Chapter 21
…
Echo looked down 7723's sniper's scope at the training course below and watched himself scuttle behind one of the low walls for cover. Destroyers advanced over the bridge connecting his half of the course from the suggestion of a courtyard on the other side. Behind the courtyard was a row of buildings, and inside one of those buildings was his target.
He set 7723 to start taking snipe shots in an effort to draw enemy fire. In the same moment, he hauled 7721 and 7722 halfway up from where they were hanging on both sides of the narrow bridge. He sent 7724 out from behind the other shallow wall to shoot a grappling hook across the channel while the other two rolled grenades toward the enemy.
For a moment, he looked through two pairs of eyes up at the sniper position where 7723 was popping in and out of sight with a dead hit each time—if only the destroyers hadn't been ray shielded. Then, with 7724 zip-lining over the channel, he saw the bright flashes and knew the destroyers' shields were down.
Echo vaulted over the wall and sent a simulated rocket toward the tank that was targeting him. The tank shut down in a flurry of sparks, and while he advanced toward the building in front of him, dodging and shooting B-1s, a regular training bolt hit 7724 just as he was about to reach the end of the zip-line.
The squad collectively winced as pain zinged through 7724's leg, and Echo forced 7724's hands to stay firm on the grappling gun while he himself continued running for the building's entrance, discarding the empty rocket launcher and continuing with a pistol in both hands. From the edge of the bridge, 7721 rolled more grenades toward the destroyers and 7722 shot at those whose shields were down. At the same time, 7724 let go of the zip-line and landed on solid ground.
From 7723's sniper position across the room, he loaded a rocket launcher and began methodically taking out the guns on the side of the target building. It was a much messier, louder operation than Echo liked, but this simulation didn't grade on stealth.
7724 circled around toward the back entrance while 7722 and 7721 left their cover at the edge of the bridge to engage the enemy more directly. The last destroyer toppled over and 7721 took up a post on one side of the main entrance while Echo and 7722 went inside by the ground floor entrance.
It was dark. He switched to night vision. There on the floor was the inert droid meant to stand in as his target captive. He took a step toward it, rolled suddenly to the side, and saw bright lights flash from the wall a moment later, searing the air where he had stood.
He must have accessed the simulation's network unintentionally—otherwise he wouldn't have known the booby trap was there. He would have to take more care not to cheat from now on.
Carefully 7722 approached the point where the light had emitted. There was a small node on the wall. He blasted it point-blank, and pulled a scanner from his belt to sweep the rest of the room. Nothing. Echo heaved the dummy over his shoulder. Up three levels, 7724 was just entering the rear hallway and sweeping for traps. There were four of them: one for a doorway on each side, one in the middle of the hall, and a blip of something near the lift, which was their final target.
7724 waited until Echo had gotten the "captive" out of the building before backing up to the ledge he'd come in by and shooting the nearest emitter. It produced a small explosion, but nothing that would weaken the structure too badly. He quickly took out the other four, ran to the lift, detached the detonation pack from his back and began assembling the mock explosive. While Echo took the droid back over the bridge with 7721 and 7722 tailing, 7724's mental chronometer ran down and he hooked the last few pieces together before syncing it all with his handheld.
Out the window again, and after a quick crawl and jump down, he ran to join the rest of them. Halfway to the bridge, he hit the button and watched the structure flash briefly in confirmation of success. The lighting changed, shifting more blue, and Echo checked the simulation's total run time. 19:32:08. A new record, but not as good as he wanted.
"Very impressive," said a Kaminoan voice from the doorway. They all turned to see Ilu Bai approaching: one of the original trainers. He had done some work with the squad before Echo had joined them, according to their collective record. His opinion had not seemed high.
"Thank you, sir," said Echo, advancing to stand at the head of the group just as 7723 and 7724 joined them. "Unfortunately, this program does not make full use of our abilities. But it does provide an adequate physical challenge."
Ilu Bai glanced up at the tower 7723 had been sniping from, and the extensive obstacle course they had all cleared before reaching that point. "It's unfortunate that your greatest advantage over other squads is also your greatest weakness."
Echo did not ask what he meant.
"I wonder," Ilu Bai mused, staring with half-lidded eyes into each helmet, one by one. "Was your malfunction on Anaxes an isolated defect in your implant, or could it be a significant risk for all members of your squad?"
"There is no further risk of such a malfunction," said Echo.
"You seem terribly certain." Ilu Bai folded his hands. "But Sa Eno has always insisted that your programming could resist any corruption from enemy software… before this occurred."
"There will always be unknowns, sir," Echo replied flatly. "My implant has been adapted to resist such threats in the future."
"Is that so." Ilu Bai smiled coldly down at Echo. "I have a theory I will be discussing with Sa Eno. I believe your isolation from the rest of the group was a direct cause of your aggression. It shouldn't be too difficult to test."
Alarm sparked through the network.
"After all, you are the more volatile element in this squad, ARC-Zero-Four-Zero-Eight. Your mind was introduced to it because the commandos were too reliant on outside orders to be effective. It is unimaginable that they would take it upon themselves to kill civilians and fellow clones. You, on the other hand…." Ilu Bai turned back toward to the exit. "Perhaps we can find a more stable unit to replace you."
Resistance continued to surge from the back of his mind, a vague synergy of defensiveness in four parts. Echo's first impulse was to shut it down completely, but the thoughts quickly crystallized into something rational.
If Ilu Bai talked to Sa Eno about the details of the Anaxes mission, he may already suspect something went awry with Echo's chip. They had to warn Sa Eno of the possible consequences should he discover the truth.
Reaching out through the city network, he located Sa Eno; she was in her lab as usual, running tests on a droid she'd modified. He could tell from the data she was inputting. He commanded the screen she was using to open a new file and type out the words: Urgent: no mention of surgery. Decommission sure to follow any knowledge of the device's removal. Diode Squad project possibly terminated. 04087721222324.
A lift was coming toward the lab, and Echo suspected it carried Ilu Bai. The file Echo had made vanished suddenly from the lab's network. Together, the squad walked out of the simulation room and the maintenance droids zipped inside to stow and reset the battle droids. At the sharp scraping noise of metal against the floor, a brief memory flickered of a lopsided smile, a withered body limp in his arms. Then it was gone, filed away in its proper place without another thought, one of a million bits of data forgotten as soon as it was processed.
…
The door gave a muted chime, and Sa Eno distractedly commanded it to open.
"I have observed them in action, as you suggested," Ilu Bai said without preamble as he invaded her lab with impatient strides. He spoke in terse Kaminoan—a private conversation, then. She turned away from the console where Echo's message had appeared and then vanished just minutes before. "I am not prepared to plead their case before Lama Su and the Republic high command."
"Why not?" asked Sa Eno, responding in kind. She tabbed quickly between the various displays of data she was feeding the droid, and glanced up at Ilu Bai's long face—narrower than most, almost unpleasantly so. "Did they not perform well?"
"On the contrary…." Ilu Bai paced slowly with only a cursory glance at the work in front of her. "Their performance was more than adequate. But that will not relieve concerns about their reliability. Your report on the arc trooper's condition seems too confident to me. How do you know this cannot happen again?"
"I have… removed the programming which allowed for the violence to occur."
"How is that possible?" Ilu Bai stopped and half-closed his eyes.
Sa Eno set down her datapad and turned to face him fully. "The implant developed a conflict with itself which resulted in a misinterpretation of orders. It over simplified the incoming data." She realized she sounded flustered and hoped he interpreted it as mere professional embarrassment. "I have rewritten parts of his base programming to be more thorough, and strengthened the firewall programs to account for that. Also… it has been affirmed that Diode Squad can function independently of him when required, so they will be able to influence Unit Zero's actions on such an occasion. They can act as a failsafe for him."
"They didn't manage to stop him before." Ilu Bai angled his head to look with mock curiosity at the droid she was working on.
"Yes, but that is because his implant severed the network in order to keep the virus from spreading. Now I have modified Unit Zero and the network to immediately give complete control to the remaining units in case of infection, rather than simply cutting them off. If the virus spreads to more than two units, infected units will be terminated instantly."
"I see." Ilu Bai paused and straightened, seeming undecided about whether she or a blank corner of the wall was more interesting to look at. He lifted her datapad off the table where she'd set it as he came back around.
She restrained herself from demanding he put it down. Her research on the squad was legally the property of the military, and any research outside that should be uninteresting to Ilu Bai. Hopefully no other mysterious message would appear on its own while Ilu Bai watched.
"Well, it does appear you have taken this problem seriously," he said. "You'll have to forgive my impulsive judgment. But I am not certain even this will be enough to recommend the complete unit for a return to active duty… given the severe political consequences of their mistakes."
"What consequences?" Sa Eno lifted a hand palm-up. Thankfully, Ilu Bai handed the pad over, and she saw that he hadn't navigated away from the original screen.
"Relations between Mrlsst and Anaxes are… strained at this time due to the number of Mrlssi killed during your project's last mission. The Mrlssi have categorized it as a massacre. A small group of them are advocating for secession from the Republic, and the Mrlssi scientific community is demanding an investigation… which the Republic has refused to carry out, in the interest of military security, of course. I'm afraid Diode Squad is a convenient scapegoat. And to be perfectly fair… it does seem to me that their malfunction was the primary catalyst for this… messy situation." He used one small hand gesture to encompass her entire lab.
"You're saying the Republic will permanently decommission the entire squad, simply as a token apology toward the Mrlssi?" Sa Eno stiffened to her full height.
"It is a small sacrifice, to ensure the continued support of Mrlsst." Ilu Bai put his hands behind his back. "I'm sure the Anaxsi military have some hand in this request, and given that they are to the navy what Kamino is to the army… high command will never require them to admit fault. Your Diode Squad is unusual enough that they can be blamed without putting the entire clone army into question."
"You speak as if a decision has already been reached! This squad has proven invaluable to the Republic—they saved the navy from that virus. The Republic could have lost the war by now without them!"
"They did save the Republic navy, yes, without the help… or interference… of ARC-Zero-Four-Zero-Eight. Which is why we might make a compromise: if the ARC trooper is decommissioned, I may be free to recommend the squad be returned to active service under new leadership."
"I will continue studying Unit Zero, even if he is decommissioned," Sa Eno said firmly, once she'd gathered herself.
"That has not yet been decided," Ilu Bai insisted, stepping close. "He may be too unpredictable to keep. I believe his background has made him unstable. He has become the weak point in the squad."
"He is no threat to any of us. I will limit his functions if need be, but he is my project! The military was only interested in him once I proved he could be useful." Sa Eno's voice went crisp with bitterness. "Before that, they were content to let me study his adaptation to the implant without any interference. If the military is finished with him, he should be kept available to me for research. If nothing else, I will need him as a model for adapting another clone unit to this technology."
"Perhaps," Ilu Bai said softly. "But if I were you, I wouldn't risk my entire project on one clone that was broken to begin with. It is curious to me that you put so much effort into putting him back together in the first place."
"It provided a great deal of insight into the adaptive capabilities of the human body when combined with supportive technology." She stepped away from him, back toward the droid, but Ilu Bai went on.
"That may be, but from my point of view, he has certainly outlived his usefulness."
"Your wastefulness is shameful," Sa Eno said in a cutting whisper, glancing at him. "Our heritage of survival was not built on such carelessness."
"No? It was not built on sentimentality either. You must learn to leave lesser beings behind, Doctor. They will only hold you back." He headed for the door at last. "I will be in touch."
The door opened, and shut, and at last Sa Eno was alone. She waited a few seconds to be sure he was gone before pressing down on the comm panel.
"Diode Squad, this is Sa Eno." Her voice was cool and held none of the frustration it had during her conversation with Ilu Bai. "Report to the lab immediately."
…
The lift took a few minutes. During those few minutes, Echo was surprised at the mild but tenacious insistence that stayed active in the back of his mind, reminding him first of his promise to Rex, and then of his duty to the Republic. He had observed Ilu Bai's conversation with Sa Eno, of course, and the implicated threat in his words was severe. If Echo was terminated for inadequacy, as Ilu Bai predicted, at least the rest of the squad would be preserved to continue with the effort to save the Republic. But if Echo was condemned as a traitor, they would be put under suspicion by association. They were one mind, after all, sharing the same treasonous memories and ideas.
Another half-dead clone being transformed into what he was now would be an inevitable risk either way—the moment the new Unit Zero joined the network, he would know all of Diode's memories, all of their intel regarding the chip. He could leak the information to the wrong people. And Sa Eno would face the same dilemma of whether to keep the chip in or hope that it never met the same sort of virus. She was already keeping secrets from the military. It would be better to confront her with all of it on their own terms.
We could escape. The thought drifted across his mind and he wasn't sure which unit it came from. It had arisen so many times, an irrational idea that had faded out as his old self died. The doctor had mentioned the capability of terminating them at will, and Echo knew that with his dependence on the implant, death would be all too simple a matter.
No, escape was pointless. Sa Eno was the only person who was in any position to help them prevent this oncoming catastrophe… a catastrophe that Echo found completely unproductive to contemplate. The data he needed wasn't there.
He had tried to analyze what was there in the facility network. The encryption on the Fett project's initial planning files hadn't taken him more than a few hours to bypass. There had been multiple alert systems. Blinding them provided an interesting challenge. But once he had the data laid out before him, it had been ultimately unhelpful. There was no accurate data about the chip—the only two places it seemed to show up at all, it was referred to as the "secondary inhibitive augmentation".
There was no use in trying to prevent something which was made so inevitable by beings much more powerful than he was. It was not his purpose.
No. Unacceptable. It was unacceptable for him to turn himself over to death without an attempt at life, at effect. That is every soldier's imperative. That is the lesson the rest of him needed to learn.
Why? Echo's mind quieted into simple streams of data, the city's pulse. He did not think. He observed until they entered the lab.
Sa Eno did not rise. She glanced up from her computer terminal only for a moment, still feeding data to the droid. The door closed behind them and they took off their helmets, knowing she would ask them to. Judging by the record of responses she had elicited from the droid today, she was testing its creative decision making skills in a military context.
She remained silent for a few more minutes before she finally straightened and said, "Let's test your networking capabilities. Can you detect any recording devices in this laboratory?"
"Yes," Echo said.
"Can you activate or deactivate them remotely?"
"Yes."
"Are any of them active now?"
"No."
"Good." Sa Eno's voice lowered and she stood, her attention fully turned on them. "Were any of them active during my conversation with Ilu Bai?"
"Yes, Doctor. You seem to have understood my message."
"Well enough. Although I must admit, I am… somewhat startled by the initiative it must have taken for you to send it." Sa Eno looked at him with wide eyes, her voice soft with disbelief. "I can only assume you know more about this chip than you told me."
He hesitated, trying to read her vocal tone and watch for any hints in her minute facial movements. She didn't seem angry, but Kaminoans could be very good at hiding that.
"Any deception on my part was more than an act of self-preservation," he said. "I was acting in the Republic's best interests."
"Against regulation." Sa Eno blinked down at him, keeping enough of a distance that Echo didn't have to crane his neck much to meet her eyes.
"Yes." A near imperative to explain everything welled in his mind and was suppressed. They must proceed carefully, treat this like any other mission and consider the odds of success.
"I think the effects of your mission were more drastic than I imagined. You seem… different, even with your original parameters restored."
"You said my original parameters were modified after the mission, to give more control to the other units." And to ensure their destruction if their disobedience was too severe. "Were you lying to Ilu Bai?"
"You asked me to lie to him. It is a change Ilu Bai would no doubt approve of." Sa Eno glanced at the commandos behind him, although he knew they wore the same blandly attentive look that he did. "I would not have taken such a risk to my career if I was not fairly certain you were telling the truth. But you surprise me, Echo. I have so much more to learn about your mind."
She was using his name to test whether he had an emotional response to it. Or else she was simply amused by it.
"I thought you must be lying about that." He kept his tone quiet and respectful. "I did not sense any outside modification of the network. Any control the squad has over it is given only with my consent."
"I imagine it feels that way to you," Sa Eno mused. "After all, if you are one mind, you can hardly treat their thoughts as entirely separate from your own. Some of their wishes will inevitably affect you, and you may not even realize it."
Doubt entered his mind. He ran an analysis on raw data flow. But the synergy during normal functioning was such that even clear commands originating physically from, say, 7722's implant, were still being controlled by Echo as administrator of the network.
"I am the network," Echo rasped quietly.
"Yes. Are you sure you don't feel any different, now that you have experienced separation from the network for a prolonged period of time?"
"I am aware of the discomfort I felt. It clearly occurred, but I don't think it affects my experience of reality now. Or my decisions."
"Then this streak of creative defiance is not a new development?" Sa Eno narrowed her eyes, and it almost looked like she was smiling. It was not exactly a reassuring expression.
"Please clarify."
Sa Eno's patient tone began to sound a little more firm. "Have you used your networking abilities to spy on people before your latest mission?"
"That is part of the squad's function as specialized commandos, Doctor," Echo said. "Of course we have used our abilities for observation."
"I mean people who you have no business spying on," Sa Eno sighed. "Such as myself, or Ilu Bai."
"I regularly process data of all kinds from many areas of the facility network. Doctor, you encouraged me to do this, with an implied order not to advertise such actions."
"And yet I never encouraged you to keep secrets from me. You have maintained your independence… more than I ever expected, and I wonder where that streak of will is coming from. I suppose you know what Ilu Bai has threatened."
"Yes, Doctor. I… that is, I, separately, am to be replaced as network administrator. I regret the malfunction which led to this."
"And you think his decision might be connected to the chip which I removed."
"Yes. If he knew you removed it from me he would order my death immediately. Your research would be shut down."
Sa Eno sighed heavily and tapped her fingertips against one another in an uneasy sequence. "What evidence do you have to support this?"
"You saw that he was convinced of my instability. I think he suspects that I know what the chip is designed to do."
"Do you? I admit, even I am not aware of it. The fetal development record states that it inhibits willful or aggressive tendencies, but I was never able to detect this function in my studies. Nor any other function. But I never considered removing it from you in case it served some necessary purpose that I simply hadn't yet discovered."
"You're correct, Doctor. Its true purpose has been well concealed," Echo said. "It's a resting program, leaving no signature and having no apparent function until the time of its purposeful activation. It was a coincidence that the virus triggered it early, but it was clearly responsible for my violence toward the Mrlssi and my commanding officer."
Sa Eno's face warped a bit with skepticism. "Are you suggesting the Republic military ordered programming in every clone to turn them into indiscriminate killers at the touch of a button? That would be too senseless, even for them."
"Not indiscriminate. I think there is a specific target in mind, but I could be wrong. The information I gathered during that mission suggests that this chip has been triggered early in at least one trooper before, and resulted in extreme aggression toward allies, even when enemies were nearby. It seems plausible that the chip is designed to produce that effect."
She was angry now. That tight set of her mouth was familiar. "Why would the Republic want its army to destroy itself?"
"I believe the chip was commissioned by a traitor to the Republic who plans to use the clone army to destroy the Republic. If Ilu Bai knows the chip's true purpose, and knows that it is confidential, and if he suspects mine malfunctioned on Anaxes, then that would explain his eagerness to remove me in particular. I am only explaining this to you because there is a high probability that I will be terminated whether or not you know the truth. You are the only Kaminoan scientist I believe might be willing to work against this plot, and I would be willing to—" his thoughts hitched and slowed for a baffling moment. "To voluntarily take full blame for the navy's actions against Anaxes, if it meant protecting you from suspicion and giving you time to devise a way to stop the chip."
"You are asking me to risk my life as a scientist. I have never observed this kind of fervor in you before. Something certainly did change on your last mission."
"The only thing that changed is that I became aware of an enormous threat to everything I was created to serve," Echo said. "I assumed I existed only to follow orders, but only orders from the Republic, and if the Republic is gone, my existence is meaningless."
"That is an interesting conclusion," Sa Eno said quietly. Her eyes moved restlessly around a corner of the room, as they did when she was thinking hard. "Have you never thought your existence is meaningful because of its contribution to science?"
"That does not outweigh my imperative to protect the Republic at all costs. Your research would no longer benefit anyone."
Sa Eno gave a little "hm" of protest. "You cannot predict who it might benefit in the future."
"Certainly not as many as you could benefit if you turned your efforts toward stopping this traitor's use of the chip. You condemned Ilu Bai for wasting lives. Lives are resources, Doctor, even the lives of clones. And this chip will result in a greater waste of life than this entire war has seen. The army will turn against the Jedi, and the Jedi will kill us in self-defense. When the Jedi are dead, the Separatists will destroy us because our loyalty will never allow us to serve them. The entire Fett cloning project will be wasted."
"But why would Lama Su agree to install this chip if it is only going to destroy all our hard work?"
"The Republic has already paid more than the standard price for most of the clones this facility has produced. I think this traitor is someone who was powerful enough to make a deal with Lama Su and paid that extra as compensation for following this plan. Who cares what a customer does with the products he has already bought?"
Sa Eno growled under her breath and paced a tight circle back and forth in front of him. "I would ask you to show me the evidence, but if you are lying to me, you could just as easily change the data. I think you are telling the truth. Some people have absolutely no pride in their work, their reputation. I've seen it before. You are a work of art." She made a sweeping gesture with her long slender hand, encompassing the entire squad. "In fact, every adult Fett clone has taken thousands of hours of work to mold into what you were even before I took you on as my project. And yet Lama Su would throw that work away merely for a little extra funding. It is inconceivable to me."
"You have been keeping secrets to protect this project since its inception," Echo said evenly, remembering her furious commands to lab assistants to send positive reports even while he languished, his unregulated emotions driving him to reject the implant, tear blindly at the new nodes grafted onto his body, the wires and tubes that kept him alive. "You have trusted me with unwarranted freedom by programming me to pursue direct access to any computer network I encounter. I have used that freedom to learn, to protect myself, and to complete mission objectives. The mission to stop this conspiracy is more important than anything the Republic will ever ask this squad to do. Stop this, Doctor. You have the means. Stop it without detection, and you will know your work has impacted billions of lives throughout the entire galaxy. It will be your finest accomplishment as a scientist."
Sa Eno stared at him with something like wonder.
"How do you propose I stop this without detection?" she whispered, looking curious.
"The Mrlssi scientists seemed to believe it could be possible through a specialized, biological virus."
Sa Eno instantly shook her head. "That seems like a reckless approach. It would be much better to treat it as a complicated piece of code. I agree that based on what you and your other units have said, it seems that the chips give and receive—or at least interpret—commands from an outside source. If I can understand how the chip receives its commands, there should be a way to also permanently disable that reception."
"Will you study it?"
Sa Eno's voice held an undertone of hollow laughter. "If I am allowed to continue studying anything at all!"
"You will avoid suspicion if... you surrender me for termination, and allow the rest of the squad to work independently." Again, the resistance. There was a drag on his thoughts whenever they approached the destruction of Unit Zero. A thin echo of refusal from the rest of the network.
"Absolutely not. They need a leader—"
Yes. But not just any leader.
"—and I will not allow my work to be thrown away. I would just as soon keep all five of you in the lab indefinitely… as much of a waste as that would be, it would be worse to discard you completely. If they insist on replacing Unit Zero, I can buy some time while working on the newest subject."
"Doctor…." Echo began with full intent to argue for caution, for necessary sacrifice, but a strong reminder flashed in his mind; in the interests of security, it would in fact be best if they found a way to keep the unit together. "Do you think that will be allowed?"
"I'm sure we can find a way to persuade them, between the two of us." She gave him an appraising glance as she reached inside the cold storage compartment to retrieve the chip. "You have proven quite perceptive and resourceful. I'm eager to explore all the implications of this turn of events."
Echo remained silent. Yes, success was most assured when the squad remained one. He took a breath, waiting for the adrenaline levels to fall. Sa Eno's mouth twitched as she placed the chip under a scanner.
"You were worried."
"No, Doctor."
"No, not worried." She sifted through the results of the scan with a gentle finger stroke on the display. "But you perceive a threat, and your body has responded to an acceptable degree and not any further than is necessary in order to enhance your reflexes. That is the entire purpose of your emotional inhibitive programming. But I wonder how to measure the psychological limits of that."
Echo stood as still as the droid Sa Eno had been tinkering with, debating with himself whether there was anything more to say. She had almost accepted the challenge too easily. But she seemed earnest so far, and he had done all he could. The tension in his mind began to relax again into the same comfortable data flow. It was… a relief.
"Ilu Bai," Sa Eno said venomously under her breath. "He never did approve of my project… well, you remember. He trained the squad."
"Yes, he did. I remember." Memories surfaced of looking up at Ilu Bai's disdainful face from four pairs of eyes; of lifting rifles and pistols with hands so much smaller than they were now; of lying on the edge of sleep, wondering, with a strong awareness of the rest of him falling rapidly, piece by piece into dreams. "His training methods are fairly standard for commandos."
"Perhaps. But he had no appreciation for your unique abilities."
A memory of charging into a training simulation, swarmed by droids with no instructions other than to do what was necessary to survive. They were squinting through the visors of their helmets at glimpses of one another between masses of metal limbs, trying to shoot their way through while outnumbered a hundred to one. Failing and failing. Again, again, Ilu Bai said, until Echo stared backward in time at his many small hands, amazed to see them shaking in physical anticipation of the shocks from their training suits whenever a bolt hit one of his bodies. Ilu Bai stared down at him from so far away, seeming genuinely bewildered. Can you not think beyond pointing and shooting? Are you no better than these droids?
"He was understandably concerned with their hesitation to adapt and make necessary judgment calls in battlefield simulations," said Echo. "That is a critical flaw in a commando squad."
He remembered the annoyance in Ilu Bai's words as he congratulated Sa Eno, back when the squad finally graduated with Unit Zero's guidance. After Echo had joined the network, the squad's mind had opened. Before, Ilu Bai's instructions to "adapt!" were as useless as if the word was spoken in a foreign language; the squad did not understand, had no reserves of creativity inside their mind, only the deep-seated impulse to obey, to defer.
"He will want to test the failsafes... I have no choice but to implement them, despite the danger now being irrelevant," Sa Eno thought aloud. She turned her head toward him suddenly. "Will you know if he suspects me?"
"If he voices that suspicion to someone else. Or indicates it strongly through his actions."
"You are monitoring them?"
"I can, if necessary. I can monitor nearly anyone in Tipoca City."
"Purely out of curiosity…." Sa Eno almost sounded frightened, again with that look of wonder. "Could you fabricate commands from… perhaps, Lama Su… if it ever became necessary to cancel a termination order?"
"I could try, but it would carry a high risk. The moment Lama Su becomes aware someone is forging commands from him, he will most likely be able to trace it back to me. It would be one of the most obvious conclusions he could draw, and your research would be condemned as a security hazard, and you, a traitor. If it came to it, I could possibly manipulate the city's network to allow for a quick escape, but you would not be able to continue your work. I recommend we employ as little deception as possible, while still keeping my surgery and the research on the chip a secret."
"You have given this a great deal of thought." Sa Eno stared hollowly at the scanner's display, her hand hovering over it.
"Do you think Ilu Bai will be distracted from any suspicion if you offer to let him test me?"
"Test you for what?"
"For the instability he believes I suffer."
Fierce disapproval swallowed Sa Eno's slightly dazed expression. "No. I don't think that will be necessary. If he truly suspects you know of the chip, or that your chip caused your aggression, it's too convenient an opening for him to find out." She waved a hand abruptly at the screen. "This is the most infuriating piece of technology I've ever seen. If it hadn't been removed in the other four before I began work on them, the Diode project would have killed me early from pure frustration."
"I assume they predicted it would be necessary." He remembered Sa Eno and her assistants lifting them, one at a time, onto four separate operating tables, and telling them to lie still. When you wake, you will be better. You will be unique. Before and after that time, a blurred sense of disorientation, of inadequacy… but she had been right. They were better as a whole of four parts. And they were even better now.
"Perhaps the military never truly expected that units one through four could be used for anything other than research," Sa Eno sighed. "Or maybe they were concerned I would someday discover something I should not. In your case, I began work on you before anyone else intervened, and saw no immediate conflict with the chip at the time the hardware was installed." She turned her eyes back to scans. "If it had caused any conflict, I wonder if they would have forced me to discard the entire project. Perhaps I would be facing this problem either way. I will think of it as a special challenge."
"The chip does seem designed to resist any attempt to understand how it works," Echo said, processing the scanner's limited analysis. "But your focus on damaging its reception capability seems astute. My chip forced my implant into a deadlock because of exposure to the Verpine virus, which tells me that it may be designed to activate through contact with a similar signal or network. The aggression was prompted by a voice command… and the deadlock broken in the same instant."
"A voice command?" Sa Eno looked puzzled. "The orders from Supreme Chancellor Palpatine?"
"Yes. That's not necessarily proof that he is the traitor, since the chip was triggered under such unusual circumstances. But it does give us somewhere to begin."
"I'm not sure how I can go about testing any of these ideas," Sa Eno sighed. "But perhaps if you send me the data you collected from before I removed yours… I can at least get started."
"Yes, Doctor. Packaging the data now. It may take a moment. May I ask what your latest project is?" He gestured toward the droid sitting on standby on the floor.
"Oh… I am testing the potential uses of more complex sensory systems in droids. By comparing it to the data from your implants, I hope to improve your sensory control."
"Sensory… control?" Echo asked.
"Yes… giving you conscious control over how much sensation you feel in your modified limbs or even your original body."
"Are you thinking primarily of shutting down pain responses?"
"That could be one use, yes. In extreme situations, turning off physical pain could provide focus where otherwise the mind would face interference and distraction. But we must not allow these responses to remain shut off for too long. There would have to be a secondary system in place to re-activate the primary system when danger is too high and should not be ignored."
"Respectfully, Doctor… I don't see the point. I have full sensation in most of my body already, and I can ignore most pain signals."
"It would allow you to choose your own inhibitive settings, particularly when it is beneficial to experience more," Sa Eno said, "since the experience of emotion is tied closely to the nervous system."
"It would be unproductive to choose any settings other than the ones you have already put in place, Doctor." Echo stared at her, wishing he understood her reasoning. "That much was made clear from the beginning. It would be especially unnecessary to enable the rest of the squad to respond to emotional stimulation from my brain. I can think of no significant advantage this would give me."
"Really? None at all?" Sa Eno sat down so that her face was more level with his. "What is the evolutionary value of emotion?"
Echo thought about it for a moment. "It is, as you say, an extension of the nervous system. Pain and pleasure reinforce which behaviors are most likely to lead to survival. Pain produces a fear response, which encourages one to avoid danger. But I'm a soldier. By definition, I cannot avoid danger."
"But you must be aware of it." Her dark glassy eyes were fixed on him, reflective. "And you must have motivation. By deceiving me, you have shown a motivation beyond the simple imperative to follow orders. I am still not convinced there is no correlation between this and the fact that many of your regulative functions were recently shut down."
Echo hesitated. "Perhaps." He thought he understood her reasoning now. "You believe loyalty is emotionally driven. You wish to know whether full inhibition of our emotions will result in a less effective army."
"I still hope to understand why the original units were so unmotivated before your integration," Sa Eno said, turning back toward the scanner. "Their emotions are not regulated individually in the same way as yours. It seemed at first that putting a more regulated unit as administrator produced a stronger motivation for them. But then, since your prolonged disconnection, some part of you has become more fervent about protecting the Republic at all costs, even if it means extreme insubordination. I suspect there are still some things you are hiding from me. Perhaps more than I imagine."
Echo remembered how they had acted during his malfunction. He heard 7723 arguing with Rex about the decision to euthanize Unit Zero. But that was rational; it was self-preservation. He heard himself telling Rex, I don't even recognize myself, to be honest. Ironic, because now that he was back to normal, the emotional Echo who had spoken those words felt like someone else, someone foreign.
I don't care about my men, or the missions, or the Republic. Not like when I was human.
It all seemed so needlessly painful in retrospect. Why had he been so afraid, in the ship, as they had approached Kamino? Why had that unit not looked forward, like the rest of them, to being free from all of that? "Why would I choose to suffer when given the option to not suffer?" he asked quietly. "What is the point of giving me that choice, Doctor?"
He suspected he wasn't really being given a choice. At the very least, she would order tests to see what such a program could do and that it was functioning as predicted, regardless of what he wanted.
"Suffer?" she echoed, blinking at him. "You suffered, while you were disconnected?"
"Yes, doctor." He remembered the guilt, the shame, the fear… and even the ache of loss when Rex had told him about Fives. It all seemed so unnecessary now. Just another thing he had been at the mercy of, without control over his own body or mind. But now he was beyond that. He could see and hear and process everything clearly.
"Why?"
"I experienced intense shame because of what I did under the chip's influence. And fear of what it meant for the Republic." And for Rex, and for himself. "It was debilitating. Any motivation it created was canceled out by despair."
"And yet it made enough of an impression that you retained an interest after your systems were restored."
"As I said… why do I exist, if not to save the Republic?"
Sa Eno nodded thoughtfully to herself. But all she said was, "Well, I suppose I had better focus on analyzing these scans. If Ilu Bai is determined to shut down this project after all, I can't waste any time."
Echo understood that as a dismissal. "The data package is transferring now. Estimated time remaining is eleven minutes twenty eight seconds." He stepped toward the door.
"Thank you," Sa Eno said. "And… I'm going to give you a specific order."
All of them looked back at her, lined up neatly to exit the room
"Consult with me before making any decision which directly endangers you," she said. "Any one of you."
Echo considered lying for a moment. A simple Yes, Doctor. But then he said, "I would be a useless soldier if I was unable to make judgment calls on my own, Doctor. Gaining that ability was the entire purpose of my addition to the group."
She looked pleased, and he knew he had read her correctly. "Yes," she said. "I suppose it was."
…