The Playmaker Project

by Daniel Peterson

  "What do the police think?" asked Anna.

  "Still investigating. No signs of violence. As unbelievable as it sounds, he may have taken his own life."

  "That's not possible, he was fine yesterday," Anna blurted out.

  "You saw him yesterday?"

  "Well, yes, here at the academy,” said Anna, covering her tracks. “He was the same old Stuart.”

  Victor paused, looking back at Anna.

  "Well, we have to manage the media circus. And take care of the boys," said Victor. "Let's put the project on hold. Just until this all blows over."

  "Victor, this is Stuart Pennington we're talking about. A Liverpool legend. I hardly think this will just blow over. We can't think about moving forward until you find a new coach. It could be months. And this time, we need to be upfront about everything," said Anna with a stern look.

  "I'll deal with that. In the meantime, why don't you take some time off? Go back to Helsinki for a few days," said Victor with a hand on her shoulder, which Anna shrugged off.

  "Are you sending me away?" said Anna, her head tilted, and eyes narrowed.

  "No, I'm suggesting you just lie low for a while. Between this and the issues with Borg, we need to let things settle," said Victor.

  Now, Anna was evaluating Victor’s response.

  "Do you think the two are connected?" she asked.

  "Anna, just go back to your lab. Don't comment on any of this. I'll handle it."

  Anna set her jaw, preparing a response but then backed off.

  "Please keep me updated," she said in a quiet but intense tone, turning away.

  She let herself out, passing Helen by her desk. As their eyes met, Anna shook her head slowly.

  34

  The first time Eddie read the text, he thought he was dreaming. He lay in bed, adjusting his eyes to the morning sun cutting through the blinds of his cabin bedroom. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at the message again.

  "Franz just told us that Coach Pennington is dead," said Benny's text. "They found him in the bay early this morning. I'm kinda freaking out. And Pete doesn't care."

  He checked the time, 7:43am. Not even ten hours ago, Stuart was talking with him and Anna outside his cabin. Eddie's memory flashed across the conversation. Anna's lack of information had upset Stuart. He threatened to expose her program, whatever it was. His last words to Eddie, "probably not until I'm gone," were prophetic.

  Eddie felt his head pound. He needed fresh air. And he needed to respond to Benny. He mindlessly started a pot of coffee then stepped outside. He surveyed the firepit and the chair that Stuart had folded himself into last night, replaying the words between the concerned coach and the beautiful, but deceptive doctor. Dressing in a daze, he splashed the coffee into a travel mug. He thumbed a preliminary reply to Benny, "Ben, I don't even know what to say. I'm in shock, like you. I will get some answers. Stay calm. And stay in your dorm. I'll get back to you ASAP."

  These things don't just happen, thought Eddie. A man like Stuart Pennington doesn't just give up on life and jump into the sea. A woman like Anna Lehtinen doesn't just order a man killed for asking questions. But nothing was making sense and he needed to keep his emotions in check. If Anna did have something to do with this, he doubted that she acted alone. He needed more information but was unsure where to start. Definitely not Victor, who he still had not met. Jack would be clueless as always. The boys did not seem to know any more than what Franz told them. Franz seemed harmless, but he had no way to contact him. That left one person. One person on whom he had to gamble, hoping his instincts were right. He played a hunch and headed out the door.

  Anna's first text after leaving Victor's office was to Jami Herala back at her university lab.

  "I'll explain later but lockdown Kognitio now. Disable all logins except yours and mine."

  She passed through the lobby out into the parking lot towards the red scooter. A reply pinged her phone.

  "Done. Including the new proxy user."

  Anna stopped halfway across the lot.

  "What new proxy user?" she typed.

  "The one created yesterday. You didn't do that?"

  "No. What IP address did it come from?"

  There was a pause. A car waited for Anna to move out of the way. It took a tap on the horn to get her attention. She waved an apology and hurried to the edge of the lot.

  "It must be a ghost IP, I can't ping it back," Jami texted.

  "Delete that user," Anna replied. "Then check the activity log."

  Another pause as Anna felt the world closing in on her. Her phone pulsed.

  "The system won't let me delete the user," replied Jami. "And someone wiped the activity log clean."

  Anna's heart pounded. Her medical training kicked in as she began to triage the situation. An outside threat had penetrated the system. Standard treatment was not an option. She must create a unique procedure on the fly to prevent the patient from suffering severe repercussions. Enough texting, she dialed Jami.

  "OK, we have a problem," she said. "Someone has hacked Kognitio. We need to counter anything they do until we can deprogram our experimental subjects. Any ideas?"

  "The kernel is still safe. It's encrypted, and only I have the key. I can put a block on any new commands from there. Eventually, they could break into it and take complete control, but they'll need some time," said Jami.

  "How much time?"

  "For someone who knows what they're doing, maybe a day, two at the most. They just created the user account yesterday, so they're probably already working on it."

  "Take the system offline," said Anna.

  "But we won't be able to communicate with the experimentals," said Jami.

  "I know. We'll have to bring it online for short bursts when we need to make a change. Then we go dark again."

  "It's your call, but you know we won't have any way to monitor—"

  "It's our only option," she interjected. "And, if you haven't heard, Stuart Pennington is dead."

  There was silence.

  "What is happening, Anna?" said Jami in a quiet voice.

  "I don't know. But we have to protect the boys. Once you take the server offline, move it to a safe location."

  "Like where?"

  "Somewhere off-campus where they won't look for it. Not your apartment. Just keep it close to a secure internet connection for when we need it."

  "Are you coming back here?" said Jami.

  "Yes, but we can't use these phones anymore. Go buy a burner phone and let's meet at our old lunch spot tomorrow at noon. We'll exchange info there," said Anna.

  Anna ended the call and continued her triage. She thought of everyone that she could trust. Jami had been with her long before meeting a man named Victor Niemi. And Victor seemed genuinely surprised and shaken by the news of Stuart's death, yet she could not tell if he was complicit or clueless. No one else at the Academy had knowledge of the project, as far as she knew. Stuart proved last night that he was suspicious, but it was just the three of them talking. That left one person as concerned about the boys as Stuart. One person who she felt still had a moral backbone. She pulled on her helmet and climbed onto the red scooter.

  35

  Eddie returned to where the trail emerged from the birch forest at the beach road with three bungalows to the right. He regretted not turning around to watch Anna enter her cottage last time they were here. His only plan was to knock on each of the three front doors until he found her. It was late in the day, about when she would head home from the academy. He surmised that she already knew about that morning's fateful news. If he could just see her face to face, he might be able to tell if she was panicking to be in a scheme that had turned darker than initially planned. Then again, she might be oblivious, perhaps naïve, that someone would die for asking questions about a project she started. Either way, he forced his feelings down and raised his objective radar.

  Where he stood on the edge of the island, the cell reception lagged, but h
e could still scan several top news sites. So far, Stuart Pennington's untimely death had not leaked out to the world. Eddie turned towards the sea, wincing at the acrid smell of dead alewives. He looked into the forest, eerily dark from the overcast, pre-dawn sky, and took a moment to reset reality. Standing alone on a Finnish archipelago, he eagerly waited for a woman, who he may have a future with, or she might be an accomplice to a murder. Two best friends, who he cared for like family, had faced off in this bizarre circumstance, fueled by a billionaire connected to a mysterious financier. He had no business being there but was not leaving without Peter and Benny.

  The red scooter did not come quietly. It rattled down the road, coughing and wheezing with puffs of black exhaust following it. Eddie stood awkwardly on the pavement until the machine slowed to a stop about fifty feet away. The rider's long brown hair settled behind her shoulders. They stayed motionless for a few seconds staring at each other. He half expected her to turn and flee, but she remained. That was a positive sign. She turned off the sputtering engine, pulled off her helmet, and dismounted, keeping her eyes fixed on him.

  "Doesn't sound like a battery problem anymore," said Eddie with a nervous smirk.

  "Good thing you're a coach and not a mechanic," said Anna, with a straight face.

  She pushed the scooter towards him.

  "Can I help?" he said, reaching for the handlebars, but watching her eyes.

  "I sure hope so," she said, returning his intent stare.

  They continued down the road to the second bungalow, not the one that Eddie would have guessed. He leaned the bike next to the decorative gate, the kind that has no functional purpose other than defining a boundary between the road and the yard. Instead of going inside, she led him to the backyard, past the yellow lilies that she had planted that spring, and down the stone walk that appeared older than the house. From the long grasses to the tide's reach was only ten meters with caramel sand strewn with smooth pebbles. Anna removed her shoes, leaving them at the end of the walkway. They walked towards the water, scanned in both directions for company, then turned left and headed down the shore.

  "I was on my way to find you," said Anna.

  “Really?” said Eddie. “You thought I’d be at your cottage?”

  Anna turned her head to again meet Eddie’s eyes.

  "So, you've heard?" she asked.

  "Yeah, from Benny. He's scared."

  "We all are."

  "What do you know?" asked Eddie.

  "Victor says it was an accident, possibly a suicide."

  Eddie gave a sideways glance.

  "No, I don't believe him," she said, looking down at the last wave that had just covered their feet.

  "I just want to get the boys home, Anna. That's my responsibility."

  "And I just want to go back to Helsinki and put this all behind me," she said, peering up at the gray blanket of clouds.

  "What's stopping you?"

  "Getting those boys back to you," she said. "In the same condition as when they arrived."

  Eddie let the comment hang in the air as he processed it. If she was an evil scientist, the sincerity and exhaustion in her voice hid it well. He sensed a breakthrough.

  "How can we do that?" he asked softly.

  She looked at him, slightly surprised by the offer.

  "We?" she said.

  "Yes, we. The only way this happens is if we're in this together. I can help you reverse whatever has been done. But you have to trust me."

  Anna walked a few more steps in the sea foam now up to her ankles. The gnawing in her stomach eased as her shoulders relaxed. She had to trust someone.

  "I accept my responsibility in this and am ready to face any discipline that may come. But I'm scared that it's slipping out of my control," she said, with a cracking voice.

  Eddie put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him.

  "Start at the beginning. Tell me everything," he said, lowering his head to raise her gaze.

  For the next mile down the beach, Anna divulged the complete plan for the FC Kotka recruits, starting with her research. At its core was a new design for a brain implant that held the possibility of supplementing memory or even replacing damaged neural pathways. She told him of her mother, the renowned cellist, and the careless driver in London who had taken away her musical mastery. Just as an EEG machine could read the electrical output of brainwaves, her implants could send electrical signals back into the brain with specific instructions, like playing Bach's Cello Suite No 1.

  She never contemplated helping athletes perform until Victor Niemi stopped her in between sessions at the International Neuroscience Society conference in Edinburgh two years ago. He promised nearly unlimited funding along with a testing facility that she could design. Despite her breakthroughs at Helsinki and her mesmerizing presentations to her colleagues around the world, the traditional channels for money, the large family foundations, or government science grants, wouldn't touch her research claiming too many ethical concerns. The Kotka Vision, as Victor dubbed it, was to revolutionize sports science by proving its effectiveness and safety while winning trophies in record time.

  "He threw me a lifeline when I thought my lab would need to move on to other pursuits," she said. "It was an ideal proposal."

  "What did the University say?"

  "My dean warned me about taking my research out from under the controlled structure of peer review and ethics boards. They have always been very conservative with their funding sources, never accepting money from individuals for proprietary projects."

  Not wanting to stop the flow of information, Eddie gave a nod and half-shrug of agreement.

  Anna continued on with the recruitment and testing of the boys. Through the use of EEG helmets that her team developed, they could filter and identify players who would respond best to new patterns and communications between each other.

  Eddie stopped walking.

  "Did you say communications with each other?"

  "Yes, we call it synthetic telepathy."

  "As in I could read your mind?"

  "Well, not exactly. I would send you a message or thought, and then you could receive that," said Anna.

  "With no wires or helmets or anything, just brain to brain?"

  "Brain implant to brain implant via Bluetooth now, but we're developing our own wireless transmission method."

  Eddie's eyes darted around the waves lapping at his feet.

  "So, on the field, could players — "

  "Talk to each other without speaking?" said Anna, finishing his question. "Yes."

  Images of the stellar play that he had witnessed on the field from Peter and the others ran through his mind's eye. A light shone brightly in Eddie's eyes as he turned his head towards Anna.

  "That explains a lot," he said with a wry smile. "So, Peter has the implant? Who else?”

  " Peter and Aleks," said Anna. “Peter met our criteria.”

  “So why Aleks?”

  Anna paused. “Victor added him.”

  Eddie’s eyes drifted out to the ocean.

  “What about emotions, mood changes?” asked Eddie.

  "Once a connection is made on the field, it can carry over to a camaraderie off the field,” she said. “A fierce loyalty is built that we are still studying. That is why we are careful to monitor those selected.”

  "Or what?" asked Eddie.

  “Or this kind of partnership could take on a life of its own,” she said.

  “But you have control of the system to prevent that, right?”

  Anna pursed her lips looking away.

  “Anna?”

  “As of this morning, we believe the system has been compromised,” she said.

  Eddie stopped. Anna took few more steps then waited, not turning to look at him.

  “So, you shut it down, right?” said Eddie.

  “We’re trying.”

  “You’re trying?”

  Anna put her head down. Her shoulders started to shak
e with sobs.

  Eddie refused to offer any comfort. He looked around them to be sure they were alone.

  "Obviously, we were having some early success with it," said Anna, raising her head trying to regain composure. "But it also has had a few side effects."

  "A few serious side effects," said Eddie, still staring at the back of her head.

  Anna turned towards the waves.

  "Why couldn't you share this with Stuart?" asked Eddie.

  Anna wrinkled her forehead, suppressing more tears.

  "Because Victor told me he didn't need to know. That this was just between the two of us."

  “Did you completely sell out to this guy?”

  She flicked her eyes at Eddie.

  “I had no choice; it was either follow his rules or the project would end.”

  "And the boys? They must have known you inserted an implant in their skull?"

  Anna shook her head slightly. "We told them it was a sleep study. The chip itself is the size of a grain of rice," she said.

  Eddie stared at her. "So, let me recap. You inserted a chip into the heads of these young men without their knowledge and without knowing what side effects may occur?" said Eddie, with his head tilted.

  Anna nodded slowly.

  "Yeah, just a few ethical issues there," said Eddie, as he turned a circle in the sand.

  They were at the end of the beach, where a bluff jutted out into the water. Eddie stopped, kicked a few rocks into the surf, and processed the last twenty minutes.

  "Do you still want to help?" Anna asked softly.

  Eddie thought for a few moments as the sun broke through the clouds. The situation was worse than he thought. Anna was not the evil scientist, but she was in over her head.

  "I don't want to, but I have to," he said. "I promised that I would get those boys home, even if one of them doesn’t want to leave.”

  “Peter said that?” she asked.

  “He said exactly that to my face. His whole personality has turned on me and Benny.”

  “Shit.” Anna started walking back to her cottage.

  “Is this the loyalty thing kicking in?” asked Eddie.