them. Most were faces without names. A few were faces and events.
There, sitting in a cluster on the left side of the room, was the track squad. Powerful but lean, they seemed as nervously alert as antelope in dry season. She tried to guess their modifications: artificial knee joints? Synthetic hemoglobin?
Near them were the power lifters, recognizable from their gigantic deltoids and the enormous sweep of the lats. The other Olympians avoided them. These monsters were Boosted, and on them the Boost had worked its most extreme miracle. Muscle and bone had thickened to a simian density. Their hands knotted and unknotted compulsively, and a palpable air of leashed aggression hung in the air about them.
From pictures in various scientific magazines she recognized faces: a discus thrower who specialized in underwater telecommunications. The article said his spine had been prosthetically restructured to allow greater torque. A regional lightweight women’s power lifting champion with microprocessors implanted in the motor end plates of muscles in thighs and back. Her doctoral thesis had been immediately classified by World Security.
All looked to be between eighteen and thirty-two.
Andrea Kelly was still speaking. Her high, reedy voice barely needed amplification. “Everyone here understands the stakes. You have made serious decisions, sacrifices, lost jobs and friends, separated yourselves from family for the sake of our quest.” She paused.
Two seats down from Jillian, a blond, wiry lightweight wrestler muttered “Our quest? What you mean we, white man?” A black man next to the wrestler highfived him, and there was a wave of nasty laughter.
“Three or four of you still have unresolved issues. This might be a good opportunity to discuss them.”
A massive arm was raised on the other side of the room, and Dr. Kelly gave its owner the floor. Jeff Tompkins stood. He was wearing a cut-off shirt, and his musculature was even more pronounced. His upper arms and shoulders were a grotesque relief-map of veins and muscular striation. “I’m Jeff Tompkins.”
“Hi, Jeff.”
“Aum… Doc Kelly. A lot of us have already made our decision about Boost. I just want it out on the floor for the ones who haven’t. Sometimes people Boost even when they don’t have to. I throw the hammer, so I need the speed and power. But if you’re not in a pure power sport, what are the chances of a gold or silver without the Boosting?”
“And just why do you care, Jeff?”
He looked at her with undisguised contempt. “You get your data whether we live or not. We’re not 1-lab rats you can use up and throw away. Like I said — I made my choice. I don’t regret it. But for some of the others, it’s the wrong damned choice.”
Dr. Kelly tried to smile, and finally arranged her features in an expression of dignified neutrality. “The choice is more problematic for those of you who do not compete in a linear skill. In other words: how fast do you run, how high do you jump, how much can you lift? Those of you in gymnastics, wrestling, or fencing cannot just look at the record tapes and compare your performances with those of past gold and silver medalists. There’s a gray zone.
“Most of your lives you’ve been surrounded by less gifted intellects, less developed bodies. If you have been involved in sports where strategy and skill are more important than simple speed or strength, you may question the value of Boosting.
“Let me answer your implicit question as explicitly as I can. If un-Boosted, regardless of whatever other modifications you may have made to your muscles, nervous system, or skeletal structure, you will be competing with Olympians who have a fifteen to twenty percent advantage over you in both the physical and psychological realms.”
The young man fidgeted, shifting from side to side in a manner reminiscent of a small child. Finally, he said, “Yeah. That’s what I wanted to hear.” And he sat down.
There was a ripple of sound. One of the wrestlers stagewhispered “Buck-buck-buckawwk!” and somebody halfheartedly shushed him.
Jillian stood.
“Doctor,” she said. “As long as the floor is open, I have a question, too. The point of the Olympiad is to select the best. Why confine the definition of ‘best’ to those willing to risk death or disablement within nine years? That has always troubled me.”
Andrea Kelly’s eyes bored into her. “Well, ah… Jillian… You’re the newest one here, and of course this discussion has come up several times before. The Olympiad is for those with enough confidence in their own abilities to risk everything. That peculiar, Uncoachable capacity for confidence produces champions. Enables a human being to put everything on the line. That’s one definition of a ‘warrior,’ isn’t it? Well, we don’t have wars anymore. But some people still need, and want, to test themselves against the very best.” She smiled brilliantly. “Confusion aside, I know you’re one of those people, or you wouldn’t be here, Jillian. To those who will risk much, much will be given.”
Dr. Kelly seemed to expect applause, and waited for it. After a pause there was a polite smattering, but she was clearly uncomfortable.
Jillian waited until even that small accolade had died. “I see,” she said, and sat down.
Dr. Kelly nervously scratched an ear, looking out at a group which was unexpectedly still. The room seemed to grow warmer. She cleared her throat. “Tomorrow,” she offered, “our special guest will be Donny Crawford.”
There was a murmur of recognition and approval from the audience. Jillian’s reaction was instantaneous, and visceral.
The honey-gold perfection of his body in motion, dismounting from the uneven parallel bars. The deceptively boyish manner which masked a startling clarity of thought. The dark blue of his eyes as he accepted the gold in memory of those who had died in its pursuit.
She remembered him as he stood four years ago, straight and tall before a Council-appointed panel, carefully explaining the mathematical model for worldwide air traffic control. He had revolutionized consumer aeronautics with that one talk. He had competed in four events, won three gold and one silver. She guessed that maybe fifty million female viewers would have had a baby with him then and there.
Why be sexist? Probably ten million men had considered it, too.
Donald Crawford had made it. He was one of the few whose gamble had paid off. Those fifteen to twenty per Olympiad were paraded before the public once or twice a year, with great ceremony.
Those who failed to make it at their first Olympiad smiled bravely and trained like fiends. Those who failed a second time…
Like Abner? presently died.
Chapter 3
“Test run,” Jillian said crisply. She slipped Beverly’s core into her desk console, and waited. And waited. Presently a distant voice said: “Jillian?”
“Right here, Beverly.”
“You just wait there a minute, sugar. I was in the shower.”
Making adjustments to the system, she meant. “I’ve got all the time you need,” Jillian said.
Holly was concentrating on her chessboard, but when Jillian broke away from the installation procedure, her roommate picked up the broken threads of their conversation. “So… where were we? Neurotransmitters?”
“Right.”
Holly ticked off names on her fingers. “Choline, acetylcholine, dopamine, all that crowd. The communications brigade. The thing you’ve gotta understand is that your survival is based on staying balanced between extreme states. It’s a weird equilibrium—”
“Just a minute. I’m starting to get something here.”
The visual field flickered, and Jillian was looking at her own face. The mirror-Jillian’s skin dissolved, leaving a glowing skull. Bone followed, until a disembodied brain bobbled in the middle of the field. A chair appeared beneath it, tilted onto two legs. The brain balanced on top of the chair. Incandescently brown eyes popped from the ends of the optic nerves.
