Tag

by Simon Royle

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and shut my eyes to blackness, swarms of red, a new image. A white room. A naked man sitting on a Biosense. Jibril. Gabriel. The runner. My brother. The thought punched me in the stomach and I threw up the coffee over the railing into the hot white sand. I stared at the spew of coffee as I wiped my mouth and sniffed. It wasn’t a dream.

  I turned to reenter the house but seeing Mariko lying on the floor, froze. The runner Gabriel was my brother. Somehow I knew that was true, and then another memory. A loud laugh, Gabriel sitting on a sleeper talking to me.

  How will she react? I couldn’t begin to guess. I hoped favorably — that is she’d believe me and help me. Help me for what? I couldn’t trust my mind. What had seemed real was not, and reality was being displaced one chunk of memory at a time. One chunk of memory at a time, where had I heard that? Gabriel had said it, on the Moon. The sun beat viciously down on the top of my head. I walked across the deck and slid the door open, it protested with a loud squeak and Mariko woke, coming upright, shielding her eyes from the glare and looking at me from under the shadow of her forearm.

  I walked over to her and sat down, leaning my back against the edge of the sleeper.

  She said, “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  I leaned my head onto the sleeper and, staring at the ceiling, groaned. My head hurt. It felt as if my brain had swollen and wouldn’t fit in my skull, pressing against the sides. I brought my hands up to my temples and pushed in on both sides with knuckled fists, groaning again. Another memory came. Gabriel sitting on the sleeper opposite me, talking, and this time the images came with sound. Gabriel saying, ‘It isn’t as bad as it sounds. At the beginning you will think that you are remembering a dream, but over the course of a couple of hours, the details of the dream will be filled in with ever-increasing clarity. Your mind will return again and again to the little reservoir of information that I’ll plant and the signals, travelling from the outback of your brain, will come in ever-larger memory chunks, until you will reach the moment where this description will be relayed to you word for word, complete with the images of me and this room’.

  “Jonah, Jonah, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

  The pain disappeared as quickly as it had come. I dropped my hands to the floor and looked at her.

  “I’m OK. It’s all right,” I said, and reached up with a hand to stroke her cheek. She made to kiss me, but I held her off with my hand dropping to her chest and pushing lightly. “No, no kiss, not unless you want to taste vomit.”

  “What, you threw up? Is it a hangover or what? You hardly had anything alky last night.”

  “It’s not that. Look we have to talk, but let’s go for a swim. OK?”

  “What, now? It’s midday, and way too hot.”

  “Come on, trust me. It’ll be fine. Just follow me. OK?” I got up and, taking the wrap off, put on the swim outers that were lying on the bed. Without saying another word I picked up a waterproof Devstick I had and headed outside, walking down the stairs and onto the beach. I strode quickly over the hot white sand, a glance over my shoulder showed Mariko following, and I dived into the sea.

  I was stroking hard in a crawl for the cliff that marked the southern end of the bay. It was about two hundred meters away from me and I had a good lead, but she was the stronger swimmer and she caught me up as I was nearly at the cliff. The waves slapped against its base. She stopped and treaded water. I kept going and then when nearly at the cliff I dived.

  In front of me, through the sunlight-filtered green water, I saw that the blunt black edge of the cliff stopped short of the bottom. I dived for the gap that was about a meter wide. Coming up through the gap into a small cave, I climbed up onto a rock. I unfolded the Devstick in front of me, the white light from the screen guiding Mariko to me. She pulled herself up the dry rock face and sat down on the ledge, leaning against the smooth dry rock wall. Marks on the wall indicated that it was man-made or at least enlarged by someone.

  “This place is amazing. When did you find this?”

  I held up a hand while I caught my breath and panted out, “The first day we moved here, when I went for a walk. I wanted to see what was around the corner of the bluff. It was low tide. I saw the top of the gap and went to look. When the tide’s low you can just see the top of the entrance but you have to be looking for it.”

  “OK, so what’s this all about?” Mariko asked, taking deep breaths from the exertion of the swim and holding onto the edge of the ledge. With both hands pushing down, she moved her bum further in.

  “When we came up here, you told me what had happened on the Moon. You told me that you couldn’t live a lie, not with me, right?”

  “Yes, right, and so?” She said this with a defensive tone in her voice. She’d thought the subject closed and forgotten, and now here it was again, with all the insecurity attached reloading in pallets on her heart. I saw the look and reached out to take her hand, cutting through the light of the Devstick.

  “No, this time it isn’t about you. It’s about me, and what happened to me on the Moon, and it’s about what that means to you. I came here because I am scared and what I have to tell you places both of us in extreme danger, the kind of danger where you lose your life or get mind-wiped. Before I continue, let me ask you, do you really want to hear this?”

  “Jonah, right now I could have your seed fertilizing me. Of course I want to hear it. Good or bad, in my world you come before everything.”

  I smiled at her statement and squeezed her hand. I took a deep breath and blew it out hard, drawing my legs up to sit cross-legged beside her, the Devscreen a block of white in between, backdrop for my hand holding hers. “OK, what happened on the Moon was caused by what happened on a Thursday in December on Earth. It was the 5th of December, in the morning.”

  It took me an hour, but I told her everything. Right up to the point that I’d been hypnotized by Gabriel and was thus able to avoid the consequences of the ad hoc Truth Treatment which she’d told me about.

  She let out a deep breath, her cheeks ballooning for a moment, then she turned her face to me and said, “Wow Jonah. You really know how to show a girl an exciting time, don’t you.”

  “You believe me then?”

  “Yes, of course I do. I wish I didn’t, but I think everything you’ve told me happened as you’ve said. I can see it too, the planning, the execution. I was pulled off the Gabriel case after my meeting with you, and when you were cleared of any involvement. Since then I’ve only seen the updates on the feed, but there’s always some level of rumor within SOE, and the rumor was that the runner had gotten away clean, not traceable. But yes, I see your part and why they need you.”

  “Sir Thomas’s move out of UNPOL, and the revised Tag Law — the things I penned for that eloquently delivered resignation speech — it’s happening now. They’re making their move.”

  “Yes, but from where I sit, Gabriel’s made his move too. Look, you’re in, you’re your uncle’s writer and have a secure line into his base Dev. That puts you in his inner circle first degree, right?”

  “Yes, it does. I’ve got no idea where to start.”

  “We can work that out. But I think the first thing we can do is to review the information that Gabriel put on your Devstick and tell Gabriel that you’ve remembered.”

  “Won’t that be risky?”

  “Not if we just reply that you’re awake.”

  “Thanks for using ‘we’. You’ve no idea how good that makes me feel right now.”

  She smiled and, leaning forward, kissed me. She said, “Look, we both know this is really serious, but we can work this out.”

  “You can’t tell anyone at SOE about this. We have no idea who we can trust and who is a Hawk.”

  “No, I won’t tell anyone. If Cochran and Sir Thomas are Hawks, you can bet that UNPOL and SOE are riddled with them. It wouldn’t be hard to manipulate the selection boards. I’ll have to stay clear of Cochran though. Wi
th her telepathic ability she could probe my mind and discover what we know.”

  “Gabriel said that telepathy works best when both subjects cooperate and are within a few meters of each other. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t probe you without your knowing. It just means that you’ll have to try and avoid her and think innocent thoughts when she’s around. When’s your next security clearance check?”

  “Not till March,” she said, frowning, thinking hard. “And that’s our deadline. The Popvote for the Tag law comes then. March the 15th, right? So that’s the time frame. We’ve got at least two and a half months and during that time I can be in SOE, working on the inside. After that and before my next security clearance check, I’ll take leave.”

  “Won’t that be suspicious?”

  She smiled at me with a sideways look over her shoulder. “Not if I’m pregnant. I love your new, well, old, name, by the way. Mark Anthony Zumar. It’s beautiful.”

  I smiled back. “You better keep calling me Jonah for now. If anyone heard you calling me Mark — ”

  She cut me off with a finger to my lips and a stern look on her face. “Don’t worry, when we leave this cave, you’re Jonah, but we’re going to have to get you trained up in some of the basics of my craft and we’re going to have to get you fit. No more croissants for you.”

  “After today, OK. After today.”

  “Sure, we’ll start tomorrow. And then I’ll set you up with a routine to follow.”

  I nodded and said, “OK. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m getting cold,” and folding the Devstick, the cave plunged into darkness — a thin sliver of light coming from the underwater entrance to the sea. I heard her slip into the water with a small splash, and slipped silently into the water next to her. We kicked off together and dived down, back into the light. Coming out of the cave I almost swam into a black-tip reef shark, which quickly swam away, frightened of me. Swimming with sharks, I thought. We’re swimming with the sharks.

  Chapter 24

  A New Beginning

  SingCom Residence, North Palm Beach, Sentosa Island, New Singapore

  Wednesday 1 January 2110, 6:50am +8 UTC

  Cochran woke but didn’t open her eyes or move. It was a trained habit of hers, the chance to observe through sound what was happening around her without changing what was happening around her. Once, when she was still a little girl, she had fallen ill with a high fever and had spent a few days in the infirmary at the Dorm where she and other gifted orphans were housed when not engaged with the acquisition of knowledge or skills.

  Two other girls had visited her. She could see the outline of their bodies through the transparent plastic oxygenated tent that she was kept in, but could not make out who they were. She was drugged and hallucinatory from the drugs and fever, but while she could not see clearly out, neither could the two girls see clearly in. Although they had told the matron that they were her friends and the matron had believed them, she did not have any friends and the two girls, in the manner of little girls, who can be extremely cruel, had come to be mean to her in her moment of weakness.

  She hadn’t moved, and had listened. The plastic tent muffled the sound of their voices at first, but she could gradually make out that they were gloating at her, joking about pulling out the oxygen tube to the tent. She was not concerned about that. If they did pull the tube out she was sure an alarm would go off. What she was concerned with was finding out who these two were. She had strained and focused her hearing, as she had been taught, and narrowed down the choices by process of elimination. First there were the visual clues, height and size. She dismissed more than half of her class. Hair color eliminated half again and then she had heard the name, Sally, and confirmed one of her choices. Knowing who Sally’s friends were narrowed down the remaining teaser to one of two choices. The teasing girls finally left, bored with being mean, when the recipient didn’t respond. As their heels had clacked across the floor of the infirmary, Cochran had opened her eyes. The girls left without ever being aware that she had in fact heard, and been hurt by, everything they had said, although she would have denied both vehemently.

  She occupied the rest of her time in the infirmary planning how to exact revenge on the three girls. The fact that one of the three was innocent of doing her wrong didn’t factor in. By the end of the year all three had gone. Two for cheating in knowledge retention tests, despite swearing their innocence, and the third paralyzed from the neck down and destined to spend a year in regen, when the uneven bars that she practiced on for hours in the gym alone strangely collapsed as she performed a Korbut flip.

  This morning, Cochran sensed nothing other than the chirping and singing of birds outside, the metronomic tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the room and the steady breathing of Sunita next to her in the sleeper.

  She cracked an eye open and saw that Sunita was still asleep. She rose and walked to the en-suite, stripping off the inners she had slept in and dumping them in the sanitization unit. She stepped into the shower and said, “Auto pulse stream”. The hot water cascaded down and she smoothed her hair with her hands, thinking that she must look her best today, for the images that would be broadcast would be of the new Director of UNPOL.

  Although the selection committee consisted of five, the outgoing Director, Sir Thomas, had great influence and had assured her, before leaving, that he would support her nomination as his replacement. She would be the youngest person and first female ever to occupy the role in UNPOL and its predecessor Interpol. She jumped at the feel of hands on her back, lost in her thoughts and her hearing impaired by the stream of water splashing on her head.

  Sunita’s brown hands slipped from her back to her breasts and the fingers brushed lightly over her nipples. She turned into Sunita’s outstretched arms, and Sunita said, “Big day today.”

  Cochran placed her mouth next to her ear, her arms resting on her shoulders, “Yes, and it wouldn’t have arrived but for you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’re a very determined and highly intelligent woman. Somehow I have the feeling that you would have risen to the top of whatever contribution you had chosen.”

  “Perhaps, but I feel as if I was made not just for this contribution, but this moment. We’re going to win, I can feel it.” She kissed Sunita’s ear and said, “I’ve got to get ready.” Sunita released her and Cochran stepped out of the shower, her nipples grazing Sunita’s shoulder, and into the body sanitizer, turning it on full blast for a quick dry.

  She walked back into the sleeping room and sat down on the sleeper, turning on her Dev on the table beside her. She said, “Call Oche, voice only.”

  A few seconds later, not yet a minute, a male voice came on with a rush, “Good morning darling, and how are we today? What can I do for you? “

  “Oche, thanks for taking my call. I need you to style me — I’ve got a formal day ahead and I need to look good for the feeds.”

  “But of course, darling. Now can you tell me a bit about the occasion and how you’d like to present?”

  “I need to look sharp, official, styled within the current UNPOL uniform, but a superior cut, and hair should be blonde with a dark base, cut short and shaved at back, military-style. Footwear should be something unisex but classy.”

  “OK, darling, I get the image. How about something between police and military, with a dash of Oche thrown in? And for the footwear, we’ll go with jumpers, but I’ll put some Oche touches on, very butch?”

  “Sounds good. When can you be ready by?”

  “Thirty-five mins, darling. That OK?”

  “Perfect, but do the hair design now. OK? I’ll head over to the hair Dev.”

  “OK, darling. I’ll be waiting.”

  Cochran walked over to the hair Dev and lowered the dome over her face and down below the nape of her neck to just below where her hair stopped. On the Devscreen in front of her eyes she saw Oche standing behind her. She smiled and changed the feed to the global newsfeed — the mix of all the differe
nt news brands scrolling with the latest news in real time. She scanned back with her thumb, scrolling through to the news of UNPOL announcements, and picked out Sir Thomas’s resignation.

  She felt the micro scissors and razors begin their work, as a light suction of air within the dome sucked up the remnants and sent them into recycling. She watched Sir Thomas deliver his speech again, six and a half hours after the speech had originally been delivered. She thumbed the console of the Dev and brought up the Tag survey numbers. Acceptance of Tag was up a staggering fifty-five percent and was across the board, in all Geographics. Using this Dev she couldn’t bring up the demographics, and switched back to Sir Thomas’s speech, but was interrupted before he finished by the flashing of a red light in the corner of the screen.

  Oche appeared at the touch of her thumb, standing back from the chair she was in and with his hands on his hips.

  She said, “Zoom and rotate on my head,” and the image zoomed into her head in the Devscreen in front of her. She swung the image left and right, noting the highlights of blonde on top of the base of dark gold and straight, razor look of the two cent of hair sweeping back in an arc to a sharp cut off at the base of her skull, and in a half circle around her ears. It looked sensational.

  “That’s great, Oche, thanks,” she said, and checking how much he had deducted from her cred, gave him a tight smile. He smiled sweetly back, and she switched off the hair Dev.

  An hour later she walked out of the SingCom residence to her Bulgari T8. Getting in, she said, “Take me to UNPOL headquarters.”

  Everything was in motion now. Her promotion to this role had been ordained in the tempering of her youth — the hammer blows to her sensibilities, each a strike on the path to this point when she, by virtue of UN law, would become the de facto head of all armed forces within the world, including the colonies.