Hashtag

by David Wake

  “Cold blooded then.”

  “How the hell would anyone walk around, bump into people, be recognised, without their whole plan leaking?”

  “Unless you were thoughtless,” said Jellicoe. “The one–eyed man in the valley of the blind.”

  “And thus monitored and watched with suspicion by everyone who passes them on the street. Anyone in a suit worried about work, we ignore; but, boy, do we remember – witness – the tramps and the rare unthinking. Why do you think they’re all living in ghettos?”

  “So, it’s not the one–eyed man, but the blind person in the valley of the overburdened with eyes,” said Jellicoe. “I’m just trying to find a hawk.”

  “A hawk?”

  “The one–eyed man in the valley is a hawk,” Jellicoe explained. “He preys upon the blind. The hawks and the doves is a metaphor for competition and co–operation.”

  Oliver noodled and then said, “Ah, yes, lots of hawks too much fighting, so they all starve. Lots of doves, lots of co–operation, everyone does the best, but a single hawk amongst doves does better and so prospers. We’re a social species, we work together, the dove strategy, but there’s always a hawk popping up.”

  “Hence the police,” said Jellicoe. “We enforce dove behaviour.”

  “Hmmm…”

  “With iBrows to let us look into people’s minds.”

  “Social networking came first.”

  “Yes,” Jellicoe agreed. “All those people posting… no, boasting about their crimes. With pictures too. It was a golden age for detection and the start of the trend to give away all our rights to privacy.”

  “We have rights to privacy,” Oliver countered. “Legal rights.”

  “They aren’t enforceable. The right to silence, for example, is useless when you are haemorrhaging information with your thoughts. If you couldn’t read and write, you couldn’t send letters; no phone means no phone business, no email, no fax, no… you know, all that stuff you studied in school. If you can’t think in this society, then you can’t bank, hail a cab, order a take–away delivery, do the lottery, so you become an unperson.”

  “A zombie… sub–human.”

  “Traditionally we humans haven’t treated those we consider sub–human very well. Wait…”

  Jellicoe paused, clearly receiving some thoughts from someone and then he tilted his head.

  So he does use Noodle, Oliver realised.

  Finally, Jellicoe spoke, “They’ve found another body.”

  Oliver had time to check he had everything and flip his iBrow settings to a weekday, so that he was following the Desk Sergeant and the police hashtags. Chen arrived in the car and quickly whisked them back towards the city.

  Ollie, where were you last night?

  Oliver thought back: Last night?

  Beer and skittles.

  That was last night?

  Yes.

  Shit, sorry.

  They arrived at the police station and checked in: Sergeant Draith looked at Oliver suspiciously as they made their way to the morgue. Oliver glanced along Draith’s recent thoughts: he really resented Inspector Dartford’s investigations. No–one liked the idea that the any of them had killed Jürgens. And why? It had been a good collar.

  Jellicoe hadn’t explained anything and didn’t even talk until the cold clammy atmosphere had enveloped Oliver again. The world drifting away until there was only Oliver, Jellicoe and Doctor Ridge.

  Oliver felt like he was about to take another exam.

  “Ridge,” said Jellicoe.

  “Inspector.”

  This was going to be so thrilling if they speak one word at a time… oh…

  Oliver started going through the poke–and–delete routine, and then gave up.

  “This is a cold place,” said Jellicoe.

  “Lacks the warmth of human contact,” said Doctor Ridge.

  You two are playing some damn silly game, but via recognition only. Oh… ow!

  “Number twenty,” said Doctor Ridge, going to the drawers. He pulled one out to reveal a body shape hidden under a shroud. “Scalped.”

  “Can we take your word for it?” Oliver asked.

  “Of course.” Oh, it’s newbie. One of yours, Jelly?

  “Yes,” said Jellicoe. He lifted the corner of the sheet to look at the body.

  “Scalped, like Unknown 271, you’re going to get copycat killings.”

  “Cyborg Serial Killer,” said Oliver.

  I remember that; saw it as a kid, Ridge thought, brow–to–brow, dreadful.

  “Any identification?”

  Ridge shook his head.

  “Series 5?”

  “Yes… this bloke, Unknown 271 and about three billion other people.”

  Three billion was a vague total, but then Noodle didn’t reach into the morgue.

  “This one won’t be thinking again,” said Jellicoe. He didn’t seem bothered by the corpse’s appearance.

  “He still has his frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and so forth,” Doctor Ridge replied. “It’s only the brow that’s gone.”

  “No, I mean, he’s dead.”

  “Ah. That.”

  “I’d have thought a Doctor of your reputation would have noticed that.”

  “Is it one of those other lobes that’s responsible for the unconscious?” Oliver asked.

  “The reptile brain,” said Jellicoe. “It’s what gives a detective their intuition, we think with our gut.”

  “Anatomy’s not your strong point, is it?” said Doctor Ridge. “The Inspector is right though, the cerebellum evolved by adding functionality to the front, layers if you like from the first node at the top of the spine and on forwards.” Doctor Ridge moved his hand in jerks from the back of his head to the front. “The frontal lobe being the seat of consciousness.”

  “And then the clever dicks added another layer at the front,” said Jellicoe. “Only this one was cybernetic.”

  Oliver realised where this was going: “The iBrow.”

  “That’s the devil,” said Jellicoe.

  “Brow technology is a force for good: we’re a social animal and social networking means we can be in touch with anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

  Jellicoe snorted in derision.

  “And police work,” said Oliver, “once thoughts were admissible in court, then crime dropped to its present low level and premeditated crime became a thing of the past.”

  “Not in this case.”

  “One exception then.”

  “Two,” said Jellicoe.

  “Three,” said Doctor Ridge. They looked at him. “Three exceptions,” he repeated.

  Oliver went over to the drawers.

  “It’s not here,” said Ridge. “There was another body found that had been scalped, six months ago, and never identified.”

  “What happened?” Oliver asked. If only he could noodle down here.

  “Cremated,” said Ridge.

  “Cremated!? But it was evidence.”

  “It wasn’t considered a crime.”

  “What?”

  “No victim, no crime.”

  “No victim…” Oh, come on.

  “That’s the way the bean counters had it.”

  “The perfect crime,” Jellicoe said. “No–one’s missing, so no missing person’s case; a corpse, but no identification, therefore no official victim.”

  Oliver was shocked: Someone’s murdered three people and got away with it.

  “Three here,” said Doctor Ridge. “There are other morgues.”

  “Jeez.” This is supposed to be impossible.

  “Because thought gives people away,” said Ridge.

  “Social media allows everyone to keep tabs on everyone else, so…” Oh, you know.

  “Like the whites of the eyes,” said Doctor Ridge.

  “Eyes?”

  “All animals have black eyes,” Ridge explained. “The sclera, the white of the eye, exists only in humans. It’s not even in other primates. We’re t
he only creatures that give away where we’re looking. There’s an evolutionary advantage to know what your fellow tribesmen are thinking.”

  “And all the ticks and jerks and furtive looks when people are lying,” Jellicoe added. “Dove behaviour.”

  Oliver realised that Jellicoe had mentioned this before, but verbally, so Oliver couldn’t track back to remind himself of what had been said.

  “Exactly…” Ridge agreed, and then he saw Oliver’s confused expression. “Before thought, you could tell if someone was lying by their body language.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier just to noodle their thoughts… ah, before thought, sorry.”

  “We’ve finally achieved the perfect transparent society,” said Ridge.

  “The land of the doves,” Jellicoe added. “There have always been hawks and doves. We catch hawks for the doves. We weed out those who aren’t right in the head and ensure that the country is nothing but doves.”

  “Or thoughtless immigrants.”

  “They stay put.”

  Oliver thought about Carl Jürgens, a man who hadn’t ‘done’ anything. Not that many decades ago, he realised, they wouldn’t have even considered him guilty of a crime. Stalking had been against the law, but what was the iBrow if it wasn’t a stalking machine.

  “So…” said Oliver, figuring it out, “these deaths are examples of hawk behaviour, someone’s figured out how to hunt in dove land.”

  “Yes, and some hawk has been very busy here,” said Jellicoe, pointing to the bodies.

  “Jürgens was killed… differently,” Oliver said. “He’s… dead. I mean, registered as not thinking, whereas this man and Unknown 271 aren’t missing.”

  “Well, that’s your department,” said Doctor Ridge and he pushed the drawer shut with a loud clang. “Check your iBrow buffers before you leave.”

  Oliver spent time deleting thoughts, and then had to delete a thought about deleting.

  He nodded to Jellicoe and they walked down the corridor into the hustle and bustle of the thinking world. In amongst the mess was a directive to think at Freya.

  At the Sergeant’s desk there was a kerfuffle. Draith was trying to process a suspect brought in by Mox. She was struggling.

  Fascists, fascists, fucking thought police, she was thinking.

  Oliver recognized her as Martha_556. Thank goodness we’ve finally got her.

  You! Yes, you – Oliver Braddon, you’re the Tepee bastard who murdered that woman in Chedding car park.

  Oh please, Oliver thought back.

  See, see, it’s all a conspiracy.

  Oliver ignored her: I’m not… you’re mad. Where’s your foil hat?

  We’ll get you, we’ll get you.

  Others liked this idea.

  Oliver went around the corner with Jellicoe, trying to distance himself from the woman, which was of course, impossible. He had other things to worry about.

  At Ollie.

  That’s ominous. Oliver thought back to the Chief Superintendent: At Freya?

  I’m afraid I have some bad news, Freya thought, I’m going to have to suspend you.

  What!

  It’s just a suspension, nothing to worry about, but I have to be seen to be following procedure.

  But–

  You were involved with the Jürgens murder, you found the body; you found the Chedding victim.

  Doing my job, Ma’am!

  Murderer.

  I’m not a murderer.

  No–one thinks you are, Detective Constable.

  Sorry, Freya… Chief Superintendent, it was someone else thinking.

  I see. And there’s also the accusation of Police brutality at last week’s Flash Riot.

  That’s absolute nonsense!!!

  Oliver could almost sense his emotions scrambling into punctuation – an exclamation mark, two exclamations!! His hands felt clammy. You can’t believe this nonsense, surely?

  I don’t, Freya thought, but it would be best to distance you from it until everything sorts itself out. You know how these things can escalate.

  Yes.

  Once it’s stopped being rethought all over the Thinkersphere and we’ve had the enquiry, you’ll be reinstated.

  Thanks.

  Providing there’s no grounds otherwise–

  But–

  “No smoke without fire,” said Jellicoe.

  Oliver gritted his teeth.

  “No smoke without fire,” Jellicoe repeated. “Say it!”

  “No smoke without fire.”

  “Calm down.”

  “I am…”

  “Now think it.”

  I understand, Chief Superintendent. Ma’am.

  Good man, Freya thought, and then, Detective Constable Oliver Braddon suspended at… 11:15am.

  “Being suspended is like your Sergeant’s Exam,” Jellicoe said. “Something we all have to get through to climb the rickety ladder.”

  Oliver couldn’t even bring himself to loll at this gem.

  “Do you want to get some things from your place or move back there?” Jellicoe asked.

  “Will it be safe now I’m not a policeman? Which would you prefer?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Oliver couldn’t judge the man’s tone of voice, it was unreadable. If only he could see where the whites of the man’s inner eye were looking or interpret the emoticons of his thoughts.

  “You better change your status,” Jellicoe said.

  Oliver felt a sudden rush of anger, fury that he was being treated like this by the force that he had dedicated his life to… and then he was laughing, tears rolling down his cheeks: he had no idea why.

  “That’s the spirit,” Jellicoe.

  So Oliver changed his status to ‘suspended’.

  Murderer.

  Are you all right, Mithering thought, you’ve been suspended?

  “I could do with a drink,” Oliver said.

  “You don’t need it to hide your thoughts on the investigation,” said Jellicoe.

  “I don’t need it for that and I’m no longer on duty.”

  They were entering the Lamp, when a thought from Jasmine arrived at Oliver.

  Oh, er…

  “I’ll get the drinks,” the Inspector said.

  Oliver hovered, trying to stand in the largest open area.

  Jasmine, hi.

  Your status is ‘suspended’.

  Murderer.

  It is. I have been. Jasmine, it’s only procedure.

  Mine’s ‘in a relationship with Ollie’.

  Oh.

  Oh? Just oh?

  I’m in public, Oliver thought, embarrassed at the looks he was receiving from the other detectives.

  We’re always in public!

  Jasmine–

  I’m changing my status: single.

  Look–

  Bye Oliver.

  Jasmine, it’s not like that, but he knew, down in his reptile brain, that he was thinking to the whole world, except one.

  Jellicoe put a pint down on the table. “Get that down you,” he said.

  “Drown my sorrows?”

  “Something like that.”

  As he drank, he wondered: Am I being diminished? It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. With Noodle you know everything and with thought you could know everyone. And they could know you.

  He felt the familiar prickle across his forehead: his brow shutting down, and the alcohol would slowly work its magic back through his head: iBrow, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and so forth gradually undoing millions of years of evolution. There were creatures that didn’t have this desperate primate need for company.

  They must be leaving him now, unfriending him. Would they miss him? Would he miss them? Would he even notice?

  How many friends had he lost now?

  Where they ever his friends or just a circle in Jasmine’s followings?

  If you don’t meet a friend for a while, you don’t notice. A while longer and, well, there are lots more fi
sh in the sea and your old friends’ thoughts are present until you stop following them. These ignored thoughts were like… Christmas cards in history.

  “Do you remember that kids’ game we used to play in the playground?” Jellicoe asked. He was sitting opposite in the usual booth. Oliver hadn’t really noticed joining him.

  “Which one?”

  “The staring game: you face each other, staring into each other’s eyes and the first one who thinks, loses.”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you any good?”

  “I was OK.”

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Oliver felt cross: “You could just follow them.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I’m suspended and Jasmine, my girlfriend, dumped me.”

  “I got one side of that.”

  “So you do follow me.”

  “And you’re worried you won’t have any friends.”

  “Yes. It’s an acceptable medical condition.”

  “Have you noticed that all friends are the same?”

  “No.”

  “There used to be words like ‘friend’, ‘mate’, ‘buddy’, ‘acquaintance’ and ‘colleague’.”

  “I do believe Noodle has a thesaurus.”

  “My point is that all these subtle differences, these shades of friendship, have all been replaced by ‘follower’. There are no real friends now.”

  “It’s been like that since before I was born and for me personally since I was eleven.”

  “We’re sheep.”

  “No,” Oliver said. “People follow us, so we’re shepherds or sheep dogs.”

  “But we follow others, many, many others.”

  “True.”

  “We’re a herd of sheep, bleating away as we lead everyone round and round, everyone full of speculation that we’re going somewhere.”

  “Very deep.”

  “What does Jasmine look like?”

  Oliver frowned and–

  “Without Noodle.”

  “Is this an exam?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s long dark hair and–”

  “Who’s her best friend?”

  “This is a little personal.”

  “I could noodle it,” Jellicoe reminded him.

  “Go on then.”

  “Cheryl,” said Jellicoe, clearly quite capable of using Noodle. “What does she look like?”

  “She… I don’t know.”

  “Jürgens, what did he look like?”

  “Well, er…”

  “If I got a photofit artist–”