Outriders (12 page)

“Gotcha,” she said, and then she turned back to her work.

Mike laughed. “No offense, but you oughta know better, sir.”

Lincoln shrugged. “
Somebody
had to be the precious cargo. I probably should have saved the chief though, huh?”

“Sure seems like I’d deserve it,” Guiterrez said. “But it’s more than I’d expect. How’s it feel?”

Lincoln walked back over to the part of the workshop they’d been using as a staging area. “I see what you mean about feeling sluggish,” he said, mostly to appease the chief. “It’s not much, but it’s there. But yeah, for being straight off the shelf, I’d say it’s feeling pretty good. I’m looking forward to running it after you work your magic.”

“How long you reckon that’ll be, chief?” Mike asked.

Guiterrez puffed out his cheeks, and shook his head.

“All the tailoring, need to flush the colonel’s protocols, pull in your historicals, do a full refresh and restore… I’d say four days, maybe.”

“Make it two and I’ll love you forever,” said Mike.

“That sounds like a threat, sergeant,” Guiterrez replied as he reached up to help Lincoln remove his helmet. “You’re not the only one who needs work done, you know. But I’ll see what I can do, if it keeps me from havin’ to see you every day.”

Lincoln nodded, “I appreciate it, chief. Thanks for looking after us.”

Guiterrez dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand, dropped the helmet off at an empty workbench, and returned to help Lincoln remove the rest of the suit. As he did, he rattled through the various features Lincoln could look forward to enjoying once the hardware was actually his in an unbroken stream.

“So, fifth gen has all your usual stuff you get with any suit, just better. The optics package is really nice, got a lot of the kinks worked out since third. Still composites from all detectable spectra, but the new visor does a whole lot better of a job translating it into something readable. Not all those crazy color schemes like the old ones. Reactive camo’s basically the same as old suits. Runs a little lighter, maybe, so not quite as much of a draw on your power. Still can’t run it all the time, though, so you got to be smart about using it when you need it and not when you don’t. Maybe we’ll get that figured out by sixth. Zero-G maneuvering thrusters, those haven’t changed since second-gen, except for some streamlining. Operates the same though, same input, same output, so you shouldn’t need much practice to get the hang of it. It’s not nearly like the jump between first and second,” he chuckled and shook his head. “Had a lot of hotshots busting their arms and heads with that, thinking they knew how to fly and then finding out pretty quick they didn’t know everything. Anyway, commo’s improved quite a bit, sensor suite’s better. All in all, I’m pretty proud of this little bit of work.”

“That all sounds great, chief,” Lincoln said when the man finally took a breath. “Can’t wait to run it live.”

“Just don’t run it into the ground,” Guiterrez answered. “One of these things costs more than even one of
you
.”

He put curious emphasis on the word, but didn’t add anything more. The chief was quite a bit less meticulous taking the parts off than he had been putting them on; it only took about five minutes to get Lincoln out. As Lincoln was removing his last boot, Mike stood up straighter and sidled his way towards the door.

“Thanks a bunch, chief,” he said. “I gotta get this guy over to the lab, so we’ll leave you to it.”

“Gettin’ the full workup today, huh?” the chief said, slinging the boots in the pile and grabbing the helmet.

“Yeah,” Lincoln answered. “They threw me in the deep end, and I guess I’m pulling a lot of people in after me. Sorry to swoop in here and–”

“Get on out of here,” the chief said, interrupting. He was already at his workbench, hooking the suit’s helmet up to some device. “Both of ya. I’m up to my eyebrows in it already without you two hanging around to give me advice.”

“Roger that,” said Mike. “See ya soon, chief.”

“Thanks, chief,” Lincoln said, and received a grunt in reply.

Pence led the way out, back through the main shop floor.

“Chief said four days,” Mike said, as they walked. “Probably means you’ll have it by midnight.”

“I’ve used some pretty high-speed gear in the past,” said Lincoln, “but… brother, I think I might be in love.”

Mike chuckled. “Guess we better not leave you alone with it, huh?”

“I can restrain myself, sergeant. It’s just hard to believe that it’s going to be mine.”

“Oh it’s not
yours
, captain, make no mistake about that. Every one of those suits belongs to the chief, and he’ll remind you every chance he gets,” Mike said, as they exited the building and headed towards another facility that Lincoln assumed was the lab. “Though the lab rats probably take issue with that particular perspective.”

“Yeah? What’s their claim?”

“You know, with the Process and all,” Mike said. Lincoln shook his head. Mike’s eyebrows went up again, with the look that said Lincoln was in for another surprise.

“I maybe signed up a little too fast,” Lincoln said.

“Yeah…” Mike said. “You signed a whole bunch of documents, though, right? Got death-proofed and everything?”

“Yeah, but that was for uh… back when I was applying for a different unit. Does that count?”

“A
different
unit?” said Mike, confused. “There’s only one other army unit I know of that gets to…”

Sergeant Pence trailed off, and looked at Lincoln with a new light in his eyes. But Lincoln shook his head.

“I was non-select,” he said. He knew better than to let even a hint of the rumor get started that he’d made the unit.

“Oh,” Pence said. “Still though, you qualified. That’s pretty impressive… Wait, is that where Sahil’s been this whole time?”

Lincoln nodded. “You didn’t know?”

Mike shook his head. “Knew he was on assignment as a trainer. Nobody said where, though.” Lincoln was surprised that a team that small wouldn’t know every detail about everyone else. But he was also a little relieved to learn he apparently wasn’t the only one in the place that didn’t seem to be getting the full story. “Doesn’t happen a lot,” Mike added, “but it does happen. Thumper gets called off to parts unknown more than the rest of us.”

“Thumper?”

“Yeah, Avery. Sergeant Coleman. Our tech.”

“Gotcha,” Lincoln said. “But the Process… it’s the same sort of deal, right, like death-proofing? Eggheads keeping your consciousness on ice while they patch your body back up?”

“Uh… mostly, yeah, something like that,” Mike said, but his expression was strange. “Look, uh… somebody a lot smarter than me probably ought to be the one to talk you through all of this, but I figure the labcoats are gonna think you already know all about it. And you know how they are. They act like it’s the most natural thing in the world. All about the science of it, no clue about the human side. Anyway. This place isn’t nearly as fun as the shop, so keep your business face on. And feel free to pull rank any time you think it’ll help.”

Mike led him into the facility, and if the welcome at the shop had been all familiar warmth, the response in the lab was the exact opposite. Two security officers stood just inside the entrance, and they immediately closed in and blocked any further progress into the building. Even after an exchange of credentials and a thorough scan, the guards didn’t seem entirely convinced that either Mike or Lincoln should be there.

By the time they’d walked through the two sets of controlled-access double doors, there was already a young man waiting for them in the hallway. Lincoln was disappointed to see the man wasn’t actually wearing a labcoat.

“This way,” the man said, and he walked briskly down the corridor, obviously expecting them to follow.

The man led them to a small office, and he took a seat behind a desk, brought up a screen on the embedded display. There were two chairs in front of the desk, but Mike remained standing, so Lincoln followed his lead. On the desk was a name plate reading Major Thomas Blackwell. The guy behind the desk seemed awfully young to be a major. And Lincoln wasn’t even going to be able to pull rank.

“Which one of you is Lincoln Suh?” the presumed Major Blackwell asked, looking up at them. Lincoln and Mike exchanged a glance, and Mike suppressed a smile.

“I am, sir,” Lincoln said with all possible professionalism.

“Right, OK,” Blackwell said. He punched up some data on the display. “Authorization already came through…” He paused and looked at Mike, then back at Lincoln. “Do you have any privacy concerns with this gentleman being in here?”

“No, sir,” Lincoln said.

Major Blackwell looked back at his display and continued. “All the background’s done, we have your files in order, and the numbers from the tolerance test all look solid. We just need your final consent for replica transfer in case of catastrophic death. Obviously there are some special legal concerns we have to be clear about. You know how lawyers are.”

The phrase “catastrophic death” sounded both patently absurd and vaguely horrifying. Blackwell sent a document over to Lincoln’s pad; Lincoln activated it, skimmed through the complex language. He’d already signed over so much of himself, he didn’t feel the need to give it a close read.

“Replica transfer?” Lincoln said, as he signed the document and sent it back to Blackwell’s terminal. “That’s the official term?”

“Yes, of course,” Blackwell said impatiently.

“Doc, I don’t think my man here’s been through the full briefing yet,” Mike said cautiously.

“
Major
,” Blackwell corrected, and then added to Lincoln, “You’ve gone through the Dire Medical Intervention Familiarization Course, though, yes?”

“Uh,” Lincoln said. “That one doesn’t sound familiar, sir.”

“You should have gone through the Dire Medical Intervention Familiarization Course,” Blackwell said. “Before we get to this stage, everyone’s supposed to go through the Dire Medical Intervention Familiarization Course.”

Mike apparently couldn’t help himself. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “I didn’t catch the name of that course.”

“The Dire Medi…” Blackwell answered, clearly agitated. He caught himself and made a face when he realized Mike was giving him a hard time, and then looked down at his display. “According to this, engineering started on your first replica weeks ago. It’s already done. They’re working on your second now. You really should have been through the Di… through the course before now.”

This time when the doctor said
replica
, Lincoln felt a tingling sensation at the base of his skull, as if he was about to hear some very bad news.

“I’m sorry,” Lincoln said. “What do you mean by replica, exactly?”

“Your auxiliary,” Blackwell said. “Your personal reserve.” And when Lincoln just continued to stare at him, he added with a more condescending tone. “Your backup body?”

Lincoln mind twisted as something he’d never imagined became sudden reality.

“You mean… what,” he said. “Like… like a clone?”

“No!” said Blackwell, way too defensively, and Mike made a face like he’d meant to warn Lincoln not to use that word. “No, a
replica
! They are called
replicas.
They aren’t
clones.
”

Lincoln stepped closer to the desk and lowered himself into one of the chairs. Blackwell sighed heavily.

“Replica,” the major said, regaining his composure. “The official term is replica. They aren’t clones because they’ve never been alive, and could never be alive. It’s just a body, until you inhabit it. And only
you
–
only
you – can inhabit your own. Nano keeps the physiology as current as possible and… well, they explain all of this in the Dire Medical Intervention Familiarization course.”

Lincoln didn’t have a response. His brain didn’t want to process what he was hearing. And for the first time, Blackwell actually showed some measure of concern.

“Look,” he said, standing. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes.” He waved a hand at Mike. “Maybe you can uh….” He waved his hand at Mike again. And then he walked out of the office and closed the door behind him.

Mike sat down next to Lincoln. They were silent for a few moments.

“Sorry, brother,” Mike said finally. “I should have warned you not to say ‘clone’.”

“What,” Lincoln said weakly, “and spoil the surprise?”

He ran a hand over his face. His mouth was dry, and he felt slightly faint.

“So,” Mike said. “Yeah. The Process. So, in some cases, they can just patch you up. In most cases. Then it’s like, you know, it’s like you’ve just been asleep for a while or whatever. Like what you went through with death-proofing. But sometimes they don’t just patch you up. Sometimes they can’t. Damage is too severe, or sometimes something happens, and you can’t get the body back. So we’ve all got a couple of backups.”

“They’ve got… replicas of me? In storage?”

“Yeah. You can go see ’em if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s pretty creepy.”

“How do they do it?”

“Man, I got no idea. I never wanted ask too many questions. It’s all your own DNA, of course. But outside of that…” Mike shrugged.

Lincoln shook his head. He tried to picture what it would be like, but the only image that sprang to mind came from a dream he’d had on a few occasions of attending his own funeral. That wasn’t exactly comforting. The memory of the dream triggered another thought, and Lincoln fished around in his pocket, drew out the challenge coin that Almeida had given him, read the words again.

No Grave Too Deep.

He gave a humorless chuckle.

“I thought this was about there not being able a hole deep enough to bury a secret that you guys couldn’t find it.”

“Means that too,” Mike said. “Works on levels, man. Levels.”

Lincoln took a deep breath, held it a few seconds, and then let it all out in one strong exhale.

“Thing is,” Mike added, “it doesn’t always work. Labcoats will all tell you the failure rate is low, but you know… they’re not the ones rolling the dice. And none of it…” He trailed off for a moment, looking for the words. “… It doesn’t change what it’s like to lose one of your own. Not as much as you might think. So don’t go getting reckless. Nobody wants any of us to actually have to use these things. Not ever.”