The Primus Labyrinth

by Scott Overton

  “Primus’ small cargo of plasmin would be better suited to stopping the formation of a thrombus in the early stages—it’s probably not enough to disintegrate a full-sized clot like the one in our patient’s finger, but we should be able to see something happening.”

  “Don’t be nervous, Doc,” Hunter said, correctly interpreting her uncharacteristic verbal outpouring. “It’s another test run. It’s not life or death yet.”

  “Everything we do now is life or death,” the biologist insisted. “Because, if we can’t do what we need to do, the patient will die.”

  “How do you know? Maybe the government will find these guys and stop them. Or give in to their demands.”

  “They won’t.” Her voice was emphatic.

  “How can you be so sure? You don’t even know what the demands are.”

  Mallory reached over and thrust the helmet over his head, as if to silence him. Then he heard her muffled voice say, “They won’t. They don’t do that.” She snapped the chin fastenings harder than necessary, then turned away to the control panel. Hunter was sure there was a story behind her remark, but he was also sure Lorelei Mallory wasn’t someone to talk about her past.

  Vertigo.

  Hard to get used to that.

  But something else, too. Was that . . . elation?

  Why? Because of the novelty? An adrenaline rush? A current leak from the VR gear directly into the pleasure centers of the brain? Don’t need that. The environment is too hazardous. Got to stay sharp.

  Yet isn’t this some kind of miracle? Existing inside another’s body—within their very flesh. A body inside a body, soul within a soul.

  Where was the soul? Could it be seen? Felt? Tasted? Was it only within the brain, or did it inhabit each of these myriad cells in their millions being passed by so casually? There’d been no time to wonder about any of that on the first mission; no time to think at all. Only react. Survive.

  Knowing what to expect, insertion was better for him this time. No raging torrent at the entry into the bloodstream. A smaller blood vessel than before. An artery, outward bound for the clot in the patient’s finger. Doctors could have injected plasmin or anticoagulant to break up the clot, but it wasn’t a danger. Better to leave something for Primus to look at.

  Definite difference in the VR feed. Testing out the VLR—very low resolution. A hint of grittiness, but individual pixels not quite visible. More like a photograph processed to look like a pastel sketch. Might be hard to distinguish small details at high speed, but that shouldn’t happen on this run. Just check out the new settings for a while and go to high res if needed.

  Got to keep an eye out for the junction of the blood vessels—it could be to starboard or port, above or below. Watch for blood cells being pulled toward a tributary.

  Current slow enough there’s no need to use the fans for stability. Like cruising along a busy multi-lane highway instead of hurtling down a roller coaster track after brake failure. A good opportunity to get a feel for the controls again—do a few deliberate rolls. Maybe try swooping around some of these arena-sized blood cells. Wouldn’t want the turnoff to be hiding behind them.

  Shit. Nearly missed it. At eleven o’clock, and coming up in a big hurry. Just enough time to make the turn.

  Not bad. Slid neatly into the slot, near the middle of the channel. Must be getting the hang of it—need less and less conscious thought to make maneuvers.

  Not much turbulence this time either. Nothing like the monster vortexes last trip. Current’s a lot slower.

  Of course. The clot must be causing a complete blockage of the artery. That should also mean no blood cells following. Good. More maneuvering room.

  The clot isn’t far from the junction. Could encounter debris anytime. Better switch the VR to high resolution.

  Wow! Like using naked eyes underwater, then popping above the surface and seeing through air again. Didn’t appreciate the sharpness before. Truly impressive. Able to see the dappled quality of the fluid again. What is it? Individual molecules, nearly visible? Have to ask Mallory. Walls still too far away, though . . . just a sense of texture there, no detail. Try sidling over to starboard. Should be able to get within a few ship lengths of the blood vessel lining. None of those fatty clumps embedded in the wall so far, and no truck-sized platelets to dodge yet. Presumably the ADP is all expended and not drawing them anymore.

  First chance to actually see the honeycomb pattern of cells in the artery wall. Fascinating. Extraordinary. The architecture of Life. No computer drafting or robot engineering involved. Just a blueprint of DNA and . . . what? A guiding spirit?

  Uncharacteristically deep thought. Better stick to business.

  Darker up ahead. A sense of enclosure or obstruction. How can the VR distinguish the difference? Where is the light coming from? Slight ebb and flow happening, too, as if from a backwash. Waves of blood crashing against a cellular breakwater. Better stay ready for minor thrust adjustments. Don’t want to tear any more strips off Primus’ newly-replaced protein shell. Mild-mannered Dr. Tyson would turn into Mr. Hyde.

  Mother of God! The clot does fill the entire artery, wall-to-wall. Impressive as hell. Like a shield of dragon scales covering the horizon and stretching up to the sky.

  Almost forgot to throttle back. Very hard to judge distance.

  Can make out the shapes of blood cells now, mostly white ones. Lots of them. Gage and Mallory were right: T-cells identify the bomb as an intruder and call for reinforcements, making perfect raw material to build a huge blockage once the ADP is released and the fibrin threads go to work.

  Can distinguish platelets now. Threads of fibrin, too. Like a primitive wall, with stones of different sizes mortared together and a rampant growth of ivy overtop. Sterile. Still, yet . . . ominous.

  Not much current at the face. Blockage must be nearly complete.

  Time to release the plasmin. Don’t know how long it will take to work. Dump it, then hang around searching for debris samples worth gathering. With so little movement of the fluid, it’ll be better to make some headway while releasing the stuff. Spread the enzyme around.

  Cruise slowly along a few ship lengths away from the surface of the clot. Punch in the cargo release code. Do a slow loop parallel to the blood vessel walls.

  Close up, the clot looks like old wharf pilings seen underwater—hoary old ends of timber with snakelike strands of seaweed swaying slowly in the bow wave from the ship. Like in some good memories of scuba diving in northern lakes, except the reddish tones evoke a more sinister feeling. Or maybe that’s from knowing this blockage of vital blood is the enemy of life.

  Plasmin release complete. Some time to search around a bit while it does its stuff.

  Better look over the perimeter of the clot. Maybe there are gaps that can be widened to restore some of the blood flow. Not part of the mission, but the clot projects an aura of menace. Why? It’s just a natural object reacting to chemical processes and molecular attraction.

  No, not natural. Engineered. Fabricated. Life’s guardians subverted to destroy life.

  No gaps visible. Fibrin must seek out the holes and plug them. Would the ADP simply disperse through the bloodstream, or settle onto nearby surfaces? Try positioning the cargo bay as close as possible to the clot, and allow some fluid to be drawn in. No other equipment for gathering liquid samples. It’ll have to do.

  What’s that? Something pale, but with a different sheen than the white cells. A dull finish instead of the faint glisten of cellular material. Is that a jagged edge?

  It’s embedded between two red cells and wedged in by several smaller discs: platelets. Might be tough to remove. Have to slide the sensor array all the way forward and try to get a partial view of the cargo bay between the manipulator arms, then hope the fragment will fit inside. A little practice would have been nice.

  Damn. Tough to get a grip. Surface is slightly curved, and it’s dug well into the neighboring cellular material. T
ry to push the cell structure inward with one arm and peel the object back with the other.

  Got the clamp over an edge, but it’s not budging. Have to hold tight and use the engine to pull it out. Slowly . . . making a bulge in the wall. Fibrin threads must be incredibly elastic.

  A platelet has broken loose. Now the shell fragment, if that’s what it is. Bigger than expected. Bitch of a job to maneuver it into the cargo bay.

  Fatigue beginning to set in. Easy does it. No need to rush.

  How long did that take? Long enough for the plasmin to begin working? Head back to the center of the clot.

  Wow. Big change in the neighborhood: building-sized oblong shapes beginning to peel away and fan out. Smaller clumps of platelets and maybe antibodies bobbing free and colliding with monstrous white blobs of T-cells. Can actually see the progress as the rupture spreads, like pastry being broken in half in slow motion. No way to know how thick the clot is on this scale, but hopefully a breach will open up.

  Something else at the edge of the tear. Another shell fragment from a bomb? And another nearby. A dull, gritty surface with a grid of lines in it. Maybe some kind of lattice or crystal structure.

  Wait. How is that even visible? Maybe the VR system was mistakenly set on medium res before, and switched itself to high somehow. Everything’s sharper, better defined. Can actually distinguish the reflective qualities of the different objects.

  Can’t explain it, but gotta like it.

  Time is becoming a factor. Must have been inside for an hour or more, ship’s time. PRT—Primus Reality Time, as Bridges jokingly calls it. Fatigue growing. Have managed to load three shell pieces into the cargo hold. Even so, it’ll be an incredibly small sample to analyze.

  A big hole has opened all the way through the clot. The current is growing strong now, especially at the edges of the hole, with bigger and bigger patches tearing loose. Almost had to abandon the last shell piece. Too hard to keep the ship steady and manipulate the arms. Need a co-pilot. Why didn’t they plan for that? Cockpit space is a non-issue. Maybe they just didn’t have the time. Maybe they could never have foreseen the need.

  Got to rest soon. Tempting to just find a sheltered spot at the fringe of the clot and catch a nap. Everything’s begun to feel so . . . normal in this little patch of innerspace. Controls responding like second nature—visibility has become excellent. What can hurt the supership Primus anyway?

  No. Wrong thinking. Time enough to rest after the lab staff have got their hands on the samples. Send the “remove craft” signal. Turn the ship around and use half-thrust from the main engine to get out into the open.

  What’s keeping them? Are they sleeping out there?

  Whoa. Sudden strong reverse current. Must be the hypodermic. Concentrate on avoiding collisions with the other stuff being sucked in. Switch off the VR only when the ship is in the clear.

  Time to go home.

  Brace for the vertigo.

  Feeling anxious, reluctant.

  Or is it just . . . regret?

  10

  “What about the Surgeon General? It could be her.”

  “Maybe. But is the Surgeon General really important enough to be worth something this sophisticated? Enough to pressure the president into something big?”

  “I suppose you’re right. This is definitely a high-stakes game, so the victim must be somebody who’s right up there in the circles of power. High profile, too. “ Hunter stepped back and stretched, then rubbed the back of his neck. He’d been leaning over Tyson’s shoulder, getting a lesson in how to operate the VR recording equipment, and had taken the opportunity to draw the scientist into a guessing game about the identity of their patient. Now he changed the subject. “So the same software records all of the sub’s telemetry, the patient’s vital signs, and both the audio and video feed? Isn’t there any backup system? In case the computer hangs or something?”

  “There’s an automatic backup onto digital media every few minutes, if that’s what you mean,” Tyson replied. “And a second line feeds into another computer archive offsite, in case this computer crashes. We’re pretty well covered. Devon is very thorough. It’s been a major headache for him to arrange for the degree of backup and redundancy he wants while dealing with such a high level of secrecy. It’s ridiculous, really. I mean, obviously we can’t let people know about this extortion scenario. But our work in creating the Primus should be published in the scientific journals and shared with the world. Think of the possibilities. The potential benefit to people everywhere.” Tyson ran his fingers through the sparse fringe of graying hair that ringed his balding scalp.

  Hunter thought Tyson was being incredibly naive. “Have you ever looked at the project from a military point of view? I mean, they’ve got quite a weapon here.”

  “Primus a weapon? You’re joking. It’s the size of a virus for heaven’s sake.”

  “In warfare you get the biggest bang by hitting the leaders, and that’s what Primus could give them. What are we doing right now, but dealing with a nanotech threat to some key political figure? A pretty crude one, too. Think of what could be done with Primus? Injected into an enemy leader, you could cause pre-planned health problems at critical moments . . . even death. I’m sure with a little tweaking, it could spy on them in the meantime. Who would ever suspect? As long as we don’t let the cat out of the bag here in Langley.”

  The scientist’s face was a mixture of distaste and disbelief.

  “That’s a horrible idea, Hunter. Which means you’re probably right—someone in the Pentagon has thought of all that and more. Damn them.” He rose from his chair and began to walk out of the room, then stopped and turned. “Do you think that’s why there was all this secrecy from the beginning? I thought they just wanted to show some concrete results before going public. I suppose I’ve been stupid.”

  Hunter instantly regretted his words. If Tyson had a sudden attack of conscience and decided to quit the Project, the shit would hit the fan, for sure.

  “What about that new head judge of the Supreme Court?” Hunter asked. “Maybe it’s her. Maybe organized crime has gone high-tech.”

  Tyson shook his head, biting his lip. He replied in a dull voice, “Maybe it’s the prime minister of Israel. Maybe the warfare has already begun.” Then he walked out of the room.

  Hunter dropped into the vacated chair and gave a low whistle. Stupid move, he thought. The military implications of the Primus technology had been so obvious to him that he hadn’t even considered others might not see them. Maybe scientists had always been naive idealists. Maybe they had to be.

  He turned to the VR playback unit. Along with a regular computer keyboard it had controls similar to a normal video viewer with a few refinements to provide easy bookmarking, more precise single-frame viewing, and pinpoint magnification. Tyson had been replaying part of the most recent mission, reviewing the dispersal of the plasmin and the subsequent breakup of the clot.

  The resolution of the recording depended on the setting Hunter had used at the time—“High” at this point in the playback—and the monitor screen was state-of-the-art. Yet the crisp definition that had impressed Hunter during the mission wasn’t there. The image looked positively muddy, with no three-dimensional sense of distance, like computer animation from a very old video game. Why such a difference? Surely the screen in his VR headset wasn’t that much sharper.

  What about Bridges’ speculation—the extra link between his mind and the Primus? Could this be an example of it?

  He tapped a few keys. A smaller window popped up, showing the ship’s telemetry at the time. The engines were running at about sixty percent capacity; the ambient temperature was a perfect 37 C; there was even a sensor to show when the cargo bay was empty. Toggling another key he could view the scene in infrared. With a few more commands he could sharpen the picture . . . augment, enhance. It still wasn’t the same as being there.

  He nearly laughed out loud. Being there?
That was a bit of a stretch, wasn’t it? His own body had sat safe and comfortable in a padded chair in a laboratory half a building away from the body of the patient. Yet . . . he had been there, in a way he couldn’t explain.

  On a whim, he brought up the menu for sound control. Boosting audio volume produced a strange blend of swishing sibilants and deeper muffled notes that reminded him of whale song. He hadn’t noticed the noises much during his time in innerspace probably because they were so reminiscent of the ocean sounds he’d heard so often. This time it was the ocean of life itself.

  He’d pay more attention next trip, to the sounds and everything else. He’d been given an extraordinary opportunity to witness the processes of life firsthand, at their own level and to witness mysteries that had spurred the curiosity of the race since the earliest glimmer of human consciousness. He wasn’t just a sub jockey anymore. He was the first explorer of a new realm.

  Man, that was corny.

  True, though.

  Scientists might go over the data from his missions for years, and gather more knowledge than centuries of study had produced. Yet the real experience was his.

  That was a double-edged sword. He was also responsible for the patient’s life, and he couldn’t afford to miss anything. He’d have to make a conscious effort to notice every little detail.

  The remembering would be easy. He closed the software program and the images vanished from the screen. But they remained incredibly vivid in his mind.

  # # #

  Later, at a workstation in a small alcove near the sleeping quarters, Hunter scanned major Internet news sites. He searched, looking for references to the new Israeli prime minister. There was no indication that the woman might be in the United States, even clandestinely. A number of articles from the past two days placed her in various government locations in Tel Aviv. Threats from yet another radical Palestinian faction seemed to be keeping her close to home, unless a double was being used to keep up appearances in Israel while the real leader lay in a clinic bed at Langley AFB.