Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  “Okay,” and Noel explained Triple I’s fee structure to Rossini. “Four thousand up front against the time we need. The balance when we sign off, successfully or not.”

  Rossini went to his study. From a locked file cabinet, he selected the checkbook for petty cash. He glanced at the balance to reassure himself he could cover the amount. He hated what he had to do. Protecting the Project from those who would use it for malevolent purposes by keeping it fully secret was increasingly a nonstarter. Secrecy was already halfway down the drain. Was this the full flush? More and more it looked like the best place to hide the Visualizer was out in the open. With extreme licensing restrictions. From the upper shelf he took a thin file, wrote a check, returned to the kitchen, handed it to Noel. “Thank you again.” He opened the file. “And here is the statement you’ll both need to sign.” He handed it, too, to Noel, who opened it and, with Kyra, read three sheets of paper spelling out what they must not say or do. They signed.

  Noel folded the check and slid it into his wallet. “Now. Your project.”

  “Let’s sit down, okay?” He led them back to the living room. He leaned against the back of one of the chairs. Noel took the other, Kyra the couch. “You’re certain I can’t give you anything to drink?”

  “We’d like to hear about your project and get started.”

  “All right. And please call me Larry.”

  “Okay. It’s Kyra and Noel.”

  “Good.” He sat.

  What is with the man, Noel pondered. His daughter’s being held for ransom and he can’t get himself to move on it. They had a chunk of cash from him, but he seemed immensely reluctant to give them any further information. What difference could it make if they knew what his project was all about? “We’re listening,” he said.

  Larry nodded, then waited another ten seconds. “You see, for the last decade and a half, I have given a single Project predominance in my research. I’ve assembled packages of software and hardware that allow me to download dreams from the human body and represent them on-screen.” He said all this quickly, as if he had to get the words out before he could censor himself.

  Actual pictures of someone’s dreams, is that what Rossini was telling them? Larry had stopped speaking. Kyra didn’t get it. “Are you saying you’ve invented a dream reader?”

  A small frown from Larry. “You could put it that way. Almost.” He spoke with a nearly trance-like slowness. “Actually, it’s a Dream Visualizer.”

  Noel suddenly thought, is Larry a little loopy? Or a lot loopy. Electronic technology that could capture images in dreams and transform them into something visible to others? The stuff of futuristic novels. Nonsense. He wouldn’t say this. Yet. After all, they were here to listen, right? “And this works—how?”

  Larry looked at him. “Well, the key issue had been to create a delivery system for a collecting infrastructure to be sent to specific internal organs and then recovering the right molecular markers for analysis. We’ve learned how to do that with a series of carbon nanotube applications.” His speech had normalized.

  Noel frowned. “I’m sorry. Nanotube applications?”

  “I could explain the technical aspects of the Project, but it would take hours. It’s not important that you understand the details. Just what the Project is.”

  “Maybe can we come back to—nanotube applications?”

  “If it proves necessary for finding Susanna, certainly. But I don’t think it will. What’s important is who controls the technology and the kinds of ends it’s used for.”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “There are two major components, first these high-molecular-weight carbon structures, then the software algorithms that interpret scans of the nanotube array and create visuals on-screen. Depending on the way they are designed, the carbon molecules direct themselves to parts of different muscles and organs, where they can do their specified work. We inject them into the bloodstream of a subject. When they’ve made their homes in several organs in the body, we stimulate the body, either mechanically or electrically from the outside, or from the inside using a number of other compounds that are ingested orally. You with me so far?”

  Kyra nodded vaguely. She got the idea of what, but nothing of the how.

  Noel said, “It’s pretty weird.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s remarkably similar to what the body does itself. After working on this Project for nearly fifteen years, to me it’s as normal as the backs of my hands.” He stared at them, rubbed each in turn. “Completely normal. Let me finish. Each nanotube collects the protein fragments and acids and enzymes that the organs produce after being stimulated, and because of their unique electrical properties, they’re like ultra-tiny radio transmitters. Together they make up a large enough array that an RF scanner can take a reading from them. We read the organs for their memories, the memories that we believe contribute to the images one sees in dreams.”

  Either science fiction or effin’ amazing, thought Kyra. Could Larry really carry off something like this? “You’ve actually seen other people’s dream pictures?”

  He nodded. “It’s all still pretty rough, and we’re still debating the accuracy of what we’re seeing. There’s a great deal more work to do. But to answer your question, yes, we’ve watched dream pictures on-screen.”

  “So what happens?”

  “We’ve learned that the process takes a certain amount of time for the nanotubes to accumulate, and also for them to start acquiring the organic molecular outputs after becoming imbedded in a subject organ. From preliminary research results, optimum for humans comes to about three weeks, depending on the receptivity of the subject—weight and body chemistry also play a role here.”

  Kyra said, “You hoped to find the kidnappers before the three weeks had passed.”

  “Right. After three weeks these molecules have become an integral part of the organ they’ve bonded with, and can be activated, as I mentioned.”

  “You mentioned an ‘RF scanner’?” Kyra cocked her head.

  “It’s a piece of technology that allows us to either bounce a radio frequency signal off the carbon nanotube array, or read a signal coming from it. RF stands for ‘radio frequency.’”

  “Mmm,” she said.

  “Think of it this way. You know those thin security tags in packaging, or the QR codes—two-dimensional bar codes that are popping up in ads everywhere?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You scan them. Because of the unique configuration, they send back a distinctive response. The security tag sets off an alarm, the QR code gives you a website address.”

  “And so this RF scanner shows you what the nanotubes look like?”

  “Not exactly—it tells us how the whole array is responding electrically, because of the residual molecules they’re now containing. It’s like those dancers in the boxes at the Chinese Olympics opening ceremony. Remember? Each one has its own pretty simple shape and movement, but thousands of them together create a whole different picture, with a lot of complexity. Remember, each one of those nanotubes is big in molecular terms, but pretty tiny in human terms. We’re talking on the scale of millionths of millimeters.”

  “Okay,” Kyra now, “I guess that’s small. And now you’ve got these tiny molecules. And you can see them on the screen.”

  “Can’t really see the molecules. Just what they’re doing, sending out electronic signals. And there have to be thousands of parallel signals, sometimes as many as tens of thousands. And these have to be read in consort with signals coming from other organs.”

  “Wait a minute. Did you say some of the signals come from a whole bunch of organs? Don’t dreams come from the brain?”

  “You don’t believe dreams can grow in part from the heart? Or from the genitals? And if from there, why not the stomach? We know all those parts of the body can speak to us. Certainly metaphorically. But they also tell us how we’re functioning in the most literal way. Hearts can be ‘broken’ and genitals can be aroused,
right? And touching the skin of your lover sends out all kinds of messages, right?”

  “I guess. Never thought about it.”

  “And that’s where the software comes in. Those are the instructions for calculating, that is, reading, the signals from the carbon array. The software is really a bunch of algorithms that ‘translate’ the molecular messages. And sequential scans function much as images on a film strip—lots of stills quickly projected produce what looks like a moving picture.”

  “And you’ve actually done this?”

  “Of course. The images we get are still fairly crude, and it’s only been a little over a year since we received ethics approval to proceed with human subjects. Up to now we’ve worked on three separate subjects.”

  “Uhmm,” said Noel. “And before the humans?”

  “Rats. And dogs.” Larry smiled ruefully. “From the rats we were getting images but they made no sense. We didn’t expect them to. Who knows what rats dream?” He laughed lightly. “But we had good reactions with dogs.”

  Kyra still at the reins. “A machine that for me is hard to take seriously, and a daughter kidnapped by people who do take it seriously.”

  “Yes, Kyra. It doesn’t matter if my dream reader—as you call it—has a reality. Because someone else believes it does, my daughter is being held for ransom, the ransom being some hardware and some software whose functioning I hold the secrets to. But,” he smiled, “it does work.”

  Mick Dubic had spent an uncomfortable twenty-four hours since Richard O’Hara’s visit. The purpose of grants from Foundation Innovate: to expedite new projects entering into the world, projects that would bring improvement to the lives of individuals and groups. True, FI couldn’t guide, much less control, the manner in which this was made to happen. But it now looked as if Rossini’s project had created circumstances that were hardly ameliorative either for himself or for Richard O’Hara.

  He assumed the men from EST-K-Sum had talked to Richard, just as they’d approached Mick. Once, as a younger man, he had feared representatives of spook organizations. Now, here in the State of Washington, he felt more irritated than intimidated. He did understand that the boys from the CIA felt they had to be in command of the most sophisticated toys. If not, they tended to be unhappy. They had learned of Larry’s upcoming conference, where he would introduce the Dream Visualizer to the world, and they wanted to have control over all rights to it before that revelation. Now they were trying to obtain those rights by coming through the back door—the CEO of FI and the office of the president of the Morsely University. Mick would give good odds they hadn’t bothered to contact Larry Rossini.

  Mick had received similar overtures from DARPA, an organization that loved acronyms. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was concerned with photonics of all sorts, especially, as their blurb had it, an interest in “the ease of transmission of optical signals to enhance sensing and communications . . . and in the fundamental development of photonic devices . . .” No wonder they ached to control Larry’s invention. Among their programs were Centers in Integrated Photonics Engineering Research, or CIPHER, and Nanoscale Architecture for Coherent Hyper-Optic Sources, known as NACHOS. Comedians, all of them.

  The man from DARPA had demanded that FI cease funding Larry Rossini’s project. Without FI money, he’d have to come to DARPA for the working capital. Mick explained the money for the project was in an offshore escrow account; not even Mick had access to it; a certain amount was sent to Rossini electronically every month. Then the man from DARPA had threatened Mick with an audit so tight his teeth would rattle. The intimidation attempt didn’t daunt Mick. FI ran the most transparent of books and FI’s lawyers could deal with DARPA. An audit would be little more than a mosquito bite.

  No, both DARPA and EST-K-Sum would attempt to wrest Larry Rossini’s invention from his lab. He feared for Larry when they started in on him. Mick should give Larry a call.

  The phone rang in Larry’s office. Had the Sheriff located Susanna? He feared picking it up; it might be them, some new threat. He excused himself to Noel and Kyra.

  As soon as he left, Kyra said, “How big a reach is it to assume Rossini is serious?”

  Noel took a moment. “About his Dream Visualizer, very serious. Whether it does what he claims, I don’t know. But if he’s given fifteen years to it, I think he’s resolute. And he’s absolutely right about the kidnappers taking the project very seriously—they did, after all, snatch his daughter.”

  “Yeah, so whether or not the Visualizer can do what he claims, Susanna is still out there somewhere.”

  “And our job is to find her. We start on that as soon as he comes back.”

  “Won’t be easy if no one’s supposed to know she’s been kidnapped. Hard to question friends and acquaintances without letting them know what’s happened.”

  “That’s our first question to Larry Rossini—how he wants us to proceed.”

  TEN

  ROSSINI PUT THE phone down. He felt anger grow in his gut. Not at Mick Dubic, good of Mick to fill Larry in, a valuable warning. Larry had expected it, awaited it, but figured the DHS or the CIA or whoever would come to him personally and he could tell them to their faces to go screw themselves. Why he should’ve expected a straightforward approach from any agency, he couldn’t say; nothing about those guys was ever up front.

  Come what may, he wasn’t going to let them grab this project. Not for any amount of money. Twenty years ago he’d made that mistake and they’d stolen the rights to his Memory Enhancer in what still felt like a legal minute. He’d never believed the contract they gave him could be construed to let them pry his discoveries from him. He’d needed their money to finish the Enhancer, and the money had been good. But he’d not consulted a lawyer, just checked with a couple of colleagues. In the end the judge agreed with the Commercial Certification Division legal team’s interpretation: because he was a salaried employee of an agency that was a hidden unit within the FBI, any fruits of his labors belonged to them. They’d robbed him of his intellectual property with a courtroom decision.

  But this time he’d played all his cards right. The contract with both Morsely and Foundation Innovate made him the principal investigator, not an employee of either. They’d come to Duke to lure him away. They’d dangled large grants before his eyes, a spacious laboratory, assistants’ salaries. He’d made certain the research salaries, his included, came from the grants. And he’d insured that this would remain the pattern for thirty years. And what he produced would be his alone, to do with as he wished. He knew O’Hara wanted the Dream Visualizer for Morsely so he could sell it to the highest bidder—and there’d be real money involved—so he could build his dormitories and expand Morsely into a year-round campus-based university. All he needed was the multimillion-dollar check from one or another spook agency and he’d have the largest part of his building fund. He knew the lure of San Juan—students and faculty would flock to be part of the University of the Islands. He also knew that Mick Dubic would never try to grab control of the Visualizer. Though no doubt he might have liked the money it would sell for, to allow FI to make more grants available.

  Neither Morsely nor FI would ever gain ownership of the Visualizer.

  But the detectives were waiting. He re-entered the living room. They were sitting together on the couch, speaking quietly.

  “Sorry that call took so long,” Rossini said.

  “Anything to do with Susanna?”

  “No, just university business. Now, where were we?”

  “We’ve been thinking.” Noel stood. “It’s going to be hard for us to investigate Susanna’s kidnapping if you put the same constraints on us as you’ve put on the police. We have to interview people who may know something you don’t.”

  “He’s right, Larry. No wonder the Sheriff hasn’t made any headway.”

  “So if you want us to go ahead, we’ve got to do it our way.”

  Larry looked out the window at the gathering twilight.
“Your card claims you’re discreet. On this you have to investigate with world-class prudence.”

  “That’s the way we work,” said Kyra.

  Rossini sighed and looked back. “Then do what you have to.”

  “Okay, we’ll begin with the Sheriff.”

  “Now? In the morning?”

  “No time like the present,” said Noel. “At his office?”

  “Likely won’t be there this late.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly 8:30.”

  “His home, then. Can you call, tell him we’re on our way?”

  “Yes. Name’s Marc Coltrane. His Undersheriff’s Charlie Taunton.”

  “Undersheriff?”

  “Chief deputy.”

  “Undersheriff,” Noel muttered. And won’t the Sheriff—and his Undersheriff—be surprised to learn Larry has mentioned the kidnapping to a couple of strangers. Worse, who were going to be poking around about it.

  Kyra said, “We’ve been trying to figure how to think of the kidnapping.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If she’s being held captive, it has to be either on San Juan or off San Juan. If it’s off the island, she could be anywhere. We’re not equipped to investigate everywhere. That’s a large operation. You’d need to pull in the FBI—kidnapping is their jurisdiction anyway—or at least the state police.” Noel was certain he’d just seen Larry cringe. “So for our part, we have to assume she’s still on San Juan, and that’s where we’ll devote our energy. And you’ll need to tell the Sheriff what we’re doing.”

  Rossini nodded. “That’s reasonable. Though it’s hard for me to think she might have been right here all this time.” He stood. “I’ll call Marc.” He left them again.

  They got up, Kyra saying, “Better to catch him wherever he lives. He’ll be—”

  A loud knocking at the front door. They looked at each other. Another knock. No response from Larry. Kyra marched to the door and opened it. A woman and a suitcase. “Yes?”

  “I’m looking for Professor Rossini.”