by Nick M Lloyd
‘Understood. I’ll look into stalling techniques, but I’m more mindful to let them go ahead, they’ll be suspicious of random meddling.’
Back in the crew room Justio watched the retrieval craft make its way back into orbit. His hand hovered over the buttons he could push to send it to oblivion.
He breathed deeply.
For five minutes he sat there, but it wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter 49
At 9am on Saturday morning Louise got her first look at the experiment set-up. The walk through the corridors had darkened Louise’s spirits; this deep into the campus the decoration budget had run out. The walls were blank, the windows covered in copper mesh, and strip lights illuminated everything in a dull sheen.
However, the Pryson Room itself was exactly as Mike had described it: high tech, clean and professional. Good. When Jack arrived, they needed to give a good impression to avoid raising his suspicions. Not that he would be meeting Louise.
Within the laboratory there were three distinct areas, two partitioned experiment zones and a separate observation room, with a glass window onto the coin box testing equipment. The area where Jack’s experiment was situated was hidden from the observation room.
Mike walked Louise around the equipment. ‘So it’s Ashley, Willis and Jack in here—the coin boxes first. Then we take Jack around the back.’
‘Jack can’t see me.’
‘Don’t worry, during coin tests we’ll set the office window to mirror mode.’
Louise nodded approvingly; that sounded good to her.
Bob came in with Jeff, Ashley and Willis. He took out his scanner and swept all of them individually, picking up the passive pinging, or simple EM leakage from all of their personal electronics. He collected them all up: phones, iPads, Kindles, digital watches, everything. ‘I’ll lock these in my office. Back in five.’
Louise went into the observation room with Jeff, while Mike briefed Ashley and Willis about the high level plans for the day and reminded them about Jack’s own reasons for being there.
Inside the observation room, Jeff and Louise looked out on to the coin box area. They tried a few experimental waves but, as Mike had said, the glass was one-way, and they were safe from being spotted.
A few minutes later Mike waved towards Louise, signalling he was going to collect Jack from reception.
Ten minutes later, Louise’s heart sped up as she saw Jack being led into the coin box testing area and introduced to the others. Jeff gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
After shaking hands with Willis and Ashley, Jack followed Bob to one of the coin box stations and settled in. He looked around the room. ‘So this is mostly a University campus rather than a high-tech government laboratory, right?’
Bob looked a little embarrassed. ‘The government can’t afford to maintain lots of separate research facilities so it’s very common for collaboration, grants, space, expertise—it all gets shared out.’
‘Makes sense, resource sharing and all that.’ Jack paused for breath. ‘Well I’m just pleased you’re having another look at me. During these last few weeks I have begun to think something wasn’t quite right…my stress counsellor seems to think the passing of time, in conjunction with emotional heart-to-hearts, will get me cured. I’m not so sure.’
‘Can you expand on…something wasn’t quite right?’
‘Just a hunch really, and perhaps it’s all trauma. I lost someone special in the crash; I’m beginning to recognise what a shit I was at Glowview. God knows.’ Jack glanced quickly at Bob and then concentrated on his breathing. ‘But the fact remains, over the last few weeks, I feel I have been slowly letting go of reality.’
‘Have there been any particular incidents?’
‘No…well, yes…well, maybe. I don’t know. Let’s just do the tests.’
Bob looked towards the mirrored glass of the observation room.
It didn’t take Bob long to show how the coin box apparatus worked. Jack quickly got the hang of it, although he wasn’t sure what it was for.
The uncertainty must have shown on his face because Bob answered his unspoken question. ‘This experiment is just a little motor skill, eyesight and shape recognition test. Willis and Ashley are doing the same; they’re not recent trauma victims, but both were in bad accidents a few years ago.’
Jack had a closer look at the coin boxes. ‘It’s not what I expected. I was thinking more along the lines of brain scanners and such like.’
‘There will be something like that later, but for now we start simple.’ Bob paused. ‘Jack, have you done anything today to help you deal with stress and worry?’
‘I’m sedative free.’
Once all three participants were settled at their places, Mike dimmed the lights. ‘Okay guys, firstly can you do five hundred normal open and closes. Then we will do five hundred with you going as fast as you can.’ The others murmured their agreement and the experiment started.
Back in the observation room, safely shut away, Louise was getting real-time results of the tests. She turned to Jeff. ‘Anything?’
‘We need a larger sample size, but Jack’s numbers do look a little odd.’
They waited. After just under 65 minutes, Mike walked into the control area. ‘So Louise, how’s the journey towards investigative immortally?’
She looked at Jeff. ‘Jeff?’
Jeff ran the numbers. ‘Jack has recorded one thousand tosses.’ He paused. ‘For the 500 in which we were subconsciously pushing him to think about heads, he got 277 heads; looking at the chi-squared analysis, it’s not quite statistically significant…but it looks promising.’
Mike looked over Jeff’s shoulder. ‘Not amazing.’
‘But if we were to assume that the subliminal trigger is not very efficient then Jack could be hitting 80%.’
Louise interrupted. ‘What do you mean he’s got 277 from 500…close to 55%.’
‘Yes, but that assumes there are 500 in which he tries to get heads; what if the subliminal trigger only works in 350 cases?’
Mike shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t know if the heads were from the other 150…’
Jeff was undeterred. ‘Sure, that’s true. But the fact is, these results are almost statistically significant. We’re on to something.’
‘Okay. On that we can agree. We continue the tests.’
Louise intervened. ‘What about Ashley and Willis?’
Jeff looked at the results. ‘Nothing unusual.’ Then Jeff turned back to Mike. ‘And before you ask, there was no difference between the fast and the slow box opening speeds.’
Louise watched with growing consternation from behind the mirror. Outside, Bob had given the participants a break. He’d brought out soft drinks and biscuits for them. Don’t say anything incriminating.
Then Bob organised a restart to run another 1,000 coin tosses. Mike went out to help administer the tests.
Jeff gave Louise a hug. ‘Something will come of it. You’re too special not to get the results.’
Louise wasn’t sure. The adrenaline, surging earlier, was now ebbing. A discovery was no longer inevitable.
An hour later, the results had not changed meaningfully. Ashley and Willis had nothing, while Jack was still borderline significant.
Bob took Jack to the cafeteria to get coffees, while Mike, Willis and Ashley joined Louise in the observation room.
Willis looked at the figures. ‘Just getting a few extra 50:50 chances correct doesn’t seem too hard.’ He pointed to a run of correct answers.
Mike looked up from the figures. ‘So you never heard the one about the old Indian chess player and the Maharaja?’
Willis shook his head.
Louise interrupted. ‘Short version Mike.’
‘This poor man was challenged to a game of chess by the Maharaja, and offered a herd of elephants if he won. But the poor man said…’ Mike switched to his best Welsh accent. ‘Kind
sir, I would like rice, not elephants, if I win.’ He drifted into generic Scandinavian. ‘If I win, you will give me one grain of rice on the first square of the chess board, two grains on the second square, four on the…’
‘Mike!’ Louise had had enough. ‘Enough of the lazy racism. And I said short version.’
Mike feigned a look of innocence. ‘All right, Big Brother; anyway, the Maharaja agreed, lost the game and then was asked to provide enough rice to cover the entire country of India a few feet deep in rice. Two times two times two…etcetera, sixty-four times in a row, is a massive number.’
Jeff stepped in. ‘Just the chances of getting 20 correct in a row is half a million to one.’
Willis appeared satisfied, and Louise’s attention turned back to the experiment room. Bob and Jack had returned. Mike went out to meet them. After a short conversation Bob and Mike came into the office, leaving Jack momentarily alone.
Willis spoke. ‘I’ll go and keep him company.’ Ashley followed.
Louise looked at Mike and Bob. ‘So how about the heightened fear experiment? Are you ready to push the buttons?’
Bob looked a little concerned. ‘If we do this additional experiment then we are all really professionally compromised.’
‘I’m committed now. We’ve been told fear is the key. So let’s turn it up.’
Bob paused for a long moment, and then nodded. ‘The die is cast.’
As Aytch approached the main Gadium ship in the re-entry craft, he looked at the screen read-outs for a sixth time. It was already late morning in London, and the docking had thrown up one problem after another. Not only had Justio sent him on a circuitous route back up to orbit, but they’d had to abort two of the docking manoeuvres. It was now a case of third time lucky.
The first one was an honest mistake on Justio’s part. But the second was plain carelessness.
Justio’s voice came over the speakers. ‘I’m sorry to mess you around Aytch. I was trying to do too much at once. Your second approach came just as I was setting off the university fire alarm system.’
Aytch swore under his breath. The re-entry craft was built for stealth and speed; but really, it needed a more advanced computer system to make the flying manageable.
‘So did the fire alarm distraction work?’
‘No, it didn’t. The tests are running ahead.’
Aytch was too busy engaging the engines, working on the docking process to really internalise Justio’s response. Got to concentrate.
The docking was effective. He waited anxiously as the locks and seals all operated. Then he tore out of his seat and rushed through the corridors to the crew room.
As he arrived in the crew room Justio stood up. ‘Sorry again.’
Sorry doesn’t cut it. There would be a formal analysis, report and perhaps a charge later. ‘Okay, Justio. We’ll go through it later. What’s up here?’
The screens showed most of the CCTV footage from the university campus, plus transcripts from the few conversations that had been captured and sent.
Justio played the previous three hours of recordings at high speed to bring Aytch up to date. Occasionally, there was a grainy picture from inside the Pryson Room when one of the doors was left open for too long.
There was some indication that a second test was being prepared for Jack Bullage, but zero information on what it was.
Justio spoke. ‘They’ve mentioned fear quite a few times, but a self-aware Triple wouldn’t need any fear stimulus. Actually…’
Aytch cut him off with a grunted noncommittal reply. I’m not interested in musing.
But Justio continued. ‘Actually, if their results from fear related experiments are positive, it may slow down their understanding of Triples.’
Aytch snapped. ‘Actually, it would be better if you had done what we agreed and cancelled the tests.’
‘Okay, you’re angry. But there is no problem here.’
Aytch stood up. ‘None except…except all the extra complication from allowing Jack Bullage to be tested by the Harding team.’
Justio spoke slowly and clearly. ‘It will be fine.’
Aytch’s comms tablet beeped. Another QET from Sharnia. He stood up and left the room.
Justio watched Aytch leave the room and then opened video links across the ship to track him real-time as he walked back to his cabin.
He knew he’d over-stepped the mark when he was delaying Aytch’s return. But he was confident it looked like incompetence rather than sabotage. I’ll have to show Aytch some mental frailty to convince him the mistakes were genuine.
But there was also the matter of the most recent QET message.
Once Aytch had shut his cabin door, Justio hobbled quickly down the corridor to the QET room and hacked the main database to get the decoded message.
Egg. I arrested Jenkins. He claims innocence but his fingerprints are all over the Vantch debacle. He has a long history with Justio. Double check Justio’s activity.
Not good.
Justio walked back to the crew room as fast as he could. Apart from his heavy-handed delaying tactics earlier that day, he’d been very careful with all his tampering and scheming. He was comfortable Aytch couldn’t find anything directly incriminating. But if Aytch looked carefully, he would find lots of circumstantial evidence; lots of items didn’t quite fit.
He opened up links to the main ship command centre and loaded some programmes to allow him override controls of the key systems.
Chapter 50
In his cabin, Aytch read over Sharnia’s message for an eighth time. There was a little resonance; Justio had been controlling, albeit in the name of leadership, and did say the occasional odd thing. In particular, he showed sympathy to the impact of deep space travel on families, but his circumstances were special in that regard. Plus there was that debacle today.
Aytch did not feel ready to accuse Justio openly although, undoubtedly, Sharnia would want him to. Investigate irregularities? Justio was often fiddling around in the QET room. Any serious GF activity would include irregularities in the transmission logs.
He set off to the QET room. As he passed the crew room, Justio came out into the corridor. ‘Aytch, they’re about to run the second set of tests.’
‘I’m just going to stretch my legs first.’
Justio paused as Aytch walked by; then he called out. ‘Actually, I need a little help with the analysis of the data; can you give me a hand?’
Aytch slowed and called back over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
Justio shuffled after Aytch. ‘We can walk and talk.’
Aytch frowned to himself. This was unusual.
At the entrance to the QET room, Aytch turned. ‘I just want to check the sync of my tablet with the QET logs.’
Aytch walked over to the QET command panel. The statistics looked normal. They had 35% of their bandwidth left; there were no obviously unusual messages—noting that Justio’s private ones were encrypted.
Aytch took out a multi-tool, and started unscrewing a panel on the main server.
‘Aytch, what are you doing?’
‘I’m just checking the hardware control panel.’ Aytch continued to unclip the panel that would allow him to check the physical status of the QET pairs.
There was a noise behind him; he also noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned. He turned and saw a definite glint in Justio’s eyes. He shifted his weight subtly; there was no chance Justio could physically overpower him but a hundred million years of evolution alerted him to the early stages of confrontation. ‘What’s the issue, Justio?’
Justio said nothing.
‘I’m just going to check the hardware log integrity, just to make sure there isn’t a glitch between the physical states and the automated reports.’
‘I have a confession to make.’
Aytch stood and turned fully facing Justio. ‘What do you mean?’
&nbs
p; Justio leaned heavily on his good leg and looked down at the ground. ‘Come into the crew room, and I’ll explain.’
Aytch followed Justio back down the corridor.
Once seated in the crew room, Justio brought up the official message logs of the QET grid, detailing messages sent and remaining bandwidth. It showed they had about a third of their entangled pairs left, plenty for a hundred short messages—easily enough.
Aytch looked at the statistics. ‘So what’s the confession?’
‘I’ve tampered with the numbers. We’re actually down to about five per cent bandwidth.’
Aktch felt his chest tighten. ‘You’d better have a good explanation!’
Justio’s eyes went wide and he took a step backwards, stumbling slightly on his bad leg. ‘I’m not a GF agent, or anything bad like that. But I’ve been sending extra messages in secret…Personal messages.’ Justio looked down at the ground.
‘This is very serious. Misuse of QET bandwidth. Court-martial. Prison.’ Not to mention a serious reprimand for me, because I did not spot it.
Justio did not respond.
‘This has to be reported immediately. It is utterly unacceptable. I will need to see every message you’ve sent.’
Justio nodded.
‘So, why have you sent all these additional messages?’
Justio held out his hands in supplication.
Aytch slowly shifted his weight and tried very hard not to be obviously getting into a fighting stance. But he couldn’t stop himself.
Justio’s shoulders sagged and he looked down at his hands, which appeared to be shaking. ‘I’ve been sending illegal messages, not just on this mission, but for the last ten thousand years. I have…’ Justio paused, apparently fighting for the words, ‘distant descendants alive on Gadium.’
What? Aytch felt sick. ‘Post-fourth-generation communication is utterly forbidden. It’s criminal and morally reprehensible. It’s forbidden. It’s sick.’ Aytch stopped to draw breath. ‘Do they know who you are?’
