Paper Children

by James Fahy

  “I’m not fidgeting,” I said. “And even if I was, of the two of us, you’re the one more likely to draw attention, dressed like that.”

  “People know me here, you moron,” Cloves spat. “It would be more unusual and turn more heads if I turned up wearing…” She glanced down at me. Cloves’ shiny patent leather heels were a good five inches, making her taller than me in this enclosed space. “…whatever that sad lamentation is.”

  “There are more important things that looks,” I retorted. Carved above the elevator doors was a Cabal message in block letters, ‘Servants Serve Those Who Serve The City’.

  “The world ending…” Cloves replied, as the doors slid open silently, “…is no excuse not to look good.”

  She stalked fearlessly out of the elevator, which had deposited us into another grey and utilitarian open plan reception space. No windows up here again, I noticed. The air tasted dead. Lifeless. Corridors led off in every direction, identical and unadorned. There was an unmanned desk, with a few locked Datascreens, and a water cooler which looked extremely untouched. I could hear voices in the distance.

  “There are people up here,” I hissed, following Cloves like a moth following a hummingbird.

  Cloves reached over the desk and grabbed a sheaf of blank paper from a pile where it sat. She thrust it at me. “Here.”

  “What’s this for?”

  “Rule number one of surviving offices everywhere,” Cloves said. “Walk quickly, look busy, and carry some paper. No one will ever challenge you.”

  She set off down one of the grey, high corridors as confidently as Theseus prowling into the labyrinth. I hurried to keep up, wondering uncomfortably to myself why I felt more at ease and secure in my own skin when I was battling smoking monsters on castle rooftops, staking dead men through haunted forests, or drinking underground with vampires dressed as circus acts, than I did navigating human corporate hell.

  There were indeed other people up here, all stern-looking suited Cabal men and women, near-identical in their dress and expression. We passed them here and there like drab worker ants as we weaved further into the belly of the beast, and Cloves was right, not one person asked who we were or what we were doing up here. God bless the magic paper of invulnerability.

  “This is it,” Cloves said eventually, coming to a corner office after maybe ten twists and turns of identical whitewashed hallway. Thankfully, other than the two of us, there was no one else around.

  The plain black door was functional and stern, unadorned other than a slide-in nameplate which read: Coldwater. F. DRT.

  “I was expecting more,” I admitted. “Maybe some hellhounds, or at least a portcullis.”

  “This is more effective than any Cerberus,” Cloves said, tapping a small device inset into the door lintel. We had similar security at Blue Lab. Every morning, a small contraption analysed a pinprick of blood, in theory to check we were all still human before allowing us to descend to the lower levels. I still came out clear, which, given the odd things I’d been through, was a small miracle. This one was more advanced. There was a small grill, like a flat microphone.

  “Give me the coffee,” Cloves said.

  I reached into the pocket of my jacket and brought out a slim glass vial. There was a clear plastic stick inside, invisibly coated, thanks to Coldwater’s saliva left on her coffee, with a trace of her DNA signature. I hoped it would be enough.

  Cloves took it without a word of thanks and unscrewed the lid. I was inwardly a little miffed. It was lucky that I kept so much gear at my apartment, considering I hadn’t been able to get back into my still-off-limits lab. Even with the tools I’d had at home, it had still taken a significant amount of MacGyvering to separate the director from her caffeine, to distil a sample of pure Coldwater. And not a word of appreciation. No-one appreciates ingenuity these days.

  Cloves waved the tiny stick in front of the grill, wafting it fussily from side to side. There was a horrible moment when I expected an electronic voice to chirp ‘welcome, Director Decaf!” and alarms and sirens to sound and doom us all, but by some grace of God, instead, The little light pinged from red to green and there was a smart and crisp ‘click’ from the door.

  We looked at each other, mildly surprised. “Well… that was a bit anticlimactic,” I said.

  “Gift horse, mouth,” Cloves snapped, pushing the door, which opened silently onto the dark office within.

  We hurried inside and closed the door behind us before we were spotted.

  Coldwater’s office was large and well organised, motion-sensitive lighting coming into play as we moved into the quiet room, giving the effect of stage lighting coming up on a scene. I looked around.

  Filing cabinets and glass fronted bookshelves. A large desk containing a double-screen datascreen of the highest spec, several phones, and a large plush looking office chair. Nothing out of the ordinary you wouldn’t expect to see in any director’s office space. There was no copy of the Necronomicon under a bell jar, and no sinister-lit aquarium filled with baby sharks. Nothing that would tip you off with Bond-villain vibes. Coldwater even had a window, the sheer luxury, a circular oculus which filled the wall behind her desk, staring into the room like a great round eye. The sky beyond outside was bright, but threaded with wispy clouds.

  “Well at least she isn’t here,” Cloves pointed out, making her way over to the filing cabinets. “Remind me again what you’re expecting to find here, Harkness? A scrapbook entitled ‘my wicked and dastardly summer plans’?”

  Ignoring her, I moved over to the desk, noting that the wastepaper basket already contained two crushed Styrofoam coffee cups. Coldwater had a definite problem.

  “I don’t know yet. Anything… something. I sent Lucy to the hospital to pick up the medical bracelet this morning, on the excuse of getting the remainder of Griff and Dee’s personal effects. Other than whatever that bracelet can tell us, we have nothing to go on. Chase tells me he was framed. If it was Coldwater who framed him, she’s hiding something somewhere.”

  “You left the Dean and his granddaughter alone?” Cloves looked over at me.

  “Oscar’s with them, as are his staff. He has a twenty-four-seven bodyguard cartel of about twenty trained minders. They’ll be fine. She should be back there with them by now.” I regarded the Datascreens.

  “Don’t bother,” Cloves told me. “You wouldn’t be able to access my datascreen, let alone Coldwater’s, and if you so much as disturb the sleep mode it will send a warning text directly to her phone. She’s not stupid enough to leave any kind of electronic trail incriminating herself anyway.”

  “How do you know?”

  Cloves shrugged, making her suit shimmer. “Because I wouldn’t either.”

  She pulled open a filing cabinet and began to rummage. I turned my attention to the desk. There was a framed photograph of a young man, college-age, with choppy brown hair and a wide toothy smile. “Coldwater has a son, right?”

  “Had,” my supervisor replied absently, not looking up from her rummaging. “Turned Pale back in the fall of mankind. Out there somewhere right now, chewing on his own face and howling at the moon like the rest of them.”

  I ran my fingers around the frame thoughtfully. The photo was slighted faded from facing the window. It looked old.

  I tried a few drawers here and there. They were full of all the usual things one finds in offices. Pens, blank notebooks, ring binders. One drawer was full of novelty shaped erasers. Curiously, I lifted out a colourful watermelon-shaped one and held it to my nose with a sniff.

  “Did you know Coldwater collects scented rubbers?”

  “Everyone needs a hobby,” Cloves replied without looking up. “I’ve found some files on Cabal’s dealings with PAPER, but there’s nothing in them that isn’t already common knowledge. The employees are bio-engineers, working on vaccines, physiological enhancements, that kind of thing.” She flipped through a few thin pages. “Last recorded project with Cabal backing was something pedestrian
and boring about encouraging regeneration of wasted muscle in rehabilitating patients. Hardly the most sinister undertaking. And according to the dates here, this was way back. Back when William Cunningham Bowls was still actively in charge.”

  “Before he left to spend time with his sickly kiddo, yes,” I mused, putting the watermelon slice back.

  The next drawer down in the desk contained some Kit-Kats and a small bag of strawberry laces. I was tempted, but resisted heroically.

  It was only the final desk drawer I tried which was locked. I rattled it a little.

  “Dammit.” There was a combination built into the drawer front, like one of those old revolving bicycle locks where you had to rotate the keys until it spelled out a four-digit code. Only this was much longer, and the symbols seemed random letters, not numbers.

  Cloves came over, curious at my struggling.

  “Try her birthday,” she suggested.

  “It’s not numbers, it’s letters,” I explained. “Must be a password.”

  I laboriously flicked the letters around until it spelled ‘rosebud’ and gave the drawer a shake. No dice. It had been a long shot anyway.

  “What would the poisonous old witch have as a password?” Cloves wondered. She glanced at my watch. “We need to hurry it up, Harkness.”

  I tried Croatoan. It wasn’t right. Cloves stared at me.

  “You think you’re amusing, don’t you?”

  “Do you have any idea how many words there are in the English language?” I complained. I counted the possible slots. There were a full twenty-six. “I can’t even begin to tell you how many combinations there are. It must be something that means something to her. You know her better than I do. What does she like?”

  Cloves’ nose wrinkled. “Coldwater doesn’t like anything. She’s barely a person. She’s a cog in the Cabal Wheel. Do you know how much free time senior directors have? Less than me, if you can believe it. It’s not like she has downtime to basket-weave at the weekends or go yarnbombing.”

  I sighed, frustrated, casting my eyes around the room, and wondering if pumpkinspicedlatte counted as one word. My eyes alighted on the framed photo.

  “What was her son’s name?”

  Cloves looked thoughtful a moment, while she internally mined the inner databanks in which she obsessively kept the names and personal information of every single person of note in the city.

  “Dennis, I believe,” she replied after a moment.

  I flicked the combination until it spelled the name, turning the remaining tumblers until they all showed blank, and tentatively tried the drawer.

  It opened.

  Cloves snorted. “Jesus, Felicity. Try and pick a password that’s not quite so obvious.” I looked up at her.

  “Bet I can guess yours in three,” I challenged.

  Cloves narrowed her eyes at me. Her face was a mask of utter disdain.

  “Vuitton?” I ventured. She didn’t flinch.

  “Choo?” I asked, in a sing-song voice. Again, nothing. Cloves was a sphynx.

  I smirked to myself. “Wintour.”

  The tiniest flickering twitch in the corner of my supervisor’s eye. I grinned. “Ha, gotcha!”

  “Shut up and see what’s in there!” she replied viciously.

  What was in there was confusing. There was indeed a file, which I passed to Cloves to read, while I lifted out a small clear plastic bag, which appeared to be filled with thin metal spikes. I heard Cloves flipping through the pages while I unzipped the bag, peering closer at the strange shining threads inside.

  “It appears to be a proposal spec,” she told me. “Some kind of old research at PAPER, and very developmental. There’s coding all over this to suggest it should not be removed from their labs, not at this early stage anyway.”

  “So how is it here in Coldwater’s office?” I wondered. “You think she stole it?

  Cloves made a non-committal noise down her nose, still leafing through, her brow was furrowed with concentration.

  “Griff’s text did say she was ‘in bed’ with PAPER,” I mused. “Maybe Cunningham Bowls came out of retirement to work on a little moonlighting project with her? Or maybe the company has been going behind his back.” I lifted one of the thin spikes out of the bag. It looked for all the world like a high-tech, chrome knitting needle. “But making what though? These look like prototype samples. But of what? Cyber-chopsticks?”

  The metal thread I held up was as long as my hand from tip to wrist, no thicker than spaghetti, and shimmering silver. The tip was slightly flared at one end, and shone. Although the spike was slightly flexible under the pressure of my fingers, the other end was viciously needle-sharp.

  “From what I’m reading here,” Cloves said. “And bear in mind I don’t speak tech-geek, they are prototypes, but from a discontinued R&D at PAPER. It looks as though the company which dedicates itself to improving and enhancing physical attributes in the sick and needy, and of course in perfectly healthy military personal, was branching out. Something a lot more…cerebral…than Steroids-R-US.”

  The needle was cold in the palm of my hand. Much colder than the ambient temperature would account for. I suspected it was packed with electronics. It was heavy. I wondered what it was made of.

  “The project was experimental, the brief was to tap into the dormant and subconscious parts of the human brain, to enhance and amplify mental stimulation.”

  “There are no dormant parts of the brain,” I told her. “That’s a myth. We use all of our brains all of the time, we’re just not a hundred percent sure what we use it all for, or how.”

  “Well this fun little needle was part of a program designed to find out,” Cloves told me, her eyes scanning back and forth between the pages. “It looks as though Coldwater got her hands on something aimed at increasing mental dexterity. I can only imagine the intended applications were originally to improve cognitive skills a hundred-fold.” She lowered the file for a moment, looking down at me where I crouched at the drawer.

  “I mean, think of the implications, Harkness. The possible applications. Snipers with perfect aim and instant, flawless reflexes. Humans with the same low-level telepathy we see in the GOs. Mind-control, maybe even telekinesis.” She took the object out of my hand and inspected it. It caught the light from the window, glinting as she turned it over and over. “This is an implant,” she said.

  “Wires in the body.” I felt very uneasy about the idea. “Like a booster. Turning it up to eleven, I can’t see something that controversial getting past even the Cabal board.”

  “It didn’t get anywhere,” Cloves told me in agreement. “Like I said. Says here the entire project was mothballed. Too many bad side effects on the initial test subjects. Schizophrenia, paranoia, megalomania, psychotic episodes, total loss of empathy,”

  “Are you sure you don’t have one of these implants in your brain, Veronica?” I said quietly.

  Cloves gave me a cool look. “Hilarious.” She passed me the spike back and I replaced it in the bag.

  “However Coldwater got her grubby, mocha-stained hands on brain-boosting evil-tech is beside the point,” I said. “What I’m wondering is why she wanted it for in the first place? She’s never been remotely military, her division, our arm of Cabal, is over Liaison between species, and curing the Pale… at least on paper it is.”

  Cloves didn’t know either. I wondered if we needed to confront Cunningham Bowls, find out if he had any part in this, or if he was ignorant that his company’s work had been stolen and was secretly stashed in a Cabal office. He could be a conspirator, or he could be the victim he seemed, worried father of a missing daughter.

  “Coldwater has been mining old, decommissioned bio-tech, off the books and on no official Cabal brief,” Cloves said thoughtfully, with more than a little relish. “Even without everything else that’s going on, this would be enough to bring to the board of senior directors. Enough to bring a hearing and maybe even get her suspended.”

  I could s
ee what was running through my supervisor’s mind. She looked like the cartoon Grinch plotting something nefarious. “Get her out of office and lobby for her seat at the table, eh?” I drawled. “Can we focus on the monster and the kids please? In a couple of hours, the sun will be down and the streets are going to be full of vampires dressed for parade. We’re on a timer here, and we are not here to polish your CV.”

  Cloves glanced around, looking out of the window. “It’s not a bad view from up here,” she mused. “The décor is vile of course, but I could fix that.”

  I shook my head; she was shameless.

  I took snaps of every page of the defunct experiment file with my phone, laying it out on the desk and working as quickly as I could. We had to leave everything as we’d found it. Coldwater couldn’t know we were here. Potentially we were going to accuse her of framing an innocent man for murder, stealing top secret biomedical information and technology, maybe even directly having a hand in the murder of two of my teammates, not to mention having involvement in the cover-up of over thirty kidnappings. There were so many perversions of justice it was hard to pick a favourite. But Cloves was right. If you’re going to grab a tiger by the tail, you better make damned sure you have a good grip first. I still didn’t know how any of this fitted together, and you couldn’t go to the board with a ‘bad feeling’.

  “Hurry it up,” Cloves paced the carpet. “She could be back any minute.”

  “I know, I know, hold on.”

  A buzzing made me jump of my skin, but it was nothing but my phone, vibrating in my pocket. At the same moment, Cloves own phone binged a notification. She fished it out of her pocket and stared at it.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked, digging around in my jacket for my own. Cloves’ lips had almost disappeared entirely they were so thin.

  “Fuck, shit and bollocks!” she spat with feeling, staring at her screen. She looked over at me, every inch an instant fury.