Kyle Barton sighed as he looked out of the window. He was riding along in a rickety junker of a bus that sputtered as much as purred as it drove. It brought the question on why they were using some 20 year old civilian clunker that would have been better in the scrap yard. If faded and flaking yellow paint of the bus was anything to go by, from what he could see the state of the base was worse.
They had just been cleared at the gate by the guards and were now driving down what should have been the runway of the base. It was cracked and uneven in sections. Nothing like what they had in his old outfit. The pilots would even reject trying to take off or land on such a surface.
Barten had bought into the recruitment. Serve a few more years in a new branch of humanity’s finest. Reach out and grasp the stars and all that. A semi-retirement of sorts. He shook his head and wondered if the peace had addled his mind as much as he worried the fighting had.
His hand reached behind and ran his fingers over the new scar he was sporting at the base of his skull. Some new fangled chip or other that would allow them to somehow become more. Better at fighting, better at flying. Or just plain better overall. Aside from the headache after waking up Barton didn’t feel like a changed man at all. He still didn’t. The others on the bus sported similar scars. Each reaching back to finger it from time to time.
“Hey,” someone on the bus said. “Isn’t this place a hole in the ground?” The man’s hair was as long as regulations would allow. And he had a thin mustache.
“Well yeah. It was decommissioned 20 years away. Probably hasn’t seen action since then. And even then it was only for national work. More likely never needed or saw combat in any way,” another soldier answered. He had the standard army haircut and looked younger than the rest.
“I’m worried about these chips that they put into our heads,” another man said. “Makes you feel kind of creepy. Like my skin crawls when I remember it’s there.”
“Ah, you’re just being sensitive. I’ve had bullets in me that bothered me more. One you forget about it you’ll be fine,” the first man spoke and slapped the seat in front of him. “Just like this old junker. At least I hope that the food is nice.”
When the bus finally stopped rolled to a stop with a cough. It wasn’t possible to tell if it was turned off or if it stopped working. When Barton placed his feet onto the tarmac it appeared to be even more brittle than how it looked. It cracked and crumbled under his feet like gravel. Just what were they thinking? Station soldiers there? He found himself feeling regret for signing on for another 5 years. Even if it was supposed to be semi-retirement.
The buildings on the base looked like a mix of old and new. The hangers and what might be the maintenance bay looked like they were only power washed down. Just enough work put into them to say that they did. Bits of cracked and flecked paint remained. While the residences looked like they had been fully upgraded to a point that was comparable to Barton’s last outfit. He found the disconnect to be strange. As a pilot it worried him that the place where the planes he would be flying was in such disrepair. Would the plans even fly? Or would they all crash into the ground before they even got fully taken off?
Barton rubbed at the chill that appeared on his arms. His time in the forces had been good to him so far. But this wasn’t the outfit back home. Instead it was some newish international affair. World Defense something or other. Every time he heard the name it was something different than the last. Maybe becoming a civilian again would have been worth it?
He found his private room quickly enough, tossed his bag down onto the bed, and plopped down next to it. His scar itched and Barton found it hard to resist. The base was a dump. But on some level he was excited for all of the promises that came when he reenlisted. Wouldn’t it be nice to save the world? He laughed at the idea and shook his head.
***
“Man, what the hell are we even doing here?” Conners asked as he sprayed his face with water before putting his hat low on his brow. He was the man with the thin mustache that was complaining on the bus.
They were currently shading under one of the few trees on the base. After having spent the morning moving their bodies any relief from the late spring sun was welcomed.
After settling in Barten found that there was little to do at first on the base. Everyone and everything was new and getting settled in. Which made for quite the boring time and more than a few ended up in the brig for the night. All that changed on the third day though.
“Doing the same thing we do every day,” Jamieson said. “Strutting around for some crazy thing.” He shook the 4 inch screen attached to his wrist. “Mine still says that I haven’t gained any stats yet. I wonder if the whole system is rigged.” Jamieson stood taller than most, usually wore a smile, and didn’t always have something to say. Unlike Conners who wouldn’t shut up.
“I just wish that they stopped using that air horn in place of an alarm clock,” Munroe said. She was using her arm to cover her eyes and was laying down. “It’s hard enough to sleep on those cardboard beds. And then they expect us to run around like it’s basic all over again?” Munroe had short hair and moved with energy that would have exhausted Barten had he tried to copy her.
He turned out the complaining of the others. Since there wasn’t much to do yet it seemed that many had decided to see who could complain the loudest. Barten turned over his wrist and found the terminal that he received on that first day. Everyone got one. And it was supposed to connect with the chip in their heads and tell them and display their stats.
It sounded just as wild to him then as it did when it was first introduced. Barten tapped it with his finger and the display came alive.
Kyle Barten
Str: 10
Con:10
Agi: 10
Dex: 10
Per: 10
PRe:5
Stats just like an rpg appeared on the screen. If it wasn’t a military outfit he could have sworn that someone was making fun of him. Along with all of the others. But there they were. Running around doing insane amounts of exercises in order to find and exceed their limits. The prescribed way to increase their stats.
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“Hey what are you layabouts doing here?” Smith asked with a big grin on his face. He was a stern faced man with a regulation haircut. The salt and pepper in his hair caused Barten to feel like he was older than the rest of them.
“Piss off Smith,” Conners said. He tipped his hat forward and fully covered his eyes as he leaned against the tree. “The rest of us are just taking a well needed break. I’ve already burned through that slop we had for breakfast. I’ll move more after lunch.”
“Ah. So you are just going to fall behind then?” Shane said and tapped his wrist.
“What?” Jamison stood up and stepped closer. “Did you get a point in something?”
Shane’s grin widened even larger. “Got a point in Con, constitution I guess. Don’t know how. Though I’ve been running in the sun all morning.”
“Let me see,” Conners had tossed his hat aside and was already standing next to Smith.
Shane Smith
Str: 10
Con:11
Agi: 10
Dex: 10
Per: 10
“I can’t believe that’s how you raise your stats. Then doesn’t it mean that just benching weights all day could do it too? What about Per? If I ‘perceive’ enough things will it go up. Maybe I’ll run into town and look around some,” Conners said and waggled his eyebrows.
“You’ll need leave for that,” Jamieson said. “Probably won’t get it this soon. Kind of assume that we are stuck here for some time yet.”
“Bah, spoilsport. And if we weren’t in the middle of nowhere I’d just hop the fence. But considering that even if I did get outside it’s not like there is any way to get to the city and back. Might have to take a walk at night, or maybe when there’s a moon out or something.”
Barten counted the number of stats shown on Smith’s terminal. And then compared it with his own. That final stat of his wasn’t present. Which made him wonder what he had done to get the PRe stat? More so an entire 5 points?
When he asked one of the techs about it, Barten got an unexpected response. “Huh? There’s an extra stat?” The tech said. And asked to see his terminal. “Bugger me, there really is,” he said and fiddled with the tablet he was holding. “Doesn’t seem like it’s the first. No idea what PRe means either. The tech is kind of dodgy at times. I’ll forward it onto the development team. I have no idea about the turn around on such a thing. But they’ll send a message to your terminal if they figure out anything.
***
Barten walked into a small auditorium along with the rest of his squad. They had been introduced to one another early on. And ended up spending most of their time together.
“Morning everyone. My name is Sergeant Myles and I’ll be taking over command for your squad.” He had the look of a career businessman. And was somewhat out of place wearing the same camo uniform as everyone else.
“Do we get to be alpha squad?” Conners asked. “I’ve always wanted to be one of the first like that. Please tell me that you haven’t given that designation away yet.”
Myles shook his head. “Sorry. But we aren’t using that. And nothing so inspired either. Right now you lot are known as Delta-05.”
“Delta!?” Conners said with a frown. “None of the Delta bros pull at all. Never have, never will.” Monroe swatted his arm to which Conners responded with a shrug. “Don’t be a hater.”
“Alright. If you could quiet down,” Myles said. He took a moment to look over the room. Which was really just an excuse to stare down at Conners who only waved a hand and settled down. Then Myles typed away at the computer in front of him and the overhead projector buzzed on. The image that it showed on the screen was one of a large black object floating in 3D space. It looked like the top half of a sea urchin. Only more jagged and less straight.
“Here is a rendering of the reason that we are here today,” Myles said and pointed at the object. It had a title of G-001 along with several notes that were hard to read from where Barten was sitting. “It may not look like much,” Myles used the laptop to forward the slide, “but it has had devastating consequences on the Earth. Large enough that in the 20 years after it appeared this unit was created to deal with it. Them.” The new slide that appeared was a satellite image of a city with a version of G-001 sitting on the edge of it.
When Myles advanced the slide again Barten let a word slip out of his mouth, “New Eden.”
Myles looked at Barten a moment before continuing, “That’s right. It’s the site of the New Eden Explosion around 20 years ago. Some of you might not have heard about it, but it was a big deal for a number of years.”
Monroe had raised her arm. “Wasn’t that labeled as a terrorist attack?”
“That was what the media was ordered to report on. The brass at the time didn’t want the civilian population freaking out about the object. It was something that appeared from deep within the Earth. And the crater that it left behind was large enough that lake New Eden is one of the deepest lakes in the world now.
“The object was in an incomplete state. Missing many pieces, with some parts being filled in with rock. Much of the damage appeared to have happened a long time ago. But that didn’t mean that we weren’t able to salvage anything from it. And what we did allowed us to learn much about it. But what we learned also caused us to fear it.“
“Why would we fear it?” Smith asked. He was sitting in the corner of the room with his arms crossed.
“We didn’t know about the device until it appeared. Some theorize that it was removing the rock and earth on top of it in order to ascend to space. But given that there wasn’t anything living inside we weren’t able to determine what caused it to emerge.”
“But that doesn’t explain why we should fear it?”
“The technology that we found inside was so far beyond our current understanding that we weren’t even able to replicate it properly. Even just a small amount and all we get from it is a list of stats that don’t really mean anything. But for some reason they allow us to grow stronger.” He looked around the room for a moment. “Now imagine if there was a race of Xenos out there that not only had full command of this tech, but also the ability to endlessly grow.
“You mean you put alien tech in our heads?” Conners asked as he fingered the scan on the back of his head. “Are we going to turn into aliens now?” The smile at the corners of his mouth betrayed the shock and shaking that made its way into his voice.
“Brass has nixed using the word alien in favor of xenos. And the chip has been tested. Over and over again during the last 20 years. But it would have just sat documented and never implemented like this if not for this,” Myles said and showed the next slide. “The first recording is pieced together from everything that we were able to find before, during, and after the emergence at New Eden.” It was segmented and broken in spots. But it showed a clear rising and falling on a graph. Below it was a sharper and more pronounced version. “We cobbled it together from many different sources. The brass of the time didn’t care much about it. But when we found a similar wavelength being broadcasted throughout the world…”
Myles trailed off and looked at the bottom of the slide. The date on the bottom graph was March the year before. “The single was faint at first. But as more and more researches and techs raised warnings they all focused on one thing. Not only is the single getting stronger, clearer even. It also can’t be guaranteed to be from friendlies.”