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  Most of the guests laughed, but one said, “I have a bad feeling about this, we don’t know what’s going to go next. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” advised Frank Auerbach, publisher and editor of The Sycamore Seed. “Crazy things happen all the time, but you never hear about most of them. Usually it’s technology gone bad and they’re trying to cover it up. This is just another of the petty annoyances of the twenty-first century.”

  Auerbach was an archetypal American, a blend of many generations of immigrants from the four corners of the earth. Average height, average build, medium brown hair, no distinctive features. His wife, Anne, who loved him and was annoyed by him in almost equal measure, once told him, “You wouldn’t stand out in a crowd of two.”

  Now she asked, “Would you rather be living a hundred years ago, Frank? With no modern medicine, no wallscreens? No air-conditioning?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  Another guest interjected, “I think a Russian agent emptied—”

  “A Chinese agent, you mean.”

  “Whatever. A foreign agent’s emptied chemicals into our reservoirs and now the knobs on our cabinets are falling off. Some secret weapon that is!”

  There was more laughter.

  Gloria Delmonico, wearing a textured yellow sunsuit that contrasted with her smooth dark skin, emerged from the house carrying a tray of canapés. “It’s not funny,” she said as she set the tray on the redwood picnic table. “People are frightened by what they don’t understand so they make up stories to explain it. At the hospital we have a patient who’s seen a woman rise from the dead.”

  “Like a ghost?”

  “The poor man was hallucinating. He’s convinced she’s come back from the grave to ruin his life, but the real problem is he’s still suffering occasional flashbacks from a bad drug experience years ago. When he accepts that, I may be able to help him.”

  “The Change can’t be a giant hallucination.”

  “It’s a giant hoax and someone’s going to have to pay for the damage.”

  Theories were batted around like tennis balls. Everything from a foreign conspiracy to the nation’s propensity for alcohol was blamed.

  “The government’s going to have to do something about this.”

  “Sure they will. They’ll form a committee the taxpayers will pay for, and the committee will form a subcommittee and put together a panel of experts…”

  “That’s all we need, a panel of experts.”

  Jack remarked, “The ordinary man in the street might be better than a panel of experts locked into their own viewpoints.”

  “Don’t include me in that,” said Gerry.

  “You’re a scientist, aren’t you?”

  “Industrial chemist, that’s my job description. I got interested in science very early, when my granddad told me about smartphones that spontaneously caught fire years ago. In school I discovered I was like Marie Curie, fascinated by both chemistry and physics. But it’s easier to make a living in chemistry.”

  “Did they ever find out why the phones caught fire?”

  “Sure they did, science has an answer for everything.”

  “You have a lot of faith in science, don’t you?”

  Gerry grinned. “Faith and science are a contradiction in terms. Science is about what’s real; faith is wishful thinking.” He shot a glance in Gloria’s direction. “But don’t tell my wife I said that.”

  * * *

  “I know what I saw at the bank,” Nell Bennett insisted on Sunday evening.

  “You should stop having those liquid lunches,” her husband told her. A ruggedly handsome man, retaining the neck and shoulders that had made him formidable at college football, Robert Bennett dominated the dinner table. “Alcohol’s going to start showing on your face.”

  Nell hated it when her husband made disparaging remarks to her in front of the children. “I didn’t have a ‘liquid lunch’ that day, Rob, I didn’t have lunch at all.”

  “Another diet, Mom?”

  “I’m not dieting, Jess, I don’t need to.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  A few minutes later Colin complained of a headache. Headaches had become a frequent feature of his teens. Rob dismissed them as attention seeking, but Nell worried. The specialist she consulted had sought to reassure her. “It’s a normal occurrence in teenagers, Mrs. Bennett; their bodies are changing so rapidly. If Colin’s headaches occur more frequently or the pain becomes worse, bring him back in and we’ll run some tests, but I don’t think it will be necessary.”

  The meal ended as most meals did in the Bennett household; like the breakup of a small constellation. Robert Bennett announced he was going to his office at RobBenn for a couple of hours. His son went to his room to play war games on the internet. In her room Jessamyn avidly followed the celebrity gossip on social media.

  Nell was left to retire to the media room and seek electronic company alone, as she did most evenings.

  When she activated the wallscreen a local broadcaster walked toward her from a surrealistic set. “A blizzard of potato chips swirled through Alcott Park today. The bags disintegrated as they were being unloaded at the refreshment stand. We also have unconfirmed reports of plastic pill bottles dissolving on drugstore shelves.”

  As if I needed this, thought Nell.

  She switched the wallscreen to the international news to be greeted by an onslaught of violence and tragedy, interrupted at three-minute intervals by celebrities appearing to walk toward her from the screen, extolling the virtues of a new-model car or the latest energy drink.

  She changed to a pay-for-view documentary channel where the past was brought to life again; the safe and distant past that held no surprises. A program on archaeology, one of her favorite subjects, absorbed her interest until bedtime. But she did not sleep well that night. When Rob finally crawled into their bed she was grateful for his bulk and solidity. Robert Bennett, to whom life had given all the prizes, was her bulwark.

  He would keep her safe. Rob always kept his trophies safe.

  6

  On Monday morning Nell alluded to the destruction of the bank card while she spooned scrambled eggs onto her husband’s plate. “I hope my new card comes in the mail today.”

  “Do you have to go on about trivia? I’ve got a lot on my mind, an important meeting this afternoon. And don’t give me any yatata about your real estate business either. As if any intelligent person would give you their business,” he added while helping himself to more sage-and-apple sausages.

  “Rob, you shouldn’t eat so much sausage. What about your cholesterol?”

  “The same cholesterol you’re trying to boost with all these scrambled eggs? Can’t wait to collect on my life insurance, hunh?” Ten minutes later he strode from the house. As he drove away he decided not to come home that night but sleep at RobBenn—his usual response to any disturbance at home, particularly those he had initiated himself.

  He had been in his office for only a few minutes when his personal assistant came in. “The grip on my handbag—I thought it was leather—stuck to my hand,” Karen Moeller said, looking stunned. “It took ages to peel it off. See how red my palm is!”

  “Don’t you women keep any cream in your desk? Go put some on it and then bring me my calendar.”

  * * *

  A mile away from the Bennett house Sandy and Buster Nyeberger were hard at work on schemes to liven up the summer. Mischief was their constant preoccupation. Any possibility was grist to their mill. As the oldest boy at fourteen, Sandy had a room by himself. Kirby and Buster were thirteen and eleven respectively and shared another room, while Flub and Dub occupied a third.

  The wing of the house that contained the boys’ rooms resembled the wreckage left by a passing tornado.

  On this morning the two oldest boys had closeted themselves in Sandy’s room and locked the door. They only emerged for a hasty breakfast and then retired again. Sometime l
ater they summoned their brother Buster.

  The twins, Flub and Dub, complained at being left out. “They’re playing World War Four again and they won’t let us!”

  “You have a PC in your room,” their mother reminded them. “Go on the internet and find—”

  “It’s just an old one and you’ve got all the good stuff blocked,” Flub said. “It’s not fair. Why can’t we—”

  “You just can’t, that’s all.” Tricia Nyeberger pushed a stringy lock of hair back from her damp forehead and looked at her watch. It was not yet noon. Dear God. A long day still stretched ahead. Children used to play outside in the summer, she recalled with longing. You could shoo them out the back door and not see them again for hours. Now they’re glued to machines and they speak a different language. They don’t even talk to each other half the time, they just send texts, even from room to room.

  She wondered if it would be safe to leave them alone for an hour while she went to the hospital. Dwayne was due to be discharged after lunch.

  Just one problem after another.

  As she entered the boys’ wing to start changing the beds, she heard a whoop of delight followed by Buster’s exclamation, “Awesomely fatal!”

  Awesomely fatal. Tricia Nyeberger silently mouthed the words. It really is another language.

  While she waited for her husband at the hospital she talked with his psychologist. “Dwayne’s still somewhat withdrawn, Mrs. Nyeberger. Anything you can do to get him interested will be helpful.”

  “That’s just it, Doctor; he’s not interested in much outside of the bank.”

  “His children, surely?” Gloria Delmonico’s warm brown eyes and sympathetic voice put Tricia at ease.

  “Our kids are kind of … wild, I guess you’d say, but Dwayne doesn’t want to know.”

  “Boys, aren’t they?”

  “Five.”

  “Do they have a play station at home?”

  “Sure. Interactive virtual reality, they’re crazy about it. They have their own computers too.”

  “Have you heard of neuroscience?”

  “I think I saw the word on a game show once.”

  “It’s the study of the brain and nervous system,” Gloria explained. “The Chinese were the first to recognize that people were becoming seriously addicted to video games. Now we’re using that same addiction to treat antisocial behavior. Games have been designed with positive and negative stimuli to help reprogram the mind and develop a disciplined cognitive process. In other words, they subliminally encourage mental maturity.”

  From the blank expression on the other woman’s face Gloria realized she might as well have been speaking Sanskrit. “The process has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration,” she added comfortingly.

  “Oh. Well, that’s good.”

  “If you’d like I’ll give you a few games to take home, Mrs. Nyeberger. Just remember to remove the information packet before you give them to your boys, and if you have any questions, let me know.”

  * * *

  Jack Reece watched the chief executive officer of RobBenn impassively. From the other side of his desk Robert Bennett regarded Bea Fontaine’s nephew with an equal lack of expression. It’s like playing chess, thought Bennett. I make a move, he makes a move. Neither of us gives anything away.

  That was what he most enjoyed about business. The game. Not even the winning, though he played to win with ferocious determination. The game itself was the ultimate thrill.

  Bennett knew the rules and manipulated them to his own advantage. He had no compunction about dishonesty; no businessman ever got to the top without, as he put it, “coloring outside the lines.” The proposal he had put to Jack Reece years earlier meant coloring outside the lines. Reece had gone along with it, helping RobBenn to make a sizeable profit from time to time.

  But Bennett didn’t trust Reece. Not an inch.

  In their original discussion the two men had chosen their words carefully. Both knew what they were talking about without being dangerously specific. This afternoon they were facing one another across the same desk in the same office, but it was a new game.

  Before opening the conversation Bennett tented his fingers and took a moment to study the man in front of him. He was good at reading body language. Reece appeared to be relaxed, but he had the intensity of a coiled spring. Like any good gambler, he knew when to play a hunch and when to walk away.

  For Robert Bennett Jack’s value lay in his contacts overseas.

  Too many hours behind a desk and too many rich meals had taken their toll on Bennett. His youthful athleticism had been replaced by brute force. In the competitive arena of big business intimidation was his specialty. He often said, “Appear big to win big.” Another of his slogans was, “There is no such thing as enough, believe me.”

  Bennett wondered if Jack Reece ever had enough. Of anything. There was something feral about that face.

  He opened his hands and laid them flat on the desk. “Remind me, Jack; how many languages do you speak?”

  “Five in addition to English: French, German, Russian, Mandarin and Farsi.”

  “Farsi. That’s new for you, isn’t it?”

  “Fairly recent: I study anything that may come in handy. And I have translation apps on my AllComs.”

  Bennett, who spoke no foreign languages, refused to be impressed. “I detect a trace of an accent in your speech now.”

  “I’m like a navy blazer, I pick up traces wherever I go. In a week I’ll be back to plain American.”

  “Let me guess … you’ve been in the Middle East, right? That’s where you got that tan?”

  Jack gave a noncommittal grunt.

  “Doing any business for me over there now?”

  Instead of answering, Jack swung around in his chair and gazed out the window.

  Bennett tried another approach. “How about this trouble with plastic? The media’s calling it ‘the Change’; sounds menopausal, doesn’t it?”

  Not by the flicker of an eyelash did Jack react. Bennett’s coarse streak was only one of the reasons he disliked the man. He turned back to face him. “You think it might affect your business?”

  Bennett ran one hand across the top of his head to smooth the thinning hair. His palm came away damp. “’Course not. Couple of pieces of plastic dissolved, that’s all. I stay on top of things, believe me. That’s why I asked you to come in as soon as I heard you were back in town. If you have any new—”

  “You think that’s all this is?” Jack interrupted. “A ‘little problem’?”

  “Sure it is, nobody’s been hurt. The giants of the pharmaceutical industry have a massive financial cushion so our original market will always be there. But what about the market for RobBenn’s more, ah, profitable products? Is that still there?”

  “War is still there,” Reece said tersely. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “My business has nothing to do with war.”

  Jack said nothing.

  Bennett cleared his throat. Leaned back in his chair to show that he was at home here. Confident. Very much in charge. “My grandfather started out working in a little dry goods store upstate, did you know that? Saved his money until the owners wanted to retire and bought them out. He had an instinct for what people wanted; he put in a soda fountain and began selling patent medicines. Granddad did well enough to send my dad to college to study pharmacy. In time Dad developed a few patents that were worth something; when he died he left me enough money to go into business for myself when I came back from the war. Took a while to get started, but I never gave up.

  “And here we are. RobBenn.” He spread his hands in an expansive gesture meant to take in the entire complex.

  “It’s quite an achievement.”

  “Damn straight it is! From the beginning I knew I’d have to diversify to make it work. Diversity is the name of the game in business these days. In pharmaceuticals the field was too crowded for me to compete, but I realized the corollaries cou
ld be almost as profitable for a smaller investment and lower overheads. That’s why I went into packaging. New drugs are constantly coming onto the market and the demand for more is enormous, especially since the failure of antibiotics. Many medications are inherently fragile. Too much vibration, or the wrong temperature, even a little pressure can cause irreparable damage, so protection is vital.

  “I hired people who could design and produce the necessary containers for shipping and storage—which was changing all the time, like drugs themselves. RobBenn also developed protective devices no one else had thought of, and along the way we started to turn out some very interesting—”

  “Widgets,” said Jack Reese. “The first time we spoke about this you called them widgets.”

  “Shorthand for small but versatile components,” Bennett affirmed. “You understood what I meant.”

  “Of course I did. I also understood that you weren’t applying for ‘dual-use’ export licenses because they’re expensive and time consuming, but you had a more compelling reason. Your widgets could be employed in a wide variety of weapons systems. In other countries they can go into equipment that can’t be imported but has to be built from scratch. By supplying those simple components—”

  “That’s all we do,” Bennett interjected. “We supply small components that, as far as we’re concerned, can be fitted into dishwashers or tractors. The whole world runs on machinery made up of bits and pieces: they’re indispensible. I wouldn’t do anything illegal, believe me.”

  “Then why are you hiding out here in the forest?”

  “I’m not hiding. In a way, I’m continuing a tradition like the one Elias Daggett established. I’ve built something here that I can pass on to my son and his sons. If you had children yourself you’d understand, Jack.” Bennett paused. “You don’t have any children, do you?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “What does marriage have to do with it?”

  Silence.

  Bennett leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Let’s get down to business. I know the international situation’s complicated right now, but can you do any more business abroad for me?”