Rhodes walked into the barracks and looked around at all his subordinates—and all their SAMs. They all waited for him to solve their problems.
He would never be able to do that because their problems were all his problems, too. He couldn’t even cope with them himself, much less everyone else.
“What are we gonna do about this, Captain?” Henshaw asked. “We have to trust our SAMs. How can we not?”
“We’ve gone over this a million times,” Rhodes replied. “The only question is how we’re going to handle our session this afternoon.” He turned to Thackery. “Can you work with Koenig, or do you want to make him silent and invisible and fight on your own?”
“I have to work with him,” she replied. “I need his information. I can’t keep track of everything on my own. The system feeds too much at me at once. I have to keep track of the whole Grid.”
“That’s the whole point,” Henshaw interrupted. “We’re all better off….”
Rhodes raised his hand to silence her. “You made your point, Georgie. We all know how you feel about Keon. I’m not asking you.” He turned back to Thackery. “Just tell me what you want to do.”
She twisted in her own skin—what was left of it. “What choice do I have?”
“You have the choice to make him silent and invisible. You have the choice not to take his information at all and accept the consequences—including that you might not see something in time. You could get shot and killed—or recaptured by the Emal. That’s the risk you would have to take.”
She curled her lip in disgust. “Great. So he’s holding me as a hostage.”
Rhodes turned to Coulter. “What about you and Murphy? Are you willing to work with him?”
“I’ll work with him. It doesn’t mean I have to trust him.”
“No one is asking you to.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem of what we’re supposed to do if one of them malfunctions during a battle—or a training session,” Thackery pointed out.
“There won’t be anything we can do,” Rhodes pointed out. “We just have to deal with it. I don’t like this any better than you do, but it isn’t like we can do anything to prevent it from happening. If anything, we just have to prepare ourselves for when it does happen.”
“Fantastic,” Lauer snarled and turned away. “I’m done with this whole conversation. Just tell me when it’s time to go. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Dietz went back to the computer terminal. He didn’t say a word during the conversation and neither did Zen. Should Rhodes be worried about that—more worried than he already was?
He took that opportunity to turn to the nine SAMs. They still surrounded him in the interface.
“Is there anything we can do to win back your trust, Captain?” Murphy asked. “I had no idea Eddie felt so strongly about this.”
“Be grateful your host doesn’t hate you and want to kill you,” Koenig remarked. “I thought Coulter was rather circumspect and rational about the whole matter.”
“None of you have to do anything to win back my trust,” Rhodes replied. “I know none of you did anything deliberately. You malfunctioned. I don’t blame you for that or for anything else you did while you were malfunctioning.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Fisher murmured. “You’re very forgiving.”
“Will you stop that—all of you? I don’t care about any of that. I want to talk about what we’re going to do, both in the training session and in actual combat, if one of you malfunctions.”
“We won’t be able to do anything if we malfunction,” Wild pointed out. “We’ll be helpless and out of control the way we have been in the past.”
Rhodes sighed. “What about taking yourselves offline? Is that even a possibility?”
“Not if we’re incapable of controlling our own processes,” Wild replied.
“There must be some contingency plan we can come up with.”
“I have a suggestion to make, Captain,” Fisher interjected.
“By all means, let me hear it.”
“I suggest that we assign each of our hosts the ability to deactivate our emotional responses in case of emergency. That would prevent any of us from incapacitating our host with crippling fear or sending one of you into a berserk rage the way we have in the past.”
Rhodes spun around. “Can you do that?”
“I believe we can install a protocol in each of our systems that will assign our host the ability to do it.”
“Why don’t you just go the whole hog and assign our hosts the ability to take a SAM offline if they malfunction?” Rocky asked. “That would be much more effective, especially if the host is still perfectly functional. They can continue to function without a SAM until the SAM gets reprogrammed or repaired.”
“What’s the point of the host functioning independently?” Keon asked. “What’s the point of the host carrying a SAM at all if they can function just as well without it?”
“I don’t say the host can function just as well without it,” Rocky replied. “I say the host can function better without a malfunctioning SAM than with a malfunctioning SAM. We wouldn’t assign the battalion the ability to deactivate their SAMs just because. Thackery wouldn’t be able to deactivate Koenig just because she doesn’t like him. If a SAM malfunctions to the point of incapacitating their host—so long as the fault lies in the SAM and not the host themselves—then each person in the battalion would be able to function better by taking the SAM offline—even temporarily. It would be better than the entire host shutting down due to a malfunction in the SAM alone.”
“That’s an idea, but the doctors would have to reprogram each SAM,” Rhodes pointed out. “We don’t have time for that.”
“We have time before the brass deploys the battalion back to Emal wars,” Rocky suggested. “It might not happen today or tomorrow, but the SAMs are more likely to malfunction in real combat anyway.”
“How much of that could you do right now?” Rhodes asked. “Could you assign each of us the ability to switch off your emotional responses?”
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“Why not give the SAMs the ability to switch off each host’s emotional responses, too?” Wild suggested. “If it will benefit the hosts to deactivate some function of their SAMs, then logic would suggest that the same might be true in reverse.”
“You can’t do that!” Keon countered. “You can’t just deactivate some function of your host’s neural processes.”
“Why not?” Wild asked. “Wouldn’t the hosts function better in combat without all that raw emotion running unchecked through their veins? It would certainly prevent any malfunctions.”
“It might not prevent ALL malfunctions,” Fisher pointed out. “It might even cause new ones. Human beings aren’t designed to function without their emotions.”
Rhodes held up his hand. “We don’t have time to argue about this right now. I want each of you to start working on it—but don’t install any of these switches yet. Just explore the possibility of installing them. We need to check with the doctors….and everybody….before we do something as drastic as that. In the meantime, we have a training session to prepare for.”
The group broke up and everyone went back to whatever they were doing before—or they started to.
Fisher stopped them before they walked away. “I’m taking the captain out of the interface for a few minutes. I want to have a private conversation with him.”
Lauer narrowed his eyes at the SAM. “Whatever you have to say to him you can say in front of us.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Lieutenant,” Fisher returned with plenty of icy steel in his voice.
Rhodes had never heard Fisher talk to anyone like that—almost as if Fisher was Lauer’s superior officer speaking down to someone beneath him.
“I’m not asking for anyone’s permission,” Fisher told him. “I’m going to have a private conversation with the captain before the training session. I’m informing you so you won’t get alarmed when I take him off the interface.”
Rhinehart frowned at him. “Don’t we get a say in this?”
“No, you don’t.” Fisher turned to Rhodes. “If you don’t mind stepping out of the barracks for a moment, Captain….”
Rhodes cringed at his tone. Now Fisher was ordering Rhodes around.
Rhodes realized in that moment just how deep his trust in Fisher had grown. Rhodes never once thought Fisher meant him any harm—or that Fisher would manipulate him—or that Fisher wanted to talk to him privately for some underhanded reason.
It never once crossed Rhodes’s mind that Fisher wanted to take him by himself so Fisher could malfunction, turn murderous, and harm Rhodes.
Rhodes would never believe that, but he saw plenty of his subordinates giving him side looks. They certainly thought Fisher was capable of that and maybe a lot more.
Why shouldn’t they believe it after the way Fisher used Rhodes to kill Dr. Irvine? Fisher could be spilling all kinds of psycho suggestions into Rhodes’s ears while his subordinates’ backs were turned.
Fisher wouldn’t do that. For a start, this was the first private conversation they’d ever had since Rhodes got out of stasis. He’d been interfacing with Oakes the whole time and then with the whole battalion.
Fisher never asked to talk to Rhodes privately before. This must be something serious.
Rhodes walked out of the barracks and Fisher switched off the interface. He did it by himself. He didn’t give Rhodes a chance to do it himself.
Rhodes set off walking through the station. Fisher didn’t break the silence until Rhodes passed the concourse and entered Coleridge Station’s administrative wing.
Too many people in the battalion knew about the loading dock. Too many people went there for privacy. Rhodes didn’t want anyone finding him there.
He also didn’t want anyone overhearing whatever he said to Fisher. More than two hundred station personnel worked on the loading docks around the clock.
They were all used to hearing Rhodes talking to someone they couldn’t see. He didn’t think they listened to his one-sided conversations with Fisher, but he couldn’t be certain.
Instead, he went to an empty auditorium. He couldn’t remember anyone in the station ever using the auditorium for anything, but he didn’t exactly keep track of station happenings.
The auditorium was definitely empty now. Rhodes sat down in one of the seats in the far upper corner of the stands before he faced his SAM. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m…..I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, Captain….” Fisher stammered.
“What’s wrong? Are you malfunctioning again?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Are you feeling guilty again about killing Dr. Irvine? Is that what this is about?”
“I….” Fisher looked everywhere but at Rhodes. “I….I……”
Rhodes waited. He’d never seen Fisher this uncertain before. He always acted so put-together and controlled in front of the battalion.
“Whatever it is, we can work it out,” Rhodes told him. “We’ve gone through worse before.”
“How would I know, though?” Fisher blurted out. “How would I know if I was malfunctioning?”
Rhodes opened his mouth to answer and stopped himself. That was the problem. None of them realized they were malfunctioning—not while it was in the middle of happening.
“I hate to say it, but I agree with Thackery and Coulter,” Fisher rasped. “You’ve always stood up for me. You always put your faith in me—but what if you’re wrong? You shouldn’t trust me—not after everything that’s happened. Your trust is misplaced. You would be setting yourself up for another disaster.”
“No! We aren’t going to start thinking like that.” Rhodes shot to his feet and stormed out of the auditorium on his way back across the station. “We’ve been through too much already to start doubting each other now.”
“But what if Rocky is right? What if there’s a way to take the SAMs offline and all of you would be better off without us?”
“Stop that right now!” Rhodes snapped. “You’ve saved my ass too many times. Your job is to protect me and my job is to protect you. I’m not better off without you and you aren’t better off without me. We’re a unit now. No one is going to take you offline—not as long as I’m alive.”
“What if I malfunction?” Fisher murmured. “What if I don’t realize what I’m doing and I put you in danger—or I put someone else in danger? It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen. I might take control of you and make you kill yourself or someone else.”
“You would only do that if you malfunctioned. Then it wouldn’t be your fault.”
“But you would be just as hurt or dead. How can I live with that?”
Rhodes shook his head again. “I don’t know where all this doubt is coming from, but you can’t start thinking like that. We’re going into combat soon. You need to be certain of yourself and me—the same way I need to be certain of myself and you.”
“You heard what Lauer said. You have to take all potential risks into account. This is a potential risk. You would be irresponsible not to consider it.”
“I am taking into account, pal. I have considered it and taken it into account and I have come to the conclusion that I’m better off with you than without you—even if you malfunction. Now please stop talking about this. Get your game face on. We have too many other problems to deal with. We can’t start doubting ourselves now.”
Fisher hesitated for a minute before he asked. “Where are you going?”
Rhodes didn’t answer and he didn’t go back to the barracks. He went to the lab. It was Dr. Osborne’s lab now. He’d taken over the facility that used to be Dr. Neiland’s.
Osborne and Trudeau worked together all the time now. Trudeau shadowed Osborne everywhere he went.
Neither of them acted at all surprised by Rhodes showing up unannounced.
Neither of the new doctors ever mentioned or showed by action or body language that they were even aware that Rhodes and Fisher had been the ones who killed Dr. Irvine.
Neither of the new doctors showed any misgivings that another malfunction might cause someone in the battalion to do something similar to Osborne or Trudeau.
Osborne looked up from whatever he was working on. “Can I help you, Captain?”
“I want you to check my SAM and see if he’s malfunctioning.”
Osborne frowned at his controls. “Is he behaving strangely? Is he doing anything out of the ordinary?”
“That’s what I want to find out. I don’t really know what’s ordinary or out of the ordinary when it comes to a SAM.”
“What is he doing?”
Rhodes shrugged. “It’s hard to describe.”
Osborne tapped on his screen a few times. “I’m not reading any disturbance. All his systems check out.”
Rhodes nodded. “I thought so.”
“Did you really think it would be any different?” Fisher murmured in his ear. “I’m doing my job.”
Osborne studied Rhodes a little more closely. “Is something bothering you, Captain?”
“Not really. Thank you for checking.”
He walked back out of the lab. “Why did you do that?” Fisher asked. “Did you really think my doubts were a malfunction?”
“You aren’t supposed to have any emotions at all. You feeling guilty about Dr. Irvine was a malfunction.”
“I’m not malfunctioning,” Fisher murmured. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“I know that, pal. That’s exactly why I trust you the way I do. You wouldn’t suggest it if you weren’t trying to help me—and the rest of the battalion.”
Fisher hesitated again. “So what do you want to do about it?”
“Nothing. There isn’t anything we can do except keep on going. We’ll just keep going until we can’t go anymore.”
End of Chapter 14.