Nerve Center

“I was wondering if you would kick on the Megafortress simulator for me,” said Bastian. “Major Cheshire has gone home and I can’t find Bree or anyone else.”

“Oh,” she said.

She would do anything for him. Anything.

The print dump. She couldn’t leave it. Security.

He wanted her too, didn’t he? His eyes said so.

No, not really. Je

“No, no, that’s okay,” said Bastian.

He started for the door. Don’t leave, she thought. Don’t leave.

God, was she really in love?

The door whisked closed as she considered the question.

Dreamland Dorms, Pink Building

18 February, 2345

LYING ON HIS COT, KEVIN FELT A THOUSAND KNIVES JAB his head from every angle, tearing and twisting the gray matter of his brain. He’d taken four aspirin and two Tylenol besides, tried a hot shower and Geraldo’s tea, yet felt as bad as ever.

What had happened this afternoon with Je

And then Christina, his daughter, lying in the middle of the floor, crying softly but incessantly. Her sob reverberated in his head, his body trembling.

He couldn’t save her.

Geraldo and her assistants had run him through a battery of tests. She said he passed them all—he knew he passed them all. But something was happening to him.

The headache. Geraldo said it was normal.

It wasn’t as if he’d gone his entire life without headaches. If he’d known Christina would die before she was two, he’d never have had her.

She rose from the floor. She walked toward him, sobbing, holding out her chubby fingers.

Kevin jerked upright. He felt as if he were still co

He held his hand to his daughter. Her soft flesh brushed against his fingertips.

A team of doctors pulled him back as they touched. The doctors were laughing and sneering at him.

The pain flashed.

He was dreaming; he’d fallen asleep.

He could make it stop if he could breathe. He could make it stop if he could breathe.

He could breathe. Picture the air at the bottom of your lungs and push it up slowly. Very, very slowly.

“Push the air up slowly.”

It was Geraldo’s voice, but it wasn’t her. The dark woman stood at the rim of his vision, hidden in the trees. He got control of his breath, pushed the air in and out slowly, very slowly. Rain began to fall. The harsh light that had hurt his eyes retreated. He was in the forest.

“Breathe slowly,” she told him. “Gently.”

Je

No, Je

When he stopped screaming, Kevin found that he had fallen from the bed and was lying stark naked on the cold floor.

Allegro, Nevada18 February, 2352

THE DREAM WAS FAMILIAR NOW, EVEN WITH ITS SLIGHT variations. Jeff sat on the beach as the sun rose midway in the sky, its brilliant red gradually fading to black. A cube appeared to grow from the center of this blackness, shining and yet still black somehow. The cube spun slowly, revealing itself as a three-dimensional computer chip coursed by veins and arteries. Sometimes he could see the blood pulsing in the veins; sometimes he saw millions of faces like reflections in the tiny solder points on the surface of the cube. But always what happened next was the same—as the cube expanded he realized it was growing inside his brain, obliterating him.

At that point he woke up. Always.

Jeff knew the dream was about ANTARES. He’d been thinking about the project a lot, debating whether or not to volunteer as a subject.

Geraldo had suggested that he start the sessions again at some point, though she hadn’t brought it up.

Getting back into Theta would be easy. He still had the chip with its co

He’d thought of having it removed when he returned to Dreamland. But while he’d been told the operation wasn’t particularly difficult, he feared it could harm his vision and hearing. His legs were useless; he couldn’t survive any other loss.

Bree said something in her sleep and rolled over, away from him.

Did he want to fly like that, though, using ANTARES? Letting the computer come into his head, suggest things—it wasn’t flying. He might as well be at a desk, checking off to-do lists.

Was what he did now flying? Strapped into a special chair, pushing a pair of joysticks and watching the world through a high-tech video screen?

Zen shifted his head on the pillow. ANTARES didn’t take over your brain. You did the thinking yourself, sending impulses the way you would move your legs and arms. Ultimately, you were responsible for everything—including your dreams and fears.

So why was he afraid of it? Why hadn’t he insisted that he be the subject?

He knew that as he was currently the only Flighthawk pilot available, shifting to ANTARES full-time would have set the U/MF program behind schedule. But he could have insisted.

Was he scared? He’d done okay with ANTARES, but had never particularly liked the sensation. Now Geraldo had added powerful new drugs to the mix, actually changing body chemistry.

Kevin had changed in the short time since he’d been in the program. He’d become more—what was the word? Not just aggressive exactly, more just a jerk.

ANTARES? More likely a side of him Zen had never noticed before.

Tomorrow, he’d talk to Geraldo. Not about Madrone—about becoming a subject again, or at least getting ready. He’d have to clear it with Bastian, of course, but in the end, he’d do it. There was no other choice.

Brea

Dolphin Helicopter Transport

Approaching Dreamland

19 February, 0600

MACK SMITH FOLDED THE NEWSPAPER BACK IN DISGUST, just barely stopping himself from flinging it onto the floor of the helicopter.

“Team lose?” asked his fellow passenger, a jet-propulsion engineer named Brian Daily.

“Hardly,” said Smith. He gave Daily a sideways glance. Ordinarily he wouldn’t bother with him, but the story had pissed him off. “Fucking L.A. Times. You know what it says?”

Daily shrugged. The freckles on his face seemed to blanch a bit as Mack unfolded the paper and pointed to the article.

“Israeli Defenses Stand Down from Full Alert,” said Daily, reading the headline. The article was a longish analysis of the state of the Israeli military, with three typos that Mack had seen without even paying much attention.

“No, it’s this bullshit that pisses me off,” said Smith. “Pound for pound, the best air force. Pound for pound, my fucking ass.”

Daily tried peering at the article while at the same time leaning away from Mack in the seat. “I don’t think they mean that as a slam.”

“It’s bullshit,” said Mack.

“Jeez, relax back there, Major,” said the copilot, twisting around from the front. “What’s got you frosted?”

“Ah, nothing,” said Smith. He twirled his arms around each other, pushing his head down toward his chest.

Why was he so frosted? Things like that were total crap, written by jerks who didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. No disrespect toward the Israelis, who after all were kick-ass pilots, but pound for pound the best? Better than the American Air Force, which had whipped Saddam’s butt a few years before? Hell, the stinking Marines were better, pound for pound. Even the Navy, for christsake.