“You’re wrong; I know everything about you. In the time we’ve been talking, I have researched your finances, looked at all the Tri-V footage that existed of the Roughnecks, and I have checked your references.”
“But I haven’t given you my references yet!”
“No, nor do you need to. I was a little worried about your history, as there isn’t much that exists beyond about 15 years ago.”
“That’s true,” Walker said. “I did some governmental jobs when I was young that were black operations. They don’t exist and never did.”
“I see,” Sansar replied. “Normally, that might bother me, but I’ve also spoken with the leaders of three mercenary units you’ve done a decent amount of business with in the past. All say they would be happy to serve on any force you led.”
“Well, that’s great…but how the heck did you do all that?”
Sansar tapped one of her pinplants. “With these. My house has a number of wireless terminals I can connect to at any given time. Despite how charming you may be, speaking to you only requires a small percentage of my attention; the rest has been making VR phone calls, checking out your information on the Aethernet, and, sadly, filling out a few requisition forms that couldn’t wait.”
“What? How do you do all that? I mean, I understand how you could do those things, but how did you have time to do all those things?”
“I work at the speed of thought, and I think much faster than you.”
Walker counted the number of pinplants he could see. “Wha…wait a minute. How many of those pinplants do you have?”
“I currently have six active, although I have nanites growing another two.”
“I’m no expert,” Walker said, “but I thought the most you could have was four. I’ve never heard of anyone with six before.”
“Many people don’t survive the procedure,” Sansar replied, “and those who survive are often driven crazy when they try to use them. It takes a certain…flexibility of mind…to use that many. Most people can’t process that much information at once.”
“Wait. People die doing that, and yet you chose to have it done to yourself?”
“While it’s true that some people die after getting them, I’m not most people.” Her eyes glazed over for a couple of seconds, then she smiled. “Sorry, had to speak to the President. One of our pilots cut some of the powerlines nearby recently, and he’s still…unhappy…about it. He thinks we should pay to have them fixed; I think his people should update the charts when they build things higher than 50 feet that are going to impact our training. We bring in more credits than the rest of the area’s economy combined.”
“You were going to tell me how you’re not most people?”
“Maybe. How much do you know about pinplants?”
“Uh, not a whole lot. They are grown by nanites into your skull and allow direct interface with the Aethernet. People with two can use them to watch TV, play video games, and do some limited virtual reality, I think. Usually they have some sort of headset, though, which you do not.”
“No, I don’t. What else do you know?”
“That’s pretty much it. Some people have four, which probably lets them transfer data faster. Six? No idea.”
“You are correct about four. Basically, each pinplant allows for a kind of USB into your brain. Two pinplants will let you do basic things, as you already described. Four pinplants provide for faster data handling as well as the storage and processing of said data. You can think of it as a computer in your brain working parallel. With six, I can do more.”
“More what?”
“More everything. Data storage. Communications. Anything I want. About the only thing I can’t do, now that I’ve found you, is find a logistics officer. We have several operations tying up, and I am expecting another large one in the very-near term. And, unfortunately, my logistics officer just retired.”
“A logistics officer, huh?” Walker asked. “I don’t know any personally, but there was one on the ship I rode back from Karma with. I don’t know if you’d be interested in him, though, if you’re going to be going on a mission. Seemed like a good guy, although he was space-sick the entire time we were in zero gravity; he’d be pretty worthless to you in a space environment.”
“As it turns out, I am looking for someone to manage our logistical tail back here on Earth, so that wouldn’t be an issue. What was his name? Perhaps I can snap him up before anyone else grabs him.”
“Hmm…it was something out of the ordinary. I remember his hair; it stuck up all over the place…let’s see…it was a season and a vegetable. Fallbean? Wintersquash? No, I got it. It was Sommerkorn. Ex-Lieutenant Chris Sommerkorn, late of the Winged Hussars.”
“Well, if he was the logistics officer for one of the Horsemen,” Sansar noted, “he could well be the person we’re looking for. I may look him up.”
“Okay,” Walker replied. “I don’t know him, so I’m not vouching for him. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk with him; like I said, he was puking his guts up most of the time. Seemed like a nice enough guy, though.”
Downtown Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
Sansar closed the door behind her newest recruit and established an aetherlink to Mun. “I just found our new Fourth Squad leader,” she said.
“So you still intend to bring in an outsider? Even after the failure of the last one?”
“I do,” Sansar replied. “I understand your hesitation, but we don’t have time to do otherwise.”
“It’s more than hesitation. It goes against tradition.” She paused, then added, with hope in her voice, “Sergeant Khenbish is close to being ready for squad command.”
“Close to being ready is different from actually being ready.”
“It is.” Sansar could almost hear her first sergeant sigh. “Okay. I understand, ma’am, and will make it work. There may be issues with the junior troopers.”
Sansar chuckled. “I suspect he will be able to handle it.”
“So he has some leadership experience?”
“You could say that. He’s Dan Walker, the former CO of Walker’s Roughnecks.”
“What? I need a squad leader, and you’re sending me an officer, instead?”
“No, he is going to be, and act, like a squad leader. I suspect he’d be happier if no one even knew about his previous experience. He asked to come in as a private, but I want to give him an outlet for exercising his leadership.”
“A private, huh?”
“Yes, he lost his entire unit, and with it, the desire to command. Now he just wants to kill bugs.”
“He lost his unit? Are you sure he’s any good?”
“He gives every indication of being extremely competent. He believes his defeat was due to being betrayed. It could well be related to what we’ve been tracking.”
“If it is, can we trust him? He may have been compromised as well. I’m suspicious when only one person survives a wipeout.”
“There were actually two that survived. He passed out, and his first sergeant saved him and got him to safety.”
“How convenient for him to pass out where the first sergeant could find him.”
“Perhaps the first sergeant was to blame, or one of the other troopers. Who is to know? We will watch him, but it’s better to keep him where we can see him if he is involved.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s a dangerous game you’re playing, ma’am.”
“It is. But until we identify the other players in the game, we don’t even know who our opponents are.”
Mun sighed again. “I understand why you did it, ma’am, and I will support you to the best of my abilities. I still think it might be better if we sat this one out until we had more information on what’s going on.”
“Understood, Top, and I appreciate your support. Some days, that’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
20 Miles East of Tashkent, Uzb
ekistan, Earth
“Wow, the camp sure is remote,” Walker noted.
The hover taxi driver grunted. If he understood English, he didn’t give any indication.
Walker shrugged and looked back out the dingy windows at the approaching camp.
Located on a plateau east of Tashkent, the base was surrounded by a 500-yard killing zone where nothing grew. The base itself was encircled by a 20-foot high fence that incorporated a variety of defensive fortifications. Although he didn’t see anyone walking the fence line, there were a number of sensors which probably identified incoming targets well prior to the 500-yard engagement zone. At least two of the dual mounts he could see continued to track the taxi as it approached.
Walker looked out the side window to find a dragonfly in close formation with the taxi. The insect appeared to stare at Walker for a few seconds more, then flew around the back of the taxi to fly alongside the driver, before vanishing as quickly as it had come.
The taxi stopped and touched down 50 yards from where two troopers waited at a gate, and the driver grunted something at Walker. When he didn’t respond, the driver pointed at the door.
Having paid the fare before they started as a condition of traveling this far outside of town, Walker exited the cab without another word and approached the troopers at the gate. Both of the troops appeared to be native Uzbeks, were armed, and wore Golden Horde insignias. The base behind them looked like a stereotypical town in the ‘Old West’ of the United States. There were buildings on both sides of the main street, with not much development in depth behind them.
The corporal stepped forward to meet him while the private covered Walker with his laser rifle. The rifle wasn’t pointed at Walker, exactly, but could have been on target with just a twitch.
“Can I help you?” the corporal asked in perfect English.
“Hi, I’m Dan Walker. I’m a new recruit for the Horde.” He handed over his yack, or Universal Account Access Card, which functioned as his ID, ATM, and credit card.
The corporal looked at it momentarily, paused, then handed it back. “Welcome, Staff Sergeant Walker. They’re expecting you at processing.” He pointed to one of the buildings behind him. “It’s that building right there, center door.” A second private ran up and came to attention. “You can give your gear to the private, and he’ll take it to the barracks.”
Walker turned to appraise the new trooper then looked down at his luggage. Everything he owned was in those two duffle bags, including several mementos he didn’t want to disappear when the bags went beyond his sight.
“If you are worried about theft,” the corporal said, obviously reading his thoughts, “you don’t have to be. We are a family here, and no one would touch your possessions without your permission.”
“Sometimes family members steal from one another,” Walker said, unconvinced.
“Not here, they don’t.” The corporal pronounced judgment as if it were an incontrovertible fact, alleviating some of Walker’s hesitation.
“Okay,” he said, passing over the bags. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” the trooper said. “I’m Private Vineet Vijayaraghavan, but you can call me ‘VVR;’ I will be one of your squad members.” Small and Indian-looking, Walker noticed the trooper didn’t have a problem with the large bags as he turned and jogged off; he was obviously stronger and better-conditioned than he looked. Dan approved. In fact, he approved of everything he’d seen so far. The troopers were squared away; everything seemed professionally run, and information seemed to be flowing to the people who needed it. He had come to the right place.
“Thanks,” Walker said to the corporal as he turned toward the admin building. He took a couple of steps then turned around, a puzzled expression on his face. “How did you know I spoke English? I hadn’t given you my ID yet.”
“We were expecting you, and three separate systems confirmed your identity. I had no need to see your ID. I only took it because you handed it to me.”
“Thanks. By the way, your English is very good.”
“Thanks, your Uzbek will be just as good, shortly.”
Shaking his head, Walker continued on his way. Now he didn’t just approve of the Horde, he was seriously impressed. Arriving at the building, he walked into the center door.
“Welcome, Staff Sergeant Walker,” said an attractive young woman wearing civilian clothes sitting at a desk. “We are happy you are here.”
“Umm…thanks, I guess,” Walker said. “Does everyone here know who I am?”
“Da, I know everyone in unit by sight,” the secretary said, her accent identifying her as eastern European. “Even if I did not, there is security overlay you can use to find anyone you need. It also identifies non-Horde members and marks them with a number of symbols so anyone can easily determine who they are. It picked up your arrival a couple of miles out, which was then confirmed by corporal at gate.”
“A security overlay?” Walker asked. “An overlay to what?”
“An overlay to life,” the secretary said with a chuckle. “You have operated CASPers before, correct?”
“Uh, yeah, why?”
“It is something like a CASPer’s heads-up display, only better. I can call it up at will.”
“Call it up on what?”
“I can call it up on our network,” the secretary said, “then display it in my head as a virtual reality overlay. Once we get you logged into the network, you will have access too.”
Walker’s brows knit. “I can see how you can do that on a slate, but that isn’t what you mean, is it?”
“No,” the woman said, a little frustration becoming evident. “I do it through my pinplants, same as you.”
“Oh,” Walker said, realization finally dawning. “Now I see. That’s the problem; I don’t have pinplants.”
“Really?” the secretary asked. “Fascinating.” She opened a drawer and rifled through the files inside it, removing a number of papers. She handed him the stack of papers, a clipboard, and a pen. “We have not had anyone in-process without them in quite a while; normally, they just authenticate the individual forms over the network. I was actually going to throw these paper copies away; I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
Walker looked at the rather hefty stack of paperwork and sighed as he walked over to a chair. He’d be here a while filling it all out, and he was jealous of the people that just had to “authenticate the forms over the network.” However it was they did that.
The first form was titled, “Authorization to Add a Second Pair of Pinplants.” What?
“Hey, uh…are all these forms mandatory to work for the Horde?” he asked.
“Yes,” the secretary replied. “Why?”
“Well, no one told me that I would have to get pinplanted.”
“You do not want a second set of pinplants?”
“I don’t particularly want a first set of them.”
“You do not have any pinplants yet?” the woman asked. “I thought you had one set I could not see; no one comes here without at least one set. Fascinating. Stand by.”
The woman went back to doing what she had been, which seemed to involve cleaning and organizing the drawers of her desk. Walker was unsure of her function; there was nothing on her desk besides a small slate, which she never touched. After a couple of minutes, Walker began to wonder how long he would have to wait before something—anything—was done to assist him.
“Um…about the pinplants?” he finally asked.
“What about the pinplants?” a voice behind him asked. Sansar Enkh.
He jumped to attention. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” Walker said. “I was just discussing the fact I was unaware I’d have to get pinplanted with your…uh…secretary?”
Both Sansar and the woman chuckled. “She is not my secretary,” Sansar said. “This is Captain Anya Daskalov, my Administrative Officer.”
“Uh, sorry, ma’am,” Walker said to the woman; “I didn’t know you were an officer.”
<
br /> “Do not worry,” the woman said. “Not only am I aware you are former officer, yourself, I am also staff of one, so I came in on my day off to make sure you had someone to process you.”
“You don’t have any admin staff?” Walker asked.
“Nyet. I need no staff,” Daskalov replied, pulling back her hair to show Walker one of her pinplants. “Normally, we do not have any hard copy files; I do everything in head with pre-formatted files. Where formatted file does not exist, I make one. I get work done at speed of thought, which gives me time to do other things I like.”
“Which brings us back to you, Staff Sergeant Walker,” Sansar said. “Everyone here is pinned. It provides us certain…advantages…over those who are not.” When Walker looked like he was about to speak, Sansar added, “No, I cannot tell you what they are, of course, as it would give away our competitive advantage.”
Daskalov pointed to the papers in Walker’s hands. “One of those forms is nondisclosure agreement, in case you ever decide to leave service of Horde,” she said.
“In order to sign on with us,” Sansar added, “you have to agree to keep our secrets, which is something we take very seriously. I’m sorry; I thought you knew we were all ‘planted,’ or I would have mentioned it when I spoke to you. It’s in all of our recruiting advertisements.”
“The competitive advantage,” Walker said. “Is it something that helps you kill aliens better or faster?”
“You used to be the head of a mercenary organization,” Sansar said. “Is there another competitive advantage in our business any more meaningful than one that lets you kill aliens faster? Especially for a company that makes its money in predominantly defensive contracts?”
“No ma’am, I guess there isn’t. I’m here to kill aliens, and if it’s going to help me, then I guess I can learn to live with what the rest of the guys are going to call me at the bar for having pinplants.”
“You are worried about name-calling?” Daskalov asked. “Big strong boy like you?”
“I guess I was,” Walker said with a shrug. “Some guys give the pinheads a lot of crap. The more I think about it, though, I guess it doesn’t matter. I want to work here, and I want to kill a lot of aliens.” He signed at the bottom of the page. “I’m in.”
The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 4
