Surrogate Protocol

by Tham Cheng-E

  “I don’t want baggage for any of us,” said Arthur. “I’ll accept your help only if you’re on top of things.”

  “Of course,” Hannah reached out her hand. “Friends?”

  He took it. “Friends.”

  / / /

  Arthur did not expect the handshake and he did not know what to make of it. Was she implying that they shouldn’t be venturing anything more than a simple, unadulterated friendship or was she alluding to something more? Hannah left him by the traffic junction. He watched her until he was certain that she did not enter any of the brothels that were visible to him from where he stood.

  Upon reaching the bus stop Arthur sank wearily onto a bench scarred with cigarette burns. In the yellow light of streetlamps, he waited for the public bus and watched a rawboned old man pedal his trishaw alongside the sputtering rush of automobiles.

  27

  FAMILY MEN

  “SO WHAT DO they call you now?” The athletic young man had toned shoulders and an attractive, pearly-toothed grin over a long chin. He unwrapped his burger and nibbled a piece of onion that fell from it.

  “John,” he replied, smiling.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “It’s nice. Short and apostolic.” The young man grinned as he chewed.

  John and his associate always met at a different fast food restaurant whenever they had to talk. They wouldn’t discuss the venue; one of them would decide the location and bring the other to it. It was safer that way. The joint was packed solid ten minutes into lunch and they could hardly hear each other over the drone of voices. But it was good that way.

  “There are those who’ve got it worse.” The associate squeezed out a pack of chili sauce and drowned a French fry in it. “I heard the chaps at Delta-Four get names like Titan and Dick.”

  John laughed. “What did they call you before this one?”

  “Helio,” said the associate. “Had it since the sixties.”

  “Congrats on your new posting.”

  The associate gave a modest smile and sipped his cola. “Forming a team to look into domestic terrorists. Thinking of infiltration, if it comes to that. Who would’ve thought of home-grown factions when we’d been busy with the usual jihadists?”

  “It never was about religion, was it?”

  The associate’s smile thinned. “It has always been about power.”

  “I think it’s a better posting.”

  “Maybe.” The associate took another bite and spoke through his chewing. “The less covert the better. You don’t get scrutinised that much. Even if you’re KIA they’d be obliged to give you a gravestone and a eulogy. Now I just want to settle down and have babies.”

  John laughed again.

  “Congrats to you too for becoming the lead,” the associate added. “It’s good to have your own Chronie, shows you’re up to it. When you getting him?”

  “In nine months.”

  “What trouble has he got into?”

  “Not sure yet,” said John. “Some chap in a big old house at Clacton Road, fell onto my lap a month ago. The Seers could be pre-empting a move from the Other Side.”

  “Probably.” The associate went on chewing. “What are you going to do with your other two Chronies?”

  “Give them up for adoption?” John said in jest. “This one’s going to be my main.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Did any of your Chronies survive?” John asked him.

  “One did. At least he was still living when I passed him on. The other didn’t.”

  “A Tracker got to him?”

  “No.” The associate swallowed and swiped his lips with a paper napkin. “We killed the Tracker and the Chronie shot himself.”

  John’s brows furrowed. “Why?”

  “The Tracker we killed turned out to be his lover.”

  That answer hung between them for a while as they ate in silence and watched the crowd, until John rekindled the conversation.

  “How are things with Stella?”

  The associate’s eyes lit up at the name, and his lips twitched involuntarily into a bashful smile. “Good. We’re happy.”

  “How long together?”

  “Almost a year.”

  “Does she know that you’re a…”

  “Of course,” said the associate, his smile widening into a grin. “She’s in Inquiry, bound to find out sooner or later.”

  “You told her?” said John with measured incredulity.

  The associate shrugged. “A relationship is a commitment. And commitment is trust.”

  “She’s okay with it? That you’ll outlive her and—”

  “I was hoping one day Transfusion might work,” the associate replied. “I don’t own the Serum in the first place; they put it in me to rehabilitate my lungs when I got shot in ‘72.”

  “Did she coax you into telling her?” John directed his finger back and forth. “I mean, did she…was she good at that?”

  Another diffident smile broke across the associate’s lips. “We’re not Caesar and Cleopatra. I wasn’t swindled into telling her anything if that’s what you’re thinking. But she’s got quite a kiss.” He pulled down his lower lip to reveal a red sore.

  “Good,” said John. “You can make lots of babies with it.”

  The remark drew more laughter. The associate threw his head back as he chortled, almost choking on his cola.

  Then he started coughing and wouldn’t stop. His head spasmed at a grotesque angle over the backrest, his neck bent, his larynx protuberant. He was convulsing, and when John rushed to his aid his eyes rolled back and crimson foam oozed from his mouth.

  John yelled for an ambulance and started pumping away vigorously at a lifeless chest as an audience gathered around them. Perspiration from his chin blotched onto his associate’s shirt. He only stopped himself from attempting oral resuscitation at the last second on account of a dark suspicion. When the ambulance arrived, he slipped a sample of the associate’s blood into the omnicron before the paramedics took him away.

  The coroner’s report stated a case of myocardial infarction. John’s omnicron however, indicated the presence of cellular cybernetics—a synthetic virus modified from the Serum that could be programmed to disperse its toxins on a timed-release. He remembered the sore on the man’s lip and knew that his associate had, in the lingo of their trade, been tagged.

  This usually happened when CODEX decided to fire someone.

  But he wasn’t a bad operative. He just wanted out.

  / / /

  John’s hotel is a eight-storey tenement of sleaze and musky carpets. He checked himself in on a whim so there would be poor odds of anyone anticipating his moves—a trick he learned from his late associate. He insepcted the place nonetheless, and having convinced himself that he wasn’t followed, proceeded to set up his observation post.

  Now he eats a boxed dinner broodingly and monitors the outer sensors. It is a chilly evening that augurs rain, and a north-easterly wind rattles the sliding windows on their rails. Almost twenty hours have passed since he had Landon’s home bugged. Nothing peculiar happened in the earlier part of the day and Landon mostly stayed home where he read and slept. The holographic screen on the dresser now shows Landon in the study, amid stacks of journals, tamping tobacco into an ivory pipe. The gardener lazes on the living room couch, watching a soap opera, arms flared over the backrests.

  A status update arrives over a secured line and John checks the text.

  This time there is no doubt about it. Landon Lock is the real deal.

  In the wake of this revelation John has given up trying to make sense of his mission because it probably isn’t a mission in the first place. It is an order, and orders give you not a picture, but a pinhole that reveals only the point to which one has to go with the Chronie. Until this point Landon will live. Beyond it is anybody’s guess.

  From the door comes soft, spiritless knocking.

  The TV isn’t broken an
d John hasn’t ordered room service. Chambermaids enter only when the guest is out, and more often in the mornings than the evenings. John shuts the briefcase and stows his earpiece in a drawer. He steals over to the door and through the peephole he sees the made-up visage of a beautiful woman. The knocking grows louder. She must have detected his presence by the disturbance of light from the slit under the door.

  He opens the door and leaves it latched. The woman wears her dark hair bundled above her nape in a chignon. Her eyes are soft but sad.

  “Need company?” she asks. “A hundred for the night.”

  “No, thank you.” John closes the door, though temptation beckons like the devil himself. The young lady wedges her heeled foot between the door and its frame.

  “Eighty?” she offers. “I also charge by the hour.”

  John inspects her through a narrow opening. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.” She eases a knee through the door gap. “I’m legal.”

  “You should be at home.”

  “Fifty?” She tilts her head in a plea. “Please, I need the cash.”

  If he were back as an active duty cop he would’ve arrested her there and then. “No, thank you.” He tries to close the door again but this time the young lady foils the attempt with her cheap sequin handbag.

  “Twenty dollars till midnight.” Her voice quivers. “I’ll even throw in a massage.”

  John pauses to think. The young lady takes notice and peddles her wares. John swings the door wide and wrestles her arm away. She staggers backwards, surprised and hurt.

  “Wait here,” he says, and closes the door and latches it behind him.

  A moment later he returns to find the young lady faithfully waiting, her eyes now glazed over with tears. He takes her hand and slaps two 50-dollar notes onto it. She stares incredulously at them.

  “Go home and put your nose in your books,” says John. “You should be saving your passion for the one you’ll marry.” And then he shuts the door.

  / / /

  The door clicks shut. Clara finds her lower lip trembling and wonders if the emotion associated with her performance had been for real. With the back of her hand she swipes away her tears and most of her make-up. She calmly treads the carpet on her way out, her expression returning quickly to one of frigid apathy.

  / / /

  Back in the room John checks his equipment and finds Landon where he has left him. A reproduction of Landon’s first journal entry sits in a folder on the table, scarred in scribbles of red ink. The names Qara Budang Tabunai and Harriet are conspicuously circled. He sits at the edge of the bed and mulls over the mystery behind them.

  A pulsing red light on his console signals an incoming call. He adjusts his earpiece and speaks. “Sunray.”

  Thaddeus’ voice comes through the line. “Status just jumped another notch.”

  “I got the message,” says John. “When’s Internment?”

  “Any time now. They got an SX through.”

  John’s stomach churns at the grim news. “For who?”

  “Don’t know yet. Noticed anyone?”

  John polishes his face in his hand. “No one’s following. I don’t think I left any trails that could be picked up.”

  “There’s another thing. You remember that journal you brought in?”

  John glances at the folder beside him. “What about it?”

  “We ran a scan of it against the Ghost database. Turns out the only other operative that has it is Marco from Ops-B Division.”

  “Shit…Marco…”

  “He doesn’t play the administration thing.” Thaddeus’ voice cackled. “In a compromise he’ll just go for what’s convenient. This guy’s got a reputation for manipulating the SX protocol. If he sees you, you’re dead.”

  “Yeah, I know how it works,” says John.

  “They want you to bring your Chronie in,” says Thaddeus. “You think he’s worth it?”

  “Don’t know.” John buries his face in his hands and wishes he could drift right off to sleep. “If we make the move the Other Side’s going to come down hard on us, and the worst part is, I don’t know who I’m up against.”

  “I could get you some back-up,” says Thaddeus.

  “I need another favour.”

  “Go on.”

  “If something happens to me, Ginn has the right to know.”

  “For heaven’s sake, no names over the secured line. You of all should know this better than anyone else.” There is a pause before the earpiece cackles again. “If this leaks your entire family will be tracked. And even I can’t change that.”

  “She has the right to know,” says John. “Take it as a part of my will. She has to hear it from you because you’re the only person I trust.”

  A longer pause. Anticipation seizes John over the ringing silence of the receiver, then Thaddeus’ voice returns. “Let me think about it.”

  “Don’t take too long. If things are as hot as they seem, I might not have much time.”

  “I know,” says Thaddeus. “When are you bringing him in?”

  “After one final probe,” John answers. “I want to know who the Tracker is.”

  “It’s your call. Meanwhile keep yourself snug and safe.”

  “Any idiot knows that. We better hang up now.”

  28

  AIR RAID SIREN

  13th February 1942, Friday

  My name is Anton. It’s two hours past midnight and I’m writing by candlelight. The air raid siren is moaning but I see no one taking shelter, perhaps for want of sleep.

  It is such irony that the Jap bombers have to fly high to evade our very accurate ack-ack, and in doing so they have to bomb indiscriminately because they can’t fly low enough to drop their bombs accurately. A shophouse in the city and my house in the suburbs would stand equal chances of being hit.

  Yet everyone is tired of the raids. They’re willing to sleep it off by the poor odds of a bomb hitting their home. Just yesterday I saw a crowd watching planes battling in the midst of a day raid. Can’t blame them. I wouldn’t dash into a shelter at the first siren and waste my day there, either. Some say we should take cover only when we hear ack-ack fire. Then again there would be no ack-ack fire if our planes are engaging the Jap bombers.

  A few concede that the best solution is to wait until the bombers are overhead, just before they drop their bombs. But what they ought to do is put up more roof spotters to authenticate the threat before sounding the siren.

  We finally closed Robinsons after a bomb struck us for the 2nd time. It went right through the roof of the northern wing and blasted out the front of the men’s department, just yards from the café. The general manager has been most gracious to offer the homeless food and lodging at the furniture section—most of them even got to bathe in sparkling new bathtubs. It was sad to flush them from our basement: Caucasians, Chinese and Indians. Had a few Malays, I think. We also cleared out valuables and destroyed our wine stock this afternoon. All gas lamps have been extinguished since the first bombs fell. Feels like such a long time ago. Now it is dark everywhere. It is no longer unusual to see an unlit street or headlights wrapped in burlap.

  The mood is grim after this morning’s air raid. From the grapevine I gather that things are steadily deteriorating for the defenders and that a most bloody battle has been raging at Pasir Panjang since this morning. The smoke from the burning Normanton oil depot has filled the sky for days. We were made to believe an elaborate fabrication intended to prevent undue panic.

  Everyone now believes we are going to fall.

  I have heard that the Japs love Indians. If that is true then I reckon Amal will be safe. They probably love Malays too and hate the Chinese to the core. I can’t help but wonder what they’d think of me.

  It’s such pity to close the store. Everyone loved the café—my café, because I’ve been running it alone since the first air raids. Many gathered there for their elevenses and from them I heard of a great many things.
>
  I used to think the Great War was bad. This one can only get worse.

  Count to Arthur: 1,298 of 5,475 days

  29

  FEBRUARY 1942

  ANTON AWOKE TO the fan’s icy draught. The ward was dark but dawn wasn’t far because he could hear the hooting whistle of the Asian koel. His sleep was restless. He drew a deep breath in a yawn and filled his nose with the sharp twang of iodoform disinfectants.

  He last remembered taking a walk outside his house after penning a journal entry. The air raid siren had gone off; on the way to a trench shelter an exploding bomb knocked him into a ditch and sent salvos of metal and wood into his legs. He remembered screaming at the pain but he hadn’t panicked because he knew an Air Raid Precaution post was nearby. And true enough, shortly after the bombers passed an ambulance arrived wailing and ferried him to the Alexandra Military Hospital.

  The doctors didn’t do much beyond a bit of disinfecting and suturing. Anton found that he could still walk, albeit very stiffly. They were keeping him in hospital as a precaution against gangrene. Otherwise his wounds did not even warrant a bed. They laid him on a broken litter.

  He fell back to sleep and awoke again, this time to sunlight and activity. The ground-floor ward was noisy with chatter and the clatter of soles upon the linoleum flooring. The ward had twelve beds, each complemented by a metal spittoon painted in reds and florals. A corridor passed outside the ward and beyond which lay a luxurious expanse of lawn under the sprawling canopies of raintrees.

  A number of Malay and Chinese patients reclined on litters laid out in the spaces between the beds, which were occupied mostly by Caucasian patients in varying degrees of wretchedness. A few read, some groaned, and the rest either went on sleeping or lying on their sides and seeing nothing.