Little Deadly Things (36 page)

If I could solve this problem, Eva and I could continue to collaborate. I had to try.

“When you want to hide something, put it in plain sight” was a maxim that Eva had drilled into me over and over. So, I looked around my little cage for something obvious. Eva, for all of her eccentricities, would never give me a test I couldn’t pass, and she always kept her word to me. But would anyone find me if Eva went mad and forgot about this room?

Time was running out. My hands were sweating and my mouth was dry. I had an itch on my back that was driving me crazy. I could think only of the itch. If it were not for her instructions, I’d grab the pencil and use it to scratch my back.

Then I saw the answer. I smiled. An elegant solution, simple and economical, like her software coding. I picked up the pencil. It reached the itchy spot on my back and I scratched. That felt good. I stuck the pencil behind my ear and walked over to the door. I grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and walked out of an unlocked cell.

Five minutes later, I walked into Eva’s work area, whistling a happy tune. She looked up and grinned for a second and then pointed me to a chair. She tossed my datasleeve back to me.

“You put some nice security on this,” she said. “I couldn’t jack it, at least not here and not in the time it took you to stumble out.”

“I made a few modifications,” I said, trying for nonchalance. “What’s next?”

“You solved the riddle. Remember, when you face an impossible challenge, your first move should be to look for the easiest solution. That’ll probably be right.”

“Now I have a self-study project for you. To finish this last assignment, you’ll need to use every bit of the chemistry, nanotechnology and materials science, and physics that you’ve learned.” She got up from her chair and walked around her desk. Perched on the edge, she was about as tall as I was, seated.

“Fact is, it’s time for you to fly solo. Take on a role at NMech. So here’s what you have to do. Here is a list of 34 senior researchers at NMech, 26 department heads and 18 executives.” She held up her arm in a transmit gesture and my sleeve pinged receipt of a file. “Your job is to jack every single one of them. Learn the chemistry or physics or materials science of each one of them by ghosting through their pillars. Learn how they manage their departments by observation and by jacking their diaries. Then link to me and we can carry on our conversations again.”

“That’s a big job, Eva,” I said, with maybe a little complaint or trepidation in my voice.

“And you’re a big boy. You’re fifteen—”

“Almost sixteen...”

“—and you’ve been taught the science by your mom and me, and your dad taught you some lessons that will make the assignment a lot easier.”

“Why all of this? Why jack 78 people’s sleeves?” I asked.

“Keys to the kingdom, kiddo. When you’re done, you can run the show if you want.”

Great,
I thought.
I need a one-man corporate takeover like a bald man needs a comb.
But all I said was, “Gee, Eva. Thanks.”

“Dana? Get your ass in gear. I have things to do, places to go. Time for big mischief.”

Her voice was starting to quaver again and the sound made me nervous. I had a very bad feeling right then, but nothing I could put my finger on, just a sense of foreboding. Had she really been her old self the past hour or so? Or was she just putting up a good front? Either way, the sound of her voice right then worried me.

Still, I did as Eva asked, and over the course of the next few days I would learn more than I ever wanted to know about the business end of nanotech and 3D manufacturing. I also found a strange piece of art in an unlabeled account. Eva would say nothing about the image. No matter how I pressed her, she refused to discuss it with me.

___________________________________________

SECOND SKIN

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2045

D
r. Colleen Katy Lowell, creator of morphing textiles technology, walked along Boylston Street, near the Public Garden, looking into the window displays of high-end clothing stores. She joined the shoppers who stopped to watch as the garments on display morphed from style to style. Colleen’s technology had made its first appearance at the expensive boutiques in the heart of Boston. She grinned and rushed past strollers on the broad sidewalk.
Well, lah-di-dah, lah-di-dah, lah-di-dah. I don’t need NMech after all.

She was exhausted and elated after a successful week of around-the-clock negotiations to secure funding to produce her line of nanocouture. She signed three prominent designers on the promise of venture capital money, and the VCs came on board when Colleen promised the designers.

The week had flown by. Meeting with the money people, then the nanofabbers. After agreements were reached, on came the marketing and distribution experts, and channel sales organizations. The manufacturers were the toughest of a tough lot—the few factory managers who understood fashion also understood that they were a very small group and wanted to charge accordingly. Admins crept in unnoticed with food and beverages and crept back out with the trash that the week’s conclaves generated. Samples of fabric, design, and prototypes appeared when required and disappeared when no longer needed. Colleen barely noticed the faces of the bearers of these items. She scarcely remembered breaks for food, changes of clothing, or the odd shower. Sleep? Forget it.

In her triumphant, if dazed, march down Boylston Street, she passed the alphabetically-arranged cross streets—Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth—and paused at the public library, the nation’s oldest. Two heroic bronze sculptures—female figures representing art and science, one holding an artist’s palette, the other an orb—flanked the entrance to the building. She felt as invincible as the bronze heroines. What could stop her now?

Colleen reached her building. It was nestled in Copley Square, a hub of business, learning, and leisure. She sleeved past the security pillar and took an elevator to the eighteenth floor. The door recognized her and opened as she approached. She stopped in the entryway, kicked off her shoes, and stepped onto a thick pile rug. Today it displayed a traditional Moroccan design, an ivory background with brilliant blue diamonds. Colleen adored the soft cushion under her feet.

She was shaking with joy, ecstatic at the fulfillment of a dream. There was more work to do than she could imagine, but right now was a time for a quiet celebration. She had done it.

Colleen crossed her living room, picked up a crystal decanter from a sideboard, and poured two fingers of a Laphroaig Scotch Whisky. She swallowed the smoky liquid, letting the peaty Islay malt warm and relax her.

After a moment’s rest, Colleen went to the bathroom to wash her face. She noticed a smudge on her sleeve. No matter. She would activate the garment’s cleaning properties while she changed it from a business suit to something casual and comfortable.

Dr. Colleen Katy Lowell’s last living act was to subvocalize instructions to her datasleeve to refashion the garment. She chose culottes and a loose-fitting top for freedom of movement. She decided to let her sleeve pick the color from a palette that complemented her light brown hair and fair skin tones. The sleeve displayed a selection of reds and Colleen confirmed the choice. Perfect. Designer Bill Blass had said, “When in doubt, wear red.”

Colleen never tired of watching the fabric stretch and pull, reforming itself. She imagined that it was like a second skin, conforming to her figure and mood. She stood still as the jacket lost its pockets. The sleeves shortened and the jacket wove itself from an open front to a pullover. The legs had begun to pull up away from her ankles when her datasleeve processed a string of code that lay hidden in her sleeve’s memory.

The tightening across her chest was the first indication that something was wrong. Colleen subvocalized but the jacket continued to constrict. First it was uncomfortable, then painful. The jacket compressed her chest and pinned her arms, an anaconda on its prey. She couldn’t breathe. She stumbled into a wave of vertigo and collapsed. Pinpoints of light speckled her vision. She tried to call out—nothing but a hoarse whisper. Then, blackness. Her lifeless body lay cushioned on the soft pile of her treasured rug.

Four minutes later the garment relaxed and followed Colleen’s original instruction. It morphed into a loose top and culottes. Medical sensors, briefly deactivated, now triggered a distress beacon. The garment began rhythmic pulses, attempting CPR to revive the inert form. A recording of the event would show a spike in blood pressure followed by asphyxiation from a stress-induced myocardial infarction, a heart attack. It was understandable given her workload, a pity given her age.

The fatal databurst had travelled from satellite to satellite, from pillar to pillar, losing its pedigree. It would never be traced from the dataport on Eva Rozen’s Cerberus datapillar.

___________________________________________

DEPARTURES

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2045

C
olleen Katy Lowell was interred in a beautiful setting on a dreary day. The memorial service was held in Harvard College’s Holden Chapel, one of the oldest college buildings in America. The tiny edifice served as a house of worship in 1744. Later, it became part of the College’s medical school. The building’s diverse history mirrored Colleen’s eclectic talents.

Marta, Jim, and Dana sat in the front row of a small group of mourners. Colleen’s mother was a convalescent in a Minnesota nursing home. Her father had passed away and she had no brothers or sisters. A college friend, Rebecca Avery, two programmers from Colleen’s small company, and a scattering of others rounded out a scant assembly. Avery spoke briefly, and briefly cheered the mourners by describing Colleen’s wild streak as well as her brilliance. One of her design colleagues spoke of Colleen’s dedication to beauty. The other was mute with grief.

Jim helped Marta stand to address the assembly. Her skin was fever flushed, her pain obvious. “Colleen was different from anyone I know. I believe that everyone has seeds of anger and of grace—human weaknesses and God-given strengths. The way we balance these forces determines our good days and our bad days. Colleen had her faults but she was without guile. She was unpretentious—just look at how she mingled with corporate executives, runway models, and backroom maintenance staff. The years that she spent pursuing her dream testify to her confidence. She was my friend and I miss her terribly.”

Marta led the small assembly along a two-mile procession from the chapel to Mount Auburn Cemetery. They drove in silence. The funerary convoy would process past Cambridge Common, grey and muddy in the late winter gloom. The mourners would be escorted along Memorial Drive, a broad roadway that hugged the Charles River. Elm, linden, hawthorne, and lilac trees stood barren in the winter chill, rigid sentinels honoring Colleen’s passage.

Not one of the trees at the cemetery, nor the gardens, nor the ponds, nor the dells salved the bitter ache in Marta’s heart, neither did they soothe the fever that burned in her face. She summoned the last of her strength to stand alone over the yawning grave and to watch Colleen’s casket feed the hungry earth. When the coffin was in place, Marta took a lilac-hued aster to place on the coffin. Ancients believed that the perfume from an aster drove off evil spirits. “It’s too late for that now,” Marta said, and dropped the useless flower on Colleen’s casket and then turn to accept her husband’s arm and comfort.