End of Secrets

by Ryan Quinn

  “Exactly. That was the paradox Bolívar faced with Gnos.is from the start: how to make a worthy idea popular without compromising it in order to appeal to a lower and lower common denominator. Canyon understood that the problem with Gnos.is wasn’t in the coding or with any other technology issue. It was a human problem. Bolívar might be a genius at designing the code, but he couldn’t control how artists and their audiences and people seeking out news would decide to use Gnos.is. Canyon, though—his passion is manipulating human behavior.”

  “The stunts,” Kera said, beginning to see where this was headed.

  “The what?”

  “Stunts. That’s what Bolívar called them. Marybelle Pickett’s stolen paintings, for example.” She paused to allow a few more pieces to fall into place. “And the artists disappearing. The whole thing is an advertising gimmick.”

  “Sort of,” Jones said. “On the surface, anyway. Canyon began to develop his plan without even telling Bolívar what he was doing. He figured they’d argued about it plenty in college and got nowhere. He wasn’t going to do that again. Instead, he was just going to make it happen. So first, Canyon approached Caroline Mullen, a young lawyer he’d met through a friend, looking for advice about how one might minimize the legal fallout of faking a suicide or simply disappearing. Mullen, it turned out, was much more receptive to Canyon’s plan than he’d expected. She wanted in, and she wanted to go first, to see if it could be done.”

  “Wait. What about It? It’s art had already begun appearing anonymously before Caroline Mullen disappeared.”

  Jones shrugged. “I know. I asked him that. Canyon wouldn’t talk about It.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He just wouldn’t. All he said was that It would remain anonymous, even after the other artists rejoin society.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I imagine they’ll each decide on their own when the time feels right. There’s no big hurry, I guess. These artists have had more attention paid to their work today than they might have hoped to have in their entire lifetimes. And they don’t have ONE execs butting in with the latest data-driven edits that might help them reach a bigger, dumber audience.”

  Kera shook her head. “But what if that’s only temporary? They don’t know who they’re dealing with. Canyon, these artists, even Bolívar—they’re no match for ONE. Especially now that ONE knows they’re alive and well and profiting off their art without ONE getting its cut. This isn’t a game for ONE. Look what they did to Parker.”

  Jones nodded. He seemed aware that this was the first time she had spoken of Parker since her return to work.

  “OK,” she said, changing the subject quickly, “so the artists start disappearing. When did Bolívar get on board with this plan? He told me himself he wasn’t a fan of Canyon’s previous stunts, like the stolen paintings.”

  Jones smiled. “Canyon said you might ask that. He said you were there on the night he approached Bolívar.”

  “No, that isn’t possible,” Kera said. But then she thought about it and saw that it was.

  “The man on the balcony,” she said. After the America screening. Could that have been Canyon? Kera thought of the evening, weeks before, when Bolívar had rejoined her looking like he’d seen a ghost after talking to the man on that balcony. For a few moments, Kera permitted herself to think of the evening she’d spent in Bolívar’s apartment. His strange behavior made more sense now. All but the deal for ONE to acquire Alegría. “Canyon told you all this? Just now?”

  “Yes. He approached me at my condo. We would have talked longer, but I told him I had to meet you. Do you want another?”

  Kera looked down at her glass. It was empty, as was his, though she hardly remembered drinking.

  They were silent while the bartender worked. When he put drinks in front of them and retreated out of earshot, she spoke again.

  “Did you get them?”

  Jones’s eyes widened at her mention of the Hawk files.

  “What is it? Was there a problem?”

  In their previous discussions, Jones had explained that he’d already located the most sensitive files that existed on Hawk’s servers. Given his firing from the NSA, Hawk had been smart enough not to include Jones in the design of Hawk’s cybersecurity systems. But whoever had been charged with protecting Hawk’s data was no match for Jones, who had found it relatively easy to access Gabby’s and Branagh’s e-mail accounts and the contracts between Hawk and ONE. The real risk was making copies of all these sensitive files without sending up any red flags. Which is why he’d waited until the last possible moment.

  “No. The files were on the servers just where I expected them. And the copies I made are now in a bank box near the office. It’s just—there’s more than what I’d been aware of before.” He lowered his voice. “It goes back to the CIA, Kera.”

  “What does?”

  “The corruption. There are e-mails between Gabby and a contact at CIA. Recent e-mails.”

  “Who at CIA?”

  “Some guy named Bright. That mean anything to you?”

  “Lionel,” Kera said. It was a whisper. Very slowly, she took a sip of the scotch. The ice cube made the liquid cool against her tongue, but it felt powerfully warm when it hit her chest. By the time she set the glass down, a slight smile had spread across her lips. “I think that’s a good sign. I’d say it means he’s keeping contact with Gabby, stringing her along until he can squeeze her into a corner.”

  “No, Kera. Wait till you see these e-mails. Hawk has leverage over Langley. If anything goes wrong, Hawk can put all the responsibility back on the agency.”

  Kera shook her head. “No. Lionel’s smart. He’s just drawing them in to see what they’re capable of. When we turn all of this over to him, he’ll have enough to bring them down.”

  He eyed her. “So that’s your plan? Turn all of this over to the CIA?”

  “Isn’t that what we discussed?”

  “Yes, before we had evidence that they were involved.”

  “Look, I know that’s what this looks like. But I trust Lionel. He’s doing this for a reason,” Kera said. “What else would we do with the files? We don’t have anyone else to turn them over to.”

  “Sure we do,” Jones said. “Gnos.is.”

  She studied him for any sign that he was joking, but found none. “You want to make all of this public? Jones, no. Don’t you see what that would do?”

  “Yes, it would destroy ONE and Hawk, and it would expose every foreign intelligence agency that ONE is selling data to.”

  “And we’d also be breaking espionage laws that come with some very ugly consequences. Leaking classified files to the press? That’s jail time or worse, Jones.”

  “Only if we’re around to stand trial.”

  “What, we’re going to flee? Go on the run while our own government calls us traitors? That’s crazy.”

  “Is it?” he said. She could see that he was serious. It frightened her. “I’ve made up my mind, Kera. I’m taking this job with Gnos.is. That means I’m going underground. And my conscience will be clear. With what we’re doing here, stopping Hawk and ONE, no one has any right to question our patriotism.”

  “Well, if we give these files to the press, that’s exactly what they’re going to do.”

  “Let them.”

  “Give me a chance first, Jones. One chance. I’ll have what Bradley gives me tomorrow and what you’ve pulled out of Hawk. Let me take that to Lionel and give him a chance to do this the right way. Then we can have a clear conscience—and also have a chance of getting our lives back.”

  He exhaled. “You still want to go back to the agency, don’t you? After all this.”

  She was quiet for a long moment. She realized that she hadn’t really known how much she wanted it until just now. Finally she nodded. “I don’t know how to do anything else, Jones.”

  FIFTY-NINE

  Jalen West, alone in the back of a limousine, composed music in h
is head. He was more in his head, really, than he was in any physical place. The vehicle’s windows were tinted and his eyes were half- closed, so at first when he became aware of the familiar, irregular flashes that signaled a waiting mob of teenagers, he thought little of it. A few seconds later, though, when he straightened and prepared to exit the limo, he realized something unusual. There was a crowd, but they were not waiting for him. The band of excited onlookers was huddled across the street, their heads tipped back. Jalen ducked toward the window to peer up through the glass.

  And then he saw it. Mounted high on the corner of a building was a large LED billboard, the kind that could be programmed to cycle through a variety of advertisements. The screen was lit, but not with an ad. Not exactly. Jalen thought first of an ad, but then, looking closer, he could see it was something else—a swimming collage of many ads, or recognizable components of them, but deconstructed in a way that excluded any specific product or brand. The result was a meld of stunning landscapes, perfect flesh, pleasant colors, and other appealing photography that warped slowly, hypnotically, in and out of one another.

  Jalen watched with his face pressed up against the glass until the limo door was pulled open and the crushing noise from the street trespassed into his world. He hopped out of the vehicle and turned to look up at the video collage. Some of the onlookers were asking each other what it was for, since there was no brand or product attached. But Jalen didn’t wonder that. He knew what it was for: itself.

  “There’s Jalen West!” someone shouted.

  Jalen stayed standing beside the limo’s open door, gazing at the billboard. He could not pull his eyes from the screen. It was not until the crowd swelled around him and he could feel people tugging on his clothes that he blinked and turned to face the adoring strangers. He did not dislike moments like this. It felt good to be so wanted. He had to admit, with a twinge of shame, that it never got old, even at times like tonight when his mood was down.

  He’d just come from dinner with a group of anxious ONE executives who had spent the meal describing to him a new plan to involve fans in the development of beats and lyrics for his next album. Just wait, they told him. Crowd-sourced collaboration between artists and fans was the future of the music industry—of all entertainment. He should feel lucky, they seemed to be saying. They had chosen him. They were going to dedicate a healthy chunk of the company’s resources to perfecting him in the eyes of his audience.

  He’d sat patiently through the meal, waiting for any of them to inquire about what he was working on or how he thought his next album should sound. It never happened. It was possible that the executives were right, Jalen had thought glumly on the limo ride back to his hotel. But if they were, he didn’t think he wanted to be a part of that future.

  He waved to the assembled fans and signed autographs, wondering briefly what the collective input of these teenagers would sound like. What beats and lyrics did the ONE executives expect them to create? And why did they assume that his fans would want to hear that more than the music he could create on his own?

  He felt a slight tug on his jacket, which he’d tucked under his arm while he signed digital signatures on smartphone screens.

  “May I take this up to your room, Mr. West?”

  He turned to face a bellhop who had stepped forward from the hotel’s entrance. Except that it was not a bellhop. It was Charlie Canyon dressed as one. Jalen felt his heart stop and then race to catch up. His breath came back a long second later.

  “What are you—?” he tried to say, but Charlie cut him off with a look.

  “Your jacket? Shall I hang it in your room for you?”

  “Of course,” he whispered, and gave Charlie the room number and key card. When he’d signed several more autographs than he thought he could stand, he pushed through the lobby’s revolving door and rode the elevator to the top floor. He entered the suite to find Charlie leaning against the bar, the city spread out behind him through the window.

  “They told me you’d drowned.”

  “I’m a good swimmer.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I always see you when you come to New York. I wouldn’t have missed—”

  “Don’t talk,” Jalen said, and, with some urgency, he helped Charlie out of the bellhop outfit.

  When they finished and had showered, they lay together on the couch under a blanket. They were reclined so that Jalen’s face was pressed against Charlie’s chest. Charlie was holding him, and when they weren’t talking, Jalen could hear the double thump of his heart, like a pair of cannons going off underwater somewhere far away.

  “Are you back now?” Jalen said.

  “No. Not till it’s over.”

  “Till what’s over?”

  After a pause, Charlie said, “You’ve seen the new Gnos.is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you thought about what it could do for your music?”

  Jalen didn’t respond. That was the first thing he’d thought of after the site had relaunched. The new Gnos.is had made sense to him immediately. It was a service for artists and the people who found art meaningful—not a business for any middleman between them. Consumers paid for the content they consumed, and that revenue went to the artists, who had control over every aspect of their work. There was no demand made on anyone that profits must expand year after year. Some of the music, writing, and art only connected with a tiny audience; some had already connected with millions of individual consumers. The connections mattered, not the numbers. It was like something Jalen had always known, but had not had the words to describe. It had never occurred to him, until he saw it materialize on the screen, that other people wanted that too.

  “Has ONE explained to you what they want to do with your next album?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes. That seems to be all they want to talk about. What’s that got to do with you disappearing?”

  “Everything.” Charlie got up suddenly and walked to the window. He put his forehead to the glass so that he could look down toward the street. Far below, the colors from the billboard danced across the crowd of onlookers.

  “You saw the billboard?” Jalen asked.

  Charlie nodded but didn’t turn around. He was watching the crowd below. It was still growing. “He’s the only person I’ve ever known as dedicated to their art as you are.”

  Jalen sat up, supporting himself on his elbows. “You know him? It?”

  “His name is Connor,” Charlie said. “We went to college together. Our senior year there was a fire in the student art gallery, and there was some evidence that he’d started it. They said he’d killed himself. Arson-suicide, if you can believe that. I didn’t, of course, but there wasn’t a better explanation. He was gone.” Charlie turned toward Jalen. “And then two years ago I came across a billboard in SoHo that had been painted over in a way that I had only seen once before. I knew it was him. I had always loved his art, but this was different. To have it vanish, to think that it was gone forever, and then to have it back—that was very powerful. It made me look at his art differently. And not just me. Other people were looking too. That’s what gave me the idea.”

  “The disappearing artists,” Jalen said softly. Charlie nodded. “But doing it that way, doesn’t it just turn it into a marketing gimmick?”

  When Charlie smiled, his eyes flared with excitement. “Everything else that matters in our culture is peddled with marketing gimmicks. Why not this?”

  “Because it requires you to stoop to their level.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing? I think I’m just communicating in the common language. Attention-grabbing gimmicks are the way our culture conducts its public discourse, and because of that we have proven ourselves capable of devising an infinite number of ways to draw people’s attention. The danger is that there are fewer and fewer things worthy of drawing people’s attention to. I want to give those things their due.”

  “But aren’t you just manipulating people�
��s emotions?”

  “Of course,” Charlie said. “Manipulating emotions is the most important function of meaningful art. We cannot grow unless we invest our emotions in an idea. Without emotion, nothing takes hold. I think you know that better than anyone. Music is the most powerful manipulator of emotions that humans have ever created. And you’re a master at it.”

  He stepped toward Jalen, who was still reclined on the couch, and ran a hand down the back of his neck. Jalen was silent, thinking. Finally he said, “So now what?”

  “You’ve thought about what Gnos.is could do for your music?” Charlie asked again.

  This time Jalen nodded.

  Charlie looked at him and said, “Come with me.”

  And to Jalen West it sounded like a song.

  SIXTY

  Though she’d awakened before dawn, too wired to fall back asleep, Kera was careful to arrive at the Hawk offices at her usual time. It had been a month since Gabby had made her an agent and given her access to the Control Room. Kera could remember the private exhilaration she used to feel each time she cleared the retinal scanner, heard the soft click of the lock, and pushed through the doors into the electric din of activity beyond. That feeling had been pride. Now her heart skipped anxiously as she went through the motions.

  Kera and Jones didn’t speak to each other all morning except for a few benign exchanges related to the ATLANTIS case. Kera’s attention was divided between keeping up the appearance of work and watching the time. She had calculated that it would take her fifteen minutes to walk to the meeting spot Travis Bradley had picked out in Central Park. That meant that she would drop everything and leave no later than 11:45 AM.

  At 11:20 AM two Hawk security guards came through the Control Room door. When Kera looked over at them, the nearer of the guards tapped his partner’s arm. Then they approached.

  “Kera Mersal?” one of the guards asked. “Can you come with us? Deputy Director di Palma would like a word.”

  “Can it wait? I’m in the middle of something important.”