There were a number of such e-books on Lindsay's shelves, but Jonah hadn't looked at one since he had left his childhood behind and discovered CRE.
The title on the first page hinted that he hadn't left his childhood as far behind as he might have liked:
Observations and Reflections on a Growing Mind
(© 2066, L. A. Carlaw, sole licensee J. R. McEwen. See private
document #438 (Will and Testament): all rights to transfer to
J. R. McEwen in the event of the death of L. A. Carlaw.)
Introduction: The Missing Years (0—2)
Part One: Years 2 to 4
Part Two: Years 4 to 6
MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDED
He turned the page, and it continued:
Part Two: Years 4 to 6 (conclusion)
Part Three: Years 8 to 9
Part Four: Years 10 to 13
MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDED
He kept turning.
Part Four: Years 10 to 13 (conclusion)
Part Five: Years 13 to 16
Part Six: Years 17 to 20
MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDED
Part Six: Years 17 to 20 (conclusion)
Part Seven: Years 21 to 25
Part Eight: Years 25 to 30
On the fifth page was just one title:
Part Nine: Years 30—
Obviously Lindsay had continued his magnum opus until his death, at which point it had been cut short. Jonah didn't know how he felt about that. At that moment he surprised himself by feeling very little at all.
He moved on. The sixth and last page contained a calendar and one untitled file. Jonah opened the calendar and found what he had actually been looking for: his father's appointment diary, with comments scribbled in the margins in Lindsay's handwriting. Here was every event Lindsay had ever attended, every journey he had taken, every milestone in his career. Jonah skimmed through it with something approaching awe, noting how frequently his name appeared, stopping occasionally when an item caught his eye.
On May 14, 2036, they had flown to Katherine for his belated birthday party. (Lindsay had been at the SCAR lab on the 5th itself, and young Jonah had spent the day with friends.) He remembered the flight vividly, but not the actual party, nor what he and his father had done together that day.
On October 28, 2038, they had visited his dying mother. He had been too young to understand just how sick she was but could tell from the manner of the people around her that something serious was wrong. She had succumbed a week later, and the date was marked with a black cross in Lindsay's diary. Eight years later to the day, Lindsay sat him down and explained exactly what had killed her: a combination of a mutant nanomachine and a yeast infection. Jonah had cried that night, but Lindsay hadn't been there then.
In his early twenties, Jonah had professed a desire to quit study and go into business. Lindsay had opposed such a move, insisting that he had a long life ahead of him, and that there would be time, later, to try something he might regret doing sooner. But Jonah had become increasingly frustrated, until on August 18, 2057, he had left home in Darwin to seek employment elsewhere. He had ended up in a private security company, where he worked for six months, then freelanced for a mercenary army hired to seal a suburb in Greater Los Angeles. Through contacts made in the course of his work, he had gravitated to the field of data acquisition. Spurning large companies, like the privatised Interpol and other government agencies, he had moved from firm to firm for two years before finally settling down in a company run by an ex-cop from Seattle. The ex-cop, Vito Lenz, had fulfilled a badly needed mentor role in Jonah's professional life. Upon Lenz's shooting death in 2062, Jonah decided to move out on his own. Using capital he had saved, plus that raised by the sale of the unit he had purchased the previous year, he leased the office in Sydney and founded JRM Data Acquisition Services. He had initially planned to live on the premises, but had soon realised that, on his budget, an office wouldn't possess sufficient facilities to allow that.
On the day he had left home, Lindsay had written: The phase-change has occurred, at long last. He has his freedom, and I guess I should have the satisfaction of watching him enjoy it. I wonder if he realises how easy it will seem in retrospect, this thing that has been so difficult now?
On the day Jonah returned, September 1, 2062, Lindsay corrected himself: It still seems to have been difficult. I was wrong in that respect. This may explain why it is so easy to take him back. Or perhaps I am being sentimental. Either way, I am glad. The new place will feel like a home now.
The “new place” was the unit in Faux Sydney. Lindsay had moved in a month before, despite the patent absurdity of someone who hated d-mat living in a place that required great lengths to reach without it. Their cohabitation had been difficult, and became increasingly so as the years wore on. Jonah had remained while the business was struggling, determined not to leave until he could support himself fully, although, even then, that hadn't seemed the real reason.
As Lindsay himself speculated, on January 7, 2065, Jonah might have been seeking: a paternal bond that threatened but never attained manifestation in any way other than the most vague. It was an admittance in print of the fear of intimacy that both of them shared, it seemed; that the relationship between father and son could be strong despite lack of encouragement, or that either of them would still seek such a relationship despite all evidence to the contrary of its existence.
What would have happened had Lindsay not died would never, now, be known. They had been heading for something prior to then. Perhaps not a confrontation, but a realisation of the futility of trying to avoid one. Maybe another of Lindsay's “phase-changes” would have occurred, allowing Jonah to spin free again. And, had Jonah and Marylin remained a viable partnership, that might well have happened at some point.
But it hadn't. Jonah skimmed through the last few entries, avoiding her name. He didn't want to know what his father had thought of all that. Closer to the end, they alternated between verbose entries in which Lindsay agonised over some decision or other, or the briefest notes of appointments and projects. There was no mention of sabotage; WHOLE only appeared in asides. The main organisations Lindsay had been concerned with were SciCon and RAFT.
Then, on March 25, two weeks before his death, he had written: It is decided. The final experiment will begin on the 10th. Do the means justify the end? Christ, I hope so.
On the 10th itself, the only appointment listed was for 5:55 p.m. Just the time was listed, and it rang a bell. When Jonah checked with the housekeeping records, it matched the time of Lindsay's one and only known d-mat jump, to SciCon. That was the last entry.
Jonah closed the calendar. Whatever appointment Lindsay had been hurrying to make, the mysterious “final experiment,” presumably, it must have been important to force a compromise of his most deeply held beliefs. Or, alternatively, something urgent had kept him in the unit, making him late for the appointment and requiring a d-mat journey to make it in time.
The only thing left in the e-book was the unnamed file. Jonah tapped the icon with his fingertip, and it opened, revealing a handful of lines of text.
Jonah,
I'll be brief. By the time you read this, I will be dead. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can say to ease you through this difficult time, except to apologise for any pain I might inadvertently have caused you, now and throughout your life. You never knew, if I could help it, how much you meant to me. It may please you to know that the uncertainty was mutual.
Your father,
Lindsay
P.S. Do not grieve for me. The only consolation I can offer with a clear conscience will sound naive, but it's the best I have. If you can believe that I am now in a better place, it will help.
Jonah winced at the postscript. A “better place”? He refused to accept such a possibility. The hope of an afterlife was for fools: for fools who didn't have the intelligence or the courage to accept the truth of mortality; for fools who wasted opportunities in this world in the
hope of an easy life in the next; for fools like his father who should have known better. Or, rather, for the fool who had once been Jonah's father. The man himself was now nothing but dust and ashes circulating endlessly through the biosphere.
“Ready to take a trip?”
He looked up at Marylin. She was standing in the doorway, her expression bleak. Only then did he realise that he was crying. She didn't seem to notice either.
“What?”
“They've located the latest body. You must've guessed that.”
“Yes. Yes, I did. Where?”
“Quebec.”
“Quebec? But—”
“Wait. It gets even more interesting.” She moved closer. The look in her eyes became one of accusation. “It landed in WHOLE headquarters. That was Karoly Mancheff himself who called. He asked for you specifically. He says you told him something like this would happen, one day. He wants to know what you expect him to do about it now that it has.”
Jonah sank back into the seat. “I—honestly—have no idea what you're talking about.”
“I didn't think you would.” She leaned closer. “That's why we're going to look at the body ourselves, and talk to him at the same time.”
“‘We’?”
“You and me. Now.”
“You and me, and—?”
“No, that's it. We can take a full team into Quebec, but they won't let anyone else but us two into WHOLE HQ. They'll give us the body then.”
“But—”
“Don't stall, Jonah, if that's what you're doing. If there's something I should know, tell me now, or just get on your feet and moving. We don't have time to screw around. There's a plane leaving for Montreal in an hour and a half, and we have to be on it.”
The urgency in her voice broke through his sense of shock. Quebec's decision to forbid the use of d-mat as a means of human transport dramatically complicated the issue of viewing the disposal site. They would have to travel to the interchange on the border then fly into the country. From there, it would be car all the way. What should have taken half an hour suddenly became a day trip or more. And if WHOLE didn't have a large refrigeration capacity in their mysterious headquarters…
He rose awkwardly to his feet and took the first step.
While Jonah changed out of the hospital gown and into clothes more suited to travel, Marylin finalised their itinerary. They would d-mat directly to Ottawa, on the border of the United States and Quebec, where five members of the MIU away team would meet them. Whitesmith would be one of them. The party would also include four field agents who would act as liaisons between the away team and the locals. Marylin had requested that Jason Fassini be one of these. The moment Jonah was ready, she would bundle him into the unit's booth then head down the hill for the public enclosure to make her own journey. If Fassini wasn't there, she could safely assume that he was on his way, depending on whether he had been selected.
Once the eleven-strong team was assembled in Ottawa, it would fly by commercial jet to Montreal, then drive in hired vehicles out of the city. They had been instructed to head northeast towards Quebec City. At some point they would be “contacted,” as Mancheff put it.
She despised the deliberately inspired sense of foreboding in such a comment, and its vagueness. Whatever Mancheff had in mind, she doubted it would be in complete accord with the MIU's plans.
Her mind repeatedly flashed back to the conversation she had just had with the leader of WHOLE. The initial call had come from Whitesmith, with both Verstegen and Trevaskis in the wings. Trevaskis' mood had been poor, his contributions brief and to the point. Verstegen, on the other hand, had been expansive, offering suggestions and advice whether they were wanted or not. The difference in mood precisely matched the current ascendancies of the two directors. Verstegen had little to worry about in his position of Director of Information Security for all of KTI. Trevaskis, on the other hand, as head of an as-yet-unproven investigative branch funded by the same company, had hardly helped his position in the previous few days.
Then Mancheff himself had been patched in, speaking slowly through the clipped ambience of heavy cipher. His image was in black and white only, and jerky, due to either poor equipment at his end or continued congestion in the Pool. A swarthy yet charismatic man with thinning grey hair, he looked more like a genial uncle than someone wanted on several dozen counts of sabotage and terrorism. His accent was a thick French-Canadian, although his English was good.
“Why don't you tell us again, from the beginning, what happened?” Trevaskis had said.
“Why should I? You have it on file. Besides, I'm not saying another word until I know who I'm talking to.”
Trevaskis did the rounds, introducing Verstegen first of all. Whitesmith he must have spoken to before. When it came to Marylin, Mancheff raised an eyebrow.
“Blaylock, hein?” His manner was disconcertingly casual. “You knew Lindsay Carlaw's son. Worked with him, is that right?”
“Yes,” she said as evenly as she could.
“Why isn't he part of this?”
“He doesn't work for the MIU.”
“But he's involved. He must be. He warned me something like this might happen.”
“What do you mean by that?” Whitesmith asked, his image leaning forward in its window.
“If you don't know, I see no reason to illuminate you. Ask him yourself.”
“We will,” Verstegen assured him, breaking in. “But first we have something more important to discuss, no?”
“We do,” Mancheff agreed. “You want the body. I want it taken away. The odds are good we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
“Good. Now, I—”
“Not so fast. That's not all I want. I want to know what it's doing here in the first place.”
“That makes five of us.” Verstegen smiled thinly. “I didn't think you were supposed to have d-mat facilities.”
Mancheff winked, unfazed by Verstegen's attempt to shift suspicion onto him. “Aie, you would think that, but we're practical. Believe me when I say it's only with the utmost reluctance that I allow d-mat to be used for freight, as permitted by Quebecois law. Strictly freight only, I assure you. So imagine my surprise when I opened it up an hour ago and found a body in it. It's still warm, by the way.”
Marylin didn't want to know how he could be certain of that. “Why don't you just d-mat it here?” she asked.
“And have you trace the transmission? I'm not stupid. If you don't already know where it is, I'd like to keep it that way.”
“So you want us to travel all the way there to pick it up?”
“That depends. Do you want it badly enough to do that?” Mancheff watched their expressions. “Of course you do. It isn't going anywhere on its own, I can assure you of that.”
“No one must touch it,” Trevaskis said. “The site should be preserved as much as possible.”
“Ouais, yes. I'm not a moron either. Everything has been recorded for posterity.”
“Couldn't you at least send us that information?”
“I prefer to let you sweat.” His grin was triumphant. No doubt he enjoyed holding the MIU to ransom. If he only knew, Marylin thought, exactly what he'd stumbled across—or what had stepped on him.
“How do we know you're telling the truth?” she asked.
Mancheff acknowledged the point with a nod and assumed a more businesslike expression. “Fair question. Let me ask you one in return. Why would I lie? Bad enough to be reporting a mysterious body in a d-mat booth I'm not supposed to have. Even worse if I'm making it up, especially when you're so interested. I don't want to incriminate myself, or my people.” He shrugged lightly, as though the thought of being “incriminated” didn't really bother him. “We can probably use the body to our advantage, wherever it came from, but the damage could bounce back on us all too easily. I prefer to hand it in and be done with it, once and for all. If anything in life can be that simple.”
Marylin found herself warming to
his prickly pragmatism. “Where is it, exactly?”
“Our head office. I can’t tell you where that is, obviously, but I will direct you to a point from which you can be taken the rest of the way. Not too many of you. Unarmed, of course. I don't want any tricky business.”
“How many, exactly?”
“Two.” The smile returned. “Jonah McEwen, and—let's see. How about you, Officer Blaylock?”
Her stomach sank, but she didn't let it show in her voice. “Why me? And why Jonah, for that matter?”
“Well, I've met McEwen, and I knew his father. We can catch up on old times. Maybe he can tell me what the hell is going on. And you—you look like you need a holiday.”
Mancheff's smile, then, had a nasty edge.
“We'll need more than that to conduct a proper investigation,” Whitesmith interjected.
“I understand. Bring as many as you think you might need. We won't let them in, but they won't be far away when we let the others out.”
“You make us sound like hostages,” Marylin said.
“Unintentionally, I assure you.”
“You want us to trust you?”
“Yes.”
“With what guarantee?” She met his gaze squarely. “You're asking me to put my life on the line. I need more than your word to do that.”
“You will not be harmed. Our fight is not with you, but with the people who pay your wages.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really. I'll remember that next time I go to use a booth and it's software has been vandalised by one of your viruses.”
“Ouf. Very well. I will allow you to bear arms, but that is all. I will concede nothing else.”
The Resurrected Man Page 24
