by Hocking, Ian
She took both badge and gun.
“Welcome to the FIB,” said Jobanique. “Your new secretary can fill you in on related matters. Good day.” His image vanished from the view screen.
“My new secretary?” she asked.
The woman stepped across the threshold and put the red box on Saskia’s desk. She removed the fedora and grasped Saskia by the hand. “Nice to meet you,” she gushed. “I’m Alice, your new secretary. Let’s get this place cleaned up, shall we? And we’ll have to do something about this smell.” She disappeared into the adjoining kitchen.
Saskia’s arm remained in the hand-shaking position for a few more seconds. Then she walked, clumsily, to her desk. She squatted down and teased open the box’s lid with the edge of her new badge. It was dark inside. Before she could open it further, there was a loud bang and burning a smell. A hole appeared in the front of the box. Saskia examined the window and found a corresponding hole.
The new secretary came out. “What happened?”
“Never mind. Better have someone come up to fix this window. And what about the air conditioning?”
“Yes, Detective.”
Saskia walked back to the desk and grabbed the picture of Simon. It was, she realised, the only photograph she had. She threw it in the bin.
Unfinished Business
David felt sick. He saw himself crouching in the darkness as scientists ran past him. This was a dream or a memory. His wife, Helen, was with him. He tried to shield her from the falling masonry but he could not. Something hit her. Before his eyes, she died. He brushed the hair from her face and realised it was not his wife but Caroline, the beautiful soldier. Her dead mouth opened.
“Professor Proctor,” said a voice. Somebody was shaking him. His back hurt. He was lying on glass. He saw flashes of light.
A man in army uniform pressed a finger to David’s throat and counted aloud. There were other sounds too. Someone shouted “Clear,” another coughed, another kicked aside rubble. Dust drifted.
Helen was there.
It wasn’t Helen. It was her ghost. She had to stay in the underworld, while he had leave it. It was treachery. A blanket was thrown over him and, roughly, he was put into a stretcher and some kind of harness. They carried him away. As the procession passed the second immersion chamber, where Caroline had been, David craned to look. He saw something red.
There were more shouts. They carried him to the corridor outside. It now had a hole in the ceiling. The air was fresher. His stretcher was tied at both ends to a dangling rope. Hands checked his harness and someone whistled loudly. He ascended through the dark levels of the research centre into a large white tent. He could smell grass and wet earth. They had dug into the hotel lawn.
He wondered if it was night or day. A man in a green jumper patted his shoulder.
“I’ll talk to you later, mate.”
Helen was still down there. He needed to tell this man, but he could not.
He awoke, cold, in a tent. It was a different one. It had a high ceiling. People spoke in quiet voices and walked in white gowns. No, they were lab coats. He blinked. He smelled disinfectant and damp fabric. A man walked into the tent and David saw, briefly, that it was morning outside.
A nurse appeared. She asked him if wanted some breakfast.
“There’s a Japanese man down there. Has he been brought up yet?”
She shook her head.
Within half an hour, a doctor had checked his condition. “All clear,” she said. “I think Colonel Garrel would like to talk with you.”
He began to dress. He found his earpiece in his trouser pocket. A taciturn soldier joined him and they walked out. On the floor near the doorway was a black body bag. It was probably Caroline. Outside the tent an early-morning drizzle had set in. The sky was the colour of steel. David took a breath and realised that he loved Scotland. He should have come back sooner. The trees hissed. The wind blew rain from their leaves. The hotel, too, seemed to bend in the wind.
David and the guard walked around the northern side of the hotel towards the south lawn, where the rescue shaft had been sunk the day before. At the bottom lay the corridor outside his old laboratory. Bruce was still down there in body, though his spirit was elsewhere.
David turned to the guard and gestured towards the site. “Could I go to the demolition site? Where you dug down for me yesterday?”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. As with most of the on-site personnel, his uniform had a number of non-regulation additions. He wore a baseball cap. David wondered whether these people were real soldiers. The guard tugged on his cap and glanced back towards the tent. He wanted help, so David gave it to him. “To pay my last respects to my friend. I’m feeling a bit weak. You know, from the radiation?”
“Alright,” said the guard slowly. “But we’ll make it quick.”
“Too kind.”
They walked further down the hill. The trees closed in. The large white tent that covered the excavation shaft came into view. They entered and drew a few glances. The guard waved his hand to dismiss them. They returned to their work, which appeared to be data analysis.
David approached the hole in a weak shuffle, still helping the guard, and knelt before the yellow barrier tape. He made the sign of the cross and tapped his earpiece. It had been mistaken for a common hearing aid and placed in his locker. In prayer, he whispered: “Ego, are you there?” The earpiece picked up the vibrations in his jawbone and transmitted them dutifully. They were received in a discarded pair of trousers twenty metres below.
“Yes, David. I am here.”
David Proctor rose awkwardly and walked back to the medical tent. He expected to hear the siren within two minutes. In the event, it was nearly five. People began to overtake them while the guard spoke gruffly on his walkie-talkie. David glanced back. Black smoke billowed from the tent. He smiled. The fire would lead to an immediate evacuation before a fire crew could be sent down.
The guard told him to stay put and ran towards the hospital tent. David sat on the wet, morning grass and waited.
Twenty metres below him, black smoke had replaced the air. Ego lay on the floor near the ruined immersion chamber where David had entered New World. It interfaced once more with the military’s radio network. It cracked the encryption and checked the status of the situation. The research centre was fully evacuated. Soon the soldiers would return. Ego cut the connection to the radio network and turned its attention to the New World computer.
Five minutes before, it had connected to the same computer and given the instruction to deactivate its legion of cooling fans. The ensuing heat had started a small dust fire, which had spread, feeding on the flammable debris.
Now it was time for the second phase. Ego began to count backwards from ten.
On the surface, David gazed across the lawn, down the valley, where the morning mist had collected in the damp air near the valley floor. Sunlight reflected from its apparent surface. He checked his watch.
In New World, Bruce Shimoda reached the summit of a hill and stopped sprinting. He sagged, hands on knees, and let the thin air into his lungs. Fifty metres away, the pursuing metadillo stopped too. It turned its head towards the darkening sky. Bruce did the same. He wondered what this would feel like.
Ego said, “Three, two, one, zero,” and detonated.
Bruce saw the sky tear in two. He took a final look at the valley and vanished, deleted.
David was bounced by the concussive force. There were shouts of surprise. Smoke ran like black water from the cracks in the tent and personnel spilled out. They choked and shouted. The ground vibrated once more and then was still. Everything was still.
It was over.
Again.
A Talk with Garrel
His interrogator was Colonel Andrew Garrel. He had given David drugs. Personally. The drugs led to nightmares but the nightmares helped. He knew who the enemy was. It was Garrel. He smoked constantly.
They were alone together. There was a
tape recorder. At least, David thought of it as a tape recorder. It was probably a digital recorder of some kind. He watched it. It did not move. It had no spools. There was no sense of time.
“How long have I been in here?” he asked.
Touch now meant pain. The drugs had somehow heightened his senses. Noises were too loud, the chair too hard, the smoke almost unbearably acrid.
Garrel leaned on the desk. He sucked on his cigarette and David saw the end glow for long time. Was time wrong, or was he? Then Garrel let out a breath that billowed blue-white and stank. David’s eyes watered.
“Not long enough, sunshine.”
“You should let me go,” David said. It was an effort. The words would not come fast enough. “I should have a lawyer.”
Garrel laughed. “Do you even know where you are?”
“No. Where am I?”
“You’re in deep, twenty-four carat shite.”
David put his hands on the table. That stopped his fingers shaking. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s quite simple, Dave. You’re a terrorist. You like to use bombs and kill people. We’ve got special rules –” he leaned in – “special rules for fucks like you.”
“This isn’t legal.”
Garrel slammed his palms on the table. David felt like his head and come between two crashing cymbals. He gripped the table, concentrated, forced his mind to turn from the nausea. “Legal? You want legal? How about ‘murder’ for a legal term? You like that one?”
“I told you, I made sure that...people were evacuated first. The fire.”
Garrel grabbed his chin and tilted it upward. The light was blinding. “Why should I believe you? Tell me.”
David tried to pull away but he was too weak. Garrel seemed to be pinching a nerve under his chin. “I wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
“Wouldn’t hurt anybody?” Garrel released his grip and walked away briskly. It was a small room. When he reached the wall, he whirled around. “What about Bruce Shimoda? Remember him? What do you think your bomb did to him? Gave him a light dusting?”
“He was going to die horribly. Eaten alive by creatures you don’t understand. He asked me to kill him.”
“Ah, we’re back to shark story. Sharks that swim on land. Just when you thought it was safe to go for a walk.”
David breathed deeply. Despite his tremors, he could feel that the effect of the drugs had begun to subside. His mind became clearer. “These aren’t fish, damn it. These are animals. They only look like sharks. They’re made of metal.”
“Well, they’re not made of anything, are they? They’re just figments of that computer. And now that the computer’s about as functional as a bag of spanners, where’s your evidence? Because let me tell you, Davie boy, the only evidence I see is that you just murdered a guy, and risked the murder of more than a dozen of my men.”
“I told, I made sure my computer checked that.”
“Your miniature computer. A computer that can hack into an army network. A computer that happens to come with enough explosive to demolish a block of flats.”
“The computer is a prototype. I developed it along with Marquis Future Computing. I do consulting work for them. It’s a new model. I already told you this.”
Garrel leaned against the wall. His energy, like his drugs, began to fade. He now switched from ball of fire to iceberg. David observed the transition. “And this new model comes complete with remote access capabilities and, in case the man on the street needs it, a shit-load of explosives.”
“No. I added the explosives myself.”
“From where?”
“I told you. A man I met on the internet.”
“Any name for this man?”
David sighed. “Yes. He was called Hypno.”
“Did Mr Hypno leave an address, perhaps? A phone number? Webpage?”
“This guy was an arms dealer. He doesn’t work that way. We always met in private chat rooms on the internet.”
“What type of explosive?”
“It’s a liquid-based explosive smuggled from China. It doesn’t have a name yet.”
Garrel laughed and ran his hands through his hair. “At the risk of sounding cynical, how fucking convenient. How did you get the explosives?”
David closed his eyes. He felt much better now, but he wanted to look worse. “Courier.”
“Name?”
“Don’t remember. Anyway, it was a series of couriers, one after the other, each one given a false name and address. No one courier carried the explosives. They all carried components. Dropped them off at the school of chemistry in Oxford addressed to a Professor Macbeth, who does not exist. I collected them at the weekend, on the quiet. Took them back to my house. I assembled the explosives in my garage.”
“How?”
“Instructions from Hypno.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
“Why so recently?”
“I’ve only known that Bruce was here since Wednesday, five days ago. When I received that information I knew that was would I would have to do.”
Garrel stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one. “Do what?”
“Kill Bruce.”
“So you came here to murder Bruce.”
“No. Euthanise him. I needed to be prepared.” David was calmer now. It made the lying easier.
“Why such an elaborate method?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know any other way to do it. This way, I could kill Bruce – knowing that was bound to die anyway – quickly and almost painlessly. In the same way, I could destroy the computer. Destroy the technology that made it possible. The technology that, ultimately, killed Bruce.”
Garrel stroked his chin thoughtfully. He drew on the cigarette. “Interesting. I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“Come on, Dave. You have medical training. Even if you didn’t, you’re clearly a resourceful individual.” David smiled inwardly. Garrel was playing the compliments game. Soon he would become the ball of the fire again, and the dance would go on, cha-cha-cha. “You could think of more and better ways to kill Bruce than that. What about an injection of morphine? Or a chloroformed pad over the mouth? Or a bullet through the brain? This is the second time this place has been bombed. Both centred on your own project. Coincidence? My arse. And as for your crusade against technology...frankly, I don’t believe it. Especially not from someone involved in the design of cutting-edge computer agents.”
They spoke for the rest of the day. Garrel softened. He no longer administered drugs. He asked fewer questions, though they were all on target. David managed to glean that they had not found any pieces of Ego. They believed his account of McWhirter’s death but he would be charged with the murder of Bruce and Caroline. The first by bomb, the last by...they were working on it. They leaned on him. They raged a storm around him. At the centre, David was quite calm.
Part II
She rose at six when the sky was blank, unwritten. The night before, she had sipped a martini on her balcony. In the middle distance, the casinos had sent up multi-coloured searchlights, fountains of water and balloons: the Aurora Las Vegas. She had read that Las Vegas was the brightest man-made object visible from space. She preferred the day. The dawn over that. A blank sky, unwritten.
Bad Dreams
David dreamed.
It was a place full of dark, winding stairs, suits of armour and secret panels, flags of heraldry hanging high on walls and portraits of long-forgotten ancestors following him with dead eyes. Lightning struck nearby and illuminated a monstrous creature.
It moved towards him. The monster was short. It walked clumsily. It walked like a person balancing on their hands. Somebody said, “Look, isn’t he pleased to see you? Isn’t he pleased?”
The legs. They sagged in a way that suggested the skin was loose. He looked closer. The legs were prosthetic. It had a fat, distended belly and a small torso, all covered with a little summer dress. It was a little g
irl, perhaps built by aliens from the body parts of a girl, aliens who had never seen a whole one.
David was nearly sick. His stomach cramped and heaved. The creature was close now. It held out its arms to embrace him. It smelled of hospitals, plastic and unwashed bed clothes.
“Isn’t he pleased to see you. Isn’t he pleased.”
Statements, not questions.
Her eyes narrowed. She had waited too long for her hug and she knew it would never arrive. She sensed his disgust. The eyes turned, changed, became lifeless buttons. And David knew, the dreaming David knew, that she hated him. She would never have her love returned and so it was transmuted, coloured red, to became hate.
David knew he was dreaming, but he could not wake himself.
“Isn’t he pleased?” asked the voice.
“He isn’t pleased,” said the creature.
The dream raced on. He saw himself in a family. Always present, but never speaking, was the creature. She made sure that she sat next to him at meals. She entered his room at night and watched him breathe. In company, she said nothing. When they were alone, she produced a knife and showed it to him, her little secret. There was hate in her eyes. She wanted to kill him. She could wait.
David knew that nobody would believe his suspicions. One day, when he least expected it, that little stiletto would slip into his side and he would look down, gasping in surprise, to see the creature.
He rolled in his bed but there was nowhere to go.
And Saskia dreamed.
Her eyes opened on darkness. She took a step across the dusty floor. There was no light, and then, quite suddenly, there was a torch in her hand.
She was on a case. She had a team of co-workers. She had been in love with one of them. She couldn’t remember his name. It began with ‘u’. He had been murdered and hidden in her fridge. There had been a scrap of paper in his cold fist. The warehouse’s address.