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  They walked in silence for about fifteen minutes, the pace far slower than what would have been required to do five kilometers in an hour. Even so, Stoner had to stop every so often to let them catch up.

  “Why are we going?” asked Deniz after they had crossed the border.

  “We’re meeting someone.”

  “A rebel or a smuggler?”

  Stoner shrugged. Deniz chortled.

  “A smuggler,” guessed Deniz.

  “Why do you care?”

  “Curious. The captain told us an American needs a guide. That’s all we know,” answered the Romanian.

  “That’s more than you should.”

  Kyiv said something. His tone was angry, and Stoner looked at Deniz for an explanation.

  “The smugglers are the men with the money,” said Deniz. “They throw cash around. My friend thinks it’s disgusting.”

  “And you?”

  “I just want what they want.”

  Deniz gave him a leering smile. Stoner had been planning on giving the men a “tip” after they returned; now he wasn’t so sure he’d bother.

  “Tell me about the rebels,” he said. “They don’t scare you?”

  “Criminals.” Deniz spit. “Clowns. From the cities.”

  He added something Romanian that Stoner didn’t understand.

  “They are dogs,” explained Deniz. “With no brains. They make an attack, then run before we get there. Cowards. There are not many.”

  “How many is not many?”

  Deniz shrugged. “A thousand. Two, maybe.”

  The official government estimates Stoner had seen ranged from five to ten thousand, but the Bucharest CIA station chief guessed the number was far lower, most likely under a thousand if not under five hundred. What the rebels lacked in numbers, the Romanian army seemed to make up for in incompetence, though in fairness it was far harder to deal with a small band of insurgents bent on destruction than a regular army seeking to occupy territory.

  “You speak English pretty well,” Stoner told Deniz, changing the subject.

  “In Bucharest, all learn it. TV. It is the people here who don’t need it.” He gestured toward Kyiv. “If you live all of your life in the hills, there is not a need.”

  “I see.”

  “On the computer—Internet—everything good is English.”

  “Probably,” said Stoner.”

  “Someday, I go to New York.”

  “Why New York?”

  “My cousin lives there. Very big opportunity. We will do business, back and forth. There are many things I could get in New York and sell here. Stop!”

  He put his hand across Stoner’s chest. Stoner tensed, worrying for a moment that he might have sized the men up wrong.

  “There is a second Moldovan border post there,” said Deniz, pointing to a fence about a hundred meters away. “A backup. If you don’t want to be seen, we must go this way through the field.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Dreamland

  22 January 1998

  0935

  FOLDED, THE MAN/EXTERNAL SYNTHETIC SHELL KINETIC Integrated Tool—better known as MESSKIT—looked like a nineteenth century furnace bellows with robot arms.

  Unfolded, it looked like the remains of a prehistoric, man-sized bat.

  “And you think this thing is going to make me fly?” asked Zen, looking at it doubtfully.

  “It won’t take you cross-country,” said scientist Annie Klondike, picking it up from the table in the Dreamland weapons lab where she’d laid it out. “But it will get you safely from the plane to the ground. Think of it as a very sophisticated parachute.”

  Zen took the MESSKIT from her. It was lighter than he’d thought it would be, barely ten pounds. The arms were made of a carbon-boron compound, similar to the material used in the Dreamland Whiplash armored vests. The wings were made of fiber, but the material felt like nothing he’d ever touched—almost like liquid steel.

  Six very small, microturbine engines were arrayed above and below the wing. Though no bigger than a juice glass, together the engines could provide enough thrust to lift a man roughly five hundred feet in the air. In the MESSKIT, their actual intention was to increase the distance an endangered pilot could fly after bailing out, and to augment his ability to steer himself as he descended.

  “You sure this thing will hold me?”

  “Prototype holds me,” said Danny.

  “Yeah, but you’re a tough guy,” joked Zen. “You fall on your head, the ground gets hurt.”

  “It’s much stronger than nylon, Zen, and you’ve already trusted your life to that,” said Annie.

  A white-haired grandmother whose midwestern drawl softened her sometimes sardonic remarks, Annie ran the ground weapons lab at Dreamland. MESSKIT was a “one-off”—a special adaptation of one of the lab’s exoskeleton projects. Exoskeletons were like robotic attachments to a soldier’s arms and legs, giving him or her the strength to lift or carry very heavy items. The MESSKIT’s progenitor was intended to help paratroopers leaving aircraft at high altitude, allowing them to essentially fly to a target miles away.

  Annie and some of the other techies had adapted the design after hearing about the problems Zen had had on his last mission using a standard parachute. If MESSKIT was successful, others would eventually be able to use it to bail out of high-flying aircraft no matter what altitude they were at or what the condition of the airplane. MESSKIT would allow an airman to travel for miles before having to land. If Zen had had it over India, he might have been able to fly far enough to reach an American ship and safety when his plane was destroyed. And because it was powered, the MESSKIT would also have allowed him to bail out safely from the Megafortress after the ejection seat had already been used.

  “Try it on,” urged Danny, who’d served as the lab’s guinea pig and done some of the testing the day before. “You put it on like a coat.”

  “What’s with these arms? What am I, an octopus?”

  “You put your hands in them. Your fingers slide right in. See?”

  “Yours, maybe.”

  “Starship can test it just as well,” said Danny.

  “I got it,” snapped Zen. “You don’t need to use reverse psychology on me.”

  “Now would I do that?”

  Zen gave the MESSKIT to Danny to hold and wheeled himself to the side of the table. He maneuvered himself out of the wheelchair and onto a backless bench, then held up his arms.

  “I am rea-dy for the operation, Doc-tor,” he said in a mock Frankenstein monster voice.

  Once on, the gear felt like a cross between football pads and a jacket with a thin backpack attached. His hands fit into metallic gloves. Bar grips extended from the side “bones” of the suit; they looked a bit like silver motorcycle throttles, with buttons on the end.

  “Comfortable?” Danny asked.

  “Different,” said Zen.

  Annie was looking over the device, adjusting how it sat on his back. Zen moved back and forth, twisting his torso.

  “Here, press the left-hand button once and pick this up,” said Danny, bringing over a twenty pound dumbbell.

  Zen could curl considerably more than twenty pounds with either hand, but he was amazed at how light the weight felt.

  Danny laughed. “Don’t throw it. You should see it on boost. You can pick up a car.”

  He was exaggerating—but only slightly. The MESSKIT used small motors and an internal pulley system to help leverage the wearer’s strength.

  The more Zen fidgeted with the suit, the more he saw its possibilities. Annie and the rest of the development team might think of it as a way to help him get out of a stricken Megafortress. But Zen realized that a similar device with artificial legs instead of wings could help him walk.

  Like a robot, maybe, but still…

  “So when do we test it?” he asked.

  “It looks like a good fit,” said Annie, tugging down the back as if she were a seamstress. “We can set up the
gym and go at it tomorrow.”

  “Why not today?” he asked. “Why not right now?”

  The others exchanged a glance, then Danny started to laugh.

  “Told you,” he said.

  “Come on,” said Zen. “Let’s get to work.”

  Dreamland

  0935

  THE NEWS ABOUT LIEUTENANT COLONEL BASTIAN’S MEDAL of Honor hit General Samson like the proverbial ton of bricks. The more he thought about it, the more he felt as if a house had fallen on him.

  Though his first reaction was to swell with pride.

  Samson had seen combat himself in his younger days, and he knew how tenuous courage on the battlefield could be. He also knew that for a soldier to get the Medal of Honor while managing somehow to survive was extremely difficult—luck really, since by definition the sort of selfless act the honor required meant death in nearly every case.

  Samson had been on the mission that the President was citing Dog for.

  Well, in the theater at least—and even a vague association provided at least a modicum of reflected glory. A commander takes responsibility for all that his people do, good and bad; personal feelings toward Dog aside, the colonel’s success reflected well on his commanding officer, no matter how far removed from the actual event.

  But as Samson thought about the implications, his mood quickly sank. For one thing, he wanted Bastian gone from Dreamland, and the medal would make it harder to push him out. It might even be impossible if Bastian decided to fight.

  Worse, what if Bastian put his hand up to become wing commander? How could he refuse a Medal of Honor winner?

  Bastian wasn’t a full colonel, and wing commanders almost always were. But hell, the guy had held a post a major general now commanded, and had won a Medal of Honor in combat—only a supercilious prig would deny him the post if he truly wanted it.

  How did Bastian get the medal, anyway? Samson wondered. Wasn’t the process normally begun with a recommendation from his commander? In what drunken stupor had he written that recommendation?

  Samson’s phone rang. He picked it up, and heard his chief civilian secretary, Chartelle Bedell, tell him in her singsong voice that Admiral Balboa was on the line.

  “Samson,” he said, pushing the button to make the connection.

  “General. Congratulations are in order,” said Balboa. “Your command is to receive an armful of medals for the action off India and Pakistan.”

  “We heard rumors, Admiral. I was wondering, though. Usually—”

  “The order comes directly from the commander in chief,” continued Balboa. “And as a matter of fact, he wants to meet with the personnel in question personally. As soon as possible.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “You have a problem with that, Samson?”

  “Of course not, Admiral. We’d be honored to have the President here. The security arrangements—”

  “Make them. There’ll be no press. The President happens to be on his way to the coast for some conference or other and wants to personally shake Colonel Bastian’s hand. It’s his idea, Terrill. He loves to press the flesh. You know that. I’m surprised he’s not more concerned about germs.”

  “Well yes, sir, of course.”

  “You can expect him first thing in the morning. Throw out the red carpet.”

  “Tomorrow?” asked Samson, but it was too late—Balboa had already hung up the phone.

  Northeastern Romania

  2031

  THE ATTACK ON THE GAS LINE WAS MADE SEVERAL HOURS earlier than General Locusta expected, and his first reaction was genuine surprise and anger. Locusta was in the small house used as his army corps headquarters, having a late tea with some of his officers, when word came. The news was delivered by a Romanian army private who’d driven from the attack site five miles away; the man had sprinted from the parking area and barely caught his breath before delivering the news.

  “Where?” demanded Locusta. “Have they been repulsed?”

  “They are gone, General,” said the man. “We have had two casualties.”

  “Two?”

  The private nodded.

  “How many guerrillas were killed?”

  The man shook his head. While that was probably a good thing—had the men been killed, it was very possible their true identities would have been discovered—Locusta was furious. The Russian had promised him none of his men would be harmed. The general had practically gift wrapped the pipeline for him, and he responded by killing two of his men.

  That was what came from working with the Russians.

  “General?” the private prodded him.

  “The pipeline is broken?” asked Locusta.

  “There was an explosion. Our captain was ordering the line closed as I left.”

  “I will inspect it myself.” Locusta turned to one of his captains. “Send a message to the capital immediately. Tell them to shut the entire line down. As a precaution. Add that the situation is under control for the moment and I am on my way personally to inspect the site.”

  Dreamland 1034

  “COMFORTABLE, ZEN?” ASKED ANNIE, TALKING TO HIM through the radio in the test helmet.

  “I’m just about to nod off,” he replied.

  “I’ll bet. We’re counting down from five. Here we go. Five, four…three…”

  Zen flexed his arms. He was sitting on a high-tech aluminum step ladder—it looked more elaborate than the models you’d find in a hardware store, but that was essentially what it was. Besides the MESSKIT, he was wearing a harness attached by very thick rubber straps and nylon safety ties to anchors on the “gym” ceiling, walls, and floor. Thick cushion pads covered nearly every surface in the hangarlike room; the only spaces left unprotected were small clear plastic panels for video cameras and various sensors, and the window of the control room, protected by a webbed net that hung across the open space.

  Zen took a last look across at the control room—it was at about eye level, ten feet off the ground—and thought to himself that it would be just his luck to be propelled into the netting like a school of mackerel if the experiment went haywire.

  “Ladder away,” said Annie, continuing the countdown.

  The metal seat that had been supporting him slid back. Zen didn’t move—his weight was now entirely supported by the safety harnesses, which were quickly checked by the computer monitoring the test.

  “Green light on ladder retrieve,” said one of the techies in the control room.

  Behind him, the ladder’s “closet” opened and the ladder began folding itself away. But Zen was too focused on the MESSKIT to pay any attention. The device seemed to barely weigh anything.

  “We’re ready any time you are, Zen,” said Annie.

  “Opening the umbrella,” he said, extending his arms before pushing the button on the control in his left hand.

  The wings unfolded with a loud thump, the sort of sound a book makes falling off a desk. Zen was tugged upward gently. He pushed his arms back, spreading his wings—the skeleton and its small bat wings moved easily.

  Zen worked left and right, just getting used to the feel, while Annie and the others in the control room monitored the device. After a few minutes, the tension on the suspension straps holding him off the floor was eased. Zen settled about six inches, then another six; he flapped his arms playfully, not trying to fly, but testing the safety equipment to make sure everything was still in order.

  “All right, the safety harnesses are working,” said Annie. “We’re going to give you some breeze. If you’re ready.”

  “Let ’er rip,” Zen said, and leaned forward, anticipating the next set of tests as some of the giant cushions on the wall slid upward to reveal small louvered slots.

  “Two knots, then five,” said Annie.

  Even at two knots, the effect of the wind on the wings was immediately noticeable. Zen pushed his hands down as the wind hit his face; the microsensors in the MESSKIT’s skeleton transferred his movements to the small motors t
hat controlled the wing’s surface, and suddenly he was pitched downward. The guide ropes and harness kept him from going too far forward, but the shift was still an abrupt enough to catch him by surprise.

  “Wow,” he said. “I’m flying.”

  “Not yet, Major,” said Annie dryly. “Maybe by the end of the day.”

  Dreamland

  1345

  THE ENGINEERS WHO TRANSFORMED THE B-1B INTO Dreamland B-1B/L Testbed 2 had left the throttle controls to the left of each pilot’s position, but otherwise there was little similarity between the aircraft’s cockpit and that of its “stock” brethren. A sleek glass panel replaced the 1970s-era gauges, dials, and switches that had once faced the pilots. The panel layout was infinitely configurable and could be changed by voice command to different presets adapted to a specific mission or pilot. The electronics behind the panel were even more radically different. Dreamland B-1B/L Testbed 2 could simultaneously track 64,237 targets and potential threats anywhere in the world. The number was related to the processing capacity of the chips used in the radar and computers but was still somewhat arbitrary. Ray Rubeo’s answer, when Dog asked him why that number was chosen, had been, “They had to stop somewhere.”

  Gathering the data through the Dreamland communication network—and eventually through standard military systems—the plane’s advanced flight computer could not only keep tabs on any potential enemy in the world, but provide the pilot with a comprehensive plan to evade detection or destroy the enemy before it knew the plane was targeting it.

  Or the computer could do it all itself, without human help—or interference. Which was what today’s test was all about.

  “Ready any time you are, Colonel,” said the copilot, Marty “Sleek Top” Siechert. A civilian contractor, a former Marine Corps aviator who’d returned to flying fast jets after working as a mid-level manager at McDonnell Douglas, Siechert’s nickname came from his bald head, which looked like a polished cue ball.

  Not that Dog could see it. Both men were dressed in full flight gear, with g suits and brain buckets, even though the cabin was fully pressurized.