Veteran

by Gavin Smith

  ‘Listen, if you ever get the balls to go out and face Them instead of making war on your own people, people who have gone out there and fought, then you and me can talk about Them, understand?’ The Fortunate Son swallowed and nodded. ‘What makes you think it’s to do with Them?’ I asked.

  He hesitated. I could see him holding something back.

  ‘You’ve just upset me,’ I told him. ‘Now would be a bad time to start pissing me about.’

  ‘Because of the Nepalese guy,’ he finally said.

  ‘The Ghurkha?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He was what we call XI.’ The lieutenant said. ‘It means—’

  ‘I know what it means.’ I laughed bitterly. Rannu was just like me, another victim of Rolleston. I pushed myself to my feet.

  ‘You finished?’ the woman guarding the lieutenant asked. Then something occurred to me.

  ‘What the hell made you come in hard like this?’ I asked him.

  ‘We didn’t,’ the young lieutenant said. ‘We came here with authority to search this place,’ he said bitterly.

  I looked up at Pagan. ‘You declared war on the British government?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘This is our home, we’ve paid our dues,’ the woman who was guarding the lieutenant said. ‘We see an invasion, we fight. All we wanted was to be left alone.’ There was a kind of logic to it but I’d been taught to pick my fights wherever possible. ‘You finished now?’ she asked again. I nodded, not really thinking. The shot rang out and the lieutenant slumped forward and slid off the jetty into the water.

  ‘Hey!’ I shouted, moving towards the woman. She looked at me, her face a mask of hate.

  ‘Fuck him!’ she spat. ‘You know what that was,’ she said, pointing at the floating corpse, then she and the man with her turned and walked away.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Pagan said.

  ‘And do what?’ I demanded.

  ‘This has to count for something,’ he replied, gesturing at the destruction all around.

  ‘You know better!’ I said, stabbing my finger towards him. ‘It never counts, never makes a difference.’

  ‘Jakob, please,’ Morag said quietly. I relented. I just wanted to lie down.

  ‘Did Jess get out?’ I asked.

  ‘We haven’t been able to raise her,’ Pagan said quietly. I looked up. He looked old and wizened, as if he’d shrunk.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I said. ‘Ambassador?’ Morag rummaged in her bag and held up the solid-state memory cube.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I finally got round to asking her. We were on a boat piloted by Pagan, back on the deceptively placid brown plane of liquid that was the Humber. The hacker had produced his staff, folded in two, from his pack and put it back together; it seemed to provide him with a sense of security.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Those people didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘Nobody deserves it. Well, maybe that’s not true.’

  ‘What are they going to do?’ Morag asked, turning around to look at Pagan. The hacker shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe leave, maybe hide in other parts of the city; perhaps some will start again.’ He shook his head. ‘We’d come so far; we’d really made something there.’ He lapsed back into silence.

  ‘I meant in there,’ I said, pointing at her head. She shrugged.

  ‘I’ve still got the worst headache ever, and my thoughts feel so jumbled I don’t know what’s me and what’s new. Pagan’s teaching me how to write sub-routines to sort it,’ she said.

  ‘Where’d it go?’ I asked her. She shrugged but Pagan answered.

  ‘Lots of different places, some innocuous, some not. It seemed to be taking huge random samples of information.’

  ‘Like where?’ I asked.

  ‘Everything from literature libraries to major equatorial corporations,’ he said.

  ‘That the worst it did?’ I asked. Pagan shook his head.

  ‘No, I’d say that the NSA and GCHQ were the worst of it.’ I felt cold. Even I knew that the National Security Agency and Government Communications Headquarters were supposed to be as near impenetrable as was possible.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I said. Pagan said nothing. ‘You’ve got some of that info in your head?’ I asked Morag.

  She shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  ‘How well did you cover your trail?’ I asked Pagan.

  ‘Pretty well, but as you can imagine we’ve got those two organisations on us in the net and they’re both justifiably shitting themselves so they’re probably going to throw a lot of resources at it.’ I felt he’d understated the problem. ‘Rolleston would’ve already had people in the net looking for us, but now everyone will be.’

  ‘And there will be bounties as well,’ I said. Pagan nodded. I lapsed into silence. This felt pretty hopeless.

  ‘Did it do any damage?’ I asked. I still wasn’t convinced it wasn’t a strike against Earth’s communications infrastructure by Them.

  ‘Not as far as I can tell. It just took information.’

  ‘Was it looking for anything?’ I asked. Pagan looked at me like I was too stupid to understand.

  I began to tend to my wounds, trying to keep my mind off the enormity of the events I was caught up in. I did what I could, cleaning and knitting or at least sealing the wounds with the pretty basic med kit I’d managed to find in the Avenues before we’d left. I was a broken machine, and without a good technician I was not going to be operating at what passed for my best these days.

  ‘What’s with this?’ I asked Morag, pointing at the SMG.

  ‘Jess gave me some combat skillsofts - small arms, small unit tactics, unarmed stuff,’ she said. At the mention of Jess I could see tears in her eyes. I wondered how long before those stopped. How long before she knew more dead people than she had tears.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Those things are all right as far as they go but they’re no substitute for real skills and experience.’ She nodded, blinking back the tears. ‘You also need to acclimatise to them, break them in.

  I’ll run you through it when we have time and space.’ She nodded again. My old prejudices against skillsofts were coming back. I’d used them - you can’t learn everything after all - but I really thought that people should learn to fight properly.

  The place was called Fosterton. It was basically a series of large rusting barges secured together on the Humber over what had been part of north-east Lincolnshire before the waters rose. It was a private port, cranes and cargo-handling mechs unloading everything from hydrofoils to small ships and sleds. It was obviously a smugglers’ haven.

  Pagan was talking to the owners of the place, three generations of a family that had probably lived round here for hundreds of years. None of them had military ware that I could see, just the cybernetics they’d need to run a place like this. I don’t think any of them had done military service. I felt a pang of envy - a close-knit family, a place to call home. Their lack of military ware notwithstanding, it would’ve been foolish to cause trouble here, as they were obviously capable of controlling a place like this and the people who used it.

  Pagan had clearly had dealings with them before but they did not look happy. He was trying to book us passage somewhere, anywhere, but the owners of Fosterton just kept on looking over at where Morag and I were slumped resting against a packing crate. I wondered if they knew. Had they heard about the bounties that were presumably now on our heads?

  ‘Who’s Howard Mudgie?’ Morag suddenly asked, using a name I never expected to hear from her mouth. I turned to stare at her.

  ‘Where did you get that name from?’ I asked her.

  ‘Do you know who the NSA are?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. It was difficult not to know who they were in the line of work I’d been in.

  ‘Some of the information that Ambassador gave me, it connects your name to this Mudgie.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re listed as a known associate is all. I think
it’s been flagged by someone outside the NSA but I can’t tell who,’ she said. That would mean someone with a lot of pull, I thought.

  ‘Howard was a member of the Wild Boys—’

  ‘The Wild Boys?’ She was smirking. I sometimes forgot that the names that had such powerful resonance for us often just sounded silly to the uninitiated.

  ‘The SAS troop I served with,’ I said, trying to imply that I didn’t want the piss taken out of the name. ‘He wasn’t even army; he was a journalist, but after so long in the field he was as good as any of us and developed a taste for it.’

  ‘He liked being a soldier?’ she asked incredulously. I gave this some thought.

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ I finally said. ‘He, a lot of us, we just couldn’t put it down. After a while you get so good at it that it becomes normal ...’

  ‘And you enjoy it?’ she asked. I turned to look at her. She was looking up at me with concern.

  ‘You worried that I’m some kind of psycho?’ I asked. ‘Do you think I enjoyed it back there?’

  ‘I may not be some war hero but I know enough about psychos,’ she replied coldly.

  ‘Yeah, I guess you do,’ I said, nodding. Again I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should apologise to her for the state of things. ‘Look, as bad as it’s been here and in Dundee, this is nothing like being out there. I know this sounds patronising, but until you’ve done it some of the things we think aren’t going to make much sense to you. I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with me - I’m just trying to cope with stuff as it comes - but you don’t have to be afraid of me.’

  She smiled at me and then gave me a hug. ‘I know,’ she whispered. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I didn’t reciprocate. She felt me tense up and let go.

  ‘But this Mudgie, he didn’t have to be there?’ she asked, trying to break the awkwardness that had suddenly built up.

  ‘I guess,’ I said. ‘But he was one of the good guys.’

  ‘Who?’ Pagan said, coming back to us.

  ‘Any luck?’ I asked. He shrugged.

  ‘Depends on what you mean by luck. We can get a sled into Russia.’ Both Morag and I stared at him. Russia was effectively a huge and very dangerous criminal empire that controlled most of the black market in northern Europe. It was no surprise that Russia was a possible destination, as it was Russians, like the sub captain McShit had arranged for us, who controlled the illegal transport economy in everything from people to heavy farm machinery to the drugs made in the Dutch factories.

  ‘What’s your plan?’ I asked.

  ‘Money talks in Russia. We buy some privacy and finish work on God. You provide us with security in the real world,’ he said, leaning heavily on his staff. Pagan now had an old surplus BAE laser rifle in a scabbard secured to his back, a sidearm at his hip. He’d presumably grabbed them during the Fortunate Sons’ attack.

  ‘What about Mudge?’ I said, turning to Morag.

  ‘The journalist?’ Pagan asked.

  ‘You’ve heard of him?’ I asked, turning back to look at the aging hacker.

  "Course. He was the journo that blew the story on them dumping the special forces vets. You know him?’ I nodded. Morag was watching me again.

  ‘He served with him,’ she said to Pagan.

  ‘Yeah? Good guy,’ he said. Mudge’s story had probably prevented a lot of special forces operators from ending up dead. ‘Wait a second.’ I saw what was coming. ‘You were Soldier A,’ he said. ‘The mutineer, weren’t you?’ I sighed.

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ Morag asked.

  ‘A while after I got out of the service,’ Pagan began, ‘the government realised that they couldn’t risk having a lot of ex-special forces types on the street, as even with decommissioned cybernetics they were still potentially very dangerous.’

  ‘Besides,’ I added, ‘those who had their cybernetics removed were being hired and re-outfitted by the corps, the syndicates, various mercenary outfits and even the better-financed street gangs.’

  Pagan nodded. ‘It was a major security risk. Now, what some enterprising soul did was discover a loophole in the law that basically meant that the government were in no way culpable for anything that happened to their troops in unclaimed space.’

  Morag looked appalled. ‘You mean they were just going to dump these guys in space?’ she asked. I nodded.

  ‘He was one of them,’ Pagan said, pointing at me.

  ‘A lot of the troop carriers are converted freighters,’ I began quietly; this was never something I’d enjoyed talking about. ‘Their cargo holds are modular and easy to cut off from the main body of the ship. They just had to blow the airlocks and we were gone.’

  ‘After you fought for us?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’ I surprised myself; I no longer felt angry at the betrayal, just sad.

  ‘But they didn’t space you?’ she prompted.

  ‘Oh, they tried,’ I said.

  Pagan was smiling. ‘The problem was that they were trying to kill some pretty resourceful people. Soldier A here and some others resisted and took over the troop transport.’

  ‘And killed some people,’ I added.

  ‘Soldier A?’ Morag asked.

  ‘During a hearing or a court martial, special forces operators are referred to like that to preserve their identity for operational security,’ I told her.

  ‘They court-martialled the people responsible?’ she asked, sounding a little more reassured.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘They court-martialled you?’ she said incredulously. I nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because legally we were in the wrong. I’d mutinied and committed murder. They found me guilty and I was going to be shot, but Mudge had been with me, part of the mutiny. He used his contacts to make sure the story got everywhere.’

  ‘Real scandal,’ Pagan said. ‘Actual public outcry.’

  I shrugged. ‘Everyone’s a vet now. Could’ve just as easily been them. Mudge saved my life, again. Instead of being shot I was dishonourably discharged.’

  ‘Really?’ Pagan was laughing. It was difficult to get dishonourably discharged these days because troops were needed so badly. By the time you did something bad enough to warrant it you were more likely to just get shot. Everyone wanted to be dishonourably discharged.

  ‘Mudge disappeared about eight months ago,’ I said. ‘He was looking for another friend of ours.’

  ‘I know where Mudge is,’ Morag said.

  13

  The North Atlantic

  ‘We’re going to New York,’ I said with what I hoped was finality.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Pagan asked, apparently missing the finality.

  ‘Isn’t New York supposed to be a bad place?’ Morag asked.

  ‘Compared to what? The Avenues? Yeah, when it’s not being attacked. The Rigs, probably. Dog 4? I don’t think so,’ I said.

  We were riding at just under the sound barrier about ten feet above the North Sea, heading up the coastline. Up past where Morag and I had started off in Dundee. We were in the cramped converted hold of a fast attack sled. I think it had probably started life as a Lockheed but the vehicle had been so extensively customised and presumably rebuilt after taking damage it no longer resembled its original form that much.

  It was a long, grey, armoured wedge of a vehicle, somehow managing to be aerodynamic and ugly at the same time. To aid with its stealth capabilities there were no right angles on it, and at the moment its weaponry was retracted behind concealing panels. It looked like the lump of ugly, utilitarian metal it was.

  The Russian pilot had introduced himself via a loudspeaker. His name was Mikael Rivid, and he assured us that he had piloted sleds like this for the Spetznaz, but then I got the feeling that every Russian sled driver said that. Pagan had said that Rivid was okay but according to his friends at Fosterton a little mad, but then everyone said that about Russians, and sled drivers. In fact, it seemed quite likely that Rivid was a little mad: he was, after all
, flying at about ten feet over the North Sea at just under seven hundred miles an hour, a feat that only someone with very good enhanced reflexes was capable of.

  Typical of pilots of low-level, ground-effects vehicles like this, Rivid was a chimera. He was directly wired into the vehicle, a requirement because of its speed and the amount of handling it required. Rivid, like many chimeras, was severely disabled. He existed cradled in a technological womb secured on a complex series of gyroscopic mounts in the front of the sled.

  The womb took care of all his needs. His food came in a drip with many tasty flavours; a disturbingly visible catheter removed his waste. His sense link was as close as he was ever going to come to feeling the touch of another person, his external world a hallucination of ghost people piped in from the net. I was momentarily envious before I realised that even for me that was taking self-pity too far.

  The sled was Rivid’s body; he was wired in so deep that he had developed an intimacy with the machine that most people never achieved with their lovers. It was far beyond what I felt jacked into my bike. Chimeras were so good at what they did because if their vehicles went down they had no way of escaping. That tended to focus the mind.

  ‘It will be a little more to travel to New York,’ Rivid said. His voice was tinny from the cheap speaker, though still heavily accented. ‘More fuel and more ... excitement. We will have to stop at the Faroe Islands.’

  ‘Have you been there before?’ Pagan asked. There was static over the cheap loudspeaker which I realised was actually laughter.

  ‘Of course! I’ve been to Barney’s World! Why wouldn’t I go to New York as well?’

  I wasn’t sure I followed his logic. ‘Is it as bad as they say?’ I asked.

  ‘Worse! Very bloody! Very ... exciting! Dangerous unless you’re a pirate.’

  ‘Do you want to go there?’ Pagan asked Rivid.

  ‘Why not! More money for me.’

  Pagan seemed to sag and then turned back to me in the cramped quarters. We found ourselves pushed back up into the bucket seats, as the sled’s compensators didn’t quite remove all the Gs. We were banking hard to the left and I was against the right-hand bulkhead. I found myself looking down at Pagan and Morag strapped in opposite me.