The Primus Labyrinth

by Scott Overton

  Maybe the problem wasn’t that profound. If the brain is an ultra-sophisticated computer, then what he needed was multi-tasking, like driving a car and having a conversation. Or reading music and performing it at the same time.

  He needed to train his brain to distinguish between the elements of the VR feed that were desirable, and those that were only distractions. But then he realized that he’d already been doing that since the very first mission. As his mind gradually forged its new link, it had, on its own, begun to discard the poorer raw material of the computer feed.

  It was a hopeful sign. He was eager put the idea to the test, but it would have to wait.

  He could hear the approach of the drumming heart.

  There was work to do.

  28

  Hunter’s first mission on his own was a bust. Though he was certain there were still bombs in the approaches to the left kidney, he’d failed to find them.

  He needed Tamiko’s maps. They showed the most likely locations of bombs, and the best routes to them. Without them, he was adrift in a liquid labyrinth. Yet he could only see them with the VR switched on, and that was like throwing a veil over his newfound sight. He was certain he had missed seeing the bombs because of the limitations of the VR gear.

  Time to take a break and let his subconscious go to work on the problem.

  Bridges caught him on the way to the mess.

  Another head-shrinking session didn’t qualify as a rest, but Hunter couldn’t think of a way to get out of it.

  The doctor started the game with a curveball.

  “Were you healthy as a child?”

  Hunter began to cross his arms but caught himself and rested his hands on his legs instead.

  “I suppose you’ve accessed my medical records. So you know I had chickenpox. Nothing more serious than that.”

  “There are references to one overnight hospital stay, but no explanation. You were…eight. What was that for?”

  “I didn’t have a mental breakdown, if that’s what you’re asking. I…had a lousy stomach as a kid. Bad digestion. Cramps. Sudden attacks of diarrhea. A weak bladder sometimes, too. They checked me in for some tests. Didn’t find anything. It cleared up on its own as I got older.”

  Bridges leaned on his hand and tapped a finger against his lips. “Barium enema. Cystoscopy. Local x-rays. All very invasive treatments, especially to a young boy.”

  “I didn’t enjoy it. What are you getting at?”

  “Were you abused as a child?”

  “Hell no!” Hunter snapped straight. “Now you’re sounding like those assholes hired by my former employers. If this is just a fishing expedition, we’re done here.”

  The doctor waved him back into his seat and his voice took an apologetic tone.

  “You’re badly troubled by the thought that you’re operating inside the body of someone who hasn’t given their consent.”

  “Who doesn’t even know what’s been done to her!”

  Bridges gave a nod of acknowledgment. “I just wondered if there was a personal reason it bothered you so much. Sexual abuse is extremely traumatic, but even your hospital experience could explain some of your feelings.”

  “Nobody abused me. Don’t even go there.”

  “Bullied at school? Made to stick things in your throat, your nose, or…other places?”

  Hunter looked away and didn’t answer. At least Bridges had the good grace not to take notes.

  “All right. Let’s look at your hate for psychiatrists. You were badly mistreated by the company doctors. Tricked, bullied, given some very powerful drugs without your full knowledge. But is there more to it than that? What about your family history?”

  Hunter realized he was chewing his lip. His arms had crossed, too, but he left them that way.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but since it’s probably on one of those pages in front of you, my mother spent thousands of dollars on a therapist who made her cry for a half-hour every week over being an unfit mother and wife, and then made sure she spent the rest of the time doped to the gills. A family friend finally introduced her to a support group and within months she was fine. Never suffered depression again.”

  Bridges leaned back with a look of sudden understanding. He said nothing for nearly a minute, then spoke softly.

  “Do you see the connection? It’s not surprising that you’re repelled by the thought of being an intruder into someone’s most personal and private places.”

  Hunter said nothing, but he could feel the worst of his anger ebb away. Maybe it was true. And maybe it was worthwhile to know such things about his own motivations and hangups. It didn’t change what had to be done, but it might make some actions easier to accept.

  “Are we finished?” he asked.

  “It’s up to you. You’re really the driver here—I’m just a passenger.”

  Hunter snorted. It was such a cliché thing to say. Bridges usually did better.

  He left for the control room, forgetting about his plan to grab a snack in the mess. His attention was already returning to the dilemma of his split vision when navigating the bloodstream. He needed both his VR instrument readouts and his new mind-sight.

  Bridges’ driving metaphor had triggered one of his own: he needed to be able to read the dashboard of the car while still having a clear view of the road ahead.

  Maybe that was a parallel the mind would accept.

  The first step was to be able to cut through the interference from the VR feed and tap into the rich flow of sensory data from his mind’s new link without physically hitting the kill switch. Long periods of travel in large arteries were a blessing there. He forced himself to relax, and tried to cultivate the elusive sense of dasein, of belonging.

  For a long time the improvements were barely noticeable—a bit more definition, a touch more color. It was frustrating, because he wanted it so badly. . . really longed to be there, in the flesh.

  That was when reality finally bloomed.

  It was the wanting that counted—the fervent desire for transcendence.

  He reveled again in the glory of metamorphosis, becoming a creature of the bloodstream—a weapon in its arsenal in the battle for life.

  He drank in the sensations, fixing them in his consciousness. Then gradually he experimented with letting part of his mind picture the VR instruments. He thought of it like looking at his wrist to check his watch. The muscles of the eye could make quick jumps in focus from the far to the near, and perhaps he could train his mind to do the same.

  Yes. There were flickers of something.

  It was like trying to see an image in one of those 3D pictures you could buy—a hidden shape that would suddenly jump out of a repetitive design, if you got the focus right. Some people never could see them.

  There! A series of red numbers and lines, floating in space. Nebulous, but better than nothing. He spent the next half-hour practicing how to make the readouts come and go.

  It wasn’t perfect, but he could function. Better than he’d had any right to hope.

  And he found the rest of the bombs.

  # # #

  Since their patient had already left the clinic, Primus couldn’t be removed from her body. She would be gone for two days. They’d never left the ship inside her for anything close to that long. The body was a dynamic environment like few others, and it was too risky to leave Primus adrift in the bloodstream.

  “Could we hide it inside a cell?” the pilot asked. “A tissue cell. . . one that wouldn’t be going anywhere.”

  “As far as we know,” Mallory replied, “the body responds to any direct cellular damage.”

  “Plenty of time for something to wreck the lipid coating and the sensor array,” Gage said.

  “What about between a bunch of cells?” Hunter persisted. “There’s got to be lots of debris lying around in there that never draws the attention of a cleanup crew.”

  “How wou
ld you keep it from popping loose?” Tamiko asked. “Like a bar of soap from a wet fist.”

  In the end, he maneuvered Primus into a tiny dead-end offshoot of a lymphatic vessel that wouldn’t be expected to see much traffic, dug deeply into the wall, and spread the manipulator arms like a grappling hook. Then he set the engine revs and prepared to leave.

  He didn’t really want to. There was no rush—the patient was due to fly out of Langley AFB within the hour, but that was plenty of time on Primus’ scale. He could tell the others that he’d wanted to stick around for a while, to see if the plan was going to work.

  It would be a good chance to practice his multi-tasking.

  He relaxed his mind—willing himself into the transitional state.

  Colors in surrounding tissues became increasingly vivid, and for the first time he found he could see through the semi-transparent membrane of the nearest cell, into the mysterious workings inside it. Long, oblong shapes drifted slowly past indistinct strands of grey, and farther away he could see a large, round, shadowy object. The nucleus? He wished he could remember more of his high school biology lessons.

  Whatever processes were taking place within the cell were happening at a rate too slow to see without time-lapse photography. He decided to close his eyes and test his other senses. Did the ocean of life really sound like the swells and surf of that greater ocean he knew so well? Yes, although it was muffled, perhaps by cellular material pushed up against the sensor array. Even here, even now, if he listened closely, he could discern the beat of the distant heart, as its rhythm rolled in waves through myriad liquid passageways and resonant tissues.

  Drum of life, indeed.

  Primus had no equipment to reproduce smell or taste. Yet Hunter had a definite body awareness. Now, without distractions, he seemed to feel the delicate wash of the fluid lymph at his back, and the elastic, enveloping touch of the cell membranes around him, perhaps even providing him with some of their warmth (or was that just imagination?) It felt. . . protective. Womb-like, perhaps. Comforting.

  He was completely relaxed.

  Vulnerable.

  It began as an ache in his chest. A tightening; a constriction growing so slowly that it formed a dull knot of pain before he noticed it. For a frightening moment he wondered if he was having a heart attack. But this wasn’t distress from a physical cause—it was a longing, a yearning. . . . A fierce need.

  Where in the world had that come from?

  A spark of adrenaline ran along his nerves and pricked at his skin. It quickly deepened into a spreading anxiety, potent and chilling, and finally into a pervasive swell of fear.

  What was happening? Was the VR malfunctioning? Or the electrodes? Were they scrambling his neurons to the point of schizophrenia?

  He didn’t wait to find out. He snapped the kill switch and left Primus and its suddenly threatening domain behind.

  There were more than enough disturbing emotions in his own world.

  29

  The submersible was like a tomb. Would soon become a tomb, as he raspingly drew the last traces of breathable air into his lungs and used it up. Darkness. Pressure. The pressure of the dark.

  The watery night was like a vise that would contract, and ultimately crush as the victim took its final fall.

  But then... an unexpected reprieve.

  Perhaps the sub had become wedged between boulders. Would it stay there long enough for rescue to come from the world of light far above? From the. . . oil rig, that was it. He remembered people there—a lovely Asian woman, an angry man with white hair, a black man with a face full of sympathy. Would they rescue him? Would they bother?

  They’d have to hurry. The Dark had long fingers that dug beneath the craft and tried to pry it loose. To take it for its own. He was the intruder. The invader. He could not escape.

  He felt his own rage well up.

  It wasn’t fair! He’d done nothing wrong.

  He raised his hands, ready to wield them like hammers. . . to smash and shatter.

  A voice cried to him to stop.

  Whose voice?

  It was coming from somewhere inside him. He could feel desperation, like a drum, beating against the wall of his chest. He had to let it out.

  Choking a last few breaths, he dug fingers deep between his ribs and ripped the offending flesh away. Even in the pitch blackness he saw it shred and tear, until he had laid bare the beating heart itself.

  And then, from within the heart the voice began to speak. . . .

  He rolled to the edge of the bed retching, his dark green T-shirt soaked with sweat. Breath came in ragged gasps.

  Staggering to his feet to flee the bed and its evil dreams, he groped for the support of the wall but slid slowly into a limp sprawl on the floor, fighting an overpowering urge to weep. It was an eternity before his shivering finally stopped. The clock in front of him read 6:45.

  He would get dressed. He would find himself a cup of strong coffee.

  And he would go to see Kierkegaard.

  # # #

  “What did you say?”

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Kierkegaard was stunned. His mouth opened as if to speak, then he looked at Bridges, who was equally dumbfounded.

  “Hunter, you can’t be serious. Can’t do it anymore? What is that supposed to mean?” An angry flush reddened the man’s face. “Do you think this is a game we’re playing?”

  “No, sir.” Hunter tried to keep eye contact, but couldn’t. “I know it’s a matter of life or death. That’s why someone else has to take over.” Before the others could interrupt, he looked up at Bridges. “You were right. All of the doctors were right.” There was fear in his eyes.

  “I’m losing it,” Hunter said softly.

  Bridges forestalled a hot-tempered reply from Kierkegaard with a quick gesture of his hand. This was serious. The project hung in the balance.

  “It’s all right, Hunter,” he said gently, noticing for the first time the clammy pallor of the other’s skin. “Take it slowly. Sit down. We have the time. We just want to understand.”

  Kierkegaard took the hint and sat in one of the nearby chairs, not behind the desk. It took a major effort for him to keep silent. Hunter slowly sank into the other chair. Bridges perched on the edge of the desk.

  “What’s happened?” the doctor asked. “Why do you say you’re losing it?”

  “Wicked dreams, for one thing. I’ve had bad dreams for a long time—since the accident. But they’re worse now. Much worse.” He couldn’t repress a shudder. “You expect strange stuff from dreams, so I didn’t attach any meaning to it, but now. . . ”

  “Dreams can be a guide to what’s troubling us, but they’re not a road map. Impossible to interpret with any certainty, no matter what anyone says.” Bridges tried to sound gently reassuring. “Is this only about the dreams?” he prompted.

  “No.” Hunter sighed. He looked into their faces, willing them to believe him. “I’m feeling things that can’t be there. Like another. . . presence—I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “All of the time? Most of the time?”

  “When I’m hooked up to the VR, at least. And. . . sudden mood changes. Strong feelings, for no reason. I mean, really strong. Doctor. . . .” His voice quavered. “Could the electrodes in the VR helmet be causing some kind of schizophrenia?”

  “Schizophrenia?” Bridges couldn’t hide his surprise. “You have no history of schizophrenia, and there’s none in your family—it would have been red-flagged. Why would you suspect it?”

  “Some of the symptoms—hallucinations. . . a feeling of persecution.”

  “Paranoia. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “We all have some of that in this business,” Kierkegaard interrupted. “Unfortunately, we need to. But Hunter.. . . ” He tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice. “I’m curious about why you think this has something to do with the equipment. The VR setu
p.”

  “Gage explained to me that the electrodes work to make the brain more susceptible to the illusion. To make the experience more real. Well it damned well works! I’m having trouble knowing what is real anymore. Inside, outside. . . which one of them is reality? What if I lose the ability to tell the difference?” The prospect clearly terrified him.

  “The electrode system has been thoroughly tested

  . . . ” Kierkegaard began.

  “Not on someone who was already mentally ill.”

  He had said it. The thing he feared most. It did not bring relief, as movies portrayed. Only a deep feeling of shame.

  Silence fell like a pall. Bridges didn’t know how to proceed. He didn’t dare say the wrong thing—the stakes were enormous. Kierkegaard was numbed by the turn of events.

  Hunter slowly got to his feet.

  “I only know that I can’t do this. If I continue this way, I’m going to wreck something. Do some damage that we can’t fix. Then everything’s lost. You’ve got to replace me.”

  “With whom?” Kierkegaard asked, so quietly that it seemed as if he were reluctant to let the words escape his mouth.

  “Train Gage or Tamiko to do it. They’re both incredibly sharp. They know things about the systems that I. . . ”

  “Tamiko has never even tried to pilot Primus. Neither has any experience with submersibles.”

  “You’ve got to have a simulator program around here somewhere! Try them out on that. I’ll help them any way I can.” He shook off a spasm of guilt and continued, “We have two days until the patient returns. Tell them. . . for now, tell them that I’m exhausted—that we need to have a backup for me, in case of emergency. Then we can see which one of them performs the best.”

  “You can’t leave the base,” Kierkegaard reminded him.

  “I know that.” Hunter swallowed. “I’m not fit to be anywhere else, anyway.”

  He left the room quietly and walked down the hall.