“They’ve learned how to encase the nerves in graphene?”
“Might be worse than that,” Dr. Black says.
“Yeah, that thought crossed my mind too,” Dr. White says.
“How’s that? What could be worse than that they’ve worked out how to encase nerve fibers in graphene sheaths?”
“That they’ve worked out how to make the nerve fibers out of graphene rods,” Dr. Pink says. “That they’re about a decade ahead in nanotechnology.”
“Oh,” Black says. “Oh no. That is bad news, if it’s true. That puts us way behind.”
“Of course we’re way behind,” Pink says. “They get to do vivisection on humans. If they let us do that, we’d be ruling over America’s second empire by now with the world at our feet. It would be 1945 all over again.”
“Yes, but with that kind of progress they must suffer a failure rate of two in three.”
“Either you have Darwinian capitalism or you don’t,” Dr. Pink says, probing around inside the carcass. “I bet ol’ Polonium doesn’t lose any sleep over his casualties. He would probably use Chechens anyway.”
“Is it true that Polonium himself has been enhanced?”
“I heard that. I don’t know if it’s an urban myth or not. All that superman junk he’s into, though…maybe.”
“And if Polonium is in deep now, you can bet the rest of the world apart from the U.S. and Western Europe will be doing it in ten years’ time.”
“So we find ourselves at the end of the food chain and have to play catch-up. So we have to break the rules in the end anyway and everyone gets to call us hypocrites.”
“Our people do some cheating too,” White says as he examines the abdominal cavity. “On the quiet. You know that. What the Corporation won’t allow is vivisection on human children, because the scandal if it broke would close them down. Comparisons would be made with Hitler and Mengele. That’s where these guys beat us every time. They don’t worry about a free media.”
“I know that,” Dr. Pink says. “We have this taboo, but we’ll have to break it sooner or later. Kids don’t necessarily suffer as a result of the research. Anyway, who in hell would ever find out? This program is SECRET, in capitals. I had to go through five hoops, they tapped my phone, talked to my friends and colleagues and everyone who’s known me since high school, followed me around for six months-and that was just to get on the consultancy list. I’ve had five different identities in as many days, and tonight I am Dr. Pink. No, no, nobody is ever going to bust us. Not only does the President not know about what we do, ninety-nine percent of the CIA have never heard of it.”
“Well, they put us all through the same rigor. The military isn’t subtle, but the money’s good.”
“You got that right. Why do you think I’m here? I earn more in three days than I get in a year on civil research projects.”
“Anyway, going back to what you were saying, you’re right, the kids don’t suffer at all for the most part. You start to put synthetic cable in a kid’s spine at age about seven, by age seventeen you have a superman with an unbreakable back. Where’s the suffering?”
“Like this one,” Black says. “Shot through the spine with a hollow-nose and he was still walking. We’re gonna have fun with the reverse engineering here. I’d sure like to know how they did it.”
“Running,” the gunman says, as if he has an inner need to keep repeating the story. “Running at full speed. I guess he was about a yard from me when I hit him with an exploder full in the chest and he finally went down. I was sweating it, I can tell you.”
“Well, let’s turn him over, let’s see how well they’ve done here.”
The body it seems is quite heavy. It takes the three of them to turn it over so the face is staring at the ceiling. We all groan, myself more loudly than anyone. I cannot believe it.
“Wow!” Pink says.
“They’re winning,” White says. “As good as won, I would say.”
“Will you look at that?”
Everyone in the room is constantly switching their attention between the creature on the floor and Captain Asset.
“Damn it!”
“Can you believe it?”
Dr. White is so shocked he wants to check with me, as if I am a fellow scientist. “Have you ever seen anything like that?” he asks, stabbing his finger toward the Asset then back again at the creature on the floor.
“No,” I say. “Never.”
The Asset also is transfixed. The face of the perp is a perfect replica of his own, as is the near-white hair and the crew cut. “Does it come off?”
“It must,” Dr. Pink says. “He sure wasn’t born like that.”
“It probably fits by suction or glue,” Black says.
The Asset kneels beside it. “I’m going to touch it,” he says.
“No gloves?”
“No. I did a program. I can tell what material it is, skin to skin. Yes, a graphene trellis,” he says, caressing the dead one’s cheek. “I think they’ve grown skin and hair follicles on top of it.”
Dr. Black examines further, wearing surgical gloves. “I think you’re right, Captain.”
Pink shakes her head. “If they’ve gotten that far, they’ve as good as won the contract,” she says. “We can only do masks using the living original. We can’t copy or imitate like this in graphene-they must have done it from photographs. Probably thousands of pictures fed into a software program to get this kind of accuracy. We can’t model this material at all except on a living face, that’s way beyond our capabilities at this point in time.”
“So they’ve won already,” Black says.
“Except for the control thing,” White says.
“We don’t even know that,” Pink says. “This HZ is not here on a private debauch. This baby came here tonight for commercial sabotage-right, Captain?”
“Correct,” the Asset says, “to discredit me. The Russian lobby in Beijing have already started a campaign. I’m an uncontrollable child murderer, a tearer-apart of innocent kids, an undisciplined mutant.”
A certain frisson passes through the group. I guess only the Asset is allowed to use the M word.
“The control thing was our best selling point-now they’re using it against us?”
“Sure,” the Asset says. “We would do the same. Three years ago they nearly clinched a deal with the ministry, until we pointed out how bloodthirsty these guys are. And how ugly. Now they’re turning it around.”
“That mask, though. It worries me a lot more than the unbreakable spine. I haven’t studied it yet, but from what I’ve seen, there can be no doubt they are way ahead in the manipulation and shaping of graphene. You all see the implications, right?”
“If that mask can pass a standard isometric test, which it probably can, and they already know how to fake fingerprints and DNA, which they do, then say goodbye to identity. Sure, they’re ahead of us. We can’t impersonate like that-we wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Face is everything. If someone can steal that, you’re done. As a person and as a society. You produce a spy identical in every way to a spy on the other side, who behaves in every way like that spy, whose wife and kids are even fooled, who in the end actually becomes that other spy-so who in the world is who? You don’t just get social chaos, you get a full-blown psychic winter. People walking around in circles like broken toys.”
“You spent time in L.A. lately? What else is new?”
“Take it off,” the Asset says.
“Take off the mask here? Now?”
“Yes,” the Asset says. “Take it off now.”
The instruction has a strange effect. No one wants to be the one to take off the mask. “It is probably a full hood, including ears and eyes.”
“Including? Oh, man! I was thinking-”
“We saw it on the other example,” the Asset says. “They preserve the ear/eye nerves and cords, extend them and cut off the original organ, use a synthetic replaceable. Looks like they would have no trouble making ears and eyes out of graphene.” He jerks a chin at the team. “I need that information now,” he says. “Pull off the mask. Do it.”