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| BACK to contents: Chapter thirteen | A brief introduction to J. Staute |
THE STORY SO FAR: Staute and his time traveling hosts have now happened upon a circa 2391 AD deep space relay station tied into one of the most infamous outlaw virtual realities ever created. As it appears they must contact a certain player deep within the artificial world for information critical to their journey, it is decided a covert infiltration of same is in order.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently ran across galleries of fantastic images by Layne Johnson and Jesse van Dijk (far better artists than me!) which look like they could have come out of the virtual gaming realm envisioned in this and related chapters. The Johnson links are Poxnora Illustrations, Concepts & Illustrations, and Sketches. Dijk's are to be found in this Portfolio, and include not only scenes which go well with the gaming environment described below, but some pics which seem to envision the futuristic eras I describe elsewhere in the novel, too. Check them all out for some jaw-dropping artwork! END NOTE.
Arbitur rigged up an immobilization booth for me to stay in during the trip, where I'd be mentally interfaced to the Sarum simulation very much like Wayar's victims were-- only with some safeguards not present on those other devices.
Riki of course needed no special place to stay. He wouldn't even have to restrict his physical activity onboard the Pagnew while accompanying me through Sarum. Instead, Riki merely made a copy of his intellect and personality to run in some spare memory space aboard the Pagnew and direct his virtual self as my companion in Sarum.
Heck, Riki could even romance Ling while I was busy if he wanted.
With Symantici-flavored direct link still fresh in my memories however what Riki and Ling did together didn't much matter to me.
Arbitur and Jorgon had decided it best to simply use actual knowledge of the Pagnew's technologies as templates for what we'd use in the simulation as time travelers. We even made out the specs for our fictional time trek to be identical to the real one, in regards to how far ahead of Wayar's Sarum techno-soldiers we'd be in our capabilities.
Our ruse wasn't actually much different from the way Wayar had written himself into the story. According to the Sarum script Wayar had arrived on the world in a great military invasion craft, sporting technologies far in advance of those on Vrr (the natives' name for their moon-sized planet), complete with a large army of deadly high tech troops and other relevant gear. Wayar had based the script particulars of his own imaginary ship's equipment on actual state-of-the-art war gear from his own Realtime. This gave him effective parity with even the most powerful virtual beings on Vrr-- and when desired he could tweak the program for a decisive edge over anything and anyone in his artificial world.
But Wayar had gone beyond this to script an even bigger second role for himself in the game. Namely, chief god. He accomplished this in the story line via various illusions enabled with his advanced technologies plus an occasional cheat tweak to the simulation itself.
So Wayar's playground was a place where he was the commander of a super-powered technological military force, who often presented himself to everyone in Sarum as the emperor god of all Vrr's other gods. This hadn't sat well with the original gods of the simulation, resulting in quite a few challenges to Wayar's rule early on, both one-on-one and attacks en mass. But after Wayar had dispatched a sufficient number of these open defiance of him had greatly diminished among the high altered (as the most powerful beings on Vrr were known).
However, this winnowing out of the ranks of the high altered had opened a window of opportunity for all the lesser powers on Vrr, including the plain mortal beings. Certain courageous leaders had arisen among these folks to encourage resistance against the heavy hand usually exerted upon all the weaker peoples by the stronger. This movement got a welcome boost from a small number of the surviving high altereds joining the cause.
This movement didn't specifically target Wayar's alter ego, the false god Sturme: but Wayar from the beginning considered it impertinent, and targeted the movement for special attention at times. Wayar delighted in especially tormenting the movement leaders and other high profile members, in one instance destroying an entire nation of mortals who defied all high altered who thought to enslave them.
So anyway, by scripting our own actual tech into the story as basically future versions of what Wayar was using (which was true), we were emulating part of Wayar's own practices, while at the same time giving ourselves an edge over most risks we were likely to face in the simulation, all without unnecessarily attracting excessive attention from monitors watching for anomalies in the software. As our sub-plot was designed to pose little more than an occasional nuisance to Wayar�s aims-- plus Wayar retained his exclusive advantage of cheating when he felt like it-- our tech advantage in the story would be unlikely to raise any flags among the administrative staff. Using our real tech info also saved us the trouble of brainstorming up all new fictional gizmos which might or might not be sufficiently self-consistent to be acceptable to the Sarum platform.
So long as we didn't get ourselves into direct conflict with Wayar himself, or cause him to order a change in the game rules which devastated our status, we would probably be OK.
One big annoyance of the trip was we couldn't just insert ourselves into the main story line of Sarum, but had to start from scratch, as it were. I.e., come in via one of the few formal entranceways allowed for new characters in the guidelines.
This basically meant we'd have to virtually ride a remote down from orbit to Vrr's surface. Agh!
The long fall
In Wayar's script the main planet that Vrr orbited was a gas giant, much like our own system's Jupiter. Only it wasn't pretty orange and red colors like ours. Instead, it was very dark and foreboding in appearance.
It looked like a giant ball of meat hanging in space, that had went bad.
You could almost smell it.
I did have to admit the simulation looked real as hell. Felt real, too. It'd be damn easy to forget you were really in something very like a dream.
Major peeve number one: I had to dream-ride down to Vrr hanging on to the railing of a remote, with every aspect of the long fall obscenely apparent around me. Ride it all the way down from orbit to the very ground.
Insert whatever expletives you want here. I felt this was highly freaking unnecessary.
Riki and I were on one remote, while another remote came along for contingency purposes. This extra remote was supposed to stay roughly halfway between us and the Pagnew and shift us back out when we were ready. In a hurry, if needed.
This arrangement would limit the range of the shifts involved, and cut down a lot on the capability of Wayar's make-believe sensors on his starship to detect or track us.
It was hard to believe we were going to all this trouble to get something out of a madman's fantasy.
Theoretically Riki and I were perfectly safe, even in these virtual forms. He in his near invulnerable robotic body and accompanying third skin buffer field, and me clothed in second, third, and fourth skins. Supposedly I was safe no matter what, according to Ling. She said if I fell off the remote it could do an emergency shift and transport me back onboard. Or, Riki would just send his own third skin field to bring me back. Or my third skin field would fly me back to the remote. Plus all this was just a simulation, after all. In the worst case scenario where I experienced something really disastrous which might be mentally traumatizing, I'd afterwards wake up back on the Pagnew-- at worst Wayar might get a copy of my personality to examine-- but he couldn't use it in his reincarnation machine, being as there'd be no physical mind around to drive it.
No way I could really fall towards the moon below.
No matter how real it looked.
But tell all that shit to your stomach and your legs, when you suddenly find yourself hundreds of miles above a world, and falling fast.
For some reason the normal mechanisms aboard the Pagnew which alleviated artificial gravity sickness didn�t quite work in this simulation.
And we couldn't even sit down on the damn remote! At least then maybe I could have imagined I was on a really wild amusement park ride or something.
But as it was, I had to be sedated.
My fourth skin woke me up only after we'd almost reached sea level. Virtual Riki told me all the monitor sensors on my body lit up like a Christmas tree (my expression, not his), so he had my fourth skin sedate me. He said otherwise I might have humiliated myself by attempting to soil my suit, or having a heart attack, or both. Note neither was really possible in an actual fourth skin-- as the suit would automatically and completely absorb eliminations for recycling, while putting me into a form of medical stasis and signaling the Pagnew for emergency shift back to the ship for added treatment-- but Riki felt the psychological trauma to me of finding out later what the suit had to do would be significant. So Riki had simply held onto both me and the remote as we descended and flew to the indicated spot. Hopefully I wouldn't have lost it that way, but I'm glad Riki took the precautions anyway.
I can't help it if I'm terrified of heights!
And yes, my suspension in the void against the Sol fleet had been somewhat similar: but something seemed very different in the fall towards Vrr from orbit. Maybe it was something about the method of Wayar's link, or something about the simulation itself, or just the knowledge we were falling here while before we'd been traveling to set points in space, with no visible cues of falling to accompany it-- I don't know. All I know was the fall at the beginning of this trip seemed pretty bad.
When I came to, we were flying horizontally rather than vertically, and at a much, much better altitude-- tree top level-- but we were moving way too fast.
*Twentieth century Earth must be very different from your time aboard the Pagnew, correct?*
Riki seemed like he was trying to make me feel better with small talk.
*Well, sure!* I joined in. Partly do to nervousness I think.
*I was under the impression the earlier centuries of humankind were much more dangerous and frightening than our own origin.*
*Why is that?* I was holding on to the rail of the remote with white-knuckled desperation stemming from our speed. Fortunately the suit automatically compensated to prevent me from unnecessarily damaging the rail with the suit's fantastically amplified strength. Our height was wonderful: if we'd been hovering in place I figured I might be able to break my fall with the trees and survive falling to the ground even with no future tech help at all. But the high speed we were now traveling meant you'd be pulped in a fall or collision unless you had major anti-bad insurance. Like a fourth skin.
*For many reasons; but primarily for the primitive technology and ignorance of much of the population.*
I didn't like him talking about my century-- my people!-- that way. But he was right about the ignorance. And the technology too, if you compared it to what he knew-- and actually was.
*Well, maybe we were pretty ignorant and primitive-- but if it weren't for us way back then doing something right, you wouldn't be here today!*
I felt triumphant; like I'd scored one for the home team. But Riki just had a blank look on his face. My ego deflated.
*What you say-- is true.*
Hey! maybe I'd scored after all!
*But I cannot avoid speculating as to what heights humankind could have reached, had they-- tried a bit harder in those earlier times--*
*Tried harder! What do you mean? We were advancing like hell for hundreds of years there!*
*Not quite. Humankind maintained the horrendously inefficient and toxic internal combustion motor as its main transport drive for well over two hundred years.*
*Wait! I thought we only began using cars around 1900-- so surely we didn't use them that long?*
*Internal combustion engines were still in use in significant quantities as late as 2165-- though by then they were well past being a primary motive source for your transportation systems.*
*But how? I thought we were supposed to run out of oil or something by then. Or the pollution would get so bad we'd have to stop.*
*No. The pollution problem did become substantial. But the disruptions of natural oil supplies were overcome by various substitutes, such as synthetics.*
*But wasn't that too expensive? I thought about buying synthetic oil for my car once, and it was something like $25 a quart!*
*Humankind had little choice after much of the Mideast oil fields were rendered inaccessible by radioactives.*
Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about that.
The sky of Vrr was overcast. Gravity seemed a little less than on the Pagnew, or Earth. I felt light and springy here, compared to onboard the ship. As my fourth skin suit was designed not to give the wearer such extra gratuitous slack in feedback-- even if lifting a locomotive-- this feeling had to be due to gravity differences.
Whoops! I forgot. I already forgot this was a dream, I wasn't wearing a fourth skin, and I wasn't on an alien world. This Sarum simulation was good!
Riki informed me we were getting close to our second milestone this trip: contact with Wayar's rebellious trooper.
Fighting in the Rain
*So that's him?* I asked.
*The data is somewhat corrupted. But this subject appears to be the closest match parameter-wise,* Riki replied.
In a small screen on my fourth skin faceplate I could see two small shapes flying madly through a heavy rainstorm ahead of us. It was obviously a very serious affair for those involved.
Our trooper was being pursued by a murderous robot, according to the sensor readings.
*At the present rate the organic will exhaust his flying capacity in less than three minutes,* Riki said calmly.
*And then the robot will kill him?*
*That is the goal of the device. The machine is a Class One Resigent. It has little other purpose for existence beyond killing. At Wayar's origin this class of Resigent was used almost exclusively as hunter-killers in war and especially dangerous criminal pursuits.*
*Can't you change its programming or something?*
*As the Resigent precedes by ninety-two years my own software class, I do possess some advantages by comparison. Under most circumstances I could wrest control from its current masters--*
*-- but not this time, I take it,* I broke in. *What's stopping you?* I didn't like the fact everyone had to play by Wayar's rules here. I itched to break one.
*The Resigent is locked in termination mode. In that state the mechanism's course is inaccessible by external means until the mission is completed or becomes logically impractical to finish.
*Monitors constantly check for any sign of tampering in this mode. If an invalid interrupt of the Resigent's currently running program is detected, the inorganic will instantly self-destruct.*
*Well, that's it then!* I exclaimed through the net, thinking I'd just had a brainstorm worthy of my first one way back in using merely the disintegration stage of transport to rid us of some incoming missiles. *Just start tampering with him Riki, and he'll blow up and everything will be hunky-dory!*
*Is it your intention to destroy the trooper as well?*
*No! Just the Resigent please.* Suddenly I liked this little adventure. It was like ordering from a menu in a restaurant. 'Destroy the robot assassin please, and save the victim. And bring us a doggie bag too, if you don't mind.' This was great!
Then Riki had to go and spoil it all with the facts.
*The Resigent's self destruct mechanism is of a nuclear nature. At such close range the organic would have no hope of survival. Or indeed, of anything beyond vaporization.*
*OK, OK. But we've got to do something. Our buddy there's going to be grounded in just another minute or so, and then be dead anyway. So...let's just concentrate on snatching him away from the Resigent.*
*How so?* Riki asked.
*What about doing it the same way you guys grabbed me? Just transport him?*
*The high atmospheric velocities and other factors involved make success highly improbable with the equipment currently at our disposal. Our remote's shifting range is reduced substantially in atmosphere as compared to vacuum. And without contact with another remote on-world, we simply cannot shift him in any surface-to-surface transport.*
*But what about the remote we left between us and the Pagnew? We could shift him there, couldn't we? Out of harm's way?*
*Jerry, you speak of a remote to be used for our own emergency extraction, due to the energy signatures involved likely being detectable by Wayar's equipment. That's why we didn't simply send an unmanned remote down first and then shift ourselves. Our mission would end immediately in failure if we followed your course. Even if such detection did not occur, there are multiple other flaws with your suggestion.*
*Oh, Well, never mind then.*
A digital readout appeared on my screen, underneath the death chase blips. The trooper had an estimated 45 seconds left to burn out, at which time he would begin tumbling to the ground.
We had to do something!
*Riki, how close are we to him now?*
*One point three miles�* Riki was using my own native units of measurement to converse in, God bless him�*�The Resigent must have detected us by now, despite our signal dispersion efforts. Resigents of this time possessed very keen scanners.*
I could see dark clouds ahead, and hear loud peals of thunder through the pass-through sensor arrays of the fourth skin. But there was no rain hitting us yet.
*Riki, push the remote's engine into overload. We've got to get closer.*
If we burned up the remote�s propulsion the unit would be stranded here, making our later exit from Vrr quite a bit more difficult. Or at least harder to conceal. But without this trooper our mission was finished anyway.
*Done.* Riki replied.
14...13...12...11...the readout was ticking away. Rain began pelting us hard. I couldn't actually feel it through the suit, but the force was evident as the forward momentum of Riki, me, and the remote were all significantly reduced by impact. It was like a semi-solid wall at the speed we were traveling.
I had to switch completely over to virtual view. The transparent window on my fourth skin was awash in chaotic rain strike patterns and drainage.
But the virtual view would have been better than a clear day anyway.
A slight vibration seemed to be developing in the remote. I dismissed it for now.
*Riki, where is he?*
*Almost directly above us now.* He faced heavenward in an action no unprotected human would ever have done under conditions of wind and rain like this. He blinked frequently to clear the rain from his eyes, but clearly the stinging impacts and airspeed affected him not one bit.
*Do you think we can catch him as he falls?* I asked.
*No. We are not close enough.*
*Then what are we doing?* We suddenly lurched downward. And my stomach got queasy again.
*I am dispatching my buffer field to the plotted impact area. With their own thrust, an assumed aerodynamically compact shape, and the additional velocity of the remote, the field may serve to break the fall of the organic. It will be a near thing, however.*
2...1...0...the readout ran out. Somewhere above us, the trooper was now tumbling uncontrollably through the sky.
With death both below and above him.
The remote lurched again just the tiniest bit as Riki launched his buffer field. The swarm of tiny robots had solidified into a shape something like a curiously rough-surfaced and elongated spearhead about two feet long and maybe an average of an inch thick. They were quickly out of sight in the downpour.
*Umm...Riki?*
*Yes?*
*What about the Resigent?*
*You refer to its status?*
*Ummm-- yeah, kind of. But mainly I'm wondering what you're planning to do about him.*
*We shall confront him as the buffer field moves the soldier to safety.*
*OK.* That made sense, except for one thing: a Resigent was designed to kill things in confrontations, wasn't it?
*Ahh, what do you want me to do Riki?* I wanted some directions, fast. The time for action was almost upon us, and I had no idea what to do.
*Only follow your usual serendipitous behavior patterns.* Riki said cryptically. What the hell did that mean?
Now Riki was directing the remote upwards. I didn't see any sign of the trooper. Where was he? If I'd been better acquainted with suit controls I wouldn't have lost track of him this way. Yeah, yeah, Ling and company had given me lots of instruction and all, plus I'd been in a suit before. But it was still a complicated gadget!
In another moment I began to hope we�d encounter the Resigent soon, because we were getting awfully high again. What if the Resigent damaged us and we fell?
*Brace yourself, Jerry,* was all Riki said in warning.
*Wha--* was all I got out, before we hit.
In an instant, everything changed.
I was falling. And scared shitless.
But then I slowed down, and stopped. My third skin was holding me up.
I twisted around in the air, instinctively trying to grab onto something. But there was nothing around.
In a few seconds I'd calmed down a bit. It felt like I was suspended on a string. Only a very long string. A string several thousand feet long, and anchored far above my head. All in a rainstorm. I had to fight to concentrate on anything besides my immediate and unnatural suspension in midair. It helped that I was no longer falling.
One thing. I had to concentrate on just one thing, and ignore everything else.
One thing at a time.
Riki. Riki was talking to me. Over the net. In my panic I'd been oblivious to his call.
Riki was in trouble.
*-- immediately. Please respond. I need your help immediately. Jerry, please assist. I need your help immediately--*
*Where are you?* I asked.
*-- Please respond. I need your help immediately. Jerry, please assist. I need your help immediately--*
The message was just repeating mindlessly. What did that mean? Riki didn't respond to my replies. I had to find him on my own.
The main controls to my gear were inside my head. In the shush net node. I wasn't an expert with it all, but I had learned a few things so far.
I needed a-- a-- three dimensional picture of me and Riki, so I could see where to go. A three dimensional picture of me and Riki...
I could see it now. I was floating like an idiot near the bottom of the scene. Two other figures were struggling quite a ways above me, and to my...it was taking me a moment to get oriented... to my right.
One of the figures was larger than the other, and appeared to have-- wings?
That must be the Resigent, I figured.
Now I had to get up there!
Movement...there it was! I couldn't feel it, but I could see my progress in the image. I had to make a few corrections...damn! There was no way I could heroically smash into the Resigent to help Riki. I'd get going too fast, and miss. All I could do was slowly float up to them, constantly correcting my approach as I neared them, with calls to my third skin maneuvering me upwards.
Suddenly I crossed some sort of proximity threshold and had a much better visual of Riki and the Resigent on my virtual screen. But I still kept the 3D view active in my head too, just in case.
Riki was apparently holding on for dear life, as the Resigent attempted to dislodge him. Our remote was nowhere in sight.
Then I remembered Riki had sent his buffer field to help the trooper. And he needed that field to fly! No wonder he was holding on so desperately!
But that still didn't explain why he wouldn't answer me on the net.
I drifted up nearer. I could see that the Resigent knew I was there. Damn, but he was a mean looking thing. Pretty much like a demon constructed from stainless steel.
The Resigent looked like an over-grown and over-muscled armored humanoid razor blade: sharp edges conceptually sliced the air all around him. His menacing looking wings didn't make him any prettier.
Whoa! Suddenly I was hurtling uncontrollably through the air. I panicked. What was happening, goddamn it!? I'd been under perfect control just seconds before!
Then I was hit by an earthquake. Or an air-quake? It almost hurt, even inside my suit. I began slowing down, and trying to find out from my readouts what was happening.
My suit was trying to tell me something, but damned if I knew what it was (I learned later my suit took automatic evasive action from the Resigent firing at me.)
I looked to my location view again, and started navigating my way back to Riki once more. Goddamn it! Riki was dying and all I could do was poke along! And worse, somehow I was screwing up and flying off into the wild blue yonder too! Goddamn it to hell!
I had to concentrate. I had to do better.
Wasn't there some better way to run this flying gizmo? I wanted something automatic....automatic....yes, there was something. I delved a bit deeper into that option. Defense mode....attack mode. I definitely wanted attack mode. But there was more to it...percentages? There were two major values here, and they seemed to balance out one another. Boost one up and the other fell. I didn't have time for this crap! One hundred percent attack mode. Zero percent defense mode. That was good, wasn't it? Target? The Resigent. I was starting to get excited, as the suit seemed to have something built-in to help me here.
Egads! Almost all my readouts had changed to an entirely different format! I'd never seen that before. I was going to need some help figuring this out...Professor Bryans appeared.
I remembered then that he was supposed to be my diagnostics help agent.
*Hello, Gerald. How may I help you today?* This was the first time I'd called up Professor Bryans since Ling explained him to me.
*Umm, Professor Bryans, I think I'm going to need help running this suit.*
*Of course. And what is the problem?*
*Umm...well...there's a Resigent ahead of us that's got Riki, and...I need to destroy it, somehow.* Gosh, it felt weird discussing this with my college professor! What would the real him think of all this if he could see it now?
*Ahh! You have defined the problem! That is always the first step to solving it. Now then, you appear to have already set the basic parameters...but you have neglected others. As you are a novice at this Jerry, you should activate anticipatory mode and set all power level values at maximum.* The Professor pointed out the proper controls in my head, and I did as he directed.
*Now Jerry, adjust sensory resistance levels to maximum, and make all indicators empathetic.* I didn't quite understand that, but did it anyway by following where he pointed and waved.
*Professor Bryans, I need to hurry! What else?*
*Define Riki as subordinate ally here (the Prof high-lighted the appropriate control), and put your finder on automatic.* I did so.
*Come on Professor Bryans! Is that it?*
One last item: reset your defense mode to 30%. Zero is much too low, except for kamikaze attacks perhaps.* I did it.
*Please Professor! Is that it?*
*Yes. The attack will begin with your command 'action'.*
*Action, already!* I simultaneously voiced both verbally and through my node.
Suddenly I was more spectator than combatant. The suit was making all the movements; I was only filler material.
I zoomed up past the Resigent for some reason, getting a brief glimpse of Riki. Something looked wrong with one of his legs. But he was still there at least.
Something shook me slightly, as I lost sight of the Resigent.
My two views of the entire scene began both changing so fast I couldn't understand what was happening. There was obviously a lot going on.
I began undergoing increasingly violent maneuvers. It reminded me of when I went to the Tennessee fair at around maybe twelve years of age and rode something called the Rocket Planes, for the first-- and last-- time. For years afterwards I had always told everyone that the other guy in the ride car had been stark raving mad, because of the extreme violence he had subjected us both to on that ride. The Planes you see somehow allowed riders to direct their movements at will, and I evidently got on with someone obsessed with the thing. Or else had a death-wish. Which amounted to the same thing, I suppose.
It had been one of the scariest moments in my life up to that point. And I'd made a mental note, with many exclamation points after it, to never ever ever ride those things again.
But now here I was on those damn Rocket Planes once more. And, like before, all I could do was hold on for dear life and try to swallow back my puke as it inexorably inched its way up my throat.
I kept telling myself that it couldn't last much longer; that something would have to give.
I tried to think only good thoughts. I thought about how I was in a hell of a mean suit, 92 years advanced over any old Resigent-- so it would handle the damn thing easy.
But it didn't feel like the battle was any pushover from inside the suit.
I wondered if poor Riki was catching hell out there. So far I was snug as a bug in my suit, except for the bile crawling up my throat, and all the wild thrashing about. And the sometimes terrifying close-up glimpses of the Resigent I caught in my view screens.
The taste in my mouth was absolutely, positively awful. It seemed like puke made from future food tasted a lot worse than puke made from the old fashioned stuff.
But somehow I was still holding it back-- or most of it anyway.
Whoa! A very abrupt maneuver caught me by surprise, and I accidentally let go a mouthful of the stuff into the face area of my suit.
Great. Now I had to look at the shit too, as well as taste it. Uuaaghhhh! Inspired by the smaller eruption before-- as well as my on-going acrobatics-- a whole fresh quart of the stuff enveloped my face, blinding me in the suit.
I could no longer see anything at all.
Damn! The smell was unholy. I began holding my breath to stave off the inevitable: still more of the stuff. Like misery, vomit loved company.
But I knew all this couldn't last much longer.
Whumph! I'd apparently hit something. Or caught something? The suit had my arms crooked in front of me, as if I was carrying something.
Of course, all I could see on the view in my face readouts was multi-colored, partially digested food. And I didn't have enough extra concentration capacity to look at my mental view on the net. I was too pre-occupied with the stench coating my entire face, and the imminent further emptying of my innards that was sure to follow. I badly wished I could open my face plate and at least wipe the junk away from my eyes.
I was mainly busy focusing any extra energy I had on praying to God for it all to stop soon.
Finally, I began to slow down.
I hoped this wasn't just a lull in the game. I was ready to call it a night already-- even if it was nowhere near dark.
I felt like shit.
Wonder of wonders, my feet touched ground! Or something that felt like it anyway. The mess in front of my face began disappearing like magic, and the air was turning sweet again. Yay! Relief!
A strange sensation sort of nudged my lips apart slightly, which surprised me. For a second I thought a bug or something had found its way into my suit with me. I strained to look below my nose and see what the hell it was, but I couldn't manage it.
I felt something weird going on in my mouth. And could feel something warm and slimy flowing over my lower lip, down my chin, and seemingly into the material of my fourth skin! It felt and smelled like puke.
But I wasn't throwing up any more! For a moment I was baffled. The vomit seemed to have come alive! I instinctively tried clamping my lips shut to stop whatever it was, but the action continued without skipping a beat, slipping and sliding right between my straining lips.
Then the smell just went away. And what remained in my mouth just slurped right out, of its own accord.
Now my mouth tasted great! Somehow the suit had cleaned me up automatically!
All I could figure was that somehow the ultra thin second skin which covered me from head to toe was able to work in concert with the heavier fourth skin I was now wearing, to keep me in optimum condition.
The puke on my readouts had also been cleaned up. This was freaking great!
Then things began notifying me that the suit was standing down from automatic attack mode.
I figured everything must be OK now.
Then I collapsed.
It was embarrassing. When the suit gave up automatic control I was supposed to take over again, but I didn't realize it. So when suit control went, I didn't take over the function of keeping my legs standing straight and they buckled, putting me on the ground. As well as Riki, who happened to be in my arms.
Actually, I kind of fell onto Riki, in a way-- because I fell both down and forward.
Riki appeared to be in rough shape. I hoped I hadn't made it worse.
*Uhh-- sorry, Riki. I didn't mean to fall on you,* I stammered over the net. *Are you OK?* I asked, like an idiot.
"Ag-ag-ag-ag-ag-ag-ag" he said. Verbally. Yikes! This was definitely not a good sign.
*Uh, what? I can't understand you.* Goddamn. I hoped he hadn't been brain damaged or something. Could nano eyes be brain damaged?
Idiot. Of course they could!
"Ag-ag-ag-ag," he replied.
It was obvious that Riki's vocals were messed up. But why wasn't he actively talking to me over the net instead, anyway?
*Riki?* I tried over the net again. This time with a demand protocol I'd learned in my recent training sessions. You could force someone else's node to at least acknowledge the transmission even if you couldn't get anything else from it. That was basically the lowest level diagnostic somebody as new as I was to the net could perform on someone else's node.
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS* went Riki's node on the net. Loudly.
Well! Riki was screwed up really bad, according to what I could recall about such contingencies. Uh oh. I remembered the Resigent. Had the suit destroyed him? If not, we might still be in danger. I looked at Riki, but he appeared oblivious. I had to ask the suit, somehow.
*Professor Bryans?* I asked my node.
*Yes, Gerald?*
*What is the status of the Resigent I attacked? How do I find out?*
*Access the command 'target one status'. It always retains the data concerning your last target, until you clear it to begin another task.*
*Thanks, Professor.*
*You're welcome Jerry.* Professor Bryans obligingly vanished.
Target one status. Ahh, there it was. Oh. OK. It looked like the suit had damaged the Resigent enough so that it had turned tail and returned to base. Damn. I'd hoped I'd killed it. All that damn acrobatic shit I'd gone through, and I hadn't even killed it.
Damn.
Well, now it was time to attend to Riki. But how?
I needed help again.
*Professor Bryans?*
*Yes, Gerald?* The Prof reappeared before my mind's eye again. Not in the least annoyed that I kept calling upon him.
*Professor, I'm having trouble talking to Riki. He appears damaged.*
*Ahh yes. I see. You have already tried the normal channels--*
*Yeah.*
*It would likely be advantageous to link your fourth skin to Riki, in diagnostic and repair mode.*
*How do I do that?*
*You must remove the skin, and install it upon Riki.*
I didn't like the sound of that. Removing the suit would make me very vulnerable in this place. The crew had emphasized that Sarum was dangerous. Plus, also on recommendations from the crew, I was very nearly naked inside it.
Basically wearing any underwear interfered with some very important suit functions wherever it was going to be worn non-stop for a lengthy period of time.
But I still wasn't used to this draconian underwear ban of the 25th century. So I'd insisted they whip me up some sort of minimal underwear anyway.
There was considerable resistance and argument over it. And I surely wasn't happy with what I finally got when the others relented. But at least it was better than nothing I figured.
Now though, I wasn't so sure.
*Uh, Professor?*
*Yes?*
*Is it really necessary for me to remove the fourth skin? I mean, mightn't it be dangerous for me to do that right now?*
*It would be more dangerous for you not to. Riki is your most valuable external asset on Sarum, Gerald. He possesses a summarized archive of its known history in his memory, as well as a great capacity for helping you in other ways. As you seem in no imminent danger at the moment, I suggest that you allow the fourth skin intelligence and functions to aid in his repair forthwith!*
Professor Bryans seemed more like himself with each passing moment. His statements were becoming imperious.
*OK, OK*, I grumbled.
I had the suit off me, and onto Riki, in only a moment; it was easy, as the suit did most of the work.
But I shivered in my near-nakedness. Removal of the suit has reduced my attire to nothing more than something resembling a spray-on band around my most private areas. Skimpier than the skimpiest men's swimwear I'd ever personally seen. It didn't conform to every single contour of me, but it sure didn't lack much. At least the crew had let the front be solid. But they'd made me have a gaping hole in the rear. Why? They said my fourth skin in combo with the nanotech underwear could take care of urine flow reasonably well through the front and bottom of a visibly solid surface. But eliminations through the back would be another matter. They were adamant that there'd just be too many problems having a solid back on the things.
Plus they'd assured me I'd always have the fourth skin between me and the great outdoors, anyway.
And here we were, in Vrr for no time at all, and I was standing here with my ass hanging out in the woods.
I tried to remind myself this was just a high tech hallucination, but it felt real as hell.
It doesn't much matter how certain you are about the falsity of a hallucination: if all your senses tell you it's real, it is.
Though the rain had slowed to a sprinkling, it still left me increasingly wet and cold. Despite the mess in my head gear only moments before, the wetness from the rain seemed very strange to me. I hadn't had a shower in weeks, by this time. This was real water here. At least so far as my senses were concerned. But it didn't feel normal. It felt...slimy. And seemed to burn my eyes a little bit. Even through the second skin, apparently.
I was surprised to hear a new voice speak inside my head.
It was the fourth skin itself! Identifying Riki, it seemed.
*Entity Riki. Nano eye, fifth class. Identity code four, three, two, six, six, four, of the Gednaff production run. 34.456 percent of current contract served.
Current Status; damaged; under repair.*
*Riki?* I asked.
*Communications with entity Riki being rerouted, due to damage. Resumption estimated to occur in twelve point two minutes.*
Well, at least he was getting fixed. But I didn't much like being without the fourth skin in this place. Or cold, wet, and basically naked just about anywhere.
Luckily, the rain stopped within only a few minutes. If I'd waited a bit to disrobe, I wouldn't even have gotten wet! Well, but for my feet, I guessed.
It seemed I was an expert in bad timing.
My third skin was now hovering like a cloud of dimness around us. I could just barely tell it was there, as its elements were so small, and so silent. In fact, their presence seemed to deaden sound in the vicinity just a bit. But they were always feeding immense sensory data to my node.
I was wondering what to do next. Riki was out of it, at least for a little while. And I was standing here all but naked, nervous, and freezing. But the third skin told me there was no danger to me at the moment.
Then I remembered the trooper. Had he survived the fall? Riki had said that his third skin was to take him to safety.
Riki would expect me to do something about the soldier, while he was incapacitated. But what? I didn't even know where he was. I looked around us.
We were in a tiny clearing in some woods. It was only about twenty feet or so in diameter. The suit had chosen it.
Something was trying to get my attention at my node. I focused on it.
It was someone calling to me.
*Yes? Ling?* I hoped. Maybe the crew had seen my pedicament and reconsidered their anti-underwear stance, and would send me a jumpsuit or something despite the severe constraints on shifts we were supposed to be following. *Negative.*
I was puzzled. Who else could be calling me?
*Who is this?*
*Entity Rashad. Nano eye, ninth class. Identity code three, three, three, six, two, four, five, nine, one, three, eight, six, two, of the Smithyworks production run. 12.653 percent of current contract served.*
*What the hell?* Who or what was this? My fourth skin talking again? No, it wasn't that. Where the hell was another nano eye at in this place?
*Entity Rashad. Nano eye, ninth class. Identity code three, three, three--*
Whatever it was, it was just repeating the original message in response to my question.
*Stop!*
Silence. What was going on here?
*Who is--* I began. And then thought it better to rephrase my query.
*Is this my fourth skin?*
*Negative.*
*Is this my third skin?* I asked, somewhat incredulously, eyeing the dimness surrounding me. Surely that flying robotic micro-gnat field couldn't talk, could it? Up to now I'd only ever received data indirectly from third skin buffer fields. But who else could it be? And besides, I hadn't known that my fourth skin could speak, until just moments before. So maybe I was learning even more here.
*Negative to possessive adjective.*
Now what the hell did that mean? 'Negative to possessive adjective'? No to possessive adjective?
Possessive adjective was a term denoting a kind of grammar. The voice was saying no to part of my grammar? No to only part of what I'd said? I'd asked if it was my third skin. Possessive adjective. An adjective was a descriptive word, according to my memory of English class. And possessive denoted something as being owned by something else. 'My third skin'. Was 'my' the possessive adjective? So could I be talking to a third skin, but not my third skin? But there were no other third skins! Wait! Yes, there was. Riki's third skin! He'd sent it to collect the trooper earlier! Maybe I was talking to Riki's third skin!
*Hello?*
*Standing by.*
*Are you Riki's third skin?*
*Affirmative.*
Bingo!
*Where are you?*
An incomprehensible babble about longitude and latitude was the skin's response.
*No, no, no!* I interrupted. *I mean, where are you, relative to me, in...feet. And direction.*
There was a brief silence.
*Four hundred sixty two point three five feet in distance, due north west from your present location.*
I turned around, and realized I didn't know which way that was. Surely my suit did. But Riki was wearing it. *Have you got the trooper?*
*The target was intercepted.*
*Is he all right?*
*The target's status is acceptable. Aid is required.*
*Is he hurt?*
*Aid is required to prevent loss.*
Damn! He must be hurt, all right. And here I was with a damaged android, and bare ass to the wind. In a decidedly dangerous place. Well, something had to be done. If nothing else, we all needed to be brought together into one group.
*Rashad?* I hoped I�d remembered the name correctly. I'd never been good with names.
*Standing by.*
*Can you bring the trooper here? To me?*
*Negative.*
*Why not?*
*Aid is required.*
Damn! Well, nothing else to do but go get him.
*Rashad, can you guide me to your position?*
*Affirmative. Longitude--*
*No! I mean...ummm...tell me when I'm getting closer to you, or farther away. I'm going to-- come meet you.*
*Please clarify.*
*Ummm...just-- just tell me when I'm getting closer, by saying 'warmer', and if I start getting farther away, say 'colder'.*
Yeah, yeah, I know. I was falling back on a child's game. But I wasn't fluent in that longitude stuff, and besides, four hundred feet wasn't that far anyway. It wasn't like I could get lost that easy, was it?
*Affirmative.* Rashad answered me, somewhat ominously punctuating my last thought. I started moving.
At Rashad's directions I made my way to the captured trooper. All the while trying to notice and memorize landmarks with which to guide my way back if necessary. I wasn't completely inexperienced in the woods.
Nearly five hundred feet in dense woods is a bit further than you might think though-- especially when you've got a draft up your back side reminding you all the while of your exposure.
As I began my trek, I remembered there were people somewhere in this place. The thought made me self-conscious, despite the distraction of my goose bumps and shivering from the cold.
Every few seconds I stopped to survey my surroundings and listen, figuring any second to see some peasant guy with an astonished look on his face. 'Hey Gertrude! I found me a pervert out here! Call the sheriff!'.
The relentless dripping of water from the trees to the ground didn't help matters. It made for a high level of ambient noise, which would make it difficult to detect anyone approaching.
At least the rain had softened the ground cover for my bare feet though. Sticks still jabbed at me, it was cold and clammy, and my toes stubbed on a hidden root or rock a few times, but things could have been much worse. Plus, the wet ground and general noise level muffled the sound of my own movements too, in case others were nearby to hear them.
The foliage was a pretty significant obstacle in itself. There were felled trees to detour around or step over. I scratched my ankle when my foot went through a rotten log as I stepped on it. Yuck! I ran into some thorns before I saw them, and came way too close to blundering into a huge spider's web, almost three feet across. I only saw it at the last moment because it was glistening with rain droplets. Basically being barefoot and an awful tender foot from near 20 years of steady shoe use, I felt forced to closely examine the ground ahead of each step-- hence not noticing the web until the last moment. The second skin helped a little more than I expected there-- but it was nowhere as good as a real 20th century shoe. Or even a flip flop. Luckily, there was no sign of the web-builder-- from the looks of the web it surely couldn't have been smaller than my hand. Triple yuck!
Oh man. Dogs. What if there was a damn dog around here someplace? Some farmer's dog, who'd delight in mangling some poor virtually naked time traveler he caught out here? I hadn't been too happy with my dog encounters in the woods even fully clothed, and on my home planet-- I sure didn't look forward to any here.
I tried to comfort myself with the notion my third skin hovering around me afforded some protection from such things. But only wearing something like thick paint with a cloud of near invisible gnats as your only protection doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Now all the noise from the rain dripping out of the trees sounded like the distant approach of dogs. Goddamn it.
I guess if I hadn't had the occasional directional correction from Riki's third skin coming in over my node, I'd have been even more paranoid.
About this time I heard intermittent thrashing in the woods. Some sort of turmoil was occuring up ahead. I hesitated for a moment, then continued my advance. For this was supposed to be from where Riki's third skin was broadcasting.
The trooper came into sight. He was definitely conscious. And strenuously fighting with the third skin which was trying to hold him. He was trying to crawl away, but the cloud was interfering with his every movement.
So this was what the third skin meant about aid being required. Apparently the third skin alone couldn't hold the guy very well. But why? Those third skins were pretty stout in their own right!
I now had a far better view of the trooper than I'd had from a distance. The soldier appeared to be wearing some odd looking, over-sized clothing. Some sort of armor, actually. It looked pretty slick, despite the fact it was obviously damaged and dirty. The trooper looked like some sort of comic book hero come to life in that get up.
|
*Hey!* I yelled, as I came nearer. Man, was that ever a mistake. The trooper was suddenly all over me. He moved like freaking lightning! I'd still been a dozen yards away when I yelled. But somehow he'd covered that in about a second. *Goddamn! Stop! I'm a friend!* I was screaming at him. The air between us wavered in a strange way, sort of like the illusion produced by heat coming off a hot highway. I felt impacts, but they were diffused, much as if I was being pelted really hard by pillows. Still, there was sufficient force in the blows to knock me to the ground. The trooper was trying to kill me! Thankfully my own third skin, combined with Riki's, managed to drag him off of me. But just barely. The wavering air between us had been the two third skins shielding me from the worst of the impacts, even as they struggled to contain the stranger. The trooper was yelling something. My node was picking it up. But it made no sense. It wasn't English. In another second though my node informed me it was native Realtime Swedish, and began translating it 'on-the-fly' for me. Apparently my fourth skin still attending to Riki was able to help with the translation too, over the net. There was a bit of a delay though. I wondered why he was speaking in Swedish, and my node produced a mini-report about it. That was nifty! I found out later though that I'd sort of accidentally commanded it to do so. It turned out that Wayar had often kidnapped folks in whole communal groups at once for his simulation. All the members of each group usually spoke the same language. To save time and trouble Wayar's brainwashing avoided deleting their language skills. So the folks continued to speak or think in their original language while hooked into the virtual world. Even though they might not know what language it was anymore in relation to the real world. |
 Above can be seen one configuration of trooper battle-suit among Wayar's forces. This particular scene depicts a trooper coping with one of the altered beings in the game, such as a wizard. |
Of course different groups of the abducted possessed different languages. But Wayar's software translated everything between them transparently where needed. So two participants, one thinking in Japanese and the other in Swedish, wouldn't even know they were using different languages unless it suited the master program for it to be so.
Something else the Vrr program strived to do was determine those roles most closely related interaction-wise with one another, and place into them as many people of the same native language as possible, in order to cut down on processing overhead. Ergo, everyone living at length in the same little village might all consist in real life of a group of kidnapped Germans or something. Individuals who may have known one another prior to their mass abduction and brainwashing.
Apparently our own little portion of the play here dipped in and out of a group of folks of Swedish descent. No matter what their game roles happened to be.
And our only partial immersion in the game allowed us to see what the true languages of the participants happened to be, as we encountered them.
While browsing through this new information it seemed to me that something similar might be true of names here. I mean, I'm no expert on Swedish, but I now beheld a long list of Swedish-looking names in the database about the local vicinity and period....
It turned out the trooper's monologue was a very colorful stream of curse words.
The trooper finally stopped struggling and just lay on the ground, breathing heavily. Glaring in my direction. I couldn't see his features very clearly because his head was encased in a futuristic armored helmet.
Some sort of window existed over his face, but you couldn't discern much through it.
*Hey, man,* I began, *We just saved you from a Resigent. Is this any way to thank us?*
More profanity filled the air.
*OK, if that's how you want it, we'll just call back the Resigent and let him have you.* I sent a mental command to the two third skins, and they lifted the trooper off the ground. He began squirming frantically, and the tone of his voice (if not the words) changed.
I ordered the third skins to haul the trooper back to where Riki was, and keep him secured. They quickly disappeared over the trees with him. Thankfully, though one field had been insufficient to contain the soldier, two were plenty.
I had meant to follow the skins back in their flight, but they disappeared too quickly.
Well, I figured I could find my way back without them. The return trek was like my initial approach-- only scarier, with no buffer field for moral support.
Much to my surprise Riki was nearly completely repaired by the time I got back. He greeted me as I entered the clearing.
*Well done, Jerry Staute. You have performed admirably.*
*Well thanks, Riki! But I gotta admit I wish you'd given me more warning before we hit that Resigent-- about what you had planned, I mean. That thing almost totaled you man!*
Riki looked at me quizzically for a second. Then, just like a human who didn't quite get what I'd said, he started the conversation afresh.
*I am approaching 100% capacity again. We will soon be able to resume our mission.*
*Yeah, it's amazing how fast you're coming back together. I think one of your legs was broke, before.*
*Not precisely. But it was damaged.*
*Well, I've tried to communicate with our man, but he won't have anything to do with me. I think he thinks we're part of the enemy or something.*
*He likely believes us to be two of the altered folk. Therefore he would be wary of our abilities and motives. He is dressed in a corporate regulatory suit. Reg suits are essentially military gear, and are quite powerful in their own right. Fortunately for us his power source is dead, his batteries low. Also, he expended all his normal weaponry against the Resigent in flight.*
*You said he's wary of us. What exactly kind of shape does he think he's in here? With us, I mean.* Riki hesitated for a moment before answering.
*Jerry, your slang taxes my resources here, away from the comprehensive archives aboard the Pagnew. Access delays are significant in our present circumstances. Your use of the terms 'man', 'totaled', and 'shape' seem incongruous to the circumstances. Please phrase your communiques more accurately while we are in Sarum.*
*Ehh? I thought you nano eyes were supposed to be good at this stuff! Oh well, I guess I overestimated you Riki.*
I suppose I was halfway trying to cheer him up after his near death experience, and halfway bruise his ego; but it didn't work. Riki was unperturbed. Damn it. Most of the time it was great that these androids didn't get upset as often or as easily as human beings. But sometimes you'd still miss the satisfaction that could be gathered from a truly human and emotional response to a verbal jab.
Insults and sarcasm were usually wasted on androids.
*Well, Mr. Overtaxxed; what's our next step?*
Riki hesitated again. Maybe these hesitations were the closest thing I could get to a human reaction. If so, well, I guess I'd just have to do the best I could with what I had.
Frans
*We must establish a rapport with the soldier.*
*No kidding! But I told you he hates us! All he does is tell us where to go and what to do with ourselves when we get there!*
Riki looked puzzled.
*Is that not what we wish to know?*
I growled at Riki. Sometimes these nano eyes were awful dense, to be so smart.
He was right of course. In general terms, that was what we needed from our trooper. But in specifics the soldier was only berating us in every manner he could imagine.
A continuous stream of cursing was not what we'd come for.
It was a waste of time to explain this to Riki. I decided to let him figure it out for himself.
*Yeah, * I said, dryly. *But I'm having trouble understanding his information. Would you mind helping me out, Riki?* I asked innocently. It was difficult not to crack a smile.
*Of course Jerry. That is my purpose here, after all.* The robot courteously intoned.
Riki looked a bit pudgy, still wearing my fourth skin as he was. The suit had opened a hole to expose his face, but kept the rest of his body contained.
Riki stood up, and strode stiffly over to where our charge was pinned spread eagled and belly up on the ground.
He wasn't entirely secured there. Even the combined might of both our third skins was having problems keeping him absolutely still. He was still capable of moving his limbs six inches or so at a time.
In effect, his movements suggested he was constrained by invisible but strong rubber bands at his wrists and ankles. All that could be seen of the buffer fields themselves were fuzzy shadows falling across his extremities.
As Riki came near him, the volume of profanity rose again.
Riki kneeled beside our captive and appeared to study his complex looking armorized suit.
Then his hands flashed in a high speed display over the man's form.
The trooper was so surprised that the operation was over before he could respond. By that time it was too late.
The soldier seemed to suddenly lose all his strength, as large pieces of his suit fell off to his sides.
Riki had dismantled the still potent parts of his armor.
I stood quiet, watching Riki work. The guy was good. Even damaged as he was.
I wondered how well his repairs were going, and asked him via the net.
He answered me without interrupting his current task.
*My repairs are near complete. I am not yet at 100% capacity, but expect to be so soon.*
In another few moments Riki had removed the entire outer layer of the trooper's battlesuit.
Inside, the captive wore a lightweight body stocking type device. This layer was sort of 'plugged-in' to the prisoner, in ways I'd rather not detail. It looked to be extremely uncomfortable for the wearer, to say the least.
Ugh! Although the body stocking was lots more covering than I possessed bereft of my fourth skin, still I would rather keep my bare-assed paint job instead of having the plug-in gizmos that soldier sported with his get-up. Yuck!
After determining that this inner layer couldn't cause us any problems, Riki allowed the man to retain it. I myself didn't think we were doing him a favor by it.
But he looked used to it.
It took us a while to get him to cooperate. After Riki removed his outer suit, the two third skins easily kept him subdued. They reconfigured themselves to cover him from head to toe, in a dense layer.
It turned out that two third skins together, highly compacted to cover a human body, could sort of form a makeshift fourth skin.
Hey! I thought-- I needed that worse than our prisoner!
I still felt uneasy, with nothing but a flimsy second skin and some high tech body paint between me and the wilds of Sarum. I was still cold and damp too.
Luckily, Riki relinquished my fourth skin not long after that.
I don't mean to mislead you here. Two third skins cannot become a fourth skin. But they can fulfill some similar functions of that device.
In our case, we had the third skins do several things. One, they tightly controlled the trooper's movements. To the point that they could actually make him move about precisely as we wished, despite his greatest internal resistance.
So his mobility and physical actions were totally at our disposal from that moment on.
Two, the skins provided our own net nodes with a transparent interface to the prisoner's own.
Yes, the trooper had a node implant too. Of course it wasn't as elegant or powerful as our own, being 92 years obsolete. But it served our purpose well enough, after Riki managed to configure ours to talk to it.
It took us a while-- hours-- to get through to him. It wasn't technical problems which required all that time. Rather, it was the obstinacy of the man himself which was so time consuming to overcome.
Only our continuing restraint from harming him finally convinced him that we meant no such thing.
Riki and I spent quite some time just dumping considerable information (and misinformation) into the prisoner's node, with no significant response from him.
Riki told him our cover story that we were intelligence agents from federal authorities, secretly investigating what was taking place on Sarum.
The prisoner knew that I wasn't an intelligence agent, however. Apparently I struck him as too amateurish to be such.
I resented his judgment of my performance, but knew it rang true. Plus, I couldn't have looked too cool in my nanotech undies, the first time he saw me. Awful-close-to-naked geek alert!
Riki however easily justified my presence-- and even my performance.
He explained that I wasn't a regular agent, but a special expert brought in for particular support services. What support services? That was a secret, Riki told him. A secret the prisoner had no need to know.
Apparently Riki spoke a military intelligence dialect the trooper could understand. Because eventually the guy opened up to us.
The guy�s name was Frans Fr�lander. He was a lieutenant in an Org unit stationed not far from here. He was a deserter, he admitted somewhat shamefully. But he could no longer partake of the actions he was being ordered to execute.
*And what sort of actions were those?* I asked, in Swedish. My fourth skin was translating for me.
He considered me for a moment before answering.
*The systematic kidnapping and brutalization of people from helpless villages.* He closed his eyes and lowered his head.
*I have helped capture many of them myself. But I didn't know what was being done to them later. They kept this from me...* he trailed off.
*But now they do this to children!* His head rose again, this time with anger flashing in his eyes.
*This must be stopped. All this must be stopped.* He waved his arms about him, his voice steeped in resolution.
Apparently Riki was progressively weakening the strength the buffer fields exerted on the man as he opened up to us, sort of like a reward. Frans was sitting up and facing us now.
*I deserted to join the rebels. Because that was the only course open to me. I had no way of reaching the authorities about this, since all long range communications are controlled by others. I hope you truly are who you say you are.*
A silence punctuated his words.
Riki and I discussed strategies silently over the net, and made some decisions. Riki did most of the net-speak audible to Frans, since he was less likely to make a faux pas in this delicate and complex situation than I.
*I assure you Frans, we will do all we can to help you achieve your aims.* Riki told him.
*We will help you meet up with the rebels. But you must understand we too are encumbered by the same concerns about you, as you about us. We cannot be certain of your motivations and intent in these matters. Therefore, we shall retain control over your actions until such time as we are confident of what path you would follow unconstrained.*
*I understand this.* Frans professionally replied. *But you too should realize we have no agreement here. I have my own plans, and will pursue them to my best ability. Until I can see with my own eyes you bringing in a force to stop what's happening here, I will consider you an unknown quantity, and continue on my own course as best I can.*
I liked this guy. He was under our total control. But he wasn't surrendering. Rebellious to the end. That was a style I could identify with.
*We understand. But if you have been truthful with us, we are sure you will willingly join your efforts to ours soon enough. We cannot bring in troops until after our own investigation is complete. And even then the decision will be made by our superior officers, not we two.*
*Your tools are unlike anything I am aware of. And yet the Org possesses state-of-the-art equipment. Surely no government agency possesses elements so advanced over our own. Who are you, really?*
This was our greatest weakness, where persuading Frans was concerned. For how could we explain these things?
*You are mistaken.* Riki replied cooly. *The reason you are unaware of such tools is that your superiors reserve them for their own use.*
Frans looked doubtful.
*I don't believe you. Why should they hold back such useful equipment?*
*For defense against their own troops.* Riki answered.
Frans looked surprised.
*They have no fear of us!* He snorted.
*You forget that commanders are paid to anticipate all possibilities, no matter how unlikely. Your superiors have known all along the magnitude of the crimes they commit here. Huge risks accompany such actions. So called 'whistle-blowers' and defectors have brought about the downfall of corrupt chiefs many times in history. Do you think they would ignore such a possibility now?*
*No, but--*
*And look to your own case.* Riki rode roughshod over Frans's protest. *How long did it take your superiors to react to your defection?*
*I-- uh-- they seemed to know-- and act-- instantly.* He admitted.
*Does it seem to you that they were unprepared for your move?*
*Um-- no.*
*And did you expect them to immediately set a Resigent upon you? In termination mode, yet?*
*No. But they didn't use anything like your gadgetry upon me either. So how does that prove your claim?*
*Think. What would have been the result to you, if we had not intercepted the Resigent when we did?*
Frans uncomfortably looked away from us, then back again. He made an indecipherable reply over the net. And seemed to exhibit a single small shiver along his frame.
Apparently Riki understood his response, where I did not. Even wearing the fourth skin. I needed to make some adjustments on this thing!
*Yes. You would be dead now. And likely in a most unpleasant fashion. So your superiors would have no need to reveal their secret resources in order to do away with you, would they?*
Frans mumbled again. He seemed sullenly angry.
Riki seemed to have convinced him that our technology was not unknown to the Org!
But I wondered what Frans would think had he known Riki himself was a futuristic albeit less weaponized civilian version of the Resigent we'd fought off?
Apparently he thought him human, like me.
Riki managed to scrounge up something from the local flora and fauna for Frans to eat that night. Me, I stuck with the food paste of the suit. And Riki of course required no food. The rain had left various small repositories of water, too.
The next day Frans's directions led the three of us to a nearby village. We walked all the way.
I queried Riki over the net about the remote�s whereabouts and status. He told me he�d ordered it into hiding, and reset the propulsion governors. Luckily its engine hadn�t burned out in our brief high output use of it to save Frans. Riki told me it was too risky for us to use it for casual transport around Vrr though.
As I could set my fourth skin to take much of the work out of walking for me, that helped out some. But I didn�t find this out until after I�d already walked maybe ten or fifteen miles in the thing on my own power. Agh!