Regeneration

by Stephanie Saulter

  “The Karma Club is the secret headquarters of the Klist Cult?” He stared at her in open-mouthed disbelief. “You cannot be serious. This is turning into a really bad vid drama.” He pulled the sheet over his head.

  “Don’t blame me, I just work here.” Sharon pulled the sheet back down. “Headquarters is probably overstating it, but there’s a lot of overlap between the people who pay their dues at the Karma Club and some of the more active members of the Klist movement.”

  “But how—who—why?”

  “How should I know? Maybe the kind of self-important snob who’s inclined to hand over ridiculous membership fees for the privilege of drinking the same wine in more expensive glasses is also the type to buy into a secret society dedicated to pursuing the Zavcka Klist model of eternal life.”

  “You don’t have strong views about this at all, I can tell.”

  “It’s the arrogance of it that makes me crazy. They don’t seem to realize that they’ve just invented a reason to feel important. You should have seen Fischer when we went back in and asked him about the Klist thing—it was the closest to a reaction we’d gotten all day, but it wasn’t embarrassment or defensiveness, oh no. He just had this superior little smile on his face, as if he expected us to be impressed.”

  “You should’ve told him it was you who arrested her. That might have knocked him back.”

  She laughed and snuggled under the blankets beside him. “I was tempted, believe me.”

  “Could she be involved? Directing them, somehow?”

  “That was my first thought, but there’s no sign that she’s ever had any communication with them, or even wanted to. The prison governor says she was disdainful whenever they were mentioned, and Offender Management is certain there’s never been any contact. But it’s significant in that it’s another point of connection between Fischer and Charles: they used to work together, they’re both members of the club, they’re both members of the cult . . . and one of the things we always look for in cases like this is: how do the various players find each other? As a rule, new networks form from within existing ones; people already know who they can trust, and who has the resources they need.”

  “The Karma Club membership would be a hell of a network—”

  “Exactly. And the Klisters would be people with whom you’d already share a somewhat clandestine interest. You’d know who you could go to with something really sketchy.” Sharon was the one yawning hugely now. “This is all speculation though, honey, so don’t look for us to be arresting Moira Charles tomorrow. At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if she were running black ops against Thames Tidal on behalf of Mitford, alongside the upfront corporate strategy and the politicking, but I’ve got no proof. So far these are all coincidences.”

  Then she had fallen asleep, instantly in the way she did, leaving him to lie awake wondering how long it would take for someone to find something tangible enough to act on.

  That nighttime conversation had loomed large in Mikal’s mind as he listened to Gabriel’s account of his conversation with Aryel, although he had said little; he could tell the young man nothing about the Klist Cult affiliations that had already been uncovered. That line of inquiry was being kept quiet, the better to be pursued without hindrance and dropped without fanfare if it proved a dead end. But it won’t, he thought. It makes perfect sense. The Klist Cult’s precise objectives and degree of organization varied depending on whom you talked to, which streams you followed; but a common thread was the obsession with unearthing the mechanism for Zavcka’s preternaturally long life. He had heard it said that they wished not only to reproduce the phenomenon for themselves but to understand how she had used it to amass vast wealth and influence. Any devotee of her methods would know about the propaganda campaign she had masterminded twelve years ago, and wouldn’t be averse to emulating it.

  Mikal strode across the piazza to the foot of the steps, idly glancing beneath the bridge as usual—and stopped. The heavy fog of the morning had lifted, although it was still bitterly cold; but there under the bridge, along the piers and up against the arches, shreds of mist appeared to be lingering. When he peered closer he could see that it was not fog but wisps of a translucent something, pulling away from the stone and concrete, clouded with condensation. It made the lines of the structure look even fuzzier than usual. He leaned over and squinted, then reached his long arm out and just managed to touch it with his fingertips. His fingers came away not just damp but tacky, as though he had touched paint that was not quite dry.

  He stared for a moment, puzzled, then took the steps two at a time, hands clenched in aggravation. Here was another, more mundane reason to be relieved that Standard had no role in protecting gillung communities from future attacks: only a few months since the bridge work had been completed and the sealant on the underside was already washing away in the river. It was an appalling failure. He would have to get on to the Council’s contract managers, get them to—

  He was halfway across the bridge when it hit him.

  —washing away in the river.

  He stopped as suddenly as if he had walked into a wall, or a revelation, then swung around to lean over the rail, peering down into the water far below. The barrier that was chest-high for everyone else reached only to his waist, prompting cries of alarm from passersby. Mikal didn’t hear, not until a man tugged at his coat, urging him back, and he saw anxious faces staring at him and heard their remonstrations.

  “It’s fine—sorry—I’m fine! Nothing to worry about, thank you,” he jabbered at them, and ran back the way he had come, his long legs eating up the ground at a tremendous rate, almost pitching headlong down the stairs as he scrambled back to the piazza below the bridge, back to the point where he could see and touch the dissolving sealant. He had stood almost exactly here, he remembered, on the day he had come to see Pilan, newly home from the hospital, the day Moira Charles had offered Standard’s help against the mystery microflora as well as the meeting with Mitford; the day Sharon had declared the Thames toxin a terrorist attack. He had stood here that day and he had not noticed . . . But it had been sunny then, and far warmer than today.

  He fumbled up Sharon’s Met comcode, rejected the message option, and was routed to Danladi; he ordered her to get Detective Superintendent Varsi out of whatever meeting, interrogation, press briefing, or other important matter she might be attending to, now. He was breathing hard and sounding desperate, and Constable Danladi did not argue. By the time Sharon’s voice came in over his earset half a minute later, he had more or less gotten his breath back, but he knew that his voice was cracking as he stared at the piers that supported the bridge, and their fading, fragmenting armor.

  “Sharon—”

  “What’s—?”

  “Secure this channel.”

  Silence, then a soft tone as the encryption was activated.

  “What’s happened?” The tension in her voice had ratcheted up several notches, mirroring his own. He glanced around again to make sure that he was alone on the piazza, then once more leaned over the rail that kept him from falling into the Thames. This one was no higher than his hips and he held on with one hand to anchor himself as he peered beneath the bridge and told her where he was and what he was seeing.

  “The paint is peeling?” she said, puzzled.

  “The paint, the sealant, on the underside of the bridge. Where the river washes past it, where all of the water from upstream washes past. Standard underbid everyone to win the contract, and then rushed to get the work done before the end of the summer. And it’s not peeling, it’s kind of gone soft; you can see through it, it’s almost disintegrating. Sharon, you and Rhys and Environmental Management, you never worked out what the catalyst was: the thing that activated the algae so it was at its deadliest just downstream from here, just as it hit Sinkat. You were looking for something released into the water on the day, or maybe placed there a few days before, maybe a week or two. That’s why you couldn’t find anything. It’s been
here for months, just waiting. Sharon, they painted it onto the bridge.”

  In her warm, bright, book-lined study, with a steaming cup of coffee at her elbow and a sense of slowly building rage, Zavcka Klist pored over every detail of the newly disclosed Kaboom operation. She too recognized her own traces in the way the group had gone about their work; unlike Aryel, she was in no doubt about the connection.

  Someone had called Patrick Crawford while he’d been at her house the previous day; called repeatedly, perhaps desperately. Someone who was trying to find a person named Fischer, and had an interest in her too. Well, here was Fischer, caught in an act she had once perfected. And here was she, the originator of his methods, playing host for hours every day to one of his associates, ideally positioned to be incriminated herself. The prospect outraged her. It was one thing to be sent down for something she had actually done, to be outflanked and outfought by Mikal and Sharon Varsi, Rhys Morgan and his sister Gwen, Herran and Callan, Eli Walker and, most of all, Aryel Morningstar: it had taken all of them to find her out, corner her, strip her of liberty and dignity and power. Though she might rage at the defeat, she knew their victory had been fairly won. But to be dragged into some Byzantine scheme that was not of her making, to have her own plans put at risk because of it—that was intolerable.

  Presumably Fischer had not yet implicated Crawford and his associate—or associates—since they were still at large. Or were they? Had Crawford been picked up overnight? Was he free, but under surveillance? If the latter, she would already be in the frame. She glanced out of her window for the dozenth time that morning, scanning the elegant square with its trees and grand houses finally emerging from the morning fog, expecting at any moment to see a police transport cruise to a stop outside her front door. But no, all was quiet. Turning back to her tablet, she went through the announcement again.

  The language of the bulletin was typically terse, but there were links to much of Kaboom’s false-flag commentary. That would give the streams a great deal to chew on, and one of the journalists at the briefing had had enough presence of mind to ask why evidence in the case was being released.

  “This evidence is already in the public domain,” Superintendent Varsi had replied crisply. “In light of our investigation, we feel it is in the public interest to release these details.”

  So: damage control. Someone was worried enough to insist on swiftly discrediting the message as well as rounding up the messengers. This strengthened her conviction that there was far more going on than was being revealed. There were subtler cues as well, and again she was not alone in spotting them. Someone else observed that the code name “Kaboom” was an unusually evocative choice for the Met; Varsi’s curt explanation, that it had been the use of a peculiarly threatening word in an apparently innocuous context that had first caught the attention of investigators, struck Zavcka as oddly specific.

  There are depths to this affair that you’re being careful not to reveal, Detective Superintendent. It’ll end up being another coup for you, I imagine. Two promotions since last we met, along with two children! I suppose I should be impressed.

  She had already learned as much as the streams could offer about the Varsis’ children—their names, their ages, where they went to school—and in so doing, she had caught up on the parents as well, following every link she could find. Their career trajectories were easy to map, with achievements and controversies well covered, but no trail that she followed led to a small blond girl who was friends with their boys. Not only that: the child had disappeared from the TideFair vid, as completely as if she had never even been there.

  Are you surprised, Zavcka? You did the same thing once. Control information and you control perception. If anything slips out that shouldn’t, fix it, quick.

  But they didn’t lock it down tightly enough. Someone in the K Club spotted her; someone realized the authorities hadn’t sent her away, that they’d kept her close to the gems. I didn’t guess that. I’d wager my fortune it wasn’t Crawford who worked it out, but he knows more than he pretends. So who’s her guardian? It isn’t the Morningstar, or Walker, or the Varsis; they’re all too public. They’d never be able to keep her offstream like this. But I know where to look now, and I will find out. And, once Crawford and his cult are out of the way, I won’t have to worry about her safety, or my own.

  As long as the fools don’t drag me down with them.

  The question of Crawford’s whereabouts was soon answered, and not in the way that Zavcka had hoped. It was not the police who appeared at her door but the man himself, unannounced and visibly anxious, barely an hour after the Kaboom news had broken. Marcus showed him to the sitting room with an unmistakable air of disapproval. Zavcka was already there, sorting through the possible reasons for this visit in her head as she scrolled through streamfeeds on the wall screen.

  “I wasn’t looking for you at this hour, Mr. Crawford.”

  “I apologize, madam. It’s become necessary for me to . . . ah . . . to go away for a while.”

  That much I had assumed. You’re going to try to run—but why have you come here first? “That’s most inconvenient.”

  “I’m afraid it’s unavoidable.”

  “Where will you go?” she asked, thinking that if he was foolish enough to tell her it might be information she could bargain with later.

  “South Africa.”

  She stared at him in amazement, although part of her was already thinking, Of course that’s what they’d do. Silly of me not to have guessed.

  “South Africa?”

  “Indeed, madam. An associate and I have been planning a journey there to pursue the—um—guidance you’ve so generously provided. Circumstances have arisen that require us to travel sooner than intended.”

  “How much sooner?”

  “Today. As soon as I leave you. There is something I must collect, and then—” He glanced at the clock on the wall screen, which appeared to spur him to swifter action. Once more he was bowing, and holding something out to her, but the deference with which he had presented his first gift was now tinged with desperation.

  She took whatever it was without looking, and felt the hard curves of bioplastic and cold metal studs.

  “And what do you hope to achieve, Mr. Crawford, when you arrive in South Africa?”

  “We . . . What we talked about, madam, the epigenetic manipulation, the gene surgery . . . I believe,” he said, drawing himself up, “that my associates and I have done enough . . . more than enough . . . to have earned your indulgence in this matter. Time is pressing.” He enunciated the last words heavily, leaning on the symbolism, but beneath the portentousness she sensed real fear.

  “For some of us, perhaps,” she replied brusquely, and held up the memtab. “What is this?”

  “A means for us to communicate. Attach it to your tablet. It’ll bypass the restrictions on your contacts. No one will know that we’ve spoken.”

  “But I am already quite legitimately allowed to communicate with you,” she pointed out. “Are you saying that will no longer be the case?”

  “I suspect it won’t, madam.”

  “Then why should I accept this? You’re obviously in some sort of trouble, and I have no desire to be caught up in it. If you’re being investigated, questions will be asked of me too. I’m not about to risk a return to prison over a piece of illicit tech.”

  “I’m sure you can hide that where no one will ever find it. Until it’s attached, it’s inactive. There’s no signal, no trace.” Crawford was backing away as he spoke, glancing at the door, desperate to go. “We’ll need to be in touch so you can tell us how to access the gemtech protocols—and the genestock. I don’t have the time to get that information from you now.”

  “You don’t have the time, Mr. Crawford, and I don’t have the inclination. You shouldn’t have come here.”

  He stopped, staring at her with a kind of wounded comprehension, as it finally dawned on him that she was being neither sympathetic nor a
menable.

  She sighed inwardly at the delay, but surely it would only be a few more seconds and he would be gone. She kept her face still and implacable.

  “I had hoped that this would be a surprise for you madam, once we arrived at our destination,” the man said slowly, reluctantly. “It appears I do need to let you know after all . . . I should tell you now . . . You’ll want to be in contact with us.” He hesitated. “So you can speak with your daughter.”

  “My . . . what?” Zavcka felt the shock run through her like electricity, felt the tingling and the first uncontrollable twitches in her hands, felt all her carefully calculated plans and contingencies shatter around her like glass. “You’re taking her?”

  “We are. We have to.”

  “Why?” she asked viciously. “So you can make me give you what you want?”

  “I . . . I would never put it like that . . .”

  No, she thought, forcing herself to reason through her fury, to contain it, bank it, let it grow white-hot. The cold, clear part of her mind was already telling her that it was a weapon she could use, but only if she kept it under control. No, you wouldn’t. But somebody else did; somebody told you to tell me this, told you to make it clear that my cooperation was required, not requested. But you didn’t want to. You don’t want me to be angry with you.

  “Then you have to take me too.” The words were out before she had properly grasped her own strategy, but she felt the rightness of it and plowed on, improvising. “What you want is secured behind a five-point system. Finger and retinal scans, DNA match, voice recognition, and an alphanumeric code. I can give you the code, you can record my voice, and I suppose”—she injected a contemptuous sneer into her voice—“I suppose you wouldn’t balk at taking DNA from a child. But it won’t be enough, no matter what you do. You can’t get to it without me.”