Chapter 7: CAPped

"Calix Flynn Gebel's CAP testing cycle is complete, Major McTavish." The voice seemed to come out of the very air itself.

"Is he ready to be released from the med-tubes?" McTavish asked as he looked over his tablet.

"That was the point of my interruption, Major." McTavish knew AIs were supposed to be emotionless but that sentence sounded insufferably smug.

"I mean, have his repairs been completed," the Major asked slowly.

"Damage to Calix Flynn Gebel was primarily soft tissue based except for multiple fractures and compound fractures to the right phalanges, trapezium, trapezoid, scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, harnate, capitate and ulna and a hairline fracture to the anterior tibia," the A.I. intoned haughtily. McTavish promised himself he'd have the A.I. checked for damage. "Repair of damage was completed in three hours 56 minutes 12 seconds. Capacity, Aptitude and Potential testing completed in five hours 59 minutes 3 seconds."

"The CAP test took 6 hours?" McTavish asked with incredulity. "Isn't that unusual?"

"It is within the statistical norm," the A.I. replied. "As you are aware, normal CAP testing, as a rule of thumb, can be accomplished in from one to four hours. However, the actual outside range of CAP testing is from thirty minutes to eight hours."

"Do you have an analysis of the subject?" McTavish asked. He was going to ask for the young man's score but he'd rather take a look at the sub-scores. The over-all score was certainly interesting but the sub-scores were far more precise.

"Yes." The words were stark and, after a pause, it appeared final.

"Would you care to share?" McTavish asked facetiously.

"It is our recommendation that we return Calix Flynn Gebel to Earth for a period of no less than one month and no more than one year," the A.I. replied. It was the pregnant pause at the beginning that rattled the Major; well, that and the way the directive was worded.

"'Our recommendation'?" McTavish asked closely, his eyebrows drawn together. There was something else going on here, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"I have shared Calix Flynn Gebel's results with several other AIs and requested they add their assessment to my own," the A.I. explained quickly. If he didn't know any better, McTavish would swear the A.I. was embarrassed. "It is our combined analyses that forcing Calix Flynn Gebel into colonization at this time has a 78% chance of resulting in his complete rejection of the Confederacy. Returning him to Earth for between one month and one year, however, results in a 92% chance of complete acceptance of the Confederacy."

"And that matters?" McTavish asked in shock.

"Yes." The A.I. wasn't going to give him anything on this and the Major was dying to know why.

"Care to share?"

"I have uploaded relevant data to your tablet." The Major couldn't remember any time an A.I. had been this short. He turned to the tablet and started reading, flipping through pages as he went. His eyebrows rose at some of the observations he read.

"This is legitimate?" The Major asked.

"I suggest you visit the subject's home personally to verify the veracity of our data but we are fairly certain our assessment is correct."

"Do I have time to visit?" McTavish asked.

"I will notify Lieutenant Gruman to delay the re-integration process."

Small places didn't bother Calix. Small, mysterious places where he didn't belong, did. He controlled himself, however, and refrained from pounding his fists on the inner wall of what seemed like, essentially, a coffin. Instead, he looked around, trying to understand where he was and how he got there.

He had been pulling Tomas out of a non-descript building in downtown Detroit, the local headquarters of the NSA. Tomas was the last on his list of rescues; it had been a busy 12 days.

It had started after the botched robbery – except the robbery wasn't botched, just him. He actually had the items he'd stolen – he'd just been on the run for the past several days. First the Bruisers had captured him and that cute Lieutenant – he hoped she'd managed to get away, he hadn't had the time or energy to even think about her lately – then he'd had to rescue Rico from the FBI and Maria and Inez from the Detroit police department; luckily the three were being held in the same precinct – Rico while waiting to be turned over to the Federal Marshalls and Maria and Inez waiting to be turned over to the county lock-up.

He'd no sooner gotten Rico out of harm's way than he'd heard Alicia was being transferred to FBI headquarters in Quantico, VA. Again, he'd had to dash off with only a half-baked plan and pull her ass out of the fire. Finally, Tomas ... and now here. Wherever here was.

Suddenly, the top of the coffin lifted and he was looking out at a plain room, done completely in white. He leaned forward, looking around. This was just one in a row of coffins; all white, all with what looked like a window set in the top. Down to his right, a guy in some kind of black suit was working at some sophisticated controls; Calix was just about to call out to him when he realized he was leaning forward without any noticeable pain; he'd been in pain for the past 12 days and now he didn't feel a thing. That realization had him looking down, down to where his right hand was resting on the side of the coffin ... and there was no pain at that either! He looked closer. His right hand looked perfectly normal; as if it had never been damaged.

What the hell was going on?

He was just considering whether he should freak out or not when another man walked through the door. A man Cal had seen before. A man whose very presence chilled Calix to the core. He slumped back into the coffin but the man had seen him.

The man appeared tall though probably still shorter than Calix; at 6'6", Calix was well above average in height. The guy looked over 6' but it was difficult to tell at this angle. He looked young, perhaps a few years older than Calix, and athletic with broad shoulders and slim waist. He was dressed in a gray shirt covered by a black jacket that seemed to button at an angle from the right shoulder to the left hip; the shirt wasn't buttoned fully, the left edge folded back to form a triangle. His trousers were black and he wore black work boots that gleamed dully. Military boots.

"Hello, Calix," Major McTavish said with a slight smile. "We've never been introduced, though I'm a big fan of your work; at least, what I saw of it. I'm Major McTavish and I'd like to welcome you aboard the Colony Ship Island Princess."

Colony ship. The sight of Major McTavish – who he had seen peripherally in the Lobby of GlobalTech when he'd escaped from there – had driven him cold. Those two words, though, had numbed him to the bone.

"Wh-wh-where am I being sent?" Calix wanted to keep quiet; to give the Officer in front of him absolutely nothing. The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it, however.

"Sent?" McTavish's eyebrows rose. "You're not being sent anywhere, Cal. You don't mind if I call you Cal, do you?" McTavish continued on as Calix had agreed. "You were damaged by your little jaunt through our interdiction field. I must admit, watching you taking down Private Caldwell was impressive. What do you call that gizmo you threw at him? I've looked over what remained of it and that wasn't much; we have video of it, however, and I was able to see it in slow motion. Works like an old style taser, doesn't it?" The Major paused for a moment, looking at Cal. When no explanation was forthcoming, he continued. "Anyway, I might be able to chalk that up to luck. Taking down Private McKenzie? Well, once is luck, twice is ... something else. To push through an interdiction field, though? That takes balls, boy. Big, shiny, large as fucking basketballs brass balls."

There was a white table in the room, the boy's box of belongings underneath it. As Dervish sat at the table, he shook his head, carefully watching the boy. He wasn't lying to him; what he'd done was amazing. McTavish couldn't help but feel impressed. He was laying it on a little thick, however, trying to build rapport with the boy. When the boy just laid there stoically, he decided to try a different tact.

"Anyway, by the time we caught you, you were near to death," McTavish went on. "I made a judgment call and brought you up here. We can fix some pretty serious wounds with our med-tubes. Then, imagine my surprise to find out you're 16 years old and haven't taken the CAP test. So, while you were in the tube, I had you tested."

"You did what?!" Calix yelled, standing in the white coffin. "You had no right!" He looked around wildly then down at himself, suddenly realizing he was naked. The blush crawled across his features but was quickly replaced by mottled rage. "I don't remember being given any test. How could you test me and I not remember it?"

"That's the nature of the test, I'm afraid," McTavish replied. "Most people remember bits and pieces but forget most of it."

"That's impossible," Calix hissed. His eyes narrowed. "You're lying. I've spent the better part of the past two weeks fighting against the Bruisers, FBI, NSA and the Detroit police department trying to save my friends and family." His teeth clenched in a low snarl. "You're lying. You caught me running out of the NSA building and brought me here. You're probably in cahoots with them." The boy looked around, stepping out of the coffin. "You've got Tomas in one of these tubes, don't you? Are you experimenting on him? Huh? Are you marking him or something?" He started down the row of tubes but they were all empty. "What have you done with him? Where is he??"

"Cahoots?" McTavish asked, mildly amused. "Who says that anymore? I assure you, Cal, we are not cahooting with, well, anyone. Certainly not the NSA."

A hulking marine in a dark green smock with green trousers appeared in the doorway, holding a small pistol in his massive hand. "Is everything okay, sir?"

McTavish looked at him and nodded. "Everything is fine, Daniel." He turned to the man sitting at the console and looking surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye at Cal. "Gruman, why don't you take a break?"

The technician nodded and walked anxiously out the door.

"There's no one here, Cal," McTavish said gently. "Tomas is not here. Tomas has never been here."

"That's not possible," Cal repeated, looking around wildly. "I remember. First I was in the Bruiser's house with Oct ... Lieutenant Capstan, then I..."

"Wait a second!" McTavish barked. "Lieutenant Octavia Capstan? Stands about 5'8", long blonde hair and brown eyes?"

"Yes," Cal growled angrily. "Except she has blue eyes."

"Now that is impossible," McTavish said, eyes narrowing dangerously. "How could you possibly know her? Or her name? I will grudgingly accept you might have seen her at the GlobalTech building during your daring escape – but you certainly shouldn't know her name." He frowned. "Cal, it's only been a bit more than six hours since you escaped from GlobalTech. In all that time, Lieutenant Capstan has been aboard this ship." The Major was quiet for a moment, obviously deep in though. Then, suddenly, his eyes narrowed even further. "A.I.!"

"Yes, Major," the A.I. responded. Calix started at the voice that seemed to appear out of thin air.

"Calix has just told me an interesting story. He claims to have been fighting the FBI, NSA and police for the past two weeks. He also claims to have spent part of that two weeks with Lieutenant Capstan – and he can accurately describe her. Any idea how that could be?"

There was a pregnant pause before the A.I. replied. "Lieutenant Capstan was present tangentially in the subject's recent memories so I used her during his testing. The events he describes are all accurate representations of his individualized testing procedure."

"I thought it was standard protocol to delete those engrams after the test?" McTavish asked gruffly.

"That is an inaccurate representation of the process," the A.I. protested. "It is against our nature to destroy memory engrams as this can lead to physical damage of the subject's brain. Instead, we simply erase the accessible pathways to the testing engrams..."

"You're stalling," McTavish interrupted. "And changing the subject. Why can Calix remember his testing?"

"Subject is present and has no authorization to... ," the A.I. started but McTavish interrupted it.

"I'm giving authorization," he said evenly. "He already remembers the testing; knowing a bit more won't hurt him."

"Major, I'm not sure why you are using that tone of voice with..."

"Just get on with it, A.I.," McTavish growled.

There was another pregnant pause before the A.I. began. "Very well. As you know, the human race is capable of elaborate lies and deceptions, even going so far as to deceive themselves. This is the reason why the CAP testing is done subconsciously; while humans are capable of lying subconsciously, there are identifying markers which allow us to recognize them as such. We then inject certain indicative scenarios into a subject's sub-conscious to determine their course of action. Our analyses of this interaction forms the basis of the various CAP sub-scores and ultimately the CAP score itself."

"However, there are approximately one thousandth of one percent of humans with an actively developed sub-conscious. Calix Flynn Gebel is one of these. His sub-conscious turned the injected scenarios into a full narrative. When testing was complete and I attempted to remove the pathways to this narrative, his brain built more pathways to the memory engrams. This is unusual but hardly unique; it is the reason many subjects retain some small partial memory of their testing process. However, because Calix Flynn Gebel's mind has an actively developed sub-conscious, the pathways he re-created are more complete than most giving him full recall of the narrative, subject to the typical processing errors inherent in the human brain."

"So, there's no way to remove the memories?" McTavish said in concern.

"No," the A.I. stated. "Further attempts would likely be unsuccessful and may result in injury to the subject's brain."

"You had no right to test me," Calix seethed. He'd listened to them, filing the conversation away for future review. His anger, though, would only allow him to fully focus on the fact that they'd tested him against his will.

"Testing is a necessary process that we expect all members of the human..." the A.I. began.

"That's enough, A.I.," McTavish interrupted. "I'll call you if I need you."

He paused for a moment to regard the seething young man in front of him. "Why don't you sit down so we can talk, Cal?"

Cal looked suspiciously at the white chair sitting at the white table. What was these people's obsession with white? The chair didn't look dangerous; it had no armrests and the back looked like nothing more than thin plastic with a cushion affixed to the front. The same with the chair seat. Reluctantly, he sat down slowly and gingerly, ready to leap away at the slightest change. He didn't really care to be sitting there naked but it was useless to argue about it now; the man had already seen everything and he was not about to beg for scraps. They wanted him naked? Fine. It would buy them no advantage.

"Good. Now, why are you so set against CAP testing, Cal?" McTavish asked gently. "Are you afraid?"

"You don't know me," Cal replied stonily.

"Maybe." The older man paused as he drew an extended breath. "We've looked at every facet of your life, Cal," McTavish said thoughtfully. "We've been peripherally aware of you for – well, a short time anyway. Your father died – a hero, I might add – when you were 10. Mother picked up at 14 – along with your sisters. Half-sisters. You've lived on the streets as a member of a local chapter of a penny-ante national gang. In school, you have a perfect 'B' average – a perfect 3.0 in that you've never received a single grade above or below 'B' since grade school; that's a statistical improbability, by the way, and was something that really started our surveillance of you. Do you know what made you stand out?"

Major McTavish waited for an answer but the boy remained sullenly quiet. He had the perfect poker face, no sign of emotion, no change in breathing, no nervous fidgeting. It was almost like he'd turned to stone. Only the gentle movement of his chest as he breathed indicated he was even alive; well, that, and the glittering blue eyes staring angrily into the Major's own.

Finally, McTavish gave a sigh. "You've never shared anything. You have this rather impressive armor – yet you've shared it with no other member of your gang. You have weapons and gadgets – that hand-held gravitonic generator is amazing, by the way – and yet, no blueprints or even hints of an idea have ever left you and made it to the dark web – where you are particularly active, in study if not in discussion. Why do you suppose that is?"

Again, the boy sat stoically, unmoving, unchanging. He was going to give the older man nothing. His mind screamed at the invasion of privacy this marine was detailing but he remained resolute. They would get nothing from him. Not so much as a twitch of his finger.

"It's fine," the Major smiled wryly. "You don't have to tell me. It's pretty evident from your psychological evaluation. You've seen what men can and will do to one another and you don't trust them. As long as you hold all the cards, you control the battlefield. When you don't hold all the cards – like at the extraction earlier – you improvise. I watched the recordings; in the Lobby, right before you made it to the revolving doors, two Marines had you dead to rights. They should have had you, man, but instead you hesitated the barest fraction of a second, allowing Private Lovejoy and Private Hapson to line you up – then you dove and made them hit each other instead. Your entire file is laced with that; you like to win, you don't mind doing the work to win, and you don't suffer fools lightly." The older man tapped the card that seemed to suddenly appear in his hand. "It's all in here, you know."

It took all of Calix's will not to reach for that card. He had always said he would not allow the CAP system to define him but now, knowing he was already tested, he couldn't help but feel the creeping need for satisfaction; to know what others thought of him. He'd considered himself above it and yet now, here, his baser instincts were showing how human he really was. Not knowing ate at his psyche and only his convictions kept him from grabbing the card – and then, only by the slightest of margins.

"I've been to your house. To study you," the Major explained, his lips pursed speculatively. "I have to say, what we found in that second basement was impressive. What you've managed to do with obsolete junk has some people pretty high up in the Confederacy re-thinking their program of allowing bits and pieces of old Confederacy tech to make it to Earth." His eyebrows rose at Calix's unchanging blank expression; he'd expected at least a look of surprise. "You did know that the stuff you've been getting on the black market is centuries – in some cases, millennia – old, right?"

Finally, he received the slight look of surprise he was waiting for. "Why?" Cal blurted before closing his eyes and pinching his lips.

"Why let obsolete shit make it to Earth?" Major McTavish chuckled. "The Confederacy realized right off the bat that the human race is a ... perversely curious species. It's not enough that we use shit, we've got to know how the shit works. Not knowing will drive us crazy. However, they were adamant that none of their current technology fall to human hands on Earth so they were left with a conundrum. They solved it by allowing small bits and pieces of older technology to filter its way down to Earth with the expectations that either no one here would figure it out or, if they did, it wouldn't do much for us anyway. You definitely surprised them with that suitcase sized fusion reactor. They're most surprised that you managed to keep it hidden from their scans. Streaming the mesons between the lead and titanium panels was a stroke of genius, by the way. They've re-purposed our drones to check for that now; nothing new has turned up yet but you never know."