by Hammond, Ray
Reon Albertyn insists that none of his family have ever had a similar ageing disease nor skin of the same pigmentation and my local agent found his parents in good health in Neuville, a township 12 miles outside of Cape Town. They also reported no incidence of any ageing disease or leucoethiopia in Albertyn’s family but Reon Albertyn’s putative father strongly disputes paternity. I am currently awaiting independent DNA verification of his claim.
Ends
Underneath the report Deakin had scrawled ‘Lily Albertyn employed by Erasmus Research SA 1999–03’.
Jack shook his head and pondered what his first steps would be when he got back to the island – he would need an ally, he realized. Then he ordered a large vodka and tonic from the flight attendant before pulling another report from the pile and starting to read.
His arrival at Fort Mead had been expected and he was quickly escorted into the bowels of the research facility. He remembered the first part of the route well, but then he and his escort continued on to a new extension. Here a guard in a UN uniform assumed responsibility for the visitor and walked him down a brightly lit corridor to a pair of double doors. The guard opened them and nodded for Jack to enter. The doors closed behind him and Jack smiled to himself. Even seen from the back, he knew the figure hunched over the keyboard very well.
‘Doctor Lynch? It’s Bruce Curtis. I hope you’re expecting me.’
The man continued typing for a few moments, then lifted his hands and turned his wheelchair to face the visitor. Suddenly a broad smile lit his face.
‘Well, I’ll be damned! Jack Hendriksen.’
Jack dropped his briefcase onto a chair and quickly crossed the room to take the eagerly outstretched hand.
‘How are you, Al? You look good.’
Jack had spent part of the plane ride from Newark working through the emotions he knew would surface when he met Lynch again. He hadn’t seen the computer-systems expert since the crash that had killed Helen and partly paralysed Al: they had been flying back to New York together for Christmas leave, Al to join his family, Helen to their beloved Gramercy Park loft.
‘My, my. But I heard you got out, Jack?’
‘I was out, Al, but it seems like I’m back in again – although it’s the UN this time. As of two days ago.’
Lynch nodded. Then he took a breath and said what had to be said. ‘I was very sorry about Helen, Jack. We all were.’
Jack nodded, feeling an ache rise up, though less acutely than he had anticipated.
‘I got your letter, Al. Thanks.’
‘And I got yours, Jack. Eventually. So how are you?’
‘I’m over it, Al. Or as over it as you can ever get.’
As he said what was expected of him he wondered, for the first time, if that might be starting to be true.
‘What about you? Look at this place. You’ve got a whole new set of toys.’
He didn’t mention the wheelchair.
Lynch noted the change of subject and took his cue. ‘Sit down, help yourself to coffee,’ he offered with a smile. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’
Jack saw the percolator and plastic cups on a desk and poured himself a black coffee. ‘You?’ he asked waving the coffee jug in Lynch’s direction.
‘No, no, just sit down, Jack,’ said Lynch urgently.
Jack did as he was told and raised the coffee cup to his lips.
‘Watch,’ said Lynch. He locked the wheels of his chair, grasped both arm supports and pushed himself to a standing position. He rocked slightly and then gained his balance. He next took a hesitant step with his right leg and then brought the left up to join it. He took another step and then brought his left leg forward again. Slowly, but with a huge smile on his face, he shuffled across the room until he halted two feet in front of Jack.
Jack put his cup down and stood up. He could feel a wetness in his eyes. He held out his arms and hugged his former colleague.
‘Al, that’s wonderful.’
This time the tears came. He was crying, not for Al but for Helen – and for himself. But, yes, he was crying for Alan Lynch too. Al was walking again!
Jack pulled away and looked down at his former systems instructor, who was over a head shorter and nearly bald. Lynch was beaming up at him.
Jack wiped his eyes. ‘I thought they couldn’t fix it?’
‘That’s what they said at first. But I just got out of hospital again, three weeks ago. Watch this.’
Jack watched as his ex-instructor spread his arms and carefully started to turn in a slow circle.
‘I have to practise for an hour every day – no more, no less, they say. But I’ve done two hours already today!’ He beamed triumphantly as Jack sat down again.
‘That’s wonderful – how did they . . .’
Lynch finished turning and began a slow shuffle back to his wheelchair.
‘My back’s still broken,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘The spinal column is completely severed just above the T12 vertebra.’
He reached his chair and turned back to Jack. ‘They’ve bypassed the break and they’ve interfaced the first cervical nerve and the spinal nerve here.’ He touched the back of his neck and turned so that Jack could follow his hand movement. ‘And a bionet of microwires and signal amplifiers runs all the way down to here,’ he touched the base of his spine, ‘where it’s interfaced again to the sciatic, pudendal and lumbar nerves.’
He turned back to face Jack, beaming. ‘They’ve put a steel brace on the spinal column and they say that eventually all the nerve endings will grow onto the bioconnectors and I’ll be back to normal, more or less.’
Jack felt himself grinning broadly as he watched the man lower himself gently into the wheelchair.
‘That’s wonderful.’ He smiled again. They hadn’t even been able to show him Helen’s body. He often wondered if they had even found it all. How could so much damage have been caused at such a low height? The Navy passenger jet had been only a few hundred feet off the ground when the obsolete shoulder-launched missile had hit.
‘At least they got the bastards,’ growled Lynch, picking up Jack’s mood. ‘They’re on Death Row now.’
Jack nodded. But they wanted to die, that was the problem. They thought they were going to ‘Allah’. They were indoctrinated, superstitious, information-deprived, aspiring martyrs carrying an antique, distorted and grotesque fantasy of Muslim righteousness into the heart of the infidel nation: to a rural airbase perimeter road that, despite two decades of recurrent terrorist attacks on US soil, had still been inadequately guarded. It was as if an ignorant native tribe from the distant past had travelled into the future solely to attack him and his family. Jack pulled himself away from such thoughts.
‘So what’s new in systems?’ he asked.
*
‘If there’s nothing wrong, why is he here?’ demanded Calypso. ‘Why precisely?’ She was angry and she knew it showed.
Marcus Forrester, commercial director of the Hope Island Research Clinic, smiled and tried to quieten down the noisy visitor.
‘Because Tom asks us to keep a special eye on him. It’s really nothing more than that, Doctor. He’s an only son, after all.’
‘Let me see him,’ insisted Calypso again. ‘I am charged with his medical care, not your staff.’
She knew this wasn’t wholly true, but she’d been shocked when the senior nurse up at the Tye mansion had told her that Tommy had been admitted to the high-security research clinic for three days. It was precisely this sort of ludicrous overprotection she was trying to prevent.
Without any apology or explanation she had been kept waiting for ten minutes in the large reception area of the underground clinic until Forrester had eventually emerged.
He smiled again. ‘Of course. Right this way, Doctor Browne.’ Insincerity radiated from his face, like a flight attendant’s farewell.
He led Calypso from the reception area into an elevator. As they descended Forrester tried to make small talk, but by the
time they had travelled three floors down he had abandoned the attempt. He led the way into a softly illuminated corridor with half a dozen white doors aligned down either side. At the third on the right he stopped and swung the door open for Calypso to enter. She could hear the sounds of a hydraimmersion chair from within.
She hesitated outside. ‘Exactly what tests are your people running, Mr Forrester?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to see both the procedures and the results.’
‘Naturally. I will arrange that, Doctor,’ agreed Forrester unctuously. ‘Please . . .’ He gestured towards the door.
Calypso eyed him suspiciously and entered.
Tommy was oblivious of her arrival. He was wearing blue striped pyjamas and he was strapped into a grade 4–6 size 360-degree HydraChair fitted with full kinetic, tactility and olfactory sensory capabilities and user reafference. The helmet visor covered his face to below his nose. As she watched, whatever virtual craft he was piloting started a steep left-hand turn and the hydraulic supports of the small chair tipped him over at a thirty-degree angle. She heard him laugh and saw him shudder as the chair transmitted the sense of the force to his body. Then he was flying level again. Next his chair tipped upwards at the front and he was in a sharp climb. She could detect a faint aroma of jet-engine fuel in the atmosphere.
Calypso crossed to the wall screen and reviewed Tommy’s physical history for the previous hour. As Forrester had said, there was nothing to worry about. She looked around the room, but she could see no trace of testing equipment or other records.
Suddenly Thomas Tye was beside her. He was sweating gently, as if he had been hurrying. She guessed he had been told of her sudden arrival at the clinic, and of her demands. She also guessed that it had been at his request that she had been kept waiting.
‘What’s this, Calypso? You should have been told you were not required today.’
Calypso folded her arms and turned to face her employer. She was wearing a bright yellow polo shirt and navy shorts, having planned to walk along to a restaurant beside the marina and meet Heather Garland for lunch. She had hoped to learn more from her about the disputed chess game.
‘I called the house to talk to Nurse Pettigrew about Tommy going back to school,’ she explained. ‘Then I was told that Tommy wouldn’t be returning. I asked to talk to him and she said he was here.’
‘What do you think your job here is, Doctor?’ asked Tye quickly. He was almost exactly the same height as her and his violet eyes flashed as he held her gaze.
‘To look after Tommy, of course. To help him feel good about his fortunate position and to try and keep him sane when everything around him is insane.’
The words had come from nowhere. She’d meant them more figuratively than literally, but their effect on Tye was dramatic. The colour drained from his face and his lips pulled back from his teeth.
‘Your job is to observe and report, Doctor, not to interfere,’ he hissed, stabbing the air with his finger. ‘We’ve got the world’s best medical researchers on this island and I don’t expect you to get in their way.’
Calypso’s training came to her aid. She understood that irrational anger had to be calmed, not confronted. She said nothing.
‘You’re a qualified companion,’ Tye continued, ‘in case Tommy gets over-strained.’
Her feelings got the better of her. ‘The only strain is the one that you put on him,’ Calypso pointed out. ‘Why can’t you let him be normal, like other boys? He’d be far healthier for it, rather than living like some semi-institutionalized freak!’
‘That’s enough, Doctor,’ snapped Tye.
‘No, it’s not enough,’ insisted Calypso, determined to take the opportunity presented. ‘Tommy is getting none of the praise, none of the constant assurance necessary to build his virtual identity – to create a robust personality, to put it in layman’s terms. He isn’t getting the love he needs to form relationships. He’s not a laboratory specimen!’
‘YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE FUCKING TALKING ABOUT!’ shouted Tye. ‘You’ve only been here five minutes.’ He swallowed, then looked at his son. ‘He’s a genius, Doctor,’ he added, waving at the oblivious Tommy in his HydraChair. ‘He’s got an IQ of over one eighty, he has talents like no other child, he’s already reached Grand Master level at chess. Fucking doctors! I, better than anybody, should have seen through you. You’re a quack, a charlatan.’
‘He’s a little boy,’ shouted Calypso, now seriously angry. ‘And money alone does not qualify you to be a parent! You must be insane!’
He hit her hard, open-handed across the face. The sound reverberated around the small hospital room.
‘Never, ever say that,’ he snarled pushing his face into hers.
Instinctively, Calypso had clapped her left hand to her assaulted cheek. She had never been struck before and part of her mind was consciously questioning how she felt about it. Then she slapped Thomas Tye across his face, as hard as she could.
He pulled back and stared at her in disbelief, shocked into silence. He had never been struck before, either.
Calypso suddenly realized there was no other sound in the room. She turned and saw that the HydraChair had stopped its motion. The helmet visor was swung up to its idle position. Tommy was staring at them, his violet eyes wide.
Calypso forced a smile and crossed the room. She squatted beside him. ‘It’s OK, Tommy. Grown-ups sometimes have arguments, too.’
‘Leave us, Doctor,’ ordered Tye. She noticed tears forming in his eyes.
Calypso hesitated as Tommy stared into her face with his father’s eyes. He was obviously scared.
‘LEAVE US!’ screamed Tye.
She touched Tommy’s cheek and rose. Walking slowly to the doorway, she turned and looked into Tye’s face. Tears were now streaming down his cheeks.
‘What have you done?’ she asked him quietly.
She pressed the panic button on the wall. Then she turned and left Tye and his offspring alone together.
*
Haley sensed Rosemary’s excitement when she called.
‘Can you get over here now?’ the agent had asked. ‘Let’s meet at the café again.’
They hadn’t seen each other since Haley had threatened to find alternative literary representation, though Rosemary had sent her a bunch of flowers with a card saying she would continue to seek other publishers who might be interested in Haley’s book.
As Haley threaded her way through the tables she saw Rosemary had arrived ahead of her and was already smoking her second cigarette. She also noticed an ice bucket waiting beside the table, and wine glasses glinting on the white cloth. It was a beautiful June morning but still only eleven o’clock, so rather too early for a lunchtime drink.
Rosemary rose to greet her client. ‘I’ve ordered champagne,’ she gushed as they both sat down. ‘I’ve got good news for you. The Sloan Press – in New York – has made an offer.’
Haley had half-wondered whether an alternative offer might be the reason for this summons.
‘That’s wonderful. Was it the new material, about Tye’s son, that hooked them?’
Rosemary smiled. She hadn’t sent them the latest updates before they had made the offer. In fact, until they’d approached her, she hadn’t sent them anything at all. But all agents want their writers to believe that it was hard work and not luck that made the difference. The fact was that the Sloan Press’s editor-in-chief Luke Bailey had called out of the blue and asked to see the manuscript so far. He claimed to be fascinated by the idea that it was so hot that Nautilus had pulled out. Rosemary had e-mailed the text to him that same afternoon and twenty-four hours later he had made the offer.
‘They love all of it, Haley,’ she dissembled.
Haley nodded eagerly.
‘They’ve even matched Nautilus’s advance, and they’ll provide a generous research and travel budget. They’re promising a massive marketing campaign . . .’
She tailed off as the waiter arrived with the bottle of
champagne. She tasted it quickly and nodded for him to pour.
‘I was sure you’d want to celebrate.’
‘But what about the injunctions?’ Haley asked. ‘Won’t the Tye Corporation just reissue them against Sloan Press?’
‘Luke Bailey says that’s part of the plan. He believes that if the Tye Corporation really goes after the book, the subsequent legal action will attract massive publicity. His PR people can then turn any attempt to suppress your book into headline news.’
Haley nodded as she sipped the cool champagne. She could see the logic to that.
‘And there’s something else,’ added Rosemary, slipping a piece of folded paper from her handbag and handing it to her author. Haley unfolded it and scanned the words.
‘It’s your draft itinerary,’ Rosemary explained. ‘Luke Bailey wants you to go and visit him in New York next week. He wants to discuss the book in detail and for you to get together with their lawyers to plan your defence and a counter-attack. He also wants to discuss serialization in the newspapers – under non-disclosures, of course!’
Haley felt a little dazed by it all.
‘What do you think?’ urged Rosemary as she lit another cigarette. ‘Should we accept?’
Haley smiled her answer.
‘Here’s to it,’ said Rosemary as she lifted her glass in a toast.
Haley touched her glass to the agent’s.
*
There had been a lot to learn. After two days of his intensive refresher course in computing and communications systems, Jack’s mind was reeling from the onslaught.