Hashtag

by David Wake

  “Your business is smuggling using thoughtless… I mean, disconnected people.”

  “Yes, humans come to docks, humans move to market, humans sell to cyborgs, police arrest, make line–up parade, cyborgs think we all look alike.”

  Oliver smiled: she was right, and, of course, it just wasn’t worth the effort to investigate a few copyright infringements once you reached the end of the thought trail. There were budgetary considerations too. These ‘humans’, as she called them, were always treated with suspicion. Why be disconnected unless you had something to hide? The police were always accused of being unfair when they arrested the thoughtless, but statistically those without brows were always criminal. Pretty much.

  And they did all look alike: without the recognition between brows, how could you know who someone was? Facial features were notoriously difficult to fathom.

  “These people, maybe Westbourne as you say,” Oliver said. “They’re involved in white collar crime.”

  “Someone found a way around Thought Police?”

  “We’re not… possibly.”

  “You think it us?”

  “Yes, there’s a Chinese connection.”

  “This room?”

  “Where they meet, we assume,” Oliver said, nodding. “Probably a way of shielding their thoughts.”

  That doesn’t make sense, Oliver thought. There were a few black spots here and there, like the morgue, but they’d still think about their plans once they were in the open and connected. A Faraday cage wouldn’t be a permanent solution and there must be some risk building something that illegal.

  And Chinese Whispers, he thought; if they were protected why would talking quietly make any difference? Perhaps they feared old fashioned surveillance bugs. Did they even have any of those in the police station’s storeroom anymore?

  “I have heard of this room,” she said. “A whisper here, a whisper there.”

  “Chinese Whispers?”

  She laughed, a grating sound.

  “This Chinese Room,” she said. “Not here.”

  “But where in Chinatown?”

  “Not in Chinatown,” she said. “Not here.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s not in Chinatown. I know all that goes on in whole district. Room not here.”

  “Where then?”

  She shrugged, throwing her hands wide as if she was preparing to pounce. “Who can say?”

  “You can’t then?”

  “It is new.”

  “New?”

  “As in ‘not old’.”

  Not an old room, a new room, he thought.

  “You think that to remember it.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your eyes, they look far away,” she said. “You have so many thoughts, I wonder if you lost in them.”

  “I am my thoughts.”

  “Then you are not you.”

  “That sounds like a saying.”

  “Do you know Chinese proverb?”

  Oliver noodled: he remembered many, many Chinese proverbs.

  “Which one?”

  “He who eats Chinese food wants Chinese food in half an hour, but he who owns Chinese restaurant always eats Chinese food.”

  “I’d not heard that,” Oliver said politely. He knew he’d got all he was going to get and thought it best to leave. He just wasn’t sure how to excuse himself.

  The woman, Zhaodi, cackled, “I thought cyborgs know everything.”

  Jade, the waitress, appeared at his shoulder, bowing. She held out his shoes for him to take. “It is best,” she said.

  Oliver was thrown by her comment.

  The waitress smiled patiently: “You thought it best.”

  She’d been following him. Oliver scanned back through his own thoughts and realised that he had thought it best to leave.

  Oliver stood and bowed awkwardly to the old lady: “Thank you.”

  The waitress showed him out, pausing only for him to bend and clumsily put on his shoes.

  Outside it was the usual bustle of this quarter, the celebration long gone.

  “Now what?” he said, loudly. I need a drink, he thought.

  He set off randomly with a nagging sense that he was being followed. What a stupid thing to think, he thought, of course I’m being followed. There were any number of followers tuned into his thoughts.

  I am, thought Mithering.

  There you go.

  He found a bar and ordered a lager.

  People who bought this lager also bought peanuts.

  Write it down, Jellicoe had said.

  Mithering questioned this: Write what down?

  Anything, Oliver thought, clues.

  Good idea, Mithering thought, go through the facts.

  The lager arrived. Hello lager, glad to meet you. The first sip was refreshing.

  “Paper?” he asked the barmaid as she passed.

  Paper?

  “Please.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the idea and then ambled off looking up and down. When she returned with a pad of A5, Oliver’s pint was finished.

  This do?

  “That’s fine,” said Oliver, “and another please.”

  Oliver leant towards the till and waited for the buzz before reckoning with his bank.

  “Is there somewhere quiet?” he asked.

  You could try round the back.

  Round the back consisted of a cluster of awkward spaces with tables and chairs. Oliver picked the most private and settled down. He put the pad down. He actually rubbed the paper with his index finger before he realised.

  Back at the bar: “Pen please?”

  Pen?

  “Please.”

  The barmaid went off, looking up and down again, and she came back with a shrug.

  What a waste of time, he thought, and the second time I’ve forgotten a pen. Wait!

  He’d kept the pen from his Sergeant’s Exam. Yes, still tucked in his jacket pocket.

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  Back at his table, he did a few swirls to check that the pen still worked. The second pint arrived and a gulp later his iBrow closed down. Thank goodness for the safety: you wouldn’t want to irritate everyone with your alcoholic ramblings.

  Write it down, Jellicoe had said.

  Go through the facts, Mithering had thought.

  There didn’t seem to be that many: body, scalped, not on the missing list… and that was it. There were facts and ‘information’, the latter being ‘facts with meaning’, which was, in other words, motive. Oliver doodled on the page trying to rearrange… but it was written in biro: permanent, set, unchanging. How you were supposed to reorganise these written imitations of thoughts, he wondered. There was the classic triumvirate of detection: motive, opportunity and method. He wrote the words down. Method and opportunity always seemed linked, part of the same action, which left motive as the most promising option. He underlined it, and then twice more.

  Why?

  Usually the police just noodled for a thought associated with an event and that was the motive, and then, having caught the suspect, they asked when and how.

  There were other questions too: he noodled and remembered Rudyard Kipling’s six honest serving men: what, why, when, how, where and who. He made a new list and then next to each wrote: murder, unknown, one month ago, violently, Chedding car park or elsewhere and, finally, unknown. After a moment he added ‘271’. After a moment’s consideration, he changed ‘who’ to ‘whom’ and added ‘who’. He tapped his pen there, stabbing the place where the name of the murderer should be.

  This was ‘thinking without thinking’ with the actual cognition being on the page, or rather in his head and on the page. But somehow it bypassed the iBrow. The words were no longer words, something that the technology could grab and transmit, but were pictorial enough to pass back to the hind brain. It enabled his unconscious mind to reveal itself to be… completely stumped.

  What did he know about murderers in gene
ral?

  He started a list.

  They always asked for their lawyers. They tended to act on impulse in the heat of the moment. A large number of them had body odour. Their thoughts were full of self–justification. They had drinking problems. He was getting a drinking problem.

  He took a sip.

  Pre–meditated murders were unknown.

  Hot–blooded killers’ thoughts were always full of swear words afterwards.

  Murderers always returned to the scene of the crime.

  Oliver noodled those who had been to Chedding car park. Top of the list was Detective Constable Oliver Braddon, then various police, crime scene investigators and the mechanics who’d towed the car away.

  But the murder had been elsewhere: where? The Chinese Room, somewhere new? This murder, the method, was new.

  Did he murder her as the conspiracy theorists kept suggesting?

  He had been at the second murder in the police station.

  Was he part of a conspiracy?

  His hand felt cramped, just as it had in the exam, but he ignored it.

  Could a policeman really have killed Jürgens?

  Oliver started to list suspects: Draith, Chen, Mox, Freya, Oliver… Mike, Zack, Nancy, Rose, Tim, Tim Too; but he stopped.

  None of them could have done it, because the murder was impossible. And yet it had been done.

  Someone else perhaps?

  Who else has showed an interest?

  Go through the facts, Mithering had thought.

  Mithering.

  She had shown an interest.

  Oliver wrote ‘Mithering’ down.

  Jellicoe used paper: was he turning into Jellicoe? Oliver dismissed the idea; after all, they had nothing in common.

  Oliver finished his drink and then set off to find transport back to Jellicoe’s. He noodled the area of his apartment, but the advice was still to keep away. There were protests at the police station too now. He was going to become a pariah unable to go to his place of work, unable to see family and friends, and under suspicion of murder.

  At least he got to drink a lot to avoid giving away his location. Perhaps he could claim it as a justifiable expense?

  Back to Jellicoe’s then.

  He couldn’t think for a cab.

  On the way home, Oliver bought a charger for his iBrow, and in the busier part of town hailed a cab that was dropping someone off. He was back at Jellicoe’s, wondering how to get in, when the Inspector himself arrived.

  Chen waved from the car as he pulled away.

  Jellicoe opened the door. “I can smell drink on your breath.”

  “Chinatown.”

  “What did you learn?” Jellicoe asked. “No, let me guess. Nothing, because you couldn’t think.”

  Oliver handed over his notes.

  “I’m impressed,” said Jellicoe, he glanced down them as he dropped his keys in a bowl. “Lots of questions, few answers.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “Indeed it is – we’ll make a detective of you yet.”

  “We need some more data,” said Oliver.

  “Take–away?”

  “All right.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Indian.”

  “One of us will have to sober up.”

  “Half an hour,” said Oliver, guessing. He noodled: two pints, five units, when had I stopped drinking? Ah!

  “What would you like?”

  “Chicken tikka masala, plain naan, those crisps.”

  Oliver noodled an Indian take–away and ordered for both of them, reckoning with his bank. They were eligible for a free starter, so he added onion bhajis. There was a hashtag to follow.

  “It’s not data you want, it’s knowledge,” Jellicoe said. “Everyone has infinite data, or it may as well be, but knowledge? Lager with Indian, I think. It’s the difference between knowing and understanding, between being a cop and a detective. You’re only as smart as your own brain.”

  It’s knowing what to noodle, Oliver thought.

  “I’m not sure you’re following me.”

  You told me not to follow you.

  “Very funny.”

  “Look,” Oliver said, “we know everything there is to know, instantly. That’s progress.” I’m too tired for this.

  “Human progress stopped when the like–button appeared on peer reviewed papers.”

  Ha!

  The take–away chef intruded: Would you like extra onions?

  Yes.

  “Drink?”

  “Lager.”

  And coriander?

  Yes.

  Cooking now… pass me the other oil.

  “I’ve got beer.”

  “Fine.”

  They both got in each other’s way in the kitchen and set the table for the forthcoming feast. They took their time, Oliver followed the progress via Noodle as the meals were cooked, packed, and Sanjeev was told that, yes, he had to go out again straight away, and finally it was at the door.

  They sat and ate in silence for a while.

  Is the meal to your satisfaction?

  Yes, thanks.

  Oliver liked the Indian take–away and then stopped following it.

  The beer was light, hoppy, and the food was delicious.

  “It’s a long time since I’ve had a meal with someone,” Jellicoe said.

  “It’s not a date.”

  “I remember before thought.”

  “Really?”

  “We had this… dream that women thought about us all the time. After all, we thought about women every fifteen seconds.”

  “Sex every fifteen seconds.”

  “And then thought came along and lo! Imagine discovering that your fiancée spent the whole day thinking about Nietzsche and not about you. Nietzsche, I mean, honestly.”

  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

  “But women,” Jellicoe pointed with a piece of poppadum in his hand, “they shouldn’t think about that unpleasant nonsense.”

  “That’s not very politically correct.”

  “Nowadays they only think about shoes and fashion and the latest celebrity gossip.”

  “That’s what everyone thinks about nowadays.”

  Jellicoe looked at him and frowned, his iBrow visible for a moment, and then he took a long swig of his beer.

  “Do you drink to forget?” Oliver asked.

  “I drink to not think in the first place.”

  “Hmm.”

  Oliver drank too.

  “Do you think it’s progress?”

  “Of course,” Oliver said. “Less fingers.”

  “Eh?”

  “We used to have keyboards, ten fingers–”

  “Two fingers.”

  “Two fingers, then phones with two thumbs.”

  “Social media,” said Jellicoe and he made a thumbs–up sign.

  “Exactly, one thumb,” Oliver acknowledged. “And finally, we ‘think’, which is a hands–off experience.”

  “We used to invent things too.”

  “We don’t need things.”

  “You mean ‘it’s all in the head’.”

  “We do invent things: thought allowed much more effective crowd sourcing.”

  “Like what?”

  “The iBrow series 6.”

  Jellicoe snorted.

  “There are thapps for all sorts of things.”

  “We’ve not gone to the stars or solved climate change or cured cancer,” said Jellicoe, and then he went quiet.

  They finished their meal and their beer.

  Oliver dropped out of thinking and then back in again.

  “I must go,” said Jellicoe. He picked up his coat and scooped his keys from a bowl in the hallway.

  “You’re in no fit state to drive,” Oliver said.

  Jellicoe dangled the keys: “Old car, doesn’t need thought.”

  “I mean… give it here, I’ll drive you.”

  Jellicoe pondered this, and Oliver thought he w
as going to say ‘no’.

  No to what, Mithering thought.

  Never you mind.

  But Jellicoe nodded and flung the keys over to him. Oliver caught them in one hand and out they went into the cold drizzle of the night. It was an old car, hidden in a garage that Jellicoe opened manually, and Oliver had to adjust the seat.

  “Not too much,” said Jellicoe. “Pain to put back.”

  The dashboard was confusing with displays in strange places. There was even an inbuilt sat nav, which proved it was a genuine classic, and it wasn’t just electric, but an electric–petrol hybrid. What’ll he do when the tank’s dry? Oliver shunted the car out and Jellicoe closed the garage behind them. Once he was settled, Oliver put it into drive again and lurched forward.

  “Careful!”

  “Where to?”

  “Right.”

  As they drove though the dark streets, Jellicoe became morose, his occasional ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘straight on’ more and more terse. Finally, they pulled into the driveway of a Rest Home.

  “This it?”

  “Visitors park there,” Jellicoe said, pointing. “I won’t be long.”

  Jellicoe slammed the door, turned up his collar and ambled across the pavement and into the main entrance. Oliver could see him greeting a friendly looking nurse at the reception desk, a tiny illuminated scene in all the darkness, and then the two of figures went as if off–stage.

  Oliver went through some recent thoughts, reviewing comments from Chen, Jasmine and Mithering in particular, but his heart wasn’t in it. It was cold, and he realised he had the keys. It wouldn’t do any harm to wait indoors.

  The drizzle was something of a shock as he got out and fumbled to lock the door. He ran over and found the main entrance closed. He searched for a buzzer and saw a woman waving at him. She was gesticulating downwards, and Oliver saw the intercom.

  “Hello… I’m with Jellicoe,” he said.

  The door buzzed.

  He went in, gratefully and shook some of the rain off.

  “Mister Oliver Jellicoe,” said the woman. Oliver recognised her as Sharon.

  “No, I’m… police,” said Oliver.

  “Sorry, Inspector Jellicoe.”

  “No.”

  “This way.”

  Although he was in range and she must have recognised him, she wasn’t following him properly. He realised that he hadn’t followed her either, not wanting to clutter his mind up with irrelevant people. He felt guilty about that. The woman, Sharon, led the way, her hips swinging as she went, and Oliver had little choice but to follow her. They padded along a rich carpet, turning abruptly at various intersections, until they reached a door. Probably in a rest home, she had to deal with a lot of Unbrows or people with Series 3s.