Head On

by John Scalzi

  The Post-it note said: Agents Vann and Shane, FBI.

  Inside the folder was a truly impressive amount of highly incriminating evidence.

  “She knew we were coming,” I said, quickly thumbing through the pages.

  “She saw the body count rising,” Vann replied. “She knew we’d get back to her.”

  “There’s something underneath the folder,” I said. I reached in and pulled out a computer tablet. The screen was blank. I clicked the power button once, gently, and the screen woke up, showing a fish-eye view of the kitchen and living room from above, the carnage gently curving away from the focal point above the kitchen table.

  Vann stared at the tablet for a moment and then walked out of the room. A second later she appeared on the screen as she walked into the living room.

  “It’s live,” I yelled. I looked more closely at the screen and saw the timer. “And it’s recording.”

  Vann walked back into the bedroom. She nodded at the tablet. “Can you scrub back?”

  I nodded and moved the time frame backward. There was a bustle of activity as Arlington police scurried backward through the scene, followed by long minutes of nothing but dead people. Then the dead people sprang back to life and after a few seconds of reverse murder, arranged themselves at Fowler’s kitchen table. We stopped and let the video play forward in real time, with no sound.

  The four of them sat at Fowler’s table, with Fowler and Lau clearly arguing. This went on for a while, and then Lau said something to Abbot, sitting across from Fowler. Abbot wrenched out his gun and shot at Fowler, who moved to the side, reached under the table, and produced the knife. The knife slashed left, slicing Lau in the neck. He staggered and fell off his chair, clutching at his wound and struggling back away from Fowler.

  Abbot fired again at least twice, missing both times. Fowler switched knife hands and slashed up at Abbot, slicing off a fair amount of his face and then slashing him a second time in the neck. Tucker by this time was up and trying to move frantically away from Fowler, who grabbed him and expertly nicked at least three of his major arteries. This kept her preoccupied enough that she didn’t see the fallen Abbot raise his gun, and, when she turned to face him, shoot her in the forehead.

  Fowler went down, still holding her knife. Abbot lowered his weapon and didn’t move anymore.

  “That was unpleasant,” I said.

  “Do you have that?” Vann asked me.

  “Already transferred the recording.”

  Vann nodded and left the bedroom again. I set down the tablet, picked up the heavy file folder, and followed her into the kitchen. She reached the table and looked under it. Then she motioned for me to do the same.

  There was a snub-nosed revolver taped to the underside of the table, and dangling tape from where the knife used to be.

  “Why did she pick the knife?” I asked Vann.

  “Pretty sure she just reached under and that’s what she came up with.”

  “If she had gotten the gun, she might still be alive.”

  “If she was alive, I don’t think she would have told us about the files. She’d still have wiggle room to come out on top.” Vann pointed to the code on Fowler’s dead wrist. “This is meant to be an ‘if I’m going to hell, I’m taking you with me’ gesture.”

  “Nice she thought of us when she did that.”

  “Well, then let’s give her an honor guard,” Vann said.

  A man showed up in the doorway, flanked on either side by uniformed policemen, and stared down Vann. “Who the fuck are you to tell my people to vacate a crime scene?” he said.

  “I think that’s the Arlington chief of police,” I said to Vann, helpfully. She looked at me witheringly.

  “I asked you a question,” the chief of police said.

  “I’m the FBI,” Vann told him. “And your people can have it back now. We got everything we came for.”

  * * *

  “How are you holding up?” I asked Vann. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I could use a smoke,” Vann said, looking at me significantly.

  “Parents’ car,” I said, as the car turned onto Kalorama Road.

  “Your parents probably have a dozen cars,” Vann said. “They wouldn’t even know.”

  “Tell you what,” I said, as the car parked itself at the curb across from the Tudor-style house we were about to visit. “You try that line of reasoning on my mother. If you can get her to go along with it, you can smoke in this car all you like. But you have to try it out on her.”

  “Pass,” Vann said.

  “She’s very fond of you, you know.”

  “Not fond enough, apparently.” Vann got out of the car. We walked up the steps to the front door nestled in a pretty turret.

  “We’re here to see Amelie Parker,” I said, to the woman who answered the door.

  “It’s nearly eleven at night,” the woman said.

  “Yes it is,” Vann said. “Amelie Parker, please.”

  “She’s indisposed right now. You can’t come in.”

  “We insist,” Vann said, and presented the woman with our warrant. The woman stared at it blankly for a moment.

  “Who are you?” I asked the woman.

  “Winifred Glover,” she said. “Ms. Parker’s nighttime caretaker.”

  “Ms. Glover, you have to let us into the house,” I said. “We have a warrant for Ms. Parker’s arrest.”

  Glover stared at us blankly again. “How … how are you going to arrest her?” she finally said. “She’s a Haden.”

  “A transport is coming behind us,” I said. “In the meantime, Ms. Glover, show us to her, please.”

  Glover looked genuinely miserable and confused. Vann, who was already going through nicotine withdrawal, was starting to look impatient. I held up a hand to keep her from snapping Glover’s head off. “What is it?” I asked Glover.

  “She’s not here,” Glover said, in an explosive rush. “Her body, I mean. It’s gone. Her travel creche is gone. I came to the house for my shift and she wasn’t here. I don’t know where she is.”

  “Where is she usually?” I asked. Glover pointed to a large ground-floor room facing toward the back of the house. Vann went off toward it. I turned my attention back to Glover. “Did you ask the daytime caretaker where she went?”

  “Carol wasn’t here when I got here,” she said. “No one was. I let myself in with my code and the house was empty.”

  “When was that?”

  “Six tonight.”

  Vann walked back into the room. “Everything’s unplugged,” she said. “I’m checking the rest of the house.” She headed off again.

  “Does Ms. Parker usually go off unannounced?” I asked Glover.

  “No,” she said. “She only leaves the house—physically, I mean—once or twice a year. She will do it if her family are having the holidays somewhere remote enough that she might have trouble connecting through a threep. She did last year when the family had Christmas in Patagonia.”

  “And when she does that, how does she usually travel?”

  “She has a car come pick her up, of course,” Glover said. “And then her family’s company sends a jet for her. It has one with support for a Haden’s creche.”

  “Which airport?”

  “When I went with her we always went out of National.”

  “Vann!” I yelled.

  * * *

  “Oh, look, it’s you again,” Tony said, as he connected with me. “I just sent you what you asked me for earlier.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “It was very helpful.”

  “If you got it, what are you getting touch with me now for? It’s almost midnight.”

  “I have a hypothetical for you.”

  “Oh, this should be good.”

  “Let’s say you or I am on a private jet out of National, heading toward Sarajevo.”

  “A little esoteric for a destination, but all right.”

  “If we wanted to connect with our private sp
ace, would we be able to?”

  “This is a high-end private jet?”

  “About as high-end as they come, yes.”

  “And hypothetically where is this plane right now?”

  “Somewhere between Newfoundland and the southern tip of Ireland.”

  “Okay. Then, yeah, probably. Depending on where the plane is, the signal is either going to go through a floating wireless relay to the undersea cables, or is going to bounce off a satellite. If it’s the former the lag is going to be pretty minimal. If it’s the latter you’ve got like a three- to four-hundred-millisecond delay, because the speed of light is a thing that happens.”

  “Okay. Next hypothetical.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Let’s say there was a Haden fugitive from justice flying to a country without an extradition treaty with the United States.”

  “Sure. Like, possibly, Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

  “Yes.”

  “Theoretically.”

  “Correct. Now, let’s say you have a warrant to access their private space, which is on a U.S. server, which you also have a warrant for.”

  “Belt and suspenders, got it.”

  “But the private space is encrypted.”

  “How encrypted?”

  “Massively.”

  “And what kind of server is this? Shared server? Maintained by a third party who has access?”

  “Private server, personal space designed by others but personally maintained. No one in or out without the owner’s key.”

  “Then your warrant’s not very useful. You can take the server offline, if you want, and lock your theoretical fugitive out of their personal space. But if it’s state-of-the-art encryption, you’re not getting into it anytime soon. When did you want to be into it?”

  “Hypothetically, before the plane lands.”

  “So, no. Not going to happen.”

  “Not at all.”

  “If you can find someone who worked on the space who left a back door into the place, maybe. Or if there’s something so egregiously wonky with the code that it exploitably breaks the world. Or if our theoretical fugitive left an open-ended invite to a friend or family member. Then possibly.”

  “Let’s go back one.”

  “Wonky code.”

  “Yes. How easy is that to exploit?”

  Tony sighed, which is an affectation in a Haden but is effective nevertheless. “Chris, for God’s sake, just tell me what server it is and what I’m looking for and how much time I have.”

  “So you’re saying you can do it.”

  “I said no such thing. I’ll try it. We’ll see if it works. Send the relevant details over and I’ll get on it.”

  “You’re the best, Tony.”

  “Yes I am. Just remember you said that when you get my invoice.”

  I disconnected and turned to Vann. We were both still in Parker’s house. Glover, not knowing what else to do, had served Vann tea.

  “Tony’s on it,” I said. “Ready for your part?”

  Vann nodded and then turned. “Ms. Glover,” she said.

  Glover appeared from the kitchen. “Yes, Miss Vann.”

  Vann visibly winced at being called “miss.” I decided not to say anything about it.

  “Amelie’s father is the CEO of Labram, is he not?”

  “CEO, yes. Her grandfather is chairman.”

  “Do you know how to reach either?”

  “I have contact numbers for both and for Amelie’s mother and sister, in case of emergency.”

  “Let’s start with the father,” Vann said.

  “It’s very late for a phone call, Miss Vann.”

  “I know. He’s going to want to take my call.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I ROSE UP THROUGH the water of the lake and took stock of my surroundings. The jetty with the sailboat was roughly a hundred meters away. A healthy swim, virtual or real. I set myself into a lazy backstroke and slowly made my way to shore. I emerged out of the water with clothes sopping wet. They dried unrealistically quickly. By the time I made my way to the house, they and I were entirely dry.

  None of the simulated house servants bothered me as I wandered through the house. Either they didn’t register me at all or their programming dictated that since I was neither announced nor invited, I didn’t need to be dealt with. I stepped in front of one servant to see what he would do and was amused by the quick emotionless spin he made to avoid me. I wasn’t invisible, then. Merely unimportant.

  The sound of music came from the second floor of the mansion. I followed it up the stairs and found it emanating from a large, stately library room. Amelie Parker was in the room as well, on a chaise longue, reading a book. I peered at the spine. It was The Great Gatsby, which I thought was a little on the nose.

  “How’s the book?” I asked.

  Parker startled and dropped the book. She stared at me as if I were a magically appearing ghost, which was fair, all things considered. “How?” she started, then stopped.

  “I got in through your lake,” I said. “The one you never had the coding finished for. It’s actually more complicated than just that, of course. But basically that’s how I did it.”

  Parker stared at me hard for a moment, silently, and then was confused again.

  “You can’t boot me out,” I told her. “I glitched in, so your space isn’t registering my invitation. As far as your server knows, I’m supposed to be here. Also, technically speaking, I have a warrant to be here as well. Your server is in U.S. territory.”

  “Why are you here?” Parker said.

  “I wanted to tell you what I know,” I said. “And then I wanted to give you a chance to turn yourself in voluntarily.”

  “Turn myself in,” Amelie said, and smiled. “For what?”

  I walked into the room and admired the books on the shelves. They were all bound in leather and the simulated smell of the library was intoxicating. “This is a really beautiful room, Amelie,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You killed Duane Chapman,” I said. “Not intentionally, I know. He wasn’t your target. Kim Silva was. But you didn’t know Silva and Chapman were lovers. You didn’t know she let him sample her Labram supplements.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Parker said.

  I reached up and took a book down from the shelf, a classic children’s book from Catherynne Valente. I held it up to Parker. “I love this book.”

  “I do too,” she said, confused.

  I set the book on the table near me and continued. “A few years ago your start-up company bought the intellectual property of a company called Neuracel, including a compound called Attentex,” I said. “It wasn’t useful as an additive in your supplements, because it caused seizures and other side effects. But you figured out another use for it. If you had enough information on individual Hilketa athletes, you could tailor their supplements so that the Attentex you put into it would subtly hamper their performance. It’s pharmaceutically inert unless there’s an electrical charge applied to the person taking it in, so you could pick and choose when and where to use it. It breaks down quickly in the bloodstream and doesn’t show up in drug tests because no one’s looking for positives on Attentex or its components.”

  “I don’t remember this compound you’re talking about,” Parker said.

  “Yes you do,” I said. “Specifically, a year ago you did a test drive of Attentex on Clemente Salcido. He was coming on board to endorse Labram supplements, and the company had all the information they needed to create a supplement mix tailored specifically for him. You took that information, ran a few simulations to see how much Attentex you’d need to degrade his performance, and put it into his mix. But you miscalculated and he had seizures on the field. He was out of the league after that.”

  “Chris—”

  “Why are you flying to Sarajevo?” I asked.

  “I have investors there,” Parker said, fazed by the sudden twist of
questioning.

  “For MobilOn.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You’ve been having difficulty finding investors in the U.S.?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Parker said.

  “Actually you are, compared to the funding you were getting with your previous start-up, the one you sold back to Labram for substantially more than it was worth,” I said. “A lot of the companies you partnered with on that seem reluctant to go in with you on MobilOn. Your potential investors are skeptical that you will be able to keep it going long enough for it to be bought back by Labram for a premium. Too many better-funded and -connected companies jumping into the threep-sharing market. So you had to offer something extra to entice them.”

  “This is nuts.”

  “And what you offered them was the ability to affect Hilketa play,” I continued. “Not in the North American league, where you don’t have reach and the market is mature anyway. But in the upcoming European and Asian leagues. Labram has signed a deal to be the default supplier of supplements and performance creches in those leagues. It’s already creating the limited liability corporations to fund the new franchises. Your family company already did all the hard work setting up the right set of circumstances. All you have to do is exploit them.”

  Parker didn’t have anything to say to this.

  “After Salcido, you did more tweaking of your Attentex formula and you were finally convinced you have something you could show your investors. So you told them that on the final pre-season game of the year, Kim Silva would have the worst game of her career—always just a fraction of a second too slow, always a step behind. Nothing so obvious that it would seem like she had been drugged. Just a step down from a franchise player to a journeyman. From a Kim Silva to a Duane Chapman, you could say. You told them they could bet on it. And some of them did.

  “But you didn’t know the box of supplements Labram sent dated to be used last Sunday—the box you doctored—was given to Chapman by Silva. She used the remainder of her previous week’s box of supplements. There are always more sent than the Hilketa athletes use. And the precise mix you used for Silva—designed for her body and for her metabolism and her own brain—sent Chapman’s brain into overdrive. It killed him while Silva was having one of the best games of her career.”