“How did Pete Laramer and Chuck Taylor get involved?”
“I knew Pete from various research conferences. I brought him into the project.”
She’s biting the inside of her left cheek, and she scratches her head. From her scalp drift several white flakes. Could be dandruff or dry scalp caused by the changing climate. Or maybe its seborrheic dermatitis, which is chronic, but can be triggered by stress.
“You and Pete were lovers?”
She waves her hand, as if to say it’s none of my business. It is shy of an admission, but I’m onto something.
“Is Pete okay?” I ask. “Is he alive?”
She looks down. She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“And Chuck?”
She hesitates.
“I know he’s involved,” I say. “He told me. What’s his part?”
“Pete brought him in. Chuck brought investment dollars, access to veterans clinics, clout. He seemed to get the project moving. But I don’t know much about his investment entity.”
Adrianna looks me directly in the eye. She’s aching to be seen as sincere. Her pupils are extremely bloodshot, painfully red.
“Doing neurological tests on people without their permission is at least a civil violation, and probably a criminal one,” I say.
“I’m not proud of what happened. But I didn’t advocate for any of it.”
“How widespread were the tests?” I ask. “How many old people at how many nursing homes got their memories scrambled? How many veterans at how many VA clinics? Who else?”
She puts her hands out, urging me to calm down. She’s right; I need information, not confrontation.
“There were fifteen sites in all — domestically, at least. More, worldwide. With a few exceptions, they were in communities with tech-savvy populations. I’m not at liberty to disclose the exact locations. They’ve all been closed down.”
I’m flummoxed. Adrianna is turning into a hostile witness, or, at least, she’s a practiced one.
I stand, baffled, hoping to find a way to express myself that doesn’t involve hurling insults or pieces of expensive art.
“You know how much you love Newton?”
“Don’t bring him into this.”
“That’s how much I love my grandmother. You poked her brain with a stick. You aged her. You tested her without her permission. You stole a part of her life and you wrote over her story.”
She blinks several times rapidly.
“Adrianna, you’re not telling me everything.”
After a pause she says: “You just told me that you love your grandmother?”
“Of course.”
“So you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Sometimes you cut your losses. The Human Memory Crusade is dead. ADAM is dead. Falcon will buy Biogen. Bluntly, and I’m sorry to say this: a few old people and veterans endured accelerated memory loss, but they were suffering dementia before. In the grand scheme, it’s water under the bridge.”
“Bullshit,” I spit out. “That logic doesn’t follow. The applicable logic is that I love my grandmother and
“For what? For giving retirement communities new computers and a chance for residents to record their memories? Everything was done with their full support.”
“Except the part where you fried brains.”
“You’ll have to prove that and, in seeking to do so, invoke all kinds of risk.”
“I intend to.”
“Dammit!”
Her outburst could power a windmill. I step backwards.
“I take care of Newton. You take care of your grandmother. Maybe there’s someone else special in your life. They are all that matter now.”
“If you felt that way, why bother contacting me in the first place?”
She starts walking to the door. Without looking at me, she says: “I accomplished what I wanted, and with your help. This thing has been shut down.”
“You won’t help me expose this?”
“I’ve resigned from Biogen. I’m moving on.”
I catch up with Adrianna and I take her arm and spin her around.
“Where have you been for the last few days?”
She looks down.
“I went somewhere safe.”
“Without Newton? Where?”
She shrugs. “I have a friend with a houseboat. No big deal.”
I look her in the eye.
“What did they give you?”
“What?”
“You have morphine eyes. Dilaudid eyes.” Powerful sedatives. “Did they kidnap you? That’s what I think.”
“What? No.”
I can see it now. Adrianna was working at the imaging clinic — the one that fronted as a dental office and disappeared. She was working at cross-purposes to the bad guys, maybe trying to thwart them. One day, Grandma was visiting the clinic and she saw the strongman drug Adrianna. He wore a blue surgical mask to hide his identity — the Man in Blue.
The Man in Blue strangled Adrianna.
“Did he drug you, try to smother you? Did my grandmother witness that?”
“No. No. No.”
Her eyes betray less certitude.
“They held you somewhere,” I continue. “Did they threaten your life? Or Newton? What did they want from you — just your silence?”
“Please leave. Please.”
“Someone broke into your office. They violated your world. Is a tough, smart scientist going to shrug, forget about the whole thing, and settle in for a nap?”
She stands mute.
I pull from my pocket the piece of paper I got from Pete Laramer. I thrust it in front of her.
“What is this?” I demand.
“I’m begging you to let this go. It’s over.”
“Not for my grandmother.”
“It is. She’ll recover. She’ll get back to her baseline.”
“So you say.”
She pulls open her door.
“Nathaniel, can I ask you a question?”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t you have anyone?”
“What?”
“Don’t you have anyone that is more important to you than this story? Don’t you have anyone who needs you more than you need to pursue some nuanced gray area of truth to write a few blog posts about?”
“Like I said.”
