<strong>PFC Nortan 'Gizmo' Law</strong><br/><br/><em>"Whatever happens, marine, mind that trigger!"<br/><br/>His fingers twitched. His thumb trembled and quivered, hovering over only an inch between life and death. His entire arm itched as if bitten by a thousand fire ants. Sweat, blood and tears streamed off of his tired and aching body, the grime, the dust and the dirt a messy mixture splashed upon his tattered fatigues and broken armor. His breath was heavy. His blood was hot and pumping hard. He was scared. Flashes of friends and family back home shot through his fear stricken mind.<br/><br/>Prone by order of the equally messed up NCO that crouched beside him, his sharp eyes scanned the smoke ridden landscape, darting from trees, to bushes and to scorched earth below them. He paid extra mind to his peripherals, fully awake from exhaustion by the burst of adrenaline, an almost full 160 degree view in front of him. Only the poor 5 meter visibility shielded their attacker from view, but the ominous bleeps of the motion tracker indicated that it was still very close. It could be anywhere, behind anything. It could even be behind them, above them, anywhere!<br/><br/>"Where the fuck is it?" He heard a voice echo to his left, repeating over and over. "Where the fuck is it?"<br/>"Its out there! Stay frosty! Stay frosty!" Another echoed to his right, followed by a dull thunk and a horrifying death cry.<br/>"Schultz!" The rippling flash of a pulse rifle, and another cry almost immediately after.<br/>"Tiny!" The NCO, barely visible in his panic, shouted, "Giz, keep that trigger open, soldier! Its co-"<br/><br/>He was cut off in mid sentence, the guttural bellow of his words minced into a visceral gargle. He was now alone. All the others around him had disappeared, the mist of the jungle having swallowed them whole. He was alone, with only the only companions remaining being the still bleeping XV35 and the red switch in his palm. He called out their names, all of them, his own voice carried away into the wind, his tunneling vision spinning into heightened panic. The response that returned was a bone chilling chatter and an eerie shuffle of leaves.<br/><br/>Then, he saw it, a shadow in the mist, looming nearby. His thumb squeezed on the switch.</em><br/><br/>His eyes flew open and although his body was calm, he felt the sudden need to throw up. Gulping down some spittle to fight off the urge, he rose to sit just as the canopy of his cryo bed opened, stretching his muscles and rolling his shoulders, eager to get out of it as soon as he could. The first thing he felt was a chill, not just down his spine, but all over his half naked self, dressed in military issue boxer shorts. The warmth of the real world slowly came back to him after he stepped himself out of his chamber.<br/><br/>It was that damn dream again. He thought he had been over that ages ago.<br/><br/>The din of encouragement from the Sarge that assaulted his ears immediately brought him back to his senses from his brief reminiscing stupor, snapping straight into loose military decorum. To the best of his abilities, he tried to be a soldier enough to be part of his outfit and he did a good enough job for people around him to know his name, rank and file, or at least most of it. They called him Gizmo. Norton Law was his real name, but the Corps found out about his records all the way back from middle school and the nickname stuck all the way through his training and into his tours of duty. A lot of kids picked on him because of his thick glasses in his teens. A lot of cadets picked on him for being the resident 'egg head', the wussy private who couldn't even burst fire a pulse rifle without the gun kicking his shoulder in. It took a while of hard effort but those days were behind him now. He showed them enough of his skills as a hacker and general multi purpose techie for them to show him a bit more respect. He even had a reputation for holding the fastest record time for hacking through standard security doors with a bypass computer, even faster if he used his own personal computer. His current outfit recognized him as the go to guy if they wanted anything fixed in a jiffy, saving their asses and their time more than once in previous military escapades over the past year.<br/><br/>That was only if it was beyond the abilities or the interest of their synthetic, Senjo. Unlike Gizmo, she was like a walking computer with a body built for trophy wives. He always had this deep rooted, one sided and secret rivalry with her ever since he first found out she was a synth, emotions mixing between awe and respect, envy and hatred, maybe even curiosity and connection. Awe and respect for the level of technology used to build her. Envy and hatred for while Gizmo had to undergo years of hardship to get to where he was, she only needed a program to beat almost everything he could do. Curiosity and connection for that inkling odd feeling that crept up into his head. Sometimes he felt like he could work with her a little easier with a bit of compromise. Rivalry nonetheless, he tolerated her presence around him, but proximity would very normally send him a little on edge.<br/><br/>On other notes, every other member of this squad could pound his head in with the slightest bad joke. Their LT Caesar, Sarge, Jennifer, especially Rome, and maybe even the 19 year old Yui. He felt that they would have minced him by now, as combat situations were not his complete cup of tea. He was their techie support and demo man. He handled broken things and det charges because he was good at them, and it was because he was good at them that he had not earned a place of disappointment among his peers just yet. It was because he was good at them that he had earned smacks in the back, nods and words of approval, which was nerve wracking at first but he got used to the equal treatment. After one year, he felt like he was finally fitting in somewhere, if maybe squeezing in, as long as he kept his weight up, stayed in step, followed orders and watched their backs.<br/><br/><em>"Mind that trigger, marine!" A voice in his head called out.</em><br/><br/>Shaking his head clear, he headed for the showers and got himself cleaned up, dressing himself in the military issue black tank and pants from his locker. After taking a second to look and smile at the picture of his brothers and sisters back home, he headed for the mess hall to get down with chow. 9 years in the army and anything seemed to taste good if it tasted of anything at all, so he no longer had that discomforted step while he made his way there. Entering, he found just about everybody had made it there before him. Joining the cue, the good natured guy fraternized as safely as he could. It was hard sometimes, as he found a lot of them to be quite hardened, grunts as they were, and a geek like him, in his opinion, could seem like a firefly among fighting beetles.<br/><br/>"And behind curtain number one, we have scrambled eggs. Behind curtain number two, brown goop with chocolate sauce. Yummy!" He knew that the food was not what he said they were. It was a psychological thing that made them look a bit more appetizing, at least to him.