Game Changer (33 page)

“External commands from where?” asked Quinn. “And how?”

“In this case, radio waves. Information sent
this way would have to be tightly compressed, but it could all be carried by a
radio broadcast of the right length, and with the right supercomputer guiding
it, using the right algorithms.”

“If this system is based on your design, does this mean you’ve
come up with something similar?” asked Major McLeod.

Rachel frowned. “No. I had the concept, but not the means. The
Israelis are at least a generation ahead of us in nano-electronics. They
developed this capability for their fly drones, and then Kovonov used it to
perfect what I could only dream about. Even with these nanites in hand it would
take a team years to reverse engineer the technology, at minimum. Worst case,
it might
never
be possible.”

“How did Kovonov get them into my brain?” asked Quinn.

“A simple injection would do it. Once in the bloodstream they make
their way through the blood-brain barrier and take up residence.”

“But wouldn’t Kevin know he had been injected?” protested the
major.

“Maybe,” said Rachel. “There are some new techniques becoming
available that almost sneak injections through the skin. But even if Kovonov
used a painful horse needle, he could have programmed the particles to erase the
past few minutes of memory. Imagine Kevin is walking along and some stranger
plunges a syringe into his leg. But twenty seconds later he’s forgotten this
ever happened. The stranger, the pain, everything. Now billions of
nano-particles are swarming in his brain, awaiting instructions.”

Quinn shuddered. “Instructions like, ‘Lay down memories of a murder
that never happened?”’

“Yes. But memory erasure or implantation are only one set of possibilities,
” said Rachel. “There are many more, as we’ve discussed. Once these nanites are
resident in a brain, Kovonov can make a victim dependent on him. Addicted to
almost anything he chooses. Elated or depressed. Calm or filled with rage. Delusional.
Paranoid. Terrified. The sky’s the limit.”

“But how can he have such fine control?” asked Coffey.

“Technology can perform miracles,” replied Rachel. “We can sequence
billions of bases of DNA in hours, with no mistakes. If I wrote a million-page
book, a standard desktop computer could save it to a flash drive in less than a
second, and when I called it up again not a single letter on a single page
would be out of place or incorrect. I don’t want to get down into the weeds
technically, but the radio signals can instruct the smart dust to establish a
precise matrix, and to affect precise neurons. Much the same way a copy machine
or laser printer sets up an electrostatic matrix before printing.”
 

There were blank looks all around. Even Karen Black seemed not to
know what Rachel was talking about.

“Sorry,” said Rachel. “I forgot not everyone knows how laser
printers work. I studied this technology to get ideas for non-invasive Matrix
Learning techniques. Just to give a quick overview, the toner you put in your
printer is electrically charged powder that contains pigment. The powder is
composed of very fine particles. And the industry has found ways to keep
shrinking these particles over the years.”

“For better resolution?” asked Karen. “Or better quality?”

“Both,” said Rachel. “Today, toner particles average just under a
micron in diameter.”

“And a micron is . . . ?” prompted Coffey.

“A millionth of a meter,” said Rachel. “To put this in
perspective, there are over twenty-five thousand microns to an inch. A piece of
paper is about a hundred microns thick.”

“I knew it was microscopic,” said Coffey, “but this is helpful.
Thanks.”

“So let’s imagine you send a document to your laser printer,”
continued Rachel. “A document with a thousand letters typed in a tiny font. So
what happens next? Your computer sends detailed instructions to the drum of the
printer, basically calling for it to lay down a precise pattern of negative electrical
charges, exactly matching every letter in your document.”

She paused to let this sink in. “So your document has now been
copied to the drum, only with electric charge rather than ink. But then the
drum gets coated with toner. Since the toner is positively charged and the
pattern laid down on the drum is negatively charged, the toner clings to this
pattern. The toner on the drum is then transferred to a piece of paper rolling
through the printer, and is instantly fused to the paper by a pair of heated
rollers.” She paused. “Just like that, you have a precise copy of every last
letter.”

Quinn looked intrigued. “Sounds deceptively simple. Impressive
that anyone could get a system like that to work so perfectly and so quickly.”

“I agree,” said Rachel. “As I mentioned, one of my big ideas, which
Kovonov adopted, was to do something similar with neuronal dust. Think of the
nanites as neuronal toner. In this case, instead of setting up a complex
pattern using electric charge, you’d use something like radio waves. You could
lay down precise instructions for billions of particles at once, which could
then activate or block individual neurons.”

“So how would you zap a chemistry course into someone’s brain?”
said Quinn, and then frowning added, “or a false memory?”

“That’s where the weeds come in,” said Rachel. “The difference
between saying, ‘just charge the drum in the exact pattern made by a thousand
letters’ and actually pulling it off. But with enough knowledge, enough
cleverness, and enough computing power, these nanites make it possible. And with
enough sophistication under the hood, the user no longer has to care about how
his or her instructions are implemented.”

She paused, searching for a good analogy. “When I type a sentence
into the computer it magically appears on my screen. The technology that goes
into converting my key strokes to electricity that can alter the polarity of
liquid crystals inside my monitor
—
in
just the right way to display what I write
—
is extraordinarily complex. But once perfected this miracle is
taken for granted, never given a second thought
—
or even a
first
one.”

“So is the Israeli neurotech
—
Kovonov’s neurotech
—
at
that level?” asked McLeod.

“It would have to be,” said Rachel. “Otherwise it could never be
as effective as it’s been. Implementation would be impossibly unwieldy. I’m
sure it’s been perfected to a level where the user simply has to script out the
memories to be implanted, and a supercomputer crunches a universe of data and instructs
the nanites to lay down these tracks. The computing power to do this didn’t
exist in even the best supercomputers until about 2019, and now there are
laptops
that could do the job. Not in
wide use, but they exist. I have one. And you can bet Kovonov has one that is
much better even than mine. Because Israel’s Manhattan Project yielded a
technology that helped their scientists improve
all other
technologies.”

“If I have this right,” said McLeod, “Kovonov injects the nanites,
enters what he wants done into his laptop, and it calculates the precise
instructions necessary to manipulate minds to his specifications.”

“That is my guess, yes,” confirmed Rachel.

“And the radio source?” asked the major.

“He’d just have to tie his computer into a cell phone, possibly
one with an internal booster added.”

“And then convert it into a radio transmitter?” said Coffey.

“No conversion needed,” said Rachel. “A cell phone already
is
one. It’s basically a two-way radio:
a receiver and a transmitter. Put it in proximity to the neural dust you want
to control, link it to the laptop, and it should transmit radio signals more
than strong enough to do the trick, especially with an internal signal booster
added. For very simple instructions, you wouldn’t need the laptop. The computing
power resident in just the phone would be enough to direct the manipulation all
by itself.”

Rachel paused in thought. “Right now I’m guessing extensive
manipulation still requires a stationary, plugged-in system. So for Matrix
Learning, during which enormous amounts of knowledge are layered into the mind,
Kovonov would still need the MRI-like device and electronic implants. But a juiced-up
laptop and a phone, or even just a phone by itself, are capable of doing
smaller, less complex manipulations.”

“Like the memories implanted in Kevin?” said Coffey.

Rachel nodded. “In the work I’ve been doing over the past eighteen
months
—
largely
unpublished,” she added with a scowl, “I’ve made a strong case for using radio
waves for this very reason. Cell phones are indispensable, and untold billions
of dollars are being spent to improve them every year. I argued that by the
time the neural smart dust was perfected—in five or ten years I had
thought
—cell phones would have enough
computing power to implant even the most sophisticated and exhaustive Matrix Learning
programs all by themselves.”

“So instead of downloading a movie about World War II onto your
phone,” said Quinn, “you could use your phone to download the entire history of
this war into your brain?”

Rachel sighed. “Yes. This was the idea.”

There was a long silence in the room as everyone stopped to assimilate
all she had told them.

“Absolutely mind-blowing,” said Quinn.

“I’m not even sure that’s a powerful enough word to cover it,”
said Coffey. He paused for several seconds in thought and then blew out a long
breath. “So what now?”

“I’d like to see if I can learn how to use this system myself,”
said Rachel. “At least at a rudimentary level.”

“Didn’t you say that even reverse engineering the nano-electronics
would be all but impossible?” said Coffey.

“I did. But that’s not what I meant. I didn’t say learn how to
do
this, just learn how to
use
it. I don’t have to know how to
construct a computer to be able to use one. Although it isn’t that simple in
this case. In this case, the computer is built, but I have to find a way to
create a keyboard from scratch. An interface that will allow me to access the
guts of what someone else provided.”

“Why do I have a sinking feeling that I’m the computer in this
analogy?” said Quinn uneasily.

Rachel laughed. “If you could find others who have these
nano-particles implanted in their brain, I’d love to work with them. At the
moment, though, you’re the only game in town.”

“Will you need more of my brain cells?” asked Quinn.

“No. I’ll be trying to crack the code Kovonov is using to control
the dust. I’ll have to try thousands of different radio frequencies and
instruction sets, different algorithms, and all of my intuition. If I can
implant a single false memory in your mind, even of a single word—which might
take a day, or might take a lifetime—this would begin to open the floodgates. Although
at best my abilities to use his tech to manipulate you will pale in comparison
to his.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or a good thing,” said Quinn
with a shudder. “I’d prefer women to manipulate me the old-fashioned way.”

Rachel laughed. “Then you might be in luck,” she said. “Because
there’s no certainty that I can do this.”

Her features hardened. “But it won’t be for lack of trying,” she
vowed.

“Even if you succeed,” said Coffey, “I’m not sure how much this
will do for our cause.”

“I’m not either,” said Rachel. “But at minimum, it will allow us
to detect who has these nanites implanted. Right now they are much too small to
be detectible by sensors. And we don’t want to have to forcibly remove neurons
from the brains of anyone we suspect and then find the nearest electron
microscope. But if I could implant rudimentary memories, I could get victims to
reveal themselves.”

The major rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Interesting idea,” he
said. “When can you begin?”

“The moment this meeting is over,” said Rachel eagerly.

53

Every major erogenous zone on Carmilla
Acosta’s body was on
fire
.

She hadn’t seen Dmitri Kovonov in
two agonizingly long weeks. But this was about to change. He would be here in
minutes. For the first time visiting her at her home.

Taking
her at her home.

Her husband, Miguel, had left on a
business trip two days earlier and wouldn’t return for another week.

She had prepared as usual, spending
hours at Victoria’s Secret until she found flimsy yet still flattering lingerie,
not a simple task for a world class scientist who spent far too much time at a
desk or a lab and not nearly enough time on a stationary bike. After this she had
scrubbed her house clean from top to bottom, being sure to hide any photographs
in which her husband appeared, whether with her or alone.

She would expunge his image from
her home, and days later she would expunge the man himself from her life.
 

Carmilla and Miguel lived in a small
red brick home nestled between a smattering of other residences, twenty miles
from Princeton University, mostly surrounded by the farmland that had persisted
stubbornly in the area for over a century. Each day on her way to work she passed
black-and-white splotched Holstein dairy cattle, along with their more
unfortunate relations, the Black Angus variety. This breed would ultimately be
required to give more of themselves than simply milk, but farms had recently
begun to reduce their numbers as genetic engineers got closer and closer to
growing steak in the lab that was indistinguishable from the real thing.

She missed Dmitri so much it hurt, and
his line of work meant he was out of touch for long periods, which had become
intolerable.

But now that he was returning to
her at last, she would never let him go for this long again. She wouldn’t wait
another day to start divorce proceedings, to do whatever it took to have Dmitri
in her daily life. The divorce was long overdue. She couldn’t take any more of
these absences. They affected her, not just psychologically, but physically.

But now that Dmitri was on his way
this was shaping up to be one of the best days of her life. Just an hour
earlier she had learned that she was clean as a whistle genetically. No ticking
time bombs in
her
DNA.

And she couldn’t imagine Dmitri’s
genes could be anything less than perfect, although it didn’t hurt to find out
for sure. To be confident that they would live happily into their eighties and
nineties and even beyond.

The scientist in her might have
known that the romantic phase of love didn’t last more than a few years, but this
voice was drowned out by the lovestruck woman inside who refused to even
consider the possibility that she and Dmitri wouldn’t be blissfully happy forever.
No two people were ever more perfect for each other. True soul mates.

A week earlier she had plucked a
hair from her head, affixed it to a piece of Scotch tape, and mailed it to GeneScreen
Associates, a company specializing in whole genome sequencing and analysis. And
just last night a representative of the company had left a message for her,
letting her know the results were ready and giving her a number to call to have
them explained by a trained consultant. She had memorized the simple number, 1-800-DNA-TEST,
erased the message, and called back just an hour earlier, more nervous than she
cared to admit.

But her nerves were unwarranted. The
results had been
spectacular
. The
consultant had told her it was rare to see a genome this clear of genes known
to be potentially troubling down the road, that Carmilla had truly been blessed
genetically.

Everything seemed to be going her
way. Maybe after she and Dmitri made love, she should go out and buy a lottery
ticket. It was that kind of day.

Just as this thought was crossing
her mind there was a knock at the door. She checked to be sure it was Dmitri
and then threw it open, wrapping herself around him in greeting. He pushed her
away sooner than usual and picked up a brown, soft leather briefcase he had set
down, bringing it inside.

Carmilla sensed something wrong in
his demeanor but decided she was being overly sensitive. She took him by the
hand and led him directly to her bedroom, disappointed that he brought the
briefcase along in tow.

“I’ve missed you
so
much,” she said, her words filled
with aching emotion.

The man of her dreams simply nodded
in return.

“What have you been up to?” she asked.

He looked almost put off by the
question, as though she were invading his privacy. “Right after I saw you last I
spent a few days in the woods,” he replied finally. “At sort of a
 
. . . company retreat. What I’ve been doing
since would just bore you.”

Something wasn’t right, she
decided, more certain than ever.
Everything
wasn’t right.

“Guess what?” she said, nervously
attempting to engage him in further conversation as her unease continued to
grow. “I just spoke to someone at GeneScreen Associates. They did a genome
analysis on me. Turns out the results couldn’t have been better.”

Again, Dmitri seemed not to care in
the least. How could he not be excited for her? Excited for
them
? Had he told her the same she would
have been thrilled.

“Why did you use a company to get
your genome sequenced?” was all he said in response. “No one in the world has
better tools to sequence DNA than you do.”

She had asked herself this same
question, wondering if this had been foolhardy. And it probably was. But love
prompted people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, like shop at
Victoria’s Secret for lingerie, which before Dmitri came into her life she
hadn’t done in over a decade.

“True,” she agreed, “but I’m busy
and this is very inexpensive. So I thought, why not? You’ve made me so happy, Dmitri,
I wanted the chance to clear away any genetic landmines that might be in my
future.
Our
future. Besides,” she
added, “scientists are identifying so many genes linked to rare diseases that
even I can’t keep up. So better to leave the analysis to specialists.”

He shrugged, not really interested
in her rationale. She had brought this up thinking she could convince him to
get tested as well, just in case, but sensed that now was not the time for this
discussion.

“No more conversation,” he
insisted, pushing her down on the bed and proceeding to force himself on her in
ways that he had never done before. He had always been a fiery lover, but
gentle and attentive at the same time, as interested in her needs as his own.

This time it was all about him. And
he was savage, not caring how aggressive he became or even if he was hurting
her.

The act seemed to Carmilla to be
closer to rape than to lovemaking.

Still, she loved him enough to
understand that moods could vary,
needs
could vary. He deserved to think only of himself on occasion. And there was
nothing she wouldn’t do for this man.

Seconds after his climax, he rolled
away from her and started dressing.

Carmilla’s heart raced and she
began to panic. Was he leaving? It was as if he was treating her like a whore. Like
he was about to leave money on the dresser and go. A wild look came to her eyes.

“Bear with me, Carmilla,” he said, sensing
her reaction. “I just have some pressing work I need to do. Don’t go anywhere.”

That had to be it, thought
Carmilla. He was stressed out. He had work that couldn’t wait.

He pulled a hard clamshell case
from his bag and removed a laptop from it, unlike any model she had ever seen.
It was constructed out of blue stainless steel and looked like something a
futuristic alien might use. Without giving her another glance he attached his
cell phone to the computer with a thin cord. Wi-Fi had advanced so much lately
she couldn’t imagine what application required his phone and computer to be
tethered together in this way.

His fingers flew over the holographic
touch screen for several minutes as if she wasn’t there.

As he worked she became more and
more anxious, more and more depressed. What had been euphoria prior to his
arrival had turned entirely to despair. She tried to fight through it, to
retain perspective, but she found it impossible to do.

So he was out of sorts. It
happened. But she had a feeling of dread like she’d never experienced, totally
disproportionate to what she knew her reaction
should
be. She felt as if her life was spinning out of control.

Five minutes later Dmitri unhooked
his phone and returned his computer to its hard protective shell. He stood up
from the bed and turned to face her still-naked form. But instead of the love
she had come to expect, his face held nothing but contempt.

“Carmilla, it’s been fun,” he said dismissively.
“But I’m afraid we’re through. If I have to spend another minute with you, I
swear I’ll slit my wrists.”

Carmilla whitened, almost matching
the sheets on her bed. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, stunned by not just
his words but his venomous tone. “Dmitri? What’s going on?”

“How can I be any clearer?” he
snapped. “This is over!
We’re
over.
Are you getting it now? I came here to end things. But I thought I’d fuck you
one last time. You know, as a going away present.”

Tears began streaming down her
face. Was this really happening?
How
could it be happening?

“Stop sobbing you fucking bitch!”
he demanded cruelly. “You don’t think I ever really cared about you? I was
using you for sex. Anything positive I ever said to you was a lie. My job
doesn’t take me out of touch, I just never wanted to deal with you unless I was
screwing your brains out at the time.”

Carmilla’s face was now a rictus of
horror, a ruddy pool of makeup and tears as she continued to take body blows
from the man she loved and worshiped.

“While I’ve been screwing you,” he
continued, “I’ve been screwing a dozen others, in a dozen different towns.”

The walls of Carmilla’s world were
now crashing down upon her, battering her psyche into a bruised and bloody mass
of raw, open flesh.

“Why would you hurt me like this?”
she whispered through her tears.

“Because you’re
useless
. And this has just been a game.
To get you to fall in love with me. Thank you for playing, but the game is now
over.” He glared at her. “And you lost, bitch! If you ever try to contact me
again, I’ll issue a restraining order. Got it?”

Without saying another word, Dmitri
Kovonov stormed from the room and out the front door, slamming it behind him.

Unable to move from the bed, Dr. Carmilla
Acosta continued sobbing, drawing in on herself in an involuntary attempt to
shrink into a fetal position, shattered in every way.