by Hocking, Ian
“Both!”
“Like winning the lottery.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What did you do?”
“What did I do? What could I do? I couldn’t let them raise the alarm. I shot ’em up and came back later, dug a pit for their bodies, and that was it. The local police couldn’t find a stitch in a quilt, as the Polish saying goes. I was two hundred miles away by morning. I went straight to J, confronted him, and he spilled the beans.”
They sat in silence for a while. Saskia watched some pigeons descend on the statue. The air was damp and chill. The robot manager leaned moodily on his cane and kept one eye on the scurrying robots. They were nearly finished. The grass was immaculate. “Listen,” Frank said, “I...I don’t normally do this. Talk to other agents, that is. But I wanted to warn you.”
“About what?”
“You know what. If Jobanique finds out that you’ve been investigating your own history then you’re in big trouble.”
Saskia sighed. “I know. Execution.”
“I saw you in the internet café. You were trying to download biographical stuff about yourself, weren’t you?”
“How did you know that?”
He leaned forward, uncomfortably close, and she saw the tell-tale circle of a contact lens around his iris. Embedded in the lens were squares of grey that rotated and flashed.
“My lenses have image enhancers. They read my blinks. Cool, eh?”
“Did they come free with your electric bug glove?”
Frank looked hurt. “Actually, no.”
She punched his shoulder. “I was kidding,” she said. She smiled. It was the first genuine, non-sarcastic, non-threatening smile she had produced since...since she could remember.
“OK, now for the hard stuff. I’m going to show you something.”
“Is this the kind of thing strangers like to show women in parks?”
Frank blushed and Saskia was reminded of her English boyfriend, Simon. Or rather, the false memory of him. “Oh. Nice one.”
He handed her the front page of a broadsheet newspaper. The script was Cyrillic, the language probably Russian. The leading story had a picture of her, Saskia Brandt, glaring defiantly at the camera. Her hair was much longer and the wind had blown it wide. She looked good. Two German police officers held her arms. Immediately above the picture were four Russian words.
“Sorry it’s in Russian. I could translate it for you, but you don’t need to the know the details. I can’t let you keep it, I’m afraid. CYA is in operation – Cover Your Arse. Mine, in this case.”
“What does it say?”
Frank took another glance around the park. “Which bit? That bit? Oh, ‘Angel of Death in Custody’, or, more accurately ‘Angel of Death is Grabbed.”
Saskia felt a tingle in her belly. “They call me the Angel of Death.”
“Yes. The story basically says that you are a mass murderer. You were captured in Germany. Near Leipzig, I think.”
“No. No. That can’t be. I’m not a murderer.” She sounded pathetic. She was near tears.
“Hey, listen, love. You’re not a murderer. You were. Past tense. You’re a blank slate, now. From last Friday, you’re a different person.”
“But...surely I’m still responsible.”
He said sharply, “No, you’re not. You’re not responsible for the old you anymore than you’re responsible for your parents.”
“But surely I’m more than just my memories.”
“Look, if you want to get philosophical about it, maybe yes and maybe no. But be pragmatic. Do you feel like a murderer, like a criminal? Could you kill someone now in cold blood? That’s what’s important.”
Saskia’s eyes were fixed on the article. The nonsense words seemed to blend together. “You did,” she said quietly. “That Polish fisherman and his sons.”
“That was self defence. Besides, he wasn’t Polish.” He took the cutting and put it in his pocket. Saskia wanted to take it back but, suddenly, she was too weak. Perhaps she should have another cigarette.
“Saskia, I have to go. You’ve seen the past, now let go of it.”
“Let go of it? Are you insane?”
“I just wanted to help you. This article is what you’re looking for, and there’s nothing more to it. You’re just a tabloid horror story. Editorial fodder. Now watch your back and avoid Germany. See ya.”
He walked away. “Wait, Frank!” she called.
He jogged back immediately. “Keep your voice down.”
“Where do they get the memory implants?”
Frank vacillated briefly then sat down. “OK. Here it is. The long version. So you won’t keep asking me questions.” He smiled. “Now, your brain is made of little cells. Most of them very similar. Actually, they’re similar to mine too. The reason that I’m me and you’re you is that they’re wired-up differently. One pattern of wiring is me, one pattern is you, and another might be the King of England. It’s all about the pattern. If you took a recording of my brain somehow – no mean feat, I can assure you – and imposed that pattern over another brain – even more difficult – then the other brain, and therefore the other person, will start to sound and act like me. They’ll think that they are me, and, in important ways, they are. It would be like having a mental twin. Cool, eh?”
“Cool,” she whispered.
“At the moment, the way they do it involves a wet-wire chip. That’s computer chip that interfaces directly with the brain. It’s usually placed on the surface of the brain itself. Let me feel the back of your head.” His fingers touched the base of her skull. It was still tender from the hat maker’s blow. “That’s it. You have a scar. They fire it in. No surgery required. That chip contains the memories of another person – probably a medical student getting some extra cash – and is connected via tiny nano-filaments to over half the neurons in your neo-cortex. Your neo-cortex is where the more ‘human’ brain functioning goes on. The chip is more like a processor than a memory storage. It stays in constant contact with the rest of your brain, constantly imposing the alien pattern over your own ‘normal’ pattern.”
“Why does it have to be constant?”
He shrugged. “The reality of playing about with the brain, I suppose. They say that the person’s own pattern soon becomes dominant again. You see, your own pattern is not really destroyed by the new, alien pattern – it’s kind’ve knocked sideways. The chip is really mixing the new pattern with the old. It isn’t a straight swap. If the update only happened once, then your old personality would eventually take over the new one. Sounds awful, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. But whose memories do I have?”
Frank took a slow, clear look at his watch. “Dunno. Normally someone clever though. J says that I was a bit of an idiot before the chip went in. Only spoke English. Now I speak fluent Russian, Polish and...what language are we speaking?”
“German.”
“And German. Maybe one or two others. I won’t know until I try. People’s brain patterns don’t come with instruction manuals.”
“So me, I person I think is my ‘self’ right now...that isn’t me? I mean, it’s someone else?”
“Like I say, I’m not a philosopher.” He stood up. Saskia could see that he needed to leave.
“But if I have someone else’s brain pattern, why don’t I have any memories of childhood, for instance?”
“With memories, it’s not what you’ve got but what you think you’ve got. I mean, you can’t find memories unless you know what you’re looking for, or they’re jogged by something similar.” He walked away. “Try some free-association tasks, it might help those memories surface. And remember – you’re brand new. You’re not responsible for your old self. Bye-bye.”
She examined the backs of her hands. She needed another cigarette. “Goodbye.”
“Oh, which way to the central station?”
“Out of here, get a blue tram going south. It’s four stops. You can’t miss it.”
>
“Bet I can. Bye.”
Half an hour later, Saskia left the park and walked home. The robot manager watched her. When she was out of sight, he whistled. The litter robots halted and turned their cameras in his direction. He pointed at one and it skipped over. He crouched and pressed a button on its back. A panel slid open. Inside was a flat screen. He said, “Rewind forty-five minutes,” and the picture became a shaky close-up of Saskia and Frank. Frank was saying, “I saw you in the internet café.” The robot manager rose up and clapped his hands sharply.
“Alright, you lot. In the van.”
The Office
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. She took the elevator down to the subterranean car park. The traffic was already heavy, but manageable if she rose at six and avoided the Strip. She read some paperwork while the car turned north, then east, then joined I-15 heading north-west. Twenty minutes later, she turned onto Route 169 at Crystal.
The car bumped over a pothole. Jennifer Proctor said, “Slow down.”
The car slowed. The road surface worsened as she had entered the Valley of Fire State Park. Sunlight struck the red sandstone and they did seem to ignite, but Jennifer did not look up from her notes until they had reached Met Four, a weather station in the northern area of the park. The car dropped her near the base of the outcrop. Sixty feet above her she could see the white walls of the centre. They were yellow in the early light. As she began to ascend the seven flights of stairs, the car parked.
A delicate but chill north-easterly wind stirred the air, still cold from the cloudless night. Jennifer raised her collar. Her feet clanged against the iron stairs. When she reached the top, she ignored the sign that said:
Warning! This is US Government Property Protected by Federal Law
If you are unsure whether you are supposed to be here, you are not. Return to the authorised trail immediately. You are committing a federal violation punishable by up to 20 years in jail. For medical assistance please contact State Park authorities.
The top of the outcrop was surrounded by a natural parapet of rock. Jennifer knew that it was not natural at all. There was only one gap: the top of the stairs. It was covered by a chain-link fence with an inset door. There was a slot near the handle for a card. Jennifer produced hers and swiped it through. She tried the door and it opened easily. She stepped through, closed it, and waited.
Met Four was two pre-fabricated buildings. An array of antennae and dishes sat on the top of the first. On the second, there were two flags: the Stars and Stripes and the standard of the US meteorological office. Around the buildings was a gravel path of chipped white stones. There was no sound whatsoever. The flags hardly stirred.
A door opened in the first building. A man walked out. He had no weapon, but Jennifer knew that another man with a submachine gun was standing out of sight.
“Morning, ma’am,” he said. If he had said, ‘Morning, miss,’ then she would have to turn away, go home and await instructions.
“Morning,” she said.
She walked to the door of the first building and went inside. It was perfectly unremarkable. A fortyish man sat at a desk and pecked at an old computer keyboard. Behind him, a secretary placed some papers in a filing cabinet. Jennifer had walked into the same room once a day for an entire year. The woman and the man had not moved. Her department chief had told her that the woman had a revolver in the filing cabinet, the man a silenced rifle alongside his chair.
“Good morning, Jim,” she said.
“Morning, Jennifer.”
She walked through a chipboard partition into a cloakroom. It was an unpractical distance from the door of the hut. She placed her coat on a hanger and did a twirl. Up high, behind a one-way panel in the false wall, a camera watched her. A computer calculated the probability of a concealed weapon based upon her height, weight, movement and her microwave reflectivity.
There was an old trench coat in the corner. She moved it and pressed her thumb against the wood. The nail glowed pink. Partial sections of her DNA were read by a laser, decoded and checked with a signature file. They matched.
A voice said, “Stand with your hands by your sides. Maximum capacity ten people. You are being constantly monitored. If you encounter a problem, please wait for assistance.”
She began to sink. She stood carefully and waited for the floor to clear her head. There was nothing to hold on to. When she was three or four metres down, a panel slid over the top of the shaft. Fluorescent panels provided light.
A gap appeared near her feet, then widened. She had reached the top floor of the research centre. From here on, she would need to use conventional elevators and stairs to navigate the complex.
The platform stopped. There was a transparent booth with a uniformed guard inside. Another transparent panel blocked access to the main corridor. A few hundred scientists worked in the centre, with a few hundred more support staff, technicians, and security personnel. Only those with Jennifer’s level of clearance could enter through the weather station. That included the bulk of the scientists. Those with military credentials had a number of other, more convenient routes. Tunnels, she guessed.
The guard looked up.
“Jennifer Proctor,” she said. “Scientist.”
He smiled. “How are you today, Jennifer?”
“Fine, Dan. How are you?”
“Having a good one. Anything to declare?”
“Only my of love of Beethoven.”
“Okidokey. Step through.”
The transparent panel swung open. The sounds of a thousand busy people. Air-conditioning. Electricity.
Dan gave her a laminated ID card. She grabbed a lab coat from a nearby rail. The ID stuck to the Velcro on her lapel. IDs were taken seriously. A few months ago, hers had fallen into the toilet and she hadn’t had the guts to take it out. As soon as a guard had seen her, she was arrested until the story was confirmed. The guard had turned out to be vaguely human, just a guy called Dan.
“Have a great day,” Dan said.
“You too.”
She walked down the main corridor. It was packed with offices. People emerged carrying pieces of paper. Minicars rolled past. She walked on. This was the top level of the research centre. It had six floors. The lowest one was thirty metres below. The lower floors were mostly workshop, testing laboratories and equipment stores. The higher ones had administrative offices and recreational areas. There was a gym, a sauna, and a small swimming pool. All the facilities were under intense pressure. Booking was essential. Jennifer seldom bothered.
She headed towards her lab. It would take twenty minutes
“Hey, Jenny, wait up.”
She turned. It was Mikey. “Hi, Mikey.”
He was in his early twenties. Not as young as Jennifer, but young enough for them to feel an affinity. She was the resident wonder child and it often made her feel excluded. Mikey wanted to play outsiders with her. He was sweet.
Mikey adjusted his glasses and grinned. “You gotta see this.”
“See what? I’ve got a meeting with Michaels in, like, half an hour.”
“But you gotta come.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the nearest stairwell. He began to talk. He had a habit of twisting his fingers in his beard as he did so. Jennifer liked it. This was the first time he had ever spoken about his research – strictly speaking, he was forbidden – and she felt like an honorary member of his weird, fun club. “See, we got her all fired up but the notes we had from the last time weren’t entirely complete. There were some...inconsistencies.”
“Inconsistencies? What are you talking about?”
“Follow me.”
They arrived, s
ome minutes later, at the door to Mikey’s laboratory. Rather ominously, blue flashes could be seen through the gap underneath. “Don’t worry about those. Some last minute repairs.” He opened the door and they went inside.
The room was large. It had a low ceiling but extended ten metres either side of her. The floor was covered in white tiles and sloped towards the centre. There, dwarfing everything else in the room – even Mikey’s friend, Groove, with his enormous welding gun – was a object that almost defied description. It was clearly a tank full of liquid, but the liquid shifted and stirred as though it was alive.
“Come take a look,” Mikey said.
Jennifer approached the tank. She saw blues, reds, yellows, all mixing together. A memory surfaced. It was her father. She had been four years old. He had put three or four watery splodges of paint on an empty dinner plate. Then, barely on the edge of this mess, he had dropped a tear of washing-up liquid. The effect was immediate: the colours panicked, chased into one another, mixed, pulled back. She had giggled and begged to do it herself. All the while, whispering in her ear, he spoke of particle diffusion.
“It’s incredible.”
“Yeah. Touch the surface.”
Mikey stared at Jennifer’s face. She reached up and placed a hand on the surface. It was warm. A cloud of red appeared from nowhere and swelled under her fingertips. It grew warmer. She took her hand away and the red departed, replaced by an inky blue.
Mikey took her hand in his. A distant part of her felt that his action was unwelcome, but the device held her attention. “The things in there are attracted by the static in your fingertips.”
“Really?” she said dreamily. She hardly noticed that Mikey was stroking her fingers.
“Mikey, quit dribbling over the guests.”
Jennifer looked round and saw that Groove had stopped welding. He was clearly pleased with his one-liner. The welding gun rested on his shoulder, pointing skyward, and his visor was snapped back. Mikey released her fingers. The moment was over.
“Groove, shut the fuck up.”
“Whatever. Hey, Jennifer.”