by Jamie Sawyer
There was a creak behind me. I immediately grabbed the rifle, and half-stood, aiming into the gloom. Damn, this rifle is heavy. I probably couldn’t hit anything with it anyway.
Blake stood in the mess hall entrance, hands up defensively, showing his palms. “It’s only me.”
I nodded, and slung the rifle onto the table in front of me. It clattered noisily. “Sorry, Blake.”
Blake wandered over to the storm-shutters, peering between the battered metal slats.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” he stated baldly. “The wind is too loud. How do you think that the staff put up with it?”
“They adapt, I suppose. Same as us.”
“You want some coffee?” he asked, fetching a couple of cups of self-heating java from the corner of the room.
“If you’re buying.”
Blake sat opposite me in the dark. We popped open the cheap plastic cups – long-lasting rations – and the drinks instantly warmed. The smell of coffee bean substitute filled the mess hall.
“What’s with the lack of light?” he asked. “Isn’t it bad enough that we’re in the back end of the galaxy, surrounded by hostiles? Someone has to go turn off the lights.”
Blake was referring to the blackout. At some point after the suns had gone down – without access to any computer tech, we could only estimate planetary time by the movement of the suns – the power to the module had been cut. This seemed a deliberate decision, because the electronic locks on the doors still functioned.
“Kellerman is likely preserving power. Probably directing it to whatever he thinks is essential. In this case, that’s not us.”
Blake nodded. But this discussion wasn’t about power or lights: he was talking because he wanted company. Because this situation made him nervy, and it was easier to focus on trivialities than the bigger picture.
A long moment passed. I sipped at the boiling hot java, felt the thick liquid sit at the back of my throat. It represented some semblance of normality.
“Something on your mind?” I asked, as gently as I could.
“What the fuck are we going to do, Cap?” Blake whispered. “I didn’t want to act up in front of the others, but we’re trapped down here. No sims, no hope. Skinless.”
Your simulants are fine, I thought. It’s only mine that were killed in the crash. But voicing my concerns wouldn’t help my squad’s morale, and I needed them on form if we were going to move on Kellerman. Blake didn’t need to hear my doubts right now; he needed encouragement. Sometimes I forgot that about Blake.
“The tanks can probably be fixed,” I said. I hoped that was the case, but I didn’t know whether it was true. “We’ll get out of this just fine.”
“How do you do all of this?” he asked me. “I mean dying, living – over and over again.”
So this is what he really wants to talk about, I thought to myself.
“You think that I have a choice?”
“I dream about death every damned night. Every time I close my eyes, I see myself dying.” He lifted a hand, held it horizontal. He visibly shook. “You know, if I concentrate, I can imagine what it felt like to be blown off the Oregon’s hull. I can feel every atom of my body – every last iota – being pulverised.”
“Don’t dwell on it – move on. We do this because we have to.”
Unperturbed, unpersuaded by my answer, Blake continued: “And it’s not just that death. It’s every death.”
“Have you spoken to the psych-techs about it?”
Blake raised his eyebrows, pulling an unconvinced face. “Like they help. How could they? They don’t know what it’s like. No one does, unless they’ve been through it. Take Olsen; he accompanies us on a single operation, and I’ll bet it will never leave him.”
“I’m sure he won’t forget it. Look, I’ll put in a request for psychosurgery when we get back to the Point.”
“I reckon if a head-doctor examined Olsen right now, while he’s asleep, he’d be dreaming about the New Haven. Not what he’s just been through, but dying.”
I had the sudden feeling that I was out of my depth with this conversation – that maybe it was Blake who needed the psychosurgery more than Olsen. He shivered, seemed to shrink in front of me, nervously rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.
“It’s just this fucking place,” Blake added, an almost diffident tone to his voice. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be saying any of this.”
“How long have we known each other, Blake?”
“Three years, objective. Thirty-seven ops.”
“Every time I’ve taken you out into space, I’ve gotten you home in one piece. This op is no different from the other thirty-seven.”
“I know,” he said, waving a hand as though he really did know all of this already.
“You might be the youngest member of my team, but I know that I can rely on you. I chose you. I’ve never told you that. I chose you.”
Blake fell silent, but his face illuminated a little at that. I had recruited Blake directly from basic infantry training, from the Alliance Army camp at Olympus Mons, Mars. He hadn’t elected service on a Sim Ops team but his psychological profile had been ideal for the placement.
“There were a lot of candidates for your role on the squad. As team leader, I had to review them all. Did you know that some of the brass thought you were too young for this posting?”
Blake shook his head. “No, Cap.”
“But I didn’t. I saw your potential. Your basic training reports were exceptional. I knew that you’d make a perfect simulant operator. Over the last three years, you’ve proved yourself. You’ve never let me down.”
“Thanks,” Blake said. “But there’s something that I want to tell you.”
“I remember now – back at the Point. Go on.”
Again, just a few days ago for us – drinking in the District. That felt like a lifetime past now: gone were the safe, comfortable corridors of the Point. I had forgotten about the conversation.
Blake paused awkwardly, then said, “I’ve made a decision. All of this – it’s changed me.”
As soon as Blake uttered those words, I knew what was coming. Damn it. I should’ve seen the signs. I had been here before, with other simulant operators. I was a fool for not recognising this. Blake was burning out.
“Don’t make a decision yet,” I said. “We’ll talk about it when this is over, back at Liberty Point.”
“I filled out the papers before we left base. Command will take a while to release me from service, but it will happen.”
His decision had been made. He wanted to unburden himself, to tell me now so that I knew it was final. I grimaced. Cole had known. He had known in my mission briefing, on the Point. He had damn well known what Blake wanted, what was going to happen, and he’d still sent him out here. “There will be something in this for everyone on your team. They’ll all get what they want.” This was to be Blake’s way out of the Programme. I suddenly felt very angry, and very disappointed. Not with Blake, but with the whole military machine: the whole damned system.
Blake shook his head. “I’m tired of this. I can’t do what you do. I can’t go on dying like this.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“Once we get back to the Point, I’m off the force,” Blake said. He set his jaw, and looked as determined as I had ever seen him. “I want to settle down. Have a proper life. My ma and pa want me back.” He shrugged, as if embarrassed. “I miss Earth.”
I wished that I understood that: missing Earth.
“How long has it been since you went back?” he asked me.
“Not long enough. Earth doesn’t have anything for me, but bad memories. I wasn’t much younger than you when I signed up with the Alliance Army, and I haven’t been back since. I can’t understand why you would ever want to, but that’s your choice.”
“I want to see my family before they’re taken from me.”
That was something that I could understand, albeit not my family.
There was someone I missed, but she was already gone – had already been taken from me.
For a moment, I wondered whether maybe Blake had the right idea. Maybe this was all bullshit. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Except – except! – that every dead Krell was a step closer to her. To Elena. And I couldn’t ever give up that dream.
“I know that things haven’t been easy for you, either,” Blake said, as though realising my train of thought. “But I’m still young.”
“Just give it some time. Don’t tell the others about your decision. When we’re back at the Point, we’ll talk some more.”
“None of the others know, and I won’t tell them unless you think that I should,” Blake agreed. “How’s the leg?”
“Olsen has taken out some metal, but he says there are still fragments in the muscle. He doesn’t have the equipment he needs to remove them.”
I pulled back the shredded fatigue to show the bloody wound. It was a nasty gash, even cleaned and dressed with medi-gel. The bleeding had stopped, thankfully, but the tissue looked an unpleasant grey colour. Strange to think that I had seen far worse injuries, on my own body – my simulated body – over the years of my service. Those had caused no emotional response whatsoever, but this was entirely different. It wasn’t so much the constant pain – although that was bad enough – but the reminder of my own mortality. None of the team was first-aid trained, not like regular Army, and we had no proper medic on the squad. In the normal course of events, we just wouldn’t need one.
Blake frowned at me. “Looks infected.”
“Christo, Kid, talk about positivity!” I said, laughing. “Remind me not to ask you for good news.”
“But it really does. Hopefully Kellerman will help you.”
“I’m not sure that Kellerman is going to help with much at all. We’re going to have to watch him, very carefully.” I stood from the table, using it as a support. “Now, go and get some rack time. That’s an order. The wind has let up a little. I need you to be frosty tomorrow.”
Blake nodded. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“No problem, trooper. I’ll owe you for the coffee.”
The conversation with Blake had set me on edge. There had been a time when I’d dwelt on every transition. For most sim operators, it was a hump to get over. It had been for me, during my earlier years stationed on Azure. For Blake, I thought it was something deeper. I wasn’t sure at all that he’d be able to get over it.
I wandered the corridors like a ghost, like the only awakened member of a starship crew when all others had gone into hypersleep. Unlike my experience on the Oregon, this was real – not imagined.
Helios had such long nights. Dark, cold, noisy.
But it wasn’t the wind keeping me awake. I was lying to myself about that. Something else lurked in my head.
The ache in my skull was worse than that in my ribs or leg. Hours after Blake had finally gone for some rest, I looted the medicine cabinets in the hab module – searching for some painkillers.
I found an empty washroom. The walls were dusty and dirty, and the shower cubicles long dried up. The place stank of shit and piss; hadn’t been cleaned a long time before it was abandoned. Using the rifle as a prop, I hobbled over to one of the black-stained sinks. Overhead, an electric light flickered on. Evidently not all power to the hab had been cut. My fractured reflection appeared in a broken mirror in front of me. A hundred tiny images of me looked back: stooped, shaking, tired.
Forty-one years old now, thanks to the freezers. Far too old for this shit.
My headache was piercing, almost incapacitating. For a moment, I thought that I might throw up. No point in shouting to the others, no point in waking them for a stupid headache. It’s probably just the after-effects of the crash, I reasoned. Or maybe the lingering side-effects of hypersleep. I hadn’t been awake from cold sleep for long.
I need a drink so bad. That was probably it: I needed a drink. I hadn’t drunk anything in days, not since I was back on the Point.
I opened one of the plastic bottles, half-full of painkillers, and tipped the contents into my palm. I rabidly gobbled them up, swallowed them without water. That didn’t matter. Ancient pain-relief tabs, not smart-meds like I was used to.
For a long while, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I kept telling myself that the ache in my head would go, that it was nothing more than a migraine.
But you know exactly what it is.
When I closed my eyes, I heard the Artefact. A squalling, repeating static loop. There was something behind the noise, something agonisingly familiar that I just couldn’t place. Like the remnants of a dream, gnawing away inside my head.
A tone, a melody—
That was what was causing the aching inside of me, not some explainable biological process. This was something deeper, something that no painkiller could displace.
It’s not just a noise. It’s a transmission, a signal. Language.
I opened my eyes and stared into the mirror again. It was an insect’s eye; throwing back tiny images of everyone who had died back on the Oregon. Atkins, Pakos, Olsen’s science staff, the bridge and maintenance crews.
And in the middle of the mirror, caught by the concave silvered plates, were my simulants. Miniature reflections of me, caught in ten different death poses.
Sometimes I felt that dying was the only thing I was actually good at. It was the parts in between, the living, that I couldn’t cope with. All Blake’s talk of family had made me think of Elena again.
In the very centre of the mirror, so tiny that I had to strain my eyes to see it – was her image.
A memory – a bad memory – suddenly welled within me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A CURFEW IS IN EFFECT
Six years ago
I wasn’t used to full dress uniform, but Elena had insisted. That, and the commanding officer of the entire Sim Ops Programme had required formal dress for the event. Even so, I begrudged it: the starched collar, the pressed trousers. I hardly ever wore full blues.
Elena and I stood on the platform edge, getting ready to leave Fort Rockwell. It was approaching dusk and the monorail station bustled with a horde of personnel. Fort Rockwell was now nearly two million Army and Naval personnel, together with associated support staff. The camp had a dedicated transport network, reaching out into the civvie districts.
“Are you excited?” Elena asked, clutching my arm.
She wore a short black dress, something I had insisted she wear. If I was going in dress uniform, then she had to look the part. It was made of shimmering spider-silk, imported from off-world, and fitted closely to her every curve. Over that she wore a long black velvet coat. She was timeless; a classic beauty among the false smiles and augmented body-sculpts.
“What’s to be excited about?” I said. “I don’t need a title. I’ve never been one for medals or badges. You know that.”
“But a promotion is really something, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I won’t accept it.”
“You’ll be a captain,” Elena said, drawing out the words. She gave a hoarse chuckle: her dirty laugh. “That means something.”
Tonight was to be my award ceremony, a dinner to mark my promotion. Hosted by Major O’Neil – noting not just my performance, but the success of the entire Sim Ops Programme.
Elena was right, though: the promotion was something. It was more than honorary. I was being promoted to full commissioned officer status, way beyond my pay grade. It was well outside the standard military career structure: a recognised exception to the regulations, as a result of my performance as a sim operator.
“There are going to be other promotions as well,” I said, deflecting some of the attention away from me.
“I know, I know. Will Vincent Kaminski be there?”
I shook my head. “Got busted bringing company back to his quarters again.”
Elena raised a thin eyebrow. “So another six months before he can be c
onsidered for promotion?”
“Another six months. This is his third – ah, indiscretion.”
“But it doesn’t detract from your achievement. Forty-three transitions …” She shook her head. “And over a hundred inductees on the Programme. It’ll be exponential now.”
I shrugged. The truth was that I enjoyed Elena making a deal of my promotion. I didn’t have anybody else. She was my world. We had moved in together, occupied a decent-size domicile in the Army district – a two-bed apartment, usually reserved for those on marriage contracts.
Another exception to the regulations, that was one of the benefits of being on Sim Ops. Over the last few years, it had become the military’s favourite new project. Money and resources were being poured into the Programme, faster than new recruits could be found.
“I wonder what the venue will be like,” said Elena. It was she who was excited: her face was radiant. “I hope it isn’t anything like that restaurant that you took me to when I first arrived here.”
“You didn’t like that? You should’ve said.”
“I expected you to read my signs. Don’t you know me well enough by now?”
“I don’t think that I know you anywhere near as well as I would like.”
Just then, the monorail silently glided into the platform, slowing to a stop. Sleek, white; almost new. A considerable crowd had gathered by now, and passengers jostled each other as they boarded. Arms linked, we chose one of the emptier carriages at the rear.
Elena sat, tutted at the NO SMOKING ABOARD TRAIN sign. She smoothed down the iridescent fabric of her dress, crossed her legs. Leant in to me, against my shoulder.
“This dress makes me look fat,” she whispered.
I turned to look at her. She had discarded her glasses, just for tonight. Her make-up and jewellery were understated, naturalistic. She gave me an inscrutable half-smile. Cheeks suddenly flushed. I squeezed her hand.
