by Brett Patton
The bush disintegrated in a hail of shredded leaves. Dark armor glinted inside. It sparked and jumped in the hail of depleted uranium. Then it stopped firing. A puff of smoke curled from it, like the last exhalation of a dying man.
“Yeah!” Matt yelled, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice.
Michelle said something. Her words were softer than a whisper, unintelligible. She tapped on the side of his gun, where the LCD readout showed 023.
He had only twenty-three rounds left. Twenty-three rounds, and a hundred yards to go.
He nodded. “Guess we’ll have to make a run for it!” Without waiting for Michelle, Matt charged out into the swamp once again.
And through the splash of water, he saw something incredible : Kyle running full-bore ahead of him. He’d taken the opening that Matt and Michelle had created. Matt bit his lip, thinking how unfair it was.
As if to rub it in, Michelle flashed past Matt as if he were standing still. Her speed left him dazed. She closed the gap with Kyle. Matt struggled to get his burning legs to move faster.
Every moment, he expected a bullet to find his back, but the sentries were silent. He came close enough to see a doctor standing cross-armed in front of the tent.
Michelle sprinted past Kyle, who had started to limp as if with a strained muscle. His face contorted in pain, but he kept running ahead of Matt.
Matt reached the gravel walkway leading from the edge of the swamp to the tents, as Michelle ran past the doctor. The doctor called out in a loud, clear voice: “First!”
Matt slowed to a fast walk. First? She was first? It seemed like an eternity he’d been in the swamp. How could they not be last?
Kyle ran into the tent.
“Second,” the doctor said.
Matt sped up and ran through the flaps, finishing strong.
“Third,” he heard, behind him.
3
TESTS
The medical tents were huge, obsessively clean, and lit with the kind of actinic, perfectly white medical lamps that made everyone look sickly and pale. White-suited doctors stood at the sides of the tent, poking disinterestedly at slates or watching a tremendous wall screen playing Union Broadcasting Corporation news.
The main story was about an abortive Corsair attack on Portal, the newest Union world. Diagrams showed the Union Displacement Drive warship UUS Ulysses in orbit around the planet, as well as a dozen Rhinos and a smattering of Cheetahs. Talking heads yammered unintelligibly, but the upshot seemed to be that nobody had been hurt. There were no pictures of smoking cities, and no Mecha had been deployed. Below the main news streamed additional headlines: GEOTECH INDUSTRIES TERRAFORMING PRACTICES IN REVIEW BY UNION GOVERNMENT; ERIDANI FARMING YIELDS FALL—IMPORTS NECESSARY FOR CURRENT YEAR; ANNO SERVICES STOCK SPIKES ON NEWS OF MERGER.
“Congratulations!” said one of the doctors, stepping forward to grin at Matt, Kyle, and Michelle. He was a slight, dark-haired man in his early forties who would have been pale-skinned even if he weren’t under the medical lamps. His name badge read: E. PECHTER, M.D.
Pechter continued before any of the three could talk. “If there were medals, you’d be wearing them.” He shook his head sadly and gestured at a row of gurneys. “Unfortunately, all we have are these beds. Why don’t you take a seat and let us have a look?”
“I’m not injured,” Michelle told him.
Pechter nodded. “Well, don’t you earn the gold star? You still need a physical. Up on the bed.”
Michelle frowned and sat on the closest gurney. Kyle limped to the one next to hers.
Matt didn’t want to move. After the surreal fight through the swamp, he felt floaty and strange, as if his brain had been disconnected from his body. They’d shot at him. Like some expendable army grunt. Why was he here? Was this really the highest honor in the Union, or was it all just a con job?
Matt gritted his teeth. He couldn’t just up and leave. There was too much at stake.
“Hello?” Pechter waved a hand in front of Matt’s face. “Earth to Number Three. Come in, Number Three.”
“I . . . I’m—” Matt looked around. Everyone was watching him. The doctors. Kyle. Michelle.
“Sit,” Pechter said.
Matt sat on the gurney next to Kyle’s, not daring to look at him. Kyle must be smirking.
The doctor outside the tent flap peeked in at them. “Rush’s starting,” he said.
“Okay, let’s get these sorted,” Pechter said, motioning for the other doctors. They put away their slates and sauntered over, seemingly unconcerned.
Pechter took one look at Kyle’s swollen ankle and frowned. “Bad sprain. Pretty good, coming in second with this beauty.” He waved another doctor over. “Let’s give him Accelerated Recovery.”
Pechter looked at the divot on the chest of Matt’s flak jacket. “Ooh, Purple Heart candidate,” he said, bending down to examine Matt’s wrecked jacket. “Well, not so fast.”
“What do you mean?”
In answer, the doctor grabbed a slim metallic wand from a nearby tray and used it to pry something out of the flak jacket. But instead of the shiny metal bullet Matt expected, it was a red, splattered glob of plastic.
Pechter waved the wand at Matt.
“Coward rounds. Like a paintball, but with a short-lifespan neural inhibitor that makes you feel, well, like you’ve been shot. But since it didn’t make it through the jacket, we don’t have to neutralize it.”
Matt just stared openmouthed.
“You don’t think we’d go and gun down the best and brightest of the Union, do you?”
Matt’s guts seethed with amazement and anger. “You—you tricked us? Into thinking we could be shot?”
Pechter raised an eyebrow. “You’d prefer the real thing?”
Matt shook his head. Of course not! But . . . it was a helluva test.
They want to see who’s really committed, Matt realized. Anyone with the right academics and athletics could fill out the prequalification forms for training camp. Anyone who passed that stage could accept the up-to-decade-long auditing and surveillance that might get you invited to training camp at any point during that ten years. But not just anyone could pick up a gun and charge in without hesitation. That’s the test he’d just passed.
Pechter turned to examine Michelle.
“I don’t need treatment,” Michelle said.
“You sure?” Pechter said. “Do you even know if you’re hurt? You juiced up, Earth girl? You’re awfully fast.”
Michelle’s expression went rigid, but her eyes blazed hard and angry. “I don’t need juice to beat these candidates, Doctor.”
Pechter laughed and nodded at another doc. “Drug scan.” He turned back to Michelle’s glare. “Nothing personal. Just part of the job.”
The doctor swooped in and took blood, then injected it into his slate. He tapped a foot as he waited for the results.
“Fourth!” called a voice from outside.
Matt turned to see another cadet run in. It was the older woman who’d protested before. She looked unharmed, but her breath came in loud whoops, and her eyes were wide and darting.
Pechter turned to her. “I’m sorry. No gold star for you. But we have a place to recline.” He pointed at a gurney.
“Five! Six!” came from outside the tent.
The two kids dressed in Hyva rags came through the door. Neither was injured, though both were covered in mud to their knees. They sauntered in casually, as if the whole exercise had been an evening stroll.
“You see, Jahl?” one of them said. “I told you. Let the ones at the forefront take out the automated sentries. Note where they are, then walk right through.”
“You’re too clever for your own good, Peal,” the other told him.
“Isn’t that what they always say?”
Pechter stopped the duo. “Sit,” he said, pointing at the gurneys.
“Okay,” they said together.
“Seven, eight, nine,” came the voice again. “Anothe
r dozen coming!”
Pechter nodded. “Rush hour.” He turned back to the doctor who was running Michelle’s drug scan. “Well?”
“She’s clean,” he said.
“Good,” Pechter said. “You win.”
“I win what?” Michelle asked.
Pechter grinned. “You’ll be the first through the Mind Raze.”
Pechter led Michelle and Matt through the curtains. Beyond them was a large area filled with a wide variety of diagnostic and treatment machines. Matt recognized the sleek, stainless-steel shapes of imagers and the hulking outline of robotic-surgery suites.
Kyle lay inside a bullet-shaped transparent tube Matt didn’t recognize. Haze filled its interior, thickest around Kyle’s swollen ankle. He saw Matt and Michelle and smiled dreamily, his eyes glazed and faraway.
“He’s out of it,” Pechter said. “Accelerated Recovery is powerful stuff.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Matt said.
“No reason you should have,” Pechter said. “Though there’s a rumor running around that Acc Rec is the reason the Eridani Tigers are doing so well this season.” Pechter leaned in to add, “Eridani’s Senator Kline has a lot of pull, you know.”
Pechter led them back through another set of curtains to a small room where a single machine sat. This one didn’t look like any of the others. It was formed of a single, flowing piece of polished dark metal, with complex curves like frozen flame. A reclining seat led up to a translucent cowl, just large enough to accept someone’s head.
“We’re supposed to call it the Neural Interface Assessment, but that’s pretty boring compared to Mind Raze, don’t you—Ah, er, shit. One sec. Be right back.” Pechter ducked back through the curtains, like maybe he’d forgotten something.
Matt looked at Michelle. “Look, I think—”
“Stop it right there,” Michelle cut him off. “Get this straight: we’re not a team now.”
“I never thought—”
“I’m not here to help you.” She flashed bright, angry blue eyes. “I’m only here to become Mecha Corps—that’s it. And I’m certainly not here to meet any guys.”
And I’m not here to meet girls, Matt thought, but he kept his mouth shut. Her bravery, focus, and anger made Michelle that much more interesting, and he didn’t want to piss off the beautiful Earth girl any more than he had already.
Michelle opened her mouth to say something else, but Pechter ducked back through the curtains again. Now he held a slate.
“Okay, Army girl, up and at ’em.” Pechter nodded at the machine.
Michelle didn’t hesitate. She climbed onto the seat and lay back. Pechter nodded and punched a control on his slate. The cowl dropped over her head.
“Ready?” Pechter said.
Michelle nodded.
“This is gonna feel weird. But at least it’s quick.” Pechter pressed a button on his slate. Michelle’s face went blank. Not sleep-blank, but blank like death. Matt shivered as memories swam close behind his eyes.
Pechter’s slate glowed green. He grinned and pressed a button. Michelle’s lips twitched and her eyes flitted from side to side. She tried to sit up and hit her head on the cowl.
“Easy,” Pechter said.
Michelle slid down in the seat and jumped off the machine before the cowl had finished retracting. She took a couple of steps away from it and hugged herself, as if chilled. Her gaze traveled from Pechter to the machine and back again.
“That was . . . disgusting,” Michelle said.
Pechter nodded. “That’s what everyone says! The good news is, you passed.” He held up the emerald-glowing slate.
Michelle blew out a big breath and nodded.
Pechter turned to Matt. “You’re next, rich boy.”
Matt opened his mouth to correct Pechter, then stopped himself. Why did he care? Let everyone make their assumptions based on the way he dressed. Let them be wrong.
Matt got up in the seat. The thin padding covered hard metal, but it wasn’t cold. In fact, it was almost uncomfortably warm.
“What kind of test is this?” Matt asked.
“I told you. Mind Raze. Or Neural Interface Assessment, if you want to be formal and academic-like.”
“But what does it do?” Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Michelle watching intently.
Pechter sighed, as if Matt’s question was the greatest burden in the universe. “It determines whether or not you can use the advanced brain-machine interfaces that are part of your training.”
“So Mecha are run by mind control?”
“Ye—Oh, hell.” Pechter looked away. “Lie back. I have to start the test.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
Pechter crossed his arms. “Like everyone says, you can waltz out at any time. It’s a helluva honor just to be invited to training camp. No real shame in washing out. With all the data they have on you, I’m sure you’ll still get lots of job offers from your daddy’s rich friends.”
“Then this test is required.”
Pechter set his jaw. “That’s right. And we’re on a clock. Should I tell all the other cadet candidates who’s holding up the line?”
Matt lay back. The translucent cowl descended over his head, blocking his vision. For a moment, the entire world was cool, blue-white light.
Then it went away and Matt saw nothing. He tried to move his head, but he couldn’t see or feel his body anymore. His senses registered zero input, other than the sensation of space, as if he were floating in an immense, pitch-black room.
In the darkness, something moved. Something that scratched at the edge of his vision, ultraviolet and infrared. Matt wanted to run, but his body didn’t respond. He was numb. He couldn’t move anything, not even a finger.
The thing in the dark moved closer. Matt felt its presence, like static electricity in the desert, like a musty odor in an old room.
It touched him, and brilliant, acid pain cascaded through Matt. He tried to thrash against it. Every time he tried to move, the pain reached a new crescendo.
Relax, a distant voice whispered.
Matt thrashed again. Pain exploded. It was worse than the chemical nerve stimulation that refugee-ship police used to extract confessions. It was worse than anything he could imagine.
There is no pain in acceptance, the distant voice said.
Matt relaxed. Immediately, the pain stopped. The thing wrapped its static-musty embrace over him. Matt had to force himself not to struggle. It was like being smothered.
It pressed inward. Into him. Into his brain. Matt screamed a silent scream. Talons raked through his mind, scrambling his thoughts, rooting through Matt’s cortex. Every neuron rifled, sorted, and cataloged.
And he heard that distant voice again. Now it bellowed throughout his body from his head to his toes. And it was overlaid with feelings: intense interest; ravenous hunger.
What are you? it asked. What made you?
Matt’s thoughts turned backward. Toward his childhood. Toward his father.
Suddenly he was six years old again.
Matt ran ahead of his dad, down the long, dusty hallway deep below the surface of the planet Prospect. He was just back from another one of his Displacement trips from Eridani, and Matt was happy to see him.
The lab crew had strung bright phosphorus utility lights along the ceiling, but much of the hall was still draped in shadows. Rooms off to either side gaped like yawning mouths.
Matt didn’t like the dark. Once, he’d found a skeleton in the shadows, slumped over the rusted remains of a mining laser. In the shaking light from his flash, it almost seemed to move. It had come back in his dreams, chasing him down endless halls that bent to no refuge.
“One hundred forty-one,” Matt’s dad called behind him. Matt grinned. The picture game. Dad was seeing if he could remember the image from its index number.
“A pink flower.” The picture was vivid and defined in Matt’s mind. Twenty-one petals, shot through with thin veins of white
. A bright yellow center. An insect hovering nearby. “With a bee.”
“Seven hundred ninety.”
“An asteroid. Stars in the background.” Matt tried to match them to constellations he knew, but couldn’t. “Far away from Earth.”
“Four.”
“You, in a lab coat.”
“Five thousand, one hundred ninety-three.”
Matt frowned. That was a picture of a world a lot like Prospect, except the sand ran up to bright green water under a clear blue sky. “A world. With water.”
“A beach on Eridani,” his dad said. “Someday I’ll take you to a planet with beaches.”
Matt looked back at his dad. He was looking at the photo that Matt had just described on his slate. His face had that sad, faraway look he got whenever he thought about Mom.
Dad looked up and saw Matt. He thumbed off the slate and put it in the oversized pocket of his white lab coat.
“No more?” Matt asked.
His dad shook his head. “No more. I don’t need to test you further. You remember everything you see.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Nobody does. Not like you.”
Matt walked in silence for a while. His dad had told him this before, but it didn’t seem possible.
Dad caught up with Matt and put a hand on his shoulder. “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”
“No.”
“It’s very important you don’t tell anyone. Your Perfect Record is a small gift. I wish I could do more. But it was difficult enough separating out that trait from the . . .” He trailed off, then squeezed Matt’s shoulder. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Like I can’t tell everyone you’re a secret agent for the Union.”
Dad laughed. “I’m not a secret agent. The Union just trusts me to do some very important research for them.”
“A secret agent.”
Dad looked doubtful. “In a lab coat?”
“Secret agent scientist!”
