Atcode

by David Wake

  “OK.”

  “But it’s tipping down, heavy rain and thunder in the distance. His golfing buddies think to him, no stay in the nineteenth hole.”

  “The bar?”

  “The bar, exactly, but the man insists and decides to play the whole course with a wood, not an iron, on account of the lightning.”

  “Wood would… ha, ha, ‘wood would’.”

  “They have a steel shaft and they’d be just as dangerous, yes. So, he goes out, tees off, plays for a while, well over par, because it’s raining.”

  “Right.”

  “Then, the inevitable, lightning strikes, not the club, though.”

  “Not the wood?”

  “No. Straight into his iBrow.”

  Jellicoe stabbed his forehead distorting the flesh around his own brow.

  “Jesus!”

  “Straight in through his brow, straight down and out through his foot. It left a burn mark the size of a… one of those old coins, the big one.”

  “Right… and why the ‘second scream’.”

  “The first scream is his, but the second is the thought the lightning made, all… I don’t know, a trillion volts or whatever, when it shorted through his brow.”

  “That was the second scream?”

  “Yea… or he was on the second hole.”

  “Are you sure you’ve told this right? It’s not very funny.”

  “Not supposed to be funny, it’s true. You can noodle it, paste it into your brow and think the second scream for yourself.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Doctor Ridge–”

  “Ridge the pathologist.”

  “Yes, he–”

  “Our pathologist?”

  “Yes, he said that the man’s brain had been cooked like – what did he say? – gas mark 6, medium to well done. The iBrow filaments would have distributed the energy into his brain evenly.”

  “Hmm, that would be a red wine.”

  It was Jellicoe’s turn to chuckle.

  Braddon let the whisky lie on his tongue, savouring the taste. “You know, it’s nice to appreciate the booze for a change.”

  Although they couldn’t follow each other’s thoughts and they were having to talk aloud, it was very different from the creepiness of an unbrow. And – he swallowed – with alcohol at least your mouth wasn’t dry.

  “Are you claiming it on expenses yet?”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “You can.”

  “No, I’ve never come across that in anyone’s Thinkerfeed.”

  Jellicoe laughed: “Of course not, every time they’re… pissed.”

  Braddon joined in: it was funny, their lives. The officers who met at the Lamp were a police force within the police force, a special squad that investigated those cases that a twenty–second enquiry to Noodle couldn’t solve.

  To stop the criminals following them, they drank.

  The wind must have changed as the waves lapping against the boat pitched it disconcertingly.

  “Reminds me of my time on the police force,” Jellicoe said.

  Braddon didn’t know what he’d meant, but then it became clear. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Another slurp and Braddon could almost imagine that the movement was due to the alcohol. The rocking sensation was pleasant, lasted a couple of minutes, paused for maybe five and then repeated.

  “Do you fancy a game of cards?”

  “Why not,” said Braddon.

  “Poker.”

  “Poker?”

  “It’s a gambling game–”

  “Not on a Detective Sergeant’s salary.”

  “For matchsticks.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s a bluffing game.”

  “Bluffing? What’s that?”

  “Yes, you bet high with a bad hand and the other person thinks it must be a good hand, and folds.”

  “How does that work?”

  “We’re drunk, so thought doesn’t come into it.”

  “Oh… right. Of course.”

  Jellicoe went to a cupboard and began searching for a pack of cards.

  “Noodle it,” Braddon suggested.

  “I’d been drinking last time I played, so that won’t work.”

  “How’s your liver?”

  “Growing nicely, the Doctor thinks,” Jellicoe said. He titled his head to one side, checking, “another week or so and they’ll do the implant operation.”

  “Did you claim that on police expenses?”

  “Special retirement dispensation.”

  “You’re a crafty one, Inspector.”

  “Ex–inspector.”

  “Ex… no, you’ll always be an inspector. It’s the way your mind works.”

  “Police officers can be trusted, can’t they?”

  “Everyone can be trusted,” Braddon said.

  “With a brow… I’ve a favour to ask.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “The young, they get excited about celebrity, don’t they?”

  “They do.”

  “It’s vacuous, though.”

  “I suppose. What’s the favour?”

  “It’ll keep,” Jellicoe said. He moved to the cupboards on the other side, still searching for the cards. “When are you going to make Inspector? It’s the way your mind works too.”

  “Only because you… re–programmed it.”

  “Ah ha!” Jellicoe settled back around the small table, took the cards out of the cardboard box and began shuffling. “We used to play Poker on stake–outs.”

  Braddon laughed: “Stake–outs, bluffing… it was a different age.”

  “It was that,” Jellicoe agreed. “Do you want to see a card trick?”

  “OK.”

  “Think of a three of spades.”

  “I can’t transmit.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “OK…” He thought of the three of spades and it buffered in his outbox. “When I reconnect, my followers are going to think I’ve lost it.”

  Jellicoe shuffled the pack again, sorted it, put a card to one side and shuffled again. “I dare say… now, pick a card, but don’t look at it.”

  Braddon went for one in the middle, changed his mind and picked another.

  “Now,” said Jellicoe. “Look at it.”

  Braddon flicked it over: it was red, the two of–

  “But don’t think about it.”

  “What?”

  “Now, put it on the table, face down. Quick!”

  Braddon did so and put his finger on the back’s blue pattern. He tapped it three times and then kept his finger there – he wasn’t going to be fooled.

  Jellicoe smiled at him. “What is it?”

  “The three of spades,” said Braddon, wondering when the trick was going to start.

  Jellicoe motioned with his hand. “Look at it.”

  Braddon did so and he was genuinely surprised. “The two of diamonds,” he said.

  “Here,” said Jellicoe as he took the card he’d removed before and put to one side. He showed it to Braddon.

  “The three of spades… but how? I had my hand on it the whole time. How did you do that? Sleight of hand?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do. How? Come on.”

  “Your brow trumps the card.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had the three of spades in your brow’s outbox, so you assumed that was what you’d seen.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tricks are always disappointing when you know how they’re done.”

  “So they are,” Braddon said. “So, how do you play this game then?”

  Jellicoe explained the rules: the initial bet, or blind, raising, folding, the value of the various hands and how the dealer changed.

  “I’ve a dealer button somewhere,” Jellicoe said, rising.

  “There are two of us, we take it in turns.”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  Jellicoe dealt.
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  Braddon had what he decided was a good hand, a sort of flush, but that turned out to be useless, and Jellicoe had won most of the matches.

  “Let’s call that a trial run,” Jellicoe said.

  Braddon got his matches back.

  They played on, Braddon being cautious and calling early.

  As Braddon shuffled, Jellicoe refilled their glasses.

  “Have you noticed that there’s less spam these days?” Jellicoe said.

  “Not really,” Braddon replied. He parsed his thoughts and saw that, yes, there was significantly less. Hasqueth Finest still had him on some list, but he liked their coffee.

  “It’s old school,” Jellicoe continued.

  “Like stakeouts.”

  “Mantle’s celebrities, the cereb– cereb… celebrites.”

  “Cerebrities.”

  “Yes, some Jay uses something and millions buy it straight away.”

  “Jay? What sort of old–fashioned word is ‘Jay’?”

  “Based on DJ,” Jellicoe explained. “Someone who used to choose what records you listened to.”

  “Someone used to tell you what to listen to?”

  “That’s it. And it’s the same today with the cereb… Jays. Except they choose everything for you.”

  “They choose for themselves and people follow them, that’s all.”

  “And they’re controlled by corporations.”

  “Mantle?”

  “An unpleasant toad,” Jellicoe said. “He’s got his fingers in too many pies. You ever follow him?”

  “No,” Braddon admitted.

  “Cunning bastard, meets politicians, meets famous people and nary a thought of his business dealings.”

  “Secrets?”

  “Too many. Only those with something to hide have secrets.”

  “He’s put the spammers out of business,” said Braddon. “So not all bad.”

  They played on: Jellicoe bet high and Braddon folded.

  “What did you have?” Braddon asked.

  “I don’t have to show.”

  “Only those with something to hide have secrets,” Braddon said, reaching across and flipping the hand over. “You only had a pair!”

  “That’s poker for you.”

  “Ridiculous game.”

  Braddon dropped his three fours on the table and Jellicoe gathered them up to shuffle and deal.

  They played a few more hands, Braddon actually won one when Jellicoe folded, but Braddon was really hopeless. He wasn’t sure Jellicoe was much better, but he had enough edge to reclaim all his matchsticks.

  Neither suggested another game, so the two of them sat, feeling mellow, without anything to talk about and neither feeling the need.

  Eventually, Jellicoe broke the silence, “Any juicy cases?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “No Westbournes anymore.”

  “Terrorism alerts, drills, that sort of thing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “There was a suicide. He jumped off a bridge.”

  “None of his followers suspected anything from his thoughts.”

  “He was an unbrow.”

  “Oh… well, they tend to feel isolated.”

  “Funny thing… the security services were interested.”

  Jellicoe paused, looked across at Braddon strangely, “Security… they think he was a bomber?”

  “No, just this woman turned up to observe the investigation.”

  “Did she now?”

  “There wasn’t an investigation. He jumped off a bridge.”

  “What did she think of all this?”

  “I don’t know. Miss Steiger was an unbrow, but educated, smart… as far as I could tell.”

  Jellicoe whistled softly.

  “She was younger than me,” Braddon added.

  “How? School?” Jellicoe asked, failing to keep the incredulity out his voice.

  Braddon shrugged: now he came to tell someone else, it didn’t make much sense.

  “This woman?” Jellicoe asked.

  “The unbrow, Steiger.”

  “What was her interest?”

  “I’m guessing it’s because of Reuben Mantle. Josh Taylor, the jumper, worked for Cerebral Celebrities in Sentinel House.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Straight up.”

  “You have to be suspicious if Mantle was involved, secretive bastard. I said earlier, didn’t I? I said.”

  “You did.”

  “Political strings were pulled to hush it up?”

  “Not that I followed. No rethinks on it, but then Miss Steiger was something of a closed book.”

  “I bet she was.”

  “I’ve still got her card,” Braddon said. He went to his jacket hanging on the hook, fished it out and handed it to Jellicoe. “She was there at Freya’s office really early on and knew who the suicide’s identity before we did.”

  “Consultant… degree and post–graduate degree… suggestive of an education that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Yes,” said Braddon. He took the card back, popped it back in his jacket before returning to the bench.

  Jellicoe made a point of pouring another two tots of whisky.

  “It’s black ops then,” Jellicoe said. “M.I.5.”

  “That’s a myth.”

  “Oh, the secret service is alive and well.”

  “You’d be able to follow their thoughts.”

  “There are ways around that, drinking and…” Jellicoe said: he gestured for Braddon to finish the line of reasoning.

  “…educated, tight–arsed unbrows,” Braddon finished.

  “Did you?”

  “No, I did not!”

  “Not a looker then.”

  “She was attractive, but, you know, creepy.”

  The yacht creaked, its deck shifting, and distantly a bell clanged out in the bay. Steiger had been beautiful, but she wasn’t attractive as, say, one of Reuben Mantle’s cerebrities, whose thoughts so appealed and titillated. Steiger was enigmatic, even exotic, but she was blank like an untouchable marble statue.

  “You think there’s more to this than meets the eye?” Braddon said.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Secret service?”

  Jellicoe nodded.

  Braddon let his breath out slowly – Jellicoe was right.

  “Has to be,” said Jellicoe, “otherwise someone like this woman wouldn’t show up.”

  “Maybe he jumped, maybe he fell. It counts as a traffic accident. Unbrows get hit all the time. The car sensors don’t detect them and they don’t brake in time.”

  Jellicoe raised an eyebrow, almost as suggestive of his point of view as a thought emoticon.

  “No–one in the area thought about pushing him over in front of the cars.”

  “No–one thought it, so…”

  “No–one did it.”

  “Or…”

  “An unbrow?” Braddon said. “There?”

  Jellicoe nodded.

  “No–one thought about seeing an unbrow.”

  But there had been one unbrow there, undetected, so why not another and another, and perhaps a whole horde of them.

  “It might be worth having a poke around,” Braddon admitted. “Where do I sleep?”

  “There.”

  “That’s a bed?”

  “It’s what we sailors call a cosy little bunk.”

  “They’d have to be wee sailors.”

  “And,” Jellicoe added, “when you have a poke around, be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “Just do as you’re told.”

  “I always do as I’m told.”

  SUNDAY

  The next day, his body needed easing back into shape after being crammed into what Jellicoe had called a ‘cosy little bunk’ and his hair was lopsided because his iBrow charger had come loose overnight. Not even his technology was fully charged.

  The three of spades, he thought as his brow connected a
nd his outbox emptied. What was that about?

  Nacaffidol – to quiet the pain and hush the voices – now with added risperidone.

  Oh hell, Braddon thought. He hadn’t been aware of a hang–over until the spam arrived.

  He emptied his inbox and contacted Cerebral Celebrities.

  Jellicoe shouted over to him, “Have you used the heads?”

  “Heads?”

  “It’s what we sailors call the facilities.”

  He remembered Cerebral Celebrities at code details via Noodle and then he remembered several definitions of the word ‘heads’.

  “You go,” Braddon said.

  At Cerebral Celebrities, I’d like to book an appointment, he thought.

  Have you checked our frequently asked questions?

  He sighed: Appointment, I’m police.

  If this concerns a purchase, no matter what recommendation we may have appeared to endorse, you must contact your retailer.

  Appointment, police.

  Have you checked our frequently asked questions?

  May I think with a human, please.

  Tammy–Zing will be having a new competition in the spring.

  Human please, police business.

  Have you checked our–

  Braddon stopped following them. He was too hung over for this nonsense and it was his turn to squeeze into the tiny room at the stern.

  As he brushed his teeth: Tammy–Zing drinks Fizzy Good, a Mantle Worldwide product.

  Braddon spat: At Cerebral Celebrities, you didn’t help, but you picked up my at code to spam!

  Tammy–Zing uses Brisk toothpaste for a fresher start to the day. Brisk toothpaste, a Mantle Worldwide product.

  For f–

  Have you checked our frequently asked questions?

  Jellicoe cooked a fried breakfast on the tiniest of stoves and served it piecemeal. Sausages and then, a while later, bacon. The toaster needed the bread turned and put back under for another grilling, but it did sterling work keeping them fed while the next course spat and complained in the greasy pan.

  There was tea, black and bitter as the milk had gone off in the dodgy fridge. Jellicoe added Scotch to his. His new liver was nearly ready, so Braddon suspected he was seeing his old one out in style.

  “You going to take the case?” Jellicoe asked.

  Braddon tapped his forehead: “Already have.”

  “Any progress?”

  “Have you checked our frequently asked questions?”

  Jellicoe snorted, and searched around for the next course to cook.

  “We’ve had sausages.”

  “Black pudding?”