The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  “Crazy?” Clausen supplied.

  “Crude.” Donegan corrected.

  “Like saplings cut from a tree.” Poole mused, staring into his now-empty mug. “And culled before blooming.”

  Clausen began to form another question, but Donegan continued, “Masks evolve to match their user. The user trains the mask, and the mask, sometimes, trains the user. The two become more and more compatible, until the mask can interpret thought patterns as intent, and execute code autonomically, just as you would breathe.” He paused, letting that settle in. “Here is where it gets crazy.”

  “Here? We were thigh-deep in crazy about four minutes ago, sir.” Clausen quipped.

  Donegan snorted, but explained, “The mask doesn't just get better, faster, more attuned. They have been known to develop personality-emulations, generally, although not always, sympathetic to their users. These personality artifacts are formed from the mind of the user, as well as the template, and even emergent data from the net itself. After several months of running, the mask has established an interface personality that is highly compatible with its user. It is not a true person, but it reacts sympathetically to the user as it attempts to fulfill its core function of perfect interface between mind and network.”

  “That sounds dangerous.” Clausen stated. “People might just lock themselves in.”

  “It happens. You hear about it on the news occasionally. It's only rare because only a tiny portion of the populace is willing to run an illegal hard jack, but… it happens. Someone decides to hang around with their virtual friends too long, starves to death. More likely, though, they just go nuts.”

  “Nuts?” Clausen asked. Poole poured himself another cup.

  “Nuts. Bonkers. Zonked. The term in the runner scene is 'fried'. The mask is an echo chamber for the brain, the hard jack is a sensory overload. Between the two, it's a carpool lane to schizophrenia, as your mind tries to duplicate the over-stimulation of a direct neural link, and you start hearing voices, seeing shadows, the whole works. If you're really lucky, you might even get dissociative identity disorder from the emulation software, or you end up catatonic, playing pinball with your own invisible friends.”

  “Christ. Why would anyone do that?”

  “Speed. Power. The thrill.” Donegan pressed his fingers together, speaking earnestly. “Neither of you have run nodes, surfed the world with only a thought. I have. It's seductive, it's liberating. The mask is your best friend, conjured from your own mind, and the two of your are astride an untamed world as gods, shaping and making as you will it. Don't get addicted? Hardly. The difference between legitimate users and the poor schlubs who fall into the mental ward is how well we can manage the drug.”

  Donegan continued. “There are certain rules you never break. You purge your mask every six months, a year at longest, and definitely the instant you start to believe its a real person. You never jack in when fatigued, or intoxicated, or overly stressed. You never stay under for more than three hours. You get checkups regularly, and you listen to your doc and your shrink. Above all, you never chase ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Poole and Clausen asked at once.

  “Figments of self-activating code, fragments of mask emulations drifting through the net, below the surface. There's buckets of superstition about them. They're old masks, cut loose; they're pieces of catatonic users who couldn't get out the net; they're remnants of NODA, maddened artifacts of a haunted network. Most likely, they're just normal worms and targeted programs, acting faulty.”

  Clausen added, “But don't chase them.”

  Donegan agreed, perhaps with more edge than the rational, reasonable man wanted to show, “Never chase them.”

  Poole jumped in, pushing the conversation back onto track. “And Firenze?”

  “Right.” Donegan snapped back into his normal haughty tone. “Mister Firenze breaks nearly every one of these damn rules. His mask has been running for at least four years, to the point that he's given her – it – a name. He's wired up with custom hardware, that he claims were collaboratively designed for increased efficiency, he hasn't seen a checkup in three years, and he regularly goes under for hours on end, chasing ghosts. The kid is about three licks to the center of a crazy-pop, and he refuses to admit it.”

  “Is he nuts?” Clausen asked. “I haven't heard anything-”

  “No, no, not yet. He's weird, but not fried. Not yet.” Donegan admitted. “If he's willing to boil his brain for spare cycles, then the Agency is willing to steal his time and give it to us. And... I have to admit, he's very, very, good. Best I've ever seen. But he's not a soldier. He's introverted, he's awkward, he has an unhealthy relationship to his mask, and he manages to combine intellectual arrogance with physical inferiority, in such a way that I think the men might murder him in the training hall.”

  “So you want me to straighten him out?” Clausen asked. “We're not a tech platoon. I've got a couple weapons squads, and half an engineering-”

  Donegan jumped in. “Exactly.” He handed Clausen a packet with Firenze's personnel file.

  Poole, finishing his third mug of coffee, explained, “My theory is, separate him from his familiar environment. Sal runs a tech unit, and Mister Firenze fits awkwardly, chafing under military constraint, yet grating on the others with his expertise. I say, we throw him into a weapons team, use him as a door-kicker for a while, snap his last hold on civilian life. Force him to the edge, until he can be molded into the unit.”

  Clausen replied. “Could work. Or it could break him.”

  “That's why I called you.” Poole admitted. “This is his last shot, and we need him intact. Can you fix him?”

  Clausen thought for a moment, flipping through the packet absently. “Yes, sir. I believe I can.”

  #

  Night sat heavy upon the ruins of Kessinwey. Few lights shone from the towering buildings, fewer people walked her broken sidewalks. From a distance, the town was as dead as it had ever been. It was only upon close inspection that the signs of life could be seen. Steam rose from scattered vents, windows fogged with heat, antennae blossomed from the rooftops. Most importantly, inside several of those faintly glowing windows, the light flickered and shifted, hinting at figures concealed within.

  Clausen sat alone, balanced carefully on the battered stool, trying not to further rip the wine-red seat cover or break the tarnished silver legs. He hunched forward, clutched his rifle over the workbench, his eyes narrowed in concentration. The solitary light flickered overhead as the space heater sputtered back to life, its blower sending swirls of old dust through pale yellow beams.

  Clausen did not notice.

  His eyes were locked on the black polymer and gray steel of his rifle, carefully scanning every nook and cranny. He turned the weapon slowly, carefully, watched the light catch in the optics, play over the guard and rails, flow down into the valleys of the magazine well. He knew every mar, every ding, of this rifle. He knew every millimeter of the bolt's movement, could feel the smoothness in the charging handle, the gentle resistance of the mag release, the crisp break of the trigger. A soldier had to know his weapon. Zen-like, he repeated sentences he'd spoken so many times before.

  “Combat Automatic Rifle, Model Year Twenty-Five-Forty-Seven, Revision One, SOPMOD.” He spun the weapon through his hands, checked the angles, took comfort in their familiarity. While he worked, his mind was free. When he spoke this litany, he was always in the same place, whether that be here in Kessinwey, or Rio, or Halam, or Camp Fergus. The years did not matter, the location did not matter. There was only the procedure, and the same words. Those never changed. It was comforting.

  “Six millimeter ammunition, caseless.” He gripped the rifle, as if to fire it, and indexed the magazine release, popped the empty box from the weapon. “Rate of fire, six hundred rounds per minute, governed.” His fingers brushed the selector switch. “Three round burst, ungoverned, two thousand rounds per minute.” He pressed the chamber purge lever, pumped it once. No
dust emerged. He'd cleared the firing system twice already.

  The blast of hot air from the heater buffeted him again. He did not notice.

  A rifle was easy, for all its complexity. Each part fit, just so, and only so. The trigger moved the release, the release tripped the spring. The spring carried the bolt. The bolt moved the spark rod. The spark rod ignited the powder. The burning powder propelled the bullet. Every time, it was the same. A pull of the trigger loosed a round, and the bullet went where it was aimed. Each time, every time, the rifle worked, without failure, without complaint. It was simple, it was functional. Even ripped open, exposed, there was still a logic inherent to its parts. Each one was only a bend of metal, or a shell of plastic, but it connected to another, and another. Clausen, seated on his stool, could hold up any one and picture where it fit into the whole, what portion of the technical ballet it performed. A rifle was a rifle, nothing more or less. There was comfort in that.

  Clausen continued his recitation as he broke the weapon apart. “Remove locking pin from rear of receiver, store in stock. Pivot to separate upper and lower receivers. Release bolt carrier from upper. Remove.” Drill Sergeant Telleman had shown him how to do this, eleven years ago. He'd committed the actions to memory, just like every other recruit. He'd performed it again, and again, until he could execute by feel and sound. It had started as a test, become a chore, and transcended to therapy.

  He set the bolt carrier aside, returned to the upper receiver “Tilt and remove charging handle.” He placed it on the table as well. “Remove pivot locking pin from front of receiver, separate upper and lower, store pin in stock.” Four pieces of the rifle rested on the table. They were not a rifle, but they would be, again.

  His hands returned to the bolt carrier group. “Remove battery. Remove retaining pin, slide spark rod out through rear of bolt.” He carefully set the silver pronged lance down on a blue cloth, adorned with the golden Globe and Orbit, then returned his attention to the bolt. “Rotate cam pin ninety degrees to clear it from interfering with bolt. Remove bolt from bolt carrier.”

  Carefully, he placed bolt and carrier onto the cloth, then returned to the upper receiver, picked up the front of the unit, just above the barrel. “Depress plunger and rotate to unlock gas system. Remove gas selector, remove gas piston.” He set those parts aside. “Depress plunger, rotate, and remove gas tube.” The weapon now sat in eleven pieces on the table. The field strip was complete.

  Before him, the CAR47 was spread apart, each component gleaming under the low-hanging light. Again, he swabbed the spark lance until it shined silver. Again, he ran a bore-brush through the barrel, feeling the bristles rotate as they entered the gain-twist rifling. He pushed the cleaning rod through, pulled it back, ran it through again. No fouling emerged.

  He changed to the gas tube cleaning rod, inserted the prickly copper brush. Back and forth, he worked the bristles through the tube, pulled it out with a smooth tug. Tiny bits of carbon fell from the brush, like black snow from winter pines. He knocked the bristles clean, then pressed the cleaning rod back down into the tube.

  There was no need for this cleaning. Without a deep clean, with solvents and tools, he could never get the scoring out. The rifle was clean enough for combat. It was clean enough for inspection. It was clean enough to pass muster of the most grueling range master.

  It wasn't right.

  Flaws in the rifle would cause failure. Failure of one part destroyed the whole system. Each piece needed careful attention.

  How much worse a flawed soldier?

  He rammed the cleaning rod down the gas tube, face contorted into a snarl. A rifle never had to answer the question, “Why?”.

  “Why do you do it?” Firenze had asked.

  They’d been performing drills in the old foundry, running times on the various scenarios inside a mock Airship. During a break, when the teams broke up to catch a drink and sweat out their aches, the hacker had approached him with a question.

  Clausen had been standing in the center of the auxiliary server pool, deck four, evaluating the eight access points, reviewing assault footage, noting gaps in the defense. This room had to be held for at least ten minutes, and the nearest choke points were scattered across three hundred feet, without line of sight to each other. On this latest run, a portion of the team had lanced out to a sub-hallway, cutting off three of these access doors at a nearby junction, but had themselves been isolated and butchered by the seven minute mark. Firenze had been able to keep the datanet secure, but the entire screening team was dead, save Kawalski. There were still more points to take and hold, and the team had been broken.

  Firenze had approached him, flushed and winded, drenched in sweat, but still standing straight. Clausen had noted this. The kid was getting stronger. Not strong enough, not ASOC, but better than he had any right to be. Clausen nodded, expecting a question. The hacker would often ask about the tests, trying to eke out the reasons and methods for each scenario. It was a good skill, if he could ever learn when not to ask questions.

  Clausen had been prepared for nearly any question. If the hacker had asked, “Why can't we blow the hallways to seal them?” the answer would have been, “casualties in structurally tied civilian housing and damage to the ship's integrity.”

  For the question “why are we using ballistics and not directed energy weapons?”, the answer was “collateral damage, and portability when smuggling them aboard the ship.”

  If asked, “we know the enemy is going to blow up the ship if they lose, how can we stop that?”, the response was, “Another team has that job. Rely on your team, trust your allies, and make sure you're in the right place at the right time.” This mission was a technical dance, moving coordinated assaults through separate attack routes simultaneously. Without TACNET, it would be a nightmare, so the slicers had to keep network supremacy.

  Unfortunately, Firenze hadn’t asked about tactics or strategy, or the evolution of the networked battlefield, or any other reasonable question.

  Instead, the kid had weighed his words carefully, stared at the mock carnage and holographic replays, and asked, “Why do you do it?”

  “Someone has to.” Clausen's response had been automatic, one he'd given so many times before. It was simple fact. The world was a harsh place, there were bad guys. There were people who wanted to break the peace, shatter the one thing holding the world together, and damn the consequences. There were bad losers and dead enders, Pathies still fighting the last war. There were drone town anarchists, neo-Faction revolutionaries, and just plain old poor and hungry people, who bit the hand that fed them because rations were short. Someone had to stop them.

  It wasn't an answer.

  Clausen had given it, so many times before. He'd told it to a doctor in Tansana, after the locals had pulled the shrapnel out of his leg from the damn lorry bomb. He'd told it to that reporter, when they'd been pulling out of Lao Dran, tucked into the back of a rickety box truck, over the buzzing of flies and the stench of cordite. He'd told it to his superiors, and his soldiers. He'd told it to Sarah, after Monterrey.

  He'd told it to Sarah, and they'd both known it wasn't an answer.

  “Look, it's... it's complicated.” He'd stated, before he realized he was speaking. “What do you mean, 'this'?”

  “This!” Firenze had declared, wildly gesturing to the emptied training bay, to the fading virtual destruction and prefab walls. “All of it! Why do you do this?”

  “It's training, kid. We run it, over and over, until we know the target better than the people who live there.” Clausen had stated.

  The hacker had shaken his head, vigorously, like a dog flinging away water. “No, not that. I get that. I mean, I don't get that, but, I get that. What I don't get-” He'd paused then, considering the train wreck of a sentence he'd just made, and gathered his thoughts. The kid was smart, damn smart, and his thoughts would pile on each other like a rush hour collision. Now, though, he'd slowed down, organized, and spoken clearly. “What I
don't understand, is why you spend your whole life doing this job.”

  Back in the present, in the dark of Kessinwey's silent night, in the recesses of one of its abandoned basements, Clausen began to reassemble the rifle. He hadn't noticed when he'd finished scrubbing it, or how long he'd cleaned, but his hands began to move of their own volition, placing the parts in their places, in the only places they could be. There were rules to this, right ways and wrong ways. Here, in the dark, with just his tools and his little light, everything made sense.

  He'd always loved the night, even as a child. In the dark, the scars were washed away, the grime cleansed beneath a blanket of shadow. Harsh corners were softened, and the rushing chaos of the streets peeled away into serenity and spots of light. In the night, he'd learned to put his siblings to sleep with stories, to see the flickering blue light of the viewer and the snoring man on the tattered couch, and pretend his father was hard asleep from a long days work. In that quiet isolation, he'd learned to step quietly, to hide the cans and bottles and turn down the roar of the viewer. He'd learned to sit beside a sick sister or crying brother and tell them it would be okay, and not to notice the holes in the walls. The night was his ally, and had been long before he'd been a soldier.

  The single light, hanging overhead, shifted as the furnace rumbled. The light canted, chasing the shadows like water over sand. Clausen clamped the receivers together, reinserted the locking pins. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, drew aim onto a rusted can in the corner. The holosight bobbed, stabilized as he held his breath. The weapon fit him like a glove, an extension of his arm. He pulled it tightly, pressed his cheek onto the pad. He found his grip on the handguard, locked the weapon into firing stance. He flexed his other hand on the pistol grip. His index finger slid into the guard, caressed the curve of the trigger. The sights locked, dead still, and he tightened, just so, on the trigger-