Hello, my name is Jack.\u00a0 The Marines have this thing about every Marine being a rifleman.\u00a0 Even pilots like me.\u00a0 They also have a thing about training every Marine in martial arts, to control our minds, our characters, and our bodies.\u00a0 They ground it into me pretty good.\u00a0 Literally.\u00a0 On the ground.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0 But once I got the hang of it, I realized something.\u00a0 It\u2019s all a dance.\u00a0 Combat in all its ways.\u00a0 Messy and violent, but a dance.\u00a0 And girls have always said I\u2019m a good dancer.<\/p>\n
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Jack stood at the top of a hill where the house he grew up in had stood.\u00a0 Now waist-high grasses covered it, seedpods waving in the breeze coming off the lake behind him.\u00a0 The lake stretched out on either side, surrounding the promontory that he still owned, twenty years after the fall of Yosemite wiped out everything.\u00a0 Behind him, down in the cold spring water, Taylor and Jennifer splashed, keeping above water despite the shock of being thrown in.\u00a0 Beyond them, the limousine that tried to run them all over sank into the lake like a rock.\u00a0 Ahead of him, the stones marking generations of his family stuck out of the grass, too far to be of any use to him.\u00a0 Beyond them a thick, dark, old growth forest rose out of the field, standing tall above the landscape.<\/p>\n
Warning red lights flickered through Jack\u2019s contacts, highlighting threats in that forest.\u00a0 He peered at the three threat sources, smiling as the adrenalin burned through his veins and time seemed to stand still.\u00a0 The men hunkered down behind fallen logs, rifles braced over them and trained on him, their eyes open wide in shock.<\/p>\n
They hadn\u2019t expected him to avoid their first attack.\u00a0 Sloppy of them.\u00a0 Somebody must not have told them who their target was.\u00a0 Either that or they were far too stupid to live.\u00a0 Nobody targeted one of the Ageless, especially one with a cybernetic partner, with a single attack and expected it to succeed.<\/p>\n
The Peloran Treatments had ended aging as humanity knew it.\u00a0 The Terran branch at least.\u00a0 Short of death by accident or threat, people could live for centuries now, with bodies that just didn\u2019t wear out like they had before Contact.\u00a0 But there were some side effects to the Peloran Treatments.\u00a0 One out of a million people simply stopped aging at all the moment they took the final treatment, whatever physical age they were.\u00a0 Six, sixteen, or sixty, whatever the age they never aged another day in their life.\u00a0 They were Ageless, with immune systems that actively fought any change at all, healing wounds without scarring, and even regrowing lost limbs given enough food and time.\u00a0 Their body knew exactly how it was supposed to look, where every cell should be, and it would remain like that, unchanging, until the day something finally killed them.<\/p>\n
More than that, the body of an Ageless fought the effects of fatigue with amazing capability, stripping the toxins from their bodies that caused most people to slow down.\u00a0 They were stronger than average, had hair trigger reaction times that few could match, their eyes and ears could see things most could not, and they even used more of their minds than most humans.\u00a0 They were much like the genetically-engineered Peloran in fact.\u00a0 But for all their differences, they weren\u2019t actually superhuman.\u00a0 The best comparison an early researcher of the Ageless phenomenon made was that they were like professional baseball, basketball, football, or soccer players.\u00a0 They were at the peak condition of the human body, able to do things that most people could never dream of doing themselves.\u00a0 And their bodies never broke down due to injures or age.<\/p>\n
For twenty years, Jack had fought the Shang, driving them back from their assaults on Earth, Alpha Centauri, and all the other worlds of humanity.\u00a0 The Terran branch at least.\u00a0 In all those years, the Marines and then the Peloran taught him how to fight, and unlike those who lived before Contact, he still had the perfect body of a twenty-five year old college student, with not a single physical scar to betray all the lessons two decades of training and fighting had drilled into his body.\u00a0 Mental pain was a completely different issue.\u00a0 In this moment of perfect clarity, Jack knew he was a mental basket case.\u00a0 But physically, he was never better.\u00a0 Literally.<\/p>\n
And the three men holding rifles at him had no idea in the world what they\u2019d done.\u00a0 Actually, from the way their eyes opened wide as he finished standing up, adrenalin burning through his veins and heightening every last one of his senses, he figured they were realizing it.\u00a0 That knowledge was far, far too late to make a difference.<\/p>\n
Jack smiled as he studied them, his mind picking out important pieces of information at lightning speed.\u00a0 They wore impressive active camouflage fatigues that made them blend into the dim, old growth forest, breaking up their outlines in their shelters.\u00a0 Even their rifles aimed at him were tied into the system, and looked like branches sticking out of the logs they rested on.<\/p>\n
But even limited to the sensors embedded in his uniform, Betty knew what to look for and the enemy outlines flared in his contacts.\u00a0 He might have been able to see them without the contacts, if he knew where they were there, but he wouldn\u2019t have bet his life on it.\u00a0 And caught unawares, he doubted he ever would have noticed them in time.\u00a0 Their armored helmets and combat fatigues weren\u2019t Marine issue, but they looked like they would protect the gunmen from most, if not all, small caliber weapons.\u00a0 And the helmet was one of the standard combat helmets, with a clear visor that gave the wearer combat information much like his contacts.\u00a0 Betty pointed out the weak points in their protection as she laid blazing red lines across his contacts, showing the rifles aimed at his chest.<\/p>\n
Jack\u2019s studying gaze flicked over them for a split second, registering the open shock behind the visors, assimilating all of Betty\u2019s warnings and suggestions.\u00a0 He stepped to the side, breaking contact with the three lines that met at his body, right hand dipping to pull the pistol from its holster, and saw the first flashes from their rifles.<\/p>\n
Bullets whizzed by him close enough he felt the brush of air as the gunmen tried desperately to bring their rifles around to him again, but Jack danced to the side, following a tune the attackers could never hear.\u00a0 Moving lines flowed in his vision in time with the swinging rifles, but he continued to move before them with deadly grace and brought the pistol up.\u00a0 More bullets whizzed by and he aimed the pistol, lining it up with one of Betty\u2019s markers.\u00a0 He pulled the trigger once and rode the recoil to avoid another stream of bullets as the slide hammered back, sending a smoking casing twirling into the air, sunlight glinting off it.\u00a0 The slide shot forward again, slamming another round into position as his first shot exploded through his first target\u2019s visor.<\/p>\n
One stream of bullets tore up into the air, their rifleman no longer alive to control them, and Jack planted one leg down hard to jump to the side as the other two streams of bullets swept towards him.\u00a0 He flew over the rocks and fell away from the hill as the bullets passed over him.\u00a0 A slight tug on his left leg sent him tumbling though, and he splashed into the water much harder than he\u2019d planned.<\/p>\n
The freezing water of a Northern Minnesota lake in early spring bit to the bone and it took a lifetime\u2019s experience of jumping into the water under far less dangerous circumstance to keep him from gasping.\u00a0 He held onto his control, planted hands and feet in the muddy bottom of the lake, and pushed himself back above the water.\u00a0 He shook his head, spraying cold water in every direction, and blinked more out of his eyes, trying to get a good look at the attackers through the rocky bank that blocked a direct sightline.<\/p>\n
Via sensors Betty had deployed, his contacts showed the two gunmen on the move, crouching as they ran across the open field directly towards his position.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t good.\u00a0 He glanced to the left to see Taylor and Jennifer holding onto rocks and shivering.\u00a0 He had to get them out of the water before hypothermia set in.\u00a0 He just had to make certain that getting out of the water wasn\u2019t a death sentence first.<\/p>\n
Jack nodded in decision and began wading to the right to flank the enemy, crouching to avoid poking his head above the hill.\u00a0 He really didn\u2019t want to give them a free target.\u00a0 The gunmen turned, keeping track of his movements, and he suppressed a curse.\u00a0 Betty wasn\u2019t the only one who\u2019d dropped sensors.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetty?\u201d he whispered so quietly that even someone standing next to him couldn\u2019t have heard, continuing to move away from the girls in the knee deep water.\u00a0 He had to draw the attackers away from them if possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m on it,\u201d Betty answered from his earpiece.\u00a0 \u201cThey have AI support,\u201d she added in a derisive tone.\u00a0 \u201cDealing with it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need them blind,\u201d Jack growled as the attackers continued to track his movement, aiming their rifles at the rim of the hill above him.<\/p>\n
\u201cGot him,\u201d Betty answered in triumph.\u00a0 \u201cAI is down.\u00a0 Stupid piece of crap,\u201d the cyber added and Jack smiled.\u00a0 To her and most cybers, AIs on a good day were their stupid inbred cousins that needed help to run their own code.\u00a0 On a bad day, they were ants to be squashed.\u00a0 She was in a squashing mood today, and Jack heartily agreed.\u00a0 \u201cSensors down.\u00a0 They\u2019re blind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack stopped moving immediately and smiled as the gunmen continued to track his previous movement for a few seconds.\u00a0 Then they stopped, tracking their rifles back and forth, covering the hill in case he came over it.\u00a0 Jack licked his lips, following their movements and waiting for the right time to attack.\u00a0 After a few more seconds, one turned in a decisive action and began to run towards where the girls hid.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrak,\u201d Jack whispered, not bothering to suppress the curse this time.\u00a0 So they\u2019d decided to force him to show himself.\u00a0 If the gunman got to the girls, he would use them as hostages.\u00a0 Jack could not allow that.\u00a0 Whatever the cost.<\/p>\n
Jack shot out of the water, water and mud running off the pistol held straight out before him, and aimed it at the closer gunman.\u00a0 The man\u2019s rifle aimed to Jack\u2019s right, where the man thought he would be.\u00a0 The man was wrong.\u00a0 The attacker spun, bringing his rifle around, but Jack had all the time in the world to pull the trigger.<\/p>\n
A 12.7-millimeter armor-piercing bullet roared out of the barrel, spraying mud and water before it.\u00a0 Jack saw the shockwave of air as it traveled at over a thousand meters per second, crossing the few meters between them in less than an eye blink.\u00a0 The bullet\u2019s point exploded against the visor, clearing the way for the rest of the bullet to penetrate the man\u2019s body armor, and then proceeded to bounce around inside the armored helmet, turning his brain into paste.\u00a0 The pistol\u2019s slide slammed back, ejected the smoking casing, and rocked forward again with a third round in the chamber as Jack spun to face the third rifleman.<\/p>\n
The third one was smart.\u00a0 The smartest of them Jack thought.\u00a0 He\u2019d been the one to threaten the girls.\u00a0 And he\u2019d expected Jack to react.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t known where Jack was of course, which kept him from correctly guessing where Jack was, but there was only one Jack, and there had been two gunmen.\u00a0 It took time to kill them both, and the third attacker had bet his life and the mission on that time.\u00a0 It had been his best bet, and Jack had killed his partner first, giving him the time he needed to line his rifle up on Jack.<\/p>\n
The attacker pulled the trigger and a bullet exploded out of a flashing barrel, faster than the speed of sound.\u00a0 Jack watched its silent approach with the corner of his eye as he spun away, trying desperately to avoid it.\u00a0 But he wasn\u2019t fast enough to avoid a speeding bullet. \u00a0Still, that didn\u2019t really matter.\u00a0 He felt his pistol line up with the attacker and pulled the trigger as pain blazed in his left shoulder.\u00a0 Then an explosion of sound rolled over him as he flew back and fell into the water again, smashing face first into the muddy bottom.<\/p>\n
This time he did<\/em> gasp in pain, and bubbles of precious air floated up and away.\u00a0 He blinked in pain, watching blood swirl in the water, and knew it was bad.\u00a0 Not dead bad, but bad bad.\u00a0 Jack gritted his teeth, planted his good hand on the muddy bottom, and pushed his head out of the water again.\u00a0 He looked up through the hill to see the third attacker laying on it, the readings on his contacts clearly showing the man was dead.<\/p>\n Jack let out a long breath in relief, and pulled his legs under him.\u00a0 He rose to his feet shakily, and looked down at his uniform.\u00a0 Mud and blood ran down it, staining the white fabric in blotches.\u00a0 He blinked and tried to move his left arm.\u00a0 Tried.\u00a0 The pain exploded, and he was pretty certain the arm just flopped. \u00a0The shoulder was ruined.\u00a0 He slipped the pistol back into the holster and reached over to rip the uniform open at his shoulder.\u00a0 The shoulder looked bad, but the bleeding was coming to a stop already.\u00a0 Good.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened?\u201d Jack asked and winced as he began to trudge through the water, waving aside weeds with his good hand.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Jack,\u201d Betty whispered as her holoform flickered into focus in the water next to him, slipping through it like a ghost.\u00a0 \u201cThey hacked the limo.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have time to get control back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo problem,\u201d Jack answered and walked into view of Taylor and Jennifer.\u00a0 They aimed frightened looks at him and he smiled.\u00a0 \u201cYou warned me.\u00a0 That\u2019s what matters.\u00a0 Any idea who they were?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNone,\u201d Betty whispered, and a quick glance showed concern on her face.<\/p>\n \u201cAny others out there?\u201d\u00a0 He stopped and looked at her, hoping there weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cNot in range.\u201d\u00a0 Betty shrugged.\u00a0 \u201cBut I didn\u2019t take time to ask the AI.\u00a0 I just shredded him.\u00a0 They may have backup.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGot it,\u201d muttered and turned to Taylor and Jennifer again.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to move.\u201d<\/p>\n They wrapped arms around their torsos, shivering in the early spring breeze.\u00a0 \u201cWhere?\u201d Taylor asked through chattering teeth.<\/p>\n Jack shrugged and immediately regretted it.\u00a0 The bad shoulder had a real way of protesting any motion.\u00a0 He smiled through the wince of pain.\u00a0 \u201cSome place I really never intended to come back to,\u201d he muttered and turned to very carefully walk up the stone bank.\u00a0 Taylor and Jennifer followed his example, but Jack winced as his left leg spasmed in pain.\u00a0 He looked down to see blood staining the uniform leg and sighed.\u00a0 But he\u2019d been walking on it.\u00a0 That meant it was just meat damage.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re hurt,\u201d Jennifer whispered, concern on her face as she looked at his shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll live,\u201d Jack growled, pushed the pain away, and made his way up onto the grass again.\u00a0 He stood still for a moment, gasping and concentrating on holding the pain at bay, and then staggered up to where the house used to stand over the lake.\u00a0 He dropped down on one knee, the one attached to the bad leg of course and winced as a jarring pain informed him of the protesting limb.\u00a0 He paused to take a deep breath, let the pain subside, and then brushed twenty years of dirt and grass off the security panel.\u00a0 He placed his hand on it, the panel blinked in recognition of its last living owner, and a thick security door in the ground retracted.<\/p>\n Dirt and grass fell onto the stairs as lights came to life, providing illumination into the bunker.\u00a0 \u201cGet down there,\u201d he ordered and they walked down without hesitation.\u00a0 He ran one last scan of the area and Betty flashed data across his contacts.\u00a0 They were clear.\u00a0 Jack nodded, pushed himself back onto his feet, and walked underground, the heavy door sliding back into place to lock them in.\u00a0 More importantly, it locked any threat on the other<\/em> side of that door, exactly where he wanted it.\u00a0 He reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the girls looking around.<\/p>\n \u201cIs this?\u201d Taylor began to ask.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere dad died,\u201d Jack supplied, looking at the place where he\u2019d watched his father breath his last breath.\u00a0 \u201cAnd where mom might as well<\/em> have,\u201d he added, remembering her keen of grief like it was yesterday.\u00a0 He shook his head.\u00a0 He had more important things to worry about, like the shock that would be coming now that he could feel his adrenalin starting to fade.<\/p>\n He sat down on the floor, leaned back against the wall, and let out a very long breath.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s pain killers over there,\u201d he said with a wave of his good arm towards one of the shelves, not trusting himself to make the walk..<\/p>\n Jennifer jumped into action towards the shelf, while Taylor went down on her knees next to him.<\/p>\n \u201cHow are you?\u201d she asked, her teeth chattering.\u00a0 She was soaking wet, sundress plastered all over her body like a second skin, hair straggled and stringy.\u00a0 And she was so cold her entire body shivered along with her teeth.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll get better,\u201d Jack whispered.\u00a0 \u201cBut you\u2019re going to go into shock soon.\u201d\u00a0 He reached up to slip the shoulder of her sundress off with a serious look.\u00a0 \u201cYou need to get out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor brought a hand up to hold the sundress, an embarrassed look on her face.\u00a0 Jack\u2019s face fell in fresh realization of what the last twenty years had cost them.\u00a0 She never would have been embarrassed over something like that before.\u00a0 Jack pursed his lips and waved towards another shelf on the far side of the bunker.\u00a0 \u201cMy mom hid clothing over there.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor smiled gratefully, sniffed, and rose to her feet to check it out.\u00a0 Jennifer came over with a package and ripped it open.\u00a0 She took out a patch and placed it onto his shoulder.\u00a0 It went to work instantly, taking the pain away.\u00a0 A rip of uniform fabric preceded another patch on his leg, and he relaxed into the wall with a sigh.<\/p>\n Then Jennifer followed Taylor, and he turned his head to keep track of their progress.\u00a0 He heard them gasp as they found the stash of clothing, and then Taylor stuck her head out.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re labeled.\u00a0 With our names<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n Jack chuckled as his good hand started to tremble.\u00a0 \u201cYeah,\u201d he whispered, shaking his head.\u00a0 \u201cMom wanted to be prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor what?\u201d Jennifer asked from behind the shelf as she stripped out of her wet clothing.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t see much through all the foodstuffs and other emergency supplies in the bunker, but the glimpses he got were enjoyable.\u00a0 He pulled his gaze back to Taylor to see her raising a knowing eyebrow at him.<\/p>\n Jack cleared his throat and sat on the hand that he couldn\u2019t stop from trembling.\u00a0 \u201cAh\u2026well,\u201d he stammered before just jumping in.\u00a0 \u201cFor me to grow a brain and make honest women of yah,\u201d he said with a shrug of his one good shoulder.<\/p>\n Taylor\u2019s smile softened and she stepped behind the shelf.\u00a0 \u201cShe really said that?\u201d she asked as she began changing.<\/p>\n Jack felt the tremor in his hand spread to his entire arm, and licked his lips.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t a conversation he\u2019d ever thought to have with them.\u00a0 \u201cYeah,\u201d he whispered in a shaky voice.<\/p>\n Jennifer stepped out wearing sturdy jeans and a work shirt with a smile that reminded Jack of the cat that just caught the bird.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t say a word, but tugged her collars in a satisfied manner and walked over to where he sat.\u00a0 She stood over him for a moment, and then sat down next to him.<\/p>\n Jack\u2019s teeth started to chatter with the cold.\u00a0 He needed to get out of his uniform.\u00a0 He nodded at her, hoping to disguise the other motions as he tried to get his body back under control.\u00a0 It was just so hard.\u00a0 This place.\u00a0 These people.\u00a0 It was too much.<\/p>\n Taylor stepped out into the silence wearing a sunflower-covered sundress that brought out the color in her cheeks.\u00a0 He looked back and forth between them, and\u2026and didn\u2019t know what to think.\u00a0 His mind just froze.\u00a0 He wanted to say something, but couldn\u2019t think of a single word.\u00a0 He wanted to do something, but his entire body vibrated like a taught string.<\/p>\n \u201cJack?\u201d Taylor asked and he saw the concern in her eyes as she went down on her knees to examine him.<\/p>\n Jack wanted to tell her not to worry.\u00a0 That he\u2019d be fine.\u00a0 But he couldn\u2019t get the words out.\u00a0 He was so cold, he was losing control, and there was nothing he could do about it.\u00a0 The shakes came in earnest as memories of the last twenty minutes, the last twenty years, and his life before all of it crashed through the walls in his mind.<\/p>\n Taylor and Jennifer moved as one to wrap their arms around him.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d Jennifer whispered in his right ear.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here,\u201d Taylor added in his left.<\/p>\n Jack held on tight and sobbed into their shoulders like a baby, helpless against the emotional and physical whiplash ripping through him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, my name is Jack.\u00a0 The Marines have this thing about every Marine being a rifleman.\u00a0 Even pilots like me.\u00a0 They also have a thing about training every Marine in martial arts, to control our minds, our characters, and our[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2325-a-family-affair-1stdraft","uentry","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-jack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1782,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1781\/revisions\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}