Coulter looked around the barracks and scowled. “Where’s the food?”

“You’re out of luck, pal,” Lauer growled. “There ain’t no food in this joint.”

“How are we supposed to relax after a battle without food?” Oakes asked.

“That’s what I said,” Lauer replied.

“I want a refund,” Coulter joked and made Henshaw laugh.

“We deserve a few beers after that run,” Thackery chimed in.

“Beers—hell,” Coulter countered. “Give me a bottle of bourbon any day of the week. Who has time for beer?”

“You won’t be able to drink beer ever again,” Henshaw told him. “You don’t have a liver anymore.”

Coulter pretended to gasp in horror. “Hush your mouth! I will drink again. Life wouldn’t be worth living if I didn’t.”

“It sounds like you need a new reason for living,” Oakes told him.

“What other reason is there?” Coulter asked. “At least let me live in the delusion that I might be able to drink again someday.”

“Okay, you might,” Henshaw told him.

“What are we supposed to do instead?” Dietz asked. “We can’t just stand around here staring at each other.”

“Come over here,” Thackery told him. “I’ll teach you how to play The Ship, The Captain, and The Crew.”

Coulter glanced at Rhodes. “He could use his rank to beat us.”

“I’m not playing,” Rhodes told him.

“You have more to worry about from Lauer,” Thackery added. “We’re going to have to come up with some special prize for anyone who beats him.”

Lauer started grinning. “Now you’re talking.”

“So what’s the prize?” Henshaw asked.

“A big sloppy kiss from me,” Coulter told her.

“That’s a punishment, not a reward,” Oakes growled.

“For you, maybe.” Coulter sat down at the table. “So how do we play?”

Thackery started explaining the game. Oakes, Dietz, and Henshaw sat down, too.

Fuentes sat at the next table and watched. He didn’t get involved.

Rhodes waited until they all got busy trash-talking, joking, and passing the dice around the circle. Then he turned to the one person who didn’t get involved in their conversation.

Rhinehart stood off by himself in a corner of the barracks. He faced the wall with his head down and didn’t engage with anyone.

Rhodes used the interface to check where Rocky was. In that moment, Rhodes realized that he activated the interface by himself. He didn’t need Fisher to do it for him.

Rhodes caught a glimpse of which SAMs hovered in front of which faces or, in Rhinehart’s case, which SAMs didn’t hover in front of which faces. Rocky wasn’t there.

Rocky had retreated to a pinprick. The interface told Rhodes that Rocky was still using the horse shape from the battle, but he didn’t try to talk to Rhinehart.

Rhodes took his time going over there. He would have to tell all these people about the loading dock.

Privacy would become paramount from now on. One place where each person could go to be alone would become more precious than gold.

The interface between the soldiers’ SAMs would make that privacy even more critical.

How much and how often should Rhodes use the interface to monitor his people’s mental state? Using the interface to communicate and check on them in battle was one thing.

He shouldn’t have used it to check on Rhinehart and Rocky, but what choice did Rhodes have about that? He was responsible for these people now.

Every life in this unit would depend on each person getting along with their SAM. One pair malfunctioning could put the rest of the group in jeopardy.

Oh, what the hell was Rhodes thinking? It would put the rest of the group in jeopardy—or worse.

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He stopped next to Rhinehart. “You did outstanding work in that training session today, Lieutenant,” Rhodes murmured. “You kicked ass.”

Rhinehart didn’t look up. “It’s still there. It’s always there. I can’t get rid of it. It’s driving me insane. Why can’t it just leave?”

“I know, soldier,” Rhodes murmured. “The same thing happened to me.”

“I would kill it if I could,” Rhinehart snarled. “I hate having it there in my head all the time. I would kill it if I could find a way.”

“I know,” Rhodes replied. “I feel exactly the same way about mine.”

“Why does it have to talk all the damn time?!” Rhinehart spat. “Why can’t it just shut the hell up?”

“It’s shutting up now,” Rhodes pointed out. “He’s trying to help you. He did help you by giving you information during the training session. You saved Coulter. That was something to be proud of. Now Rocky is keeping quiet because he knows that’s what you want. These SAMs are not our enemies. They’re our friends.”

“But it’s still there!” Rhinehart cast a wild glance around the barracks, but he didn’t see anything in front of him. “It’s there even when I can’t see it. It listens to everything and hears everything I’m thinking. It’s listening to us right now. It will never go away.”

Rhodes sighed. “I know.”

Rhinehart shifted his feet a few times. He couldn’t keep still. “I don’t think I can do this, Sir. These implants…..” He squirmed in his own skin. “They’re driving me insane.”

“I feel the same way, Lieutenant.” Rhodes hesitated and then took the plunge. “Before you woke up—before all of you woke up—the doctors and officers asked me to help them wake up the first three members of this battalion. I was in the room when they woke up. One of them…..he couldn’t take it. He went into a rage and tore his implants out and died right there on the floor.”

Rhinehart looked up. “Seriously?”

Rhodes gulped down a wave of sick horror at the memory. “I…..I wanted to do the same thing. I wanted to do it a million times—or off myself somehow. I couldn’t stand it.”

“How did you deal with it? What did you do to make it better?”

Rhodes couldn’t hold Rhinehart’s gaze. “I didn’t. Nothing made it better. It’s still there.”

Rhinehart looked down at his hands—the hands that weren’t his anymore. “We aren’t human anymore. I’m not human anymore. I’m not who I was before, but I don’t know who I am. I couldn’t have saved Coulter the way I was before.”

“None of us knows who we are or what we are, but we’re still human. We have to be.”

“How can you tell? What makes you think you’re still human? I mean—look at us.”

“I don’t know how I can tell. It isn’t anything I can look at or point to. Maybe just the fact that I hate this so much is proof that I’m still human. I don’t know. I’m trying to figure this out the same way you are, Lieutenant.”

Rhinehart bowed his head to look down at his hands again. “I’m not anything that could go home to my family anyway. They wouldn’t know me. They would be scared of me. The Legion doesn’t have to lock me up here or even tell my family I’m dead. The person they love…..isn’t here anymore. I died on the battlefield. This is someone else.”

Rhodes rested his hand on Rhinehart’s shoulder again. Touching him like that didn’t change a thing.

The voices coming from the table filled that silence. Rhodes glanced behind him.

The rest of the battalion sat around the table shooting snide remarks back and forth as each person took their turns rolling the dice. Thackery kept score. Fuentes glared at them from a few feet away.

It was the most human scene Rhodes could imagine except that none of the people in it were human. Only a small portion of their faces gave any evidence that these machines ever had been human.

Rhinehart’s voice drifted into Rhodes’s ear. “I gotta get out of here, Sir,” Rhinehart whispered. “I can’t stand this a second longer.”

“Go ahead,” Rhodes told him. “Take a walk around the station. Sometimes I go out to the loading dock and watch the ships launch and land. It helps me think. Maybe it will help you.”

Rhinehart nodded. “Thank you, Sir.”

Rhodes didn’t want to let him go just yet. “If you change your mind—if you decide you don’t want to do this anymore—no one will hold it against you.”

Rhinehart’s eyes swiveled toward the table. “They all seem just fine. I’m the only one messed up enough to think that.”

“I’m thinking it, soldier—and so are they. No one gets away free with this. Trust me. If you need to go there—if you need to opt out—just do it. No one will blame you. I really wish I could.”

“Why don’t you? Why do you stick around?”

“I decided to stay for all of you. I couldn’t function when I first woke up. General Brewster said that, if I didn’t figure it out, he would shut down the project and that meant shutting all of you down, too. I couldn’t do that. That’s the only reason I’m still here—that and to protect my family. They’re still out there in danger from alien invasion. If being like this gives me some small edge to protect my family, I guess I have to use it. I would have ended it a long time ago if it was just me.”

Rhinehart looked down at the floor again. “Yes, Sir. I understand.”

Rhodes pushed Rhinehart’s shoulder. “Get out of here. Go take a walk and think it over. We’ll still be here if you decide to come back.”

Rhinehart left the barracks. Rhodes watched him out of sight.

“Is it really like that for you, Captain?” Fisher asked.

“Of course it is,” Rhodes replied. “Did you think it wasn’t? Nothing changed. Nothing got better. How could it be otherwise?”

“You’re right, Captain,” Fisher murmured. “This project is a disaster.”

“Maybe you could communicate some of what you’ve learned about me to Rocky. Maybe you could help him learn how to help Rhinehart.”

“It seems to me that Rocky is already doing what Rhinehart wants by making himself invisible. That’s the only thing Rocky can do to help Rhinehart.”

“I suppose you’re right. I guess no one can help Rhinehart.”

“Do I help you, Captain?” Fisher’s voice trembled. “Would you really be better off if I stayed silent and invisible?”

Rhodes sighed again. “I really don’t know what will help me or any of these people, pal. I don’t know anything anymore.”

He waited a respectful amount of time before he went back to the table and sat down next to Coulter.

“Where’s Rhinehart going, Sir?” Oakes asked.

“He had to take a walk. He has a lot on his mind and he needs some time to think.”

“He rocked that training session,” Thackery pointed out. “I thought he was going to crash and burn. Then he came out of nowhere and smoked that power station. He’s a champion.”

“I guess so,” Rhodes murmured.

Being a champion in a training session didn’t mean jack shit to Rhinehart without his humanity and all the human connections that made it real.

Fuentes made that point loud and clear. He held himself apart and sat there seething with silent resentment. He didn’t participate in the game or the conversation.

After an hour, he took himself off to his capsule, locked himself in it, and started his conversion cycle early so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.

End of Chapter 18