She would have liked to stay and utilize the other passports in Renuka’s hand but, Renuka’s husband, Ashok, had come in from work and was calling out to his wife.
Immediately Bumi sprang up. She pressed her friend’s hand. ‘I’d better go, but thank you so much, Renuka. I’ll never forget this.’
Renuka accompanied her friend only to the top of the stairs, then went back to sit at the computer and watch the live feed. When her husband called out to her again she shouted him upstairs. ‘Come and look at this,’ she said. ‘Can you believe they are asking the public to vote whether this boy lives or not?’
Ashok shook his head at his wife’s naivety. ‘What utter nonsense,’ he dismissed, and sat on the chair his wife had vacated. He clicked out of the website, went back in afresh, and he stared at the screen in disbelief. Then he looked up at his wife. ‘They are offering a hundred US dollars if we vote yes.
‘Really? Bumi didn’t tell me that. Anyway, it’s one vote per person and I have already voted, no.’
‘You have, but I haven’t. And if I vote yes we will have a hundred dollars, and we will not have affected the outcome. We have to take care of our situation. We are not responsible for this boy. Who knows what karma he has come with to end up in this situation? We have nothing to feel guilty for. And anyway, who is this boy?’
‘I don’t know. Apparently someone that Bumi knows.’
‘Go get all our passports.’
Renuka picked up the bundle of passports that were lying on the table. ‘Why?’
‘We are going to use Anand’s and Meera’s passports too. Anand will vote yes and Meera will vote no. Which means we will not be changing the outcome for this boy, but our family will still be better off by two hundred dollars.’
‘I don’t know: Bumi did come to me for help. This is not helping, is it?’
‘Hey, if we wanted to be selfish, we could make four hundred dollars.’
Renuka folded her arms across her ample chest.
‘If it makes you feel better I will tell everyone at my office to vote, no.
‘What if they vote, yes?’
‘How would that be our fault? Besides, I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss. Look at that boy, for God’s sake. He looks more dead than alive. We are probably doing him a favor. What kind of life is that, hooked up to all those machines? And I think it was rather sly of your friend not to tell you that voting yes was worth a hundred dollars. Surely that was your decision to make. I should be annoyed with her if I were you.’
‘Yes, I suppose that was not very trusting of her. I will phone my sister in Pondicherry and tell her to do the same as us.’
‘Good, and while you are at it, call all my relatives too.’
His wife made a face. She didn’t like Ashok’s people.
Renuka sat beside him and together they did the deed. Nevertheless, Ashok went up to bed peeved that Bumi had taken advantage of his wife and there was no way to change one’s vote. As he brushed his teeth vigorously he decided he would tell all his relatives in India to vote in the morning. A hundred dollars in India was big money. There was no doubt in his mind that the powers that be would shut down this facility very quickly.
The Investigation
Portland Cybercrime Unit, FBI
Dan Wells, head of the FBI’s Cybercrime Unit in Portland, Oregon was a tall, spare man with thinking hazel eyes and a cautious mouth. A man who took extraordinary pride in his work. Forty successful prosecutions in less than seven years. The rest of his life could be characterized as a failure of monumental proportions; messy divorce, kids who wouldn’t speak to him, a cold apartment, a bare fridge, and a lonely, unmade bed. He knocked briefly on his superior’s office door and walked in.
‘Sir?’
Robert Kilton sat behind his desk; thinning hair, cotton shirt, unbuttoned camel waistcoat, and a belligerent look that Dan knew well. He grunted, and nodded toward the chair in front of his desk. Dan sat. Kilton turned his computer screen to face Dan. ‘Seen this yet?’ he asked glumly.
Dan’s eyes narrowed. ‘What the hell?’
‘Kinda creepy, huh?’
‘It came online eight hours ago. Some sick fuck is streaming it live from somewhere on planet Earth. But by a strange coincidence, and you know how I feel about coincidences, our offices had two phone booth tips minutes apart about six hours after it came online. So it’s either local or someone wants us to think it is.’
‘Jesus, what is wrong with people? Eight hours ago and already two thousand people want this kid dead.’
Kilton leaned back into the comfort of his ergonomic leather chair and said nothing.
‘Obviously, we can’t shut it down?’
‘Yep. The site is being hosted by thousands of servers around the world.’
Dan looked at Kilton, his eyes narrowed. ‘Who’s the kid?’
‘No idea.’
Dan frowned. ‘A kid that sick must have a medical history. Where are his relatives? He didn’t get to be that age without carers, relatives, friends, doctors, nurses, social workers. Someone must know or miss him.’
‘None of the two thousand have come forward,’ Robert said dryly. ‘Get your team on it. See what you can do.’
Dan left the office frowning. Something very strange about the whole thing. Nobody ever in his experience would pay out hundreds of thousands to complete strangers for nothing. He stopped by the vending machine and returned to his department with coffee and a chocolate bar.
Mary Manning, a charmingly freckled, young thing looked up from her screen. She scowled at him playfully. ‘What did he want?’
Dan stopped by her desk. Silently he went around to where she was sitting and, leaning forward, typed in the website’s address. The others crowded around to watch.
Their eyes widened. ‘Untraceable,’ Mary declared.
‘Yep, it’s right out of it,’ agreed Kim Meers, easily the best mind in his team.
Dan turned toward them with a frown. ‘Catch me up. What are you two on about?’
‘It’s a Hollywood movie,’ explained Mary.
‘Diane Lane,’ said Kim, flicking her raven black hair away from her neck.
Dan’s eyes followed the movement. There was something about her large dark eyes over high cheekbones, and the ponytail that ended in a tangle of glossy locks on her shoulders and back that reminded him of a gypsy. A wide-mouthed, barefoot tawny-gold witch. He knew the sexual tension was bad business, but there was nothing he could do about it. It often made him unnecessarily short and angry with her. He let his glance flick back to Mary. ‘There was a movie about this?’
Mary tapped some keys. ‘It’s in your inbox. Go watch it.’
Dan grimaced. ‘Right, as ever we’re going to follow the money. Meers, you vote yes. Let’s see if the money is real to start with. And arrange to call on some of these bleeding hearts that voted yes too.’
‘I’m on it,’ said Kim and began to walk toward her desk.
‘We’re not doing any press releases just yet. Let’s keep it under wraps. Lots of people out there that could do with a hundred bucks.’
Anne, black and secretive, spoke up from her computer terminal. ‘Your plan just got foiled. A British website is running the story.’
‘What?’ He went over to her screen and read the story, aware that all the others were logged into their terminals and were just as quickly devouring the words. ‘Who the hell is this guy?’
‘A crackpot who says reptilians rule this planet,’ replied Mary.
Dan’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’d better be kidding.’
‘Nope.’
‘Relax, that’s the bad news.’ Steve Tanner, a bespectacled loner, chipped in. ‘Here’s the good news. He has a huge following and an excellent Alexa ranking both in Britain and here.’ He tapped at his keyboard. ‘Look, thirty thousand hits just for today. And they are all trying to… er…“do the right thing”. So there won’t be too many trying to cash in on the boy’s
predicament.’
‘No,’ Kim disagreed quietly. ‘That’s not the good news, Steve; that’s the bad news. If he is running with the story then Fox and CBS will be at it too and it won’t be “good” people trying to save a dying boy anymore.’
Dan looked worried. ‘Steve, contact this Icke guy. Find out how he came by the story?’
‘On it, Boss.’
‘Somebody give me the figures again.’
Mary spoke up. ‘Since the reptilian guy’s involvement, the numbers are 3500 against, and 2010 for.’
Supreme excellence [in warfare] lies in destroying your enemy's will to resist without fighting.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
(6th Century BC)
Miss Monroe set the girl’s tray on the low table. There was a note hidden in another chocolate bar. But when she raised her eyes to meet the girl’s, a gasp of shock escaped her lips. Immediately remembering the cameras, she modified it into a cough.
There was nothing behind the girl’s eyes, not even the vaguest recognition. Her brain had been damaged so badly that all of her memory and most of her intelligence was gone. To all intents and purposes they had lobotomized her. There would be no more sessions, no more Shekina. All her powers were lost forever. In fact, there wasn’t even a Dakota. Just this drooling sub-human that they would soon terminate, and who was staring stupidly at her.
‘I brought your lunch,’ she stated unnecessarily.
Slowly Dakota moved her eyes away from Miss Munroe and back to the TV screen. Miss Monroe turned away from the intolerable sight and hurried out of the room. Outside the parked motorized cart carrying lunch for all the others was waiting for her, but she ignored it and walked down the long corridor. Fuck the cameras, she thought, and began to run. In her room she closed the door and stood against it, breathing heavily. What they had done to the girl was unpardonable. There would be no exoneration for her if she remained in that godforsaken place. She went to the phone on her desk and dialed his number.
‘We need to meet,’ she said, when the connection was made.
‘I am very close to you. Meet me in the park in an hour’s time. You know which bench is mine.’
The empty line purred in Miss Monroe’s ear. In the bathroom a calm and collected woman looked back. She smoothed her hair and, taking no personal belongings that would create suspicion, left her quarters. If she returned it would only be for the girl. She’d had enough.
Miss Monroe stood at the edge of the green. In the distance she could see him. He was sitting on a park bench with his back to her. But there was no mistaking that shaven head or those hulking shoulders upon which sat the glinting metals of his uniform. She stepped onto the grass square, walked diagonally across it and gained the path that led to the man. Now she could see that he was not alone; there was a little girl no more than five or six sitting on the bench with him. She could have been his daughter, but she was not. There was something unnatural about her. They were both eating ice cream, but her left hand was clenched into a fist in her lap, and there was a glazed expression in her eyes. She paid no attention to her surrounding or to the woman who had stopped right in front of them.
‘Commandant,’ Miss Monroe greeted in a voice she had intended to be firm and strong, but that came out shrill and frightened. You must hold your ground, she cautioned herself firmly. You must look evil in the face and not turn away, if you desire your freedom.
‘Hello, Alice,’ he said, not looking at her, but gravely contemplating the pale yellow appearance of his ice cream.
The ground shifted under her, as he had meant it to. ‘So that is my name.’
‘Is he any good, that psychiatrist you found?’
‘You’ve had me followed?’
‘It would be silly to allow your secrets to run around unchaperoned. You’d be surprised to know how many of them work for us.’
Alice began to shake. ‘You are lying. He doesn’t work for you. He’s helped me a lot.
‘Are you now… er…cured?’ he sneered.
‘Not totally.’
‘Is that why are you shaking like a leaf in high wind?’
‘I know now what you did to me.’
‘What did I do to you, Alice?’
‘You tortured me, and raped me when I was,’ she pointed a shaking finger at the girl sitting beside him, ‘her age.’
He looked at her for the first time. His eyes were very light in the brightness of day. They were silver. She realized that she had never seen him in daylight. ‘As a matter of fact, I do remember you. You had a very beautiful body and a voracious, quite insatiable appetite for sweet drops. You would do anything for one. Indeed, you were quite the minx. I believe you liked it. Every bit of it. Don’t you remember when you begged for more?’
Alice felt herself begin to fall apart. ‘That’s a damn lie,’ she screeched. ‘I hated it. I hate you. I was a child.’
‘Control yourself, my dear. That’s all in the past now. You have nothing to fear from me. Flesh has a very strict sell-by date as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, you didn’t come here to reminisce. What do you want?’
‘I’ve come to right a wrong.’
‘Well, go on then,’ he prompted.
‘I want my freedom and Dakota’s - she is of no use to you any more.’
‘And if I don’t agree?’
‘I will reveal all to the media. I have recorded everything I know about you and the killings that go on in the Black Hole, and I have given copies to two solicitors. If you have me killed they will flood every newspaper in the country.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Hmm…’ he said, and stood. She wanted to turn around and run as if the Devil himself was at her heels, but if she did, she would be running for the rest of her life. And how long would it be before they caught up with her, anyway? Schooner Klaus towered over her. He said nothing, simply raised his free hand and slapped her hard - not so hard that she fell backwards, but hard enough that she stumbled.
It had a strange effect, that slap from him. She straightened. Her cheek was flaming red, but she felt strangely calm and free of him. She turned and walked away from him. She walked without looking back. When she made it to the edge of the park she seemed to find a new sense of purpose and began to look around her as if searching for something. There was a hot dog vendor at the entrance. She began walking toward him. As she passed him by, he said, ‘Hey, sexy, buy a dog?’
She turned her face toward him and smiled, a brilliant smile. When she reached the road she waited at the curb. There were cars passing. The wind blew and dislodged a few strands of hair. She reached up, pulled the band that held her hair and flung it away. To the man waiting to cross the road on the opposite side, it was a glorious sight. He would remember that moment forever. As he watched her, full of life and beauty, she ran into the road, right into the path of an oncoming bus.
Schooner Klaus heard the screeching tires, the bang, and the shouts. Foolish girl. After all this time, she still didn’t understand that he held the keys to everybody’s suicide alters. As for those solicitors, they should have known better. Both would be dealt with. In his experience no more than a threat was needed when men with families misbehaved. He glanced down at the girl. She had finished her ice cream. Both her hands were tightly clenched in her lap, and her big green eyes were intently watching some children playing in the distance.
The American people won’t believe anything until they see it on TV.
- Richard Nixon
‘Wow! 5,442 say die and 35,292 say don’t,’ Carter commented, flashing a salesman’s smirk.
‘You don’t get it, Carter. I’ll die in a few weeks, no matter what the results. But it’s good to have proof of what I’ve always known. That humans are basically good.’
‘Whatever. Don’t break out the champagne just yet, though,’ Carter advised, his voice and face impartial. Obviously it did not matter to him either way. With a smile he moved to the computer screen that kept a record of Black’s b
rain activity, and began to scroll back. As he read the thoughts that had gone through Black’s head, he chuckled softly and, glancing over in Black’s direction, said, ‘You sure worry a lot about that girl, don’t you?’
Black felt heat rush up his neck to his face. He felt embarrassed and humiliated that his most private thoughts were not only being trampled over by an unfeeling brute, but mocked.
‘What’s going to happen to her?’
‘Don’t know.’
And, Black thought, don’t care.
Carter left after taking some notes and adjusting the equipment in the room. The lights were dimmed right down so that only the light from the computer, game screen and television glowed bright. Black began to concentrate on the computer cursor. To his great surprise the cursor began to move almost immediately. It was even easier than changing the channels on his TV at home. He scrolled upward and began to read his own thoughts. They surprised him.
At every turn there was the voice urging fear, worry, anger. Each thought agitated: negative, self-pitying, ungrateful. And always underlying every thought was that great obsession - himself. As Green had put it, the best for me and the rest for the rest.
Here, thanks to the bad guys, was the parasite exposed in all its glory.
He brought the visual back to its original screen then he practiced deleting one letter from the end of the last sentence. Surprisingly easy. He deleted his thoughts for the last ten minutes. He must not let them know that he knew about the parasite.
Black let his eyes blur on the ceiling, and thinking of Green he willed himself to sleep. He woke up in a blue corridor. The glowing blue figure of Green was standing motionless in it.
‘Where are we?’