As he sat up in his cot, Russell stretched and yawned, reaching his hands above his head. Rubbing his eyes, he could just barely see his bunkmate, Freddy, meandering over towards him.
"Wake up, shrimpy. It's selection day," Freddy jokingly yelled in his ear.
Russell groaned and nodded his head. Today, of all days, was the one where he least wanted to be "shrimpy".
Russell was not what one would consider very athletic. Although his time in the military had hardened him up considerably, Russell Demrich remained the skinny boy with asthma that he had always been.
This had never deterred Russell before, but Selection Day was completely out of his hands. Based on cognitive ability, combat prowess, and compatibility, only the top recruits would be chosen to be paired up with a specialist.
Since the war had started, this had been the new order of military life. Although its cause still remained a mystery, random children all over the nation had been born with extreme gifts.
Some were born with super strength, others with unparalleled genius. Normal people considered them heroes, some extreme cultists going so far as to calling them gods. Whatever they were, the military referred to them as specialists.
Russell felt his nerves light on fire as they marched towards the selection building. In an attempt to distract himself from the anxiety, he thought back to what his instructor had told them before they left the barracks.
"Many of you will continue on in the service as foot soldiers. I hope you know that I am proud of every one of you bastards. However, some of you will be chosen to support a specialist class soldier. To you, I offer not just my pride, but my highest hopes."
"HOORAH," the entire battalion had cheered in response.
Russell shook his head. Why was he so apprehensive? Everyone had known from day one that he wouldn't get paired up, he lacked any real talent for combat and he couldn't bench anything over 130.
But yet, as his feet splashed in the cold mud coating the path to the large buidling reserved for selections, Russell couldn't help but find a glimmer of hope in the sheer amount of work he had poured into his career.
Finally reaching the building with his squad, Russell took one last deep breath whilst steeling himself, forcing his body across the threshold.
What he saw in there, he didn't quite believe at first. Of course he had heard stories about the super computer that ran the compatability tests, but none of the descriptions seemed to match what Russell was taking in with his very own eyes.
Multicolor cables scaled the four walls, snaking up into the ceiling above the multi-billion dollar sensors that seemed to sparkle like stars in the night sky. Russell could only mutter the word, "woah," as he rotated his head in order to take it all in.
The sheer expanse of the room itself was enough to enrapture his senses, but the burst of color and light from every square inch of wall and ceiling completely dominated Russell's vision.
When he and the thousands of other cadets finally began to regain focus, a loud voice played over the intercom.
"Welcome, recruits!"
It was the booming voice of a man, likely a general, and it demanded attention every time it spoke.
"You have all arrived at the peak of your training. Anyone who is not selected today should be proud to join the fight against the New World Order, just as much as his selected comrades" the voice explained.
"Ready yourselves. It may be startling, but I swear that the scanning process is entirely safe," the man concluded as the intercom shut off.
Russell had been afraid before, but now he could tell that his hands were shaking. As the room darkened, a tight laser grid began to descend from above the soldiers. When the light touched the top of his head, Russell cringed at the tingling feeling, but it didn't last long.
Soon after the grid disappeared, the light returned and the intercom beeped back on.
"Congratulations men," the voice chuckled. "You have now been fully analyzed and your data has been uploaded to the system."
Russell found some of his courage returning, one of the more stressful parts having been completed, but it was quickly sapped from his body as the large doors opposite the ones they had entered from opened.
In walked the specialists, and Russell couldn't help but let his jaw go slack. The sheer presence that they exterted caused the new recruits to start to waver and mutter amongst each other, while Russell just continued to gape.
Once the blabbering ceased, the commanding voice over the intercom began the ritual of pairing the specialists with their support.
One by one the specialists were paired with an ordinary soldier, until only a few remained unlinked. The strongest had obviously been saved for last, as the small group of specialists all wore the badges of superior cadets. The cream of the crop of their generation of recruits, they were both the most combat suited and the best leaders.
At this point, Russell had lost all hope of being selected. If he had any chance, the pairing would've been almost immediate, his only hope being that he was skilled enough to support the weakest specialists in the force.
When the second to last specialist was paired with his bunkmate Freddy, Russell felt his shoulders slump even further. Now he would have to go into combat without his only friend, leaving him more alone than he had ever felt before.
Giving him one last glance and an apologetic shrug, Freddy followed his new partner out the door the specialists had arrived in. Russell had already begun to turn back towards the door he had walked through, his head hung low, when the final call made him freeze in his tracks.
"For the final grouping of this selection, the leader of this year's specialists, Natalie Garters, will be supported by cadet Russell Demrich."
Russell felt his hair stand on end as the voice from the intercom reached his ears. He immediately turned back around and made his way through the crowd of his peers.
When he finally reached the soldier he would be paired with, Russell, for the tenth time that day, simply could not believe his eyes. Standing in front of him was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Standing a couple inches taller than him at around 6'1", the brunette was everything Russell had ever dreamed of. Her shoulder length hair was pulled back into a military regimented pony tail, beneath a captain's beret.
Her blue eyes seemed to twinkle in the colorful light filling the room, and her body was the perfect female image. She had long slender legs, tighly muscled beneath her camoflauged shorts. Beneath her shirt sat not huge, but defined breasts and her arms were muscled to match her legs.
Russell did what anyone would, or could for that matter, and just stared. He was snapped back from his wonderful daydream though, when a roar of laughter erupted behind him.
His face must have turned bright red, because Natalie grabbed his wrist and effortlessly dragged her partner behind her.
As Russell heard the laughter fade, he noticed that the two of them had exited the complex.
For the first time, Russell grasped his situation. He had just been placed alongside one of the strongest specialists ever to attend the academy.
He noticed that his counterpart had been mumbling something under her breath, so Russell strained to hear what she was saying.
"Stupid computer... I should've been alone... don't need a partner..." were all that Russell was able to make out.
The realization hit him like a truck. Here he was, the laughing stock of possibly the entire military, being forced onto someone who could make a real difference in the world.
Noticing Natalie's annoyance, Russell wisely decided to stay quiet for the remainder of their trip to the sleeping quarters.
Natalie, being the captain, took her place in front of the specialists and their new selections, with Russell at her side. Going by pair, she delegated the housing between the super soldiers, until only herself and Russell remained.
Wordlessly, she motioned for Russell to follow her, and he obliged. After what felt like centuries, the two finally reached their quarters. Natalie held the door open for Russell, and as he walked in, he began to inspect his new sleeping arrangement.
Being a leader's chambers, the room was quite large. A table covered in charts and stretegic maps sat in one corner, coupled with a chair, and the back right contained a large queen sized bed.
The walls were a shade of white, only broken by a door on the left side, presumably to a bathroom. Other than that, they were completely barren.
Russell soon noticed that there wasn't a second bed.
"Where should I sleep?" he questioned the woman behind him.
Without speaking, Natalie grabbed a blanket from her bed, rolled it across the floor, and threw a small pillow onto it. The unlikely pair then crawled into their respective sleeping places, and as they drifted to sleep, Russell spoke up.
"I'm sorry, I never wanted to be a burden," he said.
"It's fine," Natalie responded, her only words to her new roommate being cold and unfeeling.
He tossed and turned, the day's events replaying over and over in his head, until Russell was finally able to fall asleep.
