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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Selling your body is one thing, but what if it means losing your soul as well?

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Absolute Magnitude, 1998
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2002

41 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [54 KB], eReader (PDB) [25 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [11 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [11 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [63 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [82 KB], hiebook (KML) [54 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [40 KB], iSilo (PDB) [9 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [12 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [39 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [19 KB]
Words: 3400
Reading time: 9-13 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Bud Sparhawk's "Mercenary" has a simple idea at its core: soldiers, right before demobilization, are offered a cash reward if they allow a "somatic tape" to be made of them. This turns out to be a copy, which is reinstantiated again and again, for future, as well as alien wars..."--Rich Horton, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

Twenty thousand cash and immediate discharge was their offer after the reds declared peace and the cost of defense was more than the civvies could bear. All I had to do was take a few tests to qualify and, if I passed, sit still in a strange metal room for an hour. Somatic taping they called it.

For me it was a way to have that binge I'd been promising myself since Tyler's Bluff, since Begaziville, since Phu Cat and the labor uprisings. Always something to keep us busy at what we did best. But with twenty thousand dollars the women, drugs, and booze would come easy. All I had to do was sit in a chair for an hour. Nothing to it....

Only the room is different when my eyes snap open and the piercing headache they warned me about strikes. As predicted it only lasts a second before it disappears. Looks like somebody's painted the walls flat white while I was dozing. Then I notice that I'm sitting on a dias instead of a chair.

"Welcome to the future, soldier boy," a voice booms our beside me. I spin around and see a large bear of a man holding out some clothing. They're blue, but with the look of a uniform about them. He smiles in a not-nice sort of way. "Your original self died forty years ago," the big man says. "You're a duplicate we just ran off from the tape he contracted to make." Again there's that not-nice smile of his. "We've found the best way's brutal--tell you exactly when you are and get the shock over with. Briefing and outfitting is down the hall. Now move it mister, we've got a division to clear through here!" I slip on the blue and get.

Weeks later I'm sitting beside a tree listening to a brook babble not twenty metres away. The sun's shining and the sky's a peaceful blue. Little puffs of summer cloud dot the sky here and there. My clothing has taken on a green-brown hue, the protective coloration seems to be built in to it. Not much change in weapons though; the muzzle velocity's a little higher, but there's less recoil than I'm used to for this calibre. Firepower's greater and so's accuracy, but otherwise its the same weapon that killed Og the caveman--something that throws a massive object very fast and very hard. It's a gun.

My earpiece beeps the alert and I'm up and facing west. Two beeps and I start to creep forward, eyes peeled for sign of the enemy. Somewhere off to my right and left my flankers parallel my course while behind us are the second line. Crap, the French and the British did it this way in the Hundred Years war--le meme change, ca plus change.

Three beeps and I start to double time. Still no sign of contact anywhere along the line. Then I hear the sharp crack of small arms fire. Someone must have spotted us.

Then comes the steady whine of bullets and our squad leader's call "Hit em! Hit em!" And my legs pump the double time up to full steam ahead. Trees, bushes, grass, blue sky, and little clouds disappear from my senses. Anything that isn't friend, enemy, or cover is ignored by my brain. My vision becomes razor sharp. The whole world takes on an unbelievable clarity. If I wished I could count every speck of sand on the trails, every leaf on every tree ... if I wanted.

My foot comes down on the leading edge of the slope and I lean into the incline toward the ridge. Peripheral vision picks up my flankers pacing me on either side. The one on the right erupts with fountains of red as four or five rounds hit him. Too bad. I'm dodging, twisting, and stooping to make myself as difficult a target as possible. Is it instinct or training? Who cares?

Then I'm at the ridge line and see the dun colored soldiers waiting for us. I bring my gun down and systematically squeeze off six rounds; four less of the enemy to worry about. Then I roll and come up on the reverse slope with another one in my sights. I pull the trigger and see him fall. At the same time something hits my side twice with a hammer blow; thud, thud. I take a second to glance down and see red blood ooze out of craters in my side. I clap a hand to them to try to push it back. Vision blurs and darkness rushes in. Who did it? Who? As I die I realize that they never told me who we were fighting, or why...