Noble Conflict

by Malorie Blackman

  ‘Yes, I can record a whole game of handball on a ten-gig data chip.’

  ‘Well, seven hundred yottabytes is, near as damnit, a billion billion gigabytes. That’s one hundred million billion games of handball. Except of course it isn’t just sports, it’s the history of the world, the results of every scientific experiment ever conducted, astronomical photographs, films, TV programmes, medical records and biographical data on everyone dating back to when we were all pond scum.’

  ‘OK, that is a lot!’

  ‘Point is, nobody, not even with bot-assistance, can read that much data, far less alter it.’

  ‘But I just told you . . .’

  ‘Oh, I believe you.’ Mac raised a placating hand. ‘But to do what you say you don’t have to change everything. Just the tasty bits. All they have to do is alter the circumstances surrounding the suicides. They don’t have to change the atomic weight of sodium, or my middle name, or the postal address of the Guardian Academy.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s the tasty bits that we need to see,’ Kaspar protested. ‘They can change enough to make it impossible to find the truth.’

  ‘Maybe not. Not only is it impossible to change everything, but you wouldn’t want to.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’

  ‘Well, if you did change the address of the Guardian Academy, people would notice. There must be dozens of requests a day for that piece of information, like from your numerous female fans, for instance?’

  Kaspar blushed.

  ‘So if you change something too obvious, too well-known or too interesting, you’ll get rumbled,’ said Mac.

  ‘So they’d keep the changes to a minimum?’

  ‘Sure. Which means that there will be back doors to get the information you want.’

  ‘Back doors?’

  ‘Yeah. Queries that don’t ask direct questions, but more subtle ones.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Queries that uncover inconsistencies between different narratives. For example, if I look for your birthdate, then that’s a single, obvious, hard piece of data.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘But there are loads of other queries that aren’t so obvious, but which imply your birthdate. Like when did you first eat solid food, when did you go to school, what was the date of your application to the Academy.’

  ‘Got it. So although it’s easy to change my age to make me ten years old, there would be clues left unless you also changed all my other dates.’

  ‘Exactly. And the more anyone searches, the harder it gets to cover up. Your mother’s medical records would also have to be altered, and the dates your father took paternity leave, not to mention the diaries and work schedules of all the medical staff. The effects ripple outwards, like a pebble in a pond. You can’t tamper with everything – you have to rely on nobody bothering to look too closely.’

  ‘But finding out if someone lied about my birthday is a whole lot simpler than uncovering falsified Guardian After Action reports,’ said Kaspar.

  ‘True, but the principle is the same. I guess it’s time you used your imagination and let the bots off the leash.’

  ‘You mean I should relax the tolerance on the bot-hybridization factor?’ Kaspar teased.

  ‘Spoken like a true geek.’ Mac laughed. ‘Welcome to the club.’

  38

  Kaspar’s initial attempts to find the back door were failures. There was either too little control, giving him ridiculously non-specific reports on a wide range of subjects; or too much control, giving him the fictionalized data he already had and didn’t want. But gradually he found ways to tweak the queries, interacting with the bots almost the way a musician would play an instrument.

  From time to time, the bots would throw up something weird or amusing. He learned that there was a plant that was lethal in humans but to which sand voles were completely immune. He unearthed a ballet created by a composer of atonal music, choreographed by a dancer who’d never performed in public and featuring a troubled prince whose entire court committed suicide when he died and who then lived on as ghosts, sharing every emotion in the afterlife. It had closed after one performance.

  Hard to believe that one didn’t run and run, he thought.

  He was rapidly becoming a walking encyclopaedia of obscure facts – mostly about death. Sometimes, he could discern no reason at all why the bots had suggested a topic, but every time he tried to suppress the really weird stuff, it stifled their creativity and they went back to feeding him the standard lies. He had already deleted a thread relating to some postgraduate student’s thesis in the Department of Literature at Capital City University entitled ‘Prospecting for Truth: Fable and Legend as Representations of History’ before he had really thought about it. Then some instinct made him retrieve the document to read, but he couldn’t understand a word of it.

  Pretentiously written academic twaddle, he thought, but still he persevered through it.

  Kaspar requested a translation of the twaddle and the bots finally obliged with something he could understand. The idea was that myths, legends and fairy stories were sometimes built around a kernel of truth. It made sense, he supposed. Erupting volcanoes became fiery dragons that lived under a mountain; tsunamis were caused by giants fighting in the sea. When people were oppressed by a tyrant, they might be too scared to protest, but they’d tell stories of a plague or some kind of demon that had to be overcome.

  Kaspar was excited. If this guy was right, then this could be a way in. This could be what Mac had been talking about. A vast amount of data that was too big to mess with. Data that nobody would bother to alter because it was irrelevant, just ‘fairy stories for kids’. He launched a new bot-search.

  As soon as the bots were off and running, Kaspar had to run to be on time for roll call. He pelted down to the Ready Room, slammed on the brakes just outside the door and sauntered in with the nonchalant air of a man in no hurry. After grabbing an energy drink from the vending machine, he slipped into the seat next to Janna.

  ‘Hey, genius, we don’t see you around much these days. What’cha up to?’ she said.

  ‘Er, not much. Sleeping . . . catching up on stuff I missed when I was in the Clinic.’ kaspar took a sip of his drink.

  ‘Hmmm! Catching up on your research, Kas?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Kaspar nearly choked.

  ‘You seem to spend a lot of time in Library Services,’ observed Mariska over his shoulder.

  ‘Er . . . erm . . .’

  ‘Closeted with the perky purple-headed librarian,’ added Janna.

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s cute!’ said Mariska.

  ‘Down, girl!’ said Janna.

  ‘Woof! Woof!’ Mariska barked at the top of her voice, causing more than a few heads to turn in their direction. Kaspar’s cheeks grew uncomfortably warm.

  ‘More than cute, she is adorable,’ said Janna. ‘I hope she’s not overtiring you, Kas?’

  Kaspar’s entire face was now burning. He’d seen this Janna and Mariska double act before. Their bantering was nearly as terrifying as their combat. He leaned forward and tried desperately to bury himself in a briefing memo about standards of cleanliness in communal vehicles. But at least if everyone thought that his relationship with Mac was romantic, that was a whole lot safer than them knowing the truth.

  That evening, Mac came round to his room again and they started examining what the bots had found.

  ‘There seem to be several recurring themes,’ said Mac. ‘One of the more obvious candidates are these legends of men who could fly, become invisible and walk through walls. Doesn’t that sound like ninjas to you?’

  ‘If you believe in that kind of thing.’ Kaspar flagged that one as a possible, though not very likely, link to follow up. ‘It’s certainly a better lead than these guys who can run fast enough to outrun lightning.’

  ‘Or men who can melt the armies of their enemies by the friction of their hands, or father storms by mating with animals,’ said Mac. />
  ‘Oh, I dunno. Have you met Tomas Hytner? That last tale might be at least half true,’ said Kas.

  ‘Euww!’ said Mac. ‘Moving swiftly on, a lot of these stories have a telepathy component. Fairies who can talk without mouths, mind thieves who can steal your thoughts by kissing you, and twinned souls where two minds share a single body.’

  Kaspar leaned back thoughtfully in his chair. He remembered the stories his Uncle Jeff had told about the Insurgents and the way he’d dismissed them.

  ‘Sometimes my dreams are like that,’ he admitted. ‘Like I’m sharing someone else’s head filled with thoughts and emotions that aren’t my own.’

  His head had started acting funny right after Dillon’s death. A certain amount of post-traumatic stress disorder was understandable – nightmares and flashbacks – but what about the other stuff? Why would the death of his friend have given him memories of a grandma he didn’t have and a cottage he’d never been in and mellisse bread that he’d never before tasted? Unless . . . Kaspar hesitated. Having hallucinations about grannies and bread was bad enough, but using kids’ stories retold from centuries ago to try to explain them was seriously nuts.

  Except . . . ‘Oh. My. God.’ A moment of blinding clarity made Kaspar’s eyes open wide and his jaw drop.

  ‘Kas, what’s the matter?’ asked Mac.

  ‘What makes you think . . . ?’

  Mac raised an eyebrow. Kas decided not to insult her intelligence by insisting he was OK. Besides, he really needed to confide in someone.

  ‘When Rhea saved me from the earthquake, she touched me, skin against skin,’ he admitted. ‘First when she throttled me, and afterwards when she carried me to safety. My uniform was hanging off in rags by then and she wasn’t wearing gloves. What if close contact between us in the Alliance and Crusaders is strictly forbidden by the High Council because they know that the Insurgents pass on some kind of virus or drug through skin-to-skin contact?’

  ‘If you’re right, then why would she work as a masseuse?’ said Mac. ‘That’s the last job she’d choose. She’d be busted inside a week.’

  Mac had a point. If Rhea and others like her really did pass on some kind of virus or drug through skin-to-skin contact, then a good proportion of the Alliance population would’ve been infected by now. So that theory had just been blown out of the water.

  ‘I’m racking my brains for a reasonable explanation and getting nowhere fast,’ he admitted.

  Mac chewed at one corner of her bottom lip, her gaze dancing away from Kaspar’s.

  ‘What?’ Kaspar’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you not telling me?’

  ‘Kas, maybe she’s a touch-telepath,’ said Mac slowly.

  ‘A what? Telepathy? Are you kidding? You don’t really believe in all that stuff, do you?’ Kaspar frowned.

  Mac leaned forward and lowered her voice so it was barely above a whisper. ‘Kas, this is between you and me or you’ll drop me right in it from a great height, but I’m going to trust you.’

  Kaspar nodded. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  Mac took a deep breath. ‘With my security clearance, I get to see a lot of things that you and even my . . . Commander Voss don’t have access to. Now I can’t tell you exactly what for obvious reasons, but believe me, my suggestion is more feasible than yours. The High Council believes that some of the Insurgents are capable of something not a million kilometres away from touch-telepathy. They think it’s a latent tendency that only kicks in during puberty, and those who have it can choose when and if to activate it. That’s why the High Council try to make sure that the terrorists can’t . . . contaminate any of us in the Alliance.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Our water.’ Mac lowered her voice even further. ‘They add things to our water to keep us safe, to stop the Insurgents from being able to control us.’

  ‘Yeah, I already knew about our water. Brother Simon told me. But touch-telepathy? Come on! That’s something entirely different.’

  ‘Don’t you believe in the possibility?’ asked Mac.

  If Mac had asked him that a few weeks ago, his answer would’ve been immediate. But that was a few weeks ago. ‘I’m not sure,’ Kaspar admitted.

  ‘But doesn’t it fit?’ asked Mac. ‘And it would certainly explain why the High Council are so hot on no close contact with Insurgents and unapproved Crusaders who still live in the Badlands. Even the ones who apply to live in Capital City are kept segregated for several months in special camps before they’re allowed to live among us.’

  ‘But telepathy that’s initiated with a mere touch is the stuff of science fiction, not fact,’ Kaspar argued.

  ‘Well, certain kinds of telepathy amongst other species are a fact,’ said Mac. ‘Why not amongst some of the Crusaders?’

  ‘But how? And if that’s the case, how come they have it and we in the Alliance don’t?’

  ‘I have no idea. Something to do with the War to End All Wars? The biological fallout from that might have caused some genetic mutations. Who knows what decades of exposure to the pollutants in the soil, or in the air or in the water – or all three out in the Badlands – has done to them.’

  ‘So you think what I’m seeing is Rhea’s grandmother, and that Rhea is the one who’s nostalgic for home baking?’ asked Kaspar at last.

  ‘We should at least consider the possibility.’

  Kaspar was having real problems wrapping his head around the idea, but he had to admit it would explain so much – the memories that weren’t his own as well as his familiarity with things that he should know nothing about. ‘Could that be why I can’t get enough of mellisse bread? Why I was drawn to the gym where Rhea worked?’

  For the first time, he deliberately focused on Rhea, on her thoughts, her memories, her emotions. He concentrated on her face, her body, on seeing her. Almost immediately, images flooded into his head again and he felt faint. He was hallucinating again. He knew it was a hallucination and yet it seemed so real. He wobbled and Mac grabbed him to stop him from falling off the chair.

  ‘I’m in bed . . . and Rhea’s with me . . .’

  Mac let go of him like he’d suddenly burned red-hot and sat back, shocked.

  ‘We’re lying there, cuddling. No . . . not cuddling . . . she’s just holding me . . . but I’m not holding her.’ Kaspar struggled to remember. ‘I’m lying still, while she . . .’ The room began to spin and he was sinking, sinking like falling through water. ‘She’s in my head. Rhea is running through my mind . . . exploring.’

  And suddenly Kaspar knew with total certainty that this wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a hallucination either. This was a real memory. Rhea had been here, in his room, in his bed. She had come here and . . .

  ‘Oh, Jeez! I woke up a few days after the Loring School massacre and the right side of my neck was sticky. I remember now. She made me put on a transdermal patch! That little ninja bitch drugged me! Mac, she broke in here and she drugged me and then she did some kind of telepathic voodoo shit to my head.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ frowned Mac.

  kaspar nodded vigorously, appalled at the notion that not even his thoughts were his own.

  ‘OK, what could she have found out?’ asked Mac grimly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Kas, think. If Rhea did establish some kind of neural link with you, maybe she can read your mind. Maybe she can see through your eyes, learn secrets. What could she have found out?’

  Kaspar’s eyes widened with horror as the full implications of what Mac was saying hit him hard. Wave upon wave of sheer panic rose up to smother him. He took several deep breaths, trying to get himself together.

  ‘No. No, it’s OK,’ he said, calming down. ‘There’s nothing to know. I’m the lowest grade of Guardian there is. I don’t attend high-level briefings, don’t meet with important people.’

  ‘What about your computer access, your passwords?’

  ‘Nothing classified. She can’t learn anything from me because I don’t know anything. The nin
jas knew the security code for the Academy’s computer core and I certainly didn’t. They know the locations of camouflaged network nodes and I don’t.’ Kaspar finally got his breathing under control.

  ‘Are you sure? What about your meeting with Brother Simon?’

  Kaspar thought for a moment. ‘I’m sure they didn’t learn anything that they didn’t already know,’ he said at last. ‘Even if there is some mental thing between Rhea and me, it can’t be doing them any good. It’s probably just some freakish accident caused by direct contact.’

  ‘Then why did she come here? She took a hell of a risk breaking into the Guardian Academy. I mean you’re cute, but not that cute. Would Rhea really risk life in a maximum security detention centre just so that she could press herself against your manly body?’ Mac looked sceptical, to say the least.

  Kaspar’s face flamed. The glint in Mac’s eye told him she was well aware of the effect her words had had. He walked over to the sink in the corner of the room to splash his face. One thing was for certain: with Mac in his life he’d never get too full of himself. She’d see to that. As he was towelling himself dry, there was a knock at the door. Kas wasn’t expecting company. Mac stood up.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll get it.’ Kas crossed the room to open the door as Mac sat back down. It was Janna, Mariska and Mikey, though he could hear others in the hallway.

  ‘We wondered if you wanted to come for a game of handball?’ asked Mariska as she peered past him to where Mac sat on the bed. ‘But I can see you already have your hands full.’

  At that, half a dozen heads appeared round the doorframe, jockeying for a view of his guest. Kaspar was mortified. The knowing looks had his face burning again.

  ‘Hey, Mac.’ Janna gave a brief wave.

  ‘Hi, Janna.’ Mac struggled to suppress her amusement. She gave Kaspar a knowing look that raised the temperature of his face by several degrees.

  ‘Thanks for the invitation. Maybe some other time,’ Kaspar told Mariska.