Kira struggled to make sense of what was happening. She would have been sure he had come down with the mother of all fevers if it had not been for its sudden onset and the wink he had given her. So this must have been planned. But the sweat sliding down his face was real. They were in a bas.e.m.e.nt and the air was currently cool and dry. No one could cause themselves to sweat. This couldn't be faked. Unless a She glanced down at her chest and stifled a gasp. The locket was gone!

Her eyes widened.

The guard named Jim, stationed between his two colleagues, peered at Desh uncomfortably. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded.

"Don't know," uttered Desh feebly. "Gonna vomit," he whispered. "Bathroom. Please."

"It's a trick," said the guard closest to Desh. "It has to be."

"Brilliant conclusion," said Kira mockingly, rolling her eyes. "Can't you tell when someone's feverish? How the h.e.l.l could it be a trick?" She shook her head in disgust. "Look at him! You can't fake that."

Desh moved his head forward and swallowed hard several times, as if fighting a gag reflex.

"In another few minutes he'll be covered in vomit!" pressed Kira. "Are you prepared to live with that smell all night? You think your psychotic boss will be happy about this when he returns?"

Jim frowned miserably. "Ken," he said, nodding at the guard closest to Desh, "cut him loose. And get him to a toilet."

Ken hesitated.

"Hurry!" barked Jim.

Desh moaned as Ken approached, pulling a combat knife from his belt. The other two guards raised their guns and trained them steadily on Desh, as Ken reached behind him and cut through the tough plastic of his restraint, which fell to the ground, and returned the knife to his belt.

Desh grunted in pain as he rose unsteadily to his feet, hunched over and clutching at his stomach. He glanced at the other two guards. Ken began escorting him to the stairs. When Desh was halfway there, he bent over and made a loud, throaty, heaving sound, as though a week's worth of stomach contents were erupting from his throat.

The guards all glanced away, just for a moment, in disgust.

Desh moved! He s.n.a.t.c.hed Ken's knife with a speed and precision that could never be equaled by a normal man and flicked it toward the guard farthest from him with a smooth, practiced motion. The knife buried itself deep in the guard's chest. The instant Desh released the knife he spun Ken to his right and into the path of the tranquilizer dart that Jim had sent racing toward him. Desh threw his human shield forward and into Jim in front of him, who shoved the dead weight of his tranquilized colleague violently to the concrete floor. As he did so, Desh was on him immediately, landing a vicious kick to his arm and sending his gun flying. The guard attempted a knifehand strike to Desh's throat in combination with a palmhand blow to his nose, but Desh blocked both attempts easily. He had read the guard's body language so precisely he knew the man's intentions before he had begun to move.

Desh now read Jim's defensive posture, and spotting an opening, wheeled around and landed a roundhouse kick on the guard's chest, exploding him back against the staircase. Even as the kick was landing Desh calculated the exact distance to the staircase and the exact speed and force he would need to exert to achieve his goal. As the man's head cracked against the staircase, he crumpled to the ground, unconscious, and Desh knew his calculations had been perfect.

Desh s.n.a.t.c.hed Jim's tranquilizer gun from the floor, stepped over Ken's body, and crouched low under the open staircase. As he had expected, the guard who had remained upstairs bolted through the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt and down several stairs holding an automatic rifle out in front of him. So much for non-lethal force, thought Desh.

The man expertly covered the staircase and entire bas.e.m.e.nt with his gun. He took in the sight of Kira, still bound, and four bodies sprawled on the floor, but could detect no other movement, which he immediately realized suggested his adversary was hidden under the staircase.

His realization came far too late.

Desh casually sent a dart at point blank range through the opening between two stairs and into the guard's leg. He collapsed and slid down four stairs before finally coming to a stop.

Desh was expert in several forms of hand-to-hand combat, and long practice had made his movements precise and cobra-strike quick. And this was before his mind was enhanced. With his thoughts so vastly accelerated, the guards' quickest movements had appeared almost deliberate to him. He had been outnumbered four to one and he knew it hadn't been a fair fighta"for the four guards.

Desh rushed over to Kira. As he was cutting her free three loud, piercing tones emanated from her skull, startling her but having no effect on him.

Perfect, he thought. His timing had been exact. He ordered the sweat to cease pouring from his face and his blood to flow normally, and the color quickly returned to his face. He considered if Kira could a.s.similate his speech if he sped it up to more closely match his thoughts, but ruled it out: as intelligent as she was, he would need to continue to relegate a portion of his mind to creating a simulacrum of his old self.

"Are you sure you want to go?" he asked. "You'll need to be sure Sam resets his device by 10 o'clock tomorrow morning."

Kira nodded defiantly. "Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here," she said.

Desh took her hand and led her through the obstacle course of scattered bodies and up the stairs. Sam had said there were four guards, but Desh wasn't about to trust this number. He cautiously peered around the door, counting on his enhanced reaction time to get him safely through any ambushes. There were none.

They found themselves in the kitchen. "Wait here," said Desh.

Before Kira could respond, he rushed off and canva.s.sed the entire house, confirming they were alone, and returned to her a few minutes later. "I want to check the men downstairs for identification. I doubt I'll find any but it's worth thirty seconds."

Desh bounded off and down the stairs, closing the door quietly behind him. He pulled the knife from where he had implanted it in the guard's chest and checked for the man's pulse. He was dead. Desh knelt beside the unconscious men, two in the bas.e.m.e.nt and one on the staircase, and slit each of their throats in turn, careful not to get any blood on himself.

He isolated the memory of these murders and created a temporary dead zone in his mind so they would be hidden when he returned to his vastly inferior normal state, ensuring he would not be improperly burdened by them. He knew that the emotional, un-enhanced version of himself would never sanction the murders of helpless men.

This other Desh was an idiot!

The enhanced version had just ensured that when Sam returned, he would get zero information as to how they had escaped. They needed to keep Sam as off-balanced as possible. The more confused he was, the more intimidated by their magical escape artistry, the better chance they would have.

The stakes were simply too high for squeamishness.

37.

David Desh rejoined Kira on the first floor. "Did they have any ID?" she asked.

Desh shook his head. "None."

"Doesn't surprise me," she said. "Good news, though. I found our personal items and cell phones in a kitchen drawer."

She held out his watch and cell phone and he took them gratefully. "Good work," he said as he slid his watch back around his wrist.

The fraction of Desh's mind he had used to set up a simulacrum of his slow self waited patiently for the second-and-a-half he expected to pa.s.s before Kira's next utterance. The rest of his mind continued to race at fantastic speed, following several trains of thought simultaneously. One train of thought involved their escape. He had learned how to hot-wire a car as part of his general "surviving with what was at hand" training, and he isolated these memories and amplified them in case he turned back into a pumpkin before locating a suitable car.

"Let's get out of here," suggested Kira. "We have to stop this sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she added with determination. "And we don't have much time."

Desh computed a number of probabilities almost simultaneously. The probability that homing devices had been planted on them or their retrieved personal items. The probability there was detection equipment at hand. The odds that they would find this equipment if it was here, and the amount of time this could be expected to require. The increased risk they were taking with every second they remained where they were. He input all of these figures into a complex equation that he solved the instant it had been formulated: one course of action was optimala"but just slightly. He transmitted the result to his puppet personality.

Desh held up a hand. "Not just yet. Sam thought escape was impossible, so my gut tells me he didn't plant homing devices on us. Odds are he put the device in your head just to be on the safe side and for intimidation purposes. But we need to be sure. We're in a safe house, so there must be bug detection equipment here somewhere. Let's find it."

They separated and ransacked the house at breakneck speed, tearing through closets and dumping the contents of drawers onto nearby floors. Only four minutes later, Desh found a case in a bedroom closet containing instruments for detecting both homing and listening devices.

He hurriedly scanned both Kira and himself, along with their phones and other personal items. Everything was clean. He checked carefully around Kira's bandage for any signals but detected none.

They cautiously exited the house, wishing they had night vision equipment as they made their way through the darkness, punctuated by the lights from other houses in the neighborhood. Several streets over Desh found an old car that was susceptible to being hot-wired and quickly did so, performing the procedure by the dim light of his open cell phone. He was just pulling away from the curb whena"like a hundred billion rubber bands snapping back into their original shapea"his hyper-intelligence vanished.

Desh gasped out loud as if he had been hit in the stomach.

Kira glanced at him and nodded knowingly. "Welcome back to the world of the feeble-minded."

He wore an expression of complete disconsolation. "I feel like I've just been blinded," he whispered She nodded. "Ten minutes from now it will all seem like a dream and you won't miss it so much."

Desh searched his memory. Had he retained anything? He was relieved to find that several of the ideas he had had while enhanced were still with him, although the underlying logic he had used to arrive at these concepts was either gone or far beyond his ability to comprehend. Desh forced himself to stop pining for lost brilliance. Time was short.

He gasped again!

He had remembered yet another surprising conclusion reached by his super intelligent alter ego: he was in love with Kira Miller.

"What is it?" asked Kira anxiously.

Desh turned to her. He looked into her dazzling blue eyes, and now that his alter ego had shined a spotlight on his emotions he realized it was true: he was in love. Or infatuated at any rate. His entire being basked in her presence. She was like a drug to which he had become hopelessly addicted without his knowledge or consent. The rewards of breathless intellect were great, but the primitive lizard brain manufactured rewards of its own. "Nothing," whispered Desh. "Sorry."

Kira looked puzzled but let the subject drop.

Desh knew he could continue to gaze at her beautiful face forever. She truly was an extraordinary woman. But now was not the time to give into these irrational impulses. Now was the time to focus on one thing only: survival.

Desh tore his eyes away from her and focused on the road. "How's your head?" he asked worriedly.

"It's getting better," she said unconvincingly.

Desh suspected she was lying but decided to leave the subject alone. "It won't be long before Sam discovers what happened at the safe house and points a satellite this way," he said. "So in the immediate term, we have to get as far away from this spot as possible." As if to emphasize his point he stepped hard on the accelerator.

"And the not so immediate term?"

"We need to elevate our game. It's time for more desperate measures. And for that we need Connelly."

In response, Kira pulled out her cell phone, the partner to the one she had given Connelly, and flipped it open.

"You're certain the signal can't be unscrambled?" said Desh.

"Absolutely positive," she confirmed. She hit a speed dial b.u.t.ton and handed the phone to Desh.

The colonel answered on the first ring and they exchanged greetings.

"What the h.e.l.l happened to you two?" asked Connelly worriedly.

Desh frowned. "Sorry about the radio silence. We ran into trouble but we're clear nowa"as far as we know. a.s.sume this is a private channel. What's your status?"

"We're still with my doctor friend at his house," reported Connelly immediately. "I've been patched up and filled with blood and pain-killers. I've gotten plenty of sleep and am recovering nicely. And Matt has brought me up to speed on events."

"Understood," said Desh. "I now have a much clearer picture of what we're dealing with than I had when we separated. I'll brief you further as soon as I can. Bottom line is that I'm now absolutely convinced Kira is innocent and an ally. But a lot of really bad s.h.i.t is about to happen if we don't move quickly."

"How bad?"

"Bad enough to make me wish for the original Ebola plot you told me about." He didn't wait for the colonel's reply. "The soldiers in the clearing were told you'd gone rogue. Was it just these men who were misinformed, or is it more widespread?"

"It probably wasn't initially, but it sure is now. They've poisoned the entire well. The military is convinced I'm a traitor and will do whatever is necessary to bring me down."

"Understood," said Desh. "You trusted this doctor with your life. Anyone at Bragg you would trust with your life who can fly a chopper; and has access?"

Connelly considered. "Yes."

Desh sighed. "Let me put this another way. Anyone at Bragg who would trust you with their life. Someone who will believe you've been framed and will risk their career and life to stick by you." Moriarty would have made sure the misinformation he had put out to frame Connelly had been devastating and airtight. It would take quite a man to put the trust of a friend over d.a.m.ning information put forth by the highest levels of legitimate military authority.

There was a long pause. "I'm as sure as I can be," replied Connelly. "But I guess we're going to find out," he added evenly.

"Make sure to throw all the weaponry and any other military equipment you can find into the chopper before you leave," said Desh. "We don't know exactly what we'll need, so the more the merrier." He paused. "Not to put any added pressure on you," continued Desh soberly, "but getting this chopper is mission critical. I'll brief you fully when I see you, but trust me: the stakes couldn't be any higher."

"Understood," said Connelly grimly.

"Good luck, Colonel," said Desh. "Call me when you're in the air and we can choose a rendezvous point."

"Roger that," said Connelly somberly as the connection ended.

38.

David Desh found a main road and stayed on it for ten minutes until he located an all-night convenience store. A dented four-door Chrysler, filled with teenaged boys whose radio was blasting hip-hop at eardrum-crushing decibel levels, pulled out just as they arrived, leaving the lot empty.

They entered the deserted store. Kira hastily opened a bottle of the most potent pain pills she could find and quickly downed twice the recommended dosage. Desh bought a dozen glazed cake-donuts, each having the density of a neutron star. He finished eating two of the donuts before he had paid for them, wolfing them down as if his life were at stake. He desperately needed to replace the glucose his amped-up brain had devoured, and the speed with which a donut unleashed its glucose into the blood streama"its glycemic indexa"was legendary.

Desh continued cramming donuts into his mouth like a partic.i.p.ant in a hot-dog eating contest as he drove, washing them down with the two quarts of Gatorade he had also purchased at the store. They had learned from the attendant that they were fifty miles east of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and they headed off in the direction of this city.

Given that Desh had now experienced her gene therapy, Kira was eager to compare notes with him. Before long the conversation turned to Desh's theories on how her brain optimization could be safely used for the good of civilization, as well as conquering s.p.a.ce so extended life could be introduced without threatening disaster.

Now Desh understood precisely what Kira had been afraid of and why she had sworn off her therapy. He had only undergone the treatment a single time, during which his boundless but ruthless intellect had already begun to crowd out much of his innate compa.s.sion, and his feelings of kinship with the rest of humanity and concern for human welfare had dramatically diminished.

But this could be manageda"and harnessed. The hyper-intelligence only lasted for about an hour, but thankfully, so did the antisocial effects. When the brain's structure returned to normal, so did a subject's true nature. Emotions and compa.s.sion and altruism returned as if they had never left.

He explained his vision to Kira. An individual couldn't be trusted with the power of her therapy, but a team coulda"if it was properly chosen. Even Frodo hadn't gone it alone.

Desh trusted Connelly with his life and his every instinct told him that Griffin was a good man as well. If Connelly could vouch for the pilot he was even now recruiting, Desh was prepared to trust him also, at least for now. Like it or not, the five of them would already be in the game and would form the core team. But after this, newcomers they wanted to recruit with important expertise would be carefully screened. The first level could be done in the same way Kira had screened Desh, by studying their computer-accessible histories. Once this level was pa.s.sed the newcomers would be screened further; still without their knowledge. Desh was certain that if he was optimized again, his enormous intellect and enhanced understanding of the nuances of human physiology and body language would enable him to invent a foolproof detector, not just of lies but of intentions; of innate virtue. Those that pa.s.sed these screens would be added to the team.

Only one subject would ever be enhanced at a time, and this would occur under security conditions that would turn the gold in Fort Knox green with envy. And Desh knew that the people who pa.s.sed their screens would welcome these precautions, and even insist upon them, wanting to be sure their super-intelligent alter egos couldn't escape to do things they would regret upon returning to dim-witted normalcy.

The ever growing team, probably organized into a private company, would be sworn to secrecy and would be motivated by a desire to improve the human condition rather than by greed or powera"the testing would ensure this was the case. And improve the human condition they would. Enhanced economists could derive revolutionary theories to lift third world economies. Physicists could develop clean energy that could be produced at a fraction of the current cost: cold fusion perhaps.

And the team would be ever mindful of the lessons of Midas. They would a.n.a.lyze their breakthrough inventions with great care to be certain their introduction didn't have unintended consequences that might prove disastrous, as had been the case with Kira's age-r.e.t.a.r.dation treatment.

The team would advance civilization, and all the proceeds from their inventions would be poured back into turning additional ideas, conceived by optimized minds, into reality. They would continue to selectively recruit additional top talent: expanding the team's base of expertise and relentlessly extending the frontiers of human knowledge. All the while they would channel ma.s.sive resources into revolutionary propulsion systems to bring unlimited habitable planets within human reach, and the gift of a greatly extended lifespan to the entire species.

Meanwhile, Kira could work with a team of biologists and psychologists to find a way to enhance someone's intelligence while maintaining their core humanity. To scale up, not just their intellect, but their capacity for selflessness as well. He couldn't believe that hyper-intelligence and compa.s.sion could not coexist. If anyone could find a way to accomplish this, she could.

Kira was at first skeptical, but as Desh fleshed out his vision and answered many of her concerns, she became intrigued. It was a utopian dream. But as long as the Mr. Hydes they created were contained by multiply redundant security measures, and foolproof screening technology could be perfected, they could turn this dream into reality. Desh was finally able to persuade her that he was right: that she had thrown in the towel too quickly.