19

Fort Bragg, North Carolina
USA

A LIGHT RAIN WAS FALLING on mountains tangled with overgrowth. Harder on his team, Smith knew, but almost perfect for what he had in mind.

The trail—such as it was—had turned to mud, grabbing at his combat boots and splattering his meticulously pressed camo as he worked his way toward a rendezvous site that he knew was 326 meters away. Normally, in this kind of unfamiliar terrain he’d be relying on a soggy map and wondering if all his men were already gathered, but now that seemed like a scene from ancient history.

In addition to distance, the Merge’s military training software displayed an arrow pointing him in the right direction, an ETA at current speed, and individual green dots representing his volunteers’ positions on an overhead map.

He waded through some wet bushes and came out into a small clearing where five combat-equipped soldiers were huddled beneath a tree trying to stay dry. When he appeared, they gracelessly formed a line and shot off a few awkward salutes.

His SAS friend Peter Howell would have called them “a bit of a motley crew.” Of the two women, one was at least thirty pounds overweight and the other just south of her fiftieth birthday. The man to their right was even older and more overweight, with a round, sun-starved face that made him look like exactly what he was: an army lawyer. Next, to him, adjusting a helmet that seemed to swim on his undersized head, was a skinny kid in his mid-twenties who spent his days programming supply logistics systems. And last, but certainly not least, was an active-duty Ranger who was understandably perplexed—and maybe even a little insulted—to have been chosen for this particular team.

“At ease.”

It was an impossible order for most of them to follow. Two days before, they’d been plugging away at their desk jobs, blissfully ignorant that Smith was combing through personnel files looking for people who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag, but who had Merge head studs and tooth mikes installed.

Not surprisingly, General Pedersen had thought he was nuts. And now that he was physically standing in front of the people he’d selected, it seemed that the general might have had a point. In the end, though, this test had the potential to tell him far more than the more obvious course of throwing two equal forces against each other and equipping only one with Merges. Smith had stacked the deck as heavily against Dresner’s technology as he could and now they were going to see just what it could overcome.

“I appreciate all of you agreeing to play our little game,” he said, knowing that they’d actually had no choice whatsoever.

A few queasy nods.

“My understanding is that you’ve all been issued military versions of the Merge and that you’ve familiarized yourselves with them. Is that correct?”

That got a few affirmative mumbles.

“I’m going to repeat myself just this once. Is every one of you the goddamn world expert in the use of this system?”