Babel Effect

Chapter 1 Friday, May 3, 2001 Jess had been born with a hole in her heart-a ventricular septal defect. It had been surgically repaired when she was two years old, but Ryan often thought that in some ways it had never really closed: Thirty-six years later, she seemed to carry an opening in her heart, both a wound and a window. He could feel it in her now, as she came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest. In the pressure of her body against his back he could feel the deep gentle beat, an unexpected intimacy. "All set," Leap announced happily. He rolled his chair over, bringing a wireless keyboard and mouse. Marshall came to stand next to Jess, along with Silvia Sorbanelli and her colleagues from the American Forensic Psychology Association. Leap tapped a command. On the big monitor, what looked like a single raindrop fell onto a smooth surface, sending decaying ripples out from the center of the screen. Beautiful, tranquil, almost hypnotic. "This is the most basic stage," Leap explained. "We started with a simple energy dispersion pattern, a ripple of energy moving outward from an epicenter." Dr. Sorbanelli nodded appreciatively. "Nice graphics," she said. "Has this . . . system . . . got a name?" "RAINDROP." Leap was looking happy, a proud father showing off his baby. "Not an acronym, just a little poetic license." They were in the windowless control room of Leap's data-processing lab, back under the bluff at Genesis headquarters. Through a glass wall, they could see the RAID cabinets and other rack-mounted hardware of Argus, Leap's computer, LEDs blinking erratically. The air in the control room had a zoo smell because Leap kept his ferret, Sneaky Pete, in a cage on one of the counters. Marshall had flown in from Stanford to join the Genesis people and Dr. Sorbanelli for the first of the death-row interviews and some further discussion of the forensic neuropsychology project. It was a good chance for the AFPA to get to know the Genesis organization on a more informal basis, so Jess had played hostess, walking Dr. Sorbanelli and her colleagues through the house and then down the long outside stairs to the offices. Finally they had come back here to Leap's subterranean lair to show off RAINDROP, now entering the wrap-up stage. Silvia Sorbanelli had graying hair and patrician features appropriate to her towering reputation in neuropsychology. She had come with two associates: a pretty Asian woman with a quiet, self-effacing manner, and a man in his late fifties with penetrating eyes and a sharp little smile. Though Ryan hadn't caught his name, he kept thinking he should recognize that slab-cheeked face, more like a big-city ward boss or a Kremlin heavy than a scientist. On the screen another drop fell, this time causing some splashes nearby as droplets flew and set up their own rings of ripples. "The plot thickens." Leap leaned forward to point out the secondary splashes, chewing his gum rapidly. Nicotine gum, Ryan knew, and not because Leap had ever smoked-he just liked the buzz. Jess explained: "The commission is from a consortium of state health departments-Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Really, the impetus for the project came from the first incident, back in 1993-you remember, a mysterious disease outbreak in New Mexico, in the Four Corners region? Very high fatality rates?" "Sure," Silvia Sorbanelli said. "The 'Navajo flu.'" "Not very flattering to the Navajos, but yes, that's the one. Ultimately the bug was called the Sin Nombre virus-'No Name.' A previously unknown hantavirus that caused fever, swelling of the heart lining, and acute fluid buildup in the lungs." "Didn't the CDC eventually trace the virus to mice?" "Hecht, Daniel is the author of 'Babel Effect' with ISBN 9780609607299 and ISBN 0609607294.