Avalon Red

by Mark New

  ‘This is the bit I like,’ confided Doc to me as the Gunnery Officer looked up at him. ‘Run ‘em out!’ he called down. The officer repeated the order and we heard further repetitions and the sound of metal on wood as the big guns were heaved into position all around the ship.

  ‘Prime!’ shouted the officer and then looked back up at us.

  ‘Go on,’ Doc urged, ‘you say it.’

  ‘FIRE!’ I obliged. The call went out along all decks and I just had time to cover my ears before the guns roared. It was incredible. The noise of the guns alone was thunderous but it was accompanied by billowing smoke from around the sides and wafting up through the deck and by the shouts of the men operating the fearsome weapons. I found that I had bent over as a result of the cacophony and I straightened up to see Doc, standing tall and grinning at me. The gunnery officer was still shouting orders, something about serving vents and sponge.

  ‘That will do for now, Mr Maxwell,’ Doc shouted down at him. The officer saluted smartly.

  Doc beckoned me to follow him and we went up a handful of stairs to the top deck at the back of the ship. I waved at the planking under our feet.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The Poop Deck’, Doc said, brilliant straight man that he was.

  ‘I only asked,’ I said.

  He sighed. ‘Was there something you wanted other than to demonstrate that your sense of humour is still a work in progress?’

  ‘Funnily enough, yes. I recently downloaded a file to the implant,’ Doc didn’t need to know the details, ‘and something odd happened when I opened it and I was wondering if it was the result of the changes I’ve noted to the implants.’

  ‘Like the new stealth mode?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  A gull circled overhead and called before turning away. I hadn’t asked which ocean the ship sailed but we must be near enough to land to excite the attention of gulls.

  ‘What was the odd happening?’

  ‘When I opened the file it was...’ actually it was really difficult to describe but I gave it a shot, ‘...like the contents were known to me. Like I was accessing a memory I already had instead of seeing it for the first time.’

  Doc characteristically cocked his head on one side. ‘Like you were retrieving it from the cloud?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ I admitted, ‘but now that you say it, it seems very similar, yes.’

  Doc moved in a little closer and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to, Skipper, but there’s no way this many implant changes happened spontaneously.’ I started to respond but he forestalled me. ‘No, don’t say anything. I understand military secrets and all that rubbish. I don’t know what you’re mixed up in now but despite the considerable improvement on your mental health, I wouldn’t count on it being sustained through every new feature added to the implants.’

  ‘All I can tell you, Doc, is that it’s mission critical.’ I didn’t know if that was true and I felt a bit bad about misleading him but I needed advice without breaching mission security.

  ‘If I confine myself to answering the question, then,’ he didn’t look too happy about it, ‘I’d say that the nanoprocessors in the implants are continually adapting to your cortex. They give you the information you’ve downloaded in the most efficient manner they “know”.’ He made quotation marks in the air to indicate that the concept of nanoprocessors knowing anything was confined to their programmed parameters. It wasn’t like they could be sentient was it? As I thought it, I wondered how much of Avalon Red might be contained in my head despite the security checks and assurances from him to the contrary.

  Doc wasn’t finished. ‘You remember how the implants became progressively easier to use after they were inserted?’ I nodded. ‘Well, nobody else has had them active for so long and it’s possible that the nanoprocessors have adapted further to present information based on your neural pathways. They’ve been involved in your use of the cloud-presence for additional memory, after all, so giving you information that way is an established protocol.’

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. The racket below decks had now ceased and I thought that must mean that the decks had been returned to their standard configuration after the gun trial.

  ‘This is starting to go beyond my field,’ Doc said at length. ‘If you can’t or won’t speak to Peter about the tech aspect?’ he looked at me expectantly and I ensured that I held his gaze without offering any indication as to whether that was going to happen. He sighed again. ‘Your best other bet would be a neurologist who specialises in memory. There are a handful worldwide looking at neural architecture. It would just be a guess on my part but it’s possible that the implants are aligning themselves with your natural brain systems. Good luck in discussing it with anyone without disclosing the existence of the implants.’

  I could see how that would be a problem. It was also something I could postpone until the mission was over. Assuming there was a world left for me to inhabit, I might need assistance with integration into it if the depression remained at bay.

  ‘As always, thanks Doc.’ I had no trouble making that sound sincere. It was utterly heartfelt.

  ‘You’re welcome, as always, Skipper. You know where to find me.’

  ‘On the high seas, pooping?’

  He laughed. ‘Only outside of office hours. Still chatting up beautiful women?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed. In fact, I’m taking one to a concert later. Strictly in the line of business, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ He thought for a moment and spoke as I’d turned to leave. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘thinking of neurologists, if you wanted to pursue it you might try the colleague of a late friend of mine. She was specifically looking into neural architecture with a tech aspect so she may have left research that would help.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc. Might be worth following up. Who was she?’

  ‘Professor Marie Andersson. She worked at the University of Stockholm but she died recently. I met some of her faculty at the funeral and got some contact addresses. I’ll look them out if you like.’

  ‘That would be helpful, thanks, Doc. Sorry about your friend.’

  ‘It was a bit of a shock at the time,’ he said, ‘but the world moves on, eh?’

  We said our goodbyes and I returned my awareness to my hotel room without betraying my total surprise that Doc had known Andersson. I’d had no idea. The way things were going, I also had no idea whether Doc was a potential victim or a potential suspect. I sat in the chair by the desk unmoving for many minutes while I tried to process this new information. I would need to look into the link between Andersson and the others in more detail. The only clue Becky had provided was the round-robin email sent by Martin to a host of people including the Professor and I knew where that had come from.

  Fortunately, I could do something about that later on tonight as I had a date with the Red Queen at my favourite Online gig. But, first things first. It was time to prepare for my dinner date with my favourite spy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dinner was, of course, delightful and interesting. Taylor had no news to report from Argonaut other than that there was intense activity amongst the team and that Jason had summoned Dr Martin’s senior team members to a meeting with him tomorrow. I was just glad that it kept everyone out of my way for a while. For my part, I was suitably vague about what I was doing and what progress I’d made and Taylor didn’t push me on it. That left the time free to talk of inconsequential matters such as Taylor’s future plans for acting superstardom. She was quite pleased that I’d looked up her dramatic appearances in the Online vir-show databases and said that she hoped to work with some of the actors and directors again. I made a point of not mentioning that she had only seemed to work for one production company in her career to date and not in particularly leading roles. I was pretty sure that I knew where her career was headed and it wasn’t into the stratosphere of fame and fortune. Nevertheles
s, some of her stories of events on vir-sets were highly entertaining and she would probably make a successful raconteur on chat shows should the entertainment business find itself short of one. In fact, there were enough laugh-out-loud moments that it led me to hope that one day she could meet Avalon Red so that I could watch them indulging their respective senses of humour.

  Without prompting, the Maître D’ delivered the same order of after-dinner drinks as we had previously enjoyed. As we savoured them I asked Taylor how well she knew Jason. It was the kind of casual question that wasn’t out of place when one person finds out that someone with whom they are well acquainted knows someone famous and she didn’t seem at all suspicious when she answered. She said she didn’t know him well as mostly she was liaising with Jason’s PA but she had met him enough times to know that he was brilliant and seemed quite driven to succeed.

  ‘Unlike George?’

  She thought about it before she answered. ‘I don’t think he’s driven in the same commercial sort of way,’ she said. ‘He seems more concerned with looking after Jason than what’s happening with Argonaut itself. He’s very focused on security only because it’s important to his brother.’

  ‘George is the elder of the two, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, by about two years or so, I think.’ That fitted with the information I’d seen Online.

  ‘So this systems breach is of great concern to him because of the possible effect on Jason rather than Argonaut’s financial worth?’

  ‘It seems that way. Why doesn’t Becky like you?’ The question came out-of-the blue but I suspected that she’d carefully planned to throw it in bluntly to catch me off guard. It was the sort of thing I would do myself so I was moderately impressed. I’m also old and highly experienced in interrogation techniques so it failed to discomfit me at all.

  ‘Doesn’t she?’ I asked mildly. ‘I had no idea.’ That brought a smile from Taylor.

  ‘She doesn’t refer to you in very glowing terms even when she’s telling everyone how brilliant you are.’

  ‘Professional jealousy, probably.’

  ‘Oh yes, that would be it,’ she laughed ‘and nothing to do with the history between you.’

  ‘History? Whatever has she been telling you? We had a few dates once upon a time before we went our separate ways.’

  ‘She didn’t tell me anything. Peter, on the other hand...’ That was interesting.

  ‘Been fluttering your eyelashes at Peter, have you?’ I asked with mock severity.

  ‘I would have been wasting my time if I had; he’s only interested in Becky.’ She gave me a knowing look. ‘Your ex.’

  I tried to look as though I was just catching on. ‘Oh, that Becky!’ Taylor laughed and savoured a sip of her drink before

  she replied.

  ‘Peter said the two of you lived together for some years before it ended acrimoniously.’

  ‘Utter rubbish,’ I declared.

  She arched her eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I categorically deny that I have ever lived with Peter.’

  ‘You know what I meant.’

  ‘How can I know when you speak with such imprecision?’ I complained.

  ‘So you’re really not going to talk about it?’

  I threw her a bone. ‘Becky and I lived together for a couple of years and it ended when she left me.’

  ‘Peter told me that she just walked out on you one day.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘What did you do to upset her?’

  ‘I can’t imagine. Maybe you should ask her. Or ask Peter. Or simply not assume that it was my fault.’ I found that I could have the conversation without getting annoyed, upset or depressed. Whatever the implants upgrade had done to my emotional balance, it seemed to be a big improvement on how I had been just a few days before.

  ‘I did ask Peter.’

  I was confident that Peter wouldn’t have breached security so I guessed how he would have reacted. ‘He told you to ask me, didn’t he?’

  She made a face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ She wasn’t as adept as me in dealing with blunt questions that arrived without warning. She took a drink before answering, playing for time to think of an acceptable answer but I’d already caught the guilty look and I pressed on before she could reply. ‘George wanted to know, didn’t he?’

  She tried to buy her way out with humour. ‘You’re good!’

  ‘No,’ I said modestly, ‘I’m better than that. George wanted to know the details and neither Becky nor Peter would tell him, would they?’ She didn’t say anything but I knew the answer. ‘So all he knows is that every time my name comes up they both say I’m a genius but Becky manages to throw in some comment about my flaws as a human being and Peter just looks embarrassed.’

  She nodded with some reluctance. I wasn’t really bothered about what George wanted to know about my relationship with Becky but it led nicely to the opportunity to find out what I wanted to know about him.

  ‘So,’ I asked brightly, ‘what else does he want to know about me? Be as specific as you like.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered into her glass.

  ‘And we were getting on so well,’ I observed. She looked decidedly unhappy now. I had a good idea of what her angle was so it should be possible to do a deal here. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I suggested, ‘if you tell me what I want to know, I’ll give you enough information to take back to ol’ George to keep him happy.’

  ‘That’s...’ she began.

  ‘...showbiz?’ That brought a half-smile.

  ‘I was going to say that’s cheating.’

  ‘But you’re supposed to spy on me so it’s only fair that I should be able to spy back.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.’

  ‘Not usually but spies don’t usually announce themselves so prettily.’ She went quiet and I let her stew. It would certainly be useful if I could persuade her to turn double-agent. Even with her lack of knowledge of the situation, what she would be able to report might make sense to me in the context of my wider understanding.

  ‘Tell me what you want to know so I can decide if it’s something I want to help with,’ she ventured.

  ‘And if you decide that you don’t, you can tell George all the things I want to know about him? I don’t think so.’ Actually, there were no guarantees any which way - it’s one of the hazards of running a double-agent but I was hoping that she wouldn’t realise it.

  ‘I could lose my job.’

  ‘You might. On the other hand, what if I complain to George that I can’t get on with you and I want someone else assigned. Would you keep your job then?’

  ‘You’re not a nice person, really, are you?’ her complaint seemed only half-serious. Perhaps the job of double-agent appealed to her love of the dramatic but I thought it was more likely that my assessment of her was correct.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps that’s why Becky doesn’t like me?’

  ‘Shall I tell George that you’re just horrible?’ She was smiling again which made me think we were on the verge of a deal.

  ‘Tell him that Becky found out that I’d lied to her about my job and couldn’t live with the deceit.’ That was close enough to the truth that Becky and Peter could live with it if they found out and it was sufficient for George to think he had some useful information. I was well aware that George already knew about the details of my previous employment from Becky. His purpose in getting Taylor to find out what she could about my relationship with Becky was to assess how good she was as a spy and possibly press a few of my buttons to see if I was going to act rationally under pressure.

  ‘Oh.’ She hadn’t been expecting free information. I was just relying on the principle of reciprocity where a gift of some kind engenders in the recipient a feeling of an obligation to repay the favour. I hoped that she was young enough not to have become cynical about freebies. ‘And you don’t mind if I tell that to George?’<
br />
  ‘Not at all.’ It wouldn’t be any great surprise to him even if Becky hadn’t given him chapter and verse. Taylor was lost in thought for a minute so I got lost in my cognac. I didn’t think we had this brand at Frisque’s so I must remember to mention it to her. Having come out of retirement for the task at hand, I was pretty determined that I would happily return to bar-keeping if the mission was a success. Bartender in Paradise sounded like the ideal job description to me.

  ‘George wanted to know what happened with you and Becky and he wanted a general view from me as to your state of mental health. He said there would be further things he would need to know and I should get as close to you as possible.’ Taylor had made her choice, it seemed. George had tested her by getting her to find out things he already knew. By contrast, I sealed the deal with her by letting her think I knew more than I really did.

  ‘Are you still sleeping with him?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘How did you...?’ she started, wide-eyed then realised she was giving it away. There was a slight pause. ‘It was only while we were in the Cook Islands,’ she said quietly. I raised my eyebrows. It was enough to bring a further confession. ‘And once when we were away on a business trip.’

  ‘A trip a long way from his wife?’

  ‘Far enough. Some crappy hotel near an Argonaut facility in New Mexico.’ She was blushing now.

  ‘Crappy because it was a mere five-star?’ She couldn’t resist a smile through her embarrassment. ‘How long ago was that?’ I hoped she would think I wanted the dirt on how long their affair had been running. I just wanted to know how long ago George was in New Mexico.

  ‘About a month ago.’ Well, now. Wasn’t that interesting? I didn’t know how far I could push her about George’s reason for the trip but there was a way to find out indirectly.

  ‘So do you really undertake any PA duties or do you just accompany him for...’ I coughed discreetly, ‘...entertainment purposes?’