Hashtag

by David Wake

No.

  Sincerely?

  Of course.

  We agreed to be friends and now you’re back. Friends don’t pester friends. Have you checked my status?

  He noodled.

  You look stupid when you noodle too, she thought.

  Why is it single, looking for–

  Because you didn’t respond and my friends advised me to… but this is old news – old, old news.

  Not for me.

  Well, if you paid attention to those you follow.

  I’ve been busy.

  Going abroad shouldn’t mean you’re too busy for your friends. You’re lucky to have any. How many do you have?

  Her eyelashes fluttered.

  She did look stupid.

  Oh really, she thought back, no wonder you only have six – six! – friends–

  I have–

  Active, whereas Cheryl, Gloria and I have over five hundred – active!

  Look, I’ve not done anything–

  ‘I’ve not done anything’, she thought, sarcasm in the emoticon, it’s how you think, Ollie, that’s the problem. Your thoughts reveal exactly what you are like inside.

  Can we not argue?

  All that concern over some dead woman instead of spending time thinking about the living.

  Oh God, I’m leaking.

  Yes, and you wouldn’t be worried about that if your thoughts were virtuous in the first place.

  She turned away, walking quickly into the crowd: I’ll show him, she thought.

  Braddon went to catch up again, but the jostling of people slowed him, and the befuddlement of recognitions soon absorbed her, then she was gone. Her thoughts – stupid git, why did he have to do that – remained as he was following her, but she had gone beyond recognition range. They were no longer close in both senses of the word. His footsteps slowed until he stopped, motionless, unsure what to do next. The crowd carried on passing him, adjusting their flow and he recognised them as they came into range until everything was a blur.

  So many people: What do they all do?

  I’m an architect… shop retail manager, human resources, children’s’ entertainer…

  What are they all for?

  I’m for home… Arsenal, a nice cup of tea and a cake, expelling the thoughtless, such a cute cat thought…

  It was all so vacuous. People thought, clearly as it was easy to pick up or noodle, but they didn’t consider. They fired off a thought without hesitation and that was an end to the matter. It didn’t do to let it develop. Or it did, it developed, mutated and evolved in the zeitgeist of the Thinkersphere as people rethought and rethought. It was the whole that made decisions, trending from one thing to the next: individuals were just one of a crowd.

  All these anonymous faces were anonymous. They just went about leading surface lives: going home, football, cup of tea, and if someone inserted a thought – Hasqueth Finest, riot, drink – or if it just popped into someone’s head, then coffee would be drunk, heads kicked in and shops looted or… I could do with a drink.

  No–one organised a riot, it just happened.

  No–one organised a conspiracy, it thought for itself.

  Technically there must have been a seed idea for the riot, some thought that led to another thought, a rethought and so on, until finally the police were standing firm against an angry mob.

  Was there anyone behind all this: some criminal mastermind, a Blofeld, a Moriarty, a Westbourne?

  If so, they were probably a virtuous person.

  What had Jellicoe said? Hitler liked his dog.

  Jasmine was wrong. You are not judged by your thoughts, you are not the sum of your memories, you are judged by your actions. Ridge had said that. A person is what they do.

  Braddon walked slowly back to the cab.

  Which pub, mate?

  Don’t care… not the Lamp. No, on second thoughts ‘Home James’.

  I’m not James.

  It was a joke someone said once.

  It’s not funny.

  It wasn’t funny when he said it either – sorry.

  You look rough.

  Fell.

  The driver snorted: clearly this lie didn’t work via thought.

  No, mate, it doesn’t.

  Home turned out to be Jellicoe’s, which was an interesting conclusion from the iBrow settings. He hadn’t set up his bank account, so he had to sit in the cab, ignoring the driver’s sarcastic thoughts, and think all the security nonsense to set up access to his account. Finally, he felt the buzz and reckoned.

  He was glad to get out and through Jellicoe’s overgrown garden, but he still picked up the driver’s Parthian shot about drunks.

  The house seemed empty, but then it had when the Inspector had been there. Braddon supposed it had once rung with thoughts: Jellicoe’s and Pamela’s. Braddon realised that he’d made a deep connection with Jellicoe despite the man’s damn fool refusal to use thought. It was something more primitive than an iBrow follow. He was a buddy, mate… something from the list anyway. There was more to knowing people than social networking.

  Braddon found the scotch.

  It means I won’t be able to follow your thoughts, Mithering reminded. It was creepy.

  Sorry, I need a drink.

  I’m not creepy and I could advise.

  Yes, Braddon agreed. She had, right from the start when he’d interviewed Jessica Stenson for example. Except she hadn’t. She’d been virtual all the time.

  Sitting at the dining table, he checked Jellicoe’s notebook.

  His hand shook, causing a light sprinkling of powder to fall on the polished teak. They’d never used this room in all the time they’d had takeaways here.

  The book was still covered with concrete dust and dried blood from the ad hoc surgery that the Inspector had performed.

  You still haven’t explored the Jessica Stenson lead and questioned her husband, Mithering thought.

  What would be the… all right.

  Braddon noodled the man. He was a business executive specialising in large construction projects and he’d done very well for himself until the last economic downturn.

  Perhaps, Braddon thought, I should question the man.

  Do, Mithering thought.

  Braddon noodled and remembered him again, he thought at Stenson Project Manager: I’m DC Oliver Braddon and I’d like to have a word, Sir.

  It was a lead, Braddon supposed.

  Mithering agreed: Yes.

  Rubbish lead, but something to go on.

  Hello, the Stenson Project Manager thought, what’s this about?

  It’s about your stolen car.

  My stolen car – you mean my wife’s.

  Yes, that’s right.

  I heard there was a development.

  From your wife?

  In a roundabout way.

  Could I see you?

  I’m very busy on a Chinese project, I’m in America, but next month, perhaps.

  Thank you, Sir.

  So, a dead end.

  Perhaps the Chinese project, Mithering thought.

  In Jellicoe’s book, the last thing added was the dead man’s code.

  Braddon followed him: of course, there was nothing. The man was dead, lying in an unfinished tomb, but a quick noodle and Braddon remembered the man’s last thoughts, a strange dark mirroring of his memories when the two of them had fought. Tedman, that rang a chord.

  I’ve been recognised. Woah, nearly hit that foil head. And you. I’d rather have curry tonight. With beer. When I know, I’ll let you know – OK. Gotta concentrate, we’re here. God, another building site. Yes, yes, I’ll get him out of the boot. Just a moment. It’s loaded. I’m doing it, I’m doing it. Ah, for fuck’s… the bugger got me. I’ve done my knee in. If I’ve got concussion, you’re for it. For fuck’s sake. No, no, no… bastard’s found a way out. LET ME OUT, BASTARD!!! Oi. Oh God, oh God. I’ll get the bastard. Bastard. I’m stabbed. There’s blood. Oh God, a lot of blood. Help, help. Mummy. It hurts. Can’t breat
he. Light – oh!

  That was the fight from the recognition in Mithering’s apartment to the struggle in the concrete. There were bits in the middle that must have been the car journey, about half an hour according to the time codes, but there didn’t seem anything like enough from Tedman for the time interval. He didn’t think much. They must be hiring morons.

  I don’t remember Tedman, Mithering thought.

  No, well… you weren’t exactly in recognition range.

  Braddon tried to remember the initial struggle. He noodled his thoughts and noticed that he’d recognised Tedman. That must tally with Tedman’s corresponding thought about being recognised.

  Had he been the man with the Taser?

  Yes, Braddon was reasonably confident, although it had been confusing. Who knew what having your iBrow fried did to you?

  So how had the man fired the Taser without thinking about it?

  Or, if it hadn’t been him, stood next to a Taser without any reaction going out from his iBrow?

  Even digging deeper, looking for those minor thoughts that leaked out, didn’t help.

  Braddon took a sip of whiskey. It helped with the thinking without thinking.

  There was, amongst it all, ‘Foil head’ – they must have narrowly avoided hitting a pedestrian. He could cross reference the time and find that person. The foil hat wouldn’t have obstructed their thoughts; if indeed they’d been wearing a foil hat and it wasn’t just an insult. But it would only confirm what route they’d travelled from Mithering’s to the construction site.

  Braddon noodled for more and scrolled through the man’s thoughts for the previous day, and then week, looking for something, anything, that jumped out as unusual. The man thought about curry, beer, cerebrals, some ‘tart’ who was giving him jip, spending the readies and the bloody landlord wanting his rent.

  Readies: cash… oh, game points for a cerebral.

  Another drink.

  His brow’s safeties had come on some time ago. He wasn’t sure when. His last coherent thought had been to Mithering.

  Braddon felt tired. He checked his own thoughts to see how long he’d been up and it did seem a long day despite the large alcohol induced gaps. But even with these gaps, he’d had more thoughts than Tedman.

  Braddon noodled the two of them together, comparing their thoughts at different levels of concentration. They were comparable in places, but Braddon’s had long empty thoughtless periods, whereas Tedman had had fewer thoughts during his much longer active time.

  Perhaps he was just stupid. He had let a Tasered man get the better of him, after all. The idiot probably let spam influence his buying habits.

  On a whim, Braddon noodled the dead man’s reactions to advertising.

  The man would be reported missing soon, unless he went to stay with Oliver on a happy sabbatical in France in a lovely villa, apparently visiting a vineyard now and enjoying a nice Merlot, although Braddon was getting used to letting this element of his mental landscape zip past.

  Most of Tedman’s spam was about virtual items for a cerebral.

  Useless.

  This was a real conspiracy, because they’d tried to kill him. The building site had been real, the men real, so the lack of information on Noodle was frustrating. Westbourne had been someone who had ‘done people in’ to use Jellicoe’s expression. He was nowhere to be found. It was associated with this Chinese Room, so perhaps it wasn’t too much of a leap to suggest that Westbourne was in this room. Perhaps it was more than a room, an underground headquarters encased in a Faraday Cage to prevent any network signals getting in, like a secret lair hidden in a volcano.

  “But what would be the damn point!” Braddon shouted at the wall.

  If you didn’t want to use thought, then you could get your iBrow removed.

  But you wouldn’t, because then you’d be disconnected and unable to do anything.

  Just like someone hiding in a network black spot.

  But Westbourne, or whoever, wasn’t disconnected. The bruises all over Braddon’s body were testament to how connected they had been.

  He was missing something.

  Noodle didn’t help. Jellicoe went on about gut feelings. He was talking about using the back part of the brain, the part that the iBrow filaments couldn’t reach, the reptile zone. All that pent up, uncivilised instinct – that’s what the old man wanted him to use. But then he’d just be some unthinking brute.

  Jellicoe had written all this thinking without thinking down.

  Braddon fished out Jellicoe’s notebook and began thumbing through the pages. The Inspector’s handwriting was a type of encryption technique. There was a sudden flash of Braddon’s own name. He flicked back, couldn’t find it, and had to start again before the page presented itself.

  ‘Braddon’ was written in distinct capitals and underlined: smudged, which was a sign that it had been read and reread. Underneath was a note with three ‘V’s on top of one another and a date, his Sergeant’s Exam. Another line said, ‘Chen observing’. What did that mean? Was it always Chen giving him a lift for a reason? There was a line from Braddon’s name to ‘Turner’, which must be a note that Freya was his Superintendent.

  He needed a drink.

  The bottle was empty.

  Braddon found another of Jellicoe’s whiskies and poured himself a measure, screwing the cap back on. As he lifted the glass to drink, he noticed that his hand was shaking, a slight tremor, nothing more, but Braddon wondered if this was intoxication or withdrawal.

  The whiskey tasted good: strawberry, plum, fruitcake… a chocolate hint. No, that was the bloody Merlot.

  The whiskey was real.

  Why did people want to spend all their time thinking anyway?

  Did your number of friends mean anything?

  How many friends did he have?

  Seven: Doctor Trantor, Moosher, Tedman, Mithering, Chen, Mox, Freya – two of those were dead – but not Jasmine anymore. Jellicoe, who was fighting for his life, had never, ever been a friend, and yet he felt connected to the old man in a stronger way than anyone else.

  They weren’t real… or they were, but not really friends. Jellicoe had mentioned something about – Braddon noodled – acquaintances and colleagues and mates and there were any number of other words, but now everyone was either a friend or not. They were unreal, virtual…

  He knew it wasn’t the right term, but–

  Braddon felt cold, suddenly very aware: oh, he’d screwed up and now had a migraine shadow to go with the thought.

  Braddon accessed his iBrow and checked its spam filters. Obvious adverts were excluded, but some got through. He also rejected charity requests and any in–game activities as no–one wanted to be distracted by someone’s cerebral nonsense.

  In–game?

  Braddon blinked and squinted until his attempts ticked the box.

  Which cerebrals?

  All.

  There it was in Tedman’s thoughts: he was a gangster in Mega–Precinct Five. There was loads of it, all the missing thoughts confined to some imaginary place in Chicago. Braddon scanned it, letting certain thoughts jump to the fore:

  Take out the door, fifty likes. Taser him. Ha, ha, got him. I know you all like this. A hundred likes to get the body into the getaway car. Take his feet. No–one looking. Get the lift.

  The game had gone well: lots of likes, nearly a new level gained until the real world of real gangsters had interrupted the game and murdered him.

  So, you could wander around doing anything you wanted, so long as it was in a cerebral. With a one–to–one mapping, Jane Deacon’s apartment became Jade Petoas’s, Braddon a dirty cop and the construction site was… ha! A construction site.

  Braddon noodled: Mega–Precinct Five – a small scale game ‘configurable to your own personal environment’ made by Spades Software, a subsidiary of Westbourne Industries, UK, and…

  Flicking through Jellicoe’s notebook wasn’t needed, but there it was, the man’s obsession with West
bourne. He hadn’t ‘disappeared’, he’d simply gone into a game and was wandering around merrily ignored by everyone.

  How many?

  Pretty much everyone played a cerebral or fiddled around with their social media information, their heads cocked to one side, or their eyes closed, or whatever other tick they developed. Braddon didn’t, he’d never really got into gaming, and thank goodness, because he didn’t want to have any strange body language issues.

  Braddon rubbed his forehead. He could noodle games: he went for thoughts on Mega–Precinct Five and it topped out immediately with a list too big to comprehend. Obviously, even for this small game, there were millions of people all over the world playing it. He filtered out everything except Jade Petoas, the fictional character that lived at Mithering’s. There were 8,472 players registered as Jade Petoas.

  Braddon stood up, went to pace angrily and then refilled his glass.

  He was looking for a Chinese Room – it was new – and it could be called anything in Mega–Precinct Five. Indeed, as it was configurable to your own personal environment, it wasn’t necessarily the same thing twice or the same name to different people.

  Flicking through Jellicoe’s notebook caused a few items to jump to his attention like thoughts that crossed the consciousness: Chinese Room, Jessica Stenson, car, notes on beers…

  Braddon opened the bottle again and poured another measure, a double. This time his hand was as steady as a rock. He left the top off.

  The notebook had ‘Westbourne – Construction – Chedding – Stenson Supplies – steel and copper’.

  Braddon noodled Westbourne and remembered that he owned a building firm, a probable front for laundering money back in the day, but it did do actual construction work. Another noodle confirmed a suspicion: they had the contract to demolish Chedding Shopping Centre. They weren’t the only company involved; others, Braddon quickly remembered, included Stenson Supplies.

  Where had he heard that name before?

  Jessica Stenson had owned the car that the body had been found in.

  Had Westbourne killed Stenson to gain some contract or other?

  Except Unknown 271 was a woman and John Stenson was still very much alive. Unless he was Unknown 272.

  Except not everyone ‘alive’ was alive.

  Braddon noodled Stenson’s last few thoughts and then noodled for a digest. The man was apologising yet again about missing a social gathering at a business networking event. These businessmen made fortunes and were always picked up freebies. Braddon bet his own contribution to the Inland Revenue was going on the nibbles and free wine for the already rich. Stenson hadn’t made a previous appointment either. Or, Braddon remembered, the one before that.