Transcendent (9781311909442) (11 page)

“Historically we, as a race, have struggled
with misunderstanding and ignorance. This will put an end to that
as you all get to know one another and understand the value of your
fellow human beings.”

He paused to smile for effect and then
continued. “Finding a meaningful job and supporting yourself and
your family? That’s long been a worry for young people trying to
make their way in life. Our new way of living fixes that problem!
Just think, you don’t have to worry about finding a job and putting
food on your table! The system will take care of that for you. All
you have to do is find what you are good at and follow that dream.
Or, if you’re equally suited to multiple professions, you can
choose among them when the time comes and then follow that path in
life.”

Lily risked breaking form and glanced at her
peers around her. She was the only fourteen-year-old; the rest were
sixteen, like Palla, or older. They knew what they were going to do
with their lives. They’d either chosen or been suited for one
profession already. She was the only one who had no idea what was
out there to do, let alone whether she wanted to do it or not.

“Life’s not all about work without play,
though,” Ondalla said and earned a few smiles from the crowd. “We
have decided to change the format of how professional sports works.
Don’t worry, you’re not losing your favorite teams or sports. We’re
simply sanctioning them and taking away the preposterous excess and
waste built into the system. After all, if your job is to provide
something essential for the human race to survive and grow, why
should you receive less than someone who gets to play a game for a
living?”

Genuine cheering erupted from the crowd. He
held up his hands, bringing the low roar down so he could speak
again. “This is where I open up and speak as honestly as I can. I
can talk all day about how humanity is destined for greatness if we
just work together and put our society before ourselves. It sounds
good and the more you think about it, the more it wins people over.
But let’s be honest. We still have that nagging voice inside that
wants something more. Something we can take pride in. Something we
can invest ourselves and get excited about, even though maybe it’s
a little bit shocking. A little bit dangerous. Maybe even a little
bit sexy?”

Lily glanced at the crowd and saw that he’d
managed to pull them in with his teasing speech. Even she had been
suckered by his lowered voice and sense of friendliness.

The president turned and gestured at the
large display screen behind him. It flickered to life and showed a
life-sized view of a biomech. It was greeted with gasps from the
crowd and a few cries. Lily felt her chest tighten, preventing her
from breathing for a moment. It was just a picture, she reminded
herself. Not a robot about to gun down her friends and family.

“This is not the antiquated robotic defense
systems of days past. The military and private sectors alike
struggled for years to develop something long considered the realm
of science fiction—a mechanized humanoid fighting machine. What
they discovered was that it was too slow, too prone to breakdowns,
and too fragile to handle real combat situations.”

Ondalla paused and studied the crowd while
they, in turn, stared up at the figure on the screen. The biomech
began to move, walking at first and then even breaking into a jog.
The sound of each thudding footstep boomed from speakers in the
room.

The biomech raised the gun in its hand and
took sight at something off screen before it fired the massive
projectile from the cannon. A few moments later, wings deployed
from its back, stretching out until they were twice as wide as the
biomech was. It crouched and leapt up into the air while powerful
blasts of air were vented out of ports on its chest and back to
allow it to do a controlled hop of what appeared to be close to a
hundred meters. The crowd awed and gasped as it landed amid a cloud
of dust and debris that shook the camera. When it cleared, they saw
it standing among several other biomechs, each bearing varied
weaponry, paint schemes, and designs.

“These are not your grandfather’s robots,”
President Ondalla repeated. “These are biomechs, a combination of
technology and biology. Melding man and machine into a perfect
fighting unit. These units are deployed with our armed forces
throughout the solar system but the best of the best of our biomech
pilots will be invited to a new arena. An old sport enjoyed through
the ages with a new modern twist. Instead of gladiators fighting
lions, we will have biomechs pitted against biomechs!”

The crowd fell into a stunned silence that
was soon replaced as whispering spread between students. President
Ondalla turned to glance at Lily’s group, an eager grin on his
face, and then he turned back. “What you’re seeing is being
streamed from Earth, near the Mojave wasteland,” he announced.

He turned to the screen as the biomechs
faced off against each other. Each saluted, raising arms or weapons
in a show of respect, and then the battle began.

Lily’s gasp was drowned out by the cries of
others as the six biomechs fought one another. The sound of
gunshots and explosions washed over them, leaving everyone cowering
and staring in amazement. A few people, especially the younger
kids, cowered as the sounds brought back memories. Lily flinched
time and again with each explosion and clenched her fists at her
sides. She blinked repeatedly but couldn’t stop the tear from
rolling down her cheek.

Several minutes passed until a lone biomech
stood tall over the others. They were fallen and in various states
of disrepair. Limbs were broken or torn off and armor was rent and
gaping. Fluid stained the ground, though it was anybody’s guess if
it was organic or not. The survivor, the same biomech with the
wings they’d first seen, raised its remaining arm with its gun into
the air in salute to the camera.

“Wow!” President Ondalla said, his voice
jarring everyone out of their shock. “That was a show! But don’t
worry, the odds of one of the pilots being hurt is very slim.
They’re protected inside the bodies of these massive machines by
layers and layers of armor.”

People reclaimed their seats and their
positions, organizing themselves slowly while the president took a
moment. Lily stared at the surviving biomech and noticed hatches
opening on the fallen ones and allowing people to emerge. The
pilots looked shaken, to say the least. The picture went blank,
ending her speculation on the giant robots that had not yet
released their pilots.

“So we have education, a system to sustain
and advance ourselves through working in careers that we are suited
for, and we have entertainment. This is the future of humanity!”
President Ondalla raised his arms and was greeted with applause
that started out scattered and rough, but quickly grew until even
Lily’s skepticism had her thinking everyone was buying into it.

As the applause died, President Ondalla
turned to Lily’s group. “And now, to congratulate these special
young students who have excelled beyond the wildest expectations,
tell us your name and what you’re chosen path is. We’ll start at
the top, on the left.”

“Joss, science path,” the first boy, an
eighteen-year-old, said.

“Karin, technology path.”

“Ode, science path.”

“Palla, administration path.”

And so on it went until Lily was the only
one left. Tomas, on her right, had spoken, leaving it to her to
speak up.

President Ondalla spared her the agony.
“This, as most of you have already heard, is one of the newest
students here. Lily came from an agricultural colony on Venus and
has done some astonishing things in her short time here. We’re all
very excited to see how far she can climb, but as it stands, she is
only fourteen years old and among the top one percent among all
students. Looks like more than just good food is grown on Venus! So
Lily, tell us, do you have any idea what path you might like to go
for?”

Lily’s eyes widened and her lips parted.
He’d put her on the spot after all. She turned and stared at the
crowd and saw hundreds of faces looking back at her for something
amazing. She turned her head back to the president and then glanced
at the blank display on the wall. Several thoughts crashed through
her head in the span of time between her rapid heartbeats.

He wants people to keep their eyes on me?
Well, what better place than a spectacle admired and watched. She
lifted her chin and met his gaze while declaring, “I’m going to be
a biomech pilot who plays in the games.”

Krys used every bit of woodcraft he could
think of as he slipped through the forest. He’d spent veeks
training with Mig on top of spending as much time playing in the
woods as a kid. He leaned against a tree and pulled out his infopad
so he could watch through the picker’s camera. He’d piggybacked his
pad onto the control pad, allowing him to control it if he needed
to or at least watch what was going on.

Satisfied that she had it heading slowly
south and away, he tucked the pad against his lower back and leaned
around the tree. He saw movement through the trees and heard the
approaching sounds of trees being run over. Krys shook his head in
disgust. All the years spent terraforming Venus required massive
effort both in space to build the solar shield and on the planet
planting and growing forests and adding water from ice collected
deeper in the solar system. All the time and effort and now in the
span of a few hours, the forest was being run over and
flattened.

Krys waited and watched, keeping his eye out
for movement. He made out shadows and shapes in the forest but the
push towards him seemed to have stopped. They were following the
picker!

Krys pumped his hand in the air and started
to turn away. He stopped and glanced back. Could he learn more? He
rubbed his thumb across his lips, considering his options, and then
jerked his hand away and stared at it. He thought he’d stopped
doing that. With a scowl, Krys pulled the pad out and watched the
highpicker’s progress for a few more seconds.

“Wait a minute,” he mumbled. He glanced over
his shoulder and when he saw no movement, he looked back at the
pad. “How are you following it still?”

In manual mode, the highpicker would have a
mission. It wouldn’t need to send a heartbeat signal out. But
they’d turned and headed south, after it. Which meant… “They’re
tracking it another way!”

Krys turned back to face the hidden threat.
He licked his lips and spat out the flecks of dirt his thumb had
left behind. Scowling at the taste, he tucked the pad away and
started through the forest, slinking from one tree or bush to the
next. He didn’t stop for more than a few seconds to listen until he
almost stumbled out into the new swath of destruction cut through
the forest.

He stared across the six-meter wide path and
saw how the trees were smashed and both branches and trunks were
split and shredded. Some of the undergrowth had fared better, with
a few of the hardier types having the resiliency to pop back up
after being trampled. Nearly all of the ferns were crushed beyond
hope.

He turned his head to the left and saw the
soldiers and tanks less than two hundred meters away. They were
moving fast, too, plowing over the ground and trampling them. In a
matter of minutes, they’d break free of the edge of the forest and
be in open ground. And that meant they’d go faster.

Krys scowled and ducked back behind the
trees. If he was going to find anything, he had to hurry! He
grabbed the pad and held it tight in his hand while he ran through
the undergrowth. He dodged trees and bushes and tried to leap over
fallen limbs and other obstacles. It was only a matter of time
until the inevitable happened.

Krys’s foot landed after he hopped over a
black rock left over from a volcanic event and slid straight down
into a small ditch. A root caught the edge of his shoe and rolled
his ankle, and then sent the rest of him crashing to the ground
with the grace of a ripe coconut dropping from a tree. He grunted
when he hit and then hissed when he came to a stop and felt the
pain flare in his ankle and shoot up his leg.

He bit his lip and glanced around, trying to
see the clearing. He had to have made up a lot of ground on them,
but was it too much? Had they heard him? He put his hands down and
scooted across the ground on his butt to try to find some cover.
That’s what Mig had told him. Cover first, triage second.

Behind the trunk of another tree, Krys
looked at his foot and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He picked
his leg up and tried to rotate his ankle. The burning that ripped
up his leg and into his chest stole his breath. He clenched his
teeth together and sucked air in through his nose before leaning
back and looking around the tree. His fears were justified: he saw
two soldiers poking around at the edge of the man-made road and
looking for him.

Krys panicked and rolled away onto his hands
and knees. His toes dragged across the ground, bending his ankle
and sending another bolt of pain up his leg. He pushed it away and
started to scramble away as fast as he could across the forest
floor. He made it to the next tree and slid behind it before
leaning to the side and looking back.

“Over here!”

Krys watched as one of the soldiers stomped
through the brush and squatted down a few meters from where he’d
fallen. He stood up and held Krys’s infopad in his hand. “Check
this out—told you someone was here!”

The other soldier joined him and stared at
it. “That’s broken,” he said. “Could have been here a long
time.”

The man holding his pad turned it over in
his hand and looked at it. “Naw, flip to thermal—it’s still
warm.”