2079- Beyond the Blue

by Florence Watson

  ‘I haven’t taken it in. I’m here now because I needed to confirm that you’re alive.’

  ‘So all you know is what’s in the diary? The basic facts?’

  ‘Pretty much. I’ve had dreams but they’re not much use. They’re a jumble of everything that did and didn’t happen. You’re going to have to fill me in on the details.’

  ‘A little at a time.’ He says, then looks down and waits for me to speak again.

  ‘How’s Evelyn?’

  ‘She’s good. Enjoying the sun. Growing herbs and learning to make cheese.’

  ‘Great. And the Ministry man? Starla’s father.’ I say, recalling the picture of the old man with bushy eyebrows in the diary.

  ‘Adam. Not so good.’

  ‘We gave him LIFE as well, right? Isn’t that what I read?’

  ‘He’s in good health.’ He pauses then turns to face me again. ‘But put yourself in his place...’

  ‘I’ll try.’ I answer, considering that I’m barely in my own place, let alone trying to imagine someone else's.

  ‘Thirty years ago the government took away his livelihood and banned him from protesting about it. A few years later, he was imprisoned for smuggling an illegal substance that was a main food ingredient in this country for centuries. Eight years after his wife died, he learned that it was no careless incident; that she was in fact murdered by the same government that put him away. He then discovers that the drugs he’d been taking for dementia contained poison as part of the same culling initiative - and the only reason he knows all this is because whilst collecting evidence to try to expose the practice, a psychopathic government agent tried to kill his daughter.’

  ‘He’s angry.’

  ‘It’s beyond anger. He’s calm and collected and hell bent on revenge.’

  ‘How are they both surviving?’

  ‘Italy wasn’t a coincidence Jo. We could have sent them anywhere, but the Ministry had links with Italian farmers and other food traditionalists. They were part of the supply chain for smugglers. In order to hide profits from the trade, key Ministry members opened bank accounts all over the world but mainly in Italy where they had the most supporters. The money was looked after by a cartel….’

  ‘And as a key Minister, Adam was a signatory on one of the accounts.’ I interrupt, as the information comes back.

  ‘After he was tried and sentenced, the government told him that the money and any assets gained from investment abroad had been seized. The truth is, the government had no access to it. The Italians took their share in accordance with the contract, which was a legal document, and the rest of the funds just sat there. The other four British signatories on the account are now dead, so according to the terms of the contract, it’s all Adams.’

  ‘Is it enough to fund the next part of the investigation, and is he willing to? My allowance has been drastically cut. Apparently, I need to start being more independent... ’

  ‘That depends on how much we’re going to need. There’s plenty for now and yes, he’ll put up the money. But we’ll talk about the plan next time.’

  He’s right; I still need to get my head around the past before I start looking to the future.

  ‘So where are Evelyn and Adam now?’

  ‘They moved further south to Bova, in the Calabria province. Our hosts dropped them to a holiday resort as we’d requested. Then when the LIFE kicked in, Adam sorted out his money and they made their own way.’

  ‘Gill and Tira.’ I say, remembering the couple who we’re friends of my mother for years before retiring to Rome. ‘Do they know?’

  ‘No. We’d decided it was too risky. But the locals in Bova know Adams history.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The house he and Evelyn now occupy was previously used as a safe house for MDBF members. They’ve taken to calling him ‘Don Inglese’ as they did the previous British occupant.’

  ‘So they’re safe.’

  ‘Yes.’ He replies.

  I realise now that he’s allowing me to lead the conversation. Perhaps this is the most natural way for me to regain my memories - though there’s nothing natural at all about this situation. ‘There’s one thing I don’t get Hero; why didn’t they kill Starla? They know that she stole the drugs from Greenlees, which is a punishable crime anyway. Why did she receive CIA?’

  ‘You and Starla are their only connection to me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Jo, I escaped a secure holding unit and I’ve been untraceable since.’

  ‘They’re wondering how you did it.’ I say, in answer to my own question.

  ‘If they can find a way to replicate my ‘defect’ he continues ‘then they have a new type of weapon…’

  ‘Or agent.’

  ‘Yes. Which is why your father never found out that I can override the implant. You remember that much, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ I answer quickly, in attempt to allay his fear that I’ve forgotten absolutely everything. Trying to suppress the lies I was told is proving more difficult than I’d hoped. My memories are chronologically displaced; my mind is a mess right now. Perhaps I should have waited a couple of days before coming down so I didn’t waste time asking stupid questions. But since I’m here, I might as well continue: ‘So what you're saying is Starla is just bait. So am I for that matter.’

  ‘They were never going to kill you Jo. But they will kill Starla if she leads them to me.’ He looks me in the eye. ‘Do not under any circumstances look her up.’

  ‘I won’t. But somehow we have to get her to her father without the government knowing that she’s had contact with either of us, right?’

  ‘It’s part of the deal I made with Adam; we take his daughter to him and he funds an investigation into his wife's murder and the Future party’s secret project, PEACE.’

  ‘It’s a fair deal.’ I reply, then concentrating all my efforts on remembering. ‘But how do we prove anything without the evidence; the pills that Starla stole? Elaine’s letter still isn’t enough.’

  ‘We have the pills.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘We have them.’

  ‘How? There must have been a body search when we arrived at the LIFE Institute, or even before when we were piled into the ambulance.’

  ‘There was. But I’d stashed the drugs in the Teahouse lavatories before we were captured.’

  ‘What?’ I say, in astonishment. ‘I mean great, but why did you do that? We had a plan. We were going to the Marina.’

  ‘No, we weren't Jo. We never would have made it. Agents were waiting for us; they had all the exits covered. So I went ahead and stashed the evidence. When I climbed out of the window, I was shot.’

  ‘So you knew.’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t want them to know that I knew.’

  And the rest is history - that I have yet to fully realise. ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘Fine. How did you find Starla?’

  ‘I put a tracer on her virtual pet’s transmitter and a few other personal belongings. It was an idea that you came up with at the last minute. We believed they would kill her but just in case they didn’t…’

  ‘Yes, that was my idea.’ I say, suddenly recalling the conversation, and even the setting. I’m glad I came down sooner rather than later. The more we talk, the easier this gets. But I still don’t have much on the warehouse worker turned vigilante. I need to know more about Starla Carr. ‘What’s she like, our unlikely heroine?’

  He smiles unexpectedly. ‘Stubborn. And as it turns out, brave. We knew that whoever we found to go undercover would be taking a risk so we agreed; no attachments. But things changed. I have to admit, she grew on me.’

  A new visual of Starla, accompanied (strangely) by the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention, takes me by surprise. Did she grow on me? Did I get attached? Did something happen between us? I’d like to think I’d remember. Having said that, I did manage to forget entirely the news stor
y of the century - which I uncovered. I now have a picture in my mind of her sitting on a bar stool, again in the white shirt and the black jeans. We’re in Herby’s, the smoothie bar in Brighton. She’s staring out of the window at a poster of Myers 1st father of the current PM. I can only see one side of her face but she looks worried. I dare say she often looked that way in my company. This probably won’t be the last time I get a flashback of Starla looking like her world’s about to fall apart.

  ‘Are you ok?’ Hero asks.

  I shake off the memory. ‘Yes I’m fine. So what now?’

  ‘You’re going to go back upstairs and spend the next couple of days trying to remember as much as possible. But don’t force the information. Allow yourself to arrive at it gradually. Memories are unstable; they change every time you recall them, so thinking about anything too much is unhelpful. The facts are distorted.’

  ‘Don’t think too hard. Got it. Just one more thing; I was wondering why in the uploaded story, Sam Steele is my attacker. I thought they’d have done everything possible to ensure the name was buried.

  ‘The information in the upload needs a strong memory to link to in order for the new story to be believed. Sam Steele provided that link and in doing so, forced you to forget the truth about him and the associated memories. A lie with an ounce of truth or a name that means something is…’

  ‘...more believable than an outright lie.’ I say, finishing his sentence, at the same time mulling it over. It makes sense. They couldn’t risk me hearing the name one day and it triggering total recall. They did a really good job as even now, knowing the truth, I’m still afraid of the man who I was convinced put me in a coma. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’m going to find Starla and give her a copy of the diary.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She was relocated to a Farm in Holloway.’

  ‘Have you got transport?’

  ‘A push bike; the only wheels that don’t require a chip scan to use and won’t attract attention. I’ve spent the past few days following her at a distance. The agent Miles – now calling himself Giles - has been assigned to watch her as her new supervisor, but she’s also likely to be Bugged. And if she makes a fuss or calls the police, it’s all over. Talking of Bugs, be careful what you say and do around P400.’

  ‘I already do. I hate the robot. I miss Evelyn.’

  ‘That’s understandable. The last few weeks must have been difficult for you.’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’ I reply, as the haunting sense of loss grips me again, as if it’s still real. I turn my attention to the matter of P400. ‘Is it likely to be feeding back information?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s designed to collect data anyway. As well as having a motion and chip sensor for home security, it learns each occupant's behaviour and habits and compares it to health stats gathered from the data in Chips. It’s a mental health and wellbeing awareness feature added to this latest model. It will know that something has changed if you start acting differently. So you have to pretend that you still know nothing. If you don’t, your behaviour could be interpreted as suspicious. The same goes for your parents; don’t say or do anything out of the ordinary.’

  ‘If P400 detects intruders, how did you get into my office to leave the pad?’

  ‘I no longer have a chip.’

  ‘Yes, but you said that it also has a motion sensor.’

  ‘It can’t detect movement through walls. And I was quiet.’ He looks me directly in the eye. ‘Don’t blow it this time Jo.’

  There are many ways I could interpret this command. But I’m pretty sure he’s referring to me having lost my temper with the Prime Minister and letting slip everything that we knew, after which, things took a turn for the worst. That low point, perhaps my greatest blunder to date, was documented in great detail in the diary.

  ‘I won’t blow it.’ I say, with discernible regret. My mind is suddenly pricked by a childhood memory. It’s a garden party. Jon Myers II is there with his sister, Dita. He’s having a tantrum over something - either he can’t get his way or he’s been told off. Dita is smirking; the way I’ve noticed that siblings do when the other one is in trouble. Despite having the reputation as the difficult child, I remember thinking that they were both brats – I was no way near as bad.

  ‘I’ll be back in forty eight hours.’ says Hero, standing.

  ‘Okay.’ I reply, also rising to my feet.

  ‘How are your parents?’ He asks.

  I think about the change in my mother recently and decide that the answer is a long conversation and we don’t the time. ‘They’re fine.’ I reply. ‘Busy. But I’ll be seeing them both later. It’s family date night.’

  ‘Family what?’

  ‘It’s a new thing.’ I say, exasperated at the thought of it. ‘We all eat together at least one evening a week and catch up with what’s going on in each other’s lives. They’ve kept a close eye on me since the incident.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘Do you think they know the truth?’ I ask, though I’m pretty sure I know what his answer will be.

  ‘I think your father is in up to his neck in government affairs. But I’m not convinced he knows what you found out, or that you received CIA. I don’t think they’d risk telling him that they drugged his son, even if he is part of the inner circle. What purpose would it serve?’

  ‘None I suppose. But if he does know...’

  ‘It won’t change anything. Say nothing Jo.’

  He’s right; say nothing. Resist the urge to quiz my father on the extent of his knowledge and involvement in the government's population control programme and my re-education about it. Bite my tongue at the dinner table when any political matter is raised. Ignore my mother’s concerns over my condition and newfound fear of LOSERs that hasn’t yet left me, despite the diary. I must now return and try to resume a normal existence - at least what has become normal since the incident that never happened - simultaneously getting to grips with my own grim discoveries about our political system and its administrators. But this is not as daunting as it sounds. The facts are disturbing, yes. But I’m not ashamed to admit that the prospect of a full awakening is exhilarating. My life has lacked meaning and purpose since I was supposedly attacked, and I’m relieved to know that it wasn’t only due of the vacuum created when I lost my friends. I could tell myself that deep down I’d felt that something was wrong all the time, that I had a nagging feeling all these weeks that it was more than just grief. But that would be a lie. The truth is, I’ve felt empty for most of my life - until the opportunity presented itself to do something worthwhile. Until Starla. Until Elaine’s letter. It’s why I became a journalist. The diary has brought me back to where I was; the brink of exposing injustice.

  I look back once more before opening the door, just to be sure that I didn’t just dream the last thirty minutes.

  ‘I’ll be back in forty eight hours.’ Says Hero. ‘And remember, there’s no research on the effects of reversing CIA. It’s never been done before so expect the worst.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Flashbacks, confusion, headaches.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine.’ I reply confidently, then catch sight of the novel he was reading when I came in. ‘Is that book in Italian?’ I say, squinting at the writing on the cover.

  ‘I’m teaching myself.’

  ‘Don’t we have a language upload somewhere? Or even an earpiece translator?’

  ‘I had plenty of time. Besides which, I’m no longer in the system.’

  Chapter 3

  ‘So tell me about Heather.’ says my mother, pulling in her chair then looking down favourably at her meal.

  ‘She’s delightful.’ The answer I’d prepared leaves my lips far too quickly.

  She glances up at me unconvinced, then reaches for her glass of water. She looks flushed having rushed back from a late afternoon meeting at the office then showered and changed just in time for dinner.
She hasn’t missed a family date night since the whole ridiculous business started.

  ‘Is that it?’ She asks, probingly.

  ‘For now.’ I reply, breaking into my tuna steak. Heather Rhodes is the least of my concerns right now - not that she was ever much of a consideration. The remainder of my day was spent re-reading the diary and trying to memorise the content in the hope of regaining as many of my memories as possible. I have a headache, as Hero predicted. The weekend now seems like a very long time ago.

  ‘Her father is the Bromley MP Victor Rhodes, is he not?’

  She knows full well that he is. ‘Surely you’ve looked her up Mother?’

  ‘Yes of course I have. But Genie won’t tell me how your date went. She’s very pretty.’ She adds with a knowing smile, then picks up her fork before turning to my father. ‘Edward, wasn’t Victor a guest at our annual summer gathering last year?’

  ‘Sorry...’ he mutters, reading something on his eye. His fork, piled high with broccoli, hovers over his plate in anticipation of reaching his mouth. I notice that he’s trimmed his beard. It makes him look younger, if that’s even possible. My father was my age when he received his first implant and since taking LIFE, he’s hardly aged at all. We don’t look alike; I’m more a Jones than a Hart. But at sixty five years old, his skin is free of lines and blemishes. And with a full head of dark brown hair, it’s been said that we could be mistaken for brothers.

  My mother rolls her eyes at his lack of engagement before continuing: ‘It’s a shame that Heather wasn’t at the party or you might have met her sooner.’

  ‘Quite possibly.’ I reply without looking up from my dinner. I’m ravenous, despite having eaten more today than I have probably in the last week.

  ‘So when are you seeing her again?’

  ‘That’s a very good question.’ I say piling more food into my mouth.

  I’m pretty sure that the Inigo Jones who went on a date with Heather Rhodes on Saturday night did not wish to see her again. And the Inigo Jones, who now knows the truth about the last three months, definitely does not wish to continue dating the MP’s daughter. But since the incident, my mother is desperate to see me paired off with someone - as if courtship is somehow the solution to the sorrow of losing of friends.