Mecha Corps by Brett Patton Read Free Book Online

Interface Assessment, if you want to be formal and academic-like.”
    “But what does it do?” Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Michelle watching intently.
    Pechter sighed, as if Matt’s question was the greatest burden in the universe. “It determines whether or not you can use the advanced brain-machine interfaces that are part of your training.”
    “So Mecha are run by mind control?”
    “Ye—Oh, hell.” Pechter looked away. “Lie back. I have to start the test.”
    “What if I don’t want to?”
    Pechter crossed his arms. “Like everyone says, you can waltz out at any time. It’s a helluva honor just to be invited to training camp. No real shame in washing out. With all the data they have on you, I’m sure you’ll still get lots of job offers from your daddy’s rich friends.”
    “Then this test is required.”
    Pechter set his jaw. “That’s right. And we’re on a clock. Should I tell all the other cadet candidates who’s holding up the line?”
    Matt lay back. The translucent cowl descended over his head, blocking his vision. For a moment, the entire world was cool, blue-white light.
    Then it went away and Matt saw nothing. He tried to move his head, but he couldn’t see or feel his body anymore. His senses registered zero input, other than the sensation of space, as if he were floating in an immense, pitch-black room.
    In the darkness, something moved. Something that scratched at the edge of his vision, ultraviolet and infrared. Matt wanted to run, but his body didn’t respond. He was numb. He couldn’t move anything, not even a finger.
    The thing in the dark moved closer. Matt felt its presence, like static electricity in the desert, like a musty odor in an old room.
    It touched him, and brilliant, acid pain cascaded through Matt. He tried to thrash against it. Every time he tried to move, the pain reached a new crescendo.
    Relax, a distant voice whispered.
    Matt thrashed again. Pain exploded. It was worse than the chemical nerve stimulation that refugee-ship police used to extract confessions. It was worse than anything he could imagine.
    There is no pain in acceptance, the distant voice said.
    Matt relaxed. Immediately, the pain stopped. The thing wrapped its static-musty embrace over him. Matt had to force himself not to struggle. It was like being smothered.
    It pressed inward. Into him. Into his brain. Matt screamed a silent scream. Talons raked through his mind, scrambling his thoughts, rooting through Matt’s cortex. Every neuron rifled, sorted, and cataloged.
    And he heard that distant voice again. Now it bellowed throughout his body from his head to his toes. And it was overlaid with feelings: intense interest; ravenous hunger.
    What are you? it asked. What made you?
    Matt’s thoughts turned backward. Toward his childhood. Toward his father.
    Suddenly he was six years old again.
     
    Matt ran ahead of his dad, down the long, dusty hallway deep below the surface of the planet Prospect. He was just back from another one of his Displacement trips from Eridani, and Matt was happy to see him.
    The lab crew had strung bright phosphorus utility lights along the ceiling, but much of the hall was still draped in shadows. Rooms off to either side gaped like yawning mouths.
    Matt didn’t like the dark. Once, he’d found a skeleton in the shadows, slumped over the rusted remains of a mining laser. In the shaking light from his flash, it almost seemed to move. It had come back in his dreams, chasing him down endless halls that bent to no refuge.
    “One hundred forty-one,” Matt’s dad called behind him. Matt grinned. The picture game. Dad was seeing if he could remember the image from its index number.
    “A pink flower.” The picture was vivid and defined in Matt’s mind. Twenty-one petals, shot through with thin veins of white. A bright yellow center. An insect hovering nearby. “With a bee.”
    “Seven hundred ninety.”
    “An asteroid. Stars in the background.” Matt tried to