Joe Haldeman - Future Weapons of War

The President was now back in the Oval Office. He couldn’t remember walking inside. The Chinese officer spoke softly to his men and they trooped inside and then he said, “This is nothing personal, you realize.”

A lot of questions were bouncing around in his head and were fighting to come clear, but all he could do was nod to the officer. And remember.

A day after the task force disappeared, the computers across the country started failing from types of viruses and bugs that had never been seen before. There was a cabinet meeting with Corcoran and the others, and the general had been waving around that cable, a fiber optic cable. “We’re in a war, a looking glass war,” he had shouted, “and we’re losing!” Then, late at night, in his darkened office and staring at the computer screen, he had found a new game on the White House system. A computer game that involved colors and shapes and manipulating them just so, a game that seemed to suck him right in, and before he knew it, the morning sun was shining through the Oval Office windows.

And all the rest of the day, through meetings after meetings, all he could think about was returning to his screen and seeing which new level he could reach. And from the distant looks of his cabinet officers and others, he knew, in that little last part of him that was aware of what was going on, that so many others were now firmly within that hypnotic grasp.

“Excuse me,” he said to the officer.

“Yes?” the officer replied.

“Do any of you know anything about computers?”

The officer rattled off something to his troops and they laughed, and then he spoke to him and said, “A little. What is the problem?”

He gestured to his desk. “I can’t get mine to work. The screen’s blank.”

Another incomprehensible statement to his troops, and one of the soldiers sat at the keyboard, while another went down on his hands and knees underneath the desk, the desk that had once belonged to Johnson, and after a moment or two of adjustments and typing by the soldiers, the screen snapped into focus.

There! He smiled widely and scurried around to his desk, and the soldiers went away and he sat down and he knew there was so much to do, so many questions to ask, but the program was right there on his screen, ready for his fingers to caress the keys and manipulate the shapes, and he couldn’t wait.

Could not wait at all. He could not remember such desire, such hunger, such thirst…

The officer said something sharp again, and the soldiers backed away from the ornate desk. The President triggered the game program and looked over at the officer and asked, “What did you say right then? Why did they move back?”

The officer moved around, his hand at his side. “I told them to give you room. And I told them not to look at your screen.”

More questions, much more needed to be asked, but on his screen those wonderful moving and hypnotic shapes returned, the colors of green and magenta quite bright, and he had to get into the game, it had been so long, and he was just touching the keyboard when he dimly heard a sound, like a purse or pouch being snapped open.

And as the President of the United States tried to move up to the next level to the game, he ignored the feeling of something cold and metallic being pressed against the base of his skull.

Cap slipped through the undergrowth. He was stealthy, for there were things that would kill him if they found him, men and animals both. He surprised rabbits and bouncers and other prey as he appeared like a ghost through the leaves, and they scattered before him, but he was not hunting now.

The sound of Guns had alerted him from his patrol. They came from somewhere near his friend, and he hurried to investigate. Guns were an indication of hunting, and David was alone, with many enemies in the dark woods. He increased his pace, mouth wide to reduce the rasp of his breath, and squeezed between two boles, then under the dead, rotten log he’d passed on the way out. His patrol had only been half done, and he hoped David would understand.

He drew up short. The scents in his nose sorted themselves. That one was Gun smell, and not from David or another friend. That was the smell from David’s Gun. That was the smell of David, and the smell of blood. Cap dropped flat on the forest floor and eased his way under a brushbush. He gazed deeply into the dappled murk, and widened his ears and nose. The Enemy was not nearby.

He moved quickly, striding forward, dreading what he would find. There was a dip in the ground, leaves hastily tossed to cover it. A few scrapes revealed a hand, then an arm. The sweet-sour smell told him already, but he kept digging until he saw the face, then more. It was David, dead. Cold flowed through him as he stared at the body, ragged holes blown through it by Guns. All David’s harness and gear was missing. The thing he called a Comm was gone, and Cap knew that was bad. If an enemy had the Comm, he had to get it back or destroy it. He didn’t know why, but that had been one of the things drilled into him from an early age. A Duty, it was called.

He whimpered in pain, for David had been his friend his entire life. Somehow, he had to do what must be done, and return to the fenced Home where David and he lived. He wasn’t sure what happened after that, but he knew what he’d been taught, and knew he had to do it. First, he reburied David’s body, sad and wishing other humans were here. They knew what to say for the dead, and Cap couldn’t say it for them.

Standing and peering around, he spotted the route taken by the Enemy. He would come to that soon enough, but first, he had to do what David called a Datadump. That tree there should work, and he trotted toward it. He scrambled aloft until the branches would barely take his weight, swaying in the late evening breeze. He pressed the broad pad on the shoulder of his harness, and sat patiently. It was a human thing, and he didn’t know what it was exactly, only that he was to climb a tall tree and press the pad every day at sunset. That, too, was a Duty. It beeped when it had done what it was supposed to, and he eased hack down the limbs and trunk, flowing to the ground like oil.

Now to the hunt.

The path the Enemy left marked them as amateurs. David and his friends left much less sign of their passing, although he could still follow them easily enough. There were some friends, those who David called Black Ops, who were almost as adept as he, and could kill silently and quickly. He wished for their company now. They were hunters as he, even if human, and would understand his feelings. But those fellow hunters were not here, and he must tread carefully. It was his Duty to his friend to continue doing what he was trained to, and to recover the Comm. After that, it would be a pleasure to kill those who had killed David. That was his Duty to himself.

There they were. He dropped into the weeds and became invisible, watching them patiently.

There was no hurry, for they could not get away from his keen hunter’s skill. He sat and listened, grasping what few words he could, and waiting for the right moment.

“—odd to find one rebel out like this, along our patrol route,” said one.

“They’re all weird, if you ask me. They don’t want law, don’t want schools, and don’t want support. Why anyone these days would be afraid of the government is beyond me,” said another. He felt like a leader, and Cap guessed him to be the Sergeant. There were eight of them, so this was what David called a Squad, and Sergeant was the Squad Leader. They were Enemies. He was sure, because the clothing was wrong, they smelled wrong, and David’s people had Squads of twenty.