Devil's Plaything

by Matt Richtel

  DID YOU SAY YOU’RE HAVING TROUBLE REMEMBERING?

  Yes.

  YOU GREW UP IN DENVER. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?

  Yes. Of course.

  MAY I TAKE A MOMENT TO RECAP WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT IN THE PAST?

  I suppose.

  THANK YOU. YOU TOLD ME ABOUT YOUR FATHER, WHO WORKED IN A BAKERY IN DENVER. YOU HAVE SHARED MANY STORIES ABOUT THE BAKERY AND THE PEOPLE YOU MET THERE. I HAVE RECORDED THOSE STORIES FOR YOU. YOU ALSO TALKED ABOUT YOUR HUSBAND, WHO WAS NAMED IRVING. WHEN YOU WERE MARRIED, IT WAS A FESTIVE OCCASION. HE WORE A MILITARY UNIFORM, WHICH WAS CUSTOMARY AT THE TIME. HE WORKED AS AN ACCOUNTANT AND HE DROVE A CHEVROLET. THE CHEVROLET WAS BLUE. PRIOR TO GETTING MARRIED, YOU ATTENDED HIGH SCHOOL IN DENVER. WHEN YOU WERE A YOUNG WOMAN, YOU HEARD ABOUT THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II ON A LARGE, BLACK RADIO. SHALL I CONTINUE?

  I . . . no, I think that is okay.

  HAVE I ACCURATELY RECORDED YOUR INFORMATION?

  I think so. I . . .

  HAVE I ACCURATELY RECORDED THAT YOUR HUSBAND WORE A MILITARY UNIFORM ON YOUR WEDDING DAY?

  I . . . I think so.

  THANK YOU. IT IS IMPORTANT TO ME TO BE ACCURATE WITH THE DETAILS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE WITH YOUR STORY?

  The butterfly has a message for me.

  ARE YOU ASKING IF THE BUTTERFLY HAS A MESSAGE FOR YOU?

  It is flying in the middle of the screen, and there are lights and sounds coming from its dots.

  TO RETRIEVE THE MESSAGE, PLEASE MOVE THE CURSOR OVER ONE OF THE DOTS.

  THANK YOU. WELL DONE. HERE IS YOUR MESSAGE: THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR STORIES WITH US. WE ARE PROUD TO BE PART OF SAVING THE MEMORIES OF A GREAT GENERATION OF AMERICANS. YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF YOURSELF FOR TAKING THE TIME TO SHARE YOUR STORIES. YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE VERY GRATEFUL FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE SHARING YOUR STORY, OR WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO ANOTHER ACTIVITY, SUCH AS PLAY A GAME?

  ARE YOU STILL THERE?

  “Nathaniel!”

  I look up from Grandma’s transcript to see Sam staring at me with great intensity. It takes a moment to pull out of the past.

  “My grandfather wasn’t in the military,” I say.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This transcript says that when my grandparents got married, Irving wore a military uniform. That’s just not correct.”

  I look at Grandma. “Did Irving wear a uniform when you got married?”

  “You know I don’t remember things the way I used to.”

  “So Grandpa didn’t wear a uniform when you got married?”

  “Irving wore a military uniform when we got married. He drove a Chevrolet.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Who is Pigeon?” I ask. I recall that on several occasions she mentioned that name, or nickname. I can’t remember where, or in what context.

  “Nat, she looks tired. Maybe give her a break?” Sam asks.

  “This transcript is beyond strange.”

  “There’s more,” Bullseye says. “I’ve only printed out a third of the transcript. The rest I e-mailed you and copied to another disc, for backup.”

  “Is it all weird like this?”

  “How do you mean?”

  It seems so self-evident.

  “The bizarre back-and-forth between human and computer, the computer’s high level of artificial intelligence, the butterflies—whatever those are. And then there’s Grandma’s story. I can’t tell if it’s real or imagined. It’s certainly provocative. I’ve never heard anything like that from her.”

  Bullseye doesn’t respond. He’s focused on the road, or the inside of his head.

  “Bullseye?”

  “The artificial intelligence doesn’t seem that advanced, actually. The program is basically looking for keywords in your grandmother’s comments and prompting further discussion by emphasizing the keywords. As to your grandmother . . . well . . .”

  “What?”

  “She’s losing her memory, and trying to recall some childhood memory, and this . . . machine is recording it.”

  “It’s much more than that, Bullseye.” I’m exasperated. “I wish you would have printed it all out.”

  “Can you solve that later?” Sam interjects. “I think Lane needs her own bed.”

  I look outside, and I realize where we are—parked on the street outside the Magnolia Manor nursing home.

  “Jesus,” I say.

  “You want me to take her?” Sam asks.

  “Absolutely not. No way. Drive, Bullseye.”

  “Nathaniel, please,” Sam says. “She’s got to be in the right hands.”

  “Drive. Please. She can’t be here. They’ll . . .” I don’t say what I’m thinking: they’ll kill her. For reasons I can’t yet figure out. Instead I say: “I have a plan.”

  Sam sighs.

  “What?” I ask. Beyond impatient.

  “Respectfully,” she says. “You seem out of balance. Let me take your beautiful grandmother inside.”

  I don’t respond.

  Samantha looks at Bullseye. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” then back at Lane. “Ready to go home, dear?”

  “No fucking way,” I blurt.

  “Nathaniel . . .”

  “You need to trust me.”

  “And you need to trust the people around you—the people who love you, and know you. We’re on your side.”

  “Bullseye, why didn’t you bring the rest of the transcript?”

  “It was long and he didn’t have enough paper and he’s not your secretary,” Sam says firmly. She’s looking me in the eye. I’ve never in my life heard her talk this way. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a confrontation with my best friends, my biggest supporters.

  I don’t know what I’m thinking, or even why I said something vaguely accusatory to Bullseye. I am out of balance, I know that. But there’s no way I’m letting anyone take care of Grandma, or dictate her care.

  Sam says, “You can do all the goose-chasing you want. But don’t take your grandmother with you. Please.”

  She looks at me, and I at Bullseye.

  “Drive,” I say, quietly.

  He hesitates.

  “If you care about me, about us—about Grandma—then you’ll help me do what I need to do.”

  I tell them what that is.

  Chapter 35

  Like Warren Buffet in a sari, the Witch sold her AOL stock shares just before the Internet collapse. She claimed to have so aptly guessed the bottom was near by listening to then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on CNN with her eyes closed and picking up disingenuous tones in his voice. With her stock-market profits, the couple bought a swanky Victorian in the Haight-Ashbury and painted it purple.

  On the porch of the Victorian, with the couple’s two English bulldogs watching on, Bullseye silently hands me the mysterious memory stick and the Cadillac keys. I can’t really tell if he’s upset with me or just being characteristically fatalistic. He looks from me to the bashed front of his Cadillac.

  “I’ll get it fixed,” I say. After a pause, I add: “You saved our lives.”

  “You want my opinion?”

  “Not if you’re going to tell me to grow up, stop poking around, and take Grandma to the morgue where she can die in peace.”

  His lips curl imperceptibly into a tight, bemused smile.

  “Find the guy who did this to my Cadillac, and run him over.”

  I slide Grandma into the Caddy. As I get settled, she fiddles with the knob of the glove compartment until it opens. She finds an eight-track cassette of Foreigner, which delights her. “This is from my time,” she says, I suppose referring to the type of media not the band.

  I buckle up and explain to her, knowing she won’t totally follow but hoping she gets the gravity of my tone, that I’ve got to do some serious work and that it’s important to me that we stick together.

  “If you have to pee, don’t wander into a field. Stick with me,�
� I say, then immediately regret it because it sounds like scolding.

  My first stop is the crowded parking lot of a grocery store in the outer Mission neighborhood. Into my laptop I insert the thumb drive from Adrianna. The file that opens contains dozens of pages of transcripts of the Human Memory Crusade and Grandma. I start to read, discovering a tale about Lane’s past that darts about in fits and starts, interruptions, and backtracks. There are mentions of butterflies, a pigeon, elaborate schemes to hide a note in a library book, and all of it communicated in increasingly disconnected dialogue. As the story goes on, the computer seems to get more intelligent and Grandma less so. After a few minutes—before I can get particularly invested—I look at the clock and realize that both my time and concentration are too limited to give my full attention to understanding what I’m reading.

  Survival requires more immediate action.

  “Grandma Lane, I’ll be right back. I’m just going to be a few feet away,” I say. “Don’t wander off.”

  “I heard you.”

  In the pickup parked next to us, a nun sits in the passenger seat, waiting for someone I assume, fiddling with her bracelet. She smiles at me. Safe enough environs.

  I get out and stand by our car and pull out the cell phone I got from G.I. Chuck and dial his number.

  “Woodward,” he says by way of a greeting.

  “You’re tracking me.”

  “What?”

  “This cell phone you gave me has a tracking device on it. Right?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Where am I standing right now?”

  “On the moon? In an LSD haze?”

  “This is how the hooded man knew I was coming to the server farm. He works for you and you stalled me on the phone a few minutes ago so he could drive by and use my head for target practice.”

  “Stop!”

  “Who are you, Chuck Taylor?”

  “Some guy was after you again? This is nuts.”

  “I’m going to find out who you are, and I’m going to make a hell of a lot more for the story than a sixty-dollar blog post.”

  “Nat. Mr. Idle. Listen to me.”

  “I know you want my grandmother or whatever information is inside of her. But I’m not with her. I’m going to make her tougher to find than the president during a nuclear attack.”

  “May I interrupt? May I please ask you a simple question?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know where you are and I don’t care. But here’s my question: Are you anywhere near a garbage can?”

  I look to my left and see a massive green Dumpster.

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t, you jackass. I’m asking because I want you to go throw the phone away. It didn’t cost me anything and it’ll keep you from pirouetting into some paranoid fantasy.”

  I digest his words. “That’s a good first step.”

  “Nat, you’re obviously onto something interesting. And I can appreciate that you don’t know whom to trust. I guess that’s what makes you a good journalist. But don’t forget that I’ve been giving you information. Don’t forget I got shot at too—and hit. Frankly, I want to help you, and Medblog, but you’re becoming a risk of producing a negative return on investment.”

  “Chuck, you just got interested in Medblog a month ago. That seems more than coincidental to me.”

  He doesn’t respond for a moment.

  “Have things your way. Cut me off. Leave me out of it. If you change your mind, I have documents about Adrianna Pederson and Biogen and something called the Human Memory Crusade, the material I told you about before. The stuff is fascinating. Whether it’s relevant to you and your story, who knows. If you want to meet me and get the documents tonight, fine. If not, I’ll sign your Medblog checks and stay out of your hair.”

  “Did you say ‘Human Memory Crusade’?”

  “I did.”

  “There’s information about that?”

  “Yep. What is it?”

  “Can you tell me what the documents say?”

  “Meet me tonight, or don’t. Or I can mail you this stuff.”

  He reminds me of the location of a restaurant where he’ll be.

  “And Nat,” he says. “Remember to throw away my sinister telephone.”

  We hang up.

  I open up the back of the cell phone. I smash it on the ground. I can see its guts. I pick through them. If there’s a tracking device on the phone, I don’t know what it looks like.

  I get back into the car.

  “Grandma, can you tell me what it was like to talk to the computer?”

  “Sure I can.”

  “What was it like?”

  “What?”

  “What was it like to talk to the computer?”

  “That’s private, Nathaniel.”

  I take her hand.

  “Grandma Lane . . .” I start, then pause. I don’t have a clue to explain to her the nuances of the situation. There are so many questions.

  I know whom I might be able to call for help.

  Now I need a phone.

  Ten minutes later, Grandma and I walk into a Verizon store. I explain to the twenty-something behind the counter wearing Vulcan ears (I assume for Halloween) that I lost my phone and need the cheapest one they’ve got in a hurry. Though clearly disgusted by my Luddite tendencies, she takes my credit card to ring me up. We hit a snag. My Visa is denied.

  She asks for another credit card. I hand her my bank debit card. She swipes it into the machine. “Blocked too,” she says.

  “Not possible. It was working this morning. Can you check again?” But I realize that it’s entirely possible that my cards have been blocked. Whatever Grandma and I are up against sounds powerful enough to mess with my finances. Does that mean the cops are involved? The government? Who else has such power? Steve Jobs or the aliens that landed at Roswell?

  The saleswoman looks at Grandma. “Let me ask my manager what we can do here.”

  She disappears through a door behind a counter. I look at Grandma, then over the counter at the cash register. Sitting next to it is a touch-screen cell phone, one of the fancier modern models. It looks like it belongs to one of the employees.

  “You’re not complicit,” I mutter to Grandma.

  I reach over the counter, grab the phone, and whisk Grandma out. We hustle to the car, dodging a handful of costumed youngsters who have disgorged from a school bus.

  “We’ve probably got half an hour, maybe less, before they realize the phone is missing and shut down the service,” I say to Grandma as we climb back into the decked-out and dented Cadillac. Inside, it smells clean, like lemon. “Forgive me if I talk and drive.”

  “Keep your eyes on the road.”

  It’s 4:15. I’ve got an hour plus before I meet Grandma’s friend, Betty Lou. She should be able to deliver another piece of the puzzle—Grandma’s care file. And maybe she’ll be able to fill in some blanks about the Human Memory Crusade. How many people use it? What do they say about the experience? What has been the role of Magnolia Manor in promoting it?

  I have time to stop at Adrianna’s apartment building. I need to see if I can somehow get inside. Maybe I can find Newton playing hoops in the dying daylight. Given that the boy’s picture was in Adrianna’s office and that his name is the basis for several key passwords, it’s clear that he is closer than I thought to the missing scientist. Maybe I can convince him to help me figure out where to look for information.

  As I drive, I call my parents. Dad answers.

  “Why are you calling from the phone of someone named Jonathan Atkins?” he asks.

  “Long story.”

  I tell him that I don’t have much time, but have been meaning to talk to him about Grandma. I try to convey urgency but not panic. If he hears drama, Dad’s liable to clam up and, ever the rational type, think about the situation and call me back. I tell him Grandma’s been pretty animated in telling a story about her childhood
. The story involves the bakery, Grandpa Irving, somebody nicknamed Pigeon.

  “Like the bird?”

  “I think so.”

  Dad listens in silence. “Your grandmother and I get along fine,” he says. It sounds defensive.

  “I don’t see what that . . .”

  “I don’t know a lot of the details of her life. She liked telling stories, but she preferred the ones from books. She got prickly around stories about herself.”

  It’s the most my father has ever said to me about his relationship with Grandma.

  “Anything else?” he asks.

  This is not helpful.

  “Dad,” I pause. “I need some money.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  I’ve never in my life asked him for a cent—not even in medical school when I ate 99-cent Ramen noodle dinners for at least a year running.

  “I’m in a rough spot. Can you wire a couple hundred bucks?”

  “Are you gambling?”

  I almost laugh.

  “It’s the Internet, Dad,” I say. “It’s killing the journalism business and I’m trying to pay my bills. I’ll recover.”