by Tham Cheng-E
Marco drinks and grimaces when the liquid scalds him. “Ghosts found something?”
“Got some intel from our Tracker too.”
“What’s our Chronie hiding?”
The colleague shrugs and blows at his coffee. “Eyes only to the Seers. They’re the brains, we’re the brawn.”
“Being out in the field has its benefits, Fabian.” Marco bites into his toast. “How long until Internment?”
“Retrieval estimates three days, stretched. They might do it in two.”
Fabian hands Marco a brown paper folder. It opens to a personnel profile that bears a coloured mugshot of Cheok in relative youth. “Nothing new,” says he, easing out his toast from its paper bag. “The usual two-to-one config.”
Marco tosses the folder over the dashboard. He ponders, and the colleague chews his toast in dreadful anticipation of what is coming.
“Pull an SX on him.”
Fabian stops chewing and feigns ignorance. “Who?”
“The gardener. Who else?”
“There could be other options.”
“And this is the best.” Marco retorts with toast in his mouth. “Non-chronie Trackers are dispensable. We take one guy down and we get an easier ride. It’s standard protocol, Fabian. So don’t ever try to be a field operative if you’re not at least a century old.”
“There’s a long investigative process for an SX. We’ll be implicated.”
Marco tears another bite off his toast and drums his fingers on the steering to ease his frustration. “That’s my expertise, Fabian.” He speaks through his chewing. “You pull the SX and I show you the tricks to cutting red tape. That gardener is old and expired and we can’t afford compassion because it gets in the way. Do him neat and quick and you’ll be doing everyone a favour. We pull a fast track on our case and he gets a hero’s funeral and his family gets the money. Everyone’s happy.”
Fabian brings the tin of coffee broodingly to his lips but does not drink. “I don’t know,” he whispers almost inaudibly.
“I settle the paperwork, you get the job done, comprende?”
/ / /
Landon rises from the therapy bed, fighting lethargy. A bruise of sorrow lingers in his chest. He finds his fists clenched tight. The back of his neck is moist with perspiration. There is spittle at the corners of his mouth. His muscles quaver and his heart races with the exhilaration that follows a recollection.
This time he seizes the memory and holds it in place. It is vivid, tactile, like a dream made real. Even the scent of her apartment lingers.
Hannah.
Beside him Dr Peck is scribbling. His assistant leans against a shelf, fingering a touchpad. Landon tracks her as she claps out of his sight on her stilettoes and reappears in front of him with a cup of water.
Her powdered, unsympathetic face carries a glimmer of caution in the eyes. She probably thinks he’s a freak turning mental and that Dr Peck is just too much a gentleman to point that out. He must’ve put up quite a show during the hypno-sessions.
“You have violent dreams often?” Dr Peck’s voice kills the silence.
Landon shakes his head.
“Did you see any recurring scenes? Or vague impressions of them?”
“Vague.” Landon feels awful lying to the doctor.
“Sure,” says Dr Peck, catching the doubt in his tone. “Do you want to continue with the sessions? I would respect it if you feel— uncomfortable with them.”
“No, I’m fine. We should continue.”
“Good.” Dr Peck clicks his pen and makes a note. “We’re getting close. It means the therapy is working, to an extent. It could be triggering engrams to release locked memories. They might appear as chronological sequences in dreams, but upon waking they scatter into disparate fragments. Our next task would be to try locating and retaining them.”
“What are engrams?”
“Hypothetical elements of the brain that store memories,” says Dr Peck. “They are not proven to exist physically but traces of their functions could be observed in the cortex or cerebellum of your brain. It’s something under study.”
Over his reading glasses Dr Peck looks at Landon and holds the stare a little too long for comfort. “Invoking your memories is only a part of the treatment,” he adds. “The other part involves finding the cause of your amnesia.”
Landon nods obligingly, taking care to reveal nothing by his expression or the movement of his eyes. If what John told him was true then the doctor would be better off knowing nothing about it. He is still reeling from the excitement of discovering the connection between Hannah and Clara. Could it be possible that both of them are—
“Your blood tests,” says Dr Peck, reaching across his desk to retrieve a document. “Mystifying.” He runs his finger along a column of data. “The markers point either to a rare, congenital blood disease or some form of synthetic chemical infiltration. They might have some connection to the functions of your striatum and cerebellum. You got any family history of blood problems, brain tumours?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“Somatosensory issues like touch or pain or…”
“No.”
“Are you using any illegal substance that I should know about?”
“No.”
There is suspicion in Dr Peck’s gaze and Landon pretends not to notice it. He looks away and sips at his water, wondering if he’d lose credibility by doing so.
“Well, tell me if you are, Mr Lock,” says Dr Peck. “We have to be truthful with each other if any of this is to work. I assure you that every bit of this is confidential. Even Casey is not privy to this.”
The assistant throws Landon a cold, fleeting glance and dutifully exits the room. Landon imagines her at a table full of girlfriends with iced mochas, chortling away over the Landon Freakshow.
“Anything you want to tell me?” says Dr Peck.
“No.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to do a urinalysis and a sperm count— you know, just to rule things out.”
“You think I’m a druggie.”
“Like I said, I hope there is trust between us. It affects the treatment.”
“Well, it could start with you, doctor,” says Landon.
The candour in the response draws a brisk chuckle from Dr Peck, even though he probably doesn’t condone the ill-placed wit. He tears out a chit from his pad and slips it through a little window in the wall. “I’ll prescribe the usual for another week and we’ll reduce the dosage from there. And I’d like to be thorough, so—I’d recommend going ahead with those tests.”
“Bring it on.”
“Thank you,” says the doctor. “Casey will fix your next appointment.”
/ / /
Loewen Lodge basks in white sunlight. Just down the road FourBees has been hoarded up like a walled city, looking hermetic and forbidding. Around it bistros are waking up from their siestas and gearing up for dinner.
From a distance Landon picks out the old man and his usual caregiver. No Clara in sight. Having lost his latest journal to the fire he consults the notes on his mobile and finds the name Pam. He sees them at the lawn, in the shade of an angsana tree. When he goes over to them the old man turns vacantly to him. A glob dribbles from his jaw where three gangly teeth perch precariously in receding gums.
“You must be Pam,” says Landon to the petite caregiver.
“No, I’m Ruby.” She nods at her name-tag.
“I’m sorry,” Landon mutters. “I met another caregiver the other day. Do you know if she is a relative of this man?”
“We have relatives from time to time.”
“Her name’s Clara. She’s a slim young lady with a red knapsack, long black hair.”
“Ah, she visits sometimes.”
Landon pricks up. “When?”
“She doesn’t come on a fixed schedule.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”
“I
’m quite certain you have a number.”
“Sorry sir, we cannot reveal personal information about our residents.”
Landon rolls his eyes. “I desperately need to contact Clara, a phone number would do.”
Ruby utters an apology. “Perhaps you could speak to the front desk?”
No, thank you. It’s worse than talking to an actual desk.
Now the old man is making raspy hooting noises, as if trying to participate in the conversation. Landon leaves them and storms into the nursing home against a river of wheelchair-bound residents being trundled out to the lawn for their afternoon walk. Under the curious stares of an elderly audience, he walks up to the counter and engages in an acrimonious exchange with the seasoned matron, who threatens to call security if he doesn’t leave.
“Call her for me then.” Landon barks in a dare. “Tell her she wrote me something on a napkin. She’ll know who I am.”
The matron parses with a frown, and then surprises him by leaning over the counter and whispering something to a nervous colleague, who picks up the handset and punches in the numbers. In the waiting silence they hear the Mandarin dialogue of a soap opera from a nearby TV.
“No answer,” the counter lady tells the matron.
“Could I have an email at least?”
The matron holds up her hands. “I’m sorry, you have to leave right now.”
“All right, I’m sorry,” Landon realises his folly and slaps his forehead. “No address, no emails, no phone numbers, right? Could you tell me the probability of her visiting? Once in a fortnight? A month?”
“We don’t know that.” The matron gestures at the door. “Please.”
“Anything would be good. Anything on Clara.” Landon twists his hands together pleadingly. “Anything.”
“You have to leave.”
Desperation rends his heart. He pulls his hands miserably across his face and coughs up a sardonic laugh. Surely they would remember him for this. It’s now or never.
“You don’t understand; she doesn’t have a father.” He struggles to articulate his speech. “That man isn’t her father or grandfather or whoever she might have told you. She has no kin.”
The matron shows him the door. “Please leave.”
Landon raises his voice. “You don’t know who she is!”
The matron ushers him on.
“You don’t know who you’re keeping here!” Landon stops at the door. “You cannot keep anyone you don’t know about!”
“He’s her husband.”
The reply turns Landon cold. “Oh, eat that…” He mutters in disgust.
“Excuse me?”
“Eat your own filthy lies!” He throws off someone’s attempt to hold him. “She doesn’t have a husband! She isn’t supposed to have a bloody husband!”
The matron waves her arm and two liveried men converge upon him. He braces himself against the door frame and prepares for a humiliating grapple. A large hand closes firmly over his arm. He turns and sees John steps placidly past him and holds the door open.
“Sorry for the trouble,” he says, shaking the matron’s hand. “This man is my cousin. He’s been on medication and I think he had a little too much of it.”
The matron looks visibly relieved. She acknowledges his explanation with a sombre nod and looks on as John escorts Landon through a contemplative audience of seniors; their gazes disapproving, their lips pinched.
John crosses a patch of lawn and Landon follows like a guilt-ridden child doddering after a fuming parent. “How did you find me?”
John marches on. He doesn’t speak.
“I said: how did you find me?”
John stops, whips about and jabs an accusing finger at him. “My job’s practically a living hell because you’ve been doing one stupid thing after another. You don’t stay hidden, you don’t stay alive, okay? It’s that simple.”
Landon steeps himself in silence and closes his eyes as breeze passes, hoping it would mollify his rage and appease his demented senses. But in the blackness Hannah’s face appears.
“You’re a wreck, Landon.” John looks him over. “Your eyes look like they’ve got hoods over them.”
“I haven’t been doing anything stupid.”
“Like visiting that doctor of yours? You don’t know what you’ll end up revealing.” John thrusts out his head at him. “Also, cut the profanities, especially to respectable old ladies back there. Profanities discredit you.” Landon says nothing in defence. He gets into John’s car and they cruise down Holland Road. John turns randomly onto an obscure, nameless street. There he pulls up the handbrake, dons his reading glasses and fingers through the contents of a brown envelope.
“How are your burns?” John’s tone suddenly softens.
“Light.”
“The Serum aids in the healing.”
“Good to know.” Landon stares out of the window. “The fire claimed a life and almost took another. Some bodyguard you are.”
“It wasn’t meant to kill you.”
“Sure,” Landon twists his lips to a sardonic scowl. “I’m caught in two explosions and I’m convinced no one’s trying to kill me.”
“One of them now has something to do with you.”
“How’s that?”
“Domestic gas is odourless, if you don’t already know.” John pulls out a satellite photograph and holds it to the daylight. “Vendors made it smell like rotten eggs so people will notice if it leaks. Someone pumped the café full of it and left out the stink.”
Landon tries to conceive numerous possibilities and finds sense in none of them. “I don’t see how someone does that without a murderous intent.”
“It was the café they’re after.” John pulls out another print and hands it to him.
It is a satellite photograph the size of copier paper, monochromatic and of high gloss. Its planar angle depicts something of a construction site, with grids of string or rope drawn across what appeared to be partly-excavated ground.
Landon turns it this way and that. “What am I looking for?”
“Those are archaeological grids,” says John. “We managed to capture it before it went under the tarpaulin. It’s Retrieval.”
“Whatever that means.”
“There are a few stages to a Chronomorph’s lifecycle,” John explains tolerantly. “Retrieval is among the last few. It means they’ve found something on you.”
“What’s the last?”
“Elimination.”
The word delivers a chill but Landon feigns indifference. John takes the photograph from him. “Collateral death is acceptable, so it wouldn’t matter if the fire killed you or not. The Other Side was willing to take a shot at that. I need to know what they were looking for and I was hoping you could shed some light.”
“I’m an amnesiac.”
“They must’ve found something from you. Try to recall if there was anything entrusted to you besides your house. Perhaps at the moment when you received the Serum?”
“I don’t even remember how I got this thing.”
“Please, try.”
Landon’s chest falls in a weary sigh. “It’s just my house.”
“The one at Clacton?”
“I have no other property.”
/ / /
It’s all starting to feel like a dead end. John pauses, studies Landon’s disposition and finds little reason to doubt him. He force himself to consider the possibility that the Serum has been transplanted into him without any connections to the Unknown; and that whoever gave it to him hadn’t been one of the original Chronomorphs in the first place. Factor that into the equation and you get a real conundrum.
From the attention CODEX accords to a case like this it is obvious Landon isn’t the typical, bungling Transplant who had paid his way to longevity in the days when renegade operatives peddled the Serum on the black market as an elixir of life.
This one might turn out to be a rare epitome of the hypothesis that the Unknown isn’t just a
myth. And the prospect of it actually excites him.
“How do you know it wasn’t me who saved you?” He couldn’t resist asking. “You know someone I don’t?”
The question appears to have surprised Landon, and John senses hesitation in him, as one yearning to confide but holds back for want of a better confidant.
“The papers said whoever saved me ‘refused accolade for the service he rendered’. That was quite noble of you.” Landon says.
“If this had been a regular job the Commissioner would’ve hauled my ass up to the cameras and made me into fine publicity material. Never believe the papers.”
“I thank you anyway.”
John returns to his documents. “It’s my job.”
“Just being curious,” Landon adds haltingly. “Do you get many— clients?”
“There aren’t enough operatives to Chronies so each operative is usually assigned a few until one of them turns critical.”
“Turns critical?”
“When an SX for him becomes imminent,” John answers. “Sanctioned Extermination.”
Landon winces at the ugly term. “So how many Chronies do you babysit?”
“I had three.” He looks at Landon over his reading glasses. “Now there’s just you.”
The engine starts and they back out onto a larger street. Landon stares broodingly ahead of him. “I was expecting you’d come to the hospital.”
“Couldn’t risk exposure.” He stops at the lights. “You’re wasting your breath if you’re trying to get me to reveal anything. If I were you I’d come clean with whatever I remember. It makes my job a lot easier and lets you live a great deal longer.”
The remark visibly unsettles Landon.
“I have to set up surveillance at your home.” The lights change and he accelerates. “But first, let’s go eat. I’ve been thinking of dosa and sambar all day.”
24
MAY 1961
THE SLUM, A maze of rotting wood and attap, was hemmed between Beo Lane and Bukit Ho Swee Road. Arthur peered over a ditch and there among the wooden stilts was an old, nameless grave submerged in a murky cesspool festering in the sun. The stench of excrement and sewage wafted on the muggy breeze.