Wired (23 page)

38

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 stream—its glycemic index—was legendary.

Desh
continued cramming donuts into his mouth like a participant 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 space 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 compassion, and his feelings of kinship with the rest of humanity
and concern for human welfare had dramatically diminished.

But
this could be managed—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
compassion 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
could—
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 passed 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 passed 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 passed 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 power—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 analyze
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-retardation 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 massive
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 compassion 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.

Desh
knew that the vision he had had while enhanced was truly breathtaking in scope
and ambition, but this didn’t change the current stark reality. They were
wanted and on the run. Kira had an explosive device in her skull with little
time remaining. If they were unable to defeat Moriarty, his utopian vision
would be forever unrealized.

They
had been driving for close to an hour when Kira’s phone rang. Desh took a deep
breath and answered. It was the colonel, as expected, and the news was good. He
was in the air. His friend, a Major Ross Metzger, had come through.

The
colonel handed the phone to Metzger and he and Desh exchanged greetings. Desh
offered his heartfelt thanks and gave him their location near Lancaster. Metzger
consulted his onboard computer and after a few minutes suggested a rendezvous
point. If they caught route 283 northwest toward Elizabethtown, they would find
a high school just outside the city limits. The helicopter would land on the
fifty yard-line of the school’s football field.

Desh
spotted the school forty minutes later. He parked in the lot, and they walked
the short distance to the field. They had been unable to find a flashlight in
the stolen car so their vision was severely limited on this dark night. They
stationed themselves under the bleachers and awaited their ride. Even by
helicopter, it would take Metzger a while to cover the distance from Bragg,
probably another hour or so.

This
wasn’t the first time he had been under the bleachers with a beautiful girl,
Desh reflected, but never as an adult, and never a girl like this. He
desperately wanted to hold her. He suppressed this ridiculous impulse,
disgusted with himself. Civilization was coming to a fork in the tracks, with
one track leading toward heaven and the other toward hell, and his actions
could determine who controlled the switching station. What an epitaph that
would make: the future of humanity destroyed because the man in a position to
stop the threat was in the thrall of infatuation and couldn’t keep his head in
the game.

After
what seemed like an eternity they heard the sound of a chopper cutting through
the night sky, and minutes later an elongated helicopter appeared above the
field, its body dimensions roughly those of a dragonfly. It hovered noisily
over the fifty-yard line and lowered itself to the ground. Desh and Kira jumped
through a wide opening in the middle of the aircraft and were greeted heartily
by Griffin and Connelly as the helicopter lifted off once again. Despite the
presence of eight steel troop seats facing the front of the craft and two
side-facing gunner seats, all the passengers remained standing, holding on to
straps to help maintain their balance.

Connelly
was wearing a sling on his left arm to prevent movement, but looked
surprisingly good. Griffin looked somewhat ridiculous without his facial hair—a
clean-cut Wookie—but Desh pretended not to notice any difference in the man.

“Jesus,
Colonel,” shouted Desh appreciatively over the din of the helicopter. “You got
us a
Blackhawk
?”

“Only
because Bragg was all out of Harriers,” replied Connelly wryly.

39

Jim Connelly handed them both a sophisticated set of
padded black headphones, with a speaker arm they could position under their
mouths. They slipped them over their heads while Connelly repositioned the set
he had been using, which he had removed while greeting them.

Metzger was in the pilot’s seat in the front of the
chopper. He looked back over his right shoulder. “Where to?” he said into his
own headset. He was about the same age as the colonel, with black hair and
bushy eyebrows.

“Hagerstown, Maryland,” said Kira in a normal tone of
voice. Even so, the entire group could easily hear her through the headphones,
which did a remarkable job of insulating their ears from the unrelenting din of
the chopper. “It’s about seventy miles northwest of D.C.”

Metzger nodded and the Blackhawk swooped off on a
southwesterly heading. He dialed up a map on his computer and within minutes
settled on a flight plan. When he had the aircraft under control he reached
back and shook hands with Desh and then Kira in turn.

“We appreciate the ride, major,” said Desh. “Do you
think you got away cleanly?”

“I think so,” he answered. “I altered some
computerized flight logs to disguise the theft. Hopefully this will buy us a
day.” He shrugged. “I also disabled the transponder so they can’t locate us
immediately when they do discover the unauthorized use.”

“Well done,” said Desh.

Metzger nodded to acknowledge the compliment. “We
should be there in about thirty minutes,” he announced. “Where do we land?”

The four passengers eyed each other for inspiration,
but no one offered any immediate thoughts. A Blackhawk wouldn’t be easy to
hide.

“We need abandoned areas that don’t get any traffic,”
said Metzger. “Think.”

Kira pursed her lips in concentration. She had been
living in a trailer park just outside of Hagerstown for months. She should be
able to come up with
something
. “There’s a community pool near the
town’s northern border,” she said. “After summer it’s drained and the facility
is chained up. It has a very large deep-end we could land in.”

Metzger shook his head. “Won’t be deep enough. This
bird’s almost seventeen feet high.”

Damn, thought Kira in frustration. She turned back to
sorting through additional possibilities. They had been picked up in a football
field. While this was a nice wide-open space, it couldn’t conceal the chopper. She
smiled. Perhaps she just had the wrong sport. “There’s a minor league baseball
team in Haggerstown,” she said. “The Suns. They play in Municipal stadium. Seats
over four thousand. Enclosed by bleachers and a home-run fence.”

“How tall are the bleachers?” asked Metzger.

She had never been to a game but had driven by the
stadium on many occasions. “At the entrance, behind home plate, taller than
seventeen feet.”

“Is it locked up in the off-season?”

“Can’t imagine it’s not,” replied Kira.

“How close to residential areas?”

“Not,” she replied. “Fairly industrial. No bars or
stores in the area open at night.”

“Sounds like we have a winner,” said Metzger. “Let’s give
it a go.”

With
this decided, Desh motioned to Connelly to join him in the back of the chopper.
The two men knelt beside two large, green canvas bags that Connelly had loaded
aboard that contained a wide assortment of weapons and other equipment. Desh
unzipped the first bag and inspected the contents approvingly: four combat
knives, plasticuffs, metal handcuffs, rope, tape, six flashlights, a first aid
kit, a wire cutter, a bolt cutter, and six pairs of night vision goggles. Desh
also found several assault vests sporting multiple pockets for weapons, spare
clips and grenades.

The
second bag contained a wide variety of electronic and communication equipment,
four H&K .45s, four MP-5 machine pistols, and a dozen stun grenades. These
grenades were also known as flashbangs. Like this name implied, they would
create such an intensely bright flash and earsplitting bang that they would
blind and deafen an enemy for about ten seconds. Several pairs of eye protectors
and electronic earplugs were present as well to minimize the effects of the
stun grenades on those who were using them. Finally, Desh located several empty
rucksacks that could be filled for specific missions as needed.

Connelly
had done well. He had loaded the chopper for bear as Desh had requested.

As
Desh continued inspecting the equipment he removed his headphones and motioned
for the colonel to do the same. He leaned in close to Connelly's ear. “This
Metzger really came through for you,” he shouted. “But it’s inner circle time. I’m
going to lay out information so sensitive I don’t trust
myself
with it.”
He looked at Connelly meaningfully.

“He’s
solid,” bellowed Connelly, but even so Desh could barely hear him. “He was on
my team back in the day. We’ve been on dozens of missions together, including
some that went bad. Real bad. Clusterfucks. He’s as good as it gets.”

“Integrity?”
asked Desh.

Connelly
nodded. “We took out a Columbian drug lord once. Just the two of us. The guy
had a silk drawstring bag in his safe filled with diamonds the size of
marbles.” He raised his eyebrows. “Ninety-nine guys out of a hundred would have
at least raised the philosophical question: who would know if some went
missing? But Metzger pulled the bag from the safe, looked inside, and tossed it
to me. Never mentioned it again.” Connelly locked his eyes firmly on Desh. “He’s
one of us, David. He prides himself on doing what’s right.”

Desh
nodded. “Thanks Colonel. Good enough for me. I assumed as much, but I had to
ask.” He slid his headset back over his ears and Connelly did the same. The two
men carried the heavy canvas bags to the front end of the helicopter.

When
they were within twenty miles of Hagerstown, Desh passed out night vision
goggles and Metzger killed the helicopter’s lights. They were now invisible
from the ground. Piloting a helicopter blind using night-vision equipment
wasn’t for the faint of heart, but Metzger had considerable experience doing
so. Five minutes later they were over Hagerstown and Kira directed Metzger to
the stadium. He circled it quickly and landed as close to the bleachers as he
could, well behind home plate.

As
expected, the gate entrance had a heavy chain around it and was padlocked. Desh
pulled a pair of bolt-cutters from one of the canvas bags, and they were soon
on their way.

They
came upon some parked cars about three blocks from the stadium, and Desh
expertly broke into one and hotwired it. They returned the night vision
equipment to one of the canvas bags, threw both bags in the trunk, and climbed
into the car. Kira drove, Connelly took the passenger seat to protect his
injury, and Griffin, Desh and Metzger crammed themselves into the back.

Kira
pulled away from the curb. “Next stop, my place,” she announced. “We’ll be
there in fifteen minutes.”