Dead On Arrival

by Matt Richtel

  “Hello, Jackie,” they simultaneously drawled but seemed mostly disinterested. Then the female Alex said: “And then there were three.”

  “That’s right, three now,” Denny said. “So one of you geniuses will have to figure out how to divide the Red Bulls by thirds.”

  “I only work with imaginary numbers,” cracked the male Alex.

  “You’ll love it here,” Denny said and took a sharp angle to the right. Jackie followed him through the building to a staircase with metal railings and cement stairs. “Where the action happens,” Denny said in a low voice.

  “They’re really both named Alex?”

  “What’re the odds, but, yep.”

  Denny had also explained in the Tesla what happened below. Below, testing rooms where Google sought to dial in this Lantern discovery it had made. The discovery, in essence, was that Internet users experienced sharply improved rates of memory recall depending on the speed, frame rate, and also the frequency of the delivery of information.

  “Like subliminal messages?” Jackie had mused. “What Alfred Hitchcock did in Psycho.”

  “Much more sophisticated and less well understood. We just know it seems to work.”

  He had pulled up four images on the Tesla screen of the hippocampus, a crescent-shaped part of the brain central to memory recall. The images were taken from real-time magnetic imaging scans of a twenty-two-year-old female study subject. During the tests, the woman had been using her phone or an iPad. The tests were complex because the study subject had to look at and interact with the devices while situated in an MRI machine. The images that Denny displayed in the Tesla were similar except that some images were shaded more than others. The greater the shading, Denny explained, the more of the young woman’s hippocampus had been engaged at the time that the imaging had taken place. Where it was less shaded, less of the woman’s brain was engaged.

  Jackie could see where this was all headed. “So during some of her online interactions, she remembered more than she did in some other cases.”

  “That too,” Denny said. The images, he explained, didn’t necessarily mean that the subject remembered less, or more—because images can lie. But in this particular case, the images hadn’t lied at all. Far from it. After the study subject was removed from the machine, she had taken tests to see how much of her online interactions she remembered. In the same conditions in which her hippocampus had lit up most, she had the strongest recall.

  “Amazing, actually,” Denny said. “Like she had eidetic memory.”

  “Photographic.”

  “Right.”

  “So what made the difference on what she remembered?”

  Denny shook his head. “We’re not sure. We were playing with placement of information, streams, also speeds and frame rates. We can’t quite get a handle on it. Enter the inimitable Jackie Badger.”

  It was why they brought her here. Still, she couldn’t figure out why it was such a secret. Of course, Google would be working on getting users to remember and share more information. It was in the damn annual report, their entire raison d’être, if you knew how to read the thing.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Denny used his key and did a retinal scan and a door clicked open. On the other side, a long hallway, much more nicely appointed than the upstairs, even bespoke floor runners and wood trim near the bottom. Odd, Jackie thought. A doorway marked each side every ten feet or so with keypads beside each one. The quiet rectitude of the place reminded Jackie of the psychiatrist’s offices her parents wanted her to see after she got caught hacking into the junior high school computer system to send a fake e-mail on behalf of an instructor who Jackie felt had been rude to students. It had been that confusing, interim period in Jackie’s life where she was playing with boundaries: What was the right thing to do? When should she intervene or participate in the world, and how? She thought maybe she was looking for a moral compass. But, later, she discovered a different term for what she was seeking: situational awareness. It was a term of art she read about in a psychology class that applied to how people pay attention to their surroundings. Some had terrific situational awareness, like pilots. People who had to be aware, think fast, make good decisions. She still wasn’t sure she had it but she was getting there.

  “Individual lab areas,” Denny said. He stopped midway down the hall. He kept his voice low. “I wanted you to see some of the current work. It’s less focused on the imaging right now and more so on recall and behaviors. What kinds of conditions lead to more social behavior, sharing, liking, endorsing, and remembering. Basically, you’ll see people using their gadgets through a two-way mirror.”

  “The study subjects?”

  “Local folks. There’s actually a pretty good pool from wives and girlfriends of military personnel, along with folks we draw from surrounding communities. Low income in Nevada, sadly, leaves us with people who will do experiments for what is pretty low pay, at least by our standards.”

  Jackie heard a voice behind her and the female Alex appeared with a tablet.

  “Door number five, boss,” she said to Denny. “Good time. We’re just finishing up.”

  Alex led them inside the fifth doorway on the left. Behind a two-way mirror a woman sat in a comfortable office chair in the middle of a room, staring at her own tablet. Jackie watched to the point of gawking and now she, at last, understood why this project was a secret one.

  The woman behind the two-way mirror looked so engrossed as to be catatonic.

  For a long time, Jackie and Denny stared. Suddenly, the woman bolted upright.

  Part III

  Steamboat

  Fifteen

  When the man in the orange suit shot forward, Lyle caromed backward. Two, three steps, slipped. He didn’t try to break his fall. He slammed onto the ground on his ass. Of course he didn’t feel it. Every ounce of him focused on the body, the baggage handler who had been comatose, or dead, just moments before. Now the body sat upright at the waist. A wonder, Lyle thought, fear giving way to curiosity. He put all his attention on the man’s face, trying to discern the eyes. Were they open?

  No. He inched closer. Still closed.

  Lyle moved closer again, mostly just by his neck craning. He scraped for his phone. He found it and fiddled for the flashlight. He had to look down to make the phone work. Shit, he thought, I’ve got to input my code. I’ve got to look down at my phone. He wouldn’t take his eyes off this man, this creature, Don, held up at the waist like a marionette.

  Then, suddenly, as quickly as Don had jerked upright, he fell back again.

  In the cockpit:

  “Jerry! What the hell is going on?”

  A muffled sound from below.

  Lyle wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He spit. Had he gotten the man’s spittle on him? Saliva? Something from this . . . host?

  That’s the word that struck Lyle. Host.

  Was that what he was looking at?

  The body had become inert again. Now Lyle wondered if he’d imagined it. He immediately dismissed the idea; for all of Lyle’s flaws and quirks, he was not a sufferer of PTSD and so it didn’t make sense to him that he’d had some sort of flashback or emotional break, a false memory, any of that.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, Lyle caught movement. He half turned; he didn’t want to look away from Don. He could see a dark shape. Jerry.

  Lyle put up his hand. Stop.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Go back inside,” Lyle said to Jerry.

  “What’s happening? Is he alive?”

  Lyle didn’t answer. Cautiously, he touched the man’s neck. If there was a pulse, he couldn’t feel it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  “Dr. Martin, is he alive?”

  Lyle nodded. It was as much for himself as Jerry. Yes, he suspected, Don was alive.

  And a host.

  Jerry felt the gun in his pocket. It felt like a caged animal. He twitched. Who was Dr. Martin to put his hand up in Jerry’s face? Who w
as he to suddenly be playing number two to Captain Hall?

  There was something else bugging him. He let himself ask the question: What was an infectious disease specialist doing on a flight that hit the ground in the middle of some kind of outbreak?

  Wasn’t that a whole lot of coincidence?

  Jerry’s father had worked two jobs while his mother drank herself into a near coma. The only reason she didn’t get to that point is because she fell down the stairs in a drunken mess and wound up in a wheelchair. Then Jerry got two jobs to help his dad. Jerry could see drunks a mile away. He also hated men who didn’t step up and do what was necessary. Dr. Martin looked like both, a drunk and a man who didn’t step up.

  He felt the gun and turned back to the plane.

  Then he looked back again and saw something that allowed him to give Dr. Martin a little bit of respect. Dr. Martin was crouched over the man, peeling back his eyelids, looking into his eyes with the light of his phone.

  Pupil fixed in the middle position. Lyle aimed the light into the man’s right eye. No movement, no light reflex. That argued for brain death. But brain death didn’t lead to spontaneous movement, either. Without thinking much about it, Lyle reached to the man’s cheek and pinched his skin between thumb and forefinger.

  Nothing.

  Harder.

  The face muscles tightened. Just a touch. Enough. Lyle focused on the right maxillary and pinched again, even harder. A clench.

  Not dead.

  Not brain-dead.

  Lyle tightened his own jaw in thought. Tight muscles. He moved suddenly. He ran his hand over the man’s arm, the right triceps and biceps and the muscles around the rotator cuff. Taut, tensed. No, not dead. Not rigor.

  Absently, Lyle gave another thumbs-up to the plane, his way of saying: Leave me alone. He brushed sweat from his forehead onto his forearm. He stared at the man’s mouth and considered the next, unavoidable move. Full lips, rosy with cold and pulled at the corners. Beneath the nose, that droplet of mucus had doubled into two drops, one settled into a small pool on the groove of the philtrum. Lyle held the phone with his left hand, creating a spotlight on the mouth. With his right, he reached for the lips, pausing only a millisecond before parting them with forefinger and thumb. He dove in.

  He felt inside the cheeks, not for anything in particular, anything out of the ordinary. He picked up the warmth and the tightness inside the jaw. He kept a keen awareness of the teeth, ready to instantly withdraw should the man reflexively open wide enough to bite down hard.

  “Sorry, Don,” he said. “This next part is harder on me than you.”

  He opened the mouth sufficient enough to get his forefinger toward the back of the throat and lingered at the tonsillar arch. Ideally, he’d watch the pharynx to see if it elevated in a gag response, and to what extent. He’d just have to surmise. He rubbed the arch. Don, the baggage handler, spasmed. Cough. Spasm. Lyle pushed himself not to withdraw. He didn’t want to cause a stir with Eleanor and the others in the cockpit, if they could even see him. Don calmed down again.

  Lyle leaned down again and swirled his finger near the back of the throat, careful to avoid another gag. Likely only so many times he could do that and not get vomited on. As he swirled, he found what he was looking for. Mucus. Lots of it. Pooling near the edges of the throat. He tried to stir it away from the throat’s entrance to keep Don from drowning. Lyle sat on his haunches.

  Mucus meant the production of white blood cells. It meant the body was mounting an immune response. To what? No light reflex, tight muscles, no pupil reflex. Odd. What did it add up to?

  Lyle didn’t want to take his own eyes off the man. He felt he needed to. He shone his phone light on his right hand. He put his right thumb into the thumbs-up sign. Showing Eleanor in the cockpit. Showing Jerry.

  Nothing, Lyle thought, could be further from the truth.

  From the corner of his eye, Lyle saw the movement again. It was to the right, in the direction of a plane hangar, unless it was used for industrial tools, like airplane steps and tractors and snowplows. Regardless, this time Lyle was sure. Movement.

  He flashed another thumbs-up.

  He leaned down over the body. He pushed on the belly, feeling the organs, feeling for inflammation. If it was there, it was subtle. The palpating didn’t seem to bother the felled baggage handler. For a second time, Lyle put his hand on the artery coursing through the man’s neck. This time, he erred on the side of believing what he suspected, a low pulse. Don was very much alive.

  Lyle quickly considered, then dismissed, the idea of having Jerry bring the man inside the plane for further observation. First principle: Do no harm. Not to the people inside the plane.

  Lyle considered lifting Don and carrying him to the hangar to keep him warm. That would only attract more attention from the cockpit. Mostly, Lyle just wanted to follow his muse. Or maybe he was dressing up what he wanted in fancy thoughts. He just wanted to get away, farther away. This was the principle that had replaced “do no harm.” Don’t be bothered. Not by a world that doesn’t give a shit.

  He started walking toward the hangar.

  Then paused. The eyes. Jesus, why hadn’t he realized it?

  He practically sprinted back to Don.

  “One more thing, patient zero,” Lyle said. He knelt by Don’s head. He focused the light on his phone on the man’s eyes. He pried open an eyelid and studied the pupil again. Lyle swallowed hard.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  He put the eyelid back in place. He stared at the hangar. Light from somewhere deep inside left a ghost impression in the doorway, a faint outline. Lyle started walking. Might as well; how long could it be before he was collapsed like Don?

  He glanced at the torpid man’s phone. On the screen, some comically strange YouTube video showed on the screen. It no longer played, but an image of a cat on skis was stuck there. Lyle looked back at Don. Peeled the eyelid back again. What’s going on in there, Don?

  Sixteen

  He caught Jerry’s approach from the corner of his eye. The first officer had his gun drawn. “Dr. Martin!”

  Lyle kept walking. Most of his focus fell on the foot of pavement in front of him. Insidious black ice. Lyle’s right toe caught such a patch and he carefully slid to the right.

  “Dr. Martin.” Jerry gained ground. Now he hit an icy patch and slipped. “Fuck!”

  Lyle turned to see Jerry doing a comical man split. Lyle couldn’t make out Jerry’s face. That’s how dark it was, even with his phone creating the slightest ambient light. Jerry’s flashlight was tucked in his jacket pocket, still on, causing a little circle of light around the fabric.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “I saw something.”

  “You saw something. Is that what you said?”

  “Your hearing seems to be just fine. That’s a good sign.”

  Jerry righted himself and closed quickly on Lyle. He was within inches. So close that Lyle thought about pickup basketball games he had been in when some numbnuts decided he wanted to start a fight. Lyle stood his ground.

  “Where are you going?”

  Lyle smelled breath that reminded him of hunger and thirst. Low blood sugar, he told himself, a person not entirely stable even under the best circumstances.

  “Heading to hide in the hangar and have another drink, is that it, Dr. Martin?”

  “I have enough for two if you’re looking for a good time.”

  Jerry shoved his handgun right into Lyle’s rib cage. He brought his lips right to Lyle’s cheek. Then he pressed the gun harder. Lyle went up on his toes to get away from the barrel. He felt the pain in his ankle from having fallen getting out of the plane.

  “Not much of a drinker, I take it,” Lyle wheezed.

  “What’s the story with the guy on the ground?”

  “There are ways of asking that question without the artillery.”

  “I’m not sure how else to get your attention, Dr. Martin. Near as I c
an tell, you’re doing some kind of happy-go-lucky, freelance operation here. That’s the nicest thing I can say about it.”

  “Jerry—”

  Jerry interrupted him with a nudge of the gun that caused Lyle to take in his breath.

  “Differential diagnosis, right? That’s what you call it when you check down the list of possible illnesses. I did a little EMT training.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yeah, good for me. So I’m doing a little one of my own.”

  “What’s your point, Jerry?”

  “The symptoms involve mood swings, a manipulative streak, intense narcissism, and a strange knack for being in suspicious circumstances.”

  Lyle looked confused. “Don?”

  “Who? No, you,” Jerry said. “You seem like you’re a doctor, then not so sure of yourself, you talk about mystery symptoms. You manage to dupe Eleanor into letting you off the plane—”

  “Technically, Eleanor wanted me to stay. It was you who—”

  Another gun shove. “You want my diagnosis?”

  “Sure, Jerry.”

  “You’re a drunk.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m not done. You’re a drunk who says he’s a doctor and happens to be in the right place at the right time for some mystery disease.”

  “Right place? C’mon—”

  “What brings you to Steamboat?”

  “A conference.”

  “In early November, in a tiny ski town?”

  Lyle pictured the embossed invitation, remembered the gentle but persistent courtship. Expenses paid, small audience, decent honorarium, a chance to get his sea legs back. He looked at Jerry. He felt sympathy for the guy, connected to him in some way. Just as Lyle had lost faith in the world, so Jerry seemed to have no faith in Lyle, to have reverted to his own primitive state. Wasn’t this what was happening everywhere? A new hyperskepticism, everything politicized, facts tossed out as partisan and any faith in humanity with it.

  “Or,” the first officer continued, “if you like a less conspiratorial version, then you’re just a narcissistic drunk who is putting us all in danger by romping around out here. Jesus . . .” He looked off in the distance. “You really don’t care, do you?”