David Simpson: Post-Human Trilogy

“Whatever you say, sir.”

Paine’s face instantly went pale at the thought. After a moment of reflection, he sat back in his seat and lowered his weapon. “Not in this life, Doc. The USA will never do what anyone tells them—or at least that’s how our President looked upon the situation.” He crossed his arms and cocked his head slightly to the right. “I wonder how things would have shaken out had your wife been President.”

Craig kept his composure. He didn’t like having his wife brought into the conversation, but he also knew the stakes were high. If Paine was telling the truth, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had him and Samantha on their radar—and that was a place one never wanted to be.

“Now,” Paine continued, “I do read the files of every man under my command. I’ve read yours. It’s impressive. You’re a doctor, automatically an officer with the rank of captain. You could have hidden away in a military hospital, but instead you trained for Special Forces assignment. You’re a veteran of ten HALO jumps, one from 50,000 feet.” Paine paused, and his eyes met Craig’s. “Balls. You’re the most qualified man the Air Force currently has in combat S.A. Now, I didn’t know what the hell ‘combat S.A.’ is, so I had to look it up. That wasn’t easy, given its secret status, but hell, if I wasn’t gobsmacked to find out it stands for ‘ suspended animation .’ I’m gonna assume you used your wife’s connections in DARPA to get yourself in on that.”

“That’s how I found out about the program, sir.”

Paine nodded. “You were selected for this mission as an add-on because of your specialty training and because you’re the only guy in the entire United States military who has a chance in hell of hooking up with a Special Forces suborbital low-opening parachute unit and actually managing to pull it off. However…” Paine began as he slipped off his aug glasses and leaned his elbows on the small wooden desk. “…it behooves me to tell you that your participation in this mission is extraneous to its overall success. So, believe me when I tell you that when I told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that you were solid and that the President doesn’t have to worry about whether he is sending a traitor on the most important mission in American history since the Enola Gay , I really didn’t have to. I stuck my neck out for you, Doc.”

Craig blinked. “I… thank you, sir. I’m no traitor, sir. My wife… she just worries.”

“You’re Special Forces now, Doc. The men you’re accompanying on your mission today are the best this country has to offer—the best we have left. This is a dangerous mission. We cannot put those men at any more risk than is absolutely necessary.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Do you? This is as top secret as it gets. Even I don’t know the details. Yet you’re wife knows…” Paine paused as he retrieved his aug glasses. He slipped them on, nodded again to select something, and then read, “This mission is important, Sammie. If it’s successful, this war will be over a lot sooner than the world thinks. ”

Craig fell silent once again.

“In Britain, during the blitz of WWII,” Paine related, “they had a slogan: ‘The walls have ears.’ These days, it’s a hell of a lot worse. There’s nothing you can say that isn’t picked up by a mic somewhere, fed through an algorithm that picks up patterns and weeds out what’s important. If our intelligence forces have that capability, you can be damn sure the Chinese have it too. If they heard you, they’re on high alert right now.”

Craig nodded. The colonel was absolutely right. He’d been a fool to say anything.

“You never, never put your fellow soldier at risk, Doc.—especially when you’re Special Forces.”

“You’re right, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

Paine leaned back in his chair one last time. “Let me be clear. I could have your ass in jail as we speak. I could have your wife arrested. I could do all of that, but I won’t. I won’t because I believe you made a mistake and that you sincerely care about your fellow soldiers and your country.”

“I do, sir.”

Paine nodded. He’d made his point–taught his lesson to a would-be intellectual. “Suspended animation, huh? Shoot.” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “This world is getting stranger and stranger. All right, Doc. Get your ass out of here and join your unit. You’re dismissed. Good luck.”

Craig stood to his feet and saluted, his back rigid. “Thank you, sir!” He turned on his heels and marched out of the room.

Paine watched him leave. “You’re going to need it,” he whispered under his breath.

“WAKE UP,” Craig said, speaking the initiation command as he finished unpacking his MAD bot.

The blue light panels on its shoulders, knees, and hands lit up, and the two blue circles that were meant to mimic human eyes came to life as the electronic hum of the complex fans began, the cooling of the hard drive already underway. The MAD bot stood four and a half feet tall, and its skin was mostly an opaque carbon fiber, interrupted only in the joints by dark blue fiber-optics. “Good morning, Captain Emilson,” the MAD bot spoke in its deceptively human-sounding voice. The voice was male, but it was high pitched enough to suggest juvenility.

“Good morning, Robbie,” Craig replied.

“Robbie the robot?” the driver of the shuttle bus reacted. “Seriously?”

Craig smiled. “It’s easy to remember.”

“What does that thing do, Doc?” the driver asked over his shoulder while observing the robot in his rearview mirror. The New Mexico desert sprawled in all directions toward the horizon, which was a little less yellow than it had been in recent days—a hopeful sign that the last of the fallout from the most recent attacks in California was finally abating.

“Robbie’s a MAD bot, a medical assistance device, ” Craig explained over the noise of the bus engine. “He has a built-in tricorder, and he’s programmed to diagnose injuries and illnesses better than a team of board-certified doctors.”

“Does it treat injuries?”

“He can,” Craig replied as he scanned the bot to make sure it was operating properly.

“Holy… so isn’t that an A.I.?” the driver asked, his tone both intrigued and suspicious.

“He’s narrow A.I. Don’t worry. Robbie won’t be taking over the world anytime soon.”

“I’m here to help, sir,” Robbie said to the driver.

“Did that thing just talk to me?” the driver reacted, surprised.

Craig grinned. “He did. Robbie, say hello to Private Lee.”

“Hello, Private Lee,” Robbie said, turning his head to face the driver.

The driver’s eyebrows rose. “Creepy. So, if you don’t mind me asking, Doc, why don’t they just send the robot? I mean, if it’s better than a team of doctors like you say, then why even have medical officers anymore?”

“Maybe someday,” Craig replied. “For the time being, MAD bots are expensive and haven’t had enough field testing to guarantee that they won’t make a serious mistake.”

“Mistake? Like what?”

Craig scratched his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’ve ever made one before, but—you know—just in case.”

“Ah.” The driver nodded. “Gotcha.”

A light suddenly twinkled brilliantly in the distance on the horizon in front of them, backdropped by dark mountains. Craig’s eyes locked on the gleam.

“There it is, Doc,” the driver announced, “ Spaceport America. ”

Craig and Robbie stepped down the ramp of the shuttle bus onto the tarmac of Spaceport America.