Refurbished Page 5

  “We’ve done that for the newbies a few times,” Dickson said. “But it gets confusing when you meet later in real life. See, we all look human in VR. It’s part of our self-image: most of us try to model our avatars after ourselves, as we once looked in real life. And while there is some resemblance between the Cicada version of ourselves and our avatars, we’re mostly unrecognizable in VR. You’ll see.”

  He reached the next two robots. These ones had different antennae than the others: theirs were helical in shape, and about as long as the two comm officers’ antennas, obviously meant for long range communications. The first robot wore a shirt with a fire-breathing dragon stamped on the front, with similar tattoos on the LED skin of the arms. The bandanna it wore came with a red and black crest that made him seem like he had a mohawk. The second Cicada had a picture of a black bird, maybe a crow, on the shirt, with similar avian-shaped ink marking the arm LEDs.

  The eyes of both robots activated, turning blue, and they studied Eric.

  “Meet our drone operators. Eagleeye and Slate. Slate is responsible for the Predators. Eagleeye the Ravens.” Slate had the dragon shirt and tattoos, Eagleeye the birds.

  “Yo,” Slate said. “Greets. You’re the new Froggy Boy, hey hey?”

  “I’m my own man,” Eric said.

  “We’ll see,” Slate said. “All you are to us at the current moment in time is a Bitch. With a big B.”

  “Thanks,” Eric said.

  “Don’t mind him,” Eagleeye said. “He likes to taunt the new recruits.”

  Slate grinned widely via his LEDs. “Taunting is the least of your problems. I’m going to hack your VR, bro, and then I’m going to haze you every moment of every day until you cry for your momma. ‘Mommy mommy please save me!’ Just saying.”

  Eric glanced at Dickson.

  “Don’t look at me,” Dickson said. “What happens in VR stays in VR.”

  Eric returned his attention to Slate. “Why?”

  “Because I can,” Slate said.

  “What’s the point?” Eric said. “We’re robots now. Only partially human… with emotions dulled by design.”

  Slate shrugged. “Tradition. Ain’t ever met a new recruit who didn’t need a good hazing to put him or her in place. I got the perfect introductory haze in mind for you. I’m thinking a big, steaming tub of shit, topped off with a scoop of ice cream.”

  “Where are you going to get shit from?” Eric said. “In case you haven’t noticed, there are very few organics on this base.”

  “Don’t give me no lip!” Slate said. “And there are enough organics. This place has a working sewer system I can access. And even if there ain’t enough to fill up a tub, there’s a meat farm nearby. Full of cowpat-laying cattle. I can already see it now, you falling headfirst into that tub of cow pies, mouth open to eat the ice-cream, and instead, you find only predigested grass.”

  “Uh, I don’t think I’ll be connecting to VR for a long time,” Eric said. He turned to Eagleeye and spoke quickly, wanting to change the subject. “I don’t recognize your accent.”

  “Native American,” Eagleeye said. “Cree. Circa 2050.”

  “I feel like one of the oldest ones here,” Eric said.

  “Pretty close,” Slate said. “And also the least experienced.”

  Dickson brought him to the snipers next. “Meet Braxton and Hicks. Our snipers.”

  These robots were dressed in the usual cargo pants and T shirt, but they wore black skull masks over the lower part of their faces, making them look like bandits. They nodded their heads slowly, saying nothing.

  “John Braxton Hicks was an English gynecologist,” Eric said without thinking. “I don’t know why I know that. Oh wait, I do. AI core.”

  “Yes,” Dickson said. “Braxton and Hicks can usually be found in the various paid whorehouses of VR. They’ve become gynecologists of sort. The name suits them. Though that’s not why we named them after John Braxton Hicks.”

  “Why then?” Eric asked.

  Braxton spoke up. “We’re good at drilling new pussies into our enemies.”

  Eric studied the Cicada, thinking he was joking at first, but that mask covered any changes in the mouth region that might have occurred, and the LEDs surrounding the eyes seemed to imply Braxton was stone cold serious.

  “Everyone has their talents,” Eric commented, unsure what to say.

  “We do indeed,” Dickson said. “These two both died around 2100. They grew up in different inner cities, and were part of gangs before they joined the army and cleaned themselves up. There’s nothing like becoming a sniper to instill discipline in a man. Or robot, as it were.”

  Dickson moved on, until he was standing beside three other Cicadas. They each wore T shirts of different colors: one red, one blue, one yellow. Their cargo pants were completely black. One of them wore stiletto boots, and had the representation of an elk virtually tattooed on the forearm.

  “Our robot operators,” Dickson said. “Bambi. Traps. And Hyperion. They manage the different land-based, bipedal support troops.”

  “Bambi,” Eric said. “Why Bambi?” His eyes fell to the elk tattoo.

  “Because,” the yellow-shirted Cicada said in a pleasant sounding female voice. “I love animals. Nice to meet you. I hear you’re a duplicate of Frogger over there.”

  “Yes,” Eric admitted.

  “Good,” Bambi said. “We could use more programmers. I need some help tweaking my avatar. Maybe you could help me later.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Eric said.

  “She hits on all the newbies,” Dickson said. “She’s French, you see. Whatever you do, don’t let her seduce you into her virtual bed. Because let’s just say, she’s a bit of a black widow. Slate’s VR hazings are a pleasure cruise compared to what Bambi will do to you. We used to have another member on the team. A Cicada named Barracuda. When she was done with him, Barracuda was a shell of himself. He requested a transfer to another unit, and we never heard from him again.”

  “She’s actually a nice dude,” Traps said. “Just don’t get on her bad side. And don’t accept her invitations to tweak her avatar, as she calls it, alone in her virtual quarters.”

  Bambi shrugged. “Your loss. I’m still waiting for a man who can keep up with me.” Her voice had assumed a seductive tone, and for a moment Eric wanted to take her up on her offer. Thankfully, his muted emotions, and his lack of a libido of any kind, helped him keep his head.

  Eric glanced at the last robot in the group. “Hyperion. Isn’t that the name of a Titan?”

  Hyperion nodded. “Father of Helios, the sun.”

  “How did you get the name?” Eric asked.

  Hyperion’s LED lips spread into a grin.

  But it was Dickson who answered. “Hyperion is a big fan of explosions. He’s always equipping his robot support troops with rockets. At his direction, they target explody things: oil tankers, fuel trucks, and so forth. Whenever you hear a boom, or the night sky lights up with a fireball as bright as the sun, you can be sure that Hyperion and his support troops are nearby. One thing you quickly learn when you deploy with him is that you don’t want to get too close to any gas stations…”

  Dickson led Eric toward the last robot, who resided by himself in a corner of the room. That particular Cicada was the only one in the whole room that was seated.

  “So you’re a Staff Sergeant?” Eric asked Dickson.

  “I am,” Dickson replied. “I report directly to the Sergeant First Class. Who you’re meeting now.”

  Dickson paused in front of the seated robot. This one had altered the LEDs lining the edges of the face to display a grizzled beard. The LEDs also imparted crow’s feet next to the eyes, and winkles on the forehead.

  “Cicada ES-92, Eric Number Five, meet Sergeant First Class Marlborough,” Dickson said. “Our Platoon Sergeant. Otherwise known as the Ass Kicker. Or Sarge for short.”

  Those blue eyes lit up and the seated Cicada stood. He rested his hands on Eric’s shoulders.
“Let me look at you. Uh huh. Hmm. Yes. You’ll do. Turn around.” He spun Eric forcefully. “Now bend over and pull down your pants!”

  Eric glanced over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, bend over and pull down your pants!” Marlborough ordered. He gave Eric a kick in the lower back area.

  Eric noticed that heads around the common area perked up as the different members of the team looked his way.

  Reluctantly, Eric bent, then slid off his drawers.

  He felt a hard kick in his rear, and toppled over.

  Dickson guffawed. “You owe me a hundred credits, Sarge.”

  “Yeah yeah,” Marlborough said. “Transmitting.”

  Eric stood up again, confused.

  “Sarge and I have an ongoing bet,” Dickson explained. “We try to see which of the newbies can take a good ass kicking without toppling over. The previous Eric managed to stay on his feet. Sarge was convinced you’d be able to do the same, and hold your own. Guess he was wrong.”

  “Sorry about that,” Marlborough told Eric. He managed to look contrite. “Part of the initiation ritual. You know how it is. I don’t see why only the others get to haze you.”

  “No need to apologize,” Eric said. And he meant it. With his emotions dialed down like they were, he hardly felt any embarrassment. Instead, the emotion he felt most was probably disappointment. He was expecting more of the man, or machine, who was in charge of the platoon.

  “I used to hunt duck when I retired,” Marlborough said. “I’d been out of the military for forty years when I died. You can imagine my delight when I was awakened in a robot body, and told I was in charge of leading a bunch of half-human machines on missions on the other side of the world.” His voice oozed sarcasm. “Anyway, you’ll get used to my leadership style. I’m fairly hands off… I’m a foot guy, as you know.” He said the latter with a wink, reminding Eric of the kick he had just received.

  “Anyhoo, Lieutenant Hanley wants you hooked up to VR ASAP,” Marlborough said. “And tomorrow, you’ll join us in training. You got a lot of work to do if you hope to be deployment ready.”

  “Yeah, great,” Eric said. “I’m truly looking forward to it.” It was incredibly hard to keep the sarcasm from his voice. In fact his words dripped with it. Oh well.

  Marlborough gave him an appraising look. Then he broke into an LED grin and patted Eric on the back. Hard. The clang surprised Eric, as did the fact that he didn’t budge an inch under the impact. It reminded him that he was all machine.

  “I’m joking,” Marlborough said. “All your training has already been implanted. The muscle memory needed to operate the various equipment, the knowledge needed to fire the different weapons. It’s all there. The training is only a formality, to help you mesh with the team. The next two months will seem to flash past, especially if you do what I do, and accelerate your time sense when you’re not forced to interact with this world. There’s nothing I can’t stand more than downtime.”

  “About that…” Eric said. “Since these memory dumps give us all the skills we need, why does the army actively seek out people with military backgrounds for the Mind Refurb program? Why not just program in the necessary backgrounds?”

  “It’s not so simple,” Marlborough said. “We want people who have personalities suited to this environment. Programming memories is one thing, but personalities is something else entirely. You touch the personality core, you have a good chance of turning someone into a psycho, if not a vegetable. That’s the short answer anyway.”

  “Dickson mentioned you keep backups of us,” Eric said. “What’s keeping the army from using our backups to field more Mind Refurbs? You could have a whole army of Cicadas who’ve already successfully transitioned from human to Mind Refurb.”

  “Did no one mention we’re considered an experimental platoon?” Marlborough said. “Maybe one day the military will create whole armies from our backups, but we’re a long ways from that. There’s the cost aspect, for one. The AI cores necessary to hold a Mind Refurb aren’t cheap. And neither are the Cicadas that harbor us. Plus, what the army is doing is currently a legal gray area. Using AI cores operated by human minds to skirt the ban on autonomous machines pulling the trigger? I’m not sure if anyone told you, but a lot of people aren’t happy about that. Our government has Midterms coming up. Congress might very well close that particular loophole. I don’t need to tell you the military is trying to keep a low profile with the Cicada program. Not producing too many units is one way to stay under the radar.”

  “Let’s say Congress does vote to close the loophole,” Eric said. “What happens to us then?”

  “Then the army pulls the plug on us,” Marlborough answered. “Quite literally.”

  6

  The weeks passed.

  Eric trained with the team, and learned the different quirks of their personalities, and fighting styles. He was assigned the position of “undesignated operator,” which meant he would jump from role to role in the platoon as necessary. Most often he assumed the role of a sniper, as did Frogger.

  Every week Dickson held a team-building event in VR. Sometimes the event would take place at the top of a simulated mountain. Other times, it would occur at the bottom of the ocean, where he’d created a makeshift dive bar.

  “I literally put the dive in dive bar,” Dickson had joked at the time.

  The week before deployment, the VR session proved particularly rowdy. It took place at a beach party in broad daylight. The avatars of the Bolt Eaters sat before a long stage, where strippers in various states of undress waggled their bodies on three separate poles.

  Fun times.

  Ordinarily strippers would have probably been afraid of performing in the day, given how many imperfections it would show in their faces and bodies, but these exotic dancers were perfect in every which way: like most avatars in virtual reality. Except perhaps maybe Hank.

  The armor operator in question was standing near the edge of the stage, clapping his hands to the strange 23rd Century music. He was short and bald in VR, and he wore sleeveless coveralls along with a cowboy hat. He had made one small concession when it came to the looks of his avatar: those arms were far bigger and more muscular than what anyone would have in real life.

  Eric ran his eyes across the tables near the stage, gazing at the different members of the team. Their VR personae weren’t so different from the robot bodies they inhabited. Dickson still chomped on a cigar. Slate wore a fire-breathing dragon shirt, and his arms were tattooed with similar mythological creatures. Eagleeye wore a hawk shirt, and small birds inked his arms. An eagle’s wings reached up from underneath the collar of his shirt, wrapping around his lower neck. And so forth.

  Some of them might have designed their own virtual clothing. But Eric had simply purchased a few VR graphic packs, which came with a bunch of virtual clothes for his avatar. It had only cost a few credits.

  One might wonder how robots earned a living in the far future. Well Eric, like most of the team, got his money by solving cryptographic blockchains with spare background processes. So far, he’d only earned enough to buy a few VR upgrades like the aforementioned graphic packs.

  Marlborough was the only one who wasn’t present. He usually didn’t come to these sessions, and today was no exception. It was too bad. The Sarge was actually fairly personable when you could get him into these more relaxed atmospheres.

  Behind the tables occupied by the team resided a crowd of other onlookers, random AI-controlled avatars. Mostly men, with a sprinkling of women. The majority were designed to look like typical strip club clientele, with their out of shape bodies exaggerated by the tropical attire most wore.

  Braxton was chowing down on some kind of chicken taco. His avatar wore this huge disk-like earing that stretched his skin beyond what was humanly possible. The sniper had lowered his skull mask so that it looked like a kerchief hanging from his neck. “You know, VR food still doesn’t have the right texture. It’s all too generi
c. And this meat... it’s supposed to be beef, but it tastes like chicken. I mean, all the meat here tastes like chicken, you know? It’s the only meat flavor they can replicate properly. Beef, frog, fish, you name it. All tastes like chicken.”

  “Yeah, I hear ya,” Eagleeye said. “While I miss eating real food, I definitely don’t miss taking shits. I mean, I’ve wasted countless days of my life just cleaning my ass.”

  “Days cleaning your ass?” Slate said. In addition to the fire-breathing dragons inked onto his bare arms, and displayed proudly on his shirt, his hair was fashioned into a Mohawk. “Bro, just how long did it take to clean yo ugly ass? Ever heard of wipe and go, you know?”

  “Well yeah,” Eagleeye said. “But it added up after a while. Five minutes here. Ten minutes there. Like I said, days were wasted in my life.”

  “It took you ten minutes to clean your ass?” Slate said. “Unbelievable. What, you gotta make sure it’s pristine for your man love? Give it a daily douche?”

  “Hey man, I liked to stay clean, you know?” Eagleeye said.

  “One word: bidets,” Bambi said. She wore stiletto boots, and had the representation of an elk tattooed on her forearm. A corset wrapped her waist, accentuating her hips and cleavage. The face of her avatar was exquisite. If she had existed in the real world, she would have been a super model. Eric had to wonder if she had been that beautiful in real life.

  Probably not.

  “Ew, disgusting,” Slate said. “People stuffing their dirty asses on bidets? You live with others, it’s like you’re sharing everyone else’s shit.”

  “Some people might like that though,” Eagleeye said. “There was a whole fecal transplant movement in the early twenty-first century. Get this, they’d get other people’s crap injected into their intestines because they actually thought it would make them lose weight!”

  “Yeah, I don’t miss all that gross stuff that came with being human,” Braxton said. His disk-like earing shivered distractingly when he talked. “But I do miss the other things. The connection two humans could have.”