Slapping the top of the box twice with his hand, it opened to reveal a sleek robotic sleeve for her arm that seemed to be made of the same immaculate material as the hospital’s shiny white walls. Expecting some sort of reaction, the doctor returned the Marshal’s icy-hot stare for a moment, but upon receiving none, he said flatly, “Okay, put your arm in and make a fist.”
Although the balding bespectacled man seemed harmless, the Marshal’s mind was abuzz with suspicion. Her anti-machine conditioning screamed about the dangers of such sophisticated technology, but at the same time, she felt compelled to comply.
Noticing her hesitation, the slender man held up one of his gloved hands and said, “Y’know, something similar happened with the first Marshal, and although I don’t have direct memories of it, I think I understand what you’re experiencing right now. Really, I do.”
The doctor managed to keep his voice professional as he continued, but the Marshal could hear fear poking through. “You’re receiving the Logo to compensate for technology and information that is prohibited under the embargo. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not a crutch or reflection of your ability in any way. That wasn’t explained clearly to the first Marshal, and I assume that’s part of why she was so triggered. It probably has something to do with your pre-ed... made you both a little testy when it comes to peripheral devices. At first I thought it might be your anti-machine conditioning, but USi should have prepared you for that. Maybe raising hell all over the universe gave you some kind of Napoleon complex, except you’re really tall. I don’t know... It all seems a little far-fetched considering you were programmed by the greatest minds in the universe...” he trailed off with a dry laugh.
The Marshal wanted to laugh too, because it really did seem like the doctor knew what she had been thinking. Deep down she felt like her body was the only weapon she would ever need, and as powerful as the robotic carapace looked, the idea of having it attached to her arm was repulsive. She took offense to the suggestion that she might have psychological problems, however, and she was about to tell him as much, but the doctor had only paused for an instant.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re still the cream of the crop, it’s just the rules are different here. Life under the embargo has to be relative to the genetic complexity of Old Earth, and even though you’ve been granted a billion and a half special-use permits, that ceiling is still pretty low. We might not be the cradle of civilization anymore, or maybe cradle is the right word, but either way, there are plenty of folks here rich enough to achieve similar physical capabilities.”
The Marshal didn’t like what the doctor was implying about the local economy. It was hard for her to accept that USi had become complacent enough for there to be overpowered civilians, but she was excited to face that challenge head on. She felt compelled to tell a war story from another life as testament to her worth in the field, but the embargo prohibited her from talking about offworld histories.
Again as if reading her mind, the doctor said, “I'm sure you've seen firefights off the bows of distant starships or whatever, but there’s no shame in taking a heavy ordinance with you. After all, the first Athena took hers and she still died, right?” Catching his mistake, the doctor gave her an embarrassed look and blurted out, “Crap. I guess you didn’t know that yet... I’m sorry. But that’s exactly why you need to put on the Logo. Any strange feelings you’ve been having, or questions that have been rattling through your head, the Logo will take care of all of that. It’s going to make you feel right as rain.” Looking back down at his tablet, his tone became very matter-of-fact, “Besides, you’ve got orders.”
The Marshal was struck by the clarity with which the doctor had been able to predict her thoughts, but no emotions were apparent. She had already acknowledged how weak her human body felt, and given the first Marshal’s disappearance, there was an inherent chance that she could be killed. Pushing and pulling between her drive to create justice and wrath towards unidentified trespassers made her anxious and excited. Bemused by the roller coaster of confidence and suspicion, the Marshal’s eye twitched with what might have turned into a smile if not for her vow.
As faint as her expression had been, the astute doctor caught it and gave a smirk of his own. “Yeaaaah. Yeah, you two are exactly the same. Go on, go ahead, put that thing on. The oth–” He stopped abruptly and the two just stared at each other, totally deadpan, until he finally professed, “When your predecessor was born, she had a lot of questions, and she got upset with my previous incarnation for not having answers. But I think I did a better job this time, so yeah, never mind... Just put it on. Like I said, you've got orders.”
He flipped his tablet around to show her, but the Marshal was already stepping over towards the box. Something about the obstetrician’s tone was off, but she concluded that his reservations were likely due to trauma resulting from whatever happened while bringing the first Marshal into the world. The suspense of not knowing so much was horrible, and putting on the arm seemed like the fastest way to figure it all out. Besides, she had orders. Sliding her arm into the armored sleeve, the Marshal squeezed a fist inside the mechanical gauntlet which quickly cinched tight. A semi-solid layer of plasteel grew out from the top and enveloped her shoulder blade and clavicle before hardening into a sleek yet muscular pauldron.
“Okay!” the doctor said as the Marshal stood upright and flexed her upgraded appendage. “You look great! How does it feel?” Before she could reply, the doctor tapped his tablet.
Thousands of microscopic filaments shot out of the Logo and through her flesh, penetrating her spine and integrating itself into her central nervous system. As the strands wove themselves in, it felt as though a silent part of herself was just waking up. Rapid pulses of hot and cold shot between her arm and the machine that was enveloping it, and she vaguely recognized a growing presence inside her mind. There was no pain, or any physical sensation at all really, but the wiry invasion left her feeling violated on the deepest level.
An uncharted part of the Marshal’s mind was ablaze with new sensations that quickly became indistinguishable from any other part of her body. Caught off guard, she suddenly felt as though she was losing ground in a mental wrestling match. With the desperation of a drowning woman, she turned her attention back to the doctor.
Noticing her steely blue-grey eyes lock onto him, the pasty-faced man took a half step towards the door and said, “Shit,” before his body locked up with fear.
The Marshal had taken one long step forward and snatched him up and off the ground by the collar of his lab coat. Slamming her fist into the wall and pinning the doctor to it with her thumb, she said, “Turn it off.”
“It is off!” he yelped desperately. Pointing to the shoulder he was suspended by, he pleaded, “You did the exact same thing last time! Or I mean, she did, I’m sorry! It was a different room too, but this is exactly how it started! You tacked me to the wall just like this and then…” His voice cracked as he tried to start again, “When I pressed my tablet just now, I was confirming that I had asked you how you felt. That’s all, I swear!” He switched the tablet into his free hand and tilted it so she could read clearly, Inform Marshal, Athena-class #2 that the LGO is ready to integrate. “Once I press that, it will actually turn on.”
“Turn it off,” the Marshal repeated.
Offering the tablet to her with a trembling hand he said, “There’s no abort protocol! I have orders too, see for yourself!”
The doctor fell to the ground as the Marshal withdrew her thumb from the wall and took the device with her free hand. She tried to navigate the menus but found they would not respond to her touch. Frustrated, she made a fist but before her eyes had even reached his, the doctor began shouting pitifully.
“It will only work for me! I just wanted to show you I wasn’t going to do nothin’ without your say-so is all!” Tears were streaming down his red face and he was shaking terribly. Then, more quietly, he said, “I'm just doing my job, Marshal. I
know it must seem like a violation of the embargo or whatever, but I swear, it’s all by the book! Special use permits and exemptions have all been filed properly and you have orders to accept the ordinance! Once I press the button, you’ll have access to files that will explain everything. It will all make sense once the integration is complete...”
As bluntly as before, the Marshal replied, “Turn it off.”
The doctor’s face and shoulders dropped with a sigh, then with frustration he pleaded, “I’m saying, I can’t turn it off. What is it about ‘orders’ that you don’t understand? There is no going back.” He brazenly snatched back the tablet but wisely held the screen towards her as he went through the menus as fast as he could, trying to show her everything as blatantly as possible. After a few seconds, he held up his hands in hopeless frustration and said, “See? There’s nothing. There’s just something hardwired into you that makes you go from zero to ten in an instant. No conversation. No mediation. Just, ‘turn it off.’”
He was starting to get really mad when suddenly his tone changed completely. “Ohhhhh, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna mark you as non-compliant!” He went through some more menus, saying, “It won’t look good on my record, but it will look worse on yours. And hopefully I won’t die! You threatened to punch me! That would be lethal and therefore non-compliant! Enough said. I’m done. You're on your own.” He tapped the tablet twice more before tossing it to the Marshal and scurrying out the door.
Alone again, the bright white room began to fade a little and the Logo started to feel extremely heavy. A second voice burned inside her mind, muttering urgently in a language she didn’t recognize. Something was wrong, but orders were orders. She wanted to comply but the walls were closing in around her. Slouching painfully, she raised the tablet up to see a timer count down from one to zero before everything went dark.
In what felt like a blink, the Marshal was awake and sitting up straight. Inside the Logo, her arm felt strong and light again. The unintelligible murmur inside her head had been replaced with a frantic blur of information that was moving too fast for her to make any sense of. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of thoughts, feelings, and raw information, she closed her eyes and tried to cope.
After a few moments, a pleasant but unfamiliar voice said, Calibration complete. It was still speaking at the same blistering speed as before, but suddenly she could understand everything it was saying. Then the voice became almost exactly like the one she heard while thinking to herself and said, Integration complete. Although not quite as intensely as what she had experienced with the desert, the Marshal felt waves of warmth and love radiating through her expanding library of new knowledge. As soon as she wondered how it worked, it told her; she could talk and listen simultaneously. The two voices inside her mind were like harmonic frequencies resonating in a mesmerizing dual-tone of thought. Much better.
No longer overwhelmed as the Logo recited a long list of information to build their joint database, the Marshal basked in improved understanding, but distinguishing between thinking and listening had become difficult. In a unified voice they recognized as their own, they said, We’re nearly three percent done assimilating the Logo’s directories. Continuing at the maximum safe speed will take a little over two hours to finish, but by prioritizing mission data and weapons systems we will be at an operational level in closer to twenty minutes, at which point we can leave the hospital.
In their shared minds’ eye, the Marshal looked over the schematics for the Longcoat—a bike-tank hybrid that was standard issue for law enforcement officers on Earth. It looked like a steamroller with monster truck tires, could go roughly two hundred kph on flat land, and transform into over a dozen configurations including wagon, ram, spider, and turret. Before they could finish going through all the bells and whistles, the Marshal got distracted when they discovered their arm had even more physical capabilities, like force fields and multi-phase blasters. Together they made the shape of a gun with their thumb and forefinger and pointed it at the window. The tip of their finger began to glow with energy and they thought, That’s exciting.
Using the Logo’s wireless capabilities, they opened a cabinet on the wall full of clothing designed to protect them from the desert wind and sun. Their glowing skin felt even more alive as they layered themselves in the soft elemental armor; a long brown duster with a white double-breasted undercoat, crisp blue jeans, tall steel-toed boots, a wide-brimmed hat and a poncho that they threw over their shoulder. Information about their mission continued to flood in, and the Marshal’s confidence to take on the world was restored.
Looks like the first Marshal died in some kind of energy dispersion, they said to themselves with growing intrigue. Left a giant crater out in the middle of the desert almost seven months ago. We have a bunch of files from her, but we’ve had problems digesting some of the raw experience data, so we’ll have to go over the rest in real-time once we’re on the move. She had a bunch of open investigations revolving around a smuggler kingpin by the name of Mister Morton, but it seems like he died in the blast too. The predominant theory among Earthside agencies is that some kind of illicit tech that he’d brought in got out of hand and they blew themselves to smithereens.
As they laced up their boots, the Marshal found their first good lead. As sloppy as the reports are, it seems like #1 did a good job of busting up Morton’s operation before they cratered. According to the Matron’s numbers, the black market economy seems to have stayed pretty stable, although poaching in the southlands is way up. Whoever moved in on the smuggler’s turf has been keeping a low profile, but black market estimates suggest more animals are moving offworld than are on the registry.
Officially, Earth was supposed to be totally cut off from outside contact, with not so much as an email going in or out without direct approval from Earth’s Board of Trustees and a ton of documentation. According to the interagency reports supplied by the Matron, the embargo was in good physical health and enforcement was effective, but independent analysis suggested the opposite. It seems like the same bureaucratic nonsense that delayed our reinstatement also forced the Board to store all this information on the Logo instead of just integrating it into our pre-ed. You’d think that with all the hoops they had to jump through to get things done, they’d have more control over the planet’s purity.
Surprised by their own calm amidst a whirlwind of doubt and mistrust, the Marshal allowed questions to flow through their minds unfettered. If Earth is such a quiet place, why’d they decide to bring in Marshals? The Logo was still working hard to fill in gaps in their mutual understanding of the world when they discovered a huge swath of current events that had been suspiciously omitted from their original dossier. There’s no reason for these not to have been included by default. Someone is intentionally limiting our access to all sorts of information. The whole thing stinks of corruption. We must be working internal affairs.
Careful not to let it show, the Marshal’s heart was brimming with conspiratorial pride—it felt good to have a secret. Their intense loyalty to the government had not wavered, but the simple act of questioning USi’s sovereignty energized them. The sleeve of their coat was bulging uncomfortably around the Logo, so they tore it off as they exited their birthing chamber. Nearly as tall as the ceiling, their broad shoulders and confident stride seemed to fill the corridor as they stepped into the hallway. A group of doctors flattened themselves against the wall to make way for the Marshal’s obvious superiority, their attending obstetrician among them.
Without making eye contact as they passed, the Marshal pointed their hand-gun at him and pretended to shoot. There was no reaction at first, but as they rounded the corner, they heard the doctor mutter expletives and explanations to his colleagues. Remembering the war stories that embargo protocol had prohibited their still-singular self from sharing, before she had accepted the Logo and become they, the Marshal suddenly realized how naive her thinking had been. The technology in this hospital alone reveals
far more about the surrounding universe than any of those memories would have. It wouldn’t take a doctor to deduce how growth accelerators and pre-education programs have changed what it means to be born.
Seemingly distant memories of birth were pleasant up until the doctor had entered the room, but the Marshal liked life much better now that the two halves of their mind had found each other. The thought of being alone again was more repulsive than wearing the Logo had ever been. The robotic sleeve around their arm felt natural now, and although the information coming out of the logistical ordinance was changing their perspective on things, the Marshal considered themselves the same person they had always been.
Once they were safely concealed inside an elevator going down to the garage, the Marshal broke their vow of stoicism and allowed themselves a smug smile. Economic activity in Morton’s hometown dropped off significantly when he disappeared, but animal trade going through New York skyrocketed. Before we get into any of that though, we need to check out the dispersion site, and there’s a little labor town called Buena Vista that gets mentioned in a few of the crater reports. Let’s see what the locals remember, then head to the suspiciously quiet Mechanicsburg to look for traces of Morton. Then, if we don’t find anything better, on to New York City.
Eager to see what things would be like out in the real world, there was still a distinct curl to the Marshal’s lip as the elevator doors opened to reveal the Longcoat. There were a few minutes left until the transfer would be complete, so they took the time to admire some of their new ride’s various functions. We have to be careful about what we say in our initial report. Even if the Matron isn’t in on it, she’s at least guilty of negligence. Not only was the Matron their superior, she was the main conduit between Earth’s Board of Trustees and everything that happened planetside. We may be forced to tip our hand a little, but at least we get to choose a few of the cards.
Under the Shadow of the Plateau: Frontier Forever Page 2
