Take a Life

by Phillip Gwynne

  But then my name was announced over the loudspeaker and I was in one of those examination cubicles and there was a real doctor talking to me in a lovely soft melodious voice. She didn’t look very old, in her early twenties, and I wondered if she was an intern or something.

  ‘So your hand?’ she said, pointing to the bandage.

  I held out my other hand. ‘This one.’

  ‘And what exactly is the problem?’

  ‘I think you should X-ray it, or do an ultrasound, see if there’s anything wrong inside it.’

  She gave me a funny look, and I didn’t blame her – she was the one who’d got a ridiculously high score in her final year at high school, who had slogged through six years of university, who’d had to cut up smelly old corpses and all sorts of other gross stuff; she was the one who got to do the diagnosis, not me. She had another look at the piece of paper on the clipboard.

  ‘Are you any relation to Celia Silvagni?’ she said.

  ‘That’s my mother,’ I said.

  ‘She’s the reason I’m here today.’

  No! I thought. It can’t be – is she my sister?

  ‘I was awarded one of her scholarships,’ she said.

  Okay – my life was not a soap opera.

  ‘I left school when I was fifteen,’ she said.

  Nothing wrong with that, I thought.

  ‘If it wasn’t for her I don’t know where I’d be.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘That’s so cool.’ And I absolutely did think it was so cool, and I had that thought I’d had a few times lately, that even though Dad probably got his money in dodgy ways, Mom used it in non-dodgy ways. I also had another thought: I could take advantage of this. ‘So can you do an X-ray or an ultrasound on my hand?’

  ‘But this hand seems fine to me, Dominic.’

  I took a deep breath, because I was just about to become loony. ‘This is going to sound really, really crazy, but I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of biochip implanted in my hand. And, no, I don’t think aliens put it there. Somebody else did. And I know right now you think I’m a bit loopy, but I tell you, I’m not. So all I’m asking is that you have a look for me. That’s all. And if it isn’t there, then I’ll be fine, and I will never ever mention it as long as I live. I promise.’

  The doctor looked at me, and I wondered what was going through her well-trained mind. Psychiatric evaluation? Do what he asks and get him out of here? Contact his mother – if she is his mother?

  Eventually she seemed to make a decision. ‘Wait here,’ she said.

  I waited there. Would she return with a) some sort of imaging device, b) a psychiatrist or c) the security guard?

  The answer, thank heavens, was a.

  She plugged the machine in, turned it on, and applied some gel to the back of my hand. Then she moved the knob thing over that area. She had a nice touch, a nice manner, and a really nice voice, and I was happy my mum had awarded her that scholarship.

  ‘It all looks very normal to me, Dominic,’ she said in a soothing tone.

  I wondered if she’d learnt that at medical school, too – the right tone to adopt with potential nutcases, just the right amount of soothe.

  But then a look came over her face. She twiddled a knob on the machine. ‘What did you say you thought had been implanted in you?’

  ‘Some sort of chip,’ I said. ‘It probably wouldn’t be very big.’

  ‘That big?’ she said, pointing to rectangular shape on the screen, about a centimetre long.

  ‘I knew it!’ I said. ‘I just knew it.’

  The doctor shook her head. ‘Well, I guess I’ve learnt a lesson.’

  ‘So can you take it out?’

  ‘No, not here,’ she said. ‘It’s actually quite deep – it would definitely requite anaesthetic, probably a general for such a procedure. If you like, I could make an appointment for you to come back and see the general surgeon.’

  Did I want the biochip taken out, did I want to stop being owned by whoever it was that was owning me? Of course I did. But then I thought of all the times I’d been saved: just now by Luiz Antonio, that time when I’d been left in the middle of the ocean, that other time when I’d been almost sashimi-ed by the propellers of the supertanker.

  Yes, I wanted it taken out, but I had to think it through properly.

  ‘Can I get a hard copy of that?’ I said, pointing to the screen.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, hitting a button. There was whirring sound, and a printout appeared on a tray.

  ‘I’ll get my mum to ring,’ I said, taking the printout, getting up out of my seat.

  ‘Just wait a second,’ said the doctor. ‘This is highly irregular, and I’d like to get a more senior colleague to have a look.’

  But I was already on the move, ready to slam it straight into top gear. ‘I really think …’ said the doctor, her voice fading as I made my way quickly through Emergency.

  Surely Luiz Antonio wasn’t still waiting? But as soon as I had this thought, his taxi slid up alongside. And I got in.

  ‘So what do you use, some sort of radar or something?’ I asked Luiz Antonio.

  He pointed to the glovebox. I opened it, and inside was a screen. On it was a GPS map, with a red dot, a red dot that was travelling along Cascade Street, heading west.

  A red dot that was me.

  It all made sense now: the interest Gus had shown in the small lump in my hand, the pile of articles about biochips I’d seen on his desk that time, the fact that Luiz Antonio always seemed to know where I was. Smart old bugger that he was, Gus had quickly worked out that The Debt had implanted some sort of biochip in my hand. And he’d decided that two could play Track the Kid.

  So somehow he’d worked out how to tune into the particular biochip that I had. Like I said, smart old bugger.

  ‘Amazing,’ I said. ‘What range has this thing got?’

  ‘Around two hundred kilometres,’ he said.

  ‘And is this all you can do, track me?’

  ‘That’s all it does,’ he said.

  I believed him, but I wondered if The Debt had more powerful, sophisticated technology, because I was sure there were occasions when they had been privy to my conversations, even to my thoughts.

  I remembered that hardware I’d seen in the pool room – surely that had something to do with it.

  I closed the glovebox, and I leant back in my seat, and I said, ‘Any chance of some samba?’

  Luiz Antonio hit some buttons and the music started. It wasn’t the happy samba, however, it was the sad samba.

  Sadness has no end, but happiness does.

  And it suited me fine.

  THURSDAY

  CIDADE MARAVILHOSA

  It was 2.35 am when we got home. Gus was in his room, pretending he was asleep, pretending he wasn’t worrying about me at all. But I could see the light seeping under his door, hear shuffling noises from within.

  I could practically smell all that worry.

  ‘Gus, you might as well come out,’ I said. ‘There’s somebody here to see you.’

  It didn’t take long for the door to open and Gus to appear, dressed in pyjama shorts and one of his signature singlets. This one, so it said, was from the Canggu Club in Bali.

  ‘I believe you two know each other,’ I said.

  Gus glared at the taxi driver, but Luiz Antonio gave a very Brazilian shrug: Hey, what could I do? Or whatever that is in his language.

  ‘He saved me, yet again,’ I said.

  Gus relaxed. ‘Well, that’s what he’s paid for.’

  ‘Paid?’ said Luiz Antonio. ‘When was the last time you paid me, you stingy old bugger?’

  Know each other? It was immediately obvious these two were old friends who probably swapped the same jokes over and over again. Did I want to overload my brain with even more information tonight?

  Yeah, probably.

  ‘So, maybe an explanation wouldn’t be such a bad idea,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ sai
d Gus, and then he added something in another language.

  ‘You can speak Spanish?’ I said.

  ‘Portuguese,’ said Gus. ‘The language of Brazil.’

  Now I definitely wanted to overload my brain with even more information. ‘I’m up for it,’ I said. ‘In fact, I can even pour a couple of whiskies.’

  Gus and Luiz Antonio had a short conversation in Portuguese before Gus said, ‘Both of them on the rocks.’

  I made the drinks, we sat around the kitchen table.

  Eventually Gus said, ‘I’m not sure how much your dad has told you about his childhood.’

  ‘Not that much,’ I said. ‘Except that his family didn’t have much money.’

  ‘Not much money?’ said Gus. ‘You dad is being very generous. We didn’t have much money because what we had I drank all away.’

  ‘Drank it?’

  ‘I was an alcoholic,’ he said, looking at the whisky swirling in his glass. ‘Probably still am, but I can keep a lid on it now.’

  He seemed lost for a while, before he continued, ‘My wife, your father’s mother, committed suicide. And after that, I just fell into a complete hole. When your father reached fifteen, when it was his time, I was no help to him whatsoever. Hell’s bells and buckets of blood, if anything, I was a hindrance.’ Again, the words didn’t seem to be coming, but he eventually found some more. ‘Yet your father did it, he paid off those instalments.’

  I looked over at Luiz Antonio, thinking obviously he must know about The Debt.

  ‘He is a remarkable man, your dad. If he’d had any athletic talent at all, he would’ve won Olympic gold. Determination and tenacity, the two greatest attributes any athlete could have, and he has them in spades.’ My phone beeped, but I resisted the temptation to check the message. ‘After The Debt, he went away.’

  ‘My dad left home at fifteen?’ I said.

  Gus nodded. ‘And I didn’t blame him, I was just dragging him into my sewer.’

  ‘But where did he go?’

  Gus waved my question away. ‘Then one night, it just go too much and I decided that it was my time to go too. I was no good to anybody, especially not myself. I took the shotgun my old man used for killing rats, and I stuck the barrel in my mouth, and …’

  ‘Jesus!’ I said.

  ‘Click,’ said Gus, pulling an imaginary trigger. ‘Nothing – the gun didn’t work. They always say that you have to reach rock-bottom before you can start dragging yourself up. Well, that was my rock-bottom. The next day I went along to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but that was never going to work for a nonbeliever like me. But then I was watching this old movie on the box. Ronald Reagan, yes, that Ronald Reagan, plays this character who has both his legs amputated, and during the movie somebody recites some of this poem to him.’

  ‘“Invictus”?’ I said.

  Gus looked at me, both surprised and amused. ‘You know it?’

  ‘“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,”’ I said.

  Gus took a sip of his whisky. ‘That poem became my AA, my mentor, my guide.’

  ‘But Luiz Antonio?’ I said. ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘Well, I gradually got my career on track. I had some ideas about training that were considered a bit too out-there for the conservative running scene here, so I ended up doing some coaching in Europe. Holland, Germany and then in Italy, where I had this Brazilian kid under me. Roberto was his name. Great little runner, too. But injury finished his career. Anyway, somehow through him, or his family – I forget now – I ended up getting this job in Rio de Janeiro.’

  ‘The Cidade Marvilhosa,’ I said.

  ‘You better believe it,’ said Gus. ‘Anyway, I arrived at the airport carrying nothing but a small bag, and who do you think is there to pick me up?’

  ‘Luiz Antonio!’ I said.

  ‘Not only do we end up working for the same club, we end up living in the same house when his family takes me in as a lodger. They were good days in Rio; the Brazilian athletic scene back then was very strong, and they’re a modern people, they liked my new ideas. But what I wasn’t aware of, not at first, was that politically it was a whole different matter. The country was just coming out of a military dictatorship. Opposition had not been tolerated, and hundreds and hundreds of people disappeared during those times.’

  I remembered now that Luiz Antonio had once told me he’d come here because the military was in power in his country and it was safer for him to get out. But then he got used to living here, and his family got used to him not living there.

  Gus took a sip of whisky and continued, a smile playing on his lips. ‘What I didn’t know was that my workmate was still one of Brazil’s most active Marxists.’

  ‘What’s a Marxist?’ I said.

  ‘A revolutionary, somebody who wants to change the status quo,’ said Gus. ‘Brazil was a very rich country with a very unequal distribution of wealth.’

  ‘Was?’ said Luiz Antonio. ‘What do you mean by “was”?’

  ‘Okay, it still is, but it was even worse back then. And at least they have democratic elections now. Anyway, to cut a long story short, for a long time the military wanted to take my Marxist friend here for a helicopter trip over the ocean, one from which he wasn’t going to come back.’

  ‘Hell,’ I said, immediately thinking of the swim I’d had in the ocean, the one I thought I wouldn’t come back from.

  ‘And ironically, when they started losing power, he was in even more danger. So he had to get out of the country,’ said Gus.

  ‘Your grandfather risked his life to get me out of the country,’ said Luiz Antonio. ‘Without his help, I would be dead.’

  I looked over at Gus, and I felt an immense pride swelling up inside me. I’d always known that he was special, my grandfather. I’d always known that he was a hero. And here was the proof.

  ‘So when he asked me if he could help to keep an eye on you, of course I said yes.’

  So many questions.

  But when I looked at the clock and it told me it was 4.23 am, the fatigue that I’d been keeping at bay suddenly got me in a hammerlock. ‘I have to go to bed.’ I said goodnight and left the two old men still talking, still sipping their whiskies.

  I brushed my teeth and was just about to crawl between the sheets when I thought, Why not? I opened my laptop, went to YouTube.

  Already I’d had 22,345 plays.

  I did a Google search. My video was all over the net.

  Viral?

  You bet!

  THURSDAY

  RENT-A-COP

  There’s dreams and there’s nightmares and there’s the thing I had that night. It had human bones and it had human blood and it had people getting pushed out of helicopters; it was like some desperate horror-movie maker had thrown everything into the script. Except this really was horrifying, and really was terrifying, and now there was somebody, a zombie-vampire-ghoul hybrid, trying to kill me!

  Except the zombie-vampire-ghoul hybrid was Gus, and he was actually gently shaking me, waking me up. ‘Dom,’ he said, morning gravel in his voice. ‘You need to get up.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Hound’ll be totally okay if I come in late.’

  ‘No,’ said Gus. ‘There are some people here to see you.’

  Otto? Zoe? But would they really just rock up like that?

  ‘Coppers,’ said Gus.

  ‘Your tail-light?’ I said, my brain still sleep-addled. ‘Did you replace it yet?’

  ‘No, these are detectives,’ said Gus. ‘I can put them off, but I think it’s better if you deal with them now.’

  Sleep-addled, but I knew he was right. I swung my legs over, got out of bed and rushed into the shower. Hot water, cold water, hot water, cold, and I was starting to feel half-awake. I got dressed – boardies, T-shirt – and made my way into the kitchen.

  There were three of them, all men – when did coppers ev
er come in threes, I asked myself – sitting around the kitchen table. Two were playing with their smartphones, the other was leafing through a copy of Running World. All three looked up when I entered the room, but I could read nothing from their blank cop expressions.

  ‘Dominic,’ said the Running World cop, who was sporting some really retro sidies. ‘My name is Detective Westaway and these are my colleagues Detectives Truscott and Monroe.’

  Detective Westaway took a laptop from the bag that was at his feet and placed it on the table. He tapped a few keys and then turned the laptop around so that I could see the screen.

  It was YouTube. And I could sort of guess what was coming next.

  I guessed right.

  Shirley Bassey belting out ‘Goldfinger’, while my little video started playing.

  I couldn’t help checking out the play count: 88,421! This was more than viral, this was a plague, like one of those in the Bible.

  The video ended, the supposedly gold-laden helicopter wobbling off towards the horizon.

  ‘You put this online?’ said Detective Monroe, who obviously had a handle on the language of the World Wide Web.

  I could’ve told them the truth: the video was something I’d concocted, but I guess I was pretty proud of my effort – it had fooled them, hadn’t it? And something told me it was in my best interests to keep the charade as going as long as I could.

  ‘I did,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ said Detective Monroe.

  ‘I don’t know, I just wanted to upload something that would go crazy viral.’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly done that,’ said Detective Truscott, who was bald.

  ‘So where did you get the footage from?’ said Detective Westaway.

  ‘I think it was IsoHunt,’ I said. ‘Or maybe even Pirate Bay. One of those torrent sites, anyway.’

  Detectives Truscott and Monroe exchanged looks – that the video was already on a torrent site was obviously news to them – as Detective Westaway banged away at the keyboard. ‘He’s right,’ he eventually said. ‘It’s on Pirate Bay, and it’s been up there for weeks.’

  Of course it was, because I was the one who put it there.