“He said that? Damn it, that stuff is supposed to be classified. He and J.C. came close to killing each other this morning. I should bust them both but I can’t. J.C. is maybe the best pilot in the unit and one of the few that can keep up with DreamStar in our flights. And James is the only one that can fly Dream-Star with any effectiveness. I can’t even officially reprimand them until the project is declassified. I don’t know if it’s possible to train another pilot for DreamStar, and I can’t afford to put this project any more behind schedule. So, I gave them a slap on the wrist … they’re only grounded until the next scheduled sortie. Next week … So to celebrate, James takes you to lunch at a restricted base and I have Elliott giving me the hairy eyeball all afternoon … “
“I’m sorry. It’s just that—”
“And I’m sorry to sound like a pompous, jealous … except when you’re concerned …”
And then she was in his arms, and there was no more time — or need — for talk.
Dreamland
“You realize, Patrick,” Dr. Alan. Carmichael said, “that nothing at all may happen.”
McLanahan and Carmichael were in a special steel-lined chamber early the next morning. More a huge underground vault, the chamber contained the original laboratory version of the AN-TARES thought-controlled flight-and-avionics system. Concerned more with performance in the early years of the project than size, the chamber housing the ANTARES system was massive — the size of a basketball court. The complex was controlled by its own super-fast CRAY computer that, even though encompassing state-of-the-art very high-speed integrated circuits, artificial-intelligence electronics capable of performing billions of computations a second, was larger than a refrigerator and had to be cooled with liquid nitrogen at two hundred seventy-five degrees below zero.
In the center of the three-story chamber, dwarfed by massive banks of electronics gear and environmental system ducts, was an F-15 single-seat fighter simulator. It had none of the advanced multi-function displays and laser-projection devices of Cheetah — it still used ordinary electric artificial horizons and pneumatically driven altimeters and turn-and-slip indicators, and most of those were barely functioning. The ejection seat was an old Mark Five “Iron Maiden”-type seat from the early 1980s, stiff, straight-backed, and uncomfortable, its special anti-G padding and shoulder harnesses having been cannibalized for spare parts long ago.
Patrick was not secured in that ejection seat, but neither was he free to move. He was wearing an early non-cushion version of Ken James’ metallic-thread flight suit. It was far more bulky than the actual operational model, with thick fiber-optic bundles interwoven all around the suit, circuit boxes attached to every conceivable inconvenient point on Patrick’s body, and, unlike James’ suit, this experimental model had no integrated cooling systems built into it. Icy blasts of cold air were directed on Patrick to help keep him cool, and when the skin’s resistance was completely unbalanced by sweat and vascular dilation on account of the extreme temperatures inside the suit, the session would be ended.
“I’ve been trying out this system for a few months now,” Patrick said. “My brainwaves or whatever they are …”
“Theta signal threshold complex.”
“Yeah, right. Anyway, they should start working, shouldn’t they?”
Carmichael shook his head. “If it was that easy, we’d have a squadron of ANTARES pilots now. We don’t fully understand how ANTARES works, how the neural interface is achieved. We can get it to work but we’re not sure, for example, why it works with James and nominally for you and J.C. and not for anyone else. We’re getting closer to the answer, but it’ll still take some time.”
“What is it with James?” Patrick asked. “I can’t mentally control an itch on the back of my neck. He can control a two million dollar fighter at Mach one.”
Carmichael ran a hand up his forehead and across the top of his bald head — even though it was the style of the mid-1990s for some men to have a shaved head, Carmichael came by his naturally, involuntarily. “The sheer strength of his mind is enormous. The ANTARES interface is another addition to his mental gymnasium, so to speak. He’s strengthened by it every time he uses it. We’re learning a lot from him.”
“But he’s not any smarter than anyone else at HAWC.”
“I’m not talking about intelligence … stop squirming.” Carmichael motioned to one of his assistants, who ran a cool towel over Patrick’s sweaty face. “He’s quite intelligent — an I.Q. of well over one-fifty. But what counts more is that his mind is fluid, adaptable, agile. Are you at all familiar with taekwondo, Patrick?”
“Taekwondo? You mean martial arts?”
Carmichael nodded as he scanned an instrument panel beside the simulator. “A special form of the martial arts that combines karate, kung fu and judo — James happens to be a black belt in taekwondo, by the way … did you know that? Almost made our Olympic taekwondo team. It’s not an offensive, attack-style of fighting. In taekwondo the attacker is allowed to engage — as a matter of fact, there are few moves in taekwondo that can be performed unless in response to an attack.”
“Get to the point, Alan.”
“The point is, James’ mind works much the same way as the taekwondo style of combat. He allows the flood of information created by ANTARES to invade him. He opens up his mind to it — exactly the opposite of the normal reaction to such an invasion. Most of us build barriers against such an onslaught — James allows it to move in, even expand. But he doesn’t surrender to the information that bombards him. Once ANTARES unlocks the inner recesses of the mind, the ones we have no conscious access to, he’s somehow able to reassert his conscious will. At first it’s little more than gentle mental nudges, but then he’s able to control ANTARES, steer the mass of information his way. It’s the mental equivalent of a single tree changing the course of a raging river.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“For a good reason.” Carmichael’s features turned stony. “I’ve already said there’s a lot we don’t understand about ANTARES. We’re tinkering with this technology before it’s fully understood, but neither of us has the authority to stop it. I just hope I can learn enough before some disaster happens.”
He studied McLanahan. “That was meant as a disclaimer, Patrick. You’ve been strapping this stuff on a few times a month now, probably with faith in me and all this high-tech government equipment. We use it because it works. Period. We don’t know why it works, and so we won’t know what happened if something goes wrong.” He picked up a very large, bulky helmet with all sorts of cables and wire bundles leading to the banks of computers below. It was a much larger version of the ANTARES flight helmet, obviously not designed for flight — its wearer would be completely immobilized by its sheer size and bulk. “Still want to subject yourself to this, Colonel?”
Patrick shrugged. “Here’s where I’m supposed to say ‘I regret I had only one brain to give to my country …’ “
“You’re the project director, it’s not your job …”
“ It’s not my job.’ That’s the most over-used and annoying phrase in the Air Force.” Patrick stopped, looking at the menacing ANTARES helmet as if it was some medieval torture device, then nodded. “I need to know how it works. I need to understand what it does to the pilots that I’ll order to wear this thing. Let’s do it.”
Carmichael and an assistant proceeded to lower the heavy helmet onto Patrick’s shoulders and fasten it in place. The helmet was very tight and heavy. Once attached to the clavicle ring on his flight suit, the device pressed down on his breastbone and shoulders like a heavy yoke. The superconducting antennae pressed unmercifully on several spots on his head and neck, corresponding to the seven areas of the brain that were constantly being scanned and measured by the ANTARES. There was a smoked glass visor in the helmet, but Patrick could barely see anything outside. The thick rubber oxygen mask that enclosed his mouth and chin was hot and almost suffocating.