Sentenced to War

by J. N. Chaney

  The tech centered the arm about half a meter over Rev’s face. “I’m going to run this down the length of your body.” He stepped back to his console.

  “What’s it gonna do?” Rev asked, his voice faltering just the tiniest bit as he stared at it.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not going to hurt you. Just a little tickle.”

  Don’t be a wimp.

  A light circling the rim of the fan turned on, then . . .

  . . . pain, like nothing Rev had ever felt before, washed over his body. He screamed in agony, or at least he thought he did. He could feel every cell come apart in a field of fire. His very being started to disintegrate, but he knew he was still alive because the dead couldn’t be tortured like this.

  And suddenly, it was gone, like the last wisps of a dream.

  “You lying bastard,” he spat, pulling at his restraints, his one desire to get up and beat the shit out of the tech—consequences be damned.

  The tech casually strolled over to stand above Rev, looking down at him.

  “Why the hell did you lie to me?” Rev spat, sucking in air through his nose as the pain began to fade—but not fast enough for his liking.

  “Would it have mattered? You were still going to get neuromapped one way or the other.”

  Rev tried to jerk free, almost snarling at him.

  “Besides, I said the NM wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  “And what do you think just happened to me, you stupid fuck?”

  “When the NM activated the tracers, you only thought you were in pain. It stimulated your nociceptors, as if you were being hurt, which sent the signals through your thalamus and on to your ventromedial nuclei in your cerebral cortex. Like I just said, you only thought you were in pain, but nothing was actually being done to you. You’ve suffered no bodily damage.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I know what I felt!”

  “No, really. How do you feel right now?”

  The question was crazy. He’d just been tortured by this sick bastard, but . . . as he did a quick inventory, he realized he felt fine. Nothing hurt, and everything seemed to work, the best he could tell while lying on the table.

  In fact, he couldn’t really remember the pain. He knew he’d been in agony just a minute before, but only in the abstract.

  “I . . . I guess I feel OK,” he said cautiously.

  “So, like I said, the NM wasn’t going to hurt you. If I release you now, are you going to behave? You’re not going to get up and knock my head off?”

  “I didn’t need to be held down for the scan, right? That was to protect you.”

  The tech gave a slight smile, and he didn’t bother to deny it.

  “No, I’m not going to jump you,” he said with a sigh. The memory of the agony was quickly fading further.

  The tech pressed a release on the bed, and the restraints retracted. Rev sat up, and the tech took a quick half-step backward, wary. But Rev had been telling the truth. He wasn’t angry anymore. It was as if it had never happened.

  Rev flexed his arm, trying to remember how it had felt.

  “Can I get dressed now?”

  “Sure. We’re almost done here.”

  “What about my interface? Who’s doing that?”

  “Not me. And not today. We just neuromapped you, and based on the results, your jack and all of your augments are going to be printed, custom made for you.”

  “All of my augments? You mean the interface and the medi-nanos, right?”

  The tech looked at him and laughed. “You think that’s it? You’re going to fight the tin-asses with only those?”

  “What do you mean? I’m getting armor, right?”

  “Look, Pelletier. You’re going into Direct Combat. You’re getting all the augments we can give you to keep you alive and killing the enemy. How don’t you know that?”

  Rev blanched. He’d known about the interface. That was how Marines controlled their armor and weapons, or how sailors flew their ships. And as Bundy had said, he’d get boosted medi-nanos. But anything else was news to him.

  “What are they going to do to me?”

  “Hell if I know. I’m in diagnostics, not augments, and I don’t know what you’re slated for. Pretty primo stuff, though, you can bet on that,” he said, his eyes lighting up as if he were a jackhead talking about the latest and greatest game.

  But this was reality, not a game, and he didn’t like the thought of anything being done to his body. What if they cut off his junk like they did to the Eunuch regiments back in the Corolla Wars?

  “I’m OK with the interface, but I don’t think I want any augments.”

  It wasn’t surprising that he’d feel that way. Human augmentation was taught to be evil, something that must never happen again. The Eunuch regiments were not even close to being the most egregious human manipulation of the Lost Century.

  “Not much of a choice there. It’s a done deal.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” he asked.

  The tech laughed at that and asked, “Yeah, and who are the tin-asses going to complain to? No, you agreed to it when you accepted Direct Combat. You’ll receive them sometime over the next week. After you get your uploads, I’d imagine.”

  He could see Rev was dubious, so he said, “Look, they’re not going to make you into some monster. You’ll still look like you, mostly.”

  Mostly?

  “You’ll just be better. Stronger, better eyesight, shit like that. Hell, I’d give my left nut for some of those.”

  Which brought Rev back to the Eunuch regiments, something he didn’t want weighing on his mind.

  But stronger muscles and better eyesight weren’t bad, in and of themselves. Not much different than people in the real world getting their eyesight corrected. Maybe Rev was just letting the Lost Century get the better of him.

  “And this time, when I say it won’t hurt, I mean it,” the tech added. “You’ll sleep through it all and wake up a superman.”

  Rev didn’t believe a word of that, but he wasn’t sure if there was a damned thing he could do about it.

  7

  Early the next morning, the class was taken back to the Eyes of God, the large scanners they’d gone through that first night. By this time, it was routine. But as Tomiko asked, if their neuromapping the day before really didn’t damage their bodies, then why another scan?

  Rev didn’t want to be cynical, but he couldn’t help it. The lack of transparency was not very conducive to trust.

  Apparently, though, everyone passed as they were marched back to the building with no name—only a number where they’d been neuromapped. This time, they were taken to the upper deck where they were told to sit in the twin of the waiting room down below.

  As before, the place was mostly manned by civilians, not Navy medical staff. Even their DIs left them. Rev didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned about that.

  Eight recruits were immediately called from the waiting room, and without DIs, the rest of them congregated, discussing what might be going on. A few of them had been told by a DI that they were getting their jacks, as most people referred to them despite Rev’s protests, and that made sense. All they had done since getting sworn in as recruits was get their asses kicked on a physical level. They’d had exactly zero training in being Marines.

  They’d picked up some of the Marine-specific lingo from the DIs. They knew to call a toilet the head, the floor a deck, and the cafeteria a chow hall. Centaurs were tin-asses. But as far as actual military training, there’d been nothing.

  The modern Marine was the most advanced killing machine in humanity’s history, and most of that was due to technology. And to use that technology, the Marine had to be jacked. So, that was the logical first step in their training.

  Despite Rev’s aversion to the concept of jacks, he was still a little excited about what it would offer him. In the recruitment holos, Marines were sometimes depicted in full armor, and the images were terrifying, b
ut in a good way. The thought of controlling that much raw power was exciting.

  But no one knew what their capabilities would be. And there was the growing consensus that they would be getting more than just jacks and medi-nanos, so it could be anything from simple improvements to things such as eyesight, which Rev hoped was the case, to some of them going full Twilight Soldier. To Rev’s surprise, many of his fellow limeys seemed to think that was a good thing.

  About forty minutes after the first eight had gone in, others started getting called.

  “Is that normal? I mean that’s all it took when you got your jack?” Rev asked Bundy.

  “I got my first one more than fifty years ago, so I’d imagine things have gotten better. It only takes about five minutes to get one replaced, though.”

  In Rev’s low opinion of jackhead culture, he’d never paid much attention to the hardware, but he’d imagined that the implantation would take some time. They were melding a mechanical device to an organic brain, after all. He’d accepted the idea that he was going to get one, and he’d been at ease, but now his nervousness started to reappear.

  “How long does it take to, you know, be able to control something?”

  “You really are a virgin, aren’t you?” Bundy asked with a laugh. “How have you gone through life without knowing that?”

  It really wasn’t fair to make fun of him for not knowing, Rev thought. Except in extreme cases of need, jacks were illegal for minors. That was settled law. And as he wasn’t one of those kids who lived for the day they’d get their jack, he never bothered to learn more about them.

  Besides, more than thirty percent of the population never got jacked, not even a simple interface, and not only for religious reasons.

  Before he could reply, however, he was called.

  This is it.

  “You’ll be fine,” Bundy said as Rev joined the waiting tech. “Probably,” he said, adding a wink.

  He might have been in the same corridor—passageway, he reminded himself—as he’d been for the neuromapping. That reminded him of what had happened before. While the memory of the pain itself had almost faded away, he knew it had been there, and that only increased his anxiety.

  One of the doors on the left opened, and a gurney floated out. The patient was on his stomach, a flat bandage covering the back of his neck. It wasn’t until the gurney turned down the passageway that Rev recognized Cricket, unconscious.

  “Where’s he going?”

  “Him?” the tech asked. “To recovery and uploading. He’s fine.”

  That was the second time a tech had mentioned uploading, and he wanted to ask her what that meant, but she opened one of the doors and led him inside.

  There was a table in the center of the room, dominated by an instrument with what looked like a porcupine helmet on steroids. A second arm had what was undoubtedly a drill, every inch of it gleaming with sterile menace.

  “Take off your singlet and lay face down on the table,” she told him as she pulled out a sealed package from a drawer under a control console.

  His eyes on the drill, Rev pulled off his singlet. At least this time, he kept on his underwear. He cautiously lay down, craning his head to keep an eye on the drill. The bit itself had to be three centimeters in diameter, and the knowledge that it would be drilling into his skull was more than a little disconcerting.

  The tech moved to the chamber above the drill bit and inserted a plastic case.

  “Is that my interface. I mean, my jack?”

  “Sure is. An AIS-43,” she said with obvious pride. “Best there is.”

  She snapped the chamber shut with the finality of loading a pump shotgun. “You’re going to love it.”

  Rev wasn’t so sure.

  She picked up his singlet, slipped it into a bag, and sealed it shut. “This will be waiting for you,” she said, sliding it under his table.

  “OK, we’re about ready. Do you have any questions?”

  He had a million, but foremost was, “Where’s the doctor?”

  The tech gave a high trill of laughter, then said, “This is just the install. No doctors needed.”

  “But—”

  “Just relax. I’ve done thousands of these. I don’t lose many of you Marines.”

  “Many?” Rev said, pushing himself up.

  “Just kidding. This is routine, like getting a vaccine.”

  “No, it isn’t. You’re going to put something in my head. I’d say that’s—I mean, it doesn’t feel routine.”

  “In your thalamus, but yes,” she said, obviously not getting his point.

  Calm down, Rev. Billions of people get this done. Don’t be such a wimp.

  He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, then lowered himself back down.

  “You ready now?”

  No.

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  She misted his arm, then attached a cuff. “This isn’t going to hurt.”

  That’s what the last guy said.

  “I want you to count down backward from a hundred to one.”

  “OK. One hundred . . . ninety-nine . . . ninety . . .

  . . . eight?”

  Rev opened his eyes. Dim blue lights revealed a normal-looking room, not where he’d been just a moment before. It took him a moment to realize that the tech had been right. It was over, and he hadn’t felt a thing.

  The jack!

  He reached around just behind the left side of his head. His fingers met a slick cover, and for a moment, he was tempted to pull on it.

  “I’d leave that alone if I were you,” a voice said.

  Like a little boy with his hands in the candy jar, he whipped his arm away and looked over to where a woman in doctors’ whites stood at the door, a younger man in tech greens beside her.

  “Welcome back, Private Pelletier. I’m Doctor Wan. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m, um . . . not terrible?” he said as the doctor focused on her pad.

  “Good, good.”

  He thought she’d have said the same thing had he told her he was in pain.

  “Tern, go ahead. Let’s see the feedback node.”

  The tech nodded, then pulled out a lead from the nondescript gray box beside the bed.

  “Turn your head,” he told Rev.

  Rev exposed the side of his neck, and the tech snapped in the lead. Rev expected something, even if he wasn’t sure what. But he felt nothing.

  “Is it working?” he asked.

  The tech put a hand on Rev’s shoulder, but the doctor was absorbed in her pad and didn’t answer.

  “Send packet one,” she finally told the tech.

  He still felt nothing, and that didn’t change as the doctor had the tech put through five more packets.

  “Did something go wrong?” Rev asked.

  He really hadn’t wanted the jack, but he certainly didn’t want a faulty jack. He suddenly had visions of it sparking and catching fire inside his neck.

  The doctor finally looked up with a condescending smile and said, “Perfect, Private. Everything’s fine.”

  “But—”

  “Sign him over,” she told the tech before she turned and left the room.

  “What’s happening?” Rev asked.

  “Everything’s fine. Feedback loops are reading well into the green. Upload checks.”

  “But I don’t feel anything.”

  “Which is good. You don’t want to be feeling anything. Your brain is making connections, and pretty soon you’ll begin to have active control.”

  Which, once again, meant zip to Rev. He was really getting tired of not knowing what was going on.

  The tech disconnected the cable and held up a simple white disk. “Leave this on for the next two days, even when you shower. After that, you should be fine.” He put the disk over the jack where it snicked shut.

  The tech touched the comms button on his collar and said, “Got another for you. Pelletier. Room four-one-five.” He turned to Rev, pulled out the bag
with his singlet, and tossed it at him.

  “Go ahead and get dressed, then take a seat. Someone will be in here shortly,” he said before leaving Rev alone in the room.

  He gingerly swung his legs around and sat up, but he felt fine. No dizziness, no nausea.

  “Hopefully whoever’s coming can answer some freaking questions,” he muttered as he got dressed.

  The chair was on one side of a plain table, its twin on the other side. Rev sat to wait. His hand drifted up to his neck where he fingered the cover. The tech had told him to leave it, but he was so tempted to worry at it like a scab.

  It seemed surreal to him. He had a hole at the base of his skull, but he felt fine. Normal fine. Not better in any way.

  Less than a minute after he sat down, the door swung open and a Marine came in, not another civilian tech. The sergeant didn’t have the DI black tab on his collar, but Rev stood and came to a position of attention.

  “Sit, Recruit Pelletier.”

  Rev sat at the edge of his seat, his back straight, waiting.

  The sergeant took the seat on the other side of the table, then placed a large case between them.

  “I’m Sergeant Mysoki, and I’m here to ask you some questions. I want you to relax and just tell me what comes to your mind.”

  “Relax” was a word, when used in bootcamp, that usually meant something bad was coming.

  “Recruit Pelletier, what is the primary fire team formation when expecting contact front?”

  “What . . . ?” Rev managed to get out. The question came out of the blue.

  “Expected contact front. The formation?”

  “I . . . we haven’t started real training yet, Sergeant. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The sergeant seemed non-plussed and said, “Just tell me what comes to your mind. Anything.” When Rev remained silent, he said, “Guess.”

  This is crazy. How am I supposed to know the answer to that? I don’t even understand the question.

  But the sergeant was watching him, waiting for him to answer. He’d told Rev to guess, so when he got it wrong, the sergeant couldn’t blame him, right?

  He just said the first thing that came to his mind. “A fire team V.”