“I’m glad we were finally able to make our schedules mesh,” said Rodriguez. “You’re so damn busy.”
“Not as busy as you,” said Zen. They’d been trying to meet for two months.
The waiter came over and cleared their plates. Rodriguez ordered a scotch for dessert. Zen, who’d been drinking water with dinner, asked for a bourbon.
“We have several,” said the waiter, who began reeling off a list of boutique brands, none of which Zen had heard of.
“Woodford?” Zen finally asked.
“Coming up,” said the man approvingly before sweeping away.
“So what do you think, Zen?” asked Rodriguez. “Do you think you want to try?”
“It’s very — It’s an interesting idea.”
“I know you’ve been through this a lot,” said Rodriguez. “A lot of people have promised that you’ll walk again. I can’t make a promise. But this process has worked with two other people.”
“But there’s no guarantees.”
“No. Exactly. It’s an experiment. That’s why we want you, after all.”
“The fact that I’m a senator has nothing to do with it.”
“No. It raises the bar for us — if we fail, obviously, that’s real bad.”
“If it succeeds, you have a lot of media attention.”
Rodriguez shrugged, and Zen thought of an after-game beer session where Rodriguez had made a similar gesture about his thirty points, giving the credit to his guard — Zen. But even if he was being a bit disingenuous, he was right that they were taking risks themselves, and he’d already agreed to keep everything quiet as it proceeded.
And in any event, so what? If it was a chance to walk again, what was the difference?
“Explain a little more,” said Zen. “How much of me are you going to cut up?”
“Just the good parts.” Rodriguez took him through the cell grafting techniques — he’d tried something like that in his last year at Dreamland — but lost Zen when he began talking about the nanolevel microchips that would be placed in his spine and legs.
The drinks came; Zen savored the sweet burn of the bourbon in his mouth.
“It’s a long process,” continued Rodriguez. “Over the course of a year, like I said. We have to put you into a coma — three times.”
“Just three?” joked Zen.
“Yeah. If it works. That bit’s only for a few days, but it adds up.” Rodriguez laughed nervously. “To you, it’ll feel like you’re sleeping.”
“But I eventually wake up.”
“Yeah, that part I can guarantee. Almost guarantee,” Rodriguez corrected himself. “That part is basically like a normal medical procedure. It’s done every day at hospitals for patients in trauma.”
“So this is trauma?”
“Sure. Think about it — it’s the reverse of what you went through at Dreamland. You’re coming back in the other direction.”
That made more sense to Zen than the nanochips.
“The rest of it is the risky stuff,” said Rodriguez. “But we’ve done it on two other people. Whom we didn’t have nearly as good medical histories of. So I’m pretty confident, or I wouldn’t be here. That, and I still think of myself as your friend, and want to help.”
Rodriguez had explained that his well-documented medical history and the length of time he’d been crippled were major assets to the program. When they were done, they would know a tremendous amount about the process and the human body’s reaction to it.
“It’s a three year commitment,” added Rodriguez. “But only the first two are really heavy. After that, it’s pretty much just real life.”
Zen nodded. They finished their drinks in silence.
“Well, let me think about it,” Zen told him.
“There’s a lot to think about,” said the scientist. “I would… I do need an answer relatively soon. A month, tops. There’s one other candidate.”
“And I have a limited window physically,” said Zen, referring to something Rodriguez had said earlier.
“That’s right. Your age. We’re already pushing the envelope.”
“Can’t do anything about that,” said Zen.
“Not yet.” Rodriguez smiled. “Soon.”
9
Lloyd Braxton brought the beer bottle to his lips and took a small sip. Brewed in Oregon by a small craft brewer, the vanilla porter had a slightly bitter taste; Braxton couldn’t work out whether it was intentional or a by-product of its long trip to the South Pacific. He also couldn’t decide if he liked it or not — the bitterness seemed to fit his mood, even if it gave the beer more bite than he would normally prefer.
The robot submersible had taken hold of the Vector UAV, so at least they had lost only one craft. The problem were the damn rebels — they were incompetent boobs who couldn’t launch a simple attack on a lightly guarded outpost without getting their butts kicked. They’d fired only one of the guided rockets they’d been given, rather than massing them, as instructed. God only knew what other things they’d flubbed.
Hitting the Dreamland people with anything less than a knockout blow was a huge mistake. He’d seen that himself years before.
He still had hope. Whatever else, they’d been bloodied. They’d send a major team now. That would give him his chance.
He looked toward the shore, then glanced at his watch.
Thirty seconds.
Braxton took another sip of his beer, letting the bitterness eat the sides of his mouth. He liked it, he decided; he would order more. Assuming that was ever possible.
A sharp slap echoed over the water. Braxton raised his head and stared at the island, but there wasn’t enough light to see what was happening there. He had to settle for the sound of the settling dust and the birds that were fleeing the explosion. The underground compound, his home for the past six months, had just been blown up. Dirt and rocks covered what had once been one of the most advanced private computer setups in the world.
He had others. Braxton turned to the wheelhouse.
“Take us below,” he told the captain. “We’re running behind schedule.”
10
By the time Turk turned back toward the submarine, it was underwater. His finger practically itched as he ran over the empty surface of the water, the cannon begging to be used, though it would be pointless.
He had a more pressing problem now — he was tighter on fuel than he’d planned.
It got worse as they headed back. At first he thought he’d simply gone dyslexic and got two numbers mixed up. Then he realized that he was leaking. It was a slow dribble, but with his stores so low, it was enough to turn him into a glider well short of the runway.
“I think one of those laser shots got the fuel tank,” he told Cowboy. “I’m going to have to think about putting down somewhere.”
“Can you make it back to land?”
Turk studied the numbers. Home was out of the question, but he could make it back to the island.
Probably.
“There’s a little airport at Kampung,” said Cowboy, naming one of the emergency alternatives the squadron had briefed. “It’s near the coast. You might make that.”
Turk had to look it up on the map. It was a small airport near the coast. It was reachable — but only if he went straight there. Which presented a problem.
“I can get there if I go over Indonesia,” he told Cowboy.
“Better to do that than crash.”
“Yeah.”
Indonesia snaked around Malaysia on the western coast. Turk picked a spot that would take less than three minutes to cross.