An astonishing idea. If it could work … Imagine, all that madness, all that lonely suffering. The minds made well. The broken pieces fixed.
Something pressed up from inside her chest – into her throat – pushed out in a tiny, strangled sound that she did her best to swallow.
But. But. It wasn’t working. Was it? Because Alan was not fixed. That body, that brain – hiding and hidden, locked behind doors behind doors behind doors. More broken than she’d ever seen him.
No: the experiment hadn’t worked. Something had gone wrong.
And now it wasn’t a whimper inside her, trying to escape. It was a slow, hard feeling, fierce, and building.
The thing was, it didn’t matter. Something was wrong, badly wrong – and no one had to care.
It was, actually, genius.
A cohort unable to sue, if it all went down the pan. A subject unable, even, to complain; a patient whose grasp on reality was so weak that when he raved about what was happening inside his skull the doctors would tilt their heads, prescribe another fist of pills, another knock-out jag. Families kept sweet by the waiving of fees, their loved ones protected from failing state care, kept in sunny-side-up luxury.
It sounded like one of the conspiracy theories Nicol was so fond of. In all her research, she’d found no mention of Imagen running medical trials. Could she really believe it, of the doctors at Raphael House? The psychiatrists whose job was to care for their patients? Perhaps, yes – if they truly believed in the project. Believed it could allow them to treat people, heal them as never before.
Her pace slowed to a halt. Without thought, she’d made a circuit of the university square, and now she found herself at the foot of the Bray Tower. It rose skyward, shining white: it promised to rejuvenate the whole area, lifting its neighbours on its coat-tails, and instead made them look every day of their forty and fifty years. The tower was part of the university – unconnected, officially, with Imagen. But it marked the birthplace of Make-Believe; after the commercial entity of Imagen had been spun out to exploit the university’s research, the Bray was built on that success. This was the closest she’d dared to come, since Imagen had screwed her. She stood a single pace from the building, close enough to touch. Kept her hands punched into her pockets. If she did touch, it would be icy, frictionless; and like an iceberg it was more than you could see, stretching dark and deep beneath her feet.
It was win-win for Imagen, if she was right. If the experiments worked, they’d be followed by pilot programmes, a licence for therapeutic use, huge profits from healthcare budgets here and in the US. And if the experiments failed? Well, perhaps you couldn’t call it a win, but you could say nothing was lost; nothing that mattered was lost.
What she thought, then, was: Lewis. Wasn’t this exactly what he’d been searching for? If Imagen had been running clinical trials with subjects whose mental state was such that they were unable to give informed consent, and if Imagen had botched those trials – well, that was his ultimate bargaining chip. He could go to Imagen, give them a choice: let him back into Make-Believe, or he’d blow the whistle. Either way, they would stop the experiment. They’d have to. It would be too much of a risk to carry on, once they knew information had started to leak. They’d get out of Alan’s head, reverse whatever they’d done – and Alan would still be lost, she knew that, still sealed in himself, in his own unreality – but the torment would be gone, whatever it was that hurt him so much he clawed his skin until he bled.
Only, she had no proof. Just a deep-down certainty that would convince no one, except perhaps Nicol and his fellow conspiracy theorists. And more than that, she found – for all Lewis’s talk, for all his longing – that she didn’t believe in him. This was deeper stuff by far than a lake with a DANGER sign – and if Lewis wasn’t scared, it was only because he’d never seen Imagen’s ruthlessness, hadn’t felt it the way she had. Her career destroyed, fear of prosecution hanging always over her – and for what? She’d breached her contract, yes, and losing her job was a fair price to pay – but she’d caused them no real injury. Yet they’d done all they could to erase her.
Above her, scores of eyes slit the building’s skin. A glittering illusion of openness. From ground level, she couldn’t see in. But they could see out.
Everything until now had been scrabbling around the edges. Her visit to Harrie. Her library research. Her involvement with Lewis. All this, she guessed, was invisible. She was nothing to them; why would they watch her? Why would they care? She was safe in her obscurity.
But any action, now, would be stepping into the light.
The render on the Bray Tower was so smooth, so austere, your eyes could slide across with nothing to catch your focus. And there, at the top of the building, was where the secrets lived. In a glass-walled office, in the head of a woman Cassie had met just once: once, in her old life. A woman who could be watching from her window. Could be looking down at her, right now.
She dropped her gaze. Turned, and walked away.
In the nearest Superdrug, Cassie studied her cropped reflection in a cloudy strip of mirror; chose a lipstick tester, and stroked her lips a bright Trust Me pink. Hovered, fiddling with eyeshadows as though she were choosing between shades, till the security guard moved into the next aisle. Then she cracked the plastic seal on a mascara tube that promised XXX-tra volume, and dabbed it furtively onto her pale lashes. It was for ever since she’d worn make-up, and now that she’d started she would have liked to paint a whole mask: foundation, eyeshadow, blusher, the lot. But the guard was still hovering, and lashes and lips would have to do.
She slotted the mascara back into its display. Fished a hairclip from the depths of her satchel and secured her hair in a twist at the back of her head. The mirror strip showed a half-reflection. She dipped to check her eyes, stood straight to check the lips. The make-up was meant as armour, as disguise; now she worried it might have the opposite effect. The half-faces that looked back at her were a glimpse back in time, of her old, professional self. But the polish gave her confidence, would smooth her way into the Bray Tower.
And there was no reason why the professor should recognise her – not from one brief meeting, three years ago. No reason she should know who Cassie was, when she walked into her office searching for answers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Braced for klaxons and flashing red lights, Cassie marched into the foyer. Her fingers turned to thumbs under the stare of the security guard as she scrabbled for her visitor’s pass – but the gate slid open, and the foyer accepted her just as if she belonged.
Space rose around her, open to the roof six storeys up: a huge central atrium that was the ultimate show-off. It shouted, See how we need such a great height to accommodate all our grand ideas. See how we conceptualise your future, transform the way you will live. Cassie imagined those concepts – abstract, embodied but invisible – hanging here in the tall space. And then she stopped gazing, and concentrated on looking like she was meant to be there.
The layout was loosely familiar from the visit she’d made with her Imagen colleagues. She remembered how they’d crowded into the glass lift – laughing, excited to see where the magic happened. Today, she preferred not to sail up through the centre of the building in a transparent cube; made for the edge of the ground floor, and started up the stairs. Up to a gallery that snaked around the thought-space before stepping up again to snake round at second-floor level, and again and again till the roof of the building was almost touchable and Cassie stopped to catch her breath, and played a game of blocking out the people in the foyer with her thumb.
Where the magic happened. That had been a colleague’s phrase: Becca, the marketing assistant. Cassie had always reckoned it went to the heart of how Becca thought about the business. Like all of them she’d mastered a simplified explanation of how it worked, could answer the frequently asked questions and give bland reassurances of safety. But Cassie had heard her giving the spiel, could tell she didn’t understand a wor
d of it. Didn’t believe a word of it. As far as Becca was concerned, it was impossible, what they were doing. It had to be magic.
Which made Professor Morgan chief wizard. Another hat, to add to the several she wore already: professor of synthetic neurobiology at the university; chief scientific officer at Imagen; Commander of the British Empire for services to science, technology and innovation. Though she hadn’t looked like a wizard, or a CBE, that time when she’d met them outside the building in a plain white shirt and creased suit-trousers. Hadn’t looked important at all. You could have lost her instantly in any crowd of office workers. Cassie had stared, trying to imagine her alien brain, what went on inside it: the zillions of neural connections that must be zapping and buzzing constantly, to let her understand concepts and mechanisms and possibilities of which Cassie, at best, might glimpse an outline – an outline she could hold in her own mind for maybe a minute before it fuzzed into ungraspable complexity. And then the professor had caught her staring, and turned slightly pink, and of course she was not just an extraordinary woman but an ordinary one as well – a woman with a distracted smile, a quick handshake, and a scrap of Sellotape holding together one leg of her spectacles.
Glass doors. Glass walls. Everything was transparent – so the ideas could see each other, could join up, mate, breed new ideas that were even better and bigger and more world-changing. Cassie was fairly sure Morgan’s office was on the top floor. Although on their visit they hadn’t been shown round this level, she remembered how Morgan had gestured as they stood outside, to the highest point of the tower. How her lifting arm had tugged her shirt free from the waist of her trousers, so she’d had to stuff it back in while they all pretended not to notice.
Cassie walked past a series of boxy offices, sneaking sideways looks. Some were empty but for equation-scrawled whiteboards, minimal office furniture, the occasional yellowing peace lily; some were occupied by women and men so focused on their screens that not a one glanced up as she passed. But Morgan wouldn’t work in a little see-through cube, not like these underlings.
Cassie followed a right angle, found herself passing a larger office that seemed to have several doors opening off it in turn. Glimpsed a row of filing cabinets, and two large desks, one of which was occupied by a dark-haired woman in a black-and-white-striped shirt. Kept walking, till she was out of the woman’s sightline. She felt grubby, suddenly, in this sparkling space. Sweat needled her armpits. She doubted the power of her lipstick, doubted her clothes: today’s charity-shop T-shirt, black with a small sans serif text: Is that your final answer? She tugged her cardigan closed, buttoned the slogan away. She’d come this far; what was she doing here, if she wasn’t going to chance it? That fierceness swelled in her chest again. Do it, or step back into the shadows. That was the choice.
The instant Cassie stepped into the office, the woman looked up from her desk.
‘Can I help you?’ she said.
Cassie smiled brightly. ‘I’m here to see Professor Morgan – am I on the right floor?’
The woman didn’t return her smile. Checked her screen. ‘Did you have a meeting?’
‘Yes, we’d arranged it for, um, twelve o’clock, I think – unless …’ Cassie gazed round, acting scatty. Clocking each door, each nameplate. Prof Angela Khan. Dr David McLean. Prof Fiona Morgan.
‘There’s nothing in the diary.’ The woman gave her a hard stare, folded her arms: You shall not pass. ‘What was your name?’
‘Don’t say I’ve got the wrong day …’
‘If you give me your name, I’ll search the diary.’
There was no way she’d get past this guardian. Cassie shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I have, I’ve got the day wrong – I completely forgot she’d rescheduled.’ She backed out, closing the door as she went. ‘Honestly. Forget my own head if it wasn’t screwed on …’
As she retreated down the corridor, she imagined the woman following her to the door. Felt her stare as a weight on her back.
Slowly she made her way down the snaking stairs, trying to figure out her next move. By the time she reached ground level she’d come up with nothing better than hanging around, and trying not to get thrown out.
Across from the exit was a coffee kiosk, with a handful of tables and high stools. Cassie strolled over, scanned the price list. Espresso was cheapest, but you couldn’t nurse that for long without arousing suspicion. Instead she counted out the money for tea in a takeaway cup, and claimed the seat with the best view of the exit. The rain was off now, sun streaming through the glass atrium; with luck, the woman whose job it was to guard Professor Morgan would feel the need for lunch, fresh air and a dose of vitamin D.
Groups of people came and went: they arrived in small flocks, perched with their screens and coffee cups crowding the tables; they talked briefly and seriously, and dispersed again. Distantly, she recognised herself. Recalled the sense of small, regular accomplishment, the satisfaction she’d felt in her own efficiency. She remembered the seductive, self-contained shape of a task, a plan, a project, of a day, a week, a year. Remembered how the scaffolding of routine had boxed her days, holding it all together. Surrounded and separate, she sipped her tea and tried to blend in, to sit like them, angled forwards, screen on the table in front of her. And this was why she had left – the first time she’d abandoned him. To be like them, to feel professionally fulfilled. This was why, at the airport, she’d held him, and left him. Each reassuring the other: This’ll be you in a couple of months. It’s going to fly past. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be amazing.
It was only the laughter that made her look up. A loud gust, unexpected, resounding through the muted space – and there was the woman from upstairs. A smile had transformed her face as she shared a joke with the security guard, but the black-and-white shirt was the same. Carrying her handbag, jacket over her arm. Heading out for lunch.
The moment the woman had passed through the barrier, Cassie was on her feet. This time she took the lift, all the way to the top. She walked briskly down the corridor – but when she reached the glass-walled office, she stopped. The desk was still occupied, by a young man this time. Professor Morgan was clearly too valuable to be left unguarded. Cassie watched, swearing silently, knowing that while she could see the replacement, she herself could be clearly seen. She turned, took a few steps towards the lift. Turned back, moved forward once again. Stood there, swithering – and as she hesitated, the replacement left his seat, got down on his hands and knees, and stuck his head under the desk.
Paper jam.
Cassie didn’t hesitate. She opened the door just enough to slide through, made sure it closed without a sound. As the replacement, still on his knees, began to crawl backwards, Cassie stepped lightly across the carpet, making straight for Morgan’s office. Now she could see her, through the glass of the door, she could see her leaning towards her screen, her cropped head bent, her shirt creased tight across her shoulders.
‘Hello? Excuse me—’ The replacement had emerged from under his desk.
In a single movement, Cassie rapped her knuckles against Morgan’s door, pushed it halfway open and stepped inside.
‘—sorry, but do you have an appointment?’
Cassie closed the door on the voice at her back. Now, it had to look like she was expected, or security would be up here before she could ask a single question. She smiled at Morgan’s startled face, stuck out her hand.
‘Professor Morgan? Sorry to intrude.’ The fake name she’d prepared was on her lips – and then she saw it. Recognition flickering in Morgan’s eyes. More: the professor looked wary. Cassie’s stomach yawned. What had Morgan heard? How much did she know about her, and what she’d done? ‘You won’t remember me, I’m sure …’ Was there any way to avoid giving her real name? No time to think it through. ‘Cassandra McAllister,’ she said.
‘No, I do, of course.’ Morgan stood up, made as if to offer her hand, then seemed to change her mind, and gave a nod instead
. From the furthest corner of her eye, Cassie saw the replacement return to his desk. Relief pulsed through her. Her smile became almost genuine.
‘Well,’ said Morgan. ‘An unexpected …’ The sentence trailed away. Pleasure was too blatantly false – and with her failure to utter the social nicety, Cassie’s hopes rose. The woman was a bad liar.
Morgan was still standing up – so that Cassie couldn’t sit down. She was a woman who wanted to be polite, who had by necessity learnt the tricks of protecting her time, her intellectual territory. Cassie kept up her smile, and under the surface she kicked and struggled, because she’d known, ten seconds ago, exactly what she’d meant to ask, how she planned to play it – and now she’d blanked. She forgot stuff, she did; she forgot a lot of stuff.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again, playing for time. ‘I know I’m interrupting you.’
‘I am actually due at a meeting, I’m afraid.’ Morgan was palming out of her screen as she spoke. ‘You might want to make an appointment with the departmental secretary? I should warn you, I am generally fairly busy.’
It was a smug understatement – and Cassie thought of Alan, and hated the professor for her self-satisfaction, for her glass office, her clear desk that held nothing more than screen, notepad and a single pen, no ordinary clutter to get in the way of pure clean concept, and somehow her hatred sparked her brain into action.
A User's Guide to Make-Believe Page 12