by T. C. Edge
I guess Savants don’t much care about that. Food, after all, is merely a method of providing the body with sustenance and energy. I assume that their taste buds, like their emotions, are equally dulled.
Right now, though, I have no appetite and no interest in food. Instead, it’s the little file that I discreetly pass to Adryan under the table that’s my primary focus.
Taking it from my fingers, he darts his eyes down to take a look before putting it into his own pocket.
A smile of approval hovers across his lips.
Those lips…
“Well done, Brie,” he says. “We can crack this open later and find out what’s inside.”
“Good. So, what now? What’s my next mission?”
I ask the question with a rare enthusiasm, a new verve. I’m beginning to believe that I can do just about anything with these powers of mine. That this building, this entire city, is my playground.
His eyes turn around us to ensure we’re out of hearing range from anyone nearby. Right now, the entire floor is filling, and growing louder by the minute, giving some concealment to our words.
His inspection isn’t necessary, though. My Hawk-eyes are always working, always checking that the coast is clear. I’m growing into my role here well.
“Let’s take a look at the file first,” suggests Adryan, “before we make any further plans.”
I suppose that makes sense. It might lend us some new information that could better direct my next actions.
“I’ve been thinking, though, about the whole…assassin thing,” I whisper. I slowly lean in, and he does too.
“Yes?”
“Does it need to be me who does it?” I query. He frowns. “Hear me out, OK. I’m just wondering…can’t I get someone else to do it instead?”
“You mean manipulate someone?”
I nod.
He shakes his head.
Recoiling a little at the quick dismissal of my idea, I ask why.
“Brie, the only people who have access to the levels beneath the summit are extremely high ranking Savants. Therefore, they have the most powerful minds among us, and will be harder to manipulate, especially if you’re saying what I think you’re saying.”
“I am,” I say quickly. “I’m saying exactly that. Find out who might be meeting with Cromwell, and put an order in them to do the deed. It would save me having to do what amounts to a suicide mission.”
Adryan does a further check of our surroundings.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “I’m keeping watch, don’t worry.”
He leans in again, just enough to keep his voice low, but not too much to look suspicious.
“Brie, you’ve said it before, the more extreme the order, the harder it is to make someone carry it out. And as I say, you’re dealing with very powerful minds, some of whom may well be Mind-Manipulators and you’d never even know it. If you tried to put an order in the wrong head, then they might just figure it out…especially if you’re getting them to kill their Director.”
I don’t answer for a moment.
Then I simply say: “It was just an idea.”
“And a good one in other circumstances. Believe me, I’d love it if you didn’t have to go up there. But you do. It has to be you. No one else can be trusted with this.”
I’m starting to get used to being told that. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so ‘special’.
“Right, so how do we view the file?” I ask.
“In the apartment. I’ll set a filter on the wall interface. We can read it without raising any flags.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t worry, Brie. You’re a budding expert at the art of Mind-Manipulation, but I know about this stuff. Leave it with me.”
Once more, I’m forced to trust him, setting my natural inclination to doubt just about everything to one side.
Jeez, this place is turning me into Mrs Carmichael.
With our secret discussion concluded, we’re able to relax a little. So far, everything’s going quite well, with the only real hiccup being the genetic test from the other day. So far, nothing appears to have come of it, and I can only assume that the results of my blood sample – or W. Malcolm’s blood sample, to be more precise – have come back without any anomalies.
That said, I’d like to make sure.
Leaving Adryan to continue his workday, I make my way down towards the atrium and head towards the main desk. There, I find Rebecca multi-tasking once more, with the receptionist alongside her doing the same.
She appears to be juggling a number of things, constantly tapping away on her touchscreen to coordinate meetings and security clearances and a whole manner of other duties that fall on her dainty shoulders.
I start to speak but she raises a single finger to stop me. Several long moments of furious tapping later, her eyes finally raise to mine.
“Mrs Shaw, good afternoon. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Rebecca,” I say. “I was just wondering if I could get temporary access to level 32?”
She shakes her head.
“Not possible I’m afraid, Mrs Shaw. Access is not granted purely by request of residents. Official channels need to be gone through. What is it that you require on level 32?”
“Oh…I just wanted to find out about my genetics test, that’s all.”
“Hmmmm, I see. I wouldn’t worry. That was two days ago now. I’m sure they will contact you if there are any problems.”
She turns back down to her duties and starts tapping again. I don’t move.
“Yes, Mrs Shaw? Anything else?” she asks, staring at her screens.
“Um…no, nothing major. Just wondering – what time is the ceremony tomorrow to honour the City Guard?”
“3PM,” she says immediately.”
“And is it open for all residents?”
“The front sections are reserved for members of the City Guard. Rear sections may be taken up by other officials. However, if you wish to watch, you can do so from the streets further back, although I wouldn’t advise it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, it’s going to be televised, so you’ll be quite able to watch it from your apartment via hologram. Depending on the location of your residence, you may also be able to watch from the windows.” She looks up at me again, very briefly. “You’re in apartment 51-35, so will have a decent view from up there.”
“You remember where I live? Do you have a photographic memory or something?”
“I have an eidetic memory, and recall all details of all residents that cross my path.”
I guess that’s why her duty is here at the front desk, organising things.
“So, you remember everything?”
“With a little time to recall, yes, everything.”
Her words come at me abruptly and her tapping grows ever more furious. It’s the call for me to go, my request to discover the truth about my test denied. Then again, I hardly expected it to be accepted. It was worth a punt, though.
With little to do but wait for Adryan to finish work, I take another quick tour of the communal levels, studying the Savants with a more academic eye. Like the way Adryan tends to study me to improve his ability to emote, I look upon these people in much the same way.
Only, instead of learning how to display emotion, I spend my time learning how to suppress it.
I spend a large part of that afternoon watching, learning, and putting into practice what I see. There’s a real skill to it – emptying your face of any sort of expression – that I find quite difficult at first. Mostly, that’s because, despite everything, I’m starting to find it quite amusing how these people look at each other.
They don’t greet each other with a smile. Their eyes don’t light up. There’s no joy, feigned or otherwise, upon their blank visages.
In fact, every meeting merely begins with the traditional bow and nod, before any information that requires sharing is passed on. It’s so odd to look at, and I begin to
wonder just what on earth is going on inside their heads.
I mean, my thoughts are always based upon some emotion. I’ll think about my friends because I worry about them. I’ll recollect happier times with Tess or Drum because I wish to feel a bit of past joy. I’ll think of Cromwell and the Consortium with hate. I’ll occasionally let Adryan enter my thoughts with a note of desire.
But mostly, it’s fear that drives me, that directs my thoughts and actions. Fear for myself, partially, but also for everyone else in this city. Most of the time, I’m purely thinking about my mission, both in grander terms and the smaller elements that go into it.
What’s the next thing I have to do?
Who’s the next person I have to manipulate?
Everything I do, everything I am, is all based upon my emotions. They drive me to act, recklessly at times, but always for the good of those I care about, and the wider city in general.
Without my emotions, what am I? Just an empty shell, carrying out a function.
Nothing but a mechanical part of a large machine, doing the same thing day after day until I’m all used up and obsolete. And when that happens, I’ll be chucked out and replaced by a newer part, a brand new cog.
And the machine just keeps on running.
That’s all life is here for these people. And the purpose of the Consortium, and Director Cromwell, is merely to ensure that that machine grows larger, spreading its robotic arms wider and wider until the entire planet falls under its grip.
So as I begin to creep into people’s minds that afternoon, I see exactly that. An emptiness. Deep and dark caverns filled with no joy or love or hate or excitement or fear or anything else.
Only rarely do such things bloom, like little lights in the dark, oases in the arid desert. But mostly, it’s a coldness that inhabits the minds of the residents of this building, their entire consciousness dominated by their duty and function and little more.
In the end, the line between man and machine is starting to meld together. And if it goes on, the future is going to be a very cold place indeed.
89
“OK then, let’s see what we’ve got here, shall we?”
I’m waiting on tenterhooks to find out exactly what Brian’s delivered us. For the last ten or so minutes, Adryan has been configuring some security encryptions to ensure that opening up this particular file won’t lead to a sudden band of Stalkers or City Guards pouring through our door.
In fact, come to think of it, one of the only benefits of living here is that there are so few of them around. Stalkers make no appearance whatsoever, the special forces of the High Tower no doubt out there causing havoc for my brother and his soldiers as we speak.
Con-Cops, too, aren’t allowed in the building, and it’s certainly been a great relief for me not having to duck and weave around their patrols. Given how they’re all actually Unenhanced, albeit modified to the Consortium’s designs, they have no position here at the home of the Savants.
Only the few members of the City Guard who provide security are allowed in. And, in my experience, the Brutes and Dashers and Hawks, and all the rest who make up their number, are far nicer than their Con-Cop counterparts. So I don’t much mind seeing a few of them around.
In fact, living among so many Savants, it’s actually quite refreshing.
“Right, here we go,” says Adryan, tapping at the touchscreen interface a couple more times. “I think I’ve got it…”
With a final dance of his fingers, he steps back, and from a little projector built into the top of the interface, a holographic representation of the High Tower appears, filling the space in front of it.
I let off a barely audible ‘wow’ and stare at it in wonder, the image strangely beautiful and mesmerising. Its entire structure is laid out before us, the building I’ve looked upon so many times from the outside now suddenly laid bare, all its internal workings clear to see.
I see the main doors at the front leading into the atrium, rising several floors up. I see the many dozens of lifts around the foyer’s perimeter, moving up through the core of the building and right towards the summit. I see the layout of each individual floor: the communal floors from levels 6-10; the working and operations floors from level 11-49; the primary residential floors from levels 50-89; and those reserved for the high ranking officials from levels 90-99.
Then, my eyes turn right to the summit, the 100th floor of the building far larger and more grand than the others. It appears to rise several levels up itself in sheer scope, fitted with a high domed glass roof that catches the sun on clear days, and broken down into 13 very clear sections.
As I look upon it all, Adryan steps in, using his hands to manipulate the hologram. Reaching forward to the summit, he pulls his hands in towards himself and the image zooms forwards, giving us a better look at the top. Then, slowly, he begins rotating it clockwise, working it around into the right position so that the western side of the building, where we live, is right before us.
Then he starts speaking, analysing what he’s seeing as he sees it.
“The summit is broken into 12 residences,” he says. “There’s one each for every member of the Consortium, all of them around the perimeter of the building.” He turns to me with a little wink. “I bet you’d love the view from up there.”
I sure would. Although, if I do ever get up there, I doubt I’m going to have time to admire it…
“The central core of the summit,” Adryan continues, “is utilised for meetings and operations. It’s basically where the Consortium work, figuring out all their directives and orders and running the whole show.”
“OK, there’s nothing new here yet, Adryan,” I say. “We know all of this already, don’t we?”
“We do. But there are plenty of things we don’t. For example,” he says, pulling the summit even closer so the details become more clear. “Look at the 12 residences closely. Spot anything unusual?”
I scan them all, one by one, and note that they’re all identical. All have the same structure, with a bedroom, living space, bathroom, and various other rooms used for whatever purpose their occupants see fit.
Yet there is one single difference between them, one thing that sticks out: all are the same structurally, but one is larger than the rest.
“That one,” I say, pointing towards the residence in the due north position. “It’s bigger than the others.”
Adryan nods and smiles.
“It must be the Director’s residence,” I continue, feeling some swell of energy. “Of course he’d be at the north end, right on top of everyone else…”
Adryan doesn’t fully grasp my sarcasm.
“It can only be his,” he says. “And that means that, if he has any meetings with officials outside of the Consortium, he’ll have them here.”
He points to the level beneath the summit, level 99. Its structure is almost exactly the same as the penthouse above it, with a core area used for large meetings and smaller sections around the boundary. There are 12 of them, each directly beneath each residence at the summit.
“Anyone meeting a member of the Consortium will do so on this floor,” says Adryan. “It acts as a go-between, some sort of middle ground between the summit where the Consortium live, and the floors below where the other high ranking officials reside.”
I step in and take a closer look, thinking out loud.
“So…we need to find out who meets Cromwell on level 99, right underneath his residence? If we can find out who, and when they’re meeting, at least I’ll have someone to work on.”
Noticing something, I reach forward and manipulate the image myself, pushing it back to give us a better view of the whole thing once more. Around the perimeter, there appears to be small ducts leading up from level 90 and straight into the 12 residences around the summit.
“What are these?” I ask. “They look like mini-lifts.”
Adryan conducts a closer inspection, his eyes narrowing.
“Hmmmm, I think t
hat’s more or less what they are,” he says. “They look to be dumbwaiters…”
“Dumbwaiters?” I ask.
“They’re basically little freight elevators used for transporting food and other essential items. I guess that’s how the Consortium have their food delivered, seeing as they venture down so rarely.”
“Well, could we use it? I could get inside and come straight out in Cromwell’s home! That would make things a lot easier…”
Adryan silently examines the schematics a little more closely. Then, as he does with so many of my bright ideas, shakes his head.
“That won’t work. For two reasons.” Two? Great. “First, it looks to be too small for you to fit in.”
“Hey, are you saying I’m fat?” I joke.
He still isn’t getting my humour.
“No…not at all. It would be too small for any human…”
“Adryan, I’m kidding. So, what’s the other reason?”
“Oh right, sorry. Um, well there’s a scanner. It would pick you up.”
“OK, fair enough. How about poison then? We could poison his food.”
Again, I’m knocked back. This isn’t doing my confidence any good.
“No. The scanner would pick that up as well I’d imagine. We need something guaranteed. We need to know, for sure, that he’ll be killed.”
“You mean that I’ll kill him,” I correct him.
It appears that nothing I do will change the fact that it needs to be me to pull the trigger, literally or metaphorically speaking. I can’t manipulate someone to do it for me. I can’t poison him. I literally have to stand right in front of him, look him in the eye, and cut off his life right there and then.
It’s as if they want me to properly execute him, make some sort of statement perhaps. You know, that’s probably what Lady Orlando is thinking…
“Fine, forget the dumb…what was it?”
“Dumbwaiter.”
“Yeah, that. Forget that. Anything else?”