happened?"
"The appeals court said there wasn't enough evidence
that the suspects had anything to do with the
shooting."
"Then they must know who they are," Patrick
said. "Did they say?"
"They're former German soldiers," Jon said.
Patrick nodded-he had figured that professional
soldiers were involved in the attack. "Let me guess:
They work for some mercenary group or drug gang,
and they sneaked into the country and planned the
robbery . . . "
"Nope. What Chandler said that night on the
tape is true; they have valid Canadian entry and
work visas, and a valid Canadian residence and employer
. All verified. They said they were visiting
friends in Sacramento and didn't know they needed
a visa to visit here from Canada."
"That's bullshit! It's gotta be bullshit!" Patrick
exclaimed. "Didn't the police check out their stories
? Where were they staying? What were they doing
? Where were they going?"
"They claim they were walking down some road,
the Garden Highway I think they said, heading from
the riverfront to the apartment complex where
they're staying, and got hit by a truck," Jon responded
. Patrick's mind flashed to what he remembered
of the Garden Highway. It paralleled the
Sacramento River and was very desolate in spots.
The Northgate section of town, just off Northgate
Boulevard and the Garden Highway, had a large
German-immigrant population, so large that it was
known as Little Berlin. There were numerous immigrants
from Eastern Europe in some of the other
apartment complexes in the area too; and with several
families often occupying a single apartment
unit, it was almost impossible to keep track of the
residents.
"They said someone picked them up after the accident
and brought them back to the apartment,"
Jon went on. "No one reported it because they were
afraid they or their friends might be deported. But
when their injuries turned out to be so serious, they
were dropped off at the hospital by an anonymous
Good Samaritan who didn't want to be identified
because h e's an illegal immigrant too."
"But all the media reports of their arrest said
their injuries were consistent with their being
struck by the police car," Patrick protested. "The
broken bones in their legs and rib cages matched
perfectly with'the dimensions of the squad car Paul
was driving
"Yeah-well, apparently the press folks were
talking through their asses," Jon said disgustedly.
"It turns out the police can't prove anything. The
injuries are consistent with their getting hit by
some vehicle, but they can't say for sure it was a
police car.
"So the appeals court's decided the murder and
attempted-murder charges are unsupported and
they've thrown the case out of court. The only
charge that's sticking is violation -of immigration
laws. The worst that will happen to them is they'll
be put on a plane and flown back to Canada, or back
to Germany if Canada won't take them back-that
is, if the city or county can afford to deport them. In
the meantime, the county of Sacramento will pick
up all their hospital bills."
Patrick shook his head. "It's a nightmare," he
said, his voice reflecting his anger and frustration.
"A goddamn nightmare. I thought for sure they
were involved in the shootout." Apparently Masters
heard something in Patrick's tone that made him
flash back to the previous day, because he looked
worried, even scared. Patrick noticed. He gave Jon a
nod, a silent "I'm okay. Don't worry."
Paul noticed too. "Everything okay, bro?" came a
voice. "You sound pissed off enough to kill someone
."
Stunned, Patrick stared at his brother. "Paul?
Was that you?"
"Damn straight!" Paul smiled proudly.
Patrick's face glowed with wonder. "The electronic
work?"
"Sensors in the trachea attached to the muscles
that normally control the vocal cords activate lasers
that duplicate the actions of the vocal cords," Masters
explained. "The laser pickups activate an electronic
voice-box that translates the vibrations of
laser light into speech-pattern sounds, then broadcasts
the sounds through the throat, mouth, and nasal
passages. We can very nearly duplicate Paul's
natural voice because the sound still emanates from
his mouth, just like normal speech. Fitting the
hardware was the easy part-it's tuning the system
to closely match his natural voice that's been hard."
"Incredible," said Patrick. "Just incredible. Congratulations
! "
"I wish Dr. Heinrich were here to hear this,"
Paul said. As he spoke, the technician put a device
up to his throat and made some fine adjustments.
The results were even more startling-Paul's voice,
although obviously artificial, sounded remarkably
lifelike, like a medium-quality tape recording of his
natural voice. "Dr. Masters said you had an accident
yesterday,3"
Patrick kept his eyes averted. "Another experi-
ment that didn't go as well as we wanted," he, said.
Paul didn't press; he could see they weren't volunteering
more. But when Patrick looked up, he found
his brother staring at him, and knew he had sensed
what he needed to know.
While the technician went on working on the
electronic larynx, a nurse brought in a stack of mail.
In the first weeks after the shootout, letters had
come in by the bagful; they had only recently dwindled
down to a handful a day. The letter on top had
been delivered by messenger, the nurse said, and
Paul signaled Patrick to read it for him. Patrick's
mouth dropped open. All eyes were on him. The
technician stopped his adjustments. "Patrick? What
is it?" Paul asked.
"It's from the department-the personnel office,"
Patrick said blankly. "Paul . . . you've been retired."
"Retired?"
"It says they considered light duty, but after consulting
with the doctors, your injuries have been
considered too serious. You will receive full pay and
benefits for two months after you leave the hospital,
then go on full medical retirement. Full medical and
survivors' benefits, half your base salary tax-free
for life. Your personal gear has been,sent to your
home."
Paul fell back against the pillow. "They cleaned
out my locker already?" he exclaimed. "I only used
it once!" He turned his head away, fighting back
tears. "Man, I can't believe this. Not in person or
even by phone-they sent me a letter telling me F rn
out."
The room was silent for a long time. Then Masters
broke the strain: "This is good, Paul, because
now we have time to work on the second phase.
The next project, if you're ready for it, is to start
work on your shoulder and arm. I don't think we'll
be able to do much here. We should consider transferring
you to our facility in San Diego." Paul said
nothing. "Problem, Paul?" Masters asked.
"I don't know," Paul said. "Leaving Sacramento,
getting a . . ." He moved his good right arm, then
glanced at the emptiness to his left.
"It's a little intimidating, I know," Jon said. "But
check this out." He reached into his briefcase, withdrew
a videocassette, inserted it into the VCR in the
television set, and closed the curtain over the door
panel so no one in the corridor could peer in. "It's
yours if you want it."
What they saw on the screen astounded them. It
was a human arm, or at least it looked and moved
like one-but it was mounted on a metal stand. It
was extraordinary in its detail, with a realistic human
shape, dark hair on the forearm, a normallooking
hand with healthily pink fingernails. As
they watched, the arm reached down and picked up
a pen sitting on an adjacent desk, held it between
the thumb and fingers, and began to "write" in midair
.
"It's amazing," Paul said. "It looks so-so real."
"It took three months of work just to get the mechanics
down to pick up a pen," Masters said
proudly. "Almost two years of research and development
. It contains over three hundred individual
microhydraulic actuators ranging in size from
twenty-five millimeters in diameter to less than
two millimeters. The joints and fittings-the artiflcial
cartilage and tendons-are fibersteel. The arm,
hand, and fingers have a much greater range of motion
than normal appendages, but it would take a
conscious act to make it perform unnaturally. Same
with physical strength. The actuators are hydraulic,
so they're many times more powerful than human
muscles, but we didn't design the system to give
you superhuman strength."
Masters went on with more of the arm's features
until he realized Paul was staring into space. He
shut off the TV, rewound his tape, took it out of the
VCR, and put it back in his briefcase. "Maybe you
want to think about it some more," he said, nodding
to the technician to wind up his adjustments.
it
Give me a 6all when you're ready to talk. See you
later."
When they were gone, the two brothers sat in
silence. Patrick saw the tears in Paul's eyes. "It's
going to be all right, bro," he said.
"What is happening to me?" Paul asked, his electronically
synthesized voice a startling reflection of
the sadness in his heart. "I don't feel human anymore
." He looked at his older brother and added,
And you . . . you don't feel human either. What
is happening to us?"
"Paul, all you have to worry about is getting
well," Patrick said. "Everything else is
"Don't give me that bullshit, Patrick!" Paul exploded
. "You've been treating me like your kid
brother for too long now. You don't have to protect
me or spare me any grief. You told me everything
was going to be okay when Dad died; you told me
everything was going to be okay when you left Sacramento
and I hardly ever saw you again; and I get
my arm and my throat shot to shit and you're still
telling me everything's going to be okay. Everything
is still a secret with you, Patrick. I can feel the pain
you're feeling, bro, but you're still shutting me
out."
His face turned dark. "I am turning out to be the
thing I most hate, Patrick. I am turning into a machine
! I have lasers for vocal cords, microchips for a
larynx, and now Jon wants to give me hydraulic ac-
tuators for muscles and fibersteel for bones. I am
turning into the thing I hate most in the world."
He scanned Patrick's face with a strange mixture
of sadness and pity, and went on: "But the worst
part, bro, is that I feel like I'm in danger of turning
into you. I feel like my soul is being replaced by a
machine. And the only thing I get from you is,
'Don't worry. Accept it. Everything will be all
right.,
"I'm scared, dammit! I'm scared because I'm
turning into a damned contraption, a collection of
composites and microchips, and when I reach out to
you for support and guidance and love, all I sense is
another machine, an even more terrible machine,
sucking me down even more." He stopped, waiting
for his brother to speak, but there was only silence.
"Talk to me, goddamn you! Talk to me or get the
hell out."
"Paul, I can't talk about it," Patrick said. "It's
all . . . "
"Don't tell me 'It's classified' or 'It's top-secret'
or any of that nonsense," Paul shot back. "Something
is driving us apart. We want to be together,
connected, supportive, but we can't. We're both
hurting. I know what hurt me, Patrick. What in hell
has hurt you?" He closed his eyes, fiercely trying to
establish the psychic connection that had once
bound the brothers tightly together through vast
differences in time and distance. Then he shook his
head in resignation. "All I get from you is a ghost,
Patrick, a gray ghost. Talk to me, Patrick! What happened
? What's going on?"
There was still no reply. Paul threw his head
back on the pillow. "God, first my real family splits
up; and then my new family, the police department,
kicks me out. Now you're pushing me away. Happy
fucking New Year!"
It would have felt so good, Patrick thought, so
right, to tell Paul. everything. Not only about bugging
the SID offices, or trying to find Mullins in the
Bobby John Club, or about his failure with the Ultimate
Soldier project. Everything, going way back:
starting with Brad Elliott and Dreamland, the secret
bombing missions, the top-secret projects, all the
times the world almost went to war and his role in
preventing it.
But most of all, he wanted to tell Paul about the
people, all those souls he'd encountered, good and
bad, over the past eleven years. So many times, so
many battles, so many lives that touched his and
then were gone forever, while he lived on. He
wanted to tell him everything . . .
"I'm sorry, Paul," he heard himself say. "I can't
tell you. I wish I could but I can't." Paul turned
away. "Believe me, bro, everything is okay. The
most important thing is for you to get better. Get
some rest, and later I'll
"Save it, bro. I'll be fine. Go and do whatever the
hell it is, you do."
Patrick stepped toward Paul, reaching out to
him . . . but the connection was
severed. The person
in the hospital bed before him might as well
have been a stranger.
I He turned and left the room, pushing his way
through the reporters swarming around him
clamoring for a statement. He'd had enough of this
damn town. Time to take his family and go home.
WILTON, CALIFORNIA
THE SAME TIME
The next meeting between Gregory Townsend and
Sandman Harrison and his Brotherhood bikers
was brief and to the point: "The chief says yes," the
Sandman said. "Thirty meth cookers, ten grand
each, charged against our first payments. You provide
the training and keep 'em running and we pay
one grand per pound. How will it happen?"
"Good," said Townsend. "Next week, barring
any unforeseen complications, we will deliver a hydrogenation
unit to a location that you will advise
me of while en route, in order to preserve total security
. Each time, your men will pick up the unit, at
which time a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars
on each will be collected by myself or Major
Reingruber.
"Your men will take the hydrogenation units to
your clubhouses or safe houses or whatever you call
them," Townsend went on. "One of my men will
accompany each unit. Once at the clubhouse, my
man will instruct your chapter members present on
the operation of the unit. After -the instruction period
, you will deliver two hundred thousand dollars
as our final advance deposit, to be applied against
our share of the first batches prepared by each chapter
. Agreed?
"What about the chemicals?" Harrison asked.
Bennie the Chef answered this. "The units will
have enough chemicals on board for the first test
batch, a little over twenty-five pounds. The colonel
is supplying the chemicals just for the test batch.
You want more, come to us."
"Like hell we will," Harrison said. "We got our
own connections."
"We only guarantee the purity of the product and
the safety and efficiency of the hydrogenators if you
use our chemicals," Townsend said. "If you use inferior
ingredients, we cannot be responsible for the
outcome."
"The cookers better work, asshole, or we'll use
them as coffins for you and your men-after we get
through chopping your sorry asses into little