by Alex Deva
“How did he do that?“
“Amazingly, he’d had someone else on the ship. I had no idea. This guy, he bought me enough time to suit up and EVA in a shielded suit. I only had passive air, but Tiessler sent a couple of Rooks to pick me up from the dead of space. I don’t even know how they found me, ‘cause the suit was non-reflective even on radar. I was pretty sure I was gonna die, until this insane Rook shot me with a laser-guided grapple from over six kilometres.“
“Wow. A laser-guided grapple.“
“Yeah, they’re pretty amazing. You throw it by hand and it uses inertia wheels to orient a hair-thin engine and navigate itself. Crazy secret Rook stuff. You know, they swam over forty K to get me.“
“Swam?“
“Yeah. You jump out into space and they shoot you in the back with PLT pulses, lasers. You have a little shield that the PLT aims at, and you change direction by canting your shield so that the laser hits you at an angle.“
“Impressive,“ said Mark.
“Stupid, if you ask me. So anyway, you see, sergeant, I didn’t just save your lives because you were a couple of impossible guys from the ancient past.“
“And not because of Eurasia, or because of America,“ Mark said.
“No. I mean yes, if you want to look at it like that. But mostly I did it for Alicia.“
The Brit exhaled and gave a slight smile.
“Well thank you, Alicia,“ he said, gently.
“Yeah. So you see, I know about people who are worth more than planets. I know about real causes.“
He watched her in silence, enjoying the slight and extremely rare feeling that he got whenever he met someone who understood.
The door opened and dr. Lem beckoned them to enter.
“Still,“ Mark said, standing up. “As far as causes go, this one’s pretty big, too.“
“Yeah,“ she said, also standing up. “It’d fucking better be.“
XIII.
The room was big and white and buzzing with activity. It had a high ceiling under which strong industrial lights hung by thick support cables. There were, of course, no windows, and everything was sparse and utilitarian. Uniformed technicians were sitting at consoles, which were arranged in a semicircle around two large, white cylinders lying in the middle of the floor. Other technicians hovered around them, measuring, checking, talking to each other in low tones.
One cylinder was closed. The other was open, and its lower half, like a bathtub, was filled with a thick, still, purple fluid.
Mark looked around, his eyes searching for something that he couldn’t immediately identify. It took him a few good seconds before he understood what it was: there were no cables. Either they were perfectly concealed, or everything was wireless. As it turned it, it was the second.
People sneaked furtive glances towards him and, as soon as he walked in, everybody seemed to stop talking, carrying on with whatever they were doing in a studied attempt at ignoring him. He was not used to being at the centre of so much attention, even when it was so politely masked; indeed his training, as well as his natural personality, had always led him away from it. He tried to master his discomfort by working on a carefully neutral expression.
“Technically you don’t need to undress completely,“ said Lem, not helping at all, “but it’s healthier given the long-term effect the suppression cast has on clothes. I mean the thing is sterile, but the atmosphere may not be, and even a few billion bacteria on your shirt can be enough to cause some kind of infection.“
“Not to mention it sucks to wake up in drenched clothing,“ said Zi’s voice out of nowhere.
“How’s it going, soldier?“ asked Jessica Lawry, turning around.
“Tip-top,“ came the answer. “Grab a headset, I don’t wanna be talking like a ghost.“
A technician handed them each a pair of round goggles, ostensively averting his eyes. Dr. Lem already had a pair hanging around his neck. Lawry showed Mark how to put them on, which was easy enough. He did, and found that he could see perfectly well through them; the same laboratory, the same technicians, Lem reading something on his tab, Lawry in the process of putting on her own goggles.
“Over here,“ said Zi’s voice from behind him.
He turned around and saw the Albanian wearing his same base fatigues, smiling and waving at him. He reached out and his hand passed through the soldier’s chest. Then, he raised his goggles and looked ahead: there was nothing there but his hand reaching out. He lowered back the goggles, and there was Zi again.
“How new is this for you?“ the soldier asked with curiosity.
“Pretty new. We used to have some VR gear back in my day, but nothing this realistic. Are you…“
“Yeah, in that tub right there,“ said Zi pointing to the closed vat. He walked around Mark — a concession made to common sense, since he might’ve just as well walked through him — and made as if to pat the cylinder.
“How did it feel?“
Zi’s face was stony. “You’ll live,“ he said, curtly.
“Of course he will,“ said Lem, also without looking up.
“What’s it like?“
“Like nothing at all. You don’t feel anything. It’s just you… and your thoughts.“
Worst company imaginable, thought Mark.
“Do you feel anything now?“
“I can see you and hear you. I couldn’t smell you or taste you if I tried, but that’s because I only live in your goggles, so to speak. Computer’s feeding me 3D imagery from the simulated position of my eyeballs, which it gets by constantly scanning the whole room and playing with the angles. It feels kinda like real vision.“
“It’s better than real vision,“ intervened Lem again. “We actually have to blur the video feed to degrade it to 20/20. And reduce the field of vision to conform with your age. We even simulate saccadic movements to let your brain do its usual work.“
“Yeah, anyway. My teeth feel a little different, and they had to adjust the taste because the air tasted like old cheese.“
Zi brought his hands up before his eyes and inspected them. “But otherwise I’m good. Once you join me, we’ll be able to smell each other and stuff, assuming, you know, you’re into that kind of thing.“
Then he turned his back to Mark demonstratively and said: “Come on. Off with the clothes and into the soup. We won’t peek.“
* * *
They did look, of course. Politely and making it really awkward by trying hard to make it less so, they gave Mark a towel to cover himself, and directed him to sit on a chair that looked like it belonged in a dentist’s room.
“We’re going to do this in three stages,“ said Lem. “First, we’re going to anaesthetise you; then we’ll intubate you and induce an artificial coma; and finally, we’ll put you inside the sensory deprivation vat. The gel will actually look after your body to some extent, and we’ll take care of all your physiological needs. Needless to say, you won’t drown. We’ll connect you to the TS quantum computers, which will monitor your vitals continuously, then we’ll progressively engage the telesentience interface. That’s when you’ll start feeling things again, and we’ll wake your brain up.“
“Okay,“ said Mark, for lack of anything better.
“Good luck,“ said Jessica Lawry.
“Good luck,“ echoed Zi’s voice from somewhere.
“Cheers,“ said Mark as someone put a breather mask on his face.
One hundred, he counted.
He never made it to ninety-nine.
* * *
Bugger. It’s dark in here.
He concentrated on his hearing. Normally, if things are really quiet, people can hear blood running through all the capillaries around the inner ear. That’s why people listen to sea shells and imagine they hear the ocean, when in fact they hear the tides of their own blood. But he couldn’t hear anything. The silence was beyond silent.
He tried to move a finger. It felt as if the command left his brain and got lost on the way. Tryin
g to stay relaxed, he focused again on visuals — or lack thereof.
Again, normally, in complete darkness, people “see“ random shapes that are the brain’s interpretation of electromagnetic interference and noise in the optic nerve. But he didn’t even notice those. He wasn’t even sure that what he thought he was seeing was black. It was just… nothing. Not even necessarily a black nothing. It was just an utter, indescribable and terrifying absence of everything.
Suddenly he realised that he couldn’t taste his own mouth, and he understood why Zi had been going on about that. Once it hit him, it became the biggest alarm signal. Taste is something you almost never lose, in one form or another.
A little part of his mind escaped its carefully maintained confines, started roaming around, and eventually found the edge of a funnel at the bottom of which was a lake of panic.
Easy there, he thought. Take it easy. This won’t take long.
But he wasn’t panicking because of the lack of sensory inputs. He was panicking because of an associative memory.
The memory of being shoved in a rusty metal box, with his arms and legs twisted in unnatural positions, and thrown into a hole in the ground, with shovel after shovel of sand being the last sounds he heard before he was left there for fuck knew how many hours, or days, or years, until some sick Al Nusra bastard reckoned he was ripe for another nice session of no interrogations, no threats, just never-ending beating.
And then Red’s death, Red’s decapitation on camera, and Red’s shoulders twitching the word “Sara“ in Morse code.
Left, left, left. Left, right. Left, right, left. Left, right.
True panic suddenly began to wash over him. And this wasn’t oh dear I forgot my Oyster card panic. No, this was first-grade panic. High quality panic. The kind of panic that you feel coming and then you hopelessly lose control without the tiniest chance to fight back.
Wait… wait, he tried anyway, feebly.
But his thoughts began to lose coherence. They popped up out of nowhere, floated for a brief instant of meaningfulness and then vanished, alone or in groups, disconnected and random.
Help me with the bags, he suddenly heard his dad.
The main elements of survival are Food, Fire, Shelter, Water, Navigation and Medicine, he heard a sergeant reciting an old instruction mantra.
It’s not you, Mark. It’s me. A break-up over the phone.
No man should be more professional than I. The British soldier’s creed.
Deep gasps for air, climbing over a great rock at the Brecon Beacons during Selection.
His fourteenth birthday party with a light blue cake with white marzipan flowers. His mum singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.“
Red’s head half-hanging in front of his chest, his thick muscles exposed, blood spurting everywhere.
Stopping to get petrol in High Wycombe in a red Ford Fiesta which he hated profusely.
They raped her and her mum.
Pass the ball, Mark! I’m open!
Then they killed them.
That’ll be four ninety-nine.
Swear to me that you’ll look after Sara and my wife.
Excuse me, will you be getting off at the next stop?
They killed them.
You fucked up.
There’s a fookin’ tank! Go ‘round, go ‘round!
I fucked up.
Sir. That’ll be four ninety-nine, sir.
They killed them.
It’s on me.
It’s my fault.
They killed them.
They killed them.
They’re dead.
“Can you hear me?“ said Jessica Lawry.
* * *
“Mark, can you hear me? Try to talk. Just speak normally.“
He could taste again. He could feel his… a mouth, although not necessarily his own. He could run a tongue over some teeth. They tasted like… soaked band-aids, his brain helpfully filled in.
He breathed in, and heard the small sound of his own breathing passing through his nostrils. He opened his lips and discovered he was unprepared to hear his own voice.
“Yes,“ he tried, and succeeded.
“Good man,“ she said. “How’re you hanging in?“
“Perfectly,“ he lied, knowing she’d know.
“Next up, sight,“ he heard Lem’s voice. “Try to open your eyes, slowly if you can.“
Up until then he hadn’t even realised that his eyes were shut. Suddenly he felt his eyelids touching, and the slight pressure they exerted on his eyeballs, and he even saw those indistinct shapes that we’re meant to see with our eyes closed in darkness. Courtesy of some accommodating quantum computer subroutine, of course.
Cautiously, he asked his left eye to open a little.
He saw Jessica Lawry leaning over him, Zi standing next to her, and Lem over to one side, still looking into his tab and not at him. He was still sat in the dentist’s chair.
“He’s only opening one eye,“ he said. And then he mouthed: “I hope.“
Mark opened both his eyes, and the doctor relaxed visibly.
“What happened?“ asked the Brit. “Did it work?“
Lawry gave him a brilliant smile. “Raise your hand,“ she said.
He couldn’t.
“That means it worked,“ she said. “Your telesentience interface is still booting up.“
Zi reached out his hand, and showed it demonstratively; then, with the air of a magician, made a quick gesture and a lemon appeared into his palm. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, making the universal “how about that“ expression, then bit hard into the lemon. Mark’s mouth instantly filled with ill-tasting saliva. Lawry puffed.
“Taste’s a bit off,“ Lem said. “It happened to lieutenant Xhaka too.“ He moved over to one of the consoles where two technicians were working behind screens. They adjusted something and, after a few seconds, the weird taste in Mark’s mouth disappeared and all felt normal.
Zi made a show of swallowing the great virtual lemon bite.
“Showoff,“ whispered Mark. Not being able to feel his arms or legs still felt terribly uncomfortable.
And then, he suddenly could. He could move his head, too, so he looked down at himself. He was dressed exactly as he’d been before. The accuracy of the virtual imitation was unbelievable. Mark wasn't an expert in computers, much less quantum ones, but he could imagine that the computing effort required to programmatically create such realistic imagery in real time, for the benefit of his visual nerves, was colossal.
He raised a hand and inspected it. The skin felt real, and looked real. On a hunch, he sucked on a finger. His finger felt the wetness of his lips and his tongue felt the taste of his own skin.
“Usually that’s a very worrying sign, when adults start sucking their thumbs,“ observed Zi.
“We’re at one hundred percent,“ said Lem.
“How do you feel?“ asked Lawry.
“Just fine,“ he said. “Can I get off the chair now?“
“Sure. This is as good as it gets, so make sure you haven’t lost any of your senses. I mean that literally,“ she added.
He leaned forward, grabbed the handles of the chair — they felt exactly as they should — and pushed himself forward and upward. The inputs fed into his brain were so accurate that he didn’t even feel dizzy.
He jumped up and down a little, and looked around.
“Are you all wearing goggles now?“ he asked.
“Most of us, yes,“ answered Lawry.
For a short second, Mark thought about asking who wasn’t wearing a goggle and then go there and breathe in their face or do something spooky, but then he remembered that he couldn’t really affect the real environment. Not from inside a metal coffin.
He looked at the two big white cylinders, now both shut. The one to the right would be his. He walked around it, looking at it with curiosity. There was no hatch, no window, no control panel. The thought that his own body was in there simply did not compile.
/>
“Yep, that’s us,“ said Zi. “Sleeping peacefully while being poked by lasers. How many lasers, doc?“
“Seventy-eight, each,“ said Lem. “But not all of them are neuroperceptive. Some are just for biotelemetry and a few are simple motion trackers.“
“We move?“ asked Mark.
“Well, you make small moves, of course. Mostly it’s your diaphragm, which we obviously had to allow so you could breathe.“
Mark reached out with his hand, and it went right through the cylinder. He instantly lost all sensation in it, and he drew it out quickly.
“Computer doesn’t know what humans are supposed to feel poking through solid stuff,“ explained Zi helpfully. “If I were you I’d stop doing that.“
That suited Mark fine.
XIV.
“We’re still having direct control of your TS interfaces, so we’ll always be able to hear what you hear, see what you see and everything.“
“I say that’s just rude,“ mumbled the Albanian.
“Well, you might want to be a little more thankful,“ continued Lem. “We don’t really know what we’re sending you into. I mean, we’re obviously giving access to your sentience to who knows whom, so we want to at least be able to break up the link if there’s trouble.“
“But it also allows us some tricks,“ said Jessica Lawry. “Like this idea these smart people had, to keep a few channels for ourselves. They’re not gonna be part of what we’re sending and they weren’t mentioned in the technical docs, either. So, if you want to talk to us or to each other, you can just make as if you’re talking without moving your lips or causing any noise. Anything you say that way never leaves this lab and stays between you and us.“
“Let me try,“ said Zi. His computer-generated image turned towards Mark and watched him intently for a few seconds.
“In English, please,“ said Mark.
“Yeah,“ joined Lawry. “You know we can easily get an Albanian translator in the room, Zi. Don’t be a smartass.“
Zi repeated the staring exercise.
“Every man is the smith of his own fortune,“ repeated Mark. “That’s a very useful motto.“
