NOVEL WEB Chapter 28: Numb
When we saw that the food hadn't killed Sparky or Sapphire I got a chance to eat. A half hour later, so did Rook.
The thing that was bothering me most, was that none of it really bothered me. In hindsight a lot of it made sense. I explored this curious feeling of numbness as munched on my second chicken salad wrap.
I didn't feel betrayal at finding out that Simon had lived this insane life before I was born. Or that my grandfather had been Gershwin's body stealing son. I could even get used to the idea that Gershwin had found some way to live on and there was a spooky AI secretly spreading across the world.
Was something wrong with me? I wondered. Because this was not a normal reaction. I was adapting to all of this much too easily. I was mellowing out when I should have been spiraling. Maybe it was a demi-human thing.
"You seem… fine." Rook said as he sat across from me on his crash mat. "It's like nothing sticks to you."
"Yeah, it's strange. But I would rather be fine than freaking out." I wasn't about to discuss the side effects of my augmentation with a relative stranger. I would wait to talk to Simon or Dr. Basam, my therapist.
"See, that." He pointed at me. "That is not a normal reaction. Most would say something about them being resilient, or that they had a tough life. They would deflect."
I shrugged. "What do you want me to say?"
"How do you feel about Krieger?" Rook asked.
"Oh, well it sucks that it happened and I wish it hadn't. The same with what happened to Mr. Brown." I saw his point. How I felt last night and how I felt now were very different. Everything was emotionally muted.
"Interesting." I said, wondering what it all meant. I shifted gears. "So, since I'm down here and nobody seems to know when the negotiations will end, do you want to teach me how to shoot?"
"No." Rook said without elaborating.
"Why not?" I hadn't expected just a flat refusal.
"Because I am supposed to be guarding you and I can't do that effectively if I am distracted." Rook looked over meaningfully at the storage room where Sparky and Sapphire were still shacked up.
"I am only one person, you know.” He pointed out. “Perhaps if you asked Mr. Knight nicely, he would be willing to spend some time teaching you. And I would be much happier to have a second body down here."
I wasn't sure if I was ready to face Knight. I was still embarrassed about how I reacted. "What about Vika? I would trust her with my life."
"Someone else is currently trusting her with their life. So she is busy." Rook said, letting me imagine who that might be. "Go, ask Knight for his help. I'm sure he is curious about what you are capable of."
"I…" I thought about it. "I'm not comfortable with that."
"You need thicker skin." Rook said. "I will summon him and then you may ask." He looked away for a second. "Yes, he is on his way down with some additional equipment."
"Fuck…" I swore. "Ok, yeah. You're right."
Once again Rook kept his carbine aimed at the door as Knight entered. But this time I noticed that he wasn't actually aiming it at his friend. He was aiming it behind him.
The hot pink hund rolled up to us with his overflowing cart full of delightful toys like a militant bellhop. "Are you feeling better?" He asked.
"Yes, much." I said, feeling embarrassed. I had thrown a tantrum like a child and I wasn't sure if I would live that down anytime soon. "Thank you."
He picked up an olive green tube with an optical sight and some kind of black rubber flaring along the back and front. "Would you like to blow some stuff up?" He asked. "For science, and for fun?"
I saw something tantamount to lust in Rook's eyes as he looked at the device. "Please tell me you have another one of those." He said.
"I may…" Knight gave a look that very clearly was asking for some kind of bribe or encouragement.
"What's the big deal?" I asked. "I mean, it's a rocket launcher. But what's so special about this one?"
"May I demonstrate?" Rook asked, holding his hands out and smiling.
"No, I think I have that covered. Thank you." Knight set the tube down and handed out pairs of hearing protectors. They were gray headphone style ones with built in microphones and audio processors. I slipped mine on and hit the button to sync them with my wetware. A few seconds later a tone chirped in my head and suddenly I realized just how much human hearing sucked.
"What the fuck?" I said out loud as my brain began to process frequencies that I had never heard before. The first thing I noticed was that I could hear everyone breathing. The second thing was that what I had taken to be a quiet underground facility was actually full of random noises. There were fans for the ventilation system above us. The fridge in the break room was emitting a low hum and there was of course the rhythmic thumping from one of the storage rooms.
"Cool isn't it?" Knight asked. "I don't know how you humans manage with such bad hearing. Everything you build is so noisy." He sighed. "It's actually kind of a problem. But anyway, this beauty is the 84mm High Accuracy Improved Recoilless Ballistic Launcher or HAIRBAL."
"It launches a variety of projectiles and is incredibly resistant to jamming. It also, being built by the katzen, is capable of detecting and engaging their current generation stealth technology." He smiles. "Yeah, it's not a feature that they advertise but I spent some time messing with the software and firmware to get it to work."
"How?" I asked.
"Basically the same way you did by rapidly changing the colors of the lights, but much more sophisticated. Katzen active camouflage is holographic. That means two people looking at it from different angles see different things. But there are limits to how much energy it can absorb or put out. It is also worse in the non-visible spectrum and it can't produce an actual coherent beam of light like a laser."
"So once the rocket is launched it sends a massive pulse of infrared light that paints the target then it switches to a rapidly modulating IR laser and locks on. Usually the rounds only do passive aiming but if the firmware and software are unlocked then the shooter can designate this special mode."
"Can you replicate it?" I asked.
"Absolutely." He grinned. "It's not anything particularly new or complicated. Actually, the stealth tech probably wouldn't work well against non-augmented troops running old style active night vision. The new stuff is mostly passive so it doesn't need the additional illumination." He paused as if he had just remembered something important. "You can't see in the dark can you?"
"No. I'm a human. We use external night vision if we need to do something like that." I looked at the two hunds. "Wait… can you?"
"Absolutely." Knight nodded. "I've got optical enhancements that allow me to see into the infrared and UV spectrum as well as some other fun things that didn't make it into the production models."
Rook held up his hand behind Knight's head, two fingers sticking up like bunny ears. "How many fingers am I holding up?" He asked.
"Two." Knight replied without looking back. "I am honestly surprised it wasn't just one."
"Woah." I said.
"Yes, we are incredibly well made compared to normal warhunds. Gershwin kept his best work for his personal guard, a move which should surprise nobody." Knight sighed, realizing that he had even more to explain now.