Free Stark's Command by John G. Hemry Page A

'test' Meecham's plan. Watch." She activated the sim, letting Stark watch as the initial brigade assault began.
    Stark shut his eyes, trying to block out memories of futile slaughter. "Vic, I don't think I can watch this."
    "This is the sim, Ethan. Look."
    It took a lot of effort, but Stark forced his eyes open again, then almost immediately furrowed his brow. "This shows the enemy, too?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "How come those units in their rear are jittering back and forth instead of heading to counter our attack?"
    "Because," Vic explained patiently, "Meecham's theories said they'd be confused by our little diversionary actions. Remember those? So the enemy, in the sim, can't decide where to commit its troops."
    Stark snorted in derision. "Hey, there's a lot of enemy positions missing. Meecham's plan needed that to work, too, right?" As Vic nodded, Stark pointed at the symbols marking the advancing American brigade. "Look at that! They're maintaining perfect formation! That's ridiculous. Those soldiers were incapable of that up here."
    "They had to be able to maintain perfect formation for Meecham's plan," Vic reminded him. "Ethan, I talked to the ape geeks who run the sims. Their orders are always to make the plan work, so they program the sim so the plan works. Get it?"
    On the display, only scattered enemy fire met the American charge, then enemy units began falling away, retreating in ironic mimicry of the recent disaster Stark had narrowly avoided. "No. I don't get it. These sims are supposed to be so good they show exactly what would happen in the real world."
    "Uh-uh," Vic chided, wagging one finger at him. "Not the 'real world,' Ethan. Whatever world needs to exist to make the plan work. See? To make Meecham's plan work, the enemy needs to react just the way his theory says they have to. Our forces have to perform just the way he needs them to, regardless of things like terrain and training. And when push comes to shove, the enemy has to be overwhelmed by the force of our . . . what'd they call it, our clustered paradigms?"
    "Somethin' like that." Stark shook his head, jaw slack. "I don't believe it. Those damn Generals really did think they were gods. If the world don't match the plans, you change the world to fit."
    "Right. Then you declare the plans good because, hell, you ran them on a state-of-the-art simulator, right?"
    Stark rubbed his palms into his eyes. "Then the sims have always been run like that? That's why so many real-world ops went to hell even after they'd supposedly been sim'd to death?"
    "I expect. Most people figured the sims were being run to get real answers. Instead, they've been designed to produce whatever answers the guys in charge wanted to get."
    "Why didn't we hear anything about this?" Stark ground out. "Those ape geeks are enlisted. How come they never passed word around?"
    "Security, Ethan. Everything about the sim designs has been slapped with high-level, compartmented security protection. The ape geeks were subject to the highest levels of security screening so they couldn't breathe a word to anyone for fear of flunking the screens. That was supposedly so the enemy wouldn't learn anything about us from the sims. I guess it was also to keep us from learning about the sims."
    "Nothing like security rules to cover up mistakes, arrogance, and just plain stupidity," Stark agreed sourly. "Okay, but the sim guys can fix this junk? Program sims so that they reflect the real world?"
    Vic hesitated. "They say so."
    "But you don't think so. Why not?"
    "Because I've been thinking about it, and I'm not sure we can ever make a sim do what's advertised." Vic leaned back, apparently watching the sim unroll as the virtually unscathed simulated American troops continued to simulate triumph in every direction. "Take terrain. You ever walk someplace where the map exactly matched the ground?"
    "Hell, no. There's always differences. Even up here where nothing's supposed to change and the whole surface is supposed