My weapon is love. Okay, fine. It's actually the Halex G-22 Pathovoltaic Squad Rifle. There. You got me. Still, what I said is true -- my weapon is love. That's what they teach you in Basic, after they give you your first round of resonators and point you down range: you are doing this out of love.

You love the fish in the sea, right? You want them to survive without climate change boiling us all, the way it would if we'd had to fight another war with fossil fuels and AI and robotics? Pull the trigger. Do it out of love. Love that you can love something so much as to fight for it.

You are fighting for pure goodness, soldier.

And then you pull the trigger and with a surge of power rushing through you, you cleave the human target in half. Fuckin' hell. It was such a rush the first time that I wanted to be deployed to the front lines right then and there. I'd heard of the trenches. The blood and muck. I'd even heard the other folks were fighting with their own (albeit inferior) pathovoltaic weapons. It didn't matter.

I knew I was good enough to fight. I just didn't know how good until later. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Sorry, I have a bad habit of jumping into things and not really telling you the particulars. Yes, you, reader. Yeah. I know I'm not exactly "real". It's okay. I've been assured by my creator that the narrative distance breaking the fourth wall imposes will help keep you safe from any excessive emotions.

I don't know you, but I do want you safe. That's why I'm doing this! My mom, before the Front swept into town and executed her, she said I had an "overactive sense of compassion". Can't quite seem to turn the thing down...or off, for that matter. When The Vex opened up recruitment, I guess I scored pretty high on their tests. They ushered me off into a room before I could even say anything, then I was on a tram to a nearby training facility.

That whole scene, with Instructor Tannenbaum talking about fish? That was about ten minutes ago. Sorry. We're almost caught up and then I promise I'll stop talking about things that don't matter and get to what you all are reading for. Sorry.

"Private Cooke."

Shoot, there I go again. Sorry. Distractable as always. My name's Penn Cooke. Private Penn Cooke, 8th Empath Corps. I'm gonna save the world, I hope.

We're caught up, by the way. No more distractions. Just present time. The person who addressed me is none other than Instructor Tannenbaum. She's a tall woman, towering over my 5'10" frame by at least six inches. If she weren't teaching me how to fight for the beauty of this world, she would be a runway model or a famous actress. She's all "leading lady" grace, slender and tawny skinned with high cheekbones and a button nose. You could cut things on her jawline. In the wake of that first shot, I've thrown open my vulnerability and I'm enamored.

"Sir?" I say, trying to not let the adrenaline or the emotions I'm feeling make my voice quaver.

"How did that feel, Private?"

"It felt good, sir!"

"No, no. That won't do. 'Good' is a filler word. In fact," she turns to address the rest of us grunts, "remove that word from your vocabulary. Same with 'fine' and 'okay'. They mean nothing and will only stop you from being your truest, most empathetic selves out in the field."

She turns back to me, her honey-brown eyes pinning me to the spot. I could get lost in them. "So, Private...how do you feel?"

"I...um...it felt...um...goo--"

I only register the aftermath of the slap from the way my head jerks to the side. Tannenbaum grasps my still stinging face and turns it back to face me.

"I'm really very sorry for striking you, but I need you to understand that not being truthful about your feelings like that will only bring you pain. This pain - the pain you're feeling, the pain I've given you - is but a soupçon of what pain The Front will inflict on you." Her words drip with endless sincerity. I'm having trouble holding her stare. My eyes keep dipping to her full lips, shining from where she licks them, before darting back up. "So tell me, again, Private: how do you feel?"

"I...I feel..." I want to name this feeling even as I'm ashamed of it. I know the way my body's reacting already to it is something that I shouldn't want. Ever since I started getting them at thirteen I've never felt good about getting hard. And here, in a place where I'm the only guy amongst a group of soldiers who want to give their lives...? I feel awful, even as I want nothing more than to have her slender hands wrap about my cock and make me cum.

Tannenbaum's eyes drop down low. I don't follow her gaze because I see the way her lips - god, those full, luscious lips - curve into a wicked smile. It's both genuine arousal and pity and it makes me burn even hotter at the sight of it.

"I see," Tannenbaum says, turning to the rest of the recruits. All of them are women my age - some no more than eighteen, a few I suspect are maybe in their mid 20s. "Private Cooke here is aroused," she says. There's a tittering of laughter from the recruits before Tannenbaum slices a line through the air with her other hand.

She holds up a single finger. "That will get you and your fellow soldiers killed. Judgment has no place here. Which of you laughed? Answer honestly."

Of the forty gathered here at the firing range of Fort Harlequin, two dozen recruits raise their hands. Tannenbaum scowls. "Thank you for your honesty. I'd have known anyway. You're all dismissed. You'll find work in the Iron Corps, I'm sure."

There's a mix of grumbles and disappointed jeers as the group whittles down to less than half its starting strength. "I'm very sorry, Private Cooke, that you had to witness that display and that I had to use you for such purposes," she says to me. Then she addresses the fifteen recruits remaining: "Let this be the first lesson -- you are not here because you can laugh and detach yourselves from what's going on in the world. You signed up for this because you can love."

I swallow hard, feeling the way the empathic resonators coursing through my blood make me fall deeper and deeper for this woman who's defending me. She wants me to be the best and I can't help but want to deliver for her. Tannenbaum turns back to face me and my heart goes ballistic at the attention I'm receiving. She gestures towards another target downrange.

"Aim down range, please, Private Cooke."

"Sir, yes sir!"

I shoulder my rifle and aim down the sight. Then I feel Tannenbaum press herself against me. Her arms wrap around my waist, sending shivers through my body. "S-Sir?"

"Keep your eyes on the targets," she coos, breath warm against the shell of my ear.

One pops up down range, about 10 meters away. I pull the trigger and the rifle blares to life in a radiant display of heat and triumphant sound -- like a guitar string snapping, but pitched down semitones until only the barest bass thrum pushes through the muggy July air.

"Don't you wish you were fucking me right now?" She says, her hands sliding down my waist to my hips and even lower yet. Fuck. I don't want to be a creep or a pervert, but my head's spinning from the lust I'm feeling.

"Because I wish you were fucking me right now," she says. It's a taunt as much as the truth. "How do you feel?"

"A-Aroused," I say, trying to keep it clinical.

My rifle slices the target in twain.

"Good job, Private."

Through the thin fabrics we're both wearing, I feel the way her nipples hard. She's getting turned on by this, too, and now my breathing's coming in ragged, uneven bursts. God, the resonators. They're making me pick up on how turned on she is.

Another target, 7 meters out. It barely has time to pop upright before I decapitate it.

"You're doing excellent, Penn." She lets out a ragged groan into my ear. Then my fly's unzipped and she's pumping me.

"I-Instructor..."

"Shhh, keep going. Do it for love."

Love. God, I love-- I think I love Her. I can feel it reflected back at me, too. Two targets pop up - 8 and 11 meters away - and I take them out with clean, quick squeezes of the trigger. A group of targets pop out across the range. Six of them. Each time I fire, I feel the love I'm feeling pulled into the pathovoltaic converters. It snaps back after the pull, like a wave...or a stroke.

Stroke.

Stroke.

Stroke.

Stroke.

Stroke.

Stroke.

I'm so close now. Panting and truly needy for release. The way Tannenbaum squirms against me, She's pretty turned on herself. Fuck. God. I'd do anything to anyone to know how good it's gonna feel when I cum. Tannenbaum relaxes into me even more as the violent, selfish, greedy feeling settles in me.

"Do you get it now, Private?"

And yes. Yes, I do.

I barely register the target 25 meters away. I don't think about it. I just do it. I'm in the moment. I cum harder as I ever have, seed splattering across the metal half-height wall of the range's firing stall.

"Good girl."

I'm so gone I don't even register that She misgendered me for a moment. When I finally do, I don't even feel like it's bad with the way she loves me for being a girl. Instead I feel...good. No, not good. That's a filler word and She wouldn't be happy I'm using. I feel ecstatic. I feel energized. Euphoric, even, that she'd think I'm as good as these women around me. The Empath Corps tend to be mostly women, so that's why I must feel happy about it. I'm just contented that I finally fit. I'm not "too sensitive" or "overly emotional". I fit. This place is good. No, this place is salvation for someone as lost as I am. I will do everything that Instructor Tannenbaum says.

Gasping for air, I slump against my own excretions. I can't bother to feel shame, especially when the resonators pick up nothing but the beaming pride of Hers. She's taught me well and I feel...sated. Joyful and buzzing. I'm light as a feather even as I tumble to the ground.

* * *

When I wake up in the infirmary, She's there with me again...but I feel colder. I don't feel the bond we had. It's gone.

"Instructor, I..."

I try to figure out what She's feeling, but - without the resonator heightening everything - She's a brick wall. She is composed and sphinx-like as She stares down at me. There's not anger in Her eyes, nor is there joy. There's simply...nothing.

"I'm sorry..." I say, feeling shame bore into me. God, how could I have done that?

"For what?" Tannenbaum asks, Her brow furrowing. The confusion seems genuine.

"Oh, um...for...uh..."

"Private Cooke, I'm the one who made you cum." She says the words so matter-of-fact that I have to replay them a few times to make sure She uttered them.

"Um, yeah, but I...I was, um...heh, I was really into it in a w-way that maybe isn't..."

"Isn't what?"

"Well, we're supposed to be fighting a war."

"There are many ways to fight a war, Private. There are precious few ways to win a war...and see that on the other side of it, peace will prevail."

"So, you don't...?"

Instructor Tannenbaum moves closer. "Do I regret that you aced your first time handling a piece of equipment that normally requires months of training to use? No."

"It does...? But it felt so...natural?"

"For a select few, yes. You're one of them. I gave you the barest hint of feeling and you, my dear Private, responded so well. Preternaturally gifted."

She leans down and I get a clear look down her blouse. She's not wearing a bra now, either, and I see Her small, pert breasts in all their glory. Instructor Tannenbaum gives my head a chaste kiss. I'm intoxicated by it and my mind floods with all the dirty thoughts I had about Her.

"Rest well, my lucky Penny." When she leaves a moment later, I lay awake, wanting to touch myself but feeling wrong about doing it in the infirmary. Eventually, sleep takes me and I dream of her. I dream of the firing range. I dream of fucking her even as the targets become other humans. The beauty of her next to the way I bisect a young man, watching his guts slop onto the muddy ground of No Man's Land.

I love even him. I love that he'll die and that he had a wonderful and complete life. I love it because my weapon is love.