Corpsman Read Online Free Page B

came in, waving her over.  Liege was tempted to ignore her, but with her suspicious mind thinking the room might be under surveillance, she smiled and walked over to take a seat.
    “Wow, that was hard,” Evangeline said, taking Liege’s hand as if they were sisters.   “I mean, like, I guessed on half of the questions.”
    Liege frankly didn’t care how the woman had done, but she did feel a slight bit of relief at her words.  If Evangeline was having problems, then Liege wasn’t alone in that.
    Evangeline was a talker, and Liege tuned out 90% of what the woman was saying while she brooded over her scores.  The wait was killing her.  But bit by bit, Liege was being drawn into the conversation.  Liege might consider drudges and suits almost as separate species, but she couldn’t help it if she was a social creature by nature.  She started listening to more of what Evangeline was saying, and before long, she was giving her own opinion.  Nothing about which they spoke was serious, and that was probably a good thing.  It kept their minds off the testing.  When they started discussing a vid-novel that had been making the rounds on the under-net, two others, a guy and a girl, scooted over to join them.  What Umuyaya was going to do about his lecherous uncle was front and center, and Liege laughingly had to agree with Pop, the guy who had joined them. 
    The fact that they all were following an under-net vid-novel surprised Liege.  Of course in the favelas, the under-net was popular, but the other three came from much higher positions of society, and they had access to the best that life could offer.  Liege wouldn’t have imagined that any of them would follow a poorly-crafted trash under-net vid-novel. 
    She was almost sorry when Evangeline was picked up by her uniform.  Liege gave her new friend a thumbs up and mouthed “Good luck” as she left.
    With Evangeline gone, some of the energy had left as well, but Liege, Pop, and Gert stayed close together and chatted.  Finally, Gert addressed the elephant in the room and asked her about being a gangrat, but Liege didn’t sense any disdain, only curiosity.  So for the first time in her life, she spoke frankly with people her age who were not from the favelas.  Pop seemed almost fascinated by some of what she told them, particularly when she described her beating in.
    Liege was not one of those gangrats who held her colors paramount and considered her beating in on an almost religious level.  For her, it had been something to endure in order to gain the protection of the gang, simple as that.  But as she told the two about how she had fought ten of her future sisters and gotten the living shit kicked out of her, she could almost see how alien that must have seemed to them. 
    She could also see how Pop reacted.  Liege had always been good at reading others, and she knew he was attracted to her and somehow turned on by her describing the beating in.  Pop was a good-looking young man, in a pretty-boy sort of way, and Liege had to admit that she was more than a bit interested.  But even if neither of them was accepted (she into the Navy and he into the Inspector Corps), she knew nothing would ever—could ever—happen.  She couldn’t go over to suitland and just wander around, and he would be easy prey should he set foot into the favelas; but still, the thought intrigued her.
    Those thoughts were interrupted when her uniform stuck his head into the waiting room and asked, “Miss Neves, if you could follow me?”
    Both Pop and Gert wished her good luck as she stood and went out the door that her uniform was holding.  She waited for him to take the lead and followed his bouncy jaunt back into the recruiters’ room and into his small private office.
    He sat down, and Liege could see that he was feeling quite full of himself.
    Is that because he’s going to send me back to the favelas?  He’s an “I told you so” kind of guy?
    He looked at her for a