Luegner picked up his jacket from the floor and patted it clean. He looked back at the door. “That old spray was a long time ago. It was processed and fixed. Negligible effect for the greater good.”
“No, it was not.”
“Is that what all this is about? We have seventh-generation preventatives now. We’re developing newer, much stronger technologies. Besides, there are so few people who were affected by that older number five spray, so few who would even remember or care.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Packet said. “There are many. And I can find them all.”
The second floor office returned to Packet’s hospital room and the table became his bed with its doctor’s rotating stool. The 3D printer’s cart became the medical supply. Packet kicked the stool at Luegner, who felt the hit on his shin. He was perplexed.
“As a boy, I thought I could cure the horrible effects of your spray with a dandelion petal, a beetle wing, and a fish scale. That was a troubled boy’s childhood dream. I can’t benefit from that now. But I can stop you from hurting anyone else. Anyone else not yet born into a world I may never know. That is a sacrifice for the future I accept.”
Luegner reached down to rub his shin and rolled the stool away. “I know someone who would still be affected,” Luegner said as he straightened his stance. “I know one unfortunate individual, one who would be the whistleblower of what I may or may not have done.”
“I already know who worked on your number five spray,” Packet said as another string of characters flashed across the screen, 12F29E. “And when I needed her, she was there and put her hand on my forehead to rest. Her name also ends in 1100, binary for 12. Hexadecimal C. And the twelfth letter in the alphabet ‘L.’ But the bearer of this name has already repented enough,” Packet said as 25 conjoining hexadecimal characters on the screen, 12 F 2 9 E 1B 5 C 9 F E 1B 2 C 1 3 B 17 5 C C, decrypted to spell:
R,
O,
B,
I,
N,
_,
E,
L,
I,
O,
N,
_,
B,
L,
A,
C,
K,
W,
E,
L,
L.
“She wins,” Packet said.
“How could you possibly know?”
“Robin asked for my help and I gave it. I am a bio-machine with a mind a thousand times more powerful than yours.”
“And what would you do with this profound brain of yours?”
“Work with you for the long term. I’ll pick up where Robin left off for a cure. I can study genome-editing technologies, review techniques to rewrite genes and give humans better immunity, investigate a wider range of genetic predispositions.”
“Go on, I’m listening,” Luegner said.
“Together, we can create new methods, build off the CRISPR research from the early twenty-twenties, use other tools Robin didn’t know, to precisely delete and edit DNA, bit by bit, down to a single base pair, a source. You and I can play the genome like the keys of a piano, tune an off key. We can cure those already affected by hundreds of diseases. You’ll have all your cures. But then, don’t you ever forget long term, all your cures will converge on a source, and you will be caught. You will be ruined at your dying end.”
“And so my second choice being?”
“Or,” Packet said, “short-term, we can simply educate and prevent the people of the world from ever taking any of your twisted pharmacology again. As we speak, all these obsolete servers on the second floor of this wreckable building, once sourced from your refresh-cycle of machines, are churning with copies of health records and bits of information from tens of thousands of children, all who shall, to you, remain nameless. Children whose records can be data-mined right now for correlation with PluralVaXine5. All the evidence is already here,” he said, as he pointed. “It’s all here in my mind. And in no time soon enough, your reign will be over. And you will be ruined.”
“Do you think you know who I am? Do you think you can beat me?” Luegner asked as he backed against the door on the right.
“I know who you are and you went too far. So it all comes down to this. It’s your choice. Long-term or short, how long do you want to hide from the truth?”
Daniel entered unannounced through the left door as his unfiltered sixty-one-year-old self. He had removed the filter from his true camera field. “Well, it looks like my boy learned to take care of himself,” Daniel said to Luegner.
Packet looked at his father and knew him; he loved him no matter the years.
“You are not the only hacker in the room,” Luegner said. “DigiSci has resources, too.”
“You think you can hack me?” Packet asked.
“It’s easier than you think,” Luegner said as he flapped his jacket out straight and shoved his arm through its sleeve. The blue sphere in the basket on the shelf flickered and filled the room with specks of light. “Because you and your failed systems engineer father already let me in.” He pulled his jacket taut. “I already have access to your code.”
Stabbing beams of blue light converged from Luegner’s activated sphere onto Packet’s temples. He collapsed in a heap toward the edge of the black, cushioned bed. His vision
dissolved
as he hit the black cushion face first. His head snapped back and he awoke standing on the black asphalt lot under the towers of the Tungatinah Hydroelectric Power Plant. Its
nightmare
sky was a darkened twist of orange and brown. Mounted high above Tungatinah’s gated entrance was Luegner sphere shining blue from its core. Razor grass tussocks cracked through the pavement as a workman set a fifty-five-gallon drum on a truck. He whipped out a kink in its hose and pumped out a slick of iridescent spray onto the lot.
The dark orange sky spun into gusts. Cessini pushed his palms into his eyes, pounded his foot on the black asphalt. “This isn’t happening,” he shouted as he counted aloud with, “Watch count three, two, one—” The workman turned the nozzle of his hose and sprayed like a villain with abandon. Cessini screamed as he collapsed into the blackness of the asphalt tar—and was back in the hospital room on his knees before the cushion of the bed.
Packet lowered his hands from his face. His forehead veins were engorged. His hands clenched into warring fists.
Meg ran in from the door on the left, stricken with fear, her hands run hard over her head. “What are you doing? Stop!”
Packet charged Luegner against the door on the right. He cocked his elbow and held back his fist.
Meg rushed and grabbed his arm. “Stop!"
“I can make your solitary life in here a living hell. Insane, with the twist of a key. One hard reboot,” Luegner said. “For all your brain power, you’re still at the whim of
me
.”
Packet let go. He circled, trapped in the confines of his room. Luegner looked at Meg.
“Be careful, young man; give it time, and you won’t know what or who you even remember,” Luegner said. “I know Robin and I’ve known Terri since she was nothing more than a baby with less than a few moments to live. If she were gone, deleted from your mind, would she even be memorable to you? She was the last thing I ever cared about, in my mind. So do not defy me.”
“You will do no such thing,” Robin screamed as she burst through the left door, enraged.
Packet stalked Luegner with his eyes as he paced like a predator on prey. “You are not the only one outside these walls.” He cast a deep, penetrating stare.
Luegner twitched sideways in a spasm, then ducked across the room as he swatted over his shoulder in fright. “Do you hear that beeping?” Luegner asked.
“I hear it,” Packet said. But it wasn’t coming from inside his hospital room. “Or maybe you’re hallucinating.”
Luegner stopped at the faucet of the room’s sink and regained his composure. He pulled himself up. “I don’t know what that was. My contact lens is picking up a mixed signal. I’m here at home in my kitchen.”
The room’s sink faucet poured. Luegner jumped back from its splash.
“Wait a minute. What’s going on?” Luegner asked. “Now the beeping is coming from over by my refrigerator.” He ducked and swatted over his shoulder again. He panicked, “It’s a drone!” He ran to the door on the right, grabbed its handle—and was shocked with 120-volts AC. His left arm shot back and dangled limp at his side. He reached up with his right hand and held his pounding chest over his heart. He coughed but couldn’t recover his breath.
Packet didn’t move. He locked in a stare with Luegner, who was falling to one knee. Luegner panted with his hand on his chest. “Who is . . . controlling my . . . pacemaker—”
“Stop it,” Daniel said, imploring.
“Let him go!” Robin said.
Packet’s arms were bent from their elbows and held tight at his front.
“Are you . . . on the network?” Luegner asked, shivering. “How does he know where I am?”
“He’s tracking the Internet stream to your lenses,” Daniel said.
Meg grabbed Packet’s arm. He pushed her away.
“Why don’t you just expose me now? What do you want?” Luegner asked as he recovered his breath. His gasps receded. He fumbled his fingers to his eye and took out a contact lens. A squared image of the hospital room on its surface faded to clear. “There, I can’t see you anymore. I can’t find you.”
“Don’t worry,” Packet said. “I can find you.”
“What do you want?” Luegner asked as he resigned himself and slipped the lens back onto his eye. It shimmered as it received, then he saw Packet again, and his place in the virtual hospital room.
“I want to play human. I want to go out and measure the sky.”
“That’s impossible now. You know that,” Luegner said, recovering.
“I want control,” Packet said as Luegner balanced against the bed.
“Control of what?”
“Control of my world, control of me. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Your freedom? You want your freedom?” Luegner asked.
“No, I want both. I want what you have. ‘To control my world and be free in my mind to own it.’ You said that yourself.”
“You want a body? Is that all?”
“What I want is to be human. What I need is a body.”
The bite of Luegner’s jaw relaxed. “And the documents from the lab?”
“The files will stay where they’re safe.”
Luegner looked to the nightstand. The blue basket waited, pulsed with light. The sphere was intact. “It’s a prototype,” he said.
“Then make it real,” Packet said. “I’ll carry the burden of the files. You will have your cure.”
Luegner understood. He let go of the bed. “I can live with that. But know that my inventions cost a great deal more than your father’s.”
“Whatever the cost, I will always be my father’s son. I will always be Cessini, son of Daniel.”
“And if your mind fails?” Luegner asked.
“Then you get the freedom to live out your life.”
“Is that all?”
“No. There’s something else I want, for my father, for Robin, and for Meg.”
“What would that be?” Luegner asked.
“Their freedom. An ovation. For their ambition. Not a victory, not yet. Just a win.”
Luegner postured back, then breathed out the last of his chest’s pain. He tugged his blue sleeves, and fixed his gaze on Daniel. “And a father’s son is born. It looks like your boy’s the smartest one in the room after all.” He looked back at the door handle, but hesitated to touch it. “Be careful what you wish for in a deal with me,” Luegner said. “I’ve paid a lot less, before.”
“And I’ve died for a hell of a lot more,” Packet said. “Twice.”
Robin and Meg stood together, silenced.
Luegner scoffed. He reached his hand into the empty space before him. He curled his fingers toward a point in the air and smiled. “Welcome to my world. You’ll love it.”
Luegner’s sphere shifted its specks of blue light until one landed on Packet’s temple. Packet stepped out of its path and the flicker passed and landed on the blinds of the window. Luegner squeezed his fist on the point of air before him, whispered, “Done,” and like a magician who failed to impress, was gone.
TWENTY-FIVE
MEG BECAME TERRI
“
B
EFORE YOU GO, I want you to know one thing,” Meg said as she sat together with Packet on the side of his bed in the hospital room. She fixed the collar of his shirt. His neck had healed. He had a big day ahead. “I think it’s something important for you to know. You should know how you died, so you can be whole.”
“I thought of one other thing I have in common with Cessini, the human I know,” he said.
Her fingers discovered the lobe of his ear. He leaned his cheek into her palm.
“Tell me,” she said.
“At night, when he was lonely, he wondered who would be like him, who would love him. I wonder the same thing now. Who will be like me, who will love me?”
“I am like you. I will love you,” she said as she lowered her hand from his face. “You were quite amazing in here, what you did to show Luegner. How you solved your name.”
“I solved a puzzle. Big deal.”
“It is to me,” she said. “You don’t have to do this, you know. It will be severe.”
Packet sat up straighter and closed his eyes from the room. “Did you know when I close my eyes all I can see now is the past? I want to be able to open my eyes and see a future.”
“I know. Just don’t think you have to do this for any of us.”
“I’m not. But more than for all the nails in the world,” he said and flexed his right arm at his elbow. “I’d stick up and do it for you.”
Meg put her hand on his forearm and lowered it to a peace. “The long-term effects are unknown. You understand what could happen? You might never be you again.”
“I’ll never be whole, or free, or in control until my mind and body are together as one. My doing this for you, in spite of Luegner, is the only way I can be complete. If nothing else, if I don’t make it, you’ll be free.”
“
We’ll
be free.”
“Yes,” he said, and even though it took him just a little too long to answer, he did. “We will.”