Rhodes stepped back into the small white room, but he was all alone this time—all except Fisher. “What are we doing back here?” Rhodes asked.

“You’re here for a training session,” Fisher replied.

“I know that,” Rhodes snapped. “So why isn’t Dr. Neiland here?”

“She’ll monitor you from the lab. She doesn’t need to be here.”

Rhodes waited. “So….when is it going to start?”

“You just have to drop into The Grid. Then the session will start automatically.”

Rhodes started to say that he didn’t know how to enter The Grid, but before he could speak, he realized he did know how. He went into The Grid yesterday. He could do the same thing today.

Without thinking, he dropped through the floor—or it felt like that. The white walls vanished and he wound up in the black landscape with green lines all around him. He glanced around, but he didn’t see anything but Fisher.

Just as fast, Rhodes left The Grid and got himself back into the white training room.

“Is there a problem, Captain?” Fisher asked. “We have a training session scheduled for today.”

“The problem is you, pal. Find some way to switch yourself off. I don’t want you hanging around getting in my face.”

“I can’t switch myself off.”

“Then we’ll get Dr. Neiland to do it.”

Rhodes stormed out of the room and headed across the station toward Neiland’s lab. Rhodes knew enough about Legion stations to remember where the lab was.

“I am telling you the truth, Captain,” Fisher insisted. “I can’t shut myself off. No one can.”

“Shut the hell up, okay, man?” Rhodes countered. “I’m doing this so I don’t have to listen to you yap in my ear all the time.”

“My function is to….”

“Shut…up…..” Rhodes snarled through gritted teeth. “Just….shut….up…..”

Fisher must have sensed Rhodes teetering on the brink. Fisher didn’t say anything else all the way to Neiland’s lab.

The simple fact that Fisher was still there drove Rhodes over the edge. He had to get rid of this thing somehow. He couldn’t go through his daily existence with some computer program’s face right in front of him around the clock.

Rhodes burst into Neiland’s lab and surprised her and the rest of the medical staff working on their equipment.

Neiland jumped off her stool. “You aren’t authorized to come in here, Captain.”

“Do you think I give a crap about that? I want you to shut off this…..this SAM or whatever the hell you call it.”

She frowned at him. “Why do you want to shut it off? It’s supposed to help you.”

“Well, it isn’t helping me!” He fought his voice under control. “Just get rid of it. I don’t care what you have to do.”

“We can’t get rid of it. It’s part of your neural programming…..”

“I tried to explain this to you, Captain,” Fisher interjected. “The interface….”

Rhodes lost his battle to stay composed. “Just shut the fuck up, you stupid machine! I’m not talking to you! I’m never talking to you! Got it? Just get the fuck out of my head!”

Dr. Irvine and Dr. Montague came over. “What seems to be the problem?” Dr. Montague asked.

“Nothing seems to be the problem! There IS a problem!” Rhodes snapped. “This SAM is driving me insane. Just get it the hell out of my sight. It isn’t helping anything. It does nothing but interfere.”

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“But it hasn’t done anything,” Dr. Neiland pointed out.

“It’s there!” Rhodes fired back. “It’s there and it doesn’t go away! Just get rid of it. I don’t care how.”

“We can’t,” Dr. Montague told him. “We could only get rid of it by deleting your entire neural core. We would have to take you permanently offline. You would be dead.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Dr. Neiland told him. “The SAMs are an integral part of your neural processing system. You won’t be able to function without it.”

“I won’t be able to function with it.”

“Just try. Go through the training session with the SAM and see how it works.”

“No,” he snapped. “I’m not going to do anything until you find a way to get rid of it. I didn’t ask for this and I won’t cooperate until you shut it off.”

“Then I’ll die, too, Captain,” Fisher murmured.

“You’re already dead, jackass!” Rhodes snapped. “You aren’t alive. You’re a program in a machine.”

“I’m a sentient intelligence form,” Fisher told him. “I have the same thoughts and feelings as a human being.”

“Something tells me you don’t,” Rhodes snarled. “You don’t know the first thing about what it means to be a human being.”

“Be that as it may, I am sentient. I have as much right to existence as you do.”

“Fine. You go exist somewhere else and leave me the hell alone.” Rhodes turned away to leave, but he couldn’t leave without Fisher.

The SAM’s face followed Rhodes everywhere—except that Fisher didn’t follow. He stayed right there in front of Rhodes’s eyes no matter where Rhodes looked.

Rhodes stormed out of the lab, but he couldn’t get away from Fisher. Fisher didn’t say anything else, thank God. Rhodes probably would have done something disastrous if Fisher said a word.

Rhodes fumed in a rage on his way back to the barracks. He would have given just about anything to go off somewhere alone, but he couldn’t even do that.

Underneath all his fury, he felt his life slipping through his fingers. Every anchor point to what he knew and understood about himself evaporated before his eyes. He was adrift with nothing.

He couldn’t stand the sight of the barracks. He couldn’t stand the sight of anything—not with Fisher hovering right there in front of his eyes.

Fisher kept staring at him no matter where Rhodes went. Fisher didn’t say a word, but that somehow made it worse.

Having Fisher staring at him like that drove Rhodes batshit. He had to find a way to get rid of it. Just looking at Fisher all the time really tempted Rhodes to just end it.

At least this nightmare would be over then. Then Rhodes wouldn’t have to think about his family mourning his death.

He would never see them again. That’s why the Legion did it this way—so he wouldn’t be able to go home.

It might be easier for the family just to believe he died on the battlefield. That didn’t make it any easier for him. He really wished now that he did die on the battlefield.

He wandered around the station for a few more hours. Then he spent two hours at the loading dock watching ships launch and land, unload, and different crews work around the docks.

It didn’t help. Nothing did. Nothing ever would because Rhodes was stuck like this forever now.

He was still sitting there when Colonel Kraft came to find him. Kraft sat down next to him and stared off into space, too.

“They did the same thing to me,” Kraft finally blurted out. “They took me without my permission and told my family I was dead.”

Rhodes cringed. He already knew he wasn’t the only one. All those people in those capsules would wake up and find out the same thing. Then they would go through the same nightmare Rhodes was going through now.

How could he participate in this? How could he be the one to tell them to make the best of it and fight the Legion’s battles anyway?

What was the alternative—offing himself right now? He already knew he wouldn’t do that.

Kraft didn’t even look at Rhodes. Kraft kept staring off into the stars. “I know it isn’t the same thing as what they did to you, but they’re still out there. My family is still out there. I took an oath to protect them and I have to keep it even if they think I’m dead. They’ll never find out I kept my promise, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re safe—or at least that I did what I could to keep them safe. I don’t care about anything else.”

Kraft turned around for the first time. His eyes didn’t soften at all. He showed no sympathy or emotion, but something in his steadfast reserve told Rhodes loud and clear that Kraft did sympathize.

“I couldn’t do what you’re doing,” Kraft murmured. “I couldn’t take it, but you can. I don’t know why, but you can take it so much better than anyone else I can think of. I know you’ll do it. Don’t ask me how, but you’ll do it. You have to. You weren’t made for anything else.”

Kraft went back to staring at the stars for a while.

Rhodes stared at the side of Kraft’s face and then Rhodes stared at the stars, too. The two men didn’t say anything else.

Kraft didn’t tell Rhodes anything Rhodes didn’t already know. Of course Rhodes had to do it. Of course Rhodes had to do anything—absolutely anything—to protect his family even if they thought he was dead.

He could take it. That was the worst, most agonizing part. He knew he could take it, but that didn’t ease the pain. He just wanted to die. Surviving was the worst torture imaginable.

He had to do it. He had to do whatever it took no matter how hard it was. He no longer had any other option.

The two men sat in silence for a long time before Kraft got up and left. Rhodes stayed where he was for a few more hours. He sensed himself getting tired. His system needed to go through a conversion cycle, but he didn’t leave.

Maybe if he sat here long enough, the doctors and technicians would forget about him. They might forget that he was supposed to go through a training session today. Maybe they would forget about him entirely and he could spend the rest of his life on this loading dock.

That would never happen.

Fisher’s constant presence irritated Rhodes’s last nerve. He would have given anything to stab himself in the head so he could shut off the SAM just for a minute. A single minute, a single second without Fisher staring at him would have felt like heaven.