“That’s fantastic,” said van Hutten.
Kira’s eyes fell and she turned away.
“Something went wrong, didn’t it?” said van Hutten softly.
Kira nodded and she wore a pained expression. “I barely survived it,” she replied. “The first minute or two afterwards I felt great, but my body crashed almost immediately after that. At this level your mind burns too brightly. You saw how starved you were for glucose after being enhanced. This was worse. It was complete depletion of, well . . . just about everything.”
“We rushed her to the hospital,” said Desh. “Just after we arrived she lapsed into a coma. It lasted for almost two weeks.” He looked deeply troubled, as though it were happening right then. “She pulled through at the end, but it could have easily gone the other way.”
There was more to the story, but it was something that only she and David Desh would ever know. While at this transcendent level of intelligence, when she had perfect knowledge of every cell in her body, she had discovered that she was newly pregnant, long before this would have shown up on any diagnostic test. But the drain on her body had been too much for this new life to continue. And afterwards, she and David had reluctantly come to realize they should wait to have children. It had been a painful decision, but she knew it was the right one. With all due modesty, she and David would likely play a pivotal role in human history. No matter how badly they wanted to be parents, their responsibilities were too great to allow themselves the luxury.
“What if someone was preloaded with nutrition and anything else that might get depleted?” asked van Hutten. “You know, hooked up to an IV for a few days before undergoing this second level of enhancement. Isn’t it possible that this would make it feasible?”
“We had the same thought,” said Griffin. “And given the importance of FTL propulsion, and the lack of real progress, a physicist on our team volunteered.” He paused. “We did our best to talk him out of it, just to make sure he was absolutely certain. But he insisted that having the chance to glimpse the mind of God, as he put it, was worth the risk.” He shook his head somberly. “He didn’t make it. Despite intravenous preloading. Despite the advanced medical equipment on site. When he returned to normal, his eyes went wide, he whispered, ‘the answer is obvious,’ and then he lapsed into a coma from which he never recovered.”
The incandescence left Kira’s eyes and her expression left no room for doubt that she blamed herself for what happened.
“I’m so sorry,” said van Hutten. “But it wasn’t your fault, Kira. He knew the risks. And after having been at the first level, it’s easy to see why he was willing to volunteer. His death couldn’t be more tragic, but during the last five minutes of his life . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine the insights into the nature of reality he must have had.”
“That’s at least some consolation,” agreed Kira, but she was clearly unconvinced. She visibly gathered herself and continued. “I’ve been working to understand what happened and perfect the therapy. I’ve also been trying to modulate it. If the first level is ten and the second is one hundred, maybe I can engineer a setting of fifty or sixty. Something transcendent, yet survivable. This is what I’ve been spending most of my time on.”
“Any progress?
“Some, but not enough. It’s a neuronal chain reaction. A crystallization process that has discrete endpoints. There doesn’t seem to be an intermediate setting.”
Desh glanced at his watch. “I hate to say it, but I’m afraid we need to start wrapping things up.” He gestured to the Stanford physicist. “We wouldn’t want you to be late for your flight.”
A delighted smile slowly spread across van Hutten’s pink, cherubic face. “At this point I’m so euphoric I could probably float home. This has been the most remarkable day of my life.”
“Well, there’s a lot more going on,” said Kira, “but we can bring you more fully up to speed next time. The good news is that we’ve managed to hit all of the highlights.”
Desh shot the physicist a troubled look. “Well, almost all,” he said.
Van Hutten raised his eyebrows.
“We can’t let you leave without making you aware that there are dangers associated with joining Icarus.”
Desh recounted what had happened with Ross Metzger. How they had purchased a private physics company, Advanced Physics International, about two years earlier while the current facilities were being built, and how the lab was raided by mercenaries, with Ross being killed. Someone out there knew of their existence. Someone who was lethally competent.
Van Hutten rubbed his chin in thought. “I take it the cold fusion reactor hasn’t turned up, or it would have been all over the news.”
“That’s right,” confirmed Kira. “But this isn’t surprising. The energy it produced was barely above break-even. Enhanced Ross was convinced it could be dramatically improved, but whoever took it would have no idea how to do this.” She shook her head and a grim expression settled over her face. “To be honest, I think the raid was more about sending a signal to us than about stealing this particular invention.”
“Do you have any leads?”
“None,” replied Desh. “And the only suspect we came up with was Ross Metzger himself. But we quickly ruled him out.”
“The guy who was killed?”
Desh nodded. “The raid was nearly flawless. So good I can’t help but think it was the product of an enhanced mind or an insider,” he explained. “In either case this would point to Ross. But Ross was the most stable among us. The one who handled the therapy’s ill effects on his personality the best. He was enhanced over and over and his personality was largely unchanged, unlike the rest of us. He’d be the last of us to go rogue.”
“And this was what ruled him out?” said van Hutten. “Not the fact that he was killed during the attack?”
Kira smiled. “You’ve experienced how easy it would be to fake your own death while enhanced. You have absolute control of your autonomic nervous system. You can see to it you don’t have a pulse whenever someone is checking for it. If Jim Connelly was in the room he could tell you all about it.”
“Like we mentioned earlier,” said Griffin, “it’s our best trick. Everyone you’ve met today is thought to be dead. If Ross had decided to go rogue and remove himself from the board, it’s the first idea he’d have.”
“But in this case, Anton, you’re right,” said Kira. “His death did rule him out, because he couldn’t have faked it. He would have needed a gellcap, and he didn’t have one. I produce them and keep meticulous inventory. They couldn’t be more secure, and there’s never been one that was unaccounted for.”
“So the short answer,” said Desh, “is that we have no leads or ideas whatsoever.”
Van Hutten paused to digest this. “So you have an unknown but powerful enemy out there gunning for you. Have you ever considered coming out of the closet? Maybe not to the public at large, but at least to the government?”
Griffin laughed and then immediately looked guilty about it. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to make light of your idea. And it’s not as though we haven’t discussed it now and then ourselves. But Kira’s therapy offers absolute, unlimited power to whoever controls it. Along with a side effect that can gradually turn even a Gandhi into a selfish, power starved dictator. Would you really want our government and military to have knowledge of this particular golden egg, and with apologies to Kira, the goose who lays them? Can you even imagine?”