dotwav

by Mike A. Lancaster

  Abernathy fiddled with the board and brought up a picture of a boy with a haircut that looked like it had been done using a bowl and scissors. By his mom.

  He was dressed in a dark blue blazer and tie. Thick-rimmed glasses magnified his eyes into saucers.

  “This was Harry Brewster last year,” Abernathy said, and Joe felt a jolt of shock that this could be the same kid from the previous photograph. “Traveling along a preordained course from expensive prep school to a Cambridge college like a Scalextric car locked into its metal groove.”

  Abernathy caught Joe’s look of incomprehension.

  He attempted another simile. “Or a train locked on its track.”

  Joe nodded.

  Abernathy actually smiled. “Then … something happened.” He swiped again and a school report appeared on the board. “Take a look at this.”

  The report showed the most glowing praise for Harry’s efforts and achievements: “wonderful”; “a joy to teach”; “an original and lively contributor to class discussions”; “one of the best and brightest it has ever been my pleasure to teach.”

  Abernathy swiped again and brought up another report, dated three months later.

  “Compare and contrast.”

  Joe could hardly believe that the report bore the same name on the cover page: “a disappointing term”; “taking big steps backward”; “uncommunicative and withdrawn”; “a spectacular disappointment.”

  “Was there anything going on at home to explain the sudden change?” Joe asked. “Divorce? Abuse? Bullying?”

  Abernathy shook his head.

  “If anything, his family life should have improved. Daddy sold his dotcom start-up to Google for close to a half a billion dollars. There’s no evidence of any tragedies or hints of abuse. The academic downfall seems all Harry’s own work.”

  “A hothouse student has a mental breakdown?” Joe asked, suddenly feeling like the last few weeks hadn’t happened.

  “Exactly what I thought.” Abernathy nodded. “Anyway, I talked to his parents—they are devastated, by the way, and only too happy to help—and that was his parents’ first thought, too. It turns out, though …”

  Abernathy fiddled with the board again and the internet page Ellie had shown him earlier appeared on it.

  “This is the home page of Precision Image. And this”—he tapped on the tab headed Mission Statement and a page of text appeared—“is a sort of online manifesto for X-Core. I draw your attention to this part.” He double-tapped.

  Joe read the text: Mental weakness of any kind is anathema to the goals and culture of X-Core.

  “Anathema?” Joe asked.

  “Something loathed and detested.”

  “Methinks they might protest too much,” Joe said. “It wouldn’t be the first time that someone said they were one thing and turned out to be another… .”

  “Still as cynical as ever?”

  “Realistic.”

  “Well, there really is no evidence to support the breakdown hypothesis one way or another. So I guess that will be high up on your list of things to find out.”

  Joe nodded. ”It’s weird,” he said. “The kid in the first photograph had green eyes magnified by his unflattering eyewear, which suggests that now he’s adopted contact lenses; his hair is styled as far away as it’s possible to get from the kitchen-bowl hairdo from the earlier photo; it’s like his whole purpose in the second image is to undo the image presented in the first. What has he told his parents?”

  Abernathy shook his head.

  “Zip. Nothing. Nada. He has cut off all contact with them. They’ve tried to see him, to talk sense into him, but he refuses to acknowledge their existence. His mother said it was like Harry was no longer there and this … character he’s created … Null-A … has taken over completely.”

  “Null-A,” Joe mused, the name still resonating in his memory somewhere. “Where have I heard that before?”

  “The name comes from a trilogy of books by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt,” Abernathy explained. “The World of Null-A was a 1948 novel, and it seems likely that Harry simply took his new name from there.”

  “A sci-fi nerd?”

  “Oh yes,” Abernathy said. “Nerd squared, by all accounts. Null-A is also notation for ‘non-Aristotelian.’”

  Joe’s confused look was probably worth a thousand questions.

  “Aristotle.” Abernathy launched into the “schoolteacher” mode that he so loved to adopt. “Greek philosopher educated by Plato. Wrote on a wealth of subjects and is pretty much the first person to study logic. Van Vogt’s books were based on the notion of overthrowing conventional logic.”

  Joe passed his right hand over his head, to demonstrate where Abernathy’s words were going.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Abernathy said. “Let’s just say, for now, that the name Null-A works on a couple of levels: as a reference to some science fiction books, and as a rejection of formal logic.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that, Joe,” Abernathy snapped. “We’re already building the foundations of the character that you’re going to need to play to get inside X-Core. The thing that Harry has in common with your friend Leonard—and indeed with all the music’s followers and performers—is that they are all nerds. High-achieving, top five percent IQ, generally with a keen interest in scientific study, or, it seems, a taste for science fiction.”

  “It sounds like a strange pool for a music culture to be drawn from,” Joe observed. “What is X-Core, anyway?”

  Abernathy winced. “In terms of its sound, it seems to be nothing more than a throwback to the seventies and eighties darkwave bands—where gothic rock met synthesizers.” Joe had to mentally stop himself smiling at Abernathy talking about “darkwave.” “But it’s the use of modern production, and a love of industrial sounds, that have given it a very modern edge.”

  “The one song I heard was pretentious and weird,” Joe said. “I couldn’t tell what it was actually about. Something medical, I guess. Is that typical of the stuff they sing about?”

  “The word ‘sing’ is a little kind as a description of their vocal stylings,” Abernathy said, “but lyrically, X-Core bands are almost exclusively obsessed with machines, metal, wires, circuitry, human-machine hybrids, more metal, more wires …”

  “Has Gary Numan sued? It sounds like he ought to.”

  “Numan’s not a bad choice for comparison, but where that particular pioneer of commercial electronic music had a cold, detached—but ultimately poetic—approach to his lyrics, X-Core is a little less elegant.”

  “The track I listened to was called ‘TechnoLeeches,’” Joe said. “There was a lot of noise and … well, not much else. It’s not exactly music …”

  “You’re starting to sound like a parent.” Abernathy smiled. “But the scene is flourishing, with new X-Core bands popping up at an alarming rate.”

  “The math test worries me,” Joe said, and saw Abernathy’s eyebrow lift up again, this time in surprise.

  “Good catch. It is odd, isn’t it?”

  “It’s certainly not the best business model I’ve ever heard of. But it also seems … selective. It’s almost as if the bands aren’t interested in their fan base’s money, but rather their intellect.”

  “That’s the thing that scares me,” Abernathy said. “The more I find out about X-Core, the more certain I become that this is unlike any other music culture we’ve seen before. It’s not about fame—its major players eschew the media spotlight. It’s not about fortune—they give their music away for free. It’s not about politics—although it has a poorly conceived manifesto. It’s not even about the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. It seems more like a cult than a pop trend.”

  Joe stared at him blankly. “Then what is it about?”

  Abernathy looked at him gravely. “That, Joe, is what we need you to find out.”

  Joe leaned forward. “So how did it land on y
our desk? And how did Lennie get involved? He really isn’t the type …”

  “And therein lies the problem. Maybe he’s exactly the type.”

  Abernathy pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Joe. “I told you that Leonard’s dad, Victor, is tipped for big things in the world of politics. He’s already in the cabinet—Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sports—but becoming PM would take him to a whole new level of scrutiny. The higher the post, the higher the levels of clearance need to be and Five performed a scan through Victor Palgrave’s life—”

  “You mean MI5,” Joe interrupted. “Why do people think that it’s okay just to say the number? Is it from watching too many spy dramas, or something?”

  “And yet you knew exactly what I was referring to. Makes me wonder what your objection really is.”

  “The fact that I’m seventeen and know what ‘Five’ means. Like I know what ‘collateral damage’ is. And a ‘sleeper cell.’ And that I know these things from first-hand experience… .”

  “Can you have a second-hand experience?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes. I do. A fellow operative died, and you feel that it was somehow your fault. But it wasn’t. It was the fault of a particularly nasty piece of work called Glenn Tavernier who is safely shut away behind bars, thanks to you. Now may I please continue?”

  Joe nodded.

  “Good. MI5 performed a routine vetting of the Palgrave family tree and your friend Leonard set off some alarm bells… .”

  “That’s ridiculous. Unless they are flagging people for having fancy accents or a strong desire to work in the city… .”

  Abernathy shook his head. “It was his connection with X-Core that set off the alarms.”

  “So MI5 is already looking into X-Core?”

  “No, they just saw it as a possible security risk.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would an MI5 vetting flag the musical taste of an MP’s kid?”

  Abernathy sighed. “Music actually matters a great deal. Plato said that musical innovation was a danger to the state, that ‘when the modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them.’ Translations of the quote differ, as do analyses of what Plato actually meant, but Five seem to have taken that one particular version of it rather literally.

  “Ever since the 1950s, musicians have been routinely scrutinized, such as when the FBI asked Five to keep an eye on Larry Adler because of his communist leanings.”

  “Larry who now?”

  “Adler. Played the harmonica.”

  “The mouth organ? And was famous for it? Talk about a different world.”

  Abernathy sighed. “During the 1960s, groups like the Beatles started spreading what were seen as counterculture ideas. Then the anarcho-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s saw an upsurge in activism actually encouraged by musicians. Music is a powerful voice for change—look at Live Aid—and the intelligence services have thought it wise to watch musicians and their fans.”

  “So what is it about X-Core that has Five worried?”

  “It’s the demographic,” Abernathy said. “Most musical subcultures are largely fueled by working class kids and are used as a kind of tribal rite of passage: a group of people to belong to who hold the same values as you, who dress the same, listen to the same music, talk in the same designer slang. It’s a big scary world, and it’s in small groups or subcultures that kids seem to feel most comfortable.

  “Music trends are one of the easiest tribal groups to be accepted into. You just have to buy some records and don whatever uniform the tribe prefers.”

  “Records? What, to take home and play on their gramophones in the parlor?”

  “I’ll have you know that vinyl is making the most unlikely comeback since Johnny Cash,” Abernathy said. “Anyway, it may sound incredible, Joe, but teenagers are a relatively modern invention. Pre-1950, there was very little difference between people in their teens and adults. Before that, there were, broadly speaking, only two ages of person: child and adult. Postwar affluence, and a desire for parents to give their kids the things that they never had in their own austere childhoods, served to create this new creature: the teenager. And the mechanisms of commerce and marketing seized onto it with barely concealed glee.”

  “Nice editorializing.”

  “My point is that these new creatures needed tribes of their own, to separate themselves from the children they once were and the adults they would ultimately become.

  “And it came to pass, because—lo and behold—the music industry did verily provide them.

  “Mods and rockers; skinheads and punks; new romantics and metalheads; house, garage, and probably shed and greenhouse, too; grunge and industrial; emo, screamo, pop punk, and grindcore; goth, death metal, darkwave; rap, R&B, drum and bass, and dubstep. A wealth of ready-made labels for young people to subscribe to.

  “But these labels have, in the majority of cases, been a product of working class energy; the anger of those at the bottom, raging against the world’s machine.

  “X-Core skips the working classes almost entirely. It seems to recruit its performers and listeners from the very best schools, and it wears its elitism very clearly on its sleeve.”

  “So where do I go next?” Joe asked.

  “Home. I’ll call you in the morning when we’ve both had a chance to think about where we are, in both the investigative and the personal contexts. This is your first day back, Joe, and I know it’s going to dredge up ghosts, but I have to be honest with you: I need you on this. So have an evening of pizza, pinball, and PlayStation, and we’ll resume tomorrow.”

  Joe wanted to protest, but he knew that Abernathy was right. He’d stepped back through the doors of YETI, and that was good, but he needed a little time to think about what that meant.

  “Catch you tomorrow, boss,” he said, and headed for home.

  CHAPTER FIVE: A TRAIL OF BREADCRUMBS

  When Ani came around, it was to the smell of rich roast coffee. A steaming mug sat on a small table nearby. She realized that she was horizontal, and that the surface beneath her was soft.

  She sat up too quickly and felt woozy from the sudden rush of blood to her head. When that had passed, she looked around her and saw that she was in Uncle Alex’s front room. He must have carried her up the cellar steps and put her on the sofa for comfort.

  The room was a shrine to music, with one wall dominated by racks filled with records; another wall was filled with CDs. Hi-fi equipment sat on a designer rack; speakers circled the room.

  Ani tried her feet and was almost surprised to discover that they still worked. She had a splitting headache and her balance was slightly off, but she was capable of functioning as a human being.

  She’d just reached the living room door when Uncle Alex appeared, his face grave.

  “Ani,” he said, his compassion and worry evident in his voice. “Thank God you’re up. I made coffee …”

  Ani muttered a thank you, went over to the table, took the mug, and sipped its contents. It was warm and sweet and just what she needed.

  “What happened to you?” Alex asked her, taking a seat on the sofa and looking at her solemnly.

  She shook her head.

  “There’s something in that sound. Something bad. Something dangerous.”

  “It just sounded like a racket to me,” Alex said. “What do you mean something dangerous?”

  “Didn’t you see anything?” Ani asked.

  Alex looked puzzled.

  “See anything? No. Except you turning into a space-case on me.”

  “It was the .wav file,” Ani explained. “The sound, it … made me see things.”

  Alex looked concerned, but not like he thought she was crazy. Which was a relief.

  He thought for a moment. “Can I ask what you saw?”

  “Strange patterns. Sort of like worms. Millions of them. I think they were alive.”

  “Alive?”

  “I
know it sounds nuts.”

  “Not nuts, Ani,” Alex said, “but extraordinary things sometimes have pretty simple explanations. It could be stress, hunger, dehydration …”

  “I saw it,” Ani said firmly. “And I really wish it was a dream, or a hallucination, but it wasn’t. You really didn’t see anything?”

  Alex shook his head, and then his expression changed.

  “But that doesn’t mean you didn’t.” All doubt was now gone from his voice. “Look, maybe I’m too old to hear it.”

  Ani sat down next to him. “What do you mean, too old?”

  “Well, you’ve heard about the Mosquito—a high frequency sound that most adults can’t hear, but that’s loud and clear to most kids?”

  “The ringtone thing?” Ani asked. “So your phone can ring in class but the teacher won’t hear it.”

  “That’s the one. It was originally developed to put in urban spaces to stop teenagers loitering in or outside particular areas. It takes advantage of the fact that human hearing peaks in the early to mid-twenties and then starts dropping off. High frequencies are the first to disappear from an aging person’s aural range.”

  Ani thought about it. “So this .wav file might have sounds that adults can’t hear? Which is why I saw things and you didn’t?”

  “It’s possible,” Uncle Alex admitted. “It’s also possible that years of some of the loudest rock gigs in the history of humanity have impaired my hearing. But I’ve never heard of a sound that causes hallucinations… .”

  “It wasn’t a hallucination,” Ani said. “It was real.”

  “Okay,” Alex said, and Ani loved him for the way he didn’t try to argue with her, believing her almost without hesitation. “But we need to work out what that means. Real is one of those words we throw around all the time, without ever truly understanding what it means.”

  “Doesn’t it just mean that a thing exists?”

  “But how do we know a thing exists?”

  “We can see it. Or touch it. Or taste it. Or hear it. Or smell it.”

  “So is time real? Or gravity? Or air?”

  “Okay, so we can measure it, too.”