by Matt Richtel
I look up and see Grandma, and so does he.
“I raked his eyes,” she says.
It dawns one me that Grandma came up behind the guard and ripped her hands and fingernails across his face.
He looks incredulous. And then she pulls her foot back, and she kicks the guard in the balls. It’s not very hard, but the surprise factor is huge.
Then she drops into a geriatric version of defensive karate crouch.
Under almost any other circumstance, it would be the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.
“Old lady, I’ll . . .” the guard says.
He steps toward her and I hit him square in the back of the head with the flashlight. He crumples. I drop the weapon and take a step away, then pause and lean down over him. He’s moaning. He’s not mortally wounded by any stretch. But it’s going to take him a few minutes to get his bearings.
I snag Grandma, practically sweeping her in the air.
We rush to the stairwell.
Remarkably, we make it down the stairs and out a side door without capture.
Breathless, we get to our car and drive from the lot, just as a cadre of security guards enters the building.
Ten minutes later, we’re parked in the lot of a chain grocery store, hidden among many cars, sandwiched between a minivan and a roadster. If any of the Biogen guards suspected us and our departing Toyota, they either didn’t act or move quickly enough.
I look at Grandma. Her hands are folded in front of her and she’s looking at me.
“I’m angry with you, Nathaniel.”
“With me?”
“You don’t visit me as often as you should. I’m sorry to speak like this, but we were very good friends when I was younger, when we were both younger, and I don’t think we see each other that often. I know you’re very busy, but it would be nice if we could spend some time together.”
“Grandma, do you remember what just happened? At the office? Do you remember the fight?”
“A man was going to hit your head. You have to protect them from getting inside your head.”
“A fight. You saved us. You were amazing. You were tough, and strong, and instinctual. Holy shit. I was saved by my eighty-five-year-old grandmother.”
“My hand hurts.”
I reach for it. Her fragile skin is unbroken. I prod gently at the bones beneath her fingertips and she winces only slightly. No fractures; maybe ultimately a bruise.
“Unbelievable,” I say. “Grandma, do you remember The Karate Kid?”
“What?”
“You’re the Karate Curmudgeon.”
“Okay.”
“It’s a joke,” I say. “I . . .”
I pause mid-sentence. I’m struck by something Grandma uttered a few moments earlier. She said: “You have to protect them from getting inside your head.” She didn’t say: “You have to protect your head.” That would be the phrase.
“They’ve gotten inside your head,” I say.
“If you’d visit me more, we’d be making more sense to one another. We’d be speaking the same language.”
“Grandma, I’ll try to do better.”
But even at that moment, I’m not totally invested in the conversation. I’m lost in an idea about what’s going on, my first sense of the nature of the bizarre conspiracy we’ve stumbled into, and how Grandma might be involved.
Chapter 30
It’s an idea that seems utterly remarkable, almost totally absurd.
“It has something to do with Biogen—and something called Advanced Development and Memory 1.0. ADAM,” I say. “That sounds like software to me, a program of some kind. What does it have to do with you?”
“Nathaniel.” She wants to say something, but I can’t pause my train of thought to indulge her.
“They were observing you at the fake dentist’s office,” I say. I don’t want to say aloud what I really mean: They were experimenting with you, Grandma. In the radiology clinic below the dental offices, they were scanning your brain, using the MRI to look at images of it. They were studying your hippocampus. Why?
“Grandma, I’m just going to say it.”
“What?”
“They were fiddling with your memory.”
“I can’t remember things the way I used to.”
“Adrianna Pederson was in the middle of it, and she reached out to me. She knows what’s going on. Now she’s missing.”
“I feel like I’m watching Jeopardy,” Grandma says, and laughs. She feels like she’s made a joke.
“I know someone who can help me figure out whether I’m onto something—or losing my mind too.”
I pull my phone from a pocket.
“Grandma, have you heard of Henry Gustav Molaison?”
I dial. Grandma doesn’t answer my trivia question.
“He was the most famous amnesiac.”
He died near the end of 2008 after making a lifelong scientific contribution, all unbeknownst to him.
When he was in his twenties, in the 1950s, he underwent experimental surgery to stop terrible seizures. The surgery destroyed his hippocampi and, inadvertently, his short-term memory. He couldn’t remember a person he’d met minutes earlier.
He was famously nice, willing to participate in endless observation, which he did as a kind of petri-dish-in-residence at MIT. He was lucid, thoughtful, and able to communicate his experiences with researchers, even though he couldn’t register new memories. His brain was a veritable blank slate on which to study the science of memory.
I learned about him in medical school—no med student ever forgets H. M. (how he was known until his death)—and then read his obituary. Researchers learned from H. M. that there are two different kinds of memory: a mental one and a physical one. Intellectually, H. M. could retain no new information. But physically, he could learn tasks. For instance, he learned to draw, and his skills grew over time, suggesting his memory for physical tasks remained intact.
This is partly what prompts me to call Grandma’s neurologist. H. M. showed that such memory bifurcation is possible. But what doesn’t make sense is how markedly Grandma’s physical and intellectual experiences are diverging.
“You not only remember karate. You’re adroit and able,” I say to Grandma as Pete’s cell phone rings.
“Okay.”
Pete finally answers. “Hello.”
“Dr. Laramer. Pete. It’s Nat Idle.”
“Is everything okay with your grandmother?”
“No. I mean, her decline has been so precipitous.”
“Where are you, Nat?”
“Listen. It’s not normal.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Is there evidence in the literature of highly accelerated cases of dementia, unusually rapid deterioration? Memory loss at hyper-speed.”
“As I told you, trauma can exacerbate memory loss.”
“No. Not something so . . . organic,” I say, emphatically. “I’m thinking about drugs, or, I don’t know, maybe some kind of technology that hastens decay of the hippocampus.”
“Whoa. Stop.”
“What?”
“Listen to yourself. You sound like the people who come into my office caring for a loved one who has dementia. This is a difficult time.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nat.”
“Sorry, Pete. Something is not right.”
He sighs. “May I posit a theory?”
“Please.”
“You’re involved in some story, an investigation, not getting enough sleep. I’ve heard how . . . excitable you can be when the muse hits. I respect that. You’re creative. There’s a colloquial word for it: ebullience. You’re not hypo-manic, but just energetic. It’s not bad, but it can color your perspective.”
“Thanks,” just shy of exasperated. I’m not looking for a theory about me. “You’re sure there’s nothing—no deep brain scanning technology, or . . . I don’t know what? Nothing that might speed dementia.”
“Where are you?” His voice sounds grave.
“South San Francisco. In the car.”
“Is Lane with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you returning her to the assisted-living home?”
“No, we’re . . .” I pause. “Why do you ask?”
“Bluntly, she needs to be getting the proper care.”
“I . . .”
He cuts me off. “You and I both know you’ve got a penchant for the dramatic. You’re a storyteller. Good for you. But whatever you’re doing now—whatever wide-eyed ideas you have about your grandmother, while understandable, should not divert from her care. You must get her someplace safe.”
I sigh. I want to yell at him, get him to address my questions. Earlier he told me to get her out of her environment, now he wants me to put her back in it. Why contradict himself, or change his counsel?
Regardless, part of me knows he’s right—about getting Grandma into a safe setting. The Witch said so too. Is Lane my ward or my pawn?
“If you don’t want to take her to the home, bring her to me and let me examine her,” he says. “Let me make sure she’s okay—and I can suggest where you might take her.”
“Really?”
“You’re a family friend. How about this afternoon?”
“Let me think about it.”
He pauses.
“I’ll come to you,” he says.
“Pardon?”
“I’ll come get your grandmother. I’ll take care of her for a few days if that’s what it takes.”
I want to reach through the phone and strangle the patronizing ape. He must really think me incompetent.
“I’ll call later,” I say. And I hang up.
It’s 1:20 p.m. We’ve got a little more than four hours before I pick up Grandma’s care file from Betty Lou.
We’re still parked at the grocery store. We walk inside and buy macaroni salad from the deli, sharing it while we sit together back in the front seat.
“I’m glad they invented this food. It’s yummy,” she says.
I smile. “Time to visit a farm,” I say between bites.
“With cows?”
“Servers.”
Chapter 31
I drive toward the address listed on a piece of paper that sits in my lap, the address I pulled from Adrianna’s office, the only clue I’ve got to go on. This is where we’ll find the computers associated with Biogen, ADAM, the Advanced Life Computing department—whatever the hell any of that is.
The phone rings. I answer.
“It’s me,” responds a male voice. Bullseye. He never calls; he hates the phone.
“You cracked the thumb drive?” I ask.
“Couldn’t do it. Tried everything.”
I digest the disappointment. “Will you try one more thing for me?”
I glance at the sheet of paper, though by now I’ve memorized the information. I tell Bullseye that I suspect the user name might be some variation of one of the following: Lulu Adrianna Pederson, or LAPederson, or maybe ADAM1.0, or Biogen. The password, I say, could be some version of Newton—with various different spellings.
“Bullseye, it could be—I’ll spell it out: ‘N-e-w-t–0-n–1–2–3.’ ”
“I’ll call you back,” Bullseye says. He sounds more excited than I’ve heard him in years.
Before I can hang up, Samantha takes the phone.
“Are you still with Lane?” she asks.
“Yep.”
“Is there any way around that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I dreamed about you last night. The two of you were standing in the parking lot at Disneyland. You were trying to take her inside, and she wanted to stay in the car,” she says. “It’s a message.”
“I get it.”
“You’re like a brother to me, Nathaniel.”
“Okay.”
“So please don’t take this wrong. I just wish you wouldn’t drag your grandmother around on one of your treks. Take her home—to her retirement home.”
“I gotta go, Sam. Grandma’s doing just fine.”
We hang up.
We’ve arrived at an industrial building located in a desolate cul-de-sac a few blocks off Highway 101—the thoroughfare that connects San Francisco to everything south of it.
The single-story beige building has a corrugated roof and tinted windows with bars on them. No signs on the building. No signs of life. Feels like industrial storage. We park in back in an empty lot.
Grandma’s fiddling with her cell phone. Not playing, just looking at the screen and pushing on the buttons.
“Do you want to wait here?”
“I’d like to see Harry,” she responds, without looking up.
“Soon enough,” I say. “I’m back in five.”
In front, I pull on the cool handle of the thick metal door. It’s locked. Next to the door is a keypad. Into the keypad, I type: “Newt0n123.” I hear a click. I pull down on the door handle. It opens.
The first thing I notice is the low noise and the cool air; it’s the hum and lower temperature emitted by an air-conditioning system used to cool a gaggle of servers.
My eyes adjust to low light. I look across a relatively small room—perhaps four times the size of my apartment. It has a high ceiling and a smooth concrete floor. In its center are rows of metal racks holding uniform square boxes. It’s a dazzling array of computing power.
Along the wall where I’ve entered stands another set of racks. On them sit two dozen monitors. Page after page of text scrolls rapidly down the screens.
These servers and monitors form some sort of nerve center.
But it’s the human that is of the most interest to me.
He sits across the room at a metal desk, his back to me. He wears a gray hooded sweatshirt. He fiddles with a small square object.
“Hello, Mr. Idle,” he says without turning around.
“You drive a Prius,” I say.
He starts to turn. “Our dependence on foreign oil is bad for our sovereignty. Besides, gas is expensive. And the Prius has nice trunk space to store rifles.”
Staring at me is a ruddy face, a few years older than me, or aged poorly or baked by years in the sun, thick jaw, big shoulders, doughy nose that’s been broken more than once. He’s got an edgy toughness men instantly respect and some women wouldn’t appreciate.
“What’s your title at Biogen? Chief Mauling Officer?”
“Guess again.”
He’s got a mild accent. English? Australian?
I divert my eyes from him so that I can look at the servers. On the side of the racks there is a sign with initials: “HMC.” I’ve seen the initials before—on the piece of paper I took from Adrianna’s office.
“I get it,” I say.
“I doubt that.”
“Human Memory Crusade.”
He cocks his head to the side.
“You’re recording people’s memories. You’re recording my grandmother’s memories. You’re storing them here. Why?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Would it be easier if I asked true/false questions?”
“Sure.”
“You’re studying the pace at which people lose their memories.”
“True.”
“You are?” I surprise myself sometimes.
“Sounds very sinister, doesn’t it? Recording people’s stories. Alert the Marines.”
“Vince is involved? And the nursing home?”
He stops tinkering with his box
“You’re getting warmer.”
I pull out my phone.
“I’m calling the police.”
“I wouldn’t. Listen. We made a mistake. We were wrong.”
“We?”
He’s got my attention. He goes back to tinkering.
“We want to get the truth out of her as much as you do. We need the truth. Without sounding too dramatic, it has major national security implications,” he says. “We thought you w
ere going to be able to help us get the information out of her head.
“Adrianna?”
“But you didn’t come through. So we’ll get it from her ourselves.”
“Her?” I repeat.
He shakes his head without looking up.
“What’re you working on?” I ask. It strikes me he’s stringing me along, stalling for time. Maybe he’s erasing some evidence.
“Mr. Idle, if I were you, I’d be wary of trusting anyone—your family members, your closest friends, lovers, the police. Anyone. People have a way of looking out for themselves, even the ones you share your secrets with—especially them.”
“My grandmother?”
“Like I said, you’re getting warmer.”
He looks up and at the monitors behind me showing scrolling text. Periodically, a word pops out and takes up a quarter of a screen in large font. On one monitor, I happen to see the word “Cadillac.” On another, the words “butter churn.”
On the top right edge of each monitor is an image of the globe. Within each image, a red dot located in a different spot within the globe.
“You’re experimenting around the country, around the world.”
He looks down and fiddles intently with the box in his hand. His eyes fall to the ground. He looks at a wire that extends from the small object he’s holding to the servers.
“You’re not just warm. You’re hot,” he says.
“This thing is everywhere.”
“You’re about to get scorching.”
He presses a button on the box he’s holding. He stands, walks away from me, towards the back of the room. I take a step to follow.
The servers and the monitors explode. I feel intense heat. My phone flies from my grasp. I picture Grandma, sitting alone in the car, vulnerable, keeping some great truth.
Surrounded by fire, I grow woozy, then succumb.
Chapter 32
“Grandpa looks like a retard.”
“That’s a horrible word, and keep your voice down,” Grandma says but I can’t tell if she’s really upset.
“He’s flailing his arms around like a gorilla.”
Now she laughs. She whispers: “Now ‘flailing’—that’s a good word.”