Identity Zero novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Say It Once
At the Blackwood gate every cadet burns his ID and says his name one last time; Jesse says his dead brother's instead, takes the Commander's grip and a night of punishment without quitting, and hears that his brother isn't in the grave.
At the Blackwood gate they made forty men burn their names.
Jesse Vetter stood in the line with the rain running down his neck.
"Wallet. Phone. License. In the barrel," the Commander said. "Then you say your name. It's the last time anyone here will hear it."
The barrel was already burning.
Behind it, the black eagle on the gate dripped.
The first man dropped his wallet in and said his name.
Jesse forgot it before the man finished saying it.
The Commander didn't even look at him.
"Gone," he said. "Next."
He was older than the cadets, maybe mid-thirties, built like a door.
Black tactical jacket. Plate carrier. Rain running off his jaw.
The name tape on his chest said STRAKE.
He walked the line slowly.
The cadet next to Jesse was a freckled kid with a red buzz cut and huge ears.
His hands shook so hard he dropped his phone in the mud.
"Sorry. Sorry, sir."
"Don't call me sir. Pick it up."
The kid fished it out and dropped it in the fire.
"Oliver Sheehy," he said. "Ollie. From Spokane. My mom calls me Ollie."
A few guys laughed.
Strake turned his head, and the laughing stopped.
"Gone," he said. "Next."
Then it was Jesse's turn.
He took out his wallet.
His hotshot crew card was in there, the one with the burned corner from the Sumac fire.
JESSE VETTER, TACOMA. The plastic curled up and his face melted off it.
He dropped it in.
Then he took the steel dog tag off his neck, the one he'd worn for three years, and held it over the flames.
LUKE VETTER, it said.
He didn't drop it.
"Name," Strake said.
Jesse looked straight at him.
"Luke Vetter."
Something happened to Strake's face.
It was quick. A flinch at the corner of his mouth.
Then it was gone.
"That's not your name," Strake said.
"How would you know?"
The line went dead quiet.
The rain hissed in the barrel.
"Luke Vetter enrolled here three years ago," Jesse said, loud enough for all forty of them. "He died in week eleven. River crossing. They sent us a sealed box and a letter with your academy's bird on it."
"Drop the tag, cadet."
"I want to know who signed it."
Strake moved so fast Jesse never saw it.
His fist closed in the front of Jesse's tank top and hauled him up onto his toes.
Their faces were six inches apart.
Strake's eyes were very dark. Up close, he looked tired.
"You're going to drop that tag," he said quietly, "and get back in your truck, and go home."
Jesse grabbed his wrist with both hands.
He didn't pull it off.
He just held on, so Strake could feel he wasn't going anywhere.
"No," Jesse said.
Thirty-nine men were watching them.
Up on the porch of the main building, an older man in a pressed olive uniform had come out to watch too.
Silver crew cut. Coffee mug. Smiling.
The brass plate by the door behind him said COL. W. GORHAM, DIRECTOR.
"Problem, Commander?" he called.
Strake let go of Jesse's shirt.
"No problem, Colonel."
The Colonel came down two steps, holding his mug out of the rain.
"Vetter," he said, like he was tasting it. "Good kid, Vetter. Real shame about the river."
He nodded at Jesse.
"Give this one Seventeen."
Strake's jaw went hard.
"Seventeen is retired."
"Then unretire it." The Colonel smiled at Jesse. "Welcome to Blackwood, Seventeen."
He went back inside.
Jesse opened his hand and let Luke's tag fall into the fire.
He watched the letters go black.
Then he went and stood back in line.
They gave the cadets grey shirts and a number on the chest and a bunk in a barracks that smelled like wet canvas.
At lights out, Strake came in and stood in the doorway.
"Seventeen. Outside."
Ollie grabbed Jesse's arm in the dark. "Dude. What did you do?"
"Said a name."
Strake ran him alone on the parade ground for four hours.
Sprints. Burpees in the puddles. Crawling through the mud under the rope line.
The rain never stopped.
Every hour Strake crouched in front of him and said the same thing.
"Say you quit, and there's a truck at the gate in ten minutes."
Every hour Jesse said, "No."
He'd hiked fire line for sixteen hours with a chainsaw on his shoulder.
He'd dug a trench while the hill above him burned.
This was rain.
Around three in the morning his arms finally folded, and he went face down in the mud.
He got up.
Strake watched him get up.
He fell again.
He got up again.
"Why are you doing this?" Strake said.
He sounded angry. Not at Jesse, Jesse thought. At something.
"Because I buried a box," Jesse said. "And I never got to see what was in it."
Strake didn't answer.
He stood there with the floodlight behind him and the rain coming off his shoulders.
Then he walked up close, closer than he needed to.
He bent down until his mouth was beside Jesse's ear.
His voice was so low the rain almost took it.
"Your brother isn't in that grave."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend