Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

  Whilst Wilson was a faultless technical performer as he flew the planes and deployed the weapons he was asked to test on behalf of Schumann’s, Goodwin was more of a people person. He was a negotiator. He trusted the talented people to deliver him effective and reliable kit, which left him free to build the contacts and secure the contracts that paid the bills. He earned his substantial salary, but his life outside the workplace was solitary. Carrington’s computer didn’t like that. Hence the two visitors he received that afternoon.

  Dexter’s nonchalance about the visit belied the preparation that they’d put into it. This was another operation that had been meticulously and extensively planned, although it was originally set for the following day. He made a brief call to confirm that it was okay to bring it forward and, having received confirmation that it was, he pulled off the main road and parked up in a picnic area a mile or so from Goodwin’s home.

  An hour later, two desperate fell-walkers stumbled through the bracken that bordered the renovated farmhouse where the owner was busy tending to a larger-than-average vegetable plot.

  “Who the hell are you?”, Goodwin shouted, “This is private property. Get off now or I’ll call the police.”

  “Please,”, Dexter stumbled towards the confused and frightened man, “I need help. My friend has fallen and I think his leg’s broken. My phone battery’s dead and I need to call an ambulance.”

  On cue, tears flowing, Philian Gregory appeared in the scene, his highly unsuitable clothing torn and covered in mud. He collapsed at the edge of the garden, making sure that the bloody mess of his leg was visible to Goodwin.

  “We were trying to walk Boundary Brook.”, Dexter explained, “We misjudged the path to the peak and Jeremy slipped. Can we please call an ambulance? He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  A close inspection of the wound was enough to convince Goodwin. Enough to make him heave a little too before he turned to Dexter and let his training take over. Of the little public information that was available about Goodwin, it had been possible to track him to an enthusiasm for amateur climbing, which in turn revealed a past role in mountain rescue. You had to go with the little information you could get. It hit the right spot just now.

  “We need to get him inside.”, Goodwin said, “Grab that board that’s up against the shed and we’ll carry him in. We’ll call the ambulance from there.”

  Gregory screamed as they lifted him onto the makeshift stretcher, moaning in agony some more as they carried him into the house.

  “You’ve done well to compress the wound.”, Goodwin told Dexter, “But that bone doesn’t look good. There, on the wall. The phone.”

  Dexter made the call, asking Goodwin for the full address and struggling to speak clearly in his distress.

  “Ten minutes, they reckon.”, he told Goodwin before vomiting copiously over the floor.

  “For Heaven’s sake man,”, Goodwin shouted at him, “get a grip. Go and clean yourself up. I’ll stay with your friend. Upstairs, second door on the left.”

  The ambulance arrived within the ten minutes, its siren blaring and lights flashing. Goodwin left the paramedics to their own devices, taking time out to calm Dexter down and reassure him that his friend was in safe hands. The ambulance crew worked quickly and efficiently, transferring Gregory to their vehicle on a gurney, before thanking Goodwin for his help. Goodwin was happy to have been able to do his bit and he waved to the team as they headed away. He’d offered to travel with them but Dexter told him that he’d already done more than enough and that they were only sorry they’d disturbed his peaceful day.

  Once the ambulance was clear of the private road that led to Goodwin’s house, the team relaxed.

  “We all good?”, Gregory asked.

  “Think so.”, Dexter replied, “You can get rid of the bloods and guts now. That bone’s still freaking me out.”

  “Was it worthwhile?”, the paramedic who sat in the back with them asked.

  “A double whammy.”, Dexter replied as he climbed through into the passenger seat to join the female crew member, “We’re on a roll today guys. And Goodwin’s office is wired for sound.”

  The driver slowed the ambulance down as they approached the picnic area where the other car was parked.

  “You didn’t mind us calling you early?”, Dexter asked the paramedics as they sat in the warmth of the vehicle.

  “Not at all.”, they replied in unison.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that!”, Dexter laughed.

  “Hey, it’s what makes us what we are.”, the male half of the duo replied, “And you should be used to it by now.”

  In truth, Dexter never felt that he would get used to the strange ways of the twins. It was a comfortable strangeness that he quite enjoyed witnessing and it was something that he could live with if it meant having them in his life. They’d not batted an eyelid at his request for help from them. They trusted him implicitly and when he asked for support they would always be there.

  “We’d come up early anyway,”, Sam Summers explained, “and we were only kicking about in the hotel. Our part was never really timebound after all. Funny how quickly you can get an ambulance.”

  “Talking of which,”, Zoe Summers took over, “we’d better get the crew back in place. Bob, can you give us a hand please.”

  Whilst Philian Gregory was cleaning up the residue of the prosthetic injuries that had looked so convincing, the Summers twins and Dexter opened the boot of the car that they’d parked next to and carefully lifted the two genuine paramedics out.

  “When they come around,”, Sam explained, “they’ll only remember being called to this car park and finding that it was a dud call. The time difference will seem fine to them as we told them that they’d walked around the woods for a while looking for the victim. They’ll see it as odd, in some ways, but they’ll be out on another call soon and that’ll take their minds of it.”

  “You comfortable that they’ll buy what you told them?”, Gregory joined them as they positioned the crew in the cab.

  “Oh, yes.”, Sam answered, “Totally.”

  “Hypnosis?”

  “The very same. With a little help from a dose of tranquiliser. You have to remember, as twins, we’re that little bit more in touch with the psychic side of things. If ordinary mortals can induce people to act like a dog on command, you don’t need to worry that we can’t make them forget being sedated and meeting us. It’s not perfect, but they won’t suffer.”

  “And we cleared up some historic memories for them.”, Zoe interjected, “So, swings and roundabouts. But, as Sam says, we’re safe. We’d better head off now. We’ll patch in a call to the ambulance radio in five minutes. The trigger word will bring them back. I suggest that you head off with us?”

  Dexter and Carrington agreed. The two cars left the scene and were back on main roads when the paramedics resumed their shift. The ambulance crew each sensed that something unusual had happened, although just what, they couldn’t quite put their finger on. They felt good though and that was fine. Shortly after, they were called to a minor road traffic accident and it was business as usual for them.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The decision to involve the twins had been a difficult one. Not because they couldn’t be trusted and certainly not because they weren’t up to the task. It was more about drawing in others, ostensibly innocent others, into the potentially life-threatening world that Dexter and his two friends had voluntarily chosen to enter. Compromise had been the decider. The twins would only be asked to help out in rare instances and where no other option remained, and they would only be called on to dip into what was happening. On Monday, they’d be back in London and focused solely on ensuring their business ran smoothly.

  In truth, the involvement of more people had been one of the first concerns that had arisen since the morning of revelation that saw Carrington break out o
f his malaise and break through into new opportunities. Spurred on by the shame of both his failure to progress and his even greater failure at staying sober, he’d forced himself to look at things differently. The solution had to be out there. If he wasn’t finding it, that didn’t mean it wasn’t there to be found.

  When he’d rung Gregory up and asked him to add a specific and peculiar item to his shopping list, he hadn’t waited to debate the request but instead, had returned immediately to studying the strange results that his amended algorithm was throwing up. The critical difference to the new programme was to allow the computer freedom.

  “What I realised,”, he’d told Dexter and Carrington when they’d returned to the boat on that day, several week’s back, “was that anything that we directed the computer to, would always be biased. We’re humans and we think in limited ways. I can be as analytical as I want, but even I have to acknowledge that my own existence as a man who’s grown up within certain societal boundaries places a constraint on my vision. Yes, we stripped away convention and came up with anomalies with the old program, but they were only ever grounded in our shared thinking.”

  He paused as he rummaged through the bags of shopping and retrieved the item that had he’d requested. It hadn’t been easy to find and the one that they’d bought had cost them more than they’d wanted to pay since they’d had to find an antique one.

  “I’ll come to the clock in a moment.”, Carrington continued, “But first, the rest of my epiphany. You see, if I see limits to my own thinking, then logic says that I remove those limits by removing my thinking. I reconfigured the algorithm to work in tandem with an artificial intelligence program. It has its own limits of course, but what it doesn’t have, is any in-built prejudices. I let the computer look at things in its own way. Free from too much me, but still looking for the patterns that I wanted to see. Essentially, I gave it free reign to find what it thought was a pattern. And it just kept coming up with circles.”

  “Circles?”, Dexter queried, “Doesn’t seem to be too free of your influence.”

  “That’s the point. I thought the same. We’re looking for links to The Circle and the computer keeps throwing me out data that it’s seeing as circles. I was disappointed at first, but then, I started to see that the circles that the computer was generating were just that. They were its own interpretation of the links and connections between the people we’ve been trying to find. Let me explain.”

  He pulled the wrapping off the antique clock and placed it on the table in front of them. Knowing how much it had cost, Philian Gregory and Bob Dexter looked on in dismay as Carrington removed the glass from the front and snapped off the hands.

  “We don’t need those.”, Carrington said casually as he dropped them on the floor, “It’s all about the face. I wanted a bigger one, but this will do. Now, let me show you what I think the new program is telling us.”

  They watched as he took a thin marker pen from his pocket and began scribbling words over the numbers that surrounded the clock-face.

  “This is how the computer sees the big picture.”, he explained, “Numerous smaller circles of data, each one showing a link between individuals. But, and this is the big surprise, it then begins to forge links between those smaller circles and one overarching interpretation of the whole. Asked to look for no pattern, the AI element of the program found one of its own. And this is it. Our world in a circle.”

  He turned the defaced clock-face towards them and continued.

  “People with connections making bigger connections to a closed world. This is the big circle. Each of the points on the clock representing a sector of our society and looking wholly logical to the computer. In the centre, the hub of what we are looking for. Around that centre, the various facets of a social world that feed into the centre. In no particular order, we start with Economics. Remember Walt Farnham? Next, Defence, the Media, Healthcare, Welfare, the Judiciary, Education, Sport, Religion, Science, Transport and Civil Liberties. Can you see it?”

  The two looked closely at the markers on the clock-face, each of them wondering if Carrington had finally lost the plot.

  “I see it,”, Dexter was the first to speak, “but I’m not sure I see it as definitively as you do. You can construct the world in a million different ways. There are things missing here and things that crossover. It’s too simplistic.”

  “That’s what I thought.”, Carrington replied, “And I don’t personally like the idea of only twelve sectors, irrespective of how convenient it makes the representation. But that’s the whole point. We’re not asking for a construct of the whole of the country in comprehensive terms. In fact, we’re not asking for anything. What we’re doing is letting the computer show us its own construct of the part of the world that we are investigating. Everything that it sees as relevant is relevant to our search terms and our pursuit of The Circle.”

  “Okay.”, Philian Gregory chose his words carefully, not wanting to upset his friend, “let’s accept that notion. What I need to know is, how does it help us?”

  “A good point. And thankfully, one that I can answer in a way that should convince you. It convinced me. And it’s all about the centre of the dial. What does it all have in common?”

  “Tell us please.”

  “We’ve been looking for The Circle in terms of their past activities.”, Carrington explained as he retrieved the clock and began to write another word on its face, “But we’d all, in different ways, come to the conclusion that they’d moved on in their activities. Maybe now, they are an affiliation of people pursuing a new agenda. The computer thinks so. And the new centre? Politics.”

  He lay the clock before them, now fully labelled.

  “Everything points to politics. And, whether we like it or not, The Circle, according to this model, is now a political entity and not just a bunch of perverts.”

  “It’s a big leap.”, Dexter sighed, “And one that I’m not sure I can make.”

  “Philian?”

  “I can see the logic. But, I agree with Bob. It’s too speculative.”

  “Okay. Let me add some flesh to the bones. I mentioned Farnham before. His name came out of our previous searches but we drew a blank on him. And that left us with nobody else to pursue. We need names above all things. So, let me show you something else.”

  From a folder that lay next to him on the table, Carrington pulled out a sheath of papers.

  “You want names.”, he said as he fanned out the pages, “Then here are names. Lots of them. Every one of them connected to a few others in a smaller circle, but each of them fitting perfectly into a certain segment of the clock-face. Whether it’s right or wrong, we can’t argue with this. We need names and we now have plenty. If it’s all a strange coincidence, then so be it. But we should at least test the water.”

  From that conversation had arisen the choice to look into two of the names that they had as a tester. Those two names had been Jamie Wilson and John Goodwin. And both had been worth the pursuit. They hadn’t expected anything from Goodwin; his high-profile role was one that couldn’t brook any indiscretion on data security. The idea had been simply to place electronic bugs in his house and see what transpired. But Dexter had found something as he’d been placing the bugs that seemed to tell them that, though they were still seeing through a glass darkly, there was some substance in what the computer was generating for them.

  “This was in Goodwin’s study bin.”, Dexter placed the plastic card on the table, “And it matches the one that we retrieved from Wilson’s house. Expired membership cards for a club in London that we can find no information on. Seems that they issue replacements in one batch, hence both Wilson and Goodwin discarding their old ones at roughly the same time. Maybe we should forget names for now and take a look at this place?”

  “No.”, Carrington was pleased that his friends had had a successful trip, but he was firm in his rebutta
l, “Wilson and Goodwin are connected via work. They’re both Schumann employees. There’s a high coincidence that their membership of this club, whatever it is, is connected to that. We need to stay on track with what we originally agreed. The first two names weren’t dead ends. So, we try a few more. Then we decide where we go. Thoughts?”

  “We use everything we’ve got.”, Gregory answered, “So, we can’t dismiss the club. But, I agree that it’s a tenuous link, for now. In reality, we’re struggling here to keep our heads above water. Without the potential in the breakthroughs this program seems to be giving us, we don’t have anything else. Which is why I’m compelled to agree with Nathan. We need to test more names. And we need to start moving fast.”

  “And if nothing comes out of it?”, Dexter asked.

  “Then we’re back at the start. Or the end. We can’t demand a path appear unless it does so naturally. There may be nothing in all this, or it may be something that’s bigger than we can possibly know. Starting tomorrow, I want to take on a half-dozen leads and see what shakes out.”

  Which is what they agreed to do and which is why Carrington and Gregory were battling the disrupted train services and competing with the grieving and the terrified for a seat to Glasgow, and why Bob Dexter was driving steadily back to the capital of the nation in the vehicle that he now called home.

  ******

  Whilst fortune was throwing only a cursory hint to Carrington et al, it was smiling feverishly over a small team of scientists in an off-the-grid laboratory on the outskirts of Cambridge. They were a handpicked team of the brightest and the best, supplied with technology that wasn’t yet ready for general release and allowed to enjoy the benefits of unlimited funding. Isolated by the secrecy of their roles, none of them had ever regretted their decision to devote their lives to the science that they lived and breathed. It was more than a job to them. It was their purpose in life and the reason for their existence.