Atcode

by David Wake

  The motions seemed to be: ‘check your pocket.’

  Braddon did so.

  He found a pack of cards.

  He turned over the top card and on it was typed: ‘You were reprogrammed by Steiger. She’s not MI5. She’s a corporate assassin. Don’t trust her. Trust yourself. Trust these cards. You’ve a brow attached to your own–’ Jesus!

  His head felt raw and there was a lump stuck to the front of his forehead, another brow stuck on with tape. He reached to rip it off, but the banging stopped him.

  They were pointing at the card.

  Braddon read on: ‘…a brow attached to your own to stop Steiger’s commands taking control of you again. She’s modified your brow to force you to kill Mantle, so don’t take the other one off. Don’t take it off. Don’t pick at it. Get a hat to hide it.’

  The next card was printed: ‘Don’t read ahead.’

  He looked to Entwhistle again, saw Mantle and Michael too.

  They mimed turning over the card.

  Braddon showed it to them.

  Their gestures were out of sync, shrugs and ‘turn over’.

  The next card said: ‘Give the next card to Janice.’

  How did I get here in the first place?

  Braddon must have arrived and…. somehow, he must have gone in the Cage and thus taken the – he noodled – nepenthatrine mixture. Clearly, it had a safety margin and wiped considerably more than just the time spent in the Cage.

  He was on leave, effectively suspended, so how had he got into the building without being on the warrant?

  He nodded to Mantle, Entwhistle and Michael before casually saluting with the cards. He slipped them back into his pocket and made his way to the lift.

  The others showed a mix of relief and ‘get a move on’.

  The lift thought from the 34th floor that it was on its way.

  Braddon got in.

  In the steel interior, he could see his reflection.

  He looked a mess, his forehead taped and mangled. He’d bled and needed a wash.

  Ow… ow, he thought, experimentally prodding the arrangement, leave it alone!

  His thoughts forwarded awkwardly and he wondered if he should touch it again. There was nothing in his outbox to suggest he’d tried, except there was the stinging sensation.

  He should look at the cards, find out… except it would give away what he was going to do. The ‘Lamp Lot’ drank, but he couldn’t stay drunk continuously.

  He checked the cards he’d seen already.

  Hat! Must get a hat.

  Steiger had controlled him and they’d given him a brow to disguise him from the network. That made sense. Lucky they’d had a spare, unused iBrow in the Cage.

  ‘Don’t read ahead’: he understood why, but could he trust Mantle? He could trust himself, surely? He didn’t remember what happened in the Cage, but he knew he would have looked at all these cards before agreeing. Definitely he’d have checked, so they must be all right. Yes, he’d trust it.

  He decided to put the cards he’d read in his side jacket pocket to keep them separate. There was a tube and something heavy there and he took them out.

  A vaping stick and a gun.

  Shit!

  Just then, the lift thought about the ground and its doors opened. Ahead was the lobby and the reception area, doors leading to ‘security’ and various employees walking past, the event’s rating figures blinking in their thoughts as they swept through Braddon’s recognition range.

  Braddon stood there in the open lift holding a fucking firearm!

  He put it, and the vaping stick, back in his pocket.

  It had weight, loaded.

  He needed to relax – whisky, cigarette, something.

  He went across the lobby.

  Janice wasn’t there, she was still recovering, so it would have to be whoever was on duty. He reached recognition range and it was Laura.

  Emile, what do you want, Laura thought without looking up.

  Mister Mantle has a card for Janice.

  We’ve all signed one already and–

  Laura’s emoticons tumbled out in a shrieking panic.

  Braddon flipped the card over and handed it to her. It was full of printed writing.

  Mantle… yes, ok, don’t freak out, don’t inform the authorities – how the fuck do I not do that? Car, supplies, yes… Emile… I mean…

  And a hat please.

  Hat? What… oh.

  She faffed with her bits and pieces on the desk, gave up and scooted off.

  Hat!

  Braddon slumped against the desk, his eyes watered.

  He followed his own thoughts: breakfast of croissants and butter, mint tea, exercises, stretches rather than impact training, light music to meditate…

  Braddon skipped ahead, downloading from the Thinkersphere.

  At Entwhistle, it’s Mister Larson…

  What the fuck?

  …get into the Cage. There’s a man with a gun.

  Man with a gun?

  …inside, safe, and… and… where am I, what the hell.

  Braddon knew the later thoughts, Larson wondering where Laron was and then about hats, and finally: I know these thoughts.

  Presently, Laura came back and handed him a set of car keys: Car out back, things are in the boot, keys…

  Hat?

  Oh hell.

  She went away again.

  Braddon followed Oliver Braddon’s thoughts:

  I’ll be there soon. Someone’s trying to kill Mantle. Yes, yes, for God’s sake! I’m chasing a man with a gun. Yes, I’m getting there. Soon, soon. Yes, there, a stationary target, backsight, foresight. Hold breath, squeeze, don’t pull. I’ve done it, I’ve killed him.

  They were fragmented, but clearly Braddon had got the assassin before he’d killed Mantle.

  He’d been chasing a man with a gun. Given that the police weren’t routinely armed, and certainly not with resin–cast monstrosities like the York .38, then he must have caught up with the man and disarmed him.

  Irritating of Mantle not to tell him who that was.

  Irritating of himself for that matter.

  Passers–by gave him strange looks and odd reactions on recognition. Braddon needed to get moving. Most of all he needed a drink and a smoke.

  Laura came back and the hat was a black woollen thing. Braddon pulled it over, but it snagged on the stupid brow arrangement.

  There, she thought, suits you.

  Braddon crossed the lobby and went into the Gents. He waited until two other blokes left, whom he recognized as Tom and Bill. They thought Emile was well off his usual patch, lolling as they considered him a weak and useless individual. Larson had a lot to put up with… where was he?

  They must have programmed the spare iBrow to use Larson’s code or something.

  More carefully this time, Braddon nudged the protruding cable and jerked away as the shock lanced through his mind.

  “Ahhh hhh…” Oww….

  That last thought seemed to come from Larson to the extent that Braddon looked round, but the man dropped out of recognition when the mess on his forehead settled down.

  “Don’t yank it around,” Braddon whispered to himself. “Easy. For. Ow…”

  Braddon eased the hat over his head, carefully pulling it away from the brow taped to the front. It showed a great lump when he looked in the mirror.

  Christ, I look a state.

  He was a big man. Tom and Bill hadn’t looked, merely recognized him as Emile Larson. If the lump on his forehead was Larson, then was Braddon’s still intact?

  Braddon checked, pushing his index finger under the tape despite the stab of pain. His own brow was still there, he could feel the edge of the comforting rectangle.

  If this was Larson’s ID, then what about Larson?

  He could be in the Cage, his thoughts hidden from the Thinkersphere so as not to duplicate Braddon’s version.

  He washed his hands and face.

  The hat drippe
d water.

  Back in the lobby, he still wanted a drink and a cigarette. Laura wouldn’t have a bottle of single malt, but her Thinkersphere recognition showed she was a smoker: Do you have a cigarette?

  She was not happy being sponged off – again – but she fished one out of her bag.

  Here you are.

  Thank you.

  Braddon got outside: there was a breeze, thank goodness, and he moved to the side of the building. He checked his pockets: cards, gun, car keys, vaping tube… no lighter.

  Looking around he saw a waft of smoke and recognised Daniel from accounts. Braddon went round the corner.

  Got a light, he thought.

  Sure… Christ, what happened to you?

  Fancy dress.

  Daniel lit the cigarette.

  Thanks.

  Braddon moved away, needing privacy: Only those with something to hide want privacy.

  He took a drag, felt the calming tobacco and tar–laden fumes having an effect before he started coughing his guts out.

  What the–

  Braddon looked at the cigarette: he didn’t smoke, he’d never smoked, his vice was whisky. He dropped it, flattened the butt with his heel.

  Bad day, Daniel thought.

  Thank goodness people don’t know what you look like normally.

  Yeah, too right.

  Braddon fished out the car fob, checked the hashtag and thought at it. It flashed and then somewhere a car beeped for attention.

  What are you?

  Tiger Fire, series 6, ZMT. Vivid scarlet.

  Oh for… where?

  Area C, Bay 7.

  Braddon craned his neck upwards, saw the signs on the tall lampposts and worked his way over to the car. It had a yellow flame motif along the sides.

  Honestly.

  Braddon got in.

  The Tiger Fire was comfortable.

  The next card: ‘Think at the car, ‘Go File 0001.’

  What? At car, go File 0001?

  The car engine started.

  Braddon tried to override some of the safeties, because he was a police officer, but the car refused on the not unreasonable grounds that Emile Larson was a ‘spokesperson’, not a police officer. It was to be a journey at the speed limit then.

  The car pulled away from Sentinel House.

  The stereo played jazz.

  The heating came on.

  Braddon turned it off.

  The car cruised to a stop in a layby.

  After some imaginative swearing and thoughts on killing the person responsible, Braddon rethought At car, go File 0001 and he was away again, hot and listening to some crooning nonsense.

  Some commands that weren’t in File 0001 caused the car to abort the sequence. Others seemed fine. The hassle of working out which was which didn’t seem worth the effort, so Braddon decided to sit back and do his best to enjoy the ride.

  The car monitored his brow output and pinged a thought occasionally to remind him to rest and charge its batteries. The car pulled into an early service station and Braddon ate a meal, which was ready when he arrived. He’d noodled the fast food outlet’s menu and thought ahead with his selection.

  He reckoned with the till when he collected it.

  The credit on Larson’s bank account was breathtaking.

  Having wolfed the food down, burger, fries and a full–fat coke, Braddon bought as much nacaffidol with added risperidone as the law allowed – ‘something for when the voices get too much’. He downed two straight away. Given Larson’s allowance, Braddon wished he’d bought a bottle of single malt before he’d left.

  He’d forgotten where he parked, so he wandered up and down, exercising his cramped muscles, until the vehicle was in recognition range.

  It started up, unlocked noisily and asked if he still wanted jazz music. He opted for a change, Phasial. However, this electronic music obviously wasn’t in whoever’s favourites and the car stalled again.

  Braddon rethought: At car, go File 0001.

  The car started and repeated the question.

  Surprise me?

  It worked.

  Calming music piped from the speakers as the car pulled out of the carpark. So, the car… or at least File 0001 belonged to someone who liked classical and jazz, but not Phasial: someone who was educated, able to improvise, but rejected the modern.

  Someone unlike a machine.

  Someone like Steiger, perhaps.

  There were obvious options and branching points in File 0001. The car was more intelligent than those idiots in the tin foil hat brigade. More intelligent than some of my colleagues, he thought. More intelligent than this plan?

  When he pulled out again and accelerated into the flow of traffic, it was getting dark. The vehicle’s lights escalated through side to full.

  The driver in front was arguing with his car: I’m fine, I just thought I was tired, but I’m actually fine to drive.

  Braddon shook his head, amused, as he overtook.

  What’s your problem, mate?

  Nothing, Braddon thought back, but he’d moved on.

  There were road works, and unfortunately, he was stuck in front of some moron whose thoughts were a simple mantra: Get a move on, oh for fuck’s sake, get a move on…

  The red dots ahead were hypnotic and the cars on the southbound lanes flashed and jittered like a light show at a concert. People’s thoughts pinged in his consciousness, a strange collage of the trivial and important, they mashed together, one overlapping another as the drivers and passengers hurtled by.

  He was growing pensive, nervous: Tammy–Zing was due to meet Zak–Zak; everyone was jittery, the comments were awash with worried emoticons. Braddon felt it cascade over him too, her fear of her meeting adding to his own as he journeyed north.

  What would happen? Should they go through with it? She’d just, like, die if he rejected her.

  The jazz came back on.

  North of Manchester, he switched the volume down with the manual dial and followed a cerebral, enjoying the interplay in the story, then he noodled things at random, checked down the thought streams of those he followed in case he’d missed something, and generally caught up.

  Another cerebral was on acting techniques: Larson’s choice.

  Braddon kept trying to pick his own alternatives, but the alien brow and the car’s programming kept intruding. He didn’t seem able to make decisions anymore: he was just along for the ride.

  By the time it stopped again, he realised that he’d been on a kind of power saving mode, barely having a thought of his own. It was remarkable that he could be in charge of such a monster of horsepower and yet be so unconscious. He had to noodle to find out where he was and, when he remembered, he realised they’d made pleasing progress.

  They?

  The car and Larson, perhaps, but Braddon was just a passenger.

  They stopped again, the car pulling in, and Braddon had coffee this time and used the facilities. Service stations were ‘liquid–out, liquid–in’. The shop had a better range of single malts – Scotland already – and Braddon picked out a Glen Longmoor for Jellicoe and another for himself. It was a good one according to Noodle. The act caused Noodle to remind him of various gins from Larson’s favourites.

  He also needed a brow charger, so he bought the most expensive.

  The second bottle clinked against the first when he put it in the car. He couldn’t remember buying either, but, when he checked the bag, he found that at least he had a brow charger.

  He set off again, but the car’s motion was awkward, so he thought again for a music change, Phasial, and the car idled to a layby.

  Braddon eased the charger over the mess of brows. It ached. He closed his eyes and slept, once he’d got used to the flickering sensation of two brows telling him they were charging.

  He was on a long path made up of squares that went on as far as he could see, each labelled with his own handwriting and every step forward seemed to involve a step backwards.

&nbs
p; And then he was on stage; it was a Souza with the audience following the actors’ thoughts. He knew his lines. He had a script in front of him shaking in his nervous grip, but he had no idea what he was supposed to be thinking. Someone in the wings kept prompting him as he stood centre stage reciting the meaningless words. Then he was a marionette jerking his arms and dancing, while the audience, and all their friends and followers, shared their raucous lolling.

  SATURDAY, MORNING

  Larson woke, the charger somehow wrapped around his neck.

  He found a hedge and relieved himself.

  His brow gave him a list of his itinerary: Mister Mantle was staying, planning to fly to Dubai after lunch and there was a report to noodle about the ratings for yesterday’s event. Tammy–Zing and Zak–Zak getting together was… this was impossible. He was somewhere in Scotland and miles away from Sentinel House.

  No, wait, he wasn’t Larson, but he was.

  Braddon threw up.

  Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t worth it.

  He should just go through the cards, find out how this ended and put a halt to it.

  But he couldn’t.

  He was a machine.

  A cyborg, Steiger had said.

  All unbrows said that, he’d found, and it was a sign of envy and prejudice. They weren’t part of the social world. You had to feel sorry for those who couldn’t have a brow for medical reasons, like Michael for example, but Steiger had refused one out of choice. Her parents should have insisted, but obviously they didn’t care enough for their offspring’s future.

  And Entwhistle and Hogan.

  He wasn’t a cyborg, a machine going back and forth over some paper tape, but a human being. Homo sapiens was a social animal, after all, and being plugged into the medium of thought was the next step in that evolution.

  It was no good those left behind complaining. It wasn’t his fault that Steiger and the others hadn’t a clue what was going on in the world.

  Except, she seemed very clued in, positively packed with secrets.

  Frustrating cow.

  And Braddon had slept with her, Larson thought. Shit, I need a coffee. Head’s completely mangled. Where are my cigarettes?

  The car started up again on File 0001, travelled back to the motorway and then stopped at the next service station. Braddon ordered ahead once he’d realised, reckoned with Laron’s credit again and then drank a cup of Hasqueth’s Green.