Atlas (5 page)

He showed different slides and finally a vid. I heard acronyms and more acronyms. OCS. PT. PST. DOR. LCPO. OIC. XO. BSD/M. Funny thing was, it seemed like we were expected to know what all those acronyms meant. I kept having to jump to the glossary in the guide. I'm sure there was a free app I could
download that would subtitle those acronyms for me as they were spoken in realtime while I had an aReal on. I made a quick detour to the app store on the Net, and found one.

After a while, I started to browse different sections of the guide, basically ignoring the Gustav guy. Somehow I ended up on the spec-ops section. The more I read about the MOTHs, the more I wanted to be one. These guys were tacticians, corpsmen, astronauts, snipers and commandos rolled into one. Their specialty was "direct action:" short-duration operations of surgical precision conducted in hostile, denied, or diplomatically sensitive environments. If the UC wanted someone seized, recovered, or terminated quietly, and without stirring up a political storm, they called in the MOTHs. They were the special forces of the special forces.

When Gustav was done, a PPA herded us down the corridor to the brain scan hall, where we were given the 'vocational aptitude' brain scan. A lot of people had already taken this scan apparently, at local recruiting centers and whatnot, so the waiting room had only about fifty people in it. Shaw had taken it beforehand too, so we exchanged Ids and promised to meet up in the mess hall for lunch later.

When it was done, Tahoe, Alejandro and I hurried over to the mess hall with ten minutes to spare for lunch. Disappointingly, Shaw wasn't there. After rushing through a ham-and-cheese sandwich, the three of us made our way to the job selection hall. Before we got there, I managed to convince Tahoe and Alejandro to try out for the MOTHs with me. "It's the hardest training in the world," I told them. "But we'll get to do some crazy missions. Jumping out of starships, sneaking behind enemy lines, capturing privateers."

Tahoe seemed excited by the prospect, Alejandro not so much. I knew he'd join though, if only for me. I'm not sure that would be enough to get him through the training, which sounded ridiculously difficult. He'd definitely have to dig deep within himself.

We all would.

At the job selection hall, we found ourselves once more at the back of the queue. Again no sign of Shaw. A computer voice called out whenever a cubicle was free, and eventually I was paired up with a job counselor. He looked to be around fifty-five. His face seemed perpetually locked in a scowl.

Well, at least he wasn't a robot.

His eyes defocused for a moment, and I knew he was accessing my embedded Id. Probably had one of those implanted aReals.

"Morning, son," the counselor said. His voice sounded tired.

"Good morning."

"What's good about it?"

I didn't answer.

"So, you chose the Navy. Two ratings are available to you. Guaranteed Job and Undesignated. Now if—"

"I want to be a MOTH."

"You will speak only when I ask you a question. Do you understand?"

"I want to be a MOTH."

The counselor clenched his jaw.

"You don't understand my role here, do you?" He seemed about ready to give me an epic chewing out, but then his features softened, and he sighed. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood today. So. The MOTHs."

"Yes."

"MObile Tactical Human. Fancy name for a spec-op with a jetpack. They handle operations on air, sea, land, and space. Direct action, mostly."

"I know what they do."

"Do you now? It's all fun and games to you, isn't it?" He took a long, leisurely sip of coffee. "I don't know what we'd do without this stuff. Coffee I mean. It's the ambrosia of the people. The lifeblood. Nations have fought wars over coffee." He took another sip. "Do you think you could do it? Go to war for your country over coffee?"

"If that's what my country wanted me to do, sir."

"You'd kill people, for coffee?"

I hesitated. "Yes, sir."

"Could you kill a man in front of his wife and all his children, for coffee?"

"Yes sir."

"What about a beautiful woman? A model, standing in the middle of the street. Waiting for your convoy to arrive. Bombs strapped to her chest. Could you take her out?"

"Yes sir."

"What about the poor, unknowing child, whose father has given him a grenade to deliver to the men who've just kicked down his front door. Could you take the kid out? All in the name of coffee?"

I swallowed. Hard.

"Not so easy, is it? As a MOTH, you may be expected to do certain things. Things that may not exactly jive with your conscience. And if you can't follow orders without question, good men could die. Still want to be a MOTH?"

"Situations like that are going to happen to any unit that sees street-level combat," I said. "Not just the MOTHs. The Marines, for example."

"Which is why I bring it up. You won't be getting the seaman's or the astronaut's aloof view of war. Spec-ops people get up-close and personal with the enemy. You'll experience more of those 'situations' as you call them than any other Navy rating. So answer the question. Do you still want to be a MOTH?"

"I do."

He exhaled heavily, sitting back. "Well. Unfortunately, this is all moot, because you'll never meet the entrance requirements for the training. And even if do, you'll never pass. We're talking the most prestigious spec-ops unit in the entire UC military, here. The training regime is brutal."

"I know all about that. And I'll do whatever it takes."

The counselor straightened up. "Listen son, you think you know, but you don't. Besides, that's not how the military works. There are qualification requirements. Entry caps."

"Find a way around them."

He leaned forward. "Do you want to be in the Navy or not? You've been given a chance. Don't throw it all away by insisting on a rating you can't pass. Be reasonable. Look, I'll tell you what I can do: You apply for any other rating, I'll give you five thousand digicoins up front."

Five thousand digicoins was awfully tempting. I'd never owned that much money in all my life.

I should have backed down. I really should have. But I didn't.

"No. Sign me up for the spec-ops." I'd made up my mind earlier, after reading about the MOTHs in the guide. Hardest training in the galaxy? Direct action operations? All that was for me. And once I made up my mind, I never changed it.

"I'll be honest with you," the counselor said. "Your physical conditioning is crap. Your brain scan, crap. You wouldn't even make the rating of deck swabber, let alone spec-ops. You can't change your genetics. Well, not without more bitcoins than you'd make in a lifetime."

He tried to stare me down.

I wasn't going to let him.

My brain scan
was not
crap, and neither was my physical conditioning. I was a Dissuader back home, dammit. You couldn't be weak, not in a job like that. He just wanted me to choose a different rating. But I wasn't going to back down, so I just returned his stare, saying nothing.

He blinked, sat back. "Well. If that's the way it's going to be... you're actually in luck, because just a few weeks ago we were issued a new mandate: make more MOTHs. I hope you appreciate how extraordinary this is, because otherwise you'd be out of luck. So I'll tell you what I can do. You agree to a fourteen year service term instead of the usual twelve and I'll set you up on the spec-ops track. But if you fail to meet the MOTH entry requirements after Basic, or you fail the MOTH training program itself, you'll be banned from spec-ops and you'll have to choose a different rating. You'll still have to complete the fourteen year term either way. And no five thousand digicoins."

I hesitated only a second. "Sign me up."

A short while later I found myself on a vactrain.

Apparently the military had built their own evacuated tubes, forming a continent-wide network of maglev lines capable of transporting trains at up to Mach One. I didn't feel any G-forces even at the top speed though, and during turns I scarcely felt any drag because of the super-gimballed compartments.

I was headed toward New Great Lakes, where I'd begin Basic training.

Mine was a window seat, and I watched the landscape racing by. It made me feel thoughtful, looking out there. It was hard to believe that only a few days ago I'd been living in another country entirely.

"So what do you see out there, Rade?" Shaw said from where she sat beside me.

I didn't look from the window. "My old life. My future."

"A bit introspective, are we?"

I turned away from the glass and smiled. "I'm entering a new phase of my life, Shaw. We all are. A better phase. I hope I live up to the I high expectations I've set for myself."

"You will, Rade. You have to. We all do. This is serious now."

"Yeah."

"So how's Alejandro holding out?" she said.

"About the fourteen-year service commitment thing?" I glanced at him. He was seated right in front of us, beside Tahoe, but hadn't said a word since we boarded. "Could be better. I think he'll get over hating me in eight weeks or so. Just in time to graduate Basic."

She flashed a quick smile, and lowered her eyes. She seemed a little sad all of a sudden.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"Nothing." She leaned forward slightly and stared out the window past me. "I mean, well, you mentioned graduating, and all I can think is, what about all the new friendships we'll lose at the end of Basic?"

"We'll keep in touch. You know we will."

"Sure." She gazed into my eyes. "But vidmail isn't the same."

"Then we'll just have to make the most of the time we have."

She broke eye contact, and nodded slowly. "I suppose we will."

"But you know," I said. "There's no guarantee we'll even be assigned to the same division in Basic. This might be the last time we get to hang out with each other."

"Actually I think you're wrong," she said. "I have a few friends who've taken Navy bootcamp ahead of me, and they said that everyone who arrived on the same train was put in the same division, give or take a few. Besides, we'll have weekends at liberty once in a while. Lots of time to head off base and hang out."

"Or rent a love hotel." I gave her a wink.

She gave me playful punch. "As if."

"Hey, settle down over there," Ace said. He was sitting on the other side of Shaw. She'd introduced me to the natural-born UC citizen when we'd boarded. She'd only just met him today, and he was trying out for a spec-ops rating, like me, Tahoe and Alejandro. "By the way, Rade, what part of the UC did you say you were from again? I can't place the accent."

"I'm not from the UC," I said.

"Ah!" He smiled widely. "I would've never pegged you as South American. Not with the pale skin." He had aReal glasses on, and must have been looking at my public profile.

"I'm Caucasian," I said. "Just grew up south of the border, is all."

"Ah. Fancy that." He rubbed his chin. "Well, I don't know what we'd do without you guys. Us natural-borns are some seriously lazy mofos. Staying at home, smoking weed, letting the robos do all our chores, getting the drones to deliver our food. Obesity epidemic? Chalk it up to the robos and the Net. Who wants to live in the real world when the virtual one is so much more fun and the government pays for everything? Did you know the senate is even passing a bill to consider subsidizing longevity treatments? I shit you not. Don't think it'll pass, though. There has to be at least
some
incentive to work.

"Not that there a lot of jobs available or anything. Robos got a lock on all the blue collar positions. That said, most companies still employ human managers, but a lot of corporations decided the cost of the more advanced AIs saves bitcoins in the long run, and since the public is becoming more amiable to interacting with robots, a lot of companies have no problem getting rid of humans entirely. White collar jobs are vanishing left and right. AIs are too advanced these days. Won't be long before you won't be able to get a job even if you want one. Even the creative types are threatened: Did you know someone's developed an experimental AI that writes books? Got about four or five of its novels on the bestseller lists at the same time, written under different pseudonyms. Ridiculous.

"Anyway, the government tried to pass a bill to force all draft age citizens into the army. Failed. But a bill to enlist immigrants of draft age? A roaring success. You'd think they'd just let the AIs run the military, but they don't trust the machines to fire the weapons. Not completely. Would you? But it's funny. Machines basically run society already. Why not let them kill people, too?"

I rubbed my chin. "Got a question for you, Ace."

He grinned. "Shoot."

"Why are
you
joining the military? You're a citizen. You got it made. Like you said, free room and board, robots to do your chores, don't have to work..."

"That's the thing. I
want
to work. I looked long and hard at finding a thinker's job. You know, one where I would look far more attractive, pay-wise, than a machine costing a billion digicoins. I ended up choosing theoretical physicist. Took the free courses on my aReal. The four year program, you know?"

"Hey Tahoe," I called to the astrophysicist seated in front of me. "This guy's a theoretical physicist. You should be friends."

Tahoe didn't look back. Didn't want to be friends I guess.

"Anyway," Ace continued. "When the courses were done, I tried applying for some jobs. Turns out there's no real demand for theoretical physicists after all, not anymore. According to the UC, all the theories we need have already been thought of. There's nothing to discover anymore."

"I don't believe that for a second," I said. "You're telling me that humanity knows every possible thing about the universe? We've only explored one ten-thousandth of our own galaxy, one billionth of the known universe. We haven't even fully explored our own oceans, let alone our own minds. And you're telling me there's nothing more to discover. Have we encountered any extraterrestrial beings? Nope. What about God? Nope."

"Hey, you weren't listening, I said—"

"So don't tell me there are no more theories. That there's nothing more to discover. Because you're dead wrong."

"Hey, you're preaching to the choir dude." Ace said, a little indignantly. "I did say,
according to the UC
. But I have to give them credit. Apparently the government has a specialized AI working on the theoretical stuff 24/7. I read a whole article on it at WikiQwiki. A thousand times a second it tests hypothesis and tries things that humans haven't thought of. At least, that's what they think it does all day, though so far all its done is confirm that Slipstreams are theoretically impossible. And yet, that's how we travel between the stars. Five billion digicoins for a machine that tells us Slipstreams are impossible." He shook his head. "By the way, where you're from, do the robos do all the menial work, too?"

"Naw," I said. "Human labor is far too cheap where I'm from. For the cost of buying and maintaining a robot, a business owner can hire a hundred desperate workers. If any of those workers ever gets injured, there's no expensive maintenance costs to repair him or her. You just get rid of the worker and hire another."

"Wow. Glad I wasn't born there."

"It isn't so bad. You learn to make do. The human spirit is resilient, my friend. Not to mention the human body. When you're used to having nothing, nothing becomes your everything, and you never really want for anything. But it's a double-edged sword, because there's the danger of becoming complacent, becoming too happy with that nothing, because you've never known anything better. Complacency is the death of dreams, and freedom. It really is."

We sat in comfortable silence for a time, using the aReal devices connected to the seats to browse the Net, or to peruse the personal collection of books, movies and music that we had stored offline in our embedded Ids. I was just glad all that data was transferred from my old embedded Id to the new one, because I'd hate to have to seek out and download my stash again.

I thought of something.

"Shaw, everyone has a 3D printer in the UC, right?"

"Sure." She glanced at me from behind her aReal glasses. "Most people do."

"How do they keep people from printing up guns? The Undernet is packed with downloadable blueprints."

"Oh, that's all trackable. If you print up a gun, because of the call-home feature in the printers, you'll get a knock on the door from the local police robot. You'll get a warning the first time, and have it confiscated. Do it again, and you get a mandatory jail term."

"There's an underground market for Net-free printers that come preloaded with gun designs, you know," Ace interjected. "Drop by SilkRoad 5 on the Hidden Wiki and you'll find lots of local vendors." He frowned. "What's the matter, Rade? You don't look too happy."

"Nothing. I guess even Utopia's have their seedy underbellies."

"Oh you better believe it."

"Honestly, it's not really a problem," Shaw said. "Most people don't even want guns, and those who do just join the military."

The train ride wasn't very long. We reached Recruit Training Command at New Great Lakes in a little under two hours.

The instant I disembarked from the train I realized I was in for a challenge.

A blast of frigid, arctic air swept over me, and my body basically jackhammered. It felt like I'd stepped into one of those cold rooms where they hung slaughtered cattle in the abattoir.

"Thanks Rade," Alejandro said.

Maybe joining the military wasn't such a good idea after all...

I crossed some old tracks that were set up beside the supersonic tube, and made my way, shivering, toward the fenced-off base
with the other recruits.

"Looks like a prison,"
Alejandro muttered.

As we walked through the base it started to snow lightly. I saw a group of about eighty recruits jogging in perfect formation, completely in sync. One of them called out a cadence. They weren't dressed any warmer than us, but they seemed oblivious to the cold.

A military police robot herded me and the others to the "recruit in-processing" building. I went inside eagerly, glad to get out of the chill air.

The police robot divided us up into Recruit Divisions. I'd expected we'd be divided by alphabetical order or something, but the robot merely separated us based on where we stood. My friends and I were all standing close to each other so we ended up in the same Recruit Division. Shaw had been right after all. All we had to do was arrive at the same time and we ended up together.

The seventy of us were led to a room and the men received a 'high and tight' buzz cut from a series of robots. Alejandro's mustache and beard were shaved off, as was Tahoe's soul patch. The women had their hair cut down to the bottom of their collars. A lot of the girls who had longer hair were crying when it was done. Shaw bore it rather well I thought, although I knew she didn't like it by the way she bit her lip when she glanced at a mirror.

When all seventy of us were barbered, the MP Robot had us line up in seven rows of ten people each.

When the Recruit Division Commander showed up a few minutes later I was almost surprised to see that he was an actual human being dressed in khakis and matching sailor hat.

"I'm Chief Gunner's Mate Atsu Bowden," the dark-skinned man said. "You may call me RDC Bowden, or sir." He waited. "As in,
yes sir
."

"Yes sir!" I and the enlistees replied in unison.

"I can't hear you," Bowden said.

"
Yes sir!
"

"Didn't anyone teach you knuckleheads how to stand at attention?" He looked among us as if expecting an answer. More than a few of us tried to straighten up. I know I did. "Well
stand at attention!
"

He moved among us, shoving his palm into some of our bellies, making others lean forward or backward, forcing the hands of a few recruits to their sides.

"Imagine you're a string puppet," he told one recruit who had particularly bad posture. "And you have a string trailing upward from the top of your head. And the puppeteer gives that string a good hard jerk. Now show me what that would look like, recruit!"

Bowden eventually made his way back to the front.

"Now you're looking more like a division. Remember how you're standing right now because I'm never going to repeat that bull again. If you can't stand at attention, one of the simplest, easiest tasks in the Navy, not to mention the entire history of humankind, you don't deserve to be here. Got that? I can't hear you..."

"
Yes sir!
"

"Good. When I answer a question, you answer real loud, because I'm a bit hard of hearing. Got it?"