by Weston Ochse
I nodded.
Malrimple gave Joub the thumbs up.
She typed on her pad.
A flood of ants invaded my brain, ticking, clicking, moving in and out of my thoughts. I felt my jaw fall open and my eyes slammed shut. There was no pain, but I couldn’t think of anything else except my brain filling with a million, billion trickling points of thought—ideas skittering at the speed of light. I was being filled and filled and filled, beyond capacity. I fell to my knees. My mind was a hurricane of ideas, numbers, people, places, things both human and alien and strange. I felt myself forget to breathe.
Then a wash of nothing.
“Mason, are you okay?”
I breathed.
My heart beat.
I was alive.
“Mason, are you okay?”
“Lieutenant, it’s gone. It’s over.”
I opened my eyes. My throat was raw, as if I’d been screaming. I must have been.
“Lieutenant—thank God.”
“I thought you were dying.”
I cleared my throat. “I thought I did.” I sat up with the help of two of the techs. “What happened?”
“It’s gone,” Ethridge said.
“What’s... where’d all the information go?”
Peter spoke, both through the speakers and inside the wide-open expanse of my mind. “I can now translate the Hypocrealiac language.”
After a moment, Malrimple put his hand to his head. “Oh, my God.”
Sutter shook his head. “Computational space. He needed your brain so he could work his algorithms.” Seeing my confusion, he added, “One pre-invasion study estimated that the brain has around a hundred billion neurons, each with a thousand synapses capable of making connections—think of synapses as doing the work of data storage. That’s a hundred trillion data points, or one hundred terabytes of info. Another study estimated the brain’s capacity at closer to 2.5 petabytes, or twenty-five hundred terabytes of binary data. Before the invasion, we stored petabytes in the cloud and had literally an endless capacity for storage. Since then, in this time of austerity, we have been forced to use whatever servers weren’t fried. It looks as if HMID Salinas required more space. He found it with you and Corporal Ethridge.”
“Theta waves,” I said.
Malrimple nodded.
I stood, a little wobbly on my feet. “Glad I could be of help.” Then I turned a little too fast. Everything went fuzzy and I fell to the floor.
Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death—the seas bear only commerce—men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way.
Douglas MacArthur
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A NEW EXCITEMENT filled the compound as news of the breakthrough made it through the ranks. I would have thought that the information would have been classified at the highest levels, but Mr. Pink, ever the social manipulator, was using it to inspire confidence, much as he’d done with me, televising my Hero of the Mound stand over Thompson’s fallen EXO. Our mission had been postponed by at least twenty-four hours so they could discuss the ramifications of the newfound ability to translate what the aliens were saying to each other.
The night before, my brain had felt like a sponge with all the water squeezed out. I’d spent most of the time in a daze, missing night practice with the team. But when I awoke that morning, I felt refreshed, eager. I spoke with Dewhurst right after I got up, but he brushed me off as he made his way to a high-level meeting. I tried to contact Mr. Pink, but he was busy. Frankly, I wanted to know what going on. After all, I was now a lieutenant. But while a lieutenant outranked a sergeant major, that same lieutenant was the lowest level of the officer ranks—still essentially a grunt.
The more things change... I thought. So here I was again, training with the soldiers while others decided our fate. I was a mushroom—fed shit and kept in the dark.
I’d paired Stranz with Sula, and Ohirra with Macabre. We’d moved past the wide, flat Dust Bowl to a narrow valley marked on the map as the Devil’s Spit. I stood on top of a hill and watched as they moved first one way, then the other, practicing bounding overwatch. Normally one team would provide fire protection while the other would rush forward, establishing a position. Then they’d switch. But where individual soldiers would normally limit their rush to three-to-five seconds, while in the EXOs I’d commanded them to make ten-second rushes. Their servo-assisted legs could carry them twice as fast and far. Combined with the armor-plating and the ability to deliver damage faster, I wanted to make sure we pushed the EXOs to their limits.
I’d always thought that our strategy against the hive in Africa had been flat. Part of that came from never having used the EXOs in combat before, and having to feel our way through the fight. And we hadn’t been entirely aware of the abilities of the Cray, or known what was in the hive.
Now all that had changed.
We now knew how the interior was structured. We understood the Cray and their reaction to intense light. We knew how they attacked. We also knew we were going to deliver a thermonuclear device right into their midst. So it was up to Olivares and me to come up with a plan that would ensure mission completion and survival.
“Tarantula One, this is Tarantula Chief, inbound to your location.”
I checked my HUD and watched as Dewhurst’s EXO made good time through the Dust Bowl and to my location. He arrived a moment later, and I told the team to take ten.
“What’s up, boss?” I asked.
“Switch to private channel one.”
I switched. “Okay, what’s up?”
“They kicked me out.”
“Kicked you out? What does that mean?”
“Arguably the biggest discovery—the most important breakthrough in the history of mankind—and they want to monetize it.”
Monetize it? “I don’t get it.”
“Your clowns at OMBRA had the audacity to ask me to contact our new government and invite them to pay for the right to have access to the translation data. OMBRA will provide real-time translation services for a fee.”
“Watch your blood pressure.”
“Fuck my blood pressure. Remember Iraq? We spent one hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars on contractors in Iraq, and what did we get for that? A country worse off than when the war began—a broken country that only an alien invasion saved from being overrun by third-rate terrorists.”
“How do they expect you to pay for it?”
Dewhurst sighed heavily. “In land. As a sign of good faith, we allowed OMBRA to own whatever land they were occupying. I know I said earlier that Fort Irwin was ours, but I didn’t want to confuse anyone with the complexities of our relationship. After all, for all of their greed, they were hammering the aliens better than anyone else. Out of appreciation, we gave them some land. And now they want more.”
“Did they say what they wanted?”
Dewhurst’s EXO nodded.
“And?”
“Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.”
“The states?”
“All three of them.”
Audacity was the word. OMBRA wanted to own a fair chunk of what used to be America. “What are they going to do with them?”
“Whatever they want? Hell, I don’t know. Turn the whole area into one big fucking amusement park.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Why don’t you just withhold your support? Use the nuclear bombs as leverage.”
“Because we’re not like them. Although it handcuffs us to an ideal, we think it’s the best way for our fledgling country to begin. We consider OMBRA, whether they like it or not, part of our new nation. They are citizens, pure and simple, and it is the federal government’s responsib
ility to protect its people.”
And there it was. That ideal I so much loved. Protect the innocent from bullies—in this case, the Hypocrealiacs.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“What’s this we, Lieutenant? You’ve been part of OMBRA from the beginning.”
“I joined OMBRA because I thought it would be a far more entertaining way to die than jumping off a bridge.”
“How has that worked out for you?”
“I seem to be an abject failure at dying.”
“You know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed...”
“Yeah, I’ve been living that one all my life. So what are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.” He gestured toward the canyon floor. “How are they doing?”
“Coming together as a team. Are we still doing the mission?”
“OMBRA’s abject greed aside, we still need to retake our planet.”
“So we’re going through with it?”
“Absolutely, Lieutenant.”
I held out my hand. “Then let’s join the others. You have a lot of practice to make up for.”
He grunted. “That’s right. I’m a regular slacker.”
We jogged down the incline to join the others. Soon, I’d broken us down into three teams, conducting bounding overwatch up and down the canyon. We kept at it until noon, then headed back to the Dust Bowl. Tomorrow would be a live fire exercise, and if we were lucky, the day after that we’d be in mission.
No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
General George S. Patton
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THAT AFTERNOON I was summoned into Mr. Pink’s office. I didn’t know what it was about, but I felt like I had back in school, being summoned by the principal. I was asked to go right in.
Mr. Pink rose from his desk and gestured for me to sit down. I didn’t like that at all. Politeness from him terrified me. He wore the same black pants and black OMBRA polo that he usually wore.
“I haven’t spoken to you since the hearing. How are you doing?”
That he was asking me meant he wanted something. “I’m doing fine,” I said.
“And the team? They coming together?”
I nodded. “I’ll have them ready for the mission.”
“I’m sure you will.” He stared at me for a long moment. “We go way back, don’t we, Lieutenant Mason?”
I grinned. “We’re regular best buds. BFFs even.” My eyes narrowed. “What’s this all about, Mr. Pink?”
“Do you know that even my generals call me Mr. Pink? I stopped correcting them a long time ago. It’s gotten to where I like it.”
I remained silent. He’d get to the point eventually. After all, we had a mission in two days, so he had to let me go by then.
He stood and paced to the window, where he stopped and stared out at the hot Death Valley afternoon. His hands were clasped behind his back as he contemplated something. Finally, he turned back to me.
“We’re worried about your loyalty to OMBRA.”
And there it was.
“What about it?”
“We’re concerned that Major Dewhurst is actively trying to compromise you.”
“You’re mistaken.”
He sighed. “We have a record of your conversation with Major Dewhurst this morning.”
I felt myself getting mad. “You listened in on our private conversation?”
Mr. Pink shrugged. “We were concerned.”
“Fuck your concern. That was private.”
“Not as long as you’re in an OMBRA EXO, it’s not.”
I thought of a dozen things to say, including some ideas he could try out with his own mother, but kept my mouth shut. Instead, there was something I wanted to make perfectly clear. “You’re still mistaken.”
“Didn’t you hear me? We know what you said. We have a transcript, if you want to read it.”
“Not about that. You said you were worried about my loyalty to OMBRA. I’ve never been loyal to OMBRA.” I let that sink in for a moment, then added, “I’m loyal to the men and women around me. I’m loyal to the grunts.”
“But we assumed...” He shook his head.
“You’re a company looking to make a profit at the expense of the world. That you’re forcing Dewhurst’s hand and asking for three states in exchange for this breakthrough sickens me. It’s embarrassing to wear the OMBRA logo.”
“That’s a little dramatic, now, isn’t it?”
“Is it? That farce of a hearing we had the other day established that HMIDs were human. When Peter Salinas broke the code, was he doing it as a human or an HMID?”
“I see where you’re going, Mason. It’s always been the right of companies to own the intellectual property of its employees when created during paid hours.”
I paused for a second at the legal mumbo jumbo, then changed courses. “Regardless, OMBRA is a means to an end. It has the biggest and best military and gives me the greatest ability to kill as many aliens as I can.”
“But you’re not loyal.”
“Hell, no! Do you want to know who I’m loyal to? Ohirra, for one. I’m loyal to her because she had my back. Want to know who else? Thompson. That’s right. HMID Thompson, who you’ve parked with Sebring’s God’s New Army.”
I realized I was standing and shouting when the door opened and the secretary asked, “Is everything all right in here?”
Mr. Pink waved her away. “You can have your seat back, now, Lieutenant.”
I sat slowly, aware that my blood pressure was through the roof. Even so, I wasn’t about to apologize for my beliefs.
Mr. Pink brought his thumb to his mouth and chewed on the nail for a moment. “It’s good to see that you’re loyal to someone. This New United States of North America is something you could be loyal to.”
“It could be. I don’t know enough about it. My country ceased to exist. Even if it didn’t, I was never really fighting for a flag, or a bald eagle, or a president. I was fighting for grunts.”
“We’re concerned that Major Dewhurst might do something he can’t recover from.”
“I’m not worried about that at all. We have a mission to take down two hives, and by God we’re going to complete that mission.”
Mr. Pink regarded me for a time, then nodded. “That will be all, lieutenant.”
I was clearly dismissed. I stood but didn’t move. Finally, Mr. Pink looked up at me.
“Is there something else, lieutenant?”
“You mentioned that we go way back. We do, indeed. I want to tell you that I appreciate you saving my life. I’m thankful you locked me up in that Godforsaken cell to help me learn how to better fight the aliens, and to make me realize that there’s something good about my PTSD-fueled existence. I want to thank you for letting me fight, when all I wanted was to die.”
He blinked at me, clearly unprepared for my words.
“I also want you to know that I’m loyal to you, as a person. Not to OMBRA, not to a company, but to Mr. Wilson. The man who I call Mr. Pink just to fuck with him. In a way, you’re a grunt just like the rest of us. Just like Thompson, Ohirra, and my new team. I fight for you as well.”
Then I turned and strode out of the room.
Let him chew on that for awhile.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
William Shakespeare
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE NEXT MORNING we waited outside of the mock village Ertebat Shar, ready to attack. Originally built to represent an Afghan village, it was all my team had to allow us to practice moving and shooting in an urban environment. OMBRA didn’t have any mock-up Cray, but they did have the ability to program images into our HUDs, so the targets we were going to fire on were completely digital. The challenge of simultaneously representing an attacking alien to six different HUD feeds turned out to be easy enough for HMID Sali
nas. His assistance allowed the OMBRA techs to create realistic independently operating three-dimensional representations of the winged aliens. Even so, we were still using live fire, just to get the hang of the noise, reloading, and recoil.
There was little doubt that we were going to destroy the village¸ so Tarantula Team Two was standing by the other mock-up village, ready to go in and do the same thing when their turn came.
I checked everyone’s vitals and flipped through their feeds. We were full ammo and ready to rock and roll.
As I waited, I couldn’t help but replay the conversation I’d had last night with Dewhurst. He’d spent several hours communicating with the new government through AM channels. When he was done, he found me where I was conducting last minute checks on my team’s EXOs.
“I heard Mr. Pink called you in,” he’d said.
I’d decided not to tell Dewhurst that not only were they were listening in on our private channels, they’d also heard us talking about walking away from OMBRA. I said, “He just wants to make sure I’m one hundred percent ready for the mission. My body and mind have been through a lot.”
“Have you thought about what we discussed? I spoke with my representatives. We need heroes like you and Olivares in the new government.”
“They need me here, too.”
“Being here and being part of the New United States of North America aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“So you’d want me to spy for you?”
He laughed. “Nothing like that. But as a government we operate on behalf of the people. As a military we ensure the safety of the people. We’d be concerned if OMBRA were doing anything that could harm the safety of our citizenry.”
“I’m not really a joiner,” I’d said.
“Do you realize why they took Fort Irwin? This backwater, Godforsaken military post on the ass-end of the Mojave Desert? China Lake Weapons Center, that’s why. Where the nukes are kept and the Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex is located. As of now, OMBRA owns all of seven of our W84s, as well as several prototype missiles and associated technologies, as well as all of our deep space radio antennas. How do you think they’re able to tap into the aliens’ communications so easily? They own Goldstone. They also own the one in Madrid. The only one we don’t know anything about is Australia, because absolutely no one knows what’s going on Down Under.
