by Mark Alpert
Frazier’s heart started thudding. “A reporter? Was his name Keating?”
Powell nodded on his pillow. “Yeah, that’s it. He wanted her to deliver his iPhone to someone named Tamara. Because the phone had video of the shootings.”
“What was the address?”
Powell didn’t have to struggle to recall it. The CRISPR injections had enhanced his memory too. “It was 168 Prospect Park West.”
Frazier smiled. The address was in Brooklyn, not far from Green-Wood Cemetery. It would take him only fifteen minutes to reach it by helicopter.
“Thank you, Powell. That’s very helpful.” Frazier was thinking ahead, already planning the raid, deciding how many officers he’d need. “I’m sure Colonel Grant will be pleased when he—”
“And there’s something else. Hector Torres. The Latin King.” Powell lifted his head and tried to sit up, straining against the belt across his chest. His eyes were fervent and angry now. “We met him at the cemetery, and that fucker started coming on to Jenna. He was in the shoot-out with your men afterward, and I don’t know if he survived or escaped. But if he did, I bet he went after her.”
This piece of information was also interesting, but not as useful as the address. Frazier needed something more specific. “Hector Torres? He’s a leader of the gang?”
“He said he was building an alliance of all the gangs in the city. And he even told us where their headquarters was.” Powell’s cheek twitched. “The Triborough Houses. In East Harlem.”
TWENTY-FIVE
A nineteen-year-old Latin King named Carlos Vilomar was showing Jenna how he’d put the iPhone videos on the internet. He and Jenna sat in front of a computer in Carlos’s grandmother’s apartment, which was in a housing project on East 124th Street. The Latin Kings had lived up to the promise Hector Torres had made: They’d done everything Jenna had asked, and more.
The apartment was apparently one of the gang’s meeting places. Every night the young men gathered in the living room to eat and talk and play video games while Carlos’s grandmother puttered in the kitchen and her bedroom. The Latin Kings had brought Jenna here after their encounter in Central Park the night before, and she’d crashed on the living-room sofa, but now it was late in the afternoon and she was alone with Carlos. He was the most tech-savvy member of the gang, so the others had assigned him to help Jenna upload the videos. They sat side by side on the couch, staring at the screen of a laptop propped on the coffee table.
Jenna liked Carlos. He was short and skinny and wore a Simpsons T-shirt that made him look a few years younger than his age, but he was also terrifically smart and bursting with energy. He waved his hands in front of the laptop’s screen as he explained how he’d used Tor—The Onion Router—to hide his internet activity from the federal government. He kept brushing his long black hair from his eyes, and after a while Jenna suspected he was crushing on her. Or maybe, because he was nerdy and inexperienced, he was simply thrilled to have a chance to talk to a woman. Either way, it was sweet and flattering, a pleasant distraction. It helped Jenna forget—at least for a few minutes—all the horrendous things she’d seen the night before.
Carlos pointed at the screen, which displayed a page of gibberish, thousands of random characters packed together in a dense block that seemed to go on forever. “Okay, the first step is encryption. When I upload a video using Tor, the software encrypts my data and makes it unreadable, see? Then it sends the file to a randomly selected computer in the Tor network. Then that computer sends it to another machine in the network, also randomly selected. And then that machine sends the file to a third computer.”
Jenna nodded, enjoying his explanation. Carlos was Dominican—he’d said his grandmother had brought him to the United States when he was a baby—but he spoke English without a trace of an accent. He was so clever, Jenna couldn’t understand why he was with the Latin Kings. He should’ve been in college.
“That’s how Tor hides your identity, see? The video file bounces around the layers of the network, and all the steps in its random journey are hidden, encrypted. By the time it comes out of the network and goes to YouTube or Facebook, no one can tell where it came from.” Carlos cupped his right hand, as if he were holding a ball, and moved it in zigzags, as if he were bouncing it around. “They call it The Onion Router because of all the layers of security. I used it to upload your videos to dozens of websites, and it was totally anonymous. Pretty cool, right?”
She nodded again, smiling. Now Jenna realized why she liked Carlos so much: He reminded her of Raza. Ten years ago, her brother had been the smartest kid in his middle school. He won chess tournaments and spelling bees and was the star of the math team. Then his illness worsened and they’d had to pull him out of school, but Jenna sensed that his mind still churned with intelligence even after he became unable to talk or write or use the computer. That’s why she’d tried so hard to cure him. If she could’ve fixed Raza’s genetic flaws, he would’ve regained his abilities. He would’ve become like Carlos, a young man full of energy and cleverness.
Jenna leaned across the sofa and nudged him. “What about the text file I gave you, the one titled Palindrome? Did you put that up on the websites too?”
“Yeah, I packaged all the files together.” Carlos reached for the laptop’s touch pad, did a Google search, and clicked on one of the links. “After I uploaded them, the government ordered YouTube and some of the other websites to take down the videos, but lots of people started sharing the files as soon as they went up, so they’re everywhere now. They’ve gone viral, see?”
Jenna looked over his shoulder at the laptop’s screen, which displayed the home page of a conspiracy-theory website called TruthIsNotFree.com. The page had links to both videos—the massacre in Brooklyn and the helicopter assault in Manhattan—as well as the text file containing everything Jenna knew about the Palindrome Project. She’d spent hours writing it all down, detailing her own research on CRISPR and what she’d learned from Derek Powell about the human experiments. Now she wanted to see how the text looked on the laptop, but Carlos clicked on one of the other files instead. The screen went black, and after a few seconds a video began to play.
It was the one Jenna shot on Park Avenue the night before, the footage of the helicopters. Once again she saw the aircraft swoop over the street and speed toward the crowd of rioters. Her throat tightened, and she felt a hot rush of adrenaline. Leaning forward, she stabbed the touch pad and stopped the video.
“Sorry, Carlos.” She could barely speak. “Seeing it once was enough for me.”
His face reddened. He gave her an apologetic look and closed the laptop. “Yeah, sure. I understand.” He edged away from her, shifting his weight on the sofa cushions. He seemed less confident now that he didn’t have a computer screen to point at. “But you did the right thing, you know? Everyone else was running away, but you stood there and pointed the phone at the sky. That was really brave.”
They were both silent for a while. Jenna could hear the boy’s grandmother cleaning plates in the kitchen. They’d shared an early dinner not too long ago, chicken and rice and plantains, and now Jenna was rested and her stomach was full. But she was also at a loss. She’d kept her promise to Tamara and broadcast the videos, but she had no idea what kind of impact they would have. Would the evidence of the massacres and the Palindrome experiments trigger protests across the country? And would the public outrage be strong enough to topple the FSU, or at least force them to release their thousands of detainees? That had been Jenna’s intention, and now she was hopeful and desperate at the same time. If this plan didn’t work, she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t think of another way to help her father and brother.
She turned back to Carlos. “So what kinds of reactions are we getting?”
He started to reopen the laptop, but he resisted the impulse. “Well, there are a lot of angry posts on Twitter and Facebook and the comments sections of the websites. People are blaming the army for the s
hootings, blaming the president. But, uh, some of the comments are just ridiculous.”
“What do you mean?”
Carlos seemed reluctant to answer. “Okay, this is crazy, but some people are saying the videos were faked. They’re saying they can prove it was all done with camera tricks and computer graphics. And because of that possibility, the major news sites like CNN won’t run the videos or say anything about the experiments. It’s kind of fucked up.”
Jenna shook her head. She couldn’t believe it. “I didn’t fake anything! I’m telling the truth!”
Carlos edged farther away, retreating to the other end of the couch. It looked like he was reconsidering his crush on her. “No, no, I believe you. But people are stupid, you know? And there are so many lies out there.”
She rose to her feet and stormed across the living room. She was furious. She was so pissed off, she wanted to scream.
Jenna stopped at the far end of the room, next to the apartment’s front door, and looked down at the carpet. She’d always known that the world was full of liars, but she’d never been their target before. It was vile, infuriating, frustrating beyond belief. And she suspected that at least a few of those liars worked for the White House. It was one of their favorite tactics, using deliberate falsehoods to discredit their enemies. They’d done it so often, on so many issues, that no one could recognize the truth anymore.
Carlos gazed at her nervously from across the room. At first Jenna was too incensed to talk to him, but after a while she calmed down. She took a deep breath and started toward him, hoping to resume their conversation. But then the apartment’s front door swung open behind her, and Hector Torres stepped inside.
He smiled, his dark eyes gleaming under the crown tattoo on his sweaty forehead. The leader of the Almighty Latin King Nation wore a black T-shirt and a gold bandanna. “Buenas tardes, chica. It’s good to see you again.”
Jenna smiled back at him. But before she could say anything, Carlos jumped off the sofa and bounded toward them. He raised his right hand and made the Latin King sign, bending his middle and ring fingers. “Amor de Rey, King Hector!” He had an awed look on his face. “I did everything you ordered. The iPhone videos are on the Web.”
Hector made the gang sign too. “Amor de Rey, Carlos. I knew I could count on you.” Then he turned back to Jenna. “I was worried about you. There were so many FSU pendejos in that cemetery. But it looks like you got out of there without a scratch. You’re more beautiful than ever.”
Jenna shook her head. “Let’s not start with that again, okay? We need to talk about the Feds. And make a plan.”
“Yes, yes, we have many things to discuss. But first I have a gift for you.”
“Hector, I don’t want—”
“Please, chica.” He winked at her. “You’ll like this gift. I promise.”
Hector stepped back to the door, held it open, and waved at someone standing in the corridor outside the apartment. A moment later, a balding man in khakis and a polo shirt came inside.
It was her father.
* * *
For the first half minute Jenna didn’t say a word. She just hugged him. She held him tight.
His rib cage quivered under his shirt. Abbu was crying. He jutted his chin over her shoulder and buried his face in her hair, but she could still hear his muffled sobs. He smelled like sweat. He looked exhausted.
Hector and Carlos gave them some privacy. The two Latin Kings left the living room and joined Carlos’s grandmother in the kitchen. The old woman had finished doing the dishes, and now the loudest sound in the apartment was the ticking of the clock that hung on the wall above the couch. The clock was shaped like a sunflower. Its hour and minute hands pointed at the petals.
Finally, Jenna pulled back and looked into her father’s eyes. The question was burning inside her. It couldn’t wait. “Where’s Raza?”
He didn’t answer. He tried to speak, but his lips only trembled. His silence terrified her.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice rose high and sharp. “Is he okay?”
“I … I don’t know.” Tears seeped down his cheeks. “We had to leave him behind … at Rikers.”
“He’s still in the prison?” She tightened her grip on his shoulders. “Abbu, what happened? Why did they let you out of jail, but not Raza?”
“Jenna, please. I need to sit down.”
He leaned against her, close to collapse. She quickly led him to the sofa, then sat down beside him. “I’m so sorry! Do you want a glass of water? Or maybe something to eat?”
“No, not yet. Let me rest a moment.” Abbu leaned back against the cushions. He took a few deep breaths, and after a while he managed to smile. “Yes, that’s better. I was walking for hours. We left the car in Queens, and then we had to take a very long route here, to get around all the checkpoints.”
Jenna rested her hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
He stopped smiling. “No, I’m afraid not. The FSU didn’t let me out of jail. I escaped.”
She almost laughed. She assumed he was joking. “Come on. You’re kidding, right?”
“One of the scientists at the complex helped me get out. It was your old boyfriend, Jenna. David Weinberg.”
She let go of Abbu’s shoulder. The surprise left her breathless. She’d known that David had continued to work on Palindrome after she was fired from the project, and she’d also known that the labs had relocated to Rikers Island. But she hadn’t expected her father to meet him there. “Wait, how did this happen? You saw David? You ran into him at the jail?”
“He was assigned to study Raza. Specifically, your treatment for Raza’s illness. The scientists at Rikers found out what you did, and it made them curious, because it wasn’t like any of the genetic treatments they’d worked on.” Abbu raised his hand and touched his balding head. “Dr. Weinberg attached electrodes to Raza’s head and measured his brain waves. And he did the same thing to me.”
This was an even more disturbing surprise. Jenna couldn’t understand it. “How … how could David do that? Didn’t he recognize you and Raza?”
“Yes, he knew who we were. But that didn’t stop him from studying us. He followed the orders they gave him.”
“I don’t get it. David agreed to examine and test you, and then he helped you escape? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Jenna, I need to tell you something.” Abbu reached toward her and clasped both of her hands in his own. “It’s upsetting, but you need to hear it. Something bad happened to Raza when you gave him that genetic treatment. You changed his genes in a new way, something no one else had ever done, and it made him different. It wasn’t obvious at first, but after the arrest he got so scared from being in prison and separated from me. That’s when he learned to use the new abilities you gave him.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s ridiculous. I didn’t give Raza anything. All I did was try to repair one gene, the one that caused his illness. And even that didn’t work. I just made his symptoms worse.”
“You did more than that. I know you didn’t intend it, but Dr. Weinberg said your CRISPR treatment rewired Raza’s brain. It changed other genes that affect the nervous system, and those changes made his thoughts more intense, more electrically powerful. So powerful they could enter someone else’s head.”
Now she did laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Sorry, I—”
“I’m serious.” He frowned and squeezed her hands. “I heard Raza’s thoughts. Nothing came out of his mouth, but I heard him just the same. When we were in Room Seventeen, he told me to find you. He said, ‘Find my baji and tell her I’m okay.’”
Jenna composed herself and put a sober expression on her face. “All right, let me explain why that’s impossible. The power of a neural signal in the brain is less than a billionth of a watt. The electrical activity is so weak, you have to put the electrodes right on the scalp to detect it. And billions of signals are flowing through the brain all at once. Even if you
could detect them from a distance, you could never untangle one thought from all the others.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand the science. But I heard Raza talking to me inside my head. I’m telling you, I heard him clear as day.”
Jenna gave him a sympathetic look. “Listen, the mind is very suggestible. When people are under stress, they sometimes imagine hearing voices, and it can seem very real.”
“I didn’t imagine it!” He raised his voice, frustrated. “And neither did Weinberg. Raza put his thoughts into Weinberg’s head and forced him to do things. Like helping me escape. Raza ordered him to do it. Your brother stayed behind because he knew a cripple couldn’t get past the guards, but he made the escape plan for me, and he got Weinberg to carry it out.”
She shook her head again. “No, there’s a more reasonable explanation. Maybe David was planning all along to help you, but he had to keep it secret from the other researchers at Rikers. So he waited for the right moment.”
“Then how do you explain what happened to the soldier? When that thug tried to stop us, Raza knocked him out cold! And he did it with his mind! He didn’t need to lift a finger!”
Jenna stared at her father. In all likelihood, he was just too tired to think straight. He’d been through hell, and now he was delirious. What he needed was a good night’s sleep. Then he’d come back to normal.
She decided to change the subject. “Abbu, where’s David now?”
He let go of her hands and looked out the window. The late-afternoon light was slanting down 124th Street, shining on all the buildings in the housing project and on the girders of the Triborough Bridge to the east. Her father pointed in that direction. “Weinberg went to Randalls Island. You know, the island under the bridge, where all the baseball fields are.”
“Why did he go there?”
Abbu shrugged. “I don’t know. We walked together as far as 103rd Street, and then Weinberg said I could find you at the Triborough Houses, a mile farther north. And then he walked across the bridge at 103rd, that footbridge to Randalls, which doesn’t have a checkpoint because it’s only for pedestrians. That was at least an hour ago.” He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “It took me a long time to find you here. I asked everyone in front of the building if they knew where you were, and finally that young man with the bandanna told me to follow him.”