Project Aura

10

The SC-MILSTAR satellite was secured in the cargo bay of Columbia . The two cargo doors slowly closed shut on the payload in preparation for the shuttle to be mated with the external tank and solid propellant boosters that waited for it. A shuttle launch was a highly coordinated operation, and in six hours, when all the parts of the launch vehicle were assembled, the twenty-four-hour countdown would begin.

Dalton felt like a guinea pig as he was rigged up in preparation for entering the isolation tank. Hammond was talking Kirtley’s men through the process as her technicians worked on Dalton, Barnes, and Jackson. The three of them had done their premission planning, preparing their jump points to the last known location of the team in Colombia. Dalton was confident that Barnes could make it back to the site where they had confronted Feteror in Russia without the same kind of preparation because he had already been there once.

“The isolation tanks are warm right now,” Hammond said, “but once the body is inside, they will be supercooled in order to slow the body processes down to a minimum. This machine here”-she paused next to a bulky machine on the side of Dalton’s tank that had a line going from it full of dark blue liquid-“connects to the helmet and provides a cooled, special liquid-oxygen mixture directly to the lungs. By keeping the liquid moving at slow speed over the lung’s alveoli, it provides the body with enough oxygen to sustain it while the diaphragm is in stasis along with the other functions of the autonomic nervous system.”

Easier said than experienced, Dalton thought as he was placed in the harness that would lower him into the tank. He felt a twinge of pain from his shoulder, but it didn’t concern him, since it would not be a factor once he “went over.” Kirtley’s men were probably very good, but he could see that they were uneasy with what Hammond was telling them. He remembered how the team he had led here had reacted on first being told what they were going to experience, and felt some empathy for the NSA men. Hell, he felt sorry for himself, Barnes, and Jackson, as he had little desire to go through the process another time. Only the thought of the missing A-team made it bearable.

“The isolation tank allows your brain to focus on the virtual plane by removing all distractions and energy drains from the real one,” Hammond continued.

She turned to Dalton and picked up his bulky, black helmet. “This is the TACPAD. Actually, this lining on the inside that conforms to the skull is the TACPAD, which stands for thermocouple and cryoprobe projection assistance device. This one has been fitted very specifically for Sergeant Major Dalton’s brain. It does two things. One is to give direct electrical stimulation to those parts of the brain that we want to emphasize, while at the same time using cryoprobes to lower the temperature of those parts that are not needed to operate on the virtual plane.

“This hasn’t changed since the last time you went over,” she added, addressing Dalton, Barnes, and Jackson, “but you will find some changes in the programming which should make the transition easier.”

She turned back to the CIA team. “The other critical component that makes Psychic Warrior viable is the cyberlink to Sybyl, our mainframe computer. We have long known that we only use about ten percent of the brain’s potential. By linking with Sybyl, our master computer, through the TACPAD, we are accessing some of the brain’s untapped areas.

“Sybyl gives you form and power to operate on the virtual plane and then to come out of the virtual plane at a distant point, into the real world in the form of your avatar.”

“What’s an avatar?” one of the men asked.

“A computer-generated form,” Hammond answered. “The power Sybyl sends to you is very important,” Hammond continued. “It allows us to make the jump from simply being able to remote view to operating in the virtual and real worlds, to cross the boundary between the two.”

Dalton considered that statement. If that was true, then perhaps the lost team members were trapped on the virtual plane, without the forms of their avatars to help them navigate. Of course, Chyort, the Russian avatar, had “killed” their avatars, so perhaps he had killed their psyches. But what about Raisor, he wondered? He had asked Hammond to pull the power going to Raisor’s avatar and reroute it to the surviving members of his team so he could transport Jackson and Barnes out of Russia after Raisor went off on his own and abandoned their mission.

That line of thought was interrupted as the techs carefully lowered the TACPAD helmet over his head and locked it down on his shoulders securely. Hammond ’s voice now sounded far away. His head was fixed in place inside, unable to move at all.

“The cyberlink also gives you complete access to Sybyl’s extensive database,” Hammond said. “This linkage-well, you will be amazed at the things it will allow you to do.”

A hand moved over his chest and he knew a micro-probe was being slid into his heart. He bit down on the mouthpiece, securing it in place. Dalton felt the jerk as his feet were lifted off the ground. He went up, then over the lip of the iso-tank. The embryonic solution was warm as he was lowered into it. The helmet was not airtight, and as he sank lower and lower, embryonic fluid seeped in, pressing against his face and head in places. He took steady breaths through the mouthpiece, dreading what was coming.

“Ready for TACPAD?” Dr. Hammond’s voice came through a small speaker in the helmet.

Dalton gave a reluctant thumbs-up, the only way he could communicate right now. He knew the cryoprobes and thermocouples were so small that he shouldn’t feel them going into his brain, but nevertheless, he could swear he felt the pinpricks of needles piercing his skin, sliding through skin and bone.

“We’ve got green all across the board,” Hammond informed him. “Just relax; this will be easier than last time. We’re making the initial link with Sybyl. Do you see the white dot?”

He concentrated and there it was, floating in front of him against a completely black background. The embryonic fluid was getting cooler, dropping his body temperature.

Dalton swallowed, a reflex in nervous anticipation. He felt something move in his mouth and he fought against his gag reflex as a smaller, flexible tube slid out of the breathing tube and forced its way to the rear of his mouth. His throat spasmed as the tube slithered down his airway to his lungs.

Then he began to drown as fluid seeped out of the end of the tube, filling his lungs. He used every bit of training he had to try to relax, to accept what was happening, but Hammond had been wrong-this wasn’t any better than last time. His chest spasmed, trying to expel the liquid, but it fought a losing battle. The pain and uncomfortableness faded as the temperature in the tank got lower and parts of his brain were brought to minimum operating status by Sybyl.

“You’re completely on the iso-tank system now.” Hammond ’s voice was very distant. “I’m switching you…” Her voice faded out and silence and darkness, other than the white dot, prevailed. Dalton felt nothing, no sense of even having a body.

Then a faint feeling throughout his body. He struggled to identify it, then realized it was an itching over every square inch of his flesh. He knew that the feeling was entirely inside his head, since input from his nervous system was shut down, but he had to make sense of it somehow.

The black was changing also, a grayness creeping from the white dot outwards. Dalton “looked” down and saw the beginning of his avatar forming. Two arms and two legs. A smooth trunk in the middle, all featureless white.

He looked about. Another figure was forming to his right-Jackson. Then came a surprise-her featureless form began to shift. Eyes, a nose, a mouth appeared. Even hair, just like hers in real life. Dalton looked down-his avatar had changed also and was a realistic representation of his own body wearing a skintight black jumpsuit. Barnes also appeared and his avatar shifted quickly into an approximation of his normal appearance.

“Do you like the new avatars?” Hammond ’s eager voice was inside his head as she contacted him directly through Sybyl. “I’ve been working on this for a while. It doesn’t really make a difference when you’re in the virtual plane, but when you form on the real, you might be able to pass for a real person. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet.”

“Looks good,” Dalton said. “We can still shift into wings, right?”

“Oh yes,” Hammond said.

Dalton willed the change and his arms morphed into wings. He lifted off the virtual ground, keeping his orientation, Jackson and Barnes following. Technically they didn’t need the wings to move in the virtual plane, but they had discovered it made movement easier.

“First jump point, now,” Dalton said. He pictured the location in his mind-the firing range at Fort Hood where they had conducted their first live fire practice with the team.

Then he was there, two hundred feet above the ground, hidden in the virtual plane. A second later Jackson was next to him, hovering like an angel. Then Barnes.

Dalton indicated for Barnes to break off and go to Russia. Barnes’s avatar nodded, and then he was gone in a flash.

Dalton turned to Jackson. “Second jump, now.”

He came out above the first lock of the Panama Canal. Even Hammond didn’t know how they did the jumps. They probably could have jumped directly from Colorado to Colombia, but Dalton preferred taking it in steps. He also wanted a little time to get reoriented to the virtual plane.

The best explanation Hammond had been able to give them was that since the virtual plane had no substance, there also really wasn’t a concept of distance. As long as they could mentally picture where they wanted to go, they could jump there. Dalton and Jackson had discovered, though, that it wasn’t that simple. Sometimes the jumps seemed to take time. Other times they didn’t arrive exactly where they wanted and had to get oriented and rejump. There had even been occasions in Jackson ’s longer experience where jumps just didn’t happen. There were many bugs yet to be worked in the Psychic Warrior program, and they were learning by doing, which was not the safest way.

“This is our emergency rally point,” Dalton reminded Jackson.

“Roger that.”

He was surprised to see her lips move, even though the words didn’t travel in the nothingness of the virtual realm but were relayed from her mind, through Sybyl, to Dalton ’s mind.

“ Hammond did a lot of work on this,” he said.

“This next phase was being prepared when we went on the last mission. She finished it afterwards.”

“What’s the phase after this?” Dalton wondered.

“You’ll have to ask the good doctor,” Jackson said.

Dalton knew that Hammond, back in the control room at Bright Gate, could hear everything they were “saying” but there was no reply from her forthcoming.

“Last jump to objective,” Dalton said. “Now.”

He visualized the road curve in the satellite imagery Kirtley had shown them. The place where the team was to have set up the ambush. And he was there, just above the treetops, looking down.

He floated down as Jackson appeared, until his feet reached the dirt road. This gave him spatial orientation and he switched from wings to a right arm and a firing tube for the left. Using power from Sybyl, the tube could fire a pulse of energy in the real plane that was deadly. Unfortunately, it had not worked at all on Chyort, the Russian avatar, a result that Hammond had been at a loss to explain. Dalton didn’t expect any problems, since they planned on staying on the virtual plane, invisible from anybody in the area, but it never hurt to be prepared.

The first thing he noted were the blood trails on the road.

Dalton knew exactly how an ambush would be set up here. He moved to where the machine gun should have been positioned and noted the expended brass. The 7.62-millimeter NATO cartridges confirmed the location. But there weren’t many. Perhaps two bursts worth. Since there was no blood trail the firer hadn’t been killed here, which meant that either the gunner had moved or surrendered.

“They were in a firefight,” Dalton reported back to Hammond and Kirtley.

He moved back to the road and rejoined Jackson, who was looking at something in the far ditch. “Jimmy-” She pointed with a pale arm.

Dalton saw the legs, shreds of jungle fatigue pants still clinging in places, the skin gray and waxy. Looking along the ditch, he could see the trip wires for other claymore mines and knew he was looking at the far side of the kill zone.

“Where’s the rest of the body?” Jackson asked.

Dalton doubted a team on the run would haul half a dead body with them.

“They got hit from behind,” Dalton said. “At least one of them tried escaping through the kill zone. That means things were really bad.”

“And the rest?” The voice was Kirtley’s. “We need accountability. Do you have an identity on the body you have?”

“All we’ve got are a pair of legs,” Dalton said. “And we can’t exactly bring back a DNA sample through the virtual plane.”

“There were ten men on that team,” Kirtley said.

Dalton didn’t need to be reminded of information he’d received in the mission briefing. He and Jackson circled about, but found no other bodies.

“I’m open to suggestions,” he finally announced. “Wherever they are, they aren’t here. And someone recovered at least part of one body, probably wanting the head for propaganda purposes.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Jackson said. “Mr. Kirtley, do you have the identity of the cartel that was targeted here?”

“Actually, there is a consortium called the Ring led by a man named Hector Cesar. He has many holdings throughout Colombia.”

“Find the closest to this location.”

“Hold on.”

Dalton used the time to move up the road. Tire tracks and footprints in the dirt.

“Do you feel it?” he asked Jackson as she joined him.

There was an essence about the place, like smoke drifting across a battlefield, except this was on the virtual plane. There was also a sense of an intelligent presence, but there was nothing on the virtual plane that Dalton could see.

“Yes.”

“Ever felt this before?” Dalton knew Jackson had much more time operating on the v-plane, from her time at Grill Flame, the original remote-viewing unit at Fort Meade, the predecessor to Psychic Warrior.

“Yes.”

Dalton turned, facing her image. “What is it?”

He almost didn’t hear her as she replied. “The Droza.”

“What?”

“A legend. From before the Roma.”

“What are you-”

Dalton ’s question was interrupted by Kirtley. “I’ve got satellite imagery of a villa he owns nearby, about thirty kilometers away,” Kirtley said. “But I don’t know how to-”

“Give it to me,” Hammond ’s voice cut in.

Dalton and Jackson patiently waited, then the imagery appeared between them, floating like a hologram as Sybyl relayed it. A villa in the countryside. High walls. Guards all around armed with automatic weapons.

“Where is this?” Dalton asked. “Give us something so we can jump there.”

“Wait one,” Dr. Hammond said. “I’m having Sybyl spatially orient and expand to include your position.”

A new image appeared between Dalton and Jackson.

“You are located at the red arrow. The villa is the green.”

“We’re moving,” Dalton said. He jumped, arriving just short of the villa, then checking his position, jumped once more until he was directly over it. As soon as Jackson was next to him, he went down, into the courtyard.

“Let’s split up,” he told Jackson.

Dalton didn’t wait for an acknowledgment, feeling comfortable working with Jackson. He moved forward, through a wall, still a disconcerting experience, but not much more than everything else on the virtual plane.