The tunnel road dropped down into a heather-dominated landscape, and dotted amongst the greenery were a collection of imposing white stone villas. The design of these villas added a surreal dimension to the typical highland panorama that held their foundations. The MC-Project personnel alighted outside one of the white stone buildings and Vain started to scan the wider terrain.
On three sides, sheer granite rock faces towered upwards to a height of several hundred metres, and lower mountain slopes accounted for the remaining valley side. This most distant side involved a fern clad hillside, which initially rose up in a more leisurely climb. After a distance of three or four kilometres, this gradual climb started to develop into a steep rise, echoing the sheer faces that accounted for the other valley sides. The fourth side eventually rose to a height that dwarfed the other flanks, culminating in a mountain peak of over two thousand metres. Vain thought that this craggy ‘lock-in’ represented one of the most beautiful landscape visions that he had ever encountered.
A posse of jet fighters roared overhead, breaking Greg’s concentration for a moment. The grey planes were reflected in the river that meandered through the settlement, and as the fighters split to patrol different valley sides, Vain was dragged back into his less aesthetic reality. Voight placed his hand on Vain’s shoulder and ushered him toward a white villa close by. As the two walked, he added more details pertaining to their surroundings.
“Call it what you want Gregory, a village, a settlement, even a refuge! Either way it’s now home to over two hundred MC-Project members. In addition to the houses, we’ve installed a school, some food stores and a doctor’s surgery. Right now things may be a bit spartan outside the residences, but the houses themselves are upmarket luxury. The only thing that they really lack is ‘live’ media - for obvious reasons”.
Voight hadn’t lied. The entrance hall had a black and white marble-tiled floor and mahogany-panelling rose from the floor to the ceiling. Black wood trappings added an embellished degree of finish, and the downstairs was split into open-plan glass partitioned sections. A spiral staircase was located centrally in the hall, and the overall effect seemed compromised somewhere between retro-Bauhaus and deconstructionalist minimalism.
After ascending the staircase, Vain entered the sleeping quarters. All four bedrooms were empty and he started to feel uneasy - first the silence, now the absence. The sound of juvenile laughter broke his pessimistic train of thought. The sound came from above him and as he progressed back onto the landing he located a second staircase, this time straight in form. He proceeded to climb the stairs and was rewarded this time by finding all his family together, watching a ‘Laurel and Hardy’ video on a laser screen. They hadn’t heard his quiet footfall, and so Greg had the rare privilege of being the first to speak.
“Has this breakfast club got room for another bum gang?”
“Daddy” chorused the children and Vain was swamped by the hugs of his children.
After Gary and Rachel had greeted their father, Tanya Vain took her husband in her arms and loved him with her eyes, saying nothing initially. With the video forgotten, the family filled in the key domestic details that had taken place in Greg’s absence. Although all the family members now had some idea of Greg’s nature of work, the conversation stayed on birthdays and juvenile milestones. All the Vain family had experienced what life had been like as a ‘public enemy’, but this first precious reunion day was spent walking along the margins of the valley river and fun-wrestling in their heather clad surroundings. The day had subsequently been a celebration for Greg and Tanya’s children and the ‘expected’ conversation didn’t ensue until late in the evening when the adults were in their bedroom. With the children asleep in their adjoining rooms, Tanya spoke to her husband in colder tones than the daylight hours had witnessed.
“Do you think your project buddies ever played ‘happy families’, Greg?”
“You what?”
“Well if they did, they’ve got one fucking obscure definition of happiness, you know. If you could have seen the tears on our kid’s faces when the lynch-mob stormed our old house, you would have wept yourself - Christ I did! You see all we had was the Sinquiry prompt, that was our only expectation level.
“What the hell would have happened if Rachel and I hadn’t seen that programme, what if we’d been out in central London? Don’t answer that one, Greg, because you know that we would have been wiped out - the public were like a rabid fucking animal!”
“Come off it Tan, you’re speaking as though I had expected that type of public reaction and as though I could have got word to you. I thought I’d…”
Tanya cut her husband short.
“Let me finish, Gregory. You have got to understand how things were for us - one minute you were a media hero, but the next you were the reason our lives were in jeopardy! I mean, look at us now, Greg, is this a Scottish haven like they tell us, or is it a prison in disguise? We can’t leave you know, we can’t even buy a loaf of bread without our every move being scanned by guards and cameras. I bet that even if we made love tonight, some of your colleagues would video scan my orgasms!”
“What do you mean ‘even if we made love?’”
“Still a one track mind then, Greg. Oh yeah I forget, you haven’t seen the Greg Vain media profile we’ve all witnessed have you? You’d better refresh your memory then love, because the British TV cameras weren’t quite as naive as you obviously think I was. Why the hell were you and Marcia Levene going back to the project Designation together? The fucking media said that you had received new project freedoms! What the hell did that mean to you, Greg - the freedom to fuck someone else!
“When your lot briefly tried to play things media-friendly, the tabloids had a field day. What was I supposed to think, Greg, I mean she’s not exactly ugly is she, but screw her - you probably have - there is still one area you’ve got to clear up with me, mister. Did you have any opportunity to warn me and the kids of the hell that would confront us?”
“No I bloody didn’t, Tan! God, you three are everything to me. She’s nothing. When the cameras shot us in the same car, I’d been on project business - jeez I’d pulled the Uzi because I had confidential project info in the car! Remember, sometimes telly is a twisted reality. Look, you’ve given me chances in the past, more than an angel, but she’s work and all the routine that goes with it”.
“Fuck her Greg, you’ve still side-tracked my main question - could you have pre-warned us?”
“No, no, a fucking thousand times, no! Do you think I’d let you and the kids suffer if I could do anything about it, love?”
The pair continued talking into the small hours. Tanya became convinced that Vain still loved her and their children like he always had, although she still doubted her husband’s account of his feelings towards Levene. Despite her doubts she saw that area as secondary to their family bond, especially after the devastation that had affected them all in recent days. As the conversation turned less heated, Tanya took Vain through their London evacuation in detail and then filled him in on their journey to the highlands. The pair drifted into a more uneasy sleep than on previous reunions - they didn’t make love that night.
Tanya was pleased when she realised that Greg and the family would be together for just over a month, and as the summer days rolled by, the Vains enjoyed some of their happiest times as a unified family. Greg and Gary went fishing in the small tributaries that left the river, whilst Tanya and Rachel prepared them campfire food close by. All four of them climbed the lower slopes of the furthest valley reaches and their only reminder of the MC-Project were the fighter fly-overs every seven or eight minutes. Tanya feared that these times were ‘too good to last’, as Greg and her seemed to be as close as they ever had been by the end of the first week. Their love making had reflected this with a regained tenderness replacing the suspicion of their first reunion night.
Greg also felt like had never been away, never strayed, never lusted or loved another. He
had adored the natural love his family had showered him with, and hadn’t felt the need to ruin this ambience with revelations to Tanya about the plastic alterations he would shortly fall victim to.
At dawn on day seventeen their tranquillity was shattered, and Tanya’s fears proved to be foundered. The couple were rudely awakened on that morning by the harsh penetrating signal of Gregory Vain’s Comm-Lynx device. Mr Voight substituted the speaker’s role that Mason previously used to enjoy. His first on-line call to Vain was the most important message carried by this device thus far!
“Gather your things together Gregory, Mishimo Ko-Chai is dead”.
Vain was shocked to the core - his best project friend was dead! It took him several seconds to build a reply.
“How, Mr Voight, he was all project, he will be irreplaceable”.
“A heart attack, a massive one. He worked himself to death, he couldn’t stop, you know. He will never die in terms of spirit, and like you say he was all project. We are going to send him out with full military honours in Washington in three days time. The man is an American hero and all MC-Project staff will be in attendance following his funeral cortege. It will mark the last time that the world will see us on a public level - the Rochaux treatment has been brought forward accordingly, following a week after the funeral. Now get your things together, we are out of here in twenty minutes time”.
As Vain flung clothes into a travel bag and other essentials into a suitcase he turned to his long-suffering wife.
“Tan, I love ya more than ever you know. If I could rewind the clock, I wouldn’t have put y…”
Tanya took his words away.
“Don’t say it, love. I followed you then and I’ll wait again, you know”.
“Even if I come back with a different fucking face, love? They’re going to give us plastic to mask our old identities. We don’t have any say. Jeez I feel fucking guilty going on about my fucking face, love - my best project buddy is gone and all I can do is go on about my fucking face”.
For the first time since childhood, Vain cried. Tanya finished her husband’s packing and briefly cradled Greg in her arms. She had the last line before he departed, one of the most beautiful that Greg had ever heard.
“If every part of your face is rendered plastic, Greg, I’ll still kiss your tears and taste your mouth, I’ll still love you for thousands of yesterdays and seventeen days of highland paradise. Plastic doesn’t change the man. I love you, Vain”.
FIFTEEN
Vain’s hand released the moist soil, and it fell across the lid of Mishimo Ko-Chai’s coffin. America had honoured their naturalised brother, and the faint drizzle hadn’t deterred the two million citizens who had flanked the funeral cortege route. After a seventeen cannon salute in the Arlington National cemetery, Ko-Chai’s hearse had been ceremonially driven through the streets of Washington DC, and following the vehicle containing the body of Ko-Chai, President Delavoy’s limousine had escorted the funeral cars in their slow progression. The President had personally requested this duty, and Denison had granted favour with the elegance that America had expected of him. In addition to his skilled organisational expertise, Leif was blessed with a solemnity of purpose that endeared him to the bastions of protocol and reserve. Some saw the MC Project leader as a man possessed with the kind of mettle that might some day see him succeed Delavoy in a presidential role.
The crowds had watched the funeral procession in a dignified silence that was quite uncanny when compared to the usual level of noise associated with DC on a Wednesday morning. The fact that Delavoy was in attendance did provide a reason for a proportion of the interest, but Ko-Chai’s death had brought the calm and quiet atmosphere. America had always saluted the MC Project members, and Ko-Chai had been a figure who had experienced frequent media profiling, as he had turned from his home country in favour of residing in the ‘land of the free’. The average American thus behaved in a converse fashion to their British equivalents, celebrating rather chastising MC-Project personnel. Ko-Chai’s funeral subsequently became a metaphor for unified American emotion, and the tears on Twenty First Street encapsulated Ko-Chai’s latent magnitude to a level of great testimony.
After the funeral service was over, the MC-Project cohort were briefly given time to pass on their condolences to Mishimo’s wife before they would have to board transportation vehicles to take them back to Designation Y - their permanent Washington base. Vain was glad that he would finally meet Mrs Ko-Chai, and he was also pleased that his friend had been laid to rest in a private service that didn’t allow for any intrusive crowds. He took the woman’s hands in his and found the words to fully express his grief.
“Alice, I bet Mishimo’s smiling down on us right now, you know. I’ve never met a man with a better sense of honour, and a tenderness that left the rest of us morally trailing in his wake. He was my best friend, and my heart goes out to you”.
“Thank you Gregory, he loved you like a son. I know you through the descriptions he gave to me; you were his best friend likewise. Now part of me feels that this may be our first and last meeting - so please give your wife or daughter this”.
As the pair embraced in friendship, Alice Ko-Chai pushed a small amethyst broach into Vain’s hand. Ko-Chai would stay with the Vain family.
Vain looked around him as he headed towards the MC-Project transportation vehicle. He saw Tavini looking rather brash in a black power suit, with Marco Sant and Hannah Nichol walking at his side. Denison was locked in conversation with Jess Wheeler, and Fray was an isolated figure, looking quite disconsolate. Vain wondered how long it would be before the ex-security head would prove additional to project requirements. A chill ran through him.
Designation Y was the most sumptuous underground Designation yet, being a far cry from the claustrophobic horrors of Chicago’s hellhole. The sleeping quarters were quite luxurious, and when Vain returned from Ko-Chai’s funeral he relaxed, splaying his frame across the soft cover sheets of his double bed. Denison had stated that MC Project work didn’t resume until Friday, and he looked forward to tracking Diana Fearston down later in the day. After Ko-Chai’s death, Fearston represented Vain’s closest professional friendship within the ranks of the MC Project, and he felt that both of them shared a bond concerning their mutual working prerogatives. His mind didn’t turn to Levene. After his family bond had been rejuvenated in Scotland, Marcia’s hold on him had weakened to a significant level. Vain was envisaging the workload that lay ahead of him, when a recorded message from Dwight Richards came down his Comm-Lynx.
“Hi, Greg. Your presence is requested for an audience with David Tavini at 1700 hours in Room 18 Level 4”.
Vain shook his head. He felt that whatever the context, Tavini was walking on the grave of his friend by appointing a meeting only a few hours after the funeral service. He initially thought about showing his disgust by observing a policy of non-attendance, but he knew that his maverick attitude had led him into disrepute before. Although he technically still had a higher project rank than Tavini, he felt that the opinions of the MC Project chain of command seemed to favour his American front-line colleague. He decided that common sense should prevail ahead of moral-bound valour. He would go.
When he entered the designated meeting room at 1655, he was reasonably surprised to find the entire top ranking MC-Project cohort in attendance. Vain caught the eye of Levene. She smiled, but when his gaze contacted Jess Wheeler’s eyes, the security number one looked through him. At the appointed hour, Dwight Richards spoke to the assembly, echoing the unusual level of formality that hung over the venue.
“This audience has been requested by Mr David Marius Tavini. Mr Tavini holds the most senior position with regard to our digital conversion work, and he believes that our future practical direction should involve a new third prerogative. In addition to our primary work and our more recent ‘mindsight’ focus, Mr Tavini wishes to concentrate on some physical sections of brain structure during developmental stages. Mr Denis
on has witnessed the efforts of David and his research team with regard to this third prerogative, and he gave his full consent for this audience to take place. Mr Tavini will now relate the details surrounding our third prerogative”.
As Richards had spoken, Vain had felt both anger and fear run through him. He was highly suspicious of Tavini’s private research team, but he guessed that Marco Sant and Hannah Nicol would be part of it. He was also suspicious of the ‘third prerogative’, as it seemed to lie in his neurological domain, and yet this was the first he had heard of a possible new direction. The late-arriving Diana Fearston stopped Vain’s reflections. She sat next to Greg, smiling her greetings. Tavini moved toward the front of the room after he had vacated his seat. His seating position had been right next to Wheeler, and Vain hoped that this wasn’t indicative of a closer power alliance between the two. Tavini spoke.
“Yo, folks. Thanks Dwight for the formality. Look - this is gonna be a brand new subject area for most of you, so I’m going to break things to you in my own language, my own style. Leif thinks that will be better and so do I. When my enthusiasm kicks in, my language sounds like a Seattle pile-driver and as this new prerogative has a ‘white hot’ interest factor for me, you can expect a few words will be used that may differ somewhat from some of my more well spoken colleagues! If any of you need to ask me questions, try and wait for a convenient pause, but if you can’t find one hurl them out my way. Right, here goes”.
After talking at the pace of a speed addict, Tavini drew a very audible breath before launching into his audience.
“We have been working back to front folks, back to fucking front! We’ve been working from corpses to villains. Yeah, our primary research area did bang up some undesirables - for sure, but let’s face it people, we’re dealing with a ‘tip of the iceberg’ success ratio here. As criminals wisen up more, systemised decapitation and brain destruction will feature on a more professional level. Our criminal impetus was our MC-showcase - nothing more”.
Thirty Four Minutes DEAD Page 21
