“Mister McEntyre,” he said, working hard to keep nervousness out of his tone.
Samantha’s father smiled at him in a knowing manner and scanned his uniform. “Still not making use of the closet I see,” he said with a shake of his head.
Jack cleared his throat. “No, Mister McEntyre.”
Samantha’s father nodded slowly, as if deep in thought. “You should,” he finally said, clapped Jack firmly on the shoulder with one hand, and turned to walk away. “Joining us for breakfast this morning, Jack?” he asked as he made his way towards the stairs.
Jack stood still for several moments, a chill running down his spine. Most fathers didn’t do that. The man had accepted him. That was huge. Jack cleared his throat and turned to follow Samantha’s father. “Yes, Mister McEntyre.”
The breakfast turned out to be good, with bacon and sausage and eggs, along with something they called scones, and a black pudding. There were also onions and tomatoes on the small table set for three, but really the most amazing part of the breakfast was when Samantha walked into the room in her emerald dressing gown. Well, actually the most amazing part was when she kissed him on the cheek, in front of her father, before sitting down. The rest of the breakfast pretty much paled in comparison to that moment.
After they were all done eating, Jack excused himself, kissed Samantha on the cheek, and made for the front door. He kicked his slippers off and pulled his uniform boots on, feeling the uniform really set in at that moment. Standing tall and proud, he placed the cowboy hat on his head, and pulled in a deep breath. He let it out, pushed the door open, and stepped outside McEntyre House into the crisp morning air.
Jack sucked in a deep breath as he saw the first sun peaking between the trees and reached into his slightly rumpled uniform to pull his sunglasses out. He slipped them on over his eyes and sighed in relief, then ambled down the steps and walked around the car to the driver’s side.
Jack opened the door and froze as he saw Samantha leaning against the doorframe. Her emerald dressing gown and red hair flamed in the light of the rising sun and Jack smiled at her, took in another deep breath, and slipped into the car. The door shut and he saw Jasmine sitting on the dashboard in her normal white tank top and blue jeans.
“Ready to go back to base?” Jack asked.
“Ready,” Jasmine answered and the car began to move away from McEntyre House.
Jack smiled at Jasmine. “Did you have a good night?”
Jasmine sighed in pleasure. “Oh yes. Very good. Norman is…well…how was your night?”
Jack chuckled at her redirect. “Very good,” he returned and glanced at the empty seat next to him where Betty usually sat. “Betty?”
“I’m still in privacy mode,” Betty answered.
Jasmine gasped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered and flickered out, the hum of holoemitters fading away with her form. “Me too.”
Jack glanced around the empty cabin of the car for a second before sighing. “OK. What’s up?”
Silence answered him for several seconds, an eternity of cyber time if Betty was actually considering what she was going to say. “Those dreams you told Sam about,” she finally broke the silence with. “The people you dream about…” she trailed off and silence reigned again.
Jack cleared his throat. “Yes?” he prompted.
“Do you ever dream about me?”
Jack smiled, relaxed back into his seat, and sighed. “Actually, the days I really don’t want to wake up? Those are the days that you talk me into opening my eyes one more time.”
“Oh,” Betty whispered. “How did you wake up before I was born?”
Jack smiled and shook his head. “Well, I spent some time with Taylor and Jennifer before volunteering to join the military. They wouldn’t let me sleep my life away either,” he said with a chuckle.
“I see. And then it was your hate of the Shang that kept you waking up.”
Jack sighed. “Yup. I’ve got a better reason now.” Jack pulled in long breath, let it go, and shook his head at the mild trepidation that filled him. “You can tell yourself that,” he finally whispered, knowing there was no turning back from telling her that.
Silence reigned for several seconds again before Betty answered. “Thank you, Jack. Exiting privacy mode now.”
The hum of holoemitters returned and Betty and Jasmine flickered back into existence. Jasmine glanced back and forth between them for a couple seconds before turning to her work of flying the car. Betty smiled at her before turning her gaze to Jack.
“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered.
“Nothin’ but the truth,” Jack answered with a shrug.
“You do realize it’s not really me of course?” she asked with an upraised eyebrow.
Jack laughed. “Oh yeah. Just figments of my imagination telling me what I need to hear to keep moving.” He cleared his throat and winced. “Most of the time.”
Betty cocked her head to the side in concern.
Jack sighed. “Look, you always want me to come back, even when you don’t say a thing. Kelly always wants me to stay.” Belly looked confused for a moment before her eyes widened in recognition. “Yes. That Kelly,” Jack said with chuckle.
“You do have a thing for redheads,” Betty whispered.
Jack put on an act of being insulted. “Take that back! I do not discriminate based on hair color. Equal opportunity for all colors, that’s me.”
Betty giggled. “Keep digging,” she shooed him on.
Jack shook his head and sighed. “Thing is, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to someone else, not just a figment of my imagination. Sometimes you two say things that just don’t feel like anything I’d ever say if that makes sense.”
Betty stopped giggling and gave him a very serious stare. “Be careful, Jack. That sounds like crazy talk.”
Jack nodded. “Why do you think I don’t tell people that?”
Jasmine cleared her throat from the dashboard to get their attention. “Drew used to say she saw flashes of the future in her dreams. That she could sometimes tell people not to do things and if they listened, nothing would happen. If they didn’t, something bad happened.” Jasmine pulled in a deep breath and let it out again. “I remember one morning after a really bad dream, tossing and turning. She woke up and made me promise not to shut down if she died.” Jasmine chewed on her lower lip. “If I hadn’t listened to her, I never would have met Norman,” she finished with a sigh.
Jack smiled at the thought of the stuffy old cyber who ran McEntyre House getting that sigh out of Jasmine. “He’s a very lucky guy,” Jack whispered. “And I hope he knows it.”
“Oh, he’d better,” Jasmine growled, a red haze seeming to appear around her for a moment.
Jack suppressed a chuckle and looked at Betty who smiled back at him. Jack relaxed back into his seat and laid his arm on the armrest between them, hand up. She saw the hand, looked him in the eyes, and he nodded. Her smile grew softer and she placed her hand on his.
They sat like that all the way back to base, the feathery touch of her holographic hand barely rippling across his real hand. Jack chewed his lower lip, deep in thought. Questions came and went out of his mind, dismissed almost as quickly as they came to mind. Some questions could never be unasked after all.
Finally, the base came into view and the car nosed down towards the street in front of the gate. Jasmine pulled it out of the dive and brought them to a slow roll through the opening before it closed again. She pulled the car into a parking spot and Jack let out a long breath. It was time to get back to work. He pushed the door open and rolled out of the car, rising to his feet in a smooth motion.
He stepped away, smoothed out his uniform as much as possible, and began to walk towards the barracks. Jasmine and Betty walked on either side of him in their own Dress Whites, and the holoemitters in his uniform hummed to life as they walked out of range of the car’s emitters. To his practiced eye, their holoforms flickered during the shift, bu
t he knew that most people couldn’t see it.
They arrived at the barracks without interruption and slipped into his room. He checked the time to make certain he had it, nodded, and stripped the rumpled Dress Whites off. He threw them on his rack, grabbed his green and khaki service uniform, and slipped it on as fast as he could. The clock showed time was going to be tight and a whistle escaped his lips. He straightened his tie, slipped his leather flight jacket on, and scanned Jasmine and Betty’s matching service uniforms with approval.
“Well, ladies, a new day has come,” he said with a smile and grabbed his cowboy hat. He dropped it on his head and tipped the edge of it towards them. “And we look maavelous,” he added with a wink.
The cybers rolled their eyes and he chuckled.
“Roll your eyes if you want, but these uniforms do look good,” he said, opened the door, and stepped back out into the early morning air. He squinted his eyes against the light of the first sun and stepped away from his barrack.
“Somebody had a good night,” Betty said and Jack turned to see a smile on her face.
Jack chuckled and began striding towards the office complex. “It was a wonderful party at The Pav. Amazing music,” he added with a wink. “And now it’s time for a day of work!” he finished with a laugh and upraised arms.
A platoon of dogs trotted past in full pack, a marching cadence about chasing cats coming from their lips, and Jack laughed again. Dobermans and German Shepards and more trotted by, tails in the air when they had them. Three small Pit Bulls trotted by, all of their tails short due to long tradition, and Jack nodded in approval.
“Stubby!” he shouted and saw their chests fill with pride at the name of the old war hero.
An old Doberman wearing sergeant pins on his uniform stepped up to Jack and nodded his proud head. “You do good to respect them,” the dog said in a deep voice. “They will be very valuable where we are going.”
Jack blinked and looked at the Doberman in confusion. “Where you’re going?”
The old Doberman barked out a laugh. “So you haven’t heard?” The dog laughed again. “The real Devildogs have been mobilized! We prepare for war! The Shang will regret the day they attacked us,” the Doberman finished with a wink and trotted off to rejoin the marching dogs. “Don’t flounce around like useless cats!” the sergeant barked at the end of the line of dogs. “March like you mean it!” he shouted with a snap at the tail of one of the marines.
Jack shook his head. “The Shang are so fraked,” he whispered with a chuckle.
Hello, my name is Jack. Those of us who grew up in one area will always have a strong definition of what home feels like. I remember the smell of a spring rain, the feel of snow crunching under my feet, the sound of an evening wind, the sight of the sun rising in the morning, a bonfire crackling on a beach. The definition of home is different for all of us, but there is always that feel when we go there, like it is the one place where we belong.
Home
Jack stepped out of his office on Leif Erikson Spacebase, straightening his service uniform’s tie, and looked up at the twin suns, one yellow and one orange, dominating the blue sky. He looked down at the washed out shadows the two suns made, far enough apart in the sky that each sun partially lit the shadow of the other.
Jack rubbed his temple and closed his eyes. It truly was an alien landscape out here and he was really feeling the time difference too. He’d been here a month as Earth measured time, but he’d only seen twenty four of New Earth’s thirty-hour days. And those days didn’t go like they had when he arrived.
On New Years, both suns rose and fell within an hour of each other. Now, one-tenth of the local year later, New Earth had moved enough in its orbit that the suns were noticeably separate in the sky. They were over three hours apart now, making less and less time of full light and full darkness. Not that full dark was really full dark with Proxima Centauri’s distant red light. Although in some parts of the year even that went down at night. He just hadn’t been there for that yet.
Jack rubbed his temple again and shook his head. He wanted a simple day and night cycle back. Triple star systems were a pain in the brain to figure out whether it was day or night. And then there was New Earth itself. It was too heavy. He’d gotten used to it at first, but after a month of walking around in ten percent higher gravity, his bones were starting to complain. And the atmosphere was too thick too. He felt like he was breathing soup every day. And then there was the temperature. It never cooled down. It was just…warm all the time here on the ocean shore…and he wanted a real fresh water lake to swim in. Washing salt out of his nether regions after a swim was getting old. And salt water just tasted wrong.
He was starting to understand why the Europeans liked this planet so much, why they’d landed here of all places. In a lot of ways it must remind them of home, especially for people who lived around the Mediterranean Sea. But for a native of northern Minnesota, used to freezing temperatures and a thinner atmosphere, New Earth had just become more and more alien as time went by.
Jack had thought he would get used to it. At first it had been an adventure, and he’d taken everything in stride, exploring and enjoying it all. And of course Samantha took a large amount of his attention. Now though, the differences just seemed to weigh on him like the local gravity. He wanted to take a trip to a mountaintop where maybe he could breath something other than soup. Maybe he could see some water actually freeze at night. New Earth was just…wrong. Water didn’t even boil at a hundred degrees. He could see why most of the Americans, and the Scandinavians for that matter, had colonized the colder highlands and plateaus of New Washington. From what he heard, that planet made sense.
Or as much sense as any planet could make in a system where day and night wasn’t always light and dark. He’d grown up enjoying the outdoors, and now everywhere he looked, all he could see was more things that just weren’t right. Like the weird native animals that had somehow adapted to the crazy day and night cycles. He wondered how roosters handled the double sunrises.
He grunted in amusement.
“What?” Betty asked from the side, her holoemitters humming in the background.
Jack shook his head. “Just wondering how roosters handle the twin suns.”
Betty sighed. “They adapt, Jack. Just like everybody who stays here.”
Jack brought a hand up to rub his jaw. “Yeah. The ones who stay.” He let out a long breath and looked away from her. Staying just wasn’t in the cards for him. He was a Marine. They were at war. He had to go. “It’s a pity I can’t stay and go, like you,” he said in a wistful tone, and began striding towards the landing field.
Betty stayed next to him, her legs keeping pace with his easily. “What are you thinking, Jack?”
Jack sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing I suppose.”
Betty smiled at him. “I don’t know. That’s an awful lot of angst for a nothing right there.”
Jack snorted ruefully. “True.” He brought a hand up to scratch his neck. “I guess I’m just thinking about that game that Roger plays. The one where they copy soldier’s minds into cyber brains.”
“Ah,” Betty whispered with a nod. “You know that’s just a game.”
Jack chuckled. “Of course I do.” He aimed a finger at her. “But I also know you said it’s possible.”
Betty shook her head. “Actually, I said it’s been done before. I didn’t say it was possible to do it now.”
Jack cocked his head to the side in confusion. “You lost the tech?”
Betty sighed. “No. We haven’t lost the ability. We just don’t. So it’s not possible.”
“Ah,” Jack said in a sly tone and stepped into a street, looking both ways and up to make certain nothing was going to run over him. “Just like it’s not possible for one pilot-cyber team to fly more than one fighter at the same time?”
Betty cleared her throat and glared at him. “That’s not the same thing, Jack, and you know it.”
More holoemitters on his uniform hummed to life and Jasmine flickered into existence on his other side. “I don’t know about that,” she said with a smile. “I think he’s got a point.”
“Don’t take his side on this, Jasmine,” Betty said in a stern tone and looked around him at the other cyber. “It’s not possible.”
Jasmine shook her head back. “No. He’s right. It’s just not done.” She poked a finger between her breasts. “But I’ve been thinking about this too.”
“Well you shouldn’t,” Betty retorted.
“I know!” Jasmine snapped back. “But I am anyways. And you know why? Because I wish Drew had done it! At least then I’d be able to see her again!” Jasmine finished, huffing and puffing at Betty.
Jack scratched the side of his head with one finger, debating with himself over whether he should try to stop the argument. But Betty didn’t answer Jasmine’s statement, and Jack turned his gaze towards Betty to study her.
She seemed deep in thought, and he wondered how much of it was for his benefit. If she really was thinking this long, Jasmine had just placed her in an impressive logic loop. Betty finally shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jasmine. But there is a very good reason we don’t do that.”
Jack felt the opening and took it. “Yes there is, and I fully agree and understand it,” he said with a smile.
Betty blinked in confusion and studied him. “Then…why?” A quick scan to the other side showed him that Jasmine looked just as confused.
Jack spread his arms out wide in an innocent gesture. “Because I have a totally different reason for thinking about it.”
Betty placed both hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, this had better be good.”
Jack smiled back at her. “I’m not looking for life after death, Betty. I just don’t want to leave. I want to stay with her.” He brought a hand around and poked Betty gently between her breasts, just barely feeling himself break through the holoform. “Isn’t that what all cybers are supposed to want?”
Forge of War (Jack of Harts) Page 33
