Kien-k’ang • Potential recruits at the annual Naval Technology Exhibition will be granted a year-long coupon for free meals at the Marines HQ on 7 Crystal Park, if they can guess the number of FACs (guided missile boats) now commissioned correctly.
The penalty? The loser must wear the marine corps’s uniform for 30 days, without taking it off, even in bed or a bath. They must wear it wherever they do or go, and the Marines spokesperson threatened that, as a force with “very sophisticated intelligence apparatus”, they “have ways to detect non-compliance”. Luckily, any loser has an immediate ticket out of this very unpleasant predicament if they join up, with the Marines of course.
“The deal is simple,” Colonel Pit, commander of the Qrut Empress Engineers said. “If you win, you get to be the special person when you walk about in the headquarters, and you can do it for an entire year, plus a spot at the top table and twelve-course meals, the lot. But if you lose, you would be a walking billboard for us for 30 days.”
“How is wearing your uniform for 30 days going to help your recruitment campaign?” Andrew Krat, our reporter, asked.
“Well, it’s all about starting conversations, to force people to talk about us,” Pit replied. “In the first place, anyone you know would ask what befell you. Second, because we don’t shop in uniform, we expect people would speak of you as a noob. Third, at the end of it all, we anticipate people will start speak of your hygiene or the wrinkles on your clothes, because we’d bet our private money you wouldn’t iron something over your skin.”
“What motivated you to pursue this strategy, which you have not attempted before?”
“The Coast Guard,” Pit replied, “always has dozens of its members parading its uniforms at its recruitment events, and that seems to have a wonderful visual effect. We stole a leaf out of their book but made it better: we get losers of this bet to parade our uniforms, because marines have actual jobs to do.”
At the start of the day, bettors were called to write their names onto a Styrofoam ball which is then dropped into a chest. At the relevant segment, bettors were drawn and asked to shout their answer to the audience. The event drew a crowd of no small size, though evidently most bettors were quite young and indeed to be dissuaded from entering multiple times.
Ilmari Krem, aged 20 and described as an “avid modeller of the Themiclesian fleet”, confidently declared the answer to be 32. Unfortunately, he was equally confidently forced to give up his clothes and leave the place in a uniform.
In a fit of amazement, Krem lost his temper and profanely ejaculated at the hosts, declaring that he “could not possibly be wrong” as he “had a model for each of the 32.” However, Colonel Pit set him straight in the most civil manner:
“Listen, boy, when the Marines tell you the fleet does not have 32 FFGs, you better consign yourself to believing it however many your silly models are. In fact, I’ve stood on the decks of all [gasp]… all of them.”
Charles Merrell, aged 17, proffered the number of 33, but he was slapped with the uniform likewise. He, too, gave protestations, that he was a student at a private preparatory school and was not at liberty to wear the uniform at school.
“Too bad,” Pit blurted. “You made the bet. Wet your bed.”
Patricia Ren, aged 24, having introduced herself as a student of international relations at the Army Academy, gave her estimate as 31.
“Well,” Pit sighed, “it’s never the same considering where you’re educated, isn’t it?”
“Am I right?” She asked, cocking her head.
“Most certainly not,” he spouted as his resurrected energy brimmed, “and I can already hear the snide remarks the professors with smells under their noses will make of you. My dear young woman, I wish you the best of luck when you’re at Bri Hall, and I speak from personal experience as I absolutely detest that school.”
“Are you an alumnus?” She asked.
“Most reluctantly,” Pit replied.
“The traitor Colonel Pit’s name has not been forgotten, according to my information,” she rejoined.
“I profess my views with belly-full pride,” he exclaimed as the assistant turned up with a man’s uniform.
She looked at them and asked for a woman’s set, but the colonel eagerly cut her off and asked who did she think she was. His arrogance, though, was short-lived, as Ren’s loudly cleared throat silenced further slights sounding forth out of his mouth.
“Yes, of course,” he relented.
Lastly, the 18-year-old Marcus Pyer ascended the scaffolding and calmly said the fleet had 290,000,000,000,000 [sic] FFGs. Pit asked if this was his “final answer”, to which he assented by a deep nod.
“I’m afraid it isn’t the shiny meal coupon waiting for you then,” he said with an irrepressible smirk.
“Do I really have to?” He asked timidly.
“Yes,” Pit hissed with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know what came over you to make the bet. But, come to think of it, I do rather think your intention was something other than the meal coupon…”
He watched as Pyer walked into a curtained cubiculum, out of sight, to put on the uniform.
“You really do like the uniform over the year of free meals, don’t you?” Pit circled the stationary youngster who just emerged with his hands clasped behind his back. “Well go on then, put the hat on. I like its look on you. After the month elapses, call us, and hopefully we can put it on your back permanently.”
“Huh, you only have the enlisted cap?” Pyer said after tilting it and reshaping it on his head, after the latest regimental fashion.
“You want a bicorne instead? We don’t have any prepared, but you know what,” he fished his hat off his head, “since you know what you want, I’ll give mine to you. It isn’t new, but at least for the next 30 days it might look slightly better.”
“I… I appreciate it,” Pyer replied, fingering the bicorne’s fine stitch work before lifting it and carrying it under his right arm. “I do.”
“I’ve been at this job for nine years, young man,” Pit said with a hand on Pyer’s shoulder, “and I have not seen a mind as resolute as yours. You know what you want, and you’re stopping at nothing to get it.”
“Mwahahahah, sucks to be you, I guess,” Pyer suddenly let out a burst of laughter.
“Eh?” Pit yelped.
“That guy in the green blazer there,” Pyer gestured, “my cousin, Mr. Nathan Ryi, lieutenant in the 15th Regiment.”
The indicated person lifted his hat and nodded towards the stage.
“He’s promised to pay me $1,000 for a full set of marine corps uniforms that costs him $4,000 at the tailor. We were worried you wouldn’t have an officer’s bicorne, but I guess I managed to obtain it too. So, all in all, in keeping with my end of the bargain, these items will become his in 30 days time. I’ll keep the cap for myself, though.”
“What! No!” Pit clamoured with his fists in the air. “That uniform… that uniform is for people that are not already marines! It is given out to find new marines, not for the benefit of existing ones! You… you… how could you?”
“Well, I guess, it sucks to be you then.”
This agency is informed that Colonel Pit spoke to his colleagues after the event, still insistent on recruiting Pyer.