by Andy Graham
“She’s from the North. It’s very different from southern Mennai.”
“And you think people in Ailan will make that distinction? You were caught up in the attack in Castle Brecan, you know what’s possible.”
“We’ve done worse to them.”
“Maybe.” She poked him again. “But Hamilton singled Mennai out for their warlike past.”
“Their past?” That damned shoulder injury of his was throbbing in time with his racing pulse. “Our navy had their own unofficial pirates not too long ago.”
“And your wife’s people had a fighting queen in a scythed chariot. You can stick it in a pink dress and a ponytail if it makes you feel better, but lethal is still lethal.”
Rick’s jaw dropped, shocked that a woman who argued with the precision of a brain surgeon (and occasionally produced similarly unintended but devastating side effects) would resort to such a random fact. “Chariots?” he spluttered. “You can’t just—”
“I can. I just did.”
And now she was being petulant. For possibly the only time ever, he saw her mother in her. (How a woman that scatterbrained had managed to produce both Beth and her sister had always mystified him. Genes were treacherous things, he decided, playing their own secret game.)
“That happened long before the Great Flood, Beth, way before Brettia became Ailan. Do you want to blame the Ice Age that killed the dinosaurs on her, too? The White Plague epidemic? Maybe it’s her fault aliens fly straight past us? Just as well. If the little green people landed, it wouldn’t take them long to realise we’re a bunch of bickering idiots whose talent for creating amazing things is dwarfed by our ability to fuck those things up and then complain they’re broken!” He grabbed the bottle off her and smacked it down onto a pile of papers on the desk.
“Funny. Hysterical, actually.” Beth gave him a smile dripping in sarcasm. Her mother was gone. Beth was back, in all her argumentative glory. “But you’re better than that. You know what’s happening as well as I do. Hamilton’s comment about cockroaches is just the tip of this problem — the people of Ailan are being trained to see groups, not individuals. And your wife and daughter are part of a group that is on The List of People Who Are Not Like Us.”
“Enough!” He kicked the table. The monitor flashed on, a lurid, jealous green spilling across Beth’s face. “And leave my family out of this. You made your choice.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about?”
“What?”
She gestured to the computer. “You could fix that machine easily. The only time you couldn’t fix things like that was when you were angry with me.”
Rick jumped to his feet. “What in all the levels of hell are you talking about?”
18
A Trick
Beth sat stock still in the chair, glaring at him. The only sound was the stuttering whirr of the computer as it ground to a halt once more. She wasn’t going to break eye contact first. He might as well try and outstare a light bulb. Rick lowered his gaze, past the burn marks on his wrists, and wished for a trapdoor to open in the floor. He was desperate for a secret passage, one which opened up behind the wizened grandfather clock in his home, a tunnel full of the heavy clunk of the clock pendulum marking time and the laughter of his family. There was no door. No easy way out. And while he was hoping one would magically appear, he realised he had scuffed a shoe. That would have been a push-up penalty for the entire platoon if his drill sergeant had caught it, a vicious steel whip of a man with a face like sandpaper and a voice to match. The scuff was a little thing. An unimportant thing. But focusing on one trivial issue distracted him from the bigger problems he had to deal with. His wife probably had a pithy saying about that, too.
As for his ex? Thin-lipped and quivering, Beth redirected her ire towards the computer. Beneath the fury he knew was lurking just out of sight, there would be a part of her that was calculating what was wrong with the machine and what she could do to fix it. She was usually right. To his faint shame — that he had barely even admitted to himself — that was one of the things that had annoyed him most about her.
“I came here to explain to you what’s going on in the country,” Beth said. “Not to argue about our past. Why are you still angry with my choices if you’re so happy with Thryn and Rose?”
He grabbed his notepad off the table and threw it at the computer. It spat a series of beeps and whistles at him and let out a slow whine. Hitting machines didn’t work, just like honking your horn in a traffic jam. “I’m worried I won’t see them again, that there’s more going on here than you or I know. Most of all, I’m scared I won’t be able to help.”
He kicked the server again, just to see if his luck would hold as it had that day in the smog-soaked queue of cars. Nothing. Beth placed one hand on his knee. “Can we erase the last few minutes? Start again?”
The light touch felt heavier than a hammer: laden with guilt, memories and promises. “We did that a lot of times already.”
“Who said there’s a limit on these things?”
“You did, remember?” He took her hand in his and placed it back on her leg.
The room went quiet. A quiet whirring broke the silence. Rick glanced up at the camera. It was off. He slapped the computer and the noise stopped. “OK. Let’s start again. Again. Tell me more about Hamilton and this bloody revolution and why I’m stuck in here delousing cameras.”
“There’s not much more to say. Hamilton described De Lette’s trade deals and the influx of people as modern day rape, pillage and plunder on an industrial scale. He said we had a duty to save the children, but no more. He claimed anything else was a threat to our way of life. We’ve paid with millions of lives to get where we are. Why should they get it for free?”
Rick rebooted the computer and tried his password. This time it worked. He logged into the sun-fan folder, pulling up the schematics for the dragonfly lenses. “Rape and pillage don’t sound like ‘not much more’ to me.”
“You should hear what some of his colleagues say off the record while they’re drinking in the government bars. If members of the public were caught saying what they say, they’d be locked up or sectioned.”
The lines on the screen stared back at him, a bilious pattern that shifted the more he looked at it. The pain in his shoulder was getting worse again. The doctors had claimed his rehab a success and sent him a document decorated with green ticks in boxes to prove it. But with each passing day, the old sensations were returning.
“I’m a soldier, Beth.” A pinching feeling closed around the base of his skull as the unwanted memories crept out of their hiding places. Largest among them was the image of the young Mennai woman counting the bullet holes in her stomach. “I’ve seen and done stuff that makes me want to retch. I’ve met people who take to the violence in the military with an indifference that scares me. I’ve seen others who can only deal with the emotional fallout of their actions by becoming machines. Then there are those a wrong look away from a one-person massacre. Men with bodies ripped to pieces who survive and then rip their families to pieces. Alcohol drunk like water. Beatings and rape used like you and I shake hands. I’ve seen what people are capable of. I’m not as naive as you think.”
“And I’m talking about the people who make the decisions to do this.” Beth shunted her chair away and placed her hands on his shoulders, squeezing the tender flesh. “Gung-ho leaders who have never served. They know full well their whims and wishes will be carried out by the people they think of as statistics — the brave soldiers willing to sacrifice everything in a game where they’re not told the rules, nor what they stand to win or lose. Loyalty at its most costly. The thug has a primal fear about him. You need to fear the thug that leads the thugs, the clever ones in suits and uniforms who keep their hands clean and use dissembling language. Give someone ‘a knock, a stinger or a bath’. It sounds much more appealing to the squeamish general public than a beating, electrocution or simulated drowning.”
The images on the screen faded, tumbling in on themselves. They left a fuzzy picture from a security camera tucked away in some nameless basement. His hands were sweaty. Shaking. He wanted Beth to move away. Wanted her to stay where she was.
“Most people don’t want to know what we have to do to maintain our way of life.” She wrapped her arms round him, reaching forwards. The side of her chest pressed into his face. A button, firm and round, teased the edge of his mouth. “And there’s the problem. What do we sacrifice of ourselves to be ourselves?”
“You supported this man Hamilton.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice, he can be persuasive. Survival trumps principles every time.” Beth interlinked her fingers between his and held them. The cool skin of her wrists pressing into the itchy marks circling his.
“He threatened you?” The light on the security camera was off, the lens quiet.
“And you’re going to be my knight in shining armour?” She laughed. It was an odd sound in a room full of plastic and dust. “Hamilton didn’t threaten me in as many words, but I’m smart enough not to swim in swamp water if I don’t need to. Besides, I don’t have to agree with all of his views in order to work with him. And as misguided as many of his views are, he still believes in them. Whether that makes it better or worse, I don’t know, but I think he will deliver what he said he would. It’s a rare political animal that can actually remember a pledge made whilst in opposition, let alone keep it. Deflect, delay, delete, deny — the four rules of dealing with political problems and promises in this day and age.”
Beth typed in a password and the machine sprang into life. As she stepped back, a rush of perfumed air washed across Rick’s face. He let out a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding.
“These computers respond better to higher-level clearance,” she said. “I’m not sure how that works. Maybe computer bugs are classist, too. You said start again, so I did. With a little flirting. You keep surprising me on how steadfast your fidelity is, so I’m sure I can trust you with one of my passwords. Use your discretion. Look a little, if you must, but don’t touch. It should help you get your work done more easily.”
“Trust? Don’t you mean be loyal?” He followed her as she sauntered to the door.
“Maybe I’m learning to dissemble, too. I should go, I just wanted to see you. Let you know what was going on. I didn’t want to argue with you. I guess I still have some stuff to deal with myself. In my position there aren’t many people I can talk to.”
“Can I help?” Rick asked.
“A kiss would be nice.”
“You never give up, do you?”
“Just on the cheek.”
She placed her hands on his hips and turned her head to look over one shoulder. He took her hands in his, placed them back by her side and reached in to peck her on the cheek. At the last instant, she twisted her head and kissed him on the lips. She sprang back, a triumphant grin on her face.
“I count that as a win! I got a kiss out of a married Rick Franklin, when none of my female friends got much more than a formal handshake.”
“You tricked me with a trick I taught you!”
“Even more sweet a victory, then. I’ll let you know if I have any more news. And don’t forget to log out.”
19
Who Watches the Watchers?
Beth swirled out of the room. She nudged the door closed with her behind, leaving dust motes dancing in the trail of her perfume. Rick fumbled in his pocket for the silk hanky, Rose’s hanky. He wouldn’t have done anything with Beth; it was just harmless chat. Thryn couldn’t begrudge him talking to an ex. He’d allow the same.
He laughed, the sound more high-pitched than normal. He could picture the serene expression on his wife’s face if he were to say he was giving her permission to talk to a man. Rick dabbed at his brow with the hanky. He would have to wash it before he gave it to Rose.
What was it Private Marka had said about silk? People being reprimanded for even owning it? He stuffed the hanky back into his pocket and glanced up at the camera. It was off, Beth had promised that.
“And where did you get to, my young Donian friend?” he asked himself, settling down in front of the purring computer. “You said you’d be back.” He cracked his knuckles over his head. He had high-level access codes. He could make any camera do whatever he wanted. He could find Private Marka. He pulled up a series of video logs linked to Marka’s name and rank. The last one was a day after her visit.
“Got you,” he said, but his finger hovered over the arrow icon on the screen. “What are you doing? Are you so bored? Is this what you’ve become, flirting with an ex and now spying on a young woman?” This was not right. He should never have looked. And as he made the decision to log off, a bolt of pain whipped through his shoulder. His left hand shot out to catch himself and hit the screen. The swear word forming on his lips never came. Rick’s eyes were fixed on the video he had accidentally started.
The image scrolled across a basement room. Thick metal pipes ran across the ceiling. Rectangular glass tiles lined the walls. A stained sink stood in one corner, a long metal gurney next to it. Luke Hamilton, the new president, was talking to someone off-camera. He was bobbing his head, laughing, shoulders twitching like a pair of rats’ noses.
By Hamilton’s feet lay the rigid body of Private Marka. Purple-faced. Tongue distended. Bulging eyes staring straight at the ceiling. Next to her was a man Rick didn’t recognise, his head lolling at an unnatural angle. There was a soldier Rick had served with: Range Sergeant ‘Horsefeather’ Jilji, a legend amongst the troops. Dr Neumann, a woman who had briefly been the public face of dentistry in Ailan. The outspoken leader of the fringe Egalitarian party, Josephus Pepika. His short white moustache crusted with red. A few others lay in heaps. The last body was a man with rainbow-coloured trousers. Two of his front teeth were missing. It was the man from the line of traffic. The one who had given Rick the gift now sitting in his pocket. All of them had silk hankies strewn about their bodies.
‘I’m not as naive as you think,’ he had said to Beth not that long ago. ‘I’ve seen what people are capable of.’ The words rang hollow, mocking him as his mouth filled with sour spit. His eyes slid back to the image of Marka and the man standing over her.
Hamilton trailed his finger along a groove running down the centre of the gurney. Sweat beaded on the paper-thin skin of his temples. He poked his finger through the hole near the base, giggling at a comment Rick couldn’t hear. The smile disappeared from his face as his finger got trapped in the hole.
The image spun around the room, disorienting Rick as whoever was holding the camera set it down. The blur of colours lurched to a halt. The picture was filled briefly by the back of an aide rushing over to free Hamilton. A shadow fell across Marka’s swollen face and the camera refocused automatically, this time centring on the person who had walked into the picture.
Rick’s jaw dropped. “No! That’s not possible.” He rewound the video and froze it on the man’s face. This changed everything.
He stumbled out of the chair. The room full of old computer parts seemed different. The air was heavier, more oppressive. It was the same in his village of Tear after days of stifling heat and the summer thunderstorms that refused to burst.
“Do something,” he said, sweat teeming off his forehead. “Got to do something. Anything. What? Think, you idiot. What?” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Tell someone. Got to tell someone. Who? Who’s going to believe you, anyway? Who’s gonna—” His head snapped up and round. “The shelves. Beth’s shelves.”
He scrambled over to the files and grabbed a handful of discs from the box Beth had labelled. The video was playing again, the image tracking past the dentist. She had angry red ligature marks on her throat. Rick had visited her once. She had had a theory that teeth were the great levellers, common to rich and poor; everyone started out and finished up with the same number.
(She had also claimed peo
ple were underestimating the long-term cost of anaesthetics compared to the short-term inconvenience of pain. In the resulting media feeding frenzy, her words had been twisted into her ‘believing anaesthesia was for wimps’. Most of her patients in the outreach clinics she had set up in the Towns had then decided to live with rotting teeth in their mouths rather than get free dental care.)
Rick slotted an old disc into the computer, fumbling to get it in the slot. Nothing. He grabbed another. The computer refused to register it. The next two failed as well. He sprinted back and grabbed the box. Parts. Pen drives. Discs. It all scattered across the floor. He tried one after another, alternating between curses and prayers. The last one popped up on the screen. He transferred the files. The progress bar filled with the agonising slowness of a rock being rolled up a mountain.
He grabbed the water and took a mouthful. There was a wet ring on the notepad he’d been using. The computer pinged. He pulled the pen drive out, wrapping it in the silk hanky. His eyes drifted back to the notepad. He’d felt so old-fashioned, jotting things down on paper, like a magician from the fairy tales Thryn read Rose, awash with broomsticks, whirlpools of magic and invisible candlesticks. Dragons with all-seeing eyes and hydras that couldn’t be killed. A half-formed thought surfaced in his head. What was it Stann had said? “Who watches the watchers?”
He glanced up at the camera, at the door. Back at the screen. “Who watches the watchers?” he repeated out loud. “I do. I control the cameras.”
He crashed down in the chair and started scribbling in the margins with a stub of a pencil. What seemed like hours later, Rick transferred his notes into the computer. It was a hack. It may never work. It had to work.
20