Refraction | Part 1 | Darwin's Steroids
26) Historical Phagophobia Part Deuce
The General was eleven when the war began, a brushfire in the middle east. He was drafted at eighteen and trained his way into an elite unit that consisted of only twelve men. The unit was mostly unknown to the rest of the military machine, and absolutely unheard of by the general public. Because they were twelve they called themselves The Jury, and then, of course, the Hung Jury, and the name stuck. The were responsible for assuring superior position in the world after the war had officially ended. They trained together, lived together, fought together. They wore no sign of rank or insignia on their uniforms, and often, while in the field, they moved about dressed as civilians. They were political assassins, and they were the best of the best. They were also the first group of nano-augmented soldiers in the world.
The Chinese had been the first to perfect nano as a offensive weapons device. They had ‘infected’ thousands of soldiers with nanotech time bombs. The soldiers had returned home from a battle in the north to secure fresh water in the form of the last of the Arctic ice. They had returned triumphant, the Chinese having turned tail suddenly and left the area of engagement. Celebration turned to sorrow when almost 53,000 veterans of the northern campaigns suddenly hemorrhaged and died, March 3rd, 2031. The Breckenridge process came into wide use just two years later, but they were two of the bloodiest years the planet had ever seen. The General had spent those years hip deep in death.
The augmentation he and the other eleven men had received was not terribly sophisticated, relatively speaking, it included measures that would allow them greater stamina, speed and strength, and a slightly increased ability to heal after being wounded. It was not however, without it cost to the men. It was the early years of nanotech, and its performance was not unlike a drug. It allowed certain muscle to work harder, longer, it stimulated brain activity, keeping the soldiers alert and focused for days at a time, but like a drug, it came with consequence. Like Speed freaks coming down off a week long tweak, the members of the Hung Jury were often left tattered and depressed after missions. Their bodies and minds had been forced to endure long durations when the nanotech inside them pushed them well beyond their limits. Only after, when the devices again cruised dormant throughout their bloodstreams, did the physical and emotional stresses of their assignments come crashing down on them. Sometimes political assassination is not just the secret murder of one person. Sometimes political assassination entailed framing certain governments, making it appear to the rest of the world that some certain government had done something horrible. Something like the massacre of a small town, or the bombing of a packed mosque.
Sometimes War Crimes are the order of the day.
The Breckenridge process was developed, the Hung Jury was dissolved by its command. Within six months eight of the men were dead by their own hand.
Sometimes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder doesn’t tell the full story.
The remaining men were pulled from their new assignments and put into the new second generation iso-tanks, they were plugged in deep, their minds scrub-a-dubbed. Memory is a funny thing. It is easier to manipulate and change than it is to remove. It is an interconnected web that has its gossamer strings thread into every part of the mind. Every sensory input can trigger it, and the effects of a memory can be as physically debilitating, as emotional shattering as the actual event. But, memory is also highly pliant. Like digital media, it is easy to switch something here, change a color there, put guns in those people hands, and make prayers sound like militant chants. Not to say it is an overnight process. The four men spent a year in the tanks, to this day, a record amount of time. When they were removed, they were given the option of an honorable discharge or a small promotion and a position training new inductees. The General and another man opted in and were reassigned to Paris Island to help the Marines turn men into killers. Four months later the attempted coup that split the country in two occurred. The beginning of the events that propelled The General into generalship.
The other two men took the discharge, signed the papers, and walked out of the office. The General had neither heard from, nor seen sign of them since, and had long believed that they had died during the fighting that swept the nation after the military’s stab at takeover. The man who had re-enlisted had been killed in on of the first battles, The General had watched him walk nonchalantly through a field of fire to hand deliver a number of grenades to attacking forces. The General had therefore considered himself the last of the Hung Jury, the final bearer of a terrible secret, alone with the burden of their crimes.
Until this morning, when he watched a man who had disappeared decades ago get shot in the chest with a .45 caliber handgun.
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