Day 280 - The War Corp. - Chapter 1.1 (1435 Words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

THE WAR CORP.

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 1.1

Brodie’s NINE lit up with three red numbers as he crested the Wall Clamber, heaving his body over the final exposed face of the wall and down to safety on the other side. There was the rest of the team, the ones that had made it already and as one of the red numbers blinked green and then off his NINE one more made it into the small depression where the Team had sheltered.

That left two red numbers blinking on the NINE’s for all of the Team who were in the Green.

“B73 – Acknowledge new objective.” The voice was piped directly into his brain via the auditory nerve, the cochlear network of nerves that carried the signal of sound.

A new objective settled in his screen as the audio confirmation request came in, the order lagging less than a second behind the sound. The two red designation numbers in his NINE went Yellow and became his current objective.

His arms were up on the lip of the safety bunker and pulling himself to the edge once more, bullets still flying as the test was still in play. None of the other Team Members got the order as Brodie did and watched impassively as the Pod Baby went back into the firing line to retrieve the Pod Babies who had not progressed.

The first red designation was Sharpe Two Nine, he was pinned down in the middle section of the wall, some fifty feet from where Brodie was climbing now. They could see each other clearly and the concentrated fire on the spot where he was being covered was relentless.  Since the rest of the team had made it off the wall the auto fire sentry bots were focusing on the one remaining Team Member and not letting up. The only way to get him out was to draw the fire away from that spot.

Brodie Seven Three scanned the wall for the other designation, Liam Zero Six but there was no sign of him on the wall that Brodie could see. He made a signal to S29 that he was going to draw fire, and to get ready for the egress. They had a non-verbal language of hand signals and movements to communicate on the field pre programmed into their Pod Baby Brain Development Program. This was the first time they had used it but with a hard code like this there was no chance of miscommunication.

Brodie dodged bullets as the sentries picked him up on the detection field and segued from S29 to B73 for targeting. Instantly as the fire moved away Sharpe made his move away from the position where he was pinned down and made some progress to the next cover point. One by one they swapped the cover points, taking turns to move laterally along the wall between cover points but gaining little ground in height.

The designation Liam Zero Six was still red on their NINE’s and with an active mission to retrieve the designations to balance the Team KPI’s again, Brodie was not moving anywhere until he recovered Liam Zero Six.

The relentless fire in the wall finally took effect on one of the handholds and it cracked under the strain of Brodie’s weight, sending him plummeting to the ground below, hitting the ground in a hard roll the impact jarred and there was a painful, distinctive snapping sound as B73 came up again.

A map of his body on his NINE showed a couple of fractures one in the Ulna and the Radius pushed under the Carpus and dislocated. The pain shooting through his body was temporary as his NINE acknowledged medical assistance and delivered an electro stimulus to the pain center of his brain, dulling the agony to background noise levels only.

His pain sidelined the rush of electricity in that neural network sharpened his senses and he picked a gurgling noise a few feet behind him and that lead him a few feet to find the remains of Liam Zero Six in a bloody pile behind an outcropping. He had been shot in the back, the bullet severing the spinal cord and dropping him back down the wall to crush both legs and send bloody and muscles into a bloody disarray on the ground beneath him.

Liam was non responsive, but the designation on Brodie’s NINE was still flashing red, it had not gone dark and the Team KPI’s had not adjusted. Conscious or not Liam was still on the Team, and as such could be retrieved. Brodie levered Liam into his arms but regardless of the pain center override, his body refused to shoulder the load on his broken arm.

Before the body was back on the ground, Sharpe arrived at the bottom, ready to carry the Liam designation to the wall and again non-verbally they worked a plan to slowly make their way up the wall to get the whole team over the second task in CBT.

Sharpe took off, leaving Brodie at the bottom with Liam, and drew fire up a dozen or more feet so Brodie could begin his painful one hand assault on the wall. Once Brodie had commenced Sharpe launched himself backwards off the wall in a somersault and dropped to the ground to retrieve inert and possibly dead Liam from the floor.

Their plan was simple and if the sentries had been programmed with a little more intelligence and predictive software had been present, then it would not have worked. Sharpe would set off from cover first, as soon as he moved then Brodie would make ground a second later, so that the sentries would swing between the two targets confused as to which one would present the best target as they climbed in and out of cover spots on the wall.

Cover by cover they crept up the wall, leaving a dripping trail of blood behind from the torn body of Liam Zero Six as he was carried, strapped to the back of the able bodied Sharpe Two Nine. As they reached the final section of the wall the fire dissipated and thinned as they saw escape and safety within their reach.  Sharpe moved first and almost instantly was met with a hail of shells in an unavoidable firestorm of bullets.  

The shots embedded themselves into Liam’s body and then the red designation on their NINE’s started flickering like the toll was finally too much and the shredded and pulverized Team Member was seconds from being a DNF.

Brodie broke cover and leaped up right into heavy fire, three shots slicing his flesh and searing into his pain center, not giving the computer assisted pain management any time to adjust his nervous system.

“B73! What the fuck are you doing?” Came the Manager’s voice into his head, but his momentum was sufficient on the leap from cover and the power of his climb on the last handhold on his good hand that the force of his upward motion threw him up over the edge into safety.  Sharpe followed on moving steadily but rapidly as he used he Liam Designation as a shield and cleared cover to come down on the other side and to safety.

The lights flicked to bright and their designations all flashed green and a bonus status on their KPI came up with the DNF column disappearing. Liam’s designation went white, he was technically dead but had died after completing the task, albeit 100% unconscious while doing so.  

The Team got a flash of recognition from the Team Manager, each getting a dopamine transfer from their NINE and feeling the joy and reward of success.

L06 was taken by Med Techs and placed into his Pod, following closely behind were B73 and S29 for recovery from their injuries.

L06’s pod flashed blue and white three times and then his white status was amended to green on Brodie’s NINE.

“Good work, that’s good team work B73.” The voice hesitated; Brodie could feel there was more coming. “B is Brodie yes?” The voice did not wait for confirmation; it was merely a pretense of humanity they were striving for. The audience loved this kind of Bonding Moments and it was bound to make the highlights reel that summary period. Brodie Seven Three may even make a Bio section. The Team Manager knew it had to be genuine bonding, you could not fake sincerity for the audience, they were born human, they could tell.

A second dopamine blast blew fireworks behind Brodie’s eyes as he got a personal reward for his work and supporting the team.