by Ben Weaver
“We’re heavily outnumbered. The only way we have a chance is to get as many conditioned officers out there as we can. There’s no time to wait until you feel you’ve assimilated.”
“But sir, do you think we have a chance?”
“The colos have been planning this for a long time, and they have more resources than you think.”
That might have been true, but I couldn’t help thinking about how we’d been slaughtered at Tau Ceti Eleven. Rumors were already circulating that we had deliberately fired the first shot and that Beauregard’s father had been the one responsible. Of course, Paul had downplayed the whole thing by saying that even if his father had fired the first shot, he had only been following orders.
Pope hardened his gaze. “So, I ask again, Mr. St. Andrew. Are you with us or against us?”
I looked to Jarrett, Dina, and Clarion. “What about the woman? You’re okay with the conditioning—even after seeing that?”
The woman shrugged. Jarrett looked away.
Pope nodded, unmoved. “It’s alien tech. And it’s old. Of course it’s going to be dangerous. Of course there’ll be risks. And mistakes. Coming here in the first place was a risk. This is just one more. And if it makes you feel better, we’re all going together. Mr. St. Andrew, are you in?”
“Scott…” Jarrett warned.
“Sir, this private does, in fact, wish to be commissioned as a member of the Seventeen System Guard Corps, sir.”
Pope rolled his eyes. “A simple yes would have sufficed.”
I didn’t tell any of them then, but I needed to say that. I needed to believe that I wasn’t just joining a rebellion but keeping a dream alive.
After Pope left to set up our conditioning schedule, Jarrett came up to me, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “I should tell you I’m sorry. But I don’t feel that. I just feel…I don’t know. Bye.”
“Where are you going?”
“I won’t let them condition me.”
“But you said if you get on a transport—So where are you going?”
“Anywhere but here. Maybe back to the caves. I have some food in my pack. Maybe I can wait this out.”
I tensed. “Know what? I’m not even going to stop you.”
A half hour later they picked up my brother, out near the perimeter. They beat him into submission, brought him back, then crammed him, along with the rest of us, into a pair of airjeeps and flew us out to a region about a kilometer north of the Minsalo Caves. Dina clutched Beauregard’s hand, and I felt Clarion shivering next to me. A battered Jarrett rode in the other jeep, along with Halitov, Carstaris, Fayvette, and my old nemesis from Whore Face, Mr. Val d’Or. A pair of second lieutenants from our own Third Battalion met us on a narrow tarmac whose straight lines stood in sharp relief against the heavily fissured plain. We descended into a camouflaged bunker, passed through the ribs of the DNA identification scanners, then climbed aboard a wide lift. We rode that elevator for at least ten minutes, dropping so far into the earth that I noticed a decrease in temperature despite the recyclers.
The doors opened up on another of the those colossal hexagonal chambers we had seen in the caves, this one aglow in spotlights hanging from tremendous booms. More striking still were the five hundred or more antigrav stretchers hovering in neat rows and forming white-sheeted avenues blurring off into the shadows and silhouettes of bustling figures. A gray-haired man dressed in a pale green medical jumpsuit tapped something into his tablet, then regarded us with a distracted glance. He turned to one of his twenty or so assistants standing nearby and said, “Next group ready for prep.”
Then he noticed my face and pointed. “You? Come with me.”
My brother seized my hand and shook it firmly. “We’re going to be okay.” Then he caught me off guard with a quick embrace, one we should have held much longer.
I swallowed and followed the doctor or whatever he was as my nerves found my voice. “Is there a problem? They told me there wouldn’t be a problem. My mark’s just the residual effect of epineuropathy.”
“We know,” he said curtly, then paused before a stretcher. “Strip and lie down. Place your clothes between your legs.” He removed a watchlike instrument from one of the stretcher’s side compartments. “You’ll put this on. You’ll feel sleepy. When you wake up, you’ll be back in your gelrack, and this will all be over. You might remember the cerebro hookup, you might not.” He set the band on the sheet, then walked back toward the lift.
Far across the chamber, Dina, Jarrett, Beauregard, and Halitov began unzipping their utilities. Another group of about fifteen exited the lift, and the reception continued. I removed my clothing, scooped up the band, and quickly slid onto the stretcher, one leg draped over my crotch. I hadn’t realized that the band would weigh so much and pondered exactly what was inside the six thick metal ampoules attached to it. I slid the thing over my wrist, which suddenly went numb. I guessed they were drugging me as part of the preparation, and I felt disappointed that I would not get to see the Racinian conditioning machines, hulking wonders of physics gleaming in artificial light—or so I imagined them.
Truth was, I would get to see the conditioning chamber, though it would hardly live up to the engineering of my imagination. I wouldn’t have time to consider my disillusionment. I was not supposed to see that place.
It’s hard for me to state with any certainty how much of the conditioning and cerebro hookup I actually remember because the memories of those moments burn brilliantly for one second, usher in new ones, then all of them vanish in the next second. At this particular moment I remember feeling the ground quake. I remember those voices, so many voices. And the screams.
I awoke in a dimly lit black tube with a diameter of just over a meter. Though my eyes would open only to slits, I glimpsed thousands of translucent leads impaling my nude body and stretching away like finely furred gossamers that attached me to the tube. I realized I was pissing, but another lead caught my urine. The tube’s bottom irised open with a whir, and a mild electric shock sent me rigid, then relaxed, then rigid again. The tube suddenly peeled back in two metallic rinds that severed gossamers as they whirred. Bursts of light or electricity, I wasn’t sure, leapt from the severed leads as I staggered forward on numb legs. Through intermittent flashes, another chamber came into focus, this one a perfect circle with low, domed ceiling spanned by billions of throbbing gossamers similar to the ones attached to me. Scores of naked cadets swayed forward from open tubes like mine, their leads sparking and writhing. A pressure on my head brought my hands there, where I felt the thin, C-shaped cerebro cupping my now cleanly shaven scalp. I cocked my head at a sudden weight on my shoulder, and there was Private Carstaris from the Eightieth, her face a monstrosity of twisted flesh, the gossamers affixed to her breasts squirming with lives of their own. “St. Andrew,” she whispered, her voice severely warped. She removed her hand, dropped to her knees, then released a strangled cry answered by another tremor that sent me toppling beside her.
With no strength to haul myself up and my cheek planted squarely on the smooth metal floor, I lay there, just staring across the chamber, watching my comrades squirm, listening to them shriek, and fighting to feel something familiar—even the simple rise and fall of my chest.
“This one’s still alive,” someone said behind me.
“Excellent. That’s the gennyboy. Let’s get him out of here.”
I couldn’t see their faces, but I did sense that they were transferring me to a stretcher. My wrist tingled.
Feeling as though someone had just removed a heavy, dark blanket from my face, I woke with a chill in my gelrack, the ceiling’s grainy quickcrete never a more welcome sight. Tiny red marks dotted my arms like a carefully planned rash, and I shivered as I touched them. I slid back my covers, saw more crimson speckles on my legs, then lifted my cotton shirt, revealing another symmetrical freckling on my abdomen. I remembered the gossamers, though at that moment I did not recall my terrifying encounter with Carstaris
. I had no idea that anything had gone wrong.
Strangely enough, I did know that I would be okay, although I should rest easy for another hour or so. I knew that the shock to my body would take about that long to heal and any grogginess I might be feeling would taper off. But I didn’t know how I knew this.
I turned my head. Halitov lay supine in his rack, his eyes closed, his arms and face bearing the blotches of conditioning. I strained to see past him, but my eyes stung with the effort. That pain would wear off, and my vocal cords would soon function.
Darkness lay beyond the window opposite my rack, and I wondered how long the conditioning process had taken. My tac would not turn on. Had those transports already arrived to whisk off Haltiwanger and the rest? What if they came and told me I had been out for a century? I smiled inwardly. The conditioning had not affected my imagination.
“Private Scott St. Andrew?” came a feminine voice.
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” I whispered to Platoon Leader Amber Sysvillian, whose entrance had been as quiet as it was surprising. She stood at the foot of my gelrack, gazing grimly at a tablet.
“How’re you feeling?” she asked.
“Ma’am, I feeling fine, ma’am,” I answered with false enthusiasm.
“Private, I have some unfortunate news for you. There was an accident during the conditioning process. Seismic activity resulted in the premature jettisoning of many cadets, including yourself.”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t remember.”
“Some of it’s still in your long-term, but we had to purge a sizable portion of your short-term. Your memory’s going to be undependable until your brain adjusts to the mnemosyne.”
“Mnemosyne?”
“I don’t know much about them yet. Racinian biotech introduced into your brain. They help with subatomic perception, with information storage, and work in conjunction with your cerebro. We can access our memories as efficiently as we access, say, a tablet. And once we learn something, we never forget it. I teach you to repair a tawt drive. Twenty years later you remember every word I said and the schematics are as clear in your mind’s eye as they were the day I showed them to you. But like I said, there was an accident.”
It was not like Sysvillian to adopt such a sympathetic tone, be so forthcoming, or take such a special interest in a lowly private. I should have seen it coming.
“Ma’am, is there something wrong with me?” I asked.
“Not exactly. But Mr. St. Andrew, some of your colleagues didn’t make it. And your brother, well, he—”
“Didn’t make it. They’re dead? What about my brother?”
“I’m sorry.”
I sprang from my gelrack. “Jarrett?”
“Your brother was among twenty-two cadets whose bodies were severely burned. The list has just been uploaded to your slates. On behalf of South Point and the Seventeen System Guard Corps, I’d like to express our most sincere condolences. I understand your brother was a fine first year and would have made an even finer officer. But you’ll still carry the torch for your family.”
“I want to see him.”
“That’s not possible. The corpses are still out at the site. They’re being prepped for shipment. Your parents will be notified via the next chip tawted out. Right now you should get ready for watch and Accelerated Assimilation Training. Check your tac; it should be working. And don’t be late for anything. Remember, we’re at war now.” She started to leave. “And Mr. St. Andrew? I apologize if my beside manner isn’t any good. I lost a lot of friends today myself.”
At that moment I could not accept that someone so full of life could be snuffed out so easily and with such impunity. And I heard my brother tell me how he would not be conditioned, as though he had known something would go wrong.
No, he couldn’t be dead. He would come through the billet door at any minute. That’s right. He would. And I thought that seeing the casualty list might confirm Sysvillian’s lie. Jarrett’s name wound not be on the list. I retrieved my tablet from my footlocker and tapped to the latest announcements page:
SOUTH POINT REGIMENT 3RD BATTALION, KILO COMPANY, 27TH PLATOON
FILTER FIVE BRAVO SIERRA
ANNOUNCEMENT #2301.90R7097097498949SUBJECT: RACINIAN CONDITIONING FATALITY REPORT
PVT Anson, Z. 09230098
PVT Ague, P. 09380980983
PVT Cotto, P. 09238
PVT Carstaris, V. 098081
PVT Enlai, R. 497466
PVT Fayvette, L. 9872967
PVT Guy, T. 98792862
PVT Garrison, T. 9822664
PVT Jones, M. 9867676
PVT Ji, J. 9827979
PVT Kahn, J. 8788685
PVT Kalvin, R. 098279792
PVT Omans, S. 87638769
PVT Rousseau, M. 9629869
PVT St. Andrew, J. 89749273
PVT Padante, B. 98629662
PVT Telford, A. 58696202
PVT Watkins, L. 65653883
PVT Val d’Or, E. 87629869
PVT Xiaoping, I. 7637678
PVT Yaobang, T. 86397613311
CPL Yosemite, C. 5425426
I stared at my brother’s name until the letters smeared into a single, bloody stripe.
“What’re you doing?” Halitov called as he picked sleep grit from the corners of his eyes.
“Nothing.” I rose and crossed to the end of my gelrack, where I began smashing my tablet against the bar.
“What are you doing?” Halitov cried.
I continued banging the tablet until Dina and Beauregard, who had been sleeping, woke abruptly and held me while Clarion pulled the shattered computer from my hand.
I was eighteen years old. No one close to me had ever died. And I had no idea how many more would. I fell on my gelrack, buried my head, and sobbed.
“He was looking at something when he did that,” Halitov said, gripping his own tablet. “And here’s what. Have a look.”
“Oh, no,” Clarion said.
“Accident?” asked Beauregard. “I don’t remember anything about an accident.”
“Scott, I’m so sorry,” Dina said, resting her hand on my back. “I’m just…so sorry.”
8
Since two thirds of Third Battalion had been wiped out by the conditioning accident, including all first years in the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Squads and my brother from the Eighty-first, those of us who remained in the Eighty-first were immediately reassigned to Fourth Battalion, Nova Company, Thirty-ninth Platoon, 111th Squad. We were rushed off to one of the library’s underground classrooms for the first class in our Accelerated Assimilation Training program. Though I understood why they thrust us into training, they owed a memorial service—if only a short one—to those who had died. They owed that to my brother. While I seethed over that, I got a chance to ask Sysvillian if there was something wrong with me. “Not exactly,” she had said. Well, I sure as hell wanted that part explained.
We had all commented on the problems we were having with our memories. Simple things like forgetting where you stowed that brush or even long-term items like the name of an old friend. We still felt fatigued, with frequent stabs of pain at the gossamer connection points. Sergeant Pope kept close at my side and twice reassured me that I could overcome any loss. I thanked him for his faith but warned him not to say my brother’s name again. Secretly, I felt overjoyed that he cared. I needed him, needed them, just to remain sane. Jarrett, the brother who had taught me how to build cave forts, kiss girls, and come home late without getting caught—yet the same brother who had picked on me, taunted me, and had tried to toughen me up, was dead. I had heard that during war, time speeds up, that a weekend is like a year, a year like a lifetime, but Jarrett’s death slowed it all down, made it come at me so distinctly that during my AAT classes I did not suffer the kind of information overload that agitated the others. I learned my lessons carefully, dutifully, and forgot nothing. Later, I discovered there was another reason for my success.
During that first less
on, the instructor, Lieutenant Colonel Victoria Bayshore from Second Battalion, had listed some of the side effects of conditioning and had mentioned the Racinian biotech in an annoyingly marginal way, saying only that we had labeled them “mnemosyne” after the Greek goddess of memory and that they were a species of eidetic parasite found aboard Racinian spacecraft. She would have made a wonderful politician, her gray temples and solid frame radiating wisdom, sensibility, and plausible deniability. She made us exercise our memories by recalling specific long-and short-term events. After three hours, they ushered us into another classroom.
There, we griped about our hunger until Major Yokito Yakata, a rapier of a man and Second Battalion’s XO, came running into the room, ran up the opposite wall, then ran across the ceiling as we assumed the fly-catching position with our mouths. He pushed off the ceiling, did a back flip, and landed easily on his feet, his utilities immaculate. “Who’s next?” he asked curtly.
Halitov raised his hand. “Sir? I don’t want to be next, sir. I just want to know how you did that.”
“Private, there’s a bond in nature, a bond much stronger than gravity, a quantum bond between particles that allows our tacs to operate and allows us to tawt in and out of systems. My job is to teach you how to manipulate this bond with your minds. In the beginning, all matter was one. Can you take yourself back to that time? If you can, you’ll discover the profound changes in quantum theory. Now then. I wish we had time for a more traditional approach, but this is war. You will learn. You must learn. Yes, throwing you into this could be risky, but it’s far less dangerous than your not having the conditioning. Who’s next?”
I raised my hand, more out of a desire to torture myself than to learn. Jarrett had died. Why did I deserve to live?