Altered Reality

by Eliza Green

  Harvey turned to face Bill. ‘Watch your back. You don’t want me as an enemy,’ he snarled.

  Bill took a step forward, his fists clenched. ‘I already have plenty. One more isn’t going to make a difference.’

  Harvey looked over at Laura. ‘I’m sure your girlfriend there would be able to tell me your source.’

  Laura had moved a bit closer to them. While Harvey had his head turned the other way, Bill gestured for her to stay put.

  ‘Just leave her out of it,’ Bill said sternly, his Scottish accent thickening the angrier he got. ‘She knows nothing.’

  The two men sized each other up like a pair of wild animals, their noses almost touching. Suddenly Laura grabbed the scalpel out of Harvey’s hand up and held it up to his neck. Bill’s eyes widened and he stepped back.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Laura said through gritted teeth. Her hand was shaking.

  Harvey stayed perfectly still. ‘Hey, let’s not do anything hasty now.’

  ‘I can’t tell you more about the origin of the chips—I’m sorry, Harvey,’ Bill said, trying to make light of the situation. ‘You’ll just have to work out how to make copies from the one I’ve given you.’

  For a moment, Harvey said nothing. Then his face broke into a wide smile. ‘Well, it looks like we’re done here. You can call off your attack dog now.’ Laura lowered the scalpel but kept it pointed at him. Harvey rubbed his neck. ‘Time to tell me all you know about this little beauty.’

  Bill relaxed his stance, but not his mood. He brusquely explained how the blank worked, but omitted one crucial detail: the chips with the DNA on them needed to be ‘marked’ by placing the chip in a sample of the host’s blood so the chip’s tendrils could bond with the host’s DNA; without the right ‘mark’, the replicas would repeatedly fail to connect to the host. Bill desperately wanted to get out of there, and he could tell by the look on Laura’s face that she felt the same.

  ‘Vlad is waiting downstairs to take you back to the train station,’ Harvey said when Bill was done. ‘You can make your own way to the docking station from there.’

  ‘Just one thing before we go,’ Laura said firmly. ‘What identities did you give us?’

  Harvey gave her a broad smile. ‘Looks and brains! Well done, Bill—this one’s a keeper.’ Laura blushed but didn’t move from her defensive position. ‘You’re Irene Clark and your boyfriend here is Alberto Rodriguez,’ Harvey said smoothly, not taking his eyes off the scalpel.

  ‘Do I look Spanish to you?’ Bill growled, grabbing the scalpel off Laura.

  Harvey shrugged. ‘Maybe you should have paid me more.’

  Harvey walked ahead of them to the main entrance, while Bill held the scalpel against the small of his back. ‘Don’t go far, Bill,’ he shouted as they left. ‘I’ve got eyes on you.’ Bill turned around and tossed him the scalpel.

  Vlad was waiting for them outside in the vehicle. They hopped in, and he set off to the bullet train station by the same route they’d arrived. No one was very talkative.

  On the way back Vlad suddenly turned his mangled face to Bill. ‘You bring company?’ he asked casually and glanced in the rear view mirror.

  Bill scowled and looked behind him. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Same car that followed us to Centre. Is it anyone you know?

  ‘No one knew we were coming here today,’ Bill said, puzzled.

  ‘We need to move,’ Vlad said, flicking off the autopilot and switching to manual control.

  Just then, a red laser beam pierced the back window, narrowly missing Laura, and scored the Kevlar that covered the back of Bill’s seat. Laura yelped and ducked as tiny shards of glass rained down on her.

  ‘You all right, Laura?’ Bill shouted.

  ‘Yes, I’m okay,’ she yelled back over the roar of the engine.

  ‘Shit … someone trying to kill you,’ Vlad yelled at the top of his voice and rolled his good eye. ‘Every day, new clients, always someone follows.’ He put his foot on the accelerator, skillfully dodging the other drivers as if he was in a computer game.

  ‘Shit, I don’t have any weapons with me,’ Bill roared over the sound of the engine.

  Vlad opened a compartment near him and handed Bill a military buzz gun. Bill clicked a switch on its side to set the laser and opened the window just enough for the gun to fit through. He aimed for the other vehicle’s wheels. He fired once but the laser hit the bumper.

  A second laser shot through the back of their vehicle and hit Bill’s seat again. Bill ducked down and waited for the two vehicles to run parallel. Then he popped up, aimed out the window and fired a second time. This time he hit the front wheel. The pursuing car swerved, hit a kerb and flipped on to its roof.

  ‘That won’t stop them,’ Vlad growled as he kept the car’s speed up. ‘You must go to station on foot.’

  He pulled into an empty site and under a large sign indicating that there had once been an apartment block there, and ordered them out. Before they ran off, they watched Vlad erect a containment bubble around the car and ignite the oxygen in it. The explosion silently incinerated the car while the containment bubble controlled the flames until all the oxygen had burned up.

  Bill and Laura ran off through the alleyways of Magadan, the gel masks making breathing extremely difficult. Eventually they reached the docking station and collapsed on the seats in the waiting area.

  ‘Harvey?’ Laura asked, when she’d got her breath back.

  ‘Could be,’ said Bill, cautiously looking around.

  ‘I didn’t like how he was with us,’ she said, opening the buttons on her coat.

  ‘Yeah, well that was a dangerous stunt you pulled back there, grabbing the scalpel like that. It could have easily backfired. Anyway, there was no reason for him to want to kill us—and maybe Vlad too.’

  ‘Well, who then?’

  Bill shook his head. ‘I have a lot of enemies, Laura. But I told no one we were coming here today.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Did you tell someone—your mother maybe?’

  Laura shook her head. ‘Only Callum knew,’ she whispered. Then her mouth parted, slowly. ‘Do you think he …’

  ‘We can’t be sure. If he did, he may have had no choice. Maybe you were right in thinking there was more to that roving camera when it said you were being watched.’

  ‘This is getting really dangerous, Bill. Maybe we need to lie low for a while.’

  ‘We can’t—we have to help the Indigenes. Anyhow, if it’s the government who are out to stop us, they’d have found a less noticeable way to bump us off. That was just a warning I suspect. We have to keep going. We can’t know what we know and do nothing about it.’ Bill shrugged and gave Laura a wry smile.

  The first part of their plan was complete: they had new identities, identities of real people who still existed on government records. Now they needed to find living hosts for the second set of chips that were loaded with their real identities—if the World Government tracked them, they’d still register as being ‘on world’.

  A couple of days later, Laura heard that Bill had deposited his ‘real’ identity chip with a contact who owed him a favour. She also learned that Callum Preston had been busy since they’d last spoke. She had put in a request for several weeks off work, which had attracted some suspicion, so he had quickly altered the internal communications about her request to make it seem like her bosses at ESC felt she was long overdue the time off and understood her reasons. She got her approval, but she wondered if the ESC secretly knew about her and Bill’s plans, and about Callum’s interference behind the scenes. She couldn’t bring herself to ask Callum if he’d told Gilchrist about her plans. In the end, she decided she didn’t want to know. She was already in too deep and knowing the truth wouldn’t change that.

  Laura finished her shift at five that morning and headed straight over to her mother’s apartment—her second visit in twenty-four hours. The cat was sprawled along the foot of Fionnuala’s bed, exactly where she had left her the prev
ious day. Princess stretched lazily when Laura arrived, a not so subtle way of asserting her dominance in the household. The expression on her furry face changed when Laura approached.

  She sat down beside the visibly nervous cat and stroked her until she purred. Outside on the street there were three loud bangs. Fionnuala went to the window to investigate. Laura immediately took advantage of the distraction to check the incision—she had inserted her ‘real’ identity chip in the top of the cat’s paw the day before. Princess flinched and miaowed. Laura stroked her head to calm her; it would heal over soon enough. The cat continued to miaow quietly but persistently.

  ‘What’s wrong, Princess?’ Fionnuala cooed, turning back from the window.

  ‘Nothing. Probably starved of attention, that’s all,’ Laura quipped.

  ‘I don’t see how. That cat gets everything she needs.’

  Laura rolled her eyes. Sarcasm was wasted on her mother.

  ‘Just some boys messing about on the street,’ Fionnuala added. ‘So where was it you said you were going?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ If the authorities knew about her travel plans, she didn’t want her mother being pulled in as an accomplice.

  ‘For God’s sake, Laura, I need you. Who’s going to help me clean up around here?’

  Laura frowned. ‘What happened to your new-found independence?’

  ‘What?’ Fionnuala said looking puzzled and wrapping her bathrobe tightly around her.

  ‘What about your new best friends down at the Order of the Dearly Departed?’

  ‘Oh, them! They turned out to be a bunch of weirdos, completely obsessed with religion and new age healing,’ Fionnuala said and shook her head.

  ‘Isn’t that the kind of thing you were looking for?’

  ‘Of course not! I wanted people I could talk to about your father. It turned out they just wanted to sit around and get naked.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Cecil offered me a private consultation in his home and when I arrived, he was wearing a silk bathrobe and there were three half-dressed women hovering around in the background.’ Fionnuala clucked her tongue. ‘He didn’t want to talk at all.’

  Laura tried to suppress her laughter until it came out in unattractive snorts.

  ‘Laura! Please,’ Fionnuala scolded. The sound of Laura’s laughter tugged at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Maybe we can find you another group more to your liking.’

  ‘No, no. I’m done with all that nonsense. Why do I need others when I have you?’

  Laura groaned. ‘I still think you need to get out and about—regain your independence.’

  ‘Maybe, love, maybe.’

  Laura could tell that Fionnuala had already made her mind up. She left her mother’s apartment an hour later with a clearer head and a renewed sense of purpose. She was sick of people telling her how to live her life, what decisions to make, where she needed to be. Liberated by the ability to become someone else, she transformed into her alter ego Irene Clark, who, she decided, was much thicker skinned and hard hearted, and made plans to meet Bill in London.

  Chapter 21

  Bill looked at his watch. ‘She’s late,’ he said.

  He and Laura were sitting together on the black leather sofa at Bill’s Nottingham-based apartment. It was the first time he’d invited Laura to his home—his and Isla’s home—and he watched her closely as she looked around her, discreetly trying to figure him out. The apartment was more Isla than him, from the miniature chandeliers over the dining table to the replica oil paintings that hung on the wall next to the crimson-velvet chairs. Bill had been happy to let Isla decorate the place the way she’d wanted to. He found it strange to have someone sitting beside him there; he idly wondered what Isla would have made of him bringing a female colleague into their home.

  ‘She’ll call. You’ve no patience, Bill,’ Laura said.

  Bill shrugged. ‘What did you do with your second chip?’ he asked, keeping his eyes trained on the Light Box.

  ‘I put it somewhere safe.’

  ‘Yeah, but where?’

  Laura’s silence piqued Bill’s curiosity. He glanced at her sideways; she looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh, come on—spit it out,’ he said.

  ‘I’d rather not. You’ll only laugh at me.’

  Bill coughed and tried to look serious. ‘I promise I won’t.’

  ‘Remember I told you about my mother’s cat Princess?’

  ‘The big fat Persian thing?’ He turned to look at her, trying to keep a straight face.

  Laura became flustered. ‘I was under pressure. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it.’

  Bill’s shoulders began to shake, but he couldn’t contain his laughter for long and it came out in snorts.

  ‘Well, I didn’t hear any suggestions from you!’ Laura said defensively.

  Bill wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I haven’t laughed this hard since … I don’t know when.’

  ‘It’ll work just fine,’ she said with more assurance.

  ‘I’m picturing their faces when they clock you jumping across roof tops, and hanging around the back of restaurants looking for scraps.’ Bill couldn’t stop smiling.

  ‘Well, maybe it won’t make any difference—according to you, they already know what we’re really up to.’ Laura sat back in the sofa.

  Bill’s smile faded. ‘I’m only guessing—it’s a fair assumption that they do. There’s still time to put the chip somewhere else, if you want.’

  Laura shook her head. ‘Let’s keep this simple. Everything else is too complicated right now.’

  A silence lingered between them before Bill spoke again. ‘How did the cat respond when you violated her?’ He was smiling again.

  Laura scowled briefly at him. ‘No different to when I put her gel mask on before she goes outside. She scratched my arm to bits when I made the incision, and did her best to avoid me when I checked on her this morning. She won’t trust me again any time soon, but I got the job done.’

  ‘Where’s the cat now?

  ‘Sprawled across Fionnuala’s bed and not likely to move unless the food runs out.’

  Bill nodded.

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘No reason. Just killing time I guess.’ He turned his attention back to the Light Box in front of them. ‘Bit lazy, is it?’

  ‘You could say that. They say people pick pets that reflect their personality. In Fionnuala’s case, it’s sloth. Although, if the cat gets a whiff of any type of food out in the corridor, she’s clawing at the front door day and night until I let her out.’

  ‘Fat, too?—the cat I mean.’

  ‘Like a sack of stones. You’d put your back out trying to lift her. But she can move quickly enough when she wants to. I followed her once. She sits by the main door and purrs quietly until someone opens it for her. Then she’s gone! Fionnuala loves that cat—got a bit worried when I started cutting her.’

  ‘Aye, that must have gone down well,’ Bill said. ‘What did you tell her you were doing?’

  ‘Giving it a vitamin boost. She bought it, even though I’ve never done that to the cat before.’

  ‘That’s one trusting mother you have.’

  ‘Not trusting—just not bothered with details,’ said Laura, shrugging. ‘What time did Jenny say she was going to call?’

  ‘Thirty minutes ago,’ Bill said. He interlocked his fingers and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. She just said she had a few things she needed to sort out before we talked properly. Shit! What if she’s changed her mind? I should’ve got her to sign something.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have signed it, you know that. Jenny’s done with people telling her what to do. Let’s not panic just yet. We still have time.’

  Bill stood up and paced up and down in front of the sofa. ‘But there’s no plan without her. We’ll have no chance of getting to Exilon 5, and your time off work will
be for nothing.’

  ‘Come sit beside me, Bill,’ Laura said firmly.

  He kept pacing. She patted the seat beside her.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said.

  ‘Please. She’ll call when she’s ready. She knows there’s a deadline. We still have time.’

  Reluctantly, Bill sat back down and rubbed his eyes. He leaned back into the sofa and crossed one leg over the other; then he uncrossed them again.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Laura frowned.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help it. I need to be doing something. It’s killing me, just sitting here like this.’

  ‘Okay then, let’s chat to pass the time.’

  Bill raised one eyebrow and looked at her. ‘About what?’

  Laura shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  There was a few moments silence.

  ‘How’s your mother doing after her fall?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Laura replied. He waited for her to elaborate. ‘I mean she’s on the mend, I suppose.’

  ‘You two don’t get on?’

  ‘We get on fine. It’s just … she’s so dependent on me for everything. Sometimes I don’t have any room to breathe.’

  ‘People can be like that sometimes. Do you think she’ll ever get a life of her own?’

  Laura smiled wryly. ‘Maybe one day, when I finally cut the ties and make her do things for herself. But I think Exilon 5 will be good for her. On Earth, it’s easier for her to stay indoors and never go anywhere.’

  ‘Do you want some coffee?’ Bill asked. He stood up and walked towards the kitchen.

  ‘Sure, if you’re having one yourself,’ Laura called after him.

  He returned a few minutes later with a couple of steaming mugs. Laura took a sip.

  ‘Holy crap!’ she yelled, pulling a face. ‘This stuff would strip wallpaper!’

  ‘Sorry, I like it strong,’ said Bill, taking a large gulp and staring at the Light Box. ‘What do you make of Daphne Gilchrist? She’s your boss, isn’t she?’

  Laura put the mug down. ‘What you see is what you get with her. She can be cold, calculating and a little surprising.’