Greer must have put two and two together regarding how they’d found him up there. “You talked to Sergeant Miller.”
“Never mind who we talked to.”
Taylor finished with Greer’s backpack. “No weapons. But I found some contraband.”
She handed Brodie an open tobacco tin with a few slender dried mushrooms. He asked Greer, “These from the major?”
Greer nodded.
“Did you consume these with him?”
Greer nodded again.
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Why?”
“To detox.”
“Funny way to detox.”
“Not really.”
“And what did he tell you?”
Greer looked at him. “He told me many things, sir. So many things, I couldn’t even keep them all in my head.”
Brodie handed Taylor the cup of tea and she had a sip.
Brodie asked the man, “Did Major Ames reveal anything he’d learned about Bucky, or any of the other bots?”
He wasn’t sure if Greer was listening. The man’s eyes were locked on the horizon and the failing day. Then he said, “We were trying to be like them. The amphetamines, the steroids. But we never could. We are not machines. All we could do was lose ourselves. All we could do was break. That’s what the major showed me, sir. To embrace what makes usnotlike them. Because that’s where our power lies.”
This was ridiculous. How did a computer scientist become a psychedelic shaman for a wayward Army private? He needed to get things back on track. “What did Major Ames talk to you about? Other than the power and the beauty of mankind?”
Greer kept his eyes on the distant mountains. “We’re not preparing for a war. We’re already in one.”
“Is that what he told you?”
Greer did not respond. He closed his eyes. Then he said, “I’m glad you’re joining me.”
Brodie asked, “Joining you?”
The man nodded, then opened his big blue eyes and turned to Brodie, an innocent smile on his face.
Brodie looked at the cup of tea in Taylor’s hand and put it together. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Not yet.”
“Jesus Christ…” Brodie looked at his partner, who was peering down at the steaming cup.
Brodie asked, “How much is in there?”
“About ten dried grams in the whole thermos.”
“Is that a lot?”
