Henry Donovan watched, hands resting on the surface of the bar's polished surface of smooth California redwood, as the MPs walked into his establishment.
It wasn't a surprise. He'd known that this was coming for nearly a day now. It wasn't his job to have an opinion about these kinds of things, but, well… it was hard not to have an opinion, these days.
The rest of the bar was closed down. No customers allowed. The side entrances were sealed up, even his back-door out into the rest of the base, and there was only one way in, and one way out. Security reasons, so the MPs said.
Security reasons. Because someone escaping out a side-door was a genuine, real concern. Sure.
What a load of crap, Donovan thought to himself, frowning slightly, as the children walked into the bar.Self-important bastards.
He looked on as the MPs escorted more and more kids into the large room that served as the off-duty bar for the UNSC's elite operators at the FLEETCOM Military Complex. They were twelve years old, maybe thirteen, if Donovan wasn't seeing things. Dozens of them, seventy or so in total, each wearing a UNSC jumpsuit with no name tags, just numbers. Benches started filling up, six to a table.
After they'd escorted the last of the kids into the room, the MPs retreated, pulling back and setting up in front of the entrance, as if penning the children in.
Donovan wanted to stand there for a few more minutes, just staring at the MPs with an unimpressed look… but that wouldn't do anything, would it? It wouldn't make him feel better, or make the MPs any more willing to take the kids away, or make the kids any less hungry.
Still, now he had to feed seventy-five children all by his lonesome.
Food had already arrived in stainless steel trays from one of the major cafeterias. It was laid out in rows on the closest set of tables, which had been pushed together to form one big buffet line. Serving spoons were laid out, the warmers were active, trays and cutlery were prepared in long stacks, and drink coolers were available with disposable cups.
Everything was prepared to feed the children.
There was only one small problem: manpower.
Henry Donovan was the only 'employee' of the bar, for a variety of reasons. Aside from the current occupants, entry was normally restricted to the best of the UNSC's spec ops, and not many of those operators wanted to live on a military base when they finally retired.
Most of the time, there were so few customers that Henry could handle it all himself. In the rare times that he couldn't, then the men and women of the UNSC's best would simply walk behind the bar and serve themselves. If you couldn't trust these guys not to steal from the bar, then how could you trust them to guard your back in the field?
He wasn't going to stand there and try to serve each of them individually. There were far too many trays for that, and even if there wasn't, this food wasn't fancy enough for that level of service. Runny scrambled eggs, pork-sausage, thin strips of bacon, a mush of diced breakfast potatoes, oatmeal in large tureens, compressed bagels and bread – all in all, it was the same bog-standard, crappy breakfast that any UNSC soldier would be familiar with.
Well, one way or another, the food would be served. A bad situation like this was no excuse for letting kids go hungry.
Donovan waited until the last kid sat down before he walked out from behind his bar, and stood in front of them. He wanted to fold his arms, but restrained the urge. The children all turned at his approach, dozens of faces staring at him with identical expressions of polite patience.
"Breakfast is on the buffet table," he said, keeping his words firm but civil. "You will serve yourselves. If you make a mess, you will be cleaning it up, not me. When you're done, clean your tables, dump your trash, and bag the bins."
A hand shot up in the ranks. A girl with short black hair cut in a sporty style, sitting in the middle of a bench between a taller boy and a girl with blood-red hair.
"What?" Donovan asked her, a little uneasy but refusing to show it.
"There's coffee there," the girl said, pointing to the portable drink coolers. "Are we allowed to have that?"
Donovan didn't have a clue if they were or weren't. He'd been told absolutely nothing about this situation, save that his bar was going to be used as a secure dining environment for a classified, Eyes-Only group, and that he was to remain absolutely silent about everything he saw for the next several days.
ONI, in the depths of their paranoia, hadn't even been willing to give him advance notice that he was going to be playing host to a bunch of children. They probably thought there was too much 'risk' in it… but somehow, not enough for them to find another venue to eat at.
Discretion was probably the better part of valor here. He didn't know what kind of rules these kids lived under, and there was no way to determine them.
"I don't know," Donovan replied after a moment. "Are you?"
The girl lowered her arm, and looked at him with the same blank, patient expression. Donovan matched her expression, and after a few seconds, she looked away, slumping slightly.
He waited a few moments, looking around for any more questions. None came, but he was steadily growing more and more irritated with this entire situation. Thirty years of service, and ten more running this bar after he took over from Gordy Smith after he finally retired back to whatever Colony he was from.
"Alright, go get your food," Donovan said.
The moment the words left his mouth, he winced, realizing that he'd screwed up. Any moment now, there would be a stampede of pre-teens racing for the food.
Why, oh why, had he let his impatience get the better of him?
Donovan braced, legs tensing, as he waited for the kids to launch themselves out of their seats and charge to the buffet, knocking him over.
But nothing of the sort happened. At one of the tables, a young boy stood up, standing on the bench, and let out a quick attention-grabbing whistle.
"Cadets, by sections!" the boy called out. "Jerome, your section first. Kurt, your section will go second. My section will be last."
Kids stood up at four of the tables, but no more than that. The rest stayed put.
Donovan was surprised, not just by how one of the kids had jumped up to give structure to Donovan's own lack of details, but how the rest of the kids seemed content with the decision. There was no grumbling, no backtalk.
Those picked to go first lined up on the left side of the buffet without jockeying for position, forming a neat queue. They grabbed a full set of cutlery, even the spoons, and started quietly shuffling down the lined up tables, doling out small portions to themselves.
He made his way back to the bar, and took up position behind it. Since he hadn't been expecting Beta-5 to drop off pre-teens, he hadn't bothered changing anything about the place other than securing the side-doors – which meant there was still a couple hundred bottles of booze racked and shelved behind the bar, and kegs of beer on tap. No matter what this crazy mess was, he wasn't going to start handing out liquor to kids.
The first section finished going through the line, and without any need for prompting, the second section stood up to rotate through. After that, the third section. Not a single kid cut in line, or complained about the standard-issue food.
Hell, the biggest issue was when trays starting running out of food, and without even bothering Henry himself, the kids checked under the tables for more, pulled them up and replaced them. They sealed up the empties and re-stacked them underneath. No prompting, no loud clangs or clatters as they dropped them… nothing.
It was eerie in some ways. Like he was looking at adults who had been shrunk down into tiny little bodies, rather than actually being children.
When the kids finished eating, they emptied the crumbs off their plates into the trash cans individually.
Then, to Donovan's astonishment, they split into little four-man teams, and started cleaning everything they'd ever touched in the bar. One team covered each table, wiping it down with cleaning sprays and dish towels – which hadn't even been intended for that, they'd just been stashed under the buffet table for him to use once they left.
Another three teams cleaned up the buffet tables, making stacks of all the empty trays and making sure the remaining food was clearly marked with little yellow sticky-notes that identified the contents, before wiping the tables down as well.
Two more teams went scampering around the bar, searching for something, checking under the tables and around blindspots. Whatever it was, they couldn't find it.
"Excuse me, sir?" one of the pre-teens asked, approaching cautiously. "Where are the brooms and mops?"
Donovan stared at her for a moment. He was starting to wonder if this whole thing was a psychological experiment of some kind, if ONI was trying to see how far they could push his sense of the normal before he started objecting.
"We don't keep those in the bar," he said, after a moment. "Don't worry about that. It'll be cleaned later."
"Understood sir," the girl replied.
She straightened up as if to salute, but perhaps noticing that Donovan wasn't wearing any rank tabs, she just nodded stiffly instead, clicking her heels together as she did like she was imitating some old 20th century movie.
The MP's were stirring by the door. One was checking his helmet's radio like a complete amateur, putting his hand up to his full-face helmet as if he was trying to tell everyone in eyeshot that he was getting a call. The others were turning, walking towards the children.
By the time the MP's walked the short distance to the tables, the children had formed up into lines, exactly like they'd entered.
Donovan watched, eyes narrowing, as the lead member of B5(S) detachment hesitated, visibly, at the sight of the children in their formation.
Who's running that outfit, these days? He thought to himself, disgustedly. You brought the kids in, chucklenuts. You shouldn't be any more weirded out by this than I am. Get some professionalism or get out of the service, before you screw the rest of us over. Frigging MP's. I don't care if they say they're the same as us, they don't belong in my bar.
The damn children had more composure than these Beta-5 schmucks.
Donovan normally spent about twelve hours in the bar every day. He opened it up at noon, and he closed it at midnight.
That wasn't good enough for ONI's MPs, apparently. They needed these kids fed three meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
So now, he opened the bar at 0700 for runny eggs and hashbrowns, then at 1200 for chicken stir-fry and fruit cups, and at 1800 for Salisbury steak and rice pilaf and maybe a pudding cup, if the kids were lucky that day.
Each meal, the kids ate promptly, cleaned up after themselves, and did their best to stay out of his way. They rotated which section ate first, second, and third, and they didn't say any more names in the process, so Donovan was left with only the three that he'd heard. After they were done, the MP's collected the kids, and marched them out of his bar.
He still didn't know what the hell ONI needed with the kids, and he didn't need to know.
Whatever it was, it had been grinding onwards for three days.
At least the kids are decent, Donovan thought to himself.
It was lunch at the moment. The kids were dining on burgers, today, cheap little skinny things that didn't belong on a proper grill, matched with some coleslaw and pasta salad.
Everything was normal… except, as Donovan looked over the tables, he saw some of the kids talking in low whispers, sending furtive looks at each other when they thought nobody could see them.
The MP's weren't watching. They'd remained vigilant for the first two days, but at breakfast of this third day, they'd started guarding the door only, and the clinking of cutlery was more than enough to cover the sound of the whispers.
Donovan himself only saw them talking because it was a habit that he couldn't shake. He always scanned the bar, always watched the drinkers.
There weren't many rules in the bar with no name, but the most important one was that nobody talked about work. You talked about your kids back home, or your school days, or books or games or movies or things unrelated to work. Nothing classified. No mission stories. No names of dead men, on your side or theirs. No bitching about superior officers. No conspiring.
He noted, idly, that the MPs had slipped up and become lazy first, before the children.
Even now, a full meal later, the kids were doing very well about hiding their quiet discussion. They'd waited until the B5(S) detachment had grown confident, lulling them into a false sense of security. They'd been careful to keep their chatter quiet enough that it would be nigh-impossible to hear over the sound of eating. They'd even tried to keep their faces normal, tried to act natural – and done well enough at it that Donovan hadn't noticed until halfway through the meal.
Regardless, this was not acceptable.
Donovan stepped out from behind the bar, and walked quickly towards that table. As he approached, he could hear the children's words, and just as he'd suspected from their behavior, they were talking about something they shouldn't have been.
"…what's next, they complain about how many paperclips she's using?" said one of the kids, a boy with sandy brown hair.
"Maybe that we're not allowed to cross-train with outsiders again," replied a mousy-looking girl, twirling her butter knife around her fingers with a fluid grace.
"It's a load of crap," complained a third, a black boy with a neat buzz-cut. "They just hate the Doctor because she's better than them. Jealousy. Envy. One of those two, whichever it is."
"Both," whispered a fourth kid, barely audible as Donovan got closer.
One of them spotted his approach, and made a tiny hand-sign with curling fingers. The kids shut up at the sight of it, as if on cue.
Donovan stepped up to the side of the table, folded his arms, and looked down at the six faces looking up at him with blank, faux-innocent expressions.
None of them made the mistake of speaking, and acting like they were just harmlessly chatting. They didn't make any moves, just stared at him with wide eyes and open expressions, as if wondering why he had intruded. It simultaneously a good poker face, and a terrible one – they were obviously caught, but they weren't giving anything else away.
And beyond this table, all the others were falling quiet as more and more faces turned to look at him. In just a few seconds, all seventy-five children were as silent as the grave, staring at Henry Donovan, waiting for his next move.
"You're new here," Donovan said slowly, meeting their gazes steadily as he recited the same words that he'd said to so many black ops soldiers. "You probably don't know the rules of this bar. This is your only warning: don't talk business in my bar."
One of the kids opened his mouth, and Donovan raised a hand, palm flat, stopping him from speaking.
"I don't care what you're talking about, or why," he continued, staring at the boy who'd been about to argue. "Everyone in this bar, regardless of who they are, is on a need-to-know basis for everything they ever do."
Some of them shifted slightly. Nobody looked away from him, but their heads turned to the sides, as if to remind Donovan that there was nobody else in the bar – just them, and that they were presumably all on the same page.
"That includes me," Donovan reminded them, pointing a thumb at his own chest. "Think about how much you should be talking in front of a complete stranger like me. I don't care if every single one of you has the relevant classification. You should assume that I don't, and that this bar is not secure."
At last, a lightbulb went off behind the eyes of the troublemakers, and one by one, they hesitantly nodded.
Donovan stood there for a few more moments making sure that they'd received the message, before he walked back to his bar and took up watch again, to make sure that none of the brats tried stealing a drink.
On the morning of the fourth day, the children were brought in for breakfast like normal. They ate, they cleaned, and they prepared to leave.
"Not today," one of the MP's said, shaking his head as he guarded the door. "Today, you all stay here. Except for you."
The MP pointed to one face in the crowd, a girl with jaw-length brunette hair in a bob cut.
Murmurs sprang up among the children. Shoulders tightened, feet shuffled closer together, and the entire group shrank inwards by about a meter, bunching up around the girl.
"Guys, guys, it's fine," the girl protested. "Relax."
"Why her, and not us?" one of the boys demanded from the MP, standing his ground at the front of the pack.
"Cadet 016 is required for a debriefing," the MP answered, making the critical mistake of giving any information back at all. "The rest of you are not."
Donovan closed his eyes briefly. That dumb MP was going to get his entire unit attacked if he kept that crap up.
You shouldn't tell them anything, you moron, he thought to himself, finger hovering over the security alert button. You're feeding a hungry animal. It's not your friend.
"Cadets, stand down!" Cadet 016 barked, her voice snapping over the crowd with far too much experience for her age.
The crowd stilled, and after a moment, without sound, they stepped and shifted, creating a clear path between Cadet 016 and the door.
Donovan watched as one of the MPs escorted Cadet 016 away, and then the others shut the door again, sealing it with a code.
The remaining members of the security detail stood in front of the door like sentinels on a wall, hands on the MA5K's hanging from slings on their chestplates. If the kids were lucky, those guns were loaded with riot rounds… but here in the Hive of ONI, two floors underground, it was more likely that they were live bullets.
The children muttered amongst themselves for a minute, milling in front of the door, before one of the section leaders stood up on a table and made an ear-piercing whistle.
"Back to the tables," the boy ordered, his voice firm, but still young, still lacking that crucial element of authority that Cadet 016 had summoned up without any hesitation or inability.
"John-" one of the cadets started to say, before John turned his head towards him, and the cadet shut up.
The crowd was still tense, but they followed their leader's instructions.
A few minutes passed, while the kids kicked their heels and did nothing, and the MP's retreated back to the front door once more.
Looking around, Donovan could see the problem coming from a mile away. There was nothing for them to do in the café. Everything from breakfast had already been put away, there were no books or games or whatever children were used to doing.
Which wasn't to say that his bar was completely empty of entertainment. Pool tables, dart boards, cards, there were plenty of options for soldiers looking to unwind with a good drink.
None of the kids were moving towards those things. None of them were even glancing at the options. None of them seemed to have even noticed that there were things to do, ways to distract themselves from whatever was bothering them. They were just… sitting there, sulking.
If this whole operation wasn't classified to high hell, then Donovan would have stepped up to the MPs and demanded to know what exactly was going on. He'd have asked why, precisely, they'd thought it was a good idea to drop seventy-five perfectly polite and reasonable kids in his bar like it was a daycare or a jail cell. He'd have asked why they thought it was a good idea to provoke the kids before sealing them up in the cage with him.
But there was still something that he could do to help.
John, Jerome, and Kurt, the three section leaders were sitting together at one of the tables. They weren't talking, perhaps remembering Donovan's warning from yesterday.
The trio looked up as Donovan approached their table, holding a pool cue in his hand.
"You boys play pool?" he asked them.
"No, sir," John replied, shaking his head. "We've heard of it, but never had the chance."
Donovan nodded, politely.
He waited a moment, but the boys didn't seem to understand what he was getting at.
"The tables are right there," he said, pointing to the pool tables with one hand.
When the boy looked back at him blankly, Donovan sighed and tossed the cue at him with an underhand.
John caught it instantly, his arm snapping up almost faster than Donovan could track.
Good reflexes, the bartender thought to himself, eyes narrowing slightly. Hand-eye coordination, instinctive grab… interesting.
"The games are free," Donovan told all the kids with a loud voice, rather than drawing attention to John's sudden movement. "Don't hit my walls with the darts, don't tear my cards, and don't bang my pool cues. Now go on, get playing."
Not a one of them moved. They stared back at him like he was an alien.
Then, after a moment of hesitation, John stood up and gave the other children a nod.
"You'll have to tell us the rules," the boy said, his voice firmer than his age suggested it should be.
Donovan rolled his eyes, and gestured for the trio to follow him.
"With four of us, we're playing scotch doubles," he told them. "Since you all haven't played, I'll rack, and I'll break. Watch me, and if you have any questions, just ask."
About two dozen of the other kids followed them over. They stayed back from the pool table itself, so Donovan didn't have to warn them not to get in his way, but it was still eerie, having this many kids watch him.
He placed the balls on the table, plucking and placing until they were in the right order, then made them flush, and removed the triangle rack.
"One of you is on my team," he told the trio of boys. "The other two are on a team. Make up your minds who. If a team sinks a ball, that team keeps going. If they fail to sink a ball, it's the other team's turn. Scotch doubles means that partners alternate shots. Regardless if I sink one or miss, my partner has to play the next shot."
They all nodded, and Donovan made the break shot with the smooth confidence of long experience. Three balls went in, two of stripes and one of solids.
"If I make a shot on the break, I've got the option of taking it," he told them. "In this case, I got two stripes and one solid, so I can choose either. I'm taking stripes. That gives you solids. Now, who's my partner?"
John, Jerome, and Kurt looked at each other. The apparent leader, John, took a step forward – and was nearly immediately grabbed by both Jerome and Kurt, one hand on each shoulder, and dragged backwards.
"Me," Kurt said, taking John's place. "Not a chance, John. Your luck, plus an experience advantage? No."
Donovan smirked, and handed the cue to Kurt. The boy walked around the table. He wasn't that tall, but he was tall enough to play properly. If Donovan had been forced to grab a stool, that might have been one indignity too much.
The pre-teen lined up his shot. It was odd, watching Kurt play. He didn't hesitate with any of his physical movements. Everything was smooth and controlled. Instead, he'd suddenly go still, and stare at the table, his eyes darting from one ball to another as he thought.
Crack! When the cue, and the ball spun off way too hard. The 12-ball went into the corner pocket, but so did the cue ball.
"Scratch," Donovan said, picking the cue ball up from the tray. "A little less force, next time."
Kurt had the grace to look a bit abashed, and he nodded firmly.
"You have the ball-in-hand," Donovan told the other boys, handing it to them and pointing to the two dots that marked the kitchen. "That means you can place it anywhere on the table, so long as it's behind this line, drawn between these two dots."
John took the cue and placed it carefully. He took up his stance, aiming down the cue like it was a rifle, and thrust forward.
The cue ball smacked into the 5-ball, which obligingly went into a middle pocket. Donovan's eyebrows rose; middle pockets were more difficult than corners, especially for beginners.
But the action wasn't done yet – the cue ball ricocheted off to the side, bounced off one of the walls, and struck a cluster of three more balls. Two were from Donovan and Kurt's stripes, and one was from John and Jerome's solids. The balls scattered, and after a few moments of chaos, only a single one was holed: John's solid.
"Oh," John muttered quietly, with a tone of almost revelation as he straightened back up. "This is just physics, isn't it?"
"Yeah, 'just' physics," Jerome grumbled, softly. "Not your luck."
Yet even after saying that, he was staring down at the table with an intense focus. Donovan glanced around, and saw that nearly all the children were doing the same. It was like the pool table was surrounded by hungry sharks smelling blood.
Some kind of advanced entry program? Donovan wondered to himself, before frowning slightly. No, that can't be right. If they were early admittance kids, they wouldn't be this disciplined. Arrogance would be more likely. But these brats act like soldiers, not children.
Jerome took the cue from John, and without pausing, went for a bank shot. It didn't work, but it got surprisingly close, and blocked off one of the corner pockets so well that Kurt and Donovan wouldn't be able to use it without knocking the opponent's ball in.
"You said you haven't played before, was that right?" Donovan asked them, frowning.
"We haven't," Kurt said. "But we learn fast."
Fast indeed. The rest of the game went by much faster than he was expecting. There was only one more scratch, and two missed shots, and there was almost zero slow-down. The kids played fast, clearly thinking about their shots before their turn came up. In the end, Donovan and Kurt won, but it was close – all but one of Jerome and John's balls had been sunk.
"Right, now you know how to play pool," Donovan said, handing the cue over to Kurt.
The crowd of children has dispersed at some point, and descended on the other tables with a bizarre mix of physical eagerness and mental hesitation. There were half a dozen games of pool going on, and the clatter of cues on balls was starting to fill the previously quiet bar.
Donovan accepted the insistent offers of a handshake from John, Jerome, and Kurt, and headed off to check up on the other children.
Card games in the dozens were being played across the bar's wooden tables. Spades, Texas hold'em, five-card draw, hearts, gin rummy, and more.
Clearly, the kids were no strangers to entertaining themselves with cards…
…which meant their previous reluctance hadn't been out of any lack of knowledge, but because of something else. But what? Politeness wouldn't have stopped most kids their age. Fear of punishment, maybe? Extreme isolation? Some kind of abuse?
Damn strange, and he was too far from the action, too removed, to offer any help.
It felt like a cruel joke. Donovan had known when he'd retired that he'd no longer be able to back up the boys in a firefight, but this was a new, more sadistic twist. As if the world was rubbing the helplessness in his face, reminding him that he was so washed up that even here in his own bar, he was powerless.
No, Donovan thought to himself, shaking his head. Maybe I am too old to run a mission, but I can still help these kids.
What was the difference between these kids, and the veterans that came to his bar, looking to unwind and de-stress after a mission?
He couldn't give them liquor, and that was about it.
He could still give them the rest of the 'normal' experience for his bar: the familiarity, the gentle hum of noise, and the warm companionship of the only people who'd understood what you'd been through.
The row of dartboards drew his eye as he walked around, supervising. Each one looked… off. It took a moment for him to realize that the kids didn't know how the point system worked. They were all aiming for the bullseye, every time, and ignoring the points markers.
He shook his head, and moved over to explain.
It took a minute to gather up all the darts players and explain the actual scoring system.
"Why don't you demonstrate?" one of the kids suggested, with an innocent, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth kind of expression.
Donovan glanced at the dart-boards, at the almost perfect pattern of bullseye's filling most of them, and gave the kid a flat look.