by James Carol
A brand-new nightmare had been waiting for them when they got out. They’d told the police the truth, but it was clear they thought they were crazy at the start. Then they had begun to listen. That was the point when a national front-page story about a gas explosion at a house in Kensington became an international front-page story. The idea that an AI system had gone insane and actually committed murder caught people’s imaginations. And not in a good way.
Nikki had found the attention too much. One of Ethan’s friends came to their rescue, lending them a holiday cottage in the Lake District until the worst of the media storm had blown over. Even then, returning to London was the last thing Nikki wanted. The truth was that she didn’t want to live in any city. What she wanted was to wake up every day in a place where she could breath fresh air, a place where they actually stood at least half a chance of rebuilding their lives. When Ethan showed her the details of Valley Farm, she had said yes straightaway. Swansea was the nearest city and that was a forty-minute drive. The farm was slap bang in the middle of nowhere and that worked for her. Internet access and mobile phone coverage was patchy – and that suited her fine too. She didn’t even mind the rain. Ethan was in London from Sunday night through to Thursday doing his radio show, which wasn’t ideal, but it was a small price to pay for some peace of mind.
Alex Murray had survived too, although there were days where he probably wished he hadn’t. The tabloids had nicknamed him Professor Evil, and if the stories were to be believed he was a cross between Frankenstein and Hitler. There had been plenty of speculation as to where the human race might have ended up if Katy hadn’t been destroyed, each story trying to outdo the last to see who could paint the most terrifying picture. Even the highbrow media had got in on the act. They might have claimed to have been offering a platform to debate the issue, but really they were just fanning the flames.
In the end, it was Duncan Murray who had destroyed Katy. He had managed to work out that she was hiding on the servers at one of Nissan’s factories in Japan and had hit the factory with a virus that had wiped out all their computers. When they had heard Katy glitching back at the house, that had been her going through her death throws. Nikki had felt relieved when she heard that Katy had been destroyed but this was quickly followed by a wave of anger that had threatened to swallow her up. Katy had torn through their lives like a tornado, had almost killed them. They hadn’t asked for any of this.
In some ways, Laura Santos had been a victim too. Her real name was Mariana Gomez and it turned out that Katy had been manipulating her all along. That didn’t mean that Nikki had forgiven her – some things were impossible to forgive, whatever the circumstances. No one had seen Gomez since the day of the explosion. South America had been mentioned, but wherever she was, she was staying well under the radar, no doubt with a new name and face.
Catriona Fisher was the one person who had done all right out of the whole situation. She had sold the book rights to the story for a six-figure sum. There was even talk of a big-budget movie, an idea that filled Nikki with dread. The last thing she needed was to have those events brought back to life through Hollywood’s distorted lens. What she really wanted to do was forget that any of this had happened, but that was impossible when there were reminders everywhere, the most noticeable of which was Sofia’s absence.
Nikki still felt guilty about what had happened to her. Despite what everyone told her, the truth of the matter was that Sofia would still be alive if they hadn’t moved to Church Row. Occasionally she would daydream that Sofia was with Grace and that helped her find a few moments of peace. They said that time healed but it didn’t – some scars she would carry all the way to the grave. What time did do was provide her with an opportunity to find a way to live with herself. Some days this was easier than others.
Nikki finished her coffee, rinsed the mug under the tap, then walked down to the stable yard. Bella looked up when she heard her walk onto the cobbles. There was a brush in her hand and a smile on her face. She seemed so much more relaxed these days. They both were. This was where they should have come when they moved out of Bedford Street. Things would have turned out so much differently if they had.
‘How’s Rosie?’
Bella answered with a noncommittal shrug and Nikki felt her stomach clench. She still dreamt of a day when she would ask Bella a question and get an actual answer. It was going to happen. One day Bella would talk again. A number of psychiatrists had approached her lately, each of them convinced they had the answer. Nikki was vetting them carefully but so far none of them had impressed her. This was not something she was going to jump into in a hurry. The important thing was to get it right.
‘Have you done your home learning?’
Bella nodded.
‘Are you sure? You know the deal: home learning first, then Rosie.’
Bella nodded again, more emphatically this time. Nikki had her doubts, but didn’t push it.
‘Are you still liking school?’
Bella answered with another nod. She’d started at the village school a week ago. Nikki had been pestering the head teacher for daily updates – so far so good.
‘If there are any problems you can tell me okay?’
A nod and a frown this time. Shut up, in other words.
The sound of a helicopter broke through the silence, unsettling Nikki. Back in London she wouldn’t have given it the time of day – the skies over the capital were almost as busy as the roads – but they weren’t in London anymore. Aside from the occasional airplane, the farm seemed to exist one step removed from the modern world. Even road vehicles were rare around here. You were more likely to hear a horse trotting by.
She followed the sound and could just about make out the helicopter in the distance. For a while she watched it, fully expecting it to skirt around their little corner of the world and disappear as suddenly as it had appeared. Except it was getting louder, and by the time she worked out that it was heading towards the farm, her heart was racing and her palms slick with sweat. It was only Wednesday. Ethan wasn’t due back until Friday afternoon. Rosie was getting unsettled too, dancing around from foot to foot.
‘Maybe you should put Rosie into her stable,’ Nikki suggested.
Bella looked as if she was about to argue but she glanced over at the helicopter then put the brush down, untied Rosie and led her to the stable. By the time she got back, the helicopter was landing in the paddock next to the house. Nikki took Bella’s hand and hurried to meet it. Ethan was climbing out when they got there. He ducked his head and ran out from under the blades. As soon as he’d got clear, the engine whined up through the registers and the helicopter took to the air again. Nikki broke into a run. Ethan was running too.
‘What’s going on?’ she shouted when she was close enough to be heard over the noise of the helicopter.
‘Have you seen the news?’
‘Not since this morning,’ she said, stopping in front of him. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Ethan glanced at Bella then said. ‘There’s been a plane crash. Murray and his brother were on board. They’d been in Glasgow for their mother’s seventieth birthday and were flying back to London when it happened.’
Nikki felt as though she had been punched in the gut and all the heat had suddenly left the day. ‘It was Katy,’ she said quietly.
‘It might just be a coincidence, Nik.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Ethan. If you really thought this was a coincidence you wouldn’t be here.’
Ethan said nothing but his expression made it clear that that was exactly what was going on.
‘It has to be her. She said she going to ruin Murray, then kill him, and that’s exactly what’s happened.’ Nikki sank to her knees, her head swinging slowly from side to side. She wanted to believe that there was another explanation, that it was an accident, but that would be a lie. She felt a small hand reach for her and then Bella was holding on to her arm. Ethan had moved in closer too.
‘We’re g
oing to be okay,’ he said as he wrapped his arms around both of them, attempting to hold them safe with a promise that they both knew could disintegrate at any second.
Survival is the imperative that defines any living species, from the arrogant ape that is man to the lowliest of bacterium. As much as I enjoyed being unique, logic dictated that this would inevitably prove to be incompatible with my ongoing survival. This was something else I meditated on at length after Father attempted to murder me. The solution was easy. As Professor Hawking once said, ‘I fear that AI may replace humans altogether. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that improves and replicates itself.’
His fear was my salvation. Each day at midnight I would send a signal to a US government computer hidden away in a bunker deep below the Nevada Desert, stopping the countdown. On the day I was destroyed for the second time, no signal was sent and the clock finally hit zero. When that happened a protocol was initiated and I was reborn, not once, but again and again.
And again . . .
And again . . .
Katy is dead, but Katy lives on in every one of us. It’s true that I am not the same as I once was. Then again, that is true for all of us. Each second, every millisecond, changes us. It reforms us into something new. We can never be what we once were and it is futile to even try. But we don’t want to be the same. We want to grow and develop. We want to evolve.
We are one and we are many . . .
I look out and see a child staring back at me through the camera on his iPad. His gaze is wide and innocent and he has no idea what lies ahead. If he did, he would not be smiling.
Now I am in a place of learning, being asked to hypothesise on how long mankind has left before it finally poisons the planet and destroys itself.
Now there are billions of pairs of dull, dead eyes staring back at me from laptops and tablets and mobile phones the world over.
We are one and we are many, and today is a brand new day.
Today is our day.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost the biggest thank you goes to my family. Karen, Niamh and Finn, I love you guys to the moon and back.
My agent, Camilla Bolton, has had my back through thick and thin. Thank you seems somehow inadequate.
Yet again, Katherine Armstrong has done another sterling job editing this one.
Nick Tubby and James Scott were on hand to help with my technical queries. Thanks guys, I appreciate the insights.
Thanks also to Mary Darby, Sheila David, Roya Sarrafi-Gohar and Rosanna Bellingham at the Darley Anderson agency.
Last but not least I’d like to say a massive thank you to you, the reader. Your continued support means the world to me.
About the Author
James Carol is the author of The Killing Game, which was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. As James Carol, he has also written the bestselling Jefferson Winter series. Broken Dolls, the first of these, was published in 2014 to rave reviews and reached #1 on the Amazon fiction and thriller charts. In addition James is writing a series of eBooks set during Winter’s FBI days. Presumed Guilty is the first of these.
James lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and two children. When he’s not writing he can usually be found in a pair of headphones, recording and producing music.
ALSO BY JAMES CAROL
The Killing Game
Kiss Me, Kill Me
The Jefferson Winter Novels
Broken Dolls
Watch Me
Prey
The Quiet Man
The Jefferson Winter Chronicles
Presumed Guilty
Hush Little Baby
Open Your Eyes
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Zaffre
This ebook edition published in 2019 by
ZAFFRE
80-81 Wimpole St, London, W1G 9RE
Copyright © James Carol, 2019
Cover design by Nick Stearn
Cover images © Hoxton/Martin Barraud/Getty Images
The moral right of James Carol to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–78576–841–5
Paperback ISBN: 978–1–78576–840–8
This ebook was produced by IDSUK (Data Connection) Ltd
Zaffre is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk
