FIC: Instinct - PG13, part 3 of 6
Sorry it's been such a long time on this. I hope to have the remaining chapters to post in the next week or two.
TITLE: Instinct
AUTHOR: Roseveare, t.l.green@talk21.com
RATING: PG-13
LENGTH: 20,000 words approx
SUMMARY: When Jake screws up badly on a mission, other factions at the NSA take the opportunity to push forward modifications to the Nanite Program.
NOTES: Set after 'Arms and the Girl'. Thanks to kattahj for the beta!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Chapter 3
The cool thing about the nanites - ignoring the not-cool part where he might as well have 'US Government Property' stamped on his butt these days - was waking up to find that the scrapes of the day before had vanished without trace. Even when he'd spent half the night stuck in a dream of being locked in the cell between a bunch of big-eyed grey X-Files aliens and a geriatric Elvis. The occasional twinge from his wrist and ribs didn't stop him peeling off Diane's careful strapping and gleefully hurling it in the trash before he made his way in to work.
"Check me out," he told Diane in the lab. She blushed, but Jake was too much on a roll to stumble over hideously embarrassing double-entendres. "I got your backing on this one, right? Yesterday sucked -- but today, I am good to go."
She adjusted her glasses unsteadily. "Okay..." She ran diagnostics while he shuffled on his feet. "You know, Jake, the last thing I expected out of you this morning was enthusiasm, after yesterday and all. Are you sure you're feeling okay? I could start to worry about the nanites affecting your higher functions..." She felt his forehead.
"Hey," he protested. "As I keep telling our stony-hearted boss, I am a go-getter."
"Right." The look she gave him was deeply suspicious.
"Seriously," he implored as she waggled her hands at him and he hiked himself up to perch on the edge of the examination table, "Get me back out there and I will go kick some serious ass." He inclined his head at the JMD in her hand. "Clear me."
"Um, I think I should run a brain scan."
"What? You've got to be kidding."
She smiled. "You're right, I am. Kinda. You are acting weird, Jake."
"Weird? I am not -- listen, I have to get back out there, Diane. I need to prove--"
"Oh. Oh. I might've guessed." She rolled her eyes. "Jake, you don't have anything to prove. Everyone knows you're still in training and you just got caught in a situation that was... beyond you."
"We both know that's not true."
Uneasily, she rolled up his sleeve and prodded as his still-twingy arm. Jake kept his face straight with difficulty. "Diane, you have to be on my side on this one. I can still rescue this if I'm only given chance to. I have to get back and out in the field again, like, yesterday..." He'd already learned this morning that yesterday's fatalities had now risen to 5. Agent Cayman at least was still holding on in ICU.
"You're getting paranoid. Maybe you need to see a psychiatrist -- and don't look at me like that, the agents here do get shrunk on a pretty regular basis, you know." She twisted his arm unexpectedly, if not hard, and gave a sly, satisfied nod as he let out a yelp. "Ha. I thwart your evil scheme. Ribs, too, I'll bet." At times, Diane could have a funny way of trying to cheer him up. "Anyway, you might think about losing all this talk of sides. It's not us and them... you don't know half of what Kyle and Lou do for you. Those guys do totally have your back."
"One word," Jake reminded glumly, "Contract."
The long noise she made through her nose as a measure of her disapproval made him jump half out of his skin. "Jesus! Nanite hearing! Don't do that to me." He scowled and shook his head to try clear his ears. "I'm not being funny about this. The government pretty much own us, after all. Me a bit more than most, thanks to half a billion in accidental investment. And if they do decide I'm not a viable channel for resources it's not as if there's anything anyone here can -- ow!" He jolted as she pressed down on his ribs. "You did that on purpose."
"I wouldn't have to if you'd stop trying to be dishonest with me." She stood back and folded her arms. "Is there anything else you're hiding in your great big delusion that they're gonna lock you up and throw away the key?"
"No. I'm fine, Diane. In fact, ask me around morning break and I won't even have to lie. The nanites are great. The nanites are working perfectly. Apparently it's just the Jake that sucks."
"Aside from the fact that referring to yourself in the third person is a sign of madness, that's completely untrue. Nobody thinks that. Although... hey, stay in this mood for a bit longer and things might change pretty fast." She tossed the JMD onto a messy lab bench, and while it was still scattering the contents of the bench's surface like dominoes, Lou took the perfect opportunity to walk in trailing a gaunt, fiftyish suit who looked a lot like Lurch from 'The Addams Family' and was wearing the stiff, humourless expression Jake had come to associate with NSA Brass.
Apparently Diane had grown to know that face too, as her hands flew to her mouth momentarily, and then she was frantically scooping up items and tossing them back onto the bench. "Hi. Just... had a little mishap here."
Jake slid down off the examination table, mainly because not being on the examination table made him feel a lot less like a subject laid out for dissection. He nodded to Lurch, who was looking at him rather intently. "Hi. Hello."
"This is Deputy Research Director Eustace Sleet. He's here for a brief inspection of the project facilities." Lou emphasized the word 'brief' with unmistakeable purpose. "Director Sleet, Doctor Diane Hughes is the researcher in charge of the nanite project. This is Agent Foley."
Diane offered her hand but took it back, laughing nervously, as the guy didn't even appear to notice. Asshole, thought Jake.
"Doctor Hughes... Agent Foley." Sleet spoke in monotone. It was exactly the kind of voice you'd expect him to have. There seemed to be a more lively interest in his voice when he shaped Jake's name. Hard to tell for sure, but worrying all the same.
Lou gave Lurch a sharp look from under her eyelashes and said to Diane, "How is he?"
"Oh, um..." She wrung her hands and shot Jake a conflicted look. "Well, yesterday he got beat to a pulp by crazy people, and today... he's fine. Perfect." She patted Jake's arm. "Good as new. Technology in action." She gave Sleet her cutest winning smile.
Sleet obviously wasn't human, because he appeared impervious to it, and Jake theorised off the cuff that a previous NSA science project had resulted in the replacement of nearly all the upper-level administration with hyper-efficient robots. He also wondered if Diane knew of the guy by name. She seemed kinda tense with him, even for the upper-level stiffs. He winced as she made a gesture with her hands and leaped after another piece of equipment sent flying.
"Yeah," Jake said, diverting attention in what he felt was a gallant and gentlemanly attempt at rescue. "Good as new." He eyed Diane sideways.
"I believe that concludes our business here, Director," Lou said in her no-messing voice. She firmly shepherded Sleet out of the labs, but he didn't resist, as though he'd already seen everything he'd come to see.
Diane released a long breath.
Jake's ears were halfway down the corridor outside still with the pair, and he caught a familiar phrase in their conversation. He jerked his head up as Diane said something for a second time. "Diane, what's the Agent Program?"
"How did you--?" She pushed her glasses right up her forehead in her surprise. "Scratch that really dumb question." She battled with an obvious hesitation. "It's a... sort of a training program, I suppose."
"Yeah, that's kinda what it sounds like, but I figure it's one of those names. You know. Meant to sound innocent?" He grimaced. "A training program for what? For me?"
"For, well, for the nanites, I guess. But it's all really really theoretical and not something we'd wanna do because, hey, we've already been kinda lucky with the experimental-technology-not-killing-you part, and I think that something like that would, y'know, be pushing that luck." She waved her hands dismissively as though the name wasn't the hot topic on everyone's lips lately.
"Right." Jake nodded. She missed the sarcasm.
***
Walking into SatOps after lunch, it was impossible not to notice how the mood had changed. The thinly hidden disdain of the morning and previous afternoon had been replaced by a roomful of people being extremely careful not to look at him at all. Jake shot a glare at the unfamiliar faces clustered in conversation to the side of the big screen. The flat stares came, unimpressed, unmoving, back at him. He jerked his chin up and marched over to Lou. "What the hell is going on?"
"Excuse me?" Lou returned archly, in the pleasant tone she had that nonetheless let you know in no uncertain terms that she was quite read to rip out your liver with her fingernails if you pushed her any further. The agents she'd been conversing with melted away, the brief flicker in their eyes as they looked over Jake a little too telling.
Jake bit his tongue accidentally and tasted blood. He swallowed a pained curse and forged on. "I mean, this is getting ridiculous - this thing where you all pretend there's nothing out of the ordinary going on. There are these people everywhere today--" He glared again at the men by the screen, who were openly watching the proceedings. "I had guys staring at me while I was eating my lunch. Guys with a supersize portion of scanning equipment and paperwork with their NSA beef casserole. And by the way, hello? Nanites?" He flapped his hands behind his ears, which given the expression on Lou's face was maybe taking things too far, but he'd spent the last three hours abusing his nano-hearing like whoa and liking nothing that he overheard. "So could you possibly do me a favour and tell me - me, directly - what's going on?"
"You do realise, Jake, just because you can eavesdrop, it doesn't mean you should," Lou observed. "I did explain the chain of command here that means I don't have to explain myself to you?"
"Oh, come on." He wasn't above pleading with her, but being in the middle of SatOps, he stuck to trying to do so with just his eyes. He'd save getting down on his knees for later. "It's my life."
She contemplated him levelly a moment. There was something about the way she did that made him feel like he was still in school. Junior school. "My superiors have sent in a team from another research division to evaluate the viability of combining the nanite project with their research. Nobody's doing anything yet. And I don't care what you've blackmailed Diane into telling me - repeatedly - all morning - you're still grounded from fieldwork for the time being."
"Okay, okay, okay. Maybe I deserved that. Okay, I did deserve that. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about yesterday, and about Kyle, and I'm really sorry about Cayman, and I'm sorry I freakin' exist. And I realise that to your bosses I'm about as significant as a really big petri dish. But as the guy with half a billion in highly experimental, potentially fatal technology irrevocably wired into his central nervous system, do you think it's really too much to ask to be kept in the loop? And, okay, that apology went astray somewhere, I know..."
A hand fell on his shoulder, dragging down the arm he'd brandished in Lou's face. Jake stopped himself from striking backwards just in time as he realised the hand belonged to Kyle, whose other arm was still immobilised in plaster.
"Problem?" It wasn't entirely clear which of them Kyle was addressing.
"None significant," Lou said.
"Excuse me." Jake would've sworn he saw the normally unflappable Kyle jump - just a little - as the voice suddenly creaked out and the cadaverous figure matching it loomed over their little group. Damn, some other time he'd have paid to see that, but today he somehow wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.
It was the android, Director Sleet. Lou nodded sharply and acknowledged him with a grunt Jake was pretty sure wasn't a regulation greeting between NSA peers. "I couldn't help but overhear Agent Foley's concerns," Sleet droned. "And I felt that perhaps now was the time to discuss the details of the Agent Program with its subject, as it were. Maybe assuage some of Agent Foley's clearly legitimate concerns."
"Potential subject," Kyle corrected.
"Please, Agent Duarte. We all know which way the wind is blowing. Possibly with Mr Foley's understanding we can make this all a little more painless."
Diane picked that moment to run into SatOps, her palm device in hand. "Jake! Lou, the readings were--" She skidded to a halt behind Lou, looking leery of interrupting, and concentrated a silenced scowl on Sleet.
"Let me explain." Director Sleet, ignoring the interruption, took Jake's shoulder from Kyle, turning him around slightly and leading him just a few steps away from the others. The move made him feel uneasy. Okay, Lou and Kyle and Diane were right there, but he felt like he'd been isolated all the same. Singled out. "The Agent Program is really very simple. Originally, as you know, the nanotechnology was intended for use upon previously specially trained and vetted personnel. But even before your own unfortunate accidental exposure, Agent Foley--" Jake recoiled as Sleet met his eyes, although he had a bad feeling that expression was meant to have been sympathy. "--Even prior to that, our superiors had already discussed and initiated research into a way the nanites might be used to turn any human subject into superiorly trained personnel, by integrating the technology itself with the know-how to most effectively use it."
"What?" Jake stared around the others, confused. "You mean this thing could make me vaguely competent? Just like that?" And they'd been scaring him to death for the better part of two days rather than just explaining this?
Behind Lou, Kyle grimaced and rolled his eyes.
"Uh - sorry," Jake said to his tutor-in-all-things-agenty. "But can someone explain to me how this is a bad idea?"
Diane jittered on her feet as everyone turned to her. "Well, I - I - it's untested. And this, what we're talking about, is totally messing with your brain, Jake. And because it's untested, because there's really no way we can reliably test it - because mice, not much with the processing of complex instructions, plus kinda difficult to run a detailed psych profile - yeah. I thought you'd prefer not ending up as a vegetable."
"Is this true?" Jake asked Sleet.
"Anything involving the nanites has risks. Even standing here--" he waved a hand "--they could kill you ten seconds from now, or ten minutes. Ten hours. Ten years."
Diane snorted. "Yeah, and the point being that, right now, they aren't doing that, and they are stable, and prodding them with a big stick is really gonna do lots to help."
"Standing here untrained, untrusted," Sleet continued, gritting his teeth at Diane in a flash of ironic one-upmanship, though Kyle was looking pretty pissed off by now too, "You are a threat to National Security. One that you know, as everyone here knows, may soon need to be contained."
"I mean the vegetable part," Jake snapped. "Tell me about the vegetable part. That could happen?"
"I doubt it," Sleet said. "The Agent Program works based on the theory that the nanites could be trained, by way of a very simple additional program, to send complex information directly to your brain from an exterior source. Complex information such as a directory of the training and knowledge an agent - a real agent - requires to function most efficiently. If it works, and we are confident that it will work - you would be more than vaguely competent. We've had some of the NSA's best people contributing to the massing of data for this project. The data itself would be located in an implanted storage device in the back of the neck, close enough for the nanites to easily facilitate a constant stream of information. Once the device is activated, your brain would have access to the Agent Program at all times. The information would be as integrated as memory. There need never be a repeat of yesterday's failures."
"Lou - is this--?" He pinned her with his eyes. "This is for real, right? No omissions, no hidden agenda, no horrible brain-exploding risks beyond those already mentioned?"
Lou nodded, her brows scrunched down intently. Concern, he thought. She really didn't want this. "It's for real. Jake, nobody wants to rush into this. Nobody is going to get authorisation to rush into this. It's still at an evaluation stage. I don't risk my people without damn good reasons." She held his stare 'til he uncomfortably looked away.
"But I'm a risk to your people," he said to the floor. "And it's ready. It's ready now - the technology is ready to test. It's just a clearance thing."
"Jake," Kyle began softly.
"It's ready," Sleet confirmed.
"Then what are we waiting for?" He realised he was shaking, but couldn't stop himself, as he forced his head back up to the guys. "This is what we need, right? Nobody else has to die, or get hurt, because I screwed up. And you can stop worrying about me, and having to defend me, and the team - I mean, if it works."
"That's what I've been trying to get through to your people for the last month," Sleet said.
Jake didn't trust the smug bastard any further than... hang on, bad metaphor, since he could probably throw the guy pretty far. And sell tickets. Well, he still didn't trust him, and he'd happily throw him, preferably off a really big building. But that didn't stop this offer from sounding like the best news he'd had in days. The possibilities were... wow. He'd be a real agent. With real responsibility, real respect. Not just the IT nerd who accidentally ended up shot full of nanites.
"You don't have to do this," Kyle said. "Maybe it feels like the NSA has you in a corner here, but that's not necessarily true. And I'm not convinced that this project will have the results they're hoping for even if everything does go right."
"Are you a scientist, Agent Duarte?" Sleet asked. "I must have missed entirely all the advanced degrees on your personnel record."
"Life doesn't come with easy answers," Kyle said flatly.
"Well, I'm a scientist," Diane spluttered, "And, and - Jake's an idiot, Director Sleet. But then you knew that, 'cause you picked just the right time to push all his buttons, and don't you think I don't know what you're doing! I still think it's a ginormously bad idea to start tampering with the nanites at this early stage, and if the idea of something terrible happening to Jake doesn't move you, think of all the data we're getting right now on how the raw nanite technology works in a live human subject. That's something, right? That's huge. They would not have cleared this for deliberate human testing for years..."
Sleet smiled magnanimously. The result was pretty scary on him. He said, "I think the decision's already been made, Doctor Hughes. And I'm not talking about our NSA superiors."
Jake ducked away from Diane's horrified, accusing gaze.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
NB. I haven't given up on the Doctor Who crossover, my other WIP. It's just my nanowrimo novel turned into a monster, so I'll be finishing the crossover when that's done.
TITLE: Instinct
AUTHOR: Roseveare, t.l.green@talk21.com
RATING: PG-13
LENGTH: 20,000 words approx
SUMMARY: When Jake screws up badly on a mission, other factions at the NSA take the opportunity to push forward modifications to the Nanite Program.
NOTES: Set after 'Arms and the Girl'. Thanks to kattahj for the beta!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Chapter 3
The cool thing about the nanites - ignoring the not-cool part where he might as well have 'US Government Property' stamped on his butt these days - was waking up to find that the scrapes of the day before had vanished without trace. Even when he'd spent half the night stuck in a dream of being locked in the cell between a bunch of big-eyed grey X-Files aliens and a geriatric Elvis. The occasional twinge from his wrist and ribs didn't stop him peeling off Diane's careful strapping and gleefully hurling it in the trash before he made his way in to work.
"Check me out," he told Diane in the lab. She blushed, but Jake was too much on a roll to stumble over hideously embarrassing double-entendres. "I got your backing on this one, right? Yesterday sucked -- but today, I am good to go."
She adjusted her glasses unsteadily. "Okay..." She ran diagnostics while he shuffled on his feet. "You know, Jake, the last thing I expected out of you this morning was enthusiasm, after yesterday and all. Are you sure you're feeling okay? I could start to worry about the nanites affecting your higher functions..." She felt his forehead.
"Hey," he protested. "As I keep telling our stony-hearted boss, I am a go-getter."
"Right." The look she gave him was deeply suspicious.
"Seriously," he implored as she waggled her hands at him and he hiked himself up to perch on the edge of the examination table, "Get me back out there and I will go kick some serious ass." He inclined his head at the JMD in her hand. "Clear me."
"Um, I think I should run a brain scan."
"What? You've got to be kidding."
She smiled. "You're right, I am. Kinda. You are acting weird, Jake."
"Weird? I am not -- listen, I have to get back out there, Diane. I need to prove--"
"Oh. Oh. I might've guessed." She rolled her eyes. "Jake, you don't have anything to prove. Everyone knows you're still in training and you just got caught in a situation that was... beyond you."
"We both know that's not true."
Uneasily, she rolled up his sleeve and prodded as his still-twingy arm. Jake kept his face straight with difficulty. "Diane, you have to be on my side on this one. I can still rescue this if I'm only given chance to. I have to get back and out in the field again, like, yesterday..." He'd already learned this morning that yesterday's fatalities had now risen to 5. Agent Cayman at least was still holding on in ICU.
"You're getting paranoid. Maybe you need to see a psychiatrist -- and don't look at me like that, the agents here do get shrunk on a pretty regular basis, you know." She twisted his arm unexpectedly, if not hard, and gave a sly, satisfied nod as he let out a yelp. "Ha. I thwart your evil scheme. Ribs, too, I'll bet." At times, Diane could have a funny way of trying to cheer him up. "Anyway, you might think about losing all this talk of sides. It's not us and them... you don't know half of what Kyle and Lou do for you. Those guys do totally have your back."
"One word," Jake reminded glumly, "Contract."
The long noise she made through her nose as a measure of her disapproval made him jump half out of his skin. "Jesus! Nanite hearing! Don't do that to me." He scowled and shook his head to try clear his ears. "I'm not being funny about this. The government pretty much own us, after all. Me a bit more than most, thanks to half a billion in accidental investment. And if they do decide I'm not a viable channel for resources it's not as if there's anything anyone here can -- ow!" He jolted as she pressed down on his ribs. "You did that on purpose."
"I wouldn't have to if you'd stop trying to be dishonest with me." She stood back and folded her arms. "Is there anything else you're hiding in your great big delusion that they're gonna lock you up and throw away the key?"
"No. I'm fine, Diane. In fact, ask me around morning break and I won't even have to lie. The nanites are great. The nanites are working perfectly. Apparently it's just the Jake that sucks."
"Aside from the fact that referring to yourself in the third person is a sign of madness, that's completely untrue. Nobody thinks that. Although... hey, stay in this mood for a bit longer and things might change pretty fast." She tossed the JMD onto a messy lab bench, and while it was still scattering the contents of the bench's surface like dominoes, Lou took the perfect opportunity to walk in trailing a gaunt, fiftyish suit who looked a lot like Lurch from 'The Addams Family' and was wearing the stiff, humourless expression Jake had come to associate with NSA Brass.
Apparently Diane had grown to know that face too, as her hands flew to her mouth momentarily, and then she was frantically scooping up items and tossing them back onto the bench. "Hi. Just... had a little mishap here."
Jake slid down off the examination table, mainly because not being on the examination table made him feel a lot less like a subject laid out for dissection. He nodded to Lurch, who was looking at him rather intently. "Hi. Hello."
"This is Deputy Research Director Eustace Sleet. He's here for a brief inspection of the project facilities." Lou emphasized the word 'brief' with unmistakeable purpose. "Director Sleet, Doctor Diane Hughes is the researcher in charge of the nanite project. This is Agent Foley."
Diane offered her hand but took it back, laughing nervously, as the guy didn't even appear to notice. Asshole, thought Jake.
"Doctor Hughes... Agent Foley." Sleet spoke in monotone. It was exactly the kind of voice you'd expect him to have. There seemed to be a more lively interest in his voice when he shaped Jake's name. Hard to tell for sure, but worrying all the same.
Lou gave Lurch a sharp look from under her eyelashes and said to Diane, "How is he?"
"Oh, um..." She wrung her hands and shot Jake a conflicted look. "Well, yesterday he got beat to a pulp by crazy people, and today... he's fine. Perfect." She patted Jake's arm. "Good as new. Technology in action." She gave Sleet her cutest winning smile.
Sleet obviously wasn't human, because he appeared impervious to it, and Jake theorised off the cuff that a previous NSA science project had resulted in the replacement of nearly all the upper-level administration with hyper-efficient robots. He also wondered if Diane knew of the guy by name. She seemed kinda tense with him, even for the upper-level stiffs. He winced as she made a gesture with her hands and leaped after another piece of equipment sent flying.
"Yeah," Jake said, diverting attention in what he felt was a gallant and gentlemanly attempt at rescue. "Good as new." He eyed Diane sideways.
"I believe that concludes our business here, Director," Lou said in her no-messing voice. She firmly shepherded Sleet out of the labs, but he didn't resist, as though he'd already seen everything he'd come to see.
Diane released a long breath.
Jake's ears were halfway down the corridor outside still with the pair, and he caught a familiar phrase in their conversation. He jerked his head up as Diane said something for a second time. "Diane, what's the Agent Program?"
"How did you--?" She pushed her glasses right up her forehead in her surprise. "Scratch that really dumb question." She battled with an obvious hesitation. "It's a... sort of a training program, I suppose."
"Yeah, that's kinda what it sounds like, but I figure it's one of those names. You know. Meant to sound innocent?" He grimaced. "A training program for what? For me?"
"For, well, for the nanites, I guess. But it's all really really theoretical and not something we'd wanna do because, hey, we've already been kinda lucky with the experimental-technology-not-killing-you part, and I think that something like that would, y'know, be pushing that luck." She waved her hands dismissively as though the name wasn't the hot topic on everyone's lips lately.
"Right." Jake nodded. She missed the sarcasm.
***
Walking into SatOps after lunch, it was impossible not to notice how the mood had changed. The thinly hidden disdain of the morning and previous afternoon had been replaced by a roomful of people being extremely careful not to look at him at all. Jake shot a glare at the unfamiliar faces clustered in conversation to the side of the big screen. The flat stares came, unimpressed, unmoving, back at him. He jerked his chin up and marched over to Lou. "What the hell is going on?"
"Excuse me?" Lou returned archly, in the pleasant tone she had that nonetheless let you know in no uncertain terms that she was quite read to rip out your liver with her fingernails if you pushed her any further. The agents she'd been conversing with melted away, the brief flicker in their eyes as they looked over Jake a little too telling.
Jake bit his tongue accidentally and tasted blood. He swallowed a pained curse and forged on. "I mean, this is getting ridiculous - this thing where you all pretend there's nothing out of the ordinary going on. There are these people everywhere today--" He glared again at the men by the screen, who were openly watching the proceedings. "I had guys staring at me while I was eating my lunch. Guys with a supersize portion of scanning equipment and paperwork with their NSA beef casserole. And by the way, hello? Nanites?" He flapped his hands behind his ears, which given the expression on Lou's face was maybe taking things too far, but he'd spent the last three hours abusing his nano-hearing like whoa and liking nothing that he overheard. "So could you possibly do me a favour and tell me - me, directly - what's going on?"
"You do realise, Jake, just because you can eavesdrop, it doesn't mean you should," Lou observed. "I did explain the chain of command here that means I don't have to explain myself to you?"
"Oh, come on." He wasn't above pleading with her, but being in the middle of SatOps, he stuck to trying to do so with just his eyes. He'd save getting down on his knees for later. "It's my life."
She contemplated him levelly a moment. There was something about the way she did that made him feel like he was still in school. Junior school. "My superiors have sent in a team from another research division to evaluate the viability of combining the nanite project with their research. Nobody's doing anything yet. And I don't care what you've blackmailed Diane into telling me - repeatedly - all morning - you're still grounded from fieldwork for the time being."
"Okay, okay, okay. Maybe I deserved that. Okay, I did deserve that. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about yesterday, and about Kyle, and I'm really sorry about Cayman, and I'm sorry I freakin' exist. And I realise that to your bosses I'm about as significant as a really big petri dish. But as the guy with half a billion in highly experimental, potentially fatal technology irrevocably wired into his central nervous system, do you think it's really too much to ask to be kept in the loop? And, okay, that apology went astray somewhere, I know..."
A hand fell on his shoulder, dragging down the arm he'd brandished in Lou's face. Jake stopped himself from striking backwards just in time as he realised the hand belonged to Kyle, whose other arm was still immobilised in plaster.
"Problem?" It wasn't entirely clear which of them Kyle was addressing.
"None significant," Lou said.
"Excuse me." Jake would've sworn he saw the normally unflappable Kyle jump - just a little - as the voice suddenly creaked out and the cadaverous figure matching it loomed over their little group. Damn, some other time he'd have paid to see that, but today he somehow wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.
It was the android, Director Sleet. Lou nodded sharply and acknowledged him with a grunt Jake was pretty sure wasn't a regulation greeting between NSA peers. "I couldn't help but overhear Agent Foley's concerns," Sleet droned. "And I felt that perhaps now was the time to discuss the details of the Agent Program with its subject, as it were. Maybe assuage some of Agent Foley's clearly legitimate concerns."
"Potential subject," Kyle corrected.
"Please, Agent Duarte. We all know which way the wind is blowing. Possibly with Mr Foley's understanding we can make this all a little more painless."
Diane picked that moment to run into SatOps, her palm device in hand. "Jake! Lou, the readings were--" She skidded to a halt behind Lou, looking leery of interrupting, and concentrated a silenced scowl on Sleet.
"Let me explain." Director Sleet, ignoring the interruption, took Jake's shoulder from Kyle, turning him around slightly and leading him just a few steps away from the others. The move made him feel uneasy. Okay, Lou and Kyle and Diane were right there, but he felt like he'd been isolated all the same. Singled out. "The Agent Program is really very simple. Originally, as you know, the nanotechnology was intended for use upon previously specially trained and vetted personnel. But even before your own unfortunate accidental exposure, Agent Foley--" Jake recoiled as Sleet met his eyes, although he had a bad feeling that expression was meant to have been sympathy. "--Even prior to that, our superiors had already discussed and initiated research into a way the nanites might be used to turn any human subject into superiorly trained personnel, by integrating the technology itself with the know-how to most effectively use it."
"What?" Jake stared around the others, confused. "You mean this thing could make me vaguely competent? Just like that?" And they'd been scaring him to death for the better part of two days rather than just explaining this?
Behind Lou, Kyle grimaced and rolled his eyes.
"Uh - sorry," Jake said to his tutor-in-all-things-agenty. "But can someone explain to me how this is a bad idea?"
Diane jittered on her feet as everyone turned to her. "Well, I - I - it's untested. And this, what we're talking about, is totally messing with your brain, Jake. And because it's untested, because there's really no way we can reliably test it - because mice, not much with the processing of complex instructions, plus kinda difficult to run a detailed psych profile - yeah. I thought you'd prefer not ending up as a vegetable."
"Is this true?" Jake asked Sleet.
"Anything involving the nanites has risks. Even standing here--" he waved a hand "--they could kill you ten seconds from now, or ten minutes. Ten hours. Ten years."
Diane snorted. "Yeah, and the point being that, right now, they aren't doing that, and they are stable, and prodding them with a big stick is really gonna do lots to help."
"Standing here untrained, untrusted," Sleet continued, gritting his teeth at Diane in a flash of ironic one-upmanship, though Kyle was looking pretty pissed off by now too, "You are a threat to National Security. One that you know, as everyone here knows, may soon need to be contained."
"I mean the vegetable part," Jake snapped. "Tell me about the vegetable part. That could happen?"
"I doubt it," Sleet said. "The Agent Program works based on the theory that the nanites could be trained, by way of a very simple additional program, to send complex information directly to your brain from an exterior source. Complex information such as a directory of the training and knowledge an agent - a real agent - requires to function most efficiently. If it works, and we are confident that it will work - you would be more than vaguely competent. We've had some of the NSA's best people contributing to the massing of data for this project. The data itself would be located in an implanted storage device in the back of the neck, close enough for the nanites to easily facilitate a constant stream of information. Once the device is activated, your brain would have access to the Agent Program at all times. The information would be as integrated as memory. There need never be a repeat of yesterday's failures."
"Lou - is this--?" He pinned her with his eyes. "This is for real, right? No omissions, no hidden agenda, no horrible brain-exploding risks beyond those already mentioned?"
Lou nodded, her brows scrunched down intently. Concern, he thought. She really didn't want this. "It's for real. Jake, nobody wants to rush into this. Nobody is going to get authorisation to rush into this. It's still at an evaluation stage. I don't risk my people without damn good reasons." She held his stare 'til he uncomfortably looked away.
"But I'm a risk to your people," he said to the floor. "And it's ready. It's ready now - the technology is ready to test. It's just a clearance thing."
"Jake," Kyle began softly.
"It's ready," Sleet confirmed.
"Then what are we waiting for?" He realised he was shaking, but couldn't stop himself, as he forced his head back up to the guys. "This is what we need, right? Nobody else has to die, or get hurt, because I screwed up. And you can stop worrying about me, and having to defend me, and the team - I mean, if it works."
"That's what I've been trying to get through to your people for the last month," Sleet said.
Jake didn't trust the smug bastard any further than... hang on, bad metaphor, since he could probably throw the guy pretty far. And sell tickets. Well, he still didn't trust him, and he'd happily throw him, preferably off a really big building. But that didn't stop this offer from sounding like the best news he'd had in days. The possibilities were... wow. He'd be a real agent. With real responsibility, real respect. Not just the IT nerd who accidentally ended up shot full of nanites.
"You don't have to do this," Kyle said. "Maybe it feels like the NSA has you in a corner here, but that's not necessarily true. And I'm not convinced that this project will have the results they're hoping for even if everything does go right."
"Are you a scientist, Agent Duarte?" Sleet asked. "I must have missed entirely all the advanced degrees on your personnel record."
"Life doesn't come with easy answers," Kyle said flatly.
"Well, I'm a scientist," Diane spluttered, "And, and - Jake's an idiot, Director Sleet. But then you knew that, 'cause you picked just the right time to push all his buttons, and don't you think I don't know what you're doing! I still think it's a ginormously bad idea to start tampering with the nanites at this early stage, and if the idea of something terrible happening to Jake doesn't move you, think of all the data we're getting right now on how the raw nanite technology works in a live human subject. That's something, right? That's huge. They would not have cleared this for deliberate human testing for years..."
Sleet smiled magnanimously. The result was pretty scary on him. He said, "I think the decision's already been made, Doctor Hughes. And I'm not talking about our NSA superiors."
Jake ducked away from Diane's horrified, accusing gaze.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
NB. I haven't given up on the Doctor Who crossover, my other WIP. It's just my nanowrimo novel turned into a monster, so I'll be finishing the crossover when that's done.