by Scott Cramer
He rapped with a knuckle; then he punched the door as hard as he could. His reward for the blast of self-inflicted pain was the faintest of knocks. Hearing footsteps on the other side, he went limp with relief.
The door swung open, and a young girl gasped. “Mommy, there's a man on the floor.”
DESIGN: PHASE 05
Caleb groaned to see the time; it was only 4:10 a.m. Dr. Aubrey, along with the promise of a software patch that would dissolve his unproductive emotions, would not arrive at the campus for at least another two hours.
To occupy his mind, he decided to chronicle Julian’s final hours for a memory wall episode. Someday, the video tapestry would bring him joy.
Accessing the feed from an observation blimp that hovered high over Boston and Cambridge, he entered Zoe’s address and the date and time they had gone to the Union Square Injection Center. His sister’s building appeared on screen as a dot. He zoomed in until the blonde fuzz on top of Julian’s head filled a quarter of the screen. The sight of his nephew ripped the scab off Caleb’s grief and filled him with chilling waves of fresh sadness. Jack stepping onto the stoop a moment later filled him with burning waves of acid.
He zoomed out and stayed with the scene until he, Zoe, Jack, and Julian entered the taxi. Unfortunately, the people mover did not have a lifestyle camera installed. At the injection center, Jack exited the taxi and strolled inside. Zoe and Julian, with Caleb in tow, moved to a bench. Caleb watched himself leave his sister and nephew to join Jack inside. Zoe stood up at once and paced. That was fast!
Caleb widened the shot to capture a final panorama of the injection center when something caught his attention. An organ transplant van pulled up to the center's loading dock. The orange trucks were a common sight at teaching hospitals, but he'd never seen one at an injection center. The van’s appearance was unusual, but so was Julian’s death.
Next, Caleb tapped in the coordinates of the swimming beach at the Charles River, where they had gone after leaving the injection center, and fast-forwarded to 11:03 a.m. Caleb was sitting on the grassy beach with his head hanging and shoulders heaving. Zooming in closer, he saw the carbon tab in his hand.
He ached to hold Julian’s tab again, and he wondered if Dr. Joyce had finished her analysis of it. “Messenger, is Dr. Joyce in her lab?”
“Yes, Dr. Saunders.”
He rehearsed what he’d say. “Jack murdered Julian, but Jack was not to blame.” Hearing timidity in his tone, Caleb thrust his chin out to project his voice. “Jack murdered Julian, but Jack is not to blame.” That's more like it.
The stakes were sky-high. If, after learning what Jack had done, Dr. Joyce reported him to security, they would scrub Jack’s memory and assign him to clean up tritium radiation in Argentina, Egypt, or Japan. Zoe, within a twenty-four-hour period, would lose both her child and her husband.
Caleb walked to the window. The first drops of orange light were diffusing in the black ink of the horizon. “Dr. Joyce,” he said to his reflection, “I rebooted his chip. Jack is well again.”
He gave his closing argument. “The odds of Jack killing again are statistically insignificant. I believe he can lead a productive life as a loving husband, proud environmental worker, and a nurturing father.”
Someday in the distant future when he and Jack were old men—perhaps half their neurons existing outside their brains in a Beyond Eden oceanic stew—Caleb would tell Jack the story of how he got him off the hook for murder.
He found Dr. Joyce observing the lethargic rats in the Eden Chip experiment. “Do you have a moment? I have a topic to discuss.”
“I’m glad you stopped by, Caleb. I discovered something puzzling about Julian’s death.”
They moved to her mindport where she called up Julian’s profile. “Your nephew's carbon tab weighed 2.5678 grams. Doing the math, he should have entered the solar oven with a mass of 7,456 grams. However, during his weigh-in before the injection procedure, they logged his mass at 9,015 grams. It means that sometime while he was in the injection center, he lost over 1,500 grams.”
Dr. Joyce accessed an online inventory of infant body parts and their associated masses in grams, troubling Caleb to think of Julian as piece parts, but the mystery of his nephew’s death was disturbing him even more.
“Lungs, brain, kidneys, and stomach each weigh between 1,400 and 1,600 grams,” she said.
“Interesting,” he said, flashing back to the organ transplant van he'd seen on the video feed. He made a mental note to track where the van had gone after the injection center.
“What did you want to discuss?” she asked.
Caleb couldn't recall his prepared remarks. “Jack poisoned Julian. Jack got the PCBs at work. But I rebooted Jack, and now everything has returned to normal. Zoe and Jack are soulmates. It would devastate my sister to lose Jack.”
Dr. Joyce pursed her lips, and Caleb tensed. Is she girding herself to give me bad news? Then her double helix tattoo elongated as her scalp relaxed, flooding him with optimism. Her news is good. Nodding with an understanding smile and an empathetic gaze, Dr. Joyce said, “I have to report Jack.”
Caleb pleaded with his eyes. “You know what they’ll do to him?”
“Yes, they’ll give Jack his life back. After they scrub his memory, he’ll lead a fulfilling life, no longer burdened by the act he committed.”
“Can I talk to Zoe first?”
“How much time do you need?”
“Four days?” Caleb would be thrilled with two.
“Eight hours,” Dr. Joyce said. “Messenger, set the alarm for 2 p.m.”
Back in his office, Caleb put the Jack/Zoe issue out of his mind and once again accessed yesterday’s feed from the observation blimp. He entered the injection center’s coordinates.
At 10:21 a.m., a woman stepped out of the center carrying a silver pouch filled with liquid nitrogen for the safe transport of organs, and placed it in the back of the orange van. This timeline supported the possibility that the pouch contained one of Julian’s organs.
He followed the van as it pulled away from the loading dock. It drove down Memorial Drive, but it didn't take the route Caleb was expecting, eschewing the most direct way to Harvard Medical School, the destination for most organs. Instead, the van turned left and crossed the Mass. Ave. Bridge into Boston. It continued down Storrow Drive and took a right onto Atlantic Avenue. A moment later, the van turned into the Citadel, and the video feed ended.
Caleb frowned. Nothing entered the Citadel without Dr. Petrov's permission. Is Dr. Petrov involved in Julian’s death? A smile spread on his face, knowing that the Father of the Chip always had a good reason for his actions. Perhaps Julian was contributing to society in ways Caleb could not imagine. He clutched the carbon tab as his smile vanished and tears trickled down his cheeks.
He moved to the window. The lip of the sun had edged above the horizon and painted the sides of the Boston skyscrapers pink. Where are you Dr. Aubrey? I need your help. Where are you girl-with-the-green-eyes? I am so confused.
* * *
The day’s first rays of sunlight shone through the safe house window as Raissa paced. Had Caleb Saunders reported to work yet? He seemed like the punctual type. Assuming nothing had amputated his arm, the devourware chip would soon find itself inside the NanoArtisans firewall, if it hadn’t already. That situation under control, she had more pressing problems.
She punched in the local contact’s number. As before, the rebel took the call but remained silent. She heard only background noise. “I can’t find Ashminov.”
A low, deep voice spoke on the other end. “Find him.” The rebel ended the call.
Raissa, having completed her research, flagged a taxi in front of the safe house and hopped in the back seat. “Taxi, Logan Airport, the Air Italia terminal.” The taxi pulled away from the curb. “Taxi, cancel that. New destination. Alewife Wolf Hollow.”
If Ashminov had already flown to Rome, he'd be out of her hair. The Wolf Park was a lon
g shot, like everything else on her list, but she guessed that the nature-loving Bulgarian might gravitate to a place where visitors could observe wolves in their natural habitat.
When they arrived, the Hollow was closed to the public. “Taxi, Menhanata Bulgarian Café.”
Fifteen minutes later, the taxi rolled to a stop in front of the only establishment within a hundred kilometers that advertised Bulgarian fare. Greeted by the odor of boiled potatoes and rosemary, she stepped into the café and asked a man with a bushy mustache behind the counter, “May I see the manager?”
“I’m the manager.” His accent was Eastern European.
“My uncle's messenger isn't working, and I thought I might find him here.” Raissa described Ashminov.
The manager shook his head. “I have seen no one who fits that description.”
Thwarted, Raissa had one more stop on her list.
“The North End,” she told the taxi.
Italian immigrants had settled in Boston’s North End a century ago. Ashminov lived in Rome, so she figured he might seek familiar territory.
The taxi stopped on Hanover Street, the main road that cut through the neighborhood. Heading down Hanover on foot, she peered into each café she passed, keeping an eye out for his pasty complexion.
A commotion three blocks ahead caught her attention. People were spilling into the street, requiring taxis to turn down a side street. She thought it was unusual to hold a festival at this early hour. When she was two blocks away from the action, she heard shrieks. Joy or panic? She couldn’t tell. The festival participants were pushing their way into a grassy courtyard on the left. A sign showed that it was a historical site where patriots had used lanterns to signal British troop movements in 1775. The crowd was a multi-generational jumble of people. They wore extra big smiles as if they were witnessing something amazing. It reminded Raissa of the lovers who had walked past the safe house in the early morning hours.
A ten-year-old boy stumbled to the ground a few meters in front of her, but the crowd kept moving, their eyes fixed ahead of them on the courtyard. They trampled him underfoot, and he cried out, but the chorus of shrieks drowned his voice.
Raissa charged forward and formed a barrier between the boy and the surge of people. She reached down and pulled him to his feet. He rejoined the others with a beaming smile.
The bumping and jostling became fierce, and Raissa collected a few bruises crossing the street. Regardless of the reason for the mysterious mob, or the rebel’s directive to find Ashminov, she must plan the next phase of the mission.
She hailed a taxi and climbed into the back. “Taxi, Atlanta Avenue.”
Five minutes later, they were driving down the road that ran parallel to the Citadel. She peered out at the polished black surface of the wall, unable to see any doors or openings. Lowering the window, she stuck her head out and looked up. The wall rose a hundred meters or more, to a lip armed with sonic cannons and lasers.
“Taxi, make a U-turn.”
A second pass generated no ideas on how to breach the fortress. The Citadel looked impregnable.
“Taxi, 25.5 Commonwealth Avenue,” Raissa said, slumping back in the seat, deterred but not defeated.
The taxi arrived at the destination, and, after climbing out, she walked around the corner to the safe house where she stepped into the elevator. As it approached the third floor, she heard a light rapping on the safe house door. Flicking her joule to kill, she trained the weapon straight ahead as the elevator door opened.
A young girl with pigtails, her back to Raissa, stood at the apartment door. The girl spun around, and Raissa quickly hid the weapon behind her back.
“You’re Raissa, right?”
The girl's precociousness took her breath away. “Who are you?”
“Maddy. Uncle Christian isn’t feeling well.”
“Oh? Where is he?”
“At my house. He’s having difficulty breathing. My mom wanted to call health paladins, but he asked us to get you instead. I came earlier, but he said you were sleeping.”
“Thank you for your perseverance, Maddy. Will you take me to him?”
Maddy, explaining that she had found him sprawled on the floor outside their door earlier in the morning, led Raissa downstairs and into the next building. Raissa could understand the mix-up, but Ashminov's indiscretion terrified her. Who else has he told about the safe house?
Inside the girl’s apartment, Raissa met Maddy's mother and thanked her for looking after “Uncle Christian.” “He’ll be fine once he gets his medicine,” Raissa said.
“He’s in a lot of pain,” the woman said.
Raissa looked over Ashminov as he lay on a bed, eyes closed, in a flimsy gown. He held his sides and groaned. She recognized the symptoms. Like Jaddy, it seemed as if his chip was shutting down his lungs for forbidden behavior. Hadn't Ashminov disabled his chip?
She leaned over the bed. “Uncle Christian?”
His eyes popped open. “Bibleware?” Labored gasps punctuated the words.
Bibleware? Who knows what he'll say next? Raissa slipped her hand over his mouth before he could say more. Their noses were millimeters apart. “Save your energy, Uncle. You’ll be in your own bed soon.” When she took her hand away, he kept his mouth shut, thankfully.
Showering his caretakers with additional words of gratitude, Raissa hauled Ashminov up and hustled him out of the apartment into the elevator where he said, “I need . . .” But he ran out of breath and couldn’t complete his thought.
“Who else knows about the safe house?”
He folded at the waist. “Nobody.”
She didn’t believe him. When the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, she steered him into the foyer and leaned him against the wall. Pinning him there with her arm extended straight, she cracked the door open and peered out. “Let's go.”
She half-dragged him down the steps and did the same up to the safe house building. Taking a last look up and down the street, she dragged him inside. They rode the elevator in silence. Inside the apartment, she navigated him to the couch, where he collapsed.
“Give me the chip,” he panted.
Raissa fetched the remaining devourware chip.
“And the trans.”
She handed it over. With trembling fingers, he inserted the chip into the trans and pressed the wand to his forehead, holding it as steady as he could. A beep signaled a successful transmission.
The transformation was instant. Ashminov threw his head back as he took one deep breath after another, almost weeping with relief. He flexed his arms, and his cheeks flushed a rosy pink in the rapture of oxygen entering his bloodstream. Raissa felt that she was witnessing his rebirth.
After a minute of recovery, his eyes sparked wide with renewed vigor. He stood and raised both arms high, chest swelling. Face to the ceiling, he cried, “Hallelujah, praise Jesus.”
“Ashminov, what did you just say?”
* * *
Ashminov ignored her question and bowed his head his head in prayer. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” He looked up. Raissa’s cold stare stood in sharp contrast to the warm love of Christ pumping through his arteries. “I can explain. I was minding my business when paladins arrested me.”
“Where?”
“On a bench in Boston Public Garden.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Minding your business?”
Ashminov's heart floated in a sea of patience. “It shouldn't be a crime to use tryp, but it is. I hid some under the bathroom sink when I first got here.” This confession cleansed him. “A paladin scanned me, and my chip ID reported I was nine days old.”
“Nine days?”
He bowed his head again and first said a silent prayer for the murdered child and murderer alike. “Baldini wanted malware that would turn the world population into Christians. I developed Bibleware. The Christian faith
is now serving as the foundation for the rules governing my behavior.”
Raissa edged her face close to his. “The chip I planted on Caleb Saunders?”
“Bibleware.”
“When the transmission takes place, everyone will turn into Christians?”
Flower petals of serenity spilled from Ashminov’s mind at the notion of hands locked in love, in a worldwide community of Christians. “Correct.”
“My grandfather is Muslim.”
“If you like, I can develop Koranware. You can use the trans to download it to him.”
“Did it occur to you that people might want to follow other faiths?”
“Yes.”
“Pray to other gods?”
“That’s what I told Baldini.”
Raissa paced. “Some people might not want to pray at all.”
“Also true.”
She stopped and glared. “So, why did you do it?”
“Raissa, I was planning to burn devourware onto a new chip which you could take to the concert, but then you knocked me out.”
“So it’s my fault?”
Ashminov focused on the floor. The wood had a scuff mark, an imperfection. He was imperfect. But he could strive for perfection. With the help of Jesus, he would forgive the Captain and Colonel, and every other lost soul who had hurt him along the way, even Petrov. “No,” he mumbled.
Raissa was in his face again. “Is it too late to plant a new chip on Caleb?”
“Developers are usually on standby until the last minute to submit changes,” he told her.
“So it’s not too late?”
He shrugged. “Fifty-fifty.”
“Can you make a new devourware chip?”
He snapped his fingers.
She pounded a fist into her open palm. “Do it!”
“Raissa, do you believe in God?”
She scoffed. “If there is a God, she has a sick sense of humor, teaming me up with you.” She pointed to his mindport. “Get going!”
