I Am Automaton: A Military Science Fiction Novel (5 page)

“Good. See you next week.”

He stood and saluted, and she dismissed him. He left and the digital curtains and paintings from his youth switched off. After he left her office, she sighed heavily and opened his file. Before she registered her session note, she dialed Major Lewis.

“Hello, Major.”

“Did you see Sergeant Birdsall?”

“Yes, we just concluded our first session.”

“So, what do you think? Is he ready?”

She paused. “No, he’s not ready yet, sir.”

“How long?”

“I’m not sure how long, if ever.”

“You’ll keep me abreast of his progress?” It was an order more than a question.

“Of course,
Major.”

“It is important that he get back on the horse. If not, he’ll wash out.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good day,
Captain.”

She hung up the phone and stared into thin air, lost in her thoughts for a moment. Rehabilitation of Sergeant Birdsall was certainly possible. Soldiers in combat situations had to deal with trauma and loss all of the time.

Part of her worried about what she was preparing him for. Sending this man into the ID Program was like sending a snowball careening into hell. If he wanted back in, he would get it. However, at what cost to him?

She had to follow orders. Besides, he wouldn’t be compelled to join the program. He could always be
reassigned, but she saw that look in his eyes. He would not give up. He would not quit. She was a good enough judge of character to know that he would pursue this to the end.

She picked up her pen, began to compose her analysis, and she registered her first session note with Sergeant Peter Birdsall.

***

The next few months
, Peter faithfully attended his physical therapy sessions, and his perseverance paid off. His injuries were minimal given the situation, and he progressed rapidly.

His psychotherapy with Captain London was also going well. She had a practice of cutting through the garbage and addressing things head on, and he respected that.

They had discussed his relationships with each of his men, his guilt, and his anger. He was beginning to find some closure about what had happened in Tijuana.

She had taught him how to compartmentalize his feelings and memories about what had transpired. She taught him the Buddhist philosophy towards loss—that in death people gave back that which never belonged to them in the first place.

She talked about entanglements, and how worrying about loss would cause a self-fulfilling prophecy in combat. He learned to let go of worry about dying and focus on staying alive.

Captain London had his file open in front of her on her desk. He was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Well,
Doc…what do you think?”

“Well, Peter, you’ve made significant strides in our sessions together. You managed your
grief; you confronted your guilt…”

“
And…”

“And, I’ll be recommending you for the ID Program.”

Peter jumped up so quickly that he startled her. He shook her hand enthusiastically. “Thanks, Doc. I really appreciate it. I won’t let you down.”

“You worked hard, Peter. Of course, my recommendations are only recommendations. Major Lewis will read them and make a final decision.”

Peter suddenly felt awkward. “Well, Doc, I guess this is it.”

He was confused by the consequent expression on her face. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was…amusement.

She chortled, “Oh, no, Peter. This isn’t goodbye.”

Peter stood there, some of the wind obviously taken out of his sails.

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Peter, if Major Lewis approves you for the ID Program, you’ll definitely need to be continuing sessions on an on-going basis. I’ll need to evaluate your on-going mental status and fitness for duty.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Major Lewis will explain everything to you. In the meantime, you’re due for some R&R. I recommended some leave time, and if Major Lewis approves it
, I suggest you take it.”

He was not sure what to make of any of this. “Yes, ma’am. And thank you.”

Peter left her office a new man, although he was unsure of what was in store for him, but he was grateful to Captain London and what she did for him.

In the days that
followed, he anxiously awaited Major Lewis’ response. He was lying in his bunk when his com unit beeped…he had a message.

He touched the screen. It was from Major Lewis. Excited, he opened the message. It was the approval of the leave time. That was it. No mention of the ID Program or Captain London’s recommendation.

He was disappointed, but no news was no news, not bad news. He decided that he would go out, raise some hell, and worry about the ID Program, whatever it was, when he returned.

He had the ominous feeling that he was going to get what he asked for, but he was not exactly sure if he wanted it.

Peter pulled up in a cab to his childhood house. It was late and the block was quiet. Living room windows flickered with television light, like fires in hearths.

He swiped his Mini-com over the payment kiosk in the back of the cab and thanked the driver. Shouldering his duffle bag, he closed the door quietly and strode up the front path as the
taxicab pulled away.

The living room was dimly lit from some secondary light source—his parents must have been in the kitchen.

He paused before he reached the front door. He took in his neighborhood. Once the stomping grounds of his youth, the block felt familiar, but no longer like home.

He stepped up to the front door, placed his palm on the security lock panel, and it registered his print. A soft tone sounded, and the door lock disengaged.

He quietly slipped into the house. He heard conversations coming from the kitchen table. He silently crossed the living room and stood in the archway to the kitchen, placing his duffle bag quietly on the floor.

His mother, sitting at the kitchen table facing him, was the first to notice. She stood up and put her right hand to her mouth as if to silence an outcry.

“Oh, Peter, you’re home.”

His father was sitting at the table with his younger brother
, Carl. She ran over to him and threw her arms around him. “Oh thank God you’re alright.”

“I told you it wasn’t that bad,
Mom. A little physical therapy and I’m good as new.”

His father came over and put his arm around him. “How’s my man doing?”

“Fine, Dad.”

His father backed away, making room for Carl, who stepped up and hugged his brother. “How’s the army treating you?”

“Shitty as usual, Carl. How’ve you been?”

“Well, we were just discussing that,” Peter’s mother interjected rather tersely.

“Now, Marla, we don’t need to burden Peter with Carl’s…situation,” his father admonished.

Peter wondered what kind of conversation he
had just interrupted. “Why? What’s going on with Carl?”

Carl put his hands up in exasperation. “They just don’t understand, Pete. Maybe you can help me explain it to them.”

Peter leaned against the kitchen counter. “Explain what, Carl?”

“He thinks he’s dropping out of school and joining the military, Peter.” His mother’s eyes were welling up with tears.

“No, not dropping out,” Carl corrected, “just postponing.”

Peter didn’t understand. “Why, Carl? I thought you liked school.”

“I do, Pete. It’s just that I’m halfway through, and I can’t afford it anymore. And Mom and Dad can’t afford to help me out either.”

This was happening all over again. The first two decades of the new millennium saw a freezing in credit, an exponential increase in college tuition, and predatory lending from banks with double-digit interest. On top of that, unemployment had been hovering between nine and fifteen percent over the years in what economists were calling the Rollercoaster Recession.

This was the same discussion Peter had with his parents several years ago, only he never entertained the notion of attending college. This was a wound for his parents that had not yet completely healed, particularly for his mother, and now his brother Carl was opening it up again and pouring on the salt.

“Carl
…”

“Don’t ‘Carl’ me
, Peter. You of all people should understand. My half scholarship is no longer cutting it. In order to take out a bank loan, Mom and Dad would have to cosign…at 22 percent.
Twenty-two percent
, Pete. I can’t let them do that.”

“I told you I’d find a way to pay it, Carl,” his father said. “The military is not an option.”

“It was for Pete,” Carl retorted.

“Carl, do you know what joining the military means?” Peter implored.

“So what, now
you
can do it, but
I
can’t hack it?” Carl was sounding hurt and defensive. So much for a nice, quiet visit home.

“Carl, in case you forgot, we are at war. A war on many fronts.” Peter had to be careful—no mention of Mexico. “It’s not like you’ll be at a base in training exercises all day. They’ll ship you off to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan
, or some other God forsaken part of the world where you’ll be shot at by the very same people you’re trying to help.”

His mother was pleading with Carl, “Honey, listen to Peter. You’ll be shot at, bombed. There are decapitations.”

“Well what am I supposed to do, live in your basement unemployed? For how long? There are no jobs. College is a waste.”

Peter sized up his younger brother. He was about as tall, but thin and soft from an easy life. He wouldn’t even survive boot camp.
Then there were the horrors of war.

“Carl, if you enlist, you’d be putting yourself in harm’s way every day for people halfway around the world who don’t understand freedom or democracy.”

“So, is that how you feel about what you do, Pete?”

“Yes, Carl. Yes it is. It is exactly how I feel.”

“So, then why do you do it?”

Peter knew there were two answers to this question. He was doing it for freedom and democracy. He was doing it to fight villains all around the world who threatened the American way of life.
Then there was the other reason, a much less romantic one.

“Carl, I wasn’t a good student like you. I didn’t have any other option.”

His mother glared at him. She apparently believed otherwise, but she had lost that argument years ago.

“Well, Pete, I don’t have any other option either. I only have two years of school under my belt, and there are no jobs.”

This was true, and in the past decade, many other young people found themselves in the very same shoes that Carl was standing in at that moment in the middle of his parents’ kitchen.

“There’s another way, Carl,” his father pleaded. “I’ll make some phone calls. I know people who owe me favors.”

“Carl, please. Listen to your father.”

“Mom, we’ve been through this already. There’s no other option for me. The military could train me in engineering. They need people, and it would be good on-the-job training.”

“For what?” his father asked. “The private sector? The private sector doesn’t give a damn about anything you learn in the military.”

“That’s not true, Dad.”

Peter was leaning up against the kitchen counter taking this all in. He had been here before, and this all resurrected memories of intense arguments over the dinner table and the horrible guilt of what he did to his mother.

He wanted very badly to shake his brother and discourage him from enlisting, but his brother was grown and this was not Peter’s fight. At the
moment, he was content to be a noncombatant in this battle.

“Pete, I know you understand.”

“Carl, my situation was different.”

“Different? How?”

“It…it just was, Carl.”

Carl threw up his hands in surrender.

“Well, I see I can’t reason with any of you.” He stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the storm door behind him.

Peter’s mother grabbed his hands and squeezed them in hers. “Please, Peter. You have to
explain
to him…”

“What,
Mom? What am I supposed to explain to him? What could I possibly say that wouldn’t make me look like a hypocrite?” Tears streamed down his mother’s face. “Mom, I don’t want him to enlist any more than you do, but what could I say?”

Her eye makeup was running down her face. Peter felt awful. He felt awful for what Carl was doing to her, and more
so, he felt awful again for what he had put her through. He knew she suffered every day, worrying about where he was and if he was okay. She never admitted this to him, but his father had related it to him during quiet moments alone.