Mind Games

by Alan Brudner

  My expression told her she was right on the money.

  "But Avery Kord has other motives," she continued. "He wants and needs technology. But he has little long-term use for people. Especially people he's pissed at and scared of."

  "Schuyler?"

  She sipped some coffee and reached across the table to clasp my hands in hers. She held them tightly as her eyes teared and opened wider.

  "Sky was puttering around on his computer. Hacking into old police and news files, trying to find info about Justin Webb."

  I had no idea who she meant, but Scarlett read my mind.

  "Kord's original partner. When Cybronics was just a small unknown two-man partnership."

  "The guy who—"

  "Was shot to death in a park? Just two months before Cybronics landed the biggest supply contract on the planet? Yeah, that Justin Webb."

  We paused and I pulled my hands away from Scarlett's so the waitress could refill our cups. A tremor in her criss-cross veined hand rattled the cups as she poured.

  "Why would Sky have been researching that old news?" I asked, whispering, more self-conscious about our conversation.

  "Because they never found out who did it."

  "I know, Scarlett, but they determined it wasn't Kord."

  She nodded. "Well, Sky was curious anyway. Why wouldn't he be? Avery Kord's his idol, there's still this lingering doubt, it's kind of a puzzle. Sky probably figured Avery'd love him if he solved it."

  "Makes some sense."

  "Except that Avery Kord went ballistic when he found out. Threw a plastic box of diskettes that missed Sky's eye by half an inch. Left a nice little streak on his temple. He screamed at Sky never to hack again or Sky'd be history."

  "Hacking is illegal, isn't it?"

  "Like jaywalking. But lots of them do it, Mr. Lightman. I've seen Avery Kord do it himself. I don't think Avery Kord was really pissed off about the hacking. What got him was the subject matter. He didn't want anybody—" She fiddled with the handle of her cup, spilling a bit of coffee over the edge. "He's a liar, Mister Lightman. A dangerous liar."

  I felt the blood rush out of my head, my arms, my hands, into my stomach, where it made me want to throw up.

  "You think he'd hurt Sky?" I heard my voice ask from somewhere that seemed far away.

  Scarlett's lips tightened and creased and she closed her eyes. The tension she was feeling was obvious. But she wanted to help my son, so she pushed herself.

  "I don't know exactly what Sky's project is, Mr. Lightman," she said, opening her eyes after a few words were out. "But I know he's defending against something, a program. A dangerous one. And the person creating it is a bona fide genius."

  "So he's in his element," I added with a smile.

  "And that's the problem. This other person, a woman, Katie's her name, the one creating the program, she's having second thoughts. She knows it's dangerous, more powerful than she imagined, and she wants out. But Kord won't let her."

  "Why doesn't she just quit?"

  "She's a few months away from getting her stock in the company. A million dollars worth of her options vest. She comes from a poor family. Destitute. She grew up in a trailer in Orlando with a single mother who's not well. She needs the money."

  "Sounds terrible."

  "But suppose she gets up the courage to leave. Kord won't just let her project die."

  "So her team will keep it going?"

  "Her team's full of techies who can execute someone else's designs. They're all gurus, but not geniuses. There's only one other truly gifted braniac who understands how the program works."

  I felt as if someone had just prodded me out of a nap with a buzzsaw.

  "You talking about Sky?" I asked, as if there could be some other answer.

  "Who do you think?" Scarlett stared straight into my eyes.

  "Look, Sky can always quit. His contract term is ending. We're not poor and I'm not sick, like that woman's mother." I made a loose fist and knocked lightly on the table. "With his talents—"

  "I know Avery Kord, Mr. Lightman. He's a paranoid megalo." She knit her eyebrows. "He snuffs out competitors like candles. Do you really think he's about to give Schuyler a million dollars in stock and then risk letting him leave Cybronics? When Schuyler could go to work for a competitor and give away trade secrets? Or, God forbid, go to the government and rat about everything he's learned about that company? Just when Congress is considering whether to break Cybronics up into little pieces? Do you?"

  "So what are you saying, Scarlett? I had the sense even the CIA might know about the program, that part of it is some kind of top secret project for the government. That gave me some comfort." My voice was still out of my control, and higher than it was supposed to sound. I felt cold sweat on the back of my neck. I sipped some of my coffee but had trouble swallowing it.

  "I'm sure Schuyler believes whatever crap Avery Kord's serving up, Mr. Lightman." Scarlett's face turned chalky and she shook her head. "And if the government wants to pay billions for something, I'm sure Avery Kord would be happy to play his part in increasing the national debt. Or if he's got something the government wants, maybe he hopes to use it as a bargaining chip in the investigation." She dabbed her mouth with a cloth napkin, leaving a red-streaked lip gloss decoration that matched the one on her cup. Scarlett stood up but stayed in her place at the table, apparently waiting for me to rise as well. When I did, I couldn't help but notice her swollen abdomen, and she knew I noticed.

  "After Sky and I broke up, Mister Lightman, I was extremely depressed. That's when I first met the famous Avery Kord in the flesh." She looked at the floor, her expression glum, and patted her belly with both hands. "I did something really stupid. And kept doing it for months."

  I didn't need or ask for further explanation. But I suddenly understood both why she had a lot of information and why her interpretation of it might be skewed. Or even irrational.

  "Come on," she said, her voice perking up. "Schuyler and his computer crowd should still be at Saint Andrew's Church. They've rented the basement for their meetings."

  I slid three dollars under my half-empty cup of coffee. Then I noticed the waitress looking into a compact mirror and patting her deeply-lined cheeks with powder. Her white hair was teased up into cotton candy, but had gotten so thin it left the outline of her scalp visible. She looked like she could be the grandmother of one of the smiling Miss Subways in the pictures.

  I slipped the singles back into my wallet and left a ten instead. Then I followed Scarlett out the door.

  Chapter 9

  I lay down in the alley to look through a grimy ground-level window with a downward view into the basement of Saint Andrew's Church. I wanted to wipe the window clean with a handkerchief, but decided that might get me noticed.

  The room was sparsely furnished, with a row of unfolded aluminum chairs that looked well-suited for picnics or Bingo, long wood banquet tables with aluminum legs, and nothing on the walls. It was dimly lit. What I could make out were the backs of twelve people—ten men and two women, I thought, but who could really tell?—sitting in a semicircle on a dirty floor, ignoring the chairs, facing an open banquet table that had been set with a paper tablecloth, a dozen full glasses of wine and a computer monitor. The group was dressed informally, in t-shirts and sweatshirts and plaid flannel work shirts with the tails out, and more than a few pairs of white sneakers. A few also wore earrings that I could see sparkling even from far away, reflecting pinpoints of light from the image displayed on the monitor: the face of Avery Kord. The screen was large and bright. Kord's oversized tortoise shell rims occupied most of it. His lineless face was surrounded by a halo of white against a jet black background t hat stood out even against the darkened room.

  I couldn't hear what Kord was saying. Scarlett looked at me and I shook my head.

  Scarlett walked briskly into the Church and I stood up and followed her through its portals. We stayed upstairs in the dark. She led me past the pews and up f
ront, into the sanctuary. Knee-high, on a back wall, past the altar and a life-sized crucifix, she pointed out a grating that covered an airshaft. I knelt and put my ear beside it. I strained to hear what the image of Kord was saying. I pressed my ear harder against the grating.

  "That about wraps it up," I heard. Kord spoke without a discernible accent, a bit quickly, his pace and tone radiating enthusiasm. If not for the adolescent cracking of his voice, his speech could have been coming from any investment banker or lawyer at Terrell Finch.

  "Because of your extraordinary intelligence and competence, each of you has been chosen to be a special part of our mission at Cybronics. Since you live in different parts of the country, I wanted you to have this chance to meet and socialize with each other. You might think my rule that we all use screen names silly, but it protects all of us and I hope you followed it. I also hope you enjoyed being in New York, and wish I could have joined you. As you know, I am happy that each of you has met your projected deadlines for initial completion. These were not easy tasks. You are investments that are beginning to show returns! I am sure you look forward, as I do, to successful testing of each of your individual projects over the next two months. At some point, perhaps we'll reconvene."

  There was a moment of silence, followed by a choir of twelve voices, not quite in unison, chanting a mantra I had heard umpteen times on television commercials: "At Cybronics, we make life worth living." I could tell that the group members began to mill about; I heard some chatter and clinking of glasses.

  "Let's leave," I whispered, as I rose back onto my feet. But when I looked around, I realized Scarlett and her fetus already had.

  Chapter 10

  "Scarlett phoned tonight," I shouted across the living room toward the front door after I heard it open and close. Eliza would have confronted the matter head-on, immediately, but it just wasn't my style to make waves. My son trusted me and I didn't want to risk that trust. Particularly not after all we'd endured together. I'd work around slowly to the full truth.

  Sky shuffled in and sat on the couch across from my chair, under an old modernist painting Eliza had bought cheaply after the Met determined it was a fake Picasso. His cheeks were flushed.

  "Don't believe her, Dad," he said.

  "She seems worried about you. About how hard you're working. And all the pressure you're under."

  "You didn't tell—"

  "Absolutely not, Sky. I know how to keep a secret."

  He nodded but chose not to say anything. The resulting silence felt awkward. I decided to break it myself.

  "Tell me more about this group you keep meeting with."

  "It's just a bunch of the top employees of Cybronics. They work in software labs around the country designing things like chatterbots and digital agents and other things most people have never heard of."

  My face showed that I was in the clueless majority.

  Sky smiled. "Look, we got together a few times to talk computerese, Dad. Like those securities industry conferences you go to. At our level, there isn't a lot of opportunity for socializing or interchange."

  "Why here and not in Portland?"

  "So we wouldn't have to answer a lot of questions from other employees, Dad. Like where we were going or what we were doing. This involves some sensitive stuff."

  "What about your particular assignment?"

  "The subliminal suggestion program?"

  I nodded. "Any of the others working with you?"

  He shook his head. "Only one other woman. Working opposite me, not with me. She's the creator. I don't even know her name. She and I were given an idea. Like I told you, her job is to run with it to the goal line. My mission is to tackle her before she gets there."

  "And the others?"

  "I'm the only one from home base. Portland. I don't know the others' names, either, just some of their Net identities. Screen names like ScrooU and HamLet and InFobia. Most of them are working on pretty traditional stuff. Encryption, for example, so you can send messages or communicate through your laptop without anyone being able to decode or decipher it. Or anti-virus programs. In order to invent ways to fight off powerful computer viruses, you need powerful computer viruses; so some of the members are inventing the viruses in a virus creation laboratory. And ways to disguise them."

  Sky could obviously see the blank look on my face.

  "To enable them to infiltrate your computer, Dad. The viruses can't just walk in; even your basic firewall would keep them out, and cheap inoculation software would recognize and destroy them. They have to break in somehow. Sneak in through a back door. Or hide in another code, another program. One of the more famous methods for hiding viruses to infect a system is called a Trojan Horse. You can guess why."

  I nodded and couldn't suppress a grin, but I didn't want to drop the subject I had brought up.

  "What about your special assignment, Sky?"

  "Like I already told you, there's not much to say, Dad. They create, I defend. I try to find ways to detect code related to the program and dismantle it. They try to design improvements so I can't. And so it goes." He inhaled deeply, shifted on the couch and scratched the back of his neck as if a caterpillar had crawled under his collar. "To see how it works, I've tried doing a few minor things with the program. Even you were a bit of a Guinea pig."

  "I prefer to think of myself more as a crash test dummy."

  Sky laughed. "But that was easy, Dad. You were receptive, and naming the computer CHIP didn't offend you, so you did it. To be really effective, to be valuable, the program would have to be able to influence important decisions. That's what Avery Kord wants to both develop and destroy. Soon, it'll be time for some serious capacity testing. To see just how far it can push someone before it lets go, if there's no defense built into the system."

  "But I thought the plan was geared toward figuring out how to destroy it! To stop some competitor, like NanoSoft, from using it!"

  "That's the main plan, sure. But if it tests out, Dad, like I said, maybe it can be put to some good use for the country. Let's not forget the CIA. There's no way to know how to stop it without testing it."

  "How will it be tested, Sky?"

  He suddenly looked as if a quart of bleach had spilled under his forehead and was spreading its way through his skin and down his face.

  "Well? And what about these rumors—"

  "I won't be taking any more questions at this time," he said, waving me off, a politician at the end of a press conference. He stood up and ambled unsteadily toward the door. "Just don't listen to Scarlett. She's all screwed up. She's got, shall we say—" he hesitated—"maternal issues."

  "Does that have to do with the real reason you two split up, Sky?"

  "No way, Dad. It's like I told you. She's afraid of anything she doesn't instantly understand. She's been eating too many Chee-tos."

  Chapter 11

  He left the house in a plane-catching hurry with his backpack and his laptop, yelling promises out the yellow cab window that he'd call and send me CybroMail.

  I went back to Saint Andrew's Church to see what I could discover. Maybe a scrap of paper or a business card had been dropped and forgotten. Maybe a pastor or a priest could tell me the name of the party who had rented the basement. Maybe I just wanted to sit in a quiet pew and think.

  When I peeked through the window into the basement and saw the sparkle of one of those shiny half-moon earrings, my heart began doing the Macarena and my blood pressure felt like the Hoover Dam being funneled through a thimble.

  A woman sat near the table. She wore jeans and a t-shirt; from my distance, it looked like a Mickey Mouse decal covered most of the back. A bottle of detergent and a rag sat on the table where there had been wine bottles. The woman's laptop computer was on and although its screen was smaller and dimmer than the monitor I had seen there earlier, I could readily make out the face that appeared on it. They were having some kind of audiovisual conversation.

  I ran inside, past the crucifix and up
to the sanctuary, and pushed my ear so hard against the airshaft grate that it came unhinged. I held it in place and listened. The heavy smell of frankincense wafted my way, an odor that hadn't been there the first time, and I stretched my top lip downward and pressed it against my teeth in an effort to keep from sneezing.

  "Of course, you would never use it to hurt anyone, Katie," Avery Kord was saying, his voice tinny through the machine's small speakers. "Other than one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, perhaps. You're far too bright. And far too important to our future."

  "But what if the machine convinces him to do something irrational, Avery?" the woman replied. "What if he can't resist the subliminal suggestion program?"

  "That's why it's the best test, Katie," Kord said. "Because the CIA's ultimate target is an international terrorist, a Saddam Hussein or someone like him. So a single sacrifice toward reaching that goal would be justified. Don't you want to test the program with the ultimate challenge? You yourself devised the test."

  "Not exactly, Avery. What I explained to you was that it could best be tested by subliminally suggesting an idea to a person who absolutely, positively wouldn't carry out the suggestion. The more significant the subliminal suggestion, and the more hardened the person's resolve not to comply, the better the test."

  "Exactly what I said, Katie." Even without being able to see him, I knew the creep was smiling. "You designed the test. Your I.Q. is what, 210? It's certainly a lot higher than mine. Your idea is simply brilliant! But to be an effective test, we need a strong subject. A genius of your own caliber. Someone who would be virtually impossible to persuade."

  "It's crazy, Avery. I treated it like a game. Like Myst or something! I never meant for it to go so far that I have to come in here when we're done with our meetings and clean off our fingerprints. Who cares if Cybronics people met in this basement? I feel like a common criminal."