The Captured

by Kyte, Adrian

  ‘Anyway. To business,’ she said.

  ‘The business of my rescue? But weren’t there less involved ways of achieving that?’

  ‘We work within the restricted parameters of the system. Not that you seem to have much regard for them.’

  ‘Well, of course you do – and of course I don’t. How naïve of me to think the B’tari would tear up their rule book even after humanity had been assimilated.’

  ‘Not all of humanity.’

  ‘No. Just ninety nine, point nine per cent.’

  ‘About ninety nine point seven,’ she corrected. ‘If there is a means to work within the system then that is always preferable.’

  ‘You sound like a lackey. I am hoping you are more than that.’

  ‘Aren’t you simply hoping for your freedom?’

  ‘Considerably.’ He nodded. ‘I bet the irony is not lost on the administrators. The former overseer trapped as a prisoner; the one who always wanted to be human at the mercy of the machines.’

  ‘Neither is it lost on us.’

  He grabbed her arm, it made her gasp. ‘Tell me how integrated they made me. Is there anything left?’

  ‘Of your flesh? Why are you concerned with that when what matters is your memory?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t tasted the delights of being human, with all its imperfections.’

  ‘Yes, there is a novelty value,’ she admitted. ‘But to answer your question, your integration has been total. We had to feed you false data to keep you motivated. You see, Mr Chanley, we never did port you in. You died, just like your friend Torbin, and were captured at that point of death.’

  ‘You thought I couldn’t mentally handle it. How little you lot know me – and after so many years. I can always cope with the truth.’

  ‘History does not back up your point.’ She did a swiping gesture with her hand as a way of dismissing that comment. ‘Anyway, enough of this. To business.’

  ‘To business.’ Roidon placed his hand on her knee. Of course, he must have known she’d hacked the sensor feed, albeit virtual.

  Zoraina promptly removed his hand. ‘No, no. Not that kind of business!’

  Roidon sighed, but it seemed like an affectation. ‘Well, what else could you mean?’ he said. ‘It’s not as if you can get me out of here. And even if you did I would only be in a virtual prison.’

  ‘I have a guarantee from my commander that you will receive a new body once your mission is complete.’

  ‘If it matches my old one I will happy. And so might you.’ He winked – a bit too obviously, she thought.

  ‘Now as I was about to do.’ She focused her attention on the rear wall, to the side of Roidon’s bunk bed. ‘Projecting code 4-6-5-2-7 alpha gamma zero.’ The wall simply dissolved to an arch, revealing the grey tarmac grounds.

  Roidon chuckled, nodded his head knowingly. ‘Is that an example of working within the system?’

  Zoraina ignored the question. ‘We must leave now,’ she told him.

  ‘My place or yours?’

  ‘Neither. Follow me.’

  She walked as fast as her heels allowed, which was a kind of speeded up tottering. Her tight pencil skirt a further encumbrance. If it wasn’t for Roidon ogling her from near behind (and ogling her behind) she would have ripped the damn thing off. When she opted for this body, she wanted it to win the favour of those with whom she hoped to insinuate herself. It had got her privileged access, literally opened doors. Now it was a nuisance, especially in the presence of this self-styled oversexed and of late deprived lothario.

  ‘I don’t mind giving you a fireman’s carry,’ Roidon said, pacing along her side. ‘We’d get through that perimeter much quicker.’

  A fireman? Sounded risky. ‘Thanks for the offer,’ she said, ‘but I am confident we will make it.’ There must be a way to conjure up a pair of running shoes, she thought. If this mission hadn’t seemed so rushed they might have bothered to give me the necessary access code.

  The gate would be festooned with security monitors so she had to direct the code at a part of the razor wire. What an uninventive method of security, she mused as its mesh melted away. So much in this world was based on old symbology.

  Working within certain confines of the system, they still had to make for her car. And here the trouble began. A siren was already whaling (again – tired symbology); they only reached it as gun-wielding guards shouted and ran towards them. A first shot hitting the vehicle on the point of them entering its secure chassis.

  ‘Movie-like timing,’ Roidon remarked, as they ascended.

  ‘Just don’t start acting the hero now.’

  ‘I know my place, ma’am.’

  ‘In my bed, you’re probably hoping.’

  ‘Well, it’s not as if this is reality.’

  ‘It is for some, and I respect that.’

  Reaching the supposed velocity of Mach 8.7 the car still had to weave in and out of missile trajectories as it continued a steep upward ascent. Above the virtual clouds the sky was darkening.

  ‘They really are determined to keep you incarcerated,’ Zoraina observed.

  ‘I’m flattered they consider me such a threat.’

  ‘The man you’ve been in contact with, he has some vital knowledge, something that could disrupt the entire system.’

  ‘Torbin chose to forget. But – just as happened to me – a part of his mind is rejecting the program. I’ve been observing the way he obsesses about the past. May not even be the real past. But, crucially, he is losing his connection with whatever it is that passes for his current life.’

  She fixed him in a firm gaze. ‘Roidon, don’t be so dismissive of this reality. I know you think you are beyond it, that you can discard it. But for every human it is all, it’s their only chance of existing.’

  ‘What it is, my lovely b’tari woman, is a lie. A mockery of existence that people buy into because it suites their desires. There is not a thing you can tell me about this type of existence. To use an old Earth expression, I wrote the book.’

  She lent slightly across the seat divider and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Of that I am all too aware.’

  Darkness of space became obliterated by the searing luminescence of a crescent moon.

  ‘A virtual base?’ Roidon wondered.

  * * *

  9

  At first it was the smell. He had only been to a place like this perhaps twice in his life, but he recognized that astringent odour – the clinical efficacy – and the bleep bleep of the monitor. Before his vision returned he knew there could only be one place he’d be taken to after such an episode.

  A nurse was there, seemingly awaiting his return to consciousness. His wife sat in plastic chair to his side, suddenly becoming animated at his awakening.

  ‘Torbin!’ she said. ‘Oh thank God.’

  The nurse now seemed to assert her authority by blocking the view of Delina. She smiled warmly though before returning her attention to a small tablet device, and once again looked up at him. ‘It was touch and go for a while. We have never seen anything quite like it.’

  Torbin was trying to compute what had happened; he still felt a disconnect from reality, as if the normal rules no longer applied – the dream he still had not woken from.

  ‘Like what?’ he now felt able to ask.

  The nurse returned to her tablet, and seemed to be transferring thought-waves to its interface. ‘Well,’ she said, while studying the display. ‘You suffered severe cerebral shock, caused by a temporal lobe discordia.’

  What the nurse told him made little sense, yet he persevered. ‘What could trigger that?’ he asked. ‘What could I have done to make myself think time was repeating itself?’ Torbin noticed Delina become visibly distressed; her husband now off the radar – a medical basket case.

  ‘This is what we still need to determine, Mr Lyndau,’ the nurse told him. ‘You are scheduled for further tests this afternoon.’

  Torbin felt the weight of obligation
pressing down on him, the expectation of his wife, of the medical staff seemingly acting in his best interest. Yet in his mind that immersion scanner had taken on a deadly quality, a place from which he would never emerge. Whatever his condition, it was beyond the bounds of such procedural diagnosis, he sensed, however advanced the technology. He had the urge to flee, something he could not rationalist Trouble was, he couldn’t hide this; the monitors – EKG, EEG – were telling the nurse he was distressed. Her look of concern only outweighed by Delina’s.

  ‘Torbin, you must try to relax. We will not subject you to anything unpleasant,’ the nurse assured him. Yet he was certain he must avoid that scanner.

  ‘I would rather not go in for the scan,’ Torbin announced. ‘It is my choice, isn’t it?’

  ‘We are very concerned for your welfare, Mr Lyndau.’ Her voice had taken on a strangely formal manner. ‘It is essential you submit yourself for the scan, otherwise there can be no effective diagnosis.’

  ‘Still, it is my choice, right?’ He looked at her intensely. And then it seemed right on cue a middle aged man appeared – the bow-tied consultant look

  The nurse turned away from his gaze, in the direction of Delina. And to his wife she said, ‘Would it be okay if I spoke to you outside?’

  Delina looked thoughtful, but after a few second she acquiesced and they both left the room.

  The doctor now appeared to be scrutinizing Torbin, before saying, ‘I once had a patent like you who refused to go for his scan. He understood it would be in his best interests but nevertheless decided to use his patent’s right above the medical advice.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Torbin said. ‘He died of some complication which could have been easily cured if only he had gone for that scan.’

  ‘You are correct, Mr Lyndau,’ the consultant nodded. ‘However, you omitted that he left a wife and two kids, and two parents whose lives were shattered.’

  ‘I would never intend that---’

  ‘No, Torbin. I know of course you wouldn’t. You are a decent and kind man, as your wife has expressed, and you would never want them to think you’d risk leaving them.’ The doctor smiled knowingly. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I understand that the thinking preventing you from taking the recommended course of action is based on fear. The man who died so needlessly had the simple fear of being diagnosed with a condition he believed would involve months of unpleasant treatment. He had been a healthy man his whole life. And then, suddenly, a rare neurological condition was going to turn him into a helpless patient, being constantly probed and prodded.’ The man patted him lightly on his shoulder. ‘Well, that doesn’t have to be the case. It may be something that can be quite simply cured. It may only take days.’

  Torbin sat up straight. ‘Doctor, I will take my chances. I wish to be discharged.’

  The doctor took a few steps back, as if the shock of hearing Torbin’s words brought with it a physical force. Delina then walked in, accompanied by the nurse. His wife was in tears. She rushed towards the bed, shaking her head and struggling to get the words out. ‘Torbin, dearest. You mustn’t leave. Don’t do this to me, please.’ Her tears became audible crying.

  Something curious then occurred to Torbin. He hadn’t mentioned leaving, in the presence of Delina. Had she overheard? Anyway he felt no change of heart; he just knew he had to get out of this place.

  ‘I’m sorry, Deli.’

  He got up off the bed. But the doctor, who had been observing from the far end of the room, made the rapid strides. In his hand was something Torbin understood to be a hypofuser. The man said, ‘I will not allow another one of my patients to die because of some irrational fear.’ He then thrust the hypofuser towards Torbin, but he was ready for it and pushed the man’s hand out of the way.

  There seemed a gap in time, a gap in space through which to escape, and he sensed a chance to reach the exit. But just as he lurched off the bed a hand was on his shoulder; the nurse with seeming preternatural strength had stopped him, long enough for the doctor to jam the hypofuser into his arm.

  The room began to swirl as if he was badly inebriated. Losing focus, losing will. Losing any grasp on reality.

  * * *

  10

  All she needed to do was give the correct command code, and they would be out of there, back in the real. She thought, at least here in this virtual environment of a moon-base – the safest place – she should remember. Except it just wasn’t there, not even a vaguest sense of it. Until now she simply trusted the will to remember would be enough. All the other codes, now unnecessary, still accessible, fixed in her mind like text chiselled in stone, when she thought of the action that needed to be achieved. It didn’t help that Roidon – on the other end of a soft recliner couch – was studying her, doubtless running scenarios through his mind of how he would go about his latest conquest. But after a few minutes of watching what must have been her contorted expression of frustration, he said: ‘Had it occurred to you that they don’t want you to leave this realm, that you were duped into coming here?’

  ‘But I downloaded the code. I checked the file; I was confident I had it stored,’ she protested. But in retrospect she was feeling naive for her unquestioning trust.

  ‘Well, I think you can assume we are stuck here,’ he said levelly. ‘But not through any loss of your memory.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ she snapped, annoyed with herself as much as Roidon. ‘And you are going to tell me what we are supposed to do?’

  ‘I was going to suggest you help me in my quest – to find Torbin Lyndau.’

  ‘You were right,’ she conceded. ‘I’ve been duped. I always believed that any worthy b’tari never lies.’

  Roidon raised his square chin, meeting her eye-line. ‘And you were right to believe that. You have to think: did they really lie or did they simply omit to tell the truth.’

  ‘They said they would give me the necessary command codes.’

  ‘And that’s the extent of it?’

  ‘Fair point.’

  Roidon got up off the couch and headed towards the coffee dispenser. He returned with two bulbs, offering her the one with coffee which appeared to be exactly how she preferred it: no milk. And he said, ‘One sugar it is, right?’

  ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  ‘I could just tell, from a number of observations.’

  She thought to question what they were but instead let it pass.

  Roidon put his coffee down on an adjacent onyx table. ‘I’ve lost track of Torbin,’ Roidon admitted. ‘I managed to attach a scanner to him, but since it is only a virtual one, an algorithm, I suppose it can simply be deleted. It means they have become suspicious.’

  ‘Sticking you in prison. You don’t say(!)’

  ‘I mean at a high level. The scanner contained masking code, invisible to normal sensors.’

  ‘Do you really know who they are?’

  ‘Of course I do. I have been in the presence of one of their masters.’

  ‘Then you know that as far as your friend Torbin is concerned it is fairly hopeless – hopeless that we can do anything from here.’

  ‘But we work within the parameters of the system.’

  ‘And you know where they are?’

  Roidon gestured a waving motion, causing a metre wide opaque screen to materialize before them. It displayed a detailed map of Calgary. Green dots then appeared with blue track lines connecting them. ‘This charts Torbin’s last known movements before the tracker went off-line,’ he explained. ‘His last known location was actually just outside his home. The last reading from it shows a highly elevated heart rate before neural trauma.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense; how could you get his telemetry from a virtual tracker?’

  ‘It’s just software, right? Whatever happens in his virtual experience is reflected back to real life, or vice versa to some extent. No one can experience that level of stress in this environment without it creating some kind of disruption in their immersion pod.’

&
nbsp; Then the memory came back to her in a rush, now present as if something she should have been aware of, an imbued fact. ‘But Torbin doesn’t have a real body,’ she told him; ‘he died activating the field device. He’s just like the other captures.’

  ‘That’s what I believed. It is what I was meant to believe. They even wiped my memory, made me think I was just a standard human – a man with a satisfactory life – until I gained access to my program store. And then it made sense: they value Torbin, he essentially did their bidding, and so they were likely to make a concession, give him back what he had sacrificed for them – his physical body. And then the promise he could one day return to it.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ she countered. ‘I’ve studied them also, and it seems to me the very idea of providing a biological form would be unconscionable to them.’

  ‘You may be right,’ he conceded with a subtle nod. ‘My point being, there is something in existence that is Torbin Lyndau, that functions in the physical world be it organic or cyborg.’

  She looked at him, a challenging glare.

  Roidon looked only at the screen. ‘Display route biotelemetry.’ The map was replaced by a stream of green number strings scrolling upwards. He made a brief pointing gesture, as if any direction was needed. ‘Those are genuine neural patterns: second by second of recorded activity. There would be no point in simulating those.’

  ‘Unless for the purpose of fooling you.’

  ‘Then that would make them more sophisticated in their suspicions than I ever imagined. That would be some special kind of paranoia.’

  This place, this reality – she mused – had its way of immersing you by removing your life on the outside; particularly memories that might intrude or cause conflict. Or maybe those memories were only suppressed. Roidon was joining the dots to try to complete a picture that he had been losing bit by bit, adding some additional detail. But maybe none of it made any difference, maybe there was only so much he could achieve before whole system locked down.

  Those parameters.

  * * *