Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [97]
“You’re saying this is more than merely a cultural phenomenon, or habit. We no longer remember phone numbers or driving directions or contact information because we store it all in computers, but you’re talking about something different. You’re saying our brains are changing.”
She clears her throat, and looks down. “Some are affected more than others.”
“What about cortisol?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot. I know that it accelerates the process.”
She stands and walks to a window facing the basketball courts. She talks with her back to me. “Sorry. You’re right. It does. Separate mechanism, exacerbating the problem. When we get distracted by too much multitasking, cortisol gets released, killing memory cells in the hippocampus. It can spread like a forest fire.”
“Or a wildfire.”
She turns around. She looks at me quizzically, hesitating. “That term works. Regardless of what you call it, it seemed like the most remote theoretical possibility.”
“How did Pete Laramer and Chuck Taylor get involved?”
“I knew Pete from various research conferences. I brought him into the project.”
She’s biting the inside of her left cheek, and she scratches her head. From her scalp drift several white flakes. Could be dandruff or dry scalp caused by the changing climate. Or maybe its seborrheic dermatitis, which is chronic, but can be triggered by stress.
“You and Pete were lovers?”
She waves her hand, as if to say it’s none of my business. It is shy of an admission, but I’m onto something.
“Is Pete okay?” I ask. “Is he alive?”
She looks down. She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“And Chuck?”
She hesitates.
“I know he’s involved,” I say. “He told me. What’s his part?”
“Pete brought him in. Chuck brought investment dollars, access to veterans clinics, clout. He seemed to get the project moving. But I don’t know much about his investment entity.”
Adrianna looks me directly in the eye. She’s aching to be seen as sincere. Her pupils are extremely bloodshot, painfully red.
“Doing neurological tests on people without their permission is at least a civil violation, and probably a criminal one,” I say.
“I’m not proud of what happened. But I didn’t advocate for any of it.”
“How widespread were the tests?” I ask. “How many old people at how many nursing homes got their memories scrambled? How many veterans at how many VA clinics? Who else?”
She puts her hands out, urging me to calm down. She’s right; I need information, not confrontation.
“There were fifteen sites in all—domestically, at least. More, worldwide. With a few exceptions, they were in communities with tech-savvy populations. I’m not at liberty to disclose the exact locations. They’ve all been closed down.”
I’m flummoxed. Adrianna is turning into a hostile witness, or, at least, she’s a practiced one.
I stand, baffled, hoping to find a way to express myself that doesn’t involve hurling insults or pieces of expensive art.
“You know how much you love Newton?”
“Don’t bring him into this.”
“That’s how much I love my grandmother. You poked her brain with a stick. You aged her. You tested her without her permission. You stole a part of her life and you wrote over her story.”
She blinks several times rapidly.
“Adrianna, you’re not telling me everything.”
After a pause she says: “You just told me that you love your grandmother?”
“Of course.”
“So you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Sometimes you cut your losses. The Human Memory Crusade is dead. ADAM is dead. Falcon will buy Biogen. Bluntly, and I’m sorry to say this: a few old people and veterans endured accelerated memory loss, but they were suffering dementia before. In the grand scheme, it’s water under the bridge.”
“Bullshit,” I spit out. “That logic doesn’t follow. The applicable logic is that I love my grandmother and therefore I’m going to find out what happened to her. Then you and everyone else involved are going to jail.”
“For what? For giving retirement communities new computers and a chance for residents