Chapter 22

“Eitan, my God, you’re alive,” Akemi said, blubbering as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Yeah,” Eitan said, genuinely confused. “How long was I gone?

“203 days, dork,” Akemi said. She stood back and palmed him in the chest. “Do you know how worried I’ve been and there was nothing I could do about it. I’ve been blaming myself for months that I forced you to go against your will.”

Eitan pulled her in for a hug and held her tight. “I’m home and I’m safe. I’m better than safe. I brought you and Sten gifts, amazing gifts.”

“Hey, you don’t stink this time,” Akemi said.

“They fixed my nano,” Eitan said. “They call it body sculpting and it is way cool, er, a supernal overhaul of the Hobart experience.” He pointed at the ugly, worn furniture. “Where are we?”

“We are in Fort Hamilton, in officer quarters,” Akemi said.

“Call me ignorant, but I do not know where every military base is across the country,” Eitan said. “Where is Fort Hamilton and why are you still housed with the military?”

“We’re in Brooklyn, next to the Verrazano Bridge,” Akemi said. “I can still commute to Columbia, if you call an hour and a half on a subway a commute, when I feel safe enough to travel. More important, the fort has levels of increasing security as a facility that few people realize. I’m hiding in plain sight, almost.” She sighed. “Things have changed for the worse since you left.”

“Where’s Sten? Where’s our parents? Are they okay?”

“Joseph and Nikki are in Singapore. They are safe and employed at a nanotechnology consortium. Singapore wants them because they were close to Hobart. They love Hobart there. The problem is Singapore is a police state with many rules and laws about behavior, but the government protects them.”

She stared down at the floor. She stopped talking.

“Akemi, where is Sten? Is he okay?”

She brushed away more tears. “Just after you left, Sten published his first paper on Thread Theory. He co-authored it with his professor; he didn’t have the first name slot or anything. The paper was heavy theory and thickly technical, but the article hit the data stream like gasoline on a fire. At first, the talk was all about the professor, and we were celebrating. Then someone accused Sten of having received super-secret nano directly from Hobart. The death threats were immediate. Someone firebombed his apartment; thankfully, he was out. Then he just disappeared off the face of the earth. Gone. No contact in six months.” She grabbed her own shoulders.

“You were gone. Sten disappeared. I have been alone for so long.”

“Did Dr. Whitcomb get to him? Who else knew he had special nano?” Eitan asked, starting to pace.

“Could be, but Whitcomb is another escalating problem,” Akemi said. “He published a manifesto online blaming everything on Dr. H., including incest, pedophilia and the inability of his baseball team to win a pennant. He’s calling for an armed insurgency against all Hobart nano’s. He claims that anyone who received Hobart nano had their free will subverted and replaced with unblinking loyalty to Hobart. He has this rising army gathering in the back corners of the internet. I’m hiding here because of that raving lunatic, even though he hasn’t outed me yet. It’s coming. Stop pacing, you’re driving me mad.”

Eitan rushed over and took her in his arms. “Hey, hey. It’s okay, now. I’m here and I’m staying on the planet for a long time now. I’ve got to assimilate my new nano. Let’s sit down on the couch and you can tell me how you got here. Then we work on Sten. Okay?”

She nodded. Taking his hand, she led him to the couch and sat down at one end. He took the other, propping up his feet on the rickety coffee table. Taking a deep breath, she began,

“The navy transferred me to Norfolk. I took another Navy contract and provided them with projections and analysis of domestic and foreign, civilian and political responses to naval personnel with nano. There is an emphasis on Japan and South Korea. The army extended their consulting contract too. I stayed there for four months. During week seventeen, there was an incursion at the Norfolk base that had the military freaking out. A group of I-don’t-know got inside the security perimeter. I was moved the next day to here. I’m taking my classes at Columbia remotely; a lot of us are.

“Leslie is basically forbidden to see me. Her parents threatened to cut her off if they find out that we’ve been in the same room, the same building, hell, the same city. My LLC with Bea is still intact, but we do everything remotely. I don’t see her anymore. We only talk business, and our conversations are strictly to the point.

“I talk to your one-night stand more than anyone else. She took my number when she took your number, and when she could not get ahold of you, she called me. I told her you were forced to disappear because of your nano. She checks in about once a week.

“Nikki and Joseph send me an encrypted email every ten days or so. They must send it through a TOR network though. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I don’t.

“I’ve got bank. I’ve earned more money in the last six months then I thought I would in my ten-year business plan. I’m trapped here, hiding, and barely able to spend a damn penny. The topper of it all, my own projections scare the living daylights out of me.

“The national registry bill passed on a bipartisan vote and the president signed it. The ACLU and others sued. The courts expedited the case, and it has already been argued before the Supreme Court. We’re just waiting for the decision to come down. It’s a conservative majority court though, who typically follow Congress and the Executive if both agree, as a matter of principle.

“Oh, before I forget, you took a leave of absence from Yale; about half of your class did. You’re still a student there.”

Eitan rubbed his nose. “What I understand from that entire soliloquy is that I have a girlfriend if I want her,” he said.

“You’re an asshole,” Akemi said, taking a half-hearted swing at him. Then she laughed. “I like this one. Did you know she is first generation American from India? She was brought here when she was two years old.”

“I was making a joke to lighten the mood and you are off task,” Eitan said. “I can locate Sten. Give me a moment.” Eitan opened his senses, and a deluge pummeled his senses in a manner he was not expecting, like stepping into a lake and finding no bottom. He jumped up from the couch and shut down everything. “Whoa. I was not expecting that.”

He explained to Akemi what had just happened. Eitan took a deep breath and opened his senses again, only a bit at a time. He had experimented with filters before, but never were they necessary. He had considered them a carnival trick rather than a tool. Calling forth the familiar thread that was his brother, he found it. “He’s alive,” he announced. He sensed around Sten and felt no other energy generators.

“Should I jump?” he asked. She nodded, the tears in freefall again. WHAM.

The weave of unraveling energy was almost a ticklish sensation this time. Eitan was marveling at the sensation when a snorting similar to a pig made him wrench his head around. Sten was standing in a pair of dirty boxers wearing a wife beater and blue dress socks. He had a full-immersion VR set over his eyes and ears, along with fingerless gloves and ankle cuffs. There was a dribbled jelly stain, most likely strawberry, down the front of his shirt. Sten was in a fighting stance, with his arms up like a boxer defending his upper chest and chin.