Free Creature by John Saul

rowing machines, and Robb, after pulling on a pair of gym shorts, took his position at the mechanical oars. He waited patiently as the doctor inserted an I.V. needle into his thigh, not even flinching as Ames expertly found the vein. “We’ll be monitoring your blood today,” he said, and Robb nodded, used to the procedures after more than a year.
    Facing him was a wide, curving screen whose sides were just beyond the reach of his peripheral vision. At a signalfrom Ames, Robb began rowing. With the first stroke, the screen in front of him came to life.
    It was a river scene, and though it looked to Robb like it might have been the Charles River in Boston, he knew that it was actually a computer-generated graphic, thrown onto the screen by three separate projectors. From where he sat, the illusion was almost perfect. He felt as if he were actually on the water. A few yards away he could see three other sculls, keeping pace with him.
    He applied himself harder to the oars, and immediately the other sculls seemed to drop behind, until the other rowers, too, picked up their pace, and one of them began gaining on him.
    Robb could feel himself sweating now, and he began working harder. Once again he pulled ahead, but then, while two of the other boats continued to drop back, the third once more began catching up with him. Cursing silently to himself, Robb renewed his efforts.
    At the computer terminal, Marty Ames studied the graphic readouts of the changes in Robb’s blood chemistry as the boy punished himself even harder. The blood-sugar level began dropping, and then he watched as Robb’s adrenal gland kicked in and a short burst of adrenaline shot into the boy’s system.
    Then, as the adrenaline faded from Robb’s circulatory system, Ames’s fingers flew over the keyboard.
    Once more the graphics on the screen changed.
    Robb’s eyes narrowed angrily as he saw his computer-generated competitor gaining on him. He leaned into the oars harder, but he was getting tired now and didn’t seem to be gaining any speed. He looked up from his labors to see the other boat catch up with him and move off to the right to pass him.
    “No!” Robb shouted out loud, then bit his lips in angry determination as he realized how much energy he’d wasted on the useless outburst. The tendons of his neck standing out,he forced himself to row harder. Once more he caught up with the other scull.
    Abruptly, the screen went blank. It was over.
    He was back in the rowing room at the sports clinic and Marty Ames was smiling at him, his expression reflecting his pride in Robb.
    “Not bad,” he said, which, coming from Marty Ames, was considered high praise. “How’d it feel?”
    Robb rested against the oars for a moment, panting, then shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “This setup really gets to me sometimes. I know nothing’s real, but when I’m doing it, I get so into it I could swear I was in a real race. And that guy in the number-three boat almost beat me.”
    “How come he didn’t?” Ames asked with deceptive mildness as he began removing the needle from Robb’s thigh.
    Now it was Robb who grinned. “ ’Cause I got pissed at him,” he confessed. “I just got pissed off at losing.”
    “And that,” Ames said, “is exactly the point. Your anger released a shot of adrenaline, and the adrenaline was just enough to put you across the line. In case you’re interested,” he added, glancing once more at the computer screen, “you beat him by exactly thirteen hundredths of a second.”
    “Not much,” Robb commented, standing up and stretching his tired muscles.
    “It was enough to win,” Ames told him. “And it’ll get better. If you just keep at it, it’ll keep getting better.”
    As Robb headed for the shower a few minutes later, he knew he’d keep at it, because he knew how much he liked winning.
    He liked it a lot.
    A whole lot.

5
    Charlotte LaConner knew that Chuck wouldn’t approve of what she was about