Hank nodded solemnly. “Nobody seems to care that we all look the same when we’re open on a table.”
The room was quiet for a moment.
“But do you really think it’s fair to compare different strings to different races?” Terrell asked.
“Why not?” Maura said. “We all heard the news. We’ve just been banned from holding the most powerful positions in the country. No short-stringers need apply! It’s like we’re living in a fucking time loop where no one’s learned anything from history! Once people start believing that a certain group is out to get them—that immigrants are stealing their jobs, and gay couples are undermining marriage, and feminists are falsely accusing them of rape—it doesn’t take much to get us to turn on each other.”
“Well, at least plenty of people feel nothing but pity for us,” said Ben. “That should hopefully make them more compassionate.”
“Except it’s not just pity, or compassion,” Hank cut in. “This is different. Ever since that first incident at the hospital. Now anytime there’s violence involving a short-stringer, that sympathy gets more and more diluted with fear. And fear is a far more powerful emotion.”
“But why should they be afraid of us?” Nihal asked. “They have everything, and we have nothing.”
“Nothing to lose,” Hank answered.
He recalled the night of the primary debate, when audience members had applauded Anthony’s callous call to action, and he spent hours scrolling through online discussions asking if discrimination against short-stringers was justified.
“They’re saying that short-stringers can’t be trusted,” he explained. “That we’re too much of a liability, too unpredictable. And of course it’s all bullshit, but Maura’s right. It’s how things have always worked. All we need is one more shooting or bombing or god knows what else, and I don’t even want to think what might happen.”
Nihal’s face was stricken, and Lea looked like she was going to cry.
Carl turned toward Hank. “You know, for a doctor, you’re not very good at delivering bad news.”
“But it’s the truth,” Maura said. “And unless we keep talking about it—and keep getting mad about it—then nothing will ever change.”
“So that means there’s still hope, right?” Lea asked.
“Look, I may not know what it’s like to have a short string,” said Sean. “But I have lived my whole life in this chair, so I do know a thing or two about how it feels when people see you as somehow . . . other. I know that life can sometimes feel like a battle to be recognized for who you are, and not your circumstances. It’s why I signed up to lead this group in the first place. And I’m living proof that one long-stringer in this world can empathize with all of you. So I think that’s at least one reason not to give up hope.”
Javier
When the president debuted the STAR Initiative on national television, Jack Hunter and Javier García—along with every other member of the military—knew instantly that their careers, their lives, had forever changed.
The two friends had graduated from the academy on a sweltering Thursday at the end of May, formally commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army, and the pair moved into the D.C. apartment that Jack’s father had purchased for his occasional trips in from Virginia. The arrival of the strings had been particularly jolting for those in the military. The leaders needed time to regroup. So Jack and Javi and their fellow grads had been granted the summer as a short reprieve before embarking on officer training.
Hoping to enjoy their final season of freedom, they came home each night to cold beers and cold pizza and Madden NFL. They dragged a discarded foosball table from the curb into their living room. And they took turns serving as wingmen at the Georgetown bars on Saturdays.
But then, on a Friday evening in June, the ground shifted underneath them.
“What exactly does this STAR thing mean?” Javi asked.
“I think it means that we have to look,” Jack said. “That we don’t have a choice anymore.”
Before the strings arrived, branch assignments for new lieutenants had been determined based on the graduates’ interests, coupled with the needs of the army. But the world had changed in the past three months. There was new information to consider.
After the president’s announcement that all military positions would require a string disclosure—to be completed in person, by presenting your box to the commanding officer overseeing your geographic region—word quickly spread among Jack and Javi’s former classmates that certain roles, such as those involving active combat in high-risk areas, would no longer be open to short-stringer soldiers. Though it was believed that many of those already deployed would have the chance to be grandfathered in, finishing their service regardless, the newest recruits would be placed according to string length.