“Please.”
“You’re involved in some story, an investigation, not getting enough sleep. I’ve heard how… excitable you can be when the muse hits. I respect that. You’re creative. There’s a colloquial word for it: ebullience. You’re not hypo-manic, but just energetic. It’s not bad, but it can color your perspective.”
“Thanks,” just shy of exasperated. I’m not looking for a theory about me. “You’re sure there’s nothing — no deep brain scanning technology, or… I don’t know what? Nothing that might speed dementia.”
“Where are you?” His voice sounds grave.
“South San Francisco. In the car.”
“Is Lane with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you returning her to the assisted-living home?”
“No, we’re…” I pause. “Why do you ask?”
“Bluntly, she needs to be getting the proper care.”
“I…”
He cuts me off. “You and I both know you’ve got a penchant for the dramatic. You’re a storyteller. Good for you. But whatever you’re doing now — whatever wide-eyed ideas you have about your grandmother, while understandable, should not divert from her care. You must get her someplace safe.”
I sigh. I want to yell at him, get him to address my questions. Earlier he told me to get her out of her environment, now he wants me to put her back in it. Why contradict himself, or change his counsel?
Regardless, part of me knows he’s right — about getting Grandma into a safe setting. The Witch said so too. Is Lane my ward or my pawn?
“If you don’t want to take her to the home, bring her to me and let me examine her,” he says. “Let me make sure she’s okay — and I can suggest where you might take her.”
“Really?”
“You’re a family friend. How about this afternoon?”
“Let me think about it.”
He pauses.
“I’ll come to you,” he says.
“Pardon?”
“I’ll come get your grandmother. I’ll take care of her for a few days if that’s what it takes.”
I want to reach through the phone and strangle the patronizing ape. He must really think me incompetent.
“I’ll call later,” I say. And I hang up.
It’s 1:20 p.m. We’ve got a little more than four hours before I pick up Grandma’s care file from Betty Lou.
We’re still parked at the grocery store. We walk inside and buy macaroni salad from the deli, sharing it while we sit together back in the front seat.
“I’m glad they invented this food. It’s yummy,” she says.
I smile. “Time to visit a farm,” I say between bites.
“With cows?”
“Servers.”
Chapter 31
I drive toward the address listed on a piece of paper that sits in my lap, the address I pulled from Adrianna’s office, the only clue I’ve got to go on. This is where we’ll find the computers associated with Biogen, ADAM, the Advanced Life Computing department — whatever the hell any of that is.
The phone rings. I answer.
“It’s me,” responds a male voice. Bullseye. He never calls; he hates the phone.
“You cracked the thumb drive?” I ask.
“Couldn’t do it. Tried everything.”
I digest the disappointment. “Will you try one more thing for me?”
I glance at the sheet of paper, though by now I’ve memorized the information. I tell Bullseye that I suspect the user name might be some variation of one of the following: Lulu Adrianna Pederson, or LAPederson, or maybe ADAM1.0, or Biogen. The password, I say, could be some version of Newton — with various different spellings.
“Bullseye, it could be — I’ll spell it out: ‘N-e-w-t–0-n–1–2–3.’ ”
“I’ll call you back,” Bullseye says. He sounds more excited than I’ve heard him in years.
Before I can hang up, Samantha takes the phone.
“Are you still with Lane?” she asks.
“Yep.”
“Is there any way around that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I dreamed about you last night. The two of you were standing in the parking lot at Disneyland. You were trying to take her inside, and she wanted to stay in the car,” she says. “It’s a message.”
“I get it.”
“You’re like a brother to me, Nathaniel.”
“Okay.”
“So please don’t take this wrong. I just wish you wouldn’t drag your grandmother around on one of your treks. Take her home — to her retirement home.”
“I gotta go, Sam. Grandma’s doing just fine.”
We hang up.
We’ve arrived at an industrial building located in a desolate cul-de-sac a few blocks off Highway 101—the thoroughfare that connects San Francisco to everything south of it.
The single-story beige building has a corrugated roof and tinted windows with bars on them. No signs on the building. No signs of life. Feels like industrial storage. We park in back in an empty lot.
Grandma’s fiddling with her cell phone. Not playing, just looking at the screen and pushing on the buttons.
“Do you want to wait here?”
“I’d like to see Harry,” she responds, without looking up.
“Soon enough,” I say. “I’m back in five.”
In front, I pull on the cool handle of the thick metal door. It’s locked. Next to the door is a keypad. Into the keypad, I type: “Newt0n123.” I hear a click. I pull down on the door handle. It opens.
The first thing I notice is the low noise and the cool air; it’s the hum and lower temperature emitted by an air-conditioning system used to cool a gaggle of servers.
My eyes adjust to low light. I look across a relatively small room — perhaps four times the size of my apartment. It has a high ceiling and a smooth concrete floor. In its center are rows of metal racks holding uniform square boxes. It’s a dazzling array of computing power.
Along the wall where I’ve entered stands another set of racks. On them sit two dozen monitors. Page after page of text scrolls rapidly down the screens.
These servers and monitors form some sort of nerve center.
But it’s the human that is of the most interest to me.
He sits across the room at a metal desk, his back to me. He wears a gray hooded sweatshirt. He fiddles with a small square object.
“Hello, Mr. Idle,” he says without turning around.
“You drive a Prius,” I say.
He starts to turn. “Our dependence on foreign oil is bad for our sovereignty. Besides, gas is expensive. And
