e last saw Davy Rice in the pages of Jumper (1992), in which, as a young man, he learned he had the ability to teleport himself and certain other masses—such as a person he might be holding—over any conceivable distance, so long as his destination was a place he could mentally visualize or see. After straightening out his messed-up personal life and marrying Millie Harrison, Davy took the only job consistent with his unique need to keep his abilities secret from the world: working for America's National Security Agency as a very useful spy and transport system. In the process, he also happened to accumulate a few million dollars for himself and a web of safe houses, including a cliffside redoubt far from civilization, dubbed the Aerie.
But now it's 12 years later, and Davy and Millie are about to experience radical changes in their lives. While meeting with his handler, Davy and his contact are betrayed. Davy is kidnapped and his handler killed. He awakens to find himself shackled—a sure way to foil his jumping skills—and about to be subjected to a hideous course of mental and physical conditioning designed to make him an obedient slave to the mysterious Lawrence Simons. Simons has dangerous, illegal missions in mind for Davy that will benefit the mysterious cabal he heads. Davy's prime antagonist in the ongoing battle of wills and moral fiber is the sexy killer Hyacinth Pope.
Meanwhile, left on her own in awkward circumstances at the Aerie, Millie suddenly discovers that she has developed jumping talents of her own, after experiencing thousands of jumps in the arms of her husband. Once Millie realizes that Davy has been kidnapped, she sets out to use her new skills and her native guile and courage to rescue her man. With the NSA and FBI compromised, Millie is totally on her own.
Will Millie evade Simons' goons long enough to discover Davy's whereabouts? And will her husband even be in any halfway-human shape when she gets there, after the cruel punishments of his captors? Thanks to Davy's ingenuity, Millie just might end up surprised.
Startling SF speculations
One of the lesser-known templates that Robert Heinlein bequeathed to the field came in the form of his 1949 novella, "Gulf." This tale of psionics, supermen, spying and self-sacrifice is a potent blend that holds up quite well today. I've unabashedly used it myself, in the creation of a novella titled "Karuna, Inc." And I suspect that Gould has been similarly influenced.
The fact that Gould's protagonists are a married couple jibes with the same detail in Heinlein's piece. And the similar nastiness of both Gould's and Heinlein's antagonists evokes echoes as well. Gould also has down pat the authoritative "transparent" style that Heinlein favored, and he exhibits a deft hand with anchoring his fabulations in a detailed knowledge of how the actual institutions of the world work.
But, all homage aside, Gould does a splendid job in his own distinctive fashion. He picks a good format for the narrative: alternate chapters that shuttle between the points of view of Millie and Davy. In a way, this textual structure is cleverly symbolic of the act of jumping itself. He compels his action along at a lively pace, making both the excruciations endured by Davy and the cat-and-mouse games implemented by Millie seem equally vital. With Davy in such a subservient position for a lot of the story, Gould risked making his hero seem ineffectual. But for all the punishment Davy takes, he never breaks and frequently deals some grief back to his captors. And while Millie makes some mistakes and has some credible doubts and fears, she grows and matures in a fascinating fashion.
Of equal interest with the Le Carre-style shenanigans is the exploration of the jumping talent. Davy is subjected for the first time to the attentions of an inquisitive physicist (like several of the bad guys, this man is given some humanizing qualities as well), who manages to elucidate new facts about Davy's abilities. In fact, the fellow inadvertently opens up a whole new power in Davy, something Davy dubs "twinning." It's this startling new skill that eventually brings matters to a climax, proving that even enemies have a purpose.
Reflex remains open-ended, and I just hope that we don't have to wait another 12 years for a sequel!
