"That wasn't twenty minutes ago-"

"Intelligent algorithms. Our Luddite government likes to use them so we can identify any interesting tidbits that might come up in a conversation."

Craig didn't know how to respond. He wanted to deny the a.s.sertion that he thought the United States government was Luddite, but he couldn't find the appropriate words. It didn't matter-Colonel Paine was on a roll.

"Your wife is pretty d.a.m.ned accomplished. A PhD when she was only twenty-six, recruited by the top nanotech lab in the country for her post-doc. But you're no slouch yourself, Doc. You made it into med school before the world ended, back when it still meant something. You two are a couple of smart ones, all right. I bet you even think you're smarter than your commanding officer."

Again, Craig desperately wanted to reply. He shifted in his chair, his mouth forming the shapes of words, but he didn't have time to settle on which ones to say before Paine went on.

"Have you ever looked up my file, Doc? No? Shoot. You'd think you'd look up the file of your C.O. If you had looked me up, you'd know I'm a Rhodes Scholar."

"That's impressive, sir. I didn't know that." Finally...words.

"Back when it meant something," the colonel repeated.

Craig nodded in understanding.

"So now that you know you're not being addressed by a Luddite idiot, let me explain something to you." Paine pulled out his sidearm and held the gun up for Craig to see. "They teach you anything about game theory in medical school, Doc?"

Craig shook his head.

"Then you've never heard of Nash's equilibrium?"

"No, sir."

"Okay. Now we're in business-there's something I can teach you. In game theory, every scenario is broken down into a mathematical equation, and the ent.i.ties in the game-whether they be individuals or whole countries-are a.s.sumed to be rational. You follow me so far, Doc?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let me give you an example. Say you and I are gunfighters in the Old West. It's high noon." Paine wiggled the gun in his hand and looked at it, almost adoringly. "We've got a beef to settle, so there we are, in the middle of the town, dust blowing up around us. Somebody is going to die. That's a given. Know why?"

"No, sir."

"It's simple, Doc. People who are rational always act in their own best interest. Let's put some numbers to it. Let's say you're making up your mind about whether or not to draw your gun and shoot. You could just keep it holstered. If I keep mine holstered too, then our chance of survival is going to be 100 percent. Great, right? We could just walk away and call it a day." Paine shook his head. "The only problem is, that's a heck of a gamble, ain't it? I mean, what if you decide to keep your gun holstered and then I pull out mine anyway?" Paine aimed his firearm directly at Craig's forehead. "Your chances of survival just dropped dramatically. In fact, since I'm a dead shot, I'd have to say they're d.a.m.n near zero." The colonel leaned back in his chair. "So, what are you going to do?"

"I've got to shoot," Craig replied, swallowing as he did so.

Paine smiled. "That's right, Doc. And why is that?"

"If I shoot, chances are 50/50 that I'll survive. Beats zero, sir."

"Well, you are a smart son of a gun." Paine sat back in his chair and lowered his weapon. "Let's change the equation a little bit, shall we? Let's say that instead of guns, we're holding nuclear weapons on each other. Instead of a fraction of a second for a bullet to hit our enemy, it will take several minutes. If you fire, the other player knows it and fires back. Both of you have a zero percent chance of survival. You know this scenario. It's called mutually a.s.sured destruction, and it has held from the time Russia first got themselves a nuke back in 1948. No matter how afraid we got that nuclear war was going to happen tomorrow, in truth, we were always safe, because n.o.body wanted to start a war that would end with everyone dead." Paine held his gun up and trained it on Craig's forehead once again. This time there was something in the colonel's eye that unnerved Craig. The killer inside emerged from his eyes as they fixed, hard and unmoving, upon Craig's. "But let's say someone-or something-found a way around mutually a.s.sured destruction. Let's say Nash's equilibrium went straight out the window. That happened once in history. The good ol' United States of America had a bomb and no one else did-and we used it...twice." Paine's tone became even colder as he spoke. "If I'm China, sitting here with an A.I. that can circ.u.mvent Nash's equilibrium, and you're the USA, sitting there holding yourself, what are you gonna do?"

"Whatever you say, sir."

Paine's face instantly went pale at the thought. After a moment of reflection, he sat back in his seat and lowered his weapon. "Not in this life, Doc. The USA will never do what anyone tells them-or at least that's how our President looked upon the situation." He crossed his arms and c.o.c.ked his head slightly to the right. "I wonder how things would have shaken out had your wife been President."

Craig kept his composure. He didn't like having his wife brought into the conversation, but he also knew the stakes were high. If Paine was telling the truth, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had him and Samantha on their radar-and that was a place one never wanted to be.

"Now," Paine continued, "I do read the files of every man under my command. I've read yours. It's impressive. You're a doctor, automatically an officer with the rank of captain. You could have hidden away in a military hospital, but instead you trained for Special Forces a.s.signment. You're a veteran of ten HALO jumps, one from 50,000 feet." Paine paused, and his eyes met Craig's. "b.a.l.l.s. You're the most qualified man the Air Force currently has in combat S.A. Now, I didn't know what the h.e.l.l 'combat S.A.' is, so I had to look it up. That wasn't easy, given its secret status, but h.e.l.l, if I wasn't gobsmacked to find out it stands for 'suspended animation.' I'm gonna a.s.sume you used your wife's connections in DARPA to get yourself in on that."

"That's how I found out about the program, sir."

Paine nodded. "You were selected for this mission as an add-on because of your specialty training and because you're the only guy in the entire United States military who has a chance in h.e.l.l of hooking up with a Special Forces suborbital low-opening parachute unit and actually managing to pull it off. However..." Paine began as he slipped off his aug gla.s.ses and leaned his elbows on the small wooden desk. "...it behooves me to tell you that your partic.i.p.ation in this mission is extraneous to its overall success. So, believe me when I tell you that when I told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that you were solid and that the President doesn't have to worry about whether he is sending a traitor on the most important mission in American history since the Enola Gay, I really didn't have to. I stuck my neck out for you, Doc."

Craig blinked. "I...thank you, sir. I'm no traitor, sir. My wife...she just worries."

"You're Special Forces now, Doc. The men you're accompanying on your mission today are the best this country has to offer-the best we have left. This is a dangerous mission. We cannot put those men at any more risk than is absolutely necessary."

"I understand, sir."

"Do you? This is as top secret as it gets. Even I don't know the details. Yet you're wife knows..." Paine paused as he retrieved his aug gla.s.ses. He slipped them on, nodded again to select something, and then read, "This mission is important, Sammie. If it's successful, this war will be over a lot sooner than the world thinks."

Craig fell silent once again.

"In Britain, during the blitz of WWII," Paine related, "they had a slogan: 'The walls have ears.' These days, it's a h.e.l.l of a lot worse. There's nothing you can say that isn't picked up by a mic somewhere, fed through an algorithm that picks up patterns and weeds out what's important. If our intelligence forces have that capability, you can be d.a.m.n sure the Chinese have it too. If they heard you, they're on high alert right now."

Craig nodded. The colonel was absolutely right. He'd been a fool to say anything.

"You never, never put your fellow soldier at risk, Doc.-especially when you're Special Forces."

"You're right, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

Paine leaned back in his chair one last time. "Let me be clear. I could have your a.s.s in jail as we speak. I could have your wife arrested. I could do all of that, but I won't. I won't because I believe you made a mistake and that you sincerely care about your fellow soldiers and your country."

"I do, sir."

Paine nodded. He'd made his pointataught his lesson to a would-be intellectual. "Suspended animation, huh? Shoot." He shook his head and crossed his arms. "This world is getting stranger and stranger. All right, Doc. Get your a.s.s out of here and join your unit. You're dismissed. Good luck."

Craig stood to his feet and saluted, his back rigid. "Thank you, sir!" He turned on his heels and marched out of the room.

Paine watched him leave. "You're going to need it," he whispered under his breath.

4.

"WAKE UP," Craig said, speaking the initiation command as he finished unpacking his MAD bot.

The blue light panels on its shoulders, knees, and hands lit up, and the two blue circles that were meant to mimic human eyes came to life as the electronic hum of the complex fans began, the cooling of the hard drive already underway. The MAD bot stood four and a half feet tall, and its skin was mostly an opaque carbon fiber, interrupted only in the joints by dark blue fiber-optics. "Good morning, Captain Emilson," the MAD bot spoke in its deceptively human-sounding voice. The voice was male, but it was high pitched enough to suggest juvenility.

"Good morning, Robbie," Craig replied.

"Robbie the robot?" the driver of the shuttle bus reacted. "Seriously?"

Craig smiled. "It's easy to remember."

"What does that thing do, Doc?" the driver asked over his shoulder while observing the robot in his rearview mirror. The New Mexico desert sprawled in all directions toward the horizon, which was a little less yellow than it had been in recent days-a hopeful sign that the last of the fallout from the most recent attacks in California was finally abating.

"Robbie's a MAD bot, a medical a.s.sistance device," Craig explained over the noise of the bus engine. "He has a built-in tricorder, and he's programmed to diagnose injuries and illnesses better than a team of board-certified doctors."

"Does it treat injuries?"

"He can," Craig replied as he scanned the bot to make sure it was operating properly.

"Holy...so isn't that an A.I.?" the driver asked, his tone both intrigued and suspicious.

"He's narrow A.I. Don't worry. Robbie won't be taking over the world anytime soon."

"I'm here to help, sir," Robbie said to the driver.

"Did that thing just talk to me?" the driver reacted, surprised.

Craig grinned. "He did. Robbie, say h.e.l.lo to Private Lee."

"h.e.l.lo, Private Lee," Robbie said, turning his head to face the driver.

The driver's eyebrows rose. "Creepy. So, if you don't mind me asking, Doc, why don't they just send the robot? I mean, if it's better than a team of doctors like you say, then why even have medical officers anymore?"

"Maybe someday," Craig replied. "For the time being, MAD bots are expensive and haven't had enough field testing to guarantee that they won't make a serious mistake."

"Mistake? Like what?"

Craig scratched his head. "I don't know. I don't think they've ever made one before, but-you know-just in case."

"Ah." The driver nodded. "Gotcha."

A light suddenly twinkled brilliantly in the distance on the horizon in front of them, backdropped by dark mountains. Craig's eyes locked on the gleam.

"There it is, Doc," the driver announced, "s.p.a.ceport America."

5.

Craig and Robbie stepped down the ramp of the shuttle bus onto the tarmac of s.p.a.ceport America.

A squinting figure strode toward them in the blinding sunshine. The figure rose his arm to salute before adding, "Captain Emilson, sir!"

"At ease," Craig replied as he saluted in return.

The figure stuck out his hand to shake Craig's and smiled warmly, his skin wrinkling around his cheerful eyes. "I'm Commander Wilson, the officer in charge of this mission, but you will be the ranking officer, sir."

"Just call me 'Doc' for the duration of the mission, Commander. You're the OIC here, and I defer to you completely."

"Thank you, Doc." Commander Wilson turned to Robbie. "I heard you'd be bringing one of those."

Robbie saluted. "Commander Wilson, sir!"

Wilson laughed, tilting his head back. "That is something else. Will wonders never cease? Can I actually talk to it?"

Craig nodded. "Treat Robbie like another member of the team, Commander. He understands you and will respond appropriately."

"Robbie? Ha!" Wilson saluted the MAD bot. "At ease, Robbie."

Robbie lowered his arm and stood at ease.

"Well, you sure know how to make an entrance, Captain Emilson," Wilson observed with a smile. He turned toward the hangar. "The rest of the team is already suiting up. Let's go meet 'em, shall we?"

"Lead the way, Commander."

As the two men and the MAD bot walked briskly toward the giant hangar, Craig's eyes scanned the remarkable building. It was sleek, as though it had been designed in a wind tunnel, yet it appeared to have been constructed with a 1950s conception of a UFO in mind, its roof silver and smooth. It was as though it had been built with a rearview mirror-one eye on the future, while keeping the other on the past. There was something about it that made Craig uneasy-as though s.p.a.ceport America belonged outside of the bounds of normal time and s.p.a.ce.

"Correct me if any of my information is inaccurate, Doc," the commander began as they walked and talked, "but I understand you've completed the twenty-eight-week Special Forces qualification training and an abbreviated special ops combat medic course, in addition to your suspended animation professional development training. Is that right?"

"That's right, Commander," Craig replied.

"Ten HALO jumps too?"

"Right."

"That experience will serve you well, Doc. HALOs are the best training for suborbital jumps, though nothing can really prepare you."

"How many SOLOs have you done, Commander?"

"That's cla.s.sified, Doc. Needless to say, this won't be the team's first rodeo. There's no such thing as a training suborbital jump, though. The logistics and expense-not to mention the fact that the military is trying to keep this tech secret-makes training jumps a luxury we can't afford. You're gonna have to pop your cherry the way the rest of us did-on a real mission."

Craig considered Wilson's words. He'd had the impression that his addition to the team was haphazard, as though it were highly irregular for a brand new special ops soldier to be partic.i.p.ating on such an important mission. He found Wilson's a.s.sertion of the opposite oddly comforting. "It's actually nice to hear that I'm not the only one to have gone through this."

Wilson laughed and shook his head. "Nah, Doc, you're definitely the rookie of the group, but we were all rookies once. Besides, there's no pressure. I think the addition the bra.s.s was really interested in was Robbie back there," Wilson said, pointing his thumb in the direction of the robot as it walked behind them, a mechanical whir accompanying every step as it remained in Craig's shadow.

Ironic, Craig suddenly thought. "That's a good point, Commander," he said, suddenly feeling far less important.

"I gotta warn ya," Wilson began to confide, "the team isn't exactly feeling the love for your robot friend."

"Why's that?" Craig asked, his eyebrow c.o.c.ked inquisitively.

"Don't get me wrong, Doc. These men are pros all the way, but the addition of a robot that specializes in heavy trauma suspended animation body bags doesn't exactly fill anybody with confidence."

"I understand," Craig replied. "I'll speak to the team about it."