Chapter 32

“Grandpa looks like a retard.”

“That’s a horrible word, and keep your voice down,” Grandma says but I can’t tell if she’s really upset.

“He’s flailing his arms around like a gorilla.”

Now she laughs. She whispers: “Now ‘flailing’—that’s a good word.”

I’m ten, and visiting my grandparents. It’s a hot day in their backyard. Grandma and I stand on the concrete porch while Grandpa Irving, wearing paisley shorts and a white tank top that betrays his farmer’s tan, waters the grass. And he dances, more or less. The radio is on, and he’s moving his arms and the hose — distinctly not in time with the music.

“Your grandfather has no rhythm. He’s not like us.”

“You mean like he can’t dance good?”

“Well. That’s not just it. We’re more colorful — you and I. It’s in our bones. He has different bones.”

“You and I share the same bones?”

“Precisely.”

“Well then how can we both walk at the same time?”

She laughs. But I sense Grandma is communicating something serious that I can’t quite understand.

The conversation stuck with me. I remember that it made me feel Grandma and I belonged to a special club and no one else in the family was a member.

And that happens to be the anecdote passing in an eye-blink through my mind, dreamlike, as death beckons me on a concrete floor of an industrial building. My proverbial white tunnel is a backyard from twenty-five years ago, and my angel of death is my grandfather, watering his lawn.

Then I cough. It’s a violent spasm, sufficient to wrench me to consciousness. My first sensation comes from my legs, which pulse from the scorching heat. My eyes flutter, but I can’t fully open them because of the waves of searing air.

Staying on the floor, I yank the bottom of my shirt to my face and cover my mouth and nose. I know that what will kill me first is not fire, but smoke inhalation.

Then, from above, I feel something remarkable — a burst of frozen air. I think for a moment I’m dead and this is part of the passage. Then I realize the cool relief comes from the air conditioner. The place must be highly climate-controlled to keep the servers from overheating — though the designers of the system never contemplated this. The air-conditioning system must be freaking out to cope with the explosion in heat. Where are the sprinklers?

The burst of air allows me to fully open my eyes. I can make out that the fire is localized in two spots — on the rack of servers to one side and on the rack of monitors to the other. I stand in an ever-shrinking island without flames. The air smells oddly fragrant, like a campfire, but it’s doubtless toxic and filled with melted computer innards. Every few seconds, another circuit explodes, like high-tech popcorn kernels.

I strain to gaze through the heat to the wall the hooded man disappeared through. There must be a door on that side of the building. Regardless, my better survival option is the door I entered, but flames are rising to block the way.

I get up crouching, hold my breath and hurtle through a slight breach in the flames. I make it to the door and I yank it open. I hurl myself into oxygen and fall onto the ground on my knees.

I’m heaving, coughing, gasping, and then, I leap to my feet in a coughing retch and sprint-limp to the parking lot. Seconds later, I find our car, but not Grandma. The passenger door is open, Grandma’s game device sitting on the seat. She’s nowhere to be seen.

At the other end of the huge parking lot, departing, I see the back end of a car, quickly disappearing. It’s the Prius.

“Grandma!” It’s a wild, effete cry. I fumble in my pocket for my phone to call the police. Then I remember my phone is melting, has melted.

I put the key into the ignition and turn the key. The engine doesn’t turn over. I turn the key again. No response.

“Fuck!”

From the building, I hear a pop. A window blows out.

The cops and fire department will be here soon.

Then I see it. Movement near the edge of the lot. She’s standing next to a cluster of bushes that look like they were intended as landscaping but never got much attention.

“Grandma!”

I’m sprinting.

When I get to her, she looks nonplussed, but she says, “I should be embarrassed.”

“What?”

“I peed over near the picnic tables,” she says, looking over her shoulder at the bushes.

“You peed? In the bushes?”

“I grew up in Denver and we had a field where we went to the bathroom on the way home from school.”

I wrap my arms around her. “I love you.”

“Are you crying, Nathaniel?”

“We’re fine.”

“Well, it’s not polite to wear blackface,” she says.

I run a finger down my cheek, and sure enough. Looks like I’m ready for Halloween. I take her by the hand. “We have to go.”

We return to the car, as flames start to shoot from the building’s sides. I reconnect the car battery again. I’m not happy I’ve gotten so good at this.

I hear sirens.

“Option B,” I say, as we climb back into the car.

“What?”

“Option A is to wait for the cops and tell them everything. Option B is to wait until we have more facts.”

What are we supposed to tell them — that we have a vague idea that someone possibly connected to Biogen tried to kill us for reasons we don’t understand?

I start the car. It lurches forward. Then halts, then lurches again.

Something else is wrong — maybe a cut fuel line, or some other sabotage. Who knows?

Moving in fits and starts, I pull out of the parking lot. We lurch down the street, just as a fire truck passes us.

I hear a phone ring. I’m surprised because I’m certain my phone has been reduced to the basic elements table in the server farm. Then I look down in the center compartment and see the ringing phone; it’s the prepaid model Chuck gave me. I ignore it.

I drive to the end of the block, take a right, then drive another block, turning into the empty parking lot of an abandoned warehouse with a grammatically incorrect sign on the door that reads: “Shanghai Bath Furnishings. Gone From Business.” My car is sputtering to the point of completely giving out.

I grab another wad of fast-food napkins and try and clean up. I’m not happy I’ve gotten so good at this, either.

I open the phone and I dial Samantha. She doesn’t answer. I call again. No answer. Of course not; the Witch doesn’t answer calls from numbers she doesn’t recognize, or blocked numbers. She feels people should have the courtesy to announce themselves.

I call again, then again, and again. Finally, she relents. “This is Samantha. I love all people and respect your choices, but telemarketing calls throw me out of balance so I must…”

“Sam, stop! It’s Nat.”

“Are you okay?”

“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.”

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