“This…” Archer shook his head as he looked at it. “I…”
They want me to put it on. This is how people would see me, if I was wearing it.
“Come on,” said Ada. “We don’t really have any time to waste. We need to get the neural node installed.”
She led him across the armory and through a door into a small office with white walls and an antiseptic smell. A pretty, albeit slightly chubby woman with short brown hair was waiting for them, dressed in a white smock and surgical scrubs. She flashed a cheery smile as they entered.
“Is this him?” she asked.
Ada nodded.
“Archer, this is Karen,” she said. “She’s the head of our medical team. She’ll be helping you with… what comes next.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Archer.
Ada glanced back and forth at the two of them, looked at Archer uncomfortably, and then left the room. Karen’s cheeriness faded and she let out a sigh as she ran her hand through her hair.
“So how much has Ada explained to you already, Archer?” she asked.
“Uh…” He scratched his head. “Just bits and pieces of the whole picture. I know that I’ll need some kind of implant, or something, to be able to interface with the armor skin.”
Karen nodded. She patted her hand on the examination table running across the back wall of the room, and Archer hopped up onto it. She checked his eyes and ears with a small light, and then gave the joint under his kneecaps a small tap to test his reflexes.
“The armor skins have what we call a techno-symbiotic structure,” said Karen. “What that means is that while the strength and speed enhancers installed in them run off lithium copper chloride batteries, most of the other important elements are connected to an organic nervous system.”
“What… does that mean, exactly?”
Karen pulled open his mouth and began flashing the light around.
“It’s hard to explain it in a few sentences,” she said. “After the Taiwan Purge, when the Rogue AI first came into power, all of the artificial intelligence systems our ancestors used were either compromised or corrupted.”
Archer let her continue, both because he wanted to hear the rest and because she still had a finger in his mouth.
“Almost all of their technology, even the basic stuff, used AI in some form or another.” She flashed a sardonic smile. “The records we have are disgustingly excessive. Who needs a refrigerator that monitors its own contents? Or a car that can see and think, when it could just follow a simple rail?”
She took a step back, putting the light away and rummaging through a cupboard behind her for something else.
“I get it,” said Archer. “So the armor skins have an organic system instead of using AI, right?”
“Exactly,” said Karen. “It took billions of dollars for the military to develop, but the armor skins would have been impossible without it. Unfortunately, it isn’t perfect…”
She turned to face him again, thumbing on an electric hair razor and shrugging.
“I have to be bald for this?” asked Archer.
“Not completely,” she said. “Really I just have to trim your neck and the base of your skull.”
She motioned for him to turn around and then got to work. The razor was warm against Archer’s skin. It tickled slightly.
“Alright,” said Karen, as she finished. “This next part will be… a little painful.”
She pulled a device that looked more like a gun than anything that belonged in a medical cupboard. Archer winced and rubbed the area she just shaved.
“You’ve done this before,” he said. “Right?”
She hesitated.
“Not exactly, but I’ve had good instruction on how to do it. Lie down on your stomach. I need to swab your neck clean, first. Whatever you do, don’t move and don’t tense your muscles.”
I don’t like the sound of this…
Archer did as she asked. Karen cleaned his neck with something wet, cold, and antiseptic smelling. Finally, she lifted the device and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Totally still,” she whispered. “I’m going to pinch your neck before I do it to numb the spot out.”
Archer felt a pinch and resisted the urge to swear.
“Done,” said Karen.
He sat up, frowning at her.
“I thought you said you were-”
“Oldest trick in the book.” Karen grinned. “Don’t pick at the spot where it went in. The risk of infection is very low, but we want to keep it that way.”
“Right.” Archer rolled his head around in a circle. He could sense the neural node, just under the skin at the base of his skull. It felt like a little bead, noticeable, but not painful outside of the sting of where the device had broken his skin.
Karen was watching him. She looked worried, and let out a sigh as he rose to her feet.
“You should be good to go,” she said. “I hope that the testing goes well, Archer. I’m hoping for the best.”
He frowned, not liking her phrasing.
“What happens if it doesn’t go well?” he asked.
The question made Karen look more uncomfortable.
“Usually, a Metal Knight is bound to their armor skin for life,” she said, quietly. “The way the skin’s nervous system works makes it dangerous for another person to try on a skin bound to someone else.”
“Dangerous how?”
Karen gave a tiny shrug.
“When they were first in testing a little over a decade ago, they tried switching different soldiers into the same suit,” she said, voice quiet. “The ones who weren’t bound to it ended up in comas if they were lucky. Died from a brain hemorrhage, if they weren’t.”
…What?
Archer’s shock must have been apparent on his face, because Karen held her hands up in a placating gesture and continued.
“I don’t think it will be the case with you, though,” she said. “We haven’t tried sharing an armor skin between two siblings, but the science behind it is solid. Your brain is genetically similar enough to Trevor’s for the skin to accept you without trouble. At least, we hope.”
Archer nodded slowly. A knock came on the door to the medical office and Ada poked her head in.
“Archer,” she said. “It’s time.”
CHAPTER 12
Ada led him out of the medical office and then toward the armor skins. They walked through a door to the right of the display cases and into a tile floored changing room with lockers along the walls and shower stalls in the back.
“You’ll need to put on an adaptive undersuit before you get into the armor skin,” said Ada. “Don’t wear anything underneath it. Anything that gets in between you and the undersuit will dampen the effect of the receptors.”
She opened a locker and pulled out a blue, one-piece jumpsuit that looked at least a size too small for him.
“Alright,” he said. “Thanks.”
Ada stood there, watching him, waiting.
“Uh…” Archer scratched his head. “Are you going to watch me change?”
Ada smiled a little and nodded without a trace of embarrassment.
“Sorry, Archer,” she said. “If you were going to lose your nerve and try to bolt, it would be right about now. It’s better if I stay with you, and help to keep that from happening.”
“Do I really even have a choice?” asked Archer.
Ada shrugged.
“We moved your mom into one of the inner city hospitals last night,” she said. “I forgot to mention that this morning.”
Archer felt a cold chill run along the center of his back. He was apprehensive about what Karen had told him, about the risk of death or coma, but Ada bringing up his mother sharply twisted his focus back in the other direction.
She’s manipulating me. It’s never been any more obvious than it is right now.
“Archer,” said Ada. “A lot of people were counting on your brother. He was a beacon of hope for Tempus. Th
e reason I came to you after he disappeared was as much for the world as it is for you, me, or the Metal Squad. Try to keep the big picture in mind.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that. Instead, he turned away from Ada and started stripping off his clothing. Once he was naked, he glanced over his shoulder, just to see if she really was watching like she’d claimed she was going to. His eyes met hers for an instant, and an undeniably sexual vibe flickered through the air between them.
Archer picked up the skin suit and carefully unfolded it. It was designed for him to step into from behind and the material stretched as he pulled it on. It felt cold and rubbery against his skin, and it cupped his crotch in a manner that he wasn’t sure he liked.
“I’ll zip you up,” said Ada, as he finished sliding in his arms. She stepped up behind him, standing close enough for her breath to tickle his neck, and pulled the zipper in back until it was flush with the suit’s neck.
Calm down. Getting excited in one of these suits is probably a bad idea.
“Archer,” said Ada, her voice serious enough to pull him back into the moment. “I will make sure your mother is taken care of for the rest of her life if this doesn’t work.”
“Thank you,” he said. For some reason, instead of freeing him, her words only increased his anxiety over what was about to happen. He found himself hoping that if something did go wrong, it went horribly wrong. He’d rather be dead than stuck in a coma, or trapped in his body for decades of pointless existence.
Ada picked his discarded clothing up for him and set them into one of the lockers. She gave Archer a tepid smile and led him back out into the armory and over to Trevor’s armor skin.
It had looked small to Archer before, but now he saw it as a daunting, seven foot tall monster, preparing to potentially devour his soul. The armor skin’s base was similar to the undersuit, except extended in size from the thickness of the metal alloy, especially in the lower legs and upper torso.
Archer approached it slowly. He looked around the armory. All of the technicians and mechanics were staring at him. With appropriate caution, he set his hands on either side of the armor skin’s shoulders and lifted himself to step into it from behind. His feet slid down into either leg, the armor skin holding steady even as he fumbled to get into place.
He did the same thing with his arms, pushing them into the interior holes of the armor skin’s shoulders. The inside of it was lined with a material similar to that of the undersuit, but it felt cold and clammy to the touch.
The helmet hung against his chest on a pivot, like the spout of a tea kettle. Archer looked toward Ada questioningly. His limbs were stiffly locked into an outstretched position making it impossible to get the helmet onto his head.
“There’s a switch in each of the hands,” said Ada. “Press both of them at the same time to power the skin on or off.”
Archer frowned and felt around with his fingers. He found the switches after a couple seconds, both of them set into the palm of either hand in such a way as to make them impossible to trigger accidentally. He took a slow breath, and then flicked both of them with his thumbs.
The helmet lurched up and over Archer’s head with enough force for him to wonder whether he’d be decapitated if his neck had been at an angle. The back of the suit closed as well, and the entire suit tightened to fit him like a vacuum sealed bag.
The eye visor, which had looked blue from the outside, was clear from within. His view was bifurcated, allowing for him to see both a series of green numbers scrolling across what appeared to be a built-in computer screen, and an unobstructed view of the armory.
SYSTEM FAILURE
UNRECOGNIZED NEURAL WAVELENGTH
“Trigger the override.” Ada’s voice came not from where she stood halfway across the armory, but from a tiny speaker set against Archer’s left ear. It took him a second to realize that she wasn’t speaking to him, but one of the techs.
“What? No!” He shouted, but the warnings were already changing.
OVERRIDE ACTIVATED
EXTREME CAUTION IS ADVISED
47% CHANCE OF NEURAL REJECTION
“Archer, ignore anything that you see in your view screen,” said Ada. “It’s a very basic computer system designed to keep track of the armor skin’s battery levels and systems. It works in tandem with the skin’s organic nervous system, but it’s a separate component and not what we’re currently worried about.”
“What, exactly, are you currently worried about?” asked Archer. “Is this thing working or not?”
“Try moving forward,” said Ada. “It’s the only way for us to find out.”
Archer felt his heart pounding in his chest. He swallowed on a dry throat, and then slowly and deliberately lifted one of his feet. The armor skin reacted as though it was an extension of his body, rising without any resistance and compensating for its own weight effectively enough to feel as though it wasn’t even there.
He set his foot down on the floor of the armory and suddenly realized that he could feel the steel underneath the bottom of the armor skin’s foot. He opened and clenched his metal covered fist, and could feel that, too. Archer became aware of the faintly electric sensation of the neural node, which was in direct contact with a sensor on the inside of the armor skin’s helmet.
“Are there touch sensors in the suit?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” said Ada. “It’s necessary to keep you from doing anything that would break the suit without realizing it. You’ll feel pain, too, though there is a threshold for it that’s kept substantially lower than what can be felt in your real body. It can also be turned off through another override.”
“Alright,” said Archer. “I’m… going to try walking.”
He took a step forward out into the armory. The foot of the armor skin clattered against metal with enough noise to emphasis its true weight. Motors, pistons, and other mechanisms in the joints hummed even as Archer stood stationary. He tried walking normally and found that the armor skin did it without complaint, never lagging behind or hanging on his movements.
“Head through the opening on your right,” said Ada, through the speaker. “It will lead you to the underground training ground where we can run some more basic tests.”
“Am I out of trouble yet?” asked Archer. “I mean… am I past the part where I could have a stroke or end up in a coma, or whatever?”
The brief silence on the other end told him everything he needed to know.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Ada. “You should be fine if our assumptions are correct.”
That’s a pretty big “if” when it’s my brain on the line.
Archer took a few calming breaths, and then headed toward the open doorway she’d specified. The training room was a massive open space subdivided into numerous training sectors.
He walked forward toward the first area, a series of obstacles of different heights to climb or leap over. The roof was at least fifty feet overhead, and he was suddenly curious about just how high the armor skin would let him jump.
“Climb over the first barrier,” said Ada. “Take it slow. We’re just warming up, for now.”
“Sure,” said Archer. He took a few skipping steps toward the first hurdle, which was four feet high, and then jumped into the air.
He rose ten, maybe twelve feet into the air, high enough to trigger his natural instinct to flail when gravity took over. Archer landed hard, extending his arms to break his fall as he collapsed into a forward roll. His momentum carried through and he rose to standing instantly, aided by the armor skin, which balanced like a gyroscope.
“Jeez…” he muttered.
“I said to take it easy,” said Ada. “It’s going to take you a while to fully understand your own strength when you’re wearing that thing. Don’t underestimate what you’re capable of.”
“I didn’t realize that I was,” said Archer.
“Try the next barrier,” said Ada.
He
did, and then the next one after that, finally reaching the limits of the upward jumping strength of his legs on a vertical wall that was more than twice his height. He had to reach up with his arms to grab the edge of that one. Lifting himself up and over had been so easy that it was almost funny, the amplified strength of the armor skin letting him throw himself to the other side.
“Good, Archer,” said Ada. “How are you feeling?”
“Normal,” he said. “A little overwhelmed, but otherwise fine. Is that a good sign?”
“We think so,” said Ada. “Continue forward into the next section.”
CHAPTER 13
Archer did as she instructed, jogging instead of walking toward the next set of obstacles, feeling the strength of the armor skin as it propelled him forward through each step. Several training dummies stood ahead of him, unmoving and made of some kind of reactive, rubbery plastic.
“Let’s get a sense of your natural combat ability, Archer,” said Ada. “Why don’t you go ahead and attack the nearest dummy?”
From the tone of her voice, Archer could tell she wasn’t expecting much. He grinned to himself, realizing that she really didn’t know much about him. He’d kept his fighting abilities a secret in the time since he’d met her, not intentionally, but because it just hadn’t come up.
He’d been in dozens of fights living on the streets of the coal district. Fighting was just a fact of life. Learning how to get by, from day to day, had required him to not just fight, but to win. He’d learned every dirty trick in the book, and used them often enough to teach his opponents lessons that they wouldn’t forget. It had been the only way to keep himself safe.
Archer tested his hands, clenching them and unclenching them, feeling how his metal gauntleted fingers adjusted and moved. The armor skin was a miracle of technology, and he could feel the sensation of his hands as he shifted his knuckles.
Let’s see what a punch feels like.
He squared his guard and danced forward, throwing a quick jab with his left hand at the face of the training dummy. The force of the blow snapped the dummy’s head backward with insane force. The only thing that kept it in one piece was the material it was made from, which dissipated the energy evenly through the rest of the dummy’s body.
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