Grayman Book One: Acts of War

by Michael Rizzo

18

  November 7th.

  Lawrence Henderson, Director of CT Operations, Joint Intelligence Commission:

  Just some final things to arrange.

  “Doctor Becker…”

  He’s expecting my call. Been sweating it, in fact. I can see it in his expression: twitchy-tight and wide-eyed, his redheaded freckled face looking even more kidlike than usual.

  “Yes sir. I… I’ve been meaning to… I mean I’d like to offer my apologies for Datascan—for the inconsistencies in its performance. I can’t explain why it…”

  I let him start to do the groveling he expects to when billions of dollars are on the line, then raise my hand to catch him stumbling through it.

  “No need, Doctor. I was actually calling to tell you that we’re all, in fact, quite pleased with the Datascan’s performance in the Grayman test.” I let him digest that just enough to keep him off-balance—he looks at me like I’m not speaking English—and then I keep nudging him: “In fact, I’m authorized to inform you that we will be proceeding with the next phase.”

  “Uh… Next…?”

  “I’m flashing it to you on your encrypt. Please look it over at your earliest convenience. We’re hoping to begin immediately.”

  “’Manticore’…” I watch him roll it off his tongue as he starts scanning. “This is the interface training…”

  “Of course. The next step in the joint SENTAR/McCain project proposal. This will let us see if your machine really can assemble, train and field the proposed interface armor teams as effectively as its projections insist.”

  I watch his eyes glow with the datafeed, hypnotized by it, seduced…

  “Can I count on your continued involvement, Doctor? I can’t imagine doing it without you.”

  He’s hearing me even though he doesn’t respond initially. I settle for an absent nod of assent, and leave him to finish exploring the somewhat edited files I sent him. They’re enough, I hope, to suck him in and keep him too distracted to ask the obvious questions, to make it easier for him to just go with the proverbial flow. Besides, he’s probably left saner not to discover how thoroughly we redirected his system’s operational parameters—and how creatively the machine adapted.

  I log out and go see about my other prize.

  They’re keeping him in the high-security annex of the Ramstein base hospital. Though I can’t expect him to fully appreciate how much of my time it eats to travel to Europe, I felt that a flesh appearance would go further with him than a tele-meeting. If not more sincere, then at least a bit harder to tune out.

  The guards have me swept for weapons despite my clearance, insisting it’s for my own safety. Not that he’s tried anything since we put him back together. In fact, he’s barely spoken in the last week.

  Mostly, he just lies still as a corpse. Healing, I’d like to think. I expect he’s got a lot of that to do, considering what he’s been through. The other possibility—that he’s simply gone basket—isn’t an option. Even Datascan agrees with that in its profiling: that he’s still quite sellable.

  Time to close the deal.

  There’s no other flesh in the room with him, or much of anything other than the medi-bed. They must have taken to heart the assessment that he could apply almost anything as a weapon (including his bedsheets, so they gave him paper-fiber). The techs watch him through anonymous monitors, and have left it to the cell’s auto-dumbwaiter to bring his meals (which he eats very little of, according to his chart). Apparently no one is very comfortable sharing space with him. (He hasn’t actually attempted violence—mostly it comes across in some of the staff reports as bordering on metaphysical flake: crap about “aura” and “energy” and “presence”.) So I catch the incredulous looks of the guards when I tell them I want in.

  He doesn’t look up, despite the rare live visitor. He’s sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, trying to manage a symmetrically disciplined meditation posture despite the heavy packing wrapping his left calf. Staring at the bare linoleum a few feet in front of him with lazy, half-closed eyes. He’s pretending to tune me out, but I saw his vitals go up on the monitors as soon as I buzzed through.

  “Hey.”

  He looks marginally better than he did when we took him. The healing steroids have fleshed him out a bit (that, and the sentry cams show him up doing some kind of kung-fu thing after lights-out, even with the leg wound) and his facial cut is healed over.

  “I came to see how you were coming together,” I tell him soft-casual. “You don’t have to talk to me. I don’t blame you for the shut-down, considering the assorted weirdness. But I can explain all that, when you feel like hearing it.”

  I sit down on the floor a respectable distance in front of him, not bothering to try to match the hard discipline of his posture. I just want to make myself smaller, more passive. He’s good, though: I can’t see his eyes respond to me at all.

  “In the meantime, I have something for you to consider. A deal, of sorts. Not a cheap one. But I think you’ll be interested.”

  I watch him breathe: very slow. I almost can’t see it.

  “My name is Lawrence Henderson. Joint Intelligence. Counterterror. We’ve been watching you, and sort of watching over you. But you knew that. Just like you also knew—or at least considered—that it was us that contacted you, hacked your gear and helped you out there at the end. I expect you’ve got a lot of questions about that, which I’ll be glad to answer. Just not here.”

  Thirty seconds and my rear is hurting, sitting on this floor. He spends hours like this, according to the video files.

  “Anyway, my point: I’m authorized to offer you some options. Two, in fact. First, it is possible for us to cover your actions, enough that you might be able to safely return to your old life. I can’t make any guarantees, but then I expect there’s more in the way of that than the fear of enemy retaliation.

  “Which gets me to the other possibility: You don’t go back. You keep going down the path you’re on now. I can’t really elaborate here. But let’s say I’m offering you a job, if you decide you don’t want to—or can’t—go back to being who you were before. And besides a lot of hard training—which I have no doubt you could sail through—that’s what it will cost you: you won’t ever be able to return to your old life. No family, no friends, no past, nothing. It’s not something I would offer if I didn’t think you were already pointed that way.”

  I sit and let it settle for a few before I pry myself up off the floor and signal the sentries to buzz me out.

  “No rush. Just let me know. All you have to do is ask the sentry machines for Henderson.”

  And I leave him there to digest it, staring at the floor. It’s not until I’m well out of the annex that I realize I’m shivering like I’m cold.

  19