Chapter 25
Subject: Agent Jim Crawford
“Jim, I wish we had more time, but I think we have to move right now,” Estevez said.
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Jim responded. Seismographs dropped around New Carthage were showing something subterranean moving throughout the city. It surfaced a few times, devouring the contents of buildings before moving along. They couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it was a clear threat to the mission. “How far along is the station?”
“Well, we have room for around four thousand people. And the latest estimate is there’s maybe ten thousand left alive on the surface. Pruitt’s idea of using the old stasis pods from the scrapped colony ships really made a big difference. It takes a while to bring them online, but it helps stretch what resources we do have,” Estevez replied. She was right, Pruitt had saved the day with that one. The station’s life support systems simply required too much in the way of staff to operate them, plus, water would have been a major problem. Colonists in stasis pods only need electricity, which they have in abundance.
“It is too bad we can’t get more people off the surface,” Estevez added.
“Sure is,” Jim said, drawing out his words. “Alright, lets get the ball rolling, party started, you know.” He stood up and cracked his knuckles. “Estevez, I want all of your attention monitoring the damn, whatchacallit on the moon. I know we haven’t figured out a damn thing from it yet but you never know,” he said. The moon thing had been a bust. As far as they could tell, it was totally inert. But, it was a relief finding the mass of the ship all accounted for in one place.
“Of course, Jim,” Estevez replied, and dropped her call. Jim yelled into the air, knowing Wraith was always listening.
“Call Pruitt,” Jim ordered. A moment later, Pruitt was up on the view screen.
“It’s show time Pruitt, get off the station,” Jim said.
Pruitt pointed at the screen and waggled his finger, “I need about a day to get the last bank of stasis pods online, that’ll bring the number up another five hundred.”
“Can’t do it, you’re out of time. You did all you could do, and now we’ve gotta hand it off to the next bunch,” Jim said.
Pruitt looked defeated. “I can’t believe it’s going to go down like this,” he said.
“Quit yer bitching and get your crew out of there. I’m spinning up the whole god damn thing. We’re gonna start bombing the surface in a few hours and I need those heavy shuttles shuttling,” Jim dropped the call. He felt tense. Why did he feel tense?
Jim switched his focus back onto the plan. The plan was simple and Jim had whittled down his objectives to the bare minimum. Here’s how it went:
Call for a general evacuation. He’d dropped enough ordinance to the cops and random pockets of civilians that he felt pretty confident they’d be able to secure the heavy shuttle landing pads at the spaceport. He’d activate his band of survivors, dubbed ‘Jim’s Militia’ at the same time he announced a general evacuation via hundreds of drones with speakers on them. It would create a target rich environment for the Adversary and cause a hell of a distraction.
If Jim’s Militia could secure the landing zone, great. If not, he had a secret weapon. Ol’ Tideturner. He’d created a monster with that one, and he was confident she’d do just the trick. Turner would advance with the IFV and the samples, towards the spaceport. Wraith would connect Turner’s suit sensors to the trio of Surface Combat Support Gunships that were soon to be in low orbit over New Carthage. Her Pathfinder armor coupled with the hundreds of drones would give the gunships a near perfect picture of the situation on the ground. They’d unleash hell on anything that got to close to the post-human and her IFV.
The plan was to hold the heavy shuttles at a high altitude until the landing zone was secure and the samples were ready to go. Then, he’d load up the first shuttle with the science team and their bag of goodies, plus anyone else they could easily take, and get them up to the station. Carney would then assume command over the station and would organize the survivors and get them into stasis pods. She’d have control over whatever minions she needed from any of Jim’s Militia that made it up to the station.
Back on the ground, Turner and whoever else was dumb enough to stay on the surface would hold the landing pad at the spaceport as long as they could, or until the station hit max capacity. Then they’d park the shuttles, put the last survivors into stasis, vent the station, and wait for the navy to show up and take over. Everything would be contained, science ready to hand off, and they got to blow shit up and look good doing it. Still, something was bothering Jim.
Susewind appeared on Jim’s call display. Jim answered, and a hologram of the Mad Doctor appeared. He was practically foaming at the mouth to see the fight.
“I got to chat with Turner after she woke up,” Jim said.
“Of course you did, I watched the whole thing,” Susewind replied.
“You didn’t violate any oaths with that one, did you?” Jim asked.
Susewind laughed. “Please Jim, I’m not that kind of doctor. I never had to take an oath.”
The Chimera Pathfinder’s were the absolute perfect outlet for a maniac like Susewind. He had nearly free reign to create whatever kind of cybernetic monstrosity he wanted, and because of the way the Pathfinder teams worked, they were nearly always within the sights of an orbital gunship. They get too crazy and you can remove them and the grid square around them and move on with your life. And, if they work out, you can pick them up, put them in stasis, and bust them out next time you were in a pickle. There was basically no downside.
Jim watched as the first phase came together right on cue. The engineering team loaded onto the heavy shuttles, and the big surface-to-orbit spacecraft slowly drug themselves over to the Vengeance to unload their payload of wrench jockeys. At the same time, the Vengeance detached it’s complement of low-orbit gunships. They burned their oversized engines to decelerate, dropping in altitude towards the planet as they fought against their own inertia. Something tickled the back of Jim’s mind as he watched. The tension building.
Jim sat in his chair and frowned. He knew what the problem was but he didn’t want to deal with it. It felt like a weakness, but he had to give in and address the issue. He didn’t like how Turner had looked at him. She didn’t understand what he’d done, didn’t appreciate it. She was an extension of his abilities; in a way a reflection of Jim himself. A instrument of his will. His reach made manifest. He hated the idea that she’d die on the surface without realizing what she was. Without respecting Jim for what he’d done.
He looked over at the console with Turner’s vitals. She was an absolute freak; the mad doctor had outfitted her with an experimental next generation Pathfinder hindbrain that had a goddamn SAECOM link built in. Susewind was absolutely showing off with that one. It was supposed to give Jim control, and create a theoretically perfect soldier who’s emotion can be regulated on demand. But, it was too damn complicated and had to be AI controlled, which left out the nuance. Jim could tell right away from talking with Turner that while he could influence her feelings, he couldn’t control her thoughts. He had to do that the old fashioned way.
Turner was in the rehab room by herself, throwing a racquetball against the wall. She seemed amazed that no matter how hard she threw it, she couldn’t NOT catch it on it’s bounce back. Jim assumed control over her optics to insert himself into the scene, standing against the wall. Turner growled and threw the ball directly at him, but he wasn’t actually there and the ball phased through. She didn’t catch it.
“I don’t like seeing fucking ghosts,” she said. Jim had an impulse to direct Wraith to even out Turner’s attitude, but, that would be cheating.
“Why call you the old fashioned way when I could just, drop in?” Jim smiled, but he was conscious of it’s artificiality.
Turner narrowed her eyes at him, picked up the ball, and sat on the floor cross legged. She rolled the ball back and forth between her hands. Even with her Pathfinder undersuit on, she looked intimidating, and wrong. Inhuman.
“You should know I’m an honest man, and I feel wrong about not yet giving you the opportunity to have your questions answered. We’re about to go into the big battle, after all, and it seems… impersonal to let Wraith be your only guide,” Jim paused and met Turner’s gaze. He wanted to look away, and that surprised him.
“What is a post-human. What am I?” Turner said, almost as though she’d rehearsed it.
“Legally, a post-human is a person who has crossed the threshold where they require external management to remain stable on account of their artificial parts. The term for it is called ‘neural loading’. Every new part you add to a person is one more thing for that person’s mind to manage. Add too much and they can’t handle it. That make sense?” Jim asked.
“Not really. I’ve never heard of anyone being borged out like I am, why aren’t I laying on the floor drooling? Are you ‘managing’ me?” Turner said accusingly.
“We are,” Jim admitted.
“Like, controlling my emotions and rewiring my reward centers to make me do what you want?” Another accusation. This one was spot on.
“It’s a management technique, a way to keep you stable. Prevent you from being overstimulated in combat,” Jim said. It wasn’t really a lie, it actually was a management technique, but the control was a primary feature. He reached for a toothpick, and changed his mind at the last second. “You know, there are more like you. I’ve got nine up here.”
“Why not send them down?” She asked, “why make another one out of me?”
“I could send them, and that’s my last resort. I don’t want to lose them to the bioweapon. We don’t know what its going to take to make the colonists not a threat to everyone around them, to clean them and decontaminate them, you know.” Jim swallowed, “you haven’t seen the outside, Turner. It’s completely different from three weeks ago. It’s a sea of flesh. We started burning the forests to deny it the biomass. It’s got something burrowing around underground and the air is changing and becoming toxic. I don’t want to risk sending anyone into that if I don’t have to. You’re already there.”
There was silence between them, and Jim let it hang. She hadn’t seen it yet. Turner broke it, “how long until we gotta go out there?”
“As soon as we’re done talking,” Jim replied. Turner stood and took a deep breath.
“Tell me about the others. The ‘post-humans’.” She suddenly asked, breaking the foreboding silence.
“Sure, I figure since you’re now an honorary Chimera, you have a need-to-know about your brethren. Well, I’ve got two batches. Batch one is the Pathfinders, the Chimeras. All post-human badasses like yourself, but part of a weapon system that you’re gonna get real familiar with later. Each and every one of them was a soldier like yourself that got ruined in combat. Too broken for normal science, but no problem for mad science.” Jim smiled, this time he felt like he’d earned it.
“Batch two is uh, well. They’re a weird bunch. I actually don’t know where they come from, it’s classified even above me. They aren’t quite as modified as the Chimera and they manage themselves from neural overloading through uh, well, I dunno. Let’s call it ‘theology’. They’re freaky and keep to themselves, but they seem to love killing stuff so, I like havin’ them around.” Jim was referring, of course, to the Hazardous Environment Response Team, the HERT. Every agent had a batch, and it seemed that they were as close as the Dominion had come to mass producing a post-human soldier. Even then, there were probably less than a hundred, total.
“Why do they call them Chimera?” Turner asked. She started bouncing the ball against the wall again, but not testing herself anymore.
“They’re tight knit, I guess like all special forces units are. They all have dumbass nicknames like your security team. Chimera is the name they gave themselves. Half human, half machine. It fits.” Jim could tell Turner was intrigued. Perfect. That’s what he wanted. Hook Turner, get her to endorse herself. Accept what she was. Understand that Jim’s choice was the right one. “They’re gonna be watching you, Turner. This whole rescue plan revolves around you.”
Turner caught the racquetball and crushed it in her metal hand. The plastic oozed between her fingers and snapped into pieces. “For the record, I don’t trust you. I don’t like you in my mind. Actually, I don’t like you, at all.” Turner picked at the pieces of the racquetball. Jim clenched his teeth. “But I’ll get my fucking friends out.”
