Post-Human Trilogy (4 page)

7

“Twenty-three hours, twelve minutes, and...” Wilson checked the time readout on his aug glasses. “...and thirty seconds ago, the
USS Independence
fired a Trident 2 missile toward Shenzhen, which is, as you now know, our drop point.”

Craig swallowed hard when he heard his fears confirmed. “Holy hell. Trident 2s are equipped with sixteen separate warheads.”
Sam was right
, he thought.
They’re going to drop me right into nuclear fallout.

“That’s right,” Wilson replied. The screen at the front of the ship showed a top view map of the missile’s trajectory. “It split into sixteen, with one warhead hitting its true target and the other fifteen forming a perimeter 200 miles in diameter—basically, the manmade gates of Hell.”

“What was the true target?”

“Hopefully, the Chinese A.I. mainframe.”

Craig was silent for a moment. “Holy hell.”

“You said that already,” Wilson replied with a grin as he slapped Craig hard on the back. “This is the big one, Doc, but with all the secrecy beforehand, I’m sure you already had your suspicions.”

“I did. It’s something else to have it confirmed, however.”

Wilson nodded, though the muscles near his eyes tightened ever so slightly, making Craig suspect he was being read. “Intelligence believes the A.I. mainframe was located in a bunker about one kilometer below the surface. Our mission is to get in, get boots on the ground, and assess whether or not the strike was effective or ineffective. Basically, to provide ocular proof that the Chinese A.I. threat has been eliminated.”

“Why can’t that be confirmed with satellites?”

Wilson turned to the screen and swiped it, bringing up a live satellite image of the east coast of mainland China.

Craig let out a low whistle in response to seeing the image. A colossal dust cloud larger than the state of Texas had enveloped the area, making it impossible for the satellite to peer through. “Dear Lord. This is...Biblical.”

“What you are seeing is the result of decades of desertification in China, combined with sixteen nuclear detonations sending yellow dust into the sky. Even with the best resolution in the world, there’s no way we can confirm the kill from space,” Wilson further explained. “The Joint Chiefs don’t trust drones either, and if we don’t get in there and confirm the kill, the Chinese may be able to recover the A.I. or the wreckage and reconstitute somewhere else. As you can see, this mission is as top secret and high priority as they get.
If we’re successful, this war is over.
”

“So the perimeter the other nukes created is all about giving us a head start.”

“That’s right,” Wilson confirmed. “The Chinese still don’t know we can do suborbital insertions, so they’ll concentrate their energy on protecting the perimeter until it’s safe to enter. We’re gonna beat ‘em to the punch by jumping as soon as the fallout has reached the surface. With any luck, it’ll take the Chinese anywhere from several minutes to an hour to mount a HALO insertion.”

“And we’ll already be finished,” Craig added. “What if the A.I. is still functional?”

“Let’s hope not, but if it is, it’s defenses should be utterly destroyed. We’ll be packing more than enough explosives to finish the job.”

“All of that sounds reasonable,” Craig replied, “but there’s one glaring omission. If the Chinese are going to be collapsing in on us, I get how we’re going to beat them to the punch on the insertion, but what about the extraction?”

Commander Wilson turned his head quickly, appearing once again to try to read Craig’s face. “I thought maybe you’d be able to fill us in on that aspect, Doc.”

“Me?” Craig responded, perplexed.

Wilson’s smile returned, but this time there was something different—something behind it—an impurity. “We’re not idiots, Doc.”

At that moment, Craig realized that things were far worse than he’d previously thought. “Are you telling me the extraction is supposed to occur
after we’re dead?
”

Wilson’s eyes narrowed. “You seriously didn’t know that already?”

“Hey, Commander, honestly, if this is their plan, I had no previous knowledge of it. I thought I was here to provide medical support. That’s all.”

After a moment of continuing to read Craig’s face, Wilson finally nodded, apparently satisfied that Craig wasn’t playing poker and there was no bluff to call. “Okay. Well, it doesn’t matter whether I believe you or not. The fact is, there’s an extraction plan, but it seems pretty farfetched. When we heard they were sending a MAD bot along with S.A. body bags, we put two and two together.”

“What’s the official plan?” Craig asked.

“The exoskeletons are our only transportation. With the respirocytes and the exoskeletons working in tandem, we’re supposed to sprint for over an hour to the top of Maluan Mountain. Stealth Blackhawks will apparently be there to meet us.”

“Sounds like a pretty typical extraction,” Craig observed.

“Yeah, but these helicopters are supposed to make it through what will likely be a hell-storm of Chinese air patrols in the area,” Wilson pointed out. “It won’t be impossible if their side is in enough disarray, but it seems like a long shot to me. If I were a betting man, I’d have to say it looks like we’re about to punch a one-way ticket.”

“So,” Craig began as he lightly pivoted on the balls of his feet to keep his upright position in the microgravity, “you think the real plan is to leave us stranded on the mountain? And that, with our respirocyte supply dwindling, our only chance of survival will be to put ourselves into suspended animation?”

“That sounds like the most likely outcome,” Wilson replied.

Craig turned his head and regarded Robbie; the machine was floating in the microgravity, unmoving like a metal corpse, lightly brushing against the walls of the fuselage and bobbing freely throughout. “I’m not looking forward to that,” Craig stated resignedly.

“How do those things work anyway?” Wilson asked. “The body bags, I mean.”

“
Hydrogen sulfide,
” Craig replied. “The bags are cooled, and small amounts of hydrogen sulfide will put a human into a suspended state. They’ve been designed so soldiers in danger of suffering catastrophic blood loss on the battlefield can be put into hibernation. The bleeding stops, and their injuries can be treated when their body arrives at a hospital, even if it’s several hours later.”

“Will it work if oxygen deprivation is the problem?” Wilson astutely asked.

Craig nodded. “Yeah.”

“And the brass knows this?”

“Of course.”

“Then, Doc, it looks to me like we’re about to become frozen packages to be extracted at the United States military’s leisure.”

8

Samantha Emilson sat alone in the dark, waiting to see who would be next to come through the iron door. She’d been in the room for over an hour—waiting. She’d experienced this before; keeping her waiting was a standard interrogation technique. As usual, she sat quietly frustrated and stared straight forward at the door, thinking of all the work that she could have been doing instead.

However, there was something a little different about her agonizing wait this time. Usually, the whole lab was dragged in together and questioned. The FBI wanted to know everything about the research taking place in the Aldous Gibson lab. They constantly checked and rechecked, even though the lab worked with multiple government grants from DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
.
The constant monitoring of their work was stressful, to say the least, but at least it had always been about the lab.

This time, however, it appeared to be only about her.

Finally, the metal door slowly creaked open and the friendly, wrinkled countenance of Professor Aldous Gibson appeared.

“Aldous!” she exclaimed, relieved, as she sprang to her feet and embraced him, happy to see a friendly face. “What’s going on? Do you know?”

Aldous pulled her in front of him and locked eyes with her, his grip surprisingly strong for a man of his age. He looked as though there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t; however, his expression appeared to say she should trust him.

“They have a recording of you saying you don’t support the war or the government,” Aldous began, as he guided her back into her chair and took the chair on the opposite side of the small interrogation table. “It was recorded earlier today—a conversation between your husband and yourself.”

Samantha was nearly dumbfounded. “Are you serious? They recorded that?”

Aldous nodded. “Yes.”

She shook her head as though rebooting, her shock at the idea of being recorded quickly being replaced with indignation. “Well, so what? Am I not allowed to have an opinion in this country anymore?”

Aldous held his hand up to calm her, the same trust-me expression remaining earnestly across his face. “You can have your own opinion, but given the sensitive nature of both yours and your husband’s involvement with top secret projects, you can understand why they want to be sure—”

“No, I can’t understand it!” Samantha retorted, cutting Aldous off. “I’ve done everything that’s been asked of me! Why am I being treated like a prisoner?”

Aldous smiled, leaning forward toward his young protégé, taking her hand calmly in his and relating in a low, conspiratorial voice, “You’ve done nothing wrong. This will lead only to a simple lesson learned for you, Sam. In this brave new world of ours, it’s best to remember that people in sensitive positions must sometimes keep their opinions to themselves.”

The metal door swung open behind Aldous, a high-pitched
squeak
accompanying the movement, as a large man in a dark suit and navy-blue tie entered. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Professor, but it’s time for me to proceed with the interview,” the man announced.

“No trouble at all, my good man,” Aldous replied. “I’m sure Samantha is eager to get this misunderstanding behind her as quickly as possible.” He turned to Samantha and flashed a warm, calming smile. “I’ll see you soon, Sam.”

Aldous left, and the man in the suit closed the door behind him. He wore aug glasses and appeared to be reading a file. “I’m Agent O’Brien,” he announced matter-of-factly.

Samantha laughed but quickly stifled it.

“Something funny?” O’Brien replied, his face stone cold.

Samantha shrugged. “Are you serious? O’Brien is here to interrogate me?”

O’Brien’s face remained unmoving.

Samantha pointed to the door. “You know that door is marked 101 on the outside?”

O’Brien’s face didn’t twitch. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

She shook her head and inhaled deeply. “You really have no idea what role you’re playing in history, do you?”

Finally, O’Brien cocked his head to one side, curious. “What role is that, Professor Emilson?”

“Orwellian. It’s right in front of you, but you can’t even see it.”

“Orwellian?” O’Brien removed a Bluetooth pen from his pocket and began to write on a computer-generated notepad that only he could see through his aug glasses.

“As in
1984
. George Orwell.”

“Ah,” O’Brien said, finally understanding the reference. “Never read it.”

“No kidding.”

“I do know what it’s about though—big government controlling the heroic populace. Is that correct?”

“Sure.”

“A
Luddite
government perhaps?”

“You really oughtta read the damn book.”

“As you have, Professor Emilson? Will I then see our government as evil and wish to rebel against it, like the hero of
1984
?” It was clear from his rapidly moving eyes that O’Brien was fumbling to look up
1984
on Wikipedia or Sparknotes like a C- student, desperate before a final exam. “Like Winston?” he announced, hoping she didn’t recognize his use of a technological cheat sheet.

Samantha looked up at the ceiling and placed her hands on top of her head as she exhaled a long, frustrated sigh. “I’m in Hell.”

9

The SOLO team stood only inches apart from one another, all of them facing the starboard side of
SpaceShip3
as they waited for the drop order. They were fully garbed in their SOLO suits, the Nomex outer shell giving the suits a sleek, wet look. The exoskeletons component of the suits were designed with structural batteries that took the shape of working parts so no single, heavy battery pack was necessary. The exoskeletons were imperative so each man could carry his large backpack, which housed his parachute and weaponry. The fuselage had mostly been depressurized, and the members of the team—five humans plus Robbie—stood at the ready, the humans flexing nervous fingers and toes inside their life-supporting suits.
SpaceShip3’s
pilot periodically engaged the hybrid rocket thrusters to keep the craft over the target area as the group waited for word that the fallout had descended to an acceptable level in the landing zone.

“Listen up!” Wilson began, keeping his position at point in the triangular formation in which the SOLO members stood. “Remember, your SOLO suit doubles as a nuclear, biological, chemical protection suit, but we’ve never jumped into fresh fallout like this before. The NBC suits will increase our exposure time, but even they have their limits. The Kevlar woven into the material isn’t likely to be enough to stop the armor-piercing ammo the Chinese have, so if you take a bullet down there, don’t try to stay in the fight. Get your ass to the extraction point as soon as possible, because you don’t want to see what that radiation exposure would do to you. Is that clear?”

“Hooah!”

“Okay, we just got our orders. We’re sixty seconds to drop time,” Wilson relayed excitedly. A green timer began counting down on the OLED heads up displays on each of their visors. “It’s time to stop breathing, boys. Hold your breath and activate your respirocytes.”

Craig tried to resist the instinctive urge to take in a last gulp of air, but the SOLO suits only had a minimal air supply—just enough to make it possible for the team members to speak to one another. Instead, he closed his eyes meditatively and concentrated on not taking in another breath. Just as before, only hours earlier in the presence of the doctor with the beautiful smile, Craig found himself marveling that he could live without air.

The green timer display dropped below thirty seconds.

“You holdin’ up okay, Doc?” Wilson asked over his shoulder.

“Hell yeah,” Craig replied. He turned to Robbie. “Robbie, you stay on my six until we reach the surface, understand?”

“I understand, Captain Emilson,” Robbie replied.

Craig turned back and faced the same direction as the rest of the team. In only ten seconds, the bottom of the ship would open up in trap-door fashion, and they would begin their descent.

“Remember, Doc,” Wilson barked, “when the door opens, you won’t even feel like you’re falling for the first thirty seconds, but keep an eye on your time gauge. If you aren’t in the delta position by then, you’re a goner.”

The count reached zero.

“Away!” announced the crackling, radio voice of the pilot.

The doors swung open and the small pressure vacuum sucked the six figures out into space in their triangle formation. Craig was the far man on the left.

The silence was perfect—not even the familiar sound of his own breathing accompanied him. Wilson had been right: As the seconds ticked by on his HUD, Craig didn’t feel as though he were falling at all. The formation seemed to be a tableau, hanging in the blackness of space, the azure blue of the Earth mixed with the warm brown of the Asian continent below. The other members of the SOLO team expertly adjusted their trajectories, each man putting himself into the critical twenty-five-degree angle to control his speed and drag when they hit the atmosphere. Craig awkwardly performed the maneuvers needed to match their delta positions—movements much more difficult to perform in a supersonic spacesuit that felt like a sleeping bag with arms than they were in his familiar HALO suit.

The seconds continued to tick by as the telemetry, communications, and pressure readouts flashed on the OLED of his HUD. The thirty-second mark was reached, and the aneroids in his suit reacted to the atmospheric pressure as they began to hit the outer rim of the atmosphere, the psi remaining at 3.5 to keep him comfortable and conscious.

“Good work, Doc. You’re doing fine,” said the reassuring voice of Commander Wilson over the radio. Craig looked down at the commander, just a couple of meters below him, still the point of their formation. “Keep those arms tucked. The pressure won’t feel like much at first, but when we hit
Mach 1, the turbulence will be powerful. Even a little twitch can send you into a fatal tailspin.”

“Noted,” Craig replied. He wanted to gulp a nervous breath of air but resisted the urge. The HUD read just over four minutes remaining on their descent. Their altitude was dropping dramatically as their speed approached Mach 1.

“Sonic boom is imminent, boys! Steady!” Wilson shouted.

The SOLO suits were equipped with sound dampeners in the helmets to dull the thunderous
clap
of the sonic boom, but they couldn’t do much to curtail the turbulence. Craig braced every muscle in his body as the speedometer continued to climb. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

The sonic boom percussion felt like the explosion of a nearby landmine. The members of the team were seemingly all able to ride it out, and Craig’s eyes flew back open when the turbulence seemed to settle. The position of the four others in the triangle formation remained perfect, but the green dot signifying Robbie’s position on Craig’s HUD was suddenly dropping away behind him, moving further and further from the team.

“Doc, did you just lose your robot friend?” Wilson shouted.

“Looks like it,” Craig confirmed. There was no way to turn his head to get a visual confirmation, but it appeared the boom had sent Robbie into a tailspin behind them. “It’s okay. If he recovers from the spin and lands all right, he’ll double-time it to our target and meet us.”

“All right,” Wilson replied.

A second later, Craig’s HUD suddenly went blank, before briefly turning back on and then going blank once again.

“Uh, my HUD just went down,” Weddell stated in controlled alarm.

“Mine too,” Craig replied.

“We’re all down,” Wilson quickly realized. “We’re gonna have to open high and do it manually!”

Then, just as suddenly as they had flashed off, the HUDs came back online.

“I’m back up!” Craig shouted.

“Is everyone back up?” Wilson shouted.

Each member of the team confirmed.

“Okay! Then we stick to the original plan. Adjust to thirty-five degrees!”

Craig watched the time to opening tick down on his HUD. They were now only a minute away from their computer-controlled low opening. Their speed was slowing, but something didn’t feel right.

“Commander, have the onboard SOLO systems ever glitched like this before?” Craig asked.

“No. This is a first,” Wilson replied.

“Then I recommend we do a high manual—”

“Cut the chatter, Doc!” Wilson shouted. “Concentrate!”

The yellow dust covering the ground was closing in below them, its surface gleaming in the sunlight as it crawled like a yellow, living fog. The impact crater into which they were supposed to be touching down wasn’t visible.

A horrifying possibility suddenly reached into Craig’s skull and drummed its frozen fingers over his brain. The time readout was now below twenty seconds. “Oh no,” he whispered. “I’m taking command!” Craig suddenly shouted, nearly screaming in desperation. “Open your chutes now! Override! Override!”

“Belay that order!” Commander Wilson shouted back.

“Override! Override!”

Ten seconds...

“Follow protocol, SOLO!” Wilson screamed.

“The telemetry’s wrong! Open! Open!” Craig bellowed furiously. He opened his chute, the wind catching it hard as it unfurled, tugging him into a dramatic deceleration. The other members of his team fell away into the yellow dust, disappearing as though they’d been figments of his imagination.

Craig continued to float downward for several seconds, the yellow dust reaching upward to envelop his boots. “SOLO team, do you copy? Commander Wilson? Do you copy?”

The silence continued for a few seconds more before, finally, Weddell’s voice crackled through the interference. “Doc! Commander Wilson is...he’s dead, sir.”