Chapter 2. Guardian Angel
«You can dress-up now, we are done here», said the doctor. I sighed with relieve, since this time it did actually sound as if it was really over. I had endured the last three weeks of our year-long training: the tests.
On December 14th, three-hundred and forty-four days after we entered the program, me and the other several thousand volunteers arrived to the recruiting office, got in line for the physical, and as soon as the doctor approved, we were sent to the Stadium. Those six days inside the Mackey Arena, with no fresh air at all, all that waiting, all those medical tests, those rude nurses... I don't recall what was worst, the being idle all day long, waiting for the needle, or the sleeping on the hard floor of the basketball court or the cold stone sits. The second day in the morning the smell of sweat was unbearable, but I guess we all got used to it because I cannot recall being disturbed by the same thought ever again for the rest of the week. If I could only have the pleasure of a shower and a quick shave, I wouldn't have felt so miserable.
Most of the men and women couldn't take it, and only a few dozens were left. They gave us one day to recover, feed us a decent meal, allowed us to shower and removed all the hair from our body using the uncomfortable laser spread. Finally, we were granted the use of a sleeping bag, on the ground of the airport, under one of the transporters in which we travelled. I've often slept in more uncomfortable settings —actually, in all of my thunder missions with the agency— but never for more than three days in a row.
Six more days "indoors", this time on board of one of the biggest, oldest and noisiest aircrafts used for cattle transport during the disaster in the Colonies at Moon. Why did we have to spend almost a week flying non-stop? Even those slow cattle-bullets can do the Moon Elevator in about half a day, so obviously the purpose of this "trip" was not 'where we were traveling', but 'how we coped with the pressure of being stranded and treated as animals', and those endless questionnaires: Logic, Algebra, Physics, Engineering, Law, History, Psycology, Chemistry and Biology.
Soon most of my peers were too tense and the fights begun everywhere. Fortunately I kept cool and didn't let anybody get on my nerves. Of course, there were those three thugs trying really hard: Cody, Sgt. Maddit and Xiang—we were acquainted, the three of them sore at me for some reason or another I can't recall right now. But I realized their rant and hatred was not only against me alone; they were making it hard for everybody else they had ever met. Being like that, it wasn't too difficult to stay out of their sight as long as possible.
Women tend to get together and stay out of trouble; besides, I recognized this blonde I met in Kansas, during the first-semester training for the program; let us call her 'Gabriel'—I'm not supposed to reveal her real identity. She was one the toughest, most intelligent and fastest shooter in my class; it came to no surprise when she made it to the top of the list and was picked as the first volunteer for the last stage of the training, even before she finished the basic first-semester training. I deduced that most of those women would be either operatives of the agency, or pilots for the Consortium; so I had this idea: I introduced myself to the ladies, gave them some casual conversation, and then commented on how unstable the situation was inside of the shuttle. I convinced several of them —the ones that looked more charismatic under my point of view— that it was up to them to speak-up and calm all us down whenever the situation was getting ugly. It worked as a charm: as soon as I suspected the three wise thugs were coming after me, I would spot any of the nice ladies, and use them as a meat-wall. I believe that after those three days, only five or six more people other than me didn't get involved in any kind of quarrel.
And it was precisely those six and myself the only remaining ones for the next test: the shocks and more physicals. They reminded me of the Paulov's experiments. Again, I could spot the pattern: basically, they wanted me to get pissed off. They were close in some occasion, but as my father used to say: "close, but no cigar!". Thinking about him always soothes me.
Finally, only myself and other three survived the second-stage of the tests: Gabriel among them, of course. We were destined to bear the glory of being implanted the new version of the palm-chip, with the personal defense modifications, and the complete access to the Human Open Directory.
We had to undergo a crash course on the new specifications of the chip and the new programming language. The learning curve of this language was very steep; we were used to issue commands in the imperative dialect developed by S&G, but in order to be able to access the Human Open Directory, not only a new dialect, but also this new language was created by the experts at MicroGLE. And this new scheme was much more stable and easier to upgrade, so they decided to force it into the rest of applications. But let me focus on the Human Open Directory first. As you are all aware, our palm-chip has an address associated in the HOD. In that address, our chip sends every half-second information about our location, the physical and emotional data, the commands issued to the palm, etc. The HOD can be only read by the Servers of the Central Computer; no human has access to this data except the programmers. But even if we had access to it, our Constitution forbids using this information for absolutely any purpose other than humanitarian reasons: rescues, control of Jensen fever breakouts, that sort of thing. Not even judges had access to locator and emotional data to help them decide on their cases. As a matter of fact, anyone charged with the crime of illegal use of HOD was put in solitude until trial, and if proved guilty, sent to the mines in the Asteroid Ring for life.
But not anymore. Today is one of those days your children will read about in their History classes. Today four chosen individuals were granted the privilege of accessing the HOD and using it. Today Humanity had acquired the power of investing some of its members the rank of Guardian Angels, to watch over all of us, all the time. But this gift came with a price: our lives. Our families were communicated our death in the line of duty, our palm-systems returned to them in a black box, together with a medal of honor, and flags of the Agency, the Consortium and the Earth-Moon Republic. Our names and faces were modified surgically, and our very existence chained to our new duty. In exchange for the power of wisdom, we got the obligation to contact any of the Servers three times a day —preferably once every eight hours, although exceptions were given due to the nature of the missions we were to be assigned. In case we failed to report, a fifth time in a row, the chip would suspend the extra properties and we would lose our "powers" until a martial court decided whether our failing to report was excusable.
On December 14th, three-hundred and forty-four days after we entered the program, me and the other several thousand volunteers arrived to the recruiting office, got in line for the physical, and as soon as the doctor approved, we were sent to the Stadium. Those six days inside the Mackey Arena, with no fresh air at all, all that waiting, all those medical tests, those rude nurses... I don't recall what was worst, the being idle all day long, waiting for the needle, or the sleeping on the hard floor of the basketball court or the cold stone sits. The second day in the morning the smell of sweat was unbearable, but I guess we all got used to it because I cannot recall being disturbed by the same thought ever again for the rest of the week. If I could only have the pleasure of a shower and a quick shave, I wouldn't have felt so miserable.
Most of the men and women couldn't take it, and only a few dozens were left. They gave us one day to recover, feed us a decent meal, allowed us to shower and removed all the hair from our body using the uncomfortable laser spread. Finally, we were granted the use of a sleeping bag, on the ground of the airport, under one of the transporters in which we travelled. I've often slept in more uncomfortable settings —actually, in all of my thunder missions with the agency— but never for more than three days in a row.
Six more days "indoors", this time on board of one of the biggest, oldest and noisiest aircrafts used for cattle transport during the disaster in the Colonies at Moon. Why did we have to spend almost a week flying non-stop? Even those slow cattle-bullets can do the Moon Elevator in about half a day, so obviously the purpose of this "trip" was not 'where we were traveling', but 'how we coped with the pressure of being stranded and treated as animals', and those endless questionnaires: Logic, Algebra, Physics, Engineering, Law, History, Psycology, Chemistry and Biology.
Soon most of my peers were too tense and the fights begun everywhere. Fortunately I kept cool and didn't let anybody get on my nerves. Of course, there were those three thugs trying really hard: Cody, Sgt. Maddit and Xiang—we were acquainted, the three of them sore at me for some reason or another I can't recall right now. But I realized their rant and hatred was not only against me alone; they were making it hard for everybody else they had ever met. Being like that, it wasn't too difficult to stay out of their sight as long as possible.
Women tend to get together and stay out of trouble; besides, I recognized this blonde I met in Kansas, during the first-semester training for the program; let us call her 'Gabriel'—I'm not supposed to reveal her real identity. She was one the toughest, most intelligent and fastest shooter in my class; it came to no surprise when she made it to the top of the list and was picked as the first volunteer for the last stage of the training, even before she finished the basic first-semester training. I deduced that most of those women would be either operatives of the agency, or pilots for the Consortium; so I had this idea: I introduced myself to the ladies, gave them some casual conversation, and then commented on how unstable the situation was inside of the shuttle. I convinced several of them —the ones that looked more charismatic under my point of view— that it was up to them to speak-up and calm all us down whenever the situation was getting ugly. It worked as a charm: as soon as I suspected the three wise thugs were coming after me, I would spot any of the nice ladies, and use them as a meat-wall. I believe that after those three days, only five or six more people other than me didn't get involved in any kind of quarrel.
And it was precisely those six and myself the only remaining ones for the next test: the shocks and more physicals. They reminded me of the Paulov's experiments. Again, I could spot the pattern: basically, they wanted me to get pissed off. They were close in some occasion, but as my father used to say: "close, but no cigar!". Thinking about him always soothes me.
Finally, only myself and other three survived the second-stage of the tests: Gabriel among them, of course. We were destined to bear the glory of being implanted the new version of the palm-chip, with the personal defense modifications, and the complete access to the Human Open Directory.
We had to undergo a crash course on the new specifications of the chip and the new programming language. The learning curve of this language was very steep; we were used to issue commands in the imperative dialect developed by S&G, but in order to be able to access the Human Open Directory, not only a new dialect, but also this new language was created by the experts at MicroGLE. And this new scheme was much more stable and easier to upgrade, so they decided to force it into the rest of applications. But let me focus on the Human Open Directory first. As you are all aware, our palm-chip has an address associated in the HOD. In that address, our chip sends every half-second information about our location, the physical and emotional data, the commands issued to the palm, etc. The HOD can be only read by the Servers of the Central Computer; no human has access to this data except the programmers. But even if we had access to it, our Constitution forbids using this information for absolutely any purpose other than humanitarian reasons: rescues, control of Jensen fever breakouts, that sort of thing. Not even judges had access to locator and emotional data to help them decide on their cases. As a matter of fact, anyone charged with the crime of illegal use of HOD was put in solitude until trial, and if proved guilty, sent to the mines in the Asteroid Ring for life.
But not anymore. Today is one of those days your children will read about in their History classes. Today four chosen individuals were granted the privilege of accessing the HOD and using it. Today Humanity had acquired the power of investing some of its members the rank of Guardian Angels, to watch over all of us, all the time. But this gift came with a price: our lives. Our families were communicated our death in the line of duty, our palm-systems returned to them in a black box, together with a medal of honor, and flags of the Agency, the Consortium and the Earth-Moon Republic. Our names and faces were modified surgically, and our very existence chained to our new duty. In exchange for the power of wisdom, we got the obligation to contact any of the Servers three times a day —preferably once every eight hours, although exceptions were given due to the nature of the missions we were to be assigned. In case we failed to report, a fifth time in a row, the chip would suspend the extra properties and we would lose our "powers" until a martial court decided whether our failing to report was excusable.
© 2005 by EsePrimo
