The Dreams of the Eternal City

by Mark Reece

  When he printed the document, he realised that the office was empty. He had distractedly said goodbye to people as they had left but had not noticed that he was sitting alone. After skim-reading the report, he was surprised to see that Peter’s door was open. Ethan went in to find Peter talking on his personal mobile. He gestured for Ethan to sit, which made him suppress a smile at the assumed authority.

  “I know sweetheart but it won’t be for much longer now… yeah… yeah… that’s right… yeah… I will… you see, you’re right, but… it won’t be much longer now, when I’ve… exactly, then we can do what we want all the time… Okay, put it in the oven then ’cos I’ll be setting off soon. Okay then, love you, bye, bye, bye.”

  Ethan looked at his feet until Peter had finished, when he said, “Right, I’ve done the planning document we were talking about this morning.”

  “Planning?”

  “Yeah, you know when I was saying about setting out the limits of Hypnos?”

  “Right, sorry. Okay, do you want to talk me through it? Actually, let’s do it tomorrow now ’cos it’s getting late.”

  Ethan suppressed a sigh, as he had hoped to give Peter the document then leave. It’s obviously too much to expect him to fucking read something. Never mind the fact that he should have written it himself. Not that I could have trusted him to do it properly.

  Peter held it close to his face then adjusted his glasses and rested it on his lap before saying, “I think I’m going to take this home tonight, I need to work out how we’re going to organise all of this.”

  “Well… we can talk about it tomorrow but you can’t take that home, can you? It’s got the codename at the top and there’s sensitive material in there.”

  “Yeah… good point… yeah. Right, leave it with me and we’ll sort it out tomorrow. In fact… come and see me about ten and we’ll go through it together, that’ll be the best way.”

  “Okay. Did you have a chance to look at the Holloway case?”

  “The MOD woman?” Yeah, I have. Yep, up to your usual standards. That’s for Sanctions to deal with now. Out of our hands.”

  “Right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’d best be off. Carol wants to know where I am.”

  Ethan smiled. “See ya.”

  Peter looked into the air distractedly a moment and Ethan took the opportunity to leave.

  It was only seven when Ethan got on the train. He sent Aislin a message and thought that with any luck, she would not have eaten yet and they could have dinner together. She did not seem to notice the night and would think nothing of eating at dawn if the mood took her. The one good thing about the bombing situation was that at least she would be in a better mood with him.

  By the time the train left the station, the sky was so dark that it seemed to have no windows. He touched the glass and shivered as his fingertips tingled. His carriage was almost empty, as it always was after rush hour.

  The train was shimmering blue and seemed to cut a path through the night, casting its hue on the landscape. The trains serving Central Zone were amongst the most technologically advanced in the country and in ideal conditions, could have taken him home in less than ten minutes. When it set off, his stomach seemed to have been left behind, as if he were on a rollercoaster. However, because of the differing standards of infrastructure in the different zones of the city, it could never get to full speed. His route took him through Midlands North West, where the track was so pitted that the train could have been overtaken by a fit cyclist. The gentle pace allowed him to nonchalantly pass his eyes over slum housing, where bedroom lights highlighted overgrown gardens filled with rusting children’s toys.

  It took him most of the journey to stop thinking about work, his mind racing from one point to the next as he reviewed his day. The planning document had been useful in collecting his thoughts, although given how many cases the SDMA recorded and how much paperwork there was to research, it had demonstrated just how difficult Hypnos was going to be. He decided that he would have to go through the methodological problems in more detail. Explaining the technicalities to Peter was going to be a nightmare. I probably won’t even start writing the document until next week. Maybe I should go for promotion when Pete retires. Management is easy, you just press a button to pass the problems to someone else. Could I ever give up doing cases though? Not that I’d ever get his job. Some are destined to stay in the same position forever, whereas others always come out smiling no matter that they can’t tie their own shoelaces.

  When Ethan got home, he found Aislin lying on a sofa, rapidly flicking between channels on the MV. Her hair was splayed in all directions, as evenly as if she had placed every strand.

  “You all right?” he asked, leaning over to kiss her.

  “Yeah, fine. Busy day again?”

  “You know how it is. Never stops.”

  “Did you ask Dan about the transfer?”

  “I did but he was rushing from one place to the next when I spoke to him. I’ll remind him tomorrow.”

  “Right… anyway, I’ve left you some dinner out.”

  “That’s great, cheers. It’s just unlucky that you’ve stayed over when this thing’s come up. Sorry.”

  “I know what it’s like, I work there remember? Have your dinner or else you won’t sleep.”

  I’ll hardly sleep anyway, Ethan thought, surprised at how annoyed he was. The work situation isn’t my fault.

  When he went into his room to get fresh clothes, he sent a message to Terry on his personal mobile, asking him if he wanted to meet up sometime soon, feeling that he had taken revenge against Aislin by doing so.

  As Aislin had a wash, he logged into the MV to check his bank balance before going into the ‘social’ section. She had set it up for him the previous year, insisting that automating the various social networks would make his life effortless. He deleted the multitude of updates and sent a short greeting to his parents. Ethan had disabled the option of showing his face when sending messages or making calls, the idea making him uncomfortable in a way he could not have explained. Instead, as he typed on the controller, a series of multi-coloured squiggles surrounded his words, supposedly representing the sounds and movements he made as he wrote.

  Although Ethan was exhausted, he lay awake for hours thinking about sleep. Aislin breathed softly beside him, her hand so light on his chest that he could only feel it when she shifted.

  Shadows flashed across the walls, climbing ponderously up his spiral bookcase like spiders. He shuffled and Aislin rolled away, dragging her hand with her, making him hold perfectly still. He was relieved that she did not stir.

  He woke early the following morning and sat up abruptly. The shadows had gone and the darkness was absolute now. When he lay down again, Ethan immediately lost consciousness. It was as if he had caught up with the sleep he had missed from previous nights and needed a short break before his sleep for that night could begin.

  His alarm clock woke him a few hours later and he wondered whether he was dreaming. He was so groggy that he thought he could defy the insistent sound by putting his head under a blanket. Aislin started and kicked him with her heel, making a sound like a small animal in pain. The stinging sensation in his knee forced him out of bed.

  Ethan rubbed his hands over his face, trying to understand why the earlier he went to bed, the more tired he felt the following morning. It was as if he could withstand a sleep famine by running on reserve energy, but as soon as he stood still, he shut down.

  Aislin drove them again that morning, although she seemed distracted, resting her head against the window whenever they stopped at a traffic light.

  They said little as they walked to the SDMA building, until they reached it to see a line of guards standing outside.

  “What the hell’s this about?” Ethan asked.

  “Pass.”

 
As soon as they were within twenty metres of the building, one of the guards shouted “stop” and four of them walked forwards with outstretched arms. Ethan thought he had seen them in reception before, although their body armour and helmets meant that he could not be sure.

  “We work here.”

  The guards stopped just outside reaching distance, as if expecting them to attack any moment. “What floor?”

  “I’m an SI, tenth floor.”

  “Personnel, fifth floor.”

  “Security cards please, slowly.”

  Ethan put a hand in his pocket with what seemed to be ridiculously ostentatious movements, and was worried that they would think he was making fun of them. However, he did not know how else to behave, never having been stopped by security before. One of the guards took their passes and held them under a device that flashed a blue light over them. The other guards watched them coolly, still holding their hands out. “Okay, you can go. You’ll need to sign in before going to your floors.”

  There were crowds of people milling around the lobby, although as soon as they went inside, other guards bustled them towards the security desk, where they signed their names and departments on a piece of ripped paper attached to a clipboard, in addition to what time they had arrived. Ethan wanted to wait for Aislin, but the moment he had finished, the guard sitting behind the desk stared at him, and Ethan thought that he could not hang around.

  “I’ll see you later then sweetheart, don’t worry about it.”

  She only looked at him when he touched her shoulder, red dots scanning her forehead.

  There were more guards around the lip-shaped security barriers, who Ethan had definitely not seen before. They stood with their arms either folded or akimbo and watched him with nonchalant interest as he scanned his identity pass. It took a moment to work, and he was relieved when the panel went green and the lips opened.

  There were guards at the entrance to his floor, and along the corridor to his office, making him nervous, as the SDMA discouraged anyone from leaving their desk unnecessarily, and there were strict security procedures for visiting another floor, which made seeing someone in a corridor a notable event. Whenever he happened to catch their eyes, they looked at him with renewed attention.

  The office was silent. He sat at his desk and Mohammed leaned over and said, “They’ve found out that someone working here was an Ick. It’s gonna be like this for weeks now.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I heard someone at the door when I got here this morning. They were taking computers and files away. They’d all got our markings on, that’s how I know. They must be working out what they’d been getting up to. Someone was saying that even the porters were on the move, that’s how big it is.”

  “Shit. What were they doing?”

  “Tell you later. Everyone’s kept their mouths shut from the moment they got here. Even Hugo, for Christ sake. That’s how you can tell it’s an emergency.”

  Ethan nodded. The Icks are cheeky little bastards, he thought. They’ve managed to survive over the years because none of the bosses has got the balls to take the fight to them. We do a so-called ‘crackdown’ every so often then allow them to lay low before pulling off something like this and starting the whole thing off again.

  “What’s the great leader had to say about it?”

  “Well, he told us what happened then gave an inspirational speech and explained what we need to do…” Mohammed looked over his shoulder then back again, “No, not really. He was wandering about earlier then he went in his hidey hole and shut the door.”

  “Just like every day then really.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wonder if it could be Si. I mean, how could he be off for this long with a broken finger?”

  “I thought we’d got to the bottom of that. Didn’t someone overhear that wrong? It wasn’t a broken finger, it was something wrong with his muscles. Anyway, his computer’s still here.”

  “Maybe he was having an affair with dweeb. That’d be enough to make something go wrong with your muscles.”

  Mohammed laughed then put his hand over his mouth. Ethan was worried that he did not know what the infiltrator looked like. They could have been watching anyone, gathering information. He heard muttering elsewhere in the office and thought about Aislin. She won’t have a clue what’s going on. He rang her landline, thinking that he would hang up if anyone else answered.

  “Hello, Personnel.”

  “Hi Ash, it’s me. You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine, it was just a surprise that’s all. Do you know what’s happening?”

  “Not exactly but one of the…” Ethan held the receiver at arm’s length when seeing Mohammed running a finger across his throat. When he had got his attention, he made a lowering gesture, “… sorry, I’ve got to go, I’ll ring you later. Love you.”

  He whispered the last two words. Ethan leant over the desk and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  “They’ve put out a message on the intranet, you’re not supposed to use the phones at the moment unless it’s an emergency.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cos it’ll clog up the network, it said.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Fucked if I know. I’d do what they say though when everyone’s like this.”

  Ethan nodded before looking at his screen, so agitated that he did not start work for several minutes.

  Ethan worked on the planning for Hypnos before reaching a point where he could not continue without speaking to Peter for various decisions to be made. He tapped his desk before peering over the dividers. His office was shut so he sent him an e-mail to remind him of their meeting then logged on to the BBC website. After scanning it a moment to see no mention of anything that could be linked to the situation, he thought that Mohammed’s warning probably applied equally to the Internet.

  Ethan went into the secure intranet, thinking that he may as well look at one of his other assigned cases. He felt depressed to see the same nine from Monday. In any normal week, at least one would be added every day. He read the referral report for the top listed file. In an office block, an administrative assistant had been found asleep in a canteen after a colleague had gone looking for him when he had not come back from lunch. I don’t get the bombing, but I do get this, Ethan thought. Dweeb obviously took the opportunity to give me all the dross while I was away.

  The colleague had acted in an exemplary fashion by fetching his supervisor, who returned to the canteen to take pictures, as per the advice given to employers in SDMA literature. However, when Ethan reviewed their accounts, he read that bizarrely, the supervisor had taken it upon herself to speak to the offender on tape, who had said that it had never happened before and that he had become tired over the previous month because of cars driving past his bedroom at night.

  Ethan researched case law and found an investigation that had taken place a year after the Subversion Act had been passed, in 2025, which stated that when an offender had been formally interviewed in relation to an SC breach by an ‘Appropriate Authority’, which included a workplace supervisor, they could not be questioned again ‘without prejudice to the original allegation’, except when the breach fell into DIA jurisdiction. Given that this breach was clearly a level ten, he had to use her interview.

  Ethan sighed when writing up the paperwork with phrases he had used many times before. This was probably the result of someone putting out incorrect advice to make their life easier. Many agents would like nothing better than for personnel officers in insurance firms to do their jobs for them. The problem with that, of course, was how much would be missed by people who did not understand the bigger picture. Ethan had conducted countless interviews in which offenders had inadvertently admitted further SC breaches or implicated others. Ethan opened Mirror and researched the supervisor, only t
o find nothing significant. He added a note, linking her name to the file with the message: ‘inappropriately interviewed suspect in 1x SC breach’. There was always the possibility that she had acted as she had deliberately, to prevent further SDMA involvement. However, given that she was technically within her rights to do so, there was nothing he could do. Ethan sat back in his chair. Still, his discovery at least meant that he had something useful to do while waiting for the terms of reference for Hypnos to be agreed. He logged into the secure intranet to search for other cases where appropriate authorities other than SDMA agents had carried out interviews, then wrote a short report about the issue and e-mailed it to Dan.

  At five o’clock, Peter had still not arrived and Ethan thought that there was no point staying any longer. He rang Aislin on his personal mobile and said, “Hi. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yeah yeah.”

  “I’ll see you downstairs in a bit then.”

  Whenever they finished at the same time, they met outside to comply with the inter-floor fraternisation regulations. They were strictly enforced on all staff, including senior management (who were confined to the fifteenth floor, other than on pre-arranged appointments), with the exception of the porters, whose freedom and knowledge, combined with the fact that they were very rarely seen, gave them a mythical quality. They were the only members of staff given unrestricted access to the archives in the basement, where the SDMA’s most confidential secrets were stored, as were original files of all cases ever recorded, including information too sensitive to be inputted into Mirror. Only porters could authorise another member of staff to move floors.

  “Have you checked your e-mails?” Mohammed asked when Ethan put on his coat.

  “Go on.”