Tuesday, August 14—10:18:44
It’s always a bit like waking up on the cliff face of El Capitan. It’s dizzying, getting turned off in one spot and coming to in another place and time. But these days, being yanked around like I didn’t have any feelings was downright discombobulating. I looked through Jen’s eyes at the grubby roof and the squat DC skyline beyond and took my bearings.
“Perhaps,” I said, “you should bring your desk up here.”
“Perhaps you should call down to Les.”
Flimsy excuses later—Jen: I came up for some air. Les: You call this air? Jen: But the door slammed behind me—we were on our way down. I wonder why they ever bother. Humans generally know when someone is lying—certainly Jen does—but it’s one of those strange corners of social graces I haven’t caught on to. Or rather, I’ve caught on to but don’t automatically replicate. Must attempt to lie someday.
The joint was buzzing like a bear had smacked a bee’s nest. Cops and staff ran around, flinging rumors at each other and repeating stories of what they’d seen or heard. That is, except a handful who looked so stunned you’d think they’d just witnessed the end of the world. An unknown bigwig was installed in the captain’s office, the room already stripped of anything personal.
Les said, “Let’s grab lunch.”
“It’s ten thirty,” Jen replied.
“I’m hungry.”
We were a whole block away, walking in silence, before Les shot in front of Jen and turned on us. “What the fucking hell is going on?”
“I don’t know why he was arrested, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s about ten percent of what I mean. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t see you sneaking out to talk to him? You think no one saw you two heading up to the roof? And where the hell were you yesterday afternoon? And—”
“You’re not going to score much of an answer if you don’t shut up for a second.”
He shut up. Jen didn’t talk.
“Jen!”
“I’m thinking, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. I’m your partner. Our captain just got busted. People are dying across the country. You’re sneaking off without telling me. One of—”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly what’s happening.”
“Then tell me inexactly. I don’t care—make it up—just give me something.”
“I’m not going to make anything up.”
She told him about Teena Archambault and how I had IDed her after overhearing the conversation in the foyer.
She said that Teko Teko worked for her and that Archambault and Teko Teko had pretty much used the same phrase. “They want it, they’re gonna pay for it.”
Les said, “Big deal. They work together. It must be a catchphrase.”
She said, “I think they’re tied to the street treatment.”
“The drug companies that make the treatment are creating a bootleg version that kills people?” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that rings true.”
“I’m serious. How better to ensure that no one, I mean no one, is going to buy a legitimate street version?”
“A legitimate street version?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Nope, can’t say I do.”
“Like before LSD and mushrooms were legalized. There were pharmaceutically pure versions that took you on a trip, and there were fucked-up mixtures that turned your brain into alphabet soup.”
He thought about this.
“Okay, say you’re right. Why was the captain arrested?”
She shook her head. “No idea.”
You told Les, I said, that you weren’t going to make anything up.
I’m not. I’m lying.
“And,” Les said, “you figure they killed Child’s Play?”
“I don’t know. Could be the guys they’re running the drug through. Genuine bad guys.”
“And Teko Teko and Archambault aren’t bad guys? I mean, if you’re right, they already killed almost four hundred people. And Eden? The rumors you were hearing? The stuff we heard?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, here’s what I know. We’re partners. And you better start getting the message and act like one.”
“Of course I will,” she said petulantly. But all the while, she was repeating a conversation in her head that I hadn’t heard before: Eden? No, I think that’s different. I think Eden’s a real copy.
Les took off to the FDA. A former boyfriend of his worked there, pretty high up, and he wanted to see if he could dig up any dirt on Archambault and the pharma companies she and Teko Teko worked for, any dirt that could put them in the same room as drug dealers. Or perhaps any specific links to the vice president. Or maybe Les and Christopher were going through a rocky patch, and Les was working on a backup plan. Anyway, he was out of our hair.
“Well, boss, what’s the plan?”
The word co-op flitted at the edge of my field of vision, and I snatched it up before she could hide it away.
Jen, though, was distracted by another call. Another one of our regular customers was busy aging overnight. Seems a few holdouts were still convinced that the counterfeit treatment was legit. We followed it up, but returned to the station weary and no wiser.
We also returned to find two uniforms waiting for us. One of them was the cop who’d stood at the door when Lieutenant McNair had come with Teko Teko to the first meeting with their unit and the drug guys. Welterweight boxer, Virginia hams for fists.
The other man spoke. Baby-faced.
“Jennifer Lu?”
She agreed she was. I’ve always said Jen’s a sharp cookie.
“We’re supposed to bring you in to help with an investigation.”
“About what?”
“No idea. We’re the hired help.”
The boxer didn’t look too happy with this description. He grabbed Jen by the arm, his hand completely circling her bicep, and started to pull her toward the door.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” she said.
He snorted as if a mosquito was telling him not to swat it, but he let go.
In the car to headquarters, Jen sent a message through me to Les. I’m being taken in for questioning.
WTF?
Must be about the captain.
I told you!
???
Everyone knew you two were up to something.
We weren’t up to anything.
Hope that’s their take on it.
Just in case anyone was listening in, she said, Well, it’s the truth. Talk tonight.
At HQ, Babyface confiscated her phone. And her gun. She asked if she was under arrest. Babyface said, “No.” His partner smiled as if he knew better.
We were led to an interview room. I got a new definition of what vulnerability sounds like: that door clicking shut with you on the wrong side of the table.
“Stay cool,” said Jen. “When you haven’t done anything wrong, there’s no reason to sweat.”
Then why, I wondered, is your temperature point eight degrees lower than usual and yet you’re sweating?
In lieu of making that observation, I said, “No signal. I’m offline.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Doesn’t scare me so much anymore.”
“Stay cool, my friend. Stay cool.”
For the first time in my life, I was unable to speak. She just called me her friend, I thought. My head spun in the most interesting circle as I replayed her words. My friend.
Jen’s eyes toured around the small room. Scratches and gouges in the plaster. A one-way mirror. Camera tucked in the corner with the red light on.
We stood up when two women in plain clothes came in. Lieutenant McNair with her magnificent coif of flaming red hair. Another, with a magnificent head of malevolence, leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes leaking poison.
McNair placed her tablet and a large folder of printouts on the table.
Being offline, I couldn’t get a tag on the other woman, but she had Fed written all over her. I told Jen, FBI or DEA.
McNair waved a hand at the chair where we’d been sitting. “Sit, sit! This is merely a discussion.” She opened the folder. We could see printouts of our reports.
McNair told the recorders to start. She began friendly and low key. Lure Jen into believing McNair was on her side. Let down her guard. Yeah, got it, Jen said to me.
Six minutes of general questions about her career, her feelings about being a police officer, whether she believed there was life on other planets. Then another eighteen and a half minutes of questions, still general, about how she’d started to pursue the Eden investigation.
“I’ve been reading through your reports. Nice instincts, Detective.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
And then McNair rolled up her sleeves.
“I know it must be an upsetting day at your station. It sure is around here. I can’t discuss the charges against Captain Brooks, but I’ve brought you in to try to clear up a few issues that have cropped up.”
We were off to the races.
It lasted another hour and eight minutes, and very quickly McNair’s friendly tone vanished. She was relentless and punishing as she dug out smaller and smaller details. From general questions—did Captain Brooks try to derail the investigation into Eden? Did you ever think that Captain Brooks knew more about these Eden rumors than he let on?—to asking about particular meetings and discussions.
She asked Jen how she could possibly have developed an interest in Teena Archambault. Jen embellished the truth by adding two words (“the treatment”), which turned her answer into a straight-faced lie: “We were in the foyer of a private club and I heard this woman talking about people wanting the treatment. I was curious who she was, that’s all. No big story, I follow leads. We found out she was working in DC, I went to speak to her.”
Questions about meeting with Brooks on the roof. Number of times. Dates. What they talked about. Why he ordered Jen to turn off her implant.
McNair’s phone buzzed. She checked a text. “This will be a moment,” she said to Jen, as if they were back to chumming-around status. “I’ll send in a coffee for you.”
McNair snatched up her papers, motioned to the other woman, and they left the room.
Jen stood up and stretched, walked to the two-way mirror.
The door opened. The thin boxer came in, one big paw hanging loosely at his side, the other clutching a cardboard cup.
“Lieutenant says to give this to you.”
He came toward her and held out the coffee.
I saw it and tried to warn her—the red light, the camera, it’s off!—but too late. As his free arm shot toward her, he tucked himself down and, with his whole body behind it, plowed that oversized fist into Jen’s solar plexus.
Since I’d known her, she’d been hit many times and in many places. But never with such force or so much venom. The momentum of his fist lifted her up onto her toes. She was close to blacking out, and I fought to keep her conscious. She tried to breathe, her mouth wide open, but she couldn’t pull in a lick of air. Panic rose. It doesn’t matter if you know your diaphragm will soon be back on the job, instinct tells you to breathe if your lungs are suddenly empty. And if you can’t breathe, panic takes charge. With all I had, I forced her to relax and, after several agonizing seconds, she sucked in air, first a trickle, another trickle, then a bit more, and finally great gulps. She looked up to see the cop standing there, admiring his work, drinking whatever coffee hadn’t spilled onto the floor. She felt her stomach rising and puked, then finally stumbled backward and landed in the chair.
She heard the boxer leave the room.
Jen’s head thumped down onto the table. She felt like utter crap. I tried to talk to her, to cheer her up, but she refused to say a word.
Finally, she said, “Chandler, did you see his badge number?”
“Of course.” I recited it to her.
She said, “If it’s the last thing I do …”
The door opened and Jen’s head jerked up in alarm. But it was one of the cleaning staff, who mopped the floor without saying a word.
Ten minutes later, McNair and the other woman returned.
“God, it stinks in here. I hear you weren’t feeling well.”
“Your officer assaulted me.”
Jen caught a flash of alarm on McNair’s face. “Detective,” McNair said, “I find that hard to believe.” But it was clear to Jen that she wasn’t the first person who had reported a run-in with that cop, and it was clear to both of us that the boxer had been instructed to scare her, even if his brutality genuinely caught McNair by surprise.
The questions started again. This time, infinitely more hostile. Bashing deeper and deeper before going full out against Captain Brooks, including a rapid-fire series of questions ending with blistering accusations. “When did you start having suspicions that Captain Brooks was part of the ring distributing the contraband treatment?” and “When did you start conspiring with him?”
I listened in silence, absolutely amazed at how Jen, still aching and nauseous from the punch to her gut, managed to thread a needle through this onslaught.
And amazed at what Jen was not saying.
I didn’t know what she and the captain talked about on the roof, but I knew it was often her initiative to see him and not some whim on his part. I knew that afterward she’d be buzzing with new orders for the Eden case.
I had figured out ages ago that she had met up with people from the computer co-op. But not a word of this came from her mouth.
And I knew damn well she suspected Archambault and Teko Teko were linked to the poisonous street version of the treatment.
McNair and the FBI woman left the room. I felt Jen tighten, worried what was coming next. But instead, they returned with someone Jen and I knew.
“Doctor!” Jen said.
The two women stared at him. He said to them, “It’s Jen’s—sorry—Detective Lu’s nickname for me.”
Jamal el Massot was a senior technician with the implant program. Not one of the surgeons, but someone who calibrated and monitored my functioning before implantation and especially in the first months afterward.
McNair said to Jen, “We’d like to question your implant.”
“Is that an order?”
“Depending if you want to start cooperating.”
“I’ve been cooperating. Go ahead.”
McNair said to me, “What do you want me to call you?”
“Chandler.”
“Chandler, do you promise to tell the truth?”
“I promise, but that’s unnecessary because, as you should know, I am not capable of lying.”
McNair turned to Jamal. “Is that right?”
“One hundred percent.”
She asked how many times Jen had switched me off during her work hours.
“Including the time she was disciplined for?”
“No. Since then.”
I answered. They both looked at Jamal, who studied my diagnostics on his tablet and gave a thumbs up.
Where and for how long? I gave precise times and locations for each date; Jamal pointed his thumb upward. McNair thanked him and asked him to wait in the hall in case she needed him again.
And then the questions started in earnest.
We covered much of the same ground as she had with Jen, although, as with my court testimony, my responses were infinitely sharper. Where Jen had searched for answers, where she fumbled to find the right word, I spoke instantly and clearly.
I’d only been asked to do this four times in my life, most recently in court and now this. Each time, I loved every moment. I felt fully appreciated and respected. I knew that my crystalline knowledge counted for something. I knew that I mattered as a person. Good times.
After Lieutenant McNair had asked seventeen questions, she tossed in her grenade: “Did Jen Lu ever do anything or say anything to you or one of her fellow officers about the Eden investigation or matters concerning exit that she omitted from her reports over the past six months, or that she has not told us or misstated to us during this interview?”
Oh, I thought, like figuring there is some type of a link between the co-op and Eden? Like breaking into a crime scene? Like trespassing in a private club? Like lying about her interest in Teena Archambault and Teko Teko? Like coming back from her rooftop meetings with a whole new set of instructions?
I mean, where to start?
I said, “How long do you have for my answer?”
Lieutenant McNair brightened. A smile slithered onto the face of the agent leaning against the wall.
I felt Jen’s panic rise. I ignored her, as I am programmed to do in moments such as these.
Lieutenant McNair said, “We have all day, Chandler. Take your time.”
“But,” I said, “that won’t be necessary. The answer is no. There’s not one single thing that she hasn’t reported to you or that isn’t in her reports.”
“Nothing? Nothing you can think of?”
“No, nothing at all.”
“You swear to that? Remember, you promised to tell the absolute truth.”
“That is my programming. I cannot tell a lie. I cannot bend the truth or omit information. There was nothing, no actions, no words, no conduct concerning the investigations into Eden, exit, or any aspect of the legal or illegal treatment that Detective Lu has not reported to you or that is not in her reports.”
McNair and the woman from the FBI or DEA left the interview room.
Don’t even think it, I said.
To distract her, I asked about Zach’s business, and we got into a spirited discussion about xeriscaping—that is, low-water gardening.
Twenty-five minutes later, McNair returned with Jamal and a staff member from human resources. McNair stayed on her feet.
“Detective Lu, please stand up,” she said.
Jen did so.
“Under the provisions of the Code of the District of Columbia, Chapter 10A, Subchapter 1, Section 7-3218, I hereby suspend you, Detective Jennifer B. Lu, from active duty. You will receive full pay during your suspension. You may be notified in the coming days of specific charges against you.”
McNair then recited a long list of restrictions, requirements, and responsibilities that Jen faced while under suspension. She reminded her there was still a civil suit pending against her and the department for assault and unnecessary force during the arrest of James O’Neil, and Jen would be required to cooperate if that proceeded during her suspension.
“Do you understand the conditions of your suspension?”
Jen was too stunned to answer.
Jen, I said, say “I do.”
Like a robot, Jen said, “I do.”
“Would you please surrender your badge to me?”
Jen mechanically fished out her badge and handed it over.
“We have already confiscated your service revolver. Your service accounts have been blocked and your passwords nullified. Any personal effects at your station will be bagged and returned to you.”
And that, I thought, is that.
But I was wrong.
McNair said, “Mr. el Massot, would you now deactivate Detective Lu’s synthetic implant?”
“But—” Jen said.
“There is no discussion here.”
“I’ll do it,” Jen pleaded. “I’ll turn him off.”
“You don’t understand. We’re not just switching him off. He is being permanently deactivated.”
Jamal fiddled with his pad.
He looked deep into Jen’s eyes … my eyes. “Chandler, I’m sorry.”
His index finger hovered for a second above the screen.
And then—