The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

“You know what I mean.”

  Laura did: The ikhar she’d tracked down had given him back his health and his life. He was lucky she’d found it. She was even luckier she’d found it.

  “Be that as it may, can someone get me up to speed? Can someone tell me what your nadaný have in common, besides zeta waves?”

  “I can,” Montero said, tapping on his tablet. “The nadaný we know fall within a fifteen-year age range, from sixteen to thirty-one. MR brain scans on the eight we’ve done show no abnormalities. We’ve sequenced the genomes of three so far and found no matching anomalies.”

  “Why only three?” Rick said.

  “In-depth sequencing takes time, especially when you don’t know what you’re looking for. The analyses you get through Ancestry-dot-com and the like are superficial. These were very detailed, then we compared them for matching anomalies. The result: nada. Which was pretty much as I expected, so I called off further DNA testing.”

  Laura didn’t follow. “What made you think—?”

  Montero shrugged. “Just a hunch. None of them discovered their gifts until they hit puberty. Which hints that they’re developmental.”

  “All ten?”

  “Well, Ellis is twenty-six and he didn’t realize he was telekinetic until yesterday.”

  They seemed to be striking out everywhere.

  “What about geography? Are all ten New Yorkers?”

  He shook his head. “Only four. And born in different hospitals. Marie was born in Coney Island, Ellis in Maimonides, and Ruthie and our mysterious Iggy in Kings County.”

  “All Brooklyn,” Rick said.

  Luis was nodding. “You might be tempted to make a case for Brooklyn until you look at the other six. They were born all over the country: one each in Atlanta, Compton, New Orleans, and Chicago, and two in St. Louis.”

  “All urban,” Rick said, frowning. “No suburban nadaný? Marie? You grew up in Coney Island?”

  “Brighton Beach. My parents moved there from Bushwick shortly before I was born.”

  Luis said, “So far the nadaný are mostly nonwhite—three blacks, five Hispanics, with Marie and Ellis as the only two Caucasians.”

  “It looks totally random,” Rick said. A smile played around his lips as he turned his gaze on Laura and adopted a portentous tone. “Which leaves us …”

  Stahlman laughed and finished for him. “ICE?”

  She had to smile. Rick’s Intrusive Cosmic Entities.

  “Somehow I knew you’d bring us there eventually.”

  Montero and Marie looked totally confused, and rightfully so.

  “I’m missing something here,” Montero said.

  “Later,” Rick told him.

  Laura added, “Much later. But in the meantime, I want to check on prenatal care. We know the birth hospitals were different, but maybe we can find some sort of overlap in their obstetrical care.”

  “I’m thinking the key to all this is neuroelectrical,” Montero said.

  “I’m not disagreeing. The key to the mechanism of the gifts is definitely neuroelectrical. But the consistency of those zeta waves from nadaný to nadaný hints at a common origin. Finding that could answer a ton of crucial questions.”

  “Put her to work, Luis,” Rick said. “She’s a forensics whiz.”

  “Okay. I can go with that. You take the epidemiological end and I’ll stick with their brains. If we ever figure this out, we’ll publish together. Deal?”

  Laura nodded. “Deal.”

  Yes, deal! Her name on a paper like this would open countless doors in the worlds of clinical and academic neurology.

  But publication or no, these nadaný had piqued her interest. Piqued, hell—they fascinated her to no end. They’d started her forensics juices flowing full force. They were all linked, these nadaný, and she was going to find out how.

  3

  As the impromptu meeting ended, Marie leaned over the desk, talking to Stahlman while Laura and Montero had their heads together by the door. Rick didn’t want to interrupt, so he hung back. But he had to talk to her.

  Like him? I love him …

  His head spun. She’d admitted she loved him, right in front of everyone. That wasn’t at all like her. Not the kind to say that even in private. Back when they’d been close—okay, intimate—they’d agreed they weren’t ready for the L word, even though he’d known he was already there.

  “Mister Hayden?” Stahlman said. “I wonder if I might prevail upon you to accompany Miss Novotna to a mattress shop on Queens Boulevard.”

  Most bosses would say do this and do that, but Stahlman was always wondering if he could prevail or if he might ask. “If” left the door open for a refusal, but nobody walked through that door. Well, Rick hadn’t. Not yet, at least, although he was tempted to this time. He needed to talk to Laura. Like now.

  “What’s up?”

  “I live in Sunnyside,” she said. “The last two nights now I have walked by the mattress store on Queens Boulevard and sensed a nadaný inside.”

  Stahlman said, “Why don’t you take her over there and see what’s what?”

  Sunnyside sat directly east of Long Island City. They could probably walk there, but he wasn’t about to try that.

  Rick spotted Laura heading back onto the main floor with Montero. He’d have to catch her later.

  “Sure.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go grab some wheels.”

  On the way to the garage, he saw Laura talking to Cyrus and jotting on a notepad. He found Reise in the garage, getting into his red Kia.

  “Where you headed?” Rick said.

  “Back to my place. Stahlman said I could stay here, and I tried it last night, but I’d rather be home.”

  “What about a certain guy who likes donuts.”

  “Not a problem. They don’t know where I live.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Rick thought a second. “Do yourself a favor and cab it over.”

  “I need my car.”

  “They know your car. Before you get out, have the cab cruise the street to see if anyone’s watching your place.”

  “Whatta you care?”

  “Saving your ass last night made me a few enemies. I don’t need enemies. And I especially don’t need them following you back here—assuming they don’t finish you off on the spot.”

  Rick left him chewing his upper lip.

  Once Rick and Marie were belted into a pickup and rolling, he said, “So, you live in Sunnyside?”

  “I rent part of a three-family home there. I work at the Boston Market down the street from Slumber Party.”

  “No kidding? Slumber Party? That’s what it calls itself ?”

  “That is what the sign says. I walk past on my way home. Today is my day off.”

  “You have a bit of an accent,” Rick said. “Ukraine?”

  She laughed. “Yes! Very good. How did you guess?”

  “Just lucky.”

  Not really. When he was assigned to Europe, the Company had trained him to differentiate the nuances of accented English. He hadn’t been all that good at it, but Marie’s mention of growing up in Brighton Beach—known as “Little Odessa”—had provided an excellent clue.

  “I was born here a year and a half after my parents arrived, so I grew up bilingual.”

  He turned onto Queens Boulevard and cruised beside the elevated subway tracks, passing the usual assortment of New York stores: a pawnshop, Starbucks, Duane Reade, Pearle Vision, GameStop. Finally Slumber Party in big red letters at the end of a strip mall. A sign said parking in the rear so he pulled around.

  “You sense anyone now?” Rick said as he eased into a spot.

  She shook her head. “No. He’s somewhere to the west.”

  “ ‘He’? You can tell the sex?”

  “No. Just a generic ‘he.’ Could be a woman. By the way, did I mention that both times I passed, the store was closed?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Sorry.”

  “N
ot a problem, but it does change our approach.”

  Rick sat a moment, working through various ways to handle this. The place was too small to rate a night watchman. Someone working late, maybe? Finally …

  “Okay, let’s not mention that we know someone was in there after hours. My business card says ‘security,’ so we’ll let the manager or whoever think I’m looking to sell him a system.”

  “Do you?”

  “What? Sell security systems? No. No systems, just security.” He turned off the truck. “I’ll do most of the talking, but when I ask you for input, you ask about a night watchman.”

  Slumber Party had a rear entrance and they used that. The door gave off a high-pitched ding! when opened. A slim young man in a white half-sleeve shirt immediately approached them.

  “Can I help you? You’re just in time for our fall sale.”

  “Looking for the manager or the owner, actually,” Rick said. “That be you?”

  “I’m the only one here at the moment, so I guess I’ll have to do. What can I do for you?”

  Rick had his card ready and handed it over. “Wondering how you’re fixed for security here. I can put you online with a new system or upgrade the one you have to state of the art, all at a very reasonable price.”

  “I’m in sales,” he said, “so that’s not a decision I can make. But we’ve got door and window alarms, and cameras too.”

  “CCTV?” Rick said, stepping into the center of the showroom.

  He spotted a camera at each end of the rectangular space. He looked for wires leading from the cameras but didn’t see any. He stepped to the front door and pushed it open. Same ding! as the rear.

  “Wi-fi cameras, I take it?” he said when he returned to the salesman.

  The salesman shrugged. “I guess so. Like I said, I’m in sales.”

  Wi-fi CCTV was good news—a point of entry.

  Rick turned to Marie. “Anything I miss?”

  She showed the salesman a bright smile. “We can provide a night watchman if desired.”

  “Night watchman?” He almost laughed. “Oh, I hardly think so.”

  Rick expected her to stop there, but she pressed on. “Do you have anyone stay after hours? An accountant, perhaps, you know, doing the books? Or maybe a cleaning service?”

  He frowned now. “Hey, what is this? You two sound like you’re casing the joint.”

  In a sense that was exactly what they were doing, but Marie had gone a tad too far and set off an alarm bell in the salesman. Rick needed to shut it off. He forced a laugh.

  “My assistant is just thinking about motion detectors. After-hours help tends to present problems for them. We don’t see any installed and we usually include them in a proposal.”

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa!” the salesman said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The owner will be in later. I’ll give him your card.”

  “Good man. Tell him to give me a call. I’ll make it worth his while.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that.”

  Outside, Marie said, “Do you think he’ll call?”

  “Not in a million years.”

  “Did I say too much?”

  She had, but she was new at this.

  “You did just fine. But it points up a puzzling question: What’s our mystery nadaný doing in there after the place is closed?”

  “Sleeping?” Marie said with a smile.

  Rick laughed. “Sounds logical, but it’s gotta be something more than that.”

  4

  Laura spotted Rick and Marie heading across the floor toward Stahlman’s office. She wanted to talk to Marie but still felt embarrassed about her bald-faced declaration of love for Rick. She didn’t understand how it happened, but what was done was done, and she’d just have to deal with it.

  And deep in her heart she was glad for her blurt. She’d have kept silent if she’d had time to think.

  Rick spotted her and stopped and waited while Marie went on ahead.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “We do indeed. Maybe we can find a coffee shop.”

  “Great. Marie and I have got to update Stahlman first.”

  “So do I. Let’s go together.”

  Just then Ellis stepped out of the office.

  “Good call on that cab,” he told Rick. “I did the cruise-by and recognized a guy in a car across the street from my place. That’s the second time you’ve saved my ass.”

  “So, you’re gonna move in here?”

  “Don’t see as I have much choice. I still need to figure a way to get some things from my pad, though.” His eyes lit as Iggy walked by with a smile and a wave. “Then again, when someone hands you a lemon …”

  He strolled off after Iggy.

  “I sense trouble brewing,” Laura said.

  Rick gave a little laugh. “On the plus side, I don’t think he’s Iggy’s type, and even if he was, nobody likes him much.”

  Laura counted herself among that number.

  As they entered the office, Stahlman said, “Marie has already briefed me on the mattress store. Where do we go from here?”

  Laura wasn’t sure exactly what they were talking about, but she made quick inferences from the conversation.

  “She’s sensed the nadaný there after hours only,” Rick said. “They’ve got two security cameras on a wi-fi system, probably backed up to the cloud. Kevin shouldn’t have a big problem hacking into their system and—”

  “Who’s Kevin?” Laura said.

  “Kevin Hudson,” Stahlman said. “He sets up and maintains all my computers.”

  “Used to be a hacker,” Rick said. “Got arrested once but slipped through on a technicality. After that he decided to go straight.” He smiled and glanced at Stahlman. “But he still gets off on hacking a system once in a while. The wi-fi should make this hack easy peasy. If we can get copies of the security feeds from last night and the night before, we should be able to identify our nadaný.”

  Stahlman made a show of rubbing his hands together. “Covert action. Espionage. I love it. And the best part is finding out what kind of gift he has, because you never know. I’ll get Kevin right on it.”

  Rick said, “Tell him he can park behind the store and nose up to the rear wall. Should be no problem tapping into the wi-fi from there.”

  As Stahlman reached for his iPhone, Laura said, “Wait a sec. Just want to let you know I’m getting a line on prenatal care for the nadaný. I’m not going to even bother contacting the hospitals about who their mothers used for OBs. HIPAA laws keep all records zipped unless there’s written consent, and even then the turnaround time can be next to forever. So I’m going straight to the mothers.”

  “Good luck with Iggy. Both her folks are dead. She lives with an aunt and uncle who have five kids. That’s why she’s here all the time.”

  “Are she and Ruthie a couple?”

  Stahlman shrugged. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “I don’t care if they’re straight or gay,” Laura said, “but Ruth is prickly and if I can avoid stepping on her toes in any way …”

  “Ruth has mama’s-boyfriend issues—seems he’s a bit too touchy-feely. So I offered her one of the upstairs apartments.”

  Laura checked her notes. “Ruthie knows where she was born but nothing about her mama’s prenatal care. Same with Leo, Cyrus, and Ellis. They’re calling home now.”

  Leo had been raised in Compton, L.A., and born in Martin Luther King Hospital there. Cyrus grew up in NOLA’s Ninth Ward and was born in LSU’s medical center. Ellis was a local—Maimonides.

  “Marie?” Laura said. “Could you call your mom and ask her where she received her prenatal care? Somewhere in the Coney Island–Brighton Beach area, I imagine.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know where, but it had to be in Bushwick. My folks moved to Brighton Beach just weeks before I was born. I’ll ask her.”

  “Great.” Laura checked off Marie’s name. “I’ve got a good sample now. If
I don’t find any correlation between these five, most likely there isn’t one to be found.”

  “Keep me posted,” Stahlman said, tapping his phone.

  Laura glanced at Rick, who pantomimed drinking from a coffee cup. She nodded.

  “Rick and I are going out for a bit. Be back later.”

  Phone to his ear, Stahlman waved them off.

  They wove their way among the curtained-off areas, waving to Luis as they passed.

  “I spotted a Starbucks up on Queens Boulevard a little while ago,” Rick said as they reached the pickup truck he was using.

  Laura had been drinking coffee all morning, leaving her stomach a little sour.

  “I think I’m coffeed out. How about we just drive? You can pick up a coffee along the way if you like.”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  Out on the street, traffic was stop-and-go, but they had no destination.

  “Thanks for asking me aboard,” she said, wanting to put off the Inevitable Topic for a while. “This is going to be totally fascinating.”

  “Working with living people … good warmup for your residency.” He cleared his throat and Laura thought, Okay, here it comes, but instead he said, “Did you ever consider that moving to living patients is moving toward chaos?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve spent your career with dead people. Dead people are linear equations. Whatever butterfly effects they’ve experienced in their lives are done, finished, because they’re static. Living folks, on the other hand, are nonlinear equations. They’re prime targets for chaos effects because they’re enormously complex systems that are sensitive and extremely dependent on initial conditions.”

  She had to admit she missed Rick’s out-of-left-field observations, and she could see immediately how right this one was.

  “As a matter of fact, I recently autopsied an example of just that: a young man with Marfan syndrome.”

  “The tall, skinny folks?”

  “Exactly. A perfect example of the butterfly effect—what did you just say it was?”

  “Sensitive dependence on initial conditions.”

  “That’s what happens in genetics, because so many of our twenty-thousand-plus genes are interdependent, and the wrong amino acid in the wrong place in a single gene can have huge effects down the line. Marfan folks have a single out-of-place amino acid within the FBN1 gene on chromosome fifteen, affecting production of one of the body’s elastic fibers. They often show no signs at birth, but as that body grows, all sorts of changes become evident.”