Dream Soldier
by Tony Spencer
Doctors. Technicians. They move around the room as if caught in some vortex, back and fourth with a whole selection of equipment. Some of them are clearly medical in nature- trolleys full of cruelly gleaming steel, an E.K.G machine, life-support system- but looking at others, it would seem that it is to be a computer that will be operated on today, not a human at all.
Still they move around, plugging everything in, so the assortment of machines gathered in the middle of the room joins in the activity. Lights dance. Displays flicker on. Their many beeps combine to form a sterilized, hospital equivalent of a forest at night. Finally, it is ready.
There is no time for them to relax. The theater's double doors swing inwards, and a stretcher arrives. It joins the machines that sits there, patiently waiting. Beeping and flashing.
On top of the stretcher, lies the patient. Having been prepped in the other room, he is ready to be operated on. They know they must work quickly. One and a half hours, and the anaesthetic will begin to wear off. Probes, electrodes, lines are connected to the patient, and the array of monitoring equipment begins to move and beep in a far less random pattern.
Enough. It is team one's turn to go to work.
"Scalpel." The chief surgeon's voice emerges from behind his mask. At once, it is in his hand, and tracing a thin red line along that which has already been marked around the patients shaven head, starting in the center of his forehead. Cutting. Cutting. Slowly and steadily, with seemingly as little effort as he would use to trace a line in the sand. Now it is done.
With delicate fingers he slowly eases the skin above, upwards and away from the incision. When he is done, a white headband of bone, about a half an inch thick, is exposed.
Having done its job, the scalpel leaves his hand. Another glance at the machines. Everything is nominal.
"Saw." He takes it. Small but powerful, hundreds of tiny points along its circular blade catching the light, it jumps into life with some pressure from his thumb. Its whine overpowers the sounds of the other machines, deepening in pitch as it encounters resistance from the cranium. Soon, it stops.
Even more careful than before, with both hands he grasps the crown of the patient's head. Gently. So gently he eases it upwards, increasing force only by slight degrees, unwilling to damage what lies beneath. That's what they're here to work on, after all. A slight sucking sensation, as if the body is unwilling to let go, and then it is free.
Now, it is team two's job. Another piece of equipment is taken from where it lies at the stretcher's side. It consists of two plates, which are fixed to either side, level with the patient's head. As well as this, a small robotic arm is bolted onto the head of the bed. At the end of the arm, is a long thin cylinder. Three cables run from these components, to a computer terminal. When the system is set up, an image appears on the computer's screen. It is a complete three dimensional scan of the patient's brain.
The touch of a button and, attatched to the arm, a section of the cylinders side retracts. Sliding up, and out, another blade appears from inside. The cylinder rotates to orient the blade correctly, and waits obediently for the next command.
With pinpoint accuracy, a technician clicks on two points of the display. One side aspect, one front aspect. With the precision only a machine is capable of, the blade arcs, slowly buries itself into the soft tissue beneath it, and then withdraws. The blade is sheathed once more, the cylinder revolves, and another panel folds back. From this, a thin wafer of silicon, covered with thousands of contacts, swings out with the aid of a tiny claw. Some careful positioning, and then it is slotted, perfectly, into the place which has been created for it.
The procedure repeats. Another is placed. Another, and another. There will be five in all, each implanted into a specific part of the brain. The receptors of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. When the last chip is in place, the arm changes yet again. This time, there is what seems to be a needle, but is really a long tube, inside which is a filament of fibre optic cable. It connects the end of this cable with a tiny socket in the first chip, and then darts, in and out, to complete the chain with the other four, linking them. On their own they are nothing.
Joined together however, the system comes to life. There is a small initial surge, heating the contacts. Fusing the chips with the subject they were designed for. It is completely independant of any external power source, drawing energy instead from the countless impulses that are transmitted throughout the brain every second.
One final addition. A tiny radio transmitter-receiver, hooked up, and stage two is complete. Another look at the readouts shows that, already, the system is functioning better than any could have expected. Respiration, heartbeat, everything is being regulated now. The nervous system is working in conjunction with the newly introduced computer, evening out any irregularity. Functioning together, with unnervingly mechanical perfection.
"Okay, time to close up now." The surgeon says, moving in from the side with his assistants, even as the others disconnect the arm and its accessories. The operation is all but complete now. All that remains is a little patching up...
Lieutenant Chris Masterton floats back up towards the light again, from the darkness that has surrounded him for God only knows how long. Breaking through into consciousness once more, opening his eyes, he finds the world too bright. The light hanging directly above his bed in the recovery ward, seems to burn with all the intensity of the Sun itself. Even as he reflexively squints his eyes, the brightness is gone. Toned down, as if some giant hand has pointed a remote control at the world, and adjusted it as if it were a T.V. program. This is a surprise, until he remembers why he is here. The operation. He guesses it must have worked.
Really, it is hard to believe it even happened. Chris feels no pain. No, wait a minute... There is something there. Not what he would expect after having his head opened, and about a million dollars worth of silicon implanted in his brain, but it's there. It seems to be coming from somewhere, far away. They were right. So far, they've been right about everything. The system could help 'tune out' distractions, both internal and external, to ensure that mission objectives could be properly carried out.
After an operation like that, he is glad to feel at least a little pain. It tells him that he is still human. Or is he something more? He supresses the thought. Gone. Filed neatly away somewhere.
He looks around. Apart from one bed, the ward is empty. He is the only one here, with only a few of those seemingly omnipresent machines to keep him company. Beeping. Buzzing. If he listens carefully, Chris finds he can make sense of this tangle of sounds. Each is so distinct, so clear, that it seems not only to be a random wave, but a thread. Seperate from the others. As individual as a human voice. With hardly any effort at all he finds he can switch between these sounds, including or excluding as many he chooses. This is not just hearing. The word is a poor definition. This is nothing he has experienced before.
Now there is another sound, almost lost among the others. Chris ignores them, focusing instead on this new one. Footsteps. He can hear footsteps, coming down the corridor. They seem to be so loud, he keeps looking towards the door, expecting it to swing open at any moment.
About ten seconds later, it finally does. About ten seconds? No. Eleven point five seconds exactly. Now, Chris tells himself, this is getting weird. The system is constantly working in the background, like a brain within a brain. Even before he needs it, it is there. There is no wait. No guesswork. Only knowledge.
A nurse, carrying something. A video camera, and a tripod. The fact that Chris is awake seems to come as no surprise to her. Halfway through setting up the equipment at the foot of the bed, she looks up at him and smiles.
"So Lieutenant, how are you feeling?" She begins to fix the camera to its mount.
"Well, not too bad I guess. Considering..." Chris lets his voice trail off, allowing his hand to absent-mindedly travel upwards to feel the scar across his forehead. Back down, and up again. Then, he simply lets his hand drop back where it was. There is no trace.
"What?" It is not a question to her, or to anyone, exactly. It is simply a sound of disbelief.
After turning the camera on, the nurse can only look back as she leaves the room, her work done. "Trust me, we're no less surprised than you are." Then she is gone. Footsteps down the corridor. Faint traces of perfume, left in her wake. Lurking behind it, that hospital smell. Disinfectant and age. And other smells that are almost but not quite masked, and drift like ghosts through the air. Blood. Pain. Death. He cuts these thoughts off, too.
Instead, he just wants to close his eyes again. To get away from everything for a while. So suddenly, everything has changed. There was no warning. No way he could ever have prepared himself for this. Chris needs some time to adjust. He wills himself to sleep, and mercifully, darkness comes.
"Time to wake up, Masterson!" It sounds as if the voice came from right beside him, but looking from side to side, he sees nobody. He is alone in the room. Alone with the machines, and the camera. How can that be? Slowly, Chris checks again.
"You won't find me out there, soldier. I'm inside your head." Of course he is! That's the only logical assumption when you start hearing people who aren't there. The fact the voice just confirmed this point, however, does little to reassure him. He must be going crazy.
At this point, in the top right corner of his vision, a small square section of the recovery room blinks out. It is replaced by the image of a man, sitting behind a desk. Floating there, where there should be nothing but windows and soulless white walls.
"No need to look so puzzled, son. I didn't mean literally." Seeing the office, the desk, the man himself, Chris immediately recognizes the voice. General Speers, the project's co-director. "How are you receiving, anyway?"
"Loud and clear, sir." He says, addressing the camera's glassy eye.
"Glad to hear it. Taxpayers wouldn't exactly appreciate spending millions of dollars on a fuck-up, would they? What do you think about the system so far?"
"Well..." He says as the General, with his bristle cut grey hair and immaculate dress uniform, leans fowards on his desk, watching intently a monitor Chris can't see. The other camera, his 'third eye', must be on top of this, because Speers seems to focus on a point just below his field of vision. "If I had to sum it up in two words, they would be confusing, and strange. Everything is just so different."
"How do you mean?"
"There's no real way I could explain it to you, sir. I could try, but I don't think you would be able to understand. Not really."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of what I can and cannot understand?" There is a slight note of anger in Speers' voice now. "I helped make you what you are, soldier. I know that system inside and out. Just answer the question."
Chris thinks for a moment. "Okay. You're watching me through a camera, right?"
The General nods his head.
"If you were actually here you'd still see me, wouldn't you?"
"Of course I would. Exactly what are you getting at?" His voice is harder now.
"If you were here, you'd see the same thing as you do now, only much clearer. More real. Now I feel as if before, I was seeing everything from somewhere else. But after the operation, I'm really here."
"I see. So your vision is much clearer now?"
"Not only that, sir. Everything's like that now. It's like a whole new world. Another level. But there's so much I haven't found out yet. So many questions..."
"Maybe I can give you some answers. That is, if you think it's even worth asking me." The anger is gone. Speers appears completely relaxed once more.
"How long was I out for, after the operation?"
"Ten hours, after the anaesthetic wore off. I'd imagine your next question is going to be, how could you possibly heal in that space of time? Right?"
"It had crossed my mind."
Now, it is Speers' turn to think for a while. "You'll have to wait a few minutes, I'm afraid. We've talked like this long enough to know it works, so now I'm coming to speak with you in person. Consider the first test a success..."
In the top right corner of Chris's vision, Speers picks a remote control up off his desk, points it towards the camera in the office, and pushes a button. Then the square blinks out. Just more soulless white walls and windows, as if they've always been there.
Of course, he hears the General coming long before he arrives. Those boots make a far different sound on the tiles in the compounds medical wing than the shoes the staff wear.
The door swings open. Behind it, the corridor is empty. Speers isn't there. Chris listens harder, how close he is to straining his newly improved senses he doesn't know. Not that it matters- he can hear something now. Quiet, slow, controlled breathing. Speers is hiding there, just outside. Or trying to. Is this another test? He decides to wait and see what happens.
A split-second later he appears, framed in the doorway. At almost the same moment, something is flying through the air towards Chris's head. Without thinking, he brings his hand up, and there it is.
Saying nothing, he looks from the apple he just caught, to the General, and back again.
"I thought you might be hungry." Speers smiles. "I knew it wouldn't hit you. We did our job too well for that to happen."
He just stares at it. As if he's never seen one before.
"Don't worry. It's going to taste the same as it always did."
Actually, he does feel like eating something. It's been over twelve hours since his last meal, after all. Suddenly the hunger came. Not sneaking up on him at all but -there. Maybe he's kept it supressed until now. It makes sense really, not wanting food until it's there. After all, hunger is just another distraction.
Enhanced or not, he remembers no apple tasting as good as this.
Finished all too soon, he looks up at where Speers stands now, half-turned towards the windows. Staring down at the courtyard from the foot of his bed. In the silence, the General turns to face him just as the apple core passes by, close enough to leave a thin trail of juice across his forehead, and thuds into the glass. Now it is Chris's turn to smile.
Speers is unperturbed. "I know you could have hit me if you wanted to, Lieutenant. Target acquisition is just one of the functions built into the system. Subtract human error from the equation, and you're left with almost perfect accuracy."
"Almost?"
"Taking into account the possibility of mechanical failure." He lets the words hang as he wipes his brow with the back of his hand. "Meaning misfire, faulty ammunition, that sort of thing. As for anything going wrong with the system itself - no chance."
Chris allows himself to relax once more. Speers pulls up a chair next to the bed, and sits down.
"I'll be honest with you, soldier. In some ways, I'm jealous as hell. I mean, I helped design the system. Most of its specs, are ones I said it should have. I know those chips inside out. I know what makes them tick better than you do, and they're a part of you. But you know what? Knowing how it all works, knowing every goddamn bit of theory about it there is, makes no difference. I still don't know what it's like, and you do."
The General lets his attention wander back towards the windows, although from here he can see nothing of the courtyard. Only empty blue sky. Then, he looks back.
"But you need me, Lieutenant. You need someone who knows what you can do. There are things about yourself now, that you'd probably never find out on your own. I'm here to teach you."
"Sir, how did I heal so quickly?" Chris asks when it seems the man has finished talking.
Speers smiles again. "You gave the medical staff one hell of a fright, you know? All of your vital signs -heartbeat, respiration, everything- just dropped. I got an emergency call, at about oh-one hundred hours. Asked the nurse if the rhythms had stabilized, she said they had but they were way below normal. So I told her, next time she plans on getting me out of bed, she had better make sure it's a goddamn emergency."
"Sounds pretty bad to me, sir."
"Not really. You see, the system was designed with a repair cycle. During that time, it causes everything to function at the lowest levels possible to still maintain life, and redirects all that unused energy, to where it's needed most. Healing. As a result, your body's recuperative abilities are increased many times. Anyway, figures had returned to normal by nine hundred hours, and when they came to change your bandages there wasn't even a trace."
"So you're telling me I healed myself, in eight hours?"
"I could hardly believe it myself at first. Of course I knew about the cycle, but I had no idea how effective it could be. I guess that's enough proof for both of us right there, though." He nods towards the scar that should be there, but isn't. "Anything else you want to know?"
"Sir, when are they letting me out of here?"
"I'm glad you asked. I've been authorized to begin trials as soon as possible, but it's all up to you, really. How does tomorrow sound? That way, you can get some rest. After all, I want you to be at peak performance."
"Okay. Tomorrow it is." Chris would like to get out of here straight away, but knows the General's words were less a suggestion than an order.
Speers gets up, and checks his watch. "I want you up and ready at eight hundred hours then, Masterson. It's going to be a busy day. I'll tell medical to bring you some proper food, too. Just promise me one thing..." He says as he reaches the door.
"What's that, sir?"
"This time, don't throw anything."
Sights, smells, and sounds rush together blending into familiar patterns all around him. Filling the darkness. Creating a world that is quite different from the formless, timeless place Chris knows in his dreams. For a few moments he lies there, taking in every detail of the room once more. It comforts him, because it is always the same. Unchanged, and unchanging.
He wishes he could find the same peace looking within, but doesn't know when that time will come. In many ways, he is a stranger even to himself now.
But at least the room is the same. Even in the darkness, the curtains not yet opened, Chris can make out everything in perfect detail. This is no longer a surprise. The time for learning this fact, was last night. Then, when the lights went out, he suddenly realised just how much the General hadn't yet told him. Light amplification glasses could join television monitors on the list of things made unnecessary by the system.
Interrupting his thoughts, the alarm clock on his bedside table goes off. 7:00, its digital display informs him. Silencing it, Chris just lies there again. Thinking. Did he wake up by himself, or was he somehow woken up, like yesterday? No answer comes, and instead he gets up. Keeping himself occupied will help keep the questions at bay.
At least he feels better this morning. Refreshed. As if last night's sleep served more purpose, than simply giving time to repair himself.
It isn't the first time out of bed. Last night, the echoes of his doubts, questions and fears died down enough in his mind, for something else to register. His thoughts kept him so occupied before now, it hadn't even occurred to Chris to try moving around the room. The idea itself was so foolish to him - too busy thinking about all this potential he had suddenly been given, to actually try and really use some of it.
Then he sat up again, in a room that should have been dark but wasn't, swung his legs over the side, and pushed himself forward. At first they had been a little numb, but he stood there all the same, and that feeling quickly disappeared. Taking a few steps to the window, feeling for the first time since the op as if he was in control, he pulled open one of the curtains and looked outside. Not down into the courtyard, which would be little different than it was in the daytime, but up, into the night. Up, into the darkness which not even his enhanced vision could penetrate, and he is happy. Because nothing had changed.
Now he walks across, and opens the wardrobe that stands in the corner of the room. On a hanger, is his uniform. After exchanging his blue hospital attire for olive green battledress, hard-earned stripes sewn onto the shoulders, he feels somehow more real.