by Ben Weaver
“No, not you,” Yakata said. “Not yet. We don’t want to intimidate the others, do we?”
“Sir?”
“Oh,” he answered me with a cryptic smile. “I see.” His gaze swept the others. “Come on, now. Who will be next?”
Beauregard raised his hand.
“You, Private? Very good. To the doorway.”
Once Beauregard reached his position, Yakata marched up and fixed him with an icy stare. “When you run on the ground, you know you can do that. You are confident. But when I ask you to run up the wall, everything you know about the laws of nature tells you that it’s not possible. That’s because you only feel yourself, your own body. You don’t even consider trying to feel the wall.”
“Feel the wall?”
“Exactly. When your foot hits the wall, don’t think about your foot on the wall. Just think about the wall. What connections can you make to it? What bonds do you seek?”
“Sir, I, uh…okay, sir. I’ll give it a try.” Beauregard swallowed. He sprinted across the room, hit the wall with one boot, and I nearly fell out of my chair as his other boot came up and he scaled the quickcrete to a height of about three meters before pushing away to drop feet-first in a respectable landing.
“Very good first try, Private Beauregard. Who’s next?”
Every hand went up.
Yakata’s gaze fell on Dina. As she hastened toward the doorway, Beauregard sat beside me and whispered breathlessly, “I don’t believe it. I thought about the wall, and when my boot hit it, it was like some kind of magnetism or glue or something held it there.”
“Not glue or magnetism,” Yakata interjected, having somehow overheard us. “A quantum bond.” He cocked his head to Dina. “Ready, Private?”
She nodded. “Feel the wall. Got it.”
I held my breath as she darted by, reached the wall, then took one, two, three, four steps until her body shifted horizontal. Then with five, six, seven more steps, she placed a foot on the ceiling before she came sailing down in a chaotic landing that drove Yakata forward in a lightning display to spot her. I had never seen a human being move so quickly.
“Excellent,” Yakata said. “You felt the ceiling for a moment before the old fears came.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, sir,” Dina said. “I did feel the ceiling for a second. But how? How can we do this?”
“The mnemosyne help to activate another sense in our brains: the ability to manipulate the quantum bond between particles. We’re no more than particles ourselves. Matter experiencing itself, no? Distances and time mean nothing. Other forces of nature—the strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, electromagnetism—we’re all of these, and we’re only beginning to discover the potential power here. One day, we’ll abandon our tawt drives and will ourselves across the galaxy.”
“Sir, meaning no disrespect, sir, but this is getting a little too metaphysical for me,” Halitov said. “The conditioning has screwed around with my brain and allowed me to detect quantum bonds and exploit them. Why do we have to engage in all of this touchy-feely stuff? Just tell me how to flip it on and off, and I’ll do it.”
Yakata drew in a long breath, closed his eyes. “To the doorway, Private.”
Wearing a tired smirk, Halitov dragged himself to our makeshift starting gate. “Sir, I’m ready, sir.”
“Go.”
Sprinting about as quickly as Beauregard had, Halitov reached the wall, threw up one foot, the other, realized he wasn’t going any farther, then slapped a hand on his tac. His skin quick-sealed him in a saffron glow a second before he rebounded three times off the floor and came to an embarrassing, if not physically painful, halt. He scrambled to his feet, de-skinned, then faced Yakata with an accusing stare. “Why doesn’t it work for me?”
“Because you haven’t surrendered your intellect,” Yakata said, though he seemed a little stunned by Halitov’s failure. “We’re not getting touchy-feely here. The relationship between mind and matter is quite physical.” He thought a moment. “Sit down, Mr. Halitov. Mr. St. Andrew? I think we can show them now.”
“Sir, I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” I said, striding to the doorway. “You think I can do this?”
“We’ll see. Ready? Go.”
As I dashed toward the wall, I remembered Yakata’s instructions. I projected myself into the stone, and for a moment I saw myself running forward, saw my boots connect with quickcrete and felt their impacts, saw how I moved across the vertical surface as though it were horizontal. Then, as I stepped onto the ceiling, I returned to myself and ran over the class, who, from my point of view, hung miraculously from the ceiling. I did not feel the blood rush to my head or any other indication that gravity wanted to splatter me on the deck. My bindings were much more powerful. I stopped, looked “up” at them, their faces paling, then I turned back to Yakata. “How can I do this?”
“Come down, and I’ll tell you.”
I shifted back across the ceiling, descended the wall, then felt something give as I took a concentrated hop onto the deck. The squad eyed me with a kind of weird reverence. The feat hadn’t been easy, but it had been possible.
“Mr. St. Andrew, the mnemosyne respond positively to the residuum of your epineuropathy, which, in layman’s terms, simply means that you can access them far more intimately and efficiently than any of us. Your response to the conditioning is estimated to be three times greater than ours. With practice, you won’t need your tac for defense. You’ll feel the particles of an incoming round and manipulate the bond to deflect them.” He tapped his cheek to indicate my birthmark. “Guess this is the universe’s way of paying you back.”
“So now I know why they put so much pressure on me to make sure he didn’t IDO,” Pope said heatedly. “Why didn’t they just tell me, sir?”
Yakata cocked a brow. “Because you might’ve pushed him through when he wasn’t ready. Sure, they didn’t want him to fail, but they didn’t want him to have any special allowances. If he couldn’t pack the gear before the conditioning, he most certainly wouldn’t pack it afterward.” Yakata waved a finger at me. “Mr. St. Andrew, people with extraordinary abilities are asked to put out extraordinary efforts. Your burden will be far greater than theirs, and the price you’ll pay will be even steeper. You’ll rely on every lesson you’ve learned, and you won’t have the luxury of dusting out.”
“Yes, sir.” I turned to Pope. “Sir, I’m sorry about this, sir.”
“It ain’t your fault. And you can quit calling me ‘sir.’ Far as I know, we’ll all be commissioned as second lieutenants.”
“That’s correct,” said Yakata. “You may return to your seat, Mr. St. Andrew. Now then, Mr. Pope. Let’s talk about things you don’t know you know. For example, why don’t you tell me about the quitunutul arts.”
“Sir, I don’t know anything about…well, I guess I do. There are seven quitunutul fighting arts, sir, each one focusing on a particular move and all developed on lower-G worlds. Chak is the art of the turn. Ai is the floating kick, counterkick. Ixta is the fist, elbow, fist. Biza is the head drive. Dirc is the somersault and kick. Gozt is the bullet thrust. And shoru is the slide and drop. There are hundreds more, but they are all variations on these seven.”
“Where did you learn this information?”
“I don’t know, sir. I can’t remember.”
“Do you remember our practice sessions?”
“No, sir.”
Yakata frowned. “As far as I know, all of you were cerebroed. Four years’ worth of data and training was uploaded into your long-term memories—as enhanced by the mnemosyne. All those classes, the confidence courses, all of those experiences should be distinct memories. Each one of you should remember practicing the quitunutul arts with me. How many remember?”
Not a single hand split the air.
“Sir, the accident—”
“I know all about the accident,” Yakata snapped, then looked lost for a second. “The verbal triggers should still be working.”
Beauregard cleared his throat. “Sir, if I may ask, sir. Is there a problem with our conditioning? Something go wrong with our cerebros? Are we all right? I think we have a right to know, sir.”
The classroom’s light flicked off to a chorus of moans.
After a pocketful of seconds, an alarm drummed rapidly through the intercom, an alarm I had heard only once in my time at the academy—and that was during a drill. A violet light stick above the doorway clicked on.
“On your line!” cried Yakata. “We’re under attack.”
“But our location’s classified,” said Halitov.
“Yeah, it’s been classified as a target,” Beauregard answered. “The alliances know who and where we are. And they’ll do anything to get their hands on us.”
“All right! Listen up! We’ll circle around the back of the library, then cross over to admin,” Yakata said. “I’ll get us into the armory. Let’s move.”
As the others sprinted out, Dina held back me, Pope, Beauregard, Halitov, and Clarion. “I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of being captured,” Dina said. “If it looks like we’re not going to win this, I say we meet up at the cave entrance by Whore Face.”
“Believe me, we’re not going to win this,” Beauregard said. “We’ll go to the armory with Yakata, then I say we head straight for that cave.”
“You first years think you got a plan, huh?” Pope said, twisting his lip. “Well, I’ll tell you what. It doesn’t sound too bad. I’m in.”
“And so are we,” Halitov said, slapping my back.
“We’re falling behind,” Clarion urged from the doorway.
We sprinted through the poorly lit hall, found the lift out of power, then ducked into the stairwell. Two flights later, we emerged on the library’s ground level, stole along the walls of another corridor, then bolted past a rear exit that Yakata had already keyed open.
The powerful stench of cooling heatshields clogged the night air and drove my gaze skyward, where a half dozen Western Alliance crab carriers, their silver carapaces gleaming in planetlight, their landing gear unfolding like anxious talons, rumbled down in vertical landings toward the field in front of admin, about a quarter of a kilometer away.
It was a perfect night for an attack. Magnificent visibility. Little wind. Unusually warm. Even the shraxi and the triplets had gone silent, as though they knew what was happening and would conceal themselves until humanity’s madness had passed.
I hesitated outside the library door, just watching Dina, Halitov, Clarion, and Pope dematerialize into speckles of darkness. I imagined my whole life playing out like a surreal film directed by a psychotic and edited by a drunk. Too much imagery all too soon. Not enough development of what really matters. One brother dead. Barely time to grieve. The war has started. The war has come here.
Halitov came running back for me. “Asshole? Come on!” He jerked me by the wrist.
I guess I would have stayed there and got shot to alleviate that deep, warm ache of my brother’s death.
We caught up with Yakata and the rest, who led us along the broken hogbacks behind admin. By the time we reached a position opposite the triangular arch of the rear entrance, two squads of Alliance Marines had already surrounded the building, their skins set to a dark-green camo pattern, their QQ90 particle rifles held high, at the ready, and functioning only for authorized users. We looked down on them from a height of about fifty meters, with about two hundred meters between us—a dangerously wide gap.
“Shit, they beat us,” Pope said, peering furtively at the troops. “No way in there now.”
“Count seven posted along our side,” said Yakata. “Wait here. When they fall, all of you run to that door.”
“When they fall?” Halitov asked, unable to douse his grin. “Those are Alliance Marines, Q’ed and skinned. Isn’t an extrasolar force anywhere that can touch ’em.”
“What I’m going to do, Mr. Halitov, is make you believe.” Yakata skinned up, then charged over the hill.
All seven Marines whipped toward Yakata. Proximity alarms rang out in their Heads Up Viewers, and infrared converted the night into a transparent, target-rich environment with a single silhouette glittering against curtains of cold stone.
It would take only one Marine to set her QQ90 to auto-track, then squeeze the trigger. The weapon would automatically fire ten rounds per second, while its AI focused those rounds on a distinct location of Yakata’s skin. Considering the level of training most Alliance Marines received, that target zone would probably be very close to if not exactly over, Yakata’s heart. Perfect kill shot. Two to three seconds, and it would all be over.
The two Marines to Yakata’s right opened fire first, joined a half second later by the other five. Seven streams of white-hot incoming converged on the XO, even as he dropped into an amazingly swift somersault as though he were floating in zero G.
Dirc is the somersault and kick.
I still wondered how the move would help. Wouldn’t the rounds still lock on and penetrate his skin?
“Oh, my god,” someone muttered as those seven streams came within a quarter meter of Yakata’s tumbling form, then abruptly curled back toward their masters.
You’ll feel the particles of an incoming round and manipulate the bond to deflect them.
Even as Yakata came out of the somersault and performed the ritual dropkick for good measure, seven glowing skins faded and seven guards collapsed to the dusty earth, victims of their own weapons.
“I don’t believe it,” Halitov muttered.
Yakata charged to the door, then looked up and waved us down. As we skinned, fanned out, then sidestepped across the steep grade, I noticed a bright speck in the corner of my HUV. There, just rounding the corner of the building, was another Marine, who raised his weapon and trained it on an unsuspecting Yakata.
I charged toward that Marine, giving myself to whatever the hell they had put in my brain, those mnemosynes, those things, whatever they were, I begged for their help. I swore there was about seventy-five meters between me and that soldier. I bridged the distance in two heartbeats, but not before the bastard opened fire.
While his salvo tore into Yakata’s skin, I placed my arms over my head, the backs of my forearms serving as a battering ram as I launched myself headfirst toward the Marine.
Gozt is the bullet thrust.
I felt weightless as I hurtled toward him, and when our skins touched, we rebounded with a force ten times greater than the one that had repelled Halitov from Val d’Or, back on old Whore Face. The Marine struck the quickcrete and dug himself a vertical grave as I sailed fifty meters back and dug a trench of my own with my rump.
Dina and Beauregard crouched over Yakata, who lay on his back, just outside the door. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear him. By the time I made it over there, he had died. He wasn’t the first dead person I had ever seen, just the bloodiest.
“What did he say?” I asked Beauregard.
The colonel’s son grimaced. “He told us to follow you.”
“He was delirious, dying. Forget it,” I said.
“Forgotten,” Beauregard replied—just a little too quickly. “I’m off an Op command. I know this drill. Let’s get down there, Q up, then we fall back to the caves.”
“What about them?” Dina asked, tipping her head to the other four members of the 111th Squad, three young men and one young woman whose names I had only recently learned. They huddled close to the door, waiting for Pope to finish keying in the code.
“Hey, Beauregard?” the woman whispered. “We’ll take our chances back in the hills. If you people think you’re going to get to the armory, you’re sadly mistaken. The Marines are inside.” She lifted her chin to the other three, and they bounded off, toward the hogbacks.
“Is that desertion?” Halitov asked, gaping at the fleeing half of our squad.
“I don’t know,” Pope said. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Beauregard. They were under his self-appointed command.�
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Halitov would have no time to debate the point. Pope finished his work on the keypad and the door opened. We hustled into a maintenance tunnel that, according to a small map of the zone gleaming in my HUV, wound its way behind the Latitude. The beauty of our entry was that we could take a series of these tunnels directly to the armory. Yakata had planned it that way. Any other entrance into admin would have forced us to pass through some of the facilities within the Latitude or through the academy’s administration offices. No doubt the Marines had already secured those areas. Too bad our squadmates didn’t have as much faith in Yakata’s plan as we had. I never heard what happened to them.
“Question,” Beauregard shouted, sprinting at the front of the pack. “When we get down there, how do we get in? Guards on? Codes? What?”
“No guards,” Pope answered. “I know the entrance code.”
“Now that you mention it, so do I,” Halitov said.
I shuddered. A verbal trigger clicked in my thoughts. I knew the code, too.
“Shit, I don’t wanna know how much stuff they put in my head,” Halitov said. “If something as stupid as an armory door code is in there, I’m afraid to think what else.”
“Maybe we have full access to the academy now. Got a tablet and then some in our heads,” Clarion said. “Just have to figure out how to retrieve that information.” Her words echoed away as we rounded a corner and our skins automatically switched to infrared. The power had died.
I ordered up my skin’s external volume, which enhanced my own hearing by a factor of about two, and the distant thudding became the distinct pinging of QQ90 rounds, with the faint cries of the dying behind them. An explosion rattled the overhead and tossed down a confetti of dust as we nearly collided with each other at the stairwell. We took it all the way down to the armory level, but the security door leading to the hallway beyond had automatically locked during the first alarm.
“Let’s prove your theory, Ms. Clarion,” Pope said. “I’m thinking about the code to this hatch, and I got nothing. If it’s in our heads, how do we get to it? What’s the verbal trigger?”
