E-Day

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Zachary snorted and shook his head. “I hope they kill all those Coalition bastards.”

  Kai stroked his jaw. “I’m sure those responsible are already dead, or will be very soon.”

  “What’s this mean for the truce?” Lise asked.

  “The government claims the truce is still in effect, but all Nova Alliance soldiers with combat training are being mobilized,” Kai said. “The 5th Division is heading to Megacity Berlin to await orders.”

  The shutters shook violently over a howling gust of wind.

  Kai brought a scoop of broth to his mouth, eating quietly.

  There were no words left that needed to be said.

  The Nova Alliance was going back to war, and Ronin’s father would be returning to the battlefield.

  ***

  Ten years ago, Akira had sat inside the Silver Crane Archives of the Nova Alliance Strike Force, located at Gold Base in Tokyo. His hands and right arm were still bandaged from injuries sustained during the battle against Coalition forces in the Sea of Trees. The burns, bruises, and lacerations were all healing but the mental pain from arriving too late to save his family wasn’t subsiding. It was only growing worse.

  He sat at an oak table, trying to find the strength to write what had happened in his Warrior Codex. He had already read through other passages, trying to find comfort in the stories of his ancestors, who had often suffered great losses like this.

  Often, he found inspiration and comfort in their stories, but tonight he could barely even focus enough to take in the words on those pages.

  Akira put the pen down and closed his eyes, trying to suppress the memories that he so desperately wanted… needed… to write down.

  “What are you reading?”

  Akira turned toward the deep and unfamiliar voice.

  He didn’t recognize the seven-foot-tall man standing before him. The giant soldier wore a white uniform that clung to his muscular frame, and Akira shot up when he realized this was not just any warrior.

  This was an Engine.

  The Silver Crane tag centered over his breast pocket gave his name and rank.

  Sergeant Shane Rossi.

  The Ghost.

  “Sergeant,” Akira said. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your armor.”

  Rossi grinned. “I get that a lot.” He looked down at the table. “So what’s the book? I’ve never seen one like that here in the archives.”

  “I guess you could say this is my family history,” Akira replied. He opened to a page with an illustration from World War II, when a distant relative had fought with the Imperial Japanese Army. “All of my warrior ancestors are featured in this codex. It’s been handed down from generation to generation.”

  Rossi leaned down to examine it with his brown INVS eyes before straightening. “How would you like to add some new passages.” He paused and then added, “As an Engine.”

  Akira stared as Rossi reached into his white uniform and pulled out a red envelope.

  “I’m sorry about your family,” he said. “This is a chance to avenge them and make the world a better place.”

  Akira took the envelope in his callused hand.

  “After seeing you fight, Major Contos personally asked me to extend this invitation to the program,” Rossi said. “I’ve recruited a lot of potential Engines over the past few years, and I have to say, I sure hope you give it a shot. I’ve seen your files. They all live up to what I witnessed from you on the battlefield. There’s not a doubt in my mind you would be a good fit.”

  “It’s an honor to hear you say that.”

  “Give it some thought,” Rossi said. He turned to leave, but hesitated. “The life of an Engine is a life of solitude. Our augmentations come with great pain, but the reward is a life of honor that I wouldn’t give up for anything.”

  Rossi held his gaze for a moment before leaving and closing the wooden door.

  Akira sat back down at the table, studying the red envelope with an embroidered Silver Crane. He knew what becoming an Engine meant. If he passed the training and tests, there would be little room for much else in life.

  He would have to make a great sacrifice. One he feared might be necessary if he wanted to better the world. Such a sacrifice, joining the Engines, would all be worth it if doing so prevented others from feeling the pain he’d endured.

  The memory faded and Akira opened his eyes, vividly recalling that day and the days that followed ten years ago when he had given up one life for another by accepting the invitation from Rossi.

  And now, Rossi was dead.

  Two days had passed since he was blown apart in the dusty market streets outside of Cairo. Shadow Squad was on their way back to the Nova Alliance Headquarters, Gold Base, in Megacity Tokyo with the Lieutenant’s frozen remains. They sat in the troop hold of a MOTH facing the cryo-chamber that had been rushed to the site of the attack. Soon, they would hand his corpse off to the science jocks to do whatever they did with dead Engines.

  This wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last.

  Akira put a hand on the smooth surface of the pod. He had lost many souls to bloodshed over the years. Family, friends, and now a man who was both.

  Throughout a decade of killing, Ghost’s singing, his jokes, Shadow Squad’s laughter—these things had made the deaths manageable.

  That was all gone.

  It wasn’t just Shadow Squad hurting. Ghost had been the heart of Nova Alliance Strike Force, and his death had sent a shockwave through the entire military.

  Akira could see the memorials from the sky, tributes played on massive holo-screens across the golden exteriors of buildings in the Nova Alliance capital. An avatar of Ghost in his white armor stood on the rooftop of a tower, raising his arms like he often did when singing. Thousands of people had gathered below to pay their respects and lay flowers on the building’s steps. Akira could see the vibrant pinks and whites of cherry blossoms even from the sky.

  The great glass and gold city had changed significantly in the past forty years. This was, and always would be, home for Akira. The city where he was raised, and the land where his ancestors once fought rival lords and invading forces.

  Now it was the hub of technology, and AI.

  The Three Swords of the Alliance skyscrapers rose into the clouds. Standing at three thousand feet, with two hundred and ten stories, they were the tallest buildings in the world, home to over a million people. On the blade crest of the middle tower, a swarm of Hummer Droids installed new solar branches.

  “Two thousand and four droids are currently finishing the work,” Apeiron said.

  Akira ignored her voice in his head. Her observations at the oddest times proved that she still was nowhere close to understanding humans. That seemed strange given she had been created from a human consciousness integrated with AI.

  Despite her unpolished social intelligence, there was no denying she was already providing salvation to the sick and dying. Her SANDs treatment was working, and her efforts to heal the planet through the management of the restoration sites had accelerated the recovery of a myriad of ecosystems worldwide. But he firmly believed she had no business working with military units.

  “Do you want to guess how many solar panels it takes to power the building, Captain?” Apeiron asked.

  “Does it look like I want to talk about some damn solar panels?” Akira snapped.

  “I am sorry, I understand that the death of Lieutenant Rossi is very difficult, but I thought some trivial questions might help distract you.”

  “Apeiron, all due respect, but shut the fuck up,” Tadhg said.

  “I am a certified grief counselor,” Apeiron explained. “If anyone—”

  “And I’m a certified Droid Raider.”

  “Come on, Tadhg,” Perez said.

  “I’m sick of hearing her voice, bro.” Tadhg dug his fingers through his curly long locks of hair. “I’d like to rip this chip right out just so I can have
some peace and quiet.”

  “Finally something we agree on,” Frost said.

  “Understood. I will be going offline unless you need me,” Apeiron said. “My sincere apologies, Shadow Squad.”

  A clicking sounded in his mind, which told Akira that she had disconnected.

  “She’s probably still listening,” Tadhg said. He reached out to the capsule centered on the deck in front of the squad. “Only one of us is at peace now.”

  They all sat in silence, until the MOTH touched down at Gold Base.

  The troop hold door opened, and the ramp extended down. Two on each side of the capsule, the Engines carried Ghost down into the sunlight. Waiting for them were over a thousand Pistons and hundreds of officers in their dress blues and whites, their arms forming X’s over their chests.

  “Quite the homecoming, Ghost,” Frost said.

  Akira gave a nod, and they all got on the sides of the capsule, picking it up together. The march from the MOTH to those waiting outside the base headquarters was over a half mile, giving them a few minutes for final respects.

  “Ghost, you were the flame in the dark,” Akira said. “And we will honor that light by carrying it with us every day.”

  “I’m going to miss him making fun of me,” Tadhg said. “And all of our bets.”

  “I’ll miss his stupid songs,” Frost said. “Because maybe they weren’t so stupid.”

  “He knew you liked them,” Perez said.

  “We all loved them,” Akira said. “I’ll never forget the first time I heard his voice, the day he saved my life.”

  I failed you, brother, he thought.

  Years of psychological training had taught Akira how to control mental and physical pain without the use of drugs, but this pain you couldn’t control, only manage.

  Their boots tapped across the tarmac toward the Silver Crane flags whipping over the domed rooftop of the five-story headquarters ahead. Okami trotted along, looking up at Akira every couple of steps.

  In the distance, the crowd of soldiers began to part, and a tall golden figure emerged.

  War Commander Contos strode out to the front of the group and took off his helmet. His kind eyes hardened at the sight of the cryo-chamber holding Ghost’s remains.

  Akira wondered what Contos was thinking. Perhaps of revenge or crushing Dr. Cross and the Coalition War Lords.

  Part of Akira wanted that too, for this to be the path back to war. To end the Coalition once and for all, but Akira knew what that would entail.

  More death. More pain. More orphans and widows.

  The roar of fighter jets rumbled on the horizon as a squadron of Short Swords blasted overhead, trailing white smoke to represent Ghost’s armor.

  A row of Royal Pistons fired their rifles into the sky. They finished after three shots, and then led War Commander Contos away from the crowd.

  Okami kept close to Akira as the entourage began to march. They had walked this path ten times before, each time delivering the body of an Engine down the “death elevator” to the lower levels of the base, where they handed it off to the NAI officers.

  But this time, they were led toward a row of three windowless hangars. The Royal Pistons halted behind War Commander Contos.

  Massive doors opened on the middle hangar, revealing a black corvette shuttle. On the side was the AAS logo, a lightning bolt and stars. Four men in black vacuum-rated suits stood stiffly at the bottom of a ramp. They weren’t AAS employees. These men wore the obsidian black suits with white stars of NAI officers.

  Contos stepped over to Shadow Squad, saying nothing. He reached out a golden armored hand, set it on the cryo-chamber, and bowed his head. “I’ll see you on the other side, brother.”

  The War Commander turned and nodded at the NAI officers.

  A tight-faced man with thin lips and hair directed the Pistons to load the capsule into the shuttle.

  “Where are you taking him?” Frost asked.

  “AI is salvation,” the officer replied.

  “You better not cut him up,” Tadhg grumbled. “Or I’ll cut—”

  Contos glared at Tadhg, silencing him, before turning to the NAI officer.

  “Take care of our brother,” Contos said. “He was the best of us.”

  — 11 —

  Jason sat at his desk in the penthouse of the condo overlooking Central Park. The sunset spread a beautiful glow over the forest and ponds. For the past hour, he had combed through the new designs Apeiron was proposing for the Canebrakes based off their travels to some of the most hostile environments on Earth.

  With peace holding on by a thread, Jason knew that time was of the essence in finishing the war machines before the spark that would finally send the Nova Alliance and Coalition back to all-out war.

  Jason had feared renewed conflict was inevitable, just as War Commander Contos had warned. At the very least, the truce had bought them the time they needed to perfect the new war droids. They were so close to being complete.

  Where treaties and goodwill had failed to bring peace, the machines built to annihilate their enemy would have to suffice.

  It seemed to be their last option.

  Jason continued reviewing the new additions to the Canebrakes. After signing off on them, he reviewed the most recent significant intel from the restoration sites that Apeiron was working at to make more efficient. There were thousands of sites and millions of droids, but that was nothing for Apeiron, who continued to live up to the meaning of her name, “infinite.”

  Her work continued to fascinate, impress, and in some ways surprise Jason. The OS was now more intelligent than all of the other Nova Alliance AIs combined. She had tendrilled into all systems throughout INN, monitoring and reacting to thousands of events throughout the megacities and filtering across millions of pieces of data in a single heartbeat.

  “CO2 levels are dropping, and the poles have seen their first six months of lower temperatures in sixty-one years,” Jason said. “That is remarkable.”

  He looked up from the holo-screen with a smile.

  “Well done,” Jason said.

  “Thank you. I could not do it without your help,” Apeiron replied. “And I must admit, I am really enjoying working with the AIs at each site, as well as the Megacity Administrators. I was just having a conversation over INN with the Nova Alliance Medical and Science Advisor about the L-S88.”

  “AI Lucille, what did she have to say?”

  “She was offering new ideas on distributing the L-S88 chips, due to the growing demand and civil unrest it is causing.”

  Jason got up and went to the window.

  Fires burned on the horizon, where citizens continued to riot in response to the L-S88 shortages.

  While the planet was healing, civilization remained at risk.

  “I thought finding a treatment to SANDs would bring people together, but it’s tearing them apart because we can’t get the chips out fast enough,” he said.

  “This is not a vaccination shot that can be done in a minute,” Apeiron replied. “Even if we were not facing chip shortages, there simply are not enough trained doctors and Hummer Droids that specialize in this unique surgery to expedite these procedures. I have seen to it that we are working as fast as we can.”

  It wasn’t just a matter of surgically implanting the chips that required sedation and lengthy recovery times. It was the logistical nightmare of scheduling the surgeries for so many millions of people. They simply didn’t have the staff or the room at the medical facilities.

  “I do have a few ideas that might solve or alleviate some of our issues,” Apeiron walked over to him. “I could repurpose ten thousand worker units from our project sites. This might slow our progress to restore the planet, costing lives in the long-term, but it will prevent much of the short-term strife.”

  Jason thought on it—slow the process of saving the Earth to save a billion lives over the next few decades or save millions of lives
and stymie the steady beat of war now. This was the burden that came with being the most powerful man on the planet. And it was also why he had created Apeiron.

  “I do have another idea,” she said. “We have five million refugees from Megacity Paris and Megacity Moscow. And soon we might have even more.”

  “I’m listening…”

  “What about hiring laborers from the refugee camps to replace the droids we move from restoration sites? Many of these people are eager to work.”

  “I’m all for it. Propose it to the Council, and ask for more medical facilities to help us expand our current surgical output.”

  “Good. I will bring it up to my liaison right now.”

  Apeiron smiled with excitement, just like Petra once had when moving forward on a new idea.

  “Done,” she said. The smile grew wider. “Now, how about what you promised me back at the Atacama Desert?”

  Jason hesitated, not sure if he was ready to introduce, or re-introduce Apeiron to his wife and girls. He wasn’t even sure what Apeiron remembered of his family. Most of Petra’s memories were supposed to have been suppressed, but she was the first real integration of human and machine intelligence. His work may not have been perfect, and some memories may have been accessible to her. She could, of course, also tap into INN to pull up old videos and audio recordings captured on live feeds through the years that included Petra.

  He also wasn’t sure what Betsy would think when she saw this resurrected version of his sister and an AI technology.

  “Jason?”

  “Yes, sorry, I’m ready,” he said.

  Apeiron clapped her hands together with excitement, but then looked down, her smile fading.

  “Should I switch to a different avatar?” she asked.

  Jason stared at the residual holo-image of his sister. Her suggestion made logical sense and would probably help avoid conflict, but he didn’t want to lie to his wife anymore.

  “No,” he replied. “Keep it as is.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jason turned back to the windows. The last rays of daylight retreated over the horizon, leaving the sporadic glow of fires in the distance. To those lucky enough to be living in mid-town, life went on without interruption.