Dots on the screen, pixels. On closer inspection one could make out figures,
people moving around on the monitor. Commander Grim stared coldly. The battle was
turning against him, the little digits in the upper-right corner of the screen were nearly a
blur--that was how many he'd lost. It didn't matter though, because he was the best. He
was the world's greatest real-time strategist, and he had no intention of backing down.
Nearly three thousand already. The numbers would slow up every so often, when
it seemed like the tide was turning in his favor, then they'd speed up again. His men
were dying out there, but he felt no remorse. He could not. They were numbers to him,
abstractions whirling around on a computer screen. To feel sorry for them was to give up
the battle. To give in to primitive emotion meant losing the war, and that couldn't
happen. Chances were there was a machine at the other end, controlling the enemy, a
machine that didn't feel regret. The new AI systems were getting better all the time, and
you had to be good to beat them. If not the best, you at least had to be close to win
against one of them. Grim was Supreme Commander of the Western Allied Forces.
There were none better than him, and the hell if he'd let a machine tarnish his record.
Through the satellite displays around the main console one could make out the
individual soldiers as they marched, as they fought, as they died in the desert terrain of
some foreign land. Who were these men? Convicts mostly, or poor people who didn't
know any better. Whatever the case, they were not in control. Grim was in control.
Implants in each soldier's cerebellum told him when to jump, and how high. There was
no free will in the matter; he merely did it, and he did so with machine-like precision.
The computer literally seized control of all motor function in the individual, and his body
did as it was told. If that meant walking directly into an ambush, so be it. Orders were
orders, and orders had to be followed.
Inhumane? Certainly. But the third world armies all had the technology and
there wasn't much that could compete with it. Conventional soldiers were all but
obsolete and fully mechanical troops were inferior to their half-machine, half-flesh
counterparts. The solution: dig from the bottom of the barrel, which is exactly what the
politicians in New Washington did. The rest was history.
On the display screen the situation was still looking bleak for Commander Grim.
His leftmost units were quickly being overrun. One group marched directly into the line
of fire of some machinegun emplacements and got turned into hamburger. The enemy
was moving in with flamethrowers, and the result wouldn't be pretty if they got into
range. Grim clicked on the screen with the cursor. Several of his groups suddenly
changed direction. On one of the close-up satellite displays a man was rolling around on
the ground, one of his arms blown clean off. His legs were kicking, like he was still
trying to walk forward. The pain editors supposedly kept them from feeling it, but
sometimes they looked all too human when they went out. Only weak commanders paid
attention to such details though. Grim was not a rookie by any means. He'd won
victories in every major theater of war--Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle
East. Other commanders trained under him, learned from his successes, and every so
often, his subtle mistakes.
The man's legs were slowing up now. He almost resembled a child's windup toy
which had fallen on its side as he lay there, his life gradually winding down. He died
with the same blank expression all the others had-mouth slightly open, eyes staring
straight ahead. Commander Grim didn't notice. On the main console screen the battle
had finally begun to turn in his favor. The enemy had failed in its attempt to break his
lines and was falling back. The casualty counter was slowly coming to rest. Now was
the critical part, though. Sometimes they'd just stand and fight if they thought they could
inflict more casualties, and the whole thing turned into a battle of attrition. Sometimes
they'd beat a hasty retreat and risk losing a couple thousand more to exhaustion and
starvation across miles of barren land.
This one was tending toward the latter. Grim would have to stay on his heels, of
course. He'd probably lose another quarter of his forces, but it didn't matter; they were
statistics to him. As Supreme Commander of the Western Allied Forces he didn't have
the luxury of feelings. He pressed a key on the keyboard, effectively setting his troops
into auto-aggression mode. They would pursue the enemy for days now if necessary,
even if it meant exerting themselves to the point of death.
Grim leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. Another victory, another
medal to wear on his uniform. He pulled a mirror from his pocket. There were a few
drops of sweat trickling down his forehead. He was starting to get acne on his chin and
the peach fuzz under his nose was getting darker. He didn't want to start shaving yet, but
he couldn't hold off forever. Still, his complexion didn't matter much, because he was
Markus Grim, the greatest real-time strategist in the world, and neither man nor machine
could defeat him.
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