by Scott Cramer
* * *
Playing Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Viola d’amore in D Major,” Caleb kept one eye on the score and the other on Raissa. That she knew his favorite piece of music by heart was a remarkable coincidence.
Raissa was not technically proficient. As a five-year-old, Caleb could have played circles around her, but the music she made communicated her feelings to him in ways that words could not. In the notes, he saw her shifting emotions as if they were colors, the bright red of anger and yellow of joy. Sadness and sorrow were shades of black and brown. How does her chip allow her to have such unproductive emotions?
Her messenger rang, and her eyes widened with concern. She put down her viola, and he stopped playing, too. “Excuse me,” she said. “It’s my uncle. Please continue.” She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Reluctantly, Caleb returned the viola to the crook of his neck. He closed his eyes, drew the bow back, and played. The sounds entering his ears did not match the beauty of the Vivaldi concerto in his mind. Lost in the notes, he soared ever higher with the melody. He remembered playing this freely as a boy before Dr. Petrov had downloaded an M-code patch to his chip.
When Raissa came out of the bathroom, he put down the bow, stepping away from his inner world of joy. Her expression troubled him. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, fine.”
“Is your uncle okay?”
She gave a little nod, her thoughts seeming far away. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave now.”
He set down the viola before it dropped from his sweaty hands. “If it’s the way I play, I don’t blame you.”
“Caleb, you play beautifully.”
“Nobody could describe those screeching sounds like that.”
She stepped toward him. “You heard the music inside your head. That’s what I listened to.”
Caleb’s heart stopped. It quivered to life. Then it broke away and lodged in the base of his throat, beating wildly. Unable to breathe and suffocating in a flood of warmth, he anchored himself in her green eyes to keep himself from crumpling to the floor. “What about that tour of NanoArtisans? It will improve your spirits.”
“I can’t go.”
“Do you want to go tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
Caleb revisited the inventory of his poor decision-making. I should have put a happy picture on the memory wall. What if I had served green tea instead of jasmine? Why hadn’t I laughed at her joke about the explosives? Perhaps the eucalyptus scent alerted her that I was trying to mask an odor of dirty laundry. I should have spared her the torture of hearing me play the viola.
“Raissa, when can I see you again?”
She lowered her eyes and walked to the door. “Goodbye, Caleb.”
“Wait! You forgot your viola.”
She opened the door, not acknowledging him. She was leaving her perfume, too. “Raissa, I like you a lot!”
* * *
Raissa, her hand on the knob, stopped cold. No boy had ever told her that. Caleb had a chip, yet he was staring at her without a hint of pain. He likes me, scar and all.
Ashminov had urged her to return to the safe house at once, without offering an explanation.
Caleb approached her with open arms. To her shock, he kept coming and wrapped his arms around her. A torrent of confusion buffeted her as she felt his heart pounding. She raised her arms and curled them around his waist. At first, her arms were stiff and tense, but then they softened and molded to his contours.
Ashminov can wait.
Looking into her eyes, Caleb brought his hands to the back of her head and weaved his fingers through her hair. Mimicking his action, she ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes, parted his lips, and moved his face closer to hers. She turned her head and pressed her cheek against his chest.
His hands moved further down her back and pulled her closer still.
She lifted her chin and parted her lips, ready for her first kiss ever.
Suddenly, Caleb jumped back, glaring at her with a pinched brow. “Why do you have a joule?” he cried.
She bolted through the door.
* * *
As Caleb watched Raissa fly down the stairs and out of his life, it felt as if a bomb had exploded in his head. What if I’m wrong? No, I've handled enough joules. Every security paladin removed their joule before he took their vitals. Raissa has to be a rebel.
She had too many strange questions, strange requests. Her keen interest in the V7 transmission. Her desire to tour the campus. I'm lucky I discovered the weapon. Who knows what might have happened if I escorted a rebel onto the campus?
The pieces fell into place, starting with the unusual data he had discovered in the spectrometer lab. Raissa was no hobbyist who worked on antique automobiles. The dioctyl sebacate on her hand had come from plastic explosives.
With a sinking heart, he considered the circumstances of meeting her at Symphony Hall. Jack had purchased the ticket, placing Raissa next to him. Is Jack a rebel too? He wondered if it was Jack who had called her, and not her uncle. Did Raissa know that Jack had poisoned Julian? Was it part of a larger plot? How had Raissa been able to lie?
“Messenger, contact security.”
Security came on the line. “Please state your issue.”
“This is Dr. Caleb Saunders. I want to report a rebel.”
“Do you have the rebel's ID?”
Caleb stared at the bottle of sandalwood perfume on the table. He lingered over the mug of tea Raissa's lips had touched. Her viola, which she had played with so much emotion, was in the corner next to his.
“Dr. Saunders, can you describe the rebel? Male or female?”
Caleb swallowed. “Female.”
“Please describe her, Dr. Saunders.”
He disengaged the call and crept to his bedroom where he removed his readers from a drawer next to the bed. He put them on and sat down hard in a chair. “Readers, access the novel Pride and Prejudice.”
* * *
Angry at herself for letting her guard down with Caleb, Raissa climbed out of the taxi and sprinted up the safe house steps. Now that he had discovered her weapon, he’d report her to security; a challenging task had just become nearly impossible.
Ashminov slumped on the couch. He had lost his glow. “Caleb discovered I was armed,” she told him.
He sat up but otherwise showed little concern. His face was blank, and he spoke with a strangled voice as he described his horrific trip to Copley Square.
Her heart tumbled into a cold void. “Children died, too?”
“People of all ages. Petrov was testing a weapon.”
“A weapon?”
“Ricinware melts chips.”
“Ashminov, stop! What is ricinware?”
“It’s malware that creates an infinite software loop. The instructions repeat until the heat generated by molecular friction releases the ricin.”
She sat beside him and jostled his knee. He looked as distraught as she felt, and they needed to give each other strength. “How do you know Petrov did it?”
“He understands the basics of M-code. He was able to modify my Bibleware.”
She gasped. “He knows about the Bibleware?”
Ashminov nodded. “I’m afraid he knows everything. Prince on the enlightenment wall? That was no coincidence. Petrov was sending me a message.”
Raissa jumped up and paced, in part to dissolve her sudden agitation at Ashminov. “Were you going to tell me?”
He dropped his chin to his chest.
She sat next to him again. “Listen, that’s in the past. We have to focus on the present. How did Petrov find out about the Bibleware?”
He shrugged.
“If he knew about that,” she added, “he probably knows about us, about this safe house, about my plan to kill him.”
“Our plan to kill him,” Ashminov replied. “I deleted the Bibleware from my chip.”
That explains a lot.
He shook his head. “After.”
“What’s special about Copley Square?” she asked.
“There’s a former church there. Petrov must have transmitted Bibleware to a test group, and, after they flocked there, he hit them with ricinware.”
“Shouldn’t you be dead?” Raissa asked.
“I promised you I’d stay here. My internal struggle delayed me.”
“Why does Petrov need a weapon?” she asked. “He already controls everyone’s behavior. He’ll soon know everyone’s thoughts.”
Another shrug.
A chill burrowed deep into Raissa’s bones as she recalled the mob in the North End. “Do you think Petrov tested the weapon at more than one location?”
“It’s possible. Petrov values data.”
She told him about her experience earlier in Boston’s Italian section.
“What tourist site?” Ashminov asked. “I visited every attraction in the city two or three times.”
“Something to do with a Revolutionary War hero in 1775—Paul Revere.”
He consulted his messenger. “Two men lit a lantern in the steeple of The Old North Church in 1775 to signal to Paul Revere that invaders were coming by land.”
“That’s it,” she said, now fearing the boy she had saved from getting trampled had since died of ricinware.
Ashminov accessed his messenger and after a moment passed it to her. “This vista cam is on the Prudential Building, pointing toward the North End.”
The flashing lights of emergency vehicles on the ground and a dense gathering of blimps overhead delivered the answer she dreaded most.
* * *
Caleb stared in horror at his mindport. Something had gone tragically wrong at the three locations where crowds had gathered. Dr. Aubrey had called and told him to tune into the briefing channel.
In the North End, thousands of corpses covered a section of Hanover Street and the courtyard that led to the Old North Church. He muted his cochlear speaker because the blimp's microphone was picking up sporadic cries and groans. In Copley Square, a carpet of dead bodies stretched from the doors of the International Food Cafetorium, fanning out across the entire square. The victims wore twisted expressions as if they had died in horrible pain. It reminded Caleb of a documentary he'd seen on mustard gas during World War I.
The scene was similar at St. Mary’s Bowladrome in Codman Square: thousands of corpses with contorted expressions sprawled on the ground. Another location, Timilty Square, had as many victims, but their expressions mirrored the placid looks they had carried in life.
Caleb's messenger rang. Dr. Aubrey again. “I’ve seen the locations,” he said.
“Dr. Joyce and I are in her lab. We’d like you to procure several victims and bring them to us. We want to analyze their chips.”
“Submit a ticket,” he suggested. “Paladins will bring the corpses straight to campus, rather than to the hospital.”
“Caleb, something odd is going on. Paladins are taking the bodies directly to the solartarium for cremation.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“One way or another, can we count on you to deliver bodies to the lab?”
“I’ve got this, Dr. Aubrey.”
“Thank you. Caleb, I want to apologize for snapping at you earlier.”
Under the circumstances, Caleb’s spreading smile felt out of place. “I understand completely. By the way, I still have my beta chip.”
“Good, I’ll keep an eye on you.”
After he ended the call, Caleb opened the paladin developer notes, looking for a clue that would explain the atypical paladin behavior. Sure enough, a global update, titled ‘Carbon Tabs’ had been issued three hours ago. “If a paladin finds a corpse, he or she will bypass the autopsy procedure and take the body straight to a solartarium.” He breathed easier when he saw that Dr. Petrov was the author of the update.
Caleb hurried outside, hailed a taxi, and hopped into the back. At Copley Square, he’d get a team of paladins to assist him. His team would load up an emergency vehicle with a corpse from each site and head straight to Dr. Joyce’s lab.
“Taxi, Copley Square.”
“Copley Square is off limits for the next fifty-two minutes,” the taxi replied.
He flashed his badge. “Taxi, override security.”
“Override denied, Dr. Saunders.”
“Taxi, take me to the North End.”
“The North End is off limits for the next twenty-seven minutes.”
“Taxi, override security.”
“Override denied, Dr. Saunders.”
Caleb understood the restrictions. Paladin first-responders didn’t need gawkers getting in the way. But he was no gawker, and he made a mental note to submit a request to review taxi security protocols after the dust settled. “Taxi, take me to the Arlington Solartarium.”
Two blocks from the solartarium, the scent of roses wafted through the cab's vents, and he fought the urge to gag. He had worked at the solartarium as a 14-year-old intern the summer after graduating from MIT, and even the thought of roses made him sick to this day.
The facility came into view. A long line of emergency vehicles snaked through the gate. Caleb cursed, then said, “Taxi, stop here.”
He had planned to back up to the dock and load corpses into the trunk. Then a better solution presented itself. Before a body entered the solar oven, the chip was extracted from the brain and sealed in a Pyrex tube. He’d collect hundreds for his colleagues.
He received a text message from Dr. Aubrey. Excellent idea.
Feeling less alone, he stepped out of the taxi and jogged for the solitarium grounds.
The facility, which could produce up to fifty thousand carbon tabs per hour, was running full tilt. Ten vehicles at a time offloaded their cargo. At the transfer dock, he watched a claw pluck a carbonite cocoon. Flexible titanium fingers popped the lid and delicately extracted an elderly gentleman with a twisted face. A second claw peeled away the man's shoes, his salmon-colored blazer, and the rest of his garments. This mechanical hand then placed the body on a conveyor belt.
Before chip extraction, each corpse underwent a battery of tests: bone density, skin elasticity, blood work, sonograms, ultrasounds, and more. Caleb skipped the testing stations and marched straight to the extractor where a laser drill opened a hole in the skull so a suction device could retrieve the chip. He grew concerned. None of the corpses emerging from the extractor had red dots on their foreheads.
“Conveyor, stop.”
The conveyor continued delivering corpses into the oven.
“Conveyor, debug.”
“Debug disabled,” the conveyor replied.
Whoever had disabled debug would have a lot of questions to answer. He eyed the emergency stop switch, which would shut down the entire solartarium. He'd have hell to pay unless he could convince the higher-ups he was trying to save chips for archival. He lifted the shield that protected the switch. Dr. Aubrey, I need you in my corner for what I’m about to do.
He waited for her to send him a text message. When none came, he mashed the red button with his palm.
An Asian woman, looking as if she had died mid-scream, rolled past him, followed by a male teen with an equally horrible expression, then a middle-aged woman, who had also apparently died in horrific pain.
With dread, Caleb pondered his options. He could drag corpses off the moving belt to the waiting taxi one at a time. That will take hours. He raced to a first-aid kit on the wall and found a laser scalpel. Returning to the conveyor, he zeroed in on a middle-aged man with a big grin coming his way.
Igniting the scalpel blade, Caleb watched the man roll by him and into the oven.
He couldn’t do it. Yes, I can! Two senior researchers at NanoArtisans were entrusting him, the youngest employee, to assist them in their scientific inquiry. The next specimen was a woman wearing a waxy mask of happiness. He grabbed a handful of blue ha
ir and sliced her head off at the neck. The liquid crunch and the sudden weight of her head in his hand startled him. Dr. Aubrey, can you make do with just one chip?
Five chips minimum came her reply on his messenger.
DESIGN: PHASE 09
Raissa was arranging her arsenal on the bed when Ashminov walked over and picked up the Glock. “It's loaded,” she cried, her heart jumping into her throat. She would not put it past him to shoot her accidentally with a lead slug.
He popped out the ammo clip and twirled the weapon with his finger hooked into the trigger guard. With the expertise of a marksman, he rammed the clip home, lowered himself into a shooting stance, and squeezed off an imaginary round at a squirrel sitting on a branch outside the window. “Bang.”
“How’d you learn to do that?” she asked, more impressed than shocked.
“My mother was a captain in Bulgarian intelligence, and my father was an army colonel. They taught me how to fire an AK-47 before the age of ten. Target practice was one of the few times the Captain and Colonel showed any affection toward their children.” He tossed the Glock on the bed and sat beside it. “I blame them for the way I turned out, and I’d love to tell them so, but they’ve been dead for twenty years.”
The sad, fleeting glimpse into Ashminov’s childhood helped to explain his behavior. “For good or bad, parents live inside you forever. I lost mine when I was young.”
“What happened?”
“My mother was a rebel. Security destroyed our home with a missile. It killed my parents and baby brother.”
“Baby Brother,” Ashminov whispered and stared into space.
They remained silent for a long time.
“Something’s been bothering me,” she said. “Right before I flew to Boston, one of my trainers, Goldstein, killed my great-uncle, and smiled afterward.”
“Perhaps he hid his pain.”
She shook her head. “Goldstein is tough, but not that tough.”
Ashminov paced. “Baldini let the Pope suffocate. In my mind, that’s murder. He boasted about it.”
“Could someone have modified their chips to let them kill without experiencing punishment?”
His brow crinkled. “Only two people in the world understand M-code, and you're looking at one.”
