The veil dropped instantly from Rhodes’s eyes. It happened so suddenly that Rhodes gasped. In the blink of an eye, the whole city changed into a vast machine. There was no ocean, no people, no vehicles or spacecraft or civilian transports flying around.

  There weren’t even any separate buildings or windows he could look through. The whole city was one giant block of computer components.

  There was no vehicle for Rhodes and B to fly around in, either. The city machine interfaced with Rhodes so he could see every part of it simultaneously.

  The city machine contained banks and banks and banks of millions or even billions of standing conversion stations. Those stations contained millions or even billions of Masks locked into their conversion cycles.

  The interface showed Rhodes locked into one of these somewhere buried deep inside the city machine’s blackest heart.

  None of those Masks was B. B probably didn’t even exist. He was just another program the city machine sent to communicate with Rhodes on the Masks’ behalf.

  Rhodes still had implants in that conversion station. He wasn’t human—not like he appeared right now.

  A stab of grief hit him like a freight train at the loss of that faint hope. He would never feel that sensation of clothes on his skin ever again.

  At least, he wouldn’t feel it in the real world. He would only feel it when the Masks tricked him into feeling it.

  The pain, humiliation, and gnawing insanity of his implants embedded in his bones came back in an instant. They never went away. The Masks lulled him into a fog to make him forget it.

  Now it all came back and he felt it more acutely than ever. It drove him out of his mind the way it did when he first woke up at Coleridge Station. That sensation would never go away. Getting deluded about it, even for a little while, only made it worse.

  Another surge of rage wiped out his despair. The Masks used his agony to manipulate him. They dangled his one greatest hope in front of his eyes to trick him into cooperating with them.

  It had the opposite effect. It made him hate them even more furiously. He wanted to kill them all for doing this to him. They tormented him worse than the people on the Battalion 1 project who gave him these implants in the first place.

  His view of the city machine and everything in it only lasted for a split second—just long enough for him to interface with the machine. He saw it all in that moment. He saw and understood perfectly.

  The next instant, the glorious city with all its aircraft and peaceful people reestablished the illusion. Rhodes stood in the vehicle with B at his side. “Now do you understand?” B asked.

  Rhodes nodded, but he didn’t really understand. He didn’t understand anything he didn’t understand before.

  He still hated these things. He still considered them his enemies. If anything he considered them his enemies more than he did before. He became even more fiercely determined to wipe them all out….somehow.

  How much of his thoughts could B read or hear or see in this world? Did the city machine have any clue how much Rhodes hated it?

  None of that mattered because he still had no way to get out of this.

  Fisher. He needed Fisher to help him figure this out.

  The minute he came back into the illusion, his implants disappeared. He was a human man wearing a Legion uniform again. Fisher wasn’t here.

  Fisher hadn’t been in the city machine, either. Rhodes was in a conversion cycle, so of course he didn’t see Fisher.

  He didn’t want to ask B about Fisher, but desperation made him do it anyway.

  “So….where is my SAM? Is he in Stonebridge, too?”

  B cocked his head to one side. “Why do you care what happens to that program? You’re attached to it, but it’s a part of us. What we do is the same as the SAMs. Don’t you understand that?”

  “What do you want from me?” Rhodes asked. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “I told you, Captain. We brought you here to heal your injuries.”

  “Then why am I still here? Send me back to the battalion.”

  “We wanted to reward you for helping us. You could live here with us. You could have a family and continue the career you lost when you joined Battalion 1. You don’t have to go back.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Rhodes looked away. He had to struggle to control his expression so he didn’t show this creature how much the offer disgusted him. “Send me back to the battalion. I don’t want to live here.”

  “Why not?” B asked.

  Rhodes didn’t turn around. “You wouldn’t understand. If you don’t want to send me back to the battalion, just take me offline and be done with it. Don’t pretend to be nice to me.”

  “Take you offline!” B gasped. “We couldn’t do that! We would never do that—to anyone!”

  “Then that leaves one option, doesn’t it?”

  “Please reconsider, Captain,” B insisted. “Stay just a little while until you understand us a little better.”

  “What is there to understand? You’re machines living in a giant city machine. I understand everything I need to understand. You’re using these Grid landscapes to create the illusion that you have a life when you don’t. What do you plan to do—keep me in a conversion cycle for the rest of my life?”

  “If you really want to return to the battalion, I will send you back to them. Just stay here a little longer. Give us a chance. We aren’t the evil monsters you seem to think we are. We have a civilized society as rich as yours. Please. Stay twenty-four hours. That’s all I ask.”

  Rhodes didn’t answer. He already knew what kind of society these Masks had.

  The Masks—the real Masks—the Masks out there in the real world—they weren’t just trying to live their lives in peace.

  They were marauding the galaxy wiping out one planet after another. They killed billions of people. Why?

  Rhodes didn’t ask that. He just wanted to get back to the battalion so he could figure out how to escape from these things.

  His conversation with Fisher came back in every detail. He could think much more clearly now than he could when he was injured.

  The Masks deployed the battalion in battle—a real battle. The Masks took the battalion out of whatever lab they were keeping everyone in. The Masks sent the battalion into the real world to fight real enemies—enemies that threatened the Masks.

  What other enemy would that be besides the Aemon Legion?

  The Masks would probably wipe Rhodes’s memory as soon as he left here. He might not remember the city machine or even that he wanted to escape.

  Something might come up. That’s what Fisher said.

  Something might happen to make Rhodes remember. Then he and the battalion would be on the battlefield with the Legion not far away. The Masks wouldn’t be able to stop the battalion from rejoining the Legion.

  The thought gave Rhodes a thrill of hope. He would do it. He would tell his subordinates—but he had to choose his moment. He obviously couldn’t do it now.

  The vehicle kept gliding through the city. He and B kept looking at everything that wasn’t here.

  Rhodes noticed more problems as the trip went on. Not everyone in this place looked happy and contented—not as much as they should have.

  He might have mistaken that for the everyday cares of daily life. The longer he flew around this city, the more he realized it wasn’t that.

  He didn’t see any outward signs of blatant misery. He didn’t see anyone suffering or starving or homeless poor people lying in the gutters.

  He didn’t see any outward signs of happiness, either. As soon as he noticed it, he couldn’t ignore it.

  He didn’t see anyone actually smiling, laughing, or enjoying themselves at all. He didn’t see any children playing or any adults relaxing or celebrating.

  He paid more attention now. He didn’t see anyone in any offices blowing out the candles on any birthday cake.

  He watched every face with minute attention. He kept searching anywhere for one person—just one person out of thousands—who was laughing or even smiling.

  They didn’t. They all furrowed their brows in concern. An air of deep worry and even despair hung over the city. He couldn’t understand it, but it tainted the experience as never before.

  Whatever beauty the place might have held for Rhodes evaporated in a flash. The place repelled him with an unstoppable force. He had to get out of here.

  His own humanity—his fake humanity—it disgusted him.

  Fisher’s absence jarred Rhodes even more. Fisher not being here made the whole landscape look and feel wrong.

  Rhodes needed Fisher back. Anything would be better than this.

  He didn’t say any of that out loud. He kept it to himself and let B keep flying the vehicle around the city.

  Rhodes found himself focusing especially on the schools with the children in them. None of the children cried or threw tantrums or got food on their faces the way they would if they had been human.

  Rhodes didn’t even see any dirt or mess in the schools. He didn’t see any children playing with toys or drawing with crayons or finger-painting or accidentally falling over their own feet. Of course not. The Masks couldn’t possibly understand any of that about real human childhood.

  Everything looked beyond perfect—too perfect. That was its fatal flaw. The heavy blanket of hopeless anguish dampened everything. It spoiled everything.

  The rot came from the inside. It ate away at the illusion from underneath. Did the Masks even feel it? Did they sense that there was something catastrophically wrong with their perfectly constructed illusion?

  None of that concerned Rhodes. He remained silent, but he definitely saw it now. He couldn’t un-see it.

  He stayed where he was and pretended to admire the city until B took him back to the atrium outside B’s office.

  The vehicle landed there. B turned to Rhodes. “Now you know how we live.”

  Rhodes nodded at nothing. He knew more than he ever wanted to know about the Masks.

  “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?” B asked. “You could have a good life here.”

  “No, I won’t reconsider. Just send me back to the battalion. That’s where I belong.”

  B shook his head. His expression changed to another frown of deep concern. “I’m sorry to hear that, Captain. I hoped we could come to a better understanding.”

  “Why would I want to live here when my subordinates are somewhere else? You should have known better than to think I would just abandon them.”

  “They’re all living happily at Stonebridge.”

  “Then send me back to Stonebridge. I don’t care where you send me as long as I’m with them.”

  B shook his head again. “I won’t say I’m not disappointed, but if that’s the way you want it, I’ll send you back to them. Follow me.” He led the way to another side of his office and waved at one of the couches. “Lie down.”

  “What for?” Rhodes countered. “Why the theatrics? Just send me back.”

  The tiniest hint of annoyance crept into B’s tone. “Just lie down so you don’t fall over. I’m not trying to ambush you, Captain.”

  Rhodes didn’t believe that for a second, but if this was what it took to get back to the battalion, he could tolerate it for now.

  He stretched out on the couch. B waited until Rhodes settled into the cushion…and then he blacked out again.

  End of Chapter 21.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Battalion 1 series on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday PST.

  Don't want to wait to read the rest of the book? You can purchase the completed book, the whole The Battalion 1 Series, and the rest of Theo ’Manns work at Theo Mann’s Amazon Author Page.

  Read Battalion 1: Mutiny for free!

  Get these episodes delivered to your inbox before anyone else sees them. Find out how on Patreon at .

  Thank you for reading and thank you for your support!