Outriders

by Jay Posey

  “No, no, no,” the chief said, waving a hand. “They shouldn’t both feel great. One’s a better fit. Tell me which.”

  Pence chimed in, “‘Good enough’ ain’t good enough for chief. The man’s an artist.”

  Guiterrez ignored the comment, just stood there watching Lincoln intently. Lincoln gave it another shot, trying to focus intently on the sensations in his hands and wrist. Sure enough, when he really paid attention he could feel just a tiny bit of play around his left wrist, a slight delay in response when he rotated his hand back and forth slowly. He mirrored the motion with his right arm, but couldn’t recreate the same sensation.

  “The right one’s better,” he said. “Feels like a little gap around my left wrist, maybe.”

  “I figured,” Guiterrez said, nodding as he reached out and removed the gauntlets. “You got skinny wrists.”

  He took the gauntlets back to the table with the other and then returned to the console. After a couple of minutes of tapping, a deep droning sound came from within the vault.

  “Here comes the fun part,” Mike said, flashing a smile at Lincoln.

  A moment later, a large metal crate emerged from the vault and automatically navigated over to the chief on its multiwheeled base. The crate was about eight feet tall and maybe four feet wide and deep. It trundled to a halt in front of Guiterrez.

  “That’s not one of mine, is it?” Mike asked as the chief went to open the crate.

  “Nah, I’d have to chop one of yours up and stitch it all back together,” Guiterrez said. “This is one of Colonel Almeida’s old ones.”

  Mike whistled and looked over at Lincoln. “Talk about filling big shoes. You’re jumping right in, my man.”

  Lincoln was about to comment, but his words stopped short when the front of the crate swung open and revealed its contents. A full suit of powered armor. But like none he’d ever seen before. Typically, armor was bulky and ponderous, all angles and thick plating like heavy construction machinery. Even the scout configurations he’d trained in before seemed to have been patterned after light armored vehicles. The one that hung before him now was more like a racing motorcycle. Sleek, elegant. But powerful, like a lion at rest.

  “In case you were wondering why our quarters are so ugly,” Mike said, “it’s because that right there is where we spend all our budget.”

  “What is it?” Lincoln asked, lamely. For the first time, Guiterrez smiled.

  “That’s fifth-gen recon armor,” the chief said. Army Special Forces had a few suits of third-gen, which is what Lincoln had gotten most of his training with. He hadn’t even known there was a fourth generation. The Marines were still mostly running first-generation assault suits.

  “Recon, you understand,” Guiterrez added. “You try assaulting any hills or storming any buildings in one of my babies, and I won’t patch a single hole until you’re out of the unit.”

  “Come on, chief,” Mike said. “Who would ever be dumb or desperate enough to deploy a bunch of technicians into something like that?”

  Guiterrez gave Pence a look that said he knew precisely who would be that dumb or desperate. Mike just smiled. The chief pressed a button inside the crate, and the rack that the armor was on extended. He waved Lincoln over.

  “This one’s gonna need a lot of work,” he said, “but lemme check the fit and make sure it’s at least a place to start.”

  Lincoln moved to the crate and spent the next half hour or so suiting up, with the chief’s help. The armor was so well and intuitively designed he felt confident that, under normal circumstances, he could have donned the full suit in under ten minutes. Maybe five, with practice. But under the chief’s watchful eye, everything took three times as long; always there were questions asked, adjustments made, notes taken. In every way, it felt like getting measured for a finely tailored suit. Lincoln learned quickly enough to find something that didn’t feel quite right about the most recently added piece, because Guiterrez wouldn’t believe him otherwise. The toes pinched a little, or the waist felt loose, or there was a catch in the shoulder joint.

  But in reality, Lincoln was astonished at how natural it all felt. He hadn’t operated extensively in armor, but he remembered well enough the weight of movement in it, the slight resistance it added to every motion, the small but perceptible disconnect between man and machine. But this… even wearing a suit that had been custom tailored for someone else, movement was effortless.

  The final component to try was the helmet which, like the other sections, seemed to be all of one piece. Before the chief handed it to Lincoln, he activated something from the console and the grey metal faceplate separated in the middle, its halves sliding into housings hidden on either side, revealing a clear visor underneath. Guiterrez tapped the visor.

  “This here’s only rated for small arms, so in the field you keep buttoned up at all times,” he said. “I’m just popping it for you now so you can see, until we get synced up with your net.”

  “Understood,” Lincoln said. He slipped the helmet on with ease, and fitted it into the neck piece. The base of the helmet automatically compressed slightly, connecting with the suit and muting the outside world as the hermetic seal completed. For a few seconds, Lincoln could hear nothing but his own breathing. A soothing hum passed through the helmet, and the barrier between Lincoln and the outside world all but vanished. Once again, he was amazed at the suit and the sense of presence he maintained with the environment. Even with all the very expensive components that went into armor, his previous experiences with it had always left him feeling isolated from his surroundings. Many of his former teammates had complained that the helmets interfered too much with situational awareness and some of them had even gone so far as to operate without their helmets whenever the mission environment allowed. But in the fifth-generation gear, Lincoln could even hear subtle clicks and taps of the man working on the rifle at the bench across the room.

  Lincoln nodded, then shook his head, and felt the helmet shift and slide with the movement. It was the first piece that felt too big.

  “It’s too big,” Lincoln said.

  “Looks like it’s too big,” Guiterrez said, a moment later. “Figures. Colonel’s got a melon head.”

  “Mine’s on the small side,” Lincoln said. “Goes with the skinny wrists.”

  Guiterrez didn’t respond, but Mike gestured at Lincoln.

  “He’s talking to you, chief,” Mike said.

  Guiterrez glanced at Mike, and then back at Lincoln. He held up a finger, fiddled with something on his console, and then said “Say again?”

  “I just said I have a small head,” Lincoln said, and this time he heard his voice both inside the helmet and in the room, with a thinner, processed timbre. He’d forgotten that they wouldn’t be able to hear him through the helmet.

  “It’s all right, I got your measurements, I’ll find somethin’ that works,” the chief said. “I’m gonna bring her online so you can check the layout.” He tapped out a series of commands on his console, and a subdued heads-up display appeared on the interior of Lincoln’s visor. “Everything’s gonna feel a little sluggish until we get her set up on your wetwork, eye-tracking included, but take her for a walk around the room and see what you think.”

  “All right,” Lincoln said. He took a slow tour of the workshop, putting the suit through a full complement of movements; side-stepping, walking backwards, moving in a crouch. He even got down on his belly and did a few pushups. The other man in the room continued to studiously ignore everything else that was going on, but the woman turned around on her stool and watched with a bemused expression as he put the suit through its paces. Lincoln went to the workshop entrance, then turned back and raised his hands into the position he used when miming a weapon at his shoulder.

  “Uh oh,” Mike said. “I think he’s about to kill us all.”

  “Not all,” Lincoln said, and he moved through the workshop at half speed, as though clearing it of hostiles in slow motion. This
part his body did automatically, years of real-world experience driving the sequence; Mike was the first target, then Guiterrez, then the man with his back to the door. When Lincoln swiveled around to the woman, he swung his hands down in a smooth arc, careful not to point his imaginary weapon at her. He finished scanning the room, and then swept back around the other direction to re-evaluate the scene. As he brought his “weapon” down again to avoid endangering the woman, she smiled at him. And as soon he’d passed her by, she mimed drawing a pistol from under her stool and fired.

  “Gotcha,” she said, and then she turned back to her work.

  Mike laughed. “No offense, but you oughta know better, sir.”

  Lincoln shrugged. “Somebody had to be the precious cargo. I probably should have saved the chief though, huh?”

  “Sure seems like I’d deserve it,” Guiterrez said. “But it’s more than I’d expect. How’s it feel?”

  Lincoln walked back over to the part of the workshop they’d been using as a staging area. “I see what you mean about feeling sluggish,” he said, mostly to appease the chief. “It’s not much, but it’s there. But yeah, for being straight off the shelf, I’d say it’s feeling pretty good. I’m looking forward to running it after you work your magic.”

  “How long you reckon that’ll be, chief?” Mike asked.

  Guiterrez puffed out his cheeks, and shook his head.

  “All the tailoring, need to flush the colonel’s protocols, pull in your historicals, do a full refresh and restore… I’d say four days, maybe.”

  “Make it two and I’ll love you forever,” said Mike.

  “That sounds like a threat, sergeant,” Guiterrez replied as he reached up to help Lincoln remove his helmet. “You’re not the only one who needs work done, you know. But I’ll see what I can do, if it keeps me from havin’ to see you every day.”

  Lincoln nodded, “I appreciate it, chief. Thanks for looking after us.”

  Guiterrez dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand, dropped the helmet off at an empty workbench, and returned to help Lincoln remove the rest of the suit. As he did, he rattled through the various features Lincoln could look forward to enjoying once the hardware was actually his in an unbroken stream.

  “So, fifth gen has all your usual stuff you get with any suit, just better. The optics package is really nice, got a lot of the kinks worked out since third. Still composites from all detectable spectra, but the new visor does a whole lot better of a job translating it into something readable. Not all those crazy color schemes like the old ones. Reactive camo’s basically the same as old suits. Runs a little lighter, maybe, so not quite as much of a draw on your power. Still can’t run it all the time, though, so you got to be smart about using it when you need it and not when you don’t. Maybe we’ll get that figured out by sixth. Zero-G maneuvering thrusters, those haven’t changed since second-gen, except for some streamlining. Operates the same though, same input, same output, so you shouldn’t need much practice to get the hang of it. It’s not nearly like the jump between first and second,” he chuckled and shook his head. “Had a lot of hotshots busting their arms and heads with that, thinking they knew how to fly and then finding out pretty quick they didn’t know everything. Anyway, commo’s improved quite a bit, sensor suite’s better. All in all, I’m pretty proud of this little bit of work.”

  “That all sounds great, chief,” Lincoln said when the man finally took a breath. “Can’t wait to run it live.”

  “Just don’t run it into the ground,” Guiterrez answered. “One of these things costs more than even one of you.”

  He put curious emphasis on the word, but didn’t add anything more. The chief was quite a bit less meticulous taking the parts off than he had been putting them on; it only took about five minutes to get Lincoln out. As Lincoln was removing his last boot, Mike stood up straighter and sidled his way towards the door.

  “Thanks a bunch, chief,” he said. “I gotta get this guy over to the lab, so we’ll leave you to it.”

  “Gettin’ the full workup today, huh?” the chief said, slinging the boots in the pile and grabbing the helmet.

  “Yeah,” Lincoln answered. “They threw me in the deep end, and I guess I’m pulling a lot of people in after me. Sorry to swoop in here and–”

  “Get on out of here,” the chief said, interrupting. He was already at his workbench, hooking the suit’s helmet up to some device. “Both of ya. I’m up to my eyebrows in it already without you two hanging around to give me advice.”

  “Roger that,” said Mike. “See ya soon, chief.”

  “Thanks, chief,” Lincoln said, and received a grunt in reply.

  Pence led the way out, back through the main shop floor.

  “Chief said four days,” Mike said, as they walked. “Probably means you’ll have it by midnight.”

  “I’ve used some pretty high-speed gear in the past,” said Lincoln, “but… brother, I think I might be in love.”

  Mike chuckled. “Guess we better not leave you alone with it, huh?”

  “I can restrain myself, sergeant. It’s just hard to believe that it’s going to be mine.”

  “Oh it’s not yours, captain, make no mistake about that. Every one of those suits belongs to the chief, and he’ll remind you every chance he gets,” Mike said, as they exited the building and headed towards another facility that Lincoln assumed was the lab. “Though the lab rats probably take issue with that particular perspective.”

  “Yeah? What’s their claim?”

  “You know, with the Process and all,” Mike said. Lincoln shook his head. Mike’s eyebrows went up again, with the look that said Lincoln was in for another surprise.

  “I maybe signed up a little too fast,” Lincoln said.

  “Yeah…” Mike said. “You signed a whole bunch of documents, though, right? Got death-proofed and everything?”

  “Yeah, but that was for uh… back when I was applying for a different unit. Does that count?”

  “A different unit?” said Mike, confused. “There’s only one other army unit I know of that gets to…”

  Sergeant Pence trailed off, and looked at Lincoln with a new light in his eyes. But Lincoln shook his head.

  “I was non-select,” he said. He knew better than to let even a hint of the rumor get started that he’d made the unit.

  “Oh,” Pence said. “Still though, you qualified. That’s pretty impressive… Wait, is that where Sahil’s been this whole time?”

  Lincoln nodded. “You didn’t know?”

  Mike shook his head. “Knew he was on assignment as a trainer. Nobody said where, though.” Lincoln was surprised that a team that small wouldn’t know every detail about everyone else. But he was also a little relieved to learn he apparently wasn’t the only one in the place that didn’t seem to be getting the full story. “Doesn’t happen a lot,” Mike added, “but it does happen. Thumper gets called off to parts unknown more than the rest of us.”

  “Thumper?”

  “Yeah, Avery. Sergeant Coleman. Our tech.”

  “Gotcha,” Lincoln said. “But the Process… it’s the same sort of deal, right, like death-proofing? Eggheads keeping your consciousness on ice while they patch your body back up?”

  “Uh… mostly, yeah, something like that,” Mike said, but his expression was strange. “Look, uh… somebody a lot smarter than me probably ought to be the one to talk you through all of this, but I figure the labcoats are gonna think you already know all about it. And you know how they are. They act like it’s the most natural thing in the world. All about the science of it, no clue about the human side. Anyway. This place isn’t nearly as fun as the shop, so keep your business face on. And feel free to pull rank any time you think it’ll help.”

  Mike led him into the facility, and if the welcome at the shop had been all familiar warmth, the response in the lab was the exact opposite. Two security officers stood just inside the entrance, and they immediately closed in and blocked any further progress i
nto the building. Even after an exchange of credentials and a thorough scan, the guards didn’t seem entirely convinced that either Mike or Lincoln should be there.

  By the time they’d walked through the two sets of controlled-access double doors, there was already a young man waiting for them in the hallway. Lincoln was disappointed to see the man wasn’t actually wearing a labcoat.

  “This way,” the man said, and he walked briskly down the corridor, obviously expecting them to follow.

  The man led them to a small office, and he took a seat behind a desk, brought up a screen on the embedded display. There were two chairs in front of the desk, but Mike remained standing, so Lincoln followed his lead. On the desk was a name plate reading Major Thomas Blackwell. The guy behind the desk seemed awfully young to be a major. And Lincoln wasn’t even going to be able to pull rank.

  “Which one of you is Lincoln Suh?” the presumed Major Blackwell asked, looking up at them. Lincoln and Mike exchanged a glance, and Mike suppressed a smile.

  “I am, sir,” Lincoln said with all possible professionalism.

  “Right, OK,” Blackwell said. He punched up some data on the display. “Authorization already came through…” He paused and looked at Mike, then back at Lincoln. “Do you have any privacy concerns with this gentleman being in here?”

  “No, sir,” Lincoln said.

  Major Blackwell looked back at his display and continued. “All the background’s done, we have your files in order, and the numbers from the tolerance test all look solid. We just need your final consent for replica transfer in case of catastrophic death. Obviously there are some special legal concerns we have to be clear about. You know how lawyers are.”

  The phrase “catastrophic death” sounded both patently absurd and vaguely horrifying. Blackwell sent a document over to Lincoln’s pad; Lincoln activated it, skimmed through the complex language. He’d already signed over so much of himself, he didn’t feel the need to give it a close read.

  “Replica transfer?” Lincoln said, as he signed the document and sent it back to Blackwell’s terminal. “That’s the official term?”