by A. G. Riddle
“Begin your assault, Captain.”
Chapter 36
Conner arrived early the next day, and Desmond was glad. They sat for hours, in the paneled study, sharing stories. Despite growing up three thousand miles away from each other, on different continents, with different parents, they found they were a great deal alike. Both strong-willed, driven, and stubborn at times. Both had been hurt. Neither had recovered.
They withheld nothing. Each shared their past unfiltered. To a stranger, they might have altered a detail, provided a reason—or an excuse—for their actions. With each other, they were recklessly honest, certain the other wouldn’t judge and would still love them even knowing everything they had done.
For Desmond, it was an outlet. A person to trust, an anchor in the rough sea of life. Something he hadn’t had since Peyton. He didn’t realize how much he had missed it. He told Conner about killing Dale Epply, about how he discovered that he couldn’t love Peyton the way she loved him, the pain, his depression. Everything.
Finally, Conner asked the question Desmond had been waiting for.
“The Looking Glass—what is it?”
“A solution.”
“To what?”
“To what ails us, brother.”
“Is that all?”
“No. That’s not even the half of it.”
Conner smiled, twisting the scars on the side of his face into a grotesque mountain of mottled flesh, his happiness a sharp contrast to his rough expression. “Wish you’d be a little more cryptic.”
“I recently learned that true knowledge must be earned, not given. Come on, I want to show you something.”
They drove north, out of Menlo Park, through San Mateo and past Daly City, into San Francisco. Desmond followed the same route Yuri had taken: through Golden Gate Park, past the Presidio, and into downtown. He parked in the same deck and rode the elevator up to the suite of condos on the twenty-fifth floor. He nodded at the concierge behind the raised dais, then pushed open the pocket doors to the library.
Conner gazed around the massive three-story library. “I’m surprised you ever left—given your near obsession with reading.”
“I didn’t for a while.” Desmond walked deeper into the room. “But I found what I was looking for.”
“Which was?”
“Answers.”
“Answers to what?”
“Questions that reveal the true nature of our existence, truths that peel back the layers of the modern world, laying reality bare.”
“Okay.”
“These questions are an education unlike any other. And they lead to the Looking Glass. But I can’t give you the answers. You have to find them for yourself. If you’re willing to try.”
“I’ll never stop.”
“Good.”
Desmond closed the doors, and they sat at one of the long tables by the window.
“There are apartments here in the suite,” Desmond said. “You could relocate from Australia. Work from the Rook offices here.”
Conner nodded. “Don’t exactly have anything tying me to Sydney. And … my only family is here.” He smiled. “That’ll take some getting used to: having family.”
“Yeah. It’s a nice change.”
“You’re more important to me than Rook. I could quit. Dedicate my time to what you’re doing here.”
“No. Rook’s part of what we’re building. And you’ve worked hard to get where you are.”
Conner nodded. “Okay. Where do we start?”
“With a question. For us, all roads lead to Australia.” Desmond stood. “Forty-five thousand years ago, something remarkable happened. A tribe of humans made boats and sailed the open sea for hundreds of miles. For the first time in history, humans set foot on the continent of Australia. They were the most advanced people on Earth at that time. Yet when the Dutch arrived in 1606, the indigenous Australians were far behind them technologically. The question is: why? What happened to those people—the first human sailors?”
Desmond watched as Conner worked his way through the stacks and volumes in the library, just as he himself had done a few years earlier. Conner lived in the same apartment he had, and spent every hour outside of work in the library. He peppered Desmond with theories and questions. And as Yuri had done with him, Desmond sat patiently with Conner, guiding and instructing. With each answered question, Desmond provided another.
It took Conner longer to find the answers than it had Desmond, but eighteen months after he moved to San Francisco, Conner arrived at the revelation. The following day, Desmond returned with Yuri at his side.
“Conner, I’d like you to meet someone very special to me. Yuri brought me into the Citium. He led me to you. And the Looking Glass. He’s going to be our partner.”
Yuri took Conner’s hand in his. In that silent moment in the library, a thread seemed to connect the three of them, woven from their shared past of pain and their desire for a better life.
They sat, and Conner spoke first. “Where do we begin?”
“We plan for the future,” Yuri said. “In the coming years, cyber attacks will become common. Governments and large corporations will try to strengthen their defenses in-house. When they fail, I want them to turn to us. To Rook.”
“Sure,” Conner said. “Cybersecurity is a core strength. We host plenty of financial institutions, some international pharma, and insurers. Our uptime is industry-leading. We’ve got it all: generators, fail-over capabilities, disaster recovery.”
“We need to go further,” Yuri said. “Proprietary software and hardware—only available to a select few customers.”
Conner shook his head. “We don’t develop software at the moment.”
Yuri raised an eyebrow at Desmond.
“I’ll dig around,” Desmond said, “look for a security startup we can buy. Capital has been hard to get since the collapse, so we should have attractive options.”
“Good,” Yuri said. “In addition to network security, I want a software solution for natural disasters. An end-to-end solution for emergency response agencies. A way for them to organize and communicate with affected populations.”
“That’s definitely doable,” Conner said. “But I think we’ll need to rebrand. We’re just a web host now. You’re talking about software solutions, services, hardware. And we’ll need to attract scientists working on cutting-edge quantum computing for the Looking Glass component.”
“Fine. I’ll leave all that to you.” To Desmond, Yuri said, “Where are we with Rendition?”
“It’s coming along. Not nearly as fast as I’d like.”
“It never is.”
They met every week after that. They sat around the table in the library, each giving their update on their piece of the Looking Glass.
Conner renamed his business “Rook Quantum Sciences.” Desmond helped him acquire a cybersecurity startup. They made progress bit by bit, the three of them assembling a large puzzle, the pieces slowly falling into place. Months turned to years, and in the summer of 2010, Yuri made a request of Desmond.
“I’d like you to join the board of a Citium company.”
“Sure. Which one?”
“Phaethon Genetics.”
The name sounded familiar. Yuri placed it for him.
“It’s Lin Shaw’s company.”
“What’s the focus?”
“On the surface… identifying the genetic basis of diseases and sequencing viruses.”
“And under the surface?”
“I suspect only Lin Shaw knows that.”
“What’s my focus there?”
“Figuring out hers.”
Desmond smiled. “I suspect you have better spies than me on your roster.”
“No one she trusts more. And no one I trust more.”
Desmond had never told Yuri about going to Lin Shaw’s home that night, but Yuri’s words confirmed that he already knew. It was just as well. As with Conner, Desmond wanted no secrets between him and his
mentor.
He attended the first board meeting at Phaethon the following week. He was intrigued by their work. The potential was incredible. Phaethon was dedicated to identifying the genes and epigenetic triggers that caused disease. Phaethon envisioned a world where diagnoses were made by a combination of symptomatic reporting and DNA sequencing. Remedies could be synthesized at home, like a cup of coffee. Every kitchen would have a 3D medical printer that would dispense a cure as soon as symptoms arose.
He was most affected by Lin Shaw’s passion for the project. In the board room in Menlo Park, she stood in front of the projector, a double helix glowing behind her.
“We are living in a transcendental moment in human history. Our generation can be the first to cure disease. Not one malady, or a few. All diseases. Human history has seen turning points. Agriculture. The Enlightenment. World War Two. But none like this. The end of disease will herald a new kind of golden age for humanity.”
She looked directly at Desmond. “And today, we’re one step closer. I’d like you all to welcome Desmond Hughes. Desmond is an investor in predominantly IT startups, some of which I’m sure you’re familiar with.” She read a few of the names. “In particular, I believe Desmond will be very helpful with our growing pains in the data center. He has experience with scaling up big data operations, especially in the scientific space. He was one of the lead developers of SciNet, which I know some of you remember. He’s also a board member of Rook Quantum Sciences—one of the world’s leading ultra-secure web hosts.
“So. Welcome, Desmond. We’re looking forward to your input on the IT and finance side, and of course anything you see fit to feed in on.”
When the meeting broke, Lin held out her arm to Desmond. “Care for a tour?”
“This is our biggest pain point,” Lin said. They stood in the middle of the data center.
“You could outsource it to Rook.”
“True. But it would complicate things for us. We promise our clients that the data they give us will never leave our custody. And even if we didn’t, we still want control. We need to be able to build out as needed, when we want to.”
“All right. I’ll talk with my brother. Maybe they can consult, help you scale up and advise you on hiring the right people.”
“Good.”
On the elevator, Lin said, “There’s another Rook project we’d like to integrate with—their emergency response system.”
Desmond bunched his eyebrows.
“We can sequence genetic samples faster than any company in the world. In outbreak responses, we could analyze patient samples, sequence viruses and identify mutations, possibly even help with contact tracing—on a genetic level.”
“What are you asking?”
“For sales help. We’d like the Rook sales force to carry Phaethon’s outbreak response solution in the door and bundle it with their emergency data response services.”
“I’ll run it by Conner.”
“Thank you.”
They walked past a sea of cubicles. Narrow corridors ran between them, a maze with rows of heads slightly bowed, staring at screens, headphones on. It was like a labyrinthine garden of hedgerows made of plastic.
Lin closed the glass door to her office and sat behind the desk. For the first time that day, her tone softened.
“It’s good to see you, Desmond.”
“You too.”
“Yuri doesn’t need to worry.”
Desmond exhaled through his nose. Lin Shaw was direct. Fearless.
Her frankness inspired Desmond to ask the question he had wanted to since Yuri asked him to be on the board, the question he dreaded hearing the answer to.
“How is she?”
Lin didn’t move a muscle. “As well as she can be.”
The answer was like a shot of morphine: it stung at first, then a bizarre numbness settled over Desmond, like his mind was blocked, keeping him from the pain that was still there. He couldn’t think straight. He sat, as if in a trance.
Lin broke the silence. “It will heal all wounds, Desmond.”
“It?”
“The Looking Glass.”
That night, Desmond did something he had sworn not to do. He opened Internet Explorer 7 and Googled Peyton Shaw.
The first hit was a page welcoming her EIS class at the CDC. It featured a picture of a crowd of roughly a hundred people standing in front of a glass building. She was in the back row, not smiling. Seeing her was like falling down a hole. He clicked the next link, then the next, going deeper down the trail. He paused on a picture of her on the Johns Hopkins website, where she was listed as a resident physician. He saw so much of Lin Shaw in Peyton: the delicate, Chinese features, porcelain skin, dark hair. And something he hadn’t seen when they were together: the start of crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. Worry lines. Her smile was serious, her gaze focused. Gone was the carefree girl he’d met at a Halloween party twelve years ago. That broke his heart all over again.
He kept searching but didn’t find what he feared most: an engagement announcement. There was no wedding website telling a story of how she’d met her soulmate, mentioning their shared pet, no write-up detailing the bridal party or the wedding venue. The revelation made him both happy and sad. He wondered if she was waiting—or if he had turned her into what he’d become: a person unable to truly love.
He was so engrossed in his search that he didn’t hear the door open. Or the footsteps behind him. Conner’s voice startled him.
“You know that’s not healthy.”
Desmond turned back, away from the screen. “I know.”
Conner pulled up a chair from the long table. “What happened?”
“I saw her mother today.”
“And?”
“We talked about her. I couldn’t resist.”
“Are you going to contact her?”
“No,” Desmond said quickly. “I can’t. I want to. But…”
Conner nodded. “You said you wanted to talk about Rook.”
“Yeah. It’s actually related to Lin’s company. They need some help. ”
Desmond oversaw Rook’s collaboration with Phaethon and watched as their data center scaled up. He dedicated his remaining time to building Rendition. The work was conducted through a front called Rendition Games, and the project seemed to drag on. Yuri urged patience, but Desmond and Conner only grew more eager to see the Looking Glass completed.
On a warm summer day in 2015, Desmond’s life changed again, unexpectedly. Phaethon’s biostatistics group had been constantly clashing with the business and science sides of the company, and Desmond was brought in to try to make peace. He failed miserably.
The head of biostats was a man in his sixties named Herman. Herman had a PhD in the field, wore round wire-rimmed glasses, and seemed to always speak in an acerbic tone.
Herman interlocked his fingers, placed his hands on the desk, and exhaled. “The problem is quite simple. I do not have the manpower to program reports to satisfy their every whim and curiosity—in the outrageous time frames given.”
“Then prioritize,” the CFO said. “I’m getting on a plane at eight a.m. tomorrow for an investor meeting. If I don’t have those reports, there won’t be any money for more resources—for anybody.”
“And how long have you known about this meeting?”
“I don’t know.”
“We received your request yesterday. I will simply assume the meeting has been scheduled for longer.”
The CFO rolled his eyes.
“Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Desmond stared at him. “Really?”
Herman didn’t respond.
“You work for a tech company,” Desmond said. “Everything is an emergency. If you don’t like emergencies, this isn’t the place for you. There are plenty of places with no emergencies. Would that be better for you? ” He glared at the man, challenging him.
Silence filled the room.
Finally, Herman said, “Mister Hughes. With all due respect, when everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. Everything is urgent.”
One of the clinical project managers spoke up. “Well, I agree, but… our client has an FDA reporting deadline coming up.”
Herman had brought three of his employees with him: two overweight men, one on each side, both of whom shared his stone-faced expression, and a younger blond woman with dazzling blue eyes. Thus far, the woman had been relegated to a hardback chair against the wall, behind those around the conference table. But now she stood, leaned forward, and whispered in Herman’s ear. He didn’t even look back, just shooed her away. She didn’t budge. Instead, she whispered more forcefully, though the words were still a little too quiet for Desmond to hear. Herman turned and glared at her. Still she didn’t flinch, like a fighter sizing up an opponent.
Herman swiveled his head back to the group. “We’re aware of all of your requirements. Was there anything else? As you know, my overworked people need to get back to some urgent reports.”
The next morning, Desmond awoke to find two emails from a name he didn’t recognize: Avery Price. One was addressed to the CFO, and contained a secure link to the report he had requested. The other was to the project manager—with a link to the FDA report she needed. The first email was sent at 2:38 a.m, the second email four hours later.
There were also responses of thanks from the recipients. Desmond replied as well, requesting a meeting—only to get an automatic notification that his message to Avery Price had bounced.
At the Phaethon Genetics office, he stopped at the first cubicle in biostats. “Hi.”
A short-haired, twenty-something guy pulled off his headphones. “What’s up?”
“I’m looking for Avery Price.”
The guy raised his eyebrows.
“He’s a biostats programmer—”
“No he’s not.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure—”
“He’s a she, man. And she got canned this morning.”