Camp Rhino, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
Sam Wilson was certain the heat was starting to get to him.
In fairness, he was surprised it had taken this long. The environment at Camp Rhino was barely hospitable. The temperature rarely dropped below 30 degrees, the sunlight was harsh and blinding, the water was warm and tasteless and the dry, rough, arid ground made walking even short distances immensely taxing. Oh, and did he forget to mention the constant threat of attack on all sides from bloodthirsty Taliban fighters who wanted to kill them and feed their rotting corpses to rabid dogs?
Every so often, he’d lie in his bunk and wonder why he’d decided to come out here. Back at home, he had everything going for him. He came out of high school with straight As, and half a dozen universities begging to have him. He could have done just about anything he wanted to, anywhere he wanted to do it. But then he watched the news, and heard all about the horrors happening here, and the innocent people at risk, and he felt something- an overpowering urge to go out there and help people, to do whatever he could. That this- going out there and risking his life to protect people- was what he was meant to do.
And so he’d done it. A few days later, he’d enlisted in the United States Air Force. His parents had protested, as he knew they would. But they’d come over eventually, and even if they hadn’t, Sam wouldn’t have done any different. Because somehow, he knew that this was his calling, and that this was what he needed to do.
Besides, it wasn’t all bad……
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Jessica’s shot rang out across the empty desert plain. The bullet just whizzed past its mark, flying off into the open. She cursed loudly as the silver can she had been trying to hit was overcome by gravity and plummeted towards the desert floor, hitting it with a loud clang.
The others all cheered in mock applause as she trudged back to the group, who were standing just outside one of the barracks.
‘And that’s another lame duck for Jessie!’ announced Riley, a tall, square-jawed alpha male with frizzy hair that didn’t suit his athletic build. Jessica re-joined the crowd as Riley scribbled a zero onto a whiteboard in marker pen, in a table with several names and columns on it.
‘Alright, who’s next…… Sam Wilson!’ he shouted loudly. Sam stepped out of the crowd and faced Riley. ‘You’re up!’
Sam walked forwards, and calmly pulled his gun out of his belt. Another soldier, an Asian man with bad breath that Sam could have smelt from a mile away, carried an empty fizzy drink can to the start line. Sam pointed his gun in the air.
Riley started a countdown. ‘5, 4, 3…’ Sam’s finger curled up on the trigger. As soon as he shouted ‘1!’, the Asian man with bad breath hurled the can into the air. Sam let it fly for a second, and then pulled the trigger. The bullet exploded out of his gun, soared through the air and hit the can dead centre, punching a hole through it and making it spin wildly before plummeting to the ground.
The crowd cheered, and Wilson threw his hands in the air.
‘Woohoo! Another one on the board for Wilson!’ he shouted. Riley sighed, and tallied up one more score in Sam’s column on the table. Sam sat down again, and watched as a woman with short cropped hair stood up to have her go. Suddenly, he heard a gruff, masculine voice shout, ‘Hey Wilson!’
He stood up, and turned around to face the origin of the shout. A man in his early 60s wearing green and brown army uniform and sturdy combat boots was standing about 10 metres away from their competition. Wilson called out to him.
‘Yes sir?’ he asked.
‘Hope you aren’t too busy. They want you over at HQ.’ Sam was puzzled by this.
‘You gonna tell me why?’ he asked, before hastily adding, ‘sir.’
‘Get your ass over here and you might find out!’
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The car trundled along the dusty desert road. Sam sat next to the old man, who had his eyes fixed intently on the road ahead. He had been silent for most of the journey, but he summoned the courage to ask the general a question.
‘So where are we going exactly?’ he asked.
‘You’ll see,’ the general replied, with a tone that indicated he wasn’t open to questions. Sam turned around, and squinted. Through the dust cloud that they were barrelling through, he could just about make out the shape of a large warehouse a way ahead of them.
A minute or two later, the dust cloud has passed, and the car pulled up outside the warehouse. The old man got out, and Sam emerged after him, looking up at the warehouse. A woman in a lab coat and glasses walked out and shook hands with the general.
‘General Talbot,’ she said. ‘Good to see you.’ She noticed Sam, and walked over to him. She extended her hand, and he shook it. ‘Sergeant Wilson. It’s an honour to meet you. My name is Dr Amanda Bernard, I’m in charge of this facility and this project.’
Sam was confused. ‘What project?’ Amanda smiled coyly. ‘You’ll see’.
The trio walked into the facility and into an elevator. As the doors closed, Amanda started to talk.
‘I’d like you to know that what you’re about to see is extremely classified,’ she said. ‘You have been specially selected for this program, and as such, you are the only one with the clearance level required to be granted access to the project. If you breathe a word of what you are about to see to anyone outside this facility, you will be discharged from the US Air Force. Understood?’
Sam nodded, feeling rather nervous. ‘Of course.’ Amanda smiled.
‘Good. Then we can get going.’
The elevator opened, and the trio walked out into a large laboratory space. Scientists were rushing around, carrying equipment and test tube vials. The trio reached the end, and Sam saw what they had brought him here to see. At the back of the lab was a set of wings.
They were mechanical, made of metal, cloth and gears. The wings stretched to about 4 meters in diameter, both protruding from a jetpack with three miniature jet engines in the centre.
‘May I present the EXO-7 Falcon,’ Amanda said. ‘The product of half a decade’s worth of blood, sweat, tears and test-runs. Lightweight, sturdy, resilient, efficient and revolutionary. We get this project off the ground, soon enough this thing could become standard issue.’
Sam walked up to it and touched it, feeling the fabric of the wings. ‘You want me to fly this thing?’
‘Well, we can’t have these things deployed in action until we can assure the brass that they’re safe for use, so yes. You’re one of our best pilots, so we thought you’d be the ideal candidate to try it out. You in?’
Wilson didn’t even hesitate. ‘Oh yes.’
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Sam stood on the rooftop as the technicians finished inspecting the jet engines. Amanda and Talbot stood a few metres away, with Amanda making notes on a clipboard.
The technicians, finally satisfied, stepped back, and Sam stretched his muscles slightly.
‘Now, you remember how to activate it, right?’ Talbot shouted.
‘Relax, dude,’ Sam replied casually. ‘I heard you the first eighty times.’ He pushed his elbows out and the wings sprung from the pack, extending to their full length. As they sprung out, the jet engines activated, and Sam took off, hovering above the ground. Sam whooped with excitement.
Suddenly, however, he started veering off to the left. He panicked, and pushed his body to the right in an attempt to correct himself. It had the opposite effect- he flew off to the right spinning wildly. He spun around and desperately tried to regain his balance. He reached his arm round the back to see if there was an off switch or something, but this made him spin around in circles, and fly off across the base.
He shouted in panic as he flew off course, desperately trying to stop. He stretched his arms out, and suddenly, he wings on his back flapped, pushing him upwards. He flapped his arms, and the wings did the same thing, pushing him further upwards. Then he realised something- the wings copied his motions.
He stopped flapping, and held his arms steady. Suddenly, his ascent halted, and he hovered in the air. He pushed his arms forward, and the wings followed suit, making him soar across the compound. Sam cheered, and spun around a few times.
Now that he could control the suit, he decided to have some fun with it. He swooped downwards, and flew over the buildings in the base, watching them blur as he went. He careened downwards, before correcting himself with a jolt, and weaving his way between buildings.
He flew upwards in a spiral, and then flew sideways, the air rushing in his face. He looked down, and could see Amanda and Talbot watching him. He swooped downwards and landed clumsily on the roof, stumbling before retracting the wings and walking over to them. Amanda smiled at him.
‘So, what’d you think?’ she asked. Sam gave her a one word reply:
‘Awesome.’