Trayvon was already sitting in the theater – he was on tail duty that night but didn’t see what happened.
10250 Santa Monica
blvd. 90067.
AMC 15
Theater: 03…
“Oh, shit.”
No obvious reactions in the theater. Trayvon…Tre – quickly walked down to where Jacob was sitting – one foot in the front of the other slowly like, no reason to draw attention. He took the large popcorn tub and set it on Jacob’s lap. They made eye contact then Jacob expired. It was a moment lost to time. There was fear in Jake’s eyes for the brief moment. It was the understanding between two men who’d worked together for both months and years. Months because this Jake was only a few months old and years because the animations have been recurring for 20 plus years. Tre came on four years ago after he was recruited by s0matic to the research and development division. It was a promotion and a demotion at the same time. Promotion because it would earn him a six-figure raise, and a demotion because his job duties now included some baby-sitting from time-to-time. Tre had been with s0matic ever since his ETS from active duty Army. He was on loan to the Cybersecurity Division of s0matic as a government liaison and had been on s0matic’s radar ever since the Qatar incident. Tre was very capable, trustworthy, and possessed an aptitude for this shit. He was on babysitting duty this week because those in the know for this project are absolutely need to know and the pool of operators is very small.
“Andy’s on his way he whispered.” Jacob couldn’t hear him because Jacob was dead. Tre knew Jake passed, but in case there was something left – a glimmer of light – an infinitesimal synapse left of his soul – Tre wanted Jake to know he wasn’t alone. Gravity took over the moment and Jake slumped a little more completely.
“Fuck.”
Tre was hoping to see Jake in a state of distress that he could do something about. A heart attack, a stroke, choking on a fucking corn nuts – but no – “That’s a lot of blood” he thought to himself already planning his next actions. He switched his ocular implants to low-light mode and for the briefest of moments thought about his first implants. He’d been nearly blinded by a sudden flash of light when in low-light mode years ago. His unit got word that the Old Guard was moving toward Qatar in columns but it turned out to be a faint. The Old Guard had paid a shit-ton to get locals to caravan in Old Guard vehicles while the actual Old Guard had been assimilating culturally for months. When the Trucks reached striking distance at 200 km, Tre’s unit deployed to intercept. At 2am in the middle of the desert about 100 km from their interception point – there was no warning as the bright strobe lights turned on. The low-light mode that allowed members of the 82nd Engineer Battalion see like eagles at night now blinded them. The Ridley II Visual Enhancement model IX that was hardened against intrusion and had multiple redundancies built in at a cost of $43,225 per eye was rendered unsafe for the user by an array of $50 strobe lights. Firmware updates that would come later to the Ridley II included a strobe frequency mapper that blocks vision and uses the light source to map a Heads-Up Display in real time. Like spacecraft with no windows, the user is seeing an image on a monitor from sensors and cameras outside. In just seven short years after the Qatar incident, the HUD imaging system was in use planet wide and in extra-terrestrial exploration missions. No longer did we rely on 0.625-inch-thick windows for spacecraft pass-through visuals. This improved structural integrity of spacecraft and allowed aerospace engineers to design vehicles for less hospitable environments. That one Army unit’s near decimation saved the planet untold fortunes through simple necessity. And, this is how s0matic Corp became the most profitable single entity in the history of mankind.
