Chapter XXVII: Testing Oneself, literally
January 6, 2540 (UNSC Calendar)/
UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Reach, Epsilon Eridani System
Of course, the first thing that I received when I got back to the Inconvenience was not a concerned 'Where were you?' it was a slap to the face, followed by an angry 'Where the hell have you been?' courtesy of my lovely girlfriend: Lieutenant Junior Grade Layla Wickett.
"Ow!"
"I said: where the hell have you been?" she was yelling now.
"It's good to see you too Lieutenant," I said while I rubbed my cheek.
"Don't you 'lieutenant' me! Tell me where the hell have you been!" she yelled. "I've been worried sick about you…"
Isn't that just sweet.
"You have a nice way of showing it…" I said while rubbing my cheek.
"Can you tell me where have you been?" she asked, calming down a little.
"I'm sorry, no."
"Ok, I see how it is," she said, turning around and leaving.
I felt a hand slap my back. "Damn buddy, that right there means you won't get laid for a long while."
As always, my best friend Pavel Klaus popped out of nowhere to make me feel like an absolute piece of shit and embarrass me.
"Why are you even here?" I asked him, more than slightly annoyed.
"Well, you have been missing for four days, believe it or not, I was concerned about you."
Isn't that just sweet. Er. Sweeter
"So, where were you after the bar fight?" he asked me.
"If someone else asks, you tell them that I was in jail for punching an officer ok?"
After a long sigh he answered. "Ok, I understand."
"Sergeant Francisco Castillo, report to the bridge," a mechanical-sounding voice said. Our new ship AI was called Eliza. It seemed like all shipboard AIs were based after female brains. Oh, and they all had stripper names.
"See you later pal," Pavel said as I walked away.
I had to be really careful where I stepped, I was still getting used to this whole new 'super-fast reflexes' thing. It seemed like it would be a while before I completely mastered it, at least that's what I had been told. I walked to the bridge with one hand leaning against a wall so that everything seemed easier in my brain.
"Ahh, sergeant, it's good to have you with us."
"I'm glad to be back Captain," I said, that statement was as close to truth as I had ever been to in my entire life.
"Now, I take it you had a little run in with ONI?"
"I am not allowed to say, sir." I might as well have been screaming 'YES!'
"Ok, interesting, whatever happened, just keep it to yourself, trust me I would know."
"Thanks sir," I said. "Where's the Colonel?" I asked.
"Well, since he is technically speaking 145 years old, he took advantage of our extra days of leave to get a replacement heart. That man has lived through a lot of stuff, although most of the time it has been inside a cylindrical cryo-tube."
"That is not the answer I expected Captain, at all."
He laughed a little before patting me in the back. "Commander Albaf wants to talk to you, I advise you be careful, she's not in a good mood."
"Thank you, sir."
I left the bridge and headed towards Albaf's office, which was incidentally, across the ship.
"So, why were you missing for four days?" Eliza's voice asked me.
"I think you know Eliza," I told her, I felt weird talking to air.
"Of course I know, I just want to hear you say it."
"Never," I replied playfully. Eliza was one of those AIs that could've been human had she not been a construct. She knew some kick ass jokes and actually took time to learn our names and communicate with us. Unfortunately her sense of humor mostly consisted of embarrassing half the people on the ship, or scaring them to death. She had even once given me a copy of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Do you know how creepy it is to read a book about an AI dominating the world when it was given to you by an AI.
"Aww, please?" she asked, her phrase sounding weird when mixed with her mechanical voice.
"No, I still haven't forgiven you for giving me that book, or for that toilet incident a year ago."
"You know that was a prank," she said.
"You do that again and I'll wipe your memory core," I warned.
"Fine, fine, relax," she said and stopped talking.
I had reached the office of Commander Raquel Albaf, ONI liaison to the UNSC Inconvenience and professional bitch.
"You're late," she said.
"Yes," I replied. "Why did you want to see me?"
"I am supposed to help you prevent from spilling any information that Alpha-II section might've given you," she stated, as if it was my fault. "I want to make very clear that I could make your life very hard if you were to feel uncooperative on this regard."
She went straight to the threatening. She was a professional bitch, really, she had once sent a squad on a suicide mission because one of its members had accidentally bumped her shoulder. Or so the legend went. Commander Albaf was from some of those nations in Earth that were constantly fighting with one another before the foundation of the UNSC. I can't remember if she was Israeli, or Syrian, or maybe even Iranian. Looking at her you realized she could've been pretty, but the lack of any importance that she gave to her own image wasn't helping her appearance. The fact that no one liked her meant that nobody thought of her as attractive. Unless, of course, you're into that kind of thing.
"Of course ma'am," I replied. "I would not dream of revealing ONI secrets."
"Well, you'd better not, or it might not end well for you."
Why is she threatening me, I'm supposed to be important or some shit.
"Ma'am, do you know what went down there?" I asked, curious as to the reason she seemed to dislike me.
I watched as the expression in her face went from surprise to anger, then back to surprise, then some confusion, anger again, and finally reluctance.
"No, all I was given was instructions and a cover story."
"Ok I see."
"You see what?"
I see that you're pissed at me because I know something you don't you whiny little bitch!
"Nothing ma'am," I told her, going against my heart's wishes.
"Dismissed."
"That's is all?"
"I said dismissed didn't I?"
I failed to answer and simply turned around and left. She only wanted to talk to me to prove a point and make herself feel better about her status or something like that. What a meanie.
I left the office of Commander Albaf and went to my room, Pavel wasn't there so I decided to head down to the firing range. I grabbed my rifle and my pistol and headed downstairs. The firing range was one of the non-esential parts of the ship, so it was on the bottom deck. It was basically the same as the one in the Count Me In, but slightly thinner, only allowing for about fifty people to be shooting at the same time. Right now it was empty, most marines were probably enjoying the last day of leave that they would have for a very long time. I grabbed a box of BR ammunition and another case for my pistol. I took my time loading the magazines, but for some reason I finished faster than usual. At times my body felt like it was moving way to slow, but in reality it was my brain moving to fast, sometimes it didn't move fast enough for my body, but still faster than regular.
Once my weapon magazines were loaded I pushed them into their respective weapons. First I decided to fire mi pistol. I raised it so that I could use its iron sights. I placed them between the eyes of my target, which happened to be none other than a snarling brute. The first shot went right where I had meant for it to go. The following shots went through the same whole. After firing my first twelve rounds I was surprised to find out that they had all connected in the space between the brute's eyes. Don't get me wrong, I was an exceptional marksman before my augmentations, but I had never managed to put all 12 rounds of a pistol in a space that could've been covered by a half-cred coin. I reloaded my pistol and placed a new target on the range, this one was a jackal sniper. I told myself that I would put every single round in its right eye. To make it more challenging I decided to place my pistol at my side before every shot. I raised it quickly and did a quick firing. Every single shot landed in the right side of the jackal's head, none had strayed more than half an inch from its eye.
"This is awesome," I told myself.
Then I decided to place targets on all fifty firing positions and shoot them al while strafing to the side. I grabbed my rifle and loaded a magazine. I placed other in my back pocket and started. Time seemed to slow down, my first round hit an angry elite right in its forehead, a second joined soon after. The second target was a jackal that met its fate with a shot to the torso through the hole in its shield and then a quick double tap to its head. I moved on to a couple of grunts, both of which I got with a single shot to the head. I was moving sideways at a continuous rate, my hands and arms seemed to do exactly what my mind told them to do. A couple of brutes were wasted with double taps to the chest and I moved on to a downsized paper target representing a hunter, this one I took out with the four rounds I had left in my magazine hitting its orange neck. I clicked the release button while still moving and loaded the next mag before the empty one had even hit the floor. I released the loading handle and ended the two-dimensional lives of the rest of my targets in less than twenty seconds. I kept my scope sighted on one unfortunate elite as the last bullet casings clattered on the floor. That noise seemed to bring time back to regular speed, shaking me out from my focused state.
"Well that was rather impressive," Eliza said.
"I see everything, whether you want it or not, even your escapades with Lieutenant Junior grade Wickett, which I must remind you, are illegal in the UNSC," she said.
"Oh, shut up, if you weren't an AI I'd call you a pervert."
"You still might, it gives my emotional cortex a jump whenever I see you two guys."
I stared dumbly at the ceiling before she spoke again.
"I was kidding, I have no emotional cortex."
"You were starting to scare me Eliza," I said as I confirmed that my weapons were empty and safe to return to my room. "You spend way to much time thinking how to scare the shit out of us."
"Well, for an AI that can perform a quadrillion calculations per minute, I am bound to have some free time, and since the understanding of human emotion is what manages to keep me occupied the most, it is what I dedicate myself to. It's only logical."
"You," I said, "are annoying."
I could almost see the AI shrug, but there weren't any holographic projectors down here. I looked back at the path I had taken while practicing on the targets. I had strafed sideways while firing at my targets. The floor was filled with smoking casings, I kicked those to a large hole that took them to the ship's smelter, that way we'd never run out of ammunition.
Now that I was done with firing practice, I had to test myself at the gym. The gym was empty except for a lone soldier in a treadmill. I started out by doing some weight lifting and surprised myself when I saw that I was able to lift around fifty pounds with each arm without really breaking a sweat. I tested myself even more when I started lifting more and more, finally I bench pressed close to 400 pounds and I ended up feeling like I could've easily done more.
"Woah," I congratulated myself after lifting the weights for the tenth time.
Next I moved on to the treadmills, the marine had left a few minutes ago, so now the gym was completely empty for me to show off without anyone peeking. I started jogging, after all, I didn't want my brain to fail again and fall face first to the floor. I started running faster and faster until the treadmill simply wouldn't move any faster. I was doing 34 miles per hour.
I finally hopped off the treadmill before it exploded.
"You shouldn't strain yourself that much," Eliza helpfully said.
"I'm trying to get used to my new body Eliza," I told her.
"You're going to pull something."
"Maybe," I said as I moved on to a punching bag. I started out by throwing simple jabs and crosses. Then I moved on to more complicated combinations. Finally I started using elbows and knees. The punching bag was moving a whole lot more than usual, but not only that, I was also noticeably less tired than before. I kicked the bag of sand with both legs, my shins striking at the side of the punching bag with a lot more force than usual. It felt good. I felt good.
"You should really stop now," Eliza warned me.
This time I listened. I dried off the sweat from my face and left the gym. "I bet you think I'm pretty awesome right now," I told the construct.
"Yes, yes you are," she said in a patronizing voice.
"What else should I try out?" I asked the artificial intelligence. This time she decided to show up on the gym holopad. Elisha chose to present herself as a woman (obviously) with short hair and Nordic features. She was dressed in some sort of lab coat. Like all AIs, she presented herself in a bluish tone, few holopads were full-color, with most of them showing only, blues, greens, and reds. The blue for terrain, green for friendlies, and red for hostiles. It worked quite well, no one needed to know what color the dirt was when heading off to fight covvies.
"All boys seem to think about are guns and being stronger than the next guy," she stated. I was forced to admit that she had a point.
"What do you propose?" I asked.
Eliza's projection disappeared from the holopad and a Rubik's cube popped up.
"Seriously?" I asked. "There are only three colors there!" I complained.
"That might be so, but this isn't intended for you to solve, there are a couple of them in the rec room."
The rec room was a room with a large TV where we were sometimes played the latest Academy Award winning film. We were also played other generic action films, but no one watched those. It also had a couple of tables that doubled as chessboards. There were some drawers with chess pieces and the like, one of those drawers contained a couple of Rubik's cubes. I grabbed one and threw it in the air a couple of times. I had never been able to solve more than one face before. I usually gave up after doing that.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Eliza asked, "Start!"
I sat down on one of the tables and looked at the cube. I started by solving the white face, same as I usually did, then I moved on to the sides, but it I couldn't get them without undoing the white face, then I realized that I wasn't supposed to do it like that, I had to work myself down from the white face. So I started assembling it in a trial and error fashion, I learned which combination of movements would change only one piece without moving the rest. Everything seemed to present itself to me. It was so much easier than before. In no time I was done.
"Impressive," admitted Eliza.
"Damn right it is," I said.
"Just shy of fifteen minutes, not bad for it being your first time with one of those."
I was starting to like this AI, she didn't even bother reminding me that she could've solved it in a fraction of a second, only dedicating a piece of her capacity to do that.
"Well, now that you've boosted the size of your ego considerably, I feel compelled to recommend you take a shower, as most of the crew is already on board and we'll be departing in no time, which means you'll be put into cryo, and I believe you know what happened when you enter cryo sweaty and feeling dirty," Eliza said.
"Yes, yes, thanks very much," I told her as I went do to just that. Halfway through to the showers my right foot seemed to move to slow while my left one kept on going. My hands weren't able to keep pace with my brain and I fell, smacking my nose onto the cold metal floor.