Текст книги "Nerve Center"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

“Oh, fuck that.”

Thomas’s lower lip quivered and his cheek jerked up nervously. “The Russians have canceled most of their developmental programs, so our efforts to anticipate them no longer make sense. We would be training against a nonexistent threat.”

“Bullshit.”

“E-ev-everyone’s going to be reassigned to other Dreamland projects. Of course, we’ll be securing the airframes that we have. Now you’re not technically Dreamland personnel, so the colonel mentioned that he’d help find something for you if you need help.”

“I don’t need God’s help,” said Mack, practically spitting Dog’s very unofficial and not exactly flattering nickname.

“Major, this isn’t going to affect you adversely. It’s just a little bump.”

“Screw yourself, Thomas, okay? Just fucking screw yourself.”

Aboard Mo

23 January, 0915

EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO FLEW B-52’s CALLED THEM BUFFs—Big Ugly Fat Fellas, or Fuckers, depending on whether there was a reverend around. The venerable Cold War bombers looked clean on the first sketch pads, but even by the late sixties wore a variety of blisters and stretch marks across their approximately 160-foot bodies. Each modification made the bomber a more potent weapon, but most also took a slight nick out of its aerodynamic qualities. Never fast to begin with, latter-day Stratofortresses positively labored in certain flight regimes, including low-level maneuvers.

Not the Megafortress. With a sleek needle nose, an ultra-clean fuselage, carbon-fiber reinforced wings, and a modified tailplane assembly, the EB-52 could accelerate through a forty-five-degree climb from one thousand feet, its speed touching 423.5 knots even though it carried a simulated weapons load of 28,000 pounds of iron bombs.

“We can go faster,” Cheshire said as they climbed through seven thousand feet. She’d let him take the pilot’s seat to continue his training.

“Engines at max,” said Dog.

“Engines at maximum power,” concurred the computer. “We should have more thrust,” complained Cheshire. “Eight thousand feet, going to ten thousand.”

The outboard J57’s rumbled noisily, as if Major Cheshire had annoyed them. Still, the airplane’s indicated airspeed slipped back toward four hundred knots. Cheshire made some adjustments on her side of the control panel, but nothing seemed to have an effect. They reached ten thousand feet; Bastian began pushing the nose down, trimming the plane for level flight.

“Air speed 380 knots,” reported the computer.

“How can that be?” said Dog.

“Problem with Test Engine Two,” reported Cheshire, a moment before the computer flashed a warning on the status screen. The PW4074/DX engine’s oil pressure shot down, then up off the scale. The temperature went red as well.

“Shutting down Two,” reported Cheshire.

“Two, yes, shutting down Two,” said Dog. His mind hesitated for a moment, his brain momentarily caught between a dozen different thoughts. The synapses were temporarily clogged by the memory of the only time in his life that he’d lost an engine in flight and couldn’t get it relit.

Unfortunately, it was in an F-16 over the Atlantic. No amount of restarts, no amount of curses, could bring is back. He’d bailed out into a moonless night at ten thousand feet—and even with plenty of time to contemplate how cold the water would be, he’d underestimated the chill by half.

But he was in a Megafortress now.

“Trimming to compensate,” Dog said calmly, remembering the routine Bree had taught him during the simulations.

“Good,” said Cheshire. “Okay. Okay,” she sang, running through the instruments on her side.

The Megafortress wobbled slightly. Mo’s speed continued to drop steadily, but he was still in control.

“I’m going to bank around and try for Runway Two,” Bastian told Cheshire.

“Two’s no good,” said Nancy. “The Flighthawks are using it for touch-and-go’s. Three is our designated landing area.”

“Three then.” Bastian clicked his radio transmit button. “Dreamland Tower, this is Missouri. We have an emergency situation. One engine is out. Request permission to land on Runway Three.”

“Tower. We acknowledge your emergency. Stand by.”

Dog started to bank the plane. His hands were a little shaky and the artificial horizon showed he was tipping his wing a little too much.

“Temp in Engine Three going yellow, going—shit—climbing—red,” reported Cheshire.

She said something else, but Dog couldn’t process it. His stomach started fluttering to the side, as if it had somehow pulled loose inside his body.

Relax, he told himself. You can do this.

“Nine thousand feet, going to eight thousand,” said Cheshire.

“Shut down Engine Three,” said Dog.

“Through the turn first,” prompted Cheshire. “I’m on the engine, Colonel,” she explained.

Dog came out of the turn, leveling the wings while still in a gentle downward glide. Cheshire did a quick run through the indicators on the remaining engines, reporting that they were in the green. The tower came back, clearing them to land.

“Six thousand feet,” said Cheshire. “One more orbit?”

“I think so,” said Dog. But as he nudged into the bank, his left wing started to tip precipitously; the Megafortress began bucking and threatening to turn into a brick.

“Problem with the automatic trim control,” reported Cheshire. “System failure in the automated flight-control computer, section three—the backup protocol for the engine tests introduced an error. All right, hang with it. This won’t be fatal.”

She then began running through some numbers, recording the section problems that the flight computer was giving her on the screen. Under other circumstances—like maybe sitting on the ground in his office—Dog would have appreciated the technical details and the prompt identification of the problem. Now, though, all he wanted was a solution.

“We’re going to have to fly without the computer,” said Cheshire finally. “I can’t lock this out and it will be easier to just land and we can debug on the ground.”

“I figured that out,” said Dog, wrangling the big plane through the turn.

“If you want me to take it, just say the word.”

He felt his anger boiling up, even though he knew she didn’t mean it as an insult. “No, I’m okay,” he said. “Tell me if I’m doing anything wrong.”

“Wide turns,” she said. “Very wide turns. We’re more like an airliner than a fighter jet.”

“Yup.”

Part of him, a very, very small part of him, wanted to turn the plane over to Cheshire. A strong case could be made that it was the right thing to do—when all was said and done, he was a green pilot trying to deal with a very big problem. Even if he wasn’t in over his head, it made sense to turn the stick over to Cheshire.

But Dog was way too stubborn for that. And besides, he wasn’t in over his head—he came through another orbit much more smoothly, having worked the plane down to two thousand feet. They legged into final approach with a long, gentle glide.

“Come on, Mo,” said Cheshire, talking to the plane. “You can do it, baby.”

“Yeah, Mo,” said Dog. “Go for it, sister.”

Whether she heard them or not, the EB-52 stepped down daintily on the desert runway, her tires barely chirping.

She poked her nose up slightly, perhaps indignant to find a full escort of emergency vehicles roaring alongside her. But Bastian had no trouble controlling her, bringing her to a rest near the secondary access ramp at the middle of the field.

“Good work, Colonel,” said Cheshire. “You handled that like a pro. Maybe we will use you as a pilot when Pistol and Billy leave.”

ANTARES Bunker

27 January, 0755

KEVIN NODDED AT THE GUARD AS THE GATE SWUNG back from the road, the panel of chain links groaning and clicking as the metal wheels whirled. While the path was wide enough for a tractor-trailer, no vehicles were allowed past the checkpoint, not even the black SUVs used by Dreamland security.

Madrone proceeded past the gate and the three cement-reinforced metal pipes that stuck up from the roadway, walking toward the pillbox that served as the entrance to the ANTARES lab. Made of concrete, the building bore the scars from its use long ago as a target area for live-fire exercises, though it had been at least two decades since the last piece of lead had ricocheted off the thick gray exterior. The interior somehow managed to smell not only damp, but like fried chicken, perhaps because the main vents from the underground complex ran through an access shaft next to the stairway.

Madrone nearly lost his balance as he stepped down the tight spiral stairway. All of the qualifying tests for ANTARES had taken place over at Taj; coming to the lab yesterday had been a revelation—truthfully, he didn’t even know it existed. The bunker facility had actually not been used during the program’s first phase, except for some minor tests; it was only after ANTARES was officially shut down that the computers and other gear were consolidated here. Geraldo had been using it as an office and lab for a few months, but the scent of fresh paint managed to mingle with the heavier odors as Ma-drone stepped off the stairway and across the wide ramp. No human guards were posted beyond the gate, and like the rest of Dreamland, there were no signs to direct anyone; it was assumed that if you had business here, you knew where you were going.

The metal ramp led to a subterranean catacomb area with three large metal doors, none of which looked as if they had been opened in years. Madrone went to the door on the right, which was the only one that worked. It was also the only one with a magnetic card reader. He pushed his ID into the slot and the door slowly creaked upward. He took a breath, then ducked beneath it, passing into a long hallway whose raked cement walls and dull red overhead lights continued the early-bomb-shelter motif. At the end of the hallway he turned right, and was immediately blinded by light; before his eyes could adjust the door in front of him slid open, activated by a computer security system similar to the one that governed Taj’s elevator.

Now the ambiance changed dramatically. He stepped onto a plush green carpet and walked down the hallway, barely glancing at the Impressionist paintings—elaborate canvas transfer prints complete with forged brush strokes like the real thing. As he neared Lab Room 1, the adagio of a Mozart Concerto—K.313, for flute and orchestra—filtered into the hallway, and he smelled the light perfume of Earl Grey tea.

“Good morning, Kevin, come in, come in,” said Dr. Geraldo.

She was wearing a lab coat and her customary severe suit, but otherwise seemed more like a matron welcoming visitors to the family estate than a staid scientist. She ushered Kevin to a thick leather chair and went to get him some tea; somewhere along the way he’d mentioned that he preferred it to coffee.

“And a pineapple Danish,” she said, appearing with a plate and cloth napkin. “Did you sleep well?” the psychiatrist asked him.

“As a matter of fact I did,” he told her. “Best I’ve slept in weeks. Didn’t have any dreams.”

“We always have dreams,” she said gently. “You mean that you don’t remember them.”

“True.”

“How many cigarettes have you had this morning?”

Kevin laughed—not at her stern-grandmother scowl, but at the realization that he hadn’t had any. He hadn’t even thought of it.

“I think your pills are a cure for nicotine fits,” he suggested.

“If so, you and I will share a fortune,” she said kindly. Geraldo glanced toward his thumbs, which Kevin belatedly pulled into his fists; that was one habit he hadn’t yet broken. “You’ve gained weight. Very good. You did your exercises?”

“Yes, ma’am. Full hour.”

“Let me look at your spider,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to examine the side of his skull above his ear. It was a bit of a joke—the integrated circuit placed there to facilitate the ANTARES connection looked like a flattened spider. “Itchy?”

“Not today,” said Kevin.

“Yes, I think it’s fine. I think it was only the irritation from the shaving bothering you.”

He sipped his tea. Inside the next room, Geraldo’s two assistants were making last-minute adjustments to the equipment. One of them made a joke that somehow involved the word “monkey,” and the other laughed.

Monkey. That’s what he was.

Madrone concentrated on the Danish as Geraldo reviewed the results of yesterday’s session. She gave brain wave and serotonin levels, which he knew wouldn’t be encouraging—they had failed to make a link.

The thing was, he didn’t quite know what making a link really meant. Geraldo said it would be like shaking hands with the computer, except that it would seem imaginary. He’d feel it more than think it.

Neither description cleared up his confusion. Zen, who had gone through ANTARES before his crash, described it as a smack on the head with an anvil, followed by the warm buzz of a beer when you’d spent the day working outside in the sun.

That didn’t help either. Not only had he never been hit by an anvil, Madrone rarely drank, and frankly didn’t like the loss of control that came with being buzzed, let alone drunk.

Geraldo bent down in front of him, so close he could smell the tea on her breath. “You’re worried this morning.”

“A little nervous.” He felt his thumb twitch.

“You’ll be fine,” she told him. “The link will come. It takes time. Everyone is different. There are different pathways. Trust me.”

Shorn of its classified and complicated science, descriptions of the ANTARES system tended to sound either like Eastern religion or sci-fi fantasies. The bottom line was an age-old dream—ANTARES allowed a subject’s brain to control mechanical devices. It was hardly magic, however. The subject could not simply think an item into existence, nor could he—for some reason not totally understood, no woman had ever been an effective ANTARES subject—move items by simply thinking of them. Thought impulses, which corresponded to minute chemical changes in synapses in different sections of the brain, controlled a series of sensitive ultralow-voltage electrical switches in the ANTARES interface unit, which in turn controlled the external object—in this case a gateway to a special version of C3, the Flighthawk control computer.

But before Madrone could interface with C3, he had to reach Theta-alpha, the scientists’ shorthand for a mental state where he could produce and control the impulses of the hippocampus in his brain. The production of the waves were measured on an electroencephalograph. All humans, in fact all carnivorous animals, produced such waves. But few people could actually control them, let alone use them to project thoughts as instructions. Successful ANTARES subjects could do just that, using the brain waves as extensions of their thoughts, in effect talking to a computer without bothering to use their mouths.

In Theta-alpha, the brain began utilizing resources that it normally didn’t tap. Or as an ANTARES researcher explained it on the introductory video: “Areas of the brain that normally go unused are suddenly put into service to control autonomous functions. The average person uses only thirty percent of his available brain capacity, but under Theta-alpha, the other seventy percent is suddenly put on line.”

That seventy percent would be augmented by the computers it was interfaced with. When he mastered Theta and ANTARES, Kevin would tap into their memories and, to some extent, computational abilities.

ANTARES had physical components. A special diet, drugs, and feedback manipulated serotonin and other chemical levels in the subject’s brain. A chip implant in the skull supplied and regulated the vital connection to the ANTARES input and output system: this was physically taped to a receptor or, alternatively, overlain by a copper connection band in the ANTARES control helmet. ANTARES subjects had to either sit in a special chair or wear a flight suit that contained a sensor that ran parallel to their spine, allowing the ANTARES monitoring units to record peripheral nervous-system impulses. But the most important component was the subject’s mind, and his will to extend beyond himself. Kevin had to think himself beyond the interface into the object itself. As Geraldo was fond of saying, he had to discover a way to think in harmony with the machine. He needed to invent a new language with its own feelings, metaphors, and even thoughts.

“The important thing is not to push too hard,” she told him now. “Let it come to you. It will. Are you ready?”

Madrone took a last bite of his pastry, then got up and followed her into the lab. He stripped off his shirt, holding his arms up while the techies carefully taped wire leads that would monitor his heartbeat and breathing. Shirt back on, he slipped into the subject chair, which looked like a slightly wider version of the one found in most dentist offices.

“Going to prick you, Captain,” said Carrie, one of the assistants, as she picked up his hand. He nodded, trying not to stare at her breasts as she poked á small needle into his right thumb. She held the needle against his finger as she retrieved a roll of white adhesive tape from her lab coat pocket. A small tube ran from the needle to a device that measured gases in Madrone’s bloodstream, analyzing his respiration rate during the experiment.

It was all but impossible not to imagine the outlines of her nipples rising as she attached the device.

In the meantime, the other assistant—Roger, whose long nose, wide stomach, and long legs made him look like a pregnant stork—got ready to put the ANTARES helmet on Kevin’s head. The helmet was actually more a liner made of a flexible plastic with bumps and veins; a full flight helmet would go over it when they got to the point where he was actually working in a plane. Besides the thick metal band that connected with the chip, there were two classes of sensors strung in a thick net within the plastic. The first and most important picked up brain waves and fed them to the translating unit, backing up those that were fed through the chip and band interface. The other sensors helped the scientists track Madrone’s physical state.

With the helmet on, Roger lowered a shieldlike set of visual sensors to track rapid eye movements over his eyes. These backed up the translating sensors, and gave the scientists another way of monitoring their progress. In the next stage of the experiments, the sensors would be part of the flight helmet and would be used by ANTARES to help it interpret his thought commands.

The physical feedback input from electrodes, which would be connected to the spider and grafted onto the nerves of the skin behind the eyes and ears, wouldn’t be used until Madrone demonstrated he was capable of achieving and controlling Theta. The electrodes would allow the computer to send data to him, first by affecting his equilibrium, and then by interacting with his brain’s Theta-alpha wave production.

A ponytail of wires connected the ANTARES helmet with a bank of workstations and two servers. These fed data to a set of supercomputers the next level down via a set of optical cables. The interface modules for the Flighthawk’s C units were still being worked on, but eventually would be hooked into a smaller, portable (and air-cooled) version of the AN-TARES computer array.

Madrone sat stoically in the chair as the technicians prepared him. Geraldo had given him breathing exercises to do as a form of relaxation; he tried them now, imagining his lungs slowly squeezing the air from his chest. He pictured his upper body as a large balloon, gradually being emptied. He relaxed his arms and hands on the seat rests, easing himself into the chair. When the visor was placed on his face he accepted the darkness.

His lips and cheeks vibrated slightly, as if set off by some internal pitchfork tuned to their frequency. Someone placed headphones over his ears. The Mozart concerto played softly in the background.

The music called up memories of the past, times in junior and senior high school, learning the cello. Orchestra was his favorite class, though not his best—B’s and B+’s compared to the A’s and A+’s in math and science. The thickness of the notes matched the feel of the bow in his hand, the vibration shifting in his senses. Sounds morphed into movement through space, and space itself transformed, the high school halls a jungle of jagged shadows and sharp corners.

“Kevin, are you ready?”

Geraldo’s voice intruded like a bully bursting from the shadows. Junior and senior high school were in the same building, seventh-graders mixing with towering twelfth-graders, always cowering in fear of being pummeled.

“Kevin?”

“Yes,” said Madrone.

“Your hippocampus has grown two percent since our measurement twenty-four hours ago,” said the scientist. “That is extremely good. Surprising even. Incredible.”

“Off the chart,” said Roger approvingly.

The hippocampus was one of the key areas of the brain involved in ANTARES, since it produced nearly all the Theta waves. Also responsible for memory control and other functions, it was actually a ridge at the bottom of each of the brain’s lateral ventricles. Geraldo had explained that she wasn’t sure the size of the ridge or the number of cells there mattered. Nonetheless, the ANTARES diet and drug regime included several hormones that were supposed to help stimulate the grown of brain cells.

“Our baseline frequencies this morning are 125 percent,” continued Geraldo. “Kevin, I must say, we’re doing very well. Very, very well. Can you feel the computer? If I try a simple tone, do you feel it? The feedback?”

He shook his head. Her praise was misplaced. He had no control over his. thoughts, let alone the growth of his brain cells. He was worthless, a failure, useless. Karen had seen that and left.

His brain began to shift, ideas floating back and forth like pieces of paper caught in a breeze.

Something hot burned a hole on the side of his head.

Red grew there. His skull bones folded inward, became a flute.

Maria Mahon, the flute player in ninth-grade orchestra.

He had a crush on her. Thomas Lang, a senior, was her boyfriend.

Stuck-up rich kid bully slimebag.

Go out for the football team, his dad urged.

He broke his forearm and couldn’t play the cello anymore.

Very red and hot.

The light notes moved down the scale. He was a horrible trumpet player. Try the bass, pound-pound-pounding.

Red knives poked him from the sides of the hall. Someone took a machine gun from the locker.

Respond with the York Gatling gun. He had one in his hands. His head was the radar he’d worked on.

Pounding red lava from the cortex of his brain.

Madrone heard words, hard words that shot across the pain, spun him in the displaced hallway of his distorted memories.

“Kevin, try to relax. Let your body sway with the music.

You’re fighting too hard.”

Relax, relax, relax. Don’t think about the bullies.

The tanks. He was in Iraq, alone with his men.

“Lieutenant?”

“Go left. I’m right. Just go!”

He screamed, running faster. He drew the Iraqis’ fire and his men did their jobs, it was all so easy in his memory now, without the pain and the nervousness, knowing exactly how it would come out, the elation, the adrenaline at the end, the smell of the burning metal, the extra grenade still in his hand.

He could do it. He wanted to do it.

And then Karen. Christina being born in the hospital. Taking blood in the doctor’s office when she was a week old because the TSH had been so elevated.

Normal, said the nurse, for a traumatic birth.

Except the birth hadn’t been traumatic. Labor was only two hours and the kid nailed the Apgar charts.

Christina wailed as they pricked her heel. They couldn’t get the blood to flow.

The second test, then the third. X-rays. Colonel Glavin, Theo P. Glavin, wouldn’t give him the day off so he could be there.

“P” for Prick.

Oh, God, you bastards, why did you poison her?

Karen, don’t you see—they killed her. They poisoned her and then me.

His wife looked at him from across the room, the empty white room at the back of the small church where they’d had the service for Christina, their poor, dead little girl. Karen’s eyes stabbed at his chest, wounding him again, the memory so vivid it wasn’t a memory but reality; he was in the church again, his daughter dead, his marriage crumbling, his life over. He’d been uncontrollable at the service, blurting out the truth, what he knew was the truth—they had poisoned her through him, killed her.

He’d get them, the bastards who’d exposed him to the radiation, exposed her—

“Kevin?”

“I can’t do it, I’m sorry.” Madrone snapped upright in the chair. He yanked off the helmet.

“Easy, easy,” said Geraldo. Her fingers folded over his gently but firmly. “Let’s break for lunch.”

Her words or perhaps her touch pushed him back, somehow both surprising and calming him at the same time.

“Lunch?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s lunchtime,” she said. “Why don’t you go over to the Red Room? Take a real break. We’ll start from scratch at two o’clock.”

“What time is it?” asked Madrone. He’d only just sat in the chair, perhaps five minutes ago.

“High noon,” said Roger. “You’ve been attached for nearly two hours. Flirting with Theta-alpha the whole time. You’re close.” He put his thumb and forefinger a half centimeter apart. “You’re damn close.”

Dreamland All-Ranks Cafeteria

27 January, 1230

“HEY, MONKEY BRAIN,” SAID MACK AS HE ENTERED THE food line in the mess hall and spotted Madrone in front of him. “How’s it feel to have a microchip in your head?”

“Hi, Major.” Madrone stood stiffly, eyes on the cook’s helper who was cutting him some roast beef. Mack thought the Army captain looked even paler than normal. The ANTARES people must have started frying his brain already.

Gained a few pounds, though.

“Lot of food you got there,” said Knife. “Bulking up for all that skull work, huh?”

“I’m hungry.”

“That a boy. Go for the red meat. No more Twig, right? Got a new nickname—Microchip Brain. Monkey Boy.”

The airman slicing the meat glanced in Mack’s direction.

“No electrodes in your neck yet?” Mack asked Madrone, narrowing his eyes as if he were scanning for microscopic ANTARES implants. “Guess 1 can’t ask you to toast my bread, huh?”

“Jeez, you’re more obnoxious than usual today, Knife,” said Zen, rolling in behind him.

“And why not, oh, exalted one,” said Mack. He did a mock bow. “Your father-in-law just offered me a job as janitor here.”

Actually, Bastian had tried to talk him into flying Megafortresses. Smith would take a job with a commuter airline, or even look up that Brazilian geezer who’d come on to him in Vegas, before stooping to flying BUFFs.

“I’m sure you’ll get a good assignment soon,” said Jeff.

The thing about Stockard that pissed Knife off was his ability to deliver a line like that without giving himself away. Anybody overhearing him undoubtedly thought he was being sincere.

Mack knew otherwise. But there was no real way to answer him, or at least Mack couldn’t think of anything snappy. He compensated by making sure the airman cut him an extra slab of beef from the rare side of the roast, then helped himself to the rest of the spread. Known colloquially as the Red Room, this mess and the fancy food had once been reserved for special occasions. Bastian had thrown it open with his “all ranks, all the time” decree. Interestingly, most of the base personnel had responded by using the Red Room only for special occasions.

Mack decided he’d eat here until his next assignment was settled. Might as well. Odds were he’d end up getting shipped out to Alaska, or perhaps the Antarctic.

Bastian—whom he’d actually had to make an appointment to see—had pretended to be gracious after Mack turned down the Megafortress. He’d told him he could stay on as an “unassigned test pilot,” whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Obviously a career crusher. When Mack had said that was no good, Bastian had pointed out that the MiG project would live on for only a few weeks more. After filling out some odds and ends and collecting data for future simulations of next-generation Russian planes, the plane would head for deep storage. If Mack couldn’t snag something before then. he might very well find himself assigned to something he didn’t like, almost certainly not at Dreamland.

Things did look bleak. The only assignment Mack’s preliminary trolling had turned up was as a maintenance officer for a squadron of A-10A Warthogs.

It was possible, maybe even likely, that the brass was trying to get him to glide into the sunset. The fact that he’d gotten waxed over Somalia probably embarrassed them. They just hadn’t dared admitting it to his face at the time.

Bastards. Let them put their butts over a few dozen ZSUs and SA-9’s. If he hadn’t hung around there, an entire company of Marines and at least one helicopter would be Somalian tourist attractions right now.

Knife took his tray into the paneled eating area, his flight boots tromping on the thick red carpet that gave the room its name. Madrone sat by himself at a table for four in the corner. Mack walked over and put his tray down.

“Penny for your thoughts, Monkey Brain,” said Mack. When Madrone didn’t respond, Mack started humming the start of the John Lennon song “Mind Games.”

Madrone shot him a glance, then put his head down, staring at his food.

“Silent treatment. I get it,” said Knife.

Zen rolled across the room, tray in his lap. “Mind if I sit here, Kevin?” he asked.

“I’m kind of thinking,” said Madrone softly.

Smith started to laugh. “What the hell are you thinking about?”

“Leave him alone, Smith.”

“Come on, Zen, Kevvy can fight his own battles. Right, Key?”

“I would like to be left alone,” said Madrone, his voice a monotone so soft it was difficult to hear even in the quiet room.

“Hey, that’s okay, Kevin,” said Zen.

“Guess he doesn’t like you today,” said Mack.

Stockard said nothing, rolling backward and then across to the next table. Madrone stared down at his food.

Mack liked the guy, he really did. Maybe he shouldn’t have busted his balls quite so hard.

“Hey, look, Key, I didn’t mean nothing, okay? Just bustin’ your chops. If I was out of line, I’m sorry.”

The Army captain raised his head slowly. His face had changed—his eyes were squeezed down in his forehead, under a long furrow.