Atcode

by David Wake

He was a police officer and a thought couldn’t…

  There was a bright light like a camera flash going off or lightning splitting the sky.

  Kill Steiger.

  It went straight through his brow, going deep inside his head. He screwed his eyes shut, but the explosion came from within his skull.

  His tongue felt too large for his mouth. He couldn’t talk. Steiger was… but he had his eyes closed, so she, a thoughtless unbrow, was invisible.

  Steiger, help! he thought anyway, but she didn’t pick up his thought, of course, and then he thought Kill Steiger again.

  Braddon fought it, but it was overwhelming.

  And then, as a blessed relief, the auto–repeating mantra took over.

  Kill Steiger.

  He opened his eyes and saw a shocked Mantle staring at him.

  Kill Steiger.

  Braddon, Mantle thought, why do you want Steiger to help you?

  Kill Steiger, Braddon thought back, so strongly that Mantle flinched, the command barked over recognition.

  Braddon, are you all right?

  I have to go, Braddon thought.

  Go where?

  “What’s the matter with him?” Entwhistle asked.

  “They’ve got to him,” Mantle said, cowering.

  “How?”

  Kill Steiger.

  Mantle and Entwhistle backed away – Braddon let them, watched as they closed the outer door, struggled with the drug–dispensing machine and finally retreated into the Cage.

  Braddon opened the outer door.

  The two men flinched in panic.

  But Braddon didn’t follow. With the outer door open, they were trapped. A cage, indeed.

  Kill Steiger.

  He lurched away, across the wide floor surrounding the Cage and the stairs led him downwards, stepping with each syllable of ‘Kill Stei–ger’. He reached the exit to the Suites and ran across the manicured lawn, the trees swaying gently as if in fresh alpine air.

  He knew this place, knew every step and divot despite never having been there before. Tammy–Zing loved the bench over there, and the look of her door with its stained–glass window set high above. Zak–Zak always knocked three times. Lola_Five liked swimming in the pool. Somewhere a poodle yapped.

  Braddon put his shoulder to the door and the stained glass shattered, tiny fragments of red, blue and yellow showering down onto him, crunched underfoot.

  Braddon burst into the lounge.

  Someone screamed, a blistering wave of focused emoticons coming across on recognition.

  It went on until–

  Kill Steiger.

  Until a woman, a girl really, appeared, her face contorted in fear.

  Braddon felt an echo on recognition and realised that he was already following her: Lola_Five. She was afraid. The world was suddenly afraid, rethinking her reaction and sharing the terror. He received her thoughts too and he was afraid of what he might do.

  Someone was pointing a gun at her.

  Braddon was shocked, so strong was the reaction that he almost felt it was pointing at him.

  But he was holding it.

  Olive!!!

  He recognized Chloe, turned and saw her standing in a doorway.

  Chloe? Buffered.

  Kill Steiger. Chloe!

  At Oliver, guess what? I’m a celebrity now, an overnight success, and– what’s going on?

  I… don’t know. It buffered. How had she got here? Buffered. “Where’s Steiger?”

  The zombie? It’s all right. At Lola_Five, he’s police.

  “Yes. Where is she?”

  She went… why are you talking aloud?

  But Braddon didn’t stop to hear any more. He knew from Chloe’s leaked thoughts, and he made his way out and across the lawn. The Suites were all around him, Mantle’s giant glass tower, seen from this level, looked less like a ziggurat and more like a monolith.

  He saw a door, split around the lock and ajar.

  It led to an office, utterly out of place amongst the opulence of the living quarters. It was full of paperwork, as if Braddon had somehow stepped back in time.

  He saw Steiger.

  “Steiger!”

  “Braddon,” she said, “it’s a goldmine. All these records.”

  She turned away from him and looked at some files she’d strewn about the desk.

  “You can track the money from here to here… and here,” she said. She moved her fingers from one pile to another like a child skipping from one square to another.

  Mantle hadn’t bluffed: he was a brow and couldn’t lie.

  Her back was to Braddon, her skin colour visible beneath her white blouse and the line of her bra strap dividing–

  “We’ve got him now, Braddon,” she said. “We’ve got him now.”

  Kill Steiger.

  Narrow waist, tight skirt–

  Kill Steiger.

  Her hair fell loosely, blonde and–

  Kill Steiger.

  Braddon pointed towards her.

  Kill Steiger.

  Her back exploded.

  What the Kill Steiger–ing hell!

  Another jolt.

  It was the gun in his hand going off… and again.

  Kill Steiger.

  He was.

  Kill Steiger.

  She was dead.

  Kill Steiger, it’s not stopping now it’s done.

  Braddon blinked rapidly, trying to clear his head.

  Kill Steiger.

  What was that card?

  Kill Steiger.

  He noodled and…

  Kill Steiger.

  …remembered ‘Halt’.

  It was as if a loud bell had stopped, but the silence still rang.

  Where am I?

  The wall in front of him was covered in blood splatter.

  He went forward, saw a body lying over a desk of paperwork, shot in the back multiple times. He looked down, saw a gun in his hand and he couldn’t… noodling, he couldn’t remember picking it up.

  Resin, Jesus… oh, you idiot, he thought to himself and his followers, I picked it up without thinking and contaminated the crime scene. Stupid, stupid…

  He had another shock when he moved round the desk.

  A woman’s body.

  He touched her, turned her over and saw through her blonde hair that it was Steiger.

  No wonder he hadn’t recognized the corpse, there was no brow transmitting any final thought.

  Dead.

  Shot in the back.

  As the corpse rolled, a card fell from a pocket.

  At Draith, he thought, emergency! Shooter at Sentinel House, fatality.

  At Braddon, Draith thought, not one of the celebrities?

  No, Steiger… at Freya, follow me, emergency.

  Active shooter?

  Braddon checked, couldn’t hear anything… not sure.

  On our way.

  I’ll wait… secure the crime scene.

  Braddon sank to the floor, somehow, being able to think, he felt like his strings had been cut. He wondered about Larson, Steiger, whether he’d ruined any fingerprints or DNA evidence by touching the gun.

  He noodled his Thinkerfeed, but it was a complete mess. Proof, if proof was needed, that Mantle had done something.

  He made the gun safe.

  A card lay on the floor. It had fallen from Steiger’s pocket. He’d seen this before, when her business card had fallen out of his jacket in his bathroom, except that this was more like one of those cards that Mantle used.

  He put his finger on the blank side, tapped it three times and then kept his finger there, wondering what it said.

  Then he flipped it over: ‘Kill Steiger’.

  What!

  Why would Steiger have a card instructing her to kill herself? It would say ‘commit suicide’ surely? Unless the killer had left it on her as a sign: ‘job done’ perhaps?

  He checked his own Thinkerfeed. Earlier than the thoughts to contact Draith and his own anger at himsel
f for contaminating the crime scene, there was ‘what the –ing hell’ and ‘–it’s not stopping now it’s done’. At first, he considered a brow app had replaced any expletives, but he hadn’t installed anything like that. Police weren’t allowed to run modifying software.

  But someone must have got around that.

  Mantle!

  Before he knew what he was doing, he’d put the card in his pocket and checked the gun.

  He crossed the Suites.

  There was movement behind the windows, cerebrities checking what was going on, literally a billion or more curtain twitchers spying.

  Where was security?

  Where were the police?

  Probably the one was delaying the other.

  Braddon made it back to the Cage.

  Mantle and Entwhistle were still inside, the outer door was still open and it did work like an airlock. They were effectively in prison where they belonged.

  “Braddon,” Mantle shouted. “We’re not your enemy. Steiger is tricking you.”

  “Really?” Braddon shouted back. “I think not.”

  He fumbled into his pocket and pulled out the card he’d found. He went right up the window of the other door and slapped it onto the glass.

  “See!”

  Mantle came closer, so close he almost flickering into recognition despite copper wire protection. Entwhistle behind him. They stared at the card.

  A woman’s voice spoke patiently, “Please put your arm in the slot indicated.”

  “Steiger’s dead,” Braddon said. “Murdered.”

  “It can’t be us,” Mantle said. “Steiger was with you, she went to the office in the Suites, you followed, and we’ve been locked in here the whole time.”

  What?

  The card: what had it said?

  ‘Kill Steiger’, but that seemed to slip away. There was nothing in his sent–box to signify he’d thought that, nor even in his outbox. His thoughts on the card had been deleted.

  Deleted in the Cage!

  What had Entwhistle said, when he’d first shown Braddon the Cage?

  Braddon parsed his own thoughts and there it was: ‘How do you know I haven’t already shown you inside and you’ve forgotten?’ He’d been disturbed by the idea.

  What did the card say?

  ‘Kill Steiger’ wasn’t in his thought stream!

  That trick Jellicoe had demonstrated on the boat: a thought in the outbox trumped anything.

  Except there wasn’t anything in his outbox.

  The voice repeated, “Please put your arm in the slot indicated.”

  The answers were in the Cage hiding inside that computer he could see in the corner.

  “Let me in,” he demanded.

  “You have to close the outside door.”

  Braddon did so, and the door hissed closed.

  There was a woman’s voice, instructions – “Please put your arm in the slot indicated” – and he pushed his arm into the slot ready for the injection.

  There was already a puncture mark in his skin.

  So, he had been inside before.

  The inner door opened and went in once more, the presence of the gun loosely held in his hand causing Mantle and Entwhistle to back away even as he waved them away with the card.

  There was a body covered by a jacket.

  Who?

  “Larson,” Entwhistle said, clearly picking up the cue from Braddon’s glance. “He’s been… mutilated.”

  Mutilated! “How?”

  “His brow has been removed.”

  Scalped! Jesus!

  It was a shock to find him… sorry. “It was a shock to find him,” Mantle said, switching to talking aloud. “Considering the drugs and our reactions, we may have found him a number of times.”

  Braddon nodded, not really taking it in. He saw the computer screen. It showed a thinker app, or whatever was the equivalent, with information and options clumsily displayed in rectangles.

  One had ‘Kill Mantle’, the other ‘Kill Steiger’.

  Remember–and–substitute.

  There was a code for an iBrow at the top. He noodled it, but it didn’t work. He was in the Cage, of course.

  The card said ‘Kill Steiger’.

  Kill Steiger, he thought.

  It appeared on the screen. The iBrow code was his.

  Kill Mantle, he tried.

  No! Please! Braddon! Mantle thought.

  So recognition did work inside the Faraday cage.

  The display of his thoughts had ‘Kill Steiger’ twice.

  Kill Mantle, he tried again. This time he saw it appear for the briefest moments before it flickered to ‘Kill Steiger’.

  Oh, god, no, please… “Entwhistle, he’s going to kill me.”

  “Of course not,” said Braddon, speaking aloud. “I’m a police officer. I’m not going to kill anyone.”

  Except… Mantle and Entwhistle had been trapped in the Cage. He had a gun – where had that come from? He’d been at the crime scene. That was method and opportunity.

  As for motive, it was printed on the card and all over the computer screen.

  If you could be controlled by thought.

  The playing card had not been the three of spades, even if that’s what had been in his outbox and was now in the Thinkersphere.

  Shit! I did it!

  Did what?

  “Sir… Mister Mantle, what are you thinking?” Entwhistle asked.

  “He thinks he did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Killed Steiger,” Braddon said.

  “Self–defence,” Mantle said. “She was trying to kill me.”

  Braddon shot him a look, a full expletive of emoticons over recognition.

  “You were doing your job,” Mantle said, still speaking aloud. “You are a police officer, after all.”

  “But you controlled me with this,” Braddon said, holding the card up, and then he pointed at the screen. “And this?”

  How?

  Kill Mantle to Kill Steiger, Braddon thought and then, in his outbox, Kill Steiger to Kill Steiger.

  This was it then. Messages in your head beamed there by the likes of Mantle to control you to kill or buy the latest brand of coffee. He wanted a Glen Longmoor.

  Braddon had had enough. “Entwhistle, turn this damned thing off.”

  Entwhistle stepped forward.

  “Entwhistle, don’t,” Mantle said. “It might… if I understand it correctly, mean that you are controlled to kill me.”

  I’m fine with ‘kill Mantle’, Braddon thought, and then he realised he’d thought, I’m fine with ‘kill Steiger’ – oh bugger!

  You see, Mantle thought. It’s my insurance.

  Braddon was firm, “Entwhistle – now!”

  Entwhistle went to the desk, moved the mouse until the pointer hovered over an ‘X’ at the top right of the screen. He clicked it.

  “Do you want to save?”

  “No.”

  Entwhistle clicked ‘Don’t Save’ and it was gone.

  So, I’m a killer, Braddon thought. Despite the situation, he lolled, so the detective did it.

  It’s not funny, Mantle thought.

  No, it’s not.

  You’ll forget.

  I won’t.

  You will… the drug.

  Shit.

  So, he had this to go through again. He didn’t fancy finding out once again to experience the shock and disbelief. And disgust. Would Sanghera work it out? Chief Inspector Turner? Should he hide the evidence or be a good police officer and write his confession?

  Most of all, he wanted to be out of the godforsaken, thoughtless metal box.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said aloud.

  But–

  Enough.

  Braddon ushered them out.

  They waited a long time in the cramped airlock for their outboxes to be empty and the breath to change. Braddon was angry, guilt gnawing away along with the frustration, but then he just felt confused.

>   SUNDAY, MORNING

  Where am I?

  Where am I? Detective Sergeant Braddon… what’s going on?

  “What’s going on?” Entwhistle asked.

  The door opened and then stepped out into the brighter illumination.

  It was a warm and beautiful summer’s day.

  Tammy–Zing and Zak–Zak were trying to choose a restaurant for a romantic meal, Lola–Five was ordering from the Mantle Enterprises catalogue – and you can too – as retail therapy for the shock. Chloe really liked the Fiery Love range of designer clothing and it took her mind off what had just happened.

  The police were in the building, coming up now.

  At Sanghera, he thought, what’s going on?

  Shooting, sir.

  Who?

  Miss Steiger.

  What!

  You called it in.

  Did I?

  What happened, Sanghera thought at him. Draith too. And Inspector Dartford, Chief Superintendent Freya Turner and Mantle’s lawyers from Saudi Arabia.

  Braddon didn’t know.

  I should have written it down, he thought.

  Your pockets, man, Mantle thought with desperate emoticon, look in your pockets.

  Braddon did so.

  There was a single card: ‘Find Detective Braddon and tell him everything.’

  The nepenthatrine wipes out memories and you have to delete what’s in your outbox.

  Braddon glanced over his shoulder at the Cage.

  He’d been in there. Must have.

  And everything had been wiped from his memory.

  He checked his forearm and saw two puncture marks.

  He’d been in twice.

  What did that mean?

  The emergency services rushed into the room: armed police, paramedics, everyone.

  As Sanghera and his colleagues took over, Braddon received medical treatment. He was tired, exhausted and there were cuts all around his brow – terrifying. It meant that there had been an attempt to tamper with his very thoughts.

  Then someone gave him something to help him sleep.

  MONDAY

  The whole city lay below the crime scene.

  Braddon stood high above, leaning on the glass, and watched the endless procession. All these people carrying on regardless.

  It was a fair drop.

  He couldn’t recognize anyone from this distance.

  Sir, Sanghera thought.

  Braddon didn’t look round: Detective Constable.

  Cold here, Sanghera thought, and shivered.

  It’s the lack of Thinkersphere contact.