The Ghost Network (book 1)

by I. I Davidson

  Thirty minutes later, she wished she hadn’t.

  How could Mikael Laine have dared to attempt something so experimental, on her or on Jake? Or maybe even his own son? But it had worked. Akane gulped hard. She would have died without his treatment. I’d be long dead by now.

  The emails were full of medical jargon, but Akane could understand the gist of them.

  There was something in her head that didn’t belong there.

  That casual mention of genetically modified brain tissue didn’t sound human at all. What experimental matter had he used when he patched up her broken brain? What was it doing to her?

  The fury and confusion were too much. Hurriedly pushing back her chair, Akane sprang to her feet and flung open the study door.

  “Obaasan!”

  Her grandmother turned from the stove, startled. Akane could only imagine how angry she looked; she didn’t care.

  “I have to talk to you! Now!”

  <<>>

  “Akane, you must understand.” Obaasan shuffled back and forth across the wooden floor; if she hadn’t been so small and wise, she’d have looked like an anxious, caged tiger. “Wait till your parents come home. You can ask them all about your accident, Akane-chan.”

  She looked almost desperate, but Akane hardened her heart. “They could have told me about it years ago, Obaasan.”

  “They didn’t want to upset you or frighten you. Look how brave you are, Akane-chan! You’re not afraid of anything!”

  “No,” she grunted, “and they stop me from doing everything. They grounded me the other day!”

  “Are you surprised?” Her grandmother reached out to clasp her hands. “Jumping off buildings is what got you into this, Akane-chan!”

  “I was four!” protested Akane. “And my sisters don’t get grounded!”

  Obaasan wagged a finger. “You are the youngest. They’d have been more protective of you, even if you hadn’t—if you hadn’t almost died.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “But I didn’t die,” whispered Akane.

  “No, you didn’t,” nodded Obaasan. “They found a very clever brain surgeon, they told me. He saved you. And that’s all that matters to your haha and chichi and to me.”

  Akane gulped hard. But what did my parents let Mikael Laine do to me? Do they even know what he did?

  She rose and squeezed her grandmother’s hands. It wasn’t Obaasan’s fault: she’d kept the secret, but it hadn’t been her decision.

  “I . . . I need to think for a while, Obaasan.”

  Relief flickered across her grandmother’s face. “Your haha and chichi will be home in a few hours, Akane. They did what they thought was best. Don’t be angry with them, please.”

  But they gave me to Mikael Laine without knowing what he would do. Akane took a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

  “And don’t look too much on your computer,” the old woman pleaded. “I know the things you can find on that machine. You are clever that way, Akane-chan, but you should talk to your parents first.”

  Akane gave a short nod. But she had no intention of keeping that promise.

  Back in her room, with the door firmly closed, she woke up the screen again. Mikael Laine was a director of the Wolf ’s Den Center. Cracking her knuckles, Akane opened Mikael Laine’s file once more.

  You clever man, she thought, as she studied his handsome, angular face. There was a hint of a shy smile on his wide-lipped mouth, as if he were teasing her. Why did you disappear? Are you really dead?

  Anyway, I can be as clever as you.

  She had a few hours, and that was more than enough. It was easy enough to track the correspondence that dated from Jake Hook’s boating accident at the age of six, when the boom had struck his head and he’d been trapped under the water. Let’s have a look at your medical records, Jake . . .

  Her parents might be able to hide things from her, but no stranger was going to do the same. The InCubate Clinic ran a sophisticated IT system, but not quite sophisticated enough. Studying its hashed strings, Akane could already spot a weakness or two. I’ve compromised fancier authentication systems before breakfast, she thought.

  John had been sent to the Wolf’s Den. Jake had been sent to the Wolf’s Den. They’d both suffered accidents that should have been fatal; they’d both been saved by Mikael Laine. And the connection between Mikael and the Center was right there in black and white in the list of directors, but that didn’t tell her why he’d been involved. It certainly didn’t tell her why the connection had been secret or why John had been kept in the dark about it.

  What is John doing there?

  <<>>

  Checking the time, Akane sat back, releasing a breath. She’d scraped the Center and Clinic websites clean of information. That didn’t mean there wasn’t more to be had.

  Entry points. Hmm. Medical: she’d done that.

  Political? She didn’t know her way around government sites the way John did, and she didn’t want to get caught. Technical? Laine had kept his work well clear of legitimate scientific websites; she knew because she’d checked.

  Legal . . . ?

  There was silence next door as she worked, except for an occasional shuffle of slippered feet. At last she heard the television click on, the volume lower than usual. Clearly, her grandmother didn’t dare disturb her. Poor Obaasan. It wasn’t her fault, Akane reminded herself. She must be dreading what would happen when her son and daughter-in-law returned home . . .

  Even that thought flew out of her head as the page she requested loaded.

  The words floated in front of her, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Maybe her brain didn’t want to see the contract before her. Maybe deep down she didn’t want to know about the agreement that bore those signatures, that agreement that assigned future rights in perpetuity.

  Because how could you sell the rights to human beings?

  Something cold washed over Akane. Because maybe those human beings aren’t human. Not anymore. What had Freki said in that email?

  “Procedure is entirely property of WD, therefore subjects also.”

  The law firm’s legalese was complex and peppered with Latin, but this, too, Akane got the gist of well enough. Mikael had sold the rights to his medical procedure. More than that, he’d sold the rights to her. And John. And Jake. He’d sold them to the Wolf’s Den. The signatures were right there on the Crines, Macdonald, and Osborne website.

  Mikael A Laine

  Mikael Laine

  [for InCubate Medical Group]

  Yamamoto

  Yasuo Yamamoto

  [for Wolf’s Den Center]

  Akane couldn’t move. Her bones were frozen. Her brain felt like a stranger’s.

  Then, in the distance, she heard the click of a key in the apartment lock.

  “Akane? Mother?” Her father’s voice drifted through, piercing the chrysalis of ice that seemed to have formed around her. “I’m home.”

  Once again, Akane let her fingers drift to her scar. She dug in her fingernails, hard enough to hurt, and gritted her teeth.

  Then she kicked back her chair, stood up, and opened the door.

  “Hello, Papa. We need to talk.”

  John wasn’t even surprised by the pool. He realized he was coming to expect the unusual as he flung himself in.

  It wasn’t the most elegant of dives, but he loved the sensation of hitting the water, of being swallowed up, submerged in silence. He swam down as far as he could. You’d think the water’s a little warm for those orcas, but it’s fine for me.

  They slid past him through the water and disappeared from view, a pod of seven including a calf. John managed to touch his fingers to an outcrop of coral on the sea floor before kicking back upward. He gasped as he broke the surface and slicked back his long hair.

  “Did you see the gre
at white shark?” Only Eva was around; she sat on the pool’s edge and squeezed water from her hair. Her voice sounded dull and monotone, like a tour guide who’d led a bus trip once too often.

  “Aw, I must have missed it.” John swam to her. “But this water’s definitely too warm for those.”

  “Carcharodon carcharias,” said Eva flatly. “Able to smell a single drop of blood in a hundred gallons of water. May grow to up to twenty-three feet and weigh more than six thousand pounds, of which 24 percent may consist of their liver alone. Preferred water temperature is fifty-nine to seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit;

  this pool is set to eighty-two degrees, but that doesn’t bother

  Roy Lykos.”

  Hauling himself out of the water, John sat at her side and gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe you don’t need to worry about losing your files. You seem to have them all in your head.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Maybe.”

  “I think this pool’s even better than the climbing wall,” he told her with forced cheer.

  “It is a clever trick.” She shrugged. “But then the Tiger-Father is a clever man.”

  “Who?”

  “Lykos.”

  Wow, Eva was odd. John chewed his lip.

  From up here the digital oceanic life wasn’t visible; he could make out the glass screens that formed the sides of the pool, and they looked perfectly plain. One day, he thought, I’ll create things like this. I’ll make them economically viable. I’ll get them into every school in the country. But I won’t be the one who had the idea . . .

  “He’s brilliant,” he said at last. “I know you don’t like him, Eva, but I’m sure Roy could help with that malware on your computer.”

  “No. He cannot. And if he could, he would not.”

  John had no idea how to respond. Eva was frosty and curt and hard to talk to, but he couldn’t help liking her. He ached with sympathy for what Leo and Adam had done to her laptop. But he liked Roy Lykos, too, and respected and admired him. Why did he have to be stuck in the middle?

  He hadn’t seen Eva look sad, or frightened, or vulnerable, in five whole weeks at the Center. Now she was all three, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it.

  He tilted his head. “What did you mean, you might lose your whole mind?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I meant. It’s true, that’s all.”

  “Can’t you get another laptop? I know it’s a pain, and you’ll have lost all your data, but—”

  “No!” Her head snapped round, and she glared at him. “That isn’t an option, John Laine! You of all people should know that!”

  “OK, OK.” He slumped forward, leaning his elbows on his knees.

  “They don’t know what they’ve done,” she whispered. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stu—”

  She fell abruptly silent, her eyes glazing. John frowned and peered at her. She sounded unnervingly like a broken loop. “Are you—”

  “Stupid. Stupid—” Her eyes brightened again with fury, and she spoke as if he’d never interrupted her. “Stupid little rich boys. They have no idea.”

  Eva didn’t sound like an automaton anymore. She sounded so angry that John wasn’t surprised that her shoulders began to shake. He was much more shocked when he realized she was actually crying. Silent tears slid down her cheeks even as she glared at the rippling pool.

  “Oh, Eva. It’ll be OK; I promise.” Nervously, John put a comforting arm around her, and she didn’t shake him off. “We’ll fix it. Me and Slack and Salome, we’ll find a way.”

  “Thank you.” Abruptly she pressed her face into his shoulder. “You are the only ones who can help.”

  “We’re not,” he said, risking a smile, “but you won’t go to Roy, so . . . ”

  She ignored that. “You will keep my mind intact. You are my friends; I trust you.”

  “Uh . . . good. That’s good.” Her complete trust made him feel even more protective. Not something I ever guessed I’d feel toward Eva Vygotsky . . . “You want to swim again? It’ll take your mind off it for a few minutes.”

  “My mind needs to keep its focus,” she told him seriously. “But, yes, a swim will not affect that, and it may help. You are kind, John Laine.” She scrambled to her feet. “And after all, these are only digital sharks.”

  John watched her leap into the water. After a moment, he, too, stood up, rubbing his arms.

  Why had he found her last remark so unsettling? Was it the tone of her voice or her emphasis?

  He shook himself and plunged head-first after her. Maybe this time I’ll get lucky and see the great white. It wasn’t as if it would bother him.

  After all: these are only digital sharks.

  <<>>

  Beads of sweat broke out on John’s forehead. Maybe computing was harder physical work than climbing or swimming after all. He didn’t have time to test for comparison: he was perched on a bench in the gym, but instead of lifting weights, he was hammering at his laptop.

  Guilt ate at him. He should never have confronted Adam and Leo; he was the reason they’d done this to Eva. He’d been battling the malware on her computer for days now, and he hadn’t made any progress. Slack had been trying too, and Salome, but none of them could make a dent in the program.

  It wasn’t as if Adam and Leo had made any demands. This was pure revenge—a warning to Eva not to rat them out again and a threat of worse if she dared to tell any of the teachers. There was no sign of them relenting, either.

  Salome, being Salome, had tried pleading with their better natures. She’d used all the reasoning and logic that served her well in Roy’s classes, but it hadn’t done any good. All Adam and Leo would say was, “We’ll think about it.” Then Adam would wave a regal, dismissive hand, and they’d walk off together, giggling.

  With a growl of frustration, John pushed his laptop away. It almost shot off the bench, and he had to snatch it out of thin air before it hit the mat.

  “No luck?” Salome grunted, letting the barbell clang back onto its rest and sitting up.

  “Nothing,” said John. “I thought I’d found an inversion pathway to get me back to their start point, but it hit a dead end. You’re right: they are good.”

  “Only in a technical sense,” said Salome dryly. “Why don’t you lift some weights? Or go on the cross-trainer. Work off some frustration, like Jake’s doing.”

  John glanced through the plate glass to the next room. Slack had been beating a punching bag to death for forty-five minutes, and there was no sign of him letting up. His jaws were clenched tightly, and he was drenched in sweat, but still he relentlessly hammered at the punching bag.

  John took a deep breath. “I don’t think it’s working for him, but I’ll give it a shot.”

  “A break and some physical activity will help your brain.”

  “Sure. I’ll try again later with Eva’s malware.”

  “We all will.”

  “Salome.” John hesitated. “I tried to ask her, but she wouldn’t tell me. What did Eva mean, she’ll lose her mind? Is it something to do with her amnesia?”

  Salome shrugged and strode to the weights rack to grab another couple of plates. Methodically, she began to screw them onto the barbell. “I don’t think so. She’s not actually mad or anything. Eva’s odd, that’s all, and that laptop is her life. She didn’t mean it literally.”

  John wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t like to say that out loud. “I wish we could help her. She’s so frustrated and miserable.” He stretched his shoulders. “She can’t focus in class. Even Yasuo laid into her yesterday when she froze, and you know how easygoing he is.”

  “We could try telling Roy Lykos,” suggested Salome. “He’d help.”

  “No! Eva won’t hear of it—and she’s right. You know what Adam and Leo said yesterday—they can do a lot worse. I wouldn’t put it past them to d
elete all her files permanently.”

  “Horrible, spoiled brats,” exclaimed Salome, slamming the lock onto the barbell plates with emphasis. “That’s what a rich daddy does for you.”

  “Your dad’s rich.”

  “Not half as wealthy as Rick Kruz. And my father didn’t bring me up to believe the world should bow to me. According to my dad, we owe the world, not the other way round.” Salome snorted. “I’d love to see those two spoiled children get their comeuppance.”

  It was unlike Salome to sound so vindictive, but John didn’t blame her. The Ethiopian girl took pride in seeing the best in everyone; her faith in humanity was touching, even if he and Slack did mock it a little. She must be really angry with Adam and Leo, because she seemed to have demoted them from her list of Worthwhile Human Beings. Horrible, spoiled brats was not the worst thing John had heard her call them in the past few days.

  Still, he could hardly judge her. That nightmare about killing Adam and Leo had turned into a recurring one. His subconscious seemed to find it cathartic, because he got a lot of satisfaction from the dreams while he was in them. He actually enjoyed turning those boys into shattered pixels.

  But the six o’clock alarm was always an awful moment. Every morning he awoke, sweating, completely convinced he was a real, live murderer.

  “You look tired.” Salome narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

  “’Course,” he lied.

  “Mm-hm.” Salome didn’t sound convinced.

  Stubbornly, John climbed onto the cross-trainer to prove how energetic he felt. The computerized screen blinked to life as he clasped the sensors.

  John Laine is on the cross-trainer, it greeted him cheerfully. Hello John Laine! Four mile run? Yes/No

  “The classes feel pretty intense in your first few weeks,” Salome pointed out. “Especially Roy’s. You could be forgiven for being, y’know, exhausted.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not.” John stabbed the screen aggressively. No. He prodded the panel. Five.

  Five mile run, 6 mph Yes/No