Hunters & Collectors

by M. Suddain

  VOICE1: Mr Hunter, could I get you to speak into the microphone. I know it’s difficult.

  HUNTER: I’m sorry. Is this better?

  VOICE1: Yes. We’ve seen your charts, and we must say you were lucky to survive your experience. Will you tell us briefly about your impressions of what happened at Hotel Grand Skies?

  HUNTER: Sure. Well, my department has been watching the place for some time –

  VOICE1: Your department?

  HUNTER: Intersec, Occult Division.

  VOICE1: I …

  VOICE2: In the film my client works undercover for Intersec. We’d appreciate it if you could, you know … honour that.

  VOICE1: Sure. I’m just wondering how reliable this testimony will be if we have to –

  HUNTER: Fuck, nothing about any of this is ‘reliable’. You can’t trust anything you hear. I bet you can’t even verify who was out there, am I right? Someone says they saw Prince Fuckmince wearing his own guts as a hat, and then you find Prince Fuckmince who says, ‘Why no. I had a very pleasant voyage with the Empyrean, then I came back here to my super-mansion.’

  VOICE1: We don’t have a Prince Fuckmince on our list … let me just –

  VOICE2: I believe my client was making a joke, creating a hypothetical ‘Prince Fuckmince’ for the purposes of making his point.

  VOICE1: Right. We’re already confused with all the fake identities. Perhaps we could just stick to real people.

  HUNTER: My point is, I’m willing to bet you can’t get any of this to match up. You have one or two witnesses, people like me. You have an entire Marine Patrol squad who vanished. No distress call, nothing. But mostly you have thousands of guests who happily left the hotel after the Harvest voyage, and are now saying, ‘What massacre?’

  VOICE1: So you don’t go along with Whitestar’s line that there was no massacre –

  HUNTER: I don’t go along with Whitestar’s line that there’s a Whitestar. It’s a front. And yes, there was a massacre.

  VOICE1: But you can’t ignore the fact that we don’t have a single piece of physical evidence from the so-called crime scene, which Whitestar very graciously let us visit. Do you have any idea how impossible it would be to cover up a massacre of that scale? Our DNA detectors can –

  HUNTER: I know what they can do. They have better cleaning-machines than you have finding-machines. Lepold bought a multi-million-franc tech start-up whose only patents were for DNA-erasing hardware.

  VOICE1: But you have to admit it’s very difficult to assemble facts for a case of mass murder when there are no bodies, no blood, no DNA traces, and several thousand witnesses who say nothing happened.

  HUNTER: And yet we’re sitting here. Which means you know something’s up.

  VOICE1: So do you have a theory about what’s going on out there?

  HUNTER: Sure I do. I could tell you it’s a fancy counterfeiting operation. That some powerful psychopath figured out a way to counterfeit people. That they can make clones of people and subtly reprogram them to do their bidding. And I could tell you that’s why you can’t get any reliable witnesses from the massacre. And maybe that’s true, or half true, or not true at all. Why should you even trust what I say? You can’t even be sure I’m who I say I am.

  VOICE1: I think we’ve established, Mr Hunter, that you are not who you say you are.

  HUNTER: Funny. You’re funny. The fact is, I could be an edited copy of myself, and I don’t even have to be consciously in on the deception. I could be a clone of myself who isn’t aware of the fact that I’m deceiving you. I could have been sent here to convince you of something they want you to believe, to distract you from an even bigger truth.

  VOICE1: There’s no ‘bigger truth’, Mr Hunter. It’s an absolute. There’s truth, or there’s not.

  HUNTER: If you believe that then you don’t have a hope of understanding Lepold’s project.

  VOICE1: But if what you’re telling us is true then you are aware of the plot, and so what you’re telling us right now could well be false.

  HUNTER: Unless it’s the truth.

  VOICE1: Right.

  HUNTER: Am I a real person telling you about a hypothetical scenario involving fake people –

  VOICE1: Or are you a fake person pretending to be a real person pretending to be a fake person telling us fake things to distract us from the truth?

  HUNTER: Precisely. The sandbox Difflaydermaus has built gives them the power to create reality. They could clone a government official, program him to commit treason, have that clone vanish. Then the enemy government arrests and executes the real official. I mean it’s –

  VOICE1: Mr Hunter, you have a little blood from your … yes, from your nose there.

  HUNTER: Oh, I’m sorry.

  VOICE1: That’s fine, just take your time. We can call your doctor in if –

  HUNTER: No, I’m OK.

  VOICE1: How were you able to survive for so long in there?

  HUNTER: I laid low. That system picks up anything unusual. It even reads your heart rate, your blood pressure. At school they … Sorry, I’m going to step out of character for a second.

  VOICE1: OK.

  HUNTER: At school they taught us to create states with our body, regardless of what’s happening around us. I learned to control my heart rate, my breathing, even how much I sweat. And that’s good, because they can see that. Those evil bastards see everything. But I stayed invisible. For a while.

  VOICE1: And this individual called … Daniel Woodbine … rescued you?

  HUNTER: Abducted me.

  VOICE1: I’m sorry?

  HUNTER: He rescued me against my will. He used staff who’d become loyal to him. Alpine Men, or something. They rescued me from the Pacific Steam Plaza.

  VOICE1: What happens there?

  HUNTER: Steam. They wouldn’t let me take my notes. Said I had seconds to leave. Management had found out about me and was setting up ambushes. Turns out the little girl I rescued was informing on me. She made a bargain with them for her life.

  VOICE1: Where is she now?

  HUNTER: No idea. Do not care. I had notes which could have blown this operation wide open. Now they’re all gone.

  VOICE1: So you resent this man saving your life?

  HUNTER: He did it because he was working for them and he wanted to part me from the materials I’d gathered. Or he had the hots for me. Either way, I wasn’t interested. He ruined everything. Him and that fancy man and that girl.

  VOICE1: This is Mr Tamberlain and Ms Green, the one you claim is a Water Bear?

  HUNTER: I don’t claim. That’s what she is.

  VOICE1: And didn’t it ever strike you as strange that in researching a role in which you play an agent who falls for a Water Bear, you just ‘happen’ to meet a Water Bear?

  HUNTER: I didn’t think about it at the time. I was too busy fighting for my life to expose a conspiracy of international importance whose implications threaten not only our society but civilisation as we know it.

  VOICE1: But you can think about it now. Does it not seem a surreal coincidence that you should be introduced to, and by all accounts fall for, a Water Bear –

  HUNTER: I didn’t fall for her.

  VOICE1: – in a near exact replication of the plot of the film you’re preparing for? Also, we have the letters you wrote her.

  HUNTER: Like I said, I had no time to think about it. And again, I didn’t fall for her. My character fell for her. She’s actually not my type.

  VOICE1: Right. But she engineered your final escape –

  HUNTER: Again, against my will. She and her Huntresses.

  VOICE1: Huntresses?

  HUNTER: A clique she managed to make loyal to her. She trained them in basic combat.

  VOICE1: How did she do that? You said they were only there a day or so.

  HUNTER: I have no idea. She must have found a way to transfer some basic tactical information to them. It doesn’t matter. Because of them I have a punctured lung, and no evidence. The who
le narrative collapsed because of her.

  VOICE1: The narrative? You mean the narrative in which you expose the Empyrean for what it is, and save the day?

  HUNTER: Yes. Have I said something amusing?

  VOICE1: Not at all, I was just … it just strikes me that from a purely narrative point of view you actually had very little impact on the outcome of this story. Certainly not enough to paint yourself as the protagonist.

  HUNTER: I don’t follow.

  VOICE1: Well, you survived the massacre, and rescued a small girl who would eventually sell you out. You met with Ms Green and her associates and passed on a certain amount of information. Then you went back into hiding until you were eventually rescued – admittedly reluctantly – and shuttled away to safety while Ms Green went back to save the day. That doesn’t exactly paint you as the hero. At best you could call yourself a ‘love interest’. But even that’d be generous. You strike me as someone who aspired to be a hero, but never quite had the goods, so actually just ended up heaping more challenges on the central character. If such a trope exists.

  VOICE3: [Inaudible.]

  VOICE1: Yes! Or the character who’s only there to provide important plot information to the main characters so the audience knows what’s happening.

  HUNTER: Right. I get it. Because I happen to enjoy wearing dresses, I’m a love interest. What century is this?

  VOICE1: This has nothing to do with your dress. Which, by the way … gorgeous. Ms Green wears dresses, too, and she gets … it … done. [Sound of someone snapping their fingers?] It’s the man in the dress, that’s what we’re talking about here.

  VOICE2: Are you questioning my client’s manhood? Because if you are –

  VOICE1: Not at all! We think it’s very brave and progressive for the star of an action film to be gender-fluid.

  HUNTER: My character isn’t ‘gender-fluid’. This is a personal preference. Dresses make me feel safe.

  VOICE2: Could we get back to the central issue here, maybe? My client isn’t exactly feeling in top shape.

  VOICE1: Of course. So Ms Green got you to a life-pod.

  HUNTER: To the last life-pod.

  VOICE1: She gave you the last life-pod?

  HUNTER: Yep.

  VOICE1: And you took it?

  HUNTER: I didn’t feel like I had a choice. When she got me in the pod she said she wasn’t coming. Said she had to go back for someone.

  VOICE1: Where is she now?

  HUNTER: Dead. I assume they all died there. They were new acquisitions so they hadn’t been scanned. Which means they’re dead forever. Which actually, in the scheme of things, is a salvation.

  VOICE1: So none of them made it to the pod?

  HUNTER: Like I said, I don’t know what happened to them. Tamberlain went upstairs to have dinner. Ms Green got me and Mr Daniels to the pod, then said she was going back. Mr Daniels wouldn’t get in the pod, even when I yelled at him. So I waited as long as I could.

  VOICE1: Wow.

  VOICE2: My client needed urgent medical attention.

  HUNTER: I did.

  VOICE1: What about that little girl?

  HUNTER: The one who sold me out? Are you serious?

  VOICE1: She was obviously scared out of her wits. She did whatever had to be done to survive. Much like you did when you sailed off alone in the last life-pod. Did Ms Green say who she had to go back for? Mr Hunter? Is everything all right?

  HUNTER: Yes, I’m – [Sound of violent coughing.]

  VOICE2: My client needs to rest. He’s still very fragile.

  VOICE1: Of course. Let’s adjourn and pick this up in another session. My sympathies for your suffering, Mr Hunter.

  [Sound of coughing continues.]

  VOICE2: It’s OK, we’ll call Doctor Merzibow in. You don’t have to worry about a th—

  Sound of door closing.

  VOICE1: Wow. What an arsehole.

  SESSION ENDS.

  TRANSCRIPT 99QF – MR DANIEL HOOVER WOODBINE.

  VOICE1: This session begins, 18.19.01 Central Time. Microphones are hot. Mr Woodbine, if you could just –

  WOODBINE: Who the fuck do you think you are? I demand to know who’s interrogating me.

  VOICE1: This isn’t an interrogation, Mr Woodbine, it’s just an interview. And I’m afraid we can’t identify ourselves to you at this juncture.

  WOODBINE: Then under the authority of the Master Six Convention on Human Rights, I submit –

  VOICE1: We aren’t bound by that convention, Mr Woodbine. You can relax, you aren’t under any threat of harm or prosecution. We just wanted to speak to you about the events aboard –

  WOODBINE: You’ve kept me here for days without a lawyer. If I don’t have legal representation within the next twenty-five minutes, I will crush you. Do you understand? I will –

  VOICE1: As we explained, we’ve detained you for your safety. You’re under Category Ten witness protection protocols. We can’t be certain any lawyer you hire wouldn’t turn out to be one of them. And there’s no need for a lawyer since in the first case none of what you say will ever be made public, or used in evidence in any public trial, and in the second case because you are a lawyer, correct?

  WOODBINE: I’ve told you everything I know about the Empyrean.

  VOICE1: We know, twice. And it still doesn’t make much sense to us. Can we get you some water?

  WOODBINE: Yes.

  VOICE1: Let’s get Mr Woodbine some water.

  WOODBINE: No ice.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): No ice for Mr Woodbine.

  VOICE1: We wondered if you could just clarify a couple of things for us. Then we can see about moving you to a more permanent safe house. You say you were hired by Minisec to spy on Mr Tamberlain.

  WOODBINE: Not hired, invited.

  VOICE1: But that organisation denies having spoken to you.

  WOODBINE: So you aren’t Minisec.

  VOICE1: We’re not confirming that. But even if we aren’t, we’re certainly close enough to them to confirm that there was never any contact between their office and you at any juncture.

  WOODBINE: Well, they said they were Minisec.

  VOICE1: By which medium did they communicate with you? Radio-telepathy? Hard matter? Subconscious insertion?

  WOODBINE: I don’t know what that is. They contacted me while I was asleep.

  VOICE1: Very well, subconscious insertion.

  WOODBINE: They told me about the hotel, that my boss would get an invite, that I should act suitably surprised. They said I should try to dissuade him from going, but only enough to prick him into it. They said to get him the best bodyguard I knew. They said I’d be paid.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): How much?

  WOODBINE: It wasn’t specified. They used the word ‘unfathomable’.

  VOICE1: And since visiting the Empyrean, have you been paid?

  WOODBINE: No, of course I fucking haven’t. I told them to fuck themselves.

  VOICE1: And have you been contacted about handing over the information you gathered?

  WOODBINE: For the last time, I didn’t gather any information. I left with nothing. And I wouldn’t have given them any if I had. And no, they haven’t contacted me.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): And do you find this strange?

  WOODBINE: I don’t find anything strange now. I need to contact my mother. She’ll think I’m dead.

  VOICE1: And unfortunately she’ll need to keep thinking that until such time as this is all resolved. And until such time as we can determine that everyone is the origin-copy of the individual they claim to be.

  WOODBINE: Origin-copy? The hell are you talking about?

  VOICE1: We just need to be sure you’re who you think you are.

  WOODBINE: Of course I’m who I think I am. I’m me!

  VOICE1: But with respect, how can you know that? You’ve told us that this system is advanced enough to create counterfeits of people, virtual or organic, who can be implanted with augmented minds and memories. So it stands to reason tha
t any of the survivors from the Empyrean, including you, could be fake.

  WOODBINE: Well, how do you know the people who gave you that information aren’t fakes?

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): Well, because even if they were it would support the hypothesis.

  WOODBINE: Good point. Well, I’m me. That’s it. I remember my mother’s face, I remember breaking a finger when I was nine, I remember losing my virginity, and I definitely remember arriving at, and leaving, the Empyrean. Without one of my fingers.

  VOICE1: But you at least acknowledge the theoretical possibility that you could have been given those memories. The fact you remember those events doesn’t mean they happened, just that you recall them happening. You could be a ‘you’ designed to think you’re you.

  WOODBINE: What other kind of me is there?

  VOICE1: Good point. So you stand by your story about what happened at the Empyrean. You maintain Ms Green managed to get you out of the hotel?

  WOODBINE: Correct.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): That seems beyond credible, if what you’ve told us about their security system is accurate.

  WOODBINE: I told you, she had methods. She had fog, and she had witches.

  VOICE1: Come again?

  WOODBINE: You heard me.

  VOICE1: OK, we’ll put a pin in fog and witches. Why don’t you tell us one more time what happened at the end, because we have conflicting statements? You left your suite with Ms Green, who you slung over your shoulder, but not Mr Hunter, who decided your mission was suicide, and stayed in your suite. You made for the life-pods, but soon became entangled in a running battle between two rival staff cliques. Ms Green woke and managed to save your life. Then what? You went back?

  WOODBINE: No. Gladys put me in the last life-pod and went back alone.

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): Ah, this mythical ‘last life-pod’ that several different individuals claim to have used to escape.

  WOODBINE: Well, there was one pod left, and we used it. So…

  VOICE2 (sarcastic): And you stayed in it while your friend went back?

  WOODBINE: She did the pressure point thing so I couldn’t move.

  VOICE1: She paralysed you?

  WOODBINE: Yes. She can press on parts of your body to put you out of action.

  VOICE1: Why’d she do that?