Nerve Center

“What’s the course?” answered Madrone.

Jeff laid it out for them, setting Mack into a long racetrack orbit at eighteen thousand feet. Smith was almost surely right—the Fulcrum, with its closely spaced engines and knifelike wing surfaces and fuselage, threw wicked vortexes off its wings. It also didn’t have a lighting system to help guide Madrone in.

But Zen stuck with it stubbornly. Mack gave another grouchy harumph before settling into his track, flying it flawlessly as the two Flighthawks closed behind him. Hawk One pulled to within twenty feet of the MiG’s right wing, as briefed, held its position for ten seconds, then dropped back.

“He let C3 handle that completely,” said Ong. “Did you want that?”

“Hawk Leader, rely a little less on the computer assist with Hawk Two,” said Zen.

“Hawk.”

Zen glanced back at Ong as Madrone began his approach. Je

Hawk Two, now totally under Madrone’s control, pulled to within twenty feet of the MiG, holding its position for ten seconds. Then it ducked down twenty feet, accelerated, and reemerged exactly under the fuselage of the plane. Madrone—flying without the direct aid of the flight computer’s automatic pilot sections—held the pattern through Mack’s banking turn.

“Okay, Kevin, impressive,” said Zen.

“Hawk.”

Hawk Two fell back.

“Getting some wild fluctuations in the command centers,” said Ong. “I’m not sure what’s going on there, Jeff.”

Before he could answer, Bree broke in over the interphone. “Zen, Boeing is off track. Something’s up with him.”

Hawkmother

19 February, 1015

THE SHARDS CAME AT MADRONE LIKE BULLETS OF HAIL in a storm, bits and pieces of the Boeing pelting his head. He put his hand out to catch them—Kevin felt the metaphor in his mind, saw his palm extending and the hail landing, landing and building slowly and steadily. He stared at the hail, concentrating his thoughts—a snowball congealed from the mass, cold and wet but thick despite the heat of the rain forest around him.

He could feel the plane’s wings. He saw himself in the air, gliding along at 10,322 feet, the back of his neck rumbling with the engines.

A great thirst.

I need fuel, he told himself. I can find fuel where?

A needle at the top of his head co

AH345098BC333.

Lightning spiked through his eyes. Metal began to boil at the sides of his temples.

Madrone’s heart skipped erratically. His lungs, caught somehow out of synch, began to choke. He felt himself moving sideways, twisting though the air.

He had to analyze what had just happened. He’d crossed some sort of threshold, but he didn’t have control of it.

It’s all in the way you think about it, she coached him. Find the right metaphor to organize your thoughts. They will extend themselves. You must be yourself not the computer.

His chest began to swell. His heart pounded out of control.

There were different levels to the brain. You didn’t think about how your heart worked, but you could control the beat with the right sequence of thoughts.

Could he?

Yes, she said.

Last night’s dream loomed, rising from the jungle floor. Madrone turned away from it, concentrated, found his breath. His heart—he felt the mass of it around his eyes, stopped it.

He gulped. Then slowly, he began pounding steadily, pumping blood through his body.

Control. You have control.

He didn’t want to control his heart. He wanted to fly the Boeing.

Hail was everywhere, heavy baseballs of ice in a thick mix of rain. The storm thickened exponentially; he lost sight of C3 and the Flighthawks, lost the Boeing, lost himself as the wind and rain swirled through his head. Parts of his body broke away, flesh ripping as bones flew in different directions. His head twisted out of its socket.

The jaws of the gateway clamped around his face.

Then he heard her voice.

Come to me, said the dark woman. Come to me.

DALTON JERKED AS THE BOEING FELL AWAY FROM HIM, the control column whipping forward. It was only a flicker, as if the plane had panicked for a moment, shutting down and then revving up.

The yoke was exactly where it had started, the HUD and multi-use displays exactly the same, all indicators in the green. The pilot blinked, sca

“Did you feel that?” he asked Kulpin.

“What?” said the copilot, who was staring at the multi-use display at the extreme right of the control pa nel.

“It was like, the plane blinked,” said Truck.

“Didn’t feel a thing,” said Kulpin. ‘But the computer seems to be concerned with our fuel reserves.”

“What?”

“I just got a fuel report without asking for it,” said Kulpin, turning to him.

“What the hell’s going on?” he said. Then the controls jerked away again—only this time, they didn’t come back.

Sharkishki

19 February, 1019

MACK CURSED AS HE CAME OUT OF THE BANK. STINKING Madrone was becoming as big a wise-ass as his buddy Zen. The damn Flighthawk was right under his fuselage, close enough to be a Goddamn bomb for friggin’ sake. He couldn’t see it, of course, but he knew the little robot turd was still stuck there like a cling-on.

Madrone was playing chicken with him, daring him to broadcast a “knock it off’ and end the exercise. Then he’d snort to Zen over beers about how he’d wigged Knife out.

Fuck that. He’d hold the damn course now until he ran out of fuel.

Which might not be too long from now in the short-legged MiG.

Raven

19 February, 1021

ZEN SAW IT HAPPENING IN SLOW MOTION: MACK continued on his southern leg, hugged and shadowed by the Flight-hawks. Meanwhile, the Boeing lurched downward from its orbit, slashing toward him.

“Break! Break!” he yelled, desperately jerking the transmit button. “Gameboy to Sharkishki—break ninety. Everybody, knock it off! Hawkmother—what the hell are you doing?”

Hawkmother

19 February, 1021

HE WANTED HER.

Madrone felt her warm breath wrap around his body, her kisses dissolving his pain.

He would have her—his heart raced and his lungs filled with air and he stood up, spreading his arms as he screamed—He would have her!

He looked at the palm of his hand. The icy lump of hail was still there. He squeezed, and the mush of precipitation became the Boeing. The storm raged around him and he took the plane and tossed it like a toy glider, its wings unfurling as it caught the breeze.

He sat on top of it. The Flighthawks came and landed on his shoulders, flying.

They were trying to stop him. The idiots in the cockpit thought they were in control. They were working with the bastard doctors who had killed his daughter.

They could be dealt with easily—he covered them with ice, raining hail on them.

The MiG was more of a problem.

Sharkishki

19 February, 1025

MACK CURSED AS HE YANKED THE MiG AWAY FROM THE lurching 777, just barely managing to clear the tail section without scraping.

“What the fucking hell are you assholes doing?” he shouted. He was so angry his finger slipped off the transmit button for a moment. “Dalton, you shit. What the fuck? Knock it off, knock it off,” he repeated, calling off the exercise.