“All right.” He finished his drink. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Your quarters.”
“Why?” She’d never known Hawk to leave a bar this early.
“So you can tell me what we’re talking about, and we can try to figure it out so you don’t get your ass kicked by Peregrine and Raptor.”
“Fine.” She slid off her bar stool.
“You have drinks at your place, right?”
It didn’t take long to get Hawk up to speed.
He jiggled his nearly empty glass, causing ice to clink against the sides. Frowning, he watched the cubes tumble around. “Like you said, we have to assume you’re supposed to be able to use the network. It’s designed for two-way traffic, right?”
“Yeah. And believe me, I’ve tried everything I can think of. Closing my eyes and imagining my brain, picturing the thing working, and all that. I might have strained my face a little just trying.”
“We need the password for the drawbridge.”
“The what?” Fallon decided she’d water down Hawk’s next drink. He was no good to her if he got all-out drunk and started talking nonsense.
“It’s a joke based on an old fairy tale. Not important. We just need to find the trigger.”
“Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve been tempted to bang my head on the wall to see if that would work.”
“I could always punch you in the head, if that would help,” he offered.
She fixed him with a glare. “It’s amazing how many times in recent months my teammates have cheerfully offered to brain me.”
He grinned at her. “Outside of that, I dunno. Brak didn’t think she could activate the thing mechanically? Maybe some type of electronic pulse?”
“She tried numerous things before implanting it. She said it required actual brain waves.”
“Okay.” He tried taking another swig of his drink, only to remember it was already empty when an ice cube bonked him in the nose. He set the glass aside. “So how about ways you can use your brain that you usually don’t?”
“What, like doing theoretical physics or something? It can’t be anything too obscure. Krazinski expects us to figure it out.”
Hawk rubbed his beard as he thought. He was due for a trim, so he mussed his facial hair in a way that made him look like a deranged badger. “Okay. When your memory was missing, I did a lot of reading. I read about a thing called brain wave entrainment. It’s the electrical response in the brain caused by some rhythmic stimulus, like sound or light or touch. What if there’s a stimulus that can create the specific brain wave needed to activate the network implant?”
Fallon stared at him in surprise. She’d wanted him to help her brainstorm, but hadn’t expected him to say anything so on point.
“What? I’m too dumb to have learned stuff?” He rolled his eyes comically.
“No, I just hadn’t realized you’d researched that stuff. The entrainment thing makes sense.” She bit her top lip, thinking. “What type of stimulus would it be? Something Krazinski would expect us to associate with communication.”
A thought occurred to her and gelled into an idea. Answering her own question, she said, “A hail. A hailing frequency.”
Hawk’s gaze locked onto hers. “Yeah. Yeah!”
“So…how do I experience a hailing frequency in some sensory way?”
He pushed the voicecom display toward her. “I bet Brak knows.”
She leaned close to him and raked her fingers through his beard, so he no longer looked like a disheveled woolly mammoth.
“What?” he asked. “Did I have food caught in there again?”
“Gross. No, I was just fixing your face. It was all mussed up.”
“Oh, okay. Now call your friend so we can go fix your brain.”
“That’s an intriguing idea,” Brak said. “And easy to implement. I can create an audio representation of a hailing frequency. After you’ve heard it, simply remembering it should be all you need. I would not have thought of using entrainment in this way. What made you think of it?” Brak gazed at Hawk as if seeing him for the first time.
Hawk shrugged. “I’d like to pretend I’m a man of many hidden depths, with genius being among them. But the truth is, it’s one of the few things that stuck with me after reading all that brain stuff.”
“Given the specificity of a hailing frequency, it would be nearly impossible to accidentally experience that sensory sequence. It’s quite clever.”
“If it works,” Fallon put in.
“If it works,” Brak agreed.
“It’ll work,” Hawk insisted. When they both looked at him, he shrugged. “I’m trying on optimism, as a change of pace.”
“When can we try the frequency?” Fallon asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon, right after Lim’s surgery,” Brak said.
“You won’t need time to rest?”
“Are you kidding? It’s going to be like a hatch-day celebration, but better.”
Fallon had to smile. “You’re the only person I know who likes her work as much as we do.” She glanced at Hawk and thought of Peregrine. “Well, as much as we usually do. Recent events notwithstanding.”
“There’s a lot to be said for doing what you love,” Brak agreed. “Now you two need to let me sleep so my mind will be fresh tomorrow.”
Out in the corridor, Hawk looked down at Fallon. “You’d better hope she makes that thing work. Otherwise you’re going to have to tell Raptor, Peregrine, and Nevitt what you did, and not have a thing to show for it.”
Fallon grimaced. She just had to hope tomorrow proved to be a successful day.
Fallon stood with Brak and Jerin in the private room of the infirmary. She watched Lim’s young, guileless face as he slept, vividly remembering her own surgeries. In a way, he was more like her than anyone, and she wanted more for him than just a successful surgery. She hoped she’d someday get to help him discover his past, and forge a future too. But first she had to sort out the present.
Brak remained at the techbed controls, watching the readouts. Finally, she nodded to Jerin.
Jerin touched his hand. “Lim? Lim, can you hear me?”
His head turned. “Yeah. I’m here.” He sounded slightly groggy,
