Resonance

by Chris Dolley

  "You've heard about that AI engine of theirs that can take all kinds of unrelated data and put them together to solve all manner of problems?"

  "Ye-es."

  "Well, you can use it to solve crime as well."

  "Is this a joke?" Jenny leaned forward, hands on desk.

  "Ask Dave if he thinks it a joke," snapped Annalise. She could tell Jenny was on the verge of asking them to leave. "I'm giving you the biggest story you've ever had and I can give you proof."

  "How?"

  "Give me two unsolved crimes and I'll solve them for you. Any case you like as long as they're at least a month old."

  Jenny shuffled in her chair. She looked uncomfortable. She shook her head. "This is ridiculous," she said.

  "Look at ParaDim's results. They create patents out of nothing. How come that's not ridiculous? It's all to do with analyzing data and finding patterns. Ask your science guys. ParaDim's making incredible breakthroughs every day."

  "Why would they have data on crimes?"

  "Because they have data on everything. You've heard of the Census project. It's packed with data about people."

  "Do the police know about this?" She still sounded incredulous but at least she was listening.

  "No one knows about it," said Annalise. "The police, the politicians, nobody. I kinda hacked in and stumbled across it. I couldn't believe they were keeping the information secret."

  "Wait, let me get this straight. ParaDim has a mechanism for analyzing and solving crime but they're keeping it quiet?" She still sounded incredulous.

  "Right."

  "But why? They could generate fantastic publicity for the company. It would be a tremendous boon to society."

  Annalise shook her head. "Not enough profit in it. ParaDim's only interested in the big bucks. And," she stressed the word, "there are certain crimes ParaDim doesn't want solved."

  "Like what?"

  "I'm coming to that. First you've gotta know the reason. ParaDim's researching weapons that make chemical and biological weapons look like children's toys. They call them New Tech weapons and they're gonna sell them to the highest bidder. Mass-produced mass terror. They don't care who they sell to as long as they can pay."

  Jenny was silent and looking far from convinced. Annalise had hoped the smell of a story would have been enough but she was losing her. She could tell.

  "And anyone who speaks up against what's going on disappears," Annalise continued. "Three people yesterday. I was with them in May Street when all hell broke loose. People with guns everywhere. Me and Graham got away by climbing over a roof. The other three weren't so lucky. You can check it out. Kevin Alexander, Howard Sarkissian and Tamisha Kent. I'll write the names down for you."

  Annalise searched for a slip of paper. Jenny handed her a note pad and Annalise scribbled the names down.

  "There," she said, handing over the paper. "Check them out. They're all well-known scientists and they'll all appear as ParaDim employees but you won't be able to find them anywhere. They've disappeared."

  "I won't be long." Jenny took the list and walked outside. Annalise tried to listen. The door to the main office was open but she couldn't isolate Jenny's voice from the surrounding buzz.

  A minute later Jenny returned and closed the door. "I have someone checking those names right now." She paused and looked hard into Annalise's eyes. "If you're spinning me a line . . ."

  She left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  "Have you any proof at all? Documents?" asked Jenny, lighting up another cigarette.

  "No, that's why I was meeting Kevin yesterday. He had papers, disks, the lot. But ParaDim must have been on to him and had him followed."

  Annalise prayed she wasn't going to have to repeat this story word for word later on. It was all she could do to keep her story afloat. She had to convince Jenny to open an investigation. The dirt was there. All it needed was someone to point the press in the right direction. Once that was done, Annalise could disappear.

  That was the plan—discredit ParaDim, mire them in investigations before they became too powerful to stop. If she could delay the development of New Tech weapons maybe there'd be hope.

  "How did you meet this," Jenny looked down and read the name from the paper, "Kevin Alexander? I can't see how you progressed from hacker to . . . to whatever you are now."

  Annalise opened her mouth with no idea how the next sentence would end. If needs be, it wouldn't. She'd keep talking until she found something to say.

  "His name was with the New Tech weapon files. He'd written a whole bunch of letters warning against their development. I contacted him and he introduced me to the others."

  "Why? You say he's a respected scientist. Why should he put his trust in you?"

  "Because he needed to trust someone and I was there. He knew what ParaDim would do to him if he went public so he was looking for a third party. Someone who could front his story to the press without his name getting back to ParaDim."

  Jenny shook her head. "Why a third party? He'd have to know that reporters go to jail rather than reveal their sources—"

  "Because," interrupted Annalise, "ParaDim scans all calls. They've been doing it for months. That's one of the first things he told me. They have these search algorithms scanning all communications looking for certain keywords. The technology they have is generations ahead of everything else. He couldn't risk his name being dropped in an unguarded phone call or email. That's why I used the Tracey Minton story over the phone. To get an intro to you so I could tell you in person what was really happening."

  Jenny looked worried. "The information you gave me on Tracey . . ."

  "Totally legit," interrupted Annalise. "Don't worry. Test me again. Like I said. Give me another two murders and I'll prove it to you."

  Annalise looked Jenny in the eye—half pleading, half challenging. Jenny returned the look, her face impassive. Annalise couldn't tell which way she was going to decide.

  The reporter smiled. "What have I got to lose?" she said. "I'll find you two murders."

  * * *

  Jenny returned with two files which she handed to Annalise. Two murder investigations that were going nowhere.

  Annalise memorized the information she'd need—names, dates, addresses—then turned to Jenny and asked, "Do you have a washroom? I need to freshen up."

  A minute later she closed the stall door, sat down and sent her mind in search of Annalise Six.

  "Where have you been?" asked Six. "I've been trying to contact you for ages."

  "Busy," said Fifteen. "Listen, I need you to solve another two murders for me."

  "What!" She could tell that Six was upset. A telepathic shout didn't have the volume of a vocal shout but it had an intensity—an almost echoing quality as though the receiver's head had expanded to the size of a cathedral and someone had all the organ stops pulled out.

  "Have you lost your mind?" Six continued. "We're trying to stop a resonance wave . . ."

  "So I'd heard," Fifteen projected sarcastically. "But stopping the resonance wave isn't going to help people like me. We're already on the conveyor belt."

  "What conveyor belt?"

  "ParaDim's conveyor belt. The four-year slide into New Tech chaos and destruction. Way I see it, stopping the resonance wave's great for all those worlds without a ParaDim but what about the rest of us? Zap the wave and the conveyor belt might slow down but it's not gonna stop. You're still gonna have people at ParaDim looking at blueprints of New Tech weapons and seeing a big fat profit. The only way to stop that is to stop ParaDim. Now, before it's too late."

  "Why does everyone hate ParaDim so much? They're curing cancer!"

  "Check your files, Annalise. The bad outweighs the good. In four years' time we'll all be too busy killing each other to worry about who's sick. ParaDim has to be broken up. Now."

  "How? By solving murders?"

  "No, by an old proverb—my enemy's enemy."

  "What?"

  "My enemy's enemy i
s my friend. Don't they teach you that on your world? Find out who hates ParaDim the most and give them something to hurt ParaDim with. Email the Pentagon, tell them about New Tech weapons and the plan to keep the Pentagon out of the loop. Feed scandals to the press. You don't need to tell anyone about parallel worlds. No one'd believe that anyway. Tell them about greed and conspiracies and things they'd understand. ParaDim gets away with murder because no one takes them seriously until it's too late. No one believes a company can grow that big that quick. They succeed by stealth and they can be beaten by publicity."

  "Are you being paid to solve these murders?" Six's words came across clipped and accusatory.

  "Only the first one. I need to eat and I need a change of clothes. I'm still wearing the same gasoline-soaked clothes from yesterday. And I need money to fund the attack on ParaDim. Now, are you gonna help me or not?"

  "Give me the names. I'll see what I can do," Six said resignedly.

  "I'm really desperate, Six. If I can't convince this reporter I'm for real then me and Graham are on the streets tonight. No money, no place to go and a city full of big black cars and guys with guns. I need names and I need them in the next thirty minutes."

  "I'll fetch a pen," said Six.

  * * *

  Annalise Fifteen returned to find an empty office. Empty except for Graham. He looked up as she came in and promptly looked down again.

  "Where's Jenny?" she asked.

  Graham shrugged. She envied him his implacability. She had taken him off a bus, dragged him across the country and back, sat him in a strange woman's office and spent the last half hour making up stories in front of him. Yet, he hadn't turned a hair.

  Which, looking at it another way, was utterly sad. The fact that he could put up with it—probably had put up with it all his life. Strange things happen. Endure and they go away. Was that his credo? She shook her head. That was no way to live.

  Jenny returned. "Is there anything else you need?" she asked Annalise.

  "A laptop and a phone line out. And somewhere private for an hour. The AI program takes forever to process the data."

  "I'd like to watch."

  Annalise shook her head. "Sorry. Trade secret. I made a promise to the guy who showed me the back door in. It's not a problem, is it?"

  "No," said Jenny, looking hard at Annalise. "Not for the moment."

  Jenny showed Graham and Annalise into a small room on the other side of the office. A minute later, a young man came in with a laptop and connected it to a phone socket for her. A girl dropped off a notepad and pen.

  Thirty minutes went by. Graham played Solitaire. Annalise paced the room. How long would Annalise Six take? What if the murders hadn't been solved? Not anywhere. What if they were one-offs—a chance meeting between two strangers who didn't exist on any other world?

  "Annalise? Fifteen, are you there?"

  Annalise jumped as the words entered her head. "Yes, I'm here. Is that you, Six? Did you get it?"

  She scrambled back to her chair, grabbed the pen and notepad.

  "Victoria Pitt's murder's weird," said Six. "I've found three different killers. Either she really pisses people off or it's the husband hiring different guys. I'd go with the husband. He was convicted on five of the worlds. I've got a list of the men and the evidence that put them away."

  She gave Annalise the details. Names, addresses, witnesses.

  "This is amazing," Fifteen said, as she tried to keep pace, writing the details down as fast as she could.

  "The little girl was killed by a man called Stephen Landcroft. He killed two other girls—Naomi Barnes and Karen Greenhill. They're all buried in his basement." She paused. "He kept mementoes in the attic. A real piece of work."

  "You have just saved my life," said Annalise Fifteen as she copied down the last line.

  She'd filled three pages.

  * * *

  Time raced after that. Jenny was pleased. Warmth began to replace suspicion in her eyes. She loved the amount of detail Annalise had provided. The police loved it even more. Especially the link to Naomi Barnes. It was a connection they'd made a month earlier but hadn't made public.

  It was a similar story when Jenny rang her contact on the Victoria Pitt murder. They'd suspected the husband but couldn't find a motive. Now they had their first real lead.

  A succession of people filed in to meet Annalise. The editor shook her hand and told her how much the paper valued her assistance. Then came the paper's science correspondent. He'd heard of Howard Sarkissian and had met Tamisha Kent.

  "Striking blonde girl," he said, looking straight into Annalise's eyes.

  "Funny, she was an African-American yesterday," corrected Annalise, staring straight back until he looked away.

  Others questioned her about ParaDim. They'd heard about New Tech weapons research—shield technology and side arms—innovative and profitable but hardly weapons of mass destruction.

  "That's what ParaDim wants you to think," Annalise told them. "They don't want the Pentagon sniffing around. New Tech weapons make other weapons obsolete. They're cheap, easy to produce and ParaDim doesn't care who they sell them to."

  As the evening wore on, Annalise felt better and better. People were listening to her. Really listening.

  Then Jenny's phone rang. It was Dave. They'd recovered the jewelry in the Tracey Minton murder and the fence had confirmed Annalise's story.

  "No, Dave, she's not a witness," said Jenny, turning back to her phone. "She . . . she hears things." Dave said something and Jenny laughed. "No, she's not a bloody psychic. She's a well-placed source." She looked over at Annalise and smiled. "One that you and I can't afford to lose."

  She put the phone down. "How would you and Graham like to stay with me tonight? I have a spare room . . . or two," she said, glancing over at Graham.

  "That'll be great. Two rooms'll be fine."

  "I'll send out for food. My kitchen's more ornament than workplace." She laughed as she tossed her cigarettes and lighter into her bag and pulled out her car keys. "It'll be nice to have company for a change."

  They left. Jenny pulled her coat on as they walked through the vast open plan office. Graham followed a few paces behind. Jenny leaned in towards Annalise.

  "What's his story?" she whispered, nodding back towards Graham. "Where does he fit in?"

  "He's someone who needs to hide even more than me."

  Forty-One

  Graham sat in the foyer of the Cavendish Clinic. Shikha was upstairs processing results and Annalise was on her way to fetch him. In the meantime, he'd found a comfortable leather chair and was drifting inexorably towards sleep.

  The door spun furiously and Annalise tumbled through.

  "Sorry I'm late," she said as she saw Graham. "Something came up."

  Graham could guess what. Something to do with Gary.

  He stretched and changed the subject.

  "Did Howard find anything in his search through the Chaos?"

  "Not a thing," said Annalise, flinging herself down into the chair next to Graham. "Everyone loses. It's like someone sticks a giant hand in the pot and stirs everything up. People rise to the top, last a few months, then sink without trace."

  "No one benefits at all?"

  "A few people on the sidelines, maybe. But it's different guys on each world and Howard can't find any link between them and ParaDim."

  "So it has to be Sylvestrus."

  "Not according to Gary," she said, raising her eyebrows.

  Graham's heart leapt. Was she disparaging Gary? Was there a rift? Was there . . .

  He looked away. What was the matter with him? He was being ridiculous. Lives were in danger and all he could think about was Annalise and Gary.

  "And the guy really does die. Howard thought . . ." She paused. "Graham? You okay?"

  "What?" He turned. "I'm a bit tired that's all. Who did you say died?"

  "Sylvestrus. Howard thought he might have switched bodies somehow but he didn't. The guy shot dead in
the street was definitely Adam Sylvestrus."

  "What about the Spanish girl? Has anyone found out any more about her?"

  "Not much. Gary and Howard are sifting through every word she's ever written. Every article and dissertation from every world. Just in case there's something there."

  She smiled and, suddenly, his breath was taken away. The tilt of her head, the smile, the sparkle in her eyes. It could have been Annalise Fifteen—different hair, different background—but the expression was the same. The same look she'd given him yesterday on the roof, the moment before she'd dropped behind the ridge.

  "Are you sure you're okay? You look like you've seen a ghost," said Annalise.

  He had. And he'd keep on seeing ghosts. Was that what hurt the most about Six and Gary? Was he projecting his feelings for Fifteen upon her? Was it Fifteen's hand he saw on Gary's arm? Or was he attracted to all the girls? Would his life be forever miserable until every Annalise had joined a convent?

  He forced a yawn. "I'm just tired," he said. "I didn't sleep too well last night." He let the sentence trail off and looked down at his hands. He had to get away. Proximity was making things worse. The way she looked at him, her voice. She only had to smile and he could feel his IQ plummet. If he didn't say something stupid, he was going to do something stupid. It was only a matter of time.

  "Have you decided where you're staying tonight?" asked Annalise. "Gary says you can stay at the Putney office if you want. There'll be a night shift there and they have beds."

  Graham shook his head. Spending a night at a ParaDim office was never an option.

  "What about a hotel?" She dipped into her bag and produced a wad of notes. "Gary gave me this for you. There'll be rooms at the hotel I'm staying at."

  He shook his head. Being in the same hotel as Annalise was not an option either. Not the way he felt. He'd be convinced any voice or footstep he heard was Gary's. Best to stay away from her, push her out of his mind, go home, take out a jigsaw.

  "I think I'll go home," he said, placing his hands on the armrest and pushing himself unsteadily to his feet.

  "Do you want to eat first?"

  "No," he said, stretching his arms. The thought of sitting opposite Annalise for an hour, tying himself in knots trying to read her feelings towards him from every nuance of her voice or tilt of her head . . .