by M. V. Kallai
“Oh, and I thought you just enjoyed my company,” Camden replied. Ganesh smiled over the lip of his coffee cup before he sipped again. He knew Camden had seen the government’s news briefing on the latest and greatest in robotic technology. There was a clip of Colonel Ganesh ceremoniously accepting his promotion. Of course, briefings like that were just for show. The public was not informed of what really went on behind the closed doors of the government buildings, but it helped to keep their curiosity at bay.
A sleepy looking young man in an apron took notice of Camden and walked over to take his coffee order. They both ordered boiled eggs and fresh bread. Ganesh also asked for seasonal berries.
“So tell me about the new job and what it has to do with us being on the outside of town on a morning like this,” Camden started again.
“Well,” replied Ganesh “I have recently been asked to help oversee the government’s robotics for scientific development and weaponry unit.” He subconsciously scanned the faces of the café’s other clientele again. This time Camden noticed.
“Ahh,” Camden sighed, “Am I to assume the obvious? That this meeting is not in your appointment book?”
“Hmph. Let’s not worry about that now. You should have asked me why I was chosen for this new position and why I left my quiet desk job to take it.”
“Ok, then. Why?”
Ganesh pursed his lips for a second.
“Because General Pike assigned Major Mace Magner as unit leader, that sorry, arrogant son of a…”
Camden interrupted.
“Who?”
Ganesh remembered to breathe.
“Mace Magner. Not a soldier from any of my training classes, although he joined around the same time I was working with the new recruits.”
Camden nodded and stirred sugar in the coffee that had just arrived.
“Go on.”
“Mace is a heartless one,” Ganesh continued. “Thinks only of war and doesn’t see a need for his unit to do anything, outside of building and perfecting master weapons. Of course, General Pike will make the final decisions on what the unit spends its time and money on, but the General trusts him completely.” His brow furrowed and he added, “Could be related, those two.”
Camden shook his head as Ganesh continued.
“The robotic technology inside this unit has the potential for unprecedented medical and scientific breakthroughs.”
Camden’s eyebrows lifted.
“We must be getting close to why I am here.” He shifted a little in his seat and was suddenly more interested in Ganesh’s pitch and continued.
“What is the great need for master weaponry at this time, anyway? We haven’t been at war in twenty years.”
“Yes, true,” Ganesh replied, “But, there have been recent indications that our Tyrinian friends from the south are planning to engage us again in the near future. Most likely within a year’s time. Don’t like the situation they are in due to their past defeat. After all these years, they still can’t accept what’s coming. Want to try to stop the takeover again. And, word around the unit is that they will actually try to move in on our territory. We do have the richer landscape.” He paused for a moment. “I guess I would want it, too, if I was living down there, so you can’t really blame’em for that. Not to mention how difficult we make trade for them.”
“I suppose,” said Camden, wrinkling his brow in thought and continued. “Tell me more about this technology.”
“Got your attention, did I?” laughed Ganesh, just as their breakfast arrived at the table. “Let’s eat first, and then I will tell you anything you want to know.”
“Of course,” said Camden politely. “I have a transport waiting for me just outside if you would prefer,” he hesitated and looked around at the quickly filling café, “a more private conference.”
“Yes, a meeting in the sky,” said Ganesh. “I was hoping you would offer. Most of us don’t have drivers in our employ, or transports with armchairs in the passenger chambers.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Camden replied with a smug grin.
The two men kept the small talk going while they ate. Camden tried to eat slowly to keep pace with Ganesh, even though he felt like rushing through his breakfast so he could hear more about the government’s technological development. Camden was practiced at being polite and restrained his enthusiasm. Not that he didn’t enjoy spending time with Ganesh, the two had been friends for ages and it was always enjoyable when they had a chance to just simply sit and catch up.
The two had first met twenty-one years ago, before the second war between the two major civilizations on the planet, Daxia and Tyrine. It was dubbed the ‘War for Peace’, though it proved to be the start of a Tyrinian oppression that prompted the current idea for vengeance and uprising against Daxia. As Camden chewed on his bread, he remembered the start of their friendship. Ganesh had just been recruited for his first special assignment team working with groundbreaking flight technologies. The position was a big opportunity for him to prove his worth in the military as a special operations soldier. His job was to deliver ‘smart missiles’ to areas of high resistance, covertly and precisely. The technology associated with the task was advanced, even by present day standards.
Camden had been recruited to the project by the government for his brilliance in physics. Back then, he frequently accepted government consulting positions because it was a way for him to know what was going on within the institution, allowing him to keep ahead of their technologies. It was important to Camden to have full understanding of the world he lived in and where his species, as a whole, was heading. Not to mention, he was compensated very generously. For this particular assignment, he had acted in an advisory capacity to the design and engineering teams for the flight crafts and the weaponry units. He made sure that the products from both teams fit together to create a streamlined and nearly soundless flight, while having the ability to drop weapons with pinpoint accuracy. He also worked with the soldiers assigned to the mission, explaining the physical limits of the technology, so that the pilots could extract the most from the sophisticated machines they were flying. Ganesh was an eager student. Clearly excited about his first important mission, he was taken with Professor Camden Riles almost immediately. Though Ganesh was five years older, Camden had already established himself in his field. There he was, at twenty-eight years old, entirely comfortable overseeing a large-scale government operation, and no one ever paid him any disrespect or created ill will over it. Ganesh on the other hand considered himself just average, even though he was much more. His good nature, physical strength, and solid work ethic set him above his teammates, though he was too modest to realize it, even to the present day. He had a immense capacity for learning as well, which, combined with his other attributes, was why he was singled out for this mission.
Camden enjoyed working with Ganesh because he seemed to hang onto his every word and frequently asked him thought provoking questions. About a month into the assignment, Ganesh and Camden could often be found having conversations on their down time and even after hours over locally brewed pale ales. Throughout the years, they kept in touch, though their meetings were sometimes infrequent. They relied on each other and there was a solid trust between them. They sometimes called on each other for professional help and advice since the fields of physics and the government often overlapped.
This overlap was the reason Ganesh called on Camden today. Not only for his input, but also for his help with an unofficial mission that Ganesh had assigned himself. He not only needed Camden on his team, but also his best friend and scientific ally, Lee Tripple, whom Ganesh called ‘The Recluse’. Although Camden always spoke of Lee with the utmost admiration, Ganesh found him weird and didn’t entirely trust him. The few times they had met face to face, something about Lee just didn’t sit well with him, and he prided himself on being a pretty good judge of character. He also had a hard time understanding Lee’s motives for conducting certain experiments
that he had heard about from Camden, like attempting to clone cells from people who were dead. As far as he knew, Lee had been unsuccessful, but appeared to be trying again and again… This seemed downright creepy to Ganesh who believed that science at such a level was unnatural and dead people should maybe just be left alone.
When Ganesh and Camden finished eating, the rain was coming down in sheets and the wind had picked up. At the doorway of the café, an employee offered to walk them out under a large rain shield. They walked the ten steps to Camden’s transport where Ari had the door automatically open for them to clamber inside. Ganesh wiped rain off of his face with both hands and Camden pressed a button to ask Ari to circle the outer edge of the city for a while. Camden sat casually back in his plush chair, crossed one leg over the other, opened a drawer on his side and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. Sitting in the chair across from Camden, Ganesh looked slightly less comfortable. His composure was that of a guest in someone’s home. After a brief moment of hesitation, Camden cleared his throat and repeated his earlier notion.
“So, tell me more about the government’s war technology and why you need me.”
Ganesh eyeballed his surroundings again, purely out of habit and smiled to himself.
“Do you remember the project you worked on to develop pressurized body suits for working in space?”
“Yes,” He replied.
“And do you also remember that pliable organic biomer metal? The stuff we brought back from the Myris mining missions that you said could be made to grow?” Ganesh asked.
“Again, yes,” Camden said. “It could allow humans to inhabit space by “growing” their own pressurized armor to fit their bodies,” Camden laughed out loud. “Of course, that was just a theory. The catalyst needed to achieve that kind of accelerated growth would have be an exact complementary composition to the biomer and occur in nature. Not to mention it would have to divide as quickly as a virus.” How could he ever forget that outlandish idea. He won his first major GSS award for that one eleven years ago. The monetary prize had been large enough to set him and his wife Rosa up for years…he remembered for a moment Rosa’s face when he told her about it. How happy they were choosing their new, larger home afterward where they began to start planning their family! Then, without warning, his mind wandered into the upsetting memories that he worked so hard to block.
Oh, how he hated it when he was forced to think of her. His smile dropped from his mouth.
“So what about it?” he asked, more abruptly than intended.
“Well,” Ganesh continued carefully, noticing the change in Camden’s face. “The government decided to put your theory to the test, and on a very large scale. Mining shuttles have been sent to Myris and brought back significant amounts of that same organic biomer metal.”
Camden raised his eyebrows.
“And,” He said.
“And…certain military scientists have been working secretly, commissioned by the government to test your theory. There is organic biomer metal growing in the military weaponry base as we speak. It is being molded into shapes.” His eyes dropped and he stared at his hands folded in his lap. “Weapon-like shapes. The robotics unit has already started integrating this material into weapons that grow directly from the limbs of the fight units. They haven’t been completely successful yet, but it’s just a matter of time.”
“So you are telling me that the military is creating robot soldiers that can regenerate limbs that serve as weapons?” Camden asked. “How bizarre. Are they using this technology in any life sustaining capacity?”
The thought of it seemed too easy. To Ganesh, Camden seemed compassionate with this question. Even though he didn’t care for war, Camden was really more thrown by the idea of not stretching the technology to its fullest extent. The medical possibilities alone were mind boggling, but Camden was thinking of the potential advancements in high speed space flight and regenerative mechanical repair systems.
“I get it Cam, anyone can destroy a life, but only a few can sustain it,” Ganesh said.
Camden was intrigued. He wanted to know more, with one giant question standing out in his mind.
“What did they use to catalyze the growth? The metal cannot grow without cells from an outside source dividing within it.”
“Some type of fungus, I think,” replied Ganesh.
Camden’s thoughts raced. It would have to be a genetically altered fungus, maybe from a primitive forest. There are a few species there that could be enhanced to… Ganesh made a throat clearing sound and pulled the distracted Camden back into their conversation.
“Who, exactly, are the scientists working on this?” Camden asked. “Why didn’t they bring me back in?”
“Well, look at you these days.” Ganesh said. “I think they were concerned that, with you coming in and going out of a government building everyday, the press would become interested. This is certainly not the kind of project that the general public can know about,” said Ganesh. “Plus…” he added slowly, “You had already given them the idea, and they didn’t feel they needed someone of your caliber to follow through and get the job done. Can you understand that?” He lowered his chin and slowly raised his eyes to meet Camden’s as he asked this.
The wheels in Camden’s head were turning so fast that he barely processed what Ganesh was trying to get across to him. Camden sighed, frustrated with the whole thing.
Ganesh continued.
“Sorry, Cam, but your celebrity is just too large these days to attach you to anything so covert.”
Camden got it, but he did not like it.
The reason Camden had not been successful in testing this technology himself was because there was not enough available material to continue his research. It wasn’t like he could just go mining on Myris for more! Space travel was not an everyday occurrence, and landing on Myris… that rarely happened. Myris had an atmosphere that, if enhanced, could indeed sustain human life. Talk of building colonies there was frequently on government agendas. It had never come to fruition though, as it would still be a difficult task for any ‘would be’ pioneers to settle on this large moon. The oxygen levels were very low due to the minimal plant life. Without the aid of personal oxygen supplies, humans would experience chronic light-headedness and fatigue rendering them incapable of building and developing the land. The small sample of this potential miracle metal that Camden was previously able to analyze and test eleven years ago was from a Myris research mission, one of the very first. The goal of the mission was to collect and analyze soil, rocks, and liquid. This research determined that while life was scarce on Myris, it was possibly worth the effort for colonization. There was an abundance of this biomer metal and several small creatures were found in the bodies of water that scattered this unique orb.
The Myris Sample Analysis project, or MSA, was another of Camden’s government consulting contracts that proved to be extremely worthwhile monetarily. Unfortunately, after his sample was depleted, he could then only theorize about the successful ‘growing’ of the biomer as the government had pulled the plug on going to Myris until they had figured out a safe way for colonization. Now, more than a decade later, he sat in his luxury transport staring at Ganesh, all smugness gone from his face, wondering how long his friend had known of this before deciding to share it with him.
Camden was not accustomed to being out of the loop when it came to government continuations of his former research. With growing contempt, he wanted to know why, but more importantly, he desperately wanted to procure another sample of this biomer metal and explore the possibilities with the correct catalyst…which he wished he had discovered. Which he should have discovered! His forehead wrinkled hard and his eyes widened with frustration and anger, briefly revealing a side of Camden that very few ever saw.
His mind snapped away from his contempt and he asked again in a deeper tone.
“So, who are the scientists working on this?”
Ganesh cleared his throat again
and sat up a little straighter. He was not intimidated by Camden, but he also did not enjoy upsetting his friend. In fact, he was a little surprised by his reaction. He had not seen this selfishness in Camden about his work before and wondered if it was there all along or perhaps surfaced after he lost his wife, Rosa.
A thing like that changes a man. Ganesh thought. He had known Rosa and had witnessed the struggle for Cam to make any sense of his life and work after losing her. He’d never seen a man so shattered. Ganesh’s face showed the empathy he felt for Camden, who had already composed himself and was now opening a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of fifty-year-old scotch. He poured two glasses and offered one to Ganesh as if apologizing for his momentary break in composure. Ganesh gratefully declined and finally answered Camden’s question.
“The scientists were recruited from the special ops science unit. They are young and dedicated, but they aren’t going to make any outstanding breakthroughs. Without standing on the foundation of your work, they wouldn’t be where they are now.”
Camden raised an eyebrow, not buying his flattery, and sat back again in his chair.
“They work inside set parameters and test the material based on a computer generated list of life forms. They had been at it for two years before they finally figured it out, and even then it was only chance that they found a combination that actually worked. But I guess it was only a matter of time.”
“Two years!” Camden repeated. “And how long have they been working with this correct combination?”
“Eight months.”
“And how long have you known about all this?”
Ganesh hesitated.
“About a year, but only through briefings with the other officers.” He quickly added. “Like I told you this morning, I was only brought in on the details two weeks ago.”
Camden was slightly comforted by this, but never the less, still felt betrayed. It was this kind of government action that made him refuse to sign up years ago, although he was recruited time and time again. He never fully trusted the institution of it all, and this morning was just another confirmation that he had made the right career decisions for himself. However, the government continued to need him, and often. A situation that he was usually happy to capitalize on, only now he assumed that Ganesh was really here because the military scientists had hit a bump in their research. Secretly, he hoped this was an incorrect assumption. He didn’t want to feel even more betrayed by his long trusted friend.