Читать книгу Natalia’s Game - - Страница 14

In my dream, I see a female falcon soaring above the clouds early in the morning. The falcon lands in its nest atop a mountain. Her chick is waiting in the nest for food. The falcon feeds the chick and stretches one and then its other wing over the chick to protect it while it eats.

* * *

I watch Natalia in her dream. Her REM elevates quickly. Deep REM typically happens ninety minutes into sleep, if at all. She is in deep REM after just a few minutes. I can’t help but whisper to her, “What do you see?”

She is motionless. Her eyelids flutter; her face is calm, tranquil. “I see a mother falcon and her chick.”

“Where?”

“In their nest close to the top of a mountain.”

I’ve indeed found a lucid dreamer. “What happened next?”

“The falcon rose majestically from its nest. It was angry.”

She is struggling. Her words turn to, “No. No.” Her body contorts. She’s in a nightmare. Crew, help. Help! She sends me thoughts to wake her up. I can hear them. But they are only thoughts. I shake her shoulders. “Natalia, wake up. Wake up!” Her eyes open. She breathes deeply and reaches for me.

“What did you see?”

“A falcon trying to kill me.”

I know that the most frequent bad dreams involve something or someone trying to kill the dreamer.

We sleep peacefully, but we sleep too late.

* * *

My God, they will be waking up soon. “Crew, it’s almost dawn. I must get back.”

At that very moment, a falcon takes flight. The drone is a perfect combination of animal and artificial intelligence. Its job is to locate me. I know this drone flies at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, so it will not take long to find me.

I’d learned from the IT guys about the drone called “Einstein.” According to the geeks, it was designed and named for research on birds and bees, first conducted by Albert Einstein in 1949. Einstein believed that animals could be the key to discovering human capabilities, and he was right. The SRI spent more than a decade turning Einstein’s idea into the perfect intersection between biology and physics. The Einstein drone can survey an area of roughly ten square kilometers and launch micro-drones the size of bees, blanketing an additional ten square kilometers. But Einstein does more than search. It can fire a deadly laser beam, making it a state-of-the-art war machine, a national treasure.

And it is looking for me.