Bloodstained Rose

Chapter 8

Nomad had spent the last day alone trying to maintain the inside of the Mobile Carrier until the relief had shown up. The railgun had since reverted to its docked position, waiting for the next round of orders. Such weaponry had the capability to be anti-everything. Once the onboard AI had managed to get a lock on any target, the operator could fire a volley of supercharged metal fragments at the speed of light. It was in rare situations where such a weapon would need to be operated manually.

Tonight, he will be undergoing the second psychiatric evaluation of the deployment. Following the events of the night before, the order had been placed down by command to have all troops on the ground go through the procedure. He had always dreaded having the G.E.I. trying to prod around inside of his thoughts, but he stayed guarded.

“Good evening, Control.” Nomad said softly as he leaned back against the chair in the medical bay.

It had a long curvy bench that allowed him to rest with his knees and head elevated. Up above, the machinery had started to whirl, gracing the room with a faint buzz. At the foot of the chair, a flat translucent panel had begun to emerge from the floor. As it had raised, the outside of the panel had started to extend, slowly warping the sheet into a cube. It had hovered over the floor before greeting the interior with a quick flash of light. In the center, a scrambled image of a woman had finally appeared. She had a slender figure, with a very youthful appearance overall. Her body had appeared to be translucent, barely masking the area behind her. The hair on her head had continuously phased from color to color.

“Good evening, Nomad.” Control replied, flashing her preprogrammed smile.

“Has there been any word in the grid about a relief?” Nomad asked.

“Current orders are to stand down and await the new arrivals,” she began to respond inhumanly fast, causing Nomad to break the illusion that she was not there.

“Control, you’re responding a tad too fast. Can you dial it back a little?”

“My apologies,” Control had replied after a brief pause. Her body flickered out of view for a moment before finally reappearing. “I have set my response time to 1400 microseconds. May we continue your mental evaluation?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Nomad said quickly. Control had paused in place for a little over a second, spending the short time processing trillions of bits of data. She smiled at him before giving a quick nod.

“Please remain still while the machine is in progress.”

“You mean while you’re in progress?” he snapped back, trying his best to crack a joke with her—he had never been more nervous.

“Very funny.” she said quickly.

A set of metal claws had lowered from the machinery and opened over Nomad’s forehead. He had felt uneasy once the magnetic waves started to go through his skull. The rumbling sensation only added to his anguish, further putting him on edge.

“That feels really weird.” He said to her.

“Your ambience from the Deep can detect the magnetic fields. Please try to remain calm.” Control added.

“I’m calm.”

The scan was well underway. Control had kept in place, smiling undaunted despite the conditions. Nomad slowly started to gather his breath.

“My initial scan indicates that you are feeling anxious. What is troubling you?” She asked him quickly.

“It's been a long week. You forget that I’m still a human.” Nomad replied with a smile.

“I am also detecting that you are possibly feeling depressed or having some sort of trouble. We will not be able to perform a surgery at this point.” Control said as her face started to flash a look of concern.

She was programmed to display emotions, but Nomad knew that deep down she was just manufactured presentation from some cold and lonely bastard had spent too much of their life crafting. There may have been a face, a smile, and the look of a caring person; but she was just code.

“Yeah, I know. I’m not really worried about that. I’m sure it will go away.” Nomad had tried to calm his nerves as Control started to ramp up the pressure.

“Your levels are nearing critical. Please try to manage your stress to avoid de-processing.”

“I’m working on it, Control.”

“Psychiatric evaluation complete. Please stand by for mission briefing.” Control smiled again, closing her eyes to express her joy.

Nomad returned with one of his own, trying to look enthusiastic. The evaluation did not go as well as the last. He was finding it harder masking his emotions for the machine. Processing for the military was hard enough. Being de-processed was another administrative nightmare he would never want to go through.

Control finally continued, “Current orders are to stand by while the new recruits are processed. Operations will cease until the Delta unit has been deployed.”

“Hey, that doesn’t sound so bad!” Nomad said excitedly upon realizing he would have more down time.

He had been equally excited at the prospect of having fresh blood with him. After a few days of being stuck in the Mobile Carrier, he was willing to take anything he could get. While the machinery started to rise towards the ceiling, the outside of the medical bay started to light up with footsteps. He turned his head towards the hatch to see Megumi entering the bay. Her hair had been well kept along with the rest of her uniform. The initial sight caused his eyes to perk up in excitement.

“Are you Nomad?” Megumi asked after adjusting her spectacles. Nomad quickly leaned forward, letting out a grunt after hitting his head against the machinery.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Nomad groaned as he started to massage his forehead.

“My name is Megumi Kawaguchi.”

“I’ve heard that name,” Nomad lifted his legs over the side of the bench, feeling around for the floor. “Kawaguchi like General Kawaguchi?”

“The same.” Megumi took a moment to adjust the spectacles in front of her eyes. She had introduced herself by her full name to everybody in her chain of command since she arrived. Upon revealing it to him, she had felt nervous as he faced her. It was the first time anybody had bothered to make the connection since Kashmir.

“Any relation?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really,” Nomad replied while rising to his feet. “Any enhancements or anything I should know about?”

“I do not.”

“I guess in this case, you do.” Nomad said as he pointed to the glasses over her face.

“These are not for me to see better. They are meant to block out certain type of optical activity in the field.” She started to make her way over to the bench to his right.

At the same time, Nomad started to make his way towards the door to greet the rest of the crew. From behind the entrance, he could make out two more troops through the dim lights.

“So, what’s the damage?” Nomad asked her while staring back at the others.

Directly behind her was another soldier named Rowan. She had looked androgynous with her buzzed head, flat chest, but she still had some feminine traits present. Once she stepped into the lights, Nomad could already see that she had been enhanced. From the shoulder joint on her right arm down was a grid-like pattern.

He had felt compelled to ask the reasoning behind her enhancements, but he tried to keep professional. If a person in Kashmir was born with a birth defect or any imperfection, it was common that they would be enhanced to remove such. The large section of Rowan’s missing body had almost been an eyesore, so he tried maintaining eye contact.

“My name is Rowan,” She said before stepping aside for the last soldier, “this is Kismet.”

“Hello.” Kismet said, quickly waving to him.

Her dark skin and black hair had made her features harder to make out under the dim lights. Nomad returned a smile to keep the formalities.

“At ease, I’m Nomad, call me sir around the other troops,” he said before rubbing his nose. He moved aside, motioning for them to take a seat. “Go ahead and greet yourself to Control. I’ll be assuming command for tonight and for the rest of your miserable deployment.”

He tried to keep a smile on his face to keep the crew’s spirits high. The three made their way over towards the two benches to face Control in all her digitized glory.

“Good evening, who is first?” Control asked.

“Kiss, you can go first,” Nomad interjected as he reached over to Kismet. “Do you have any enhancements or any surgeries?”

Kismet shook her head, giving him a quick, “no.”

“That’s good,” Nomad exclaimed. He turned back to Megumi with a smirk on his face, eager to speak to her. “So where are you coming from?”

Megumi perked up and lifted the back of her hand towards the small of her back, replying, “I’m reporting from the Alferov Research Lab just north of here, sir.”

“At ease, ensign,” Nomad said swiftly, “I was just curious where you came from. What’s your normal job?”

“I am Field Research and Development.” Megumi lowered her arms casually, trying to ease up.

“Why do they have you all the way out here then? That some high rank stuff.”

Rowan quickly butted in, “We both came from the Lab. You looked like you could use some muscle!”

“Alright there,” Nomad quickly laughed after receiving a gentle punch from Rowan. He raised his fists to her, “I know how to use these.”

“You’ll hit a woman?” Megumi asked after getting a quick gasp of air.

“Don’t try to pull that crap on me!” Rowan exclaimed, clenching her knuckles. There was a series of soft cracks. Suddenly, she swung her fist forwards and towards Nomad’s stomach, stopping short. He had flinched, raising his arms towards his stomach, and letting out a nervous laugh. She finally continued, “If we threw hands and you didn’t throw back, I’d get offended!”

“Wow, you’re something else.” Nomad said before lowering his guard.

“Where are you from?” Megumi asked him.

“I was in an artillery division but got volunteered here. You know the drill.”

“Did you come here with the Litvyak?”

“No, just a few weeks after. Why ask?”

“No reason at all,” Megumi had taken a second to shift her focus away from the previous operations. She had lifted her tablet from her breast pocket, swiping casually to mask a slight sense of nervousness. Once again, she had reminded herself of the night before they had landed in Rei’s village. Her face twitched, only causing her to shake it off before asking, “Are you aware of the Liberation troops that have touched down in the area?”

“I’m sure they’re sneaking around somewhere,” Nomad said as he leaned back towards the edge of the lab door. “I’m wondering why we all aren’t falling back just yet.”

“I’m certain this place will become a new base of operations in the near future. We already have the lab built up north and are expecting to finish the reactor in the next few weeks.” Megumi had started to stumble over her words.

“Reactor?” Nomad cut her off.

“It’s the Cosmo Cradle. We know there are a few of them across the continent, but the Weapons Administration wanted to take an opportunity to research one in a demilitarized zone,” Megumi had quickly bit her lip. “I might have said too much, honestly.”

“I’ve heard of it before; I just wonder what they would try to do with it.”

“It’s a rift into the Deep. We think if we can harness that, we can solve our energy problems that will arise in the next few decades. The Weapons Administration is like its own little government. The brass didn’t even know that the facility had been built in the first place!” Megumi said finally.

“How about we change the subject,” Rowan interrupted her. “I don’t think we are at liberty nor is it our business to discuss the current Cabinet or Weapons Admin.”

Nomad shook his head in agreement. The little extra information had started to help him form some context into why the enemy forces would be moving in. The three stood by as Control continued her final assessment on Kismet.

“That’s a good call,” Nomad said happily. “It’s good to keep a little operational security.”

“I second, tu me rends fou.” Kismet said as the machinery over her head continued to blast her with electromagnetic radiation.

The volume of the room dropped. After a few more seconds, the machinery over Kismet’s face started to lower from the ceiling as the chair beneath her began to depress itself.

“Assessment complete. No anomalies detected.” Control said aloud to the crew before returning to her default smile.

Nomad had wanted to reach out to the glass to give her a pat, but he knew better. In fact, he had always heard stories of troops trying to touch the screens of their AI navigators. The surface of the screens had millions of small dimples, causing small electric currents to flow. The reaction created millions of microscopic sparkles of light—all of which come together to finally create a 3D image. A brief contact with flesh would no doubt result in third degree burns, if not, disintegration of the tissue.

“Alright, who’s next?” Nomad asked. Megumi was quick to volunteer. She never liked these tests, but the faster she could finish them, the better.