by Mich Moore
indifference. Then the ten-centimeters long shrapnel scar on his left forearm began to itch ferociously, and he scratched it until it bled. His good mood was quickly dissipating.
After the itching had subsided, he sank back into the waiting arms of his lounger and closed his eyes. A thousand thoughts paraded back and forth through his mind. He remembered a mental exercise from his Aikido class where you extended your chi from your belly button up and out through your fingertips. He took a deep cleansing breath. He then extended his arms and tried to squeeze out all thoughts but the ones pertaining to personal security and basic life support, down and out of his fingertips and into the air. It worked. His brain settled down. His mind folded into a comforting emptiness. Then an image of a bloodied corpse popped up. He tried to squash it just as a picture of a burning mountain bloomed. The flaming mountain disappeared, and Pete was sitting too close to him while he chopped wood for the fireplace ...
Am I dreaming this?
Damn. The last thing he needed was to daydream about the job.
If a sense of duty was a curse (as he suspected it was), then he came from a long line of accursed men. At least one Palladino male had served in a major conflict in the last one hundred and fifty years. His great-great-grandfather, Arturus Palladino, a penniless immigrant from Sicily who was so grateful to America for his adoption that he would have happily shined the boots of every man in his platoon, had set the bar very high, having lost all of his limbs trying to save the life of his commanding officer during a Jerry ambush outside of Paris during World War I. Arturus Palladino spent the rest of his tortured life as a successful Army recruiter. Eugene Palladino had always considered that to be a marvel of irony. The flesh that this wounded ancestor had left behind on a French battlefield had regenerated itself into a steely spirit back in the States, capable of slaying any unpatriotic obstacle that stood in its path. The man had definitely made a genetic impression.
And so, as a young man without much kinetic ambition, the military seemed like a palatable enough career choice for Eugene. He graduated from West Point near the top of his class with a bachelor's degree in physics. He later saw limited combat in Afghanistan and then in Egypt. The experiences had not shaken him, and so he was enticed to join the Rangers. He had spent most of his time as a training officer in Georgia, drinking beer and chasing women at will. Life had been pretty good. Right up to the second before the Maryland explosion. When he learned of it, he immediately knew that it was not an industrial accident or the work of terrorists. He sensed in his guts the hand of something bigger and more off-the-scale than mere incompetence or political differences. The Los Angeles fire and the unsolved mysterious surrounding that conflagration soon bore him out. The Advance South was definitely scary. But something else was on the earth. And it and not them was now calling the shots. And that knowledge, even without direct evidence, was making him so dreadfully weary of the world. No-shit Armageddon had finally arrived in all of its dreadful glory. And Palladino would not have the luxury of hiding out in a bunker somewhere oiling his shotguns. He would have to do his job at Armageddon's ground zero. In Hell. The panicky thoughts were returning. Palladino inhaled deeply and then exhaled deeply until they petered out. He thought of the patriotic torso that had been Arturo Palladino. His great-great-grandfather had no limbs but saw the future. Eugene Pallidino had all his limbs but had no discernible future. He imagined that both of them had faced the same question: How do I carry out my duties?
He lit an illegal cigarette and took a light drag. Smoking in public was a major no-no, and if caught and brought before the board, he could be removed from his unit on a "Relieved for Standards" indictment. And that meant arrivederci to glory, fame and his fat pension.
His cell phone rang. It was Helen. He thumbed the IGNORE button and continued drinking and tuning out the world. A group of young people pranced into view with a volleyball. They seemed so carefree, as if their country really wasn't dying a stone's throw away. Dying? No, that was wrong. Maybe 'changing' was more apropos. He happily slurped from his can. And not for the better either. He sighed. Once you reached forty, life rarely changed for the better. His father would always say that. That turned out to be the one truth that man ever told. That and his theory that drinking a cold beer while relaxing on the sofa could solve any problem.
His phone rang again. It was Helen again, her third call that day. He growled into the phone, "Dammit, woman. What is it now?"
"Pete chased the neighbor's cat up a tree."
"Jeez!" Palladino exclaimed in irritation. The woman held two master's degrees. For chrissakes, couldn't she handle one backyard critter crisis?
"Oh, the cat got away. But now I can't get Pete to come down."
"Helen, I'm four hundred klicks away. What do you want me to do?"
The phone's lousy connection did little to mask the fatigue in her voice. "He keeps asking for you."
"It's probably a glitch in the comm board." But they both knew better. Peter clung to him like a vine.
She continued. "I've called the technician out at Redstone. They tried an override but it didn't work. You know, they can only do so much if Pete is ignoring them."
Palladino drained his can and then cracked open another one. Pete got on his nerves as much as Helen did. There was always a problem with them. Only alcohol ironed them out well enough for him to deal with them.
"Yeah." A thin shadow zipped across the cool blue lake scape. "I'll call my driver."
"Um, he's already on his way.
"Dammit, woman!"
He banged the phone shut and slipped it into his shorts. His buzz was leaving him. Palladino put a stick of gum in his mouth and chewed. Between Helen's nagging, Pete, and the nightmares that he had been having lately, his stress levels had risen dramatically. The booze seemed to have the most staying power in keeping him from completely going over the edge. He reached into his dwindling supply and picked up another ice-cold can. "One more ought to do the trick." He chugged the beer down without stopping. Soon that soothing warmth fuzzied up his belly and into his frantic brain. "That's better." He threw his head back and let the sun's rays hit him directly in the face.
"Dino."
He looked around. "What?" The beach was empty, except for some children playing way down by the pier.
He flopped his head back again.
"Di-no-pal-la-di-nooo" came the words again but with a whimsical inflection. He had spent his entire childhood hearing that same sing-song taunt from the other kids. He looked around again. Again nothing. Who had driven him today? Had it been Sergeant Tucker? Yeah, maybe. And he could be a prankster, too. Wouldn't be wise to prank your superior officer.
"You must love him." This time the voice was incredibly deep, full of booming bass as if someone had turned up the volume.
Palladino scrambled out of his lounger. Something dark and amorphous fleeted from the corner of his right eye. Then it was gone.
He shouted at the air. "What's going on?" But it did not answer.
It was only two o'clock in the afternoon, but Palladino was already two sheets to the wind. Kiddie birthday parties made him do things like that. All six AIs and four human children were living it up inside the King's Castle party jumper parked in his backyard. Colonel Higgins's wife had flown their four prepubescent grandchildren in a month earlier. They had been given one simple assignment: interact with the AIs as normally as possible without getting killed. Palladino had been impressed: a man rarely put his money (or in this case, his own flesh and blood) where his mouth was. The man was obviously committed to the project, and that boosted morale. So far, so good. The Higgins kids were personable and crackerjack smart and had easily infiltrated the DAT routine. CRI had flown up additional handlers just for the occasion so that the DAT parents could relax some. Two MPs from the Redstone Lab, equipped with portable AI control boxes strapped to their backs, were standing at the entrance of the jumper. They both wore puffy windbreakers to conceal the Smith & Wesson revolvers tucked
away in their shoulder holsters. These men were highly trained security personnel and masters at feigning a lackadaisical air. It was their job to make sure that everyone got along and played nice. The robots had been accidentally exposed to Redstone children before during their trials. In the eight months since, there had been no anomalous behavior from the AIs with a child of any age. However, with the murder of a K-9 soldier and a company feline seared into the Redstone psyche, no one was taking any chances. DAT exposure to anyone under the age of eighteen was severely restricted and supervised by trained handlers. Enhanced e-locks had been installed in all of the DATs, and the engineers had installed additional OFF switches under their tail rudders for emergency power downs should the other controls fail or be low on power. And the robots' gun bays were always emptied and locked when a training mission had been completed. Palladino wasn't worried. He felt that having the MPs there was overkill. And it wasn't just the booze doing the reasoning. He knew machines. He had been raised around them all of his life. They were uncomplaining and tireless workers if treated properly. The AIs were no different. The other parents—Elliot Bosely and Barbara Christ, Mark Clayton and Carole Brainerd, Joe Mackey and Joan Keppler, August Smith and