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  I glanced at my watch. More time had passed than I'd figured. If I didn't get out of the caves and soon, I never would. Oh, well, I thought, tripping into Slowdown, live now and pay later or die trying.

  I became a haze of motion down the tunnel through several twists and turns, finally coming to a corridor with a door at the far end. I dropped out of fast speed and looked it over. Yes, it was the one that was supposed to open in a nook in the corner of the "howler" room. I pushed it. Instead of opening, as it was supposed to, it refused to budge. I shoved harder. I ramped back into quick-time and really slammed it. It didn't give an inch. I stopped and considered. Unless my memory was playing tricks on me again, I knew I'd ordered the computer to unlock this exit. I bent close and looked at the seam of the lock in the light. I could see the magnetic deadbolt crossing into the wall.

  "Looks like you're stuck, ol' bud," Dan's voice said behind me.

  I whirled and blurted, "What the-"

  Dan had his service automatic trained on me.

  "You're far from the only one who can think ahead, Eddie. I figured you'd scoot this way. Whatyou didn't figure was that there was a shorter way here. If you'd have checked the maintenance construction addendum files, and not just the main ones, you'd have known that there was a new corridor heading into this section, one designed to carry a rider cart. It shortcuts several minutes off your route. Plus, you didn't figure that someone might stumble onto Lois soon after you smacked her."

  "You?"

  "Jefferson and me both, as a matter of fact. He had stopped by and wanted to see how your were doing. Asset-checking, he called it. When we found Lois bleeding all over creation and saw the mashed up guard lying unconscious, Jefferson hit the roof and ordered a base-wide, quiet alert. That's why you didn't hear any sirens or bells, in case you were wondering. Then Jefferson took off to round up a security squad and I headed here. Given the head start I had, even with your Slowdown skills, you couldn't beat me here."

  He kicked the side of the corridor and a door I hadn't noticed swung into the new access passage he'd mentioned. A golf-cart-looking vehicle stood there.

  "How'd you guess I'd head this way?" I asked.

  "Logical choice. Everything else was either monitored or unfamiliar. I figured the howler would seem like friendly territory. Besides, I'm a poker buddy with one of the maintenance guys. I remembered that he'd mentioned this access was disabled. Something went wrong with the magnetic lock over a year ago and no one got around to fixing it. Hardly ever used, anyway, so they settled for opening it manually. All these maintenance doors have manual overrides-but you have to have a key. You don't have it."

  "No," I said. I nodded toward the gun, "So this is it, I guess."

  "Yeah, I'm afraid so," Dan said. Then he grinned, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the key. He flipped it to me. "Get the frack out of here, ol' bud. While there's still time. I'll beat it back before anyone figures I've been down here to help you.None of the security cameras are on down here anymore."

  I looked at him with my jaw hanging down to my belt.

  "You look pretty stupid, you know," he said. "Get going, before what little honor I've got left crawls back into the hole it usually lives in these days."

  He held out his right hand. We shook. His hand was trembling slightly.

  "I'll never forget this, Dan," I said.

  "If you're smart, you will. Disappear, Eddie. Do it well. Because Jefferson is obsessed. He'll hunt you and never give up. If he catches you, he'll bury you so deep in the MI world that you'll never see the real world again. Go, damn you!"

  He spun on his heel and walked through into the new corridor, slamming its door shut behind him. I heard the electric whine of the golf cart start up and move away.

  I stuck the key in the lock and opened the door to the howler room. The geyser was dormant at the moment. I locked the door behind me and dropped the key down the howler hole. That would take awhile to find.

  Then I went into Slowdown and sped out of the caves of Darkhorse one last time.

  By the time the helicopters got organized and came over Darkhorse Butte twenty minutes later, looking for me, I was out of the area entirely. I paid a heavy price. I had to use the Slowdown almost continuously for several hours to get as far away from the base as I possibly could. It took me a month to recover.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 15

  So, here I am, in another city, finishing this recording of my story.

  Looking back, I can see that Jefferson not only missed my physical Slowdown effect, but he clearly didn't figure me for retaining as much of my roguish streak. Not roguish in criminal terms, no. Rather, it was in terms of having a strong sense of my own self-interest. He made a general's classical error: underestimating the enemy. Maybe he'd been able to squelch rebellion in earlier subjects of MI programming, but he hadn't succeeded with me. Why? Maybe the mental Slowdown has some built-in self-preservation reaction. Or maybe I was just lucky. I don't know.

  But I knew that I'd had enough of being a hyper-gopher with a jacked-up brain. Look where it had led me. Indirectly, at least, I was responsible for the Engels Extension conflict, for World War 3, for God's sake!

  I can see now that I should have built in some kind of self-destruct safeguards on the antimatter weapons specs. I think I could have done it. If I had, then even if the Rooskies had stolen the specs, they'd not have been able to make much of them. Perhaps, perhaps not. They have their geniuses over there, too. I could have at least tried. I was smart enough to have anticipated it and tried, yet I hadn't. There were probably a half-dozen things I could have done. I saw the warand the theft of the antimatter gun specs coming. I'd forecast it. I should have relied on my own judgment and acted. I won't make that kind of mistake again.

  Right now, I feel as though I'm an eagle that's been asleep for a long time, finally starting to spread its wings again. From the depths of the caves to the heights of the skies, there is much before me. I feelfree for the first time in my life. I want to find out what Eddie Jonescould be if he put all of his mind and physical prowess to work. I want to leadmy life the way I want to for a change. I want to live unashamed and unconstrained and unbound by someone else's idea of what my course ought to be. What will I do? What will I become? I don't know yet. There's so much to explore before I can decide.

  Am I a new Adam-a kind of John Galt of the next stage of evolution? Well, if I am, then how do I go about starting a new world? Tall order! What strategy and tactics do I use? And is it purelymy business? If what Jefferson and Dan said is true, if my mind is an evolutionary leap, if I'm the first in a new species to succeed and eventually supersede mankind, then do I have a natural right to operate by my own rules? What are my constraints? What do I owe humanity? What are my moral limitations, if any? How do I determine them? Are conventional ethics relevant to me?

  Oh, and does Lo really want to become my Eve? Sure, she loves me, and it's gotten stronger since I snatched her off that gloomy base up in Alaska. But does she truly know what she's getting into if we start down that road? Is it even possible? Am I perhaps an evolutionary dead-end; a human mule? How do I determinethat ? Some questions don't come easy, even for a hyper-genius.

  There's a hell of a lot to mull over. I guess if anyone is equipped to find the answers, it's me. Or so they say.

  Well, ask me in five years. What will I be like in five years? A back of the envelope calculation tells me that in five years I may have been able to accomplish what would take a normal man fifty years to achieve. If all the tests are right, that's the scale of difference. It has implications.

  I don't plan on leaving an easy trail, not for anyone. Dan was right that Jefferson will never give up. He's got God and the Divine Right of Meddling on his side and if there's going to be a new race, he wants to run it. In some men, conceit knows no borders.

  I'll be around, though, operating on the edge of things, just out of sight, the Asphalt Ghost watching and deciding-with lovely Lo a
t my side, now and then kicking my shins to make me look where my feet are stepping.

  Yes, ask-if you can find us. But unless we decide to let you, don't count on it.

  By "you, " I mean mankind, because I leave this fresh recording to all of you. Multiple copies are going out to the media and many others in this country and abroad. Way too many copies for General Jefferson and his henchmen to intercept and suppress.

  Don't believe any of it? Some? All? It's up to you. Make of it what you will.

  Just don't forget:everything has a reason.

  Enough said.

  I have a future to create.

  * * *

  SALVO PRESS

  www.salvopress.com

  [email protected]

  Thank you for buying this Salvo Press ebook. For information about other Salvo Press titles, please visit our website or go to the end of this file.

  Salvo Press

  P.O. Box 9095

  Bend, Oregon 97708

  * * *

  PROJECT BTB

  By E.G. Ross

  ISBN: 1-930486-22-7

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All Rights Reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright 2001 by E.G. Ross

  * * *

  E.G. ROSS

  E.G. Ross lives near Eugene, Oregon. A military and foreign affairs writer for 30 years, Ross edits the Internet daily www.ObjectiveAmerican.com and the monthly worldwide newsletter The Objective American. For fifteen years, he has operated Understanding Defense Research, a private institute that analyzes strategic and defense issues. He is the author of PROJECT BTB, ENGELS EXTENSION, and THE OREGON REBELLION.

  * * *

  AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER

  The location of this story, the small city of Lebanon, Oregon, actually exists. It is one of the oldest towns in the West. There is a Horse Butte nearby. I spent many hours in my youth exploring it. However, there is no Darkhorse Butte. While some people claim to have seen strange, unexplained lights moving in and out of the area during the deepest hours after midnight, there is no secret military base known to exist behind or underneath the butte. Nor is there a massive cave system haunted by a demon. Of course, I wouldn't check out these things alone, or at night.

  * * *

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