Psychonautz

by Gentry Race

  Hastings quickly followed, keeping up with the general’s brisk pace.

  “Yes, sir. But we’ve made many breakthroughs, and I think you’ll be surprised by our correction of course.”

  Hastings and Graham passed numerous green cell doors with labels scratched out like missed opportunities, failed subjects. General Graham didn’t seem to take notice of the mistakes—the many lost under Hastings’ watch.

  The general turned his head. “Course correction? Well, I’m glad to see you’ve tried to fix the problem. I just hope it provides promising results.”

  Hastings changed her tone. “Sir, we’ve made great advances here, and I believe if we use subjects that have had—”

  “Æther? Is that the same as Ætheria?” The general stopped in his tracks, looking down at his holoboard as if he couldn’t believe what he was reading.

  “Yes,” Hastings said, “Æther is the raw source of the proto-form nanoprinting material we get from the seed, and we’ve found it to be structurally identical.”

  “Why can’t we use clean soldiers and make the necessary room in the grey matter? I don’t want another fucking Project MK-Ultra here, Commander.”

  Hastings knew what he was getting at. MK-Ultra was a top-secret CIA project in the 20th century in which the agency conducted hundreds of clandestine experiments, sometimes on unwitting citizens, to assess the potential use of drugs for mind control.

  “Sir, I’m seeing a direct correlation between positive results and subjects with a history of heavy Ætheria use. The drug leaves abscesses in the brain that allow the new grey matter to fold into them,” Hastings said. “Along with psychonautic therapy, we’re seeing the capability of Level Two manifestation; this now creates more than just stabbing weapons.”

  “Level Two? Now we’re talking. Forming complex weaponry has always been a top priority for this project,” the general said, continuing his path down the hallway that doglegged to the right, “but I hope you realize that psychonautics is new-age bullshit spiritualism. It even has the word ‘psycho’ in it, Sasha.”

  A loud buzzing sound echoed as the door opened to a large paddock with research cabinets and shelving that repeated every three feet to an overhanging balcony rail. Below, a one-story shaft descended into an open pit.

  “And don’t think I didn’t read your file, Commander,” General Graham chastised. “Your background in dabbling with Ætheria and psychonautic therapy makes me less than comfortable with you referencing it. This is something I only overlooked due to the fact that you tried the suit on yourself first and made it to Level One.”

  “Almost to Level Two now, sir. I’m on the verge of incendiary rocket manifestation,” Hastings said with pride. “My focus with psychonautics and Ætheria would be strictly professional. Together, they can provide the human mind with the capability to wield this power—this exosuit. Perhaps there can even be a Level Three.”

  “Excellent,” General Graham said. “And what if you fail?”

  “If a soldier were to fail, this could be our backup, our contingency plan, sir,”

  “What kind of contingency plan involves Reform inmates and drug addicts?” General Graham asked.

  “The kind we don’t have to take responsibility for. The false-flag kind,” Hastings said with a smile.

  Hastings and Graham met at the railing overlooking the pit. There were dark windows around the room on the lower level, indicating that this was an observation area of some sort. Hastings tried to eye the young military scientist who was standing behind the tinted window, but she couldn’t see him directly and blindly nodded instead.

  “Allow me to show you,” she said.

  Another buzzing sound echoed, and the door popped open to reveal two soldiers, MPs, wrestling with a large man. His strikingly muscled frame screamed heavy operations, and his hair was in a crew cut, high and tight on the sides. He was holding onto a book for dear life.

  “Beightol has been in Reform since the beginning,” Hastings said.

  “Then why is he putting up a fight?” General Graham asked. Hastings noticed that the general was more intrigued now as he placed both his hands on the railing.

  “Beightol has had a rough upbringing. His Ætheria use, along with overusing steroids, has disrupted his body’s ability to stabilize adrenaline,” Hastings said. “Plus, he hates it when we interrupt his reading time.”

  Beightol broke the hold of one of the soldiers and hit him in the face, flattening his nose.

  “The Village ain’t a real village!” Beightol yelled. “It's a fucking park.”

  Two more soldiers ran in with shock sticks arcing wildly, striking him to the ground.

  “Jesus, Hastings,” said General Graham, unable to hide his disappointed expression. “The man’s fucking broken. Can he even read?”

  Hastings nodded again just as the soldiers left and the lights dropped to deep red. Beightol slowly picked himself up and looked around the room. A strange humming noise seemed to buzz from all around him.

  Small black nanites could be seen building up from the ducts in the wall, crawling out toward Beightol. The tiny bots swarmed his body in clumps, covering him from the neck down.

  “No!” Beightol screamed. “Not the toxins from the trees!”

  “Toxins from the trees?” General Graham asked.

  “Uh, Beightol has an affinity for…” Sasha said hesitantly, “M. Night Shyamalan.”

  “Never heard of him,” General Graham said.

  The minuscule black bots linked together so tightly around Beightol’s body that they now looked like an amorphous liquid. Beightol fell back into the lab chair, unable to move or speak. He squirmed in his seat, but to no avail. The scurry of bots was now by his ear and moving inside. With a jolt, Beightol snapped into submission. A hollow, empty look blanketed his face.

  “Our nanites have allowed us to ‘fix’ inabilities and shortcomings by filling the abscesses. What was a lost soldier, useless and ineffective, is now a viable asset.” Hastings leaned over the railing, smiling, and called out, “Psychonaut, voxelize.”

  General Graham looked at Hastings with a cautious eye, and then looked back down at Beightol. The liquid that covered Beightol crisped up to a hard, angled suit, not unlike a military stealth paneling—black and grey with an inset of colored luminescent lights that ran the contours of the portholes. An insignia patch of a skull wearing a space helmet with wings crested a small explosion behind it.

  “We have a new way of hardening the Voxel suit from a liquid form to a solid,” Hastings said.

  “I’ve seen a suit like this before, Commander,” General Graham said, unimpressed. “Just because you made it easier to put on doesn’t make it an achievement.”

  “You’ve not seen this one, sir. I’ll get to the good stuff,” Hastings respectfully retorted. “Beightol, Level Two voxelization.”

  The thick-headed Beightol nodded and pounded his chest, firing up the portholes all along his body. A fiery yellow set of braces grew from ports on each of his legs, digging into the floor. He arched his back and lowered his frame like a champion ready to squat his max weight.

  A large, tank-sized, 120mm cannon grew from his spine and extended upward past his head. He aimed it at the general and Hastings with nothing but crazy in his eyes.

  “Jesus!” the General said, gripping the rail tighter. “How does it work?”

  “The Voxel suit allows us to nanoprint or ‘voxelize’ the psyche’s manifestations. This can be based on personal experience,” Hastings said. “In this case, we used psychonautics to concentrate on Beightol’s obsession with tank cannons and his previous endeavors with large guns. He was the ‘heavy’ of the group.”

  General Graham pulled his hands off the railing, bringing blood back to his white knuckles. “I will approve this new course of action, but I want the drug-user aspect kept under wraps,” he said.

  “Alright, sir, consider it done.”

  General Graham shook his head in disbelief,
looking back over the ledge at the broken soldier folding the large tank cannon down into his back with his mind. “God forbid if the investors ever found out that the future of defense may be led by a group of Reformed psychos.”

  Hastings stepped up next to Graham, looking down as they took Beightol back to his cell. “Psychonautz, sir.”

  The lights turned red again, this time taking Hastings by surprise. A ringing sound echoed throughout, signaling a RED ALERT.

  SMASH!

  The door behind them burst open and slammed shut. It was Ralph, breathing heavily, his eyes torn with fear. Hastings shot from the railing to his aid. She’d never seen a face so white since her days on the battlefield. Her instincts triggered, and she grabbed her colleague to settle him down.

  “Ralph, what happened?” Hastings asked.

  Ralph was speechless. Hastings recognized the symptoms from her time in the field—shell shocked—but what was the threat? The door began to open again and General Graham was quick to pull his Glock 2700, aiming it at the incoming threat.

  Hastings turned white as she registered eight insect-like legs prying their way into the room. It was an unmistakable sight, and Hastings’ stomach turned like a wrench. She looked up at the general, who didn’t even flinch at the car-sized arachnid.

  “What the fuck is that!?” Hastings said, reaching for a nearby fire extinguisher. She looked at Ralph, who was holding his gut. Blood was running and pooling below him.

  “The Reformers are rioting,” Ralph murmured under his breath.

  The door finally burst all the way open, and General Graham fired four shots from his mag. Eight legs lifted up and sprawled out, revealing a set of long, bloody fangs. It lunged toward Graham and took a large chunk from his arm. He hit the floor in agony, beginning to bleed out.

  It was Hastings’ worst nightmare, realized.

  She bashed the creature right between the fangs with the extinguisher, causing a loud crack. Then she sprayed the creature in its beady eyes, hoping to blind it, but her actions turned out to be unnecessary. She could see that it was hemorrhaging from Graham’s shots, and she watched as it fell to the ground. She stared in horror at the brown bristly hairs pulsating with color from the red warning lights.

  Looking closer, she watched as the eight legs began to shrivel into its body like they’d never existed, revealing a human form wearing a porthole exosuit that she knew all too well. It was one of the developmental Voxel suits she’d been working on from the HOLE.

  3

  Richter Collins awoke with a hangover from hell. He’d forgotten how strong the pints were down on Oyria, since they tended to brew the drinks with a higher alcohol content than on ROAS. Architecturally, ROAS was a series of circular tubes connected by a central pivot. The entire structure was over one mile wide and was situated high above Oyria. With the angular velocity of seven-tenths of a rotation a minute and a tangential velocity of one hundred twenty-six meters a second, the station was able to achieve a centripetal acceleration of one G and replicate Earth’s gravity.

  Despite the sophisticated calculations that created the ship and its features, Richter always felt the gravity was still a bit too weak, causing him to feel light-headed at times when he rose up too fast. He picked himself up slowly, feeling the headache pound a bit more, and opened his eyes to a holographic projection before him. Daily stats and routines were listed, followed by TRUDI and her reminders.

  “Good morning, sir,” TRUDI said in her normal arousing voice.

  Richter smiled when he heard it. TRUDI stood for Titular Rational Universal Dynamic Interface. After he and Nathan had designed her years ago, he couldn’t bear to destroy her, so he decided she’d just fit as his personal assistant. Besides, only he was tuned to her, so no one would be any the wiser. Nothing like having a soothing, sexy voice whispering into my ear about call sheets to make the day more interesting, he thought.

  “Sir, here are your daily priorities, and they are… exquisite,” TRUDI said, finishing with a tiny squeal of excitement.

  Richter was usually all about business, but today, other than the hangover, he felt different. His brother was home and finally on the right path. He walked to the large sky-window that faded from a tinted black as he approached, revealing the Rockheed-manufactured cumulus clouds below. The planet was shaping up nicely and on track to be fully terraforming within the scheduled ninety days.

  Richter could see the large Reform Facility, and it reminded him of what one of the patrons had said at the bar about experiments. In all of his tour, Richter had never seen any shady dealings from corporate management, but something bothered him. Maybe it was his brother’s interest.

  He turned his back to the window and motioned for TRUDI’s curvy interface to signal up. “TRUDI, load up the Reform Facility’s Med Bay records.”

  “Why, Sergeant, thanks for the request. I can’t wait to blow your mind,” TRUDI said, with an erotic undertone.

  Richter tried not to laugh. Maybe he’d set her amorous range a little too high recently.

  A moment passed.

  Lists circled in the holographic display and stopped on a bold red font that read: Access Denied.

  “I am sorry, sir, but it looks like my legs are locked,” TRUDI said, not excusing the sexual innuendo.

  Richter stepped back in frustration. “TRUDI, quit playing. Access the records.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Sergeant,” TRUDI said.

  “What’s the holdup?”

  “Well, besides you not holding me right now, it looks like you don’t have security clearance.”

  Richter couldn’t believe there was information he wasn’t privy to. As acting Platoon Sergeant he would need all information pertaining to Rockheed and Oyria, so what had been classified?

  “Who has access?” he asked.

  “Executive Officer Mr. Fox.”

  WEEEOOOMP WEEEEOOOMP.

  An alarm sounded as TRUDI’s light-blue interface dialed back to a bold red.

  “TRUDI?” Richter called out, running to the window as it faded to black.

  “There is a surface riot. Twenty men have broken from the Reform Facility,” TRUDI said, never dropping the tempting voice.

  “TRUDI, call surface bunker station 400A,” Richter ordered.

  “I am sorry, sir. All communications have been canceled. You are being summoned to the executive room immediately.”

  The executive room of the ROAS was stuffed with egos bigger and colder than Oyria itself. Richter hated the bureaucratic nonsense that circulated about the large oblong tables, inset with multiple holographic projection consoles and pompous attitudes.

  The metal doors swished open to reveal a room that was brighter than ever before. Colin Fox sat at the end of the table, eating a bowl of thick Soba noodles and slurping more hideously than usual while staring into a holographic display playing a looping footage reel. His speckled grey hair showed his age, and his thick, bulging neck jutted from a collared shirt that was obviously too tight.

  Colin popped his head up when Richter entered, his neck fat stretching taut. “Sergeant.”

  Richter did a quick salute, just long enough not to offend the corporate tycoon he knew Colin was. “Sir.”

  Colin looked back down at the footage and began to eat vigorously, like an untrained pig. From behind the holographic projection, Richter could see that the video footage was showing the Reform Facility below and the uprising of an angry mob. One prisoner could be seen being stabbed in the neck and falling to the floor as his life spewed from him. Colin Fox smiled like it was entertaining.

  Despite the bloodshed, Richter didn’t wince. His training and experience had taught him never to show signs of fear, as well as to expect the worst. Colin raised his palm and closed his fingers, triggering the holographic display to vanish into thin air.

  “We have a situation, Richter. An uprising has led to a prison riot. It seems that one of our projects has gone… awry,” Colin said, chewing a fa
t piece of pork belly.

  “Awry?” Richter was surprised to hear of a project but knew his team was made for this, ready for anything. “Sir, my Cryonaut team is standing by to execute a quarantine. Just point to what you need killed—”

  A man of Asian descent entered the room, interrupting Richter, and slapped a folder down on the table, then sat down like he was overwhelmed. “It's too late for a quarantine, Richter. This situation… might be more than what your Cryo-Girls can handle.”

  Richter wasn’t surprised to hear his reaction. The small, sleek man who was taunting him was Edward Tang, a decorated asshole turned Starship Master Sergeant. Rumor had it he was only in that rank due to him fucking a head scientist down below on Oyria—Sasha Hastings—and he hadn’t earned his rank. Richter despised this kind of nepotism. Even though Richter had helped his brother, he’d made sure Nathan had earned it first.

  Richter’s Cryonauts had been created for Oyria, specifically trained to overcome any obstacle this frozen-over, hell of a planet threw at them. If his team wasn’t to be used, Richter was more than just in the dark; he might have been on a different team altogether, and he dreaded finding out what solutions Tang had for the situation at hand.

  “Too late? Gentlemen, with all due respect, my brother is on the surface,” Richter said, trying to elicit a sympathetic response from the cold director and his pawn.

  Colin raised the bowl and finished the last of the rich broth with a gurgling noise. It sounded to Richter like he was choking for a second, but the truth was more disappointing when he placed the bowl down and gestured for another screen, this one pixelated to a blur. It read CONFIDENTIAL along the top.

  “Richter, what we’ve all been a part of on Rockheed has been spectacular,” Colin said slowly, motioning to Tang.

  Tang placed his hand on the screen, removing the blur and revealing Oyria from orbit in a pre-Rockheed state.

  “When we first found this icy rock, there was a strange life-form inhabiting it,” Tang said, swiping the screen and zooming closer on the surface. A techno-organic-skinned, bug-looking creature the size of a large pig was feeding ferociously on the slushy snow of Oyria. Just before the picture vanished into thin air, a beam of light shot from its back skyward into the distant star field above, and Richter couldn’t help noticing the similarities between the bug’s appetite and Colin Fox’s.