Sawback had just finished his first introduction with the rest of the Omega Squad, and unbeknownst to them, Carnelian had been behind a two-way mirror watching the entire scene, including Sawback pummeling Lev just to prove a point. While the Squad and primarily their armament provided entertainment, little was to be seen about them all actuality. Most of the rejected the idea of becoming soldiers, which was the overall point, while one of them seemed entirely alienated due to his wheelchair-bound status. Still, it was far too early into the program to be dismissing their potential yet. Especially considering that Carnelian was effectively the next generation of the Omega Squad if they succeeded. DNA augmentation met with neural implants could prove to utilize the bio-mechanical computers of the A'vi to a far more efficient degree than the cyborganic interface that Sawback used. In the end, it was all trial and error. Such is life, really.
After Sawback had left the room, stating he had other business to attend to and that they should know enough about their mission to get started, a metal shudder slipped between the glass and cut Carnelian off from the Omega Squad. It was obvious, whether she liked it or not, that Sawback was only letting her see what he wanted her to. Fact was, again whether she liked it or not, Sawback was her handler, too. Soon enough, the large, metallic door let off a few clicks and Sawback waltzed into the room, as dandy as a gent on an even course of leisure, as if nothing in the previous room had happened. Impressively, his vest and shirt seemed hardly ruffled by his short scuffle with Lev.
"I do hate to introduce myself so poorly, but what would you prefer I refer to you as?" Sawback asked in a relatively pleasant tone. It was obvious that he was trained to simulate the tones of high society, and as of now, that is what he was accomplishing.
"As you saw in there, I'm Agent 0086, or just 86. As with them, I will be your handler. Unlike them, you and I share something, but we'll get to that later. I want to learn more about you. Your file said that we've had problems with you and consent. Instead of reading the words of some petty researchers and scholars that have the inability to speak to another naturally, I want to understand things myself. You see, I come from the field; a war veteran. I didn't start out within these white walls, so... I know how these people can be," Sawback said in addition to his first question.
Carnelian was still struggling to wrap her mind around what she'd just seen and heard, when Agent 86 came in.
Stay calm, girl, she thought to herself.
He's just the hand holding the whip, not the owner of the plantation. Still, the fact that he was a Negro made the whole thing twice as bad; not only oppression, but betrayal.
"You may call me Carnelian, sir," she replied. He resumed, dropping a cryptic hint about 'something' they shared, expressed interest in learning more about her, then told her a little about himself. Almost the sort of polite conversation one might offer in a drawing room, save for the fact that this man had, moments before, expressed willingness to torture or 'blow the heads off' of his 'soldiers' if they got out of line. So no, his 'I know how these people can be' spiel wasn't working.
"No, I did not exactly consent to be a test subject to help develop the most abominable instrument of enslavement ever created," she said, fingering one of the subtle bumps under the skin of her neck, "but then, with such technology, consent is not exactly necessary anymore, is it?"
Cool it, girl! The fate of the human race could depend on me not
getting my head blown off for starting an argument with this man! She took in a deep breath and let it out. "In fairness..." It was
so hard to use that word in this particular context. "...this program did give me the opportunity to study science at Oberlin College, and for that I am grateful. It seems someone thought I might be of assistance in studying the technology that is being experimented with here. My 'fellow' researchers have not exactly been forthcoming as of yet, perhaps due to secrecy, or that they think I am here to fetch their coffee.
"As far as I can gather, this agency has somehow come into possession of vastly superior technology from another world. This technology is being used to create this," another gesture to her neck, "to 'augment dee-enay,' whatever that is, and to turn people into matchless soldiers with powers beyond human ken. Do we have reason to think that the otherworldly creators of this technology are hostile to us?" she asked. "'Intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic?'" she said, quoting from the opening lines of H.G. Wells'
War of the Worlds.
"I see your time in academia was not wasted," he replied,
"however, I want you to understand one thing now. I am not nearly as educated as you. I was taught to speak a certain way, maintain a certain tone and create a specific atmosphere, but that does not mean I fully understand the questions you ask or their consequences." Sawback turned his back to her at one point, walking around the desk in the center of the room. It wasn't an impolite gesture as much as it seemed to be his tendency to roam — the man paced, he had difficulties sitting still. While Sawback was on his side of the desk, he pulled out a set of keys and began toying with the locks on the drawers.
"But, I do know something that those ivory towers tend to forget. Regardless of the color our skin or our gender, we are people. And, fundamentally, all people are animals. We have an incredibly powerful drive to survive, and will do anything to insure that. While you may disagree that we are animals in every way with your education, you cannot tell me that we are not driven to survive. But, my less educated question, miss Carnelian, is what is it to survive?" Sawback asked after giving her his speech. It was becoming evident that he had missed many of her points, whether due to his inability to understand them thoroughly or simply because he was ignoring them. Even more so, by his tone, one could tell he was trained to sound confident, like any drill instructor; that didn't mean he had all the answers, and he was quick to point that out.
After opening the desk, Sawback pulled out a simple yellow folder and opened it up. He began pulling out fuzzy, black and white pictures; the kind that were common from combat photographers in the trenches of the Great War. The first showed a man with but blackened, bloody stumps for legs leaning against a tank, one arm just as much a smudge and a pistol in his hand.
"This is how they found me," he said,
"two days after the battle. They thought I was a corpse." He pulled out another, this one with him on a table. It showed his legs, one partially cut with meat hanging and an outline of a tourniquet embed into his skin, the other cut clean through. One arm was pulverized, bone protruding from what little was left of his forearm. His chest was battered and uneven, his body cut up.
"This was my body after they saved me," he told her. He kept throwing out pictures, but stopped his explanation for each one.
"They call me Sawback because with just one arm, I cut off both of my legs to stop infection after staying behind for my platoon. I killed forty-some-odd men that day, and when it came down to me and the last few, we exchanged grenades. They threw three at me; I returned two, but the last one was cooked. I killed them, sure, but they blew off my left hand and leg, left shrapnel in my right leg — I was royally fucked. I had to crawl to the tanks we were intercepting, use the enemies' clothes to make two tourniquets, cut off my own damn legs. I drank their water, fed off what rations I could. I was alive, miss, but I hadn't really survived," Sawback told her. A dead glare from within his eyes met hers. No matter what racial aggression, unfair segregation or rights she spoke for, there was not a passion that burned so hot its flames were cold like that of a man blown to pieces for his country.
Sawback unbuttoned his vest, slid it off, untucked his shirt and began to unbutton it.
"We are animals, Carnelian, and we seek to survive. Look at those damn pictures. Does that fucking look like survival to you, miss? Does it?" he told her, his formal tone vanishing as he became aggressive. Sawback tossed off his shirt to show her his arms, both of them actually. Up to his shoulders, his arms had a slight variation in color. While the blackness of his skin was just a shade darker on his chest and arms, it became clear that the technology he was talking about earlier had given him back his arm. And, then obviously, his leg.
"I was a soldier by choice," he told her,
"and when they told me that there was a program that could give me back my limbs, I took it. By that time, I wasn't a soldier anymore; I was an experiment. They regrew my legs, first; I had to relearn to walk, but I did it. Then came my arm; they said it might be more complex, but it worked. Then came my right arm. Nothing was wrong with it, but they said regrowing limbs was only the beginning. That they could do better. They lopped off my right arm, knowing they could regrow it, and gave me a skeleton made of some special metal and implants for the tissue to grow around and into. It hurt like Hell, but let me tell you that it worked."
Silence permeated the air for a moment before Sawback took his shirt and began to button it up.
"In the back of my skull is an implant that helps control the rest of my body. The lopped off my arms and legs again, replaced them with new upgrades and regrew them. They tinkered with my insides, too; a new heart, new lungs, some special lining for all the goodies in there; I was trained to kill, not know what our insides look like," he added as he continued his explanation. By the time his vest was back on, he finished,
"the point is, this technology can do a whole lot more than just kill. I'm a whole new man, inside and out. I owe my life to this technology because sitting in a wheelchair and seeing eyes full of pity isn't survival."
His dismissal of the value of education rankled--if it was not such a potent weapon against the oppressor, they would not strive so hard to keep it out of the reach of the oppressed, and Abraham would still be alive. Even Jesus said it: the truth shall set you free. But he went on, anger rising in his voice, and he had a shocking story to tell, and show. That he was a war hero only added to the outrage she felt for this Agency and its hidden schemes, the atrocity of it exemplified perfectly by what they had turned him into.
"
Yes this technology could do more than kill and oppress. It could have been presented to the scientific community of the whole world to develop together in the open, in the light. It could have been placed under the authority of the League of Nations if that was not a farce, and used to benefit all humankind. Just think of the countless other young men like yourself, maimed in that horrible war, that it could heal. The incomprehensible energies that give you strength beyond the limits of muscle and food as fuel, could be harnessed to lift the burdens of toil and poverty from the shoulders of all humankind, and make this world a
paradise!
"But that's not how it's being used,
is it? All that you suffered...'to make the world safe for Democracy'...yet here you are, holding an Overseer's whip, helping to develop and use an engine of subjugation far beyond the Kaiser's most infernal dreams. Did they put these things into you, too? Does someone else hold
your whip? Or do you think that men who would not sit next to you in a restaurant will let you
stay in the master caste once these
things," another touch to the implants in her neck, "are ready to be used on a mass scale? You're a laboratory rat to them, nothing more."
It was at that point Carnelian's emotions settled enough for her to remember that she should be Keeping. Her mouth.
Shut. This was obviously a man of great courage, inner strength and determination. But, whether it be due to delusions of flags and drums and bugles and the glory of America, or some other reason,
he was not on her side, not on the
people'sside, from what she had seen so far. Yet it was also viscerally painful to try to consign such a man to the ranks of the enemy. 'Regardless of the color of our skin or our gender, we are people,' he had said, as if those distinctions did not matter. A radical sentiment even for some
Anarchist groups, and utterly beyond the pale of conventional society. So much so that saying things like that in a public speech was a great way to get arrested. She knew
that from experience. Coming from
his mouth, in
this place however, those words were laced with danger. So far as she could figure out, the one 'advantage' she held was that, as both a Negro and a woman, her enemies were likely to underestimate her, especially if she played along. She could hold out the hope that some right moment might come, when she could
act, and they would not see it coming. 'Sawback' probably
would.
Sawback listened to Carnelian, and the more he did, the more he understood her. Whether she would ever admit it or not, she was full of angst. True, the world was a cruel, unforgiving place and many of the greatest minds were wasted on the fiercest atrocities and contraptions the world have ever seen. As a man of war, he knew she wasn't wrong. What Sawback felt that he saw that she didn't, however, was the reality within the reality. While her viewpoints and observations were spot on, she was incredibly idealistic, to such a degree it was a fault. Yes, that was it. She could not see the reality of reality. Sawback would only smirk at her. She had a lot to learn for such an educated girl.
"There is a story that was told to me when I was was a youngin' by my da', an' it was told to'm by his dad, an so on. You think I'm some man holdin' the whip of another, but girl, my grandaddy was an ownd-ed man in Africa, sold to a black man, shipped to America, an' sold to a farmer. Before that, his daddy was slave. My da' says they's was slaves all back up after theys lost war with their kinfolk down a river, and the losin' side was made the slaves of the winners," Sawback told her. It was an anecdote, sure but it was a little more than that. Sawback used some of his natural tone, his real accent when he spoke. Just for a moment, he wanted to show this girl every layer he could, from his time at war to his childhood.
"I've met many like you, Carnelian. Cynic is the word I think you use. It doesn't matter, really. If I wanted to leave the Agency, I would be given a whole new life, have whatever they put in me that makes me 'better' disabled, and be allowed to go on my way. Matter-a-fact, I was asked that's exactly what I wanted when they finished the experiments. They'd give me a whole new fake identity, although I'd still be a war hero, and I'd get a fresh life. True, I may never see my ma and pa again, but I could'a at least went on to raise a family, get a job. . .
. . . but, I didn't. I think to myself: maybe someday, but not yet. When they kept testin' on me, and kept addin', hackin' off limbs an' implantin' new parts, I realized that they were making leaps and bounds. What took a month the first, a week the second. A few days the third. The first few implants hurt, the first metal bones rattled an' it caused a real bad ache if I hit somethin' hard - I remember it plain as day. After a few more attempts, it didn't hurt at all. New materials, better implants, and personally they found a way to dull the pain. You're right; I was an experiment. But, if I could sit in that lab and go through pain a hundred times over so that they next amputee didn't have to, I'd do it. That's sacrifice. The sacrifice I was willin' to make."
Sawback breathed in deeply. He was a bit for him to explain what it was like in the Agency for him. She was right. He was an experiment, but he knew that. He embraced that. He took pride in that. If he could help someone else down the line, he would. While Carnelian only thought of the downsides, the drawbacks, the misuses, the politics, Sawback saw that he was making real improvement. Maybe, in this way, Sawback was the idealist. But, only in a small way. Sawback knew that the world couldn't so easily be fixed.
"The Agency asked me to be the handler of the Omega Squad not just because of my history or my loyalty, even though I have both. I've been with them since the middle of the war, and I don't have a collar like you. No... no, see, when I was first asked about the Omega Squad, it was an idea. Just an idea. A woman, she asked me if she thought that giving people a second chance for humanity through being test subjects was a good idea. She asked me because, to my knowledge, I've felt the most pain and agony of all of the testing; I was the first. She said that they could test this technology in other ways, slower, but safer. I told her what I told you: animals will do anything to survive. Then I told her that living a half-life, like I would have, was hardly survival. She looked me dead in the eye and asked what a person would do with a second chance, and I told her it depended on the person. Sometimes that chance you give them isn't what they would call a life. To them, it ain't survival."
Sawback then pulled down his sleeve and ran his fingertip across his forearm. Lights emanated from his forearm, although from the angle it was impossible to decipher what he was doing. Either way, it was obvious that he was fiddling with A'vian technology, some type of implant in his arm.
"Later that day, I was asked if I would oversee the Omega Squad. Not to hold a whip to them, even though at times I might have to. But, to see if those that survived, those that made it through not only their lives but the experiments of the Agency, would be those rare few. Those few that could be given a second chance and find new life in it. Fact is, every member of the Omega Squad was taken out of society for a reason. We're simply trying to find them a new place; a place they can do good," Sawback explained. After a few more swipes on his forearm, a single beep chirped from the back of Carnelian's neck, and the collar that sat there fell off into three pieces. Her photokinesis, if she had the ability to properly use it, was no longer suppressed.
"You are now one of two without these collars. Elric Palmer is the other. I sense that you will help me to make this team what it can be if I don't give you the freedom to choose to do so. There is no bomb, no inhibitor, and if you want to drop this project, I will send you straight back to the Mother Agency for them to figure out how to handle you. I can give you that choice. But, what I cannot give you are the answers to those big questions about how the League of Nations, the Great War, why it was fought, who was truly at fault, what type of master race the world has or even if this technology will be used for 'subjugation' or simply to better the world, if not both," Sawback told her as he seemed to return more thoroughly to his authoritative tone. While before he was blending his accent into his speech, he seemed to return to his original self.
"Carnelian, you ask a whole lot of questions—goods one, often. But when it comes time for you to make a decision, what will you do? What would you have the world do? Stop questioning the morals and ethics of others, of the whole damn world for just one moment and tell me... what do you intend on doing about it?" he asked. It was an open-ended question, but by his tone, he also seemed to lean towards accepting a part of the project without the collar, or being sent back for whatever else this enigmatic could utilize her for.
When Sawback started talking po', Carnelian turned away so he could not see the tears welling in her eyes, or the implacable anger behind them. She blinked back the tears and shifted her thoughts to the library at Oberlin; a happy place. Turning back to 86, her eye was caught by
light coming out of his arm. He was touching it, manipulating the lights somehow.
Like a control console, but with lights instead of knobs and switches? Whatever it was, the degree of miniaturization was remarkable. It was always awe-inspiring to see A'vi technology in action. It also helped her keep from showing irritation at his talk of "second chances," as if the Agency was doing them a favor, when it was what had erased their "first chances" to begin with.
Then: the slender metal collar around Carnelian's neck split into pieces and fell to the ground at her feet.
"You are now one of two without these collars. Elric Palmer is the other. I sense that you will never help me to make this team what it can be if I don't give you the freedom to choose to do so. There is no bomb, no inhibitor," he said. A spike of hope, but then...
That was too easy, she thought. The implanted ring under the skin of her neck was still there. Was that the real bomb? Or the thing that gave her astonishing new abilities?
"Carnelian, you ask a whole lot of questions—good ones, often. But when it comes time for you to make a decision, what will you do? What would you have the world do? Stop questioning the morals and ethics of others, of the whole damn world for just one moment and tell me... what do you intend on doing about it?"
"...Well..." The curious sensation of restraint, like having something akin to a second, invisible body that was bound, fell away with the collar. Experimentally, she raised a hand and magnified the air between her thumb and forefinger, as if she was holding a hand lens removed from its handle. Shaking her head in wonderment, she released the effect. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you all my plans, because I don't know what they are yet," she said, then started to pace, steepling her fingers in thought.
There was something to be said for the idea of returning to her former life. No creepy Agency, no otherworldly technology capable of who knew what burrowed under her skin, no possibility of being ordered to commit evils or atrocities.
But he didn't actually say
I could go back to my life, did he? The Agency could just put me back into the asylum, and anything I said about them would be automatically dismissed as mad ravings. He's made it abundantly clear that they
can't go back, that it's been arranged
. So no, they're not going to let me go write articles for the Liberator
and help organize strikes. I know things they want kept secret. So that means my 'freedom' is a sham; that everything he's done from the moment he walked in there with the others, every word he's said to me, is theater. He's pulling my puppet-strings, playing me like a piano. But why? There must be something about me that requires this extra effort. Something about the way I react to the technology, or about whatever it is he and I 'share?' Which only made it more certain that "the option to leave" was a
very dead end.
And even if I could return to my normal life, then I would have no say in what they do.
No way to learn what they're planning, and no chance to do anything about it. And no chance to... She held up a hand, and brilliant faceted diamonds appeared, turning and dancing, casting off sparkles and prismatic rainbow shafts. It was strange that the others didn't seem to feel the sheer
wonder she did, at what this technology was capable of. Perhaps they simply accepted it as magic. Carnelian understood enough science to know how utterly astonishing it truly was.
More miraculous than a miracle, since it meant that there was much, much more to
reality than all of the world's scientists could imagine.
We're still just infants, grabbing random things and sticking them into our mouths. Carnelian realized that she would give up a
lot in exchange for the opportunity to explore the vast new realms of knowledge this technology opened up to humanity.
Just as long as I don't give up my integrity, she reminded herself. Which brought her back to the reality of her situation, and Sawback still waiting for an answer.
"I would like to stay. Learn what I can about this technology, and the science behind it. As for 'what I intend on doing about the world,' right now I don't even know the limits of what I
can do." To punctuate her words, she merged the floating diamonds into a single baseball-sized icosahedron that turned slowly above her palm. "But in general principles...what you said. Develop the technology, make it work better for us, learn what it can do and what it can't. Then use it, and what we can discover of the science behind it for the good of humanity." She turned to look briefly back toward the shutter he'd closed between her and the others. "If I may ask, what are
your plans, for them, for this team you're building?"
Sawback saw her finally turn around. It was a powerful, pivotal moment when Carnelian stopped rejecting the idea of working for the Agency and becoming part of a team. His team. While it took far more convincing for her, she was also an exceptionally special case. She was educated, driven, passionate; she was only a criminal of circumstance, truly. But, that isn't what made her special. That also isn't what brought both Sawback and the Agency to the decision to give her neural implants as well. Those two decisions were entirely independent of each other. Either way, there was a lot invested in Carnelian as an individual. When hundreds of others laid still in failure,
she came back.
"It sounds like you understand the problem we face here," Sawback said before returning to the glass window. It was still blacked out, but it was almost a gesture regarding the rest of the team.
"I'm sure you still choose to believe that the Agency is just a seat of authority with power beyond the dreams of the common man, but the fact is, we still have a lot to learn. The process that gave all of you your powers was mostly automated by A'vian equipment; we don't know what happened, or how—we barely know why. We don't know why you developed abilities, nor why those abilities are unique to each one of you. We thought it would simply allow you to access A'vian technology, which we would then use to further test technology we couldn't even find the 'on switch' for before. We also thought that the process would be fine for almost any healthy adult, but that also turned out wrong. Palmer survived without the use of his legs while many able-bodied men died. In short, a lot of our original hypotheses were wrong."
Sawback thought she would respect this way of looking at it. As science. He emphasized the word hypotheses, and let it sink in that the mistakes made by the Agency were the trial and error of many scientists of the late 1800's. Sawback wasn't a learned man, of course, but he was a clever one.
"This is all an ongoing test. An ongoing experiment. Before this team is even sent into the field, they will be put into simulated combat. I'm not for sure how to explain this..." Sawback trailed off, thinking for a moment. It was difficult to explain how their simulations went. The A'vian technology could reanimate fresh corpses and control them using neural implants like the one he had, although in this case, it simply made the corpses into predators. In short, combat simulation was to be done with zombies. But, how to explain that to Carnelian.
"...I suppose it's time I explained to you how you and I share something. You and I have implants that connect directly to our brains. Mine was to help with the new limbs. Yours is... well, it's time I told you the full truth. You didn't exactly survive the process, Carnelian. Like hundreds of others, you died on the table. Unlike the any of those others, you came back to life. From what we can see, you don't remember any of this; but, you took relatively extensive brain damage while you were out. The implant we gave you effectively healed all of that in the same way Palmer is slowly regaining the use of his legs. You host two of the most advanced technologies we have from the A'vi."
I suppose that makes sense, Carnelian thought as Sawback explained how the Agency was still basically a babe in the woods, tinkering with things it didn't understand.
This technology isn't just beyond our technology, it's beyond our physics
. They would be like the craftsmen of Pharaoh, presented with an automobile engine. With sufficient cleverness they might be able to take it apart and put it back together. Perhaps they might even make a new one by hand out of bronze at great expense and find a way to fuel it with vegetable oil, but there would be no guarantee they could make it work properly or for long, and they might find some completely different use for it than as a vehicle's engine. They certainly wouldn't immediately start mass-producing automobiles! That would require a system
of factories and mines and oil wells that they wouldn't have. It would have to be the same way for us, and the A'vi technology, wouldn't it? When she thought of it that way, it was remarkable that humans were able to use the A'vi technology at all. On the other hand, Sawback almost certainly wasn't telling her everything.
Then, what he
was telling her turned bone-chilling. "So...you're saying I'm some kind of...technological zombi?" Carnelian was not a practitioner of the old religion, but she'd heard whispered tales of Vodoun shamans using their sorcery to ritually kill a person, then raise them to life as a mindless, obedient servant. Jews had their own legends of the Golem, and modern, scientific man had Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein.
Now she knew with certainty that Sawback had not set her free. How could he? If her body was now being animated and propelled by unknown alien technology, they could have no way to know that she would stay herself, or even stay sane. And Carnelian couldn't know that either...
Unless this is just something he's telling me to make me doubt myself, so that I will be more compliant?
Well, it definitely seemed that Carnelian understood the concept, but she was more worried about herself than anything. As a matter of fact, this seemed like the first time in the entire conversation that she seemed to be thrown off the in the slightest. Sawback took slight delight in that fact, although that wasn't his goal. He was actually attempting to explain several complex things and thought it would be best for her to know the truth before she began questioning things herself. Sawback had already decided that an unanswered question for Carnelian could be more dangerous than a hidden truth he didn't want her to know.
"Well, no, not exactly," Sawback began to explain.
"You died and came back all on your own. It was a surprise to everyone; you're the first person to ever come back to life from the experiment. But, unless you count patients that die on regular operating tables, then come back - which I've seen on the battlefield and I'm sure you have read about, you're no zombie. The problem was that your brain took a lot of damage, so much so that if you were left as you were, you would be in a... a uh... coma, I think is the word. A deep sleep, no thoughts." Sawback looked her dead in the eye. He was trying to explain this to her the best he could, but he was obviously no learned man. He had seen men die from shock when their limbs were cut off in WWI to avoid trench infection, but come back in a sweat and panic. He had to have these things explained to him as a soldier, so trying to explain them to her as someone from the ivory towers was difficult.
"The decision then was to test if the same technology that helps me use my limbs would fix your brain, and it did. You were outcold for most of it; writhing in pain, you looked like a babe with nightmares. After about a week, you came to. We observed you at Oberlin, saw how your recovery wasn't just complete, but an improvement. You're smarter now than you were before, I bet. No offense. Uh..." Sawback now realizing he may have bridged the gap between explanation and insult, he tried to reroute the conversation.
"Do keep in mind that the implants and computers they use are alive, too. It doesn't make much sense to me, but most of the technology from the A'vi is alive. So the implants inside you are alive, too; they're part of you now," Colt added, hoping this piece of information would intrigue her enough to avoid the awkward path the previous explanation went down.
It was a
lot to take in. Of course, everything having to do with the A'vi and their technology seemed to have that effect. From little things, like the way 86 spoke of "computers" as if they were ultra-miniaturized
devices of some sort, rather than people with slide rules and logarithm tables, to the big ones like 'the death and resurrection of Carnelian Douglass,' and the notion that the A'vi technology was
alive and growing within her, perhaps like the mycelium networks of forest fungi.
Am I really getting smarter? she wondered.
A moment's introspection pointed to the fact that she
was doing a great deal of thinking and reflection while in a real-time conversation with someone, yet not keeping him waiting very much. It was as if she could
think more, as if the river of her mind was faster-flowing, or wider, or both.
I'm going to need all the wits I can get. But what if they're not mine? The thought of slowly losing herself and becoming some kind of alien entity was a worry, and yet...
What if it will just be like growing up into some new level of adulthood, beyond the present squalling, squabbling infancy of the human species?
"Are you certain...that
combat is the first thing we should be using this technology for? If the A'vi should become aware of our possession and use of their technology, might they not think of us as being...well, rather like our friend Lev in there?" she said, tossing her head toward the window to the other room. If they have mastered the inconceivably titanic energies it would take to propel themselves from star to star, and
not used that power to destroy each other, as we did, with
ourmost advanced technologies," she said, nodding respectfully toward Sawback. Of everyone here, he was the most intimately familiar with the horrors of modern mechanized warfare. "...then maybe they have become a truly wise civilization. Perhaps we should try not to be feral children playing with matches in their eyes?"
"The Agency is just one branch of many, miss Carnelian," Sawback answered her.
"If you believe that 'combat' was the first application this technology was used for, then your time in academia left you without common sense. If you thought about the information given you instead of how it can be misused, you'd see that it has already pioneered miracles. Look my limbs; I had them far before the this technology was approved for combat. And, on that note, miss Carnelian, the technology inside you is in fact not approved for combat—you are a highly volatile, highly controversial subject within the Agency because they are still testing me and the others like me to see how it functions," Sawback also added. There was a specific tone that she had that rubbed him the wrong way. She acted as if the Agency and everything that surrounded her only wanted this technology for power, and immediately after being shown the life it gave him, she asked if the 'first thing' the technology should be used for is combat. No. Fuck no, actually. That was a stupid question that such a smart girl shouldn't have asked a man that was given a second chance because of the medical advancements made using this technology.
"Perhaps, Carnelian, you need to see that resisting and questioning every single action made by authority is just as ignorant as blindly following that authority. We are all mere men, Carnelian; if you were in charge of this country, you would still make mistakes. You would still somehow do something to ruin someone's life, somehow, some way. Chances are, you'd start a war you never meant to because you don't seem to fathom that there are necessary evils in this world, and they aren't just necessary because we 'let' them be. I may not be a learned man, but the government did give me two years to study philosophy while I healed, and if I learned anything, it is that we cannot be perfect. One of the reasons I used every ounce of influence I had to get you on my side, to get you in my hands, is so that you—someone with so much riding on them—can learn the system. Case and point, miss Carnelian, you won't beat it, cheat it or resist it; if you want to make things better, you have to become part of the very thing you hate."
Sawback slammed his hand into the metal desk in front of him, leaving a visible dent in it. While his knuckles were red, he did not bleed; the augmentation he had made him far more than human. Not only that, Sawback was getting frustrated. He had danced around his words for so long to suit this woman, and she did nothing but answer him in the most ungrateful, demeaning tone. She knew absolutely nothing about him or the situation. She didn't know that the Agency wasn't even the worst hands A'vi technology had fallen into. She didn't know the dangers or threat the world was potentially in.
"We're going to get back on topic, no more questions until you think the next thing that gets dented won't scream when it does. I'm sure you want to be treated equal, like any of the others. I'll put you down like I did Lev without a second thought," Sawback told her with a glint in his eyes. He was addressing her like a soldier now, whether she liked it or not.
"You are not a zombie; you died and came back just like thousands of soldiers did from shock and CPR. That does not mean that we cannot make the dead return, or even that we can't make the dead stronger than they were. The first test of the Omega Squad will be a run of their suits and armament, neither of which you're authorized to have yet. They will be fighting cadavers implanted with the same technology you and I have, except they will be controlled for the most part by proctors. And, for the love of God almighty, I will tell you right now, because I'm sure you're gonna ask: you and I cannot be controlled like the cadavers. The only reason they can is that they can be is that they were dead to begin with, while you and I were living. Trust me, I have the same thing you do in my brain; it was one of the first questions I asked," Sawback explained to her. His frustration was apparent in not only his tone, but the demeanor he had; he forced an answer down her throat before she could ask it.
"You say I'm wrong to have suspicions, but then you keep
showing me that I should," Carnelian said, looking pointedly at the dent Sawback had just made. "When I said 'we' I meant
we, as in you, me, and them," she said gesturing toward the window. "Now, maybe you have some reason to grab people, fake their deaths, and turn them into super-weapons. Maybe astronomers have sighted a fleet of alien battleships on its way to Earth, or maybe one of those other departments of the Agency has gone rogue and is plotting to use A'vi technology to seek world domination, and we're the only hope of stopping them.
But you have not said
one single thing, to me
or them, to indicate that might be the case, or that there might be an actual
reason to use this technology for violence. As far as I know, as far as
anyone--except
maybe some tiny secret cabal--knows, America is at
peace. The
world, is at
peace. And yet, the
one Great Power that refused to join the League of Nations to help
keep that peace is building a secret army of enslaved super-soldiers. What am I
supposed to think?
"I know you don't want any more questions. I'm sorry, but I'm frightened for
humanity. I see this technology and what it can
do. The wonder and the horror. And...looking at history...all too often, the people in power have used whatever comes into their hands for horror. You said that if I was in power, that I'd be as likely to start wars or do horrible things as anyone else, and you're
right. That's why I'm an Anarchist. Because I hope that, one day,
no one will be in power. Because none of us can be fully
trusted with it,
including me. Especially
absolute power. Maybe a world without brutality and domination is too much to hope for.
"But I look at those pictures," she said, glancing down at the photos of Sawback's bloodied almost-carcass, "and it's
burned into my mind that that whole War, suffering on an incalculable scale was fought...because a few crowned heads in Europe had a literal
family squabble. When the War started, Kaiser Wilhelm II was an Admiral in the bloody
British Navy, because his family, and the British Royal Family, are, well, family." She pointed at the pictures. "That's how the people in power used
our technology. And I
hate them for it. For what they
did to you, and countless men like you and to an entire
continent, for their glory and power.
"So...I'm having a very hard time just...
assuming that they will be wise and virtuous with
A'vi technology. Especially when...it's super-soldiers and exploding neck collars and
secrecy, instead of openness and accountability and the people having a
say in how it's used. Maybe there are good reasons for it. I'd say I hope so, except that alien armadas or the like could make our 'Great War' look like a schoolyard brawl, and that would be horrible even if we won. But...at least if we're to be fighting enemies like that, instead of breaking strikes or crushing protests or paving the way for those collars to be affixed around the necks of the working class, it might be a
good fight. One that I could join with a clear conscience.
"But if what I am witnessing here is the birth of humanity's worst nightmare, a permanent irresistible tyranny brought to us by our 'betters,' then I must stand between humanity and that nightmare. That is where I will stand. Where I will fight to the utmost of my ability. And that is where I will die." Carnelian was more than a little nervous saying this. If Sawback had been somehow co-opted to the service of ultimate tyranny, he would simply kill her, and that would be that. But even so, perhaps her best chance,
humanity's best chance for hope might depend on her getting
through to him somehow.
"I told you once, Carnelian, I'm no lear-ned man," Sawback replied to her. Most of her questions were well over his head, or at the very least, something he never considered or even cared about. While he too worried about how this technology could be used, he had faith in those that put him back together. Maybe he was blinded by that fact. Maybe his loyalty was as much a liability as it was a reliability.
"The bible says even the most virtuous man is not without sin. No one deserves to cast the first stone. You want no one in power 'cause you understan' that they ain't a good 'nuff man alive. Still, even you 'ave yer flaws. But, you gotta face reality," he added to her. While his hand clenched the desk he just punched, she could tell he was somewhat cooling off. When she gave ground, he calmed down. Not entirely, but it was a change.
"Power.. authority... government - will always exist. A soldier in any ranks is honored by his country, but that don't mean the men running his country are good men. This I know," he told her with a stern resolution.
"You have this goal, this image of the world," he said, his tone returning to his more formal one as he collected himself,
"and you act and talk as if it were real—Carnelian, it's not. It can't be. That is an ideal and you are an idealist. The reality is that there will never exist a time when all men are equal, and if does, it will be so far from our lifetimes that we couldn't fathom the true answer. But, we can make the world better now. Men might not be equal 'cause of class or wealth, but we can make them equal in their race, their skin, their religion; close the gap between men one step at a time. As for the rest of your questions, I cannot answer them. You are a liability and that has not changed... yet."
Sawback released the desk, then lifted his head. He exhaled through his nose slowly before he continued.
"Palmer and I? We're former soldiers. We volunteered to be here. He has a family that the government pays for, and they live well. Every now an' then, he gets to see his wife. Honestly? I don't know how he does it. Most women would find a new husband when theirs was presumed dead and their kids gotta grow up fatherless," Sawback said and added an audible sigh.
"But those others? They're murders. Killers. Gang members. I said it once, I am here to offer a second chance for a new life; a life that is more than mere survival in a cage. That includes you. Carnelian, you have to face the fact: what you believe will not come to be. If you want to make the world a better place, you have to work with what it is, no matter how disgusting you find it. Otherwise, your fate would be the same as theirs was: sentenced to a cell with an incredible waste of potential and talent. That is a nightmare. Right now, you couldn't stand between me and that door. You have no hope of stopping anyone. But I will tell you this now: I am training this team because we may need a hope of stopping something. Now... no more questions."
Sawback rolled his neck, exhaling again. This helped calm him, and still did.
"The more you ask, the more time you waste because you haven't earned answers," Sawback said, but then he made a quick jut to add,
"and we don't practice openness and accountability here; you earn your answers. No argument you make will change that. Stop trying; like I said, it gets annoying and it ain't my decision anyway."
Carnelian listened carefully as Sawback spoke, noticing how as he did, his violent tension seemed to ease up a bit, like a volcano releasing pressure with a plume of steam and ash instead of going to full eruption. And felt herself inwardly doing the same thing. Tempers: another thing they had in common...
Not that she agreed with everything he said. Of course the 'you're a naive idealist' argument came out, it always did when discussing Anarchism with others. It would have been easy to remind him that not so long ago, the notion of an American Republic shaking off the divine right of kings as a governing principle was just as radical. Or that the "realistic, practical" road of the great statesmen and generals had led to the slaughter of a generation and the near ruin of the heartland of Western Civilization. And that even without A'vi technology, it was not outside the realm of possibility for humans to develop their own technologies capable of wrecking the world before the Twentieth Century was over. For example, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Oberth had shown that it was possible in principle for rockets to be built, capable of hurling crewed capsules into the depths of outer space. Such rockets could also carry explosive shells or poison gas; artillery with unlimited range, able to bombard any location on the planet. A cold, remote kind of
industrial war, that would offer no place for men of valor such as himself. Could humanity continue to face the problems of the future with the thinking of the past, and survive?
But now was not the time to debate politics. What mattered most was that he was not just some domineering bully. His reply showed that if she could give a little, he could give a little, and that they had at least
some common ground between them. Furthermore, his intimations of a greater threat meant that perhaps sometime soon, French and Germans, White Russians and Reds, even Klansmen and Negroes, might well find themselves all fighting on the same side whether they liked it or not. The gulf between Anarchist and Patriot was not as vast as some of those divides.
Time to become a Fabian, of sorts, Carnelian thought to herself.
"We may never agree fully on politics sir, but I hope we can start with what you said: 'make the world better now...close the gap between men one step at a time.'
Progress, in the right direction. As for the A'vi technology, I won't pretend I'm not uneasy with the exploding collars and the use of prison conscripts. But...I do understand that you can't just give someone like Lev superhuman abilities," she said, glancing again at the dent Sawback had made, but not pointedly this time, "without
some kind of restraint. He'd use it in bar fights for fun, and become a monster. Likewise for the others in their own way I suppose.
"I understand that in a military situation, secrecy is necessary especially with new technology, to avoid tipping our hand to the enemy. If humanity is faced with a common threat, especially one equipped with comparable technology, then the time for openness will have to come after the threat is dealt with one way or another. I'll give you, and this Agency, the benefit of the doubt. But I hope that you will also join me in doing what we can to guard the guardians, so to speak."
"You overthink a lot of things, Carnelian," Sawback said,
"and, I'll leave it at that." Sawback still wasn't entirely enthralled with her, but she was making progress. While the others, like Lev, were criminals, Carnelian was slightly different. She might've just been born in the wrong era. Maybe in another day on the morrow, she could have been a brilliant leader. Maybe in a world with proper order and solid role models, she wouldn't believe so fervently in anarchy. These were a few of the thoughts that came to his mind. Of course, Sawback was a soldier. He wasn't blind to government or what it could do, nor was he completely ignorant to the faults of the United States; he was found half-dead, after all. Still, there was just something abhorrent, he found in thinking that the world could work without someone in power. Mankind needed some form of authority... what else separated them from beasts? A little philosophy always made a man question that.
"For now, Carnelian, I think it's best we take a look at what this technology is capable of... besides what we already know," Sawback said as he turned towards a blank wall. Running his hand over his forearm again, the panel behind the wall began to lift, showing 36 large, curved panels. Each was a black and white television that showed a direct feed from the armored compound in Lot C where the rest of the squad went.
"Top of the line, at least of what we can make. Right now, I believe Reagan is wheeling Palmer right through those doors on screen seventeen. Take a look," he told her. As of now, this was top-notch technology of the era, no A'vi equipment included. This alone would be enough to impress most, but Carnelian had just entered a whole new world.
And maybe you don't think enough about a lot of things, Carnelian thought to herself, but kept her mouth shut. She didn't need him to agree with her on everything; an intellectual armistice was good enough. When he changed the subject to the capabilities of A'vi technology, she nodded her agreement. Learn as much as possible. Save the world. Preserve, at a minimum, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," then move forward from there.
She wished she could get a better look at that control interface on his arm, but she knew better than to invade his personal space, or stare. A wall panel rose, revealing something that would have been astonishing to anyone who had never seen A'vi technology. Caught up in the joy of discovery, she stepped close to the screens.
"Remarkable! This is of human manufacture?" There had been various attempts to transmit images by wire or radio using
electromechanical devices over the past few years, but none approached the resolution of these televisors. The straight, horizontal scan lines indicated that a Nipkow disc was not involved. Significant advances must also have been made in motion picture cameras or whatever image-recording technology they used, in order to make this possible. While it was barbarously crude compared to the A'vi technology, Carnelian couldn't help but feel pride in her species.
"Top of the line, at least of what we can make. Right now, I believe Reagan is wheeling Palmer right through those doors on screen seventeen. Take a look," Sawback said.
Carnelian directed her attention to the screen he pointed to. Sure enough, there was Lieutenant Palmer and Reagan, recognizable on the screens. The screen produced a fluidity of motion more like looking at the pair through a window than watching a moving picture. As if to deliver a lesson in humility to his unseen watcher, Palmer--somehow--caused himself to be enveloped in a flash of light that temporarily blinded the screen. When it cleared, he was standing in a strange body-covering suit with translucent wings of blade-like feathers.
Carnelian's jaw dropped as she tried to imagine how one might go about literally
changing clothes as he had just done. Physicists could take a few particles of matter and transmit them through a cyclotron, then there was transmission of radio signals, and now this new version of the televisor. She could at least conceive of something like a 'matter televisor' that might somehow combine the two, to transmit an object from a sending chamber to some kind of receiving chamber by disassembling it into its constituent particles and then reassembling them at the receiving end. But to transmit a close-fitting suit
onto a human body? What did it do with the clothes he'd been wearing? How reliable was it? It seemed likely that a malfunction of such technology could range from quite embarrassing, to fatal.
"Well! It seems that shopping for clothes just got a lot easier!" she said with a smile, leaning in closer to the screen, this time to try to make out more detail of Palmer's suit, rather than examining the scan lines.
And then...
He took off.
"Wha--? Did he just--? Is that propulsion
reactionless? Or do the wings create some kind of ionic wind?" Either way, the power-to-weight ratio was
astounding. Carnelian backed up to try to find Palmer on the other screens. One of them was a mobile camera whose operator tried to follow his movements. Tried, because he moved and maneuvered with astonishing speed and dexterity. He fired off a weapon of some kind--projectiles of light, or perhaps some kind of energized plasma rather than bullets. It was apparent within the first dozen seconds that Lieutenant Palmer could
easily destroy the combined air fleets of the entire world single-handed.
If this was just a battle uniform--the sort of thing an infantryman of that technological level might wear--the military capability of their equivalent of an aeroplane, or a zeppelin, or a
battleship beggared the imagination.
"We're in a great deal of trouble, aren't we," she said solemnly, more a statement than a question.
Sawback chuckled at her awe. Womanly comments, sure, but the reality before her was unlike anything she could have dreamed of, and she had enough education to know the direction technology was heading. More than that, however, it sank in just what they were dealing with. Whether or not she considered the foes this type of technology merited or merely the way it could be misused, she now understood with far more clarity just what power laid in the hands of these people. As she made her solemn statement, a matter of rhetoric, Sawback made a single retort:
"Oh, girl... you have no idea."
