Lockhart: Senator M’Benga, if you examine the technical specs that follow the executive summary, you’ll see that central to CryNet’s second-generation proposals is a system that can—and I’m quoting here—“assume autonomic, regulatory, and motor functions in the event of somatic damage or operator incapacity.” In other words, the system can run itself just fine when the person inside is dead.
M’Benga: Ummm, yes. But I look at those exact same words and I see a suit of armor that can carry its occupant to safety even if that occupant is injured or unconscious. I don’t see—
Lockhart: With all due respect, Senator, what you are not seeing is that CryNet’s next-generation Nanosuit essentially reduces the soldier to ballast—almost literally to dead meat.
M’Benga: Then why include the soldier at all? Why not simply market this device as a battlefield robot? I’m certain that many on this subcommittee would leap at the prospect of a machine that could take the place of our brave men and women on the battlefield, keep them out of harm’s way.
Lockhart: I believe that an autonomous battlefield robot is CryNet’s ultimate goal, sir. The model currently under development is merely a foot in the door.
M’Benga: But why not—
Lockhart: Again, ma’am, if you read the technical details of this proposal you will see that there are certain—neurocognitive elements that do not yet have a technological solution. Hargreave-Rasch does not say as much publicly, but I believe the only real use they see for our soldiers is as wetware. The system uses the human nervous system to do what it cannot yet do by itself. Jacob Hargreave is asking the American people to fund the development of a machine that would quite literally be a parasite on US soldiers.
M’Benga: Commander Lockhart, assuming that everything you’ve said today is true, would that not be a powerful argument in favor of funding?
Lockhart: I’m not following, ma’am.
M’Benga: Hargreave-Rasch and its subsidiary, CryNet Systems—these are independent corporations with their own very lucrative revenue streams. If we were to deny funding, they would in all likelihood just go ahead and develop this device privately, under no obligation to share any details with us. If we enter into the partnership currently on the table, however, we become—as representatives of the American people—privy to every stage of development. We gain a say in how it will be developed. Was it not Patton who said “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”?
Lockhart: No, ma’am.
M’Benga: Really? I could have sworn—
Lockhart: It was Sun Tzu, ma’am. Believe me, CryNet would not have approached the government if they didn’t have to. If they don’t need government funding, they need something else from you and you just don’t know what it is yet. We have—you have the power to stop this abomination in its tracks.
M’Benga: Commander Lockhart, we approached them.
Lockhart: Excuse me?
M’Benga: My understanding is that the Pentagon got wind of CryNet’s research and felt that such a project might prove useful in fulfilling their own strategic objectives. They asked CryNet to submit this proposal.
Lockhart: If the Pentagon approached Jacob Hargreave, then it was because Jacob Hargreave manipulated them into doing so.
Sen. Bradley Dubain: Excuse me, but I believe I might be able to cast some light on . . .?
M’Benga: I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Dubain.
Dubain: Thank you. Commander Lockhart.
Lockhart: Senator.
Dubain: Please understand, I hold you and your service to the country in the highest respect. It is not my intention to question either your integrity or your experience.
Lockhart: I appreciate that, sir. Did you have a question?
Dubain: It is true, is it not, that you have suffered a personal loss as a result of the Nanosuit program?
Lockhart: (inaudible)
Dubain: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear—
Lockhart: The Nanosuit program does not yet exist, sir. I am here to try and ensure that it never does.
Dubain: The Nanosuit 2 is still under development, yes. I was speaking of the earlier version, the one that was deployed—
Lockhart: That is neither here nor there, Senator. I am not talking about the past, I am concerned about how we move forward.
Dubain: I appreciate that, Commander. That is what we are all concerned about. And I’m sure you’ll agree that moving forward, we must base our decisions on the available facts, not merely feelings and opinions.
Lockhart: I am trying to keep my testimony limited to the available facts, sir. It was you who introduced the subject of personal—
Dubain: But isn’t it true that your nephew lost his—
Lockhart: Keep your fucking hands off my family, Senator.
Dubain: Uh—Commander Lock—
McCain: I’m going to call a brief recess. We are adjourned until fourteen hundred.
Excerpt ends.
And we’re off, running on goddamned foot along the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Expressway, doing our best to get to Nathan Gould before Lockhart’s minions get to us.
Early betting favors the CELLulites but the Propheteers have pulled it out of the fire before, ladies and gentlemen, the Propheteers should be dead a dozen times over but they’re still in there kicking. And don’t we all love cheering for the underdog?
Not so much, apparently. Not when CryNet Enforcement and Local Logistics cuts your paycheck. One of the players on the opposing team puts it pretty succinctly over a channel he doesn’t think I can access: “That piece of shit took out half of Cobalt Section. That piece of shit is toast.”
Which should make me hungry—I haven’t had a bite to eat all day, and even toast sounds like a treat—but for some reason I haven’t felt hungry or tired since the N2 took me in its embrace. I don’t know how long I can keep going on adrenaline, or whatever else it’s pumping me full of, but I have to admit: This nanotech miracle goes a long way toward leveling the field.
A couple of other variables may actually tilt things in my favor. For one thing, private industry pays a lot better than the feds—and while this does let them buy the pick of the graduating litter, it also tends to attract folks whose primary interests are money, benefits, and no fucking overtime. There’s a reason they call these guys mercenaries. You don’t level up nearly as fast doing nine-to-five as you do pulling twenty-four-seven. So even without the N2 I am a harder dude than 90 percent of these fuckwits, and a lot more experienced.
The other thing is, the upper echelons are bickering again, and the boots on the ground are getting confused.
It starts when Drab Seven helpfully broadcasts the location they expect to take me out at. A familiar voice cuts him off: “This is Tara Strickland on oversight. Our objective for this target is capture and interrogate; I’m placing the kill order on indefinite hold.”
Drab Section is not too happy about this. Seems they had friends in Cobalt and do not like Special Adviser Strickland reining them in. She keeps trying, though. She tries when a CELL Apache pins me down just south of Fulton, brings the whole damn freeway down on my head. She tries as Lockhart’s troops chase me through the sewers under South Street. She tries when Drab tries to take me down with a tame EMP.