MIND FIELDS (28 page)

  After nodding in admiration for an hour, not all of it feigned, Paul thanked Sean profusely and they returned to BNI.  Paul realized that it would be hopeless to try to get into the computer system without being detected during daytime hours, and was able to redirect his attention to the spinal cord project.  No matter the distraction, he usually found work an interesting enough diversion to lose himself in.  This time was different.

The afternoon seemed to grind by more slowly than any that Paul could ever remember.  He could not help but wonder if Sean was into something far less altruistic than anything he himself would want to be associated with, but he could not afford to let his newfound knowledge surface today.  He went about his work and kept any further conversations with Sean centered on the Ravens upcoming match-up with the Redskins.  Sports was a topic that most men could discuss passionately, unencumbered by their true feelings for one another.  He did not want Sean to notice the tension that welled-up inside every time he thought about the consequences of what Kincade had said.

Paul knew his computer skills were not adequate to bypass the company security that protected the BNI Intranet.  There was only one way he might be able to find out if Sean was really performing illegal human experimentation with the nanobots: Paul would have to get in to Sean’s computer.

The day came and went.  Paul found himself alone in the lab by eight PM and discreetly closed himself into Sean’s office.  It wasn’t difficult to gain access to the computer sitting on his desk, but the files were encrypted in a multilayered format that only served to heighten Paul’s suspicions of his younger research partner. Not many people knew Sean’s full name, Sean Nathan Lightbourne, and that knowledge helped Paul break into the main file listing. He scanned down the list, stopping periodically to glance back toward the door.

  Halfway down the screen was a folder containing the neuronanobot research project.  He opened the folder. There were three subfolders, one for each of the two phases of the project that they had developed together, and a third, labeled “Phase Three”.

  “Phase Three?  What in the hell is Phase Three?”   He clicked on the folder and a listing of files was displayed.  The first file was entitled “Bionic Properties” and the second “Genetic Coding”.  Paul was unable to break through the encryption for either, but on the third, listed as “Subjects”, he got lucky. 

A listing came up:  LH, JSM, BJ, HJ, RS and HB.  The first four, he recognized as the four BNI employees from the file that Detective Kincade had handed him last night.  He was unsure about the other two, and was unable to open the files to gain any further details.

It was nearly midnight by the time he had made his way to the list and he was exhausted.  Between the lack of sleep and the eyestrain of staring at that monitor for the last four hours, he was starting to have trouble concentrating. 

“I guess that’s all I’m going to get out of you tonight,” he said to the computer as he shut it down.  He had seen enough to confirm Kincade’s suspicions, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it.  Implicating Sean Lightbourne and BNI would be implicating himself, not only in data theft, but also in murder.  Of that much he was sure.  He couldn’t believe the web that he was trapped in.  If he helped Kincade, his career was over and he could end up in jail.  On the other hand, this was not something he could live with; there was no way that he could continue to help Sean, knowing what he was doing with their work, and if Sean were to discover just how much Paul knew...these were people who killed without regret.

___

Richard Kincade grabbed the phone quickly, hoping to keep from waking his wife.

“Hello.”

“Christ, you were right.”

Kincade recognized the voice. “Do you know what time it is?” He checked the clock on his nightstand. It was two AM. 

“How did you know it was him?”

“Listen, this isn’t the time or place...”

“It’s OK, I’m calling from a payphone.  I’m not stupid enough to use the phone at my place.”

“No, just stupid enough to call me on
my
home phone.”

“God, you’re right. I didn’t think of that.  I’m just so rattled right now.”

“Yeah, well listen, get some sleep. I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow.”

“Right.”

Kincade hung up the phone.  He was pretty sure it wasn’t tapped. Richie had checked the lines himself, but the NSA has its ways.  He just hoped that if someone was listening in, they didn’t recognize Paul Hingston’s voice. 

___

Tuesday, September 17, 2051 —

Paul couldn’t face Sean this morning.  He had called in sick; the raspy voice was pretty convincing, at least
he
thought so.  When he walked into the kitchen, there was a message on his fax machine.  “Be at Pushnik’s at ten sharp...R.K.”

___

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee poured out the open door of Pushnik’s Bakery on Lombard Street.  It was one of the most popular spots for a quick breakfast in the Inner Harbor area.  Even in the middle of the week, it buzzed with activity.  Paul followed the allure of the coffee in through the front door, and pushed his way through the crowd.  Dozens of simultaneous conversations merged into a din, broken only by the frequent clanging of plates against the tables. 

“Just one, hon?” the hostess said as he made it to the front of the crowd.

“Actually, I’m meeting...”  He spotted the platinum blond Sandi sitting across a table facing Detective Kincade in the far corner. “Oh, there they are,” he said, brushing by the indignant, gum-chewing redhead who was trying to keep order amidst the chaos.

“Sure, just walk right in,” she sniped as he knocked her ever so slightly off balance.

“Oh.  Sorry, miss.”

“Sure.”  She turned away.  “Two of ya, hon?” she said to the young couple who were next in line.

Paul made his way to the back of the restaurant and sat next to Sandi.  They were facing Richie, who had positioned himself strategically where he could watch the room.

“So, I take it you had quite a day, eh Hingston?”

“Yeah.  Sorry about the wake up call.”  He smiled at Sandi. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said.  “You OK?”

“For now,” Paul said.  “But I don’t know for how long.  You’ve got to help me, Detective.  I can’t believe what I’ve gotten myself into.”

  “What do you mean?”

“It’s worse than you thought...a whole lot worse.  See, after I got your call, I decided it might not be such a good idea to try and get Sean to help me hack into BNI’s Intranet to find that TOM mailbox.”

“Good decision, Sherlock.”  Kincade couldn’t help himself.

“Yeah,” Paul gave him a dirty look. “Well anyway, I knew there was no way I could figure out how to hack in to something like that myself, so I decided to check out Sean’s computer instead.  I hung out until the place was deserted and hacked the PC in his office.”

“Good work, Doc.”  Kincade decided to be a little more cordial.  “What did you find?”

“More than I cared to know.  I found a reference to those four BNI employees that you had the file on.  Not only was Sean experimenting on them before the human trials were approved, but he was doing it with Phase Three nanobots.”

“Phase Three?” Sandi yelped.  “What in the hell are Phase Three nanobots?”

  “Exactly,” Paul said proudly.

  “God,” Sandi said, shaking her head.

  Kincade was lost.  “Want to let me in on this, professors?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Sandi answered.  “See, the neuronanobots were developed as a two phase system.  Phase One fixes the damage to the brain after an injury, and Phase Two bots turn into new brain cells to replace the damaged ones.”

  “And what do the Phase Three bots do?”

  “That’s just it, there aren’t any Phase Three bots. At least, there aren’t supposed to be.  What are they, Paul?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.  I couldn’t get into all his files.  See,
we
never developed any Phase Three bots either.  Whatever they are, Sean was making them and using them without my knowledge.”

  “Got any theories?”

  “Well, it seems pretty far-fetched, but...”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Well, we had talked a couple of years ago, just theoretically of course, about whether it would be possible to make nanobots that could be resequenced... reprogrammed, if you will...after they were inside of the human body.  I didn’t think it was possible, but maybe he found a way.”

  Sandi couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “Brain cell nanobots that can be reprogrammed by remote control?  My God, Paul.  What have you done?”

  “Hey, I didn’t even know about it.”

  “Hate to interrupt boys and girls,” this conversation was way over Kincade’s head, “but could you give me the English version of that explanation.”

  “If Lightbourne really did this,” Sandi said, “then, in theory, he could play with anyone’s mind once the nanobots were in their brain.  See, if he could figure out a way to send the right signal to one of these Phase Three bots, he could make that person do whatever he wanted them to, whenever he wanted them to.”

  “Mind control.” Kincade got it.

  “
In theory
is the key phrase,” Paul said.  “Even if he has come up with a way to control the bots with some kind of a remote control, the complexity of the programming that would be required to get a person to perform a specific action would be almost impossible.”

  “But it fits,” Sandi said.  That’s why they were experimenting at BNI.  The employees who were implanted with the Phase Three bots were each given increasingly complex tasks.  The first guy… what’s his name?”

  “Lester Hanes,” Kincade piped in.

  “Right, Hanes.  All they had to do to him was get him to make a sharp turn of the wheel while he was driving - one simple action.   Then there was that poor girl with the seizures.  She was just a mistake, I assume.  Then that football player…”

“Jackson.”

“…They repeated the same task they gave Hanes, getting that Jackson guy to drive off a bridge, maybe just working on controlling him at a greater distance.  Then came that woman who de-chipped her car.  With her, they had to program her to get the car de-chipped, then go out and drive it a hundred and twenty miles an hour.  That would involve an awfully complex set of tasks to program into her brain.  I’d say they’re getting pretty damned good at it.  Who knows how many others they may have practiced on in between that we don’t know about.”

  “This is all just theory, right?”  Kincade asked, glancing back and forth between the two scientists.

  “Absolutely,” Paul said.  “It’s pretty far-fetched stuff.”

  “Got any better theories?” Sandi said.  No one did.

  Hingston sighed.  “Well, if they really did do those things, there’s more to come.”

“Obviously,” said Kincade.  I’m sure their end goal was not to make some poor lady get a speeding ticket.”

  “Brilliant deduction, Detective,” Sandi said sarcastically.

  Kincade glared at her.  “Thanks.”

  “Right,” Hingston interjected.  “Well, what I meant was that there were two other names on Sean’s computer under the Phase Three Project list.”

  “What names?”

  “Well, initials actually — R.S and H.B..”

  “So, who are they?”

  “Hell if I know,” Paul said.

  “I don’t suppose you got a hard copy of those files you hacked into, did you?”

  “Hell no.  I was scared enough as it was.  If I tried to copy to disc or print from a protected file, I may have set off some kind of alarm.  Sean’s pretty computer-savvy, you know?  I’m surprised I got as far as I did.”

  “Any chance we could find some of these Phase Three bots in the bodies of those BNI employees?”

  “Not likely,” Paul said.  “If they were inorganic, they would have shown up in the MRI scans they did on that girl with the seizures.  Assuming they are organic, like all the other bots we’ve developed, there’s not a chance you’d find them without an autopsy.  Hell, even with an autopsy you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the different bots apart after death.  The difference between them is more physiologic than anatomic.”

  “Moot point,” Sandi said.  “There are no bodies.  The two guys from the car accidents have been cremated and I don’t think the two women who are still alive would consent to an autopsy.”

  “Then I’d say we better find out who R.S and H.B. are.  If they’re not already dead, whoever they are, they may be our only way to stop this thing.  I mean, who in the hell is going to believe us if we try and go public with this?  We’re going to need some pretty convincing proof.”

  “Y’all ready to order?” The waitress came up behind Sandi and Paul.

  “Just some coffee for me,” Richie said, “cream and sugar.”

  “No cream for me,” said Paul, “but lots of sugar.  “I like it sweet and black.”

  “I’ll bet you do, honey,” said the waitress coyly.

  Paul turned to look over his shoulder.  The waitress was a tall, slim African-American woman by the name of Wanda, which was marked clearly on her nametag.

“Whew! Look at those bags under your eyes,” Wanda said.  “How ’bout we make it
tall
, sweet and black for you, honey?  Looks like you need all the caffeine you can get.”

  “Sounds good, Wanda” said Paul sheepishly.  He wasn’t sure which embarrassed him more, the “sweet and black” remark or the bags under his eyes.