[62—Camp Winsome]

"Where am I," I asked frenetically as I came to, afraid of the answer.

The last thing I remember was walking in space, and someone catching me; people like me, telling me I'd be alright.  Maybe it was a dream—it probably was—but I wanted more than anything for it to be real.

I was in bed.

"Camp Winsome," A disembodied voice answered.

If I just woke up in bed in Camp Winsome, then I was probably ill, and it had all been a dream.

For almost two months I'd wondered about Camp Winsome, now I was here.  It was hot and humid, like the jungle.

"Do I have malaria?"

"No," A handsome man with long black hair and skin the color of brick said, "you just passed out and had an embarrassing accident on your way down.  Nothing hurt but your pride, though.  You are dehydrated, drink more water."

He was forty, with a shock of grey at the temples and a sprinkle of salt in his scraggly pepper mustache.  I realized I was listening in Spanish.

"Way down?"

My head was pounding and had my left eye was throwing hammers at the inside of my skull.

"You came down from the Space Station on a shuttle.  I daresay the locals were impressed."

"Where is here?  And why is it so hot?  I think you could drink this air."

"Here is El Yunque."

"Finally," I sat up.  "A straight answer.  Why has everybody been so cussed secretive about Camp Winsome?"

"Because," he was sitting cross-legged in a metal chair.  He shifted and crossed his legs the other way.  "Camp Winsome is different for different people."

"How so?"

The room was starting to come into focus.  We were in a green army tent, set up like a sick ward, with two rows of bed feet facing in.  It could have been a set from M*A*S*H.

"Camp Winsome exists to ready volunteers for their experience overseas.  If you were going to Mongolia, we'd probably train you in North Dakota.  The Middle East trains in New Mexico and Arizona, but always in a park.  Camp Winsome is always in a national park.

"We have access to local resources, but it's up to all of us to manage them.  We have a cheap source of labor, volunteers and locals; and of course, we have our camp gear, which you were lucky and missed moving."

"Moving?"

"Yes.  The last troop to use it had Camp Winsome in Apalachicola State Park, in Florida.  Troop 421 mustered in there, and we moved the camp here."

"How?"

"We have our own airship, the Helios, and the Air Force helped some.  They have a base nearby, training airship crews and paratroops."

"Wow!  Sounds like I missed a lot of fun."

"You missed First Muster, which was unfortunate, but I understand you were detached on important business."

"I think so.  But I can't talk about it."

"Fair enough.  You are fit, other than being dehydrated, which we've already discussed.  Medical orders are the one type of order which you are expected to unquestioningly obey.  Am I going to have trouble with you?"

"No sir."

"Good.  Now, your jacket classifies you as 'O,' gender-wise.  Are you transgendered or transsexual?  We will do what we can to accommodate you."

"Neither, I'm a true neuter.  I was born without any sex.  My genetic sex is RR."

"I'd wondered about that.  I read your medical records, well, skimmed them, but I am unfamiliar with this particular defect."

Defect.  I'm defective.

"But you are fit enough to leave sick call.  I bet your troop leader is champing at the bit to meet you, best not disappoint her."

"Where do I go, and do I get my clothes back?"

"Yes, your jumpsuit is right over there.  Your troop leader has her tent under the blue pennant."

***

The blue pennant was triangular, with the Peace Corps emblem—a bald eagle with an olive branch in each claw and the peace seal its breast—in the fly and the number 421 in white.

I had the sense to change into my issued fatigues before reporting.  I didn't want to look too conspicuous, not after I'd apparently missed the hazing.

Still, I was wearing the T3C badges, and I bet I was the only one in the troop.  I certainly didn't want to cause trouble.

The front of the tent closest to the flagstaff was an orderly room, so I thought I was in the right place.  I had my papers and my bag from space but nothing else. 

"I'm Dani Heywood," I said to the sullen First Class behind the desk marked CQ.  I gave her my papers, the one's I'd been given in Nebraska.

She looked up and took them, snapping them from my fingers and chewing her gum loudly.  Her hair was black, her makeup was black; her fingernails were black.  Her skin was white like tallow.  She looked like a Daguerreotype of a vampire.

She snorted.

"You're late.  The Old Lady's gonna bust yer ass over this.  Missed muster three days in a row."

She stamped something on my papers and went back to see the 'Old Lady'.  This ought to be good.

"Send her in," I heard a Midwestern US accent command.

Bellatrix, as I decided to tag her, after Lugosi, came back out and pointed to the flap that served as a door.

"You can go in."

I stepped inside, expecting to come to smart attention in front of her desk.

"Heywood, get in here."

The room was tidy, obsessively so, with a desk and a cot and two filing cabinets.  There was no shred of decoration or personal effect.  The only thing on her desk was a sign that read 'LTN Nguyen, Troop 421'.  The numbers were made up of separate tiles that slid into a metal track.

She was young, in her twenties, still with a tad of baby fat that young women sometimes retain in their face, and black almond eyes.  I bet she had to fight the boys off with a stick, but she looked plenty capable of it. 

Other than her cheeks, there was not an ounce of fat on her spare frame.  She looked like a kid behind that desk.

"You've been in the Peace Corps five days, four of which you were detached to the ISA, you've been given a temporary promotion before you ever even signed on.  What you did for those four days—while me and your troop-mates sweated and hauled your share of the cargo—is not for the likes of me to know, but, you spent it in orbit, in the Space Station. 

"Can you tell me exactly what a team is, in your opinion?"

"A team is a group of people working together, towards a common goal, with or without explicit leadership."

"That's a good start.  And what do you have to say about them doing your part while you were lollygagging on the movie set of 2001?"

"Thank you?"

"An even better start, but I think it will take more than that.  Look, Heywood, I get that you can't talk about it, and that it makes you cool...before you go off, let me finish.  I don't know whether you think it makes you look Cooler-Than-Thou or not, but I know it matters to the other volunteers.  These kids are like, well, kids.  They're fifteen to twenty one and full of it.  There is no way, nor desire to break that all down."

"Thee," I corrected her, "Cooler-Than-Thee."

"But you must fit in with your team.  That means your buddy, your squad, your Troop, and the Corps.

"You already shine like a torch.  You've got more advanced credits than the entire class I graduated last had combined.  You're a regular Tower of Babel from what I hear, but here, in Camp Winsome, you will have to do much more work than translating.  If we need that, we'll ask, but you're here to learn to survive in the Jungles of Central America.

"Doc Mendez says you have damned good Spanish, so I'm going to post you teaching as well as learning.  But none of that will get you out of one iota of your assigned duties.

"We have a credit system here, and you have to have a certain number of units of it to get out of here.  You missed the first twenty-one of thirty-five hours required for this week's credit.  You owe me for seven hours of latrines, and fourteen of camp-building."

She stood up and walked around the desk, looking at me like she was a tiger, and I was a water buffalo, covered in juicy raw steak that someone had left in her path.

She was even shorter than I was, by at least an inch.

"Now you and I are gonna be buddies, right, 'cause we're the cool kids, and that's what we do.  I've had whiz kids before, and frankly, I think they're overrated.  You toe the line, you win with me, you don't, you lose.  Your choice."

"I chose," I said, looking down on the only adult I'd ever met shorter than me, "to be in the Corps.  I volunteered.  I want to be your friend, Lieutenant Nguyen, and do my part in the Troop.  I'll show up bright and early with a shovel, unless you want me to begin tonight?"

"No," she said, "that won't be necessary.  And it's 'Winn'.  Tomorrow starts water safety, which Dr. Mendez insists that you take in full.  It's three hours.  After lunch you'll be issued an axe and taught how to use it.  You'll have to make up that other stuff on your off time."

She squeezed my arm.

"We'll get some muscle on you yet."