Lock In (Lock In, #1)(31)

“Biology,” Vann said. “American University.”

“Right,” I said. “Plus there’s supposed to be a raft of psychological and aptitude tests you have to clear before they let you into the program. It’s one of the reasons there’s so few Integrators.”

“Yes,” Vann said.

“It’s expensive, too. The training process.”

“Not for the student,” Vann said. “The NIH covers the costs.”

“They must have been pissed at you when you left,” I said.

“They got their money’s worth from me,” Vann said. “Bring it back around.”

“Okay, so the question here is, here is a guy who didn’t finish high school and who we have no record of anywhere outside of the Navajo Nation, which means he didn’t have Integrator training.” I pointed to the X-ray. “So how does this guy get all that wiring in his head?”

“That’s a good question,” Vann said. “It’s not the only question. What else is wrong about this picture?”

“What isn’t wrong about this picture?” I asked.

“I meant specifically.”

“Why would an Integrator want to integrate with another Integrator?” I asked.

“More specific than that.”

“I don’t know how to get more specific than that,” I said.

“Why would an Integrator want to integrate with another Integrator, and bring a headset?” Vann asked.

I looked at her blankly for a couple of seconds. Then, “Oh, shit, the headset.”

“Right,” Vann said.

“That reminds me,” Diaz said, to me. “I got inside that headset like you asked, to see if there was any useful information on those processor chips.”

“Was there?” I asked.

“No,” Diaz said. “There were no chips inside the headset.”

“If there are no chips inside, then it wouldn’t work. It’s a dummy headset,” I said.

“That would be my thinking, yes,” Diaz said.

I turned to Vann. “Seriously, what the hell is going on here?” I said.

“What do you mean?” Vann asked.

“I mean, what the hell is going here. We’ve got two Integrators, one of whom shouldn’t be an Integrator, and a dummy headset. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Vann turned to Diaz. “Fingerprints on the headset?”

“Yes,” he said. “They match Sani, not Bell.”

“So Sani brought the headset to the party, not Bell,” Vann said, then looked back at me. “What does that suggest to you?”

“Maybe that Bell didn’t know Sani was an Integrator,” I said. “And that Sani didn’t want him to know he was one, either.”

“Right,” Vann said.

“Okay, but again, why?” I asked. “What possible use is there for Sani to convince Bell that he’s just a tourist? Without the headset he can’t even be that. Unless there’s some Integrator-to-Integrator ability I don’t know about.”

“No,” Vann said. “There’s a sort of neural feedback loop that happens when you try to put one Integrator into the head of another. You can fry people’s brains that way.”

“Like Scanners?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“An old movie. About psychics. They could make your head blow up.”

Vann smiled. “Nothing that outwardly dramatic. But inwardly it’s not supposed to be pleasant. It’s blocked at the network level in any event.”

“So it couldn’t have been that,” I said. “Plus the whole suicide thing again.”

Vann was quiet again.

Then: “What time is it in Arizona?”

“It’s two hours behind here, so about eight thirty,” I said. “Maybe. Arizona is weird about time zones.”

“You need to go out there today and talk to some people,” Vann said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” Vann said. “You can get there in ten seconds for nothing.”

“There’s the small fact I will have no body,” I said.

“You’re not the only Haden on the FBI staff,” Vann said. “The Bureau keeps spare threeps at the major field offices. Phoenix will have one for you. It won’t be fancy”—she motioned to my threep—“but it will get the job done.”

“Are the Navajo going to cooperate with us?” I asked.

“If we let them know we’re trying to figure out the death of one of their own, they might come around,” Vann said. “I have a friend in the Phoenix office. I’ll see if he can make things easier. Let’s get you out there by ten their time.”

“I can’t just call?” I asked.

“You need to tell some family their son or dad is dead and then ask them a bunch of personal questions,” Vann said. “Yeah, no, you can’t just call.”

“It’ll be my first trip to Arizona,” I said.

“Hope you like hot,” Vann said.

* * *

At 10:05 I found myself in the Phoenix FBI field office, looking at a bald man.

“Agent Beresford?” I asked.