Trish interrupted his thoughts.
‘Mister Reed… two more guests have arrived. They’re coming up in the lift right now…’
Hugo jumped up, casting his serviette aside. ‘It’s Chris… I wonder who he’s brought…’
Jake felt a brief flash of irritation. Chris might at least have asked. It was, after all, a private occasion. Now he’d have to make small talk to some stranger.
Only it wasn’t a stranger. It was a very old friend.
‘Alison… how in god’s name…?’
‘I found her,’ Chris said, stepping past Jake to give Hugo a peck on the cheek. ‘Hi, hon… having fun?’
Jake just stared. ‘The last time I saw you…’
‘…was on the steps of New College five years ago.’
She stepped closer, embracing him. It wasn’t a hug, Alison never hugged, it was more the slightest physical touch, an establishing of boundaries. It reminded Jake of why they’d broken up; of how insular, how self-contained she was. There was the faintest scent of perfume about her, but the dominant impression was of her cleanliness. Hair, clothes, manners, all were so neat and precise.
‘Jake?’
He turned. Kate stood there, smiling, looking to him to make an introduction.
‘Kate… this is Alison. Alison, this is Kate, my fiancée.’
‘Ali…’ Hugo pushed past Jake to take Alison’s hands, leaning in to plant a kiss on her cheek. ‘I wondered when you’d make an appearance…’
Jake turned back, looking to the others for an explanation.
Hugo answered. ‘We bumped into each other a month or two back, at some gallery or other… I meant to tell you…’
‘But it escaped your mind…’
Jake glanced at Kate, could see how she was dying to know who this new woman was.
‘Hugo and I were at uni with Alison. She was majoring in art history…’
‘A big mistake,’ Alison said, as if it were amusing, only there was no amusement in her cold blue eyes.
‘So what do you do now?’ Alex asked. He alone had remained seated.
‘I work for GenSyn.’
‘GenSyn?’ Alex frowned, trying to locate where he’d heard the name. ‘What do they do?’
‘Genetic Synthetics. We build things. Living things.’
‘That’s one hell of a change of direction.’
She nodded, acknowledging that. ‘They retrained me.’
Kate opened her mouth, as if to ask something, then seemed to change her mind. She smiled, becoming the perfect hostess once again.
‘Look… I’m being very rude… what’ll you have to drink?’
‘I’ll have a large brandy,’ Chris said, ‘and a carbonated soda for the lady.’
Kate looked to Alison, who nodded.
‘Come, take a seat,’ Jake said. ‘Are you hungry?’
Again Chris answered for her. ‘Gods, no… we gorged ourselves on canapés, didn’t we, Ali?’
‘We did,’ she conceded, letting herself be led over to the table. Hugo brought another chair in from the back room and placed it between his and Chris’s seats.
‘Are you married?’ Jake asked, knowing even as he asked it how pointed a question it was.
She smiled; a neat, formalized smile that gave nothing away. ‘No.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Not right now. I haven’t time.’
‘No?’
‘No. You could say I’m married to the job. It’s very demanding. We’re a small family firm…’
‘I know.’
Jake recalled it now. When she’d first mentioned the company’s name, he’d not made the link, but now he had. It was why he was so good at his job. Attention to fine detail.
‘The Eberts… right?’
She bowed her head a little. ‘Very good… But then I’m told that you’re the best at what you do.’
Jake looked to Chris who shrugged. ‘Only telling the truth, old boy. You’re the bee’s fucking bollocks.’
Hugo laughed. ‘I think it’s dogs, not bees…’
‘Mixed metaphor,’ Chris said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘The best kind…’
‘Who’d a thunk it,’ Alison said, making Jake look at her again, surprised that she’d remembered.
Old dead comedians…
But then, why would she forget? Had he forgotten?
Kate returned with the drinks.
‘So what do you actually do at… GenSyn, is it?’
Alison looked up at Kate, accepting the fluted glass. ‘I evaluate.’
‘Evaluate?’
‘Potential lines of research… projects, I guess you’d call them. Whether they’re viable… whether we’d make any money out of them…’
‘So they got you in the end, eh?’
Alison turned her head, looking directly at him. ‘They got us all, Hugo aside…’
‘Oh, no,’ Jake said, finding himself, for a moment, back in the conversational mode of earlier years, ‘they got Hugo, too. Didn’t they, Hugo?’
‘Golden hook, line and sinker…’
Trish’s voice interrupted them.
‘Forgive me, Mister Reed, but you asked me to remind you when your programme was about to start…’
‘Thank you, Trish…’
Alison looked about her for an explanation.
‘Ubik,’ Chris said.
‘Ah… I’ve not…’
‘Not seen it?’ Hugo was appalled. ‘You can’t not have seen it! It’s…’
‘Ubiquitous,’ Jenny finished. And there was laughter. Only not from Alison.
What are you doing here? Jake thought. And why tonight? Why, when I was finally over you, do you turn up again in my life?
He turned his head, looking to Kate. She was watching Alison, a hardness in her eyes, as if she were trying to work out who this new woman was and what her role in things might be. And she was right to, because Jake had only ever loved two women, and here they both were.
‘Trish… full wall…’
They went and settled on the sofas as the opening credits ran.
‘It’s sci-fi,’ Hugo explained. ‘From the good old days. One of Dick’s best…’
‘Dick who?’ Alison asked, and there was laughter. She smiled and looked about her. ‘What did I say?’
‘It’s Philip K. Dick,’ Jake explained. ‘He was the writer.’
‘Ah… And he’s good, is he?’
‘He saw it all,’ Chris said. ‘Seventy-odd fucking years ago he wrote this, and boy did he know what was coming!’
They fell quiet, watching the wall. This was the last episode of four, the finale, and it had taken the media by storm. Everybody was talking about it.
How did you not know about this? Jake wondered, glancing at her, seeing how she watched the giant screen, trying to understand what was going on. Is your life really that circumscribed?
Apparently not, for she went to galleries.
Yes, but what was she doing here? Why had she let Chris talk her into this?
‘God, this is weird,’ Alison said quietly.
‘Isn’t it?’ Chris said excitedly.
The others made hushing noises.
Kate shifted a little on the sofa next to Jake, pressing up against him and putting her head on his shoulder.
He smiled.
On the screen the ‘anti-psi’, Joe Chip was trying to climb the stairs. Trapped in the threatening nightmare of the ‘half-life’ world, he struggled to climb each step, like Sisyphus, or like a diver coming up from the depths of the ocean bed. None of it made sense. Not yet. But it would, and when it did…
Jake shivered. Back then, when Dick had written this, in sixty-nine, there had been no internet, no world wide web or datscape, no virtual worlds. Yet what was the world of Ubik, if not that? A half-life… yes. Sometimes, not always, he felt like that; like he was trapped inside some hallucinogenic, drug-induced dream.
‘What’s with the spray cans?’ Alison asked.
> ‘Later…’ Hugo said, reaching out to touch her arm. ‘We’ll explain it all.’
Yes, if we can make sense of it…
But that was why it was so good. Because it made so little sense to begin with. But now it was all joining up. All the stuff about precogs and telepaths, and the evil little boy, Jory… And Ella Runciter…
As the end credits ran, they sat back, great sighs of satisfaction and amazement escaping them.
‘Fuck, that was good!’ Chris said, shaking his head.
Jake looked down. ‘It’s strange, but it’s like that at work some days… All those outrageous-looking avatars. There’s even some based on Dick characters. Palmer Eldritch for one… Some of them try to get into your head…’
‘How do they do that?’ Hugo asked. ‘I thought it was all about surfaces and using your senses…’
‘It is. But there is penetration.’
There was a comic ‘ooh’ from several of them at that.
Jake shook his head. ‘Come on, now. I’m being serious. That’s what it feels like. That they’re trying to get right inside your head. They hack in, you see. The datscape acts fast, of course, to shut them down. It doesn’t like penetration, but in those first few moments, when they’re in… well… they can find out a lot. They can do a hell of a lot of damage.’
‘But at a cost, eh?’ Alex asked.
‘Sure. Those who do it find themselves locked out.’
‘But they’re expendable?’
‘I guess.’
‘Our friends again, eh?’
Alex was talking about the Han again, the Chinese. And he was right. They were the chief culprits.
Alison stood. ‘Look, I’d better get going. I’ve got an early start.’
Kate stood, smiling at her. ‘Must you? I was going to do coffee and some little pastries.’
Unexpectedly, Alison smiled back at her. ‘That’s kind, but I really must. I need my sleep.’
‘Moi aussi,’ Chris said in his best mock pretentious style, standing and stretching, as if he were suddenly tired. ‘We could share a hopper, eh, Hugo?’
Hugo was clearly still thinking about Ubik. He looked up, meeting Chris’s eyes. ‘What’s that?’
‘Alison’s got to go… I was offering her a lift.’
‘Oh… we’re not staying then?’
Jake grinned. ‘As it happens, I’ve got an early start, too.’
Kate looked to him. ‘You didn’t say…’
No, and Jake hadn’t really thought about it, until a moment ago. But now that he’d thought about it, he was determined. He didn’t like being away from the datscape for too long – and eighteen hours seemed a very long time.
He stood, looking to Alison. ‘Are you sure you won’t stay for coffee?’
‘No. I must go. I only came because—’
She stopped, conscious that they were all listening.
‘Go on,’ Jake said, surprised by the strange change in her face.
Alison looked down. ‘It’s just… my father died. Yesterday. I know how much he and you got on…’
‘Oh, Alison…’ He stepped forward, as if to hold her, then realized that her body language screamed at him not to make a fuss over it. Besides…
‘I didn’t know,’ Chris said, all sympathy. ‘You poor dear…’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jake said.
Alison met his eyes. Her own were clear. ‘I just wanted to tell you, that’s all. For old times’ sake.’ She looked to Hugo, forcing a half smile. ‘He’d been ill some time, but… it’s still a bit of a shock… when you hear…’
Fuck, Jake thought. And now she’s alone. No wonder she came.
Her mother had died while they were at Oxford. He had attended the funeral with her; stood at her side while they put the coffin in the ground. And now here she was.
And she was right. They had got on. Like father and son. But when he’d stopped seeing Alison, he’d cut all links to her father.
‘He was a lovely man,’ he said quietly. ‘A really lovely man.’
‘Thank you…’
Afterwards, when they were all gone, Kate came over to him. ‘She was very pretty.’ ‘You think so?’
‘Yes. Were you lovers?’
‘That’s very direct of you.’
‘I’m a very direct kind of girl.’
He hesitated. ‘Yes. We were. And we probably still would be. Only she wanted more than me. More than what I was, anyway.’
Kate had looked down. ‘How long were you together?’
‘Three years.’
‘Ah…’
She hadn’t known. But then, he hadn’t told her. Hadn’t made anything of it.
She brightened. ‘Did you know… Alex got his promotion.’
‘What?’
‘He’s full captain now. Jenny told me when we were out in the kitchen.’
‘No wonder he was in such a good mood. I did think it odd. He’s usually such a surly bugger. But why didn’t he say?’
‘Didn’t want to take the edge off our news, I guess.’
‘That was nice of him.’
‘Wasn’t it.’ She paused, then. ‘I know you two don’t see eye to eye on things, but… he’s a good friend.’
‘Yeah…’ And when he thought about it, he realized it was true.
But a captain, eh? In Security. What did that mean? That he was in charge of torturing suspects?
Jake didn’t want to think of it, but that was how it was these days. The Oil Crash of twenty-two had jolted politics to the right in a major, some felt irreversible way. Social welfare as a political concept had died, stoned to death by angry, rioting mobs.
‘Jake?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘Do you really have to go in early? I was thinking maybe we could get up late and have breakfast together on the verandah.’
He wanted to please her. To say yes, why not? Only the datscape called him. Not so much an addiction as a basic need, stronger than sex. Even so, he didn’t want to spoil her special evening.
‘Okay… but I’m going in at ten, all right?’
She grinned. ‘Yes. Now come to bed. I want to drive all thoughts of any other woman from your head.’
‘You don’t have to…’
‘Worry? I don’t. But I want to show you that I want you. As you are. I don’t need more. I have all I need.’
Jake stared at her. He was a lucky man. He knew that. But just how lucky he hadn’t realized until that moment. In that sense it was good that Alison had come tonight. In one regard it was perfect timing, for he knew now he had nothing to regret. He had loved her, yes, but that was in another life. He had been a different person back then.
He took her in his arms. ‘Kate… I love you. More than words can possibly say. And the thought of having children with you…’ His smile broadened. ‘I can’t wait…’
She sighed. ‘Only you’ll have to. Apparently it takes four to six weeks for the effects of the implant to wear off. The body has to adjust…’
He kissed her, mainly to shut her up, but the kiss seemed to light something in them both and after a moment they were tearing at each other’s clothes, ignoring the fact that the big panoramic window was unshuttered. It didn’t matter.
‘Fuck me, Jake,’ she said, naked beneath him, her mouth warm against his ear, using that word she never used. ‘Just fuck me!’
Chapter 5
SOLID AIR
As it turned out, they never had that breakfast. At 5.19 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, Jake was woken.
It wasn’t Trish. It was Daas from Hinton.
‘Forgive me, Jake, but you’re needed instantly.’
Jake sat up, blearily rubbing at his eyes. Beside him, Kate slept on.
‘Hi, Daas. You want me to go into the room?’
‘No. You need to come in. I’ve spoken to George. He says he’ll meet you there.’
‘I see. I’ll shower…’
‘A company craft will be on your roof in ten
.’
‘I’ll be there.’
Daas was DAAS4, the Datscape Automated Analysis System, Version 4, an enhanced intelligence unit. Its job was to keep alert to sudden Market shifts.
An alarm bell was ringing. Something urgent was happening.
As he showered, Jake wondered what could possibly have got George Hinton out of bed at this unearthly hour. Something big. It had to be. But what?
Everything had been fine when he’d left, with not a single sign of anything resembling a run. There’d been no tension, no pressure either to buy or sell. No, nor none of those uncertainties that sometimes precipitated a scramble. In fact, nothing unpredictable at all. The Market had been solid.
George met him in the Wiring Room fifteen minutes later.
It was called a Wiring Room because, in earlier incarnations of the datscape, the operatives had stayed outside, literally wired-in to the interface, data pulsing through their synapses. Of course, there were still operatives – ‘boardmen’ – who performed that function, sat there at the great long curve of a desk, plugged in directly to the mainframe. Their job was to back up the logins and process the information – the purchases and sales – that the logins made on behalf of their clients. But there was a special room for that now, surrounding the central core where the datscape was held, the ‘Dealing Room’ as it was known. The “Wiring Room” had become a kind of anteroom; a place where you put on the immersion skin and mask. That done, you were fitted into the harness and pushed through the membrane. Inside.
George was one of the younger Hintons, a nephew, not part of the inner circle, but still an important man, and the fact that he wanted to go inside and see for himself intrigued Jake. George Hinton wasn’t at all comfortable in there; he didn’t have the feel of it, so if he wanted to go and look for himself, then it had to be serious.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked as the engineers fussed about them, fitting their ‘skins’.
‘It happened an hour back. There was an attack.’
‘What kind of attack?’
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