This well defend echoes.., p.8
This We'll Defend: Echoes of Liberty (Book 3), page 8
“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water, quote unquote.”
Jon cocked his head to the side. “You want a Letter of Marque?”
“It so happens I do.”
“I’m not sure I can help with that, Captain Friedrich. Congress hasn’t issued a Letter of Marque since—”
“Not counting the single letter issued during the 1940s, the last serious letter was issued before the War of 1812. I’m well aware.”
“Why would you think we’d grant you a Letter, then? We’re not at war with the Protectorate.”
“Yet,” Eric added to LaForce’s statement. “Ask your friends at the NIA about the little gift those twenty billion dollars paid for. You might be surprised what the life expectancy of wishful thinking is these days.”
Senator LaForce frowned and then nodded gravely as he stood. “Well, I believe I’ve taken up enough of your time, Captain. I’ll be in touch.”
Eric watched the man go and looked over to Byron once the door closed.
“I might be familiar with how politics and the intelligence game are played, but I have a very limited stomach for them,” Byron mimicked. “Feigning an exploitable weakness in your position? Not what I would have done.”
“Do you think he fell for it?” Eric asked, undeterred.
Byron sipped from his water bottle with a smile that got steadily wider.
“He bought it all as near I could tell,” the Caledonian laughed. “You’re learning, kid. Just be careful which game you think you’re playing. The stakes in that particular game are a wee bit high.”
Eric grinned. “Audentes Fortuna iuvat.”
Byron snorted. “That it does, lad. That it does, but an unsurprising number of the bold also end up dead for their troubles.”
***
1846, October 12, 221 PE
“You doing okay back there, boss?” Eddie asked from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, I guess. Not feeling too hot, that’s all. Side effect of the supplements they had me take a few hours ago.” Eric hadn’t felt this messed up since nearly dying from an infected wound on Solitude. Whatever had been in those pills was certainly working a number on his digestive tract. Eric shivered from a sudden chill as they turned into the parking lot of the base hospital. “You sure this is the place?”
Eddie shrugged and replied, “It’s the address you gave me.”
“Well, time to figure out what’s going on then.”
Once the car came to a stop by the front entrance Eric opened his door and weakly slid out. Three steps from the car, a man, presumably a doctor from his white coat, emerged from the doors a short distance away.
“Captain Friedrich, I presume?” the man asked as Eric approached.
“That would be me, yes.”
The older man’s thinning red hair shifted in the breeze as he looked back over his shoulder to the hospital’s glass façade and nodded. A man in scrubs emerged with a wheelchair.
“Evening, I’m Doctor Krieger, Lockmer Defense Group. I’ll be the attending physician for your procedure. Do you have any questions I can answer outside of a secure space?”
“Is this normal?” Eric asked while the man he presumed was a nurse helped him into the wheelchair.
“Fatigue, nausea? Intestinal discomfort? They’re expected, though it seems you’re presenting with more severe symptoms than the average subject. I can assure you that you’re perfectly safe and in good hands,” Doctor Krieger answered while they entered the hospital. “Would you consider consenting to additional bloodwork and other testing? It would help us refine our intake process.”
“Doc, with all due respect, the last time I felt this bad, I’d picked up a secondary infection from a gunshot wound that went septic. I guess if it’s nothing terribly invasive, that should be fine,” Eric answered, shielding his eyes from the overhead lighting.
“That sounds like an interesting story in its own right,” Doctor Krieger commented as they came to an elevator. “Oh, I do need to ask, we have a visiting physician, an expert on nanoscale augmentation. Do you mind if she observes the process?”
“Honestly, I’d just like to get to the other side of this. If they want to watch, they can watch.”
The elevator dinged.
“Good,” Doctor Krieger noted as the doors slid open. “Ah, Doctor Dawson. Have you been introduced to tonight’s patient?”
Eric looked up to find Elle standing in the back of the elevator, clipboard in hand and smiling politely.
“We’re acquainted,” Elle replied. Doctor Krieger held his security badge up to the display inside and then hit a button for a lower floor. The elevator began to descend.
Eric gave her the best grin he could manage. “So, Elle, this is where you and Turing disappeared to?”
“One of several places, yes,” she answered. She wheeled him out into the hall when the elevator stopped. They turned down several hallways and ended up badging through a thick security door flanked by two marines.
“Were either of you planning on telling me what you’ve been up to any time soon? Not that you owe me an explanation; just curious.”
They badged through a second set of security doors while Elle answered, “I’d presumed Edward had told you. He said he would. I suppose he got wrapped up in things and forgot. Apologies, Eric.”
“And here we are,” Doctor Krieger interrupted as he badged them into yet another room.
Inside, Eric found computers and displays lining the walls of a brightly lit, tiled space. Two people, both in scrubs looked up momentarily from their systems. A heavy robotic arm hung folded in the corner of the room with what appeared to be a rack of quick detachable implements, based off the uniformity of the mounting jacks facing into the room. A long reclining chair occupied the room’s center. It reminded him of one of the dental chairs from back on the Fortune, but those chairs didn’t have mounting points for restraints or brackets for additional equipment.
“If you’ll strip and deposit your clothing in the receptacle over there,” Doctor Krieger requested, “we’ll begin shortly.”
Eric tried not to react at the mental flashback from the Shrike that washed over him. His eye twitched anyway. Eric smiled grimly as he began untying his shoes. “Just like old times, eh, Elle?”
Elle chuckled behind him. “No chemical showers this time though. I could go get a set of nitriles if you’d like?”
Eric glanced over to Krieger who was looking at the two of them questioningly.
“Elle, do you want to explain to Doctor Krieger or should I?” He tossed his shoes into the box and unbuttoned his jeans.
“Doctor Krieger, Eric and I have a bit of a history together. You were informed that I practiced medicine in the Protectorate, yes? Well, Captain Friedrich was an involuntary test subject of mine at one point. Water under the bridge now, though. No hard feelings.”
“No airlocks either,” Eric commented, enjoying the abject confusion playing across Krieger’s face. “Extenuating circumstances create the oddest allies.”
“I’d ask, but I get the feeling that I don’t really want to know the details,” Krieger commented with growing reluctance.
“Also, yes.” Eric dropped the last of his clothing in the box. “Where do you need me?”
Doctor Krieger nodded toward the chair in the center of the room as he finished scribbling something on a clipboard. He assisted Eric over to the chair and helped him sit. The chair was oddly comfortable.
Elle eyed the Doctor a moment. “Doctor Krieger, given my familiarity with the patient’s baselines and the Protectorate implementation of this procedure, I believe it would be greatly beneficial if I do more than merely observe. Do you mind if I assist?”
Krieger gave a slow nod a few moments later.
“So, where do we go from here?” Eric asked.
Elle slid a short metal table up next to Eric and began unpacking medical supplies from the boxes atop it.###
“First phase involves intravenous delivery of surveyor nanites,” Elle informed him while she prepared the needle. “Nurses normally do this, but you’re aware of my predilections. Besides which, I prefer this half of the preparation.”
“We’re using needles today?” Eric asked.
“Needle jets complicate things by virtue of their design,” Doctor Krieger replied. “It’s relatively minor, but far fewer of the nanites are damaged when administered the old way.”
“And the other half of the preparation,” one of the nurses said as she reclined Eric’s chair. She held up a length of plastic tubing in a sterile package. “Catheters are fun for everyone.”
Eric looked at the tubing in the nurse’s hand for a moment before giving Elle a questioning look.
“The chair functions as both a communications relay for the nanites in your blood stream and a navigational reference for both the surveyors and the constructors until we finalize things,” Elle explained. “Getting up or moving around much at all would prolong things greatly.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I’m Amy. I’ll be the nurse taking care of you today. Just relax a little and this will be over fairly quickly. For the record, I promise I didn’t bathe my hands in ice water.”
Eric bit his lip in discomfort while the nurse finished her task. “Could have fooled me. Elle, if we do this again, I think I’ll take the gloves instead.”
Doctor Krieger cleared his throat. “Amy, we’re ready for the IV. The constructor bag should be on its way up from holding.”
“Surveyors, constructors?” Eric asked as Amy hauled an IV pole from the corner up to the chair. She pulled a stool out from behind where the pole had been stored.
“As their name suggests,” Elle answered while the nurse prepared the bag and sterilized the back of his hand with a swab. “Surveyors, with the help of some external equipment we’ll be engaging here shortly, will flood your bloodstream and locate points of interest. They’ll essentially be mapping your vascular system and then congregating at certain nodes. When the constructors are introduced, they’ll home in on the surveyors and stage for phase two. While we’re going over the surveyor data, the constructors will be chelating the metals out of your bloodstream and converting them to appropriate building materials. Once we’ve cleared any concerns, the constructors shift to phase three and assemble the various core structures for your augment; primarily in the hypothalamus and hippocampus, though minor systems will be deployed to the optic, olfactory, and auditory nerves, along with heat sinks along the carotid.”
Focusing on Elle’s answer, Eric winced at the surprise burning pain in his hand from the IV stick.
“That sounds fairly involved,” Eric commented. “How long does all that take?”
“Eight to twelve hours, depending on what we find,” Doctor Krieger responded while he placed a small device on the side of Eric’s neck. One of the displays immediately lit and began beeping. The other nurse clamped a small device to his index finger which similarly resulted in a sudden scroll of data on the same screen. “If everything goes well, I expect to discharge you sometime between eight and noon tomorrow once we get the initial calibration and testing complete. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. You’ll need to take it easy for the week following. No particularly strenuous activity or driving.”
Eric smirked. “So no running marathons, check.”
“Correct. Light physical exertion and cardio is ideal. By the time you go home, your aug should be functional enough to alert you if you’re overexerting yourself before the bake-in time is complete.”
“Oh, so all the heavy construction goes on tonight, but the system’s still fine-tuning and integrating itself, eh?” Eric asked Elle.
“Correct. Someone from our support staff will manage the final configuration,” Krieger said as he read the displays on the wall.
“Actually,” Elle interrupted, “I’ll be managing that personally, Doctor Krieger. Your vice-president has cleared that, and I have the appropriate crypto-keys to proceed.”
“Very well,” Krieger responded after a few moments. He eyed her with newfound wariness as a lab tech stepped into the room and handed off a clear plastic bag filled with an opaque grey fluid to one of the nurses.
“Doctor Dawson, we’re starting to receive telemetry from the intracranial surveyors. Do you want to perform the cognitive mapping while Amy starts the constructor bag?” Krieger asked.
Eric looked over to Elle and raised an eyebrow.
She gave him a motherly smile that vaguely creeped him out. “A series of tests, Eric. The surveyors will record your neural responses as you complete the tasks. By the end of it, we should have a fairly decent map of your neural pathways, along with sensitivity data, amongst other things.”
Eric commented sarcastically, “That doesn’t sound complicated at all.”
“The tests are rather trivial. For example, on the monitor behind me there are a series of photographs serving as a screen saver. What are the subjects of these photographs?”
Eric craned his head to get a better view. “A dog. Birds. A large cat of some sort. And an island.”
“The background colors?”
“Green, blue, green, blue.”
“Good. Can you name specific species?”
“I think the dog is a lab of some flavor. No clue on the birds, I’ve never seen that sort before. Cat might be a related species to tigers.”
“Good. Do you know any terms for what sort of geographic feature the island is?”
“Well, it’s part of an archipelago for one. Volcanic, based off the structure. Given the black sand, I’d say probably recently active, but I’m barely enough of a geologist to know my idea of recent and its idea of recent are on two different scales.”
Elle nodded. “Doctor Krieger, are we receiving adequate data so far?”
“Sufficient for the first part. Excellent on the rest,” Krieger replied.
“Good. Eric, spatial reasoning. If we were in orbit in zero-G and I spun something T-shaped, like one of the fitting access tools, what would happen?”
Eric thought a moment. “Along which axis?”
“Intermediate.”
“Ah, right. The object will spin as expected, but after a certain length of time that depends on the object’s distribution of mass, it will appear to flip while continuing to spin.”
Elle nodded. “Sufficient answer. I’m sure Edward will be pleased to know you were paying attention.” She leaned back and retrieved a clipboard before handing it over. “Complete these equations.”
Eric pulled the pen out from under the clip and tried not to laugh. One plus one, eh? He glanced to Elle and asked, “Am I to assume these are in decimal notation and not something odd like octal or hex?”
Elle rolled her eyes. “Both you and Edward. Show-offs.”
“Showing off? I failed one of his exams because I didn’t ask. I presumed decimal and didn’t notice a lack of any number higher than seven,” Eric grumbled.
Elle smirked. “Sounds like him.”
Eric raced through the first page while trying not to question why he was doing basic arithmetic. Multiplication tables and very simple algebra filled the second page. The trig on the third page gave him pause for a moment until he recalled the basic methods he’d been taught for simple angles. Even the initial calculus and linear algebra that followed didn’t worry him terribly much. He figured this would be easy, right up until he hit equations he recognized. Eric frowned at the problem waiting for him on the next to last page. Fuck you, asymmetric charge distributions and observable Lorentz force terms.
Forty-five minutes after she handed him the clipboard, Eric handed it back with a scowl.
“What, giving up already?” Elle asked innocently. Eric’s scowl deepened. “I wouldn’t feel bad. I copied that last one from memory out of Edward’s notes last night. No clue what he’s working on, but it was pretty complicated. I’m fairly sure he hasn’t solved it yet either.”
“Is there any particular reason why we ignored protocol in favor of your own math reasoning exam?” Krieger asked. “Asking only because I’m unfamiliar with the reasoning behind your choices, Doctor Dawson.”
“Your standard exam was written for cretins, Doctor Krieger. Eric was educated by Edward, and as such, is far more capable, mathematically speaking, than your source demographic. You’ll find we have far more data and far better resolution per skill group than if we’d stuck to the mathematical equivalent to finger painting.”
“Point taken,” Doctor Krieger said as he glanced between a scrolling readout and a visualization on the monitor next to it. “And apparently valid. I’ll have to recommend that the board look into updating our procedures.”
Elle started some orchestral music on one of the machines and then walked him through basic motor function tests over the next ten minutes while the music changed periodically.
“We’re on the tail end of the testing, Eric. Cognitive association centers next. I have four fingers and a thumb, but I am not living. What am I?”
Eric scratched his chin a moment. “A glove.”
“I live only where there is light, but shine that light on me and I die. What am I?”
“Er,” Eric muttered. “Fuck, I don’t know? A shadow?”
“Correct. What flies when it’s born, lies when it’s alive, and runs with its passing?”
“Tough one,” he mused as he shifted in the char. A short while later he arrived at a potential answer. “Snow?”
“Correct. Now, tell me a joke.”
“Excuse me?”
“A joke? You know, something humorous?” Elle said. “Again, we’re testing recall and thought patterns.”
“Oh, right. Any particular style of joke?
“Take your pick.”
Eric looked Elle in the eye and deadpanned, “You know, I really love angular momentum. It makes my world go round.” The corners of her lips twitched upward, so Eric kept going. “Two kittens are stuck on a slick metal roof, which one falls off first? The one with the lowest mu.” Elle smirked while she shook her head, so he continued. “How many theoretical physicists does it take to change a lightbulb? Two. One to hold the lightbulb and the other to rotate the universe.” Elle groaned. “Okay, okay, you’re right. At least it wasn’t chemistry jokes. I mean, those are bad. We should take all the chem jokes and barium.”
