©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.
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