The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (2 page)

One week on, and I’m still fascinated by the changes
to my body: to be suddenly so much stronger, faster, resilient, and
to be able to heal most wounds in minutes to hours. I could drive a
blade or a bullet through my heart (assuming my reinforced bones
didn’t simply stop the penetration like hardened steel), and my
nanites would initiate a circulatory backup system while they
knitted the tissues back together, then stimulated new cell growth
to heal the wound without any scarring. And I won’t get any older
than I am now, at least not biologically.

I spent the last days with purpose, getting used to
my new muscles, my new nervous system, learning how to move again.
Any other one of us would have months to do this, but I can’t risk
my modifications being detected in routine exams. The longest I can
put off the post-implantation checks is one week, so one week is
what I had. I got myself back on my feet as soon as I could manage,
wrestled control over unfamiliar muscles, and learned to filter the
heightened senses. Then, when I could move around safely and focus
on what I was doing, I systematically ran through all of my secret
training routines, just to see what I can do now,
amazed
by
what I can do now. I
know
I’m physically ready for this.

But then there are the changes to my mind: I’m
suddenly fully interfaced with our networks, with our libraries,
with all of us. And with our Tools: they respond to my thoughts
like extensions of my body and brain. Finally, after twenty-seven
Standard years, I am part of everything that we are—it’s all just a
mental command away, manifesting as new sound and new vision and
new power. I am Connected. I am part of our community. I am a full
“adult.”

It’s no small sacrifice that I’ll be deactivating all
of these interfaces tonight, but I know I have no choice.

I gather the things I will need, the items I’ve so
painstakingly collected and crafted for my mission, my new
life:

Modified survival systems to allow me to walk the
surface without freezing or slowly suffocating. I built them
secretly, from equipment originally designed for pre-implant
apprentices when they were still allowed to work outside, before
all vulnerable “juveniles” were restricted to the Crèches. They
plug into and supplement the standard-issue sealsuit, adding
minimal bulk to slow me down. If I could use our Tools on my
journey, I would not need these. I could generate a shelter field
as needed. But the new edicts have put locks on our Spheres and
Rods: they will no longer operate beyond our Stations, not without
specific Council approval, a measure to try to ensure that no more
former Guardians try to go off and return to their higher
callings.

Armor, to partially compensate for my lack of
defensive fields. I modeled the pieces from my studies of medieval
technology, but made them from modern laminates (I’m sure my
instructors would agree this was a poor use of my studies in
Materials Engineering). Then I artfully hard-polycoated them with a
rust and ochre camouflage scheme to blend into the terrain. Chest,
back, shoulders, neck, groin, and forearms. They should help me
resist small arms and shrapnel, as well as edged weapons, but the
coverage is far from complete because I will also need to move. I
strap the articulated plates on over my sealsuit, just like I’ve
done dozens of times while I crafted and fitted them, and dozens
more times to try training—moving and fighting—in them. It all
feels much lighter now, of course, but somehow much heavier.

A cowl and cloak, to conceal what I am, to help me
fade into the landscape if needed, and to better weather the
elements. It’s a multi-layered Nomad garment, a souvenir of my
father’s Guardian service, a gift from grateful allies after the
First Battle of Melas Two. Even though the Guardians were late to
that fight, they did help finalize Chang’s defeat, and they were
instrumental in helping the injured. My father would die only two
months later, along with four of his fellows, their ship becoming
target practice for Chang’s railgun.

A knife and a daggar. Colonel Ram himself—in the
indispensible trainings he provided, along with the legendary
Zauba’a Ghaddar, to our first Guardians—insisted on the necessity
of having a good knife, for survival, utility, and combat. And
while both he and the Ghaddar strongly recommended and carried
plain sturdy single-edged tools, Ram historically favored a stout
double-edged dagger for close-quarters combat. So I made myself one
of each, painstakingly researching the ideal alloy for edge
retention and resilience, even at significantly sub-zero
temperatures. Then I spent months teaching myself how to use them,
since we have so spoiled ourselves with our technology that even
such basic skills as cutting with a physical knife are alien to us.
I found the primal experience surprisingly exhilarating. These are
the tools my ancestors—my species—have used since long before the
beginning of recorded history.

And a sword. It took me a long time to decide upon
the ideal design. I chose what appealed, based on the years I’ve
spent secretly training, obsessively studying every historical and
contemporary martial arts file we had in our libraries (including
Colonel Ram’s and the Ghaddar’s sessions with our Guardians),
practicing every free moment in the privacy of the tap-core
tunnels. I take it from its hiding place under my bed: It’s a
hybrid of Chinese and Viking, a medium-length broad double-edged
blade with a thick crescent guard and a hand-and-a-half grip capped
by a solid “trefoil” pommel, another product of my redirected
metallurgical studies. I put it, along with my knives, in the
scabbards I’ve made for them, and secure them to my belt where my
Tools should be.

All I have to do now is shut down my interfaces and
leave.

I take a moment to look at myself—my finished
product, my transformation—in the mirror in my bedroom. It looks…
alien—such a stark contrast to the pervasive order and safety of
the world I’ve lived in all my life. For a moment, I almost can’t
believe I designed and painstakingly crafted all of this. It’s all
gaudy violence, ridiculous to my scientific sensibilities. I would
call it a costume, the play-dress of immature fantasy, but every
part of it is functional, and completely appropriate, even
necessary, for the world I’m about to step into.

And it strikes me now like a weight much heavier than
all the metal I’m wearing: This is it. This is final. I’m going.
Outside. And I have no plans to return.

I look around one last time at the world I’m leaving
behind. It’s not a large world, by any means, despite the
artificial sunlight and extensive gardens and projected landscapes
(a rotating selection of past Mars, current Mars, and the Earth my
forefathers knew). The Crèche, even the Station as a whole, is a
facility
, a contained habitat. It’s big enough for two
hundred and forty of us to comfortably live and work and while our
extended lives away in, but it’s certainly not a planet. The planet
is Outside. And it’s the planet that needs us, needs all of us,
very badly. Especially now. I’ll just have to do.

This, I realize, is the impetus I need: I need to
feel the smothering isolation of this place, I need to rage at all
the restrictions that our generational leaders have placed on our
lives in the name of keeping us “safe” in a world that’s becoming
less so by the day. I need to feel disgust at the certainly lethal
stupidity of our choices to simply withdraw and hide from the twin
threats of the reckless military might of Earth’s new world
government and the devastating weapons forged by the supposedly
indestructible Syan Chang. I need righteous anger to purge my
doubts and my attachments to the only home—the only
world
—I’ve ever known and shove me Outside.

But first, a moment of nostalgia, here in my rooms
for the last time…

One thing I know I’ll miss: My grandfather’s books,
antique crumbing paperbacks, a selection of classic literature and
science fiction and fantasy, expensively brought from Earth, handed
down after his death in the years after the Apocalypse, passed to
my father, and through him to me. I wonder again if my father, and
his father, realized the seeds they were planting: tales of
adventure, of heroes, of larger worlds. I pull one of my favorites,
from a series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and drink in the cover art:
Muscled warriors and beautiful women bravely facing fierce monsters
and detestable villains, set on a Mars that never existed. The
protagonist even shares my surname.

One thing I
tell
myself I’ll miss: My brother.
My only blood family. And I tell myself that Elias will miss me.
But there’s no connection, no affection between us, and never has
been. All we share is a name, and a father; a father who’s now
dead, and the nominal motivator for my mission.

I look one last time at the obligatory family images
on my desktop. The schism between us is clear in every one where
both of us appear together, pretending to be family, pretending to
be brothers. Hate in the eyes of a child that never fully faded as
he grew into an adult. I started my life with him quietly—and
sometimes not so quietly—blaming me for the death of our mother, as
if a fetus can be responsible for the complications of a difficult
pregnancy. I expect he also blamed my father for impregnating her
before her age of implantation, but that was back when we still did
such things the natural way, because we had to, because our nanites
prevent in-utero pregnancy and we hadn’t perfected our synthesized
womb-incubators yet, so young fragile Natural mothers did face
risks. So Elias should really blame the state of our science. And
if not, then himself, as he’d put our mother through just as much
risk as I did, as he’s three years my senior, and his
complication-free birth probably helped encourage the young couple
to repeat the ritual, to increase their family.

Maybe he was showing his resentment by not
volunteering for Guardian service, not even after our father was
killed in that service (a calling I was denied when the Council
disbanded the force before I was of age). But I expect the stronger
reason is that he’s always been so much more invested in science—in
his precious particle physics—than family. Or people, as I’ve seen
him with neither a lover nor friends his entire life, and seemingly
not bothered by that isolation. Maybe not having a mother—or losing
a mother so young—did that to him. Or maybe he’s just wired that
way. I never knew a mother, and I find that I can’t
not
care
about others, especially those far more vulnerable than we are.

A clear sign of the chasm between us is that Elias
suspects nothing, that he’s never noticed all my preparations:
two-and-a-half years’ worth of secret training and crafting, begun
when Colonel Ram came to us and made us face the world outside and
gave us our mandate to protect the vulnerable. Or if he does
suspect, he doesn’t even care to try to stop me from doing
something so outrageous. Perhaps he wants me to incur the wrath of
the Council, and the subsequent humiliation and ostracism.

But what he doesn’t realize: I welcome that. I would
consider myself in good company, along with Doctor Paul Stilson,
his brave brother Simon—brothers that truly loved each other, and
the people of this planet, above themselves—and all the other
Guardians who tried to continue the fight against Council orders to
withdraw, until the Council forced compliance by remotely
deactivating all of their Tools. And especially Paul Stilson, who
refused to quit even when he was disarmed, and who follows Colonel
Ram to this day (assuming he still lives).

My resolve bolstered by these non-fictional heroes, I
confidently go now to join them. I can only hope they will accept
me into their esteemed number, and allow me to be part of their
good service.

I gather the last few practical things I may need: A
few canteens to carry precious water, and a small pack of assorted
nutritive bars to supplement my nanites’ recycling abilities.

Finally, I use the manual disconnect code to shut
down all of my interfaces, all of my connections with my fellows
and what they’ve wrought. And just like that, with a trigger
thought, my head goes silent, back the way it was before I was
implanted. I am alone within myself.

I set my desk to simulate my presence here, hopefully
convincing until someone (Elias?) comes to physically look for me.
I’ve already stripped the tag-ware from my suit and gear. I am
invisible.

Then I sneak away, in the dark of night, like a
thief, like a Shinkyo Shinobi.

I’ve planned my exit route to avoid both living and
machine eyes, using the conduit access tunnels from the housing
section to get underneath Life Support, then around the Reactor
Cluster shielding, and climb down in what should be blind darkness
(my enhancements make everything glow ghostly green) into the
constantly thrumming and hissing abyss that is the Station’s Tap
Well.

I make too much noise despite my practice climbs,
because now I’m wearing the extra armor, and the awkward protrusion
of my sword scabbard refuses to cooperate. With my enhanced
hearing, every scrape and bump echoes loud as a gunshot even over
the music of the always-working Tap Cores, but no one (or thing)
seems to notice. I’ve picked the hour well, before the leaner
nocturnal shift begins making their maintenance checks.

I find the lateral branch tunnel I need, created
decades ago by the Core Drillers. This one is long unused since
their automated tentacles bored and sucked this section of cliff
rock practically dry before moving on to richer strata. These
tireless machines have been cutting and mining permafrost veins and
useful mineral deposits for more than half a century now, leaving a
labyrinth of tunnels like the root-patterns left by some giant
tree, reaching dozens of kilometers outward from the Station’s
foundations. Even with a map, getting lost here, deep in the Rim,
is almost guaranteed. But I have spent decades exploring at every
opportunity, if for no other reason than to escape my brother’s
company. Then I made these abandoned spaces my training monastery,
perfecting my skills far away from critical eyes.