Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [63]
“Not really.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Grandma and I are in an extreme version of a pickle and we need a ride.”
I tell her where we are.
“No problem. On the way,” she says. “I’m glad you called. The Whiz has been trying to reach you.”
The Witch and the Whiz.
She hands him the phone.
“I’ve opened your file,” Bullseye says. “You were right. The password was a variation of the name Newton.”
“What’s on the drive?”
“A transcript.”
“Of?”
“Your grandmother.”
“Talking to who?”
“Whom,” Grandma interjects. “Talking to whom?”
“Talking to whom, Bullseye?”
“She’s not talking to a person.”
Then it dawns on me. “She’s talking to a computer—to a piece of software,” I exclaim.
“How’d you know?”
“The Human Memory Crusade.”
“Correct,” Bullseye says. “Seems like an AI program is asking her questions and she’s answering.”
“What’s she saying?”
He hesitates.
“I’ll bring it with me. I think it’s something you need to read for yourself.”
He hangs up.
I look at Grandma.
“It’s time to hear what you told the box.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Talk to me, Grandma. Tell me what’s going on?”
She puts her hands to her face. She looks terribly stricken.
“Grandma, are you keeping a secret from me?”
“I’m keeping a secret from everybody.”
Chapter 33
I gently turn Grandma’s chin so she faces me. Her blue eyes blink and skirt my gaze and her bottom lip quivers. I’ve smudged a dusting of black ash from my hands onto her face when I touched her chin and try gently to brush it away.
“Grandma, please tell me what you told the box.”
“I’m not who you think I am.”
Her words sound distant, unconnected, indirect.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a liar. I lied, and I lied.”
“About what?”
“You’re Nathaniel Idle,” she says.
“I am.”
“You’re not who you think you are.”
Do these words have meaning?
“Who am I?”
“Well, you’re my grandson.”
I hear a siren, and see another police car coming. It slows as it passes us, then cruises by.
“Hold that thought, Grandma.”
I start my car again, and find it has enough juice to allow me to pull it around the corner of the building to the parking lot, which is littered with a handful of weather-stained bathtubs and sinks, and a cracked urinal.
Chuck’s phone rings. “Chuck’s phone,” I answer.
“Chuck here,” he says.
“Chuck, this isn’t the best time, unless you’ve called with some new information.”
“Have some—about Lulu Pederson.”
Grandma stares ahead, lost somewhere else.
“Let’s hear it,” I say.
“Let’s get together.”
“Chuck, please.” The lighthearted part of my personality has left the building. “Help me now.”
He clears his throat.
“She was born January 5, 1972. African-American. Raised by intellectuals in Berkeley; her father worked as a public defender. Her mother was a doctor, working in a free clinic in Berkeley helping the indigent aging population. She—her first name is Lulu but she goes by Adrianna—attended college at Berkeley, and then . . .”
I interrupt him. “Tell me where it gets interesting.”
“You’re not interested that she’s allergic to cats? Remarkable what you can find with some help from military databases.”
“Move on.”
“She got a PhD from Stanford in neurobiology, and she . . .”
“Get to Biogen.”
“I’m not sure what you’re looking for, but Stanford might be pertinent. In the mid-nineties, she wrote a ground-breaking paper on how hyper-stimulation from media impacts neurological capacities through production of cortisol.”
Cortisol.
“The stress hormone. What did she say about it?” I ask.
“I haven’t seen the paper, just an executive summary. It has something to do with cell division in some parts of the brain and what happens to it—cell division—during heavy sensory input, or something like that.”
“E-mail me the abstract. Get to Biogen.”
“You’re impatient.”
“Way beyond that.”
I look at Grandma. She’s removed her wedding ring and twirls it in her hand.
“This part is, how do you call it, off the record.”
“Fine. Go.”
“My source tells me there’s a secret project at Biogen. Adrianna runs it. ADAM. Advanced Development . . .”
I cut him off. “ . . . Advanced Development