Nerve Center (13 page)

“The important thing is not to push too hard,” she told him now. “Let it come to you. It will. Are you ready?”

Madrone took a last bite of his pastry, then got up and followed her into the lab. He stripped off his shirt, holding his arms up while the techies carefully taped wire leads that would monitor his heartbeat and breathing. Shirt back on, he slipped into the subject chair, which looked like a slightly wider version of the one found in most dentist offices.

“Going to prick you, Captain,” said Carrie, one of the assistants, as she picked up his hand. He nodded, trying not to stare at her breasts as she poked á small needle into his right thumb. She held the needle against his finger as she retrieved a roll of white adhesive tape from her lab coat pocket. A small tube ran from the needle to a device that measured gases in Madrone’s bloodstream, analyzing his respiration rate during the experiment.

It was all but impossible not to imagine the outlines of her nipples rising as she attached the device.

In the meantime, the other assistant—Roger, whose long nose, wide stomach, and long legs made him look like a pregnant stork—got ready to put the ANTARES helmet on Kevin’s head. The helmet was actually more a liner made of a flexible plastic with bumps and veins; a full flight helmet would go over it when they got to the point where he was actually working in a plane. Besides the thick metal band that connected with the chip, there were two classes of sensors strung in a thick net within the plastic. The first and most important picked up brain waves and fed them to the translating unit, backing up those that were fed through the chip and band interface. The other sensors helped the scientists track Madrone’s physical state.

With the helmet on, Roger lowered a shieldlike set of visual sensors to track rapid eye movements over his eyes. These backed up the translating sensors, and gave the scientists another way of monitoring their progress. In the next stage of the experiments, the sensors would be part of the flight helmet and would be used by ANTARES to help it interpret his thought commands.

The physical feedback input from electrodes, which would be connected to the spider and grafted onto the nerves of the skin behind the eyes and ears, wouldn’t be used until Madrone demonstrated he was capable of achieving and controlling Theta. The electrodes would allow the computer to send data to him, first by affecting his equilibrium, and then by interacting with his brain’s Theta-alpha wave production.

A ponytail of wires connected the ANTARES helmet with a bank of workstations and two servers. These fed data to a set of supercomputers the next level down via a set of optical cables. The interface modules for the Flighthawk’s C units were still being worked on, but eventually would be hooked into a smaller, portable (and air-cooled) version of the AN-TARES computer array.

Madrone sat stoically in the chair as the technicians prepared him. Geraldo had given him breathing exercises to do as a form of relaxation; he tried them now, imagining his lungs slowly squeezing the air from his chest. He pictured his upper body as a large balloon, gradually being emptied. He relaxed his arms and hands on the seat rests, easing himself into the chair. When the visor was placed on his face he accepted the darkness.

His lips and cheeks vibrated slightly, as if set off by some internal pitchfork tuned to their frequency. Someone placed headphones over his ears. The Mozart concerto played softly in the background.

The music called up memories of the past, times in junior and senior high school, learning the cello. Orchestra was his favorite class, though not his best—B’s and B+’s compared to the A’s and A+’s in math and science. The thickness of the notes matched the feel of the bow in his hand, the vibration shifting in his senses. Sounds morphed into movement through space, and space itself transformed, the high school halls a jungle of jagged shadows and sharp corners.

“Kevin, are you ready?”

Geraldo’s voice intruded like a bully bursting from the shadows. Junior and senior high school were in the same building, seventh-graders mixing with towering twelfth-graders, always cowering in fear of being pummeled.

“Kevin?”

“Yes,” said Madrone.

“Your hippocampus has grown two percent since our measurement twenty-four hours ago,” said the scientist. “That is extremely good. Surprising even. Incredible.”

“Off the chart,” said Roger approvingly.

The hippocampus was one of the key areas of the brain involved in ANTARES, since it produced nearly all the Theta waves. Also responsible for memory control and other functions, it was actually a ridge at the bottom of each of the brain’s lateral ventricles. Geraldo had explained that she wasn’t sure the size of the ridge or the number of cells there mattered. Nonetheless, the ANTARES diet and drug regime included several hormones that were supposed to help stimulate the grown of brain cells.

“Our baseline frequencies this morning are 125 percent,” continued Geraldo. “Kevin, I must say, we’re doing very well. Very, very well. Can you feel the computer? If I try a simple tone, do you feel it? The feedback?”

He shook his head. Her praise was misplaced. He had no control over his. thoughts, let alone the growth of his brain cells. He was worthless, a failure, useless. Karen had seen that and left.

His brain began to shift, ideas floating back and forth like pieces of paper caught in a breeze.

Something hot burned a hole on the side of his head.

Red grew there. His skull bones folded inward, became a flute.

Maria Mahon, the flute player in ninth-grade orchestra.

He had a crush on her. Thomas Lang, a senior, was her boyfriend.

Stuck-up rich kid bully slimebag.

Go out for the football team, his dad urged.

He broke his forearm and couldn’t play the cello anymore.

Very red and hot.

The light notes moved down the scale. He was a horrible trumpet player. Try the bass, pound-pound-pounding.

Red knives poked him from the sides of the hall. Someone took a machine gun from the locker.

Respond with the York Gatling gun. He had one in his hands. His head was the radar he’d worked on.

Pounding red lava from the cortex of his brain.

Madrone heard words, hard words that shot across the pain, spun him in the displaced hallway of his distorted memories.

“Kevin, try to relax. Let your body sway with the music.

You’re fighting too hard.”

Relax, relax, relax. Don’t think about the bullies.

The tanks. He was in Iraq, alone with his men.

“Lieutenant?”

“Go left. I’m right. Just go!”

He screamed, running faster. He drew the Iraqis’
fire and his men did their jobs, it was all so easy in his memory now, without the pain and the nervousness, knowing exactly how it would come out, the elation, the adrenaline at the end, the smell of the burning metal, the extra grenade still in his hand.

He could do it. He wanted to do it.

And then Karen. Christina being born in the hospital. Taking blood in the doctor’s office when she was a week old because the TSH had been so elevated.

Normal, said the nurse, for a traumatic birth.

Except the birth hadn’t been traumatic. Labor was only two hours and the kid nailed the Apgar charts.

Christina wailed as they pricked her heel. They couldn’t get the blood to flow.

The second test, then the third. X-rays. Colonel Glavin, Theo P. Glavin, wouldn’t give him the day off so he could be there.

“P”
for Prick.

Oh, God, you bastards, why did you poison her?

Karen, don’t you see—they killed her. They poisoned her and then me.

His wife looked at him from across the room, the empty white room at the back of the small church where they’d had the service for Christina, their poor, dead little girl. Karen’s eyes stabbed at his chest, wounding him again, the memory so vivid it wasn’t a memory but reality; he was in the church again, his daughter dead, his marriage crumbling, his life over. He’d been uncontrollable at the service, blurting out the truth, what he knew was the truth—they had poisoned her through him, killed her.

He’d get them, the bastards who’d exposed him to the radiation, exposed her—

“Kevin?”

“I can’t do it, I’m sorry.” Madrone snapped upright in the chair. He yanked off the helmet.

“Easy, easy,” said Geraldo. Her fingers folded over his gently but firmly. “Let’s break for lunch.”

Her words or perhaps her touch pushed him back, somehow both surprising and calming him at the same time.

“Lunch?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s lunchtime,” she said. “Why don’t you go over to the Red Room? Take a real break. We’ll start from scratch at two o’clock.”

“What time is it?” asked Madrone. He’d only just sat in the chair, perhaps five minutes ago.

“High noon,” said Roger. “You’ve been attached for nearly two hours. Flirting with Theta-alpha the whole time. You’re close.” He put his thumb and forefinger a half centimeter apart. “You’re damn close.”

Dreamland All-Ranks Cafeteria
27 January, 1230

“HEY, MONKEY BRAIN,” SAID MACK AS HE ENTERED THE food line in the mess hall and spotted Madrone in front of him. “How’s it feel to have a microchip in your head?”

“Hi, Major.” Madrone stood stiffly, eyes on the cook’s helper who was cutting him some roast beef. Mack thought the Army captain looked even paler than normal. The ANTARES people must have started frying his brain already.

Gained a few pounds, though.

“Lot of food you got there,” said Knife. “Bulking up for all that skull work, huh?”

“I’m hungry.”

“That a boy. Go for the red meat. No more Twig, right? Got a new nickname—Microchip Brain. Monkey Boy.”

The airman slicing the meat glanced in Mack’s direction.

“No electrodes in your neck yet?” Mack asked Madrone, narrowing his eyes as if he were scanning for microscopic ANTARES implants. “Guess 1 can’t ask you to toast my bread, huh?”

“Jeez, you’re more obnoxious than usual today, Knife,” said Zen, rolling in behind him.

“And why not, oh, exalted one,” said Mack. He did a mock bow. “Your father-in-law just offered me a job as janitor here.”

Actually, Bastian had tried to talk him into flying Megafortresses. Smith would take a job with a commuter airline, or even look up that Brazilian geezer who’d come on to him in Vegas, before stooping to flying BUFFs.

“I’m sure you’ll get a good assignment soon,” said Jeff.

The thing about Stockard that pissed Knife off was his ability to deliver a line like that without giving himself away. Anybody overhearing him undoubtedly thought he was being sincere.

Mack knew otherwise. But there was no real way to answer him, or at least Mack couldn’t think of anything snappy. He compensated by making sure the airman cut him an extra slab of beef from the rare side of the roast, then helped himself to the rest of the spread. Known colloquially as the Red Room, this mess and the fancy food had once been reserved for special occasions. Bastian had thrown it open with his “all ranks, all the time” decree. Interestingly, most of the base personnel had responded by using the Red Room only for special occasions.

Mack decided he’d eat here until his next assignment was settled. Might as well. Odds were he’d end up getting shipped out to Alaska, or perhaps the Antarctic.

Bastian—whom he’d actually had to make an appointment to see—had pretended to be gracious after Mack turned down the Megafortress. He’d told him he could stay on as an “unassigned test pilot,” whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Obviously a career crusher. When Mack had said that was no good, Bastian had pointed out that the MiG project would live on for only a few weeks more. After filling out some odds and ends and collecting data for future simulations of next-generation Russian planes, the plane would head for deep storage. If Mack couldn’t snag something before then. he might very well find himself assigned to something he didn’t like, almost certainly not at Dreamland.

Things did look bleak. The only assignment Mack’s preliminary trolling had turned up was as a maintenance officer for a squadron of A-10A Warthogs.

It was possible, maybe even likely, that the brass was trying to get him to glide into the sunset. The fact that he’d gotten waxed over Somalia probably embarrassed them. They just hadn’t dared admitting it to his face at the time.

Bastards. Let them put their butts over a few dozen ZSUs and SA-9’s. If he hadn’t hung around there, an entire company of Marines and at least one helicopter would be Somalian tourist attractions right now.

Knife took his tray into the paneled eating area, his flight boots tromping on the thick red carpet that gave the room its name. Madrone sat by himself at a table for four in the corner. Mack walked over and put his tray down.

“Penny for your thoughts, Monkey Brain,” said Mack. When Madrone didn’t respond, Mack started humming the start of the John Lennon song “Mind Games.”

Madrone shot him a glance, then put his head down, staring at his food.

“Silent treatment. I get it,” said Knife.

Zen rolled across the room, tray in his lap. “Mind if I sit here, Kevin?” he asked.

“I’m kind of thinking,” said Madrone softly.

Smith started to laugh. “What the hell are you thinking about?”

“Leave him alone, Smith.”

“Come on, Zen, Kevvy can fight his own battles. Right, Key?”

“I would like to be left alone,” said Madrone, his voice a monotone so soft it was difficult to hear even in the quiet room.

“Hey, that’s okay, Kevin,” said Zen.

“Guess he doesn’t like you today,” said Mack.

Stockard said nothing, rolling backward and then across to the next table. Madrone stared down at his food.

Mack liked the guy, he really did. Maybe he shouldn’t have busted his balls quite so hard.