Empire of the Fallen, page 7
In any other circumstances, even talking about it would have made her either furious or break down, but with the cocktail of stimulants raging through her system, she would have said anything for one of them to get on with it. And yet, at the same time, some distant part of her, deep in the back of her mind, knew this was all a sham, knew that she had taken so many wrong turns that she was lost, knew that this appalling sexual profligacy and substance abuse was part of a desperate cry for help.
But at that moment, buoyed by that horrible, digital existence and all the false emotions that came with it, all she wanted was for these fucking people to shut up and take their clothes off.
‘Look, are we going to fuck or what?’ she asked, looking pointedly at the woman and then the two men behind her. Somewhere at the far end of the bar, someone laughed.
The woman raised an eyebrow, then peered closely into Gia’s eyes.
‘She’s riding,’ she said to the men behind her, and then to Gia, ‘Jesus, what the fuck happened to you? You’re supposed to be a hero.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Gia asked. Suddenly she felt lightheaded, nauseous. The woman took a step forward.
‘Finally,’ Gia said, and began to pull her top up. The laughter increased in volume. The sounds of the room began to blur together.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ the woman muttered, grabbing Gia’s hands and pulling her top back down. ‘Save it for the sync. We’re not interested.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ one of the men rumbled.
Save it for the sync. The phrase rolled around Gia’s head. After what felt like a lifetime of hard concentration, she fixed the woman in the eye. ‘What do you mean, save it for the sync? This is the sync?’
The woman winced. She turned to the man to her left. ‘Call someone, would you? She’s really fucked-up.’
‘Yeah,’ the man grunted, nodding. He seemed disappointed as his eyes lost focus, the classic hallmark of IHD usage.
‘You shot that cob motherfucker, so I’m going to do you a favour,’ the woman said. Gia was having a hard time concentrating on her. The room seemed to pitch. Her IHD was blaring with physiological alarms that the drug programs seemed hell-bent on overriding. What was happening to her?
‘Jesus, Kainth, where’s that tech?’ the woman snapped.
Gia’s world was spinning. Was this real? ‘Is this real?’ she asked. Her voice sounded like it was coming from a thousand kilometres away.
‘Oh, you better believe it,’ the woman said, but Gia was falling into oblivion and didn’t hear.
‘Jesus, Gia, what happened to you?’
Gia opened her eyes. She recognised the ceiling. She was in her apartment in Vonchester Heights. Wan orange sunlight filled the bedroom. It must have been late in the day.
With weak, shaking hands, she pressed herself up. Liz Aker was sitting on the end of the bed. She was wearing plain, dark-blue fatigues. She looked bigger, more muscular than Gia remembered. She also had a face like thunder.
‘Liz,’ Gia breathed, a smile spreading across her face. Her mouth and throat were paper-dry, and she fell to coughing. Aker held out a bottle of water, and Gia sucked it dry.
‘What happened, Gia?’ Aker asked in an irritated voice. ‘I got a call from VGH. The techs said you were having a manic episode. Full dependence. Ten months of VR debt?’
Gia’s hands gripped the duvet and pulled it up around her. Her elation crumpled to grief like a slug of tungsten hitting a force shield.
‘I couldn’t… it’s all so different… the people, I just—’ She couldn’t finish. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks. Not Liz. Liz was supposed to be her friend. Her disappointment was too much to bear.
‘Oh, Gia,’ Aker said softly, her anger immediately fading at the pathetic display. She clambered over the bed and put an arm around Gia’s shoulders while she sobbed.
‘I’m s-so-sorry,’ Gia stuttered. ‘I didn’t know what to do… it all seemed so real… and the people. The UN is horrible, Liz, the people are awful, all they do is fuck each other in VR and… devour information.’
Aker rubbed Gia’s back. ‘I shouldn’t have left you,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even think. I’m sorry, Gia. I should have realised how hard it would be for you.’
‘Everybody left me!’ Gia suddenly wailed. ‘My family and friends… all I had was you and Zasha and Varren… You all left me with these people and I don’t know what to do!’
They hugged for a long time while Gia wept and Aker soothed her. After a while, when Gia’s sobs faded, Aker gripped her by both shoulders.
‘Gia, you’ve become addicted to VR,’ she said gently. ‘It’s not as uncommon as you think. People spend so much time in these pods, it’s difficult to know what’s too much. But I think what is medically accepted is that when you start to confuse real life with the sync, you’ve probably done too much VR time.’
Gia looked at Aker, her features creased in bemusement. Slowly, realisation dawned on her. ‘That bar was real?’ she asked, pure horror in her voice.
Aker winced. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said.
‘Those men… they could have… raped me? In real life?’
Now it was Aker’s turn to look confused. ‘Rape? Oh Christ, no, not on Vargonroth!’ She laughed, incredulous, but Gia didn’t understand how she had made a faux pas. ‘That bar might have been a shithole, but no-one was going to attack you, Gia. Not unless they were coming up with a creative way to commit suicide.’
‘I don’t—’
‘IHDs, implants, surveillance, crime-detection software… I mean, it just doesn’t happen here. Reya Vasar might have been different, but not on Arrengate. Shit like that belongs in a museum. You’d need to head to the Outer Ring to start getting into real trouble, and even then...’ She shook her head again. ‘Rape carries the death penalty. A UN Marshal can lid you on the spot.’
Gia sat in silence for a long minute as the full, mortifying truth landed. She brought her hands up to her face. ‘I feel like such a fucking idiot,’ she said through a cage of fingers.
‘Well, you should,’ Aker said, rubbing Gia’s back. ‘You’ve been on Vargonroth for four weeks and already you’ve had a total breakdown. I was reading through your vitals for the past month, too. Malnutrition, dehydration. Gia, seriously, you need to get your shit together.’
Gia stared at the bed. She knew that, of course. A part of her had always known. Since when had it ever been healthy to stay cooped up in one place and not eat or drink? To spend every waking moment abusing IHD programs and substances and engaging in depraved sexual acts?
No, she knew. The trouble was she’d had no-one to talk to about it. Zasha had returned to the Commonwealth and hadn’t been heard from since. Aker had gone back to the UN Marines. Scarcroft had taken up command of another warship. She had no friends, no family. She may have been the Heroine of the Hegemony, but that meant nothing. People were only interested in hearing her story or fucking her. Friendship remained stubbornly elusive.
‘I know you told me to be strong, Liz, but I couldn’t. This place, this life… I hate it.’ Another tear rolled down her cheek. She lifted her hands in a pathetic shrug and let them collapse back on to the bed. ‘I hate it.’
‘There are millions of people who would kill to be here. To have what you have.’
Gia shook her head. ‘I don’t care,’ she said, bitter. ‘On RV, you had a job, a career, for life. People worked. Technology complemented us; it didn’t rule us. Here, everyone just exists to have fun. Work is all done by robots. There’s no structure, no order to anything.’
Aker looked out the window, studying the view. After a while, she said, ‘Did you hear the President’s address yesterday?’
‘Uh, no,’ Gia said, wrong-footed by the change in conversational tack. ‘What did she say?’
‘There’s a race of aliens called the kaygryn—’
‘Yeah, I know—’
‘No, not those kaygryn,’ Aker said, irritated. ‘Not the kaygryn here. The Kaygryn Empire.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Gia insisted. ‘I didn’t know the President had addressed everyone on it. I know about it though. People aren’t talking about much else. The provari crusade fleets were holding them back. Something about the Zecad?’ She frowned. Perhaps she didn’t know as much about it as she thought she did.
Aker sighed and explained the situation. By the end of it, Gia’s eyes were wide and her mouth was agape.
‘They’re coming for us?’
Aker nodded. ‘The War of Reclamation,’ she said grimly. ‘We stole their land. Apparently. Now they want it back. Their main target will be the Ascendancy, but when they see what we’ve done to the kaygryn…’
‘But the UN never did anything to the kaygryn!’ Gia protested. ‘The provar massacred them! The UN didn’t do… anything.’ Now she understood. Inaction had made the UN as culpable as the Ascendancy.
Aker nodded, wincing slightly. ‘They’re coming and they’re coming soon. Weeks, months? Yesterday, the President told everyone what she plans to do about it.’
‘What does she plan to do about it?’ Gia asked.
‘They’re going to establish a draft. If you’re in the age range and you meet the rest of the criteria, you’re going to be pressed into service. They’re going to make you and almost everyone else join UNAF, Gia.’
Gia digested this, her expression betraying the turbulent swell of emotions within. After a few minutes, she said in a weak voice, ‘Well, I guess that makes sense.’
Aker exhaled. ‘Gia, do you remember what I said to you in the VMPD headquarters?’
‘Yeah,’ Gia said quickly. ‘You told me to think about joining the marines. You told me I was “stone cold” because I shot yen’Ghadri. I have… I think about it all the time.’ Her face creased in grief for a brief second. ‘I can’t sleep unless I’m in the sync.’
Aker took Gia’s shoulders in her hands again. ‘Gia, you said it yourself: you want some order in your life, some purpose and some discipline. I know what you’ve been through. On Reya Vasar. On Vonvalt. You’ve worn the Mantix, you’ve fired the weapons, you’ve killed the cobs. You’ve already done two weeks of UNAF basic, and you’ve seen more action than most. I don’t want to see you get sucked up by the UN green machine and pressed into working some grunt shit-stint. You’re going to have to join anyway. Come with me to Peresvet and join the marines. You’ll have to go back into VR for training, but once you’re done, I’ll see to it that you’re assigned to my platoon.’
Gia’s eyes dropped to the duvet again. Join the marines. What the fuck was she going to do in the marines? She’d fumbled through Reya Vasar and Vonvalt, a constant burden surviving on good luck and the forbearance of Zasha. She certainly wasn’t “stone cold”; indeed, she considered herself barely competent. And shooting yen’Ghadri in the head had been easy. He’d been trapped under the foot of a Goliath. He couldn’t move. Zasha had given her the pistol and in a brief flash of rage, she’d pulled the trigger. Since that moment, she’d done little but regret it. All she had to show for the last year of VR-adjusted time was some scarring to her neck and face from a magma pulse explosion and an endless cycle of nightmares, depression, and program abuse.
‘Why did they call you? How did you get here?’ Gia asked suddenly.
Aker looked mildly surprised by the question. ‘I was on Vargonroth for a briefing at Halo Arch,’ she said. ‘They went through your IHD logs to see who you’d been in contact with—in real life—and picked me. And Marshal Steader from VMPD, too, but he’s re-joined the Vonreigis 1st infantry division. Off-world.’
Gia nodded. She thought about it again for another few minutes, but Aker was one of the few people in the galaxy for whom she would do anything to please. She craved her approval as much as she had craved the giddy, adrenal highs of VR.
‘I’ll have to join anyway?’ she asked.
Aker nodded, then shrugged. ‘Sorry, kiddo. No-one’s getting out of this one. It’s just a matter of time.’
Gia sighed. ‘What do I have to do? How do I get to Peresvet?’
Aker smiled. ‘Come on. I’m heading back there myself. I’ll take you.’
With the benefit of hindsight, Gia realised that she’d never really had much choice in the matter. Aker had allowed her, in that charismatic NCO way, to think she had made the decision all by herself. In reality, she’d had no intention of leaving Vargonroth without Gia in tow.
It was the third time Gia had been into space and the sensation had not improved with experience, though at least with her new IHD she was able to largely eradicate the nausea. They were taken by a Manticore with UN MARINES printed on the side to the UNS Cromwell, a vanguard attack frigate en route to Peresvet, and deposited in a pair of sleep capsules for the eighteen-hour journey.
Peresvet was a Veigis-Class world, one of a nebulous circle of old and highly developed industrial nations that could trace their civic lineage back to the first decades of Contact. Aker, as it transpired, actually hailed from an old and wealthy aristocratic family there which had made its name in interstellar freight, and it was odd to see large atmospheric landers stencilled with AKER branding as they shuttled through the cold atmosphere. For her part, Liz Aker found the experience distinctly uncomfortable, and Gia quickly dropped the subject.
They were taken by the same Manticore to the marine barracks in Gossamer City, the capital of Peresvet. Gia accessed the transport’s external VL feeds to see a beautiful city stretching away below them, its buildings white and pink to conform to the surrounding mountains. It was a bright, clear and cold day, and the sky, a washed-out pastel blue, was filled with bright clusters of local stars.
‘It’s going to be hard,’ Aker was saying as they shot through Gossamer’s airspace and out towards the northern uplands. ‘This isn’t UNAF. There’s a psych element to it too. Like I said, you need to be strong up here.’ She tapped the side of her head.
Gia nodded, pensive.
‘It’s not what you’d expect, either. They’re not going to shout at you—not initially, anyway—not like you see on the holos where they scream at green infantry recruits. You’re going to spend a lot of time doing things, what seem like pointless things, but don’t question it. Just do it. Do what they ask you to do. Concentrate. Learn. All the weapons, the shooting, that’s the easy part. Anyone can do that. Modern guns practically fire themselves. IHD programs, aim-correction hardware, target finders, drones… A fucking grunt could lid a cob from three klicks away with his eyes closed.’
Gia nodded again.
‘They aren’t looking for weapons experts. They’re looking for someone who can think. Who is intelligent. Who can analyse a situation. You know EFFECT and SPECTRECOM recruit from the marines more than any other service branch?’
‘Right.’
‘And don’t be nervous,’ Aker said with a grin, and winked at her.
The recruiting station was a small, drum-shaped building in the middle of a large empty rock flat. Gossamer City lay five kilometres to the south. Here, the pink, eudialyte-rich mountains stretched for hundreds of klicks north, their slopes wiry with knots of vegetation. Beyond, on the horizon, Gia could just make out hints of snow and turquoise ice formations.
‘So cold… and high up,’ she murmured.
Aker shrugged. ‘It’s the atmosphere. All the settlements on Peresvet are at this altitude. We live in a sandwich-filling of breathable gas. Read about it. We had to learn it in school.’
Gia politely declined.
They landed on a cluster of landing platforms that were flanked by drab, olive-green vehicle hangars. The biting wind cut into them as they stepped on to the concrete apron and made for the reception. Gia’s IHD informed her that she was being invasively scanned, and an automated weapons turret, identified as SPHINX by her IHD, tracked their approach.
Inside was a small, empty reception area with plastic green bucket seats and a water cooler. A marine sat at the front desk, wearing digital-pattern pink, grey and charcoal fatigues, his sleeves rolled up neatly to his elbows. A blue beret lay on the desk next to a sheaf of hard copy. In other circumstances, he might have looked ridiculous, but taking into account the colour of the surrounding landscape, it made sense.
‘Ma’am,’ he said, standing and saluting Aker.
‘As you were,’ Aker said, returning the salute. The man’s name tag identified him as Zhang.
The marine looked at Gia. ‘Recruit?’
Aker nodded. ‘You got it.’ For the first time since they’d arrived, Gia noticed that Aker’s uniform had subtly changed colour to match that of Zhang’s. It must have been made out of some kind of smart fabric.
‘Getting a lot of those,’ the marine said, conjuring up a holo from the projected set into the desk. ‘People wanting to beat the rush. Since the President’s address.’
‘What do you mean?’ Gia asked. Zhang looked at her with a mixture of contempt and irritation. When he spoke, he addressed Aker.
‘No-one wants to end up shit-kicking in UNAF. If you’re gonna sign up, you want the best fighting next to you. At least, that’s what the ad says.’
‘They’re advertising again?’ Aker asked, genuine interest in her voice.
‘That’s right,’ Zhang said. He was entering information on to his holo. Gia’s IHD informed her that she was haemorrhaging data. ‘Not that we need to. Absolutely spiked yesterday. And all night. Fucking Veigis bitches change their tune pretty quickly when CAF comes a-knockin’.’
‘Amen,’ Aker said, grinning. She was a different person already, nothing like the motherly figure Gia had come to know her as. Gia felt suddenly frightened.
‘Look at me,’ Zhang said disinterestedly. Gia did. Something flashed. ‘I need both your IHD and a wet-ink signature.’ He tossed a clipboard at her, and it clattered against the desk. A pen followed it.
‘How long does the program take?’ Aker asked, clearly for Gia’s benefit.
‘Three weeks in the sync, one week out, up in Purg. Ship out in under a month.’ He glanced at Gia. ‘If you pass.’
