Project Terra

by S. J Woods

  “Just stay on the path!” He called again, as Tommy automatically started to move closer to the falling rocks in fascination.

  He was relieved to see Norah look unperturbed by the shower of rocks that clattered to a halt just ahead of them off the trail.

  “It gets a little scarier.” He warned her, and her face lit up with delight.

  The climb became steeper and narrower, and they were forced to walk in single-file in places.

  Rose and Tommy shunted each other at times, eager to go first to get the best view of the next simulation.

  “You can still collect virtual animals on this trail.” He remembered when Norah, in front of him, started to look like she was finding the gradient tough. He thought that this might distract her from growing tired.

  She selected the application on her screen and started moving with a little more enthusiasm.

  They stopped to look out at the town beneath them, once they reached the halfway point. Identical buildings rising to either side of the main road running out of Ridge Falls. To their left, they had a clear view of the park, and Dane commented on how pretty it looked, but couldn’t help comparing the aesthetically-pleasing sweep of green criss-crossed with pathways and bridges to the rawness of the real National Park and thinking that there was no comparison. No designer could quite capture the beauty of nature.

  The path widened for a while, and they braced themselves as a portion of the mountainside suddenly gave way, announced by a roar as the rocks tumbled like one continuous body appearing to cut straight across their path and block them off.

  “Wow!” Tommy breathed when it was over. “That was amazing!”

  “How are we meant to get past?” Rose asked, eyeing the covered pathway with confusion.

  Dane pointed wordlessly to a track that veered off just before the blocked trail. It curved into the mountain, and they gasped as they looked up at the realistic cave with awe. Dane had been through this trail before, but he let the children lead the way through the dark rocky passage until they emerged into the light, now cleverly on the opposite side of the mountain.

  “That was so cool!” Norah exclaimed.

  They started to make their way back down the mountain, and Norah went back to collecting her animals, oblivious to the view. Dane watched them, feeling proud and relieved that they were growing up happy and carefree.

  “Tommy!” Norah had dropped Dane’s hand a little while back and was stood a few metres in front of the group hopping up and down with excitement. “Turn your Ridge Animals on! Quick! It’s an eagle!”

  Dane moved to Norah’s side to look at the rare specimen. He remembered playing this game when he was younger, and he’d never found an eagle. As he reached her side, he heard the tell-tale roar of another simulation start and he looked back in the direction of the noise.

  “It’s gone!” Norah shouted in frustration, oblivious to the noise and Dane glanced down at her wrist.

  The screen on the wrist-device was completely blank, and Dane stared at it in confusion. Everybody in Apatia wore wrist-devices that served as multi-use screens. They were powered by the energy of the wearer, constantly connected to the Apatia Central Network and were unbreakable. He had never seen one go blank in his life. He looked at his own, his interest in the simulation forgotten, and his own image, mirrored in the blank, shiny surface stared back at him, causing his stomach to lurch with uneasiness.

  He looked around in confusion, his mind trying to understand what was happening. His screen had never been blank. He felt disorientated, like he was missing a physical part of himself. The noise of the simulation had stopped as rapidly as it had begun, Dane realised, and it was with a jolt that he realised that the Central Network connection must be down.

  Dane’s thoughts came in a quickfire succession, the realisation dawning at the precise moment that he registered the sudden silence. His eyes were quicker than his mind and Dane saw the rocks still tumbling before he understood that they were free-falling now; no longer controlled by the behind-the-scene magic that pulled the props safely to their designated landing place, a complex pattern of sensors ensuring the safety of the guests.

  He moved with pure instinct, fuelled by adrenaline, as he swooped into the path, hurling his body in front of Tommy’s. Dane felt a blow to the back of his shoulders. He stumbled slightly, no pain registering over the heady chemical rush his body was feeding him. He kept moving forward, using his body as a shield, corralling Tommy away from the heavy boulders that bounced off the trail, free from their engineered path.

  Norah and Rose were crying out now. Their faces contorted with terror, as the shower of rocks continued to fall.

  “Move!” Dane yelled, pushing Tommy in front of him.

  The rocks were showing no signs of stopping and they followed gravity downhill in the direction of the girls, who were stood watching just feet away. Rose reacted quickly, grabbing Norah’s hand and instinctively putting her own body behind the younger girl to protect her, as she rushed forward to escape the worsening rockfall. They darted away from the trail, but Dane felt a smaller rock hit him squarely in the centre of the back. They couldn’t outrun this. He pushed the children tightly against the wall of the mountainside, away from the main trail, and sheltered by the jutting lip of the peak above.

  As quickly as it had stopped, the roar of the simulation kicked in and the rocks started to fall heavier and faster, but this time in the orderly fashion in which they were designed. Dane felt the buzz of his wrist-device as it kicked back into life, and he felt the pull in his chest as his fear was replaced by relief. He glanced around at the frightened faces of his siblings. Rose was the first to speak, her complexion drained of colour.

  “What was that?”

  EIGHT

  Dane’s journey back to base was much less eventful than his journey home had been. A notification alerted him to the time and location of his ride back to the command centre, and he said his goodbyes. The children waved him off, still distracted by their experience of the first Central Network glitch, and he made his way to the travel-pod. He was back in the Command Centre before he had even had chance to start feeling nervous about the results of the assessments.

  The foyer of the building was heaving with personnel returning from their own journeys home. He spotted Cory and Faith walking towards the hall and rushed over to join them. There wasn’t much time to catch up on anything more than pleasantries before the two Commanders took to the stage and the room fell silent.

  Commander Wilkins spoke first, addressing the crowd and congratulating all that had successfully completed their journeys. She explained that ninety-eight service men and women had been selected, not offering any information on what had happened to the thirteen who hadn’t made the cut, and that they would be placed into their teams and sent to their training location that day.

  Dane kept his eyes forward as Commander Nichols stepped forward to speak. Now that he knew that he had passed the first test and more information would be forthcoming, he tuned out of the Intelligence leader’s speech, wondering instead whether they’d find out about the thirteen that didn’t make it. His mind flickered back to Cory, weak from heat and dehydration. It was likely that some people had suffered similar and had to be medically evacuated. He hoped that that was the extent of it, and nothing worse had happened.

  Once the soldiers were dismissed from the hall, Dane followed the procession to receive his posting from one of the many Attendants dotted around the foyer. As he reached the front of the line, he tilted his chin up to allow the Attendant to scan his eyes.

  “Fifty Ninety-Eight.” He automatically confirmed his identity number, feeling the first real flutter of nerves since he’d got back.

  “Fifty Ninety-Eight.” The Attendant repeated. “Terrestrial Team. Mountain division. Central Apatia. Report to Officer Younes. Pods eight through ten.”

  Dane’s face lit up into a smile at the words. Seraphine was the only Officer Younes that he knew. He
made his way over to the bank of travel-pods, his eyes scanning the crowds for Seraphine or any of his colleagues from the journey home. He pushed his way through the throng until he reached the glass capsules numbered eight, nine and ten.

  She was stood, with her back to Dane, addressing a small group of men and women huddled around her; her hair tied back and tucked under her service beret, her hands moving expressively as she welcomed her new team. Dane hurried to join the cluster, sliding into place next to a muscular blonde woman that Dane had never seen before. Seraphine’s eyes moved around the squad as she spoke, and her eyes settled on Dane and she gave him a short nod of recognition.

  “There’ll be plenty of time to get to know each other once we have set up camp.” She continued her address. “I ask that we fall in silently for the journey and any questions will be answered in due course.”

  She fiddled with her wrist-device and started to bark out the numbers in a roll-call. Dane took the opportunity to look around him at his new team. The only other person from the Southbound journey was Faith, who flashed Dane a friendly smile in greeting. There were five women in the team, including their Officer, and two men. Seraphine completed her check and held up a hand for silence. A second later, they were joined by the last member of the team.

  Riku Shimizu shot Seraphine an apologetic smile for his lateness and she nodded a curt response of acknowledgement. Dane mouthed a quick greeting to his friend but couldn’t help but feel a little disappointment that Riku had taken the remaining spot on the team instead of Teonie.

  Team assembled, they made their way in small groups into the available pods. Seraphine slid into the same pod as Dane at the last moment and the lights dimmed as the capsule started its rapid descent through the darkness of the transportation network. The journey took longer than Dane expected; a capsule from the Southern military base to the central Command Centre took just minutes, despite it being hundreds of miles. Dane had grown used to the disorientating whizzing sensation that accompanied the travel, but he felt himself growing anxious as the minutes stretched by and they were still plunged in eerie darkness. He could make out the shapes of his fellow passengers; Seraphine and the tall, athletic Neha Duque. Dane was taller than average, but Neha had at least two inches on his height and he could feel the hard muscles of her arms as she bumped against him at every turn. He wondered what attributes the Commanders had looked for when building this squad, hoping that he wouldn’t find himself struggling next to the physical superiority of the team.

  A distant light appeared above them and the capsule emerged slowly into an unfamiliar building. Dane blinked slowly, his eyes growing accustomed to the light again.

  “Base camp.” Seraphine announced, straightening her beret and stepping out into a huge empty building.

  Dane looked around him. They appeared to be in what looked like an aircraft hangar. The ceiling was impossibly high, and the walls and roof were a dark gun-metal grey. The bank of pods were small; there were just three and there was no glass wall, fancy buttons or smartly-dressed Attendants like back at base. The rest of the team were emerging from their own capsules and they looked around them, expressions varying from excitement to nervous anticipation.

  “Where are we?” Niall Foster, a stocky, fair-haired man, was the first to speak.

  “Non-disclosable.” Seraphine said shortly. “What I can tell you, is that this is, as you can probably tell, an aircraft hangar. It will be back in use, but we will use these pods when we need to return to the Command Centre. We will be based within a sixty-mile radius, high in a mountain range. The trek will be difficult, and we’ll be taking everything we need with us.”

  The building was huge, and Dane realised that it wasn’t completely empty as an area about a football-field in length away was cordoned off, using the same sheet metal, accessible through a door. Seraphine led from the back and the team remained silent, shooting nervous grins at each other, as they moved through the door into an area about fifty-foot long. There were rows of free-standing cabinets, varying from the size of lockers to huge shelves larger than sleep-pods.

  An Attendant glided over to the group and the team stopped, awaiting further instruction.

  “Cami.” Seraphine nodded at the Attendant in greeting. “We need nine full camp kits, medical equipment and a purification set.”

  The Attendant turned away and started darting between stations, filling sturdy sacks with lightning speed and accuracy. When she had completed the task, Seraphine picked one up, testing the weight in her hands. She gestured to the team to take a bag and Dane grimaced slightly, not so much at the size and weight, but at the thought of lugging this around for the sixty-mile trek.

  “Cami, weapons.” Seraphine said, holding up a hand to silence the mumbling as the squad started to speak amongst themselves as they mingled, selecting their bags.

  They fell into obedient silence and watched, with interest, intrigued to know what weaponry they would be allocated for this special operation. Standard issue was a handheld device that issued a crippling current by laser. For active battle, the current was replaced by a stronger beam that would kill instantly. The details they had been given about the operation were minimal and Dane hoped the allocated weapons would give them an indication of what was to come. He could tell by the bated breaths of his team around him that they were thinking the same.

  Cami seemed to deliberate for longer than she had when assembling their backpacks and returned with an object in either hand. Dane registered the colour-coded handheld device with disappointment. It was the standard issue stun-gun, exactly the same as they all had fresh from graduation into the force.

  Seraphine regarded Cami’s offering and paused before nodding. She took the second object, until now concealed at Cami’s side, and held it up to show the squad. Dane recognised it immediately and recoiled a little. Seraphine’s long, slim fingers were wrapped around a black handle, the silver blade shone under the strip lighting, primal and menacing in it’s capacity to deliver a deathly cut with no automatic sensor to override the user.

  “What are we going to be fighting?” Kaya Scott asked in awe.

  Seraphine turned the knife over in her hands, as if transfixed by the razor-sharp edge. She looked up at Kaya, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

  “Has anybody used one of these before?” She asked, ignoring Kaya’s question.

  The squad remained silent and Dane felt shocked at Seraphine’s question. Who the hell would have used a knife before? As far as Dane was aware, the only place you could see a knife was in a museum archive. He had no idea these were even made anymore.

  “We will be staying here for the next few days,” Seraphine continued. “The sole purpose will be to master close non-tech combat.”

  The faces of the team changed at her words and Dane fought to keep the horror from his face. He had truly believed that the physical exertion of the trek and surviving in the wilderness would be the difficult part of this task, but Seraphine was talking about non-tech combat with casual indifference. What the hell were they going to come up against?

  Next to him, Dane saw Riku’s face pale slightly and he felt a grudging sympathy for the Technology operative. This was challenging enough for the physically-superior ground forces, but Riku was no way as strong or as fast as any of his teammates. His role in the team, Dane had assumed, was purely for tech-related support, like disarming boundary walls or fixing devices. Surely, he wouldn’t be expected to learn how to fight at close contact, especially not with a crude, primitive knife as a weapon.

  Seraphine gestured to Cami, who went back to her shelves and collected enough weapons for the team. Seraphine demonstrated how to properly sheath the knife, in an attached pocket that slid onto their belts. Dane felt the uncomfortable weight resting against his thigh, and he stood rigid, fighting the urge to touch the covered blade.

  “Cami and I will demonstrate some of the basic combat techniques,” Seraphine addressed the team again.
“You will then have some time to get to know each other as we’ll be calling you in individually for training.”

  She led the way into a small holding area. The floor was lined with thick mats and a bench ran along one wall. Seraphine gestured for the team to sit, and she removed her hat, taking a place in the centre of the floor. She gestured for Cami to approach her.

  Cami moved with alarming speed towards Seraphine and Dane’s head shot up, realising that the display had begun with no prelude. Seraphine moved quickly, dodging Cami’s fast approach, and sweeping the Attendant’s legs from under her as she did. Cami’s legs corrected themselves in a way only an Artificial would have been able to. Dane knew that if that had been him or one of the team, they’d have ended up on their back on the floor. Cami barely paused before she had turned her body back towards Seraphine and Seraphine landed a blow with her bare fist to Cami’s face. Cami bounced back with the momentum, but, without the burden of pain, she moved forward again. Seraphine was still moving from the blow she had delivered, and Cami’s artificial speed gave her the edge now. She grabbed hold of Seraphine’s arm, spinning and sending Seraphine to her knees. Seraphine’s face twisted with pain, but she made no sound and Dane found himself rising to his feet, automatically, poised to fly in to stop the attack. Seraphine’s free hand was at her hip and there was an audible gasp as the team saw the naked blade glint in her hand. There was a flash of movement and Cami stepped back, releasing Seraphine from her submission hold. Seraphine rose to her feet, turning her back to Cami to address the team and it was then that they saw the knife embedded in Cami’s chest. Cami stood facing the team, her face in the same default passive smile with the black handle standing on its own in the centre of her chest.

  Even knowing that Cami was just a set of wires under a realistic layer of prosthetics, Dane felt sick to his stomach. Seraphine’s eyes swept across the line of her team, taking their reactions in one-by-one before she turned back to Cami and removed the blade with a short, sharp tug. She wiped the blade across the leg of her pants and returned it to its sheath.