Gray Matter

by Gary Braver

  When her book was published, they parsed the entire text for key words and phrases. Then using a Boolean search engine, they scanned the Web for database matches to key word strings including the name George Orwell. In a process of elimination, one solitary record had multiple hits—the Web site of Mr. Joshua Blake who had included with his curriculum vitae a link to his doctoral thesis for perusal by interested scholars. It did not take long to realize that Vanessa Watts had lifted whole chunks from Mr. Blake.

  As the Porsche hummed its way up the coast, Malenko’s mind turned to the Whitmans. With the same degree of scrutiny they had investigated the husband’s financial dealings with Cape Ann Banking and Trust where he had filed a fallacious claim about the worth of SageSearch on his bank loan application. The other useful piece of information was that Whitman knew nothing about the wife’s TNT past or her guilt. To his mind, their son’s disabilities came up in the genetic dice roll. But not a clue how Mom had loaded them. All of which meant that he had some goods on each of the Whitmans.

  A little before one, Malenko turned onto Exit 7, which would take him to smaller routes that would eventually branch off to an ancient logging road that led to the compound.

  Camp Tarabec was nestled in the woods at the edge of Lake Tarabec, a large and private body of water with its own woodland island about a half-mile offshore. The place was Maine-idyllic, with neat log cabins, a central meeting ground, flagpole, playing fields, climbing apparatus, and a little beach which was barricaded a hundred yards offshore to keep swimmers and canoeists from wandering into deep water.

  Only seven years old, the camp was operated by a private organization founded and directed by Lucius Malenko. Although it was advertised as a summer camp for “special” kids, to those few in the know it was a “genius camp”—where gifted children went for in-depth, hands-on learning in disciplines from astronomy to zoology.

  It was a little after two when Malenko arrived, so it was “free time,” which meant that the kids were engaged in outdoor activities—canoeing, swimming, tennis or baseball, archery, et cetera. After that it was snacks and back inside to the computer labs or science projects. Because the children here were gifted, the counselors sometimes had to pry them away from their terminals or labs to go out and be physical. Malenko parked the Porsche and went into the main office.

  A boy about sixteen behind the reception desk smiled as Malenko entered. “Hey, Dr. M.”

  “Hello, Tommy. How’s the boy today?”

  “Pretty good. How’s the Red Menace? Still doing zero to sixty in five point eight?”

  “Only when the police aren’t looking. And it’s five point two.”

  “But who counts?” Tommy said and laughed.

  He had been coming to the camp for the last three summers, ever since his parents had him enhanced. They had been dissatisfied with his poor analytical skills, particularly with math and logic. At their wit’s end, they came all the way from Chicago to the Nova Children’s Center where they met Dr. Malenko. When all else failed, they put up an expensive summer home as collateral. Now Tommy was a sophomore math major at Cornell. He was also a computer wizard who taught compu lab here. It was he who had done the Boolean search that linked Vanessa Watts to Joshua Blake. Her own little Big Brother.

  He stepped into the main office behind the reception desk and said hello to Karl who managed the camp. He handed Malenko some mail. “Oliver’s waiting for you.”

  Malenko took his material and stepped back outside. On the baseball field across the way, two teams in red and black T-shirts were at play. At one end of the first-baseline bench, some second-stringers were at a laptop, probably working out the odds for a hit based on the batter’s record and pitcher’s ERA.

  Some kids in the tennis court across the dirt road saw him and waved. “Hi, Dr. M.,” one of the boys in white shouted. “How about a game?” The girl across the court waved at him.

  Malenko smiled and waved back. “Maybe some other time.”

  The boy’s name was Fabiano. He was the son of the Brazilian ambassador to the United States. Eight years ago he had an IQ of 75 and was a boarder at a school in New York City for the learning disabled. Today at sixteen, he was entering his sophomore year at Columbia with interests in astrophysics. And the young girl was interested in international law. As with all the Tarabec children, they would be getting the intensive exposure and training that would propel them toward their goals. Next week, for instance, they would be guests of astronomers at the observatory at the U. of Maine where they had use of the large reflector telescope.

  Malenko got back into the Porsche. Some of the kids hooted him on to peel out. That would not set a very good example, he thought, but he trounced the accelerator and lurched forward in a cloud of dirt. In the rearview mirror, the kids waved and cheered.

  Malenko pulled down a small dirt road to the water and into an old boathouse that also served as his garage. He parked, took his bags, and headed down to the dock.

  As Karl had said, Oliver was waiting in the boat, a long white twin-engine outboard. He took Malenko’s bags and started the engines. “You made good time.” Oliver removed the ropes.

  “Traffic was light.” Malenko took the passenger seat behind the windshield. Oliver maneuvered the boat through the little channel and around the floats that forged the barricade to the open water. In a few seconds, the big Mercury engines were cutting a wake to the island.

  Oliver Vines was a carryover from their NSA days—a onetime operative who had assisted Malenko in the enhancement project, which back then was known as “Project Headlight”—a dumb name, but that was governmental skulduggery for you. Once that was terminated, Oliver and Malenko went their separate ways until ten years ago when Malenko set up his private practice. What made Oliver particularly valuable were his connections—from former government ops to private investigators to small-time crooks. He also had a total lack of compunction about performing matters that made others squeamish. Like excessive exposure to radium, governments did that to people. But it also meant that he left no trails—such as that snatcher he had hired in Florida.

  Oliver had two passions—money and flying, the former he shared with his wife Vera, a former nurse’s aide who watched over the children. Of late, he had done considerable flying—little midnight excursions.

  As they rounded the eastern flank of the island, the blue and white DeHavilland Beaver came into view at its berth on the small dock just offshore from the compound. If the weather held, Oliver would make another run in the plane later that evening. And because he would mostly be over water, he needed a clear sky to fly.

  Oliver pulled the boat up to the dock then took one of Malenko’s shoulder bags as they climbed the dirt lane to the main building, a large brown structure that had once been a fishing and hunting lodge.

  Before he entered, Malenko waved to Vera who was in the backyard playground with some of the children. Oliver led him inside where they were met by Phillip who poured Malenko a cup of coffee he had just made. In spite of the fact they were brothers, Phillip looked nothing like Karl back at the camp. Phillip Moy, a former private investigator who had run afoul of the law, had been recruited by Oliver. Phillip was proficient at running background checks on people. He was also handy with machinery and computers, which made him very useful keeping things in operating condition. On occasion he worked with the kids or accompanied Oliver in the dirty work.

  “How’s Miss Amber doing?” Malenko asked, sipping his coffee.

  “A little dopey,” Phillip said.

  “Of course.”

  As with all the patients, she had been administered an IV containing a mild tranquilizer that diminished anxiety over being away from home. They had also given her cyclohexylamine, also known as Ketamine, an anesthetic that produced amnesia, effectively blotting out all recall of the enhancement procedure. It was a remarkable drug, almost one hundred percent effective.

  While Oliver took the bags upstairs to the bedroom, Male
nko followed Phillip down the main hallway to the door in the rear storage room off the kitchen. He unlocked it and the next door at the opposite end, and they descended the stairs to the cellar.

  They proceeded into the long bright tunnel that ran nearly a hundred feet under the backyard woods. At the far end was the operating room. Along the tunnel walls were windows spaced a dozen feet apart—one for each dormer. A dormer for each patient. The glass on the windows was thick and one-way visible, a reflecting surface on the obverse side giving the impression of a simple wall mirror, framed to complete the illusion. Because they were underground, the air was cooler and less humid than above. It was also filtered against dust and microbes.

  Malenko stopped at the first room and pulled up the blinds on the one-way glass.

  Inside was a little girl of six dressed in blue shorts and a white and blue pullover. He tapped the door lightly then let himself in with a master key.

  Amber Bernardi. She was a plain child with large dark eyes and black hair. She was also the daughter and only child of Leo and Yolanda Bernardi, owners of Bernardi Automotive Enterprises which had Volkswagen and Porsche dealerships all over New England. Three days ago, they had dropped her off to be enhanced. There was the usual separation crisis: The child cried and fussed until they sedated her after her parents left. Then she was driven here for preop procedures.

  To fill her time and minimize distress, they had provided her with television, videos, toys, games, and books. Vera or Phillip would occasionally drop in to chat or take her to the playground. Because of the sedatives, she was quite manageable.

  “So, how is Miss Amber today?”

  “Fine,” she said, drawing out the syllable.

  She was sitting on a chair looking at a book while holding one of the stuffed dancing dolls. Years ago they had ordered a couple dozen of them from overseas because they proved to be a hit with the children. It seemed an appropriate choice, since it was a nearly life-sized version of Ganesha, the elephant god of India.

  According to Hindu legend, Ganesha was born as a normal child to Shiva and the goddess Parvathi. But Shiva liked to roam the world. After his son was conceived, he went on a journey and did not return for several years. Because Ganesha had never seen his father, he did not recognize him while guarding his mother’s house. Since his mother was taking a bath, Ganesha demanded that Shiva go away. Angered that the young stranger told him to leave his own house, Shiva chopped off Ganesha’s head and went inside. Realizing that Shiva had killed his own son, Parvathi wailed in grief and demanded that Shiva bring Ganesha back to life. When he confessed that the boy’s head was severed, Parvathi instructed him to take the head off the first living thing he saw and attach it to Ganesha’s body so he could live again. It so happened that an elephant walked by. Instantly, Shiva beheaded the animal and attached its head to his son. Today Ganesha is revered as the god of wisdom.

  It was the symbolism that had originally attracted Malenko to the creature. The kids referred to him as Mr. Nisha.

  Amber flipped through the book looking at the pictures because, of course, she could not read. “When am I going home?”

  “In three days.” Malenko held up his fingers. “How’s that?”

  “But I wanna go home now,” she said, her voice thin and distant.

  “Well, not for another three days.”

  “How come?” she whined.

  “Because.”

  Because, he thought, you’re a stupid little girl and your parents have dropped a million dollars so you won’t grow up to be a stupid woman who will get herself knocked up by some equally stupid boy and end up wasting away your family’s fortune because you were incapable of a decent education and couldn’t get a decent job and would spend your life producing stupid babies, at least one of whom would go to prison to the tune of $40,000 per year. That’s how come.

  “Would you like some milk and cookies?” he asked sweetly.

  “Nah. I have some,” she said, and pointed to a paper cup and plate on the floor. She looked at him with flat vacant eyes. “I want some Saltines. I want some Salteeeens.” She began to blubber.

  “We’ll get you some in a minute,” he said and got up. He gave her a lasting look. In twelve months, she would be completely transformed—almost another species. After all these years, it still awed him what he could accomplish here. They were right: He was a miracle worker. Perhaps Shiva. Or maybe Jesus, raising the dead. Or Jesus’ father, creating new life.

  As he closed the door on Amber, Malenko’s mind tripped back to when the miracles began.

  It was 1985, and Lucius had been summoned to the headquarters of the Kiev State Police where two KGB agents led him to a one-way glass wall that looked into an interrogation room within which sat two men in prison clothes smoking cigarettes. The older agent, a Vladimir Kovalyov, explained, “The one on the right is a former researcher from the Steklov Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences. He was caught selling secrets. The other man shoveled sand in a cement factory in Zhytomyr. He killed a policeman in an antigovernment rally.”

  Six days later, the two men were lying side by side on tables in a makeshift operating room the government had set up in the basement of Malenko’s lab. The physicist’s name was Boris Patsiorkovski. He was fortyfour and the father of one. The stupid man’s name was Alexei Nedogoda. He was twenty-nine and the father of two. They were enemies of the state, Malenko told himself, and he sawed off the tops of their heads.

  A hundred and twelve political prisoners later, Malenko had perfected surgical methodologies and had experimented with unilateral and bilateral implantation, using different harvest sites, different implants, different proportions, different postoperative drug therapies, and so forth. With each operation he learned something new about transplantation and the brain’s capacity to respond.

  But the hope that tissue grafted from high-IQ brains into duller ones to produce smarter people was dashed. No enhanced cognitive powers were detected in the recipients. Thirty-three subjects had died, most of the rest had been rendered brain-damaged. After four years the project was terminated.

  The magnitude of that sacrifice had bothered the young Malenko early on. Here he was a physician attempting to bestow benefits on human life, not eliminate them. But the reality was that each of the prisoners had been scheduled for execution; so, in effect, they were making heroic self-sacrifices for the state. And after his fifth or sixth transplant, he was too absorbed in his quest to be bothered by higher moral issues. His concern was enhancement not ethics.

  Within the last two years of his tenure in the Ukraine, and while the Communist system was beginning its death rattle, Lucius Malenko made his ultimate breakthrough—and one which would carry him to this day.

  The reasoning was exquisite in its simplicity. As had been empirically evident, the transplantation of embryonic tissue had failed to establish specific nerve pathways because they were too new to take cues from the existing host brain to produce cells and connections in those areas associated with intelligence. Likewise, mature brain matter was too old to reseed target sites. That left the inevitable option.

  “This one’s a goddamn little tiger.” Phillip turned his head to show the scratches on his cheek and neck.

  “Occupational hazard,” Malenko said. “How’s she adjusting?”

  Across the hall, Oliver pulled up the blinds on the one-way glass to another dormer. “As good as can be expected.”

  Her name was Lilly Bellingham, and she was sitting on the bed staring at a piped-in video of Roger Rabbit. She was wearing Farmer John bib blue jeans over a yellow T-shirt, and her long yellow hair was held back in a ponytail. Because of the sedatives, she was docile. On the table beside her sat a tray of macaroni and cheese, salad, milk, and chocolate cake—all untouched.

  As Malenko watched her, he thought how at seven Lilly was still at the optimum age. In spite of popular claims, the turbo production of brain-nerve cells did not decrease after the third year of life, cre
ating a permanently hardwired organ. On the contrary, the gene that stimulates axonal growth—that increases communication throughout the brain—is active up to age eleven. After that, the ability to make gross anatomical changes diminishes—which is why a prepubescent child can still learn a foreign language without an accent while his parents can’t, though they might learn fancier vocabulary. Because children of higher intelligence possess brains of greater neuroplasticity, they have a greater capacity to learn, better memory storage, and better access to those memories.

  At this very moment, behind those big green eyes, little Lilly Bellingham’s cortex was busily wiring itself for increased neurotropic functions, making of itself a faster, smarter CPU while her hippocampus, like the hard drive of that computer, was organizing that memory for easy access—and all the while taking in the foolish antics of Roger Rabbit.

  “She’s not eaten,” Malenko said.

  Phillip shook his head and showed him the clipboard schedule of meds, feedings, and her vital signs. Malenko studied the charts then slipped the board into the tray by the window. “If she doesn’t by this evening, we’ll have to go with the drip.”

  Phillip nodded. “She wants her daddy. When he shows, she’ll eat.”

  She had been picked up last week at a swimming hole in upstate New York. Phillip and Oliver had done well. They had snatched her from a beach using as decoy one of the other children from the camp, effectively fooling the mother long enough to make the switch.

  Were she to grow to maturity, Lilly would be brilliant. But she was dirtpoor. And in spite of good Samaritans and all those financial-aid programs, chances were that dear sweet Lilly would end up filled with drugs and booze and living on welfare, festering at the bottom of the social compost heap, raising trailer-park brutes. What good was genius when tethered to the bed, the bassinet, and the kitchen stove?

  Besides, she was also worth a million dollars.