Marines by Jay Allan Page B

time.
    I'd been shackled and locked up and generally treated like a grave threat to anyone around me for the last four days, so it surprised me when Captain Jack turned around and just said, "Follow me."
    "How do you know I won't just jump you and take off the minute we're out of here?"
    He didn't turn, but I could hear the amusement in his voice when he said, "I'll just have to take that chance."
    I didn't realize it then, of course, but Captain Jack could have killed me in an instant.  I thought I was pretty tough, but after years of marine training I have a good idea of how many different ways he could have dropped me without working up a sweat. 
    We walked through the building, took the elevator down to the lobby, and stepped out onto the street.  Captain Jack had an anti-grav waiting right outside.  It was a sleek gray vehicle with the U.S. Marine Corps logo on the side.  We stepped through the open door and sat down in the spartan, but comfortable, seats.  Captain Jack barked out a quick command to the driver and with a whoosh the door closed and we took off.
    I'd never been in an anti-grav copter, and I was plastered to the small window, watching as we climbed high over the Manhattan streets.  We banked right and headed downtown, and in just a minute or two we were passing over the South Wall. 
    To the right I could see the rubble-strewn edge of the Crater.  It had been almost 150 years since half a million New Yorkers were killed by history's worst terrorist attack, but you could still get a bad dose of radiation just standing next to the edge.
    The semi-abandoned areas south of the Protected Zone were similar to those in the north, except for the old financial district, where the buildings were much taller.  A few of them had collapsed, but the rest still stood defiantly, abandoned relics of a past time.  The whole area still had an unhealthy level of radioactivity, but there were still a few people who eked out an existence among the crumbling cityscape.  There were jagged, water-filled trenches everywhere - apparently there had been more underground train lines down here than in the north.
    We banked left and I suddenly got a view of the Protected Zone, its kilometer-high towers gleaming in the sun.  It was beautiful, and it seemed the very image of prosperity and vigor rather than the dying relic it truly was.  It was the last time I would see it for a long time, and when I finally did visit again I would be utterly and irrevocably changed, and New York wouldn't be  my home anymore.
    The copter streaked across the sky, passing swiftly over the streets of Brooklyn.  I looked down on row after row of old, poorly maintained buildings.  Brooklyn appeared to be a moderately nicer version of the Bronx, with things not in quite the same desperate condition.  There were more people milling around in the streets, and I could make out a few trolleys running down the main thoroughfares, so it looked like Brooklyn still had some level of city services.  Nothing like the MPZ of course.
    We were heading for a huge structure built in the middle of a large cleared area.  The outer perimeter was surrounded by a large plas-crete wall with several guarded entrances.  The building itself was trapezoidal, kind of like a pyramid with the top third sheared off. 
    We landed on the roof and took an elevator down several levels.  Finally, Captain Jack broke the silence and said, "You've got to be tired.  Orientation starts tomorrow at 0500, so let's get you someplace you can get some rest."
    He took me to a small windowless room with drab gray walls and a bunk.  The door closed behind him as he left, and I couldn't see any kind of controls to open it from inside.  Another cell, but far more comfortable than the last one I'd been in. 
    I was exhausted, but also wired.  My body was a jumbled combination of adrenaline, fatigue, and wild emotions.  Anger, fear, confusion.  I'd been minutes from death, only to be