Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

  “Still have those headaches?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes, but they seem to become less noticeable when I’m concentrating on something else.”

  “Good. How about some formation flying? We can put up another fighter and let you fly off his wing for a while.”

  “No, bring up a hostile.”

  “Getting cocky now, aren’t we, sir?” Powell cut in. “Five minutes ago you couldn’t make a ten-degree turn without going out of control. Now you want to do some dogfighting.”

  “That’s what the damned simulators are for, J.C. Bring up a high-performance model, too.”

  “You got it.”

  There was no change in the simulation after several long moments. He was going to ask if they had put up a hostile when he remembered—none of his fighter’s offensive or defensive systems had been activated—

  But that realization was enough. Immediately a computer- synthesized voice announced, “Attack radar activated... electronic countermeasures activated . . . tail warning systems activated. ”

  And there it was, a laser-projected image of a fighter in the upper right corner of the screen. Patrick immediately commanded the simulator’s laser-tracking system to lock onto the hostile aircraft, and deactivated the attack-radar as soon as the laser had illuminated the target. But it wasn’t fast enough. Flight data on the hostile aircraft showed that it had altered course and was on a head-on intercept course. The hostile had detected Patrick’s brief radar emission and had turned to start the fight.

  As the two aircraft merged into a nose-to-nose flight path, Patrick was suddenly flooded with information. His laser-projection screen was filled with electronic depictions of dozens of options, only a few of which included a full head-on pass. There were so many options that he lost count. His headache had come back full-force now. Beads of sweat obscured his vision, blood pounded in his ears. He was conscious, his mind still sharp, but the pain, intermingled with hundreds of bits of data predicting the outcome of dozens of maneuvers by both aircraft soon overwhelmed him.

  The ANTARES simulator suddenly went inverted and pulled a heart-stopping eight-G descent. The simulator had activated the all-aspect radar as it descended, and Patrick could easily “see” his pursuer descend with him. But that was what ANTARES had been expecting. The simulator continued its inverted loop, using its high-lift canards to pull the nose up through the horizon. The throttle went to max afterburner as he went through the vertical—and Patrick had no doubt that he would have been squashed like a grape if he had been in a real jet aircraft.

  As the nose dove through the horizon once again he found that the pursuer had become the pursued. Whatever kind of aircraft they had put up against him, it couldn’t keep up with ANTARES. Patrick found himself directly behind his adversary, and ANTARES had already armed four laser-guided missiles and was waiting for orders to fire. Patrick issued those orders a split second later. Meanwhile, ANTARES had switched to the internal twenty-millimeter multibarrel cannon and was waiting for orders to fire as the simulator closed in on the hostile, but there was no need to open fire—all laser- guided hypervelocity missiles had hit their target.

  “Ground position freeze,” Dr. Carmichael ordered. Patrick heard footsteps on the catwalk around the simulator’s cockpit as the cockpit indicators and the deluge of information in his head abruptly ceased. “Patrick, this is Alan Carmichael. Can you hear me?”

  He found himself frozen in his seat, unable to move a muscle and barely able to move his lips . . . “Yes.”

  “We’re going to disconnect ANTARES. Hold on.”

  Even though the simulator had stopped, the pain inside Patrick’s head was steadily increasing. He could feel the fighter doing some lazy rolls and spins but didn’t have the strength to issue the orders to maintain straight and level flight.

  “I . . . I’m losing it . . .”

  “Let it go, Patrick,” Carmichael said. “You’re off the simulation. Relax. Don’t worry about the controls.”

  It was like telling a man hanging from a cliff to cut his lifeline. Slowly, using every last ounce of strength he had, Patrick fought the urge to counteract the spinning aircraft. But the more he let go, the more he was drawn to what was happening. As the aircraft’s altitude began to decrease, he received the aircraft altitude, “heard” ANTARES’ reports on terrain, engine performance, structural loads. The closer the fighter got to earth, the faster the reports came. When the fighter shot through five thousand feet above the ground, ANTARES recommended it take over. Patrick did not respond. At three thousand feet above ground, ANTARES issued the order to eject. Again, Patrick ignored it.

  He just sat, transfixed, as he listened to ANTARES’ neural “screams.” The computer was literally begging its human occupant to do something, anything, to save it. The more the computer blasted McLanahan with pleas to issue an order to recover the aircraft, the more the pain increased and the more Patrick was unable to do anything. Carmichael was reaching to disconnect the superconducting helmet from Patrick’s clavicle ring when the simulator slammed into the ground at nearly two thousand miles per hour.

  When the helmet was finally lifted from McLanahan’s shoulders and Carmichael saw his face, even he was shocked. McLanahan’s face was a mask of pain, as in a man tortured to the very brink of tolerable agony.

  “Patrick, snap out of it, it’s over!” Carmichael was yelling at him. Technicians had jumped up on the catwalk beside Carmichael, and others were unfastening the shoulder harness and loosening the heavy connectors and relays on the metallic flight suit. Carmichael looped an oxygen mask over Patrick’s face. “It’s over. Wake up, dammit.”

  No response. Technicians were still trying to remove the heavy metallic gloves from Patrick’s hands and undo the suit’s fasteners, so Carmichael bent lower over Patrick and put his ear to his mouth.

  “He’s stopped breathing, cut the suit off—” An assistant hesitated, looking first at Patrick, then Carmichael. “I said cut it off. Now. ” Carmichael put his face up to Patrick’s. “Patrick, wake up, dammit!” He grabbed a pair of steel cutters from one of the technicians as the medical team removed the oxygen mask and inserted a breathing tube down Patrick’s throat, then grabbed a wire-laced seam of the suit and made a twelve-inch cut across Patrick’s chest with the ultrasonic cutting tool, exposing the thin cotton undergarments soaked with sweat. “Get a heart monitor over here!” He ripped open the underwear to expose McLanahan’s chest. He studied Patrick’s face as the airway was opened and the respirator started. The eyes were fluttering and his facial muscles were contorting as if he was locked in some nightmare.

  Then J. C. Powell stepped up on the catwalk opposite Carmichael. As electrocardiogram leads were taped to McLanahan’s chest, Powell took Patrick’s head in his hands and bent down to his left ear:

  “Wake up, boss,” he said in a firm, quiet voice. “Show’s over, Colonel. Wake up.”

  Carmichael studied the EKG readouts. “No pulse. Straight line. Charge the defibrillator units. Powell, get out of the way.”

  J.C. ignored him. “Patrick, this is J.C. I know you can hear me—”

  “He can’t hear a damn thing,” Carmichael said. “Now stand clear—”

  “He can hear me, he knows what’s happening. He can feel everything. He just needs a direction—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  J.C. did not answer. Instead, he placed both of Patrick’s hands on his shoulders, moved as close as he could and said, “Patrick, you can hear me. Listen to me. ANTARES isn’t in charge now. You are in control. Wake up. ”

  “He’s been unconscious too long, Powell,” Carmichael said. A medical technician handed him two electrode paddles from the heart defibrillator. “He’ll die if we don’t revive him.”

  “And you’ll kill him if you shock him with that.” Powell grabbed Patrick by his flight suit and hauled him up as far out of the ejection seat as he could. “Patrick!” he yelled. “Dammit, I said wake up!
”

  Suddenly McLanahan’s eyes popped open. He grabbed J.C.’s shoulder in a crushing grip that made Powell wince. He gagged on the resuscitator tube in his throat and pulled it out, his chest heaving. Powell eased him back into his seat.

  “Sinus rhythm,” one of the paramedics reported. “Blood pressure high but strong. Heart rate, respiration okay.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I ... I think so.”

  Carmichael started to put the oxygen mask on his face again but Patrick pulled it away, choosing instead to take occasional deep breaths from it.

  “It was so weird,” McLanahan said, trying hard to control his breathing. He seemed to be reviewing, reliving, the scene in his mind. “I was watching the intercept and the kill like a spectator. ANTARES was doing it all. It was like I wasn’t there. But I felt the pain building and building, and ANTARES getting stronger and stronger, along with the pain. But then I couldn’t do anything. I knew I still had to fly the aircraft on ground-position freeze but I couldn’t give any commands. I felt like . . . like a million hornets were buzzing all around me. I knew those hornets carried information, important data I need to know, and I knew something was wrong. But with the pain, I couldn’t do a thing . . . Suddenly everything was dark and empty. I didn’t have a body, just a brain. I was searching for a way out of a room but didn’t know how I was going to make it even if I found an exit. That’s when I heard J.C.’s voice. The more I heard, the more ... alive I felt. I followed his voice . . . I . . .” His voice began to fade, and he appeared to be drifting off to sleep.

  “Get him out of here,” Carmichael ordered.

  * * *

  He woke up later to find Wendy Tork asleep in a chair beside his bed, a magazine across her lap. “Wendy?”

  She came upright. “Patrick? You’re awake! How do you feel?”

  “Tired. Thirsty.” She poured him a glass of water from a plastic pitcher, then rang for the nurse. “I feel like I’ve just paddled a kayak across the Pacific.” He found he had the strength to sit up and take the cup in his hands. “What time is it?”

  “Nine P.M.”

  “I’ve been asleep for twelve hours?”

  “Patrick, it’s nine P.M. on Saturday. You’ve been asleep for forty-eight hours.”

  The water glass began to tremble in his hands, and he quickly set it on the bedside table. “Was I in a coma?”

  “No—well, technically, yes,” Wendy said, moving close to him and taking his hands in hers. “They called it extreme exhaustion and depletion. You lost seven pounds while you were in that simulator. You could have hurt yourself even without the strain that. . . that thing put on you. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He sat up and took a few sips of water. Nothing was said until he asked, “How long have you been here?”

  “I never left. I ... I wanted to talk some more about the other night. I know how it is for you—”

  “Works both ways, kid.” He let out a tired sigh and his head dropped back to the pillow. He managed a short laugh. “I think I know why Doctor Jekyll drank his own potions. You want something to be so successful that you’ll try anything, even making yourself into your own guinea pig. I never should have strapped myself into that simulator. I wasn’t ready for it.”

  “It must have been terrible.”

  “It was . . . different,” he said uneasily. “I have to give guys like James and Powell all the credit in the world for flying the real thing, never mind the simulator. It’s an awesome contraption if you can keep yourself from going crazy.”

  “Talk about going crazy,” a voice said behind them. They turned to see General Elliott and Hal Briggs enter the hospital room. Hal went over to Patrick and clasped hands with him. “You had the whole place going crazy, brother.”

  McLanahan thought that Elliott looked drawn, tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His blue blouse was sweat-stained and rumpled, and he seemed to favor his artificial leg more than usual. “How do you feel, Patrick?”

  “Fine, sir.” A damn lie.

  “Takin’ a nap for a day and a half, you should be fine,” Hal put in.

  “We can do that SPO conference tomorrow after I get out of here,” Patrick said to Elliott.

  “I think we’ve all had enough for the weekend, Colonel,” Elliott said. “I’ve scheduled a meeting with the senior project officers and the engineering staff for Monday morning. You’re on sick leave until then. Clear?”

  But something else hung in the air—Elliott was showing more than just concern for him. Elliott turned to Wendy. “Can I have him for a few minutes?”

  “Visiting hours are over.” She went to Patrick and kissed him. “I’ll come by at nine to bail you out.” Wendy nodded to Elliott and left. Briggs took a big glass of Patrick’s ice water and moved unobtrusively in front of the door, casually but effectively blocking it.

  “You gave us a scare, Patrick,” Elliott said. Patrick sat up and watched as Elliott began to pace the small room. This, Patrick thought, was not an ordinary get-well visit. “I hope you’ll forgive me for suggesting that you train in the ANTARES simulator for this project—”

  “On the contrary, General, I wanted to do it. It was a part of the project. I think we should continue—”

  “You’re not expendable. I can’t go on using my senior officers for experiments—”

  “I’m a flyer first,” McLanahan said quickly. “You needed someone with operational experience to see how well a non- ANTARES-trained person could adapt to the system. I was a logical choice.”

  “We’ve got flyers lined up around the block for a chance to do that. I can’t risk you again. From here on out, no more ANTARES simulator for you.”

  Patrick was just too tired to argue. “Who then?” he said. He turned to Briggs. “Hal, you’ve got the latest clearance-list of applicants. Bring the list by my office and I’ll—”

  “I had a talk with Dr. Carmichael early this morning,” the director of HAWC said. His tone was low, somber, like he was delivering a eulogy. “At this stage of the game we could put a hundred men through that system and we wouldn’t be any closer to understanding how it really affects the human mind. There are just too many unknowns. And we just don’t have the resources to study each and every one of them—”

  “All it takes is time and training. I’ve been working with ANTARES for just a few months—”

  “And it nearly killed you,” Briggs cut in.

  “I flew it in combat after only four months of work,” McLanahan said. “I’m not a pilot but I flew the hottest jet in the world with only four months’ training.”

  “It’s not the same and you know it, Patrick . . .”

  “I’ve made progress. I’ve taken the worst that machine can dish out. I can control it now. Besides, I’m an old fart. I’m forty years old. A guy half my age could master that machine a lot easier. Don’t judge the whole program because of what happened to me—”

  “Unfortunately we must,” Elliott said. “We aren’t getting the information we need from only one successful pilot in the program. We were hoping the progress you and Powell had made could clear the way for a more extensive ANTARES training program, but now it appears that we can’t adequately quantify the experiences of any participant. What happens to you, or rather why it happens, is an unknown. We can’t have training based on hit-or-miss procedures—we’ll end up killing half the trainees.”

  McLanahan shook his head. “So you’re really considering canceling the DreamStar project because of my incident the other day?”

  “There are other considerations, which you’re aware of. We do spend half a billion dollars a year for a plane that many congressmen may not ever see fly in their lifetimes. They hesitate continuing the funding, especially if there’s some pork- barrel projects in their home districts that could get them a political leg up in this lifetime . . . And of course there’s the security question.” Elliott glanced at Briggs, who remained stone-faced. “Our security problems hav
e tended to overshadow our advances. The way of least resistance for these Pentagon officials is simple—terminate the project, continue lower funding levels for research into the ANTARES interface but discontinue all flight operations and plans for development and deployment.”

  “But DreamStar’s up and flying—that’s a fact. We’ve only tried the ANTARES interface with a handful of pilots. We can’t give up now.”

  Elliott nodded. “That’s the argument I used, Patrick. We’ll have our answer on Monday. Meanwhile, get some rest.”

  Hal Briggs stayed behind. “J.C. was by to see you, said he’d catch you tomorrow some time. Haven’t seen much of James since the test flight.”

  Patrick shrugged. “He likes to get away from Vegas on the weekends.”

  A somewhat strained silence, then Briggs smiled and said, “You look like two miles of bad road, Colonel, but it’s good to see you up and around.”

  “I’ve seen you look better too, buddy,” McLanahan said. “The general getting on your case?”

  “It’s beyond Elliott,” Hal said uneasily. “It’s even beyond major command level now. Air Force and, I guess, the Joint Chiefs want to keep Dreamland open but close down flight operations for DreamStar—they’re more concerned with the setbacks in the operations area. The White House thinks Dreamland is a classified information siphon that flows directly to the Soviets, and they want to close down the whole outfit.” “Which wouldn’t look so hot for Dreamland’s chief of security.”

  Briggs tightened. “Look, I hate lettin’ the old man down— he took a chance on me ten years ago, and he really stuck his neck out when he made a brand-new major the chief of security at the Air Force’s most top-secret research center. I’d hate to repay the guy with a forced retirement because I screwed up.”

  “I don’t think you’re screwing up, Hal. We’re obviously dealing with very deep, very professional agents at the highest and most top-secret levels of the program. It might be a commandwide infiltration, or even a headquarters compromise, in which case we might never find the ones responsible—”