Mark was sitting on the sofa, scanning a magazine and enjoying a late-night cup of tea, when Jason stalked into the ready room and threw a sheaf of paper at him.

Here,” Jason said, rubbing his right hand with his left.  “I have writer’s cramp, thanks to you.”

Mark closed the aviation magazine to stare at his teammate.  “What’re you talking about?”

“My medical history.  The Chief said I had to give you a complete account of my physical condition before you’ll let me back on the team.”  Jason was still rubbing his hand.  “So there you go.”

Mark eyed the stack of paper.  “Just how much is wrong with you?” he asked, with a sidelong grin. 

Jason grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at Mark’s head.  “Jerk.”

“Seriously, Jason, what’s this about?”

Jason shrugged.  “If I’m going to be straight with you, we might as well start at the beginning.”  He held up a hand, forestalling Mark’s questions.  “It’s been a long day and I’m going to bed.”  Jason tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.  “I’ll talk with you about it after you’ve read that.”

Mark looked at the papers in his lap and shrugged.  “All right.  See you tomorrow.”

“Good night.”  Jason yawned again and walked out of the ready room.

Once his teammate was out of sight, Mark sighed.  What now?  His mind wandered over the past few months, starting with that disastrous strike at Spectra.  After that mission, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Jason was seriously ill.  Fortunately, the team had managed to thwart the plot by a Spectran plant in Medical to leave Jason’s condition untreated. 

Not so fortunately, Jason had severely injured his ankle during the early weeks of his recovery from implant surgery.  Just today, he had finally passed the fitness exam required of all level G personnel.  But Mark’s joy at having Jason’s G clearance reinstated was tempered with the knowledge that Jason was no longer the Condor he once was. 

I can’t believe that Jason barely passed aerials.  I suspected that he was having trouble with his balance, but I had no idea how bad it really was. 

Mark hadn’t been the only one present at Jason’s fitness exam to be surprised that the Condor was struggling to fly.  Chief Anderson had been beyond furious that Jason, once again, had failed to fully disclose his medical problems.  Only Mark’s quick intervention had forestalled a major blow-out between the Chief and Jason.  But, to his credit, Jason appeared to be making good on his promise to come clean.      

Mark reached into his pocket for his reading glasses, carefully wiped the lenses, and put them on.  He looked down at the first page with a sense of trepidation. 

***

Mark:

Thanks for getting the Chief off my back.  I don’t say thank you often enough and I should.  You’re a good friend. 

I know that I don’t deserve a second chance.  I’ve lied to you about my health more times than I can count.  You deserve better than that.  My secrecy nearly got us killed on Spectra; I realize that now.  I’m damn lucky that I didn’t blow you to kingdom come with that super sniper missile.  I won’t rely on luck in the future.

I’m not sure how to start this memo.  I’ve never told anyone about any of this but I know that you deserve the truth.  You’ve always believed in me and your support means a lot.  Even if the Chief wasn’t breathing down my neck, I would have tried to find a way to tell you. 

I’ve told the Chief that I don’t remember when it all started but that’s a lie.  I know exactly when I realized that I had a problem.  But it was so long ago that I could never admit it to the Chief.  It’s hard enough just to tell you.

I hope that, one day, you can trust me again.

Jason

***

I was driving at the track, enjoying a rare day off.  The day before, we had rescued Keyop from those giant alien beetles in Capital City, so I was glad to finally have some free time to kick back.  I’d just finished patching up my car and I was taking her around the track to check the alignment.  It was nice out, the kind of afternoon I love to spend at the track, with clear skies and no wind.  Everyone was gone, too, which I really like.  I can open her up, try anything, and not have to worry about maneuvering around some rookie driver.

I was just coming up on my 9th lap when it happened.

Usually, I don’t notice things on the sidelines when I drive; everything’s moving too fast to really look at anyway.  But this time I was watching a billboard, the one with the fat guy trying to sell me life insurance.  I was thinking to myself, Buddy, you have no idea how expensive my life would be to insure, when it happened.  One minute, he was there.  The next, he was gone.

I downshifted so hard that my car screamed in protest.  I had barely braked to a stop before I hopped out.  I ran through fumes of burnt rubber toward the sign.  It was exactly the way I had remembered it.  Nothing had changed.

Nothing except me.  I felt cold and clammy and slightly dizzy.  I was too shook up to keep racing.  I started the car.  I was driving it slowly back to the garage when it happened again.  My vision swam for a minute, then cleared. 

By now, I was really worried.  I was glad that I was at track alone, because I started babbling to myself. 

“It’s no big deal,” I remember thinking out loud.  “I’m just tired.  There’s nothing wrong.” 

But it didn’t feel like nothing and I couldn’t quite convince myself that I was all right until later that evening.  Once I got back to the trailer, I took a long, hot shower and finally started to relax. 

I just imagined it, I told myself.  I’m just tired.  It’s stress and overwork, nothing else.

***

I know you’re asking this: Why didn’t I go straight to the Chief?  I wish I could answer that.  I don’t have a good reason.  I’m good at ignoring pain; that’s what makes me invincible in the field.  At least, that’s what I believed then.  I know better now.

The next morning, we were called into battle before dawn.  Remember when Zoltar used that giant mechanical whale to blow up the Bay City harbor?  I still felt tired and worn out, but once I transmuted, my fatigue faded and the mission went well. 

One thing did happen though.  It was so minor that I didn’t think about it at the time.  But if you listen to transcripts of the mission, you can find it.  It’s a wonder that Zark never pointed it out to the Chief.  I know the Chief has been going over our mission logs, trying to figure out what happened and when it happened.  When did my health start to fail?  Why is it only so painfully obvious to me now?

We had been tracking a pod of migrating whales, when a mecha surfaced.  You can hear my voice on the tape saying, “Something’s coming over the horizon, but I can’t make it out.” 

And you answered me, saying, “I can see it.  That’s our giant whale … a giant mechanical whale.”

Hold it right there.  If you or I had been paying attention, we would have suspected something was wrong.  Our implants are the same model, calibrated to be identical in the field.  Sure, you’d expect some difference in performance.  But that much?  When I couldn’t see the mecha and you could, it should have been a red flag.  Now I wonder: was I having trouble with my vision even then, even in birdstyle?        

***

It’s hard for me to admit that I didn’t go to you for help.  But it’s even harder for me to say this: I didn’t even consider it.  I knew something wasn’t right but I just brushed it aside. 

For a long time, nothing else happened.  I assumed that things had gone back to normal.  My vision loss was a fluke, some random event brought on by fatigue and overwork.  And then it happened again.

I should have known something was wrong when I fell asleep at my command station during the attack of the space octopus.  Remember when we lost the ship?  The Chief called us into the war room right after the debriefing because he was so worried that Spectra was going to retaliate.  We had to help the ground forces come up with a strategy for repelling the Spectran attack until the new Phoenix could be built.  We never got a chance to relax; we just ran from one meeting to the next.

The Chief was waiting for us in the war room with stacks of computer printouts, a laser pointer, and steaming mugs of coffee.  But the first thing that I noticed was that the lights in the room were incredibly bright.

I must be getting another headache, I thought.  I seem to be getting a lot of them lately.

The Chief pulled down the map on the far wall and showed us the location of Spectra’s new base of operations.  Then, he indicated Energy Complex AB-2, the facility that had been destroyed when we lost the Phoenix, along with likely future targets, which seemed to include all known energy production facilities in the world.  At least, that’s what I think he was doing.  I couldn’t see the print on the map at all.  Everything was blurry. 

I’m just tired, I remember thinking.  But I noticed that no one else seemed to be having trouble seeing the map or reading the blackboard, which was rapidly filling up with the Chief’s chicken scratches.  I caught the look on the Anderson’s face and I knew that he was going to ask me something. 

So I did the only thing I could think of: I fired up my implant.  In a few minutes, I went from squinting at blurry text to examining minute flecks of chalk.  I remember that I dutifully read the board in time to answer the Chief’s next question.  No one realized that anything was different but me.  I was just relieved to have found a way around the problem. 

After that mission, I began to notice that I was having problems with my vision when I wasn’t in birdstyle, especially at a distance: trouble seeing the maps in debriefings, blurriness at the track, difficulty reading street signs.  Remember when my target shooting scores started to drop off?  Now you know why.

I couldn’t tell if my vision problems were giving me the headaches or the other way around.  And every now and then, my vision would just completely go out, like it did that first day at the track.  But it was easy to get around most of that stuff because of the implant.

Through all this, I’ve figured out a lot about how cerebonic implants work.  As you know, in birdstyle our implants work seamlessly with our bodies.  But in civilian life, the Chief designed them so that we have to make a conscious effort to get a boost from their power. 

For me, it takes a few minutes of intense thought to fire the implant up completely and the effect lasts for about two hours at a time.  Certain abilities, like flying and increased speed and agility, take effect almost instantly.  But others, like enhanced sight and hearing, take longer.  I suspect it’s the same for you.  But you might not realize this: after two hours of working in civilian mode, our implants require a five minute cooling off period to recharge. 

I talked with the Chief about it one time, why using the implants apart from transmutation is such a pain in the ass.  “Couldn’t you and Zark have designed something better?” I asked.  But the Chief told me that they made the implants that way on purpose. 

“It’s for your own protection,” he said.  “Especially when you were little, I was afraid that you’d forget you’re cerebonically enhanced and brag to your friends about something that they couldn’t hear or see.  I couldn’t take that risk.  Your life, and the life of your teammates, depends upon everyone thinking you’re normal children.”

“Besides,” the Chief had added, “it’s good for you to understand what normal life is like.  Remember, if you need to use your implant for more than a few minutes, it’s time for you to transmute and go to work.”

I have to admit, in some ways it’s a nice system.  The last thing that I want when I’m at the track, or lounging at the trailer, is to feel like I’m still on guard, waiting for Spectra to strike.  I can’t relax when I’m enhanced.  I associate hypersensitivity with work.  I’m always aware of my surroundings, but that acute sort of hyper-awareness places a distinct line between work and home. 

At least, it should.  Over time, I started to access my cerebonic implant at home any time that it was important for me to see clearly.  It didn’t seem to be such a big deal at first; I was just using it to be a little more careful when I drove or to make sure that I didn’t miss out on something during a meeting.  Keeping my vision clear seemed to keep the headaches at bay, too.  I didn’t need to do it very often, so it didn’t seem that important.

But things got a lot worse after I was hit with that detransmutation ray.  Man, that laser beam really wiped me out.  I remember when it happened: I was standing on that rockslide over by the Compton Raceway, trying to figure out what the Spectrans were doing to my car.  Looking back, I guess my eyes were bothering me then, too.  Stress always seemed to make it worse.  I had just been pinned by a team of goons and had narrowly missed getting crunched.    

So, I was standing there, squinting down at my car, when I realized that they had detransmuted the G-2.  I know I should have reacted faster when they aimed that big gun at me, but I was too busy trying to gauge the distance for throwing a shuriken into the muzzle.  I jumped late and got nailed in the leg.  It was the worst feeling, like someone scrambling the wires in my brain.  I wanted to crawl out of my skin.  Instead, I fell over backwards and hit my head.  By the time I finally got back for the meeting with the Chief, I was too ragged to look him in the eye.  I knew he wouldn’t believe me anyway; he was so furious that I was late that he wasn’t listening to anything I said.  I don’t think he ever knew how bad that thing messed me up.   

It was after that attack that I started using the implant regularly in civilian life.  I want to make one point clear here: I never was impaired on duty.  I need you to know that, Mark.  Up until we found Don I never had any problems at work, at least not any that I was aware of at the time.  I thought I had everything under control. 

But it wasn’t long before I was using the implant nearly all the time and it’s just not designed to be used that way.  I had to constantly find new ways to fill the five minute gaps when it was recharging.  If I was practicing laps at the track, it was, “Give me a few minutes, I need to re-check the engine.”  If I was in a briefing with you or the rest of the team, I had to run in to grab a jacket or use the bathroom.  I’m skilled at deception, but keeping track of the implant cycle was wearing me down.  Every two hours, a new jolt of adrenaline was blasting through my system.  I was always on edge.

This next part is hard for me to write, but you deserve to know.  My headaches were out of control at that point.  When I got them, nothing else mattered; nothing could stop the pain.  Remember that night in the dorms when you thought I was drunk?  I was doped up on codeine.  I never should have gone to Jessie for help, but I knew that if I got her drunk I could talk her out of some painkillers.  I just wanted something to take the pain away, to help me relax, to get me some sleep.  I didn’t take the pills often.  But when I did, I was locked in a vicious cycle: adrenaline by day, narcotics by night.   

I think that was about when I found myself saddled with a new reputation, courtesy of Zark: I was difficult to get along with.  Zark said that you could tell just by looking at my scowling face.  In truth, I was often caught between boosts of the implant, unable to see clearly, raging at myself and my limitations.  I was tired from firing up the implant so often.  I worried constantly that someone would find out how messed up I was and I’d get kicked off the team.  I have no excuses for my behavior.  I just wanted the problem to go away. 

I’d like to tell you that one day I finally would have gone to you or the Chief for help.  But then something happened at the track.  After that, I was too afraid to tell anyone.