‘We need her,’ Anton said, his tongue helicoptering around his lips, on the hunt for a hint of whisky.
‘Project Epomenzoic has to work. Mars has to be a success,’ he thumped his fist on the desk, before taking out a handkerchief and finally, wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘The kid is our safety net. We’ve got strat-Aigists and strategists looking for weaknesses, mapping out potential Plan B, C and D’s, but she minimises all risk – eradicating unnecessary deaths, and reassures the public that they’re in safe hands. She’s my silver bullet.’
Anton’s hand shot for the drawer and pulled out the bottle, his lips in an expectant embouchure; he tipped it back as if trumpeting a high note. It rang long and loud. The façade had been paper-thin the whole time. Anton’s double life had been so close to the surface, it had been oozing like the sweat on his forehead. But he wasn’t happy finding the chink in Anton’s armour. Instead, all he felt was pity, or something close to it; it was Anton after all, as well as red flag to his own thirsting.
‘If Wei and the team hadn’t fucked up with the Zaye woman, we might not be in this mess. There’s been no one, not one person with similar capabilities in the past twenty-five years, till the kid.’ Anton flung the bottle back in the drawer and licked his lips greedily.
‘There were search operations worldwide, in all Provinces. There was a strong contender from the North-Euro in the ‘40’s, and a couple of potentials in Can-Am a decade later, but nothing, no one till the kid.
‘I lost her once. I won’t lose her again. We need her back in the lab so we can verify her P-EP and get her to work.’
Anton’s words hung in the air making a cloche of Kau’s lungs.
‘And you’re the one that is going to make it happen.’
CHAPTER 28
Wednesday 17th May 2062
The seconds dragged like hours; minutes strung out for forever. The anticipation of Kau’s lie detector results was excruciating. Jun was supposed to be resting, but all she could think about were the electrodes leeching on his head. He was still a boy really, and her only child, but he was confronting this as a man. He should have had the results by now. The longer it was, the more she doubted his success. Even with Larisa’s good form prepping Jonquil, that was a long time ago, technology had changed, and the UA’s intelligence had increased. Could they be lucky twice? Jun closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, but sleep wouldn’t come. She’d snatched a couple of hours earlier that morning, straight after they’d landed from the dummy run and updated everyone on what happened. Though they’d achieved what they set out to, the dress rehearsal had obliterated her body, from her bones to her brain. She stretched to see if a message had come through on the Interface; her ribs whimpered. Nothing.
Though Solo had insisted Jun stay in her mob-home, Jun felt more comfortable in the East bunker. Perhaps it was being underground and further away from the entrance. Maybe it was being removed from the hub-bub of the Circle, or that it was closer to Odgerel and Kodi’s notes. They reassured her; those first few days of being here, she’d drunk them like a cool glass of water on a blistering day, but even they couldn’t soothe her to sleep If she was awake, she might as well get up and see the others. They only had five more days before they did the actual N-E-E run, and she needed to make her time here count. People usually began to gather in the Circle as the late-afternoon and early-evening melted together. Jonquil’s support in mobilising the Autonarmy would dominate this evening’s conversation, Jun was sure. That and discussion around the next steps for survival, but they hadn’t locked those down yet. The foundations were still forming, and there was a long way to go.
It was like no time had passed at all. That phrase had followed her back from the TP depot, but it rang true again. Jun had walked to the Circle but was transported back to Adalbert’s little hut on the plantations. Some of the players had changed, but the game was still the same, more or less. Lucas, Batz and Solo, the unofficial committee for the escape and survival plots, were gathered on tree stumps at the Circle. Chandra, Director-in-Chief, stood by one of the portable Interfaces, commanding his troops; a few Ghettoites milled in the distance, gathered around some buttery corn-on-the-cob. Chandra’s Interface screen had four headings: ‘migration location’, ‘civilisation architects’, ‘Autonarmy mobilisation’ and ‘UA developments’, with bullet points underneath. What would Adalbert say to their operation? He would have brought some light and softness alongside his meticulousness. Poor Adalbert; poor Chandra. She wondered if Chandra thought of Adalbert too, as they huddled around headings, history repeating.
‘Still no word?’ Chandra greeted her with a shaky smile. Perhaps Adalbert was on his mind; he was another victim to the UA.
Jun shook her head and pulled up one of the stumps nearest the Interface, next to Lucas. He was playing with his knuckles and hands, his signature; he was forever knuckle-cracking.
‘Good to see you, Jun,’ Batz said, a warmth emanated from his eyes ‘I’ll bring you up to speed,’ Chandra said, and tapped the “UA developments” heading on the screen. ‘As you know, we’re waiting on Kau’s update. We assume as per the last one, they’ll start building the developments imminently, and that the UA’s VIPs still haven’t been told.’
The mention of Kau’s name tugged at Jun’s tummy like an invisible umbilical cord. If the worst-case scenario happened, she hoped Fan would step in and do something, if he still had any sway at the UA.
Chandra pointed at the “Autonarmy mobilisation” header. ‘Jonquil has agreed to help organise supplies and distribution. We’ll need to establish a consistent communication pipeline with our network. As priority, we must tell everyone about the UA’s plans for Mars. When we know the professions and skills that we need for our ‘civilisation architects,’ the regions must research and reach out to relevant people.’
The communication pipeline made her nervous. ‘We’ll need to manage that carefully,’ Jun said. They didn’t want global panic, or the UA finding out that they knew the truth.
Chandra nodded, ‘Agreed.’ His finger slid to “civilisation architects.” ‘While we wait for the VIP names to point us in the right direction, in parallel, we’ll start working on our own list. We’ll ask Jonquil to send us her collaborators – dealers and suppliers she’s worked with before. If we’re going to migrate the network – and beyond – and live without extradition by the UA, we’ll need a long-term, sustainable living solution.’
Living solution? Chandra sounded like the UA.
‘Migration location-’ he said with an air of caution and released the elephant in the room. They collectively had crucial knowledge gaps on this. The Global Governance Alliance had commissioned the UA to look into the feasibility of migrating to Antarctica 30 years ago. The UA’s report said that the instability of the Earth, made it too much of a risk to consider as a long-term solution, but that was the best option they had for now. They would need to lean on specialised civilisation architects and their network to develop a sustainability plan. Jun was dusty with the report detail, but the main challenges with living on Antarctica had been well-documented – the low solar angle, a continually-evolving environment and poor agricultural potential. She hated to admit it, but Fan’s geological expertise would be useful.
‘We were talking about Kodi…’ Batz interjected. ‘And how she can help our survival on Antarctica. Some of us think-’
‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Solo exploded up from her seat. ‘I was flat-out asking, why Kodi can’t see what we need to do. So far, from what I hear,’ she looked to Batz, ‘her “predictions” don’t seem very scientific or more helpful than a health chip.’
Batz retreated, like a whimpered dog. ‘Calm down,’ he said quietly, perhaps embarrassed.
‘Does she even have P-EP at all?’ Lucas said, his knuckles crunching under his fingers. Chandra put his hand on Lucas’ to stop the crunching. Jun was grateful.
‘I never said she doesn’t have P-EP, it’s just…’ Solo said,
and rubbed her head like she was striking a match. Jun hadn’t seen her so irritated and restless since before they broke Kodi out. Maybe she hadn’t slept either.
Batz reached for Solo’s hand, and this time, she let herself be comforted. She sat back down next to him, straitjacketing her arms around herself.
Staring into space in the bunker, willing the seconds away, suddenly appealed. ‘Kodi has P-EP without question. But she isn’t a health chip or strat-Aigist; she has a perception of what will happen in the future.’
Lucas looked at Jun and visibly tried to calm himself down before he spoke. ‘But what does that mean for us?’
Jun’s legs groaned as she stood up. ‘I’d like to talk to you about a game that Batz and I played,’ Jun said and limped over to the Interface. ‘Can I?’ She looked for the recording of the latest test with Kodi. Their last session had been three days ago, before they’d received the message from Kau and had to focus all their energies on the dummy run. For the first time in about ten years, Jun had wished she was back in her lab, where there was an exhaustive supply of equipment and programs. It was too dangerous to try and download any here, but at least she could record the session and her thought-notes.
Her objective for the session had been to explore the parameters of Kodi’s P-EP and understand precisely what determined the eventual P-EP outcome. Reading Odgerel’s clandestine tests notes and speaking with Kodi herself, had already helped. The eventual P-EP vision could be very specific, even to the very date and time.
P-EP didn’t necessarily need visual stimulus to support its function, but did it need stimulus to function at all? If it was an intentional, conscious request, Jun theorised it did, but she needed to investigate further. Both Odgerel and Kodi’s P-EP had functioned unexpectedly, and without conscious request. Most often, it related to people close to them, or themselves – Odgerel had the awareness that Markov and Wei were going to harm her; Kodi had said that she routinely had pre-emptive flashes, like the day her mother tripped over outside and broke her arm. Kodi had been too ill that day to warn her mother; or had she not cautioned her father when they were watching a film, he would have mistakenly eaten a pistachio shell and cracked his tooth.
Jun hadn’t had the courage yet to ask why Kodi hadn’t ‘seen’ that her parents would die at the hands of the UA. And that was another priority of hers to get to the bottom of – were there circumstances where P-EP failed, and why?
Jun had sat Kodi down in the East Bunker tunnel for their session and put a game of Jenga in the middle of the table. The air conditioners were working overtime to keep circulating cold air.
‘Are we going to play a game?’ A crease splintered between Kodi’s eyebrows.
‘No,’ Jun shook her head. ‘I am.’ She pulled the blocks out from the box and began to pile them, satisfied by the little clink-sound as she put one on top of another. ‘I’d like you to tell me how many pulls I’ll get to before the tower falls down. Don’t tell me.’
‘That’s simple,’ Kodi said, her face beamed. ‘The blocks you’ll select and the response, have been defined already.’
‘Can you see how the game plays out?’
Kodi closed her eyes and took a deep, meditative breath. Sometimes the visions were difficult to grasp and tired her out, sometimes they made her feel sick. Deep breathing helped.
‘Yes.’
Jun had put an Interface in her hands. ‘Write down the sequence and position of the blocks I’ll move?’
After Jun had played, and the tower had fallen, she checked Kodi’s Interface. The block number and route had matched exactly what Kodi had pre-empted.
Jun paused the Interface and looked back to the committee. ‘When it was just me, in a very controlled situation, it was easy for Kodi to pre-empt what would happen. After this,’ Jun pointed at the screen, ‘I tried pulling out blocks with the table beneath the tower unevenly balanced, and then added a portable air conditioning unit, which blew air, with force, in a single direction.
‘Again, Kodi got the number of blocks and the route, correct. But it took maybe eight seconds more to receive the answer – there were more variables thanks to the different environmental conditions. When it comes to variables and perception-permutations however, they are no competition to free will.’ Jun tapped on the screen, and the recording began to play again.
Jun had stepped out from the bunker to see who was around and would be happy to support the study. She’d need someone agreeable, patient, and who wouldn’t get too involved with how the experiment rolled out. Batz was walking past in the direction of the plantations; stoic, supportive. He and Kodi trusted one another; he would be perfect.
He’d agreed, and as they piled the blocks together for their first game, Kodi shut her eyes, and began to tap silently on the Interface. When she was finished, she nodded at Jun.
‘Batz,’ Jun said and gestured her hand. ‘You go first.’
He pulled a block, she the next, and it went on until the tower had enough cavities and hollows it looked like it had been shelled. Jun’s finger-pincers went either side of a block in front of her. She instinctively felt like it would crumble; her fingers slowly teased it out, but the tower buckled and fell.
They played again, and Jun won the next game, so they were one apiece. It was in the third game when they had pulled out maybe seven or eight blocks each, that a seed of an idea had grown – to create an experiment within the experiment.
‘Are you going to play?’ Batz had said. Jun had realised what her next move needed to be.
Jun paused the feed. ‘What Batz didn’t know is that beforehand, I’d asked Kodi the sequence of who was going to win the first four games. She, unknown to me at this point, had written down that Batz would win the first one, and I would win the next three.’
‘If we follow her P-EP predictions, I was going to win this game, and then the next. I hadn’t discussed this with Kodi, but it was at this point, I decided to throw the game. The narrative of the game changed from this moment onwards, because of my conscious choice to intentionally lose. Batz, what happened after that?’
‘I won the game in the end, and then one after that,’ he said. ‘That round ended three games to me, and one to you.’
Lucas shook his head and popped his knuckles for good measure. ‘I get it,’ he said and laughed. ‘Batz is another variable. Free will can change the cause of events…and?’
‘Quite right. Over and above that, it shows how we need to be cautious when working with Kodi. There needs to be a greater understanding of the process and journey of her P-EP, to respect and appreciate how we work with it. It had been, until that point, a foregone conclusion I would win three games to Batz’s one. Kodi’s predictions in the end, were incorrect.’
Lucas released his knuckles. ‘But what about when Kodi’s mother broke her arm, or Odgerel’s feeling about Wei and Markov?’
‘Exactly,’ Jun said. ‘What’s the difference between those circumstances and these? Controlled conditions aside, this was a conscious request. Those others organically came to her.’
Solo rubbed her head again; Lucas’ thumb worked back into his knuckles. The air was thick with tension.
‘I need to do more tests,’ Jun said plainly. ‘While it might be frustrating, remember we’re not asking Kodi for the odds, or the probability, but the actual outcome. She’ll have all the different pre-emptive permutations available to her, all the different routes and stories. Until “it’s a foregone conclusion” based on all the variables, she can’t give us an answer. And then when she does, the variables could still change the outcome.’
‘Then how are we supposed to use her?’ Solo said, exasperated. ‘The UA was going to somehow, so why can’t we?’
‘That’s precisely what I need to work on,’ Jun said, ‘but I need more time.’
With the dummy run and trying to prep for them to leave, there hadn’t been the opportunity to devote to this. She felt Solo’s frustration, all their frustrations; she
was unsatisfied enough herself. She would need to carve out the time over the next few days before they left for the N-E-E, and then more time still when they got to the other side.
‘I’m concerned that if it isn’t something which organically comes to her, or has less/controlled variables, then we can only trust her P-EP in particular circumstances.’
In the distance, five or more people were running towards them, stampeding wildebeests spraying sand and dust in their wake. Alarms sounded like it was the end of the world. Jun’s heart wheezed; perhaps a message from Kau had come through. If they were running, it could only mean bad news.
One of the Ghettoites who’d been here almost as long as Chandra got to them first. His eyes were as wide as his mouth.
‘ForceIntuimotos…on their way over here,’ he said in-between gasps of air, his eyes not sure who to focus on. ‘You need to get to the tunnels, now!’ he said, deciding on Jun. ‘We’ve already got Kodi hiding there, but you don’t have much time – hurry!’
She ran as quickly as she could to the tunnels to hide. Her body jolted with with every step, crunching furiously, bone on bone, but she didn’t feel pain. Only one thought pushed and throbbed around her body – that Kau had failed the test, and battle lines had been drawn again.
CHAPTER 29
Wednesday 17th May 2062
The room had seemingly shrunk in the few minutes since Anton had spoken, his words consuming everything like a black hole. How long until Kau was pulled through?
The furrows on Anton’s forehead had ironed out; his oozy sweat had subsided. Whether it was the whisky, or finally offloading his request, Kau felt Anton’s unease shift onto him.
But it couldn’t be that simple or straightforward. The Ghettoites wouldn’t just hand Kodi over, and not with that kind of threat. Where did all of this leave him? As if reading his mind, Anton spoke again.
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