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control to a system that you hadn't been born with or grown up with that was
naturally there. For all that it was great to be inside one, there was still
something deep in the human psyche that didn't quite accept the idea that as
much as the human would be running the machine, the machine would be running
the human.
Paying no attention to the staff around the place, he removed all his
clothing, even his ring and watch, put them neatly in a locker, then went
over, stood in front of the suit, turned his back on it, and let the suit come
to him and en-velop him, as if it were an amoeba ingesting a host.
Once you expected it, the sensation was oddly warm and comforting;
in Advanced Infantry
Training, when you used limited, more generic training suits, the first time
was terrifying. There were many people who simply couldn't take it,
couldn't let any part of themselves go, and them the training suits
would simply eject. Those guys would spend the rest of their instantly limited
military careers doing public relations or sitting long hours by
communi-cations rigs listening to nothing, backing up the computers and
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when in doubt kicking queries upstairs.
There were even a lot of questions, right from the start of the
truly all-computerized military services, if people had to be risked at all.
Computers were smart enough to do a lot of it themselves, after all, and
could be given orders from afar. Trouble was, nobody really trusted
any kind of artificial intelligence that had the power to do what these
suits could with no human directly in the loop. The machines were far too
smart now for most people. It wouldn't take much to make some of them wonder
why they still needed humans around at all.
He breathed normally, and soon air was coming as his body expected;
as the systems came online, cell by cell, nerve end by nerve end, skin and
suit got connected up. There was a momentary unpleasantness when the "shit
catcher," as the infantry boys called it, injected and the other end was also
encased and controlled, but by now that was expected.
In fact, his body was now pretty much on automatic, almost as if
he were in a deep and dreamless sleep, except that he himself was fully
awake and aware. Shortly, vi-sion, hearing, even a sense of smell and touch,
returned, pretty much as before, although his eyes were actually closed, his
ears blocked, and his nose occupied by mere breathing. Even the
breathing wasn't totally necessary; the suit could easily maintain oxygen
and CO levels in his blood and all sorts of other
2
things as needed. It had been found that breathing made subjects feel
more at ease--more, well, human.
The technician watched, not because she was seeing something she
didn't see routinely, but because she had to check the external systems
before releasing the subject. Within another minute or so, Chief Warrant
Officer Gene Harker would be well, the only way to put it was super-human.
If something went wrong, it was easier to press the deactivation
remote here than to try and do it elsewhere after half the base had
been trashed.
The head never changed, but the arms shaped themselves into more
humanlike arms, the legs seemed more like human legs with thick, shiny
boots, and there were certain little personality things that tended to come
out uniquely on each one. About half the women, for example, shaped the suits
in a feminine form and even gave the sug-gestion of breasts; the other half
tried to be so neuter the suit looked like a robot.
"Systems check," she called to him. "Audible?" "Check!" came his voice,
sounding quite natural, although there was no evident mouth or speaker.
"Visual, forward and sweep."
He looked at her, then opened up a 360-degree sweep, even though it was half
wall. The human mind resisted more than a forward one-eighty when walking, but
it was always nice to be able to see where needed and when needed, and for
sentry duty it was ideal. He also checked the telescopic
vision, actually counting three nose hairs in the technician's left
nostril that he decided not to mention. Both telescope and microscope
were built in, along with a lot of other functions.
He flexed his arms, took a couple of steps forward, then the glassy bubblelike
head nodded. "I
think we're a go. How's this for a camouflage check?" The suit suddenly turned
a bright metallic shade of glowing pink with yellow and green stripes moving
up and down.
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