Planetside

by Michael Mammay

  He shifted in his seat a bit. “There’s no record, sir. A delete command from SPACECOM . . . well, they’re authorized to do that.”

  “Right—”

  “But then,” he said, not realizing he was cutting off a colonel, “if it was them, why would they hide it? They’d be allowed to do it. Yet someone went in and obliterated any hint that they were there.”

  “Obliterated?” I raised my eyebrows. “Pretend that I don’t know anything about how computers work. What’s that mean in your world?”

  “Cyber-bombed it, sir,” said Ganos, still bouncing a little. “Deleted the data, then deleted the fact that they deleted it, and then deleted that deletion. A million times over.”

  “So that’s bad.” I did stand up this time. I needed to pace, to think. Ganos leaned forward, her fists clenched in her lap. She had something else to say, and it was good news. “You can trace it,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, sir.” Her self-satisfied smirk told me she meant it. “Parker and I have a five-mark bet.”

  “So what do you need from me? How can I help?” I asked.

  “Time, sir,” said Parker. “We can trace it. But we need a day. Maybe two. And a bunch of computer power.”

  I looked at Alenda. “Get them anything they need.”

  “Yes, sir.” She didn’t hesitate. Good.

  “Ganos, Parker. If anyone at all tries to stop you . . . if anyone even hints that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, you come tell me immediately.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said simultaneously.

  “Come find me as soon as you have an answer. I don’t care what time it is. You guys are awesome.”

  “Thanks, sir,” said Parker. They got up to go, and for the first time I believed that someone might actually help me move forward. That belief would probably be short-lived, but still. Any win was a good one.

  Lex got up to follow them out, but I called her back. “I mean it. Make sure nobody interferes with them.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  “That includes Colonel Stirling. And anyone else, even if they outrank you.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.” Her voice hitched almost imperceptibly.

  “Lex. Listen very closely. If someone tells you to do something different, anyone—anyone—you tell them this. Write it down.” I waited for her to get out her device. “Tell them that Colonel Butler says that if anyone interferes with the computer techs in any way, he will consider it interfering with an official investigation and take appropriate action.”

  She looked up. “Yes, sir. Got it.”

  “Use those exact words.” It wouldn’t stop someone truly determined, but it would make a career-oriented officer like Stirling think twice. The only advantage I had was that he didn’t know the extent of what I could do. To be fair, I didn’t know either. I hoped we wouldn’t have to find out.

  “Yes, sir.” She waited to be dismissed. “Sir . . .”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, if you don’t mind . . . what are you going to do next? I’d like to get ahead.”

  Good question. No way could I sit and wait on a couple of techs to do their computer magic. I’d go insane.

  Inspiration hit me. “I think I’ll take another crack at the hospital.”

  The surprised look that crossed Alenda’s face gave me some minor satisfaction. “Really, sir? I thought you said she told you to stay out.”

  “She did. That’s why I’m going to need you to arrange transportation. See, my foot really hurts. I’m not sure I can walk that far.” Elliot told me to stay out, but they wouldn’t reject a patient. I had the beginning of an idea. Maybe not a great one, going by my history, but it was that or deal with Colonel Karikov and the Special Ops guys.

  Chapter Eleven

  The caustic smell of the hospital permeated the patient wing even more than the administrative. My eyes watered and the inside of my nose burned. How could doctors stand that for long periods? It probably grew on them until they didn’t notice it. Probably the same way soldiers got used to combat rations.

  I didn’t have an appointment, but as I suspected, nobody wanted to turn away a colonel with pain in his foot. And it really did hurt. It hurt every day, but normally didn’t bother me enough to stop me from living. Like the smell in the hospital, I’d gotten used to it. It hung around in the background, always there, not really hampering me anymore unless it rose above the normal level. Which it hadn’t.

  But they didn’t know that.

  I took off the top of my uniform so that a tall female medical technician could do her job. Was she a nurse? I never could tell the difference. She took my heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure. They always did that, even for pain in the ankle. I never understood that, either.

  She frowned at the monitor. “Your blood pressure is high.”

  “That will happen when you’re old, angry, and drink too much.”

  She glared at me with bright blue eyes a little too large for her narrow face. “High blood pressure is serious, sir. You could have a stroke.”

  “I know. Sorry. I use humor as a defense mechanism.”

  “I must have missed the humor.” I think the corner of her mouth twitched in a smile. It probably didn’t.

  A short doctor with too much hair for someone in the military came in, saving me from the awkward silence with the tech-nurse person. I pegged him as a doctor because he entered like he owned the place. The nurse-tech stepped out of his way, then followed him with her eyes, as if waiting for an order. Definitely the guy in charge.

  He glanced down at his chart, and spoke without looking at me. “Colonel, what can we do today to help you out?”

  “Foot hurts.” I started to unlace my boot. I knew the drill.

  “I haven’t got your records pulled over from SPACECOM yet. Is this an old injury, or something recent?”

  “Old. Definitely old.” I got my boot off and pulled the sock after. “Robot foot.” Medical folks hated when I called it that, which led me to do it more often. I’d lost a foot about ten years ago on a different planet. I didn’t tell the story often, because it’s not a good story to tell. Most people didn’t even know I had it.

  “Where’s it hurt?” asked the doctor.

  “Everywhere,” I said. Complete truth. No matter how good the technology, they couldn’t fix your brain. You wouldn’t think a fake foot could hurt, but no amount of rehab could stop it from telling your body that something didn’t match. They called it ancillary rejection. Big words that meant that your body constantly tried to fix itself, despite having a perfectly operational robot foot. Or cybernetic appendage, if you wanted the medical term.

  “Take him for a scan, then to ortho-robotics,” said Long-Haired Doctor.

  “Yes, Doctor.” The pinch-faced tech gave me a set of crutches, and I hobbled down the passageway after her.

  “They don’t have a portable scanner?” I asked as we passed scurrying orderlies and doctors, a nondescript wave of different-colored garb.

  “No, sir,” she said.

  “Huh. I’d have thought a hospital this busy would have one. How long have you been here?”

  The passage opened into a waiting area with padded benches bolted to the walls, occupied by a couple of patients who watched a video screen that hung from the center of the room. We stopped outside of a closed portal with a lighted “Wait” above it. Experience told me that meant the scanner was on the other side, but probably occupied. “Eight months, sir.”

  “Did you rotate in with a unit, or as an individual?” I wanted to keep her talking. It didn’t matter about what.

  “We don’t do unit rotations,” she said. “How about you, sir? How long have you been here?”

  Thank you for asking. “I just got here.” I spoke loudly, so that people nearby could hear me. Maybe a dozen stood in earshot, including four clerks behind a tall counter on the far side of the room. People passed through, as well, giving me a good audience. I pro
ceeded with my little monologue.

  “I’m doing an investigation. Looking into some anomalies in patient records. That sort of thing.” I resisted the urge to look around. People would be watching. During a deployment, soldiers looked for anything different to pass the time.

  “You’re investigating the hospital?” she asked, eyes somehow even wider.

  “No, nothing like that. Nobody here is in trouble. I’m just looking for things out of the ordinary.”

  “Huh. I haven’t seen anything,” she said. I couldn’t tell if she was defensive or sad that she didn’t get to participate. It didn’t matter. I’d set the bait out. Now I just had to suffer through a checkup of my foot and see if anybody took it.

  The door opened to the scanner room and I went through the standard routine. When we finished, the tech led me back to a different treatment room while someone looked at the results. It surprised me a little when Colonel Elliot walked in, her gray hair tucked up mostly under a surgical cap. I guess it shouldn’t have—I remembered now that she said her specialty was orthopedic robotics.

  “Butler. I wish I could say it was good to see you again.”

  I smiled and pointed at my foot. “Bad foot.”

  She nodded. “I see that. I looked at your scan and nothing seems out of the ordinary. There might be a slight infection, so we’ll treat that just in case. Odds are good that it’s an ancillary rejection. I’ll give you a steroid along with the treatment for infection.” Elliot glanced over to her assistant. “Kappernon, draw me five cc’s of ephmernol.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The tech moved to a counter and got a large needle. Great. A pissed-off doctor with a needle. This wouldn’t end well.

  Elliot, for her part, behaved completely professionally. She manipulated my foot around until she found the spots she wanted and marked them with a tool designed for the purpose. She would punch the medicine right into the fake nerves and deaden the pain. I’d seen it done dozens of times.

  “This should hold you for six weeks,” she said. “I trust we won’t see you back again.”

  “No, the ephmernol usually holds me,” I said.

  “Good.” She took the needle from the tech and tapped it to get the air bubbles out, then lined it up with her mark slightly above my ankle. She pressed half the liquid in on that side and it burned as it entered. She moved to the other side and repeated it on her second mark.

  “Thanks.” The pain started to dim almost immediately. Its absence would bother me for at least a week—I’d gotten so used to the ache that I missed it when it disappeared.

  They left me alone to put my boot back on, and I checked at the desk to make sure they didn’t need anything from me before I left. When they said they didn’t, I made my way out of the hospital, wobbling a little since I didn’t have to compensate for the pain anymore. “Colonel?” I turned but didn’t stop walking. A normal stride would catch me anyway, with my awkward gait.

  “What’s up?” I asked. A short, dark-haired sergeant hurried to catch up. A fine sheen of sweat dusted her light brown skin, like she’d been running. She fell in beside me and matched my pace.

  “Someone told me you were here doing an investigation, sir.”

  “That’s right.” I forced myself to keep my excitement off my face and kept walking as we neared the exit.

  “I have something I want to tell you.”

  I stopped. “Okay. What’s on your mind?”

  “Keep walking, sir. Outside.” She held the door and I went out first.

  “Nobody here wants to talk,” I said once we were out of the hospital. “What makes you different?”

  She took a moment to answer. “I’m short, sir. Less than a week left before I rotate out. Something’s not right, and . . . it’s stuck in my head. I feel like if I leave and don’t say something, I’ll regret it.”

  I nodded slowly. “Fair enough. What do you know?”

  She glanced back over her shoulder at the hatch to the hospital, then shook her head. “Not here. Can you meet me?”

  “Yes. Anywhere.” I looked behind me. Mac waited a couple dozen meters down the passage, leaning against the wall.

  “Not tonight, sir. I have duty. Tomorrow,” she said.

  I nodded again. I’d have agreed to anything at that point. “Okay. Where?”

  “Do you know where the K Bar is?”

  “I’ll find it.” I kept my lips in a flat line, trying not to give anything away even though I felt like I might burst. I didn’t like the idea of meeting a female non-com at a bar, but I didn’t want to show any hesitation that might spook her.

  “Meet me there at twenty-one hundred, sir.”

  “Will do. See you then.” I glanced at her name tag. Santillo. We turned and walked in opposite directions without saying anything else.

  “What was that, sir?” Mac pushed himself up off of the wall as I approached.

  “I’m not sure. It might have been a break. Might be nothing. Have to wait and see. Have you heard of the K Bar?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I need you to find it tonight. Do a recon, come back and tell me about it. I’ve got to meet her there tomorrow.”

  “Roger that, sir. Can do.” He smirked slightly.

  “What?” I asked, smiling.

  He chuckled. “Sorry, sir. Just picturing you with a date.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve got a date. Hopefully she puts out some answers.”

  Mac and I didn’t bother with transportation on the way back. I could walk, and it would help me get used to the lack of pain.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mac found the K Bar the next day and reported back, almost unable to contain his laughter. He said I wouldn’t like it. I didn’t doubt him, so I did the natural thing senior officers do when something is going to suck. I made Hardy come with me. He seemed excited to be involved, which ruined some of the fun.

  The K Bar resided on K deck. Soldiers don’t have much imagination when it comes to nicknames. It sat firmly in the MEDCOM area of the base, and played host mostly to off-duty medical soldiers with the occasional table of contractors. That’s what Mac told me. His description didn’t prepare me for the reality waiting beyond the wide entryway.

  Flashing red and yellow lights accompanied music two decades newer than anything I listened to, driven by a thumping beat that vibrated in my chest. Soldiers occupied 80 percent of the small tables, crowded around with more chairs than someone designed for the space. The half-full dance floor writhed with people, some in uniform, some not. I glanced at Hardy. I had to yell to make myself heard over the noise. “You probably like this, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay, sir.”

  I leaned in so I didn’t have to shout. “I’m going to go to the bar. You go to the other side of the room. I don’t want to scare her off.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hardy. “What do you want me to do over there?”

  “Keep your eyes open. See what you see. And try to look less aide-like,” I said.

  He scratched the top of his head and scrunched his face. “Sir . . . uh . . . what do you mean?”

  “Just try to look like you fit in.”

  “Right. Yes, sir.”

  I shooed him away with a hand motion and little hope he’d succeed, then pushed past two male soldiers in uniform to get to the bar, where I grabbed an open seat. I had thirty minutes before the meeting. After a day waiting for tech info that didn’t come, I hadn’t been able to stay in my room any longer. At least I’d be able to get a feel for the place before the soldier arrived. Sergeant Santillo. The woman who hopefully had some information that made it worth coming to a place like the K Bar. Something that would break the investigation open for me.

  “You have whiskey?” I asked.

  The bartender looked at me over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. An affectation. Nobody wore glasses. “We have synthanol.”

  “Great. I’ll have beer.” I could drink synth in a pinch, but I wasn’
t desperate, and I didn’t want to be drunk anyway.

  The bartender brought me a plastic bottle and his scan pad. I punched in a three-mark tip and placed my thumb against the screen. His eyebrows arched at the amount, which represented a big tip for a soldier bar. I’d get good service the rest of the night.

  I turned and leaned my lower back against the bar, took a sip of my not-cold-enough beer, and scanned the room. Groups and couples huddled close so they could talk over the music. In one corner, a guy sat with his hand between his girlfriend’s legs, rubbing her thigh. I didn’t make eye contact. Technically the rules prohibited stuff like that, but nobody enforced it. We ran an organization full of young people. If they didn’t do it here, they’d find a different place.

  I zoned in and out for a while, ordered another beer, checked my watch for the fifteenth time: twenty-one fifteen. She was late. I made a lap around the bar to see if maybe she’d come in and I’d missed her, and almost collided with a tipsy tech sergeant who pulled up short when he saw my rank. Probably didn’t get a lot of officers at the K Bar. Nobody had taken my seat at the bar by the time I returned, so I resumed my post.

  Another thirty minutes and another beer later I’d decided to leave, but hadn’t motivated myself to get up yet, when a woman approached me. Not Santillo. This woman had light skin and blonde hair pulled back in a professional-looking bun.

  “Colonel Butler?” She got to within a couple steps before she spoke, because of the music. Not as old as me, probably, but she had hints of lines at her eyes that I could see even in the dim bar lighting.

  I nodded.

  “I heard I might find you here. Karen Plazz, from the Times.”

  The Times. Not the Talca Times, its official name . . . nobody called it that. Just “the Times.” Not the biggest media outlet in existence, but arguably the most influential.

  Great.

  “How’d you know where to find me?” I gestured to the empty seat next to me. She wasn’t going to leave, so might as well be polite.