by Greg Krojac
“Have you abseiled before?”
“Not in this life. But I have abseiled in my previous life. Once.”
“Do you remember how to do it?”
“I think so.”
After a quick refresher course on the finer points of abseiling, Philippa announced that she was ready. She was a little nervous, due to her minimal experience, but she also remembered her previous effort as being quite enjoyable.
“How far down is it?”
“About a hundred feet. Don’t worry, it’s quite safe – as long as you’re wearing the safety harness. Shall we go?”
The two women descended into the darkness of a metal tube, lit only by the occasional low wattage safety lamp. After a few seconds, they were at the bottom of the tube, facing a large circular metallic door. They took off their harnesses and put them into a plastic bin to the right of the door.
Michelle placed her hand on an optical reader. There was a flash of light underneath her palm and Philippa heard a bolt automatically slide back.
“We’re not finished yet.”
Michelle looked into an eyepiece mounted on the door.
“It’s a retinal scanner. Just a backup security device.”
Once the equipment was satisfied with Michelle’s identity, the circular door opened and the women found themselves in what appeared to be an airlock. Suddenly they were bathed in a pale blue light.
“Don’t worry. It’s just a security sweep to ensure that we aren’t carrying or have been implanted with anything that could be used as an unauthorised weapon or as a piece of surveillance equipment. It’s nothing to worry about.”
The security sweep concluded, another door opened allowing them to enter the main part of the facility. They were in a large open office area full of computer screens, a place that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Wall Street or Canary Wharf. No one would ever have believed that they were below a heap of rusting cars. Michelle took Philippa over to where a young bearded guy was sitting. He wore denim jeans and a Maroon 5 T-shirt with an image of five young men printed on the front. Michelle had no idea who Maroon 5 were, but Philippa knew that they had been a music band in the old days.
“Adam, this is…”
“Caitlin. I know. We’ve met.”
“No Adam. This is Philippa, not Caitlin.”
“But she looks like Caitlin…”
“I know, but take my word for it. This is Philippa, definitely not Caitlin.”
“OK. If you say so. You should know. What can I do you for?”
“I’ve got a hacking job for you.”
Adam rubbed his hands together.
“Great. My favourite part of the job.”
“I need you to hack into some institutions.”
“Sure. What kind of institutions?”
“Corrective facilities. Prisons. That type of thing.”
“You do realise how many of these places there are? Almost every town has at least one of these units.”
“Yes. I know. But it’s really important.”
“It’ll take time.”
I know. But it’s really, really important.”
“OK. Who or what are we looking for?”
“Caitlin.”
“Caitlin?”
“Yes. It’s kind of off the record too.”
“You know that the search will be recorded on the server in the activity log of this computer, don’t you?”
“Yes. But it won’t be flagged. Will it?”
“Not by the time I’m finished. So you think she’s in a corrective facility somewhere? What’s she done?”
“She hasn’t done anything. We believe she’s being held against her will by the ONP. We’ve thought about where she might be being kept, and Philippa came up with the idea that she might be hidden more or less in plain sight, probably in stasis.”
“OK. Let’s have a look.”
Adam’s fingers were a blur as they led him through various screens.
“Right, there’s about two hundred towns with a population of over one hundred thousand. Some of the larger cities have more than one Stasis Centre, so maybe we’re looking at two hundred and fifty centres to check. You’d think that there would be a central database that held details of interns, but there isn’t. At least, not one that we know about. That means we’ll have to hack into each Stasis Centre separately.”
Michelle leaned over to look at the screen.
“How long will that take?”
“If we did it manually for each one, probably the best part of a week.”
“We can’t leave it that long.”
“And that’s why you’ve come to me. Go and get a coffee or something; give me half an hour and I’ll knock up an algorithm to speed things up.”
“Can you do that?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Who knows? After the Revelation, so many people lost their religious faith.”
“I think it’s safe to say that the Pope is Catholic, Michelle. So yes, I can do that.”
***
The two women went off to the canteen, which was a good five minutes’ walk away through a labyrinth of corridors. Philippa made sure that she didn’t get separated from Michelle; she would never have found her way back to the main computer room by herself. Sitting at a table in the corner of the canteen they sipped their drinks. Michelle was drinking regular coffee but Philippa hated the taste of coffee and had chosen hot chocolate. Philippa put her cup back on its saucer.
“Do you think Adam can find Caitlin?”
“If anyone can, Adam can. He was in the top three of the ONP wanted list when we picked him up. He was five minutes away from being taken by ONP agents. Lucky for him that the good guys got there first.”
“Is it half an hour yet?”
“Twenty minutes. We may as well start back though. It’ll take us five minutes to get back to the computer suite.”
The women took their empty cups to the crockery returns area and headed towards the door. Philippa needed the bathroom.
“Where’s the ladies room, Michelle?”
“I’ll take you there. Sorry, but whilst you’re here I can’t let you out of my sight.”
“Even in the toilet?”
“Even in the toilet.”
Having relieved herself – under the watchful eye of Michelle – Philippa and her companion returned to Adam’s desk.
“Any luck Adam?”
“Yes and no. I actually managed to write the algorithm in fifteen minutes, so I’ve already done one search. The bad news is that I haven’t found Caitlin yet.”
“What criteria did you use?”
“Her name.”
“They’d hardly keep her registered under her own name. She could be under any name. Any name at all.”
Philippa had an idea.
“If I’m supposed to be Caitlin, then perhaps Caitlin’s in the system as me.”
“It’s worth a try. Try putting in Philippa’s name, Adam.”
“OK. What’s your name then – seeing as you’re not Caitlin… although I must say that you’re the spitting image of her.”
“That’s because I’m a clone of Caitlin.”
“A clone? Wow! I’ve never met a clone before.”
Philippa didn’t like admitting that she was a clone. She felt no different to anyone else, but facts were facts. She was different.
“Well, now you have. My name is, was, is Philippa Makepeace.”
“How do you spell that?”
“M-A-K-E-P-E-A-C-E.”
“OK. Let’s see what we can find.”
After about forty-five seconds of trawling through hundreds of thousands of records, the screen flashed a warning that somebody was trying to access a highly classified record.
“Don’t worry girls. Their system has discovered that someone’s been trying to access their system illegally.”
Michelle was nervous. This was all off the record and she didn’t want to have to confes
s to unauthorized use of One Life equipment, services, and - more importantly - Adam unless she had to.
“Can this damage our system, or – even worse – give the ONP details about us?”
“Don’t worry, my lovelies. Watch.”
The screen turned red and then half a second later turned green. Then the details of an inmate of Salisbury Corrective Centre, HMP666, were displayed on Adam’s monitor. Michelle was relieved.
“What happened?”
“My computer sent a virus to their computer that cloned one of their authorized users and erased the memory of our little visit. Clever, eh?”
“So we have access to their records and they have no idea that we’ve breached their security?”
“In a nutshell.”
“And they can’t use it to find us?”
“Nope. Their system thinks that it’s displaying to an authorised computer within their system; whereas it’s actually displaying the details right here, for us.”
“Clever.”
“I told you I was. So, Miss Makepeace. It appears that you are in stasis in a corrective centre in Salisbury.”
“Adam. Can you bring up an image?”
“I can do better than that. Each stasis tube is monitored in real-time by the system. I can show you a live feed of the occupant of this particular tube.”
A few more deft movements of Adam’s fingers and a live video feed from the camera overseeing the occupant of tube 0864-7 replaced the written record of the occupant; Philippa Makepeace, a female of twenty-six years who had been sentenced to three years in stasis for shoplifting.
The image shown on the screen was high definition but it was difficult to see who exactly was in the tube. The occupant was definitely female, but she was totally submerged in a gel-like substance and her face couldn’t easily be identified. Michelle felt disappointed and frustrated.
“I can’t see her face. It could be anyone in there. We can’t identify her through that gooey mess she’s covered in.”
Adam pressed a few more keys.
“Oh, ye of little faith…”
The level of the placenta in Caitlin’s stasis tube began to slowly go down until her head became visible, remnants of the disgusting but innocuous substance streaking her pretty but dormant face.
“Michelle. We only have a few seconds before the automatic system refills the tube. I think it’s her. Is that her?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes, Adam. That’s Caitlin. We’ve found her.”
“Good. I’ll have to log out of their system now. Don’t worry, I won’t leave a single trace of my visit. One Life integrity is safe.”
The relief was visible on Michelle’s face. She turned to Philippa and squeezed her hand.
“Philippa, I’m sorry but I’ll have to drug you now.”
“But I’ve helped you.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to wipe your memory of the events of the last twelve hours.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Not in the slightest. It’s just for security purposes.”
***
Two hours later, Philippa awoke curled up on the sofa of the safe house. Michelle was sitting in an armchair, reading an e-book.
“Sorry, Michelle. I must have dozed off for a while.”
Michelle smiled. She was very happy now that she had located her sister. Now she had to figure out a way to rescue her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
05:38 Sunday 27 October 2069
The sun had not long risen, but the overcast skies and the steady rain served to conserve a dull and dark atmosphere. Michelle, Max and Zafar sat in their car scanning the area for signs of life. The car was parked just inside a derelict factory, corrugated metal was strewn around haphazardly and a stagnant assembly line that hadn’t seen any action for almost twenty years dominated the foreground. A pair of headlights flashed at the other end of the building. This would be a perfect opportunity for an ambush but the trio were not there to meet with the enemy; well, not as such. The other car also contained a driver and two passengers – three Recarns – but they were no longer affiliated to Marcus’s Illuminati. These Recarns had two things in common; they not only shared the ability to remember past lives, but they had also been fatal casualties of Marcus’s experiments. Understandably, there was no love lost for the current leader of the Illuminati and, although Nathan Smith had clearly been no angel, the three felt that he would at least have been more civilized about the projects. He would probably have asked for volunteers from the terminally ill and not used it as a punishment for those who crossed him.
Consequently, these Recarns had one overriding agenda; the return of Nathan Smith to power. During the time that they had worked on the cloning and soul transference projects, they had amassed sufficient technical knowledge to build the necessary equipment and duplicate the processes, but what they lacked was the ability to rescue Nathan’s soul without help.
The cars, both disconnected from the Automatrix, had stopped about one hundred metres apart and – as previously agreed – both parties waited until 05:45 before leaving their vehicles. The One Life team had been carefully chosen. Michelle was an obvious choice as she was experienced in the field and had proved herself to be an excellent judge of character and situations. However, her most valuable quality was her ability to think on her feet and make quick and usually correct decisions when necessary. Zafar was one of the Businessman’s most trusted men, pretty much his right hand man, and he was one of the few people who regularly met with the One Life leader on a face-to-face basis. His role in this operation was to act as the Businessman’s representative. Max had a small but extremely important role to play. His job was to verify that the Recarns were who they said they were.
Michelle’s smart-watch signalled that the time was 05:45.
“OK, guys. It’s time. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Michelle, Max, and Zafar got out of their car and started to make their way towards the Recarn’s car. They were almost at the mid-point between the two cars when the Recarns left their car and started to make the same journey. The three resistance members waited for the Recarns to reach them. Max looked at the three approaching Recarns.
“What the fuck?”
Michelle touched Max on the shoulder.
“Keep calm, Max. Not quite what you were expecting, eh?”
“You can say that again. They’re… they’re kids.”
Zafar grinned.
“You didn’t expect them to be adults, did you? The experiments only took place about ten or so years ago. These children are the reincarnated souls of people who were killed by Marcus – although he was still Thomas McCall at the time. Lab technicians, security staff, bona-fide scientists etc.”
The two groups met in the middle of the decaying assembly area. One of the children, a freckle-faced red haired boy of about ten years old offered his hand to Michelle.”
“Hello, Michelle. Long time no see.”
Michelle was surmised at the child’s familiarity.
“Erm… do I know you?”
“Of course you do. You killed me.”
Michelle was taken aback.
“I’ve killed a lot of people.”
Michelle immediately regretted what she had said.
“I’m sorry. That was rather tactless of me under the circumstances.”
“It’s Ok. I asked you to kill me. Well, demanded it really.”
Michelle’s mind travelled back to the events of 15th June 2058.
“Are you… are you Trudi?”
“Look at me, Michelle. I’m nearly eleven, and I’m a boy. Would I really be called Trudi? This isn’t a Johnny Cash song.”
“Who’s Johnny Cash?”
“He was a country singer about a hundred years ago. He recorded a song called ‘A Boy Named Sue’. You’re not a Recarn so you don’t remember it.”
“Okay. I’ll rephrase the question. Were you Trudi?”
“Ye
s. I was the faulty clone Trudi and before that, I was Professor Ingram, part of the cloning team for the Illuminati.”
“Is it alright if Max checks your story?”
“Sure. I was expecting it. All Recarns can do that particular party trick. Kind of proof of the saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul, eh? Do you want me to do you? As a thank you for what you did for me as Trudi. Aren’t you interested to know who you were in your past lives?”
Max confirmed the boy’s story whilst Michelle continued the conversation.
“I’m happy as I am, thank you. So who are you now?”
“To the world, I’m Tommy Mullery, prodigal ten year old football talent. To me, I still consider myself to be Professor Charles Ingram. But you can call me Tommy if you want. Calling a kid Professor might be a bit too Doogie Howser and freak you out.”
“Who’s Doogie Howser?”
“It doesn’t matter. I enjoy referencing things from my many past lives – and especially how it can freak you normal out. And I sometimes forget that you normals don’t know what I’m on about half the time. Don’t have a cow.”
Michelle shook her head. Dealings with Recarns could be tiresome when they started rambling on about things that were way before her time, or even her parents’ and grandparents’ times.
“So who are your friends, Tommy?”
“The tall lanky one is Philip Armstrong. He’s our driver. Principally because he’s the only one that can reach the pedals of the car. Even then it was a bit of a stretch.”
Tommy looked at Michelle waiting for her to laugh or at least to smile at his play on words.
Michelle didn’t. His latest attempt at humour had gone way over her head.
“Aw, come on Michelle. It was funny. I’m a ten year old boy. I’m supposed to make crap jokes.”
Still no laughter.
“Suit yourself, Michelle. Anyway, Philip was a maintenance engineer at the main research facility. The girl is Jenny. Jennifer Hart. She was a technical whizz-kid engineer who was part of the team who built the transfer and cloning equipment – until she was set up and denounced as a SIMP. She wasn’t a SIMP but since when did the truth matter to Thomas McCall? She suffered the same fate as Professor Ingram. And that, my dear, is us.”