Hardware

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

I should have stayed in hardware.

When you’re working on a tank or a missile array, you might feel bad if the project is considered a dead end and shut down but you wouldn’t feel guilty. You wouldn’t feel like a traitor.

You wouldn’t feel like a murderer.

I’m a general in charge of a project designed to create a batch of superhumans under American control. We’ve learned a tremendous amount from the twelve brave souls who were picked from various armed forces and three civilian organizations.

1. We’ve learned not to try to augment people past a certain age. The implants cost too much to maintain.

2. We’ve learned that taking people with a previous experience of the outside world makes them hard to control.

3. We’ve learned that we’d be better off augmenting embryos with better biotech and raising them under controlled circumstances.

This project is to be terminated.

They’re about to be sent on a high priority mission by me to a bunker in the middle of a desert. Inside that bunker is a bomb. It will detonate and kill all twelve of them.

I am about to brief them over dinner. I’ll tell them about a threat to national security lurking in that bunker. I’ll say that they have to get in close to steal it back. I’ll say that the defenses are sneaky and not to trust their eyes.

I am about to lie to them.

They trust me because I’ve been with them since the beginning of their first treatments and I have always told them the truth.

I will be able to do this but I’ll feel it for the rest of my life.

I’m going to request a transfer back to hardware.