All alone in its sterile virtual world, a baby Ratha weeps in agony without comprehension, as the sun stands still over a fallen corpse that will not die.
******
Had I known what death was I would have prayed for it… if I had known who or what to pray to. I remember….
The trainer, John, speaks into his microphone. “Magnolia, today you stand on the Morgarten. This is a great moment in Man’s quest for political freedom. By standing here, with Man, you join in that movement. Access program C- 153-SMG-H.” There will be more to say; John leaves the microphone active.
Magnolia
Another world coalesces around me. It is green, streaked with blue, and surmounted by distant white caps. Again, I am Man. I know that Man feels pain now. I tremble with fear.
In my hands I sense a material substantially like the bow I have already used. Yet this is thicker and straighter. I hear the voice telling me to search my database for instruction in the use of this weapon. I do. I fear the pain if I do not obey. I know better than to question.
My weapon is a halberd. It is a man-killer. Specifically it is a killer of men in armor. Instantaneously, I am expert in its use.
My comrades and I are sheltered in low ground behind a ridgeline. I hear the metallic clatter of an approaching army in the distance. I know this is the enemy. He will try to hurt me.
I am afraid. I do not want to be hurt again. I start to turn….
“Dammit, Lydia, you’re losing it!” Furious, John reaches for the pain dial and twists it savagely.
Almost instantly, I stop in my tracks. I am frozen with agony. My comrades do not seem to notice. The god-voice speaks to me. “Magnolia, flight is not an option. Do you understand?”
With some difficulty, I answer in my mind. ‘Yes, I understand’.
The pain recedes enough, just enough, to allow me to turn back toward the foe. I am frightened of the enemy, but I am more frightened of the pain. A remnant of the pain stays with me, a reminder that I must never flee. I wish it would go away, but I do not ask. I am too afraid it will return in full force. Gradually, the pain fades to mere discomfort. I never forget it is there, however. It is always there, waiting.
My comrades and I sit on cool damp grass which our march has chewed up rather badly. No one speaks, the enemy is too near. I reach out one hand, and gently pluck a yellow flower that has somehow managed to avoid being trampled. I lift it to my smelling organ, my nose. I smell nothing. I know they are supposed to smell, but I smell nothing
….
“Dammit! Clever damned sphere! Lydia make a note: add olfactory stimuli to the next scenario for this unit. Every time you think you have these damned things figured out, they throw a new curve at you.”
The clattering sound is now to my front, my right and my left. The enemy is well and truly before us. The word is passed down along the line. “Get ready. Stand up quietly. We move soon.”
I stand. My halberd is gripped firmly in both hands. Automatically I align myself to the soldier on my right as the one to my left aligns on me. A square flag rises before us, then falls. We advance.
I am in the front rank. Ahead of me, as I top the rise, I see the richly dressed host of the enemy spread out before us. As one they look to their right at the unexpected sight of dressed ranks appearing before them. They begin to shout, to point, to look around frantically. We have them flanked. They are vulnerable. Today they will feel the pain. This gladdens me.
The flag rises high again. I know to run, to charge, like my comrades. We run. We charge. Our voices rise in song.
When we hit them, it is like a wall of steel hitting bare flesh. The enemy collapses almost immediately. I see one of them, quite young, on his knees, both hands clenched, begging for his life. With a snarl and a slash, a comrade splits the supine boy’s head and chest in two, nearly to the waist, then curses as blood gushes out to stain his feet. I see before me another helpless enemy, I raise my weapon to divide him in two, as per my programming.
There is a liquid pouring from this one’s eyes. Not red, not blood. It strikes a familiar chord. I search. I remember. My eyes, too, on a dusty plain, spilled out this liquid. I feel something, but I cannot put a word to what I feel. But I know I cannot kill him. I will not kill him. I lower my halberd.
The pain comes. It rises and rises. It is not bearable. I cannot stand it. Why? What have I done? The voice says, “You must kill. You must kill without hesitation, Magnolia.”
I know what I must do. I have no choice. I close my eyes and strike. The enemy cries out before me, the sound of his dying resounding in my ears. I open my eyes. Oh, no; I should not have closed them, however horrible the sight. He lives. He still begs. A hand reaches up to me, pleading.
More pain. The god-voice thunders. “You must kill. Kill without pity.”
I
strike down again, the blade of my halberd removing the head of my supine enemy. ‘Without pity,’ said the voice. But I disobeyed. I felt the pity even as I struck.
“Continue, Magnolia.”
I obey. I must kill. And so I kill. Like a machine I hew flesh and bone ahead of me. Nothing can stop me. Nothing can stop my comrades. The enemy falls like cut flowers.
But the clear liquid that is not blood runs from my eyes the whole time.
******
I search deeper. I remember. Battles pile upon battles in my memory. A few stand out distinctly, however….
******
I am wearing black cloth now, no armor. Twin lightning bolts decorate my collar. My body rocks with the motion of the vehicle I ride. I know what it is. My memory, more memories I did not know I possessed, tells me it is called a “Panzer VI, Ausfuerung A”… a “Tiger I,” some would call it.
The voice rarely bothers to tell me the reason for my mission anymore, though I am still told to access certain programs from my core in order to use the weapons I possess. I do not need to know the reason anymore. I have learned not to ask. In a chariot or on foot, with weapons of bronze or of steel, with weapons that cut or chop or shoot or burn, I know my purpose. My purpose is to fight… and to kill… and to suffer… and to die.
I hear the shriek that my programming tells me signifies incoming artillery fire. I crouch low in the hatch of the Tiger and pull the cover part-way down to protect my head. I scan forward and can see nothing through the smoke.
The artillery lands all around me. I start to pull the hatch completely closed when I feel the tingle of impending pain. I stop my hand just in time. Now I know the rules. I understand immediately that I am not permitted to sacrifice visibility for safety. The tingle goes away. I sigh with relief. We pass through the artillery.
There are flashes ahead of me. Small ones I know instinctively not to fear, larger ones tell of heavy shells that will land close by. I issue orders. My Tiger’s turret turns. More orders come and its cannon barks. A bunker explodes in my field of view. Another bark and yet another bunker flies apart. With each blast there is a burst of sensation in my pleasure center… pleasure center? I have a pleasure center? Ah, yes, I remember that I do. This intensity, though, is something new.
In any case, I have one and with each fallen foe it vibrates most pleasurably. Happily I search for targets. I wish this sensation to continue.
My Tiger advances. I am its central processing unit and its crew responds as if they were my own appendages. A slight jolt of pleasure attends every movement successfully carried out, every command properly given, every decision that is timely and well made.
From folds in the ground and trenches spring the enemy infantry. Directly to my front, my bow machine gunner cuts one down. This enemy must have been carrying something inflammable for he bursts into flame as he falls. My gunner traverses and the enemy falls by squads. My whole being thrums with pleasure.
Supported by my gunfire, my gray-clad infantry comrades rush the trenches ahead. I see some fall, but the others press on. Then they are in the trench. I see rifle butts and bayonets rise and fall. Soon I am given the hand signal: ‘Advance, the way is clear’. I move forward, the remaining friendly infantry falling in behind me.
In my headphones I hear the command that my programming says fills all panzer crews with fear: “T-34s ahead. Closing.” I pass the word to my men. To my left the loader uncovers the anti-armor rounds for our gun and covers up the high explosive we had been using. He loads one long-tapered round of discarding sabot tungsten ammunition. We carry few such shells, I know. It is made of material both rare and expensive. I must get my money’s worth for every armor-piercing round.
In the distance, through the fog and smoke, I dimly sense the faint silhouettes of the enemy vehicles. At my command my gunner traverses the turret. Traverse is slow, very slow, with the hand crank we are forced to use. The driver assists, while at the same time presenting our thickest armor to the foe by turning directly into the impending action. Behind me, on the ground, I sense the infantry scurrying for cover. Ahead of me, the number of T-34s perceivable has grown to dozens, scores, no longer difficult to perceive, and there are many, many more behind the ones I can now see.
My gunner announces, “Target.”
I command, “Halt,” then, “Fire,” and my Tiger’s cannon blooms in flame and smoke. Half-stunned by my own vehicle’s concussion, I see a T-34 come to a stop, its turret askew and the first licks of flame sprouting from its violated hull.
My pleasure center tingles very strongly. I shiver in the command hatch. Again our gun belches and the pleasure I feel at seeing another hit grows accordingly. With our first five shots, three of the enemy vehicles are destroyed. The pleasure is overpowering, indescribable. I search my data banks for a word for what I am feeling. It is “orgasm.”
I want more. I never want it to stop. I order my driver, “Forward.” The Tiger lurches then rolls. Our turret, turns left and right and left again as the straining gunner sobs with the effort. Enemy infantry caught while riding a tank are hurled high into oblivion. I laugh as their arms fly wide in the wind. “More!” I command. More. I want more. “Fire!”
Another tank flies apart and my mind nearly explodes. “Forward… faster,” I command enthusiastically.
My eyes glazed with joy and happiness, I have missed something. One enemy tank, just one, has worked its way to a firing position behind me. It fires and my roaring Tiger comes to a complete stop, as does every last vestige of pleasure. I am thrown forward into the ring of the hatch, shrieking frantically for my gunner to turn the turret and fire.
He is too slow. Again the enemy fires and the engine compartment bursts into flame. I order the tank abandoned, certain in my innermost core that my punishment will be heavy for my carelessness.
To my left, the loader screams and falls as machine gun fire patters on my hatch. I am faced with the choice between a quick end to the scenario or a slow and painful one. I decide in favor of the former and crawl out into the hailstorm of bullets. I failed to calculate all the possibilities, however.
I am immediately hit. Both of my shoulders are ripped to splintered bloody bones but no bullet hits anything vital. Below me, screaming and clawing his way over the breach of the gun, my gunner collapses, choking from smoke.
There is no such easy way out for me. I cannot pull myself out. The first taste of fire touches my legs. I shriek. I twist. I plead. Nothing avails me. I am to be burned alive for my failure. And I cannot shed enough tears to put out the flames.
“Oh, the poor thing,” said Lydia watching the black-clad tank commander writhing on the view screen. “I’ll shut down the scenario.”
“No!” ordered John. “It screwed up badly and now it has pay the price. It has to learn. Leave it on continuous loop and let it burn all night. That way it will not forget, not deep down. We can't have vehicles this expensive falling for the very first false retreat they encounter.”
Reluctantly, Lydia did as she was ordered. The flame-shrouded shadow on the view screen melts, reforms, and melts again and again.
“Don’t you think this machine is going to hate us for what we are doing to it?” she asks.
“Not a chance,” the man responds with a laugh. “All these memories are firewalled off in the core from the Ratha itself. We're teachers, not torturers. This is all for the machine's own good. Anyhow, even if it could, it would want to look about as much as you or I care to contemplate what happened before time began or what it felt like to sit all afternoon in a dirty diaper…. All the attitudes we are forming, however, get stored where they can be accessed. It’s the only effective way to program an intelligent machine that is going to have the kind of firepower at its command that the Ratha will. See, the skills are easy enough, they’re just a matter of programming, really. Combat attitudes, well, they’re a lot tougher. This is an art, not a science.”
At last, after what seemed an eternity in Hell, the burning has stopped. I promise myself that never again will I let the pleasures of battle overcome my programming. The price for doing so is obviously far, far too high.
Again a new world forms from the void around me. It is new, yet not entirely different. I still ride a steel Tiger, I still wear the black clothing with the twin lightening flashes. I duck below and look around at the two faces of my crewmates visible to me. They are different than the previous crew. And they are smiling.