One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2)
Page 27
Louisa nodded encouragingly. ‘You did the right thing.’ She made a mental note to call Ben’s psychologist. A few sessions might give him the opportunity to talk about Harrow, and about Claire. Grief needed to be confronted, not suppressed. But that was easier said than done. It wasn’t until Simon’s funeral that she realised how much she was bottling up. It had been a stiff and formal affair, attended by a lot of important people who hadn’t known him well. The Prime Minister even sent a representative. To her surprise, Drew had turned up. ‘For moral support,’ he’d said. She tried to tell him he needn’t have gone to the trouble, but then she proved herself a liar when she’d burst into tears during the service.
She bumped into DCI Lenihan too outside the church. Apparently there was talk of formalising her NCA Liaison role. Even though the DCI tried to put a positive spin on it they both knew it was a demotion in all but name. The commissioner couldn’t fire her as the resulting negative Portal coverage would only draw the ire of the Prime Minister. Now, as the NCA Liaison, she’d be unlikely to cause any more trouble for him. After the effort she’d put into her career it grated to be cast aside.
‘Could he have done it?’ Ben asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She frowned. ‘Sorry?’
‘Could Harrow have recreated Claire’s mind?’
Louisa grappled for an answer. Adam’s existence had been proof enough it was possible. Could Harrow have used Claire’s neural lattice data to do the same? Louisa didn’t know. But even if he had the data, he wouldn’t have done it, no matter what he promised Ben. He hadn’t bothered to hide his hatred of Adam, and not just because Adam used Harrow’s algorithm to create his own mind pattern. Harrow believed Adam’s mind had been corrupted by its method of extraction. Claire’s mind would have been the same. Impure, to use his own words. As for Adam, if he had indeed copied himself before transferring his virtual machine, he hadn’t contacted her. Either he’d retreated back to his seclusion in the Global Web, or…
Or he’s dead. The man had been infuriating, but she knew she’d be dead too without his sacrifice. The thought he might be gone, truly gone, made her think she’d made a friend, and the realisation had come too late.
‘I’ve been thinking about what I would do,’ Louisa said finally, ‘if I had the opportunity to speak to someone I cared about again. Someone who had died.’
Ben perked up. ‘Yes?’
‘It could help, I think, with closure. But would I want him in my life again? Only able to talk to him? Never to touch him, or to hold him?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not so sure. It’s not a life either of us would want.’
Ben nodded. ‘It was killing me that there might be a part of Claire still out there, waiting for me.’
‘And now?’
‘I don’t even know if she’d want to come back. Not after what they did to her. I can’t exactly ask her. And if I brought her back, without her permission, I’d be just as bad as the scientists who experimented on her. I’d be bringing her back to make me feel better. What if she hated me for it?’
‘Claire could never hate you, Ben.’
‘Even so. I’d have no right to treat her that way.’
Louisa breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been worried about Ben, stuck in the cell for two days with nothing to occupy his thoughts but Claire and what he did for Harrow. Coming to terms with his feelings about Claire had been an important step in his counselling sessions. There had been a real danger Harrow’s offer to restore her mind had undone all Ben’s hard work.
‘If you’re ready to go,’ Louisa said, ‘there are two very excited teenagers waiting to see you.’
Ben grinned. ‘Sure.’
She started the car and instructed VANS to take them home.
*
‘Ben!’ Charlie launched himself from his seated position on the stairs and barrelled into a startled Ben. ‘I missed you.’
‘Hello, squirt,’ Ben said.
Jess appeared from the kitchen. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, shoulders hunched.
Ben smiled at her. ‘I missed you guys too.’ She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around them both.
‘Well then.’ Louisa closed the front door and wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘I’m going to make a pot of tea, if anyone’s interested.’
*
‘All I remember is some flashing lights,’ Ben said. ‘Then I woke up in hospital.’
‘How about you, Mum?’ Charlie asked.
‘The same,’ Louisa said. In fact, she remembered more, but she didn’t want to worry Charlie. She’d had recurring dreams, or nightmares really, of Harrow. Adam was there too, although it wasn’t really him. This Adam frightened her. Then her dad appeared and scooped her up, protecting her from them both. The dreams didn’t make much sense and every time she woke they melted away, leaving in their wake a vague unease.
‘Hey, Ben,’ Charlie said. ‘Do you want to play IPD? I bet you’re way out of practice.’
‘I don’t know, Charlie.’ Ben glanced at Louisa.
‘It’s okay,’ Louisa said. ‘Just finish up before lunch. Afterwards we’re having a family outing. All four of us, including you, Charlie.’
‘Aw,’ Charlie sulked.
‘And I don’t want to have to jack in and get you when you’re time’s up,’ Louisa said.
‘There’s no chance of that,’ Charlie muttered. ‘They’ve suspended full immersion. You have to play with a stupid anchor.’
The Multiverse restrictions were the only reason why she was letting Charlie anywhere near the game. Full immersion had been suspended across all Portal extensions. Nanometrix had patched their implant vulnerability, but the government didn’t want to take any chances until they were sure the implants were safe.
‘I might go too, Mum,’ Jess said, when Charlie and Ben had left the room.
‘Really?’ Louisa arched an eyebrow. Jess wasn’t that much of a gamer.
‘Yeah. Let’s face it. The only chance I’ll have to see much of Ben while he’s here is if I’m playing games too. Will you be okay on your own?’
‘Of course.’ Louisa shooed her away. ‘Go on. Have fun with the boys.’
Jess had hovered around her constantly since she left hospital, not that she’d stayed there for long. After twenty-four hours of brain scans and blood samples, when she found out they planned a psychiatric evaluation, she put her foot down and demanded to be released. The doctors had prescribed painkillers. Apparently blazing migraines were a common trance withdrawal symptom. The funny thing was, Louisa hadn’t suffered any. Even her implant sensitivity seemed to have vanished.
She took a sip of tea and grimaced. It had gone tepid. She looked around the kitchen and found nothing to do. Jess had cleaned up. Maybe she could join the kids, or spectate even?
She laughed then. That’d surely kill their fun—having their mum turn up in the middle of the game.
She wandered over to the piano, lifted the lid and pressed a key, then another. She placed her left hand on the keys and played a chord. Louisa smiled. She hadn’t realised she knew the start of Clair de Lune. She must have learned it at one point and forgotten.
What comes next? Her eyes closed. As ever, thinking of the piece brought her father to mind, and with it the sense of loss. Her throat tightened.
‘That’s beautiful.’ She opened her eyes. Ben was standing in the doorway, grinning.
Louisa’s hands danced across the keys. For a moment she was in shock, then her playing faltered, her fingers spasming.
Her hands were shaking. They’d moved of their own accord. It had felt like they belonged to someone else.
Ben leaned against the piano. ‘I didn’t know you could play.’
‘I-I don’t know how to play.’
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘Yes, well.’ Louisa wrung her hands together. ‘I must have picked up more than I thought.’
‘Do you know anything else?’
She began to shake
her head, then rested her fingers on the keyboard. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’
A note from the author
Many thanks for buying this book.
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Thanks and kind regards,
Mark J Maxwell.
Copyright © 2015 Mark J. Maxwell
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Title
Dedication
A Note From The Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
A Note From The Author
Copyright