Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (12 page)

 
          
He
found none; neither did the computer. A few minutes later,
Carmichael
turned to Patrick, nodded. “He’s ready.”

 
          
Patrick
walked around the lift’s narrow catwalk and knelt down in front of James. He
could barely see a movement of James’ eyes through the helmet’s thick
electro-optical lenses.

 
          
“Ready
to do some flying, buddy?”

 
          
They
looked at each other. There was no movement at all from James. Patrick waited,
watched. James appeared to be trying to decide on something. He didn’t seem
fearful or apprehensive or at all nervous. He was just . . . what?

 
          
Patrick
glanced at
Carmichael
. “Alan? How’s he doing?”

 
          
“His
beta is pinging off the scale,”
Carmichael
said, rechecking the electroencephalograph readouts. “No alpha or theta
activity at all.”

 
          
Patrick
turned again to James, bent down close to him. “We can reschedule this, buddy.
Don’t push it. It’s not worth the grief.”

 
          
“No.
I’ll be okay. I’m just . . . trying to get ready . . .”

 
          
“Then
relax, let it come to you, don’t chase it. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t
happen.”

 
          
“Hell
of a way to fight a war,” James said—the tension in his voice was obvious. “I
can see a fighter pilot telling his squadron commander, ‘I know the enemy is
rolling across the base but I can’t fly today—my damn theta isn’t responding .
..’ I’ve got to prove that I can go in and out of theta-alpha in a moment’s
notice.”

 
          
“Making
the system operational is still a few years off, Ken,” Patrick told him. “Don’t
worry about all that. Relax, don’t force yourself or the system. Let’s just go
up and have some fun. Finish up and buy me a beer at the Club afterward. That’s
all.”

 
          
Patrick
raised a hand in front of the test pilot, and James slapped a metallic-lined
glove into it. “Punch a hole in the sky, buddy. That’s an order, too.” He gave
James one last thumbs-up and stepped off the lift.

 
          
By
the time Patrick had stepped back onto the tarmac Dr. Carmichael was shaking
his head in disbelief.

 
          
“He’s
already under alpha-C parameters. I think he’s getting to the point where he
can do it anytime. If we had him hooked up outside the plane, he could probably
go into theta-sine A before we strap him in.”

 
          
“He
gets nervous every now and then,” Patrick added, “especially before a big test
like this one. Back me up on monitoring him, Alan.”

 
          
An
external power cart was running on Cheetah by the time Patrick returned,
climbed into the aft cockpit and strapped in. Aircraft power was already on,
and his crew chief and test-range officers had already done a fast preflight of
the telemetry and data collection instruments packed into the cockpit. Because
Cheetah was the only jet around that could even try to keep up with DreamStar,
it was now used to fly photo-chase on training and test flights. The special
high-speed camera Cheetah carried tracked DreamStar as it went through its
paces. Patrick could monitor all of DreamStar’s important electronic
indications and if necessary take control of the plane by remote control.

 
          
With
all of DreamStar’s power off, however, there was only one readout to
monitor—the EEG of Ken James himself. Like
Carmichael
, Patrick was amazed as he watched the
electronic traces of James’ different brainwave patterns. He clicked open his
interphone.

 
          
“He’s
almost into theta-sine alpha already.”

 
          
“Does
that mean I can go to sleep too?” J. C. Powell said.

 
          
“How
fast could
you
go into theta-alpha?”
Patrick said, watching the readouts change. “I know you’ve flown the DreamStar
simulator. Could you do any better?”

 
          
“Patrick,
I’m a pilot, not a robot.” J.C.’s voice had lost its sardonic tone. “Seems to
me ANTARES turns pilots into nearrobots. But to answer your question: sure, I
could go into theta- sine-alpha quickly. Couple of minutes.
Staying
in theta-alpha was another trick
I could never quite get the hang of. But I didn’t lose DreamStar, I gained
Cheetah. I figure I got the better deal.”

 
          
Which
was a long speech for J. C. Powell; it underscored his dislike for ANTARES.
ANTARES might be the great addition to DreamStar’s already amazing array of
avionics, it might be the future of air combat—but J.C. Powell didn’t see it in
his future.

 
          
“It
doesn’t turn anyone into a robot,” Patrick said. “You still have full control.
I don’t see what your problem is about ANTARES.”

 
          
“Full
control? Of what? A computer tells him what to do, and he does it.”

 
          
“It’s
still the pilot calling the shots, J.C.”

 
          
“Sure,
he can pick up his own options out of a list the computer presents to him, or
he can override everything and go his own way. I know that. But if a smart
computer offers up a list of a hundred options, well, most guys will pick
something out of that list.” Powell spread his hands out across his lap. “Say
you’re at a fancy restaurant.” He motioned an imaginary waiter to his table.
“You’ve been to this restaurant before because they have the best steak in
town, but
Pierre
hands you the menu. What do you do?” Powell
opened his imaginary menu and pretended to read it. “You look at the menu. Why?
Because it’s there. So maybe you order the steak because that’s what you always
order,
but you still look at the menu.

 
          
“See,
even with ANTARES it takes time to scan the menu. A real pilot will use that
time to use his head and instincts to execute a
real
maneuver. In ANTARES there’s no thought, analysis, decision
making . . . it’s been done for you. And I call that programming.”

 
          
“But
if it results in a better system?”

 
          
“ANTARES
hasn’t been proved to be better than a human pilot . . .”

 
          
“We
still
use
a human pilot, J.C.”

 
          
“More
or less, I guess,” Powell said sarcastically, returning switches to their
proper positions. “But in a significant way we don’t—I say ANTARES can be
beat.”

 
          
“Well,”
Patrick said, rubbing his eyes wearily, trying to massage away the headache
that usually happened when arguing with J. C. Powell, “it’s a moot point, at
least for now. Like I said, we’re not concerned with how well DreamStar fights,
deploying her is still a ways off. We’re here to test the aircraft and test the
concept.”

 
          
J.C.,
slumping so far down in his seat Patrick couldn’t see him, said, “But all those
generals and congressmen don’t care about testing the concept. They all want to
know the same thing—can she win dogfights?”

 
          
“And
you’re saying she can’t.”

 
          
“I’m
saying that she
can
be beat. A pilot
with the right combo of skill and balls can beat ANTARES. And if ANTARES is
forced out of the combat loop, the pilot in DreamStar has to be able to take
charge and fight on his own. DreamStar’s not really set up for pilot-directed
dogfighting. For me that’s her weakness . . . And look what we’re doing to our
combat pilots”—J.C. motioned toward DreamStar—“Ken James is one of the best
pilots in the Air Force. He’s been a star ever since he graduated from the Zoo.
So what have we done with him? We’ve trussed him up in a steel flight suit, a
twenty-pound helmet and more damn electrodes than Frankenstein’s monster. We’re
using his brain but not his
mind.
There’s a big difference, I figure. Are all our best military pilots going to
be used as protoplasmic circuit boards for ANTARES?”

 
          
For
a guy that was only thirty years old, Powell could be a real stick-in-the-mud
sometimes. Patrick scanned the EEG readouts. “Everything looks normal. It
should be a while before he radios in that he’s ready. I’ll let you know when
he’s coming around so we can crank engines.”

 
          
“Roger
that. I’m gonna do another flight-control check.” “Didn’t you just do a
computer self-test?”

 
          
“Having
a computer check a computer to see if a computer is working is just looking for
trouble. One of these days all those computers will get together and drive us
into the ground. I wanna catch them before they do it. I’m doing the check
manually. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

 
          
“Rog.”
Patrick was tired of arguing. Besides, J.C. had a point. He turned again to the
EEG monitors.

 
          
Theta-sine-alpha
indicated that James was relaxed, but it was a much deeper level of relaxation,
more neurological, much more than ordinary muscle relaxation. The ability to
get to theta-sine-alpha had taken months of training. They called it
biofeedback when psychologists would hook a patient up to a mini-EEG or
polygraph that would beep whenever a beta wave would be detected, indicating
stress or irregular muscular or nervous activity. The idea was to relax the
body or control nerve activity until the beeping stopped. James had to go far
beyond such muscle relaxation—he had to relax his mind, open it, create a
window into the subconscious.

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
For
Kenneth Francis James, the window to his mind did not open like a door or a
window—it opened like a hot, rusty knife ripping through pink flesh. But that
was the nature of the Advanced Neural Transfer and Response System that linked
the brain with a digital computer. James had gone far beyond
Carmichael
’s lectures. This was the real thing, the
link-up between the computer on the plane and his suit.

 
          
The
first mind-numbing phase of transition was activation of the system itself,
which occurred automatically once ANTARES detected that James had entered
theta-sine-alpha. In order to pick up the tiny changes in electrical activity
in James’ body, the metallic ANTARES flight suit itself had to be electrified.
Even though the charge was very small it was applied to almost every part of
the body, from the skull to the feet; it was like touching one’s tongue to the
terminals of a nine-volt battery and feeling the tiny current jolt the taste
buds, except that James felt that sweet, tingling sensation in every part of
his body. And through it all, he had to maintain theta-alpha . . .

 
          
Enduring
activation of the ANTARES system was only the first step; the now familiar
slight physical pain was easy to block out. The next assault, however, was on
the mind itself.

 
          
Once
ANTARES was open it would transmit a complex series of preprogrammed questions
to various conscious and subconscious areas of James’ mind. The questions,
programmed months earlier by countless hours in a simulator-recording unit,
would match the existing brainwave patterns of each level encountered. After scanning,
recognizing and matching the patterns, ANTARES would then overpower that
particular neural function, force the original pattern to a compatible
subconscious level and allow the ANTARES computer to control that level. It was
like submitting a series of passwords to several levels of guards, except each
time ANTARES would reach a level it would hammer, not knock, on the door,
demanding entry. Once admitted, it would first befriend, then overpower, the
resident inside. The takeovers accomplished by ANTARES were sometimes painful,
sometimes soothing. At times images would force their way out of James’
subconscious, long-stored memories of childhood that Maraklov had long
forgotten.