Peter David - After Earth

Well, maybe not that evenly matched. Being a Ranger was in his blood. He proudly carried over seven hundred years of Kincaid dedication to service.

He outran the men, outclimbed the women, and sparred them both into submission.

Stepping into the dreaded booth, he was able to recite facts and details way beyond what the artificial intelligence was asking him. He also finished in what he imagined to be record time.

There was nothing stopping him from being approved for Phase 2 testing.

That night, there was a knock on the door of the family’s home. Anderson’s younger sister, Kayla, ran to answer it while he was reading. All he heard were hushed voices and some sort of commotion that caught his attention.

Clicking off his reader, a barefoot Anderson padded through the fabric curtains into the main room. Standing in the middle of his home was Commander Rafe Velan, the man in charge of training and testing the cadets. The tall, broad man had a close-cropped head of graying hair and a weathered face. Anderson’s mind was reeling; he had never heard of such a personal visit being made. What on Nova was happening?

“Commander!” he said, snapping to attention despite wearing a light shirt and baggy trousers. His sister imitated his stance, stifling a giggle.

Velan, a stern look in his eyes, twitched his mouth a moment before saying, “At ease… kids.”

Anderson exhaled while trying to remain at least somewhat presentable; Kayla fell into a chair.

“Are your parents at home?” Velan asked.

“Dad’s out getting something for dinner, and Mom’s at her office, as usual,” Kayla said.

“I see. May I speak with you alone, Cadet Kincaid?”

“Kay, get lost,” Anderson said, looking intently at his sister.

She made a face at him, smiled sweetly at Velan, and skipped out of the room. The commander, meanwhile, looked around the room, clearly uncomfortable. That got Anderson concerned. Something was wrong if the commander himself was in his house. How he wished his mother were there.

“Sir, may I get you a drink?”

“Thank you, no,” Velan said before swallowing hard. “I will get right to the point. You cannot be a Ranger.”

Anderson blinked once, then twice.

Kayla peeked through the bottom of a curtain, trying to eavesdrop, but he glared at her and she vanished back behind the curtain. He hadn’t imagined something so blunt and definitive. Now it was his turn to swallow and collect himself, trying to control the roiling emotions he felt.

“Sir, may this candidate inquire as to why?”

“At ease, Anderson,” Velan said emphatically. “You’re not in the program, and we know each other. In looking over your application for admission, the computer sent up a red flag. And I believe you know why.”

Anderson stared at the commander, trying to hold in the warring emotions deep in his chest. His dreams were about to become bitter ashes.

When he didn’t reply, Velan continued: “You lied, son. Had I seen the application, I would have remembered your accident and prosthetic arm and pulled it from consideration. You know the rules, I believe.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” he said weakly.

Velan nodded at that. “You knew about the prohibition, but you applied anyway and tried to sneak by. You were dishonest. Is a Ranger dishonest, Cadet?”

“No, sir!”

“Why lie, then?”

“The prosthetic is a part of me,” Anderson began. “I have lived with it for over half my life, and it doesn’t make me any less fit for being a Ranger.”

“Our regulations have a prohibition against Rangers having any prosthetic devices that may malfunction in the field, compromising the Ranger’s welfare and the safety of the Rangers around him,” Velan said, practically reciting the manual.

“Has it happened to anyone before?”

“Not that I know of,” Velan admitted, and if he could not think of an incident, it probably never had happened. Velan was a legend at the academy, a battle-tested man who was a walking, talking rule book. “But the rules were written a long time ago.”

“Then with respect, sir, considering the advances of prosthetics, maybe it’s time for those rules to be reviewed and revised.”

“A good point and one that will be taken under consideration. But meanwhile, the prohibition remains on the books, and it therefore excludes you. Right now, the larger issue is you being deceitful, which I cannot tolerate within the corps. I have to say, Anderson, I am disappointed you would lie. It dishonors yourself and your family name.”

“The arm has never once let me down, just like I won’t let the Rangers down. You can’t discriminate against me—it wasn’t my fault, and it’s not all I am. Let me prove it.”

“You hid the truth from the Rangers, and it sounds like you’re hiding it from yourself, too,” Velan gently said. That seemed to end the discussion, and Anderson knew he was not going to win the argument.

“Does my mother know?” he asked.

“I felt I owed it to you to tell you first,” he said, sounding genuinely sorry. “Would you like me to discuss this with her?”

“No… thank you, sir,” Anderson said. “I can tell her of my own failing.”

“You didn’t fail,” Velan said. “This has nothing to do with your ratings and everything to do with you hiding a disqualifying factor about yourself. Truthfully, you shouldn’t have even been allowed to try out in the first place. The thinking was that if you proved to be simply not up to the demands of the position, this would all be moot. The fact that I had to come out here just to have this discussion at all is your victory, not failure. Your scores were incredibly impressive. Then again, I would expect no less of Atlas’s relative.”

The future that Anderson had spent more than a decade working toward had suddenly vanished, and now that reality was sinking in. It hurt in a way his shoulder and missing arm never did. The pain was a psychic one, coursing from brain to heart and back again. Now all he wanted to do was scream at Velan, but he suspected that would be an irreparable mistake.

“I think I’d better go, Anderson,” Velan said, beginning to turn. “If you want me to speak with your parents, just call my office. I wish it were otherwise, since I know you would be an asset. Good night.”

With a voice that was as dead as his career, Anderson Kincaid said, “Good night… sir.”

It was a few days later, when the pain of the rejection had faded to a dull ache within his heart, that Anderson truly sat down to examine his options. He was powerfully built, and it appeared that only the Rangers had the limitation on prosthetics. Scanning the feeds, he considered various opportunities, but many were for labor and offered no real sense of a career. He most definitely didn’t want to be a laborer or an athlete (for fear someone would also be whispering “fraud” at every competition) or provide personal security for the elite.

Then he spotted a position with the Nova Prime Civilian Defense Corps. They were looking for qualified candidates for civilian patrols.

Kincaid did a quick scan of the agency and realized it was sanctioned civil defense. He hadn’t previously noticed or concerned himself with any other options, blinded as he was by dreams of the Rangers. Now, though, the NPCDC looked like a perfect fit.

“A Kincaid, eh?” the slightly overweight desk officer said. “Haven’t had one of those yet. Why us and not the Rangers?”

Anderson had anticipated the question, although he didn’t like discussing it. Just seeing the artificial arm and hand should have been clue enough. But then again, not everyone paid attention to details.

“My left arm is a prosthetic,” he said in a flat tone.