Dreadnought
Chapter Eight: More Truths
N'Tek Medical Centre
A Short Time Later
Jacob and Amanda Costas sat with quiet dignity in a pair of chairs beside their son's bedside. It had now been an hour since some of N'Tek's nanoprobes had been injected into their son's circuitry covered body. In that time they had noticed a considerable improvement. Within about ten minutes of the nanoprobes being first injected they'd watched the surface circuitry literally dissolve away leaving behind normal skin that was deathly pale and tinged grey from all the circuitry underneath. But now even that had changed - the greyness had vanished replaced by the more normal pinkish tinge to the skin - though Pete was still very pale. The rate of improvement was accelerating - though they had to look at the monitors to see it - as the nanoprobes used the materials in the Dreadnought circuitry to make more of themselves even as they destroyed the circuitry. In an hour the nanoprobes had gone from numbering about a thousand to numbering in the hundreds of millions and their number was still growing as they cleansed Pete's body of Karland's diabolical technology.
In the last twenty minutes a kind of energy capacitor had been hooked up to Pete's body and was periodically sending small bursts of some yellow-green energy into Pete. When they'd asked Berto - they still found it had to believe that the quiet, reserved Hispanic young man was a secret agent - what it was they'd been told that it was transphasic energy - whatever that was - and that the nanoprobes needed it in order to keep functioning. The capacitor he'd brought in and hooked up to that modified injector sent small jolts of transphasic power into Pete whenever it detected that the nanoprobes were starting to run a little low - since they hadn't been at full power to start with and with all the work they were currently doing they needed regular top ups to keep going.
The sound of footsteps caught their attention and they both looked up as two people came back into the room. To their total lack of surprise it was Max Steel and Laura Chen - they'd been regularly checking up on what was happening. Laura's presence at Max's side was still something of a surprise to Jacob and Amanda - last thing they'd known she'd been Josh's girlfriend. Josh! That was another thing that surprised them, the fact that Josh was not here at N'Tek. Or was he here and they just hadn't seen him. After all Berto was an agent so it was possible that Josh was as well. If that was the case then they might not have seen him because he might actually be out in the field - bashing the heads of the people who'd done this thing to Pete.
"Hello again you two," Jacob said in greeting before looking back at Pete. "He's getting better."
"Physically yes," Max replied looking at the sleeping form of his best friend and feeling Laura's grip tighten on his hand. "We can repair his body but repairing the damage to his mind is going to take a lot longer to heal. There is going to be a lot of pain, a lot of tears and he's going to need a lot of tender loving care before he fully recovers from what was done to him. And from what he saw himself do."
"He was aware of everything?" Amanda asked horrified at the concept. Such a thing would be much worse than death.
"Yes. In order for Dreadnought to function the host has to be conscious even though the host - in this case Pete - has absolutely no influence or control over the unit. It was one of the main reasons why the government abandoned the Dreadnought project. Not even the most rabid war hawks in government or the military wanted to put a person through the kind of living hell they would endure while bonded to the machine."
"You mean the government was behind the creation of this thing?"
"Originally Joseph Karland was a researcher working on the governments so called 'black projects' so yes in away they are responsible for Dreadnought's creation. Though to be fair when they found out the truth about what that thing would do to a man they destroyed the project, all data was erased. Karland went rouge at that point - taking some information with him. It has taken him nearly a decade to rebuild his creation."
"Typical government thinking," Jacob said softly shaking his head. "Here's a potential new weapon lets research it."
"Typical of the time," Max reminded him. "Back then the cold war had only recently ended and many people on both sides of the old 'iron curtain' still thought in cold war ways. These days researching things like Dreadnought would be unthinkable."
"Or so you believe," Laura commented.
"Yes so we believe. But if research like that does still go on then the government has gotten allot better at hiding it."
For along couple of minutes after that they were all silent just keeping an eye on Pete. Then Amanda turned to Max and prepared to ask him a question that had been bothering both her and Jacob.
"Max?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering could you answer a question for me." Max inclined his head slightly and studied Amanda for a moment. Was she going to ask him the question that he thought she was going to ask him.
"If I can," he answered playing along. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the grin that was appearing on Laura's face she knew what was coming. They both did.
"Good," Amanda said noticing Laura's grin and wondering what was going on. "Can you please tell me where Josh is? I would have expected him to be here." She was shocked when Max actually smiled brightly.
"I was wondering when you were going to ask that," he replied. "The answer to that question is an easy one. Josh is here." Amanda exchanged a look with her husband both wondering what exactly Max meant by that. Out the corner of her eye she noticed that Laura's grin had just gotten much wider. Strange.
"Then where is he," she asked after a moment. "We haven't seen him." She was shocked again when Max actually grinned.
"Actually you have you just don't know," he replied as his right hand inched towards the biolink band on his left forearm.
"Meaning," Jacob asked.
"Meaning this," Max replied cryptically and before Jacob or Amanda could ask any more questions he pressed a certain control on his biolink band.
The question that Amanda and Jacob were about to ask died on their tongues as with a soft crackling noise and a ripple of transphasic power the brown-haired blue-eyed agent transformed into blond-haired brown-eyed Josh McGrath. To say that they were stunned by the change was an understatement. Even after all the amazing things they'd seen here at N'Tek - all the unbelievable things they'd learned, this was something that they had never considered possible.
"I take it that this was not what you expected when you asked where I was," Josh said with a smile. He found the amazed looks on their faces quiet amusing.
"No," Amanda admitted. "How did you do that?"
"Simple nanotechnology."
"Meaning?" Jacob asked wondering if they were going to have to play twenty questions with Josh to get the answers they wanted.
"Josh is nanotech enhanced," Laura said drawing surprised looks from Jacob and Amanda.
"What do you mean by that," Amanda questioned.
"It would be better Amanda to address that question to me," Josh responded drawing their attention back to him. "Inside of me are billions of nanoprobes."
"Nanoprobes! You mean the things you injected into Pete."
"Yes their identical expect that the ones that have been put into Pete have been given a specific job to do and that's it. They shouldn't do to him what they did to me, though it is a possibility."
"What is a possibility?" Jacob demanded to know. "What did these nanoprobe things do to you Josh." And what could they do to my son, he thought, though if they give me him back then I don't really care what they do.
"When I was accidentally infused with them the nanoprobes immediately started to become a part of me. They became one with all the systems in my body. My skin, my bones, my muscles, my organs everything. The result being that all my systems became enhanced. Because of the nanoprobes I know have a variety of superhuman abilities. You've already seen one of them."
"That shape shifting thing you did when you were Max. Why did you assume that identity anyway?"
"Through necessity I wouldn't have been allowed to join N'Tek otherwise - when I discovered all the powers that were suddenly inside of me I felt I had no choice but to join. Dad didn't want me to but by showing him that handy little ability that Berto and me discovered then I was able to convince him to let me be an agent using the cover persona of Max Steel."
"You can do alot more than change shape," Amanda asked.
"Alot more," Laura informed her.
"As I said the nanoprobes give me a variety of superhuman abilities. For example I'm twice as fast, twice as strong and a lot more agile than a normal human on a routine basis. And I can be even faster, stronger and agile whenever I want just by going into what's called turbo mode. I can also see and hear a lot better."
"How much better," Jacob asked curiously.
"When I want to I can zoom my vision in on objects up to a mile away. Kind of like the telescopic view on a camera only in my head. I see everything with perfect clarity. And when I want to I can see into the ultraviolet and infrared areas of the spectrum. As for my hearing its still confined the spectrum of sounds that humans normally hear - I don't hear things like dog whistles and stuff. But I can hear a lot better than normal. For example if you were talking on the otherside of a crowded room I could - if I wanted to - hear what you were saying as if I was standing next to you and screen out the noise of everyone else talking."
"Wow can you do anything else."
"The only other thing is what is termed - for obvious reasons - stealth mode."
"Stealth mode! Stealth can mean a lot of things Josh so what exactly do you mean."
"I mean this." Josh pressed a button on his biolink to Jacob and Amanda's shock - but to Laura's complete lack of surprise - and seemed to vanish into thin air. A second later he reappeared in a different position - standing right next to Pete's bed.
"That's amazing," Jacob exclaimed.
"It's not perfect," Josh responded. "Certain types of infrared and other sensors can detect me even if stealthed. And as with turbo mode stealth mode takes a lot of energy to use. After repeated use of either or both stealth and turbo modes then I require a T-juice infusion immediately otherwise the nanoprobes inside me will stop functioning and I will slip into a come and die."
"T-juice," Amanda exclaimed wondering what Josh meant by T-juice then it occurred to her. "You mean transphasic energy." Josh nodded. "You need it in order to stay alive."
"Yes. The nanoprobes do take some energy from normal human metabolic process but that is nowhere near enough to provide them with their full energy needs. So in order for the probes to function properly I have to regularly be exposed to high-intensity beams of transphasic energy. Once fully charged I can survive without another recharge for up to a month - provided I don't have to use my more energy demanding powers. It's the only drawback of being nanotech enhanced."
For a couple of moments Jacob and Amanda were silent then they looked over at Laura. Neither of them failed to notice that Laura wasn't surprise by any of this.
"How long have you known about all this," Jacob asked out of simple curiosity.
"Nearly a year," Laura replied. "I am one of only two civilians who knows that Josh McGrath and Max Steel are the same person."
"So who's the other," Amanda asked. Laura smiled and nodded to the bed and Amanda's eyes went wide. "Pete knows about you?" she asked Josh.
"Yes." Josh decided that it wouldn't be advisable for Jacob and Amanda to learn how Pete had found out about him. At least not at this time.
"What about Pete," Jacob asked. "Will he end up like you?"
"It is a possibility," Josh admitted. "Though from what I understand from Berto it's a remote possibility."
"How remote," Amanda asked though not really caring. Like her husband she didn't really care what the nanoprobes did to Pete as long as she got her son back. If the price of Pete's return to her was Pete gaining the superhuman powers that Josh had then it was a price that she was willing to pay.
"That I do not know," Josh admitted. "You would have to ask Berto. He knows a lot more about nanotechnology than I do. I just know how to use the powers that nanoprobes give me. Anything else goes way over my head. Berto on the other hand has a doctorate in cybernetics and nanotechnology. If you really want to know then ask him."
"Ask me what," Berto's voice said. Josh spun around to see Berto coming into the room. He looked straight at Jacob and Amanda. "What do you want to know?" Jacob and Amanda looked at each other.
"We would like to know just how great the possibility is of Pete ending up with the same abilities that Josh has," Jacob responded.
"The possibility is very remote," Berto assured them. "The nanoprobes are not programmed to integrate with Pete in this instance. They're just programmed to destroy the Dreadnought circuitry and repair the cellular damage it has caused. They'd only integrate with his organic systems if the level of cellular damage is beyond their ability to heal any other way."
"Is it?"
"To be honest I don't know," Berto admitted. "Even with state of the art bio sensors we are not able to scan with that level of accuracy - especially through the armour and circuitry that was covering his body. But whether they integrate or not is in the end irrelevent. Either way you get your son back and in the end that is all that really matters isn't it?"
"Yes," Jacob admitted looking at his son. "In the end that is all that matters."
Berto smiled slightly then turned to look at Josh.
"Rachel's looking for you hermano," he said softly. "She wants you in the briefing room."
"What for?" Josh asked though he knew Rachel would never want to see him in such circumstances as these if it wasn't important.
"We've been analysing the data on the computer in Karlands van. We think that we've found the Vostok base where the main Dreadnought lab is located. If we're lucky then Vostok himself will be there. I think Rachel want's you to be part of the strike time."
"Alright then," Josh said with a sigh even as he morphed to Max again. He looked over at Jacob, Amanda and Laura. "Sorry duty calls. Bro will you keep me advised of Pete's condition."
"Sure thing hermano." With that Max turned to leave.
"Max," Laura called. Max turned and looked back at her. "Be careful."
"Don't worry about me I'll be okay," Max ressaured her then he turned and left.
