Long strings of tracer fire stitched their way across the night sky like ruby thread; the chatter of gunfire washing across the waterlogged streets of Philadelphia a fraction of a second later before dying away as the AA fire ceased. Lying across the street like a broken beast, the ruins of the multi-story office block had been taken over by the warlord months ago and its concrete and steel frame transformed into a veritable fortress; shattered concrete barricades and gabions providing cover to all manner of weapons. Half-crouched in brackish, plastic-choked water, I didn't flinch as a short burst of machine-gun fire from one of the fortress's windows punched into the half-decayed car I was using as cover; brilliant tracers whizzing into the air as they ricocheted all around me.
"What do we?" Begged the Pennsylvanian lieutenant beside me, blood oozing from a cut that slashed its way across his face --his pale skin turned orange by the light of distant fires.
He was young, seventeen if I had to guess, barely more than a boy. He and a dozen others were all that was left of a company that had been thrown into combat with inadequate training and inadequate equipment, the ill-prepared unit all but annihilated by the initial attack on the hardened structure. It was a mad, vicious waste of lives; screams rising all around me as men and women died in droves on the barbed wire or in the street in an attempt to break the defences and seize control of the strongpoint.
I didn't react as a human would. Glacier saw to that.
Despite the pain and fear that surrounded me, I was as cold as ice; as impassive as stone. Every soldier in the Federation used thoughtware for combat; the programs for the neural lace that entwined our brains items capable of modifying them in controlled, reversible ways. The thoughtware made us better soldiers. The thoughtware made us less than human. The thoughtware saved lives.
Raising my Ripgun above the hood of the car with the too-smooth motion of someone running Murder, I let loose a barrage of fire toward the distant fortress. "Shoot back," I said evenly as I dropped back behind cover.
Seemingly taking my words as gospel, the lieutenant followed suite; his chemical slugthrower roaring as it fired countless rounds into the darkness. Without warning, the boy's head suddenly disappeared in a cloud of red mist; the sharp crack of the sniper's bullet ringing out moments later as his body crumpled to the waterlogged ground with a splash. An instant later, a fresh barrage of machine-gun fire rattled across the frame of the destroyed car sending a shower of orange sparks into the night air.
Crouched beside the lieutenant's fallen corpse, I hastily checked its pockets for something useful before pushing it away to make room for someone else; the act smearing mud and blood across my skinsuit's dull green skin.
Overhead, something shrieked deafeningly loud, and the world dissolved in a flash of blue-white light.
====================================
Alone in the passenger cabin of the maglev train, Lieutenant Anoki Sigurdsson stirred from the somnolence vir neural lace had enforced and cancelled the alert with a thought --the last vestiges of vir dream slipping away as vir neural lace cancelled the alarm. Rubbing the sleep from vir eyes, Anoki yawned and pressed virself against the window of the cabin; staring out at the landscape beyond.
It was winter in the northern hemisphere and, as it had been for the past two months, the sun was low on the horizon. A fat orange ball, the eternal sunset left the sky painted a brilliant gold and turned the plain that lay beside the maglev a deep purple colour --clusters of scattered trees flashing past the window every few seconds. Despite the speed, Anoki could still make out the tentacled forms of labour servitors as they faithfully carried out their orders.
At ten meters long and half a meter wide, the biological robots resembled nothing less than the Arthropleura of prehistory --their segmented bodies a common sight throughout the Federation and the Union. Capable of rearing up to a height of three meters, the thorax of the artificial bugs featured a crown of tentacles dextrous enough to play the piano and strong enough to bend steel, and what would be a digestive tract in an evolved animal had been configured to produce concrete using ingested dirt. Grown in biological factories throughout the nation, teams of the quasi-insects were used for everything from gardening to building houses.
Falka would love this, ve thought idly before bitter memories rose to the forefront of vir mind and they banished the thought.
It's okay, Anoki spoke into the minds of those who, sensing vir rancorous emotions churning in the Matrix, had instinctively offered support through the psychic field that connected them. I just wasn't expecting the deceleration to be so harsh. Ve lied.
Vir fellow passengers responding with thought-imagery of smiles and rolled eyes, Anoki allowed a faint stirring of embarrassment to enter the emotional medium that surrounded them before turning vir attention back to the view. In the time the mental conversation had taken, the train had slowed down from fantastically fast to merely uncomfortably so, and the clusters of trees and servitors that had once been little more than blurs had resolved themselves into distinct organisms.
Without warning, a sudden sense of awe surged into the Matrix from the head of the train; a ripple of emotion that spread like wildfire down the line of carriages accompanied by an insistent suggestion to look out the window opposite. Turning just in time to see a hill flash by the left-hand side of the carriage, Anoki felt vir jaw drop as ve caught sight of the same thing the others had --vir own outpouring of wonder adding to the flood of emotion that had blossomed.
Erupting from the earth like the femur of some great forgotten beast, a vast pillar of metal seemed to slowly drift past the window; its stark white form stained a mottled orange by the ochre dust of distant lands. Here and there, scattered at random across the tower, dark caverns gapped like hungry mouths; the centipede-like forms of countless labour servitors clinging to the side of the pillar as they worked to seal voids that dwarfed them.
As the train crawled around the mighty tower, a second pillar slowly emerged from out behind its majestic bulk; a cage of golden rings visible at its crown who-knows-how many meters up. Craning vir neck in a fruitless attempt to spot to the top of the closest tower, Anoki let out a long, low whistle as the sheer scale of the structure pressed down on vir with an almost physical force. Then, a whoosh of rushing air and both towers vanished; blocked from sight as the maglev entered a tunnel.
Smiling to virself as the Matrix faded down to its usual gentle wash of emotion, Anoki leaned returned to vir chair and closed vir eyes. A moment later, a ghostly version of the world faded into view in vir mind's eye as vir espersense extended outward and the physical world slipped away to be replaced by a long string of minds shining in a ghostly version of the maglev.
Vir imagination pictured the gland responsible, a tumour of oily darkness buried in between the hemispheres of vir brain, rippling gently and without rhythm. The actual thing looked nothing like that, but as psychosis went, it was mostly harmless. Other psi-operatives had much stranger hallucinations and the successful ones had long since learned to accept theirs.
Turning vir attention to the sky beyond the cabin of the maglev train, Anoki pushed vir espersense through the thin walls of the tunnel and into the open-air --concrete and steel phasing through vir vision like ghosts and sending an involuntary shudder down vir spine. In earlier times the ability had been dubbed Astral Projection out of the belief it involved a spiritual basis, but in the modern-day, it was known as Remote Viewing --the separation of mind from body. Anoki was the first to admit that, as powers went, it wasn't the flashiest, but it had saved vir and vir squad more than once in the Americas.
Floating well above the maglev now, Anoki could see their destination sprawling across the landscape like an indolent cat.
A vast complex of concrete and steel, the Concordia gateway facility was awash with the light of countless intellects; a quick estimate by Anoki putting the number at several thousand at a minimum. Covering an area of several square kilometers, easy, Concordia was clearly a combination military base and cargo facility --barracks squatting next to air traffic control towers, and fields of cargo containers lying next to tangled nests of maglev tracks which terminated in gigantic A-frame terminals. Soaring high above the densely packed structures, a dozen vast murmurations of servitor Starlings flocked to and fro --fine silver threads connecting each flock to buildings throughout the base.
Vir curiosity satisfied, for now, Anoki closed her eyes above the sprawling base and opened them on the maglev once more.
====================================
"It's amazing what we've been able to achieve with just a radio and some prior knowledge," said the historian excitedly as he waved his hands above the table; the woman sitting beside him jerking out of the way just in time to avoid a glob of potato curry that sailed through the air.
Flashing her an apologetic smile as he received the spike of irritation she sent into the Matrix, the green-eyed man, Carlyle, dropped his spoon onto his tray and leaned in toward Anoki as ve speared another slice of tank-grown meat from vir plate.
"I mean," he continued conspiratorially, his giddy eagerness seeping into the Matrix, "we've only had the ops centre running for a couple weeks now and we've saved maybe three-four hundred lives. It's incredible."
They were seated in one of Concordia's many mess halls, the murmur of conversation and the psychic trill of identitas suffusing the room with a pleasant air as friends and comrades kissed one another in greeting. Anoki had been in line at the commissary when Carlyle and his friend had run into vir; the tall blond man and the short raven-haired woman recognizing Anoki from an earlier run-in on the maglev platform and inviting vir to sit at their table. Having arrived a day before the rest of vir squad, Anoki had little else to do and so had accepted the invitation; the three of them instinctively exchanging identitas through the Matrix.
Carlyle, he/him, was thirty-six years old and taught modern history at the University of Edinburgh with a focus on the early 21st century. He grew up in the Celtic Union and had never been this far north before. He was married and loved his husband enough that it stained his identitas --his psychic identifying code-- with a gentle warmth.
Layla, she/her, was three years Anoki's junior at only twenty-eight years old. She lead one of the engineering team responsible for tower maintenance and was proud of her ability to direct multiple labour servitors at once. She grew up in the Antarctic Union and missed her family, but she desperately wanted to see the Amazon her avó's avó had taken pictures of.
"Five hundred, peste," corrected Layla as she idly sipped her chai; her crossed arms covered in a plethora of tattoos that stirred and shifted on their own accord across her olive skin. "They ran the numbers again this morning."
"How the hell do you know that?" Queried Carlyle, the pale man flushing as she shot him a satisfied look.
Civilians, it seemed to Anoki, were as eager to share gossip as soldiers were.
"Whatever," he continued, "five hundred people, then. The important thing is that I'm a historian and I didn't really get just how bad things were back then."
"I thought you said you were on the research team?" Anoki asked the lanky historian, pausing mid-stab as ve shot Carlyle a dubious look and allowed vir gentle confusion to seep into the Matrix.
"I am," he acknowledged. "But there's a difference between knowing something and understanding." The man paused, an unreadable expression flashed across his face too quickly for vir to parse.
What do you know about the United States' history? Carlyle sent, his mental tone weighed down with fatigue and disgust.
Anoki shrugged. Not as much as you, I expect, but I know the major things, ve replied.
Carlyle smiled wanly and sent a request to share qualia, the mental link between them expanding from a rivulet to a river as Anoki accepted and closed vir eyes --the gentle warning Carlyle placed on the memories vanishing like mist under the blazing sun.
There was a moment of disconnection...
And Anoki opened his eyes to the dimly lit confines of some unknown room; the hum of countless conversations replaced by the near-subliminal whir of air conditioning. He was standing before a desk kept clear save for the pyramidal form of a laser projector, a handful of people hunching over its glazed glass surface like crows. In some distant part of his mind, Anoki felt as if he knew these people well, recognition stirring in his mind even as he knew he had never seen them before.
They're good people, thought Anoki as he looked from face to face. The best. He was proud of them all and trusted their opinions. In a way, he almost regretted having to show the-
With a mental jerk, Anoki clamped down on the memories that played through vir head; Carlyle's thoughts curling up and dying in vir mind as ve pushed back against the thought-patterns that accompanied the sense-memory. Qualia, one of the stranger offshoots of the modern dive into the mind, were tricky things. More than simple sense-recordings, Qualia allowed users to experience a moment in time exactly as the recorder had --provided the user so chose.
"Adebiyi," Anoki felt virself say to a dark-skinned man standing across from vir, "your thoughts?"
"Of course," replied the man, uncrossing his arms from his sapphire and gold robes as the projector splashed the image of a street across the glass.
It was a sense-recording from a servitor, Anoki recognized immediately. The viewpoint somewhere high up and motionless; a tree-lined boulevard stretching out beneath it. One side of the avenue was made up of red brick row houses while the other looked out onto a vast and open parkland. Here and there, archaic-looking cars stood parked in the shade of trees while people dressed in similarly old fashioned clothes meandered their way down the sidewalk.
"It's no surprise we encountered this so quickly," the man said as he began to circle the table. "Raids increased dramatically under President Trump and successive Presidents failed to reverse it due to reasons both ideological and practical."
Without warning, the footage leapt forwards and a group of three warped into view. Two adults and a little girl, all holding hands. The mother pushing a covered pram. The father carrying a bright pink backpack.
A family, clearly.
"Though the actions of the executive branch were still beholden to the legislative," Adebiyi continued, "the late 2020s were the tipping point by which the American far-right began to ossify their control of the nation's politics.
Half-listening to the man's stilted narration, Anoki watched as a dark grey van slid into view from the bottom of the frame; its engine purring as it inched its way down the street. In the distance, a sedan curved around the corner and began to do the same.
Suspicion bubbling in the depths of vir gut, Anoki eased vir grip on the Qualia and allowed Carlyle's thoughts to once again flow through vir mind.
Past. 2028. America. Mexico. A drought. Tens of thousands crossing the border to seek a better life. Border. Republicans. Republican president.
The family were oblivious to those stalking them; their backs turned to the dark grey beast as it crept closer to the shoulder. They couldn't sense the eyes of the driver boring into them. They couldn't see the shapes moving in the recesses of the van through the windows. Behind the glossy windshield of the sedan --tinted to stop humans from seeing within--, a man checked his pistol.
There was no warning when it happened, no split-second flash of precognition, or countdown. One moment the family were walking down the road and then the next, lightning-quick, the vehicles leapt forward and swooped into place to block them. Before the family could react, the van's side door slid open with a rasping whine and three armoured figures spilt out; rifles up and ready, the letters ICE stamped across their backs.
In a heartbeat they covered the distance, shoving the father to his knees as they bellowed for him to stay still and raise his hands. Ripping the backpack from his grasp, the paramilitaries tied his wrists together with plastic cables and yanked him to his feet with a pained yelp. Wailing, his daughter lept toward him only to be dragged to the ground by her mother; her undulating scream replaced by choked sobs as all three began to cry.
"I think that's enough," said Anoki-Carlyle; the projector freezing on the tableau of a crying family.
Adebiyi nodded and gestured at the image. "As you can see, ICE is already displaying the same pattern of violence that would eventually lead to the Greenshirts. As such, I believe close observation of founding members is warranted, as well as observation of any catalyzing influences."
Anoki paused, tossing the idea over in vir head. Servitor observation was capable, certainly, but there were places an animal couldn't get into and actions they couldn't carry out. Close observation meant people and people meant risk, but Anoki couldn't see a reason to deny it.
Ve sighed. "I see your point. I'll include it in the report unless anyone has any objections..."
"Alright then," Ve said as each historian shook their head in turn, "who's next?"
There was a moment of disconnection…
And Anoki found virself back in vir seat, the noise of the mess hall crashing into vir awareness like a tidal wave as the last tendrils of Carlyle's recorded memories slipped away.
The room felt colder all of a sudden, and darker too.
"I… Hell," Anoki grunted after a long pause.
For many of those rounded up, yes. Antelope Wells was- is still a dream, but not a distant one.
Okay, ve replied as suspicions slowly dawned within vir mind. I imagine the reason for special forces has to do with what your man Adebiyi said: you need someone under observation.
Got it in one. You supersoldiers will help us save the world.
