Steve fought to keep his grin from racing across his face.
It was hard, because he was nearly bursting at the seams with happiness at this very moment. It probably wouldn't look very good if the new hire was grinning like a maniac. But he couldn't help it. He'd finally done it. He'd finally made the leap to the greatest R&D program in the universe.
He'd finally been hired by ONI. And even better, he would be in charge of a team. He would have his own dedicated group of like-minded researchers, forging the bleeding edge of advanced technology.
People liked to talk bad about the Office of Naval Intelligence, but most of that was just because the guy doing the most work always gets the most attention and the most criticism. Since the UNSC Navy was the backbone of the interstellar government, the only thing capable of policing the space-lanes, that meant the Navy's intelligence service got blamed for everything sketchy in space. As if Army Intelligence never did anything wrong.
Because the UNSC Navy handled the most problems and the widest variety of environments and situations, it also had the biggest research and development budget out of any department, organized through ONI.
Which meant, at long last, that he'd be able to build power armor.
ONI had been very upfront with him, something he was reliably informed was rare for the organization. They'd hired him because of his work on both materials science, and on the gradually advancing field of exoskeleton frames.
Exoskeletons were an old idea, but they were crippled by several issues, including strength-to-weight ratios, control mechanisms, and most importantly, power. Advancing beyond human limits was relatively easy, but doing it on anything more than a testbed or an industrial loader was much more difficult, and worse, much more expensive.
If they could solve those issues, then the uses for exoskeletons were vast. Heavy lifting in tight confines like starship cargo bays. Emergency services like firefighters. Powered armor for the military, finally providing a better solution than sending some poor bastard through a door into a hail of bullets.
ONI told him that the budget would be nigh unlimited. They told him that they'd been working on micro-fusion packs that, while expensive, would be able to power an exoskeleton for weeks of non-stop use. They even told him that they had a way of cracking the control issues.
With one job, he could improve so many facets of human society, get paid incredibly well for it, and make his childhood dreams come true. How could he not sign on?
Steve Sullivan, double PhD, walked eagerly into the next room. He'd been told that his team would be awaiting him inside, and that they'd receive a briefing inside.
The doors opened to a large boxy room, larger than some convention centers. Rows of chairs in front of a podium. The room was already filled with people talking quietly. A buffet table was off to the side, with bottles of water, light snacks, and plastic-wrapped sandwiches.
This was his team? Steve suppressed the urge to giggle, and entered with a small skip in his step.
He shook hands and introduced himself to many of the others, when he hit a snag. Everyone in the room was a researcher, but they were from a bewildering array of specialties. For each materials science, mechanical engineering, or exoskeleton researcher he found, there were at least two with wildly different specialties.
There were dozens of people present. Maybe fifty, maybe more. He recognized some of them – some of the top names in his own field, for instance. He shook hands with people whose work he'd studied for years at college, or who were some of the rising stars, like him.
Some of the smartest people in the UNSC were gathered in this very room, and the very notion that he belonged here was making him giddy… but there was a slight edge to that knowledge. He was smart, yes, but ONI had told him that he was going to be in charge of a research team. Surely, that team couldn't be in here. He was peers to some here, but others were far beyond him.
"Steve?" a voice called.
Steve turned, and out of the crowd emerged a familiar face, nearly unchanged from a decade ago, save for the addition of a neatly trimmed goatee.
"Paul!" he called back, his grin splitting his face, as he moved towards Paul. "God, how long has it been, man? A year?"
"Two years," Paul Wu answered sourly, his mood dour. He jerked his chin at the room around them. "What's going on?"
"ONI's decided to hire the best and brightest, that's what!" Steve laughed, grabbing Paul's hand and shaking it furiously. "This is gonna be great!"
Paul didn't reply, instead turning his head and glancing around at the crowd.
"Why would they put us all in the same room?" Paul asked, scowling. "We're in different fields. Shouldn't this be compartmentalized?"
"Well, they just hired me," Steve said, shrugging as he slung an arm over Paul's shoulder. "Maybe we're all new hires, and this is just the introductory briefing. You know, going over the NDA's, giving us access cards, stuff that doesn't involve the lab work?"
"Maybe," Paul muttered, still looking furtively around the room. "Is that…"
Steve followed Paul's gaze, and nearly beamed again. Near the front edge of the crowd of milling scientists was another familiar figure. His head was shaved, but other than that, the man still looked like a bodybuilder that had wandered into the wrong seminar.
"Hey, Dave!" he cried over the crowd, waving an arm. "Over here!"
The tall, well-muscled figure turned, and squinted at them.
"I must be getting cataracts," he said wryly as he approached. "I can't believe ONI hired this joker."
"I know, right?" Steve replied, chuckling. "Biochem's worthless; doesn't have nearly the applications as exoskeletons."
"He meant you, jackass," Paul shot back, his unhappy expression fading and a slight smile coming to his lips. "Good to see you again, David."
David Meyer smiled back, then pried Steve's arm off Paul's shoulder with a practiced grip. Steve fought back playfully, but he was no match for his old friend. He never had been – David had wrestled for the University of Circumstance while pursuing his MD, in the good old days when they'd all roomed together at Steve's rented house.
"All we're missing is Catherine," Steve said, smiling. "Then we'd have the whole gang together again. Any of you guys heard from her?"
"Not since Uni," Paul replied with a shrug. "Knowing her, she's staring into a computer simulation right about now, still trying to crack FTL comms."
"Or working on better engines," David added with a nod, before gesturing to the crowd around them. "You know what this is about?"
A chime rang through the room, cutting through the conversation.
"Please, take your seats," a man's voice said over some speakers.
"Nope," Steve said, a careless smile on his lips. "But I think we're about to find out."
David pushed him lightly, and Paul rolled his eyes as they moved towards the seats. The crowd dispersed quickly, settling into chairs within a few minutes, some still clutching unwrapped sandwiches or polishing off cookies. Steve briefly regretted not grabbing something, but frankly, the experience had been worth a little hunger. And there's still more to come, he thought to himself, a little giddy even now.
A woman stepped into the room and approached the podium. She moved quickly, her shoes clicked on the polished flooring, and her clothing was severe – a tightly fitted set of dark pants and gray uniform tunic that looked like the ONI officers he'd seen over the last day or two, with the only visual relief coming from a white lab coat worn as an over-layer.
Steve frowned, some of that earlier unease trickling back into his mind. He could only see the woman from the side, but she looked familiar, too. She reached the podium and turned, and Steve blinked, his conscious thoughts coming to a full stop.
It was Catherine Halsey, the last member of their four-man band from the University of Circumstance. But something was wrong with her. She was acting like a machine, like something made of cold iron and electric logic.
It had been seven years since they'd all lived together in the party house, as Steve had dubbed it. She was the youngest, and had only lived with them because the university's housing supply had been stretched to the breaking point. It had been a great time, the younger woman's initial unease at living with three older men swiftly fading as they'd all done their best to be as respectful as possible. It hadn't taken long for her to join in on their weekly poker nights. They'd all become great friends by the end of it, and it had seemed like fate when they'd all achieved their first PhD's together.
Catherine looked very different now, Steve could see clearly. Oh, she was still young and pretty, but her face was carved out of marble, and her eyes were hard, cold things. The lab coat was the only indicator of her scientific profession, and without it, dressed in an unmarked ONI uniform with all rank insignia removed, she seemed like an entirely different person.
Steve glanced at Paul, his eyes widening. Paul glanced back, his own expression stiff, lips pressed tight.
He knew that kind of expression, that cold focus. He'd seen it on the nameless ONI officer that had explained, in detail, what would happen to him if he ever talked about classified documents.
Steve looked back to his old friend, at how she gave no signs of recognition to her three old roommates sitting in the front row. At her military bearing and emotionless expression.
How long had she worked for them, he wondered. How long had she been drowning in the dark, secretive world of ONI?
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ONI," Halsey said, looking out over the seated crowd with a cold gaze. Behind her, the back wall flickered to life, revealing an enormous presentation screen. ONI's logo flashed for a few moments, and then faded out.
"My name is Doctor Halsey," she continued, as the screen changed to a bold CLASSIFIED stamp. "For the next decade, you work for me. You will live on-site in this base for the duration of that time. You will not be allowed to leave the base without a security detail. After our work is over, you will be accompanied by that security detail for the rest of your lives. Any attempt to violate these measures will be met with either lifetime imprisonment or summary execution."
A chill went down Steve's spine. Murmurs came from some of the other scientists.
"You will now be briefed on Project Orion," Halsey told them, her voice flat and mechanical as the screen behind her changed once more, to a stylized emblem of a roaring lion, with a drawn sword behind it. "Project Orion started twenty-six years ago, in 2491, and continued until eleven years ago, in 2506."
The screen flashed, and a still image of a training camp appeared. More images appeared, changing every few seconds. Soldiers were climbing rope-walls, jumping across wooden pillars, and using exercise equipment. But something looked off to Steve. Maybe it was just bad timing on the photo, but the feats didn't seem physically possible. One of the men was benching more weight than he'd ever seen. A woman was hanging six feet in the air, reaching out for the start of the rope-wall as if she had jumped for it, higher than anyone could jump.
"The project's goal was biological augmentation for increased military performance," Halsey said, as the images continued. "The result was faster reactions, enhanced strength and stamina, increased mental capacity. The side-effects were hormonal imbalances, a sharp rise in mental illnesses, and numerous physical ailments, many lethal."
The next image was a man stripped to the waist, strapped to a medical gurney, screaming. His veins were bulging, and it wasn't hard to see why – there was a discoloration around his arms, like he'd been dipped in paint. A vivid yellow smear across both biceps, standing out in stark contrast to his charcoal skin. Someone gasped behind him at the sight.
This was starting to sound familiar. He'd heard speculation on human augmentation before – the Insurrection liked to insist that the UNSC was sending out chemically altered supersoldiers to kill protesters. It was a natural hit for conspiracy theorists; just plausible enough to be possible, just fantastical enough to capture the imagination, and just terrifying enough to be afraid of.
But he'd also heard of human augmentation from a more educated source. Someone that considered it possible; even potentially preferable. Something that, if done properly, could be an enormous benefit to individual people and humanity as a whole. Steve turned his head and shot a look at Paul Wu.
Paul was staring up at the image, his mouth open, and his eyes blank. Paul probably knew exactly what had gone wrong with the man in the image, and whatever it was, it was visibly terrifying him.
"The project was a short-term success, and a long-term failure" Halsey continued, completely unaffected by the suffering of the image. "Due to a scattershot of augmentations, a wide range of military volunteers, and tailored procedures to each individual, the surgeries had an immediate success rate of nearly 80%, and a long-term health complication rate of nearly 70%."
Halsey paused there, and cast her imperious gaze over the crowd. The screen changed, mercifully, and the Project Orion logo returned, with an enormous red word, CANCELED, emblazoned over it.
"This result was unacceptable," she stated, firmly. "The volunteer subjects were all highly trained, veteran soldiers. Their increased performance was highly valuable, but it cut their careers short by decades, robbing the UNSC of their value. The cost-benefit ratio was intolerable, and the project was closed before more would be wasted."
God, these were people she was talking about, Steve thought numbly. Yet she talked about them like they were… stocks, or some other kind of investment. Numbers on a spreadsheet, to be analyzed without emotion.
A new image appeared, showing paper documents. Much of the pages were blacked out, censored, but a few passages were left, and specific phrases were highlighted.
"The post-project analysis highlighted several flaws with the methodology," Halsey continued. "Most important among them were rushed development cycles, non-uniform augmentations, and loose selection criteria. ONI has no wish to repeat these specific mistakes."
Halsey's eyes flickered down, and she looked at them. At Steve, Paul, and David. At her old roommates. There was a flash of something unreadable in her eyes, something uncaring, something alien. Then she looked away, and there was no other sign that she knew them.
Something clicked in Steve's brain. Something about the phrasing. The project itself hadn't been deemed a mistake. It wasn't that ONI didn't want to repeat the project as a whole. It was that ONI didn't want to repeat those specific mistakes within the project.
Steve felt his eyes widen, and he looked to Paul, then to David. They seemed to have made the same realization as him, the same horrifying conclusion.
The screen changed. Now it bore a new logo: an eagle with wings stretched above it, clutching a thunderbolt in one talon, and a bundle of arrows in the other. The murmurs in the crowd fell silent. Steve didn't dare look away. He already knew what Catherine Halsey was about to say.
"You are here to work on Project Orion II," Halsey told the crowd.
"Oh God," Steve whispered, the words distant in his ears.
"Orion II will not make the same mistakes as its predecessor," Halsey said, speaking over him without knowing. "We will be spending the next seven years perfecting a set of augmentation procedures. They will be uniformly applied to the candidates. The candidates themselves have been selected specifically for compatibility with the augmentations, and will be augmented at a time of maximum effectiveness."
The screen flashed again, and showed a timeline. At the start was this very year, 2517. At the end, in seven years' time in 2524, there was a label that read Augmentation. Each year in between had more labels. Development cycles, testing simulations, refinements.
Halsey's eyes stared forward, drilling holes into everyone she looked at. The labcoat she was wearing could barely hide the sinister presence of the ONI uniform beneath it.
The logo disappeared, and was replaced by an organizational chart. Four separate boxes, one in each corner of the screen, all feeding into a central circle. They were labeled Augmentation, Surgery, Exoskeleton, and Artificial Intelligence. Beneath the main labels were names, one for each box.
Underneath Augmentation, it said Dr. Paul Wu.
Surgery, Dr. David Meyer.
Exoskeleton, Dr. Steve Sullivan.
Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Catherine Halsey.
"The project will have four separate design teams," Halsey recited. "The first is the Augmentation, which will develop seven specific human enhancement procedures."
Paul looked ill. His face was pale, and one of his hands was shaking at his side.
"The second is Surgery, which will aid in developing those procedures, as well as creating an improved neural lace, and which will perform the augmentation surgeries," Halsey continued. David looked furious. His arms were tense, his fists clenched, and his brow furrowed.
"The third is Exoskeleton, which will develop a cybernetically integrated suit of powered armor that will be utilized by the augmented candidates," Halsey said, and Steve's eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Cybernetically integrated exoskeletons. Was Catherine insane?
Sure, the UNSC had made great strides with neural implants, but they were fundamentally basic devices. The standard UNSC neural implant was the equivalent of wireless dog tags, used to verify identity and respond with pings to a locator device. Even the advanced ones they shoved into high-ranking officers added nothing more than an encrypted storage device.
Using a neural implant for anything more than that was theoretical at best – and Halsey wanted them to hook into a goddamn exoskeleton? Something weighing a literal ton at minimum? What kind of feedback would that give to a person's brain? What kind of augmentation could make a person able to withstand that?
This wasn't a research project. This was a golden lamp, and Halsey was rubbing it, praying for a genie to come out and make her impossible wish come true.
Steve glanced at David. On top of being a great friend, David was one of the most medically gifted people in the entire UNSC – perhaps the best young neurosurgeon, and a PhD in psychology on top of that. If this was right, then he and Steve would have to figure out some way of making and installing this device. Surely, he would be just as confused as Steve was feeling right now.
But David Meyer wasn't looking back at Steve, sharing his confusion. Instead, he was glaring at Halsey, his entire body tensed, as if he was about to leap up and attack her.
Steve stared. Yes, this was bad. Yes, this was a horrifying concept. But none of that should have made David so angry, so furiously mad. Dave was caring, generous, and always had a smile on his face. This kind of reaction was extreme. He looked like if they weren't in the heart of an ONI base, he might have done something drastic.
Paul's hand reached out and grabbed Steve's.
Steve jerked in place, looking over to his other friend. Paul looked even worse now, like he'd seen a ghost.
"Do you remember our research paper?" Paul hissed, as Halsey continued, talking about what the fourth team would do.
"What?" Steve asked in a low voice, baffled. They were in completely different fields. They'd never done a research paper together.
"When we got our PhD's," Paul whispered, his voice urgent. "When we all got drunk that night?"
"I don't…" Steve started to say, before pausing as a thought struck him. In a split-second, he realized exactly why Paul's face was nearly corpse-like, why David looked like he wanted to murder Halsey with his bare hands. It felt like Atlas had dropped the world onto his shoulders.
The research paper. The joke research paper they'd all worked on, on the best way to make genetically augmented supersoldiers, with artificial intelligences hooked into neural implants, and wearing cybernetically interfaced exoskeleton power armor.
The research paper that involved kidnapping children.
Steve looked up, all the blood draining from his face, as the next slide came onto the screen, and Halsey began to speak about the candidates.
"Seventy-five candidates have already begun their training," she was saying, her voice washed out, like Steve had ruptured both eardrums. "In seven years, as their bodies undergo puberty, they will undergo the augmentation."
Someone else in the crowd was speaking. Someone had stood up, behind him, and was shouting at Halsey. He couldn't make out the words, but they were objecting. Their old friend, who Steve hadn't seen in years, glared back at the man. The force of her gaze was a laser, cutting over his head.
"You have all signed the contracts," Halsey declared, her voice finally gaining an emotion – anger. Her face melted, and the heat of a sun burned from it, washing over the crowd like a coronal ejection. "You will perform the assigned duties for the Office of Naval Intelligence, or you will be subject to lifelong imprisonment or summary execution."
The man behind Steve abruptly stopped talking.
"You will perform these duties to the absolute best of your abilities," Halsey continued, her mouth hammering out words like nails into their collective coffins. "If you don't, if you shirk, if you refuse, then everyone in this room will be forced to labor without you, and the augmentations are more likely to fail."
She glared at them, her expression ugly and harsh.
"The choice is yours," she spat. "Do your jobs and live with the stain on your conscience, or hold tight to your moral superiority and let the children die."