The Dreams of the Eternal City

by Mark Reece

  “Go on.”

  “He stood by him for ages, waiting for him to say somethin’. You know what Hugh’s like, he just carried on looking out the window. Pete could have stood there all day and he wouldn’t have moved. After probably half an hour, Pete said, ‘Can I talk to you a minute?’ and Hugh tapped his watch and said, ‘On me lunch’. Dweeb said, ‘Why you not eating anything then?’ and he shrugged and goes ‘Not hungry’. Do you know when you have one of those moments when you want to laugh but you know you shouldn’t? It was seriously good.” Mohammed smiled and shook his head.

  Ethan tried to return to the subject of Peter a few minutes later, but Mo only rolled his eyes.

  “How’s the house hunting going?”

  “Yeah, I’ve done some searches. I haven’t gone mad with it yet. The problem is, like I said before, without speaking properly to Ash, I don’t know what area she wants or how much she wants to spend. We’ll start it properly when she gets back.”

  “Is she excited about it, do you think?”

  “Dunno. Yeah, I think she is. I’m pretty sure she is. I suppose the details are not as exciting as when we agreed to do it.”

  “Wait until you’re buying furniture, then she’ll perk up. I can guarantee that. You want another drink?”

  “Go on then.”

  “Same again?”

  “Yeah. You know… there was a… one of her friends—”

  “Hang on, mate, you can’t talk without a drink in front of ya.”

  Ethan nodded and Mo went to the bar. As he watched his back, Ethan thought that he could not tell him anything. We’ve always got on and he’s been my partner for years, but ultimately… no one can be trusted unconditionally.

  When Mohammed came back, he placed the drinks on the table and grinned.

  “Go on, what were you saying?”

  “Nothing… just that I was looking forward to moving and everything.”

  “Yeah, it’ll be good…” Mohammed sipped his drink and stretched his arms, “… It’s been hard work with Hasna lately.”

  “With her mum and dad?”

  Mohammed spoke very quickly. “No. Well, a bit, they’ve not been helping. She’s gone off on one again, she’s been… all kind of… distracted. Like yesterday, she said that she wouldn’t know what she would have done if it were a boy because she wouldn’t know how to talk to a boy. Then when I asked her what she meant, she burst out crying and had a go at me. I think she might have depression or something.”

  “Oh? How long’s she been like that?”

  “This lot started up in the last few weeks. I said to her the other day that maybe she should see a doctor, but she screamed at me until I said to forget about it. That’s what she does now when I say something she doesn’t like, she screams until I give up…”

  Ethan nodded and looked at the table.

  “I’m fed up at the moment. No one tells you about this stuff. Maybe it happens with loads of couples, God knows. It’s got to the point where I wish we were back to how things were before sometimes.”

  He looked at Ethan until he felt that he had to say something.

  “Maybe you should talk to her about seeing the doctor again.”

  “She’d never go for that. Not with her mum blaring in her ear. She’ll come up with some blar about why it’s forbidden. Isn’t it funny that everything that’s forbidden is the same as everything she doesn’t want to do?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “I just… I don’t know what to do these days. I dreaded going home last week. How sad is that? Can you imagine – I’d rather sit around listening to Hugo all day.”

  Ethan waited until the silence became awkward before saying, “If you ever want to talk about it then just give me a ring or whatever…”

  “Cheers… anyway, enough of that drama. It’s all a load of rubbish, isn’t it? You have to do this and say the other just because someone decided it was a good idea once. If only people would let everyone do their own thing, we wouldn’t have half the shit that goes on.”

  “Yeah… yeah…”

  As he drove, Ethan gritted his teeth at the thought that he always listened to other people without ever receiving anything in return. Everyone takes advantage of the fact that I’m the only one who can sort things out.

  He felt wistful by the time he got home. Why wouldn’t I want to live with my girlfriend? It’s normal, it’s what everyone does. He switched on the MV.

  He had been worried that he would fall asleep in the evening then lie awake all night and set the week off on a disastrous course. However, he found that concentrating on the screen enabled him to stay awake, despite the heavy feeling behind his eyes, until ten to eleven, when he brushed his teeth with a strange relish. If only I could spend my whole life in front of the MV then I’d be fine, probably.

  When he got to bed, he felt so exhausted that he was surprised he had not collapsed before putting his pyjamas on. He worked out how many hours sleep he would have that night, and how many more hours that would be than he had been used to recently. It felt as if he had entered a promised land. When he realised how long he had been thinking about the situation, he felt alarmed, as he must have cut into his sleep by at least half an hour. He wanted to get up and check the time but decided that that would only make him more tense. Worse, thinking that deeply meant that he did not feel tired anymore. Ethan folded his arms and did his utmost to clear his mind.

  He made good progress with Hypnos the following week and only worked a few hours over, which meant that he went to bed earlier than usual, adding to his virtuous cycle. Keeping regular hours enabled him to contact Aislin daily. She did not mention their conversation about Daisy, and one night, she said that she was glad she had gone to Ireland, as her father had not been as ‘focused’ for years. Ethan was unconvinced but told her how pleased he was and agreed to set up a meeting with a mortgage adviser for the week she was back.

  He went to bed at eleven that Sunday too, and when he got up refreshed on the Monday morning, he felt that he had established a new routine that meant he could live sensibly again. Aislin would be back in two weeks, which seemed to mark the end of an era in his life, giving his final time by himself a somewhat baroque feel. The coming events seemed large and frightening, like when he had moved from little school to big school as a child. Nevertheless, no matter what his feelings were, he had committed to his path and had to follow it.

  When Ethan opened his e-mails that morning, he read a message from Security Support, telling him that he needed to fill in the attached document to accompany his security access form before he would be able to view the restricted record. It took him a moment to remember what they were talking about, before the fear he had felt re-emerged. He at first thought that perhaps he could send an edited version of his investigation report, but the policy was that no one but him should see that until it was complete, as multiple versions of reports cause confusion. In normal circumstances, he would have rung the relevant manager and ordered them to do what he wanted.

  After thinking about the situation for some time, he filled in the document with his details and the relevant reference numbers, before giving the reason as: ‘following up an identified enquiry on a medium priority SC case’. If they want more than that then they’ll have to ring me.

  Ethan thought that the policeman had never got back to him. He went on the Internet to get the switchboard number then booked half an hour in the interview room so that he could speak to him using voice distortion. He muttered to himself as he walked to it. “No fucker can do anything right.” He rang the number and a woman answered, asking if he knew who he wanted to speak to.

  “This is the SDMA. I need to speak to DS Tomalin.”

  “One moment please…” There was silence and Ethan enjoyed the tinge of fear in her voice. “Can I check the name please?”

  “DS Tom
alin.”

  “Can you spell that?”

  He did so, elongating the letters sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry. No one of that name works here.”

  “What? That isn’t right. Could he have retired? I need you to check your personnel files.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have done. We don’t have an officer of that name.”

  Ethan hung up. He sat still in the darkness. What the fuck is going on? He’d got a police e-mail address and it was a recorded case. He had a sudden hope that he might have made a mistake with the name or department, and was about to jump up before thinking that he knew they were right. Who would be able to pull off this kind of stunt? And why? In normal circumstances, Ethan would have immediately reported the possible security breach. But now, he felt that he would only be exposing himself. He held his head in his hands. Fuck.

  That lunchtime, Ethan went to the shops for food, contrary to his usual routine. Nodding at the security guard on his way out gave him an unpleasant reminder of the time he had fallen asleep at his desk.

  When in a supermarket picking out pears, someone pushed into Ethan with enough force to make him double over. It felt like something was stuck in his back. He brushed his hands over it and was relieved to find that there was nothing there. He turned around to see a thin, reedy man in a dirty coat leaning against a shelf on the other side of the aisle, glaring at him ostentatiously. Ethan looked away then looked back to see him still staring. The blood drained from Ethan’s face. He clutched his fruit to his chest and hurried to the counter.

  His every movement seemed significant, and he ignored the shop assistant who served him to look around for the man, making her loudly repeat the amount he had to pay. Ethan left the shop and made his way back to the SDMA building at barely less than a run. He had a strong impression that he was being followed.

  When he realised that he was outside the jewellery shop, his heart froze. He could no longer tell whether or not he was moving. It was no surprise when someone pushed into him with enough force to knock him over. As he was sprawled in the doorway, Ethan glimpsed a cloak before a flash of pain made him put his hands over his eyes. When he looked up, people were hurrying their steps to walk around him.

  Before the latest incident, the city had seemed flat and existed on a single plain; now, spaces between apparently solid structures opened up to him, each containing another world. Ethan felt something scratching his neck and realised that he was lying on a carrier bag containing a wedge of papers. He stood and stumbled along the road before slipping into another supermarket. He went into a toilet and locked the stall door.

  The first pages of the report comprised a series of grainy pictures of the Professor taken from various angles that had to be surveillance photographs. The remaining pages were filled with small script with no space between the lines. His first thought was to flush it away, before thinking that to do so before reading it was even more dangerous. He tried to fold the papers but there were too many of them. After a moment’s reflection, fatalism overtook him and he put them back in the bag.

  As he walked to the SDMA building, Ethan thought that he should have skim-read the report, berating himself for his stupidity. If I lose it now then I’ll never know. Whenever something like this happens, I lose my head and act like an idiot. Nothing I do makes the slightest fucking sense. He debated with himself as to whether he should hide somewhere to study it. They’d only have given papers to me like that if there was some urgency. However, it would look too suspicious not to return to his desk.

  When he got there, he nodded at Mo and said “all right?” in what Ethan hoped was a natural voice. Yet again, reality had been undone and he felt like a soldier in a foreign country, not knowing which of the smiling natives would be the one to slide a blade in his back. Or through his ribs.

  “How you getting on?”

  “What?” Ethan sounded very weak, as if he were being strangled.

  “Secret squirrel project number one. You know, whatever it is you’ve been doing for God knows how long?”

  “Oh, yeah, right, sorry, I was miles away then. Erm… not too long now, I think. A few of the sections need expanding to cover what the bosses were asking about when they came down the other week, otherwise, it’s just a matter of sorting out a load of bits and pieces. You know what it’s like, whenever you do something like this, you spend the most time on the tiniest details that no one ever reads and no one except you cares about.”

  “You won’t know what to do with yourself when it’s over. You’ve been hobnobbing with the people who go to meetings for too long to go back to investigating what time an HGV driver fell asleep outside a warehouse. You won’t look at anything other than a one now. In fact, you’ve probably got a special category of zero designed just for you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You will, I’m not joking. It’s all set out for you now. New house. Girlfriend moving in. Starting to look at rings I bet. Going to lots of meetings. You know what all this means, don’t ya?”

  “What?”

  Mohammed leant over his desk and looked at him portentously. “You’re a dickhead.” He laughed with childish simplicity.

  Ethan smiled, hardly recognising his words. He wrote for some time until reaching the end of a sentence and remembering the papers at his feet with a sickening feeling. He surreptitiously nudged the carrier bag further under his desk. The papers crinkled, the sound seeming to echo around the office, and he froze like a cat in a flashlight, holding his breath.

  For the rest of the day, Ethan alternated between concentrating on his work then suddenly remembering the papers. Whenever it happened, it took all his mental strength to force himself not to look down, after which he would imagine them being blown around the office by the air conditioning then being traced back to him. He could not leave them so did not go to the toilet for the entire afternoon, the pressure against his groin amplifying his discomfort.

  Ethan left at the end of his scheduled shift. In addition to needing as much time as he could to look through the papers, the timing would hopefully throw off anyone following him. His world was now dominated by minute fears.

  The train was unusually busy and he did not get a seat. Ethan stood in the middle of a carriage, clutching a bar. His legs felt as if they were going to crumple any moment and he constantly put his spare hand in the bag, checking the papers as if reading them in Braille. His discomfort was so severe that he felt his eyes start to close several times and had to pinch the backs of his legs and squeeze the bar to remain upright.

  He broke down the journey into five-minute sections but even then, each one was horribly long and he was so exhausted that only his fingernails held him in place.

  When he got home, Ethan looked out the window, listening to cars drive past, his feet throbbing like a heartbeat. Eventually, he closed the blinds and spread the papers over the floor before lying beside a radiator. He read the first line of the first page without the slightest recognition of the words before falling asleep.

  He woke five hours later. When he lifted his head, Ethan felt the same sluggish indifference as after his last bout of illegal sleep. He lay back down and drifted off again for a short time before standing. He was amazed to see that it was past eleven. Despite how irregular his recent lifestyle had been, sleeping the day away still amazed him. He stumbled around awhile, weary and hungry. He did not know whether or not to eat, as if he did then he would not sleep again that night, but on the other hand, how could he go to work the next day on only his breakfast?

  He cooked some soup, keeping the papers nearby as if following some arcane superstition. He switched on the MV and flicked through the channels compulsively. Eventually, his awareness of the papers became too great. It was madness to have left them scattered around like that – what if someone had knocked on the door? Still, it was hardly the worst thing he had done lately.
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br />   He spent several minutes putting them in the right order and tapping their edges against the floor to ensure that they were perfectly lined up. The night had opened to him after his illicit sleep. He read the report by the light of his mobile.

  The photographs of the Professor showed him leaving various buildings, followed by a series of close-ups in which he looked directly at the camera. He was much thinner then, making Ethan think that they must have been taken long ago. No other figures were present. Only the DIA could have that kind of interest. The word ‘Secret’ was written at the top and bottom of every page.

  After the pictures followed a page comprising a detailed physical description below the heading ‘Subject H-Alpha’. Ethan only knew that it related to the Professor by the reference to the mole on his neck, as it was impossible to believe that he once weighed ten stone.

  The remainder of the document was written in very closely typed script, in a thick blurry font, like that produced by a typewriter. Ethan read greedily, so willing to get to the end that he skipped ahead several times, only to lose the meaning of a sentence and have to go back.

  Subject H-Alpha

  Subject H-Alpha was introduced following his arrest in September 2030 under the Subversion Act. Significant evidence was gathered prior to that arrest to justify charge in security court five. However, the charges were later held on file. Associated case REM13/T1205/30 was also held on file. A summary of the material gathered during those cases is included as an appendix.

  Ethan paused at the reference to an SDMA case number. Typically, when a person was charged with other criminal offences that implicitly involved SC breaches, the main offences would take precedence and the SC breaches ignored, as the mainstream judiciary had reached the widely publicised conclusion that two prosecutions would result in double jeopardy, as the same act would be punished twice. However, in a subversion case, DIA courts were not bound by those judgements.