Goon - 15. Chapter 15

“You are late, Cadet Jericho.” Sergeant Major Smith said as he loomed over Micah. They were the same height now, but it always felt like the African-American man loomed over him.

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” Micah replied.

“You look like you’ve put on some fat, Cadet Jericho.” Sergeant Major Smith pointed out. As much as he’d worked out with the football team at home, their workouts were nothing compared to Huntsville.

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” Micah answered.

“Did you even look at your transcripts?” Sergeant Major Smith asked next.

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” Micah replied.

“You’re barely passing with a C in these pansy-assed civilian courses.” Sergeant Major Smith noted. “Do you think you can still handle the curriculum of this fine institution?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” Micah said in a louder voice and the man smiled.

“Care to explain it to me, Cadet?” Sergeant Major Smith asked.

“I’m home, Sergeant Major.” Micah answered and wasn’t surprised by the response.

“Drop and give me fifty, Cadet.” Sergeant Major Smith demanded. Micah dropped and began belting out the pushups. It felt good to be pushed like this, with his muscles trembling as he did the last ten. He really had gotten soft back in Wyoming. By the time he finished, there was a layer of sweat under his blue digital-pattern uniform.

“Fifty pushups as ordered, Sergeant Major!” Micah all but shouted as he finished.

“That’s more like it, Cadet.” Sergeant Major Smith said with approval in his voice. “As of now you’re the Master-At-Arms for Hoar Residence. That sorry lot of Cadets has only come in third so far this quarter. You’ve got three weeks left to get them in shape. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” Micah said loudly.

“Dismissed, Cadet Sergeant.” The man said and Micah snapped to attention before doing an about-face and marching out of the man’s office. He got a smile from Miss Burroughs, who had been the Sergeant’s secretary for two years now and he let out an explosive breath as soon as he was back in the main hall. Most of his gear had stayed in Wyoming, although he’d brought one suitcase of civilian clothes with him, and a few knickknacks, including the family picture John had insisted they take before he left.

Corey wasn’t in their room when he arrived there, which wasn’t totally unexpected. Hoar Residence had KP duty this week and would be in the kitchen helping to prepare the day’s meals. He would be given this time to unpack and get ready, and then join his platoon down at the mess for dinner. The first, and only picture of him with his entire family went up on the dresser between the two beds before he unpacked anything else.

There were more pictures he’d put up as well, but those could wait until the rest of his gear was unpacked. He would also have to spend half of his free time tonight just sending emails to all the people he’d promised to keep in touch with when he told them he was leaving. At least he’d taken care of his parents, calling them from the airport when he landed to let them know he was there safely.

It was odd how they’d never cared before, but now had insisted he call them as soon as he landed.

He’d ended up speaking with Little John while he waited for the van to pick him up. As soon as the van had arrived, he’d had to hang up since school regulations limited phone calls to free time each evening, when not on restriction. His little brother wasn’t exactly happy that Micah was going, but then he’d already started making plans for the things they’d do together at Thanksgiving.

“You’re back.” Corey’s voice came as he entered their room, shutting the door behind him and rushing into Micah’s arms. Their lips met, and Micah felt tears come into his eyes at the contact. Part of him had been in total denial over how much he missed Corey.

“Shouldn’t you be in KP?” Micah asked when they broke their kiss.

“You cut your hair.” Corey pouted as he ran his hands over Micah’s fresh buzz cut.

“Better than seeing Sergeant Major with long hair still on my head.” Micah pointed out and Corey nodded. His hair was freshly cut too, and probably had been cut several times since arriving at Huntsville.

“I’ve missed you so much.” Corey said, hugging him tight and kissing him again. Micah was hard as hell from all the kissing, but managed to keep himself under control, if barely. However, Corey had other ideas and sank to his knees. When he’d managed to unbutton Micah’s pants and pull his hard dick out, Micah stumbled backwards two steps and crashed into his locker. Somehow Corey kept up with him and his warm mouth surrounded Micah’s thick cock.

“Oh fuck.” Micah groaned as Corey buried his nose in Micah’s pubes. It felt wonderful and he knew he wouldn’t last long as Corey began to pull off just enough to start licking him. Corey’s stubby red hair tickled his palms as he guided his boyfriend back onto his cock, beginning to piston his hips so his dick ran in and out of Corey’s mouth.

The tingling began in the base of his spine and spread all the way through his body like wildfire. He could feel his legs begin to shake, and then that pressure/tingling sensation sped from his balls. Micah couldn’t give more than a grunt of warning and release Corey’s head, but his boyfriend immediately buried his nose in Micah’s pubes, just in time for the first shot of cum to hit the back of this throat. By the time the last spurt had left his cock, Micah was sinking down the locker until his butt rested on the floor and Corey pulled himself over enough to lock a kiss on Micah.

“Your turn.” Micah said as the kiss ended, enjoying the salty taste of his own spunk on Corey’s tongue.

“You can lick the fingers, if you want, but I shot the same time you did.” Corey’s voice was husky with his satisfaction and Micah giggled as he took Corey’s soaked fingers into his mouth. His boyfriend was a little more ammonia-smelling, but still just fine for him as he tried his best to lick those fingers clean.

“Now that’s a good way to welcome me back.” Micah said contentedly, pulling Corey closer while stretching his legs out. Corey was leaning against his chest, and all but purring with contentment. Then he slapped Micah’s arm as hard as he could from this position.

“Don’t you ever make me wait so long before giving me your cock again.” Corey complained and Micah smiled. “I was thinking about sneaking a damn cucumber out of the kitchen so I could have it in my mouth while I jacked off!”

“My dick smells like a cucumber?” Micah asked in a teasing tone.

“No, but it was like five inches long and really, really wide.” Corey sighed. “It made me think about you and how much I was missing you. Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep telling guys I didn’t do that anymore?”

“Poor baby.” Micah laughed. “If you want us to be able to do other guys, there’s this really hot dirty blond guy in Laramie that I can steal from his girlfriend next time I’m back there.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Corey growled as he grabbed Micah’s balls. Considering he was lying face-down between Micah’s legs, he had very easy access. “These babies belong to me for the rest of my life and no one else. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you, and I agree.” Micah said. “As long as your cock, balls, ass, and mouth belong to me. Oh, and every part of your body as well, just in case you get inventive or something.”

“Now that we got that cleared up, we better get cleaned up and wipe the floor.” Corey said with a smile. “The last couple of inspections have hurt us bad in points. I heard you were going to be MAA when you got back.”

“Yeah, am I going to have trouble with that?” Micah asked.

“Hell no, you-know-who has been trying to foist the job off on any of us with seniority to take the thing.” Corey said. “You’re not going to take the solo room that comes with it, right?”

“Sorry, you’re stuck with me in your room.” Micah said and Corey grinned before putting his head against Micah’s chest.

“Just the way I wanted it.” Corey sighed. “Let him keep the room and he won’t complain or make trouble. Everyone else will be glad to have you back, too. We never realized how much those mock inspections of yours saved our asses.”

“You better be saving your ass.” Micah growled and Corey laughed.

“Oh I’ve missed having you this close.” Corey moaned. “It’s just not the same communicating over the phone and webcams. I wonder how Mom and Dad do it?”

“They make do in their own way.” Micah said. “I have to warn you though. Your mother has got not only a model for clothes that will fit me, but she’s found the perfect match for you as well. She’ll have you doing webcam shopping along with me.”

“I am so going to get you for making her interested in this shopping thing again.” Corey growled. “You do realize that’s my inheritance she’s spending?”

“No it’s not.” Micah laughed. “You’ve got your trust fund that’s your inheritance. Billy gets everything else so it’s his inheritance we’re spending!”

“God you know too much about our family.” Corey complained. “We’re going to have to shoot you or marry you.”

“Marry, it’s less bloody.” Micah said with a laugh. “Besides, you really don’t want to marry some flaming queen.”

“Have there been any more white flashes?” Corey asked in a suddenly serious tone. “I talked to Dad yesterday and he wanted me to ask.”

“None.” Micah told him.

“Good.” Corey said with a squeeze of his arms. “I don’t like those crazy doctors and scientists having their hooks into you. You’re my boyfriend.”

“I love you too.” Micah said with a chuckle.

“That new kid, the suicide guy you warned about, he’s a piece of work.” Corey shifted topics as he stood up and frowned at the rope of half-dried gunk that connected his pants to the floor. “Shit, I’m going to have to change. Anyway, Siemens is like this total fucking dickhead that no one likes, but anytime guys try to reach out to him he shuts them down like they’re the lowest scum of the earth. Then he goes to his faculty advisor and complains that no one here likes him.”

“Oh hell.” Micah said with a frown. “I kind of forgot that part of him. After he killed himself, that was pretty much all anyone remembered.”

“Funny how that works.” Corey said with a frown. “I heard my mom talking about something like that with one of those society ladies that dabbles in psychology. What did she call it? Stockholm Syndrome?”

“No, that’s when hostages fall for their kidnappers.” Micah said as he also stood up and looked his uniform over. There wasn’t a drop on his uniform and he tucked his cock and balls away before buttoning his uniform pants back up. Corey was washing off his pants with a damp rag, and then bending over to clean up the floor. When he was done, they kissed again just as there was a knock on the door. Corey threw the door open and frowned.

“What do you want, Siemens?” Corey snapped.

“Don’t bite my head off, Howard.” The geeky-looking Cadet Siemens snapped back. He crinkled his nose and looked over at Micah. “Damn, there’s no need to ask what you and the big goon over there were just doing.”

“What do you want, Siemens?” Micah asked, ignoring the Cadet’s comments. The guy had to have the most effeminate gestures and poses of any Cadet at the Academy. He vaguely remembered that as having caused several problems as well. Maybe his suicide had been about more than just his roommate harassing him.

“You’re wanted in Foley’s room before dinner.” Siemens managed to make that sound dirty with a suggestive look and Micah sighed, taking a step towards the door and stopping.

“You need to move unless you want me to push you out of my way.” Micah growled and the little guy made a mini-drama of getting out of his way.

“Well, excuse me Mr. Neanderthal!” Siemens said far too loudly and dramatically for Micah’s taste. It was bad to take an immediate dislike to the guy, but he did and tried to reign in the negative feelings.

Ten minutes later Micah had the log book, and the rank insignia that went on the front of his uniform just in time for the dinner bell to be rung. Luckily he wasn’t the cadet that had to direct them into formation or march them across the hall because he was still getting back into the routine of Huntsville Academy. When Tiebold had finished the march and they fell in for chow, Micah breathed a sigh of relief at not having forgotten how to march, and waited in line with the half of his residence hall that hadn’t chosen to rush back to the residence before it was actually time to eat.

The food at Huntsville Academy had never been particularly great, nor had it been appetite-killing awful. It was in that fair-to-middlin’ range that meant some meals were more edible than others, but few meals were completely inedible. Tonight’s meal, consisting of slightly overcooked and bland chicken, rice or potatoes, freshly baked rolls, and very bland steamed vegetables was just about as average as it was possible to get at the Academy, and Micah smiled as he ate, taking only one roll, mostly because he still remembered the sound of Sergeant Major Smith calling him fat.

Study came right after dinner, and Micah returned to Hoar hall with the rest of his platoon and managed to keep busy while everyone else filled the common area. Most of his time was spent reading the log book and briefly visiting all of the new upper classmen to get to know them. Huntsville took cadets in all years, so it wasn’t uncommon to have a handful of new cadets in each year. Freshmen were always the class with the most new students, and Micah would try to get to know them later.

For the first month, all new cadets, whatever their year, were placed in the Rook Platoon, and then reassigned to their corresponding year platoons. That had just happened, and he saw that despite his behavioral problems, Siemens had one of the best records in Rook. His room had been docked the least amount of points, and he had accumulated fewer demerits than any of the other Rooks.

As Master-At-Arms he had several duties that included making sure their residence hall was clean for inspections, working with failing cadets on personal hygiene, uniform maintenance, and of course the regular homesickness that happened with even the returning cadets. His predecessor, a Senior that had attended all four years at Huntsville had been decent at the work, but lacked the ability to see where the possible problems would come from, and anticipate them enough to stop them from happening at all.

“Hapley, how was the summer?” Micah asked as he sat down to a swarthy Senior who had been lowest on all the rosters since his first year here, and was doing no better this year. Pimples two years ago had turned to pockmarks on a sallow face, and he frowned at Micah, answering with only a grunt. “That bad, huh?”

“What do you want, fag?” Hadley asked in his rumbling voice.

“I know you like to take it up the ass from Richie every couple of weeks, so don’t even think you can use that word with me.” Micah snapped and Hadley sneered.

“You think you’re big enough now to take me on, Jericho?” Hadley asked, flexing his fist before looking back at the book open in front of him. It had a comic between its pages and Micah knew the guy spent as little time studying as possible.

“How’d you like to get out of cleaning detail for the rest of year?” Micah asked him, and smiled when the dark-haired head snapped upwards.

“What the fuck do you want?” Hadley demanded. “I ain’t sucking your dick or letting you fuck me.”

“I’ve got my own cocksucker.” Micah said, using the vulgar term because it was how Hadley communicated.

“What do you want, then?” Hadley demanded.

“I want your eyes.” Micah said with a smarmy grin.

“You can’t have ‘em, I need ‘em.” Hadley grunted, going back to his comic book.

“Hadley, you’re not that dumb.” Micah said. “The only time you push other people around is when they get in the way or stomp on your toes. I want to know when Jenkins, Rawly, or Tran start to pull their shit in the residence. With me on the west wing, I can’t always find out if shit goes down on the east side.”

“No cleaning details all year?” Hadley demanded. “I need a place to stash my porn too. Sergeant Major found the latch last week.”

“I read that.” Micah said. “I got a place you can use, but you have to put the mags back before reveille.”

“I can do that, and if it’s after reveille I deserve to get caught.” Hadley stated. Micah knew very well that Hadley always got up early and worked out in the head. He would finish the workout with a jack-off session and could put his pornography in the hiding spot before most of the cadets even woke up.

“I’ll show you in the morning, after your workout.” Micah said with a nod, getting up from the table and walking over to the table of sophomores. The two biggest jokers were roommates, and had both returned from last year to find out they were separated by Micah’s predecessor, and they were very unhappy. One of them had managed to rig a bucket of sand to fall right between the MAA inspection and the command inspection, costing Hoar Hall major points. Micah planned to stop that, and it only took ten minutes to negotiate a deal that would see a similar trick pulled on Powell Hall so that Hoar Hall would be more likely to take the lead next inspection.

Their roommates even chipped in to take over Hadley’s cleaning assignments for the entire year as long as they didn’t have to have those two as roommates.

Free time came soon enough, and the comforting routine was a balm to Micah. He spent the first half of his free time making phone calls and sending emails, but he last half was all him and Corey. In past years, this was the time Corey had used to meet other guys for sex, but not tonight. Instead they spent the time cuddling together on Micah’s bed, kissing and talking about nothing in general.

Ten minutes before lights out, Micah had to get out of the bed, straighten up his uniform and do his rounds. Both of the main bathrooms on the floor were in horrific conditions that they would never have been left in last year, and he ended up grabbing the whole class of Rooks to make them clean. It was amazing how the older, more knowledgeable cadets hadn’t really stopped them earlier, but then it was the natural inclination of most people to be lazy and not push others when it wasn’t needed.

“I need your help, badly.” Micah was forced to admit the next night as he sat at his table next to Corey during study time. The day was a long lesson in how badly he was already behind in his classes, and how much work he had to do in order to keep up. Corey’s response was a wide smile and brought a lot of light to his face, and an easy nod. No one could help him learn like Corey, and they bent over his books with their heads practically touching.

The Rooks were already in the bathrooms picking up by the time he did his rounds that night, and he’d noticed two of them chastising an older cadet for leaving his soap wrapper on the floor of the shower. While the older cadet had snapped at them, he’d also picked up the soap wrapper before walking out of the shower. Micah smiled to himself, glad to have pushed the Rooks into doing what would have made Micah very unpopular if he was the only one trying to force people into keeping their residence clean.

It took two weeks, and only four pranks to get Hoar residence back on top of the list, and a corresponding freedom from KP, clean-up, or any of the other details that cadets hated the most. Two more weeks on the top of the list and the pranks stopped before retaliation could hurt them worse, and Hoar Residence didn’t need much guidance on keeping things in top shape. Micah could relax a bit, and spend more time in his room with Corey.

It was the week before Thanksgiving that saw Micah’s favorite activity: the big two-day march. Hoar Residence, at the top of the list, had to go last, and it was cold, but for two days they got to march, camp out, and not have to sit through a single class. Corey hated it, mostly because they couldn’t be too noisy in their tent, but it was Micah’s favorite time of the year.

“God it’s cold!” Corey grumbled as they crawled into their two-man tent after a rather uninspiring dinner and campfire sing-along.

“Could be worse.” Micah laughed softly. “Mom said they’re still digging out after the last storm up there.”

“Are you even going to be able to get home?” Corey asked as they began to strip out of their heavy outer gear and get into their warm sleeping bags. They knew better than to do more than kiss a little when out here like this.

“Yeah, the airport keeps planes going unless there’s a storm actually going on, and that damn beast of a truck your mom bought for me is so big the county’s probably trying to impound it to use as a snow plow.” Micah said with a laugh. It was warm in his sleeping bag, but he wished they dared to sleep together like they did most of the time at the school.

“I wish I could go with you.” Corey said with a sigh as he held his hand out of his sleeping bag. Micah grinned as he clasped it in his own hand and let Corey draw it towards his lips for a kiss. “I love you.”

“Love you too, babe.” Micah said with a contented sigh.

“Any regrets?” Corey asked as if afraid of the answer. “You seem to miss some of those friends you made back there.”

“No regrets.” Micah laughed easily. He squeezed Corey’s hand to reinforce the words he was speaking. “I’ve got friends here too, you know.”

“Not close friends, and you seem to be closer to some of those people.” Corey said with a hint of fear.

“I like ‘em.” Micah admitted after taking a deep breath. “They’re real, in a way that people here aren’t. I mean, what do you think Siemens is like when he’s at home.”

“Unhappy.” Corey laughed. “He’s really calmed down since you started spending time with him.”

“He was unsure of himself and too use to people insulting him all the time.” Micah said with another shrug. “All he needed was for someone to show some faith in him.”

“I love how you do that.” Corey said smugly. “You watch people and figure out what they need, or what they want and then decide if they should have it or not.”

“You make it sound like more than it is.” Micah said with a grunt. He felt uncomfortable with the praise.

“Oh no you don’t!” Corey said with a teasing tone. “Here goes the Micah Jericho humility routine again!”

“I am not…” Micah started to protest but instead he grunted in pain and surprise as the world went white and pain shot through his head.

“Micah, what’s wrong?” Corey’s voice was in his ear. He must have gotten out of his sleeping bag and was now kneeling with Micah’s head in his lap. “C’mon, talk to me.”

“White.” Micah managed to mutter as another searing pain wracked his head, and then he lost all feelings.

“Can you hear me, Jericho?” Linda Rodriguez’s voice was not welcome, but it was there in his head. Struggling to open his eyes, he saw the panel in front of him, what looked like insulating material draping it and his knife hand.

“No!” Micah complained. “We were camping! Everything was good!”

“Jericho, listen to me.” Rodriguez’s voice insistent. “You’re almost gone in the here and now. The world outside, it’s changing. We can tell it’s changing in here, but things are shifting, changing all around us and I don’t know how long we’ll last. You have to be careful, Jericho, you have to fix things.”

“Fix what?” Micah gasped.

“You have to stop them.” She said. “It was Trasker. He was working for someone else, I don’t know who, but he sent another signal back and that’s when things started changing. Howard’s not President anymore. Some woman by the name of Kilgore is President and things have gone to shit big time.”

“Who the hell is Kilgore?” Micah muttered. “I’ve never heard the name before.”

“Neither have I.” Rodriguez said. “Thing is we got orders to kill you. Lucky for you, your friends in security have no intention of following the orders of someone they don’t recognize as President.”

“Where’s Howard?” Micah asked with worry.

“Don’t know.” She answered with a sound of worry in her voice. “The world’s really different out there right now. We got into the control room about a half-hour ago and managed to swing the reactor back up to full power. Trasker did his best to shut it down once the people in the past broke the connection, but that was after he’d got his second signal out.”

“Who did he send it to?” Micah asked. “This Kilgore woman?”

“We don’t know yet.” She said. “We had to reestablish the connection, though, to warn you. Whatever he did is messing with history, the very thing this whole project was intended to keep from happening. It was meant to keep history on the right track, to stop major disasters, but whatever he did has now messed things up.”

“You shouldn’t have been doing this at all.” Micah muttered.

“From what I gather you’ve been working on fixing your relationship with President Howard’s son.” She stated. “If we shouldn’t have done this at all, what is it that you are doing?”

“It’s still wrong.” Micah said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have had this second chance, but it happened.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have pursued this project, but we did and it’s happened.” She said, grabbing and using his logic. “You’re the only connection we have right now, Jericho. Trasker did something to the computers so they won’t transmit anymore, and he killed himself when we broke in to the control room. Right now you’re the only conduit.”

“Will this cause more of those storms?” Micah asked with a frown.

“Probably, but your people back there know how to counter them now.” She said with finality as pain wracked him again. His body shook with the pain. “We have to cut the connection before it kills you. Remember, you have to find Trasker and stop whatever it is he’s doing, and find out who he sent the transmission to in the past.”

“Got it.” Micah muttered amidst another bout of pain. The flashes of white faded and he could once again feel his head resting in Corey’s lap.

“Thank god.” Corey murmured as Micah stared up at him and smiled. “Are you okay, love?”

“No, but at least you’re still here.” Micah said with a sad smile. There was so much to do, and he almost didn’t know where to start.