Chapter 4
The following afternoon, Tom drove up to David's pristine, remote home, hiding his car around the corner, out of sight. By now he was getting quite used to the adrenaline daily surging in his body, and was even starting to enjoy it. His brother's car was nowhere to be seen. 'Perfect' he thought. David had given him a set of spare keys many months ago, in case of emergencies. He turned the key in the lock without a sound, checked his shoes for dirt, and slid inside. There was an unsettling silence - no computer keys tapping, no creaking floorboards, no TV. He was alone. 'This can't be as bad as trespassing a person's brain, surely,' he reassured himself.
Not taking a second for granted, he strode through the house to the back room, which had been converted into David's office. The room had no windows, and was pitch black, except for a faint blue shimmer seeping from a half closed laptop. Switching on the light, he noticed how beautifully in order everything was. Colour coded folders, equipment and stationary at straight angles, not a speck of dust anywhere. The only thing out of place was a large electronic box - a striking coffin of wires, circuitry and duct tape. Aerials of different sizes jarred out of it randomly like bony fingers. It rested menacingly on the desk next to the flashing laptop. Tom wracked his brains trying to work out what it was. He grabbed the laptop and flung it open. A file without a name filled the screen. He scrolled through it, and what he found made his mouth dry and his blood freeze.
It was a long list of audio files, each one with a date and time next to it. Pressing the play button next to one, he heard two familiar voices in conversation. They were his and David's Mindline voices, and the recordings of all the Mindline conversations they had had in the last few months. Every single one. Surely the black box was some kind of recording machine. But why?
He stared at the dates of the last few days. It was as he suspected. Both times Tom had hacked his brother's mind, he had actually been recorded. He had been caught. The evidence was right there in front of him. He tried to delete the files, but the computer wouldn't let him. "Damn it" he snarled, banging his fist on the desk. He scrolled through the earlier files. To his alarm he found many recordings that had taken place at two AM, three AM, ridiculously early hours. "We never spoke at those times. What are all these?" he asked, as if anyone was there., He clicked the play button by one of the later conversations, and their two voices came through the speakers once more. This time it sounded different - loud, crackling white noise. In the conversation, David was asking Tom so many questions: questions about technology, about ideas, the business, and even his personal life. His deepest secrets were all there as computer files. All the time, David was replying like he had no inhibitions, but his speech was slurred, erratic. These seemed to go on for hours. "I don't remember telling him all this." Tom cried. Then it dawned on him - "He's been hacking my mind the whole time. I can't believe he would do this to me. Dirty, lying traitor!" His hypocrisy never occurred to him. He was angry, boiling, fists clenched, and then filled with sheer panic, grabbing his skull where the chip was stored. "What if he hacks me again and again, I'll never be able to sleep. I'll never be able to have a life. Nothing is safe. I won't be able to think anymore." In his mind he thought about grabbing a sharp knife from the kitchen and shoving it through the side of his head to get the chip out, but he was afraid, and too proud of his machine to show the world how dangerous it could be.
The office door creaked open. It was Brendan, his eyes glazed over with the light shining on his glasses. "What's going on?" he drawled. "I heard noises."
Tom pointed a shaking finger at Brendan - "You...you have crossed the line, intern. I've seen what you and my brother have been up to. He can't make all this himself, he's no engineer. You allowed him into my head. You're a sick kid, you know that? You're gonna be locked up for this, both of you!"
Brendan stared at Tom, quite calmly, unphased. "You hacked his mind as well. You'll be locked up too, you know." But Tom wasn't listening. With all his might, he kicked the black recording box to the floor with a horrendous crash, and stamped his foot into its shell as it buzzed and whined like a dying animal. Every stamp and kick cut and bruised Tom's leg flesh, but also seemed to cut and bruise his mind. Something painful and unnerving was happening in his brain as the machine fell apart. He stared at Brendan for a few awkward moments, before reaching over and smacking him hard on the head, knocking him to the floor. Tom moved past him without a care, limping to the front door.
It too opened, revealing David, rubbing his head, groaning and baring his teeth. He was feeling Tom's pain, feeling his anger, and the strange disturbance made by the black box. Tom startled him. "What the hell are you doing in my house? What have you done?"
"I was right about suspecting something." Tom exclaimed. "You've been messing with my head, sibling. I can't trust you anymore. This has gone too far." By now they were shouting so loud, it was frightening the people across the street.
David held up his hands to protect himself from any violence. He was shaking, overwhelmed by fear and guilt. "I can understand why you're angry. I know your mental privacy is very important to you, but I assure you, I was doing it with the best intentions." Tom grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall. He was always the physically stronger of the two. "How could there possibly be any good in this?" he whispered.
David sighed. "You have the best ideas Tom, so many ideas running around your technical brain. You even have ideas that were subconsciously hidden from you. You would never share these ideas with me, as if I wouldn't understand them."
"What are you talking about?" Tom stared, never flinching.
"The recording machine...we got that from you, when we...listened to your mind while you slept. So Brendan managed to build one, and it's fantastic. There's so many other ideas you shared and we are now trying to work on them. Don't you see? Mindline can be a harvester of ideas. Think of the implications!" Tom dropped his brother to the ground violently. All his thoughts of mind hacking the night before were now betraying him.
"You're talking about the business, like I'm some kind of tool, or a toy you can just muck around with. You could have given me brain damage or something. No wonder you sounded so smug when I listened to your brain."
David gave a slight nervous chuckle as he picked himself off the floor. "Actually, we gave you that idea. The idea to hack into my brain. That was a little experiment by Brendan and myself." Brendan hopped into the living room clutching the laptop. "Brendan, play the file from Friday night please." The intern clicked the play button and speech wafted through the speakers.
[Mind hack your brother. Mind hack him in his sleep. Mind hack. It will give you answers. Mind hack]. It was David's voice. This rambling seemed to go on for many minutes. Brendan clicked stop.
"You see, brother, we gave you the idea through repeating it to you over and over again, so it would fall deep into your subconscious, like a seed. When you mentioned the word 'Mind hack' at our tennis game, I figured that it had worked."
Tom's mind was aching even more, and he rubbed his skull, wiping away sweat. "But you let me into your mind the night you came round to my house. You let me do that to you? You knew it was going to happen?"
David smiled, a frightened smile. "Well I half expected it. Brendan, show him the voicemail file." Brendan tapped some more keys. The audio was David's voice again, and the words were instantly recognisable. [I am so...I am so happy right now......I am part of....this project....with you.....we make a great team. Our machine will make history....I know it]. It was the message Tom heard when he mind hacked before. [Everything is good. We are going to be.....very rich people...] "Don't you see, Tom? It's a pre-recorded message. Bit like a voicemail. Our minds were still connected, but you were hearing something I had programmed in advance. Another idea we got from you, actually." Tom stared into nothing. He didn't know what to think anymore. His brother was trying to justify some terrible things in the name of business. Was David ever intending on telling Tom? "Al
l of this has come from your mind, and you never even knew it was there. This business can go places we could never have dreamed of. But actually...you did dream, Tom. You dream big things. Let's be a team again. The Gosling Brothers. We'll be on all the magazines, but it will be your ideas that will be celebrated." He put his hand out to be shaken. "What do you say?" Tom shivered. His eyes wide and bloodshot. His head crackling with electricity. He could barely move. David's hand waited, in desperation. The atmosphere was so heavy, full of fear, and hurt, and brutal anger. He took his brother's hand softly, and said "I am no longer your brother."
In an instant, he threw a punch as hard as he could into David's jaw, knocking out a tooth and launching him across the room. David groaned in agony, and with a quick swipe of his fingers on the back of his head, he activated his Mindline chip. A second later, Tom felt David's pain, all over his face, and he too fell to the floor, writhing and twisting. His pain relayed by to his brother, and back, and forth, again and again. The pain intensified, filling their whole brains and bodies. There were shouts and screams like wild animals. They tried to override it, but they could barely move. It was as if their souls were being strangled.
Brendan stood nearby, watching the whole time, without any rush to help them. He showed no compassion, just coldly stared. Too cold for a man as young as he was. He quickly picked up the laptop and clicked on a few commands, then faced the brothers.
[You men are like children. You are too open. Let no one in. You never know who you can trust.] It was Brendan's voice, appearing in their minds. His lips weren't moving. He had installed his own Mindline chip without them ever knowing. [I am immune to your pain experience, because I have set myself to an altered frequency. Impressive, do you not think, Tom? You cannot deny that I am the superior engineer.] He slipped on a glove and walked to the other side of the room. [I need you both to stay there while I carry out some important business]. With his gloved hand he picked up a large antique vase from the fireplace, walked slowly up to David's twitching body, and slammed it ferociously into his chest. The vase shattered into a million pieces, and the two brothers were overcome with pain, their minds becoming lost. Brendan walked to the office, and came back holding a large metal case. [I am taking all the plans and prototypes with me] he thought calmly to them [except the ones in your heads of course, I will let you keep those ones]. He tapped some more commands on the keyboard, and their pain stopped, their bodies relaxed, but even now they could barely move. [I would love to stay and have fun, but you look like you have had enough fun. If you try to find me, you will fail]. He pressed one more, and walked out the back of the house, carrying his case and laptop.
It took a couple of seconds before the command kicked in. Voices appeared in the brothers' heads. Many different voices. Men's voices, women's voices. Some quoting from classic novels. Some even trying to sing. Some telling them to do awful things. Disturbingly, even some in the brother's own voices. They couldn't tell which were programmed and which were real. Brendan was very smart. Over the past few weeks with David, he had programmed hundreds of messages, and was now feeding them straight into the Goslings' heads. They went on, and on, and on, and would never stop. Small streams of red began to drip from their ears and nostrils.