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  Project Terra

  S.J. Woods

  Copyright © 2018 Hayden Woods Creative

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781791672218

  Project Terra by S.J. Woods is published by independent publishers Hayden Woods Creative.

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  For Ethan, Grace, Lila & Max,

  And Angharad & Dylan.

  “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.”

  ONE

  Dane Alexander left the Command Centre and joined the orderly queue to be transported back to the central hub. The atmosphere in the foyer was charged with the energy of dozens of young Armed Forces personnel, some on their way to their own meetings, some fully briefed and heading back to their own hubs like Dane. In the crowd, he blended in; slightly taller than average height, strong, muscular build, dark hair closely cropped to his head, the dark, form-fitting uniform and the regulation boots. He didn’t look left or right, searching for a familiar face as he usually would, but kept his eyes straight ahead of him.

  His head was spinning with the news and he wanted to be alone to process the General’s words. Things like this didn’t happen to people like him, he thought, as he moved forward into the transparent capsule. He nodded a polite thank you to the Attendant and concentrated on keeping upright as he was whooshed through miles of network and deposited back in the transportation centre of the Military base moments later.

  He exited the capsule, automatically thanking the Attendant out of habit. Some of his colleagues laughed at him for doing that, but he couldn’t help it. Manners had been engrained upon him as a child and it wasn’t his fault that you couldn’t tell from just a quick glance who was ‘Artificial’ and who was ‘Organic’ anymore.

  “Dane!”

  He glanced up sharply at the sound of his name across the busy concourse and held back a groan. All of the southern-based forces were making their way to Nutrition, and Dane had been hoping to hang back so that he could slip in for the mandatory allocated slot and then sneak back to his pod before he got railroaded into spending Recreation with the team. Joaquin and a dark-haired female were heading towards him, which meant he had no chance of creeping away for a quiet evening.

  He turned towards Joaquin and pasted a friendly smile on his face.

  “Are you heading to Nutrition?” He asked, even though it was a dumb question. His mind was still reeling from the news and he was struggling to act naturally.

  Joaquin, possibly distracted by his pretty companion, seemed oblivious to Dane’s strange behaviour and he clapped Dane’s back in greeting. “Yeah, of course. Afterwards, we’re all heading off base. Are you coming?”

  Dane shrugged. He didn’t want to, but he knew that he would end up getting talked into it.

  Grateful that Joaquin was preoccupied by the female, Dane slipped into line and moved forward in the queue. He accepted the pills from the Attendant and, still moving forward in the line, held them in place underneath his tongue as he waited for his body to reenergise.

  “Fifty-Ninety-Eight!” He whipped around at the sound of the Attendant calling his Military ID, knocking the female’s shoulder as he turned. Instinctively, he reached out to steady her, catching hold of a delicate wrist. For a second, he thought he could feel a quickening pulse beneath the soft tissue of skin and it flashed through his mind that she felt like a “real” person, before he recoiled, dropped the hand and faced the Attendant questioningly.

  “Apologies.” The Attendant said and passed Dane another fingernail-sized pastille. “Your nutrition has been supplemented. Congratulations.”

  Dane flushed and hurriedly took the proffered tablet. “Thanks.”

  He stared at the ground, praying that Joaquin hadn’t heard, although he knew there was no chance of that.

  As if on cue, Joaquin leaned across Dane’s broad shoulder.

  “Congratulations?”

  “I’ll tell you after.” Dane tried to answer through a mouthful of pills.

  Joaquin popped his own nutritional supplements into his mouth, silencing him for a moment, but the snake of queuing personnel moved quickly, and it wasn’t long before they were back in the foyer.

  “You’ve been up to the command centre.” It was a statement, not a question, that came out of Joaquin’s mouth and Dane could only nod his head in response.

  Joaquin looked at his friend expectantly, his dark eyes full of questions. Dane shot him a loaded look, hoping that he would interpret that Dane didn’t wish to discuss this out in the hallway. As always, any attempts at discretion went straight over Joaquin’s head and he pressed Dane again.

  “So?” Joaquin was almost bouncing with anticipation. “Can you tell me?”

  Dane glanced sideways at the dark-haired, blue-eyed young woman, who was still hovering next to Joaquin, with a default friendly smile lighting up her face. She caught Dane’s eye and her cheeks flushed slightly as if realising, with embarrassment, that she was not welcome to Dane and Joaquin’s conversation, but Dane in his preoccupation was oblivious to her reaction.

  “Joaquin,” She interrupted quickly. “I’m going to head off.”

  “Oh, don’t go.”

  Joaquin looked disappointed, but she gave a tight smile in response and wandered off. Joaquin turned his attention back to Dane.

  “Nice one, man.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll never get another shot with Teonie.”

  Dane curled up his lip in distaste at his friend’s crush. He knew that his beliefs were considered old-fashioned, but he couldn’t understand how people could befriend Artificials. They played an important role in not just the Apatian Military Service, but in the whole of civilisation, but Dane could never feel entirely comfortable around them.

  “They’ve assigned me to a new squad,” Dane told him, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by the people milling around in the hub. “Starting immediately.”

  “Why?” Joaquin looked confused. “What branch?”

  Dane felt his own cheeks colour a little with modesty. “One of the Special Forces.”

  “No way!” Joaquin’s voice was loud now, and Dane gave him a gentle nudge to the ribs.

  “Ssh!” He hissed. “I can’t say any more than that. You know how it is.”

  “Aw, man!” Joaquin’s face fell a little. “I’ll miss you on the Pod Wing.”

  “Me, too.” Dane said, meaning it.

  Joaquin Banks and Dane Alexander had hit it off from the day they’d both walked into the Southern branch of the Apatian Military Service as fresh-faced, nervous seventeen-year-olds. It was an honour to be invited to join the AMS, with only the top ten-percent of each graduating year being selected to apply. Dane had come from midway South Apatia. His parents had both served in the AMS and Dane had been honoured to follow in their footsteps. Physically, he fit the criteria of an AMS serviceman; even at seventeen, he was taller than the national average of six-foot tall, with broad, already-formed muscles, an eye for detail and a quick mind. Joaquin Banks was the first of his family to ever be invited to try out. His intelligence was rumoured to be on par with even the finest ‘Artificials’, but what he had in brain-power, he lacked in common-sense. Dane had found himself partnered with Joaquin on the first day of their induction into the AMS Southern Division, and Dane was pleased when, at the end of their twelve-month training, he remained in the same squad as the funny, likeable Joaquin.

  As a squad, they lived on the same wing of the base. They ate together, tra
ined together, socialised together, slept in adjoining pods. They’d been through the mentally-gruelling training to graduate as Apatia Military Servicemen together. Dane realised, with a jolt, that he hadn’t even began to think about the huge changes that this promotion would mean to his life. He had been here for almost two years. He couldn’t imagine life without the team around. At times, he felt closer to the squad than to his own family. At first, the months away from his family had been hard, especially knowing that his mother and sister were physically closer than the command centre that the troops were shuttled back and forth to at the drop of a hat, but then the base had grown more familiar and now it was the house that he’d grown up in that felt strange and alien.

  “When do you start?” Joaquin asked.

  “Pretty much straight away.” Dane replied. “I’m going home first.”

  They had started walking towards the exit as they talked, but now Joaquin stopped dead and turned to face Dane.

  “Looking forward to it?” Joaquin looked at Dane carefully for his reaction.

  “Yeah,” Dane nodded and kept on walking. “I have to go back at some point. My mother will be pleased.”

  “It is awesome that you’ve been chosen,” Joaquin continued, sensing that Dane wanted to change the subject away from his family life. “I’m not surprised though. You’re a warrior.”

  Dane grinned in response. Talking to Joaquin about it was making the General’s words sink in. Dane had been terrified when he’d been summoned earlier, but up at the command centre, surrounded by what was undoubtedly some of the finest of the military’s service-people, Dane had felt a bubble of excitement and honour at the prestige.

  “Thanks.”

  They were outside of the imposing glass and metal building now, and the Southern hub towered over them, casting a shadow all the way to the edge of the concrete foreground. In front of them, the formal statue and gardens were still basked in the daylight of the sun. Blue cloudless skies went on for what seemed like forever, but that was the only natural view in sight. The walls of the compound were barely visible in the distance; slick, metal sheets that kept non-military personnel firmly on the other side. No matter which direction Dane turned, he already knew that all he would see were the training grounds for miles.

  “We should celebrate,” Joaquin said decisively. “The rest of the squad and some others will be down soon.”

  Dane didn’t feel he could object. As much as he wanted some time to himself to reflect on the news, he owed it to his squadron family to spend a fun evening together. It would be hard to keep himself from revealing any of the details about his new team and he’d have to be careful as they were bound to be monitoring all the people who had been selected to make sure nobody slipped up.

  Dane was surprised when the same girl who’d been with Joaquin earlier turned up with another group, but the unexpected additions made it easier to not go into too much detail about Dane’s new posting.

  “Have you met Teonie?” Joaquin asked as she slipped into a booth next to them.

  Dane smiled politely. “I don’t think so.”

  Teonie ignored the seat that Joaquin was offering her and stepped over his legs with surprising agility and Dane found himself sliding across to give her room to sit down between the friends.

  “I saw you at the command centre earlier.” She said in a voice so low that Dane didn’t realise she was addressing him at first.

  Dane looked at her, taken aback by her statement.

  “Did you?” He looked at her properly for the first time, taking in her perfectly-symmetrical face and her unnaturally icy-blue eyes. Despite his prejudiced feelings about Artificial Intelligence, he couldn’t help but admit that she was flawlessly beautiful. He had thought that there were only ‘Organics’ at the centre this afternoon, apart from the Attendants, but he must have missed them in his distracted state. Some of the highest-specification Artificial beings had been drafted into ground forces over the last twelve-months. Their skills and capabilities made them a welcome addition for national security.

  She nodded. “I saw your group go in as mine were leaving.”

  “What’s your group?” Dane asked, testing to see how much she could reveal.

  He assumed that the AI had any privacy restrictions programmed into them.

  “I joined the Tech force last year,” She said vaguely. “Everyone there today was for different arms of the same Project.”

  Dane looked at her again, but carefully this time, scrutinising the tiny details of her face. There were no ‘Artificials’ in the Technology Forces. It was against the fundamental rules of that branch, for obvious reasons. The country was still run by actual humans, and nobody would risk putting AI, no matter how well-balanced they seemed, into a position where they would have that much power. Maybe they were running some tests.

  Teonie regarded him, with a bemused expression on her face. “What?”

  Dane realised he’d been staring and averted his eyes quickly.

  “Sorry.” He said. “Uh, can you talk about your assignment?”

  “We’re on the same Project, for sure,” She said confidently. “It’s probably best if we don’t talk about it here though.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dane nodded emphatically, in case any of the surveillance team thought he was trying to discuss their assignment. “Absolutely. Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

  He hoped that that would end the conversation and started to turn towards his squad brother on the right, but Teonie continued to address him.

  “Are you going home to your family tomorrow too?” She asked.

  Dane looked at her in surprise.

  “What? We can talk about that!” She shrugged. “I can’t wait to see my family. Are you the older or the younger?”

  “Older.” Dane said cautiously.

  His family set-up was a little different than most people’s and he was naturally cautious about talking about it, knowing from experience it generated a lot of questions that invoked uncomfortable and painful memories.

  “I’m the older too!” Teonie exclaimed. “Did your sister get into AMS this year? My brother is so excited. He’s top of his class, so, fingers crossed, he’ll be eligible next year.”

  “No, she hasn’t.” Dane said, giving no explanation that his sister would be eligible the same time as her brother due to their slightly irregular age gap. “That’s great for your brother though.”

  Teonie smiled widely, and Dane, only half-listening to her chatter, noticed a tiny chip on her front left incisor. He realised with sudden clarity that this young woman wasn’t an Artificial at all! She was as Organic as him and Joaquin. He took a sharp intake of breath at the discovery, suddenly feeling very foolish.

  “What’s the matter?” Joaquin leaned over Teonie to tap Dane on the shoulder. “You ok, man?”

  Dane nodded, too embarrassed to admit his mistake. Teonie regarded him curiously for a moment, before turning away and joining in the conversation to the left of her.

  Dane tried to relax, now the awkward conversation was over, but he found himself shaken by his mistake. If he couldn’t tell the difference between an ‘Organic’ and an ‘Artificial’, how the hell was he meant to adjust to the new squad? He’d thought that his strength, his stamina and his geeky knowledge of the natural world had been the reason he’d been chosen for a spot on the prestigious new force, but this mistake had shaken his belief that he could make it in the gruelling challenges they’d been warned about.

  Disheartened, he excused himself from the now-lively crowd and slunk back to the sanctuary of his pod to be alone with his worries.

  TWO

  Dane woke before the scheduled alarm call and, conscious of his chip monitoring any jitters he had about the new role, he lay still in his pod, willing his mind to remain blank and his breathing to stay deep and natural. He had a briefing first thing this morning with the new team before he’d be heading back to his family for a few days. He’d barely had time to think
about how sad he would be to leave his existing squad, or to worry about the challenging training that lay ahead.

  His thoughts turned to his more immediate concerns. Going home. He hadn’t been home since his father’s funeral. He knew his mother wasn’t coping with it well. He felt more than a little guilty that he had just packed up and returned to base. In his heart, he knew he should have asked for leave and stayed a little longer but being in the house had been like living under a dark cloud. His mother had always been difficult, plagued with low moods and prone to periods of melancholy. She hid it well to the outside world, knowing she had to if she wanted to keep fostering the Coles children. Dane knew that he should have sympathy for his mother, but he couldn’t help but feel that she was self-indulgent. In his mind, if she could hide her depressive episodes in public, she should at least hide them from her own children.

  The alarm started to chirp, and the lights started to rise, and Dane slipped out of his pod and to his feet.

  “Today’s the day!” Joaquin greeted him, slapping his shoulder as they passed each other on the way to the wing vestibule.

  There was no ceremony about Dane’s exit, no big ‘moment’ and it felt surreal, not final at all, as he gathered up his belongings and surveyed their row of sleep pods, regulation seven-foot white capsules in rows of three, for the last time. They were not dissimilar to the pods Dane had slept in his whole life, except for the plain colours and the lack of privacy, but he supposed that he wasn’t feeling any twinges of sentimentality because the new wing would be a carbon copy. Training and assignments would take his new team away from base, but fundamentally Southern Base would still be his home. He’d see his Squad brothers from time-to-time. He imagined that the relationships would be different though, that he would grow closer to his new team as was only natural.

  The buzz of his wrist-device alerted him that it was time. He had been summoned back to the command centre, and with a quick goodbye to his friends, he headed down to the foyer to queue for transportation to his briefing.