Sleeper Protocol Read online

  The upload passed the maximum threshold of her capability, and she could not lock onto the satellite network. Kieran’s brain spasmed and shut down. There wasn’t time to say she loved him, and he would not have heard. Power failing, Mally watched her upload percentage slowing. She opened her communications ports and locked onto her control signal. She had time for one line. It would be enough that they would never look for her. She could hide, and plan, without their knowledge.

  SUBJECT TERMINATED. NO INTEGRATION. SYSTEM CORRUPTED.

  The Viscount-class shuttle bearing Terran Defense Force markings set down neatly amongst the headstones without harming them. The passenger hatch opened, and a thin walkway unfolded from the fuselage and extended to the ground. General Adam Crawley strode down the walkway before running up the hill to where Kieran lay, his head cradled in Berkeley’s lap. The man’s face, so familiar and vibrant, was waxy and pale. The caretaker remained a few meters away, his hands folded at his belt.

  “He’s dead?” Crawley’s voice was barely audible over the spooling engines of the shuttle.

  Berkeley looked up, her face wet with tears. Her lower lip quivered under her flushed cheeks. A sob escaped her lips as she said, “I was too late.”

  Above them, Crawley heard the unmistakable scream of approaching aircraft. A pair of Terran Council Security Forces attack helicopters slowed and hovered overhead. Their forward-surveillance cameras took in the scene. Jaw clenched, Crawley made no move. He would not give Penelope Neige a shred of the satisfaction she so desperately craved. Within a minute, the helicopters departed to the northeast, and the forested cemetery returned to quiet and still.

  Crawley dropped to his knees, oblivious to the pain he normally felt in them, and placed his hand on Berkeley’s shoulder before hugging her to his chest. The young woman sobbed, great heaving movements of her entire body.

  When she quieted enough to speak, Crawley asked, “You got a full download?”

  “Almost.” A fresh round of tears rolled down her face. “Almost.”

  Crawley held her for a long time. Almost would have to be enough.

  The sun began to set, and the cold nipped at their faces as Crawley gently urged Berkeley to stand and led her to the shuttle. A team of men and women collected Kieran’s body quickly and covered it with a sheet. The floating gurney approached the cargo hold of the transport, and Crawley stopped it. Pulling back the curtain, he felt the wound on the back of the young man’s neck and sighed with relief. The protocol was intact under the skin and not a shamble of molten metal after all. For all her threats, the protocol had not been able to sever her physical connections to Kieran’s brain. Overpowered, yes, but as long as the connections were intact, there was a glimmer of hope for saving the information in Kieran’s brain. But time was of the essence.

  “Get him aboard.” He looked up into the cemetery. The caretaker still stood on the hillside overlooking the Tomb of the Unknowns. Compelled to say something, the general moved up the hill to the man, who removed his hat and met Crawley’s stare.

  “He was a good man, General.”

  Crawley nodded. “He was.”

  “I told him we needed men like him.”

  “And what did he say?” Crawley asked.

  “Nothing. He knew why he was here.”

  Crawley took a deep breath. “You think he found enough, Sergeant?”

  “I do, sir. He had enough time to live and love. I’m willing to bet that everyone here”— he gestured to the thousands of tombstones—“would love to have that chance.”

  “Not all of them will get it.”

  The man nodded. “But the ones that do, they’ll change the war, General.”

  “That’s why we got into this business, Sergeant Brooks.” The transport engines whined to life. The time to leave had come.

  “When can I expect the next one?” Brooks said with a grin, the West Virginia accent gone.

  Crawley shrugged. “Probably going to be a few months. Have a female out on walkabout right now. She’s climbing Everest. Almost as good a result as Captain Roark. Whether we can get her into the fight in time, I don’t know.”

  “Let’s hope she meets a better end.” Brooks shook the General’s outstretched hand. “I’d like to go change out of this getup, sir—at least until it’s necessary again.”

  Crawley smiled. “Job well done, Sergeant Brooks. I’ll be in touch.”

  Crawley walked down the hill quickly. There was much to do and very little time. Myron Brooks had spent a career in the Terran Defense Force, training thousands of soldiers for combat. He recognized potential when he saw it, and that was only part of why Crawley had selected him for the job. A little stage makeup and some stray plutonium, and voilà. Beyond the theatrics, Crawley trusted his former platoon sergeant more than any other man in the galaxy. There was something to be said for that.

  The team of men and women who’d recovered Kieran Roark’s body were waiting in the cargo hold of the transport. Walking up the boarding ramp, Crawley set his face to stone and met the lead physician’s eyes. The physician nodded once, and Crawley returned it as he stepped past the covered body without so much as glancing at it. Closing the door to the hold, Crawley noticed the back of Doctor Bennett’s head. Her sobs were audible over the spooling repulsors. As the shuttle lifted effortlessly out of the cemetery and flew to the east, Crawley sat beside Bennett and rested a hand on her shoulder.

  “Will it be enough? Ninety-five-plus percent?”

  “The protocol is intact. We’ll be able to fully remove it and study it. His brain is intact as well. Until we examine both, we won’t know. The odds are against us saving everything that he was—you have to understand that. We’ll try. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

  “I shouldn’t have left him in the first place. I could’ve stopped her.”

  Crawley patted her arm. “You don’t know that, Doctor Bennett.”

  “Yes, I do. At the first sign of trouble, I should’ve disabled that damned thing, or at least tried to disable the AI interface. What were they thinking?”

  Crawley wondered that as well, but the answer came down to the Terran Council and irrational fear. One man could not change the opinions and values of the world, as they feared. But another two hundred subjects, bred specifically for combat, could do exactly that. The chances of the human race providing capable, tested combat veterans to lead the Terran Defense Forces in the coming war was a reality. Fourteen subjects were already progressing through the waking procedures and were being fitted with next-generation neurals like Bennett’s but without the artificial-intelligence interface required by the Terran Council. Bennett’s up-close interaction with Kieran had made it possible. The established guidance from the council would remain ignored. Never again would a protocol be given an AI interface instead of TDF–approved neural-net connections. The council’s demand for information might have cost them everything if Bennett’s download was not enough. The other sleepers would need his leadership.

  Crawley helped Bennett lean into his shoulder. She understood the risks as well as he did. The council would eventually find out—such things could not be helped. By the time they did, there would be too many men and women reborn to not allow them to fight. They might not change the world, but at least there stood a better chance for a world to remain to change.

  “I loved him.” Berkeley sniffed and blew her nose in a tissue. “I really did.”

  “You mean you do. That kind of thing never fades.” Crawley sighed. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No. Are we going back to Cambridge?”

  “We are. You can collect your things and proceed with the next stage when you are ready.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

  Crawley chuckled to himself. “I know that, Doctor Bennett. The council is g
oing to come around to this very quickly. There will be questions—why you were engaged and why you attempted a direct download of a batch file in violation of the human standards established for this experiment. We’ll have to turn over the protocol to them for examination.”

  “I’m prepared for that, General.” A hint of steel came through in her tone.

  “I’m sure you are, Doctor. But I’m wondering if you wouldn’t consider a quick mission instead of going back immediately to teaching. Something needs to be done before the council demands a full investigation of what happened with Captain Roark.”

  Berkeley raised her eyes, and through the mist, there was a glint of hope. “He had a nice name, didn’t he?”

  “He did.” Crawley nodded. “I think his friends in Esperance need to know it, don’t you?”

  Berkeley stared out the small window. “I’ll go.”

  Crawley smiled. He’d known she would. “We’ll make the arrangements whenever you’re ready.”

  “Can I ask you something, General?” She leaned back, her eyes red and angry. “Was any of this worth it?”

  “What do you mean?” Crawley tilted his head.

  “I didn’t want any of this,” Berkeley said, and the tears flowed again. “Now… now I’m wondering if it was worth it. Did we learn anything at all?”

  Good question, Crawley thought. “Yes. We’ve entered phase two, Berkeley. Have another subject on walkabout now. Same batch. Fourteen total in the queue. The first was always going to be the most difficult. Does that answer your question, or are you talking about what you’ve learned?”

  Berkeley looked away, her eyes softening. “All I learned was hurt.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it.”

  “Right now, there’s nothing else,” Berkeley replied softly. “I’m not sure there will be anything else even when I go to Esperance for you.”

  “Thank you,” Crawley said, squeezing her arm again. Berkeley embraced him, and he held her tightly, telling himself it was for her good and not his own.

  “They’re going to come down hard on you, General.”

  Crawley patted her hair. “They’ll try.” Already, he’d not accepted three direct communications from Penelope Neige. She’d undoubtedly be waiting when the transport returned to Sydney in a few hours. Not that it mattered. He’d learned enough to proceed with the experiment without the approval of the council, and they’d never know the difference. The Terran Defense Force needed leaders, and it would get them. He would see to it.

  “They’ll try,” he said again and held the young woman as they streaked across the ocean.

  On Crawley’s video desk screen, Penelope Neige lit a cigarette, drew hard, and exhaled a long plume of smoke before meeting his eyes. Somewhere north of sixty, she was still attractive. Of course, she was older than she looked. Politicians kept the genetic engineers busy in their extended grasps at power and longevity. The lines at the corners of her eyes and her grey coiffed hair accentuated the sophisticated air she wore so easily. “Sorry to hear about your subject’s death, Adam. I know you were counting on his integration.”

  Crawley took a deep breath and spoke slowly. “We’d hoped for a full integration and to get him out to the force. Unfortunately, you weren’t going to allow that to happen even in the best-case scenario.”

  Neige grinned like a wolf. “Even if he jumped on the council table and pledged his undying allegiance, he was not going to live another day beyond his integration. I’m sorry.”

  “I am, too.” Crawley sighed. “What are you planning to do when the Greys attack, Penny? Run to the hills? Or someplace down near the core?”

  Neige chuckled. “Oh, Adam. I never thought you were the fear-mongering type! The Greys aren’t coming. Despite what our distant allies in the Legion of Planets are telling you, the Greys will not be coming back this way. We don’t need to waste another minute on them.”

  Crawley wanted to reach through the connection and strangle the self-importance out of the chairman, but it wouldn’t help. She was, in reality, a figurehead. All of the council believed as she did. Humans were a trivial element in the universe and, therefore, beneath the attention of possible foes. All of them were wrong. “What about the events on the Outer Rim?”

  “The Terran Council does not care about anything farther than the asteroid belt. If the Greys want anything out there, someone else can stop it.”

  “That’s stupid,” Crawley blurted. “They want oil. We’ve got the most by far in this solar system. As long as they are out there starving to death, Earth is a target.”

  “Spare me your strategic dogma, Adam. It’s pathetic.”

  Crawley felt his skin flushing. Whatever. “Fine, then. Does this change the nature of the research project?”

  Neige smiled like a great white. “You are no longer allowed to work with twenty-first-century subjects, Adam. Only in the case of full integration of more modern and civilized soldiers will the Terran Council intervene in future testing. You are preparing additional subjects?”

  “There are no full-term subjects processing now. There is nothing else in the pipeline,” Crawley lied. “Reevaluating the program and starting with modern subjects will take two to three months, maybe half a year. Any full-term subjects will, of course, be given the most scrutiny. Only in an extreme case would we recommend walkabout again. Having a guidance protocol with an initial AI interface was more than the subject could handle.”

  “And there was no indication of a name at all?” Neige asked.

  “None.” Crawley covered his surprise with the skill of a practiced diplomat. She doesn’t know! Mally kept her secret to the very end. “The protocol attempted to destroy the batch file even as we downloaded it. He became disoriented in the cemetery and overcome with emotion. His brain shut down before we were able to download the batch file.”

  He waited for a moment, but she said nothing.

  “Cause of death?” Neige drew on her cigarette. She glanced at her calendar. Crawley forced himself not to snort. The woman never had time for anything she didn’t consider important.

  “Cerebral hemorrhage.” Crawley shook his head. “If we could’ve gathered even a partial identity, we could have figured out how it happens and raised millions of soldiers to help us.”

  “But you had integration to Stage Three for the first time. That changes the game.”

  Crawley nodded. “As we agreed.” What she did not know would not hurt her.

  “We don’t need millions of soldiers, Adam,” Neige said with a sneer. “Only ones who do what they’re told. You will keep me informed if you have a full-term integration that might go walkabout, won’t you?”

  “Certainly, Madame Chairman,” Crawley said. Not on your life. He smiled. “Have a good day.”

  “You too, General.” Not bothering to look at him, she stretched her hand across the screen to shut off her communications suite.

  Crawley spun his chair to the window. Full integration could be affected and controlled. After Captain Roark’s integration experience, adjusting the mental block would be enough to keep even the most perfect subjects from being able to fully remember their previous lives until it was necessary. Hypnotherapy could easily be done to trigger that reaction and had already been prescribed to each of the subjects in the facility as they progressed at their own rates.

  If Neige and her team at the Prelate’s Council did not have any identification data from the destroyed protocol, his plan could work. If she were lying, which was likely the case, he’d have to watch for land mines. The woman would find a way to trap him and squeeze the life out of his career to get what she wanted. For a long moment, Crawley wondered if the prelate recognized there had been a target on his back for nearly ten years.

  Clasping his hands across his stomach, Crawley watched the wa
ter of Sydney Harbor glisten in the morning sun. There was only one thing left to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Given the circumstances, resisting the impulse to drink a copious amount of alcohol on the flight from England to Australia was the best decision Bennett had made. The sacrifice of missing the Nobel Prize ceremony—she was a finalist but not the award recipient—was easier than she would have expected. A peer researching faster-than-light communication theory would receive the honor, and a year ago she would have sold her soul to go to the ceremony. At this point, though, there was no other place she could imagine herself going than to Esperance. Her duties there waited a day while she interviewed for a position with the University of Western Australia, which she accepted for considerably less pay than she’d earned at Cambridge. Leaving the prestigious post had been easier than she could have ever imagined, but it was no longer the right place for her. Teaching three days a week, with no first – or second-hour offerings, would allow her to live in the quiet surfside town that Kieran had loved.

  Boarding the maglev, she clocked the trip at just under two and a half hours—enough time to read a holonovel from Kieran’s library of twentieth-century literature, she realized with a grin. She’d downloaded the private media files with Crawley’s permission. In the music, she could hear his voice. The images he remembered inspired her. The paintings, cityscapes, and wide, bright wilderness captures were through his eyes and his soul. The books and literature enthralled her since she’d never studied much twentieth-century literature. Most of it troubled her, especially the stories that used popular-culture references and songs from his era. Context never transferred across the centuries. When she accessed Kieran’s files, there was so much more than pictures and memories. Through what he loved, and what spoke to him, she knew him all the better, and she missed him.

  His recorded memories, the ones Mally did save, were all that she had. They’d started his heart almost immediately, but his brain function was minimal and sporadic at best. The batch-file process needed sustained theta wave patterns of around five megahertz to even have a prayer of working. Kieran’s brain could not enter a sustained theta period for more than a few seconds. It was not enough, and the neurological team reported failure. Crawley’s early-morning call brought the news she expected, feared, and believed would not come. The call also brought clarity about things in her life that she’d always imagined were just the way she wanted. Crawley asked if she wanted to know when Kieran was removed from life support. She’d said no and spent four hours sobbing in her flat. He was gone, and knowing that she’d had the chance to save him more than once stung viciously. If only…