She grinned. “Come on,” she said.

We found Karl Baer in his bedroom, a knife shoved into his brain. A threep was standing beside his cradle, knife handle in hand, flush with Baer’s temple.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“Go open the window blinds,” Vann said. I did what she told me. “If anyone asks, you came around the back, looked in and saw this, and that’s when we entered the apartment.”

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I said.

“What’s to feel good about?” Vann asked. “Are you recording yet?”

“No,” I said.

“Start,” she said.

“I’m on.”

Vann went over to the light switch and flipped it on with her elbow. “Start mapping,” she said. She put on a pair of gloves as I did so. After I was done mapping, she went over and picked up a tablet on the side table next to Baer’s cradle and turned on the screen.

“Shane,” she said. She turned the tablet around so I could see the screen. Jay Kearney was on it.

“Is it a video?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Vann said, turning the screen back to her. I walked over to her and she pressed “play.”

On the screen Jay Kearney came to life. He was holding the tablet so that he and Karl Baer were both caught by the camera.

“This is Karl Baer,” Kearney said. “I am speaking for myself and for my good friend Jay Kearney, with whom I am now integrated. For the past eight years I have worked at Loudoun Pharma as a geneticist, as part of a team working to reverse the effects of Haden’s syndrome.

“When I joined Loudoun, I believed that what I was doing was right for Haden’s. None of us asked to be trapped within our bodies. I know I didn’t. I was a teenager when I got sick and all the things I loved to do were taken from me. Working to reverse the changes that Haden’s had brought into my life made sense to me. I looked forward to the chance to have that new life.

“But as I went on I began to realize that Haden’s wasn’t some life sentence. It was just another way to live. I began to see the beauty of the world we Hadens were creating, the millions of us, in our own spaces and in our own way. And I began listening to the words of Cassandra Bell, who said that people like me, people who were working to quote-unquote cure Haden’s, were in fact killing the first new nation of humanity to come along in centuries.

“She’s right. We are. I am. And it’s time to put a stop to it now.

“It’s not something I could have done by myself. Fortunately my friend Jay believes as I do and believes it enough to help me. Others, who will remain nameless, helped along the way to provide us with materials and planning. And now all that needs to be done is to set it all into motion. Jay and I will do it together. And when his part is over, then I will come back here in order to join him on the next part of our journey together. I guess if you’re seeing this you know how I did this.

“For my family and friends, I know that my actions—our actions—may not seem comprehensible. I know that there’s a chance that a few innocent people will be harmed or even killed. I regret this and apologize to those who will lose loved ones tonight. But I ask them to understand that if I don’t take these actions now, then what Loudoun Pharma is doing will lead to the extinction of an entire people. A genocide committed through quote-unquote kindness.

“To my colleagues at Loudoun Pharma, I know many of you will be angry with me, now that my actions have set back your work and research by years. But what I ask of you now is to spend that time you have to think about the consequences of what you are doing. Read and listen to the words of Cassandra Bell as I have. I believe in what she has to say. I believe in her. I follow her philosophy in the things I do today. I believe that you might do the same in time.

“Good-bye and all the best to Hadens everywhere. I am with you, always.”

*   *   *

“None of this makes any goddamned sense,” Jim Buchold said.

We were in the family room of Buchold and Wisson’s home outside Leesburg. The Leesburg police, Loudoun County sheriffs, and FBI apparently had to just about forcibly remove Buchold from the Loudoun Pharma campus in order to get him out of the way so they could do their work. As a result Buchold was pacing around his family room, feeling useless. Wisson had fixed his husband a drink to calm him down. It sat undrunk on the table. Eventually Wisson helped himself to it.

“Why doesn’t it make any goddamned sense?” Vann asked.

“Because Karl was a principal investigator for Neuroulease.”

“Which is,” Vann prompted.

“It’s the drug we were developing to stimulate the voluntary nervous system in Haden’s victims,” Buchold said. In spite of myself I felt vaguely annoyed at the use of the word “victim” in that sentence. “Haden’s suppresses the ability of the brain to speak to the voluntary nervous system. Neuroulease encourages the brain to develop new pathways to the system. We’ve done tests on chips that worked and have been working on genetically modified mice. Progress was slow but encouraging.”

“Is ‘neuroulease’ the actual chemical?” I asked.

“It’s the brand name we’re planning to use for it,” Buchold said. “The actual name of the chemical compound is about a hundred and twenty letters long. The most recent iteration of the compound—the one Karl was working on—was called LPNX-211 for internal recordkeeping.”

“And Dr. Baer never showed any indication of developing a moral opposition to what he was researching,” Vann asked.

“Of course not,” Buchold said. “I didn’t spend that much time with him, but as far as I know the only things that Karl actually cared about were his work and Notre Dame football. He went there for undergrad. When he had a presentation he always managed to put in a slide with the team in it. I tolerated it because his work was that good.”

“What about his relationship with Jay Kearney?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The Integrator whose body we think Baer used to drive the vehicle into the parking garage,” Vann said.

“Never heard of him,” Buchold said. “Karl always used his threep at work.”

“Did you see Kearney integrating with Baer outside of work?” I asked.

Buchold glanced over at his husband. “We didn’t exactly run in the same social circles,” Wisson said. “I don’t encourage Jim to be overly friendly with his staff. It’s better if they see him as a boss rather than a friend.”

“So that would be a no,” Vann said.

“It’s not because he’s a Haden—was a Haden,” Buchold said. He turned to me. “I treat all my employees equally. We have a compliance officer in HR to make sure of it.”

“I believe you,” I said.

“Yes, but you also heard that son of a bitch Hubbard running me down tonight,” Buchold said. “I have fifteen Haden researchers on my staff. None of them would be there if they thought I was treating them as subhuman, or what we were doing was bad for Hadens.”

“Mr. Buchold,” I said, and held up a hand. “I’m not here to judge you. And I’m not here to run back to my father and whisper into his ear about you. Right now I am here investigating the bombing of your facilities. Our primary suspect at the moment is one of your employees. Our only interest is finding out if he’s really the bomber, and why he did it.” Buchold seemed to relax a bit at that.

And then Vann tensed him all up again. “Did Dr. Baer ever talk about Cassandra Bell?” she asked.

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Jim,” Wisson said.

“No,” Buchold said, shooting a look at his husband. “I never heard him speak about Cassandra Bell.”

“What about the researchers around him?” Vann continued.

“There would be casual talk about her because she’s on record opposing our line of research,” Buchold said. “We always wondered if protesters would show up like they do because of the animal testing we have to do. But none ever did and I don’t think anyone really gave her a whole lot of thought. Why?”