Old Man's War 02 - The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Author:John Scalzi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2006-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

Jared reached a station lift as others were exiting, jabbed the button for his lab’s level and suddenly realized his arm was green. He retracted it with such violence that it smacked hard against the lift wall, bringing into sharp, painful focus that it was, in fact, his arm, and that he wasn’t going to get away from it. The other people in the lift looked at him strangely, and in one case with actual venom; he’d almost hit a woman when he drew back his arm.

“Sorry,” he said. The woman snorted and performed the forward-looking elevator stare. Jared did the same and saw a smeary reflection of his green self in the brushed metal walls of the lift. Jared’s confused anxiety by this point was peaking toward terror, but one thing he did know was that he didn’t want to lose his shit in an elevator filled with strangers. Social conditioning was, for the moment, stronger than panic over confused identity.

If Jared were to have taken a moment to question who he was, standing there silently in the lift and waiting for his level, he would have come to the startled realization that he wasn’t exactly sure. But he hadn’t; on a day-to-day basis people don’t question their identity. Jared knew that being green wasn’t right, his lab was three levels down from where he was, and that his daughter Zoë was dead.

The lift reached Jared’s level; he stepped out to a wide hallway. This level of Phoenix Station had no candy stands or commissaries; it was one of the two levels of the station given over primarily to military research. CDF soldiers stood every hundred feet or so, monitoring hallways that led deeper into the level. Each hallway was fronted by biometric and BrainPal/brain prosthesis scanners that scanned every individual who approached. If that person was not allowed down the hallway, the CDF guard would intercept them before they made it to the hallway itself.

Jared knew that he was supposed to have access to most of these hallways, but doubted that this strange body would have clearance for any of them. He set down the hall, walking as if he had a purpose, toward the hallway he knew held his lab and his office. Maybe by the time he got there he’d figure out what to do next. He was almost there when he saw every CDF guard in front of him in the hallway turn and look at him.

Crap, Jared thought. His hallway was less than fifty feet away. On impulse he sprinted toward it and was surprised at how fast his body took off toward his goal. So was the soldier guarding it; he whipped up his Empee but by the time it was up Jared was on him. Jared shoved the soldier, hard. The soldier bounced off the hallway wall and fell. Jared sprinted past him without breaking his stride and ran to his lab door, two hundred feet down the corridor. As Jared ran,

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