She finishes the carton and stares into its empty shell.
“Found the silkie hapsquad responsible, later on, operating out of New Rado as part of a larger force. They were sloppy on comms discipline. Cocky. I waited until they settled in for the night, then locked in their coordinates and sent my own set of drones. Stole a combat group from the armory when no one was looking.”
The carton drops, unnoticed, cardboard corner denting inward.
“Took my time, did it right. Suicided the last one into their regiment HQ. Battery overload. Command threw a royal shitfit about losing materiel on an unauthorized mission, but I ended up wiping out an entire twenty-man shock unit, along with forty-seven supporting personnel and three of their top commanders, so they couldn’t discharge me. I was the best they had left.”
She laughs, but it’s devoid of anything resembling joy.
“They had to give me a medal, if you can believe that. Then I got transferred to one of the guerrilla squads.”
Her eyes narrow, and I scramble to my feet.
“Mom. Mom! It’s over, Mom, you’re not there anymore. Mom!”
“We were tasked with psyops, ‘breaking morale’ they called it. Sixteen hours a day in a hapsuit in an armored truck, moving from town to town, sending out the drones again and again and again. I spent so much time in them, started losing track of what was real. A game? It seemed like a game at times. Like the devil’s own playground. Erase another set of targets, rack up another high score, pop back up if I ever went down. After all, it’s not like I was really there. Just a drone, doing what drones do. Going for the highest score of them all.”
She looks up at me, but her eyes are clouded, trapped in memory. The green gown sways gently as she stands from the bed.
“Then they gave us the special mission. The one to end it all. I didn’t know. I didn’t know! None of us knew!”
“Mom, snap out of it, please.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Ash, Mom, your daughter. Ashley.”
Her face tightens.
“How do I know this isn’t an interrogation trick? How do I know I’m not in a hapsuit right now? You could be anyone! Tell me where my family is! Where’s my husband? My children? I’m not telling you anything more!”
“Mom. Please…”
Freddie’s voice sounds from a small speaker in the corner of the room.
“Ash, you need to clear the room. Her vitals are spiking.”
“Mom!”
Bare feet shift into a combat stance, and she screams at me.
“Get away! You’re not my daughter! Where’s my son?!”
“Please…”
“Clear the room, Ash!”
A blurring fist launches at my face and I parry it to the side, stepping over the followup leg sweep, my wrist aching from the power of her strike, shoulder muscles screaming from my earlier wound. Momentum brings her back upright and she tries to grab my arm, but I use her energy to spin her into the bed, momentarily tangling her in the sheets.
A move she taught me.
Quickly, I step back into the airlock. The clear polymer rotates in front of me, and then she’s there, beating on the transparent material, fists gradually bloodying, her face snarling in madness. Red smears on the plastic start to obscure her features, and I step through the airlock as it cycles to the observation room, my eyes on her the entire time.
I can’t stop the tears from falling.
“Close call there, Ash. I’m sorry.”
I turn and face Freddie.
“I… she’s never had that reaction to the noodles before…”
Freddie frowns, and taps several more keys.
“Unfortunately, that’s one of the dangers of the therapy. We’re trying to rewire her memories, primarily through haptic reinforcement in a fully immersive chamber, much like your Game, but as you know, it’s still very experimental. Sometimes we make strides in one area only to see a setback in another. Smell is linked very tightly to memory, and it appears this set off a bad one.” He cocks an eyebrow. “Do you know what she was talking about at the end there? I don’t have anything about a ‘special mission’ on file.”
I think about lessons learned in school on brilliant pinpricks of light, stars born where no star should ever exist, a country tearing itself apart. Lessons learned once school was a luxury, half-screamed memories pouring incoherently out of a broken woman in a battered room, a child witnessing a parent reduced to less than nothing.
“She was talking about war, Freddie. War never changes, but it sure as hell changes us.”
Freddie looks at me, uncomprehending, but I’ve said all I’m going to say. Three large orderlies enter the room, dressed in close-fitting body armor over darker blue jumpsuits. One carries a syringe filled with clear liquid. Freddie turns to them.
“Careful, gentlemen,” he warns. “The patient is in a volatile state. Try to avoid getting injured.”
They nod, expressions tight-lipped and serious, and all three file into the airlock. In the room beyond, Mom is tearing at the bedsheets, ripping them into long strips. The airlock cycles into the room, and the orderlies spread out, two with their hands out in nonthreatening poses. The third carries the syringe behind his back. They tower over her.
Sudden motion from the bed, a cloth strip looping around an orderly’s wrist and dragging him facedown into the floor. Another loop wraps around his neck, and he starts clawing at the sheet constricting his airway. The second orderly charges into a kick to the chest, dropping him momentarily to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. The third orderly approaches cautiously, shuffling his feet forward, hand still behind his back. A cloth loop extends out at him, but he sidesteps it, then lunges in, syringe outstretched. It clatters to the floor, his arm trapped against my mom’s chest, and Freddie swears, finger poised over another button. Mom twists, forcing the orderly onto his tiptoes, and then the second orderly whips his hand up from the floor and plunges the syringe into her thigh. He collapses to the floor, wheezing for breath. Mom topples onto the bed, dragging the burly orderly with her, but then her grip loosens and her body falls limp. Freddie wipes a hand across his brow, fingers trembling.
“She’s… going to be okay?” I glance at him. In the room, the orderlies struggle to their feet, wincing.
“Physically, yeah. It’s just a fast-acting sedative. We’ll keep her under for a bit, then try and figure out what triggered her.” He sighs. “Mentally, I don’t know. They did some fucked-up shit to your mom, Ash. We’re doing our best, but I won’t lie. It’ll be a long time before she’s back to anything approaching normal, assuming it can even be done. You don’t put someone through what she went through and expect them to come out the other side unscathed.”
You have no idea, Freddie, and hopefully you never learn.
His face darkens, an uncharacteristic scowl settling into place.
“By all rights, she should be at a veteran’s hospital. Gummies made this mess, they should be the ones to clean it up. Not some barely graduated hack like me.”
“She lost her benefits when she chose not to live in a dryburb, Freddie. No healthcare out here. This clinic is all I could find, and you were top of your class before they tried to run you out. I trust you.”
“Thanks, Ash, but it still pisses me off. To send someone into that hell and then abandon them afterward. It’s not right.”
I push my AR glasses up and rub my face, gray hoodie sleeve coming away wet and slightly darker.
“Okay, Freddie, just… keep doing what you can. I’ll make sure the bills get paid.”