by Terry Kitto
Forever helpless. Forever in a terrible situation.
‘Those people are doing you no good. You’re going to see the doctor in the morning.’
‘I’m fine, and I’m not ever going to see them again.’
‘You talk to dead people. That’s not right.’
‘It’s not an illness; it’s being a witness.’
‘You’ve been brainwashed by people madder than you – ’
‘Madder than me?’ Rasha growled. Tears fell. Haya stood and reached out tentatively. Haya’s iron expression didn’t falter. ‘They helped me realise that I’m sane. They listen to me, and they understand, which is more than you ever do!’
Haya took Rasha’s head in her hands; they were chapped and rough from cleaning caravans, yet retained the softness of a mother’s touch.
‘People lie to feel normal, Rasha.’
‘You saw it with your own eyes. I climbed walls. Tonight a girl hovered, no wires, no tricks. You can’t deny it because you don’t want to believe it.’
‘If it’s all real, then where is your father? Where’s Milana? Why haven’t you found them? Why haven’t you brought them back to me?’
How could Rasha begin to explain? To be a guide in death, a person had to have been a witness in life. And even if she could reach them in the ombrederi, searching for the dead only let someone’s past corrode their future. Trish’s gaunt face, the receptor in the boot of the car, Sam constantly intoxicated and withdrawn.
‘Because I don’t want to!’ she cried. ‘They’re dead and gone!’
Haya shook her by the shoulders.
‘How can you say that?’ she said. ‘How can you say that about your family?’
‘They died because we never left! Aimar and his family left, and they’re probably still alive.’
‘We couldn’t all go!’
Rasha stopped, eyes wide.
‘Why, Mama? Why not?’
Haya sunk to her knees, arms wrapped around her chest.
‘Your father had it all mapped out, the journey to Calais. Everything comes at a price. We only had the money for three of us.’
Rasha recollected the night her parents argued, a map of Europe.
‘I couldn’t leave him!’ Haya wailed. ‘I couldn’t leave him, don’t you understand? I couldn’t leave him, I couldn’t . . .’
Kasey’s father in the study. Trish’s father in the lighting shop. Of course Haya wouldn’t let go. Rasha studied her mother’s face, lined and aged with all the grief she’d bottled in. Kasey’s father couldn’t fight his depression any longer, and he’d tossed himself into a river with a bag full of stones. People were fragile – Haya more than most.
Rasha pulled Haya in, and she half expected her mother to pry herself away. Instead, she nestled farther into Rasha’s chest. Rasha let herself cry too, head to head, together again.
‘I don’t want to be a monster,’ Rasha breathed.
‘You’re not,’ Haya said. ‘You’re Rasha.’
‘You have to let me go. I have to control this.’
‘Promise you’ll always come back to me.’
‘Promise. Unconditionally.’
‘Unconditionally.’
‘We’re buggered,’ Trish heard Sam mutter under his breath, and she couldn’t disagree.
Deep within Wheal Gorenn, the duo traipsed behind James and the occupations unit toward the activity centre. Trish itched at the dielectric band strapped to her head. Despite a successful occupation, they had broken the terms of their disciplinary. Sam had been tense the whole way back from the Nancarrow residence. It had been strange for Trish to see her best friend’s imprint bottled within a vulnerable body; she couldn’t begin to fathom how Sam felt. An occupation broke a guide’s code of conduct, which Will had known and yet still did. He had called the gywandras an acquaintance; after all, he’d worked on a report about it.
What if it was more than that? Trish thought with horror.
Who else knew of the impossible imprint that plagued them? Someone must have surely scoured the archives for past occupations and come across it. If they had, they withheld answers that she and Sam desperately sought. As Will had said, they had no friends left at the Network. They had no one to trust.
They reached the quiet activity centre. The occupations unit parted into the southern shaft toward one of the test caverns, and James beckoned Sam and Trish to his office.
‘It doesn’t seem like long ago,’ he huffed, reclining into his desk chair, ‘that we were in the boardroom discussing your disciplinary, explicitly saying no involvement with the public – ’
‘It’s no different to the shambles at Angove Lodge,’ Sam interjected.
‘Yes, it is,’ James growled. ‘You had my permission, and it was a difficult case where your involvement was justified.’
‘What does it matter?’ Sam cried, slamming his palms onto the desk. ‘We saved her, didn’t we? We saved her, and we found Will!’
‘It was Will?’ James uttered. Sam nodded, unable to vocalise an answer. James was even more fired up when he said, ‘The occupations unit had it under control. Kasey Nancarrow was being monitored.’
James’s eyes fell to the floor, lips pursed.
‘You weren’t planning to extract Will from Kasey?’ Trish asked. ‘It was an experiment?’
‘After what you saw at the care home?’ Sam added. ‘You saw what that poor man went through, and you still thought it was a good idea to prolong an occupation?’
‘This is the fourth occupation in half as many weeks,’ James said. ‘Understanding why is important in stopping them from happening altogether.’
‘It’s the shadow,’ Sam uttered.
Trish drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. She wished she could give Sam a telepathic telling off.
‘The shadow?’ James shuffled forward in his chair. Trish decided to take over before Sam’s loose tongue complicated matters further.
‘In every occupation we’ve witnessed, there has been a second imprint. It doesn’t have a clear projection, and it offers no memory, no emotional stimulus. It’s empty.’
She dared not mention that she’d found the gywandras on the night of Shauna’s death or of Rose’s occupation in the archives; James would hit the roof if he learnt she’d used Network equipment for private means. Neither did she use its name; she was unsure how much James knew.
James glanced between his associates. His forehead developed a sheen.
‘Where was this in your notes?’ he asked. ‘Trish, where was this in your seminar?’
‘I thought I was wrong,’ Trish said, which at the time of the seminar wasn’t false. ‘There was a lot going on and – ’
‘You realise that this would have helped us?’
‘You don’t know anything about this?’ Trish said.
‘It’s news to me,’ James said, eyes to the floor.
Trish stared hard at him.
‘James, look at me,’ she said. He did, and they maintained eye contact. ‘Gywandras.’
James’s left eye twitched, knuckles whitening on the desk.
‘You knew about it,’ Trish said. ‘You knew, and you lied. You vilify us, and all along – ’
‘Whatever you know, whatever you think you know, forget it.’
Sam stepped forward, mouth agape, hands animated.
‘Will said it was the ultimate death, as if the gywandras is beyond any imprint we’ve encountered. It was there the night Will died, and it drove Mum to the Refinery.’
‘As if it’s commanding the occupations,’ Trish bookended.
There was a knock on the door, and Vanessa sauntered in without invitation, bypassing Trish and Sam as if they weren’t there at all. James maintained his eye contact with Trish.
‘Rasha and I had a little chat,’ Vanessa said. ‘She identified the imprint that occupied Miss Nancarrow.’
Trish’s stomach plunged. Sam held his breath and rubbed the scar on his arm. There was no doubt in her mind that
Vanessa knew about the gywandras.
‘From what she described, it was definitely Abidemi,’ Vanessa continued. She turned to Sam and Trish. ‘Depending on whether you’ve been made aware.’
‘Yes, they just informed me,’ James said.
Trish held back a moan of confusion. It was clear everyone in the room, to varying degrees, knew of the gywandras, but James didn’t want Vanessa to know that. When James had told Trish and Sam to forget about it, it hadn’t been a threat but a well-intentioned warning.
‘Good,’ Vanessa said. ‘I’ve already spoken to OU. They’re setting up the transfer. We’re going to trial Abidemi.’
This’ll be interesting, Trish thought. Guiding imprints had as much mental capacity as living humans, so they were held accountable for actions that broke Network code. The transfer was the strongest piece of equipment that the Network owned, so powerful it could detain and even permanently destroy an imprint. It was never used lightly.
‘We can’t, the board is two short,’ James said. Trish presumed he was trying to delay the trial. ‘Leri is at the Nancarrows’, and Will’s gone.’
Vanessa turned to Trish and Sam.
‘We have two right here,’ Vanessa said. ‘Fitting, considering they witnessed the last extraction. Retrieval and trial in thirty.’
Trish edged to the door with Sam’s arm gripped in her hand.
‘We were both saying on the way over how we need the toilet,’ Trish said. ‘We’ll meet you there.’
James nodded profusely, and so Trish and Sam fled the birdcage, then meandered through the activity centre’s chipboard partitions and into a winding tunnel that would take them to the collieries’ only bathroom. When they were safely out of earshot, Trish pulled Sam into a dark alcove.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Sam said, ‘but I couldn’t tell who the director was.’
‘Vanessa must have something on James,’ Trish said. ‘Whatever it is, he doesn’t like it. Why else would he lie for us?’
‘Think about it,’ Sam said. ‘When we accidentally pushed Rasha into an occupation, Vanessa was pretty quick to snatch up the adolescent program and mentor Rasha.’
‘She made Rasha push her abilities,’ Trish agreed. ‘She has plans. The report Will worked on – who signed it off?’
Sam thought a moment, his mind likely scouring the documents he’d whisked from the Reeves’ cottage.
‘Vanessa,’ he said. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Trish’s blood froze at a sudden thought.
‘I don’t trust her,’ Trish said. ‘Not one bit. We agree that the gywandras is dangerous, right? Look how terrified James was when I said its name. We’ve just been cornered into joining a trial. We’re going to have to share our memories with the rest of the board.’
‘If they see what we’ve seen’ – Sam caught Trish’s train of thought – ‘we might be giving her information. But can we get out of it?’
Trish looked out into the tunnel, as black as the gywandras’s oily hide.
‘The gywandras could still be Abidemi,’ Trish said. ‘If not, she’ll know something. We follow through with the trial, find out either way.’
Sam nodded, and Trish continued.
‘When was the last time you saw Abidemi? Your flat? Focus on that, nothing else but that, and don’t give anything away.’
‘And what will you focus on?’
‘Vanessa,’ Trish replied.
After all, to join a trial Trish would have to engage with the other board members and use the transfer machine; she would need to remove her dielectric band.
She could uncover the lies buried within the Network.
A dozen vertical beams supported cavern 3C’s ceiling; it resembled an industrial nest. At the centre stood the egg of the nest itself: the transfer, a six-by-six-foot cube of glass and steel. The transfer served a dual purpose: it measured an imprint’s strength and kept them contained. An expensive cage, Trish used to joke.
The fourteen witnesses circled the machine, six feet apart. Sam and Trish ensured they stood together near the cavern’s exit. Trish held her hands behind her back so that no one could see them quiver, not that it mattered; the cavern was one of the most ill-lit rooms in the Network behind the Long Walk. Trish gave Vanessa her full attention. Vanessa stood at the control panel and pressed a few buttons. The transfer revved to life, and smoke pumped into its belly. Vanessa nodded at James. The machine was ready.
‘Okay, witnesses,’ James said, stoic. ‘We’ve evidence that Abidemi has been active in the area recently. Think of her. Project onto the frequency. The most recent memory you have, if not, the most palpable.’
Trish removed the dielectric band. Waves of frequency energy struck her cranium: a dozen voices, a dozen fractured images. She closed her eyes, tuned out the noise, and thought of Abidemi. The last time she had encountered the imprint was the day in Will’s bedroom: the toppled wardrobe, a desk in smithereens, a bed upturned, and blood splattered across the carpet. Strung to a wooden beam, Abidemi burned with velocity and spun in an absent breeze. Trish’s body grew warm, and violent flames doused her body. She’d found Abidemi first and brought her to trial.
Trish opened her eyes.
In the transfer, Abidemi’s form unfurled amongst a grid of red lasers, contained within the glass. The imprint stared out with hollow eye sockets, her skin charred and her back flayed. The board members stood at one with the darkness, faces lit amber from the lights of the transfer; they seemed more inhuman than Abidemi was.
James broke the ear-throbbing silence.
‘Abidemi,’ he began solemnly, ‘we call upon you today in the belief that you have broken many imprint protocols, most notably involvement in multiple occupations and the murder of fellow witness William Reeves. If the board finds you guilty, your punishment will be expulsion. I want to remind you that means you will cease to exist. Do you understand the parameters of today’s trial?’
‘As much as you understand the parameters of death, James,’ Abidemi retorted. Her form shimmered as if she strained against the electricity that coursed through the transfer.
‘Then enlighten me,’ James spat.
‘An imprint returns to the frequency once the body is wilted, as a flower might return to the soil. From that very soil another flower takes its place.’
‘There are more occupations to come?’ Vanessa barked from the console.
Abidemi failed to reply. Dying embers wafted from Abidemi’s projection.
‘The frequency recycles imprints?’ Trish asked.
Abidemi turned to her, an opaque hand on the transfer’s glass. ‘The river always finds the sea.’
James stepped forward and continued with his preempted speech.
‘Trial is in session. Abidemi, where were you the night of William Reeves’s death?’ He gestured to his colleagues. ‘Witnesses, engage with the ombrederi.’
Trish’s heart kicked inside her chest. She closed her eyes and succumbed to the ombrederi.
The ombrederi took the form of Will’s tarnished bedroom.
In a hellish time-lapse, multiple versions of Will, in various states of fatigue and unkemptness, sidled into the bedroom. They sat on chairs, the bed, and the windowsill, writing or typing or hand over chin in thought. The witnesses used their own memories to draw out Abidemi’s recollection of Will’s murder. One version of Will sobbed and pointed an accusing finger. To her right, Sam radiated heat; the last time he saw Will alive, she guessed.
This is my chance, she thought for a moment. She searched the abstract version of Will’s room and found Vanessa’s imprint, except her imprint was the strangest Trish had ever seen. Muddied with a magenta haze, there were no distinguishable features on her imprint. Instead there were mismatched eyes and echoes of different noses and mouths, as if it were a loose stack of translucent portraits.
Vanessa was no ordinary witness.
‘Abidemi.’ James’s voice wavered across the ombrederi. ‘Show us your truth. Don’t
let us resort to manipulation. Your cooperation will fare you favourably.’
The fourteen witnesses waited with bated breath. The scene changed, but not by Abidemi. A multitude of Wills rose from the bed. Their forms bled and pulsed, and all shouted and pointed at a coffee table covered in white dust. This was Sam’s memory.
Trish’s worst fears were realised.
The gywandras materialised from thin air and staggered like a maimed animal. Its silhouette was more humanoid than before but still retained no sense of an identity, any life before death. It absorbed the colours of Will’s bedroom as a black hole digests nearby stars.
Will became aware of the gywandras when it approached the bed from his left side. He looked from Abidemi to it and called out to them. Abidemi rocked back and forth from the beam, no answers given. The gywandras stalked closer. An oily tentacle connected its disfigured forehead to Will’s. The tentacle pulsed and writhed until the shadow imprint passed into him.
Will was occupied.
The memory flickered. In each fragment of light, Abidemi was in a different part of the room, whilst Will – occupied, frantic – whirled through the space, a path of destruction in his wake, a haunted stop-motion animation. For the final act, Will leapt at the window. His body tore through the glass and became at one with the mist.
The physicality of Will’s death was undeniable. Anguish tore through Trish’s diaphragm.
‘That’s enough.’ James’s voice cracked. ‘Witnesses, disengage.’
Trish blinked, and test cavern 3C swam into view. The board members turned to her and Sam with sombre faces. Behind the console, Vanessa’s face was underlit, her eyes just dark sockets locked intently on Sam. Without her dielectric band, Trish felt the tension build between the witnesses.
They know, many thought. They know about the gywandras.
Trish took Sam’s hand into hers.
James stepped toward the transfer and croaked, ‘Abidemi, it’s clear that Will was occupied. You failed to help.’
‘Guilty by association!’ Vanessa hollered.
The witnesses’ voices continued to echo through Trish’s head. Will must have told them. He could never be trusted. That’s why he died when he did.