Eric Spears

Eric walked into the recreation room and eyes turned his way.

Several screens up on the wall showed the news, which wasn’t unusual, but all the Marines staring at Eric was.

“Dude,” Bass said. “I think you are famous!”

“What do you mean?” Eric asked.

“They did it again?” Bass said. It was hard to read his emotions.

“What?” Eric asked, a bad feeling making him not want to ask that question.

Bass motioned at one of the screens and told it to rewind a minute.

Eric watched it, his bad feeling growing.

A bunch of kids were running through the sewers. In the lead was a kid maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. A young girl with a pony tail. Beside her was a young boy.

“Are you sure this is the only way?” the girl asked.

“Who would bother coming down here?” the boy said wading through knee high sewage. “We will be okay. Nobody will be fighting down here.”

An avatar stepped out in front of them and began shooting. Electric sparks hurled down the sewer toward them. The girl was hit first. A short scream and she fell face first into the sewage. The boy was hit next, but he made no sound. Whoever was holding the camera screamed and turned around. Sparks continued to fly past and then the person with the camera stumbled and fell. The camera fell beneath the sewer water and was replaced with blackness.

“Katrina Chandler, George Smith, Luz Sharp and Hector Griffin died yesterday during the Bertman Arcology riots,” a newscaster said. “They were trying to escape the fighting. They were unarmed and braving the sewers. We have learned that Marines were posted in the sewers to prevent any protesters from escaping the violent crackdown. This Marine specifically used non-lethal rounds but when he shot his targets he let them drown in the nasty sewer water. Two others escaped only later managing to recover the video from the body of Hector. Absolutely no attempt was made to save these innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. The Marines just let them drown.”

“That’s bullshit,” Bass said. Eric nodded knowing what was coming next.

“Furthermore ISRN has learned that the Marine controlling the robots was none other than Commando Eric Spears,” the reporter said. “One of the Marines that violently attacked the children in Rock Republic, and grand son of the war monger General Spears, nephew of Colonel Spears, the butcher of Wuhan. I’m sure they are proud of their little murderous thug. Killing children seems to run in the family.”

Bass looked over at Eric.

“Someone doesn’t like you,” Bass said.

“I only fired after rail gun fire took out an avatar,” Eric said scowling.

Bass nodded.

“Yea? No shit,” Bass said. “It is a hatchet job. Somebody has access to our rosters and they are very good at fabricating shit.”

“Lots of agencies are picking up on it,” Wilson said. “A few are calling it bullshit, but not enough in my opinion.”

“Why me?” Eric asked, watching the reporter show a picture of him from his boot camp graduation.

“Probably because you are the easiest target in the Spears dynasty. They take you down they make the rest of your family look bad,” Bass said. “You are now a recognizable name and face. Something people can hate and you are part of a dynasty they can identify.”

Eric swore.

“The people who know it is bullshit will ignore it and forget all about you,” Bass said turning to look back at the video. “But hate sells and right now, with a war on, people want to hate. The UE’s are too distant, but you are right here and convenient. Related to a lot of ranking Marines too. Dissidents can point at the whole Spears dynasty and scream cover-up or conspiracy.”

Eric watched pictures of his uncle, his father and his grandfather appear on screen as the news hound spoke about his family and how the Marine Corps was virtually controlled by the Spears dynasty. There were a lot of people associated with the Spears family actively serving in the Marines.

“Marine Public Affairs is fighting the story but,” Bass said and shrugged. “People are going to believe what they want to believe. Sorry dude. I think you are screwed. Maybe a face and name change?”

A message appeared in Eric’s queue from his uncle, it was requesting a VR meeting at Eric’s earliest convenience. Looking at the screen he was pretty sure he knew what it was about.

“I didn’t shoot any kids,” Eric said.

“I’m pretty sure we all know that,” Bass said. “During the debrief we saw the footage. They were low quality robots, probably radio and VR controlled. Whoever owned those robots, owned the footage and was able to manipulate it. Probably killed the kids too.”

Eric watched the screen. It was a VR. What if those kids had really been there and it was the Marine or Army systems that were manipulating his views? It was possible. It was easy enough to take an avatar offline and call it ‘battle damage’ or fake an attack.