by Seth Rain
‘But how could it do that?’ Rebecca asked. ‘Is it real?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do we do? Do we check our email?’
‘Guess so.’
‘How many people have been sent emails?’ she asked.
Scott watched more of the news feed. ‘I’m not sure they know yet.’
‘Should we check?’
‘Go ahead,’ he said.
‘Where’s your phone?’
‘Downstairs.’
Rebecca left the room. ‘I’ll get it.’
“Three scientists from Cambridge University who have been working on machine learning and AI are at the heart of this story. A spokesperson for the three scientists has issued a statement claiming the release of these dates was a mistake and will be rectified as soon as possible. These scientists, previously hailed as designers of the most advanced general artificial intelligence used to predict illness and diseases in monitored patients, are said to be shocked by the reports.”
‘A mistake,’ Scott muttered to himself.
Rebecca made her way back up the stairs.
‘I haven’t got an email,’ she said, holding up her phone. ‘Not from some AI anyway.’
‘They’ve just said that only males have received the emails,’ Scott said, pointing at the TV.
She handed Scott his phone. He paused, listening to the newsreader.
‘Check it,’ she said.
Scott tapped in his passcode and waited for his emails to load.
‘What is it?’ Rebecca asked.
One email showed a row of numbers in the subject line. He opened the email. More numbers. Then, at the bottom, separated from the rest, four numbers: 2204.
Sixteen
Scott waited for Gregory to sit. He had handed over the tiller to Stretch.
In the centre of the table was a huge plate, piled high with bacon sandwiches. Scott hadn’t eaten meat for some time, but it smelled good. The bread was soft and thick, and something wholesome in its appearance made Scott think of Paul. It was a simple thing: bread, holding it, using it to sandwich slices of meat.
‘This is good,’ Isaiah said. ‘I’ve not had meat in a long time.’
Noah nodded and smiled. ‘Real good,’ he said, his mouth full.
Gregory pointed to the ceiling with his sandwich. ‘He’s a good cook, our Stretch. Can’t be doing with all this fuss over not eating meat. Never did our grandfathers any harm.’
Scott gazed at the ceiling and imagined Stretch at the rear of the boat, holding on to the tiller, steering the boat.
Maybe it was possible, Scott thought, to stay hidden inside for days, eating, drinking and sleeping in safety. The fantasy of a good night’s sleep and waking to a new day brought goose bumps to his arms. Everything had changed in one day. Less than twenty-four hours ago he had been considering his own death. He’d felt relief, even if he hadn’t admitted as much, when his date passed. But then, almost immediately – as soon as the date changed – he had seen Jason jump off the roof.
‘Thank you,’ Scott said, taking a mug of tea from the table. ‘I can’t tell you how good this tastes.’
Gregory leaned forward, a half-smile moving across his face, and winked at Scott.
For some time there were only the sounds of eating and the gentle thud of mugs placed on the table. Again, Scott thought of Paul. To eat and drink now seemed callous.
Gregory wiped his mouth and beard with the back of his hand. ‘So you’re looking for Mathew?’
Noah burped. Everyone, including Gregory, stopped eating and stared at him. ‘There’s a problem with his date,’ Noah said into his sandwich, oblivious.
Isaiah put down his sandwich and Noah raised his head.
‘What?’ Noah said through another mouthful of food.
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Gregory said. ‘So long as I get paid. I’d figured as much anyway.’ He sat back in his chair and took a long drink from his mug. He used it to point to Scott. ‘You’re Chosen, huh?’
Scott glanced at Isaiah.
‘Yes,’ Isaiah said.
Scott placed his hand, palm down, on the table.
Gregory tilted his head. ‘How long do you have, kid? Always thought it was cruel, giving out the date but not the year. Whose sadistic idea was that, do you think?’
Freya, having finished her food, laid her hand on the table. ‘It could be wrong.’
Gregory shook his head.
‘You don’t think it’s possible?’ Isaiah asked.
Gregory sniffed. ‘Sounds to me like wishful thinking.’
‘You don’t think the AI could be wrong?’ Scott asked.
‘Wrong?’ Gregory said. ‘That machine doesn’t do wrong. Never has. I’d rather not know. There’s those who want to know. You believe that? No, that machine doesn’t do wrong.’
Scott waited for Isaiah to argue but he only peered at his empty plate.
‘That date of yours,’ Gregory said, nodding at Scott’s hand, ‘is your date, my friend. And if I was you, I’d make the most of the time you have. The likes of me, of us – well, we have no idea when it’s going to happen. We have to think carefully about what we’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen. But you … well, you have the time between dates knowing nothing can kill you. Enjoy it, I say.’
‘I’ve heard of people having accidents and being kept alive until their date,’ Noah said. ‘They can do that now – keep anyone alive for as long as they like. You might have an accident and be out of it for months before your date. Then when it’s time, they just switch off the machine.’ Noah reached for an imaginary button in the air and pressed it. ‘Just like that.’
They looked at Scott.
‘Thanks,’ Scott said. ‘That’s something to look forward to.’
‘Hey,’ Noah said shrugging, ‘just warning you. They could get hold of you and keep you somewhere until your date. And then—’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ Isaiah said.
‘Ties my head in knots,’ Gregory said. ‘These people who have dates, who have accidents. As you say, they’re kept alive with all the technology they have these days, only for it to be switched off when their date arrives. But then you think, if they hadn’t intervened, these people wouldn’t have reached their date. The AI would have worked all that out too, I guess. I don’t know. Confuses the hell out of me, if you want the God’s honest truth.’
Noah pushed away his empty plate. ‘How long until we reach Mathew?’ he asked.
‘Should be there by tomorrow morning. So long as we don’t run into any trouble. Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be travelling this way.’
‘We can’t thank you enough,’ Isaiah said.
Gregory nodded then leaned back in his chair and held his stomach. Scott would have felt reassured if Gregory had acknowledged him, if he’d smiled or made eye contact, but he didn’t. Instead, he took a small box of cigarettes from his inside pocket and, with a trembling hand, took one out and placed it between his dry lips. Gregory nodded at Noah’s coat. ‘You have one of those revolvers?’
Noah opened his coat to show the butt of the revolver.
‘One chamber empty?’ Gregory asked.
Noah nodded.
Gregory shook his head and smiled. ‘You Watchers…’ He stood and pointed around the narrowboat. ‘There’s plenty of places to put your heads down. Choose one and make it your own. I figure you need some rest.’
Already, because of the food, maybe due to the constant hum of the boat’s engine, Scott felt tired.
Freya lay down on a bench at the far end of the boat and reached for a blanket. Scott sat on a bench opposite and lay back, his fingers interlocked behind his head. His stomach was comfortably full. He closed his eyes, and for the first time it wasn’t Rebecca he saw looking out from the darkness.
Seventeen
The narrowboat’s engine was all he could hear. Scott peered through a round window. The rain on the glass outside reminded him of the even
ing before: Jason on the roof, then Jason falling forward, moving downwards with the rain. Then he saw Paul, collapsed on the floor, blood in his hair. He imagined the barrel of the gun knocking against the back of his own head. He saw Rebecca, on the station platform, that man’s arms around her. He remembered the moment everything had fallen quiet, a different kind of silence, moments before it happened. He reached for her. But she was gone.
Freya’s shivering caught his attention.
‘I can’t sleep,’ she whispered.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘To Paul? I’ve been trying to remember, to work out what happened, but I can’t.’
‘I don’t know. It all happened so quickly.’
‘I keep seeing his face,’ Scott said. ‘It was as if he knew what was going to happen.’
‘He can’t have.’
‘I know. But it looked as if he did.’
She shuffled on the bench and loosened the blanket around her shoulders.
Scott inhaled, feeling his chest swell. He held his breath for a while before exhaling slowly.
They were silent for some time, the engine chugging beneath them.
‘Paul believed we have free will,’ Freya said.
‘And what? He chose what happened?’
Freya huffed and her shoulders fell.
Shards of morning light pierced the boat through the round window beside her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘You’re arrogant,’ she said. ‘You know that?’
For a moment, he felt guilty. He listened to the engine.
‘Paul chose to follow what he believed,’ she said. ‘If what you say is true, then no one chooses.’
‘Not in the way people think. As though we could have chosen differently if we had the same choice again. It’s arrogant to think we are different to any other animal, to anything else made of atoms.’
‘We are different. He gave us free will. Gave us the ability to choose.’
Scott clenched his fists. ‘Think about it for a moment. Who is choosing? How could you choose differently? It makes no sense.’
‘We have souls,’ she said.
‘And it is the soul that chooses?’
‘Maybe,’ Freya said.
‘And did you choose the soul you have?’
Freya paused. ‘No.’
‘Which means you’re still not choosing. You are who you are because God made you that way. There’s still no room for free will.’
Freya exhaled with frustration. ‘We’re machines, then?’
‘If you want to put it that way,’ he said, tilting his head. He hated himself for making her feel this way. She reminded him of Paul – they shared a belief in humanity. It was there in every word and expression. But it didn’t appear to take any effort on her part; it was who she was and that’s all there was to it.
‘Following a program?’ Freya asked. ‘Instructions?’ Her whispering grew louder.
Scott patted the air to remind her to keep it down. ‘Not following instructions,’ he whispered softly. ‘But what we do is determined by any number of fixed truths. How could things be any different? If they were, your choices would be random, out of your control, which is not choosing either.’
‘So Gabriel had no choice?’
‘No.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘It’s a trick,’ he said. ‘Consciousness, self-awareness, whatever you want to call it – it’s a trick that has evolved over thousands of years.’
‘A trick?’
‘It’s a story we tell ourselves. Maybe some sort of by-product of intelligence.’
‘So Gabriel did nothing wrong. And Isaiah and Noah did nothing right when they rescued you?’
‘Just because determinism is true doesn’t mean we shouldn’t punish those who do wrong and revere those who do good.’
‘I think it does.’
‘We should still punish those who do wrong,’ he said.
‘Why? If they’re not choosing to do what they do … if they’re machines following a program?’
He was about to speak when he heard Gregory descend the stairs. The sound of his boots on each step made everyone raise their heads.
‘We have a problem,’ Gregory said. ‘A bounty. On all of you. Stretch spoke to someone in the town, who told him they know you’re on the canals.’
‘That’s no surprise,’ Isaiah said.
‘How much are we worth?’ Noah asked.
Gregory sniffed. ‘Ten thousand.’
Noah nodded, as if proud.
‘Hundred thousand for Scott,’ Gabriel said.
Scott couldn’t make out Noah’s features, but the tilt of his head was enough to communicate sympathy, even pity.
Isaiah stood, arranged his clothes, then checked his pockets. ‘You’re going to want more money?’ he asked Gregory.
Gregory smiled wryly. ‘We can come to an arrangement.’
‘We’ll still make it to Mathew?’ Freya asked.
‘We can try,’ Gregory said. ‘But every clan in Birmingham and the Black Country will be on the lookout.’
‘Will they look on boats?’ Isaiah asked.
Gregory shrugged. ‘The canals are where most of the clans do their business. Down here, the Watchers are rarely seen. If I wanted to hide from the Watchers, this is where I’d go. These people along the canals, they’re smart.’
‘So what do we do?’ Freya asked, her brow wrinkling.
Taking a box of cigarettes from his coat pocket, Gregory cleared his throat, slid one of the cigarettes from the packet and placed it between his lips. ‘We need to get through one more gateway: Dudley Tunnel. That’s going to be tricky.’
‘Will the boat be checked?’ Isaiah asked.
Gregory shrugged and half nodded, then rolled the flint on the lighter and held it beneath his cigarette.
‘Can we hide?’ Freya asked, scanning the narrowboat.
Gregory exhaled a plume of smoke. ‘You can try. I have whisky to hand over to get us through, but I’m guessing they’re going to want to check out the boat.’
For the first time, Gregory’s expression showed genuine concern.
‘And what will happen to you if they find us?’ Scott asked.
‘Like I said, we can give him more money,’ Isaiah said, butting in before Gregory could respond.
Gregory stared down at his massive boots, then removed the cigarette from his mouth and examined its glowing tip.
‘How long do we have?’ Noah asked.
‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ Gregory said.
‘Tell us where to hide,’ Noah said.
Gregory scanned the narrowboat.
All the available space was filled with crates of whisky or cartons of cigarettes. He walked along the boat.
Noah watched him, then held out his arms. ‘You’re a bootlegger. Where do you hide stuff?’
‘I don’t need to hide anything along the canals. No one ever stops me. Funnily enough, I’ve not had Watchers and one of the Chosen on board before.’
Freya threw pillows and blankets, opened drawers and cabinet doors. ‘There has to be somewhere to hide,’ she said.
Gregory watched her. ‘Narrowboats are designed to use all the space there is.’
‘I have an idea,’ Scott said. ‘How much is this whisky in these crates worth exactly?’
Isaiah stood next to a row of crates and lifted one of the lids.
Gregory coughed. ‘I don’t like where this is going.’
Scott said, ‘We drop the whisky overboard and hide in the crates.’
‘I knew it,’ Gregory said. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘You’d know where it was,’ Scott said. ‘You could come back for it.’
Gregory frowned, unconvinced. ‘Come back for it?’
Freya leaned over one of the crates.
‘Are they big enough for us?’
‘They’ll have to be,’ Scott said.
&n
bsp; ‘I’m claustrophobic,’ Noah said.
‘Then stay out here,’ Freya said. ‘See how long you can hide the fact you’re a Watcher.’
They all waited for Gregory to speak. He put out his cigarette in a glass ashtray and walked over to the crates of whisky, then ran his hands along one crate before moving to stand in front of Isaiah, dwarfing him. ‘I’m going to need more money,’ Gregory said.
Isaiah sighed, then nodded.
Gregory told Stretch to moor the boat. In turn, they carried bottles up to the top of the boat. Stretch tied thin pieces of line to the neck of each whisky bottle then tied these together in a web of ten bottles. He dropped them to the bottom of the canal and tied the end of the line to whatever he could find: a branch, a mooring ring, a loose brick in the wall of the canal. Each time Stretch lowered the bottles into the black, dirty water, Gregory shook his head slowly.
‘What’s that?’ Freya asked, pointing to a bridge further along. More graffiti was painted on its brick walls.
‘What?’ Scott asked, pretending not to have seen the date.
Gregory held a new, unlit cigarette next to his lips. He glanced at Scott.
‘It’s appearing more and more,’ Gregory said. ‘Some of the kids are getting the date tattooed on their hand, like they’re Chosen.’
In the darkness, Scott saw Freya disappear into her thoughts.
Gregory rubbed the back of his head. He glanced at Scott’s hand. ‘Let’s see it,’ he said.
‘What?’ Scott asked.
‘Your date.’ Gregory stood with his arms folded. ‘I have a horrible feeling you’re asking me to do a lot more than I was banking on.’
Isaiah and Noah came up from below and spotted the graffiti on the bridge.
Scott looked at Isaiah. He nodded. Scott opened his hand.
‘Well, there you go,’ Gregory said. Lighting his cigarette, his hand trembled.
‘How?’ Freya asked. ‘Why would Scott’s date be graffitied on the bridge?’
‘It’s not the only time I’ve seen it,’ Scott said.
‘We’re not going to work it out standing around here,’ Isaiah said. ‘Let’s go.’
