“I am. Different unit.”
That shuts me up for a few seconds. It tells me we’ve been cut loose. And why the hell am I surprised?
Logan and Tran charge into the living room, but they pull up short when they sense my mood. “We did what we had to do, Kanoa. A program launched in our heads and we executed it. And then we did what we had to do to stay alive. If you’re going to let us go because of that, I don’t give a shit. We’re better off.”
“It was for your own protection,” Kanoa says. “I thought you might have figured that out.”
“You know me better than that. I’m no optimist. I thought you were dead, or in prison.”
He grunts. “Fair enough, and not all that far from the truth. Abajian has the keys to ETM 7-1. You know that. Cory Helms is in his pocket, and he wants to use us as his personal voodoo operators. I’ve been encouraging him to back the fuck off. Part of that was putting you at a distance. I had Bryson set it up so that when you finally came back online, your software would update to ETM 7-2 to lock Abajian out.”
“I’m going to guess that didn’t make the colonel happy.”
“He buried me for a few days, but he still doesn’t have the keys to 7-2.”
“So, where are we now?” Logan asks.
“Same place we’ve been since Abajian stopped in at C-FHEIT. He has jobs he wants done, but that is not the way we work. We did Arid Crossroad because the Red was behind it.”
Tran asks, “If things aren’t settled with Abajian, how did you manage to get here?”
“The colonel can recognize a stalemate.” Kanoa cracks a cold smile. “I heard that both sides of ETM 7 were proving uncooperative, demanding to see their CO. That made him think I might still be useful.”
Tran laughs. “He must have figured out quick it’s not a good idea to get Fadul mad.”
Since Tran was recruited into 7-1, I don’t think there’s been a day at C-FHEIT that he hasn’t found a way to piss off Fadul. “Tran? Serious question. Why haven’t
you
figured that out?”
This gets a cocky smile. “Just a dumb grunt, sir.”
I sit at one end of the sofa and ask Kanoa, “Are they okay?”
He sits in an armchair. “Julian is improving, but he probably won’t return to active duty. Dunahee and Escamilla are out for another two weeks. Roman and Fadul are fine.”
“So we’re still understaffed. Papa says—” I catch myself. “Leonid Sergun—he says there’s another mission. Do you know anything about it? We were brought here to discuss it, but that was a lie. No one’s talking to us.”
“I heard you refused to talk.”
“I refused to debrief. I wanted to know what the hell was going on.
Is
there a mission?”
“There’s talk of one. I only know about it in general outline and I don’t know if it’s meant to be ours. But if it is? We’re not ready for it.”
He gets up again, picks up his suitcase. It’s a gray hard-shell that doesn’t appear to be very heavy. I jump as he lofts it onto the sofa next to me. “This caused some commotion when it was delivered to the front gate this morning. It came packed in foam inside a cardboard shipping container. Explosive Ordnance Disposal was called in. They considered blowing it up.”
“
Fuck
,” I growl, realizing what it has to be. I grab the suitcase by the handle and stand up with it. “Do you know how much this cost me?”
“Yes, actually, I do, since I was reviewing the accounts on the flight over here.”
I head for my room, hobbling on my broken feet for the last time.
Tran is right behind me. “What is it?”
I throw the suitcase on the bed, pop the hasps, and open it.
“Holy shit,” Tran says. Then he turns to yell back into the living room, “Hey Logan, Shelley’s got new feet.”
I sit on the bed, and with Tran watching, I slide up my trouser until I expose the knee joint on my right leg. I pop the leg off and drop it on the floor. Then I examine the joint. The connections look clean, so I snap the new leg in place. I grunt against a pulse of pain that shoots up my spine, but it’s gone as soon as it comes.
“Let’s see you move it,” Tran says. “Does it work?”
I stretch my toes. Stand up. Put weight on the new leg. Walk around in a circle. It feels perfect.
Logan is standing in the door, arms crossed, watching me with a severe expression. “You ordered that?”
“No.” I drop back onto the bed to swap out my left leg. “The engineer who designed these legs ordered them for me.”
“And you made contact with him? You told him you were here?”
“I told the manufacturer—although Joby probably got a copy of the shipping notice.”
“That is a fucking security violation, Shelley. Anyone paying attention knows where you are.”
I snap the new left leg into the joint. This time, I’m ready for the flash of pain. “Being unfit for duty is a violation too. I wasn’t going to let my CO nail me for that.”
“Like you care what your CO thinks?” he asks in a low voice.
I let this pass without comment while I take a minute to pack up the old legs. They need to get shipped out to Joby. Shooing Logan out of the doorway, I head back to the living room.
Kanoa is waiting by the front door. “You ready?”
“Are we going back to C-FHEIT?”
“Now? No. We’re staying in Germany. This is our base of operations for the next few weeks.”
“The rest of the squad is coming in?”
“Depends on events. Depends if we take the mission. For now, you three
are
the squad. ETM 7-2, remember?”
“Three soldiers do not make a squad. We can’t operate without more personnel.”
“I know. But we’re not moving forward at all unless
each of you passes a medical evaluation. Get yourselves cleared for duty, and then we’ll see about bringing in 7-1.”
• • • •
I’m worried. What if I don’t pass medical? My new legs give me the mobility I need, but what if my lungs don’t hold up?
The MPs salute Kanoa as we walk in a group to a white SUV parked at the curb. Logan and Tran get into the back. I take the shotgun seat. Kanoa slides behind the wheel. But instead of starting the engine, he turns to me. “You feeling okay?”
“What? Why?”
His gaze drifts. He’s looking at something in his overlay. “You’re showing a lot of anxiety. We might need to get Bryson to adjust your baseline after all.”
My skullnet’s receiver is gone, but the transmitter works fine. It sends regular reports on my physical state, which Kanoa can pick up when I’m logged into gen-com. I cast a warning glance over my shoulder. Logan looks to heaven for comfort, Tran smirks, but neither says anything. I tell Kanoa, “Yeah, we’ll probably need to talk about that.”
I use my overlay to pull up a colored graph of my neurological status. The only time I ever look at this graph is when I want to teach the skullnet new routines. Then, the shifting colors can measure progress. I think
calm
, I imagine calm, I synthesize
calm
in my brain, and the graph reacts with a calm, light blue hue pushing out the anxious red.
I’m surprised it works that well—but then, the embedded AI has studied me for a long time.
Kanoa drives out of the housing area on a concrete
road tufted with dry weeds that sprout from jagged cracks. It’s about four hundred meters through a brown field to the cluster of administrative buildings I saw on the garrison’s satellite image. The first building we pass is a three-story monster with boarded-up windows that probably served as a barracks seventy years ago. Across the street from it is a newer structure, a sprawling one-story that looks like it dates from the 1960s. A flagpole stands in front of it, but no flag is flying. “Welcome to the command center,” Kanoa says, pulling into a parking space in front of it.
There is no signage to support the building’s identity, but there is a rigged MP on duty just inside the glass doors, HITR held across his body. He steps aside to let us pass.
The lobby is empty, the building silent except for our footsteps, but it’s clean, the lights are on, and the air is fresh and warm.
We take a stairway down to the basement. Medical is behind an unmarked door. There is no receptionist, no assistant. Just the physician, who runs her tests, and then docks me for lingering damage in my lungs, claiming my lung capacity has been reduced by six percent. Tran doesn’t show any pulmonary deficits, which isn’t fucking fair because he was worse off than me coming out of the UGF.
“It’s all in the genetics,” Tran crows. “The primal power of my African side combined with the spiritual potency of my Asian ancestry has blessed me with superhuman recuperative powers. You’re just too much of a blend, Shelley. Average all around.”
I think I’ll put him on point for the next mission, for a more direct test of his superhuman powers.
I’m allowed to pass though, out of deference to my
“superior physical condition,” which is bullshit. The real story, I suspect, is that the doctor is under orders to pass us so long as she feels we won’t collapse on the battlefield.
• • • •
We return to the house, to find that our LCS gear has been delivered in our absence.
Our helmets and dead sisters have been brought in from C-FHEIT. Logan and I get our original weapons reissued, absent the ammunition, while Tran gets a new HITR to replace the one buried under the weight of a mountain.
There are new uniforms too. As always, they have no rank insignia or emblems. The camo pattern isn’t one I’ve seen before. It’s charcoal and brown—darker than day-use desert camo, but way too light for night patrols. There are new packs and armored vests in the same pattern.
Tran holds up a jacket, a skeptical eyebrow raised high. “This is ugly as shit.”
I have to agree. “What’s this pattern designed for?” I ask Kanoa. “Some dirty urban center?”
“That, among other things.”
“So we’re heading into urban combat?”
“The mission has not been designated.”
I assume that’s a yes. “I did urban combat in Bolivia. I hated it.”
“It’s the worst,” Logan agrees. “Kids and civilians everywhere.”
There were kids at Black Cross too. Not something I want to remember.
“It’s supposed to be a new fabric,” Kanoa says. “Light-sensitive. Hold the jacket under a lamp, Tran.”
The blinds are still closed, so all the living room lights are on. Tran holds the jacket directly under a table lamp. As soon as the bright light hits it, the pattern’s meandering
charcoal lines fade and the fabric takes on light desert colors. When Tran pulls it away from the direct light, the dirty hues return. I reach over and turn off the light. Logan switches off two more. The room dims to twilight, and the camo darkens to charcoal-black.
“Edge,” Tran says. “I like it.”
We want to make sure everything is in working order. So we rig up, strapping into our dead sisters, pulling on our helmets, checking out the links in our new linked combat squad. ETM 7-2. I watch the squad icons line up across the bottom of my visor. Three strong. What bullshit. “Kanoa, you and Abajian need to work out your differences, or we are all fucked.”
“Roger that. You won’t be getting a mission until we do.”
• • • •
That night, after the moon rises, Kanoa sends us out on a conditioning run. I am required to wear athletic shoes, sweat pants, and a hoodie to disguise who and what I am. Logan and Tran opt for the same, given that there’s a light fog, with the temperature below freezing.
Despite the fog, there’s enough light from the moon to see the road, the dark shapes of the neighboring houses, and the silhouettes of two watching MPs. Neither makes a move to interfere with us.
As soon as we hit the street, a faintly luminous blue path appears in my overlay, marking the route Kanoa wants us to run. We follow the projected path through the housing area, toward the airfield.
“Check the two houses ahead,” Logan says. “Lights.”
He’s right. It’s just a hint of light, seeping out past blackout blinds. I turn to look back at our own residence, and it’s the same: only a trace of light visible, though we left lights on in the living room.
“Kanoa’s probably housed in one,” Logan says. “But who’s in the other?”
“Want me to knock on the door?” Tran asks.
Tempting. But we’re already past. “It’s probably where the MPs are staying,” I say. “Let’s keep going.”
Our breath steams in the night. We reach the airfield, run the length of the runway in both directions, then loop around to pass the haunted-looking old barracks and the command center. There are no other lights anywhere, but twice we glimpse MPs rigged in dead sisters patrolling beyond the road.
We repeat the route three times. By the time we’re done, my GPS logs a seven-mile run.
• • • •
Kanoa shows up again the next afternoon. FaceValue confirms my initial impression: He’s worried.
“What’s going on?” I ask him.
“Stop trying to mind-read me.”
“Something’s off,” I insist.
“Colonel Abajian is here. He wants to see your squad run through an urban combat exercise. Tonight.”
“Can’t do it. I don’t have a squad.”
“I know, and that was the subject of a vigorous conversation. But for tonight’s exercise, you are to assume the mission has gone south and your squad has been reduced to three.”
“At which point we should get extracted.”
“Extraction has failed. The mission still needs to be completed. Highest priority.”
“Air support?”
“Negative.”
“So he wants to see how far we can get before we’re gunned down?”
“He wants to know he’s offering this mission to the right squad.”
“
What
mission?”
“Survive tonight, and maybe we’ll find out.”
• • • •
At 2100 we rig up in armor and bones and trot over to the hangar, where Captain Montrose—the same officer who met us when we got off the plane from Budapest—goes over the scenario for the evening. “Insertion is by a stealth Black Hawk, but since we don’t have access to one for this exercise, we’re using a standard Black Hawk instead.”
Tran snickers. “Nothing stealthy about that.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I advise him.