Chrysalis

29

Twenty minutes later, Logan found himself in what looked like — and probably was — a medical lecture hall. He was standing by the lectern, next to a long metal cart on wheels that held an array of tools, a Voyager unit, and several unmarked boxes sealed in plastic.

Logan had not yet allowed his upwelling of anger and frustration to fully recede. On the way here, he’d decided to stop briefly at his office and glance through his digital in-box. Peyton had followed through on sending evidence of Karel Mossby’s suspect behavior. Although much of it was technical, what Logan understood did seem damning enough to warrant Mossby’s apprehension: over the last four months, surveillance spyware had caught him attempting — and on two occasions, succeeding in — a hack of the supposedly air-gapped firewall around the Omega project. Exactly what he’d done, the surveillance worm couldn’t pick up without alerting Mossby, but a large amount of data had evidently been transmitted in both directions. In addition to the sins already cited by Peyton, Mossby had also created numerous back channels in the Omega packet distribution system, and it appeared he’d spoofed some clueless ex-Infinium employee into giving him his private cryptographic key. This, coupled with the public keys of the Complex, allowed him to reverse engineer decoding algorithms for almost any information encrypted by Chrysalis. And send messages just like those they’d been receiving.

Now he looked across the gleaming table at the three others in the room. Logan had finished briefing the three doctors in the room, a man and two women, explaining the true reason for his presence at the Complex as well as the desperate nature of their situation. There was Dr. Purchase, the BioCertain implants chief whom he’d spoken with the day before, and two medical doctors, Ransom and Gupta. They were both thin women with dark hair, dressed in clinical whites, although Ransom was old enough to have been Gupta’s mother.

Dr. Gupta was the first to get over her surprise. “And these people were murdered how, exactly?”

“We’re not certain. All died from different causes, and for different reasons. That’s the point — we’re trying to find what they do have in common. Right now, it obviously seems bound up with the VR project — specifically, Voyager — and its synaptichron unit, which I understand was the product of your R&D.”

The three glanced at one another. “We developed the synaptichron,” said the elder woman, Dr. Ransom. “I was chief neurologist consulting on the project. What does it have to do with these deaths?”

Logan pointed at the Voyager on the metal table. “This newest model. It contains a synaptichron — right?”

“A variant, yes—”

“And it, in turn, makes the cortex receptive to virtual reality: illusory sights and sounds. Specific images that aren’t actually there at all.” He paused. “Or perhaps it can even alter behavior? If the synaptichron technology was altered, could it provoke actions that might seem strange? Even psychotic?”

A chorus of “no” from all three.

Logan wasn’t surprised. This was an inventor’s maternal instinct. “All right. Tell me what I’m getting wrong. Because if a ‘cortical stimulator’ can’t cause suicidal or psychotic ideation — then what can?”

Dr. Ransom picked up the Voyager unit. “This embedded synaptichron, despite its use of next-generation fiber optics, has limited functionality. It can stimulate certain neocortical neurons, yes, but since it’s designed for minimal invasiveness — the Voyager model, particularly — it’s extremely limited in the spectrum of electrical activity it can influence.”

Logan looked at the younger woman, Dr. Gupta. “May I ask what your role is in this?”

“Very minor. I concentrate primarily on the more invasive implants: ‘smart’ vascular stents, palliative cancer treatments.”

“But you agree with what Dr. Ransom says? That a synaptichron, no matter how obviously manipulated, is incapable of causing irrational or insane behavior in the wearer?”

“Not even with the most drastic modifications.” She turned over the Voyager in her hands, picked up a tiny tool from the table. “If you’ll allow me to demonstrate—”

“Just one moment, please.” Logan glanced over the cart, his eyes falling on the small boxes sealed in plastic. “What are those?”

“Voyagers,” said Purchase.

“Like the ones sent out this week?”

Purchase nodded. He looked at Logan questioningly. “I just grabbed a few, in case we—”

Logan chose one at random, pulled off the stylish covering. Inside the box was a brand-new Voyager, with a clear seal and a registration card, currently blank. Breaking the seal, he pulled it from its box. “Would you mind using this one to demonstrate?”

Ransom looked at him. “Why that one, in particular?”

In response, Logan placed the unit on the cart, picked up one of the medical tools — a small metal mallet — and struck it against the Voyager.

The little unit was tougher than he expected, and he hit it again. This time, a small crack appeared across the otherwise smooth surface. He picked it up and handed it to Ransom. “This one, please.”

The three looked at him in surprise and displeasure. “Did you enjoy breaking things as a child?” Ransom asked.

“I want you to demonstrate on a random production model.” He took a deep breath. “Look. We have very little time, and I don’t know who to trust. Humor me.”

After a silence, Ransom lowered her eyes from his and used her small tool to make minute adjustments to the damaged Voyager, poking and pressing some almost invisible detents. A small red light winked on, then turned orange.

“It appears to work,” she said. “Remarkable, considering the manhandling.” More poking. And then three tiny metallic fibers, almost whisker-like, slid out from invisible ports in the unit’s underside.

So Logan had felt something, after all.

“Extend them farther,” he said.

Dr. Ransom picked up a different tool and deftly used the crack to split the device down the middle. She tossed both halves across the table to Logan. Catching them, he could see that — while the miniaturized guts were incredibly complex, particularly the threads of fiber-optic cabling that seemed to encase everything like a spiderweb — the three metallic whiskers were already at full extension.

“I don’t suppose you know any more about chemical absorption than you do about handling delicate objects.” It was Gupta, the implant specialist, who spoke: it was almost amusing how they seemed more worked up about his breaking a perfectly good unit than the larger problem at hand. “Getting the API, active pharmaceutical ingredient, to its designated target — heart, brain, wherever — in a safe and timely fashion is a huge medical issue. That’s especially true for chemo and other caustic drugs, which require a port-a-cath and a central line: if you try injecting such drugs into a surface vein, it’ll just collapse. They require a highway, like the internal jugular or subclavian, to reach their destination inside our allotted time. Other drugs — Valium, ketamine — unaffected by slower absorption can be administered IM. Our frontline job here is getting lifesaving drugs where they need to be, more quickly and safely.”

“Okay,” Logan said. “Your point?”

“My point is that the least invasive way to administer a drug, short of snorting it, is also the slowest way — subcutaneously. Of course, we have numerous such implants in our product line now, so that diabetics don’t need to jab themselves in the stomach anymore. But subcutaneous…” She stopped.

“Subcutaneous,” Ransom, the neurologist, picked up the thread, “is the holy grail. If we can find a way to get the body’s microcirculation — capillaries — to absorb and transport meds to the brain quickly enough, we could improve the quality of life for countless millions of people now dealing with PICCs, biocompatibility, dosage errors. And we’re making real progress. But the synaptichron you’re holding is sadly not that holy grail. It’s only the first step. And it certainly can’t induce behavioral change, much less psychosis.”

“Why not?” Logan asked.

Ransom, although displaying no outward indication of a sense of humor, nevertheless laughed at this — in disbelief. “Why not? Why do you think it’s worn behind the ear — and thus so close to the brain? Look at those sEEGs: What can those tiny things deliver? Nothing but micro-impulses of electrical energy to certain sensory and associative neurons that increase the user’s receptivity to artificial sensations — and that’s where Omega’s virtual technology comes in.”

Logan processed this. Artificial sensations. “You mean, the synaptichron has no significant effect on brain function?”

“Only in a preparatory sense. Like warming up before a workout. It readies the mind to receive and process a simulated reality… but it’s Wrigley’s work that does the heavy lifting. That” — she pointed to the broken pieces in Logan’s hands — “is a prototype model in our search for less invasive medical treatments. But that’s all.”

Over the last several minutes, Logan’s anger had disappeared, leaving disappointment in its wake. He tried once more. “So there’s no way, no way, this device could be modified to cause hallucinations, temporary insanity?”

“That would require a serotonergic drug, or perhaps a poisonous compound,” Ransom said. “And a synaptichron has no ability to inject anything. The worst thing you could do is up its voltage… which might tingle a bit, but nothing else.”

Now Purchase spoke up. “I’m actually rather grateful to Wrigley. Under normal circumstances, the synaptichron would have outlived its useful life span for BioCertain a year ago. But instead it remains on our balance sheet as a hybrid component, developed for — and billable to — the virtual reality division.”

Logan looked at each of them in turn. “Shit.”

From her desk just inside BioCertain’s segmented area, Wing Kaupei watched Dr. Purchase walking along a far wall toward the main concourse. A man was walking beside him, eyes downcast, silent. He looked like someone who’d just received some very bad news.

Wing lowered her head, smiling to herself.

Just then, a tone sounded overhead, and a calm, feminine voice — apparently speaking throughout the entire Complex — spoke. “If I could please have your attention. Due to a large rockslide across the central access road several minutes ago, there will be no arrivals to or departures from the Advanced Research Center until the area has been cleared and the damage repaired. We anticipate this condition lasting no longer than forty-eight hours. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your resident manager. We will provide updates as they become available. Thank you for letting us put your safety first.”

Wing listened with interest. This “condition” — lockdown, actually — was not unexpected. In fact, it might prove useful… assuming one very important condition had been met.

To make sure of this, she turned away and, with a casual movement, raised her fingertips to the stylish Sentinel device fitted over her right ear.