in store, Iâll fall silent too.
The other six kids can still walk, although most of them are a little unsteady on their feet. Shannon Gibbs waves at me as her mother and father guide her to a seat in the second row. Her parents are short and plump, and they look anxious. Just behind them, in the third row, is another girl with cancer. Painfully thin, she wears a cashmere sweater and a frilly blue hat to hide her baldness. The girlâs parents, dressed in business suits, seem to be wealthier than Shannonâs but just as anxious. Theyâre all hoping the Army has some experimental drug thatâll cure their kids, but the secrecy is driving them crazy. Theyâre wondering why they had to go all the way to the Rocky Mountains just to hear about it.
Two rows farther back, a haggard mother sits next to a boy whose head is unnaturally large and deformed. His lower jaw is massive, as big as a shovel blade, and fist-size tumors bulge out of his forehead like horns. This isnât an ordinary case of brain cancerâthis is something unusual, freakishly rare. The sight of him is disturbing, and a little disorienting too. Iâm usually the guy who makes everyone else in the room uncomfortable, but now Iâm the one whoâs squirming.
In the very last row, sitting alone, is a tall, striking girl with a Mohawk. Both sides of her head are shaved, but running down the middle of her scalp is a narrow strip of hair, dyed green and bunched in glue-stiffened spikes. Her eyebrows and lips and nostrils are pierced, and a tattoo of a snake loops above her left ear. Aside from her slenderness, she doesnât look ill. She looks a bit like Brittany, but her skin is light brown, the color of chocolate milk. Iâm staring at her, trying to figure out if sheâs black or Hispanic or Asian, when she snaps her head around and glares at me. Her face is beautiful and terrifying.
I quickly turn away. At the same time, the kid with the deformed skull lets out a snort. He swings his massive head back and forth, glancing first at me and then at the girl with the Mohawk. He mustâve seen me staring at her. After a few seconds he gives me a gap-toothed grin. I have no idea what to make of it. Does he think this is funny?
Uncomfortable again, I look around the auditorium, wondering where my father is. I havenât seen Dad since the soldiers took him away, and Iâm starting to worry that heâs in trouble. Then I hear the whir of an electric motor. A large video screen descends from the ceiling above the stage. A moment later, General Hawke steps up to the podium.
Up close he looks even bigger than he did at the checkpoint. Heâs a giant in winter camouflage, from the white hair on top of his block-like head to his tree-trunk legs and mud-spattered boots. His face is square and ruddy, and his eyes are a cold, bright blue. He rests his huge arms on the podium and leans toward the microphone.
âWelcome to Pioneer Base.â His voice, unsurprisingly, is very deep. âBefore we start, I want to remind you of the nondisclosure agreements youâve all signed. The information Iâm going to discuss in this briefing is classified. If you talk about it with anyone outside this room, the government will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. In other words, theyâll toss you in jail and throw away the key.â
He stares at us for a moment, frowning. Then he presses a button on the podium, and a black-and-white image appears on the screen behind him. Itâs a satellite photo. It shows a cluster of large rectangular buildings and a pair of dark circles etched into the ground nearby.
âThis is Tatishchevo Missile Base,â General Hawke says. âItâs a Russian armed forces installation, five hundred miles southeast of Moscow. But the Russian army isnât running the place anymore. Itâs under the control of an AI, an artificial-intelligence system.â
He
The other six kids can still walk, although most of them are a little unsteady on their feet. Shannon Gibbs waves at me as her mother and father guide her to a seat in the second row. Her parents are short and plump, and they look anxious. Just behind them, in the third row, is another girl with cancer. Painfully thin, she wears a cashmere sweater and a frilly blue hat to hide her baldness. The girlâs parents, dressed in business suits, seem to be wealthier than Shannonâs but just as anxious. Theyâre all hoping the Army has some experimental drug thatâll cure their kids, but the secrecy is driving them crazy. Theyâre wondering why they had to go all the way to the Rocky Mountains just to hear about it.
Two rows farther back, a haggard mother sits next to a boy whose head is unnaturally large and deformed. His lower jaw is massive, as big as a shovel blade, and fist-size tumors bulge out of his forehead like horns. This isnât an ordinary case of brain cancerâthis is something unusual, freakishly rare. The sight of him is disturbing, and a little disorienting too. Iâm usually the guy who makes everyone else in the room uncomfortable, but now Iâm the one whoâs squirming.
In the very last row, sitting alone, is a tall, striking girl with a Mohawk. Both sides of her head are shaved, but running down the middle of her scalp is a narrow strip of hair, dyed green and bunched in glue-stiffened spikes. Her eyebrows and lips and nostrils are pierced, and a tattoo of a snake loops above her left ear. Aside from her slenderness, she doesnât look ill. She looks a bit like Brittany, but her skin is light brown, the color of chocolate milk. Iâm staring at her, trying to figure out if sheâs black or Hispanic or Asian, when she snaps her head around and glares at me. Her face is beautiful and terrifying.
I quickly turn away. At the same time, the kid with the deformed skull lets out a snort. He swings his massive head back and forth, glancing first at me and then at the girl with the Mohawk. He mustâve seen me staring at her. After a few seconds he gives me a gap-toothed grin. I have no idea what to make of it. Does he think this is funny?
Uncomfortable again, I look around the auditorium, wondering where my father is. I havenât seen Dad since the soldiers took him away, and Iâm starting to worry that heâs in trouble. Then I hear the whir of an electric motor. A large video screen descends from the ceiling above the stage. A moment later, General Hawke steps up to the podium.
Up close he looks even bigger than he did at the checkpoint. Heâs a giant in winter camouflage, from the white hair on top of his block-like head to his tree-trunk legs and mud-spattered boots. His face is square and ruddy, and his eyes are a cold, bright blue. He rests his huge arms on the podium and leans toward the microphone.
âWelcome to Pioneer Base.â His voice, unsurprisingly, is very deep. âBefore we start, I want to remind you of the nondisclosure agreements youâve all signed. The information Iâm going to discuss in this briefing is classified. If you talk about it with anyone outside this room, the government will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. In other words, theyâll toss you in jail and throw away the key.â
He stares at us for a moment, frowning. Then he presses a button on the podium, and a black-and-white image appears on the screen behind him. Itâs a satellite photo. It shows a cluster of large rectangular buildings and a pair of dark circles etched into the ground nearby.
âThis is Tatishchevo Missile Base,â General Hawke says. âItâs a Russian armed forces installation, five hundred miles southeast of Moscow. But the Russian army isnât running the place anymore. Itâs under the control of an AI, an artificial-intelligence system.â
He
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