The Ghost Brigades (19 page)

“With all due respect, sir, I have no idea what you're talking about,” Jared said.

“Of course you don't,” Mattson said. “Apparently, other than where his lab is, you don't know a goddamn thing about Charles Boutin at all.”

“I know one other thing,” Jared said. “I know he had a daughter.”

General Mattson touched his hand gingerly to his black eye. “That he did, Private.” Mattson dropped his hand and turned to Szilard. “I want you to give him back to me, Szi,” he said, and then noticed Lieutenant Sagan shoot Szilard a glance; no doubt she was sending him one of those rat-a-tat mental messages Special Forces used instead of speech. “It's only temporary, Lieutenant,” he said. “You can have him back when we're done. And I promise I won't break him. But we're not going to get anything useful out of him if he gets shot dead on a mission.”

“You didn't have a problem with him getting shot dead on a mission before,” Sagan said. “Sir.”

“Ah, the vaunted Special Forces snotty attitude,” Mattson said. “I was wondering when it would become obvious you were six.”

“I'm nine,” Sagan said.

“And I'm one hundred and thirty, so listen to your great-great-grandfather,” Mattson said. “I didn't care if he died before because I didn't think he was useful. Now he may be useful, so I'd rather he didn't die. If it turns out he's not useful, then you can have him back and he can die all over again for all I care. Regardless, you don't get a vote. Now shut up, Lieutenant, and let the grown-ups talk.” Sagan stewed but shut up.

“What are you going to do with him?” Szilard asked.

“I'm going to put him under the microscope, of course,” Mattson said. “Find out why he's leaking memories now and see what it takes to leak a few more.” He jerked a thumb back to Robbins. “Officially, he'll be assigned to Robbins as an assistant. Unofficially, I expect he'll be spending a lot of time down at the lab. That Rraey scientist we took off your hands has been coming in useful down there. We'll see what he can do with him.”

“You think you can trust a Rraey?” Szilard asked.

“Shit, Szi,” Mattson said. “We don't let him turd without a camera up his ass. And he'll die in a day without his medicine. He is the only scientist I have that I absolutely know I
can
trust.”

“All right,” Szilard said. “You gave him to me once when I asked. You can have him now. Just remember he's one of ours, General. And you know how I am about my people.”

“Fair enough,” Mattson said.

“The transfer order is in your queue,” Szilard said. “As soon as you approve it, it's done.” Szilard nodded to Robbins and Sagan, glanced over to Jared, and left.

Mattson turned to Sagan. “If you've got any good-byes to make, now's the time to do them.”

“Thank you, General,” Sagan said. ::What an asshole,:: she said to Jared.

::I still don't know what's going on or who Charles Boutin is,:: Jared said. ::I tried accessing information on him but it's all classified.::

::You're going to find out soon enough,:: Sagan said. ::Whatever you learn, I want you to remember one thing. At the end of it all, you're Jared Dirac. No one else. No matter how you were made or why or what happens. I sometimes forgot that about you, and I'm sorry for it. But I want you to remember it.::

::I'll remember it,:: Jared said.

::Good,:: Sagan said. ::When you see this Rraey they're talking about, his name is Cainen. Tell him that Lieutenant Sagan asked him to look out for you. Tell him I would consider it a favor.::

::I've met him,:: Jared said. ::I'll tell him.::

::And I'm sorry for shooting you in the head with the stun bolt,:: Sagan said. ::You know how it is.::

::I do,:: Jared said. ::Thank you. Good-bye, Lieutenant.::

Sagan left.

Mattson pointed to the guards. “You two are dismissed.” The guards left. “Now,” Mattson said, turning to Jared. “I'm going to work under the assumption that your little seizure earlier today is not going to be a frequent occurrence, Private. Just the same, from now on your BrainPal is set to record and locate, so we have no surprises from you and we always know how to find you. Change the setting just once and every CDF soldier on Phoenix Station will get the go-ahead to shoot you dead. Until we know exactly who and what's in your head, you don't get any private thoughts. Do you understand me?”

“I understand you,” Jared said.

“Excellent,” Mattson said. “Then welcome to Military Research, son.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jared said. “And now, will someone please
finally
tell me what the hell is going on?”

Mattson smiled, and turned to Robbins. “You tell him,” Mattson said, and left.

Jared turned his gaze to Robbins.

“Uh,” Robbins said. “Hello.”

“That's an interesting bruise you have there,” Cainen said, pointing to the side of Jared's head. Cainen was speaking his own language; Jared's BrainPal provided the translation.

“Thanks,” Jared said. “I was shot.” Jared spoke his own language as well; after several months, Cainen's English proficiency was quite good.

“I remember,” Cainen said. “I was there. As it happens, I was once stunned by your Lieutenant Sagan too. We should start a club, you and I.” Cainen turned to Harry Wilson, who was standing nearby. “You can join too, Wilson.”

“I'll pass,” Wilson said. “I'm reminded of a wise man who once said that he would never want to join a club that would have him for a member. Also, I'd rather not get zapped.”

“Coward,” said Cainen.

Wilson bowed. “At your service.”

“And now,” Cainen said, bringing his attention back to Jared. “I trust you have some idea of why you're here.”

Jared recalled the awkward and not especially forthcoming conversation with Colonel Robbins the day before. “Colonel Robbins told me that I had been born for the purpose of transferring this Charles Boutin's consciousness into my brain, but that it didn't take. He told me that Boutin had been a scientist here but that he'd turned traitor. And he told me that these new memories that I'm sensing are actually Boutin's old memories, and that no one knows why they are coming out now instead of earlier.”

“How much detail did he give you about Boutin's life or research?” Wilson asked.

“None, really,” Jared said. “He said if I learned too much from him or from their files, it might interfere with my memory coming back naturally. Will it?”

Wilson shrugged. Cainen said, “Since you're the first human to whom this has happened, there's no history to go on as to what we should do next. The closest thing to this are certain types of amnesia. Yesterday, you were able to find this lab and recall the name of Boutin's daughter, but you don't know how you knew it. That's similar to source amnesia. What makes it entirely different is that the problem isn't your own memory, it's someone else's.”

“So
you
don't know how to get any more memories out of me, either,” Jared said.

“We have theories,” Wilson said.

“Theories,” Jared said.

“Hypotheses, more accurately,” Cainen said. “I remember many months ago telling Lieutenant Sagan that the reason I thought Boutin's consciousness didn't take in you was that his was a mature consciousness, and when it was put into an immature brain that hadn't had enough experiences, it couldn't find a grip. But now you have those experiences, don't you? Seven months at war will season any mind. And perhaps something you experienced acted as a bridge to Boutin's memories.”

Jared thought back. “My last mission,” he said. “Someone very important to me died. And Boutin's daughter is dead as well.” Jared didn't mention the assassination of Vyut Ser to Cainen, and his breakdown as he held the knife that would kill her, but it was in his mind as well.

Cainen nodded his head, showing his understanding of human language included nonverbal signals. “That could have been the moment, indeed.”

“But why didn't the memories come back then?” Jared asked. “It happened when I was back on Phoenix Station, eating black jellybeans.”

“Remembrance of Things Past,”
Wilson said.

Jared looked at Wilson. “What?”

“Actually,
In Search of Lost Time
is a better translation of the original title,” Wilson said. “It's a novel by Marcel Proust. The book begins with the main character experiencing a flood of memories from his childhood, brought on by eating some cake he dipped in his tea. Memories and senses are closely tied in humans. Eating those jellybeans could easily have triggered those memories, especially if the jellybeans were significant in some way.”

“I remember saying that they were Zoë's favorites,” Jared said. “Boutin's daughter. Her name was Zoë.”

“That might have been enough,” Cainen agreed.

“Maybe you should have some more jellybeans,” Wilson joked.

“I did,” Jared said, seriously. He had asked Colonel Robbins to get him a new bag; he was too embarrassed from his earlier vomiting to ask for one himself. Jared had sat in his new quarters, bag in hand, slowly eating black jellybeans for an hour.

“And?” Wilson asked. Jared just shook his head.

“Let me show you something, Private,” Cainen said, and pressed a button on his keyboard. In the display area of his desk, three small light shows appeared. Cainen pointed to one. “This is a representation of Charles Boutin's consciousness, a copy of which, thanks to his technological industriousness, we have on file. This next one is a representation of your own consciousness, taken from during your training period.” Jared looked surprised. “Yes, Private, they've been keeping tabs on you; you've been their science experiment since you were born. But this is just a representation. Unlike Boutin's consciousness, they don't have yours on file.

“This third image is your consciousness right now,” Cainen said. “You're not trained to read these representations, but even to an uninformed eye it is clearly different than either of the other two representations. This is—we think—the first incident of your brain trying to meld what it's received of Boutin's consciousness with your own. Yesterday's incident changed you, probably permanently. Can you feel it?”

Jared thought about it. “I don't feel any different,” he said, finally. “I have new memories, but I don't think I'm acting any differently than I usually do.”

“Except for punching out generals,” Wilson pointed out.

“It was an accident,” Jared said.

“No, it wasn't,” Cainen said, suddenly animated. “This is my point to you, Private. You were born to be one person. You became another. And now, you're becoming a third—a combination of the first two. If we continue on, if we're successful, more of who Boutin was will come through. You will change. Your personality could change, perhaps dramatically. Who you will
become
will be something different from what you are
now
. I want to make sure you understand this, because I want you to make a choice about whether you want this to happen.”

“A choice?” Jared asked.

“Yes, Private, a
choice,
” Cainen said. “Which is something you rarely make.” He pointed to Wilson. “Lieutenant Wilson here chose this life: He signed up for the Colonial Defense Forces of his own accord. You, and all your Special Forces kind, were not given that choice. Do you realize, Private, that Special Forces soldiers are slaves? You have no say in whether you fight. You are not allowed to refuse. You're not even allowed to know that refusal is
possible
.”

Jared was uncomfortable with this line of reasoning. “We don't see it that way. We're proud to serve.”

“Of course you are,” Cainen said. “That's how they've conditioned you since you were born, when your brain was turned on and your BrainPal thought for you and chose particular branches on the decision tree instead of others. By the time your brain was able to think on its own, the pathways that turn against choice were already laid down.”

“I make choices all the time,” Jared countered.

“Not big ones,” Cainen said. “Through conditioning and a military life, choices were made for you all your short life, Private. Someone else chose to create you—no different than anyone else, that. But then they chose to imprint someone else's consciousness on your brain. They chose to make you a warrior. They chose the battles you would face. They chose to hand you over to us when it was convenient for them. And they would choose to have you become someone else by cracking your brain like an egg and letting Charles Boutin's consciousness run out all over yours. But
I
am choosing to have you choose.”

“Why?” Jared asked.

“Because I can,” Cainen said. “And because you should. And because apparently no one else will let you. This is
your
life, Private. If you choose to proceed, we'll suggest to you the ways we think will unlock more of Boutin's memories and personality.”