Agents of the Glass (22 page)

“Then how did you get it?”

“I have a friend who has a little problem with throwing things away.”

“A hoarder? Cool.”

“Yeah…no. Nothing about Ricky is cool.”

“What's the article about?”

“Philanthropy.”

“What's that?”

“Philanthropists are people who give away their money to charitable causes. People like Winter's father.”

“What does that have to do with me and Jensen?”

“Here's the short version: Last September, a dozen of the country's richest and most important philanthropists got together for a conference at a hotel here in New York. Since that meeting, eleven of the twelve have completely stopped giving to charity. Somebody at the
Inquirer
put it all together and wrote a piece about it, but the article was buried in the middle of the paper, and there was no follow-up, at least not that I'm aware of. And then, like I said, it disappeared completely.”

“Why'd they stop?”

“That's what I want you to find out. One more thing: 233dotcom is connected…somehow, which means that NTRP is, too. Looks like a lot of companies presented new products at the conference, but the fact that they were there seems like a strange coincidence. If there's one thing NTRP hates, it's charity. Worth having you look into it, at least.”

“How…where are we supposed to start?”

“You and Jensen are journalists. Start with the reporter. And remember,
quietly.
”

*
But then you knew he would, didn't you?

Luckily for Andy, Jensen didn't ask too many questions about where he got the article. As expected, the brief mention of 233dotcom got her attention, and after dismissal they trekked across town to the dingy offices of the
New York Inquirer
on West Forty-Third Street in search of the reporter who had written the story. They signed in at the desk in the lobby and took the elevator to the nineteenth floor.

Jensen's face broke into a huge smile when the elevator door opened and they found themselves facing a bustling newsroom with more than thirty desks jammed together so closely that reporters and editors could barely squeeze between them. The floor itself was a snake pit of wires and cables connecting outdated, oversized computers with green flickering monitors and noisy printers. At a desk in the back corner, farthest from the door, an elderly man wearing a mismatched bow tie and suspenders pounded away on an enormous typewriter.

Jensen elbowed Andy. “Geez. I thought dinosaurs were extinct. A typewriter! And look at his
phone.
That thing must be from the sixties. It has a
dial.
This place is
awesome.
”

“Maybe that elevator was really a time machine,” said Andy, checking his watch, which, in a strange coincidence, had stopped a minute or two earlier.

From the doorway of a tiny office across the room, a chubby, red-faced man in a spaghetti-sauce-stained white shirt pointed accusingly at them. “What do
you
want?”

“I'm looking for Zhariah Davis,” said Jensen, not at all intimidated.

“Who? There's nobody here with a crazy name like—”

A black woman in her mid-twenties sitting at the desk closest to Jensen cut him off. “Shut up, Louie. I've been here for three years.” She pushed her chair back, cursing quietly at the thick cable catching the wheels for the zillionth time. She was tall—nearly six feet, with heels adding another three inches and the pile of braids on top of her head adding twice that—and she towered over both Jensen and Andy by almost a foot. “That's Louie. The city editor. He's an idiot. I'm Zhariah Davis. What can I do for you?”

Jensen showed her the article.

“Let's go in here a second,” said Zhariah, leading them into a small break room that reeked of burned coffee. “Can I ask…where you got this? It's not supposed to be…”

Jensen pointed at Andy. “He found it. He's kind of a hacker.”

“I'm not a hacker,” said Andy.

“Anyway,” Jensen continued, “we're from Wellbourne Academy uptown, and we're working on a story for our school news show. This company that's mentioned at the end—233dotcom—is…well, they're supposedly replacing all the books in our library with digital copies, but…”

“But…what?” Zhariah asked, her eyes narrowing as her interest level increased.

“I…we followed them yesterday. They were supposed to be taking all the books to their warehouse, but when we got there, these guys in NTRP coveralls were
burning
them. Hundreds—thousands—of perfectly good books. Beautiful books. They burned
Jane Eyre.
Seriously, I may never recover from seeing that. It was like witnessing an execution.”

“I hate that book,” Zhariah said. “Poor little white girl has a tough childhood. Boo hoo. But whatever. Burning books is just…wrong. I knew they were dirty as soon as I found out they were connected to NTRP, but nobody believed me. Do you have proof?”

Jensen took out her phone and showed Zhariah the pictures she had taken through the warehouse window.

“This is horrible. I didn't think…It's like a real-life
Fahrenheit 451,
” Zhariah whispered.

“Funny you should say that,” said Jensen. “Guess what temperature four hundred fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit is equal to in Celsius? Two thirty-three.”

Zhariah swore under her breath. “Are you sure? Science wasn't exactly my thing.”

“Positive,” Andy said.

“What are they up to?” Zhariah asked.

“That's what we were hoping to find out from you,” said Jensen. “One day they're meeting with a bunch of charities, and the next they're burning a whole library's worth of books? Why did you stop covering this story?”

“I didn't want to, trust me. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get this far?” she asked, pointing at the article. “
Weeks.
A couple of hundred phone calls and emails, ninety-nine percent unanswered. But then, after the story was published, somebody must have come down hard on Louie, because he told me that if I
didn't
stop digging, I was going to lose my job. It had to be somebody above him. A bunch of suits came over and put the pressure on him, and he folded.”

“Suits?” asked Andy.

“From the company that owns this little slice of paradise,” said Zhariah, her arm sweeping to take in the entire dilapidated newsroom.

“Who's that?”

“Guess.”

“NTRP?” Jensen and Andy asked together.

“Exactly,” said Zhariah.

“They own everything,” said Jensen. “And what they don't own, they're trying to buy.”

“Well, whoever they are, they did their best to make the story disappear. Deleted it from my computer when I was out and had the tech guys take it down from the website. Even took my notes right out of my desk. That's why I was so surprised to see the article when you came in.”

Jensen couldn't stop shaking her head. “This is crazy. Why are they so desperate to hide this story? It's interesting, but it doesn't seem
that
huge. I mean, is it really so shocking when people stop giving to charity? It must happen all the time.” She turned to Andy. “And by the way, if it was deleted, how did
you
find it?”

“I, uh, I don't know. All of a sudden it was just there. Maybe it was an old copy. I don't remember exactly.”

“You are such a bad liar,” said Jensen. “Why can't you just admit that you're a hacker?”

“It doesn't matter,” said Zhariah. “Something big is going on. I'm getting back on this story, I don't care what Louie says. Somebody who was at that conference has to be willing to talk. Something important happened there, something bad. People don't just stop giving to charities for no reason. The charities that they gave to didn't do anything wrong, and none of the rich people were going broke. I checked them out—they're all doing just fine.”

“In your article, you said that one of them hadn't stopped. Have you talked to him?” Andy asked.

“
Her
. Her name is Ilene Porter, and she's the heir to the Porter Paper fortune. She was out of the country when I wrote the story, and I couldn't get in touch with her. By the time she returned, I had been shut down. But as far as I know, she's still giving away money. She's still attending charity events, at least.”

“Has she ever said anything publicly…about what she thinks happened?” asked Jensen.

“Not that I know of.”

A voice shouted at Zhariah from the newsroom. “Davis! Line four! Someone from city hall! Mayor's office!”

“Be right there. I have to take this call, but thanks, guys. Email the pictures you took, if you don't mind.”

“Okay, but we want to help, too,” said Jensen.

Zhariah looked at her skeptically. “Look, I appreciate you—”

“You can trust us.”

“It's not that. It's…you're kids, and I can't be responsible for—”

“You won't be,” said Jensen. “Nobody has to know. You cover your story, we'll cover ours, and if we can help each other, we will. The fact that we're kids could help you. No offense, but nobody trusts reporters. As far as the world is concerned, Andy and I are just kids, and everybody knows that kids are apathetic losers. All they care about is themselves. And video games. And Instagram. We can
use
that.”

Zhariah looked them up and down, chewing on her lip. “One word: Halestrom.”

Andy stared out the rain-spattered window of the taxi as it sped west on Seventy-Ninth Street through Central Park. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked without turning to look at Silas. He sounded tired and as if he was afraid of what Silas might tell him. “I have a lot of homework. I think I'm failing math. And English. I can barely keep up with all the reading. Between you and Jensen, I'm never home. And when I am, I hardly ever see my dad because of his new schedule. My mom is
still
in Africa, and I don't know when she's coming home, to be honest.”

“I'm sure it's hard for her, too, being away for so long.”

“Yeah, sure. She was just about ready, but then something
else
happened—she couldn't say what. She's as bad as you about all these secrets. When I ask her, she just tells me it will be soon.”

“Sorry. That must be hard. I'm sure she's ready to come home, too. The first thing is for you to stop worrying so much. You're not failing anything at school. I've been keeping track. As a matter of fact, right now you're in the top twenty percent of your English and math classes.”

“How do you…Oh, right.”

“By the way, you got a ninety-one on the science quiz today. Third-highest grade in the class. Although I'm a little surprised that you confused igneous and metamorphic rock.”

That little bit of good news had no effect on Andy's mood. He kept right on staring out the window of the taxi, so Silas tried again: “Look, Andy, I know this is hard sometimes, but what we—what
you—
are doing is important. If it weren't for people like you, the world would be…well, a lot worse than it is. We're almost there. Here, take this. Buy something for your mom—a welcome-home present. She likes to knit, right?” He handed Andy two crisp twenties as the taxi pulled up in front of a storefront on Ninety-First Street. “That should get you enough for a scarf. If you need more, just charge it. Your credit is good here.”

“Enough…what?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to read the sign outside the shop.

“Yarn, of course. What else would you knit with?”

“Wait. Where am I going? What…who's here?”

“Mrs. Cardigan, for one. You must have noticed her knitting the day you met her down at the Mission. This is her shop. There's someone else, too. A surprise. Someone who wants to meet you.”

“In a
yarn
shop?”

Silas shrugged. “What can I say? She likes to knit.”

The door jangled as Silas led Andy inside Marner's Wool Goods, which, according to a plaque hanging behind the cash register, was established in 1977. A quick glance around the room assured Silas that they had the place to themselves, which didn't surprise him. He'd been in that shop a hundred times and had seen actual customers maybe twice. If Mrs. Cardigan had actually had to depend on selling yarn to stay in business, she wouldn't have made it past 1978. A devoted, talented knitter herself, she had admitted on a number of occasions that she was her own best customer.

The walls in the narrow, claustrophobia-inducing space were lined with row upon row of dark wood shelves, the lowest at knee level and the highest requiring a ladder to reach. Every square inch of shelf space was stacked with skeins of yarn, thousands and thousands of them, in every color imaginable and in many that were, frankly,
unimaginable
.

Mrs. Cardigan sat in a wing chair upholstered in fabric that mimicked the symphony of colors that surrounded her. She looked up and smiled when Silas and Andy came in. Her kindly, deep-set eyes sparkled with intelligence and wit, but her knitting needles clicked on; they never stopped moving. Hanging from them was a sock in a deep, rich green with two narrow purple stripes
.

“Great color combination,” Silas said. “Who are they for?”

She smiled up at him. “Thank you. I agree. I wasn't sure at first, but the colors are growing on me. There. Finished.”

Silas noted that she hadn't answered his question, and he knew her well enough to know that she had no intention of doing so. Rather than pursuing the subject, he pushed Andy toward her. “Mrs. Cardigan, you remember Andy.”

“Of course. How are you, Andover? Thank you for coming out tonight. I'm sure you have lots and lots of schoolwork that you could be doing.”

“Oh, no…I'm okay,” he lied.

“Hmm. That's not the story I got,” said Silas, smiling. “Andy, I think I should tell you a little about Mrs. Cardigan's personal philosophy. She believes—strongly—that nothing bad will happen to a person who wears wool socks, so she knits them for everyone she knows. It's not as crazy as it sounds. According to her logic, a person whose feet are properly attired is probably well prepared in
every
way—‘ready for anything,' as she is fond of saying.”

“Thank you, Silas,” said Mrs. Cardigan. “You're learning.” She removed the half-glasses she wore and let them fall to her chest, where they dangled from a chain. Deliberately, she laid her knitting on the arm of the chair and stood to address Andy. “There's someone I want you to meet. Someone you're going to be working with.” She guided his eyes to the second armchair. Squished against the back of it, with her feet tucked completely beneath her, sat a much younger woman, her cropped black hair punctuated by a comma of bright orange curling around her left ear.

“Hey,” she said, springing to her feet while still on the chair and then hopping to the floor in front of a very surprised Andy. “I'm Karina Jellyby. I hear you go to Wellbourne. Great school. Wow. You were right, Mrs. C.—he's
cute.
Look, I'm making him blush.”

“Easy, Karina,” Silas said. “We don't want to scare him off. Winter Neale is making him uncomfortable enough.”

Andy had met a few sort-of-famous people at the radio station, but Karina was his first honest-to-God celebrity, and he seemed to be frozen in place. Finally, his mouth started to work again. “Wh-what are you doing…
here
?” He glanced up at the miles of yarn. “Don't you have a concert, like, every night?”

“I've got a gig downtown later. But we don't go on until ten or ten-thirty. In the meantime, Mrs. Cardigan is teaching me to knit.” She held up her knitting needles, which held the first two inches of a red wool sock. “What do you think?”

Mrs. Cardigan lifted her glasses to her eyes for a closer look. “Not bad. I know it's a school night, and I don't want to keep you out too late, so what do you say we have a cup of tea and a little chat? We'd better move into the back room, just to be safe. Is everyone okay with Lapsang?”

Andy's ears perked up at the mention of Penny's “magic word” and watched as Mrs. Cardigan spooned loose black stuff into a cast-iron teapot and poured boiling water over it. He turned to Silas and whispered, “What is it?”

“It's a kind of tea. It's a tradition around here. You'll…learn to like it.”

“Lapsang souchong,” said Mrs. Cardigan as the smoky scent filled the air. “My favorite. Have you ever had it?”

“I…I don't think so.”

“You're in for a treat, then. This comes from one of the finest estates in China. All handpicked leaves. This tin was a gift from an agent in Hong Kong.”

“It's smoked over pinewood branches. At first, I thought it was a bit funky,” Karina admitted, “but now I love it—the smell reminds me of the beach parties we had up on the coast of Maine when I was a kid.”

“Supposedly, it was Winston Churchill's favorite,” Silas added as Mrs. Cardigan filled a mug for Andy. “Try it with milk and sugar first.”

Andy made a face when he tasted it and then added two more sugar cubes and another splash of milk. “That's better.”

The back room at Marner's Wool Goods is about as different from the front as can be. Instead of shelves of yarn, knitting needles, and instruction books, the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with electronic equipment. Dozens of television screens and computer monitors show locations all over New York City, with banks of flashing lights seeming to insist on proving how hard they are working at whatever it is they're doing.

“Whoa. What is this place?” asked Andy.

“Not exactly what you were expecting, is it?” Karina said. “I remember my first time.”

“We call it the Loom,” said Mrs. Cardigan, motioning to Andy to sit between her and Karina at the long, narrow table. “A loom, as I'm sure you know, is a machine used to weave yarn into cloth. In this room, information is our raw material. We gather it and piece it together and, we hope, weave it into something useful.”

Andy glanced up at the screen directly across the table from him. “Hey, I've been there. That's the entrance to the NTRP building. What are all those blue dots down at the bottom?”

“Each one of those dots represents a Syngian
inside
the building,” said Silas. “We've been tracking it twenty-four/seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year, since 2009. There was a gas leak in the area, and the entire building had to be evacuated. When the fire department let people back inside, we started counting, and we've been counting ever since. We have every exit and entrance covered, so we always know exactly how many Syngians are inside at any moment. We have some…new technology that picks up where Lucian Glass and the dogs like Penny leave off. That's what the number at the bottom left is.”

“So, there's
exactly
thirty-nine of them in there right now? Why do you need to know that?”

Everyone in the room turned to Mrs. Cardigan, who smiled. “The operation started out as a way to keep track of the other side's important operatives—when they left, where they went, whom they met, and so on. But then we began to notice a pattern. There were more Syngians leaving the building than had gone in. At first, we thought it was an instrument malfunction, but over the past year, we have confirmed our worst fear: NTRP has learned how to inoculate people with the
lumen lucidus,
almost as if it were a virus. It changes them permanently.”

“Th-they can? How?”

“We don't know yet, but we do know that they're getting better at it. We think it might be similar to what happens to domesticated pigs who escape captivity. In just a few weeks without human contact, they start to turn wild again. Not only their behavior—they change physically, too. They start to resemble wild boars. Their hair grows longer. They grow tusks. And they become very, very dangerous. It's quite an astonishing transformation.”

“So…you're saying that people are like pigs?” said Andy.

“Well, not exactly. Think of your brain as a bank of switches—thousands of them—that regulate how you look, what you like, everything about who you are. Each switch is either on or off; it's that simple.”

“We're learning about that in school,” said Andy. “That's how computers think. Everything is either zero or one.”

“Exactly—a binary code. The things that make us
civilized—
our language, our ability to feel love and compassion for others—those are switches, too. NTRP, it seems, has learned how to flip those switches from on to off. Right now the only thing we know for sure is that it's top-secret, even within NTRP. They call it Operation Tailor—we think it's called that because they're doing
alterations
to the person's personality, maybe even their DNA. Only the people at the top seem to know much about it. When we first noticed what was going on, they were altering only one or two people a month on average. Now they're up to thirty—about one a day—and the rate is increasing quickly.”

“And it's all the work of this man,” Silas said, sliding St. John de Spere's file down the table.

Andy picked it up and glanced at the photo inside. “Hey, this is the guy who was talking to Winter. His first name is Saint John? That's weird.”