by Nikki Owen
‘Hey, Google, you still there?’
I ignore Chris’s name for me and instead describe the structure of the yellow icon.
‘Oh, awesome. Okay. I want you to click on it now and, if I’ve got my sums right, we should be able to get in.’
‘How can you be certain?’
‘I can’t, but it’s the best shot we’ve got, right?’
I hesitate. Mathematical certainty is what I prefer to deal in. It is more reliable than people, more black and white, no grey areas, no hidden meanings, but if Chris is not completely certain, how can I trust him?
‘Google, have you done it yet?’
‘I am unsure about this route of progress.’
‘Why? Because it’s not a definitive model?’
I watch the cursor blink at me. ‘Yes.’
Chris lets out a breath. ‘Look, the way I see it is that life is a series of choices and you can’t always predict the outcomes. Even as a mathematician, that’s impossible. You deal in numbers, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well even numbers are not straightforward, despite the fact they’re infinite. I mean, look at the twin prime conjecture.’
I sit up, surprised that he knows of this complex theory. ‘That is the conjecture that there are an infinite number of twin primes.’
‘Exactly. Someone in 2004 proved it was true and then the paper was retracted because a load of errors were found in it and so they were all back to the start. So you see, nothing’s certain, even when you think it is. So, the only answer has to be, well, to carry on anyway, best you can.’
I think about Chris’s words, his theory and idea. Could it be so? Could I even try to live a life where the colour grey was an unknown quantity I could cope with?
Inhaling a large breath, I count to four then take the cursor and click on the yellow logo, and tell Chris. Together, we wait. After three seconds, slowly, an image unfolds on the screen and I watch as one pixel, two, then tens upon tens shower down the screen.
‘Are the pixels still coming?’ Chris says.
My eyes track every single one. ‘Yes.’ But then something changes. ‘It has become clear now.’
‘Whoa. Okay, can you see anything? Any different colour or another logo of some sort?’
I lean in. ‘There is a file icon with two dark, black ovals in the far right corner and a name.’
‘A name?’ It is Balthus now, his voice quick and loud. ‘Who?’
I lock the cell between my ear and my shoulder, and look at the screen. The image of Raven sways in my mind, the flashback, the visual of my fingers compiling a report on a computer with dates and details and confidential operational data.
‘The name is the author of the report.’ My breath momentarily halts. ‘It is me. Dr Maria Martinez. And the report concerns two subject numbers.’
‘Which ones?’
I stare at the screen, almost too fearful to read them aloud, because it means that the flashback was true—I compiled this report.
‘Subject numbers 115 and 375,’ I say after a while.
Raven.
And me.
Chapter 31
Deep cover Project facility.
17 hours and 35 minutes to confinement
‘This is the file,’ I say. My hands are shaking and when I look at the screen, it seems blurred and hazy. I scrunch my eyes shut then open and try to gain some focus, but it is hard. This woman has haunted my dreams for a whole year and now here I am and the answers she told me existed may actually be real.
‘Patricia,’ I say, the cell still wedged on my shoulder.
‘Doc, you okay?’
I swallow and blink at the file. ‘You will remain near to the phone, yes?’
‘Of course, Doc. Of course. Just breathe, okay?’
I inhale, long and deep, and when I look to the lights, I feel grateful they are low and not bright and glaring. I take a moment to think. The ink on my arm from Black Eyes feels raw and painful, and so I count to ten and imagine slumbering lines of lavender plants, fragrant orange groves fat with fruit, olive trees swaying in a warm evening breeze and the fire pit in the small stone courtyard of my Salamancan villa sparking a roasting fire.
Exhaling hard and heavy, I open my eyes.
‘Shall we do this?’ Chris says.
I set my back straight. ‘Yes.’
‘Okay, Google. Tell me what you see.’
I start scanning. I follow the curve of each letter on my name first, each digit and line. ‘It is clear the file is encrypted.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘It is steeped in a code that, on first sight, I do not recognise.’
‘Can you try a basic decryption, see if that works?’
Straight away, my fingers begin to glide across the keyboard. They begin accessing the next level underneath the file via the subject numbers on the screen, but the second level comes to a halt, and no matter what I do to enter it, it throws back my access request every time.
‘To penetrate the file requires a passcode, similar to others I have cracked,’ I say now to Chris, listening out for sounds outside and careful to keep my voice low, ‘but this document seems harder and most likely requires a password pattern I may not be able to decipher or an algorithm I do not identify with.’
I pause, exhale and listen for any signs of intruders. When I’m sure all is clear, I squash down my anxiety levels, and think.
‘Patterns,’ Chris says. ‘Accessing the next level could all be a matter of patterns.’
My brain joins in. ‘Find the pattern and we gain access.’
‘Yep.’
Moving fast, I backtrack on myself, review the numbers that have flashed up in my head and track the patterns that arise and match them to the decryption required to access the file, but nothing penetrates it, no answer, no code, as if my brain has hit pause.
‘Anything?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Let me see what I can do.’
A pain shoots down my wrists and I wince. Lowering my arms, I look at the skin. Bruises are beginning to emerge in even stronger colours now, blues and yellow and purples smeared like paint across my skin, and the pain of it mixes with the sting of the fountain pen scar on my muscle sending a crackle of spikes into my bones. An anger surges inside me at the thought of what Black Eyes did to me as I stare at the screen, at the empty password bar, the word black swarming around my head, thicker, faster, like a plague of locusts, darkening my mind. Black, black, black … And as I think of this word, a memory begins to float upwards in my brain, but this time, unlike the others, the recollection doesn’t hurtle me back in time with a jolt, but instead takes my hand and slowly leads me to see what was always there locked in my head. It is me at a computer, just as I was in my flashback at the villa, but this time, unlike before, I can see the screen that is in front of me, the one where I was working on the file. There is a pen to my left side and a piece of paper with my notes, and in front of me is a red file with the word Confidential printed on it. I see my face, no lines or wrinkles, look to the screen as it asks me for a password and there is a name on the file. My name. And two subject numbers …
‘Maria? Maria?’
Balthus’s voice comes into my ear from the cell and I come round with a start and sit bolt upright.
‘Maria,’ Balthus says, ‘what is happening?’
I blink my eyes into focus. ‘I know the password.’
‘What?’ Chis says. ‘How? Did you crack the code?’
‘No,’ I say, pulling in the chair now. ‘I wrote the code.’ I pause. ‘I wrote the password.’
‘You remembered?’ Balthus says. ‘You remembered what was on the screen from your flashback?’
‘Yes.’ My fingers hover over the keyboard.
‘What was it?’
I begin typing it into the passcode bar. ‘Black Eyes.’
Confinement location—present day
The timer ticks loud and the clock device tur
ns. I crane my head as hard as I can to see it. It is dark, which is good, the lack of light allowing my brain to remain relatively steady and functional. I think. If I let the drug flow now, I will be drowsy and incoherent, and Ramon could return with the Project in tow and I would be unable to defend myself or protect Mama.
The light above swings, one second, two, illuminating the floor for a fraction of time and I watch it and try to move my head forward, when I spot, in the weak shaft of yellow, the item Ramon knocked to the floor earlier.
The fork.
A plan forms immediately and I concentrate on the fork and don’t let it out of my sight. It is silver and pronged with four tines. Its handle is slick and elegant, and when I observe it, I attempt to calculate the distance it lies from my feet, but it is hard—the light flickers and the blackness looms, and each time I reach a close figure, the bulb sways away again and I find I have to guess.
I glance to my feet. They are bare, no socks or shoes, and I am about to flex my toes to check I have enough feeling in them when a bang sounds from somewhere and I freeze. Is Ramon coming back? When all falls quiet, I allow myself to exhale and resume analysing the utensil in the light that now dribbles in and allows me to see. If my calculations are correct, I should be able to reach the fork even though my legs are now tied at the knees to the chair. I pause for a moment. It is a lot to process. Ramon being with the Project, the fact that we are at Mama’s house—my brain’s automatic reaction is to struggle with it and it is exhausting but I force myself to deal with the problem immediately in front of me and deal with the fallout after.
Checking the door one more time and listening for any suspect sounds, I start.
I use my left foot first. My toes wriggle as, bit by bit, I push out my calf as far as it will go. My foot is approximately five centimetres from the handle to the left of its side, but it is not near enough, and so I have to scuttle my leg as far as it will go until, eventually I feel the cold metal of the utensil.
I count, keep steady and continue. My toes crawl like spiders towards the fork and find I have to grip the handle to get the utensil in my grasp, but it is difficult. No matter how hard I try, no matter how furious I stretch my leg forward, it does not work and the fork remains stranded on the floor.
I flop back to the seat, exhausted, the energy required just to move my toes wearing me out entirely, a vision of Ramon swimming into my head mixed with a thought of how he could hurt Mama. I close my eyes briefly, counting five seconds of rest, turning my feet in circles to get some circulation to them when something slips a little. My eyes fly open. I jerk my head down and look and see that the rope around my knees appears different to the one around my wrists. While they are tied tight, the rope hard, coarse, the tether around my legs is softer, smooth, less like wire and more like wool.
I think I can slip it off.
With a new surge of hope, I start to push and push against the rope on my legs and, gradually, it begins to come loose. I stop, catch my breath, check for any sounds of Ramon returning. When all is clear, I blow a stray hair away with an upturned lip, then recommence, my eyes blinking in the darkness of the basement. This time it is easier. My legs are fuelled by the memories from the sedative, from the stark recollection of what I now know, from the facts, the details, the data—I remember it all now, every part of my journey here. There is a purpose for me to escape, there is a reason.
One tug, two. The rope starts to move, slowly at first then quicker, rapid until I can feel it, but then the needle unexpectedly, digs in, and the pain is sharp, stabbing me hard, but I daren’t cry out. I press my lips together. The stinging passes. Finally, the rope slips to the floor and my ankles are free.
I exhale hard, exhausted. My legs throb and my bones ache, and when I move, sweat tickles down my face, dripping into my eyes. I rattle my head, try to rid as much of it as I can, and refocus, glancing now to where the fork lies only centimetres from my feet. My legs untethered, I can try again at reaching it, at pulling it towards me, but it is difficult to see in the growing darkness. I squint, blink over and over, but the light is poor, washed out, and so I drop my foot, weary, slamming it to the ground then stop. There. The fork, beneath my toes.
Steadying my rapid shallow breathing, I spread out my toes in a star shape, grit my teeth and, straining my feet as far as they will go, link them in a claw around the fork.
It works. I keep going, steady, slow, creeping it up, the metal dangling from my toes, mindful of the needle as, beside me, the timer ticks. The fork reaches my knees now and I pause, unsure what to do next. My wrists are tied and the needle is in my arm, and by my waist my hips are straining as my legs jut out at a ninety-degree angle.
I think fast. The only method by which to do this will be to keep hoisting my leg upwards, toes gripping the fork as tight as possible, and so that is what I do. I lift the fork higher until I can almost touch it with my left hand, the fork teetering now by my fingers, the only sound in the room my breathing and the tick of the timer, as my hand becomes closer now to the metal, so near and—
I drop the fork.
I watch, eyes wide, as the utensil clatters to the floor, tinkling by my right foot, clapping to the ground as if I had never picked it up at all. I want to cry out, scream at the frustration, yell, holler.
But I do none of that. Instead, I swallow, blow back the sweat that swarms my face and I thrust my leg outwards and repeat everything I did before and this time, after two minutes of agony, it works. My legs lift the fork high enough to reach my hand and from there I use it to unhook the tethers on my wrists and remaining leg.
The rope slides off. My wrists ache and I rub them, elated at the tiny victory I have just scored, but the happiness is short-lived because a loud click sounds followed by a now familiar whoosh. I whip my head round. The drip, the sedative—it is activating.
Panic surfaces hard and fast, and, reaching my fingers to the crease in my arm, no time left, I draw in a large breath and, gritting my teeth, my sights set on getting out of here, I rip the needle clean out of my vein and throw it to the floor.
Chapter 32
Deep cover Project facility.
17 hours and 27 minutes to confinement
As soon as I press the enter key on the password access box, a torrent of information crashes onto the screen.
‘What can you see?’ Chris asks.
‘Data,’ I say. ‘Reams of data.’
I barely breathe as, in front of my eyes, information flies left and right, small icons that represent hundreds upon hundreds of documents popping up and filling the screen. The assault of it is hard on my senses, but I press on, eager to find out what it is, see if this really is the file that will give me what I need to end it all.
Once the documents slow down, I am able to zoom in on one at a time and read at speed, photographing every part in my head.
‘Maria,’ Balthus says now. ‘Have you found anything yet?’
‘Yes. The files are full of names.’ I peer forwards. ‘They are … Basque names.’ I glance to the fountain pen tattoo on my arm.
‘Anything else?’
Slightly concerned, I read on. ‘There are what appear to be details of people, of other human beings listed here.’
‘Others,’ Balthus says. ‘Maria, could they be other subject numbers like you?’
‘Perhaps, although there is no definitive connection and …’ I stop. There at the top of the file is my name and subject number next to the file creator section. I was the author of the report.
‘It is me,’ I say, almost to myself as I realise exactly what I am staring at.
‘What do you mean?’
‘In my flashback, Raven said the information was linked to a file I created.’ I grind my teeth together, anxious now as I start to connect the small dots. ‘This is the file.’
‘Doc?’ Patricia says now coming on the line. ‘Doc, it’s going to be okay. Keep reading, yeah? Then you’ll get to the end of all this once and for all.
’
I listen to her words and force my eyes and brain to carry on. ‘My number … my number sits alongside the word Basque and near it are other surnames.’ I read some of them aloud. ‘Balthus, your parents are from the Basque country—do you recognise any of the names?’
But he does not answer and I begin to worry that the line has failed completely, when he finally speaks. ‘Yes,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘Yes, they are … they are Basque.’
‘Doc,’ Patricia says, ‘does that mean you are Basque somehow, too? Your flashback—the woman—said the file would tell you who you are.’
I glance to my arm, to the phrase in my skin and I tell them about Black Eyes, about his explanation of the Project’s complex use of people with Basque blood—and his tattoo work on my arm.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Balthus gasps. ‘Maria, I am—’ he pauses, coughs ‘—I am so, so sorry.’
I touch my shoulder and feel the rough grooves of the green ink on my red raw skin. ‘How is Papa connected in all this? If I am Basque blood then he must be too.’
‘Or your mam,’ Patricia says. ‘Could she be Basque?’
‘Er, Maria?’ Chris says now, cutting through my thought. ‘I’m detecting some movement on a sensor device I’ve hacked into further up the system. You’re gonna have to get through this file faster.’
The air runs cold and I tug the sweater tight around me, bite down on my lip and focus. Fragments of names roll up again, and at first there are just a few, but then it flips, the file, into something else, into what appears to be a new document, but what is strange is that each name disappears replaced, instead, by a number, and each number is linked to its own genealogy map. I relay the information aloud to the cell then hesitate as, before me the entire screen begins to fill with data and family lineage, until, at the bottom of the page I see a line that makes me go cold.
‘There are 2,113 subject numbers,’ I say, my fingers trembling as they hover over the keyboard. ‘Balthus, the others in the conditioning programme do exist.’
‘Dear God. They’ve been doing this for years and getting away with it. Jesus.’