by John Moralee
It was a flesh-coloured slug behind Frank’s left ear, a lump the size of a dime. I wondered what it was, first thinking it was some kind of cyst or boil.
Then I saw the barcode. The black lines were beside the stamp of the manufacturer.
Human Rehab Software. MODEL CITIZEN T-CD1.
*
It felt strange moving back into my old room, but that was what I did. Mom needed help looking after Frank while he was so weak. Vanessa was surprisingly understanding - but she went back to Boston to continue her PhD. She wanted me to join her as soon as possible. I promised I would only be staying a few weeks in LA. I only intended to stay until Frank was sorted out. Vanessa said Frank would never be sorted out.
Mom fed Frank like he was a baby and he didn’t complain. He was too wasted away. He didn’t talk much and I hoped that was because he was still recovering after his gene therapy - not the effects of the Rehab chip. I didn’t mention the chip to Mom - it would only worry her. Christ, she was afraid of the video, never mind a state-of-the-art biotechnology device plugged into Frank’s frontal lobes. I kept it a secret.
I needed to know what the software did, but didn’t want to send off unnecessary alarms. What was it? I tried asking Frank during his more lucid periods, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t say.
Frank was a void. I asked him what had happened during the war. All he said was that he didn’t want to talk about the past. Like it wasn’t important.
Frank gained weight and started a slow programme of exercise. I would drive him out to Venice and he’d walk up and down the beach, walk a klick a day, stop red-faced and asthmatic. He used to run ten miles and be fit for a game of baseball. Once Frank’s moss-like beard was razored into the sink he looked more like the young Frank. With his face fattening and colour returning, he began to show some of the features in the myriad of photos Mom had on the mantelpiece and on the 3DTV.
The shrine had its god.
But it wasn’t Frank.
He looked more and more like Frank, but it was an empty shell. I couldn’t more than a few syllables out of him.
Over the weeks I spotted Rehabs in the streets - picking up litter, washing windows, gardening. Rehab implants were part of the clean up society campaign - criminals, junkies, schizophrenics, ex-vets with PTS syndrome ... all converted to be good, model citizens.
They all had that stupid grin I’d seen on Frank.
Model citizens, them all.
It scared the hell out of me.
*
When I came down for breakfast, Frank was eating cornflakes and watching the TV. Mom was outside, tending to her roses. I poured myself some coffee and asked Frank if he wanted a refill. He shrugged. I poured him some any way. The TV was loud and annoying.
“Off,” I said, and the TV obeyed.
Frank winced at the silence and looked at me.
“Frank, we need to talk.”
Frank spooned more cereal into his mouth, avoiding my stare and ignoring me again. I felt sudden anger and grabbed his hand and lifted the spoon from his grip and tossed it into the sink. He stopped, lost without some menial task to perform.
“Spoon?” he said, like an infant. “Spoon?”
“Forget the spoon, Frank. What have they done to you?”
He did not reply. I could see him struggling to form a sentence. His eyes flicked from side to side as if reading a book.
“What happened to you?”
Something deep inside Frank clicked and looked lucid for a second. “Thieves,” he said.
“Rehab?” I said. “They stole something from you?” I needed to get to the heart of Frank’s problem and leaned forward and asked him a second time.
He nodded and then started rocking in his chair. “Rehab ... thieves ... answer. War.” His face was going purple with the effort. “Memory -”
It was then Mom entered and saw his distress.
“Michael, what have you done to him?” she accused and pushed me away.
I stood back as she tended to Frank. “You’ve given him a seizure!”
“I didn’t do anything!” I said. “Rehab did something to him. Can’t you see it? He wants to tell us something - but he can’t. They won’t let him.”
Mom looked at me like I was mad. She had Frank under control and shooed me into the living room. I could hear Frank crying for a few minutes and Mom saying, “There. There. It’s all right.”
Maybe I had pushed Frank too far, but what had Rehab stolen - his memories? Had they in their infinite wisdom given him a 21st century lobotomy?
I was brooding about the possibility when Mom stormed through and closed the door so Frank couldn’t hear what she had to say to me.
“Michael, tell me the truth. Did you hurt Frank?”
“Of course not!” I said, hurt by the suggestion. But Mom did not believe me and I did not know what she was thinking. I wanted to mention the Rehab software - but that would put her over the edge. She could never handle something like that. So I apologised - said it was my fault because I tried to get Frank to speak before he was ready.
“I think it would be better for all of us if you let me help Frank through this. Alone.” She said “alone” in a tone that would permit no arguing.
“Please, you don’t understand -”
“Oh, but I do! You’re jealous of Frank and -”
“That’s crazy, Mom. I’m not jealous.”
“- and you can’t stay here any longer.”
*
She threw me out – so I returned to Boston and Vanessa. Vanessa was pleased to see me. I told her that I had failed with Frank.
“You tried your best,” she said. “Let time be the healer.”
“But you don’t understand. Rehab did something bad to him.”
She knew I was holding back information and pouted petulantly. “Tell me. Don’t keep it to yourself.”
Reluctantly I told her about the implant.
“Do think this biochip is affecting him or keeping him stable? I mean, I’ve seen them in the shops. Kids have them implanted to skip a few grades. They’ve got to be harmless.”
“I don’t know. Those biochips give me a bad feeling. Remember the fuss they made over subliminal computer advertising way back in the 1950s? That worked at a merely suggestive level of consciousness, like hypnotism. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know what goes into my head and with those things you never know what’s on them. Whatever’s on Frank’s chip makes him like a goddamn zombie.”
“Rehab might help him adjust to normal life again. Why don’t you ask Rehab yourself what they did?”
“Ask Rehab? No way. They’d probably try to implant me, too.”
I started dreaming about the implant and would wake suddenly after seeing the Rehab chip grow like a mushroom, a cancerous thing that spread deep inside Frank’s skull and removed his identity.
I called Andowitz. I told him about Frank.
“Man, you say a Rehab chip?”
“Yeah, he’s acting like a zombie.”
He was silent for a long time. “Michael ... look why don’t we meet, huh? Talk. I’m out of the service now. I’m living in San Diego, near the VA hospital.”
*
Andowitz was sitting on a bench in Balboa Park, San Diego. It was a hot, clear day. He looked odd in civvies - aviator sunglasses, sweat shirt, jogging shorts and Nikes. He was watching an outdoor Shakespeare troupe performing a mime version of Hamlet. He saw me and grinned. “How was the flight?”
“Did you know your sense of taste decreases the higher you go?”
Andowtiz shook his head. “That right?”
“Unfortunately they make the airline food compensate.” I sat watching Hamlet. “Why couldn’t we talk over the net?”
He spoke in whispers. “Bugs, man. There’s something bad going on in the country and we’ve got to stop it. Before I left the service, I managed to get my hands on some files you would not believe.”
I was ready to believe. “Go on.”
“Rehab’s a division of the Defence Department - the military invented the Rehab chip as a weapon.”
“A weapon? How?”
“They used to capture the enemy and fit them with so-called suicide chips. The bad guys would go back to their side, infiltrate their own HQ, then sabotage and kill everything that moved. Then the guy would blow his own brains out, destroying the evidence. Even the most loyal terrorists couldn’t do a thing against the biochips.”
“How come I’ve never heard of this.”
“The generals don’t like negative publicity, that’s why. Remember, the terrorists were using gene weapons but we couldn’t as part of the UN. Biochips were our way of tilting the odds, sneaking inside their underground.” Andowitz looked around like an owl. “Anyway, once the war ended and we’d won, they still had the biochips. They weren’t going to let billions of dollars go to waste just because peace broke out.”
“Rehab -”
“Was set up to pacify subversive elements. You noticed how there’s never been a race riot in five years? Coincidence? No. The politicians got their hands on civilian versions for social engineering. You think the President got where he is without vote rigging? Rehab is more wide spread than you could possibly think.”
I shivered despite the summer heat. Looking around, I saw some men jogging in circles. I wondered if they were watching us. Andowitz got up. “You jog?”
“Today I do.”
We ran across the grass, deliberately avoiding the paths. There didn’t seem to be anyone following, but we didn’t take any chances. Andowitz didn’t even break a sweat as he ran.
“I think ... and this is a guess ... that Frank was given a biochip to go under deep cover. Special Forces were doing all kinds of experiments, turning soldiers into killing machines, free of conscience, free of pain and fatigue and humanity. I saw one or two guys go crazy in the war zone - just jump up and run at the enemy. Now I wonder if maybe they had chips.” He rubbed his neck, and my eyes widened, recalling Frank’s neck. “I know what you’re thinking - I could have one. Well, I thought of that. I checked myself into a private clinic and had MRI scans. No trace.”
They could have put that memory in his mind, I thought. They could do anything.
“Is there some way to take out a Rehab chip?”
“It’s hard-wired so it would kill you to take it out,” Andowitz said. “But the software could be changed, given the know-how. I’m going to see a hacker tomorrow.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say. I’ll tell you after.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got to go. Nice seeing you, Michael.”
He ran off, leaving me gasping for breath.
*
The police report claimed Andowitz was found unconscious in a subway, buried under cardboard boxes and broken bottles. He was taken to hospital in a black ambulance, but he died on the way. Later, the coroner said there was a syringe in Andowitz’s arm containing a fatal dose of jaz. He was just another veteran OD’d.
*
On the 3DTV the President looked relaxed as he spoke to the CNN reporter. “Yes, crime is a very great problem. I guarantee that in this term of office I will reduce violent offences by another fifty percent.”
“But how will you do it without increasing the budget for law enforcement?”
“By increasing the education of our young people with good, family values.” He smiled at the camera. “From next month there will be free access to neurosoftware in our libraries and schools.”
I switched off.
“Turn it back on,” Vanessa said.
I hadn’t heard her come in. “What? He’s a egomaniac.”
She scowled. “No, he’s a great man.”
“Last week you called him an jerk.”
“Last week I was wrong, okay?”
I had been about to tell her about Andowitz’s death, but I could tell she wouldn’t be interested. I switched on the TV and left there alone. From the kitchen, I phoned Mom’s number.
She picked it up. “Yes?” No hello, no warmth.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“Michael, I told you not to call me.”
She hung up. My own mother! I tried again but couldn’t get through. The line was disconnected.
That night I waited for Vanessa to go to sleep. Slowly, I lifted the hair behind her ear and touched her neck, gently. There it was, Rehab software, just like Frank. I recoiled instantly. She woke and asked me what was wrong.
“Nothing,” I lied.
I turned so she could not see my tears.
*
Garcia worked in a little diner on Sunset Boulevard, a retro place complete with Marlon Brando posters and chrome counter and jukebox. He handed me a menu and asked me what I wanted.
“I want some silicon chips.”
He looked left and right, his plastic pecks flexing under his white T-shirt. “That’s a tall order.”
“You know someone who can cook them?”
“Maybe.”
I handed him the menu. Between the pages there was a thousand dollars. He slipped the money in his fake Levis. “You really want those chips cooked.”
“Enough with the metaphors. When?”
“After I get off work at five. Pick me up across the street.”
*
“I’m only talking to you because of Frankie,” Garcia said, lighting a cigarette as the car rolled onto the highway. “Guys in the software biz don’t like strangers, not with all the industrial espionage and stuff. This guy needs paying in advance.”
“How much?”
“Twenty big ones.”
“I already paid one grand.” I’d cleared out my bank account before leaving Boston. I didn’t plan on going back unless I found a way to save Vanessa from the Rehab chip. I had fifty thousand, but I acted as if twenty was too high. “I haven’t got that. I’ll pay ten thousand.”
“Fifteen, man.”
“Okay, fifteen.”
Garcia directed me to a pizza place a dozen klicks out of LA. There was an anaemic youth sitting in the window, drinking a milkshake. “That’s him. Call him Joe.”
Garcia stayed in the car, watching the highway. I sat next to Joe and ordered a pepperoni deep pan. Joe and I sat in silence until the pizza arrived. “Joe, can you help me?”
“Just eat,” he said. We ate. Joe looked like a typical Microsoft workaholic. Eventually he got up and excused himself, and walked towards the washroom.
There was a brown bag on the table. He could have been more original, but I didn’t wait to criticise. I slid the bag into my jacket. Joe emerged from the washroom and walked past me as if I didn’t exist. After a minute I watched him pull away in a red pick-up. I returned to the rental and looked at the goods - a spider-like object an optical cable the thickness of a hair. Garcia told me the cable would fit in a Rehab chip, blank the instruction set. I dropped him off on Sunset, and he scuttled away into the crowd.
*
Night in East LA was always like an insane fireworks party. Deadly fireworks - white, red, blue tracers - arcing into the blackness. I parked the rental outside Mom’s, killed the headlights. I got out and walked across the lawn. The door opened.
Mom peered through the crack. “Michael? Get off my land!”
“I have to see Frank, Mom.”
She opened the door fully. Then I saw Dad’s .357 in her right hand. Warning signals were telling me to run, get out of there, get back in my car and hit the accelerator. I opened my mouth to say something when she aimed the gun at me and fired.
The bullet hit something across the street, setting off alarms.
“Mom! Stop!”
“Shoulda gotten lessons,” she mumbled. She corrected her aim - but I was moving, diving behind the trash can. Two bullets hit the can, ricocheting past my head. Running for the car, I felt a pain whip my left arm backwards. I ducked behind the car, pulled at the door. I’d locked it. Blood soaked my left arm from shoulder to elbow, and it was going nu
mb. I fumbled my keys out and deactivated the door lock, pulled it open as the side window shattered. Another shot sounded, followed by a wet thump. There was silence.
I peered underneath the car. I could see Mom lying on the lawn and -
and her skull hung in a bloody flap.
She’d killed herself.
Blown out her brains.
I vomited.
I stood unsteadily and walked around the car. I couldn’t look at the body (I had to think of it as the body, not my mother.) I could hear sirens in the distance, dopplering nearer all the time. I entered the house. “Frank? Where are you?”
There was no reply. I checked the rooms. Frank was in the kitchen eating cornflakes. Quickly, I placed Joe’s device against his neck. The optical fibre found a niche in an instant, and the spider clamped over the Rehab chip. Frank started to twitch.
It was over in five seconds.
“Frank? How do you feel?”
“I hate cornflakes, that’s how I feel.” His face broke out into a smile. “Great to see you, Mikey. I feel as if I’ve being in a dream. A nightmare. How’d I get here?”
“Long story,” I said.
Blue-white strobe light shone through the window slats and the police squawked a warning. “You’ve got to get out of here, Frank. Mom’s dead and they’ll blame us. The police will just stick a Rehab chip back in you.”
He hugged me. “Come with me.”
“No. You’re better off if I divert them.”
He could see I was right. There was no way we’d both escape. I put my hands over my head and walked out into the bright light.
*
My trial was a farce.
Vanessa was a prosecution witness. She said I’d been acting oddly for several weeks, blaming my mother for throwing me out.