Devil's Plaything (27 page)

I
t's three in the morning and there are four creatures in my bed: me; Hippocrates; Polly; and a fledgling human being, cell-dividing at a frightening rate.

Of late, Polly has become a regular nighttime visitor, seemingly undaunted by my frayed sheets and towels. Or my restless imagination and the tossing and turning.

I go into the living room and sit with my imagination. It (my imagination) has been pulsing about something Polly said before she went to sleep when I'd asked her how this baby would manage to squeeze out of her body.

“First law of physics: What goes up must come down,” she explained.

“Who said that? Copernicus or Obama?”

“Newton.”

“What did you just say?”

“Sir Isaac Newton. Obama's a different guy. He discovered the cures for cancer, global warming, and fatty foods.”

Polly rolled over and fell asleep and my imagination kicked into gear.

Now I'm sitting in front of my laptop computer waiting for it to boot up. I make a pot of coffee.

It has been two-and-half weeks since I visited Chuck in the rain. I'm just a few days shy of the mysterious three-week deadline Pete gave me. And I've learned little of value that might make sense of any of it.

I looked at the public records to see about the real-estate ownership of the dental office and imaging center. They both are leased by a property management company that hasn't returned calls.

I did finally manage to get a return call from the public relations director at Biogen. He said he's never heard of the Human Memory Crusade or ADAM but says he'd love to take me out for coffee to talk about a new skin-softening lotion developed from biotech research. The lotion, he says, can “de-age” the derma. But he adds that we can't meet until the merger goes through with Falcon Corp. The companies are in a quiet period while they await anti-trust approval for the deal from the European Union.

Pete, dismissed from the ICU, has gone away with his family on an extended recovery. His office won't tell me where that is, and he isn't returning my calls.

Adrianna won't have anything to do with me. I beg her to help me help Lane. She says she has no idea what Pete meant by “three weeks.”

I've spent hours with Grandma, watching her and Harry interact with a peaceful tenderness that I'd somehow overlooked. I'm trying to accept her aging. I'm also preoccupied with Polly's health and, for the first time, my own. I got my inaugural cholesterol test and signed up for a life-insurance policy.

My bank account is solvent, the Visa is back working, and I've got a BlackBerry. Polly reminds me not to text and drive.

If I will only allow it to, life would be back to relative normal.

But I've been haunted by the idea that the document Pete gave me contains some important secret, and that key information remains buried in Lane's head. It's the one thing that I can't make sense of or explain away with the collusive rationalizations I got from Chuck and Pete and Adrianna.

I'm convinced that Adrianna intended to give me the key. But before she managed to do so she was either interrupted, intercepted, or convinced otherwise. Pete either absconded with the document or, maybe, he and Adrianna were lovers and she gave it to him to protect.

The computer comes to life. I call up a site that is a “binary decoder.”

Bullseye and I have tried repeatedly to decode Grandma's interviews with the Human Memory Crusade. For instance, we've tried changing the order of her answers so that they generate a different series of ones and zeroes. If we start with “Purple Chevrolet” (which = 1) then we get a different answer than if we start with “No polio in the family” (which = 0).

We've also gone over her transcripts for any other keywords we've missed.

And we've also tried to determine the meaning of the commands that appear at the bottom of the piece of paper I took from Pete's library. Those commands include such phrases as, “If union, then Yankees.”

There are several possibilities that we infer from this “if-then” statement. One is that when we hit the keyword “union” we instead put the code for “Yankees.” Another possibility is that when we hit the word “union” the program is telling us to go back through Grandma's story to the place where she said “Yankees” and begin decrypting from there. We have found that particular interpretation to be compelling because it allows us to create numerous strands of ones and zeroes by looping us through Grandma's keywords over and over again.

We have created dozens of strings of ones and zeroes, set apart in groups of eight per the binary language. But we failed to derive any meaning. When we put the strings of ones and zeroes into a binary decoder, we came up with random strings of numbers or letters. It's all digital nonsense.

Bullseye finally gave up and told me not to bother him anymore.

Maybe Newton holds the key.

Adrianna used her surrogate son as the basis for several passwords in her life.

“What goes up, must come down,” I say.

I open a file in which I've kept some of the futile work Bullseye and I have done. There are a half dozen clumps of ones and zeroes. I start cutting and pasting various batches into the binary decoder. For instance:

00110010 00111001 00111000 00110100 00110111 00110010 00110110 01100011 00111001 00110011

The decoder spits out: “2984726c93”

Then I reverse the order of the strings of ones and zeroes and the decoder spits out: “39c6274892”

In other words, I get the same nonsense in reverse order. I try this with string after string that we generated.

Feeling tired and defeated I get up for some coffee. I take two swigs.

I cut and paste another batch:

01100001 01101110 01101001 01110010 01100001 010011010 0111001 00111000 00110010 00111000 00110110 00110101 00101101 00110100 00110010 00110001

I enter it into the binary decoder. It spits out: “aniraM98 2865–412”

Like a lot of my attempts, it seems to suggest some meaning, but nothing I can make sense of.

In keeping with Isaac Newton's theory that what goes up must come down, I switch the order of the strings, and I get:

00110001 00110010 00110100 00101101 00110101 00110110 00111000 00110010 00111001 00111000 01001101 01100001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100001

I enter this into the binary decoder, and it spits out: 124–5682 89Marina

This is intriguing for a Bay Area resident. I pick up the decoded string (124–5682 89Marina) and I paste it into a Google search box. I hit enter. Google returns a response: “See results for: 89 Marina.”

I feel a charge I'm pretty certain is unrelated to the coffee: 89 Marina is the address of the San Francisco Marina. It's a modest dock under the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge where people park their houseboats and yachts.

I click on an image of the marina. It looks familiar—for obvious reasons. I've jogged there dozens of times, and stared at the female joggers and the setting sun twice that many. But there's something else about the image that pulls at me. What is it?

What's down at the marina?

I cut and paste into Google the random string of numbers (214–5682) generated by the binary decoder. Google spits back hundreds of thousands of hits. None of them has particular meaning.

I shut my laptop and close my eyes to see if I can make sense of this puzzle.

I get more coffee, drink it, and pace. A half mile of living-room exercise later, it hits me. I know where else I've seen an image of the marina houseboat docks. It was in Chuck's house. In his father's room, on the desk. I squint and clench my teeth and rattle my head trying to remember its name. And then my neuro-chemicals and caffeine gel and it comes to me:
Surface to Air
. The name of the boat.

This can't be all random.

I walk into my bedroom and pick up a pair of Levis that I'd actually taken the time to fold, rather than pile on the floor on top of the other clothes. Folding, I've been telling myself, is a step toward becoming more organized and a better father. What about heading out to a marina at dawn to chase my imagination?

“Where are you going?” Polly stirs.

“Coffee, donut, and closure.”

She smiles, and puts her head back down. She's been feeling sick lately and not working fifteen-hour days.

“Don't get killed,” she mumbles innocently.

I stand in chilly stillness. The marina is modest, and a throwback to a less-expensive time. Many of the boats seem to belong to bygone hippies. One boat is called
Janis Joplin Floats
, and another is
Grateful Dirge
.

I don't see another soul awake and walking these planks. Some are still asleep on their boats; others probably come only on weekends.

I walk down the aisles until I come to it. The
Surface to Air
is a twenty-foot sailboat with a covered outboard motor. Beside the motor, beneath a ledge, stands a lonely pair of yellow rain boots on an otherwise clean-swept deck. In the center of the boat, a rectangular cabin protrudes from the deck, darkened windows on all four sides.

I look around the marina. Seeing no one, I step over the edge of the pier and onto the boat. I walk to the cabin, and peer into a window. The dark tint makes it difficult to discern what is inside.

I take a breath and hold it, and then reach for the handle on the cabin door. To my surprise, it turns.

Inside, a modest cockpit; along the sides, a small refrigerator, fishing equipment, industrial-size food supplies, like two large plastic jugs of orange juice.

It also seems ordinary. Except that there's a table in the center with a laptop chained to it.

M
y cell phone buzzes and, surprised and anxious, I nearly hit my head in the small space. I pull my phone from my pocket. It is a text from Polly that reads: “Craving maple frostd.” I text back: “Cmng up.”

I turn off my phone.

The laptop is sleek, black, relatively new. I hit the space key. The monitor flickers to life. On the screen is an icon for a program I've never heard of: “InterneXt.” The word is enclosed in a graphic of the human brain. I click on it.

Onto the screen pops a rectangular login box. The user name says: “LaneElizaIdle.” The password is blank.

I stand. I walk to the door of the boat. I open it, and I poke out my head. I look around the dock. Halfway down the pier, a woman sweeps the deck of her boat. I duck back inside. I lock the door. I sit.

Into the password section, I type: “NatIdle.” I hit “enter.” A message returns: “Your password is incorrect. After three incorrect attempts the program will be permanently locked out.”

I stand. I clench my fingers together, hang my head, squint my eyes. I'm scouring my brain for connections, memories, mnemonics, cryptic references that only Lane Idle would know. Would she know anything at all?

Twinsons, Lovesreading, doublelife, Voted4Kennedy, SnakePuker, Maverick, EnglishTeacher, Coloradan, DadwasBAKER.

Can Grandma's life be summed up with a phrase or word? What connection or concept or secret of hers has someone inserted as this password?

I sit down at the computer. I put my hands on the keyboard and I type: “Pigeon.” I hit “enter.” The message returns: “Your password is incorrect. After three incorrect attempts the program will be permanently locked out.”

Screw it. Screw all of it. What does it matter?

One more password, then I will let this all go. I will return home with a maple donut and kiss Polly's belly. I'll take an editing position or a staff writing job at a magazine. I'll put this behind me, the Chasing and the Coming Up Just Short. I'll help raise a beautiful son or daughter or twins and I'll let them use the computer all they want because it will hinder their ability to remember that their dad was a sometimes malcontent.

Let the fates decide.

From my back pocket, I extract my wallet. I pull out a piece of paper on which I've written the series of numbers and letters I generated before leaving home from the binary decoder.

The code looks like this: “214–5682 89Marina”

I know that “89Marina” stands for the address. What do the other numbers stand for?

I type them into the empty password spot. I put my finger on the “enter” key. I pause. Maybe they're supposed to go in the reverse order, like Newton said. And like I said: Screw it. I hit “enter.”

The login screen starts to dissolve. In its place, a document starts to materialize. The first page reads:

InterneXt

Internet 2.0

Human/Data Transfer Technology

The information herein is copyrighted and classified. Use or copying of this information is strictly prohibited and may have deleterious medical consequences.

At the bottom of the page is the word “Next.”

I inhale deeply, hold my breath, and click.

A new page appears.

The first Internet protocols were developed in 1973, leading to the creation of the World Wide Web and mass adoption of the technology by consumers, corporations and governments. It has continued to serve its initial purpose of providing a decentralized communications medium that cannot be easily destabilized. But it has also become a liability. Confidential information delivered via computers can be intercepted, decoded, and changed. That presents problems for ordinary citizens, whose information can be compromised, but even more so for corporate or government (military) entities that need to rely on secure transfer of information.

In 2007, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the agency responsible for funding the original Internet, endeavored to create a new, more secure version of the Internet: InterneXt or Internet 2.0. Working secretly with several handpicked scientists, they undertook to study whether data could be stored and transferred—not on magnetic computer chips—but in human memory cells. The basic idea was to determine whether the expanse of human memory space might be used to encode information, unbeknownst to the carrier. Farfetched as it sounds, the prospective uses could be extraordinary, such as: having an unsuspecting civilian (child/old person) carry data across enemy lines; having someone encrypted with launch codes or mission critical information but who could not be hacked via a computer; eventually developing the ability to “program” fallow human memory centers with vast stores of data.

Unwitting human hard drives. The ultimate mobile storage devices.

I was one of the scientists involved in the project. At the time that I began working for Chuck Taylor, his intentions were not clear to me. I believed that we were exploring technology that might strengthen human memory capacity, not overwrite it.

I hope that I have met you in person. If so, you probably didn't have cause to discover this file and read it (because I've told you the important parts and you've already written a front-page scoop).

If we haven't met and you're reading this, I'm probably dead.

I have discovered the extent of the project and its real purposes. I have learned that Chuck plans to send a group of Vietnam and Iraq War veterans to China. The reason given for the trip is the Pan-Asian Games taking place over Thanksgiving. Unknowingly, the vets will be carrying secure data. I am not certain if this is encoded information for mere testing purposes or if Chuck is actually transferring important military data to the Chinese.

I don't know if any of this will make sense to you. It doesn't have to. What I need from you are two things: expose the perpetrators and then destroy this file.

Without the information in this file, Chuck and his partners cannot reproduce their efforts. Herein are the scientific protocols that dictate how computers must be programmed to stimulate memory loss and to overwrite it. This is the only copy. All others have been destroyed.

Why am I including them here?

It is possible that you can use this information to undo damage done to your grandmother. I am sorry for what happened to her. Her adventurous mind and eagerness to hunt for new information and experiences made her hippocampus particularly susceptible to manipulation.

This was extremely unfortunate and it did not even constitute a success for Chuck's purposes. He and whoever his partners are need people whose memories can be compromised but who remain functional. For their purposes, a nearly obliterated memory—a neurological wildfire—effectively renders the host useless.

But for my purposes, she appears to have retained sufficient communication skills. That is why I've encrypted inside of her the password that protects this file.

I am sorry also that I have made things so difficult for you to discover. Given Chuck's seemingly limitless resources and capacities, I did not know where to turn. I tried to encrypt my clues in a way only you could discover.

Once you've brought the conspiracy to light, please destroy this file. The science included here, while still in its early stages, is among the most powerful innovations I have ever seen. It begins to meld the minds of humans and computers—and may eventually lead to a new Internet protocol based not on bits and bytes but on neuro-chemicals and programmable human brain tissue.

If I am dead, your grandmother's neurologist may be able to help you. If he cannot help you, then you may not succeed.

On the page that follows is what looks to me like Greek. It's a series of computer and scientific equations.

I am so entranced staring at them that I don't hear a key enter the lock on the boat's door, and only register what's happening as the door swings open. I turn to see Chuck. He's holding a duffel bag. Without saying a word, he unzips it and pulls out his gun.

He aims at my head.

“What took you so long?” he asks.