The Trials by Nagata Linda

Author:Nagata, Linda [Nagata, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Saga Press
Published: 2015-08-17T22:00:00+00:00

INTERIM

* * *

DIVINE FAVOR

SOMETHING HAPPENED—

What?

—and now everything is wrong, broken.

I don’t know where I am.

I can’t see anything around me.

I can’t move—not even to lift a finger. I can feel the presence of my body, its mass, the sensation of breathing, but it’s a one-way flow of information, incoming only. Signals aren’t getting out, and I can’t move.

This should frighten me, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel much of anything. I think my eyes are closed, because the only things in my field of view are icons, and there are only two of them, so I know my overlay is broken too. One icon tells me I’m linked to an irregular network. I stare at it, willing a menu to appear. Nothing happens.

The other icon is my familiar skullnet icon. It’s glowing brightly in the corner of my vision, its steady luminosity a measure of the massive, real-time interference presently occurring in my brain.

Someone on the irregular network is fucking around in there and it’s not the Red. I’m certain of that, even if I don’t know why. And it’s not the army. They never dug this deep.

Someone else. Someone clever. I decide what I’m experiencing right now is something like sleep paralysis—my brain cut off from my motor nerves. The army didn’t know how to do that . . . or if they did, they never did it to me. Then I remember what we did to Carl Vanda, what Delphi helped to do, and my anesthetized emotions start to twitch, and I get scared.

Where the fuck is my squad?

I think maybe they’re dead.

Are they dead?

I stare at the glow of the skullnet icon and I try to remember what happened, why I’m here, why I have this feeling my squad is dead. Nothing comes.

But I don’t need to rely on organic memory. I’ve got a digital memory too that contains video of everything I witnessed on the mission. I shift my gaze, seeking a menu. I wait for it to surface.

There’s nothing.

Is this a dream?

I grope for a recollection, anything. I remember being aboard the navy helicopter. I clearly remember that. I think I fell asleep on the flight back, but later . . . I saw Shima. I know I saw her. I wanted her to get on the jet—unless that was a dream?

I remember thin shafts of sunlight piercing the shadows of the hangar, and the thick, sticky smell of blood.

Why can’t I remember more?

The glowing skullnet icon is my clue. They’re fucking with my short-term memory. They don’t want me to remember what they did to my squad.

They?

Not the army, not the Red. I’ve established that. And not Uther-Fen, because if the mercs were inside my head they’d make it hurt worse. They’d make sure I remembered exactly what went down. They’d burn it into my brain in high-def detail.

Who then?

I think I know. My long-term memory is still in good shape. I have a clear recollection of the kidnap attempt in the basement of the DC federal courthouse.

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