by JC Ryan
Finally, they were seated in a secluded alcove of the restaurant that Theo had requested when he arrived. Part of the wait was because that was the only table he’d accept. They placed their orders, and when they were finally alone, Theo leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Tell me, please, how you did it. My student believed you would perish in the attempt, or that it was a fairy tale you told us in the first place.”
Carter and Sean looked at each other, questioning the wisdom of disobeying Irene to explain everything to this man, without whose help they would not have been able to effect the rescue. An understanding passed between them, and Sean gave Carter a slight nod.
Carter fixed Theo with a serious gaze. “What we’re about to tell you is top-secret, and we could be prosecuted for telling you. Your having the knowledge will be dangerous. Do you still want to know?”
“I’m not sure,” Theo said honestly. “Do I?”
“If you want to know how we did it, then yes. But you can’t tell your student, or anyone else. If this gets out, your life may be in danger.”
“From whom?” Theo asked.
“From our government, for starters,” Sean growled.
“Then no, I think I do not want to know still,” Theo said, grinning. “But it’s true? You did what they are saying in the newspapers? You rescued your children from below ground?”
“It’s true,” Carter answered. “I’m sorry we can’t tell you how. If it is ever declassified, I’ll let you know and tell you the whole story.”
“I would appreciate that,” Theo said. “And now, let us enjoy our meal.”
“Only if you’ll let me buy it,” Carter answered. “We owe you.”
“In that case, I would like to order a bottle of wine to go with the meal, and a round of ouzo for right now,” Theo said. He winked and summoned the server. “Your finest ouzo for my friends,” he requested.
A few moments later, he raised his glass with the cloudy liquid, diluted with just a splash of ice-cold water, and declaimed, “stin uyeia sou!”
Carter chuckled at Sean’s baffled expression and raised his own glass. “And to your health as well!”
Sean’s expression cleared. He raised his own glass. “Down the hatch!” Then he shuddered at the strong anise taste as he took the first sip, following Theo’s lead. Given his choice, he’d have ‘shot’ it – swallowed it in one gulp. But when in Greece…
A few days later, everyone was released to return to their various duty stations and homes. Carter had summoned the plane back to Crete and put the pilot on a commercial flight back to Spain. Before the flight back to Freydis, he inspected every inch of his favorite toy. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found. The galley was fully stocked, and everything arranged as it should be. His pre-flight routine revealed all systems were go. With the plane full of A-Echelon and Executive Advantage team members, Sean in the co-pilot’s seat, and Carter at the controls, they took off for home.
43
MACKENZIE WAS EAGER to get Carter and Sean into the lab to do some evaluations. Only then could they make any decision about whether to remove the respirocyte generators from their bodies until further animal testing could be done.
Carter and Sean both objected. Neither wanted an invasive surgery, which would be required to remove the mesh cage containing the generators. Both were enjoying the effects of increased oxygen uptake – a feeling of euphoria that Carter attributed to increased strength and vigor. And neither liked hospitals or anything resembling them.
“In other words,” Makenzie explained to her team, “typical men.”
The team laughed dutifully. There was nothing typical about either of these men, even before they were enhanced with respirocytes.
A week had passed since Carter had brought the team home, and still he and Sean, whom Irene had insisted remain at Tala until the decision about the surgery had been made, balked at coming in for their evaluations. They were too busy training, they claimed. Mackenzie had heard from Dylan that each was outperforming the rest of the team put together. That was one way of evaluating them, she supposed, but she wanted measurable data.
On the Monday morning following their week of excuses, she used the ruse of needing to see Liam’s teacher about something to accompany Carter to Tala. After they went their separate ways inside the gate, Mackenzie went a different route to the training grounds to secretly observe.
Today, the entire group was doing obstacle courses. The object of the exercise was to hone their abilities to go over, around, under, or through any barrier to their objective. To Mackenzie, it looked like a dirty and exhausting game, but every face she could see was smiling. Evidently these young men thought it was fun.
As she watched, Mackenzie realized the trainees were vying to be the fastest at getting through the course. She began to time them as they raced to the first obstacle, a ten-foot or so wall, and scrambled over it. She couldn’t see the entire course, as it was laid out in a circle. She could see the starting point and as the first group came around, now muddy and some limping, she saw it was also the end. They had to scramble back over the wall to the finish line. But in the ten minutes in between, they must have had some challenging obstacles, because no one got back over the wall with the same ease they’d gone over it in the beginning.
The trainees were taking the course in groups of four. Mackenzie had missed timing the first group until she realized it was a race. That group came back around spread out by nearly thirty seconds, and the last man endured a good-natured shoving back and forth between the other three when they were done. That’s when Mackenzie started timing the next group. The second group also took about ten minutes, and each of the groups after that took a little less time. She surmised that they’d been grouped by speed and ability, the newer recruits going first, and then the more experienced or more athletic coming afterward.
Then she recognized Carter and Sean in the last group, matched with Dylan and one other man she didn’t know. This was going to be interesting. She knew Dylan to be highly competitive in everything he did. Her money, though, was on Sean. She felt no disloyalty to Carter in thinking that. It was Sean’s job to be in top physical condition, and he had the musculature developed over long years to attest to his excellence. He was also highly competitive. Carter, on the other hand, was more likely to compete against his own personal best. He wanted to excel, not because it was his job – or not all the time – but because he drove himself hard, believing that the gifts of intellect and wealth he’d been given obligated him to make a difference in the world.
The starting gun fired, and the three men she knew well hit the wall within a split second of each other. The fourth man was already a second or two behind. Carter and Sean almost leaped over the wall. With their arms extended, they had no trouble catching the top, but where Dylan caught the top and then used his feet to propel him over, Carter and Sean both simply pulled strongly, pushed off when their upper bodies cleared the top, and flipped to land on their feet on the other side.
Mackenzie wasn’t sure what to make of it, until she noticed the fourth man stopped on the ground, his mouth hanging open as he stared at the disappearing backs of Carter and Sean, with Dylan trailing yards behind. Then he dispiritedly began to trot away from her, evidently determined to finish the course, but knowing he’d be last no matter what.
Five minutes later, Sean and Carter came back into view. They were as muddy as the others had been, but still moving fast. Sean took the wall one second ahead of Carter, but because he was heavier she suspected, Carter made up half the second before they made the finish line. They were high-fiving for two minutes before Dylan appeared. He finished a full three minutes after them – still the best time for a non-enhanced man. Carter and Sean absorbed him into a circle of three and slapped him on the back. Mackenzie surmised he’d just beat a personal, or maybe a camp record.
She turned away, smiling. Pleased that Carter had acquitted himself well against Sean, she wondere
d if she could bring herself to take away what he was clearly enjoying. But the ethical issues her team had wrestled with since the old lab rat had shown early indications of the side effects remained. And they still didn’t know whether Sean and Carter would be affected with the worst of them – the antisocial behavior. She understood intellectually that Carter hadn’t meant to kill Bashar, only keep him from killing Sean. But emotionally, she wondered if he hadn’t squeezed just a little bit too hard because of the respirocytes.
Without letting them know she’d been there, she went back to the school, spoke to Liam’s and Beth’s teachers to learn if they were showing any signs of maladjustment after their ordeal, and then went back home. She called her dad and asked him to take the children hiking or fishing after school, so she could have a serious and private conversation with Carter. And then she went to her lab. It was time to sacrifice Methuselah to learn what they could about his change of temperament.
WHEN SHE GOT to her lab, she had several requisition orders to sign, and a few of the scientists wanted her opinion of this or that. It was nearly noon before she had a chance to talk to the veterinarian. She asked her research assistant to busy herself elsewhere and gave her mother the rest of the day off. Then she called in her tender-hearted veterinarian for a consultation she thought would be difficult.
“How is it going?” she asked him first.
“Well! We have been experimenting with the number of generators needed to achieve optimal results. They’ve improved the mesh cages. I don’t think we’ve had any more mishaps with roaming nanobots. I’ve been constructing more and more complex mazes, and there seems to be no limit to the subjects’ capacity to learn them within hours. For my money, it’s an unqualified success,” he answered. But his eyes shifted away from hers as he uttered the last sentence.
“Truly? How are Methuselah and your second subject doing? Have any of the others showed similar signs of antisocial behavior?”
He couldn’t look at her as he answered. “Well – I can’t say for sure. Maybe the others are just reacting to Methuselah’s treatment of them.”
“Pushing back against a bully, now that they can match him physically?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“Something like that,” he answered.
“You know,” she said gently, “we still need to understand what happened with Methuselah. And now maybe with the others. I’m afraid it’s time for that examination we talked about.”
“I understand. I appreciate your delicacy, but I’ve come to realize I’ve been valuing the lives of non-sentient animals over humans. I still wish there were a way to test the safety of new drugs and procedures without harming animals, but I can do what you need me to. I’ll do it this afternoon.”
Mackenzie sighed in relief after he left. She would have hated to have to fire him, but his previous attitude had made her wonder if he was up to the job. Now she knew why he was available. As a brilliant researcher, he should have been in great demand. No one had warned her in her background checks on him that he was too sensitive for the work. But now it seemed he’d work out.
She went home for lunch, as did most of the workers on Freydis. It was one of the perks of working in a tight-knit and geographically close community. But unlike in a big city, they had the rural ease of living and beauty of the surroundings to enjoy as well. Mackenzie thought of it as heaven on earth, and as far as she knew, their employees did, too.
At home, she found a freshly showered Carter fixing lunch for them. “Hi, honey!” she said, standing on tiptoe for a kiss. “Do anything interesting today?”
“Had some fun at Tala,” he answered. “Did you enjoy the performance?”
“How did you know I was there?” she asked, amazed but disconcerted. She’d concealed herself well, she thought.
“My vision seems to be improving, as well as everything else. I caught sight of you watching from the trees when I went over the wall.”
“You bum! You didn’t give any indication,” she said. She punched him lightly.
“Didn’t want to spoil your fun. So, what did you think?” he asked.
“I think you and Sean need to quit stalling and come in for your evaluations. It’s important, Carter. I’m concerned about a few things, but even if my concern turns out to be unfounded, we can still find out valuable information for the later human trials.”
“I’ll talk to Sean, and we’ll be in tomorrow. But can you tell me what you’re concerned about?” he answered.
“There’s still an indication that the respirocytes might be responsible for some degree of antisocial disorder,” she said. “To be honest, I’ve been concerned about what happened in that cave.” Seeing Carter opening his mouth to protest, she held up her hand. “I’m not very concerned, Carter. I haven’t seen anything since that day to worry me. But we’re examining the first rat subject’s brain this afternoon for evidence of changes. If we see anything to indicate it’s more than just a nanobot lodged somewhere it shouldn’t be, I’m going to want to remove the generators from you and Sean. I’m sorry if that spoils your fun.”
Carter frowned. “It isn’t just fun, Mackie. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to feel like this. Like I could be like Superman. You know, ‘faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.’”
Mackenzie felt a thrill of alarm. “That’s a problem, Carter! Don’t you see? You can’t do any of that, not even with the respirocytes. It worries me that you may try to do something that will get you killed, just because you feel like you can. Now I think we need a psych evaluation, too.”
Carter’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious!”
“Please, Carter. For me. Just to make sure you can trust your own judgement.”
He shook his head. “All right. If it will make you feel better. But I’m sure your fears are unfounded.”
“Then there’s no reason not to undergo the tests, right?” she said.
44
MACKENZIE OBSERVED METHUSELAH’S euthanasia. The vet was dry-eyed as he injected the sedative that would put the rat humanely to sleep, then suppress his respiration until he expired. Mackenzie considered it a good sign.
When the rat had quit breathing a few minutes later, she also observed the preparation of its brain tissue for electron microscope examination. They were looking for the missing respirocyte generator. If they found it in the part of Methuselah’s brain that corresponded to a primate’s prefrontal cortex, specifically that part responsible for social behavior, then it would be arguable that the nanobot’s presence there could account for the rat’s behavior. However, then they would have to examine other rat brains to verify it was the diamondoid fullerene, rather than the generated respirocytes, at fault.
Mackenzie found herself periodically holding her breath and consciously remembering to breathe as the veterinarian prepared each slide for examination. For what seemed like hours, he carved impossibly thin slices of frozen brain matter, stained them with the dyes that would help differentiate structures, and transferred them meticulously to dozens of slides.
Sometime during the afternoon, Irene unexpectedly joined her. “Hey, Mackenzie. Did you get my message?” she whispered.
Mackenzie looked up, startled, and shook her head to bring herself back to a broader focus. “I guess not. You mean the one where you let us know you were coming?”
Irene shook with silent laughter. “Yeah, that’s the one. Carter let me know you were here, and what’s going on. Want to fill me in a little more?”
Reluctantly, Mackenzie left her post. She knew she didn’t need to supervise. It was only the stakes of the examination that had kept her there. She quietly told the veterinarian she was leaving but would be in her office, and then left him to his work.
As they walked down the hall, Mackenzie asked, “So, what did Carter tell you, exactly?”
“Something about you thought he might turn into a serial killer if you left those nanob
ots in his body,” Irene said. She laughed, which Mackenzie took to mean she was exaggerating.
“Well, maybe not a serial killer,” she said, with a little less humor. “But yes, there’s a concern about antisocial behavior. What brings you here on a Monday?” she asked.
“Three-day weekend in Washington. When Carter called to see if there was anything urgent on the horizon, he told me you might be doing surgery on him and Sean. I had to come see for myself. You can’t seriously mean to deprive the guys of their superhuman powers, can you?” This time she winked.
They’d reached Mackenzie’s office, and Mackenzie decided it was time to give Irene a full run-down on the research progress they’d made so far. When she’d finished, Irene was no longer joking.
“That would be a serious setback, wouldn’t it?” she observed.
“Yes. We’d have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to offset that side-effect, before it would be useful to DARPA or anyone else. And there are other ethical issues involved.” She explained the longevity issue, but Irene waved it off.
“I don’t see that as quite as much of a problem as you do,” she said. “Other medical advances have extended the average lifespan of humans. Why not double it?”
“Well, because this would do so artificially, not as a result of better genetics, better food, medicine, and medical care. We’d essentially have to give everyone the nanobots to be fair. And then there’s the question of how sustainable our standard of living would be, if everyone lived twice as long. The resources of the planet are already strained as it is.”
Irene nodded slowly. “I see you’ve given this quite a bit of thought. But let’s table that discussion for another time. If you determine the antisocial behavior is caused by the extra oxygen to the brain, then that becomes the first obstacle to overcome. After that, you can discuss the longevity issue with DARPA. But I suspect they’ll want you to continue anyway. There’s probably a solution.”
