The Red Page 2

  My handler, Delphi, hasn’t said a word since we linked up at the fort, but the moment I break routine she speaks. “What have you got, Shelley?”

  I focus on the words “A feeling.” It’s a phrase I’ve practiced, so the skullcap picks it up easily and translates it for Delphi.

  She tells me what I already know: “The angel’s got nothing. I’m bringing it in for a closer look.”

  “They’re in the high ground,” I say in the softest of whispers, letting the helmet mic compensate for lack of volume.

  Delphi doesn’t like my “feelings” because she can’t explain them, but she’s been with me twice when I’ve sensed an imminent ambush, so she doesn’t argue.

  I tap into the angel’s infrared feed as it soars on silent wings high above the outcrop. I’m looking for bright points of heat, but I only see our soldiers and our dogs, scattered in an arc on the east side of the mound.

  One of our dogs, the cream-colored female we call Pearl, is two meters in front of me. Alerted by my posture, she’s standing still, testing the air with her nose. I hiss at her, urging her to move ahead. She trots forward willingly, but then she freezes just short of the mound. My helmet audio enhances her low growl.

  “Fuck,” Yafiah whispers over gen-com. “I want to launch a grenade up there.”

  So do I, but we can’t do it. If it’s just a farm kid out on a lark, we could all wind up in prison—and the only reason I’m in this uniform is because I desperately do not want to be in prison.

  “Easy,” I warn Yafiah.

  I wish I could put skullcaps on the dogs. Then I might be able to get an image of what they’re sensing. But the defense contractors refuse to outfit strays. They don’t want to get fined if the equipment gives false results, so they’ll only cap a dog if it’s specially bred and trained—and that kind of dog costs twice as much as a soldier. Our LCS isn’t authorized.

  I hiss at Pearl again, but she lowers her head and looks back at me, refusing to advance any farther.

  We’ll have to go in ourselves.

  I visualize an approach path: me and Yafiah moving directly in, Ransom circling around the back, and Dubey and Jaynie providing cover from opposite sides. Ransom picks it up and takes off fast, staying well back from the mound as he circles around it. Yafiah and I move in, until we have only thirty meters between us as we cautiously advance.

  “There it is, Shelley,” Delphi says in her businesslike voice. She sends me a still image, with a red circle around a faint heat signature she’s spotted in the rocks at the top of the mound.

  It’s just a gray spot. Its shape doesn’t tell me anything, but the thermal signature is a clue to the presence of a ghost soldier, partly camouflaged from the angel’s infrared sight by a hooded suit with a thermal coating.

  I shift back to angel sight. The heat signature is so repressed I can barely see it until the AI in the angel enhances the image. Then I can see it as a cocked arm, death clutched in its right hand.

  “Yafiah!” I shout. “Fall back!”

  Powered by her dead sister, she jumps backward four meters, dropping flat in a dense stand of tall grass. The dog, Pearl, whirls around and flees past me as I take aim with my M-CL1a. A glowing, golden point is moving across the screen of my visor. There’s no way I could see the grenade on my own, but my tactical AI, using data from the angel and from the helmet cams, has plotted its path for me. An open circle marks my aim. I align the circle with the point, fire a short burst, and drop flat as a concussion booms over my head and lightning flashes. I’m up again as soon as it passes. From the top of the mound an assault rifle chatters and then, his voice low and happy, Ransom says over gen-com, “That’s two for me, LT.”

  We’re not done yet.

  Delphi finds another ghost about twelve meters away from me, near the bottom of the mound. This one’s a gleaming, shapeless blur, much easier to see—probably just someone crouched under a worn-out thermal blanket.

  I close the distance, using my dead sister to bound in a crazy zigzag, the joints muttering and my pack creaking against the frame as I go. My target sees me coming. Maybe he panics. Maybe he’s just cocky. But he drops his thermal cover and shows himself. I’m all of twenty-three, but in the green glow of night vision he looks to me like a skinny teenage kid as he sights down the barrel of his assault rifle and starts firing.

  I’m moving fast. His first bullets don’t get anywhere near me, but he shifts his aim and closes the gap while I fire back. I aim from the hip, using the bead in my visor to get the right line. The trigger drops away from my finger as my tactical AI takes over. A single shot, and the kid flies backward, spinning half around before hitting the slope behind him.

  “Slam!” Ransom bellows over gen-com.

  “Check it out,” I warn him.

  “Don’t worry, LT, there’s no one left up top.”

  “Approaching,” Jaynie says.

  I spot her on my map. “Gotcha.”

  She walks out of the tall grass, her weapon aimed at the body of the kid, lying facedown, the back of his head blown out.

  “Signs?” I ask.

  “No. He’s dead.”

  She crouches beside the body and uses her arm hook to flip it over. There’s a bullet hole right between his eyes. “Shit, your AI is good.”

  I can’t feel it directly, but I know my skullcap is working, stimulating my brain to produce a soothing little cocktail, a mix of all-natural brain chemicals that puts an emotional distance between me and what just happened.

  I suck fortified water from a tube hooked to a bladder in my pack, while Jaynie searches the body. We’re particularly interested in written orders and data sticks. Up above, Ransom searches the two that he killed. I watch the feed from his helmet cam. Both are kids; only one has a thermal suit. That’s not a piece of equipment we want to leave lying around, so I send Dubey to help collect it, along with the weapons.

  Kids like these are not fighting for Ahab Matugo. He’s a modern, secular leader, and they hate him for it. They hate us too, of course. And they hate the people of this district, because those people put up with us. They’ve been indoctrinated in hate and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some DC is behind it, encouraging it, financing it, to make sure soldiers like us have something to do. Rumor is, Intelligence broke a similar scheme in Bolivia, but that investigation was iced to save corporate reputations.

  I call Yafiah. We whistle for the dogs, and together we make a sweep of the mound, confirming that no one’s still hiding.

  • • • •

  After we distribute the captured weapons between us, we move out, resuming the night’s assigned route. Just a few minutes later, the angel picks up a new presence. This one is riding a moped and isn’t trying to hide, so we get a quick ID.

  “Jalal the gravedigger,” Delphi says.

  “Did you call him?”

  “Checking . . . No. No notification was made. He’s come on his own initiative.”

  “I don’t like that much initiative.”

  Jalal is a local contractor. The army pays him to handle enemy bodies, but he receives notification of a job only after we are away from the vicinity.

  “Delphi, how does Jalal know we’re not the ones lying dead on the ground?”

  “He knows your rep, Shelley. But you’re authorized to conduct a field interview.”

  With a thought, I switch to gen-com. “Converge on my location. Leash the dogs on your way in.”

  Already I can hear the whine of his moped. Maybe he’s following the smell of gunpowder, or maybe he just reasoned from the direction of our gunfire that the mound was the most likely site of the battle.

  We take up positions in the grass, eight meters apart, crouched to reduce our profiles—because I don’t want to find out too late that Jalal has changed sides. The dogs lie quiet. They’re loyal to us. They know
where their next meal is coming from.

  I watch with angel sight as the moped draws near. Jalal is driving in the dark. Without using any lights, he’s weaving around trees and skirting the brush, pushing the moped at a fast clip. I don’t see any weapons on him, and the angel doesn’t indicate any, but he has a backpack.

  I creep through the trees, putting myself in a position to intercept him.

  The crunch of the tires is louder than the electric engine. When he’s almost on me, I step into the open. My HITR targets his face.

  He’s so startled he jerks the front tire of the moped. The bike skids and almost goes over. “Shelley! Goddamn!”

  Jalal’s eyes are veiled by the narrow, gleaming band of his farsights. It’s an easy guess that they’re capable of night vision, so I’m not surprised he can see me in the dark—but he can’t see through my visor, so how the hell does he know it’s me?

  Shit. I bet he’s got his own height and weight profiles.

  I say, “You got here quick.”

  He answers in a local dialect, which my helmet translates in its usual creative fashion. “I am going to the city. Leaving before sunrise. Need to do the job soonest. Right?”

  I eye his backpack. It could hold grenades or explosives. It’s more likely, though, that it holds shrouds.

  “You can’t take three bodies on that bike.”

  He blinks. Then frowns. “Three?”

  “Three.”

  “Okay, then. Long night for me.”

  “Delphi, send him the map.”

  There’s a glimmer in the screen of his farsights as the data comes in.

  “Thank you, Shelley.”

  He tries to get the bike going again, but I put the footplate of my dead sister against his front tire. “Tell me what’s going on. What have you heard?”

  The surface temperature of his cheeks and forehead jumps a notch. He glances around, trying to figure out where my soldiers are, but he can’t see them. When he speaks again, it’s in a whisper, though my helmet amplifies it, so it’s easy to hear. “Shelley, my uncle, he called my mama. He said twelve soldiers from the north likely coming the next night or two. Seen them at a neighbor farm. Don’t know the name.”

  “To the north?”

  “Yes. North. I don’t know more.”

  Twelve. No wonder Jalal is out here. He’s no fool. He’ll bag the bodies, bring them in, bury them long before dawn, and bill the army, and then he’ll get the hell out of here, because if the rumor is true there’s an excellent chance that when the insurgents come through, they’ll target him as a collaborator.

  “Work fast,” I advise him, taking my foot off the tire and stepping back, out of the way.

  “I will, Shelley. Thank you.”

  As he takes off, I imagine Intelligence engaged in a flurry of activity trying to locate a dozen rogue soldiers just north of our district.

  Until they find something, it’s not my problem.

  Delphi says, “Cleared to continue.”

  My people reappear. We let the dogs off their leashes and go on our way. No one else tries to kill us.

  We get back to the fort just as the last stars are fading in a velvety blue sky. The fort detects us, recognizes us, and opens the gate as we approach. The dogs run to drink water.

  I’m tired. We’re all tired, but no one talks about it. We clean the dead sisters and our weapons, then plug them into power racks in the bunk room. We restock the bladders in our packs with fortified water, getting them ready to go again. In the village cemetery, the sun will be rising over the fresh graves of three kids younger than I am, by years. I try to feel guilt, remorse, regret . . . but nothing’s there. Guidance makes sure of that.

  If robots were cheaper, we wouldn’t have to be here.

  • • • •

  There are only two shower stalls and two toilets. My house rule is that the less you get paid, the sooner you get to shower, so Dubey and Yafiah go first. “Five minutes!” I yell at them from the hallway.

  Yafiah yells something back. Her voice is muffled, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t Yes, sir.

  I step into the kitchen, pick up five aluminum bowls, and head outside.

  The sun isn’t quite up, so it’s only around ninety in the yard. When I open the door, the dogs are sprawled under their canvas canopy, but as soon as they see me, they’re up and swarming. I pop the tops on five cans of dog food, fill the bowls, and become god of the pack as I distribute the day’s rations. It takes them about thirty seconds to finish eating. I have my dad send us mange treatments, birth control pills, and pills to knock out their fleas and parasites; their food I buy from a local supplier. It’s all worth it.

  I take the bowls back in. Jaynie’s in the tactical operations center, still in her sweat-encrusted T-shirt and pants. She looks up and nods as I pass by. Command requires the TOC to be staffed at all times when we’re not wearing helmets.

  Dubey is already done in the shower. He crosses the hall ahead of me, wearing only shorts and his skullcap, disappearing into the bunk room. Ransom has taken over the empty shower stall, while Yafiah is still running water. “Hurry it up, sweetheart,” I yell at her.

  “I still got thirty seconds, LT.”

  She probably does. She’s pretty obsessive about things like that.

  “When you get out, go relieve the sergeant.”

  I wait for her disgruntled “Yes, sir,” and then I take the bowls into the kitchen. By the time I’ve got them washed, Jaynie is taking a shower, and the second stall is open.

  I pitch my clothes into the steam cleaner on top of everyone else’s—everything but the skullcap—and I start the load. I’m still wearing the skullcap when I step into the shower. A glance over the partition shows me that Jaynie is still wearing hers too. Good. We’re required to wear the skullcaps only when we’re rigged, but in a combat zone we’re allowed to wear them all the time if that’s what we want to do—and I would not trust an LCS soldier who didn’t want to.

  The skullcap is always working, whether Guidance is riding us or not. The handbook says the brain stimulation it provides is nonaddictive, but I think the handbook needs to be revised. The only time my skullcap comes off is during the ninety seconds in the shower when I have to wash my scalp with a depilatory.

  I let the many-times-recycled hot water run over me for almost a minute, working up to the moment. Then I draw a deep breath and slip the skullcap off.

  I start counting seconds to distract myself as I rinse it in the shower stream. It’s made of a silky fabric with an embedded microwire net, and it’s shaped like an athletic skullcap, so it covers from the forehead to the nape of the neck, without covering the ears.

  When my count reaches twenty, I hang it on a hook.

  I think I psych myself out. It doesn’t make sense that my mood can spiral so far downward in just a few seconds . . . but it does anyway. As I grab a shot of depilatory from the dispenser, a hollow black panicky despair is spawning inside my chest.

  I rub the depilatory over my head and over my face where a beard would grow if I let it, focusing on my count while hot water sluices over my shoulders. I count so I don’t have to think. At seventy, I tilt my head back under the stream, and at ninety I slip the cap back on, pressing it close to my freshly hairless scalp.

  I’m safe for another twenty-four hours.

  I hated wearing the cap during my initial LCS training—I felt like someone was always looking inside my head—but I don’t care anymore. I don’t have anything left to hide.

  Jaynie’s getting dressed when I step out of the shower. I look her over. She’s maybe five eight, lean, with small, pretty breasts already hidden under her T-shirt. Her skin is dark, but not as dark as Yafiah’s. Mine is brown. Dubey and Ransom are the palefaces around here.

  Jaynie looks up, notices my interest, and laughs. “That�
�ll go away soon,” she says as she steps into clean pants.

  “Shit. Sorry. You know how it is. First day’s always awkward.”

  “Been there,” she agrees, buttoning up.

  I turn away before I get myself in real trouble—but I’ve still got an image of her in my head.

  Lust is brain chemistry, but so is the way you feel about your sisters and brothers. You might love them, you might die for them, but unless you’re a twisted fuck, the last thing you want to do is have sex with your siblings. That’s incest revulsion, and though I’ve never seen it mentioned in a manual, every LCS soldier knows that Guidance has figured out how to mimic the sensation in our heads. It might take a day or two to kick in, but it always happens. We don’t live with other men and women, we live with brothers and sisters. I’m an only child, but since I’ve been in the linked combat squads I’ve learned what it’s like to have siblings. We are a celibate crew.

  • • • •

  I’ve been asleep maybe three hours when I hear Jaynie shouting from the hallway in her best sergeant’s voice: “Rise and shine, children!” She hammers on my door. “Command has a new game for us to play. It’s called patrol the road and you’ve got twenty minutes to get under way, so move !”

  Basic training isn’t all that far behind me. I’m on my feet and halfway into my pants before I remember who’s in command at our little fort. “What the hell is going on?”

  I button up and throw the door open, but Jaynie has already disappeared from the hallway. I can hear Ransom and Yafiah cursing in the bunk room across the hall. Not a word from Dubey, but I’m sure he’s up and getting rigged.

  The tactical operations center is next to my room. That’s where I find Jaynie. “What is it?” I ask, leaning in the door.