Nerve Center

Chapter 27

The rain started with a few scattered drops, hitting against the high leaves. Time extended; the sprinkle grew quicker, then slowed again, drops sliding and popping through a filter of gently spinning leaves. The wind began to pick up. A bird with long massive wings fluttered overhead as a snake unwound in the distance.

The dark night surrounding him grew even blacker. The rain fell more strongly, began to pound. A low peal of thunder heralded an intense outburst; more thunder, more, and then a fierce flash of lightning.

Kevin Madrone felt his brain fold open and his body catch fire; he exploded into the forest and the storm, becoming the rain, becoming the thunder, becoming the flame that flashed at the center of the universe.

I’m in.

Most of the other successful subjects described reaching Theta as something like a rusty nail slicing through their skull, followed by the rush of a roller coaster heading downhill. The sensation of pain had been a constant for all the subjects, nearly all of whom said it progressed incredibly as they moved beyond the Stage Two experiments, which involved simple manipulation of a sequence of lights. Stage Three involved manipulating a series of switches; Stage Four called for interpreting data from the interface unit. Most of the test subjects who managed to reach Theta washed out in those stages, never reaching Five, which called for controlling an aircraft simulator, much less Stage Six, which was actual flight.

But Madrone felt no pain on reaching Theta; it was all rush. He went from the Stage One tests to Stage Three on his second day. He was ready for the primitive simulator sequences the next afternoon; that afternoon, he told Geraldo he wanted to work with C3, the Flighthawk controller. When she told him the programming updates needed for the gateway link between ANTARES and C3 hadn’t been completed, Madrone suggested he could help by working with the gear.

Overjoyed at their unprecedented progress, Geraldo called in the scientist working on the gateway software — Jennifer Gleason. The beautiful, ravishing Jennifer Gleason, who with his help completed it in two sessions.

Three days later, he was ready to fly for real. They moved to the Flighthawk command bunker, where with Zen as a backup, he got ready for a ground takeoff.

The plane nearly broke him in half.

He’d spent the night before chanting the procedure for takeoff and the flight plan, committing it all to memory — military thrust, brakes off, roll, speed to 130 indicated, back on the stick, maintain power, climb, clear gear, alpha to eight, 250 knots, indicator check, level flight at bearing 136, orbit twice. Walking into Bunker B that morning, he felt confident, as sure of himself as he had ever been. Someone asked him if he wanted a cigarette and he laughed. Someone else — Zen — remarked that he’d gained weight. Kevin nodded confidently, ready to nail this sucker down.

But in the control chair, full ANTARES flight helmet strapped on, sweat oozed upward from his spine to his neck. As he practiced changing the visor image from the forward video feed to the synthetic IR view, a fist grew inside his brain, knotting the inside of his head and then punching the top of his skull. Bile rose in his throat and he screamed — red and purple flares flew across his eyes, and then blackness as he lost the link.

They tried again. Nearly the same thing happened, this time even quicker. Kevin fought to hold the link. A spear of ice pounded into his ear, tearing a hole in his skull as he held on. He tried pushing the ice away, but couldn’t reach it. Then he tried closing the hole. He went out of Theta and lost the link.

The rest of them wanted to take a break. Madrone said no. He’d already flown the plane on the simulator, and knew this was merely a kind of performance anxiety, the sort of thing that might happen to a star second baseman who thought too much about the throw to first. To get into Theta, he had to relax and let the process take over, walk blindly into the night.

And to fly the plane, he had to let the computer take over, let the data come to him — not as thoughts exactly, more as waves of feeling, the kind of thing you felt as you rode a bicycle into the wind on a mountain road. The computer knew how to fly — the key to ANTARES was to accept the knowledge the computer gave him, to learn to trust what seemed to his mind instincts. For when he was in Theta, the computer’s knowledge became his instincts.

They began again. He warmed his head as soon as the jungle appeared, pulling the sun through the trees around him. The Flighthawk came to him gently, pulling itself over his consciousness like a warm mitten over a cold hand. He took his hand off the control stick and closed his eyes.

The image from the visor screen stayed in his brain, projected there by C3, working through ANTARES. As he relaxed, he realized he could see much more in his head than with the visor — with the computer’s help, he could see the video, IR, and radar-enhanced views simultaneously, three-dimensional overlays around his head. Seeing wasn’t the right word — it was more like a new sense that had sprung into his mind.

To fly, he had only to release himself from the ground. The U/MF lifted off the runway perfectly. For the next three hours, he learned to fly for real.

Zen coached him through the com connection, but Kevin knew he didn’t need a teacher, not in the traditional sense. He had only to trust C3, to understand the way it spoke to him, to make his brain and the computer’s one. He learned that he was not to worry about the specific power setting or the compass heading or the rate of fuel burn. He could see those numbers if he wished; he could ask the computer to set them specifically if he wanted. But focusing on them made his head turn away from the front of his body, where it belonged; it was more natural to accept them, flowing within an ANTARES-tinged equilibrium.

He knew how to fly. He knew everything in the computer’s extensive library. C3 was part of him, his arms and legs. He became oblivious to the image in the control helmet; it was redundant. He didn’t bother to use the complicated joystick controls — thought was so much faster.

They went from one plane to two planes on the third day. The day after that, they boarded Hawkmother — a specially modified 777 that housed ANTARES and C3 — and air-launched two U/MFs. The only thing that took some getting used to was the sensation of the plane he was sitting in. It felt unsettling to bank sharply while he was controlling the Flighthawks in level flight. Zen had laughed when he told him about that later — after months of flying the Flighthawks from the belly of an EB-52, Stockard told him, he still couldn’t get used to that.

That made Kevin determined to beat it. By the third drop on the second day of trials, he had.

He amazed everyone with his progress. To Kevin, it seemed no more difficult than moving through the levels of a video game. He had merely to relax and feel the cues of the computer. And then he let his mind run, flying into the wide blueness. It made him hungry, it made him want to grow.

Geraldo had asked him yesterday if when he entered Theta he felt as if he’d become a Greek god. He’d laughed and said no. He couldn’t describe exactly what it felt like — as if he walked onto the threshold of a different kind of existence. Thoughts felt different, more like the sensation that accompanied tasting exotic food for the first time. His appetite grew every moment; once in Theta, he needed to explore more, to see and feel as far beyond himself as possible. Flying the U/ MFs, he felt, was merely a metaphor, a device he used to interpret the world. ANTARES demanded, and provoked, new metaphors — the rain forest, which had become the way he entered Theta; the world itself, a dark mass beyond his center core demanding to be explored.

It sounded like mumbo jumbo when he tried to explain it, even to Zen. So he didn’t. Watching Jeff’s eyes start to squint into a frown when he approached, he realized he’d already gone far beyond his friend; he’d gone far beyond everyone. He wouldn’t discuss it; he couldn’t. He’d just feel it.

Today, they would air-launch two Flighthawks and simulate a combat encounter with the MiG as an aggressor. It seemed laughably routine, even boring. Madrone knew he was ready for more — four, ten, twenty U/MFs. He could fly far beyond the petty, unambitious schedule they’d laid out. He could get beyond C3s limitations. He hungered for something beyond the small scope of the robot planes’ sensors.

It made him angry to be held back. He could see the emotion coming sometimes — the edge of his brain tinged with red. He thought about Glass Mountain and Los Alamos, about the bastards who had killed his daughter, Glavin especially, who was foolish enough to still think he had him fooled, pretending to be his friend by sending Christmas cards. He remembered the bastard doctors at Livermore, and how he’d been tricked into taking Christina to see them. They’d masqueraded as doctors with a radical new treatment for her cancer, but all they’d wanted to do was kill her more quickly, steal her last moments from him.

Sometimes he got so mad he almost lost Theta. He felt himself being pushed back to the edge of the forest. The jaguar roared, snapping at him from behind the trees.

Madrone fought against it, struggling to relax, concentrating on his breathing. He’d always been good at controlling his anger, keeping secrets; it was just a matter of focusing on what he wanted.

“Two minutes to launch sequence,” said a thick voice from the side. Zen, the mission boss, monitoring the flight from Raven. “Yo — you ready, Kevin?”

It seemed like such a chore to answer. Once he was in Theta, leaving the realm of his thoughts to do anything physical, even just to talk, felt like an imposition.

“Of course,” said Madrone.

“We’re ready,” concurred Geraldo, who was sitting nearby in the 777’s control bay.

“Hawkmother?” said Zen, talking to the Boeing’s pilot. “In the green, Gameboy. Let’s do it.”

The others on the circuit agreed. Hawkmother began to nose downward, preparing for the roller-coaster maneuver that helped separate the robot planes from her wings. Kevin felt the weightlessness and the rushing wind currents as the plane approached Alpha and the release point.

Go, he thought, go.

Hawk One plunked off the wing, followed a half second later by Hawk Two. They stuttered slightly, shuddering off the turbulent vortexes from the 777’s wings. The engines ramped quickly to full power. Madrone trimmed his control surfaces, felt his indicated airspeed move above three hundred knots, pass through 350. He shot upward, altitude-aboveground-level leaping to 5,232 feet for Hawk One, 5,145 feet for Two. He pushed harder and climbed through his first marker, notching eight thousand feet.

A leisurely stroll. He’d done this before. He wanted something new, something more challenging.

Aggressor Flight checked in.

Come for me, baby.

Madrone wanted more planes, more challenges. How far could his mind really go? What if it turned inward, examined the nooks and crannies of the interface and the ANTARES computer? What rooms were there?

A video camera had been rigged in the nose of Hawk-mother to record the mission. The video was recorded onto a hard drive and could be accessed through the C3 controls, where the techies had made use of a physical bus and a series of unused interrupts to get easy control of the device. That let them run a log coordinating all of the flight records — Hawkmother’s as well as the Flighthawks’ and ANTARES — off the same time scale.

It was also a connection he could squeeze down, providing the gateway let him. His brain could slither in, like a kid slinking through a subway turnstile. Once inside, he’d have control.

C3 gave him an error message, a slight buzz of confusion poking against his temple. His wandering thoughts had confused it.

But he could see the video. It was part of him.

Pain. Great pain.

Stay in your head. Maintain discipline.

He could partition his brain. That was the trick to AN-TARES. Lock off different parts. Just as he’d locked off Christina.

The interface tried to suck everything out of you.

Kevin moved the Flighthawks into a combat spread 3,500 feet apart. He nudged Two upward slightly, offset three hundred feet higher than One’s twelve thousand AGL.

A brown-red blanket of desert lay at his feet; clear blue surrounded his head. Instruments were green.

The MiG would appear dead ahead. He would close with Two, flushing his enemy, who could only choose to dive or run past. Either way, Mack Smith and his Sharkishki would be nailed.

The tactics were basic and simple. Change the distances, which were really just a function of the engines, and the formation and procedures for engaging the enemy would be familiar to Baron von Richtofen.

Too simple a task to waste his thoughts on.

Madrone was invincible with these planes. Why had it taken so long for him to arrive at this point? He’d wasted every moment of his life until now.

“Keep your separation,” warned Zen.

“Hawk Leader,” he snapped, acknowledging the petty and tedious reminder.

Chapter 28

Zen frowned as he stared at the main monitor display at his station. The sitrep or God’s-eye-view projected the exercise in sharp, color-coded lines, depicting actual positions in solid against the briefed courses in dash. Everything matched, even the reds showing Mack in Sharkishki, which had just taken off en route to Area Two over the mountains.

So what the hell was bugging him?

The U/MFs had come off the wings a second too soon. Kevin had taken them from him, even though Zen had assigned himself the launch.

Maybe. Kevin had definitely come in before the planned handoff, which was supposed to be ten seconds after the launch, when the Flighthawks were well beyond the vortices. Whether he’d had control on the wing and actually initiated the release was difficult to tell, because in either case C3 handled the actual sequence.

The flight computer did nearly everything under AN-TARES, or could. That was the way the designers wanted it — the computer was more efficient.

Jeff resented that, even though C3 made it possible for him to fly as well. But he was angry about something else, even though he couldn’t precisely define it. Something about Kevin — his attitude seemed more dismissive.

Jeff realized he might be hypersensitive. Maybe Geraldo was right; maybe he was just jealous. Madrone was flying his planes, after all.

There was one other thing. The 777 had been nicknamed “Hawkmother.” It was natural, a prosaic if utilitarian name for the plane. But it also happened to be the call sign Zen had used the day of the accident that cost him his legs.

He’d thought of suggesting something different, but decided it would seem trivial or worse — superstitious.

“Dream Tower is requesting we change the scenario a bit,” said Bree, punching the interphone circuit that restricted the communications to inside the plane.

Zen acknowledged, then flipped into the control circuit to find out what was going on. A live-fire exercise was taking longer than expected, the controller explained, and they wanted to maintain a suitable margin of error. The new area for the Aggressor drill was well to the southwest, over another stretch of empty desert at the edge of the mountains.

“Yeah, okay, we can do that. Gameboy acknowledges,” said Zen. He went back on the shared line to tell Madrone and the others about the change.

“Already have the course plotted,” said Kevin before he could say anything.

Zen went through the instructions anyway.

Madrone was doing a great job. Why did that bug Jeff so much?

Chapter 29

Mack continued to climb at forty-five degrees, his forward air speed pushing through 550 kilometers an hour, roughly three hundred knots. The dials were marked with both measurements and he could toggle the displays; the metrics had been retained to give the Aggressor pilot more of a “Russian head.” Mack felt particularly Russian today — which translated into a foul mood. He acknowledged the range change and continued to climb, nudging the stick left as he reached fifteen thousand feet.

The MiG controls felt much different than an American jet like the F-15. Set subtly higher and further forward, the stick seemed to pull Mack toward the front of the plane, using a different twitch of his muscles. It handled well, though, even with its hydraulic controls — he did a roll for the hell of it, coming onto the new course for Test Range 4B.

Bastian still hadn’t found him a command gig. No one else had stepped up either. Frickin’ best damn pilot in the Air Force, and he was getting the leper treatment.

Knife was tempted to goose the burners, tuck the plane down, and run. He’d be in Mexico before anyone realized he was gone.

And what would he do there? Find a beach and some willing senorita. Hell, damn plane was worth serious bucks, even if the damn ex-Commies were flooding the globe with them. Spare parts alone would keep him in margaritas for the rest of his life.

He hated margaritas.

Could always fly to Brazil and look up that Defense Ministry honcho.

Have to refuel a few million times. Not even Raven could make it there on a full tank.

Knife held the MiG steady at fifteen thousand feet, watching the radar as it caught and painted the Flighthawks west of him. They altered course slightly to run by him. They’d turn, pretend to catch him from the rear — and all he could do was take it.

This was what he’d been reduced to — playing target sled for Monkey Brain.

Madrone pushed Hawks one and two ahead, closing on the enemy fighter, precisely as planned. The MiG’s radar spotted his two planes, but held course as they’d planned.

If it were a real encounter, he would have flown the U/ MFs much differently. C gave him several suggestions. The best had the two-ship split up right about now, with Hawk One vanishing into the ground clutter before beginning an end run toward the MiG’s rear, where its radar coverage was poor. Then Hawk Two would disappear as well.

Smith would finally find Hawk One gunning for his tail. His only option would be to flood the afterburners and speed straight away, outrunning his adversary.

Which would take him into the second Flighthawk, waiting ahead. The small planes could outmaneuver the MiG; no matter what the bandit did, Madrone would get one pass with his cannon.

And one pass was all he needed.

But not today. Today he had to swing around the back, just as they’d mapped it out.

Make more sense to mount a front-quarter attack, rake the SOB. Not a high probability in a conventional fighter, but the Flighthawks and C wouldn’t miss.

The computer glowed at the top of his head.

Why not do it, just for giggles? Frost that asshole Smith and his jerk-face smirk.

Mack ran his eyes over his instruments. His right engine had the temp indicator pegged at the extreme edge of the acceptable range, a bit hotter than the left. Fuel burn seemed constant, and the two power plants seemed to be working in unison. Mack suspected the gauge was flaky — he was always suspecting gauges were flaky.

As he looked back at the windscreen, he realized the two Flighthawks had deviated from the planned course. Instead of flying in the planned arc, they were heading straight for him.

Oh, real funny, Zen.

“Yo, Gameboy, we sticking to the program or do I get to shoot these suckers down?” he asked.

“Gameboy to Hawk Leader,” boomed Zen over the circuit. “Kevin, you’re off course. Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, like I believe you and Monkey Brain didn’t cook this up on your private line,” said Mack.

He said it, but he didn’t transmit. He rolled the MiG, accelerating at the same time as he swooped around to outfox Zen and his nugget sidekick controlling the U/MFs.

Madrone couldn’t tell at first what the MiG was doing, and C3 offered no clues. He started to cut power, then realized Sharkishki would try to slice behind his two planes. Kevin nudged Hawk One north, intending to send the two planes in opposite directions, ready for anything Mack might pull.

Pain crashed into his skull, pushing him back in his chair. He gave the computer full control of the two robots. The fight drifted to the edge of his consciousness as the heavy control helmet seemed to shear his skull in half. The crankshaft of an immense engine revolved around and around at the top of his head, its counterweights smashing against his cranium, pounding through the bone into the gray matter beneath. Ma-drone tried to relieve the pressure, but couldn’t, felt himself weighted down, pushed back by the pain.

He heard a tapping noise somewhere in the corn set.

Rain.

His Theta metaphor.

Relax.

He tried to conjure the jungle, the rain just beginning, the dark shadows around him.

“Knock it off! Knock it off!” screamed Zen.

The rain surged, but the pain backed away. Madrone realized he was hyperventilating. He controlled his breaths, let his shoulders droop, found Hawk One and Two under control, approaching from opposite ends toward the MiG; the computer had followed his directions without being distracted by his pain.

“Knock it off!” repeated Zen.

“Hawk Leader acknowledges,” said Madrone, retaking control of the planes and sending them back toward their prearranged course.

“What the hell happened there?” said Zen.

He seemed to be talking to Kevin, but it was Mack Smith in the MiG who responded.

“Microchip Boy came at me for a front-quarter attack,” said Smith. “I just waxed his tail.”

“You were out of line,” said Zen.

“I held the wrong course a little too long,” said Madrone. The pain was gone; it had been an aberration, probably because he’d been breathing too fast. “Let’s try it again.”

“I think we ought to go home,” said Stockard.

“Jeez Louise, 1 can’t make a mistake?” Madrone snapped. “Come on, Zen. Don’t be a baby,” said Mack. “Just because I spanked Junior.”

“I think we could run through the scenario again,” said Geraldo. Her voice sounded like a soothing whisper; Kevin caught a glimpse of her, standing at the side of him, long hair, much younger.

How did he see her beyond his visor array?

His mind projected her, just as it did with the Flighthawks. No, not like that. But it felt the same.

His memory created the image. But it had distorted it as well. She didn’t really look like that; he’d never seen her that young.

“You sure, Kevin?” asked Zen.

“Let’s go for it,” said Madrone.

“All right. Everybody back to their starting positions. This time, exactly as we planned.”

Chapter 30

“What happened?” Breanna asked Jeff as she began the bank at the end of the racetrack pattern they were flying.

“Kindergarten bullshit.”

Bree said nothing as she pulled the Megafortress through the lazy turn. They were at thirty-five thousand feet, well above the action. Jeff s annoyance was interesting; while it was true that Madrone and Smith had disregarded the planned scenario, Jeff himself had said during the briefing that they could freelance as circumstances allowed. Granted, it was early in the exercise, but the fact that Madrone had taken the initiative there seemed to her a good thing.

Kevin had definitely changed since ANTARES began. He was more confident, more self-assured. He seemed to be working out; his chest and arms had bulked. She was annoyed with him, though — he’d made, but then blown off, a date with her friend Abby.

Very un-Madrone-like. But people did weird things when they were in love.

“They’re in position,” said Chris Ferris, her copilot.

“Try it again,” said Jeff over the shared circuit.

Kevin steadied the two robot planes on their course. Actually, the flight computer did — he simply acquiesced to its suggested course.

Maybe Mack was right. Kevin was just a monkey here; the computer could fly the planes without him.

True enough, but that didn’t make him useless or unimportant. On the contrary. He could go anywhere. He had no limits. He told the computer what to do, and it did it.

What had the red shock of pain been? He didn’t have control over that. It was a storm that had struck without warning. He could go anywhere. He hadn’t completed an actual refueling yet — that was on tomorrow’s agenda. But he had no doubt he could master it. And then, what were the limits?

Whatever his mind flowed into, ANTARES, the gateway, C3 — those were the limits.

He could get beyond them. He didn’t want to be tethered to dotted lines laid out on maps. He wasn’t a monkey boy or microchip brain or whatever Smith decided to call him — he was beyond that.

Madrone felt a twinge in his temple, the hint of the headache returning. He concentrated on his breathing, and the twinge receded into the pink space beyond the edge of his vision.

Where did it go’? He slid out toward it, focusing his thoughts into a kind of greenish cone, his curiosity forming into a shape. But he couldn’t penetrate the haze; his vision darkened and he began falling out of Theta.

He heard the rain of the forest, returned to full control. He moved the Flighthawks farther apart, closing on the MiG at ten miles.

C3 gave him a warning: “Connection degrading.” The Flighthawks had extended to nearly twenty miles ahead of Hawkmother. The 777 couldn’t keep up.

He backed off his speed. He hadn’t been paying enough attention. He had to learn to segregate his thoughts, to monitor the computer but to think beyond it as well.

The difficulty was the pain.

Maybe. He didn’t have control of everything, not even his own mind, not yet anyway. It worked in a way he didn’t completely understand or control.

The MiG sat at the apex of a V. dead meat between his two planes, his two hands.

If his curiosity were a snake, it would slither beyond the edge of his brain, over the round seam that marked the end of his universe.

The autopilot system of the Boeing. Thick metal levers and motors.

No vision, but the radar.

Safety protocols suspended. The autopilot was off. It was helpless, just watching.

Could he switch it on?

No. Yes?

No. It was off.

Could he be in all three planes at once? Guide them all? Hawkmother’s seat felt foreign to him, deliciously unfamiliar, spiking his taste buds.

He slipped. His body began to sink.

He could hold it.

The tingle again. A harsh red circle around his head. A massive band of pressure, thick oily pressure erupting below his head, his neck on fire, the flames of pain consuming the center of his being.

Chapter 31

Mack’s altitude held steady at 7,500 meters, roughly 22,500 feet. The Flighthawks passed by and began banking for their attack. Monkey Brain was doing it by the book this time, and so did he, flying exactly on the prebriefed course.

Kick on the afterburner, tuck down, head for the open sea. Be over the Pacific in what? An hour?

Easy. Except with the afterburner he’d blow through his fuel and bail out over Baja.

Go west, young man — buzz L.A. Why the hell not? His career was toast anyway.

If the future really was bleak, maybe he should look up that Brazilian geezer. Or just hang it all and fly airliners for a living.

Yeah, right. That was fine for some guys. Hell, you couldn’t argue with the bucks or the time off. But Mack needed more; he needed the edge.

The Flighthawks roared up behind him, closing to pointblank cannon range. They were directly behind his wings, vectored at a slight angle.

“Bang-bang you got me,” he said over the radio.

Then he realized they weren’t stopping.

Geraldo’s voice burst all around him.

“You’re off the chart,” she told Kevin. “The peaks are overlapping. Your heartbeat is at one-fifty. Your brain waves are off the chart.”

Did she mean he was out of control? Pain pressed against him from all different directions. His head was a block of glass being broken into a million jagged pieces.

Except that if it were glass, the pain would have stopped. Madrone tried to breathe, tried to relax — he forced himself back into the jungle, into his Theta metaphor, the pathway for his control.

Someone spoke to him, a woman with a deep voice. From behind the greens and browns and blacks. She spoke Geraldo’s words, urging him to breathe slowly, but it wasn’t the middle-aged psychiatrist speaking; it was a dark woman, a beautiful woman.

Karen, his wife.

No, not Karen. Someone infinitely more beautiful. He could see her through the dark trees. Rain streamed down her naked body, coursing over her breasts and hips.

Come to me, darling. Come.

The Flighthawks were above him. They had a target in sight, closing on a collision course.

C3’s safety protocols had been suspended.

Who did that? Had he?

The pain flashed in waves. Madrone tried to push himself back into the Flighthawks, back into control.

Mack pushed his left wing down, dropping the MiG into a violent, sliding dive. The Flighthawks had caught him flat-footed; they were closing so fast he couldn’t even hit his afterburner and rely on his superior speed to get away. All he could do was duck.

He slammed the MiG through a series of hard rolls, taking close to ten g’s as he jerked violently down, the MiG just barely controllable. Gravity pirouetted against the sides of his body, punching so hard that even the advanced flight suit he wore couldn’t ward off all of the pressure. A black cowl closed around his head. His eyes stopped working together; he saw the world as two circles of spinning blue and brown in a thick bowl of grayness. Knife lost sight of his instruments, of the cockpit; he flew by dizzy feel, the stick his only consciousness.

Somehow he pulled out as the spin threatened to overwhelm him. Somehow he managed to get the MiG moving in the direction opposite the one he’d started in, gaining speed.

Knife pushed his wings flat. The world expanded around him, the effects of oxygen deprivation receding. One of the Flighthawks shot ahead, well off his left wing, but where the hell was the other?

He started to move his head around the cockpit, and belatedly realized he was flying upside down. Still disoriented, he swooped right, losing three thousand feet in a roll that brought him nearly to the desert floor.

The second U/MF was on his tail, over him about five hundred feet, still trying to close.

Knife knew he should call time-out, push the mike button and yell knock it off. He might already have done that — his brain was so scrambled he couldn’t remember whether he had or not.

But Goddamnit. If Zen and his shadow were going to play for keeps, so was he.

He forced his hand to the throttle, notching his speed back. He could feel the Flighthawk trying to close.

He’d pull his nose up at the last second, send the son of a bitch right into the dead lake bed. Easy as pie, as long as he kept his head clear and his speed up high enough to avoid stalling.

Madrone would smash the $500-million Flighthawk to bits. Let him explain that, the SOB.

Kevin’s thoughts and ideas streamed through the blue sky, comets jittering and disintegrating. He thought of sending the Flighthawks crashing into the MiG.

The idea remained there, a contrail in the jungle sky. He grabbed for it desperately, trying to wipe it away.

“Knock it off! Knock it off!” Zen yelled.

The red disappeared. The sky and rain forest disappeared. And then he felt Hawk Two, felt the wind coursing below his wings. He relaxed, put his nose up, and circled away from the MiG, breaking pursuit.

Kevin’s head pounded; his heart thumped against his chest. He wanted to turn the two robot planes back over to their flight computer, but he dared not. He couldn’t be sure what other ideas sat out there, ghosts ready to jump in and take control.

“What the hell’s going on, Kevin?” asked Stockard.

“Hawks One and Two returning to base,” he answered. “Requesting permission to land.”

Zen punched the transmission switch angrily. This time it had clearly been Kevin’s fault; Mack had flown the pattern perfectly until the Flighthawks homed in on his tail. If anything, Mack had waited too long to take evasive maneuvers. It was a miracle there hadn’t been a collision, and at least a minor miracle that he hadn’t lost Sharkishki.

Jeff had screwed up too. He hadn’t told them to knock it off soon enough, hadn’t taken over the Flighthawks the instant his command wasn’t obeyed.

Why? Because he thought he’d been a little too harsh on the first go-around?

“What are we doing, Gameboy?” asked Mack. He sounded winded, his voice hoarse.

“Calling it a day,” said Jeff. “Return to base.”

Chapter 32

Danny slid into his desk chair and opened the folder of FBI foreign-contact alerts in his lap. Officially known as Monthly Referral of Foreign and Suspicious Contacts (Form 23-756FBI/DIA), the five pages of eight-point single-spaced type strained Danny’s eyes as well as his patience. The report compiled rumors and rumors of rumors about base personnel and their alleged contacts with foreigners; he was required to acknowledge any that pertained to Dreamland personnel and indicate what he intended to do about it. If the report had added anything to base security, he might have at least felt more comfortable about it, but the real goal was clearly COA — cover our ass — on the FBI’s part. Every conference a Dreamland scientist attended was listed, along with a roster of foreigners; any potential contact was noted by Bureau spies or sources. An engineer who found himself in the same cafeteria line with a British journalist would rate a paragraph. If he’d been served by a Mexican national, he’d get two paragraphs. And if he’d had the misfortune to be at the cashier when a Russian scientist entered the room, he’d get an entire page.

Danny skimmed through the report with as much attention as he could muster, looking for “his” people. Lee Ong had been to a lecture sponsored by the Department of Energy on utilizing computers for some sort of nuclear-test thing; someone from Taiwan had been there. Blah-blah-blah.

Freah yawned his way through the rest of the report until he came to a three-paragraph account detailing a “contact meeting” between Major Mack Smith and a high-ranking member of the Brazilian defense establishment. The details were trivial — the FBI agent fussed over the cigars they had smoked — Cuban Partagas, blatantly illegal, blah-blah-blah.

Brazil was said to be trying to buy MiGs from the Russians, the agent added, almost as an afterthought.

Danny hit a combination of keys on the computer, calling up a file that compiled data from foreign-contact forms — official paperwork that was supposed to be filed by certain key personnel when they were approached by a foreign national.

Smith hadn’t reported the incident.

Not necessarily a big deal. Except that he was assigned to the top-secret Advanced MiG project.

Danny reached to the end of the desk, pulling over his thermos to pour a cup of coffee while the computer fetched Major Smith’s personnel records.

Chapter 33

Zen pushed through the conference room double doors so fast he nearly slammed into Chris Ferris, who was reaching for one of the doors.

“Knock if off means knock it the fuck off” he said loudly, wheeling toward the large table at the front of the room where the rest of the ANTARES/Flighthawk team had gathered. Everyone in the room froze.

Everyone except the two people the comment was directed at.

“No shit,” said Mack.

“I did knock it off,” said Madrone.

“You didn’t knock it off fast enough,” Jeff told him. He pushed on the right wheel of his chair, maneuvering as if he were a fighter lining up his enemy in his gunsight. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing happened,” said Madrone.

“You got that close on purpose?”

“I wasn’t close.”

Zen whipped his chair around, facing Mack. He’d expected Smith to be wearing his usual smirk, but instead found the pilot frowning.

Maybe the encounter had actually done some good, instilling a sense of humility in the conceited jerk.

Fat chance.

“What’s your excuse?” said Zen to Mack.

“Aw, fuck you, Stockard. He’s the one who screwed up.”

“You didn’t break off right away.”

“I don’t have to put up with this bullshit.” Mack started for the door.

“Hey. Smith. Smith!”

Jeff wheeled after him, then stopped a few feet from the door, impotent as Mack stormed away.

He told himself to calm down — his job was to keep everything professional, not throw kerosene on the fire. Jeff wheeled back toward the front of the room, corralling his temper. The different tapes of the mission were stacked near the players; an airman assigned as one of the mission assistants waited at full attention near the machine, his bottom lip trembling. Jeff slid near him, trying to smile.

“At ease, Jimmy. Relax.” he whispered. “Breathe.”

“Yes, sir,” said the young man, who neither relaxed nor stopped trembling.

“Okay,” said Zen, willing his vocal chords to project their characteristically soothing, in-control tone. “Let’s go through this, from the top, bit by bit.”

Bree watched her husband as he struggled to maintain control. Long before she’d met him, he’d earned his nickname “Zen” because he could be calm under the worst circumstances. That, of course, was before the accident; since then, Jeff had much less patience for minor annoyances, and tended to struggle to project his former calm.

It wasn’t just the accident. Jeff seemed uneasy with being in charge — or rather, with standing back and letting other people take control. He wanted to jump in and do it himself.

Unlike her father. Bastian wouldn’t have roared in cursing. He would have found a way to make Kevin and Mack feel like peas, if that’s what he wanted them to feel like, yet stay in the room and actually learn something.

Bree still thought Jeff was overreacting, at least a little. The review of the C3 control tapes showed that the safety parameters had somehow gotten turned off — a programming glitch that Little Miss Jennifer Gleason was responsible for, though no one seemed to want to say so out loud.

Breanna watched Gleason flick back her hair as she tried to account for the problem. She looked more like a ‘60’s hippie than a scientist on a military base.

Most of the men panted after her.

Not Jeff. And if Gleason tried anything in that direction, she’d scratch the little banshee’s eyes out.

Chapter 34

Danny caught Colonel Bastian on his way out of his office for a lunch so late it could be considered dinner.

“Talk to me,” said the colonel, waving off Sergeant Gibbs as he headed for the door.

Freah followed silently as Bastian made his getaway. Bastian grumbled about something, passing the elevator in favor of the stairs. He swiped his card in the reader and pushed through the door, practically leaping from the landing to the steps as he did his customary double time up to ground level, where the general cafeteria was.

“So?” he asked.

“I have to talk to you in private,” said Freah. “Personnel matter.”

Bastian stopped abruptly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hard to get a word in these days.”

Dog smiled. He folded his arms around each other in front of his chest and leaned against the metal pipe of the railing, as deliberate in his nonchalance as he had been in his rush. “This private enough?”

The entire building was swept for bugs daily; everyone entering the building passed through a sensor array that beeped if a paper clip or earring was out of place. In theory, it was as secure as anywhere on the base except the command bunker.

Still, it was a stairwell.

“Go ahead, Danny,” prompted Bastian. “What’s bothering you?”

Danny told him about Smith and the Brazilian official. No one knew what the two men had been talking about, but the Brazilians had been inquiring about MiG sales with the Russians. At the same time, there were rumblings in the Brazilian government about military takeovers and coups.

“None of what you’ve said implicates Mack in any way,” said Bastian when he was finished.

“I know that,” said Danny. “Except that he didn’t report the contact.”

“You sure somebody didn’t start this as a rumor to nail him? Smith is not the most liked person in the world.”

Freah shrugged. His team had pulled Mack out of the Mediterranean during the Somalian matter, rescuing him after disabling the plane his kidnappers were fleeing in. Otherwise, Freah had had very little contact with the man.

“I’m not accusing him of anything except not noting the contact,” said Freah. “In and of itself, that doesn’t call for the death penalty. However—”

“However it’s not good,” agreed Bastian. “What do you suggest?”

“Full security check for starters. Tail him when he’s off base. Do the phones, the whole shebang.”

“Pretty big invasion of privacy for forgetting to fill out a form.”

Danny didn’t say anything. Bastian finally sighed.

“All right. Go for it,” he said. “I have a temporary assignment for him as a liaison with the Department of Energy; it’s due to start in a week or two.”

“I don’t know, Colonel. It’s classified?”

“Yes, but it’s one of those BS things — it involves reviewing sites that are about to be closed for possible test sites. It was mandated by the last Congress, but the Administration has pretty much already dictated what the report should be. It’s a holding pattern for him until a prime spot comes up.”

“Doing what?”

“F-22. Mack would go in as the operations director on the test squadron. Important job — assuming he takes it. He’s turned down everything anyone’s offered so far.”

“I don’t know if I’d sign off security-wise.”

“Well, the liaison thing will give you time to form a definite opinion, no?”

Danny nodded.

“You really think he’s a traitor?” said Dog, his voice more incredulous than before.

Freah shrugged. “I learned when I was a kid you can never read somebody else’s mind.”

“Well, my mind says I’m hungry. How about some lunch?”

“Colonel, it’s almost dinnertime.”

Bastian smiled as if he were apologizing for having so much to do he couldn’t get out for lunch.

“I have to get this going,” said Danny. He took a step down. “I’m going to need you to sign the finding,” he added, referring to the paperwork that allowed the procedures to proceed.

“After lunch I’m going over to the Megafortress simulator,” said the colonel, glancing at his watch. “Half hour there, maybe forty-five minutes, then back to the office. Catch me and I’ll sign.”

“Can’t get enough of the Megafortress, huh’?” asked Danny. “Hey, the computer tells me I’m getting good,” said Bastian, resuming his upward jog.

Chapter 35

Kevin punched the side of the hallway wall as he walked to the elevator. He hated Jeff. Who the hell did he think he was, criticizing him? No one else in the freaking fucking world had mastered ANTARES, and the Flighthawks, and the interface, and all the other crap so quickly, so easily as he had.

Damn him. Damn him.

“Kevin, excuse me.”

Madrone turned and saw Geraldo, hurrying toward him. He felt an impulse to jump into the elevator and shut the door, but resisted, waiting for her.

“Thank you,” she said. As they got into the car, he saw how old she was, how old and small. He’d never noticed it before.

“What happened during the last exercise?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I told you. Nothing.”

“I saw wave patterns I’ve never seen before. Explain to me what you felt.”

“I felt, you know, like I was flying. I had control of the planes.”

“Did you?”

“I may not be as good a pilot as Zen or Smith,” he said, “but I’m getting there.”

She looked at him oddly. He resisted the impulse to keep talking — that was how they got you.

Was she one of them?

“How have you been sleeping?” she asked.

“Fine.”

She put her hand to his skull where the spider had been implanted. Her touch was gentle, but still he winced. “Headaches?”

“No.”

“This doesn’t hurt?”

“No.”

“You’re afraid when I touch?”

“No.”

She pulled her hand down, smiling as if she had caught him in a fib. “We have a battery of tests we need to do.” She glanced at her watch. “Eat first. I’ll see you in an hour from now.”

“Yup.” He fixed his gaze on the floor. His head had been fine until she asked about headaches — now his temples felt like they would implode.

“Are you ready to fly without me?” she asked.

“You don’t think I can handle ANTARES alone?”

The words came out so harshly they snapped her back. Madrone felt her stare stoking the pain in his head.

He couldn’t afford to have her as an enemy.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just a little tired. The, uh, the exercises wear me out.”

“Of course. I understand,” she said in a tone that suggested otherwise.

The elevator arrived at the main level. He smiled, ducking his head against the light, letting Gerald() go first. “I’m going to get some lunch,” he told her.

She nodded and walked out of the hangar.

Madrone remained standing a few feet from the elevator on the long cement ramp. He put his hand on the metal rail, felt its coolness. He was tempted to put his head on it, let the cold metal soften the throb, but there were others around; they’d think it odd.

Aspirin, he told himself. He needed to get something for the headache.

He didn’t have any back at his quarters.

Quarters — a stinking tiny little room the size of an old-fashioned phone booth.

He deserved better — he deserved a mansion with a pool and someone to fix dinner, someone to greet him at the door in a silk nightgown, fold him into her arms, lay back while he bonked her brains out.

Red railroad spikes smashed into his head.

He didn’t want violent sex. He wanted to wrap himself in the warm rain, he wanted to sleep, he wanted to breathe slowly, he wanted to escape. escape, escape.

Chapter 36

Jennifer Gleason pulled the laptop closer to her, punching the function buttons to redisplay the graphs. Sometimes it was easier to use the visual displays of the different control segments to catch anomalies in the programming, but the graphs were smooth.

The fact that C3 had turned off the safety protocols bothered the hell out of her. The fact that she couldn’t figure out why bothered her even more. But she believed she could isolate the problem; there was a flood of integer overflows in the code mandating approval of the pilot that either accounted for the error or would show where it started.

More worrisome was C3’s decision to ram the aggressor.

Assuming it had been C3. Tracking Madrone’s commands through the electroencephalogram graphs and the gateway registers could be tricky and time-consuming; ANTARES kicked up a lot of back-and-forth and superfluous code. But the major commands were all marked out clearly.

There was no indication C3 had given the command either.

Jennifer slid over to another display, keying up a set of numbers that corresponded to command flags originating in the robots themselves. Even when flown directly by the remote pilot, the Flighthawks actually carried out many of the flight functions themselves. To lessen the communications burden between the main computer — C3 — and the planes, most of these were precoded in the robots’ onboard brains. The Flighthawks, for example, could be told to land at such and such a place and would do so without further instruction, setting their own speed, trimming control surfaces, etc. Several two-and four-plane formations were hardwired in, as was the command to close on another plane’s tail. Combining different commands would lead the planes to recognize an enemy, close to gun range, and fire.

Perhaps the error was in the fire command itself, or the combination, she realized. It seemed far-fetched, since the presets had been thoroughly tested without incident for nearly two years.

The fire flag was not depressed.

But that didn’t make sense — it should have been set by C3 at the top of the exercise.

The flags directing the planes to close weren’t set either.

C3 could have sent a flow of commands to the planes for each movement. In other words, it had either not realized the command was in its library — unlikely — or decided not to bother with the preset — even more unlikely.

Jennifer wound a thick stalk of hair at the back of her neck around her forefinger and pulled at the roots. She was going to have to dump all of the coin code from that sequence and go over it line by line. And she was going to have to do it on hard copy. It would take all night, at least.

Wearily, she punched in the commands and went to make sure the big laser printer was on. As the printing drum sucked up the first sheet of paper, Jennifer walked to the far side of the lab where Mr. Coffee sat alone on a long work bench. She took the carafe and started toward the door to fill it in the rest room down the hall. But then she realized she had the printer running; security regulations forbade her from leaving the room until it was finished, which wouldn’t be for quite some time.

Fortunately, she had a jug of water for just such emergencies. She retrieved it from the bottom filing cabinet next to the old Cray and emptied it into Mr. Coffee, leaving it out on the bench so she’d remember to refill it later. Then she spooned some grinds into the paper filter and started the machine.

Only two more filters left. Have to remember to pick some up.

Waiting for the coffee to brew, she thought about her visit back home for Christmas. Her family lived in a large farmhouse in frigid northern Minnesota. As a girl, she’d stood before the front window with its sixteen small panes of glass, watching the sun rise over the glittering field across the road, the brown heads of weeds fluttering with the wind. The light flooded into the house from the window, turning everything bright and blurring the face of the grandfather clock near the fireplace.

She missed the sun, but not the cold.

Although Nevada could be damn cold too. She shivered a little, sliding her coffee cup across the black Formica top of the table as Mr. Coffee began doing his thing.

The door to the lab whooshed open behind her. Jennifer glanced back and saw Kevin Madrone standing awkwardly just inside the doorway.

“Kevin, come on in,” she said, pulling out the carafe. A drip of coffee slipped past the drip guard on the hot plate. “Want some coffee?”

“How about aspirin?”

“Aspirin?” She filled her cup and slid the pot back into place. The coffeemaker spat a pent-up stream into the carafe, hissing loudly. “I think there’s aspirin in the ladies room down the hall. Want me to get you some?”

As she turned back to face him, she realized he wasn’t by the door anymore — he was next to her, so close he startled her. He started to say something, his hand reached for hers; confused, she jerked her hand up, forgetting she had the cup in it. The liquid flew wildly, splashing all over Madrone.

He stepped back, stunned for a moment. Then he plucked at the top of his flight suit and cursed.

“Shit! Shit! This is hot!”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she said, putting the cup down on the bench. “You just — you startled me.”

“Why did you do that, you bitch?” said Madrone. His face turned red and his whole body seemed to rise up. Jennifer froze, overwhelmed and suddenly powerless to move. Madrone raised his right hand, and the space seemed to shrink to nothing, her world evaporating into a void of fear. Jennifer felt her throat click; she tried to raise her hands to fend off the oncoming storm, but could not.

“What’s going on?”

The loud, sharp voice froze everything. Jennifer took a step back, glancing toward the door. Colonel Bastian was standing in the doorway.

“I uh, I spilled some coffee on me by accident,” said Madrone.

Jennifer looked up at his face. Had she imagined his anger? He looked small and meek, completely perplexed. The top of his flight suit was soaked with the hot liquid; a few drops plopped down onto the floor.

“Actually, 1 spilled it,” Jennifer heard herself say. “I was working and I didn’t quite hear Captain Madrone come in. When I turned around he was there and I’m afraid he startled me. I’m sorry, Kevin. Here, there are some paper towels right here.”

But Madrone had already started away, head down, passing Bastian and continuing out into the hallway.

“Something wrong here?” the colonel asked her.

“Oh, no.” She smiled weakly, then retrieved the paper towels to clean up the coffee from the floor.

God, he must think I’m a loony, she thought to herself.

“I was — I get wrapped up in my work sometimes,” she said. She bent to the floor and began wiping up the mess. “I can be a real slob. I think I burned him.”

“We can get someone to clean that up,” suggested Bastian.

“By the time they clear security it’ll evaporate,” she said, trying to joke. Jennifer rubbed the sodden towel on the floor, scraping her fingertips. She pulled the roll close to her, worked her way slowly across the puddle. After watching for a while, Colonel Bastian bent, picked up the pile of wadded towels, and carried them dripping to the wastebasket.

She wanted to jump up and kiss him, feel his arms around her.

Wouldn’t that be the topper — then he’d know she was crazy.

Bastian picked up her plastic coffee mug and refilled it as she finished cleaning the mess.

“Vikings, huh?” he asked, handing it to her.

It took a second for her to realize he was referring to the logo on the mug.

“Oh, yeah. Well, I’m from Minnesota.” She looked into his steel-gray eyes for a moment, then glanced to the floor.

“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. Jennifer took a sip of the coffee. “I would, but I have a job running through the printer and it’s going to take forty-five minutes. I can’t leave the room. Security.” She shrugged. “It’s a little silly, but—”

“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.

Chapter 37

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 Jennifer? The memory was lost behind the shards of colored glass prying open his brain. Karen was there, beautiful Karen, her eyes turning into snakes, her tongue fire.

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 connected to ANTARES. His mind spread out before him.

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.”

Jennifer?

No, Jennifer was thin, almost a wisp, with light hair. This woman’s shadow was thick and dark, more seductive, moving from beyond the trees. He reached for her. The pain crescendoed.

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

Chapter 38

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 connections to his nerve endings implanted in his skull.

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.

Breanna rolled over again, this time toward him. She pushed her arm over his chest and back around his neck, nuzzling close. Zen turned his head to kiss her, slipping back toward the heavy blanket of sleep.

Chapter 39

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.

No offense intended to the Israelis.

His rage was so great, Mack began racking his brain to see what he really was angry about. Not having a job — that was the problem.

And really, he’d been hard on Bastian the other day. He ought to apologize. And see if maybe Bastian had something for him yet.

Fresh off the helo, Mack headed to Bastian’s office, jostling past the obnoxious Sergeant Gibbs and sailing into Dog’s inner sanctum with a half knock and a hearty “Hey, Colonel.” He slid over one of the visitors’ chairs, leaning forward with his elbows on the armrests.

“I was a jerk the other day, cutting in front of the egghead,” he told Bastian, waiting for the colonel to quickly persuade him that he was wrong.

“Why are you here?” Bastian replied.

“I was a jerk,” Mack told him, still waiting.

Bastian glanced toward the door, where Sergeant Gibbs was standing.

“I will have a cup of coffee, Sergeant,” said Smith, following the glance. “That’d be nice.”

The barest hint of a frown appeared on Gibbs’s face before he retreated into his own domain.

“They broke the mold,” said Mack, gesturing toward Gibbs. “Fortunately.”

“Yes,” said Dog. Even ramrod straight in his chair, Bastian was not a tall man. Still, he dominated the space, his eyes hard in a face that seemed squared at the edges. He wasn’t particularly handsome, Mack thought, but looking at him you could tell he was the kind of guy who made a decision and stuck to it.

The colonel slowly reached for his coffee. He took a sip, then spoke.

“As a matter of fact, Mack, I have made a few calls on your behalf, despite our recent interview.”

“Oh?”

“There’s nothing immediate that comes up to your level of expertise.”

“Thanks, Colonel.” Mack smiled, expecting Bastian to go on, but he didn’t.

Sergeant Gibbs appeared with the coffee.

“Two lumps, huh, Major?”

“I like it sweet, yes,” said Mack, taking the cup. He stirred the metal spoon around, tapped it a few times, then took a sip.

Have to give this to the sergeant — he made a mean cup of joe.

“You’re on base early this morning,” noted Bastian.

“Yes, sir. Running some last tests on the MiG.”

“You still working with ANTARES?”

“Don’t know that they’re flying again today,” said Mack. “But if they want me, I’m ready. We’re about to shut down Sharkishki anyway. Couple more flights at most.”

Someone must have told Bastian about his son-in-law’s screwup yesterday, Mack realized. No wonder he was in a bad mood.

Time to change the subject.

“Obviously, I’d like to command a squadron, even if that’s not possible right away,” Knife told Bastian. “What I thought might work would be to go in as number two somewhere, you know, with a guy about to move out. Probably over in CentCom,” he added, referring to Central Command, which had charge of a number of tactical squadrons and where, he believed, Dog had numerous connections. “Like to hit Italy. Couple of squadrons there, no?”

“Might work,” said Bastian. “In the meantime, I have something for you. It’s a political plum — temporary assignment with the Department of Energy, inspecting test facilities that are either slated to be closed or already are. They need a report on their suitability for Air Force bases. You can guess what the report’s supposed to say,” the colonel added.

“Sounds kind of like a—”

“It’s definitely a holding pattern, definitely bullshit, but you’ll interface with some Pentagon brass along the way,” continued Bastian. “If that goes well, I may be able to swing something much better.”

“Like?”

“Everything in due time,” said Dog.

Mack fought down the impulse to try and wheedle more information.

Hell, he had been a jerk, getting down on the Air Force. Even playing ground FAC with some dusty Army unit in Korea would be a million times better than becoming a civilian. Quit the service and he’d end up flying 727’s and learning to play golf.

No disrespect intended.

Mack jumped up, took a long swig of the coffee, and placed the half-full cup on the colonel’s desk. “It better be a kick-ass one or I’ll farm myself out as a free agent,” he joked. “Maybe I’ll go to Brazil — some old geezer tried to recruit me last month as a consultant.”

Bastian said nothing.

Mack laughed. “Hell, maybe I’ll go to work for the Russians. I can fly their planes too. Don’t you think, Dog?”

Still nothing from the colonel. Some guys were just humor-impaired.

“Well, listen, Colonel, I won’t keep you,” said Knife, backing his way toward the door. “I appreciate your trying to help me. Anything you can do, I appreciate it.”

Chapter 40

“Yeah, right,” said Schneider with a laugh as Zen wheeled into the Flighthawk hangar. “Like you could hit a barn from that distance.”

“I did it,” insisted Foster.

The two techies were responsible for the robot planes’ engine systems. A few other members of the maintenance and prep team were hanging around, reviewing their punch lists and warming up to the day with coffee and some Danishes.

“Hey, Major,” said Schneider, turning to Jeff. “Foster here claims he nailed a buck between the eyes from five hundred yards last November back in Pennsylvania with a pistol.”

“Three hundred yards, with a Remington rifle,” said Foster.

“I could believe that,” said Zen, helping himself to some of the coffee but skipping the sweets.

Tough, though. A pineapple Danish practically winked at him.

“And I didn’t shoot it in the eyes,” added Foster. “You don’t aim at a deer’s head if you want to hit it.”

“You mean you hit it by accident?” said Schneider.

Foster waved his clipboard at his friend. “Twenty-one points, and that’s no lie,” he told Zen. “You hunt, Major?”

Foster tried to swallow his words; Schneider shuffled his legs nervously. One or two of the other men glanced toward Jeff’s wheelchair.

“I’m not much of a hunter,” said Jeff, sipping his coffee as nonchalantly as possible. “Freezing my butt off in the woods isn’t my idea of recreation. Chair’s cold enough as it is.”

“Yeah.” Foster laughed nervously.

Jeff took a sip of his coffee. When he had first returned to active duty, the awkward silence would have annoyed him — he didn’t need, and didn’t want, pity. But he’d come pretty far in the last few months. He wasn’t at peace with the loss of his legs; that was never, ever going to happen. But the awkwardness of others didn’t offend him anymore.

If he’d been in a better mood — if he’d gotten more sleep — he might have made another joke, probably at Schneider’s expense; doubtless the coffee fiend couldn’t hit anything he was aiming at, starting with the urinal in the bathroom. But Zen just changed the subject, asking what kind of shape the planes were in. The crew dogs fell to with quick and very positive status reports. Four Flighthawks were now considered at full flight status; two more would join them late next month, with another pair ready for static tests and check-flights the month after. Components for additional U/MFs were said to be en route; by summer Dreamland would boast enough Flighthawks to mount a full squadron.

Satisfied, Zen pushed himself over to the elevator, riding down to the lab level and his office in “Bunker B.” One of the project members had tacked a large poster of a Frankenthaler painting on the door; he’d thought it pretty weird when he first saw it, and his opinion hadn’t changed all that much. It was called “The Human Edge,” and he supposed it was meant to be a metaphor or something. All he saw were some colors splotched on a large sheet of paper; not too much human about that.

Zen opened the door and spun his wheelchair sideways to angle through the narrow passageway. He left the door open while he checked for e-mail. Jennifer Gleason had left a long note discussing yesterday’s exercises; she had found an apparent glitch in C3’s interface with the ANTARES gateway, but needed some fresh tests to see if she was on the right track.

So it wasn’t Kevin’s fault at all. Or Mack’s, for that matter. Jeff checked the time on the note. Jennifer had sent it at 4:45 A.M.; she’d worked all night.

They could rerun the test tomorrow afternoon, assuming Madrone was up to it and Zen could find a free range. Between the Russian spy satellites and Dreamland’s increasing activities, spur-of-the-moment test flights were getting harder and harder to arrange.

The weather module on Dreamland’s automated flight-scheduling system gave him another caution — a serious storm had stalled over the mountains to the west. Except for a bit of turbulence, their test range should remain clear during their flight window, but the front was fierce and looked to hang around for a while. Ordinarily the U/MFs didn’t operate in the flight areas that far west, but more routine test craft sometimes did, and the storm could complicate scheduling for some time.

Better to try and get it done ASAP. Jeff picked up the phone to start rounding up the troops.

But he found himself punching the extension for the ANTARES project offices instead.

Dr. Geraldo herself picked up.

“Doc, this is Jeff Stockard,” he said. “I’d like to take you up on your offer to reinitiate the ANTARES sessions.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said. “Whatever we need to do.”

“Well, you should begin with the drug protocol, and we’ll have to talk to Colonel Bastian—”

“Let’s do it.”

Chapter 41

Sleep was a country of gray-shrouded hills, pale yellow light, and a harsh sun, its purple-red globe directlyoverhead no matter how Kevin turned. Animals stalked the shadows, their low growls sifted by the rustle of the leaves into hints of human whispers. Snakes slinked just out of sight, ready for him, watching.

Madrone rolled over and over on his bed, got up in the dark and paced, threw himself back onto the mattress. Finally he realized it was after eight o’clock. He went quickly to the shower, standing in the stall stoically as the water first froze and then nearly scalded him. When he got out, he realized he had left his underpants on; he stripped them off quickly, embarrassed.

His daughter had insisted on wearing her underpants into the bath. Karen had screamed at him for letting her.

The phone rang. It was Geraldo. But rather than demanding why he was late, she asked if he could report to Hawkmother for another flight. They wanted to redo some tests, if he was up to it.

“Yes,” he said. He hung up the phone and quickly dressed. Then Madrone hurried over to the Boeing’s hangar, skipping breakfast, head pushed down on his chest. He felt as if it were raining around him.

“Kevin, hello,” said Dr. Geraldo, greeting him as he walked across the tarmac toward Hawkmother. The crews were tending to the plane as it sat at the edge of the ramp.

“You look tired,” Geraldo said. She touched him gently on the arm. Her fingers cleared the rain away; he felt as if he’d taken off a heavy hat. A smell like the smell of cookies baking filled the room, soothing him.

“I didn’t sleep,” he confessed.

Geraldo looked at him as if she were disappointed. She was counting on him, needed him, and he was hurting her. He could feel it — he didn’t want to hurt her.

“It’s okay,” he said. He tried to laugh. “I just couldn’t sleep. Too much coffee yesterday. Gave me that headache.”

Her own eyes were heavy, with thick rings below them. He wanted to tell her about the nightmares, but he’d hurt her if he did. She was counting on him; she needed him.

As Christina had needed him. He couldn’t fail again. “Well, let’s get going,” he told her.

“Are you sure?” Geraldo asked him.

“Come on, Doc,” he said, giving her a light tap on the back.

“You’re staying on the ground today, right? I’m ready to solo.”

“Well—”

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’m okay,” he said, starting to feel more sure of himself. “Cut the apron strings.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’re just rerunning the tests, right?”

“Jeff wants to rerun yesterday’s encounter. There was some sort of computer glitch they need to take care of. If you have time, they want to start working on the refuels.”

Kevin shrugged. “Cool.”

Geraldo nodded. “After the flight is over, I’d like to run another full physical review. We need some fresh electroencephalograms and the standard EKGs. The whole physical suite,” she told him, her voice still faintly tentative.

“Two days in a row?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“My cholesterol too high?”

Geraldo smiled. “No, you’re perfect. You’ve gained weight; we should probably do a body-fat analysis and another stress test. You’re probably in better shape than when you started.”

“I’m telling you, Doc, we’re going to cure the common cold.”

Madrone realized she was looking at his thumb. He spread his hands and held them up for her to see. “No more nail-biting either. No cigarettes. I’m a new me.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t sweat it,” said Kevin. He put his hand on the rail to climb up into Hawkmother. “See ya when school’s over.”

Chapter 41

Trent ‘Truck” Dalton cursed softly as the cap on the Diet Coke slipped around the top of the bottle, stubbornly refusing to break open. Fortunately, there were ways of dealing with problems like this — he reached his hand into his survival vest and pulled out his long knife, gingerly setting the bottle on the top of the control yoke to saw the plastic retaining snaps in two.

“You’re out of your mind,” said the 777’s copilot, Terry Kulpin. Kulpin had gotten up out of his seat and was pacing on the spacious flight deck behind him.

“What?” said Dalton. The plastic was so stubborn he had to use considerable force to finally get through the edge.

“You’re going to cut off your hand. Then we’ll have to scrap the mission totally and Stockard will kill us.”

“Nah.” Truck rolled the bottle and the knife did slip; fortunately, it missed his fingers. Kulpin whistled behind him. “Relax. See? I got it open. Hungry? There’s some Twizzlers in my kit back there.”

Dalton gestured with the knife toward the gym bag he’d stowed in the auxiliary station directly behind the copilot’s seat. There were mounts for temporary jump seats there, but in the Boeing’s present configuration the extended flight deck was just surplus real estate, adding to the ghost-town feel of the big plane.

“I don’t like licorice.”

“Suit yourself.” Dalton stowed the knife and took a long slug of soda.

“Looks like hydraulic fluid,” said Kulpin.

“Maybe that’s what you saw yesterday — Coke.”

“Very funny,” said the copilot. Kulpin had noticed — or thought he’d noticed — a small trace of hydraulic fuel on the ground below the left engine during yesterday’s preflight test. That had necessitated a massive hunt for a problem, delaying takeoff and almost scrubbing the mission. But no problem had been found, and the plane had flown perfectly.

“You keep drinking that stuff, you won’t fit through the ejector hatch,” said Kulpin.

“You planning on getting rid of me?”

“Depends on how I’m feeling.”

Unlike conventional airliners and transports, the Dreamland Boeing was equipped with ejection seats for emergencies. The system included an emergency computer initiative or ECI that they had been testing before being drafted for the ANTARES test; once armed by verbal command from the pilot, the computer could pull the handle if it sensed the pilot had become unconscious. To the pilots, this was a bit like a James Bond device for getting rid of obnoxious backseat drivers. While there were several layers of safety procedures, they didn’t particularly like the system. Preliminary tests showed that it, like the advanced autopilot it was part of, worked well.

“Man. You’re finishing the whole bottle?” asked Kulpin.

“I’m thirsty.”

“You don’t think you’re going to have to pee?”

Truck shrugged. “I never have to pee when I’m flying. I was a Hog driver, remember? You drive a Hog, you grow your bladder.”

“Wing tanks.”

“Exactly.”

Not equipped with an autopilot until recently, the bare-bones A-10A Warthog was a very difficult plane to take a leak in; you had to work the piddle-pack into position while keeping the stick steady with a combination of body English and wishful thinking.

“You think I should go back to the ANTARES pod and check on Madrone?” he asked. “He’s all alone back there.”

“Probably jacking off.” They both laughed — Madrone was a bit of a cipher. “Might as well work your way back and make sure he’s okay. This is the first time he’s flown without a baby-sitter back there,” added Trent. He tossed the empty bottle to his copilot. “Just don’t get lost.”

“I may trip over something,” said Kulpin. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I fall behind one of those black boxes you’ll never see me again.”

Ten seconds after he disappeared through the bulkhead, Dream Tower gave the go to launch.

Chapter 42

Mack glanced at the small flight board on his knee, where he’d mapped out a cheat-sheet with the parameters of his flight. He was supposed to duplicate yesterday’s final run exactly, or as exactly as possible. It was trickier than it sounded, since he had to duplicate something he’d winged, and didn’t have the high-tech-computer assistant pilots to guide him.

As usual, the computer geeks wanted the tests done a certain way, but hadn’t bothered to explain exactly why. Undoubtedly, they thought the universe worked like one of their programs — plug in the values and go.

“Gameboy to Aggressor,” said Zen in his helmet headset. “You’re looking good.”

“Aggressor,” acknowledged Mack. He spun his eyes around the cockpit, checking his instruments. He needed to come up five hundred feet if he was going to do this right; he coaxed the throttle so he wouldn’t lose any speed as he nudged his nose upward. The Flighthawks were ahead somewhere, still undetected by his radar.

“Let’s rock,” he said impatiently. “Madrone, get with it.”

Madrone saw the MiG fat in the middle of his head, precisely midway between the two Flighthawks as they approached. The computer had yesterday’s track duplicated exactly, making a minor adjustment to accommodate the MiG’s slower airspeed.

It was going well. His headache hadn’t reappeared, and the fatigue had slipped away once the metal band of the ANTARES helmet liner slipped over his skull. Even the stiff flight suit, with its spike running up and down his back, didn’t bother him today.

If anything, he was bored. The computer flew with minimal input, tracing the course. He could, of course, think himself into either cockpit. He could roll quickly, shoot downward, climb, launch a front-quarter attack, obliterate Sharkishki.

Madrone leaned back in his seat. If he’d thought that yesterday, C3 would have carried out the commands. Today it didn’t. He’d learned to partition his thoughts, keep different strands going.

A new level. Even greater control. More possibilities.

The headache and the dreams were growth pains, his mind bouncing against the ceiling of the next level, breaking through it.

There were so many other things he could do. He could reach out through ANTARES and go beyond it.

Kevin could feel the autopilot for the Boeing, hovering in the background. He saw it beyond the gateway.

He could use ANTARES to walk into the room and see the levers there. Once he saw them, he could work them.

Metaphors. Mastering ANTARES was a matter of finding the right metaphor — inventing the right language.

Madrone snaked into Hawkmother’s cockpit. The radar inputs felt like small twitches on the base of his neck. He could almost see himself.

Ignore the returns painting the Flighthawks. It’s too confusing. The controls are difficult enough. Difficult but exciting.

“Coming to Point Delta,” said Zen somewhere far away. Kevin jumped back to the Flighthawks and acknowledged. It was like passing between different rooms.

Or different parts of the forest. Lightning screeched in the distance. Madrone took a breath, suddenly anxious that the headache might return.

It might. He would deal with it.

The dark woman beyond the edge of his vision would help him.

Breathe, she said. Breathe.

The Flighthawks continued past the MiG as they had yesterday. C3 threw up a dotted line, proposing that they turn and fly toward Sharkishki’s tail. Madrone assented.

He could fly the Boeing if he wanted. The systems were complicated, but the plane itself was more inherently stable, easier to control than the Flighthawks. He could feel the control yoke in his hand.

A tremendous jolt of pain crashed into the back of his head, nearly taking away his breath.

Rain, she told him. Stay in Theta.

Rain.

Zen glanced quickly at the feed from the Flighthawk cockpits, then pushed the headset’s mouthpiece closer to his face. “Repeat, Hawk Commander?” he asked.

“Nothing. No transmission. Sorry,” said Madrone. He sounded like he was out of breath.

Jeff called up the optical feed from Hawk One as the two U/MFs approached the MiG. The overhead plot had everyone precisely in place. The planes passed each other and the Flighthawks began to bank behind the MiG.

How would an engagement like this go if there were thirty or forty planes in the air? Could Madrone really control it all?

Could he?

Zen studied the instrument feeds as the two Flighthawks spun around and began to close on Mack. The planes were in perfect mechanical condition, all systems in the green.

Damn hard just sitting here and watching, using the tubes instead of his visor. He ought to be in the cockpit.

That meant getting back into ANTARES. Two years from now, maybe even sooner, it would be the only way to control the Flighthawks. It was clearly the future.

Zen hit the toggle on the video feed, bringing the enhanced satellite view onto the main screen. He forced himself to focus on his work. The Flighthawks duplicated yesterday’s near miss.

“Here we go,” said Mack, tipping his wing.

“Breaking off,” said Madrone. The two Flighthawks shot downward, rolling on opposite wings in a graceful arc back toward the other end of the range.

“Got it,” said Lee Ong from the other station. Ong was watching the Flighthawks’ computer systems. “I think that’s what she wants.”

“Close enough?”

“She didn’t say to scrape paint,” said the scientist. “All she really wants to see are what commands fired.”

Zen checked his watch. They had exactly an hour and a half of time on the range left.

Might as well put it to use.

“Mack, what’s your fuel?”

“You want kilos or you want pounds?”

“How’s about time?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“What are we doing here, Jeff?” asked Madrone in his now-standard snot-ass tone.

“I’m thinking we can practice some tanker approaches. First we’ll try a couple with the MiG.”

“Why?” asked Mack. “Why not use the Hawkmother?”

“Because I want to work on theory first, then worry about dealing with the vortexes the Boeing kicks off,” said Jeff. “Kevin, I want you to fly the plane, not C3.”

“Shit. He’s going to have more trouble pulling up behind me than the 777,” said Mack.

“Even if that were true, you’ve demonstrated twice now that you can get out of the way fast.”

“Oh, thanks. Hear that, Junior? Dad doesn’t think you’ll be careful with his car.”

“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. Jennifer would have been hunched over one of the laptops, punching the keyboard furiously. Ong just sat back and watched, occasionally making notes on a yellow legal pad.

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.”

Chapter 43

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 connected to a run of numbers — a computer link to the database, a CD listing of hex numbers recording possible emergency bases.

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, scanned his gear again, tensed his fingers, and untensed them. The plane was off track and lower than planned, yet otherwise flew exactly level, all systems green.

“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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.

“Knock it off,” Zen said. “Flight emergency. Clear Range 4B. Radio silence. Hawkmother? Hawkmother?”

Mack pulled Sharkishki level, recovering from the quick evasive maneuvers. He craned his neck back to find out what had happened to the Boeing.

Damn thing had looked like it flew right at him.

He couldn’t see it behind him. He took a breath, calming down as he leaned the MiG slightly, trying to get a fix on the stricken plane.

A black speck appeared over his left shoulder, just beyond the MiG’s tailplane. It grew into a grayish ball.

One of the Flighthawks. It dropped below his wing. Where the hell was it going?

Mack hit the throttle, goosing the tweaked engines. Even so, the U/MF missed hitting him by less than twenty feet. Shit.

“Stockard, what the fuck is going on!” he yelled.

Madrone pushed the Boeing down toward the edge of the range, quickly descending through four thousand feet. One of the systems warned about stress to the control surfaces, but they were well within tolerance — he could feel the problem as a slight twinge near his temples.

He’d drop to fifty feet above ground. There, the effect of the ground clutter in radar returns would render him invisible. It was low, but not so low that he couldn’t easily cut a course through the mountains.

He could let the Boeing’s control computer fly the plane as soon as he figured out how to kill the safety restraints and reset the course. They were an electrified fence, sparking his body as he approached.

When he got beyond the fence, he could get rid of the pilot and copilot. He could see their seats, but not quite reach the release.

The damn MiG kept getting in his way, despite the efforts of the Flighthawks to run interference. They were unarmed, and he didn’t want to crash into Smith, since that would cost him a plane.

Get rid of Hawkmother’s pilot and copilot first. Smith was a blowhard; he’d never be able to stop him.

Zen called to him. Madrone turned away, closing the door on him.

He reached for the fence protecting the pilots. Sparks jumped and he jerked back, lost control of Boeing momentarily. The pilot pulled back on the controls, starting to take it out of its dive.

“You’re not going to beat me, you bastards!” he shouted. A latch sat on the side of the fence, held there by twisted wires.

He could get through it, if he was willing to ignore the pain.

As he touched the latch, the metaphor changed. He grabbed not metal but the arm of his young daughter, his baby.

She cried with pain.

He let go instantly, stunned.

“Christina,” he said. “Baby.”

She stopped sobbing and turned her eyes toward him, raising her head. The hair on the right side of her scalp fell away, just as it had during the radiation treatment at Livermore. Huge clumps dropped to the ground.

Her neck and the side of her skull boiled. The cancer burst through her skin, purple lumps like the thyroid they’d removed.

“Christina, Christina,” he cried.

Lightning struck his eyes. His body convulsed with pain. He couldn’t save his daughter; he was helpless, useless, worthless. His tongue trembled in his mouth and tears flowed. His cheeks melted as if the tears were acid. His chest convulsed as thunder shook the universe.

Come to me, said the dark woman, her voice muffled by the distance. Come, Kevin.

Who was she? A dream of Karen? Of Geraldo? Of some primeval lover stored deep in the recesses of his Jungian brain?

A metaphor, constructed by his mind, simply a metaphor for ANTARES.

Come to me, love.

Madrone felt his heart slowing. His lungs worked properly again. He pushed his hand, and it no longer held his daughter, but the wire around the fence latch. He pulled, and the metal gave way; he pulled, and the protective circuitry that had prevented him from gaining full control of the plane flew over his head backward.

He had it now. He had the course laid out. Get past the MiG, disappear into the mountains.

Then?

He would fly to the rain forest and the dark woman. He would find peace there.

Madrone pushed the Boeing back toward the ground, then jerked her hard to the west, the mountain peaks looming ahead.

“Mayday! Mayday! Fuck!” yelled Kulpin as Dalton continued to struggle with the 777. They’d disengaged the flight computer and done everything else possible, but had only limited success regaining control. They were well beyond Dreamland’s borders, accelerating as they flew southwest into commercial airspace. Dalton had managed to level off at three thousand feet, but now the Boeing slipped from his control once more, shuddering as she put her nose downward.

They were going to break the sound barrier again.

And on top of everything else, the environmental controls had freaked — it must be down to fifty degrees in the cockpit. “We’re going to have to bail,” said Kulpin.

“Not at this speed,” said Dalton.

“No choice,” argued Kulpin.

“Pull, help me pull,” he said, muscling the stick.

“I’m trying.”

“We are going to have to bail,” Dalton began.

He intended to tell Kulpin to radio their position and the fact that they were going out. He needed to tell Madrone what was going on, make sure the captain was strapped in and knew what to do. He wanted to start an orderly checklist, to keep things calm and precise and absolutely orderly, as if he were a cruise ship captain practicing a routine and boring lifeboat drill. But as he opened his mouth he felt his breath catch in the pit of his chest. His body slammed back on the seat and an anvil landed on his head. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized he had been ejected from the plane, though he hadn’t pulled the manual eject handles, let alone fooled with the automated sequence.

The audible fuel warning in Mack’s ear hit a new octave as he pushed to follow the Boeing. Dalton and his copilot didn’t answer his hails on any frequency, nor did Ma-drone.

At least the Flighthawks had stopped flashing in front of him, staying in a close trail behind Hawkmother. Mack recognized it as one of the preprogrammed flight positions.

As he closed the distance between himself and the big jet, the 777 took another lurch downward and the front end seemed to break apart.

“Shit, they’re out,” he said to Zen, yelling so loud it was possible he could be heard without the radio. “Fuck. They ejected. I think they ejected. Oh, Jesus.”

He slid the MiG into a bank, searching for parachutes. The truth was he couldn’t tell if they had ejected or if the front of the plane had blown apart — it was moving that damn fast.

Knife glanced at his fuel panel. Serious problems. Even if he turned back this instant, he might have to glide home.

He couldn’t see the Boeing anymore. Sharkishki’s radar had lost it in the ground clutter, but the IR scan showed the plane plummeting toward the mountains, a half mile ahead. He glanced over to mark the position with the GPS screen on the MUD. As he pushed the button, the Boeing disappeared from the screen.

“Plane’s going in,” he told Zen. He punched the IR gear, watching for the inevitable flare.

“Mack, what’s your status?” demanded Stockard.

“I lost them. They bailed and the plane nose-dived. Can’t find it on the infrared. I’m not sure why. Shit.”

“What’s your fuel, Sharkishki?” demanded Zen.

“Yeah. I have a fuel emergency. Returning to base,” conceded Mack. “I’ll upload the GPS telemetry. Aw, shit to fucking hell.”

Zen’s chest compressed as the Boeing disappeared from the radar display. It felt like a snake had wrapped itself around him and squeezed.

He tried the override again in a desperate attempt to grab control of the Flighthawks, but the screens remained blank, the connection severed.

“We’ll be at Mack’s mark in zero-two,” said Breanna.

“Yeah,” answered Zen. The snake squeezed tighter. He checked on the status of the SAR flight that had just scrambled out of Dreamland — a pair of helicopters, one a Pave Low with an extensive suite of search gear, were about fifteen minutes behind them. Edwards and Nellis both had other units on standby.

“Aggressor, how tight is your fuel?” he said, calling Mack.

“Under control,” answered Mack.

Smith sounded more angry than concerned, though Zen thought he’d sound that way on fumes.

“There’s a civilian strip in your direct flight path if you need it,” Zen told him.

“No shit, Sherlock. Let me fly this one, all right?”

Normally, Zen would have told Mack to screw himself. But by now the snake had wrapped itself so tightly around his throat that he couldn’t get a word out of his mouth.

He was so damn impotent without legs, tied into a stinking wheelchair, a gimp, a cripple, a helpless lump of nothing.

A flame flared in the middle of his head, surging and glowing, flowing into a perfect round circle, a sun that went from red to pink to chromium.

He was helpless. He was back in the F-15 where he’d had his accident, going out at low altitude, crashing into the ground, crushing his spinal cord and losing his legs.

“Nightingale One to Gameboy. Please state situation. Major Stockard?”

He wasn’t helpless. He’d proven himself in Africa. Every day he got out of bed, he proved himself.

“Zen, the SAR flight is hailing you,” said Bree over the interphone.

“Gameboy to Nightingale One,” he said, muscling the snake away. “We have a plane down, two, hopefully three ejections. Rough terrain. Maybe the mountains. No fix, but we can make some guesses from the GPS where they were last seen.”

“Copy that,” said the Pave Low pilot, who had already been given the coordinates by Breanna. “Do you have anything fresh?”

“Negative,” admitted Zen. “We’re in the dark as much as you.”