Mike’s voice boomed into his headset.

“Captain, we can’t keep this going more than a minute more,” said Mike. “We’ve got thermal-management problems with the battery. Fans are running full speed, but they’re just heating it up more.”

“Anything Dr. Li can do with the software? Any tweaks?” said Simmons.

“Nothing yet,” said Mike.

“Let me talk to her,” said Simmons.

“She’s fighting with one of the machines right now,” said Mike. “Don’t think she can stop.”

“Stand by,” said Simmons into his headset.

He put his trigger finger over the microphone near his mouth and, using his command voice, addressed the room.

“Nice work, everybody. Nobody has ruined the president’s game so far. We’ve got one more play to make. Admiral Murray and I spoke beforehand and it’s time we threw a curve ball.” They wouldn’t get more tests like this, so it was important to understand the ship’s limits.

“XO, take ATHENA offline,” said Simmons. “Then bring power output up to a hundred and ten percent.”

Mike started to shout, but Simmons just dropped the channel, and the profanity-laced protest disappeared from his ear.

A faint smell of burning plastic began to seep into the room, competing with Secretary Claiburne’s fragrant cigar.

“Max the fans,” said Cortez.

His father’s voice boomed again in Simmons’s ear. He winced out of instinct, an all-too-familiar feeling.

“Captain, we’re losing it. Ambient temp in the control room is at a hundred and fifteen degrees. Two of the boxes are cooked. You could put a burger on them. Dr. Li here says that —” said Mike.

“I understand, Chief. Task a team to replace them,” Simmons said, trying to keep his side of the conversation calm in front of the SecDef.

“I’d do it if I had anyone to send. This goddamn ship doesn’t have enough crew on it.”

“Understood, Chief. Keep the power coming,” said Simmons, again for the crowd.

A flicker on the monitor that was showing the game caught his attention. The stadium lights had gone out for a second and then returned.

“Give me Dr. Li,” Simmons ordered. “Now.”

“Yes, Captain?” said Vern in his earpiece. He could hear her inhale and exhale loudly, as if she were coming off a run. “We need to tail off the power now. We weren’t expecting to go above the test thresholds. Otherwise I’m not sure what we can do to keep the ship from burning itself out.”

The game’s lights flickered again.

“Dr. Li, you have one chance to understand me,” said Simmons, his voice rising in volume now, a bit of anger for the audience in the bridge. “I don’t care about the equipment. The Z is the means, not the end. Now, get me results or get off my ship!”

He looked over at Admiral Murray. Her face was a mask, leaving him uncertain if he’d just blown it in front of her. Secretary Claiburne looked impressed by his performance; that is, until her aide handed her a phone and whispered, “President Conley.”

“Not our usual sort of acquisition, is it?”

Sir Aeric Cavendish wore a baggy white dress shirt over a brand-new pair of formfitting technical pants. He looked out the window of the Cadillac Cascade SUV and took in the sprawling camp. As they drove, he felt the vibration of an explosion in the distance resonate through the vehicle’s polished aluminum body.

“Well, sir, there’s nothing about this location that’s usual,” said Ali Hernandez, a retired command master chief from DevGru, the U.S. Navy’s Naval Special Warfare Development Group, more famously known by its original name, SEAL Team 6. “Not for a long time.”

As the lead of Cavendish’s personal security team, Hernandez spent a lot of time answering questions. The Sir didn’t see the world the same way others did, which was why he was so damn rich. But his curiosity could be overwhelming. A day with the Sir meant more questions than Ali had been asked in his thirty years in special operations. At times it was like traveling with a toddler.

“Why does everyone still insist on calling it Blackwater?” said Cavendish, starting up again.

Make that a toddler who could buy anything he wanted, be it the company of a supermodel or a company of private military troops.

“Sir, the waters surrounding the site are murky, and that’s what the first business here was named. So even with all the changes, it’s the name the locals still use,” said Hernandez. “But the way I look at it is, while the lawyers get paid to come up with new names, it’s like a call sign: the good ones stick.”

“I should have a call sign,” said Cavendish. “What was yours?”

“Mine, sir? It’s Brick,” said Hernandez.

“I suspect that has a story behind it that I will need to ask you about later. But first, let’s focus on the important thing. What might mine be?” said Cavendish. “I assume I cannot pick it for myself.”

“Correct, sir. Let me do some thinking, as it’s a serious matter,” said Hernandez.

“Very well. I read the due-diligence report on this transaction, did you?” said Cavendish.

“Yes, sir. Eight different owners for the facility,” said Hernandez. “You would be the ninth.”

“That’s a lot of lawyers,” said Cavendish.

“It is, sir,” said Hernandez.

“And how do you rate our new name for it?” said Cavendish.

The SUV bucked as Hernandez drove straight over a speed bump at forty miles an hour.

“Exquisite Entertainment?” said Hernandez.

“I told people I bought it to turn it into a viz studio. All in the name of cloak-and-dagger. But what if we renamed it Blackwater?” asked Cavendish. “I mean, is it a good name?”

They drove by a roofless three-story apartment building with blackened window frames and a half dozen black-clad men rappelling down its face.

“How do you mean, sir?” said Hernandez. “It’s a name my community knows well. Still pisses a lot of civs off. So it’s good by me.”

“Very well,” said Cavendish. “We have to keep cover, you know. How about Blackwater Entertainment?”

Hernandez laughed and punched the Cascade’s accelerator as soon as it was on the compound’s airfield. The electric SUV’s speed silently rose to 130 miles an hour. “Perfectly quiet and exceedingly fast,” said Cavendish, his eyes closed in thought. “Just like space.”

Ali braked the Cascade hard and then turned inside an airplane hangar. The doors shut behind it. It was almost pitch-black inside; only a soft blue glow lit the corners of the hangar.

“Here we are, sir,” said Hernandez.

They stepped out and Cavendish ordered into the air, “Lights!” confident that someone somewhere would follow his command. The lights came on, and thousands of beams of bright rays reflected back at them. A mischievous smile lit up Cavendish’s face, while Hernandez just stared with a squint.

“Well, what do you think of it?” said Cavendish. It was a question that Hernandez couldn’t even begin to answer.

He was too damned old, and now he knew it.

Mike could feel the fatigue in his chest. For the first few days it had felt like a bug, and he’d just worked through it, finding that shouting orders had eased the fatigue’s grip. But this morning, it had been like waking up bound to the bed. He would never say it aloud, but Mike was sure he had never been this tired before. It was pure old-man exhaustion crossed with the profound fatigue that only those in the military and a few other professions know, the type of weariness you feel when your responsibility for other people’s lives far exceeds your physical and mental reserves. This was the kind of tired that no amount of stims or coffee would help.

He swayed and steadied himself near the entrance to the bridge.

“Chief, you okay?” said Horatio Cortez, the XO. “You look like shit. You take the younger generation out barhopping last night? Teach ’em how you did it back in the day?”