Lucifer (aka the Lucifer Code) (2001)

by Cordy, Michael

  Do it properly or don't do it at all, huh?'

  'Exactly. There's a window to start treatment over the next few days, but after that I can't guarantee when I'll be able to fit you in.'

  She thought for a second then made a decision. 'Okay 1 got to sort out a few things back home, but assume I come back in a few days. What happens now?'

  'Frankie, my chief nurse, will set up the first session tonight here in the Think Tank.'

  'Will the NeuroTranslator be able to explain why the phantom migraines have only started in the last few months?' Amber asked.

  'To be honest, Amber, I don't know. It's usual for phantom pain to occur shortly after a trauma if it's going to occur at all, but your brain is unique. Let's wait and see what Brian can tell us.'

  'So when can we start?'

  Fleming checked his watch. 'Well, as my old professor at Cambridge used to say, the best time to start anything important is now'

  *

  Cape Town, South Africa

  Sister Constance had rarely experienced physical fear during her fifty-five years. She felt it now, though, standing on a thirty-foot fishing sloop at dead of night, as the crew threw into the sea a bloody mix of meat and entrails. In the moonlight she could see the ocean come alive with fins cutting through the dark water. She had thought shark fishing was illegal but didn't have the courage to ask the crew if this was true. Pulling her scarlet robes tight around her shoulders she shivered, although the air was warm, tasting salt on her lips from the waves crashing against the anchored boat.

  The moon sat full and plump over the distant silhouette of Table Mountain, and she wondered when the Monsignor would come. Each time she had asked the unshaven captain he'd said, 'Soon.'

  She could understand why Monsignor Diageo had insisted they meet away from the Red Ark. But why here? She clutched the enamelled red crucifix that hung around her neck, glanced up at the clear night and crossed herself. 'The Monsignor must have his reasons,' she heard herself say aloud, her voice uneven.

  Sister Constance had lived a sheltered existence within the Church, a life free of questioning and doubt. Her most traumatic decision had been to follow her headstrong friend, Mother Giovanna Bellini, from the Catholic Church to the new Church of the Soul Truth. But even that had been relatively painless: she had swapped one set of reassuring rules for another. She used to joke that the only real difference was the colour of the robes.

  But when Mother Giovanna had called her two days ago and told her about the experiments, Sister Constance had suspected that the Church of the Soul Truth was very different indeed. And yesterday when she had tried unsuccessfully to contact her friend, she had felt concerned. After wrestling with her conscience she had broken her promise to keep Mother Giovanna's secret and had approached Monsignor Diageo on the top deck of the Red Ark to ask if the Red Pope had known of Giovanna's discovery. Clearly shocked, the Monsignor had thanked her for coming forward but refused to discuss this 'threat to everything the Holy Father holds sacred' on the Red Ark.

  He had given her clear instructions to board the Marie Louise in the harbour then wait for him. The taciturn crew had helped her on board, then ignored her while they took the boat down the coast and went about their business.

  Two of the crew passed her, dragging what looked like a cow's rear leg. Grunting, they hefted it overboard, and within seconds the sea was boiling with activity as the frenzied sharks fed off the bounty. Another crew member, holding a boat-hook, prodded the bobbing meat, laughing as the sharks tore it apart. The scene disgusted and frightened her, and she sighed audibly when she heard the putt-putt-putt of another vessel approaching. Sister Constance hurried to the stern where her relief turned to joy when the bloodied boat-hook pulled the other vessel alongside and she recognized the man's distinctive face.

  'Monsignor Diageo, thank the Lord,' she said. 'Why did we have to meet here?'

  'These are sensitive matters, Sister Constance. Have you spoken to anyone else about what Mother Giovanna told you?'

  'No, of course not.'

  He looked at her closely. Are you sure?'

  'Yes.'

  He gave a satisfied nod. She leant towards him, waiting to be transferred to his boat. 'Does the Holy Father know what the scientists are doing?' she asked. 'Did Mother Giovanna tell him they're killing the patients?'

  Diageo looked tired. 'He knows,' he said wearily. He turned his head away but Sister Constance caught a look in his eye that brought her anxiety flooding back. 'He's always known,' he said. Then he whispered, 'I'm sorry.'

  Stunned, struggling to absorb the significance of his words, she watched him gaze at the crew, who were still throwing bait to the thrashing sharks.

  'As we agreed, there must be no evidence,' he said, as if she wasn't there. 'Nothing that can be traced back to the Church.'

  'I don't understand,' Sister Constance said, as he turned away and she heard the putt-putt of the boat's engine start up again.

  Then the crew, their bloodstained hands redder than her robes, closed in, forcing her to the end of the sloop. Before she could protest, the man with the hook prodded her hard in the chest, pushing her backwards into the sea.

  As the cold water made her gasp and the first frenzied shark bit into her left foot, she still didn't understand why this was happening. Even as the razor-sharp teeth of a Great White ripped into her pelvis, tearing her apart, she screamed out Monsignor Diageo's name, convinced there had been a dreadful mistake.

  *

  Barley Hall

  After leaving Amber Grant with the staff nurse and settling her in to the Think Tank for the night, Fleming turned his attention to two of his other patients. He prided himself on treating all his charges with the same level of compassion and professional care, but Rob and Jake were special.

  As he walked to the workshop, he was relieved he hadn't fought too hard with the director against seeing Amber. His curiosity was piqued, and he was convinced he could help her. Also, by putting Rob's trial back till tomorrow, he could give him a surprise that would lift his spirits.

  The Barley Hall workshop was the one element of Fleming's research facility that wasn't housed in the east wing. For reasons no one could remember it was located at the far end of the west wing where Bobby Chan's team worked. Here, in an extended shed, science merged with art, where electronics, metal, latex and space-age materials were combined to create prosthetics that behaved and looked like human limbs.

  When Fleming entered a technician was peeling a disconcertingly lifelike arm from a skeleton of metal and wires. Foot and hand moulds lined a wall in ascending order of size. Drums of differing skin pigments were stacked beneath a workbench, and in the far corner of the shed Bill, the chief technician, was honing a shapely left leg. To Fleming's right a series of finished limbs was stacked against the wall. All were wrapped in plastic and bore identification tags, like dry-cleaning awaiting collection. Most were single arms or legs of various shapes and sizes. But slightly apart from the rest was a tiny pair of legs. Each leg was so lifelike that, somehow, Fleming could hardly bear to look at them.

  Bill raised his face mask, switched off the lathe and pointed at them. 'I've put the final latex coat on. The feet are moulded from my own boy's.'

  Fleming picked them up. As always he was surprised by their weight, although they were no heavier than natural limbs. The detail, particularly of the feet and toes, touched him. 'They look fantastic, Bill, thanks a lot.'

  Bill raised his right thumb in a salute. 'Good luck.'

  Such was the nature of the clinic that few people commented when Fleming walked back to the east wing carrying the little pair of prosthetic legs. When he reached the other end of the building, he stopped outside the double doors of the physiotherapy suite and peered through circular windows into the large hall with its exercise equipment, walking frames and therapy pool. Only two people were inside.

  His nephew, Jake, was sitting on the polished wooden floor with his back to the door, playing
with some plastic bricks while Pam Fleming, the child's grandmother, watched over him. Jake had lived with his paternal grandparents since the accident and Fleming had asked his mother to bring him here at six o'clock. She was small and birdlike with short fair hair streaked with grey, but she hovered protectively over her grandson. Both she and Fleming's father had been pillars of support since the tragedy.

  Fleming watched as Jake stacked brick after brick until he had created a tower almost as tall as himself. Then he built another and then a third. He admired them for a second or two then knocked them down gleefully.

  Holding the legs behind his back, Fleming pushed open the doors and walked into the hall. Jake swivelled round to face him, and the result of the car accident eleven months ago was plain to see: both the child's legs ended above the knee, the right marginally longer than the left. Despite his habitual exposure to similar and worse mutilations, Fleming was still shocked at the sight of his nephew's injuries.

  His sole consolation was that at least he had been able to help. He wasn't ideal uncle material -he had a workaholic lifestyle, interrupted only by mountaineering expeditions, and he was a poor role model when it came to stable relationships: every visit Jake made to his townhouse on the river seemed to coincide with the arrival of a new girlfriend. There was one thing, however, that he had been uniquely qualified to do for his brother's son: he had been able to help Jake walk again.

  'Hi, Mum,' Fleming said, hugged her and kissed her cheek.

  'Everything all right, Milo?' She looked nervous but excited. She had such faith in her son that it frightened him. At Jake's mother's funeral he had overheard her tell a friend: 'Rob and Miles were always close, even when they were little boys. It's so fortunate that Miles can help now.' It seemed to Fleming that his parents had only been able to come to terms with what had happened by investing their fragile hope in him. And he was terrified he might not fulfil it.

  He squeezed her hand. 'Everything's fine, Mum. You'll see.' He bent to his nephew. 'Hi, Jake.'

  The little boy gave him a sly smile. 'Hello, Uncle Milo.'

  Fleming held out the prosthetic legs and Jake's eyes lit up. 'Wow.'

  'They're the ones you've been training with, Jake, but we've put the final covering on them so now they look like real legs -your legs.'

  Jake took them as if he'd been given the best Christmas present in the world. 'Thanks, Uncle Milo.' Then he fitted the leg flaps over his stumps, connected the implants with practised skill and stood up as if they were part of him. The prosthetic muscles in the artificial legs were instructed by the boy's own thoughts, amplified and translated by computer. Six months ago, five months after the crash, Fleming had downloaded Jake's personal thought-signature from the NeuroTranslator. He had inserted electrodes beneath Jake's scalp, and with implants and an optical computer no bigger than a wristwatch Jake could walk unaided and lead a near normal life. He had been the first, but already others were benefiting from the technology.

  'Right, Jake,' said Fleming. 'Wait here and I'll get your dad. I want him to see this.'

  *

  The Think Tank. Later that evening

  'You made CNN. Saw it when I woke up just now. You got me worried, Amber. How you feelin'?'

  'Not too bad, Papa Pete. What do you mean you just woke up? Where you calling from?'

  'San Francisco.'

  'I thought you were in the Vatican.'

  'I am, but I'm in a crisis meeting with some colleagues over here.' Her godfather's New York accent sounded harsh suddenly. 'When the Jesuits, the storm troopers of Catholicism, start defecting to the Red Pope you know you gotta problem.'

  'I appreciate you calling me, Papa Pete,' she said, not wanting to get drawn into a discourse on the Red Pope. 'It's been a long time.' And she knew why. Ever since her adoptive mother had taken ill two years ago, and Amber had paid for her to stay in the best hospice in the bay area, Father Peter Riga, the man who had saved her life, had felt betrayed: not only did Catholics not run the hospice but 'the enemy', the Red Pope's Church of the Soul Truth, did. Amber had explained to him that she was determined to give her mother whatever she wanted, and if that meant staying in a hospice run by a rival church so be it.

  'Saw your mother yesterday' Riga said.

  'In the hospice?'

  'Sure. She seemed okay'

  'That was kind of you, Papa Pete. She felt bad about you not approving.

  'Don't worry. Gave her my blessing. Nice place, too. Just felt ashamed that the Mother Church couldn't look after its own.'

  'Things change.'

  'They sure do,' he said. Anyways, I'm over for a couple days so if you're back on time we can meet up.'

  'I'd like that,' she said. 'I'll call you tomorrow.'

  'Okay my child, take care of yourself.'

  Amber switched off her communicator and placed it on the table beside her bed in the Think Tank. Earlier when she had switched on the device, it had been loaded with concerned messages from well-wishers. The news was out. One of her early-morning swimming buddies, as well as her best friend, Karen, had called. Even Soames had left a brief message to say the presentation had gone well and to call him if there were any developments.

  The one call she had made tonight was to the hospice, confirming that she would be returning as planned. Her mother was in the final stages of terminal cancer and Amber hated leaving her. The thought of returning to Barley Hall, as Fleming had recommended, increased her anxiety. Sitting up in bed, she tried to ignore the video camera staring at her from its mount overhead. She wore the blue latticework Thinking Cap and her scalp tingled where the conductive gel held the electrodes in place.

  The NeuroTranslator at the base of her bed emitted a soft hum as it read the electrical impulses generated by her brain; the lower half of the split-level plasma screen showed a grid with individually coloured pulsing horizontal lines, each representing a wavelength in her brain. Some lines peaked violently while others remained virtually flat. At regular intervals the screen scrolled down to reveal other wavelengths, all recording the pattern of her thoughts. The upper half of the screen displayed the stimuli designed to engage her mental processes. Currently she was studying a spatial puzzle. Three lines were overlaid on a nest of concentric squares, which appeared to recede into the distance, and she had to determine which line was the shortest. Despite a suspicion that it was an optical illusion, and the two obviously shorter lines were identical in length, she selected the one on the right.

  She had been tackling the on-screen puzzles and exercises for over an hour. They were intelligent and well designed, stimulating most of her brain's cognitive processes ranging from verbal reasoning, logic and numerical dexterity to intuitive guesswork. Earlier, she had been given an injection to stimulate her unconscious neural activity during sleep and so give the NeuroTranslator a clearer read when she started what Staff Nurse Pinner called the 'easy mental exercises'. 'That's when you just close your eyes, drop off and let Brian do all the work.'

  Her jet-lag was under control and the puzzles were interesting, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. Her mind kept wandering to her mother and sister. Particularly her sister.

  Talking about her twin with Miles Fleming and seeing the medical pictures of when they had been conjoined had stirred up all her old feelings of guilt, regret and loss. Reaching for the bedside table, she retrieved the worn photograph she always carried with her. It showed Ariel and herself embracing in front of a full-length mirror. Because of the angle from which the picture was taken, both their smiling faces were visible and nothing appeared to connect them except their love for each other.

  She had spent her entire solo life struggling to resolve her guilt and anger about her dead twin. First she had turned to Catholicism, but however kind and patient her godfather had been in explaining the Mother Church's view of the world she found its judgemental dogma unhelpful. Then she had turned to philosophy and physics to try to understand why things were as they were. Eventually s
he had focused on the mysterious world of quantum physics, studying the almost telepathic relationships that linked the trillion particles of elemental Stardust that made up everything in the universe. So far it had yielded no clear answers but it offered infinite possibilities. And distraction. She might not have found meaning in the vagaries of the quantum world but she had found solace in searching for it.

  The sheer intellectual rigour and hard work required to explore the contradictions and dualities of particle physics diverted her from the guilt and loss that clouded her peace of mind whenever she lay idle for long. But tonight, however hard she tried to contain her unresolved feelings for Ariel, they kept rising to the surface.

  When Frankie popped her head round the door the puzzle on the screen changed to a crossword. 'I'm off home now,' she said. 'We've got a big clinical trial tomorrow, but there'll be a nurse in the observation room all night. Everything all right?'