Devil's Plaything (28 page)

I
am trying to look at Chuck while glancing around the tiny compartment for some refuge or weapon or protective armor.

Then I realize my only hope sits on the table in front of me. I lift the laptop and hold it in front of my chest.

“Best not to destroy the top-secret science.”

“It's not covering your nuts.”

“Chuck, you really think that you're going to shoot me without someone hearing and calling the police?”

“People mind their own business here, especially when it's hard to distinguish between all the noises.”

“What noises?”

Chuck reaches to his right to a compact stereo unit. He hits the power button. He presses “play,” causing the cabin to be filled with a John Cougar Mellencamp song. “
I need a lover who won't drive me crazy. . . .”

“What are you doing?”

He turns the music up to an excruciating volume. He lowers the gun so it is aimed at my lower leg. I start to turn away.

He shoots.

I feel a spasm of heat and pain rip through my calf.

He turns down the music.

“Put down the laptop,” he says.

I'm in too much pain to speak but, somehow, adrenaline keeps me upright—and then not so much. I drop the laptop to the table as I fall to the ground.

Chuck steps forward. He reaches into a sink. He pulls out a white towel, then tosses it in my direction.

“Not rubber bullets,” he says. “Try pressure.”

I lurch for the towel and press it against my calf.

“Son of a bitch.” I'm expressing my feeling about both my intense pain and the asshole who caused it. I look up at him. “One request.”

“You want to know how it all works?”

“I'd prefer to be shot to Springsteen.”

“Smug to the end, just like your snarky blog posts.”

He takes two steps forward and I inch instinctively backwards, scooting along the floor on my butt. I'm backed against the cabinets. I reach behind me, feeling for anything that can help me. On the counter next to the sink, I see a propane tank used for cooking. But it's too far away, and what the hell would I do with it anyway. I'm helpless, defenseless, coming up empty.

Chuck sits at the table and looks at the laptop.

“That's your computer,” I say.

He nods.

“You downloaded the encrypted file or took it from Adrianna but couldn't figure out how to open it.”

He nods.

“You couldn't open it without me.”

Now I'm thinking maybe I can stall Chuck and hope an earthquake or tsunami will save me—or at least kill both of us.

“Not without you and your grandmother. Not without you getting inside that curdled brain of hers.”

“Couldn't you get the code out of Adrianna?”

“We tried. Trust me. We had plenty of leverage with that boy of hers. She spent a few days sitting in this chair thinking about how much she loved the Newton kid and being reminded of her duty to her country. But she convinced us that she didn't know the password. In fact, she convinced us she'd destroyed it and that this file was empty. She said she and that disloyal neurologist had destroyed all the key science when they discovered our true intentions—how we planned to put this wonderful technology to work. But I sensed she kept the protocols and algorithms alive. Scientists love their families but not as much as they love their science. She and Pete were gaga over the possibilities. So I sensed someone would come here eventually to try to open the file, maybe salvage the science but keep it out of the hands of the bad guys, namely me.”

“You've been watching the boat?”

He points to the corner of the boat compartment, just a few feet to my right. Near the ceiling is a small black cylinder.

“I get alerted if anyone enters.”

Below the camera is a fire extinguisher. I turn back to Chuck.

“May I sit so I can elevate my leg?”

He's distracted by the document.

“Go ahead.”

Pain shooting through my limb, I climb up onto the bench along one side of the cabin. I then lie back, elevating my foot. If Chuck was paying attention, he'd realize that I could have done the same thing while on the floor.

He's enjoying his obvious upper hand, so much so that he's set down his gun.

“What's the big picture: mass use of brain tissue to store data, or just rewire a select few to carry military and trade secrets?”

“You have no notion of the concept of sacrifice.” He looks up at me and continues. “We are at war, not over land or even values but over data. The nation that controls information will rule.”

“You're talking about news and media and advertising—that kind of information? Mind control.”

He shakes his head and scoffs, like I'm a child.

“Nat, everything essential gets communicated to computers and stored on them. From our Social Security numbers and bank accounts to our military operations and launch codes. As individuals and as nation-states, our sovereignty and safety depend on safekeeping our data. And guess what? It's not safe in the slightest. Our banks get hacked, the Pentagon compromised, and do you have any idea how often some punk from Eastern Europe or the Isle of Man hacks into a major corporation and gets trade secrets, customer credit cards, the name of the CEO's mistress and the filthy e-mails she sent him?”

“And you think you've found a better way?”

“Maybe. Maybe we can take some of the critical information off the grid. Forget about laptops or smart phones—we're creating the ultimate in mobile computing. It's a device that can walk in and out of the room on its own.”

“But how to get the data out of people's minds?”

“Different ways. The oral tradition worked for your grandmother. Or maybe we develop ways to execute a program. For instance, you know that angry Vietnam veteran that you tracked down?”

I nod, grunt in pain, and move just a bit more down the bench.

“When he hears a certain song by the Doors, he starts telling a story about beating the shit out of his best friend in high school. It's a story that has all kinds of critical information in it that we need to get to a CIA agent in Beijing whose phone is tapped and computer compromised.”

I think he's blowing my mind but it might be that blood loss has begun to impact my concentration. I'm losing it. I don't have much time.

“What else?”

“How do you mean?”

“All this to smuggle some information into China you could just as easily send in an FTP file.”

He smiles. “A journalist to the end.”

“Let's hear it.”

“Put it this way: conscription in this country is in full effect.”

“The draft?”

“Of memory space,” he continues to look intently at the laptop, transfixed by the science on the monitor. I'm feeling woozy, having trouble following. Then it hits me.

“You're not just planning to erase our memories,” I say. He looks up, waiting for me to continue. “Because you've already done it.”

“We've targeted two groups,” he says casually, and looks back down at his precious science. “Initially, we focused on accelerating the condition of people with compromised memory assets, like your grandmother. But unbeknownst to the geeks who wrote this software, we're also following thousands of heavy multi-taskers: people who text around the clock, keep several Internet windows open at once, use instant messaging and e-mail and Skype at the same time. We're encouraging the behavior.”

“By buying sites like Medblog?”

“Funding start-ups that build fast-twitch media software, casual games sites, interactive virtual worlds with pop-up windows and hyper-speed messaging. Multi-tasking heaven. We're lobbying on related public policies, like discouraging laws that ban talking on the phone while driving, and giving tax credits to high-speed Internet providers. Even without our meager help, which all is perfectly legal, legions are shooting cortisol into their brains, freeing up blank memory space to use for our secrets. Go to any Internet café or, hell, any corporate office or schoolyard, you'll see people simultaneously tweeting, calling, messaging, sending, and receiving to their hearts' delight—but, over time, remembering less and less effectively. Thanks to you, we blew up our nerve center, but we've still got databases filled with potential conscripts, Americans with dulling memories, the carrier patriots of the future.”

He pauses. “That's step one.”

“And that computer holds the scientific keys to writing over their fading memories?”

He looks at the laptop like an evil genius in a Bond flick might stare at his lap cat. I am closer to the fire extinguisher.

“Did it occur to you that Adrianna could've sabotaged her own data?”

He seems sufficiently preoccupied that I've got two or three seconds to act before he can react and blow my face off. I yank the fire extinguisher off the wall.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?”

I pull the pin. I hold back the extinguisher's trigger. I start to wildly spray white goo toward foe and laptop.

Through the miasma, I see Chuck grab his gun and step out of the way of the cascade. The extinguisher starts to sputter out. Chuck shakes his head angrily. He walks to the radio.

“Wait! Please,” I yell as loudly as I can, hoping to stop him and get the attention of a passerby.

He pauses.

“I'm going to be a father.”

“You should have thought about that earlier.”

He turns on the stereo. John Cougar Mellencamp fills the cabin. He jacks up the volume.

“
I need a lover who won't drive me crazy. . . .”

He takes two steps forward. He raises the gun. I inch into the corner, trying to hide behind the table. His face contorts in rage and he starts rushing towards me, quickly, cutting off my angles. Then he slips. His right foot hits a patch of extinguisher goo and slides right out from under him. And the rest of him follows.

He goes down hard. He drops the gun as he uses his arm to brace himself for the fall. In that respect, he succeeds. He gets his right arm underneath him. But that's not what he should have been worrying about. The compartment is so small that he has underestimated, or probably not had time to estimate at all, the danger to his head.

As he goes down, his skull cracks against a ledge near the cabin door. He hits the ground, stunned.

Fighting intense pain, I hop forward on my left leg. I'm still holding the extinguisher. I'm thinking about something my grandmother once told me about karate. “Don't ever fight,” she said. “If you do, go for the windpipe.”

I raise the fire extinguisher over my head. Groggily, Chuck looks up at me. He naturally covers his face. I bring the extinguisher down on his neck. He goes limp.

Unconscious, dead, I have no idea. I don't care which. It doesn't matter. He's limp and my unborn critter is going to have a father.

I drop to my knees next to Chuck. I reach for the gun. Whatever Chuck's status, I can protect myself.

Then the cabin door opens.

In front of me stands the hooded man, now dressed all in black. Evidently, Chuck faked his death. He's got a gun too. He's pointing it at my head.

“You play video games?” he asks.

“What?”

“At the end of the video game, you have to play the biggest, baddest enemy of them all. It's called the Boss. Technically, Chuck gave the orders. I was just the muscle, but I'm really strong muscle. I'm the guy at the end of the video game that you keep trying in vain to kill.”

I
dangle the gun in my right hand. It is not pointed at the Boss character. And his slick black handgun is pointed at me.

In that respect, I am at a total disadvantage.

But my gun is pointed at the propane tank.

I think about Polly and Grandma, Bullseye and the Witch. I think about how the Boss may not let them survive either. I wonder if I will prompt fond memories.

The Boss follows my gaze to the propane tank.

“Don't,” he says.

I pull the trigger.

The boat explodes.

“I
always knew, Grandma.”

“Of course you did.”

“I did?”

“Of course. That's why you threw up on the snake. You knew that Harry was watching us. You knew that you had a secret inside of you and you wanted to get rid of it.”

“By throwing up?”

Grandma laughs. “You know the truth now. You can die in peace.”

“I don't want to die. Polly needs a maple donut.”

“Dying is part of life. Vince is right. Aging is a beautiful thing if you can see it in the right light.”

“I'm not aging. I'm dying!”

“Oh, good point,” she laughs. “Then you'd better swim.”

“What?”

“Up. Toward the oxygen.”

“I
f it's Halloween, I'd like a Milky Way.”

“Halloween was a few weeks ago,” I say.

“You've got a bandage on your head. You're dressed up like you got wounded in the Pacific,” Grandma responds.

I laugh. I do have a head wound.

I'm laughing anyway because Grandma Lane just exchanged a few sentences with me that seemed somewhat connected with one another. Grandma's brain is eroding. But less quickly than it was two months earlier. The effects of the heavy interaction with the Human Memory Crusade have started to wear off. Partly because the document I discovered on the boat suggested one basic healing method: cut down on computer use. Or, at least, less multitasking.

We're strengthening her organic memory by keeping her stimulated through conversation, human interaction, rest, and a course of antibiotics.

It's not fancy alchemy. It's the reasoned response to a hippocampus that was attacked by a virus, like a computer virus, or wildfire, loosed inside her brain.

Health-wise, I'm recovering myself, from a condition that I think might be clinically called “mostly dead.”

I'd like to say that my grandmother saved my life. I'd like to say that she reached me in a telepathic dream state and urged me to swim to safety while I was dying in the wreckage of the exploded and sinking
Surface to Air
. I did hallucinate that she was talking to me. But I didn't act on it and save my own life. The truth is some kindly Samaritan dragged me to safety, pumped my lungs, and then waited for the emergency medical folks to show up and do the rest of the lifesaving.

More good news: the cops seemed to feel that the wayward journalist has suffered enough.

When I got home from the hospital a few days later, I discovered a Porta Potti on the street outside my flat. It was intact; not burned to the ground. I received an anonymous phone call a few days later. The caller explained that the cops had planned to burn it to the ground but had called a truce in light of my larger medical issues and the fact that it appeared I was for once pursuing some actual, meaningful journalism.

They left the Porta Potti as a reminder to “stop writing crap about your local community.”

Clever as ever.

Now I'm sitting with Lane at her nursing home and I'm about to make an introduction.

“Grandma, I'd like you to meet someone.”

“That would be nice.”

I look up at Polly. She's wearing a sundress as befits both the uncharacteristic warmth of this November day and the fact she's uncharacteristically sensitive about the changes to her body. She's not yet showing the baked bean in her oven but she's being cautious anyway.

She walks to Grandma's bedside.

“I'd like you to meet the newest Idle,” I say.

“You're married?” Lane responds.

“No,” Polly says. “Not even if he wanted to.”

We haven't even discussed it.

Polly looks at me and smiles. “Who said his last name would be ‘Idle'?”

“I don't understand,” Grandma says.

I take her hand and put it on Pauline's belly.

Grandma holds it there. I'm watching her eyes. Her pupils widen. She looks at Polly's stomach, then at me and back at the belly. She pulls her hand back and then puts it back down again. She looks at me and I see her eyes start to glisten.

“Grandma?”

Her lips wrinkle into a slight smile even as her eyes fill with more tears.

“You're going to be a great-grandmother,” I say.

She clears her throat, recovering. “I taught you to drown.”

I laugh.

The door to Grandma's room opens. Vince enters.

“Visiting hours are over,” he says sternly.

I shake my head with irritation. “We just got here, Vince . . .”

“Just kidding. You people are so sensitive.”

For better or worse, I talked Vince into retaining his position. Here's why: it wasn't just Vince who got duped; it was all of us. We all were too distracted, selfish, self-absorbed, technology-obsessed, and indulgent to be paying attention the way we should have to the residents of Magnolia Manor—to our grandparents and elders.

The Human Memory Crusade happened right under my nose. In fact, at some point, I apparently signed a consent letter allowing Grandma to participate in the program. So distracted was I with my life that I hadn't been paying attention or asking the right questions. I was in fact asking a lot of questions in my life and about the world and the cops and various journalistic sources—I was asking Google all kinds of questions and asking it to perform all kinds of search queries—but not asking about the people I most care about, or should have. I let the computer babysit Grandma. How much blame can I give Vince?

I'm less forgiving, obviously, of Biogen, Adrianna, Pete, and Chuck—of the Human Memory Crusade and ADAM.

But only slightly less forgiving.

I lack the heart to implicate Adrianna because I'm worried about Newton. And I can't nail Pete to the wall because he's raising his own family and will spend the rest of his life recovering from wounds that nearly killed him, cost him his spleen, and punctured a lung, and from the damage he did to his marriage from an affair with Adrianna.

I still manage to write a blockbuster story that explains the role of military investors in developing technology to erase and write over memories of old folks, some veterans and, as Chuck alleged, heavy multi-taskers. I expose the plot to create Internet 2.0 using fallow brain space.

The government stops the transfer of military and corporate secrets encoded in the brains of five veterans scheduled to attend a sporting event in China.

At least I thought the story was a blockbuster. For two days, the press went nuts with the story. The
New York Times
put it on its front page. But then the whole thing seemed to evaporate, victim of the rapidly diminishing half-life of the public attention span. Part of the problem was my thin evidence: no laptop or paper trail, no remains from the server farm, no testimony from Adrianna or Pete Laramer. I can't find any evidence or example of average Americans or heavy multi-taskers whose brains have been compromised. I discover no evidence of a database of people experiencing accelerated memory loss.

But anecdotally, I see the phenomenon all around me. People forgetting things, having to look up their whereabouts, addresses, and phone numbers. And the incidence of dementia continues to accelerate, reaching effectively epidemic proportions.

I do find evidence of the government investing in a handful of Internet sites, casual game sites and media operations like Medblog. But all the investments seem to have rational explanations.

Maybe Chuck was getting ahead of himself.

Falcon went ahead and bought Biogen without incident.

Still, Medblog, where we first published the story, wins a prize. Polly gives me two new titles: Boyfriend and Senior Writer. I now make $85 per blog post. I buy new sneakers. She says she'll spring for the college fund.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Vince says.

I nod.

The Human Asparagus waves and almost manages a smile on his still-officious visage and walks out.

Polly kisses Grandma on the cheek. “Whether or not your grandson convinces me to marry him, your great-grandson will take the Idle name. I wouldn't mess with this family's beautiful and strange legacy. What do you think about that?”

Grandma looks at us. She cocks her head. She looks like she's going to say something. She pauses, gears grinding.

“Another Idle,” she finally pronounces. “I know something about that one.”

“What's that, Grandma?”

“What?”

“What do you know about your great-grandson?”

She smiles.

“Oh,” she says. “He's going to be very curious.”