After a few seconds, Patrick could hear the faint click as the tiny headphone in his helmet was activated. “Patrick? All set in there?”
“Check the oxygen flow. I’m not getting any air.”
“You’ve got a good blinker and all switches are set,” Carmichael replied. Just then Patrick’s oxygen mask received a steady flow of cold, dry air. “I gave you a shot of oxygen. I can’t give you too much or you could hyperventilate. Try to relax. Start anytime you’re ready.”
Patrick sat back in the hard ejection seat and began the relaxation routine taught to him by Carmichael over a year earlier when he’d first begun experimenting with an ANTARES trainer. He began the familiar process, letting the spurts of pure oxygen in his mask slow his breathing and force the tension from his body. In his case it was his toes and calves that seemed to be perpetually clenched, like a swimmer on the starting block, as if he was always trying to grip onto something. It was refreshing to feel how good his feet felt after forcing them to relax.
Slowly, he worked his way up his body, ordering each muscle group to relax. One by one he managed to relax his body parts, letting the stiffness of the metallic flight suit support him in the ejection seat. He knew he’d have to reexamine his leg muscles now and then, but after dozens of these sessions his relaxation technique was getting much better.
“Very good,” he heard Carmichael say, “much better. Minimal beta activity. Very steady alpha complex.”
“It seemed to go easier this time,” Patrick said. “How long did it take?”
“You did pretty well, only one hundred and thirty minutes this time.”
“Over two hours …? “
“Easy, easy; maintain your alpha level …”
Patrick fought to regain his body-relaxation state, despite his sudden confusion and disorientation. “I thought I was getting better, it seemed like just a few minutes.”
“A good sign. You enter a state of altered consciousness, much like hypnosis but more so. Losing track of time is a good sign — if you had said it took two hours it would mean your mind is still focused on external events like time—”
And then he felt it, a tiny jolt of electricity shooting through his body. It was like diving into an ice-cold pool of water — the jolt didn’t start or stop anywhere in particular but it shocked his entire body all at once. It was not totally uncomfortable, just unexpected — more attention-getting than painful, like a mild static electricity shock. His body jerked at the first jolt, and he fought to relax his body again. Surprisingly, he found it much easier to relax this time.
“Just relax, Patrick.” Carmichael sounded as if he was calling from the bottom of a deep well. “You’re coming along fine. Relax, Patrick … “
Another jolt of electricity, harder and deeper this time, creating a shower of sparks before his eyes. There was real pain this time, completely different from the first. Patrick remembered the three deadman’s switches rigged to the seat — one on each hand and one on the back of his helmet, where all he had to do was release his grip on the handles or move his head in any direction and the power to the simulator box would immediately cut off. The electricity was still there, still intense … all he had to do was hold on long enough to command his hands to move …
“Remember taekwondo, Patrick,” he heard a voice from nowhere say. “Allow the fight to come to you. Accept it. Be prepared to channel it.”
Another surge of energy, powerful enough to make Patrick gasp aloud in his mask. There was a brief shot of oxygen, but now it felt blasting hot, like opening an oven door …
“Don’t fight the energy. Relax …”
“The pain … I can’t stand it …”
“Relax … regain theta-alpha.”
Another intense wave of electricity, and he involuntarily grunted against the pain. The shimmering wall of stars washed over him — but they were different this time. The lights remained, and amidst ever-growing jabs of pain throughout his body the stars began to coalesce into images. Faint, blurred, unreadable — but they were not just random stars. Something was forming …
Here was finally something to latch onto, to grasp and hold firm, for no other reason than to preserve his sanity and keep from screaming out in terror and pain. When the pain increased in severity, Patrick let it hit him head-on, enduring it long enough just so he could reexamine the sparks of pain floating in his mind’s eye and form another concrete mental image.
He was experiencing what James already knew and had gone through … His whole body was on fire. The pain was continuous, but so were the sheets of light — and they were definitely taking shape. Flashes of numbers, some logical, others unintelligible, zipped back and forth in his subconscious mind. The images were beginning to organize themselves — there was now a sort of horizontal split-screen effect, with darkness above the new horizon and floating, speeding numbers and polyhedrons below. He could hear short snaps of sound, like a stereo receiver or short-wave radio gone haywire.
The sounds were the key. Patrick now began to concentrate against the pain, channeling it along with the confusion, trying to slow the jumble of numbers and letters and shapes into one positive, concrete form. With each push in the desired direction, ANTARES would give him a burst of pain for his trouble. But the pain didn’t matter any more. There was an objective now, a goal to reach, if a childishly simple one … three letters — A, B, C — and one device — the simulator’s intercom.
The letters were becoming as large as the lower half of the split screen, but they were finally becoming solid, aligning themselves beneath the blackness. Soon they remained steady, and even began to slide away from the center toward the—
“Patrick?”
The voice was like a distant, relaxing whisper, like a church bell off in the distance, like the friendly toot of a boat horn on the Sacramento River back home. “Powell?”
“Welcome back, boss. Have a nice trip?”
“Not sure. I’ve got a lot of pain. Dr. Carmichael?”
“Right here.”
“How long did it take this time?”
“You tell me.”
Patrick tried to remember back through the interfacing period, through the waves of rolling pain, through the fleeing mental images. “I felt out of control, it must’ve taken another hour.”
“Try nine seconds,” J. C. Powell said.
“Nine seconds?”
“Nine seconds on the dot from the moment you went into theta-alpha,” Carmichael said happily. “Even faster than Ken’s ever done it, although he doesn’t take two hours to get to theta-alpha.”
Patrick tried to turn his head, but found it impossible — it was as if two red-hot hands held his head cemented into place. “How can anyone function with all this pain? I feel like I’m being microwaved, I can’t move a muscle.”
“All I can say is that Ken James is different. He’s also been using the ANTARES system for a long time. Don’t focus on the pain, and don’t worry about being able to move around. Relax and try to enjoy the ride.”
A moment later, Carmichael clicked the intercom back on. “We’ve repositioned the simulator at thirty-five thousand feet and five hundred knots. Take the aircraft when you’re ready, Colonel.”