by Brett Patton
Pechter’s slate flashed bright red.
“I’m sorry,” Pechter told her. He motioned for the Mecha Auxiliaries to step forward.
“Sorry?” she asked, looking at the Auxiliaries who flanked her.
“I’m afraid you’re gonna need another career,” Pechter said. “If you don’t make it through Mind Raze, you don’t make it to training camp.”
“What?” she said. The Auxiliaries clamped down on her arms. She struggled, but they held her.
“I’m sorry,” Pechter said as they led her out of the tent. “I know it’s hard to take. But it’s an honor just to be here. I’m sure you’ll still get plenty of job offers.”
After Mind Raze, they were fourteen.
Matt’s mind churned the simple arithmetic. Eighteen cadets lost the first day. Eleven washed out in the live-fire exercise. Seven rejected by the Mind Raze machine.
Arithmetic was better than letting his mind wander. He’d spent every moment of his life trying not to think about that day back on Prospect. He’d spent countless hours trying to trick his Perfect Record. Anything to erase that one memory. Anything to forget.
But the Mind Raze machine had brought it back, more vibrant than ever. Now all he could think of was that day, his father, and the HuMax Corsair. Matt clenched his fists.
That’s why I’m here. To find and kill that man.
Dinner was Union Army Insta-Paks on mess-hall tables in the medical tent, under the watchful eye of the Auxiliaries. Michelle took hers and walked all the way over to the edge of the tent, where she crouched and ate.
Matt wanted to pick up his Insta-Pak and go over to her. But Michelle clearly wanted to be alone. And she wasn’t why he was here.
Kyle grabbed the Insta-Pak next to Matt and headed toward Michelle. A flush of hatred nearly pushed Matt up from his seat, but he caught himself and eased back. That stuff didn’t matter. At least, it wasn’t supposed to.
Kyle crouched next to Michelle. She looked up, frowning. Kyle smiled and said something that Matt couldn’t hear over the murmur of the other cadets. She shook her head, stood up, and walked away. Kyle stood there for a while, shaking his head and whistling. Then he came back and sat across from Matt.
“That’s hot,” he said, nodding at Michelle. She was now looking pointedly away from them.
Matt said nothing.
“Make no mistake,” Kyle said. “That one’s mine.”
“Uh-huh,” Matt said, pushing down his anger.
Kyle watched Michelle for a while longer, then turned to Matt. “So, what family are you from? Tortelli? Bryce?”
“Family?”
“You’re an Aurora kid. I saw the blazer. Who’s your family ? We’re the Peterovs of Eridani.”
“Peterov, as in Senator Peterov?”
“That’s Dad. Also have Secretary of Education, Undersecretary of Unity, a couple other UniGov staff members. You know how it goes—it’s hard to keep track.”
Matt closed his eyes. “I don’t have a family.”
“Are you part of the Fragmenting Phillips?”
“Nope. I’m a refugee. No family,” Matt continued as Kyle tried hard to hide his shock. “I got into Aurora U on merit, not on connections. Just like I’ll get through training camp.”
Matt turned his back on Kyle and went to grab his own space by the edge of the tent. Kyle just sat at his table and kept smirking.
After dinner, the Auxiliaries led them to individual tents outside to bunk down. The overcast sky was deep charcoal black, devoid of stars. Far off was the sound of surf. Over everything was the stink of the swamp.
Alone in his tent, looking up into the dark, Matt’s Perfect Record brought him back to that day on Prospect once again. He fought back his memories until he felt on the brink of sleep.
It was like Soto said. They had all fought so hard to get here. Why would they expect it to get any easier?
4
ASSESSMENT
The next morning, Matt woke to a piercing electronic squeal. He jumped off his cot, heart hammering.
Memory came slamming back in high-definition. He was at Mecha Training Camp. In a tent. Runnels of condensation ran down from its peaked roof. The air was chill and clammy.
On the bench opposite his cot, Matt’s neatly folded clothes were gone. In their place was a light gray jumpsuit, with a small note reading Wear these.
Matt did. The jumpsuit fit as if it had been tailored to him. It bore only two decorations: the silhouetted Mecha logo of United MechaForms above the thirty-star cluster of the Universal Union.
Outside, the fog reduced everything to shades of gray and white. Other cadets had already emerged. Matt couldn’t help looking for Michelle. Nor could he help appreciating how she filled out the Mecha Cadet jumpsuit.
“Hubba hubba,” said a voice beside him. Matt jumped and turned. It was the two kids who’d worn the Hyva rags yesterday. Dark-skinned, with thick black hair and bright eyes, they looked young enough to be in high school. They both held slates that glowed blue-white in the morning’s heavy air.
“You brought slates?” Matt asked. “Through the swamp?”
“A man must have priorities,” said one of them.
“Like our beautiful Private Michelle Kind,” said the other, nodding at Matt.
“She isn’t important.”
“You suppress your hormones too much, Jahl.”
“And you play too much in things that don’t concern us, Peal.”
Peal crossed his arms. “Superposition and entanglement are essential qualities of many solutions.”
“Which can also lead to chain reactions—”
Matt cut him off. “Wait. Who are you two?”
The two chuckled and gave Matt a little half bow. “Peal and Jahl Khoury, the Wunderkind Pair of Hyva.”
“Or the criminal hackers of Hyva,” Jahl told his brother.
Peal shook his head. “You’re too hard on us.”
“Merely realistic about how we might be remembered. However, you do have a point. They never did press charges.”
Matt sighed. The two kids bantered back and forth as if he weren’t even there. Just like the data geeks back on the Rock, his old refugee ship. He searched for a reason to break away.
“We noticed your incident with the Mind Raze machine,” Jahl said.
“And overhead your altercation with the poster boy from Eridani,” Peal added.
“We find you interesting,” they both said in unison.
Great, Matt thought. Geeks as friends. “Look, I’ve got to—”
Peal didn’t let him finish. “You should see the data we have on Earth girl,” he said, flashing his slate. Michelle’s photo floated amid a stack of Union Army and EarthPop records.
“Lots of data flying around training camp,” Jahl said.
“More than meets the eye,” Peal agreed, grinning.
Matt only half heard them. He was looking at Peal’s slate. One piece of data was highlighted: a historic breakdown of Mecha cadets by Union planet. Eridani had sent thousands of candidates over the years. Most other core worlds were in the hundreds. The frontier worlds were in the double digits. At the very bottom of the list was Earth, with a single digit: 1.
Matt looked up. “Michelle’s the first Mecha cadet from Earth, ever?”
Peal laughed and clapped his brother on the back. “I told you he’s quick.”
Another electronic squeal made the cadets jump. Two Mecha Auxiliaries appeared out of the mist. “Follow us,” they demanded.
Peal and Jahl tucked their slates into their jumpsuits, and Matt had to struggle to quench his disappointment. He wanted to see the rest of the dossier on Michelle.
“Where is breakfast?” Serghey bleated. “And where is Mecha?”
“Old man’s got a point,” someone said, as they fell in behind the Auxiliaries. It was the sandy-haired woman who’d complained yesterday. She had that deeply tanned, leatherlike skin that came from living in a desert.
�
�What?” Matt asked.
“He may be an idiot, but he’s right. I dunno about you, but I came here for Mecha. Ain’t seen one yet.” She looked Matt up and down. “I’m Ash Moore. From Keller.”
“Keller? Lithium-mining Keller?”
Ash laughed and stuck out a hand. “Yeah. Surprised a rich Aurora boy’d know it. Armpit of the Union.”
Matt gripped her hand briefly. It was like shaking hands with a Powerloader. A Powerloader with a wedding band. “Matt Lowell. And I’m not rich.”
She waved a hand. “Everything’s relative.”
“You’re married?” Matt asked, pointing at her ring.
Ash nodded. A strange expression flickered across her face for a moment and then she looked sheepish. “Yeah. They sent the invite near the end of my monitoring period. Things’d changed, but what can you say? No?”
The Auxiliaries led them out of the camp to a large personnel carrier. Matt ended up sandwiched between the Khoury brothers, facing Michelle. She looked pointedly out the back of the vehicle, avoiding everyone’s gaze. The sun shone on her clear brow, outlining her strong nose and high cheekbones.
Kyle dropped down onto the bench next to Michelle, in a slightly too-small spot. She frowned and scooted away from him.
Leaning close to Michelle, he said, “I forgot to congratulate you.”
Michelle said nothing for a long time. Finally, not looking at him: “For what?”
“For being first last night.”
You asshole, Matt thought. He could hear the calculation behind Kyle’s comment. Win her respect with praise. Be persistent, but not too clingy. Like a formula out of a book.
Michelle sneered. “You’re just not that fast.”
Some snickers came from the other cadets, and Kyle reddened.
The truck got moving with a jerk. They bounced over the cracked and broken concrete. Matt waited for Kyle to say something else, to keep laying it on thick. But he said nothing. Michelle watched the khaki-painted steel floor of the truck, her hands in her lap.
They passed huge concrete fields and old white-washed, tilt-up buildings, some fallen in with age. A breeze lifted the morning fog, revealing hangars squatting in the distance and a silvery bay stretching to the north.
“Are you really a refugee?” Michelle asked, breaking the silence.
Matt started. “Where’d you hear that?”
Michelle nodded at Kyle, who reddened again.
“Yeah.” Matt nodded.
“Where?”
“The Rock. Yellow Submarine. Far Side of Paradise. Not that you know any of those names, I guess.”
“Yellow Submarine Displaced here a couple years ago,” Michelle told him. “I thought of going out on it.”
“On a refugee ship?” Matt said, thinking, Ship out on Yellow Submarine? She has to be kidding. They ran scoop-ships down into gas giants to fuel their antique fusion generators. The whole ship was going to go up in a fireball one day. Matt had spent seven months there as team leader, and had taken a bump down to Second Digger to get onto Far Side of Paradise—and that ship wasn’t any prize either.
Michelle sighed. “Better than here. Better than being a fun-times girl on a commercial ship.”
Is Earth really that bad? Matt wondered. But he had to stop. She wasn’t part of the program. He just nodded and said nothing.
Michelle broke the silence. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“Thinking you were just another stupid rich kid.” Matt glanced at Kyle, who winced.
The rest of the ride went in silence. They stopped in front of a low building the size of a city block, set at the edge of a narrow bay. Its galvanized exterior was streaked with white oxidized zinc and orange iron rust. A faded NASA logo, cracked and crazed with age, emblazoned the doors. Beside it was a simple stainless-steel sign: ADVANCED MECHAFORMS FACILITY 1 1B. North of the bay, green-white flashes lit the sky, followed seconds later by ground-shaking booms.
“First exercise,” Major Soto said, nodding to the north.
Today, he wore a full Mecha Corps uniform, multicolored medal bars and all. Matt’s Perfect Record matched them to a military awards guide. Soto’s record was like a history of all the great Mecha battles. He’d been at Pell-ham’s Front. He’d fought in Forest. He’d even been there for the recent attack on Hyva.
“Exercise with Mecha?” Serghey blurted.
Major Soto shook his head. “You aren’t ready.”
“Ready for Mecha!” Serghey whined. “Ready for breakfast too!”
“Exit shuttle’s that way.” Soto nodded back in the direction they came. “It’ll have food.”
Serghey’s mouth clicked shut.
“Everyone inside,” Major Soto said, as the roll-up doors of the building clattered open.
The interior was pre-Expansion industrial, like something out of a historical vid. Concrete floors and cinder-block walls under grainy Mercury-vapor lights. At the center of the building, tubular stainless-steel racks held what looked like floppy, translucent gray silicone suits. The racks stood in the middle of a large white square painted on the floor. Beside them were a half-dozen Auxiliaries, including Sergeant Stoll.
“Get in the square, strip, and suit up,” Major Soto said. “Auxiliaries will help you with the fitting of the interface suits.”
“Strip?” Michelle asked.
Soto nodded. “The exit shuttle’s private, I hear.”
Serghey was already there, taking off his clothes. White flesh and black hair clashed under the Mercury vapor lamps. Serghey grinned and turned to give everyone a full frontal. “Come in—spa is fine!” he said. Men cringed and women looked away.
Matt chose a spot near the racks of silicone suits and peeled down. He tried not to look at Michelle. He even succeeded for a few moments.
But he had to look. Her body, free of the jumpsuit, was perfectly proportioned, with just enough muscle to define her curves. Under the Mercury-style lamps, her skin almost glowed. The only mark on her was a small QR code on one shoulder blade: a Union Army ID tattoo.
Matt forced himself to look away. Nearby, Kyle was half out of his jumpsuit, staring at Michelle’s backside. He saw Matt looking and gave him an exaggerated wink.
Matt turned to the silicone suits. Up close, the milky gray, translucent rubber was shot through with millions of hair-thin metallic threads. On the inside of the suit, the wires terminated in a galaxy of little silver dots, and converged at a thick, shiny nexus at the neck.
Matt had seen things like this before at arcades back on Aurora. Kinetic-feedback jumpers. It was what the university students wore when they were blowing off steam in an immersive game. But these outfits were on orders of a magnitude more complex. The arcade suits had dozens of wires, whereas here these suits had millions.
Matt pulled on the suit. Inside, its rubbery surface yanked painfully on his arm hair, his chest hair, his—
“Many cadets choose to shave,” said a voice beside him. Sergeant Stoll.
Matt didn’t look at her as he shoved himself the rest of the way into the suit, wincing.
“It could be worse,” Matt told her, nodding to where Serghey cursed and grumbled as he struggled to get his bushy bulk into the suit.
“Zip up,” Sergeant Stoll said.
Matt fumbled with the front of the suit. There was nothing like a conventional zipper, but the two open flaps jumped together, as if magnetic. Matt stood in the floppy silicone bag, sweating.
“I’ll adjust the suit.” Sergeant Stoll produced a small handheld device with a small screen and ran it down Matt’s chest. The silicone flowed together and tightened. She did the same for his arms, legs, and back until the interface suit was like a second skin. Sweat dripped off Matt’s forehead.
“It’s hotter than hell.”
“One moment.” Sergeant Stoll took her handheld device and held it against Matt’s chest. He felt momentary heat and looked down. Emblazoned on his right breast were two lines of black
text:
M. LOWELL, C.C.
H091-031
“What is ‘C.C.’?” Matt asked.
“Cadet candidate.”
“We’re not full cadets?”
“Not until you—” Sergeant Stoll stopped herself. “I’ve turned on the active cooling. The suit should be more comfortable now.”
It was. Matt no longer felt like he was in a sauna.
“Until we do what?” he persisted.
Sergeant Stoll shook her head and went to help fit Michelle’s suit. Matt tried again not to look. Once more, he failed. When her suit was adjusted, it left very little to the imagination. The dull gray silicone outlined a fantasy-poster body. Every man in the room stared at her.
Why is someone so gorgeous here? Matt wondered. Why would she think about shipping out of a refugee rock? And how much determination had it taken to be the first Mecha cadet invitee from Earth?
When they were done suiting up, Major Soto ordered them to the side of the building, where a dozen screens were set against the wall. Black squares on the floor marked a position in front of each screen. A thin gray silicone cable dropped from rigging overhead of each position.
He had them each pick a square and plug the silicone cable into their suits. When they did, the screen lit with a false-color body outline, painted in shades of green, yellow, and red. Matt ended up between Peal and Jahl. Sergeant Stoll and the other Auxiliaries went through and made adjustments to each suit on their slates, maximizing the amount of green. Strange sensations crawled up and down Matt’s body as she did so.
“So Mecha are controlled through direct neural interface,” Peal said.
“And accompanying feedback. Some of the interface is clearly kinetic,” Jahl added.
“Or inductive,” Peal said.
The Auxiliaries refused to comment.
When they were done, Soto had them play simple games on the screen, imagining the controls in their hands. The first was a piloting game where they flew over fantastic landscapes while trying to hit a precise marker. The weird part was that Matt felt the air rushing past his body, as if he himself were flying.
