NO SIGNAL

by Jem Tugwell

  Children didn’t have FUs to keep up the pretence that they had free will. They couldn’t be measured. You needed the full iMe to prove that you lived your life according to the Model. Or to prove that you ‘lived green’ or the even more extreme ‘pure greens’ who had never been outside the Model.

  ‘But all the cyber-bullying and adult video streams,’ Dani said.

  ‘Summer’s an adult,’ Ava said. ‘She can view what she likes, and block bullies.’

  ‘Or ignore them,’ Clive said.

  Everyone turned to look at him – disbelief on their faces. Clive shrugged. He had grown up in a ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ era. ‘Don’t give the bully the power,’ his parents had told him. He didn’t understand how people these days allowed words to cut deep wounds into them, how everything was labelled abuse, and everyone was a powerless victim. ‘Words only have power if you let them,’ Clive tried, but he could see that they didn’t believe him. He had only recently reconnected with these words and his own beliefs, but along with the therapy for his depression, it was helping.

  ‘But…’ Dani said. ‘She’s still my baby.’

  Summer cringed at the word baby. ‘Mum,’ she complained.

  ‘Irrespective of your feelings,’ Ava said to Dani, ‘Summer is an adult and is required by law to have an iMe. As she doesn’t have a pre-booked appointment, we’ll have to take her today for an emergency insertion. It will be at your cost, not the government’s.’

  Clive and Ava stood up and crossed towards Summer. Dani stepped in front of them to protect Summer, but stepped back again as her husband pulled her arm.

  Dani’s crying still echoed along the empty corridor as Clive and Ava escorted Summer out of the school.

  ***

  Clive was back in a hospital waiting room again, grateful that this time it wasn’t for him.

  Summer perched on the chair opposite, biting her bottom lip as Ava held her hand.

  ‘We can let your parents know where you are,’ Clive said, but Summer shook her head.

  ‘I’m an adult now,’ she said. ‘And they don’t understand me.’

  Clive leaned forward and asked gently, ‘Can we talk about your diagnosis?’ He’d noticed how thin her legs were in the walk along the school corridor, and was pleased that it had been empty of the prying eyes of other students.

  Summer nodded.

  ‘I know the insertion seems scary, but it might help a bit.’ He waited until Summer looked up and he continued. ‘Your doctors can adjust the Model Citizen to allow for your anorexia. You’ll be able to see that you’re eating exactly the right amounts of the right things. No more guesswork.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Summer said.

  Clive knew that iMe wouldn’t address the underlying mental health issues, but at least Summer’s doctors could monitor her health and target her weight gain now. It was a big improvement from the days of sectioning anorexia patients and locking them in hospital.

  Two double doors banged open and made whooshing noises as they swung back and forth before they settled closed.

  ‘Summer Tailor?’ a nurse said.

  The girl stood, looking more like a small child than the adult she was.

  The nurse took a step forward. ‘We’re ready for your iMe insertion.’

  Chapter 14

  ‘We lose two more of you today,’ Serge said, once more sitting on the floor of the open van.

  Lilou watched his eyes pan across the remaining Seven, and stiffened as Serge met her eyes. She straightened and lifted her head. She needed to win this one.

  The van was parked on the side of the road of a sleepy French town.

  ‘For today’s test, you start at the church behind you,’ Serge said. Lilou turned and saw the drab, brown church, black metal gates and the blue sign: ‘Eglise Evangélique’.

  Serge tapped some sheets of paper beside him. ‘Come and get a map and compass.’

  When they all had their single sheet, he continued. ‘We are in Saint-Saëns, and you need to get to the V1 rocket launch site at Val Ygot.’

  Lilou found both places on her map. A big green area was drawn on the map between them with the name ‘Forêt d’Eawy’. There was no clue of how dense a forest it was.

  Serge watched a second van arrive and park in front of the church. Lilou could hear dogs barking inside.

  ‘It’s only about eight kilometres. Nice and simple race.’ Serge paused for another drag on a cigarette. ‘But we’ll pretend you’re on the Forbidden Island and are being chased.’

  Lilou felt elated. This was about strength and evasion. Speed and running. This was designed for her. She bounced on her toes, warming her muscles. She touched her chest where her gold medal had hung.

  Serge nodded to the van with the dogs. ‘We give you ten minutes head start. Go!’

  Lilou bounded forward, beating the others off the line. She flashed past Sully, who stuck a leg out to try and trip her, but it was easy to avoid such a clumsy obstacle. She reached the gate to the church first, grasped the top rail with her left hand and vaulted over.

  Landing easily, Lilou ran up the hill and left the others still climbing the gate.

  ***

  Lilou bounced easily on her toes, enjoying the running. The trees pressed in around her, but she greeted each of them as a parkour barrier and skipped over and around them. The earth smelt damp and she splashed through the mud. The sound of the dogs’ excited barking seemed closer. She ran faster, trying to keep her rhythm.

  When Lilou broke cover, she saw the sign for the rocket launch site across the empty road. Crossing the road, she jogged through the car park and up the shaded track to the launch site. She stopped at the rocket, touching the cold, grey metal of its wing, and bounced on her feet, elated to be the first competitor here.

  She turned as she heard clapping. Serge sat on a bench and smiled. ‘Fast time,’ he said.

  Lilou shrugged. It had been like a training run and not any serious competition. She walked to the end of the launch pad and looked along the length of the rocket, like she was aiming it.

  Straight at the Forbidden Island.

  ***

  Lilou kept stretching to make sure her muscles cooled down properly as she waited. Three others had straggled in, minutes after her. Femi, then Tatsuko, then Jose, whose muscled physique was built more for strength than speed.

  Still they waited. And waited.

  Finally, Sully panted his way up the path and stopped, breathing hard and covered in mud. He had somehow won the longer test easily, but now he looked unfit. Lilou couldn’t work out how he had done it. She was still wondering when Serge stood and said, ‘The dogs have the others, so they are out.’

  ‘But they’re OK?’ Lilou asked.

  ‘Of course. The dogs are trained to grab people by the arm, not the neck.’ Serge beckoned them all towards the road, ‘Come my final five, we can go.’

  They followed, eager steps, jostling to be the first behind him.

  Some of their swagger disappeared as Serge said, ‘But if you fail the next test, today’s losers will be back to take your place.’

  ***

  The man who used the name Jack heard the chime of a new message arriving on his TrueMe account. His heart quickened – the tone was unique to Serge’s tweets.

  He pinched his fingers to pick up the tweet and threw it at his HUD. The little TrueMe icon turned, like an old-school spinning newspaper, and opened to the text of the message.

  ‘Hi to all you film fans, enjoying a sci-fi classic today. “The Fifth Element”.’

  Jack smiled, down to five already. The selection was going well.

  After all his plotting, soon it would be time.

  His destiny.

  Chapter 15

  Zoe pushed on the frosted glass door and took a tentative look inside. The usual pre-meeting hum of conversations stopped as people turned, but started again when they saw it was only the newbie arriving.

&
nbsp; It was her second day in the Terrorism-Cyber special unit. The first had been a round of introductions and briefing notes to wade through. Today was when the work started. This meeting was the kick-off.

  Zoe headed for an empty space against the back wall and weaved around the other team members who slouched on beanbags or perched on balance balls. She reached her spot and nodded to the man next to her. What was his name? Sam? Josh? She hadn’t had a chance to memorise them all. As she rested her back against the wall, the door opened again, and Detective Chief Superintendent Bhatt strode in. The noise in the room vanished – part respect for Bhatt, part anticipation.

  Bhatt slowly and deliberately tracked her eyes around the room, making sure she caught everyone’s eye.

  ‘DI Alexis Sawyer is heading up this special group,’ she said, nodding to the person standing to her right.

  Sawyer straightened at the mention of her name.

  ‘She has my complete backing.’ Bhatt paused and waited – demanding all their attention. ‘I came today to emphasise the importance of your work.’

  With a small nod to the room, Bhatt marched to the door and was gone. Typical, Zoe thought, straight to the point and no unnecessary chat.

  ‘OK, team,’ Sawyer said as she moved to the centre of the room. ‘With the cyber threat level at “Imminent”, we want to catch any hint of terror attacks from the electronic traffic – real or virtual. It’s going to take intense data grinding, but we can make a real difference. You’ve all seen the briefings. There are plenty of possible leads.’

  Sawyer repeated Bhatt’s slow track of the room with her eyes. It didn’t have the same intensity, but Sawyer still got her message across – this was serious work with no option of failing. Sawyer took the rest of the meeting emphasising the point and describing everyone’s work assignments. She finished with Zoe.

  ‘Zoe,’ Sawyer said. ‘Welcome to the team. I’ve heard good things from DCS Bhatt.’

  ‘Thank you, Boss,’ Zoe replied, conscious of everyone turning to look at her again. She flashed a smile, but kept her eyes serious. She would make herself central to the team.

  ‘I want you to start by looking for correlations between the number of messages sent into the UK and any of the recent cyber attacks. See if you can find anyone who’s more active just before an attack.’

  ***

  While Zoe was settling to her task, Clive’s call was disintegrating, and he banged his hand on the screen of the car as it turned into the King Edward VII hospital car park.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said for what felt like the fiftieth time, losing the battle to keep the sulk out of his voice.

  ‘You’re clearly not,’ Sophia countered.

  ‘Look, Sophia, I can handle it.’

  ‘If you could, you wouldn’t be going to the hospital…’ She went silent and then said, ‘Oh, do what you want. You will anyway,’ and hung up the call. If she had screamed at him, he could have taken it, but the resigned coldness in her voice ate at Clive and forced an involuntary shiver.

  His appointment was due in five minutes, and he tried to shake the call out of his head as he repeated the check-in process and pushed open the door to Exam Room 5 when the green light showed.

  Dilani Adhya sat at her desk, her hands moving in front of her face as she typed on her HUD. She used her eyes to motion Clive to the empty seat opposite her and mouthed a silent, ‘Sorry, just a minute.’

  Dilani’s dancing hands were still visible in the corner of his eye as Clive scanned the room. It didn’t take long. A sterile hospital examination room – display wall, cupboard, narrow bed to lie on, flimsy curtain, desk and two chairs. His eyes caught a flash of reflected light as Dilani twisted to reach for something on her desk, and Clive noticed that Dilani’s NM badge was silver in colour and not green like Summer’s teacher’s badge.

  Finally, Dilani’s hands dropped and she turned to face Clive.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Lussac,’ she said. ‘I think you may have had a wasted journey.’

  Clive looked bemused.

  ‘I had planned to run a series of tests to try and see why your blood sugar level has been spiking with no food intake.’

  Clive said nothing. He knew why his blood sugar spiked. His stolen Health Bank bracelet hid his eating from the sensors in his iMe. His FU allowance didn’t allow for chocolate, but his craving couldn’t be denied.

  ‘Unfortunately, the Ministry of Well-being and Health have only just replied to me. They’re saying that because this is a pre-existing, self-inflicted condition, you should be put on the low priority list. I’m not allowed to run the tests today.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Clive asked. Even though he knew the cause, he didn’t want his diabetes back and unmanaged.

  ‘As you’re a police officer, you’re in a protected occupation. You need to talk to police Employee Wellness and your boss. Get them to raise it with the Ministry.’

  ‘No way you can do the tests today?’

  Dilani shook her head. ‘But I’ll set you a new diet.’ She hesitated and looked around the room.

  Clive’s eyebrows raised, she seemed to want to say something else. ‘What?’

  She let out a little cough and said, ‘In cases like yours, the New Modelists can provide guidance and a supportive framework in this difficult world.’

  She stopped when she saw Clive’s head shaking back and forth like an overactive set of windscreen wipers.

  ‘Not you as well… sorry, thanks anyway, but I can’t,’ Clive said, stood and left.

  As he walked out of the hospital, the rain stopped, and he caught the smell of damp tarmac. Clive’s Buddy jogged onto his HUD, trailing an ‘Urgent New Message’ banner. Clive clicked on the banner and his Buddy threw the message text onto his HUD.

  The name of the message sender crashed into Clive, stopping him dead. ‘Special Investigator Winter, Freedom Unit Enforcement, Ministry of Well-being and Health.’

  Clive knew that Winter would be coming for him, but the message text made Clive’s legs almost give way.

  ‘Inspector, it is with great anticipation that I am re-opening my investigation into your Freedom Unit abuse.’

  Chapter 16

  Serge smoothed the green, satin fabric cover draped over the boxes on the middle of the table and nodded to his assistants. They each went to a door in the back wall and unlocked it. The five remaining contestants stepped out. Serge motioned them forward to the yellow line on the floor.

  He lifted his hands and placed them on top of the cover, knowing the motion would draw their attention. All eyes looked at the cover.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Serge said, smiling. ‘You have proved that you have the skills to perform well in the ultimate augmented reality game.’

  Sully looked up and pushed his chin forward. ‘Too right.’

  Serge gave a small shake of his head and said, ‘You can all count. The game is for four players and there are five of you… so we have more challenges. We keep going until there are four.’

  The Five flicked glances at each other, and Serge could feel their excitement and nerves at being so close. He made them wait.

  ‘But before that, let’s talk about the prize. The first is obviously access to the Forbidden Island and the chance to play the ultimate game. Along with that is the glory and fan worship you will get. The forums will shout your names.’

  Although Lilou, Sully and Jose beamed, Femi and Tatsuko stayed focused on the table.

  ‘There are different motivations – maybe honouring the memory of a parent.’ Serge looked at Tatsuko. ‘Or helping your family.’ Femi lifted his eyes, as though he was picturing a favourite scene.

  ‘We all need money and there is a prize fund, paid in Pan-European dollars. Five million to the winner.’ Each of The Five smiled, seeming to be spending the cash already. ‘Three million to second place, one million to third, and half a million for last.’ The Five winced at the word last.

  ‘But the main prize for playing the game
is special.’ Serge tapped his hand on the box under the cover on the table, and all eyes snapped back to it. ‘This is unobtainable to mere civilians, but I have contacts. You think that you are already able to do things others can’t. You are already part of the AR elite, but…’ Serge grasped the fabric cover and started to slowly drag it off the boxes, ‘I offer you the chance to be superhuman.’

  With a flick of his hand, Serge completed the reveal. The Five whooped and cheered and crowded up to the table.

  ‘No way,’ said Tatsuko.

  ‘Magnifique,’ sighed Lilou.

  There were two simple blue boxes on the table, nothing to get excited about in themselves.

  Except for the logo. Everyone ached and yearned for products wearing that logo.

  The initials BST shone in red with a gold leaf background. A red border made in a diamond shape surrounded the letters. It looked like a stylised version of the Superman and Superwoman logos from the films. The B and T letters smaller, next to the bigger central S.

  ‘Obviously you know of BioSuperTech products.’ Serge picked up the smaller box and opened it. He pulled out a small sleeve-like object with a solid end. ‘This is the universal mount. We will take your measurements and customise it to your arm and skin tone.’

  They nodded, waiting for the bigger box. Serge could taste their anticipation. BST was everything.

  ‘My contacts have access to the latest generation products.’ Serge opened the bigger box, placed the lid on the table and turned it so that The Five could see the contents. All five moaned, a low ‘ooo’ noise of longing and desire.

  ‘I have four,’ Serge said.

  The box held a hand. But not a real hand. Much better – a BST synth-hand. The shape was hand-like, but on this BST model, the little finger and third finger were replaced by a second thumb and index finger giving a huge range of grips and possible uses. The hand’s simple satin finish hid all the technology and bionics that BST was famous for. Ten times the strength and sensitivity to the touch of an inferior human hand.

  ‘You can choose any finger configuration or finish you want. Something bright and obvious or a subtle colour match to make it look natural if you prefer a stealth look.’