Matrix

[Anyee]

No, not THE Matrix. It's the collective name for a four-year long series of daydreams and ideas I've had. It's a very long story, essentially of a world parallel to ours in which a different race has sprung up, some odd combination of technological Nietzchism with a healthy dose of neuroscience, drama, and sexuality. This is actually towards the end of it. It's all I can put down right now. Telling the story from the beginning would be awful.

...

I clicked back as the question was repeated. My gaze was somewhere over the hills, through the soot and cinders spiraling into my face, towards the browning grass vibrating in the heat of the pyre.

"I said, do you miss her?"

My back still stung where she'd pressed the needle, laced with currant juice and ground charcoal, in her patient hand, rewriting the promise she'd driven there five decades ago when I'd begged her for a sign. Her hands, invisible under the embracing flames and seared bandages, I'm sure still bore the stain of the craft, so many times did she pause to wipe away the mingled blood and black ink, to admire her words and her work. She'd not cleaned after she finished nor before she died. But neither had I. I rolled my fingers against my palm and whatever had caked on it crumbled off into the dirt.

"It's not a meaningful question," I replied, my voice cracking from the dust in the air. Her attendants had wisely wrapped their unilaterally monochromatic heads and stood upwind as they threw the torches. They stood in their formation, hands clasped behind their backs, ensuring that the burn was thorough and recordable, as in accordance with the decision. Her daughter, resplendent in her mother's ceremonial garb, watched dispassionately, the criminal blade returned to its sheath beneath her skin. I was extraneous to the process, but I had to see it, the proscribed pageantry, at least for a while. I'm not sure if that was what she would have wanted. Of her wants, I knew only one thing for sure: she wanted to live. Everything else, in that shadow, was nuance.

I turned from the fire and walked away from the assembled crowd towards the disk of the city. The rasping of a hold-suit followed me. "Define not meaningful."

I tried to wipe some of the ash from my face, but my hands were no cleaner, and I settled for smearing the fragments of my Other into the sweat of my scalp. "Not meaningful. She's dead for less than six hours. A nap. An airplane ride. A prolonged dinner." I turned to the red-clad girl, my own sigil dangling from her neck and glinting in twin lights of the sun and pyre. "It's not meaningful. Ask me in seven years."

We kept walking towards the metal hub, through the reflexive nodding of the tribesmen she'd let collect at the edge of her space. A tradeoff, as all five of their mothers had made when they carved out their mark: the protection of ceremonial land above in return for unlimited space below. Five different primitive cultures, five sprawling underground cities, five funeral pyres presided over by five silent daughters, four with the blood of her mother under her fingernails.

It wasn't going to work, no matter how hard Kai Ori believed it so. One does not expect a handful of silt will provide immunity from retaliation, even if the silt's contents were truly and singly responsible. Yes, they had acted alone, full control passed by rite and ritual to their daughters. Yes, they had disconnected from our shared mind to flounder as a quintet. And yes, the four who returned alive had publicly and unequivocally taken the blame for their actions.

But three million soldiers dead. A generation's worth of nuclear and biological weapons shot into space or disintegrated into microscopic fragments. The wholesale annihilation of twenty seven thousand separate military bases, not to include the ones that Kai Rastika simply evaporated by going full flower into battle and consuming them, atom by atom, in her smiling vortex. I'm sure, as she hovered at a safe distance above, that my Other had reflected on the lesson she'd taught her youngest sister, and unblinkingly watched its repeat below. Did the tallest Kai in turn watch as my Other strode through sixteen feet of laser-tripped concrete to melt the minds of the guards, turning the squabbling underlings on each other as she initiated the launch sequences? Did they watch together when Kai Ser finally brought twisted steel to cover her cursed head, and know that was the end of their journey? Perhaps.

A very public ceremony was held, the four surviving Kais and their daughters, signing a world-wide pact, granting an unconditional release from prosecution and retaliation..."With what," my Other smiled, knowing they'd crippled anything that could really hurt the scattered nuclei of our people...so long as the perpetrators were executed. I don't think that Kai Ori truly believed, knowing what she did of the signatures' owners, that the agreement held any weight. I think she hoped that after our years of teaching, they'd realize that trying to exterminate us wouldn't do very much good, but knew that in a week's time her daughters would be in armored great-suits, killing for peace once again. Tiring, and certainly not with the Center had intended when she created us. Still, Kai Ori gave her consent and extracted the promise from her sisters, even my Other, that they would walk with her into the buzzing hum of the hereafter, where each had visited before.

Underground, we moved through tubed corridors of silent conversation, the ticking of a million relays replacing a cacophany of grieving voices. I was glad, now, that her daughter was of age to contain them all, that I was spared the unnatural burden of sorting and holding that network. My quarters, on the penultimate floor, provided little shelter from my people's torment, but that was no surprise. Above, below, in the hills or in the air, I would hear them roar. At least here, I could clean myself while my attendant busied herself in expectant nervousness.

I looked in the mirror. The lie it told was expected. I'd not used my own face for as long as I'd had those marks on my back, both her gifts to me, both at my urging. A face that could not be recognized, as wan and unthreatening as those of her soldiers, to protect me from the edges of the world. Unaging, but then again, we all were, unremarkable, and perfect. Ten times she'd disabled it, letting the pervading illusion dissipate long enough for her to look at me, before replacing the wires and letting me conceal myself behind electromagnetic interference and pseudoneuronal transformation. I tenderly fingered Kai Rasmanius' best work, the thin copper rivet that ran from under my left ear to the nape of my neck, the best...or as I'd learn later, second best...disguise in the world.

I washed the lie.

Yes, I missed her, and the sting on my back had barely flickered.

[Snowglare]

It reads like a dream: beautiful, but ephemeral. Hard to tell what's happening, or who it's happening to. The opening's good*, it hooks you, and the story doesn't exactly drop off after that. Only... I feel it's missing something. You make it clear that the setting is a funeral for the narrator's Other (significant other, I assume), and there's backstory and hinting at deeper things, but, but, but... It's so abstract. I feel disconnected from the entire thing.

It's good. Everytime I look back at it, it radiates, like fire. And like fire, I can't grab hold of it. I can draw close, letting passages like these warm me:

"My gaze was somewhere over the hills, through the soot and cinders spiraling into my face, towards the browning grass vibrating in the heat of the pyre."

"I was extraneous to the process, but I had to see it, the proscribed pageantry, at least for a while. I'm not sure if that was what she would have wanted. Of her wants, I knew only one thing for sure: she wanted to live. Everything else, in that shadow, was nuance."

"I tried to wipe some of the ash from my face, but my hands were no cleaner, and I settled for smearing the fragments of my Other into the sweat of my scalp."

But I can't immerse myself in the story. I'm filled with questions, and I can't say what I'd do if they were answered.

*Aside from the first sentence. Makes me think of mouse clicks, and that can't be what you were going for.

[Anyee]

A good part of me, Snow, is thinking of writing this in parts that aren't story. Headlines from 50 years of newspapers, interviews, science specs, autopsies, etc. are all probably better ways of getting the needed structure to understand what the hell is going on. It's...complicated. Philosophy, neuroscience, and technology all blended together with a lot of language and playtime in my brain. I may go with that. Would that help?

[0xDEADCAFE]

I liked it very much, despite the lack of background story. The Kai's sound interesting indeed. If this came after a whole series of preceding chapters it would make more sense, no doubt. As it is, it's still a very rich portrayal of one moment in what seems to be a string of momentous events, very nicely written, and very enjoyable, if not entirely satisfying. More would be better.

A minor point: the DragonBallZ series also has a group of godlike characters called "Kai's", not that it matters, but I thought I would mention it just in case you would like to avoid the coincidence.

I know what its like to feel that you have a story that's bigger than you can tell. One solution: don't tell all of it. At least not all at once. More than one author has made an entire career out of a single complicated story.

[Snowglare]

A good part of me, Snow, is thinking of writing this in parts that aren't story. Headlines from 50 years of newspapers, interviews, science specs, autopsies, etc. are all probably better ways of getting the needed structure to understand what the hell is going on. It's...complicated. Philosophy, neuroscience, and technology all blended together with a lot of language and playtime in my brain. I may go with that. Would that help?It would help if the forum would speed up... I don't know that non-story exposition would be better. I was thinking that what I'd like to see is something firm that I can latch onto, like a character with a full name and description. The Art of Dying started out confusingly, too, what with the god-slaying and the obelisk-carving, but then there were two assassins, Sephony and Willowyn, who I could attach my mind to if I couldn't sympathize with. I have to admit it also helped that the setting was the diabloverse; this is a whole new world, with all sorts of things I have to go about learning. Not that I'm suggesting you shouldn't go ahead with an original work. Far be the very thought from my mind.

Non-story stuff could be helpful in explaining the backstory, in revealing the world, but I'd like to learn more about the characters from a first- or third-person POV.


A minor point: the DragonBallZ series also has a group of godlike characters called "Kai's", not that it matters, but I thought I would mention it just in case you would like to avoid the coincidence.

And in Star Trek, the world of Bajor is a theocracy led by a Kai, whose title precedes her or his name, as in Kai Wynn. I don't know what history it has as a title for positions of power, but it would seem to be one that all three tales share.

[Anyee]

Final Autopsy Report: Supplemental Note 4, informal journal
Subject - Lila Herin, M.D., Ph.D., USMC Lt. Col., First Center
Level - 7A (archivable, disclosable - General A.D. K3, Internal Immed.) For Gen. release see attached
Attending physician - Serid Ough-Herin, M.D., Ph.D., Kai Ori, Second Center
Reviewing physician - Milinea Sercil, M.D., Kai Oraventis, Second Watcher
Attending technician - Talia Dharpa, M.D., Ph.D., Kai Rasmanius, Second Junction

---
This is the final assessment that I, Serid Ough-Herin, Kai Ori, have made of the autopsy of Lila Herin, better known as the first Center of the network. These notes are a personal supplement to the official and supra-official documents attached, and should not be taken as scientific or technological in nature. For the formal autopsy, see page 4, formal pathology, page 8, and formal technical explication, page 15. For the publicly-released copies of these reports, see attached.

This represents an open letter to you, my people, and the thoughts of your Center as she performed her last duty to her mother. I hope that these give you some explanation for the events that have taken place and for what we have been through these last years.

--

I suppose I should have expected what I saw, and the attached formal report will detail it in the appropriate externally ambiguous language. I trust Ahadra enough to deflect the obvious questions in her own scholarly way, concealing the truth without outright lying. No need to trouble the unconnected with our personal travails, even when they do involve my mother. They're already giddy over her death and my ascendancy. I'd prefer they concentrate on those, and not my mother's behavior over the past two years.

No one should be surprised that streaming terabytes of terabytes per millisecond through a single brain would be damaging over a certain period of time, myself in the least. I still don't know how we do it, no matter how many times I look in the mirror, and I'm a child. My mother was eighty when she'd died, unfitted until her thirties, and spent fifty years on the network at center before she allow me to ascend, and for but two years, the strain of that burden was evidenced.

I imagine those desperate days when she realized what was happening. Fifteen surgeries in two years, nearly total replacement of every wire she'd put in, weekly dorsolateral prefrontal injections of stem cells, a full olgiodendrocyte restring with genetic enhancements to thicken the myelin. Staving away inevitability with scalpel, needle, and kilometers of gold wire wound about acres of diamond wafer. As much as she and I had differed, I would not have wished that slipping insanity on even her, and of course, on myself even less.

It's like looking at my own brain. I'm turning it over in front of me as I write, gently spiraling it in a three dimensional projection as Milinea finishes her pathology slides and pens her own notes. I haven't read any of them and I'm sure they will be subtly unpleasant, as everything she creates seems to be. By design, I'm positive, and she's never said otherwise. Her report will be added as she sees fit, for whatever public or private consumption she determines.

For the time being, and for our records alone, until this generation and the next have passed their time, this is my report:

As we all know my mother's final act was her attaching herself to the primary cerebral core and shunting some amount of its power (the sensor readings are inconclusive and Three hypothesizes that it could be anything from 1% to 4% of whatever level was active that day) through her own connectivity. That, coupled with the nanosecond, unprepared switch of full network from my to her control, was likely the cause of death.

I am uncertain what took her first. Was it the sheer force of the electricity stopping her heart and disrupting what was left of her neuronal structure? Was it the unfamiliar load of some seventy million minds compressing a decrepit connectivity? She was online just long enough for us all to feel her, and I have a scorch mark on the far wall in my office to prove she'd lived through a tiny portion of her suicide, that terrible burst of grief and madness that rippled among us as she died. The core disconnected her two seconds after she attached, once Talia realized what was happening and sent the kill signal to it. Ahadra and the abomination removed the body from the chamber and prepared it for autopsy. N.B. that this has been condensed into a power surge for public consumption and, as you all well know, I'd like it to stay that way.

My mother's brain, at the time of her death, was a loose amalgamation of microglia and GABAergic modified-Purkinjie neurons, held together by a mesh of capacitors, resistors, and a few million gold conduits. Milinea's report has detailed the exact layout and nature of what we found, but suffice it to say in brief that my mother's brain was probably 75% inorganic at this point in time, with the organic component undeveloped and poorly organized. Believe me when I say it was like pulling a sieve through thin gelatin. This was not the disease. This, in fact, was the cure. The disease, if we can call it that, is trying to maintain the network through a brain not altered from its very conception to do just that. It is why I was born the way I was, and my sisters besides me, and our daughters into the generations. The disease is the network, the cure is the sisters, but she was the only test case to prove it.

I am unsure how long she allowed the holding measures to occur, though the records indicate that the stem-cell injections were initiated seventeen years ago, at least fourteen years before we could detect that there was anything "wrong" on any level. My mother knew, and thus, so did Elaine, Ahadra, and the abomination, that the connectivity was beginning to destroy the surrounding tissue, and she likely began the treatments in the hopes of keeping herself stable long enough to pass control to me. When, I wonder, did the treatments replace the cortices containing her humanity, her graciousness, her brilliance, with lattices of formless paranoia? Did Elaine's death ensure its progression into the disaster Milinea is carefully fondling nearby? So many questions, and only a lifetime in which to answer them!

As a physician, a technician, and a Center, I find it nearly impossible that she was able to function even on the grossest of levels, let alone conduct diplomatic missions or instruct us in our ways. She did, though, and well enough that there wasn't a good reason to question her at the time. Force of will and familiarity with technology were my mother's friends, and if there was anyone who could conjure consciousness from a soup of degenerating neurons and unsupported hardware, it was her. But I will damn myself for not questioning her earlier, or listening to Milinea's insistence that the ascension be initiated before she deteriorated further. Did you, my mind-hearing children, feel her humanity dwindling into the machinery, but let your Watcher keep silent? Were you relieved when she became a single point on the network instead of its unstable hub, and then when that light blinked off forever, so that you could finally disengage the protective stillness you'd maintained for half a decade? And why, in her name and my own, why didn't you tell us?

I wish there was blame I could place in all this. I want it as much as I know it is wrong. Of that anger there will come no heat, she taught, only empty light. It would make is easier than admitting that we'd misread our own history and let the force of our wills become her worst nightmare, the unthinking animal-machine of our past. Would the Center of our history have ordered Talia into a loveless bond, blessedly cut short by her husband's aneurysm? Would the Center of our history have borne a grudge against her eldest for slights neither could remember? Would the Center of our history have forced my poor Awae to take a blade to her own mother, completing a right of ascension as brutal as one in ancient Rome?

No, of course not. But we let her do it, believing it was her will, and thus, ours. It was not, my children and my brethren. It was not at all. The woman we knew as our Center, our beloved leader, faded out long before she could command these acts to occur. What was left in her body were whispers among flickering relays, the wind through a scorched city counterfeiting voices. The beautiful connectivity that let us come to be, the human-machine that gave us freedom, was inevitably what trapped her consciousness in the network as so much purposeful white noise. We need to make signals out of noise, and we did, to our detriment.

So let us come together and mourn as one people for our collective mistake, and let her memory be one of peace. Forgive her, if you can, and if you cannot, at least comprehend the reasoning for our forgiveness. My grief is yours, your suffering mine, and as this terrible unit, we must move forward. It will never happen again, as she desired, and that is all she desired.

Another way.

[Snowglare]

Ok, I see what the problem is. It's well-written both grammatically and stylistically, but it doesn't appeal to me on any level. I can't call it bad, no matter how hard I try. It isn't. But I don't like it. I don't know what a "loose amalgamation of microglia and GABAergic modified-Purkinjie neurons" is, and I don't care. You're writing about all these wonderful things that don't interest me. So, I guess, don't worry what I think. Tell your story. I'm the sort of person who reads Science Fiction for the fiction part. You're aiming more for the science audience, it seems, and that's perfectly all right. It's not even that you're neglecting the other half. I just can't get into it.

[RevenantsKnight]

Well...I guess my impressions of this piece were pretty similar to Snowglare’s, in that I thought the story’s definitely well written, but...it’s hard to get into it as a tale. As previously mentioned, there’s a large distance between the reader and the story, which prevents me from enjoying it as much as I might. One problem particular to the second installment was the technicality of the language; I understood large parts of the terminology, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most people just saw it and started twitching. Also, it sounded a lot like someone mixing in a lot of Diablo references in a story; stories that call every single monster and area by name in every possible instance just grate along, and this started to feel like that sort of a terminology leak. Granted, it was a well done terminology leak, and much more likeable than a piece that feels like a game screenshot, but it was somewhat disruptive in my opinion. To answer your related question on the format of further installments, I’d say that scientific reports and such would be an interesting way to approach this if you can make them linguistically accessible to more people. On a happier note, though, I thought that the writing was very well crafted (in case I didn’t make this clear) and the original world is rather interesting on the whole, if . I’ll definitely be around to see what else you’ve got up your sleeve. Anyway, some specifics:


The wholesale annihilation of twenty seven thousand separate military bases, not to include the ones that Kai Rastika simply evaporated by going full flower into battle and consuming them, atom by atom, in her smiling vortex.

Given the “three million soldiers” figure prior to this, the number of bases destroyed seems way too high; that’s an average of just over 111 soldiers per base, and I doubt that those losses alone would account for all of the casualty total. Also, “not to include” might sound better as “not including.”


A very public ceremony was held, the four surviving Kais and their daughters, signing a world-wide pact, granting an unconditional release from prosecution and retaliation...

This sentence doesn’t read as smoothly as it could, in my opinion; unfortunately, I can’t offer hard and fast reasons for this, but my suggested sentence would be “A very public ceremony, consisting of the four surviving Kais and their daughters signing a world wide pact, was held, granting them an...”


"With what," my Other smiled, knowing they'd crippled anything that could really hurt the scattered nuclei of our people...so long as the perpetrators were executed.

Maybe I wasn’t reading carefully enough, but the last bit didn’t make sense to me. Then again, you do seem to be leaving a fair amount unsaid, probably intentionally, so feel free to ignore this comment if it was your intent to make this somewhat cryptic.


Underground, we moved through tubed corridors of silent conversation, the ticking of a million relays replacing a cacophany of grieving voices.

That should be “cacophony.”


Subject - Lila Herin, M.D., Ph.D., USMC Lt. Col., First Center

“United States Marine Corps”? That felt a little awkward, given the lack of other reality-based references. Also, she has an M.D. and a Ph.D. as well as an officer’s commission? That sounded like a tad too much to me.


No one should be surprised that streaming terabytes of terabytes per millisecond through a single brain would be damaging over a certain period of time, myself in the least.

The “myself in the least” part seems a bit out of place; by the time it shows up, I’m no longer focusing on the “No one should be surprised” thought. If you can, I’d suggest moving it up in the sentence order.


I still don't know how we do it, no matter how many times I look in the mirror, and I'm a child.

I wouldn’t use “and” to link “I’m a child” here, since that seems to contradict the “no matter how many...” part instead of complementing it, i.e. being a child means less experienced, so it’s more understandable if she doesn’t “get it”.


By design, I'm positive, and she's never said otherwise.

”By design”? Now that’s a scary thought...


(the sensor readings are inconclusive and Three hypothesizes that it could be anything from 1% to 4% of whatever level was active that day)

This part seems totally unnecessary. Since you already said that this is an unofficial document, such details are not mandatory here, and the percentages mean nothing to the reader given the context.


Believe me when I say it was like pulling a sieve through thin gelatin.

I’ve never experienced this before, so I’ll take your word for it. You might want to consider thinking up a more accessible image.


It would make is easier than admitting that we'd misread our own history and let the force of our wills become her worst nightmare, the unthinking animal-machine of our past.

What did you mean by “It would make is easier”?


Would the Center of our history have forced my poor Awae to take a blade to her own mother, completing a right of ascension as brutal as one in ancient Rome?

Did you mean “rite” of ascension?

Righty then...awaiting the next installment. Thanks for posting!

[Clarke667]

I was sort of loath to chime in on this... probably because I don't have anything really meaningful to add to the discussion. Except maybe this: I like the technobabble in the story. I don't know, maybe I was dropped on my head as a child, or I have repressed memories from my rebellious teenage years of eating diodes and circuit boards... but crazy technotalk always gets me.

In fact, the less I understand it, the more I like it. That might sound a bit stupid, but hey, take the second chapter for example: it's essentially a futuristic autopsy report from another world--if I understood every word of it, I probably wouldn't buy it. It would look too much like you were dumbing it down for me, and that would remind me that I was, in fact, reading a story, and then I would weep.

And another thing: the disjointed, surreal nature worked for me as well. Though I do have to agree with Snowglare; without some type of anchor, it goes a bit from "interesting confusing" to "where the hell am I and where are my pants confusing".

One last thing:


(...) some odd combination of technological Nietzchism with a healthy dose of neuroscience, drama, and sexuality.

It was that little smorgasbord of psychosis that got me hooked from the get-go. Except for the Nietzsche part... Freddy Neitz scares the ****ing piss of out me.

Looking forward for more, which I will devour with my eyeballs.

[Anyee]

You want a backbone, so here is a bit of it. It's boring, but I think it'll give you some idea of what is going on.

It was odd when this story came into being. I'd envisioned it taking place in the Pakistan-China region, during some sort of conflict that I didn't think was real. The 9/11 happened and it became, well, anyway, more real than I'd like to admit. The setting at it's beginning is early 1990 or so, as if everything had changed somewhere in the 1950's to make it possible. It's both in the world, and not in the world. Technology is going to be a semi-necessary part at first, especially the neuroscience, in order for the more fun parts to be possible. Purkinjie cells, for example, are neurons in the cerebellum in charge of inhibition. They shouldn't be in the cortex, and they certainly shouldn't be there without excitation as well.This is a symbol that something has gone terribly awry. I promise everything I talk about can be googled or will have a footnote.

Rev: As you'll come to understand, you don't need to kill someone in this world to eliminate him. In fact, that's contrary to the goals. Why kill someone when you can make him realize the folly of his ways? I'll look at some of the flow and grammar problems. The USMC is in there on purpose, as you're about to see.

---

Excerpt from the Unified Congressional Hearing on the Arohati Crisis - Day 25
Senator William J. Kennedy, Unified Congress President
Testimony of Former Secretary of State Johnathan Bankard

Page 2

What was your role, Mr. Secretary, in the creation of Project Rebirth?

I was one of a ten member team, comprised of the then Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Surgeon General, the Secretary of Technology, three members of the Presidential medical ethics committee, the Vice President, and the liaisons to the Afghan Confederacy and the Greater Pakistani Government.

Now, for the record, since this project has only just been declassified, describe briefly to the Unified Congress what the purpose of Rebirth was.

It's hard to describe it, Mr. Senator. What it turned into was not what it was intended for, and with all due respect, there are too many still-classified projects that fed into and came out of Rebirth for me to describe with any degree of clarity...

You have a responsibility to the Greater American People to explain how your project managed to turn itself into another country and nearly launched a nuclear strike. Without breaking national security more than you already have, tell us what went on there.

It was brought to our attention by the liaisons that several of the warlords that we were supporting in the Afghani-Pakistani crisis were using child warriors to bolster their troops. Now, we had ignored until this point the various crimes the warlords were committing-the drug smuggling, the prostitution, the expulsion of Christians and Hindus-because they had been so effective in furthering our goals in the war on terrorism. We'd known that there were some reports of young boys being pressed into service, but again, results took precedence.

Then we got the report that determined at least one in every five troops was under 16, not to include the girls they'd taken along to service the armies. The scale was beyond what we could officially tolerate, especially in an election year.

Our hands were tied, really. We'd been funding these guys for two decades and had never questioned the results. We couldn't draw back funding because they'd turn on us and we'd be back where we started. We also couldn't demand they release the children from the army without being willing to replace those troops ourselves. Even if they did get released, we'd have Uganda all over again.

Uganda?

Uganda was notorious for its conscript of child warriors and child slavery. Once the war was settled and the country taken over by the UN, the children were returned to whatever homes and family they had remaining. Problem was that the brainwashing that had kept the children sane during the war, allowing ten year olds to become mass murderers, made it impossible to assimilate them into peacetime. They couldn't be educated, they couldn't be trained in new jobs, they couldn't understand a life without fighting. What followed the war was a poorly handled rebellion cum extermination, where the children revolted against the constraints and the Ugandan government endorsed an unofficial policy of rounding up and killing the former soldiers. That was not going to go over in the Middle East.

So Project Rebirth was a means to prevent this?

In one sense, yes. It was meant as a combination deprogramming-retraining for all the child soldiers in the region to allow their compliant return to society.

In the other sense?

A way to covertly spread American ideals through the populace to make our eventual disassociation with the warlords and the choice of an American-backed leader seem popularly driven.

Using the children as a way to get to the parents?

Yes.

The Afghani and Pakistani governments assented to this?

We provided the appropriate financial compensation to the warlords for the children, as well as employment of several thousand of their own personnel. This included the construction of hospitals, schools, and housing, the reinstatement of farmland, the protection of religious institutions. Financially and socially, it was a windfall for them. How could they object?

Who oversaw this project overseas?

The committee had chosen certain people for the Project, coordinators, specialists, doctors...

Lila Herin was one.

Yes, she was.

What was her role?

She was the field commander and chief medical officer.

You mean to tell me that the United States Government gave official control of a highly sensitive project to this woman, who later took control of most of that country and...

Respectfully, sir, she was a highly respected doctor with specialties and ideals akin to the goals of the project. This was in addition to her training as a member of the United States Marine Corps, a fact that made her even more desirable in the eyes of the committee. There were no signs at the time of her employment or even in the first three years of her assignment that she would take the project to where it is now.

So tell me, Mr. Secretary...when WERE the signs noticed?

It is hard to determine, sir. In retrospect, we likely precipitated it.

Likely is not acceptable, and how did "we" precipitate it?

She applied for an extended leave of absence after a particular combat incident that left her a prisoner of war for several weeks...

We all have a copy this request, signed by a Machiko Hayashi. She is not on any of our official, or unofficial, internal rosters. Who is she?

She was the co-leader of the Project, provided to us via our treaty with the Japanese Alliance. She was a professor of psychology recommended by Dr. Herin as an expert in deprogramming, which she was and is. The Alliance was only too happy to send her and twenty thousand teachers, doctors, engineers, and other support personnel, holding up their end of the treaty without being forced to provide military intervention.

Was she qualified to write this report?

She had twenty years of clinical experience, including tours with several humanitarian units around the globe. I'd say she was very qualified.

She said, and I am quoting from this report, "It is my recommendation that Dr. Herin be evacuated immediately to the United States to allow her to recuperate from her injuries without the stressors of leadership and warfare as complicating variables." Why didn't you heed it?

Our progress was remarkable and we felt that if Dr. Herin were removed from the Project for any reason, it would symbolize the United States' non-confidence in her abilities, jeopardizing the future success. We had just begun the process of disenfranchising the warlords, the second stage of our operation there. We wanted to have this program operating at its fullest extent to ensure that the warlords' removal would be met with at worst ambivalence, at best outright rejoicing.

So you left her there.

We rejected the request and sent extra military forces to quell any uprising.

Because you suspected she might try?

It seemed a prudent course, even without any overt signs of dissent, yes.

What happened then?
Another two years passed. If anything, the Project became more successful, but the funding requests became more intensive. Now, in addition to the usual raw materials, she wanted specialized computer equipment, medical instruments, more troops, more non-combatants...but this time programmers, metalworkers, architects. Maybe it was guilt, or just our delight in how well things were going. We gave her everything she asked for. Her reports were as competent and lucid as they had been before, her progress carefully marked. The soldiers we sent to keep an eye on her were thrilled with the entire operation. We just had no signs that anything was wrong, not until the election.

And we know what happened then, don't we?

Yes.

Instead of choosing Hamid Karzi as their next leader, as we had hoped.

They elected her.

[RevenantsKnight]

Some quick thoughts on the non-story comments:


You want a backbone, so here is a bit of it. It's boring, but I think it'll give you some idea of what is going on.

Actually, I wouldn’t call this “boring”; it’s definitely got me interested, anyway.


I promise everything I talk about can be googled or will have a footnote.

Trouble is, most folks who read the stories here seem to pop in looking for something interesting, and aren’t willing to leave their impressions, let alone google stuff so they can understand the content.


Rev: As you'll come to understand, you don't need to kill someone in this world to eliminate him. In fact, that's contrary to the goals. Why kill someone when you can make him realize the folly of his ways?

Ahh...that makes more sense now; it’s just that “wholesale annihilation” of a base suggests 100% casualties to me, since personnel are the most integral components of a military installation.

Anyway, on to Chapter 3, which was quite well written, original and clear (to me):


I was one of a ten member team, comprised of the then Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Surgeon General, the Secretary of Technology, three members of the Presidential medical ethics committee, the Vice President, and the liaisons to the Afghan Confederacy and the Greater Pakistani Government.

To me, “part of a ten member team” sounds a bit better, as it’s implied that the Secretary of State can be only one person in a group. Also, is there a reason behind all the “Greater X” constructions?


Uganda was notorious for its conscript of child warriors and child slavery.

I think that should be “conscription.”


That was not going to go over in the Middle East.

Are Pakistan and Afghanistan considered parts of the Middle East, or of South Asia? I thought the latter, but I’m probably wrong here. Also, "go over" seems a little...odd; it sounds like you mean either "not going to happen" or "would not be acceptable," but I can't be sure.


Instead of choosing Hamid Karzi as their next leader, as we had hoped.

I believe that’s spelled “Karzai,” though there may be alternate spellings (I’m basing this off CNN, and they may be using an Americanized version.)

Again, the writing itself is excellent, almost completely error-free (as far as I'm concerned) and engaging. Overall, this caught my interest much more than the first two chapters did on the initial read, though I could see why this isn’t the opening installment of the story. I definitely intend to follow this one through. Thanks for posting!

[Anyee]

This will be continued, but it is late, I'm tired, and I'm not at my normal computer. :xgift:

I don’t think I can really describe when I decided to join the network. It was organic, strange as it may seem, especially with all this hardware on my neck. But really, it was a growth…my decision, not the hardware…out of something I’d known was there, lying dormant and waiting patiently for me to force into bloom.

It started in the mall, of all places. Funny place for a life-changing experience, but there I was, in the business women’s clothing section, rotating the sale racks and hoping that among the checked pleated horrors and flannel striped nightmares I’d find a cheap pinstripe suit, when she appeared. Hold on, I guess appears is the wrong word, totally. She sort of rotated in with the rack and stood next to me, appraising a black skirt unfortunately trimmed with Astroturf with a half smile and a raised eyebrow.

I’d never seen one of her type up close, but that’s not as xenophobic as it sounds. I’d seen two of the other types: a pair of listeners at a restaurant (I could tell because the table was totally silent the whole meal, save the occasional peal of laughter) and a single adapter, driving by me with her windows open, singing only her favorite note in the song. I’d just never seen a technician, not unless you counted the information sessions you could get on the network-bought cable channel. There she was, though, humming slightly as her connectivity ticked in time like a cooling baseboard heater, thumbing through the hangers.

First off, yes, they are really that small. Something about being a technician strips all the fat and I’m guessing most of the muscle off your body, leaving you a compact housing for code references and wires. She couldn’t have been more than 5’2”, 95 lbs tops, if you didn’t include the lump of connectivity at the back of her neck. Second, I don’t care if you like networked people or what, but the technicians have some of the most impressive technology, like, ever, and it’s gorgeous. Tiny LEDs flashing among a few hundred thousand braided hair-thin gold and copper wires, strung in and out of their skulls and backs, flesh turning into connectivity and back again, like a sculpture of living metals. And the sound…I said it’s like a ticking, but that’s if she’s just being idle. When she turned to me and smiled, big dark eyes almost dwarfing the rest of her face, the whole metal thing started humming this note, and it was almost comforting to hear it. I should have known then why, but I didn’t, not for a while later.

I must have been staring, though, because her smile was followed by a statement: ask me anything.