Streams of Babel by Carol Plum-Ucci Read Free Book Online Page B

were doing the testing, I asked Leo Stetson over in the Utilities Department about that puddle one day. He and I were driving to my house. It looks funny—like it doesn't have a source. Stetson assured me that puddles in streets have nothing to do with the water towers in question. There's just a leak in the vein somewhere near Shore Road, though he did say if it were in front of the Blumberg or the Endicott estates, it would be fixed by now. That part is a shame. We gotta make sure to look after that little Holman girl."
    Right now, I'm looking out for my mom,
I reflected, though I said, "Yeah."
    "They're a good bunch, down at the CDC." Alan shifted around, his face growing serious. "They ran all sorts of tests for the water; the whole thing amazed me. There are tests to tell them if the water is suspicious—even if they can't name the substance making it suspicious. Trinity's towers came up pristine; same with all the townships I supervise. It was an expensive exercise, but the CDC and Washington are sparing no expenses this year. I think that's why they agree to pay for random autopsies here and there."
    I still hoped if anything bizarre showed up in an autopsy, it might be found in USIC's pile of memos—certainly not in mine. My memo mound from the CDC on emerging infectious disease symptoms was growing, despite my attempts to keep up
with it all: West Nile virus, E. coli, mutations of the common cold, hoof-and-mouth, blah blah. For whatever reason, Saint Ann's had decided that paramedics need to know this stuff, too, so I wished I had a computer chip for a memory.
    "No matter what, I'd rather have my job than yours," I muttered. I remembered after the media discovered the water-tower check, he said on television that they'd tested all water supplies because of some "chatter" they'd captured online.
    "One thing I would hate about your job is having to acknowledge a threat as real that was found in a chat room. A
chat room.
It just sounds like smoke and mirrors. Like you're chasing Captain Hook, ya know?"
    He nodded. "I was always a phone guy, a face-to-face guy. Maybe it's my age..."
    "It's not your age," I assured him. "My buddies e-mail me something, and if I have something to say back? I pick up the phone. I'm pretty good at picking up on people's thoughts. But it's from watching faces and motions and expressions, and from hearing the clicks in people's voices ... you know. It's the only way to do things."
    "For
us,
maybe. I'll tell you something interesting. It's not exactly a secret—it was vaguely referred to in a January issue of
Newsweek.
"
    I don't have time to read
Newsweek.
"Go for it"
    "The reason we tested all those water towers was that a Pakistani informant had captured a lot of related chatter over a few weeks' time. This Pakistani informant, he's sixteen years old."
    That was younger than Owen. "You gotta be kidding."
    "No. Supposedly he's an ace hacker, and he writes programs that help the intelligence community find spies online. USIC
just calls him the Kid. Of course, that age thing may be an idle rumor. I don't ask any more questions than I feel I have to. But I've seen copies of the chatter he captured, along with the notes of his interpretations."
    "Really? Does he sound sixteen?"
    Alan laughed. "He's not saying 'kewl!' and 'f-this' before all the chatter he sends us. He sounds ... invisible. Truthfully, I only remember the chatter."
    "What'd it say?"
    He sighed like he was exhaling the many hours of nights not slept. "'
Waters will run red in Colony One ... Waters will run red three hours from Home Base in December ... They will drink in December and die like mangy dogs in April
.' Isn't that sweet?"
    "What's 'Home Base'?"
    "The agents were thinking Home Base was the headquarters of some terror cell. They were checking water supplies in Yemen, Jordan, Ethiopia ... But the kid thought Home Base was New York, for reasons I wasn't privy to. So along with all other supervisors within three hours