by Matt Richtel
A silence in the room went from deafening to atomic.
The executives again looked at one another. Frantic. Glenn’s mouth was open, his chin hung to his knees. Annie looked at me, and her lips curled up into a smile; self-satisfaction and evil. It was at that moment that I realized she was in total control, and had been the whole time.
There was a sudden quick rap at the door, the sound of it opening, and a voice entering the room that made everyone jump.
“Sorry to interrupt,” it said. “But we need to adjourn.”
Inside walked a familiar face, with a familiar facial contusion. Dave Elliott. He looked at Annie and nodded.
The executives, furious and bewildered, stood.
Glenn lunged toward Annie like a panther.
56
The executives cleared out in a hurry. Only psychos remained. Before I could plot my first move, father was mowing down daughter.
“What can you possibly be thinking, Annie?”
He was frozen with anguish. I stepped forward, but gingerly.
“What are you thinking? What are you talking about?”
“We needed to put the truth out there and deal with it,” she countered. She started walking to the door, carrying the laptop.
“What have you done?” He walked after her. “You blew up the café to destroy the evidence.”
She turned and faced him, defiant.
“Give me a break. You knew those tests weren’t consensual.”
He was stone-faced for a moment, then he smiled, ever so slightly, and said: “No one will believe that. You’re taking the fall here.”
“How does it feel, Dad?”
“What?” As if he didn’t hear her.
“Getting outmaneuvered.”
Glenn lost his composure altogether. “You think you can blackmail these people?!” He caught his breath. “This isn’t like Vestige, Annie. That was a setback. This is professional suicide. You just don’t burn those relationships. And what about the idea? If this gets out, I’ll go to jail, you’ll go to jail, the press will go crazy, and then, you know what, someone else is going to beat us to it.”
It was me who spoke next, expelling knee-jerk commentary. “Don’t forget about the murder-and-torture part.”
They glanced my way, then Annie spoke to her father in a tone that mixed plaintiveness and accusation. “Would it crush you to see me in chains? Would you come visit me?”
“I can’t tell you how much you’ve disappointed me, Annie.”
“I don’t think so,” she answered with finality. “To be disappointed with me, you’d actually have to feel something.”
Glenn’s face reddened. He raised his hand, a cross between a schoolboy trying to get attention in class and a cocked arm, like he might strike her. Then something else passed over his face—defeat. I stumbled forward, consumed with the memory of an urge to protect her.
“Annie, you’re the one at the biggest risk. Do you understand that you will become persona non grata again? Have you forgotten what it’s like to live on the fringes—with no one? If this gets out, that’s what you’re facing. The wilderness. Something so lonely that a country house in France will look like a Los Angeles mall.”
Annie flinched. Now he’d frozen her. I remembered what Annie had said earlier—isolation was tantamount to death.
I moved quickly. I intercepted her as she neared the door. I took her hand in my left. With the right, I gripped the laptop. “He’s crazy, Turtle. Crazy and empty,” she said, with a blank look. “I have to go.”
“Please tell me the truth. You did all of this. You tested and tortured, set up your father. Help me put this together. Help me reconcile you with the Annie I fell in love with.”
“It wasn’t working anyway.” She sighed, distant, professional. “Make the hypocrites pay. Scorched earth.”
“Annie, what are you talking about? What wasn’t going to work?”
She pulled her arm away from me—not violently, but enough to get free. I was still holding the laptop.
She opened the door.
A powerfully built man blocked her path. He moved aside so she could go. But when I stepped up to follow, he shoved me back into the room, causing me to reel backward, and shut the door.
Dave chuckled.
“That Electra complex is pretty powerful stuff.”
Glenn turned to him.
“You’re part of this too. You and Annie, right? You got us in way deep. You’ve taken this to a different level. Rats? Dangerous levels of potency . . . Right?”
“Defining the cutting edge,” Dave said.
Glenn pointed at me.
“What about him?” he said. “What about him?”
“He won’t say a word.”
“Cross my heart,” I said.
“Trust me. He won’t say a word,” Dave said. “Not when he realizes that he’s his own worst enemy.”
Before I could make a vainglorious attempt to bypass the bouncer, Dave caught my attention.
“Hear me out. This can be a win-win.”
I glanced around the room. I bit the inside of my cheek to focus, fending off the familiar cranial pulsing. I held a lot of cards. But one of them wasn’t physical advantage. What lengths would they go to keep me here, or stop me? Would they kill me? But if I didn’t escape at that moment, would I find Annie? Find out what she’d done, what was in her heart?
I had a decent guess where she would be heading: to a boat named the Monkey. To catch her, I was going to have to act quickly, but not so fast that I undid myself.
“Actually, don’t hear me out,” Dave said. “Hear Sarah.”
Sarah.
He pulled out a small digital audio device and hit the play button. I heard a recording of my voice. It was playing snippets of the message I’d left on Sarah’s answering machine.
“I think I’m seeing ghosts.”
There was a pause.
“Be careful, Sarah. Something bizarre is going on. I don’t really know what. But I just want you to stay aware.”
Sarah said, “You’re scaring me, Nat. Frankly, you sound . . . a little weird.”
“That I’ll stipulate to in court,” I said.
Dave turned off the recorder.
“Fun with Real Audio,” I said.
“Do you understand why you’re not going to tell the police about what you’ve seen or heard, or imagined that you’ve seen or heard?” Dave said. “It’s because you’re crazy. No one will believe you. In my business, we say that you’ve impugned your credibility as a witness.”
Glenn had taken a seat. He had his head hung between his shoulders.
Dave started down a laundry list of ways in which I was not reliable, or had tainted myself. I’d survived the café explosion, visited the funeral of Simon Anderson, wound up at his house when it caught flames, and been at a fire in Felton. The police had found my fingerprints, and eventually would discover my hair follicles on two of their dead brethren, Weller and Velarde. Then there was video footage from surveillance cameras showing me furtively leaving Dave’s office building after he’d called security. And he reminded me that, for good measure, I didn’t have a fan club in law enforcement.
“That’s the obvious stuff,” Dave said. “Then there’s Vestige.”
“Vestige?”
He reminded me of the visit I’d gotten from the IRS after Annie died. There was more to that interview than I’d realized. I clenched my teeth and fought back the familiar cranial pain as he recounted his tale. When I’d been in New York, Annie had forgotten a packet of information in our hotel room. I’d been a good dog, he said, and had brought the folder down to the meeting. After I’d left, Annie had told the bankers that I was doing some freelance accounting for the company. My name had even appeared on accounting rolls. The packet I’d delivered to her had included some of the inflated projects that got the company in trouble with regulators.
“You’re lying,” I yelled. “You’re fucking lying!”
“And you’re acting crazy. Irrational,” Dave said. “Look at yourself.”
“Dave, this whole house of cards falls apart with a few simple explanations. The police will put that together. Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation is that I’m just a journalist trying to expose the truth.”
“Sorry, buddy. The principle works in my favor. And what truth? Like the fact that computers kill people? You have zero proof. None. It’s totally far-fetched. Or the fact that Annie is alive? Christ, pal, you’re suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. No one else has seen her. She died. It crushed you. And you suffered a brutal event that sent your head spinning in all kinds of directions—imagining she’d come back to life or that computers could zap our brains.”
Dave hit the play button on my call to Sarah again. He talked over the recording, explaining that a few days earlier, Sarah e-mailed to tell him that I’d contacted her. Dave had said he was worried I had never gotten over Annie’s death and was contacting various old friends of hers. Dave had told Sarah he thought it might be necessary to get a restraining order against me, and it would help if Sarah could tape a conversation between us.
“Nathaniel, are you really sure you even know what happened?” He suddenly turned gentle. “You’ve been very tired. You were nearly blown up. You’ve been sick. It’s very hard to concentrate, right? We’re not close to reasonable doubt here. Unless the question is whether you’ve had a bit of a psychotic break.”
I fell into a moment of silence. I wasn’t crazy, but my resources were too low to compete with this onslaught. At least right now. Who else had seen Annie? Not Erin. She’d been blindfolded. Only I’d read Andy’s diary. The evidence at the café was gone. But there were coincidences, like the fact that Velarde had investigated Annie’s death and was dead in San Francisco. Did that work for me or against me?
“Erin will back me up,” I protested, but quietly. “She saw what I saw. She was right there with me.”
When Dave spoke again, I felt the lights inside my head go bright neon.
“God, you really don’t get it. Who do you think blew up the café?”
57
I clasped my hands together and squeezed them tightly under my chin. The room seemed to take on a new smell. Something sweet, like hibiscus tea. It worked its way up my esophagus. I pushed it back down. Dave approached in slow motion. He took the laptop. He was almost gentle. It started to slip from my hands. Defeat.
“Bullshit,” I said.
“You never know who you can’t trust.”
I tugged at the laptop. He let it go. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a small gun, with an even smaller dart sticking out the tip.
“I’m not a killer. I’m a lawyer. I put people to sleep.”
I let the laptop slide away.
“Good. I’d prefer not to leave any evidence in your system.”
Dave patted down my pockets. He said he was making sure I didn’t have any recording devices. He took my cell phone, and he and Glenn slinked out of the room.
I needed to get to Annie, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to move. I couldn’t get my head around a central question: proof. What did I even know for sure? The presentation with the executives was clear, real, indisputable. There was a manipulative technology at work. They would attest to that. It wouldn’t be hard to back them into a corner. Or would it? If I was written off as a loon, could they simply dismiss me—my claims? Andy’s computer—did that hold the key? Even if I had it, could I demonstrate what was on it? Did Andy’s diary ramblings amount to anything real? I’d become the poster child for paranoia. Everything else—the dangerous software, Andy, the Andersons—it was all my theories. And Erin? If she was hired by the Kindles, she would come clean. Would she take a fall, or was she framed?
I slammed my fist against the couch. I stood, and sprinted down the hallway.
They couldn’t be far ahead of me. One minute, two, tops. Then what? I’d have to improvise. And get lucky. And I’d have to hope Mike had been playing his part, and not blackjack.
At the bottom of the elevator, I scoured the early-evening crowd. Early birds going out, late swimmers still coming in. I heard a raised voice. “Hey, jackass. You stepped on my foot.” I looked past a brood of ruffians in bikinis. Mike stood face-to-face with Dave Elliott at the top of some ornate stairs, yelling at him.
Too much of a coincidence. Mike must have tracked the laptop. He was buying time. I slid behind a two-ton couple who made the economics of the all-you-can-eat buffet work in their favor. By the time I got to where Dave had been standing, they’d descended the stairs. I peered down. Dave and Glenn and their bouncer had dismissed Mike and were walking purposefully away. The bouncer cradled the laptop. I walked behind him and grabbed the computer with everything I had left.
I ran.
Ahead was an exit leading to the pool—outside. Escape? Far from it. I couldn’t afford to have Dave and his gang get me alone. I veered right, following the sign into the casino. I was still running when I realized I’d caught the attention of a security guard. “Sir,” he said. “Slow down. Now.”
No cops. Cops meant no Annie. And no proof.
I reverted to a jog, then a fast walk. I looked over my shoulder. Dave and Glenn were a few steps back. I saw the bouncer break off to the left. I entered enormous doors and looked up. I stood in a cavernous casino. Lights, bells, life, passion, fear. I slinked into the crowd, seeking invisibility.
I merged into a group of twenty-something guys, a howling bachelor party. I slid out the other side, into a gaggle of middle-aged women wearing cowboy hats and skin-tight western gear. I turned around the blackjack tables toward a bank of slot machines and looked over my shoulder. No Dave or Glenn.
I slowed, heaved a deep breath, and leaned against a CSI: Miami slot machine blaring with bells and rings. Sounds bounced inside my skull. I fought to take in another breath.
When I looked up again, I’d been found. Glenn and Dave were descending from the left, the bouncer from the right. I caught Dave’s eye. He shook his head, exhibiting relief and pity. I looked into the lights and mirrors and I could feel the thousands of cameras peering down on me from the ceiling. My sense of smell became suddenly acute.
I felt my hand curl into a ball, I clutched it over my heart.
I fell to the ground.
58
Bit of medical trivia #237: Excluding a hospital, the very best place to have a heart attack is a Las Vegas casino. Even epidemiologists will tell you. You’re constantly on camera, and the proprietors know the worst thing in the world for business is a man down. The paramedics in casinos are the West’s fastest draw with a defibrillator.
I didn’t need a defibrillator or the paramedics. I was faking.
They were on me in seconds. Two men and a woman in white shirts, surrounding me in a protective cocoon, or, rather, protecting people from seeing the fate of some poor sucker. One grabbed for my pulse, another started to affix an oxygen mask.
I sat up.
“Eel,” I said groggily. “Very, very bad sushi.”
I looked past them. Dave and Glenn were lurking. I saw the bouncer’s face. And behind a slot machine, I thought I made out Mike.
I explained to the paramedics that I’d been in and out of the bathroom all afternoon. I told them I could stand up. They insisted that I go with them to the medical clinic.
That’s what I was hoping.
Behind us, Glenn and Dave were following.
Ten minutes later, I was sitting three blocks away in a clinic. The paramedics set me in an exam room and, upon concluding I wasn’t a triage case, told me a nurse would be along shortly. I plugged in Andy’s computer and turned it on. I looked at the screen saver of Andy sitting on a couch, cradling a black cat in his lap.
I was temporarily free, but I going to have to get very lucky.
I felt my gut clench. This time, pure emotion. The more I thought about the Annie I’d witnessed in the hotel, the less crazy it se
emed. The less out of character. Her composure, outright manipulation, her calculated assault on her father. The question was how the hell I’d missed it all before. Underneath it, though, something was still alluring to me. I could imagine how it looked from the outside, like I was a high school kid pining for a girl who had cruelly mocked me in the lunchroom in front of the whole school. Had my friends seen that all along? And yet, maybe there was salvation to be had. Her motives were unclear, maybe true in some way I didn’t yet understand. I felt my hope dimming, but still alive, anchored by a feeling of terrible defeat.
It wasn’t long before the door opened. In walked Dave and Glenn. Dave locked the door behind him. He flipped a switch on the wall. It was a trigger to let outsiders know an exam was taking place. He opened his jacket and flashed the tranquilizer gun.
“Okay. You win,” I said. “Let’s negotiate.”
“Much better,” Dave said.
“I need to know about Erin.”
“She’s violent, and angry,” Dave said. “The perfect triggerman.”
With an impatient tone, he said that just before the café exploded, Erin was on her break, working on the computer. She went into the bathroom, turned on the light switch, and the place went kaboom. The light switch was the trigger. She survived, but Simon Anderson, whom she didn’t much like, didn’t. The cops found residue from explosives in her apartment. And, of course, Dave said, she had a terrible history of setting fires. I took it in with my eyes closed.
“She didn’t knowingly blow up the café. You framed her.”
Something else struck me.
“She was sitting at her computer and then went to the bathroom. You programmed her. You flashed some subliminal image to cause her to . . . go into the bathroom.”
“To wash her hands, actually. Subliminal images of grimy hands,” Dave said. “I mean, if you believe the nonsense that computers can program people.”
Glenn let out a murmur.
“Impossible,” I said. “You’re right, I don’t believe it. A computer can’t make someone do something, or feel something. It doesn’t pass the smell test. All of this. Nonsense.”
