by Tarah Benner
He gets impatient and tries to put me in a triangle, but my body seems to know what to do. Unlike last time, I can sense what Kelso’s attempting each time he repositions, and my body moves expertly to avoid being trapped.
I counter each of Kelso’s submissions, completely baffled by my new ability.
Frustration is pouring off of Kelso in waves, but I’m riding the high of my newfound power.
A second later, I hear a low beep. The light above the window flashes red. The round is over.
We break apart, and Kelso doesn’t help me to my feet. He’s sweating through his T-shirt, and he won’t look me in the eye.
I’m speechless. I think I just had an out-of-body experience. My temple is throbbing dully, but I don’t even care.
“How —” I break off, trying to wrap my head around what just happened. I stare down at my hands, which look the same as they did before. I’m still me, which doesn’t explain how I just did what I did.
Buford calls us back in, and I feel a headache coming on. I remember the piece of equipment fused to my skull, and I get a shiver of paranoia.
“What the hell was that?” I ask, striding across the room. “What is this thing?”
“That,” says Buford, “was the SPIDER.”
I turn to Kelso in bewilderment, but he won’t look me in the eye. His jaw is tight and his brows are drawn — almost as though he feels cheated.
“How — is that — possible?”
“Oh, believe me,” says Buford. “I was just as skeptical as you are. But this technology is the future of training. It is absolutely extraordinary.”
I rub my head, still unable to process what just happened. My headache has morphed into an intense throbbing in both my temples, and I can’t seem to think straight.
I reach up behind my head to yank the device off, but Buford stops me and releases it remotely. I’m guessing these little things are very expensive, and he doesn’t want me to break one.
The second Buford swipes his Optix, I feel the SPIDER’s appendages loosen. I pry the thing out of my hair and drop it in the box, where it nestles itself into the foam like a creepy little animal.
“What the fuck was that?” I choke.
“Simulated motor-memory encoding,” says Buford.
“Fake muscle memory,” Kelso translates, taking off his device and shoving it into the box next to mine.
“See these things?” says Buford, picking up Kelso’s SPIDER and flipping it over. “Each of these appendages is an electrode. Kelso wore it for the first three rounds, and the SPIDER recorded the sequence of firing in his motor networks. The SPIDER can transmit the firing sequence to any paired device — in this case yours — and then the sequence essentially plays on repeat.”
“What does that mean?”
“By firing that sequence a hundred times a minute, it allows the appropriate synaptic connections to form in your brain without you ever having to learn those sequences manually.”
“Does that mean it taught me what Kelso already knows?”
“In a way.”
“In a way?” I repeat.
“It’s not the same as training,” Kelso mutters.
“Correct,” says Buford. “Because the sequences fire so rapidly in such a condensed period of time, you likely won’t remember those submissions tomorrow. Now, if we spaced out the repetitions and extended your sessions, you could learn them in a fraction of the time it would take in training.”
I sit back. I can still feel a dull ache of pain in my temples. “So, you’re saying that anybody can learn to fight without actually needing to train?”
“Not just fight,” says Buford. “Anything that relies on muscle memory. Someone who has never touched a piano could learn to play a song like a master in just a few sessions.”
“Exactly,” says Kelso irritably. “One song.”
I glance from Kelso to Buford, utterly confused.
“You can’t become a master,” says Kelso. “You can just learn pieces of what they know.”
“Yes, exactly,” says Buford, seemingly oblivious to Kelso’s sour attitude. “The limitations of the technology are such that you can only learn the precise movements and sequences that the master brain performs.”
“Master brain?”
“The instructor — or the user where the original synaptic connections formed. The SPIDER can only send very specific recorded signals to the mimicking brain.”
I shake my head. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“You said your squad was falling behind,” says Buford. “This should help you get them up to speed.”
There’s a long moment of silence as I try to process what he’s telling me.
“You want me to program them with this SPIDER thing?”
“I want you to use the device as a tool in your training,” says Buford.
I open my mouth to protest, but Buford cuts me off.
“I’ve seen your squad in action, Wyatt. You might be able to get them into decent physical shape, but their hand-to-hand skills are seriously lacking.” He holds up the SPIDER. “This is the solution.”
I shake my head. “But you said yourself . . . This doesn’t actually teach someone to fight.”
“You’re right,” says Buford. “That’s your job. The SPIDER is only a tool.”
I open my mouth again, but I’m almost too shocked to speak. Is Buford really asking what I think he is? He wants me to use a piece of unproven technology to fake teach my squad a few martial arts tricks?
“With all due respect, sir, I think this is a mistake.” I glance at Kelso, who is still avoiding my gaze. “The device . . . It makes you feel as though you’ve learned something, but the effects are only temporary. You said yourself —”
“This isn’t a discussion, Wyatt,” says Buford, his tone suddenly icy. He places the SPIDER back in its case and closes the lid with a snap. “This is the future of the Space Force. I want every underperforming squad using it to get up to speed. Consider that an order.”
23
Maggie
I jerk awake with the feeling that I’ve forgotten something important. I’m sitting at the desk in my old suite, and there’s a big puddle of drool soaking through the printouts in front of me.
I’ve spent hours poring over my notes from the Space Force, but none of it makes any sense. I’ve introduced myself to well over a hundred privates outside my squad, noting their names, their specialties, and their professional backgrounds.
If my sample is representative of the entire Space Force recruit pool, nearly half of them are intelligence specialists. Ten percent are linguists and communication experts, ten percent work in cybersecurity, and almost fifteen percent are hackers. There are a handful of astronomical engineers, space-weapons specialists, and cryptologists in the bunch, and the rest wouldn’t tell me what the hell they did before they were recruited.
We have recruits who speak Russian, Tatar, Chechen, Mandarin, Farsi, Arabic, and Korean, but no one seems to know why they were recruited in the first place.
I can’t get any officer higher than a sergeant to say more than two words to me, but I can’t push too hard and risk raising a red flag. All the information I’ve gathered so far has come to me under the guise of sheer friendliness, and no private is that friendly with a higher-ranking officer.
I glance at the clock and almost fall out of my chair. It’s four thirty. I was asleep for almost two and a half hours.
I grab my uniform and run to the latrine. My newly formed muscles are stiff and achy, but I’m used to it. Jonah has been working us like animals for the past three weeks, and I’ve actually started to form triceps.
Luckily, I’m the only one awake this early in the civilian pod. I don’t even have time to wait for the water to get warm. I just rinse off the cookie crumbs and energy-drink residue, climb back into yesterday’s uniform, and twist my wet hair into a bun. I have to be in the training center in less than ten minutes.
G
rabbing a granola bar from the stash in my suite, I jet over to the training center. I sneaked out of the barracks as soon as Adra fell asleep, which means that the couple hours at my desk was the only shuteye I got. I can feel my body rebelling. I am in desperate need of coffee.
Halfway there, I realize that I forgot my fake rifle. I double back to the barracks to grab it, and Adra is already gone.
PT starts in four minutes. I am so screwed.
I arrive at the training center with less than a minute to spare and find my place in line. Adra shifts beside me, and I feel her gaze flicker up and down.
“Where were you last night?” she hisses.
“What?”
“I woke up and you were gone.”
My tired brain starts and stutters. My mind goes blank, and every good excuse I’ve ever formulated seems to evaporate in an instant. “Uh . . . I wasn’t feeling very well,” I lie.
Adra doesn’t say a word. She seems to be waiting for a more complete explanation.
“I spent the night on the bathroom floor,” I add.
“I didn’t see you when I got up to piss.”
“Are you serious?” I say, turning my head forty-five degrees in her direction. “We had, like, an entire conversation.”
Adra looks suspicious and then confused. “Wait. What? We did?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
I shake my head. “Maybe you were sleepwalking . . . sleep pissing.”
“Maybe. Fuck. Am I gonna catch this shit?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so — not unless you got sushi from the market after dinner.”
“Damn,” she says. “No wonder you look like hell.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Just then, the rustle of whispers around me stops. The sergeants must be filing in. I see Jonah in my periphery and snap my head around to the front. He’s got this grouchy look on his face. Well, it’s grouchier than his default, at least.
I don’t have the energy for extra push-ups, so I shut my mouth and straighten my back. He looks as though he’s got something on his mind, which doesn’t bode well for any of us. If Jonah’s CO has been giving him a hard time, he’s definitely going to take it out on us.
Physical training starts just as it normally does. Jonah runs us through circuits of push-ups, sit-ups, burpees, pull-ups, and sprints. My pull-ups are still weak, but my push-ups have improved.
He doesn’t say a word to me the entire morning, which seems like a stroke of luck. In fact, he barely yells at anyone. Even when we move on to target shooting after breakfast, Jonah is eerily calm — as though our sergeant has been body-snatched.
When the morning’s training session is over, he dismisses us for lunch, and I hurry to get away from Adra. It seems as though she bought my lie, but I’m treading on thin ice.
I can’t let her catch me out of my bunk again, but I need to get to work on my story. Alex is growing impatient, and I need to find something to give her.
We file back in to the training center afterward, and Jonah is waiting for us in our squad’s area. His mouth is drawn into a thin angry line, and I get an immediate swoop of panic. Jonah never beats us to the training center, and part of me wonders if we’re going to be punished.
“Listen up!” he says as we fall into line. “For the rest of this week and next, you’ll be training with Sergeant Walker’s squad in the afternoons. I’ll be working with a few of you individually to get you up to speed on what we’ve been doing.” His gaze lingers on me for what seems like forever, and I feel my face heat up.
“Ping, Kholi, Davis, Casey — fall in with squad fourteen. Jones, you’re with me.”
My heart sinks. That feeling of dread is back in full force. How is it that I’m stuck training with Sergeant Sunshine on today of all days? Am I being punished for sneaking out of the barracks? How could he possibly know?
My overtired brain won’t stop dreaming up horrible scenarios as I follow Jonah out of the training center. He leads me down the hallway toward the combat gym, and my sense of foreboding grows.
Nothing good ever happens here.
“Grab some gloves,” he says. “You’re on the heavy bag.”
I do as I’m told, and Jonah runs me through the series of combos we worked on yesterday. The sound of my gloves hitting the bag is strangely gratifying, and pretty soon I’m sweating through my shirt.
My lungs are burning. My arms are on fire, and each breath comes like a knife to the chest, but I keep striking. I know better than to stop with Jonah hovering a foot behind me.
Every time I ease up a little, he yells at me to hit harder, faster, cleaner. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this personal hell, but it feels as though it will never end.
Just when I think my arms might completely detach from my body, he tells me to stop and take five.
I drag my sorry ass over to the drinking fountain, trying and failing to catch my breath. I suck down a few gulps of water between heaving gulps of air and focus on calming my heart rate.
Jonah isn’t facing me, but I sense his eyes following me around the gym. I have a question burning inside me, but I seriously doubt that I’ll get a straight answer.
Finally my breathing returns to normal, and I pad back across the gym.
“Sir?” I ask, my voice fading to a whisper before the syllable has even left my mouth.
“What is it, Jones?”
“Can I ask you something?”
Jonah turns to me and scowls. I can tell that small talk isn’t his thing, but he doesn’t refuse.
“Why . . . Why am I here?” My real question is “Why are you torturing me?” but “Why am I here?” sounds less combative.
Jonah stares at me for several seconds, and I feel as though I might combust. Looking at Jonah really is like staring into the sun, but I hold my head high and force myself to meet his gaze.
He sighs. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you . . . The entire squad is behind in training. Kholi, Davis, Casey, and Ping . . . They’re slow, but they’re getting there. You . . .” He shakes his head. “Half the time it’s like you aren’t even here.”
My face burns with shame. Am I really worse than Davis?
“If you don’t work hard,” Jonah continues, “and I mean at least twice as hard as everyone else, you are not going to make it here.”
My humiliation and defeat must show on my face, because he adds, “I’m not trying to be a dick. It’s just a fact.”
I nod, trying not to show how much his words bother me. This might not be my real job, but my pride is still wounded. No one wants to hear that they suck.
“But if you’re willing to put in the work, I’ll help you.”
For the first time, his voice isn’t rude or condescending. It’s actually kind of nice.
“Fine,” I say, filled with a sudden determination to be the best fake private here. “What can I do to improve?”
“You can listen,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Do what I tell you. No back talk — just do it.”
“Okay,” I say, completely taken aback.
Jonah doesn’t say anything else after that. He goes over to the bin and digs out some headgear and a padded vest. He also grabs some gloves for himself, and I get another swoop of apprehension.
He tosses me the vest and the headgear.
“Put those on,” he says. “We’re gonna spar.”
Great.
“Are you serious?” I groan, forgetting for a moment that he’s my sergeant and I just agreed to do as he says.
“I know you’re tired,” he adds. “We won’t go hard.”
I hesitate. I’m sweaty and exhausted, and my arms are killing me. The last thing I want to do is stand here and let Jonah beat me to a pulp.
“You can quit if you want,” he says nonchalantly. “The door’s right there. No one is forcing you to be here, Jones.”
I grit my teeth and wriggle into the vest. It smells like st
raight-up ass and smooshes my boobs uncomfortably.
Fuck him. This fight is bigger than me — bigger than my story on the Space Force. This fight is for weak-armed nerd girls everywhere.
Jonah the dickwad can’t make me surrender. He’s gonna have to kick my ass out of here.
“Let’s go,” I say, pushing the headgear down over my bun.
Jonah fixes me with a peculiar expression, and I catch a glimmer of amused satisfaction in his eyes. He walks over to the plexiglass window and lets himself into the room on the other side.
By the time Jonah emerges again, my nerves are stretched to the breaking point. I’m padded up like a human marshmallow, while he’s stripped down to his T-shirt.
Jonah pulls on a pair of gloves and secures the straps with his teeth.
“All right,” he says, pounding his fists together. “Let’s go.”
I take a deep breath and raise my guard. My entire body feels as though it’s made of rubber bands stretched to their breaking point.
We start to circle, and Jonah meets my gaze. “I’m not going to counter. I’m just going to defend your strikes.”
I swallow. I am frozen with nerves.
“Any time now . . .” says Jonah. His voice isn’t condescending, but it is impatient.
I throw out a jab. It’s really just a slow grope through the air, and Jonah dodges it easily. I try another jab, and he bats my glove away like a cat pawing at a ball of string.
I throw out a double jab and a cross, stepping in for the last strike. Jonah deflects every punch effortlessly, but I feel myself relax.
We move around the ring in a slow circle — me throwing every strike I’ve learned at Jonah, and him defending me expertly. Eventually, one of my crosses slips through, and it glances off the side of his jaw.
Jonah lifts his eyebrows as though he’s impressed, but I’m not convinced he didn’t give me that on purpose.
Soon I’m a panting mess of nerves and defeat, and Jonah isn’t even breaking a sweat.
“Time,” he says, lowering his guard and going back into the little room with the window. I catch a glimpse of something shiny embedded in his hair, but I don’t have a chance to ask him about it.