“Not just you. It forces us to question everything we think we know.”
They both fell silent and worked on their meals, which were now on the cold side.
“Wait a minute,” said Desh suddenly, and his already somber expression became even bleaker. “This forces us to consider your second level of enhancement in a different light. Can we even trust this? What if this level isn’t the sociopathy-free nirvana we think it is? Maybe it brings on an even more severe negative change in personality than the first level. Maybe the Kira at that level knew that you would never attempt to go there again—invoke her again—unless she planted false memories that would appeal to you.”
Kira reeled as if she had been hit in the stomach. David could be right. Everything to which she was dedicating herself could be a sham. She suddenly felt weak.
She searched her memory once again of her brief stay at an unimaginably high plane of intelligence. She remembered the pure, overwhelming joy she had felt just after coming out of it—before her body broke down and she was rushed to the hospital. She was sure this level brought out the best in human nature and not the worst. She wasn’t just sure intellectually, but emotionally as well.
She had never been more certain of anything in her life.
But couldn’t a transcendent intellect create these powerful feelings within her, even if they were false?
She shook her head. This thinking led to madness. If you could never trust your memories, where did that leave you? If what you were striving for was based on false pretenses . . . it was unthinkable. As Desh had pointed out, most of the time their enhanced selves were trapped in a small room, furiously writing down epiphany after epiphany, so their normal selves never had any indication they might be deceived. Until now.
Kira’s eyes moistened.
“Kira? Are you okay?” asked Desh, reaching out and taking her hands in his.
Kira shook her head. “I feel like giving up,” she said softly. “It’s just too hard. Too many obstacles. They never end. The universe is against us. The speed of light is impossible for even an advanced alien species to crack. The military is after us again, with a group capable of using my therapy pulling the strings. After all of our efforts to disappear. And now this. It’s hard to believe this will end in any way other than disaster.”
“Things seemed just as bad when we first met, and we made it through. Against ridiculous odds. And it wasn’t just luck. We made our own luck. We’ll do it again.”
“I don’t think so,” said Kira, as the moisture in her eyes grew. “Not this time. I think we’ve used up all of our miracles.”
“You have every right to feel that way. You’ve been through the trials of Job. And it’s cruel and unfair. You’re are one of the greatest scientists in history—maybe the greatest—and one day you’ll be celebrated like Einstein or Galileo. But you know they didn’t have it easy all the time either. Einstein faced anti-Semitism in Germany and couldn’t get a job in his field, even after he published his revolutionary papers. Galileo was excommunicated from the church and put under house arrest until his death.” He paused, and then smiled sheepishly. “I have to admit, none of them had to go up against scores of special forces operatives. But you know, different times, different crosses to bear.”
Kira smiled and used her napkin to dab away the few tears that had fallen. “You’re right,” she said, strength returning to her voice. “I was just feeling sorry for myself. Sorry for being so weak.”
Desh laughed out loud. “Weak? Your will is stronger than any man or woman I’ve ever known. And that’s why we’ll succeed, despite everything thrown against us. I’m sure of it. When Jake first told me you were trading yourself for us, I was terrified. I thought I’d never see you again.” He shook his head. “I was a fool. Hard to believe that I could still underestimate you.” He paused. “I won’t make that mistake ever again,” he vowed.
“And I feel very sorry for anyone who does,” he added with absolute conviction.
32
David Desh gazed at his wife sleeping soundly beside him and once again reflected on just how exceptional she was. She was a sleeping goddess, a Helen of Troy who would have a greater impact on the world because of her brains than Helen had because of her beauty. And while she was undeniably appealing physically, this was true of any number of women. The truth was that a person’s personality and intelligence affected how others perceived their looks. A beautiful woman with an ugly personality wasn’t quite so beautiful anymore. But a beautiful woman with Kira’s personality was beyond breathtaking.
In other rooms, Griffin and Connelly were sleeping as well, although certainly not as majestically.
Desh himself had slept poorly. The entire night was spent searching his memory, as if by repeatedly going over the same neuronal real estate he would somehow find the memory of his throat-slitting actions like a roach hidden under the floorboards. But as hard as he strained, he kept coming to the same conclusion: he had done nothing more than search the men for ID.
But then his mental unrest took a troubling turn. He thought about his interactions with Kira. Of discrepancies between her words and actions he had noticed over the past few years. Times when she had said she was one place but he had seen evidence she had been somewhere else. When he noticed a slight change in the location of her laptop and she had later lamented that she’d been unable to do any work on the computer all day. Minor discrepancies to which he had previously paid no attention. Kira was overworked and overwhelmed. Who could blame her if, like Einstein and other great scientists before her, she could be a little scatterbrained on occasion.
But now it was possible to see these discrepancies in a more troubling light.
He slipped from beneath the covers silently and pulled on a blue silk robe, cinching it at the waist, and quietly exited the bedroom. It wasn’t rare for one or the other of them, having trouble sleeping, to steal away for several hours during the night to continue to nibble at their never diminishing mountain of work.
Only this time would be different. This time he wasn’t being whisper quiet so as not to wake his beloved Kira. This time he was leaving to spy on her. And himself.
What had happened, or what had not happened, in the basement of a safe-house years ago was driving him mad. Had he really killed three men in cold blood? Or had Kira made this up for reasons of her own? But for what reasons? And had the video been faked, despite Kira’s certainty to the contrary?
And if it was real, was it possible that some of the evidence Jake had against Kira, which they had yet to see, was real as well?
Desh had to know. He would investigate himself, and while he was at it, her as well.
He removed her laptop from its charging station and crept soundlessly through the halls until he reached the enhancement room, relieved not to have run into Connelly or Griffin in the wee hours of the night, which would have forced him to abort the exercise. He entered the enhancement room, set the timer on its vault-like door for eighty minutes, and closed himself inside.
He slid his left thumb over his keychain and a gellcap fell into his other hand, the replacement for the one he had dropped in the woods. Kira had the keys to the pills, and this was the only way to become enhanced without her being aware of it. Which would mean he wouldn’t have an emergency dose if he needed it. But this couldn’t be helped.