Illustration by Broeck Steadman
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With great
power
comes great
responsibility–
or at least
it should!
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I opened the door to my office, and froze, appalled to see rows of numbers scrolling down my computer screen. Unable to take my eyes off the sight, I reached out blindly with my left hand and dropped my raincoat in the general vicinity of a hook on the wall. I vaguely heard it slosh to the ground as I sidled into the ergonomic chair beside the computer. The menu bar at the top read "Mustela Putoris Furo: Common Ferret."
Why the hell was my computer displaying our lab’s proprietary ferret genome data? We kept this kind of information under top security. If one of my graduate students had left the database open, he’d catch holy hell.
I clicked the mouse to close the window. Nothing happened. Instead, a small chatroom-style box appeared at the bottom of the screen.
"Oh, hi Professor Evans," it read. "I’m stealing your data. Don’t bother turning off your computer. If you do, I’ll just access the University system through your home computer. You should have used a longer password. One with numbers and symbols. But no-o. You didn’t. No one ever does. It’s wa-ay too much work."
Hacked. I’d been hacked. I was being hacked right now. What should I do?
It would take me more than an hour to drive home. And no one within a two-hour drive had my house key.
The ferret genome screen closed and rows of Holstein genome data filled the screen. More words appeared in the box.
"So chill out, pour yourself some coffee, and we’ll chat a bit."
I picked up the phone to call UCLA’s computer security department, then slammed it down. Why bother? They never answered when I called. They’d phone back in three days if they felt like it.
Damn it, this guy must be from some rival university. Cornell? MIT? With this information, he could piggyback on our research and leap ahead by years. I had to stop him.
The FBI. That’s who I should call, no matter how much the idea repelled me. They’d been bragging all over the place about their hot cybercrime division.
I reached out toward my computer to use the online phone directory, and then remembered I didn’t have control of the computer. I’d have to use a damn physical phonebook. Did I even have one? I scanned my office and didn’t see it.
The Holstein data disappeared and a squirrel genome replaced it.
Compose yourself, Charlie. Think. What should you do?
Draw him out. Maybe he’ll tell you something revealing, something the FBI can use to catch him.
I centered the cursor on the reply box. "You’re right," I typed. "No point shutting you out of this computer while my home computer’s turned on. I’m curious, though. What do you want with all those genomes?"
A small head appeared in the box, a cartoon-like avatar of a clean-shaven young man with a long blond ponytail. A blue rectangle reading "Brian" floated above his head. A second avatar representing myself appeared nearby.
I smiled at the flattering representation: salt and pepper hair, a neatly trimmed black beard, and a nose decidedly smaller and smoother than my own pitted proboscis. I’d shaved the beard when I reached fifty-five, preferring to look younger rather than wiser, and my hair had lost all its pepper in the eight years since.
A blue balloon popped open beside Brian’s mouth, and words scrolled through it. The font resembled a child’s block printing, with every third "S" reversed. "I collect genomes for my own research, Charlie. I sift for commonalities and differences. And–please don’t drool all over your keyboard–I have a working phenotypic model. So I can do a lot more with the data than you can."
"No." I didn’t believe it. "A phenotypic model? The Holy Grail of molecular biology? Nobody has one."
Brian’s avatar shrugged, the little symbolic shoulders rising past his ears. "If you say so. All I know is that I plug hypothetical genetic alterations into this funny little program I wrote. A couple minutes later, it spits back detailed descriptions of changes in structure and function. Maybe if you’re nice I’ll let you use it some time."
I did want to drool. With a working phenotypic model, genetic therapy research could go ahead ten times faster. Unfortunately, we were years–or decades–away from having one.
There were so many obstacles. Just coaxing mathematicians and biologists to work together was enough to make you lose your lunch. Then you had to carry out hundreds or thousands of experiments in genetic modification to check out your model’s predictions. Not easy, considering that the FDA had banned retrovirus therapy until last year. To make matters worse, no individual laboratory had access to the full body of existing data. Every university kept its genome data proprietary, like we did.
Of course, if you didn’t mind breaking into secure records to steal proprietary data, you could get around that last problem.
I felt my mouth fill with saliva, and swallowed. "Are you connected to a commercial company, Brian?"
His avatar grimaced. "Definitely not. I hate industry. Used to work in a university lab, though. Made it most of the way to a PhD in molecular biology. In my spare time, I took graduate courses in math and computer science. That’s proved quite helpful. I run my phenotypic model on other people’s computers running in parallel, and they don’t even know it’s happening. Have you ever seen your computer’s hard drive light come on at night? Might be me."
So this guy combined all the necessary skills in himself, along with a willingness to break the law. Someone brazen enough to do that might even have worked straight through the FDA’s ban. Maybe he really did have a phenotypic model. God, I wished I could put my hands on it.
"But why do you do all this? Why risk getting caught? Do you expect to make a lot of money?"
"I don’t care about money. I live on a small trust. Would you believe I do it for the love of science?"
I wished I could believe him. Unfortunately, I’d grown too cynical over the years. No one did science for the pure love of it anymore; Einstein was probably the end of that line.
"That’s a laudable motivation. Quite unique." I jumped out of the seat and rummaged around my office for the phone book. No luck . . . Yes. There it was, on top of a bookshelf. I yanked it down and hurried back to the computer.
"I’m unique in a million ways, Charlie. You know any other biologists that can hack?"
I flipped through the blue government pages. "It is an unusual combination of skills."
"It shouldn’t be. DNA is the one truly digital portion of the body. DNA manipulation is really a form of hacking."
That thought genuinely intrigued me. "You have a point. I’ve never considered the connection before."
City of Los Angeles. County of Los Angeles. State of California. Where were the damn Federal government listings?
"With all that education, you must be a lot older than the average hacker."
"I’m thirty-two. And a lot smarter than the average hacker, too."
The computer stopped displaying animal genomes and switched to retroviruses: our major tool for altering DNA. Or hacking into DNA, to use Brian’s description.
If I’d been ready to drool before, now I wanted to run away in embarrassment. I recognized the particular retrovirus on the screen only too well: my big, my colossal mistake.
Before the FDA halted experimentation in 2005, we’d learned a great deal about using retroviruses for gene therapy. We’d been poised to eradicate every disease caused by simple genetic errors: familial high cholesterol, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, to name the most prominent. Then came the near-disaster–my disaster.
In the interest of safety, therapeutic retroviruses are designed not to jump from one person to another. Back then, we had no idea how easily a non-infectious virus can turn infectious. Half a dozen genes will do it.
We learned that during flu season, 2005. Everyone in the lab was shedding influenza virus. A particular retrovirus uncoiled in a contaminated solution, picked up a few key genes from influenza, and made the jump into one of our students. Only luck, and a rapid quarantine, prevented a worldwide DNA-altering plague.
That particular retrovirus wouldn’t have done any harm, at least at first. It exchanged the genes predisposing toward Alzheimer’s disease for healthier genes. Benign enough. Some pundits actually argued against trying to stop it. However, they were wrong. If the virus had gone wild, its helpful DNA-altering actions might very well have spontaneously mutated. The result could have been unpredictable damage to the genetics of humanity.
The FDA instantly shut down all genetic therapy labs in the US, and every other country followed suit. We couldn’t carry out any work at all for eight years. Just fifteen months ago, a consortium of universities perfected the Histone Locktight technique to block spontaneous changes in therapeutic retroviruses, and research began again.
I’d redeemed myself to a significant extent by playing a major role in that accomplishment. And the impressive retrovirus research I’d published since had rehabilitated me further. But I still had a long way to go. That’s why I couldn’t let this guy steal our data. I needed to keep on publishing exemplary, cutting-edge work. And with our data, Brian could very well end up publishing it ahead of me.
I ran my finger down the Federal listings. There it was: Federal Bureau of Investigation. I picked up the phone and hesitated, remembering my last encounter with the FBI. I hated the thought of inviting the Bureau back into my life. What choice did I have, though?
Better type something. "What’s the weather like out where you are, Brian?"
The avatar shook a warning finger at me. "Not nice, Evans. You’re probing for clues to catch me. Hey, when you contact the FBI, tell them this: if they dog me too close, I’ll bite. Signing off."
The avatar spun around, shrunk, and disappeared.
I waded through the FBI’s voicemail labyrinth and ultimately reached the box of a certain Dan McClury. He returned my call later that afternoon. The following morning, our department administrator, Lisa, called me on my back line to tell me he’d arrived.
I password-protected my computer and walked out into the bustling molecular biology laboratory outside my door. I aimed a cheerful wave in the general direction of my post-docs and graduate students, hard at work among the black lab benches, stainless steel DNA sequencers and yellow-and-black biohazard units. Many of them waved back.
They were a great group. I’m not the world’s most creative scientist. I accept that. Still, I know how to get things done, and I know how to work with talented people. My kids worked hard for me, and I worked hard for them; if I ever won the Nobel Prize, they’d all get proper credit.
When I returned with McClury, several heads turned to study him with more than academic curiosity. The special agent was an annoyingly good-looking man in his mid-forties, tall, well-muscled, with dark hair and a neat moustache. Lisa had made no attempt to conceal her ogling glances when I retrieved him from her office. My female graduate students and post-docs behaved more discretely, but a quick poll later that day rated him in the top one percent of male beauty. Movie star quality. Only my gay post-doc disagreed; he put McClury in the top 0.1 percent.
I tried to hide my jealousy, even from myself. Someone in my position in life shouldn’t care about physical appearances. Yet I did, and I always had. Throughout my life, personal vanity had triggered periodic efforts to get in shape. I’d achieved my greatest success in that regard at age thirty-five, using a gym almost daily, and posing before a mirror each night to admire my biceps and calves.
I never managed to keep it up for long, though; scientific ambition always called me back to what really mattered. And now I’d grown too old. Oh, according to my implanted medical chips, I was still healthy enough. But I looked old. Fragile and sagging skin hung loosely on my forearms, and drooped in v-shaped folds beneath my neck. My upper arms resembled toilet paper tubes, and my feet splayed out when I took off my Jobst stockings at night. I hated growing old, and at the same time judged myself critically for caring as much about it as I did.
Even leaving aside his dashing appearance, I felt predisposed to dislike McClury simply for being an FBI agent. I’d met many members of the Bureau during the period after my retrovirus disaster. I couldn’t object to their goal–securing the infectious retrovirus against possible terrorist appropriation. However, I could have done without the arrogance and disrespect. Clearly enjoying the prerogatives of their position, they intimidated my secretaries, humiliated my students, and took obnoxious liberties with everyone’s private possessions. They confiscated my hard drives and Rolodex and, for no particular reason, refused to let me copy down any crucial numbers. I’d lost both the phone number and email address of one of my old friends. I’d had to wait for him to contact me, and that didn’t happen for six months.
Yet, to my pleasure and surprise, McClury didn’t fit that mold. He shook my hand warmly, showed respect in every gesture and facial expression, and generally indicated that he considered me a person of distinction and significance in the world. He even made an intelligent comment on our lab’s recent publication in Nature. I realized he’d done considerable homework in the short time since I’d contacted him, solely for the purpose of putting me at ease. This agent was a decent fellow.
"Is this the hacked machine, Professor Evans?"
When I nodded, he sat in the seat beside the computer, facing away from the screen. He studied my small office with apparent interest. His eye lit on a colorful metal sculpture on my desk: a DNA double helix wrapped around small spools.
"That’s a model of a nucleosome." I picked up the artifact and carried it over to him. "DNA plus these spool-like structures called histones. Histones control whether a certain gene expresses itself or not. In some ways, they play as important a role as DNA itself."
He turned it over in his large hands. "Nicely constructed. A work of art. I collect things like this–objects that serve a practical purpose and at the same time are decorative." He ran his fingers along the brushed steel base and handed it back. "Down to business. Cybercrime is a growth industry, unfortunately. I manage a team of top-notch security experts, and I can tell you we have our hands full."
"Are many of them ex-hackers?" Like everyone else, I’d heard that computer security agencies hired every hacker they could find.
McClury looked annoyed. "The media love those stories. Okay, it happens sometimes. Mostly, though, your average hacker doesn’t know as much as he thinks. And they’re terrible employees, loners who hate authority and don’t cooperate with a team. You wound their ego and they take revenge. We prefer career computer scientists, thank you very much."
I remembered listening to a similar speech given by the UCLA chief of computer security. And look how successful he’d been at protecting my data!
My confidence dipped. Personally, I’d found that true talent and untamed individualism went together. I wasn’t sure a group of bureaucratic scientists could outthink someone like this Brian.
Maybe they could, though, if they put enough agents on the job. I sure hoped so. Because if they didn’t catch Brian pretty fast, the damage would become irrevocable. A person with the right skills could learn an enormous amount from our data in a few months or even weeks. Even if he erased all the information after studying it, the simple knowledge of where he was going would make it much easier for him to get there.
McClury listened without interruption as I told the story. Only when I’d finished explaining everything in my own words did he start in with his own questions and comments.
The agent asked me why I thought Brian had started a conversation with me in particular. Surely the hacker would have broken into many other databases besides ours. And yet, so far as McClury knew, no other lab had reported an extended conversation with a hacker. Was our dialogue a coincidence, the result of my catching him in the act? Or did this Brian have a personal connection with me?
When I drew a blank, McClury wondered out loud whether Brian had once worked in my lab at some point. Maybe he still worked in my lab. Did any members of my group have unusual computer skills? Were any of them unstable?
I had to suppress a smile at that last question. My best students were all unstable in their own ways. None of them possessed particular expertise with computers, though, so far as I knew.
"Could it be someone outside your lab? Are there any colleagues who might bear you a grudge?"
This time I didn’t hold back the smile. "Of course there are. Every director of every retrovirus lab in the country."
"I mean want to hurt you personally," he clarified. "Not just compete against you."
"As I said. Every director of every lab."
He looked surprised.
Like most people outside scientific academia, McClury apparently believed that we scientists did our work for the sheer love of knowledge. I took a bit of pleasure in deflating his idealistic fantasies. In reality, we were a bloodthirsty bunch, waging constant battle against each other for prestige, reputation, funding and the best students. It didn’t help that we constantly sat in judgment on one another. When a journal needed to review a potential publication, or a funding source wanted to evaluate the scientific value of a grant application, they had to call upon the same limited community of experts. We shifted alliances constantly, and carried through subtle acts of revenge for real or imagined betrayals. Over the years, we’d built up deep reservoirs of bad blood.
McClury took this all in, and asked for names and details. I was happy to give them, because it let me hide what I was really feeling. His questions about potential enemies had aroused memories of the second great error of my career, an error I didn’t want to reveal to him or anyone else. I talked on fluently, while inside I re-lived the shame and desire associated with one particular student from the past. I didn’t know whether I felt more relief or sadness that she’d never reentered my life.
McClury wound up his questions and turned to general advice on how to deal with Brian next time we talked. "And he’ll get in touch with you again, I promise. Hackers are lonely guys. Make friends with him. You’ve already gotten off to a good start. Get him to brag about his other hacks, and his biology research. He’ll give away critical information sooner or later."
Next, he turned to my computer. He began by carefully recording the serial numbers of everything attached to it, even the printer, keyboard and webcam. Then he made a copy of my hard drive. Finally, he loaded a batch of new software onto the machine.
"We can track his intrusions now." He gave me a reassuring smile. "Don’t worry. We’ll catch this guy. I promise."
McClury stood up and retrieved his brown leather coat from a hook. He threw the coat over his left shoulder, hooked the collar with his left thumb, and held out his right hand.
I felt a rush of confidence and shook his hand gratefully. "One question, though," I said, when he reached the door. "What did he mean about biting if the FBI dogged him too closely?"
McClury paused with one hand on the knob. "I’d call it a bluff. When he realizes the FBI’s after him, he’ll tuck his head in his shell and not come out till Christmas."
That prediction did not prove accurate. A week later, McClury walked into my office, his gait slightly stiff and his facial expression more rigid than normal. He shut the door a bit too loudly and once again took the seat by my computer.
"This kid seems to crave attention," he said. "Well he’ll get it now. Twenty agents worth of attention."
Twenty agents. Oh, good. Now they’d catch him for sure. "I take it he wasn’t bluffing?"
"Not exactly. You’ll hear about it on tonight’s news. Our friend ripped through the FBI’s computer security barriers and destroyed about a third of all our records. Case files, undercover agents, evidence inventories. Could have crippled us. However, he kindly made a backup copy of all the information and posted it as a file with an obscene name."
I suppressed a desire to smile. Over my years of working with brilliant young people, I’d absorbed a certain sympathy for the desire to thumb one’s nose at authority. "You had your own backup copies, I’m sure."
"Yes–and he’d corrupted the last three day’s worth, nationwide. Hacked into the backup system so it recorded junk. He’s a good hacker, I’ll grant him that. Wouldn’t want to fight him on that turf. We won’t have to, though. There’s such a thing as police work, something hackers don’t know a thing about. This kid’s hung himself."
Unexpectedly, I felt a flash of sympathy for Brian. "When you catch him . . ." Looking at McClury’s face, I had no doubt he’d catch the hacker. "Will he get any credit for not actually destroying your data?"
McClury flashed a cold smile. "He probably won’t get shot during the arrest."
"McClury," a voice said, "you’re an ass."
The agent jumped up, a gun in his hands. He pointed it at the door, and then at my closet. I felt a cold chill.
"Brian?" I asked.
We both looked toward the speakers on my computer, clearly the source of the voice. McClury put away his gun, rose from his chair, and ran his fingers along the opposite wall. "He must be listening in through a bug in the wall."
"Wrong," Brian’s voice said. "That’s the sort of thing people like you do. I’m only a simple-minded, helpless hacker. I listened through the microphone on Dr. Evans’s computer."
Clever, I thought, and obvious.
"Listen, McClury," he said. "I don’t want to harm the FBI. That was just a demonstration of what I could do. The point is, please back off and leave me alone."
I nodded thoughtfully, recognizing the patterns of Brian’s psychology. I’d worked with dozens of people like him. Many of my best students were much the same: bull-headed geniuses accustomed to getting their own way. I’d developed a whole bag of tricks for getting them to behave. And this kid needed the benefit of my experience: trying to bully the FBI was plain idiotic.
"Brian," I said. "Take a step back and think. You’ve hacked into the FBI’s computer system. Are they going to let that go unpunished? Not likely. And the further you go, the worse it’s going to get. Threatening them isn’t going to work. Remember, they can throw unlimited resources at you. You’ve got to surrender now."
I meant what I said. Of course, if he turned himself in, it would also solve my problem.
"Listen to the professor," McClury said. "He’s right."
"Go away, McClury. I won’t talk to you."
"Keep in mind that I’m not promising any amnesty if you turn yourself in," McClury continued. "Only that you’ll get out of jail a lot quicker that way."
Brian’s avatar appeared on the screen, its arms folded, its face sullen. No words appeared.
McClury briefly glared at the computer. "Fine with me." He stood up, threw his coat over his shoulder, and stalked out.
I took the chair he’d vacated and spoke into the microphone. "I’m serious. They won’t quit till they get you. You know the theory of holes? When you’re in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging yourself deeper."
"Let’s type instead of talk," Brian’s figure said. My avatar appeared on the screen beside his. "I’m sure he’s got your office bugged. I bet he’s sitting in some carpet cleaning van across the street listening in, and using that stupid keystroke recording spy program he put on your computer. I’ve hacked into it, by the way. He’ll read what I want him to read."
"Typing’s fine," I typed.
As always, his words poured out quickly, without spelling mistakes or lower-case words. "Thanks for reminding me of the theory of holes. Only I can’t turn myself in. I’m a biologist, Charlie. That’s my real love. I have this great lab; I’m making real scientific advances. They’d never let me keep on working the way I have to. I’d get hemmed in with a zillion bureaucratic rules. They might even force me to become a professional computer security expert as part of a plea bargain. I’d hate that. Hacking is just a means to an end for me."
I couldn’t help warming to that. "So why didn’t you stay in school?"
"A certain professor shafted me. Stole my work on histones and used it to develop the technique that became Locktight. Bastard didn’t give me a bit of credit in his publication."
My heart thudded. I pushed away from the computer. When Brian’s avatar grew long brown hair and turned female, a shiver ran down my spine.
Brianna Carleton. My own graduate student. I’d done exactly what she said. Two years after the ban, I’d published a seminal article on histone control of DNA, and failed to credit her work. It had been the most unforgivable act of my career, the first and only time I’d let naked personal ambition completely override my ethical principles.
I typed my reply in a rush. "God, I’m glad you contacted me, Brianna. I’ve never regretted anything like I regret what happened that time. All these years I’ve wanted to apologize, to make it up to you. Only you disappeared."
Her avatar tapped its finger on her lips. "You could have published an acknowledgment and an apology. I’ve been waiting."
Direct hit.
"Look at it from my point of view, Brianna. I barely survived my mistake with the retrovirus. If I admitted stealing your work, I’d have to give up on biology completely. You can understand why I can’t risk that. Look, why don’t you come back to the lab? I’ll give you proper credit from now on, get grants for you, and push your career ahead. We always worked well together."
"You and I always worked great together. If you only could have dumped those idiots you had for students . . . But anyway, you’re not making sense. Have you already forgotten that McClury plans to send me to jail? I’ve got a better idea. You come join me."
My mind raced. Apparently, she’d set up her own lab somewhere. Which meant she’d shipped equipment to herself. If I told McClury, maybe he could use his vaunted police work skills to track that down. Or I could pretend to accept her offer and lead the FBI straight to her.
Except I didn’t want Brianna arrested any more. I owed her. I owed her big time.
Everything made sense now. Brianna had been my most talented student, ever. She was just as skillful in the lab as she was brilliant in the idea department. And she seemed to know in advance exactly what lines of investigation would yield results. I learned to trust her instincts, even when what she proposed sounded impossible.
Like that synthetic DNA project. When I drove her away with my intellectual theft, she’d been developing an alternative form of DNA, built not on nucleic acids but on an entirely artificial series of chemicals, much easier to manipulate in the lab. Who knows where she would have gone with it by now. Artificial life? No one had taken up the project after she left; without her, we hadn’t a clue which way to proceed.
Unfortunately, Brianna had also set the benchmark for alienating fellow students. She shot herself in the foot on all possible social occasions, and dug herself into holes so deep they touched magma. Despite all my diplomatic skills, by the end of her first year in my lab, not a single member of my group would so much as loan Brianna a bottle of hydrochloric acid. I almost had to choose between her and everyone else. Instead, I’d honed the diplomatic skills that had served me ever since. I’d never gotten her to really belong to the team, but at least she’d stopped actively sabotaging herself and everyone else.
"I don’t think I could just walk away from my lab," I said. Though the idea did tempt me. "If you’d only asked straight out, I’d have given you all those genomes to make up for what I’d done to you. God, Brianna, I’m so sorry."
Her avatar gave me a charming smile. "Would you really have done that? Probably not. It’s a sweet thought, though."
While she typed those words, her avatar transformed. The standard cartoony drawing grew new levels of detail and became a photo-realistic moving video image. You could see subtle nuances of expression and feeling, changing in real time.
Later, I realized she must have been using her computer’s webcam to photograph her actual face. She’d altered the appearance to some extent; the avatar looked a bit stylized. Nonetheless, I easily recognized her, and that recognition disturbed me.
Brianna’s ironic smile hadn’t changed a bit. Nor had those thin eyebrows, that way she tossed her head, that habit of stroking her fingers along her left cheekbone.
I wouldn’t exactly call her beautiful; intense was the best word. I’ve never slept with any of my students–I was never unfaithful to my wife with anyone–yet Brianna had tempted me almost beyond endurance. Her face still shone with the same combination of ferocious intelligence and life force that I’d found almost irresistible nearly a decade earlier. Mere physical attraction seldom aroused much sexual desire in me; the passionate intensity burning in Brianna’s face was another story.
The same kind of inner fire had attracted me to my wife. Deborah had been an Olympic runner in her twenties, and won a bronze medal in the 100 meter. When I married her, she no longer competed in athletics. Nonetheless, she retained her inner drive, that magical, almost spiritual focus I found so exciting.
Some men want female companionship for comfort. I’ve always craved something different. Deborah’s presence had lofted me into a realm of life where nothing is mundane. The whole house had glowed with her atmosphere. And Brianna radiated even more of the same. I’d never met anyone as vivid as that woman. When she walked around my lab, I could have sworn some theatre arts student was shining a spotlight on her. She made everyone else look dim and washed out.
I hadn’t gone on a single serious date since Deborah died in a car accident five years ago. No one else had tempted me. Yet now I fantasized taking up Brianna’s offer for real, and becoming her lover as well as her colleague.
I pushed aside these thoughts and admonished myself to quit being a ridiculous old man. I had more than three decades on her. No way she’d find at old fart like me attractive.
I don’t know how much time passed while I thought all this. When I looked at the screen again, I saw she’d typed a whole paragraph.
"It would be really great if I could come back to your lab, Charlie. You knew how to handle me, and in a nice way. You gave me great scientific advice, helped me form my thoughts. I felt like I had a real partner when I worked with you."
Her avatar gave a sigh.
"It’s too late, though. I stole your data, and you naturally called the FBI, and one thing led to another. The only thing I can do now is keep them off my back with a bigger threat.
"So tell McClury this: if he keeps after me, I’ll strike with something a hell of a lot worse than a computer hack. A biological hack."
"Brianna," I typed, desperate to change her mind. "You can’t fight the FBI this way."
"Speak of the devil–the FBI’s probing for my computer. I better defend myself. Here, I’ll leave you with a puzzle."
Her avatar dissolved into a file labeled "Weapons Grade Retrovirus."
"Brianna? Are you there?" I typed.
No reply.
Infuriated, I couldn’t think of anything better to do than click on the file. Before it opened, the phone rang. It was McClury.
"Tell me what you know about this Brianna Carlton," he said.
How’d he know?
"Ordinary surveillance, Charlie," he said, reading my mind. "I put a camera in your wall. And I’ve already run across her name and photo several times in the course of our routine interviews."
I panicked. How much had he seen? I’d just admitted my intellectual theft in the Locktight affair. I couldn’t afford to have that story get out.
"So you were able to read the whole dialogue?" I kept my voice blasé.
"No. Unfortunately, you pushed your chair to the side and blocked the camera."
"What about the keystroke recorder?" I asked, deeply relieved.
"Transmitted the complete speeches of Abraham Lincoln. "
Thank God.
I gave him an edited version of our conversation, consistent with the cover story I’d used for years. Brianna had been too arrogant for her own good, unable to work with other students, and quick to take personal credit for every one of our lab’s accomplishments. When I’d accidentally left her name off an important paper, she’d exploded in fury, stomped off, and never come back.
It was close enough to the truth to satisfy. And if any of my former students had ever suspected how much of the Locktight work had really been Brianna’s, they’d long ago unconsciously altered their memories to match their feelings. Brianna had committed many real acts of outrageous arrogance; if her claims had been justified in this particular case, no one wanted see it that way.
I kept something else secret from McClury as well: my long smoldering sexual attraction for the woman. He didn’t need to know a thing about that.
"So what should I do now?" I asked.
"No change in plan. Keep up close communication and act as friendly as possible. With any luck she has something of a crush on her old professor. Get her to talk as much as you can. I’ll check in with you daily."
When McClury hung up, I opened the file and stared at the genome of her "weapons grade" retrovirus. Of course, there’s no way to identify something like that on sight; a genome is a list of raw data. I performed a quick search of our computer databases and identified the retrovirus as one we’d used in experiments on the common housefly.
How could she use a housefly as a weapon? To find out, I had to analyze the payload of this retrovirus. The "payload" is what we call the genes that a therapeutic retrovirus inserts into its target.
After an hour of database searching, I found a partial match in the gene sequence of bees and wasps. Venom? Did she plan to create venomous houseflies.
By design, therapeutic retroviruses can’t spread on their own. The Locktight safety protocol ensures that. So she’d have to infect flies individually. It would take forever. And even if she did that, flies can’t sting.
I looked closer, and discovered that she’d weakened the Locktight protections. The virus on the screen could spread on its own from one fly to another.
And I knew it would spread quickly. Monsanto had once designed an infectious virus to decimate the world’s fly populations. While they had never received permission to use it, they’d carried out extensive modeling of the likely outcome. Epidemics proceed at an exponential rate, especially when the host has few natural or artificial barriers to its movements. And what can stop a housefly? Monsanto’s projections indicated that one season would suffice to spread the virus throughout most of the world.
Then I remembered something else relevant. Certain ancestors of the modern common housefly possessed a venomous bite. Brianna might have found a way to reactivate that potential. It’s always easier to restore a previously existing genetic ability than to create a new one from scratch, and, with her phenotypic model, it wouldn’t be too hard.
God, what an idea. A plague of poisonous biting houseflies. Something worthy of the Old Testament.
Houseflies thrive on every continent, penetrate almost every structure, and cohabit intimately with humans. If she released this plague, life all over the planet would become substantially more miserable.
How like my Brianna to think this was a good idea. The brilliant, prideful, blind idiot!
I wanted to cry and I wanted to scream. I wanted to throttle her. If only the stupid woman would get back in touch with me! I had to talk her out of this brainless plan.
A week later, I still hadn’t heard a word. It was ten at night, and I was at home researching Kurniawan Setyabudi, the Indonesian investor who controlled one of my major corporate sponsors.
The Setyabudi Group supported my lab to the tune of fifteen million dollars, yet I’d never communicated with him directly. Today, he’d sent me an email with a series of intriguing and intelligent questions about the potentials of genetic therapy. I knew it behooved me to learn what I could about him before I responded. Decades of experience in begging for money had taught me the importance of researching one’s potential benefactors.
From what I could gather, the billionaire investor lived a life of obsessive obscurity. He reportedly possessed a Howard Hughes-like phobia about catching diseases, and took precautions that bordered on insanity. If true, that suggested several promising lines of approach. Setyabudi would probably respond favorably to any research that could enhance immunity. I filed that thought away and looked further.
An hour later, I hadn’t found a single new fact; just a pile of ridiculous stories. According to at least five dozen websites, Setyabudi belonged to the group of Seven Evil Men who ruled the world. His picked men and women penetrated deep into governments, corporations and world religions, and secretly manipulated human history. I waded through reams of this kind of garbage; paranoid conspiracy theorists irritated me beyond measure, and my wasted sojourn into their world put me in a sour mood.
That mood sweetened considerably when Brianna’s avatar emerged onto my computer and grew to fill the right half of the screen. My own face appeared on the left. She must have found a way to view me through my computer’s videocam: my face looked just as photorealistic and reflective of real-time changes as hers.
No, not quite photo-realistic. She’d improved my real appearance, taking at least fifteen years off my real age.
I smiled, feeling giddy and pleased. My avatar smiled too.
"So did you figure out my little puzzle?" her avatar asked.
I’d temporarily put her crazy idea out of my mind. Now concern and an urgent sense of responsibility flooded me. "It’s a horrible plan."
She shrugged. "There’s always insect repellent. I only want to be left alone."
"We need to talk about that, Greta Garbo. If you release this retrovirus, your future won’t include much solitude. You can’t use the overwhelming force approach against the FBI. They have the same theory, and they have guns. Once they realize what you’re up to, they’ll decide you’re too dangerous to leave alone, and go after you no matter what."
The words "chuckle, chuckle, chuckle," floated away from her avatar’s mouth. They grew wings and flew around the screen in amusing loop-the-loops. "I’m too dangerous to go after. I have a cow mutation that turns beef bitter. A chicken mutation that turns the little suckers insanely aggressive. I can make pigeons violent, too. And dogs. Imagine the headlines: ‘Pet poodle eats owner’s foot.’ I can alter the world’s wheat supply so it’s carcinogenic. It goes on an on. I haven’t tested every one of these retroviruses, but some are bound to work."
My God, she was losing all sense of perspective.
"You can’t do any of that if you’re dead."
"It’s so sweet the way you worry about me." She bit her lip. "You know, I was attracted to you way back when, and I thought maybe you liked me too. That’s one reason it hurt so much when you shat on my career."
Without warning, the Brianna avatar leaned over and gave the Charlie Evans avatar a lingering kiss. I found the sight startlingly erotic.
And I wanted to tell her she’d been right. That I’d desired her more than any other woman I’d ever known, and that I still desired her.
Yet my rational appraisal of the situation kept me from saying any of this. I told myself to be realistic. After all, I’d passed the age where a man holds any physical appeal for a young woman. She was probably just teasing me anyway. Women like to do that to men.
