Six

by Mark Alpert

  I shake my head. Her level of hostility is ridiculous. “So how did you end up here? Did General Hawke do a recruiting tour of juvenile detention centers?”

  “You think that’s funny?”

  “No, I’m serious. I can’t figure out what you’re doing here. You seem completely unstable.”

  “Shut up!” Zia grabs the arms of my wheelchair and leans over me. “If anyone doesn’t belong here, it’s you!”

  Marshall rises from the bed and comes toward us. “All right, Zia. Calm down. Please back away from your new friend Adam. I have a feeling this relationship isn’t going to work out.”

  Zia waits a few seconds, baring her teeth and breathing on me. Then she lets go of my wheelchair and steps away in disgust. “Look at him. It’s worse than I thought.”

  Marshall shrugs. “I don’t know about that. He seems to have some spunk.”

  “You’re dreaming, Baxley. He’ll never make it.” She sneers at me again, then heads for the door. “I’m out of here.”

  She darts out of the room, quiet as a cat. I take a deep breath as she disappears down the corridor. To be honest, I was a little worried when she grabbed my wheelchair. For a second I really thought she would smack me.

  She left the door open, so Marshall closes it. “My apologies, Adam. That didn’t go so well, did it?”

  “Yeah, no kidding. What’s her problem? She acts like a gangster.”

  “As a matter of fact, she did belong to a gang in Los Angeles. The Twelfth Street Bloods, she told me.”

  “Great, that’s just great. How did Hawke find her?”

  “She said her father was a captain in the Army, serving under Hawke. After her father died, the general kept in touch with her. He must’ve recommended her for the project when he learned she had cancer.”

  “And now we have a psycho on our team.”

  “That’s a strong word, Adam. I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s true that Zia has some trouble controlling her feelings. And right now she’s feeling a little negative about you.”

  “Why? Because I stared at her in the auditorium?”

  “No, because you’re first in line for the procedure. And she thinks she should be first.”

  I feel a surge of irritation. “You’re joking, right? Does it really make a difference who goes first?”

  “Actually it does.” Marshall steps closer to my wheelchair. “You see, Zia and I have been talking about what will happen if the first attempt isn’t a success. The procedure didn’t work for the adult volunteers, and it may not work for all of us either. General Hawke said you need a strong, resilient personality to successfully transfer your mind to the electronic circuits.”

  Standing beside my wheelchair, Marshall looks straight down at me. I can’t interpret the expression on his face, but I can read his body language, and it’s a little threatening. I return his stare. “Yeah, I remember Hawke said something like that.”

  “What Hawke didn’t say was what he’d do if the first attempt fails. I realize that the Army has spent a great deal of money on this project, and Hawke doesn’t seem like the kind of man who gives up easily. But if the first try is unsuccessful, he may reconsider the whole experiment. He wouldn’t want to continue killing children if he can’t save their minds. That’s why we’re concerned about you. If you fail, the rest of us may not even get a chance. The Army will send us back home and we’ll die in our beds.”

  Marshall’s head looms over me like one of those big African masks carved in dark wood. I know what he wants to say next, and I don’t like it one bit. “So you and Zia are worried that I’m not strong enough to make it?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Adam. Zia believes your father was playing favorites when he put you first in line. So we decided to pay you a visit to find out if we were in trouble or not. It was a bit of a test, if you know what I mean.”

  I know exactly what he means. They were studying me. They came to my room to see how tough I am. I’m angry and hurt, but mostly I’m disappointed. I thought I could make some new friends among the Pioneers, but Zia is a bully and Marshall is a weasel.

  My chest aches from talking for so long, but I’m determined not to show any weakness. I raise my right hand and point at Marshall. “Well, I have a message for you and Zia. I’m stronger than both of you.” I shift my hand, pointing at the door. “Now get out of my room.”

  Marshall stands there for a few seconds, staring. Then he reaches into the pocket of his jeans. “Yes, I had a feeling you might get upset. It’s understandable. We’ve been somewhat deceptive.” He pulls a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. “So I thought ahead and prepared a peace offering, a little gift to make amends for my doubts about you. It’s a poem written by Joseph Merrick, the original Elephant Man. He adapted it from an old hymn and put it at the end of all his letters. But here’s the strange thing: when I read the poem now, I think of the Pioneer Project.” He unfolds the paper, drops it in my lap, and steps toward the door. “Good-bye, Adam. And good luck tomorrow.”

  I wait until the door closes and I can no longer hear Marshall’s footsteps in the corridor. Then I pick up the paper and read the poem.

  ’Tis true my form is something odd,

  But blaming me is blaming God;

  Could I create myself anew,

  I would not fail in pleasing you.

  If I could reach from pole to pole

  Or grasp the ocean with a span,

  I would be measured by the soul;

  The mind’s the standard of the man.

  • • •

  Dad returns to my room ten minutes later. He apologizes for the delay—General Hawke had some last-minute questions—then tells me everything I need to know about tomorrow’s procedure.

  His voice is calm and patient. He warns me that I can’t be sedated. If the doctors give me sedatives to put me to sleep, the drugs would alter my brain chemistry and distort the copying of my memories. So I have to stay awake during the injection of the nanoprobes and the period afterward when the probes are spreading through my brain tissue. But Dad reassures me that I won’t feel any pain, not even when the scanner blasts its radiation into my head. The brain, unlike most organs in the body, has no pain receptors. Although it’s impossible to predict exactly what I’ll feel as the scanner records the patterns of my mind, at least I won’t be in agony.

  As Dad describes what will happen to me, he takes off my clothes and prepares me for bed. He’s done this so many times before that it’s almost automatic. His hands seem to move of their own accord, unzipping and unbuttoning. For years I’ve been embarrassed by the intimacy of this ritual, but now I know this is the last time Dad will put me to bed and I realize there’s something comforting about it. My fears subside and my eyes start to close as he wipes and washes and diapers me.

  I’m nearly asleep by the time he lays me down on the stiff mattress of the hospital bed. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I look up at him. “Dad? Why did you put me first?”

  “What?”

  “For the procedure. The first Pioneer.”

  He grabs a folded blanket from the foot of the bed. It’s a gray, wool Army blanket. “Because I knew you could handle it. The other volunteers will probably be fine too, but I can’t be certain about them. I don’t know them as well as I know you.”

  “So you think I’m strong enough?”

  “Of course. Adam, you’re the strongest person I know.”

  With a snap of his wrists, he shakes out the blanket. It billows over the bed, then gently settles on top of me.

  CHAPTER

  9

  The next morning Dad dresses me in a green hospital gown. Then the Army doctors come into my room and move me from the bed to a gurney.

  I feel somewhat detached as they wheel me down the corridors of Pioneer Base. It’s as if all of this is happening to so
meone else, a stranger with a shaved head. This feeling of detachment is helpful—it keeps me calm and unafraid. But then we enter the operating room and I see the scanning machine. It’s big and white and shaped like a giant doughnut with a three-foot-wide hole at its center. A long, stretcher-like table extends from the central hole of the scanner, and on the table is something that looks like a steel cage. I start trembling when I see the cage, which is about the size of a bread box. They’re going to put my head in that thing.

  Dad notices my reaction. He strides to the table and rests his hand on the cage. “This is called a stereotactic frame,” he says. “It’ll keep your head steady so we can inject the nanoprobes in the right places. To make sure you’re comfortable, the doctors will put some local anesthetic at the points where the frame is secured to your head.” He returns to the gurney and touches my temples. “Don’t worry. The anesthetic is like Novocaine, the stuff you get at the dentist’s. It just makes the skin numb. The doctors will also put some on the injection sites.”

  This is a strategy Dad’s used on me before. He overcomes my fears by lecturing me to death. While the Army doctors carry me to the table and strap me down, Dad tells me more details about the procedure. He describes how the nanoprobes will spread through my brain tissue until each cell is studded with tiny gold spheres. Then he points at the scanner and shows how the X-ray tubes on the rim of the central hole will fire pulses of radiation at my head.

  He explains what will happen to the nanoprobes when they absorb the radiation, how the gold spheres will flash like microscopic X-ray beacons. Then he turns back to the scanner and points at the hundreds of X-ray cameras that line the rim. These cameras will detect the flashes of radiation inside my head and calculate the positions of the nanoprobes, creating a detailed, three-dimensional map of my brain.

  His strategy works, at least partially. Dad’s lecture distracts me from the doctors while they anesthetize my scalp. I realize of course that he’s leaving something out. He doesn’t describe how the high-energy X-rays will rip through my brain cells, bursting their membranes and shattering their DNA. But I stay calm until my head is locked into the stereotactic frame and the doctors position their bone drills next to the injection sites.

  Dad leans over me and slips a pair of headphones over my ears. “You need something to drown out the noise of the drills.” He shows me an iPod that’s connected to the headphones. “I downloaded some of the songs you like.”

  He turns on the iPod and a moment later I hear Kanye West rapping the first words of “Power.” I always get a rush from this song because it has so much energy, because it makes me feel like a hero instead of a crippled, dying kid. But now the music can’t mask the rattling in my skull as the doctors turn on their drills.

  It’s horrifying. I don’t feel any pain, but I know the drill bits are cutting into the bone. I squeeze my eyes shut and start counting in my head: one, two, three, four, five. Someone dabs a sponge around my ears to sop up the blood that’s trickling from the holes. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I want to scream, “Stop!” but I can’t even breathe. I can’t do this, Dad! I’m not strong enough!

  Then the drilling stops and all I can hear is Kanye, who’s rapping a different song now. I open my mouth and take a couple of painful breaths, but I keep my eyes closed. Behind Kanye’s voice I hear something click into place, then the sound of a pump and rushing fluid. The nanoprobes are flowing into my brain. Sweat streams down my face and neck.

  Kanye moves on to a third song before someone removes the headphones, cutting off the rap in midsentence. I open my eyes and see Dad’s face through the steel bars of the stereotactic frame. “Okay, we finished injecting the nanoprobes,” he says. “You did great, Adam.”

  I lick my lips. My mouth is so dry. “How long…till I’m ready…for the…” My voice trails off. I’m too frightened to say the words.

  Dad nods. “It’ll take some time for the nanoprobes to spread through the tissue. About fifteen minutes. While you’re waiting, I thought you’d appreciate some company.”

  He steps aside and Shannon Gibbs approaches the table. At first I’m ashamed—I don’t want her seeing me like this, so scared and helpless. But then she smiles her lopsided, nerve-damaged smile, and I’m glad she’s here.

  “Hey, handsome,” she says. “You look good without the hair.”

  I smile back at her, feeling ridiculous. I wish my head wasn’t in this freaking cage. “I got…the idea from you,” I say. “You don’t need hair…to look beautiful.”

  She cocks her bald head, clearly pleased at the compliment. “Flatter me while you can, my friend. The next time we meet, we’ll both be hunks of metal. Ugly, hulking Pioneers.”

  “But you’ll still be beautiful…on the inside.” I’m surprised I can rattle off these compliments so easily. Maybe it’s just a side effect of all the fear, but talking with Shannon seems effortless. “Remember that clay model…you made for your biology report? The model of the brain?”

  “Sure, I still have it. It’s back home in my closet.”

  “I’m picturing my brain like that…but with trillions of nanoprobes. Gold spheres sprinkled…on every inch. Sounds pretty, doesn’t it?”

  She nods and leans over the table, bending closer to me. “And remember your report on the brain? About the limbic system, where all our emotions come from?” She points at my head. “Now the gold spheres are in there too, sticking to every cell.”

  “That’s good. I want to keep…the emotions I’m feeling now.”

  “And when it’s my turn, I want to keep those feelings too.” Her voice is just a whisper, but it’s full of promise. Shannon is implying that she has feelings for me. And maybe those feelings will survive the transfer and be reborn in the hunk of metal she’s going to become.

  But then I think of what my mother said back in my bedroom in Yorktown Heights. Will it actually be Shannon inside the circuits of her Pioneer? And will it actually be me inside mine?

  I want to ask her about this, but I don’t want Dad to hear. I can’t turn my head inside the frame, so I strain my eyes to the left and right. I don’t see him anywhere.

  “Shannon,” I whisper. “Do you really think it’s possible?”

  “What’s possible?”

  “The thing inside the Pioneer. Will it be me or just a copy?”

  She bends over a little more. She comes so close I can see my reflection in her eyes. The bars of the stereotactic frame glint in her brown irises. “I remember something else from biology class,” she says. “It was on the very first page of the textbook. The cells in our bodies are always changing. Old cells die and new ones are born every second, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s true of blood cells and skin cells. But the cells in the brain are longer-lasting. They can live for—”

  Shannon shakes her head, cutting me off. “But even those cells are constantly rebuilding themselves. They take in nutrients. They throw out waste. The body I’m in now has a completely different set of molecules than the body I had six months ago.”

  “Okay, you’re right. All the molecules are new, but the body’s pattern stays the same.”

  She clasps my right hand, which is strapped to the table. “Then it’s simple, isn’t it? We’re all copies.”

  “I don’t—”

  “My present self is a copy of my past self. My body copied its pattern onto a new set of molecules. And my future self will be a copy of my present. So why should it matter if the copy’s in a body or a machine?”

  I think it over, analyzing Shannon’s argument. Maybe there’s a flaw in her reasoning, but right now I can’t see it. Of course, it’s just a theory, and as every scientist knows, you’d need to conduct an experiment to prove it right or wrong. But as far as theories go, it seems pretty darn solid.

  In my heart, the balance tips from doubt to hope. Although I still don’t know if I’ll
survive the procedure, at least I have something to fight for.

  Shannon squeezes my hand. She doesn’t say anything else, and neither do I. We just stare at each other. I make a conscious effort to memorize her face, in all its beautiful imperfection. I picture my brain cells stretching their branches toward one another, forging new connections that will represent the image of Shannon’s smile, that lovely, lopsided curve. And I picture the swarm of nanoprobes attaching to the new links, coating them in golden armor to preserve the memory for eternity.

  Finally, Dad steps forward. He rests one hand on Shannon’s shoulder and the other on mine. “It’s time to begin the scan. Are you ready, Adam?”

  I don’t need to memorize Dad’s face—it’s already engraved in my memory—but I stare at it anyway. His eyes are glassy and his cheeks are wet. It’s another good thing to remember.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  The brain has no pain receptors, but that doesn’t mean it can’t feel pain.

  First, there’s a flash of light. Like a camera flash inside my head, but a thousand times brighter. The whole world disappears, submerged in that horrible flood of white light. My last breath is caught in my throat.

  It’s not like going to sleep. There’s nothing peaceful about it. The body doesn’t want to die. Billions of cells convulse as the waves of radiation crash down on them.

  I’m suffocating. The light is all around me. I’m drowning in the middle of a vast, white ocean.

  HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!

  Nothing. I’m alone. The pain is infinite.

  Then something stirs within the sea of light. The waves form a shape in the whiteness. It’s a face, the face of an old man with a beard. It’s God, I think. No, on second thought, he looks more like Santa Claus. His beard is long and white, but as I stare at the thing, I see specks of color in it. Tiny gold spheres are sprinkled among the white bristles.