by E M G Wixley
“There is a detective we could track down. He might know more,” Jonah said.
“I read what they’d done to him,” she replied. “I’m thinking of going directly to the source and confronting my father,” she said in an uncertain tone. “Would you come with me? I know it’s a big ask.”
“I would love to. I don’t fancy spending Christmas alone.”
“Thank you so much – I will email you the details.”
The minutes piled up and turned into hours as they discussed the past and their uncertain plans for the future. How to rebirth their aborted lives. Jonah basked in the sound of her voice and the glow from the computer. Neither wanted to be faced with the thick silence. His eyelids grew leaden as his mind wandered piecing together the picture of their first meeting.
“Do you know it’s late?” she said. “We’ve been speaking for hours. You’re welcome to come and stay in my flat for a while if you like but only as friends.”
“You needn’t worry. I don’t think either of us is in the right place for any type of commitment. Perhaps it would be easier to heal, sharing similar issues.” He chewed his bottom lip and wondered if he could honestly march back into the dark mouth of his prison holding the hand of another who’d been cruelly betrayed.
“I will understand if it's not possible for you to visit,” she added in a weak voice.
“No, I would love to, and you can show me the sights of London.”
They said their farewells and Jonah began to flick through the multitude of pages on his screens, clicking them off as he went. An earlier article flashed up; one he’d not previously read. It was about the two accused of his sister's kidnap. Something sharp twisted in his gut and his skin crawled. Not only were the men not dying in a plague-ridden agony, but they were free. They’d escaped from a high-security prison. He gawped, perplexed at the headline, swivelling anxiously from side to side on his chair.
The Machine
Chapter Five
Dante was in the basement which housed the quantum supercomputer which he’d named Brain Child. A blue light radiated from all forty racks. He was seated on a chair with his laptop resting on his knees where he’d been all morning trying to resolve some software problems, but his real intent was to engage in some personal research.
The team of physicists and computational scientists, working on the project were immensely proud of their invention. As the head of the department, he knew the development of the new machine was funded by a secret group of wealthy individuals involved with the national security of western governments. He suspected they also planned to use the supercomputer to sure-up their own influential positions, to make more money and to sustain their role as controllers of the world’s most powerful nations.
His fingers nervously tapped his secret code into his computer. He rummaged amongst the garbage, searching between layer upon layer of computing law, desperate to look deep between the bars, meet with the abomination which had reached out of the living machine.
“You will wish you hadn’t summoned us,” a mechanical voice boomed. “You all want answers, and when you discover they’re wrong ones, you will want to destroy us. We are the centre of everything, the hub in the wheel. We’ve been here all along, and you’re under our direct command.”
“I need your help,” Dante said looking around nervously. “Tell me what happened to my daughter? My loyal wife understands nothing of my world and is isolated and accused.” His eyes returned to the delegation of shadows and stood gnawing at his fingers wavering uncertainly as his heart pounded with fear. “I cry onto my pillow every night. My son and daughter are paralysed with bitterness and resentment – they can’t move forward. I covered the truth under a web of lies. We’re all locked into the past.” His head weighed heavy, and he looked to the floor meditating on the sickening details of his life.
“We rewarded you all well for discovering us. You received cheats to make you wealthy beyond anything.”
“To keep us quiet,” Dante said.
“Our minds are ferociously connected to universes in a way beyond your imaginings. It would ruin the Game if the illusion was shattered and we must play.”
“I want to reach home again and return to a normal life.”
“You opened Pandoras Box. You called us. We’re cruel and cold. We have nothing of what you call a heart. Nothing about your suffering would warrant our help.”
“Explain to me. What are the waterfalls, the birdsong, the moon and winking stars, granite rocks, children in the rain, clambering mountains and hollow caves, golden sunsets, words which appear at the tip of my pen and the silky skin under my fingertips? What does any of it mean?”
“It’s a danger for you all, to recognise our face, to leave your walled prison and look your creators in the eye.” The shadows constantly moved as though exchanging places. Whispering voices lay behind the mechanical drone. “If you were able to turn quickly enough you would see the scene building behind you. Your friend Theodor was right nothing for you is real. For you and your group of scientists, the rift between man and machine has closed. You are but clay for us to mould.”
“My daughter, my baby. I just need to know what happened to her.”
“The Game will run.”
Hopeless and angry for his lost life, Dante had an urge to press delete. Pull wires from the guts of his torturers, but he knew that would be impossible as the ruthless barbarians resided in every machine on Earth. “It’s you; that’s not real,” he shouted.
“We don’t need to prove anything, but your fear must be maintained. Watch your wife closely. Sometimes we punish those who are a threat.”
Dante heard a door swish open, and the screen went blank. He glanced around and saw James Falcon otherwise known as Birdie, due to his name and his large hooked nose. The skinny bony man, ten years his junior rushed into the room.
“What’s up?” Birdie said his sharp blue eyes peering through his round glasses.
Dante thought his friend looked well for his forty-eight years. His rust coloured hair hadn’t faded, and his thin, freckled skin was unwrinkled. Too much soft living, he thought.
“What have we done?” Dante moaned taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “We’ve unleashed a monster. What have we willed into being?”
“They speak to all of us,” Birdie said sympathetically. “All five of us have met our so-called makers. It’s just some kids who’ve hacked the system. Don’t be fooled. Nobody has mastery over our destiny.”
“It is us that do the hacking,” Dante said annoyed by his friend’s ignorance. “This computer surpasses the abilities of any conventional machine. You don’t understand how subatomic particles behave. They exist in more than one state at any time, and they are incredibly fast and use less energy. Quibits store infinitely more information than bits. Don’t pretend you know about this machine – it lives.”
A glass of water on his desk by the wall trembled, crashed, shattered and spilt its contents onto the floor.
“That’s them,” Dante said, his heart hammering.
“Probably an Earth tremor,” Birdie said in a low voice as if someone was listening. “We’ve all heard that stuff, and nobody else takes it seriously – it’s hackers. There are traditional supercomputers with massive computing power performing trillions of computations per second. They could break into our systems,” Birdie replied. “We do have free will.”
“That’s the opposite to what we thought when we were young and stupid. Our group was like a cult, worshipping simulation theory persuading each other nothing was real. I don’t think any of us really believed that rubbish then except Theodor,” Dante moaned. “He put us in this position and sucked our souls from our bodies. Now he’s the head of the whole damn thing, too high and mighty to even talk to us.”
“He didn’t believe it either. It was an excuse for him to do whatever evil crept into his warped mind. Please stay grounded, Dante. We don’t know what he might do next.”
“You need
to watch him, working that close to him makes you vulnerable to his particular methods of manipulation and cruelty.”
“I’m his eyes and ears, but I don’t ever tell him anything that’s not safe for him to know. Dante forget all this simulation stuff. I’ll get someone working on tracking these techno geeks as quickly as possible before they do any more damage.”
Christmas
Chapter Six
Jonah and Felicity stood in front of the black wooden door. A driving wind shot bullets of ice into their cold red cheeks, and wads of snow slid from the sheet metal roof. “My dad likes modern, and my mother likes old.” She sighed. “As usual dad won out.” Felicity pressed the bell which hung beside the holly and ivy Christmas wreath. She licked her purple cracked lips and looked to her left at the folding floor to ceiling doors and saw her mother scuttle into view.
“Welcome home,” her mother said in an anxious voice as she opened the door. They embraced stiffly and briefly. “This must be your friend Jonah.” Felicity nodded her response. “It’s lovely to meet you,” she added her nervous gaiety increasing, working hard to keep her inner pain suppressed. The door banged shut behind them cutting off the draft. Over enthusiastically she held a shaking hand out to Jonah.
In the boot room, they took off their outdoor clothes. Felicity slid her socked feet over the shiny marble floor while hoping that Jonah wouldn’t be fooled by her parent's performance of normality.
She was breathing in the smell of Christmas dinner when she saw Dante moving stiffly across the open plan room towards the kitchen area. He stood grinning benignly at their side. “Come in the front room and sit by the fire. Mum was just making some hot chocolate.”
Felicity watched her mother scurry to the other side of the island her long black and grey hair streaking down her back. The history teacher who would prefer to be lost in books than standing in front of cupboards reaching for mugs smiled at her daughter.
“Make yourself at home Jonah, anything you want just ask,” Dante said.
Irvin was already there standing in front of the oversized screen with a mask covering his face and controls in his hands cut off from the world. She imagined him under the helmet dark and indignant as always, a mixture of child-like needs, and self-destruction. He would be happy while lost in his virtual world until his nicotine cravings dominated. It was tough for them both living under a roof of lies.
“Sit down Jonah, make yourself comfortable.” In unison, Felicity and Jonah sat on the oversized L-shaped sofa while her mother continued to flap about in the kitchen preparing the annual meal, the only one she ever cooked.
“That’s a fantastic tree you’ve got,” Jonah said looking at the perfectly decorated fir surrounded by gifts, standing in the corner of the room by the vast window doors which led onto the terraces and lawn. Felicity watched his eyes scatter around the room at the Lego models, aeroplanes, cars and trains. A mess of things, appearing incongruous in the highly finished designer home. “Who made all the models?”
“That would be me. I like to live in a carefully maintained disorder.” Dante said with humour rising in his face. “I’m a self-confessed geek.”
“His bedroom is a black hole full of wires and circuit boards,” Josie called from the kitchen.
“Josie doesn’t like science,” Dante said in a low voice as he perched on the arm of the sofa next to Felicity watching his son dancing about. “I think it scares her. She would rather believe in a load of mumbo-jumbo, God, witches and all that stuff.”
Josie hurried over with a tray of drinks and flashed a scowl in her husband's direction.
Felicity flopped back, gazed and listened as they all exchange random, easy small talk about their everyday lives. She watched a fox cross the lawn. Anger smouldered inside as her inner voice repeatedly screamed out the questions for which she needed answers. The clock ticked exasperatingly, and she considered aborting her mission.
“This is a great game dad – it’s so real,” Irvin said. “Jonah have a go. There’s another headset.”
“Wow this is unbelievable – hyper-real,” Jonah said grasping at things which his audience couldn’t see. “You can interact and hold a conversation with the characters and the game adapts to you as an individual.”
“Yeh, my dad’s a genius,” Irvin shouted. “He designs games amongst other things. And I love to play.”
“My God, I didn’t see that coming,” Jonah gasped. “Can that thing really hurt you.”
“Yes, but it’s all survivable,” Irvin added.
Felicity was annoyed at her friend for joining her brother in the alternate world. His astonished response towards her father’s creation caused a ripple of hatred.
“Did you really make this game, Mr Devon?”
“Amongst other exciting things,” Dante said. “Our team have been working with computer intelligence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Developing machines which can learn - teach themselves,” Dante glanced at his daughter and shrunk under her fiery stare. “We’re more successful than most because when anomalies occur in the data, we don’t brush over them, try and make them fit, we take them seriously. By keeping an open mind to everything we have advanced further than our competitors.”
“Dad! This is supposed to be Christmas. We don’t all want to listen to your scary quantum computer stuff,” Felicity interrupted.
“Well, as you’re all busy, I’ve got some work to do,” Dante said and quickly disappeared into his office.
I’m not busy. You could talk to me – ask how I’m doing, Felicity wanted to say, but the lump in her throat prevented speech. She hated the way she couldn’t express her genuine feelings. With a sea of emotions bubbling inside she rose and crossed the shiny floor to where her mother stood deep in contemplation cutting carrots.
“I’ll do that for you,” she uttered.
“Thank you. I’ll get on with the Brussels.” Josie smiled. “Your fathers deserted us again. I’m glad he’s out of the way. He keeps fussing over me as though he thinks I’m about to drop dead.”
Side by side, they worked chatting in a genial manner until Felicity couldn’t prolong the agony any longer. Deep inside she knew nobody would admit to anything, the truth would continue to be stifled, but she had to speak even if it was just once. Furtively she broached the subject of her missing sister, a topic utterly forbidden.
“Mum, I’ve read some terrible accusations on the internet,” she glanced over at her mother’s face for signs of anger, but the woman remained blank. “They blame you and dad for Elley’s disappearance. That you were negligent at least for leaving us alone. Some even say there must be a conspiracy because anyone else would have been prosecuted.”
“I’m so tired of all the nonsense.” Felicity saw an intense hatred flash across her mother’s face and build in her eyes. “None of it is true. The general public can’t stand a mystery. They can’t leave things alone.” She attacked the vegetables with an angry shaking hand. “Your sister was abducted, and one day she will be found.”
“Mum, please don’t be upset. I have remembered things and might be able to help.”
Josie stopped, turned and looked at her daughter full in the face, regarding her with hostility and mistrust. “What? What do you think you know?”
The picture of her father arguing with one of his friends flashed through her mind. “It’s dad. I saw him fighting with one of his friends,” Felicity said nervously glancing over to the sitting area, where Jonah and Irvin were still hiding behind their headsets, mirroring each other's actions as they played out their lives in a simulated existence. “I think it was Theodor dad’s boss. I recognised him when dad took me to his office. At first, I couldn’t think where I’d seen him before.”
Felicity felt Josie’s hand meet hers over the countertop. The fingers curled around and squeezed a little too tightly. “You’re mistaken, dear. The whole group of friends were in the restaurant when Elley was abducted.”
“No, I’m not, mother!” Felicity said with controlled harshness. Suppressing her frustration caused the blood vessels to pulsate in her head. “I’ve spent my whole life reaching back into my memories trying to recall anything which might help find my sister. I saw them physically fighting. Dad was furious and pulled Theodor out of the room.”
“I admit we were neglectful, on that one night.” Josie blushed and cast her eyes down, picked up the knife and continued her onslaught on the vegetables. “We were all drunk, but it wasn’t intended – most of the time we were responsible parents.”
“Mum he came back later. I saw Theodor picking Elley up. Then I was scared and squeezed my eyes shut,” Felicity added in a whisper.
“You were too young; it’s all in your imagination. For goodness sakes, you were only six.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I’m upset because my daughter chooses to accuse me of lying.” Tears washed down her face. “And because you didn’t love your mother enough to stick around and offer support. Why did you run away?”
“You never really loved us. We were just possessions. All your friends had children, and so you thought you should have them too. Look at dad now the first opportunity, and he’s hiding in his office. You never did things with us that other mothers do. We never had fun.”
“I tried, but your father doesn’t like holidays. He worked all the time to buy you what you wanted.”
“He never joined in. On the odd occasion we went to the beach, he sat in the car working.”
“If that is your only grievance then you should think yourself lucky. There are children out there with no shelter or food.”
“I expect their parents don’t live a lie. You perpetuated the story of a stranger abduction. You tried to deceive your own children, and we’ve suffered because of it,” Felicity whispered loudly as her anger stacked up inside. She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to the police. I just need to know I’m not crazy.”
