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 the 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.”