DoriaN A

by Jon Jacks

  ‘I think we’ve drifted a little off track here, Dorian. Remember – I came looking for you because I was worried one of your “successful creations” might not be so perfect after all?’

  ‘Ah, yes, yes; this supposed defect.’

  ‘“Supposed” defect?’

  He took me gently by the shoulders.

  ‘Look, honestly Angeic – there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, trust me on this one, right? If it makes you feel better, I’ll run a few extra tests and checks, okay?’

  He looked deep into to my eyes to show he meant it.

  I nodded, but said, ‘I don’t get how you can be so sure that everything’s bound to be okay. You’ve had defects before in your prototypes – I’ve seen them begin to fall apart until you figured out what was wrong and fixed the problem.’

  I shuddered at the memory of some of the Animadroids and even Bots that I’d seen gradually decaying over a few days. Even, in some cases, a few hours.

  He shrugged, like he was saying, ‘Hey, it’s just one of those things you have to accept when you’re trying to advance science.’

  Then it dawned on me.

  He was using Dorian A to research immunity; had he deliberately built faults such as a weakness to cuts and injury into Dorian A’s makeup?

  ‘It’s not a defect at all, is it?’ I said accusingly. ‘You’ve made him susceptible to cuts to help your research.’

  He pulled back with a chuckle and surprise in his eyes.

  ‘Angeic! You really think I’d do that to a creation who’s my twin? Think about it – the cut’s probably just something left over from when you scratched him trying to take off his mask!’

  He laughed.

  ‘Let’s admit it – he really fooled you into thinking he was me, didn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t start that again!’

  I gave him a half-hearted push to his chest, no longer sure whether I should be angry with him or amused by his trick.

  ‘You’re still avoiding my question – is he in danger of falling apart in front of me, like that poor Flamingodroid you thought you’d succeeded in creating?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Dorian A’s been formed from a completely different process – one in which I’ve used morphic fields.’

  ‘Morphic fields? That sounds suspiciously like a whole new technology Dorian: which means there’s even more things that could go wrong, right?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Ah ah – not in this case. See, what people don’t seem to realise when they talk about DNA being a blueprint that just keeps replicating itself is that it doesn’t really explain why one of those replicating strands decides it’s going to be, say, a piece of a finger, rather than another strand that decides it’s going be a brain cell – and thankfully in just the right place too. Well, it’s the morphic fields that help each strand decide what part of the whole it’s destined to be; and in Dorian A’s case, I linked us together and drew on my own field to ensure he was being accurately formed.’

  ‘I’m sure that would all make perfect sense to someone, Dorian, but–’

  The door behind me suddenly swung open.

  ‘Everything’s ready for you to view – oh, sorry to interrupt sir.’

  A yellow-cloaked technician stood in the doorway, his hand on a portable room-environment control, a finger still hovering over the button it had pressed.

  With a muted whirr, the angled glass wall to my left began to swiftly lose its opaqueness.

  ‘Not yet, not just yet!’ Dorian snapped urgently, striding toward the technician and reaching for the controls.

  But it was too late; the glass wall had completely cleared, giving me a clear view of the larger room stretching out below us.

  Across the wide floor, a whole regiment of Tigerdroids had formed up into a precisely defined rectangle. Yet they weren’t wearing the uniforms of the army; they all wore the dark blue of the police.

  Tigerdroids! As police!

  So Dorian had been serious after all.

   

   

  *

   

   

  ‘Using Tigerdroids as police?’

  I spun around, facing Dorian with a fierce stare.

  ‘So just when did you really come up with this stupid idea, Dorian? Not yesterday, just after we were attacked, like you tried to make out, obviously!’

  I pointed back at the neat lines of uniformed Tigerdroids. They weren’t just military Tigerdroids dressed in a different uniform; these were slightly smaller, leaner. There was also a glint of a fierce, sharp intelligence in their eyes.

  ‘You don’t create – yes, not even with your genius Dorian – you don’t just create something like that in a matter of hours! They must have been in development for a long, long time; long before that attack gave you just the opportunity you needed to promote your…’

  I drifted off, my mind whirling as it struggled to form a clearer idea of what was really going on here.

  ‘You know I’m always thinking ahead, Angeic!’

  He moved towards me, his arms wide as if he were either protesting his innocence or about to embrace me.

  ‘A good job, too, don’t you think? Now that the Perma-Leisured think it’s okay to go around attacking our cars.’

  Behind him, I noticed that the technician seemed nervous, even a little shame-faced.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right – and just how convenient was that attack in helping you fulfil your plans, eh Dorian?’

  Dorian remained characteristically straight faced. But his assistant grimaced uneasily.

  ‘Tell me, tell me Dorian – tell me you had nothing to do with that attack on us Dorian!’

  He hesitated only slightly, but enough for me to know exactly what it meant.

  ‘You did Dorian! You did!’

  ‘You were never, ever in any real danger, Angeic. I made sur–’

  ‘Made sure?’ I stormed. ‘Made sure you had all the publicity you needed to sell your idea of Tigerdroid police to the authorities!’

  I lashed out, slapping him hard across his cheek.

  I didn’t wait for any reply, or any pathetic attempt at explanations.

  Once again, I strode angrily away from Dorian, forcing my way past his assistant and letting the door slam shut behind me.

   

   

  *

 

  Chapter 6

   

  ‘Arrrghhhh! That stupid, stupid, ridiculous man!’

  It was a question of either being incredibly furious or breaking down in tears.

  Naturally, I chose to be furious.

  As soon as I was safely out of earshot in the foyer of our apartment, I let all that anger finally pour out.

  I caught the merest glimpse of Maria’s back as, sensing my fury, she quickly retreated into one of the rooms leading off from the foyer.

  ‘How could he? How could he do that to me, when he knows what all that means to me?’

  What had he done? Set the car’s DNA locks so it would recognise some guy who was obviously working for him? Told him to wave the gun, to look threatening?

  Yeah, okay, so I might not have been in any real danger, but I certainly didn’t realise that at the time!

  I glared at the large, tall vase of flowers standing in the middle of the foyer’s round table, wondering for a moment if I should send it crashing to the ground.

  No, no; what would be the point of that?

  Maria would have it replaced in less than fifteen minutes.

  And the real person I wanted to kick and spit at, Dorian, wouldn’t even know I’d been angry enough to take his head off with a furiously uncontrolled swing of my arm!

  There was a letter in the rack standing bedside the vase.

  Letters were unusual. Especially at this time of day, hours after the first post.

  It had to be a hand-delivered letter.

  ‘Miss Annegeic Haverss
ham’ was all it said on the envelope, misspelling my name.

  Very crudely written, too, almost the hand of a child.

  Printed alongside it was the familiar warning; This letter may contain undetected infections. Open only if you are sure of its contents or are aware of and familiar with the sender. Please note that you open this letter at your own risk.

  Maria would have heat-treated and subjected it to her regular checks before placing it in the rack.

  I slipped it open with the rack’s narrow-bladed knife.

  ‘Dear Miss Haverssham, I relaise you wasnt to blame for me been fired from the restraunt.’

  The waitress who had caused all the trouble at the restaurant – it must be from her.

  ‘I hope you relaise a job is important to me, as I have a mum, dad and three brothers and sisters to support. Been fired means no one else will have me or anyone else from my family. Maybe you saw what happened to Claire Proctor in Oak Tree Haven. Could you help my sister get a job by giving her refrences? If you met her I am sure you would like her cause shes not like me at all. please call me on 45tg 9s42. Thankyou. The waitress who lost her job.’

  Oak Tree Haven. The TV soap about families living in Birmingham’s outer districts.

  I’m not one of its greatest fans, but even the newscasts followed Claire Proctor’s firing from her job in a store as if it were a real event: her whole family ended up destitute, kicked out of what was already a pretty meagre apartment.

  And I’m being held responsible for that, or its real-life equivalent?

  I punched the number into my Mob, waited as it rang, wondered if I’d done the right thing when a nervously quavering voice asked, ‘Hello? It’s Kerrsly. Who’s that?’

  ‘Hi there, it’s me. Angeic. Angeic Havisham. You asked me to call.’

  ‘What?’ Disbelief. ‘Oh, right, course – I…I didn’t think you’d ring!’

  Her voice was already brightening, though I could still detect the restrained gulps of someone who had been crying.

  ‘Thanks, thanks for calling!’

  ‘Sooo…you said you had a sister who you think I could help get a job.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right! If you could help her get a job, I’d be so so grateful. And sorry about earlier, sorry about in the restaurant I mean. It was your friends, not you, and I – well, sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have said what I said!’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s okay – personally, I think firing you over it was a bit over the top, if it’s any consolation.’

  ‘It is, it is! Thanks for saying that, thanks so much! It does mean a lot to me, to know, you know, that you didn’t think I deserved it!’

  ‘Right – and your sister? How can I help her?’

  ‘Well, if you only met her, you’d see what a nice girl is! She doesn’t have the anger issues, the anger issues like I have – honest she doesn’t, miss! I wouldn’t expect you, course, to recommend her until you’d seen how nice she was.’

  ‘Could you send her somewhere where I could meet her, talk to her?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you could meet her – oh, no, wait! She can’t get into the mall miss! She’s not even allowed into the any of the Oases for a job interview, now I’ve been fired! Our DNA miss; it will have been noted on the scanners, won’t it?’

  Great. So now Dorian’s inventions were also holding this poor family back from getting a job.

  ‘Look, look,’ I said. ‘It’s no problem; I can get my chauffer to drive me just outside the walls. Which gate do I need, and when can you get her to be waiting for me?’

  ‘We live outside gate five, in the Arbour district miss! As for a time – well, I don’t suppose you could do it now miss? I’m with my sister miss, and she’s always wanted to meet you! She’s always watching you on TV, saying how beautiful you are, how she wishes she was more like you!’

  ‘Now?’

  I glanced at my watch. Why not? I might back out of it if I had more time to think.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got to get there, so it will be more like twenty minutes from now, right?’

  ‘Okay, right, that’s fine miss!’

  I heard excited, girlish giggling from someone with her, as if Kerrsly had just given her sister a thumbs up sign.

  ‘But not in the district itself, right?’ Thank goodness I wasn’t getting too carried away with all this and retaining some degree of common senses. ‘It will have to be on the main road – near the pull in to whatever that entertainment complex is called?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that miss –we’ll be there! And thanks miss, thanks so so much!’

  She ended the call with the beginnings of an elated scream I probably wasn’t supposed to hear.

  I keyed a Codecall in to my Mob as I strode back to the lift, the one telling Claude to prepare the car for a short journey outside.

  He would try to politely talk me out of it, that was for certain, reminding me how close we came to danger only yesterday.

  Hah! What was I supposed to do? Explain to him that his master and creator was a lying, no good, conniving–

  Dorian had just entered the foyer, smiling at me through the lift’s glass doors as they swung shut.

  No, no; it wasn’t Dorian. It was Dorian A, of course.

  He waved, drawing closer as I began to descend.

  I waved and grinned back, my smile fading in puzzlement as I realised why I’d momentarily confused him for Dorian.

  His cheek was reddened with the mark of a hard hand slap, like the one I’d given Dorian only moments ago.

   

   

  *

 

  Chapter 7

   

  ‘You sure about this miss?’

  Claude, as I’d expected, was nervous.

  Even as he drove, he kept glancing back at me, asking me again and again – as politely as he could, and in as many different forms as he could manage – if this was really such a good idea.

  No, it wasn’t such a good idea.

  It was one of the most ridiculously stupid things I’d ever done.

  It had seemed a good idea, the right thing to do, while I still fumed over Dorian’s arrogance and betrayal.

  As we’d slowly driven along the road leading farther and farther from the safety of the Oasis, however, my anger with Dorian had faded more than enough for me to realise how foolish this whole expedition was.

  But I wasn’t going to admit that.

  Besides, I could now see the two girls waiting by the side of the road, right by the end of the junction where I’d told them to be.

  There was no one else in sight.

  No buildings or obstructions nearby where anyone else could be hiding.

  This shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. Then we could turn around and head straight back home.

  ‘Slow down by these two girls for a moment please Claude,’ I ordered, ignoring his question.

  ‘Miss–’

  ‘Claude, please; I’m only going to talk to them through the intercom. I’m not even putting the window down.’

  I swept my hand over the buttons that cleared the window’s smoky tint and switched on the external intercom system.

  As we drew up alongside the two girls, I leant forward towards the window – and jumped back, startled.

  It was less like looking through a clear window than staring into a magical mirror, revealing how you would look more than a decade into the future.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Before I could work out what I had really seen, the car door was wrenched open.

  A girl with long greasy hair leapt in beside me, a gun pointed at my head.

  ‘You up front, Apedroid!’ she cried furiously, looking back over her shoulder towards Claude. ‘She’s dead if you don’t put your hands up where I can see them!’

  As she growled out her demands, the girl I recognised as the waitress slipped in
behind her into the passenger compartment.

  Ignoring me, she turned and opened the upper level of glass that separated us from Claude and the front seats. As lithely as a snake, she swiftly slid into the seat beside Claude and, using some instrument I couldn’t see, began to switch off, smash and otherwise immobilise what I presumed must be the car’s tracking systems.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked as coolly as I could manage.

  No one answered.

  Although the gun’s muzzle was forced tightly against my forehead, causing me to slump back as far as I could in my seat, the girl’s interest was mainly reserved for Claude, alert for any suspicious movement he might make.

  I couldn’t see the girl as clearly as I would have liked. The shadows were all wrong, my viewpoint too low, her face angled away from me.

  But there was something familiar about her, as if she had attempted to model herself on whatever she had seen of me on the newscasts.

  Is that why I thought I’d glimpsed an older, sterner version of myself through the car’s window?

  Had she deliberately copied the way I look to confuse me enough to leave me briefly off guard?

  But how did she get past the DNA locks?

  Surely Dorian wouldn’t…

  ‘Is this another of Dorian’s tricks?’ I demanded sternly

  ‘Dorian?’ She seemed genuinely puzzled by my question. ‘What would that jerk have to do with this?’

  Before I could insist on a clearer answer, I looked on in horror as the waitress raised a gun to Claude’s head.

  I screamed as she fired, the gun jumping in her hand with a muffled crack.

   

   

  *

 

  Chapter 8

   

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s not dead; just under our control.’

  The girl was right.

  When I’d heard the gun bark, I’d expected Claude’s head to explode in a sickening, gory mush.

  Instead, his head had momentarily vibrated sharply as, rather than a bullet, some form of small clamp had tightly clung to his scalp.

  The clamp remained attached to the barrel by a thin wire, no doubt a means of regulating Claude’s brain waves with electrical charges.

  ‘Start up the car and take the second left,’ the waitress ordered.

  As if he’d received his orders directly from me, Claude unquestioningly started up the car and smoothly pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘Why are you kidnapping me when I came out here to help you?’ I spat at the waitress.

  The waitress – or should that be ex-waitress? – didn’t reply.