Chapter 7
“So…” Jana said, “Even if I agree that this thing… the city, has to be stopped.” She paused, catching the expressions of Nicole and Anita’s faces. “Fine, has to be killed. How are we supposed to do that? How do you kill a mind with no body?”
“Well,” Nicole said, “It does have a body, right? I think the most obvious answer, the most sure fire way to make sure that the mind can’t spread to any other cities, is to destroy Gravewater.”
Jana gasped. The tiny bit of positivity she had felt fled from her body, leaving cold dread behind.
“I will admit that that would be the most effective solution.” Anita said, “If the people and the infrastructure make up the brain of Gravewater, then destroying or seriously disrupting that structure should kill it.”
“Those are living people were talking about!” Jana had regained her voice. “People’s homes, their businesses, the university! I…” She paused, shaking her head slowly. “We can’t do that.”
Anita held up a hand, forestalling any further objections. “Well then you’re in luck, because I think that there may be another solution.” She waited for a response, but both Nicole and Jana remained silent, content to wait or simply too tired to muster any comment. Anita continued, “Do you know what a prion disease is, Jana?”
Nicole’s eyes went wide and she sat bolt upright in her chair, almost knocking her glass off the table with the speed of her movement. “Did you—“
“Shh!” Anita cut her off, a finger to her lips, which were turned up at the corners, her mouth resisting the forced scowl the rest of her face was attempting. “Let me tell my story. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” She addressed Jana again. “Sorry dear, back to what I was saying. Are you familiar with prion diseases?”
“Um, not really. Isn’t that like, mad cow disease?”
“Yes! Very good! Yes, mad cow disease is caused by prions. Here, give me a second.” She got up from her seat and stood still for a second, looking at nothing in particular. As Jana watched, one of the many connections radiating away from Anita started pulsing softly and she followed it into the next room, disappearing from view. A few seconds later she returned carrying a text book, which she tossed onto the table, where it thumped onto the wooden surface. She sat back down and opened the book to a page near the middle. ‘Prion Diseases’ was written across the top in a large font. The pages were what Jana would expect from a text book, blocks of text mixed in with large color pictures. She saw a picture of what looked like a close-up photo of a pink sponge, computer models of cells, and a complex, multicolored structure made out of spirals of ribbon and tiny spheres.
“This,” Anita said, putting her finger on the picture of the spirals, “is a normal PrP protein, found in the outer membranes of most cells. Scientists aren’t sure what exactly they do, but they think it may have to do with how cells communicate with each other. Now, sometimes, one of these proteins becomes folded wrong, misshapen in a very specific way that does two important things. It makes it resistant to the enzyme which is what would normally break down misfolded proteins, and it forces other PrP proteins to become misshapen in the same way. These misfolded proteins don’t do their original job and will eventually kill the cell. They propagate through the body and reshape other proteins, spreading like a disease. If they progress far enough this happens.” She pointed at the picture of the pink sponge. “These little holes are gaps in a cow’s brain, where the prion disease has eaten away at it. Now, the PrP protein—“
“Mom.” Nicole cut Anita off, reaching out a hand to cover the pages of the text book.
“Sorry, You’re right.” Anita conceded, “All you really need to know, dear,” addressing Jana again, “Is that this is a type of disease that isn’t caused by something even nearly as complex as a virus or bacteria. It’s almost a normal part of the organism, but just one small change makes it incredibly dangerous. Not because it’s evolved to infect and destroy, but because it happens to be in an environment that is perfectly vulnerable to it. These prions are completely harmless in any other situation, but surrounded by the right proteins,” She tapped the picture of the sponge-brain again, “It can be deadly.”
It was silent for a minute as Anita flipped through the book aimlessly and Jana digested the mini biology lesson. Clearly Anita was referencing prions in response to the search for ways to deal with Gravewater, but Jana was having trouble seeing how microscopic proteins were going to help them kill a city. Jana was still deep in thought when Nicole spoke, more quietly than Jana thought she had ever heard before.
“You made one, didn’t you.” Nicole met Anita’s eyes as she looked up from the text book. “You made a… a prion, out of the threads, something that can infect the city.”
Anita smiled wide, and the glint in her eyes took on a new tone that frightened Jana. “Of all the pieces, I’ve made, it is my most impressive. A hundred times more complex than anything you could find in this house. Decades of work and study to make it into a physical manifestation.” She turned her gleeful expression back to Nicole. “You guessed right. A prion for minds, a pattern of connections that is almost a thought, but not quite. It will infect the threads that make a mind a thinking thing, feed on the loops and recursion, the flow of information and power. If Gravewater is truly a conscious being, a thinking mind, than it should be able to kill it, to disrupt the proper movement of connections enough that supporting organized, conscious thought becomes impossible.”
“I… I don’t understand. Did you know that this would happen?” Jana asked, “That you would need a way to destroy a consciousness like this?”
“Honestly?” Anita answered, “No. There have always been theories that a sufficiently complex and organized non-organic structure could become conscious, but they were never taken seriously.”
“Then, I still don’t understand. Why did you make it?”
“Why did they make the atomic bomb?” Anita responded, “As a weapon, sure, but also just to prove that they could. Once people knew that uranium and plutonium had all this energy stored up in them? That it was theoretically possible to cause a big chain reaction? They had to do it. Just to prove that they could, that they were smart enough to make the city killer.” She paused, slumping slightly in her seat and turning her eyes to address the table as she continued. “It was an idea like that. Once I knew that it could be done? A weapon made of pure pattern, meticulously designed to work on intelligence itself? I had to prove that I could do it, that I was smart enough, dedicated enough. Hubris, pride, ambition, whatever sin you want, that’s why.”
Nicole got out of her chair and went to stand behind Anita, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What matters now is that we have it, that you did make it, for whatever reason, and that we have a way to kill the city without destroying Gravewater.”
Jana nodded reluctantly, looking at the pair and realizing that any more objections she had would now be up against a unified front. “So… where is it? You said it wasn’t in the house?”
Anita laughed, “No dear. It’s not in the house. I very much doubt that my sculpture would fit in here. And besides,” she added, “like I said before, hubris, pride. I wanted it to be somewhere people would see it, even if they have no idea what its real purpose is.”
“So where is it?” Jana asked again, trying not to let her frustration show.
“Where does any piece of dangerous information belong?” Anita said, using the same smile that had unsettled Jana earlier. “It’s in the library.”
“So, this whole time, there’s been this… this connection super-weapon literally just swinging from the ceiling in the middle of the library?” Jana already knew the answer to her question, she was really just looking to break the silence and keep herself awake with conversation. Anita had gone to bed after desert, which had consisted of ice cream and a sample of some strong plum brandy that she had insisted everyone try.
“Hidden in plaaiin sight.” Nicole said, drawing out the word ‘plain’ for emphasis. She had had a couple samples of the brandy and was laying across the couch with her head resting on Jana’s thigh, a configuration that Jana found surprisingly comfortable. When she declined to elaborate, Jana decided to try a different tactic.
“Why did you choose me?” She asked.
“What?” Nicole said, moving her eyes from a spot on the ceiling to focus on Jana’s face, or more accurately, the bottom of her chin.
“Why did you decide to give me the Sight?”
Nicole scowled, marshaling her thoughts in preparation for speaking. “The Sight is… not given to many, and not easy to give. I’m not an expert or anything but I think that each person who has it gives it to like… one, maybe two people. A lot of mom’s give it to their daughters, I guess, but I’m probably not gonna have kids so…”
“So, you gave it to me?” Jana picked up her unfinished sentence.
“Yes.” Nicole said, and then closed her eyes for long enough that Jana worried she’d fallen asleep, but then they fluttered open, and she continued. “I gave you the Sight. I know the connections, I can see when something is… affecting them. I saw you one day, in that garden store across from the theater with uh, what’s her name, your friend.”
“Kelly?”
“Kelly! Yeah, her. I saw you in there and I could see how crazy complex your connections were. Like, I thought maybe you already had the Sight, but then I was like no, you just had serious natural skill.”
“Natural skill?”
“Natural. Skill.” Nicole confirmed, making each word its own declaration. “You know, wheelin’ and dealin, making friends, reading people, uh…” She snapped her fingers rapidly, searching for the right words, “Emotional intelligence! That’s what they call it. Whatever words you want to use, you had it. So, I uh, you know, I kept an eye on you, to see what your deal was. You seemed like a… a good person. So, just when I’m starting to seriously consider approaching you, getting to know you better, maybe, eventually, telling you about the Sight, this fucking thinking city or whatever goes and wrecks your whole life. So, then I’m like, I’ve gotta give this girl the Sight right now, or she’s gonna fuckin wander off to who knows where, with no friends or family or home or anything.”
“You couldn’t fix my connections yourself? Without giving me the Sight?”
“Nope.” Nicole shook her head, rolling it back and forth along Jana’s leg. “Wouldn’t work. What was left of your connections was… it was real bad. I can’t strengthen what’s not there, or, is so weak it might as well not be there. But you, I mean, they were your connections. I knew that with your natural skill and the Sight you could probably see them, just barely, but enough to fix em.”
Jana nodded slowly. Nicole’s story was a little… garbled, but it still explained a lot. Jana wanted to ask Nicole a ton more questions, but her eyes had closed again, and they didn’t seem like they were going to be opening again before the morning. Jana brushed a few loose strands of hair out of Nicole’s face and saw her mouth twitch towards a smile for just a second. Nicole’s body relaxed slowly, and Jana could see her connections becoming… not dimmer, but, less active, as her mind faded into unconsciousness. Jana sat like that for a while, enjoying the peaceful quiet of the wind through the pine trees outside and Nicole’s soft, slow breathing. Eventually, once her own eyes started to feel irresistibly heavy, she carefully got up, replacing her leg with a pillow under Nicole’s head, and went to the spare room Anita had shown her when they arrived.