Fort Caxias

'Just Another Day' Rafael looked up at the sky as he descended from the camouflaged transport ship 'Here I am, 10 years later and this place hasn't changed a bit.'

Forte Duque de Caxias, located in Brasília, the political capital of the South American Pact, was the largest military training unit in the southern hemisphere. Built in 2030 as part of the military investment agreement, it receives recruits from all over South America, and he was one of them.

'Stupid family tradition. I could have gone straight to the academy'. he muttered to himself as he looked at his watch and saw that it was already 7:30 am. Rafael was already accustomed to military insignias and ranks and recognized that there were camouflaged buses with several 3rd sergeants, some 2nd sergeants, and lieutenants looking at them like hunters look at their prey "Shit."

"HURRY UP, AND GET OFF THE TRANSPORT, YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES TO FIND YOUR BUS AND GET A SEAT!" The one who spoke was a 3rd sergeant and the one who seemed the most burly.

Before the sergeant finished speaking, some of the quicker recruits had already started running, and Rafael was one of them. The other graduates and officers said nothing and simply watched, knowing what was about to happen. As usual, more than half of the group were still lost among the buses when a whistle sounded.

"STOOOOOP! EVERYONE OUT! IN FRONT OF ME!" Those who were already inside ran out almost running over each other, while those who were outside gathered in front of the sergeant.

"You are all garbage! An order was given, and you could not fulfill it, and this must be corrected!" he began, "When I finish the sentence with 'one, two' you will respond with 'three, four 9th' understood?!"

"Yes, sir!" a completely misaligned chorus replied.

"To the push-up position! ONE, TWO!"

"THREE, FOUR 9th COMPANY!"

"30-0," the sergeant said, his voice like a drum, reaching everyone even without shouting.

In the end, several could not even do 20 push-ups, and some of the instructors frowned and spoke loudly without caring if they were being heard or not.

"This is the worst class I've ever seen. Not even half of them did all of it."

"They're more lost than a blind man in a crossfire, can't we start eliminating them here?"

The graduate who had been leading them so far stood up. "Attention, everyone up!" He waited for everyone to stand up and continued, "We didn't force any of you to come here, the only thing that keeps you here are yourselves! Therefore, except for today, there will be no physical or psychological punishment for you..." the recruits seemed not to believe what he was saying.

'But... there's always a but' Rafael thougth

"...But if you don't get enough grades, expulsion. If you don't pass the physical evaluation, expulsion. Lack of discipline, expulsion. I don't like you, expulsion. There is no second chance." He let the feeling penetrate the recruits. Many of them were from the PDS, so leaving the military was a direct sentence back there. Surviving like garbage and eating recycled shit.

"Now, gentlemen, we have a long day ahead of us, so..." The sergeant opened a sadistic smile on his face, one that the recruits would fear even when they were about to retire, "...you have 5 minutes to be on the right bus, BY YESTERDAY!!"

..................

From what Rafael saw today, the Fort was a city in itself, gigantic. He was part of the 3rd platoon out of four in a company, and there were at least 18 companies consisting only of recruits. The first day passed, and everyone was storing their belongings in lockers locked by digital locks inside the dormitory, a building of 20x10m with 25 bunk beds. In addition, everyone who had any electronic device was required to surrender it to the supply department and would be released when the course was over. Or when they were expelled. Each person received a TacLink, a modified mini-tablet that Rafael doubted he could break even if he tried.

"Hey man, everything alright? We were in the same line in São Paulo" he finally had some free time and was able to talk to his bunkmate. He was the same guy who silenced all the protesters that morning. He was of medium height, about 1.70m, dark-skinned, and had the same haircut as all the recruits, cut to a 2 on top and a 1 on the side. Rafael reached out to shake his hand.

"Rafael Andrada, and you?" the young man stopped and just looked at him, and when Rafael thought about retracting his hand, he returned the greeting "Pierre, Pierre Menye" in fluent Portuguese, but with a clear French accent continued, "Sorry to ask, but you seem very 'proper' to be enlisted."

Which was true, Rafael was 1.81m tall and clearly never had any problem with food. His hair was black and short. His eyes were light gray and his skin was tanned. He was not very muscular, but far from having any excess fat. "It's a family thing, I'm just going to finish my term and get out. What did you think of today?" he said, eager to steer the conversation away from his family.

"Nothing too absurd, but it's been years since I've eaten so well."

"Really, even for people outside the SDPs, it's difficult and extremely expensive to find something that isn't made of soy."

A bugle call sounded through the dormitory, and the lights automatically went out. Many things had changed over the decades, but the armed forces loved their traditions. "From what they said today, the real training starts tomorrow. So we'd better go to sleep," Pierre said.

"Okay," Rafael replied as he climbed onto the bunk bed. But instead of going to sleep, he pulled out his TacLink and began reading the books that were allowed to be downloaded. 'Know the past, to understand the present and prepare for the future... at least that's what my father used to say.' It was a history book that told some of the details of the 3rd World War. During the year 2029, the President of the then Russian Federation had his transport shot down by European drones controlled by AI to patrol the borders against refugees. Europe did not have enough manpower to patrol its borders and, due to the possibility of signal blockers, they had to find a way to make them work without the need for an operator behind them. Thus, AI was created for them.

It is not known for sure whether it was a program failure or something else, but due to the extensive signal blockers used by the Russian protection forces for the president who was going to the 84th General Assembly of the UN for peace talks on Ukraine, the drones recognized them as enemies. The Europeans could only watch as the drones shot down all the Russian aircraft without being able to turn them off. In addition, when the aircraft crashed, many of them still had signal blockers, which caused the armored drones on the borders to massacre some of the refugees from the new Russian Offensive. In less than a few hours, over 50,000 people had been killed before either side even understood what was happening. Rafael looked at the time and saw that it was almost 11:00pm, he put his TacLink under his pillow and turned to sleep.