7
Early the next morning, the class was taken back to the Eyes of God, the large scanners they’d gone through that first night. By this time, it was routine. But as Tomiko asked, if their neuromapping the day before really didn’t damage their bodies, then why another scan?
Rev didn’t want to be cynical, but he couldn’t help it. The lack of transparency was not very conducive to trust.
Apparently, though, everyone passed as they were marched back to the building with no name—only a number where they’d been neuromapped. This time, they were taken to the upper deck where they were told to sit in the twin of the waiting room down below.
As before, the place was mostly manned by civilians, not Navy medical staff. Even their DIs left them. Rev didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned about that.
Eight recruits were immediately called from the waiting room, and without DIs, the rest of them congregated, discussing what might be going on. A few of them had been told by a DI that they were getting their jacks, as most people referred to them despite Rev’s protests, and that made sense. All they had done since getting sworn in as recruits was get their asses kicked on a physical level. They’d had exactly zero training in being Marines.
They’d picked up some of the Marine-specific lingo from the DIs. They knew to call a toilet the head, the floor a deck, and the cafeteria a chow hall. Centaurs were tin-asses. But as far as actual military training, there’d been nothing.
The modern Marine was the most advanced killing machine in humanity’s history, and most of that was due to technology. And to use that technology, the Marine had to be jacked. So, that was the logical first step in their training.
Despite Rev’s aversion to the concept of jacks, he was still a little excited about what it would offer him. In the recruitment holos, Marines were sometimes depicted in full armor, and the images were terrifying, but in a good way. The thought of controlling that much raw power was exciting.
But no one knew what their capabilities would be. And there was the growing consensus that they would be getting more than just jacks and medi-nanos, so it could be anything from simple improvements to things such as eyesight, which Rev hoped was the case, to some of them going full Twilight Soldier. To Rev’s surprise, many of his fellow limeys seemed to think that was a good thing.
About forty minutes after the first eight had gone in, others started getting called.
“Is that normal? I mean that’s all it took when you got your jack?” Rev asked Bundy.
“I got my first one more than fifty years ago, so I’d imagine things have gotten better. It only takes about five minutes to get one replaced, though.”
In Rev’s low opinion of jackhead culture, he’d never paid much attention to the hardware, but he’d imagined that the implantation would take some time. They were melding a mechanical device to an organic brain, after all. He’d accepted the idea that he was going to get one, and he’d been at ease, but now his nervousness started to reappear.
“How long does it take to, you know, be able to control something?”
“You really are a virgin, aren’t you?” Bundy asked with a laugh. “How have you gone through life without knowing that?”
It really wasn’t fair to make fun of him for not knowing, Rev thought. Except in extreme cases of need, jacks were illegal for minors. That was settled law. And as he wasn’t one of those kids who lived for the day they’d get their jack, he never bothered to learn more about them.
Besides, more than thirty percent of the population never got jacked, not even a simple interface, and not only for religious reasons.
Before he could reply, however, he was called.
This is it.
“You’ll be fine,” Bundy said as Rev joined the waiting tech. “Probably,” he said, adding a wink.
He might have been in the same corridor—passageway, he reminded himself—as he’d been for the neuromapping. That reminded him of what had happened before. While the memory of the pain itself had almost faded away, he knew it had been there, and that only increased his anxiety.
One of the doors on the left opened, and a gurney floated out. The patient was on his stomach, a flat bandage covering the back of his neck. It wasn’t until the gurney turned down the passageway that Rev recognized Cricket, unconscious.
“Where’s he going?”
“Him?” the tech asked. “To recovery and uploading. He’s fine.”
That was the second time a tech had mentioned uploading, and he wanted to ask her what that meant, but she opened one of the doors and led him inside.
There was a table in the center of the room, dominated by an instrument with what looked like a porcupine helmet on steroids. A second arm had what was undoubtedly a drill, every inch of it gleaming with sterile menace.
“Take off your singlet and lay face down on the table,” she told him as she pulled out a sealed package from a drawer under a control console.
His eyes on the drill, Rev pulled off his singlet. At least this time, he kept on his underwear. He cautiously lay down, craning his head to keep an eye on the drill. The bit itself had to be three centimeters in diameter, and the knowledge that it would be drilling into his skull was more than a little disconcerting.
The tech moved to the chamber above the drill bit and inserted a plastic case.
“Is that my interface. I mean, my jack?”
“Sure is. An AIS-43,” she said with obvious pride. “Best there is.”
She snapped the chamber shut with the finality of loading a pump shotgun. “You’re going to love it.”
Rev wasn’t so sure.
She picked up his singlet, slipped it into a bag, and sealed it shut. “This will be waiting for you,” she said, sliding it under his table.
“OK, we’re about ready. Do you have any questions?”
He had a million, but foremost was, “Where’s the doctor?”
The tech gave a high trill of laughter, then said, “This is just the install. No doctors needed.”
“But—”
“Just relax. I’ve done thousands of these. I don’t lose many of you Marines.”
“Many?” Rev said, pushing himself up.
“Just kidding. This is routine, like getting a vaccine.”
“No, it isn’t. You’re going to put something in my head. I’d say that’s—I mean, it doesn’t feel routine.”
“In your thalamus, but yes,” she said, obviously not getting his point.
Calm down, Rev. Billions of people get this done. Don’t be such a wimp.
He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, then lowered himself back down.
“You ready now?”
No.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
She misted his arm, then attached a cuff. “This isn’t going to hurt.”
That’s what the last guy said.
“I want you to count down backward from a hundred to one.”
“OK. One hundred . . . ninety-nine . . . ninety . . .
. . . eight?”
Rev opened his eyes. Dim blue lights revealed a normal-looking room, not where he’d been just a moment before. It took him a moment to realize that the tech had been right. It was over, and he hadn’t felt a thing.
The jack!
He reached around just behind the left side of his head. His fingers met a slick cover, and for a moment, he was tempted to pull on it.
“I’d leave that alone if I were you,” a voice said.
Like a little boy with his hands in the candy jar, he whipped his arm away and looked over to where a woman in doctors’ whites stood at the door, a younger man in tech greens beside her.
“Welcome back, Private Pelletier. I’m Doctor Wan. How are you feeling?”
“I’m, um . . . not terrible?” he said as the doctor focused on her pad.
“Good, good.”
He thought she’d have said the same thing had he told her he was in pain.
“Tern, go ahead. Let’s see the feedback node.”
The tech nodded, then pulled out a lead from the nondescript gray box beside the bed.
“Turn your head,” he told Rev.
Rev exposed the side of his neck, and the tech snapped in the lead. Rev expected something, even if he wasn’t sure what. But he felt nothing.
“Is it working?” he asked.
The tech put a hand on Rev’s shoulder, but the doctor was absorbed in her pad and didn’t answer.
“Send packet one,” she finally told the tech.
He still felt nothing, and that didn’t change as the doctor had the tech put through five more packets.
“Did something go wrong?” Rev asked.
He really hadn’t wanted the jack, but he certainly didn’t want a faulty jack. He suddenly had visions of it sparking and catching fire inside his neck.
The doctor finally looked up with a condescending smile and said, “Perfect, Private. Everything’s fine.”
“But—”
“Sign him over,” she told the tech before she turned and left the room.
“What’s happening?” Rev asked.
“Everything’s fine. Feedback loops are reading well into the green. Upload checks.”
“But I don’t feel anything.”
“Which is good. You don’t want to be feeling anything. Your brain is making connections, and pretty soon you’ll begin to have active control.”
Which, once again, meant zip to Rev. He was really getting tired of not knowing what was going on.
The tech disconnected the cable and held up a simple white disk. “Leave this on for the next two days, even when you shower. After that, you should be fine.” He put the disk over the jack where it snicked shut.
The tech touched the comms button on his collar and said, “Got another for you. Pelletier. Room four-one-five.” He turned to Rev, pulled out the bag with his singlet, and tossed it at him.
“Go ahead and get dressed, then take a seat. Someone will be in here shortly,” he said before leaving Rev alone in the room.
He gingerly swung his legs around and sat up, but he felt fine. No dizziness, no nausea.
“Hopefully whoever’s coming can answer some freaking questions,” he muttered as he got dressed.
The chair was on one side of a plain table, its twin on the other side. Rev sat to wait. His hand drifted up to his neck where he fingered the cover. The tech had told him to leave it, but he was so tempted to worry at it like a scab.
It seemed surreal to him. He had a hole at the base of his skull, but he felt fine. Normal fine. Not better in any way.
Less than a minute after he sat down, the door swung open and a Marine came in, not another civilian tech. The sergeant didn’t have the DI black tab on his collar, but Rev stood and came to a position of attention.
“Sit, Recruit Pelletier.”
Rev sat at the edge of his seat, his back straight, waiting.
The sergeant took the seat on the other side of the table, then placed a large case between them.
“I’m Sergeant Mysoki, and I’m here to ask you some questions. I want you to relax and just tell me what comes to your mind.”
“Relax” was a word, when used in bootcamp, that usually meant something bad was coming.
“Recruit Pelletier, what is the primary fire team formation when expecting contact front?”
“What . . . ?” Rev managed to get out. The question came out of the blue.
“Expected contact front. The formation?”
“I . . . we haven’t started real training yet, Sergeant. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The sergeant seemed non-plussed and said, “Just tell me what comes to your mind. Anything.” When Rev remained silent, he said, “Guess.”
This is crazy. How am I supposed to know the answer to that? I don’t even understand the question.
But the sergeant was watching him, waiting for him to answer. He’d told Rev to guess, so when he got it wrong, the sergeant couldn’t blame him, right?
He just said the first thing that came to his mind. “A fire team V.”
The sergeant gave a slight nod of approval, and Rev said, “Wait, that can’t be right.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve never been taught that.”
The sergeant merely shrugged and asked for the ECR of a 94mm HE mortar. Rev didn’t know what an ECR was, but he said, “Fifteen meters.”
For the next five minutes or so, the sergeant asked him a series of rapid-fire questions, none that seemed connected to the previous one. Rev answered as fast as he could with whatever popped into his mind, and the more he answered, the more he was sure that he was getting at least some of them correct. All he could assume was that he’d overheard the answers over the last few weeks and just didn’t remember it.
The questions came to an end, and Rev had to ask. “Did I get any of those right?”
The sergeant looked at his pad, then said, “Fifteen out of twenty-two.”
Rev was flabbergasted. That was impossible. Sure, he might have lucked out on a couple, but fifteen?”
Before he had a chance to ask what was going on, the sergeant opened the case to reveal an M-49 Assault Rifle. The weapon was ubiquitous in the Union military, and Rev was relieved to see something he recognized.
“Disassemble it,” the sergeant told him.
The relief he’d felt fled his body. Of course, he knew what the weapon was. But to disassemble it? He’d never even touched one before.
The sergeant tilted his head at the weapon, his hands folded in front of him. He wasn’t going to give him any help.
Hesitantly, Rev reached out and pulled the weapon toward him. He rotated it in front of his face as if a set of instructions might be printed on it.
No such luck.
He turned it over again, and almost by accident, his thumb pressed a small button. A fuel cell dropped from it, then it bounced on the table and off onto the floor.
“Sorry about that, Sergeant,” Rev said, reaching down to retrieve the wayward fuel cell.
As if his right hand had a mind of its own, it reached forward and pulled at a release along the barrel. It was balky, and it took a few tries, but it finally pulled free, and the barrel loosened.
Now what?
He twisted the barrel, but it tightened. He twisted it back the other way, and it came free in his hand. Rev quickly looked up at the sergeant, afraid he’d done something wrong, but the NCO’s face was a passive mask. He gently laid it on the table, taking care not to bang the mag-rings that ran down its length.
“SPG,” Rev quietly muttered.
But what was an SPG? He turned the stock and receiver and looked at the bottom. There, where it would have been held in place by the base of the barrel, was a small, black rectangle, contact points revealed. He pulled up on the end and pivoted it toward where the barrel had been, and that freed something inside. He slid it out slowly. There were contact points on the other side of the rectangle as well.
“Short Pulse Generator,” he told the sergeant before putting it down.
How the hell do I know that?
It wasn’t quick, but with a few misses, he worked his way through the process, never knowing what the next step was until he faced it. Almost four minutes after he started, the M-49 was in pieces on the table in front of him. Sergeant Mysoki stared at him silently for a moment, then reached for one of the parts. The term actuator came to Rev’s mind. The sergeant twisted it as if opening a jar, and it came apart into two pieces. He laid them back down at the table.
“Did I do OK?” Rev asked.
“Not bad, Recruit Pelletier.”
The sergeant picked up the trigger assembly, and with quick, sure movements, he started assembling the weapon. Rev watched, sure of each move as the sergeant made them. Less than twenty seconds after he started, the weapon was assembled, and he put it back in the case.
Rev didn’t know where his knowledge came from, and it wasn’t as if he even knew what he knew, if he could put it that way. It was just that when the question came up, the answer was there, or when he had to disassemble the M-49, he had the steps down.
There was only one thing that made sense, but he wanted confirmation.
“Sergeant Wysoki, how did I know fifteen of the answers when no one taught me them?”
The sergeant closed the weapons case and pursed his lips. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“I’d like you to tell me, Sergeant, so I can—I’d just like to hear it. Please.”
The sergeant checked his pad, then said, “You passed, so you’re going to get briefed by the CO, but I guess it won’t hurt to confirm what you suspect. Your upload was successful.”
“Upload.” Rev had been told that by two of the techs, but it hadn’t registered.
The direct upload of knowledge was not the same as genmodding or augmenting. It was merely the transfer of knowledge. After the disaster of the Deimers, who ended up being more android than human, it was technically illegal, although not a major area of concern. Uploads were available on the black market, where they were a favorite of students, but as the input went into short-term memory, its effects were temporary. And the side effects could be unpleasant to downright painful, like an acute migraine.
Rev was speaking from experience. He’d paid for it twice to get through tests, and it hadn’t been pleasant. Whatever knowledge about Old Earth history or trigonometry he’d gained had long disappeared.
Evidently, the military had improved upon the process. Rev felt fine, and while he couldn’t tell what knowledge had been uploaded into him, it felt permanent, was the best way he could describe it.
Except . . .
“How come it took me forever to disassemble the M49 if I know how now?”
“The knowledge is in there,” the sergeant said, reaching over to tap on Rev’s forehead. “But the muscle memory, that has to be learned. That’s not automatic.”
Which made sense. Coach Kirkpatrick had continually harped on training muscle memory, making them repeat the same drills over and over, telling them they needed to be able to react to the opposing flipball player without thinking it through.
Where Rev was a little hesitant about augments and messing with his genes, this was something he understood. A way to get ahead that bypassed hours and hours on his pad studying.
This is going to be easier than I thought.
“So, I’m ready to be a Marine now? I’ve got all the knowledge already?”
“Not hardly,” the sergeant said with a barking laugh. “This was just a proof of concept, to see if you were susceptible to the process. If you weren’t, the civilian bosses wouldn’t want you out there with the other leeches with whatever knowledge you did retain. No, you got what was essentially MCM-1002, The Marine Basic Rifleman. Simple stuff. You’ve got a shitload more to learn, and you’ll get that uploaded after you get your battle buddy.”
Battle buddy?
Whatever that was, it wasn’t part of what he’d already had uploaded.
“What’s a—”
“Look, recruit. I don’t have time to sit here with you.” He pointed to the bud in his left ear. “I’ve got another of you ready to test. The CO will brief you tomorrow, so just hang tight until one of your DIs comes and gets you.”
And with that, he was out the door and gone.
Rev had a million questions, and while he had no idea what a battle buddy was, the words themselves made him apprehensive. He wanted more answers, and he wanted them now.
At least he thought he did. There was a very good possibility that he wasn’t going to like what he learned at all.