A Box of Birds

by Charles Fernyhough

  Now the road goes two ways. We could follow the slip road up to the bridge, or we could stay in the left lane and join the road that runs west along the river. For the moment we’re fudging it: we’re actually walking along the raised central reservation, cars trying to shave bits off us on either side. Close up, the traffic feels as warm and intimate as the crowds did. When I glance back, the security man is just climbing into the white van. I hear a petrol engine starting, the sound of a gear being found.

  ‘He’s coming after us,’ I say.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The bloke from the food court. The only Pelton fan who wasn’t at the match or glued to a wide-screen.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He glances back, not even far enough to take in the van.

  ‘I’m supposed to give him a signal.’

  My heart sinks. It’s like a sudden fatal sadness, chilling me to the bone. It takes an effort, but I try to sound calm.

  ‘What sort of signal?’

  ‘To say I’m ready.’

  The concrete peters out into a single raised line of kerbstones. We’re balancing now, tightrope-walking.

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘To tell him where Gaz is.’

  He’s walking ahead of me again. He has to step around a railing, and a passing car full of victorious Pelton supporters misses him by inches. The backdraught pulls him around.

  ‘So you know that, do you?’

  ‘No. But you were supposed to. You haven’t delivered. So I’m now going to be in a bit of shit.’

  ‘I’m sorry, James. I don’t follow.’

  ‘That’s what all this was about. You’re the key. You’re the one Gaz confided in. I was just meant to pass on the information, as and when it came back to you.’

  The van pulls out from the car park and moves into the lane for the bridge slip road. I think of James’ tales of demonstrations at the West Gate of Sansom, the Flintstone mask which, it now appears, hid nothing.

  ‘You’re working for Sansom, aren’t you?’

  ‘I was.’

  He raises a hand at the van, hailing it like a taxi. It slows at his signal and pulls up alongside the kerb.

  ‘So when did you stop?’

  ‘About five minutes ago.’

  I’m sick of his lies. I’d walk away now, if I knew where to walk to. I see him step out into the road and stroll back towards the van. He’s working for Sansom. This is his contact. The window on the passenger side is down. James leans on the sill and says something to the driver, who shakes his head and revs the engine. James tries again. I can see the security man behind the seal of the windscreen, staring down the prospect of an unwanted fight. Then James is reaching in through the open window and trying to grab something, the handbrake, maybe, trying to stop the van from pulling away. The security man has a hand in James’ face and is bending it backwards with sickening force. The engine finds its gear and the van jerks forward with James still hanging from the window, and then it brakes with squealing fierceness, throwing him forward over the bonnet and down onto the kerb. The front wheel clips his trainer as the van pulls away towards the bridge road. Already James is on his feet, running a few steps then stopping to pick up the vacant light-box of a kicked-in bollard. He looks exhilarated, as though violence were a joy he was rediscovering in random outbursts, at night, with people whose names he’ll never know. I watch him raise the bollard high and hurl it in a heavy, twisting arc at the van, just missing the brake-light as it blinks out and accelerates away.

  His tee-shirt’s almost off his shoulder. He’s breathing so hard. ‘I’m supposed to tell him when you remember.’

  ‘When I remember? What’s this got to do with me?’

  ‘That thing you’ve got in your head. Sansom put it there.’

  I know he’s right, but this is like learning it all over again. The shaking spreads downwards, wrecks me at the knees.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So you’d remember. The clue Gareth gave you. They didn’t want to leave it to chance, so they thought they’d make sure. Give your memory system a nudge in the right direction, with the help of their new technology. I thought that necklace thing was a tracking device. I was supposed to give it to you so they’d know where you were, and they could keep an eye on you. I had no idea it was connected to anything. They didn’t get round to telling me that bit. I thought I was just meant to be hanging around, ready to pass on the information, hoping that you’d remember naturally.’

  I can’t believe I’m hearing this. ‘What information? I don’t know anything...’

  ‘You’re the only one who can find Gareth. You’re the only one he confided in.’

  ‘And you told them that?’

  He says nothing.

  ‘So that’s why you were hanging around with me? So you could find Gareth for the people who are paying you?’

  ‘No. I was hanging around with you because I’m fucking crazy about you.’

  I feel like crying. There’s a judder of panic in my voice.

  ‘So you were never part of Conscience? You never actually went on all those actions?’

  He finds bitter delight in the idea. ‘Sure I used to go on the actions. I got started on that when I was fifteen. It made me feel powerful. The demos at Sansom: get to know the guards, have a bit of a laugh. Most of the time I was doing it, I believed in it. Then one day it went too far. High spirits, a bit of material damage. They dragged us in for a bollocking, then they called Fred Flintstone back for a little chat. Bought me a drink in the directors’ bar and made me an offer. That’s when David got interested.’

  ‘David? What’s he got to do with this?’

  ‘He set it up. He saw that we could help them, and get some help from them in return.’

  ‘Help them? What, by spying on our work at the Lycee?’

  He nods. ‘We were going to help them to get their hands on the mapping data. I didn’t even know what neuroscience was. But I was in your group. I was coming to the Institute every week. David thought I might as well make myself useful.’

  I start walking.

  ‘Yvonne...’

  ‘It’s funny, James. I never saw you as being motivated by money.’

  He catches up in a couple of strides. This angry pace seems to expose him, shake him out of his complacency. He seems like just another guy who could trip and fall.

  ‘It wasn’t about the money. It was about what we could have done with it. What we could have achieved.’

  ‘The Atrocity Exhibition? Your big statement against science?’

  ‘Our big statement about truth. We needed Sansom’s cash to make it bigger. To have some real impact. It costs money to make the kind of splash we wanted to make.’

  We’re on to the approach to the bridge. The river is a celluloid print of the night. There seems to be nothing around.

  ‘So how long have Sansom known that Gareth has got the data?’

  ‘Since the news broke that a Lycee student had hacked your topsecret server. Sansom went to him, offering him a deal, and he turned them down. He didn’t want their money. He wanted you. He was trying to tell you something. He took the data so that you would listen to him. I don’t think he realised how much trouble it was going to get him in.’

  ‘And you told Sansom all this? You were going to find him for them?’

  ‘Yeah. With your help.’

  He smiles. He has the security man’s claw-marks on his cheek. His eye is starting to blacken where he was hit. I could almost feel sorry for him.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re working for Sansom.’

  ‘Like I say, I was.’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘Yvonne, you saw what happened back there. The guy was supposed to be my contact. I think I’ve just pissed on my job, don’t you?’

  There’s going to be a confrontation, he told me. And the winners will be me and him.

  ‘Is that why you wanted me to see you talking to him?’

  ‘I�
��ve had enough,’ he says, slowing to light a cigarette. ‘I want out. When you remember what Gaz told you, you’ll know where he is. That’s as far as this will go.’

  ‘And how exactly do you get out of this?’

  ‘I’m going to find Gaz. Get him to unscramble the mess he left on your computers.’

  I pull on his jacket for a cigarette for myself. He shows me the empty packet, and crushes it apologetically.

  ‘I don’t believe you, James. I don’t believe a word you say.’

  ‘That’s why I knew I had to show you. Take that guy on. Make a clear statement. I knew you wouldn’t have believed me otherwise. Look, you’re right. The Lycee should have that data. If Sansom get hold of it they’ll clean up. It should be in the public domain, not making the world’s third biggest biotech even richer.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell them that you didn’t know where Gareth was? It would have been true. Oh, I forgot. You do stories, don’t you? You don’t do truth.’

  ‘I tried. That night on Mickelhope Moor. I told them I wanted out. They weren’t very receptive.’

  I remember how he walked out of the forest, his lamp broken, his face a joined-up bruise. The torch-lights on the hillside. They weren’t lampers. They were the people Sansom had sent to check up on us. And then the phone call he wouldn’t answer, the elusive voice of David Overstrand. I get it now. It’s not just Sansom he has betrayed.

  ‘You didn’t fall down a mineshaft. They kicked the shit out of you.’

  ‘They were trying to improve my concentration. Keep me focused on the task.’

  ‘So how come you feel you can double-cross Sansom now?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen what they were prepared to do to you, and I can’t stand it.’

  We reach the bridge. He stands there, looking out across the empty road. I’m angry, staring around for things to blame, and I don’t see what he sees.

  ‘Why should I believe that, James?’

  He seems to know that he’s lost the argument. ‘I don’t know. Because it’s true.’

  I turn the way he’s looking. The bridge is deserted. They must have sealed off the entire city centre. Halfway across the bridge the van stands with its driver’s door asplay. There’s no one at the wheel. Before I can say anything James is walking, he’s on the road and circling the van, sizing up a way in. I want to stop him but he’s already climbing up into the driver’s seat, starting the engine and revving it experimentally.

  ‘Get in!’ He’s holding the passenger door open.

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘It’s OK. He wants us to lead him to Gaz. We may as well oblige.’

  I’ve nowhere else to go. I climb up through the passenger door, grimly curious about how it is that I came to be doing favours for Sansom. The cab is a litter of fast-food wrappers and sports drinks, the tat of single-manhood. I look for cigarettes, but find none.

  ‘Here,’ James says, tossing me a blue plastic folder.

  He eases out the clutch and we pull away. The end of the bridge is blocked by a police motorbike and a cop in biking gear who’s directing traffic down along the embankment road. As James pulls up and winds the window down, I can see a bunch of Pelton fans gathered behind the cop, cheering him on.

  ‘Who won?’ James asks.

  ‘Why, it’s Southside’s star striker Zazou Jordan who’ll be selling lighters on the Byggate next season!’

  The Pelton fans cheer this. The policeman peers in through the window, seeming not to notice James’ blackening eye. I make myself busy with the plastic folder. We’re waved down a slip road marked out with traffic cones. Then there’s nothing ahead of us, nothing behind.

  The medieval town slides by. It’s quiet here, apart from the occasional police siren curling off towards a flashpoint somewhere near the riverside developments. The streetlights fill the cab with shifting slabs of steel-blue light, which give you enough time to get an initial fix on what you’re reading, and then snatch it away before it can mean anything. There are photographs: holiday snaps, plundered from a profile page somewhere; security camera printouts of the three of us sipping coffee in the atrium of the Institute; James and Gareth as a pantomime horse, somewhere in an academic interior. A hard copy of Gareth’s essay, with key phrases highlighted. Mobile phone logs, credit card transactions. There’s a long rambling letter to the acting head of Sansom R&D, in which Gareth sets out his plan for a non-invasive human–computer interface, allowing meaningful signals to be patched directly into the individual’s nervous system without any harm to their biology. Sansom approached Gareth, offering money for the data, because he had previously approached them. But it wasn’t money that he wanted. He knew Sansom would be back, and this time they would make an offer he couldn’t refuse. And that left him no option but to disappear, as thoroughly as it’s possible for a person to do.

  The last thing in the folder is a birdspotter’s inventory in a pocket-sized grey plastic binder. Gareth has made handwritten notes next to some of the entries. A morning spent in calm reflection. A day of slightly nihilistic thrill-seeking. The words drop into their slots, neatly familiar. Perfect fits to memory.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’

  James glances at the inventory, squinting to see.

  ‘Gaz bought a load of birds. It was part of his manic plan for world domination. He gave them all names. Well, they weren’t really names. They were more like ... ideas.’

  ‘He bought birds?’ My heart is thumping. ‘Where from?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some warehouse in Pelton.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is it relevant?’

  The birds are memories. Memories are bioelectrical events. If you can learn to speak their language, you can make them come when you call ...

  ‘What happened to them? All these birds?’

  ‘I let them go.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I unclipped their cages. Their unquenchable thirst for freedom did the rest.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I told you. I can’t walk past a caged animal.’

  ‘Was he pissed off?’

  ‘Immensely. But he was so hyper, he just immediately started hatching a plan to replace them. He said he was going to get some more, and do it better this time.’

  ‘Is that what he was up to? Before he disappeared?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he was busy hacking your priceless data, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t have had time for a whole lot else.’

  He goes quiet, watching the road. In my door-mirror I can see the twin headlights of a hydrogen-celled Mercedes.

  ‘Nice car,’ he says. ‘Shall we take him on?’

  ‘I’ve got to get out of here, James. You’ve got to help me get away from this guy...’

  ‘Yvonne, we have to stick together. Sansom are going to be making life hard for both of us now.’

  ‘Let me out. If I’m the one who’s key to all this, then you’ve got to cover me.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I’ll go back to Effi’s. I’ll call you.’

  ‘I’m not going back to the squat, Yvonne. I’m finished with them.’

  ‘And are they finished with you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘David’s coming back, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s coming. We’re expecting him any day.’

  ‘You failed in your task. The one thing he asked you to do. You were supposed to find the mapping data for Sansom, and you haven’t done it. What’s David going to say when he finds out you’ve double-crossed the people you’re supposed to be working for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He glances anxiously into the rearview mirror. ‘He’s got a temper on him.’

  I stare at the streaming light-show of his profile, the fleeting Jameses that take on human form and then blink out. The blood on his face has been smeared into pale brown mascara-tears. It’s not his blood; I don’t know if t
hey’re his tears.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you can talk to him about it. You talked to him about all your other traumas. All those things that made you what you are.’

  He jerks his head away, denying me. The Mercedes is still on our tail.

  ‘David is a terrorist. His understanding only goes so far.’

  ‘A freedom-fighter.’ I find the energy for a bitter smile. ‘The truth that makes the stories true. I know all about that now.’

  But there’s something I’m not getting. He’s having to repeat it, just for me.

  ‘A terrorist, Yvonne. The real sort. The sort that kidnaps an animal lab technician on his way home from work, drives him to a remote spot on the Eskdale moors and burns a cattle-mark onto his skin with a branding iron. A really bad guy, if you’re into animal research. To others, a hero. It was him who sent you the bomb.’

  The blood on his face starts to flow. Like in some animated nightmare the scars come to life, the bloodstains thicken and bloom. Sticky masses of it well up in his tear-ducts, run from his nostrils, squeeze out horribly from the cuts on his cheeks. Soon it’s running off him, obliterating his face, a fountain of blood pouring from his mouth, his ears, his eyes.

  ‘He tried to kill me?’

  He shakes his head, scattering the hallucination. ‘No. He had a deal with Sansom. They gave you the implant, but he arranged the anaesthetic.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s what I didn’t understand. Now I can see that it was because they had to get that thing into you. The bomb was just meant to knock you out. I knew nothing about it. I was just meant to be sticking with you.’

  I close my eyes. The tin box in my hands. The Chinese enamellings. Open it, says the unborn child.

  ‘Why? Why did they do this to me?’

  ‘Because you’re a scientist. You want to know how it all works. In David’s view, that’s a crime against Nature. Nature is a fluffy animal, in case you didn’t know.’