Spark: A Novel

  The car traveled up Madison to East Sixtieth Street and pulled over to the curb. “Now what?” I asked the driver.

  “Suite 2160, sir. Don’t forget to take your luggage.”

  I entered the building and gave my name to the security guard at the front desk. The elevator felt like a windowless cell with a surveillance camera at the top corner watching my movements. Was someone waiting for me? Was I about to be arrested? My Spark became a bright point of red light as I walked down a hallway and opened a door.

  Lorcan Tate was sprawled on a couch in the reception room. He was watching a movie on a tablet computer, but when he saw me he froze the image on the screen. Lorcan was another one of Miss Holquist’s enforcers. We had spent three months together at the training camp in North Carolina. For most of that time, we ignored each other—until the incident with the dog.

  “Finally! The dead man appears!” Lorcan sat up and stared at me. “So what were you eating in London? Did you break down and buy real food?”

  “I always carry a ten-day supply of nourishment.”

  “Nourishment? Are you still talking about that drink they make for old people in nursing homes?” He laughed. “Of course the whole thing doesn’t make sense. If you were really dead, you wouldn’t need any food at all.”

  Lorcan got up from the couch and sauntered across the room. He was a big man, tall and heavy, with long hair that had a russet color. I couldn’t interpret the emotions on his face, but I could feel his energy. I once saw a painting of St. Sebastian—his half-naked body pierced with spears and arrows. Lorcan displayed the complete opposite of this image. Invisible blades of all kinds pushed out of his body and jabbed at the world.

  “Where’s Miss Holquist?” I asked.

  “She’s here … waiting for you.”

  Lorcan was very close to my Shell—his face a few inches away from mine. Without the downloaded images on my smartphone I found it difficult to interpret emotions, but I knew, in mathematical terms, that Lorcan was my inverse integer. The most sensitive person in the world is not a poet or a therapist, but an intelligent sociopath. Lorcan instinctively found everyone’s weak point and then jabbed at it until he got what he wanted.

  That tactic didn’t work with me. Because of my Transformation, I lacked both fear and desire. It angered Lorcan that I wasn’t intimidated by his energy. His sharp blades passed through my empty body and collapsed onto the floor with a useless clatter.

  “You think you’re braver than me,” he said.

  “I don’t think about you at all.”

  Lorcan raised his fist. When I didn’t flinch, he sneered and stepped away. “You’re nothing, Underwood. Killing you would be like stabbing an empty trash can.”

  “Where’s Miss Holquist?”

  “Leave your suitcases here and follow me.” As Lorcan led me past the coffee table, I glanced at his computer. The monitor displayed a frozen image of a woman’s high-heel shoe crushing a white mouse. The rodent’s body was frozen in pain.

  Lorcan led me down a hallway past a row of small private offices. Each room had a desk, a chair, a phone, and a shredder. No one was working in any of these cubicles. As usual, Miss Holquist had rented an empty office suite for this meeting.

  When we approached a door marked CONFERENCE ROOM, Lorcan’s shoulders slumped and he lowered his head slightly. He knocked, paused for a few seconds, and then opened the door.

  Wearing a headset, Miss Holquist sat on one side of a long conference table. She glanced up from her computer, wiggled her fingers to say “hello,” and continued talking with her southern accent. “Green? No, definitely not green. Your gown is ivory, and those two colors don’t go together.”

  “Do you need anything, ma’am?” Lorcan asked. “Coffee? Lunch?”

  Miss Holquist shook her hand and Lorcan left the room. When I circled around to her side of the table, I saw that she was looking at a photograph of a model wearing a long green dress. Miss Holquist clicked her cursor and the dress turned pink. “Pink? Does any grown woman really want her bridesmaids to wear pink? This is what a nine-year-old plans for her wedding.… What about blue?… A dark blue? Remember, Alicia is overweight and a dark color will keep her from looking like a weather balloon.… Yes … Well, think it over. I’m about to go into a meeting.… Brilliant. Love you, too … Bye.”

  The photo disappeared from the computer screen, and Miss Holquist swiveled around in her chair. “My oldest daughter is getting married in nine weeks and she still hasn’t picked out her bridesmaids’ gowns. These wedding preparations were fun, but now the clock is ticking.”

  I had no idea how to respond to this comment, so I remained silent. Miss Holquist typed a command and the computer screen displayed the Power-I plan that I created to neutralize Victor Mallory.

  “I was very impressed with the plan you sent me for your recent assignment in Great Britain. I liked the delivery uniform, the box of champagne, and the fact that you went to an acting coach to learn the right accent.”

  “It was necessary.”

  “Yes, it was. And you actually talked to this actress for long periods of time?”

  “Each lesson lasted an hour.”

  “Mr. Underwood, I’ve underestimated you. I didn’t think you were capable of a sustained human interaction. I feel like I just bought one of those new voice-activated coffeemakers and then discovered that it can also speak French and feed the cat.”

  “I don’t speak French.”

  “That was a figure of speech, Underwood. It means that you’re more useful.” She moved the cursor and my plan disappeared. Miss Holquist’s screen saver showed a teenage girl and her younger sister holding snowboards next to a chairlift. “I know that you like your quiet time, but two of my enforcers are in Mexico City and we’re a bit shorthanded right now. Lorcan is capable of assignments that require a high degree of aggression, but I can’t send him around New York to interview people.” She flicked her hand. “Please … sit down.”

  I took a chair on the other side of the table and Miss Holquist stared at me for a few seconds. “The headquarters of the Brooks Danford Group is here in New York.”

  “Yes. I’ve walked by the building.”

  “A second-year associate named Emily Buchanan worked there, writing reports and preparing presentations for senior executives. Eight days ago this minor employee disappeared. Ms. Buchanan has switched off her phone and stopped answering her e-mail. No one knows where she is.”

  “Did the bank contact the police?”

  “This was one situation where our surveillance technology caused some problems. The bank uses the PAL system to monitor employee behavior. Normally, unusual behavior or trigger words in an e-mail would alert the bank’s security staff. But encrypted messages from the Private Clients Division are not scanned by the computer. It took several days for Jerome Evans, the head of security, to access Buchanan’s e-mail and get permission to read the coded message. What he found was very disturbing. This is the e-mail Buchanan received the night she disappeared.” Miss Holquist picked up a piece of paper and handed it to me.

  // We are in danger and have left the country. Our previous arrangement is now operational.

  “Who sent this?”

  “At this point, no one knows. It was transmitted from a public computer at the Dubai International Airport. Although Ms. Buchanan was only an associate, it’s possible that she could have obtained access to the private client accounts. Yes, I could contact the police or hire an investigator, but we need to minimize the number of people who know about this. I want you to find this girl and then I’ll decide what we’re going to do about her. You’ll be paid twice the rate of your recent work in Britain. Do you accept the assignment?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. You have an appointment to see Mr. Evans at the BDG building downtown at nine o’clock this evening. He’ll give you more information about your target. Visit the church tomorrow morning at ten a.m. and Gregory will give you some new equipm
ent. That’s all for now. Keep in touch.”

  Miss Holquist dialed a phone number on the computer and went back to looking at dresses as I walked out the door. “I just had an inspired idea, darling. What about burgundy red?”

  I left the office building and walked over to the Fifty-Ninth Street subway station. It wasn’t rush hour, so I could travel on a train and avoid touching anyone.

  Usually my Spark controls my thoughts—remaining in the present and staying away from the past. But seeing Lorcan Tate reminded me of what had occurred at the training camp. During our three months together, we learned about weapons, encrypted communication, and surveillance technology. Lorcan enjoyed the gun range and fighting with the martial arts instructor. I liked using the equipment that allowed me to see in the dark.

  We started the course in early May. By summertime, fireflies appeared after sunset and thousands of these winged beetles flashed yellow pulses of light. Thermal scopes turned the physical world into shades of black and white, but the cold light from the fireflies didn’t radiate heat. I preferred to look through the night-vision goggles, which magnified the faint amount of light coming from the moon and stars.

  Wearing the goggles, I left the training camp one evening and wandered through the forest. The chokeberry shrubs and laurel trees glowed with an incandescent green light and the fireflies were little chips of bright emerald. I hiked a few miles north, then turned around and followed a path back to the cabins. A few hundred yards from the camp, I heard a high-pitched yowling sound and my curiosity led me toward the green light that glowed through the gaps between the trees. Another wavering yowl. I forced my way through some bushes and found Lorcan Tate standing in a clearing.

  He had pierced a dog’s front legs with a sharpened rod, attached a rope, and then hung his captive from a tree. The dog howled and struggled and twisted its head around as Lorcan jabbed at its belly with a hunting knife.

  Lorcan heard my boots crunch through some leaves and spun around. I was blinded for a few seconds by his kerosene lantern, so I pulled off the goggles. “Where’d you get the dog?”

  “Took it from a farm about two miles from here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Lorcan jabbed at the dog with his knife. “Having fun. That’s all. What I do is none of your goddamn business.”

  The dog’s mouth was open and its body glistened with blood. As it panted for air, it showed sharp teeth and a lolling tongue. “Dogs are at the top of the pyramid,” I said. “They’re higher than you or me.”

  “You’re fucking crazy.…”

  I drew the semiautomatic pistol I had taken from the arms locker and fired. The hollow-point bullet ripped through the dog—killing it instantly. Its empty Shell spun around on the rope, and then spun back again.

  Clutching the knife, Lorcan charged me, but I raised the gun and pointed it at his head.

  He stopped. “You gonna kill me?”

  “Yes. If that’s necessary.”

  Lorcan lowered the knife and shook his head. “I just practice on the dogs. You’d be a lot more fun.”

  I fired again, hitting the dog’s body a second time, and it swung back and forth like a pendulum.

  At Fifty-Ninth Street, I followed the stairs underground and found a nubot sitting inside the clerk’s booth. The first subway bots were designed with squares and rectangles. They had blinking lights for eyes and resembled wind-up toys. But the development of SynSkin had been a breakthrough for bot appearance. The nubots looked human; their tongues moved when they talked, their eyes blinked, and their chests moved as if they were breathing. Like all nubots, the clerk in the booth was controlled by a reactive intelligence program that gave it the ability to learn from its experiences and change its behavior.

  Two Japanese-made nubot models had been purchased by the MTA. One was an overweight black woman named Rowena who was programmed to chat about the weather and make bland compliments about your appearance. But the booth at Fifty-Ninth Street used the second model: a slender Latino man named Sergio who smiled and made jokes.

  The growlers hated nubots, and the Plexiglas booth had been scratched with glass cutters and splattered with paint bombs. I stood in line, approached the window, and slid a cash card through the sensor slot.

  “A three-day pass, please.”

  Sergio’s eyebrows moved and the corners of his mouth turned upward. “It’s a pleasure to serve you, sir. Will you activate your card today?”

  “Yes.”

  The voice sensor had already received my request, but Sergio pretended to type instructions with a keyboard. A few seconds later, a yellow travel card slid out of the slot.

  “Have a great day, sir. I hope you enjoy exploring our wonderful city.”

  “You’re a machine.”

  “That’s right, my friend. And I’m a damn good-looking one.…”

  As I stepped away from the booth, the bot’s eyes followed my movements.

  I left my loft at eight o’clock that evening and walked down Broadway to the Financial District. I disliked visiting the area in the daytime, when the sidewalks were crowded with people who pushed past you and jabbed you with their elbows. But at night, surrounded by the skyscrapers, Wall Street was a clear and quiet maze of dark canyons. Limousines and black town cars idled outside office buildings, their exhaust pipes giving off puffs of white while the drivers waited for their passengers. A phone-repair truck was parked on Cortlandt Street, and its flashing blue light felt like a shrill sound within my mind.

  The Brooks Danford Group occupied a twenty-eight-story building on Maiden Lane. The first two floors were an atrium lobby with an enormous abstract painting on the inner wall. The outer wall was glass so that you could look at the art from the street but never get close to it.

  I passed through a revolving door and encountered an older black man talking to the young guard at the security desk. He had a shaved head that gleamed under the light, but his Shell was round-shouldered and saggy.

  “Mr. Underwood?” the man said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Jerome Evans, head of corporate security for BDG, New York.”

  “I’m here to get more information about your missing employee.”

  “Our building is protected by a PAL system. Do you know what that is?”

  “Personal Authorization Link. It tracks everyone.”

  “The CEO’s office requested that there be no video record of your visit here tonight. The lobby cameras have already been disabled, but it will take a few more minutes to switch off the upper floors.” Evans slipped on a headset and spoke to his Shadow. “Deactivate security sector three and elevator five.”

  While we waited for confirmation from the system, I wandered across the lobby and inspected the painting on the east wall. Out on the street, the painting appeared to be a tidal wave of different colors, but it was actually a collection of tiny stenciled images of pigs and machine guns and old-fashioned cash registers.

  Shoes clicked across the floor and then Evans stood beside me. “We’re ready to go.”

  “Who designed this painting?”

  “A British artist named X-Nemo. Did you see the blood?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A couple of years ago, the artist was accused of being a nubot owned by a consortium of art galleries, so he … look there … right there.”

  I peered around a potted rubber plant and saw a dark red handprint on the lower edge of the wall.

  “When X-Nemo finishes a painting, he cuts his wrist and leaves his blood on the canvas. The artist’s DNA authenticates the work. Frankly, I think most people in the creative field should do something like that. These days, you can’t really tell if it was a computer or a human that wrote a film script or created a pop song.”

  I followed Evans into the elevator and he touched the button for the fourteenth floor.

  “So why did they hire you?” he asked. “Are you some kind of investigator?”

 
“I know how to find people.”

  “Yeah … well … I do, too. I was a cop for sixteen years.”

  “I was told that Ms. Buchanan received an e-mail from the Dubai airport.”

  “That’s right. PAL would have picked it up right away, but private client messages aren’t read by the system.” The elevator door opened and Evans led me down a hallway. “Maybe Buchanan was involved in something illegal or maybe she jumped on a plane to Tahiti. I still don’t know what’s going on.”

  We entered a small office and sat down on opposite sides of a desk. Evans swiveled his computer screen toward me, then began typing commands on a keyboard. “PAL reads e-mails, monitors employee phone calls, and analyzes images from our system of surveillance cameras. This is digital footage from one of the cameras in the bull pen, where the associates work. And this is Emily Buchanan.…”

  A black-and-white video appeared on the monitor. It showed a section of a large workroom filled with desks and workstations. The date and time were in a box on the bottom of the screen. Using his mouse and keypad, Evans fast-forwarded the video, and then went to a close-up of a woman staring at a computer screen. All I could see was the back of her office chair, her shoulders, and long brown hair.

  “The associates do the grunt work for the managing partners. It’s typical for them to work late if they’re preparing a bond offering or an investment proposal. Ms. Buchanan was sitting at her desk at eleven twenty-four in the evening when she read the message from Dubai. You can see her reaction the moment it appears on her computer screen.”

  Evans fast-forwarded the digital video until “23:24 EST” appeared on the screen. “Okay. Now watch this. The e-mail from Dubai arrived at our server at eleven-eighteen p.m. Our records show that Buchanan accessed her e-mail six minutes later.”

  When the message appeared, Emily shifted in her chair and sat up a little straighter. Suddenly, she turned and glanced over her shoulder—as if she was aware that someone might be watching her. Without my phone download of different expressions, I wasn’t capable of interpreting her emotions.