“Right. Here it is: Foam gave you that suit in order to buy your loyalty. That’s how squids do business. They don’t play fair. They bribe, they threaten, and they cheat in any manner they deem fit.”

  I laughed. “Well sir, in that case they should feel right at home in old Legion Varus.”

  “Very funny, McGill. I can see you’re not going to give it up easily.”

  “Uh… give what up? The suit? Why should I? It was made for me, you know. It’s too damned big for almost anyone else in this outfit.”

  Winslade put a long skinny finger up in my face. I hated when he did that. “McGill, pull your head out of your ass. Foam doesn’t love or respect you, he’s buying you off. Stick to your principles, man. He’s not the right alien to hitch your wagon to. He’s going down, and he’s going to be replaced by a proper human.”

  “Like you, maybe?”

  Winslade shrugged and looked coy. “Maybe. Why not? Or it might still be Graves or Fike. The point is, Foam doesn’t deserve the job, and he knows it. The suit is meant to buy your support.”

  “I get it, sir.”

  “Do you? Very well. Your role in the upcoming assassination hasn’t been plotted yet, but it will be. When the time comes, I want your assurance that you’ll be ready.”

  “Assassination…? Hold on. Who said anything about that?”

  Winslade rolled his eyes at me. “Come, come, don’t be naive. How did you think we were going to fix this? With a rigged lottery? With an internal press campaign to convince the hoi-polloi that they’ve been duped? There isn’t time for such absurdities. We’re going to take him out before he consolidates his power any further. Are you in, or out?”

  “Uh… it’s too early to say, sir. I haven’t even seen him lead the legion in battle yet. In order to make a choice like that… well, sir, I need more information.”

  “Fine. Have it your way. But don’t take too long dawdling, or you’ll be left out of the winner’s circle in the end.”

  “Huh… you don’t say… well, if that’s how it’s going to be, that’s how it's going to be.”

  Winslade spun on his heel and began to march away. His approach didn’t seem too well thought-out, but at least it was direct and immediate. I didn’t quite know what to make of it as I watched him march off down the passages. Was he really going to take a shot at assassinating the head squid? It was my impression that he was.

  By mid-afternoon, I’d almost forgotten about the whole thing. But apparently, others had not missed a beat.

  “McGill?” Graves spoke out of my tapper. “Word has it that you volunteered to lead our first training mission today. Report to Green Deck immediately.”

  “What’s this about, Primus? You know I don’t volunteer for anything. I’m no noob.”

  Graves seemed bored by my objections. “I don’t care who volunteered you. You’re filling a slot on my roster. That’s all I know. Report to Green Deck, door nine at sixteen hundred hours.”

  “What gear should I bring, sir?”

  “Just your standard kit. Rifle, armor, knife—no grenades. Got it?”

  “Yessir, but—”

  “Graves out.”

  He was gone from my tapper as quickly as he’d appeared.

  My face transformed into a stern scowl. Training missions on Green Deck could be brutal. I headed to my locker and threw it wide.

  There she was, a lovely suit of sleek black star-stuff. I eyed the suit thoughtfully.

  Sure, Graves had said I should wear my standard kit—but wasn’t this armor officially part of my load-out now? Hell, Tribune Foam himself had issued it to me.

  Slowly, a grin spread over my face. I took the armor out of the locker, climbed into it, and began making some cosmetic changes. A little silver paint, a breastplate strapped over the chest—yes, it would look inconspicuous enough to a casual drone camera. After all, Graves had indicated I would be entering Green Deck alone.

  There wouldn’t be any up-close witnesses as to the nature of the armor—leastwise, not until it was too late.

  -22-

  I arrived on Green Deck ten minutes early. After a quick check, I determined that the light over door number nine was red. That meant I was to stop and wait—but I didn’t want to wait, because the cameras would be eyeing me the whole time. Accordingly, I sauntered on down the circular passageway that ringed the exercise chamber and spied on the other doors.

  This was against the rules for any kind of exercise, naturally enough. But Graves had neglected to inform me of this. He’d said it was an exercise—but not that it was competitive in nature. I took it upon myself to have a look at who else might be gathering at the neighboring doors.

  The waiting zone in front of door eight was empty. It was the same at door seven—but at door six, I got a surprise.

  There was a team of nerds there, opening up crates and unfolding spindly mechanical things. It took me no more than a split second to identify these: they were robots.

  Combat robots, built to fight like men… I hated these things. The last time I’d participated in an exercise with these mechanical nightmares my cohort hadn’t enjoyed the experience. Today, the nerds were back at it. They were doubtlessly deploying more advanced versions of their software and hardware, and that had me a little concerned.

  Walking back to door nine, I contacted Kivi. I asked her for a special piece of gear, one that we didn’t normally carry into battle. It took a bit of wheedling followed by a few shouted orders to get her to comply, but around about one minute before the door opened up, a panting figure came up to me on pounding feet.

  To my surprise, it wasn’t Kivi—it was Sargon.

  “Hey boss, is that the magic armor? You look good in it.”

  “Shut up about that. Have you got the probe?”

  “Right here. Give ‘em hell.”

  I took a device from him, but I called him back when he turned to go.

  “Sargon? Don’t let Kivi walk all over you. It’s not a pretty thing to see.”

  “Don’t worry, sir. She just sent me because I can run faster than she can.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He trotted away, and I shook my head. Kivi could weave a sinister spell over men. She could get them to do damned near anything with promises of evening festivities. Sargon had been her boyfriend off and on for years now. Carlos had been her previous fidget toy. I just didn’t want to see the boy get used.

  Right then, a chime sounded, and the light over door nine turned green.

  Shaking myself and doing my best to put all that nonsense aside, I stepped to the door and touched it. The titanium wall opened without effort.

  Inside the chamber, I saw Green Deck in all her glory. She was configured as a jungle today, complete with peeping birds on speakers and clinging humidity. I reached up to close my visor over my face.

  Before my visor was completely down, however, I heard a snap and saw a flash. An explosion of pain hit my cheek, and a matching explosion of blood splashed over the side of my helmet.

  Clicking my helmet closed, I stumbled and went down to one knee. I was in shock, and it took a second to figure out what happened.

  The moment I’d opened the door, someone had taken a shot at me. They’d been damned accurate, too. They’d slipped that round into the tiny crack in my armor and popped my cheek. One wouldn’t think there could be so much blood in a man's mouth—but they’d be wrong.

  “Friggin’ cheaters…” I muttered. It came out kind of mushy-sounding, what with the extra hole in my mouth and all.

  Grunting with effort, I stood up again.

  “Looks like McGill isn’t out yet,” a voice spoke over the loudspeaker. It was Winslade’s voice, I was pretty sure of that much. “Everyone who chose either the first minute, or the first shot fired, has lost their bets.”

  Bets?

  Realizing I had an audience, I did my best to appear hale and healthy. I touched my tapper, activating my suit’s automatic machinery. My face was immediately sprayed with nu-skin, and my arm was given a stim shot at the same time. My breathing and heart rate accelerated.

  Taking stims wasn’t the best idea, but it could keep you going for a while. Maybe an hour if I was lucky, then I’d fall on my face. At least I’d be able to get through this upcoming exercise.

  Lifting my rifle, I scanned my environment. I didn’t see a damned thing.

  “Notice the inferior response time,” Winslade said. “That was nearly thirty seconds of inactivity on a hostile battlefield. Utter failure in the real world.”

  Mumbling curses, I walked with my gun up to my faceplate, looking this way and that. My helmet was scanning for enemy soldiers, but it wasn’t picking anything up.

  Deciding this enemy probably wouldn’t register like my usual biotic opponents, I set my sensors for motion only.

  That picked up a whole nest of action. Every waggling leaf under an air conditioning vent showed up as a bunch of red circles.

  But some of these spots didn’t just waggle—they moved with purpose. I aimed into the nearest of these and chugged out a dozen bolts.

  The targets—there were three of them—scattered under my fire. Two of them did, that is. The last flopped into the undergrowth, thrashing this way and that.

  “Damn,” Winslade said. “Another mark for McGill. Anyone who bet he would be the first down has lost their money. Operators, step up the game, please.”

  Even as he said this, I advanced to the spot where the three robots had been taking shelter. I found the thrashing one and I popped him, point-blank, demolishing the chassis. That robot wasn’t going to be calling tech support. He was too far gone for that—he was scrap metal.

  Before I could enjoy my small victory, however, I was assaulted from my flank. I hit the deck reflexively, feeling a dozen rounds bounce off my armor from several directions at once.

  “He’s down! McGill is—!” Winslade began excitedly—but then he cut off.

  Rolling to a crouch, I returned fire. A group of three robots approached me with predatory speed. I put my back against a tree trunk and faced the charge. I blew one down, then two—but the third got in close, still peppering me with snap-rifle rounds.

  He unloaded into my chest. It was point-blank, and I felt the sensation of the accelerated projectiles hammering on my ribs. It didn’t hurt too much. It was kind of like being under a piece of wood with your buddy beating on the far side of it.

  Extending a force-blade, I gutted the last robot. He was a tangle of wire and tubing when I was done with him. I stood up again and waved at the camera-drones overhead.

  “What the—?” Winslade sounded surprised and annoyed. “That’s a whole fire team lost. I don’t believe it… scorekeepers, mark the results.”

  Walking again, I didn’t hear from Winslade or my stalkers for a few minutes. Deciding to use a manuever from an old playbook, I walked toward the lagoon at the center of the chamber. That had worked well the last time I’d fought robots. Electronic gizmos tended to fail when they were dragged under water.

  My action immediately garnered me some unwanted attention. A drone began following me closely, and I had half a mind to shoot it down. I was in a sour mood, what with all the skullduggery and the aching hole in my cheek.

  I waded out into the lagoon, and that’s when my headset crackled.

  “McGill? Centurion?”

  It was Winslade. My first instinct was to ignore the contact. If I could just get a few steps farther on…

  “McGill, if you don’t respond I’ll end this exercise immediately and declare you the loser.”

  Any kind of a smart man would have taken that offer on the instant—but no one has ever accused me of being a deep thinker.

  “Is that Tribune Winslade? Is that really you, sir?”

  My knees kept sloshing forward. I never stopped moving deeper into the lagoon. A few rounds spanged off my armor. Others sent up fountains of water when they hit the surface. All the while, I didn’t pay much attention to any of it.

  “McGill, damn you man! Get out of that water!”

  I halted and looked around at the drone following me. I addressed it with loud but messy speech.

  “Hello, audience. Centurion McGill, here. I’m experimenting with the new water-resistant nature of the robots that are hunting me. I’m very curious to see if they can stand up to such a simple test.”

  “Shut up, McGill,” Winslade ordered. He was on a private channel piped directly into my helmet.

  I pretty much ignored him and talked to the news drone that followed me. I pointed toward the shoreline.

  “See those cowardly robots over there taking potshots at me from the shoreline? They’re chicken over a few gallons of water. What gives us life is death to them, and that’s why you should never trust a gizmo like that in combat.”

  My words weren’t really meant for Winslade’s ears, of course. They were meant to reach the audience—and the clowns operating the robot troops.

  “Toasters, that’s what they all are. No more useful than tits on a boar. If I had a dozen of my men, I could wipe out a legion of these jokers without breaking a sweat.”

  That last insult did the trick, I think. For some reason, the term “toaster” tends to transform engineers and robots alike into a raging mob.

  A whole bunch of robots—I’d say there was over a hundred of them if I had to guess—came charging out of the jungle and raced over the beach toward my position. They were converging from every direction, firing their snap-rifles as they came. A veritable hailstorm of rounds slapped into me from every angle.

  They couldn’t breach my armor with snap-rifles, but the force of their countless shots had me staggering around.

  “McGill? McGill!”

  I ignored Winslade. It took all my concentration just to stay on my feet while I was knee-deep in a fake lagoon and being hammered by bullets from all sides.

  -23-

  At last, I was deep enough in the lagoon to stop wading and dive. I ducked my head and swam deep. The robots were on my tail, running down the shorelines in a circle. If I had to guess, I would say there were a hundred of them in clear sight by the time I went under.

  Once under the surface, I felt a little less stressed. Sure, there were snap-rifle rounds plowing through the water and leaving streaks of bubbles every which-way as they plunged to the bottom before losing energy. Snap-rifles fired small bullets that were about the size of a BB at great velocity. They had good penetrating power in water, due to that extreme starting speed.

  Even so, as they reached down to the depths of the lagoon, which was something like ten meters deep down around the pumps and drains at the bottom, the bullets lost velocity. Once spent, they fell like tiny burnt meteors to rattle on the sandy floor of the artificial lake.

  Smiling to myself, I set up camp on the top of a big, orange-painted pump. Sure, I knew I wasn’t going to win this fight. Not in any fair sort of way, at least. But I was more than capable of dragging it out and pissing off everyone involved with this bogus exercise.

  As a bonus, Winslade wasn’t audible anymore. I was too deep in water and there were all these robots and pumps and bullets flying around creating interference. Accordingly, I had to imagine the conniption he was displaying right now concerning this unexpected state of affairs.

  Some might say that I was the devil in this mix, but I will now and forevermore dispute that claim. Winslade was the tribune of Varus’ companion zoo legion, after all. He wasn’t in my direct chain of command. Any pants-crapping fitful displays of rage he might be exhibiting right now didn’t concern me. I was only interested in what Tribune Foam had to say about the matter.

  It was, therefore, a great shock to me when a very large figure cast a shadow over me and my perch on that orange-painted pump. The shadow wasn’t human at all—it was the unmistakably multi-limbed shape of a squid.

  “Uh…” I said, peering up at the silvery surface above.

  The shower of pellets from up there had long since ceased to fall. To my disappointment, none of the robots had dared enter the water—at least they hadn’t ventured any deeper than the tops of their artificial, ball-jointed kneecaps.

  But this shadow—that was something different. Peering upward with my hand shielding my vision, I began to doubt the humor of my little joke I’d been enjoying at Winslade’s expense.

  “Centurion McGill,” said a deep, alien voice. I knew right off it was none other than my commanding officer, Tribune Foam.

  “Is that Foam? McGill reporting, sir!”

  The figure glided closer. We were communicating with radio, using a frequency which worked okay in water as long as you were fairly close to one another.

  “McGill, why do you shame our legion?”

  “Uh… shame, sir? I’m not shaming anyone. I’m winning!”

  The squid settled on the bottom. He wasn’t wearing a suit. In fact, he wasn’t wearing anything. Some would call him buck-naked, but to a squid that was normal enough in water. His only adornment was a harness of sorts that held basic equipment like his translator.

  “You shame us by hiding in this false lake. No warrior of Varus would admit defeat in front of these machines.”

  “Ah-ha! I understand the trouble now, sir. It’s one of misunderestimation. You see, sir, I’m doing this on purpose.”

  The squid rustled his elephant-trunk-like tentacles restlessly. “Explain yourself, human. No more riddles.”

  “This is all a matter of status, sir, of one-upmanship between humans. That sneaky bastard Winslade doesn’t like me because I declared my loyalty to you, my rightful commander. Because of that, he set up this nonsensical exercise to humiliate me—and you as well.”

  “How is it that your abject cowardice isn’t an even greater source of shame?”

  “Because I’m not quitting—I’m stalling. I’m not down here to save my skin—no sir! I’m down here to defend your honor.”

  The squid was on the move now. Foam glided all the way around me in a circle. His behavior was kind of—predatory. Like a shark swimming around a diver, looking for the best place to sink in his teeth.