Kathy looked over at her husband. “Is something bothering you? You seem preoccupied?”

Cowan was surprised by the question. He didn't feel preoccupied, but he had to admit that he was thinking a lot about what Matt Fitch had told him. Apparently, Kathy knew him very well if she could notice he was a little off.

“Matt got back from his trip today. It seems the Pentagon wants us to move beyond the concept phase. They want to create a facility where significant numbers of people could be put to sleep for long periods of time. The idea is that in the event of a nuclear or biological war, or some other global disaster these people could sleep until it was safe to come out again.”

“Interesting idea, but how many people could you actually sleep at a time?” Kathy asked.

“That's the part which makes no sense. I can't see us being able to sleep more than a few hundred, maybe a thousand at the most. Even that would probably take years of preparation. Besides, where would we do this? We certainly don't have a facility available which could withstand the kind of global disaster they're talking about. Even if we did, we'd need constant power and a staff to maintain everything. We haven't even completed all the automation. A scenario like they're proposing would take ten years to get going, and Matt Fitch is making it sound like it needs to be in place tomorrow.”

Kathy smiled at her husband, knowing he'd already spent a lot of time thinking about this. “Sounds to me like the kind of challenge that you so desperately enjoy.”

James smiled back weakly. “You know, it could be. But with them holding back so much information, it's just a huge frustration.”

Chapter Fifteen

DAY 931

Cowan walked back into the infirmary where Captain Travers and a physician were completing the medical evaluations on the five volunteers Fitch had rounded up.

“Amy, how long until you're ready to begin?” Cowan asked.

“We're finishing up now, and we'll move into the chamber from here,” she answered.

“Good. Do you guys have any questions?” Cowan questioned, looking at the test subjects.

They all glanced nervously at one another before one of them spoke up. “All we know is we were ordered to report here for some tests and that we'd be sleeping for five days.”

“So you didn't volunteer for this?” Cowan asked.

“Sir, we were just ordered to report here at 0700,” another of the test subjects answered.

“In the Army, that is volunteering,” Travers offered.