of his bemusement. “Don’t you Army types groz numnum feeds?” she asked.
“Not … Army …” he managed to say. Speech was difficult. “Marines. …”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
“No, damn it. It’s important. Marines.”
What were they doing to him? Reaching up, he fumbled with the helmet, then pulled it off.
Instantly, the falsely heightened colors and sensations dropped away. The woman of light was now … just a woman, a bit overweight and sagging despite the efforts of some decades, he thought, of anagathic nano. She was wearing nothing but sandals, jewelry, and a silver techelm. Without the light show she was not as disconcerting to look at, and from what he could see of her mouth and hair, he guessed she was rather plain behind that opaque visor. He actually liked her better this way.
But she was already turning away, losing interest.
Where were his friends? Funny. He’d thought they were still right there next to him, but they appeared to have dispersed through the crowd.
He slipped the helmet back on, hoping to spot them. The explosion of color and thought hit him again, but he found he was now able to zero in on their location.
“I wasn’t talking to you, creep! Back off!” Was that Anna’s thought? It sounded like her. He tried to locate her in the crowd.
Ah! There she was, halfway across the room, easy enough to spot now in her Class A’s, surrounded by several helmeted men and women.
“So who invited you, Teenie?” one of the men was saying. The conversation did not sound pleasant.
“Hey, I said back off,” Anna said aloud. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Well, you got trouble, lady,” one of the women told her. “We don’t like your kind around here.”
“Hey, hey,” Garroway said, wading into the small crowd gathering around Anna. “What the hell is this all about?”
A waspish-looking man with an ornate silver and gold helmet shaped to represent a dragon turned the visor to face him. “This little Aztlanista thought she could grope our party, feo. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a U.S. Marine, like her. And I happen to know she’s no Aztlanista.”
“Her del says her name’s Garcia,” the woman said. “Latina, reet?”
“So? My family name was Esteban,” Garroway told them. “And I was born in Sonora. You have a problem with that?”
“Yeah, we have a problem with that. You Teenies are freaming bad news, revolutionaries and troublemakers, every one of you!” The woman reached out and grabbed for the front of Anna’s uniform.
Faster than the eye could see, Anna blocked the grab, snagged the arm, and dropped it into a pressure hold that drove the woman to her knees, screaming. One of the men moved to intervene, and Garroway took him down with a sharp, short kick to the side of his knee. Spinning about, he took a fighting stance back to back with Anna. The crowd glowered, but came no closer.
“I think you milslabs better shinnie,” a man said.
“Yeah,” another agreed. “Ain’t none of you welcome here, zig? Vam out!”
Garroway looked around, searching the room for the rest of the Marines. Kat and Rog were coming fast, both tossing aside their helmets as they shouldered through the crowd. And there were Tim and Regi. All right. Semper fi. …
For a moment, he wondered if they would get into trouble—fighting in a civilian establishment. Fuck it! They started it! …
But then a sharp, hissing static filled Garroway’s ears … his mind and thoughts. Staggered, he raised his hands to his ears, trying unsuccessfully to block the literally painful noise. His vision began to fuzz out as well, blurring and filling with dancing, staticky motes of light.
An implant malfunction? That was nearly unthinkable, but he didn’t know what the civilian techelms might have done to his Marine system.
“What’s … happening? …” he heard Eagleton say. The other Marines, too, had been stricken. That elevated the static from malfunction to enemy action.
But who was the enemy? The civilians surrounding them? That didn’t seem likely.
“You are in violation of programmed operational parameters. Hostile thought and/or action against civilians is not permitted. Desist immediately.”
The voice, gender-neutral and chillingly penetrating, rose above the static.
“Huh? Who’s that?”
“This is the social monitor AI currently resident within your cereblink. Hostile thought and/or action against civilians is not permitted. Desist immediately.”
“What AI?” Womicki demanded loudly. “What’s goin’ on?”
The shrill hiss grew louder and louder, driving Garroway to his knees. Anna Garcia collapsed beside him, unconscious.
And a moment later he joined her. …
Police Holding Cell Precinct 915 East Los Angeles, California 2312 hours, PST
It had been, Captain Martin Warhurst thought, inevitable. Marines back from a deployment—especially one as long and as rugged as the mission to Lalande 21185—needed to go ashore and let off some steam. His people had fought damned hard and damned well on Ishtar; they deserved a bit of downtime.
But downtime too often turned to fighting, chemical or nanoincapacitation, and rowdy behavior frowned upon by the civilian establishment.
The guard led him down a curving passageway to one of a number of holding cells, bare rooms walled off by thick transplas barriers. This one was occupied by twenty or thirty men, with expressions ranging from dazed to sullen. Four, however, recognized him immediately and came to their feet.
“Captain Warhurst!”
“You boys okay?”
“A little fuzzy yet, sir,” Garroway said.
“Yeah,” Womicki added. “Sir, you gotta get us out of here. These civilians are freakin’ crazy!”
“What happened?”
Garroway tapped the side of his head. “Not sure, sir. Things got a little tight at a party we were at. Next thing I know, a voice in my head is telling me I’m in violation. And then … lights out.”
Warhurst nodded. “Social monitor.”
“Yeah, but what is it, sir?” Eagleton wanted to know. “I don’t remember giving permission to have anyone tamper with my ’link!”
