The tension in the room heightened, the air was thick and heavy with the smell of sweat and fear. The Coordinator’s plans usually involved more than the occasional 'sacrificial lamb'.
“Dr Gessner?” said The Coordinator.
“Yes, sir?” Gessner gulped, tugging nervously at the collar of his shirt.
“Is your work on the compound complete?”
“It’s slow,” replied Gessner “You’re asking me to re-engineer something from the 19th century without any of the original research notes that created it. There’s so much guess work; speculation; it’s an uphill struggle.”
“Is that a no?” Anger touched at the edges of The Coordinator’s eyes.
“I didn’t say that,” Gessner stuttered quickly. “I have a prototype, but there’s still so much testing to do, I’m not sure it’s even stable. There could be… unforeseen consequences.”
The Coordinator glared at Gessner, his face filled with contempt. It was not a pleasant emotion to see on such an unpleasant and cruel face. All the others in the room remained steadfastly silent, desperately trying to force themselves into the back of their chairs and the psychological invisibility they felt it promised.
“You are out of time. We begin tonight,” said The Coordinator
“Begin what?” asked Gessner.
“Project Obolus, Doctor Gessner. What else?”
“You can’t be seriously considering this?” Gessner was beginning to tremble.
“You came up with the idea doctor. A novel method to reduce overpopulation. The wholesale re-purposing of one of our oldest technologies for this dark and dismal future of ours. A radical advancement upon mind entry technology, I never thought you had it in you. Two minds infused into one body? The global population could be halved overnight. And to think I almost shut your project down!” The Coordinator was smiling now. If anything it was a sight less pleasant than his sneer of contempt.
“It was just an idea, idle speculation, I don’t think it’s even possible. It was just supposed to be an intellectual exercise! I never expected anyone would ever try it?!” Terror was writ large on Gessner’s face.
“But try it we will.”
“But it’s unethical, it’s inhumane!” Gessner shouted, rising to his feet he slammed his palms onto the table.
“I am past caring,” replied The Coordinator offhandedly.
“This isn’t what I signed up for!”
The Coordinator leaned towards Gessner, almost looming over him and all the others. Shifting shadows gave his face a gaunt, almost skeletal appearance.
“I don’t think any of us signed up to be hunted down by our own government! Besides there’s nothing you can do to stop me now.” The Coordinator returned to his previous, rigid, upright stance. Turning his back to the room he clicked his fingers. “I hope you enjoy your new role Doctor Gessner.”
The door to the room opened and two Institute guards entered, heavily armoured in their standard issue body-armour and faceless helmets, all in black. They grabbed Gessner by his shoulders and began to drag him away. He struggled weakly, unable to even force the guards to increase their efforts. Trapped within their vice-like grips he had no hope of escape. Unable to free himself he began to shout. His words were snarled and rendered incomprehensible by his anger and stream of cursing. It was as if his mouth had become a very small and very localised gateway to a very select portion of hell.
As Gessner was man-handled out the door and spirited away to some dark corner of the facility to await his fate the other scientists relaxed. They were relieved it hadn’t been them.
5.
Darkness. Mankind has always had an aversion to it. It cloaks a myriad of mysteries and fears, it is the unknown made manifest. And there is nothing that is feared more than the unknown. It is a blank tapestry on which fevered minds paint lurid and perverse masterpieces born out of all manner of secret horrors and forgotten terrors. A man is never more alone, nor more vulnerable, nor confused than when he is consumed by the night; cut off from all other things, waiting for whatever monsters circle him unseen, to pounce and strip the flesh from his bones. But there is a certain ancient and unlooked for purity in the embrace of the dark. For things left in the dark are forgotten and ignored. And though they can fester, or rot, they can also mature and age, and in very rare circumstances, grow. The dark is not just a place for fear and terror, it is a place for reflection and pondering; when you are divorced and cut off from all other distractions, and all the things which serve only to get in the way, you can truly take stock of what it means to be you and finally work out exactly what it is you need to know. It is the pinnacle of isolation, and all manner of strange things can happen in isolation: madness, discovery, withering or triumph. It is a crucible. And one into which this particular escapee had been plunged without warning. But it had tempered him. Forged him anew. For he now knew who he was. A maelstrom of thoughts and memories had crystallised around his isolation, a quickening that flashed across neurons into a great lattice work of understanding. He was Gessner, scientist, visionary, victim; but he was also a soldier, his name lost to him in blooms of fire and singing shrapnel; but the skills he had learnt, the things he had witnessed; the will, drive and desire to survive were hard-wired things not so easily expunged. He knew he was both of these men. For better or worse, what was once two, was now one. It brought with it a freedom from the shackles of uncertainty and mute stumbling. He had become more than he was, something more whole and greater than just a mere man. He was a first. The act of his knowing had birthed an unknown. And an unknown is a dangerous thing.
The sea of blackness began to ebb into charcoals and greys, edges and shapes swam out of the murk. The man who once was Gessner found himself no longer in a tunnel or companionway, but in an open arcade of vaulted ceilings, the faint suggestive gleam of metal here and there. The merest hint of light flowed like treacle from a razor thin crack at the far side of the ticket hall, filling the space with the fuzzy almost non-light that pushed back the gloom. Was-Gessner was pulled towards it like a fish on a line slowly being reeled in. Was this the way out he had so long sought? Up close the light was the pure white of sunlight and the outside world, the crack was far too thin to see more than the merest hint of what lay beyond. He ran his hands over the surface before him. Flaking chip-board, painted plastic hoardings; crudely fixed planks; flimsy; transient; ill-suited to its purpose. Foot raised, Was-Gessner gave the barrier a single, solid kick. Then another. Then another. Thud, thud, thud, a steady reverberating drum beat, it had an almost ceremonial air about it, as if it were the portent of the climax of some long forgotten ritual. The barrier first began to shudder, then loosen, then parts began to splinter, then shatter. With the final kick it burst from the doorway it had been covering and fell to the pavement of the street beyond. Light flooded in, bathing Was-Gessner. It filled him with warmth. Stepping forth he left the warrens of the underground behind him and was born anew into the world. One journey had ended, but another had begun. Hundreds of people passed him by as he stood on the side of the street, clad only in a stained and bloodied gown, he was ignored by the masses. He was just another cog in the machine of the city, but he was a cog that had just started to turn and click. Meshed and hidden beneath innumerable others his purpose was shrouded and incomprehensible. But he knew where he sat and where he stood, he knew where he was and what he had to do. And although he was nothing more than a cog, it is important to remember that cogs have teeth.
I.
Rain was coming down in sheets. Thick, black drops. The sort which, when you’re all nice and snug in your car, look a lot like big blobs of unrefined tar. The wipers couldn’t keep up, their strokes barely cleared the screen for long enough to see. The headlamps weren’t helping much either. In rain like this even the beefiest of lights just got fuzzed out into nothingness. So the drivers took it slow and steady, navigating more by the nebulous white ghost of road lines and the faint, grainy map on the nav screen. They sure
as hell weren’t going to take any risks. Not on a night like this. Not with who and what they had on board. Ensconced in the back seat of the driver’s cab sat not just their boss, but the boss. He had his arms crossed and his head titled back. Light caught the smooth pate of his head and lit up his face. It looked like he was sleeping but his face did not look peaceful. It was not a kind face, it was not a nice face. It was a face like a wraith looming out of the black, midnight fog, just before it swallowed you whole. He was the guy who ran the whole show, the whole damn Institute. The Coordinator. Or as the drivers called him “The Suit.”
The nav screen flickered out and went dead, only the ghostly echo of its light remained.
“Next left,” said The Suit. “Pull up outside the garage and wait.”
“Yes boss,” replied the driver in a small and slightly fearful voice. It did not do to displease the Coordinator. He took the corner slow and steady, not so much driving as gliding across the skin of the road. They pulled up in front of a rusted and weather pitted roller shutter. The engine idled and the drivers waited. It didn’t take long for the shutter to slowly start to roll up driven by unseen motors and commanded by unseen hands. Even above the howling wind you could hear the banshee scream of unlubricated metal. The driver didn’t need telling what to do next, it was one of those obvious, unspoken instructions. An invitation. No sooner had the driver slid the van into the dingy space beyond them, the shutters began to close.
“Unload the cargo,” said The Suit, his face now alive with purpose and activity, no longer graced with the placid facade of sleep. The trio of men exited from the van, the room lit only by the diffused glare of headlights.
“What is this place boss?” asked one of the drivers.
“It’s one of our more secure facilities,” replied The Suit. “I’m sure you’re well aware our time is growing short. We are beset on all sides by blinkered fools, vultures and small-minded idiots. Even the shadiest corners of the establishment no longer want anything to do with us.” He sighed. “The hounds have already been released and we are hunted. Our institute is personae non gratae. It’s been so long since we had a break through and thus our erstwhile benefactors are no longer so willing to turn a blind eye to our, shall we say, ‘unconventional’ ethics. We are no longer necessary. Needless to say, unless we can succeed in this project and prove otherwise…” He let the silence hang in the air.
The drivers nodded. They knew this all too well, and they were in too deep to hope to escape the wrath of those dogging their steps. Wordlessly they proceeded to the back of the van and opened the rear doors. Within was a man in a wheelchair. He was fettered and shackled, restrained and immobile, his head lolled forward, his entire form limp. They’d acquired him from an army hospital the day before. A broken man, mute, unresponsive, his mind seared blank and dead by the horrors of war and high speed shrapnel. An empty vessel. The two drivers unfastened the wheelchair’s moorings and carefully lowered it down to the ground.
“Ah, our last, best hope,” said The Suit. “Wretched thing isn’t he?” He beckoned the drivers to follow him and walked to a set of double doors hidden in the gloom at the back of the garage. He took a card from his breast pocket and swiped it against a panel, tapping in a 5 digit code on the pad beneath. There was a clunk and the doors slid sideways to reveal the tiny metal box of a lift. They filed in and The Suit pressed one of the many, many unmarked buttons.
“How far does this go down boss?” asked one of the drivers.
“All the way down.” The Suit replied, a look of horror growing on the driver's face. “All the way to the old underground tunnels.”
“But the tunnels sir… they’re not safe, the stories. Oh fuck… the stories.”
“Yes, we’ve all heard the stories. Which is precisely why no one in their right mind will come down here looking for us. But even with all this secrecy, it’ll all still come down to chance. Fifty-fifty at best. Just the toss of a coin.”
The Suit slipped his hand into his pocket and wrapped his hand around the comforting metallic chill of his good luck charm. The lift hummed and they descended into the deepest, most forgotten bowels of Old London.
***
Interlude 6
"Good morning, Mr. President."
Consciousness slowly returned to the President of the World Union, and this surprised him greatly. He had been fairly certain he had died. He remembered the pain of dying, the bullet penetrating into his skull, and he remembered the relief, the peace of death. He was sure he should not be able to remember that. And now he was lying in a hospital bed, facing an enemy of the people. He tried to speak but was too weak from, what? Surgery?
"A lot of people want you to remain in charge, Mr. President," the Coordinator said, lifting a glass of water to the President's lips. "And believe it or not, we at the institute are among them." The Coordinator could see the incredulous expression of the President at that statement. He smiled in response before continuing straight faced. "Not a very smart thing to do, try to off yourself like that. If you'd come to us, that is, if you weren't hunting my people down like dogs, we'd have told you we found a cure for your condition many years ago. Don't believe me?" The stare clearly indicated not, the head shake confirmed it. "Get yourself re-diagnosed. They'll find no degeneration of the neural tissue. They won't even find evidence of the gunshot wound. It turns out, when you've been studying the mind for as long as we have, you learn a thing or two."
The President, enraged, struggled to rise and get his hands around The Coordinator's throat. The Coordinator pushed him back onto the bed with just a couple of fingers.
"Obviously there's some low-level conditioning in play here. You'll find you're not able to discuss our little arrangement, which I'll come to in a moment, with anyone unapproved. All we want, in return for your life, is for the Institute to be reinstated to its former glory with full governmental support. Now, I don't want to have to implement any of our more extreme fail-safes - I want you to know who's beaten you - but, one way or another, you will comply."
The Coordinator sat patiently, watching the President for his response. Eventually, the President visibly deflated, slumped back onto his pillow and slowly, sadly nodded his head.
"Fantastic," said The Coordinator. "I look forward to working with you." He stood, turned and left, but not before wiping away, with almost loving care, the single tear that ran from the President's eye.
***
The Andromeda System
Jonty Levine
Chandra Patel was in trouble. She had been inside someone’s head on her last assignment with The Institute, and had not left it exactly as she had found it. It had been a mistake, not the objective of the mission, though she couldn’t say for sure what the objective was. That information was confidential, and The Institute had taken it from her.
She glanced out the window of the L-Train that glided over the city and brought her home. Her tousled hair was lit up by intermittent flashes of gold, as the morning sunlight flickered through the tenement stacks that drifted past the window. They looked like the teeth of a great gear wheel, big as a planet, oiled by an endless flow of humans.
It was easy to lose sight of the individual in all this, but Chandra knew there was someone out there whose mind was damaged, and it was probably her fault. Chandra had forgotten to deactivate a memory lock before leaving the person’s head and now they would no longer be able to lay down long-term memories.
She really shouldn’t be thinking about this on the train. It was confidential. Mind-immersion Apparatuses that could fit inside rucksacks were increasingly sold on the black market. Much as it wanted to, The Institute could no longer claim exclusivity over this technology. So it was possible, though not probable, for someone to be in her head right now.
For this reason, The Institute didn’t usually allow its employees to carry such secrets beyond company premises. Chandra had gotten around the regulations this time by saying that she’d write up a performance re
view, and so she would require at least a partial memory of the event. That had been deemed an acceptable risk.
Now that she thought about it, she probably wouldn’t get in any trouble for the memory lock. Breaking a head was seen as a problem, like smashing a mug, or denting a car, but not a tragedy. The people who lost their memories were usually ruled off as natural cases of anterograde amnesia. Failing to deactivate a memory lock wasn’t nearly as bad as neglecting to use one in the first place. Betraying confidential information was a fireable offence. Memory locks were designed to solve this problem by preventing the subject from recalling anything that happened while they were inside it.
Whether she was reprimanded for it or not, Chandra still felt guilty that she had ruined someone’s life. The person whose head it was would probably spend the rest of their days in long-term care, perhaps with occasional visits from family members under the false hope that they would one day get better. It always pained her the most to think of the loved ones.
She got off the train early, and walked the last ten minutes to the Habitation Unit. Upon arriving home, she resisted the urge to call up her co-worker, Edwin, right away. She had never been very good at living with her mistakes, but sometimes it was best just to wait for a chance to fix them, even though it was difficult.
Chandra tried her best to put it out of mind, but after lying in bed for an endless half hour, not even trying to sleep, she retreated to the warm darkness of the living room, curtains still closed, idly rewinding through several days of television while a crack of sunlight drifted slowly down the wall.
Edwin was her former supervisor. He might understand her dilemma. Besides, he owed her a favour for something. She couldn’t remember what, because it happened at work. He’d be awake in a few hours, which gave Chandra plenty of time to reflect on all the harm she may have done to the minds of innocent people. She resolved to sleep until then, but remembered that she still had to write that performance report.
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