One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2)

by Mark J Maxwell

  Louisa groaned. Not again.

  ‘You’d better get used to the attention. It’s the reason I’m taking you out the back. The main entrance is mobbed with guerrilla casters.’

  Louisa abandoned the wheelchair at Casualty, determined to walk at least part of the way, but when the outside doors slid apart fresh air hit her like a hammer. White spots flitted across her vision and she leaned on the doorframe, waiting for the lightheadedness to pass. Drew offered her an arm. She took it gratefully.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Louisa asked as they walked around to the isolation ward’s entrance.

  ‘We didn’t. I believe you know Nanometrix’s CTO—Edward Cooley?’

  ‘I do.’ Louisa kept her face straight. ‘He used to work for the MET.’

  Drew glanced at her with a wry smile. ‘We know he’s the one who helped you find Jamie Godfrey. Someone contacted him anonymously with details on a vulnerability Nanometrix have in their implants. Apparently they aren’t as secure as Nanometrix and Portal made them out to be. It’s how he tracked you down.’

  ‘He found me using my implants?’

  ‘In a way. Ed theorised the clan was using the vulnerability to mask their movements. He created an algorithm which used the MET’s sense strips to scan for any new holes in Portal’s network popping up out of nowhere. He tracked the clan from where they emerged near Victoria right to the pumping house.’

  ‘Good old Ed,’ Louisa murmured.

  Drew eyed her sidelong. ‘Why do I get the feeling you knew about the vulnerability already?’

  Because a dead man told me. Louisa wondered if the NCA had made the connection between Adam Walsh and his alter ego, White Hat. There was a brief spike of compulsion to tell Drew the truth, but it passed as swiftly as it arose. Drew saw her as another clan victim. She didn’t want him suffering any doubts. Not while Ben remained a suspect in the NCA’s investigation. ‘Harrow knew how to manipulate optical and cochlear implants,’ she said instead. ‘It was how he murdered Simon.’

  ‘He killed Simon Carlyle? You’re sure of this?’

  ‘He as much as admitted it.’

  ‘But you’ve no proof?’

  ‘No, but it will still be in my statement. Simon’s name deserves to be cleared. I won’t keep how he died under wraps, even if you aren’t prepared to release details on the implants.’

  ‘I’m not trying to censor you, but you might want to wait until Nanometrix have released a patch. There’s no guarantee how people will react if we release details on the vulnerability while it’s still active.’

  Louisa nodded grudgingly. ‘Okay. I can do that.’ A thought crossed her mind. ‘What about Ed? You’re not pressing charges against him for the Multiverse hack, are you?’

  ‘GCHQ requested I give him a pass.’ Drew shrugged. ‘I was happy to agree after he helped us. GCHQ was certainly impressed. I think they’re looking to recruit him.’

  Ed had often indicated his disdain for GCHQ. Those data nerds, he would say. But Louisa knew he respected them. It wouldn’t surprise her if he jumped at the chance to work with GCHQ, if only to get access to their toys.

  A uniformed MET officer guarded the isolation ward entrance. His eyes widened when he noticed Louisa. With a nod from Drew he held the door open for them.

  ‘Your commissioner wants a word, by the way,’ Drew said as they entered the lift. ‘He asked to be informed the moment you woke.’

  ‘And did you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I figured you’d want some time to yourself first.’

  ‘Thanks, Drew.’ It wasn’t a conversation she was looking forward to. With the Benoit Walsh scandal she’d professed ignorance as to why Benoit had taken an interest in her. She didn’t think she’d be able to play the same card twice. They’d want a detailed report on everything that happened at Victoria and the pumping house. As yet she wasn’t sure how much to tell them.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Drew grinned. ‘I have to keep our MET Liaison on-side.’

  Louisa hesitated. ‘You haven’t asked me about White Hat yet.’

  Drew’s smile slipped a fraction. ‘My job’s done. The clan is no longer a threat.’ He paused briefly. ‘Although I am curious to know who White Hat is. Did he respond to Harrow’s demands?’

  ‘It would have been difficult. White Hat was Adam Walsh.’

  Drew’s jaw dropped. ‘Adam Walsh, the former Portal CTO?’

  Louisa nodded. ‘Harrow thought Adam was still alive. Or rather, his mind was. He believed Adam had ascended to a digital form of life as part of the neural lattice experiments. Harrow wanted to do the same.’

  For a second Drew froze, then he burst out laughing. ‘Harrow really lost it, didn’t he?’

  Louisa released a breath she’d been holding. ‘Yeah, he sure did. He wanted me to ascend along with him and the rest of the clan. That’s why you found us together, all dosed up on trance. I guess whatever he tried didn’t work on me.’

  Drew arched an eyebrow. ‘And you think it did for him and the others?’

  She barked a laugh. ‘Who knows? Maybe you can ask him when he wakes up.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen. Harrow’s dead. They all are.’

  ‘What?’ Now it was Louisa’s turn to be shocked. ‘How?’

  ‘We found them in the same state as Ben. Comatose. Unresponsive. When we tried to move them their vitals dropped, just like with Ben. We rigged up a link to the clan’s network, which appeared to keep them stable, but it went down on route to the hospital. The paramedics couldn’t do anything. They were dead by the time they got here.’

  ‘Do you know how the connection failed?’

  Drew’s mouth tightened. ‘The team I left at the pumping house were recalled back to base. They said the order came via the case file. From me, in fact. When I got back to the pumping house it had been cleaned out. Every piece of equipment was gone.’

  ‘And the case file order?’

  Drew shook his head. ‘There’s no trace of it. And before you say it, I trust my team. If they say they received an order, I believe them.’

  The case file had been altered. It was the only explanation if Drew’s officers were telling the truth. She didn’t have to think long to come up with likely culprits. Severing the link was a quick and easy way to kill Harrow and the rest of the clan. Far too tempting for Cruise and MI6 to pass up. It seemed they got their wish in the end. Harrow dead, with no trail leading back to them.

  Dr Perrott was waiting at the ward viewing screen. He moved to intercept them. ‘I can’t let you in yet, I’m afraid. We still need to run a number of tests.’

  Louisa let go of Drew’s arm and straightened. ‘I want to see him, Doctor.’

  His chin rose defiantly. ‘Out of the question. Ward protocols must be followed.’

  She took a step toward him. ‘Get out of my way.’

  His eyes widened and he looked to Drew, who shrugged in response. ‘Inspector Bennett doesn’t work for me. I can’t tell her what to do.’

  The doctor jabbed a finger at Louisa. ‘I’ll be speaking to your superior.’

  ‘You do that.’ Louisa sidestepped him and hit a tile on the wall. The doors slid apart with a hiss. When Dr Perrott tried to follow she led up a hand. ‘I want to speak to Ben in private.’ She tapped the wall tile and the doors slid shut.

  The plastic sheeting around Ben’s bed had been removed. His eyes were closed. As Louisa approached they flicked open.

  ‘Louisa,’ Ben said, his voice weak.

  ‘Shh, no need to talk.’ She sat on the bed and hugged him.

  Ben had come back to her, and he was safe. But is he still my Ben? She thrust the thought away. It didn’t matter what the clan did to him, or whatever twisted thoughts Harrow put in his head. That was for later. For the moment it was enough to hold him close, and for a long time it was all she did, but then she felt his shoulders shaking.

  Tears spilled down his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.’

 
She smoothed damp curls from his forehead. ‘Shh. None of that.’

  She filled a glass with water from a sink in the corner of the ward. She handed the water to a grateful Ben and then tapped on the console screen beside the bed. Most of the interface was denied to her, but the dampening field hadn’t been integrated with the NHS Subnet. As an addendum, unique to the ward, she didn’t need permission to activate it. When she did, a warning flashed before her eyes indicating Portal was unavailable. She shifted over to place herself between Ben and the camera in the bed frame.

  ‘You’re safe now, Ben. No one can hurt you here, and I won’t let anyone ask you any questions until you’re ready. You need to concentrate on getting better.’

  ‘I didn’t know they were going to bomb the Portal building.’ His brow furrowed. ‘You have to believe me.’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Her elation at hearing Ben’s denial was short lived. She hated the thought he could be slipping back into the depression he fought so hard to overcome. ‘You know you can tell me anything, Ben. And it might help, to talk it over.’

  He swallowed. ’I don’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Well, you received an invitation from the clan, didn’t you? Why don’t we start there?’

  He nodded. ‘I figured they’d spotted me in a match and were looking for new members. We started chatting, me and another guy called Henry. About game flow, mostly. Paths of attack, defence points, escape routes if you get pinned down, the usual stuff. I thought he was sussing me out, to see if I was up to scratch. Then a few weeks ago he said he wanted to meet face to face.’

  ‘At the flats on Wansey Street?’

  Ben frowned. ‘How did you know?’

  She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. What happened then?’

  ‘Most of the clan was there. Everyone was super-stoked at meeting face to face for the first time.’ Ben shifted uncomfortably. ‘Then it got kinda weird. Henry kept saying how we’d been chosen and some guy called Spencer was going to save us. And he didn’t call him Spencer. He called him the Prophet.’ Ben shook his head. ‘It was too much for me. I was going to bail, but then Spencer arrived and Henry introduced me.’ His eyes softened. ‘Spencer knew about Claire. He said he knew the real reason why Portal experimented on her. He said they were using her to research the creation of an artificial mind. He—’ Ben’s voice cracked. ‘He said there might be a part of her still alive.’

  His revelation left Louisa speechless. Adam’s mind had been recreated using neural lattice recordings. If Claire’s still existed on the Research Subnet could they be used to recreate her mind? Adam’s monitoring had taken place with the purpose of determining his mind pattern. Could Harrow have recreated Claire’s mind from the six months worth of data Portal had on her?

  Ben wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Spencer told me a lot of stuff. About how Portal were stealing the essence of who we were. About how Portal were diluting the perfection of our patterns. He wanted me to help stop them. I don’t know if I believed him, not really, but if there remained the slightest chance I could speak to Claire again?’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘We started work straight away. I got assigned to a team tasked with replicating Nanometrix’s implant APIs. It was a fairly simple job, given I’d done similar work for Ed. Within a week we’d connected implants to fake interfaces and supplied them with audio and video feeds.’

  ‘Did you know what the rest of the clan was working on?’

  He nodded. ‘Once I’d finished the API work I got transferred onto Henry’s pattern query team. It was interesting stuff, actually. The idea you could stimulate your brain with light and sound into giving up its underlying pattern is a neat idea. It’s similar to hypnosis. Most people think you’re zoned out under hypnosis, like your brain has been zapped into inactivity. In fact the opposite is true. Your brain his hyper-aware. The same thing happens when you take trance. It’s like every part of your brain comes alive, and it enters a state where your neurons are receptive to stimulation. Spencer already had a working prototype, so our job was to refine it. Spencer gave a big speech when we finished. He said Portal was the enemy of humanity. He made it sound like they were stealing our souls. He said once we were able to identify our own patterns we could leave our bodies behind and make the transition to a pure form. Henry told me Spencer was the messiah, come to lead us to the promised land.’

  ‘But you didn’t believe him?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Spencer could have told us we were going to live on the moon for all I cared. I just wanted him to keep his side of our deal.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘I never found out. He kept dodging me. Every time I asked about Claire he said everything would become clear in time. He said we were ready to take the fight to Portal. He told us Adam Walsh had stolen his mind pattern research. Spencer despised Adam. If Spencer was the messiah, Adam was the devil. He said Adam’s pattern was housed in a virtual machine, and we needed the machine to set our own patterns free. He said a sacrifice had to be made for the cause. Henry volunteered straight away.’ He stared at the now-empty glass, gripped in both hands.

  ‘The Portal bombing?’

  Ben gave the barest of nods. ‘When Spencer told us what he wanted, I expected Henry to change his mind. I tried to talk him out of it. He wouldn’t listen. The rest of the clan treated Henry like a hero. Spencer said his sacrifice wouldn’t go unrewarded and he’d wake up with his brothers around him. Like he was going to heaven, or something. We watched the coverage of the bombing on the newscasts.’ Ben shivered. ‘It was horrible. Spencer didn’t think so. Neither did anyone else in the clan. All I knew was that my friend had died.’

  ‘What happened then?’ Louisa asked, softly.

  ‘I told Spencer I wanted out. He started talking about Claire again, asking whether I really wanted to be with her. I lost my temper. Spencer hadn’t shown me any proof Claire’s pattern could be retrieved from Portal’s subnet. Even if it was possible, and he did recreate her mind, how could I tell Claire I’d helped kill innocent people?’ He winced and shook his head. ‘I decided to leave. But…I don’t remember anything else until I woke up here.’

  For a long moment neither of them spoke. Louisa couldn’t help turning his story over in her head, looking for an angle to separate Ben from the clan in the eyes of the law. She hadn’t fulfilled her end of the deal with Cruise, after all. She had no confidence Cruise would keep Ben out of jail. And if Ben told the truth she was positive the NCA would file charges, whether Drew put in a good word or not. She wasn’t prepared to let that happen. She wouldn’t let Ben become a public scapegoat for Harrow and the clan.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Ben said. ‘I should never have gone with Spencer.’

  Louisa took his hand. ‘Ben, honey, listen to me. Harrow is wholly to blame, and now he’s dead, along with the rest of the clan. You shouldn’t have to pay the price for his actions.’

  ‘But when the police find out what I did, they’ll blame me too.’

  ‘I don’t want you speak to anyone until I get you a solicitor. That includes the police. We’ll get through this, but you have to trust me.’

  Ben didn’t look convinced, but he nodded all the same. ‘Okay.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ‘Would you like to go straight home or get something to eat first?’

  ‘I’m starving,’ Ben replied. ‘The stuff they fed me at the station was awful.’

  The NCA held Ben for two days. His solicitor said the questioning had been thorough, although largely non-confrontational. Politically there didn’t appear to be any appetite in pursuing a prosecution against him. More ghost mobs had gathered after the news of the clan’s demise, blaming Portal and the government for their deaths. Louisa suspected the government wanted the whole matter quickly forgotten. Dragging Ben through the courts would only keep the clan fresh in the minds of the public. MI6 wouldn’t want the press digging around in Harrow’s past either, although Louisa didn’t b
elieve for a second Cruise had done her any favours. But whatever the reasons were behind Ben’s release, Louisa didn’t care. He was coming home.

  ‘Can I have a burger?’ Ben asked.

  ‘For breakfast? I know a café nearby that does great French toast and pancakes.’

  He shook his head. ‘I have a craving for junk food.’

  Half an hour later Ben had demolished one quarter-pounder and was working on his second. He hadn’t wanted to sit in the restaurant so they’d ordered take away and ate in the car. He’d asked Louisa to darken the windows. She didn’t think anyone would recognise him, even though a few newscasts had covered his release, but she knew how he felt. It wasn’t easy being famous on Portal. You suspected everyone was staring at you when half the time they were probably in full immersion and weren’t looking at you at all. Louisa had largely disappeared from the peaking feeds. The last guerrilla casters had decamped from the front of the house the previous evening. She was yesterday’s news, and Ben would be too, soon enough.

  Louisa sneaked one of his chips. She was glad to see he had an appetite. Two days in police custody would stress out anyone.

  ‘I’d better stop.’ He set down a half-finished burger in the polystyrene tray. His face had taken a greenish tinge. ‘I think I’ve eaten too much.’

  Louisa glanced at him in concern. ‘I should have taken you straight home.’ She’d recovered from the trance with no real aftereffects, but Dr Perrott told her it would take longer for Ben. Trance left a residue in your system that built up with prolonged use. As a previous user, Ben’s withdrawal symptoms were harder for him to shake.

  ‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’ He cracked his window. ‘It’s good to get out. I’ve been cooped up for days.’

  She stuffed the food wrappers into their brown bag, wound down her window, and tossed them into a bin beside the car. She was about to start the engine when Ben spoke. ‘They asked me why I joined the clan.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That the Sons had a great rep. Everyone wanted to join them.’ He hesitated. ‘I didn’t mention Claire.’