AMPED (31 page)

Desh’s face twisted in confusion.
Why did he feel so weak?
He stumbled, shaking his head as if to clear cobwebs. He righted himself and tried to take another step, but he couldn’t get himself to move. His arm returned to his side as if it had a mind of its own, and his hand became so weak the gun slipped from his fingers. Seconds later he slid to the floor as well, and blackness rushed up to greet him.

***

Desh returned to consciousness without any sense of how much time had passed. He was clothed and unbound, but his pockets had been emptied and his stun gun and Glock were gone. He reached for the handle of the cabin door, but it was locked.

“Why don’t you sit down and let’s have a talk,” said a clear voice from a hidden speaker. A voice belonging to Eric Frey.

Desh’s eyes darted around the room, his mind calculating. He kicked the stateroom door with as much force as he could and felt a pain surge through his leg as the door held, clearly reinforced in some manner.

“You can’t leave unless I let you,” said Frey. “And the next dose of gas I send into that room will be just as odorless and colorless as the first. But this one will be
lethal
. So I’ll be expecting your cooperation from now on,” he added pointedly.

“How long was I out?”

“Only ten minutes,” replied Frey. “I’m not a patient man.”

“Oh yeah,
that’s
your fatal flaw.”

Frey ignored him. “Sit down in the chair by the bed and turn on the monitor in front of you.”

Desh did as instructed and a video image of Frey appeared, wearing blue swim trunks and a white, button down shirt, opened to reveal a tanned but pudgy body. He was on the bridge, but nowhere near the helm, which he must have put on autopilot. In a small corner of the large monitor, Desh could see an image of himself, which was no doubt being transmitted to Frey’s own screen.

Frey leaned in close to the camera with a self-satisfied smirk. “I knew from Alan that his sister didn’t like to use her own invention,” he said. “And she’s managed to surround herself with others who share the same view. Incredible. How noble and yet how fucking stupid. You’re good, David Desh, but if you thought you could eliminate me on my home turf without being amped, you’ve got your head up your ass.”

“I wasn’t going to eliminate you,” said Desh. “Just stun you.”

“What if I was amped?—what you call enhanced.”

 
“Even with perfect control of your body, you can’t stop electricity,” replied Desh. “The gun would have worked. I’ve used myself as a guinea pig to make sure.”

“Good to know,” said Frey. He shook his head derisively. “So what took you so long? When I got wind you were talking to my old colleagues, I expected you sooner.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Desh. “How did you know I was on board?”

“I have hidden cameras in the staterooms. Especially in the guest shower,” he added with a twisted, lecherous grin, and Desh had an overwhelming urge to jump through the screen and beat him to death with his bare fists. “Cameras modulated to avoid detection from traditional detectors or any you’ve come up with,” continued Frey. “As you no doubt have realized, while amped, I’ve gone to considerable effort perfecting surveillance electronics, capable of both defeating yours and making mine undetectable.”

Frey raised his eyebrows. “And if you haven’t guessed already,” he continued with a smug expression, “the fancy electronics you have in your waistband are useless on the
Codon
.” He paused and then shook his head in disgust. “I have to say, I’d have more respect for you if your plan was to kill me.”

“Yeah. And your respect means the
world
to me,” snapped Desh sarcastically. “If it makes you feel any better,” he added with bitter intensity, “I plan to kill you the next chance I get.”

Frey ignored him. “So . . . what? You were going to interrogate me? Try to learn the extent of my organization?”

“You know what they say: it’s not the cockroaches you can see when the light goes on. It’s the ones hidden under the floorboards you have to be sure to exterminate.”

“Be as big of an asshole as you like, Desh. You’re going to be a prisoner for a some time, and I have a long memory.” He tilted back in his seat and put his feet up on something off camera. “When I learned you were talking to my ex-colleagues, I knew it wouldn’t be long until you came after me.
Finally
. My plan was to be patient, and I have been, but I’m not getting any younger,” he added pointedly.

“So why am I still alive?” asked Desh.

“So I can trade you for the secret of longevity.”

Desh frowned. Kira’s life would have been so much easier if she had never developed this treatment in the first place. “She can’t give it to you if she wanted to. I’m sure you’re aware of the lengths John Putnam and Alan Miller went to get her to reveal it. But it’s hidden, even from her.”

Frey laughed. “We both know that’s not true anymore. I wasn’t there in person, of course, but I was listening in when Alan pulled off his perfect storm. When he tricked her to voluntarily unlock the memory cage in which she had trapped this secret. I have no doubt it’s
still
unlocked.”

“I’m afraid you’ve miscalculated.”

“Jesus, Desh. I’m not even amped and I can tell you’re lying. I’ll check this later, when my IQ is boosted, but I’m sure I’m right. You have to work on that poker face.”

“So you’re responsible for getting this Colonel Jacobson involved, correct?” said Desh, changing the subject.

“You already know that. It’s a transparent attempt to get me talking. To gather what you military guys call
intel
.”

Desh ignored him. Just because Frey had guessed his intent didn’t mean it still wouldn’t work. People liked to talk—and to boast. Especially when they had the upper hand and felt invulnerable. “But why involve the military?” asked Desh. “If you want Kira’s treatment, you need her alive. So why unleash this colonel, who’s hell bent on killing her?”

“I tried to find her myself, but I didn’t get very far. I finally hit pay dirt when I set up a system to look for work too advanced to be done by normals. Where do you think the colonel got the idea? I have a man inside his camp I had feed it to him, or he would never have figured it out. Anyway, I got lucky and found Ross Metzger, whose computer contained work so advanced, I wasn’t able to make any sense out of it, even when amped. I kept watch, and when I learned Kira was visiting, I set up a raid to capture her.”

Desh pursed his lips. He had thought the raid was too flawless to be set up by a normal, and he had been right. At the time, Kira had accounted for every last gellcap, so he thought he must have been wrong. If only he had taken this thinking further, questioned his certainty that no one else could duplicate her treatment, he might have realized Frey was still alive long ago.

“Did you try to perfect the cold fusion reactor while enhanced?” asked Desh.

Frey laughed. “There was nothing to perfect. The device did absolutely nothing.”

Desh’s eye narrowed. The device wasn’t ready for prime time since it barely put more energy out than was put in, but it did more than
nothing
. “You reassembled it wrong,” said Desh with a patronizing air.

“We reassembled it
perfectly
. And it doesn’t do shit.”

Desh didn’t know what to make of this. He couldn’t see what Frey had to gain by lying about the generator. The most likely explanation was that he had just reassembled it incorrectly, after all, but Frey’s insistence otherwise was something he needed to tuck in the back of his mind.

 
“That facility was my only lead at the time,” continued Frey. “When you torched the place, and when my high-priced soldiers failed to catch you, I tried to regain the thread. But with no luck. So I decided to unleash the colonel and his vast network. So I’d have plenty of free time to build wealth, power, resources, organization—you get the picture. By bringing in the military, I expanded my reach a hundred fold.”

“Making sure to discredit longevity when you did.”

“Right. It’s a bit too alluring. Didn’t want any competition from Jake or his men. This way I kept him focused on the goal. But I wasn’t worried he’d succeed in killing Kira. She and you are too good for that. But I figure if he got anywhere, if he harried you, you’d start making mistakes and I could capitalize. I couldn’t believe he managed to acquire Kira, but then the fuckhead lost her the moment he had her.”

Frey shrugged. “But no matter,” he said evenly. “It all worked out for the best. He did his job. He beat the bushes. And during the brief time he had Kira he managed to give her the clues she needed to finally figure out I was alive.”

“You wanted her to know?”

“That’s right. It was my plan B. If it hadn’t happened naturally, I was about to force it. If I couldn’t find you, I’d bring you to
me
. Like Alan said, you guys are so fucking predictable. You’ll always do the noble, heroic thing. And I figured if you did come after me, you’d come here, to my yacht. It’s perfect for an ambush.” He grinned once again. “It’s perfect for um . . .
entertaining
as well. Although you’re several decades too old for my taste.”

“You are one sick fuck,” spat Desh in disgust.

Frey’s smile faded. “Again, I may be a sick fuck, but I have a long memory. I’ll make a trade with Kira for her longevity therapy. And I’ll keep my part of the bargain and return you to her. But nothing says you have to be returned healthy,” he finished with a malevolent scowl.

45

For a week, scientists, bureaucrats, soldiers, and those whose responsibilities for their individual governments could only be guessed at had occupied the
Copernicus
, and the eyes of the world were upon them.

The small floating city maintained its position off the coast of Angola, and the brilliant men and women who now called her home—the greatest collection of scientific talent ever assembled in a single place, dedicated to a single task—scratched their collective heads.

Why had the alien ship come? What was its purpose? There was no message inside, no robots to establish communications. No plaque with images of alien beings, or prime numbers, or pi. No recording of alien top forty hits, no Rosetta stone to teach primitive Earthlings an alien language.

Perhaps it had made its journey just to dispel humanity’s ethnocentric notion that it was the be-all and end-all of life in the universe. Maybe aliens had detected humanity’s efforts to find them, through the SETI program and others, and while unwilling to reveal anything of themselves or their technology, had sent the ship to answer a question that earth had undergone considerable effort to ask. Or perhaps it was a test of species maturity. Solve the riddle of zero point energy, or find a way to evoke a hidden, quantum message, and earn the right to join the galactics.

But if revealing the ship’s secrets was a test, humanity was failing miserably. The scientists on board might as well have taken a pleasure cruise, complete with frequent onshore excursions, for all the good being on the ship did them.

The alien object had been a bust. Yes, it could have failed to take orbit above the Earth and moved on, in which case there would be speculation for decades and centuries to come as to its design, what it all meant, and the purpose of the flyby. But given the ship had actually been retrieved, the results could not have been more disappointing. The hull was unique and had impressive properties, but it was made from a composite of materials, all of which could be found on earth.

Whatever electronics had guided it to its destination had been jettisoned into the Sun. The ZPE drive had been disengaged, and none of the world’s top scientists could get it on again, nor with it off, make any progress understanding how it might work.

Minute parts of the ZPE drive were removed, recorded, submitted to endless spectroscopic and other analyses, and carefully returned. Research proposals were submitted to the management team of Nobelists for approval.

But mostly the scientists speculated, and twiddled their thumbs. At some point soon the nearly two hundred participating countries would decide the project had been a failure and send their teams home, but this wouldn’t happen while there was even the slightest hope of deciphering the ZPE drive. So a ship full of disappointed scientists found their counterparts from other countries and worked on terrestrial projects of their own, determined that a collection of brainpower this great not be wasted.

But on the seventh day, as biblical as this may have been, no one rested.

Because on the seventh day, all hell broke loose.

And the privileged community on
Copernicus
barely had a head start before this new and rapidly moving phenomenon would explode onto the rest of the world.

Reports began coming in of the discovery of what some, at first, thought was a new microbe; albeit a large one. But one look under a microscope dispelled that idea instantly. Not only wasn’t it a microbe, it wasn’t a form of life at all. It was part organic and part machine. A Borg on a microscopic level. A nanite.

These nanites were being discovered in locations around the world. And they were being fruitful and multiplying. In only a few days they would be so plentiful as to be observed, not just by biologists with powerful microscopes wondering what had contaminated their cell cultures, but by any kid with a twenty dollar microscope and a sample of air, or water, or dirt.

Nanotechnology had been all the rage now for decades. Scientists had long known of the possibilities, and potential, of manipulating matter on an atomic scale, and nanotechnology departments had become a mainstay of universities around the globe. And while considerable progress had been made, the alien nanites were far more advanced than anything humanity was capable of, although they appeared deceptively simple in construction.

As early as 1959, Richard Feynman had asked the question, what if items could be manufactured—
assembled
—from the bottom up, using
atoms
for building blocks? And in 1986, Eric Drexler had built on this to ask, what if an assembler could be designed at the nanoscale level that could not only assemble any blueprint given to it, but that could even make copies of
itself?
These were breathtaking visions.