The Measure(100)

But still he waited. “I won’t leave García.”

The sound of the engine was approaching even closer now.

The junior PJ whispered, so as not to alarm the doctors, “We’re fucking target practice on the ground, Reynolds.”

“Just give him a chance to get here!” he shouted back.

Then Reynolds remembered something that his commander once told him: For all the damage they had wrought, the true gift of the strings—of every soldier knowing when he would die, and choosing his path accordingly—was that no soldier would ever have to die alone.

If he left now, Reynolds reasoned, abandoning Javi in enemy territory, at least Javi had a long string. At least he would survive.

The loud popping of nearby gunfire cracked through the silence.

“Goddammit Reynolds!” someone shouted.

He couldn’t wait any longer.

“We’ll come back for him,” Reynolds said, for himself more than for anyone else.



From his spot on the ground, Javi heard the unmistakable sound of the helicopter passing overhead, his only shot at salvation flying away.

But it wasn’t salvation. Not really. The chopper would have bought him a few extra hours, perhaps. A chance to send a final message to his parents back home. But he had already ended every phone call to his family, over the past five years, with the same three words that he would have said now. The only words that mattered.

So Javi pressed one last time onto the wound in his chest, the stray bullet burrowed somewhere inside, then lifted his hands to search his rucksack. It took him a minute, but he finally found it. A tattered old prayer card, its corners now smeared with the blood from his fingers.

He gripped it tightly in front of him, the same card that had been passed down from Gertrude to her lover, from Simon to his friend, from Grandpa Cal to his grandson, and from Jack on to him, even when he thought he didn’t want it.

And Javi read aloud the words that all of the card’s owners before him once read. So he wouldn’t die alone.





Jack




The army had been shocked by Javier’s death, believing him to be a long-stringer, and though they remained unaware of Javi’s true actions and intentions, the top brass quickly assumed that some form of deception must have occurred in the days between Javier’s graduation and his ultimate assignment. The strings never lied, but humans sure did.

A few army officials had contacted Mr. and Mrs. García, after delivering their son’s belongings, and asked them not to speak with any members of the press until the military decided how best to proceed.

Javier was not the first short-stringer to die in combat after the STAR Initiative, since many soldiers were ultimately grandfathered in. But Javi’s death was the first to spark suspicion of purposeful fraud. Javier’s parents were given permission to arrange a veteran’s funeral, but their son’s precise function in the army—and, specifically, his clearance for active combat—was not to be discussed in public.

Not long after they received it, Javier’s parents gave Jack a letter, which had been sent to them, unopened, by Captain Reynolds, a friend who had discovered the note in Javi’s bunk.

The first time that Jack tried reading the letter, he couldn’t get past the second line without crying. But he was determined.

Mami y Papi,

I know you’re shocked and heartbroken right now, and I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. But I want you to know, I had to do this.

Five years ago, after the boxes arrived, a close friend and I decided to switch our strings, so I could present myself to the army as a long-stringer and be assigned a more challenging role, on the ground, wherever I was needed most.

I wanted to leave my mark on the world and really help people, the way that you both taught me to put others first. I couldn’t let my short string hold me back.

And it didn’t.

A year ago, I spotted a lost young boy who accidentally wandered into the line of fire, and I pulled him away before anything bad could happen to him. I think about that boy a lot now, with his dark, tangled hair and his skinny arms, like I’m sure mine used to be. Maybe you can think about him, too.

I pray that you will find comfort in knowing that we will see each other again. That I will be waiting for you, someday, alongside the rest of our family. It is that faith—the faith that you gave me—that has kept me strong, all this time.

I hate that I lied—to my country and to my family. But I don’t think of what I did as hiding the truth about myself. I think of it as finding the truth about myself. I’m not just Javi anymore. I’m Captain Javier García of the U.S. Army, and I hope that I have made you proud.

Los amo mucho,

Javi



Javier’s parents assumed that Jack was the close friend mentioned, and so Jack told them the truth, or at least part of it. He didn’t mention his own motivations for the switch, or the fact that he was actually the one to suggest it. He didn’t want to muddle the story of the switch as Javi had written it for them.

But Javi’s parents didn’t know what to do with the letter now. They hardly knew what to do with themselves, they were so gutted and depleted by grief. And they feared what might happen if anyone else were to read Javier’s written confession. Yet, in concealing the truth about Javi’s death, Jack knew that the army leaders were merely buying time for President Rollins. His uncle was in the middle of his reelection campaign, and nobody wanted word to get out that a young Latino short-stringer had intentionally conned the U.S. Army and evaded one of the cornerstone policies of the administration. Jack was worried that his friend’s life, his greatest sacrifice, would be covered up, erased in order to preserve his uncle’s fragile reputation. And Jack couldn’t let that happen—no matter what consequences he might face if the truth were to come out.