Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1) (17 page)

I
t was Monday morning when I walked into the office that Ken’s trainee, Howin, flagged me down.
I received a message asking me to report to the Glentol Corporation medical facility in Canada. One of the top facilities on the planet, it is mostly a research and testing site. If something is truly uncommon or a concern, it goes there. There is more processing power and medical experience there than anywhere else in the world.

There had been so many medical breakthroughs there that I believed it was the best around. I ended up on a flight to Winnipeg, Canada, and from there ended up on a supply plane heading to the facility.

When we landed at the facility, I was impressed with all the security above ground. There were several larger buildings there that I had read up on; the rest was still classified or there was just no information available on it. Only 10 percent of the facility was above ground. The rest was underground and spread out at different levels. The area was geologically very stable and had been set up as a command post after the invasion. Now, with all the expansion, while it was still a central command node it was also much more. The jamming tech was top-notch and my pad lost all signal after we crossed the first checkpoint in.

This was the school for successful candidates out of North and South Am. Previous classes had been approximately a hundred and fifty. Soon, the first classes of three hundred would be going through. Hopefully the number of successful candidates would go up as well.

I was met at the small airport tower by a single person who was completely bundled up. It was windy, but I didn’t think it was that cold, really. What I had heard through the rumour mill was that you would die if you weren’t bundled up completely all the time. Even indoors.

But it was summer here; I was in light pants and a windbreaker and I was okay.

I figured it out when we entered the building. He took off his toque and started talking. I had heard people with accents before, and I was pretty sure he was from Trinidad. No wonder he was cold.

“Mr. Labaron, it would be a pleasure to meet you normally, but under these circumstances it is not quite so nice. My name is Isaiah Dougan. I am a facility supervisor and was asked to meet you. Sorry for being bundled up like that, but I am from the islands and it is always warm there. Not like this frigid Arctic wasteland.” The last was said with a smile.

He carried on. “I want to say thank you for coming on such short notice. We understand that you are busy with releasing and updating the gaming centre and have been working on
Marine Assault
. Yet higher decided that this was important for several reasons.”

We walked down the corridor to an elevator bank and headed down. My ears popped as we dropped fast. My guide continued talking, undisturbed by the rapid change.

“The facility manager wanted me to meet you and take you directly to the medical wing. But you need to be briefed before we just put you into the room. An old friend of yours has been injured and been sent here for treatment. It was during deep space operations.”

The elevator stopped and we started walking down the hall. “The damage was extensive, but top medical assistance was available almost immediately. She was stabilized and as soon as the medical team here was aware, they were working up the new regenerative nannites for her. So as bad as it looks, remember that she will be fine in a few months.”

I stopped walking. “I’m sorry. Who is here? I just received a message to come here immediately, with no information. I thought I was coming here to review some of the new training program for the new candidates.”

He just stared at me. “They didn’t tell you, Mr. Labaron?”

“Look, Isaiah, I don’t stand on a lot of formality; just call me Tim or Timothy. No, no one told me anything. Literally nothing. I have clothes for a three-day stay and nothing much else. I have female friends and all I can think is that one of them is lying somewhere in one of the top medical facilities in the world in pain.”

“Oh my.” He looked nervous and I couldn’t blame him. “Come with me.”

He took me down the hall and we stopped in front of what looked like another wing, this one much more secure. We processed through a security checkpoint and then stopped at another door farther down in that hallway.

Isaiah looked at me. “Mr. Lab… Timothy. It is best if you go in and realize that she is getting the best treatment and that she will get better. Billy indicated that you should be brought in. I’ll wait out here for you after you have a chance to see her.”

The door swooshed open and then Isaiah turned and headed to a bench farther down the hall.

It clicked. The only person I knew who had wanted to go to deep space was Clara. I had checked up on her and she had made it to some of the solar system projects. She had worked on Mars terraforming and had requested the new planet Ipswith. I didn’t know why they had brought me in and I hadn’t thought that she had made it, at least not yet. She was a bit too junior. Something must have changed.

I walked in. It wasn’t Clara lying in the bed, it was Tina. I was shocked. I would always recognize her no matter what, I knew that. But most of her skin was burned and scarred. When I moved closer, I could see that she was missing her right leg from just above the knee. I stopped just inside the door with my mind processing everything. The machine were quietly working away in the background, with the mechanical whirring of the fan system and the antiseptic smell in the room.

I was amazed that she was alive and knew that was more damage than I could begin to understand. With all the tubes and devices hooked up to her, I knew that she would be unconscious likely for weeks. For that I was glad. I couldn’t take her screaming if she was awake.

Her eyes opened. I could feel my mouth falling open. This wasn’t possible. Her blue eyes looked drugged, but they had understanding in them and she was tracking on me.

She tried to wave at me and then grunted in pain.

I walked up to her bedside table and tried to smile. “Hi, Tina. Don’t try to talk, okay?”

She was just watching me. With all the hoses and tubes, she couldn’t talk, but she could wiggle an arm.

Okay, I had to lead this. “If you can understand me?” She blinked, which looked hard, but it showed she was really tracking on me, sort of. “If you want to say yes, just twitch your hand.”

Her hand twitched. So she could understand me. I had to keep questions simple.

“Do you want me to stay around?” Twitch. “I am going to go and talk to a doctor and find some stuff out, okay? I will be right back.” Twitch.

I backed up and went to the door. I could feel her eyes on me. I stepped out, stopping to wave and smile at her. The door closed.

Isaiah was up and walking toward me. “Isaiah, I need to see one of the doctors or talk to someone who is in the know. How is she doing, what is going on, and what the hell happened to her?”

He nodded. “You should talk to Billy.”

As his name was said, a large red eye popped up on a screen. “Hello, Timothy Labaron. How are you doing today?”

I should have anticipated that. “Hi, Billy. I take it you have been talking to Hal?”

“Of course. Knowing who the personnel are that are moving between different locations is the easiest way to stay on top of what is going on. Before you ask, I would suggest that you go back into the med lab as Seven would be doing better mentally if you were around. Have no worries; I am a Level 3 AI and I run the entire facility and have extra computing capacity to deal with this situation.”

I looked at Isaiah and he shrugged and headed back to the bench.

The door swished open and I went in. A large screen just to the side of the medical bed flicked on and the image of a man in a lab coat with a stethoscope appeared.

“Hi there, Seven! I’m Billy, the facility AI. We do not have a course running right now so I am having my assistant, a Level 1 AI, running most of the daily stuff and dealing with some of the silly questions that I get all the time. Are you okay with my talking to you and Timothy here today?”

Tina’s hand twitched.

“Okay, I got that. Can I brief Timothy quickly?” Another hand twitch.

I was just standing by the bed watching Tina while Billy started talking. She kept watching me. “Okay, Timothy. On a deep space operation, there was an incident. Seven lost her right leg and was badly burned. She went into treatment almost immediately after, and that’s why she is in such good shape.”

I couldn’t help staring. This was good shape? What was bad shape?

“As bad as it looks, the skin has been regrowing nicely. All of the nasty tubes are coming out tomorrow morning. Seven is going to be bedridden, though, for almost another month while we decide if we are going to regrow her leg or go with a prosthetic.”

Regrow her leg? That wasn’t really possible yet, at least not according to the medical information out there. There was a lot of resistance as that was not “natural.”

“The decision to have you come up here was made given how close you both are. It was decided that this was necessary and would ease Seven’s recovery. Your work is in a check phase right now so you can afford the time to be here. Is this acceptable to you, Timothy? We do not have a huge suite here for you, but do have an adequate room…”

I never took my eyes off of her. “Billy, I can sleep on the couch outside if you need me to.”

“Excellent! Just so you know, Seven should be able to talk to you tomorrow with no problems, and most of the nasty burnt flesh you see will begin flaking off soon. I am going to put Seven down again for now so that she can continue to recover. Isaiah will brief you on how the facility works and get you settled. Is that all right, Seven?”

Her hand twitched and then her eyes closed in a slow blink and she settled into the bed. She was out.

I watched her for another minute and then stepped toward the door. It didn’t open. “Timothy?”

“Yes, Billy?”

“Please do not push her to talk tomorrow or be judgemental. She has been through a very traumatic incident and we need her to recover.”

I didn’t look at the screen. I didn’t need to as the sensors would pick up everything about myself no matter what direction I was facing or what I was doing. “I understand, Billy.”

The door opened and I stepped out. Isaiah was waiting for me. He escorted me through the complex and explained everything, including getting me a security pass and uploading a map to my pad. My pad had no outside access here, but I was given an office space to use for work as required.

I remember thanking him and heading into my room.

It was a candidate bedroom as it was the closest to the medical lab where Tina was. Or Call Sign Seven.

It was actually quite nice and bigger than the place I had stayed in China. In fact, it reminded me of the corporate dorms that I stayed in during my internship, but much nicer.

I was angry with Tina. She had abandoned me and our friends. She’d headed off to deep space doing who knows what and been badly injured. She could have died. Why?

I headed to the cafeteria and ate, then headed for bed. I spent most my night tossing and turning.

I was at her door by 8 a.m. but I wasn’t let in during procedures. I never even saw the medical personnel. They came and went through a back door that connected all the rooms. It was better that way. Or at least that’s what I was told.

They finally let me in at 11 a.m. and I walked in to see Tina with only a few tubes going into her arms, lying there on her back looking like death warmed over.

Her eyes opened and she was looking at me, tracking more clearly than she had yesterday while I walked over to the side of her bed.

She was able to croak out, “Hi.” But she had to stop and work at it.

There was a glass of water sitting there with a straw, and I held it for her while she sipped. Some of the burnt skin was flaking and cracking off of her. After a few sips, she was able to try to talk some more.

“Why are you here?”

It was a struggle to hear her.

“I was messaged to come up here immediately, so I grabbed some clothes and came up.”

She just stared at me. I guess it was just too hard for her to talk with all the damage that she had taken, and they had just removed the tubes that were down her throat.

I had to get this off my chest.

I looked her in the eyes. “Tina, I’m kind of angry at you and I am confused. I am not supposed to upset you or stress you out, but this is the best way for me to deal with this. You left me and went off to become part of the Corporation. Now you come back and you’re hurt. You could have died.”

I looked at the series of machines next to her. “I know you said you were a Corporate Marine. I had to let you go. You were off doing the good job of defending everyone back here. But you were gone. I’ve never met anyone like you. It took me years to really get over you and I still missed you, even yesterday before I walked in and saw you.

“I don’t think I can handle having you back for a few days and then losing you again when you head off-world. Maybe next time you get killed, or worse.”

I looked at her, locking eyes again. “Do not misunderstand me. I am here because this will help you recover and I care about you. I just don’t like it because when you get better, I am going to lose you again.”

She just watched me and then smiled a little. It looked forced, almost like she didn’t know how to smile.

She gestured and then took my hand and just held it while watching me.

I could feel the callouses on her fingers as she squeezed my hand and rubbed her fingers against mine.

She finally spoke again, so quietly I had to strain to hear her. “I’m not going back to the deep. I am going to stay.”

I pulled a chair over and sat with her, just holding her hand.

I knew she was missing a leg but I had never thought that they would release a Marine. Not until death or the body burned out.

Her one arm was bad, but while we talked for the morning, she kept fidgeting around and the burnt parts cracked and separated. The nannites in her body had been rebuilding everything underneath and no one had tried to remove any of the damaged parts. Probably because the pain was too much.