“Dreams?”
“Yeah. Dreams.”
“Are these ‘dreams’ about Eve?”
MMC Psychological Officer Olivia Rodrigues was at least three times Robbie’s age, with unedited silver hair and bionic eyes. He had cultivated a crush on her over the years. Normally, it made these sessions tolerable.
Today he just wanted off this couch. The windowless prefab hut was hot—EXO19’s salty air was playing havoc with air con units all over the FOB—and his sunburned skin was itchy as fuck beneath his brig fatigues. He could hear the sound of Mantamechs on high alert outside: the jet-whine of Aero Fighter take-offs; the pneumatic clunk of Ground Walker patrols.
“It’s perfectly normal,” continued Olivia from the couch opposite. “Amputees feel phantom limbs; mech pilots hear the thoughts of their wingmates after they…”
“My ‘dreams’ aren’t about Eve.”
While she waited for him to elaborate, Robbie stared at a photoprint on the wall of an Earth city, pre-Cascade: strange blue skies, tall buildings by a beach, a statue on a hill which looked disturbingly like a ?.
“What are you dreaming about, Robbie?”
<ul>
<li>The ? on her lower back…</li>
</ul>
“The enemy pilot.”
Olivia’s eyes shifted in concentric silicon circles. “Your body language suggests that these dreams aren’t exactly…platonic.”
“Look, I know this sounds crazy…”
“I’m your Psyche Officer.”
“…but it’s like she’s in my head. And I’m in hers.”
“Can you ‘hear’ her now?”
“Not exactly…but it’s like she’s on the tip of my tongue. Like when you feel the mech through the haptic straps of the crash corset, except it’s her I can feel.”
Olivia nodded thoughtfully. “Transference.”
“Huh?”
“You’ve redirected your anger and guilt over Eve’s death onto the enemy pilot.”Stolen novel; please report.
“But my dreams are…”
“Kinky?”
“Is that a diagnostic term, Psyche?”
“Eve was like a sister to you, a quantum twin. With this ‘Priestess’, there is a friction. You tried to kill each other. Your desire for both intimacy and revenge is manifesting as a sexual urge.”
“You’re saying I want to hate–fuck a Christophite?”
“Your mental construct of a Christophite. We don’t know what she’s like outside of your dreams.”
Robbie gripped the sides of the couch. “Firstly, I wouldn’t fuck a clone. That’s just wrong.”
“Societal taboos can heighten arousal…”
“Secondly, this doesn’t feel like a ‘mental construct’. It feels like we’re…entangled.”
“That’s not possible, Robbie.”
Robbie knew this. Mech pilots had to be carefully crossmatched with a compatible psyche before they received the implant. And after the first sync, only wingmates could hear each other’s thoughts. And yet…
“Is there no way the lightning strike could have…”
“Hold that thought, Robbie. Let’s try a little exercise.”
Olivia unclipped a stylus from the breast pocket of her khaki blouse and scribbled something on an e-ink tablet. She passed the device to Robbie.
I’m trying to help. If we can prove you’re psychologically compromised by grief, the board may be lenient.
Trent/Najib had recovered Robbie’s black box from the slagged remains of his Mantamech. Of course, it couldn’t record Robbie/Eve’s entangled conversations, or the chaotic syncing/desyncing that followed. But it did save the parley between Robbie and the Priestess, the proton lance clash, Eve’s death, and Robbie’s subsequent dogfight with the Christophite clone pair. Robbie now had to explain the loss of one pilot, two Mantamechs, and the detonation of a nuclear air mine in the atmosphere of a pristine exoplanet.
And—potentially—a lost chance for peace.
The court martial was due today, but Olivia had managed to schedule this ‘mandatory psychological debrief’ in advance. What was said in this hut was supposed to be confidential. But they both knew MMC Intel had ears in the walls.
It took him a moment to write his response with the stylus—he still wasn’t used to the low-Turing tech out here in the EXOs.
I don’t need your help. Don’t risk getting yourself in trouble for me.
Olivia looked at the tablet, cleared the screen and wrote:
This is very serious. You’ve risked the peace deal. They’re talking about <u>capital punishment</u>.
“I’m ready to take responsibility for my actions. Eve’s death is on me…and the Priestess.” He stood up and made to leave.
“Mech Lieutenant Robert Cassidy, it is my professional judgement as Psychological Officer of the Martian Manta Corps EXO19 Forward Operating Base that you are emotionally compromised by grief and therefore cannot currently stand court martial.”
“No, this changes nothing. I’m ready to answer…”
A klaxon alarm sounded. The hut’s door flew open, and Brig Warden Walter Okafor burst in. Olivia took a sharp intake of breath.
“Mech Lieutenant Cassidy!” barked the Brig Warden. “You will accompany me at once to the Command Centre, by order of Base Commander Caravaggio.”
“What’s happening?” said Olivia.
“Patrols have spotted a ?mech approaching the FOB.”
“It’s her,” hissed Robbie. “Walter, give me a mech. Let me fight.”
“You’re under court martial, Mech Lieutenant!”
“Actually, he isn’t fit to…” began Olivia, but the Brig Warden cut her off.
“In any case, the enemy is alone and in Ground Walker Mode. The pilot has opened a parley channel. Seems she wants to talk…” He turned back to Robbie. “…to you.”