— BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP… The call came inside his skull. The loudness startled him. Finally, go time.
Hal got up, threw his sweatsuit on and mirrored everything from his training. The voice of McCreary came over his implanted bone phone. Now, wide awake, he clearly recognized the voice as his superior officer at work. McCreary led him down the street, but this time there was no gray pickup waiting for him. Hal continued down the street as he expected, en route to Stealth Alley and Hangar 302.
Hal followed the commands, passing the Security Force guards posted outside the dark and eerie hangar, entering through the side door. McCreary’s voice guiding him to a quick right where he went in the small clinic room. Everything was portable. It could all be cleaned out in a moment’s notice.
Hal maintained drill sergeant-like eye discipline, staring straight ahead, but froze for a moment when he saw Jenny in a lab coat next to Dr. Elm. McCreary instructed him to lie down on the angled chair and close his eyes. Jenny and Dr. Elm sprang into action, following a routine like a seasoned Formula One pit crew. Hooking electrodes to Hal’s brain and heart, and activating the monitoring equipment the wires fed into. Dr. Elm grabbed an iPad with a touch-screen checklist as Jenny called out the stats… “Heart rate: 122 over 60. Pulse 72.”
Jenny stepped around the gurney to the electro-encephalogram (EEG) monitor. Moving the screen toward her while stealthily moving it away from Dr. Elm. Were Dr. Elm to look up, the pattern of tight, narrow jagged lines animating on the monitor would inform him that Hal was awake. Having done this dozens of times, Jenny told the doctor what he wanted to hear, “EEG waveform reading: NREM N3.” Jenny had explained this to Henry and Hal nights before. NREM N3 was a sleep level identifier. N3 was the third of four sleep stages and was an acceptable stage to induce sleepwalking via the injection. The fourth and deepest sleep stage where sleepwalking naturally occurred was REM— rapid eye movement. NREM stages were the non-REM sleep stages, and all four naturally cycled every 90 minutes during sleep. The ghosts would receive an injection that extended the cycle to several hours.
Dr. Elm removed a vile of liquid from a Styrofoam box in a duffel bag. He popped the cap and swabbed the rubber top with an alcohol pad, then stabbed a syringe needle into it, filling it.
Jenny leaned over Hal, disconnecting his electrodes. She whispered to him, “It’s a sedative for your flight. It’s okay.”
Dr. Elm handed the needle and syringe to Jenny. Her eyes welled. She knew the solution wouldn’t harm Hal, but she fought back tears from the guilt tearing at her insides. Knowing she had contributed to countless previous manipulations like this one. She injected Hal in the arm. Elm handed her another needle containing the sleepwalking and mind-control agent. She guided it toward Hal’s arm then dipped the needle below, out of Dr. Elm’s view. Shooting the chemical concoction into the mattress pad.
Jenny returned the needle to Dr. Elm. He nodded to her approvingly. That was her cue to leave. Done for the night. She left out the same side door Hal entered. Dr. Elm escorted her, then turned back toward the hangar. His Bruno Magli shoes clacking on the cold concrete as he strode up to McCreary and Baldo. They were leaning against an MJ-1E lift truck. “He’s ready,” Dr. Elm informed them.
Baldo grabbed the sturdy handle of a large black crate on wheels near the lift truck. A metal, military-grade Pelican case. Tugging it behind him toward the small clinic as McCreary followed behind. The rugged, crash-proof case was designed to transport air-to-air missiles. This one housed something else entirely. Baldo dragged it into the small room, popped the latches and swung the lid open, revealing the complete SCIROC System. Self-Contained Infra-Red and Optical Camouflage. Initially, they called it the Sci-Rock, but Trest decreed for confidentiality reasons it would henceforth be known simply as “the suit.”
Each of the suit components fit snugly into custom-molded foam within the Pelican case. Baldo and McCreary removed cotton gloves from a slot on the side of the crate, a precaution to avoid leaving any fingerprints on the suit. Not only to avoid linking them to the suit, but also to prevent smudging the multi-spectral camouflage coating the suit, helmet and weapons. Smudges were deadly to the ghosts, creating blurs on the microscopic nano-lenses and monitors embedded in the suit, resulting in areas that wouldn’t cloak properly during activation.
McCreary touched a button on his headset. “Beacon to Ghost One… Sit up. Extend your arms straight up.” Hal did as commanded and Baldo removed Hal’s sweatshirt. McCreary removed a thin vest of body armor from the case, fastening it around Hal’s T-shirt. Baldo and McCreary pulled the top of the stealth suit out. Tugging it over Hal’s outstretched arms like they were stretching a thick sweater over a child for winter. “Straighten your legs.” Hal lifted them straight over the end of the dental chair. McCreary and Baldo removed Hal’s shoes.
“I hate this part,” Baldo muttered under his breath, pulling Hal’s sweat pants off as McCreary set his shoes aside. A pant leg got stuck on a sock as Baldo tried to remove it. Pulling the sock down to reveal an Ace bandage wrapped around Hal’s ankle. “That’s new,” Baldo commented to McCreary. “What should we do with it?”
McCreary fished the stealth boots out of the crate. Thrusting a cotton-gloved hand deep inside the left boot, assessing the space while looking at Hal’s bulging ankle. “I’m concerned about taking the wrap off. If he twists it, the pain could wake him.” McCreary looked to the door, thinking he would call on Dr. Elm’s advice, but remembered Elm had already left for the night. McCreary couldn’t dwell on it too long. They were on a tight schedule. “Take off his sock. Carefully. We’ll see if we can get the boot on over the wrap.”
Baldo followed his instructions. Gingerly removing the sock from Hal’s wrapped ankle. McCreary opened the boot mouth wide and slipped it on. It was snug, but a good fit. Baldo put the other boot on and activated the internal tightening motor, pulling the bootlace bands to an exact fit. He did the same for the other boot.
McCreary removed the backpack, which in itself was a technological marvel. Not only did it contain a rebreather, converting the wearer’s exhaled carbon dioxide to oxygen, it also housed an auto-reeling mechanism for the most compact parachute ever invented — constructed of a new synthetic material half the thickness of a standard PJ chute. The backpack also contained the computer hardware for the suit, which regulated pressurization for high altitude, controlled the cooling system and powered all the comms.
McCreary unplugged the backpack from a charger and turned the unit on. Making sure it was fully charged. At the same time, Baldo removed the helmet from a round depression in the protective foam, unplugging it from a USB charger built into the case. He turned the helmet and face-shield on, waiting for a blue light beside the green power indicator inside, telling him the helmet was in wireless sync with the backpack.