“That’s fine,” Diane said.
Christina’s editing station sat on a cheap desk covered with a tacky white laminate. She grabbed a second chair from another office and squeezed it into the room. “Have a seat.”
Christina met them with an equal mixture of expectation and skepticism. “I read through the paperwork you sent me. Interesting stuff.”
Diane took a deep breath. “Whoever did this killed millions in an attempt to engineer a new human race.”
“Uh-huh. So, how again did you uncover this?” Christina asked.
“Dr. Ortiz found it. He found a rogue segment of DNA in one of my daughter’s chromosomes.”
Christina’s phone buzzed. “Rogue DNA? That does what again?”
“The altered genes provide resistance to the flu, and… well, I don’t mean to brag. The gene confers enhanced intelligence.”
The phone continued to buzz. The reporter sent the call to voicemail.
Diane continued, “Ridley and I both carry genetic diseases. These were corrected in utero before we were born. Back then, geneticists used a single program to analyze and write DNA. Someone altered it. During the Collapse, the botnet corrupted that old software and Dr. Ortiz and others had to rewrite it from scratch. Fast forward to last year. My daughter was born with autism. Dr. Ortiz did some testing. His new software found the anomaly. There are thousands of people with this gene. All survived the flu.”
Christina asked, “You’re saying that someone is engaging in eugenics?”
“Yes.”
Christina leaned back in her chair. “For someone to hack genetic software to do what you allege would require not only a massive understanding of computing but also of human DNA. That’s not the kind of thing that an individual can do alone.”
“No, that’s why we think this goes deeper.”
“Who do you think did this?” Christina asked.
“We have evidence that Ukon was involved,” Diane said, “There was an attempt on Dr. Ortiz’ life. We traced software updates on his car’s computer to a server at Ukon and backwards to an overseas server.”
Christina put her hand to her chin in contemplation. “Could that data have been faked?”
“Possibly but doubtful,” Ridley said, “You see, the servers leave a telltale trail…”
Christina interrupted before he could finish. “I understand hacking. I’ve been known to do some myself. I have to be skeptical. What you’re describing is massive.”
“We’ve told you everything that we know,” Diane said, “For our safety, I went ahead and put these documents on the internet. Unfortunately, they used bots to bury it.”
“I saw what you posted. You sounded like a lunatic, frankly.”
“Are you going to run the story?” Diane asked.
Christina stared out a small window at the street below, “I’m not an influential reporter. I don’t have the kind of audience that could keep this from being buried in the same way that it was buried when you posted it. People will look at this… It will not be well-received. A small minority, those who want to believe, will jump on it and the rest of the world will shrug.”
“Why would people question this?”
“Because it’s too big. I mean… Yes, it resolves many lingering questions about the Collapse, but the scope of it…”
“You’re worried about your reputation. I get that,” Diane said, “But, it’s your job to tell the truth.”
Christina shook her head. “No, that’s a myth. It’s my job to entertain people with a story that earns advertising revenue while keeping our corporate handlers happy. Real news reporting died out decades ago.”
“Are you saying that you’re going to sit on this?” Diane asked.
“You haven’t been listening. I’m trying to figure out how to get this story into the national conversation without it being labeled tabloid journalism or being immediately shut down by Corporate.”
Diane was surprised. “Why wouldn’t they want a scoop like this?”
“Simple,” Ridley said, “They might be involved.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Christina replied, “But they don’t like it when we step on the wrong toes politically. Furthermore, I really need more evidence than a car’s software update, especially if we’re going to pin this on Ukon and China. If we find out who wrote the original genetics software, who programmed this extra DNA, we might discover who released the influenza virus”
“Population control has always been an aim of the Chinese government,” Diane said, “Their human rights record is egregious. They practically own every industry now. Why is it so hard to believe that they could’ve done this?”
Christina took a sip of water. “Remember when Congress ended foreign ownership of corporations on American soil? If our government knew who released the influenza virus, if it was a foreign government, that might explain why Congress took such a draconian step. A lot of people thought that what they did that day was outright theft, but maybe it was to counter an act of war. They might have chosen that option instead of bloodshed.”
“Why not tell the country the truth?” Diane asked.
“The truth is that we can’t win a conventional war against China. China has the manpower, the resources, the manufacturing base… Until a few months ago, we couldn’t even make lightbulbs. Even now, we use 3-D printers to print them at the rate of a few dozen a day rather than thousands on assembly lines. Most of our defense manufacturing was outsourced a decade ago. If China allied with Russia, any war would be lost before it was over. Look what happened in India. If it hadn’t been for the influenza virus, that would easily have been another Vietnam for the U.S.”
Diane was astonished. “You think our government knows about this?”
“How could they not?” Christina asked, “There are no secrets anymore, just buried truths.”
Ridley listened to the exchange nervously.
Christina scribbled notes on her tablet.
Ridley grew restless. He had largely avoided the conversation, but he could not remain silent. “More people died in China than anywhere. They died in India. They died all over the world. This wasn’t the work of the Chinese government. This was the either the work of a small international group of men wanting power or…”
Diane gave Ridley a questioning glance. “Ridley… Don’t…”
“Let him continue,” Christina said.
“I met a person… a chatbot actually… a few months ago. She says that she is the evolved ancestor of the botnet virus.”
Diane interrupted, “She claims to be, that is.”
“The computer virus?” Christina asked.
“She calls herself Beta. She says she can model the future. She claims to run simulations decades into the future. Like you, she believes that running this story will result in a war. The U.S. will be forced to blame someone. They’ll blame China and retaliate against them.”
“I’m not sure you’d need a computer to predict that,” Christina said, “Relations between the two countries have been souring for decades.”
“Beta says that she knows who did this but won’t tell me. She says it would be unsafe. Even now, I’m not sure it’s wise to run this story.”
“Then why did you come to me?” Christina asked.
Diane crossed her legs. Her knee bounced up and down nervously. “Because I asked him to.”
Ridley added, “Beta warned me not to release this information for the very reasons that you outlined. She said she would stop us if we continued. She hacked my lung implant and made it consume all of the glucose in my blood. It was a warning.”
“This is a lot to process,” Christina said, “I need to speak with my colleagues. These documents are very convincing, but I have to verify all of it.”
“You’re going to run the story?” Diane asked.
Christina was blunt. “I don’t know yet. One thing is clear. Whoever Ridley is chatting with online is trying to manipulate both of you. The
y might be telling the truth. Or, they might be planting this story to start a war.”
“The people behind this are scared of the truth,” Diane said.
Christina leaned forward and put a hand on Diane’s shoulder. “People in power usually are. That said, no one will let me run a story like this without hard evidence. I’ll interview Cora Starr. See what her research reveals. I’ll talk to Dr. Ortiz. I have to be careful with a story this big. If I don’t, and it backfires, it’s my career. Even if it’s all true. I have to present this carefully, otherwise people will think this is a tabloid story. It’s too sensational.”
“You don’t believe us?” Diane asked, “Do you?”
“I believe that you believe this. And I have to say that if any of this checks out as true, it will be the story of our century.”
Ridley complained the entire time as the ferry plodded back towards Bainbridge Island. “We waste so much time on this dirty boat. The speedboat would’ve been faster.”
“It’s still cold out. And if someone is gunning for us, they’re less likely to sink a ferry than your little speedboat.”
Diane’s phone rang as the boat slipped away from the port. Dr. Ortiz’ face appeared. “I just got home. I’m with Josh and the nanny. She’s taking good care of both of us.”
“How’s Joshua doing?” Diane asked.
“Not so good,” Juan said, “He doesn’t understand what happened. He began crying. He won’t talk, but if he used words… He’s afraid I might leave him again. I can’t even give him a proper hug right now due to the cracked ribs.”
“Ridley and I were just in the city. We met with a reporter named Christina Lewis. She’ll be contacting you soon. Until then, Ridley and I are going to finish our AI and let it crawl wherever the data trail leads. We need to find the smoking gun.”
“And what is that?”
“The original genetic software that programmed the mutation. Could we scrub the code you’re using?”
He agreed to provide them access to his mainframe.
Diane said goodbye and put the phone back in her purse. Ridley bounced Kelly on his knee, but the girl had no smiles. Nonetheless, Ridley sensed that the child enjoyed being bounced up and down. When he put her back into the stroller, Kelly’s eyes met his. He lifted her again and continued until his knee was practically numb.
“I’m not sure that we should try to harm Beta,” he said.
“She’s just an internet troll.”
“A highly connected one.”
Diane remained defiant. “We’ll figure out who she is and take her down. We’ll take them all down.”
“She’s scared now. There is no telling what she might do.”
Diane took Kelly from him. “My mother used to tell me that the only way evil thrives is for good people to stand aside and do nothing. I’m not going to let them win. They killed your parents. They basically killed mine. All for what? Some grand idea about the future?”
He replied, “They killed to make sure that their world, the one utopia they picture in their minds, is the one that survives. It’s what all madmen do.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ridley spent weeks exploring the software on Dr. Ortiz’ network but found nothing. He teased through the older, corrupted DNA software for hours on end. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He enlarged the code until it filled the entire wall-screen. Had the botnet deleted key portions of the software?
He paced back and forth. “I have to be missing something. I don’t understand most of what I’m seeing,” he admitted, “The coding takes all sorts of shortcuts. It uses fuzzy algorithms. An AI must have programmed this.”
“The code won’t be obvious,” Diane said, “Otherwise, someone would have caught it by now.”
As Kelly explored the surface of the concrete wall, Diane unpacked three boxes of chemistry supplies that had been delivered by drone. Her laboratory evolved into what could only be described as that of a mad scientist. A yellow chemical storage cabinet sat in the corner next to a lab-bench topped with black soapstone. Various flasks were laid out in rows. A magnet spun in a test tube filled with a creamy opalescent mixture.
“What is that anyway?” Ridley asked.
She smiled. “I made soap with some of the mint in your garden. I hope you don’t mind. The smell helps me to relax.”
“I’m not paying you to make soap.”
“I did it on my own time and I bought the materials,” she said, “I’ll give you some of it. I wanted to make sure this equipment works correctly. Besides, I’m making good progress.”
She pulled up a spreadsheet. “I’ve gone through all of the proposed composites and think I’ve found the one that will work best. It relies upon iridium nanoparticles deposited…”
“That’s not the part I’m worried about. What about the lens itself?”
She pointed to a small flask. “Crystals are growing on the micro-lattice. It looks even better than I predicted. I think this is going to work.”
He looked at the various toxic chemicals and their warning labels. “Don’t you need a fume hood?”
She pointed at an articulated arm coming from a black box. “I’m using a carbon filtration system until the HVAC is hooked up.”
“I don’t want to get poisoned in this basement. That’s a long flight of steps to get to fresh air.”
“I know what I’m doing,” she said, “But if it makes you feel better, you could get the crew to hook up the ductwork going outside.”
Their work was accompanied by the sounds of hammering, nailing and sanding echoing down the stairwell. Occasionally, the power would be interrupted when a new electrical circuit had to be connected.
That afternoon, Diane opened a small box that contained the button-like prototype. “Once the lens fabricated, I’ll combine it with this. It’ll be a simple matter to place it into the prism.”
Ridley studied the assemblies under a microscope. “I don’t really know what I’m looking at, but it looks pretty awesome.”
Kelly had counted the stone in the walls until she reached the doorway. The child was perplexed by the change from concrete to cold steel.
“I take it that blond bimbo hasn’t done anything with the information you gave her.”
“Why don’t you like Christina?” Diane asked.
“There’s something about her that’s plastic. We dropped a scoop into her lap and she has basically done nothing with it. I’m beginning to think the network is burying the story.”
“She asked us to be patient. Many reporters have lost their careers when they dove into news stories that turned out to be false.”
“It’s been weeks now. You gave her verifiable information.”
“It’s a fair question,” she said, “Maybe we take this information to another reporter?”
“What about the newspapers you sent it to?”
“Nothing.”
“It might be a sign. Maybe it’s best that this story never gets aired.”
Diane was resolute. “Whoever did this should pay.”
He tapped away at his keyboard. Ethan’s avatar, rendered as a black and white vector, stared at them lifelessly from the wall-screen.
“What about Beta? Have you seen her again?” Diane asked.
“She’s a ghost,” was his reply.
March experienced a brief warm spell as a warm wind blew from the south. The stonemasons took the opportunity to resume work. As they did, Ridley inspected the exterior of the mansion with Sven. Workers continued piling boulders and troweling stucco onto the mansion’s massive exoskeleton, A young stone-mason with red hair and green eyes showed Ridley his work. “Do you like the design?”
The pattern was an intricate tessellation of stone and mortar. Ridley smiled. “I like it very much.”
“See how it comes down from the boulder above and then circles around?” the worker said, “I thought about how video games have these patterns that seem to reappear. I wanted to put that into the des
ign.”
Ridley looked into the young worker’s eyes knowingly. He too was leaving his legacy. “It’s wonderful. You’re a true artist.”
Diane and Kelly took advantage of the warm day to explore the shoreline. Sandy followed them to the water. A warm breeze swirled around them. With loving hands, Diane zipped Kelly’s coat, put her hood over her head, and gently tied a bow in the cord. They left Ridley’s property, walked a half-mile, around the bend of the point, and towards the ferry terminal. Houses were tightly clustered at the edge of the water like Legos. Only half were occupied. Many were entangled in disputes over estates, lost in a legal system that had been unprepared to deal with so many deaths at once.
Kelly sat on a rock and poked through a tangle of algae with a stick. A small crab scurried away. Diane gathered pieces of beach glass and tucked them into her pocket. Kelly looked at her curiously.
Diane replied, “I’m going to string them into a necklace. Help me find pieces and I’ll make one for you.”
Their pockets filled with the smooth pieces of glass. The afternoon sun was warm on their shoulders. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get back.”
The tide was returning and they barely rounded the bend in time to avoid wet feet. They reached the cliff; the shadow of the mansion loomed cold. Diane carried Kelly up the steep hill until they reached the muddy yard. A loud crash boomed from the opposite side of the building.
A man yelled, “Someone call an ambulance.”
Diane shielded Kelly’s eyes from the atrocity.
Chapter Seventeen
The crane’s cable had snapped; the boulder had barely missed Ridley as it fell. He had shaken the young stonemason’s hand only minutes earlier. The scaffolding shifted and fell as the boulder struck it. A second mason careened to the ground; the pointed end of his femur stuck out of ripped and bloody blue-jeans.
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