Now I’m angry. I clench my mechanical hands into fists. “Then the Army’s not for me, I guess. If I’m going to be a soldier, I want a say in the decisions.”
Zia takes another step toward me. Her acetylene torch clanks against my torso. If she fires it up, it’ll slice right through my armor. “You’re not a soldier. You’re just a frightened little boy.”
Shannon steps forward and raises her arms. She’s within striking distance of Zia’s turret. “Back off, Zia. I don’t want to hurt you.”
My mind starts doing a million things at once. I’m observing the positions of Zia, Marshall, and Shannon. I’m calculating the probabilities of several possible scenarios, trying to determine which Pioneer is most likely to strike first. I’m planning a complex maneuver for my left arm that will swing it between me and Zia, knocking aside her circular saw and acetylene torch. And at the same time, I’m trying to figure out why this happened. It’s half an hour before the start of our first training session, and we’re already threatening to kill each other. For a bunch of robots, it isn’t very logical.
Luckily, at that moment I hear more clanging. Pioneer 6—DeShawn—marches into the gym. Waving both arms in greeting, he booms, “Good morning, sports fans!” and comes straight toward us. Then he stops and points his camera at the football lying on the floor. “Whoa, whose ball is this?” He picks it up and points a mechanical finger at the football’s Super Bowl XLVI logo. “We got a Giants fan in the house?”
Zia steps backward, and so does Shannon. As our murderous huddle breaks up, I turn my turret toward DeShawn and raise my right hand. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Aw, man, I hate you. I’m a Lions fan. We’ve never won a Super Bowl.” DeShawn deftly spins the ball on one of his fingers, then drops back and cocks his arm. “Go long, Armstrong. I want to see how far I can throw this thing.”
I say, “Okay,” and sprint to the other side of the gym. I’d much rather toss the football with DeShawn than get into a fight with Zia and Marshall. After I’ve run fifty yards, DeShawn fires a perfect spiral at me. Out of curiosity, I turn on my Pioneer’s radar system, which measures the speed and direction of incoming objects. The football is whizzing toward me at seventy-five miles per hour. A second later it slams into my torso. My armor plating vibrates from the impact, but I manage to trap the ball against my midsection and make the catch.
“Oh yeah!” DeShawn yells. He pumps one of his robotic arms and does a little dance. “I got the moves!”
Watching him cheers me up. I know exactly what he’s feeling. Before he became a Pioneer, DeShawn had the same kind of muscular dystrophy I had, and probably the same frustrations too. Both of us spent years in wheelchairs while our muscles slowly weakened. We had to watch our legs and arms turn stiff and useless, deteriorating a little more every day. So it’s no mystery to me why he’s so happy now.
I extend my right arm and signal him to start running to his left. He takes off like a shot, but I have more than enough time to calculate his speed and aim the football at him. DeShawn makes a leaping catch and lets out another synthesized whoop.
After a few more throws, Shannon jumps into the game. At first I play quarterback and Shannon tries to block my passes to DeShawn. Then we trade places and Shannon plays quarterback. Meanwhile, Zia and Marshall withdraw to the corner of the room. Feeling suspicious, I increase the sensitivity of my acoustic sensors so I can pick up what they’re saying to each other, but I don’t hear a word. They’re communicating by radio, using their antennas. I turn on my own antenna and try to intercept their signals, but I still can’t listen in—they’ve put their messages in code.
Then Jenny Harris, the last Pioneer to arrive, steps into the gym. She moves as quietly as she can and stays close to the wall, keeping her distance from everyone.
I raise my arm and wave to her, but she doesn’t acknowledge me. We haven’t talked since her procedure, and as the days go by, it’s getting more and more awkward. During the half-minute when we shared the same circuits we were as close as two people can get, and now it feels weird to see her and say nothing. So I tell Shannon and DeShawn that I’ll be right back, and I stride toward Jenny.
“Hey, Jen, want to toss the ball with us?”
I know she likes football. When I was inside her circuits and viewing her memories I saw images of her playing the game with her friends. But as I approach her, she steps backward and turns her turret away from me.
I stop in my tracks. “Something wrong, Jen? You okay?”
She doesn’t respond. Her Pioneer just stands there, perfectly still. She wants me to go away; that’s clear. But instead I extend one of my arms, pointing it at Shannon and DeShawn. “We could use another player. Then we could get a game going. You know, two on two.”
Nothing. She stays silent and motionless. I know Jenny about as well as you can know anyone, but I’m still not sure what’s going on. Although I removed the most traumatic memory from her circuits, I guess there’s plenty of fear and anxiety left inside her. And sadness too. We had to give up so much to stay alive.
I try to think of something to say, something that might make her feel better. We can get through this? We should look forward, not back? But before I can come up with anything decent, I hear a voice blaring from a dozen loudspeakers scattered across the gym. General Hawke’s voice.
“Attention, Pioneers. May I have your attention?”
We all stop what we’re doing. Shannon, who just threw another pass to DeShawn, retracts her arms and spins her turret around, trying to see if Hawke’s in the gym. DeShawn does the same thing, letting the football bounce against his torso and skitter across the floor. I aim my camera at the gym’s entrance, but Hawke is nowhere in sight. He must be in another part of the base, speaking to us over the intercom.
“I scheduled the training exercise for twelve hundred hours, but I see that you’re all here early, so we might as well start now. No time like the present.”
I feel a jolt of surprise. How does Hawke know that all of us are here? Tilting backward, I train my camera at the high, vaulted ceiling and spot three small surveillance cameras hidden in the shadows. Hawke’s been watching us the whole time. He must’ve seen my big showdown with Zia and Marshall. This worries me a bit—I said some harsh things about the general. But at least it’s out in the open now. If he heard what I said, maybe he’ll do something about it.
“Please go to the end of the gymnasium that’s farthest from the entrance. I’ll open the doors.”
My acoustic sensors pick up the sound of electrical motors opening a pair of oversized doors at the far end of the gym. Behind them is a large, steel-walled compartment, about fifteen feet wide and thirty feet long. It’s a freight elevator, big enough to hold a truck.
Zia is the first to head for the elevator. “Sir!” she booms as she crosses the gym. “Where are we going?”
“The conditions are ideal, Pioneers. Over the next three hours, none of Sigma’s surveillance satellites will pass over Colorado, and no aircraft is within thirty miles of our base.”
The rest of us follow Zia. As we stride into the elevator, my circuits crackle with anticipation. If I had a heart, it would be pounding.
“Sir!” Zia shouts. “Are we—”
“That’s right. We’re going outside.”