know if we absolutely have to shoot them?”

“Because I’ll be there beside you shouting, ‘Shoot them, Dumbass!’” Dee-Bag snarks.

Park smiles as if the weight of the world has been taken off his shoulders.  “Thanks, Byun—you’re the best.”

“Don’t you forget it.”  Dee-Bag claps Park on the shoulder.  “C’mon, we’ll wait where we’ll be behind the door when it swings out—that way they won’t see us until after the Master Sergeant plays whack-a-mole with the giant Angry Bird.”

“Ten-four, good buddy,” Park replies.

Dee-Bag gives him a disgusted look as they crawl off into position.  “That’s truckers, Dumbass. We’re Marines.”

“Oh.  Um. Yes, Your Majesty?” Park tries, at least lowering his voice as the pair approaches the target.

“Ugh, you’re an absolute—actually, you know what?  Sure, I’ll take that.”

Minseok snorts as their voices fade.  He works his way up to the porch of the Seafood Shack, crawling beneath the big display windows before standing up on his borrowed legs, flattening his back against the rough planks beside the door.  Truncheon at the ready, Minseok waits, relaxed but alert.

Either ChEn is as bored as he is or he’s decided to have mercy on Minseok, because he doesn’t have to wait very long.  Tusk takes a single step onto the porch before going down like a heap of bricks and Hammer bursts into tears as soon as a pair of K2s are pointed at him, throwing his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he wails.  “I just really wanted some seafood stew.”

“Fuck your stew!” Tusk snarls, words slightly distorted by the way his face is pressed against the floorboards of the porch as Minseok efficiently zip-ties his wrists and ankles together.  “We were making a statement! If our children are forced to drop out of school and work in sweatshops, we’ll make sure your kids have no lessons, either!”

“Look, pal, I sympathize with your political agenda but you can’t just go around kidnapping kids.  You need to work with the system, not outside it, okay?”

“The system is corrupt!  It’s designed to oppress!  Our voices must be heard! Our people—”

Minseok gags the guy with a sigh.  That doesn’t stop him from grunting and waggling his eyebrows threateningly.

He looks up at the sound of giggling to see Dee-Bag rolling his eyes as Dumbass hugs all the traumatized children, massive wingspan enabling him to reassure all of them at once.  A smile touches Minseok’s lips at the endearing sight—and then it flickers and dissolves along with the Seafood Shack, Hammer, and Tusk, leaving Minseok alone on an empty beach.

Satisfied, Minseok grins up at ChEn.  “Perfect score,” he crows.

“Almost.  You lose points for calling your squadmates Dee-Bag and Dumbass.  I mean, you’ve been both to me and I still address you respectfully, Master Sergeant Kim.”

Minseok winces.  “Those were regrettable slips,” he admits.  “But we saved the kids.” He gives ChEn his winningest smile.  “If I apologize to you for mouthing off and promise to address you more respectfully, can we reforge a less contentious partnership?”

“Nope,” ChEn dismisses immediately.  “I’m not your partner, I’m your chaperone.  And I’m programmed to be contentious with training subjects that are easily goaded into superior performance.”

“I’ll still perform well if we’re friends,” Minseok tries.

“I have no evidence to support that,” ChEn counters.  “You have just set the highest score of any trainee on the preceding mission while being goaded, so the goading will continue.”  The entity sounds incredibly smug about this.

Minseok scowls.  “I am the only trainee to ever attempt that mission,” he points out.  “Of course I have the highest score.”

“Well, that extrapolation is obvious to your human brain, but I’m just a dumb face with fucked-up programming, and unfortunately for you, I’m going to stick with the known recipe for success.”

“But—”

“The next mission begins in the forest—you’ll find the path to your right.  Good luck!”

That last bit sounds rather sarcastic.  The tiger icon fades once again into translucency and remains unresponsive even when Minseok uses his most formal speech to address him by his proper name.

With an exasperated growl, Minseok turns to the forest, following the path ChEn had indicated and grumbling the whole way.

░▒▓██▓▒░

The path isn’t really a footpath.  It’s actually wide and a little corrugated, so Minseok is entirely unsurprised to reach a clearing occupied by a pair of K1A2 tanks, both painted with the familiar Marine Corps camo pattern.  What’s not familiar is the color scheme—instead of the typical woodland drab greens and tans, one of the tanks is mostly white, almost as if it were meant to operate under snowy winter conditions.  While this is surprising but not entirely unreasonable, the second tank is done in shades of bloody red. Neither color scheme does anything to disguise either tank beneath the dappled sunlight filtering through the overhanging trees.  Beside each tank stands what’s presumably the crew, dressed in matching un-camouflaging camo.  

“Tank exercises?” Minseok asks, eyeing the pair of hard-faced tank commanders and their blank-faced crew.

“This forest is the only point of contact between two rival nations and is therefore rigorously patrolled.  These ace tank commanders prowl the woods like panthers with the goal to eliminate the other and allow their own forces to pass across the border.  You have three minutes to choose a side followed by three hours to take out the opponent. Time starts: now.”

A new timer joins the list of information below the smirking tiger face, flashing as it counts downward from 180 seconds.  Heart kicking, Minseok steps toward the tanks, looking for any signs as to which he should choose. ChEn told him before that he was supposed to “do the right thing” and that implies one of these nations has a more just casus belli than the other.

“Why do you fight?” he asks them, eyes darting from commander to commander, crew to crew, looking for any reaction that might provide clues of worthiness.  

The crew is identical, driver and gunner twin to each other and to their counterparts in the opposite uniform.  The commanders aren’t identical but they’re both tall, built lean, one with high cheekbones, a strong nose, and recurved lips while the other has a pointed chin, a small mouth, and strong brows.  They’re glaring at each other, heated gazes turning to Minseok in response to his question.

“They stole our land,” the white commander accuses. “We were here first, living peacefully, before they came to make trouble.”  On his chest where a marine’s name would be embroidered is only the word FIVE. This makes no sense, as there are three total in the tank crew and the pair of clones don’t have any identifiers at all. 

“They killed our people,” the red commander retorts.  “Our heritage is here. We deserve a safe and sacred homeland.”  His chest reads YELLOW even though his tank is red, and his crewmen also have no identifiers.

Minseok only deliberates for a moment.  The names of the commanders have to give some clue but three minutes isn’t a lot of time for puzzle-solving.  Both causes seem regrettable, but as someone from a nation that’s been repeatedly invaded, that’s where his sympathies lie.  

“I choose white,” he announces just as the timer blinks away the last few seconds to stall at 00:00.

One of the white crew members dissolves away just as Minseok’s Marine camo fades to match their uniforms.  The environment blurs and reforms around them as he runs to board the tank with the rest, sliding into the vacant gunner’s position and taking stock of his instrumentation.

He’d had some basic tank training but it hadn’t been his specialty by any means.  Still, he recognizes the layout and the controls and is nodding to himself as the tank roars to life.  

Minseok pulls his comm headset over his ears just in time to hear the commander bark orders to the driver.

“Take us back into the forest—the border is five kilometers away and I want to be there before the enemy.  Gunner! Actively seek to acquire target. Hold fire until my command.”

“Yes, Sir,” Minseok acknowledges.  Finding the red tank among the green of the forest doesn’t seem difficult, but it seems rather unlike ChEn to give him such a straightforward mission.

But sure enough, after prowling the border for half an hour, Minseok spots the red tank fording a river to the south.

“Target acquired!” he informs the commander.  Then he growls as the red tank, evidently spotting them as well, sets off smokey obscurement charges, making visual or infrared target locking impossible.

“Cross the river and move to tail,” the commander orders the driver.  “If they expect us to intercept, we’ll give them a surprise.”

But the other tank commander is evidently just as clever, because instead of creeping around behind the enemy tank they end up barrel-to-barrel across the river.

“Permission to fire, Sir?”  Minseok’s fingers hover over the ammo selection buttons for the auto-loader.

“Negative,” the commander barks.  “Fall back and range-find for Top-Attack.”

Minseok acknowledges the command, loading the smart ammunition designed to arc up and shoot down through the weaker top of a tank rather than wasting time and energy attempting to penetrate the heavy reactive armor plating of the front.  But as soon as they’re out of visual range, the Missile Approach Warning System goes off and Minseok scrambles to deploy their own screen of smoke grenades as the driver rapidly ensures the tank isn’t where the enemy expects it to be.

It takes almost two more hours of cat-and-mouse before they’re successful in disabling, then destroying the enemy tank.  Minseok swallows his bile at the sight of the burning red armor because he hasn’t just roasted real human beings, only digital facsimiles.  Not to say he wouldn’t do the same in wartime to defend his people, but ending human life is always regrettable even when necessary to ensure the continuation of other human lives.

“Excellent work, Gunner,” the commander praises before flipping the communications system to presumably address his own superiors wherever they may be.

“Red resistance eliminated,” he reports.  “Prepare the capture teams and prisoner transport units—the labor camps will be full by nightfall.”

“Wait, what?” Minseok gapes.

“If they want to live here so badly, they can work for the privilege,” the commander states.  “We’ll give them the stable homes they desire—though they certainly won’t be comfortable.”  

He laughs at Minseok’s continuing expression of astonishment.  “Don’t worry—we’ll let the prettiest of their women marry our boys.  Their kids will be full citizens—isn’t that the whole point of this? To give the next generation safety and prosperity?”

“Clip—er, ChEn!” Minseok shouts.  “What the fuck? You’re really training ROK Marines to enable subjugation?  After what our country has been through?”

“If you’re unsatisfied with the simulation results, you may reset and retry.”

“Please,” Minseok huffs, and then he’s back in the forest clearing with the entirely unscathed pair of tanks and their waiting crews.

“I choose red,” Minseok declares without even waiting for the timer to begin.  

Again the forest dissolves from center to edge.  Again Minseok takes up the gunner position. And again, the tank commander barks orders to Minseok and the driver that result in a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek.  Having worked with the white tank commander once, Minseok is able to make suggestions to the red commander that lead to an eventual victory.  

For the second time, Minseok watches through the gun sights as the enemy tank burns.  He doesn’t feel nearly as remorseful this time. He even smiles when the red tank commander congratulates him on the final shot.

The smile is wiped off his face when the red commander clicks over to check in with his superiors.

“Excellent work,” the voice comes over the radio.  “The incendiary assault team will be in the center of their city by nightfall.”

“Incendiary assault?”  This gaping is definitely a habit unbecoming a Master Sergeant, even if he’s playing a lowly gunner’s role.

“Of course,” the red commander says.  “We’ll clear away their heathen city and rebuild it for our own people.”

“But innocents will be killed!”

The commander shrugs.  “Fewer of them to compete for space and resources.”

“ChEn!” Minseok bellows.  “What the fuck? Our trainees will either help people be enslaved or help them to be burned out of their homes?”

“They say war is hell,” ChEn’s voice sounds in his ear.  “But so-called ‘peacetime’ is often just as bad.”

The tanks dissolve, leaving Minseok furious and alone in the forest.  “But this is a simulation! Why build this horrific choice into the training of recruits that have no say in what their superiors do?”

“Because troops are discharged.  Sergeants become citizens, corpsmen become corporate men.  People who develop vehicles, weapons, arms, armor. People who vote, enter politics, order lowly recruits to carry out missions.  War is a human thing and humans are affected. If humans remember that outside of battle, fewer wars may be fought in the first place.”

For the first time, Minseok sees the tiger’s face as a heartless emblem rather than a childish cartoon.

“War isn’t always avoidable.  It’s not even always desirable to avoid it.  But even when a just, righteous war is ‘won,’ humanity as a whole still often loses.”

Minseok scowls.  “So this military-designed simulation can hammer that idea into the heads of trainees, but I’m not allowed to teach history or strategy at the academy because my stumps will traumatize the recruits.”

“I think you should teach at the academy, for what it’s worth,” ChEn says in a softer tone.  “Object lessons are just as important as academic ones.”

“Well, when I send in my application, I’ll make sure to note that a cartoon cat said I should be allowed.”

“Captain Kim would endorse you,” ChEn asserts.  “He has more clout than a mere ‘cartoon cat.’”

Minseok huffs.  “That would be a more meaningful declaration if it came from the Captain himself—and it would only matter if I were actually qualified.  The Academy wouldn’t hire me even if I did have legs. I’m just an NCO without any university education. I cling to the military so I don’t have to try to find a job in the private sector.” 

“You have plenty of education,” ChEn dismisses.  “Your battalion never got the worst end of an engagement.”

“We sure got the worst end of those bombs.”

“That’s not a failure of strategy.  That was a failure of intel. You can only work with the information you’re given—it’s hardly your fault if there was a translation error somewhere well before the reports ever landed in your hands.”

Minseok cuts hard eyes up at the stern-looking tiger.  “You really did dig deep in my personnel file, huh? Way beyond my former height and build so you could create this avatar.”

“Test subjects must be evaluated for fitness, mental and physical, as well as ranked based on capability as demonstrated by previous commendations or reprimands,” ChEn recites.

“You’re a stalker,” Minseok concludes.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is.”

“You’re an infiltration and surveillance specialist.”

“...That’s different.”

“I disagree, but you can prove my stupid, fucked-up face wrong in the next mission!”

With that announcement, a path opens up opposite the clearing.  With a sigh, Minseok marches toward his next trial.

░▒▓██▓▒░

The path through the forest ends at the edge of a war-torn cityscape populated by bedraggled survivors pawing through the rubble.  A pair of teenagers are punching each other over a torn package of squid chips one of them had pulled from the glovebox of an abandoned car.  It’s a sorry sight, even if Minseok knows they’re just AI programs instead of actual starving people.

“Welcome to Toxi City,” ChEn chirps in the tone of a tourism commercial.  “Once a shining light of industry, it’s now a bombed-out wreck. However, it’s the last known location of three brilliant scientists, so your mission, Marine, is to locate this trio and escort them to safety.  Look sharp—it seems calm now, but I promise it will be no tea party.”

Minseok glares up at the grinning tiger.  “Toxi City? Really?”

ChEn frowns.  “Your profile indicated you appreciate wordplay.  The PT made a note that when she asked how you were adapting to a manual wheelchair, you informed her you were ‘shouldering on.’”

“Diffusion with attempts at humor is a classic coping technique,” Minseok huffs.  “At that point, it was either make lame jokes or punch people.”

The tiger’s face flips back to smug.  “Well, I have no way to punch you. Lame jokes are my only arms.”

Minseok groans.  He begins to make his way through the destroyed city in the foolish hope that beginning the mission will end the puns.  

“Hey, if two people with manual wheelchairs try to see who’s the fastest, is it an arms race?”

“You really are terribly programmed.”

“Have you seen those new amphibious assault vehicles?  They really look like the wave of the future.”

“Have you seen how punchable your dumb cartoon face is?”

“Have you seen fit to actually make a location and extraction plan or do you just plan to sass your way through?”

“Okay first, you just tried to blow smoke up my ass about teaching strategy; second, sassing has worked perfectly well so far.”

“What a coincidence!  It’s worked well for me, too!  Go get ‘em, tiger! Oh, no, wait, that’s me.  Go get ‘em, human!”

“What happened to only being allowed to call me name, rank, or ‘Marine?’”

“Fine: Go get ‘em, Name!”

“...I really want to punch you right now.”

“Lucky for me I’m ChEn the Unpunchable.”

“You’re ChEn the Undesirable.”

“...Still better than being called Clippy.”

Minseok really should have known better than letting himself get so distracted in hostile territory, so he only has himself to blame when he’s tackled to the ground.  Thankfully, his hand-to-hand combat training was so deeply ingrained that, despite the lack of practice since his injury, he instinctively kicks away the body on top of him and has his K2 leveled at their face in mere seconds.

Then he feels mean on top of foolish when his assailant turns out to be a kid that looks all of twelve years old.

He feels twice as bad when a surly-looking man steps around a corner to begin yelling at the child in what sounds an awful lot like Klingon.  With a hard glance at Minseok and his gun, the man steps forward, reaching to grab the child, who scrambles to regain possession of the loaf of bread she’d dropped.

Minseok redirects his aim to hold the man at gunpoint instead of the child, but with distinctly pleading Klingon, the child clings to the man and gives Minseok puppy-dog eyes.  He sighs in disgust at himself and lowers the weapon—only for the pair to run off just before an angry woman in a baker’s apron comes hobbling around the corner, shouting what are obviously invectives at the fleeing pair.

“Okay, what the fuck?!” Minseok sputters.  “Klingon? Really? Do you like toying with me?  And am I supposed to chase down the kid and her dad or whoever since I failed to reclaim that evidently stolen loaf of bread?”

“Yes, Klingon, this way no actual culture is portrayed thereby eliminating racial bias on the part of trainees, I’m surprised you recognized it given your jockish tendencies but good for you; Yes, I enjoy toying with you, it is literally what I am programmed to do not to mention an extremely cat-like behavior, why all the hate; and you’re supposed to be locating and extracting valuable assets, not dabbling in local affairs.  And, you know, watching where the hell you’re going.”

The fact that Minseok can’t legitimately be annoyed at anyone but himself for the events of the last several minutes doesn’t stop him from being irrationally annoyed at ChEn.  “I watched a lot of old Star Trek reruns in the hospital,” he mutters, head properly on a swivel as he more cautiously makes his way through the city. “I signed up for this because I thought maybe it would be all cool like the holodeck, but instead of Sherlock Data helping me solve these missions I get the equivalent of that big-eared, sharp-toothed bartender asshole, except instead of profit you thrive on my humiliation.”

ChEn swallows his laughter to tsk at Minseok.  “Oh, come on—I’m not causing your humiliation, just enjoying it.  But don’t worry—I’ll keep your lapses in judgement and subsequent flusters all for my own enjoyment.  I mean, I’m definitely not splicing together clips of all such moments to make a supercut with the intent to show it to anyone else.”  

Minseok stops.  “You’re what?”

“Don’t worry about my plans, worry about your own—do you intend to just wander aimlessly until you find a trio of Einstein-looking dudes or what?”

Minseok scowls.  “I have limited equipment and even more limited intel.  I’m not wandering aimlessly, I’m following this particular road because it seems to be a commercial area catering to businesspeople and will hopefully contain some type of tech or communication business that may possibly still have the ability to connect with the outside world, then I can do things like contact my superiors for further info and/or search the internet or local phone directories for the possible location of scientists—universities, R&D companies, or whatever.”

“I function as your superiors in these exercises, and contacting me is as easy as smiling at the sky.  Why haven’t you asked me for more equipment or information?”

Minseok certainly does not smile at the sky.  “Because you have proven unhelpful in both arenas and you’re not the only one that can analyze past performance as an indicator of future results.”

ChEn scoffs.  “I have proven exactly as helpful as you’ve requested I be,” he retorts.  “I have given you exactly the supplies and information you asked for every time.”

“You didn’t give me magic powers.”

“‘Magic powers’ didn’t appear on any ROK Marine Corps supply list.”

Minseok sighs, scouting an abandoned newsstand before resting his back against it, remaining alert even as he carefully considers what to ask for from this evil genie.

“May I please have the exact coordinates of the scientists’ last known locations, standard ROK Marine Corps target-identifying briefs for each of them including images if available, and a standard ROK Marine Corps rucksack sized and fitted properly for my frame, containing one set of appropriately-sized ROK Marine Corps standard body armor including combat helmet for each target plus an ROK Marine Corps standard supply of food, water, and medical aid?”

ChEn laughs.  “Are you wishing on a monkey’s paw or something?  Do you think you need to word everything like a lawyer to get what you need?”

“You’ve given me no reason to assume otherwise.”

“Fair enough.”

The minute Minseok’s HUD updates to include the last known coordinates, he sidesteps.  To his immense satisfaction, the rucksack containing the requested supplies comes down right beside him instead of on his head.

“Damn,” ChEn chuckles.  “Do you want some personnel?  I can bring back Park and Byun.”  His voice sounds like he’s offering dessert to a reluctant diner.

Minseok eyes the innocent-looking tiger face suspiciously.  Having a one-to-one ratio of Marines to extraction targets certainly seems less stressful than having to herd them through a war zone alone.  There’s obviously some sort of catch, but if he agrees and doesn’t end up with anything useful to show for it, he’s no worse off than he is at the moment.

“Sure.  Please bring back Park and Byun.”

“Done!” Chen cackles.

Park and Byun materialize in front of him.  Park grins, waves, steps forward—and evidently triggers some unexploded ordnance.

The resulting screams stab straight into Minseok’s memory, dredging all his nightmares to the surface—his legs crushed by collapsed concrete, leaving him unable to do anything but listen to his men scream in agony around him for what seemed like an eternity until the silence that followed was even worse.

“They’re not real,” Minseok says to himself as the smoke and rubble clear.  “They’re not real—no one’s actually injured. Fuck—Kim Minseok, do not pass out.  They’re not real—Clippy’s just an asshole.  None of this is actually happening.”

“The mind is a powerful thing,” ChEn sings as the dust settles enough for Minseok to see Byun lying way too still and Park writhing and bleeding in the street.  Unfortunately the stupid tiger face still isn’t punchable.

Minseok grits his teeth and forces himself to focus on this version of unreality instead of that far away one he had no control over.  Here, he has at least a little agency. And at the very least, he can ‘mercy-kill’ these AI programs without hesitation or remorse.  They’re not real, they’re just AI—

“Wait, you fucking know you’re AI!” Minseok shouts, jumping forward to crouch beside Park’s ruined body.  He grabs the Marine’s face by its oversized ears. “Park—you’re not hurt. You’re fine.  You’re a computer program—it’s not possible for you to be in pain.”

Park stops screaming.  “Oh,” he says. He struggles to sit up, looking down at his shrapnel-riddled body.  “What a mess,” he huffs, then starts picking bits of metal out of himself and tossing them aside.

“And you, Byun!” Minseok whirls to face the unmoving form.  “You’re an AI—it’s not possible for you to die. Get up and help me.”

Byun groans.  “Aw, man. I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t think of that.”  He also sits up, brushing himself off. “I hope the other testers aren’t as clever.”

“Damn, again,” ChEn adds.  “They weren’t kidding when they evaluated you as being quick to adjust to changing mission parameters.”

Minseok would rather like to change his current mission parameters to replace ChEn with Siri or Alexa or some other less sadistic entity.  Since he can’t do that, he settles for helping Park to his feet, letting himself gloat a little at this turn of events.  

“To quote our American counterparts: Improvise, adapt, and overcome, motherfuckers.”

ChEn snorts.  “I don’t think the American Marine slogan includes that last word.”

“They’re Americans and they’re military.  Of fucking course it does.” Minseok shoulders the pack as Park hauls a protesting Byun up off his digital ass.  “Let’s march—we’ve got over a kilometer of city to navigate before we near the LKL.” 

“Just so you know, that little trick isn’t going to work on your extraction targets,” ChEn warns as the three Marines stride off toward their goal.  “They don’t know they’re AI—if they think they’re dying, their programs will actually terminate.”

“That’s why I asked for body armor.  I fully expect you to make this as difficult and unpleasant as possible for me.” 

“You say this as if I get enjoyment out of torturing you.  May I remind you this is literally my purpose.”

“Maybe so, but you absolutely are enjoying it.  You admitted it earlier.”

“...Yeah, you’re right—pissing you off is fun!”

“I’m strongly suggesting to Captain Kim that he allow each successful mission completion to be celebrated with a five-minute game of Punch the Tiger.”

“Oooh, I want to play Punch the Tiger!”  Park bounces at Minseok’s flank.

“Then we gotta save these scientists,” Minseok informs him, handing over the printout detailing the identification information of each target.

“Okay!  We’ll save these scientists so hard.”

Byun rolls his eyes on Minseok’s other flank.  “That’s what we do. ROK Marine Corp Infiltration & Extraction Specialists: We Will Save Your Scientists So Hard.”

Minseok smiles.  “I like that slogan just as much as the American one.”

░▒▓██▓▒░

Saving the scientists so hard turns out to be as difficult as Minseok had predicted.  Locating the three isn’t a problem—there are only a few buildings near the LKL and one of them has the letters EARCH AND DE still legible on chunks of the fallen facade.  The difficult part comes from the digging-out process. Minseok hadn’t thought to ask for E-tools or shovels or a backhoe or a giant rock-lifting ape, so he has to make do with Marine Park.

“You’re an AI, you don’t get tired,” he reminds the Marine for what feels like the fortieth time.  

“I’m programmed to be tired,” Park whines.

“I know, but you’re still just as tough and strong as if you weren’t programmed to feel tired,” Minseok patiently recites, feeling his own muscles burn as he lifts yet more rubble away from the entrance to the partially-collapsed building.  “Keep going, Marine—we’re almost done.” 

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Park sighs, but he continues the excavation process until there’s a man-sized hole leading into the darkness.

“Byun, see if you can find a stairwell or something—if they’re here and alive, they’re probably going to be in the basement.”

“Why don’t you go find a stairwell?  Aren’t you our fearless leader?”

“You’re the one that can’t be crushed to death.”

“You can’t be crushed, either—you may be alive but you’re not really here.”

“Yes, but if I get fake-crushed to fake-death, I fail the mission.  If you get fake-crushed, we can dig you out and reinflate you or whatever.”

Byun glares at him.

Minseok sighs.  “Besides, I’m your commanding officer at the moment and I’m telling you to get your digital ass in there, Marine.”

“Fine, but you should know you’re just as terrible as Clippy the Sadistic Tiger.”

“Noted.  Move your ass.”

Byun is gone long enough for Minseok to endure about sixteen rounds of “Round and round the rubble pile, the tiger chased the weasel, the weasel died but couldn’t be crushed— Pop! Goes the weasel!” courtesy of Dumbass Park, ensuring the refrain will be stuck in Minseok’s head for the rest of the damn mission at least.  He’s really happy to see their Dee-Bag weasel slink back out of the destabilized building, uncrushed and smiling.

“There’s definitely an intact stairwell going to at least one basement level, but you’re not going to like it and Dumbass might not even fit.  Park, you follow last so that if you get stuck we can just go on without you.”

“Okay!”

Minseok suppresses an eyeroll.  “Lead on, Marine Byun.”

“Yes, sir.”

It is indeed a tight fit and Minseok once again finds himself a bit annoyed by his full-length legs.  It’s harder to squirm around tight corners when his knees only bend in one direction and his shin bones are uncooperatively inflexible.  It certainly doesn’t make things easier that he insists on bringing the rucksack full of armor and medical supplies, but he does eventually manage to make it to the steps leading down to the basement, pushing the rucksack along ahead of himself.  

He’s more than a bit annoyed when a grinning Park slithers into the stairwell only seconds behind him.  “Didn’t you get stuck?” 

Park shakes his head.  “If I can’t get hurt, then it’s fine for my joints to bend whatever way I want,” he announces.  “And it’s fine if my bones are all bendy, too, sometimes.”

At least Byun is also scowling at the seemingly-slow-but-eerily-clever Marine.  “Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?” he groans.

“If you had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to squirm through whatever path you’d have found.”

“Then you owe my inflexible ass, Master Sergeant,” Byun huffs.  “These nerds better be down here or I fucking quit.”

░▒▓██▓▒░

Thankfully, the ‘nerds’ are indeed holed up in one of the underground laboratories.  Less thankfully, they’ve evidently survived on experimental mushrooms and are stoned off their hyper-intelligent asses.

Minseok takes one look at them and bursts into disbelieving laughter.  “Does the Colonel know someone programmed a female version of him into this simulation?  And is that Major Kim? And that visiting Chinese LC?”

“All significant AI were given realistic likenesses to aid in immersion.  Any models willingly gave their permission to be included.”

“I highly doubt they would have if they knew the manner in which their likenesses are being used,” Minseok chuckles.  “And does Colonel Kim know you made him into a woman?”

The visiting Chinese Lieutenant Colonel is wearing a large porcelain evaporating dish on his head and muttering to himself in his native tongue.  Major Kim is dozing in a corner sucking his thumb, a plastic terrarium of odd blue caterpillars hugged to his chest. And a decidedly female version of Colonel Kim is having an animated conversation with a trio of ring stands, each holding a flask into which she’s carefully pouring liquid containing what appears to be chunks of the blue-capped mushrooms that have evidently caused this less-than-flattering portrayal.

“Yes, Reginald, I do think that buttering a broken pocketwatch will fix it, but only if you use the finest butter!” Colonel Kim is saying.  “Percy, would you care for more tea?” 

ChEn’s voice cuts through the chaos.  “Colonel Kim is a big advocate for gender inclusivity in the military,” he states.  “He’d be absolutely honored to portray a brilliant scientist of any gender.”

“What about one playing make-believe with the lab equipment?”

“It’s against protocol to keep food intended for human consumption in a bioagriculture grow lab.  They ate what they had available—did you expect them to starve?”

“I guess I expected AI programs to just wait in suspended animation until they were needed, but I guess that was naive of me.”

“And racist,” Byun huffs.

“My bad,” Minseok freely admits, digging the body armor out of the rucksack.  “Okay, Sirs and Madam, if you’ll just put these on and come with us, we’ll have you out of here and detoxed in no time.”

He frowns when he’s summarily ignored by all three of the scientists.

“Right,” Minseok sighs.  Evidently this is now a babysitting job in a much more literal sense of the term.  “Park, please go wake Major Kim—the man with the caterpillars—and help him dress. Byun, you take Lieutenant Colonel Zhang—”

“You take the Chinese dude.  Your personnel file says you’re decent at Mandarin.  I’ll take the lady.”   This last part is accompanied by some suggestive eyebrow waggling.

Minseok stares at him flatly.  “You’re interrupting your commanding officer and defying orders to flirt with the extraction target.”

“Yep!  Gonna court-martial an AI?”

“I’d certainly discipline an actual Marine.”

“Can’t have it both ways, Cleverbritches.  Either I’m an actual Marine and I’m dead two kilometers away in the middle of the street, or I’m an AI and I’m alive and insubordinate.”

“Gee, what a conundrum,” Minseok gripes.  “Either way you’re less than useful.”

“ChEnny, can you put me back in the street?”

“No, wait, fine,” Minseok hastens to object.  “But I’m reporting all of you for fucked-up programming.”

“You do that.  I’ll be over here with—hey, sugar, what’s your name?”  Dee-Bag leans into the lady scientist’s space.

The scientist blinks at him.  “Oh! Maryanne. Have you seen my gloves and fan?  I don’t want to look disrespectable in front of Percy—his father is rich, you know.”

“My name’s not Maryanne, it’s—”

“Yes, that’s nice dear, I’m glad your goldfish is alright, but I really need my gloves and fan.  And clean cups—these ones are filthy.” The scientist shudders, pouring the chunky liquid from one of the flasks all over the table.

Minseok can’t help but smile to himself as he leaves Byun to deal with his chosen prize and makes his way over to the rambling Chinese scientist. 

“Lieutenant Colonel, it’s time to leave.  I need you to put your kit on and come with—”

“Don’t touch my hat!”  

This irate screech is accompanied by a scathing glare as the scientist clutches the porcelain bowl to his head.  

“Sir!  I promise you can keep your hat.  It’s, er. Very fashionable—”

“It’s not fashionable, it’s magic!” the agitated man insists.  “See? It turns your hair orange.”

The scientist’s hair is jet black.  This doesn’t stop Minseok from wearing his best smile.  “I see that—it’s lovely. But—”

“It’s not lovely!  It’s hideous! That’s why the snarks won’t eat me.  It’s snark-attack season, you know. They’re most vicious this time of year.”

“...Oh,” Minseok says, at a loss for anything else to say.  “Well, I happen to have some newly-enchanted snark-proof armor here just for you.  Will you let me put it on?”

“Is it ugly?”

“The ugliest.”

“Then I insist.  Thank you, young man.”

Relief floods Minseok as the now-perfectly-agreeable scientist permits himself to be dressed in the body armor.  As he buckles it on and tightens the straps, Minseok glances over to see how Park is getting on with Major Kim.

He should be entirely unsurprised that both of them are now cooing into the terrarium of caterpillars.  But at least Major Kim is wearing armor and a helmet. So is Colonel Kim’s lookalike, though evidently Byun has had to convince her it’s a frilly tea-time dress and a fetching lace bonnet in order to accomplish this.  She looks into the blank piece of paper he holds up for her, gasps in delight, and fusses with her helmet, staring at the empty page for another moment before tossing it aside to throw her arms around Byun’s neck and kiss his cheek.

Minseok tosses back a thumbs-up in response to Byun’s triumphant smirk.  As long as he doesn’t try to go further than enjoying the occasional spontaneous cheek kiss from the obviously-delirious woman, Minseok will let the Marine enjoy his chosen duty.

“We have to go outside now,” Minseok informs his own charge.  “To protect your magic hat, can I put this magic hat cover over it?”  He proffers the combat helmet.

The scientist eyes it a little dubiously.  “My hair will still be orange underneath it?”

“Absolutely.”

“What a good friend you are!”  The scientist crouches a little to make it easier for Minseok to plop the helmet over his head (and the porcelain bowl).

“That’s me,” Minseok says, lengthening the chinstrap to accommodate the height of the evaporation dish.  This is against at least three regulations but an improperly-worn helmet is still better than no helmet at all.

Not in a hurry to coax three inebriates through tricky tunnels of rubble, Minseok leads the group down the basement corridor in the other direction, searching for another way out.  It takes over an hour but he finally locates another stairwell, creeping cautiously upward to look for egress. The first floor is inaccessible but Park marches up to the second floor, pulling open the stairwell door to reveal half a lobby that ends in broken-out windows.

“Wait!” Minseok calls as Park ushers his scientist and the caterpillars over to the windows.  

“Why?” Park asks, prodding his charge out through the broken glass.

Minseok isn’t fast enough to stop him but it turns out not to matter—there’s a ramp of rubble leading down to the ground and the reckless pair are picking their way along it, entirely uninjured and unconcerned.

Trying to school his heart back to a reasonable rate of speed, Minseok rolls his eyes and gestures for the others to follow.

░▒▓██▓▒░

Escaping the building is much easier than escaping the city itself.  The residents are drawn to the odd procession, giving Minseok way too much stress as he observes them for any signs of hostility.  On top of that, their charges are entirely uncooperative and entirely unaware of reality.

The Major keeps trying to sneak off and curl up with his “teddybugs.”  The Colonel keeps fussing about needing clean cups for her tea and/or butter for her stopwatch, darting off into random shops or even residences to look for these things.  And the Chinese LC keeps catching sight of himself in reflective surfaces and screeching about how he absolutely must have his hat (even though the ceramic dish is still on his head, merely obscured by the helmet.  

Park has the easiest task—he merely coaxes the Major into riding on his back where the man can doze, terrarium of bugs dangling from slack fingers.  Minseok really hopes they’re not weaponized or capable of destroying crops or livestock or any other wide scale destruction. He probably loses points on the mission if he causes famine in a digital world.

Byun is also doing alright, having worked out a system where he presents his charge with a beaker to pour the disgusting mushroom ‘tea’ into whenever she starts fussing about clean cups.  Then he takes the now-empty old beaker, holding on to it out of sight only to present it anew when the fussing begins again. When the scientist asks for butter, Byun promises they’re on the way to get some.  It’s all lies, of course, lies upon lies told to entities that aren’t even human, falsehoods told to false beings.

There’s probably another moral in that, but Minseok is too exhausted to look for it.

This is mostly because his own charge’s proclivity for sudden, enraged ranting about his hat have grated Minseok’s patience and tolerance down to dust (along with, probably, the enamel of his teeth).  Minseok makes sure to walk between his scientist and any windows, puddles, or dusty polished metal that might show him his own helmeted image and trigger another headwear-related conniption. He also has to keep an eye out for other unexploded ordnance, armed locals, and other hazards, and the stress of keeping the six of them safe as the only properly-functioning human mind in the entire sim has Minseok strung tripwire-tight.

The whole scenario is way too familiar.  Granted, it was just his own fragmented battalion he’d been escorting on the day he’d lost his legs, but this slow crawl through an unfamiliar urban landscape populated by unintelligible natives, lacking proper intelligence about what might be lurking beneath the rubble or around the bend is starting to blend with his most hated memories in a way that has his stomach knotting and the back of his throat constricting around a stress-inflated scream.

“Hey, look, a truck!” Park crows, hitching his burden higher up his back.

“No,” Minseok states flatly.

“But it’s got the ROK insignia!  And a white tiger face painted on the hood.  It must be friendly!”

“No,” Minseok growls.

“You’re that pissed at ChEnChEn that you’re gonna make things harder for us just to spite him?” Byun asks, the curl of his lip indicating his opinion of that course of action.

Minseok is out of patience and decorum.  He’s out of a lot of things, actually, and sanity might well be one of them.

“I am pissed at Clippy for fucking blowing you two up in front of a bombardment survivor!  I know that war is fucking hell, I know that insurgents don’t fucking care about PTSD, I get that the point of simulation is to condition a trainee to respond correctly despite a horrific situation, but seriously, just, fucking fuck that fucking striped bastard, okay.  None of you are going anywhere near that obvious deathtrap—it’ll be rigged to explode when the engine is started or when a set amount of weight is supported by the chassis or something.  I just can’t deal with any more of his bullshit so we are marching the fuck out of this city. Now move your digital asses and keep your fucking wits about you. I am fucking done with peeling IDs from bloody chunks of my men.”

There is no talking after that.  His headwear-obsessed charge even walks past two shop windows without so much as glancing at his reflection.  He does, however, slip his hand into the crook of Minseok’s arm. The touch is somehow both heavy and warm thanks to the magic of the biosensors glued all over his real-world body.  Even though he knows it’s entirely artificial, the gesture is still surprisingly comforting.

Still, when the six of them reach the edge of the city and the waiting extraction helicopter, he feels only the minimum of relief and no satisfaction at all in a job evidently well done.  Clippy’s face brightens in the corner of his vision to start chirping congratulations as Park, Byun, and the scientists dissolve but Minseok cuts him off.

“Just fucking save it, okay?  What’s the next mission? Let’s get this shit over with so I can go home and get drunk.”

“Alcohol consumption is scientifically proven to further entrench negative feelings in the long term, even if in the short term—”

“I fucking know, you asshole.  It just sounds better to say that than ‘so I can go home and sit silently in the dark with my goddamn service dog begrudgingly on top of me to keep me from screaming.’  Now just give me the next mission already.”

“Minseok.  We don’t have to continue—”

“It’s Master Sergeant Kim, and if you think I’m fucking giving up now you can stuff it.  What is the next goddamn mission?”

The tiger’s face looks genuinely distressed, quite the feat for a cartoon emoji.  “Um. The last scenario is an amphibious assault on an island fortress. There will be cannonfire.  Chunks of your men are highly likely. Really, it’s fine to call it off—you’ve been more than helpful alr—”

“I am not a fucking quitter, Captain,” Minseok grits out.  “What’s the assault objective?”

“Nobody thinks you’re a—”

“Assault objective?”

ChEn sighs.  “To capture or kill the terrorist known as the Scarlet Regent.”

░▒▓██▓▒░

The Scarlet Regent, ChEn explains as he bobs Minseok and his battalion over a digital sea, isn’t actually a rightful regent of any nation.  He’s just a wealthy, dangerous terrorist that used his profits from drug smuggling and human trafficking to buy an island and build a huge-ass fortified compound on it.  

The pre-mission intelligence includes maps of the island and blueprints of the compound marked with likely places for the Regent to be.  The battalion is divided up into assault groups, each headed toward one of the three locations.

“Master Sergeant, which assault will you be leading?” ChEn asks, tone entirely respectful.

“Living quarters,” Minseok decides.  “If the Regent himself isn’t there, someone he cares about will be.”

“Ruthless,” ChEn comments.  “But do remember that the current rules of engagement prohibit the deliberate targeting of noncombatants or unarmed civilians, even if they’re boning a prolific terrorist.”

“Noted,” Minseok snips.  “Company, move out!”

The company does move out, and thanks to Minseok’s paranoia and subsequent landing out of direct sight of the fortress, the cannonfire aimed their way is much less effective than it would have been on open beach.  Oh, he still has casualties, but that’s just the reality of war—no matter how careful, no matter how well-planned a mission, there’s always a way to get injured or killed.

Nobody knows this better than Minseok himself.

But Minseok is a grown-ass man who volunteered for a duty he knew would test his mental endurance.  The first time one of the spiked cannonballs—how those things are fired Minseok has no idea—takes out a pair of Marines struggling through the surf, Minseok merely frowns as the shot and casualties flicker and disappear.  But the third time it happens, he’s sure it’s not a glitch.

“I don’t like to be babied, Captain,” Minseok growls.

“It’s not babying, it’s out of respect—”

“If you really fucking respected me, you’d treat me like any other test subject.  Acting like I need to be protected from the consequences of my own decisions is fucking insulting.”

The tiger frowns.  “You’re annoyed when I’m hard on you, annoyed when I ease up.  You’re mad when I hinder you but won’t accept my offers of help.”

“Look, you decided that harassing me made me perform the best,” Minseok huffs.  “It sucked but it wasn’t humiliating. Your pity is humiliating, especially since you’ve never once showed it to me before.”

It’s disappointing, too, but Minseok’s already made a victim of himself with his unintentionally-revealing rant.  He doesn’t need to add to it by whining about how he really really liked being treated like a capable, valuable member of the staff and how going to work would be that much more gray without it.  It’s his own fault if he let his expectations run away with him and there’s no need to let things get even more awkward and out of hand.

“I’m sorry,” ChEn is saying.  “I feel like you’re personally upset with me and that’s not at all what I’d hoped—”

“Then stop making it fucking personal,” Minseok snarls.  “Just fucking do your job and let me do mine.” 

ChEn’s face goes translucent again, signature smirk entirely absent from the corner of Minseok’s vision.

░▒▓██▓▒░

It takes hours to reach the fortress, partly because the bombardment is all but incessant and partly because this Scarlet Regent evidently has a taste for whimsy as well as human rights abuse.

“Really?  Why a fucking hedge maze?”  Minseok’s continuing opinions on the shrubbery—some of which are carved into leafy imitations of busty pinup girls—is cut off by another spiked shell exploding, causing digital men to cry for their digital mothers off to the left.

“Garden labyrinths were conceptualized by Italian architects as early as 1460—”

“Thank you, Clippypedia,” Minseok cuts off with extreme sarcasm.  “I fucking meant ‘why this specific one in this specific location at this specific time.’”

“Probably to herd your men into convenient areas for more efficient dispatch.  Also: Boobies. Oh! What a clever booby trap.”

Minseok can’t roll his eyes and keep a lookout for incoming barrages so he sadly has to forgo the disdainful action.  “As always, you are the paragon of helpfulness.”

“Just doing my job, Marine.”

“Yes, fucking thank you,” Minseok grumbles, but he’s hiding a smile as he dives behind a particularly-well-endowed topiary to shield himself from the debris thrown up by yet another exploding ball of spikes.

“Marines!” Minseok bellows.  “We will not go around! We go through!”

He draws his serrated combat knife and sets to, consulting his map and blueprints to ensure he’s headed toward a point of ingress.  The Marines closest to him quickly join in the hack job he’s making of the landscaping and soon his men are filing through one hole in order to start carving another.  Another spiked projectile explodes overhead and Minseok yells at his men to spread the fuck out if they’re not actively chopping, rotating in as muscles grow fatigued.

Within an hour he and his remaining hundred men are pressed up against the polished black granite of the fortress wall, hugging it tight a safe distance away from where the demo men have set charges into the cracks around an iron door.  The next explosion is caused by their side for once and his men cheer, then roar as they pour through the breach.

The sounds of close combat fill his ears as the Marines engage the waiting guards.  It’s rather convenient that the Scarlet Regent evidently has a serious hard-on for the color, because all the guards have red uniforms that easily distinguish them from friendly combatants.  The thick, squared-off chevrons on their sleeves resemble angular hearts given the scarlet theme and Minseok supposes there’s something tragically poetic in covering so many of them with blood.

Minseok and two dozen Marines break away from the melee to creep toward the central building, taking out patrols and blasting away security gates on their way.  Minseok himself is the one to kick down the bedroom door, first through to aim his K2 at… the pair of women in the bed?

“Where’s the Scarlet Regent?” one of the Marines asks, but the twitch of the brunette’s heart-shaped lips gives her away.

Minseok steps toward her, ready to zip-tie her wrists behind her back, cartoon penguin pajamas or no.  At this, the woman’s smirk becomes a sneer and she pulls a gun from beneath the pillow as her blonde companion whimpers.

“Too bad your commander isn’t as sexist as the rest of you,” she sighs.  “Now you’re going to have to watch me walk out of here with my little hostage—”

But Minseok is done playing games today.  His gun barks and the silk sheets of the bed are soaked with blood.  At least they’re already red.

The blonde blinks at the body of her former companion, then gapes stupefied at Minseok.  She looks suspiciously like Major Kim’s sleepy doppelganger from the previous mission, all full lips and bedroom eyes.

“You… you shot Soo,” she says.

“She pulled a weapon on a peacekeeping force and threatened to take you hostage,” Minseok explains, zip-tying her hands behind her just to be safe.  He’s not in the mood for any more surprises.

“But she’s a girl,” the blonde protests.  “A gentleman never even hits a lady—he certainly doesn’t shoot her.” 

“Welcome to gender equality, Ma’am,” Minseok huffs.  “Anyone aiming a weapon at a Marine is a valid target, age or gender notwithstanding.”

“But she’s a girl,” the blonde says again as Minseok’s men stuff the dead terrorist into a body bag to remove for identification and verification.

Minseok’s answer is cut off as a klaxon sounds and suddenly the room is full of armed guards, red uniforms blending in to the bedroom’s scarlet decor.  Suddenly his own beach-camo BDUs seem rather conspicuous.

Yelling at the removal team to hurry up with the body, Minseok takes out any of the scarlet guards that even so much as look in their direction.  He and two other Marines—who somehow look like Park and Byun instead of the forgettable infantry they’d been a minute ago—provide covering fire as the body is heaved out the bedroom window, clearing the room of everyone but the still-bewildered blonde before jumping out after the removal team.

“Just gonna leave her there all trussed up?” Byun asks as Minseok hits the ground and rolls, regaining his feet without losing momentum.

“Sure am,” Minseok agrees, taking out two more guards that round the corner of the building.

“So cold,” Byun remarks.  

“Somebody will cut her free when we’re gone,” Minseok dismisses, signalling the removal team to follow him back toward the breach in the wall.

“And in the meantime she gets to lie there in her teddy bear pajamas, trapped in a bed covered in her lover’s lifeblood.”

“Did you want me to bring her with us?” Minseok huffs, taking out a guard attempting to snipe from an upper window.

“Oh, no, I’d have done the same.”  Byun lifts his own weapon to end a trio of approaching guards.  “But I did sort of expect you to give her a vest and helmet and bring her along.  She was probably a trafficking victim herself—do you think those red guards will cut her free before or after they abuse her?”

Minseok glares at the insouciant Marine.  “You really are a Dee-Bag,” he declares. “Mission parameters don’t allow for any arrests or extractions aside from the main target, and even if they did, what do you think her chances would be if we did throw her in a flak jacket and attempted to drag her out of here with us?  What would our chances of successful evacuation be with a shrieking civilian to handle along with the body?”

“Slim to none,” Byun estimates, then calls to Park to take care of yet another would-be sniper on a roof.  “I’m just surprised that Sergeant Sympathy didn’t try it after all that ranting about injustice in the previous missions.”

“Yeah, well,” Minseok huffs, ducking behind a wall as what turns out to be a smoke grenade—red, of course—sails over their heads.  “Can’t save everyone.”

“Especially when your legs are pinned beneath rubble.”

Minseok cuts his eyes to the Marine beside him.  “Fuck off, Captain,” he growls. “I’m not some recruit to be fed your military morals.  I have a fucking therapist for that, anyway.”

Byun lifts a placating hand.  “Calm your tits—I don’t fucking care about your personal problems.  Quit whining about your damn legs and get us the fuck out of here.”

Biting back the protest that he wasn’t the one to bring up his damn legs in the first place and he certainly hadn’t been whining about them, Minseok chokes off his temper in favor of popping up from behind the wall to take out six guards with as many shots, beckoning his men forward through the cherry smoke.

Running rear guard means Minseok can protect his men from most threats, but it also means he’s left on the inside of the fortress wall when the breached doorframe collapses just after the removal team passes beneath it, twisted metal no longer able to support the blast-loosened stone above it.

“Fuck,” Minseok spits, dashing for distance and cover in case more of the wall comes down.  “Now what do I do?”

"Uh-oh," Chen's voice purrs in his ear.  "It looks like you're trying to: escape a fortress.   Would you like some help with that?"

The guards have evidently found a grenade launcher somewhere, because when Minseok lifts his head from cover to suss out an escape route, he immediately has to duck again to keep it from being blown off.

"For the last time, fuck off unless you're actually going to do something useful," Minseok growls, not in the mood for this nonsense when he's concentrating on literally keeping his head on his shoulders.

"Useful?  You mean like, pointing out that unguarded breach to your seven?"

Minseok glances behind himself and slightly to his left.  There’s another hole in the wall and no sign of any scarlet-clad grunts anywhere nearby.  Lacking better options, Minseok sets his teeth and belly-crawls toward the potential avenue of escape.

“What, not even a thank you?”

“You can have one if this doesn’t turn out to be the blatant trap it looks like,” Minseok grunts, pausing behind a limo—seriously, where did the Regent think she was going to be driven on this tiny fucking island?—and tries to figure out why exactly this particular area isn’t being patrolled.

“You’re so paranoid,” ChEn chides. 

“That doesn’t mean you’re not trying to fuck with me.”

“The guards inside the limo are certainly trying to fuck with each other—oh, no, actually, it looks like they’re succeeding.”

“What?” 

Minseok’s reflexive question is answered when the vehicle he’s crouched beside begins to bounce rhythmically on its suspension.  He wrinkles his nose—either the car is cheap or the guards inside are really going at it, and either way he doesn’t want to stick around.

There’s a moment of alarm when a pair of guards rounds the corner, shout, and run toward the bouncing car—but they just open the passenger doors to start screaming at the occupants (in Klingon, of course).  It doesn’t take a linguistics degree to get the gist of the conversation, and the commotion is enough for Minseok to slip through the wall and into the hedge maze beyond.

This assault team evidently hadn’t bothered with cutting through the maze and the body count had been rather high.  Keeping his head low since whoever’s manning the artillery is still launching spiked projectiles at what seems to be random, Minseok scurries through the maze, stopping to haul an injured Marine out of a pile of bodies and hoist him over one shoulder.

“Oh, so you’ll hinder your own escape to save this man who’s probably killed people today but you won’t rescue some poor trafficked girl?” 

Minseok scowls at the sand beneath his imaginary feet.  “It’s not like he wanted to—every man in Korea has to serve.  And even if he did want to, he’s one of ours and we don’t leave the wounded behind if we can help it.”

“You got left behind,” ChEn points out.

“I ordered those who could to save themselves and whoever they could carry,” Minseok states.  “We were still being shelled—I didn’t want them to waste time trying to free me when any second, another bomb could ensure they were trapped there with me.”  

He flicks his glare to the upper left corner.  “And they sent a medivac back for me and the others as soon as they could—I wasn’t truly left for dead.  Why do you keep bringing this up, anyway?”

“I admire your resilience and dedication,” ChEn says, voice entirely sincere.  “Seriously, you have all of my respect.” 

“Well, you have all of mine for making this guy feel heavy as fuck, not to mention giving me my own damn legs with which to carry him.”  Minseok lowers the injured Marine to the beach to await pickup, well out of reach of the cannonfire. “God, if I’m sweating in here, my actual body must be fucking drenched out there.”

“It is.  But don’t worry—we’ve been giving you IV hydration.  You’re not a raisin floating in your own juice.”

“Gross.”  Minseok curls his lip at the mental image just as the removal team huffs over, escorted by Byun and Park.

“What?” the douchey Marine snarls.  “We moved as fast as we could.”

“I wasn’t pulling a face at you,” Minseok clarifies.  “Good job, Marine.”

“Oh, flirting with ChEnChEn again, were you?” Byun winks salaciously.  “You know, next time he could have them glue sensors to your—”

“I’m good, thanks,” Minseok cuts the suggestion off with a shudder.  “I did not sign up for that kind of experiment.  And I’m certainly not going to add any lewd material to the supercut of my humiliations that my ranking officers are going to mock repeatedly once I’m out of here.”

“Are you sure about that?” Byun asks with a wicked grin, elbowing Park beside him.

Minseok gapes with betrayal as Park opens grinning lips to produce what must be every gasp or grunt that had come out of Minseok all day, run together to make it sound like he’d been performing a very different kind of mission, indeed.

“Yeah, okay, have your fun,” Minseok grumbles.  “Isn’t this damn mission over yet?”

“Sure,” Park says, nodding at the incoming amphibious transport.

“Thank fuck for small mercies.”

“Don’t thank fuck, thank me,” Chen purrs.  “You said you would if I didn’t lead you into a trap.”  The sentence ends on an expectant uplift.

“No way,” Minseok says as he hauls his injured Marine onto the transport.  “You lured me into a trap by getting me to agree to this test in the first place, Captain.”

ChEn’s laughter surrounds him as the world dissolves away.

░▒▓██▓▒░

He can feel Tan licking the layer of sweat off of him before he can see her, unable to defend his mostly-bare body or lift the headset off his face with his wrists still held by the padded cuffs.

“Tannie, stop it,” he tries, suppressing a giggle as she hits a particularly sensitive spot on his ribs.

“I’d stop her but you said not to touch her,” someone snips, but then his hands are free and his face is bare, enabling him to sit up and stroke Tan’s fuzzy black ears as the technicians leave the room.

“Good girl,” he coos to his dog.

“And a ‘good boy’ to you, too, Master Sergeant,” Captain Kim says, stealing Minseok’s gaze from his pet.  “You performed exceptionally well—our development team will be able to make huge strides with the data you generated.”

“It was my honor to be of service, Sir,” Minseok salutes, pretending like he’s not sitting in front of a superior officer in his skivvies, covered in drying sweat and hundreds of sticky sensor pads.

The Captain returns his salute, then lets his naturally-upturned lips spread into a proper grin.  “So you’ll help us out again? We could use test runs on a regular schedule—maybe once a week?”

Hands back in Tan’s dark fur, Minseok eyes the captain consideringly.  “Are you really asking me to lie here once a week in my own brine while you harass me nonstop for hours and give you more footage for your embarrassing supercut?” 

Smiling wider, Captain Kim nods.

Minseok lifts his fingers from Tan’s head to trap his chin between his fingers.  “I will on two conditions.”

“Those being?”

“You get your pals—I apologize for not knowing their real-world rank—Park and Byun to be less moronic when we’re on missions together.”

“They’re both Second Lieutenants, and Byun was just being his naturally acerbic self—how do you think the pair of them ended up ‘volunteering’ to be VR lackeys?”

“I can handle his mouth,” Minseok asserts with a tiny smile.  “I’d just prefer squadmates with more than two braincells to rub together.”

“Park is plenty bright,” Captain Kim laughs.  “But sometimes the point is to evaluate both trainee and program behavior in suboptimal circumstances, so he’ll continue to play the fool when the testing warrants.  But more often he’ll be as helpful as he’s capable of.”

“Deal.”  The Captain’s amusement is contagious and Minseok feels a genuine smile spread across his own face.

Captain Kim freezes for a moment, much like ChEn when Minseok had thought he’d glitched out.  Then he shakes himself, returning Minseok’s smile. “And what’s the second condition, Master Sergeant Kim?”

“It’s just Minseok when I’m out of uniform, and I can barely get more ‘out of uniform’ than this.” Minseok gestures at his bare chest, enjoying the flush that creeps across the Captain’s high cheekbones.  Perhaps his instincts—and Byun’s teasing—are correct.

Taking that gamble, Minseok leans out a little bit, resting a hand on Captain Kim’s forearm.  “The second condition is that you let me know when you’re showing that supercut. I’ll bring the popcorn.”

Captain Kim looks down at the hand on his arm, then lifts intense dark eyes to meet Minseok’s gaze.  “Why don’t we make it a private screening?” he invites, brows lifting appealingly toward the center of his forehead.  

Minseok fakes disappointment.  “But if it’s a private screening, neither of us can see it.”

Confusion tugs the Captain’s brows together.  “Why not?”

“We’re too high in rank.  And in the wrong branch of service.”

The confusion crumples into disgust.  It fails to hide the Captain’s amusement.  

“So you do like wordplay,” he accuses.

“I never said I didn’t,” Minseok smiles.

“You’ll regret telling me that,” the Captain promises.

“I already do.”  Minseok knows his grin makes the statement unconvincing.

“What I meant— as you very well knew—was that we should watch it alone.  Preferably outside of work. Then I can be out of uniform, too, and you can call me Jongdae.” 

Minseok points his grin down at his dog when Tan whines, unhappy at the lack of ear rubs she’s currently receiving.  He takes his hand back from the Captain’s arm to resume his scratching duties, cooing a little when Tan’s eyes close in contentment.

“Can Tan attend this private screening?” he asks.  “She’s not the biggest people-lover, but she does enjoy the occasional popcorn.”

“Of course!  Tan is invited automatically wherever you are.”  

Captain Kim crouches a little, offering the back of his hand to the aloof dog.  She looks at the Captain’s face, then his hand, then Minseok. At her master’s nod, she sniffs at the Captain’s hand, flicking her tongue out briefly before returning all her attention to Minseok and the ear rubs she very much deserves for patiently watching over him all day.

“I’m not sure whether to feel honored, or concerned that she’s now gotten a taste of my flesh.”

Minseok laughs.  “A little of both is probably wise.  When are we screening this supercut?”

Captain Kim looks suddenly bashful.  “Is Friday night too soon?”

Not soon enough, but desk jobs come with desk hours.  So Minseok nods, straightening his torso and leaning back a little to support himself with one arm in a way he knows flexes several appealing muscles.  “Friday’s fine. Your place or mine?”

Minseok’s tidily-folded uniform hits his out-thrust chest.  “I’m not answering that until you’re dressed, Master Sergeant,” the Captain says in a slightly strangled voice.  Then he turns on a booted heel and marches out of the room, calling to the technicians to bring the solvent and help Minseok remove the remains of the sensors.

The technicians keep fussing at him for chuckling, annoyed at having to remove tiny sticky pads from a constantly-jiggling body, but Minseok can’t help it.  

He can’t wait to see what other amusing faces—and obnoxious puns—he can get the tiger-impersonator to make, in any version of reality.  

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