Chapter 3
Gabriel stared at the capsule, Knowles’s last two words resonating in his head. Zero point. Before he had a chance to ask the doctor what she meant, she continued.
“Zero point doesn’t refer to the mythical energy source, or the grade point average of some of the grunts I’ve met. It’s a term referred to by the Pakistani philosopher Aban Gurmani about a decade ago in his book. He used the term to signify a rebirth, but not like being born again. More of a…” Her voice trailed off as she looked up at the ceiling. “A new beginning. A starting point. Nowhere to go but up. When I was involved in the planning stages of the augmentation program a few years ago, I was reading Gurmani’s book, and I thought it was an apt description of what we do.”
She walked back to the table and picked up another container. She turned back to Gabriel, holding them both out in front of her. “These are my machines. These will give you a new beginning, Lieutenant Gabriel.”
Gabriel looked at Knowles, then at the capsule, then back to Knowles. He still wasn’t completely sure what was happening. Machines. New beginning. Augmentation. He glanced back at the door, but Biermann wasn’t suddenly standing there with answers. Not that Gabriel trusted him for answer. He had a growing suspicion that Biermann concealed much more than he gave up. But at least Biermann knew what the hell this woman, this program, were all about.
“The rumors that you’ve heard, I’m sure, are probably pretty accurate,” she said, pulling his attention back to her. “Although to be quite honest, I really hate the acronym. Hammers. Sounds like stupid, blunt tools used as overkill. You, like the others before you, are neither stupid nor blunt. Are you?”
Gabriel still stared at the two containers Knowles held. He looked up at her face, where her eyes bored into his. “No ma’am. Er, doc.”
“The augmentation project was created to give the NAF better soldiers,” Knowles continued. “Not blunt tools but surgical, powerful, intelligent instruments. I’m proud to be associated with the project. And you,” she said as she pointed to Gabriel with one of the containers, “should be proud to have been selected. Very few make it through the preliminaries from what I understand.”
“Doc,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m still quite a bit in the dark. Not to be too blunt, no pun intended, but I’d appreciate some specifics.”
Knowles walked up to him and handed him one of the containers. He accepted it, then peered inside the clear plastic…and saw nothing.
“What level mil rets are you running, Lieutenant?”
He looked up from the container. “Level Four. Four point two actually.”
She nodded as if she expected the answer. Gabriel realized her question was just a formality to get him comfortable; he knew she must have his full personnel jacket. And probably more.
“Part of the augmentation process will be a complete software upgrade on your existing neuretics gear. Nothing surgical, strictly wireless updates, but it’s quite a jump. You’ll come out of this with enhanced Level Seven rets, a power very few people in the military possess. Actually very few in the private sector have such a level, just a handful of the richest. But even those privileged ones don’t have the military capabilities you will. Enhanced combat routines, more powerful passive and active scans, automatic defensive subroutines. That’s the mental part. But the more exciting part are these,” she said, indicating the container he held.
He turned the small box over in his hand, still peering inside.
“You won’t see anything, Lieutenant. These are nano-level machines. Far below even standard microscopic view. They are self-replicating nanites which will be placed inside your body and will go to work on the physical parts of you, replacing some of your cells and tissues, augmenting and enhancing your body’s natural structure.”
Gabriel suppressed a shudder as a childhood memory came to him out of a deep recess. He was very young, maybe five or six, walking on a beach in Jamaica with his parents and older brother. He saw a uniquely shaped piece of driftwood at the edge of the tree line, and ran over to pick it up. It was heavier than he expected, so he pulled harder. He was surprised to find that it wasn’t driftwood, but a rotting stump of a palm tree, and underneath was a huge colony of fire ants. Within seconds the ants had swarmed over his body, nipping and biting at his skin. He spent the rest of the day crying, wrapped in cold, wet towels as his brother played in the ocean.
What Knowles described to him sounded an awful lot like fire ants.
“Lieutenant, I assure you this procedure is completely safe.” She must have noticed the look on his face, so he cleared his throat and handed the container back to her. “It’s based on long established muscle regeneration therapies the medical community has employed for almost a century,” she said as she accepted the container.
“To what end, ma’am?” he asked, glancing back at the capsule.
Knowles returned to the table and set the two containers down. She turned back to face him and leaned against the edge of the table, crossing her arms. “Augmentation. Making your body stronger than it can be on its own, faster, quicker to respond. These nano machines will replicate and spread, and use your body’s natural proteins to create muscle fiber overlays that are six times stronger than your natural fibers, yet be even more flexible. They will create links to your neurological system, reducing signal time and degradation. They will interface with your neuretics systems in ways far deeper than what you have now. Your body will become an instrument for your mind to wield.”
Gabriel took a step towards the capsule and ran his hand along the open edge. “So this is part of Captain Biermann’s Special Warfare program.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the studs along the inside of the capsule. “This is done without surgery?”
“If you mean peeling back your skin with knives, there is none of that,” Knowles replied. “The neuretics upgrade is done via wireless interface, and the nanites are introduced to your system by multiple auto-injectors. Those nodules you’re looking at. The only surgical procedure is the medpack, but that’s after this process is complete and integrated.”
He turned back to face her. “Medpack?”
“A small device is implanted near the base of your spine above your gluteus maximus muscle, on the right side. This device contains refillable pharmaceutical microsyringes, controlled by your autonomic neuretic systems. Somnatin as a sedative, adreno when you need a burst of energy, and so on.” She waved her hand. “We can get to that later. We can only implant that device when the augmentation is fully completed. So with all that being said, it’s time for you to get in the tank.”
“Hold on,” he said. His head was swimming. Less than twelve hours ago, he was aboard the Coral Sea, having just finished dinner in the mess with his squad, and was preparing for a scout mission into the Belt to root out a suspected pirate hole. Now he was here, about to be invaded by machines he couldn’t even see, for a man he barely knew, to support a program he didn’t fully understand.
“Lieutenant Gabriel,” she said, taking a step towards him. “I talked to Captain Biermann at length about you. I’ve read your file. Twice. You’ve expressed a strong desire to join the Special Warfare unit. Your test marks are off the charts. Your leadership skills, whether you believe this or not after the Canary Islands incident, are top notch. Your life is the Navy, and I don’t think I overemphasize that.”
He looked back at Knowles and her unblinking gaze. She was right, on every account, and he knew it. Everything he’d done from the moment he enlisted, through Basic, through OCS, through the Canary Islands, and into his current mission aboard the Coral Sea, led to this moment. Deep down, he knew she was right. He was having a hard time admitting that the Navy was truly all he had.
But there was something else he saw in her eyes. Something that said there was more to this procedure that she was letting on. Something that… pained her.
He shook off the thought and rubbed his eyes, pressing on
them until he saw stars. Opening them, he saw Knowles still staring back at him. She had just put into words what he never could.
“Zero point,” he said.
She nodded. “A new beginning.”
He looked at the capsule. A new beginning, as a HAMR. Knowles was right. He should be proud to have been selected. Or recruited was more like it. Shanghaied. But even though his apprehension was still pinging at him, he knew this was his next step. His parents, his brother, his family: gone. His fellow OCS graduates, scattered among the stars. The Navy was really all he had. He’d already given his life to them. And now he’d give his body and mind. He knew it was the right choice.
“All right. I’m in. What’s next?”
She turned, walked back to the table, and picked up a small piece of folded cloth. She walked back to Gabriel. “Put your gear bag under the table there, then strip and fold the clothes you’re wearing, placing them on the end of the table.”
She handed him the folded cloth. He took it by one corner. The folds fell apart to reveal an absurdly tiny pair of paper-thin men’s briefs.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said.
“That’s ‘you’ve got to be shitting me, ma’am’, Lieutenant,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “The tank will be filled with an oxy-sedation fluid which will immobilize your body and respiration systems while you are submerged. The fluid will keep your blood oxygenated and allow the nanites to move throughout your body without any white blood cells trying to kill them. This procedure requires a minimum of twenty hours to complete, so we can’t have you awake or moving during the process. We also can’t have you wearing any clothes that prevent the auto-injectors from penetrating your skin in the proper locations. Hence, paper underwear.”
Gabriel grimaced, still staring at the briefs. “Why not just a birthday suit?”
Her eyes twinkled again. “That’s completely up to you. However, there is some disorientation when coming out of the tank. I’d hate to have you wandering around Cielo, buck naked and dripping wet, wondering where the bathroom is.”
Bathroom. “Wait. You said twenty hours? What about food, or… waste?”
“All handled by the oxy fluid. It will nourish your body, though not like a double cheeseburger, and remove waste as well.”
His stomach growled at the mention of a burger. “So I’ll be breathing in my own waste?”
Knowles cocked her head. “Hmmm, never thought of it that way. Good point. We’ll have to look into that in the future. But in the meantime, Biermann says you haven’t eaten in quite some time, which is good. So let’s get started.”
“Fantastic,” he muttered. He slid his gear bag under the table with one foot and tossed the briefs on the table. Knowles turned her attention back to her nanoscope. He took one last glance at the capsule, then stripped down.