bionanotechnology with neuron-synthesized capabilities was not a cold medicine. It altered the brain, the body’s ability to function. The reaction to physical antibodies, the breakdown of the technology or white cell damage wasn’t conclusive without knowing long-term effects in the test animals.
Yesterday’s discussion with the commanding officer and his medical board popped into mind. None of them were pleased with her insistence on a longer test period. Though they were on schedule, it was just not fast enough for the room full of officers. They’d grilled her for three straight hours till she was ready to confess her ex-husband’s fetish for wearing women’s panties. But then, that would prove the caliber of loser she attracted. Clancy wasn’t swayed.
She’d created it. It was her baby, and the only reason Clancy was sitting here in the first place was that her natural ability—found too late in life to make her millions—got her here. Shortchanging herself or the project was simply not an option.
Relaxed in the chair, she stared at the cells on the screen, then turning to the scope, she dropped a pinpoint of a simple flu virus into the blood sample. The blood cells immediately fought it off with amazing speed.
“Yes!”
The implantation was changing his blood, and Boris’s behavior, with the exception of his ardent displays of affection for her, was normal. Nonaggressive. Almost no change. A good thing since they were altering his brain and body chemistry. He could, for all they knew, turn into King Kong with a really nasty attitude.
She labeled the vial with time and date, then in the chair, rolled across the slick floor to the cold storage locker and opened the glass door. Frosted air swept around her face as she put the vial in a new rack, then checked the sequential numbers. She frowned, recounting, then realized there was a new set of four samples on the next level at the back. She plucked a tube from the rack and read. No name, only numbers. That wasn’t necessary. Boris was the only candidate here this week.
Curious, she jotted down the number, put the pallet of tubes back, then closed the fridge door and pushed off. She glided to the computer, grabbing the desk to stop herself, then opened log files and punched in the new set of numbers. She waited for the search.
Her gaze skipped around the darkened room, flicking to the camera panning in slow, quiet intervals. Colonel Cook’s personal eyeball into your life. Did he watch everything around here? Made her almost tempted to flash him. A portion of the massive string of buildings was a hospital, and while it wasn’t hidden from sight, what they did here was classified—though there were hundreds at MIT and elsewhere around the world doing similar research in microengineering. Just not this kind.
Down the hall, teams worked on everything from lightweight liquid body armor to global positioning beacons implanted in military personnel before reconnaissance missions. Cool stuff. All to prolong lives in battle.
The ACCESS DENIED icon startled her. Deny me? “Oh, I so don’t think so,” she whispered, spinning in the chair and attacking the keyboard.
My technology, my business, she thought and went through the back door of the program. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, syntax and screens of numbers coming up, but Clancy saw through it, saw the program’s heartbeat.
“You are completely toasted,” she muttered.
Inside within seconds, she opened files, scanned the content, then went into another. She found a report with her name on it, but it was Dr. Yates’s documentation procedure for the implantation. Wasn’t surprising; they traded information all the time, and she barely glanced at it, about to close the file when she noticed the date. A month old. She didn’t get this copy.
Orangutan implantation was two months ago.
Her gaze flicked to Boris snoring inside his cage, then back to the screen. She scrolled and read, checking the vial numbers against the implant document.
A chill slithered over her skin when she realized that Boris wasn’t the only test subject. They’d already used it.
On humans.
Two
UAV Surveillance operations
Arizona
“Two minutes to target, sir.” It’s like playing a video game, Sergeant Jason Willager thought as he glanced at the satellite image and maneuvered the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. They were on loan to DEA, searching for drug traffic and fine-tuning this particular UAV, when analysts saw what they suspected was a Scud missile launcher hidden in the South American jungle. Jason didn’t have an opinion. His job was to move it where they told him and let the UAV do the job. UAVs had numerous capabilities. Several were sweeping over Iraq and setting off the insurgent bombs before they could detonate in a crowded mosque or market. Some dropped ordnance without a single soldier getting close to the target. They were safe to personnel, efficient and accurate.
The only problem was, they weren’t invisible.
The Predator model, with over a forty-two-foot wingspan and loaded with heat-seeking missiles for battle, was still a target as much as a jet. They didn’t make much noise, which gave them better stealth capabilities, but his baby, the Falcon, was smaller and lighter, and while it was armed with Hellfire missiles, more of a deterrent than tactical, its purpose was reconnaissance. She was a shutterbug snooping her way across the Andes along the Peru–Ecuador border. The Falcon could fly higher and faster than the others, and since it was linked to satellites, it had unlimited capability. The Trojan Spirit II Satellite up there was helping Jason along.
He controlled it as if he were sitting in the cockpit. Of course, the Falcon didn’t have a cockpit at all. Beside him, four other techs in the thirty-by-eight-foot GCS, Ground Control Station, trailer in the comfort of AC and silence were doing the same thing somewhere else in the world.
“Sixty seconds to target,” he said into the comm link to his bosses. They were watching the visual recon on a big screen in some undisclosed location. The information went out to several high-ranking officials. It wasn’t a concern. He’d trained two years to get this seat.
“Forty seconds to target.” The digital camera detected the darkness of the area and automatically switched to high-resolution infrared. The Falcon was outfitted with night vision, infrared, and thermal. The recording never stopped from the moment it was in the air, but the first hours were nothing but flyover scenery. He maneuvered the craft over the appointed area. More than one flew in South America, just not on this particular part of the border. Ecuador was pretty tight with its border control and neutral about getting into Peru and Colombian drug cartel squabbles. In this area, nothing was safe.
He frowned when something dark colored pierced the green of the jungle.
“Sergeant, what is that?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Immediately he maneuvered the UAV out of the direct path to the right and made the UAV climb. He turned the UAV so the cameras had a clear visual. It’s gaining speed, he thought, and in a heartbeat the visual relay went dead. He frantically worked the keyboard trying to bring it back. Great, the big cheese is watching and I screw up.
“Sergeant, what happened?”
“I think something shot it down, sir. I have nothing here, nothing.”
He turned to another monitor and replayed the data, watching with a bunch of generals as what looked like the nose cone of a small rocket obliterated the
