Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
“They mess with their heads,” Raine says. “It’s what happened to Sullivan. She was chipped. Not really a person anymore. Just a walking automaton. Allie’s one of them. They came from the same place. You, Mr Wrath, think you’re mating a human. You’re basically fucking a flesh Roomba.”
“What is a Roomba?” I ask the question, ignoring her tone.
She smirks at her own cruelty. “It’s an old mechanical device that used to clean domestic homes. It was something of a novelty.”
“Explain the chip.”
“It’s mind control technology. It overrides the decision-making pathways and delivers instructions which the chipped follow. There used to be soldiers who had to be trained to carry out orders, but they’d do it imperfectly. Chipping was easier, and it made soldiers absolutely fearless. They wouldn’t run away, no matter what. They’d send wave after wave of them into battle…”
Allie
I start to dissociate as Raine keeps talking, that cruel tone of hers prompting wave after wave of repressed memory.
Several years ago…
Weapon fire bursts around me. I keep running forward. The target is 800 yards. 700 yards. 600 yards and closing.
I don’t know who the enemy is. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I am possessed of cool focus and steely determination.
I am not afraid to die.
I am not afraid of anything.
They can’t shoot us all. There’s not enough bullets. But they are going to try. I see them on the ramparts, guns flashing with red and yellow bursts. Very pretty. Very aesthetic.
It’s less pretty where the bullets land. Arcs of blood, viscera falling into dirt. It happens in front of me over and over again, to my left and to my right, compatriots falling around me. One after the other, dropping in no particular order or pattern. Surviving this is a matter of luck, not skill. My reward for surviving will be to be given the chance to die again.
This happens time and time again.
They pin medals on me. They put me in the hospital and they upgrade me. When I am injured, they put new parts inside me. My bones are made of new alloys. My internal organs have been patched and put back together and replaced over and over. I am the ship of Theseus, no longer myself and yet unable to escape myself.
I’m still human, though every time I kill and nearly die, I lose some of it.
Then, one day, for no reason in particular as far as I can tell — it is over.
I am ordered to report to the medical ward, to a smiling professional woman who is old enough that she could be my mother. I have not served long, though I have served often. In one year, I have done over three hundred missions, so they tell me. They’ve all blended into one as far as I am concerned.
“Congratulations. You’ve earned retirement,” she says. “Just a small outpatient procedure, and you’re free to go. Take off your clothes and prepare for surgery.”
I do as I am told, because there is no option other than to do as I am told. I would no more refuse her order than I would bite off my own head. It’s physically impossible.
“What are you going to do to me?”
I ask the question as I disrobe.
“We’re going to deactivate the implant, wipe your memories of any and all service-related material, and let you go free to decide for yourself what comes next. You’re part of a program for those who have served well. We used to simply dispose of soldiers when they were worn down, but you’re going to have a chance to really live.”
The doctors smile at me as if this is a good thing, but all I can remember, all I know about myself is that I am a good soldier. I follow orders. That means I continue to follow orders even as they set about dismantling the one part of myself I am still sure about.
Iwake up with an emptiness inside me. I feel as though I have been hollowed out, as if someone took a spoon to the inside of me. I don’t remember a thing. I’m no longer in the hospital section. I’m in what feels like a cross between a waiting room and a shuttle stop. It’s a transitional space. Nobody stays here. Impermanence is all around me, in the shiny decor and furniture just uncomfortable enough to make me want to get up.
A nice, professional lady who must be old enough to be my mother smiles at me.
“Feeling better? Good. Here you go.” She hands me a little yellow packet.
“What’s this?” I turn it over in my hands. It’s not very large and not very heavy.
“It’s a ticket for the shuttle, and enough money to get you started in a new life. Thank you for your service.”
I am ushered out a set of sliding doors, and just like that, my life as I knew it is over. I have a feeling of loss, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. I can’t even remember what it was I was doing before this very moment.