13
December 19th.
Matt Burke:
The sim is bullshit.
I’m wedged in the aisle of Tourist Class like I just up and materialized on this commercial flight in mid-air. No wonder the passengers are screaming.
“LIVEFIRE TARGETS. TRACK AND LOCK. MISSION CLOCK: 00:00:17:45.”
Dee tries to get me enthusiastic by flashing targeting graphics on my heads-up and reminding me I’ve got a time to beat before the simulated Wabs crash us all into a simulated field in simulated Pennsylvania. The simulated passengers are being held at bay by a combination of their own fear and a fistful of well-rendered slavering scumbags with box-cutters.
“MISSION CLOCK 00:00:16:57.” Pain in the ass.
“Fine…”
I remember Amber’s advice: if you need to pick out targets with civvies in the line, don’t aim—just hose. I swing up the plastic block of the ICW and squeeze down on the trigger (it’s more like a safety, I realize—seems like they want a human being to be the one to officially let fly). I watch Dee separate targets in the chaos in about a quarter-of-a-second, and then the select-fire starts popping them.
I feel the weapon spin rounds in an almost random rhythm, picking the Wabs out from the passengers and crew in nothing flat as I wave the gun, following the firing-solution graphic with something that almost looks like practiced skill. And it doesn’t miss. It doesn’t even puncture the fuselage. (Of course, it created this fantasy.)
“TRACK AND LOCK…”
The map-graphic shows two more coming up behind me, screaming in Arabic and dragging human shields. I pivot and point and squeeze and the AI makes them jerk and burst and leaves their hostages unscratched.
“SECOND OBJECTIVE: COCKPIT. MISSION CLOCK: 00:00:12:32…”
Damn, I’m good.
But now I have to run in this bulky suit and climb over screaming passengers and splatted Wabs and I point and spray the one by the cockpit door and I can hear the last one at the controls shouting wanting to know what’s gone wrong and Dee pops a door-buster grenade that blows the cockpit open and knocks the hijack-pilot half senseless and I shove through and spray him all over the control panel before he can send the aircraft into a dive.
“OBJECTIVE CLEARED. MISSION CLOCK: 00:00:9:17…”
Plenty of time.
“So?”
The sim disappears and I’m back in the VR web with a handful of techs looking at me like they found me under a rock. It takes them longer than it took me to dex a planeload of psychopaths to get around to unhooking me. I try not to stagger like a drunken sailor when I step off the universal treadmill deck.
“About time. I thought you were going to make me land the damn plane.”
“Not this time, Matthew,” I hear a familiar voice. He’s just coming into the chamber, wearing the same big black suit I am, but he’s got his helmet off. His face is still a little bruised from the cosmetic work, and he’s still visibly limping from the AK round that chewed up his leg seven weeks ago. But I can’t miss the eyes. And the scar—they’ve got topline cosmetic cutters to work on him and they left that damn scar diagonally down the right side of his face. Some shithead probably thought it looked cool.
“They making you run this one, too?” I ask him. “It’s bullshit, you know that,” I complain again to the techs. “How exactly do we get on the plane in the first place?”
“It’s just a targeting sim, Major,” one of the techs wearily repeats his defense. “Track-and-lock practice. Besides, Dee’s got ways to get you on an aircraft—believe it.”
“Awfully touchy scenario, though, don’t you think?” I dig.
They ignore me, and start strapping and wiring Michael—Grayman—Whatever-his-name-is—into the web.
“So…” I go ahead and ask him straight-out, “What is it they’re calling you these days?”
He grins like it’s either funny or embarrassing but doesn’t answer. Then one of the techs tries to strap the ICW on him and he holds up his hand, then reaches down and draws the big stainless hand-cannon from his thigh-rig—same ridiculous weapon he had in his apartment safe, same one I saw him using in the Athens sim, only now fitted with an under-barrel gadget that looks like a laser sight.
“Let me try it with this.”
“Negative, Captain,” one of the techs protests.
“’Captain’?” I try to interrupt, but they ignore me.
“That weapon would easily penetrate the aircraft after passing through the bodies of the targets,” the tech keeps complaining, “not to mention the lack of targeting assurance. I…”
“It depends on how you load it,” Michael comes back chill and edging into scary. “And it’s set up with one of the new AI laser interface sighting attachments, which needs testing. Humor me.”
The tech starts to protest but a sim update flashes, clearing him. Dee must indeed have a thing for Captain… uh…
“Back to: So what am I supposed to call you?” I keep pushing.
The sheepish grin comes back.
“Mike Ram.”
It takes all I’ve got not to just laugh out loud, but his expression says he expects me to.
“That’s a porn-star name, you know that, right?”
“You know what they say about boys with big toys,” he comes right back, racking the slide on his big stainless-steel phallus. Then I can’t see his face anymore because they seal down his helmet visor.
“Run it.”
“LIVEFIRE TARGETS. TRACK AND LOCK. MISSION CLOCK: 00:00:17:45.”
Even with the Big Stupid Gun, the son-of-a-bitch beats my time.
14
Grayman Book One: Acts of War Page 30