Scorpion by Christian Cantrell

Published by Random House on May 25, 2021

Scorpion is a near-future thriller. The protagonists both work for the CIA. Quinn Mitchell is an analyst and Henrietta Yi is a quantum physicist. They approach the same mystery from very different perspectives.

The prologue tells us that while she was working on her doctorate, Henrietta reviewed data from the Large Hadron Collider particle detector. Buried in the data, she found an encryption header and encrypted data, as well as two lines of text from Shakespeare. The data comes to be known as the Epoch Index.

Quinn was assigned to a task force that searched for enriched nuclear material, a good bit of which has gone missing over the years. As that project ends, Deputy Director Vanessa Townes assigns Quinn to investigate a series of murders. That’s not a normal assignment for the CIA, which usually commits rather than solves murders, but these are international killings and Interpol has asked for an assist. Each victim has been killed in a different, usually high-tech way. The murders are clever and untraceable. The victims seem to have been killed in descending order by age, ending with a nine-month-old baby. The killer brands each body with a four-digit number for reasons that Quinn will eventually discern.

The killer is known to the CIA only as the Elite Assassin, but he is known to the reader as Ranveer. Christian Cantrell does not initially disclose how or why the victims were selected but makes it clear that the list of targets has been assigned to Ranveer. When the novel is well underway, the reader will begin to suspect that Ranveer is not quite who he seems to be. The reader will also be surprised to learn who has been assigning targets to him.

Townes’ boss is Alessandro Moretti. Henrietta now works for Moretti, who refers to her as his “tech guy.” Her job is to decrypt the Epoch Index, which she believes to be a message form the future. When Henrietta meets Quinn at Moretti’s direction to install a new app on Quinn’s phone — a task that seems well below Henrietta’s pay grade — the reader will suspect that the Epoch Index is connected to the murders that Quinn is investigating.

Cantrell traces the obstacles and obsessions that shape his protagonists without distracting from the plot. Henrietta lost her parents when Seoul was destroyed in a nuclear blast. She is an avid collector of Pokémon figures. Henrietta has an unusual disability that seems like a bit of color until it becomes directly relevant to the plot. Quinn no longer cuts herself, but she has engaged in “emotional cutting” since her daughter drowned. She carries a torch for her former husband and reignites it during the course of the novel. Both characters are socially isolated, although Henrietta is isolated more by nature than circumstance. Both are smart and good at their jobs. Quinn is particularly adept at using Artificial Intelligence to help her track down the Elite Assassin. Both feel conflicted about working for the CIA, although Henrietta comes to feel she has sold her soul to Morietti, in part because she might be empowering him to devise history’s most powerful weapon. Henrietta eventually seizes an opportunity to change her future, and perhaps the future of humanity. Character development is more than sufficient for a thriller that is driven by plot and ideas more than characters.

Quantum physics is full of surprises. Cantrell takes advantage of that fact to develop the plot in surprising ways. As the protagonists intertwine, they are forced to confront, and perhaps to change, their value systems as they weigh the greater good against lesser (but substantial) evils. The old philosophical thought experiment — would justice be served by killing Hitler as an infant, despite his youthful innocence? — becomes, by analogy, the story’s driving moral question. The story also raises questions that are familiar to science fiction fans about the nature of destiny and free will. Is it really necessary to kill Hitler? Might it possible to make small changes in his early life that, over the course of time, will prevent him from becoming a megalomaniac and German nationalist? Perhaps hugs can shape the future as effectively as bullets.

The near future in which Scorpion is set hasn’t changed much, apart from the destruction of Seoul, but Cantrell does suggest the occurrence of subtle changes that create a credible atmosphere. One thing that hasn’t changed is the revulsion the rest of world feels when America arrogantly pronounces itself to be exceptional.

While the plot is a bit convoluted, the unfolding mystery and the need to keep the reader engaged and guessing demands a certain complexity. An evolution in the relationship of two characters is abrupt, but it occurs during the untold story that occurs during a jump forward in the narrative. Cantrell probably made a wise choice not to waste time showing the reader how it happened. Why it happened seems clear enough. The novel leaves a few other questions unanswered, giving the reader room to wonder what might happen next. The story nevertheless feels complete. Science fiction and thriller fans should both enjoy it.

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