The Red: First Light

by Linda Nagata

  “I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re here though.”

  I hold my hand out to her. She doesn’t take it. I let it fall back to the bed and for twenty seconds or more we just stare at each other, both of us waiting to find out what comes next.

  I’m thinking she’s going to leave. In fact I’m sure of it.

  But I’m wrong. She crawls back into bed, curling up beside me, cradled in my arm.

  I breathe in her scent, bask in the heat of her body, gaze into her dark eyes, feeling reality slip away from me. Lissa should not be here. Not in the world I’ve come to know.

  Things were different, back when I was a civilian. Then, we belonged together. But when I went into the army, everything changed, and my half of our puzzle didn’t fit anymore.

  “Why did you come?” I ask her.

  Her forehead wrinkles in an annoyed scowl. “Why do you have to ask stupid questions?”

  “It’s not a stupid question. You dumped me, Lissa, and I don’t blame you. It was the smart thing to do. And since you talked to my dad, you know I’m staying in. So nothing has changed, except I’m part robot now. So why are you here?”

  My Lissa is a data analyst. She works for a cutting-edge company called Pace Oversight, and she’s brilliant at her job. She applies her analytical mind to her personal life too, and she tries really hard to do the smart thing. She didn’t dump me because she fell out of love. When I went into the army, she reevaluated our relationship, weighed the facts and the future probabilities, and concluded that what we had wasn’t going to work anymore. So she called it quits, before loneliness, resentment, guilt, and worry caused it all to rot away.

  “We’re still friends,” she tells me as tears well in her eyes. “We’ve always been friends. We always will be.”

  She’s trembling, trying to hold in her grief. Her hand is curled into a fist against my chest and I know we’ve reached that part of the play where I’m supposed to tell her she deserves better than what I can give her, that she needs to get on with her life, to let her heart heal.

  But I don’t do it. I’m not that gallant.

  “I love you, Lissa. Now and forever.”

  Her tears flow, warm and wet against my shoulder. After a few seconds, she props herself up on her elbow to look at me. Wet streaks show in the makeup on her cheeks. Her eyes are red and her nose is running.

  “I love you, Shelley. Even now, and I don’t know why.”

  I smile.

  She smiles back.

  Then she rests her head against my chest again and sighs. “Don’t die, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  And for sometime after that, there’s peace between us.

  ~~~

  We start awake when the door opens. Specialist Carol Bradford comes in with a lunch tray. When she sees Lissa, she treats both of us to a wide grin. “Lieutenant, sir! I heard you got yourself some of the best therapy. Good for you, I say.”

  Lissa laughs and gets up, smoothing her skirt, this time without any sign of embarrassment. “Is he a lot of trouble?” she asks, as Bradford balances the tray in one hand while using the other to raise the bedrail.

  “He’s no trouble at all! Because we keep him asleep most of the time. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”

  I have to agree that this is true.

  Bradford unwraps my lunch and sets the tray up in front of me, raising the bed so I’m sitting up. “You must have impressed them down in physical therapy this morning, sir. They’ve scheduled you for an afternoon session.” Her eyes shift as she checks the screen of her farsights. “About ninety minutes from now.” She gives me a knowing smile. “Do what you like until then.”

  When the door closes, Lissa settles her sweet ass on the side of the bed, but when she bumps up against my titanium shin, still hidden beneath the sheet, she pops up again. “What the—? Oh.” A flush warms her cheeks. “Can I look?”

  I don’t really want her to, but that’s just me being vain. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  She lifts the sheet, scowls for several seconds at what she sees, then lays the sheet back again, before resuming her seat on the edge of the bed, more carefully this time.

  “Why did this happen to you?”

  She’s watching me over the lunch tray, her head cocked to one side, like I’m a particularly puzzling statistical problem, so I’m pretty sure it’s not an existential question.

  “You want to know why I didn’t know?”

  She nods, fully acquainted with my African precognition from the emails I send her. “Why did God abandon King David?”

  “He didn’t.” I sample a vanilla pudding, which tastes surprisingly good. “He warned me. I just didn’t catch on right away.”

  I tell her everything that happened, down to the anonymous phone call—the ghost in the net—that pushed me over into panic mode.

  The phone call bothers her. “That doesn’t fit with everything else. Before, it was always inside your head.”

  “Maybe I hallucinated the phone call.”

  “Check your call record.”

  I pull up the page in my overlay. It shows a handful of connections to Guidance, and one unknown caller. “It was real,” I tell Lissa. “But it doesn’t make any sense. My overlay only accepts calls from approved numbers.”

  “Unless someone at Guidance changed your filters.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know, baby. And if they knew those jets were coming, I don’t know why they didn’t just tell you to get the fuck out.”

  ~~~

  Later, I send Lissa to find pen and paper. She returns in just a few minutes, smiling as she holds up a thin stack of sheets for me to see. “Kelly Army Medical Center letterhead. I went to the administrative office, and they had a whole cabinet of the stuff. Supplied as part of the contract when the hospital opened a couple of years ago, but it hardly ever gets used.”

  I take it, running my finger over the embossed army seals. It’s beautiful and formal. Just what I need. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  She moves the empty lunch tray, and I set to work writing two condolence letters—one for Yafiah’s family and one for Dubey’s. The army has already notified their next of kin, of course, but Yafiah and Dubey died under my command. I want to give their families something. A formal letter isn’t much, but at least it’s solid and real and traditional—something to keep... or maybe to burn.

  Lissa contributes her suggestions, but it still takes me several tries. I’m not very good at handwriting and of course I’ve never written anything like this before, but finally it’s done. I’ve even managed to address two envelopes using data from service records. Lissa promises to take the letters to a delivery company.

  The task leaves us both in a somber mood. We sit together just holding hands—but I’m not thinking about Yafiah and Dubey. Instead, I’m kicking myself for involving her. Helping me write the letters must have reminded her of what’s at risk—and why she dumped me in the first place. I can almost hear her thoughts churning as she weighs again what it would mean to be attached to me.

  In my overlay, the skullnet icon lights up again, faintly aglow. I think it’s reflecting the skullnet’s activity as my mood is shepherded away from dark places.

  “Lissa? I didn’t mean to get you down.”

  She shrugs. “It must be so hard for you... to lose your friends.”

  “They weren’t really friends. More like—”

  I catch myself. What is wrong with me? It’s like I’m trying to dig my hole deeper.

  “More like what?” Lissa asks.

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “No, tell me.”

  We’re going to wind up in an argument if I don’t, so I confess. “More like a little sister and brother.”

  “Oh, Shelley.” She closes her eyes and leans her head against my shoulder.

  “Lissa, what happened to them was a fluke. Like a car accident. I went nine months without anyone seriously injured
. It’s not like it’s dangerous all the—”

  “Shelley, stop it!” She pulls back, anger in her eyes.

  The door opens, and we both turn to look as Specialist Bradford comes in with a wheelchair to take me to physical therapy.

  Lissa looks back at me. “Not dangerous?” She slides out of bed. “You’re lying there with artificial legs!”

  I catch her wrist as she reaches for her purse. “Please stay another day.”

  “I can’t. My flight’s tonight. I need to be at work tomorrow.”

  I let her go. I can’t force her to be with me. She has to want it. “Anyway, I’m glad you came.”

  She nods, blinking back tears. No words left. She gives me one more kiss, and goes on her way.

  ~~~

  To my relief, Specialist Bradford asks no questions, presenting her cheerful front as she gets me settled in the wheelchair. This one is motorized, and programmable. She holds down a blue button on the right armrest and carefully pronounces a destination: “Room 1-1-4.”

  “That’s not physical therapy.”

  “Lieutenant,” she scolds. “Your schedule changed. You’ve got an appointment with a Colonel Kendrick. Aren’t you checkin’ your email?”

  “Not since Africa. I’ve been kind of distracted.”

  “Oh, my. I’d hate to see your backlog.”

  I’m not looking forward to it either.

  Normally I’d check email in the TOC, but I’m never in a hurry to do it because almost all of it consists of useless reports and directives written by office staff wanting to look busy. I refuse to have the stuff streamed to my overlay, but right now the overlay is the only interface I have. So I use my gaze to race through the menu tree. When I get to dot-mil, I highlight the search icon and mutter, “Kendrick.” The message pops right up.

  “Crap, he’s from Command.”

  Colonel Steven Kendrick is calling me in to discuss my last assignment.

  Worry doesn’t hesitate. It kicks right in. Two fine soldiers were killed in the air attack on Fort Dassari. If the army can hold someone responsible, it will... but I wake up to the truth that it probably won’t be me. The army just spent what I guess to be at least a quarter-million dollars on my augmentations, which is not the usual preliminary for a court martial. Still, the army is a multiheaded hydra and it’s possible not all the heads are running the same program. I need to present the best face I can.

  “Look, I’m not going to wear gym clothes if I have to see a colonel. I need a uniform.”

  “Oh, there’s no need. As a patient, you’re allowed an informal dress standard.”

  Then it hits me.

  “I probably don’t even have a uniform anymore, do I?”

  “Your closet is empty,” Bradford concedes. “Maybe your things will catch up with you in another few days.”

  I have a dress uniform in storage at Fort Hood, but all the practical stuff went up in flames at Fort Dassari. I need to remember to put in a new order.

  Bradford punches a green button beside the blue one on the chair’s armrest; it begins to roll to the door, which swings open on powered hinges. “Don’t you worry now,” she tells me. “The chair will take you exactly where you need to go.”

  I decide to trust her on this. I lean against the high back as the chair turns into the hallway. With my gaze I select the search icon from my overlay and I murmur, “Colonel Steven Kendrick.”

  The wheelchair does an admirable job of negotiating a floor busy with techs, nurses, and ambulatory patients as I listen to an abstract that turns out to be no more extensive than my query: “Kendrick, Steven A., Colonel, United States Army.”

  “Details?”

  “Nothing found.”

  “Photo?”

  “Nothing found.”

  It isn’t easy to avoid a public profile; it takes power to do that. As I think about it, my anxiety ramps up. The skullnet icon responds with a flicker. I scowl at it, wondering if my skullcap was this active. I wait, but my anxiety doesn’t go away. Good. It’s nice to know I’m allowed to have feelings—and right now I’m feeling real apprehension at the prospect of explaining to Colonel Kendrick why half my squad is dead.

  The chair rolls up to a bank of elevators. One of them opens and I’m whisked down to the first floor. Then it’s through another hall and up to a closed door, numbered 114. There is no name placard. I grip the chair’s armrests, forcing myself to sit up straighter, determined to show discipline in manner if not in dress.

  Several seconds pass, during which nothing happens. It finally occurs to me that my clever wheelchair might not be able to open unpowered doors, so I lean forward, precariously overbalanced as I reach past my titanium feet, but I manage to grasp the door handle and shove it down. That’s the cue for the chair to take over. It rolls forward, bumping the door open with its tall wheels.

  Inside is a windowless conference room. A blank display screen hangs on the far wall, looking down on an oval table and flock of six chairs that takes up half the floor space. Alongside the front wall is a counter with coffee service, while just inside the door is a sitting area with a couch and two upholstered chairs. The chairs have been pulled back and a small table moved into a corner to make room for my wheelchair.

  Inhabiting one of the upholstered chairs is Colonel Kendrick. I identify him by his name tag and the insignia on his impeccable uniform. He’s lean, with green eyes, fair skin, and angular Caucasian features. He’s wearing transparent farsights so finely made they’re almost invisible. I have to look twice to be sure he’s wearing them at all. His hair is a gray stubble, no more than a day or two of growth, which surprises me because, while buzz cuts are common in the army, shaved heads indicate a linked combat soldier.

  A woman in civilian clothes—slacks and white blouse—occupies the other chair. My overlay offers no ID for her. She’s slender and athletic, not older than thirty, with blond hair pulled back in a simple pony tail and no makeup. She isn’t wearing farsights, but she has a tablet balanced in her lap. Her pretty blue eyes take me in, widening when her gaze drops to my titanium legs. Her expression hints that she knows me, but my overlay doesn’t have a record of her; it can’t provide me a name.

  The wheelchair parks itself so I’m facing them. I remember to salute.

  Kendrick looks mildly amused as he returns the courtesy. “Lieutenant Shelley,” he says in a voice so deep I know he’s practiced speaking that way, “this is a debriefing session intended to cover your experiences and actions at Fort Dassari.” He wastes no time on preliminaries. “On the last afternoon you were there, you issued an emphatic order to your LCS to put on armor and bones. Why?”

  It’s a reasonable question, but it lies there between us for several seconds, unanswered. I know he won’t like the truth, but that’s what he’s going to get. “I had a feeling, that’s all. Something bad was coming for us. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew we had to get out.”

  Kendrick turns to the woman, his eyebrows cocked in question. She nods—and it becomes clear to me what her function is.

  “You’re from Guidance, aren’t you?” I ask her. “Are you monitoring me?”

  Within the brain, truth and lies are very different things, constructed by different cognitive loops. When a linked soldier is wearing a skullcap—or a skullnet—Guidance can tell truth from lies as easily as I can distinguish black from white.

  Kendrick answers for her, “Guidance hasn’t been able to explain your emotional breakdown that afternoon. This inquiry is looking into their involvement and responsibility, as well as your own.”

  I turn back to him in surprise. “My emotional breakdown?”

  “How much do you remember of that day?”

  “Everything. I remember every damn thing.”

  “You woke up in a state of panic.”

  “No. Not panic. Fear. The way you’d feel if there was a gun aimed at your head. I knew I had to move, get out of the way, but I couldn’t see any reason for it, so I tried
to ignore it, deny it.” I glance at the woman again, but her gaze is fixed on the tablet she holds balanced in her lap. “I thought maybe that tech Denario had fucked with my skullcap. Then I got a blank phone call on my overlay. Unknown caller. No one was there.”

  I catch him by surprise. “That’s not in the record.”

  “It’s in my call log—and it shouldn’t have happened. I’m not supposed to get outside calls when I’m in the field. It was like somebody was fucking with me. Trying to unbalance me. And it worked too. It shook me up. I decided to file a complaint with Guidance, but I didn’t have time to do it because I knew, I just knew, that our time was up.”

  “No one told you what was going to happen?” he asks. “You received no other communications?”

  “None. No reports came in, the perimeter cameras picked up nothing, even the dogs were quiet.” I tap my chest. “But I wasn’t quiet—and it wasn’t an emotional breakdown. I knew something was wrong, and I acted on that knowledge—but I should have trusted my instincts and acted sooner. Then maybe Yafiah and Dubey would still be alive.”

  Kendrick studies me for excruciating seconds. Then he gestures at the woman. “Show him what he looked like.”

  She taps her tablet a few times, then lifts it and turns the screen toward me, her blue eyes downcast but still visible over the tablet’s rim. I feel like she wants to tell me something, but doesn’t quite dare.

  A surveillance video starts to run. My attention is drawn from her, straight into the nightmare of that afternoon. I’m looking down the hallway at Fort Dassari, gazing toward the door to the outside when it opens, for half a second overwhelming the camera with light, and then I see myself in the hall. I’m dressed in my skullcap, T-shirt, uniform pants, and boots. I’m clean-shaven, my dark eyes anxious beneath the rim of my skullcap—worried, but calm. Two steps into the hall though, and everything changes. My chin comes up, my lips draw back. Terror twists my features and I’m screaming like a madman, “Everybody, up! Now! Something’s coming.”

  “Jesus,” I whisper, as the skullnet icon glows.