Thirty minutes earlier he had placed a call to his parents on Shiloh. But then, even as the fone rang in his parents’ house, he had broken the connection. Because up until that point in his life he had never lied to them. Not about anything important anyway. So what would he say if his mother answered? That he’d lost track of how many people he’d killed? That he and his friends had stolen government property and sold it? That the money he sent them hadn’t been won playing cards? That he didn’t trust his commanding officer? No, he couldn’t tell his mother those things. And, if he didn’t tell, he’d have to make up lies to cover up the truth. So it would be wrong either way.
“What the hell are you doing up here, jerk weed?” Tychus demanded, as a heavy hand fell on Raynor’s shoulder. “We’ve been looking all over the place for you.”
Raynor turned to see that Tychus had Kydd, Harnack, Ward, and Zander with him.
Raynor sighed. “I’m eating lunch … or trying to.”
Tychus turned his face upward, blinked as the raindrops hit his eyes, and looked down again. “It’s raining.”
“Yes,” Raynor replied irritably. “I noticed. Was there something you people wanted to see me about?”
“Yeah, there was,” Tychus said, as he selected the larger half of the damp sandwich and took a bite. He was still chewing when he spoke. “The brass held a briefing for all of the junior officers and noncoms.”
“And?”
“And the assault is gonna be a total bitch,” Tychus said, as he eyed the other half of the sandwich. “They aren’t saying how we’re gonna cross the river, that’s top secret, but it sounds like they’re setting us up for an impossible mission.” He finished the rest of the sandwich with one bite. “Rockwell’s marines are gonna get massacred within seconds, you know that. And where does that leave us? Oh yeah, we’ll be right there behind ’em.”
“There’s something going on with Rockwell’s guys, I know it …” Kydd added darkly. “I think somebody’s been messing with their heads.”
“Yeah,” Raynor said. “I think so too. Brucker kept asking me questions about it. He called it ‘neural resocialization.’ Criminals are being experimented on at some facility—something about erasing their antisocial tendencies. He thinks a lot of them are serving in our armed forces.”
“Holy shit,” Harnack put in excitedly. “Remember the whackos on the Hydrus? The ones who tried to kick the crap out of us? Then, when we ran into them the night before graduation, they were like a bunch of schoolgirls. I bet they were resocialized.”
“And then there’s Sam Lassiter,” Tychus added. “They had that lunatic locked in a steel box at MCF-R-156 before he shanked a sergeant with a fork! Then, I’m walking across Fort Howe, and there he is! Just as nice as you please … and when I asked him how he got out of the facility, he didn’t even remember being there.”
“Bingo,” Zander said grimly. “It’s all starting to make sense.”
Raynor frowned. “So, what are you saying? That they’re going to use Rockwell’s troops as cannon fodder?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Tychus replied. “Once you cut through all the weasel-worded bullshit, it’s obvious that those poor bastards’ll be walking into a meat grinder. And guess how we’re going to become the great war heroes of the Confederacy? By following those fools right into a bloodbath and donating our bodies for fish food and fertilizer.”
“It’s almost as if Vanderspool wants us to get killed,” Ward observed.
Raynor opened the bag of chips and scattered them along the rail. Then, as the birds came fluttering in, he stood back to watch them peck at the unexpected bounty. “So, what’s the solution?”
“I figure we should hang back, let the resocs die for the Confederacy, and live to fight another day,” Tychus replied.
“They may be mind-zapped, but they aren’t dogs,” Raynor objected. “They’re people, just like you and me.”
“Are they?” Tychus inquired cynically. “You saw Rockwell’s guys. I’m not so sure.”
Raynor sighed. “If you’re done eating my lunch, let’s go inside. It’s raining out here.”
The cavernous high-speed tube station had once been the backbone of south Polk’s Pride. It boasted twelve parallel arrival and departure stations, plus an equal number of tracks, all accessed by escalators and bridges. The walls were covered with colorful murals, each of which was a landscape inspired by a different region, all harkening back to the days before the fighting. And unlike what Doc had seen earlier that day, the underground facility was untouched by the wars except for the fact that more than a thousand troops were housed in the vast lobby, the arcades located to either side of it, and the tunnels themselves.
Cave-ins, both accidental and intentional, meant that the underground tubes through which crowded trains once roared were silent now and home to nothing more than a few hardy eccentrics and a legion of flesh-eating rats. Animals that had grown fat on the dead bodies that littered the area bordering the river.
Cassidy shivered at the thought of them as she followed a frozen escalator down onto platform two, and from there out along an island of concrete toward the train that was parked next to it. A sign proclaimed that she was about to travel on the “Yellow Line,” which, had it been operational, would have carried her to Picket, Traverston, Oakwood, and the suburbs beyond.
Because the city was so crowded, there weren’t any open areas upon which a command center could be built. So Vanderspool had been forced to take up residence in the underground tube station.
A couple of marines were on sentry duty outside the train where his office was located. Cassidy immediately recognized them as belonging to the colonel’s newly created “color guard.” Though theoretically charged with protecting the battalion’s colors in battle, that was a largely ceremonial function, and no longer relevant to the way battles were being fought.
No, the real function of the platoon-size unit was to serve as Vanderspool’s personal bodyguards, both on and off the field of battle. And, judging from the intensity with which the men greeted her, the rumors were true. They were not only resocialized, they were willing converts, which was to say, fanatics. “Hold it right there,” a weasel-faced corporal said, with one hand on his sidearm. “This is a restricted area.”
“Yeah,” Doc replied, “I know. My name is Cassidy. Colonel Vanderspool sent for me.”
That was true, and a subject of some concern for the medic, since repeated trips to see Vanderspool would be noticed by Tychus and the rest. But only three days had passed since the battalion’s arrival and there hadn’t been any opportunity to set up an alternate system. “Scan her,” the noncom instructed, as he examined his Handheld Personal Information-Gathering and Navigation Unit, otherwise known as a Pig.
The scanner flicked across Doc’s eyes and she heard a soft beep. “Her name is Cassidy,” the second marine said, “and she’s a medic.”
“Roger that,” the corporal said evenly. Then, having turned his attention to Doc, his eyes narrowed. “You’re two minutes late, Petty Officer Cassidy. You can do better. Perfection is within our grasp.”
Doc eyed him emotionlessly. “Flick you, Corporal … and the private you rode in on.”
The resoc shook his head sadly, apparently unable to understand why she was so hostile, and stood to one side as the medic brushed past him and entered the streamlined car beyond.
The car’s interior was much as it had been before the wars, except for the fact that all of the seats had been torn out and replaced with mismatched office furniture salvaged from the surrounding office buildings. The same corporal who’d been in charge of Vanderspool’s office back at Fort Howe looked up from a tidy desktop. She nodded politely. “Have a seat… . The colonel’s meeting is running long. It should be over any minute now.”