Alan Miller walked a few steps to the bar and began pouring himself another drink. He turned to Desh once again. “I recruited Putnam and began building wealth and power all the while my sister was working on extended life. I always knew what she was up to. I made it a point to know, despite the precautions she thought she was taking after my break-in.” He added ice to his glass and returned to his seat. “When Lusetti reported she was closing up shop, I suspected she had made a breakthrough.”
“So you flew to San Diego to find out,” said Desh.
“When I learned the secret wasn’t in her computer and would have to be coerced from her, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. With emphasis on kill,” he added sardonically. “I had been considering faking my own death, anyway, and starting over with a new identity that was off the grid.”
“And you knew your sister worshipped you. So you decided to pretend to be a hostage and use the threat of your own death as leverage.”
Alan nodded. “It was a brilliant plan, if I do say so myself.” He paused for a moment and his features hardened. “But I didn’t count on the memory trap she had made,” he growled through clenched teeth. “That fucked everything up.” He swirled his drink and stared at it in his hand, as if mesmerized, until he was icy calm once again.
“So given the memory blockade, why even bother with Kira?” asked Desh. “Why not just optimize your molecular biologist until he repeated her work, saving yourself the headache?”
“Because compared to my freak of a sister, he’s a moron. It took him years to duplicate her brain optimization therapy—and he had the instructions. Even enhanced, I doubt there are even three or four scientists in the world who would could duplicate her longevity work.” He shook his head. “No, she was the only game in town. But as if her memory trick wasn’t annoying enough, she managed to kill that dumb bastard Lusetti and vanish from the grid. I’m man enough to admit that this really pissed me off,” he said with apparent calm, but his tone couldn’t fully disguise an unmistakable undercurrent of barely contained rage at this memory, even now. “But only for a short while,” he added. “I regrouped. I took another of her smart pills, and I came up with my grand plan the very next day.”
“Putnam told us,” said Kira in disgust. “Mass sterilization of women just so you can extend your twisted existence for a few years.”
Alan laughed. “Mass sterilization?” he repeated in amusement. “Don’t believe everything you’re told.”
“I don’t understand,” said Kira.
“That’s because you’re so sanctimonious you refuse to give yourself the very gift you created. If you would have taken one of your own pills, you would have seen through this ruse in an instant.” He shook his head in disappointment. “You really are a lot less intelligent than I remembered.” He spread his hands innocently. “Why would I possibly want to sterilize anybody?”
She looked confused. “First, to motivate me to unlock my memories.”
Alan shook his head. “When I enhanced myself after I had faked my death, I pondered the likely properties of your memory prison. I realized right away that no threat, no matter how great, would enable you to crack it.” He gestured toward her encouragingly. “By all means, guess again.”
“Because if you succeeded—if ours really did become mankind’s last generation—I would be forced to give you my secret for the survival of the species. Or to Putnam, at any rate.”
“Give it to Putnam?” he hissed, as if outraged. “Give it to me? Kira, you would never give your secret to either one of us. You can only unlock your memory if you truly want to. And you would never want to for me or Putnam. You would bide your time, knowing we wouldn’t kill you, until you could escape. That way you’d make sure we didn’t hoard the secret and use it for our own ends. Make sure the entire world was a beneficiary.” He scowled. “You and I both know that’s what you’d do.”
Kira nodded. “You’re right,” she acknowledged reluctantly.
“Of course I am. And if I kept you hostage and tried to force it out of you, I’d be back where I started. Catch 22. So the only way I could get it is if I let you go and you gave it to the entire world.” He paused. “And while this would, indeed, ensure I lived longer along with the rest of the masses, I would lose the use of the most powerful lever in history.” He smiled cruelly. “You see, I’m a little selfish. I want the secret all to myself. To use as I see fit.”
“I still don’t see it,” said Kira. “The Ebola cold-virus was a bluff. The explosive in my head was a bluff. The sterilization plot was a bluff. Why? How do they all fit together? And what did all of these machinations buy you?”
Her brother smiled broadly. “As it turns out, Kira … everything.”
Alan Miller took a sip of his drink, a delighted gleam in his eye, obviously reveling in finally being able to share his warped maneuverings with a rapt audience. He was savoring the telling of a story that would twist the knife in his prisoners over and over again. “As I said, I knew with certainty that you couldn’t be coerced. So I had to ask my unfathomably brilliant transformed self this question: under what conditions would my little sister give up her secret? Once I answered this, all I had to do was establish these conditions.” He rolled his eyes. “A lot easier said than done, I must admit.”
“So what were the conditions?” asked Kira, but a sick feeling had grown in the pit of her stomach. She realized she had just given Desh the location of the flash drive. She knew exactly what combination of conditions this had taken. But for Alan to suggest he had orchestrated things from the start to bring about these conditions was preposterous. Besides, she had whispered the coordinates directly in Desh’ ear, and no listening device was sensitive enough to catch that.
“First,” began Alan, “you had to respect someone enough to trust them with your secret. If you were forever a loner and didn’t have anyone to trust, no combination of circumstances would do.”
He turned to Desh. “That’s where you come in. You were handpicked for this role.”
“What are you talking about?” snapped Desh in confusion.
“Who do you think set you up in Iran?” he said smugly, a Cheshire grin on his face.
“Impossible!” barked Desh. “You’re saying you expected me to team up with your sister even then?”
Alan Miller nodded. “I wanted to ensure she had someone to confide in. Believe me, Desh, I know my sister’s taste in men. I’ve met the guys she’s dated and she’s told me, in nauseating detail, the kind of man she’s looking for. I studied the records of scores of Special Forces operatives before stumbling onto a ringer like you. You’re her exact type physically. Brilliant in your own right. Personable. You studied philosophy for Christ’s sake. You like poetry. Incredibly well read. Sickeningly righteous.” He grinned. “You’re catnip to her. The transformed me was convinced that if you two were thrown together under desperate circumstances, there’s no way she doesn’t fall in love with you.”
Alan gazed at his sister knowingly. “Go ahead, Kira. I know I chose well. Tell him. You’re in love with him already.”
Kira lowered her eyes but said nothing.
A startled look flashed over Desh’s face, and he appeared totally dumbstruck. His eyes darted to the side as if desperately trying to read Kira’s expression.
Alan laughed. “I’ll be damned!” he said, studying Desh. “You’re in love with her, also. I can see it in your face.” He laughed again. “I should be a fucking matchmaker.”