Free Solomon's Keepers by J.H. Kavanagh Page A

daft.’
    Brodzky looks about as though someone else is listening.
    ‘Rees, this was always a programme for singles. Highly secret. You know that. Your feet don’t touch the ground. It wouldn’t be fair. Don’t tell me any more now.’
    ‘It happened. And I…’
    ‘It’ll have to unhappen. You know what these yanks are like about their security rules.’
    ‘I couldn’t say anything. That’s the worst of it and that’s what’s killing me. I just turned up one day at camp as usual and I never got to go back.’
    ‘I’m sorry. You just have to move on. It’s a big prize, it has a big ticket.’
     
    But the next day on his rounds, Brodzky seems agitated.
    ‘You know, Rees, you’ve made a fast recovery and I can’t really hold your colleagues off any longer. They’re very keen to get you back.’
    ‘Have you been trying to hold them off?’
    ‘Well, I wanted to ensure you really were prepared, fully prepared. And there is a lot we can learn about how you’re responding…’
    ‘What is it you want to talk about? Is it the same thing Danvers is trying not to talk about?’
    ‘You’re very astute. I want to tell you something that I need you to promise me you will keep off the record.’
    ‘Okay, I promise.’
    ‘Rees, yesterday you confided something in me and I cut you off. Today I want to confide in you. I’m not sure whether you quite realize what the options here really are. I would like to help you and I need to know that you can keep this absolutely to yourself.’ His eyes flash up.
    Rees looks at him steadily. ‘That’s okay, I will.’ He says. Brodzky still seems uncertain.
    ‘Listen son, What I’m about to tell you is difficult and if you react to it the wrong way I may not be able to help you. So I need you to promise me you’ll just hear me out and, however much you want to react, you will hold it in. Can you do that?’
    ‘I said I will,’ Rees says slowly. ‘I promise. What is it?’
    He gathers himself. ‘Rees, you know I designed the Solomon chip, don’t you? I mean the architecture, the core of it. There were dozens of people who contributed – and the usual army of people available at the end to take the credit – but I was the principal designer on it.’
    ‘Yes, you told me that. I’ve already said my thank you.’
    He smiles thinly. ‘Well hear me out. You know, your group wasn’t actually the first to achieve deployment. You won’t hear much about the earlier ones – and you won’t come across anything about what happened to the people involved, except from me.’
    He needs another nudge.
    ‘I’m not going to like this, am I? But I want to hear it.’
    ‘Danvers wants to take you back. She’s gone away today but she’s coming back. There’s some kind of deadline. I really shouldn’t be telling you this…’
    ‘I said I’ll keep it quiet.’
    He sighs. ‘Rees, I’m sorry, things are moving away from me. At some point people – you – need to face up to something. There isn’t a kind way to put this; Solomon can’t be reversed. It can’t be taken out or turned off, no matter what they may say. I know they talk about end of tour routines and plans to restore the status quo – and I’m just going to tell you that’s all bullshit. It may keep the welfare people and lawyers happy for the time being but the truth is that once it has grown in, been trained in as yours has, you can’t take it out. All you can do is disable the chip. That’s easy. But the brain grows accustomed to the chip and incorporates it into its normal functions. You know that, don’t you? You don’t think about Solomon any more, do you? You just think with it. It’s just a part of everything your mind is doing. You use it all the time. If you disable it after it’s been fully integrated then all you are doing is the equivalent of a crude… They just haven’t planned ahead. We didn’t know that at first. But I told them. We tried with poor Turnbull after he started