by Jamie Metzl
“We’ve got to own this,” Martina declares.
I’ve been fighting with Martina for seven years to print all sorts of stories I thought were important and that she dismissed, but now, faced with the most important story of our time, perhaps even our history, I channel Heller’s warning and suddenly feel a surge of caution. “Own?”
She turns toward me, the tilt of her head challenging me to justify my suspicious tone.
“We haven’t yet proven the science,” I say gingerly. “Heller wrote that we need to be extremely careful because of the implications. Maybe Chou is right. We can’t just say death has been defeated with nothing more than some dog cells and a letter. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not, but we know what will happen if people get even a sniff of the idea that immortality could be real. You saw what happened in Buenos Aires.”
Martina’s face softens slightly as she takes in my words. A small pharmaceutical company in Argentina announced last year it had developed a pill that could add ten years to people’s lives. It turned out to have been a marketing stunt—the pills were a mix of caffeine, turmeric, and tadalafil—but that didn’t matter. Within an hour of the announcement, the clinic was besieged by a mob of thousands. A couple of hours later, the crowd broke the police barricade and rampaged through the clinic looking for the pills. Eight people were dead and the clinic was in flames before riot police finally restored order. Ironically, death has always followed humanity’s quest for immortality.
“We still don’t know who killed Heller and who tried to kill Toni and me last night,” I continue. “We still don’t know what happened to Hart and Wolfson. We still don’t even know who all the players are in this. And what happens to the handoff to Scientists Beyond Nations if this story comes out now?”
“Do you know?”
“No,” I say, “but I can think of a lot of bad options.”
“This is bigger than us now.” Martina says resolutely. “I hate to say it, but we probably have a legal responsibility to give these files to the police. And if they have them, we may as well publish what we know before someone else does.”
“You know this is bigger than the paper. Of course we have to tell the police about anything connected to the murders, but people’s lives are at stake here.”
“I don’t need a lecture from you on responsibility.”
“I know. You’re right. I just don’t trust—”
“Stop.” Jerry’s word throws a temporary barrier between Martina and me.
I take a step back and face Jerry’s image on the wall.
“You need to give the police information about the murders and the general information,” he says softly and with an authority I’ve never before known he could possess.
“But—”
Jerry cuts me off. “You don’t need to give the police the encryption code or access to all of the scientific files. I have an idea. I think we can add a rider, a virus, to the encryption key we have, so that when SBN connects the encryption code we give them from the dog’s DNA with the one they already have, we might be able to get a window with full access to Heller’s system. I’ve been trying for almost forty-eight hours to get in some other way, but I really think it can’t be done.”
“Can it work?” I ask. Heller’s database is the central pillar of the vast matrix covering our conference wall. Access to it is the key to everything else.
“Theoretically, yes,” Jerry says, “but we can only know by trying.”
I turn back to face Martina. “What do you think?”
She furrows her eyebrows, and I realize I need more.
“We have the potential to write the greatest story of all time,” I add. “Not just the limited, unconfirmed story we have now. The real story, the full story, backed by all the data. All of it.”
Martina steps forward to fight, but then her face softens. “Don’t patronize me, Jorge. Obviously we’re not going to charge forward half-assed, but we can’t hold on to this forever. A story like this never stays quiet, and if someone’s going to launch it, it ought to be us. Two days,” she declares, clearly regretting the words as they leave her mouth. “That’s our target. Forty-eight hours.”
It’s not a lot of time but I know Martina well enough not to argue. “Done.” The clock in my head starts ticking. “Jerry, what do you need to do to build the rider on the encryption key?”
“Send me the file,” he says.
“How long will it take?”
“I can probably get something by tonight,” he says, already messaging with Joseph on the download.
“Joseph?”
“Boss?” he asks, not turning from the data wall.
“I want everything you can find on SBN. No detail is too small.”
“On it,” he says.
“Sierra.”
“Yes, kapitan?” she says in an exaggerated voice I am probably right to translate as who the fuck are you to be giving me orders, but I’m willing to do what you say for now.
“Can you find out how we can connect with SBN?”
“Aye-aye,” she says, half saluting and half swatting me away with the back of her hand.
“And Adam Shelton. We need to be up his—”
“I’m going to climb up his bum with a ladder and an ice pick,” she says, pivoting mockingly and goose-stepping out the door.
I turn to face Martina.
“You are not about to give me orders, Jorge.”
I revert to the old me. “Will you please join me to go speak with Maurice Henderson?”
33
“Look,” Maurice says, halfway between angry and apologetic, “I’ve got a team investigating the Heller Labs explosion, I’ve got a team on the Antonia Hewitt explosion, I’ve got six people protecting you and Toni, I’ve gotten you the information you need from the Atlantic island, and I just don’t have the resources to keep throwing people at every hunch.”
Martina and I stare at Maurice, both annoyed.
I’ve rarely met Maurice in his office and never done it in such a formal way with my editor beside me. “It’s more than a hunch,” I say.
“Yeah,” he responds, “it’s some cells and a letter. I get it. If it’s true, it’s a very big deal. I get it. But this is the Kansas City Police Department, not the National Institutes of Health. You’re in the wrong place. My job is to find out who killed Heller, killed my men, and blew up the two buildings.”
“I can’t believe you’re being this narrow,” I say, trying to contain myself. “Hart, Wolfson, the iris scans, the strangely rejuvenated dog. There’s something going on here much bigger than this city.”
“You may be right, Rich. That’s what I’m telling you. It’s just not my jurisdiction.”
“Even if there’s a connection between all of this and Heller’s death?”
“We don’t know that and until we do we have to carry out our investigation, not just dive at the first theory that comes our way. If I had unlimited resources, believe me, I’d do it. But I’ll pass this to the FBI and suggest they discuss it with NIH.”
The approach feels needlessly bureaucratic and useless at best and dangerous at worst. I wonder if sending this information up the food chain could even somehow encourage whoever is threatening us to step up their game.
“Okay,” Martina says, her annoyance only barely contained. “Just remember we told you.”
“You’ve got to do more, Maurice,” I say.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t the only thing happening in this city. We’ve got kids getting hooked on synthetic hallucinogens, others going nuts from jacked-up electrical pulses at brain stimulation raves. We’ve got gangs on the east side killing each other over meth, federal warnings coming in every day about threats from the Middle East … I’m doing what I can.”
“But—”
Martina cuts me off. “Let’s go.” She stands and turns toward the door.
I look at Maurice pleadingly.
“I’m doing what I can,” he repeats, sti
ll seated behind his desk.
I try to balance my gratitude for all he’s done with my displeasure he’s not doing more.
“Let me know what you learn,” he says to my back as I walk out.
Outside, the sky’s gray matches my mood. If KCPD won’t explore the big-picture story connecting all the disparate pieces, and Maurice’s only idea is to pass information up the bureaucratic chain, I have the sinking feeling that until somebody else wakes up the only ones really taking Heller’s warning seriously are me and my desperately inadequate group of friends.
We drop Martina back at the Star before I have Callahan take me back to my place.
“New school,” he grumbles as we drive up and see the police guard mumbling into his u.D at the back door. I assume he conflates “new school” and distracted, which makes me nervous. I walk through the garage door and into the kitchen and find Toni and her mother scrubbing the place down with latex gloves. Dreyfus is at their feet, wagging his tail as if this is the most exciting activity ever.
“You don’t have to do that. I can …”
They both give me the same look, as if the facial expression for pitying my ineptitude has somehow passed genetically from mother to daughter.
“Can I at least help? I’ve got a robot that can—”
“We’ve got it, honey.” Toni walks over and kisses my cheek.
Toni’s mom, Elizabeth, glances sympathetically over at Haruki, still inert and face-down in the corner.
I know they are engaged in some kind of mother-daughter bonding experience as they prepare this new nest, but I get the sense that the destruction of Toni’s home and being here in my imperfectly maintained space has also forced the conversation between them about where Toni and I are heading. I’m pretty confident Elizabeth likes me, and I know she appreciates the bond Toni and I share and how we’ve grown together, but that probably doesn’t change her mind about the basic facts of our situation. She must be telling her daughter some very polite, Midwestern version of, “What the hell are the two of you doing?” It might even be what I’d do in her situation.
“How was work?” Elizabeth, who would never, of course, in a million years use the word “hell,” asks.
But it’s hard not to interpret a criticism in the question. I feel the urge to explain that I’ve gone to work to protect her daughter, but I sense the sentence won’t translate. “I’m trying to find out who could have done this.”
“Isn’t that what the police are supposed to do?” Elizabeth asks.
“It depends on what you mean by ‘supposed,’” I say, my words sounding overly legalistic, even to me.
Her polite nod suggests she may not be following my logic.
“How are you feeling?” I say, turning toward Toni and taking her hands in mine.
“Still a bit shocked, I think. I don’t really care that much about the stuff.” She stops and corrects herself. “I probably do care about some of it but I know it’s replaceable. I just feel awful about Heller and Sebastian. I’m not sure I’ve accepted that I no longer have a home.”
My head lifts slightly.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Rich,” she adds. “You know what I mean. And it’s still worrying that Heller’s lab and my house were blown up the same day.”
“That’s what the police guards are here for,” I say, still not fully convinced they are enough.
“Do we know anything more about the explosions?”
“I was just with Maurice. He says it’s looking like a computer hack led to a gas and electricity surge, exactly the same as with Heller. Jerry Weisberg suspects the same thing from his poking around the KCP&L network.”
“Are you and Antonia okay staying here?” Elizabeth interjects.
“I hope so,” I say, probably unconvincingly. “We’re off the gas and electricity grid and getting all of our power from the generator and solar panels.”
“Can the police track down who did it?” Toni asks.
“They’re trying, but anyone sophisticated enough to do something like that may be sophisticated enough to keep their identity hidden.”
Toni and I pull together.
“Have you eaten?” Elizabeth lobs into our embrace. “Can I make you a sandwich?”
“There’s not much in the freezerator …”
“Oh, we know,” Elizabeth says. “Believe me, we know.”
Her words are probably as close to an insult as she can get, making me feel even more inadequate as a homemaker. I obsequiously roll Haruki toward the charger.
Toni, her mother, her father—who wanders down from his nap in my den—and I spend an hour eating food bravely assembled from the historical depths of my freezerator. We talk about the insurance claims, having some groceries delivered, getting Toni new clothes. The conversation feels abnormally normal, like the family I once had before it was changed by my sister’s tragic death, the loss of my father, my mother’s descent into an obsessive focus on me, and my slow pulling away. I think of Maya and Nayiri living comfortably with my mother in Glendale and I start to see the outlines of something that feels almost like an extended family in its own particular sort of way. My always-whirling mind begins to slow, as if fewer rotations might give me the time and space to look around and see what I actually may almost have.
And then my u.D vibrates.
I tap my wrist and Sierra’s glowing face pops up on my freezerator door.
“Rich,” she says, “you need to be at Wheeler Airport at four.”
Toni eyes me warily.
“Sierra Halley,” I say, “this is Toni Hewitt and her parents, Elizabeth and Owen.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sierra says tersely. “I’m very sorry about your house.”
“Thank you,” Toni responds. I can tell from her face she has questions about the attractive young woman on the screen.
“Wheeler Airport at four,” Sierra orders.
“Tell me more,” I say.
Sierra rolls her eyes, annoyed I’m even asking. “Adam Shelton is sending a plane for you.”
34
Joseph arrives at my house first with the dossier on Scientists Beyond Nations. “I could do more if I had time,” he says breathlessly, “but here’s what I have.”
The impending arrival of Shelton’s plane has compressed our timeline.
Quickly scanning the file, I realize I hadn’t fully appreciated the magnitude of SBN’s efforts. Its transponder disabled and only connecting rarely via satellite using an electronic cloaking device, the SBN ship is all but invisible to the outside world. The microwave-absorbing stealth technologies wrapping it apparently make it almost impossible to track. Although reporters have looked, no one has figured out how scientists wanting to join SBN get transferred to the ship. When SBN needs to announce a new discovery, the messages just suddenly appear in the inboxes of health ministries and media organizations around the world, the supporting background data unexpectedly materializing in the untraceable SBN digital data room.
On board, scientists pursue unbridled science, following their inquiry in sensitive fields like synthetic biology, biokinetics, and human systems engineering with a great deal of freedom and virtually unlimited resources. It’s all under the guidance of the SBN Council of Elders, a group of the most senior scientists on the planet who have dedicated the rest of their lives to the pursuit of pure science and SBN’s mission.
There have been, of course, calls from the Vatican and Wahhabi Mecca to hunt down the SBN floating laboratory, but the major powers have remained somewhat ambivalent and have never coalesced around a plan. Until they do, SBN’s behemoth glides stealthily across the high seas, periodically sharing transformative discoveries with the world and shaking up the global scientific establishment.
“Do you have what you need on this?” Joseph asks. I sense an impatience I can’t quite place.
“Looks good,” I say. “I’m sure I’ll have more questions along the way.”
“Jerry will meet you at the air
port before you go,” he says.
I get the feeling Joseph is making sure I’m okay and at the same time somehow relinquishing responsibility. “Is there something else?”
Joseph’s eyes betray a hint of surprise. “Martina put me on the Brain-Pulse story,” he admits after an uncomfortable pause.
I feel a twinge in my gut.
Brain-Pulse, a hot new company selling headbands that send electrical pulses into people’s cranial nerves, thought it was designing a way to give people a little extra energy. But some enterprising kids in California figured out how to hack the system and multiply the electric current a hundred times. Brain-Pulse raves have quickly become legendary across the country, not slowed by the increasing number of kids literally going nuts from the overstimulation of their sympathetic nervous systems.
I get that covering the next dangerous epidemic victimizing Kansas City’s young people could be a defining opportunity for Joseph to emerge in his own right as a reporter. I also worry what I’ll do without Joseph’s full support. “That’s great news, Joseph.” I swallow. “Just ace it.”
Joseph and I are facing each other, trying to acclimatize to our new power structure, when Sierra rushes in the door.
“Not sure what’s happening here,” she says, “but we’ve got to get you to the airport now. The plane needs to leave no later than 4:30. Ready to roll?”
Toni walks into the living room.
“Toni Hewitt, Sierra Halley,” I say, making the introduction.
“Very nice to meet you in person, Toni,” Sierra says, “but we’ve really got to go.”
Toni nods politely, but I sense there’s a lot more happening under the surface.
I feel the urge to invite Toni to come with us to Wheeler Airport but know it’s not practical to have her join. She’s taken a leave of absence from work and is safer at my place with the police guards, at least until we can get her house situation sorted out and figure out what’s going on. Toni and I embrace fiercely, but I sense an uncomfortable hesitation between us as I walk toward the Lincoln with Sierra. Whatever my motivation, my justification, my cause, I am leaving.