Chapter summary
CHAPTER THREE
Colonel Robbins and Lieutenant Wilson stand in the decanting lab while a single, fully engineered Special Forces body—intended to host Dr. Charles Boutin’s transferred consciousness—lies in a suspension‑field crèche. Robbins asks Wilson about fatherhood; Wilson responds philosophically and then turns to his hardware, fine‑tuning the transfer apparatus. The conversation drifts into a lengthy exposition of the Colonial Defense Forces’ shift from youthful, genetically‑modified troops to senior‑citizen recruits, the development of force‑grown bodies, and the semi‑organic BrainPal implant that augments a tabula‑rasa brain.
Generals Mattson and Szilard, accompanied by three decanting technicians, enter. Mattson demands assurance that the transfer will succeed. Wilson admits uncertainty: unlike normal transfers the donor mind is not conscious, the recipient has never been conscious, and the pattern may fail to imprint. After a brief debate, Mattson authorizes the procedure.
The narrative then details the Special Forces “recipe”: stripping the human genome of non‑essential junk, redesigning it with additional human and alien genes, compressing it into five chromosome pairs, inserting it into a vacant zygote, and accelerating development in a heat‑managed crèche with nanobots that create SmartBlood and the BrainPal marble. By sixteen weeks the embryo reaches adult size; the BrainPal normally provides a temporary sense of self at waking.
Wilson initiates the consciousness transfer; the machinery hums, the body remains motionless, and after a few minutes Wilson reports completion. Robbins informs Mattson that the soldier has not yet been awakened. Mattson, eager to be the first thing the soldier sees, orders the technicians to wake the subject without activating the BrainPal, fearing it would confuse any existing consciousness. A finger on the control board jolts the body; its eyelids flutter, the eyes open, and the soldier fixates on Mattson. The soldier then lets out a horrific scream.
General Szilard finds Mattson in a hallway, mock‑questioning his ear, and they exchange exasperated dialogue about the failure. Szilard suggests the soldier’s consciousness may need time to settle; Mattson insists he expected Boutin’s mind to be present instantly. Their conversation devolves into profanity and jokes about paper towels, then shifts to a pragmatic stance: Szilard proposes turning the BrainPal on and assigning the soldier to a training platoon. He also explains the naming convention for Special Forces soldiers, noting they are named after scientists (e.g., Leo Szilard) and that the new soldier will receive a similar name. The chapter ends with Szilard preparing to give the soldier a name and integrate him into the forces.