Madrone sat stoically in the chair as the technicians prepared him. Geraldo had given him breathing exercises to do as a form of relaxation; he tried them now, imagining his lungs slowly squeezing the air from his chest. He pictured his upper body as a large balloon, gradually being emptied. He relaxed his arms and hands on the seat rests, easing himself into the chair. When the visor was placed on his face he accepted the darkness.

His lips and cheeks vibrated slightly, as if set off by some internal pitchfork tuned to their frequency. Someone placed headphones over his ears. The Mozart concerto played softly in the background.

The music called up memories of the past, times in junior and senior high school, learning the cello. Orchestra was his favorite class, though not his best—B’s and B+’s compared to the A’s and A+’s in math and science. The thickness of the notes matched the feel of the bow in his hand, the vibration shifting in his senses. Sounds morphed into movement through space, and space itself transformed, the high school halls a jungle of jagged shadows and sharp corners.

“Kevin, are you ready?”

Geraldo’s voice intruded like a bully bursting from the shadows. Junior and senior high school were in the same building, seventh-graders mixing with towering twelfth-graders, always cowering in fear of being pummeled.

“Kevin?”

“Yes,” said Madrone.

“Your hippocampus has grown two percent since our measurement twenty-four hours ago,” said the scientist. “That is extremely good. Surprising even. Incredible.”

“Off the chart,” said Roger approvingly.

The hippocampus was one of the key areas of the brain involved in ANTARES, since it produced nearly all the Theta waves. Also responsible for memory control and other functions, it was actually a ridge at the bottom of each of the brain’s lateral ventricles. Geraldo had explained that she wasn’t sure the size of the ridge or the number of cells there mattered. Nonetheless, the ANTARES diet and drug regime included several hormones that were supposed to help stimulate the grown of brain cells.

“Our baseline frequencies this morning are 125 percent,” continued Geraldo. “Kevin, I must say, we’re doing very well. Very, very well. Can you feel the computer? If I try a simple tone, do you feel it? The feedback?”

He shook his head. Her praise was misplaced. He had no control over his. thoughts, let alone the growth of his brain cells. He was worthless, a failure, useless. Karen had seen that and left.

His brain began to shift, ideas floating back and forth like pieces of paper caught in a breeze.

Something hot burned a hole on the side of his head.

Red grew there. His skull bones folded inward, became a flute.

Maria Mahon, the flute player in ninth-grade orchestra.

He had a crush on her. Thomas Lang, a senior, was her boyfriend.

Stuck-up rich kid bully slimebag.

Go out for the football team, his dad urged.

He broke his forearm and couldn’t play the cello anymore.

Very red and hot.

The light notes moved down the scale. He was a horrible trumpet player. Try the bass, pound-pound-pounding.

Red knives poked him from the sides of the hall. Someone took a machine gun from the locker.

Respond with the York Gatling gun. He had one in his hands. His head was the radar he’d worked on.

Pounding red lava from the cortex of his brain.

Madrone heard words, hard words that shot across the pain, spun him in the displaced hallway of his distorted memories.

“Kevin, try to relax. Let your body sway with the music.

You’re fighting too hard.”

Relax, relax, relax. Don’t think about the bullies.

The tanks. He was in Iraq, alone with his men.

“Lieutenant?”

“Go left. I’m right. Just go!”

He screamed, running faster. He drew the Iraqis’ fire and his men did their jobs, it was all so easy in his memory now, without the pain and the nervousness, knowing exactly how it would come out, the elation, the adrenaline at the end, the smell of the burning metal, the extra grenade still in his hand.

He could do it. He wanted to do it.

And then Karen. Christina being born in the hospital. Taking blood in the doctor’s office when she was a week old because the TSH had been so elevated.

Normal, said the nurse, for a traumatic birth.

Except the birth hadn’t been traumatic. Labor was only two hours and the kid nailed the Apgar charts.

Christina wailed as they pricked her heel. They couldn’t get the blood to flow.

The second test, then the third. X-rays. Colonel Glavin, Theo P. Glavin, wouldn’t give him the day off so he could be there.

“P” for Prick.

Oh, God, you bastards, why did you poison her?

Karen, don’t you see—they killed her. They poisoned her and then me.

His wife looked at him from across the room, the empty white room at the back of the small church where they’d had the service for Christina, their poor, dead little girl. Karen’s eyes stabbed at his chest, wounding him again, the memory so vivid it wasn’t a memory but reality; he was in the church again, his daughter dead, his marriage crumbling, his life over. He’d been uncontrollable at the service, blurting out the truth, what he knew was the truth—they had poisoned her through him, killed her.

He’d get them, the bastards who’d exposed him to the radiation, exposed her—

“Kevin?”

“I can’t do it, I’m sorry.” Madrone snapped upright in the chair. He yanked off the helmet.

“Easy, easy,” said Geraldo. Her fingers folded over his gently but firmly. “Let’s break for lunch.”

Her words or perhaps her touch pushed him back, somehow both surprising and calming him at the same time.

“Lunch?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s lunchtime,” she said. “Why don’t you go over to the Red Room? Take a real break. We’ll start from scratch at two o’clock.”

“What time is it?” asked Madrone. He’d only just sat in the chair, perhaps five minutes ago.

“High noon,” said Roger. “You’ve been attached for nearly two hours. Flirting with Theta-alpha the whole time. You’re close.” He put his thumb and forefinger a half centimeter apart. “You’re damn close.”

Dreamland All-Ranks Cafeteria

27 January, 1230

“HEY, MONKEY BRAIN,” SAID MACK AS HE ENTERED THE food line in the mess hall and spotted Madrone in front of him. “How’s it feel to have a microchip in your head?”

“Hi, Major.” Madrone stood stiffly, eyes on the cook’s helper who was cutting him some roast beef. Mack thought the Army captain looked even paler than normal. The ANTARES people must have started frying his brain already.

Gained a few pounds, though.

“Lot of food you got there,” said Knife. “Bulking up for all that skull work, huh?”

“I’m hungry.”

“That a boy. Go for the red meat. No more Twig, right? Got a new nickname—Microchip Brain. Monkey Boy.”

The airman slicing the meat glanced in Mack’s direction.

“No electrodes in your neck yet?” Mack asked Madrone, narrowing his eyes as if he were scanning for microscopic ANTARES implants. “Guess 1 can’t ask you to toast my bread, huh?”

“Jeez, you’re more obnoxious than usual today, Knife,” said Zen, rolling in behind him.

“And why not, oh, exalted one,” said Mack. He did a mock bow. “Your father-in-law just offered me a job as janitor here.”

Actually, Bastian had tried to talk him into flying Megafortresses. Smith would take a job with a commuter airline, or even look up that Brazilian geezer who’d come on to him in Vegas, before stooping to flying BUFFs.

“I’m sure you’ll get a good assignment soon,” said Jeff.