Mona

by Dan Sehlberg

  Each page in the notebook was full of writing. He didn’t recognise the language. It looked more like symbols than words, on page after page of perfect lines of characters and notes. The whole thing seemed to have been written over a long period of time, using different pens. There was a spot of something on one page, and the ink in several of the symbols had run with the humidity.

  The squirrel threw a large pinecone at a white Renault that was parked under the tree.

  Why had Constable Pierre Balzac made all of these strange notes? This was hardly a regular old police notepad. There was something that didn’t fit. What the hell did the notebook have to do with the terrorists at Maréchal Foch? He went through the series of events. Balzac had answered a disturbance call from … what was her name? Scribé … Marie Scribé. Balzac must have gone to her door first, to find out why she had called. Had he had the notebook with him at that point? Maybe Marie Scribé would remember. He picked up the phone and called Pages Blanches, the French phone directory. They quickly found Scribé’s number, and forwarded his call. The phone rang eight times before anyone answered.

  ‘Allô?’

  ‘Bonjour, Madame Scribé. I’m sorry to disturb you. My name is Laurent Mutz and I’m a police officer. I’m calling because …’

  ‘It is really quite appalling!’

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘The Lord gives us clear commands in Exodus, does He not?’

  Judging by her voice, she was younger than he’d thought at first — around fifty, he’d guess.

  ‘You’re thinking of God’s ten commandments to Moses, Madame?’

  ‘Oh no, absolutely not just to Moses. To us all!’

  Laurent watched another projectile leave the tree and land on the white Renault.

  ‘You are quite right. The commandments are for all of us. I have a question I would like to ask you, Madame. It’s about yesterday, of course.’

  ‘The Lord did not give us 10,000 commandments, did He? If He had, it might have been difficult to keep track of all of them. He gave us ten. Just ten. Why so few? Because that’s all that was necessary. And because He knew that His Earthly servants had limited minds. Only ten, so we would remember them. And now … the fifth … The fifth one was violated right in front of my door.’

  There was a rustling sound on the line. He thought he heard her lighting a cigarette.

  ‘You’re thinking of the fifth commandment, Madame, Thou shalt not kill.’

  ‘But they shot him. One of the Lord’s children. Right in front of my door.’

  Was that a sob he heard on the line? He cleared his throat.

  ‘Before this occurred, Constable Balzac talked to you. Is that right?’

  ‘He was very polite. Calm and assured. A handsome man who liked his job. An important job. All of you are doing a very good job, I want you to know that. It’s not easy to be a police officer these days. Not with all these Arabs, perverted homos, and druggie beggars. And all the corrupt politicians and children with AIDS. You’re all doing a good job.’

  ‘Thank you, Madame. When you talked to Constable Balzac, did you happen to notice whether he was taking notes in a notebook?’

  ‘A notebook? No, I didn’t see one.’

  Laurent was disappointed.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure that he didn’t have a notebook with him. And he couldn’t use the one I gave him, as full of scribbling as it was.’

  Laurent stood up from the plastic chair.

  ‘You gave him a notebook?’

  ‘Poor man. He was so handsome. Here in my hallway one second, and dead in the stairwell the next.’

  ‘Madame, I’ll repeat my question. Did you give Balzac a notebook?’

  ‘You don’t have to sound so harsh. I gave him a notebook.’

  ‘I apologise. May I ask where you got that notebook, Madame? Was it your notebook, perhaps?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, no. I’m no scribbler. That thing belonged to the blackheads. The ones who shot the constable.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  She blew out smoke. The sound was unmistakable.

  ‘Because I found it just after the blackheads left. Someone must have dropped it. I know it wasn’t there earlier, and when I took out the trash I found it on the stairwell.’

  Incredible. One notebook had been found twice in the same place.

  ‘Thank you kindly, Madame. You have been a great help.’

  ‘Have I? Well, I suppose that’s good. Now be careful. Listen to the Lord, and you won’t be led astray.’

  He hung up and stood still for a moment, staring at the notebook. Its pages fluttered in the wind, full of line after line of incomprehensible symbols. There was page after page after page of it.

  Stockholm, Sweden

  They were both sleeping deeply. Eric was on his stomach, as always, with his face buried in the pillow. Hanna was on her back, her arms along her side. Her eyelids were twitching, and her fingertips trembled.

  She was wandering through a vast landscape. It was golden. The sky was red. She was naked. Her feet sank into the golden sand. It was neither warm nor cold, and there was no breeze. Was she on her way to or from? No trees, no mountains, no contours. Just sand and an even horizon in all directions. She had never been here before. At the same time, the view seemed familiar. There was a story here. Traditions millions of years old. Even though it was all just sand and sky, there was a dignity, a wisdom, about the place. This was where everything began. This was the place of origin. This insight was clear. It was as though someone or something was holding its breath in anticipation.

  Her nakedness exhilarated her. Was there a pre-determined path, or were all directions the same? Something flashed in the red sunlight. She put up a hand to shade her eyes, and squinted at the horizon. Nothing. She stood still, waiting. There it was again. Something in the sand up ahead. She walked faster. The sand was as fine as flour under her feet. She tried to keep her eyes on the reflection, afraid of losing her way. It was farther off than she’d thought. The fine sand made it harder and harder to walk. She kept going. Just as she was certain she’d lost her bearings, she caught sight of the object. A clock. An old-fashioned black alarm clock, half-covered in sand. She picked it up and blew off the glittering sand. The clock had stopped. She turned it over and found the key for winding it. Something inside her cried that it was wrong to wind the clock. She hesitated, her hand on the large key. She looked around. Then she began to turn the key. It was as if her hand had a mind of its own. Her hand turned and turned. She watched her fingers as though they no longer belonged to her. Then it stopped. The key couldn’t turn any more. She didn’t want to let go, but the damage was already done. She could feel something coming to life deep inside the clock. When she turned it back over, the hands began to move, but they were going in the wrong direction. They spun backwards, their speed increasing. Around and around. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the spinning hands. They spun faster and faster. She felt sick. This was the thing that wasn’t supposed to happen. Now there was no way to undo it.

  The glass cracked with a pop. She sank to her knees, holding the clock close, suddenly in despair. She wanted to protect it. She knew that was more important than anything else. Purple liquid ran down over her hands. It was sticky and cold. The hands of the clock were turning back time. Then a dull rumble rolled across the dunes. She turned around. In the distance, the red sky was darkening. The clock had released something — summoned it. She let the clock go and started to run.

  The darkness was still far off, but she could feel the place changing. The sand was wetter. It sucked hard at her feet, and she had to yank them free with each step. She ran, stumbled, and kept running. She didn’t have to turn around to know that the darkness was catching up. The storm followed her shadow, swallowing it. She
knew that the world was dying. Not just in this place, but everywhere else, too. Everything disappeared into the black storm. Her feet sank deeper and deeper into the wet sand. She fell. The clock appeared again, lying in a bubbling pool of the purple liquid. The hands spun relentlessly behind the cracked glass. The roar of the storm was deafening. On hands and knees, she raised her eyes to the sky, conquered. The red sun was gone. Above her roared the dense, eternal darkness. Then the sand under her disappeared, and she fell headlong into the empty nothingness.

  Jerusalem, Israel

  David Yassur slammed the phone down so hard that it flew off the desk and hit the floor with a bang. ‘Lech lehizadayen! Harah!’ Cursing was unusual in Hebrew, but David had a large vocabulary. His assistant looked at him anxiously. David bellowed, ‘Get Jacob Nachman in here.’

  She stood up quickly, glad to leave the room. David drummed his hands against the desk impatiently. Everything was going to hell. The backup of the banking system had been delayed, and no one could say why. Directives had gone missing, and important institutions hadn’t received the necessary programs. But that wasn’t the worst thing. There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Jacob opened the door.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’

  David looked at him with a grim expression.

  ‘Have a seat.’ He indicated one of the visitors’ chairs. Jacob chose to remain standing.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I just talked to the minister of finance. The virus is already in our systems.’

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Eric had prepared a simple breakfast. Now he was paging through the arts and culture section of Dagens Nyheter. It had been a long time since they did anything cultural together. He could hear Hanna rummaging around in the bathroom. Last night had been fantastic. It was as though she had regained her faith in him. Was that because he was more relaxed, or because he had managed to get Mind Surf working? He pushed aside his cynical thoughts and concentrated on the theatre listings.

  ‘Shit!’

  Hanna ran though the apartment.

  ‘Shit, shit!’

  ‘What is it? Calm down.’

  She came into the kitchen with jeans unbuttoned and the strap of her bra hanging across her shoulders. She held her phone up.

  ‘Twelve missed calls. Four emergency reports. Eight texts! Something’s happened at the bank — I have to get there pronto! I forgot to take it off silent before I went to sleep.’

  She disappeared into the bedroom, but called out to him, ‘What did you do to me last night?’

  ‘For dessert or for your treat?’

  He got up and fixed an open sandwich. Then he took out a mug and filled it with coffee. He met her in the hall.

  ‘Here. You have to eat breakfast. The car is right outside. Call and tell me what’s going on.’

  She kissed him and slammed the door. He went back to the kitchen, cleared the table, and put another capsule into the Nespresso machine. Ristretto again — the strongest. He was tired. He had been woken several times by Hanna, who had slept poorly all night. He took his cup of coffee to the office and logged onto his computer. Mats Hagström had sent an email to ask how things were going. Eric smiled and wrote a triumphant answer. He closed by inviting him to come over and try Mind Surf. Then he wrote a long email to thank Kyoto University for solving the Gordian knot by making the gel stronger. Just as he sent the email, the phone rang. It was Mats.

  ‘Congratulations! To both of us. Now you know that this old man still has his intuition. Damn good luck that that apple landed in the wastebasket.’

  ‘Yes, you can say that again. I’m incredibly pleased with the results. What do you say, do you want to try it?’

  ‘Of course I do! As a matter of fact, I was thinking of coming over right away. Are you at KTH?’

  ‘No. I’m working from home. Banérgatan 41.’

  ‘Splendid. I’m on my way. And you’ll be happy to hear that I’ve already instructed my assistant to send over the first payment.’

  ‘Thank you. Now we’re starting the next journey. Together.’

  Eric hung up and looked around his office. Then he opened the window and let in the fresh scent of rain. It was almost dark out, even though it was nearly ten in the morning. Thunder hung in the air. He took a sip of coffee and thought of Hanna. What could have happened at TBI?

  When Hanna got to work, she was met at the entrance by two of her closest co-workers. They were upset and out of breath. According to the main office in Tel Aviv, the bank had been hit hard by a vicious virus, and the IT department had been working on counter-measures for several hours. The first thing Hanna did was close down the online banking service and their public website. These systems were in the demilitarised zone, which was IT jargon for openly accessible networks. It was not an easy decision to make, and most of the management team was against it. But she was the director of IT, so in the end her word was law. They had to ensure at all costs that their clients weren’t infected; that would be catastrophic. The phones started ringing six minutes after the online banking was shut down. One hour later, heavy traffic caused the customer service line to crash. It was no longer possible to reach the bank by the net or by phone.

  After Hanna ordered the team to shut down the online banking site, she activated the partial firewalls between the internal systems. They acted like bulkheads on a boat, and were part of the extra protection that had been installed in the past few days. But so far there had been no concrete service interruptions, and on the surface everything seemed normal. At first, Hanna thought perhaps it was all just a drill. But then she read the reports coming in from TBI’s offices around the world and realised that this was serious. The bank was severing contact with external networks at the cost of loss of business and angry clients. No one could implement a drill like this and keep their job. The threat must be serious, and the normalcy that the bank’s system registered had to be an illusion. Whatever it was that was eluding them, it was good at digital camouflage.

  ‘As long as we’re sure where we each stand, I guess it’s okay.’

  Eric frowned as he massaged the gel into Mats Hagström’s scalp.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That we both like girls, I mean.’

  Eric laughed.

  ‘Well, I suppose there is something special about you.’

  Mats gave a start.

  ‘Eh, watch it. I know you’re married. I am, too. Several times over, in fact.’

  ‘The gel has to sit for a while. Meanwhile I’ll explain how all of this works. You’ll see websites floating in empty nothingness, but try to remain calm. If you get too excited, your brain will start producing meta-signals that interfere with the interpretive filter. The system reads a number of different signals in order to interpret your thoughts as effectively as possible. These decoded signals are translated into digital commands. Sometimes there are lags, and then it will feel like you’re moving through syrup, but you just have to wait and the system will catch up again. The lags happen because your brain produces an immense amount of information all at once. Look at it as you thinking faster than the computer.’

  Mats grimaced.

  ‘It stings. Is that normal?’

  ‘That’s supposed to happen. It means that the gel is penetrating your skin. First it will establish contact with your dura mater, the outermost membrane of the brain.’

  ‘Is there more than one membrane?’

  ‘There are three. In order for Mind Surf to work, we have to get through the innermost soft membrane, the pia mater.’

  Mats sat silently for a moment as Eric checked all the outgoing sensors on the helmet.

  ‘Why is it called “nanogel”?’

  ‘Nano means “a billionth”. In other words, the particle
s we’ve produced are extremely small. These particles are absorbed by the skin, but retain their conductive capacity. Look at them as a lot of wires that go through your skin to your brain. The gel has an intermolecular force based on van der Waal’s force.’

  Mats held up his hands.

  ‘Now you’ve lost me, but it doesn’t matter. When I see all these sites, what do I do?’

  Eric carefully placed the helmet on Mats’s head.

  ‘Clear all superfluous thoughts from your head. Focus on what you see and what you want to do. The system is very intuitive, so I think you’ll do fine. You’ll understand once you begin.’

  Mats looked nervous. Eric gave him a brotherly pat on the shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry. This is the world’s first completely safe drug. Get ready for the trip of your life!’

  The apartment was dark when she unlocked the front door, and Eric must have been asleep for a long time. Why didn’t he ever leave a light on when he knew she would be late? Always in his own damn bubble, closed off and absent minded. Hanna went to the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a note on the table: he had left a Caesar salad for her in the fridge. A dry cinnamon bun from 7-Eleven was the only thing she’d eaten all day, but she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach ached. Ovulation? Her head ached. Stress? She wanted a cigarette, although she hadn’t smoked for several years. She went to the dining room and looked through the display case. Then she sneaked into the bedroom and slipped soundlessly into the closet, where she found a wrinkled pack of Marlboros in one of her evening bags. Back in the kitchen, she poured a glass of Rioja and sat down at the dining-room table. The oven clock said it was sixteen minutes past one. She was completely exhausted. She’d had dreams last night. She couldn’t remember what they were about, but a strong sense of unease still hung over her. She thought through her day at work. There was still nothing to indicate that there really was a virus in the bank’s network. But Tel Aviv was sure it was there.

  Hanna took a deep drag of the cigarette and looked down at the note on the table again. What would happen with Eric now? Would the success of Mind Surf bring him out of his solitude? She was tired of always being the one who took all the initiative, and of being the one who brought it up when things weren’t going well between them. Why did she have to assume the role of crabby bitch? If he could choose, everything would just get shoved under the rug, day in and day out. She drank a little wine and ran her finger across the letters on the note. He had nice handwriting. And nice hands. She had noticed that the first time they met. Nice hands were sexy.