The Last Resort

by Susi Holliday

  ‘In fact,’ Helmet-hair says, ‘perhaps you could start with your name, and why you’re here? Are you in charge of this’ – she pauses, gesturing at his polo shirt – ‘Timeo? What is Timeo? This is all getting ridiculous, quite frankly. I don’t have time to sit about in here drinking foul-tasting mineral water with a group of strangers. I have work to be getting on with, and I was assured that coming here was going to be something I’d like to potentially invest in. But so far I’m not seeing anything particularly investable—’

  ‘Right,’ says the American, talking over her. ‘I had to fly from Los Angeles for this. I hadn’t planned a trip to the UK this month . . . are we still in the UK? The cloak-and-dagger is getting kinda wearing.’

  The man in white lays the device down on the table, then raises his hands, trying to placate them all. ‘You’re right. Of course you’re right. I thought I had the script off pat, but it seems I have some work to do. My name is Harvey. I work for Timeo Technologies, and I’m here to facilitate your day. There will be a full presentation very soon, but first, I do need to allocate you all a tracker so that we can get started. It’ll all become clear once you’re plugged in.’

  ‘Plugged in?’ Amelia says. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’

  Harvey nods at her. ‘Don’t worry, all will be explained. First, if I could just ask Lucy to come up here and then we can carry on with the demo. After which you’ll get a full itinerary, and then – of course – some proper refreshments. How does that sound?’

  There are murmurs of assent. Then Lucy walks up to him and offers her wrist.

  ‘Oh no,’ Harvey says, shaking his head. He smiles. ‘Your devices aren’t quite the same as mine. We’ve been trialling a few different prototypes and we’re delighted to offer you our brand-new neuro-wearable device.’ He nods at Lucy. ‘If you could move your hair back at one side.’

  She looks confused.

  ‘May I?’

  Harvey steps towards her, the device still in one hand. With the other, he lifts the hair above her left ear, holding it out of the way. Then he clips the device over her ear. ‘You’ll feel a small stinging sensation while it beds in.’ He presses firmly on the back of the ear-clip.

  ‘What the . . .’ Lucy starts to say, and then ‘Ow!’ She pulls away and flings her hand up to her ear. Harvey steps back from her, alarmed. ‘What did you do?’ Lucy says. ‘Take this thing off.’

  Harvey shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that.’

  Lucy grabs at the device and tries to pull it off. She lets out a small squeal of pain. ‘It’s stuck. It’s actually stuck into my head. I felt it pierce the skin!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Harvey says. ‘This is just how it works. We need to penetrate the skin slightly in order to access your neural pathways—’

  ‘You need to do what?’ Helmet-hair says. ‘I most definitely didn’t sign up for this. I’ve changed my mind. Take me back, please.’

  No one speaks for a moment, all of them staring at Lucy, waiting to see what she’s going to do next. Amelia takes a step towards her. ‘Maybe I can help?’

  Lucy blinks, her voice calmer now. ‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘I’m up for this. I’m intrigued. After that little sting, it’s nothing. I can’t even feel it now.’ She turns to Harvey. ‘In fact, I’m feeling a wee bit trippy. Are you going to tell us what this thing actually does, Harv? Have you fired in something to calm me down?’

  Harvey smiles at her. ‘Yes, OK, you’re right. But it’s really nothing to worry about. I’ll explain precisely how it all works, of course. But let’s get you all kitted out first.’ He runs a finger across the watch screen again. ‘OK. So which one of you is James?’

  Camera-guy shrugs. ‘That’s me,’ he says. ‘But hang on . . . can you tell me what it is you’ve injected her with, and why she needs it – because I’m not sure I’m 100 per cent on-board with this just yet.’

  Harvey fixes him with a hard stare. ‘I can assure you that anything we attach, administer or instruct is completely safe and for your own benefit as part of the day. Without getting all heavy on you, this was spelled out in your acceptance form. You’ve signed a waiver.’ He turns round, making sure they’re all paying attention. ‘We wouldn’t want any of you to jeopardise your remunerations, would we?’

  Tiggy takes Giles’s hand and he responds with a grimace. ‘Sure, dude,’ he says. ‘We get it.’

  Helmet-hair purses her lips, crosses her arms, but says nothing more.

  James walks over to Harvey and tips his head towards him. ‘Come on then. Let’s get this done.’

  Amelia

  T - 19

  After Lucy’s shock at the attachment of the device, and Harvey’s little admonishment, everyone seems to have calmed down. Each time Harvey has glanced at his watch, Amelia has expected it to be her. But she’s last, it seems. After Lucy De Marco, the redhead, and James Devlin, the camera guy, had come Tiggy Ramona – which surely can’t be her real name – and her boyfriend, the pushy games designer, Giles Horner. Then the American, Scott Williams, and finally Brenda Carter, the woman with the unmoving helmet of hair.

  Apart from Tiggy and Giles, who have already revealed their jobs, and with it a suggestion of what they might be doing here, Amelia is still none the wiser about the others’ roles, and her own part in this. But everyone seems to be much more relaxed with their devices attached behind their ears. Partly down to the drug, assuming they’ve all had the same thing. Amelia stands and walks towards Harvey, supposing that she’s next.

  Scott, the American, is chuckling to himself. ‘I get it,’ he says. ‘I’m digging this sedative, by the way. So you’re administering it via the metal sensor that’s pierced the skin, right? A microlance of some sort? Is it something in the metal, or something you’re firing through the hollow chamber?’

  Harvey looks away and starts fiddling with his watch. ‘Nothing like that—’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Scott says, turning to Amelia and winking at her conspiratorially. ‘I work in this field, you know. Nutraceuticals and all that. Our biggest thing at the moment is those vitamin infusions that’re pumped in via a drip. All the rage. Anything you need – energy, calm, anti-anxiety . . . You name it.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Lucy interrupts. ‘They’re pumping drugs into us? I was joking earlier! This cannot be legal.’

  ‘Of course it wouldn’t be legal,’ says James. ‘But you RSVP’d, right? Did you read the non-disclosure agreement? Sign the waiver? Harvey literally just mentioned it five minutes ago.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything like that,’ Giles says, his eyes scanning the room, looking for some backup, ‘about giving us drugs . . .’

  ‘You said we did, babe,’ Tiggy stage-whispers to him. He ignores her.

  ‘Well, I read it,’ Brenda says. ‘It’s watertight. I just wasn’t expecting this.’

  ‘Shall we sort out your tracker?’ Harvey says, turning to Amelia. He’s still smiling, but there’s uncertainty in his eyes now.

  Amelia hesitates. ‘Perhaps if someone could explain all this a bit more—’

  ‘Look, lady,’ Scott says. ‘We’ve all got one now. Just embrace it. I mean, come on. It’s not like they’re trying to kill us.’ He tries to laugh, but it sounds hollow.

  ‘Maybe they are, though,’ Tiggy says. ‘Maybe this is one of those extreme reality TV shows or something. Oh God! Why didn’t I think of this before?’

  ‘What,’ Scott says, ‘a reality show where they kill the contestants? What kind of hardcore TV shows do you Brits go in for, for God’s sake?’

  Tiggy glares at him but doesn’t say anything more.

  Amelia sees Brenda and James exchange a glance. Then James shrugs and turns back to Amelia. ‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘The rest of us are OK, right?’ He flashes a look at Tiggy. ‘No one is trying to kill us.’

  Amelia swallows. Brenda and James seem to be the most level-headed. If they’re OK with it . . . She turns back to Harvey, lifts her hair a
way from her ear, like she’s seen the others do. Harvey leans in and places the loop of the tracker over the top of her ear. She braces, expecting the small sting that the others have mentioned. Expects to flinch. Imagines it’s a bit like getting your ears pierced – that terrifying-looking gun that fires the earring post through the soft flesh of your ear. She stopped wearing earrings when she started to get a skin reaction, many years before. Hopes that the metal prong of the tracker – or whatever it is – doesn’t do the same.

  Harvey takes a step back, his face scrunched up in confusion. He taps his watch. Blows out a breath. He leans over and touches the device. ‘You’re Amelia, is that right?’ She nods, letting him continue. ‘Did you feel it? It would’ve just been a tiny pinprick, but you should definitely feel it. That area of skin is very thin.’

  ‘I didn’t feel it.’ A small bead of worry slides across her chest, making her heart flutter.

  Harvey presses on the tracker. Then looks at his watch. ‘It’s not registering.’ He unclips the piece that hooks over her ear and pulls.

  ‘What the . . . ?’ Giles starts. ‘How has hers come off like that?’ He tugs on his own device, then winces. ‘Ouch. Jeez.’

  ‘Please,’ Harvey says. He has two spots of red on his cheeks. Sweat is prickling on his forehead. ‘Please don’t try to remove the devices. As I explained, they’re connected now, and they’re calibrating. We need to remove them properly later on, or they could damage the skin, and—’

  ‘Maybe try on my other ear?’ Amelia suggests. She takes a deep breath, trying to swallow the bead of worry and dissolve it deep inside.

  ‘No . . . no,’ Harvey says. ‘It has to be the left ear. It connects to . . .’ He lets the words trail off. His watch beeps and he looks down at it again, reading a message that’s flashed up. ‘OK, right. We need to revert to Plan B for you. Just for now.’ He sticks his hand back into the white box and pulls out a watch, similar to the one he’s wearing. ‘Left wrist,’ he says, nodding at Amelia. ‘The sensor isn’t as advanced on this one – no skin penetration. This is Prototype II. The staff wear them, but we’d hoped that all of you would be able to wear the brand-new Prototype III. But not to worry, we’re still in the testing phase. In fact, this might be a good thing. A mini clinical trial, I suppose. One of you having the standard device, the other six having the new one . . .’

  ‘Oh, whatever,’ Tiggy says. ‘I’m bored now. When are we heading to the retreat?’

  Harvey ignores her.

  Amelia fastens the watch onto her wrist, and as the final clasp clicks into place, a green, wavy line starts to flow across its screen.

  ‘It’s your heart rate,’ Harvey states. ‘It’ll go dark again once it’s calibrated. Make sure you keep it fastened tight, so the sensor gets as much skin contact as possible.’ He snaps the lid of the white box shut, then addresses them all. ‘OK then. Here’s what’s going to happen. Your sensor is tapping into your neurological pathways as we speak. It is picking up your vibe. It is assessing your health. It is investigating your pleasure points, and your quirks and foibles, and all the things you don’t like. After about ten minutes, your device will have completely mapped your body and mind, and it will provide you with a personal programme for the day. Everything you need will be individually transmitted – just for you.’ He pauses, looks at his watch. Then he holds the screen towards them, letting them see what’s on it. ‘It’s T minus 19. The device knew that I wanted to know the time, and that’s what it’s shown me.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ Lucy says, ‘this is nonsense. There’s no device that can read your mind.’

  Harvey smiles. ‘You don’t know about Timeo yet.’

  ‘We don’t know anything yet, buddy,’ says Scott. ‘You’ve told us nothing about the company, or why we’re here, and I guess now we’re just supposed to believe that this device you’ve jammed into our skulls is going to tell us what to do for the rest of the day?’

  ‘How does that even work?’ James says. ‘She’s got a watch like yours – she can see what it says. How are we supposed to know what to do, if the thing’s just attached to one of our ears?’

  ‘T minus 19?’ Tiggy blurts. ‘What kind of time is that anyway?’

  ‘You must’ve heard it like this before? It’s a countdown. Like when they’re about to launch a space rocket?’

  She gives him a blank stare.

  Harvey sighs. ‘It’s nineteen hours until the party, where all will be revealed. I’m going to leave you to it. If you need help, help will arrive. In the meantime, just decide when you want to start . . . and it will happen.’ He makes a double-tapping gesture on the side of his head, then he picks up the box and disappears out of the door before they can ask him anything else.

  ‘Right then,’ Scott says. ‘So, who’s gonna go first?’

  ‘We need to clear our minds,’ James says, ‘you know . . . like in Ghostbusters.’

  ‘The Marshmallow Man,’ Scott and James say together. They both laugh. ‘Don’t even think of that,’ James says, his expression serious again. ‘I think we need to be careful.’

  ‘We need to do something,’ Scott says, ‘or we’re going to be stuck in this room for nineteen hours.’

  ‘Let’s just go with it,’ Giles says. ‘I’ll go first . . .’

  Lucy

  Lucy leans back into the soft cushions of the sofa and pretends that she’s not taking in the other six people who are scattered around the small room. The girl in khakis – Amelia – looks relieved at not having the tracker stuck into that soft, thin skin above her ear, and Lucy feels a prickle of annoyance that she’s got away with it. Maybe this is all part of the ‘game’. That’s what Giles seems to think it is. Maybe she’s in cahoots with this ‘Harvey’ guy – if that’s even his name.

  Of course the ‘tracker’ thing has to be just a bit of fun. She’d laid it on a bit thick, saying she felt funny after it was attached to her. The feeling had passed soon enough; no way are they really firing drugs into her head. She wrote an article once on autosuggestion, after one of the celebs she was digging into said they were being hypnotised for an addiction and ended up acting all weird. It’s easier to trick the mind than people realise.

  She’d done a bit of digging on Timeo before she’d RSVP’d, but their website hadn’t given anything away. It had a black background – making her think she’d crashed her laptop – then a single line of scrolling text appeared, saying ‘Creators of the technology you didn’t know existed’, before ending with their simple logo, just like on Harvey’s polo shirt. That was it. Nothing else in Google – every search link led straight back to the same place. Which – although frustrating for someone used to being able to find all the information required, in record time – was more than a little bit intriguing.

  Lucy’s whole online life is based on intrigue. Intrigue and cynicism, in fact. It’s not as if you can write a high-profile gossip column and not experience both those things on a daily basis. She’s heard of Tiggy and Giles – these so-called ‘influencers’ have become celebrities in their own right, and it’s especially intriguing when they come as a pair. Lucy had done a piece on Giles Horner only a few months before, dredging some dirt on some of his previous work, before he became a YouTube sensation – sharing his bespoke games and his views on those developed by others. The virtual reality games are particularly popular, and her column had a lot more hits than usual when she’d hinted that it wasn’t actually him who’d developed these but a silent partner – someone who wasn’t quite so Instagrammable. It’s just like those music scandals in the eighties and nineties. Milli Vanilli with their big hit ‘Girl You Know It’s True’, and the two pretty boys with the braids who turned out to be nothing more than glorified dancers – the real singers not being photogenic enough to show to the world.

  It’s exactly this kind of thing that’s wrong with the world, in Lucy’s opinion. Hence her glee at exposing all the celebrity mistruths and cover-ups she can find. Most of it isn’t meant
to harm, though – she strongly believes that the majority of the celebrities out there are fully aware of the nonsense of it all. Except for the reality TV stars who truly believe their own hype. Still, let them have their fifteen minutes of fame. Their antics are what pay Lucy’s exorbitant London rent. She can always move back to Scotland when she gets bored of it all.

  But there must be some dirt on this Timeo set-up, and she’ll do her best to uncover it – but obviously that’s not really why she’s here. She’s been invited here to review the experience with a view to attracting the very celebrities she spends her days toying with. Well, there’s that, and the promise of a significant sum of money to lure a couple of young royals onto the island, should the whole retreat thing end up going ahead. And of course, it’s not like she had much of a choice, with those links she’d been sent. Self-preservation and financial gain are a potent combination – one that she’s definitely not immune to.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Giles says. ‘I reckon I can play this thing.’

  Lucy glances over at Amelia and pulls a face. Amelia gives her a brief smile. She looks nervous and out of place, but she shouldn’t worry about that. Everyone here is in the same boat right now. No one knows who anyone really is. It’s going to be interesting to see how the dynamics shift as people start to come into their own. What Tiggy said about it being a reality TV show set-up was spot on. Before she’d started her own – anonymous – column, Lucy had worked for a couple of the overpriced glossy magazines. She’d been forced to go on a team-building weekend once – one of those adventure things with ropes and helmets and zip wires, except they’d adapted it for the company, added in shelter-building and fire-making, made them all camp out there overnight. Her sense of humour had got her through it, but her cynicism had been in overdrive – mixing creatives with sales and marketing and the high-level finance bods had been an interesting idea. It had shown her that people always show their true selves when under pressure. Mainly it had shown her that she hates climbing ladders, and has no patience for the timid. Who’s going to be the timid one today? Her eyes are drawn to Tiggy, who’s busy nibbling the skin on the side of one thumbnail, her eyes flitting from one person to the next, as if awaiting instruction.