Sunbucks Cafe

[Middy]

Glenn walked into the bar at about 0300... not that the time means much to a man whose life is spent jumping from station to station, but be it from lack of sleep or just the natural fatigue associated with the words "o-three hundred hours", he was a bit tired. With about fifteen minutes to go on his Code 7 (that's cop-speak for "meal break" for all you civilian types), Glenn decided a stop at Sunbucks would be a good idea... he had about two hours to go on his patrol and his eyes were beginning to droop.

After getting the barista to fill up his mug (emblazoned with the LPI logo), Glenn sat down at small table to enjoy the last few minutes of his break.

Mid-sip he was interrupted by one of the civilian employees of LPI - a young lad, Jack, who worked in records on Fort Bush, filing the various paperwork officers would bring in after a day's patrol. The boy, barely out of his teens, nervously approached Glenn.

"'scuse me officer, you Mr. Lakewood? You the ex-Marine?"

"Once a Marine always a Marine, bro."

Jack giggled nervously and sat himself down. "I wanted to join the corps, but my parents wouldn't let me."

The older man smiled. "Mine weren't to keen on the idea either. I said to my ma, 'Ma, I'm gonna go enlist myself in the Liberty Marine Corps,' and she turns around and says, 'Glenn you gonna go to that fine school that you and your daddy worked so hard to get yourself into on Manhattan.' So I says to her, 'Yes, ma,' and on my 18th birthday I stole her groundcar and drove myself down to the recruit depot."

He smiled reminiscently. "Never regretted it for a second. Well maybe the first and second days of boot camp." He chuckled again and stood up, and the nervous young man followed suit. Adjusting his belt, Glenn held out his hand to the lad, who took it smiling, and said, "Well son, it was a pleasure meeting you mister..."

"Jack is my name sir!"

"Mister Jack." Downing the remainder of his coffee in a brief swig, Glenn returned to the hangar to finish off his patrol.