At the moment, the nearer tables are not occupied. Grantworth waves off the approaching waiter and speaks quietly. “There was this incident at three thirty this morning.” He consults his wristwatch, probably for no purpose other than to be sure that Calaphas sees it’s a vintage Rolex Daytona worth maybe two hundred thousand. “Fourteen and a half hours ago. Just a couple blocks from here.”
“What incident?”
“One of our friends outside the agency, a man who believes in the New Truth and has connections of enormous value to us, was robbed of half a million in cash.”
“What—he uses a wheelbarrow for a wallet?”
“He’s an attorney, but he’s more than that.”
“Cocaine or fentanyl?”
“Let’s just say he represents various Central American and Chinese interests.”
“Let’s just say.”
“He’s in his office with two associates—”
“At three thirty in the morning.”
“He’s an overachiever. The building is a fortress—electronic locks, concealed doors with steel cores, high-end security system, a secret apartment. The thief waltzes through all that.”
“One guy?”
“He’s not even armed.”
“Three of them, one of him—and he isn’t dead?”
“It’s best you hear the rest from our friend. Carter Woodbine.” Grantworth slides the attorney’s card across the table. “Woodbine is pissed, and he’s calling on his relationship with us to find this thief.”
“As if we’re his personal police force?”
“Like I said, he’s a valuable asset to us.”
“Your asset, not mine. I don’t owe him anything.”
“Woodbine and those he’s aligned with keep the drugs coming across the border in the volume we need. Mass addiction is a key to the social change that the ISA was formed to foment. The chaos and violence caused by a vigorous drug subculture, the dropouts who become mental and unemployable—all of that helps pave the way for the New Truth.” Grantworth taps the business card that Calaphas hasn’t picked up. “He’ll be able to see you in his office at nine o’clock this evening, assuming that works for you.”
“Put someone else on it. What I’m already chasing is bigger than this Woodbine can ever hope to be.”
Grantworth’s smile is as thin as a line scored by a knife in a block of white Cheddar. “It’s connected to your assignment. One of Woodbine’s associates who was present when the robbery went down is a man named Rudy Santana. Six years ago, he spent three days in a courtroom, as a spectator, giving moral support to the defendant who was an associate of his.”
“Everyone has associates these days. More like he was giving the defendant the red eye to be sure he didn’t rat out his homeys.”
Grantworth shrugs. “Anyhow, Santana says the man who took the half million was a witness in that case six years ago, a security expert who was testifying for the prosecution. He couldn’t remember the name. We’ve gone through court records and discovered it was Michael Mace. That was before he sold his company, before Shelby Shrewsberry hired him at Beautification Research.”
After rolling some wine around his mouth, Calaphas says, “This attorney have any security video of Mace?”
“No. He’s a ghost, as at the lab in the valley. But Santana has a photo from the time of the trial. He’s printed it out for you. And Woodbine has something else he wants to discuss with you, something he’s not keen to share with just everyone, not even with me.”
“You know what happened at that lab. Happened to Mace?”
“We have a pretty good idea.”
Calaphas figures “pretty good idea” means that the highly educated dimwits at the executive level have it half figured out at best. He says, “Tech wizards have been enthusiastically predicting it for maybe thirty years, but they didn’t think it through far enough—what it would be like, what power and abilities would come with it. Now, thanks to archaea, it’s happening.”
Archaea, a microbial life-form once thought to be bacteria, is capable of horizontal gene transfer, carrying genetic material from one individual into another, from one species to another. In nature, this is a random process, perhaps serving evolution, but perhaps of little effect. At Beautification Research, scientists had undertaken experiments to determine if archaea could be adapted to transport intricate nanomachines into human cells with the hope of combining the knowledge and skills of the human brain with the greater data-storage capacity, processing speed, and fluid knowledge-sharing of computers. The billionaire tech cultists believe this is inevitable and will lead to a vastly improved human race millions of times more intelligent. They call this revolution the “Singularity.” They dare to believe they’ll live long enough for technology to advance to the point where they can transcend their biological limitations and become immortal cyborgs. It’s fallen to Calaphas to clean up after the scientists whom the tech royalty and the government funded.
He says, “As an elite class, they want to be the first to benefit from the Singularity. A society of godlike overlords.”
“That is an ungenerous assessment of their motives,” Grantworth protests. “They see themselves as benefactors of all humanity.”
Calaphas smiles. “How humble of them.” He pauses to enjoy more wine. “When the transforming event occurred, it was the result of an accident. Fifty-four killed, only one . . . elevated. Michael Mace is the Singularity, the entirety of it. You realize that?”
Grantworth appears profoundly uncomfortable. “Some speculation has begun to that effect.”
“The irony,” Calaphas says, “is that we don’t know what makes him so special. Why him and not the other fifty-four? A breakthrough has occurred, but we don’t know why—and it can’t be replicated.”
“It can be replicated,” Grantworth disagrees. “If we can find Mace and study him.”
The cabernet has a superb bouquet, which Calaphas enjoys as he stares at the deputy director over the rim of the wineglass.
At last, intimidated by that stare, Grantworth says, “What?”
“Apprehending this man is about as likely as finding and arresting Bigfoot.”
“If you don’t feel you’re up to the task—”
Calaphas puts his wine down and interrupts, succinctly describing what he believes are just a few of the extraordinary abilities that the lab accident has conferred on Michael Mace.
By the time that Calaphas finishes speaking and picks up his wineglass, Julian Grantworth has not just paled; he has gone gray. “No one man should ever have such power.”
Calaphas raises his glass as though in a toast. “Ah, a sudden enlightenment. Better late than never.”
Pushing his chair back from the table, Grantworth says, “I must confer with the director immediately.”
“You go confer. Form a committee of experts. They can devise a strategy. That’s always effective.”
Grantworth hates his underling almost as much as he fears him. Getting to his feet, he looks as if he is marshalling the nerve to upbraid Calaphas for his insolence or even remove him from the case—but he isn’t able to summon enough courage to act. His expanding chest deflates, even as the swollen artery in his left temple pulses more rapidly, more visibly. He issues only a statement that is in fact a question: “You’re staying on the case.”