Solomon's Keepers

by J. H. Kavanagh

  A sensational new entertainment is taking the world by storm. At its heart is Solomon, a microchip implant that is a stolen military secret.

  Rees is a young man with a past that is coming to light; the woman they’d forced him to leave has made a shocking discovery and is now on a quest that puts her, the military, and a media empire on collision course. At stake are a tycoon’s ambition, national security, and two young lives.

  With time running out, Rees has one final shot at freedom and a crucial decision to make. But how do you save yourself when your mind isn’t entirely your own?

  Solomon’s Keepers gives a close-up of the confrontation between technology and humanity – in one man’s mind and a whole society’s future.

  Solomon’s Keepers

  By J.H. Kavanagh

  Copyright © J.H. Kavanagh 2012

  All Rights Reserved

  J.H. Kavanagh has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  For Chris

  Part One

  Only a life lived for others is worth living.

  ~ Albert Einstein

  The future is closer than you think.

  Imagine the things you most wish you could do: the adventures, the encounters, the indulgences. Imagine someone who can do those things the way you dream of doing them. Now imagine that person sending you those experiences, recreating them inside your mind so you live every sensation more vividly than anything in the rest of your life. No effort, no risk, no weight gain – just each and every moment, happening to you.

  KomViva.

  Only losers live their own leisure.

  One

  That smell is his skull burning.

  Each probe produces a whiff of scorched bone that bests even the chemical gunk they have smeared on his scalp. Amongst other things, that means he’s awake. Amongst so many other things, he’s alive. And at last this thing he’s been waiting for is happening.

  The surgeon, Brodzky, is alternately a distant presence behind the plastic that separates them and then an immediate and intimate one as he zooms into each sizzling connection. Rees feels a piece of his skull give a tiny creak. He hears instruments clang, coverings crackle, measured voices murmur.

  ‘Okay, aspirate please…go to ten…and four…now sixteen…three and then twelve, no, seventeen please…’

  He doesn’t understand most of what they are saying, but like the tab in a foreign bar, he knows what it covers. It could be a recount in squiddish of all the promises, all the investment of other people’s time and money to get him here. One way or another he’ll be paying for the rest of his life. The thought produces an involuntary mumble.

  ‘Are you mumming wow now, Rees?’ More murmuring numbers. It doesn’t register so Brodzky does something to the plastic curtain and tries again, louder.

  ‘Rees, can you hear me?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ The young man says. He’s lying on a slope, his head clamped still under angry blisters of light. There’s no pain, but the awareness at the top of his head makes it a wasp sting, an ice hole and then a trapdoor they are clattering through with a ladder and buckets and reels of electric cable. They had said he wouldn’t feel it. But he’s imagining it. Actually, the detachment is quite entertaining.

  ‘Local Friesian septic wallow.’ Someone says seriously.

  He knows he didn’t hear that right. He’s lucid; he’s putting it all together. His memories are there, He knows it’s all still there with him; all the anticipation, the briefings, the tests and confirmations that took months to come to this conclusion are all lining up somewhere for recall in his newly windowed brain.

  He remembers the bits about putting him out for the cutting, no nerve endings inside, and the need to keep him awake to check blood flow and neuro function. He remembers uniformed men in a room, chip samples the size of a thumbnail passed around reverently, the blown up image on a screen, and being part of something excitingly big: Next generation professionals; the thinking time has to come out, the clutter. Machines are getting smarter and we’re not. The collective nodding confirms the inevitability of it all.

  ‘I’m going to need you to do a few things for me – we’ll have a little chat and do some questions and answers about what you can see on the monitor and I’ll have some movements I want you to do – when I say, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Rees says. The big monitor high up to his left swaps a vague blue screensaver and a letterbox of text for a bright tile of white with a blue bird logo on it.

  ‘So how old are you, son?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘You remember what year you were born?’

  ‘Two thousand and one.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Where are you from – what part?’

  ‘The west country, near Hereford?’

  ‘Very nice. Can you clench your left fist for me? That’s great.’

  ‘I can remember…’

  ‘And the right? Family still there? Mom and Dad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘I’ve an older brother. He died.’

  ‘Good. Go to fourteen? And mapping three…and seven. Can you move your toes now please – left foot and then right. That’s good. What do you like to do, Rees? You must be into sport. You like soccer? Working out?’

  ‘Different stuff. Running mainly.’

  ‘Okay. Sprints? Marathons?’

  ‘Distances. Cross country stuff.’

  ‘Uh huh. Okay, now what can you see on the screen? Just call out what you see and say what colour it is, so, blue bird, green bottle, okay?’

  The images flash in a series, brightly coloured outlines on a white square and Rees calls them out. ‘Blue bird, green bottle, red car, silver, um, scissors...’

  ‘Good, and the same again, please.’

  The same pictures flash again.

  ‘Dog,’ Rees mumbles, ‘dog, dog, dog.’

  ‘Okay, just to let you know, Rees, we’re all set to go now. We just ease into the central callosum and we go to one side at a time. This is the tricky part and it takes a little while. We take you in and out and it may get a little weird so just stay with us while you can and enjoy the ride.’

  The makings of a joke suggest themselves; leaving junk in a loft, but they can’t cohere. Then he imagines a parting, blood red curtains opening on a new movie.

  ‘You know, most guys your age think all life is between the legs,’ he says, ‘but this is where the real action is; left and right hemispheres, two million years of human culture and it all comes down to the tussle and teamwork between these bad boys. This is the crucible right here.’ And then he’s a washing machine again and the young man can hear that they are both talking but he has no idea what either of them is saying. The imaginary curtains have half closed on sky beyond and the ground rolling away as a green patchwork marble. A world of space and simplicity and the knowledge that everything connects, everything is energy and it reaches from his dissolving heart and bones all the way around the universe…Everything plays across him, he doesn’t have boundaries or form, he exists just where heat waves overlap enough to throw a shadow.

  He thinks of Eva at the top of the steps, afternoon sun in her eyes and counting the buttons on her coat, the little black suitcase bobbing behind on tiny wheels as she comes down, her free hand twisting wind-blown red hair back into place. She looks vulnerable but poised, like lost cabin crew. And he remembers the last time,
naked in shadow, her outstretched arm crossing a stave of light to retrieve a duvet that’s following him across the floor as he moves. Knowing but not knowing the choice he was making, that was being made for him. Not even wanting her to wake properly. Thinking there was more time, another way.

  It shouldn’t have happened like this. He wanted her back. There had to be a way.

  ‘Rees, I want you to count down from twenty to zero, even numbers only, please.’

  He thinks of Brett, the brother he’d lost. After all that had happened, he’d promised he’d make something of himself. Maybe, after all, he had; he would. He had to, it was a huge gamble.

  ‘Twenty, nineteen, sorry, eighteen, sixteen…’

  ‘Okay, Rees, that’s great.’

  ‘How much longer?’

  ‘For you? A few minutes. We’ll be here a while though. Got to close you up, make sure you’re airtight.’

  ‘How soon do you know if this is going to work? I mean – when can you say that it’s…Do you have to wait a while or…?’

  ‘You’re fine, just fine. It’s all going great. You’ll be up and at ’em in no time. You are now a member of a very exclusive club, young man. There’s a lot invested in this and a lot of people who will dearly wish to be able to do what you’ll be able to do. You’re going to show the way to a whole new world.’

  ‘How many have you done, I mean you personally?’

  ‘All of them. If I tell you I’ve been working on this in one form or another for ten years…’

  ‘Has it ever gone wrong?’

  ‘Before long you’re going to wonder how the rest of us get along without it: We’ll be second class citizens, lower orders. It’s a privilege, a lot of work. Like the first men on the moon.’

  ‘A giant step.’

  ‘Leap. Small step for a man, giant leap for mankind.’

  ‘Oh yeah – giant leap. I want to ask you something…’

  ‘Go ahead, Tiger.’

  ‘Do you think I’m still going to be me? To someone who knew me, I mean. Are the people you’ve known, who you’ve…are we still all the same as we were, better maybe, but the same people underneath? ’

  Brodzky breathes out slowly. ‘You’re going to be better, sure, more than you ever were. Something special alright. And Mom’s going to know you and love you just the same; just a better version of you – that what you mean? The army’s going to love you a whole lot, like half a billion dollars more. You’d better believe it.’

  His colleagues make what sound like corroborative noises back there behind the plastic.

  ‘I mean, am I…’

  He feels the older man’s hand rustling through to his shoulder. ‘Relax son, plenty of time for that later. You’re going to be fine. Better than fine – same old you but with some added capability. Just need to make some adjustment to learn how to use it, how to embrace it and not fight it. It really is a big leap. We’re going to help you learn how to deal with it. The whole team is behind you. Once Solomon – asserts itself – you will be in your element. You remember going swimming at the beach as a child? One minute you’re walking over rocks and tripping over your new fins that feel as clumsy as skis, next thing you’re out there swimming in the ocean and feeling like you were born a fish.’

  But Rees is already fading into sleep.

  ‘And remember, Rees, you’re never swimming without fins from now on. There’s always that extra power swimming with you. There’s always help on board. Always Solomon there to help…’

  Two

  A windowless conference room with the overhead lights down low. Three figures are seated around one end of a long table piled with equipment. A flotilla of polystyrene cups and paper plates has been launched along the table top and the air hangs heavy with time spent in confinement. A young man in a blue uniform shirt worn undone at the neck and with sleeves rolled up is seated at the end of the table, typing into his laptop and occasionally talking into a headset mic. On either side, his companions, a large man and a slim woman in similar uniform shirts are both wearing bulky silver helmets that obscure their faces and which are connected to a large metal device on the table in front of them by braids of brightly coloured wires. A larger umbilical braid falls off the far edge of the table and snakes across to a port in the wall. The young man pauses to look at his companions, runs his fingers through his short blonde hair and blows a long sigh. The big man he looks at first is slouched backwards with one arm hanging loose by his side. The dangling hand turns and makes small prodding movements with thumb and fingertips pressed together as though trying to pick something up with a needle. The young man checks his watch and then reaches across and flicks something on a band around the exposed forearm. The big man jolts and raises his arms to his head.

  The woman is leaning forward on her elbows with her head bowed. She has the same band around her forearm. The young man leaves her be. The big man has his helmet off. Short black hair shines in a column of overhead light. He looks around quickly, shakes his head and checks his watch. He takes a deep breath.

  ‘Not good’ he says. ‘Two fractures to the ankle, possible fractured pelvis, torn ligaments in the ankle and hip and a bad tear in his thigh; he’s in a lot of pain and going nowhere, could be some internal damage too. I don’t like the feel of him. We need to extract them – now.’

  The blonde man waits for a moment and then types something as he speaks.

  ‘Netta wanted to call time when she saw the weather. You want to call it off because one man’s down. Not Harper’s style – nor mine for that matter. There’s a job to do, remember?’

  The big man looks dismayed. ‘Lead man down, worst weather for months and no one has even confirmed the target is there yet. If you ask me you’re mad to let this go ahead. It’s not as though there aren’t enough control issues already with all this.’ He spreads his hands and looks at the hunched form of the woman opposite and the smooth crown of the helmet as though appealing for support. None comes. She shuffles in her seat and sways rhythmically as though walking.

  ‘Thank you for your medical opinion, Lieutenant. Duly noted.’ The blonde man says.

  The big man isn’t done. ‘Without Schultz you have to question the chances of any positive outcome here. We stand a good chance of this becoming a publicity coup for…’

  The blonde man stops typing and looks up now. ‘He needs to be verified, doesn’t he? Isn’t that why you’re here? So let’s stop playing around and see this thing through. We were sold this as no compromise, net positive, all that bullshit, remember? If he’s going into the medical corps then I don’t have a problem, if he’s going to pull his weight in this team we need to see something else.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me. I have a job to do here too. How smart is this gonna look when instead of picking up Solomon transmissions we’re watching him beg for release on raghead TV?’

  ‘Damn it, Randall, just remember while you guys are scoring points and drumming up your next Powerpoints for the Joint Chiefs the rest of us are trying to win a war. And if that Stonebreaker goes off the only thing you’ll see on the news is a whole lot of red wallpaper. I don’t need you to approve. I need you to put that fucking tin head back on and help patch Shultz up well enough to leave alone while we get the job done.’

  The big man stares at him for a long moment and then breathes out hard and dons the helmet again. There is no sound. The system channels sensations from hundreds of miles away and Randall’s hands work the empty air in ghostly sympathy.

  The blonde man watches his laptop screen intently and after several minutes leans across to the woman and flicks the band on her wrist. She slides the helmet off and shakes her head as though to loosen hair she does not possess. Her head is shaven and her features gathered in concentration. She looks around the room and checks her watch by reflex, then opens her eyes wide.

  ‘You’d better take a quick break while you can’ he says. She stands up and he waits for her to gather herself and thumbs towards Ra
ndall. ‘How are we doing?’

  She holds out her arms and shakes her hands and face, jiggling her cheeks and exhaling. Then she looks across at the big man and speaks in a low voice.

  ‘Schultz is a mess. But he’ll live. Fortunately, Wonderboy landed well. Sorting Shultz is a big ask but looks like he’s come through. Impressive work, all things considered. Have to give Randall that.’

  ‘Randall needs a break. He’s getting to be hard work. Shame there’s only him.’

  She shakes her head and manages a rueful smile. ‘Takes too long’ she says. ‘And then there are the working conditions, the army pay and the weird colleagues.’

  The blonde man snorts a little laugh.

  ‘And you’re the one that gives them the positive outlook that gets him through, right? You’d better take five and let Harper know – he’s gonna want to be here. And see if there’s any more diet coke upstairs, will you?’ You go inside. Weeks of enforced separation punctuated only by illicit texts as IOUs for intimacy, all to be cashed now.

  A solitary moonbeam feels its way along an indefinite landscape. The light blinks in drifting cloud, picks up the sheen of water amongst reeds, a wide crescent of cracked mud and then, beyond the shoreline, a fence of wire and concrete posts that stretches across the desert beyond. You switch on the night vision scope and peer into a coin of spectral green light. The horizon is a clear line except for the occasional jitter of rocks or a fizzle of reflective dust kicked up by the breeze. At the limit of the sweep, where a dirt road reaches a scruffy sprawl of buildings, you find it. Between two buildings, a section of a low sixteen-wheeler, tool-pregnant like the handle of a giant pocket-knife, the missile in silhouette down its back like a blade opening to the sky. You recognise the shape and realise Solomon is kicking in – urging information like an eager know-all friend. You feel it matching its rhythm with the flow of natural thought, like streams of traffic merging at speed. There’s a tiny check and then the geeky surge to your assisted conclusion: Chinese-made Stonebreaker – locally upgraded additional tanks doubling its range to fifteen hundred – position of the rear stabilising struts under stress indicate it is unlikely to be a decoy and is part way through launch – typically early hours in cloud cover to avoid detection. A moment later and you find a meteo balloon radar truck and command vehicle in sight – nearest settlement Al Hamra Wasri – no G-Two – terrain is marsh and category one desert – assets unknown – previous records none.