Trials

Book : The Red Trilogy

by Linda Nagata

Genres: Military Sci-Fi; Military Thrillers; Political Thrillers

Synopsis

In the wake of nuclear terrorism, a squad of elite soldiers must combat artificial intelligence and seek justice in this military political thriller, a sequel to The Red. Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many. A new cycle of violence ignites when rumors of the elusive, rogue AI known as the Red go public—and Shelley is, once again, pulled into the fray. Challenged by his enemies, driven by ideals, Shelley feels compelled to act. But are the harrowing choices he makes really his own, or are they made for him, by the Red? And with millions of lives at stake in a game of nuclear cat-and-mouse, does the answer even matter?

Release date: August 18, 2015

Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press

Print pages: 464

Sample

The Trials

“WE ARE BEING ASKED TO crucify Colonel Kendrick.”

My words are directed at my soldiers—the Apocalypse Squad. That’s the name the mediots have given us and it works for me. The seven of us who survived the First Light mission are all here, seated around a cheap oval table in the center of an otherwise bare, white-walled conference room in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC. It’s the first time in the five months since we stepped off the plane at Dulles that we’ve been allowed to discuss our case all together, with no lawyers present.

I need to know we are all still on the same side.

I’m James Shelley. I presently hold the rank of lieutenant in the United States Army, but that will change at the conclusion of our court-martial.

“Our attorneys have decided that since Kendrick is dead, he’s not going to scream and he’s not going to argue when we hammer the nails in. So they want us to testify that the colonel used undue influence to get us to participate in a conspiracy. They want us to claim we were not mentally responsible at the time and therefore it is not our fault.”

Our return to the United States was voluntary and we’re widely regarded as heroes. It’s a status I’ve leveraged to get us the privilege of this ten-minute session to confer on our defense strategy. Not a private session—camera buttons are watching from the corners of the room and the ocular overlay I wear like contact lenses in my eyes is always ­recording—but we’re used to that. We’re LCS soldiers, and in a linked combat squad you expect to be observed.

“In just a few minutes, each one of you will meet individually with counsel, where you will be advised to pursue an affirmative defense, claiming a lack of mental responsi­bility.”

Travel and communication have been a challenge ever since Coma Day, when seven improvised nuclear devices were used to destroy data exchanges across the country, shattering the Cloud and collapsing the economy. So an agreement was reached to hold our court-martial in the centrally convenient federal courthouse in DC. We are using the facility but not the staff. The army is conducting our court-martial, with a court composed of army personnel and presided over by a military judge.

Our court-martial hasn’t started, and we will not be in court today, so we’re all wearing the informal brown camo of combat uniforms. Everyone but me is also wearing their linked combat squad skullcaps.

The caps look like athletic skullcaps, but they’re embedded with a mesh of fine wires that interact with the neuro­modulating microbeads implanted in the brain tissue of every LCS soldier. Some of those microbeads are chemical sensors that report on our brain state, but others trigger neurochemical production. The skullcap is able to switch them on and off to affect the way we feel.

I don’t wear a skullcap anymore because I’ve moved on to a more permanent setup. I use a skullnet: a mesh of sensor threads implanted on the surface of my skull. Like a cap, it houses a simple artificial intelligence tasked with monitoring and stabilizing the activity in my brain. It could be my get-out-of-jail-free card, if I want to try to use it for that.

I tap my head, where my black hair is trimmed to a short buzz cut. “The attorneys want me to say Kendrick controlled my thoughts, my emotions, my ­decision-making processes, through my skullnet. They want each one of you to say he hacked your heads through your skullcaps. They want us to argue we were not in our right minds and that we didn’t understand what we were doing.”

Specialist Vanessa Harvey speaks up first: “Fuck that, LT.”

She crosses her arms, fixing me with a glare that could stop bullets . . . almost did, at Black Cross, where she was shot in the face. Her visor took the impact of the slug, and she got away with only a broken nose—but no sign of that injury remains in her sharp-featured, bronze-­complexioned face.

Specialist Samuel Tuttle expands on Harvey’s sentiment. “Fuck them.” The rim of his skullcap enhances his scowl as his brooding brown eyes shift from Harvey to Sergeant Aaron Nolan, who must have been his big brother in some other life.

Nolan is six foot one, broad shouldered, with deep-brown skin. He told me once he was half Navajo, half white. Generally, he’s a congenial man, but now he drops his chin and coldly informs me, “Those shit-eaters can go to hell.”

Little Mandy Flynn, with her green eyes and fair skin, is only a private, but she’s more eloquent than anyone else. “No way are we pissing on the colonel’s grave, sir.”

“Damn straight,” Specialist Jayden Moon agrees. Moon is tall, skinny, and dark eyed, the offspring of Asian and European bloodlines mixed in some complicated formula. He used to have a tan, but our stint in jail has bleached his skin to a pale cream. “LT, this is just bullshit.”

I turn to Sergeant Jaynie Vasquez, who sits, somewhat loyally, at my right hand. Jaynie is the ranking non-com in our squad. She’s got a lean build and moderate height. Her skin is smooth and black. She tends to regard the world with a reserved expression that perfectly reflects her nature: smart, controlled, determined, and not entirely trusting of my judgment. She answers my questioning look with a nod, letting me know she’ll back me up as long as I say the right things.

I return my attention to Moon. “Of course it’s bullshit, Moon. It’s the same bullshit we LCS soldiers get all the time.”

Outside the linked combat squads we are commonly believed to be soulless automatons, emotionless killing machines controlled by our handlers in Guidance. It’s a prejudice our attorneys want to exploit.

“But it’s a bullshit that can be used to buy you a not-guilty verdict and a medical discharge.”

Moon looks confused. His gaze shifts to Jaynie. “I don’t get it. That’s not why we came back.”

He’s looking at Jaynie, but I’m the one who responds. “No, it’s not why we came back. The crucifixion of Colonel Kendrick is an option we are being offered because both trial and defense counsel are under extreme pressure to limit the scope of our court-martial. They do not want to look into the chain of responsibility—”

“Lack of responsibility,” Jaynie interrupts in a low growl.

I concede the point with a nod. “They do not want to look into the layers of corruption that forced us to take the action we did. We are here to expose that corruption, to confront it. That’s why we came back. But this is not a game. We are facing life in prison, very possibly execution. If you want to reconsider your reasons for being here, now is the time. Just know that for the affirmative defense to work, all of you will need to agree to it. If even one of you dissents, that will cast doubt on all the others.”

Harvey’s arms are still crossed, her brow wrinkled in suspicion. “What do you mean, we would have to agree? What about you, LT? I thought we were all in this together.”

“That’s up to you, Harvey. There’s no fucking way I’m going along with it. But the rest of you can claim your commanding officers exploited your sense of loyalty. Let me know if you’d like me to step outside while you discuss it.”

It’s Jaynie who reacts to this first, in her own affectionate way. “Take a pass on the drama, LT. We’ve got nothing to discuss, because I dissent. I’m not participating in a bullshit defense.”

“I’m not either,” Harvey says.

This sentiment is echoed around the table with nods and murmurs. I use my overlay to launch an emotional-analysis tool called FaceValue, letting it study each member of my squad. The app detects no deceit in the faces of my soldiers, no real doubt. Jaynie is frowning—FaceValue confirms the caution I see in her eyes—but her caution doesn’t bother me. She’s always been the most thoughtful among us.

The standard way for a story like this to unfold is for at least one, maybe even two, of my soldiers to prove treacherous, cutting a secret deal with trial counsel that will betray the rest of us, while saving their own asses—but Colonel Kendrick preempted that tired plot device when he hand-selected everyone in the squad for a spectrum of personality traits that includes a compelling sense of ­justice and a group loyalty strong enough to keep us together through two harrowing missions. As I look around the table, I know that everyone remains loyal to this, our current mission.

“So what the fuck are we going to do?” Harvey demands, her sharp gaze focused on Jaynie because she is addressing her question to my sergeant and not to me.

My fist hits the table with a loud bang, and I regain the attention of every set of eyes in the room.

We don’t have many options. The charges entered against us include conspiracy, multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault, robbery in excess of $500, and kidnapping, with a general article for abusing the good order and discipline of the armed forces. I get an additional charge of destruction of military property, since I was present when Colonel Kendrick deliberately destroyed an army helicopter.

Moreover, we did in fact commit every act we are accused of during the execution of a rogue mission, code-named First Light, in which we took a United States citizen to face trial in a foreign country for crimes committed within and against the United States. Every moment of that mission, every conversation, was recorded by multiple devices, including my ocular overlay. There is no lack of evidence that can be used to convict us. There is only the question of whether or not circumstances justified what we did.

It’s a question the court is desperate to avoid, which is the only reason we’ve been offered the I’m-not-responsible defense . . . but we’re past that.

“Because this is a death-penalty case, our plea is automatically entered as not guilty. That means the prosecution has to prove the case against us, step by step for the public record. We want that. We want the public to know who we are and what we did, but above all else we want them to know why we did it.”

I know a hell of a lot more about the law now than I did when we started this. I present my strategy with what any competent attorney would surely regard as an amateur’s optimism. “The only valid defense we can make goes to our service oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So what we are going to do is expose those enemies—our domestic ­enemies—shine a light on them, and examine every link in the chain of command that had a hand in sheltering Thelma Sheridan from prosecution for her part in the Coma Day insurrection. We push the judge on it at every step. We force the scope of the investigation to expand. If it ultimately takes in the president, so be it, I don’t give a damn. If it sets off a revolt against the rotten core of our country, you won’t find me weeping.”

“Burn it all down?” Jaynie asks softly.

I turn to her, wondering at the suspicion in her voice. “No. That’s not what I want.”

She studies me, like she’s trying to see beneath the surface. “Just don’t push it too far, sir. You might not like what’s on the other side.”

• • • •

We’re separated again, each of us scheduled to meet individually with an attorney. I get parked in a small consultation room inhabited by a table and four uncomfortable chairs, where I’m due to consult with our lead defense counsel, Major Kelso Ogawa, along with our civilian attorney, Brandon Shelley—my uncle, who’s assisting in our case pro bono because he’s family, but also because he’s as furious about the Coma Day cover-up as anyone.

The room is soundproof, so there’s no noise from outside, no warning the door is about to open. I jump hard when it does, but it’s just my uncle Brandon. He slips in and slams the door behind him, loud enough to let me know he’s deeply unhappy. “That was one hell of a performance you put on.”

He’s an imposing presence: tall, with a middle-aged huskiness camouflaged by his expensive gray business suit. His mixed heritage has combined to give him a heavy brow and an aquiline nose—strong features that instill confidence if he’s on your side, and present a sense of threat if he’s not. Silver is beginning to encroach on his neatly trimmed black hair.

“The prosecutor—” He catches himself, realizing he’s misspoken. “Damn it. I mean trial counsel,” he says, substituting the military’s term, “is throwing a tantrum, and frankly, she’s got legitimate grounds. Jimmy, you agreed to present the mental responsibility defense—”

“Which I did.”

“Accompanied by prejudicial framing. The crucifixion of Colonel Kendrick? Seriously?”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“Jesus, Jimmy! I don’t even know who you are anymore. Here.” He hands me the tablet he’s carrying. I grab it, and immediately tap to wake up the screen, hunching over the display like an addict over his next fix. My uncle tells me, “There’s a folder with your name on it.”

“I see it.” But I don’t give a shit about the folder. I want to get out into the Cloud . . . what’s left of it.

“Keep yourself busy,” my uncle says. “I’m due in the judge’s chambers, where I get to listen to trial counsel complain how you prejudiced your codefendants, convincing them to act against their own best interests.” He reaches for the doorknob.

“Hold on! The network connection’s been shut down on this thing.”

“Of course it’s shut down. You know you’re not allowed an outside link.”

I scowl up at him. “I know I’m not allowed an open link from my cell, but Guidance still has access.” I tap my head. “They check up on me every day.”

He looks worried as he asks me, “What do you mean?”

My overlay is always on. Everything I see is recorded by the lenses in my eyes and what I hear is captured by tiny audio buds implanted in my ears. A gold line tattooed along the curve of my jaw is an antenna that links me to the Cloud when I’m not locked down—and the army gets to keep the record.

I tell my uncle the truth. “At least once a day, Guidance opens a link to my overlay, to upload the feed.”

The record gets sent . . . somewhere. I don’t know where. Sent to a filmmaker who edits my experiences, blending them with other records to create episodes of a reality show called Linked Combat Squad, which has gotten kind of popular.

“You’re not supposed to have any connectivity,” my uncle insists. “None. That’s my understanding. It’s part of the security arrangements because Guidance is worried about a hack . . . oh shit.”

We stare at each other, sharing the same thought.

“Don’t say anything, Uncle Brandon. Please.”

Out in the Cloud, running on a million servers but for the most part unseen and undetectable, is a rogue AI that I’ve come to call the Red. No one really knows where the Red came from. Speculation says it began as a marketing AI, maybe one equipped with an all-access backdoor pass stealth-developed by an American defense contractor because, given time, the Red can get anywhere, access anything linked to the Cloud. It hacked into my head—and rewrote the plotline of my life. That’s why I’m here.

“Jimmy, if the Red—”

“No. It doesn’t matter. It’s not hurting me. It’s not hurting anything.”

I should never have mentioned the uploads. So why did I? Why did I bring it up? That’s one of the drawbacks of having been infested with the Red. I question my own motives, even when I know it hasn’t been active in my head in months. The uploads are just an automated process.

Outwardly I’m calm, but adrenaline is pumping as I scan the ceiling. “No surveillance in here, right?”

“That would be a violation of attorney-client privilege.”

“Then don’t say anything. If Guidance doesn’t know about this, then they aren’t going to be looking at the record, not for a while, anyway.”

“It needs to be reported—”

“No. If Guidance believes there’s been an infiltration, they’ll take out my skullnet, and my overlay too.”

“You might be better off—”

“I will not be better off.”

His gaze is hard. He hates the choices I force on him. “I’ve got to go. I’m late already. Look at what’s in the folder. We’ll talk about it when I get back.”

Again, he reaches for the door.

I tell him, “Trial counsel is right.”

He turns back, furious. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“She’s right when she says we’re acting against our own best interests, because this isn’t about us. It never has been. It’s about bigger things.”

“You know, Jimmy, I liked you better when you were a cynical kid. This true-believer shit gets old real fast.”

We trade a glare. Then he jerks the door open and steps outside, closing it again with a thud that shakes the frame. I hope he won’t say anything.

Something else occurs to me: If trial counsel hears about an infiltration, she could move to have me declared mentally incompetent because my head has been hacked—a diagnosis that could be extended to my squad, providing an excellent excuse to skip the trial entirely and disappear all of us, forever, into some anonymous psych ward. American gulag. Jesus.

But my uncle has been a criminal attorney for a long time, mostly white-collar crime. He knows how to keep his mouth shut, and even though I’ve made a habit of pissing him off, I trust him to keep my secrets.

I look again at the tablet.

It’s gaze responsive, with a ten-inch screen displaying the date and time in one corner alongside a red X—the icon of network isolation, lockdown, no connections allowed—and, in the center, exactly one folder labeled “Jimmy.” There could be libraries of data hidden behind that almost-empty screen, but I’ll never find my way into them. The tablet knows who’s holding it, and this single folder is all I’m authorized to see.

I blink the folder open. Inside are four videos. Their names identify three as news clips generated by propaganda stations. The fourth is labeled “Linked Combat Squad—Episode 3—First Light.” When I read that, I get another adrenaline rush. Ye olde fight or flight.

I’d choose flight if I could, but I can’t run away from myself.

PTSD rolls in, and my hands shake. I’m worried I’m going to drop the tablet, so I put it down carefully on the table. An icon lights up in the corner of my vision, indicating activity in the skullnet as the embedded AI automatically adjusts the neurochemical balance in my brain, guiding my mood to a quieter place, taking the edge off my emotions.

I do not want to watch the third episode of Linked Combat Squad. I already know what’s going to happen, because I lived it—and I don’t want to see Specialist Matt Ransom’s brains blown out again, or witness Colonel Kendrick’s slow, agonizing death, or hear the terror in my Lissa’s voice in the moments before she is immolated on that infinite night above the Atlantic. I hear Lissa often enough already, in my dreams.

The First Light mission was never in our own best interests. Not even close.

I stand up and pace, giving the skullnet time to work. The sound of my footsteps is a soft click as my robot feet meet the floor. My real legs got blown off. The army replaced them with cutting-edge prosthetics wired into my nervous system. It takes only four short steps to cover the length of the room. Turn around; repeat. After a few laps I sit down again and scan the news clips.

The first one shows a large protest rally on the National Mall, a block away from where I’m sitting. Between rows of trees just beginning to leaf out in the spring are tens of thousands of chanting protesters. I sit up a little straighter, remembering how it felt to be part of a crowd like that—empowering, intoxicating—and how certain I’d felt that with so many people demanding change, change must happen.

Too bad the world is more complicated than that.

The words being chanted are hard to make out past the voice-over of a mediot telling her viewers what to think, but the luminous banners floating above the crowd make the purpose of the rally clear:

FREE LT. SHELLEY—AMERICAN HERO

FREE THE APOCALYPSE SQUAD

THE PEOPLE STAND WITH THE LION OF BLACK CROSS

The Lion of Black Cross—that’s me.

In the hours after the bombs went off on Coma Day, more INDs—improvised nuclear devices—were discovered in metropolitan areas, rigged to blow if disturbed. The only way to disarm them was with codes held by the enemy in an underground, former Cold War facility called Black Cross. My squad was sent to recover those codes. It was fucking hell in a basement, but it worked. Afterward the mediots tagged me the Lion of Black Cross, and if it wasn’t that, it was King David, because God is supposed to be on my side.

First Light changed that.

In the months since, the mediots have worked hard to cast us as traitors. It hasn’t really worked. A lot of people support what we did, but I had no idea we’d inspired the kind of passion I see in this rally.

The mediot doing the voice-over tries to make it something ugly. Using critical, contemptuous tones, she informs her viewers that responsible people are helping their country by staying at home, doing their jobs, rebuilding their lives, while these protesters have migrated to the capital to make trouble and demand government support.

Many of them are trying to make their demands anonymously. The faces of at least 20 percent are hidden behind masks—and not cheap Halloween leftovers. The masks I see are works of art, like European festival masks except they cover the whole face, and instead of eyeholes, there’s a slot that allows them to be worn with farsights. I don’t think the disguises can hide anyone’s identity, though—not in the face of dedicated surveillance. A good IR scanner should be able to look right through the masks. But maybe that doesn’t matter. Even if a government agency logs ­people’s presence here, that will be just one among trillions of bits of data collected today. The real risk for most people in that crowd is being recognized by an employer—and the masks should help protect them from that.

The other two news clips are different versions of the same story. After I view them, I reconsider the icon for episode three. Linked Combat Squad is the product of a skilled filmmaker, one who knows how to tell a compelling, emotional story. Is there some element in episode three that inspired people, that persuaded them to leave their homes and their lives to rally in support of us?

My uncle included the third episode because he believes I need to see what it contains.

I steel myself, and I click the icon open.

• • • •

It’s later, much later, when the door opens. I tense, but I don’t jump this time, and I don’t look up. I’m hunched over the tablet, holding it in two hands. Episode three is still playing, and mentally I’m not really in the room. I’m back on the C-17. We’ve just completed our air refueling. The squad is cheering.

“Broken city,” my uncle says grimly. “Quit and lock.”

He’s talking to the goddamn tablet, which listens to him. The screen goes blank. My grip on the tablet tightens until it’s about to snap in two. “Fuck!” I whisper, struggling to keep my temper contained as our lead defense counsel, Major Kelso Ogawa, comes next into the room.

“You don’t need to see the rest of that, Jimmy,” my uncle says.

He’s right. I don’t need to see it, because it’s playing inside my head. I hear again the radio hail from a mercenary hired by Carl Vanda. The merc tells me to turn on a phone, and I do it. My Lissa calls me, and lets me know the merc has kidnapped her, to gain leverage with me—but that scheme didn’t work. Lissa is dead now. So is the merc. I’m still here.

My uncle steps around the table, pulling out the chair next to me. “I just wanted you to see the big policy shift that takes place in this episode,” he says as he sits.

I make myself put the tablet down, gently, on the table. I slide it over to him like it’s a loaded gun. “When did episode three come out?”

Major Ogawa answers as he takes a chair opposite me. “Two nights ago.”

The major is nearly fifty, of mixed Asian and European descent, with a narrow face showing some dignified weathering, and curly brown hair just beginning to gray. He watches me through the translucent band of his farsights, tinted gray, so thin and light they seem to float in front of his eyes. “You look shell-shocked, Lieutenant. Are you going to be okay to talk?”

I take a deep breath, straighten my back, square my shoulders. Lissa is dead and I can’t bring her back, but if this trial goes the way I hope, then a lot of people might finally pay for their part in what happened. I hope Carl Vanda is one of them. “What happened with the judge?”

My uncle answers, “Colonel Monteiro expressed sympathy toward the concerns of trial counsel, but she refused to sever your case from the enlisted. She’s under orders to conclude these proceedings quickly, and conducting separate trials is not going to satisfy that goal. Besides, trials cost money—and given the ongoing state of emergency, I don’t think there’s a budget to pay for a separate trial.”

“So we move forward?”

“We have a tentative agreement,” Ogawa says. “Right now, the court-martial is scheduled for Monday.”

Monday.

It comes as a shock. Ogawa warned it might be months, but today is Friday. Only two more days. I’m okay with that.

“A tentative agreement?” I ask him. “What still needs to be worked out?”

“Trial counsel has asked Judge Monteiro to forbid the use of skullcaps while court is in session, on the theory that they interfere with individual self-determination.”

I want to believe he’s joking, but my FaceValue app detects no humor, no subterfuge.

“The skullcaps don’t work that way.”

“Monteiro has taken the request under consideration. She’ll rule before the end of the day. In your professional opinion, as an experienced LCS officer, what will it do to the case if the judge rules against skullcaps—and your skullnet?”

I tap my forehead. “There’s no off switch for my skullnet. Unless she wants to send me into surgery, she can’t rule against it. And if she bans the skullcaps? That’s a deliberate shot at debilitating my squad. It’s a move that will put their mental health in danger. Ask Guidance.”

“I have. They’re preparing a formal response.”

“They used to make us turn in our skullcaps before going on leave. They don’t do that anymore.”

“So you’re saying it would be detrimental to our case if the judge ruled against the use of skullcaps?&rdq