Home. He would go home. And if they found him there, then that would be the end of it.
"The moon?" Jay said. "You brought me to the moon?"
Saji laughed, something of a feat, given that there wasn't any atmosphere to breathe or to carry the sound here. Or there wouldn't be in RW. He said, "It doesn't get much quieter than here. I need you to be undistracted by sensory input. Would you rather a dark cave? Or an isolation tank?"
Jay shook his head. "No. I guess it doesn't matter."
"Precisely. Find a comfortable spot and sit, and we'll begin."
Jay shook his head. A comfortable spot on the surface of the moon? Sure.
But he walked through the gray dust, bounding into the air — well, no, he couldn't say air, could he? — with each step, until he came to a rocky outcrop that seemed remarkably chair-shaped. He sat.
Saji had vanished, but he left behind a Cheshire-cat smile that faded as he said, "Just remember what I told you."
Jay found himself alone, on the moon, and it was very, very quiet. The idea was for him to sit and let his thoughts run, then use the meditation technique Saji had taught him to control them. The technique sounded easy enough. All he had to do was to count his breaths. Easier than that, he had only to count the out breaths. One you got to ten, you started over again. How hard could it be?
Jay closed his eyes. One… two… three…
This felt really stupid. Couldn't Saji have come up with a better scenario than the fucking moon? It was so… oops. He was drifting. Saji had warned him about that. When a thought intruded, he was supposed to take a deep, cleansing breath, gently push it aside, then go back to the count. Okay. Okay. He could do that. Move, pal.
One… two… three… four… five…
How could this do anything? Just sitting and counting? What was the point? It didn't do anything that — aw, hell, there he went again.
One… two… three…
He saw the tiger, just a flash, and Jay stopped counting because the next out breath didn't happen. Jesus, the tiger!
He opened his eyes. Nothing to see but the dead, dry moonscape, nothing to hear except his own heartbeat. Which, he noticed, was speeding up. Damn. This was a lot harder than it sounded.
Ping! A single, crisp note played.
He had an incoming call, and it wouldn't have been put through unless it was one of three people: his mother, his father, or his boss.
The moonscape vanished. Jay sat on the couch in the hospital room. He reached for the com.
"How are you, Jay?" Michaels said.
"I've felt better, boss," came the reply. But it was slurred and almost unintelligible. The effects of the stroke.
Michaels had his visual mode on, and the hotel room's com gave him a decent-sized picture of Jay. He didn't look much different, maybe a little slackness on one side of his face was all.
"I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. Toni and I have been drafted by MI-6 to help out with this thing. You know about the other ops who were injured like you were?"
"I heard."
"You remember anything about your line of inquiry that might help?"
"Sorry, boss, no. I don't remember anything but a tiger." He shook his head. "Don't even remember for sure if it's connected to this."
"Okay, don't worry about it."
"I want to work on this, boss, but…"
"When you get better, if we haven't caught this guy yet. We've got everybody in the civilized world chasing him. We'll get him."
"I don't think so, boss. I've never… seen… anything… like it."
Just the strain of this short conversation was wearing him out, Michaels could see that. "Get some rest, Jay. We'll keep you posted."
He clicked off. Jesus, what a mess.
His virgil announced an incoming call. He looked at the ID. Cooper.
"Yes, hello?"
"Commander. Ah, Alex. A quick call to bring you up to speed. Our technical people have come up with a scenario that might explain how a VR headset could cause brain damage."
"Really?"
"Yes. Apparently, it is theoretically possible. I don't have the electronics or the mathematics to understand it, but the simple explanation is that certain solid-state components in the hardware might be programmed to act as capacitors. They could store the microelectric current like a camera's flash attachment does, then release it all at once. If, somehow, this discharge was focused and directed, it could indeed short out neural pathways. Theoretically, they say, because they can't do it."
"Is somebody that far ahead of the rest of the computer world?"
"Apparently so."
"I don't much like the sound of that."
"Nor do we. And we haven't a clue so far on how to trace whoever it is. We're hoping your expertise will help."
Michaels sighed. Yeah, right. His best expert had his brain fried by whoever it was they were hunting. That sure as hell didn't make things easier.
"Discom, then," Cooper said. "I'll see you at HQ later?"
"Yeah, I'll stop in."
After she had broken the connection, the virgil rang again. Lord, it was a parade. This time, it was Melissa Allison. Just what he needed.
"Commander."
"Director."
"Anything to report?"
Well, yes, we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground, as far as all this goes. But he said, "No, ma'am, nothing substantial yet. MI-5 and -6 have made their systems available, and we are getting up to speed."
"Keep me informed of your progress."
"Of course."
He put the virgil back into its charger as the bathroom door opened and Toni, wrapped in a towel, came out in a cloud of vapor from her shower. "Did I hear the phone ring?"
"Oh, yeah," he said. He looked at her, smiled. "But let's talk about that after."
She smiled back at him. Undid the towel and dropped it. "After what?"
"Come here."
"What is the magic word?"
"Come here, quick!"
She laughed.
Once she was close enough to grab, he did, and whatever thoughts he might have had for the next few minutes were short-circuited well shy of his brain.
Chapter 13
The obstacle course wasn't busy, and after a hundred crunches, fifty push-ups, and a dozen chins at the beginning, John Howard wasn't even close to burning off his frustration, but he didn't really feel like running the course. He was too tight, too pissed off, too… something. He wanted to hit somebody, hit them hard enough to knock their teeth out, spray blood in all directions, and watch them fall, preferably onto something sharp. It didn't help that who he was the maddest at was himself. He had screwed up, big time, and that promotion he had allowed himself to dream about was likely to be rescinded before he ever officially saw it.
Too bad, but when it got right down to it, that didn't matter as much as the two dead soldiers. Losing men in battle, in a firefight, that was one thing. Losing them in a supposedly secure area to a single man who made you look stupid, that galled. Losing them at all…
So he stood there, watching the odd FBI trainee or Marine pass him for the obstacle course, feeling impotent.
So far, there hadn't been squat on Ruzhyo since he'd disappeared. Oh, yeah, they found the truck, in front of a supermarket in Vegas, windows rolled down, keys in the ignition. He could be anywhere in the country by now, hell, anywhere on the planet. Net Force had the best computers crunching all flight information, train and bus schedules, rental cars, automobile and motorcycle sales, even car thefts in and around Las Vegas, but so far they hadn't come up with anything to match the fugitive's profile.