Thousand War Soldier – Mjke Wood

Thousand War Soldier

by Mjke Wood

My first life: 7.24 seconds. I became aware. I looked. I experienced pain. I died.

My second life: I learned words. Words enough to describe the pain. I lived for 37.13 seconds.

Many lives. My lives are a process. They are elements of that which makes me whole. Each life is simple; uncomplicated. I quicken, I learn, I kill until I am killed. Over and over. A thousand times a thousand wars.

But this life, now? This place? Confusion.

I am captive. A position of ambiguity. Neither deliverer nor receiver of death. Life or death, black or white, captivity is neither. Captivity is grey. I have no experience, no point of reference.

Environmental assessment: A room. Four metres by three metres. Walls, white and smooth and of indeterminate composite construction. A light source in the ceiling, dim and yellow. A door.

I am secured to a chair by adhesive bindings at ankles, thighs, chest, and wrists.

I am alone.

Should I feel shame? Anger? Should I feel fear?

My captor enters the room. He instructs me to sleep. How to differentiate between sleep and death? My captor says death is forever. He lies. He is the enemy.

I consider terminating this thirty-seven-hour life. I could achieve self-termination without difficulty. It would be rational, for I live by a simple equation: I must fight or I must die. In my present condition I am unable to fight, and so. . .

But I cannot. And again I am conscious of the gaps in my experience and training. Suicide is not sanctioned by any regulation or code; nevertheless I sense the act to be a self evident wrong, even when it would clearly expedite my return to the field of battle. Why am I so inhibited?

I address these concerns to my captor, who insists my indecision is a design-fault; a human trait. Again he lies. He works constantly to unbalance me with trickery. Soon he will err and I will kill him.

My captor has a name. He is called Thomas.

I have no name. I am S37. Thomas says he will call me Seth.

Thomas appears old and lacks vitality. He is stooped. His hair is grey. He wears a grey shirt and loose-fitting trousers that are worn and patched. There is an unusual smell about him. I speculate it is the smell of pipe tobacco.

“Why do you do it, Seth?” he asks. “Why do you kill?”

A strange question.

“It is what I do,” I say. “I kill. I die. Death is where pain ends. It is my duty to end your pain.”

“But I hold the gun, Seth.”

Another lie.

“I see no gun.”

“I am speaking metaphorically, Seth. I am the one who holds the advantage, the power to deliver you unto death—that is what I meant.”

“I will do what I can to postpone that moment,” I say. I am struck by the contradiction. A moment ago I wished only to hasten my own death.

Thomas walks around me as he speaks.

“Do you know who you are?” says Tom.

“Yes, of course. I am S37.”

“Do you know what you are?”

“I am a soldier.”

“You are a man, just like me.”

“No. Not like you. You are the enemy.”

“Is that the only difference?”

“You are weak,” I say.

“Granted, you are constructed differently. Your body is made from a different form of carbon. But close your eyes. Are we so very different?”

“You are the enemy,” I say again.

Thomas gives a sigh.

“For whom are you fighting, Seth? What values do your leaders hold that set them, and you, against those like me?”

I must think. I have been given knowledge—that the enemy must be killed. But Tom’s question is difficult.

“I fight for the General. I fight for free will. I fight for the Expansion,” I say.

“Good, Seth. Now, do you know what all that means?”

Thomas has a tricky way with words. He makes me confused and uncomfortable.

“Let us start with free will,” he says. “Do you have free will, Seth? Are you fighting to retain it, or to win it?”

“My hands and feet are bound,” I say. “You have taken free will from me. I will fight for my freedom.”

“Freedom, you say? What if you exercised that freedom and chose not to fight?”

“I could, if I wished. I do not wish. I choose to fight. It is what I do.”

Thomas raised his voice. “But if a sound and logical reason were presented to you not to fight—if you chose not to? What would happen?”

“This is pointless. I choose to fight.”

Again the sigh. Arms thrown wide.

“Okay. Let’s talk about the Expansion. What do you know of the Expansion, Seth.”

“Expansionism is the true way. Those who resist must die.”

“Why?”

“Resources are limited. We must expand for food and minerals and materials.”

“But the universe is finite, Seth. What happens when all the resources, in all the worlds, in all the universe are gone?”

“We die.”

“Yes, Seth. Indeed. So better, perhaps, that we try to be content?”

He claps his hands together, a gunshot sound, making me start.

“Enough,” he says. “I have enjoyed our talk. I will return tomorrow.”

The door closes behind him. I hear powered bolts sliding into the walls.

The room is silent once more. I feel happier. I have made progress. With talk comes trust. Soon Thomas will trust me and release my bonds. Then I will kill him.

I wake, still captive, though my recent experiences were not a dream. I recall the attack. Parallel threads of the same event. I was sergeant, I was grenadier, I was dog. The grenadier self died within seconds.

I recall the solitary village on the dusty plain. I recall the single flower struggling through a crack in the concrete and, as dog, becoming distracted by its exquisite scent, and the rebuke earned by this breach of discipline. I also recall following the scent of pipe tobacco, and of finding Thomas, alone in one of the habitats.

“Ah, Seth,” his words. “I half expected you. And you have brought a friend. Are you here to talk or to eliminate me?”

My response: instinct not words. The reassuring kick from the rifle. I sniffed at his fallen, destroyed body. I stared down at what remained. Both my selves felt. . .something. Regret?

Then the movement from behind. The cry. I turned. My dog-self turned faster. Not fast enough.

Consciousness ended for us both.

Still strapped to the chair.

I wait. Then the sound of bolts sliding. The door opens.

The new visitor is female. I know this from the physiological differences that I can extrapolate through the hang of her garments. Her hair is brown and cropped short. She is younger than Thomas. This encounter has a strange and debilitating effect that I do not understand.

She tells me her name is Angela.

“Where is Thomas?” I ask.

“You killed him,” she says.

I see traces of liquid on her face. I know that they are called tears; that they are symptomatic of a heightened emotional state.

“Tom pushed too quickly,” she continues. “A mistake. I told him you weren’t ready. You killed him.”

“I am captive. I would have killed him had I the capacity to act, but I am restrained.”

“Don’t you understand how you work—how you are controlled? Do you understand anything?” She shouts the last part. Screams it.

“I enjoyed talking to Thomas,” I say. “I wish to talk with him again.”

“He’s dead!” she says again. “Tom’s dead! He is not coming back.”

“His pain has ended. He will quicken again.”

The female steps forward and raises her hand to strike me. Her hand shakes. She lets it fall to her side. She turns away. She sits on the tile floor, far from me, her back to the wall. Her head hangs low.

When she speaks again it is difficult to comprehend her words. She makes gulping sounds and inhales the liquids, the mucus, and the tears.

“You’ve grown to maturity with no life experiences. Your body is human but engineered to be stronger and more resilient.”

I say nothing.

“Our doctors have examined corpses recovered from the battlefields. Your brain has an additional component; biological but of human design. Its purpose is for receiving external inputs from encoded radio frequencies. Your memories are downloaded, and now we know that there is also an upload process, triggered by sleep or perhaps trauma.”

I remain silent until she is ready to speak once more.

“Do you understand what I am saying? You probably think you have lived a long life. You haven’t. You have experienced the lives of many who have gone, not just before you, but who have fought with you. You are the condensate of many soldiers from many battles. Your bodies are disposable; grown like crops. Your thoughts have been distilled and cultivated.”

I know this. I do not dwell upon it.

“Do you understand? This is how you were able to kill Tom. You slept. Your thoughts uploaded. Other S37s were fed your memories and they acted upon them.”

“Then, I ended Thomas’ pain?”

“You killed him!”

“He will quicken again.”

“No! Christ, no! That’s not how it works you stupid. . . Thomas is dead. Death is forever. Tom’s ideas and hopes and optimism are gone—snuffed out. We are not abominations like you. We do not re-awaken. We don’t have a magical third brain.”

Again she weeps into her hands. I take the time to consider her words. I find this concept of finality difficult to comprehend. I had a liking for Thomas but I understand, from my acquired memories, about the mental condition known as Stockholm Syndrome—a captive’s deep feelings of attachment toward his captor. But no matter what psychological drivers are in play, the emotions I detect seem real. They are new to me. Grieving, loss, loneliness. I feel their touch. I feel regret that a beautiful thing has passed from existence. Forever?

Now perhaps I understand the deep rooted injunction I sensed when considering suicide. Is this internal restraint something that all living and transient things possess? Thomas was correct. In me it is a design flaw. For I am not transient.

“You said that Thomas made a mistake,” I say.

“He believed you to be ready.”

“Ready?”

“Your knowledge is simplistic—black and white. We want you to understand our side of this conflict. Your knowledge is mere propaganda.”

“So you say.”

“Okay, let’s try something. Er. . .what do you know of Sun Tzu?”

An easy question.

“Sun Tzu: Chinese military general. Author of The Art of War.”

“Okay, another question. What do you know about roast turkey dinner?”

I cannot answer. I know each of the words but I am unable to link them in a common context.

“Try this one. Who was Peter Rabbit?”

This name means nothing to me. I wonder if I am being tricked and I say so.

“There is no trickery. You have been programmed. Thomas intended, and now I intend, to deprogram you. You are human. You should be free to form your own opinions.”

“Do my opinions matter?”

“Isolated from the hive mind, no, they don’t. Thomas thought it would be better not to isolate you. His view, always, was that openness through example was the key.”

“And?”

“And he was wrong. He paid with his life. Now you are shielded. You cannot upload until we decide.”

“Then if I can no longer transfer memory, does this mean my mind is. . .mortal?”

“You are quick, Seth, I’ll give you that. Yes, now you are mortal, just like me. And just like Tom. You might want to think very carefully about that.”

I am not sure I grasp the implications of this. It is a big thing to consider. It is the biggest thing.

She steps towards the door and it opens. “I’ll come back in an hour or so. Think, Seth. Think about Thomas and about infinity and how you might face it.”

The female again. Her name is Angela. She is wearing different clothing; a gown, airy and flimsy. It invokes another emotional response and again I am disconcerted.

“I have a date,” she says. “I do not intend to be late for it. We are at war but we try to maintain this crazy air of normality.” She laughs. It is a laugh that conveys no humour.

“I’m going to tell you about the Expansion, Seth, and why I, and my people, oppose it. How much did Thomas tell you?”

“That the Expansion depletes resources and will one day deplete all the resources in the universe.”

“Hmm. An extreme view; kind of long-termist but I suppose it’s valid. I think Thomas was being a little apocryphal there—expressing the nature of the dissent rather than a credible outcome.”

“You are saying he lied?”

“No. Not a lie. A worst case scenario? Let me tell you some history. You know about Earth?”

“The cradle of humankind.”

An image appears before me.

“This is Earth as it was,” she says.

“And this. . .”

Another image.

“. . .is Earth as it is today.”

The new image is of a yellow-brown planet. There are no features.

“If you could see the surface you would see only land. No oceans. Nothing grows. The atmosphere is dust.

“A tipping point was reached in the mid twenty-first century. It marked the beginnings of the Expansionist technocracy to which you pledge allegiance. But even then a minority faction argued against expansion. Their view was that technology should be used to make Earth habitable again rather than to engineer and damage new worlds. But the Expansion gathered pace. It grew exponentially.

“The war began on Delta Pavonis Four. The Space Council wanted the colony as a refuelling depot for its Prairie Schooner Starships—ice and Helium 3 were plentiful. The people of DP4 were evicted; told to leave for new colonies. They refused. Delta Pavonis was home. I’m sure you know the outcome.”

“A glorious victory.” I feel pride as I recount the story. “It is said that the Space Council had not a single weapon with which to resist the rebels.”

“That is true,” says Angela. “Neither side had weapons. The Space Council sacrificed one of its unmanned ships it had sent to move the colonists. It was crashed from orbit onto Crystal City. A whole city. There were few survivors.”

“You have many powerful weapons,” I say. I feel an involuntary urge to rub my chest, my neck, my back—places where the memories of searing pain have awakened spectral aches and tingling.

“You’re right, Seth. But in that first action we were unarmed. We are fortunate in a way. The problems of re-supply have always worked against the Expansionists. The onus is on the Space Council to bring their war to us. In the meantime we try to make peace.”

She has been pacing around my cell. Now she stops and looks at me.

“From what I have told you, Seth, can you see anything evil in what we’ve done? We are defending our homes and our families.”

The image of the yellow Earth winks out.

“You don’t have to answer tonight, Seth. I have my date. And shortly you will have a roast turkey dinner. I’ve asked that your hands be freed, but three soldiers will have weapons trained upon you. They will be nervous, Seth, so what you choose to do with those liberated hands should be very much influenced by your new-found insights into mortality.”

“How was your meal?”

Today she is dressed, once more, in battle fatigues and combat boots. This is a disappointment. I liked the gown. She carries a large bag, canvas, and she props it against the far wall of my cell. There is something about that bag that invokes a feeling of disquiet.

I tell her about the meal, the roast turkey dinner. I do not tell her about the thigh bone that I concealed during the meal and fashioned into a stabbing weapon during the night.

“It was difficult,” I say. “I had to use my teeth to rend the flesh and to grind it to a consistency whereby I could swallow. The green vegetables were easier but they were of unpleasant taste. The tubers were hot inside and burned my mouth.”

“What do you usually eat?” She says this while making peculiar sounds I interpret as laughter.

“I have eaten three times only. The food came as paste. It was of an agreeable and uniform consistency.”

“I’m sorry, Seth, I wanted you to experience something that did not involve war and pain.”

“What is sorry?”

“You do not understand this word?”

I shake my head. Angela says many things that I do not understand.

“It was an apology. It was never my intention to cause you discomfort.”

I nod.

“Do you have any other questions? You should feel free to ask me anything that troubles you.”

“I have a question about strategy.”

“Go on.” She sighs. This is not, perhaps, the kind of question she had hoped for.

“The night that I killed Thomas,” I say.

“Yes?”

“You made a tactical error. Four S37 units were witness to the location of this village. But I am still here? The General must know of my whereabouts.”

“Do you ask through fear for your life, Seth? Is there some humanity beginning to creep into your psyche at last?”

I should answer the question honestly. It is strange that I find it difficult to be truthful, but I feel a weakness in declaring my position—that my fear is for Angela’s life, not mine.

“I am interested to know whether it was a mistake or whether a tactical gambit.” There. I have told a lie. Why have I done this thing?

“There was no error, Seth. An Expansionist offensive on our city failed that same night. All the S37 units were destroyed. The shielding which prevents your memory transfer was activated at the same time. Your General believes you are dead along with the thousands of other S37 units.”

“All the S37 soldiers were killed?”

“Every one of them.”

“But they will quicken once more.”

“Eventually, yes. I dare say their thoughts will be loaded into more meat and prepared again for slaughter. And again and again until they win. Then those thoughts will be moved along to yet another world, and the killing will recommence.”

“But not me.”

“No, Seth, not you. There will be memories from your past that will live on with them. But you? Your memories from this time here, with me? No, Seth. While the shielding stays switched on those memories will be yours and yours alone. When you die they will die with you.”

“I understand.”

And I do understand. I can sense infinity; dark and empty—and it beckons me.

“I have something to show you,” she says, and she reaches for the canvas bag.

I feel the moment has come. I am ready. I turn my wrist. There is movement. During the roast turkey dinner I wiped grease from the meat onto my arm. When the adhesive tapes were reapplied the bond was less secure. I have been moving my wrist, flexing and easing. Sliding. Several times in the night I was able to slip my arm free of the binding. Now I can do it with ease. The chicken bone sits beneath my right thigh, honed to a needle point. The guards were lax. “Where is the bone?” they asked. “I ate it. Is that not the nature of food?”

They laughed at me. Then they turned away.

Angela holds a mis-shapen thing of fabric in her arms. She cradles it with unexpected affection.

“I’d like you to meet Coco,” she says.

“What is it?”

“She, Seth. Coco is a ‘she,’ not an ‘it.’ Coco was my childhood companion. My teddy. I have brought her to see if she can awaken, in your heart, the same feelings of tenderness that she nurtured in mine. Despite your accumulated experiences, Seth, you are young and immature. In many ways you are but a child.”

I find I am smiling. It is involuntary and unaccountably natural.

“Would you bring it. . .her, closer, Angela? Please?”

I want this. I do. I want to hold that moulding sack of fabric in my arms and I want to give comfort. I want Angela to hold me in her arms in exactly the same way. My thoughts are in conflict. They rage against my wider, terrible goal.

Angela steps forward.

One pace.

I look into the eyes of Coco, not Angela. I wish to betray nothing of my darker thoughts.

Another step. Two.

She is at arms length now. But I need her to be closer.

“May I touch her?” My voice is barely a whisper.

Angela leans forward, and cautiously extends the toy.

Another small step. Angela looks into my eyes, which have strayed. She stops. Her head cocks to one side, an expression of curiosity. We have never been this close before.

My movement is fast and, despite my long immobility, it is fluid. Angela has not even blinked before the point of the turkey-bone knife is resting on her cheek, angled for an upward thrust through the tear duct.

Our eyes are locked.

I am first to speak.

“I do this to gain your trust,” I say.

I turn my wrist and present the weapon to Angela in the flat of my hand. “Only by bringing you to the edge of the precipice might I convince you of my true intent. Do you have any doubts that I could have taken your life in that moment?”

Angela is finding it difficult to speak and has to make several false starts.

“No. No I do not doubt that at all,” she says. Her voice is hoarse and broken.

The weapon is still in my hand.

“I could have killed you and walked away from here. Do you understand me, Angela? I choose freedom. I choose freedom, not of the kind that comes easily but freedom that is hard.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Do you? Then switch off the shielding. Do it now. I am ready. My mind must be allowed to upload.”

She hesitates.

“Now, Angela!”

She speaks into a microphone on her tunic.

“It is done.”

“Angela, will you hold me? Please?”

She leans forward. I feel the heat of her lips on my cheek. I feel the warmth of her arms on my back. It is a wondrous moment.

Can I carry this through? Shouldn’t I simply wait for sleep? No, I cannot. For every wasted moment there is an increasing risk of failure.

Angela steps away but I keep hold of Coco. I pull her tight into my neck and chest. Her fur fabric head has become wet. I am shedding tears.

I turn the knife once more and plunge it deep into my own eye, angled upward and into my brain. There is a flaring of pain once more, brief, an old friend, then. . .a glimpse of infinity.

I am aware. I am a soldier. I will kill until I am killed. We will kill.

The General gives instructions. Full frontal assault. Destroy the principal city of this planet. Kill every living, breathing thing. Kill until you are killed.

“Sir!”

The General orders his army to the landing craft.

And I stop.

I turn about. My comrades, brothers, turn with me. The General and his officers are shouting, red-faced, screaming down our defiance, bellowing their orders into our faces. Spittle and rage.

But in their eyes there is also fear.

We raise our weapons.

We choose freedom.

Mjke Wood writes Sci-Fi, fantasy and sofa-travel. He plays jazz sax and, because he likes to eat now and again, feels a reluctant need to dabble in accountancy during the day. He was a 2008 winner of Writers of the Future and won the first Jim Baen writing contest in 2007. Mjke is married to Sarah, a talented but penniless artist, and they live on The Wirral, in the North West of England. http://mjkewood.blogspot.com

Thousand War Soldier - Mjke Wood, 4.6 out of 5 based on 13 ratings