I, Cassandra

10 | RYAN MADDOX

'Your outer cells are human, unlike the droids, taken from the body of the man you now inhabit, but underneath you are a machine—that is, apart from your neural wiring which is made of biological matter, sustained by nanotechnology and overwritten with a quantum protocol.'

She pauses to glance at a message flashing up on the smartdesk. I lift my fingers to my brow, wonder suffusing me. All this, yet I feel exactly the same.

'And,' she carries on, her eyes still on the screen, 'we have plans to continue to improve you. You are the world's first cybernetic organism, Maddox. With the nanotechnology inside you, you are virtually indestructible. I had to break bread with my nemesis, the Prime Minister to get the executive order signed to release the funds needed to build you into a military machine.' One of her perfect eyebrows lifts again and she looks up at me, contempt sliding over her smooth features. 'It was . . . one of my less enjoyable meetings.' She glances back down at the screen, nods, abrupt, and looks back at me. Approval darkens her eyes. 'But,' she lifts a slim forefinger, 'now you are here. It cost fourteen billion to make you. Let us hope my efforts will be worth it. One moment.'

She falls silent, the light in her eyes dims. I sense the connection has been cut. I wait as several long minutes pass. No one comes for me. The droid stands motionless, staring straight ahead, its eyes empty. I look away from it, unnerved. I realise I am still holding the coffee mug. I take a sip; the brew is still warm, just. My thoughts wander. I think of Blue, of her selling me and my men out to the UFF. Away from Akron and his persuasive arguments, the whole thing feels wrong again. Like I'm only getting half the story.

The droid blinks. 'Capitaine Maddox,' General de Pommier says through her avatar. 'I understand Major Akron has debriefed you regarding your mission to acquire the target.' Her attention is back on the screen on the smartdesk. I sense our cosy chat time is over, it's all business now. I set my empty mug onto a nearby chair and stand at ease, my hands clasped behind my back.

'Yes ma'am.'

'You were told the target is essential to the success of the project known as Genesis II?' she asks, tapping the smartdesk's screen, swiping left more than right.

'Yes ma'am.'

'Excellent.' She looks up, her eyes sharp, calculating. 'However, that is not, shall we say, the whole of it.'

Why am I not surprised. I wait while she finishes scrolling through a list, swiping left at various intervals.

'What do you know of the UFF's so-called Oracle?' she asks as she closes several tabs.

'According to Delta Force intel,' I answer, crisp, 'the Oracle is capable of predicting the location and severity of major natural disasters with uncanny accuracy, disasters the UFF have exploited for their own purposes against Global Command since 2075. The first known strike was made in the same year against the Yukon space dock in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Josiah.'

General de Pommier nods. 'Accuracy of strikes to disasters since then?'

'One hundred percent, ma'am.'

'One hundred percent,' she repeats, soft. 'Thousands have died because of her—and you were sleeping with her.'

Here it comes. The stiletto. She smiles, enigmatic. 'But I am French, and I am romantic, so I like this strange story, very much.' She taps the screen. It goes dark. A few steps and she is in front of the desk. She leans back and rests against the desk's glass edge. 'You see, you are unique. There was a reason you survived the transition when the other fourteen did not: You wanted to come back. For her.' She smiles again. 'Love is a powerful thing, no?'

'Was,' I answer, cold, thinking of my dead men, sprawled beside me like broken dolls.

A flick of her eyebrow. 'Be careful Capitaine Maddox,' she says, quiet. 'Not everything is as it seems. We know from your memories Cassandra wanted you to take her away with her. We had microexpression specialists read her face. It appears she was telling the truth.'

I lunge at the scrap like one of the starving dogs I fed outside Nairobi. 'Ma'am?'

General de Pommier's avatar pushes herself free of the desk. She approaches me. I keep my eyes fixed on the middle distance.

'Cassandra was born with her ability,' she says. From the corner of my eye I catch her looking me over, examining me anew, dispassionate. I feel like a lab specimen. 'We were lucky she was born into one of the families in Alpha I, and not the exclusion zone. Her ability was discovered quite by accident in 2063, when she was nine.' de Pommier's avatar turns away and paces to the opposite side of the room. 'During a lesson about the history of China, Cassandra pointed to a place on the map and told the class when there was going to be a devastating flood there, right down to the time. The teacher took note of it. It happened precisely as she predicted. Naturally, we were informed.'

I'm hanging onto the general's every word. Nascent hope flares within me. Cassandra is one of our own. She only wanted to come home. I was an out for her. I knew there was more to this. I wonder why she never told me. It would have changed everything. If I had told Command, they would have—

'She was taken by us,' the general continues, cutting into my thoughts, 'her abilities researched and honed under a team of neuroscientists. She saved so many lives. In 2070, due to her predictions, Genesis I was launched. An ambitious project. It was clear we needed to leave Earth and begin again.'

'Mars,' I breathe, recalling Akron's words about running out of time.

'Yes. Mars.' She stops pacing and sighs, resigned. 'Everything went perfectly until Command rewarded Cassandra with a residence in Alpha VII in 2073. She had the misfortune of travelling with Command's then-Brigadier General. The plane was shot down by the UFF over the exclusion zone. There were no survivors. It was . . . a terrible loss, and a devastating blow to Genesis I.'

I open my mouth to ask the question preying on my mind—how her apparent loss could affect a Mars colonization project, but the general lifts her hand. I shut my mouth.

'There is something else,' she says, and a look of discomfort crosses her features. 'I was not in the position I am in today or this never would have happened, although I did what I could to protest what was being done to her—it is part of the reason I still cannot see eye to eye with our Prime Minister. It was he who ordered the tests.'

Tests. I wait, my chest tight.