CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A handful of stars spun out across the ceiling of Morgan’s son’s bedroom. Close by Cassie’s pillow, the lamp turned steadily, a welcome distraction from the weight that shifted and slid inside her skull whenever she moved her head. The weight might be imaginary, but the lopsided headache, the ferocious itch in her ears, were definitely not.
Beyond the curtains, the sky was lucid. The early light filtered through, fading the stars minute by minute till they became suggestions of themselves. Cassie stretched so her feet dangled off the end of the bed. Morgan had lent her a pair of pyjamas, promising that she herself would stay awake so that Cassie could safely sleep, but the idea of undressing made her uneasy, too vulnerable. They lay, still folded, on the bedroom floor.
She knew she had to think beyond the next twenty-four hours, beyond the necessity of staying hidden until she was ready. Complete. But her thoughts slid away from the idea of after, as if to make any kind of a plan was to jinx the possibility of survival. While Morgan’s remedy was busy making its changes to her neural circuitry, the rest of her felt becalmed. She might simply stay here, in this child-sized bed that was nonetheless more luxurious than the narrow platform she was used to; might sleep all through the day and then, when the stars were bright against the dark and it was Morgan’s turn to sleep, might lie eyes open like a wakeful child, and watch the light tracing its circles across the ceiling.
Round and round, her eyes followed the faint, constant movement. Flickered closed, open, closed. Her breathing slowed, and she was sunk halfway to sleep when something thumped against the window.
Instantly she was alert. Her whole body tensed, listening. A bird? What else could have made that small explosion, could have shaken the glass up here on the first floor? It was nothing, a blackbird or a fat starling – but it had startled her from her stupor, and now she pushed aside the Disney duvet and reached for her trainers. This room was a fiction of safety. She couldn’t stay. If she wanted the possibility, at least, of a future, her planning was not done yet.
On the landing, she could hear the shower running behind the bathroom door. Remembering how she had felt after Raphael House, in the back of the car, she imagined Morgan might stay a long time under the water. Lightly, she made her way downstairs. There was no need to say goodbye. They had made their arrangements, the two of them. Everything was finely organised: where the professor would be, and when; what she’d promised to do. As quietly as she could, Cassie let herself out, heard the front door lock behind her.
Through the early morning, Cassie pedalled fast. She took the back roads, shoulder-checking all the way. But the dawn streets were almost empty. Nobody was following her, nobody watching as she took a roundabout route to the street where Nicol lived. Only when she was standing outside his tenement flat did she realise it was too early to turn up unannounced on his doorstep. But she couldn’t hang around out here, where she might so easily be seen. ‘Sorry, Nicol,’ she muttered to herself as she pressed the buzzer.
It took a full, uneasy minute before she heard the click of someone picking up the handset, a woman’s voice saying, ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Cassie,’ she said, simply. A pause; in the background she could hear wild barking. ‘Is Nicol there?’
Without speaking, the woman buzzed her in.
Third floor left; the door to the flat was open a slit, still on the chain. A stripe of face watched as Cassie reached the landing. Then the door closed and opened properly, and a woman in polka-dot pyjamas, one hand holding fast to Leia’s collar, stood aside so that Cassie could enter.
‘You must be Jo,’ said Cassie. ‘I’m really sorry it’s so early.’
Leia’s tail was an excited blur; by contrast, Jo’s nod was unsmiling. ‘He’ll be through in a minute,’ she said – and as she spoke Nicol appeared at the end of the hallway, shrugging into a Black Flag T-shirt, a glimpse of rumpled bed visible through the door behind him.
‘Thanks,’ he said to Jo, his voice gruff with sleep. ‘Go back to bed, aye?’
‘Going,’ she said. Watching them together, Cassie was struck by how straight Jo looked in her polka dots and her pom-pom slippers, by how mismatched they seemed as a couple, even as Jo trailed her fingers across Nicol’s belly in passing.
‘Sorry,’ said Cassie for the third time, once Jo and Leia had returned to the bedroom. ‘But a lot of stuff has happened, and – um, I don’t suppose you’ve got a car?’
‘Good morning to you too.’ Nicol turned his back, walked away; she followed him into a cramped kitchen where he flicked the kettle on, cracked open a jar of instant coffee. ‘Give us a minute to wake up,’ he said, ‘then I’m with you.’ She winced as he piled three spoons of granules into each mug. ‘Sugar? It’s Jo’s car really,’ he said. ‘But I can drive it, aye. Come through.’
In the living room Cassie perched on his sofa. She forced the coffee down one fierce swallow at a time, as she did her best to convey what had happened at Morgan’s. Nicol’s eyes widened as she told him about the upgrade and the remedy, explained the choice she’d made – but he didn’t interrupt. She knew that, despite the caffeine sharpening her focus, she was making a bad job of telling the story. Still, she could see Nicol taking the disjointed pieces, turning them round and matching them up with what he knew, what he’d guessed, what scraps of data he’d retrieved from the Imagen server.
‘Aye, it fits with what I’ve found.’ He carried his mug from the sagging armchair to the workstation that was squeezed into a corner. ‘Just bits and pieces so far; still trying to get past the biosecurity. But – they were careless taking out the trash. Here, I’ll show you.’
He’d dumped it all into one document, everything that might be relevant. Now, he printed it out for Cassie to read. Just a couple of pages studded with words and phrases she’d asked him to search for. Upgrade. Connections. Data input. Input channel.
Monetising the Collaborative Mode_a Proposal_draft 2
Harvesting Connections CONFIDENTIAL
Scoping the International Market SMT edits
Exploratory Contacts With Potential Clients – Notes – RESTRICTED
—connective mode with data input capacity will enable unprecedented levels of embedded marketing and thus the creation of deep implicit preference across a range of categories, including but not limited to: consumer products; brands and corporations; political and religious ideologies; individual and group behaviour. Priority markets include the US, Russia, China, the Middle East (see appendix II for individual SWOT analyses—
• Commercial: domestic & international
• Industrial: employment & manufacturing
• Cultural: religious & special interest groups
• Political: domestic & international (democracies)
• Political: domestic & international (authoritar—
As she read, Nicol talked her through the jumble of information: the deleted file names, snippets of text, bulleted lists shorn of context. ‘This one here,’ he said, pointing to Political: domestic & international (democracies). ‘Given what your friend Morgan’s just told you, could be something to do with swaying an election result by associating political campaigns with positive or negative emotion; what d’you think?’
Cassie nodded slowly, biting the side of her thumbnail.
‘And this stuff about implicit preference … there’s a bit later on about the creation of implicit preference for compliant behaviour as a humane way of dealing with political unrest. Here it is, see. Better than tear gas and rubber bullets, apparently. Possible markets: Israel, Turkey, central Asia …’
‘But Morgan didn’t mention this.’ Cassie set the pages down on the coffee table, pushing them away. ‘She didn’t mention anything like this.’
‘No, well – she wouldn’t, would she? If she even knows about it. My guess, they’ve kept her in the dark. It’d be on a need to know basis, this – and it’s not her area, right? She just invents the technology, makes it all
work. It’s not up to her how it gets used.’
Cassie leant forward, glanced again at the details Nicol had pointed out. They were suggestive, certainly – but they were speculative. ‘If this is for real,’ she said, and the look Nicol gave her was poised between incredulity and pity. ‘No, you’re right. It must be for real. But whether it’s proof of anything … I mean – is it enough?’
As she spoke, she recognised the freight of assumption that was carried by her question. The assumption that she and Nicol were on the same side. That his disapproval of systems, bureaucracies, corporations, above all of Make-Believe, would be strong enough to translate into action. That they’d want the same thing, he and she; that he was in this with her, still. And on top of all that, the assumption of what she meant by enough. Enough, so that if everything else went wrong – if the remedy failed, if she failed – there would be some other way to drag this mess into the open, and there would be Nicol willing to do it.
‘I’m still working on getting us proof,’ he was saying. He gestured to a desktop machine sitting next to his laptop, its hard drive whirring away as it tested layer after layer of security. From the coffee table, he scooped up a tobacco pouch, a pack of Rizlas. Started making them each a rollie. ‘Got a couple of pals on it too.’
‘Nicol,’ she said. He glanced up, fingers still busily pinching, rolling. ‘How far are you willing to go with this?’
When he shook his head, it felt like something collapsing inside her chest.
‘Not as far as you.’
That was when she realised the extent of it: her reliance on him. She breathed through her disappointment. Tried for a smile. ‘Yeah, fair enough.’
He licked, stuck the rolling paper. Ran his thumbs along the seam, and offered her the finished cigarette. ‘No,’ he said, reading her face, ‘all I mean is, I’m not spraying any mystery brain-altering shit up my nose. I get why you’re doing it, right enough, but Cassie …’ The concern folded deep into his face warmed her like a blanket. ‘But whatever else I can do – I’m on it.’
Cassie took the lighter he was offering her. Lit her rollie, and inhaled deeply. ‘That’s better.’ Her words were wrapped in a small cloud. ‘Your coffee’s disgusting, did you know that?’
‘Oh well. Complain to the management.’
‘That’d be Jo, I take it?’
Nicol smiled, shrugged acknowledgement.
‘So you said, whatever else you can do, you’re in?’
‘Aye, go on.’
With her free hand, Cassie scrubbed at her itching ears. ‘One, I need somewhere to stay,’ she said, ‘just until tomorrow morning, till the remedy’s ready. Two, I can’t risk falling asleep, not so close to all your neighbours – so I might need your help to stay awake. And three: you said you – or, Jo – had a car …’
Time had never passed more slowly. A day and a night: Cassie made it through by pacing the flat while Nicol tended his machines; chaining rollies out the window; drinking bad coffee till her stomach rebelled, then downing pints of water; creeping out into the weed-infested back green to throw a chewed-up ball for Leia; kneeling by the bath and sticking her head underneath a shower attachment full on cold; attempting, once Jo was home from work, to win approval by acting kitchen porter to Jo’s head chef; turning the volume up on the stereo; stuffing herself sick with chocolate. Around midnight, when she really started to fade, Nicol ordered Leia to climb on her lap and lick her face, and those wet dog-kisses revived her enough that she and Nicol could go over once more the detail of what was to happen next, till their plan was solid in place.
04.26. 04.27. Together, they watched it: the slow countdown on the screen of Nicol’s laptop. She imagined the final adjustments happening inside her brain, the last fine-tuning. 04.28. 04.29. And when the half-hour showed, she was primed and ready. She stood, a human grenade. Put on her trainers and her jacket. Raised a hand to Nicol, who was already hooking Jo’s car keys from their hanging place by the door.
‘That’s me,’ she said – and Nicol gave a mock salute.
‘Good luck then, comrade,’ he told her. ‘See you on the other side.’
CHAPTER FORTY
The air was fresh, dew-damp with a cold green smell that lifted her exhaustion. After all the hours of waiting, it felt good to be in action. Through the empty streets she cycled fast, working up some warmth, and within fifteen minutes she’d reached Lewis’s flat.
At his tenement door she hesitated. Should she buzz, or use her keys? To let herself in would look more normal, she decided. After all, that’s what she would have done, wasn’t it – before? Then on the first-floor landing, outside Lewis’s flat, she paused once more.
The trick to a good lie was to say as little as possible. Who was it that had told her that? Not Alan, who was so open to the world he couldn’t have told a convincing lie if his life depended on it. Meg, perhaps, teaching her little sister how to cover up some shared childhood mischief. Whoever had passed on the theory, it was Lewis who’d shown how it worked in practice. For more than two months, he’d told her next to nothing about himself – and she’d been happy with that. It had meant she could keep her own secrets, or so she’d assumed.
In reality, her only secret now was the one poised inside her. And all that was left to do was conceal it – from Lewis, and from Oswald.
She fitted the key into the lock. Stepped over the threshold.
In the hallway, a sleeping silence was broken by a soft thump, and a light pattering sound. A small shape appeared in the gloom: Pita, come to investigate. Cassie crouched, and the cat came to greet her. Submitted to a brief ear-stroke.
‘Should be outside, kit-kat,’ Cassie murmured. ‘It’s prime hunting time.’
From the bedroom she heard a slower, heavier tread. When she straightened, Lewis was standing at the far end of the hall.
In the dark, Cassie couldn’t see his face. She held herself loosely, palms open towards him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you pissed off?’
She couldn’t read his reaction, but she stopped herself from reaching for the light switch. The dark was a useful ally; it would hide her, too.
She saw his head shake. ‘I’ve been worried, that’s all. It’s been two whole nights! What happened? You go for a fag and you just vanish – again?’ He was pitching his performance well: concern, with just a touch of righteous anger. He took a step towards her, barefoot in his pyjama bottoms. ‘Are you OK?’ he said. ‘Was it them – was it Imagen?’
He is comfort, Cassie told herself; he is consolation – and she moved in close. Snaked her arms around his waist, forced her cheek to his naked chest, skin on skin, till the smell of him muddled her senses and she found herself leaning willingly into his sleep-warm body, her own body acting a familiar part. Felt his arms close round her shoulders. Tried to sense the deception in his holding of her.
‘I got freaked out,’ she murmured into his chest. ‘I needed to think it all through. I needed to be on my own.’
‘You could have called. Let me know you were safe. I didn’t know if you were alive or …’ Or dead. The word hung between them – and oh, she thought, he was good. Because you couldn’t leave it there, that word, the absence of that word, couldn’t set it silently humming without invoking the ghost of the dead girlfriend – who might be fact or might be fiction, but whose presence served to remind Cassie of what they’d both, supposedly, lost. Of how she and Lewis were the same.
And with that thought came a realisation. She tried not to tense in his arms as it rushed through her, like something she’d briefly known, then forgotten again.
Hadn’t he been in her dreams, since the very start?
If she and Lewis had connected, through Make-Believe – like she had with Alan, like she had with Morgan … It would explain so much.
All the factors were in place. Extensive use of Make-Believe: they’d both been heavy users, and his network was probably as highly evolved as hers. Distance, and sleep: they had shared a bed,
that first night she’d stayed at his; they had lain side by side, their unconscious minds unable to block a connection.
And, of course, an emotional fit. Grief, sorrow, hopelessness. Except, none of this was what she’d felt with him. Perhaps, then, what had connected them was a need for solace. Perhaps, while she was guarding her past from Lewis and he was selling out her future, their networks were making a kinder present. Something gentle. Something close to healing.
Even now she could feel it, a warmth softening the hostility she felt towards him. That soft part of her could be a weakness, but it could also be useful. If she let it speak, it could help her convince Lewis she still believed in him.
‘You’re nice and warm,’ she said. ‘It’s so cold out there.’
He held her tighter. ‘Stop running away, then.’
‘Yes. Good idea. I will.’ She pulled back, just slightly. Now she was ready, she wanted to give herself up to whatever came next. She needed to give him an opportunity to contact Oswald, to let Imagen know she’d returned. Wanted it all to happen fast, so she didn’t need to think any more. ‘Go back to bed,’ she said. ‘It’s stupidly early.’
But Lewis didn’t take his chance. ‘Only if you want to,’ he said. ‘Are you tired?’
Yes, said the soft part of herself. Yes, she was tired; yes, she could let herself take comfort from the warmth of his bed, from his chest pressed to her back, his knees crooked into hers.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not tired.’
‘Nor am I, really.’ He loosened his arms around her. ‘Come on. Let’s have an early breakfast.’
He walked ahead of her into the kitchen, flicked the light switch – and as the hallway lifted out of its darkness, a familiar shape appeared.
A User's Guide to Make-Believe Page 27
