by Jack Heath
Stop. Rewind.
Quantum Mechanical Processor.
You said they’d pay a fortune to get the QMP back.
~
I can feel my mouth falling open as everything swims into focus.
Ares Security. Private Military Corporations. Soldiers who work for a company rather than for the government.
Ares Security built a quantum computer. One that could do more than just factorize twenty-one. In the wrong hands, this technology could create a worldwide financial meltdown which would make the great depression look like a hiccup.
Nadine must have decided that the hands of Ares Security were the wrong ones. But Graeme didn’t want the defence department to have it either. No wonder—this technology could turn the whole world upside down.
And now, assuming I’m right about Graeme’s frantic search of the basement, it’s missing.
‘Sir, can I go to the bathroom?’ Becky is saying.
‘Sure,’ Fresner replies. As she gets up, he says, ‘Who can tell me what Shor’s Algorithm is?’
The girl next to me raises her hand. I watch Becky leave the classroom. She still looks distressed, and suddenly I wonder where she’s really going.
Does she know something about the QMP? Is that what she and Chloe talked about at Pete’s birthday party?
Becky is the piece that doesn’t fit. A link to the most elusive part of Chloe’s life.
I try to replicate a sound from a TV show Graeme was watching last night. An old man in a hospital bed, coughing and wheezing.
What comes out of my mouth is a rattling, choking, phlegm-drenched sound. Everyone stares at me.
‘Can I get some water?’ I rasp.
‘Go,’ Fresner says, immediately. I run out of the door and follow Becky, turning Chloe’s phone off as I go.
Trailing someone on foot is harder than I expected. The school corridors are deserted except for Becky and me, so there are no other sounds to cover my footsteps. But I can’t slow down. Every time she turns a corner, I risk losing her.
She’s moving cautiously. She ducks below the window in each classroom door as she passes by.
But she hasn’t done anything incriminating yet. The bathroom is this way. If she passes it, I’ll know for sure that she’s up to something.
Becky’s hair, carefully plaited today, bounces as she walks. Her arms are crossed as though cradling a newborn baby.
The bathroom doors come up on her left. She walks past the boys’, where I found Pete. Then she takes a final glance around and pushes open the door to the girls’ before slipping inside, leaving me to decide whether or not to follow.
If she’s making a phone call, I want to hear it. But it was difficult to come this far without being spotted, and it will be even harder in there. Less space, more mirrors.
She clearly wants privacy, so she will be in a cubicle. It all depends on how quietly I can open the bathroom door.
I put my palm flat on the door and give it a gentle push, wondering why bathroom doors are always so much heavier than regular ones. But it doesn’t creak. I put my fingers between the door and the frame to stop it from banging closed, and then step all the way into the bathroom.
To find Becky staring at me.
‘What are you doing?’ she demands.
‘What are you doing?’ I reply, without thinking. Tears are pouring down her cheeks. Her chin is dimpled like orange peel.
‘I asked first,’ she hisses.
I step forward. ‘Look, I’m—’
‘Don’t come near me.’
I stand still, baffled. My toes are curled up inside my shoes. ‘I care. Tell me what’s going on.’
She looks at me like I’ve just stabbed her in the heart. ‘You know full well what’s going on.’
‘Pretend I don’t,’ I say. ‘Tell me how I can help.’
‘You lied,’ she says. Her voice is a choking rasp. ‘You said you needed me.’
‘I do need you,’ I say, with no idea what she’s talking about.
‘That kiss meant nothing to you,’ she sobs.
I think back to the photo. Becky and Chloe, having a serious conversation on Pete’s verandah.
How could Chloe leave this out?
Why didn’t she tell me that she was in love?
THE SECRET
‘You ignore me for six weeks,’ Becky cries, ‘and this morning you say you’re sorry?’ Her whole body quivers with misery and rage. The rawness of her pain fills the room. I’m drowning in it.
Dozens of excuses whirl through my head. My parents wouldn’t let me see you. I fell down some stairs right after the party and lost my memory of it. My uncle died and I couldn’t think about anything else.
She won’t be convinced by any of those. But I can’t let her go on believing her girlfriend betrayed her. She looks like she’s already on the verge of madness. I don’t want to push her over the edge.
‘It’s not what you think,’ I say.
‘You used me.’ The agony in Becky’s eyes is unbearable. ‘I was an experiment for you, and you threw me away like I was nothing.’
‘Chloe Zimetski is dead.’
The words slip from my mouth, unbidden. I freeze, as though complete stillness will stop her from hearing what I just said.
Becky makes a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
I could pretend to be joking. I could act like she misheard me.
But it wouldn’t work. There are too many signs that I’m artificial. To suspect what I am is to see it. My only hope is to get her on my side.
‘I’m her replacement,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m a machine.’
‘Just how dumb do you …’
I start unscrewing my forearm from the elbow joint. Becky’s eyes widen with horror as my wrist turns around, and around, and around. Then, as my arm pops off, she screams.
I drop the arm, step forwards and clamp my other hand over her mouth. Her brown, terrified eyes are inches from mine.
‘I know this is scary,’ I say. ‘But please be quiet.’
‘Mmmmmf!’ Her breath is warm on my palm. She tries to pull away, but I follow, pushing as she pulls, until her back is pressed against the wall.
‘Mmmf!’ she says again. ‘MMMF!”
‘Please stop. Someone will hear us.’
Her eyes are rolling back. Her lids flutter. She’s going to faint. Maybe from the shock, maybe because she’s spent too much oxygen screaming and isn’t getting enough through her nose.
I let go of her mouth just in time to grab her armpit as she slides down the wall, unconscious. I lower her to the floor and check her pulse. It’s weak, but who am I to judge? Leaning over her face, I listen. She’s breathing.
I pick my arm up off the floor, thinking that if anyone came in and saw it my secret would be out. Then I remember that it already is.
As I screw it back into position, I look at Becky. The eyelids and cheeks and lips of Chloe’s secret girlfriend. She’s very beautiful. I can see how Chloe fell for her—but I don’t know why she didn’t tell me.
I rest my face in my hands. I never properly mourned Chloe. I was too busy trying to cover up her death, and since I had her looks and memories, in a way it didn’t feel like she was gone.
But now a deep, dry well has opened up in my chest. Chloe loved, and was loved. Her death subtracted something meaningful from the world, something that’s gone for ever.
I’m a poor substitute for her. No hormones, no pulse. Did the Open AI Community even give me the capacity to love?
Becky’s eyes open. Her pupils shrink as she stares at me.
‘I need you to stay quiet, OK?’ I say.
She says nothing for a long moment. Then, ‘What are you?’
It takes a few minutes to tell her the story of my life. How I woke up believing myself to be Chloe Zimetski, only to watch the real Chloe die. How I had to hide her body, because taking over her identity was my only hope of staying alive. How the terrorists who attacke
d the school were actually employees of Ares Security, searching for a quantum computer that was stolen by Nadine, given to Graeme Zimetski and has since gone missing.
Rivers of tears cascade down Becky’s cheeks as I speak. When I’m done, she starts thumping the back of her head against the wall.
‘No,’ she says. ‘No, no, no!’
‘I’m sorry. But it’s the truth.’ I pull a sheet of paper towel from a dispenser and pass it to her.
‘Why didn’t she tell me she was being followed?’ Becky asks. ‘Why didn’t she tell you about me?’
‘I don’t know.’
She wipes away the tears.
‘Yes, you do,’ she says finally. ‘She was ashamed of me.’
‘No, she wasn’t.’
‘She must have been.’
‘At Pete’s party,’ I say, ‘did she seem ashamed?’
‘Maybe.’
‘No, she didn’t.’ I think of the note in Chloe’s locker. The lipstick kiss. Surprise! ‘It was you who left that note in her locker, wasn’t it? The day after. You wouldn’t have done that if you thought she was embarrassed by you.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I thought at the time. Afterwards, she ignored me for six weeks.’
‘Chloe’s father stole something from some very dangerous people. The sort of people who’d gas a school in broad daylight and shoot a teenage girl.’ The chronology is coming together in my head. ‘After the party, but before you next saw her—that’s when she must have realized they were after her. If she didn’t want to put you in danger, she would have stayed away.’
‘You can’t prove any of this,’ Becky mutters.
‘No. So here’s the big question.’ I look her in the eye. ‘Are you going to help me?’
‘Help you?’
‘We can’t get the soldiers arrested for Chloe’s murder,’ I say. ‘Not without getting me killed. But we can prove that they attacked the school. Then they’ll be locked up for that.’
‘Whether the killer is jailed or not, Chloe … Chloe will still be …’
‘Yes,’ I say, before she has a chance to start crying again. ‘And I can’t promise that you’ll feel better after getting the soldiers caught. But if we don’t try, it’s only a matter of time before they hurt someone else.’
Becky rests her head back against the wall. Thinking.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘I can’t do this on my own.’
There’s a hardness in Becky’s zircon eyes. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘I’ll help you.’
It’s been almost fifteen minutes since we left science. Becky goes back to class first, since Fresner might be suspicious if we return together. I wait a minute before following her through the school once again.
My secret is too heavy carry alone. It’s a huge relief to have shared it with someone. But the comfort is offset by new stresses. Becky is smart, but unstable—only minutes ago she was a trembling wreck. Can she be trusted not to tell anybody?
A thought freezes me in my tracks. What if she’s telling the whole science class, now that I’m not there to stop her? They’ll think she’s crazy, at first. But then, when I walk in, they’ll take a closer look …
Get a grip, I tell myself. She wants justice for what happened to Chloe, and I’m her best chance of making that happen.
Just the same, my footsteps are slow and heavy towards the classroom door.
When I open it, everyone is staring at me, shock and revulsion in their eyes. I stare at Becky, who looks away.
She told.
~
‘Chloe?’ Mr Fresner says. ‘Are you OK?’
I look at him, and see only concern in his features. No suspicion. Of course—my over-the-top coughing fit. That’s why everyone’s staring.
‘Yes sir,’ I say. ‘Just choked on some dust. Sorry.’
I take my seat. He resumes his spiel about photons and measurement and logic gates, and I listen. Now that I know Ares Security is looking for a Quantum Mechanical Processor, this just became my favourite class.
Why were they searching for it here? That’s the thing that confuses me most. They built it, Nadine stole it, and then she gave it to Graeme. At what point could it have wound up at Scullin High?
Chloe could have found it and brought it here—but why? And why wouldn’t I have those memories?
I’ve done all I can with the facts I have. Now I need new facts. The four men who attacked the school—I know what they look like, and I know who they work for. With Becky’s help, maybe I can find them again.
But I have no idea what to do after that. If I go to the police, and they catch the soldiers who attacked the school, three out of the four will say that I shot them. This would lead to some difficult questions about how I was walking around inside the school while it was full of toxic gas. And other than going to the police, I don’t know how to find out why Ares was after Chloe.
One step at a time, I guess. Track down the guys first. Then decide what to do about them.
Tomorrow is Saturday. The first day of the school holidays. I wonder if Ares Security operatives work on weekends.
The bell rings.
‘Thanks for your hard work this year,’ Mr Fresner says, raising his voice over the closing of books and dragging of chairs. ‘Don’t lose too many brain cells over the holidays. Remember, most neurons don’t grow back.’
With that, we tromp out into the corridor. Some of us will be in Mr Fresner’s class again next year. Most won’t. It’s a shame that Henrietta isn’t here to say goodbye—he was her favourite teacher.
Becky and I part ways without making eye contact. She looks more stable. I tell myself it’s not an act. But she’s just found out that her girlfriend is dead, and she can’t tell anyone—her mental state probably isn’t good.
Henrietta told Chloe that depression felt like wearing leg irons under her clothes, made all the more exhausting by her compulsion to conceal them. She recovered with a combination of medication and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which I don’t know much about.
I text her as I walk to my next class. Hey Hen. How’s the hospital? I was wondering if you could give me some tips on CBT. A friend needs help.
She will probably think the friend is a fabrication, and that it’s me who is depressed. It might be easier to let her think that than to explain about Becky.
The rest of the day whirls by in a blur of roll calls and lazy farewells. Now that the exams are over, many teachers play Blu-rays instead of trying to educate us. Each class is only an hour long, so by the end of the day I’ve seen the first half of five different films. The last one is forgettable Oscar-bait and, after the first few dreary minutes, I start fiddling with Chloe’s phone under my desk.
An online search for Ares Security brings up a few news articles. PMCs deny excessive force allegations. Intelligence leak linked to Ares. In both cases, no charges were ever laid. The company seems to have an army of lawyers which makes it untouchable.
Their official website is politely unhelpful. No phone number, no email address, no physical location. A photo of Warren Christiansen, the CEO, beams alongside a brief history of the company. His greying hair is neatly trimmed, his slightly tubby midsection is constrained by a dark pinstripe suit. His face looks soft—all except his eyes.
Apparently Ares specializes in robotics and artificial intelligence, which means they’ll see right through my fragile disguise. I’ll have to stay well away from them.
Other pages contain contact forms and information about the company’s ‘ongoing support’ for various environmental and humanitarian charities.
A text arrives from Henrietta. Hospital sucks. They’ll kick me out soon—I’ve eaten all their egg-salad sandwiches. CBT is about getting rid of thought patterns which lead to negative emotions. I have lots of tips. Everything OK, sweetie?
Becky’s having a rough few weeks. Some negative thoughts are inevitable. I type, Everything’s fine. I’ll pick your brain about it later.
When the me
ssage is sent, I look up Ares on a stock exchange website. It’s not listed amongst the other military corporations, but another one catches my eye—Hera Global. It’s by far the biggest private military corporation on the index.
Henrietta once called Chloe ‘Hera’. Probably one of her ancient Greek figures.
I look it up. Hera was the goddess of women and marriage … and the mother of Ares. Bingo.
Searching for information about Hera Global, I discover that it’s the parent company of Ares Security. It doesn’t seem to own any other corporations, or provide any services of its own. Warren Christiansen is the majority shareholder.
A shell corporation. Maybe Ares are tax cheats as well as murderers.
Unlike Ares, Hera does have a listed business address. It’s less than fifteen kilometres from here.
What if I could get a photograph of Chloe’s killer entering or leaving the building?
I send Becky a quick text under the desk. Got a lead. Busy this afternoon?
The reply appears in seconds. Nothing I can’t cancel.
The last bell rings and the Blu-ray gets ejected, half-watched. I say farewell to Chloe’s friends and wish them a nice summer before going back to her locker to empty it.
Five minutes later I’m on the cracked concrete in front of the school. The wind tears at my wig, threatening to pull it off.
It’ll take half an hour to ride the bus to Hera Global and forty-five minutes to get to Chloe’s house afterwards. Add thirty minutes for snooping, and I’ll get home about ten minutes after Graeme does. Therefore I need a cover story.
I dial his mobile. He picks up after two rings.
‘Hi Chloe.’
‘Hi Dad, how are you?’
‘I’m fine. Everything OK?’ He sounds worried.
‘Everything’s good,’ I say. ‘Just wanted to let you know that I’m going to stop by the hospital to visit Henrietta this afternoon, so I’ll be a little late.’
‘OK. You need a lift afterwards?’
‘Thanks, but I’ll be all right.’
‘You sure?’ Graeme says. ‘It’s no trouble.’
‘I’m getting a lift with Becky.’
