Nerve Center

by Dale Brown

  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.

  Dreamland Administrative Offices (“Taj”), Level 1

  18 February, 1545

  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.

  Dreamland Bunker B, Subbasement

  18 February, 1545

  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 pa
tterns 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.

  Dreamland Bunker B, Computer Lab

  18 February, 1600

  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 b
itch?” 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.