She looked one last time at Number 117—at John. He was having so much fun, running and laughing.For a moment she envied the boy’s innocence; hers was long dead. Life or death, lucky or not, she wascondemning this boy to a great deal of pain and suffering.
But it had to be done.
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CHAPTER THREE
2300 Hours September 23, 2517 (Military Calendar ) / Epsilon Eridani System, Reach MilitaryComplex,planet Reach
Dr. Halsey stood on a platform in the center of the amphitheater. Concentric rings of slate-gray riserssurrounded her—empty for now. Overhead spotlights focused and reflected off her white lab coat, butshe still was cold.
She should feel safe here. Reach was one of the UNSC’s largest industrial bases, ringed with high-orbitgun batteries, space docks, and a fleet of heavily-armed capital ships. On the planet’s surface wereMarine and Navy Special Warfare training grounds, OCS schools, and between her undergroundfacilities and the surface were three hundred meters of hardened steel and concrete. The room where shenow stood could withstand a direct hit from an 80-megaton nuke.
So why did she feel so vulnerable?
Dr. Halsey knew what she had to do. Her duty. It was for the greater good. All humanity would beserved . . . even if a tiny handful of them had to suffer for it. Still, when she turned inward and faced hercomplicity in this—she was revolted by what she saw.
She wished she still had Lieutenant Keyes. He had proven himself a capable assistant during the lastmonth. But he had begun to understand the nature of the project—at least seen the edges of the truth. Dr.Halsey had him reassigned to theMagellan with a commission to full Lieutenant for his troubles.
“Are you ready, Doctor?” a disembodied woman’s voice asked.
“Almost, Déjà.” Dr. Halsey sighed. “Please summon Chief Petty Officer Mendez. I’d like you bothpresent when I address them.”
Déjà’s hologram flicked on next to Dr. Halsey. The AI had been specifically created for Dr. Halsey’sSPARTAN project. She took the appearance of a Greek goddess: barefoot, wrapped in the toga, motes oflight dancing about her luminous white hair. She held a clay tablet in her left hand. Binary cuneiformmarkings scrolled across the tablet. Dr. Halsey couldn’t help but marvel at the AI’s chosen form; eachAI “self-assigned” a holographic appearance, and each was unique.
One of the doors at the top of the amphitheater opened and Chief Petty Officer Mendez strode down thestairs. He wore a black dress uniform, his chest awash with silver and gold stars and a rainbow of
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campaign ribbons. His close-shorn hair had a touch of gray at the temples. He was neither tall normuscular; he looked so ordinary for a man who had seen so much combat . . . except for his stride. Theman moved with a slow grace as if he were walking in half gravity. He paused before Dr. Halsey,awaiting further instructions.
“Up here, please,” she told him, gesturing to the stairs on her right.
Mendez mounted the steps of the platform and then stood at ease next to her.
“You have read my psychological evaluations?” Déjà asked Dr. Halsey.
“Yes. They were quite thorough,” she said. “Thank you.”
“And?”
“I’m forgoing your recommendations, Déjà. I’m going to tell them the truth.”
Mendez gave a nearly inaudible grunt of approval—one of the most verbose acknowledgments Dr.Halsey had heard from him. As a hand-to-hand combat and physical-training DI, Mendez was the best inthe Navy. As a conversationalist, however, he left a great deal to be desired.
“The truth has risks,” Déjà cautioned.
“So do lies,” Dr. Halsey replied. “Any story fabricated to motivate the children—claiming their parentswere taken and killed by pirates, or by a plague that devastated their planet—if they learned the truthlater, they would turn against us.”
“It is a legitimate concern,” conceded Déjà, and then she consulted her tablet. “May I suggest selectiveneural paralysis? It produces a targeted amnesia—”
“A memory loss that may leak into other parts of the brain. No,” Dr. Halsey said, “this will be dangerousenough for them even with intact minds.”
Dr. Halsey clicked on her microphone. “Bring them in now.”
“Aye aye,” a voice replied from the speakers in the ceiling.
“They’ll adapt,” Dr. Halsey told Déjà. “Or they won’t, and they will be untrainable and unsuitable forthe project. Either way I just want to get this over with.”
Four sets of double doors at the top tier of the amphitheater swung open. Seventy-five children marched
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in—each accompanied by a handler, a Naval drill instructor in camouflage pattern fatigues.
The children had circles of fatigue around their eyes. They had all been collected, rushed here throughSlipstream space, and only recently brought out of cryo sleep. The shock of their ordeal must be hittingthem hard, Halsey realized. She stifled a pang of regret.
When they had been seated in the risers, Dr. Halsey cleared her throat and spoke: “As per Naval Code45812, you are hereby conscripted into the UNSC Special Project, codenamed SPARTAN II.”
She paused; the words stuck in her windpipe. How could they possibly understand this?She barelyunderstood the justifications and ethics behind this program.
They looked so confused. A few tried to stand and leave, but their handlers placed firm hands on theirshoulders and pushed them back down.
Six years old . . . this was too much for them to digest. But she had to make them understand, explain itin simple terms that they could grasp.
Dr. Halsey took a tentative step forward. “You have been called upon to serve,” she explained. “Youwill be trained . . . and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earthand all her colonies.”
A handful of the children sat up straighter, no longer entirely frightened, but now interested.
Dr. Halsey spotted John, subject Number 117, the first boy she had confirmed as a viable candidate. Hewrinkled his forehead, confused, but he listened with rapt attention.
“This will be hard to understand, but you cannot return to your parents.”
The children stirred. Their handlers kept a firm grip on their shoulders.
“This place will become your home,” Dr. Halsey said in as soothing a voice as she could muster. “Yourfellow trainees will be your family now. The training will be difficult. There will be a great deal ofhardship on the road ahead, but I know you will all make it.”
Patriotic words, but they rang hollow in her ears. She had wanted to tell them the truth—but how couldshe?
Not all of them would make it. “Acceptable losses,” the Office of Naval Intelligence representative hadassured her. None of it was acceptable.
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“Rest now,” Dr. Halsey said to them. “We begin tomorrow.”
She turned to Mendez. “Have the children . . . the trainees escorted to their barracks. Feed them and putthem to bed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mendez said. “Fall out!” he shouted.
The children rose—at the urging of their handlers. John 117 stood, but he kept his gaze on Dr. Halseyand remained stoic. Many of the subjects seemed stunned, a few had trembling lips—but none of themcried.
These were indeed the right children for the project. Dr. Halsey only hoped that she had half theircourage when the time came.
“Keep them busy tomorrow,” she told Mendez and Déjà. “Keep them from thinking about what we’vejust done to them.”
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SECTION II
BOOT
CHAPTER FOUR
0530 Hours, September 24, 2517 (Military Calendar) / Epsilon Eridani System, Reach MilitaryComplex,planet Reach
“Wake up, trainee!”
John rolled over in his cot and went back to sleep. He was dimly aware that this wasn’t his room, andthat there were other people here.
A shock jolted him—from his bare feet to the base of his spine. He yelled in surprise and fell off the cot.He shook off the disorientation from being nearly asleep and got up.
“I saidup , boot! You know which wayup is?”
A man in a camouflage uniform stood over John. His hair was shorn and gray at his temples. His darkeyes didn’t look human—too big and black and they didn’t blink. He held a silver baton in one hand; heflicked it toward John and it sparked.
John backed away. He wasn’t afraid of anything. Only little kids were afraid . . . but his bodyinstinctively moved as far away from the instrument as possible.
Dozens of other men roused the rest of the children. Seventy-four boys and girls screamed and jumpedout of their cots.
“I am Chief Petty Officer Mendez,” the uniformed man next to John shouted. “The rest of these men areyour instructors. You will do exactly as we tell you at all times.”
Mendez pointed to the far end of the cinderblock barracks. “Showers are aft. You will all wash and thenreturn here to dress.” He opened a trunk at the foot of John’s cot and pulled out a matching set of graysweats.
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John leaned closer and saw his name stenciled on the chest: JOHN-117.
“No slacking. On the double!” Mendez tapped John between his shoulder blades with the baton.
Lightning surged across John’s chest. He sprawled on the cot and gasped for breath.
“I mean it! Go Go GO!”
John moved. He couldn’t inhale—but he ran anyway, clutching his chest. He managed a ragged breathby the time he got to the showers. The other kids looked scared and disoriented. They all stripped offtheir nightshirts and stepped onto the conveyor, washed themselves in lukewarm soapy water, thenrinsed in an icy cold spray.
He ran back to his bunk, got into underwear, thick socks, pulled on the sweats and a pair of combatboots that fit his feet perfectly.
“Outside, trainees,” Mendez announced. “Triple time . . .march! ”
John and the others stampeded out of the barracks onto a strip of grass.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the edge of the sky was indigo. The grass was wet with dew. There weredozens of rows of barracks, but no one else was up and outside. A pair of jets roared overhead and arcedup into the sky. Far away, John heard a metallic crackle.
Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked, “You will make five equal-length rows. Fifteen trainees in each.”He waited a few seconds as they milled about. “Straighten those rows. You know how to count tofifteen, trainee? Take three steps back.”
John stepped into the second row.
As he breathed the cold air he began to wake up. He started to remember. They had taken him in themiddle of the night. They injected him with something and he slept for a long time. Then the womanwho had given him the coin told him he couldn’t go back. That he wouldn’t see his mother or father—
“Jumping jacks!” Mendez shouted. “Count off to one hundred. Ready, go.” The officer started theexercise and John followed his lead.
One boy refused—for a split-second. An instructor was on him instantly. The baton whipped into theboy’s stomach. The kid doubled over. “Get with the program, boot,” the trainer snarled. The boyuncurled and started jumping.
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John had never done so many jumping jacks in his life. His arms and stomach and legs burned. Sweattrickled down his back.
“Ninety-eight—99—100.” Mendez paused. He drew in a deep breath. “Sit-ups!” He dropped onto thegrass. “Count off to one hundred. No slacking.”
John threw himself on the ground.
“The first crewmen who quits,” Mendez said, “gets to run around the compound twice—and then comesback here and does two hundred sit ups. Ready . . . count off! One . . . two . . . three. . . .”
Deep squats followed. Then knee bends.
John threw up, but that didn’t buy him any respite. A trainer descended on him after a few seconds. Johnrolled back over and continued.
“Leg lifts.” Mendez continued like he was a machine. As if they all were machines.
John couldn’t go on—but he knew he’d get the baton again if he stopped. He tried; he had to move. Hislegs trembled and only sluggishly responded.
“Rest,” Mendez finally called. “Trainers: get the water.”
The trainers wheeled out carts laden with water bottles. John grabbed one and gulped down the liquid. Itwas warm and slightly salty. He didn’t care. It was the best water he’d ever had.
He flopped on his back in the grass and panted.
The sun was up now. It was warm. He rolled to his knees and let the sweat drip off him like a heavy rain.
He slowly got up and glanced at the other children. They crouched on the ground, holding their sides,and no one talked. Their clothes were soaked through with perspiration. John didn’t recognize anyonefrom his school here.
So he was alone with strangers. He wondered where his mother was, and what—
“A good start, trainees,” Mendez told them. “Now we run. On your feet!”
The trainers brandished their batons and herded the trainees along. They jogged down a gravel paththrough the compound, past more cinderblock barracks. The run seemed to go on forever—they ranalongside a river, over a bridge, then by the edge of a runway where jets took off straight into the air.
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Once past the runway, Mendez led them on a zigzagging path of stone.
John wanted to think about what had happened, how he got here, and what was going to happen next . . .but he couldn’t think straight. All he could feel was the blood pounding through him, the ache in hismuscles, and hunger.
They ran into a courtyard of smooth flagstones. A pole in the center flew the colors of the UNSC, a bluefield with stars and Earth in the corner. At the far end of the yard was a building with a scalloped domeand white columns and dozens of wide steps leading to the entrance. The words NAVAL OFFICERSACADEMY were chiseled into the arch over the entrance.
A woman stood on the top step and beckoned to them. She wore a white sheet wrapped around her body.She looked old to John, yet young at the same time. Then he saw the motes of light orbiting her head andknew she was an AI. He had seen them on vids. She wasn’t solid, but she was still real.
“Excellent work, Chief Petty Officer Mendez,” she said in a resonant, silk-smooth voice. She turned tothe children. “Welcome. My name is Déjà and I will be your teacher. Please come in. Class is about tostart.”
John groaned out loud. Several of the others grumbled, too.
She turned and started to walk inside. “Of course,” she said, “if you prefer to skip your lessons, you maycontinue the morning calisthenics.”
John double-timed it up the steps.
