Craig stood to his feet and saluted, his back rigid. “Thank you, sir!” He turned on his heels and marched out of the room.
Paine watched him leave. “You’re going to need it,” he whispered under his breath.
4
“WAKE UP,” Craig said, speaking the initiation command as he finished unpacking his MAD bot.
The blue light panels on its shoulders, knees, and hands lit up, and the two blue circles that were meant to mimic human eyes came to life as the electronic hum of the complex fans began, the cooling of the hard drive already underway. The MAD bot stood four and a half feet tall, and its skin was mostly an opaque carbon fiber, interrupted only in the joints by dark blue fiber-optics. “Good morning, Captain Emilson,” the MAD bot spoke in its deceptively human-sounding voice. The voice was male, but it was high pitched enough to suggest juvenility.
“Good morning, Robbie,” Craig replied.
“Robbie the robot?” the driver of the shuttle bus reacted. “Seriously?”
Craig smiled. “It’s easy to remember.”
“What does that thing do, Doc?” the driver asked over his shoulder while observing the robot in his rearview mirror. The New Mexico desert sprawled in all directions toward the horizon, which was a little less yellow than it had been in recent days—a hopeful sign that the last of the fallout from the most recent attacks in California was finally abating.
“Robbie’s a MAD bot, a medical assistance device,” Craig explained over the noise of the bus engine. “He has a built-in tricorder, and he’s programmed to diagnose injuries and illnesses better than a team of board-certified doctors.”
“Does it treat injuries?”
“He can,” Craig replied as he scanned the bot to make sure it was operating properly.
“Holy… so isn’t that an A.I.?” the driver asked, his tone both intrigued and suspicious.
“He’s narrow A.I. Don’t worry. Robbie won’t be taking over the world anytime soon.”
“I’m here to help, sir,” Robbie said to the driver.
“Did that thing just talk to me?” the driver reacted, surprised.
Craig grinned. “He did. Robbie, say hello to Private Lee.”
“Hello, Private Lee,” Robbie said, turning his head to face the driver.
The driver’s eyebrows rose. “Creepy. So, if you don’t mind me asking, Doc, why don’t they just send the robot? I mean, if it’s better than a team of doctors like you say, then why even have medical officers anymore?”
“Maybe someday,” Craig replied. “For the time being, MAD bots are expensive and haven’t had enough field testing to guarantee that they won’t make a serious mistake.”
“Mistake? Like what?”
Craig scratched his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’ve ever made one before, but—you know—just in case.”
“Ah.” The driver nodded. “Gotcha.”
A light suddenly twinkled brilliantly in the distance on the horizon in front of them, backdropped by dark mountains. Craig’s eyes locked on the gleam.
“There it is, Doc,” the driver announced, “Spaceport America.”
5
Craig and Robbie stepped down the ramp of the shuttle bus onto the tarmac of Spaceport America.
A squinting figure strode toward them in the blinding sunshine. The figure rose his arm to salute before adding, “Captain Emilson, sir!”
“At ease,” Craig replied as he saluted in return.
The figure stuck out his hand to shake Craig’s and smiled warmly, his skin wrinkling around his cheerful eyes. “I’m Commander Wilson, the officer in charge of this mission, but you will be the ranking officer, sir.”
“Just call me ‘Doc’ for the duration of the mission, Commander. You’re the OIC here, and I defer to you completely.”
“Thank you, Doc.” Commander Wilson turned to Robbie. “I heard you’d be bringing one of those.”
Robbie saluted. “Commander Wilson, sir!”
Wilson laughed, tilting his head back. “That is something else. Will wonders never cease? Can I actually talk to it?”
Craig nodded. “Treat Robbie like another member of the team, Commander. He understands you and will respond appropriately.”
“Robbie? Ha!” Wilson saluted the MAD bot. “At ease, Robbie.”
Robbie lowered his arm and stood at ease.
“Well, you sure know how to make an entrance, Captain Emilson,” Wilson observed with a smile. He turned toward the hangar. “The rest of the team is already suiting up. Let’s go meet ’em, shall we?”
“Lead the way, Commander.”
As the two men and the MAD bot walked briskly toward the giant hangar, Craig’s eyes scanned the remarkable building. It was sleek, as though it had been designed in a wind tunnel, yet it appeared to have been constructed with a 1950s conception of a UFO in mind, its roof silver and smooth. It was as though it had been built with a rearview mirror—one eye on the future, while keeping the other on the past. There was something about it that made Craig uneasy—as though Spaceport America belonged outside of the bounds of normal time and space.
“Correct me if any of my information is inaccurate, Doc,” the commander began as they walked and talked, “but I understand you’ve completed the twenty-eight-week Special Forces qualification training and an abbreviated special ops combat medic course, in addition to your suspended animation professional development training. Is that right?”
“That’s right, Commander,” Craig replied.
“Ten HALO jumps too?”
“Right.”
“That experience will serve you well, Doc. HALOs are the best training for suborbital jumps, though nothing can really prepare you.”
“How many SOLOs have you done, Commander?”
“That’s classified, Doc. Needless to say, this won’t be the team’s first rodeo. There’s no such thing as a training suborbital jump, though. The logistics and expense—not to mention the fact that the military is trying to keep this tech secret—makes training jumps a luxury we can’t afford. You’re gonna have to pop your cherry the way the rest of us did—on a real mission.”
Craig considered Wilson’s words. He’d had the impression that his addition to the team was haphazard, as though it were highly irregular for a brand new special ops soldier to be participating on such an important mission. He found Wilson’s assertion of the opposite oddly comforting. “It’s actually nice to hear that I’m not the only one to have gone through this.”
Wilson laughed and shook his head. “Nah, Doc, you’re definitely the rookie of the group, but we were all rookies once. Besides, there’s no pressure. I think the addition the brass was really interested in was Robbie back there,” Wilson said, pointing his thumb in the direction of the robot as it walked behind them, a mechanical whir accompanying every step as it remained in Craig’s shadow.
Ironic, Craig suddenly thought. “That’s a good point, Commander,” he said, suddenly feeling far less important.
“I gotta warn ya,” Wilson began to confide, “the team isn’t exactly feeling the love for your robot friend.”
“Why’s that?” Craig asked, his eyebrow cocked inquisitively.
“Don’t get me wrong, Doc. These men are pros all the way, but the addition of a robot that specializes in heavy trauma suspended animation body bags doesn’t exactly fill anybody with confidence.”
“I understand,” Craig replied. “I’ll speak to the team about it.”
“I think they’d appreciate that,” Wilson replied as they entered the shade of the hangar, the temperature immediately dropping to a relieving degree.
Several feet away, in the shadow of WhiteKnight3’s ninety-two-foot wingspan, the three other members of the team came to attention and saluted.
Wilson returned their salute and addressed his team. “SOLO Team Three, this is Captain Emilson. He is our newest and highest-ranking team member!”
“Sir!” the three other members shouted in unison
. Each man had been in the process of putting their SOLO suits on. Craig had never seen a SOLO suit before and was amazed at their intricacy. They were black, though the material had a brilliant sheen. Lining the suit appeared to be some sort of metal exoskeleton, the likes of which Craig had never seen, even during his days training at a DARPA facility with Robbie. The boots were reminiscent of those worn by astronauts on the moon, as were the gloves. He shook himself back into the moment and saluted the team.
“At ease. As I said to the commander, from now on, please don’t salute me. Refer to me simply as ‘Doc.’ I am here to learn from you and support you. I defer to each of you from this point forward.”
The men relaxed, and Wilson took Craig over to meet the team members individually.
“The assistant officer in charge on this mission is Lieutenant Commander Weddell,” Wilson said as he put his hand on the shoulder of a thin, but strong-looking young man.
Weddell appeared to be no older than twenty-five, and his face was fresh, but there was something in his eyes that revealed the confidence of experience. Craig couldn’t help but consider for a moment what a young man such as Weddell would be doing if WWIII hadn’t broken out. Would he be an accountant? A lawyer? A school teacher?
“It’s good to meet you, Doc,” Weddell said with a smile as he shook Craig’s hand.
“Likewise,” Craig replied, returning the smile.
Wilson turned to the other two members of the team. “These are Lieutenants Klein and Cheng.”
Craig shook the hands of both men, each of whom looked equally as unassuming as Wilson and Weddell. He felt he could just as easily have been walking into a PTA or neighborhood watch meeting. He’d expected giant, muscle-bound men, but instead he was meeting a group of highly trained, highly specialized regular Joes.
Klein’s and Cheng’s eyes fell on Robbie, each man sharing identical expressions of tentativeness.
“Listen, fellas,” Craig began to address the team, “the robot is here as an insurance policy, that’s all. His presence doesn’t reflect on the Joint Chiefs’ evaluation of your chances of coming back alive.”
“With all due respect,” Klein replied, “how do you know that? I mean, we’ve all been through this crap before, but we’ve never had our own personal robotic undertaker along for the ride.”
Craig’s spine stiffened with surprise at Klein’s morbid analogy. He smiled and shook his head. “Nah, it’s not like that, Lieutenant. Look. This is brand new technology. The only reason these robots aren’t included on every mission is because they just came online. When I started my training with Robbie here,” Craig continued, gesturing toward the robot, “it was still in the testing phase. He’s here because you guys are VIPs, not R.I.P.s, okay?”
Klein nodded. “Yeah, understood, Doc.,” he replied. “It’s all good.”
Craig felt he could detect dubiousness in Klein’s tone, hidden deep beneath the highly trained professionalism.
“I understand you haven’t been briefed on this mission yet, Doc,” Wilson stated.
“That’s right,” Craig replied, his eyes on the extraordinarily advanced gear that the team members were assembling. “Everything’s top secret. I got a one-page order to join your team for the mission. I don’t know anything else about it.”
Wilson put his hand on Craig’s shoulder and walked him a few paces away from the team as he lowered his voice. “I’ve got orders to brief you en route, Doc. And let me just say that when you hear the details, I don’t think you’re gonna be so confident about the whole R.I.P. thing.”
6
SpaceShip3 wobbled slightly in the turbulence as the 148-foot wingspan of WhiteKnight3 endured the stresses on its carbon composite wing. WhiteKnight3 appeared delicate from afar, but its carbon composite was three times the strength of steel, and the frame made it capable of not only nestling SpaceShip3 underneath it, but also executing six-g turns. As SpaceShip3 made the journey up to the 50,000-foot detachment point, there was an air of quiet contemplation amongst the crew.
Commander Wilson broke it as a computer-generated map of the Earth, complete with WhiteKnight3’s current position and its trajectory, flashed onto the front screen. “Doc, when we reach 50,000-feet, SpaceShip3 will detach, and we’ll start dropping in a hurry.” He grinned. “It’s a hell of a rush. There’s even more of a rush afterward. The hybrid rocket will kick in, and, in a matter of seconds, we’ll accelerate to 4,000 kilometers per hour. You’re gonna love it.”
Craig smiled broadly, the notion that he was on a spaceship finally beginning to sink in. Millionaires had been able to travel into space in the years before the war broke out, but regular people like him could only dream of such an experience. As serious as the moment was, the idea of traveling into space temporarily made the danger disappear from his mind.
“The distance from New Mexico to Shenzhen,” Wilson continued, “is approximately 12,300 kilometers, so even at three times the speed of sound, the flight’s still gonna take us three hours—plenty of time for me to brief you on the mission.”
“Sounds good, Commander,” Craig replied.
“For now, just sit back and enjoy the ride,” Lieutenant Commander Weddell added.
Craig turned to the other members of his team, each one smiling. The shared look on their faces was childlike ebullience, thinly veiled behind adult professionalism. It was clear that, despite their personal sacrifices, their loved ones left behind at home, and the mortal danger of the mission, it was all worth it in that moment. These were men slipping the surly bonds of Earth.
“Detach in one minute,” said the calm, even tone of WhiteKnight3’s pilot over the address system.
“Roger that,” replied the equally calm tone of SpaceShip3’s pilot.
“Roger that,” echoed Commander Wilson. He turned to his team. “Okay, boys, helmets on and hold on to your butts.”
Craig and the others slipped their helmets on and locked them into position, lowering the golden sun-reflective visors.
“Detach in thirty seconds,” the WhiteKnight3 pilot said.
“Roger that,” SpaceShip3’s pilot repeated.
“Crap your pants in thirty-one seconds,” Lieutenant Cheng said in a low voice.
“Radio silence,” Wilson said calmly.
WhiteKnight3’s pilot began the final countdown. “Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… ONE! We are a go for detachment.”
“Roger that,” SpaceShip3’s pilot confirmed.
There was a thump against the hull of SpaceShip3’s roof as the mechanized claws detached themselves, and the vehicle began to drop away from its mothership. Craig’s posterior immediately came out of his bucket seat, only his harness keeping him from hitting the ceiling. The seconds ticked by, painfully slowly as the ship continued to drop a safe distance from WhiteKnight3.
Next, the hybrid rocket came to life. To Craig, it felt as though the hand of God had taken hold of the ship and thrust it forward, the nearly unimaginable power seemingly too much to be manmade. Barely controlled technology blistered its way up a steep incline, and the ship throttled through the upper edges of the atmosphere. Craig could hardly move his neck in his suit and helmet, but he managed to turn his head just enough to catch the spectacular view from the closest window. The blue of the sky began to recede, first becoming an indigo before finally giving way to black.
Suddenly, the engines stopped. It took Craig a moment to accept that the silence wasn’t simply the result of the engines having been switched off; it was the silence of space that was so unsettling. There was no more shimmering and shuddering of the fuselage through turbulence, no more sounds of wind drag stressing the wings. SpaceShip3 was now living up to its name, a ship in space, the truly endless ocean of blackness enveloping Craig for the first time in his life.
“You’re an astronaut now, Doc,” Commander Wilson observed, his tone cheerful. Craig looked up to see his commander unstrapping from his seat at the front of the cabi
n and floating free in the microgravity of sub-orbit. “Congratulations.”
Craig wanted to reply, but there were no sufficient words. Instead, his breath caught in his mouth. He hurriedly unbuckled his own seatbelt and stepped up quickly, amazed that the floor didn’t welcome him as it had every other moment of his life. Instead, it let him go, his body floating freely through the cabin. “My God,” he whispered.
“Boys, remove the seats,” Wilson ordered the rest of the team. Each of them, already unharnessed and floating through the cabin, began detaching the seats from the floor of the ship. “Doc, you’re with me. It’s time you got briefed.”
7
“Twenty-three hours, twelve minutes, and…” Wilson checked the time readout on his aug glasses. “…and thirty seconds ago, the USS Independence fired a Trident 2 missile toward Shenzhen, which is, as you now know, our drop point.”
Craig swallowed hard when he heard his fears confirmed. “Holy hell. Trident 2s are equipped with sixteen separate warheads.” Sam was right, he thought. They’re going to drop me right into nuclear fallout.
“That’s right,” Wilson replied. The screen at the front of the ship showed a top view map of the missile’s trajectory. “It split into sixteen, with one warhead hitting its true target and the other fifteen forming a perimeter 200 miles in diameter—basically, the manmade gates of Hell.”
“What was the true target?”
“Hopefully, the Chinese A.I. mainframe.”
Craig was silent for a moment. “Holy hell.”
“You said that already,” Wilson replied with a grin as he slapped Craig hard on the back. “This is the big one, Doc, but with all the secrecy beforehand, I’m sure you already had your suspicions.”
“I did. It’s something else to have it confirmed, however.”
Post-Human Trilogy Page 3