The Primus Labyrinth

by Scott Overton

  A pretty far-fetched idea. But then, he’d just spent hours cruising a human bloodstream in a nano-sized submarine. What counted as far-fetched anymore?

  He went on to hunt for the most recent whereabouts of the surgeon general, the new chief justice, and even the first lady. There were few references about any of them, except a small number of stories about the first lady’s tour of a children’s hospital three days earlier. He toyed with the idea of searching for their office phone numbers, and bluffing his way through to a personal secretary or someone like that, but if any of them were the project’s star patient, the cover story explaining their absence would be a good one.

  He heard a noise and found Truman Bridges standing beside him.

  “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” the doctor asked, looking alarmed.

  “I just figured it could help if I knew more about what we’re dealing with. And who,” Hunter answered.

  “Well keep that up and you’ll be asking for more than just a slap on the wrist. If they wanted you to know, they’d tell you. If they don’t tell you, then you’d damned well better not be caught trying to find out.” Bridges clearly wasn’t joking. “I think I would have preferred not to know.”

  “Come on, Doctor,” the pilot said. “What would they do to me but slap me on the wrist? Who would pilot Primus and carry out the mission?”

  The psychologist’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t get cocky. The people we’re working for now can offer you connections that will keep you happily employed for the rest of your career. They can also play hardball. No-one better.” He cast one more look at the offending computer screen, then walked quickly down the hall.

  11

  Tamiko’s face was flush with excitement.

  “We’re sure that’s one of them. One of the bombs. Here . . . in that Y junction where the two arteries are almost capillary-size. If so, then the bombs are too big to travel through the capillaries, and that reduces the number of possible sites by hundreds of thousands, maybe more.”

  “We were able to analyze those shell samples you brought back,” Gage added, “and we were right—they are made of silicon. That’s something we can scan for. This second shadow over here is also a strong possibility.”

  Hunter looked more closely at the piece of glossy paper with its grid-work of faint lines. The scan had been taken from the patient’s face.

  “How big is this image?” he asked.

  “Do you mean, how big an area of skin does it show?” Tamiko straightened and brushed back a lock of black hair. “Only a centimeter square.”

  “And how deep is this scan?”

  “A couple of tenths of a millimeter,” she said. “We can produce a better 3D rendering on the computer screen.”

  “There are dozens . . . hundreds of blood vessels showing. Are you sure you can single out the one that has the bomb in it?”

  “Most of those are capillaries. Barely big enough for a red blood cell to pass through. A lot of the rest are lymphatic vessels—kind of a parallel circulatory system that passes excess fluids and proteins from cell breakdown so they can be filtered out and eliminated from the body. Only a dozen or so of what you’re seeing are actual blood vessels big enough for the bombs to pass through. Yes, I think by using the computer to rotate the image through several cross-section views, we can find the right one.”

  “Why not just insert a needle and draw the bomb out, the way we remove the Primus?”

  Tamiko looked annoyed. “Sure, when the bombs are this accessible from the outside. Anything within the brain or the organs will be completely out of reach. It’s far better to refine our procedures with the Primus now, in a relatively harmless location like this one, so we’ll be ready for the tougher jobs ahead.”

  “OK, I get you,” Hunter said. “Practice makes perfect.”

  “Perfect, hell,” Gage muttered to himself. “I’d be happy with anything short of a disaster.”

  Back in the saddle again.

  It feels good. Still can’t figure out why.

  Mission Number Three. The Primus has been inserted into the patient’s face—a tough injection to explain if she still hasn’t been told what’s going on. That’s ludicrous, and disturbing, but there’s no point getting worked up about it right now. There’s enough to do just to keep from bumping into things. Lots of red cells in the facial arteries—blood flow very reactive. The arteries and veins are much smaller than the previous missions, this close to the surface of the skin, but laid out in an incredibly complex web: a labyrinth with a deadly device at its center.

  Trial by fire for Tamiko’s navigation system. The “head’s up” display is a little larger than before to allow for text messaging. Letters get in the way a bit, but the mind adapts.

  Maybe that’s why the view has also become sharper, the colors better defined. The mind is adapting.

  ***Turn***

  Simple one-word messages whenever possible, to save time. Time for Tamiko to speak it, the computer to translate it, the pilot to read it. Before the ship has passed by the junction.

  Damn. A branching immediately to starboard—another one just visible farther ahead to port. Which one to take?

  Decision by default. No time to turn into the starboard one.

  Tamiko would allow for the time lag. Wouldn’t she? Or could she? Did the new program compensate for the periodic slowing and quickening of the current produced by the heartbeat?

  Lining up for the port turn. Like rolling a marble through a maze on the pitching deck of a ship at sea. How could they expect to navigate something like this?

  Rumbling sounds. Voices.

  Distracting.

  ***Turn!***

  Shit! Almost missed it. Directly above, nearly blocked by a passing white cell.

  Can’t afford to be distracted. Distraction prevents local awareness, like keeping track of a dozen nearby cars on a busy freeway. Automatic, after years of driving, but prone to failure if the brain is distracted by sipping coffee, or using a cell phone.

  Need total concentration. Problem is: how to be in the zone for two hours at a stretch? Is that even possible?

  ***Turn***

  There it is, right below . . . starting to vanish behind the bow. Peel off to port to avoid a red cell charging underneath with a string of platelets behind it. Slam the shift into reverse. Full throttle. Primus wallowing in its own propwash. Is the opening still there?

  ***Turn back!******Turn back!***

  Easy for her to say.

  “Is your navigation system capable of distinguishing among this many blood vessels and telling me where to go?”

  Hunter wasn’t making friends. Tamiko said coldly, “My screen will show a tracking icon superimposed on the image of the blood vessels, projecting the estimated location of the Primus at a given time. I’ll also have a readout of the probability that the location is correct, based on speed, time elapsed, size of the artery and other factors. We can assume that probability percentages will drop as the mission goes on and the estimated distance from the starting point becomes less and less reliable. In the meantime, I’ll give you simple directions to keep you on course—they’ll appear in text in your visual display. If the percentages drop too low, we wait until we have more data. Or scrub the mission.”

  Hunter couldn’t help shaking his head. “There are dozens of off-branchings—up, down, on every side—what if we make a wrong turn? How can we expect to be right every time?”

  Tamiko didn’t reply.

  After a long moment Gage said simply, “Because we have to be.”

  Reverse thrust isn’t enough. Only managing to stand still against the current. Going to have to make a quick turn of the ship and use forward screws.

  Scan the vicinity for obstacles. Flip the thruster fans to oppose each other and push up the power.

  This thing spins like a top—that’s a big help.

  Making some headway now. Slow, but sure.
Don’t need more than three-quarters power. Keep some in reserve. Is it best to travel past the junction, then turn around and approach with the current again? Or try to drive straight in, first time?

  The direct approach. Need to know if the ship can do it.

  OK, pure cussedness, too.

  Easing slowly over to starboard. Watch for oncoming blood cells. They might be going the same way, into the branch. Not good to be sideswiped against a wall.

  Nearly there. A red blood cell and several platelets approaching, probably heading for the turnoff. Ease back to two-thirds throttle to maintain station and wait for them to go first. Caution, not courtesy.

  Now it’s Primus’ turn. Hit the throttle and ease inward. Plenty of room to enter the tunnel sideways and then straighten out once the ship is well inside. Easy does it.

  Voices again—that low background rumbling. No text command—just chatter? Distracting. Worse than that: disconnecting. A noticeable drop in visual and aural acuity, as if the whole scene recedes a little. Got to concentrate. Tune out the noise.

  One white blood cell appearing out of the gloom, coming toward the junction. Should have seen it earlier. Better to back off and wait. Not smart to try to outrace a blob of protein the size of an amusement park.

  Wait. It’s not turning! It’s coming straight on like a freight train. No way to dodge around it, absolutely no way.

  No choice but to run.

  Full reverse. Snap spin and slam the throttle forward again. Go like hell!

  Neck and back muscles knotting up in anticipation of the collision. Is it going to hit?

  No. A major kick in the ass, but probably only the bow wave. Primus must have matched speed just in time. Now got to ease to starboard and get out of the monster’s path. Not easy when the damn thing takes up most of the tunnel.

  ***Turn back! ******Off course!*** ***Off course!***

  No shit.

  No turning back now. Way too far past the turn—it would take a half-hour or more at full throttle even if the way were completely clear. And it wouldn’t be.

  Like trying to swim up a logging flume.

  No way. Have to find a sheltered spot, maybe on the inside of a curve. Pull over and maintain a holding thrust.

  Pull the plug. Rethink the options.

  This run is over.

  12

  Kellogg thought about the money newly deposited in his secret account. It was an obscene amount, but he’d need to pay top dollar for the people and hardware he would require.

  He was smiling, though none of his pleasure showed in his cold eyes or thin eyebrows. Having a mission to work on always put him in a good mood. The target group of civilians—scientists, mostly—would be easy to intimidate. Their security infrastructure was deliberately low profile. That was something Kellogg could exploit. And the fact that the target complex was on Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, home of the First Fighter Wing, made it an irresistible challenge.

  He spread a series of aerial photographs over the table in front of him. He scarcely needed them—he was thoroughly familiar with the area. Yet sometimes seeing everything laid out on paper triggered ideas.

  His first glance produced a handful of possibilities right away. The base itself was on a point of land bordered on two sides by the Back River. The target facility was located in the northern part of the base near a residential section, and close to some undeveloped land that lay between the river proper and the mouth of a large creek. It was a perfect setting for a clandestine night landing. The golf course not far from the lab had a lot of open space, but still a substantial amount of cover.

  Although there was excellent road access to the base, trying to bluff the way through guarded gates with a dozen men using false documents was too great a risk.

  Yes, by water would be the best way. With such a large municipal area surrounding the base, it would be easy enough to marshal his team and their equipment in one of the nearby neighborhoods, or bring them in on the night of the mission in a couple of vans. Pull up on one of the darker streets near the waterfront—who would pay any attention to them, or do anything about it if they did?

  He’d draw up a few different scenarios later, when most of his team had arrived.

  There was Kowalski—an ingenious planner. Rakov, one of the best night insertion men he knew. The rest had been recruited in the usual way, by careful calls to cell phones, and subtly worded ads.

  He’d had some of his best success with the military’s own publications and web sites. Ex-military people still tended to keep up with the world they knew, through its press and other media. There were a lot of ex-military types out there, looking for money. Even the former elite of the special services.

  It had always been a mystery to Kellogg that the armed forces of nearly every country in the world could be willing to spend so much on training their soldiers, and then so tightfisted when it came to paying their salaries. It made no sense. If you didn’t reward good people, you lost them. The corporate world had recognized that for years.

  But the military was funded by government, paid for by taxes, watched over by elected watchdogs who based decisions on the way the latest political wind was blowing. Even the highly trained and motivated special forces soldiers like Navy Seals and Delta Force, who would tell you they did it for their country, sometimes lost their enthusiasm when they saw how little their country did for them. Then it just took the right nudge to bring them to Kellogg.

  He found ripe pickings from among the discards of the American and Canadian military communities, and several of the mainland European countries. Not so many Brits—their attitude was different, somehow . . . maybe a holdover from their success against long odds in the World Wars.

  Of course there was an endless supply of soldiers from former Soviet republics, if you just wanted muscle. None of those countries could afford their war machines anymore, so even with recent Russian recruitment a lot of lifetime soldiers went begging, looking for any kind of work. A bit old, perhaps, but they followed orders and asked no questions.

  The timeline was going to be tight; they’d have to be ready within five or six days, for a mission just days after that. Not much time to get them armed, refine the plan, and most of all, practice it until they could perform flawlessly on the darkest of nights. He didn’t anticipate much resistance, but he was not a man to take chances. Even with the simplest missions and the best plans, sometimes the difference between success and death was a sudden cruel turn of bad luck.

  With a lifetime deliberately spent on the fringes of the establishment, he’d learned that the successful made their own luck. Many years of careful planning, swallowing his pride and pandering to wealthy fools had finally put him in a position to take his rightful place and exact some sweet revenge.

  The masquerade would soon be over.

  13

  “What was all that chatter out here? Were you guys ordering a pizza, or what?” Hunter slammed a palm against the wall, just as Devon Kierkegaard entered the room.

  “I was monitoring from my office. What happened?”

  “Hunter missed the turn,” Tamiko snapped. “The ship is off course . . . too far to go back.” She flung herself into a nearby chair and crossed her arms over her chest. Gage just stood still, looking uncomfortable.

  “What’s this about ordering a pizza?”

  “It was nothing like that,” Gage replied. “Tamiko and I were discussing the next part of the course. The difficulties that would be coming up, and how the nav system was working. We weren’t even talking loudly—we didn’t want the voice recognition unit to pick it up.”

  The project head turned to Hunter and simply looked the question.

  “I believe them,” the pilot said with a sigh. He turned away, gently shaking his head. “But it was still a distraction. It seems that if I’m able to concentrate fully—really focus—I get much more from the VR equipment. My brain adjusts to it, or . . . some
thing.”

  He looked earnestly at his new boss. “If anything competes for my attention, like trying to interpret slowed-down speech, I lose some of the contact. In this case, I might have seen the white blood cell coming in time to avoid it, or steered the Primus into the other artery first. I can’t say for sure. I do know that we just don’t have any margin of error in this damn job.” Frustrated, he slumped against the wall and began rolling his head slowly from side to side to ease the knotted muscles in his neck.

  Kierkegaard didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then he raised his head in a decisive posture they were coming to recognize.

  “We’re learning everything as we go—there are bound to be surprises. I chose all of you because I believe you can handle them. However . . . .” He turned to Tamiko and Gage. “We will try from now on to make this room as free from distractions as we possibly can. Dr. Tamiko, would it be possible to make it so that Mr. Hunter can navigate for himself? Eliminate the middle man—or woman—so to speak?”

  The pilot nodded. “Maybe give me the navigation data directly in my heads up display. A flashing warning icon to indicate a turn coming up would probably work as well as a verbal command. Might even be quicker.” He looked at Tamiko with an expression of apology, and pleading at the same time, knowing that it was yet another unreasonable demand on her time. Her initial angry reaction evaporated.

  “You people need to give me a little more help. Like maybe Microsoft.”

  The sudden humor was so unexpected it drew a burst of laughter from them all. The tension in the room broke. Then Kierkegaard clapped his hands together.

  “In the meantime, what’s our next step? Can we get back on course? Or must we try to retrieve the Primus and start over again?

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Gage said. “Lucy, pull up the graphics of the area again. A little larger. There, you see? The lymph system. If we could just find . . . .