Chapter Thirty-Seven
Unpleasant Memories
Jayne felt like the implant in her head was trying to split her brain apart and escape. She had reached the stairway and had climbed several flights when the pain had become unbearable. She could hardly move, and had dropped to her knees. Then she had heard gunfire, and the sound of someone else climbing the stairs behind her. She had crawled painfully out of the stairway and hid in another office, hoping that she would not be found.
As she hid in the dark the pain in her head had got even worse, and just when she felt that she could take no more of it, miraculously, the pain had suddenly gone away. It just lifted, and vanished.
Slowly, Jayne had returned to the stairway and climbed the last two flights to the eighth floor. She was still rubbing her head when she entered the computer centre and found it strewn with bodies. Technicians in white coats stained red lay everywhere. And a man in a dark suit that was equally red stained was on his back nearby. Then Jayne noticed Tyler slumped over his console, and beside him on the floor, was Julia.
Jayne hurried forward and knelt down next to Julia. She saw the blood on her chest and on her uniform, and reached out to take her in her arms. Julia’s body instantly stiffened and her eyes opened.
“Come to gloat......have you,” she said, pausing to breathe.
“No,” Jayne replied softly.
“Why not?.....I would....I couldn’t wait.....to see you....dead at last.”
“I know why you hate me, Julia, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t my fault. You can’t blame me for what happened—”
“Don’t you....dare!” Julia interrupted, emotionally. She spat blood as she spoke. “Tyler had no right!.....You shouldn’t know those things about me!....They’re my memories, not yours!...You shouldn’t know them!”
“But I do know them!” Jayne said. “And I remember what happened just as well as you do! In my mind I was there with you! I suffered what you suffered! And because of that, I can never hate you!”
“That just....makes it worse,” Julia gasped, her anger abated. “Now I....hate you....even more.”
“No, you don’t! I think the real reason is that you enjoyed it. You enjoyed insulting me and calling me names. Admit it!”
Julia almost smiled. “I know.....Bitch, aren’t I?” Then a sudden thought entered her head. “Where’s the car?”
“I left it with Matthew.”
“Oh, no....The nerd will have wrecked it....”
Julia suddenly had a coughing fit and spat out a lot more blood. Jayne held her tightly in her arms until it subsided, and then wiped the blood from her mouth and chin.
“Take it easy,” Jayne told her. “I’ll call an ambulance and you’ll be fine.”
Julia looked up at her in a knowing way. “No, I won’t,” she said sadly, shaking her head. “Me and Rawlston....have hid our....last sausage together.....But you’re right.....I was daft....to hate you....Just jealous....I suppose.” Julia suddenly grabbed Jayne’s blouse, pulling herself closer. “Casarotto carries a blade.....up her left sleeve.....The cow-bag!....Watch for it....I didn’t....”
“Thanks, I’ll remember that.”
Her warning given, Julia fell back and her breathing grew more shallow. “You know....I’m glad....there’s some of me....in your head....that way....I won’t really....be dead....”
As Jayne continued to hold on to her, Julia breathed out slowly, and her head lolled to one side. And although her eyes remained open, she no longer saw through them.
Jayne slowly lay Julia back against the side of the computer. Standing up, she wiped the tears from her eyes, and then noticed the blood-stain on her blouse. She tried to wipe it off, but instead she only made it worse. It made her cry even more. This wasn’t going the way she had planned. Everyone was getting killed around her. Her parents, her friends, even herself.
Yes, Julia was her just as much as Jayne was. Her face was her face. Seeing her die was like seeing herself die. She remembered everything Julia had remembered. Everything up to the point when Tyler had downloaded her memories to Jayne through the implant. She only wished she knew what had been in Julia’s mind now, when they had finally managed to talk to one another. Maybe they would have become friends, or maybe the secrets she shared with Julia would have led them to kill one another. Jayne knew that it was more likely to have been the latter. Julia would always be Julia. But Jayne would always wonder what it would have been like if they had managed to become friends. In her mind, Julia had already been a lifelong companion, and now that she was gone, Jayne would miss her dearly.
The lift dinged and Jayne threw herself to the floor, grabbing for the gun Williams had dropped.
Rosanna Casarotto walked calmly into the computer centre, her heels tapping on the floor. She held an incendiary device very similar to the one Williams had used in the MedTec building. She had gone down to the car park to retrieve it from the car. Now she walked purposefully towards the IBM Mainframe. She didn’t notice the extra body lying among all the others. It was stained red, just as they were.
Carefully, Rosanna attached the device to the stricken computer, set the timer, and activated it. Finished, she dusted her hands off and stepped back. But when she turned, it was to find the silencer of Williams’s gun pressed into her cleavage.
“Ah! Jayne Middleton, I presume?” she said, totally unafraid.
Jayne was angry. This woman had killed Julia, had killed her. She shoved the gun hard into Rosanna’s chest, forcing her to walk backwards across the computer centre. And when she spoke, it was with Julia’s voice. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your scrawny tits across half of Salford?” she demanded as she kept pushing Rosanna backwards. “Go on! Let’s hear it!”
“Because you wish to make a deal?” Rosanna suggested quickly and confidently. “Because, maybe, you realise that killing me won’t save you?” She kept retreating as she spoke, and almost stumbled and fell over Williams’s body, just managing to keep to her feet.
“I wouldn’t make a deal with you even if my life depended on it!” Jayne snarled, pushing Rosanna even harder. She never let up for a second, and kept Rosanna moving all the time, even when she stumbled and almost fell over more of the bodies. Rosanna was forced to walk backwards across the entire computer centre, until she finally thumped against one of the large windows, banging her head against the glass.
“But your life does depend on it!” Rosanna replied, forcefully. “Even if you kill me, someone else will find you! You cannot hide from us! The implant in your head will always give you away! And next time, the people who attack you will not be as incompetent as Tyler! They will break your mind, Jayne Middleton! They will tear the memories from you, leaving you defenceless! You have to deal!”
“And what kind of deal could I make with you?” Jayne asked her as she pressed the gun hard into Rosanna’s chest. “Money? Or how about I work for you and the Corporation? Is that it?”
“You will be our top agent,” Rosanna replied, rubbing her left arm. “We will give you all the expertise you need.”
“I’ve already got all the expertise I need, you thick Bitch! And if I decide that I want more, Tyler has shown me how to get it!”
“Tyler only gave you the memories of one agent. And she only knew what we let her. You’re over confidence is misplaced, and insulting me will only make things harder for you later.”
“You really think so? Well, let me tell you something, you South American cow-bag! Tyler tried to overload the implant by feeding information to it too quickly, didn’t he? It might have worked too, if he’d had a bit more time. But you know what? You scared him so much that he used any old information he could find to do it with. Anything that had lots of data. Files, directories, anything. Some of the personnel files were very interesting, and the project files he sent me were even better. And now they’re all locked up in here,” she tapped her forehead. “You’ll be surprised what I already know, Rosanna Ca
sarotto. And whenever I feel like it, I’m going to get lots more.
“With this socket in the back of my head, I’m going to plug myself right into your computer system. And I don’t even need this pile of scrap behind us to do it with. No, I can plug in anywhere. Any old terminal socket will do. And I won’t have to bother about passwords either. They stop people from getting access from the outside, but I’ll be on the inside. Because as far as the system is concerned, I’m going to be just another piece of hardware sitting on the line.”
For the first time, Rosanna looked unnerved. “I don’t believe you. There wasn’t enough time to gain such information. And to gain access to our computer system you will have to be connected to part of it directly. You cannot dial in from the outside.”
“Let me answer your questions in reverse order,” Jayne replied in a matter-of-fact fashion. “Firstly, the Corporation has a lot of subsidiaries, some of which are fronts, like MedTec. I know which ones they all are, and Julia was an expert at breaking and entering. Secondly, you were born to a Uruguayan prostitute who worked the bars in Montevideo. At twelve, your mother died of a bad mixture of drugs and alcohol, but by then you had already begun to tread in her illustrious footsteps. By the time you were fourteen you had developed quite a career in porn movies. But that came to a sudden stop when you murdered one of the other stars. You had to leg it to Argentina before the cops could catch you. And after that it was back to the streets again.
“Blackmail, drugs, murder, you’d done it all by the time you were picked up by the Corporation. That was a long time ago. Now you have money and power, you dress in designer clothes, and you jet around the world first class. People respect and fear you. You’re a long way away from where you started. But inside you’re still just a Uruguayan street slut. Even your name isn’t yours, is it Juanita Sanchez? Strange that the Corporation should hire people from the bottom of the barrel rather than from the top, don’t you think? But then, maybe they’ve worked out that people born in shit are the most adept at working in it.”
There was a long and uncomfortable silence, during which both women stared at one another. Rosanna Casarotto moved first, but almost at the same time as she snatched the blade from her left sleeve, there was a loud bang, and her whole body jerked. A huge crack suddenly appeared in the window behind her. Then a second appeared, and a third. They snaked away from her in a crazy zig-zag pattern.
Jayne stepped back. Smoke came from the end of the silencer on the gun she held, and from Rosanna’s chest.
“I seem to have ruined your bra,” she said. And reaching out, she took the blade from Rosanna’s fingers and walked calmly back towards the computer. Rosanna stayed where she was, as if she was transfixed to the window, her eyes staring.
“Julia’s story was very similar to yours, you know,” Jayne said as she walked back across the computer centre. “Only instead of Montevideo it was Middlesbrough. And for Julia, it was the various ‘uncles’ that used to visit her mother who would abuse her. They even paid a little extra for the privilege. She was only eight at the time, and so didn’t have the choice. Her mother would even hold her down when she struggled.” Jayne put the gun down on the console next to Tyler’s blood-stained body, and bending over, she picked up Julia’s automatic.
“Some people are really evil,” she continued, pausing to stare sadly at Julia for a moment. “They don’t care about the suffering they cause, so long as they have something to gain. That’s why I can understand Julia’s bitterness towards those whose life was more normal, like mine. Julia was bad, but she was never in the same league as her mother.” Jayne now turned to face Rosanna once more.
“You on the other hand, are a selfish and pathological killer. Nothing pleases you more than the opportunity to kill whole families in order to protect the security of the Corporation. You have no excuses, and no guilt, and it’s about time that someone knocked you off that pedestal you’re on and sent you right back to where you came from.” With those words, Jayne fired at the window, emptying the entire clip at Rosanna. The glass shattered, and the whole window, and Rosanna Casarotto, blew out, tumbling to the river below.