by PJ Manney
“Not kill, necessarily . . . but incapacitate. Make them step down from boards, sell shares, withdraw from cartels and consortiums for their health . . . things like that.”
“And Bruce gives you a percentage of his profits?”
She nodded.
His head shook in amazement. “And you think I have the ingenuity to help you?”
“I can’t do it anymore. I just know something bad is going to happen.”
“How?”
“Bruce is acting oddly, and it’s not just about you. I’m not sure why. But I haven’t survived this long to ignore warning signs from men.”
“If he’s identified me, how do you think I can help? Just riding with me might get you killed.”
“He sent me here for information. He needs to believe I’ve done my job.”
“What more could he want?”
“He can track you all he wants, but he needs to know your next move. He feels you damaged him in Brant’s eyes. Never forget, everything leads to Brant. And Bruce has always been jealous of Carter Potsdam. He represents everything Bruce is not, and his close relationship with both versions of you makes him suspect, as if Carter’s been on your side all along. Bruce wants a . . .” She struggled for the phrase, jabbing an imaginary opponent with both fists.
“A one-two punch,” he suggested in English.
“Yes! One-two punch. But to destroy you both and curry favor is a complex move, especially without Brant killing the messenger. Bruce needs to be as fully armed as possible.”
“He’d destroy Carter just out of jealousy?”
“He’s done worse for less.” The depth of pain in her eyes said she had witnessed it personally.
“So when will he make his move?”
“When he returns to camp in two days. He’ll have you all there. At least, that’s what I’ve recommended.”
He smiled in admiration. “You play an open game.”
“Chess is the Russian national pastime.”
“Are you planning to disappear when we return to the camp?”
“Yes. I’ve contacted a powerful friend, who will hide me in Europe for as long as it takes.” She gave a Slavic shrug of her thin shoulders. “To him, it will be like a honeymoon without marriage, so he is looking forward to it.”
Outside, the air was unusually crystalline, and from Pacific Coast Highway, he could see across the sparkling ocean to Catalina Island and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. With the same clarity, he knew Vera wasn’t Dulles’s mole and could not stop 7-28.
“Tell Bruce we’ll meet tomorrow. He’s in danger, and he’s fighting the wrong adversary. His real enemy is Brant, and a Phoenix Club takeover should be his goal. And I can help.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
After dropping Vera at Lobo’s house, the car continued to Malibu Pier, where Tom picked up his launch to the Pequod, anchored a half mile off shore.
As crew members helped him climb aboard, the Pequod seemed forlorn, as if Tom had stayed away too long. He noticed the longer he lived on her, the more personality he imbued into her, and he no longer wondered why sailors had called ships “she” for millennia.
His other mistress waited on deck, her curls whipped by westerlies that originated off the coast of Asia. Talia had never looked more beautiful. One part of him wanted her more than ever, and another knew the more he wanted her, the more painful the future would be.
He brushed past as though he were really blind. Confused, she followed him below deck. His most important near-term goal was not their mutual comfort or love, but to inject himself with the little nanobots Ruth and Steve had created.
Tom had less than two days to destroy three of the most powerful men in the country and stop their plan, while keeping himself, Talia, Ruth, Steve, Amanda, his unborn son, and now Vera, alive. In fanciful moments, he wished he could just expose the entire plot for the world to see. But Talia told him, from her journalistic experience, the public didn’t want to believe bad stories about their leaders, because they couldn’t imagine doing the same heinous things themselves and didn’t like knowing they were suckers for buying a sociopath’s song and dance. And by the time the media fact-checked the story, it might be weeks and far too late.
There was no time for a sexy plan, so brute force would have to do: he, Talia, and a team of foreign-national mercenaries she assembled would surround and infiltrate the Sierra compound after the three ringleaders—Josiah, Carter, and Bruce—all arrived. Talia’s platoon would wait in Oregon for a signal to leave their motels, campsites, and tourist attractions and head to the Phoenix Camp.
Ruth and Steve worked feverishly to prepare the nanovaccine for their team based on Tom’s urine sample hidden in the Prometheus partnership agreement contract. Led by Tom, Talia’s team would kill the ringleaders, immobilize their security team, and destroy the nanomaterials before they could be deployed. Everyone involved in the campaign would flee the country immediately after, including Amanda and his unborn son, whether she wanted to or not. None of them could return to the US again.
The only way Tom might survive the next several days was through radical personal change. In two other rooms, a dozen nanofabricators that eluded the Phoenix Club had manufactured tiny nanobots. These were collected in vials, prepared in a serum, and stored in atomically precise containers. Previously, they had tested samples on a handful of animals. All experimental data said Ruth’s designs worked.
But he would be less “human” than ever before. If he survived the treatment.
As Talia opened the lab door for Tom, the loud clatter of metal trays echoed inside. His appearance in the doorway made Ruth’s face quiver. She was not happy.
Like a rag doll in scrubs propped against the wall, Steve was floppy with sleep deprivation. “You’re”—he searched for the word—“meshugah.” He tried to smile, but even his face muscles were flaccid. “Ruth taught me that one.”
“Regardless, I’m ready for the bots,” he said. “And I need a chemical or bioweapon to use against the club as backup. In two days.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Steve, his olive skin blanching a sickly puce.
“I need something to knock out everyone at the camp for good—just in case. You don’t have to engineer it from scratch. Buy it off the shelf from an arms merchant. Talia can hook you up. Anything that breaks down quickly when released to air and is not patient-to-patient contagious will do.”
“I . . . I can’t do that.” Staring vacantly like an Alzheimer’s patient, Steve grabbed the intercom handset and dialed the bridge. “Hi. I need a copter to take me to . . . I don’t know, anywhere on the . . . Okay, Sacramento . . . Thanks.” He hung up.
“Don’t leave,” whispered Talia, as she gently touched his sleeve.
He squeezed her hand. “You almost convinced me you were on the side of the angels, and I shredded my Hippocratic Oath to get you here. His goal may be necessary, but you’re going somewhere I can’t follow.” Steve got in Ruth’s face, or as close as she’d let him. “You can’t stay and do this, can you?”
“I-I d-d-d-d-don’t kn-now,” she stammered, backing away.
Tom said nothing.
“Look at him,” said Steve to the women. “He knows he’s gone too far, or he’d be plying me with arguments.”
Talia crossed to the door. Steve asked hopefully, “You’re coming with me?” But she didn’t answer and disappeared into the bowels of the ship.
He shook his head at Tom. “I’d say you’re a lucky man to have women adore you so much. But you’re not lucky. I feel sorry for you.”
Ruth’s entire frame spasmed, and she leaned against the worktable to steady herself.
“I’m sorry, Ruth,” Steve said, facing her, “I don’t want him to make you do anything you don’t want to. If you need help leaving, I’m there for you.” He hefted a messenger bag over his shoulder. “I’d wish you good luck, Tom, but I’m not sure that what you want will bring you any.” Steve looked around one last time, th
en trudged out of the room.
After ten seconds of silence, Tom soothed Ruth. “It’s okay . . . We don’t need him anymore.”
“We do,” muttered Ruth, her shoulders twitching up to her ears.
“Ruth . . . I need the bots.”
“Such foolishness. You cannot make me watch. I’m no doctor. If it goes wrong . . .” She pointed at the refrigerator and fled the room.
Tom opened the fridge and rummaged around a tray of glass vials. Next to them was the antidote for each that would flush them from his system if necessary.
He quickly filled three syringes from three different vials. The red-tagged vial marked “Respirocytes” contained artificial red blood cells that held a thousand times more oxygen than a standard human red blood cell could. With these, he could swim underwater for an hour without a breath; walk through a burning building without dying of carbon monoxide poisoning; appear to die and yet, not.
The yellow vial, labeled “Microbivores,” was his daydream’s brainchild, when the Flaming Lips and moving clouds inspired tiny machines consuming foreign invaders like microscopic Pac-Men—artificial white blood cells. With these, he would never be affected by foreign bacteria, viruses, or pathogens. He would be immune to disease and in the best health of his life.
The final blue vial, labeled “Macrosensors,” held tiny machines to send new and enhanced signals from his sensory organs to his brain and increase connectivity and speed between neurons within the brain. They could also interrupt the nerves’ signal transmission, neutering pain at will. With these, his brain cells would also be hyperlinked. He hoped to make intellectual connections that he had not been smart enough to make before. He loaded a smaller dosage of these than the others, since he wasn’t sure how powerful the effect would be.
Tom tourniqueted his left arm, alcohol-wiped the median cubital vein site in the crook of his elbow, and quickly plunged each of the three needles in turn.
After fifteen seconds, he stopped breathing. But he wasn’t concerned. The respirocytes were working, and his brain had more-than-adequate oxygen. He felt crystal clear, cogent, if not a little giddy, as though hyperventilating. The medulla oblongata ceased signaling the lungs to inflate and radically slowed his heartbeat. It would pick up again when it registered a drop in oxygen. That might take a while, especially if he remained at rest.
The microbivores in the second vial had a delayed and subtle affect. Twelve hours later, he felt in the best health of his life. Energized, no aches or pains. Any pathogens his body fought were gone. And any he might encounter would be neutralized, because the microbivores knew to keep alive and whole only the organisms and chemicals his body needed, and were programmed to destroy everything else.
It took a minute for the macrosensors to come online. First Tom initialized contact. His processor sent out a general radio call to each of the hundreds of thousands of little bots to wake up and smell the frequency. Soon, macrosensors talked not only to each other, but to nanowire connections already in his head. They relayed signals while providing additional hookups between his senses, emotions, and therefore, his thinking.
On the worktable, the vials sat upright in their holder, metamorphosizing into crystalline vessels shimmering in the fluorescent light. Inside, nanoscopic bots, that he shouldn’t have been able to see with the naked eye, twinkled like diamonds.
A book beckoned on a small shelf, its paper cover gone. The cloth binding was a vivid, luminous vermilion, so luscious in its overwhelming redness, he felt compelled to reach out and hold it. It was Dutton’s Nautical Navigation. Ruth must have been bored one night. At his touch, the smell and taste of Chinese chili sauce assaulted his senses. His tongue even tingled!
He slid off the stool and sank to the floor to consider the table’s leg, admiring its cylindrical tubularity. He stroked the chrome, which shone like a mirror lit from within. Even minute bumps in the finish that marred the smoothness like the tiniest Braille letters rang like bells to remind him everything was as the Japanese said, wabi-sabi, as it should be and perfect in its imperfection.
He needed fresh air. Not breathing made the room feel stuffy and cloying. Tom tried to heave himself upright, but even though the Pacific was glass, he weaved like an inebriated sailor on a storm-tossed deck. He caught his hip on the corner of the worktable, jiggling the vials in the metal tray. Tinkling glass made him duck and cover as a shower of tiny meteorites fell on him. And the pain in his hip felt deep green and tasted of mushrooms.
To compare, he pinched a pressure point on his ear. It was a vivid violet, stinking sulfur, shattering glass. Digging nails into his palm brought navy-blue steak sirens.
He was higher than a space shuttle. It felt like the crosswired hallucinogenic effects of hashish or LSD. Now he knew why the animal subjects were subdued after the injections: They were stoned! There were people born with crosswired senses—synesthetes—who seemed to function normally, although usually it was only a couple of senses that fused. Like taste and touch. Or sound and color. Some people perceived letters and numbers in colors or flavors. He had heard of no one who had every perceptive input crossed with every other one all the time. But synesthetes didn’t have the processing power his brain did.
Feeling it was safer near the ground, he crawled on all fours out of the lab, down the corridor to one of three spiral staircases surrounding the masts through all four decks. As he crept up steps like a baby, he could feel his security cameras watching. People would come to check on him. He hoped he could speak coherently.
Breaking free through the deck door and into the air and light, he climbed onto the top deck to curl around the foot of the mast. Platinum-blond tangy lemon sun washed his body and he let himself ‘be’ as he awaited his concerned crew. He knew who would come and when. The sun sang to him in a high-pitched vibrato like an atonal celestial choir. If heaven sounded like this, surely the atonal musical masters Arnold Schoenberg and György Ligeti were up there.
The mast’s six spars stretched above like the limbs of a great tree that gently raked the sky. Their song was deep, hollow, resounding. Teakwood under his body cradled him, and the mast urged him to consider its strength as his own. He felt at peace, wholly connected to every animate and inanimate thing. Was this what the Buddhists called bodhi? The awakening that brought unification and understanding of all things as one? And was the mast his bodhi tree, the tree Siddhartha Gautama sat under until he achieved Buddhahood?
As Tom predicted, Garrett, the New Zealand-born captain, ran on deck with a female steward, another young Kiwi named Keri-Ann. They carried a first-aid box, complete with defibrillator.
Even before they touched him to check his pulse and pupils, he felt sensual familiarity with them, as though they were all appendages of one being and not separate beings. The intimacy was embarrassing, yet oddly comforting, as if humanity really were united. He would never be alone again.
Feet pounded on deck. Talia and Ruth. Talia was deep purple bittersweet chocolate that sounded like the 1958 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst electric guitar that only a week and a half ago he had imagined in their bed. Ruth was gun-metal gray, scratchy, like steel wool across a vinyl record, balsamic vinegar. They were an interesting combination. Like a sharp, purple Mexican mole sauce. His brain spun with jokes, references, analogies, but he didn’t share them. They’d be sure he was insane. He looked deeply into Talia’s eyes. He brushed glowing swirl-foam of bright orange curls from her face and tried to calm her with his thoughts, then took her velvety hand.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” Ultraviolet terror quaked her body. “Are you okay?”
Her voice sounded lower, yet higher. His brain had lost its usual interpretation of frequency and modulation. He giggled at the sounds. “Never better.” He took a deep breath to speak and turned his head toward the captain. “Garrett? We’ll call for you if we need you. Thanks, mate.”
Captain and steward exchanged concerned looks. “No worries, sir.” They left the defibri
llator, but headed inside.
“Shulgin was right,” said Tom. “If everyone did this, it would be the end of evolution and the human experiment. We’d achieve nirvana and sit on our asses, contemplating infinity.”
Talia looked to Ruth, confused.
“Alexander Shulgin,” grimaced Ruth. “Biochemist who experimented with psychedelics.” Twitching in disgust, she glared at Tom. “He’s high.”
“From bots?” said Talia. “And you let him take them?”
“Possibly the combination. Of all of them,” said Ruth. “And I’m n-n-not the one manipulating him. To go too far! With my wiles! Eyn imglik iz far im veynik! A meshugener zol men oyshraybn, un im araynshraybn!” She stomped loudly down the deck and into the stairwell.
“What was that?” asked Talia.
“One misfortune is too few for me. They should free a madman and lock me up.” Then he giggled. “She thinks you’re my Mata Hari.”
“What have you done?”
He was less concerned with actions and more intrigued by predictions. The fact that he knew when and who would come should have surprised him, but it felt inevitable. Macrosensor effects were not like psychedelics or hallucinogenics, creating false perceptions. They were real premonitions. Neurologically, whatever the brain constructed as reality was never the whole story. We could only hear, see, smell, taste, and feel within a certain limited bandwidth of information, just enough to keep us fed and safe, and encourage us to reproduce. By increasing his bandwidth, was his amped-up consciousness creating this reality? Or was he seeing a reality that was there, but until now one he had been unable or unwilling to perceive?
His prescience had the same mental weight as 1 + 1 = 2, the sun rising in the east, and gravity making objects fall. These were heavy certainties in people’s minds, heavy enough to base their lives on. However, his newly gained prescience felt equally reliable, as concrete as the alphabet or numbers. But weren’t the delusional just as certain they were Jesus or Cleopatra?
