pter 16

Rhodes ate in silence at the table in Battalion 1’s barracks. The food tasted even better tonight if that was possible.

Every mouthful flooded Rhodes with the sense that he’d never eaten any food as good as this. How was that possible if he ate this food every single night?

He understood why he felt that way on his first day at Stonebridge. That was the first meal he’d eaten in weeks.

He’d resigned himself never to eat again. That’s why the food tasted so good.

It couldn’t be like that every night. These fake memories told him he’d been eating this food at this table with his subordinates for months—maybe even years.

The Masks’ false memories of the battalion living here didn’t include any disorientation or malfunctions when Rhodes and the others first woke up from stasis.

He remembered that time as being effortless, exciting, and even fun when he first learned how to use his implants in The Grid training sessions.

The glaring differences between the two worlds only made him more brutally aware of everything that was happening to him.

All these sensations, his relationships with these people, his memories, and even the feelings that came up when he did everything—they weren’t real. They didn’t exist.

He went through his evening meal and even debriefed with General Overstreet and the doctors.

Rhodes saw himself saying all the right things and doing all the right things. No one noticed anything out of the ordinary about his behavior until dinner.

“Why so quiet, Captain?” Oakes asked.

Rhodes looked up at him. Did Oakes remember their conversation on the battlefield? Did any of these people get even the slightest hint of the truth or were they all too far gone?

Would Rhodes ever be able to convince any of them to snap out of it? What would it actually take?

“Maybe that explosion scrambled his brain,” Lauer suggested and laughed.

“Maybe it did,” Rhodes murmured under his breath.

“Maybe you should go see the doctors and get that checked out,” Rhinehart suggested.

“He doesn’t need to see the doctors. He already saw them earlier,” Coulter pointed out.

“I don’t need to see them or anyone else. I need sleep.” Rhodes stood up from the table. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

He put his plate away. He’d barely eaten half his meal. He didn’t feel like it. The sight of food made him sick.

He locked himself into his capsule trying to think straight. Was he really deliberately choosing to be the robot the doctors made him into—a machine that didn’t eat or sleep?

He should have enjoyed this life while he had the chance. He should be grateful that at least this fabricated illusion could give him back some of what he lost.

Losing that part of his humanity tormented him as much as the implants themselves. Now he got it back and he couldn’t appreciate it.

The capsule cover locked closed and he took a deep breath. “Fisher….”

“What’s on your mind, Captain?” Fisher asked. “I haven’t seen you this disturbed in a long time.”

“Do you remember…..do you remember what happened after I blew up that battleship?”

Fisher cocked his head to one side. That never changed. His mannerisms and personality didn’t change. “You knocked Lauer out of the blast radius. You saved his life.”

“I mean after that—after we got clear of the blast. Do you remember what happened after we stopped flying away from the battle?”

“You stopped there and turned around to see what was happening on the ground.”

“Is that all? What happened between when I stopped rolling and when Coulter came out to check on me?”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Fisher inclined his head the other way. “Nothing happened. You just stayed there watching the end of the battle.”

Rhodes didn’t answer. Of course Fisher didn’t remember their conversation.

The Masks hacked Fisher to make him into a person living in a house with a wife and children in Stonebridge.

The Masks must have done the same thing to all the SAMs to make them think they were people. The Masks must be wiping everyone’s memories right now.

Rhodes locked himself into a conversion cycle. He couldn’t think about any of this right now, but as usual, the conversion cycle only felt like it lasted a split second. He woke up instantly with all the same problems.

“Good morning, Captain,” Fisher began in his usual way. “You have another briefing with General Overstreet this morning, but I don’t think the battalion will deploy again for a while. The Inviria aren’t invading the planet anymore. I don’t think the Battalion 1 governing body has any plans on where to deploy you.”

Rhodes took a deep breath. “I need to talk to you about something, Fisher. It’s important.”

Fisher’s eyes widened. “What is it?”

“I need you to help me use The Grid to break this simulation.”

“What simulation?” Fisher asked.

Rhodes groaned. This was going to be harder than he thought.

“Where did the Inviria come from?” Rhodes asked. “What’s their planet and solar system of origin? Which direction did they use to invade the Treaty of Aemon Cluster?”

Fisher hesitated. He turned right and left in The Grid and opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

“Which planet is Fort Bastion on?” Rhodes went on. “Which solar system is it in? Where are we in relation to the other fronts the Legion is fighting on?”

“I’m…I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Captain,” Fisher murmured. “I’m not sure what it is you even are asking me.”

“Do you know what Stonebridge is?” Rhodes asked.

“Of course I do. It’s a town in the…..” Fisher trailed off.

“Where exactly is Stonebridge? What planet is it on in which solar system?”

Fisher didn’t answer at all this time.

“Do you remember which house I lived in in Stonebridge?” Rhodes asked.

“Yes, Captain. I remember that.”

“Do you remember who lived in the house across the road from me?” Rhodes asked.

Fisher didn’t answer that, either.

“This is all an illusion,” Rhodes explained. “We’re in a Grid scenario. The Masks are holding us as prisoners to experiment on us. Based on that battle yesterday, I’d say they’re trying to train us to fight on their side. This whole thing….it’s designed to make us forget where we really came from.”

“Where did you really come from—according to you?” Fisher asked. “If you’re right, then what’s the alternative to…..?”

He broke off, looked around him, and an expression of pure horror darkened his usually placid features.

He gasped. “My God! I can’t believe it!” Fisher’s eyes swiveled back to Rhodes. “The Masks…..they……they……”

Rhodes gulped and now it was his turn to look away. He didn’t want to know what Fisher finally remembered to convince him that none of this was real.

“I need you to help me,” Rhodes told him. “You said we could manipulate The Grid to get out of this—or try to.”

“We can try it, but it will work better if more than one of us uses The Grid to do it. If we can convince the rest of the battalion…..”

“How likely is that to happen? They all look completely complacent to me.”

“Hmmm. You’re right, Captain.”

“Do you think I look completely complacent to them? Maybe some of them have already snapped out of it. Maybe they realize what’s happening, but they’re just keeping it to themselves because they think I’m complacent.”

“I couldn’t tell you that, Captain,” Fisher murmured.

Rhodes shut his eyes and took another deep breath to steady himself. “I need you to promise me you won’t slip back into that. I need you to stay strong and make sure I don’t forget.”

“I wish I could promise you that, Captain, but if the Masks are doing something to stop us from remembering, then they can just do the same thing to me again. They can make me forget that we ever had this conversation.”

Rhodes nodded. He already knew that. “Just try, okay, pal? I can’t do this by myself.”

“Would you like to use the grid lines now to see if we can break the illusion?”

“We can try it, but like you said, it will probably take all of us working together. We need to swing a few more people in the battalion—as many as possible.”

“If we’re going to try it with just the two of us, we should do it now,” Fisher pointed out. “As soon as you get out of this capsule, the others will expect you to interface with them.”

“Maybe that will be better,” Rhodes suggested. “Maybe we can make them see if it actually works—or partially works.”

“I’ll leave that to your decision, Captain,” Fisher murmured. “I seem already to have forgotten most of what I thought was important.”

“You and me both.” Rhodes sat up. “Stay with me, okay? Don’t disappear.”

“I’ll try not to, Captain.”

Rhodes got to his feet. Rhinehart, Oakes, Lauer, and Coulter gathered around the table for breakfast. Fuentes and Thackery were just waking up and Dietz sat on the edge of his capsule running his fingers through his hair.

Oakes barely glanced up. “Morning, Captain.”

Rhodes couldn’t decide what to say. He crossed the room to stand next to the table, but he didn’t sit down to eat. The sight of food made him want to puke.

“What’s the plan today, Captain?” Rhinehart asked. “I guess you gotta go get our new orders from the general. I guess we won’t be going out against the Inviria again.”

“No one will ever go out against the Inviria again,” Lauer chimed in and they all laughed. Lauer and Rhinehart high-fived each other across the table.

“We have another thing to do before I see the general,” Rhodes announced.

“What is it?” Coulter asked.

“Don’t tell me we have another training session,” Thackery groaned. “Haven’t we had enough of those?”

“It isn’t a training session,” Rhodes replied. “We’re going into The Grid to try to change it.”

“Change it how?” Coulter asked. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I’ll show you.” Rhodes interfaced with all of them and their SAMs. “Fisher and I will start it off. Then each of you use your grid lines to help us out. Hopefully, all of us working together will be able to break The Grid and tear it down.”

“You want….to break….The Grid…..?” Oakes faltered. “Why?”

“Because it isn’t real. All of this is fake. The Masks created this world so they could experiment on us and turn us against our own people.”

Rhinehart’s eyes shot open. “You can’t be serious!”

“I’ll prove it to you. Watch.”

End of Chapter 16.