Transhuman (35 page)

Sure enough, a flashlight beam swung across the dusty ground, past the rock he was hiding behind and on to his right. It switched off, and he heard the jeep drive away.

They'd be back, Luke knew. With reinforcements.

He struggled to his feet and went lurching painfully into the cold night, trying to put as much distance between himself and the base as he could.

 

Into the Woods

I
F THIS DIDN'T
hurt so much it'd be funny, Luke thought as he hobbled farther from the base, into the darkness of the empty desert. Who the hell do I think I am? Kit Carson? Clint Eastwood?

The desert wasn't completely empty, he saw in the wan light of the moon. It was bare and parched, but there were trees up ahead, maybe a mile or so. Must be a river or a stream up there. Plenty of rocks all over the place, strewn around like toys scattered by a careless child. Like pictures of Mars, he thought. Rocks and more rocks. Don't stumble on them. The last thing you need is another bad ankle.

Looking back over his shoulder, he could see lights playing back and forth in the distance. The MPs. But they seemed to be inside the wire fence, so far. They hadn't sent out a search party yet. Good.

He staggered on, his ankle flaring painfully every time he put some weight on it.

Ignore the pain, he told himself. Keep pushing on. Once you're in those trees up there you can ease up, see if the cell phone works.

What if it doesn't? he asked himself. Then you push on, was the only answer he could come up with.

It was cold, and getting colder. He unzipped his windbreaker pockets and fished in them for his cap, but his cut-up hands hurt and were slippery with blood, and the pockets were stuffed with granola bars, trail mix, and plastic bottles of water.

Push on, push on, he urged himself. You'll get there. Somehow he remembered reading years earlier that spiderwebs could stem the bleeding from a cut. The foreign DNA of the spider's silk activated clotting factors in human blood.

Great. Where am I going to find a spider's web in this blasted desert? In the dark, yet. In the cold. No self-respecting spider within a hundred miles of here, I bet.

He heard the distant rumble of jeeps. Maybe trucks.

They're coming out after me!

He hurried ahead, hurting, limping, bleeding, but still moving forward, toward the trees.

He got there at last, staggering in among their dark boles, stumbling in the bushes between them. He could hear the soft gurgle of a stream off somewhere in the darkness. Gratefully, he slid to the ground and rested his back against one of the tree trunks.

He sat there puffing. The cold
hurt
. Every part of his body hurt. I ought to get deeper into these woods, he told himself. Painfully, he hauled himself to his feet and lumbered on.

Sure enough, there was a little stream tumbling over the rocks a few dozen feet deeper into the trees. I didn't need to bring the water bottles, he thought. Then he fished in his shirt pocket for his cell phone.

Damn! It's in the first shirt, underneath this outer one.

His hands smarting painfully, he fumbled with the buttons of his outer shirt and eased the cell phone out of his pocket. It slipped out of his blood-slicked fingers and dropped to the mossy ground. For an instant Luke feared it would tumble into the water, but it stayed at his feet.

Thank the gods for small mercies, he thought as he bent slowly to pick it up. At least my back doesn't hurt the way it used to. Now if only everything else felt okay.

The cell phone was still useless, he saw.
NO SIGNAL,
its little screen proclaimed. Damned jamming works all the way out here, Luke fumed to himself. He sucked in a deep breath and started moving farther into the woods, thinking, Pappagannis said the jamming peters out a couple miles from the base. Hope he knows what he's talking about.

After what seemed like an hour Luke sank down to the ground and leaned his back against a tree. He was puffing from the exertion, and every breath he took in stung with cold. He tried the phone again. Nothing. Got to move on, he told himself. Follow the stream, stay in the trees.

But his legs ached, his hands stung, the cut on his thigh hurt. He leaned forward and felt his injured ankle.

Yep, it's swelling. All you need now is to be struck by lightning.

The moon was sinking behind the mountains, but the sky was crystal clear, spangled with bright twinkling stars. Luke could even make out the pale stream of the Milky Way. But why's it have to be so freaking cold? he complained to himself.

He pulled out one of the granola bars, unwrapped it clumsily, then munched it down. Dessert, he told himself. He carefully balled up the wrapper and stuffed it back into his pocket. No littering.

Maybe I ought to take a little nap. Be good to rest a bit. But then he remembered that when a person freezes to death he goes to sleep first. It's not
that
cold, he told himself. I'm not going to freeze. Still, he realized that his whole body was shivering.

He heard an eerie yowl from far off. A wolf! he thought. No, more likely a coyote. Either way they eat meat.

And then he saw lights flashing back and forth in the distance.

They're coming after me!

 

Night

L
UKE SCRAMBLED TO
his feet, sending a shock of pain through his bad leg. There were several lights swinging back and forth among the trees. A search party, he realized. Come out, come out, wherever you are.

The hell I will.

He staggered off along the side of the stream, pain flaring with each step. Despite the cold he was sweating.

The ground was rising, he noticed. The moon was down, and the only light he had was from the stars. And that damned coyote or wolf or whatever it was started howling again. The moon's gone, dummy, Luke snarled silently. Shut up and go to sleep.

He lumbered on, fighting a growing urge to urinate. What the hell, he thought at last. When you gotta go, go. He unzipped his fly and went against one of the trees. Good stream, he noticed. Then he zipped up again and plunged on through the woods.

It'd be good to sleep, he thought. To sleep, to dream … He almost laughed. Quoting Shakespeare. You're getting delirious, man.

The lights seemed to be farther away, a little. That's good. Keep on moving. Put as much distance between them and yourself as you can.

In the dimness he didn't see the tree root snaking across his path. He tripped ingloriously and fell flat on his face with a resounding thud and a crack that he thought was a breaking bone. His nose was bleeding, and his face felt raw, scraped.

Pulling himself to his knees, Luke wondered what the hell else he could do to himself. Maybe fall in the stream and drown, he thought wryly. No. Too cold. Besides, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

He struggled to his feet and lurched on. Maybe there's a cave or some hole in the ground where I can hide, he thought. “Yeah, sure,” he muttered. “Find a nice hole in the ground; that's where the snakes hide. Rattlers.” He stumbled away from the stream, up the sloping ground, peering into the darkness. This is useless, he told himself. Can't see a damned thing.

But he kept on going.

Suddenly the clattering roar of a helicopter shattered the night's silence. Looking upward, Luke saw a bright searchlight swinging back and forth between the trees.

They really want to find me, he thought. Colonel Dennis must be going apeshit. The White House tells him to keep me confined and I bust out like Jimmy Cagney in an old jailbreak flick.

The copter's searchlight was getting closer. Luke realized that he'd be easier to spot if he was moving along among the trees, so he flattened himself against one of the trunks, his head turned upward to watch the approaching searchlight.

It flicked down between the trees, swinging this way and that. Luke was suddenly glad that his slacks and windbreaker were both dark brown. He saw the trees' boughs bending under the downdraft of the chopper's rotors, felt the blast of wind on his upturned face. Then it moved on. The swooshing roar dwindled; the light probed farther away.

Luke sank to the ground, completely spent. He was numb, all his adrenaline used up. Don't fall asleep! he commanded himself. It did no good. His eyes closed, his chin slumped to his chest, and everything went completely dark.

*   *   *

H
E WAS AWAKENED
by a beam of sunshine piercing through the canopy of trees, bathing his face with brightness. He was shivering with cold, his teeth chattering. His whole body was stiff, the way it had been every morning before he started his telomerase treatment. Only worse. The fountain of youth has its limits, he thought.

But as he lay there blinking into full wakefulness, he broke into a crooked grin. I made it, he said to himself. I got through the night without killing myself or letting the MPs find me.

He saw that his right ankle was swollen to three times its normal size. The cuts on his hands had clotted, and apparently the slash on his inner thigh had, too. The sunlight on his face felt warm and bright.

Not so bad, he thought. Now if only the goddamned phone is working.

It wasn't.
NO SIGNAL
, the tiny screen insisted stubbornly.

Christ, how far away from the base do I have to get? I must have gone at least two miles by now. Pappagannis doesn't know what he's talking about.

He ripped open one of the trail-mix packets and gulped the stuff down, then drank half a bottle of water. And realized he had to urinate again.

Struggling to his feet, Luke wondered if the MPs were still out there looking for him. Be easier to spot me in the daylight, he knew.

As if in answer, he heard the roar of another helicopter and, over it, an amplified voice bellowing, “Professor Abramson, show yourself. You can't get far and we have teams of trackers searching for you. Come out from under the trees and give yourself up.”

Trackers? he asked himself. With bloodhounds and shotguns, like in old movies? He stayed still until the helicopter rattled off some distance, then started limping doggedly farther upslope, away from the stream, cursing himself for not being bright enough to bring a compass.

 

Edward Novack

A
S HE WALKED
toward the mess hall, Novack could see something was going on. Three big Army trucks were rumbling toward the main gate, filled with soldiers in khaki fatigues. A small helicopter was descending onto the chopper pad, swirling a mini-whirlwind of dust across the area, while another, larger chopper sat nearby, its rotors swinging lazily, as if waiting for the order to take off.

Frowning with curiosity, Novack changed his direction and walked briskly to the base's three-story administration building and Colonel Dennis's office.

The dumpy female sergeant who served as the colonel's aide looked distraught. “The colonel can't see you now, Mr. Novack. He's very busy.”

From the half-open door to the colonel's office he heard Dennis yell, “Connie, get Rossov on the phone. Top priority!”

Novack watched the aide reach for her phone console. As she did so, he simply walked past her desk and into Dennis's office.

The colonel looked distraught, disheveled, his eyes bloodshot as if he hadn't slept all night. Two young lieutenants were standing before his desk, looking anxious.

“What's going on?” Novack asked.

Dennis gaped at him, and the two shavetails turned at the sound of his voice.

“This is Army business,” Colonel Dennis said, his voice pitched high, nervous. “I don't have time to talk to you now.” He jabbed a finger at one of the lieutenants. “Night-vision goggles. Round up all the night-vision equipment you can find.”

“I don't think we've got anything like that on the base, sir.”

“Then find out where it might be and get it here! Pronto!”

“What's going on?” Novack repeated, louder.

Dennis's round face went red with anger. “Do I have to get the MPs to throw you out of here?”

Folding his arms across his chest, Novack said, “Yeah. Do that.”

The two lieutenants fidgeted uncertainly, glancing back and forth from Novack to the colonel. Dennis slowly rose from his swivel chair, clenched his fists—then plopped down on the chair again.

“It's Abramson,” he admitted, his face miserable. “He … he's escaped.”

Novack's jaw dropped open. “Escaped?”

“During the night,” Dennis said, in a choked voice. “He got over the fence. He's out there somewhere. We're trying to find him.”

Suppressing an urge to laugh, Novack thought, The colonel's let a seventy-five-year-old man make a jailbreak. Rossov's going to be pissed as hell.

As if on cue, Dennis's aide called from outside, “Mr. Rossov on line one, sir!”

*   *   *

I
T WAS JUST
past ten
A.M.
in the District of Columbia. Rossov had barely slid into his desk chair when the call from Colonel Dennis came through.

“Escaped?” he blurted at the colonel's image on his phone console's screen. “What do you mean, he escaped?”

“During the night,” Dennis muttered, his voice weak and miserable. “He got over the fence. We've got a couple of dozen men searching for him.”

“You let him get away?”

“He can't get far,” the colonel whined. “There's nothing out there for forty-some miles. Not a house, not a barn, no buildings at all.”

“So he'll freeze to death out there,” Rossov growled.

“No, it's not that cold. It didn't go down to freezing overnight.”

Anger rising inside him like hot acid, Rossov said, “You find him. You find him right away.”

“We will. We will.”

“Do that.”

Rossov cut the connection, but the vision of Colonel Dennis's rueful face seemed burned in his mind like a bad afterimage.