The screech of the door bolt made her jump. She opened her eyes. Harrow was leaving.
‘Wait,’ Louisa called, ‘what happened?’
Harrow glanced back, his mask back in place. ‘It appears Adam values your life more than he did Carlyle’s.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hours, or what seemed like hours, passed. Louisa sat facing the door, knees to her chest, brick walls slick with moisture behind her back. Her stomach rumbled. She tried to remember the last time she’d eaten, then felt embarrassed to be considering her own needs. She’d tried flinging herself at the door, with only a sore shoulder to show for her efforts.
Adam handed himself to Harrow. For me.
Harrow had suggested Adam duplicate himself. But was it that simple? One mind becoming two? Surely that’s what he’d done, even if the concept hadn’t appealed to him. She thought back to the video Harrow took. If Adam saw it then Harrow must have distributed it to the Global Web. It must be peaking on the news feeds. Her stomach clenched, hunger forgotten. The kids would undoubtedly have seen it. They’d have no idea if she were alive or dead.
Portal remained unavailable. They hadn’t driven long enough to cross the M25. They had taken her down some steps. The room had a subterranean feel. If she got back above ground her implants might be able to find a signal. The NCA had to be searching for her. The instant her implants reconnected to Portal Drew would know her location.
Footsteps approached once more. The bolt slid across. She levered herself onto her feet.
‘Harrow wants to speak with you.’ It was Anthony Novach. Unarmed. She guessed they didn’t consider her much of a threat with her hands bound behind her back. Past him a dangling fluorescent bulb illuminated a whitewashed brick alcove. He took her by the arm and led her out. Louisa didn’t resist. No matter what Harrow wanted with her, she was glad to be leaving the room.
Novach’s grip was firm, but gentle. He wore the same combat fatigues she’d seen in the reporter’s sense footage at Victoria. His long brown hair was tied at the nape of his neck by a thin leather band. A downy fuzz covered his cheeks. He’d either been attempting to grow a beard, or hadn’t shaved in a while. She tried to recall his profile details from the clan’s case file. He had a previous conviction for membership of a proscribed hacking collective called the Syphon Squad. Before they were arrested the collective had proven true to their name and stole millions of pounds from a commercial bank’s customer accounts. Novach spent six months in jail for his part. He’d been eighteen at the time, and living with his parents. There was nothing in his profile to indicate he might be dangerous. But then again, Henry Booth’s profile hadn’t given any indication of violent tendencies either.
Just outside the door the white bricks arced in a barrel vault overhead. To the right concrete steps spiralled up. A low frequency hum seemed to come from all around her. Novach led her out and past the steps. The concrete flooring and brick ceiling turned to narrow iron-mesh gangways, above and below. Three slim metal bars formed railings on either side and against the walls ran rusting metal pipes, diameters varying from the width of her forearm to half her height.
Louisa craned her neck. She could see no movement in the floor above. Light filtered through the mesh from fluorescent strip lights. She stole a glance over the railings. The floor below had flooded, the stagnant water coated in a toxic green algae. At the walkway’s end the spokes of a vast iron flywheel were cut in half by the mesh ceiling. The building had an industrial look, and Victorian, if Louisa had to guess its age.
‘Up the stairs to your left,’ Novach said as they approached the flywheel.
The iron steps doubled back on themselves before reaching the next floor. It’s now or never. Just before the landing Louisa threw herself forward, slipping from Novach’s slack grip. She fell on the steps and emitted a soft cry in only partially mock agony.
Novach tsked in annoyance. He bent to help her up, but when Louisa straightened she kicked off the steps and shouldered into him. He staggered back against the railings. Louisa bulldozed into him with all her strength. Novach tried to grab a railing, but his hand found nothing but air. She caught a glimpse of him whacking his hip off a pipe before hitting the water headfirst. The brackish water devoured him. Algae slicked away from the splash in an expanding concentric circle.
Louisa didn’t wait to see if he was all right. She ran up the steps, catching her foot and almost tumbling for real as she cleared the landing. She paused at the top, leaning on a brass rail encircling the vast flywheel. She’d emerged in a corner of the building. The open plan floor was cluttered with remnants of rusting machinery. A vaulted ceiling rose high above. Spaced evenly along red brick walls, thick boards covered windows in recessed arched bays. There were no visible exits, and with her hands bound she wouldn’t be able to climb to a window, let alone prize a board off.
Her implants were still cut off from Portal. She wondered how the clan was managing it. Creating such a large hole in Portal’s network would surely be obvious to Portal’s technicians. They’d have sent a crew out to investigate the moment it appeared.
She wound her way through steel cabinets decorated with dials, LED bulbs, and switches. Circular pressure gauges mounted on slender pipes curved down through precise rectangular holes cut into the mesh floor.
Louisa stopped. She was sure she’d heard voices ahead. Before her an octagonal atrium had been fashioned from cast iron and painted in red, green, and gold. The atrium reminded her of a gaily-painted Romany caravan. A strange indulgence in the industrial setting. Her gaze ventured upwards, following ornate iron-wrought arches inset with lifelike ferns and rosettes to a skylighted cupola, its windows coated in a thick layer of grime.
‘The Cathedral of Sewage.’ Louisa spun around. Harrow stared down at her from a mezzanine. ‘It’s what the Victorians named this place.’
Louisa tensed, ready to bolt, but three clan members emerged from the arches opposite her. They all carried machine guns. She turned and found Novach blocking her way. Dripping wet and panting, loose hair slick with green slime, he looked less than pleased.
‘It’s an old waste-pumping house.’ Harrow walked around the mezzanine and leaned on a brass railing. If he was upset at her escape attempt he didn’t show it. ‘I came here once a long time ago, for a school trip. I’ve always thought the geometric flair the Victorians imbued in their creations is lacking in our modern era.’ Harrow caressed a thick red pillar. ‘Even as a child, I knew the building was special. An iron temple housing the industrial marvels of the age.’ He tapped the pillar. It rang. ‘We hardly need to maintain a dampening field at all here. The building’s iron lattice plays havoc with Portal’s network. A natural Faraday cage.’
Louisa’s heart sank. No Portal technicians would be coming to investigate. The hole in Portal’s network wouldn’t raise suspicions because it had always existed.
‘I visited again after Adam destroyed my work,’ Harrow continued. ‘Although at the time I believed it had been an accident, like everyone else. I’ve always been gifted with visions, and in my late teens they became so strong I found myself overwhelmed. I lacked the ability to interpret their meaning so I sought help from those who claim to understand the human psyche. Their solution was to prescribe me drugs. A chemical castration for my mind.’ Harrow looked up. Louisa followed his gaze to the skylight. ‘When I entered this building I became isolated from Portal. It resulted in a clarity of thought which had escaped me for years. I experienced a revelation.’ Harrow looked back down at Louisa. His mask slipped for a brief moment, and his eyes burned with a wild intensity. ‘I was never supposed to decipher the Paradigm in my current form. The human mind is limited by the prison of flesh it is born into. When I ascend I’ll finally be rid of my biological restrictions. Unburdened, I will finally understand.’
Harrow spoke with conviction. Some may even have found him charismatic. As Louisa looked around at the clan members and the devotion in their eyes she realised Harrow was far m
ore dangerous than she first thought. His insanity was infectious. It had touched them, and taken root.
‘I want to know what you’ve done to Adam,’ Louisa said.
‘Very well.’ Harrow trotted down a spiral iron staircase and reappeared under an arch. He motioned for her to follow. ‘This way.’
They emerged in a wing the same size as the one she’d come from, but cleared of machinery and dimly lit. Twelve narrow cots with curved raised sides were arranged like hour-marks on a clock face. Louisa felt a vague unease at their coffin-like quality. At the far end of the floor the rest of the clan sat around a circular table, tapping on portable computers, engrossed in their work. Unlike the three shadowing her, they were unarmed and casually dressed in jeans and Multiverse hoodies. Behind them a curved screen took up most of the wall.
Harrow gestured toward the display. At first nothing happened, then a dot of white light appeared, enlarging gradually to form a perfect crystal sphere. Inside, blue pinpricks swirled in a vortex of mist. The globe increased in size again, and Louisa saw that the lights were in fact miniature versions of the whole, containing their own glowing particles and swirling mists. An ever-repeating pattern. One of the particles flared, shooting out an expanding wave and illuminating the mist like lightening flaring in a cloud-bank. The other lights reacted, absorbing the wave’s energy before shooting forth waves of their own. A chain reaction formed. Louisa had to shield her eyes as the globe erupted in a brilliant coruscation.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said when the flare had subsided.
‘Yes.’ Harrow’s admission was grudging. ‘Even a flawed pattern can have pleasing aesthetics. The visualisation made it easier to deconstruct Adam’s mind pattern. We eviscerated him, stripping layer after layer, until only the core of his virtual machine remained.’
Louisa recoiled in dismay. What would the dissection have felt like to Adam? Did he experience any pain? Or had it been it a slow dismemberment of his mental faculties? Memories, then cognitive reasoning, disappearing a fragment at a time. ‘That’s horrible.’
‘He doesn’t deserve pity. He was an abomination.’
‘You keep saying how much you revile him, but when you ascend you’ll be exactly like Adam. Your patterns will be no different.’
‘I’ll be nothing like him. My pattern will represent the whole of my self. A pure consciousness.’ He waved a hand at the screen. ‘Not this fragmented corruption.’
‘And yet without him you won’t achieve ascension. You’ll owe your existence to him.’
‘He wouldn’t exist without me!’
The clan members sitting at the table looked up from their screens. Harrow’s outburst had appeared out of nowhere. Just as quickly his calm demeanour returned. ‘Adam used Searchlight to determine his own mind pattern. An algorithm of my own design. He’s not the genius he portrays himself to be. He’s little more than a thief.’
‘Is that why you did this to him? For revenge?’
‘Revenge is a vacuous desire. Only the end goal matters. Now we have the virtual machine, and the ability to imprint our patterns.’
‘Then you have no need of me, or Ben.’
‘If you recall, I said I would release you after we’ve ascended.’
‘Then what are you waiting for? You have what you want.’
‘Not everything. Simulations have produced positive results, but we won’t know for sure if the implantation will be successful. We must test it on a real mind pattern.’
Louisa didn’t like the way Harrow was looking at her. ‘What does that have to do with me?’
Harrow spread his arms wide. ‘Rejoice, Inspector, for you have been chosen. You will be the first of us to ascend.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
‘I won’t do it.’ Louisa half laughed with the absurdity.
‘Ascension is a gift that offers freedom from the shackles imposed on us by our physical forms.’ Harrow made a sweeping gesture, encompassing the clan members. ‘We few have been chosen. You should feel honoured.’
‘Then let one of you be the guinea pig.’
‘This is no experiment. The procedure has been successfully tested.’
‘Adam wasn’t alive at the time. He doesn’t count.’
‘I’m not referring to Adam. His mind pattern was created from scraps of neural activity. It’s a miracle he ever achieved self-awareness. We extract the neural map complete, in its pure algorithmic form.’ A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘But you know this already. You’ve seen the results for yourself, firsthand.’
At first Louisa couldn’t fathom Harrow’s meaning, then with a sickening lurch it became clear. It’s like his brain’s been switched off. She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘The extraction acts directly on the subject’s neurons, which are made susceptible to optical interrogation under full immersion using a trance derivative. The synapses fire once, revealing the mind pattern, and afterwards are extinguished. All biological activity relating to the mind pattern ceases, leaving only base functions active within the subject’s brain.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Yes, you do. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To help Ben? And he will die, eventually, without your help. The neural activity within his brain stem is tethered to our Multiverse realm. Without the link, it will cease to function. We have his mind pattern. Compared to the extraction, the reintegration process should be trivial.’
Louisa fought to remain calm. ‘Then restore him. Now. Then we’ll talk.’
Harrow’s smile was a mirthless scar. ‘It seems we both want something from each other. I will restore Ben once your own pattern is extracted and implanted within a virtual machine. Then, should you wish to return, I will reverse the procedure for you as well.’
‘Should I wish to return?’ Louisa was aghast.
‘Once you ascend, your mind will be transformed. Capable of so much more. You may wish to remain in your new state.’
Louisa shuddered. ‘No. I will not wish to remain.’
‘I take it then you agree to join us?’
Louisa fought a wave of nausea at the thought of submitting herself to Harrow. To undergo the same experiment he’d forced on Ben. And she was convinced Ben had been forced. So why is he trying to persuade me?
Then she knew. Harrow already said the procedure required her to enter full immersion. With the patch Adam applied to her implants, he couldn’t take control of them without her permission.
Louisa stared up at Adam’s mind pattern. Is this what she would become? A part of her didn’t believe it possible, but she’d seen first hand what had happened to Ben, and she knew Adam had successfully recreated his own mind. But she only had Harrow’s word Ben’s extraction had been successful. For all she knew Harrow’s procedure caused irreversible brain damage. ‘What will happen to my mind once it’s extracted?’
‘In order to ease the transition we’ve created a mirror of a Multiverse realm within our local network. It’s an environment your mind will be familiar with.’
‘And then Ben’s mind will be restored?’
‘I will set the reintegration sequence in motion once we transition to the Global Web.’
Harrow spoke as always with a quiet assertiveness. She couldn’t tell if he was lying to her.
‘Any one of you could be the first,’ Louisa said, ‘You don’t need me.’
‘But we do need you. Our minds form but a small fragment of the greater whole. The Paradigm defines all others. Even I can glean only the barest whisper of its meaning, but you are part of it. You have been chosen. I see that now.’
‘You threatened to kill me. Is that how you treat your chosen?’
Harrow laid a hand on her shoulder. She tried to tell herself it was revulsion and not fear which made her shudder. ‘It should have been obvious to me the moment I met you, but the Paradigm’s intricacies elude me in my current form.’ Conviction coated his words, like a capsule enclosing bitter medicine. She felt a
n intoxicating compulsion to trust him. To believe in him. ‘Come with us, and I will restore Ben.’
The clan members at the table had stopped working. They stared at Harrow with an unquestioning faith. He’s promised them ascendency. Everlasting life. Godhood. But even if he could create synthetic minds for them all, what kind of life would that be? A hollow existence. Adam had said as much. He craved human interaction, so much so that he immersed himself in simulated environments in an attempt to hold onto his humanity.
She wished she could tell Adam how sorry she was. Would she have done the same thing in his place? Handed herself over if Harrow threatened his life? She thought of Jess and Charlie and Ben, as she so often did when worried, or facing a stressful decision. They helped distill her concerns, her love for them lending her thoughts a pure focus. Her shoulders sagged. A sense of disembodiment gripped her, like she was witnessing herself from afar.
Any hope of Ben recovering rests with giving Harrow what he wants.
She made her choice. The only one she could make.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Louisa focussed on the thick iron struts spanning the vaulted ceiling. She was lying on one of the cots, or pods as Harrow called them. Every instinct screamed at her to run. To get out while she still could. She took a deep breath and forced the fear down.
A needle pierced her arm. Awareness dissolved. Red flares danced across her vision leaving comet trails in their wake. Amused, she reached out a hand to grab them, but no matter how fast she moved her hand they always remained just out of reach.
A man’s voice came from very far away, the words indistinct. It took all of Louisa’s concentration to comprehend their meaning.
‘Louisa.’
She recognised her name. She tried again.
‘Louisa, you need to enter full immersion.’
She remembered.
The red flares became words. She focussed on them.
One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2) Page 23