War in the Game

by A J McKeep

  The exo relayed the report from the pod’s medical unit. “The patient is stabilized in a synthetic coma. She is neurologically unresponsive and requires treatment for deep trauma. Treatment is possible, with a thirty-two percent chance of a complete recovery, but it will require invasive medication.”

  “Can the pod’s equipment perform the medication?”

  “It can. Appropriate nanobots and pharmaceuticals are in good supply and the micro-surgery is relatively routine.”

  “Well, what do we need to get to it?”

  “A consent is required. The procedure involves risk. Psycho-active stimulants and neurostim therapies are involved as well as invasive surgery. Together the procedures carry a forty-eight percent probability of incidental fatality.”

  Garrison took the tablet from his pocket and found the tunnel app that Dean had installed for him. The red button had turned green. He pointed the tablet at the exo, until he saw a communication icon flash. After he pressed the button, he asked the exo, “Can you put me in contact with him?”

  Favors

  “SPECIALIST CAINE,” THE VOICE still sounded like something from a time warp. His sarcastic edge was as sharp as ever.

  “I need to ask a favor.”

  “Obviously.” The chuckle set Garrison on edge.

  He said, “It’s a pretty big favor.”

  “Again. Obviously.”

  “It’s not for me.”

  “Of course, it is. At least, if I do it, it’s you I’ll do it for.” He left a pause, “And it’s you who will owe me.”

  “I know that if you do it, I’ll owe you a lot. I’m okay with that.”

  There was silence. Quietly, then,“So. You found her. I assume that it is a ‘her’ we’re talking about.”

  Garrison said, “Yes. That’s right. And, like I said, it’s all on me. I understand how much I’ll owe you.”

  “Oh, don’t think of it as a burdensome amount, Specialist Caine.” He could hear the thin smile, “You either owe me or you don’t. That’s all. Now you don’t. But, it seems you will.”

  Garrison told him what he wanted. He paused before he said, “You’re right. That is an impressively big ask.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I can.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Of course, Garrison. I have a high regard for you. You can ask me anything.”

  “And you’ll want everything in return.”

  “As of now, Garrison, you should think of this as a partnership.”

  “Not an equal partnership.”

  The chuckle made his breath catch. “No, Garrison. Hardly that.”

  “Will it be safe?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you or deceive you. There is a risk. The fact that she isn’t conscious complicates it. But I’d say the chances of success are very good.” He paused. “For the transfer, I’m talking about. You understand. I can’t talk about the medical issues.”

  Garrison hesitated over his other question. “Will it be reversible? Will there be a way back?”

  “I honestly have no idea. I realize that’s what you would hope for, and in theory it should be reversible but, in the circumstances, I can’t say with any certainty at all.” Again, the smile that Garrison could hear stretched his voice. “This will be an experiment.”

  Garrison took a long breath. “Come on,” The Gabriel urged him, “It’s serious, of course. And there’s risk. But that’s no reason not to have fun with it.”

  “No reason for you,” Garrison said through his teeth.

  “Your choice.” He sounded bored now. “Tell me what you decide.”

  He watched the slow, shallow rise and fall of her chest. Listened to the pump assisting her breathing. Watched the lines on the screen. They were still almost flat.

  Garrison said, “Tell me what I have to do.”

  “Have you thought about what it might do to her, Garrison?”

  “No. All I’ve thought about is what little chance there is otherwise.”

  Gamble

  THE EXO FOUND A flat and level site to set the claw down. All of the girls came to sit in a wide semicircle outside the pod.

  Garrison tenderly fitted The Gabriel’s datacrown onto Faith. Then he connected it up. Her charts on the screen still looked the same. They were as flat as they had been when she was first suited up and settled in the couch.

  Once the crown powered up, Garrison heard the voice in his headphones. Without the sarcastic tone, it was gentle, caring even.

  “I can see her now. He vital signs are vey low. When you asked if it would be reversible, it would presuppose that she had something to come back to.”

  Garrison winced and stroked her hand. Then the Gabriel’s tone was more reassuring. He said, “You were right though, Garrison. If we do this, it’s better that we try to do it now, before any of the medical interventions. It will give her a better chance.”

  Her chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. All the time she’d been in the couch, he’d hardly seen her eyelids move. He stroked her hand and her fingers moved but so little, he couldn’t tell whether or not it was just a reflex reaction.

  Garrison asked him what might happen if her body didn’t make it. He wondered if they could get her into another one. Then he thought about what that might involve. The Gabriel had put it plainly enough. “It would need a body with a vacancy.”

  And, as The Gabriel explained it, it would only work with a live body. “It’s not like the Frankenstein story,” that superior edge was there again in his voice, “You can’t make any of this work with spare parts of dead flesh.”

  “One thing at a time,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to get her out. Then the pod can do its work with her body. If that all goes well, then there will be a pretty good chance for us to get her reunited with her live, physical self.”

  “And if her body doesn’t make it?”

  “Like I said, one thing at a time.” And that was when The Gabriel told him, “That was what I was asking you about. Whether you had considered all of the implications. I can see that her situation is serious enough that all of those considerations are secondary. Still, it’s as well to consider.”

  Garrison had asked him what he meant.

  “It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.” Garrison didn’t know what to say. “But still,” the Gabriel went on, “As we agreed, there isn’t much choice here.” He left a long pause. “Not unless you decide to simply take the gamble. See how she comes through the procedure.”

  As far as Garrison was concerned, there wasn’t any question. He was determined to do anything at all that might save her. All the worry he had about the long term was just a distant, nagging thought. An unease. What he might have gotten himself into in the way of an obligation to The Gabriel, that was just the price and he would pay it. In the few spare moments that he had, though, he couldn’t help wondering.

  “You really do need to understand what’s coming up. For both of you.”

  “Both of us?”

  Garrison ached in the pause as he started to guess. “You don’t know? You didn’t realize? Her body can’t be left vacant. It would die.”

  Garrison was quiet.

  The Gabriel sad, “There’s a lot of risk, for both of you. And there will be a lot of pain. That will mostly be for you. Think about whether you still want to do this.”

  “Risk and pain? I’m a soldier. Risk and pain are what I do for a living.”

  “Okay, but you have to make an informed choice. If we simply let the pod take care of her, she could remain unconscious throughout the procedure. And the chances are better than fifty percent for success.”

  “Only just.”

  “All the same. Since the body isn’t yours, we can’t count on your unconscious control of her autonomic responses. You will have to be semi conscious.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Her internal injuries are pretty bad. The nanobots should be able to fix her, but this is a
field emergency facility. These aren’t like the twenty-cell chemical bots in civilian hospitals. These are general-purpose titanium bots the size of small screws.”

  “It’s fine. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Wait. Make sure you understand what I mean by ‘semi conscious.’ I don’t mean you’ll be slumbering but drowsy. You’ll be in the state between sleeping and waking. At the point where you’re aware of what’s going on, but you won’t be able to react.”

  Garrison listened.

  “Not only will you not be able to move, but you will have to prevent yourself from trying. If you rise in consciousness into waking, her body could go into shock and then panic. Then she would almost certainly die.”

  Garrison nodded.

  “Make no mistake, Garrison Caine. If she dies while you’re in her body, you die right there with her.”

  “But she’ll be out.”

  “Yes.”

  The wait was too much. He donned the other datacrown and connected to the infranet through the tablet. He found his way back to the place called ‘Hope’s’ and he waited outside. Through the tablet he sent a message to The Gabriel.

  “I’m ready.”

  The Gabriel messaged him back. “I’ll be quiet now, Garrison.” Garrison believed him when he said, “I’ll do everything that I can. When I know more I’ll talk to you again.”

  He understood how dangerous the transfer would be. The ‘upload’ as The Gabriel called it.

  Conjure

  AN IMAGE APPEARED IN his mind. More immersive and persuasive than any virtu he’d ever experienced. Softer. More detailed. He was looking up, through a tunnel of dark cloud. A light glowed at the end. He felt himself drift upward. The Gabriel’s voice had none of its attitude. He was clam and firm. “Focus on the light.”

  Then, “Conjure something. Remember an image from your childhood. The farther back the better. Something simple.” Garrison thought of the window in the room where he slept when he was a child. The window and a colored paper bird, spinning in the bright light. “If there’s a sound, that’s even better.”

  He remembered the flap of the paper as it fluttered. And flecks of dust danced in the shafts of morning sunlight. “Keep that image in focus. You need it now, and you’ll need it again. After. On the way out. Whatever you have in your mind now, that’s what you should use. Don’t try to respond or communicate. Not before we’re done. Not until afterward.”

  Garrison kept looking at the image of the paper bird. It made him happy and sad at the same time. Supposing he didn’t make it, what if Faith’s body wasn’t strong enough, or if it was too injured or if they were too late getting the medical attention it needed. She might have been better off if they’d just kept her sedated and run the procedures right away. This all felt too much like him trying to be a hero.

  There wouldn’t even be a way for him to know, not until it was all too late. Even then, probably. ‘If it hasn’t worked and the medical nanobots start to pull out,’ The Gabriel had told him, ‘it may be too late to get you out, or even to let you know. All that you’ll know is that the lights will start to go out, and then that will be the end of the story.’

  Not knowing. He didn’t even know if that was good or bad. It was what it was. He drifted through the clouds. Up. Toward the light. Nearer. He felt himself lighter. The bird flapped more slowly. The sound of its paper wings slowed until it was like a hypnotic chant.

  He felt a soft rush as he left his body and a breeze as he reached the light. Another rush passed him in the opposite direction. The brush was like a pleading smile.

  The sensation of his own weight became unfamiliar. His shape was new. Strange. His body was a shape that he didn’t know. It had softness where his hard muscle ought to be. It was smaller. It had parts and sensations he’d never experienced. But most of all, it was hot and loud with roars and sheiks and yells of pain.

  His abdomen was ripped in two. His side and his back were torn open. Burning lacerations ran from his thigh all the way to his shoulder.

  Some of the sensations he was going to have to ignore. He kept the picture of the paper bird as a meditation. A refuge. A place to shelter.

  Small jagged stones bored in through the veins in his arms. They buzzed and tumbled up, ripping though his chest, blazing down to his stomach and then they split off in a cascade. Some drilled through his stomach and around his intestine and into his liver, some into one kidney. Others bored through to his back and up his side. They felt as if they were part drilling, part burning their way. Still more of them charged burning and tearing down to his thigh.

  Imagining the paper bird, he reasoned that the bots were following his veins and arteries. They felt like destructive invasions, but only because his body hadn’t experienced things like it before. That’s what he told himself. His body had felt the rush of nanobots before, but Faith’s had not. It was her vessels and capillaries that reacted.

  The minute sawing of a zillion tiny teeth ripped precisely at the flesh in his thigh. Then they dragged it out in strands to weave and knit up, along his thigh. The same thing happened up his side, over his shoulder and along his neck.

  Fluids pumped though his liver and his kidney, like acid and hot lead. The organs felt as though they would have to burst. A blade of fire sliced from the back of his liver, diagonally, slowly, all the way to the front. Then back again.

  He had never had a physical sense of the shape of his liver before, or his kidneys. To stay calm and level he tried to amuse himself with how it was, being able to feel the organs inside. To weigh and map their size and the spaces they took. But then he distracted himself. The knife began again. If he flinched, it could be bad. He couldn’t risk thinking how. Or how bad.

  He thought about the paper bird again and recalled the image. Watched the specs of dust as they danced and glowed in the sunlight.

  His organs felt like they were filled with acids. Heat and the force of tearing rose. The gnawing, dragging, stretching around his shoulder and down his side went on for what felt like at least a couple of hours. One effect of his disassociated state was that time slipped and drifted seamlessly and smoothly. However painful the moment was, it slid away and didn’t carry forward. The time was like a smooth ribbon.

  He kept on intently watching the bird. He remembered a battlefield skin graft. With only a light anesthetic, a flap of skin had been shaved from the inside of his thigh. Then with no anesthetic at all, it was sown as a patch over his ribs. He thought that recollection of the pain of the dozens of raw, un-numbed stitches would reassure him. But it didn’t. that was in a stronger body. One that was disciplined.

  Staying conscious and not reacting took a tough focus of concentration. The effort tired him out.

  Then, from his liver and his kidney, the gritty invaders began their burning course back to his forearm and the nibbling termites on his thigh, side, back and shoulder crawled away up to his neck and away.

  Had they done their work, or had they given up? With nothing but a range of pains in the affected parts of his body, he had no way to tell. And he began to sink. He slipped into a thick, cool, dark silence.

  Why?

  SLUGGISHLY AND UNWILLINGLY HIS mind lit up. He was disoriented before he remembered the bird. The sound of the paper bird, dancing in the breeze and the bright shafts of light gave him a focus. It stayed in front of him as he watched a mist swirl around the light to form a tunnel. He felt a great weight and a resistance as the light was shut down to a small disk and he was tugged upward, toward it.

  As he began to rise, he felt the breath of another light in front of him.

  The glow of her face made her hard to see.

  “Why?” her voice was like a cool waterfall. “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” he hardly dared to speak, but he wanted to hear her voice so very much.

  “Why did you take all that risk? Why did you risk your life like that, for me? You don’t know me.”

  “It’s what I was trai
ned to do. I’m a protector. It’s who I am.”

  He felt a tug. He was being pulled away. “How could I not?” he laughed.

  More than anything he wanted to touch her face. But he knew it would be too great a risk. In the point of transition, this was where everything could all go horribly wrong. Still, he wanted to touch her, stroke her cheek. Soothe her forehead. Hold her in his arms. Not like he had any right. Just to give her comfort and to make her know that he cared. He was there for her. He cared for her.

  Then a weight yanked him forward.

  Tracker

  “WE HAD TO LEAVE you in her body. It was the only way she would ever have had a chance of surviving. The damage was too great.”

  Garrison sat bolt upright. “Where’s Faith? Is she alright?”

  “Now it’s a matter of time,” The Gabriel said in his earphone.

  Garrison felt like he’d been through a rock fall. He started to move, and he found pains that he’d felt in Faith’s body. Somehow, they had followed him back. He asked The Gabriel of that were possible.

  “More likely she brought them with her. The tensions were there when she entered into your body and they could be lingering still.”

  “I’m waiting for you to say something like, ‘it’s not uncommon.’ The way doctors always say.”

  “You’ll have a long wait. Nobody ever does the kind of thing we just did – that you just did. So, nobody could tell you what’s common. I’m just offering you a theory. It could be that she actually brought her injuries over and you’ll have to be fixed the same way she was.“

  “Oh. Well, thanks for that reassurance.”

  “It isn’t reassuring. We used up almost all of the drugs in the pod, so if she did, you’ll be what doctors refer to as ‘fucked.’ So, let’s hope that isn’t the case.”

  “You sound like you’d almost care.”