Authors: George Alec Effinger
Still marveling at everything he witnessed, Jân Muhammad slowly lifted a hand to his head and popped the moddy out. He stood squinting in the bright glare of the sun for a few seconds, confused, as the real world claimed him once again. He let out a deep sigh. It was good to be able to carry a bit of Paradise with him, but it was always a painful jolt to be thrust back into his own mind, faced again with his worldly troubles. The lingering effect of the moddy was that he knew that Paradise, when he was accepted into it in truth, would be inexpressibly more blessed than what the moddy designers had offered him. “Praise be to the Lord of the Worlds,” said Jân Muhammad.
He stood a few yards from his observation post, looking down into the Tang-e-Kuffâr, the Pass of the Infidels; many feet below, the broken bodies of the Mohâjerân men and women lay on the craggy floor of the defile. Their worthless automatic rifles, pistols, and grenades were now piled in a heap at the edge of the cliff. Jân Muhammad frowned, then turned and went back into the bunker.
Toward nightfall, while making another scheduled security check, he noticed movement at the northeast end of the pass. He called for greater magnification. Now he was certain; a small party, maybe twenty-five or thirty people, was moving slowly and carefully among the rocks. He watched as they stopped and knelt beside the corpses. Some of the Mohâjerân glanced upward. Jân Muhammad could see the hatred on their faces. A few of them unslung their rifles and held them ready, as if Jân Muhammad might suddenly appear, alone and vulnerable, from behind a pile of red boulders. At last the refugees left their dead fellows and continued their cautious way through the pass. Through the data deck, Jân Muhammad could hear their low murmurs, but could not make out any of their words.
He trained his guns on the rebels in the front of the column, fed the position and distance information from the data deck to the firing control, and watched as the Mohâjerân crept silently out of his field of vision. One by one, they disappeared from view through the ragged southern cut of the Tang-e-Kuffâr.
He felt a helpless rage build in him, then a swift, cold fear. He hadn’t fired a shot. He’d permitted every one of the enemy to escape unscathed. How could that be? “By the life of my eyes,” he swore. He was no traitor, no coward. He knew the significance of what had happened: The Mohâjerân had slipped through his guard to the desolate valley beyond. They were free now to join others of the growing refugee mob, to attack the Mahdi’s Persian Conciliatory Army where it was weakest. Every rebel that got by Jân Muhammad meant injury to the Mahdi, an obstacle to the victory of orthodox Islam.
Jân Muhammad slammed the data deck with a fist in frustration. He had to find out what had prevented him from destroying these Mohâjerân.
He tapped the diagnostic key on the data deck. Again all the test lights lit green. His deck was in perfect condition, both hardware and software. The problem was not with the deck or the weapons systems; it was with himself. That would be more difficult to deal with. He popped the military personality moddy. His anger and dread intensified, for Jân Muhammad was less able to confront this crisis than the electronic mind built into the moddy. With the command moddy still chipped in, he picked a spot high on the walls of the mountain pass and swung his machine guns and rocket launchers to bear on it. He wanted to let loose a few shots, but somehow the desire to fire wasn’t translated into a mental command. Nothing happened. No sound disturbed the chilly stillness of the twilight.
With a trembling hand, Jân Muhammad popped the command moddy out. The terrible truth was that he was now helpless and defenseless. He had a mighty arsenal linked to his data deck; but if he was somehow blocked from using it, he might as well be sitting on the hilltop with nothing more deadly than a slingshot. If the Mohâjerân learned the truth, he could be overwhelmed and murdered before the next day was out.
The thing to do now was contact his platoon sergeant. He used the portable transmitter. It took a few minutes to calculate the proper frequency for the day, tune the scrambler, identify himself to his headquarters and be recognized, and get patched through to Sergeant Abadani. He had to wait a long while. Finally, he heard the sergeant’s grumbling, cheerless voice. “Listen, sarbaaz, I’m going to tell you why you called me. Let me know if I’m right. You saw some goddamn Mohâjerân mucks and you proceeded to set up your attack by the numbers. Everything was fine until it was time to fire. Then you couldn’t. You didn’t stop a single one of the bastards. Right?”
Jân Muhammad was startled. “Right, Sarge. How—?”
“You’re not the only one that’s happened to today. Now, where are you?”
“The Tang-e-Kuffâr.”
“Yeah. Well, seven of your buddies have called in with the same story. What we’ve figured is that somebody has entered your station and fed a baggie to your data deck. That’s what happened to the other seven posts.”
“But nobody has access to my deck but me.”
“That’s what they all said. But in every case, they could think of some Persian who had been permitted inside the bunker.”
Jân Muhammad opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. “There’s an old man from Ashnistan who brings me my food. He’s such a feeble old son of a bitch that I usually make him tea and let him rest inside my bunker.”
“And you like talking to him, too, right? Against orders?”
“Yes,” Jân Muhammad admitted. “I don’t get to see anyone else.”
“Is he your likely suspect?”
“He’s the
only
suspect, Sarge.”
“Good. Well, then, the next time you see him, you’re going to have to neutralize him.”
Jân Muhammad stared at the transmitter for a moment. “Maybe it would be better to let him live,” he said.
“The orders are to get rid of these saboteurs.”
“But, Sarge, the Mohâjerân are behind all this. When they know their agent has done what he’s supposed to, they’re sure they’re safe. They can just sneak through the pass whenever they want. I can’t use my guns or rockets. But if I kill old Rostam, they’ll know something’s up. They’ll know we’re on to them. If I just act normally and let Rostam think he’s safe, I may be able to account for a few refugee patrols before they catch on and start their frontal attacks again. That’s if I can get my weapons systems operational again.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll have a tech team out to you tomorrow as soon as we can.” Now it was the sergeant’s turn to fall silent for a few seconds. “You might have an idea there, sarbaaz. I’ll mention it to the lieutenant.”
“So what’s wrong with my data deck, then?”
Sergeant Abadani gave a humorless laugh. “You don’t know what a baggie is?”
“I’m a gunner, Sarge, I’m not a deck expert.”
“You’re supposed to be both. Your Persian slipped a bubble microplate into your deck, just long enough for your deck to copy it and add it to its memory. It wasn’t an assassin program, but it was a crippler. Your deck won’t respond to certain orders now, not through your cyberlink. It’ll feed you sensory input and perform harmless functions, but it won’t take any sort of offensive or defensive action. It’s like your spy tied a little invisible bag around a part of your deck’s operating system, isolating it and making it inaccessible to you. Until tomorrow, when we can slice out the baggie.”
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do until then? What if I’m attacked?”
“You probably won’t be. Like you said, the rebels figure you’re more useful the way you are, with your teeth pulled. They don’t want to give the show away. They’ll just parade a few more units through the pass.”
Jân Muhammad frowned. “Is there any way I can operate the weapons systems the hard way? Bypassing the cyberlink?”
“Sure,” said Sergeant Abadani, “but you said you weren’t an expert. There’s a sequence of options that will let you fire any of your guns and rockets by selecting from a series of menus. It takes a lot of time. If you’ve never worked with it, it probably won’t be any use to you.”
“But it’s better than letting those bastards get by me. I hate the idea of watching them troop past like a gang of schoolchildren on a holiday.”
“Your attitude’s all right, sarbaaz, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then the sergeant told his gunner how to request the firing control menus from the data deck.
“That won’t be bagged, too?” asked Jân Muhammad.
“It wasn’t on the other seven decks.”
“All right, Sarge.”
“Report back if you see any action. We’ll be there sometime tomorrow. Now, clear the air.”
Jân Muhammad signed off. He tapped in the commands that called up the first of the attack menus.
Do you wish to activate automatic rifles?
Enter 1=yes, 0=no
Do you wish to activate submachine guns?
Enter 1 =yes, 0=no
Do you wish to activate heavy machine guns?
Enter l=yes, 0=no
Do you wish to activate 40 millimeter cannons?
Enter l=yes, 0-no
Do you wish to activate trench mortars?
Enter l=yes, 0=no
Do you wish to activate light artillery?
Enter 1 =yes, 0=no
Do you wish to activate antitank guns?
Enter 1 =yes, 0-no
Do you wish to activate antiaircraft guns?
Enter 1-yes, 0=no
A second menu presented him choices of rockets and bombs. A third menu let him activate the antipersonnel and antitank mines buried on the hillside and in the defile. It took Jân Muhammad a quarter of an hour to go through the entire sequence. If he had initiated the selection process just when he’d spotted a party of Mohâjerân, they would have run safely through the pass before he was finished. And he hadn’t even begun the targeting and firing procedures. The sergeant had been right; this was worse than useless.
He chipped in the command moddy and let his deck-enhanced senses make certain there were no Mohâjerân nearby. He chose a flat place on the floor of the Tang-e-Kuffâr that the rebels would have to cross in order to flee into the valley beyond. Caught for a moment in the open, they would have to choose between running a hopeless race through a storm of machine gun bullets or giving up and retracing the way they had come.
Through the cyberlink, Jân Muhammad knew the coordinates, in three dimensions, of every point within range of the cameras. With the link, he experienced the weapons systems as extensions of his augmented mind. He tried firing a few shots, willing the guns to open up on the target. When they remained silent, he sighed and called up the attack menu, then began running through the time-consuming manual procedures.
Do you wish to fire submachine guns
?Enter l=yes, 0=no
Jân Muhammad typed 1.
Do you wish continuous fire?
Enter 1 =yes, 0=no
Jân Muhammad typed 0.
How many rounds do you wish to fire?
Jân Muhammad typed 5.
To commence firing on your mark, type I.
When he typed 1, each submachine gun that could bear on the target spat five rounds into the hard-packed earth. Although it was a dark, moonless night, the data deck let him see the clouds of flying rock chips and dust. He felt better knowing that he could still operate his weapons, even in this clumsy way. He relaxed for the first time since early in the day, when he’d railed to stop the Mohâjerân party from making their defiant escape.
Just before dawn, after Jân Muhammad had succumbed to fatigue and was suffering through an uneasy dream of childhood and poverty, an alarm woke him. He swung groggily off his cot and leaned over the data deck, fumbling the command moddy and the military personality moddy into place. He felt a familiar elation as the confining bunker dissolved, replaced by an immediate awareness of every movement, every scent, every sound around his post.
Another small unit of Mohâjerân was picking its way through the mountain pass. They were moving boldly, confidently, knowing that Jân Muhammad’s armaments were disabled. He had an unpleasant surprise waiting for them.
When the first of the refugees reached the target, he jabbed his finger down on the 1 key. The shrill scream of the machine gun bullets ricocheting off rocks filled the narrow pass. Three unfortunate people at the head of the column howled and fell wounded to the red dirt. After a short while, however, the Mohâjerân realized that all the machine gun fire was aimed at one place. They began to move cautiously around that area, giving it as much room as they could. One by one, they gathered courage and slipped by to one side.
Jân Muhammad cursed. Of course, he could retarget the machine guns to another point, but the same thing would happen again. The enemy would realize they were safe elsewhere in the defile. And it was pointless to aim the guns by tapping information into the data deck. The refugees would all be gone long before he got the next position set up.