Read Reality 36 for Free Online Page B

supplementary polymer muscle fibres, the power of his retrovirally modified heart and lungs, the whir of their beatless bioplastic back-ups. His flesh bulked out with machinery, Otto was heavier than a normal man his size, but his breath came swift and easy. Some said cyborgs were less than human. They were wrong; they were more.
      Within forty minutes the unit reached the ambush point, a bluff overlooking the pale scar of a rebel trail cut across the red dirt.
      Silently they spread out, Muller and Kaplinski heading over the trail to the trees beyond. Otto reactivated the MT. The vital signs of his men and a direct feed blinked up one by one on Otto's internal HUD. He waited until they were in position before thinking out to them, having the men pan this way as he watched through their eyes.
    Lehmann, get that cannon five metres higher up the hill, he said. I want the road blocked with the first two shots.
    Yes, sir, replied Lehmann.
      Otto made minor adjustments to the men's placement. He wouldn't do so ordinarily. Second-guessing his men undermined their respect in him. If he did not show respect to their judgement, how could he expect any in return? But they were battle-fatigued and getting careless. He licked his lips; the bitterness of ash filled his mouth. He checked the sights of his rifle.
    This is a terror strike. Make sure enough live so word spreads the Ghosts are working this part of the range.
    And not so many that they think we let them get away, added Kaplinski. Smiley icons flashed across the men's feeds, graphical shorthand to supplement the MT.
      Otto cut them off. If a single Son in this province does not think twice before going into the trees for a piss, we fail. Get your blades ready, I want this finished close in.
      A tense round of yes, sirs came back. Their fighting urge swelled within them, anger and aggression amped up, pity and fear stymied. The Ky-Tech's adjutants manipulated their augmentations. Amygdalas crackled with directed EM fields, brains were flooded with synthetic neuromodulators. They became unlike other men.
    Keep communication to a minimum, thought out Otto. Leakage from the bands their machine telepathy used could give away their presence. As could the movements of the dead vegetation or a warp in the wave sweepers' patterns or the plumes of dust that followed in their wake, no hiding that…
      Otto cleared his mouth with water from his canteen. The dust was closing his throat. He was going to make a speech, then thought better of it. Let the guns do the talking, he thought, his men knew that language well enough.
      They waited, utterly still, for a long time.
     
    Otto's adjutant woke him as the sun headed towards the western horizon. The sunset was on the high side of spectacular, rays fractured by the smog of the burning forests in the interior, streaking the sky with purples, reds, golds and ambers. Heaven bled light, the sun's final warning flag to humanity.
      MT tightbeams uplinked Otto and Muller to spysats. The rebels were close. He sent out a signal pulse to his men. Minutes passed. The Ghosts heard engines, then the rebel convoy came into view. At the fore was a General Motors-Mitsubishi pick-up with an AA gun bolted to the flatbed. Both gun and truck were antique, the truck an internal combustion engine, sugar-cane ethanol job. A more modern vehicle followed, steam belching from a cracked fuel cell. Half a dozen men perched on the back, heads wobbling like parcel-shelf ornaments as the truck jerked along the rutted track. A line of scruffy infantry fanned out either side, eyes glinting as they watched the trees.
      Lehmann sighted down the barrel of the 36mm cannon, zeroing in on the lead GMM, tracking its progress, poised to destroy foremost and rear vehicles to block the road both ways. Muller and Buchwald were to catch all but a few that fled away from the initial assault, and they would flee. The rebels could be brave, but they never stuck