by Nik Abnett
“Using his Service number, we extract his data, and make him the control, go a point or two either side, and with any luck, we’ll have our sample group. Brilliant!” said Qa.
“I hope he is. I’m going to get him, on-line, right now.”
“No, I meant...” Qa began, but Branting was already on his way out of the room, and Qa returned to upload Goodman’s Service number, and find out where on the curve his results sat.
BOB GOODMAN LEFT the Service Floor, accompanied by Ranked Operator McColl. He had been told nothing. Henderson had asked him to sign out, and hand over to Chen. Chen tried to ask Henderson why Goodman was being removed from his post, but Henderson simply waved her concerns away. She had confronted him once, and did not feel able to do so again.
McColl and Goodman left the Service Floor, exited onto the exterior gallery, and went into the interview room that McColl had previously visited with Strazinsky.
“I’ll be observing,” McColl said to Goodman, as they walked into the room.
“Great, that’s fine,” said Bob, “but I’m still not sure what I’m doing here.”
“I’m not sure if anyone really knows why you’re here, but you certainly seem to have impressed someone,” said McColl.
“Or pissed someone off,” said Bob Goodman, smiling bravely.
McColl pressed his hand firmly against Goodman’s back, by way of reassuring the Operator, and smiled at him.
“You’ll be fine,” he said.
The vid-con screen on the wall opposite a table and a pair of chairs, lit up with drifting snow, and then settled, showing a chair and a computer array in an anonymous-looking room.
McColl and Goodman sat down facing the screen; the screen vibrated slightly and a man walked into the shot, his back to the camera. He turned to sit in the chair, but Goodman didn’t recognise him. The man wore a dark suit with a light shirt and a dark tie. The picture seemed indistinct, and, while he didn’t recognise him, Goodman thought that the man on the screen could be mistaken for almost anyone. He had an anonymous, regular face. He was of medium height, medium weight and average colouring, apparently without any identifying marks or features.
The man looked out of the screen at Goodman and McColl.
“Control Operator Branting, interviewing,” he said. Before he had finished speaking, Goodman was on his feet, knocking his chair over and almost getting tangled in it.
“What the...” he began, kicking at the chair to free his legs so that he could flee.
“Sit down, please, Operator Goodman,” said Branting. “Perhaps you could give him a hand,” he continued, gesturing at McColl and shuffling the pieces of paper that were visible in his hands. “I can’t see you if you stand up, Goodman.”
McColl hurried to help Goodman, but he only seemed to make things worse, and it was several sweaty moments before McColl and Goodman were both seated again. “Interviewee?” asked Branting.
There was a pause before Goodman turned to McColl and said, “Is that me?”
“It is,” said McColl. “Just take a deep breath and answer the man. Goodman leaned forward slightly, in his chair, and, speaking more slowly and clearly than usual, he said, “Operator Bob Goodman, Control Operator, uh, Branting.”
“Observing?” asked Branting.
“Ranked Operator McColl, sir,” McColl said, briskly. “Should I get someone in here of a higher rank, sir?”
“Oh, I think I’ve got sufficient rank for all of us, don’t you, McColl?” said Branting, smiling and trying to put the two men a little more at their ease. He looked into their faces, and then realised that his ploy couldn’t possibly work, because of the reverse-recognition filter in the system.
“Hold on,” he said, rising from his chair, and moving towards the recording device, his dark suit and pale shirt filling the screen in front of Goodman and McColl until they could see only a pale grey blur.
The man that sat back down didn’t look anything like the man who had introduced himself as Branting. He was short and stocky, and swarthy, with a shock of very dark hair, and eyes that turned down slightly at the corners.
“Sir?” asked McColl.
“Let’s start again, shall we?” said Branting. “Control Operator Branting, interviewing.”
The formalities were over quickly, and Branting was able to put McColl and Goodman at their ease, with his sympathetic approach and his winning smile. A large part of any Control Operator’s job was communication. All political posts were filled according to ability, but one key factor in measuring how effective a politician might be was by gauging his popularity. Branting was likeable.
“You filled in a questionnaire for us,” said Branting.
Bob looked at McColl and then back at the screen before answering, “Yes, sir, a psychometric test, as far as I could tell. Not the usual, though.”
“No, not quite the usual,” said Branting. “You said something to Agent Operator Henderson when you were on the Service Floor; something about body language.”
“I could see his reflection on my screen. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“I wanted to know if there’s a connection, for you, between people and their screen readings.”
There was a pause. Goodman looked down, and then at McColl. He looked briefly up at the screen, but not for long enough for the Agent Operator to hold his gaze.
“By which I mean,” said Branting, “for instance, if you were to meet someone for the first time, could you say what their screen might look like?”
“I don’t know,” said Goodman. “It would depend.”
“What would it depend on, do you suppose?”
“I guess it would get easier the stronger the personality. When I first arrived at the College, thirty-odd years ago, I used to play this little game...” His voice trailed off. “...I don’t want to waste your time,” he said, looking at Branting.
Branting smiled.
“No,” he said, “this is very interesting. Go on. Please.”
“I used to play ‘spot the Master’. I’d walk around College, and when I saw someone that I thought might be a Master I’d say ‘good morning’ or ‘good afternoon, Master’. Mostly they didn’t reply, and sometimes they’d get a bit jumpy, which was a good sign that I’d hit the nail on the head.”
“And how often were you wrong?”
“Oh, I don’t know that I was ever wrong,” said Goodman, “except it did get harder, because pretty soon, I’d spotted all the Masters and I switched to Companions. Same game: ‘good morning, Companion’, or ‘good afternoon, Companion’.”
Branting looked at Goodman, intently, and said, “How long did this little game last?”
“Oh, things changed pretty soon after I got here. Everyone knew pretty much everyone, and when she found out that I wasn’t spending all my time in the School, my Senior got a bit difficult and started keeping an eye on me.
“Then I joined Service, and it’s not so interesting with Operator types. We’re all pretty much alike, and we all know each other. You can only play the game with people you don’t know.”
“So, you started playing this game when you were in the School?” asked Branting.
“Pretty much as soon as I got here, after being Drafted. I was just a kid,” said Goodman.
Branting flicked through the file, on the desk in front of him. He stopped to check a fact, and then looked out at Goodman. He smiled.
“You were eleven,” he said.
McColl looked at Goodman. Goodman didn’t notice.
“Does that surprise you, Operator McColl?” asked Branting.
Goodman looked at McColl, surprised by the question.
“Excuse me, sir, but I thought I was just here to observe,” said McColl.
“Then offer me your observations on the matter,” said Branting.
“I don’t know. Either it’s pretty impressive, or it’s a good party trick. I don’t know which. How does a kid work people out that quickly, though?”
; “Good question,” said Branting. “Would you like to answer that for us, Bob?”
“I don’t know,” said Bob. “I just thought everyone did it. Can’t you tell what a person’s like just by looking at them?”
“Not always, no,” said Branting, referring back to his notes. “You’ve been an Operator for over thirty years?”
“Sounds about right.”
“You’ve never put in for a promotion. Why is that?”
“I don’t know. I like the screens. I like the people on the screens. It’s not like mind-reading, but some of the minds I’ve seen in my work have been pretty cool.”
“How so?”
“You know. You can tell when you’re looking at a Master’s brain. Totally different to when you’re looking at a Senior’s brain, say.”
“Yes,” said Branting, “the rate of pulsation might be different, the intensity of the corona... that sort of thing.”
“I suppose so, but it’s more than that. A Master’s mind works differently. His emotions are scattered in different places in his brain, and are diffuse, so you get to see more of the intellect at work. With most people you can see how happy or sad they are, or angry, or bored. Sometimes I fancy that someone’s in love. You can tell when someone’s thinking about something mathematical or visual, or whether they’re having a good memory, or listening to music.
“If I was watching a Master’s screen while he was listening to music, I might only pick up intellectual stuff about the mathematical puzzle of the music, rather than how he feels about it. Stuff like that.
“Usually, of course, we don’t know what they’re doing. We’re not supposed to know. Anyway, Masters’ patterns are different to all the others.”
McColl looked at Goodman again.
“You can tell all that?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“Can you gauge personality types?” asked Branting. “You claim that you could tell, by looking at people, who was a Master, and you can tell that on-screen, but what about everyone else?”
“What about everyone else?” asked Goodman.
“If I showed you some screen footage, or wafers, could you tell me what’s going on in the subject’s head?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we’re supposed to do that. Aren’t there privacy laws or something? We’re not supposed to know whose screen we’re watching, after all, are we?”
“No, you’re not, but you do understand that we’re in a very difficult situation.”
“The Code Status, you mean?”
“Yes, the Code Status,” said Branting, looking slightly distracted for the first time since the interview started.
“You’re really worried about it, aren’t you?” asked Goodman.
“I realise,” said Branting, “that you aren’t expected to understand all the implications of our current Code status, and it isn’t your concern, of course, as a basic-grade Operator, but, yes, I am worried. We are all very worried, and we don’t have much time to get to the bottom of all this, and find some solutions.”
“I thought it was a test,” said Goodman, looking at McColl. McColl shrugged his shoulders. “Because of the Master’s screen.”
Branting leaned forward in his chair, filling the screen in front of McColl and Goodman.
“What about the Master’s screen?” asked Branting.
Goodman looked a little confused, and then his face started to turn white.
“I was joking with Agent Operator Henderson...” he said, his sentence tailing off. He looked from Branting to McColl. “I thought he was acting... I thought he’d learnt some basic body language, and was using it to keep us all fooled... I thought...”
“Calm down, said Branting. “Bob, calm down and just look at me.”
Goodman could hear a muffled voice as if from a long way, away, or through a terrible loudspeaker turned to minimum volume. He put his head in his hands, and then ran his hands down his face. The colour in his cheeks began to come back a little.
“Calm down, Bob, and concentrate, for me,” said Branting. “We are at Code Orange. The Code status has been ramping up for several days, and, no matter what we do, we don’t seem able to control the situation. We haven’t even worked out, yet, what the situation is.”
“Code Orange. Not because of the Master, though,” said Goodman.
“One of our Actives has been undergoing some mental/emotional changes,” said Branting, “and the balance of his mind appears to be in danger. We also believe that he has transmitted his problem via the mini-print slots to other Masters and Actives, globally.”
“Not our Master,” said Bob. “Not the screens on the Service Floor.” He hesitated again, and then turned his head to look at McColl. “Why are all the screens on the Service Floor looking at our Master, here, if an Active is in such trouble?” he asked no one in particular. “Why aren’t we working on the Active’s screen?”
Bob got out of his chair again. He looked from McColl to Branting and back again, and then gestured, wildly with his arms.
“I have to warn them,” he said. “I have to get back on the Service Floor and tell them they’re looking in the wrong place.”
“McColl,” said Branting, “you need to help me with Operator Goodman. I need him to calm down.”
Bob Goodman seemed almost entirely oblivious to Branting and McColl, and what was going on in the interview room. He was fighting with his chair, standing up and sitting down, by turns, and wiping down the length of his face with his left hand. His composure was utterly gone.
“Yes, sir,” said McColl, half-standing, and taking Goodman by the elbow. “Bob,” he said, pulling himself upright. “Bob?”
McColl turned Bob towards him, and got hold of both of his elbows in his hands. He held him firmly, and spoke right into his face.
“Bob, we’ve got a job to do,” said McColl. “You’ve got a job to do. Control Operator Branting is going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer them, okay?”
“But it’s wrong,” said Bob Goodman. “They’ve got it all wrong, and there’s no time!”
Chapter Forty-One
TOBE AND METOO had not left the flat for forty-eight hours, and Tobe had only worked one day in the cycle so far.
Metoo got up a little before her regular time and delivered eggpro, toast and cereal to the garden room, for Wooh and Saintout.
“Are you ready for this?” asked Saintout, taking the tray from her.
“No,” said Metoo. “I don’t know.” She turned and left the room, and Wooh shrugged at Saintout.
“We’ll see,” she said.
“I hope so,” said Saintout.
At 06:00, the shower was running, and Tobe’s eggpro was sitting on the counter waiting for him. Metoo had watched him open the door to his room, and walk down the corridor to the bathroom, still wearing his robe. The bathroom door had closed behind him, but Metoo didn’t hear the lock turning and shutting him in. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Three or four minutes after 06:00, Tobe emerged from the bathroom, and padded to the kitchen. He sat on his stool and tucked into his breakfast, apparently hungry. He finished within a couple of minutes.
“It is the same,” he said.
Metoo stopped filling the auto-clean and stepped up next to Tobe. She leaned over and took the dish from in front of him.
“You’ve said that every morning this week,” said Metoo. “What do you mean?”
“What?” asked Tobe.
“‘It is the same.’ You keep saying, ‘It is the same’.”
“It is the same,” said Tobe.
“What is the same?”
“Breakfast.”
Metoo crossed to the other side of the counter, so that she was facing Tobe, still holding his dish in her hand.
“I can make you something else, for breakfast, if you like.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the same. Perhaps it’s time for a change.”
Tobe looke
d at her.
“But it’s the same,” he said.
Metoo wasn’t sure what Tobe was driving at, and didn’t want to upset him ahead of the long day that they both faced. She left it alone.
By 08:30 everyone had eaten, except Metoo, who couldn’t face food, but she had managed to have a conversation with Tobe about what the day would bring, and he seemed very settled, sitting at the kitchen counter with his empty tea-cup in front of him.
A tone sounded in the flat, and Metoo went to sign in, her heart beating a little faster than usual. This was it; this was the call.
Metoo signed out and went to the front door of the flat, where Saintout was waiting to be let in. Metoo called Tobe out of the kitchen, and the three of them stood in the hallway.
“You remember Saintout,” said Metoo.
“French,” said Tobe.
“A long time ago,” said Saintout, smiling, but keeping his hands in his pockets. Metoo had primed him as best she could in the time available, and he knew that trying to shake hands with Tobe was out of the question.
METOO HAD DECIDED that, if she was going to do this at all, she was going to do it on her own terms, or as close to her own terms as humanly possible. Her attempts to interview Tobe, the previous day, using Wooh’s questions, had failed, and she felt like she was losing control of the situation. She clung, in vain, to the small amount of influence remaining to her.
Saintout climbed out of the garden room window, and walked around the outside of the building to the front door of the flat. Doctor Wooh remained in the garden room.
Metoo spent some time, after breakfast, explaining to Tobe that she needed to go out for a little while, that Service wanted to interview her, and that it was strictly routine, and nothing to worry about.
Tobe had insisted that he wasn’t worried about anything. Never-the-less, Metoo had explained, she wanted her friend to stay in the flat with Tobe, just to make sure that he was safe. It would be fine; her friend could stay in the garden room, out of the way. Tobe wouldn’t even know that he was there.
It was more than an hour before Metoo was comfortable about the whole arrangement. Tobe seemed fine with it pretty quickly. Metoo told herself that it was because Tobe didn’t understand what she was saying to him, but nothing she said seemed to frighten or disturb him.
