It was all so rational and smart. Markov wondered if someday they would make a spider-bot smart enough that it too would have nightmares. His head pounded and he needed water.
Then a message flashed across Markov’s visor screen. A DNA match. A pop-up showed the item and its owner’s identity.
A charred finger, belonging to a Carrie Shin of Honolulu, Hawaii.
Tiangong-3 Space Station
Chang couldn’t see his hands.
The designers of the thin orange survival suit had made it strong enough to withstand an emergency depressurization, but they had not considered how scared the suit’s wearer would be. The suit’s environmental system could not keep up with Chang’s rapid breathing and the rivulets of sweat trickling down his back and arms, and his faceplate had slowly but surely fogged over. That made him breathe even faster.
Chang tried to steel himself, gripping tighter the firm, familiar handle of his HEXPANDO wrench. As Huan had ordered, he’d smashed at the smooth glass of the laser-weapon control panel as best as his atrophied muscles could in the zero-g confines of the station. But now he could no longer see what he was striking at, and his heart rate was spiking again. He was going to drown in his own sweat.
He had to take the helmet off.
Tiangong was still pressurized, so it was not suicidal to pop the suit’s seal. He sucked in the stale air, the familiar fragrances of food, sweat, and electronics giving him an odd comfort.
Then he saw the small tears in his right glove at the knuckles where he had struck the weapon station’s control system. There had to be pressure tape in the emergency kit, Chang thought, and he struggled to unbuckle himself so he could look for the bright yellow box. It was gone. So was Colonel Huan.
How had he missed that? He craned his head to see if the escape pod was activated. No, the egg-shaped craft remained attached to Tiangong.
A voice came over the communications bud Chang wore in his left ear. “Are they here?” said Huan.
“No, they are not. Neither are you, Colonel,” said Chang.
“I know,” said Huan. “The rest of the crew and I will get in the EVA suits and attack them. You stay there and continue to destroy any classified materials. Chang, if we don’t succeed, they must not be allowed inside the station. Do whatever it takes.”
Research Facility 2167, Shanghai
“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”
Dr. Qi continued his lecture. “Werner Heisenberg was, of course, thinking in the realm of physics and string theory, but the lesson also holds true here. In any interrogation, there is an observer effect, where the mere act of someone watching has an effect on the subject.”
Sechin felt part of himself eager to cooperate, hungering to answer, while another part of his mind tried to imagine a clock. Both he and his interrogator were in a race against time.
“This is all the more true when the subject is a set of electromagnetic signals in the brain. The longer the interface, the more we corrupt the very thing we study. To put it simply, General, if you want to remain you, I advise you to let your mind relax.”
A part of Sechin’s mind began to calm, while another part screamed to resist, knowing that the longer the interface lasted, the less his interrogators could trust its findings. Truth, fear, and drugs would create a cocktail of new memories and new fictions.
Qi asked his first question in a soft, unhurried voice, as if quizzing a student. In any other circumstance, it would have been reassuring.
“We know you have been passing information to the Americans. What have you given them?” asked Qi.
“Just some technical information,” said Sechin. The part that wanted to resist thought the best way to do so was to appear to cooperate, to extend the clock. Or was that the part that actually wanted to cooperate tricking him?
“About?” asked Qi.
“Space,” said Sechin. “About satellites.”
Sechin’s mind raced. Which part had said that?
“We are losing time. Both of us,” said Qi, leaning in closer as if admiring the texture of Sechin’s skin. “Based on the documents you accessed, it would seem you have provided them information on how we can track their submarines. Is that correct?”
Yes. No. What had he said?
“Excellent. Thank you for your cooperation.” Had he really answered, or was that one of Qi’s tricks?
“What I need to know is what they are planning to do with that information. What other information had they asked you to gather? What was the meeting today to be about?”
Sechin tried not to answer, to take his mind somewhere else again, imagining Twenty-Three’s face, running his hands through her blue hair. Or was he telling Qi that he had passed the file to her?
Qi displayed a photo of Twenty-Three on the view screen, her body laid out on a stainless-steel morgue table, the bluish pallor of her skin a faint echo of her blue hair. Sechin tried to imagine her in bed with him but couldn’t bring back the image. “This is who you were to meet today. I show you her not to provoke bad memories but to let you know that while I am in a hurry, the ultimate truth I seek is more important than your own truths. If you want to save them, you must cooperate.”
Suddenly the image of Twenty-Three in the morgue disappeared. Was it gone from the screen or from his memory?
“Now, tell me, why the meeting today?”
He tried to hold on to something, anything. Her hair was blue. Yes, her hair was blue.
“Today?” said Sechin. “Today was about many things.”
After not feeling his body for most of the interrogation, Sechin became acutely aware of his skin burning, as if every single cell were on fire. His nose involuntarily sniffed the air for the scent of smoldering flesh.
“I am sorry to do that, but you must understand there is no tolerance here,” said Qi. “No tolerance for your lies and no tolerance for your pain, when the very experience of it is merely signals in your brain. It can last as short or as long a time as we want you to feel it, or, rather, perceive that you feel it. Now, please tell me, what was the primary goal of the meeting today?”
“Sex,” said Sechin.
At the base of his skull, Sechin felt a tingling, almost purring sensation that then exploded in another wash of fire across his body. Why? He had told the truth! Or had he?
Qi shook his head and paused. Or was there actually a pause? Had someone talked, and then they’d rewound back to this moment, his sense of time now manipulated?
“Only one last set of questions, then. Why did the Americans want you to provide them information about our northern defenses? Does it have to do with their fleets now on the move?”
Sechin saw only blue. He heard someone talking but wasn’t sure who it was. What had been said? Had he answered? He could see only blue.
“Thank you. You have done very well.” Sechin heard Qi order the information be relayed to an admiral as fast as possible and then felt Qi’s hand gently cup his face. It was soft, the effect almost soothing.
“I am not the monster many think me to be. This is far more humane — dare I say refined — than their old ways of forcing information. More important, what has been taken can be restored. And that, General, is my farewell gift to you.”