Hashtag

by David Wake

  Oliver, you’re not making sense.

  “The thing is,” he said, pacing the floor, “these thoughts must be coming from somewhere just as the fridge thinks to you when it’s low on milk or needs defrosting. But no modern fridge needs defrosting. I’m talking nonsense. I can’t keep this up.”

  There was a picture on the mantelpiece of three young women larking about in the sunshine. He picked it up and flipped it over: there was a date and ‘Jane’ was the third name along. Looking at them again, he picked her out. She was slim, attractive, happy and so full of life and, having her thoughts in his head, he felt overwhelmingly sad.

  Perhaps it would be kinder not to convince her.

  Convince me of what?

  And she had the wrong build for Unknown 271, but here were a lot of numbers before 271.

  Solve this one, then he’d have solved 271 and 272… and all the other unknown Unknowns.

  He had the name of a victim now and all her thoughts to pick through. Not his case, but a case. At some point she must have gone from alive, happy like in this photograph, to the back seat of some car, somewhere?

  Zhaodi had said the Chinese Room was new.

  Something exploded, a door splintering.

  Two men came barging in, black shapes, against the beige wall. Armed! Oliver recognised one as Tedman, his thoughts a maelstrom of fractured phrases and special jargon, which Oliver filtered out automatically. The other was terrifying, a blank, human shaped gap in the world.

  Oliver put out his hand to protect himself, more afraid of the thought–zombie than the real person playing some cerebral.

  Shit, what’s the emergency hashtag today?

  Mithering responded: I’m not police–

  The lead man had a gun in his hand, yellow with black stripes and evil looking.

  Shit! It’s a Ta–

  Oliver felt a sharp pain, looked down and his whole body began shaking. There were leads going out to the Taser… must… pull leads… n!*&%@#.

  He sank to his knees, fitting from the electric shock and mashing the inside of his mouth with his teeth. His arms and legs jerked rigid, shivering and vibrating energetically as his muscles went into spasm. His iBrow glitched: haywire, overloading, speckling lights and crackles of sound in his brain. It was as if the picture of Jane Deacon, the sunny intervals, bad news, pen, paper, Chinese food and everything all crashed into a single spark. His brain seemed to turn inside out.

  The closest man pulled the leads from Oliver’s chest and rolled them back into the Taser, while the other man flipped Oliver’s body over.

  Oliver knew he was going to die.

  He knew he’d be in the morgue with Doctor Ridge picking over his bones: Tepee to Red Indian. Or never found. He knew it with that instinctive part of his brain, that reptile hiding at the back of his skull that was so subsumed by his conscious mind, a conscious mind now on fire as the short–circuiting iBrow flared and delivered utterly convincing nonsense. His sight particularly was hijacked by restaurant offers and Mithering and Jasmine and police updates all turned into visual imagery.

  He blacked out. Had he? Was he?

  His body crumped roughly down in a car boot.

  It was dark.

  Oliver still saw everything he knew, randomly, like a collage made from ancient newspaper cuttings.

  He closed his eyes, put his hand over his eyes, tried to–

  The sun exploded.

  It was the boot being opened.

  The daylight was like laser light.

  He was dragged out.

  Different men.

  His mind was coming back as the iBrow rebooted, but the nerve connections felt bruised and fried. Somehow, with his brow emptied by the denial attack and the hospital treatment, there wasn’t as much to load. He was coming to faster than they expected.

  The floor was concrete, dusty and smelt of glue. A man bent into the boot, his hands tattooed with Chinese symbols, and heaved Oliver out. They dragged his limp body along the floor.

  “Get the brow,” said one. “Before he can think.”

  The other bent down.

  A knife glinted, wide, steel, serrated.

  Oliver kicked out, punched, connected, felt a strong pain in his left shoulder and then, as they fought, he tumbled. He, and his assailant were airborne, flying, before crashing in mire: grey, congealing, sucking him down…

  Another shape loomed above. “We’ve got his pin and his password – every good boy deserves chocolate – so just fill it in.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” the other man shouted, wading to stay upright. Oliver’s iBrow wasn’t active enough to recognise him or he might have been someone without a brow. It hardly mattered.

  Above him, a machine lurched into action with a grating diesel sound as its engine started. Oliver half–crawled, half–swam to the wall. It was wooden, wooden all round, planks to hold in…

  A splattering caught his attention: heavy gloop sloshed down. They were filling the hole with concrete.

  The other man screamed, high pitched and unreal. He was scrabbling, trying to swim like a sea lion up a waterfall.

  The knife was sticking out of Oliver’s shoulder. He hadn’t even realised he’d been stabbed. When he pulled it out, the wound spilt a vivid red splash over the fresh concrete.

  The man’s incoherent noises formed words, “No, no, no…”

  Oliver glanced up.

  The others had gone, leaving them to their fate.

  Stay on top, no chance.

  Stand on the other man’s shoulders?

  At the side the concrete spat, bubbles rose and burst creating a miniature eruption like hot springs.

  The walls were smooth.

  Wait! The bubbles meant the concrete was seeping out of a hole, a line of – yes – sunlight. Oliver waded over, jammed the knife into the crack and twisted, levering.

  “Oi!”

  Oliver ignored him, pushing no matter what the pain in his hands and shoulder did. It moved, creating a hole that filled with concrete so quickly.

  A tidal surge announced the arrival of the man. He smashed against the wall next to Oliver.

  Oliver spat to clear his mouth. “I–”

  His brow came on, the other man’s fear and panic hit him like a train: LET ME OUT, BASTARD!!!

  Oliver jerked backwards as if struck: My head!

  The wall failed.

  Both men hurtled through, sucked down by the funnelling mire.

  They landed somewhere.

  Oliver coughed up a mouthful of grit and muck.

  The man grabbed him.

  Oliver stabbed upwards – again – twisted, then let go of the hilt, saw the wave of grey swallow his attacker and then he was wading away, desperately trying to outrun the avalanche. There was a metal ladder set in the wall and he climbed, the already setting foundations grasping his ankles and trying to hold him down.

  The brow–to–brow link severed abruptly.

  Oliver stumbled at the top, grazed his knee and then toppled like a statue.

  Sorry, I can’t make it in to work tomorrow, Oliver thought, I’m feeling a little under the weather to be honest.

  He retched, there was rock stuck in the back of his throat.

  Thanks Ma’am… I mean, Freya, Oliver thought, I’ll be fine. I’ve taken some paracetamol and I’m going to sleep it off.

  He tried to wipe his eyes clean and his hand put more filth over his face.

  I’m moving out of Jellicoe’s, Oliver thought.

  He picked up Freya’s thoughts, but he’d not followed her, but he was following her, and her thoughts washed over him as if they were spoken in some foreign language.

  No, no, Jasmine, Oliver thought, I don’t want to miss going out with your friends on Saturday.

  He vomited.

  That’s lovely, Oliver thought.

  “Christ!”

  Miss you too, Oliver thought.

  He shouted aloud, “Who the hell is Oliver!?”

 
; Sweet dreams to you too.

  And then he realised he was dead.

  TUESDAY

  “Jesus!”

  Jellicoe practically fell over backwards when he saw Braddon standing in the doorway. In the light of the porch, he was a terrifying figure. The Inspector clutched his chest in shock.

  “Show me the way to go home,” Braddon sang. “Pa–pah, pa–pah, pa–pah!”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “I had a little drink now, fucking now, booze, booze, booze, lovely booze…”

  “What?”

  “Booze, lovely booze, a drink, don’t mind if I do.”

  Jellicoe found the whiskey bottle as Braddon left dusty footprints in the hall. When the old man handed it over, Braddon knocked it back, almost screaming at the way the stinging liquid attacked his throat. Half the bottle went before his iBrow gave up.

  Braddon handed it back.

  Jellicoe rubbed the rim and took a swig himself.

  “You look like a ghost.”

  “I am.”

  “Hey?”

  “Follow me,” said Braddon, tapping his forehead.

  Jellicoe tilted his head to one side in thought.

  I am at home in bed, but I can’t sleep, Oliver thought. I don’t feel well.

  “You’re home, ill, in bed.”

  “Got the ‘flu.”

  “Looks like more than ‘flu.”

  “Aye,” Braddon took the bottle back. He drank. “The fuckers killed me and dumped my body in the foundations of a fucking apartment block.”

  Jellicoe’s eyes widened.

  “But–”

  “I’m back from the grave and I’ve not died.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “They’ve got something that thinks for you. That’s why their victims don’t show up on the missing list, because they aren’t missing if they are still thinking.”

  “So that’s what they did with Unknown 271 and the other one?”

  “And Jane Deacon and me and probably another few dozen… something. Whatever.”

  Braddon caught sight of himself in the hall mirror: he did look like a corpse, grey and dusty, something dug up from somewhere.

  “I look like shit,” he said.

  I’m feeling fragile, Oliver thought, so I won’t come out tomorrow. I’m OK, I’ve a thlog I want to finish.

  “Here,” said Jellicoe, handing him a bathrobe. “Don’t get it on the stair carpet.”

  Next week I’ll make it up to you, Jasmine, Oliver thought, I promise.

  “I need to unfollow myself. They are like my own thoughts in here,” said Braddon tapping his temple. “I need to unfollow myself.”

  “Can you?”

  Braddon tried, but this possibility obviously hadn’t crossed the designers’ minds. “No… and I actually feel like I’ve had a warm milk and gone to bed, except… this is insane.”

  “Never mind.”

  Braddon winced. “I need a bandage,” he said.

  I know it’s 2am and you have to sleep, Oliver thought.

  “I’ll contact the station.”

  Braddon put his hand on Jellicoe’s arm: “Don’t.”

  Jellicoe eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

  “They have my pin code and password. They didn’t get it by scalping me – although that was their plan – they got it from the station when I was re–engineering after the denial of service attack.”

  “How?”

  “One of us is one of them.”

  “Shit? Who?”

  “Need to find out, but I need to…”

  “Sure.”

  Goodnight, Jasmine.

  “I think my ex–girlfriend and I have come to an understanding to be just friends.”

  “That’s creepy,” Jellicoe said.

  “Too right.”

  Braddon did want to wish Jasmine good–night too, but the alcohol prevented him and it wouldn’t have been wise. He could follow her, that would be comforting, but Jellicoe was helping Braddon up the stairs. The pain blotted everything out.

  The Inspector ran the tap for the bath and then saw the young DC wince as he tried to undress. Jellicoe went back in and helped undress him, then assisted him into the water.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen,” Jellicoe said.

  “Someone covered in this.”

  “Well, maybe not plastered quite as literally.”

  Braddon laughed, “It’s concrete.”

  Jellicoe washed the man, drained the water and then repeated the process. The wound in the left shoulder kept opening up, but once the bath was over, Jellicoe found some antiseptic. He dabbed it on some cotton wool and then applied it to the wound: Braddon yelped and then started breathing in sudden snorts.

  “It’ll hurt.”

  “Just do it.”

  Jellicoe did: through his skull, Braddon could hear himself grinding his teeth, his fillings grating under the pressure. He let out a breath when Jellicoe put the bottle down and picked up a pack of butterfly stitches. The Inspector, despite the alcohol, opened the packaging, applied the strips and then wrapped a bandage around Braddon’s shoulder with obvious expertise.

  “You were in the army?” Braddon asked.

  “No.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Jellicoe bit the bandage and ripped it. He tied a knot.

  “There.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sleep is what you need.”

  Braddon nodded.

  Jellicoe helped him across the landing, which Braddon needed as he was the one walking like an old man.

  “Can you get in on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  Jellicoe went out without a word.

  Braddon found his fingers didn’t work and it took several attempts to grip the quilt. He got in, conscious of the damp from his body seeping into the bed. He settled before he realised that he’d left the light on.

  “Jell–”

  The Inspector came in with a drink.

  “Here you go,” said Jellicoe as he put a glass down on the bedside cabinet.

  Braddon picked it up, but Jellicoe put his palm across the top.

  “It’s for the morning,” Jellicoe explained. “When you wake up, you’ll need something to disconnect. Breakfast of Champions.”

  “Thanks.”

  Braddon put it back down on the bedside cabinet and it chinked as the amber liquid heaved back and forth. There was ice in the glass. It would have melted before morning, but it showed a level of care from the Inspector.

  “You’re welcome,” Jellicoe said.

  The Inspector turned the light out as he left.

  In the dark, afraid, Braddon followed people. He idly scrolled up and down Jasmine’s thoughts, Mox’s cerebral intruded and Chen was bored of orange juice now that everyone else at the party was drunk; Melissa was upset that Adams turned out to be a bastard like all the others, Draith was wondering why his wife was sulking and Oliver himself was thinking of leaving the Police Force to move to France and thinking at Jasmine and she was thinking back in response and a bird cried out outside the window and Jasmine was hurt that he was thinking of leaving the country, even if they’d split up, and Chen wanted to organise a leaving party and Braddon thought he’d never sleep despite being drunk and so utterly exhausted…

  …his dreams were like flicking between different thlog feeds, a kaleidoscope of differing tropes, their memes mangled together with confusing contrasts and juxtapositions: this, that, the other. Somehow, the mind assumed they made sense and created a narrative to connect them. They could be recorded, assigned a personal hashtag and reviewed in the morning. There were even people who charged to interpret these nonsense poems.

  Braddon’s night was full of the body in the car, but he was inside the car. A brick bounced off the bonnet as Jellicoe served him drinks at the bar installed where the passenger seat should have been. There was Chinese food and people with spaces where their foreheads should be. Inside the gaps in th
eir heads, tiny workers built scaffolding, and laid concrete foundations ready for the installation of iBrow technology that, at this exaggerated scale, looked like girders and steel reinforcing.

  Braddon fell in, past the men in hard hats head–butting each other, and along the labyrinth of brow filaments until they became the organic pipes and conduits of the organic brain. Here monkeys swung between the branches, and then he went deeper to a place where reptiles slithered in the slime.

  And then he was packing, his flight tickets ordered and his French translation thapp installed.

  Soil came up and smothered him, grey and cloying, and it melted until he was deep underwater, swimming down into the dark.

  Of course, it made no sense.

  Dreams never did.

  You only had to noodle your own to find that out.

  Flight at six in the morning.

  Chen wished him luck.

  Seventeen people liked that.

  Sad to be leaving.

  Flight called.

  Boarding.

  Bye.

  WEDNESDAY

  Oliver was tired from the flight to France, but the cottage he’d rented was wonderful, quaint and old–fashioned. A perfect bolt hole after his suspension from duty, a place to some thinking and get his shit together. First, he was going to have a glass of wine, watch the sun go down behind the vineyards on those beautiful rolling hills and then get some sleep.

  I can feel myself unwinding already, Oliver thought, this is a good vintage and so cheap over here.

  Braddon himself felt befuddled when Jellicoe woke him up, somehow expecting to come round in a rural farmhouse to croissants, red wine and cheese.

  The scotch had a raw egg in it and caused Braddon to gag, but he got it down. The white soothed his throat as the whiskey burned. His iBrow crossfaded from sleep to insobriety.

  “Your thought stream is unbroken,” Jellicoe said. He looked tired as if he’d been up all night working. “The other Oliver is… Oliver. You appear to be the anomaly, Braddon.”

  “Yea, I think I’m screwed,” Braddon said. “And my brow thinks it’s tomorrow.”

  “It is tomorrow, you’ve slept for nearly thirty–six hours.”

  “What?”

  Braddon ached, bruised and battered as he was, and he winced when Jellicoe checked the wound and changed his dressing.

  “Healing nicely,” Jellicoe said. “You were lucky.”