‘It had been a difficult year for the UA when she,’ Jonquil mouthed, ‘joined them, working for the TP El-Maglev. Their security and law enforcement contracts were up for renewal, and they’d been under pressure to neutralise our resistance. They’d murdered hundreds, thousands…’ Jonquil shook her head. It was obviously still difficult to talk about.
‘Their strategy was combative – to take out relevant people one-by-one. Sniper here, rogue “accident” there.’
Jonquil rechecked the door, a nervous twitch. ‘Renee,’ she mouthed, ‘had worked her way up from the ticket station, to TP Sleeper operator. She got in touch to say that she wanted to meet me. We’d spoken over the years, but this was different. She was …insistent. She was doing this tri-province route and had some annual leave to take. I thought she might have been unwell… I was in the N-E-E Ghetto at the time. We agreed to meet in the middle, in the Liberic woodlands, near Prague CMCD. It was as though so much, and at the same time, so little had changed between us. Renee wanted us to re-establish our relationship. I didn’t see how that was possible. Not long-term.’
Jonquil paused to open the door again. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I don’t remember hearing or seeing anything that was a cause for concern. Mikhail agreed,’ she said, her face dejected. ‘Mikhail agreed that I wouldn’t have seen the drone,’ her head shook violently; fat tears snaked down her face.
‘Renee was younger than me by two minutes. “Only two,” she used to say, but I always thought of her as my baby sister. She had deep, soulful eyes that really saw you. At that moment, it felt as though she had seen me more than ever before. That’s why I can’t believe…’
Jonquil choked back more tears and took a deep breath.
‘We hugged, and for the first time in a long time, I felt at peace, but that changed in a matter of seconds. It was like someone decided that we weren’t allowed to be happy. Next thing I knew, pain shot through my underarm, hot and piercing. It wasn’t until I saw the blood that I knew something was wrong.’
Jonquil opened the door ajar to check outside again; when she pulled back in, her breath had steadied, and her tears were gone.
‘Mikhail said there was a drone. Whether the bullet was only intended for me and something went wrong, or maybe they didn’t care about taking us both out, I’m not sure.’ She looked to the floor and gather something from deep inside. ‘I know some people talk,’ she said with venom, ‘they say she was a stooge, and lured me there …but I can’t believe it. Not the way she looked at me.’
Jonquil rechecked the door.
‘Mikhail took us both back to camp, but Renee was bleeding out from her chest. My baby sister,’ her voice quivered. ‘We had a colonic surgeon in the N-E-E who did her best. But I knew. We all knew. The surgeon made her as stable as possible.
‘I’m not sure who said it first…no, that’s a lie. I said it. I suggested I should take Renee’s place. The UA intended for me to die, so I’ll die, and Renee will live. That was how it was supposed to be. We weren’t exactly identical, but close enough that we’d manage to get into trouble with it as kids.
‘Chandra knew a whizz programmer, Larisa… she made sure the story and information on the UA database was compatible to me. They re-wrote the data on what happened after the shooting, and removed Renee’s chips, and put them inside me.’
‘I needed a few stitches, that was all. I went back to Russo-Chin, and Renee’s house a few weeks later. Made out I’d needed to recover. That time allowed my chip wounds to heal, and for me to prep for what would follow. The UA was suspicious, naturally, at first. They made me have assessment, upon assessment, upon assessment. But Larisa and I worked on a strategy for the lie detector tests, and I stuck to my story.
‘When they were satisfied, I was free to go back to my life. Her life. I knew they were watching me like a hawk at first, but within six months, their attention went elsewhere. To this day, they’ve never admitted responsibility, and I took that as confirmation my sister couldn’t have known what they planned to do. If she’d been in on it, they’d have debriefed her, right?’
Jun nodded, although in truth, the behaviours of the UA were often illogical.
‘Of course, it wasn’t just as simple as passing the UA’s tests. I had to assume her life, her character. It wasn’t easy; the stress of what I’d done, and the guilt. The shame. I didn’t even grieve properly.’ She shook her head, and tears gathered again in the corner of her eyes, but she held them back.
‘The thing is, she was a much nicer person than I am,’ Jonquil laughed, and the wrinkles around her eyes bunched together like a fan. ‘I’ve always done what’s right. Stood up against the UA’s bullshit. But Renee couldn’t see the wrong. She saw the best in everyone; who’s the better person?’
It must be a difficult thing to reconcile, Jun thought; that one sister fought for human rights but lacked humanity; the other sister was all humanity but didn’t have it right.
‘When peace was finally agreed, I wondered if I should move back to the Ghetto, abandon Renee’s life, but for me, it wasn’t over. That bullet to Renee meant it would never be over,’ she said with a resilience that Jun recognised. There was Jonquil again. Fierce, tough Jonquil, who could crumple steel with one look. She was part of an argument that had paused but had never resolved. It had resurrected again, but like a virus it had evolved, a strain more deadly than before. Jun was reminded of something she once said to Odgerel. Stagnation is death. They had to keep moving forward, keep fighting to survive.
‘What if I told you one way or another, it was going to be over? Would you help the Autonarmy rise again?’ Jun said, and for the first time, it felt like they were playing on the same team.
There was that glint in Jonquil’s eye. ‘Functioning cogs have their uses after all.’
CHAPTER 27
Wednesday 17th May 2062
‘Just breathe’ his mother had said when Kau had first told her about Anton’s assessment, calmly and slowly. Lie detection tests made people nervous, naturally, but eyes would be studying him more closely. Watching for anything that would support their suspicions; there was no place for nerves today.
Kau shifted on his chair that felt too small for him and couldn’t help feeling like an animal in a cage – albeit a civilised one. He looked around the base observation room; vacant of any other furniture except his chair, and devoid of colour and decoration. There was an illum wall, and a partition of one-way observational glass. It reminded him of the lab where they’d taken Kodi. He’d forgotten that his mother would have worked there at one time. Strange that she’d been a part of a place so sterile and harsh, where you, the subject, were so vulnerable to their power and control. That must have been how Odgerel felt, but much worse, in ways that he couldn’t imagine.
They’d told Kau that Anton was to remain behind the observational glass, so as not to influence the responses. But of course, mentioning it was an influence itself, a sly intimidation and surreptitious reminder of the power of Anton’s presence.
The study tech Ai-ssistant had advised the questions would last no longer than twenty minutes, depending on Kau’s responses. If it was longer, well, that meant they had had to do a deeper dive. Another sly intimidation. The Ai-ssistant said they should get the results back immediately but would need a third party to check them before the final verdict. The team had reserved the room for an hour. Kau hadn’t decided what that meant; his paranoia was in overdrive.
‘How do you feel about it?’ Anton had said, as they made their way to the observation room.
‘I’m sorry it’s come to this,’ Kau had said, as solid and earnest as a hunk of wood. He was sorry.
He was sorry that last night he and Larisa had spent most of the evening testing and retesting to make sure, as much as they could, that nothing would go wrong. That he had left Larisa’s home with her yawning wildly, and with deep creases around her eyes. He was sorry that his mother’s escape to the N-E-E was the only way she could survive
, and that he hadn’t been able to help or support her with the dummy run. And that he still didn’t have the nerve to go home and get the mementoes she’d asked for. And that he’d not been able to see Celeste; that he’d slept alone in his bed for the first time in weeks. He was sick of sorry and was determined that it wouldn’t be the only thing left in all of this.
To remove further potential influence, Kau was told the questions would appear on the illum wall. He was to answer them verbally, clearly, and as loudly as possible. Like Kodi, they’d shaved off his hair and slathered a writhing jelly of electrodes on his bare scalp. As his liquorice-black wisps fell to the floor, the sight of it winded him worse than a miss-dive. He wasn’t particularly vain, but Celeste liked his chin-length hair and swept back style. When their hair mixed, it looked like old, withdrawn sweets; Humbugs or candy canes. He had planned to see her later – before she left for Mars to recce the development site – and could imagine her face at the sight of him. Would she still want him, now he was branded a traitor?
He was distracted by the coldness of the jelly against his skin, and the sensation of ants parading on his scalp. He was tempted to rip off it off and hurl it at the observation glass. It would make a satisfying thud. Despite his mother’s career, in the past few weeks, he’d had more interaction with neurology than ever before. That was one thing he and his mother shared now. They had both messed with their brain to lose the truth.
‘Ready?’ A voice without a body or soul, boomed into the room.
No, he wasn’t ready to be mind-raped. ‘Yes,’ he said, as neutrally as possible. He shouldn’t wind himself up. He needed to keep his heart-rate steady. Breathe calmly and slowly, Mama had said. In through the nose, and out through the mouth.
‘Can you confirm your name?’
In her reply, his mother had given a vague description of what Kau could expect, though she had never done a lie detection test herself. That wasn’t her field, she’d said, and he’d inferred a disdain in her words. They would ask non-relevant, perfunctory questions first so they could extract and verify your brainwaves – the truth-telling ones – to cross reference the lies.
‘Can you confirm your date of birth?’
They could pinpoint where in your brain the lie was formed, the shape of it, the process as it came piped to your mouth. They could map the journey and tell you ten different ways they knew that you were lying.
‘Can you confirm your mother’s name?’
Kau had supplied this detection intel with Larisa, but she already knew. Coding and lying were her life; one had been synonymous with the other for almost as long as he’d been alive.
‘Can you confirm your father’s name?’
Larisa had done a lot of prep work after they’d met, and she’d agreed to help him. The simplest way to divert detection was, instead of recoding his chip, install a new one altogether. One which they would ‘hide’ from detection in every sense. The new chip would act as a flow control system, designed to override the UA’s electrodes. If they were to ask a question that elicited an honest response, the UA’s electrodes would extract the brainwaves as they formed organically. If they asked a question that elicited a lie, Larisa’s chip would detect it, and override the UA’s electrodes to playback a ‘truthful’ brainwave journey, instead of the real-time ‘lying’ one.
‘Can you confirm you’re not in contact with your mother?’
It had sounded brilliant, a genius plan. It was his best shot, in the limited time he had. But it wasn’t without its pitfalls.
‘Can you confirm you’re not in contact with the Ghetto Network?’
To be 100% successful, Larisa had to match the UA’s programs and tech systems to be able to override them.
‘Can you confirm that you’re working for the United Adaptive, and them alone?’
He and Larisa had to record a series of his neural responses, to provide ‘playback waves,’ relevant to the questions the UA were likely to ask. But it wasn’t straightforward; some waves needed to be longer than others, depending on the complexity of the questions. Some needed their wave journeys to begin in specific places in the brain.
‘Can you confirm that you’re committed to the United Adaptive, and all their projects?’
They would have to ensure no same-wave pattern was played back to arouse suspicion.
‘Can you confirm that you’re not working against the United Adaptive, and their projects?’
Then there were the things that, cumulatively, could show that he was lying. Things that went beyond his brainwaves that neither she nor Kau’s subconscious could control, like if he began to sweat, or his eyes gave the slightest twitch.
‘Have you at any time lied to the United Adaptive?’
Not to forget, gut-fucking-instinct, though that couldn’t be used in court.
‘Have you lied to the United Adaptive within the last three weeks?’
Kau didn’t know how many questions the UA would ask. He had to go on averages and guesses from his mother and Larisa.
‘Do you wish to counteract the good work of the United Adaptive?’
He just had to get through the hour. If twenty minutes passed and they let him go, he was without suspicion. Any longer, and it was clear that he was. How much time had passed?
‘Can the United Adaptive trust you implicitly to work for them, honestly and truthfully?’
But it wasn’t just an hour. He needed to get through the next few weeks at least, but how much longer after that? He couldn’t do this forever.
How had his father lived a double life all these years?
* * *
It had been an excruciating three hours since Kau had taken the test. He had tried not to think about it as he’d been dismissed from the room like an errant schoolboy after fifty minutes. His scalp felt raw like it had been peeled. He hurried back to his office, trying not to catch anyone’s eye along the way. Anyone that saw him would know what had happened; their eyes lingered on his scalp, before staring hard into his face. He’d never cared what people thought before, but as he tried to deflect their gawking, an unfamiliar sense of shame bristled in the place of his hair.
Back in his office, he’d looked at his phone and the encrypted response from his mother and Chandra. Part of their message had been about the lie detection test; the rest had concerned the steering committee meeting notes that he’d shared. It was inconceivable to think that those against the UA – his mother and the Ghetto Network – would be given passage to Mars, and would they want it? Their message confirmed what he’d suspected. Instead, they would come up with an alternative plan. Fight for the planet they knew and loved. There would be others who wouldn’t go – those who were old and afraid, and who didn’t agree with the UA; low-key renegades like Larisa, as well as people beyond the walls of the Ghettoes. When his mother and the others made it to Mikhail and the N-E-E Province, they would start mobilising the Autonarmy again, in one united resistance.
What they needed from Kau was those who were on the VIP list and why. That would help guide them to assemble a list of their own and determine the priority professions and skill sets they needed to ensure their new community flourished. It meant that the Ghettoties could live a functioning, civilised life, instead of burrowing away like rabbits. Anton hadn’t given him the VIP names yet; he was probably waiting to see what happened with the test. One way or another, Kau would have a resolution today.
Anton had asked for a meeting in his office – it had to be the results. Kau wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign. As he hovered outside, waiting to be summoned in, the pressure of his mother’s, Chandra’s and even Larisa’s anxieties bubbled inside of him. The last thing he wanted was to let them down; to prove it had all been for nothing.
The door imploded, and Anton beckoned Kau with a gruff, ‘Come in!’
Kau shambled inside; his legs had gone to jelly. Despite the air conditioner turned on to its maximum, Anton’s forehead was sweaty, and the top few buttons on his
shirt were undone. It was only midday, and Kau saw an empty tumbler on the desk, save an oaky blot in its bottom-crease.
Anton threw himself down on the chair. ‘Fuck me, boy,’ he said and sighed, looking at the map of Mars on his wall, his fingers steepled together, deep in rumination.
Kau took the chair opposite and tried to hide the apprehension that squirmed and writhed beneath his skin.
‘You passed,’ Anton said and gave Kau a side-eye look. ‘Surprised?’
Kau suppressed his elation. ‘No, sir. I only hope we can move forward positively now,’ he said and dared to smile. He knew Anton would hate that. And by the looks of it, he did. His face kinked like he’d chewed a lemon.
‘Good,’ Anton said and turned to face Kau fully. ‘Now we know you’re trustworthy; we need you to relay a message to your…’
Kau assumed Anton meant mother but stopped himself.
‘…the Ghettoites who have the kid,’ Anton snatched the empty tumbler and threw it in front of him. The bottom drawer of his desk clunked, and a bottle emerged in his bear-paw grip. He poured a generous glug and then tilted the bottle to Kau questioningly.
‘Another time.’ Kau was in no mood to share a drink with him.
Anton nodded and took a sip, before throwing back the rest of the glass. The bottle disappeared back in the drawer with a rattle.
‘When Wei and Markov first got the kid in the lab, under our orders they planted an intravenous chip and injected her with a virus. If activated, the virus will kill her.’ Anton’s eyes lingered on the drawer.
‘If the Ghettoites don’t return the kid in 72 hours, starting at 7 pm tonight, we’ll activate that nasty little virus. She’ll have a maximum eight days to live before it shuts her body down, but the likelihood is four.’
Kau had read about viruses in one of his anthropological classes at University. It would be a tortuous death. Fever, shaking and delirium first; then the liver and kidneys failed, then the lungs, and then everything else. Kodi was too young to die; she had much too much to live for.
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