By then she’d been in San Francisco for weeks. On account of the job. What job, what was making her dress up like an accountant? “Murky stuff, Carson. Like you did, except different. Advanced. Neural networks. You’re my model. Getting my computers to be like you – so they have your fab hunches and dead-sure reading of the tea leaves. The crooks and terrorists should be quaking.” Jaime grinned.
My jaw dropped. Had it come to this? I, a model, a still and patient object in a studio, there for a specific purpose, with no value outside it? Was Jaime intending her machines to evolve to become stand-ins for my neurons? Did she not know that my neurons in their billions were tired of games? Did she not see they now sparked as one and that she – with her lovely mental sharpness and physical tautness – was the target? Perhaps she thought I hadn’t changed.
I wanted to tell her what I’d gone through, going back a good way, starting with the moment when she had said, Gotta hug ya and walked away. But her hand rose from the pop can and a finger drifted forward to press solidly against my lips. Was I to kiss it? Or was she signalling it wasn’t yet my turn to speak?
Her eyes shone. “I sent something impressive to your chum. The one at the other end of the pipeline. Wowie. He got back fast when he saw it. Wanted me on the team as of the day before yesterday. San Fran, I said. Won’t go anyplace else. So I joined development, not operations. The lab here, whammo. Good coin too, but, man, it’s piggen’ hush-hush.”
Jaime recruited by Hugh-S? It hit like a cold shower. Jaime’s finger on my lips had tingled, but instantly that stopped. My brain went into a different gear. Urgently I tried to form another kind of picture. Hugh-S, Vincent, the limo, Jaime – was all this one? I recalled the parting words of Minding Merrick. Was he in on all this too? Was Jaime a plant from the start, someone he had put in to keep an eye on Heywood’s fuzzy lack of thoroughness?
Again I tried to speak, wanting to know more. But now Jaime’s finger moved to her lips. Shhh. Her smile signalled a conspiratorial delight. Glumly I wondered if this was the end of it, that is, of her and me. With her existence classified, Jaime would become what I once was, an empty container – all the things that matter taken away and put in cold storage by the indoctrination pledges. When Shhh is the sole answer you can give if somebody asks, How was your day? – what’s left for ordinary conversations? For me it had been that way…Shhh every day…for twenty years and now that’s how it was for her. What chances were there for us of a future that was vibrant?
Eventually she inquired into my plans. “I’m not going back.” It spurted out of me.
And what did that mean? she wanted to know. Not going back to where? To the Service? To Turrialba? To her?
“To the shadows, Jaime. No more piggin’ hush-hush living for me. I plan to work in the open.”
She clapped her hands. “Hey, that’s hot. So you’ll be a straight shooter.” And what would I be doing in the full light of day? What would the product be?
“Working on a broader view of things. I don’t know. Challenging existing orders. Putting out anti-disinformation.” I tried to make it sound blasé.
Anti-disinformation? Anti all disinformation?
“Topics which strike me as needing it most.”
The possibilities were endless and as this dawned on Jaime – as her picture formed – excitement boiled over. With bracelets jangling, she drew arcs in the air. Carson, knight-errant! She saw governments pierced, sham truths punctured, and politicians freaking out. “Carson, that’s mega-mega! That’s you!” She slipped her fingers into her hair, took her head and shook it.
I shrugged. Knight-errantry? I was under no illusions. Whatever fights I’d chose, they would be minor additions to the existing pandemonium of public opinion. It would take time to carve out a profile and have impact. But there was a new dimension now. “With your job,” I said, “we could be in opposing camps. Suppose I take a run at the self-pleasing nature of most intelligence work. What then? What do we do if we come into conflict?”
Jaime didn’t see this as a problem. “I’m not in operations, Carson. I only want to mimic how you think. That means you gotta share your thoughts with me. The way I see it, you’ll be in one world, I’m in another. We’ll take care we don’t cross over. So why don’t we promise that neither of us peeks. Sound okay?”
“Does Hugh-S know I’m here? Did he help you get past purdah?”
“Can’t tell you that, Carson. Sorry. Didn’t you hear me. We gotta take care we don’t cross over.”
“You knew I was arriving. You must have peeked.” “That was ’cause we hadn’t promised anything yet. I promise now, you too, then that’s how it is. From this moment. Okay?”
A disengagement in cyberspace. Why not? With my plans to counteract disinformation, open arguments suited me. Yet I wanted to know something else. “And what happens when you come out of your world and I come out of mine? Is my thinking process all we share?”
Jaime cast her eyes down and sat still. She seemed to struggle for words. Finally she said: “First, tell me about her. Miss Dunn. Was she the reason you played dead so long?”
Beside me Jaime had fallen asleep. She led me to this room in the apartment with nothing in it except a sleeping bag and a camping mattress.
What’s the colour of the mat? She had come close to tug at my shirt.
Green.
What kind of green?
Um, forest green.
Close. It’s moss green. What’s the thing to know about moss?
Jaime…
Never to waste it.
Jaime, I…
Shhh. I’m going to unbutton your shirt ’cause I wanna wear it tomorrow. Pass out if you want. I’m used to it.
We had sunk down.
And now, under the sleeping bag spread, opened as a blanket, flat on my back, Jaime curled against me, I allowed my thoughts to run free.
Did I black out? I may have groaned as we were sinking. We were in a free fall together and I’d forgotten how that felt. There was weightlessness and ecstasy and that caused me to groan. Jaime was making similar sounds, proving she was weightless too. We fell for a while, then we floated, and eventually after much energy we had our transcending moment. Once through that we filtered back into this terrestrial domain. I still felt the points of reference of the journey – biting kisses, digging fingers, clothing becoming evanescent, and for the longest time no room for daylight between us. All of it had felt real. So, no. No black out. I’d moved on from that syndrome.
But moved on to what? I owed Hugh-S a message, though with Jaime in his tent he wouldn’t need me anymore. Perhaps I could finally meet him now that I was free – for old times’ sake. I could join him on that fishing boat when he took a holiday with his young son. I could watch them snag their marlins. And, thinking of fishing boats, I owed Francis Merrick some contact too. A fish has jumped into my boat. I could write him a postcard. It could be of a killer whale. Or should it be of a loveable dolphin? But for all I knew, as of today, he already had that news. Hugh-S, Jaime, Minding Merrick. Were they a trinity? Having sworn never to go back, I now assumed this was something I’d never know. On the mat under the sleeping bag, with Jaime fast asleep, I contemplated the irony of it. Of course, they were other ironies. The greatest one was that Rachel was taking time out to become a mother, that I, in my own way, was assuming her mantle, and that Jaime, with her finger on her lips, was now me. A lot of shifting. Were someone to explain all this to Diego, he would probably point at his head. Si. Si. Lógico.
So much moving on. There had been another good push forward when Jaime and I were still on the kitchen floor, when she asked about her. I had replied that, yes, Miss Dunn was the reason I played dead. But not wavering, feeling robust, I had continued, “Miss Dunn no longer exists, Jaime. She’s become somebody else. There’s a baby on the way. I’ll be a god-parent soon. I’m invited to the christening.”
This brought on a long silence, the one sound being some tinkle-tinkling while Jai
me pensively played with her bracelets. The sound was unrushed and it seemed slowly to dispel a shroud, because finally she looked up, relieved, and said: “Out of nothing, a family. A miracle. Cool.” Having got this out, she shifted over until we were shoulder to shoulder and she cleared her throat. “Just so there’s no future misunderstanding, Carson, you oughtta know that a while ago you got checked into a psycho ward. So you’re not really here. Hope that’s okay with you.”
I took this in. “A psycho ward?”
“On account of Irv.”
Jaime described a file on me she’d placed in the records of a US Army Medical Centre near Washington. The cover listed Hugh-S as the authority for my being there. The early diagnosis: nervous exhaustion. A shrink was brought in to see me. His notes on file said it all. In unburdening myself I had admitted to doing all the things Heywood suspected I’d done. Being guilt-wracked and remorse-filled, my corporeal systems had gone out-of-whack. I’d even contemplated suicide. Rachel Dunn was in the file too. I had informed the doctor that I tried to frame her to divert attention from myself. According to the doctor’s note, it was his solid professional opinion that her sumptuous love liaisons were pure cock-and-bull, the scenes which I had recorded being ones I wished I could have experienced myself.
This file thus properly padded, Jaime posted a note to Zadokite Port, along with an automated routing for hacking into it.
“Irv was never happier. He loved that army file. I think he crooned all summer long. It made him back right off. That case against you he was working on – he chucked it into the recycle bin.”
“Never begrudge a simpleton his happiness,” I replied warmly.
“Guess it’s time to declare you cured. Check you out. What next? Wanna earn a living someplace? How about as a religious guru?”
I nodded. Why not? Heywood would see that as credible. I pushed my shoulder into Jaime’s. “What about you? If he’s to believe I’ll be dispensing faith, what does Heywood think you’re doing?”
“I told him when I left, it was to help my brother. He asked what kind of help. I dunno, I said. Fixing his tax bill. Stuff like that.”
“Tell me about your brother.”
She shook her head. “If you stay, Carson, my brother won’t be there anymore. It’s that simple.”
Under the sleeping bag on the green mattress, I also thought about Jaime’s brother. The last time someone asked, he was at the roulette tables in Monte Carlo. Was I doing that now? Here with Jaime, had some great game of chance begun, the dice already rolling, the roulette ball having started its journey? If eventually the dice rolled short, or the rolling ball settled on the wrong colour, would I then become part of her concept, her metaphor of brother? Had there been others contributing to that concept before me? Who was this Jaime From-Up-North? There was much I needed to ask her and I began in the kitchen. After I told her what happened with Rachel, I said: “And what about you, Jaime? I know nothing about you. I don’t know where you’re from. I don’t know how old you are. I don’t know if you’ve known Hugh-S as long as I have. I don’t even know why you thought I should come to San Francisco.”
“I thought you should come here ’ cause I thought we could play a game, you know, hide who we are. Being together, it’s fun for the other to find out. I’ll give you a clue. I’m both older and younger than you think.”
That was true. She could act at once the parts of both a young thing and an old hand. “I don’t know, Jaime. I don’t think I know how to play that game.”
“I know you’d be good at it.”
“Are there rules?”
“Not many. But there’s a place.”
We had risen. I followed her to a front room. Empty. I followed her to the computer room. It had enough in it to make a start of certain things. Then she opened the door to the third room. “Like it?”
I studied the camping mattress and sleeping bag on the floor. “Jaime. I don’t know. I really don’t.”
Homey. What don’t you know? Look down. What’s the colour of the mat?
The messaging device when it began to vibrate startled Heywood. The tiny thing, stuck inside a slender leather holster attached to his belt, made no noise; it merely caused the layer of flesh over his hip bone to quiver. Once this registered, the experience turned sensual, giving him goose flesh all over and sending a shiver up his spine, and that made his neck hairs stand on end. Exquisite feelings. Except on this occasion he had to keep them concealed, the device having sprung into life during a High Council emergency session. So he didn’t squiggle as the device vibrated, nor did he utter a loud long Ahhh. The only outward show the Czar allowed himself was a slow closing of his eyes. Eventually, with the disguised movement of appearing to massage his stiff hip muscles, he drew the gadget from the holster, ended the vibration and worked other buttons below the table level. Who had bestowed on him this latest wave of pleasure?
Across the table, Claire Desmarais and Ron Hunt were in a furious debate. There had been a military coup in some silly bugger country far away and they were on opposite ends of the spectrum concerning the national response. Étienne des Étoiles vented his exasperation with fingers unendingly drumming the table. The atmosphere was charged and Heywood, convinced no one would notice if he cast his eyes down to his lap, read the screen.
Irv. Progress. You know where to look.
The Czar’s heart skipped a beat. My child, he thought. My prodigy. I miss you. I miss going to your lab. I miss the feeling of discovering things. With you gone the Service complex has turned dull. Where are you now? Still helping out your brother? When will you return?
“Your views, Irving?” Étienne’s voice was sharp.
The Czar’s head snapped up and he brought his knees together tight. He let the device fall into his lap. He quickly leaned forward and propped himself up, hands placed squarely on the High Council table. “Tricky situation,” he began in a booming voice. “Ron’s hit the right buttons. Couldn’t add to what he said. Claire’s idea – activating the UN – good for media purposes. Go for it. Once more is known about the situation, Service Operations can pitch in. Expats may need to come out. The list of charter companies around the world is up to date.”
“We may need that,” Étienne said, nodding approvingly.
“Well, just let me know.”
Des Étoiles moved on, asking a legal question of Abbie MacAuley. She was not prepared and squirmed as others began to sort out what she ought to have said.
Another High Council storm. But…more clear sailing for Service Operations. For months it had been like this. International crises coming in clutches each and every week and dominating the agenda, whereas, with the plague having played out, the Czar hadn’t been in the hot seat once. That was because Service Operations was ticking over with the precision of an atomic clock. He’d seen to that. And central to this perfection was an information and communication system which the techies said was hyper-good. Possibly this was true. It was certainly the envy of the world. Delegations came from everywhere and lined up to have a glimpse. They often asked if virus attacks were a problem, whereupon the Czar marched them to a dark, cooled hall stuffed full of weird equipment. “The firewall,” he’d say, pointing proudly at endless arrays of glowing dots. “Foolproof so far and we remain confident. We have issued a standing offer to the world’s great hackers: if they get in – and tell us how – they’ll receive a significant cash prize. That’s our IT policy: Face flaws with heroism; address mistakes with stoicism.” A group from Asia had applauded softly when they heard him say this. Yes, feted by the universe, respected by Étienne, ignored by Ron and Claire, the Czar was riding high. A marvel, how adversity will turn into felicity. The only downside was: Jaime was not part of it.
And now a sign of life, the first in months. Progress. Meaning what? The Czar’s messaging device was still in his lap and he fidgeted with it some more. He desired to rush off, to a private place, to touch the buttons until the right things happened, until Zado
kite Port opened up. Why couldn’t the High Council reach a conclusion? Why not adopt the same constructive position it did after every other distant lapse of democracy – pretend it never happened.
Des Étoiles could stomach the bickering no longer and summed up. Once more, water would be poured into the immaculate wine called the country’s international policy. This military coup too would be ignored. Vexed, shaking his head, des Étoiles rose, aimed for the panelled wall and vanished like a ghost. Ron Hunt lingered. He counted on a few minutes of post-meeting jousting with Heywood, but when he looked around all he saw was the Czar’s broad backside next to Claire’s. The two sets of hams were scurrying off in a race for the double doors. A tie! There was a slight collision before they jointly squeezed through. Ron overheard Heywood’s remark. Claire! Phew. Guess neither of us is getting any smaller.
The elevator delivered the Czar to ground level, but halfway through the Service complex’s entrance foyer, the urge to know what Jaime sent him became too strong. He interrupted the walk to Operations Tower, whisked the high-tech device out of the holster, and fingered tiny buttons to activate encrypted communications. Firewall transit came first and was smoothly accomplished. A short wait now for access to Zadokite Port. It being just after lunch the foyer was full of visitors coming and going and the numerous voices gave rise to a subdued din. None of this got through to Heywood. Outwardly his stance was tranquil, but inwardly he trembled – as if he was feverish. The revelations which Jaime used to orchestrate had been addictive and, just as then, his temperature was now rising. His palms went sweaty. He swallowed hard waiting for the rush.
Borderless Deceit Page 40
