“What?” Decker sighed and rolled over. Although the lights were turned off, there was enough ambient streetlight coming in through the windows that he could make out her face. She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
“I was mad at my parents, mad at them for pulling me out of school and away from my friends. So, I left them when they went to sleep. I had bribed one of our guides, you see, and he had promised to bring me back to Shanghai. But I was wrong about him. I was very young then, only twelve. Very foolish.”
“You don’t have to tell me this,” Decker said. “It’s not… necessary.”
“Yes it is. And I want to. I need to tell somebody. In the end, Chan said he didn’t want money in payment. That was his name. Chan. My guide.”
“Please, Lulu.” He reached out, put a hand on her mouth but she pulled it away.
“When it was over, he left me. Right there, in the snow. He took my money as well. I hated him for that. It seemed, somehow, even more callous. I got lost trying to find my way back and ended up sleeping outside in the lee of a rock. I sucked my fingers all night. That’s why they froze. Like a little girl. Like a baby.”
Decker rolled over and took her up in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said but the words seemed to falter, to dry up and wither on the tip of his tongue. “I’m… I know what it’s like to keep a secret.” He felt his heart pound in his chest.
“I was in a coma for two months after the accident. My parents burned to death right in front of me and I guess I just didn’t want to wake up. But I did. Eventually.” Decker sighed. “Funny thing is, I survived the crash. I was in the back seat and I made it out before the car caught on fire. But I was dazed and confused. I tried to pull my mother out of the car but her door wouldn’t open. So I went around to the driver’s side as the flames filled the cabin. I heaved on my father’s door. I was pulling as hard as I could when the other car hit me. I was out in the street, you see. That’s what broke all the bones. The other car driving by on the highway. Just some guy running out to buy smokes.” Decker closed his eyes.
“After two months, I woke up. I found myself helpless in the hospital trussed up like a chicken. Six weeks later, I was transferred to my Uncle Tom and Aunt Hanne’s house, to the bed in their guest bedroom. I spent almost six months of my life in that bed.” He ran a finger along the scar on his chin. “In the beginning, I had to be fed through a straw. Aunt Hanne — she fed me. And I guess, for some reason, she felt she deserved… compensation. You know. For all of the time she’d spent cooking and cleaning, I guess. And changing my bedpan. And sponging me down. She used to… We used to…”
Lulu drew him in close. “It’s okay,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. You were just a kid and an invalid too. You were dependent on her. It was her job to look out for you, to take care of you. Instead, she exploited you, took advantage of you. That’s the worst part.”
“No,” Decker said. He took a deep breath. “The worst part is I enjoyed it.” He waited for her to recoil but she didn’t. She simply kept stroking his hair. “She made me feel special,” he added. “Like she loved me. She said it wasn’t my fault that my parents had died.”
“You are special,” said Lulu.
“Is that why you told me your story?” he asked her. “So I’d let go of my secret?”
Lulu sighed. “Kind of,” she said. “And here I thought I was being so subtle.”
She cradled his head against her breasts, adding, “We all need to be loved, John. It isn’t a crime or a weakness. It’s what makes us human.” Then she kissed him.
They ended up having sex once again. Except that this time, he let himself go. They didn’t fuck; they made love. And he found himself holding her with all of his might, as if he were afraid she might vanish — like a phantom, a succubus — and love itself would cease to exist. It was sweeter and richer than the darkest of chocolates. When it was over, Decker fell asleep in her arms, a deep, dreamless sleep.
It was the first time in years.
CHAPTER 47
Decker woke up before dawn, as usual, and reached over for Lulu but she wasn’t there. He was alone. “Lulu?” he said, sitting up.
He pressed a palm to the sheets. Not even warm.
With a sigh, he got up and checked the bathroom. It was empty too. He took a quick piss and slipped on a terrycloth robe.
Lulu wasn’t in the dining room either, which now smelled of seafood; no one had come to remove the feast they had shared.
“Lulu? Lulu!” he cried.
“I’m in here,” came the reply.
She was in the office between the dining room and master bedroom sitting in front of a Mac Pro, a huge cup of coffee steaming beside her.
“What are you doing?” he said standing behind her. She didn’t even look up.
On the screen, he noticed a series of open windows: an article from the New York Times talking about Stuxnet; another quoting Defense Secretary Leo Pancetta, who warned about the risk of a cyber Pearl Harbor; and one about Iran’s CyberCorps and their likely involvement in a cyber-attack against Saudi’s Aramco in August. “What are you doing?” he repeated. Without knowing why, for no reason at all, he leaned down and kissed her on the back of the neck.
Lulu shook him off. “Stop that,” she said.
“My, aren’t we grumpy this morning.”
“I found something,” she said.
“What?”
She minimized the windows and opened still others: Facebook; Twitter; Second Life. They all appeared to be social networks. No they weren’t, Decker noticed. Some were labeled Acxiom or Experian, Allied Data Systems, Datalogix or Rapleaf.
“What is all this?” he inquired.
“User profiles,” she answered, still clicking away at the keyboard.
“Whose?”
“Dead people,” she said.
“What? What do you mean, dead people?”
“They’re the personality profiles of everyone who’s been dying in these weird IP-based accidents over the last several days,” she explained.
“What accidents?”
“That plane crash near Chicago for one,” Lulu answered. “The Air Traffic Control System was hacked. And that railroad crossing event in Jackson, Mississippi.”
“Mary-Lou Fleming?”
She nodded. “Same thing. That incident at the Shannon nuclear power plant in Pottstown, PA. And the market crash the same day. Everyone thought it was some floor trader in Chicago with a fat finger who entered a trade for sixteen billion instead of sixteen million. It wasn’t him,” she added. “At least now, I don’t think so. I bet the system was hacked. One extra zero and the market lost a trillion dollars in value.” She looked up at him. “These people are dead, John, but new data points are being added about them each day. And not on their social networks alone. I mean data broker sites too. Like Acxiom, Experian, ADS.”
The profiles were very complex, she continued, including: Google search terms; credit card and other financial profiling data; school, IRS and medical records; Flickr, Picasa and Pinterest updates; Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr posts; iTunes playlists; Tweets; phone records; call transcripts… Millions of variables. The list went on and on. Many of them were created using Zimmerman’s own websites, like ShopBorg and MnemeScape.
“But who would update these profiles?” asked Decker. “Someone at Riptide. And why? What’s the motive, identity theft?”
“They weren’t uploaded by anyone.”
“What?” Decker said. “Someone must have done it.”
Lulu shook her head. “No, not someone,” she answered. “Some thing.”