“Disaster!”
General Mueller’s voice could easily be heard outside the conference room. The growling words and expletives bounced off the white ceiling tiles and permeated throughout the lab and workstations like the colorless light from the overhead fluorescents. Anand Ramasubramanian followed Christopher Mark down the narrow corridor and between crowded workstations. They walked quickly, expertly navigating the thin alley between workstations. The lab technicians, biochemists, neuro-scientists, system programmers, and data engineers situated around the laboratory were motionless. They were intently listening to the drama reverberating from behind the conference room door.
The team was deep inside a military compound located in the high desert outside of Palmdale, California. The building had no windows. A red light was mounted at each workstation. The technicians and the ever present armed security, were all trained that if the red lights mounted on at the workstations began flashing in a silent alarm, there was an information security breech. If this happened, all data must be instantly secured or destroyed.
Anand and Chris Mark had been working here along with the neuro-science team for the last six months. Mark was the overall project lead and Anand was in charge of network systems. Dr. Singh was the neuro-surgeon and led the biological science team including the biochemists and genetic engineers. Here in a secured military base, technology and biology were coming together at last.
They operated under strict Top Secret military protocol. No one was allowed to leave the compound, for any reason. Contact with the outside world was limited and censored. After six months, the eclectic team of Doctors, Surgeons, Scientists, Programmers, and System Engineers were all on edge. The common denominator was they all wanted out, they want off the compound.
They wanted to go home and back to their lives and their families. The bombastic presence and loud exclamations from General Muller, that reverberated through the work space, was agitating an already edgy team. Christopher Mark and Anand decided that they needed to go into the conference room and attempt to calm or at least quiet the situation before they had a full scale revolt.
Anand watched Chris Mark open the door gingerly, and then followed him into the stuffy windowless conference room. General Muller was striding up and down in the narrow walkway between the conference table and the back wall. Situated at random, sitting uncomfortably and looking sheepish, were the members of the General’s staff. Al McKnight was the lone member of the RSI team present. He was sitting, cool and confidently, at the far end of the conference table.
When Al McKnight saw his partner Chris Mark, and then Anand enter into the room, he motioned them to sit next to him. Chris Mark, followed by Anand, squeezed in between the chairs and the wall to find their seats and they joined in solidarity with Al McKnight,
General Mueller continued, “I made a damn speech to congress.”
Mueller growled, “I bragged about wounded warriors going back to fight again. It brought tears to their eyes. It was so damn patriotic!”
Then continuing, “You need to understand what the implications are here. This is a war of attrition and we are fighting on two fronts. The action in the desert is not as hot as the war in the press here at home. For every boy we lose, the press is eating us up. The Alliance politicians are looking for any excuse to pull the plug.”
General Mueller stopped pacing and squared off across the table from McKnight. The loose red skin on the general’s face and neck contrasted sharply with the stiff starched green of his uniform.
Mueller said, “This is a disaster McKnight, and you need to fix it. Fix it or I will call my contacts in the Senate and tell them to go ahead and vote YES on the Anti Organic Robotics bill that they are considering. That weasel of an activist Hans Hoobler has stirred up a small army of liberal anti-war lobbyists and they are camped out at the capital making the senators quite nervous. If I pull my support, then that bill will pass and you are out of business. Do you hear me McKnight; you can be gone like that!
Mueller punctuated the last word of this monologue by lifting his hand up by his forehead and loudly snapping his fingers.
Anand, who had been working side by side with top neuro-surgeons for the last year or more, took interest in the large artery that was pulsing along the side of General Mueller’s forehead, right next to where the General had snapped his fingers to accentuate his point.
Anand filled the uncomfortable silence that followed the General’s ultimatum and loud snap by counting the pulses of that artery. Anand wondered silently if the General might soon keel over; victim of a brain aneurism or thrombosis.
Anand counted thirty-eight pulses across Muller’s forehead when McKnight finally broke the silence. Al McKnight did not make a promise or a speech.
Instead, he asked a question, he said, “Did it work?”
”Did it work!” General Mueller echoed McKnight’s question incredulously.
He then added, “What have I been saying to you. It was an unmitigated disaster. Every Synapse Soldier is dead and the wounded veterans who were in the Synapse Suits are now in Psy-Ops dealing with a whole new kind of traumatic stress syndrome.”
Al McKnight remained unruffled. He clarified his question saying,
“But did the technology work?”
Mueller looked like he was about to explode and Anand lost count of the pulses across his forehead. In order to make some headway, Al McKnight turned and looked at Chris Mark and repeated the same question.
He said, “Chris, did the technology work?”
Christopher Mark responded simply and quietly, saying, “Yes, it worked perfectly.”
Al McKnight continued, now returning his attention to General Mueller.
“If the technology worked,” McKnight reasoned, “but the application was ineffective, then we need to change the application.”
Al McKnight waited, in case General Mueller reacted.
But he did not, so McKnight continued leading them to follow his logic, “The reason our test failed was because the wounded Veterans we selected to Synap into the volunteers were too concerned about wounding the bodies of the host soldiers. They were too afraid of letting the Synapse Soldiers get hurt the same way their own bodies were wounded. The wounded veteran’s were too careful, too cautious, and too defensive. Synaptic Derivation is an offensive weapon if used properly. If we change the application I can guarantee there will be no more alliance casualties.”
Al McKnight paused here waiting for a reaction.
Again, General Mueller remained uncharacteristically quiet, so he continued, “I guarantee you, no more body bags, no more flag draped coffins, no more grieving mothers. Synaptic Derivation will help you win the war on the ground. But, more importantly it will assure you of victory at home fighting the public relations war in the media.”
“Not possible,” General Mueller said, “How are you going to guarantee no more casualties?”
“It’s actually a simple solution,” McKnight answered, “Now that we are at this juncture. It’s a logical extension of the technology that we have already developed. Instead of using volunteer soldiers to host the device, instead of using our own troops, our veteran commanders will Synap into the enemy combatants. When our veterans are remotely controlling the bodies of enemy combatants, they will be fearless. They will be bold. They will take the offensive, and more importantly none of our own soldiers will be at risk.”
“What are you suggesting?” Mueller asked, “Our veterans are going to Synap into captured enemy combatants? Prisoners of War? It’s a ludicrous idea. There are international laws that govern the treatment of POW’s. The politicians will never allow anything like that, they would call it torture.”
“No,” McKnight said, “We will use Synaptic Derivation to form a new fighting force using the bodies of the enemy that we have already killed. When your veterans are controlling the bodies of the enemy combatants, you will have an army that is
immune to political pressure. You will have an army that cannot be killed. You will have an army of the dead.”