Rhodes walked down the corridor at Fort Bastion on his way back to the barracks.

  In a rare moment of lucid genius, the Masks decided not to send the battalion back to Stonebridge. Rhodes and his subordinates woke here when they left the lab.

  He remembered everything. That was the strangest part of all this. He remembered every event, every insult, every injury, and every change in environment in vivid detail.

  He remembered killing all those people in Stonebridge. He even remembered why he did it. He remembered everything all the way back to his earliest childhood.

  The Masks sent the battalion here to Fort Bastion—which was another Grid landscape. They couldn’t wipe his memory, though.

  He just finished a briefing with General Overstreet. Rhodes went through it on autopilot.

  Rhodes found it difficult to dignify General Overstreet with his attention. General Overstreet wasn’t real.

  Rhodes got through the briefing by reminding himself that General Overstreet was Rhodes’s best, most accurate source of information about the Masks’ invasion campaign, their position, and their plans.

  As soon as Rhodes got that information, he left General Overstreet’s office and went back to planning how to get the hell out of here along with his subordinates.

  The whole escape project hinged on how much his subordinates remembered.

  Rhodes had to fight his own nerves on his way back to the barracks. What would he find there? Could he look forward to Fuentes attacking him again?

  Rhodes didn’t interface with the rest of the battalion on the way. He wanted some time alone with Fisher.

  “You okay, pal?” Rhodes asked.

  “Of course. How are you, Captain?”

  Rhodes shrugged. “You know—same old, same old.”

  “Are you still upset about what happened in Stonebridge?”

  “I never was upset about it and I’m not upset about it now. I told Ora the truth. I’m proud of what I did. I would do it again if I got the chance.” Rhodes cocked his head to study Fisher. “Are you upset about it? Are you sore at me for killing you the way I did?”

  Fisher laughed. “Of course not, Captain. I attacked you—or my doppelganger did.”

  Rhodes found himself joining in the joke. “I’m glad you realize it isn’t you. I never trusted that asshole.”

  “You were right not to. I never would have attacked you like that.”

  “You couldn’t have. The whole thing is just one big mind fuck. You don’t exist in that world—not as a person. Everything about that guy was fake.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Fisher asked.

  “I’m not going to do anything except what I’m already doing. I’m just going to keep fighting them until I succeed. We’re bound to break away sooner or later.”

  Fisher hesitated for a second and then blurted out, “Whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it soon. The battalion’s resistance to the drug is approaching a critical point. Soon the drugs won’t have any effect at all. Then the battalion will be back in the lab permanently—which would be dangerous—for all of you.”

  “So B was telling the truth about that? He said being out there in the real world put too much of a strain on our systems.”

  “Yes, he was telling the truth. That’s why the Masks have been so anxious to find a way to keep you in The Grid. Your systems continue to reject it, though—both physically and psychologically. Human beings weren’t designed to live in The Grid—not permanently.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  They had to break off their conversation when Rhodes entered the barracks. Everyone stopped what they were doing and crowded around Rhodes as soon as he showed up. He re-established the interface so he could talk to the SAMs at the same time.

  “What did the general say, Sir?” Rhinehart asked. “Are the Masks sending us back into combat?”

  “They have to,” Rhodes replied. “We’re the biggest force multiplier they have. That’s why they’re so driven to get us to cooperate with them. The Legion doesn’t stand a chance as long as we’re fighting for the Masks.”

  “All the more reason to get back to the Legion,” Dietz added.

  “The sooner the better,” Lauer chimed in. “I don’t want to go back to that lab if I can help it.”

  “Fisher says the drugs are breaking down,” Rhodes repeated. “If we become completely resistant to the drugs, the Masks won’t be able to send us back into The Grid at all—either here or at Stonebridge. We’ll be stuck in the lab all the time—which would be threatening to our lives.”

  “Then we have to go,” Thackery replied. “That’s all there is to it. We can’t stay here.”

  Rhodes glanced around at them all. So he wasn’t the only one who woke up at Fort Bastion with all his memories intact.

  Rhodes turned to the SAMs. “Are you all on board with escaping? Does any of you have any reservations about it?”

  “Not at all,” Zen replied. “The drugs worked on us, too, but they don’t work anymore. None of us wants to keep doing this.”

  “What about you, Dash?” Rhodes asked. “Do you still feel that the Masks are your own people?”

  “They’re our own kind. That’s for sure,” Dash pointed out. “These Masks came from discarded Legion SAMs. Anyone can see that. That doesn’t mean we owe them any loyalty—not after what they’ve been doing to us.”

  “Why did you turn against Oakes, then?” Dietz asked. “You took control of his weapons to fire on Legion platoons.”

  “That’s nothing the rest of us haven’t done,” Lauer growled. “We would have done the same thing under similar circumstances.”

  “We all remember now,” Rhodes interjected. “We’ll make another escape attempt the next time the Masks send us against the Legion.”

  “When will that be?” Coulter asked. “How much longer do we have to stay here?”

  “General Overstreet said we’ll go out later tonight. That’s what I’m telling you. The Masks already know their days of controlling us are coming to an end. They want to use us as much as possible before they lose control completely. Every escape attempt we make is more and more likely to succeed. It’s only a matter of time before they can’t stop us.”

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  “I just hope we don’t lose our memories again,” Koenig chimed in.

  “I don’t think that will happen,” Rhodes replied. “Even if it does, you should wake up pretty quickly. Just stay interfaced with us the whole time. We’ll keep trying until we break out. Now I think we all better take the rest of the night off. Enjoy tonight while you can. Any night could be our last.”

  The friends exchanged glances and dispersed to go back to whatever they’d been doing before.

  Most of the battalion spent the evening sitting around the table enjoying what might turn out to be their last meal.

  Rhodes joined them for a little while, but he didn’t feel like getting involved in their banter.

  He found himself scrutinizing everyone at the table, including the SAMs. Fuentes didn’t discuss the battalion escaping. He never said a word about it either for or against.

  Was he secretly planning to screw over his comrades and sell them out to the Masks? The Masks already knew the battalion planned to escape.

  Rhodes kept a close watch on Dash and Zen, too. They sure talked a good line about wanting to return to the Legion.

  Rhodes didn’t want to trust any of the SAMs. If someone in this battalion betrayed the rest of the group, it would be one of them.

  Even Coulter and Murphy talked about returning to the Legion and Coleridge Station.

  “I can’t believe we’ve been trapped over here and weakening the Legion when the platoons are the ones protecting our families back home,” he remarked. “I’ll never live that down.”

  “None of us will,” Oakes replied. “Our only salvation is that we didn’t have a choice about it. We tried to escape and failed. That isn’t our fault.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” Coulter murmured. “I’m almost glad my family will never see me again. I wouldn’t want them to find out any of the shit I’ve been doing out here since this whole nightmare got started.”

  Rhinehart clapped him on the shoulder. “We all feel the same way, man.”

  Rhodes glanced over at Fuentes again. He couldn’t say he wasn’t responsible for the battalion’s escape attempts failing.

  He didn’t outright say he regretted cooperating with the Masks. Should Rhodes be worried about this?

  Worrying about Fuentes—or Dash or Zen—didn’t change anything. Rhodes would still go ahead with his next escape attempt. What choice did he have?

  This could be the time he and the battalion actually made it out. Rhodes couldn’t let Fuentes rob him of the chance.

  Rhodes would have liked to go into a conversion cycle just to spend some time in private away from the rest of the battalion.

  He decided instead to get into his capsule, close the cover, and disconnect from the interface so he could talk to Fisher alone.

  Fisher was the one person in all of this that Rhodes trusted without question. Not even Dietz could hold a candle to Rhodes’s rock-solid faith in his SAM.

  Rhodes went over to his capsule and opened the cover, but before he could get into it, a signal came through The Grid from Fort Bastion’s mainframe.

  “That’s the order to deploy.” Oakes stood up from the table and took the plate out of Coulter’s hand. He’d just been about to sink his teeth into a big slice of juicy apple pie. “Better luck next time, sonny.”

  “Aw, come on, Lieutenant!” Coulter moaned. “Just one bite.”

  “You’ve been eating nonstop since we sat down here tonight. I think you’ve had enough.”

  The others laughed, stood up, and the group left the barracks together. Rhodes had to stop himself from feeling another stab of affection for these people.

  That feeling of connection, bonding, and deep affection might be genuine—or the Masks might have manufactured the emotion to keep the battalion happy.

  If Rhodes felt this way about his people once they got back to Coleridge Station, then he would know it was real. He didn’t trust even his own feelings and reactions as long as he stayed here.

  Coleridge Station didn’t manufacture anything, especially not any happy, warm, connected feelings.

  It would have to be an incredibly powerful, almost overwhelming feeling if Rhodes felt that way at Coleridge Station.

  It would have to be exceptionally strong to break through all the hopeless despair and murderous rage.

  The group returned to the loading dock. The mainframe sent Rhodes a chart of the area through The Grid.

  It showed him which planet they were on, where the Legion forces were stationed, and where the Masks were trying to assault another city.

  The Grid didn’t hide anything from Rhodes anymore. The battalion was on board a Masks invasion ship. The Grid no longer maintained the illusion that they were in a fort on the ground.

  The battalion wasn’t on a loading dock. They stood in the landing bay of the ship’s lowest hold.

  The Grid also no longer maintained the illusion that the Legion might be the aggressors in this war. The Masks forces surrounded a city full of human civilians.

  The Masks once again tried to fight their way into the city’s interior. The Grid gave Rhodes and everyone else in the battalion an unvarnished view of the wasteland of decimated cities, dead bodies, and ravaged landscapes the Masks left in their wake to get this far.

  Rhodes hardened his resolve. He was getting out of here and going back to the Legion.

  Then, by God, he would give every ounce of whatever strength he had left toward stopping this invasion.

  He would never rest until he ended the Masks for good. Their efforts to make him cooperate produced the opposite effect. They turned him into their most hellbent enemy.

  No one else in the Legion nursed this vendetta against the Masks. None of them took it personally the way he did.

  Another signal came through from the Fort Bastion mainframe. The battalion launched out of the landing bay and took off across the landscape.

  Rhodes counted down the seconds before the shit hit the fan. “Interface with the Ero,” he told Fisher. “Get the Strikers down here pronto.”

  “They’re already on their way,” Fisher replied. “Rio is sending you…..”

  Rio’s face flashed onto The Grid. He burst into one of his brightest, cheeriest smiles. “I’m sending you rendezvous coordinates, Captain. Meet us there and we’ll pick you up.”

  Rhodes glanced toward the city. “What about the assault? We could help defend the city.”

  “We have orders to retrieve you and take you straight back to the Ero,” Rio replied. “The brass doesn’t want to risk losing you again—not after we’ve gone to all this trouble just to locate you.”

  “It looks pretty sketchy down there,” Lauer muttered. “I don’t like leaving all those people hanging out to dry.”

  “The longer we stay, the more likely it will be that something will go wrong,” Rhodes told him. “We can’t risk the Masks retaking us. Head for the rendezvous. We’re on our way, Rio.”

  Rio broke into another cheesy grin. “You just can’t wait to see me, can you?”

  Rhodes bit back the urge to make another joke. The scene in the city stopped him from saying anything.

  The Masks invasion ships assembled on one side of town. The Masks apparently didn’t want to risk another disaster like the last battle where the Legion actually won—or at least put up an effective defense.

  The invasion ships all stationed themselves along the city’s eastern edge. The ships started unloading on buildings crowded with people.

  The Masks detonated one building after another and leveled them. The Masks left nowhere for the survivors to hide.

  Legion platoons already on the ground had to flee the destruction. Dozens of soldiers got crushed before they made it more than a few blocks.

  Ravagers plunged out of orbit and engaged the invasion ships to draw their fire away from the city, but the invasion ships overcame the Ravagers easily. Nothing could stop the bloodbath.

  Rhodes did his best to turn away, but he couldn’t take his eyes off The Grid no matter where he turned.

  He concentrated instead on the Strikers dropping out of orbit. They gunned their engines on a dead sprint for the rendezvous point.

  Rhodes picked up speed. Desperation drove him to his limit. He had to get there. He had to rendezvous with the Strikers. Now was his chance to finally get free from the Masks’ control.

  He and the battalion made it to the rendezvous first. The Strikers raced between buildings coming from the southwest. They were less than a minute away.

  The Grid also showed Rhodes a bunch of Masks’ ships moving to intercept the Strikers. “Be careful, Rio!” Rhodes warned. “The Masks are on their way in to stop you.”

  “I see them, Captain. Stand by to defend yourselves until we get there. We’ll have you out of there in…..”

  At that moment, an almighty thump hit Rhodes in the head. It was one of those powerful discharges that Fisher used to shut down both Fuentes and the Emal who captured the battalion.

  Rhodes reeled in midair and felt himself starting to fall. He tried to ignite his boosters. When that failed, he scrambled to extend his grid lines….somewhere.

  Nothing worked. He couldn’t do anything with his grid lines. He couldn’t even turn himself over.

  His body revolved in space and he plunged headfirst toward the ground. He couldn’t move a muscle to save himself.

  The rest of the battalion tumbled out of the sky, too. None of them raised a finger to save themselves….all except one person.

  Rhodes caught one glimpse of Thackery still hovering over the city at the rendezvous point.

  The Strikers weren’t there anymore, but Rhodes wouldn’t have been able to see them without The Grid. The Grid didn’t work anymore.

  Nothing worked except his eyes. They stayed fixed wide open. He had no choice but to see every last living detail as he fell faster and faster toward the pavement below.

  End of Chapter 35.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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