The Trials (The Red Trilogy Book 2) (2 page)

“You’re not supposed to have
any
connectivity,” my uncle insists. “None. That’s my understanding. It’s part of the security arrangements because Guidance is worried about a hack . . . oh shit.”

We stare at each other, sharing the same thought.

“Don’t say anything, Uncle Brandon.
Please.
”

Out in the Cloud, running on a million servers but for the most part unseen and undetectable, is a rogue AI that I’ve come to call the Red. No one really knows where the Red came from. Speculation says it began as a marketing AI, maybe one equipped with an all-access backdoor pass stealth-developed by an American defense contractor because, given time, the Red can get anywhere, access anything linked to the Cloud. It hacked into my head—and rewrote the plotline of my life. That’s why I’m here.

“Jimmy, if the Red—”

“
No.
It doesn’t matter. It’s not hurting me. It’s not hurting anything.”

I should never have mentioned the uploads. So why did I? Why did I bring it up? That’s one of the drawbacks
of having been infested with the Red. I question my own motives, even when I know it hasn’t been active in my head in months. The uploads are just an automated process.

Outwardly I’m calm, but adrenaline is pumping as I scan the ceiling. “No surveillance in here, right?”

“That would be a violation of attorney-client privilege.”

“Then don’t say anything. If Guidance doesn’t know about this, then they aren’t going to be looking at the record, not for a while, anyway.”

“It needs to be reported—”

“
No.
If Guidance believes there’s been an infiltration, they’ll take out my skullnet, and my overlay too.”

“You might be better off—”

“I will
not
be better off.”

His gaze is hard. He hates the choices I force on him. “I’ve got to go. I’m late already. Look at what’s in the folder. We’ll talk about it when I get back.”

Again, he reaches for the door.

I tell him, “Trial counsel is right.”

He turns back, furious. “What the
fuck
are you talking about?”

“She’s right when she says we’re acting against our own best interests, because this isn’t about us. It never has been. It’s about bigger things.”

“You know, Jimmy, I liked you better when you were a cynical kid. This true-believer shit gets old real fast.”

We trade a glare. Then he jerks the door open and steps outside, closing it again with a thud that shakes the frame. I hope he won’t say anything.

Something else occurs to me: If trial counsel hears about an infiltration, she could move to have me declared mentally incompetent because my head has been hacked—a diagnosis that could be extended to my squad, providing an excellent excuse to skip the trial entirely and disappear all
of us, forever, into some anonymous psych ward. American gulag. Jesus.

But my uncle has been a criminal attorney for a long time, mostly white-collar crime. He knows how to keep his mouth shut, and even though I’ve made a habit of pissing him off, I trust him to keep my secrets.

I look again at the tablet.

It’s gaze responsive, with a ten-inch screen displaying the date and time in one corner alongside a red X—the icon of network isolation, lockdown, no connections allowed—and, in the center, exactly one folder labeled “Jimmy.” There could be libraries of data hidden behind that almost-empty screen, but I’ll never find my way into them. The tablet knows who’s holding it, and this single folder is all I’m authorized to see.

I blink the folder open. Inside are four videos. Their names identify three as news clips generated by propaganda stations. The fourth is labeled “Linked Combat Squad—Episode
3
—First Light.” When I read that, I get another adrenaline rush. Ye olde fight or flight.

I’d choose flight if I could, but I can’t run away from myself.

PTSD rolls in, and my hands shake. I’m worried I’m going to drop the tablet, so I put it down carefully on the table. An icon lights up in the corner of my vision, indicating activity in the skullnet as the embedded AI automatically adjusts the neurochemical balance in my brain, guiding my mood to a quieter place, taking the edge off my emotions.

I do not want to watch the third episode of
Linked Combat Squad
. I already know what’s going to happen, because I lived it—and I don’t want to see Specialist Matt Ransom’s brains blown out again, or witness Colonel Kendrick’s slow, agonizing death, or hear the terror in my
Lissa’s voice in the moments before she is immolated on that infinite night above the Atlantic. I hear Lissa often enough already, in my dreams.

The First Light mission was never in our own best interests. Not even close.

I stand up and pace, giving the skullnet time to work. The sound of my footsteps is a soft click as my robot feet meet the floor. My real legs got blown off. The army replaced them with cutting-edge prosthetics wired into my nervous system. It takes only four short steps to cover the length of the room. Turn around; repeat. After a few laps I sit down again and scan the news clips.

The first one shows a large protest rally on the National Mall, a block away from where I’m sitting. Between rows of trees just beginning to leaf out in the spring are tens of thousands of chanting protesters. I sit up a little straighter, remembering how it felt to be part of a crowd like that—empowering, intoxicating—and how certain I’d felt that with so many people demanding change, change must happen.

Too bad the world is more complicated than that.

The words being chanted are hard to make out past the voice-over of a mediot telling her viewers what to think, but the luminous banners floating above the crowd make the purpose of the rally clear:

FREE LT. SHELLEY—AMERICAN HERO

FREE THE APOCALYPSE SQUAD

THE PEOPLE STAND WITH THE LION OF BLACK CROSS

The Lion of Black Cross—that’s me.

In the hours after the bombs went off on Coma Day, more INDs—improvised nuclear devices—were discovered in metropolitan areas, rigged to blow if disturbed. The
only way to disarm them was with codes held by the enemy in an underground, former Cold War facility called Black Cross. My squad was sent to recover those codes. It was fucking hell in a basement, but it worked. Afterward the mediots tagged me the Lion of Black Cross, and if it wasn’t that, it was King David, because God is supposed to be on my side.

First Light changed that.

In the months since, the mediots have worked hard to cast us as traitors. It hasn’t really worked. A lot of people support what we did, but I had no idea we’d inspired the kind of passion I see in this rally.

The mediot doing the voice-over tries to make it something ugly. Using critical, contemptuous tones, she informs her viewers that responsible people are helping their country by staying at home, doing their jobs, rebuilding their lives, while these protesters have migrated to the capital to make trouble and demand government support.

Many of them are trying to make their demands anonymously. The faces of at least
20
percent are hidden behind masks—and not cheap Halloween leftovers. The masks I see are works of art, like European festival masks except they cover the whole face, and instead of eyeholes, there’s a slot that allows them to be worn with farsights. I don’t think the disguises can hide anyone’s identity, though—not in the face of dedicated surveillance. A good IR scanner should be able to look right through the masks. But maybe that doesn’t matter. Even if a government agency logs people’s presence here, that will be just one among trillions of bits of data collected today. The real risk for most people in that crowd is being recognized by an employer—and the masks should help protect them from that.

The other two news clips are different versions of the same story. After I view them, I reconsider the icon for
episode three.
Linked Combat Squad
is the product of a skilled filmmaker, one who knows how to tell a compelling, emotional story. Is there some element in episode three that inspired people, that persuaded them to leave their homes and their lives to rally in support of us?

My uncle included the third episode because he believes I need to see what it contains.

I steel myself, and I click the icon open.

•   •   •   •

It’s later, much later, when the door opens. I tense, but I don’t jump this time, and I don’t look up. I’m hunched over the tablet, holding it in two hands. Episode three is still playing, and mentally I’m not really in the room. I’m back on the C-
17
. We’ve just completed our air refueling. The squad is cheering.

“Broken city,” my uncle says grimly. “Quit and lock.”

He’s talking to the goddamn tablet, which listens to him. The screen goes blank. My grip on the tablet tightens until it’s about to snap in two. “
Fuck!
” I whisper, struggling to keep my temper contained as our lead defense counsel, Major Kelso Ogawa, comes next into the room.

“You don’t need to see the rest of that, Jimmy,” my uncle says.

He’s right. I don’t need to see it, because it’s playing inside my head. I hear again the radio hail from a mercenary hired by Carl Vanda. The merc tells me to turn on a phone, and I do it. My Lissa calls me, and lets me know the merc has kidnapped her, to gain leverage with me—but that scheme didn’t work. Lissa is dead now. So is the merc. I’m still here.

My uncle steps around the table, pulling out the chair next to me. “I just wanted you to see the big policy shift that takes place in this episode,” he says as he sits.

I make myself put the tablet down, gently, on the table.
I slide it over to him like it’s a loaded gun. “When did episode three come out?”

Major Ogawa answers as he takes a chair opposite me. “Two nights ago.”

The major is nearly fifty, of mixed Asian and European descent, with a narrow face showing some dignified weathering, and curly brown hair just beginning to gray. He watches me through the translucent band of his farsights, tinted gray, so thin and light they seem to float in front of his eyes. “You look shell-shocked, Lieutenant. Are you going to be okay to talk?”

I take a deep breath, straighten my back, square my shoulders. Lissa is dead and I can’t bring her back, but if this trial goes the way I hope, then a lot of people might finally pay for their part in what happened. I hope Carl Vanda is one of them. “What happened with the judge?”

My uncle answers, “Colonel Monteiro expressed sympathy toward the concerns of trial counsel, but she refused to sever your case from the enlisted. She’s under orders to conclude these proceedings quickly, and conducting separate trials is not going to satisfy that goal. Besides, trials cost money—and given the ongoing state of emergency, I don’t think there’s a budget to pay for a separate trial.”

“So we move forward?”

“We have a tentative agreement,” Ogawa says. “Right now, the court-martial is scheduled for Monday.”

Monday.

It comes as a shock. Ogawa warned it might be months, but today is Friday. Only two more days. I’m okay with that.

“A tentative agreement?” I ask him. “What still needs to be worked out?”

“Trial counsel has asked Judge Monteiro to forbid the use of skullcaps while court is in session, on the theory that they interfere with individual self-determination.”

I want to believe he’s joking, but my FaceValue app detects no humor, no subterfuge.

“The skullcaps don’t work that way.”

“Monteiro has taken the request under consideration. She’ll rule before the end of the day. In your professional opinion, as an experienced LCS officer, what will it do to the case if the judge rules against skullcaps—and your skullnet?”

I tap my forehead. “There’s no off switch for my skullnet. Unless she wants to send me into surgery, she can’t rule against it. And if she bans the skullcaps? That’s a deliberate shot at debilitating my squad. It’s a move that will put their mental health in danger. Ask Guidance.”

“I have. They’re preparing a formal response.”

“They used to make us turn in our skullcaps before going on leave. They don’t do that anymore.”

“So you’re saying it would be detrimental to our case if the judge ruled against the use of skullcaps?”

“No. It wouldn’t affect the case at all, because the use of skullcaps has nothing to do with the case.”

“But you think there’s a risk of mental breakdown—”

“No.” I consider it further. “Not right away. My soldiers will testify regardless, but take the skullcaps away and you put every one of them at risk of severe clinical depression.”

“All right. That’s more or less what Guidance said.”

“More or less?”

“There have been incidents of . . . explosive violence in soldiers deprived of their skullcaps.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I lean forward, studying him. This is the kind of bullshit the mediots like to chatter about.

“It’s an addiction, isn’t it?” Ogawa asks. “The more you use a skullcap, the more you need it. The mind forgets how to regulate itself.”

“What violent incidents?”

“The usual. Murdered families, terrorized neighborhoods, shopping malls shot to pieces. The link to LCS soldiers has been downplayed.”

I stare at the table, wanting to deny what he’s telling me, but the truth is, I find it all too credible. “We’re okay as long as we have the skullcaps.”

“I’ll tell the judge. The army got you addicted. It’s an unfair burden to ask you to function without your emotional prosthetic during an event as critical as your court-martial.”

An emotional prosthetic? The term is new to me, but I can’t argue with it. My skullnet is an intelligent aid that files off the worst extremes of my mood and eases the trauma of my memories, keeping me in peak form for the next round.

“So you think we’re going forward?”

“Absolutely,” Ogawa confirms. “The government wants a verdict before the fallout from episode three has a chance to escalate.”

I look at my uncle, then back to Ogawa. “Why didn’t they just hold it back? It’s been five months since the First Light mission. Why release the episode now?”