Frontal Lobe Override

by

Karl Fandkin, NMRN

Text
copyright © Karl Fandkin

All rights reserved

Cover design: http://www.nickcastledesign.com

~~Disclaimer
~~

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, businesses, corporations, nonprofit organizations, social groups or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All thoughts, concepts, events, characters, and facts, such as they are, are presented for entertainment purposes only. Several sections of this novel may seem like nonfiction. They are not. I have access to Google. Of course I looked up several informational tidbits to give my work an impression of reality. When fact and fiction disagreed, fiction won. I encourage you, before accepting any text as fact, to perform due diligence and consult a few authoritative websites.

The views and opinions presented in this novel are solely mine and do not represent anyone else’s views or opinions, real or fictional.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Case

Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Marcia Fong opened her apartment door. Her colleague, Peter Goode, carried up the last box of files. He huffed a “Thanks,” and trudged to the dining table where Marcia had previously arranged folders containing depositions, motions, rulings, and investigators’ reports.

“I can’t believe Takeshi and Gregoryan couldn’t force them to waive.” Marcia removed folders from the box and proceeded to arrange them.

“Did you read the arraignment transcript?” Peter stacked the empty box with others near Marcia’s sofa.

“Still.” Marcia sat, beckoning Peter to sit as well.

“Judge Huntsman practically begged Collins and Grant to waive Wirther’s right to a speedy trial.” Peter sat adjacent to Marcia. “When Frank started to waive, Wirther interrupted.”

“That’d earn him an admonishment.”

“Worse. A psych eval.”

“And?”

“Calvin Wirther is fit to stand trial.” Peter placed his head in his hands and massaged his temples.

Peter once complained about his placement on DA Jose Aguilar’s B Team. As San Bruno’s former mayor’s son-in-law, he touted his political connections. Titan Gregoryan once proclaimed the B Team as “the land of the merely ambitious,” a slight intended for Marcia, but Peter overreacted. He said only a DA’s badge and bravado kept Gregoryan out of trouble. Prophetic. Fourteen months later, an appellate court in San Francisco overturned the A Team’s LienTronix financial fraud convictions.

LienTronix purported advanced bond-market derivative trend analysis and marketed several hedge funds based on propitiatory technology. As subprime mortgage failures weighed down financial markets, LienTronix reported record gains, which attracted several local institutional investors seeking safe harbors for their profits. Suckers. LienTronix’s published reports were far too complex to be understood, or believed.

In court, Chester Takeshi made professional investors babble like despondent chimpanzees whenever they tried to justify dumping significant sums into LienTronix hedge funds. Forensic accountants fared no better, but they demonstrated that when LienTronix’s analysis led to losses, they lied, and, in effect, set up yet another Ponzi scheme. As financial markets faltered further, LienTronix’s investors withdrew their capital. LienTronix defaulted. Santa Clara sheriffs arrested any corporate officers remaining in California. Takeshi and Gregoryan put on quite a show in court, and three LienTronix executives received light prison sentences.

The San Jose Mercury News spent three months writing a five-year anniversary article on the LienTronix convictions. Following up on the CEO’s insistence that there never was any evidence LienTronix knowingly misled investors (“Never was. Never will be. I regret authorizing John’s [CIO Ivan Sakarov] obliteration of our internal correspondence. They could have exonerated us.”), reporters uncovered that the prosecution knowingly allowed forged evidence.

The Securities and Exchange Commission never recovered LienTronix data. Their technicians declared it impossible even after hiring technology firms. They determined that LienTronix must have encrypted already encrypted files multiple times. Someone, presumed to be one of the police credit unions, convinced ADLR, Inc. to write a report about decryption successes even though their official report to the SEC admitted failure.

Takeshi normally handled technical evidence, but Gregoryan presented a bold, aggressive account of the investigation. He established that the SEC handled the recovery of data from LienTronix’s hard drives. He established that ADLR was one of the contractors, and he presented the report. Fast, hard-hitting, overwhelming. He pulled it off.

Flying high after those notable convictions, Takeshi and Gregoryan handled a succession of high-profile cases, including the Wirther prosecution. They worked their case, arraigned Cal Wirther, presented “the information,” and Judge Huntsman declared the prosecution had enough evidence to proceed to trial. Usually, defendants waived their right to a speedy trial. Cal Wirther did not.

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Enrique Esposito wrote that Wirther seemed confident, bordering on smug, like he knew something others did not. The following Sunday, the San Jose Mercury News published their five-year anniversary article.

Takeshi and Gregoryan’s absence from the DA’s office signaled trouble.

District Attorney Aguilar handed the Wirther case to Assistant District Attorneys Fong and Goode with only thirty-eight days till trial. They agreed to review the evidence separately for a week. With the DA’s office abuzz over Takeshi and Gregoryan’s spectacular fall from grace, Marcia decided they should collaborate at her place to cut down on distractions.

After sitting at the table, Peter rested his face in his palms, letting his fingers run through thinning blond locks.

“Stop that!”

“What?”

“Pulling on your hair like that.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. DA 101. Jurors relate to physical attractiveness. Your balding pate may concede some small tactical advantage.”

“They won’t be looking at me; they’ll be looking at you.”

“I do what I need to win.” She flashed her smile featuring bright, meticulously polished front teeth. “But there will be times when you will cross-examine witnesses or scribble down some note or distract a juror in some way, and I don’t want premature baldness to lose us a single point. I swear, I’ll wig you if you keep it up.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay, Pete, why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because we don’t have a case.”

“Of course we have a case.”

“Really?”

“We have assault, kidnapping, illegal medical procedures, human trafficking for purposes of prostitution, pandering, conspiracy and, in the middle of it all, we have Calvin J. Wirther, president and CEO of friggin’ NanoBotics, Inc.”

“And we can’t prove any of it.”

“Eighty-one women were captured . . .” Marcia stood.

“Any witnesses, security cam videos, filed complaints?”

“No, but those nanites didn’t just crawl into their ears and take over their brains on their own, now did they?”

“Objection!” Peter banged the table. “Conjecture; the prosecutor is drawing conclusions not supported by evidence.”

“Okay, but there is a lot of wrong, criminal wrong, on this table. The trial starts in five weeks. Surely there is something we can put him away for.”

“Us, no.” Peter swept his hair back. “The FDA can get them for illegal medical research, but that’s the Feds. We should just turn all this over to them and walk away.”

“The Feds won’t step in until all criminal prosecutions are exhausted. It’s like the Rodney King trial. First, we go; then, they go.”

“Well, let’s get it over quick. Take our licks, let the Feds take their shot.”

“Take our licks? NO! I don’t take licks. We’ve got to win this. We &#8212”

“No, we don’t. The DA told us to play this smart. Remember all that Tin Cup talk. It’s better to layup than to sink seven balls.”

“Asshole.” Marcia’s leaned forward, arms akimbo. “He meant we better make a good show, or our careers are sunk. Sunk seven times over. This case is big. Huge. We lose, we lose big. I’ll be lucky if I litigate ever again-forget becoming the first female DA this county ever saw.”

Marcia stopped to catch her breath. Her hands had slipped off her hips some sentences ago. They punctuated her speech as they were trained to years before, starting in high school debate. She’d rehearsed body language for decades till intentional manipulation appeared instinctual.

“And you,” she continued. “You dream of what? Governor? Senator? Now dream that every opponent brings up how you lost this case. You’ll be lucky to be elected dog catcher. If you really think we have already lost, there’s the door. Good luck on your next career.”

Marcia knew Peter’s desire to eclipse Don Walker, his father-in-law and former San Bruno mayor. Peter told her the prosecutor’s political rule: ‘If you want to play, you have to put someone away.’ He needed a big win to launch a campaign for political office, and Calvin Wirther would be that win.

“Litigation 101.” Peter’s hand stopped mid-pull. “Every case sells a story. So let’s shape all this into a compelling narrative.”

Marcia looked at the thick file folders piled on her dining table.

“We need a hook; we need a good start.” Peter stood for emphasis.

“All good stories start at the beginning.” Marcia grabbed Calvin Wirther’s file.

“Actually, all good . . .” Peter tried correcting Marcia but missed the opportunity.<

Marcia recited Cal Wirther’s history, starting with middle school science fair accolades, valedictorian at Throop Pennsylvania’s Mid Valley Senior High, bachelor’s in Applied Mathematics and a master’s in Computer Science from Stanford. Trinity BioTech employed Calvin as a summer intern during his Stanford years. He met and married Mia Caproni. Trinity BioTech hired Cal out of grad school. Mia took a stable job in San Bruno City Hall. They saved and put a down payment on a house with city assistance. They prospered for ten or so years and managed to build a substantial financial portfolio despite the economic downturn in 2007.

“A loving couple living the American dream,” Peter interrupted. “But when Cal Wirther gets laid off, does he quit? No. He does his research and invests his whole retirement into a failing high-tech company. Jeez, you gotta love this guy.”

“This guy is a kidnapper, a rapist and a sex trafficker, for Christ’s sake. He even pimped out his own wife.”

“Ex-wife, for the most part.”

“No, look.” Marcia set down Calvin’s file and pawed through folder piles, searching for Vince Winkel’s.

“It doesn’t matter. By the time he gets Dr. Winkel to invest in NanoBotics, the jury is going to love him. His patent filings alone will bring a couple jurors to his side.” Peter waited to make eye contact. “Are you sure this is the story you want to tell?”

“Perhaps not.” She waved her hand over the dining table. “We’re prosecutors. We represent the victims.”

Marcia dug into the same pile of folders containing Calvin’s. She thumbed two or three deep and pulled out a much thinner file.

Chapter 2: Joy Holiday

June 15, 2006

Joy Holiday moaned and rolled her eyes back as far as she could. She’d done this a thousand or so times in her fortune quest. Donny, a hedge fund manager who pinned her legs up high, probably didn’t notice. She leveraged his unrelenting force to contract her pelvic muscles, faking a vaginal orgasm. He revved his thrusting cadence to match her quivering contractions. When she relaxed, he relented.

Poor thing, Joy thought. He can’t feel satisfied unless he thinks he satisfies me. I’m just a story to tell his buddies later. Joy knew the type well. They pounced on presumably vulnerable women because they could, because it was cool, because, in American culture, it proved their worth. For them, their greatest pride was that they had impromptu sex with beautiful women, and these women enjoyed it. His timing completed the dossier. He didn’t know when to stop, so he took cues from his partners. How ironic, Joy contemplated. His overbearing lack of technique, predicated on control and dominance dynamics, let his lovers manipulate him as long as they recognized his true intentions.

He rolled over and lay flat on his back. Joy rolled onto her side and peeked. She wondered how long he might lie there. She needed to return to work, real work, not side tasks. She had no time for MSOG plays. His breathing deepened, then dwindled to a sigh.

“Oh, sorry,” Donny said. “I have to evaluate two more troubled startups before flying back to New York tonight.”

His regained attention prompted her to contract and relax her pelvic muscles while she let a sigh escape. Control freaks liked believing they left physical impacts which lasted more than the fleeting moments of brief, meaningless sexual encounters. His palm imprints may last an hour or two; he grasped her waist and thighs that hard.

“I really do have to get going.” He grabbed his trousers, dressed quickly, not bothering to shower and rushed out dangling a suit jacket over his shoulder.

Typical. He left her to pay the hotel bill. Joy smiled as he left, her mission accomplished. He’d have a story to tell. He banged the sexy executive secretary, she wanted more and she even paid all the bills. He wouldn’t tell the more damaging story. NanoBotics was in trouble. Their prototypes failed several critical tests, and their shipping deadline slipped months rather than days, not that anyone cared. They already lost their prime customers.

No one seemed interested in general-purpose programmable nanites with combinative capabilities architected with Ant Theory&#8482 and optionally equipped with twitch membranes which allowed them to swim in fluids or fly in strong air currents. NASA and DARPA showed early interest, which brought in SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital Sciences, a ton of venture capitalists and hedge funds. Slime, makers of self-sealing tires, seemed the strangest potential business partner. They were interested in self-repairing devices, much like NASA, but on a much more practical level. For Slime, the prototypes were too expensive, so they dropped out. NASA left as soon as the first investor wave washed seemingly unlimited cash into NanoBotics, enough to staff up and begin development in earnest. Eighteen months later, the nanites behaved unreliably, and most potential partners departed. DARPA withdrew interest last week, and some remaining investors sent jerks like Donny to evaluate loss potential.

Joy showered and re-robed. She didn’t worry about the room; she paid for it a week ago by spending a night with the hotel’s day manager. In similar ways, she built up credit at several Silicon Valley luxury hotels.

Usually, she bailed before the final phases of failed startups, but financial market rumblings froze venture capital, and employment opportunities proved hard to find. She was not the only attractive secretary/fixer. Both interviewers last month eyed her potential value to their enterprises. Somehow, those companies managed to upscale in an unfavorable financial environment. Joy heard their pitches before, boy geniuses believing they were the next Microsoft, Google, HP or Apple. Joy wished she knew how to select a successful startup. So far, she was oh for six.

From her perspective as an executive assistant, the business pattern remained the same. Some geeky guy develops a cool little toy, a quirky, fun thing. One of his buddies sinks his life savings into developing the toy into a consumer product. A startup is born. If it looks like they got something that can be monetized somehow, they attract a venture capitalist. Real money flows in, and they staff up. Engineers, accountants, the whole shebang. This was where Joy joined the enterprise. Then, the startup splinters and loses focus. Each faction thinks they’re the most important. The tech group thinks they’ve got a product capable of selling itself. The marketing/development teams disagree. If every man, woman and child in America can’t live without the product, it needs something. They add seemingly frivolous features, sending new specifications to tech development. All the while, support services, the startup’s backbone, keep everyone paid, arrange health benefits and watch the bottom line.

As the assistant to the vice president of operations, Joy belonged to the financial group. In their staffing-up period, startups burned through initial millions quick. Nervous venture capitalists preferred to mitigate risks by attracting more investors. Because of her tall, slender, but distinctly curvy frame, pearly teeth, perfectly proportioned nose and blonde hair, Joy’s bosses invited her to every investor recruitment event. All the investors seemed charming. Some were even attractive. They flirted with her, and she flirted back. In her mind, Plan B for riches and retirement could be marrying one of these men. At her first startup, she allowed a pudgy investor to seduce her at a prospectus presentation reception.

Corine Waters, who usually accompanied their venture capitalist, congratulated her. Pudgy ponied up three million. Corine explained her role, and Joy’s, in securing additional capital to keep their startup afloat during product development and marketing. Corine coached Joy on which investors responded to favors, which would take offense and which fucked you but never invested. Corine encouraged Joy to have an affair with Pudgy and three other investors and advised which ones overlapped. Overlapping, sleeping with investors who were likely to compare notes, would make Joy seem like a common slut, not a highly prized conquest. Corine and a few other women met before receptions, milestone events and other occasions to work out a game plan to keep needed capital flowing.

Although Joy jokingly called Corine “Comrade Pimp,” she took note of every piece of information Corine offered. Corine and the “Financial Fems” also shared notes on their investor’s performance, physical characteristics and peccadilloes. Joy didn’t have the heart to tell the Fems she didn’t enjoy sex with her investors, but she did enjoy hearing the Fems’ accounts, a great source of information on how to treat the investors for maximum return.

Affairs during a startup launch, staff up, and initial operations were more pleasant than the later phases. In the beginning, everyone had hope. This startup would be their big ticket. Investors put in their money to keep dreams alive. They treated sex with Joy, Corine and the Financial Fems as an unexpected gift, part of the celebration.

During the middle period, servicing investors took on mistress aspects. Resolving scheduling conflicts became a labor all its own. Once again, Corine provided guidance. Each investor had to think his affair with a Fem was unique. Tragic consequences followed any discovery that a Fem maintained multiple affairs. For the Fems, investor dropouts provided some relief, but the general startup mood soured. At Joy’s first startup, Corine jumped ship after the first two major investors decided not to reinvest. Enough other investors pumped tens of millions more dollars into the startup, a few months’ reprieve.

Joy hung on to her first startup too long. Once a sexual treat to a sweet ground-floor opportunity, Investor Relations devolved and roughened as if the remaining Financial Fems were a small payback for losing millions. All the while, management put on an optimistic face, and techies scrambled to make their new wonder product work.

When Joy arrived back at the NanoBotics office, Mindy corralled her into a corner. Mindy, an accounting clerk, received her pink slip. As if rough, demanding sex with Donny hadn’t signaled the end, the first round of layoffs shot off a big warning flare. Learning a final lesson from Comrade Pimp, Joy departed startups two through six when the first investors cut bait. Each time, she found a new promising venture and found herself on the Financial Fem team. This time, there were no new startups eager to hire her.

Joy reassured Mindy, told her lies about job opportunities, calmed her down, promised to take her out to lunch next week, escorted her back to her cubicle and helped her pack her belongings. A hired HR contractor handled exit interviews, explained how unemployment insurance worked and handed out termination packets. Of NanoBotics’s 196 employees, thirty-two departed, mostly support staff.

Joy returned to her desk. Before waking up her computer, she opened her file drawer. She withdrew a green folder near the back labeled “Goals and Inspiration.” Joy looked at printed pages of expat lifestyle websites. She shut her eyes and dreamed of Costa Rican beaches, the Mexican Riviera, a former maharajah’s castle and even a verdant Canadian wilderness, places she could live in comfort with spoils from an IPO. A life without CEOs, Financial Fems and the likes of Donny.

At her desk, Joy attempted to filter Clarkson Thorne’s CEO email flood. She found a flash drive in her bottom drawer and resurrected a folder labeled “DeathThrow1,” which contained appropriate templates for angry emails. It also included macros and rules for sorting emails into new folders: “Business,” “Mild,” “Angry,” “Hot Angry,” “Deranged” and “Dangerous.” She updated the templates and set auto-response macros loose. As multiple progress bars filled her screen, she attempted meditation.

At each startup, executives diminished Financial Fems’ distractions by posting virtual do-not-touch signs. At least one middle manager’s immediate dismissal made an excellent example of the consequences of flirting with them. At Joy’s third startup, she and Bob Duncan, a lead programmer, struck up a friendship which management didn’t dissuade. Both she and Bob shared startup life cycle notes during lunches. Joy recalled their lunch conversation after their first round of layoffs.

“How many in your section?”

“Seven programmers in total, but only two in development. Yours?”

“We lost most of our clerical staff, but none of, of &#8212”

“None of the Fems. They still think there’s hope.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be rough.”

“How long before you jump ship?”

“I have three interviews next week. I scheduled them right after, uh, investor interludes, so, uh, no one will notice when I’m out of the office.”

“Nice.”

“You?”

“Next Friday should be my last day.”

“Giving notice on?”

“Wednesday.”

“Seems soon. It should be a while before they get to you.”

“I can’t bear the upcoming ignorant-management-ego phase.”

“Have we discussed this?”

“No, not really. From your perspective, rounds two through four are just cutting weight: fat at first, then meat and bone, but from the tech perspective, they’re cutting brains first. At this stage, that’s the worst thing they can do.”

“What? I mean, they’re trying to keep the core team together and solve the technical problem.”

“But it’s the same problem they’ve been working on for two years. The software team thinks the hardware is at fault. We keep debugging our code, but our manager won’t consider that the design is wrong. The engineering team points to irrelevant code bugs, thinking it’s just a programming problem, but Johannesen won’t consider that repeated hardware failures are an engineering design problem.”

“Well, what is it?”

“We can’t tell. None of the managers, the core team, are willing to strip down the product and look at it fresh. They are in the way.”

“So? Instead of cutting programmers and engineers, we need to cut management?”

“Yeah, and hire a Mandelbrot.”

“A what?”

“In the 1960s, IBM was trying to figure out how to transmit data from one computer to another. Static on the line, however, messed it up. They increased the power to drive up the signal-to-noise ratio, but the noise always crept in.”

“So this is an engineering problem?”

“That’s what they all thought, so they brought in Mandelbrot to figure how much power they needed on the line to eliminate the static problem.”

“How much? Ten times more?”

“It was impossible. Mandelbrot reviewed the data and recognized the pattern as Cantor’s Dust, a fractal that replicates on all scales.”

“But we have the internet. Everyone gets tons of data every day.”

“Because Mandelbrot suggested using error detection and correction. It ended up being a software solution, and now we send data using very little power at all. The point is, we need a Mandelbrot who can see deep into our problem, and management needs to listen.”

“But all our managers have such big egos.”

“And they probably laid off twenty or so people capable of implementing the solution a Mandelbrot would suggest. It would have been better to lay off management and hire a consultant who thinks differently.”

“So was Mandelbrot an engineer or a software guy like you?”

“Neither, he was a mathematician.”

NanoBotics’s layoff schedule seemed accelerated. In less than two months, the company was down to a dozen employees&#8212survival mode. Joy moved most of her remaining money from long-term investments to short-term cash. Her portfolio once topped $250k. Present value: $78k.

The next month, NanoBotics consisted of the CEO, busily looking for a white knight to bail out the company; the CFO, who kept shifting small amounts of money from one account to another just to keep the lights on; and Joy, who answered phones, emails and in-person inquiries. Basically, she lied to everyone who tried to communicate with NanoBotics. Even Investor Relations, and investor payback sex, ceased. Creditors, unfortunately, were not easily distracted or dissuaded.

Three weeks later, CFO Thomas Aquino moved back to the Philippines, leaving his wife and three children behind. Between phone calls a few weeks later, Joy read a CNN article detailing his wife’s family’s successful efforts to move herself and the children back to Muntinlupa. On a trip to the capital, she ran into her husband. They reconciled.

Joy regarded the Aquino family reunion photo when Calvin Wirther first walked through NanoBotics’s door. Clarkson Thorne, CEO, met him for fifteen minutes before giving him a guided tour through NanoBotics’s remains. Four days later, Cal Wirther purchased all outstanding NanoBotics shares, once valued at over $120 million, for less than $400k.

Cal started his first day as president and CEO of NanoBotics dressed in cargo khakis and a gray sweatshirt over a T-shirt. He brought a dolly from home and rearranged equipment from the prototype lab and nanite manufacturing floor into a single room. He moved most of the computers into his own office.

With bright green masking tape and a felt marker, Cal took Joy on a facility tour. He marked off logical subsections. Cal’s instructions seemed simple enough. NanoBotics still leased the building for another sixteen years. The lease payment was their biggest monthly expense. Joy needed to sublet the remaining space. Her salary, up to five thousand a month, would be drawn from rental profits.

Joy Googled rental and sublet agreements and management and spent $10k on security and locks from her own money. She advertised for renters. To her surprise, she did not have to sleep with anyone to land tenants. First, two medical marijuana companies snatched up large spaces for hydroponics. A large number of garage-phase startups and a fair number of work-from-home consultancies needed faux office space and were willing to pay monthly retainers to keep their name on the marquee and directory board. They paid extra for every day they took up space. This group accounted for mortgage payments even in bad months. Many medium data services raking in contracts when large companies laid off their own workers rented satellite office space on a monthly basis. NanoBotics suddenly made money. Joy kept a large presentation theater and four large conference rooms for events, mostly weeklong training seminars. Joy talked Cal into extending the lease.

Even after Cal increased Joy’s salary to $8k per month, NanoBotics, for the first time ever, operated at a profit. Cal chastised Joy over the medical marijuana rentals. He made a special deal with them. Essentially, he hacked the electricity and water meters, spreading increased usage over several accounts so police and the feds could not use billing data to pinpoint and raid their building.

Two months later, Joy sat before her receivables spreadsheet, pondering her outrageous fortune. Against all odds, the “hangers-on” strategy worked. Seeing NanoBotics still in operation, many former Financial Fem colleagues called looking for jobs.

Cal interrupted her reverie. He placed a capped plexiglass cylinder on her desk. Suspended in viscous fluid, several million nanites spelled “NanoBotics.”

“Decades ago, IBM used nanotech to make similar promotional items,” Cal said. “But they never did this.”

Cal pushed the cylinder. As it rolled over three or four times, the nanites kept their position. At times, the letters looked a little fuzzy. Joy stopped it, and the letters sharpened, once again spelling “NanoBotics” perfectly.

“You worked out the bugs?”

“Better than that.” Cal fetched a pair of Bluetooth headphones from his cargo pocket. He pressed the power button. After a few seconds, the letters seemed to vibrate. “Nanites, spell: Joy Holiday.”

Joy watched millions of nanites swim around until they formed “joyholiday.” She rolled the cylinder, and they maintained formation. Cal passed her the headphones.

“Now, you try it.”

“Cal Wirther.” Unsure, her intonation raised at the end. The nanites spelled “calwirther?”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Cal beamed. “Not only do they hold position, they use Ant Theory&#8482, our own version of the Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm, to make new formations, in this case, spelling. But the coolest thing is that they also form an electric circuit. They’re replicating Bluetooth with simple voice control.”

Cal’s a programmer, Joy realized. They seek external validation, which comes from eliciting praise from others, programmers and nonprogrammers alike. Confirmation expression: “cool.”

“How long can they last?”

“Only about a minute or two. Then they run out of power.”

“I don’t see any ports. How do you recharge it?”

“I have to replace the fluid. It’s just proof of concept. Still some issues to work out.”

“Oh.”

“Still pretty cool, eh?”

“Yeah, but who needs a sign cylinder that only lives for a couple minutes?”

“No one, but I have potential killer apps in mind.”

Joy’s shrug prompted a longer explanation.

“These nanites can form complex, intelligent circuitry. They can live and thrive in any electrical environment.”

Joy added upturned palms to her shrug repeat.

“Like the human nervous system, the human brain. Now, what condition would Americans pay good money to resolve?”

“Alzheimer’s?”

“More, many more Americans.”

“You tell me.”

“Weight control.” Cal beamed.

Joy’s jaw slacked as the gravity of this exchange pressed into her life calculations. This could be big, very big. Against a failing economy, a paucity of job prospects, stuck hanging on to a failed startup (the worst possibly-get-rich scheme), she found her Mandelbrot. Her dream of sex-free luxury lay just on the other side of a NanoBotics reboot.

“I think we are ready for some investors.” Cal opened his computer bag, revealing ten or more cylinders ready for activation. “I’m going out to meet a few people. Be prepared to answer some calls.”

Investors. The word rang through Joy’s mind. For months, she’d been too wrapped up in her lease agreements and room rental management to notice she let her Investor Relations skills atrophy. NanoBotics’s meteoric demise meant far less investor distraction sex. She’d played Comrade Pimp at her last two startups entertaining investors less than younger Financial Fems. She barely noticed the lack of sex. Despite persistent financial fears, Joy realized she just went through the happiest time in her adult life.

Joy snatched her cell phone, sighed, and checked through her contacts, concentrating on hotel managers. She’d need access to free hotel rooms. She hoped the hotels fared better than startups during the initial years of this recession. She made several “dates.” Her Mandelbrot needed investors. It was time for her to suit up and get into the game.

But it was a wasted effort. Cal hooked only one investor, Dr. Vince Winkel, owner of SCMedGroup, Inc., the largest, by far, medical provider in Silicon Valley. SCMedGroup was comprised of hundreds of medical clinics, storefront emergency clinics, outpatient surgical centers and four full hospitals. The Wall Street Journal labeled it a quiet monster. Each clinic appeared to be independently operated. Only small print on billing statements linked the clinics together, and it took some investigation to link PrimePay, the billing services corporation, to SCMedGroup.

Joy didn’t recognize Vince, one of the most powerful non-tech businessmen in Silicon Valley, when Cal introduced him. His mildly repulsive appearance reminded her of the type of car accident you look away from. Joy shuddered when he extended his hand and introduced himself as Dr. Vincent Winkel. She remembered his type from high school and concluded he became a doctor because that was the only way he could feel a woman’s tits without paying for the pleasure.

It was all for naught. Dr. Winkel became Cal’s partner. Bound by startup rules, he could look, but not touch, a Financial Fem.

* * *

“From here,” Marcia admitted, “Joy’s memory gets a bit spotty.”

“The problem with all the folders in that pile.” Peter patted the second largest folder pile on Marcia’s kitchen table. “We can’t use any of it.”

“Why not?”

“McMartin. The therapists directed their sessions to uncover Wirther’s involvement. What little evidence we have contradicts that. The same therapists worked with Miss Holiday.”

“So we can’t use any recovered memories. We can use their actual memories.”

“Great. I can hear it now. ‘Hi. I’m Candy. I was just an ordinary girl, you know, sorta cute an’ all. Then, one night I felt woozy. The next few days, I felt a little weird, but Dr. Winkel helped me through it. He even threw in some plastic surgery, and I became the knockout you see today. Anyways, a few months after, I joined a dating service that specialized in setting up babes with techies who made it big. You’d be surprised how many there are. I didn’t realize it, but I must have harbored a secret thing for them. All a’ sudden, I’d show up at their apartment, or house, or condo or hotel and have sex with them. I mean hot, heavy, even kinky sex with men I’d never met before, stuff I never did before&#8212′”

“Oh, God, stop!”

“That’s about all you’re gonna get out of that pile of folders. Less favorable variants in the other two piles of victim folders.”

“Fine! You’re right, but we can corroborate their memory lapses with other testimony.”

“Like what?”

“Dr. Vincent Mohandes Winkel, President and CEO of SCMedGroup, Inc.”

“Christ! How would that go?”

Chapter 3: Vince Winkel

MF:	Please tell us your qualifications as a doctor.
VW:	I am a sex-starved pervert who became a doctor to touch women’s private parts protected by prophylactic rubber gloves.

“He would never say that,” Marcia protested from behind her kitchen table, now serving as a prosecutor’s table. Peter moved his chair several feet away to mock a witness seat. “Stick to the script!”

“Skip to the good part.”

“By having him list off his impressive degrees and medical certifications, the jury will vest confidence in him as an educated professional.”

“Which his rat-face and high-pitched voice will ruin as they smirk at him.”

“When he starts tying our case together, they’ll listen to him.”

“When’s that?”

“In the middle of page three.”

MF:	When did you first meet Calvin Wirther?
VW:	It must have been the middle of November 2007. The fifteenth, I think; it was a Thursday.
MF:	Can you describe the meeting?
VW:	He called earlier that week. He said he was developing a revolutionary new weight loss technology. My secretary sent him in, and he showed me a plastic cylinder of nanites suspended in electrically charged fluid. They formed a Bluetooth circuit and could spell any word you commanded.
MF:	That doesn’t sound like a new diet to me.
VW:	Cal explained that these nanites could be programmed to do many things. Since nerves provide electricity, nanites can travel along the nerves, settle in the brain, form circuits, and, by discharging small amounts of electricity in the right area at the right time, influence brain activity.
MF:	By influence, do you mean control?
VW:	Certain areas of the brain control certain functions. The brain’s central areas are more primitive. They receive pain and control motor functions. Embedded near these are emotion-related areas like the amygdala, hypothalamus and the anterior cingulate cortex, influence other higher-order brain functions.
MF:	By influence, you mean control?
VW:	No, not control. People associate emotions with events. Often this happens in real time. Emotions originate in certain areas of the brain. So if you can trigger emotions as people interact, you can influence their behavior.
MF:	An example?
VW:	Let’s say you never liked fish. When you encounter fish, certain areas in your brain fire, you have a negative emotional reaction to fish
MF:	So you can force someone to eat fish even though they don’t like fish?
VW:	Force? No. We would never try motor control. It was always their decision. The nanites could change the way they felt about things. They influenced the way our subjects made decisions but never made the decisions for them.

“It’s about here,” Peter observed, “that our dear Dr. Winkel went on a thirty-four-minute diatribe about how no one would want a woman whose decisions or motions seemed mechanical or controlled. Features which differentiated their product from the traditional product.”

“Traditional product?”

“Sex workers.”

“We’ll return to that topic later. For now, stick to the script.”

MF:	So how did you get perfectly normal women to go to men’s homes and, often within minutes, have sex with them, or, perhaps that should be phrased as, subjected themselves to the sexual perversions of unfamiliar men?
VW:	Subjected themselves? No. They willingly participated. They enjoyed being these men’s fantasy girls. Haven’t you ever wanted to be a man’s fantasy girl?
MF:	This is not about me. This is about the women NanoBotics injected with nanites.
VW:	Okay.
MF:	Okay.

“I remind you, Vincent Winkel, not Calvin Wirther, injected these women. For this, and oh so many reasons, he should be on trial and not our witness.”

“Hold on, Pete, I’m getting there.”

MF:	What I don’t understand is, how can a librarian, like Eileen Paxon, who barely dated before becoming involved with therightkind.com, become a fantasy girl?
VW:	It’s quite a long process. After recruitment&#8212
MF:	You mean abduction?
VW:	My testimony, my words. You want to have someone call it abduction, find some other witness.
MF:	Apologies. But how did you train these women
VW:	Recruits.
MF:	&#8212Fto be so sexually active?
VW:	Women were recruited to our legitimate dating service for their particular attributes, both physical and psychological.

“Oh, God!” Peter mocked expectoration. “That just tastes bad.”

“So you’re finally coming around to my point of view?”

“This guy is such a sleaze.”

“And that sleaze factor will transfer to Wirther. It was Wirther who came up with the victim profile after the Waters experiment.”

“Risky strategy.”

“About the only one that will work in this case.”

“Still, be careful. What was that lexical insertion attempt? You know, even a PD would object.”

“You took every left turn in the script and a few I don’t remember. I got a little frustrated.”

“Expect these guys to squirm all over the place. Even though Winkel is our witness, he might think he can wiggle out and get off scot-free.”

“Well, if you wiggle a little less, I can get to my point on victim recollection.”

“Promise to make it quick?”

“Promise.”

MF:	After recruitment, they ended up in one of your medical clinics where you or one of your associates injected nanites near the base of their skulls?
VW:	Just me. I was the only one who applied the nanites.
MF:	Then what happens?
VW:	The nanites are pre-programmed to travel along nerves until they arrive at the brain’s central area where they take on integrated tasks from network circuits.
MF:	Sounds like a busy beehive.
VW:	We thought of it as more of an anthill. Cal utilized Ant Theory&#8482 in his nanite programming. Each nanite is harmless. They carry a few instructions. But when they get together, they become much more. After they establish a Bluetooth circuit and central processing core, the network can accept programming. The first thing we did was map brain functions, so we knew what parts of a subject’s brain fired and when.
MF:	Like CAT scans?
VW:	Way better. Much more accurate.
MF:	But how did you know what stimulated all this brain activity?
VW:	We already tapped the thalamus through which all sensory data flows, but we dispatched more nanites to both the visual and auditory cortexes.
MF:	So you knew they were looking at something?
VW:	Better than that, we reconstructed their vision and hearing in near real time.
MF:	So you turned your recruits into video cameras?
VW:	The resolution was far from commercial grade at first, but it enabled us to capture their emotional response to what they saw and heard. Thalamus monitoring gave us a read of the other senses as well.

“We need to revisit this section,” Peter said.

“What about?”

“Their ‘commercial grade’ intended use of their victims’ video.”

“Perhaps later. I’m real close now to the point I’m trying to make.”

“It’s been a long time. Do you really think jurors’ attention spans will cover this lengthy road? They like stories straight and simple; black and white; guilty or not guilty.”

“Old-school, Peter. That’s your father talking. Today’s jurors binge-watch Game of Thrones and sit through three-hour superhero movies.”

“Those were action-packed; this is not.”

“You’ve never watched Game of Thrones, have you?”

“Fine, proceed.”

MF:	So you use their brain mappings, their sensory data, and emotional responses to retrain their mind?
VW:	By firing nanites to affect emotional responses, we were able to influence their choices.
MF:	Associate positive feelings with things you want them to like?
VW:	Yes.
MF:	Focusing on sexual stimuli?
VW:	Among other things.
MF:	In the case of Eileen Paxon, you influenced a sex-phobic, devout Cristian librarian to become a willing call girl.
VW:	She was never a call girl. Call girls get paid for sex.
MF:	Okay, an easy slut.
VW:	That’s not fair. She did what she did for rational reasons.

“I think you just made another left,” Peter said. “And this line will only get you into trouble.”

“Trouble? How?”

“The rat doctor will reveal that the girls all joined an internet dating site which matches prosperous but lonely techno-geeks with attractive women. Since these men are so desirable as husband material, rational women will adopt competitive strategies including broader sexual mores.”

“I’ve got counters to that.”

“And he will ask you if you ever stretched your sexual mores to advance either your personal or professional life.”

“Mistrial. Any lawyer who introduces personal details of their opponent’s personal life faces disbarment.”

“But not any witness. You opened yourself up to it.”

“I’ll change the script.”

“Okay. Let’s go back to sexual stimuli.”

MF:	Focusing on sexual stimuli?
VW:	We focused on centrally located emotional brain areas.
MF:	Because you can control women that way.
VW:	Control? No, but they have considerable influence.
MF:	Is this influence limited to decisions?
VW:	No.
MF:	They affect health, through sleep, for example?
VW:	Yes, and they assist in keeping up with hygiene and exercise.
MF:	And memory?
VW:	Yes.
MF:	Explain.
VW:	You’ve probably heard people who say they compartmentalize their memories, right?
MF:	Go on.
VW:	There are brain functions associated with compartmentalization, usually emotional associations. We were able to facilitate compartmentalization in our subjects.
MF:	You could erase memories?
VW:	Erase? No, probably not, but we could make them undesirable to access.

“See.” Marcia pounded a fist on her kitchen counter. “From there, we can use their intentional memory control to justify memory extraction.”

“McMartin,” Peter countered. “The defense will have several psychiatrists tell jurors there’s no way any therapist can direct their patients to recall things without influencing their memories.”

“Then how can we get Felicity Nograno’s and Valerie Johnson’s abductions into the record?”

“Not with this witness. In fact, I think we should have prosecuted the rat face instead of upholding the deal with him.”

“Takeshi and Gregoryan made the deal. Get with it. He was the first person to illuminate what Calvin Wirther was up to.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“How can he hurt our case?”

“Give me a minute.” Peter scribbled. He drew up a quick script for Vince Winkel’s cross-examination. He penciled in enough left turns to prevent Marcia from calling foul.

Marcia scrounged through her refrigerator, eventually accumulating omelet ingredients and a frying pan. She presented Peter his snack just as he finished his script. They agreed to eat before proceeding.

PG:	When did you first meet Calvin Wirther?
VW:	May 2007, I believe. He made an appointment through my secretary. I remember scolding her before the meeting.
PG:	What happened in the meeting?
VW:	He demonstrated his programmable nanites. They were suspended in a fluid in a sealed plexiglass tube.
PG:	Not very impressive. My father has an IBM paperweight from the 1980s made with nanotechnology.
VW:	I don’t know about your father’s paperweight, but these nanites could spell any word you told them to. I was impressed.
PG:	Explain.
VW:	These nanites formed complex computer circuitry and executed sophisticated programs. As computers have changed every aspect of our lives, these nanites showed enormous potential.
PG:	Why did Calvin Wirther demonstrate these nanites to you?
VW:	He thought they could be used in medicine.
PG:	What sort of medicine?
VW:	Behavior modification. Weight management, in particular.
PG:	What did you think about the nanites’ chances as FDA-approved medical devices?

“I don’t like where this line of questioning leads.” Marcia scanned down the script. “There’s no way I’m ever going to admit to that.”

“Good, turn Dr. Rat Face into a hostile witness. That’ll make jurors trust him more. Good luck with that.”

“He could give reasonable, non-self-implicative answers other than the ones you scripted.”

“I think the defense will get it out of him.”

“Well, let’s see if you can get it out of me.”

you, your corporation, or any subsidiary of your corporation ever invested in an up-and-coming medical technology?

PG:	What did you think about the nanites’ chances as FDA-approved medical devices?
VW:	Testing is underway for nanites to deliver targeted toxins to cancer cells. There are plans to use nanites to mechanically rearrange deviant DNA sequences.
PG:	Does any proposed nanite technology allow nanites to network, form intelligent circuits?
VW:	None I know of.
PG:	That makes Calvin Wirther’s invention quite unique, doesn’t it?
VW:	I never heard of anything like it.
PG:	And you keep up with advances in medical technology?
VW:	Yes.
PG:	Part of your job?
VW:	I run a medical corporation. It is in my interest to stay ahead of the curve.
PG:	And have
VW:	Not to my knowledge.

Peter found a folder in the corporate affiliations stack and fished out several documents.

VW:	Yes, on several occasions.
PG:	How many of them?
VW:	I don’t know. A few.
PG:	Six.
VW:	Fine.
PG:	And after the fifth, did you hire the firm of Jacksons, Monck and Rowe to consult on ethical matters of new medical materials?
VW:	Yes.
PG:	And on September 16, 2007, you contacted them again.
VW:	If you say so.
PG:	We found an invoice in your financial records.

“You’re traipsing dangerously close to attorney/client privilege,” Marcia remarked. “I think I’ll object.”

“Overruled. That he contacted lawyers with whom he had a previous business relationship does not traipse on privilege.”

“It’s highly prejudicial.”

“That’s just good lawyering.” Peter smiled. “But check this out.”

PG:	Jacksons, Monck and Rowe are members of the Government Regulation Legal Association and regularly participate in the FDA and Medical Practices Section.
VW:	I do not keep a list of their credentials in memory.
PG:	But you agree, they have impressive credentials.
VW:	A factor in hiring them.
PG:	I have a survey of the Government Regulation Legal Association’s FDA and Medical Practices Section members. Apparently, one hundred percent of them believe any medical device facilitating mind control can never win FDA approval. Exhibit blah blah, Your Honor.
Judge:	So entered.
PG:	So why did you sink millions of dollars into Calvin Wirther’s project knowing that it had zero percent chance of success?
VW:	There’s always a first time. The real-time brain mapping alone should have won approval. It’s light-years ahead of CAT scans.
PG:	In the survey, the consensus opinion was “no,” an emphatic “no.” All brain control devices, despite potential benefits, can never be approved. They cited the controlled assassin scenario over and over again.
MF:	Objection. Is there a question?
Judge:	Sustained.
PG:	Calvin Wirther pitched nanite-powered mind control to guarantee people effective weight loss. You consulted Jacksons, Monck and Rowe. You had to know that there is no legitimate medical application of circuit-forming nanites. So why did you fund the project? Fifteen million dollars?

“Because I wanted a harem of women for fun and profit.” Marcia threw her pages at Peter.

“The defense will eat him alive. We cannot put him on the stand. Hell, we should be prosecuting him.”

“He was willing to testify, and he’s the only one, so far, who can show that Wirther erased these women’s memories. We’ll take some hits, but we can’t proceed without him.”

“That’s how cases are lost. We should take another approach.”

“How about showing the negative effects of their involvement with Wirther?” Marcia grabbed one of several clipboards.

Each clipboard indexed Winkel and Wirther’s victims along an important attribute. The clipboard Marcia grabbed rated the women’s loss (social standing, wealth, medical condition, etc.). Corine Waters placed first on this index.

Chapter 4: Corine Waters

Corine Waters pawned her Miss Cuyahoga County USA tiara for six thousand dollars. After an amorous investor replaced low-grade stones with real diamonds, it must have been worth twelve times that, but the pawnbroker insisted the tiara market was as soft as the market for most valuables. He’d melt it down with all the other jewelry coming in from thousands of high-tech workers. “Soon,” he told her, he’d start buying foreclosed homes.

Corine regretted sleeping with her freshman economics professor. Had she earned her A, she reasoned, she might understand how gold prices rose quickly for buyers and not for sellers. Something to do with supply and demand. From the pawnbrokers’ point of view, the supply seemed vast. Lost fortunes created surpluses and desperate sellers. She believed he’d do what he said, pry out the diamonds and sell the gold to an agent. Agents represented investors desiring a safe haven for their money. Gold prices rose, making gold not merely safe but a good investment. From the agents’ point of view, demand was high.

Six thousand dollars barely covered a month’s expenses. Corine lamented jumping ship from Plasmatics Express, her latest startup company. Hanging on only meant working a few weeks for free and letting someone else grab the next job opportunity. Normally, she’d find a new position before leaving, but this economy twisted everything. Values were all wrong. Even her “trophy wife” potential diminished. Potential suitors dried up. She still enjoyed free drinks at bars and weekday dinner dates, but not wealthy men offering prenups and undying fealty.

She missed investor parties the most. She missed rooms filled with wealthy men coveting her. She missed five-star restaurants and luxury condos. She missed orchestrated affairs, showers of gifts, showers of money, showers of attention, pretend affections, real love dollops she felt for those men, and real love smidges she supposed they felt for her. Lost in reminiscences, Corine missed Joy Holiday’s approach.

“Comrade Pimp!”

Joy’s familiar salutation startled Corine. She scanned her old friend. A few more years, a few added pounds, but no major changes. Corine spread her arms wide, inviting an embrace. Joy quivered, indecisive, before venturing a forward lean and lurched half step.

For Corine, Joy Holiday represented the toughest conversion from office secretary to Financial Fem. She seemed disinterested in its glamorous lifestyle, introductions to wealthy men, covert sexual affairs and swanky gifts. Corine thought Joy was gay, but once she learned what startups often needed to make it to IPOs, she proved a solid team player. Her sudden appearance posed possibilities. Though Corine preferred men, she could switch-hit when compelled, and impending homelessness seemed pretty compelling.

“Aw, come on.” Corine drew Joy in. When Joy wrapped her arms around her, Corine whispered, “Don’t sell your stuff here. He’s paying way too little.”

“I’m here to buy,” Joy confessed.

Corine drew back to look her in the face. No sign of insincerity, no hints of gloating. Her old comrade appeared earnest.

“I come here looking for bargains. Investment-grade stuff. Last week I picked up a couple of men’s Rolexes at a fair price.”

“If you caught me on the way in&#8212” with one arm, Corine re-embraced Joy; the other hand fished for her pawn ticket&#8212 “I would’ve sold you my tiara.”

“With the gems DJ gave you?”

“Yeah.”

“How much did you get?”

“Six K.”

“Diamond Jim spent way more than that on just the stones.”

“Rough times, I guess.”

“Tell you what,” Joy schemed, “let’s get your tiara back, and I’ll give you a fair amount.”

Joy’s negotiating skills impressed Corine. She insisted the pawnbroker honor a seller’s remorse grace period, though no such rule ever existed. The pawnbroker’s face, normally calm and composed even in stressful situations, registered a series of emotions including rage, amazement, frustration, pride, calculation and resolve. Joy must have been too good a customer to lose over a missed opportunity. Joy claimed Corine’s tiara and tipped him three hundred dollars for handling all this trouble, a gracious gesture.

“Here you go.” Joy turned on her heels outside the pawnshop and presented Corine with her prize.

“Why don’t you hold on to it?”

“Because no one would ever believe I was ever from Cow-a-cow-a County. This belongs to you.”

“It’ll just get stolen.”

“Huh?”

“Do you still have that two-bedroom pad in Menlo Park?” Corine’s right foot pivoted from side to side.

“No, I bought a condo in Santa Cruz.”

“What?” Corine counseled Joy about entanglements shortly after recruiting her into the Financial Fems. She forced any wrinkle of disappointment from her face. “Never mind. I’ll be living in my car by the end of the week. I really need a place to stay.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Keep the tiara. Let me use it as collateral for room rent at your place.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Joy backed away. “Maybe you can get a better deal and stay in your old apartment.”

“The world’s gone crazy. I need more than an apartment.” Corine opened her arms a little, not much, just a slight backward shoulder roll. “I need a friend.”

Joy took the bait. Her arms embraced Corine and held tight. A corner of the tiara’s case dug into her thirteenth vertebrae, a slight pain, easy to endure.

Corine moved in that week. She kept her manifest short: clothes, accessories, valuable jewelry, toiletries and a few prized mementos. Over the weekend, she sold everything else at a yard sale. What little didn’t sell, she donated to Goodwill. Phase 1 complete.

Phase 2 never worked out. All seduction attempts failed. Corine even resorted to fake night tremors, climbing into Joy’s bed wearing a sheer negligee and shaking so much only a tight embrace seemed to calm her. The episode, however, revealed Joy’s reflexive openness. Nothing more. When Corine confided vulnerabilities, peculiarities and foibles, Joy reciprocated. They shared, after all, very similar experiences. Joy even served as Comrade Pimp in her last two startups.

They differed in motivation. Corine loved her Financial Fem life. The receptions, drinks, drugs, hotel rooms, clandestine affairs which everyone seemed to know about, intrigue, fake seduction, pretense of affections, opulent gifts and sex with rich and powerful men. She loved it all and hoped the party would never stop. Joy viewed it as an investment enhancement. She purchased stock options and dreamed an IPO would set her free. She entered Financial Fem life hoping it would end with her so independently wealthy she never had to date again.

Although Corine’s faux live-in lesbian free-rent play flatlined, she noticed Joy’s latent need for company, someone with whom she could discuss life’s twists and turns. Corine cozied up to her. They discussed their efforts at various startups. During these discussions, Joy revealed her dislike of sex.

“Oh, come off it, girl,” Corine argued. “You’ve never had an orgasm.”

“I’ve had them.” Joy nodded her head in agreement with herself. “I just don’t like them.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Not at all. I saw a documentary; I think it was on the Science Channel, something about evolution. It seems that women can conceive children without an orgasm, but men need them to ejaculate. Something like that.”

“The theory, my dear, is that women vary wildly when it comes to having orgasms during sex, not that women don’t enjoy them.”

“Whatever.”

“Look.” Corine pivoted her right foot. “Like you, I’ve had to please many female investors. I’m pretty good at it. I’m sure I can give you a true orgasm.”

“Ew!”

“Wow! You really don’t like lesbians.”

“They’re all right. Just a lot of work.”

“And men?”

“They rub me the wrong way.”

“But all those men you slept with?”

“Left as satisfied customers. You taught me well, Corine.”

“And you didn’t enjoy it once? Not even a little?”

Joy shook her head.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Just taking one for the team.”

“One?”

“One after another, after another.”

“And you didn’t enjoy any of them?”

Joy shook her head.

“How did you do it?”

“I gave them what they wanted. I gave love to those who really wanted affection; approval to those needing affirmation; I let slip a little horror to those who saw themselves as monsters; naughtiness to those who felt they were doing something wrong; and I faked orgasms for those who enjoy giving pleasure to their women.”

“Oh, my dear.”

“Not once, no matter how tired or distracted I was, did I let them know how uncomfortable their penises inside me made me feel.”

“Why oh why did you continue?”

“To protect my investment.”

“Just to keep your job?”

“Corine, I invested in company stock options. When they folded, they didn’t just break my heart. They broke my bank. I was out thousands and thousands of dollars. At first, I didn’t realize putting my money in startups was worse than placing a roulette bet, but after a while, it didn’t matter. I was hooked. I dreamt of IPOs, millions of dollars and early retirement&#8212retirement in style.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Because I think I finally joined the right startup. Did you ever work with Bob Duncan?”

“Doesn’t sound familiar. Why? Did I sleep with him?”

“He was a programmer at BahamaSpec.”

“You know I never sleep below the executive level. Didn’t you just say I taught you well?”

“You did. I didn’t sleep with him either. We used to lunch together when I didn’t have noon appointments.”

“I miss nooners.”

“I preferred talking to Bob.”

“You would.”

“He made a few good observations on why so many startups failed. The thing is, he said most startups needed a Mandelbrot but wouldn’t listen to him even if they had one.”

“Your new startup has a Mandelbrot?”

“He owns the company.”

“Jeez.”

“So now that I found my Mandelbrot, I think my investments will finally pay off and pay off big.”

Corine’s survival depended on a Plan B. She listened to Joy’s story. Essentially, Joy rode out a startup’s collapse and landed on her feet. Perhaps there was enough room for another experienced Financial Fem. In the morning, she made a pot of coffee, toasted a couple of bagels and waited for Joy at the kitchen table.

“Have bagels with me,” Corine enticed.

“What’s the occasion?”

“An interview with a new materials startup in San Bruno.”

“Good prospects?”

“Who cares? It’s the first interview I’ve had in weeks.”

Joy smiled.

“Look, I’m happy. Other than meeting you, this is the first positive thing to happen in a long while.”

“Then I’m happy for you.”

“Great. Then meet me at Chez Pellier for lunch.”

“Chez Pellier?”

“I want to celebrate.”

“You’ve already got the job?”

“No, but I think I need to celebrate, and I think I need to do something to thank you for all the nice things you’ve done for me, so let me buy you lunch and tell you how the interview went.”

“You can afford to buy me lunch?”

“A splurge, I know, but I think I need to do this. Please.”

“Okay.”

Corine dressed for her interview, applied makeup and generally turned herself into a walking, talking Silicon Valley version of a Playboy centerfold, complete with a BA from Case Western and an MBA from Cal Berkeley. She exchanged farewells, went to her car and parked across the street, a few condos down.

Joy’s Scion TC pulled out of the condo parking structure and made an unexpected left. Corine hung a U-turn and followed. She knew that Joy was not a very observant motorist, but Corine still hung back by a car or two, especially on freeways. Joy stopped in a business park in Mountain View, not far from the Ames Research Center.

Typical big-block mixed manufacturing and office space building, the type built by phase five startups. No company name or signage on the facade. Startups ran, in part, on self-promotion and bravado. Plenty of cars in its enormous parking lot. All prime spaces were reserved for visitors, but no reserved spaces for executives. Corine saved the location in her GPS app.

Corine disembarked her vehicle and wandered around the parking lot. Most of the vehicles resembled Joy’s: newer, economical, nondescript. Only Corine’s Mercedes 320 SL stood out. Corine canvassed a small section of the lot before movement in her peripheral vision drew attention. Joy emerged from the building. Corine hid behind a Honda Civic and duckwalked to her Mercedes.

If Joy spotted her, she didn’t show it. She slid into her car, and the engine roared to life. As she let her engine idle, Joy fixed her makeup. Corine reached her car, opened the door, and, as quietly as she could, crawled inside, careful to shut her door as softly as possible. She waited for Joy to pull out before engaging the ignition.

Joy led her to Winkel Medical Center in Santa Cruz, a large two-story building. The medical clinic occupied the entire first floor. Medical labs, private doctors’ offices and other office space filled the second floor. Joy scurried up a wrought iron staircase and entered the fourth door from the right. Corine checked her watch: still two hours before lunch.

She walked to the building’s front office, took an elevator to the second floor, found the stairwell door to orient herself and counted out four offices. NanoBotics. Unusual. She expected a realty management company; then it hit her: the first building was NanoBotics’s old headquarters converted into a rent-a-office center for stage one and stage two startups. The name “NanoBotics” implied high-tech, a company which might prosper with a “Mandelbrot,” a term Corine interpreted as some sort of rainmaker.

Corine figured Joy’s colleagues lunched about the same time as Joy. With a little over an hour before Joy should leave to make their lunch date, Corine returned to her car. She placed her cell phone into its holder, set the alarm, leaned back and rested. She fought off urges to refine or rehearse her upcoming scene. She needed to come off as genuine and spontaneous.

Corine knew Joy would give herself twenty minutes to drive to Chez Pellier. Corine left her car at 11:35. Five minutes later, she walked through NanoBotics’s door. Joy faced two men: one older, balding dome, his white lab coat buttoned in a feckless attempt to cover his paunch; the other tall, sandy blond and polished teeth. He looked casual in his khaki pants and rolled-up shirtsleeves.

“Joy, are you ready for lunch?” Corine struck a well-rehearsed pose. Confidence, openness, friendliness. Only scraping sounds from her right foot betrayed any anxiety.

All three turned to face Corine’s intrusion. Joy’s coat shoulder slid down her arm; her attempted recovery swept her open purse into a trash can. Joy bent over to retrieve it.

“Who’s your friend, Joy?” Tall-and-Handsome asked.

“Corine Waters.” She offered handshakes as she approached. “Joy and I used to work together. She’s letting me stay at her place while I look for employment.”

“That’s nice of you, Joy.” Paunchy Lab Coat took her hand while leering at her chest.

“Yes, it is, Mr. Winkel.” Corine resisted instinctual flinches at Vince’s aggressive, rat-like facial features. Jeez, she thought, the only way he’ll see a woman’s pussy is if he’s a gynecologist. Thankfully, she read his name tag in time to address him by name. She remembered her pageant coach’s advice and drew her mouth’s corners cheekward. He revealed an uneven grin evoking another round of instinct extinguishing.

“And you must be Mr. Mandelbrot.” Corine turned her attention to a more pleasant visage.

“Cal Wirther.”

Corine pulled her hand from Vince’s grip and offered it to Cal.

“There are no Mandelbrots working here, I’m afraid.” Cal’s eyes seemed to penetrate hers.

“Oh . . .” Corine flashed her beauty-queen smile.

Cal’s grin opened while Vince’s leer descended to Corine’s ass. Joy fished the last of her purse’s contents out of the trash. Corine focused on Cal’s eyes, hoping to capture his complete attention.

“How’s your job search going?” Cal asked, his eyes fully engaged with Corine’s.

“Had an interview today.”

“And?”

“Doubtful. Many applicants were prettier than me.”

“Impossible,” Vince declared.

“And I may have flubbed the interview.”

“What sort of work are you looking for?”

“I’m ready,” Joy said.

“Gentlemen.” Corine mini-curtsied. “It has been a pleasure.”

“See you after lunch,” Cal replied.

Joy insisted on taking separate cars. Corine interpreted her request as, “Please don’t come,” but Corine followed her anyways. At the restaurant, Joy elaborated three points: this morning’s stunt was an abuse of their friendship, Corine was not welcome at NanoBotics, and Corine needed to be out of Joy’s condo by the end of the week, if not by the end of the day. Joy expressed these points before they ordered and while awaiting their salads.

Joy’s cell phone chirped. She read a long text message.

“It seems Cal wants to see you tomorrow morning.” Joy’s tone seemed flat and measured.

“A job interview?”

“Perhaps. He sensed I was displeased with your sudden appearance.”

“Quite perceptive.”

“He is. It’s hard to pull one over on him.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Joy inhaled a deep, deliberate breath, let her cheeks puff and forced out a slow-paced exhale. “He specifically requested that I allow you to stay at my place until this situation is resolved.”

“So . . . I am not moving out tonight?”

“No.”

“Shall we carpool tomorrow?”

“No.”

Corine returned to Joy’s condo, stripped and performed yoga poses. She thought better through her body. Stealing her way into Joy’s work proved just as easy as she planned; repairing damages to her relationship, not so much.

Joy returned from work, harrumphed and proceeded to her room. Corine waited for her in the morning. Corine scrambled eggs, buttered toast, fried vegan bacon and prepared prepackaged oatmeal (just add boiling water). Though Joy must have been just as famished as Corine, she merely grabbed some toast and departed. A waste of food. Corine resolved to make it up to Joy once paychecks rolled in.

Corine dressed in her best second interview dress, a little more revealing than first interview outfits. She drove to NanoBotics and waited on a sofa opposite Joy’s desk. Twenty-two uncomfortable minutes later, Cal and Vince emerged from an office. Vince stood by Joy. Cal beckoned Corine into the office. As she walked past, Corine caught Vince staring at Joy’s cleavage.

A large office, the window opposite the door comprising the whole wall. To the left, a long desk perpendicular to the door’s wall. Four computer monitors cocooned a computer keyboard. Six more monitors on stands formed a second tier. Two more monitors mounted on the wall. Two office chairs occupied a space between the desk and the right wall. Cal gestured for Corine to take the nearest chair while he stood next to the opposite chair.

“Did you bring a r&#xe9sum&#xe9?”

“Of course.” Corine produced one from her computer bag.

“No need.” Cal waved it off. “Joy filled us in. You worked primarily in Investor Relations.”

“Correct.”

“In fact, you recruited Joy into IR.” Cal paused and buried his chin in the crook of his thumb as his index finger rubbed his cheekbone. “Why?”

“Joy was working in accounting, but she’s very attractive. Don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“She’s also very bright, educated and well informed. Just the type investors&#8212”

“I think you misunderstood my question. Most likely my fault.”

Corine smiled. She lifted her right foot so that it produced no noise as it swung from side to side.

“I worked at a couple startups before a long stint at Trinity Biotech.”

Corine stared at Cal but nodded her head slightly to let him know he had her attention.

“You and Joy were what are known as ‘Financial Fems.’ Joy filled Vince and me in. She was in it just for the money. She’d do anything to be part of a successful startup. Why were you a Financial Fem?”

“I have a degree in public relations and communications from Case Western. When I came to California, Investor Relations seemed like a good fit.”

“Yes, a former beauty queen with brains makes a good impression, but why become a Financial Fem?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

“That we’re all whores.”

“Not in the least. I don’t think that of Joy; she told us she did it to protect her investments in the companies she worked for.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Just the truth. Start at the beginning. A colleague recruited you, most likely for your looks.”

“Yeah, something like that. At first, I felt a little pimped out, but then she told me about a couple of investors who took an interest in me. It turns out that I liked the life.”

“The life?”

“It was like being the mistress of rich men. Sometimes I was the mistress for two or three heavy hitters. The gifts, the parties, everything was first-class. And the sex.”

“The sex?”

“I enjoy sex. I really enjoy sex when it’s done right. These men, they invest billions of dollars. They shape markets, nations, the world. Let’s just say they don’t have confidence problems. They take what they want.”

“Doesn’t that make them a bit, uh . . .”

“Imposing.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, many of them were first-class assholes. Pervs, too. But I like a firm hand in bed. I encouraged it. The good ones gave me orgasms, multiple orgasms. With the rest, I faked them; must have faked thousands of them.”

“So wealth, power and confidence are not enough to get off?”

“Oh, God, no! The technique is important. Some of them never performed well, but I never let them suspect that. No, I had to keep our investors happy.”

“That’s interesting.” Cal rubbed his chin awhile.

Corine fielded several more questions which seemed probing and intimate but not directly relating to her sex life. She smiled more, not forced pageant smiles, but relaxed natural smiles. Her honest answers, however promiscuous, evocative or unconventional, drew Cal’s acceptance. At the interview’s end, they seemed more like old friends sharing stories than employer and potential employee.

“I’ll have to talk to Vince, of course. Joy should let you know tonight.”

“Do you clear personnel decisions with your investors?”

“He insisted on being business partners.” Cal chuckled. “Regretted it immediately after I explained startup rules with Financial Fems.”

Corine smiled and cocked her head to the side.

“He wanted a go at Joy.”

“Oh. Oh my.” Corine stifled a laugh. “Who wouldn’t?”

“So you’re a switch-hitter, too.” Cal’s teeth gleamed.

“A career girl’s gotta keep her options open.”

Corine spent the afternoon preparing grilled chicken salads, arranging flowers, setting the dining room table and generally preparing to celebrate in a manner Joy wouldn’t mind.

Joy’s arrival was anything but celebratory. It seemed prolonged, lethargic. Joy’s key turned inside the lock, each isolated tumbler click reporting distinctly. The door creeped open, Joy entered, and the door closed. Joy more shuffled than strode, then she skulked through the hallway. She looked up, met Corine’s eyes and directed their gaze to the coffee table. Corine gestured to the dining room table. For a full four minutes, they stood, swaying their arms, pointing their fingers until Joy sloughed off her purse and a cloth grocery bag containing four two-inch, three-ring binders. She trudged to the table and took a seat behind a salad. Once seated, Corine waved her arm over the table, game-show-hostess style, presenting the cabernet sauvignon, wine goblets, floral centerpiece, French baguette and ending at Joy’s salad.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“I thought the interview went really well, and&#8212”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Joy’s rude interruption stunned Corine. Once Mr. Wirther relaxed, she figured she earned the job. Despite years of power-of-positive-expression training, she showed disappointment. She sat, sidesaddle, behind her salad.

“Look,” Joy said, “there is a lot I need to tell you, so we can dine on your optimistically prepared meal, or we can get started.”

“Will it take long?”

“Yes, but we could finish the first part well before the lettuce wilts.”

“I don’t understand. I thought Cal and I got along fine.”

“You are right, and you are right.”

Corine’s gaze snapped around to meet Joy’s.

“You and Cal did get along well. He was quite impressed.”

“And?”

“What you didn’t understand is that wasn’t a job interview.”

“Okay.” Corine gathered her emotions, ranging from bewilderment to rage. “Then what was it?”

“In part, payback for tracking me back to my office.”

“The other part?”

“Cal wanted to evaluate you.”

“Evaluate me for what, exactly?”

“This is the hard part.” Joy placed her palms on the table and pressed up, bracing herself.

“Then get on with it.” Corine squared herself to Joy and locked her eyes with Joy’s.

Joy explained everything. The four-room office and a small corner of the old NanoBotics building comprised the whole of their company’s space. Renting out the rest of the building provided enough income to pay leases, keep the lights on and provide Cal’s and Joy’s salaries. Vince was their only investor and was legally a co-owner. Right now, they were developing a new product.

“And we need test subjects.” Joy continued.

“You mean, ‘alpha testers.’”

“No, not at this stage. We need to know how this new technology affects humans.”

“So they are going for FDA approval?”

“Not yet. This is not a medical device or treatment.”

“Huh?”

“Think of cosmetics.”

“I like makeup.”

“They are not FDA approved. They are not medicinal.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now think of Hollywood. If they need an actress to have blue eyes or green or red, they put in colored lenses. Since they are not prescribed, they do not need FDA approval.”

“Prescribed contacts, like the ones I get from my optometrist?”

“FDA approved.”

“Good.”

“Now, think of Microsoft, if they developed a new subdermal implant for Xbox gamers. The gamers want to shoot something on the screen; they don’t have to aim and press a button. They just think it and blam, the monster or enemy soldier or bank teller is dead.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“But you said subdermal,” Corine reasoned. “That needs FDA approval.”

“Not medical.” Joy sat back, adopting a more authoritative pose. “Even our lawyer will admit that it may be a bit of a gray area, so you will have to fill out a ton of paperwork.”

“How much paperwork?”

“That much.” Joy pointed to the three-ring binders still near the hallway.

“So I fill in the paperwork; what’s in it for me?”

“A thousand a week, full or partial, and you continue to live here, rent-free.”

“Do I have to live here?”

“Yes. I am to be one of your observers.”

“Is there a risk?”

“There is always a risk.”

“How much?”

“I have to tell you. I mean, I really have to tell you even though there’s about fifty pages in there.” Joy pointed, again, at the binders in the shopping bag. “That these tests are invasive.”

“Invasive?”

Joy walked around the table, knelt beside Corine, and swept her hair from her neck’s base revealing two small pinkish bumps. Corine touched the bumps, sweeping fingertips from one to the other. She pinched one of the bumps, wondering if it would pop like a pimple. It did not.

“Dr. Winkel injects you with devices. They interact with your nervous system, read your thoughts. Later, one of Vince’s scientists asks you questions. Often very personal questions.”

“You were a test subject?”

“One of the first, but my results were anomalous.”

“Anomalous, like the way you don’t enjoy orgasm.”

“Something like that.”

“Is that why Cal asked me so many questions about sex?”

“No, test subjects need to be completely candid. Yesterday’s stunt demonstrated considerable deceit.”

“I’m sorry already!”

“Yeah.”

“Look, Joy, if I hadn’t invaded your little office, would I have been offered this test subject position?”

“It’s not a job.”

“Whatever. It’s an opportunity to make some money.”

“Probably not,” Joy admitted.

“See.” Corine flashed her widest smile. “How can you be mad at me?”

“Oh, there must be a thousand ways,” Joy chuckled.

They ate and reestablished their friendship. Corine wheedled information about Cal Wirther, Vince Winkel and NanoBotics out of Joy. In an odd game of one-upmanship, they listed all the men they slept with who were less attractive than Vince. Joy could only recall two; Corine, nine. As it turned out, Joy won on percentage. Corine fetched chocolate eclairs.

“I’ll do it.” Corine returned with dessert.

“Do what?”

“Be your thousand-dollar-a-week guinea pig.”

“Then let’s take these to the coffee table.”

Corine brought the dessert to the coffee table. Joy scooped up the canvas shopping bag, joined Corine and set out the four binders. For the next four hours, they drank wine while Joy summarized each document contributing her own take on their contents. Corine initialed and signed where indicated. Out of habit, neither touched their eclairs. They always kept their figures trim and ready for leering investors even though neither could see any in the near future. They agreed not to carpool. Corine’s role as test subject started the next day at eight thirty a.m.

Cal greeted Corine with a present, her project iPad. She sat at Joy’s desk; Joy was managing business at the old building. First task, filling in questionnaires. Favorite color: mauve; least favorite: white. Favorite ice cream: pistachio; least favorite: vanilla. Favorite pet: none; least favorite: puppy. Favorite lunch: fruit and cheese; least favorite: sandwiches. Favorite cuisine: Indian; least favorite: sandwiches. Favorite beverage (nonalcoholic): Vernor’s ginger ale; least favorite: diet cola (any brand). After selecting over a hundred favorites and least favorites, Corine ranked ten items in each of the same categories. She finished just before lunch.

Cal took her to a local diner. Corine pressed Cal for information, hoping to pitch her Investor Relations experience and business education. Cal explained his unusual startup strategy. Instead of over-hyping an undeveloped product and rushing to the market, NanoBotics was developing a new technology. He hoped programmable nanites had medical applications. He envisioned weight loss, seizure intervention, or perhaps behavioral control of violent, psychotic criminals. They seemed a decade away from FDA approval. He and Vince continued discussions on non-medical nanite uses; no FDA approvals needed to get the company off the ground.

After lunch, Cal introduced Corine to Dr. Hyung (Henry) Park and Dr. Sarah Kim. They attached an fMRI mask to Corine and went over every question on the morning’s survey. Sometimes, they used pictures along with multiple choice options. They finished by five o’clock.

The next day, and for the next two weeks, Corine endured daylong sessions wearing the fMRI mask, retaking surveys and watching movie clips ranging from children’s cartoons to soft pornography. One day, Vince interrupted and announced that they had established a baseline. Time to start nanite testing. He led her downstairs, through the medical clinic’s hallway and into an examination room. A needle pricked Corine’s skull’s base, just left of her spine. Vince gave her a small bottle of anti-inflammatories, just in case she got headaches, and sent her home.

For the next two weeks, they repeated all the surveys and films, just without the fMRI mask. Dr. Park and Dr. Kim seemed pleased. Cal introduced Corine to Dr. Cromarty and Dr. Jessica Tarkington. They gave her a stack of magazines ranging from current events to gossip, fashion to science, celebrities to financial management and several more categories. She was tasked to highlight in yellow things she liked, red-highlight things she disliked and to leave everything else unhighlighted. At four thirty, they collected the magazines, handed her a stack of the same magazines in the same order, and tasked her with repeating the same task after dinner, no earlier than eight o’clock, and finishing before midnight.

The magazine experiment went on for weeks without any indication of success. They tried movie-clip rating by using a focus-group rating device where twisting a knob farthest left meant “hate it” and farthest right was “love it” until Joy complained about having to watch the same clips every night. Neither Corine nor Joy understood the objective of the test; they were just grateful for weekends.

Cal developed a cigarette-pack-sized device, which Corine was to keep within a few inches of her cell phone. The next afternoon, after Drs. Cromarty and Tarkington confirmed the results, everyone seemed excited. Cal came in late. He reviewed the results and sent Corine home until he called for her. Three days later, she visited him in his office. He retrieved the device, asked for her cell phone, and replaced its back with a thicker black plastic back. He asked her how she felt the last few days, seemed to be interested in her response, and asked her to see Vince in the clinic. Vince lifted her hair, exposing her neck’s nape, injected it with a fresh batch of nanites, gave her a pill and asked her to lie down until the pill’s effects wore off. He was there when she woke. He asked her to report any abnormal headaches or moments of disorientation, especially anytime she hesitated doing something she wouldn’t normally hesitate doing.

On the way home, she stopped at Mike’s Sandwiches, right next to The Star of Delhi, and ordered a ham and American cheese sandwich. At home, she placed the sandwich on Joy’s coffee table, fetched a Diet Coke from the fridge and stared at two ice cream containers, pistachio and vanilla. She scooped out the last of the vanilla and wrote a note to buy more.

A few dinners later, Joy presented Corine with a Mastercard.

“The team wants you to socialize more. You’ve been hanging out here too much to get the data they need.”

“But I’ve been watching TV with the rating knob.”

“You’ve entered a new phase in their research. They need more real-world data.”

“Is this safe?”

“Yes.”

Corine stared at Joy, unable to respond. Opinions, thoughts could not form. She simply did not know how she felt.

“The device on the back of your phone. It helps trace your whereabouts. If you feel weird or confused at all, at any time, just call the office and we’ll send someone to pick you up.”

“Day or night?”

“Any time.”

“Parameters?” Corine ran her index finger over the card’s edge.

“Don’t go crazy. This is not about extravagance, just entertainment. You know, lunches, dinners, movies, books, perhaps some light shopping, and I mean light. We are still an underfunded startup. Keep things on a budget. Don’t have to be cheap; just responsible.”

The next day, Corine lunched at La Esquinita in San Jose. It was a popular meeting place for techie types. While munching a Napa Salad, Gregor Hapkarian approached and sat at her table. Gregor worked at her first startup. They once flirted for a few weeks. She thought he was cute in a nerd-boy-overcompensating-at-the-gym kinda way. Whatever they had ended a couple of weeks later when she joined the Financial Fems. Someone must have got to him. He wouldn’t even say, hello anymore. Now, he sat opposite her, a little less musclebound, a lot more relaxed, confident and apparently available. When he asked her out for a date Friday night, a single thought washed away reason: I’m not a Financial Fem anymore. She agreed.

Friday afternoon, she fidgeted in front of Joy’s full-length mirror, wearing a stunning dark, but not too dark, blue backless cocktail dress. Gregor had not mentioned what they would do or how she should dress. She admired her eveningwear collection. She kept all her dress-to-kill dresses. They had been a source of joy, her personal arsenal. Not tonight. A strange new force tugged at her sense of aesthetics. She chose one of Joy’s floral pattern summer dresses. She twirled. It felt light, free, breezy. She peeled off her thong panties and twirled again. That felt even better. She slipped her feet into a pair of moderate wedge sandals and stuffed a small off-white purse with dating essentials: keys, driver’s license, coin purse, touch-up makeup kit, small perfume spritzer, cell phone and condoms.

Corine hesitated on the landing halfway up the stairs to Gregor’s apartment. Her right foot scraped the concrete. She met investors at clandestine, or semi-clandestine, locations, never their places or hers. This isn’t me. She started down the stairs, but her foot stopped midair. A warm, comfortable sensation progressed through her. She hesitated, again, before knocking on his door. Another comfort wave washed reasonable caution from her thoughts. Somehow, subconsciously perhaps, she wanted this.

Gregor’s door opened. He smiled. Obviously unready for their date, his bare feet stepped back, welcoming Corine inside. She was glad she dressed less formally. Her summer dress complimented his faded blue jeans and Jane’s Addiction T-shirt. She stepped into the apartment. In an apparently practiced move, one arm closed the door, and in a smooth arc, his other hand spun her a quarter turn, found the small of her back and drew her close. The motion lifted her hem. His door hand, freed from its task, reached down and cupped her bare ass.

A fundamental Financial Fem rule was that they should never be treated as sluts or sex workers, at least in the initial capital raising stages. Executives even chastised some venture capitalists, citing California’s stringent sexual harassment laws. Near the end, investors took greater liberties: sex became rougher, and some Fems suffered verbal, psychological and physical abuse. Failing startup phase treatment, in part, explained a Fem’s flight. Corine adhered to this rule; held it resolutely.

Her reflexes failed. She flinched as Gregor’s fingertips groped, but her well-trained, well-practiced face slap slacked off. Instead, her hand slipped under his armpit and caressed the back of his skull. She lifted her heels off the floor and pressed her lips on his. Her tongue separated his lips and probed. The shock of her shock-and-awe assault wore off. Gregor regained initiative. He lifted her off the ground, carried her deeper into his abode and plopped her on his sofa.

An hour later, she reclined on his bed. Gregor slipped on sweatpants to answer urgent doorbell rings. They hadn’t bothered to completely disrobe. Gregor’s jeans and briefs lay somewhere in the living room with her wedges. Awaiting his return, she removed her bra.

Gregor’s foot nudged the bedroom door shut. He held a bag of Chinese food in each hand. After arranging cartons on an end table, he instructed Corine to lie flat on her back. At first, she thought, Oh this can’t be good, but a sense of curiosity and intrigue flooded her brain, and she acquiesced. Gregor broke apart balsa wood chopsticks and placed pieces of Kung Pao Shrimp on her arranged like an arrow: feathers over her breasts, shaft down her abdomen ending with a pubic arrowhead. She congratulated herself for shaving before the date and Gregor for noticing. He proceeded to eat the arrow off her, predictably, from feathers to arrowhead. When he finished eating, he grabbed a container of General Tso’s chicken, lay down, nudged her from the bed’s center, drew a similar arrow on himself and beckoned Corine to indulge.

A bile burp scathed Corine’s throat, but as she forced it back down, positivism sloshed inside her skull. After fellatio, Gregor drew her face up and pulled it closer to his. For the next three hours, he suggested several sex positions and variations, and she demonstrated sexual proficiency. During short breaks, they ate Chinese food, with chopsticks, and drank Gatorade.

“I have work in the morning,” Gregor said just past midnight. “You should leave now.”

“Uh . . .” Corine recoiled from his sudden request, though several sauces from their Chinese food, puddled in the bed’s saggy middle, dissuaded cuddling through the night. “I smell a bit. Where’s the shower?”

Gregor rolled over to his side and folded a pillow over his face. Corine slid off the bed. Her foot landed on her dress. Tacky hoisin adhered to skin and cloth. Her dress rose when she lifted her foot. She threw it over her head and pulled it down. Gregor mumbled a protest, but she was far from caring what he thought. She stood and tried to straighten her dress, but it stuck to her in several places. Disgusting. She dropped to the floor and swept her arms, searching for her blue bra in the dark. She wanted to turn on the lights but dreaded both Gregor’s complaints and her own image in a mirror. Bra found, she went to the living room, retrieved her shoes and purse, and left.

Sitting in her Mercedes, she cried. She’d never allow herself to be mistreated this much. Even Financial Fems in the throes of a failing startup were afforded more dignity than this. It was supposed to be a date, a first date, not a booty call. Not a fantasy girl, do-whatever-disgusting-thing-he-asks goddamned booty call.

“I can’t believe he ate food off me.” The thought chilled her biceps and shuddered her shoulders. “Oh my God, he just stuck it in. No goddamn condom.”

Corine swiveled her head, trying to convince herself that the whole affair could not have happened. Too weird; too . . . not her. She resolved to see a psychiatrist, and she knew where she could find one. She twisted the key in the ignition, selected a playlist, cranked up the stereo and drove home.

“Cal’s a bit confused.” Dr. Sarah Kim sat behind Cal Wirther’s desk and logged onto his computer.

“I didn’t mean to diminish him in any way.” Corine waited in Cal’s office to talk to the female psychiatrist.

“Did you request me because I’m a woman?”

“In part.”

“The other part?” Sarah adjusted some windows with Cal’s mouse.

“I need a psychiatrist, not a Mandelbrot.”

“Alrighty then. You got my attention. How can I help you?”

Corine described her evening with Gregor emphasizing all the upsetting aspects which she, somehow, accepted. Sarah interjected appropriate Yeses, Ahs, and I sees throughout Corine’s complaint. Incident report completed, Corine awaited sound psychological advice.

“How long was it between this sexual encounter and your previous one?”

“My God.” Corine started counting backward, first in days&#8212too many; then in weeks&#8212too many; then in months&#8212too many. The last time had been an angry investor at the end of Kachimi and Stadt Technologies. “Over a year.”

“Is that typical for you?”

“No, but not unprecedented.”

“I see. Do you enjoy sex?”

“Mostly.”

“So it’s not just another task to you. Did you enjoy this sexual encounter?”

“Uh?”

“Did you experience an orgasm?”

“A couple.”

“You left that part out. Now, you made a big thing about the food.”

“Yeah! That was gross.”

“How so?”

“Food! There! I mean deep in there. It took me a long time to douche all that out. Gross!”

“Okay, but when you were doing it, did you enjoy it?”

“Huh?”

“Did you achieve an orgasm even with the food deep inside you?”

“Well, yeah, but&#8212”

“So you did enjoy it.”

“Well, yes, but, but I don’t understand.”

“You haven’t had sex in a long time. You wanted to have sex because you enjoy sex. That, as you know, is perfectly good. It’s all right.”

“But I didn’t want to have sex that way.”

“With the food?”

“No, the whole thing seemed wrong. I’m used to having sex with important, powerful men&#8212”

“But, in over a year, you couldn’t find one to have sex with, so&#8212”

” &#8212who treat me like a lady&#8212″

” &#8212even though you present yourself as a woman available for sex, so&#8212″

” &#8212and I am the one who sets limits&#8212″

” &#8212which, again, you haven’t done in over a year. This may be a little hard for you to grasp. You were once a prize for important, powerful men to play with, but you haven’t been in that situation for a while. But, like most sexually active women, you desired sex. This Gregor person presented an opportunity to have sex, so you, let’s face it, settled.”

“No, okay, yes, but no. You don’t get it. I knew it was wrong every step of the way. I paused at the landing of the stairs. I was going to slap him for grabbing my butt, but I hesitated. I hesitated when he pulled my dress up. I hesitated when he pulled his penis out. I hesitated when he put Chinese food on me, and again when he put it on himself. I don’t know who had sex last night, but it didn’t feel like me. Yeah, I know it was my body, but it didn’t feel like it was me. I would not have hesitated&#8212”

“Oh, I see. It’s the hesitation. I should have figured. Sorry. I’ll talk to Cal about that. It’s probably not serious.”

“Not serious?”

“No, not really. All the same, you should probably not date until we solve this hesitation problem.”

“You don’t understand. Hesitation is just a symptom. The real problem is&#8212”

“Did you ever hear of d&#xe9j&#xe0 vu?”

“I don’t&#8212”

“For decades, people thought they were reliving experiences lived before, but when asked to identify when and where they experienced it, they could not. In 1964, a simpler and recreatable explanation was proposed. Sensory information travels through both sides of the brain. Usually it syncs up, no problems, but sometimes information from one side of the brain comes in a little too late, and the brain thinks it already processed the information before. D&#xe8j&#xe0 vu.”

“I don’t get how hesitation is like d&#xe9j&#xe0 vu. I, I . . .” Corine’s groin muscles tightened, causing sympathetic abdominal contractions which pressured air in her lungs. Frustration, fear, and betrayal suppressed long enough to demand screaming, and a scream built inside her. A primal scream started deep within her. The type of scream which dredges up digestive acids and carries them along. Sarah shifted her gaze to one of Cal’s computer monitors. Swift wrist movements, and she clicked. Corine’s scream, so certain to alarm neighbors and shatter windows, died in her throat. She exhaled a heavy breath and choked down esophageal burning.

“The nanites in your system may be interfering. They congregate around your amygdala. Emotions tend to come in waves. Your brain knows how to sort them out. If the nanites are delaying one or two sets of waves, well, your brain mishandles them. You may feel hesitation. I’ll talk to Cal about this.”

“So no dating until Cal fixes my amygdala.” Corine tried suppressing a smile but couldn’t. Sarah clicked the mouse a few more times.

“Not until we see you again,” Sarah concluded.

Corine returned to Joy’s condo. She showered, relaxed, made a tuna salad sandwich and waited. She stretched her frame over sofa cushions and napped. Her fingers twitched like Asian schoolgirls working out difficult arithmetic problems. Not full motions, but quick, stunted gestures. Her wrist joined her kinetic computation. “Joy,” she mumbled, followed by a stream of less articulate syllables. Their amplitude waxed, and her arm bent at her elbow before returning to her side. “I have to get out of here.” Her arm swung like a roundhouse; its force and recoil rocked her awake.

Corine sprang into action. At the grocery store, she bought all the ingredients for Indian dishes.

Joy unlocked her condo door, and a fog scented by coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne, cinnamon, garlic, onion and tomatoes seeped through. Corine invited her to a table of dahl, chicken masala, palak paneer and naan. Joy sat, stifled several gags and picked at a piece of naan while Corine dug in. Each breach of the dahl’s surface or masala sauce released more curry scents. Joy scooted herself away from the table.

“Is my cooking not good enough for you?”

“You know I dislike Indian food.”

“Dislike?”

“Hate! I hate it. It makes me nauseous.”

“You mean, ‘nauseated.’”

“Whatever!” Joy stood.

“How was I supposed to know that anyways?”

Joy listed five occasions when she told Corine how she felt about Indian cuisine. She turned on her heel, found her purse and departed. Corine smiled and packed up leftovers using aluminum foil instead of Saran Wrap so the food’s aroma dominated the refrigerator. She watched TV on the living room sofa and fell asleep.

Leaden footfalls and jingling keys woke Corine. Joy and a man, perhaps drunken, groped and stumbled their way from the front door to Joy’s bedroom. Smacks followed: lips smacking lips, lips smacking newly revealed flesh, lips slurping nipples, lips slurping saliva and semen, and finally, genitalia smacking genitalia. Joy left her bedroom door open. Corine thought it a devious ploy. As her observer, Joy knew Corine could not have sex until Dr. Kim told her she could, and Corine knew Joy did not enjoy sex. Joy’s having revenge sex, Corine concluded. Revenge for introducing curried aromas to her condominium.

For four days, Corine racked her brain without devising any further Joy-specific tortures beyond reheating Indian food or perhaps making some more. NanoBotics kept her in Joy’s condo. She’d bide her time until Cal or Sarah called.

At the office, Corine waited for Sarah’s return with answers to her requests to start dating again and to complete her testing without an observer. Sarah called Henry and Cal. They stood in the doorway, apparently communicating to Sarah in hand gestures. They departed. Door shut, Sarah laid out new rules. Corine had two weeks to find a place and move. She was to begin dating again after one week. Cal was going to build her a website. For today, she must see Vince for a medical examination and then wait for a photographer to arrive. Cal wanted new photos for Corine’s website.

The strangest new rule, however, was that Corine should not overthink things, overthink situations. She should trust her instincts more.

Vince checked Corine in a mostly medical way and administered the usual injection into her neck just below her cranium. Vince hurried her along. He handed her a sedative pill and asked her to take it in the waiting room. Another patient waited for Dr. Winkel. As Corine exited Vince’s examination room, she saw the woman stand. Her face looked familiar, though Corine was certain they never met. Corine sat in Vince’s waiting room and took the pill.

* * *

A kiss, a sweet goodbye kiss. Corine’s vision, blurred by sedated slumber, caught Cal lightly embrace and kiss the woman Corine had seen waiting for Vince. She left, and Cal approached.

“Are you awake enough for photos?”

“In a minute.”

Cal guided Corine out of Vince’s practice and down the hall. Sarah Kim’s pudgy frame pressed against the hallway wall to avoid them. She went into Vince’s office. A photographer finished setting up lights a couple of doors farther down.

Corine’s pageant past taught her standard modeling poses. She worked her way through them, and the photographer kept pressing a button on his high-rate digital-capture camera, no shutter snap. When she finished her practiced poses, the photographer suggested she relax more and pretend the camera was the most attractive guy at the bar. She tried; she failed. He unbuttoned her blouse’s top two buttons, turned her torso and positioned her shoulders. Press. He asked her to unbutton the next blouse button and sell her breasts while focusing just below the lens. Press. The next button. Press. They continued unbuttoning, positioning and removing until she modeled in her bra and panties. Press, press, press.

Corine never modeled like this. Soft porn, she thought, but PG-13 soft porn. Although pageants parlayed women’s sexuality, more girl-next-door sexuality than naughty sexuality, at least at first. The same thing with being a Financial Fem. Companies often hired professional escorts to supplement the Fems. Investor Relations budgets titled them “consultants.” The Fems, and many company executives, called them “sexperts.” Technically, sexperts were a better time. They knew all the tricks. More than that, they knew how to handle every social situation, they had extensive wardrobes to fulfill every request, and they were all attractive, at least as attractive as Joy, but they were not authentic. Corine’s first CEO told her that investors preferred the Fems. Any one of them could afford a sexpert, and often did, but they could tell the difference. “Hell,” he proclaimed, “some sexperts slip into their safe place during sex. It’s like a switch flips in their body. You go from seducing a pretty office girl to raping a whore. Never turn into a sexpert, Corine; it’s the last thing you want to be.”

The photographer held up a skimpy cocktail dress and asked Corine to try it on. She pulled it over her head then down. Cal obliged and zipped up the back. The photographer snapped a few pictures.

“You look good next to Cal.” The photographer swirled his finger directing Corine to perform a fashion twirl. “But your bra and panty lines are showing. Lose them.”

Cal unzipped Corine’s dress.

“And, Cal, put on your jacket.”

By the time Corine skipped out of her panties, Cal was in position.

“Corine, use Cal as your prop.”

Still naked, she approached and leaned into him. Follow your instincts. Press. She turned, backed into him, bent her knees and ground her ass into him. Press, press, press . . . Pose, press. Pose, press. Corine turned to face Cal. She rose up on her toes, clenched her butt, making her cheeks hard and gaunt, slid her arms under his, and pressed her palms against his back. With a little prompting, Cal’s hand, the one nearest the camera, caressed her butt while the other caressed her neck’s nape. Corine then pressed the side of her face against his clavicle.

“Perfect!” Press.

Follow my instincts. Corine slid down, resting on her knees. She fondled Cal’s slight bulge, and it stiffened. She unbuckled his belt, unzipped his trousers, and pulled both pants and briefs down to his knees, where she let her hands remain. Like bobbing for apples, she carefully positioned her head before taking his penis’s tip between pursed lips. Press.

Cal let a moan escape. Corine barely noticed. She concentrated on lip sensations, pressure, pain, tingling and pleasure. She endeavored to equate blow jobs with deep, passionate kissing. She let her tongue loose, let it explore Cal’s phallic head. She focused on its shape, texture, and the little neck behind its bulbous cap, which was problematic for that area attracted some of the body’s worst tastes; salty, moldy, dank flavors. Corine never understood lovers who wanted to taste sex. Their tonguing left sticky saliva on her skin, which felt yucky.

Corine looked up and caught a framed photo on Cal’s desk. A wedding picture, Cal’s wedding. The woman looked familiar. Not long-term familiar, but recent. Corine’s brain disengaged from fellatio. It rewound through the morning, stopping at the waiting room. The woman next to her on the couch waiting to see Dr. Winkel; her face matched the woman in the photo; she was Cal’s wife.

Distracted, Corine gagged. Cal’s penis swelled, along with his ego. Corine hesitated. Though much quicker than the night at Gregor’s apartment, emotions flooded her brain. Embarrassment for gagging followed by a resolve to make Cal feel better. Cal’s phallus quivered, quaked, shivered, tremored, shot, relaxed, recovered and ejaculated again.

Corine swallowed. She wanted her next words to come out clear.

“I want to fuck you.” Corine followed her instincts. She didn’t understand these instincts, but she remembered Dr. Kim’s advice.

“No need.” Cal waved his hand past his penis.

“No.” The photographer approached. “It’d make a good shot.”

“On the couch.” Corine pushed.

Ankles encumbered by dropped drawers, Cal stumbled backward and thudded onto the chrome and black vinyl davenport. Corine followed, straddled him and pressed her hips into his, pressing his back into the sofa. Cal lifted and straightened his back. Corine pressed further. Her buttocks covered his groin, concealing his limp-noodle dick.

“Just . . .”

Corine already knew. She pressed her ear into Cal’s clavicle and opened her mouth a little. Press.

* * *

“That shot,” ADA Peter Goode surmised, “more than any other on that website, made her career as an escort.”

“Her short career as an escort.” Marcia Fong scanned the rest of Corine’s dossier.

“We can’t pin that on Wirther.”

“Why not? A week after she posed for those photos, someone, some programmer, like Cal Wirther, turned her personal website into an escort-for-hire website. They turned her into a sex worker.”

“The record shows that she dated and had sex with seven guys from her personal website, went to NanoBotics, screwed Dr. Winkel and was let go.”

“They forced her to be a sex worker, Pete. Why can’t you see that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I see. Here’s how the jury will see it. Miss Waters was a promiscuous woman. She fucked investors of the companies she worked for, right? She had sex with several men during her involvement with NanoBotics. As her contract with them was ending, she boffed both NanoBotics executives in a desperate attempt to keep earning a thousand dollars a week. They let her go; she went pro.”

“Cuthbert Stout says her type never turns pro on their own. They need convincing.”

“Cuthbert ‘the Weasel’ Stout?”

“Yeah.”

“Cristoph Scarabco’s chief pimp? I can’t believe you still want to put him on the stand.”

“He knows the business.”

“He conducts the business.”

Marcia stared at Peter, challenging him.

“Cross-examination.” Peter buttoned his coat, preparing to assume the defense.

“Game on.” Marcia straightened her back, getting into character as Cuthbert Stout.

Defense:	Mr. Stout, why do you contend that Miss Waters did not start her escort service of her volition?
CS:	In my experience, beautiful, educated and successful women, like Corine, don’t become whores simply because they want to.
Defense:	Not even if they fall on hard times?
CS:	Corine didn’t fall on hard times. She must have had forty thousand or so in savings when she started her escort service.
Defense:	You know that because after your organization muscled her into working for you, you drained her bank accounts, sold her car, and used her condo as a brothel until she was evicted.

“Objection!” Marcia bolted up. “Your Honor, the defense is making statements without asking a question.”

“I am just curious; why didn’t you sell her furniture and jewelry?”

“Your Honor!”

“Oh, that’s right. You gave Miss Waters’s jewelry to other sex workers managed by you. That was after you sold her to Tartan Miloso. What was the name of the girl wearing her tiara at the Golden Spike Ballroom raid?”

“Okay.” Marcia huffed, deflated, and sat. “Well coach him not to paint himself in a corner. Let’s try that again.”

Defense:	Not even if they fall on hard times?
CS:	Not even then.
Defense:	Not ever?
CS:	Not in my experience.
Defense:	Are you a sex worker?
CS:	Obviously not.
Defense:	Then how do know that beautiful women do not enter into prostitution voluntarily?
CS:	I just know what I know.
Defense:	You work with Cristoph Scarabco?
CS:	We know each other.
Defense:	And it is in this knowledge that you’ve gained considerable experience and knowledge regarding prostitution?
CS:	You can say that.
Defense:	Yes, but do you say that?
CS:	My experience comes from several experiences.
Defense:	Police records show that you have been associated for at least fifteen years. How old are you?
CS:	Thirty-four.
Defense:	The same police records show that Mr. Scarabco has been running, no, strike that, associated with sex workers, in one way or another, for over thirty-five years.

Peter paused long enough for his statement to sink into jurors’ consciousnesses, but not so long as to invite an objection.

Defense:

In your experience and knowledge, are all of the sex workers associated with Mr. Scarabco ugly? Unattractive? Homely? Perhaps just average looking?

Marcia slipped out of character. “I don’t like where this is going.”

“Good. Then you agree you can’t use this witness.”

“I have to.”

“You didn’t make a deal with Scarabco, did you?”

“Why would I make a deal with him?”

“We know that Scarabco wants to teach tech boys like Wirther a lesson. He went way out of his way to track him down.”

“You just answered your own question. We need the Weasel to tell the capture narrative. Without him, we have a hole in our story.”

“With him, it’ll look like we are prosecuting the wrong man.”

“What? None of Scarabco’s men injected nanites into any women’s heads so they could make them perform sex acts by remote control.”

“So now you are defending Silicon Valley’s biggest crime boss? Because he prefers doing things the old-fashioned way?”

Marcia stared at Peter; her lips quivered as if they were about to help pronounce a retort.

“Ingrid Ledesma, Marla Barlow, Unique Simpson-Davis.” Peter pulled three files from a box. “Three former art school models. One of the Weasel’s stringers found their number at SFAI. They hired them for photo shoots, which turned into porn photo shoots which turned into porn video shoots. If they refused, Stout, himself, muscled them, raped them and dragged them to the shoot. When the girls complained that repeated porn-style sex made them too sore to continue, they provided opioids.”

“Which they did to Corine.”

“Which addicted Corine and their other sex workers to opioids, which Scarabco and his pimps provided to keep them under their control.”

“So Scarabco controls women through drugs and Wirther controlled them through nanites. What’s the takeaway here?”

“The takeaway?” Peter laced his fingers through his hair. “Jeez, Marcia, I don’t know, but it sure doesn’t look right. We’re not prosecuting Scarabco, the crime boss, or the Weasel, his lieutenant. We are prosecuting Cal Wirther . . .”

“The evil inventor who programmed nanites to turn women into sex-bots!”

“Instead of a crime boss whose henchmen beat and rape women into submission, hook them on cheap opioids, take all of their money and calculate recruitment goals to replace women lost to beatings, overdose, starvation, suicide, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases.” Peter leaned forward into a well-practiced prosecutorial stance, a perfect portrait of power poised to release.

“Look what they did to Corine Waters.” Peter lost control of a storm brewing inside him. His lean deepened to a bend. He placed his hand on Marcia’s kitchen table just as he braced himself on jury stand rails. “They lured her, forced her into slavery, drained the hundreds of thousands of dollars she tucked away in her investment accounts and turned her apartment into a brothel until she got evicted for not renewing her lease. Why didn’t she renew her lease? She was broke, strung out on painkillers and living at their out-call escort agency.”

Peter locked his eyes with Marcia just as he picked a juror and locked in. By focusing on one juror, he cultivated jury room advocates.

“After she finished serving all the high-tech geeks who once coveted her, they sold her to one of their fuck-club owners until club members decided she was too old and used up, so that bastard sold her to a street pimp, who also determined she was too old, so he sold her to a brothel where she turned tricks twenty hours a day until she looked like a strung-out rag doll, so he sold her to a cheaper brothel.”

Peter paused for effect. He recognized Marcia’s expression. He’d seen it hundreds of times. Marcia appeared spellbound, dying to hear the end of the story even though she already knew it, or at least the version of it she agreed to use. Marcia knew that Scarabco rescued Corine after a fashion. He bought her from a low-cost brothel, got all she knew about Wirther and NanoBotics and turned her into a message for Dr. Winkel.

“You’re standing, Counselor. Have something to say?”

“There’s other reasons Stout shouldn’t testify.” Peter lisped and chuckled.

“That is not even a good impression.”

“Still.”

“He can control it.”

“I wouldn’t want to be the one to ask him not to use so many Ss.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“A source of mine told me that, one time, Scarabco told Stout to cut it out.”

“See.”

“Stout pounced. Had Scarabco pinned to the carpet and wailed away. It took three of Scarabco’s soldiers to pry him off.”

“How is Stout still alive? What did Scarabco do to him?”

“He apologized. Said something like it was his fault for not letting Stout be Stout.”

“So Stout has a speech impediment. The jury will understand.”

“He doesn’t have a speech impediment. He just likes the ‘S’ sound. Throws it in wherever he can and even where he can’t. In Stout’s world, every word should have an S.”

“So he can control it.” Marcia looked at her notes. “We need him to corroborate Corine’s statement. She’s too fuzzy about how she ended up at the Winkel Medical Center Urgent Care facility.”

“You mean how Lynn MacConnell, now deceased, dumped her there instead of Scarabco’s henchmen.”

“And how Dr. Winkel brought her back to health. It will help the jury like him more. Take his side. Overlook his pointy face and beady eyes.”

Chapter 5: Mia Wirther

Marcia Fong withdrew wedding photos from Mia Wirther’s file and hummed The Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love” melody.

“What now?” Peter Goode rubbed his nose’s bridge.

“You always say we need to tell the jury a story they can understand.”

“Actually, I say we need to sell juries stories they can relate to.”

“How about a love story?” Marcia presented Cal and Mia Wirther posed, classically, in a wedding photo. Their hands held together, chest high. Mia embracing a wedding bouquet. Their shoulders nearly touching; their eyes locked. Cal presented a proud, protective demeanor while Mia’s expression suggested it was time to kiss her and carry her over a threshold.

“How will this story help our case?”

“Most of Mia’s early memories were untouched. No McMartin issues. No objections. It is easily corroborated by friends and family. The story of Mia and Calvin gives us a clean start.”

“Okay, but what’s the story?”

* * *

Mia joined her friends, Di(ane), Jen(nifer) and (Col)Leena, on a grassy knoll overlooking a sand volleyball court. A few other groups came to watch an intramural match, none more vocal than seven members of Stanford’s spirit squads. They came to root on TheLinemen, mostly offensive linemen, though a couple of running backs played with them. Di came to watch her boyfriend, Kleone James-Jackson, a reserve running back. Jen and Leena came just in case any good-looking player or supporter took an interest in them. Both became “unattached” over winter break and could not believe weeks passed without any romantic interest. Mia decided to risk being with her friends despite previous sexual relations with Kleone and one of the offensive linemen.

Mia, now a sophomore, hadn’t even been on a college date. Not unattractive, she paled next to Di, Jen and Leena. She started tutoring athletes in the fall quarter. She excelled in business and communications, majors to which many athletes gravitated. Her professors recommended her to coaches. Kleone, like many athletes, devised clever ways to avoid studying. Seducing Mia did not present much of a challenge. Mia felt emotionally starved. Sex for Mia and Kleone provided more challenge than they could overcome. Even with five minutes of foreplay and generous lubrication, Mia, a petite five-foot-four-inch neophyte, could not accommodate his engorged phallus. Kleone, left with little else to do that day, studied for the rest of the hour. Afterward, he asked for another tutor. Gerry Clintford, Mia’s next tutee, displayed less disinterest toward study than Kleone. After three sessions, he seduced Mia. He fit much easier, but Mia felt crushed under his six-foot-five-inch, 320-pound body. After her complaint, Gerry rolled onto his back and set Mia on top. He joked, “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

Unlike being with handsome Kleone James-Jackson, Mia thought she could have a romantic relationship with Gerry. Gerry returned waves and greetings in public but never asked her out. He even declined several of Mia’s invitations. This time, Mia asked for reassignment. Additionally, she dedicated herself to a “no social relationship, no sexual relationship” rule. It seemed a bit too late. She acquired a “study-aid slut” appellation. Three basketball players and a defensive tackle later, coaches advised her tutees to keep their hands off her and their minds on their studies.

To be fair, Mia did not enter college a virgin. Ty(rone) Caldwell, her salutatorian and academic decathlon teammate, agreed to her proposal. He could make love to her if he took her to senior prom. She described their experiences as standard virginal fumbling. In a hotel room Mia booked for after prom, Ty confessed to his exaggerated sexual resume. Mia was his first as well. Unlike Ty, who had difficulty maintaining an erection after putting on a condom, both Kleone and Gerry demonstrated sexual proficiency. Still, Mia preferred Tyrone. Sex with college athletes seemed rougher, less personal, lacking.

In a discussion with Di and Leena, she learned the ins and outs of sport sex. Athletes were used to being applauded for their physical efforts. Even in practices, good coaches used positive redirections like, “That was good, now this time let’s try . . .” Even with their girlfriends, they often strived for either quick, maximum-effort exertions (football players, basketball players) or endurance sex (cross-country team, water polo, cyclists). Di chided Mia for not coaching them through their sex sessions.

Leena and Jen evaluated the volleyball players for boyfriend potential. They agreed Kleone (as Di’s current boyfriend) and Davis Varther were good choices. Big, rotund linemen wouldn’t do. Their opponent’s team name, #GLG, which stood for Good-Looking Geeks, was, mostly, an oxymoron. Two standouts: a tall, sandy-haired boy with a sturdy athletic build, whom Jen and Leena labeled GLG1, and a skinny player with long blond hair they labeled GLG2.

Mia focused on the game. Initially, she thought athletes should dominate over geeks, but these were mostly linemen. They carried extra non-muscle poundage. Gerry grew a flabby middle for good reason: force is the product of mass and acceleration. His body could only accommodate so much muscle before it became musclebound. Mr. Universe would make a horrible lineman. Generating acceleration wasn’t a problem, but his hits needed more impact, more force, more mass. Intramural volleyball was not an impact sport. Getting the ball back over the net was more important, and the geeks were able to do that: advantage #GLG. Were this two-on-two beach volleyball, the geeks should dominate, but, with six players on the court, not so much. The linemen were pretty quick to the ball, much quicker than the geeks, even in the sand: advantage TheLinemen. Good volleyball teams returned spikes with spikes, and offensive linemen, though tall, could not elevate high enough to spike. Neither could most of the geeks. Each side, however, had two players capable of elevation and spikes. Kleone and Davis excelled, but GLG1 matched Kleone, and GLG2 wasn’t bad either: advantage no one. It all came down to team play, namely passing the ball to set up spikes. Although TheLinemen were actual teammates, they played like rookies. They preferred to show off and try to win every point with a single hit. #GLG played with purpose. Kleone and Davis blocked some of GLG1’s and 2’s spikes, but not enough. All factors in play produced a close match, but by the third game, Mia concluded #GLG would win, which they did.

After the match, TheLinemen mingled with spirit squad girls. #GLG stayed on the court waiting for TheLinemen to congratulate them on a match well played, then to congratulate themselves, then they sort of dissolved. GLG1 headed towards Mia’s group. Kleone peeled away from TheLinemen and met him partway. GLG1 received Kleone’s congratulations and more. They talked for about two or three minutes before they both arrived.

“Give me some love.” Kleone burst through Leena and Jen to hug Di.

“Ew, you’re making my blouse all sweaty.”

“Oooh baby, I’m gonna make all of ya sweat.”

“Kleone, I do not sweat. When you get going, it’s all you.”

“She has a point,” Mia added.

Di’s head snapped around to her friend, stifling Jen’s and Leena’s laughter. Mia simply turned her palms skyward and shrugged. Kleone’s smile suggested an elephant-in-the-room comment loomed. Di, Jen, Leena and Mia had discussed how awkward it may be for Di to date someone Mia almost fucked, but Mia never accepted their implications that she should just shut her mouth and be quiet.

“Athletes perspire more.” GLG1 stepped forward. “Their bodies learn efficient cooling.”

“Aw, a brother trying to help a brother out. Ain’t that sweet, sweetie?” Kleone drew Di closer and kissed her.

“What are you doing here?” Jen elbowed GLG1’s side. “There are two cheerleaders left, and you’re not half bad looking.”

“Those two are lesbians.” Kleone pulled back and turned toward Mia. “Right?”

“College,” Mia paused for dramatic effect, but her face blushed, “is a time for experimentation.”

Jaw-dropped shock registered on Jen’s and Leena’s faces.

“Them spirit-squad types need tutoring just like us jocks.”

“And they are just as committed to their studies as the jocks.” Mia smiled at Kleone and Di.

“Same study habits?” Di inquired.

“Pretty much.”

“See, baby?” Kleone beamed.

“Not a positive,” Mia and Di chorused.

“I came to talk with this one.” GLG1 faced Mia. “Mia?”

GLG1 stood, squared up a foot in front of Mia, and all else (Kleone’s self-indulgent laughter, Jen’s and Leena’s protests, GLG2’s arrival, even Di’s PDAs) faded into background noise. GLG1 looked better up close. His smile, honest and endearing. His skin glistened, highlighting every muscle; and he was toned. Even his hair, though sweat-soaked and spikey, framed his physiognomy well, made his gaze more intense.

“I have to agree with Jen and Leena there. Why me?”

“You were watching the game. I could tell.”

“We were all watching the game.”

“No. Di was here for Kleone. Her eyes were only on him. And these two were too busy ranking our butts.”

“Your butt ranked high.” Leena broke through the background haze. “It could rank a lot better than Mia’s.”

“Hey!” Di and Kleone came to Mia’s defense.

While Di reminded Jen and Leena that Mia was their friend, and Jen and Leena practically demanded that GLG1 pay attention to them, everything faded again.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

Almost. Jen pried herself into the foreground.

“Cal.” GLG1 remained focused on Mia.

“Cal’s in Berkeley,” Jen insisted.

“No, Cal’s right here.” Cal’s smile widened. He never turned, his eyes on Mia.

“Okay, so I watched the game. What of it?”

“No, no, no. You didn’t just watch the game. You analyzed it.”

“Okay, so?”

“So I was busy playing the game. I can only see things from a limited perspective.”

“So you’re self-involved like all the other athletes.”

“Uh, I’m not sure about all that, but you seem smart. I’d like to hear your observations.”

Mia obliged. Cal shared what he thought happened from an inside-the-game perspective. Mostly, they agreed. When they disagreed, they explained their positions through analogies. They both loved analogies and appreciated each other’s. Mia forgot, for a while, Cal’s handsomeness. This conversation exceeded all but a few lunch conversations with her literature professor, who’d taken a non-romantic interest in her. Intellectually, Cal kept her on her toes, and she never felt more comfortable. He followed her through sea life analogies, historical analogies and Shakespearean references. Mia caught on to Cal’s tricks. His analogies seemed deceptively homespun, based on cars, garden vegetables and pets, but they hid a deep understanding of physics and strategy. Most people might be taken in, but Mia trapped him into a confession. Cornered, Cal smiled and changed the subject. Utilizing analogies, Mia realized, opened up their conversation to many subjects. Neither of them lacked opinions on a wide range of topics, and, somewhere in their conversation, they started challenging each other, testing each other’s bounds of knowledge. They talked for hours.

Their focus narrowed till they only registered each other. They did not notice when Kleone escorted Di away, presumably to her room for sex. They missed Ben’s (GLG2’s) awkward advances on Jen, and, once rebuffed, his cataclysmic redirection to Leena. Jen and Leena stormed off. Ben, after surveying the lesbian cheerleaders, tried to sidle Cal and join the conversation. Unacknowledged, he skulked away.

Mia could not recall how their asses found themselves sitting on Leena’s blanket with their backs on a large tree trunk. Leena would have insisted on taking it with her. Perhaps she admonished her to bring it back when they were done. It wasn’t until late afternoon sunlight glared in Mia’s field of vision that she looked around and noticed her friend’s absence. She also noticed Cal counting Hoover Tower’s chimes.

“Got somewhere you have to be?”

“Not sure.”

“How can you be not sure? It’s pretty much a yes-or-no question.”

“I’m already over an hour late.”

“Sometimes it’s better to be a no-show than excessively tardy.”

“True, but,” Cal smelled his T-shirt. “I really should shower.”

“Big plans tonight?”

“Yeah, but I’d like to take you to dinner sometime.”

“Tonight is sometime.”

“It certainly is.” Cal’s eyes moved from side to side. “I can rearrange my calendar. Pick you up at your place.”

“Meet me at The Treehouse at six.”

“Can we make it seven?”

“Okay.”

Cal stood up and waited awkwardly for a few seconds. Mia remained seated. Cal offered a few more goodbyes and departed. She gathered up Leena’s blanket and headed to her dorm.

Someone left Leena’s door ajar. A slight push revealed Jen and Leena blogging on Leena’s iMac.

“Good grief, I’m glad you’re here.” Di put down her phone. “I tried to order you two a picnic dinner, but everywhere I called only made picnic lunches, and it’s way past lunchtime.”

“Funny.” Mia kept her tone as flat as possible.

“Soooo?” Jen started. “Dish!”

“Dish?”

“Slang for ‘spill the beans,’” Jen said.

“Beans?”

“Why, Mia, whatever kept you so long?” Di employed her mock Southern accent.

“I think it was that Cal guy,” Jen prodded.

“Yeah, which one of us is he interested in?”

“Well it couldn’t be Di because she was too busy enjoying Kleone’s molestations. Right?”

“He’s quite the molester.”

“I’m surprised you’re back so soon.”

“Take a look at the clock.” Jen pointed to her cell phone registering 4:42.

“Oh God.” Mia flinched.

“What?” Leena asked.

“The Treehouse at seven. I need to get ready.”

“For him or the lesbian cheerleaders?” Jen again.

“That was just an experiment!” Mia hadn’t expected an inquisition.

“Violated your ‘no sex without a public relationship’ rule, eh, lesbo?”

“I am not a lesbian. And, Di, some relationships you don’t want public unless you’re sure.”

“And now you’re sure?” Jen asked.

“I’m sure I’m going to be late. I need to get ready. I need to shower.”

“Sorry, Mia, no lesbian showers here.” Leena reached out for her blanket.

Mia tossed Leena her blanket and looked to Di for help. They were all friends now, but Leena and Jen were Di’s friends before Mia joined the group.

“Gonna wash the gay out of this.” Leena held her blanket at arm’s length.

“What do I wear?” Mia stared directly at Di.

“Are you going to sleep with him tonight?” Jen asked.

“No, the ‘three public dates’ rule is definitely in effect.”

“Good.” Jen stood. “Dress conservative. Some features should not be revealed in public.”

“Lesbian features.” Leena’s snicker drew disapproving expressions.

“She has a good body.” Di approached.

Jen and Leena, standing, drew up their blouses and slapped their tight abdomens.

“Mia may not be as skinny as you two, but her body is fine.” Di placed her hands on Mia’s shoulders. “We just need to frame this.” She pulled Mia’s hair into a ponytail.

“Noooo.” Jen and Leena shook their heads.

“Let’s go to your room and figure something out.” Di led Mia out the door, shutting it to dissuade Jen and Leena from following them.

“Thanks for helping me out.” Mia stood in front of a full-length mirror mounted on the bathroom door wearing only her panties.

“So this is a romantic date?” Di pawed through Mia’s wardrobe.

“What makes you think that?”

“Seven gives you just enough time for an intense dinner, a quick hookup, a little cuddling and arrangements for the next hookup.”

“No hookup.”

“Really?”

“I proposed dinner at six, but Cal needed seven. He had to make some calendar changes is all.”

“Calendar changes. Hah! He’s trying to two-bag it.”

“Two-bag?”

“Bag two women in one night. Seriously, did you look at him?”

“Of course, but most of the time I concentrated on what he was saying.”

“Your conversation, right, that makes sense.”

“He’s very smart; he knows a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, I get it. He’ll finish up with the girl who’s into his body, take a quick shower and enjoy an intellectually challenging night with you.”

“You really think he’s having sex with some girl?”

“You don’t?” Di selected a light blue dress. “Jen was wrong.”

“No.” Mia found herself behind in this exchange. “Wrong about what?”

“You should dress casual, not conservative.” Di passed another dress.

“Oh.” Mia held the dress in front of her. “I thought you meant something about the two-bag thing.”

“Jen can be a little mean, but she usually keeps to direct attacks.”

“Do you think Kleone is two-bagging it tonight?”

“What the? Why would you ask that?”

“Well, it seems to be something you and he know about, and he talked to Cal before coming over. I mean, maybe that’s what they talked about. You know, like a competition.”

Di glared.

“You know, like . . .” Mia switched to a deeper voice. “‘Yo, bro, I’m two-bagging tonight, how ’bout you?’”

“‘Shit, dude.’” Di impersonated Cal. “‘Look at me. It’s a three-dog night, if you know what I mean.’”

Mia giggled but erupted into full laughter when Di joined in. It took a while for them to calm down.

“Okay, I’ll admit Cal is attractive, but he doesn’t say ‘dude.’”

“Actually, Kleone tried to talk him into trying out for the football team. Told him he’d make Academic All-American easy.”

“That’s all?”

“Cal said something funny. He said, ‘If I wanted my brains bashed, I’d choose boxing.’”

“Sounds like him. He’s very intelligent.”

“So you’re falling for his brains, not his body?”

“I am not a fallen woman.”

“We’ll see.” Di turned Mia toward her. “Yep, that’s the dress. Put it on.”

“Pass my blue bra, over there, please.”

“No bra. You have small, firm tits. This will be fine.”

“I’m not that type of girl.”

“Yeah, right. The dress looks better, and you’ll be able to move freer.”

“I move free enough with a bra.”

“Nope. When you’re busy dressing in his room to make it back before breakfast, it is much freer to just pull this dress over your head, slip on your shoes and skidoo. No looking around for your bra; no fumbling around to put it on right; no pinch pain when you don’t. Trust me, kiddo, no bra for you tonight.”

“Panties?”

“Leave ’em behind.”

“So you never wear panties anymore because you’ve left so many behind?”

Di’s wide smile pushed her cheeks almost to her eyes.

“You slutty sophomore.” Mia checked her cell phone. “Jeez, look at the clock.”

“Off now, young one. Don’t offer to pay for dinner or leave the tip or anything. He asked you out.”

Mia arrived at The Treehouse at 7:10, asked the counter girl if Cal was there, looked for him, and eventually took a table. Mia scanned the restaurant frequently as she waited. Suddenly, several heads turned toward the entrance. More heads swiveled. Cal entered just before 7:20. He walked straight to the counter and ordered a burger, a quesadilla, a tostada salad, two orders of fries and a pitcher of beer. Cal tapped the shoulder of the guy next to him, and they brought it all to Mia’s table.

“Bold,” she said.

“What?”

“Ordering for me.”

“Did I do a good job?”

“I don’t like fries.”

“Then you can have the tostada.” Cal poured Mia a beer.

“This doesn’t buy you any sexual favors.”

“Not even a kiss?”

“I don’t do sex without romance.”

“Good to know. I don’t do romance . . .” Cal paused and flashed a smile.

“Figures.” Mia poked a fork into her tostada.

“Well, that’s rude.”

Mia looked up.

“I don’t do romance without sex.”

“Nice trick. I know a few tricks myself.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. I can play word games, too. I can play all day if that’s what you want.”

“And when do the games end?”

“You should know that.”

“Well, if you can play all day, then they end at night.”

“How many hours in a day?”

“Okay, okay.” Cal stroked his chin. “They end when we trust each other enough to stop playing games.”

“Close.” Mia couldn’t believe Cal’s ability to wiggle out of a trap. “They end when I trust you. You’re just after me for sex.”

“Look . . .” Cal leaned forward, both hands pressed flat on the table.

Mia flinched.

“There are several forms of intercourse.” Cal relaxed.

“Like?”

“Talking.”

“Okay.” Mia grinned. “Why were you so late? Talk!”

“Go team meeting. Unavoidable, and it went a little late.”

“There’s an intramural Go team?”

“On, no. We’re trying to write an artificial intelligence program to beat Go masters.”

“I thought computers played chess.”

“That’s been done. Go is much more complex. Right now, computers can barely beat Go acolytes.”

“So you’re teaching a computer to play Chinese checkers?”

“No, no, no. Go is . . .”

And they were off. They talked for hours until The Treehouse emptied. Cal walked Mia to her dorm, but Mia stopped him on the steps leading to the main entrance. She explained her dating rules. Cal listened without comment.

“Wednesday night The Big Lebowski is playing. Let’s grab an early dinner and catch an early screening.”

“No, I’m not free till Friday night, and I didn’t like Lebowski the first time I saw it.”

“Okay, what do you want to see?”

Mia asked for his phone number and promised to call before Wednesday. Mia chose a Patch Adams showing in Mountain View for two reasons: she liked Robin Williams and there was a Chinese restaurant nearby. Cal’s lack of a car disappointed her, though she found it endearing. She drove her old Honda Civic. A so-so dinner and a surprisingly depressing ending for a Robin Williams film would normally make a negatively memorable night, but she enjoyed talking with Cal. Again, he engaged her full knowledge range. They discussed the movie on the drive back. He employed mathematical risk and reward analysis to show how Carin’s death added depth and meaning to Patch’s endeavors and success. Mia wasn’t impressed. Cal then pointed out all of Robin Williams’s funny antics ending with the “cervix” pun. They laughed all the way to Cal’s dorm, and when Cal leaned over the emergency brake, she kissed him. Their first kiss. Cal leaned in for more; Mia managed to clear her throat. Cal took the hint and smiled.

Cal planned their third date. They took shuttles, buses, BART trains and Metro trolleys to the San Francisco Zoo. Mia dressed for a cool day, but the sun warmed her up. After exploring the zoo, they walked along San Fran’s Ocean Beach. They spotted Golden Gate Park and explored several attractions including lunch in the Japanese Tea Garden. They took another trolley, ended up near a cable car turnaround and took a cable car to Union Square.

“The way I see it.” Cal looked around. “It’s either an early dinner in the city or a late supper back on campus.”

“It’s your safari.”

“Let’s hunt.” Cal took Mia’s hand and pulled her through packs of tourists.

“What are we hunting for?”

“A long line.”

“No line would be quicker.”

“Long lines exist for a reason.”

“Well . . .” Mia pointed. “There is quite a line over there.”

“Look how they’re dressed.”

“They are dressed just like we are.”

“Tourists!”

“We are tourists.”

“We’re looking for a line of locals.”

Cal led her up steps to the center square plaza and surveyed options. They pointed out various restaurant prospects before Cal decided to look outside the square proper. A block or so away, a deli tucked into the side of an upscale boutique hotel drew just the right sort of crowd for Cal’s purpose. Max’s sported a surprisingly full menu. Cal ordered a roast beef sandwich; Mia, soup. Once again, Mia became enraptured with Cal and conversation. She did not notice when they first started holding hands across the table. It must have been when they ordered cheesecake and coffee. She didn’t notice her first yawn, but she noticed her efforts stifling them. Cal seemed to notice as well; he suggested getting a room, and Mia agreed.

Mia plopped herself onto the bed. Eyes closed, she lost track of time; she lost track of Cal. She inhaled fresh, clean hotel linens and reveled in the best date of her young life. If it ended then, she’d be happy. If it continued . . .

Cal pried off one shoe, then the other. Socks, too. His hands ran along her blue jeans’ inseams, cupped her ass, slid up to her hips and then plunged below her belly. He unclasped her button, unzipped and pulled, in a gentle but determined manner, both her jeans and panties off. Mia managed a sigh. If he wants it, he’ll have to work for it.

Cal disengaged. Too long. For the first time since she dove onto the bed, Mia opened her eyes. As fuzzy forms cleared, she saw Cal, in comic desperation, struggle to adorn a condom. She laughed causing a twisted, confused consternation to overtake Cal’s countenance. His face relaxed. He stepped up, spread her wide and slid in. For a moment, sex felt good, great perhaps. It ended far too soon.

Mia’s suspicion that it was too short was confirmed when Cal climbed into bed and pulled her up to him. He confessed the day took more out of him than he suspected. They kissed, cuddled and caressed. Cal promised he’d make it up to her, that their first time should have been better. Mia smiled, confident that, for her, it couldn’t get much better. Cal fell asleep first; Mia rested her head on his chest, riding each inhale and exhale like Pacific waves.

Mia was wrong. For almost two years, sex kept improving. As Jen kept reminding her, sex was Cal’s province, and he kept guiding Mia through it expanding her erotic vocabulary. Only moving in together halted her progress. Di explained that it was normal for sex to peak when you made love with the same man every night. Deborah (never ‘Debbie’ or ‘Deb’), her new friend, emphasized that most women would envy Mia’s sex life. Mia agreed, though sometimes, too often, she gave into Cal’s desires more dutifully than enthusiastically.

Mia loved her intellectual connection to Cal. Their conversations challenged her mind in both range and depth. Outside general requirements, they never took the same course and, even with the general stuff, they took complimentary, as opposed to redundant, perspectives. For example, when it came to Descartes’s Meditations, Cal explored its logic, Mia its imagery.

Mia loved being the envy of her friends, especially Leena and Jen. While Cal introduced Mia to all his friends and clubs, Mia kept her friends to herself. She divulged every detail of her dates with Cal including blow-by-blow romantic recaps. At first, Leena and Jen were critical; Di remained supportive. They advised her to enjoy it for as long as it lasted, for, with a guy as good-looking as Cal, it wouldn’t last long. Every weekend proved them wrong. When these four friends should have reunited after Jen and Leena’s winter ski adventure, Jen and Leena split. Di broke the news. Mia already made new friends (mostly just Deborah). Still, for almost a year, Mia flouted her in-a-relationship status.

It came at a cost. Mia concluded that the loss of Leena and Jen was more of a blessing. At first, Di sided with her. During their junior year, Kleone openly flaunted a sexual relationship with another woman, and Di broke off their relationship. Di hit a dry spell, and Mia’s Sunday dinner recaps bothered her as well. Di drifted away some time after Mia and Cal’s wedding.

What Mia loved most about Cal was how much he loved her. Undaunted, unwavering devotion. He demonstrated his love in many ways. He always reached out to her: to hold her hand, kiss her neck, touch toes under tables. He bragged, boasted and, on occasion, bellowed his love for her. Sometimes he went off the rails. One time, during Di’s dry spell, Di lamented.

“Why do so many great-looking girls end up with dumpy-looking guys?” she started.

“Do you think that’ll happen to you?” Mia turned to her friend.

“It looks like settling, perhaps selling out.”

“Counterintuitive evolution,” Cal cut in. “Smart, confident men chose Mia every time. Lackers keep upgrading to more and more beautiful women.”

“I’m not beautiful?”

“You are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Di huffed, arms akimbo.

“You have nicer tits,” Cal conceded.

At a party at Brian’s, a fellow graduate student, newlywed Devon approached.

“How’s the wife?” Devon punched Cal’s shoulder lightly.

“Better than yours.” Cal did not even look up from the snack table.

Devon froze, considered punching Cal’s smug face without any degree of pulling.

“The line you’re looking for,” Brian interceded, “is, ‘You know, you’re right.’”

“Oh, I know.” Cal wrapped his arm around Mia.

Cal graduated a year ahead of Mia. He moved into graduate housing. They married a year later, after Mia graduated. Mia also entered Stanford’s graduate school. Cal pursued computer science specializing in massive parallel processing and embedded systems. Mia pursued emerging social networks at the School of Communications.

Di stayed close to Mia through undergrad, and Deborah remained her friend until she earned her PhD. They witnessed Mia and Cal’s relationship enter an adult maturity. They counseled her through those early years of marriage and endured Mia’s revelations.

After graduate school, Cal found work with Trinity Biotechnics. Trinity specialized in field medical diagnostic testing. They developed an AIDS test deployed in Africa and India. It was capable of analyzing blood samples in less than an hour. Cal worked on modularization such that a small, encapsulated sensor pack worked on a pinprick of blood when plugged into a console capable of holding twenty pods. He developed a similar system for the SARS epidemic, though he started it for seasonal influenza testing.

In response to growing demands for Emergency Response Field Hospitals, Cal started work on a hospital-bed-in-a-shoebox system. All monitoring systems communicated to the computerized control display via coded Bluetooth. A small tablet, power adaptor, blood pressure sensor, heart rate/respiratory rate chest strap, body temperature/oxygenation/blood sugar monitor, and IV drip sensor all fit in a box which could, but not quite, fit a pair of tennis shoes. Each sensor device could run on a power adapter or batteries (with at least nine-hours’ run per charge). A sensor charge bank, about the size of an electric keyboard, came in a much larger box. The shoebox system initially cost $1,000. Before it hit the market, Cal’s manufacturing team halved the cost. It was a big success.

After graduate school, Mia worked as a media liaison for a few phase five, midsize technology startup companies. Her first assignments involved arranging informational meetings including new product announcements, quarterly profit statements, acquisition announcements, first month-in-the-black celebrations and IPOs (initial public offerings of stock on open exchanges such as NASDAQ). Later, she handled negative events like downsizings, Chapter 11 reorganizations, white knight searches, and Chapter 9 dissolutions. She learned to attract media for positive events and dissuade it for negative events. In media relations, if it ain’t rosy and positive, it was a negative.

She joined Charles, Richard and Samuel Public Relations in San Jose. Working for a firm provided career stability. She coordinated social media campaigns for several startups, established technology corporations and made their executives industry celebrities. With Cal’s help, she introduced Troll-Stomping, a “solution-suite” (as Cal liked to call his creations), which crawled through all social media and online forums; identified critical, offensive posts; researched their authors (trolls); created a post history of each troll alerted Mia’s staff so that they could counter-post; suggested where Mia’s staff should post their own criticisms and kept score.

Cal and Mia enjoyed a few years of success. They each climbed in their fields, saved money, stayed in love. They still made love five or more times a week. They traveled to Paris, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Prague and Beijing. Cal invested their savings and multiplied them. They found a cute house in Santa Clara and made a down payment.

Trinity Biotechnics hired Mia’s firm. Every time Mia heard something about Trinity, Cal already knew everything about it. Every time except when Mia heard Trinity’s plans to offshore manufacturing and design. Cal’s effervescent U-shaped smile turned jaw-dropped O. He drained every dram of information from Mia.

To be fair, Trinity Biotechnic offered Cal a position in Guangzhou. Mia cried when she and Cal discussed their options. In the end, they remained in Silicon Valley. Cal remained optimistic through eight months of employment rejections. Through 2006 and 2007, every company he talked to looked to lay off computer scientists, not hire any.

Mia worked overtime handling corporate communications even though CRS lost two-thirds of their clients. This offset Cal’s lack of income, somewhat. Cal continued to manage their investments. He went from value investing to selling companies short.

Cal always discussed his financial dealings with Mia, even after she made it clear she disliked it. She realized he needed to hear his ideas out loud. Trading stock in the midst of a financial collapse taxed his intellectual capacity. After he fell into a few short traps, losing a tenth of their holdings, they determined, Cal mostly, that he needed to do something else. He cashed out of the stock market.

Mia wasn’t sure what he did during the day. Her workload slackened. When she came home early, he was not home. He’d come in around seven or eight. One day, he beat her home. He sat at the dining room table, grinning. Papers and folders covered half the table.

“I found it.”

“Eureka?”

“NanoBotics.”

“I’m sure they’re in the yellow pages.”

“Sorta,” Cal explained. “But they are also in pink sheets. They were delisted months ago and face total dissolution soon.”

“Sounds bad. I don’t think they were one of our clients.”

“The thing is, their assets are worth way more than their capitalization. They leased a big building, several nanotech patents, licensing agreements for technologies they don’t own, lots of equipment and computers.”

“So you’re gonna buy it and sell it off.”

“It only cost me two million one hundred thousand.”

“That’s almost all we’ve saved.”

“I know, I know.”

“How long do you think it will take to get our money back?”

“Well . . .”

“Cal.”

“I think I can make it work. I already have a plan to keep me and my employee making a livable salary. We’ll need to sell some of the equipment. Most of the computers will never get anywhere near their book value, but the office space can be used by littles for conferences and presentations. You know, to make appearances. Maybe you can steer some business our way.”

“Cal, are we going to go broke?”

“I don’t think so. It’ll only take a couple hundred thousand to get the building up to snuff. Joy’s already lining up contractors, and she’s good at driving down their estimates. That makes things a little tight, but it will give me time.”

“Time to do what? Hire a bankruptcy lawyer?”

“I think I can make their technology work. They didn’t employ ant colony optimization as well as they thought. I think I can program their nanites to work together. From there, possible applications seem endless. It would be easy to find investors and relaunch.”

“You know I love you, Cal.”

“Luv ya more. That’s why I’m doing all of this. This can be big.”

“Okay. If we make it big, promise me you won’t trade me in for a trophy wife.”

“You have always been the trophy.”

* * *

“Objection.” Peter rose from his seat. “The witness is changing her story.”

“Overruled.” Marcia banged her hand on the table.

“In her deposition, Your Honor, she could not remember when she first heard of NanoBotics.”

“That is not objectionable. You can bring that up in cross-examination.”

“Doesn’t matter. I just tainted Mrs. Wirther’s testimony.” Peter took his seat and smiled.

“It’s an underhanded tactic. Do you think they’ll use it?”

“You think they won’t?”

“I hoped to get a victim’s testimony in without objections. I can still keep her on the stand. I’ll claim her statements are corroborated by other witnesses.”

“Whom?”

“Diana Madison and Deborah Reismuller.”

“Ms. Madison left after Mia’s first year of marriage; Ms. Reismuller left after Mia’s third. They can’t corroborate the good stuff.”

“But I got Mia on the stand testifying up to this point.”

“Up to this point, she’s a great character witness for Cal Wirther. Hell, I’m beginning to like the slimy son of a bitch.”

“But, after what he did to her, the jury won’t like him.”

“You can’t get that in. She doesn’t remember why she did what she did. She can only talk about their divorce and her infidelity with Dr. Winkel.”

“I can use all the filings from the divorce proceedings. Vince Winkel outright states that Mia came on to him because Cal was controlling her. That corroborates well.”

“Perhaps, but Winkel never stated how. He didn’t want to implicate himself. In the end, he settled and paid out three million and lost his share of NanoBotics.”

“Still, a legal filing is evidence.”

“He backed away from it then; he’ll back away from it again. You didn’t offer him transactional immunity.”

“Perhaps I should.”

“As I said, the jury will think we’re prosecuting the wrong guy. You need a different tactic.”

Chapter 6: Eileen Paxon

“I think you’re wrong, Peter.” Marcia Fong thumbed a stack of files. “All stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.”

“Yes,” Peter Goode disagreed, “but well-told stories don’t start at the beginning.”

“Ours should.” Marcia selected a file. “Let’s start our story with Eileen Paxon.”

“That ain’t exactly the beginning.”

“It’s where things get clearly criminal.”

“You don’t consider what they did to Corine Waters criminal?”

“They didn’t profit from it. They rented out Eileen’s body for hundreds of thousands over the years.”

“Point. But she had a shaky deposition.”

“She can be coached. She’ll make a good witness. Her heart is in the right place.”

* * *

“Welcome, dear.” Mom spreads her arms, drawing me into a hug. Mother seems to hug us children more than other mothers in Butte, though farmhouses are quite a ways apart, so I can’t rightly say what happens in other families’ houses. Emily, my littlest sister, darts toward us and joins the hug. “Come in.”

I am not sure what she means by that. For family, “come in” means “take a seat at the kitchen table.” For visitors, it means “wait in the foyer.” Father likes to make people uneasy by making them stand in the foyer until he’s ready to receive them. When ready, Mother, or one of us children, ushers guests to Father’s study. I’ve been away for over ten years, since I left for college. As far as I know, I am the first child to return home. An abrupt stop lets me know how I will be handled.

“Did you walk here from San Francisco?” Mother turns to face the door. She stretches out her arms to place me in the same spot she parks hay salesmen, insurance agents and cattle buyers. Nothing personal, I think; she just does that out of habit.

“No, Mom. I flew to Boise and rented a car.”

She looks past my head as if she sees through doors and walls.

“It’s parked out on the road.”

“He’ll be disappointed, you know. He don’t know much, but he can figure out things.” Her departing words.

She dashes to a bell hanging above the front porch railing. A precise pattern rings out. Easy to translate: Father, visitor, family, important. Not Morse code. Father dislikes Morse code, more like the idea of Morse code since he does not actually know it. It’s a modern invention based on electricity. Electricity, Father reasons, if it truly exists, belongs with God, in the sky, not in wires. Damn Benjamin Franklin with his kites and keys. Lightning, grounded, brings fire and destruction. Any fool knows that.

“He’ll be here soon.” Emily joins me in the foyer. “He’s mending the far fence bordering the Millers.” She smiles. An innocent smile, sweet and welcoming. She was barely two years old when I left. We hardly knew each other, yet we share so much: same parents, same home, same town. Pretty much the same experiences. Mother homeschools all of us children, not to isolate us from modern society, as Father thought, but to make damn sure we are ready for college a year or two before most Butte County students graduate high school. We all pass the GED by age sixteen and score at least 2200 on SAT exams. Leah and Rachel married and tend to their homes and families, but Zoe, Reuben, Levi and I all leverage advanced degrees to pursue professions.

Emily hugs me around the waist.

“I miss you so much.”

“I’m surprised you remember me.”

“All of my brothers and sisters. Mother says I’m the last one.”

I smirk, though Emily, probably, cannot see. She dresses like she has a role on Little House on the Prairie. Mother makes her clothes just as she once made all of ours. I should have saved one of my old dresses, but I trashed them as soon as I could. My wardrobe does not draw attention in town, but here, at home, I stand out. Father will surely say something.

In the old days, when I lived here, Father called all women in modern dress Rachabs. When Serena, a friend from town, visited wearing cutoff jeans and a bikini top, Father unbuttoned his fly and waved his penis at her. This house sees very few visitors. Father prefers it that way. Six days a week, we live in isolation. On Sundays, we visit one of Father’s friends for religious services. When they visit, they stay in a barn where we set out pews in an octagonal pattern. After reading Bible verses and singing hymns, adults, mostly men, drag out old heavy tables and arrange the pews for seats. Every household brings dishes, and we eat brunch. For children, this is their main form of socializing.

Maribel, Daniel’s daughter, went to public school with her brothers, James and Joseph. We all befriended Maribel because she lived in town. Serena really was Maribel’s friend more than mine. Anyways, after Father’s genital display, I never saw Serena again. Not until I was sixteen, and then only briefly. I really don’t like thinking about that incident.

Emily hears Mother ringing a summon, lets loose and joins Mother on the porch.

Mother and Father always let us know where we belong. Either through verbal commands, whispers or bell rings, we are instructed. Father loves the control. Mother’s motives remain less clear. She homeschools much more than the normal curriculum. Leah first recognized Mother’s careful tutelage to prepare us for life away from home. Mother understood Father. She sneaks in her preparations under his nose, but not in front of his eyes. I doubt he understands what happens to his children, though he causes most of it.

“She loves him.” Emily returns.

“What?”

“You were talking to yourself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You will be, should Father hear your thoughts.” Emily smiles just like Mother when she knows she said more than words convey. “Please join us at the kitchen table.”

I stare, but just for a moment.

“Sister.” Emily takes my hand and leads me even though I know where the kitchen table is.

Father sits at the table with a relaxed posture like he’s been there for a while. Mother takes her seat and watches as Emily takes her seat. The table pinches two more seats against the wall, configured as it would be for cooking. Everything moves in a farmhouse, Mother often says, and they move for a reason.

Father nods and Emily relinquishes her seat. I take her seat and she stands for a moment before Mother stares her away. She skulks off to her room. Schoolwork, I presume.

“What brings you to my home?”

“She’s our child, Husband.”

“She was ours; she left, unmarried, without my leave.”

“Yes, Father, I did.”

“Are you here to return to my care, submit to my rules?”

I hesitate. I’m pretty sure I’m not ready to submit to anyone’s rule over me.

“Why are you here?” Father repeats.

“I don’t know.”

“Ten years, and you still do not know.”

“Perhaps she came to tell us about what happened to her. What happened to you, dear?”

“Okay.” My mind swims like a sea lion circled by sharks. “But I don’t know where to begin.”

“Oh, dear, it’s always best to begin at the beginning.”

* * *

“Love covers a multitude of sins.” Patricia interrupted Eileen’s regard of Sean Beacon’s bum, which seemed perfectly shaped even with ripped, faded Levi’s covering it.

“Peter 1:48. Quoting the Bible at me?”

“If the brass buckles over wrinkled buck leather ol’ lady Quaker shoes fit . . .”

“JC Penney, Patty; these ain’t no Quaker shoes.”

“And that wasn’t no distant glance. You focused on those tight buns so hard, I bet he felt it.”

“I bet you want to feel it.”

“You first. Bird dog rules.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What’s wrong with you? I’ve known you three years now, and I’ve never seen you date anyone. What’s your excuse? Look, if you’re into girls, I’m game. I can go both ways.”

“Thanks, sweetie, but no, not into ladies. I’ve just not met anyone I’m into.”

“You’re into him.”

“Maybe I’m just into his butt.”

“He might like that.”

“Huh?”

“Rumor has it, he’s gay.”

“I heard that, too.”

“Don’t be daunted, girl. What you lack in experience, you’ll make up in pent-up sexual energy. Girl, give’m a good enough ride, and you could turn him.”

“Turn him?”

At that moment, Sean lowered his head and turned towards Eileen and Patricia.

“One good turn deserves another, if you know what I mean.”

“I thought you tried to reference James 5:20.”

Patricia cocked her head to the side, her familiar “whatcha talkin’ ’bout” look.

“He, who turns a sinner from error, saves a soul from death and covers a multitude of sins.”

“It looks like your turn.” Patricia picked up a couple random volumes and headed to the stacks.

Sean’s eyes followed her path till bookshelves blocked his visage. He turned and strode like a runway model to the counter. He stopped right in front of Eileen, and the world changed a little. He wore cologne, just enough to notice, not enough to complain about. The journals he produced were another matter. She thought their publishers tried to embalm them, as if their content needed to be preserved for posterity. A ridiculous notion. Small scientific facts flit about like leaves in a stiff wind. Some stick, but most move on. Same with scientific discovery. Someone finds something, someone else shows that the results can’t be reproduced, or someone finds something more fundamental. Eventually, someone else picks up the leaves that stick, pastes them into a book and changes scientific thought.

“I need to take these with me.” Sean fanned five journals across the countertop like a poker player revealing his hand.

“There’s a Xerox machine.” Eileen pointed to the copy room. “Three cents a page.”

“So much to copy, too little time,” Sean explained. “I can get interns at work to do the copying for free.”

“What’s so important that you can’t just do the copying here?”

“Doctors Cromarty and Tarkington are hosting a seminar on clinical trials of electrical stimulation therapy on schizophrenics at six.”

“Electroshock therapy!?”

“No, much more sophisticated. They create sympathetic electronic waves and utilize enhanced control techniques.”

“You already seem to know it. I don’t see why you can’t copy journal articles here.”

“I sort of know what they are doing, but I don’t know how or why. I think that it’s important, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Eileen admitted.

“Tell you what, let me take these journals, and I’ll make you dinner tomorrow night. You can restack them Friday morning. No one needs to know.”

“Journal of Psychoactive Pharmacology, two issues of the Journal of Neural Anatomy, Psychological American and a Journal of Forensic Epidemiology.”

“Please.”

Eileen hesitated. Less than five percent, hell, less than half a percent chance anyone will miss any of these volumes except the Forensic Epidemiology one. Patricia’s friend Darcy read that one from time to time, but she was her friend. No real risk there.

While Eileen pondered, Sean grabbed a yellow sticky-note pad and jotted down his address.

“Tomorrow night at eight.” He slid the pad toward her.

“Seven, I have work Friday.”

“Okay. Any food restrictions, allergies, ethical considerations?”

“No oysters, Colorado or otherwise.” Eileen smiled her seductive best.

“Damn, I had a whole aphrodisiac theme in mind.” Sean scooped up the journals and winked.

Eileen preferred wearing summer dresses on bright, sunny workdays, but she had to work late on Thursday and would not have time to go home and change. Perhaps if she drove, but she hated to drive on warm, sunny days. She found it easier to accept the thought that media recovery better characterized the night than romantic dining. She held up her favorite poppies-on-white-muslin dress which always felt comfortable against her skin.

She threw the dress onto the bed and took up her blue, knee-length interview skirt and matching bolero. This outfit never failed. She wore it on the day she won her librarian position over thirty-two other candidates, some of whom had more impressive r&#xe8sum&#xe8s, some of whom were more attractive. She slipped on the skirt. Tight, even though she hadn’t put on much weight. Straight like a stovepipe, it made her ass look nice, giving it a certain protruding roundness. She chose a lilac microfiber blouse. Though technically polyester, it felt like silk, but she liked the way it clung to her breasts, just the right way. She then chose her sheer black bra. Aesthetically, she would’ve preferred a white or tan bra under lilac. Her sense of modesty demanded coverage; vanity demanded sheerness. She wished she had time to shop for the perfect bra, but, all things considered, she felt confident she made the best choice.

Patricia figured it out right away. She knew Eileen better than anyone. She was a great friend. She mocked concern she’d be losing a valued colleague. After an hour, Eileen confided: She revealed the deal Sean proposed.

“Nice pickup technique. We should write an article about it in Library Journal.”

“Or Penthouse.”

“That’ll be his job.”

“I’m just going to retrieve our periodicals and eat some dinner. That’s all.”

“Yeah, right.”

Patricia bantered and offered dating advice until four, when she clocked out for the day. Eileen’s shift ended at five thirty. Sean lived in an apartment building not far from campus. Several graduate students lived there and many waved at her as she approached. Eileen hoped they were not prone to gossip.

* * *

“I don’t remember much of what happened next.”

“That’s all right, dear.”

“Let her continue,” Father says, turning to me. “What do you remember?”

“I ended up at the medical clinic Sean worked at. Dr. Winkel was concerned that I might have fallen and hit my head. He called me back for another visit, several visits. Over the weeks, my tastes changed. I bought new clothes, clothes Patricia would approve of, but she and I had a falling out. She, she, just bothered me. Even now, I don’t feel like we can reconcile.”

“Is that all?”

“No, Father, no. That was just the start. I met a man at the clinic. He worked there, sort of, but he wasn’t a doctor. I can’t remember his name. Wirther? Something. I took him home and, and we had sex, which doesn’t sound like me. It wasn’t something I did; I don’t take men home.”

“Where do you take them?”

“That’s not fair, Husband. Eileen is the good girl we raised her to be.”

“Yes, Mother, I am, or, or I was until this all started. I’m not sure. I’m sure I had sex before. I didn’t bleed like a virgin. Many of my memories escape me. I’m just now pulling them in through the fog.”

“Tell us what you do remember.” Father puts his pipe in his mouth and bites down.

“During the first weeks or so, I remember changing myself. I wanted to marry a rich man. I took up running, and yoga. I bought clothes that showed off my body. I stopped wearing panties. I saw that Wirther guy a few more times. And Dr. Winkel. My heavens, he’s so ugly, but him, too. In the clinic or his car in the parking lot.”

“You came home to tell us you became a slut?”

“No, Father, that’s not why I am here.”

“But you are a slut.”

“Let her tell her story, Husband.”

“After, Father. After all the arrests.”

“You were arrested?”

“No, Mother&#8212”

“They should arrest all the sluts and prostitutes and whores&#8212”

“Father! I was not arrested. The Wirther guy was arrested. And Dr. Winkel. The detectives told me what they did to me. They injected nanites into my head . . .”

“Nanites?”

“Very little robots, Mother.”

“Cursed Edison.”

“They put thousands of these very small robots into my head and formed a network, like a second brain which they used to reprogram my brain. They controlled what made me happy, what made me feel bad. They mapped out my memories and then built walls around those that fostered inhibitions and morals. They controlled them all from my cell phone&#8212”

“Cursed Bell . . .”

“Sean snared nine other women like me. We were all reprogrammed to want to marry wealthy men, and to use sex to make them want us. They signed us up to an internet-based dating service where these Silicon Valley-types arranged dates with us, with me.” I let details rush out of me, how I dated two or three times a week, mostly sleeping with the men. There was one who proposed, but I kept deciding to hold out for a better offer.

“I’m considering looking him up when this thing is all over.”

“I doubt he’ll have anything to do with you.”

“Husband!”

“Eileen, do you enjoy these, these sordid encounters?”

Father’s double-edged swords: sluts enjoy sex; whores endure it. Memories cry for release. If memories could cry. There were just no words for it. “Why am I here?” Father asked. I still don’t know. I expected shame; I feel Father pressing it on me. Yes, I enjoyed those encounters. Those nanites taught me women can enjoy sex, and, if you believe psychology journals, Vogue, Ms., and Hustler, women often do.

“Wives are not whores.” Invading memories force the blurt.

“Daughter!” Mother’s facial flesh presses back as if she were in a wind tunnel.

“Wives.” Father’s hand flattens on the table. “Do their duty.”

“A wife’s duty?” I came to remember, though I, for God’s sake, I don’t know why I would ever want to remember this.

“All . . .” Father stands to make his point.

“All your animals have their purposes. Is that what you’re going to say?”

Father’s face reddens. Both hands support his weight as he leans forward, tilting the kitchen table.

“I am not an animal.”

“You are not acting like a human.”

“What am I acting like?” I taunt. Never before have I raised my voice in this house. It is not done. Mother looks away. “Am I braying like a donkey?”

“Your words.”

“And you rut like a swine!”

“I should never have allowed a disrespectful daughter back onto my land, my property.”

He turns his back to me. He will take an easy exit just like he does when salesmen or county agents fail to bend to his will. There is a pause. There is always a pause, a chance for the offending party to make amends.

“Wife.” Before he calls on Mother to clean up the mess.

Clean up the mess. There is more to this memory. It has not arrived, and yet it is incomplete. There is so much, so much more. I think this is why I am here. I am here to remember, but I am also in Mother’s kitchen, Father’s house. I just accused my father of something I think I remember he did, something horrible. Mother’s face is not stressed, not ready to fight. Rather, it is withdrawn, like she is. She’s shamed.

“Go back there, dear.”

“Where?”

“You know. Where I told you to go the last time you encountered your father.”

This is the other part, the part I should remember after I remember what encountered your father means. Mother came to me afterward, told me to do what my sisters did. It hurt. It hurt again. I did what she said. In case I was pregnant. I packed my things, what little I had. Mother gave me some money. Not much. A couple of bus tickets. One to the Air Force base. One to Palo Alto. At the gates, I turned back down the road to a tavern the bus passed. I let an airman take me to a side room, a poker room, but there was no game going on. It hurts now, or, this memory hurts.

“Get up, dear. Go there. Put on a show. Be shameful to hide your father’s shame.”

“Mother?”

“To your feet, dear.” Mother pulls me up, rushes me through the corridor.

“Mother, I wasn’t ready.” I am not sure I am ready now.

“I prepared you the best I could.”

“Not to deal with what he did to me.”

“Hurry up now.”

“You should have stopped him.”

“Just through the door, now.”

“Emily?”

“I’ll take care of her, dear.”

“No, Mother.”

The door shuts. Mother betrays me, again. I wait at the door, but I do not know why. I know it will never open for me again. Not while I stand there. A few more memories flood my thoughts. Somehow, my feet lead me down a path to my rental car. I will not go the tavern. I will not put on a show, play the wayward daughter role to cover my mother’s shame.

On a short drive into town, I spot a drugstore. Once independent, it’s now part of a national chain. I remember the day Mr. Covington stood behind the counter repeating customers’ orders to an assistant or prescriptions to his pharmacist. The counter is gone. Pharmacists occupy the rear of the store with their own counter. A nice-looking man stands near the counter in the front. It takes up the first twenty or so feet of a wall. The counter man wears a white smock, much like the one Mr. Covington wore. I am the only customer. He walks around the counter.

“May I help you, miss?” His name tag reads “Gerard.”

“Sudafed and Tylenol, Gerard.”

“My name’s not ‘Gerard.’”

“Your own smock is in the wash?”

“No, but that’s funny. Corporate policy dictates we use stage names.”

“Quite a production.”

“Some men looked up store girls’ addresses and stalked them. Some tragic results. Now, all clerks use stage names and pharmacists use registered aliases.” He gestures for me to follow him.

“Makes sense, but in a small town like this, doesn’t everyone already know your name?”

“There is that. I think the corporate policy is meant more for cities, but it is policy.” He bends down to pick up a package of Tylenol. Nice ass.

“Still, it could lead to awkward situations.”

“What sort of situations?” He picks out a bottle of Sudafed.

“Let’s say you meet a girl at the store. You never met her before. You ask her out on a date. She accepts. You meet her at Fosseldale’s&#8212” We head back to the counter.

“Fosseldale’s closed a couple years ago.”

“So where would you take her?”

“Applebee’s.” He stands behind the register.

“Chain restaurant. Cheesy.”

“It’s either Applebee’s or Phillip’s BBQ Shack. Will that be all?”

“Okay, which name do you make your Applebee’s reservation under?”

“Applebee’s doesn’t take reservations.”

“Cheesy.”

Gerard just tilts his head and smiles.

“No, I’d like that bottle of Warfield.”

“Idaho’s finest Brandy.” He strikes a pose. It must be from an advertisement.

“Okay, so you’re sitting at the table and a friend walks by and says, ‘Hey, Chuck!’ What do you do now, Chuck?”

“Nothing, my name’s not Chuck.”

“Okay, so you’re sitting at the table and a friend walks by and greets you with your given name.”

“My friends call me by my nickname.”

“Okay, what’s that?”

“Striker.”

“Sheesh. Oh, and I’ll take this Magic Marker.”

“That’ll be forty-five ninety-two.”

“Yes, but what is it now?”

His face freezes as if time stopped after my little quip. Slowly, it thaws. Fifteen or twenty seconds elapse.

“Soooo.” He recovers. “Are you tense?”

“That’s punny.” I hand him three twenty-dollar bills.

“You should speak.” The register makes some digital bloopy noises, and the cash drawer opens.

“I often do.” I let a smile form. Gerard or Chuck or Striker isn’t that bad. Not bad at all.

“Here’s your change.”

“No witty retort?” I stick my palm out and collect my change.

“I must be at my wit’s end.”

“Before you go all speechless, why Striker?”

“Guess.”

I mock pondering for a few seconds. Soccer has a position called “striker,” but that’s too obvious. Baseball, perhaps. He may have been a pitcher who threw a lot of strikes. It’d be better to say as a batter, he struck out often, but that line could boomerang. I need a better neg.

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Really?”

“It’s not like you’re strikingly handsome.” I deflate his ego a little, so I smile.

Either he smolders or his reddened cheeks reflect embarrassment. Either way, I should consolidate my position.

“I’m at the Idaho First, right over there. Come by at six.”

“I get off at six.”

“It’s across the street.” I wager he’ll be there at five forty-five. Six and a half years of dating taught me a few things, not the least of which is: guys are easy.

Eileen Paxon’s Recovery Journal, August 3 entry:

Chuck: Drugstore clerk, tall, athletic handsome. Met at his work. He helped me find items and we bantered. I invited him to my hotel room. Seduced him in the doorway. We enjoyed sex. He left.

I don’t mean to yada, yada my sexual encounter with Striker. I still don’t know his real name, not that it matters. Sexually, he was just adequate when he was in control. I convinced him to let me help him and took the reins. In Butte County, he would be very desirable and seemed to have a lot of experience. Perhaps Idaho girls came easy to him, so he never really learned how to please women. Perhaps he never considered that women should enjoy sex with him. Somewhere, he learned to maintain an erection, which was good. He came prepared. He brought two condoms. He must have thought he’d take me to Applebee’s, parade me through the town, escort me back to the hotel, charm himself into my room, seduce me, and stick around for morning sex before leaving me yearning for him. Yeah, right.

When I returned to my room, I changed into a sports bra, sheer tank top, and short denim skirt. His eyes nearly popped out when he saw me. Seduction was easy; I let my hand press on his chest, slide up to the back of his neck, and drew him into a kiss. We never went for dinner. I know that sounds like I’m yada yada-ing again, but, sexually, he was that boring. Not bad, just nothing worth writing about.

I don’t know why I made this journal entry. I guess the post-nanite trauma psychologists programmed me to keep this journal, so, out of habit I did. This entry pales compared to most. Fittingly pales. I guess that I’m still trying to figure out who I am.

I thought returning home would provide some answers, and, in a way, it did. I remember how Father treated me as his property. He tried to program me to be a faithful, dutiful daughter under his roof, under his control, under him. Somehow, I was blinded by how my sisters all left at around age sixteen. I never knew much about sex. His invasion into my room, my bed, frightened/confused/terrified me.

In shock, I followed Mother’s instructions: pack up a bag, take some money she saved, go to the Air Force base, find a serviceman and let him do to me what Father did so that, should I become pregnant, I could claim it’s the serviceman’s, not Father’s. Even though I tempted Airman Tanget, I remember feeling just as raped, just as horrified, just as humiliated as Father left me. No wonder I distrusted men, feared them. No, that’s worded too strong. Those encounters made me wary of being alone with men. I never cowered. I also didn’t date or engage with men, socially that is. I wonder what other colleges I would have attended. Airman Tanget drove me to the bus station, and San Francisco was the next departure’s destination.

Patricia was a good friend, even when we were undergrads. She introduced me to her friends, Darcy, Carol, Susan, Carrie, Francine, and the one who thought wearing something pink every day defined her as a woman. Through them, through their stories and dating accounts, I learned how normal people lived, loved, and dealt with the world. They helped me adjust to life outside of the Luddite, ultra-orthodox Christian, Idaho farm life. I learned to drive, order pizza for delivery, shop for clothes, get my hair done, and think about boys.

Once, and only once, I told Patricia about Mother and what happened. Patricia became upset. I defended Mother, explaining how she taught us children everything we needed to go to college, to escape the farm.

Now, I understand Patricia’s rage. Mother may have prepared us, the best she could, to leave, but she did nothing to protect us from Father. She bought into his whole “property” thing. Everything she did, she did to protect him. Jeez, I wonder what she’ll do with Emily. Poor girl.

Patricia, let’s get back to her. She supported my early infatuations with college boys. Even Sean. Of course I was infatuated with Sean. He was gay, obviously gay. He was safe. Yeah, right.

The lawyers and psychologists won’t tell me what happened with Sean. They don’t want to corrupt my testimony. I think it’s safe to say Sean wasn’t interested in me. He never talked to me again, even though I visited the clinic dozens of times.

I think it’s safe to say that, after the way my parents programmed me, I’ll never have normal relations with men.

I think it’s safe to say that, after the nanites, I’ll never have normal relations with men again.

I think it’s safe to say that, after today, I cannot trust anyone, not Mother, not gay medical researchers, not doctors. No one.

The Magic Marker ink should be dry. Time to move on. I let water run till it’s warm, then let the bath fill till I can submerge myself without spilling over. I think it’s awful to get out of a nice cleansing bath just to have to clean the bathroom.

First, the Tylenol; it should remove any pain. Swallowing a whole bottle of pills is not as easy as it seems. I want to use water but wash them down with brandy instead. I’m determined to drink the whole bottle, so it’s good to get a start. By the time I take the last Sudafed, more than half the brandy is gone. I finish it off in sips until impatience induces guzzles. Sweat puddles in my pores, or so it seems. Little seems clear to me. It’s good that I’ve drawn a bath.

I slip in. No, that sounds too graceful. I slosh in and make a wave the tub cannot contain. I giggle at the wave’s antics. My stomach convulses. I want to puke, but I regain control, mostly. A fart escapes and bubbles to the surface, renewing giggles. I can’t remember when, but the brandy has more control of my brain than I. My head sways with tiny bathtub waves. It’s heavy, so I let it slip under the waves.

* * *

“Peter Goode,” Peter answered his cell phone.

While Peter uh-huhed several times, Marcia started cleaning dishes in her kitchen sink. Peter was still listening to his phone when she returned.

“No Eileen as a witness.” Peter hung up.

“She was the first victim.”

“She’s dead.”

“What happened?”

“Butte County Sheriff’s Department is still piecing it together. It’s quite a mess.”

“She was murdered?”

“Current thinking is no. Exact time of death is a little challenging in bathtub drownings, however, they are pretty sure she died before her sister.”

“How did her sister get involved?”

“They are not certain. The Luddites don’t venture into town every day. In fact, no witness identified her, just the drugstore clerk recognized Eileen. Neighboring Luddites identified the sister and her mother. They met at worship meetings in each other’s barns, or something like that.”

“Wait. You said someone had to identify Mrs. Paxon?”

“Yeah. This gets a little convoluted. The sheriffs think Eileen visited her family in the morning, maybe just after lunch. She came back into town and bought a few things at the drugstore, invited the drugstore clerk to her room. He arrived around six in the evening. He left at around seven looking dejected.”

Marcia stared at Peter and gestured for an explanation.

“Hotel night clerk. Anyways, the hotel day clerk saw Mrs. Paxon and her daughter at ten the next morning. They asked for Eileen’s room number. Each carried a suitcase. Mrs. Paxon left by eleven, no suitcase. Emily’s body&#8212”

“Emily?”

“Emily Paxon, the sister, discovered in Eileen’s room with her neck sliced open.”

“Mother’s the suspect.”

“Mrs. Paxon’s body was discovered the next day, Sunday, by fellow worshipers. Her neck was sliced open in a similar manner.”

“Husband’s the suspect.”

“Mr. Paxon’s body was discovered hanging from a beam in the barn. The sheriffs considered this a suicide&#8212murder, murder, suicide&#8212but they are still working out the details.”

“There’s more?”

“At least two things have them baffled. First, why was Emily in Eileen’s hotel room with all her possessions in large suitcases? And two, why did Eileen write, ‘THIS IS NO MAN’S PROPERTY,’ across her abdomen?”

“That’s it?”

“No, there’s still more. The BCSD is quite busy. When they ran Eileen through the computer, they found her on the witness registry. Remember when we told all the witnesses not to leave town?”

“Well.” Marcia sits at the table and rests her chin on her palm. “I wonder how many counts of involuntary manslaughter we can add to the charges.”

Chapter 7: Darcy Musgrave

Darcy Musgrave poured over Google results while drinking an Earl Grey latte. Every little thing distracted her. She hoped something, anything, would keep her from this afternoon’s meeting with a lieutenant at the Santa Clara’s Sheriff’s Office.

“Hey, Patricia.” Darcy waved at Patricia Cummings a second after she cleared the student union door.

“Happy Friday, girl, how’s it going?” Patricia hung her coat over a chair opposite a small table from Darcy. “Gonna get me a coffee, maybe a sandwich. Be right back.”

Darcy closed her notebook computer and put it in her book bag. Fridays at eleven were set aside for lunch with her girlfriends: Patricia and Eileen Paxon from the library; Claire Avery, Missy Jefferson and Samantha Gathers from her graduate housing building and Dr. Miller, who taught part-time at the med school here and practiced part-time at Oakland Family Medicine and Orthopedics, an SCMedGroup subsidiary.

“Where’s Eileen?” Darcy hoped more people would show up, but dissertation review week loomed large over doctoral students. Reason enough for most of their group’s absence this Friday.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with that girl.” Patricia took her seat.

“I don’t think I’ve seen her in a long while.”

“Count yourself lucky.” Patricia unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite.

“What’s going on?”

“She’s been weird for a while now. At first she seemed a little miffed at me, you know, after that date she went on with Cute Ass.”

“Eileen went out with a guy with a cute ass?”

“Yeah, you might like him. He’s working on his master’s, sorta part-time, and working as a medical researcher at the Winkel Medical Center. I think he’s gay, though.”

“If he’s gay, why would I like him?”

“Professionally. Sorry, didn’t mean anything.”

“Careful, Darcy. This is a nondiscriminatory learning institution.” Candice Miller joined the table.

“It’s not like that,” Darcy said. “We were talking about the guy Eileen dated a couple months ago.”

“Why would she date a gay?” Candy pulled a thermos out of her backpack and poured out a cup of split pea soup. “I mean what’s the point?”

“He invited her to his apartment,” Patricia said.

“Oh, a confirmation date.” Candy hunted for a spoon.

“What?” Darcy asked.

“There’s a few reasons a straight woman would date a known gay man. First, they’re friends, and he needs confirmation. I’ve been there, and the sex was just as bad as you would think. Second, a safe date, like a wedding you have to go to, and you don’t want guys hitting on you. It works, unless your date starts hitting on the guys, and then, you’re fair game. Everything else is just palling around.”

“I thought he’d be a safe date, you know, sorta getting her used to being with a guy.”

“He invited her to his place, right?” She found the spoon she packed and scooped a spoonful of soup. “It’s a confirmation date. So what happened?”

“She got sick. Ended up in urgent care,” Patricia said.

“Now that’s conflicted, but not unusual.” Candy swallowed. Talking with a modicum of soup in her mouth distorted her words and splattered a little on her chin.

“What do you mean?” Darcy said.

“At some point during food preparation, he realized that he was really gay after all, so he sabotaged the date, either consciously or not.” Candy found a napkin and wiped her chin.

“You said, ‘not unusual’?” Darcy liked patterns, She’d never heard of confirmation dates or confirmation date sabotage.

“Last month, the same thing happened to my niece. She met this guy at Starbucks, and he took her on a picnic. A few bites in, she gets sick and ends up getting treated by the guy’s boss.”

“Here? At the university?” Patricia asked.

“No. Seems this guy knows Dr. Winkel himself. I’ve never met the big boss, but my niece has seen him some five or six times now.”

“Funny, I think Eileen saw Dr. Winkel as well,” Patricia said.

“Are you sure?” Candy took a second spoonful of soup.

“I’d ask her, but she seems surly all the sudden. She barely speaks to me anymore.” Patricia bit into her sandwich.

“Funny you should say that.” Candy put her spoon down. “I was talking to Ingrid last week. She told me that Ilsa became quite belligerent toward her. She’s not moving back in after graduation and wouldn’t say what she was going to do. She was accepted for graduate work at Berkeley, so I thought she’d stay with me, but no. Won’t even return my calls.”

“So you haven’t seen her?” Patricia asked.

“No, not yet. Why?”

“Darcy, do you remember how Eileen used to dress, all Amish-like and all?”

“She has a great figure, she can pull off anything, even nineteenth-century farm girl.”

“Well, now, Eileen leaves the library dressed to kill. I mean high-dollar cocktail dresses showing lots of leg and cleavage.”

“So weird. Ilsa just spent a small fortune on new clothes. It’s probably just a graduating-from-college thing, but Ingrid is thinking about removing Ilsa from her credit card.”

“Wait now.” Darcy leaned forward. “Two women date a guy, get sick, change their primary care physician and spend a fortune on clothes. The CRR on that must be through the roof.”

“CRR?” Patricia shrugged.

“Comparative risk ratio,” Candy answered. “It’s a standard epidemiology metric.”

“See.” Darcy pointed to Candy. “Someone else speaks my language. Now, do you have any good research projects for a poor forensic epidemiology doctoral candidate?”

“Sorry, got students of my own.”

“On that note.” Darcy frowned. “I’m off to downtown Santa Clara.”

Darcy dreaded her interview with Lt. Williams of the SCSO. Professor Cheadle, her doctoral adviser, set up the meeting based on Darcy’s early interest in criminal epidemiology. The half hour drive, each way, took a chunk out of her afternoon. She already canceled her date with Brad. She did not expect the meeting to take long. She had nothing to talk about, and, she heard, law enforcement types revealed little about their work. Darcy was grateful for the ease of parking. Not even a meter to feed.

A sergeant vetted her identity and confirmed her appointment. Another deputy escorted her to Lt. Williams’s office where she waited outside on an old oak bench. A muffled, one-sided phone conversation kept Darcy aware of how long she’d have to wait. After fifteen minutes, she excused herself to a deputy in a bullpen area and used the restroom. When she returned, Lt. Williams’s office door revealed sharded light. The muffled phone call must have ended.

“Come in, Miss Musgrave. I’m Lieutenant Williams of the Criminal Investigations Division. I understand that you are interested in solving crimes.”

“I am not a detective. I’m working on my forensic epidemiology doctorate at Stanford.”

“FEs don’t solve crimes?”

“We don’t uncover physical evidence.”

“What do you do?”

“Am I the first forensic epidemiologist you’ve met?”

“Actually, the Highway Patrol has two on staff, and we work with them from time to time. They seem pretty busy. You are the third doctoral candidate to grace this office.”

“What happened to the other two?”

“One meeting with me, and they switched from criminal to civil. Very considerate people. They let me know straight off about their change in direction.”

“Then why the ‘I don’t know what FEs do’ bit?”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to switch.”

“After last week, I’m not sure.”

“What happened?”

“I thought I could use standard epidemiology techniques on cybercrimes. You know, treat computer viruses like biological viruses. Trace back to patient zero. Determine the source. But the FBI, DHS, Military Intelligence&#8212”

“Keep that stuff under wraps.”

“You already know?”

“Worked with them on that a few times. You left out the Department of Commerce&#8212they’re the biggest pricks in the thorn bush.”

“I should’ve talked to you before I started.”

“Every dead end gives you a chance to search another avenue. So tell me. What sort of study do you want to do now?”

“I’d like to stick with criminal epidemiology. Something where pattern analysis, risk ratios and vector analysis techniques predict criminal behavior so well that they lead to actual arrests.”

“Interesting.”

“Really?”

“No.” Lt. Williams shook his head adding emphasis.

“Then why did you say so?”

“I don’t want to be discouraging.”

“Then why the honest answer?”

“Because I like scientific approaches to solving crimes. The thing is, at the end of the day, we need evidence to prosecute. For example, in civil cases, FEs give the probabilities that certain activities lead to injuries. That is valuable because it allows juries a degree of certainty to ascribe financial liability.”

“You’ve taken Professor Cheadle’s course?”

“Different prof, same topic. What my professor didn’t cover was the criminal equivalent. Does Cheadle do that?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Since you want to do criminal FE work, I encourage you to think about how you can use your knowledge in court. How you can sway a jury to conviction. That is something I want to help you develop. Whatever it is. Here, I prepared three files where the DA used the county’s FEs testimony on cases. Look them over and ask yourself, what else can a FE do to help convict criminals?”

“FEs can analyze crime patterns and pinpoint likely crime scenes. Stake out the targets, and you’ll catch criminals red-handed. Plenty of evidence for convictions.”

“If I have one team for a stakeout, what’s the likelihood they will catch a criminal?”

“Depends on the pattern.”

“Middle of the pack?”

“Five, maybe ten percent.”

“Five percent is optimistic, but we’ll go with that. So to guarantee an arrest, I’ll need twenty stakeouts. That is forty officers. Forty officers the sheriff’s office doesn’t have. Great job, kiddo.”

“Surely, you can put together a task force.”

“No, we cannot. Santa Clara and the whole of Silicon Valley publish some of the lowest crime-per-capita rates in California and the nation. Our local politicians boost the area based on that. Well, not just that. The political types figure that crime is in check. They do not need beefed-up law enforcement to solve problems they do not believe they have. Tax dollars are better spent on incentives to lure and keep high-tech business here.”

“Great. Professor Cheadle sends me to do criminal FE work where there’s no crime.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what you just said.”

“Make sure the door is shut.”

Darcy got up, opened the door and then shut it. The lock’s bolt emitted audible confirmation as it slid over the faceplate and snapped into the latch. Darcy returned to her chair.

“Good. These companies, even the unsuccessful ones, generate a lot of money. That much money induces crime. Lots of crime. Everyone, including the criminals, has an interest in maintaining the perception that there is little to no crime here. It keeps the money coming in, taxes low, and police forces underfunded and unable to deal with it.”

“So there is lots of crime here.”

“Almost no muggings or robberies.”

“Property crime?”

“Ever hear of McElvaney and Evans?”

“Private security.”

“They are enormous, and they got that way by securing every business who can afford them. The last few months, retail outlets experienced rising theft&#8212mostly shoplifting and smash-and-grab. MNES is now developing retail security solutions. Soon, Silicon Valley will not have a major property crime problem.”

“What then?”

“What? I will tell you what.” Lt. Williams paused and looked at the clock on the wall behind Darcy. “I have a meeting in a few minutes, and I need a little time to prepare. Make an appointment for next week, and we will discuss this when I have more time.”

Darcy stopped at the front desk and a sergeant redirected her to the Criminal Investigations secretary’s desk. Molly Tillman left for the day. Darcy wrote a detailed meeting request utilizing three yellow sticky notes and stuck them onto Molly’s computer monitor.

Dinnertime. Darcy decided to drive around Santa Cruz looking for a place to eat, but, as she meandered, she made mental notes. She noted four luxury hotels where visiting executives could stay and over twenty hotels where other businessmen might feel comfortable. Graffiti on a low wall of a filling station and painted-over graffiti on a liquor store wall.

Like most midsize cities, Santa Cruz offered its forms of entertainment: movies, nightclubs, discos, campfires on the beach. Small groups hung out outside venues and restaurants. Normal stuff. After half an hour, an unusual pattern presented itself to Darcy. On side streets two or three blocks from lower-end hotels and motels, groups of teenage girls hung out. Unlike other groups who loosely formed circles or ellipses, these girls formed echelons. When Darcy drove past most teenagers, they remained focused on their friends. These girls, however, always made eye contact until they lost interest. Darcy assumed they turned away because they saw she was female.

Darcy settled on a Mediterranean restaurant hoping for chicken souvlaki but only found falafel and hummus.

Darcy’s next meeting with Lt. Williams was scheduled for Friday at four o’clock p.m. Darcy kept pushing for either a morning appointment or Thursday with little success. Two Friday nights in a row without Brad. Her Friday lunch companions sympathized telling her she would have to make up for that on Saturday.

Darcy wished she could tell Lt. Williams several great ideas about how forensic epidemiology would benefit small police departments like Santa Cruz, but every time she put her mind to task, she came back to Eileen and Ilsa and their unusual parallels. She put together a survey to see if there were any more cases similar to them. It was a good survey designed to induce non-subjects to identify peers, friends and family who displayed similar behavioral changes. The survey obscured her actual target behaviors by guiding responders to divulge behavior changes in anyone they knew. She used social media and university web links to publicize the survey. These channels reached over eighty thousand members of college communities and generated an astounding fifteen thousand responses, among which six additional women fit Darcy’s target profile. Two graduate students (UC Berkeley, San Jose State), a college senior (Mills College), an associate professor in sociology (Hayward State), an office manager at an insurance company and a clerk at a marketing firm in Santa Clara. Darcy looked for interconnections. For example, Ilsa and Tiffany Chan, the associate professor, were both linked with Cal State Hayward.

Seven of the eight women were either disinterested or hostile toward discussing anything with Darcy. Even Eileen, a former friend, rejected her. Eileen added that she was making deliberate changes to her life and would like to dissolve their acquaintanceship. Patricia was right; Eileen turned into a complete bitch. Only Ilsa Thalstrom agreed to a phone interview. Darcy took notes, but there was little to build on. Ilsa never took a course from Dr. Chan and could not recall ever meeting her socially. As a psych major, Ilsa offered that college was a life-changing event, so Darcy’s positive survey results reflected college’s effect on students.

Darcy dismissed Ilsa’s observation. Four of the eight subjects were students, but the rest were not. Darcy used Stanford University’s distribution channels and related intercollegiate channels. Lilly Moh’s husband’s classmate reported her. An intern from Santa Clara University reported Olive Petra, the only outlier, who had not attended college, worked at a college or lived with someone associated with a college.

Data vector analysis perturbed Darcy, and those cases enjoyed appropriate-sized sample groups. She knew a sample size of eight would present problems. Problems and little result potential. She was determined to pursue it, but she had to leave for her meeting.

“So what did you come up with?” Lt. Williams greeted Darcy at his office door.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“That little?” He took his seat behind his metal desk.

“What do you make of eight women all living or working in Silicon Valley? All either get sick on dates or bitten by insects. All ending up at the same medical provider and the owner of the medical facility becomes their primary care physician. Oh, and all adopt the same behavior pattern.”

“Okay, who’s the medical provider?”

“Winkel Medical Centers.” Darcy preferred to stand while delivering her findings.

“They have over half the health care offices in this area. Hard to miss them.”

“Being treated by Dr. Winkel himself?”

“How many of them?”

“Five. The others only mentioned they switched doctors.”

“Impressive. Are the women attractive?”

“I don’t know. The only one to grant an interview described herself as Swedish-bikini-model sexy.”

“Have you ever met Dr. Winkel?”

“No. Why?” Darcy finally sat in one of three chairs in front of Lt. Williams’s desk.

“He’s not so ugly he has to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink, but close. My guess is that when an attractive woman comes into his office, any of his offices, his staff sends out an alert and he takes over. He probably offers them enhanced services to get them to switch.”

“Really?”

“Stranger things happen. So what’s the crime?”

“That’s all I have so far.”

“How did you get this information?”

“Two of my friends know two of the subjects. The rest came through a voluntary survey published on intercampusnet.”

“Returned surveys?”

“Twenty thousand.”

“Not what I’d call a crime wave.”

“Jack the Ripper only had five victims.”

“Murder. What crime are you investigating?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, to sum up, you have a nanoscopic subset of an amorphous population who are neither committing nor experiencing anything criminal.”

“There is the behavior change.”

“Which is?”

“They are all driving away their family and friends by being mean to them.”

“Are they teenage girls?”

“No, all are in their late teens to late twenties.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“See?”

“Just not worth investigating. Now . . .” Lt. Williams slouched, aping a slow-witted college freshman. “Would, you, you know, like to discuss, something like, you know, actual crime?”

“Fine.” Darcy’s intonation fell as she drew out the word.

“Last week, we left off with how Silicon Valley is a criminal’s haven. Do you remember why?”

“The illusion of low crime plus corporate greed and a general unwillingness to pay taxes leads to underfunded policing. All the criminals have to do is not draw attention to themselves.”

“And how do they do that?”

“Stay away from robberies, muggings, bank heists.”

“Commonly called?”

“Victimless crimes.”

“Supposedly victimless crimes, actually. So what activities are we looking for?”

“Sex work, drugs, gambling and trafficking in contraband, I guess. Where are you going with this?”

“Harrison Mayes.” Lt. Williams adopted a victorious posture, straight and proud.

“Gordon Olson,” Darcy countered.

“What?” Lt. Williams’s posture deflated. “The two have nothing to do with each other.”

“One-offs.” Darcy leaned forward. “A call girl kills a software executive; a sheriff’s deputy kills a robotics executive.”

“Not even close. The deputy was looking at his onboard computer. He didn’t notice the damn bicyclist until it was too late. Probably the cyclist’s fault. You know how they think they own the road.”

“And Allison Michaelman was just giving a high-end heroin addict a fix before they did whatever they do. My point is, no pattern, no epidemiology. Not much to investigate, as you would say.”

“You can’t seriously lump the two together.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Bernhart Gerber, another cyclist run over by a policeman in Menlo. Sylvia Gomez, a grandmother walking across Fremont in Sunnyvale. Let’s not forget the half dozen or so police shootings. It seems that law enforcement poses a far greater death risk than call girls.”

“You didn’t think that one through, did you?”

“Didn’t have to. It’s from one of Professor Cheadle’s lectures.”

“I’m really sorry I wasn’t there to correct him. If I were, what would I say?”

“Police officers are entitled to mow down civilians?”

“No. I don’t even try to excuse sloppy performance like the cases Dr. Cheadle likes to mention. Remember, this is a discussion of real crime in an area perceived to be near crime free. Hundreds of civilians die at criminals’ hands every year. How?”

Darcy wasn’t sure Lt. Williams lived in the same galaxy she did, let alone the same small section of California. She shrugged.

“Tell you what. Molly will call you for our next meeting. It might take a week or two. In that time, take a closer look at Harrison Mayes and Allison Michaelman. There’s more to it than what’s in the Chronicle‘s articles. Molly will also give you access to SCSO’s files on the matter.”

“You in a hurry or something?”

“I have a date. Now, scoot along. We will talk again.”

Many aspects of Harrison Mayes’s murder troubled Darcy. Allison Michaelman had no prior arrests including a lack of drug possession charges. She conducted her call girl business fairly intelligently. She employed a vetting service and a cash-exchange service. The police decrypted her client contact registry. Over the last five years, she serviced over two hundred clients for a total of 3,164 dates. Fifty of her clients booked her at least once a month. Police investigators, including Lt. Williams, questioned several of these clients. None of them received drugs of any kind from her until the last year, when she delivered drugs from their regular supplier, name redacted.

Professor Cheadle reminded Darcy that her field was forensic epidemiology, not detective work. His reactions when she brought up questions regarding the Harrison Mayes case were: First, Allison seemed like an unlikely murderer, a major factor for charges of manslaughter and a light sentence. Second, the presence of heroin. Heroin was a painkiller. It desensitized sensations. Male heroin addicts reported several sexual dysfunctions, many needing treatment. It made sense for Allison to be a user. Many of her clients reported their desire for a call girl stemmed from their longing to have sex in ways their wives discouraged since they married. Allison’s role was to encourage her clients to take full sexual advantage of her. Even Darcy felt a little sore after long weekends with her boyfriend Brad. Allison averaged five clients a day. She could use a little desensitization. Many sex workers became drug addicts. Most disturbing, however, was Allison’s behavior change eight months before the incident. Darcy could see no good reason for her to distribute drugs to her clients. Too much risk for too little volume. Not much profit.

“Good questions.” Lt. Williams returned Darcy’s list of questions.

“Do you have any answers?” Darcy slipped her list into her purse.

“No. Not really. But my favorite is the question of why she started distributing drugs to her clients.”

“Why’s that?”

“Who do you think she’s selling the drugs for?” Lt. Williams leaned forward.

“The name was redacted. Some local drug dealer, I guess.”

“While you are guessing, why don’t you guess where the local drug dealer gets his drugs.”

“There was nothing in the police report about that. Why’s that?”

“Why, indeed?” Lt. Williams made a steeple of his index fingers and rested his chin on it.

Darcy waited for him to continue, then she waited again. He seemed lost in thought.

“Well, I think I should be going.” Darcy broke the silence.

“What are you going to work on?” Lt. Williams caught Darcy off guard. “For your dissertation, that is?”

“I keep coming back to the eight women who changed their behavior patterns.”

“An act that isn’t illegal? I thought you wanted to be an FE specializing in crime.”

“In a society where criminals have to go along with the perception that there is no crime to speak of, wouldn’t the best clues to criminal activity be in patterns that do not directly point to crime?”

“You mean sudden changes in behavior in women ages eighteen to twenty-nine?”

“Yes.” Darcy leaned forward. “How old was Allison Michaelman?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“And she had a sudden change of behavior eight months before she killed Harrison Mayes.” Lt. Williams leaned back. “You might be on to something after all. What do you think accounts for Michaelman’s change in behavior?”

“You mean, ‘Why did she suddenly start selling drugs?’”

“Distributing, but yes.”

Darcy searched for an answer. She wondered if sudden changes in behavior of newly adult women could be isolated from normal life changes as they completed their transition from being cared for, as in their parents paying all their expenses while going to school, to caring for themselves and developing their own careers.

“Let’s look at it another way.” Lt. Williams interrupted Darcy’s chain of thought. “What do you make of the police report’s determination that Allison Michaelman was an independent call girl?”

“What do you mean?”

“When does an independent call girl stop being an independent call girl?”

“When her drug supplier becomes her pimp?”

Lt. Williams smiled.

“That wasn’t mentioned in any of the reports.”

“Not even mine.”

“But it makes sense. Well, almost. Her bank records show the same deposit and withdrawal patterns. Doesn’t look like anyone is taking a cut. Perhaps he just became her boyfriend or something.”

“She had five or so dates a day. When does she have time for a drug dealer boyfriend?”

“She could sneak him in.”

“Because, as a drug dealer, his schedule is so flexible.”

“No. I mean it makes more sense than him being her pimp, but not by much.”

“Perhaps his cut is not from her earnings but in favors.”

“You mean doing things for him, like delivering drugs to common clients?”

“Yes.”

“Doing things for men is sort of a call girl’s stock-in-trade.”

“Yes.” Lt. Williams, again, rested his chin on steepled fingers.

“No. Not again. If you’re gonna think, think out loud.”

“Okay. You already determined that Michaelman’s new pimp wasn’t taking his cut.”

“Sticking with the boyfriend theory.”

“What if he wanted something other than money?”

“That, too. She does it for a living, after all.”

“Let’s look at this another way. Who wanted Mayes dead?”

“No evidence of murder, just an accidental overdose.”

“Heroin on a date? Not likely. You said it yourself. Counterproductive. Not just for him, but also for her. What happened to her?”

“Three-year sentence, eight months actual time served. Moved to Florida, where she lives with family.”

“And does what?”

“Mooches off her parents. She can’t ply her old trade, and she hasn’t picked up a new one.”

“Did you check her current finances?”

“No. I’m not a detective. You are.”

“I bet she has a big stash of cash.”

“Some sex workers save up for retirement, I guess.”

“Not heroin addicts. I will answer my next question. She never went into rehab.”

“Eight months in prison.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Okay, okay. So she killed Mayes intentionally, but, what intent?”

Lt. Williams checked the door to make sure it remained locked. He returned to his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a file.

“Kleptocracies need to prey on legitimate economic activities. They like to control docks, extort shopkeepers, muscle in on businesses. If you run organized crime in Silicon Valley, from whom do you steal when you need to maintain the image of a low-crime society?”

“You don’t. All you can do is provide illicit pleasures: contraband, drugs, gambling and sex.”

“Chump change. These business rake in billions, and there is nothing to steal. It drives our local crime boss crazy. I have heard that he openly complains about being left out of the area’s wealth. The high-tech community takes pride in thwarting organized crime. They will not use his call girls, not unless they absolutely have to. No coincidence Michaelman was an independent. Mayes would not use anyone but an independent. Hell, I have heard that these high-tech companies recruit attractive members of their own staff to party with investors. They call them ‘Donation Dames’ or something like that.”

“The Yakuza. Don’t they extort Japan’s biggest corporations by threatening to disrupt their board meetings and such?”

“Two good reasons that will not work here. First, these high-tech corporations can just up and leave. Scarabco, as an organized crime boss, cannot.”

“Of course he can. He’s got to be more mobile than legitimate businesses.”

“Technically, yes. Practically, no.” Lt. Williams brought up a map of the United States on his computer and turned it around for Darcy to see. “Where do you think there are favorable economic circumstances and there is not organized crime?”

Darcy studied the map as Lt. Williams overlaid red highlights on top of all areas organized crime was known to operate.

“They can buy out some farmland here in Idaho, and there is some more here in Nebraska.”

“Unlikely. These corporations will need to hire office staff and house all the people they are taking with them. It will be much easier for them to pick another suburban area outside a major metropolis. They will probably move to an area willing to give them the best tax breaks and incentives. It is a risk, of course. They might not get as good a deal as they have here. Scarabco, on the other hand, will have to fight established organized crime in whatever area they choose, and there is no good reason to believe these corporations will all choose the same place. Scarabco has more to lose chasing away these cash cows.”

“But why keep the cows if you can’t milk them?”

“This is a criminal’s paradise as long as they stick to the playbook. Sure, these high-tech executives enjoy snubbing organized crime by hiring independent call girls and smuggling in their own contraband, but they have tens of thousands of employees who cannot afford to do the same. Scarabco targets his call girls at middle management. His prices are lower, and he draws them in. His drug dealers know how to be discreet. His gambling operations exploit immigrant workers’ cultural weaknesses.”

“Huh?”

“Asian cultures, especially Chinese, love to gamble. At first, these high-tech companies brought a lot of Chinese techies in, and they ended up in Scarabco’s debt. Scarabco tried to leverage them to siphon off some of Silicon Valley’s wealth. MNES caught them quickly. I believe this led to the wave of Indian tech workers.”

“Because India banned gambling a hundred years ago?”

“Yes, that and culturally, Indians tend to be more on the straight and narrow. They have other weaknesses, however. They patronize Scarabco’s sex workers more than the Chinese and White tech workers did.”

“I’ve seen the charts. Sex habits are easier to control than gambling habits. Okay. You said there were two reasons extorting businesses wouldn’t work?”

“MNES. McElvaney and Evans handles security for these corporations. If Scarabco could get disruptive elements into shareholder meetings or big reveal events or whatever, MNES would have them out before much happened.”

“How come you call McElvaney and Evans MNES?”

“It’s their stock symbol. They are as much a high-tech company as any of the rest. Funny.”

“Okay.” Darcy adopted a more relaxed posture. “What’s so funny about McElvaney and Evans?”

“All these high-tech companies drain local resources on the premise that Silicon Valley is a low-crime area. Right? They negotiate lower taxes. Take tax money away from underfunded police forces like this one, right? Then they pay billions to MNES for security services. Billions. Way more than they would pay for regular policing.”

“That makes no sense. If regular policing is cheaper than private security, doesn’t the drive for profits dictate dropping McElvaney and Evans in favor of local law enforcement?”

“Police forces try to protect everyone pretty much equally.” Lt. Williams rocked his hand. “Give or take a few inequalities. These corporations can tell MNES who and what they really want protected, so McElvaney and Evans protects the corporations’ assets and executives. They leave everyone else to us.”

“And this angers you?”

“I’m not sure. It all seems to work as long as the crime rate looks low. Still, I think it would be good if the lower-level crime could be dealt with. How about you?”

“Of course, that’s what criminal forensic epidemiology is all about. I just need some crime data to analyze. What’ya got?”

“I have plenty of nothing. If there were data to analyze, it would have been analyzed already. You need to divine crime data from other sources, but first you need a better understanding of crime.”

“What do you suggest?”

“There is plenty of data coming from Ciudad Ju&#xe1rez. Do some research and let’s meet next month.”

Though Darcy considered Lt. Williams a professional, his Ciudad Ju&#xe1rez research request forced a serious reevaluation. The Journal of Forensic Epidemiology covered the Mexican city’s crime statistics several times with each article concluding that only ten percent of serious crimes were included. Two of Mexico’s drug cartels battled for control of the city. They terrorized the area. Journalists died trying to report on the situation there. JFE concurred with other authorities. Ciudad Ju&#xe1rez was the most dangerous place in the world. The last editorial note on the subject stated that JFE staff members were threatened by email and social media for not revealing who submitted the last paper on how cartel violence interfered with any accurate crime data collection. From the articles, the cartels did not limit their targets to opposing cartel members and journalists. Anyone who posed even the slightest threat to their complete control of the area faced extreme violence. The list of those murdered by the cartels included local police, city councilmen, dogcatchers, schoolteachers, American businessmen who operated factories in the area, El Paso police, El Paso city officials, Mexican judges, prosecutors, civil attorneys and their American counterparts. In one case, the mother of a missing teenage daughter was shot a dozen times while trying to post homemade missing child posters.

The JFE article about missing people caught Darcy’s attention. Even before the cartel war, many women went missing. Most of those women worked at the maquiladoras, American factories in Mexico which take advantage of the cheap labor and eased trade restrictions. Many of these women migrated from other parts of Mexico. At first, authorities from Mexico and El Paso believed a prolific serial killer preyed on these women. A mass grave twenty miles away seemed to confirm their suspicion. As more forensic examination continued, only a few of the bodies were missing women; the rest were gang victims. Then one drug cartel moved in. The rate of missing women increased. Some citizens reported that women, matching missing person descriptions, were seen at brothels farther south. Within a month, all hell broke out. The cartel, basically, initiated their war. The mere act of reporting anyone, man or woman, missing became an avengeable act. Hundreds went missing. Then a rival cartel arrived, and the number of dead and missing multiplied tenfold.

Though speculative, the JFE paper argued the missing women were not victims of a prolific serial killer but rather victims of gang members. Some were terrorized for gang members’ perverse pleasure, but more were sold to traffickers and ended up serving as sex workers. Even those killed soon after abduction were more likely killed for resisting than for perverse pleasure, though the motives were not mutually exclusive. One researcher argued that forcing ambitious young women to succumb required generating sufficient fear. Killing off a few women in front of the others could compel survivor compliance.

“Why Ciudad Ju&#xe1rez?” Darcy took her seat in front of Lt. Williams’s desk.

“You wanted a lot of data.”

“That’s it?”

Lt. Williams shrugged. Darcy thought he seemed more subdued than in her previous meetings.

“I thought it was because law enforcement seemed inadequate. It’s not the same. Here in Silicon Valley, police are underfunded because of perceptions of low crime. In Ciudad Ju&#xe1rez, they are just overwhelmed.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“Any further ideas on what I should be researching? You know, for my doctorate?”

“No, not really. As you said, the perception of low crime belies the real situation, and it also means that, officially, there is not much data for you to analyze.”

“Great.” Darcy could not disguise her disappointment.

“I think you should pursue your odd-behavior survey.”

“What?”

“Whatever you end up doing, you are going to have to generate your own data.”

“Is that all?”

“No. You need to expand. So far, your design only identifies subjects related to colleges. Colleges only represent about two percent of the population, and that percent is skewed to affluent White people. Molly will send you our community outreach resource list. She will also make an appointment for next month’s meeting. Okay?”

“Yeah, fine. It’s just that I’m surprised you’re supporting this now. You seemed so against it before.”

“Yes. I am surprised as well. I have been informed that I cannot lead you to subjects you are not interested in pursuing. Therefore, I should aid you in your own pursuits.”

“Informed by who?”

“Whom. Never mind. I will see you next month.”

Molly sent an impressive list of contacts including a survey design specialist. Darcy spent most of the next month negotiating a lower rate and raising funds to pay for it. Since the survey would not be ready for another month, her meeting with Lt. Williams concluded quickly.

Taylor Richmond of Polls For The People narrowed her survey down to one page. English on the front, Spanish on the back. Lt. Williams footed the bill for printing a hundred thousand copies. Following Molly’s advice, Darcy let them out in waves. She sent copies to police stations, doctor’s offices, public defender’s offices, schools, grocery store bulletin boards, car repair facilities, convenience stores, public parks, YMCA, YWCA and, as Molly explained, basically anywhere bored people were likely to notice it and fill it out. The San Jose Mercury published it alongside an interview with Darcy regarding the difficulty of doing original research in lesser known fields such as criminal forensic epidemiology.

After setting the third wave loose, Darcy started collating results, or she liked to think of it that way. Taylor also provided a program which evaluated each response. Darcy needed to enter each response into her computer and file the paper as the program dictated. With over ten thousand responses, Darcy’s work was reduced to data entry.

As months went by, Darcy enjoyed limited contact with Dr. Cheadle and Lt. Williams. April ended her isolation. All three met in Dr. Cheadle’s office. He made a few things clear. Darcy’s fellowship ended in May. He wanted to label her a terminal ABD, All But Dissertation. Lt. Williams argued against that, though. Without Darcy as an active criminologist student, he could no longer advise her, at least not officially. Dr. Cheadle would remain her dissertation adviser until Darcy officially dropped her doctoral pursuits. Dr. Cheadle expressed, repeatedly and from various perspectives, his disappointment in the direction her endeavors took. He excused Darcy but asked Lt. Williams to remain. In the two years she’d known Dr. Cheadle, she never heard him raise his voice or use profanity. Five minutes listening outside his office changed her perceptions of him. Lt. Williams matched Dr. Cheadle’s amplitude but not color. He kept his epithets clean. A true white knight, Darcy thought. Her own tears convinced her to leave.

During her interview at McElvaney and Evans, her interviewer remarked on two independent and rather glowing recommendations from Dr. Cheadle and Lt. Williams. They hired her on the spot, and she reported to work the next day.

Darcy’s first assignment involved analyzing MNES’s shopkeeper protection effectiveness. In Silicon Valley’s complex crime politics, street gang activity was limited to street prostitution, retail illegal drug distribution, short cons and pickpocketing. Higher level activities like drug trafficking, brothels, running call girls, and business (fisheries, docks and manufacturing) extortion remained in mobsters’ hands. Violent crime, including gang wars, brought retribution from police forces and, unless he sanctioned it, Christoph Scarabco.

“Beware of Tree.” Mitch, the IT guy, helped set up Darcy’s computer.

“I’ll try not to run into one?”

“No, Ms. Musgrave. Tree is a computer guy who’s less than happy you’re working on the Merchant Project.”

“He works with you in IT?”

“No.” Mitch turned Darcy’s laptop over to her. “He’s just M ‘n’ E’s computer guy. Not IT like me. More like their go-to guy for anything doing with computers.”

“And he’s called ‘Tree’ because his last name is Roundtree or something like that?” On Darcy’s first day and McElvaney and Evans frustrated her. It seemed like everyone kept throwing peculiarities at her to keep her off balance, test her. Today, her second day, did not seem much better.

“Close, Ms. Musgrave. His real name is Elmer Petry. Get it?”

“‘Petri’ like ‘petri dish’?”

“No, with a Y, but that’s funny. I like you, so I’ll let you in on the rest. There are a lot of rumors about Tree, like he’s ex-CIA, like that’s a thing, but the other rumor is that he was a country hick from West Virginia or something. On his first day, he’s all like, ‘Hi, I’m Elm.’ So, Luke, who’s now my manager, but he was like I am now, looks at the set-up sheet and sees ‘Elmer Petry’ and says, ‘Hi, Elm Tree.’ The ‘Tree’ part just kinda like stuck, so everyone, even Tree, just calls him ‘Tree.’”

“Mitch.” Darcy held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and you can call me Darcy. I’m not one for formal names.”

Darcy noticed familiar patterns in MNES’s merchant data. It looked like the seasonal flu. Small, localized incidents building to larger, denser incidents. A major difference, of course, was that seasonal flu victims rarely suffered multiple infections. Merchants, on the other hand, could expect another smash-and-grab ten days after replacing their windows.

MNES worked like a vaccine. Twenty-two of the one hundred beta test merchants suffered an incident. Seventy arrests quelled repeat incidents, and, like medical vaccines, their neighbors benefited. Darcy looked at post-beta-test data, and, while participating merchants, those who paid for MNES protection, and their neighbors fared well, the rest of Silicon Valley’s storefronts faced epidemic-level crime.

Cost, Darcy determined, proved the program’s downfall. Darcy compared it to a hundred-dollar seasonal flu vaccine. Great for those who could afford it. In a normal flu season, vaccines were covered by health insurance, but few people bothered with getting their shot. If a flu was severe enough, about thirty percent of insured people would get a shot which was roughly fifty percent effective, and the flu would pass without further remark. In the 2010 swine flu pandemic, US authorities prevented massive US infections by vaccinating ninety percent of the people near San Diego with a fifty-percent effective vaccine, and the effort prevented Swine Flu from migrating from Mexico where it hit pretty hard.

Financially, MNES’s Merchant Problem lost money, but not very much. John McElvaney came out of retirement to announce that MNES would continue the program. MNES’s interest lay more in continuing Silicon Valley’s reputation as a safe place to work and live. Darcy liked his speech but could not support any statement that MNES’s Merchant Program met any reasonable goal. Her solution: market it to merchant groups like Chamber of Commerce members, Better Business Bureaus and merchant associations. To stamp out the crime wave, more merchants needed MNES’s protection. Marketing to groups would make MNES’s Merchant Program more affordable to merchants who already felt mounting pressure from online retailers. MNES could eke out a small profit and enhance their community standing.

Tree protested. His thirteen-minute rant against Darcy’s suggestion dominated CEO Clark Durham’s product review meeting. Despite Tree’s argument that unionizing Silicon Valley’s merchants was fundamentally un-American, MNES’s executive board decided to adopt Darcy’s product revision. Two months later, MNES rolled out its modified Merchant Product as ‘Stand Together For Common Defense Against Merchant Crime’ (STCDAMC).

New data confirmed Darcy’s vaccine theory. MNES still lost money, but not very much.

Darcy kept in touch with Lt. Williams. After STCDAMC’s success, he and Dan Green, the product manager, took her out for lunch.

“Hi, Darcy&#8212It is Darcy, right?&#8212I’m Tree.” Lunch invasion.

“Welcome, Tree.” Dan gestured to an empty chair. “Do you know Jaspar Williams?”

“Only by reputation.”

“Lieutenant Williams recommended Darcy to McElvaney and Evans.”

“I should hate you for that.” Tree took his seat. “If she wasn’t so good at her job, I would.”

“A compliment from the famous Tree. You should be flattered.”

“I am.” Darcy put her hand over her heart. “Lieutenant, do you know Elmer Petry?”

“Only by reputation.” Lt. Williams extended his hand. “Is it true you hacked Al Qaeda’s Berlin computers?”

“My deeds have been greatly exaggerated.” Tree shook Lt. Williams’s hand. “My abilities, underestimated.”

“Such humility should buy lunch,” Dan said.

“Gladly, but on the condition Ms. Musgrave shows me her data analysis techniques.”

“Here?” Darcy concealed gloating.

“No. I know there’s a lot to cover. When we get back to the office.”

“Do you really think I can show you everything in an hour?”

“Jeez. You ain’t letting me off easy.”

“Darcy.” Dan interceded. “You can work it in with your new duties.”

“New duties?” Lt. Williams looked over at Darcy.

“Yes.” Dan smiled. “McElvaney and Evans would like to boast a Doctor of Forensic Epidemiology on our staff even though we do not have enough of that sort of work to justify it, so Darcy is going to need to pick up some other skills while she completes her doctorate.”

Darcy and Lt. Williams exchanged glances.

“We are going to train Darcy as a detective.”

“Like Lieutenant Williams,” Darcy gasped.

“Very few detectives will attain Jasper’s level, but we encourage you to keep in touch with him. And, Jasper.” Dan turned to Lt. Williams. “We hope you will work with Darcy to complete her doctorate. Darcy could, of course, submit research in civil forensic epidemiology, but McElvaney and Evans would prefer a criminal-based dissertation.”

“Funny,” Lt. Williams chuckled, “Professor Cheadle had the same idea. Darcy and I have been discussing things for almost a year.”

“And what have you been working on?” Dan turned to Darcy.

“I’m looking at behavior patterns which, although not themselves criminal, may indicate the presence of criminal influence.” Darcy took a breath after rushing out her sentence.

“That seems succinct, but hazy. What do you mean by behavior patterns?” Dan set down his menu.

“Darcy is following a hunch.” Lt. Williams waved his finger attempting to flag their waitress.

“How is that going?”

“I’m still entering survey response data.” Darcy pretended to read her menu, though she already decided on a salad. Just about every restaurant served a BBQ chicken salad or a Caesar-ranch chicken salad.

“What are you doing with surveys?”

“Trying to decide between BBQ chicken salad or Caesar-ranch.” Darcy hid behind her menu.

“I get it. Stereotypical behavior analysis. Like how women order salads and men order sandwiches. Mary, I’ll have the Southwest salad with BBQ chicken, and the lady will have a Philly steak sandwich.” Tree handed his menu to the waitress.

“No, I’ll have a Southwest salad.” Darcy handed Mary her menu.

“Then I’ll have the Philly Cheesesteak sandwich.” Tree winked at Mary.

“I’d like to know how surveys influence decisions.” Dan set his menu down.

“Menus are like surveys. They poll customer preferences, often indicating trends like a concern for a healthier diet or the popularity of certain ingredients like the rise of bacon starting in the mid-nineties, though that had more to do with a marketing campaign by the meat industry to increase pork belly sales.” Mary surveyed the faces at this table. “By reviewing receipts, restaurateurs change their purchases to capitalize on trends and increase both restaurant popularity and profits.”

“Psych major at USF.” Tree pointed a fully extended arm.

“Hotel management and hospitality at Evergreen.” Mary curtsied.

“Harrumph.” Dan relinquished his menu. “I’ll have the special.”

“Mediterranean Chicken Plate. The mixed vegetables are highly seasoned. Is that all right?”

“Fine.”

“And I’ll like a cheeseburger, medium, coleslaw instead of fries and a Coke.” Lt. Williams presented his menu.

“What type of cheese?”

“American. I’m not into all that Mediterranean stuff.”

“Thank you.” Mary turned toward the kitchen and left.

“I’ve got the tip.” Dan turned to Darcy. “What does your data reveal?”

“I won’t know until the data has been refined and analyzed.”

“So it may not reveal any crimes?”

“It is unlikely to reveal any investigable crimes.” Lt. Williams arranged his silverware. “But there is not much else she can do.”

“She did remarkable work on the Merchant Project. Why don’t you finish up your doctorate with your analysis of STCDAMC data and be done with it?”

“No, no, no.” Tree’s exaggerated head swivels drew attention. “We should never publish proprietary data. It can, and will, be used against us in ways I cannot model.”

“Forgive Mr. Petry. Something in his upbringing instilled deep, deep paranoia.”

“A keen sense of paranoia is a survival skill, evidence of evolution at work. Right, Darcy?”

“I’m getting my doctorate in forensic epidemiology, not paleontology.”

“Your Coke.” Mary returned.

“What does paleontology have to do with evolution?” Dan asked.

“Evolution is deemed to be a slow process. That rules out researching current species, so paleontologists contribute substantial work on evolution.”

Dan looked up at Mary.

“You learn a lot in community college.” Mary took out her pad. “Is there anything else you would like?”

“No.” Tree smiled. “I think we are fine here.”

“Okay. Your orders should be out soon.”

“Perhaps Darcy has a more evolved take on this. How would you model the effects of releasing STCDAMC data?”

“I would not know where to start. Lieutenant Williams?”

“Police leverage data and information release to modify community behavior. For example, we released data on pedestrian car strikes when we announced our school-crossing enforcement program. So unless you want to influence community behavior, I’d keep it to yourself.”

“See!” Tree exclaimed.

“I still don’t see the harm in it.”

“Cheeseburger.” Mary returned with another waiter assisting. “Mediterranean Chicken for the other gentleman. Here’s your Philly Cheesesteak, and the salad for the lady, Rob.”

Thanks all around. Darcy smiled at Rob.

“Will there be anything else?”

“Just some more water.” Dan moved his glass.

“Got that.” Rob produced a pitcher and refilled all the water glasses.

“As I said.” Dan waited for Tree to bite into his sandwich. “There is no harm. Darcy should finish her doctorate as soon as possible.”

“Rou doh, ecuse.” Tree swallowed, choked a little and swallowed again. “You don’t know what I know.”

“I’m an executive vice president. I know a lot you don’t know.”

“You pay me to do questionable things with information networks. He pays several others to do worse things, and he doesn’t place any restraints on them.”

“Do you really think he has the sophistication to use our STCDAMC data?”

“The only question is, Will he bother to?” Tree took another bite.

“He will.” Lt. Williams put his cheeseburger down.

“He?” Darcy looked around the table.

“Cristoph Scarabco.” Lt. Williams forked up some coleslaw.

“Nobody wants a war.” Dan’s eyes met Lt. Williams’s.

“Then let’s not give him ammunition.” Tree picked up a French fry.

“It’s not that I understand what Tree is saying.” Darcy set down her fork. “But the STCDAMC project might not qualify as original research. The design phase was done before I joined MNES, the design did not include academic-grade data collection, and, this is most important, my analysis was nothing new. Crime patterns mirroring viral infection patterns. It’s been done before.”

“Let’s consider it Plan B.” Lt. Williams sipped his Coke. “Okay for now, Dan?”

They continued eating.

“Room for dessert?” Mary returned.

“Still working on my salad. May I get this for&#8212”

“We’ll take care of that.”

“Miss.” Dan removed a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and held it up casually but clearly visible. “What did you learn about us from our orders?”

“Am I limited to just the order?”

“No.” Tree interjected. “Use all your observations.”

“Okay.” Mary surveyed the table. “You.”

“Darcy.”

“Darcy is the reason for this outing. At first I thought birthday, but she seems a little nervous, edgy, fielding expectations, like, you know, a graduation or a promotion. Something like that. The suited gentleman holding the hundred is the most important person at the table, but something is troubling him. He has to make a decision and he is a little overloaded. Ordering ‘the special’ takes little mental effort. Probably doesn’t like Mediterranean anything. Barely touched it.”

Tree laughed out loud.

“You ordered the salad to help out Darcy while she was too concerned about what to say to our hundred-dollar guy here. That’s sweet and clever. Perhaps more clever than right. It’s better to let her work through her issues without stepping in.” Mary smiled at Tree.

Lt. Williams looked directly at Mary.

“You are the hard read at this table.” Mary returned the look. “These three all fit together. You’re more here for the free lunch. The way you look at Darcy and react to her. I get a protective vibe. At first I thought parental. You know, that’s when I thought this was a birthday lunch. Hmmm. Protection is your nature. Then you ordered a cheeseburger. Here. Really. This is a respected if not renowned restaurant. Cheeseburger. That’s a cop play. Everywhere serves cheeseburgers. Might as well order vanilla ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. Come on. Thirty-one flavors.”

“Is that all?” Tree propped his chin in his hand.

“A little more. Police tend to order the same thing wherever they are. It allows them to focus on what’s going on around them, take part in the meal, but not let their guard down. Now, you are very comfortable in that suit, so I assume you wear one every day. You are also comfortable sitting down. So shoulder holster?”

“Why the interest in sidearms?” Lt. Williams opened his jacket enough to reveal the butt of his Glock 17 and a little brown leather.

“I trained to be a stewardess. In today’s world, you have to look for potential threats and allies.”

“Anything else?” Dan asked.

“This.” Mary snatched the hundred-dollar bill. “Is the largest tip I’ve gotten all month.” Mary turned and walked away.

“Tree.” Dan turned to his computer specialist. “Remind me to expand our recruitment profile.”

“Or you can buy me lunch, here, next week.”

Chapter 8: Glenda Wilkins

“Glad I caught you, Hasmik.” Glenda Wilkins connected her iPhone to her car’s Bluetooth system so she could talk while she drove. “Okay, Jasmine, yes, I like that better. I just left a meeting with your husband’s lawyer. Your divorce papers will be ready by next Monday, Wednesday at the latest. Are you excited?”

Hasmik Ignabi, who, as part of her divorce, would legally change her name to Jasmine Bayramyan, first met Glenda Wilkins, who kept her maiden name when she married George Martin, six years ago at Mills College where they were assigned to the same dormitory room.

“Jeez, Hasmik, I mean Jasmine. I thought you and Khoren would be married for decades. I remember when you walked down the aisle. You two were such a beautiful couple, and his career is just booming. I thought you two were so happy. I mean you seemed happy last winter when we all went to Maui for Christmas. Are you sure this is what you really want?”

Six months ago, Hasmik felt an insect bite on her back below her shoulder blade as she left a friend’s house one night. Before she knew it, she collapsed. Panic overcame her and she froze as if paralyzed. A kind young man with a white medical van came to her aid and brought her to his work where they treated her. The doctor, Vincent Winkel, took an interest in her and gave her free follow-up visits and even arranged for plastic surgery to reduce her rather large nose even though many men found her attractive just as she was.

Her husband objected. Glenda warned her, “When one partner in a marriage tries to improve their looks, whether it’s as simple as working out to lose weight or as radical as rhinoplasty, it usually leads to divorce.” Glenda valued their friendship and pledged to do anything to help Hasmik find happiness.

“Yes, I understand that he held you back. Your new import/export company is great. I, too, think it will do well. It’s great that you found something you love to do, I know. I love being a lawyer specializing in family law. I feel like I am really helping my sisters out of harmful situations, but I believe in love. I love George, and I know George loves me.”

Glenda was one of the few women from the all-women’s college who would date him. Many were taller or very attractive or wealthy or only went to parties to hang out with their college friends. George, a fine speaker, lacked confidence in social situations. Glenda bumped into him, literally, while grabbing a red Solo cup near a keg. She struck up a conversation about religious repression of women throughout medieval Christendom without realizing that George attended nearby Cooper Theological University. George’s listening capability won her over.

“I swear he never tires of listening to how my day went and how I do my best for clients, like you, Hasmik, and so many others. In fact, I’m going home right now, and I bet he can’t wait to hear how I got Khoren to get a second mortgage on the house so you can get the cash you need to keep your business going. And I think it was very clever of you to find a location with a living space right above. Good move. And how you can write off upkeep on the Mercedes we wrested from Khoren. He really fought over that one. Hey, you asshole&#8212no not you, this guy in a Mustang just cut me off on the 80 on-ramp. Traffic has gotten better since the recession started, but there are always jerks who think they own the road. We pay our taxes, too. Roads and especially freeways belong to all of us, and just because they’ve got a sporty Mustang convertible doesn’t mean they can just drive like maniacs. Really. What do you think?”

Glenda never remarked on Hasmik’s lack of concern. Hasmik was like a lot of people she knew, not generous with their opinions. George was much the same. When Glenda gave the topic some thought, she concluded most people she knew did not express their opinion on topics in which she showed interest, probably because they did not share the same interests. Her husband, for example, was greatly interested in man’s immorality without God’s guidance. Hasmik had other interests as well. In college she studied sociology, a topic Glenda avoided. Not that it mattered much. At parties, Hasmik and George talked and laughed together about things in which they took interest while Glenda worked on networking with potential legal allies or potential clients.

“Oh, yes, I can meet you at Rick’s Caf&#xe9 and Bar. In fact, I’m heading in just that direction. It’s a good idea. There’s so much I have to say to you about how your divorce negotiations went. Also, I was wondering about investing in your new company. I can help you with incorporation paperwork and work out stock options for your future employees and, well, people like me who’d like to help you out, you know, as you get started. I know you have not considered incorporation, but it is a great idea. I can serve as corporate officer, you know, as a reward for the investment I intend to make, and you do not have to pay it back. We can work out stock options as compensation. That way if, God forbid, your company, I mean corporation, runs into difficulty, you do not have to repay me. It’s an investment, not a loan. How does that sound?”

Hasmik greeted Glenda at Rick’s. She tried to explain to Glenda that she was there for a date with a guy introduced to her by therightkind.com, a website dedicated to matching local, attractive, interesting women seeking to better their lives with men of means who did not like wasting their time ascertaining if the women they met were legitimately interested in them and not their fortunes. Glenda did not understand that her friend only mentioned Rick’s on the phone because of nerves. She told Glenda her date would arrive in about fifteen minutes.

“I wonder why they called this place Rick’s. The owner’s name is Barbara. I handled her divorce last year. Her husband’s name was George, like my George. She started this restaurant before they were married. George, her George, not my George, tried to claim that the restaurant’s success was, in great part, due to his help. An absurd notion. Barbara knows exactly what she is doing. True, she added the bar after she and George were married, but that was because it took so long to get a liquor license and not due to his influence. She let him hire their first bartender, Colin. Hey, Colin, can I have another Brandy Alexander? Thanks, dear. Colin is so good, but that fact is not enough for her ex-husband to claim credit for business enhancement, as he well found out.”

Hasmik’s date arrived five minutes late. Hasmik failed to get her friend to leave several times.

“Oh, hello. I’m Glenda, Hasmik, I mean Jasmine’s friend. She and I have just been having a few drinks and waiting for you. Oh no, I didn’t mean that we were waiting for you, no I’ll be going home and you and Jasmine will be going on your date. No, I really can’t join you two. Jasmine is really quite an interesting girl, don’t you think? Though I appreciate your interest, I really must be going. Enjoy.”

Glenda parked two blocks away. Navigating narrow sidewalks in high heels while under the influence of three Brandy Alexanders proved difficult. She stopped, drew her cell phone from her purse, and found Hasmik’s number in recent calls.

“Hasmik, I can’t believe you’re sending me to voice mail. Well, I guess you are on a date, but really. That guy dresses well enough, but he’s older and bald, very bald. Bald and handsy. I had to nudge his hand off my butt three times. He kept asking me to join you, too. Really, what’s that about? I can’t believe anything about him is therightkind dot anything. I, oh, what’s that? I think&#8212”

Glenda dropped her phone and reached to the back of her calf where she felt a sharp pain, like an insect bite. A second pain guided her hand to her buttock. Seconds later, she collapsed and lost consciousness. She awoke in a hospital bed at the Urgent Care Facility of the Winkel Medical Center San Jose.

“George. Honey. I won’t be home for dinner. It’s the darndest thing. I met Hasmik for drinks. She and Khoren are getting a divorce, but you already knew that. I spent two hours negotiating with his lawyer and called her. Anyways, as I was getting into my car, I got some insect bites. Three, I think. Bad, bad insect bites. I lost consciousness. Lucky for me there was an ambulance on the same block. They saw me fall on the street and took me to a medical center. Dr. Winkel treated me. Poor man, he has just about the ugliest face I’ve ever seen, at least for a face without obvious deformities like the Elephant Man. Yes, the Elephant Man is definitely uglier, but Dr. Winkel looks like a homely woman was raped by a giant rat and got pregnant. He seemed nice enough and took a special interest in my insect bites. He says I should take it easy and see him again in a couple of weeks. I’m going to pick something up on my way home, maybe something from The Blue Nile&#8212that sounds good. Actually, I think I’ll just eat there, so why don’t you go out and get yourself something for dinner, and we’ll save the stroganoff you made for tomorrow. Sound good to you? I think it’s for the best, given today’s unexpected events. I should be home in a couple of hours, and I can tell you all about it.”

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Glenda made several changes to her life. She took her weight seriously and decided that a five-foot-six-inch woman should weigh one hundred thirty pounds&#8212which meant she had to lose twenty pounds. In a tirade, she tossed out most of her refrigerator’s contents. George preferred his dishes, so they split the fridge space. Glenda started making her own meals until she realized her food preparation skills would need improving lest she lose a hundred pounds. She subscribed to a healthy meal service that catered to professionals and could deliver meals anywhere in the Bay Area. She joined a gym, an exclusive one in South San Francisco, which proved untenable, so she joined a chain gym that had many more locations and more available hours. Still, working out regularly evaded her. Hasmik told her that the best exercise was the one you actually do. After experimenting with jogging, then treadmills, then spin classes, she found swimming more to her liking. She kept a gym bag in her back seat, which carried two one-piece swimsuits and a bag to store her wet swimsuits until she laundered them. She dreaded going home and found excuses to work late, sometimes sleeping in her office and showering at her gym after morning workouts.

“Jasmine. Nice to hear from you. It has to be weeks since we last spoke. How’s life as a single lady?”

Hasmik, now legally named Jasmine, told Glenda about her latest therightkind.com date.

“Jeez, that sounds like quite a night. I remember when George initiated morning sex. That was our honeymoon. God, I can’t believe what I saw in him back then. He never was good in the sack. I think sexual dissatisfaction may be a leading cause of divorce. Not all alone, of course, but good sex can smooth over a lot of life’s bumps. George and I started arguing over just about everything, even his avoidance of discussing things important to me. Was it that way for you and Khoren?”

Jasmine confirmed that she and Khoren started arguing. Khoren played along so long as it led to makeup sex, but Jasmine couldn’t enjoy makeup sex, even though Khoren was proficient, when she was angry with him. Eventually they agreed to see a marriage counselor.

“George tried roping me into counseling too. Of course, it was a counselor from his church. She actually let George start meetings with a prayer. At the third session, I protested. I told them I didn’t believe in God. Not an atheist, it’s just not that important to me. I believe in human potential and human achievement. I only attended church services to support my husband, and I stopped weeks ago. The counselor quit, right then and there. George asked if I would like to try a secular counselor. I agreed but wish I didn’t.”

Jasmine told Glenda that she needed to prepare for a date. She’d been dating three or four nights a week. She loved being on therightkind.com. A man she dated a few times bought her a tennis bracelet for her birthday. She thought it had some real diamonds. The friends agreed to try to see each other soon.

* * *

Glenda decided marriage counseling didn’t work. She legally separated from George and moved into a small apartment near her office. Between diet and exercise, she’d lost fifteen pounds, but muscle mass accounted for more of her weight. She felt good about her health and activity, but some parts of her body sagged more than she felt they should. Her imminent divorce got her thinking more and more about her social life. She wanted to present a better package to potential suitors. She’d already met and slept with another lawyer she met at a Bar Association-sponsored family law seminar. Dr. Winkel offered her free plastic surgery to tighten and tuck away loose skin.

* * *

“Glenda.” Jasmine stood and hugged her friend. “Have you ever been this thin?”

“Grade school, perhaps. What’s good here?”

“The scenery.” Jasmine rolled her eyes over to the bar.

“Now I know how you choose restaurants.” Glenda took a seat at Jasmine’s table.

“How are things going?”

“Good. Pretty good, I feel. George and I are meeting at his lawyer’s to sign the papers.”

“Nervous?”

“No, not nervous. Excited to restart my life. You should know. You went through this a few months ago.” Glenda read the menu looking for something other than a salad, low in calories and high in protein. “Though, if you don’t mind me asking, did going through a divorce make you, you know, horny?”

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I had an appointment with Dr. Winkel.”

“You fucked Dr. Winkel?”

“Are you going to let me tell my story?”

“Did you have sex with Dr. Winkel?”

“Yes.”

“So did I. Did you also fuck the handsome guy in the office next door?”

“The guy from NanoBotics? No, did you?”

Jasmine smiled.

“Okay, I sort of want to tell my story. Since you know the ending, is it still okay for me to tell it?”

“If you have to get it off your chest.”

“Funny you phrased it that way. I’ve been losing weight, not so much weight, but inches, especially inches off my chest. So I had an appointment with Dr. Winkel, and he congratulated me for improving my health so much and asked me if there were any problems. So I took off my blouse and bra and showed Vince my boobs. He examined me, cold fingers and all, and said that it was common for women who lose so much weight to have smaller, saggier breasts. He fingered my areolas and, oh so gently, got my nipples to harden. All the while, he told me he could do something about it. I thought he was going to put his lips on them and pretend to inflate them. I mean, he’s not the most attractive man. Sometimes, I think the only reason he became a doctor was to see women naked. Anyways, he said a plastic surgeon owed him some favors and a breast reduction/lift surgery would get my tits looking peachy again. And I made a peach joke, and the next thing I knew . . .”

“It’s amazing how much that little rat-faced doctor knows about women’s bodies.”

“Surprising technique, I must admit. He had me on the exam table, and, man oh man, he blew my mind.”

“He ate my pussy.”

“He does that surprisingly well. I mean after that, I was his. He undressed, lowered the table to just the right height, and indulged.”

“Himself or you?”

“I didn’t care. I was satisfied.”

“So was I.”

“So it’s not uncommon.”

“I think he’s had a lot of women.”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know. But there’s a mark on the exam table that lets him lower it to just the right level.”

“Well, at least I’m not alone.”

“You got me, babe.”

“Thanks, Cher. But I’m wondering . . . how long does the horniness last?”

“Well, it depends on what you do about it. I got lucky. I found therightkind.com. Most of the men on the site are quite giving. I’m getting my fill of good sex. And it’s not all about dick. These guys are generous as well. I’ve gotten some gifts that are quite nice.”

“You whore.”

“Maybe, but I’m having a great time. Here, take this card. I get to make a few referrals.”

“Referrals?”

“Yes, and you will be my first, but don’t sign up until you recover from plastic surgery. They take a lot of photos, if you know what I mean.”

Glenda took the card and proceeded to catch up with her former college roommate. Dr. Winkel introduced her to Dr. Davilla, who performed her breast reduction, a tummy tuck, and a few other subtle surgeries. Dr, Winkel handled implanting a Norplant contraceptive, and Glenda signed up for therightkind.com.

Glenda also changed her legal practice. She now accepted referrals from the Winkel Medical Center. They referred several women injured from domestic abuse. They also referred women, like herself, who needed release from unwise marriages.

* * *

“Good morning, Lily.”

“Glenda.”

“I think we have favorable terms in your divorce settlement. You and your husband really don’t have much to divide.”

“His family has all the money.”

“And his parents agreed to pay you three hundred thousand.”

“New start for new life.”

“How is that going?”

Lily Moh blushed.

“One last detail. Will you keep your last name as Chen, or&#8212”

“I’m Moh.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You being funny?”

“Sorry. It is an interesting surname. Where is it from?”

“My parents came from Malaysia.”

“Was Owen from Malaysia as well?”

“Owen’s family Chinese.”

“Do you think you’ll date Chinese men?”

“Chinese, not bad. Maybe, rich Chinese.”

“I dated a rich Chinese man last week. He wasn’t bad.”

“He rich? Or family rich?”

“He’s rich. He’s an inventor, a software engineer.”

“Explains it. Where you meet this man?”

“A dating website. Are you interested?”

“I’m interested.”

“Here, take this card. It’s called therightkind.com.”

“Nice card. I think about it.”

“All the gentlemen are wealthy. They are a little demanding. I think it comes from earning so much money, but they are great dates, and they can be generous, very generous.”

Chapter 9: Lily Moh

Marcia Fong cleared all witness folders from her dining table and stacked them on nearby chairs. She circled the table three or four times before an idea stalled her.

“Shock factor,” she declared, confident she knew how to present the evidence.

“Huh?” Peter Goode looked up from his cell phone.

“Eileen Paxon was exploited, for sure.” Marcia sorted files into four stacks: witnesses Sean Beacon seduced into NanoBotics’s clutches, law enforcement, expert testimony and women Jeffries Laportes abducted.

“But.” She found the file she wanted the most. “Lily Moh was the first to be abducted. A clear criminal offense. Jurors will lock onto it.”

“I think jurors will lock onto the rest of her deposition.”

“Not if we steer clear of it.”

“I don’t think we can. Of the seventy women Laportes abducted, there must be better witnesses than Lily Moh.”

“But she was the first.”

“Okay.” Peter scratched his scalp hoping for inspiration. “Let’s do a mock run. You’re the prosecutor, and I’ll be Moh, but I’ll stick to her deposition. Any deviation and the defense, which’ll be me, objects, and the judge, portrayed by me, will sustain.”

“Hey, we usually discuss judges’ rulings.”

“For better witnesses. You want my support on this one, play by my rules.”

“Fine.”

Peter found his copy of Lily Moh’s deposition, set a chair parallel to the table and took his seat as Marcia approached.

MF:	“Ms. Moh. What do you remember of your life before November 2008?”

(Deposition: Lily Moh page 8 . . .)

LM:	My husband, my then-husband, and I meet in high school. We date sophomore year. I pregnant that spring, miscarried summer. Much strain on our families. Owen and I stay together. His parents no approve of me. I think two reasons why. They American-born Chinese; my parents emigrate from Malaysia, and the pregnancy. They no trust their son with me; my parents no trust me with him. We stick together; wed after graduation. Owen smart. Very smart, very determined. We agree he go to college. He find computer work, computer operator, you know, so he work nights and attend class daytime. I wait tables for a while before getting office job at Kellen McQuire Marketing. No one tell you in high school life so hard. Mrs. Chen, Owen’s mother, she tried telling us when Owen tell her about plans to marry. We thought she try to dissuade us. First Owen. She tell him without family financial support, we fall apart. No marry no more. She tell me, I not worth ruining his future. He eventually see wisdom in doing his family’s wishes. Owen graduated Cal Berkeley, bachelor degree in economics. He turn internship at Bank America into full-time job. Owen even accepted at UC Santa Clara MBA program.
MF:	Things were looking good for you two?
LM:	Certainly, it seemed so.

“Hey, Pete, I thought you said that you will stick to the deposition.”

“I did.”

“She said, and I quote, ‘It seem so.’”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, look again.”

“If we decide to put her on the stand, we’ll get her a linguistics coach.”

“With Wirther’s team insisting on a speedy trial, she may not have time to make much of an improvement, and I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“You’ve gotta be kiddin’. The jury will laugh her out of the box.”

“I don’t think so. They are like us. We work with immigrants all the time. They have accents. So what? We understand them&#8212”

“&#8212most of the time.”

“And they understand us&#8212”

“&#8212some of the time.”

“Oh, bullshit. You put Samanta Pham on the stand dozens of times.”

“She provides brilliant psychological testimony.”

“Come off it. She calls herself ‘Samanta’ because, when she first came to America, that was how she thought ‘Samantha’ was pronounced. Her birth name was Phuc Thi Tam. She changed her name in college because she was sick of ‘Fuck thee Tam’ epithets.”

“All I am saying is that Samanta Pham does well on the stand, and if you want Lily Moh on the stand, you’ll have to put her through linguistics coaching the same way I put Samanta through coaching.”

“I’m sick of this.”

“So am I. This is a losing case.”

“No, it is not. I can win this. But that is not what I am sick of.”

“Okay, what are you sick of now?”

“Immigrant bashing.”

“I am not immigrant bashing. I’m just pointing out that jurors will discount Lily’s testimony because of her accent.”

“I think they will be fine with it. It’s part of our everyday reality. We seem to deal with accents well when we need something from our colleagues, or something from a store, or on the bus. Lily gets by very well with it. She runs her own company, for Christ’s sake. I think jurors will accept Lily just the way she is.”

“You’re just getting desperate for witnesses. You are Asian and you don’t speak with any accent.”

“I’m sixth generation. Even my grandparents lost all trace of their accents in English. It’s our Chinese that suffers from an American accent.”

“Then let her testify in Malaysian and make the translator straighten out the English.”

“No, I want the jury to hear from Lily in her own words. She’s an honest person, and I want the jury to know that her life was dramatically changed when Laportes abducted her.”

“Did you read her deposition?”

“I read enough. She’s the first one criminally abducted. That should be enough.”

“Okay. I’ll read from her deposition accent and all.”

MF:	Things were looking good for you two?
LM:	It seem so.
MF:	Did it stay that way?
LM:	No, Owen and I start to fall apart, April 2009.
MF:	What happened?
LM:	Owen, he cheat on me.

“No, no, no.” Marcia stomped her foot. “She was abducted and injected with nanites first.”

“Is that a question, Counselor?”

“It’s what happened.”

“Objection, the prosecutor is making statements not in evidence.” Peter smiled. “Sustained.”

“Okay, okay, okay. I got you.” Marcia opened Lily Moh’s file and presented Peter (Defense) with a doctor’s bill.

MF:	Do you recognize this?
Defense:	Objection This wasn’t part of her deposition.
MF:	Yes, but it’s in the boxes of discovery. It’s admissible.
Defense:	Fine. (Peter took a moment and relaxed his facial muscles.)
LM:	Doctor’s bill.
MF:	From Winkel Medical Center Santa Cruz office?
LM:	Yes.
MF:	Before 2008, was the Winkel Medical Center one of your medical care providers?
LM:	Yes.
MF:	The Santa Cruz office?
LM:	No.
MF:	But after 2008, you went there regularly.
LM:	Yes, Dr. Winkel, my PCP, uh, primary care physician.

“That’s not in her deposition.” Marcia protested.

“You’re off script; I’m off script,” Peter said. “Proceed.”

MF:	Do you remember the circumstances of your first visit?
LM:	Yes. I come home from grocery shopping. I black out. I wake up in clinic. Dr. Winkel, he there. He very concerned. He ask me questions, lots of questions about my blackout. I remember that.
MF:	Do you remember how you got to the clinic?
LM:	Good samaritan, he call ambulance.

“Nonsense!” Marcia’s foot thumped the floorboards.

“It’s in her deposition.”

“Laportes drove her there after drugging her somehow!”

“Prove it.”

“There’s no ambulance bill.”

“Are you calling your own witness a liar, Counselor?”

“An ambulance would have taken her to a nearby emergency room.”

“Objection, conjecture.” Peter set Lily Moh’s deposition on the table. “Sustained.”

“Not conjecture, fact. We can get ambulance drivers to testify to that.”

“Perhaps.” Peter paced around the table. “Perhaps, on cross, they will say they go wherever dispatch sends them. Perhaps, dispatch checks for availability or ER capacity. Perhaps they send less-critical patients to urgent care centers on busy nights.”

“Okay, where are you going with this?”

“The Winkel Medical Center in Santa Cruz has an urgent care center.”

“Really?”

“And Dr. Winkel takes shifts as an on-call physician.”

“Still, there’d be a record.”

“Evidence is a great thing, when you have it. Lack of evidence ain’t nothin’,” Peter imitated Judge Emit Jackson’s off-bench vernacular.

“Arg!” Marcia took a seat.

“She’s not a good witness.”

“They drugged her, they implanted nanites, they turned her into a sex workers.”

“I would not call these women sex workers.”

“What? Escorts?”

“Call girls comes closest, but still not right. They were not paid. They were not even aware NanoBotics profited from their sexual activity. We asked all of them, and all of them thought they got a great deal on an elite dating site.”

“They were brainwashed into thinking that.”

“Great story, Counselor, any proof?”

“They all had nanites in their heads. That is evidence. The police found nanites at the Winkel Medical Center in Santa Cruz. That is evidence. They found the machines that make the nanites at the old NanoBotics building that’s still NanoBotics’s property, and Calvin Wirther is still the president of NanoBotics. That is all evidence.”

“The nanites in Santa Cruz were in the NanoBotics office at the Winkel Medical Center, not in any medical office. They were in plastic tubes used for demos. The machines in the old NanoBotics office in Mountain View were sealed in 2006 just after Wirther bought the company. There’s no evidence they were ever used after NanoBotics converted that building into facade office space.”

“Other than to make a bunch of nanites, that is.”

“Although they were serialized, there are no distribution records. No chain of custody, no evidence.”

“Then how did they make enough nanites to control eighty women?”

“There was some residue of what some, but not all, crime scene investigators thought might be nanite-producing machinery in the NanoBotics area.”

“Damn it! It’s engineered. It’s like Wirther made it so he couldn’t be prosecuted.”

“He’s a software engineer.”

“Looks like he extended his engineering skills beyond engineering.” Marcia focused on Cal Wirther’s file. “I have got to work that line in.”

“Objection, prejudicial.” Peter tapped his knuckles on the table. “Sustained.”

“Stop giving them victories.”

“Even if you get in a few digs with Lily Moh’s testimony, Wirther’s lawyers will reverse it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stick to it.” Peter handed over Lily Moh’s deposition, and Marcia took a breath before assuming the role of Ms. Moh.

Defense:	Where did you and Owen Chen live after your wedding?
LM:	Cheap apartment, block or two off El Camino Real in Mountain View.
Defense:	Are you sure? (Peter fished a few items out of Lily Moh’s file.)
LM:	Yes, very sure.
Defense:	Do you recognize this canceled rent check?

“The check was not in her deposition.” Marcia examined the check, which was made out to Olive Garden Property Management, and it was written by Lily Moh, 4297 Olive St., Sunnyvale, CA, 94086.

“Yeah, but that question raised a red flag, so I had our investigators check it out.”

“She was so sure.”

“I know, but there were a few other questions that seemed a little out of place, so I looked into them.”

“That evil Wirther. He planted false memories into her brain.”

“From what I discovered.” Peter retrieved a few files from his briefcase. “It doesn’t work that way. You missed a few things in the medical associates’ depositions.”

“They were more your area. What did they say?”

“Almost nothing. They seemed more concerned about not implicating themselves or Winkel, but they left a few clues. When I tracked Sean Beacon’s activities, I discovered he frequented the Stanford Library.”

“A lot. That’s where he met Eileen Paxon.”

“He also accessed a lot of neuroanatomy and psychology journals. Boring stuff. I re-deposed Dr. Cromarty.”

“Peter, I’m surprised you took so much interest in this case.”

“At first, I thought we had a chance, but, after what I learned . . . oh well. But, I think I know a little bit about how Lily’s memory got so messed up.”

“Okay.”

“We all like to think of ourselves as rational beings, you know, that we use logic to approach our problems.”

“That’s what makes us human.”

“Few things are further from the truth.”

“We are not human?” Marcia mocked.

“We are not rational,” Peter countered. “Most of the time, our frontal lobe isn’t involved, at least not much. Our core brain does most of the work, but it doesn’t really do it well. At least it doesn’t do it, well, logically. The core of the brain works on reflex and emotion.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Most of the time, the brain’s core controls what memories we access. When we have a strong enough negative emotional response to something, our brain sort of flinches and pulls up memories of something else.”

“So the Mountain View address.”

“Lily’s creation, not their implant.”

“But they knew about it, right?”

“What?”

“They knew Lily would remember the wrong address. Evidence they tampered with her memory.”

“Objection, speculation.” Peter tapped his knuckles on the wall. “Sustained.”

Marcia rose.

“Settle down. Wirther’s lawyers merely asked simple background questions.” Peter’s gestures intended to reseat Marcia.

“You said it raised red flags with you.” She stepped toward him.

“They seemed a little out of place, that’s all. They are not out of common legal practice. Nothing leading, no probable grounds for investigation.”

“Yet you, you, sent out investigators.”

“A hunch.”

“Any more hunches?”

“All of them.”

“All the hunches?”

“No. All the women. They all revealed false memories in their depositions.”

“Crap. We put any of them on the stand, and the defense impeaches them.”

“Pretty much.” Peter stood.

“That has to be a crime.” Marcia’s voice wavered betraying unrestrained disdain.

“We have no proof. None of them remember how they attained false memories, or gaps in their memories.”

“Isn’t that proof?”

“Objection.” Peter tapped Marcia’s chair. “Sustained.”

“Stop doing that!”

“I told you Lily Moh would be a bad witness. And it gets worse.”

“How so?”

“The end of her deposition.” Peter took the deposition from Marcia and hunted for a good starting point: “Ms. Moh, what do you think of your life after you left your husband?”

“No!”

“Stick to the script.”

Marcia snatched the deposition back and read:

(Deposition: Lily Moh page 97 . . .)

I don’t remember how, but I start investment real estate. Very hard to start with, but a year, maybe a year and a half, I make real profit. I attractive, very attractive. Attractive and aggressive Asian make good businesswoman in America. I don’t sleep my way into it. I find way to manage upscale rentals. I mean, I sexually active after divorce. I use assets with discretion, but mostly I only slept with men from The Right Kind. It very exciting. I date successful men. They know how to treat attractive and aggressive Asian businesswoman. Okay, I like fantasy girl for them. I love being fantasy girl for rich businessman. They take me to exciting places; we do exciting things. One nice man and I spend whole week at Cannes on yacht. We rub elbows with moviemakers. We watch the movies. I see Formula 1 Grand Prix in Dubai; I dive off cliffs in Acapulco; I pet llamas in Machu Picchu. I still have alpaca sweater, real alpaca sweater, not fake alpaca sweater for tourists. The Right Kind man give the right kind gift. My first duplex I buy from selling jewelry they give. I miss being The Right Kind girl. They were best days of my life. I still beautiful and very desirable, but I need be careful with man I sleep with. Much easier when The Right Kind take care of that. I try to maintain old lifestyle, the way it feel, but not the same. Man, I mean, men, different now. I different, too. Not same gumption. I so courageous then, so confident, so able and willing to do, hmm, almost anything. Not the same way now. If I could, if The Right Kind back in business, I go back, be part of it again. If nanites make me that woman, I say, give me the shot.

“Oh, God, Peter, I feel sick just saying those words.”

Chapter 10: Jeffries Laportes

Jeffries Laportes knew his business, whatever that business was. He cut his teeth in Oakland, where he’d steal anything and everything to keep himself and his two sisters alive. As he grew, he took to robbing. He never joined a gang but rather affiliated himself with several gangs, some of which were rivals. He gained a reputation as an honest mercenary, and almost all local gang leaders respected him. Almost all. Three did not.

Gustavo “Bucky” Juarez cornered Laportes in a Richmond back alley and drew his knife. Laportes produced a modified Uzi. He put two quick bursts, center mass, into Juarez. It became an instant Bay Area legend. The police arrested Laportes the next day, but they never found the Uzi.

While awaiting trial, word reached Jeffries Laportes that Robert “BaldE” Everson sought vengeance for Juarez. Nobody believed BaldE had any affection for Bucky; rather, they thought BaldE was pissed that a merc took out his rival, and that shit don’t happen on his watch.

Whatever the case, BaldE kidnapped Mercedes and Zoila Laportes, sent word to Laportes about where to find them, and the word included that if Laportes brought any firepower, his sisters’ throats would be cut open.

Laportes arrived gunless. He brought modified brass knuckles, actually made of high-carbon steel. The knuckles part raised by about two inches and was sharpened. They couldn’t cut too deep, but it was enough for Laportes to hold his own against seven of BaldE’s boys, three of whom ended up in Alameda County Hospital, two in Oakland Summit. BaldE and the other two got ambulance rides to Providence Health Care. The Laportes siblings found treatment at Winkel Clinic San Leandro, the northernmost Winkel clinic, where Jeffries Laportes first met Dr. Vincent Winkel.

Winkel took an interest in Laportes. He agreed to look after his sisters while Jeffries served out his prison sentence. Soon after his release, Jeffries, with substantial help from Winkel, set up a detective agency based in Santa Clara. Winkel threw a lot of work his way. The work served as cover for more nefarious deeds.

Jeffries Laportes remained a Bay Area gang legend. He hung out with several well-known, and lesser-known, gang members. They treated him as a gang insider, though he clearly operated outside any gang’s influence or control. They awarded him a nickname, “Clear Skin,” or, sometimes, just “Clear” for his complete lack of tattoos. Laportes often said he didn’t want any identifying marks: “Just complicates things, fool.”

Vincent kept Jeffries Laportes busy. Expanding Winkel’s SCMedGroup required real estate, and people often needed persuasion to sell at the right price. Laportes knew direct pressure led to arrests and imprisonment, but indirect pressure, done right, produced results. Results with reduced risk. Burning down a strip mall sitting on a clinic’s future site would draw too much attention. Orchestrating an underground gas pipe explosion, or water main leak, lowered property values and promoted expedited sales. Outcomes were not always as rosy as anticipated. Vince Winkel often complained, but he usually acquiesced after Laportes explained the cost/benefit, risk/reward ratios and how much Winkel’s associates needed him.

“The problem with doctors,” Vince Winkel often remarked, “is that they don’t know what to do with their money.” Many of them racked up gambling debt, developed drug addictions, found comfort in the company of sex workers, fell victim to con men or otherwise ran afoul of Cristoph Scarabco’s crime ring.

Some of the dumber doctors attempted to deal with Scarabco’s enforcers on their own. With Laportes’s and Winkel’s help, their debts were renegotiated without anyone suffering injuries. No mean feat. When Winkel heard of an associate’s Scarabco problem, he assigned Laportes to bodyguard duty. Laportes personally intervened, at first, but he soon adopted more aggressive measures. He leveraged his street gang connections, relying mostly on fellow mercs, but also enlisted some regular gang members, especially those who had scores to settle with Scarabco’s enforcers known simply as “the big guys.” For Laportes, this was necessary. Far too many doctors needed help for him to personally guarantee their safety. Winkel, of course, objected to the added expense.

Scarabco’s men found themselves outgunned, outmanned, outmaneuvered or a combination of the three. Laportes then upped the ante. His compadres confiscated drugs, detained call girls, disfigured con men and, most of all, physically disabled enforcers. Laportes proved an apt street general.

Scarabco quickly accepted a meeting with Winkel. They worked out terms. Scarabco’s representatives would first come to Winkel, or a designated representative like Laportes, where they worked out repayment schedules at reduced rates. In exchange, Scarabco enjoyed a truce with Laportes and quality medical care for his soldiers.

The truce brought Winkel a windfall of medical favors. Doctors often traded in-kind services to one another and even stockpiled favors, so a dermatologist’s expecting wife received OB-GYN services for her pregnancy because he treated an oncologist who treated the obstetrician’s mother’s breast cancer. And so on, and so on, and so on. For protection and bailing out his colleagues from Scarabco’s clutches, Winkel was due more medical favors than he could imagine. He kept spreadsheets tracking who owed whom and how much he was due. Without trying, he became a clearing house for medical favors, a de facto bank.

Jeffries Laportes and his siblings were the main draw against Winkel’s account. Jeffries suffered occasional occupational injuries: bruises, contusions, sliced skin and a few gunshot wounds. As the Laportes sisters came of age, they required abortions and STD treatments.

With the truce in place, Jeffries Laportes’s services became less necessary. He expanded his clientele through his detective agency, but he still had a lot of time to kill. He spent most of that time maintaining street gang connections, which amounted to little more than hanging out and an occasional fight to reinforce his street credentials.

Laportes underestimated NanoBotics’s needs. Nanites, subjects, risky dating. Cal Wirther spoke more like some Silicon Valley visionary than a medical device supplier.

The first “problem” for which the Ws needed a solution was recruitment. Their previous recruiter, Sean Beacon, presented too many risks. Sean recruited via roofie dating.

“Girls really wanted to date the little hueco?” Laportes made a hole with one hand and poked his opposing index finger through it.

“He’s brought in nine women so far, but he’s getting known as an OC. It’s drawing too much attention.” Cal Wirther spoke like he was leading a meeting in a conference room. His right hand even swished as if he held a laser pointer.

“A less personal approach is needed.”

“Exactly. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking you let me take care of it.”

“Methods are up to you, but come to me for targeting criteria.”

“Huh?”

“Sean limited himself to attractive, highly educated White women.”

“Little girly Seans.” Laportes chuckled.

“Our likely clientele prefers White women. Blondes, redheads and brunettes, in that order. They also have an affinity for Asian women. Filipino, Japanese and Chinese. Stay away from Indian. Trust me. But they will like a little spice in their life. Brown-skinned Brazilians are the highest priority in this category, but they are rare, as are Venezuelans and Colombians. Mexican descent and Central Americans—“

“Like me.”

“&#8212are acceptable. Lastly, some will want to dabble on the dark side. No more than two, but they should be more Halle Berry, less Serena Williams.”

“Is that it?”

“No,” Vince Winkel chimed. “They don’t have to be knockout beauties. We’ve racked up enough favors to put quite a few through plastic surgery.”

“And the nanites can put them on a strict diet and get them working out in the gym, so they can be a little chubby.”

“Is there a reason you want gordas feas?”

“Not fat, deformed women. I mean look for somewhat attractive women, but you know . . .” Cal faltered.

“The ones who need a little help to get laid,” Winkel added.

“We can provide that help.” Cal slipped into his sales-pitch voice. “We can make them extremely desirable. Choose good starting points.”

“Got it.”

“Okay, a few more criteria. We can only handle about four a month. No more. It takes time to map their brains and start behavior modification. Some will be easier than others, so see me before target acquisition. Also see me for geodiversity.”

“Geodiversity?”

“Cal is worried someone might notice a pattern in our activity. An epidemiologist, for example, would look for clusters, so Cal wants you to widen your range to a sixty-mile radius around San Francisco.”

“Look, man, I don’t have much pull outside The Valley and the East Bay. I can’t even touch The City.”

“Come see me anyway. Let’s keep our profile as invisible as possible, even if we limit ourselves to the Southside.”

“Got it.”

“Okay,” Cal paused, “this last thing is the most important. We don’t want popular girls.”

“Are you sure about that?” Winkel tugged his pants just right of his crotch.

“Social Acceptance Retraining takes time. Initial isolation accelerates radical behavior modification toward desired results.”

Vince Winkel grimaced.

“Got it.”

Hanging out on gangsters’ porches taught Laportes a little about women. They liked to talk about other women. A woman walked by in a red cocktail dress and gang girls rated her overall looks, physique, makeup, dress, shoes and sexual desirability. Her current relationship status, personal events (birthday, marriage/engagement/relationship start and anniversaries), employment status, potential she’s cheating on someone. All of this went to motive for overdressing. Then another woman walked by, braless, in faded denim and a tank top. The same ratings and discussions arose. Should a woman, not currently dating a member of their gang, stop and chat, her departure often sparked debate. Other women did not have to make an appearance. They simply had to remind them of a woman who walked by half an hour ago.

Laportes visited The Sunnyvale Zombies. After the guys left to set up street drug sales, Laportes hung out with their girls. A short woman walked by in cutoff blue-jean shorts and a tight floral blouse.

“Asian,” Laportes commented before the girls could get started.

“Hell no,” Jess responded, “this ain’t Chinatown.”

Before long, the Zombettes listed the few Asian women in the area. They didn’t know their names, but they knew where they lived, what they drove, their favorite outfits, their makeup brand, with whom they had relationships, and who they fucked on the side. A woman who lived in the Olive Garden Apartments caught Laportes’s attention. The girls described her as thin, attractive and reclusive. She lived with her husband, but he was banging a Chinese bank teller.

“It’s okay that she is prettier than specified.” Cal Wirther arranged a meeting after Laportes’s initial report. “Her social isolation and philandering husband make her an ideal acquisition. Plans?”

“I figure the doc can set me up with an effective sedative, injectable. Needles put me too close in case there’s witnesses, but this . . .” Laportes lifted an air rifle and a case of tranquilizer darts.

“Where did that come from?”

“San Fran Zoo. Some vet left it out one day.”

“Wow. Resourceful. So trank them taking out the trash.”

“Bad idea. Get seen inside fence lines; too many questions.”

“Okay.”

“Her husband parks in the carport. She parks on the street. Shoot her outside the car. The dart should work in seconds.”

“Then drag her to your car?”

“Hell no.”

Wirther tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowed.

“Follow me.” Laportes led Wirther to the parking lot.

“The disused ambulance?”

“It’s still fully equipped. Got a stretcher, wheelchair, ramps, straps. Everything. Anyone asks, I’m just an ambulance driver taking a break.”

“I like the van, not the livery.”

“Livery?”

“The paint job stands out too much. It would be better if you were just a good samaritan driving an old van that just happens to be a former ambulance. Like decommissioned cop cars that get auctioned off.”

“Gray?”

“Most ambulances are white. Paint it white. Scuff it up. Make it look surplus, but not out of place.”

“Got it. And park it somewhere else.”

“Actually, Jeffries, park it here. Don’t make it your daily driver, but drive it a lot. Anyone asks, it’s used by the clinic for pickups and deliveries. Errands. That type of thing.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, Jeffries . . .”

“What?”

“Good thinking. Keep working on not getting caught.”

“And if caught, talking my way out of it.”

Laportes’s tranquilizer dart stuck in Lily Moh’s thigh; she fell onto the street, and the dart rolled under her car. Laportes thought about retrieving it but didn’t have the time. She managed to stand up. Lily walked around the front of her car and disappeared. Laportes deployed the ramps, took out the wheelchair and rushed to her. Her light frame slumped in the chair, and they were off. No witnesses. If there were any, none confronted him. A successful recruitment.

By hanging out with gang girlfriends, gathering intelligence and using trank darts, Laportes recruited over thirty more women at the rate of one a week. It seemed easy enough. Winkel said that recruitment was part of the first phase. He let Laportes in on the next phase. Once these women started dating, they’d need protection. Laportes was already working out details.

Inside his van, deep in thought, he did not notice Yolanda Morales standing at the ambulance’s passenger side door.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m sitting in my van, thinking.”

“No, I mean with the women we talk about.”

“Huh?” Jeffries feigned ignorance. He tried to figure out what he had been doing wrong.

“The women. We tell you about them, and you become their pimp.”

“I don’t know what you’re yapping about.” Only a few of the women Laportes recruited started dating through the Ws’ website. Wirther underestimated how quickly he could reprogram them. However, two of those women were from this neighborhood.

“I want in.” Yolanda’s hands rested on the door where its window was rolled down.

“Then come on in.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Yolanda took the passenger seat. “The two women in this hood and a couple elsewhere, you know, San Jose and Mountain View. I know them, too.”

“What about them?”

“They used to be weirdos and losers. Now they dress better, look way better, and they are getting laid, getting laid a lot.”

Laportes tried to control his face. Fear, when caused by imminent threat of violence, he could control. This fear, caused by a secondhand wannabe gangsterette who Pablo “Shorthand” Cruz dumped two weeks ago, tugged at his lips and caused excessive blinking.

“Girls notice these things.”

“So all the girls are talking about it?” Determine problem scope, as Wirther says.

“Nah, they don’t care about them any more now than they did then.”

“Like they don’t care for you.”

Yolanda looked down. Her mouth moved, an unvoiced admission. Yolanda could not be described as pretty. Laportes admired her intelligence, but the girls on the porch shut her down before she ever really said anything.

“I’m no pimp, and they’re not prostis.”

“Call girls, whatever.”

“They are participants in a medical study. All those things you noticed. Side effects.”

“Sign me up. Study the fuck out of me.”

“You’ll probably end up like them, you know, having sex with a lot of men.”

“I’m in.” Yolanda spread her legs as far as the ambulance let her. “You’re in, those other guys can be in, too. I just don’t want to live my life anymore. I want out.”

“I thought you were in.”

“You know what I mean.”

* * *

“Yolanda Morales!” Peter Goode threw his hands into the air. “Not only does she have memory problems, she’s one of Wirther’s biggest fans.”

“She corroborates other testimony.” Marcia Fong placed Lily Moh’s deposition back into the file folder.

“Whose?”

“Jose Verraro, William Jefferson, Esteban Chang, Carlos Morales. Perhaps a few more.”

“We haven’t deposed them. Who are they?”

Marcia fetched her satchel and pulled out a notepad.

“Jose Verraro,” Peter muttered to himself. “Wait, wait, wait. ‘Pepi’ Verraro, ‘Memo’ Jefferson, ‘Wannabe’ Chang and ‘ChuckE’ Grande. Yolanda’s brother? Gangbangers. What are you thinking?”

“We can’t tell the story of Lily Moh’s abduction and exploitation from her perspective because Wirther messed with her memories.”

“Great. You were listening.”

“So why don’t we tell it from the abducting, manipulative exploiter’s?”

“Laportes? But how? Those gangbangers won’t snitch on Laportes.”

“Right.” Marcia drew the fourth stack of files close to her. “That’s why I decided not to prosecute him. It’s not snitching if Laportes will not go to jail.”

“Then why not just offer Laportes immunity and get it from the source?”

“He turned down immunity.”

“Transactional?”

“Even transactional immunity. Laportes is not talking.”

“If you can get them to talk, what will our Boathouse Boys say?”

“Laportes told each of them important elements of his criminal acts which benefited Calvin Wirther.”

“Objection: hearsay.” Peter slapped the table.

“Overruled.”

“Come on, Marcia, that’s the definition of hearsay.”

“And you think that’s a problem?”

“It’s the law.”

“Right, and so are, what, thirty or so exceptions? They’re the law, too.”

“Okay, Counselor, proceed.”

“I call Jeffries Laportes to the stand.” Marcia pointed to Peter and swept her index finger to an empty chair.

Peter sat, straight-backed and aped defiance in preparation to mock Jeffries Laportes&#8212and, again, the defense and judge.

MF:	What was your role at NanoBotics?
JL:	I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.
MF:	The district attorney’s office offered you complete, transactional immunity.
JL:	I did not accept any deal with the DA.
MF:	Have you ever been to the NanoBotics office in Santa Cruz?
JL:	I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.
MF:	Is there anything you are willing to testify to?
JL:	I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.
MF:	Your Honor. Mr. Laportes is an unavailable declarant.
Judge:	Is that necessary ADA Fong?
MF:	We have witnesses who will testify to Mr. Laportes’s statements regarding his activities on behalf of NanoBotics.
Defense:	Objection, hearsay.
MF:	Statements made against one’s self-interest are admissible when there is an unavailable declarant.

Peter covered his eyes with his palm. He let his head’s weight slide down until his palm caught his brow. “Okay, okay, overruled.”

“Any good prosecutor,” Marcia boasted, “can get hearsay in.”

“Fine, but I think I know Jeffries Laportes. He’s smart. He knows our Boathouse Boys better than they know him. He’ll know how to tarnish, no, demolish, anything they have to say about him.”

“They’ll hold up.”

“They won’t even take the stand. Laportes will see to it.”

“Then we get Laportes and Wirther on witness tampering.”

“They’ll make sure they don’t get caught.”

“Well, we will have to see. I think I’ve got Laportes, and once I get him, I can nail Wirther. In fact.” Marcia leafed through file folders. “After Laportes stumbles, I will bring in his biggest mistake.”

Chapter 11: Stephanie Pierce

Raisin Bran and a banana did not appeal to Stephanie Pierce this morning. She hoped her mother would just leave for work without making her eat. Her mother’s existence irritated Stephanie. Stephanie kept count of how many major interruptions she tolerated this year. She determined that when the count reached ten, she would simply leave home. I have options, she reasoned; her life was hers to control. Three weeks ago, Stephanie wanted to attend her boyfriend’s nineteenth birthday party. Led by her mother, her parents disapproved and grounded her for two weeks. Seven.

“I think you missed the bus. Finish your breakfast, and I’ll drive you to school.” Melody Pierce drank her coffee by the kitchen sink.

“I’m not going to school today.”

“What’s wrong, dear, are you sick?” Mrs. Pierce approached the kitchen table. She brushed back Stephanie’s long blonde hair to place her palm on her daughter’s forehead. “What’s that?”

“It’s just a tattoo.”

Mrs. Pierce inspected a half-inch dollar sign tattoo, cheekbone-high, between her daughter’s left eye and temple.

“When did you get it?”

“Monday; Rocky got it for me.” Stephanie withheld why her boyfriend, Rockford “Rocky” Cameron, bought her a tattoo: She finally mastered giving him a blow job the right way. All the girls in Rocky’s gang had dollar sign tattoos somewhere on their faces or necks.

“Couldn’t have been Monday. You were home for dinner.” Mrs. Pierce fumbled her coffee cup.

Stephanie recognized the look on her mother’s face. She just realized Stephanie cut class again. Ms. Clark, the school counselor, called them both into a meeting about it last week. Rocky said she doesn’t need to go to school anymore. She doesn’t need it.

Her mother’s jaw muscles tightened, then relaxed, but her face seemed tense.

“It has to come off. Fifteen-year-old girls should not have facial tattoos.”

Eight.

Stephanie knew she’d win this silence competition. Mom had to go to work, and she couldn’t leave without saying something. She’d have to crack.

“Come on, I’ll drive you to school.”

Rocks could be kicked; plants weeded. Stephanie determined she should be a tree. She felt her roots extend past the chair legs, crack kitchen tiles and dig into the ground. Trees stayed put.

“Have it your way.”

Triumph. After her mother left, Stephanie would take three buses to Rocky’s place.

“I’ll call in sick, and we will wait for Dr. Russell together.”

Family psychiatrist. Stephanie’s parents hired him last year when Stephanie started cutting classes. Stephanie discovered psychiatrists’ special powers during their first encounter. Stephanie told her parents she would not go to school anymore. She imagined herself a daisy and planted herself on the sofa. Dr. Russell arrived. With her parents’ consent, he had her transplanted to a disciplinary school. School staff had the right (parental consent combined with doctor’s orders) to be physical with her. At first, they tried physical prompting, but even transplanted daisies took root. She wouldn’t budge. They called the police, and she found herself in juvenile court sitting next to a public defender while her parents and two school counselors testified against her. Dr. Russell recommended juvenile hall.

Stephanie’s will shriveled. Daisies, it turned out, were weeds. The thought of juvenile hall terrified her. She acquiesced. Two months later, she cut class on the second day of her sophomore year. She met Rocky hanging out at Sam’s Liquor Mart. He told her juvey ain’t so bad and offered a few helpful tips on thriving there. It bolstered her resolve. Still, psychiatrists possessed special powers.

“I’d rather go to school.”

“Are you sure? You haven’t seen Dr. Russell since August. You’re due, and he sounded eager to follow up with you.”

“Let’s go.” Stephanie stood.

“Okay.” Mrs. Pierce pressed a button on her car key producing two sharp chirps. “Wait in the car. I’ll call Dr. Russell to tell him the meeting’s off.”

A quiet car ride left Stephanie in front of Wilson Senior High. She attended homeroom but walked to Sam’s Liquor Mart for first period. No Rocky, but Dirch gave her a lift.

The gang left their Ipswich Street house unlocked. Stephanie and Dirch walked in. Stephanie spotted Margot’s bleach-blonde head just past Rocky’s bare hip. Jessie held her cell phone out, making a video.

“What the fuck, Margot!” Stephanie rushed forward. “I’m Rocky’s girl!”

“Hey, girl.” Zoe stepped in front of Stephanie. Their faces ended up two or so inches apart.

Stephanie’s ire shook her, little rage tremors. Zoe was taller, and her body blocked the view. Stephanie craned her neck to look at Rocky, to read his face. Zoe took the opportunity to lean in and draw Stephanie into a hug.

“Calm down, girl.” Zoe guided Stephanie’s head over her shoulder.

More out of instinct than affection, Stephanie returned Zoe’s hug. Zoe was bent pretty far forward. Her midriff blouse let Stephanie see her back down to her hipline where Zoe wore a tight skirt. The top of a new tattoo peeked through. It was a bill. Stephanie couldn’t see Benjamin Franklin, but she could see the top of the number 100.

“That’s right, girl. Take comfort in my arms and listen.”

Someone’s hands, not Zoe’s, clasped Stephanie’s hips. Her back and butt felt warm.

“In this house, when a cock needs sucking, it gets sucked. Don’t matter who does it. Ain’t that right.”

Stephanie looked around. Margot, Rocky, Jessie and Jai’na all nodded agreement.

“Now Dirch, baby, needs a good blow job, and I think you should do it, okay?”

Stephanie looked at Rocky.

“Go ahead, Steph.” His hand guided Margot back to his crotch. “I’ll still kiss you later.”

“You got this, girl,” Jai’na added.

“Come on.” Zoe straightened up, loosened her hug and turned Stephanie around.

Dirch removed his hands and unzipped his jeans. Jessie was already behind Dirch, and she slid her fingers beneath the cloth and pulled down Dirch’s jeans and boxers.

“You know what to do? Or do you need me to show you?” Zoe guided Stephanie’s shoulders down.

“She’s pretty good,” Rocky contributed.

“Hurmm, mreerh,” Margot protested.

Stephanie dropped to her knees and regarded Dirch’s penis. He was already mostly erect. Stephanie made an O of her mouth, curling her lips to cover her teeth. Rocky said some men like a little scrape, but others will kill you over it. Best to cover your teeth. She thought of her success with Rocky. A matter of lips, tongue and gentle stroking.

“No hands.”

Rocky was much easier. He talked her through the first few times. With Rocky, this was an act of love. Dirch took concentration. Stephanie did not believe penises talked, but Dirch’s communicated, something like power, demands, tension.

She felt a hand reach behind her head. Rocky said some men like to pull a woman into them. Never let a man do that. She pulled back and disengaged.

“No hands. No hands.”

“Okay, okay.”

Stephanie looked up. He stood there, his hand a few inches from her left eye.

“Now, get back to work.”

His hand remained. She put her hands behind her back. A few seconds later, he did the same.

“Good girl, that’s the way to show him.” Stephanie couldn’t place the voice, one of the other women in the room. She looked around and started again. She lost track of time. Blow jobs had their own schedule: arousal, erection, work, play, repeat as needed, negotiation, ejaculation, disengagement, cleanup.

Dirch skipped a few steps, but Stephanie put him back on track. This round of work seemed near its end.

“In the mouth,” Dirch started negotiations, but it came off as a demand.

He was on the verge. She wanted Dirch to finish out in the air or in his own hand. Sometimes she let Rocky explode on her face, but she didn’t want Dirch anywhere in or on her.

“Girl, pull back a little and let it fill your cheeks.” Zoe became Stephanie’s coach. She used to coach the other girls. She’d been here the longest, had the most tattoos.

Even though Stephanie tried to protect her throat with her tongue, some of Dirch’s ejaculate trickled down. She wanted to cough it out but held it in. Her body convulsed in confusion.

“Now push it out.” Zoe again.

“Yeah, I wanna see.” Jessie pointed her cell phone at Stephanie.

“Me too.” Margot joined the audience. Rocky stood next to her.

Stephanie leaned forward and pushed out Dirch’s deposit slowly. Some trickled down her chin. She coughed out the rest. Margot passed the same rag she used after finishing Rocky off. Disgusted, Stephanie took it.

“Don’t worry, babe, I’ll still kiss you.” Rocky extended a hand.

“You did good, girl.” Jessie pressed on her cell phone screen. “I’ll send you the clip.”

When Stephanie stood, Rocky kissed her lightly on the lips.

“You’re not mad at me?” Stephanie rested her head on his shoulder.

“Now you are more part of the family. Are you still mad at me?”

“A little.”

“Come.” Rocky guided her to his room.

Stephanie sat on the bed.

“Here.” Rocky removed his shirt. “I’ll show you what us guys do.”

“Striptease?”

“Nah, girl, take off your shoes.”

“Foot massage?” Stephanie took off her sneakers and socks.

“This will be your first time.” Rocky knelt before Stephanie and unsnapped her jeans.

“Hey, I’m only fifteen.”

“I wasn’t here at the time.” He unzipped her. “But I hear Zoe was only thirteen. Up.”

Stephanie lifted herself up a little, letting Rocky remove her jeans.

“These, too.” Rocky removed her panties. “You all clean down there?”

“You know I am.”

“You should start shaving. It’s better when you shave.”

“Ew.”

Rocky licked her a couple of times. Stephanie wasn’t sure what Rocky was doing. This was the first time any part of him touched her uncovered. Sure, he rubbed over her pants when she wore pants, and panties when she didn’t.

Stephanie didn’t know the names of the parts Rocky’s lips and tongue explored. She knew Rocky did, but he wasn’t doing his running commentary on things. Duh. His mouth was too busy. Very busy. And it was working. Her abdomen undulated; she felt like she was losing control.

She slipped down from her propped elbow and lay flat on the bed and rested her ankles on Rocky’s shoulders. She had enough. Enough for a first time. She wished Rocky would stop. She wanted Rocky to never stop. He kept going. Stephanie lost track of time, or times, or anything. Her body controlled her mind, and Rocky controlled her body. She relaxed and let him do anything he wanted.

She regained awareness. Somehow, she lay on her side. Rocky spooned her, one hand over her breast, the other caressing her hair.

“So . . .” Rocky’s breath hot and moist, on her neck. “You like getting your pussy eaten?”

“It was nice, but you didn’t put your tongue, you know, where your cock goes.”

“You wanted that, huh?”

“That would be my real first time.”

“Well, I’m not even going to eat you again until you start shaving.”

“I don’t know how, and I don’t want to, you know, nick myself.”

“The girls will show you.”

“Zoe?”

“All of them, any of them. I’m not sure. I think they’ll shave you if you shave them. That sorta thing.”

“If they’re not too busy giving you a blow job.”

“Just ask nice. We’ll go out now, and you can ask.”

“Maybe, but right now I want to just lay here, next to you.”

Two short knocks and the bedroom door opened.

“Yo, Rocks.” Kronie, the gang leader, stepped through. “You gotta go out tonight.”

“I thought this was Bronx’s week.”

“Got himself busted last night. Won’t be seeing him for a few days.”

“Shit!” Rocky slapped his thigh with the hand formerly covering Stephanie. “All right.”

“Stephs.” Kronie changed the subject. “Stinky bush!”

Stephanie rolled onto her stomach.

“When do I have to go?” Rocky slid his hand over Stephanie’s bum.

“Hour or so.”

“Okay.”

“Kiss the girl’s ass and say goodbye.” Kronie closed the door on his way out.

“Put on your clothes and go home.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“I gotta go out tonight.”

“I’ll come with.”

“Not tonight, baby.” Rocky rolled over to the other side of the bed.

“Why not?”

“You’re not ready.”

No one told Stephanie what the gang did at night, but she knew it was how they made money. They could steal stuff or deal drugs. She knew gangs did those things.

“I could wait for you here, spend the night.”

“Not till you shave you don’t.” He picked up her pants and tossed them to her.

“I’ll get Zoe to do that for me.”

“She’s going out tonight, too.”

“Okay, one of the other girls.”

“The only girl not going out is Margot, and she’ll be spending the night with Kronie.”

“Ain’t she Chucky’s girl?”

“I’m just sayin’.” Rocky handed Stephanie her shoes and socks even though she hadn’t donned her panties yet.

“Why don’t you send Dirch instead? After what I did, he owes you.”

“Dirch handled things last week, okay?” Rocky knelt in front of her. “This gang’s my family, and when my family needs me for something, I do it. Okay?”

“Why don’t I join?”

“It takes commitment, real commitment.”

“I’m committed. I want to join.”

“If you think Dirch owes anything for a blow job, you ain’t committed enough.”

Stephanie thought for a second. Too long.

“Get your clothes on and go on. I need to get ready.” Rocky searched through piles of clothes on his desk.

“I’ll be here tomorrow.” Stephanie started dressing.

“And I’ll be here for you.” Rocky opened the door. “If cops don’t bust me tonight.”

Two bus connections brought her to her block. Not much changed. A few cars missing, their owners still at work. Harmony, her sister, parked her car in front of their house, and an unfamiliar dirty white van parked across the street, probably a plumber, except the plumber was still sitting in his van.

Stephanie did not like her older sister. Harmony was her mother’s favorite. Melody and Harmony Pierce. Successful business owner and college graduate. With Dad’s ship out at sea for the next four months, Harmony’s appearance meant Mrs. Pierce intended a serious family “talk.” Harmony leased a place of her own after graduating from UC Berkeley last May. She was working at some business in Santa Clara before starting grad school in San Diego. “Just taking a year off, Mom. You understand.” It wasn’t like she had any friends. Never did. Never a good sister either. Just books, studying and tennis tournaments. And trophies. Stephanie thought Harmony played tennis because she could play singles and never have to be there for her teammates.

“There you are. Dinner will be ready in an hour.” Mom’s greeting.

“What is it?” Stephanie knew it would be Harmony’s favorite.

“Pork chops, mac and cheese, and roasted tomato soup topped with kale.”

“And where is my dear big sis?”

“Waiting for you in your room, I suppose.”

“Great. I’ll kick her out.”

“No, you need to talk.”

“I need to shower.” Stephanie heard her mother say something, but she was too far down the hall.

Harmony sat in Stephanie’s desk chair, hunched over a large book, a sight so familiar Stephanie hardly noticed at first.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mom wants us to talk.”

“Nice talking to ya.” Stephanie took off her blouse and bra.

“Not so easy this time.” Harmony put her book into her purse.

“Okay, sis, what we talking about?” Stephanie sat on her bed and removed her shoes and socks.

“I don’t know. How was your day at school?”

“I don’t know.” Stephanie pulled off her jeans. “I cut class after homeroom.”

“There’s a start. Mother said the counselor called again. Mom said . . .”

Stephanie let her panties slip to the floor, stood and reached for her terry cloth robe. Harmony blushed. She must have been uncomfortable. Probably waited till the locker room cleared after all those tennis matches.

“Do you shave your pussy?” Stephanie donned her robe and fetched a bath towel.

“What?”

“You must have had sex before. Did you shave your pussy?”

“Jeez, Steph. Not an appropriate question.”

“You’re a virgin.” Stephanie approached her sister.

“No. I let my prom date, you know, take&#8212”

“So did you shave?”

“Not for sex. I had a tennis match the next day, and my outfit was a bit revealing, and so many people like to videotape the matches, and I didn’t want any pubic hairs peeking out. Jeez.”

“Still playing tennis?”

“Not so much.”

“Still shave?”

“Still inappropriate.”

“Kronie said I have a stinky bush.” Stephanie spread open her robe adding a pelvic thrust. “What do you think?”

“I think . . .” Harmony’s face reddened. “We should be talking about your attitude toward school.”

“Look, Harmony.” Stephanie sat on her bed’s corner closest to her desk and leaned forward. “We both know I’m never graduating high school, but I will, someday, get laid. So are you my sister or not?”

“I am your sister.” Harmony’s face regained some of its pallor.

“You’re good with words.” Stephanie sat straight and looked Harmony straight in the eye. “What do you call it when a guy eats your pussy and you, like, lose control of your body, not all, just your stomach and hips and . . .”

Beet-red explosion. It looked like all of the blood left Harmony’s brain and rushed to her face. Her mouth gaped, slightly ajar, but no words exited. Eventually, her hand found the desktop, and she pressed herself up and escaped.

Returning from her shower, Stephanie noticed Harmony’s wallet sticking out of her purse. At first, she took money out of the wallet; one hundred and twenty dollars. Stealing the whole wallet seemed the better idea until taking the whole purse, minus the book, became Stephanie’s plan. She dressed in a skirt, tank top, and hoodie and exited via the window.

Finding Harmony’s car keys took a second or two, but she didn’t know how to drive. Just as the realization she would have to take the bus after all resonated through her brain, a mosquito or something bit her butt. She lost the ability to stand, first, then the ability to reason, then the ability to keep her eyes open.

* * *

“This is not the right one.” Jeffries Laportes examined a dollar sign tattoo on what should have been Harmony Pierce’s temple.

“I told you they do not have to be so attractive. We can make them attractive.” Calvin Wirther regarded Stephanie’s figure.

“That’s not what I mean.” Jeff rifled through Harmony Pierce’s wallet. “This is the right driver’s license. Harmony Pierce. This . . .” He passed the driver’s license. “Isn’t this.” He pointed to Stephanie.

“Five-six, a hundred twenty-five pounds, long blonde hair, blue eyes, twenty-three years old.” Calvin seemed satisfied.

“She’s five-five.” Jeff pointed to markings on the examination table. “One-fifteen.” He pointed to the digital weight indicator. “And ain’t no way she’s twenty-three. Shit!” He turned and put the wallet back into Harmony’s purse.

“This must be.” Jeff pulled his cell phone from his cargo pants pocket and found Harmony’s dossier. “Her sister, Stephanie. She’s fifteen. And it’s worse.”

“What’s worse?” Vince Winkel entered the examination room.

“This.” Jeff pulled back Stephanie’s hair.

“We said no prostis.”

“Who’s a prosti?” Calvin took a closer look at the tattoo.

“Dollar signs, dollar bills, coins, bar codes, crowns, money bags, for-sale signs, ATM and some others, right Jeffries?”

“Yep.”

“Why not the gang sign?”

“They can do that.” Jeff released Stephanie’s hair. “If they are going to run them themselves, but it could hurt resale value.”

“Give Calvin the lowdown.”

“Gangs recruit women, girls really, to the sex trade. They put their marks on these women to show they own them, so other gangs don’t step in. Unless they want a fight. These girls can bring in hundreds a night.”

“Resale value?”

“Pretty young things like this. They get sold upriver, to the OGs. They work high end. Party girls, call girls. Some even show up on rapper vids. They go for ten, twenty even fifty grand each. I think that’s what MV3’s training this one for.”

“Training?”

“Yeah, Cal. Little gangs like MV3 recruit out of high schools. They become the bad boys girls like this want to hang out with. They pretend to be their boyfriends. Teach them to give blow jobs, then tell the girls they have to suck the whole gang’s cocks. Then they teach them how to fuck to please their boyfriend, then the gang, then out to the streets. Then upstream to Stout, Captain, Big Tusk or one of the others.”

“Wait, wait.” Cal scratched his head. “What would Stout’s call girl and porn operation want with street girls?”

“Broken in, not broken down, right, Jeffries?”

“Cuts down drama. The big bosses don’t like drama. New girls know they’re prostis, know they’re property, know to do what they’re told.”

“Okay.” Cal rolled his eyes to the side. “You said this is MV3. Why?”

“Generic tattoo, like this dollar sign, means she’s for resale. She lives a few miles from MV3. They treat the tattoos like fuckin’ merit badges. The first one, like this, means property. Probably just giving the gang blow jobs. The second one, sex. Third, street.”

“So she’s not too damaged yet?”

“What are you thinking, Cal?” Vince stepped forward.

“Salvage.”

“Hell no. We cut bait on Stephanie and haul in Harmony.”

“Too risky. Sisters talk. Harmony is off.” Cal stared at Jeffries. “Look, it takes six to eighteen weeks to develop recruits into product. So Stephanie will take three years. Not too bad. At the end, we have a teenage college girl in our inventory. We’ll have to charge clients a premium to leave her some study time.”

“You said no more college girls,” Jeffries protested.

“Because too many people recognize their transformation. Here, we create her before she gets to college. She’ll be the hot college chick our clients never got.”

“Hell with college.” Vince cupped Stephanie’s breast. “She’ll be the hot high school girl we never got.”

“Let Scarabco peddle teenagers.” Cal glared at Vince. “Our clientele has class, and class does not risk their fortunes and reputation on statutory rape.”

“Berlusconi&#8212”

“Leave Italian perverts out of this.”

“Okay.” Vince withdrew his hand. “If she’s clean, you can have your reclamation project. I’ll shoot her up with nanites and send in a nurse for abuse evaluation.”

* * *

“Oh, good, you’re awake.” Marina Navarinko, LPN, marked the time on a form.

“Where am I?” Stephanie Pierce reached behind her neck and rubbed.

“Winkel Urgent Care. A concerned citizen found you on the street and brought you in. How are you feeling?”

“I have a headache.” Stephanie sat up.

“Does sitting up feel any better?”

“It’s okay.”

“Good. I have to ask you a few questions.” Marina tapped her pen on the clipboard. “Are you up for it?”

“Okay.”

“Are you Harmony Pierce?”

“No, I’m Stephanie Pierce.”

“And who is Harmony?”

“My sister.”

“So the health insurance card we retrieved from your wallet is not yours?”

“Not my wallet either.”

“Do you have your health insurance card here, with you?”

Stephanie thought about the evening. She could not recall putting her own wallet in Harmony’s purse, a stupid thing to do, or not do.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Complicates things, but we can proceed.” Marina paused to make sure Stephanie followed the questions. “The circumstances of your visit need a little clarification. Do you know why you were found lying on the street beside your, no let me guess, Harmony’s car?”

“I was lying on the street?”

“That’s what the person who brought you in said.”

“Oh.” Stephanie found a small bump on the back of her head, just above her neck. “The last thing I remember is that I felt a bite, like a mosquito bite, right on my butt. Then, the next thing I knew, I could not stand anymore.”

“Can I see the bite?” Marina checked the medical charts but saw no mention of an insect bite.

“Right here.” Stephanie stood and lifted her skirt. Marina rubbed a few areas and asked if they were the spot. In the end, they agreed there were no visible indications of an insect bite.

“Any other reasons why you collapsed?”

“I had not eaten anything all day.”

“Do your parents provide nutrition?”

“Mom laid out some stuff for breakfast, but I didn’t want any. Then . . .” Stephanie paused. “Is this confidential?”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality covers most of this, but&#8212”

“&#8212I’m still a kid, so you have to tell about some stuff.”

“Anything that indicates child abuse. Yes.”

“Well, I cut class and went to my boyfriend’s. Got there after lunch. So no lunch either. Mom had dinner on the table when I went to get something from my sister’s car.”

“Hold on.” Marina scribbled. “That’s a lot to write down, but you said you didn’t eat anything all day?”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“Are you diabetic?”

“Puh-lease. Do I look diabetic?”

“Not all diabetics are fat. I take it, though, you are not diabetic.”

“Not diabetic.”

“Nut allergies?”

“No.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Stephanie wished she left behind the clipboard so she could see what the nurse wrote down.

“Here.” Marina used her clipboard as a serving tray, presenting two Snickers bars and two paper cups with water. “I was saving them for breaks, but you need them more.”

“Thanks.”

“I have a few more questions.” Marina took her seat. “Are you sexually active?”

“What?” Stephanie read Marina’s face. It seemed to say, Just a standard question. “I mean, what do you mean by sexually active?”

“Does any part of a sex partner’s body enter yours for giving or receiving sexual pleasure?”

“Blow jobs count?”

“Yes. Did you use condoms?”

“You don’t need condoms for blow jobs.”

“I don’t know about need.” Marina tapped her clipboard with her pen. “Several diseases can be transmitted that way. Perhaps genital herpes is the most famous, but if you think about it, so many nasty things can come out of that little, um, phallus, I wouldn’t want an unprotected one in my mouth.”

“You know . . .” Stephanie searched for something clever. “Without unprotected, what did you call them, phalluses, there wouldn’t be you or me.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against phalli, but I won’t let an unprotected one near me without a clean bill of health. There are several clinics, even free clinics, that offer complete STD testing. Before you become sexually active, both you and your partner should get tested, and even then, protection is a best practice unless, of course, you are trying to get pregnant.”

Stephanie deployed her classroom face. Pedantic lectures about sex ranked near last on the list of things she wanted. This woman had no idea how to be a teenager, a teenager who wanted to leave home.

“I’ll give you a list before you leave. Do you want one for your boyfriend?”

“No, um, yeah, okay.”

“How old did you say he was?”

“He’s, he’s like sixteen.”

“You don’t know?”

“Hasn’t had a birthday party yet.”

“How long have you been dating?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

“No.” Marina put her clipboard on a nearby counter. “You do not have to answer any of my questions.”

“You could have told me that at the start.”

“Not without parent’s consent, that is. I think we should call them.”

“Only my mother is around. My father is out at sea.”

“A sailor?”

“Captain of an ocean freighter.”

“Okay, let’s call your mother.”

“Can’t I just go home?”

“A good reason to call your mother.”

“I can walk.”

“To here.” Marina passed Harmony’s driver’s license.

Stephanie did not freeze. She simply did not move.

“Okay, Stephanie, let’s make a deal.”

“Why should I make a deal with you?”

“Because you told me you are sexually active with your overage boyfriend.”

“I told you he was sixteen.”

“You also told me you cut class to meet him at his place. Sixteen-year-olds go to high school, but you knew he was at home. Not a sixteen-year-old. Perhaps the authorities will find out his actual age.”

“The deal?”

“I’ll have Sean, one of our staff, drive you home. He’ll explain why you were here to your mother and request that you come back here for follow-up examinations. Dr. Winkel, the doctor who treated you, is concerned about your condition.”

“Okay, but why do you want to make a deal with me?”

“One of our employees found you on the street next to your sister’s car. He should have called 911. That’s proper procedure. He panicked. He loaded you into his vehicle and brought you here. Dr. Winkel jumped into action thinking you were an incapacitated adult. That would have been fine, but since you are not an adult, and you were in stable condition, he should have obtained your mother’s consent for treatment.”

“Oh.”

“Right. So here’s the deal. You play along with us. No drama. Support our story, and we’ll support yours. The doctor gave you some powerful shots to make sure you will be all right. At fifteen, you should be all right, but they were adult treatments. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay. You might feel some headaches over the next day or two. If you do, stay home and rest. Okay?”

“Okay, but what if they get worse or I feel real awful?”

“Here’s our card.” Marina held out a medical appointment card with the Winkel Medical Center’s address and phone numbers. “Also, all of our phone numbers are on the paperwork Sean will give your mother.”

* * *

“The mother was very understanding.” Sean Beacon placed a signed form on Vince Winkel’s desk. “Her sister was another matter.”

“What happened?” Calvin Wirther examined the form.

“Nothing to worry about. She kept bringing up the fact that Stephanie took her purse. The girl kept making lame excuses. I tried to threaten her by pulling out the STD brochures. None of them seemed shocked that Stephanie was sexually active.”

“Any indication the mother is complicit?” Vince retrieved the form and attached it to Stephanie Pierce’s medical chart.

“Wardship?” Jeffries Laportes entered the room, late.

“I wouldn’t even try it. They have money. Lots of money. Nice home, despite the neighborhood. A mansion, really. Nautical features. Lots of wood, real wood, like broad oak beams in the ceiling and teak floors under antique Asian rugs. And that’s just the foyer and receiving room.”

“Stephanie is a troubled girl. I think we should offer help straightening her out.”

“I agree with Cal. The mother seems concerned, really concerned, and a bit overwhelmed. She even said something about switching medical groups if that would help. Winkel Medical Centers is one of her HMO options.”

“There you go, Vince. A new business model.”

“Great. Except we are still going to lose a ton of money if we go through with this. I mean two years and ten months before she even turns eighteen.”

“Don’t worry about that. I have a plan to recoup the losses, and it looks like we’ll need the time to add value to her. The deciding factor is&#8212is she clean?”

“The reports show she is.” Vince reviewed the chart. “She just started having sex in the last month or so, so she will have to be monitored on that front. I am still against this.”

“What do you think, Jeff, Vince can’t wait three years to sample the product?”

“You know I don’t get involved in that.”

“Can we keep her clean, Jeff? You said something about MV3.”

“No problem. You keep her away from them; I’ll keep them away from her.”

“I won’t be much help for a couple of weeks.”

“Wait.” Vince pressed himself up, out of his chair. “What are you talking about?”

“Hacked the wrong cell phone.” Cal leaned back in his seat. “I will need a second chance when she comes in for her follow-up visit.”

“Then let’s call this off.”

“Look.” Cal leaned forward and stood. “The nanites will take a day or two to form their circuits. Then they will look for a connection to the cell phone. Her sister’s there, great. I can give them commands.”

“Otherwise?” Sean spoke.

“The nanites are programmed to make her feel sick. Sick enough for her to seek medical attention, not so sick to require emergency services. So, Jeff, can you keep her STD free?”

“Harder, much harder. I won’t be able to do much else until you program her alert system.”

“I don’t like this.” Vince took a step toward Cal. “We have seventy-five girls out there. One of them gets in trouble, we’ll need Jeffries on that, not this girl. I’m sticking with call-it-off.”

“Jeff, let’s do this, but if you need to, prioritize the other women.” Cal turned to Vince. “We keep Stephanie as long as we can. We do this one for me, okay?”

* * *

“Keep your hair out of the toilet.” Harmony Pierce’s hand tried to gather her sister’s hair into a ponytail.

Stephanie regurgitated in response.

“You weren’t this sick yesterday.”

“How would you know?” Stephanie rose to a kneel. “You weren’t here.”

“Mom made a full and disgustingly detailed report.”

It was her third day since she collapsed. Mother already called in to her school, but she had to attend work meetings in San Francisco today and all weekend.

“I can’t believe I have to spend a whole weekend with you.” Stephanie made like she was going to barf again.

“I can’t believe I have to waste a vacation day to watch over you.”

By the end of the Friday, Stephanie felt much better. Harmony reported the illness to Dr. Winkel’s office, and the nurse made an appointment for Saturday. Even if Stephanie felt much better, her mother instructed Harmony to stay until Sunday afternoon.

Dr. Winkel arrived late. Stephanie sat in an examination room for an hour in nothing but panties and a hospital gown. After Dr. Winkel inspected her head and neck, he ordered some blood tests which took another hour to come back. As a reward, Harmony picked up Chinese food on their way home. Stephanie enjoyed annoying Harmony by eating egg rolls in a suggestive manner. Harmony responded by snapping down hard on hers. Somehow, they both laughed over their antagonistic display.

Sunday was uneventful.

Monday morning, Stephanie convinced her mother that she felt ready for school. Strangely, the thought of school comforted her. Mrs. Pierce dropped her off well before her first class began. She went to Sam’s for an energy drink.

“Hey, babe.” Rocky, Chuck, Bronx, Jessie and Zoe stood in a clump near the door.

“Hey.”

“We break up, and you didn’t tell me?” Rocky approached.

“Been sick, real sick.”

A white van pulled up to the curb.

“Could’ve called or somethin’.”

“Mother watched over me like a hawk, so did big sis.”

“S’okay. We headin’ back to the house. You comin’ with?”

“I think I’ll go to school today. I can stop by after.”

“I think . . .” Rocky reached out and cupped her elbow. “You come with us now. Zoe can help you, you know, help you out.”

Someone exited the van.

“Yeah, kid.” Zoe draped an arm over Stephanie’s shoulder. “Rocks says you need a little hygienic attention.”

“No. I’m fine.” Stephanie shrugged off Zoe’s arm.

“Don’t have to be like that.” Bronx sidled up boxing Stephanie in.

“After school, okay?” The last part came out high-pitched, her vocal cords strained.

“Hey there, schoolgirl.” The man from the van hip-checked Zoe, grabbed her butt and made her yelp. Zoe stepped back and trotted to Jessie.

“Yo, Jail.” Chuck took a position behind Rocky. Kronie, somehow, joined the group.

“Chuckster,” Jail responded.

“They don’t call me ‘Chuckster.’ No one calls me ‘Chuckster.’”

“No one calls me Jail, either, but you know what they say&#8212” Jail started.

“Can’t stop what people call you behind your back,” Kronie finished.

“Ain’t worth no energy stopping them naming you to your face,” Jail recited as if from a written code.

“You tagged, you tagged. Right, Laportes?”

“Right, Kronie.”

“You starting to hang at Sammy’s?”

“Ain’t hangin’.”

“What you doing here?” Rocky pulled Stephanie by her elbow.

“Business.” Jail stopped her by placing his hand on her shoulder.

“This ain’t none your of biz.” Rocky let Stephanie’s elbow loose and clenched his hand into a fist.

“What you know ’bout my business, Rocks?”

“Girls ain’t your biz.”

“This my business,” Jail held out a business card.

Chuck intercepted.

“What it say?” Rocky took a step forward.

“‘Private Investigation,’ is that like private detective?” Chuck passed the card to Rocky.

“Sorta.”

“You taking money from anyone now?” Kronie scanned the white van.

“Anyone who can afford me.”

“Girl’s peeps got coin?” Kronie focused on Stephanie.

Rocky ripped Jail’s card in half.

“Mother drives a Porsche, and she lives in a big house.” Jessie spread her arms wide. “An old mansion or something.”

“That right?”

“It was a sea captain’s home.” Stephanie’s intonation seemed withdrawn, ashamed, the opposite of prideful.

“Overlooks the old docks.”

“Wharf. Jeez, Jess, you stalking me?”

“You packin’, Laportes? Don’t look like you packin’ nothin’.”

“Never know, I don’t always work alone.” Laportes looked over to his van.

Kronie put his hand on Jessie’s shoulders and led her to Zoe, several steps away. Bronx joined them. Rocky stepped up to Jail. Chuck held back.

“Steph is mine.” Rocky pushed her blonde hair back revealing a dollar sign tattoo. Stephanie pulled away.

Jail shook his head.

“I ain’t afraid of you, you know.”

“Don’t matter, don’t care.”

“Steph, come on. Let’s go home.”

“I’m going to school today.” Stephanie stepped behind Jail.

“Go on to school now.” He backed up a half step.

“I wanted to get a drink, some orange juice.”

“They have that in the cafeteria.”

Rocky lunged forward, reaching for Stephanie. Jail/s fouled him, yellow-card style, driving his heel behind Rocky’s knee and forward. Rocky’s leg buckled and he fell backward. Like soccer players on TV, he rolled over and complained. Stephanie ran to school.

Jail didn’t know anything. Only students who qualified for free or reduced meals could get stuff in the cafeteria in the morning. Stephanie went to her homeroom class instead. A waste of ten minutes. Stephanie missed announcements; she needed to take her mother’s note to the attendance office. Afterward, she went to her first period, useless facts class, World Geography.

“Let’s start off with a quiz,” Mrs. Aguilar made it sound optional.

“I’d rather not.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Pierce, quizzes only make up twenty percent of your final grade. With all of your absences, it will be good practice for when you make up this class next year.”

Stephanie endured classroom chuckles. Mrs. Aguilar placed a quiz sheet on her desk. Stephanie filled in her name and the date.

What do Canada, the United States of America and Mexico all have in common? Circle the correct answer.

A) They are all in North America

B) They are all independent monarchies

C) They are all colonies of European countries

D) They all contain part of the Rocky Mountains

E) All of the above

F) None of the above

Stephanie had not opened her World Geography book since school began. They spoke Spanish in Mexico, so it was part of Latin America, not North or Norte America. Stephanie wished she could take Spanish instead of World Geography. Rocky, Bronx, Zoe and Jessie all spoke Spanish. The United States was a democracy, so B was wrong. Rule out E as well. They were all former colonies of European countries. Mrs. Aguilar’s English wasn’t always the best; perhaps she just left out the word “former.” The Rocky Mountains provided good skiing from Canada all the way down to New Mexico. Perhaps they extended to Mexico as well, but they would have to pass over the Rio Grande and that seemed unlikely.

Stephanie’s pencil hovered over F, but it seemed wrong to circle it. She moved it up, same feeling. Up again, and so on and so on until she reached A. They were all part of NAFTA. She remembered that. Father railed against it when he was last home. What did NAFTA stand for? North American Foreign Trade something. Perhaps the upper part of Mexico was in North America. She circled A, and it felt right. The annoying buzz in her head subsided. Next question.

The remaining nine questions seemed even easier. Less annoying buzzing, more feeling good about the answers she circled.

Stephanie found the rest of her classes interesting. At the end of school, Stephanie paused as she walked past her bus. She recalled her plans to visit Rocky after school. It wasn’t this morning’s disturbing display dissuading her but rather a desire to look up the answers to the geography quiz. She left her geography textbook at home. She left all of her textbooks at home. Stephanie turned around and boarded the bus.

At home, she cracked open her textbook, and, to her amazement, she’d gotten all of the questions right&#8212that was, if she remembered the answers correctly. It felt like she got them right. She smiled, giggled and felt pleased with herself. She called Marcy Gablenko, a former friend with whom she shared four classes, and asked if she wrote down their homework assignments. Success, and Stephanie set about on her homework.

“Mom, what’s the Wi-Fi password?”

“It should be in your phone.”

“Nothin’ but stars.”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to set up this laptop Dad bought me last year.”

“You hate that computer. You made that very clear.”

“Yeah, you should buy me a better one, but it’s easier to write my English essays on a computer than on a phone.”

“That’s a first.”

“And there’s something else you can do for me.”

“What’s that?”

“You can log into something on the school site and look up my biology homework. Marcy helped with the other classes, but not biology.”

“You’re friends with Marcy again?”

“Mom!”

In a month, Stephanie aced three more geography quizzes, a geometry test, her biology test, scored over ninety-five on three English essays and mastered pancakes in home economics before transferring to computer literacy. By midterms, she caught up on her reading assignments, homework assignments and makeup exams, where teachers allowed makeup exams.

Mrs. Briggs, her counselor, called her mother in for a meeting resulting in a follow-up meeting. She was concerned Stephanie found a new way to cheat. Mrs. Aguilar met them in the counselor’s office where she administered an oral exam, no multiple choice. “You have to know it.” Stephanie quibbled about the wording of one question, complaining that, as worded, there were too many correct answers. Mrs. Briggs agreed. Stephanie answered the other nineteen questions correctly. She then sat down to take written geometry, biology and computer literacy tests. In total, she missed one question. Earlier that week, Mr. Gamble hosted an in-class essay assignment, and he told Mrs. Briggs he was satisfied Stephanie was, indeed, turning in her own work.

Before leaving, Stephanie asked for Mrs. Briggs’s assistance mapping out a schedule, including summer school, where she could retake all the courses in which she received Ds and Fs her freshman year and still graduate on time.

“I want to apply to colleges, and I want to show that I am academically viable.”

“Most colleges, my dear, will also want to see extracurricular activity. Athletics, community involvement, club participation such as cheerleading, chess club. That sort of thing. I’m not sure your new academic schedule will allow those.”

Stephanie found cross-country running attractive. She could run to school in the mornings and join the team after school. She volunteered at a daycare center offering single mothers free or reduced rates. The most important feature, however, was that they were open all hours, not just office hours. Clientele included waitresses, maids, retail workers, McDonald’s workers (McDonald’s helped found the center) and even sex workers. Nights at the daycare center tended to be quiet and gave Stephanie ample opportunity to finish homework assignments.

* * *

“Stanford accepted her.” Peter reviewed Stephanie Pierce’s file. “She got a 2320 on the SAT.”

“Really, and what did Stanford do when they found out she got assistance from nanites?”

“We arrested Wirther in March. They made her take the ACTs in May.”

“How did she do?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Good for her.”

“She’d make a bad witness for us.”

“Because she never turned tricks for Wirther?”

“Because she sides with Lily Moh. Here, watch this.” Peter engaged his PC’s video player.

[Marilyn Reynolds sits in a stuffed chair; Stephanie Pierce and Ryan Dharmanyan sit nearby on a couch; Golden Gate Bridge/Presidio fill framed window shot; coffee table in foreground]

REYNOLDS:	Welcome back to the Gate Morning Show. Today we have Stephanie Pierce and, who is this gentleman?
PIERCE:	You know Mr. Dharmanyan. He’s my attorney. We talked. He’s here to make sure I don’t violate the judge’s orders.
REYNOLDS:	Fine. So you were one of NanoBotics’s victims. What was that like?
DHARMANYAN:	NanoBotics is alleged to have committed several counts of kidnapping and pandering. The list of charges has not been finalized. Miss Pierce can tell you of some of her experiences related to NanoBotics and SCMedGroup, Inc.
REYNOLDS:	Okay. I understand you are not allowed to make, confirm or deny any accusations against NanoBotics or its staff.
PIERCE:	That is correct.
REYNOLDS:	How did NanoBotics change your life?
PIERCE:	I believe that the guys at NanoBotics quite likely saved me from a very early death.
REYNOLDS:	That’s a dramatic statement.
PIERCE:	Permit an explanation.
REYNOLDS:	Of course.
PIERCE:	I was a rebellious teenager. I cut class. I failed most of my classes. I argued with my mother. I was dating a gang member. I thought I was in love with a real bad boy. He was teaching me how to have sex. He even branded me, a dollar sign tattoo right here.

[Pierce points to an area near her left temple]

PIERCE:	The week I was first injected with nanites.
DHARMANYAN:	When Miss Pierce was inspected by the police and taken to the hospital, millions of nanites were discovered, so there is no doubt that she was injected with nanites. When the first injection took place is mere speculation, and it is not material.
PIERCE:	Anyway, that night I stole my big sister’s purse, and I was going to steal her car and join the gang. My bad-boy boyfriend, it turns out, was not teaching me how to have sex out of affection. He was teaching me how to be a sex worker. He’d already convinced me to give blow jobs to other men. That’s as far as I got before the nanites.
	I collapsed on the street before I stole my sister’s car. I woke up at the medical center. I believe that’s when it happened. I felt sick for about a week. When I felt better, I planned to go to school and then go to my boyfriend’s house to, you know, have sex.
	Before school, I went to a nearby store for an energy drink. My boyfriend and some of the gang were there. He, my boyfriend, wanted me to cut class and go to his place. A guy, I think he once belonged to another gang, intervened. On reflection, this other guy, they called him ‘Jail,’ drove a white van I often saw at the medical center.
REYNOLDS:	‘Jail.’ Hmm, J . . . L. Sounds like the initials of Jeffries Laportes.

[Cut to a photograph of Jeffries Laportes]

REYNOLDS:

Is this the guy?

[Cut back to three shot. Zoom in on PIERCE]

DHARMANYAN:	This does not constitute an identification. Mr. Laportes is not a defendant, and, I have assurances, he is no longer under investigation. Stephanie has given police all of the details of this incident.
PIERCE:	Yes. That’s him. They called him ‘Jail’ as in ‘I ain’t going to jail,’ but they also called him ‘La-port-ez.’ I thought it was like ‘la puerta,’ you know, like, jail door.
REYNOLDS:	What did Jeffries Laportes do that morning?
PIERCE:	My boyfriend started to force me to go with him. I told him, ‘I don’t want to go.’ Then Jail&#8212I’m going to call him ‘Jail’ because that’s how I remember it&#8212Jail intervened. The other gang members backed off. As I left, I heard a scuffle between my boyfriend and Jail.
	In my first class, I had a quiz. I didn’t study for the quiz. I hadn’t studied anything at all. Somehow, I knew the answers. Remember how I said I was going to my boyfriend’s after school?
REYNOLDS:	To join the gang and be with your boyfriend.
PIERCE:	Right. I didn’t do any of those things. I went straight home to see if I actually got the answers right. I did. Then I started studying. I studied everything. Within a month, I caught up on all my classwork. I started acing every test. I made plans to retake all the classes I failed my freshman year, to graduate, with honors and to go to college. I believe that was due to NanoBotics’s influence.
REYNOLDS:	So NanoBotics steered you to academics.
PIERCE:	And away from the gang.
REYNOLDS:	Yes, but I don’t see how that saved your life.
PIERCE:	Right. Let me continue. My junior year, I started volunteering at free clinics. Volunteer work helps with college admissions.
REYNOLDS:	Sounds like NanoBotics’s influence again.
PIERCE:	Maybe, but I still volunteer there. A couple months ago, I ran into Zoe, one of the gang members. The oldest gang girl when I was there. She told me what was really going on. She started dating one of the gang when she was young, very young. Within a couple of months, they had her working the streets. She was only thirteen when she started. Thirteen.
REYNOLDS:	Really?
PIERCE:	Her story gets worse. She was at the clinic to visit Mandy, a girl who started the same time as Zoe. We visited her together. Mandy looked horrible. Her body was withered, skin pale, bruises on face, arms. Zoe told me that Mandy was beautiful. She was sold to a high-class pimp. Sold. She eventually got AIDS, other STDs and a slew of diseases. As she deteriorated, she got sold to lower-and-lower-class pimps until they dumped her at an ER, and she ended up at the free clinic I volunteer at.
	Zoe then told me she had AIDS. The gang sold her to a low-class pimp for a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars. Her pimp lets her come to the clinic for treatments when his brothel isn’t busy. She comes and visits Mandy when she can. Mandy died a week later. Zoe died a month after that.
	According to the pamphlets our clinic passes out, on average, sex workers die after seven years in the biz. For Mandy it was seven, Zoe eight.
REYNOLDS:	That’s tragic. George, can we?

[Graphic with web links and phone numbers for Street Angels, and Save Our Sisters]

REYNOLDS:	So you believe NanoBotics saved you from a life, and early death, of sex work?
PIERCE:	In my case, yes.
REYNOLDS:	That sounds benevolent of them.

[REYNOLDS smirks to the camera]

REYNOLDS:	Why do you think they did that?
DHARMANYAN:	Miss Pierce cannot speculate on the defendant’s intentions. It is safe to say that other women who were injected with nanites were listed on dating websites and, on many of those dates, the women engaged in sex.
REYNOLDS:	So you were destined to be a sex worker in either case.
PIERCE:	The police shut down NanoBotics before I turned eighteen. I was never on the website.
REYNOLDS:	Wouldn’t it be more correct to say the police saved you from an early death?
PIERCE:	Yes, and no. Thanks to the police, I never allowed anyone to sell my body, but NanoBotics is not just another panderer&#8212
DHARMANYAN:	Miss Pierce cannot speak to NanoBotics’s activities.
PIERCE:	I did speak with the other victims, and&#8212
DHARMANYAN:	And that is not allowed by the judge’s orders.
REYNOLDS:	Some of the other women like Blanca Powers, Mia Wirther and Agatha Tarksberg feel completely violated by NanoBotics. Others like Lily Moh, Yolanda Morales and Audrey Barber want NanoBotics back in business and back in control of their lives. How do you feel?
DHARMANYAN:	As this might be something Miss Pierce might be asked to testify to, she cannot answer this question.
REYNOLDS:	Because those attitudes might be a product of memory manipulation?
PIERCE:	Yes. That is always a problem. None of us can fully rely on our memories.
REYNOLDS:	How about you? Have your feelings about NanoBotics changed now that they are not controlling you?
PIERCE:	As I said, I’m different. If the allegations against NanoBotics hold up, I can only assume they had similar plans for me.
REYNOLDS:	They may have planned on selling your virginity, perhaps to the highest bidder.
PIERCE:	Oh, I’m not sure this is the right place for this, but I’m not a virgin.
REYNOLDS:	I’m sorry, but I thought you said you were about to lose your virginity, but then you, allegedly, came under the control of NanoBotics.
PIERCE:	All true, but last year, I had a boyfriend, a nice boyfriend. He’s a year ahead of me. He just started at Princeton. We dated for several months, and he took me to senior prom and all. And we had sex a few times.
REYNOLDS:	Do you think he was a NanoBotics client?
PIERCE:	I am pretty sure he is not. I talked about this with several people
REYNOLDS:	That’s hard to believe. NanoBotics, allegedly, ran a website where clients paid to have sex with attractive women, like yourself. A pattern, consistent across all these women, is that they broke off existing relationships
PIERCE:	That’s the weird thing about NanoBotics. I mean I am not an expert or anything, and I cannot testify about their activities, because I just do not know them, but, in my mind, they do not seem to be evil or nefarious or criminal masterminds maximizing every situation. Do not get me wrong. They, allegedly, injected women with nanites to control them into having sex with paying clients. That’s wrong. It’s wrong. But NanoBotics didn’t go about the second oldest profession in a mean way. A lot of teenage sex workers come to the clinic I work at. They are beaten, bruised, nervous wrecks. Many have STDs. They are malnourished. Disease ridden. They have little or no money of their own.

[Camera zooms in. PIERCE takes a deep breath. Her cheeks puff out visibly before a long exhale]

:

The NanoBotics women, you know, in contrast, look pretty healthy. Look at newspaper articles from the civil lawsuit. Most of them either started new careers or improved in their careers. They didn’t experience much stress. They didn’t define themselves as sex workers, they all had other professions. They were not beaten or threatened into submission like the girls I saw at the clinic. They, they . . .

[PIERCE looks down]

DHARMANYAN:	No more questions about NanoBotics, please.
REYNOLDS:	What do you think the future holds for you?
PIERCE:	I’ve been accepted at Stanford, and I look forward to it.

[Cut to two shot with REYNOLDS and PIERCE]

REYNOLDS:	What are you going to study?
PIERCE:	That’s hard to say. I have quite an aptitude in computer science, medicine and psychology. Those are probably due to NanoBotics’s influence, but I am also interested in law. I want to continue to help underprivileged women like the ones I see in the clinic. I don’t think studying computers will help with that, but learning medicine or law can. Perhaps a combination of the two. I’ll have to see. There are so many possibilities.
REYNOLDS:	Thank you, Stephanie. I wish you success in all your pursuits.

“Can’t put that on the stand.” Peter closed his PC’s video player window.

“Why not? She said what they did was wrong.” Marcia walked to her refrigerator.

“The jury will hear that Wirther saved her life, that he cares. He even prepped her for college and provided her an opportunity for a productive life. Hell, she opened up the topic that, if these women were honest, they’d have to admit that NanoBotics improved their lives.”

“Not Glenda Wilkins; she was already a successful lawyer.” Marcia chose a canned caf&#xe9 mocha and pulled the tab.

“Who personally handled thirteen of the women’s divorces.” Peter heard the air escape from Marcia’s can. “Got one of those for me?”

“Look, a movie producer kidnaps an island kid, puts her in a few movies and makes her a star worth a billion dollars.” Marcia returned to the table with two caf&#xe9 mocha cans. “He’s still guilty of kidnapping, right?”

“Nullification bait. The jury’s sympathy goes to the producer. The only way to sway it back would be for the kid to say she misses her mother, that she would trade all of her wealth and fame just to live a simple island life with her family, or something like that.”

“Aren’t there some alienation-of-affection suits filed?”

“Yes. Seven of the eighteen ex-husbands filed suit.”

“Good. We should focus on the married victims.”

“Lily Moh was married.”

“Okay, let’s limit it to victims who remember being happily married before NanoBotics.”

“Okay.” Peter set down his caf&#xe9 mocha and leafed through some files. “We are left with Glenda Wilkins, who handled thirteen of the eighteen divorces and personally recommended therightkind.com to all of them. Mia Wirther, the defendant’s ex-wife. And Valerie Johnson, who, prior to NanoBotics, supplemented conjugal visits with her husband with a known affair.”

“Damn.” Marcia finished her drink. “How does Cal Wirther do it?”

“Do what?”

“Engineer all paths to his favor. I hate him.”

“So I noticed, but there are a lot of bad actors in this story. For me, Vince Winkel is more despicable and easier to prosecute, and don’t get me started on Cristoph Scarabco. Why hate Wirther so much?”

“He was the sole owner of NanoBotics and owned half of therightkind.com when we brought them down, but that’s not the worst part. It’s the way he got sole ownership.” Marcia held up Mia Wirther’s file. “That was a real cold, calculating, vile piece of work.”

Chapter 12: Mia Wirther, reprise

Mia Wirther probed a small, soft bump at the base of her skull just to the right of her spine. She pushed the pimple’s sack up and down wondering if she should pop it. Amazed at her lack of annoyance, she left it alone.

“Have you seen my wallet?” Her husband, Calvin, searched frenetically through their bedroom.

“Check your pants in the hamper.”

“Thanks. Found it.” He entered the bathroom, placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her in.

“Do you really have to work tonight, again?”

“It’s the nature of startups. Lots of work up front, tons of payoff after it succeeds.”

“Wouldn’t you rather spend the night with me?”

“We’ve got almost all of our savings sunk into this venture. If it doesn’t work, we’ll spend all our nights together . . . on skid row. Brrrr.”

“I wouldn’t mind as long as I have you.” Mia faced him.

“Yes, you would. You can’t stand the cold.”

“Yeah, right.”

“So what are you doing tonight?”

“Goin’ out with the girls. If I’m not here when you get home, don’t wait up.”

“If you’re not here when I get home, I’m going to accuse you of having an affair.” Calvin pressed his lips on Mia’s forehead, then headed toward the door.

Mia tightened the towel wrapped around her slender body and regarded herself in the mirror. I’m a beautiful woman. There was a time when people thought Calvin was more attractive, but look at me now. In the two years after Trinity BioTech offshored Calvin’s computer programming job, Mia found joy in exercise and her ingenuity stretching limited grocery money into healthy meals. She let slip her towel. How can any red-blooded man keep his hands off this? She counted the times she and Calvin cavorted carnally this year: less than once a month. He claimed the startup was zapping his energy, but, when he was employed, they used to do it five or six times a week, and he often put in sixty-to-eighty-hour weeks back then. Frequency and creativity increased between the layoff and NanoBotics. Apparently, he utilized his free time thinking about sex.

She applied makeup, dressed in faded black jeans, a slinky black camisole top and a black sweater. She fished a business card from her purse, Jeffries Laportes, Private Investigations and Retribution.

On the back, Jeff had written an address where he set up a “duck blind.” Jeff’s first report quelled Mia’s fears. Her husband drove straight to the office, stayed for hours, then returned home. Never can tell what happens at the office, Jeff’s words jolted her mind. Most affairs start in offices. With this recession, plenty of empty office space. Rent’s cheap. Slap a plaque on the door, use it for rendezvous. Jeff took the day shift, and Mia agreed to man the blind at night.

Mia pulled her car past the building’s parking lot and parked half a block away. The building looked different at night. Both her husband’s office and the blind were on the Winkel Medical Center’s second story. Vince Winkel became her doctor shortly after he and Calvin rebooted NanoBotics.

In his mid-fifties, Vince’s short, pudgy frame supported a balding head. Sharp, pointy features erupted from a jowly face. Mia thought his beady eyes contributed to a rat-like countenance. He leered. Her arm muscles tightened whenever he looked at her. She wanted to flee or fight, but she endured his examinations, and, surprisingly, came to accept him even though she caught him leering at his medical assistants, too. She and Calvin agreed, he’d fit in with pimply hackers lurking in college computer labs. The only naked women he’d ever see were patients or sex workers. Still, he cashed in a favor with a plastic surgeon to cover surgical removal of her flab, and a few other touch-ups. He told her he considered Calvin family, and he had no other family on which to utilize medical service swaps.

Mia watched Vince exit the first-floor clinic, his arm wrapped around an attractive brunette wearing a shiny vertically striped blouse and a black skirt cut just above her knee, typical office attire. Vince walked her to a car. They kissed, long, deep kisses. Vince’s palm pressed into the small of her back; his pudgy fingers caressed her butt. Good for Vince. Found himself a gold digger, Mia thought, then slapped her hand on her mouth as if she vocalized her thought and tried to stifle it. Or perhaps love, she corrected herself.

She waited till Vince entered his clinic. She crossed the parking lot, climbed the external stairs, paused at the NanoBotics plaque on her husband’s office door, and used the key Jeff gave her on the next door.

Jeff left a spartan setup. A flat-panel TV cabled to a DVR hooked up to a fiber-optic camera high up the wall. A kitchen step ladder accommodated access to a pistol grip, which could redirect the camera angle. Jeff advised against moving the camera while anyone occupied the next-door room. Even subtle noises compromised blinds.

Mia sat, cross-legged, before the TV, donned a pair of headphones and detached a yellow sticky note.

Not much happened on the day shift. Coffee pot in the bathroom. Be quiet in this room. Good luck.

The monitor revealed Calvin sitting before a desk, a keyboard directly in front of him, a mouse to his right. From his head movements, Mia deduced he actively scanned several, perhaps twenty, computer monitors mounted on the wall. At home he used five: two mounted on the wall and three forming a cockpit on his desk. He double-tapped a monitor to his right, grabbed his mouse, dragged a specific window to a screen directly in front of him and typed on the keyboard. Vince appeared and took a chair next to Calvin.

“Sampling the product?” Calvin asked.

Mia snatched the earphones from her head. Jeff must be deaf. She placed one speaker to her ear and searched for a volume control.

“Best benefit of this venture.” Vince laughed.

“Well, it sure ain’t financial. At least not yet.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Consider this the alpha phase of our business. It’s time to announce beta.”

“Go on.”

“Let our clients know we are changing the pricing structure. We’ll do it gradually. First, limit each client to five dates a month, that’s the average, then, in increments, raise the fee to five thousand a month with optional extra dates for a thousand each.”

“How will that impact revenue? We’re starting to show profits.”

“We have eighty-some clients. I hacked their bank accounts. All can easily afford six or seven thousand a month. Five K shouldn’t scare them off, but it might make attracting new clients difficult.”

“We could keep two K as an introductory price.” Vince pointed to the wall. “Christ, just look at Eileen. She’s positively a freak!”

“We’ve definitely created an oversexed librarian. I actually have to tone down her pleasure centers during sex and dial down her libido during the day.”

Mia’s initial shock at her husband’s discussion of another woman’s sexuality subsumed to curiosity. What are they up to?

“That gets me thinking. Why not adapt a more traditional business model? We should let Eileen turn pro. We’d make way more money off her.”

Are they talking about . . .

“We’ve been over this. It introduces too many risk factors.”

“But look at the profit potential. Let’s say she turns ten tricks a day&#8212”

Oh my . . .

“&#8212at two hundred dollars each. That’s two thousand a day. Thirty days a month, and that’s sixty K a month. It’s what we clear monthly off our entire inventory. Seems simple to me,” Vince concluded.

“Okay, pimp daddy. Let’s look at the real costs. Eileen quits her job and turns pro. She now has to pay her own rent, food, car, clothes and all out of our profit. It’s about five K.”

“Still leaves fifty-five K.”

“But that’s not all. You remember our conversation about traditional clients. What’s to stop a few of them from refusing to pay? Nothing. What if they decide to rob her, or someone follows her to a trick and robs her afterward? There goes more of our profits. So let’s have her hire someone for protection, perhaps a bouncer from a local nightclub. Maybe she pays him ten K a month.”

“So we’re at forty-five.”

“Now consider risk factors. Even with her bouncer, Eileen will still suffer some blows. She can’t work with a bruised face. She still needs to pay her protector. Soon, either he gets greedy or she gets further in debt while she heals. Now she works for him. Let’s say he’s like us, and he samples the product. It’s good for a while, but he wants more variety. He sells her to a pimp.”

“He can’t sell her!”

“Happens all the time. Our bouncer says he’s lined up a client for her. Drops her off in a room. The pimp says, ‘I just bought you. Now you work for me until you pay off your debt.’”

“So she says she’s not for sale.”

“Then he beats her down.”

“She won’t be able to work.”

“Doesn’t matter. He owns her. He’s got time, and, odds are, he has clients who enjoy beating women.”

“I know the type. I’ve treated their wives and girlfriends for years.”

“So now Eileen is a beaten-down whore, broke, working for a pimp. We get no profits.” Calvin raised his hands chest high, palms up. “Why would you want to do that to her? Why would you want to do that to us?”

Where did Calvin learn about pimps and whores?

“We could be her protection.”

“Do you know the difference between criminals and us?”

“A rap sheet?”

“Criminals are comfortable using violence. They like it. They accept the consequences. I am not comfortable using violence, and I’m definitely not comfortable finding myself in intensive care or prison. Are you?”

“We could send Jeff. He’s tough.”

My Jeff? What’s he got to do with this?

“Jeff is smart tough. He’s ‘bring an AK-47 to a knife fight’ tough.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, remember where he got all those scars?”

“Too many knife fights. I treated him after each one.”

“Exactly. Jeff is a find. He really is. But the direct prostitution model is not for us, and I really don’t think it is best for our product.”

“So what we’re doing is legal?”

“Let’s look at it from an outside perspective.”

Just like Calvin to change perspective to win arguments.

“Okay.”

“We run an internet-based subscription dating service. That’s legal. Right?”

“Right.”

“We add value through intensive investigation of both clients and their dates.”

“We do?”

“On paper, that’s what we pay Jeff and Sean for.”

“Really?”

“Really. Next, we charge clients three thousand a month to date pre-screened, beautiful, eligible women.”

“You forgot sexually willing.”

“That, according to our website, is strictly between our clients and their dates.”

“But they’re still prostitutes.”

“Do clients pay them?”

“No.”

“Do we pay them?”

“No.”

“Then our product ain’t prostis.”

“Okay. So we run a legal enterprise.”

“As long as no one investigates our recruitment process.”

“You mean dangling Sean in front of eligible women, a little Rohypnol, a quick visit to my clinic . . .”

“Where you drill a small hole in their skulls, inject a million or so nanites into their brains.”

Mia reached behind her neck and rubbed her pimple. Calvin tapped a couple of keys on his keyboard. Mia refocused on the conversation.

“What are the charges?”

“So far, thirty-some counts of kidnapping, false imprisonment and battery. Jeff’s dart-and-grab method might be assault and battery.”

“That’s all?”

“Conspiracy, perhaps. I don’t think the law has caught up with our technology.”

“No laws on mind control?”

“But it’s not mind control. My nanites invade their limbic systems centering on the amygdala pain and pleasure centers and, starting with the eighth generation, the audio and visual cortices. Mostly, we monitor their activities and adjust their emotions. It’s not mind control, just subtle manipulation. The Koreans’ medical research helped make all this possible.”

“Nothing in their research addresses erasing memories. I’m still surprised these girls forget their transitional phase. It seems foolproof.”

“It ain’t. It’s a trick. I programmed some of the nanites to attach near the associative memory areas near the limbic system. Dr. Park’s research shows these areas allow us to cry at movies because we associate our own experiences with what we see on screen, reproduce old emotions.”

“Yeah.”

“Put the right amount of negative emotions on memories, and the mind compartmentalizes them into dark recesses and hides the key. Women are more apt to act on subtle emotional manipulation and, voila, memory block.”

“Hehe, solves the women-remembering-what-happened problem.”

You think you are so clever, you guys; just you wait.

“Introduces our third business model risk.”

“What’s that?”

“Frontal lobe override.”

“FLO, refresh my memory on that.”

“The brain loves its rational self. Once the frontal lobe takes over, it can accomplish almost anything. Overcome almost anything, ignore pain, mind-over-matter stuff and even solve the universe’s mysteries.”

“But, most of the time, our brain is too lazy to engage the frontal lobe. It prefers to rely on more primitive brain regions.”

“Look at my wife.” Calvin tapped a monitor to his right, twice, and dragged an image to his immediate display. “Her emotions tell her to trust me. I’ve given her enough information to explain my nights here, but her frontal lobe keeps telling her I’m having an affair instead of monitoring our product.”

If you don’t pay attention to me, you control freak, you must be paying it to someone else. Mia’s face flushed warm. Her legs twitched. She stood up. Stretching the headphone’s cord, she ascended the step stool. Calm down, calm. She nudged the camera’s pistol grip so it centered on the wall, not Calvin.

“You sample enough of our product to justify her hunch.”

“True, and Carla Giancambo is coming in tonight. I’m going test the new programming. You shouldn’t have to make any adjustments.”

See! Mia returned to her TV. Sixty or more monitors lined Calvin’s wall. About a third of the images showed dates from a woman’s point of view. Many of the dates were in an advanced, sexual phase. Next to those images were brain maps with vibrant colors for each area. Mia’s stomach cramped. She bent over before regaining control. She studied the monitors. Redder colors must indicate high activity; bluer colors less activity. To the far left, Calvin devoted monitors to date pornography.

“Have fun, but I’m not married. You can always ‘test’ Mia. That’s why you married her.”

“No, I married her out of love.”

Oh . . . That’s my Cal. Mia rested her head on her hand. Analysis ceased. She closed her eyes concentrating on his voice.

“Love of?”

“Love of her.”

“Yeah, right. You must have had a reason to love her. She’s a babe now, but I’ve seen your wedding pictures.”

Hey, watch it, Vince.

“You can’t love someone for a reason.”

“Can’t?”

“It’s axiomatic. Love’s always irrational. If you love someone for a reason, then you love the reason, not the person. She has money; you love her wealth. She’s physically attractive; you love the admiration of your friends, the boost in self-esteem. You love sex with her; you love her willingness to please you, but you love her no more than you love a good whore, and you may just love not paying for sex. Name a reason to love someone, and you name what you love more than your special someone.”

“So what happened?”

“The third risk factor, again. Sooner or later, the frontal lobe takes over. Rational thinking nudges you out of love. In our society, there are few, if any, reasons to remain in long-term relationships. Less for contractual ones, like marriage.”

“Raising a family.”

“Do you want to raise children?”

“No, I’d rather enjoy life.”

“Same here.”

You said it’s because the world already has too many people. Asshole!

Calvin tapped a few keys; Mia calmed down.

“But I wouldn’t mind enjoying Mia.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“You mean you’re going to . . .”

“Yep, I think we should bring our prototype in and do some testing. You up for that?”

“If the tests are successful?”

“I think the divorce will give our business a necessary forensic test. She’ll keep the house and all her investments. I keep my share of NanoBotics. Glenda handles divorces; we can monitor her reaction to her forensic accountant’s reports.”

“We have a lawyer in inventory but no whatd’ya call it?”

“Forensic accountant. No. They aren’t that common. Females in the field, even less.”

“We could lose Glenda.”

“We could lose the whole company, but we may endure more investigations. Let’s give our books a test run.”

“So I’ll have Jeff bring her in.”

“And I’ll monitor things from here.”

Vince found his cell phone, typed a text message and pressed send.

Mia felt a tap on her shoulder. Jeff offered his hand. She regarded a long scar along his forearm. In the past, she continuously ignored his scars, but, in this moment, they fascinated her. Along with his scarred face, his scars told the story of his life: fights won and lost; loves won and lost; his family’s poverty, his escape from gangs to running his own business.

“Dr. Winkel will see you now.”

Mia removed the headphones, accepted Jeff’s hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Sudden movement rushed blood from her brain. She swooned forward. Jeff caught her in his arms. She raised her heels, leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped tighter.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Mia looked around. The room looked unusual. Waiting rooms should have chairs and a receptionist’s station. It must be an after-hours thing. She reached her arm back, brushing hair from her neck. Her fingers registered a soft lump.

“It’s good I came in. I need to see a doctor.”

Jeff led her, by the arm, through a second-story hallway, down an internal stairwell, through an access door and into an examination room.

“The doctor would like you to disrobe.”

Mia grabbed her sweater’s hem and pulled it over her head and off. Jeff reached out a hand, and she relinquished it.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

Mia’s smile reflected Jeff’s. I can do a harmless striptease. She slipped off her sneakers, swayed her hips, unbuttoned her jeans, hooked her thumbs inside belt loops, and pulled downward, bending her knees. Once her jeans sagged about her ankles, she found it difficult to escape them gracefully. After a few tries, she slid her hand down her right leg, tugged them free, used her foot to hold them down and jerked her left foot loose. She kicked her jeans to Jeff, resumed her dance and removed her blouse.

Jeff swiveled his head to the side.

“Really?” She felt embarrassed.

“Really.”

If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right. Mia turned away from Jeff, alternately tightening her left and right butt cheeks while slowly pulling her panties down to her ankles before stepping out of them. She tried exploiting their elasticity to shoot them to Jeff, but they fell short. She bent down to pick them up. Jeff already folded her garments and placed them in a stack. He added her panties.

“Socks.”

His voice feigned a clinical tone. Mia abandoned her striptease, hopped onto the examination table, pulled off her socks and flung them.

“Don’t I look attractive to you?”

“Very sexy, Mrs. Wirther. I may dream about you tonight.”

Jeff’s head turned toward knocking on the door. Vince entered.

“How are you feeling, Mia?”

“A little exposed.” Mia leaned back, resting on both hands, and drew one knee over the other.

“You seem comfortable about it,” Vince observed. “Thank you for bringing her in, Jeff. I’ll take it from here.”

Vince approached, placed a stethoscope over Mia’s heart and paused. Mia liked the warmth of his hand compared to the stethoscope’s cold metal.

“Your heart rate is high. Have you noticed this at home or work?”

“Doctor, I haven’t . . . but, there’s something on my neck.” Mia pulled her hair to one side.

“This won’t do at all.” Vince pulled a pre-wrapped kit from a drawer. He scraped away infected skin, swabbed it with disinfectant and smeared it with antiseptic gel. “When we’re done, you can let your hair cover your neck, but don’t pat it down. We wouldn’t want gel messing up your hair. You have beautiful hair, by the way.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“Now lie down on your stomach and pull your hair away from your neck again. I need to give you local anesthesia.”

“Like this?”

“That’s good, now your head’s going to feel numb.”

Mia felt the needle’s pinch, but it subsided. A quick, painless incision and small vacuum cleaner sounds. She heard a drill’s hum. Vince held her head steady while her skull rumbled a slow, barely perceptible vibration. A moment later, it stopped, and she nearly napped.

“One quick injection, and we’re almost done.”

A few tugs, as Vince added three sutures, woke her. He applied more antiseptic gel.

“Your back.”

“Yes?”

Vince slid his hand down her back before caressing her buttocks. “Is beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“You are comfortable with me touching you.”

“You are my doctor.”

“Is that all?”

“I’d be more comfortable if either you disrobed or I put on my clothes.” An impish smile graced her mouth as impish notions filled her mind.

Vince pulled off his white smock, kicked off his shoes and yanked off his blue scrubs.

Mia sat up and regarded her pudgy, rat-faced doctor.

“Is that all?”

Vince pulled his boxers to his ankles.

“Socks!”

Vince raised his leg to remove his boxers and a sock. Teetering on one foot, he lost his balance, spun and caught himself on the examination table. Using it as a brace, he managed to pull off his sock.

Mia reached across his chest and turned him toward her.

Vince placed his hand on her neck, tilted her head up and inspected her imperceptible jowls.

“Dr. Alberman does good work.”

“I came out quite well, don’t you think?”

He cupped Mia’s breast with his other hand. Mia’s heart raced faster.

“I can’t feel any scars.”

“I never thanked you for all the plastic surgery, at least not properly.”

* * *

“Not a bad settlement.” Peter Goode flipped through Mia Wirther’s divorce papers. “She got the house and half a million in savings and pensions.”

“She should have gotten more. From her deposition, it’s obvious Calvin engineered their separation.”

“Glenda Wilkins thought so, too. Too bad all that’s a fiction.”

“Nah.” Marcia rose from her chair.

“Mia testified that she spied on her husband at his work on May 17, 2012. The tape with her and Winkel is timestamped May 17, 2012, 20:23 through 21:11, and Dr. Winkel’s patient log also sets the date on May 17 at eight o’clock p.m.”

“So?”

“Cal Wirther produced travel documents confirming he was in Washington DC on NanoBotics business from May 15 through May 18. Airline tickets, hotel receipts, credit card transactions, even a Pentagon sign-in sheet showing he met with a General Craig Mack on the seventeenth from 16:00 to 16:35.”

“No, no, no, no!” Marcia slapped the tabletop.

“Yes. Judge Tuthman admonished Wilkins about allowing fabrications in her clients’ statements.”

“Forgeries. It has to be forged.”

“What? The airline tickets?”

“No, the tape, the timestamp.”

“It was a digital camera file, not a tape.”

“And Wirther is a major computer . . . I don’t know . . . hacker.”

“He is a computer dude, but that’s not what I think happened.”

“Okay, I’m game.”

“The digital file is untampered. It would be much easier to set the time before it started recording. We know Mia had nanites in her when the police took her to the hospital, so it’s reasonable to assume Cal shaped her memories of the night she and Winkel went at it, and our dear Dr. Winkel would rather pay out alienation-of-affection and deprivation-of-consortia damages than to admit to criminal activity.”

“And our deal with Winkel keeps us from introducing evidence incriminating Winkel.”

“Our deal?”

“The deal Gregoryan brokered.”

“I still can’t believe he would agree to those terms.”

“DA 101. Get one party to squeal and use it to extract confessions from the others. Wirther and Laportes stonewalled Takeshi and Gregoryan, and they stonewalled us, but Winkel said he would talk just as long as no one tarnishes his reputation.”

“Get one rat to roll, and they all start doing cartwheels?”

“That’s the practice.”

“Wirther and Laportes aren’t your typical rats. Only Winkel.”

“How can these rats keep on winning? Even Winkel, with his little beady eyes.”

“Hard to call Winkel a big winner. That consortia-affection thing cost him his share of NanoBotics and, with it, fifty percent of therightkind.com.”

“So Wirther ends up with everything. Why didn’t Winkel just bail on him after the double cross?” Marcia resumed her seat.

“SCMedGroup still owns the other half, and Winkel still, what did they call it? Sampled the product.”

“And Mia got screwed.”

“Actually, as part of the Winkel settlement, she ended up with a substantial chunk of change.”

“But Calvin got all of NanoBotics,” Marcia Fong countered. “She paid the bills for years while he set that up. It was making real money, at that point.”

“Really, how much?”

“Can’t tell for sure. Wirther kept the company private. He held on to its finances tight. Our accountants say getting Nano’s numbers is like prying barnacles off a whale.”

“You know, if it weren’t for those tapes, she might have kept her stake, and we might be charging her alongside her husband.”

Chapter 13: Merrick Kite

“I still think we can start with Corine Waters. No nanites messing with her memory.” Marcia Fong leafed through Corine’s folder, one of the thickest. “She’s their true prototype.”

“She’s a compromised witness.”

“Her testimony corroborates not only Vincent Winkel but also Cuthbert Stout. It is almost like a gift.”

“A gift from Stout’s boss. I’m sure the defense picked up on that at Corine’s deposition.”

“The defense does not know everything.”

“You’re right. They don’t know this.” Peter pulled a file from his backpack.

“What’s this?” Marcia Fong opened the file.

“Read.”

Marcia Fong looked up from the file in disbelief.

* * *

Informal Interview: Detective Merrick Kite, SFPD

In Attendance: Peter Goode, ADA; Lt. Neil Larson, SFSO Internal Investigations

Recorded by: Rhonda Green, Court Reporter

PG:	Detective Kite, you know why you are here?
MK:	Is that a question?
PG:	You tell me.
MK:	I have no idea why I’m here.
PG:	Last night, someone released over a hundred video clips starring you and several women, some of whom may have been under age eighteen at the time.
MK:	None of the women were under age eighteen.
PG:	And how do you know that? Is it because the man who provided those girls, women, thoroughly checks the age of each of them?
NL:	Even those born in countries where they count newborns as age one?
MK:	Stout don’t make rookie mistakes.
PG:	Cuthbert Stout?
MK:	Shit.
NL:	I’d say so.
MK:	That’s it. I don’t say nothing more without a lawyer and my Police Protective Order rep.
PG:	That’s not what this is.
MK:	I know an interrogation when I see one. I’m out.
PG:	This doesn’t end until I say it ends.
MK:	And who the hell are you?
PG:	Good question. Introductions are in order. I am Peter Goode of the district attorney’s office. I brought along a consultant, Neil Larson of the sheriff’s department.
NL:	Internal Affairs.
MK:	IA. Shit. I ain’t saying anything without a lawyer and a PPO rep.
PG:	Neil is from the sheriff’s department, not SFPD. They are waiting outside. Understand?
MK:	I don’t understand anything without a lawyer.
PG:	Well, I’m a lawyer, so let me help. I’m not here to investigate you. The SFPD Internal Affairs guys outside are here to do that. I’m here to gather some information on one of your costars.
MK:	And you?
NL:	I just want to know how things work.
MK:	Figures, you IA guys don’t know shit.
PG:	This is a ‘you help us out, we help you out’ kinda deal.
MK:	Okay, I think I understand. I want full immunity. I keep my rank and badge. It’s like I was just undercover, doing my job.
PG:	That is not what this is. I will not lie to anyone on your behalf. I cannot stop details of your deeds from the press, I cannot shelter your wife and children from public reaction, I cannot protect you from Esteban Armillo. I can use my influence with SFPD to drop their investigation after you resign; I can make sure the district attorney’s office only prosecutes you for misdemeanors; I can make sure you serve no jail time, and I can make sure Cuthbert Stout pursues you no further.
MK:	Hey wait a minute, there was quite a bit there. What do you mean about Esteban Armillo? He’s a butt-licking foot soldier. He, uh&#8212
PG:	He used to work for Cuthbert Stout, but yesterday, Stout interfered with a crime scene and he is in custody, rather restrictive custody.
MK:	So Stevie got the promotion. Makes sense. Why would he do me any harm?
PG:	SCPD took Stout into custody at 14:00. The video clips were released at 21:00. Who do you think did that?
MK:	Could have been a dead man’s switch.
PG:	Are you trying to make me believe Cuthbert Stout would program a computer with a dead man’s switch?
MK:	Okay. I know. He would have someone do it for him.
PG:	Someone like Esteban Armillo?
MK:	Okay, okay.
NL:	Makes me wonder what else he ordered before he surrendered himself, huh?
MK:	Okay, I think I know what this is all about.
NL:	So you are going to help us a little?
MK:	If I have to put someone away, I want something out of this.
PG:	You’re not putting anyone away. I have no interest in putting you on the stand.
MK:	Still, I don’t give something for nothing.
PG:	I told you what I’m ready to do for you. It’s really a ‘cooperate, or I walk out and let SFPD’s IA take care of you’ kind of thing.
NL:	I hear Conner Ewing is very interested in making an example of you.
MK:	Okay, okay. Ewing. Really?
PG:	Don’t worry. There were, what, some ten years of video clips? We’re not interested in going through them one by one, but there is one we want you to explain first.
MK:	Which one?
PG:	The one with Corine Waters, Detective Smith.
MK:	Funny you should mention that one.
PG:	I figured. Let’s start with how you and Corine ended up on video together.
MK:	No.
PG:	No?
MK:	Let’s start with how you got the video clips.
PG:	Okay. They were released to us, anonymously. IT can’t trace the source. We think it was Armillo, but we are not sure.
MK:	Sure? No, but I can narrow it down.
PG:	Explain.
MK:	Last week there was a meeting at Stout’s South San Fran warehouse. Scarabco was there. He was interested in a company named NanoBotics. It seems that they control a website, thetightkink.com or something like that. It’s an exclusive dating site, or so it seems. It actually runs call girls. Direct competition, and we all know what Scarabco and Stout think about competition.
PG:	What’s this have to do with Corine Waters?
MK:	She was there too. Turns out she had a relationship with NanoBotics before she turned pro. There are pics of her there. She ID’d a few photos for Scarabco. That implicated Doc Winkel. Scarabco was nice to this whore. They usually take what they want from them, and then they disappear, but this time, Scarabco sets her free so long as she testifies against NanoBotics. She agrees but asks why the police would contact her. That set off a debate. She did pretty good till then, pretty good considering she’d been taking opioids ever since I first laid eyes on her.
NL:	Eyes, tongue, dick. You laid a lot on her.
MK:	We are going to get to that, but first you need to know that she lit a firebomb in that room and then fell asleep. Did she tell you that?
PG:	No, she said two associates dragged her back up to a loft, and then, later that night, they dumped her at Winkel Medical Center San Jose.
MK:	She’s right, but that was after she lost consciousness. You see, Scarabco didn’t figure out how to put us pigs on NanoBotics’s tail. He looked at me, and I made a slash gesture. He got my meaning and told Stout to prepare for a long vacation.
NL:	A long vacation?
MK:	Prison term.
PG:	Doesn’t Scarabco value Stout?
MK:	Thinks the world of him. Probably his best lieutenant. That’s why he chose him. Mind you, a lower associate could do it. Not Armillo, of course. Stevie was Stout’s best soldier, but one of the others. Scarabco said he needed somebody steady, somebody who keeps the story straight even when lawyers start twisting it.
NL:	Stout’s been in prison before?
MK:	Yeah, multiple counts of aggravated assault and racketeering from his enforcer days.
PG:	I still don’t get it.
MK:	So Scarabco asks me. I tell him I’m staying out of it.
PG:	Basically agreeing with Scarabco: sacrifice Stout.
MK:	So Stout arranges for one of his associates to release the videos, but not Stevie-boy.
NL:	Why not Stevie-boy?
PG:	Esteban Armillo.
MK:	Stevie-boy gets Stout’s gig while the big man is on vacation. Think he’ll just give it back? Hell no. He will consolidate power, take over the biz. Even arranged a gift for Scarabco.
NL:	A gift?
MK:	Before the meeting, he gave the whore a bottle of opioids to loosen her up. Then, he asked her how she used to arrange payments from her clients, you know, back when she was independent. She must have been out of it, been out of it for years, actually. She manages to tell him about BECS.
PG:	BECS?
MK:	Bicycle Express Courier Service.
NL:	I don’t get it.
MK:	You’re IA, you don’t get much of anything. How about you, DA?
PG:	Cash payments. But how would that benefit Scarabco?
MK:	Scarabco is just like any other American: praise free enterprise as long as his business has no direct competition. He has organized crime in the Bay wrapped up. If there were another organization, he’d have a war on his hands. So now who’s his competition?
	(Silence)
MK:	Designer drugs, online betting and independent call girls. Basically, rouge biotech, internet startups and chicks like Corine Waters. So Scarabco is afraid that all these Silicon Valley genius types will find a way into his biz.
NL:	Still not connecting the dots.
MK:	You guys are so stupid. Here, let me help. Corine had a website she used to lure her clientele. Now, how is she supposed to get paid for her services? Credit card? Even if she anonymizes her company through a generic payment company, you know, like porn sites do, it still looks suspicious and authorities can still find out who her clients are. Same goes for PayPal and those companies. Her clients are first-rate, and they would rather not have authorities invading their boardrooms and exposing their personal lives in the media. Some of these guys worked out electronic payments through offshore shell companies where tracing the payments would take an army of accountants, but the IRS and FBI have armies of accountants, and they might discover their whoring by accident. Still risky.
NL:	Cash is discreet, no?
MK:	Yes. Very discreet, but for girls like Corine, dangerous. She could try to collect before or after the date, and most of these guys would pay up, no problem, but there’s always the cheapskate. Visiting businessmen have a habit of stiffing these girls or trying to renegotiate the price after fucking them. Even if they pay, the girl is walking around with thousands in cash. She’s a target for all sorts of thieves. This one guy from New York was famous for arranging for call girls to come, pay them in cash and have his bodyguard rob them after, usually in the hotel’s parking lot.
PG:	So Corine contracts with BECS. How does it work? She calls BECS to pick up the cash and they green-light the date?
MK:	Close. Not bad, DA. On Corine’s website, there’s a COD link. The john arranges the cash pickup. It could be a direct pickup, third party, dead drop or whatever. Once the money is in BECS’s office, they notify the girl. If afterward the client is dissatisfied, he tells BECS, and they broker a refund.
NL:	So the girl still doesn’t get paid. So what?
MK:	The girls all use a vetting service to check on new clients. You know, refuses to use a condom, beats them, takes back money even though the girl provided valuable service. Make a habit of refusing payment, you’ll never get a girl again. Most of the time BECS holds on to the money for five days and then deposits the money into the girl’s bank account minus a fee.
NL:	But doesn’t Stout use BECS also?
MK:	Are you stupid? Scarabco has an army of thugs working for him. They put some in suits and send them along with the girls. Scarabco’s guy collects the money, and you don’t mess with any of those guys unless you want a fight, a fight you are sure to lose.
PG:	Okay, but how does knowledge of BECS become a gift to Scarabco?
MK:	Scarabco is no slouch. He keeps track of Stout’s clients’ patterns. They caught Corine because a few of her clients started preferring independent girls to Stout’s stable. Scarabco then tails these johns and sees who comes and goes. When the time is right, they intercept the girl.
NL:	And force them to work for them.
MK:	Stout and Scarabco were a little more generous. Apparently, Scarabco was a whore’s son. As I heard it, she turned tricks during school hours to earn a few dollars, keep her kids fed. Scarabco doesn’t want to tear mothers from their children, so he tells Stout to give the girl a choice
PG:	Wait, you said they found out who the girls were by keeping tabs on their clients. Do they have all the high-end clients in the Bay Area?
MK:	Not yet, but I heard Scarabco plans on buying BECS. Won’t be long before he knows all the independent call girls and their clients.
NL:	And what will happen to them?
MK:	Same thing that happened to Corine. At night, they serve Scarabco’s clients. In the morning, they make porn videos. Scarabco makes out like a bandit.
NL:	Explain. What’s Scarabco’s cut?
MK:	One of the stupidest questions in the world is, if a whore makes a thousand dollars a night, how much does she keep? The answer is none; her pimp gets it all. All.
NL:	A hundred percent?
MK:	That’s what ‘all’ means. Okay, stupid. Here, let me go over the economics of the sex trade. Stout ran three levels of whore
PG:	That’s a long sexual encounter.
MK:	Anything beyond two hours can’t be all about sex. There has to be a social element to it, like taking the girl out to dinner or a show or a sports event. They let you have six hours for companionship and sex. If you want a Premium all night with morning sex included, that’s five thousand. An Elite date goes for one thousand and all night is three thousand. Stout put all his First Raters into party crews of four. For two thousand, you get all four for four hours. Any questions?
PG:	Go on.
MK:	Okay. Premiums only go on one date a night, Elites and party girls, two. So Elites and Premiums generate two K a night and party girls, one. Stout keeps girls for about a year. They tend to degrade, but let’s say party girls generate two hundred K, each, and the others about four hundred K, each, in bookings alone.
NL:	That seems like a lot.
MK:	There’s a good reason a mobster like Scarabco is in this business, but it’s not all profit. There’s expenses. He has to pay his thugs to collect to money, levy fines. Those guys get five hundred a night. And&#8212
PG:	Hold the bus. Levy fines?
MK:	Stout kept clean girls. Had them tested every week, sometimes twice a week. If they caught an STD, he’d contact all her clients until he catches the one who dirtied her. All these clients become condom-only until they test clean.
NL:	So he looks after them?
MK:	Hardly. Dirty one of Stout’s Premiums or Elites, and you have to pay a fine in the neighborhood of Stout’s loss on income on the girl. For a brand-new Premium that’s four hundred K, minus two hundred K, minus expenses so, a hundred and fifty K. The girl gets demoted to party girl. All party girls are deemed dirty, and clients are advised to use condoms or assume the risk of STDs. Damages also include injuring the girl, though that’s a little less if the girl could recover in a month or two. Kill the girl, and they tack on her expected sell-down price, usually a hundred and fifty grand, if she’s still First Rate.
NL:	It’s okay to just kill them?
MK:	Yeah, but it’s expensive. Stout threw in free body disposal, something his guys know something about. Further down the line, killing a Fourth Rater only costs ten thousand, but, unless she dies in the brothel, body disposal will cost you. Homicide busted a guy two years ago because he tried to dump a girl’s body in Golden Gate Park. Video picked him up. Girl was reported as a missing person six years prior. When they busted the guy, he rolled on the pimp, and we got called in to bust him. Sad story, actually, and it involves Stout.
PG:	Okay, I’m interested.
MK:	Her name was Violet Tyler, a beautiful five-foot-eight, hundred-thirty-pound redhead with modeling ambitions. She drops out of Contra Costa College to enlist in Stout’s modeling agency.
NL:	Stout owns a modeling agency?
MK:	Yeah, and it’s half legit. Girls with real potential get real photo shoots and runway gigs. Girls like Violet, they think they get photo shoots, but they end up in porn videos.
PG:	Did she shoot porn with you?
MK:	You watched the vids. You’d know it if she did.
PG:	Proceed.
MK:	Damn commanding, don’t you think? No. Okay. Porn shoots used to generate a thousand dollars a clip, but not anymore. By the time they pay the male star and the director, they barely clear two hundred. Doesn’t matter. Most girls can’t handle porn star cocks and aggressive sex. It literally rips them up. They need something just to get through the day, not to mention a second shoot. Stout provides opioids as painkillers. Don’t take long to get the girls addicted. That’s what happened to Vi.
NL:	You’re telling us you have a monster cock?
MK:	Me? I wish. No. Stout needs to take hope away from the girls. Run to the police. Hell, policemen, like me, are here fucking you. No chance of escape.
PG:	Back to Violet Tyler, please.
MK:	Just for you saying, ‘please,’ Peter, okay. They abducted her after her first shoot. Locked her up in a warehouse loft at night, had her shoot porn in the mornings. Within a week, they train her how to be a call girl. She was Premium for a few months, Elite for a year after that. She catches the clap, and Stout sells her as a First Rate. Tells her buyer to treat her well, and he’ll have a real profit maker.
NL:	How much did she make for Stout?
MK:	All told, about seven hundred thousand.
PG:	How did she end up dead?
MK:	There’s hope for you. Her new pimp doesn’t treat her well. He puts her right to work. She catches more STDs. After two years as a First Rate, she’s sold as a Second Rate, a year after that, a Third Rate. She’s street-hooking now, and it’s taking a toll. She’s beaten once or twice a week by her johns. Some more by her pimp. Drugs, STDs, beatings, stress to make her quota, it wrecks her. She’s barely holding on, and then she gets sold to the small-time pimp we ended up busting. From what I figure, he bought her for ten grand, and she still ended up making him thirty grand or so. Hell, he got ten from the guy who killed her.
NL:	The life and death of a girl of the night.
MK:	Not bad, Larson. I like that.
PG:	These girls do all this just for a few opioids? That does not make much sense.
MK:	No, DA, it doesn’t. These girls face a myriad of forces. Carrots and sticks. They know they will get beaten if they refuse anyone. Every so often, a rebellious one refuses to work for Stout, so Stout arranges for her to refuse in front of ten or twenty others. They either beat her into submission or beat her to death. Don’t matter. The girls get the message, and word of mouth makes sure they all get the message.
NL:	That’s a stick, what about the carrots?
MK:	This is funny. The girls actually think they’re making money. They are told they earn two hundred a porn shoot and up to a thousand a date.
NL:	So they have cash. What happens?
MK:	They never see cash. Not when working for Stout. They are told they have a retirement account. Stout even keeps spreadsheets and the like, so the girls can see how much they think they got. Everything is in there, their shoots, their dates, the money their investments make.
NL:	Investments?
MK:	Yeah, that’s the funny part. They tell the girls they invest the money so that their earnings multiply over the years.
PG:	What’s so funny about that?
MK:	When they sell the girls, they just keep everything. There are no investment accounts. They send the girl to her new pimp. When she arrives, the guy says, “I paid X dollars for you. Now, you work for me.” She says, “I have more than that in my retirement account. I think I’ll pay you off now and go home.”
NL:	So she’s free. Good.
MK:	Hell no. Her new pimp says he doesn’t know anything about a retirement account. Whatever she thinks she has is between her and Stout. Then he puts her to work. If she gives him any trouble, he beats her.
PG:	Let’s get back to Corine. How much did she make for Stout?
MK:	She was different. They still talk about her. She wasn’t a very good call girl for them. She got addicted to opioids and it made her sloppy, a bad whore. A few of her old clients booked her, and there were a bunch of techies she used to work with. As an independent, she avoided them, but it didn’t take long for her bookings to drop.
PG:	So not much.
MK:	Not exactly. She managed herself pretty well as an independent. She hid her money in investments both here and offshore. When Stout picked her up, they also got her car, her leased condo, her wardrobe, everything.
PG:	Still doesn’t add up to much.
MK:	They hacked her laptop, but they couldn’t find her accounts. Just some spreadsheets. So they planted spyware on her computer and left it at her loft.
	(Laughter)
NL:	What’s so funny?
MK:	We all think of Stout and Scarabco like common thugs, but they are pretty sophisticated at times. They charge Corine for Wi-Fi service, but it is a classic man-in-middle attack. She signs on to all her financial sites, and they know where she banks and invests. The spyware captures her passwords and, voila, all of Corine’s savings are exposed, some three hundred thousand of it.
PG:	They stole her money? How much else did they make off of her?
MK:	They only kept her for about two months, so they earned about sixty thousand off her in dates. Then someone dirtied her. They sold her for a hundred K. Add in the use of her condo as a shag house for their clients, her car, her jewelry and all, and she cleared about five hundred K for them. Just about average.
NL:	So kidnap a woman, force her into the sex trade and make a half million?
MK:	It’s quite a business, don’t you think?
PG:	No wonder Scarabco is in it.
NL:	Do the girls ever get out?
MK:	It happens. Pimps screw up. Many girls keep their wits about them, look for opportunities and escape. Sometimes, pimps will let a girl earn her freedom, even celebrate it in front of the other girls to keep the illusion alive. Most of the girls die after seven, eight, nine, ten years.
NL:	A hard life.
PG:	Who did they sell Corine to?
MK:	Tartan M.
PG:	Tartan Marza has a reputation for smarts. Why would he buy an opioid addict?
MK:	Most of the girls are addicted, weren’t you listening? Corine just couldn’t handle it. The way I see it, Corine is beautiful, but it was her smarts that made her exceptional. Take away her smarts, and, trust me, she’s a bad fuck.
PG:	And Tartan couldn’t figure that out?
MK:	Don’t matter. It’s pay to play in the Bay.
NL:	I don’t understand. Surely there are other ways to get girls.
MK:	There are, and Tartan M deals with them, but you don’t buy Stout’s girls. Hell, you might as well declare war with Scarabco.
PG:	And nobody wants a war.
MK:	Not exactly true. Nobody wants a war with Scarabco. Only Doc Winkel beat him and that’s because Laportes’s smarter than all of Scarabco’s men. Combined.
NL:	Scarabco is afraid of Winkel and Laportes?
MK:	Not afraid. In the long run, he knows he’ll beat ’em, but he also knows it’s bad business. That’s why there’s the truce.
PG:	Back to Corine. What happened when Stout sold her to Tartan Marza?
MK:	I was there. It was weird. Usually, they send a girl to their new pimp as a date and that’s the transfer. Corine gets called to Stout’s office. Now, previously, they told her they merged her old investments into her new retirement account. Her head’s all fogged up most of the time, so she complains but doesn’t put up much of a fight. She’s already demoted to First Rate and working parties. She even has to work in her old condo. I heard that really hurt. She started popping more pills after that.
PG:	Yeah, we get it. Move on.
MK:	No, I don’t think you do. At one point in Corine’s life, she was a former beauty queen and head of Investor Relations at one of Silicon Valley’s startups or another. The recession knocks her down to call girl, a Premium call girl. Very desirable, very successful. Building herself a fortune while she can.
PG:	Move on.
MK:	Still not getting the picture I’m painting. Stout breaks her down, but somewhere deep in the opium haze, she still feels there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Twenty-eight days at Betty Ford, and she’ll still enjoy the life she was building.
PG:	Okay, move on.
MK:	So Stevie-boy drags her into Stout’s office. Tartan M and one of his guys are there. They tell Corine she’s being sold. So Corine says that for a thousand K she will buy herself back. She has the money in her retirement account.
NL:	But they stole all her money.
MK:	Stout’s face reddens for a moment, then he cracks a big smile. He tells Corine that all her money is gone. They lost it all in a bad investment. Lost their own money as well. They’re selling of some of their assets, like Corine, to make a margin call, or something like that. Stout was proud of himself.
PG:	What did Corine do?
MK:	It took a moment to sink in, but you could see it take its toll. No Betty Ford, no pot of gold, no rainbow. She was fucked, and she knew it. Tartan’s man prompted her to her new life. She didn’t fight, she didn’t talk back. Nothin’.
PG:	So this isn’t the meeting you told us about earlier.
MK:	Duh, Counselor.
PG:	How did that come about?
MK:	I don’t have all the details. Tartan M sold Corine after a year to someone who sold her to someone else, and so on, and so on. Six or seven years later, she’s working at some run-down brothel for a hundred dollars a fuck. Scarabco buys her for ten grand, she’s not even pretty anymore. She’s disease ridden, not just STDs but something serious. Her head is so deep in a fog, it took a few days to get her conversational again. Scarabco asks his questions and accepts her answers. She has enough left to ask why the police would want to talk to her. Scarabco thinks for a second and chooses to sacrifice Stout. Mobsters do that all the time, and good soldiers do their time and then go back to work.
PG:	So Stout will be back?
MK:	I doubt it. Armillo earned his spot. Scarabco will find another spot with Stout.
PG:	The truce with Vincent Winkel?
MK:	The enemy of my enemy . . .
PG:	They both want Wirther’s head. Got it. As long as Winkel helps put Wirther away, the truce is back on.
MK:	Nobody wants a war.
PG:	Back to status quo.
NL:	Now, can you tell us about your video with Miss Waters?
PG:	No need, I got what I want.
NL:	I want to know.
PG:	Detective Kite.
MK:	It was her first day of porn. Two male actors did their job. She was sore. Bad. It probably hurt to pee. She was already on opioids. So I fucked her. I heard a lot about her from Stout’s boys, and I was looking forward to it. There was no real need. She knew there were corrupt cops; she knew there were some good ones. Anyways, she was a bad fuck. Now the vids, hers, all of them did their part. I did something wrong, and Stout got his revenge. That’s all.
NL:	Let’s get out of here, Goode.
MK:	Hey, DA, I did my part. I told you everything.
PG:	I’ll tell the guys outside. As far as the DA’s office is concerned, no prosecution.

* * *

“What is this!” Marcia finished reading the transcript.

“Couple of deputies and I started our own investigation back when Takeshi and Gregoryan had the case.”

“That was not what I asked. This is exculpatory, right?”

“No, it’s not; not even if Wirther’s defense gets their hands on it.”

“It makes it look like the DA’s office is doing Scarabco’s bidding.”

“Nah.” Peter swatted his hand through the air as if he cleared away Marcia’s notion. “It just makes the DA look stupid enough to let Scarabco plant evidence against Wirther.”

“Fine. Mince words. It discredits both Cuthbert Stout and Corine Waters and, by association, Vince Winkel.”

“I was never a big fan of their testimony anyway.”

“But if the defense sniffs this out, we will have to disclose it.”

“The defense will never sniff this out.”

“Right, let me walk you through that. ‘Cuthbert Stout, how did you learn about Corine Waters’s involvement in NanoBotics?’ ‘It came up in a meeting.’ ‘Who was in the meeting?’ ‘Mr. Somebody and Mr. Somebody else and, oh yeah, Detective Merrick Kite.’ ‘Detective Kite, with whom did you discuss the meeting with Stout and Scarabco?’ ‘Assistant District Attorney Peter Goode, Deputy Sheriff Neil Larson and their court reporter.’ We need to disclose this before the defense kills us with it.” Marcia slapped Peter’s transcript on the table.

“Never happen.”

“And why is that?”

Peter replaced the transcript with an eight-by-ten photo he slipped out of his briefcase.

“Looks like a suicide.” Marcia examined the photo.

“That’s what the coroner concluded.”

“You don’t think Merrick Kite committed suicide?”

“Not for a minute. Why would he commit suicide? Because his wife of eleven years left him? He never loved his wife. Because he lost his job? He started working for Scarabco full-time. Probably made more money than before. Because he suddenly realized he’s a big jerk, and he needed to make amends? I know assholes like Kite. They never reach anything like that level of self-realization.”

“Then what do you think happened?”

“Kite probably tried to make a deal with Scarabco. He would say something, or promise not to say something. Whatever. Scarabco agreed, then sent some thugs to suicide him. Keep him from screwing things up.”

“Why make it look like a suicide? Scarabco’s men could make it look like he just left town. Left forever.”

“That would draw suspicion.”

Chapter 14: Lindsey Sayer

Darcy wrote the bride’s and groom’s names on a plain white envelope, placed a hundred dollar bill inside, licked the gum adhesive on the cover and sealed it. It solved a difficult question: What wedding gift do you give when you know neither bride nor groom, nor their families, nor anyone there because the bride practically begged you to come to help fill out her side of the aisle?

Two weeks ago, The Mercury News published a wedding banns for Norman Taylor, non-CCD light sensor inventor, and Lindsey Sayer, fourteenth on Darcy’s ever-growing survey list.

To Darcy’s surprise, Lindsey agreed to an interview, but on two conditions: first, the interview would have to wait till after her honeymoon; second, Darcy really should attend her wedding.

Lindsey correctly predicted her wedding crowd. Though Norman exemplified prototypical technology geeks down to wearing navy blue and white Converse sneakers with his black tuxedo, he made hundreds of business associates, most of whom also exemplified tech geekdom, and hoped Norman’s fianc&#xe9e’s friends would equal her willingness to date tech geeks. Lindsey packed her side of the aisle with anyone she could coax into it. Darcy chatted with three of Lindsey’s employees who, coincidentally, agreed that this was the first time they met each other, as well as Lindsey, in real life. Lindsey’s mother brought along as many nieces, nephews and cousins as she could round up. In all, one hundred and thirty people came for Norman, and forty-two supported Lindsey. The ushers redirected people to balance out the sides.

Despite Lindsey’s lovely photo, whose beauty surprised Darcy. She stood five foot eight, perfect body, though wedding dresses tended to make women’s figures look better. Lindsey walked gracefully and acted graciously at the reception line. Perfectly at ease greeting people she never met before, accepting and returning compliments and kind words.

Darcy wrote notes before driving home, no intention of staying for the reception.

Lindsey Sayer/Taylor fits pattern. Beautiful, charming, in most ways perfect. Almost complete lack of friends or close relationships. Oldest on the list at 38. Mother said her sister did not attend because Lindsey did things to drive her away. Of 42 people associated with her, only 3 met her before and only 2 more than once.

“How was your honeymoon?”

“Great. We stayed at an exclusive resort. Sun, white sand, crystal clear blue bay. It was excellent. Did you know they had a classic 1920s sailing yacht? It was my favorite thing. In the mornings they taught sailing. I learned all crew positions. On my last day, they let me skip.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“It was. Here, let’s sit out on the veranda.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, you probably want to know how Norm and I met?”

“Actually, I am more interested in your life before you met your husband.”

“What magazine are you with?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Taylor. I’m Darcy Musgrave. I’m a graduate student at Stanford.”

“Journalism though?”

“No, more like psychology. I’m studying people who undergo surprising life changes. I think your life falls into that category.”

“So you are not another reporter trying to get a story about Norm’s genius and glorious life?”

“No, I really hope you can talk about your life.”

“Well, this is a surprise. Forget the Mrs. Taylor thing. You can call me Lindsey.”

“Okay, Lindsey. Eight years ago, you worked at Mission Valley Flowers. Can we start there?”

“I’m amazed you know that. Funny, actually. You ever hear of small things, I mean really small things, that change your whole life?”

“That’s exactly what I’m studying.”

“Then you will love this. I was a florist’s assistant making bouquets for walk-in customers and helping with the larger pieces. One day, I’m loading an exquisite arrangement of exotic flowers into the van for delivery, and I must have been pricked by a thorn or something. I collapsed right then and there. When I woke up, I was in an emergency room, IVs, hospital gowns, and all, getting the VIP treatment, and you’ll never guess who my doctor was.”

“Who?” Darcy fought back a smile.

“Doctor Winkel, the owner of the SCMedGroup. He was the nicest man back then.”

“How about these days?”

“We have had a falling out. That’s all.”

“Okay. What happened next?”

“Everything started changing. I mean my view of life changed. I became interested in more things. Started reading more news stories and then going to the library and the internet to follow up on things that interested me. I started looking for opportunities to get more out of life.”

“Is that when you started Argonaut?”

“Well, yes, sort of, but no. After my plastic surgery&#8212”

“Wait! You had plastic surgery?”

“Yes. After the flower incident, I put myself on a diet and started workouts I found on the internet, and that gave me this.” Lindsey’s hands followed her body’s contours. “But this.” She circled her hand in front of her face. “Needed some help. Dr. Winkel agreed. Some plastic surgeons, good ones, owed him a few favors, so Vincent cashed them in for me.”

“Very generous of him.”

“Well, I.” Lindsey winked her left eye. “Paid him back. Let’s not let that get published, okay?”

“Nothing is getting published.”

“Thank you. Anyways. After the plastic surgery, I was looking pretty good. Very much the way I look now. Vincent made a hair appointment for me at FiGarRo. Filberto Roman himself did my hair. Still does, though sometimes Garret fills in. So you know how you and your stylist get to talking. Fil told me he wanted to start his product line. You know. Hair dryers, curling irons, straightening presses and the like. Well, as I told you, I was on a reading kick. I recalled an article on how a company called AegeanMarket.com was implementing innovations on something called RosettaNet. It was pretty cool supply chain logistics stuff. So I get back to Fil, and he decides to let me try it out. Through Aegean, I found an OEM who will make hair dryers, I find packagers who will make the boxes and put the hair dryers in and put them all in crates of ten that can be shipped to stores, and I find shippers and, well, everything. I put the deals together and Fil agrees to an initial run of a thousand hair dryers.”

“And, voila, you are on your way to your own company.”

“Not so fast. The hair dryers flopped. I mean, they are just like everybody else’s hair dryers, and the graphics weren’t the greatest, and, when you come right to it, Filberto Roman may have three Academy Awards and several Emmys and the like, but he is not a household name. Not a marketable commodity.”

“Ouch!”

“He took it better than you. He took me to the back room where he had to store all the crates. I asked him to use one of the hair dryers on my cut, maybe make a video of it. He said he wouldn’t use one of those. The hair dryer he used was customized to give him better control of the airflow. He could adjust it while he dried my hair. I had him explain the exact mechanism to me.

“Aegean’s main enhancements allowed for trade of intellectual property. Sorry, that sounds so pretentious. What I did was use Aegean’s IP trade to hire an engineer to make manufacturing blueprints of a hair dryer with Fil’s mechanism. When I had the blueprints, I then used Aegean’s RFP feature, excuse me, Request For Proposal. Anyway, I put out proposals for someone to make a FiGarRo hair dryer. Again, piece by piece, I put together the supply chain.

“This time, we used Fil’s celebrity friends to help advertise the hair dryer. Fil and a friend went on HSN. Damn, I need to stop doing that. Home Shopping Network. This time, they took off. People flooded FiGarRo to buy one there, so we struck a deal with Macy’s to carry them. The supply chain scaled up. We had three manufacturers pumping out tens of thousands of units a month, and they all sold.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yes. Fil hired me to develop more products, and I gained real proficiency in using AegeanMarket for product development, supply chain management and product marketing. I’m not really topflight in any of those things, but I’m really good at coordinating and consulting on them. Anyways, that is how LindseySayerSCM.com started.”

“And it was through your company that you met Norman Taylor?”

“Yes and no. Norm is a brilliant electronics component designer. He’s more than wavelength capture and measure devices. Most of his creations are way ahead of their time, solutions waiting for problems and all.

“It didn’t take long for me to gain a reputation for getting products to market, and here, in Silicon Valley, a lot of those products were high-tech. Norm played ball with the big boys: HP, IBM, Sony and the like. Those big companies have no problem putting together deals. I mostly worked the little guys, dreamers with ideas. I was surprised when Norm wanted to work with me because he was well known and successful, but he is more like my regular clients.

“He is also old-school. He wanted to meet me in real life before doing business with me. So we met.”

“And it was love at first sight?”

“For Norm, perhaps.”

“Not for you?”

“As I told Norm, I only dated the right kind.”

“Norman Taylor did not meet your standards?”

“At the time, no. But that is not what I meant. After my plastic surgery, I joined a dating site, therightkind.com. I was lucky. The site is very exclusive. All the men on the site are wealthy and influential. All the women, I am told, are beautiful, ambitious and, uh, accustomed to the demands of wealthy and influential men.”

“Norman Taylor is wealthy and influential.”

“Yes, and it did not take him long to get on therightkind. He booked dates with me, and that is how we really got to know each other.”

“Booked dates? I thought dating sites just made introductions, and then couples just start dating.”

“Not therightkind. I had to sign an agreement not to date men on the site without a booking on the site.”

“So this dating site controlled your social life?”

“Yes and no. I could date the postman or a store clerk if I wanted to. They were unlikely to be on therightkind, but I did not have the time. I usually had two or three dates a week, and these dates usually went the distance. You know, ended after breakfast. Sometimes the dates were for weekend getaways to Paris, or Hawaii. Sometimes these dates were for weeklong vacations to Peru or Phuket Island or Macau or Saint Petersburg or Mozambique or adventures photo-hunting elephants in Kenya. It was quite a commitment. I had to hire extra staff just to keep my company going.”

“How many men were you seeing while you dated Norman?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Okay, how many women did Norman date when he was dating you?”

“You just cannot leave this alone.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble imagining a dating site that encourages its members to date so many of the other members. You dated two or three different men a week. My guess is that Norman did as well. I just don’t see how this leads to a happy marriage.”

“You do not know Norm. Well, okay, here it is. If you ask him, he will tell you that he only dated me.”

“But you said all the other women on the site were beautiful. Why just you?”

“Who can explain love? At our engagement party, some of the guys asked how a shy, eccentric man like Norm could get a girl like me. Norm told them he did not mind paying an extra five thousand dollars a month to date me. You see, therightkind charges five thousand dollars a month for five dates. Now, they allowed the men to pay an extra thousand for an extra date. Norm booked me five times a month; he could have paid extra to date other women, but I do not see him doing that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. It seems that you two really loved each other.”

“I’m sure he loved me. Five dates a month, his whole allotment, is quite an interest. It took me a while to warm up to him.”

“I don’t understand. How long did you date?”

“We dated for over five years.”

Darcy cocked her head to the side.

“Some of therightkind were attractive, some were like Norm. Not bad, but not the type you jump into bed with. The other men, however, were more interesting than Norm. Much more adventurous. They took me sailboarding, BASE jumping, flying their private planes. Norm was more about long talks, watching TV and sex. Well, I had sex with just about all of them, so that is a wash, I guess.”

“So you were dating several other men, and Norman must have known when. I mean, there must have been times when Norman tried to book you and someone else already had you booked. Right?”

“It was a sore spot between us. He brought it up the first time he proposed.”

“How many times did he propose?”

“Twelve, no, thirteen times before I accepted. So fourteen. After the first few, I told him he could only propose twice a year.”

“What happened the last time he proposed? What changed?”

“Well, I told you Norm wasn’t really my favorite. The other guys would take me to do interesting things like snorkeling off the Galapagos Islands. So I asked Norm to let me plan more exciting long dates, and he agreed. At first, I just took him places other men took me, and Norm went along. After a couple more years, he caught on and suggested doing things neither of us ever did before. So that changed.

“Also, my popularity on therightkind diminished. My schedule dwindled to two dates a week, and then just Norm. I overplayed my hand, so to speak.”

“Overplayed your hand?”

“The thing about therightkind is to land yourself not just a billionaire, but the right billionaire. I received dozens of marriage proposals over the years. Not just Norm. But they never felt right. I wanted to keep playing. Over time, it seems, my hand simply lost value: fewer dates, no marriage proposals. So Norm proposed again. He changed; I changed. It felt right. So I accepted.”

“And now?”

“It still feels right. I am happy. I hope Norm is happy. I know we just got back from our honeymoon. I know that making a marriage work takes effort, but that is what Norm and I are good at. We both know how to work, how to make the effort. I think we will be good together.”

“That’s good. I wish you both the best.”

“Tell you what, Ms. Musgrave, I will put you on our tenth anniversary celebration list. There will be a special note. You will interview me again, and you can tell me, based on what you heard today. I mean, I’m interested in hearing how Norm and I are doing.”

“Okay. I accept, but I have a couple more questions if you don’t mind.”

“Just a couple.”

“First, is Dr. Winkel still your personal physician?”

“Funny you should ask. I mean who are you, really? No matter. Before Norm proposed, he suggested that I see another doctor, so I started looking around. I stopped seeing Dr. Winkel a few months ago.”

“Did therightkind cancel your dates after you accepted Norman’s proposal?”

“You love hitting sore spots. The answer is no. In fact, they booked a few more. I told Norm, and he had his lawyers look into it. According to the contract, engagement status had no effect. Technically, I was contractually obligated to date on therightkind after marriage. Norm threatened to sue, and they released me from my contract.

“The funny thing is, during that time, I encouraged Norm to date other women from the site. I wanted to be sure that he wanted me over other women or some nonsense like that. I cannot explain it. He said he was sure. I do not know what he did in his free time. It is possible he went on a few dates, like I did before my release. Who knows?”

“How are things between you and Alicia Carter?”

“Alicia? From back at the flower shop? We were friends, good friends. My God. I really should look her up. After my life changed, I guess we just sort of drifted apart. Have you spoken with her?”

“Yes, three years ago and again last week.”

“How do you know her?”

“She filled out one of my research surveys, the one identifying you as a person who underwent a dramatic life change. I spoke with her to get a better profile of you. I tried to interview you back then, but you declined.”

“I was very busy back then.”

“According to Alicia, you became quite a bitch. You seemed to be driving away everyone who cared for you: her, Gabrielle Aguilar, a guy named Mark and your sister.”

“Are you trying to hurt me?”

“No. Apologies. Simply being honest. Look, I must be going. Permit one further observation?”

“Be gentle.”

“I think you are undergoing another major life change. I do not know how your friends from two lives ago will fit in, but I think you are in a place to make amends and see.”

“Thank you. Well, this has been an uncommon interview. If you wait here, I’ll send Maureen to show you out.”

“Thank you.”

Chapter 15: Ilsa Thalstrom and Olive Petra

Marcia Fong paced the kitchen; her hand by her side twitched like it wanted to do something she knew she shouldn’t. She grabbed her cell phone and excused herself.

Peter Goode retrieved another file from his briefcase, found a log sheet and made a note.

“Aguilar wants you to bury the Kite interview. He’ll talk to you about it later.” Marcia returned.

“You ratted me out to Aguilar?”

“Not your biggest problem. He said you should not let it distract us. He said that we need to get this part of the case straight.”

“Easy, drop it.”

“Leaves a big hole in our narrative. We need to fill it.” Marcia grabbed the back of her chair and leaned forward.

“Okay. I think we can do it with Laportes.”

“Laportes is not going to testify, remember? You made quite a dramatic point of that.”

“He doesn’t have to. He knows Stout, and Stout knows him.”

“So?”

“It brings in the collapsing women before arrest day. Let’s review Ilsa Thalstrom.”

* * *

“Do you recognize any of these photos?” Peter Goode spread out several photographs before Ilsa Thalstrom.

“That one’s Dr. Winkel; that one is a guy I’ve seen around, but I don’t know his name. That one is Dr. Kim, and that one is Sean someone.”

“You are one of very few witnesses who identified Dr. Sarah Kim. Where did you meet her?”

“Hayward,” Ilsa said.

“Can you explain?”

“I was hanging out at a Starbucks in Hayward. I was a psych major. Anyway, I’m there, studying, and I hear two people talking about brain region interaction, which is what I was studying. It was my senior year, advanced studies, you know. And they were talking about functional MRIs and memory retention and emotional effects on memories and what would happen if electrodes stimulated different brain areas like the amygdala and such. So I turned around and reminded them that brain interactions are electrochemical and not just electric, and that sparked a long conversation. Forgive the pun.”

“How did the conversation end?”

“Well, shortly after I joined their table, Dr. Kim had to go. She was very funny. I swear she kept winking at Sean. Sean was almost as knowledgeable as her. He’s a medical researcher, and he was working on a project with Dr. Kim. So it was interesting but abrupt. I had to go to class about an hour after that. Sean and I made a date.”

“That night?”

“No. It was for Saturday. He made a picnic.”

“How did the date go?”

“It was fine at first. We sat on the grass, made behavioral comments about ducks on the pond. Sean didn’t remember about my lactose intolerance, so I couldn’t have any of his cheese souffl&#xe9. I had tapenade on sourdough bread. Then, I started feeling queasy. Thank God Sean worked nearby. He drove me to his work. They took care of me. We drove back to the park so I could get my car, and I drove home.”

“Any second date?”

“No.”

“What doctor attended you?”

“Sean knew Dr. Winkel himself. He’s a funny man, but a good doctor. In fact, he became my primary care physician.”

“Did your life change in any remarkable way afterward?”

“No. Things went pretty much according to plan. Dr. Winkel helped me get a fellowship at UC Santa Cruz, where I studied under Dr. Kim’s friend, Dr. Park. She remembered me from Starbucks. Anyway, I went on to get my PhD, and I continued at the SC Center for Advanced Studies.”

“Were you dating while you went to Hayward University?”

“Yes, but I decided to slow that down. I could not afford to get pregnant. Let’s face it, I look like a Swedish bikini model. Guys really only dated me for one thing, and although I really enjoy sex, picking the right guy is a lot harder than you think.”

“At Hayward, how often did you engage in sex?”

“If I was dating a guy, about two or three times a week. Only after the third date, mind you. When I wasn’t dating anyone, maybe once a week, maybe less.”

“When did you join therightkind.com?”

“The summer after graduation.”

“How often did you engage in sex with men from therightkind.com?”

“Does multiple times a day on long dates count as one or maybe four?”

“At college, did you ever spend the night with your partner, have sex at night, and then sex in the morning?”

“Yeah, sometimes, but I also had to study.”

“Fine, how did you count those?”

“Oh, I get it. I’d say three or four times a week. It was different though.”

“We’ll get to that later. Did all the dates go pretty much the same?”

“Wealthy gentlemen offer more opportunities. Sometimes we go out on a yacht, or take a private plane to La Paz, or Buenos Aires. Is that what you mean?”

“Well, let’s say you arrive at a date, engage in some activities and then go home.”

“Okay?”

“Did all your dates go roughly like that?”

“All except one.”

“What happened?”

“Last year, I had a date at the W. I parked inside a lot a couple blocks away, you know, because with the rich and powerful, a little discretion is always needed. And this guy was by my car. A strange guy. He kept adding S sounds to every other word. Afterward, I tried to look up pathologies that would cause that speech disorder.”

“Which one was it?”

“My colleagues and I couldn’t find one that fit close enough.”

“What else did you remember about this encounter?”

“He was very rude and started treating me rough.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I blacked out.”

“Was that because this guy stuck you with a needle or hurt you in any way?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I just collapsed, you know, like my brain shut off. I was out like a light. Yeah, like someone just hit a switch and goodnight.”

“Is that all you remember?”

“Well, when I woke, the guy was trying to pick me up. I’m not that heavy, I mean five-eight, one thirty-five, but maybe, when I’m just a lump I can be hard to move.”

“Did this man just leave you then?”

“Yes, but that’s not why.”

“Why?”

“A good samaritan showed up. They knew each other. The guy was named Stout, and the samaritan was an ambulance driver, I think. His name was La-Port-Ez.”

“Jeffries Laportes?”

“I think Laportes is his first name. That’s what the Stout guy kept calling him. He was mad.”

“Insane or angry?”

“Not mutually exclusive, DA.”

“What was he?”

“He was angry. Not at me, but at Laportes. I can’t explain it. Laportes was cool, like a panther ready to pounce. Stout kept telling him that this wasn’t his place. That made me afraid, like Laportes was going to claim me for some nefarious purpose, you know, like rape if I was lucky, torture and murder if I wasn’t.”

“What happened?”

“After Stout left, Laportes helped me up. He ended up being very nice, very respectful. He told me not to worry about the other guy. I said that he was threatening him quite a bit, that he was a large guy, much bigger than him, but Laportes said the guy knew better than to mess with him, and that he would not mess with me anymore.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that was it.”

“A couple more questions if you do not mind.”

“Okay.”

“When the police brought you in for questioning, they took you to San Francisco General, where they did a CAT scan of your head. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“What did the CAT scan show?”

“There were millions of little robots lining nerves in my central brain and along my optic and auditory nerves.”

“They are called nanites. Do you know how they got there?”

“No.”

“Do you know what they were there for?”

“Not exactly. I believe they monitored my brain activity and influenced that activity by applying electric current to either cancel, enhance or initiate certain functions.”

“What functions?”

“All sorts of functions, speaking as a scientist, that is.”

“Do you have the expertise to discuss this?”

“Yes, this is the sort of thing I worked on at the SC Center for Advanced Studies.”

“Would those functions combine to force a woman to have sex with a man she never before met?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It would take an advanced and powerful computer to control a person by brain-area stimulation, and the result would be less than satisfactory for most men. I mean, it would be robotic, and, although robotics has made great advances the last couple of decades, I doubt the state of the art would be, well, satisfactory.”

“In your time with therightkind.com, you engaged in sex with men you’d never met before.”

“Yes.”

“Was that your normal behavior?”

“What do you mean by normal?”

“Given your past, your upbringing, your values, and your knowledge before the time you met Sean Beacon, do you think you would have joined therightkind.com?”

“I am not sure.”

“Do you think the injection of nanites in your brain and the electric charges they fired in your brain influenced your having sex with therightkind.com clients?”

“I’ll make this easy for you.”

“Okay.”

“I think they conditioned me to have sex with the men I met through therightkind.com.”

“Can you explain that?”

“One of the early test subjects, before my time at the center, well, she almost never selected or enjoyed vanilla ice cream. The center mapped her brain. They found what areas of her brain fired when she thought about her favorite ice cream and what brain areas fired when she likely thought about vanilla ice cream. With an induction probe net, they started firing the positive ice cream areas when she thought about vanilla. Over time, she started selecting vanilla ice cream, and they reinforced that selection by firing pleasure areas of her brain. By the end of the study, she preferred vanilla, quite strongly. She was conditioned to choose and enjoy a flavor of ice cream she previously listed as her least favorite.”

“And the nanites can condition other behaviors including social and sexual behaviors?”

“Not on their own, but, guided by advanced brain mapping, memory associations and human analysis, yes.”

“What would it take to aid nanites to do this?”

“At the center we got pretty good at it.”

“Did you use nanites at the SC Center for Advanced Studies?”

“No, we used conventional functional MRIs and CAT scans.”

“That’s it?”

“No, we had considerable computer analysis to help map a subject’s brain interactively, and some of the subjects let us implant surface probe networks, which gave us the ability to stimulate certain brain areas. It was all very experimental.”

“From what you know about nanites, like the ones inside your brain, would they be more effective than the equipment you used at the center?”

“From what I saw in the CAT scans, yes. The nanite network in my brain would have been very capable.”

“Would they have allowed you to condition someone to do things they were unlikely to do without the conditioning?”

“Me? No. I’m pretty smart, but it’s not that simple.”

“Can you explain?”

“The human brain is not like your car’s fuse box.”

“It’s more like your car’s ECU?”

“Even an engine control unit is still too simple; those have one or two core processors. It’s more like Watson, IBM’s supercomputer with tens of thousands of processors set up in a complex network. I’m good. I’ve got a PhD in the area. With work, lots of work, I can understand a good bit of what’s going on in a fully mapped brain. To use that information to condition someone takes real genius.”

“Could Dr. Sarah Kim or Dr. Hyung Park do it?”

“Dr. Kim, for sure. I’m not so sure about Dr. Park.”

“How about Calvin Wirther?”

“Who is he?”

“The owner of NanoBotics.”

“I don’t know him very well.”

“You had sex with him on a few occasions.”

“I can only remember one. It was before I joined therightkind.com.”

“How many times do you remember having sex with Dr. Winkel?”

“Hmm. Three. One, two, three. Oh wait, four. Four times.”

“A couple more questions if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.”

“Are you aware that the SC Center for Advanced Studies’ majority owner is SCMedGroup?”

“No. Really?”

“Did you know that the SCMedGroup is owned, via a string of holding corporations, one hundred percent by Dr. Vincent Winkel?”

“No. Finance was never a subject at which I excelled.”

“So of all the women we discovered with NanoBotics nanites in their head, and who, consequently, had sex with both Dr. Vincent Winkel and Calvin Wirther, you were the only one actually employed by Dr. Winkel.”

“If your information is correct, I was indirectly employed by Dr. Winkel. I’m wondering, were there any women who were discovered with nanites but did not sleep with Wirther and Winkel?”

“Just one. You were the only one to end up working for Dr. Winkel.”

“Indirectly.”

“Still, Cal Wirther’s defense may make an issue of it.”

“Would the fact that my sexual relations with Dr. Winkel benefited my career make a difference in this case?”

“The defense may use that fact to discredit your testimony, especially since Dr. Winkel may testify against Calvin Wirther.”

* * *

“Jesus fucking Christ, Peter!” Marcia covered her mouth as if to stop any more profanity. “Why haven’t we deposed her? She’d scare the, uh, stuffing, out of the defense.”

“How do you figure?”

“She connects the dots from sex workers to Laportes to Winkel&#8212”

“The one we’re in a plea deal with.”

“Okay, okay.” Marcia sat next to Peter.

“But then Winkel can make the link to NanoBotics which was owned by Wirther. We’ve got him.”

“Winkel was a co-owner of NanoBotics until he screwed Wirther’s wife on office video. So how’s he going to make the connection without incriminating himself? That was the deal. He will testify about anything, so long as he does not have to incriminate himself.”

“We won’t lead him down that path.”

“Dead end. Put him on the stand after Thalstrom, and the defense will pounce. He starts invoking the fifth, the judge steps in, invalidates his testimony, and we’re at mistrial.”

“Okay, she’s still an expert. We can get a lot of this stuff in.”

“Not expert enough. The defense will get someone in, someone at Kim’s level. Thalstrom defers, and her testimony withers. We press it, and the judge may strike all her testimony, and we’re at mistrial again. Still a dead end.”

“You know that when we tell Aguilar about this, he will insist we lead with Ilsa.”

“Not our best lead.”

“You have an agenda?”

“Everyone has an agenda.”

“You have an agenda.”

“I told you my agenda. Get you to turn this case over to the feds. My backup plan was to try Wirther by telling the story of his arrest.”

“And Ilsa won’t get us there?”

“No police contact until the victim roundup.”

“Okay then, who is your lead?”

“What do Ilsa Thalstrom and Olive Petra have in common?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Okay, both were NanoBotics sex workers, both are women. So far, we haven’t deposed either of them. After that, nothing.”

“They are both five foot eight.”

“Yeah, but Olive is one-fifty. Ilsa is White, Olive Black. Ilsa was single, Olive married. Ilsa has graduate degrees, Olive a GED. Ilsa speaks elegant English, Olive sounds like refined East Bay at best. Juries will love Ilsa. Olive, not so much.”

“You missed the critical part.” Peter leafed through file folders stacked on the table until he found Olive Petra’s file.

“Standard stuff for these women. Happily married until something sent her to Winkel Medical Center, where she became Dr. Winkel’s patient. Separated from her husband. Went from an office manager at an auto insurance company to a management consultant within a year. Divorced her husband; Glenda Wilkins was her attorney. Joined therightkind.com. Dated two times a week, and almost all dates included sex. Jeez, it’s a wonder these guys weren’t caught sooner. Such a predictable modus operandi.” Peter opened the file.

“Yeah, just no police reports or complaints or anything for the police to investigate.”

“You know better than that, but here is the part that makes Olive Petra our leadoff witness.” Peter passed Marcia part of Lt. Jasper Williams’s deposition.

* * *

PG:	Did you lead the raid on NanoBotics’s office in Santa Cruz?
JW:	No, the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office organized a special tactics team comprised of deputies, police officers from several departments and California Highway Patrol officers. Deputy Walter Mattis coordinated and led the operation.
PG:	Were you part of the operation?
JW:	Yes.
PG:	In what capacity?
JW:	I assisted in command and control.
PG:	Is that your usual assignment on special task forces like this?
JW:	No. I do not usually participate in special operations like this.
PG:	Then why were you there?
JW:	I provided the information necessary for obtaining the search and arrest warrants.
PG:	How did you obtain that information?
JW:	That’s difficult to explain. Where do I begin?
PG:	Let’s keep it close to operation date, for now.
JW:	Darcy Musgrave’s colleague cracked . . .

* * *

“Oh, no. Not her.” Marcia slapped Williams’s deposition on the table.

“Yes, her. She’s our case.” Peter scooped up the pages and held them out for Marcia. “Keep reading.”

* * *

JW:	Darcy Musgrave’s colleague cracked therightkind’s vetting system and the sheriff’s office funded a subscription.
PG:	Go on.
JW:	Using the subscription, I arranged a date with Olive Petra on February second at the Holiday Inn.
PG:	What happened on the date?
JW:	Olive Petra arrived a few minutes late. I invited her into the room and identified myself as law enforcement.
PG:	Did she try to flee?
JW:	No. She collapsed and fell into a coma. She remained comatose for three months. Basically, until enough of the nanites in her brain flushed away.
PG:	If Olive Petra collapsed right away, how did she provide information leading to the NanoBotics’s raid?
JW:	Her arrival was all we needed. It confirmed Darcy Musgrave’s research. When we presented the forensic epidemiology report and the Petra incident to Judge Nathan, he granted search and arrest warrants.

* * *

“Darcy Musgrave is the only person in this whole case smart enough to bring Calvin Wirther down. Her story is our best shot at a conviction. And we start with Olive Petra. The sample jury attitudes were based on photographs only. Juries don’t like Black women. I don’t like it, but I know it.”

“So let’s go with Ilsa. Juries like pretty blondes.”

“Olive is an attractive woman; she’s in Ilsa’s league. All of them are in the same elite call girl league.”

“Thanks for making me feel like chopped liver.”

“When you decide to forgo your legal career and become a call girl, let me know.”

“Wow. I instantly regret opening that door.” Marcia tried an awkward smile but stopped when Peter’s face remained serious. “She’s undeposed. The defense will complain.”

“She’s been on the witness list since the beginning. If they balk, which I don’t think they will, we’ll ask the judge for a continuance. Either way, we’re clear.”

Marcia’s head cocked to her right, her expression doubtful.

“Olive Petra has been a professional management consultant for five years. She knows how to speak in public, how to draw an audience’s interest and how to sway them to her point of view. She’s our leadoff witness. Ilsa Thalstrom may be more likely to get male, and female, jurors to like her, but her story leads us to nothing but dead ends.”

“I don’t like this.” Marcia handed Peter Lt. Williams’s deposition pages.

“It’s our best move. The only thing I can’t quite decide is to follow with Williams, or, and I’m leaning in this direction, go directly to Musgrave.”

Chapter 16: Dt. Darcy Musgrave

Darcy first obtained POST certification for basic policing. Many security guards received the same training. From there, she took two courses a quarter toward obtaining a bachelor’s degree in criminology, which would serve as adequate education for a detective. Since she already possessed a master’s degree, she only needed twenty criminology-specific courses.

In the meantime, she partnered with MNES’s investigators. Any time MNES needed intense data analysis, they called on Darcy. For most of her assignments, she partnered with Tree, apparently at his request. Tree investigated potential “computer crime”: embezzlement, corporate espionage, and exit agreement breaches (most high-tech employees and entrepreneurs signed agreements stating that, upon exit, they would not take with them any hardware, software or techniques developed at their place of employment). Since MNES worked with most of Silicon Valley’s high-tech corporations, Tree had access to many of their systems, though he claimed he didn’t need preapproved access.

Darcy and Brad broke up. No drama. Brad earned his doctorate in European history the year before and worked as a teaching associate. A small private college in North Dakota offered him an associate professorship. Brad took it.

Darcy looked forward to finishing her doctorate, though her Survey Project looked like a doubtful avenue to that end. Between long hours at MNES and getting in shape to pass her field qualification, Darcy lost excess pounds. Her face sharpened, and she never felt more attractive, ready for the dating scene, whatever that was. Patricia Cummings, her librarian friend, dated often. Darcy planned to ask her for help.

At work, Darcy practiced her detective skills. Tree worked to find both information and financial leaks at MNES clients. Darcy tracked down his leads, surveilled and interviewed client staff, and interrogated suspects. After work, Darcy stayed behind and worked on survey data. Besides her eight confirmed hits, she accumulated over two hundred thousand survey responses yielding another 1,083 possible hits. After two years of gathering new surveys and filtering out chaff, she devised a plan to turn possible hits into confirmed hits and misses.

Women identified as displaying radical behavior change rarely provided usable information. Anyone who accepted survey follow-up interviews could be classified as a miss. Of the original eight, only Ilsa Thalstrom accepted an interview and only once. One hundred and forty-two women refused either an initial or second interview. Darcy tracked down and interviewed the person who filled out her survey. From these interviews, Darcy compiled a list of fifty-seven hits. The process took over four years. In the meantime, she discovered three hundred and twelve new possibles in her data.

She closed off new survey intake and worked off her new possibles. In the end, she compiled a list of seventy-three women falling into a narrow behavior/circumstance pattern.

“Extremely unlikely?” Tree reviewed Darcy’s results.

“Outright indicative. I’m just not sure what to do about it. Actually, there is an offshoot anomaly in the data that might be more productive.”

“You can’t make a statement like that without telling me what that is.”

“A lot of respondents tried to use the survey to bring up missing women. At first, I just tossed them into the misses pile. All the hits stayed around in plain, but annoying, view. Many missing women have a striking common attribute.”

“Again?” Tree turned his palm up to prompt Darcy.

“They were all aged sixteen to twenty at the time of their disappearance, and they were all aspiring models.” Darcy handed Tree a USB flash drive.

“If they’re out there, I will find them. Now, about the hits. Anything interesting come up?”

“Two things. One I can handle. The other I need your help with.”

‘Wow. At work, I give you assignments. After work, you give them to me.”

“Sorry about that. I don’t mean to be bossy, but six women I interviewed said their friends mentioned a dating site called ‘therightkind.com.’ I thought I could look at the women’s profiles. All I get is a top page. Every time I try to sign up, it kicks me out.”

“No problem. No site on the web that can keep me out. I’ll take that one first. I’ll have a data drive for you by morning. What are you gonna work on?”

“This one is interesting. A Ms. Herrera was picked up during the Merchant Product. She was affiliated with the Sunnyvale Zombies. She filled out a survey at the police station awaiting booking. Cool, huh? Anyway, she said a friend of hers volunteered for something like therightkind years ago because an Asian woman nearby had her life turned around by it, and she wanted her life turned around.”

“That’s interesting. But what are you going to do with that?”

“I think the Asian woman is Lily Moh, based on the geography. The woman in question is Yolanda Morales. She knows a Jeffries Laportes because he hung around the gang girls. Now this Laportes guy has absolutely no connection to Lily Moh, so that’s a nonstarter, but he has a direct connection to Ms. Morales. I think I’m going to follow up with him.”

“Be careful. Be very careful.” Tree typed on his laptop computer.

“Why?”

“Look at this.”

McElvaney and Evans compiled dossiers on every known gang member. Jeffries Laportes’s dossier comprised many files, all of which indicated his potential danger to any MNES staff. Darcy reviewed the file and decided to surveil Laportes in lieu of interviewing him.

Jeffries Laportes presented several surveillance problems. He drove multiple vehicles: a gray Toyota Camry (just like Darcy’s), a perfectly restored 69 Camaro in light blue with white rally stripes, and a nondescript white van that might have been an ambulance in a former life.

She found his Camaro in Santa Clara where he hung out with a gang. Darcy previously bought a couple of burritos for the night’s surveillance and decided to take one out of her thermally insulated picnic bag when Laportes raced to his car and sped to the Winkel Medical Clinic where he kept his van. He drove erratically past the Palo Alto Westin Hotel and stopped a couple blocks away.

Another man, tall and stocky, had trouble moving an unconscious blonde woman. Laportes approached him and, after a loud argument, convinced him to leave the woman on the street. Laportes managed to revive the woman. When he got her to her feet, Darcy recognized her, Ilsa Thalstrom, looking like a slightly disheveled fashion model in a blue cocktail dress.

Darcy fumbled for her book bag in the back seat. She wanted to continue her notes. Entries from her first five evenings took up about two pages. She noted that the Santa Cruz Winkel Medical Center rented space to other doctors, but a not-so-medical business, NanoBotics, occupied several offices on the second floor.

Head bent down to review notes, Darcy drew a mouthful of Diet Pepsi through her straw. She failed to check her mirrors. A sharp blow from behind splattered soda onto the page.

Darcy awoke in a converted warehouse loft. Nice double bed, perhaps queen size, 800-thread-count sheets. Better than her sheets at home. Most of her clothes were gone. Her assailants left her in her blue butterfly pattern bra and panties. She caught her reflection in a mirror across the room and determined she should buy more adult undergarments, black, maybe red.

Someone left a sandwich and fruit on the table. Darcy knew to avoid eating them. Being at a secondary scene put her on her guard, and she feared drugging. Though this loft’s furnishings looked modern, its walls and windows looked aged, the windows so weathered that looking out revealed little. Darcy saw some water, perhaps ocean, likely the Pacific. Cars, SUVs and minivans came and went. They parked in the building. She tried pushing on a few window panes which were all securely mounted. One of the dining area chairs could smash through, but the fall would likely cause injury, Darcy saw no other person. Strange door, no knobs. She inspected the door jamb and discovered the door secured by a deadbolt style lock. She felt air on her arms. Central heating and air. She washed a plastic cup next to the sandwich and drank water from the tap. Her head still hurt. She tried sitting on a dining room chair, but the bed’s comfort beckoned her. Though against her training, she slept.

In the morning, light streaming from the windows ushered her into consciousness. Someone replaced the sandwich with bagels and cream cheese. Hunger persuaded Darcy to try some fruit. She chose a banana and some strawberries. Mistake. Within half an hour she felt far better and far woozier than mere nutrition could account for. Almost on cue, a man entered the room.

“Miss Morgan.” The man had no clue that Darcy Musgrave used her MNES alias for her off-book surveillance. Any attempt to access Meagan Morgan’s records triggered Tree’s computers. “Your presence is required. Come with me.”

He approached Darcy and half carried her down a hall into an elevator and to a second-floor office. Darcy tried to resist but could not generate enough muscle control to throw convincing punches. He deposited her into a plush chair in front of a desk and waited somewhere behind her.

A man sat in shadows to the right side of a large wooden, perhaps cherry wood, desk. He smoked a cigar which betrayed his otherwise concealed presence. The three waited in silence for a few minutes until a large, stocky man burst into the room and took his place behind the desk.

“Yous name’s not Meagan Morgan. Yous mind telling us yous real name?”

“I’m Meagan.”

Desk Man nodded to Wall Man, who approached, turned and slugged Darcy in her stomach.

Darcy doubled over. The impact knocked the wind from her and she hyperventilated. Darcy could not suppress an abdominal surge. Vomit erupted.

“I told yous we should doos this in her room.” Desk Man turned to Shadow Man.

Shadow Man puffed his cigar and his exhaled odors combined ash and garlic.

“It does not matters. Theys knows better. Now yous mind telling us what yous doing on High Street?”

“Picking up a friend. Taking her to SFO.”

“Peoples do that at the hotel’s entrance, not two blocks away.”

Darcy shrugged. She played for time, but she had already been abducted for at least twelve, perhaps fifteen hours.

“This yous friend?” Desk Man held up a picture of Ilsa Thalstrom.

Darcy shook her head.

“No. Okays no. Maybes this yous friend.” He held up a picture of Jeffries Laportes.

Darcy shook her head.

“Buts you knows who this is?”

Darcy shook her head. Desk Man looked over to Shadow Man. Shadow Man took another puff on his cigar.

“Fine. Hows ’bouts this one.” Desk Man held up a picture of Dr. Vincent Winkel.

“San Francisco Chronicle.”

“Whats?”

“That picture was in the San Francisco Chronicle last month. Anyone could know who he is.”

“Hows ’bouts yous tells us?”

“Dr. Vincent Winkel, philanthropist.”

Laughter burst from Shadow Man.

“Okay, okay. This guy?” Desk Man held up a photo of an attractive man, mid-to-late thirties, blond, tall, athletic.

Darcy shook her head. Darcy knew little about this man except that he entered and exited from the NanoBotics offices at the Winkel Medical Center.

“And this gal?” Desk Man held up a picture of an attractive blonde woman, late twenties to early thirties. She, too, frequented the NanoBotics offices.

Darcy shook her head.

“At least you are shaking your head honestly.” Shadow Man put out his cigar and stood. “You probably haven’t worked for M and E long. Your body betrays your silence. What you don’t know is that they would rather sacrifice you than start a war with me.” He turned to Desk Man. “We got all we’re going to get from her. I’m done here.”

“What’s we to do?” Desk Man stood as well.

“Put her to work, put her down. It’s up to you.”

“Put her to work?”

“Not here, she’s Fourth Rate at best.” Shadow walked over to Desk Man and clasped his shoulder as a good-bye gesture. “Somewhere they’ll have trouble finding her, like Barstow.”

“I sees.” Desk Man nodded to Wall Man. Shadow Man left.

Darcy felt a pinch in the back of her neck. She keeled over and plopped into her own vomit.

Consciousness crept into Darcy’s brain like a coyote at a campsite, tentative at first, testing its environment, seeing what it could get away with. Upon discovering no one attended the food remnants, the feast was on. Darcy employed all her senses.

This room inspired desire for her previous cell. Small, perhaps fifteen feet square. A bathroom to the side infused the space with dank, somewhat fetid odors. Dim light from two sconce lamps with red lace cloth draped over their shades revealed worn pinkish-gray walls, a color popular some twenty years ago. Darcy lay, naked, on a twin bed, mattress and box spring, no frame. A cheap polyester-blend blanket which, were it not worn down, would scratch and irritate exposed skin. A skimpy red negligee lay next to Darcy. Though it wouldn’t protect her from anything, not even prying eyes, she donned it.

Darcy paced the room for a while. It was what it was, a sort of cell with a locked, heavy door and barred window. On one of two nightstands, a bowl stocked with condoms suggested the room’s intent. She sat on the bed’s edge until she decided to rest.

The door swung open. The man opening it said, “Farm fresh.” A second man rushed in. He stopped at a stuffed chair and undressed himself. Darcy tried talking to him.

“What are you doing?” elicited a simple, “Duh.”

“Don’t you have any shame?”

“No, farm girl. If anything, the shame’s on you.”

“I’m not that sort of girl.” Darcy stood. Months of self-defense classes from when she earned her POST certification should now pay off. She approached him to cut down his angles of attack.

“You’re what I paid a hundred for.” He advanced.

Darcy timed her kick and connected with his left thigh. A miss. He slapped her. Not a love slap, not a warning. Though openhanded, it carried enough force to twist her neck and drive her to the cheap nylon pile carpeting, producing rug burn along her side.

“And I’m going to get my money’s worth.” He picked her up and threw her toward the bed but missed. Darcy landed short of the bed; more rug rash. She glistened, sweat and tears. The man, mostly naked save for stained crew-socked feet, tried to lift her. She slipped and did her best to emulate a boulder. The man laced his arms under her armpits and pulled her into a stooped stance, facing the bed. He penetrated her. She dropped like a stone, far enough to evacuate him, but not far enough to seek the floor’s safety. His knee caught her butt and forced her torso forward, up and onto the bed. He slapped her butt, and it stung.

He slapped her often. He pushed her farther onto the bed, grabbed a leg, flipped her onto her back, grabbed her other leg and drew her buttocks to the bed’s ledge.

Nothing dissuaded his assault: not tears, shouts, screams or feeble swings. Every attempt earned hard, sharp slaps. “Just give me an excuse,” he growled after she tried to squirm away. Darcy stopped fighting. She knew she lost. She shut her eyes and tried to drive from her mind all thoughts of what he was doing to her. He slapped her for that. Any time she shut her eyes. He seemed reenergized every time he thwarted her escapes. Darcy realized he wanted more than sex. He wanted control. He wanted to rape her, and he wanted her to acknowledge his domination of her. He grew harder every time he struck her, and she looked into his eyes. Look away, and he struck her again.

Darcy lost track of time. She focused on reducing pain. Darcy controlled her reaction. He pressed his hand on her throat and choked her. Darcy’s survival instinct took over. She shook her head. He pressed harder. Too hard. She lost consciousness.

She checked. He was gone. Darcy found liquid soap and washcloths in the bathroom. She washed herself as best she could. While drying herself, she heard the door unlatch and the words, “Farm fresh.”

By the time she finished drying, another man undressed himself and smiled. He trapped Darcy inside the bathroom.

She tried to walk past, but he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her ear. Darcy drove her elbow into his ribs. He pushed her against the wall and socked her in the stomach. She doubled over, into his arms.

“That’s a good girl.” He ushered her to the bed. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

He treated her much like the first man except he pinched and punched. At least he used condoms. Afterward, he spooned Darcy, fondling her and licking her ears. When she cringed, he raped her again.

“Sorry, babe.” He relented. “Go clean up.”

By the time Darcy cleaned up, he knocked on the door and left when it opened.

“Stop fighting.”

Darcy considered physiological breakdown but concluded no internal persona communicated with her.

“No fighting.”

“What?” Darcy approached the wall opposite the bathroom. “What did you say?”

“No make fight.” The woman on the other side of the wall half spoke, half yelled. “They beat you for that.”

Darcy heard knocking from her neighbor’s door. Soon, she heard a visitor occupy her neighbor. Not long after that, another man assaulted and raped Darcy.

Between engagements, Darcy rested against their common wall. Maricela offered more advice. Darcy should knock on the door if she needed something. Also she should charge for add-ons. Add-ons included bareback, Greek and MSOG. Darcy had no idea what bareback, Greek, and MSOG meant. Maricela explained each of these. Apparently, MSOG had something to do with football. Brad watched football on Sundays and Monday nights. Darcy resolved to never watch football with any new boyfriend. Maricela also told Darcy that each add-on cost fifty dollars. If the man did not pay, she should knock on the door and let the bosses know.

Darcy knocked on the door. A man, the one who kept saying, “Farm fresh,” answered.

“I need some water.”

“You have a faucet.”

“There’s no cup.”

“Drink from the tap.” He started to shut the door.

“The men, they are not paying for add-ons.”

“That’s right, bitch. You are a specialty item. Flat rate.”

“What’s so special about me?”

“You’re fresh from the farm. Some of these men really like that, though the last guy said you just took it. You should fight a little. It makes these guys think they’re first.”

“If I fight, they beat me and rape me.”

“Can’t rape a whore.”

“I’m not a whore.”

“Men pay to have sex with you. What else can you be?”

“I’m a hostage. I’m a . . .” Darcy did not want to say “victim.”

Her boss slapped her across her cheek and pushed her onto the bed. She sat on the foot of the bed. He unzipped his jeans and pulled them and his underwear down.

“Suck it.” He pulled her face to his groin. “Good girl, you give me a blow job while I explain a few things to you. Good, a little harder. Good.” He took a moment. “I paid twenty grand for you. That’s all I know about you. That’s all I need to know. Got it?”

Darcy did not know how to argue in this situation.

Darcy pulled away. “They had no right to sell me.”

“What?”

“Those guys kidnapped me today. They had no right to sell me.”

“That’s between you and them. I paid for you, and you’re going to earn your keep. This is not up for negotiation.”

Darcy looked past her boss. He left the door open, and his pants were down. She tried darting past him. Unsuccessful. His arm caught her and flung her back on the bed. He stumbled as he approached.

“You think you can run past me?” He slapped her. “You think you can outsmart me?” He slapped her again. “You bitch!” He grabbed her hips and positioned her on the bed’s ledge. “You whore!” Penetration. “You do as I say.” He continued. “Come on, fight.” And so it went for another few minutes. Darcy stopped listening. For her, it was all madness. She sobbed. She did not want to. She could not control it. Nothing seemed to be in her control.

“Now you understand me?” He pulled his trousers up. “There are a couple more things you should know.”

Darcy lay on her side and whimpered.

“Listen to me.” He slapped her.

Darcy looked up at him.

“There are two add-ons, of sorts, for you.”

“What?”

“Death and damage.”

“What?”

“Damage is when they do something that makes you less of a fuck. Bruises don’t count, but slicing open your face would. Broken bones.”

“Great.” Darcy regained a semblance of control.

“Damage costs five hundred for you. Death costs five thousand.”

“But you said I cost twenty.”

“Not all purchases work out. You stay in this biz long enough, you’ll understand.”

“I’ll understand?”

“Sooner or later, you bitches just make us wanna kill ya. Get any more ideas about making a run for it, and I may do it myself. It’d be worth it.”

Darcy stared at him.

“Now, freshen yourself up. Some desperate fuck may yet want to spend a hundred on you.” He turned, went through the door and closed it.

Darcy followed more of Maricela’s advice. She helped take off their clothes; she knelt on a pillow to give them fellatio and make raping her seem like consensual sex. She feared retaliation, not only from her boss but also the men. As her boss insisted, some wanted to win a fight. They all wanted rough sex. Brad was never like this.

Darcy tried to mark time. She made notches in her bar of soap. On the seventh day, her boss made her trade in the soap. By her calculations, ten days since her abduction.

On the eighth day in this dingy room, Tree entered.

“Nice.” He smiled. “Now, do you have anything else to wear?”

“How?”

“We’ll do the Ws later. Right now we need to get you outta here.”

Darcy sat at the edge of her bed. Tree helped her up.

“I’m going to pretend that I paid for the night.”

Tree took out a pocket multi-tool and disassembled the door’s lock.

“You are leaving here with me. Just act like you are to entertain at a bachelor party or something. Just come along and try to keep pace.” He wrapped his arm around her and led her down the hall.

“I brought a small team with me, but we can’t just raid the place. M and E doesn’t want a war.” They descended a single flight of stairs and entered the lobby.

“Hey!” A man from behind a counter attempted to intercept.

Darcy recognized the MNES bodyguard who “accidentally” tripped Counter Man and “clumsily” attempted to help him up. Three more plainclothes MNES men waited outside the glass front doors. Two opened them for Tree and Darcy. A black Honda Accord followed by a black Chevy Tahoe SUV pulled up. The driver of the Accord went into the SUV. Tree opened the Accord’s door and put Darcy into the passenger seat. The three MNES men by the door ran off to yet another SUV. The MNES inside man stayed inside.

One by one, MNES cars left the Just As Good As Home Hotel. Every time Darcy tried to speak, Tree made the silence gesture and pointed to the radio tuned to MNES communications. First, one SUV peeled off to take another route. Its team reported that everything looked good, but they would still follow procedure. Twenty minutes later, the other SUV saluted Tree for a plan well devised and chose their alternate route.

“Okay, Darcy. We seem to be in the clear.”

Darcy looked over to him but could no longer find words.

“Nice tits.” Tree smiled and winked. “I didn’t anticipate finding you naked, or near naked. I have some emergency gear in the trunk. A pack I use for hiking and skiing. I’m going to pull off the freeway at the next exit and see what we can do.”

Tree returned with a gray sweater, far too warm for an August afternoon, and a Mylar blanket.

“Don’t bother taking off your nightie. I don’t want my plan to fall apart with you getting arrested for being nude in public.”

Darcy pulled the sweater over her torso and draped the blanket over her legs. Tree turned up the car’s air-conditioning. In a minute, they used a highway to cut over from Freeway 5 to Route 101.

“Can I speak now?”

“Yeah. We should be in the clear.”

“How?”

“There’s four Ws and an H, so you choose the H.”

“How did you find me?”

“Meagan Morgan inquests popped up the first day. I got the alert at home. I put a block and trace on Darcy Musgrave as well. An hour or so later, it got a hit.” Tree looked over at Darcy. “You used your own car. Never use your own car.”

“I didn’t feel right taking a company car for my private work.”

“Bullshit! M and E values you. Green and White both told you MNES resources were at your disposal.”

“Still . . .”

“No, no, no, no, no. You don’t understand. Your car had its registration in it. Your registration had your address. Your apartment is compromised. I got a team to move all your stuff into storage. Both your laptop and your personal computer are at my place. I saved your butt. You’re lucky.”

“Yeah, I’m lucky.” Darcy let sobs escape.

“Not what I mean. I mean I saved you from further exposure.”

“Further exposure.” Darcy’s sobs grew to full crying. “The only way I could have been more exposed is if I lost this nothing of a nightie.”

“Look. I don’t know all the crap that happened to you. Sorry. But we have to be smart right now. I need coherent Darcy right now. Okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“In the back seat, I have some sustenance and hydration. Not much, just energy bars and water. You can grab them when you’re ready.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a ton we need to do right now, so brace up.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good. I think our first stop will be my sister’s. You’re about her size. You can shower and dress there. I don’t live far from there, so we’ll go to my place and get your computers. From there, well, let’s see.”

“Let’s see? What the hell does that mean? I just want to go home, but . . .” Darcy cried.

“There’s a lot you need to know in order to make good decisions.” Tree focused on his driving to avoid comforting Darcy. “You ready?”

“No.” Darcy spoke through tears. “I’ve been through a lot the last . . .”

“Ten days, eight or so hours.”

“Good.” Darcy wiped her face. “I was able to keep track of time. That’s a start.”

“No. The start was your lists. Remember them?”

“Yes. The Survey Project.”

“You gave me two assignments. Jeez.” Tree wiped his forehead. “I don’t know where to start. Well, I know where I’d like to start&#8212therightkind.com. I could kill you for that. It has the most frustrating security I’ve ever encountered.”

“Sorry.” Darcy resolved to block out her feelings. Become the old Darcy. Keep it together.

“Not your fault. Don’t be sorry. I think I know the guy who set up that monstrosity.”

“Who?”

“Good. Your first W.” Tree looked over and flashed Darcy a smile. “And the answer is a W as well. Wirther.”

“Calvin Wirther, NanoBotics? Or Mia, who was his wife?” Darcy concentrated on Tree’s words, forcing herself to follow this conversation.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Wirther and Winkel set up NanoBotics. Partners. Well, partners until Winkel screwed Mia on a surveillance camera.”

“How did they fit?” Darcy chuckled.

“Funny now? Anyway, you already knew that. It was in your file. Not in file: Mia Wirther is on therightkind.com.”

“Wow. I would never have thought&#8212”

“I’m just warming up. I had to trace therightkind’s ownership through a maze of shell companies and shady banks. NanoBotics is the majority owner of therightkind.com.”

“Mia Wirther uses her ex-husband’s dating service?”

“I wouldn’t quite call it a dating service. On the dark net, there’s a site called punternet.com. It ain’t about football kickers. They rate all sorts of sex workers and pimping services. Therightkind.com has a ten out of ten boner rating, as do most of the women on it.”

“Most of the women? You hacked your way in!” Darcy caught up. The reasoning part of her brain wrested control over more primal brain regions.

“Yeah, thanks for that. It wasn’t easy.”

“Poor Tree. It must have taken you all of an evening.”

“Eight friggin’ days, and I still didn’t hack my way in.”

“Then how did you know about the women on the site?”

“My story?”

“Your story.”

“Okay. I thought it would be easy. I mean, how much security does a dating site need? But soon, I realized the site had adaptive security. No problem. Most adaptive security sites play the odds. They know hackers try one technique for a while and move on. They always cover the basics, but hit them with your favorite attack, then hit them with twenty other attacks and then loop back. Bam! You’re in.”

“Okay, so it took you a couple of days.”

“Not even! This damn site rebuked me at every turn; then it sent me down a rabbit hole for two days. I’m sure I tripped a few wires. Some security specialist probably laughed his ass off. I used anonymized servers, so I think I’m safe.”

“I’m confused. How did you get in?”

“I beat them at their own game. They have tight-ass security, so you have to go through their vetting process and sign up before you can see anything. You owe me five thousand dollars, by the way. Don’t worry; I think we’ll get reimbursed.”

“You signed up, why not just try a few dates?”

“Tempting, but no. Hell no. Not with these assholes. I tried to sign up. Figured it’d be just a couple of hundred on my credit card. Once I’m in, I can erase everything and, well, not with these guys. They rejected my application. I don’t make enough money. I used my alias. And all the triggers lit up. These guys do deep vets. Totally wrecked my alias. Had to beg a new one out of my manager.”

Darcy looked at him wondering when he’d tell her.

“So I called in a few favors with my more clandestine friends. We created a persona with deep roots. It took days. I just got in late last night. That’s when I checked out the profiles on your survey list. All seventy-three women were there, plus seven more, and Mia Wirther.”

“Calvin Wirther is pimping out his own wife?”

“Ex-wife. Another way to look at it is that Mia Wirther is whoring for her ex-husband.”

“Really?”

“Nine full boners.”

“Only nine?”

“She’s got ten years on you, and you only got four.”

Darcy drew her legs up to her chest and tried to make herself a rock.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it personal. I mean . . . I don’t know what I mean. But Meagan Morgan was listed. That’s, in great part, how I found you.”

Darcy sobbed.

“I know. It was awful. Some of the reviews were quite graphic.”

“Don’t think of me as a whore.”

“I don’t. I know better. You’ve had a horrific time, you have, but you regained a large bit of yourself when I told you where your research led.”

“Thank you.” Darcy reached over and touched his shoulder.

“So after we find you some clothes and such, well, think about what you want to do. I have some ideas, but it’s your call.”

Chapter 17: Jaspar Williams

“Thanks for meeting us here.” Marcia Fong let Lt. Jaspar Williams into her office.

Peter Goode closed the venetian blinds to enhance privacy.

“How can I be of assistance?” Lt. Williams took a seat at a small table between the door and Marcia’s cluttered desk.

“There are a few things in your report we would like to go over.” Marcia took her seat.

“So this is not witness preparation?”

“No, Lieutenant.” Peter took the third chair completing the prearranged triangle. “You are an experienced witness, and the last time you testified for me, you, uh, demonstrated your integrity despite all attempts to prepare your testimony.”

“We value your integrity, but right now, we need to know more about your involvement in the NanoBotics arrests.” Marcia turned Lt. Williams’s attention to herself.

“Fine.”

“To be clear,” she said, “we are thinking about refocusing our case around Darcy Musgrave.”

“Oh God.” Lt. Williams rolled his eyes, looked ceiling-ward, and then rested his head in his hand. “That’s a late move.” He raised his head again. “But, from what I’ve heard about the pretrial motions, I see it.”

“First, can you tell us how you started working with her?” Peter started.

“Professor Cheadle, at Stanford, contacted me about a graduate student in forensic epidemiology wanting to do doctoral research on the criminal side. He asked me to give her some guidance.”

“Is that unusual?” Marcia asked.

“Who’s the prosecutor here?” Lt. Williams shifted his gaze from Peter to Marcia.

“It’s my theory. We’re trying to find out why we shouldn’t use it,” Peter said.

“Beyond the obvious,” Lt. Williams interceded.

“We will get to that, but right now, I want to discuss the more helpful parts. We may ask you to introduce those facts with your testimony. Okay?”

“I understand.”

“So do you often work with graduate students?” Marcia took the lead.

“The Bay Area hosts many distinguished colleges and universities. The Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office receives several requests. As head of investigations, many of those requests come to me. I limit myself to two graduate students a year.”

“How many of those requests are for forensic epidemiology graduate students?”

“Those are few and far between. Most of the requests are from other criminology disciplines.”

“But you have worked with other forensic epidemiology graduate students before?”

“Yes, but not for long. They usually shift their research to civil forensic epidemiology.”

“How about Darcy Musgrave?”

“Since she came from medical school, I thought she would take the civil law path, but she was determined to stick with criminal forensic epidemiology.”

“She did not complete her doctorate on time?”

“Doctorates average eight years. More for complex ones like forensic epidemiology. I think she is still working on hers.”

“Why is that?”

“Her research finally paid off. I believe she is still writing about her findings.”

“No, I mean, why did it take her so long?”

“Let me answer that another way. All the other criminal FE grad students I worked with quickly determined that SFSO crime data would not support doctoral research projects. Darcy and I came to the same conclusion, but Darcy had started a project of her own. We called it, the ‘Survey Project.’ She continued with that project.”

“You said that sheriff’s office data would not support research, but wasn’t there a ‘smash-and-grab’ crime wave going on during that time?”

“It started before Darcy’s time with me.”

“And Darcy worked on that crime wave?”

“She worked on the smash-and-grab criminal activity under the employ of McElvaney and Evans Security.”

“How important was her contribution?”

“Ask them.”

“You have no opinion?”

“Objection.” Peter rapped the table.

“This is not a mock trial, Peter. We can get testimony or an affidavit from M and E.” Turning her attention back to Lt. Williams, Marcia continued: “What do you think they’ll say?”

“Darcy used data to devise new marketing strategies for MNES services. This led to increased merchant participation. High merchant participation had an inoculative effect. Within months, the crime wave ended.”

“Sounds good. Miss Musgrave should have used that for her doctorate.” Marcia flipped through her notes.

“She could not. It would have been like a physicist watching an object fall and writing a paper on gravity.”

“Worked for Isaac Newton.”

“Exactly. It has already been done.”

“So Miss Musgrave is going with her original project?”

“Yes, her Survey Project.”

“What did you think of her Survey Project?”

“At first, fruitless.”

“And now?”

“Revolutionary. The project indirectly identifies potential victims even when the nature of the crime is unknown. Darcy identified two sets of potential victims worth investigating. Calvin Wirther’s victims and another set of women.”

“Are you investigating the second set?”

“I was ordered not to initiate an investigation. Are you?”

“We were given similar direction. No one wants to start a war right now.”

Lt. Williams glared at Marcia while Peter nodded support.

“Let’s review the events leading up to the NanoBotics raid.”

“It is all in my report.”

“Still.”

“Fine. Darcy Musgrave and Elmer Petry, her colleague, approached me with information about links between women identified by Ms. Musgrave’s Survey Project, SCMedGroup, and an exclusive website called therightkind.com which, by reviews left on the dark web, fronted as a call girl booking service.”

“That’s quite a bit there. Can you break it down for me?” Marcia scratched her head.

“Ms. Musgrave identified seventy-three women, all of whom were listed on therightkind.com. Seventy-two women were listed as available for booking dates. Subscribers to the site paid five thousand dollars a month, for which they were allowed to book up to five dates each month. Any questions so far?”

“Proceed.”

“The women were contracted to accept dates and to not date subscribers without a date booked through the site. There was a total of eighty-one women on the site and two hundred paid subscribers. Each woman dated three or so nights a week, typically Friday night, Saturday night and a weeknight. This left little or no time for these women to develop relationships outside therightkind.com. Any questions?”

“Not seeing the connections,” Marcia confessed.

“You have seen their profiles. All eighty-one women were extremely attractive. They were also highly averse to developing relationships outside therightkind.com. They were also very averse to being interviewed. Ms. Musgrave managed to interview two of them: Ilsa Thalstrom and Lindsey Sayer.

“Ilsa Thalstrom,” Lt. Williams continued, “admitted to promiscuous behavior prior to an incident which resulted in Dr. Vincent Winkel becoming her doctor. For Lindsey Sayer, her incident led to a sexual awakening. Unlike Ilsa Thalstrom, Lindsey Sayer underwent dieting and plastic surgery. Like Ilsa Thalstrom, she started having sex often. They both, at separate times, signed up with therightkind.com and, in their interviews, stated they had three or so dates a week. Each date typically included having sex with their companion and staying the night.”

“Go on,” Peter prompted.

“Elmer Petry created a user profile on therightkind.com. His report describes the effort required to accomplish it. He and Ms. Musgrave met me in my office. Mr. Petry logged in using his laptop, and we confirmed the correlation with Ms. Musgrave’s list. Mr. Petry then logged onto ‘john’ sites on the dark web where customers rate sex workers. Two or three subscribers on therightkind.com rated all of the women on the site. That is when I determined therightkind.com fronted a call girl operation.”

“Didn’t all of the women have lucrative day jobs?” Marcia flipped her pen.

“Yes. Several recently, within the last five years, started their own companies.”

“Not typical of high-end call girls.”

“I agree.”

“Maybe they were just ‘work hard, play hard’ women.” Marcia adopted a more seductive pose.

“I proposed the same explanation. Mr. Petry suggested we bring a few in, since his account could book five dates, and I could interview the women myself. I agreed. Mr. Petry booked a date for the evening, a Friday night, with Olive Petra. He asked her to dress like a disco queen from the seventies and to stay the night.”

“Why Olive Petra? It may look like profiling to a jury.”

“Prejudice and bias are more pronounced in sex work than in common society. She was the only one available that evening.”

“Bullshit. There are far more women of color working as sex workers than White women.”

“In lower-end markets, yes. In high-end markets, blonde, natural or not, White women are most common.”

“Peter, contact the state crime statistics in the morning.” Marcia returned to Lt. Williams. “What happened?”

“Olive Petra arrived in an outfit straight out of Studio 54, and she carried a small suitcase. I invited her in. Immediately, she scanned the room. She had already noticed Elmer Petry and Darcy Musgrave. I introduced myself, and she collapsed. Total brain crash. Ms. Musgrave and Mr. Petry tended to her while I called for an ambulance. Within an hour, we had her at Valley. Ms. Musgrave warned against an MRI, so Ms. Petra underwent a functional CAT scan which revealed millions of nanites in her brain.

“Mr. Petry drew me and Ms. Musgrave into a small conference room. He turned over financial tracking documents. A company called NanoBotics partly owned therightkind.com. Ms. Musgrave showed me surveillance photos of the Winkel Medical Center at Santa Cruz, the place many of the women on the survey list were first treated by Dr. Vincent Winkel. The NanoBotics office was on the second floor.”

“So it all came together?”

“Yes. I called the sheriff, went to the office and prepared paperwork for a search warrant. The next evening, we raided both the Santa Cruz and Mountain View offices.”

“What was your role in the raids?”

“I was assigned to the Santa Cruz operation. I was in the third wave.”

“You did not lead the raid?”

“No. The SWAT team went in first. They made sure everything was safe and the evidence was locked down. Next came the regular line officers who cordoned off the area and provided perimeter security. I was in the investigative wave. We processed the crime scene, tagged and photographed evidence.”

“What did you see?”

“Cal Wirther, sitting in his office chair bound with flex cuffs. He sat behind his desk. His computer was connected to five monitors. All the screens were blue and displayed a block of text in white letters. Our technical staff calls that the ‘screen of death.’ In the next office, Sean Beacon lay comatose. SWAT team staff had already called for an ambulance.”

“Anything else?”

“After a minute or so, everyone’s cell phone received an email. One device after another bleeped or chirped or chimed. Later, we found out that the same email was sent to all police email accounts in the area.”

“No, I meant what other evidence did you see at the crime scene?”

“Nothing. It was as if the cleaning lady just left. Make that the forensic cleaning lady. There were no other prints. None of the desks or file cabinets or trash cans had any paper. All personal effects like coffee mugs or calendars or knickknacks were gone. With the exception of Calvin Wirther and Sean Beacon, the place looked empty, ready for its next tenants.”

“If you don’t mind,” Peter interrupted, “what was in the email?”

“The names and exact locations of eighteen women, all of whom were listed on therightkind.com, and all of whom were not in the presence of anyone.”

“Why is that last part significant? What does it matter that they were not in the presence of anyone?”

“As you read in my report, Mr. Goode, all eighty-one of the women actively dating on therightkind.com fell into a coma similar to Sean Beacon and Olive Petra. These eighteen women were not in the presence of anyone to call 911 for them. The email might have saved their lives. It certainly depleted the raid force. Several officers were dispatched to respond to 911 calls. All available ambulances were already responding. It was quite chaotic for a while.”

“The email is conclusive proof Cal Wirther is guilty,” Marcia argued.

“The email cannot be traced to anyone. It was completely anonymous. Its path cannot be traced back to any server. If one of our desk staff had not printed a copy shortly after receiving it, we would not have any copies at all.”

“How is that?”

“FBI forensic scientists will testify that the email is a new class of self-destructing emails they call, ‘janitorial.’ Somehow, it cleaned itself off all devices.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Peter stood. “Don’t emails go from server to server, hitting as many twenty, thirty servers? Surely copies of that email can be found.”

“According to the FBI specialists, not a single copy of that email exists anywhere. The janitorial email wrote deep zeroes over itself exactly thirty minutes after it was first opened. The FBI specialists took all of SCSO’s mail servers and tried to lift the email off of the magnetic disks. This usually works even when high-grade security systems delete files. No success.”

“Thank you, Lt. Williams. Now, there’s another thing we can use some help with. All of the women, the ones in comas, had nanites in their brains. Right?”

“Millions of them, ma’am.”

“Do these bear any signature to tie them to NanoBotics?”

“No. They eventually passed out of the women through their urine. After observing Olive Petra for a day, Darcy Musgrave suggested that they capture and examine Ms. Petra’s, uh, urine. The next day, as the eighty-one comatose women were taken to hospitals, Valley Hospital sent instructions out. We have over five kilograms of nanites in evidence. Several technical teams worked on identification and tracing. No luck.”

“Didn’t the Mountain View NanoBotics office have nanite-making machinery? I mean, make some more nanites, see if they match.”

“Most of the old NanoBotics headquarters in Mountain View was converted to mock corporation office space. About six percent of the building was still dedicated to NanoBotics. We believe the nanites found in the women and Sean Beacon were made there.”

“But?”

“But, by the time of the raid, the machines were dissolved. Toxic stuff. We believe the machines were destroyed six days prior. That is when NanoBotics notified all its tenants that the building suffered catastrophic HVAC problems and could not be inhabited until repairs were complete. We have several of those emails and printed letters.”

“What did the crime labs uncover?”

“Physical evidence, nothing. Please read my report. There are the paper trails. We have Calvin Wirther buying NanoBotics, a ton of paperwork about how the NanoBotics building in Mountain View was partitioned, electricity bills that show various spikes in electric activity, several MOUs between NanoBotics and SCMedGroup, the original stock sale of NanoBotics shares to SCMedGroup, the forfeiture of those shares in a tort agreement for Alienation of Affection, the Wirthers’ divorce papers showing Calvin Wirther and a complex series of shell corporations revealing NanoBotics’s and SCMedGroup joint ownership of therightkind.com thanks to Elmer Petry.”

“I wonder why Wirther did not ask for sole ownership of the site. It was the one making money, after all,” Peter said.

“Come on, Peter, the SCMedGroup is highly profitable. No one will think Dr. Winkel was in it for the money, while everybody knows Wirther was.”

“Yes, Marcia, but why didn’t Wirther grab the site? As you said, he was in it for the money.”

“In my opinion,” Lt. Williams ventured, “ownership of therightkind.com is the second most damning piece of evidence in this case.”

“The first being?” Marcia asked.

“Nanites in the women’s heads.”

“But what ties them together?”

“No physical evidence, no records, no witness testimony as far as I can see. Perhaps if you can get the Korean doctors, but they defected to North Korea. Little chance there.”

“I guess for Doctors Park and Kim it’s a matter of pick your prison. Oh well. I think it is time to feed the elephant,” Peter said.

“Okay.” Marcia sighed and turned to Lt. Williams. “Lieutenant, is Darcy ready to testify?”

“In her current state, she would not make a good witness.”

“That is a harsh statement.”

“I know. It hurts to say it, but I spent a day with her last week. She still suffers PTSD from her ordeal. Just getting close to the topic of sex work sets her off. Sets her off in no mild way. I accompanied her to a rape support group. One young girl started telling a story about how her mother ‘sold her body.’ Darcy went off. The group moderator could not calm her down. In the end, I had to take her outside. I cannot predict how she would behave on the stand.”

“But we can predict that the defense will attempt to aggravate her.” Marcia turned to Peter.

“I still think she is key to our case,” Peter said. “I still have a motion to allow videotaped testimony.”

“Bad idea,” Marcia said. “The defense will still get to cross-examine her. All we need is one of her rants replayed over and over.”

“At the meeting,” Lt. Williams said, “she objected to the moderator trying to control her. Understandable. She then launched into MNES’s decision for her to write about the NanoBotics data. She wants to investigate the other list. The list of young women who leave their family and friends and show up in pornography produced by&#8212”

“Let’s not go there, Lieutenant.” Marcia glared at Lt. Williams. “Nobody wants a war.”

“A couple of things before you go,” Peter started. “Why do you think Cal Wirther sent the email?”

“I told you. The email could not be traced to him.”

“You know what I mean.”

“As you know, if anyone dies in the commission of a felony, the felon is also guilty of murder. If one of those women died, he could get the death penalty. So he made sure none of the women died.”

“Thank you. What did you think happened with Lindsey Sayer?”

“The inactive profile.”

“The one who got away.” Peter pulled her file. “No nanites in her head.”

“Retirement plan.”

“Huh?”

“Some women survive the sex trade. Most do not. They get sold and used and sold and used and so on until they get used up. A few end up in emergency rooms riddled with STDs and addicted to opioids. The rest disappear&#8212for good. According to data Elmer Petry found on the dark web, Lindsey Sayer’s value as a call girl was in steep decline. She was almost forty, so Calvin Wirther, NanoBotics, therightkind.com, whatever, married her off to a seventy-two-year-old billionaire. A much better retirement, dontchyathink?”

“What do you think?” Marcia asked.

“You know.” Lt. Williams packed his notes and documents into his briefcase. “Early on in our discussions, Darcy argued that law enforcement posed a bigger threat to civilians than victimless crimes. She cited traffic accidents, overuse of lethal force, that sort of stuff. Now, she thinks that, in the Bay Area alone, two to three hundred women die from forced sex work each year. In her opinion, it is a goddamned epidemic, and no one is doing anything about it.”

“Miss Musgrave still works for M and E.” Marcia stood. “I’m sure she can convince them.”

“I spoke with Brad White about that some five years ago.” Lt. Williams stood as well. “There is no doubt that MNES would win any battle, but even if they win the war, take out the whole organization, all of it, someone else would fill the vacuum. Worse, a bunch of someone elses would fill the vacuum, start more wars. Collateral damage might spook the high-tech corporations. Drive away their business. There ain’t no profit in that for MNES.”

“Not unless M and E filled the gap.” Peter stood to escort Lt. Williams to the door.

“Brad said he’s here to run a great security firm, not a criminal organization.”

“And you are fine with the status quo.”

“Have to be. At least until retirement. The sheriff told me so.” Lt. Williams opened the door. “I’ve heard you have other ideas.”

“My DA talks to your sheriff,” Peter whispered.

Chapter 18: This Just In

[End commercial. ABC Channel 7 logo. Speed fade to Anchorman Theodore “Ted” Mason and co-anchor Beverly Cole sitting at the main news desk. Michael “Strike Mike” Atwood sits at the offset features desk. Zoom in to Cole]

COLE:

This just in, Calvin Wirther has been acquitted of all charges. Sheryl Taylor is at Santa Clara courthouse. Sheryl.

[Remote shot. Outdoors. Santa Clara courthouse in the background. Walkway leading to courthouse steps center right. Police officers in crowd control on walkway separating two protest groups, mostly women. The group on the left, relatively passive. Handmade signs: Free Calvin Wirther, Long Live NanoBotics, Sign me up therightkind.com. The group on the right, very active attempting to cross the walkway. Handmade signs: Guilty as Sin, My Body &#8212 My Body, Cal Wirther Get (in small red letters “your nanites”) Out of My Head. News reporter Sheryl Taylor standing close to camera, only torso in frame, center left]

TAYLOR:	Yes, Beverly. The jury returned from deliberations after eleven days. They filed in twenty-five minutes ago. Calvin Wirther has been found innocent of eighty-one counts of kidnapping and eighty-one counts of pandering. This is after Santa Clara County district attorneys dropped eighty-one counts of conspiracy, eighty-one counts of assault and eighty-one counts of human trafficking in pretrial proceedings.
MASON:	Sheryl, this is Ted. Didn’t they have to drop the conspiracy charges because they did not charge anyone else in these crimes?
TAYLOR:	Alleged crimes, Ted. But yes. Since the DAs made a deal with Dr. Vincent Winkel, owner of SCMedGroup, they did not have anyone else they wanted to charge.
COLE:	Sheryl, we are bringing in our legal analysts, Trevor Donald and Francis Chan.
MASON:	I see some protests in the background. Can you describe what’s going on?
TAYLOR:	Yes. As you see, there are two active groups of women led by survivors of their NanoBotics experience. In the more active camp, Glenda Wilkins, Agatha Tarksberg and Blanca Powers. They are joined by the National Organization of Women, the Christian League and Rise Up. The other group is led by Audrey Barber and Yolanda Morales. They are being supported by the ACLU and CSIPA. Throughout the trial, sheriff’s deputies have had a hard time keeping them apart. Right now, the pro-NanoBotics group is looking smug and the anti-NanoBotics group looks like they need to act out.
COLE:	Have you seen Calvin Wirther or his lawyer, Jimmy Lee Smith?
TAYLOR:	No. I heard Judge Huntsman kept all the parties involved behind to sort out paperwork. They should be out in a few minutes, I think.
COLE:	Okay, stand by. We have Trevor Donald in the studio.

[Split screen: news desk left, interview room right, Trevor Donald seated in chair bust shot. Left cut to Francis Chan]

COLE:	Trevor, you have been following the trial. Are you surprised by the verdict?
DONALD:	No, not at all, I am afraid to say.
COLE:	Why is that?
DONALD:	For my money, Cal Wirther is guilty. I think it is clear he was up to no good.
COLE:	So the prosecution, what, blew it?
DONALD:	They call it a prosecution team for a reason. They are supposed to work as a team, but Marcia Fong and Peter Goode seemed to be presenting two different cases. Fong seemed to be focused on retribution for the victims here. It was emotional, sympathetic, but in the end unconvincing. My heart goes out to these women, but that part of the case did not leave me feeling that Calvin Wirther was the person to blame.
COLE:	What about the rest of their case?
DONALD:	Assistant DA Goode tried to tell a story of discovery, of how Wirther’s wrongful deeds came to light. I found this part of the case much more convincing. Professor Cheadle did a remarkable job of explaining his student’s work to the jury. It was quite remarkable. He must be a wonderful teacher. Lieutenant Williams is a seasoned witness. Elmer Petry was a little less smooth but quite engaging. I think his testimony should have put Cal Wirther away. He told the jury of his and Darcy Musgrave’s extracurricular detective work. His computer research skills are truly amazing. Then Darcy Musgrave took the stand. On paper, she is an amazing criminologist. I’ve read a draft of her book which includes the work she did on this case, and I loved it. Just loved it. On the stand, however, she came off as a stark raving lunatic.
COLE:	That may be unfair. There was expert testimony about her post-traumatic stress disorder.
DONALD:	They should have kept all of that out. Her outbursts needed explanation, but it opened up comparisons between conventional human trafficking for sexual exploitation and Wirther’s alleged crimes of sexual exploitation.
COLE:	Trevor, before you continue, we have Francis Chan. As you know, she’s been following the trial as well. Francis, do you agree with Trevor’s assessment?
CHAN:	No. I am not surprised at all about the acquittal, but I do not think Mr. Wirther was guilty of the charges.
COLE:	And why’s that?
CHAN:	Oh, there are so many reasons. I think this case will be studied for a long time. For me, the thing that stands out the most is that this seems to be a clear case where technology is far ahead of the law. I agree that it is clear wrongs occurred here, but it is not clear Cal Wirther is guilty of the charges brought against him.
DONALD:	You have got to be kidding.
TAYLOR:	Marcia Fong just stepped up to the microphone.

[Long shot. Impromptu podium used for press announcements, Santa Clara County seal on the front. Five microphones all from local TV stations. Cut to medium shot of Deputy District Attorney Marcia Fong at the podium]

FONG:

Ladies and gentlemen. This has been a long trial, and I am sure you have many questions.

[Zoom out to a two-shot. A man, dark suit, white shirt, red tie approaches the podium and places his hand on the center microphone belonging to Channel 2]

JORDAN:

Step away from the microphones. Do not say another word. Follow Assistant Attorney General Michaels. He will tell you all need to know.

[Assistant Attorney General Stanley Jordan turns his back to the podium. ADA Marcia Fong follows another man back into the courthouse. AAG Jordan follows them]

[News desk two-shot. Anchorman Ted Mason left, Beverly Cole right]

MASON:	Sheryl, do you know what that was about?
TAYLOR:	I am not sure. Assistant attorneys generals have been in and out of the courthouse throughout the trial. I think I have seen at least ten of them today.
COLE:	What is the name of the lead attorney general?
DONALD:	His name is Stanley Jordan. I think the feds are going to take over the case.

[Split screen: left news desk two shot; right Trevor Donald seated in the studio]

MASON:	Isn’t the case over?
CHAN:	The federal government can charge Calvin Wirther for several things, such as violation of the women’s civil rights.
COLE:	Much like the way the feds charged the officers after the Rodney King case?

[Split Screen: left Francis Chan seated studio shot; right Trevor Donald seated studio shot]

DONALD:	That’s right, Francis. It is unusual, but not unheard of.
COLE:	Why is this not double jeopardy?
DONALD:	The federal government cannot charge him with human trafficking, pandering, assault, or kidnapping, but there are several more laws that could apply here.
CHAN:	Like violating their constitutional rights.
MASON:	Like they did with O. J. Simpson after his acquittal?
DONALD:	No, Ted. That was a civil trial for wrongful death.
CHAN:	In this matter, Judge Carrera not only threw out the class-action case against Calvin Wirther but also all the civil suits brought before him.
COLE:	How can he do that?
CHAN:	Damage reparations are at tort law’s foundation. None of the women litigants could show that their lives were substantially damaged by Cal Wirther or NanoBotics.
COLE:	But they were turned into call girls.
CHAN:	Unsuspecting call girls. Here’s just a couple of facts coming out of those proceedings. When asked about being forced to have sex, none of the women felt forced in any way. A full seventy percent stated they enjoyed their sexual experiences, and forty-three percent stated that the sex was the best of their lives. The second fact is that none of the women suffered financially from the experience. All of their net worths are substantially higher than before their presumed first nanite injection. Moreover, their income growth is higher than forensic economists projected they would be had nanites not influenced their decisions.
DONALD:	Bald-faced irrelevancies.
CHAN:	For those at home, Trevor just made an insider joke. In some torts, damages do not have to be proven. Falsely claiming someone committed a crime is considered defamation per se, defamation on its face or defamation by its appearance. In pretrial motions, Judge Carrera denied all per se claims.
TAYLOR:	Excuse me. San Bruno Mayor Don Walker has taken the podium.

[Long shot. Podium with Santa Clara County seal on the front. Five microphones all from local TV stations. Cut to medium shot of Mayor Don Walker at the podium]

WALKER:

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your patience. This has been a long, complicated trial with several twists and turns. I assure you, this matter is not over, not by a long shot. It seems&#8212

[Zoom out to a two-shot. Stanley Jordan approaches the podium and places his arm across all microphones. Loud ruffle noises. Two men in gray suits usher Mayor Don Walker to the courthouse. Stanley Jordan removes his arm and turns to the microphones]

JORDAN:

Ladies, gentlemen, members of the press, I am Assistant Attorney General Stanley Jordan. I have been in contact with the attorney general, and I can make a statement to the press. This morning, the attorney general’s office filed papers in federal court at San Francisco. We have enjoined several public officials involved with this as we investigate possible violations of federal law in the matter of Calvin Wirther, NanoBotics, therightkind.com and SCMedGroup. We are also investigating the actions of the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office as well as several public officials. The United States Attorney General’s Office will get to the bottom of this, and we will prosecute individuals and corporations as the law allows. Any questions? Yes, you.

[Stanley Jordan points out to the crowd. Cut to group shot, reporters gathered around a microphone. Violet Parker, Channel 2 News]

PARKER:	Does that mean we will not hear from the district attorney today?
JORDAN:	Yes, that is exactly what it means. Let me make this simple. We have enjoined every public official who might bear witness to this case. That includes all district attorneys, mayors, police officers, sheriff’s deputies and city attorneys. We have also enjoined all officers of the corporations I mentioned earlier, which includes but is not limited to Calvin Wirther, Dr. Vincent Winkel, and all executive and higher management of McElvaney and Evans and their board.
TAYLOR:	Excuse me.

[Cut to group shot, reporters gathered around a microphone. Sheryl Taylor, Channel 7]

TAYLOR:

Is there a list of individuals?

[Cut to podium shot, Stanley Jordan]

JORDAN:

Yes. My office is faxing copies of the injunction to all media outlets. We appreciate your assistance by not bothering these individuals on this matter and all related matters. Thank you.

[Stanley Jordan points to the press microphone. Cut to group shot, reporters gathered around a microphone. Gene Farino, Fox News]

FARINO:

How long will the injunction be in place? These are public officials, and the people have rights of access.

[Cut to podium shot, Stanley Jordan]

JORDAN:

I want to be clear. We have not enjoined these officials from all public speaking, just on the matter of the People of California versus Calvin Wirther and all related matters. As far as the attorney general’s office is concerned, the listed public officials are at your disposal on all other matters. That said, this will be an arduous investigation, and it could take several months. Yes, you.

[Stanley Jordan points to the press microphone. Cut to group shot, reporters gathered around a microphone. Janet Stapleton, The Mercury News]

STAPLETON:

We heard rumors that Wirther has already made a deal with the feds. He has been named a JASON and will be working with DARPA. Is this true?

[Cut to podium shot, Stanley Jordan]

JORDAN:	I would not know anything about that. You will have to ask the Pentagon
STAPLETON:	But it is supposed to be top secret.
JORDAN:	Then I can only know as much as you. Thank you. I have an investigation to work on, so that will be all for now.

[Cut to single shot, Sheryl Taylor, Channel 7]

TAYLOR:

Well, I think that will be all for the press conference. I have heard that Calvin Wirther and his legal team have already left the courthouse, so they will not be making any statements.

[News desk two-shot. Anchorman Ted Mason left, Beverly Cole right]

MASON:

Thank you, Sheryl. Trevor, is this common?

[Split screen: left news desk two shot; right Trevor Donald seated in the studio]

DONALD:	In a word, no, but it is not unprecedented. Beverly already mentioned the federal trial of the police officers in the King matter after Los Angeles district attorneys failed to convict them.
CHAN:	But there were no such injunctions on public officials. That is, indeed, rare.

[Split screen: studio seated shot Francis Chan left, interview room right Trevor Donald]

MASON:	There seems to be a lot of ‘unusual’ in this whole affair, and it does not seem to be over.
DONALD:	At least the US attorneys will be able to put Wirther away.
CHAN:	The feds will have the same problems our DAs had.
COLE:	What problems are those?
CHAN:	For a jury, evidence plus law equals conviction. Absence of evidence or law means no conviction. So it was clear nanites were in the women’s heads, but there were no charges, no laws, to apply to that evidence.
DONALD:	It is against the law to apply unlicensed medical devices.
CHAN:	Who said that the nanites were medical devices? There were no prescriptions, no logs of their injection, no medical bills. So, yes, Trevor, there is a law, but no evidence to bring jurors to convict.
COLE:	Where else was the law clear, but the evidence was, well, lacking?
CHAN:	The women, all of them, ended up in Dr. Winkel’s care. Not against the law. Ten of the women became ill on dates with Sean Beacon. No evidence that this is more than a coincidence. No evidence of poison, or Rohypnol or anything like that. Seventy-some women reported that they blacked out, perhaps from a mosquito bite. Again, no evidence of wrongdoing. They ended up in a doctor’s office and received, admittedly amongst other things, medical care.
DONALD:	But it is clear that Wirther, through his website, received money to provide women for sex. That’s pimping, plain and simple.
CHAN:	Trevor, it would be nice if you actually read the law before such outbursts. The DAs opted for the lower charge of pandering. California law is not based on Troilus and Cressida. Pandering involves more than saying, “I know this girl who’s hot to trot. Here’s her phone number.” It specifically states that the pandering relates to prostitution. Ten women took the stand. None of them believed they were sex workers. Fong and Goode could not convince twelve jurors that any of them were.
MASON:	Thank you, Professor Chan and Mr. Donald. That’s all the time we have for this right now.

[Desk shot single Ted Mason]

MASON:

We will be back in just a minute or two.

Author’s Note.

I wrote this book under the working title, “Nobodies Business.” “Nobodies Business” was my thought while reading Luisa Waugh’s nonfiction book, Selling Olga. In an early chapter, Ukrainian women were tricked into paying their way to Italy. Some paid with meager savings, some on credit to the “employment agency” they thought would get them jobs. Their agents had an entirely different fate for them. They were told their bus broke down in Romania. On a treacherous walk, they ended up being dispossessed of their belongings and escorted to a farmhouse. They were allowed to shower, but they were asked to take off their tops for inspection by doctors downstairs. They were buyers, not doctors. The women walked, bare-breasted, into an auction. Afterward, they were loaded up in vans and deposited into brothels. Their pimps told them that he paid X dollars for them and that they would have to pay him back with sex work. Nobody should be in the business of kidnapping and selling women. “Nobodies Business.”

When I started writing this novel, there was one other book with that title. Part of a series, so no one should confuse the two books. By the time I finished, I found six books on Amazon with that title. Beta readers helped me choose “Frontal Lobe Override” instead of “NanoBotics.”

I ran out of short story ideas and decided to novelize Recalibrating Mia, my biggest hit-getter on the internet. In the story, Calvin identifies three threats to his illegal enterprise: Someone in law enforcement finding a pattern in their activities; organized crime seeing them as a competitor; and the women using their frontal lobe power to shake off the influence of the nanite network. The third factor didn’t quite fit into a crowded ending, but it is mentioned a couple of times.

It should be restated: Although I chose to let Calvin off the hook due to prosecutorial difficulties, it is clear that Calvin is guilty of several crimes and that nobody should profit from forced sexual activity, whether that force is violence, mind games, drug addiction, economic influence, or undetectable nanite influence. It really is Nobodies Business.