Cyberpunk (23 page)

the ultimate stiff-necked twonk, so the Athenians kept sending him into

exile. But because he was the only good general they had, they had to

keep calling him back, and that just made him more smug than ever. The

Spartan general had stepped down, voluntary, ‘cause the Spartans had

started losing on a regular basis; seems he just couldn’t stop secondguessing

his field commanders.

Scott went the opposite way. The further he got from command, the

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happier he acted. Literally moving further and further up into the

bleachers, he started seeing himself as a visionary, like Hitler, or

Quadaffi. My suspicion was he’d found something hallucinatory

growing out in the woods. More and more,
I
was the strategos, doing the

actual work of leading and generalling my Thebans, while Scott was the

archon, dreaming up concepts (most of which I had to ignore) and taking

credit for my victories.

Yeah, just like net Peshawar. Y’know, in Periclean Athens the

archons were subject to regular votes of confidence, and they could even

execute
incompetent politicians. Tempting thought...

Nah. I could put up with Scott. Two more weeks; just two more

weeks.

Then the quiet arrangement turned into a true/true fact after one

battle I blew in a real stupid way.

As had become normative, the tactical situation was already set up

when we filed into the room. We Thebans took a few moments to look

over the sand table, walk to our section, sit down. Stig waited until

nobody was looking at us, then leaned over and whispered one word in

my ear.

“Aegospotami,” he said.

“Gesundheit,” I answered.

“No, dammit!” he hissed back. “Listen to me: I recognize this setup.

The proctors were talking about it while I was shovelling out that latrine

last Sunday. It’s the battle of Aegospotami—only setup for land, not

galleys!”

“Get real,” I whispered back.

“No, look at it. The Athenians are bottled up in that valley. I know

how you can waste them in ten moves, tops!”

“Sure,” I said. “This another joke, Stig?”

He looked away and shook his head like I was being the most stupid

putz in all creation, then turned back to me. “Shit, Harris, I know you

don’t trust me. And maybe I think you’re a limp pud, too, with your

fuggin’ cyberpunk attitude. You always act like you’re so goddam

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superior just because your old man bought you a lot of pricey toys!

“But just once, could you maybe try listening to me?”

I gave him a cold look that told him just exactly how much I trusted

him—’bout as far as I could throw him—and said, “Right.” He bit his lip

and turned away. A minute later the proctors called start, and battle was

joined.

As usual, we wound up siding with the Spartans. The battle was a

true toughie, with a lot of damage on both sides. Mr. Style’s platoon got

wiped; Jankowicz’s nearly so. It looked like the Spartans were going to

lead us into a win, but a lot of loose ends were still hanging when the

proctors called time.

Instructor Schmidt stood, and turned to the armies. “Today’s

analysis is for generals only. The rest of you are dismissed.” Stig jumped

up and went storming out of the room with the other Butthole Skinhead.

Mr. Style and Jankowicz followed with everybody else; I was still

collecting my notes and closing up the rulebook when Payne came out

of the dark and grabbed my arm.

“Harris, you stay,” he said. Turning to Scott, he said, “Take a hike,

Nordstrom.” Scott smiled, broad, like he was really getting away with

something, and strolled out of the room. Payne led me over to the join

the rest of the generals, and sat me down. When the last of the cadets

had cleared out, the proctors shut the door and turned up the lights, and

Schmidt stepped out of the room, nodding deferential to Payne.

It was Payne’s show.

Payne clasped his hands behind his back, took a deep breath, and

started pacing back and forth slow, all the while giving us the hairy

eyeball. Sudden, I flicked back eleven weeks to the plane, and stared

hard at his bulging muscles, his crawly tattoos. I hated him then. I hated

him even more, now. Maybe, just maybe, I felt a little respect...

Nah.

Payne let out one more heavy sigh, and stopped pacing.

“Gentlemen,” he said stern, “your performance today was disgraceful.”

He paused, but no one spoke up. Even King Deke had learned the Keep

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Your Head Down rule.

“I’m not talking about the battle,” Payne went on. “You fought that

as well as you could.”
This
was puzzler; we all started shooting each

other sideways glances, trying to figure out what he was talking about.

“It comes down to one word,” Payne said soft. “It should be a

familiar one.

“AEGOSPOTAMI!” he thundered.

When we’d all climbed back down from the rafters, he continued.

“The lesson of Aegospotami is a simple one: Never ignore good advice,

no matter
who
it comes from.” He clasped his hands behind his back,

looked at the floor, and then looked up at us again, bulldog angry.

“Here at the Academy, we also use Aegospotami to illustrate a much

more important lesson:
Unity
. That’s the core strength of every

command. If you do not have unity, nothing else matters!” He calmed

down; his face faded back to its normal color.

“Eight weeks ago, each of you was given one sleazeball. One

disreputable character you never would have picked yourself; one deadend

kid
exactly
like the type you’ll find in every platoon, factory, and

business office in the world!” Payne paced a bit more, and stared at the

rafters.

“There’s a thing we call the Pygmalion Effect. If you take a gutter

kid, remove the worst of his influences, and treat him as if he’s an

honest, responsible person—if you invite him to join your
unity
—

ninety-five percent of the time he will!” He turned back to us. “During

the past week, each of your problem soldiers was given the opportunity

to ‘overhear’ a discussion of the battle of Aegospotami. No doubt at

least some of them recognized it on the situation table today, and tried to

alert you.

“But not
one
of you acted as if you had listened to them!” Once

again, he took a deep breath, and lowered his voice. “Ninety percent of

what we do here at the Academy is directed towards one goal, and one

goal only: To build unity. Any moron can teach you to shoot a rifle, or

ford a stream. History, politics, economics? You can learn them

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anywhere.

“The difference between boys—even the most extraordinarly

talented boys—and
men
, is unity: The ability to surrender personal

gratification in favor of the common goal! If in your time here we have

not taught you to understand that, then we have failed.” Payne turned

abruptly, and strode towards the door. “You have one battle left to

fight,” he said without breaking stride, “and I assure you, you will need

all
of your platoon commanders.” Throwing open the door, he marched

outside.

After a few blinks, I pulled together my notes and followed him out

the door. Damn Payne! Double damn him! That’s when he was worst of

all!

When he was right. I set off on a jog, looking to find Stig. I had

some apologizing to do.

#

Friday, Zero Week. My last week at the Academy; in defiance of

probability also the week I turned 14. We stood in the gaming room:

tense, keyed. I don’t know whose idea it was to pipe in the music, but

the pulsing drums and squealing flutes worked. I’d never felt so wired

up, so
on
, so loaded with singing nerves before!

Stig stood at my right hand, Mr. Style on my left; Jankowicz and

Scott were on the flanks, and the whole Spartan alliance was ranged up

the bleachers behind us. Across the table, the Athenians and their allies

sat with contemptuous, cocky smiles on their faces. They looked like a

pyramid of smug, coming to an apex in Douglas K. Luger’s confident

freckled face. His eyes locked mine for a mo, and he smiled at me with

easy contempt. I let my gaze drift back down to the table.

Like two flesh ribbons snaking over the hills and into the valley, the

two opposing battle lines stood facing each other. No reserves, no

flankers; this time we were going to do a head-on all-out slam dance.

And my little Theban peltasts were the front line.

I didn’t turn around. Turning around would have wrecked the

illusion that the Spartans liked us any more than the Athenians did. The

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Spartans had a joke they told, when they thought we weren’t listening; a

quote from some old Chinese clown named Sun Tzu. “You don’t use

your best iron for horseshoes, and you don’t use your best men for

infantry.” The Spartan general had put us in the front line because he

was hoping we’d grind a little of the shine off the Macedonian’s armor

while we were dying.

His mistake. He’d ignored the Colonel’s Number Three Rule:

Always look men in the face before you order them to their deaths.
If

he’d looked us Thebans in the face, he might have noticed our secret

smiles.

Someone turned up the volume; the drumming got mentalbreakdown

intense. It was turning into a hot, noisy place, that game

shed. A few weeks before the back line commanders had taken to

whispering insults at each other, and the proctors had let it go. Now it

was a low-key roar; the hot blood shouting obscenities over my head.

The air was thick, and close. I could smell the sweat, feel the fear. And I

could feel that adrenalin
burn
.

“Advance,” my general said softly. Slowly, cautiously, I moved my

line forward. The Macedonians advanced a little, then braced for a

charge. In a few seconds we’d closed to four movement units. Four

moves for the heavy Macedonian hoplites, but one crazy dash for my

peltasts.

Time to find out if Thucydides was right. I tapped Stig on the

shoulder. “Go.”

Stig and I had spent two hard days working out the maneuver, and

he executed it simply perfect. Jankowicz and Mr. Style dropped back,

while Stig and I wheeled and formed three-abreast columns. Scott forgot

his part, but that was okay, we didn’t really need him. Borec’s

Macedonians wasted a move trying to guess what we were doing and

compensate for it in a bass-ackwards way, and by then it was too late.

Stig’s column was charging.

The maneuver’s called a
phalanx
. A human battering ram. The first

six or dozen soldiers in the column die for sure, but a line just cannot