Chapter 25

Attacks in the street were becoming daily tallies. Across the Midwest and the Southwest, loosely knitted groups of vigilantes who called themselves “The Army of God” were running amuck, even though no mainline church would accept their affiliation. The one prosperity minister who publicly welcomed them into his Waco church had been gunned down by the local vigilantes over an unspecified dispute. In New England, another cohort of gun-toting no-no’s called themselves “The New Puritans.” They were armed with a nano-detecting device still available for purchase through the Amazon Marketplace for $200. They had instigated more than twenty attacks from Greenwich, CT to Bangor, ME.

Some of the victims had nano.

Eitan and Arjun were eating lunch at a local dive, which was well known for its burgers. Having begged Arjun to let him eat something else after weeks of Indian vegetarian fare, something carnivorous, the man had relented. They had just been served their burger and fries when three men about thirty years old came in, all of them wearing trench coats. They pushed past the hostess and the blond one whipped out a device with a long neck. He started sweeping the nearest table when the machine started beeping. Eitan could taste the bile they emitted.

“Fuckin’ nano!” the man screamed. The other two pulled out baseball bats from their clothes embedded with long nails. Their target was three young men in ties. All three trench coats charged the table while everyone else in range started to dive or jump out of the way. People were screaming when the noise was cut short by a sickening thunk of a bat hitting flesh and bone, followed by an unearthly scream.

Eitan jumped from the booth he was in, refusing to be caught in a place where he could not defend himself. Arjun followed his lead, as did all the other people around them, although Arjun had a puzzled, frightened look on his face.

Chairs lifted into the air, swinging back at the attackers. One of the attackers was tripped, and as he went down, an older woman wearing pearls smashed her plate over his head, breaking the ceramic in two. Another sickening thud was followed by more chairs swinging.

The front doors burst open and booming voice yelled, “Police!”

Eitan saw the bat rise in the air. A gunshot sounded and the bat simply fell to the ground. More police piled in. As the handcuffed assailants were hustled out by the uniformed cops, a man and woman wearing black windbreakers with FBI printed on them stepped into the restaurant.

Eitan sat down and started eating.

“What are you doing?” Arjun asked, still standing with his hands shaking a bit.

“We are going to be here for a couple of hours,” Eitan said. “The EMT’s have to get the victims out, the police must execute their forensics and interview all the witnesses, and the FBI has to loop all the information into a national data net in real time. You might as well eat while your food is warm. I hope you don’t have to use the bathroom, because that’s a big no-can-do until they are done interviewing.”

“You sound like you know what you are doing,” Arjun said, sweeping back into his seat and picking up his burger.

“My sibs and I were in Seattle at the pier when I was sixteen,” Eitan said. “A man two tables down from us took down the mass shooter. Six hours of my life that I will never get back.”

They quietly ate their meal. A policeman finally made his way to their table, politely asking them for identification. He asked them if they wanted to add anything to what had already been said at the booths and tables around them. They both declined. He told them it would be a few more minutes, but Eitan was skeptical.

An hour later, the first group of diners were invited to leave. As the second group, forward of where Eitan and Arjun were seated, stood up to leave, the two FBI agents walked up to Eitan’s table and sat down, effectively blocking him in the booth. The man reminded Eitan of the taste of off-brand salami that was nearly expired.

“Hi Eitan, we’ve been looking for you,” the man said. “I’m Special Agent Corban and this is Special Agent Killinger.”

“All you had to do was ask my attorney,” Eitan said. “I’m hiding, but I’m not hiding from you. Whatever you think of these lunatics, I’ve got worse ones hunting for me. Oh yeah,” he said, snapping his fingers, “the government let Dr. Whitcomb go on his own recognizance after promising that he would never get out. How did that work out for me?”

“I don’t know about a Dr. Whitcomb,” Special Agent Corban said.

“Then why are we talking?” Eitan said. “Either you’re an idiot or you’re lying. As I was assured in Washington State, the FBI doesn’t hire idiots.”

“Listen, you little punk,” the man began but his partner shut him down. She turned to Eitan and said, “Okay, we talk straight. Your brother has disappeared, and your sister is basically untouchable because the DoD has taken an interest in her. You and your parents are the last direct contacts with Dr. Hobart.”

“My brother’s apartment was bombed by Whitcomb’s assassins. He barely escaped and now he is hiding in the deepest, darkest hidey hole he could find. He is off the grid. Akemi is Dr. Hobart’s most prominent achievement, but he kept her at arm’s length after she almost totaled his lab along with her class at the age of fifteen. I was the last one to see him in October/November of my senior year two years ago at his private dining club, where we discussed my college choices. I also warned him that my siblings and I did not trust Dr. Whitcomb and that he needed to protect himself. He assured me that he had both DoD and his own private security.”

“You have not seen him since? You have not spoken to him since?” Special Agent Killinger asked.

“No, I have not. I’ve sent a few text messages to his old cell, but he never responded.”

“Why does Dr. Whitcomb want you and your siblings?”

Eitan shook his head. “Please, it’s in your file on me. I went through a complete interview after you arrested Whitcomb. He thinks the great answers to his nano fuck-up are in my brain tissue. The insanity of it all is that he had my latest blood and tissue samples already. The great answer, which Hobart told him over and over again, is that nano cannot program evolution; it can only enhance what evolution has already given us.

“This attack today, this is a direct result of Whitcomb’s actions. He is the most vocal source spewing hatred on social media for nano,” Eitan said. “When are you going to arrest him?”

“We are looking for him, punk,” Mr. Corban said. “You answer our questions.”

Arjun kept whipping his head back and forth between the agents and Eitan with another look of disbelief was on his face. Eitan made a hand gesture of swiping away the comment in the same manner of his cell phone apps while making a face of boredom and resignation.

“No, maybe, perhaps. In the meantime, you can answer some of mine,” Eitan said. “Have you been searching for me at Yale?”

“No, we know you put in for a year’s leave of absence,” Killinger said. “Why?”

“Someone has been hunting me on campus, tailing my roommate and such,” Eitan said. “If it’s not you, then I assume it is Whitcomb and his fanatics. If it isn’t you, then my decision to run and hide was correct. You cannot protect me, Ms. Killinger. At the least, you’ve got your hands full with these random attacks happening every day and everywhere. By the way, who is paying for all this indoctrination of the paranoid and sociopathic? All this crap requires gobs of money. That’s a rhetorical question, Mr. Corban.”

“Regardless of your issues with Dr. Whitcomb, you are the closest contact to Dr. Hobart,” Ms. Killinger said.

Eitan laughed. “No, I’m not and none of my family were. First, my sibs and I are affiliated with the Hobart Foundation, not the corporation. Second, my parents were on the testing teams, not the development teams, leaving them one step removed from the creative process. Finally, the true trustees of Dr. Hobart are his security team. Do you understand that Camille Cordigan picked me up from Social Services when I was adopted? However, Camille had Hobart Foundation security withdraw their agents from me during my freshman year. They disappeared without giving notice after the incident with Whitcomb.