‘Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.’ Mariska winked at Kaspar.
‘There isn’t anything you wouldn’t do,’ Kaspar retorted.
‘Exactly!’ laughed Mariska with another wink, this time at Mac.
‘You can all bugger off now,’ said Kaspar, exasperated.
There were a couple more comments, but surprisingly they weren’t too ribald, and Kaspar’s door was finally closed.
‘Sorry about that,’ Kaspar muttered as he sat down next to Mac.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Mac smiled, though it quickly faded. ‘Besides, Rhea is the one in your thoughts, not me.’
‘Not from choice,’ Kaspar protested.
‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Mac softly.
Kaspar opened his mouth to deny it, but his reply died on his lips. He regarded Mac and thought of Rhea and felt like his head was about to explode.
‘Let’s get back to it,’ said Mac with a sigh.
They resumed the research, but the bots’ findings were getting less and less likely. After reading about a monster that, whenever it was slain, came back to life with its knowledge increased until it finally learned all the secrets of the universe and became a god, they decided to call it a night.
Kaspar escorted her to his door. Mac turned to him.
‘Thanks for an evening that was . . . different!’ she said wryly.
‘You’re welcome. Fancy doing it all again tomorrow?’
‘Any time you want,’ said Mac.
They stood in silence watching each other, a strange tension springing up between them. Kaspar was struck by an intense desire to kiss her. He leaned forward slightly. Mac didn’t back away. In fact, if anything she leaned forward herself. Or was Kaspar just imagining things? He hesitated, just a tad too long.
Mac drew back.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said. And she slipped away.
Kaspar closed his door, then banged his head against it. Repeatedly. He flung himself on top of his bed and sighed. Between Rhea and Mac, his life now seemed excessively complicated. He really liked Mac, and he owed her so much. She was the one person in his life with whom he could share any of his thoughts and ideas, and she’d listen without mocking or judging him.
If only . . .
God! His thoughts were racing away with him. Time to reign them in.
With Mac’s help he had learned so much, and yet what he’d discovered made precious little sense. More than ever, though, he felt that the myths the bots had reported held the key. It was as if pieces of the puzzle were starting to slot into place, but he was too far away – or maybe too close – to see the full picture.
But it was there and Kaspar wasn’t going to rest until he knew what was going on and could do something about it.
Much has been made of the closed-circuit cameras, the monitors, the audio alert alarms we in the High Council have decreed should be placed throughout Capital City. Like all current and future technology, phones, datalinks, the datanet and other communication routes may be used for good or ill. It is the duty of the High Council to protect the people of the Alliance, even from themselves. Surely this is the foundation of benign governance.
This does not mean that every conversation and every message will be scrutinized and interpreted, but they will be recorded and our Guardians and Security officials will be afforded the opportunity to analyse that data as and when necessary.
Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.
At times, when we have reliable intelligence regarding increased Insurgent activity, it will be necessary to impose a curfew from midnight to six a.m. This will be for the good of our populace and to make it easier for the Guardians who patrol our streets to serve and protect us all. The curfew will not be broken by the civilian population without strict authorization from the High Council.
Long live the Alliance.
Extract taken from ‘Benign Governance’ by Sister Elena
39
‘Do you have a minute, sir?’
‘One minute, only,’ replied Voss, motioning for Kaspar to sit.
‘Sir, how well do you know Commander Tilkian?’
‘I’ve met him a few times at dress uniform affairs, but we’ve never worked together. He runs his own little group of hand-picked Guardians – the Special Support Group, which provides the bodyguards for the High Council. Only the best for Tilkian – Guardians with table manners. I’m surprised they didn’t ask you to join. Good-looking Honour Cadet like you.’
Kaspar chewed his lip.
‘Well? C’mon, Wilding, out with it. Why are you interested in Tilkian?’
‘I was thinking . . .’
‘Oh, hell. Here it comes. We both know what happened the last time you thought something.’
‘I think that Tilkian is a terrorist. I think he’s our traitor.’
‘What?’ Voss was round from behind his desk and closing his office door before Kaspar had finished speaking. ‘Are you off your head, Wilding? Tilkian may be a self-important butt-kisser, but he’s a Guardian and has been one since before you were born.’
‘I know, sir, but—’
‘Oh, wait. Have you been doing more “research” with Mackenzie in Library Services?’ Voss’s expression was stony. ‘What did I tell you about unauthorized data-mining? What part of “you are not an analyst” didn’t penetrate your skull? Well? Is that it? Have you and Ms Know-It-All had a billion bots running riot?’
‘I . . . well . . . yes, but—’
‘Then I hope you remember your way around a hydroponics tank ’cause you’re going to be a melon farmer again by lunch time.’ Voss was spitting nails by now. Kaspar had never seen him so angry.
‘Sir, I—’
‘What the hell possessed you? And what makes you think you can waltz in here and accuse a Senior Commander and personal aide to the High Council of being a damned terrorist? What—’
‘This did, sir,’ Kas dropped the data key he was holding onto the desk. ‘I know what you warned me against unauthorized bot-searches, but I was sure I was on to something. I refined my queries and Tilkian’s name came up too many times for it to be a mere coincidence. So I asked the bots to analyse Tilkian’s activities and movements and I’m now convinced that he’s the mole, sir.’
Voss stared at the little chunk of plastic as if it was an angry sand scorpion. He looked back up at Kaspar and his expression might’ve been carved from granite. ‘Do you really think you know something this time?’
‘Just take a look, sir. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong and you can send me back to the farm. But if I’m even partly right . . . You have to look at this, sir.’
‘Damnit!’ Voss reopened his office door and stuck his head out. ‘Laird, contact the SAP group and push this morning’s meeting back to 1400 hours, and hold all my calls until further notice.’ He walked back round behind his desk, picked up the data key and threw it back to Kaspar. ‘OK, you’ve got my attention. Talk me through it – and you’d better be convincing.’
Kaspar placed the data key in the reader and called up his first presentation.
‘This is a time-lapse display showing the locator trackers of Tilkian and all his people around the times of significant attacks on Capital City. You can follow the whereabouts of all the Special Support Group as little black squares.’
Voss watched as the little squares scuttled around the city, leaving fading snail-trails behind them. ‘And the flashing red circles?’
‘Terrorist attacks. But only the really nasty ones.’
Voss watched in silence for about a minute, then he turned incredulously to Kaspar.
‘There’s nothing. Absolutely no correlation at all. When the red flashes go off, there are no SSG units anywhere near. This is your evidence? A display proving conclusively that the SSG came nowhere near the incidents?’
‘No, sir, not that. Take a look at the number in the top left of the screen. It shows the total number of SSG personnel that the syste
m is tracking at any time.’
‘So?’
‘Do you notice how the number dips significantly around the time of each red flash? We did the maths. On average, give or take, three SSG guys go off-grid about ninety minutes before a terrorist attack, then come back online about ten minutes after.’
Voss looked doubtful. ‘SSG guys will tend to go off-grid all the time. They travel with the Council members, and they can’t be tracked then.’
‘That’s true, sir. But the key fact is the statistical link between the dips and the terrorist attacks. I told you we did the maths. The chance of that pattern appearing by chance is about one in seventy-two million.’
Voss watched for a while longer. ‘I’m no mathematician, but OK. Suppose I forget that there are lies, damned lies and statistics, why would Tilkian do that? What’s in it for him? Are you really suggesting that one of our most senior Guardians is an Insurgent sleeper? That he’s responsible for planning and setting off the worst atrocities?’
‘I don’t know, sir, I really don’t. But he’s involved somehow, and you said yourself that we had a mole reporting back to the Insurgents. Suppose it isn’t just Tilkian but most, if not all, of the SSG?’
Voss was still sceptical, to say the least. ‘If the Special Support Group support the Insurgents, then why don’t they just assassinate the entire High Council? I mean, they are their bodyguards, for heaven’s sake. They have round-the-clock access and state-of-the-art weaponry. Not that it’s even needed. It doesn’t take much effort to wring the neck of some venerable sixty-year-old.’
‘Maybe there aren’t enough traitors in the Special Support Group to take out all the High Council? The moment it was known that one or some of the High Council were being attacked, wouldn’t security around the rest be quadrupled and the rest of the High Council just lie low until the threat was over?’ Kaspar was floundering. At Voss’s increasingly dubious look, Kaspar added, ‘I know I’m just speculating on that one, sir, but Tilkian is definitely up to his eyebrows in this. And it was Tilkian who assigned Mendel to investigate the attack on Loring School.’
‘Mendel is a moron, I’ll grant you that. But your mathematical theory is still light years away from being proof. What else have you got?’
‘Brother Simon told me that Tilkian dopes our water supplies with antiviral medication and the antidotes for nerve gas. Well, one thing us hydroponic melon farmers know how to do is water purity analysis. The chemistry is so simple a school kid can do it. There are no drugs like that in the water. Whatever Tilkian is doing at the reservoir, it isn’t what Brother Simon thinks he’s doing.’
‘Oh, hell, Wilding. Is there nothing you won’t snoop into?’
Kaspar let that one go unanswered.
‘Sir, we don’t treat the Insurgents according to Council policy either. They don’t go to a secure prison after medical treatment. We torture them. We put them in drawers and keep them for years at the old North Wing of the Clinic. I’ve seen what the staff there do. It’s barbaric. And there is a constant SSG presence there.’
‘OK, you can stop right there. You may have a point about the bombings and terrorist activity – we’ll need to check that out with proper analysts – but let me set you straight on the other stuff.’ Voss paused, unsure how to continue. ‘The High Council believe that Insurgents have a trick, a mental ability . . .’
‘You mean some of them are touch-telepaths? I know, sir. They can share thoughts when they touch you.’
‘How the hell did you find that out?’
‘From my first contact with the Insurgent in the desert, sir. Sometimes I see some of her memories. Nothing useful. Just bits of her childhood, and her taste in pastries.’
‘A little something else you forgot to put in your report?’ frowned Voss.
Kaspar decided not to answer that one.
Voss looked severely constipated. He had something to say but was having real problems working out how to say it. ‘Wilding, what I’m about to say is not to leave this room. D’you read me?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Kaspar replied.
Voss’s mouth moved like he was chewing on the words before spitting them out. ‘It’s not touch-telepathy. We do know that much. It’s more like a form of touch-empathy. They can’t talk to each other using thoughts alone. The High Council’s many experiments have proven that, at least. What some of the Crusaders have is more like a deep, acute sensitivity, on a scale never recorded before. Those who have it only need to touch others with the same ability to establish a link, a connection that enables them to share memories and emotions without the need to explain or justify. But like I said, not all of them have it. Just a few dozen Crusaders, if that, as far as we can tell. And no one in the Alliance has that capability, or so we thought. Until you.’ He paused, then added coldly, ‘What makes you so special?’
Kaspar inwardly flinched at the barely disguised contempt in Voss’s last question. It wasn’t his fault that Rhea seemed to be able to stroll around in his memories. And he could certainly do without the regular visits to her grandma’s cottage. Besides, surely empathy alone, no matter how acute, didn’t explain this ability to share memories?
‘I don’t know, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘But that still doesn’t explain what goes on in the North Wing.’
‘According to the High Council, when the Insurgents die, their souls or spirits, or whatever you care to call it, float off to their version of the afterlife and chat with other dead people.’
‘Huh . . . ?’ Kaspar blinked like an owl. Was Voss even serious?
‘Yeah, I know,’ scoffed Voss. ‘It’s all bollocks as far as I’m concerned, but that’s why we don’t kill the little shits. The Council in its wisdom is worried that the ghosts of dead terrorists will emanate or resonate or urinate off some higher plane and pass on their intel via séances and the like to those Insurgents who are still living.’
The whole idea was preposterous. Surely no one in their right mind would believe such a thing? And yet . . .
‘I suppose that might explain why ninjas kill themselves,’ said Kaspar slowly. ‘Maybe they believe the same thing? That once they get some vital information, if they commit suicide the data will get passed on to . . . who exactly?’
‘Don’t look at me. Like I said, it’s all bollocks. But our spiritual masters have a real bee in their bonnet about it – so no killing. Just permanent storage at the Clinic’s North Wing. We paralyse them with an injection of some shit into their necks, then we plumb them in to monitors, stick tubes in every orifice and bung them in a refrigerator.’
‘Why cut their eyelids off?’
‘Each storage drawer contains a holo-emitter. When the drawers are closed, nonstop looped images and clips play right in front of their faces – the most barbaric, messed-up stuff you can imagine. Their eyelids are removed so that they can’t shut their eyes. It’s supposed to be “neurally disruptive”, not just to the ones in the North Wing but to any other Insurgents who may have some kind of mental, empathic link with them. Personally, I suspect it’s also fun for the sadists who run the North Wing.’
‘I don’t follow, sir.’
‘Guardian, switch your brain on! You said it yourself. You came into direct physical contact with the terrorist you fought in the desert and now you can see her memories. It’s like a faulty tap. Once it’s switched on, it’s very hard to switch off again, especially in times of great stress or pain,’ said Voss impatiently. ‘The Insurgents who are still at large have been in close contact with those in storage at the North Wing. We show horrific images to the ones we have in storage so they will pass on those horrific images to the Insurgents we haven’t managed to round up yet. It gives us an edge and keeps them off balance.’
Kaspar glared at Voss. ‘And you’re OK with that? With the way we treat them?’
Voss’s eyes narrowed. ‘Remember who you’re talking to. I warned you, Wilding. This is what happens when you poke your nose into things that don’t concern you. You find th
at the truth is a lot uglier than the carefully constructed fiction.’
‘So what was Tilkian doing at the reservoir?’
Voss sighed again. ‘This is classified, OK? The touch-empathy thing is genetic. Apparently most people have the appropriate gene.’
‘So . . . ?’
‘I’m not just talking about the Insurgents, we in the Alliance have it as well. We have a natural ability to live in each other’s heads. To share feelings, perceptions, ideas, emotions. All of us can wallow around in a sea of other people’s mental shit. Imagine that. No privacy, no secrets, no surprises. Total frickin’ anarchy.’
‘And the reason we in the Alliance can’t use it is . . . ?’
‘Tilkian’s monthly trip to the reservoir. He adds a chemical to the water that stops the gene in question from being expressed and suppresses empathetic brainwave activity. And I bet you didn’t detect that with your secondary-school chemistry set.’
Kaspar sat stunned. The last five minutes had overturned everything he thought he knew. They had told him since birth that he was a member of a great society that valued the sanctity of life above everything. But the society he loved was built on lies, torture, cruelty and a permanently drugged population.
He forced himself to focus on the most immediate problem. ‘What do we do about Tilkian?’
‘First of all, we do nothing. I need to get all your amateur analysis checked by professionals. I want all your research material, full reports on everything. Every bot you ever launched – every person you even remotely suspected. We’re going to have to get someone from the Council involved too. Your mate Brother Simon, probably. This is going to be a bitch. I’ll need to talk to Mackenzie too. Did you have any other helpers?’
‘No, just Mac. She . . . she won’t get into trouble, will she?’
Voss gave Kaspar a studied look. ‘Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you dragged her into this mess.’
Kaspar nodded his agreement. ‘Even so, if it turns out I’m wrong, I don’t want her to get it in the neck because of me.’