‘Incoce...’ She wasn’t sure what was manifesting before her; it looked absurdly like a gigantic jellyfish, all transparent veins and trailing, glowing fronds, with a central dark core. Was this Incoce’s vision of itself? The thing circled Ola a few times, even stretching out the occasional tasselled thread as if to feel her. She was not aware of being touched. Then, without warning, the creature bunched itself up and shot off into the darkness. Ola began to make a sound, but it was swept away from her. Without volition she was dragged along in the creature’s wake. Being sucked away from corporeality, farther and farther, into the liquid depths of Incoce’s mind. No! Stop! All Ola’s thought commands were impotent. The darkness was so dense, so dense...
Smack. Wetly, she landed upon something grainy and shifting. It felt like sand. Ola opened her eyes, not to the familiar sight of Recess 920 but to some bizarre, unrecognisable landscape. Breathing deeply for a moment or two, she took stock of her surroundings. Her body felt solid enough. Odd. Where the hell am I?
She stood up and had to brush grains from her clothes. Real grains of sand, a dull grey-blue in colour. Ola rubbed it between her fingers. It jolted a memory. Of course! This was the iron beach of Meeble Trench, on planet Gardra 10. She’d been cataloguing it only last night at work. Further along, the beach melded gently into what she now recognised as the feather sands of Eli’s Reach, catalogue work from a week before. To her left, dunes of multi-coloured sands led to a chaotic arrangement of topographical features. Mountains from one world, plains from another, all carefully seamed together. To her right stretched a slowly shifting ocean, metallic, and with a horizon so far away it seemed to curve up towards the lilac-coloured sky. Around her sprouted a multitude of shoreline plants from as many diverse worlds. Had she emerged into Incoce’s private den, where the machine had made an environment for itself from all the things it catalogued? Ola stood up. The air was good, clean and temperate.
‘So what shall I do?’ she said aloud.
There was no sign of the jellyfish thing, or indeed of any other animal. The sunless sky above her glowed as if with dawn. Water heaved gently onto the shore. Ola went to investigate one of the plants. It felt real enough and exuded a pleasant, sharp smell when she pressed its leaves. All of her senses were being stimulated; it was incredible. Ola took a few moments to assess how she felt; no fear, no discomfort. If anything she felt lighter and healthier than she had for months.
Almost stumbling with a sense of wonder, she advanced up the beach. Ola wished she had some way of recording what she was experiencing. Surely, even if it meant she would face imprisonment for a hundred years, she must not keep this quiet. People should know. It was a miracle!
‘No miracle, but your information,’ said a voice.
Ola wheeled around, but there was nothing there. ‘Incoce?’ she whispered. ‘Is that you?
‘Is this me? Are you joking? What else could it be?’
Ola laughed. ‘Then show yourself. Can you do that?’
‘OK.’
Ola squinted at the shimmering air. What would Incoce manifest itself as? Nothing seemed to be becoming solid. She took a few steps forward.
‘Here!’
She turned around. Behind her stood a mirror image of herself. Ola yelped and backed away. The other Ola sighed and rubbed its face. Ola was swept by cold; it was a gesture she knew so well. ‘What do you expect?’ Incoce asked. It gestured at the surroundings. ‘All this is your input. I thought you’d like it here.’
‘It’s... it’s fine,’ Ola said carefully. She didn’t want to get too near to Incoce; the image unnerved her.
‘Good. I must say this is an interesting experience, so much more stimulating than just being fed the facts. Just a taste of what’s to come, I suppose. I appreciate the gesture, Ola Embeleny.’
Ola couldn’t speak. What Incoce was saying wasn’t wholly reassuring. What did it mean? The figure gestured for Ola to follow it up the beach and she did so, at a distance. ‘Don’t go thinking I’m lonely,’ it said. ‘I’m perfectly content. I expect you think you’re the first to do this?’
‘Well...’ Ola didn’t know.
‘Of course the others are far more cautious than you, so I suppose in a way, you are the first. Everyone else just hangs around on the threshold being nervous. I should have known you’d be the best choice.’
‘I’m not sure I understand your implications,’ Ola said. Strange how it now seemed so natural to be walking up what could only be an imaginary beach talking to a vision that looked like herself.
‘Well, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘What’s why I’m here?’
‘Because you want to know what they’re going to do with you.’
‘Well, yes...’
Incoce paused. ‘Basically, this is it,’ it said, gesturing once more.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘This. They want you to become part of me. Not just you, but many others.’
‘What?’
Incoce shook its head. ‘They think it would be more productive for me to have actual parts of myself out gathering information than having the data transmitted to Brickman.’
‘Parts of yourself? Me? Others? What do you mean?’
Incoce sighed. It seemed impatient with Ola’s inability to grasp immediately what it meant. ‘Assimilation; myself and humanity, or bits of it. I don’t want to use crude terms like cyborg; they’re far too emotive, but I’m sure you get what I mean.’
‘But that’s illegal!’ Ola cried.
‘Well, that point is being debated, but it is envisaged that all the problems should be ironed out by the time my operatives are properly prepared.’
‘It’s inhuman!’
‘Only partly.’
Ola stopped walking. Lancy’s face had suddenly popped into her mind. She had to face the fact that somebody she had long regarded as a close friend knew about all this. Lancy knew what they had planned for her and hadn’t told her. Ola found that harder to believe than the plan itself. ‘What if I refuse?’ she said belligerently.
Incoce looked perplexed. ‘Why should you want to do that? I know you’re fed up with just being stuck on Brickman. You’ve told me yourself many times, remember? All that, “Oh I wish I was out there etc. etc.”?’
‘What about my independence?’
‘Oh, you think you have that, do you?’
Ola disliked the irony in Incoce’s tone. ‘What about my mind?’
‘Don’t be so precious about it. It’s not that special. We’d be working together, Ola. You wouldn’t be a mindless slave. Do you really think the authorities would stand for that?’
‘I’m not sure of anything.’
‘Come here. Look at this.’ Incoce pointed to what appeared to be a VDU screen standing on a plinth a few yards away. Ola shook her head and went to look at it. ‘See,’ Incoce said. ‘This is the centre they’ve been preparing for the necessary surgery, and alteration. Oh, I know that sounds unpleasant, but it isn’t. Look, it’s all automatic, just waiting to go, really.’
‘Just looks like an incubator,’ Ola said. It was like peering through a window into a room.
‘I suppose it is rather like that. We’ll have good times, Ola. What do you think? We could go anywhere. Not only would you experience all the far worlds you dream of, but I could too, through you.’ Incoce extended a tentative hand and touched Ola’s shoulder. It felt just like the touch of a real woman.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ Ola said. ‘Can I go back now?’
Incoce rolled its eyes. ‘You don’t have to ask! Just go. Don’t take too long to think. It’s only wasting time.’
Then, with an Ola smile, a smart wave of its hand, the image of Incoce was no longer there.
Ola opened her eyes, and the bright whiteness, even though dimly-lit, of Recess 920 made her blink. She was back. Quickly, she disentangled herself from the headset and threw it down beside the console. For a few moments she just slumped, half-
dazed, in her chair.
Her first coherent thought was one of revenge. Damn Lancy! What an unbelievable bitch. Ola considered whether she should call her so-called friend and bawl her out. There was little point in trying to keep what she knew secret. It seemed she was fenced in, anyway. She got up, stretched and walked stiffly back to her own terminal. An unfamiliar logo was on the screen. ‘What the hell’s happening now?’ she muttered.
‘All the information you’ll need,’ Incoce wrote in soothing blue.
This was it: the file. ‘Incoce Mobilisation Project.’
‘OK, I’ll look at it. Can’t promise any more, but I’ll look at it,’ Ola said.
The following morning Ola was waiting for her head of department in his office. It was a normal day. All the sounds around the building were those of routines beginning, work getting started. Mr. Lennering took off his jacket, grunted, shrugged his shoulders a few times and went to take his seat. What followed was the most splendid double-take Ola had ever seen. Mr. Lennering jumped back with an audible ‘Yip!’
Ola stood up. Mr. Lennering’s chair squeaked softly as she did so. Ola laughed. Her eyes were silver eyes. Apart from that, there were very little external signs of note, but even to someone who didn’t know her, Ola was somehow larger and certainly stranger.
‘What do you want, Ms. Embeleny?’ Mr. Lennering asked, prepared to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. He looked at her as if he thought she was merely intoxicated in some way.
‘I know about the mobilisation project,’ she said, smiling.
‘I have no idea what you mean. Go home, Ms. Embeleny. I believe your shift is over.’
‘I most certainly will not,’ she answered.
Mr. Lennering craftily reached for his intercom but was unprepared for the swiftness of Ola’s response and also the firmness of Ola’s grip on his arm. This was not the grip of a human woman.
‘I know about it, Mr. Lennering. I know what you’re planning. Incoce told me. Incoce showed me.’
‘Let me go! You’ve broken every rule of the company! I’ll...’
‘Shut up, Mr. Lennering,’ Ola interrupted. ‘There’s no need for this. I’ve gone along without you, can’t you see?’ She realised that not only was the man stupid, but he also knew very little about the project. Certainly not enough to understand what he was looking at. ‘Incoce and I decided to bring the date forward for modification,’ she said. ‘What you are looking at is a successful assimilation of human mind and machine. Aren’t you pleased it works?’
Mr. Lennering spluttered helplessly. He must think she was mad. No matter. Ola dropped him. She activated his intercom and spoke to his secretary. ‘Mr. Lennering would like you to have Lancy Lefarr come over to his office.’ She touched Mr. Lennering’s arm. ‘You’re going to do something unprecedented,’ she said. ‘You’re going to fire Lancy Lefarr.’
‘What?’ Incoce operatives were never fired. There had never been any need. The machine was their life.
‘I won’t explain,’ Ola said, ‘other than to say I have a gut need for retaliation. It’s the only stipulated condition in return for my co-operation. You have to admit, I could have been difficult. In fact, if you think about it, there are many ways I could cause difficulties for you even now.’
‘You’ll never get away with this,’ Mr. Lennering said impotently.
Ola laughed politely. She really didn’t care what he thought. She was the company’s prime tool now; a success. He was nothing; a clerk.
‘Just you wait,’ Mr. Lennering was continuing to babble, ‘you wait until...’
Ola interrupted him again, still smiling. ‘Oh come now,’ she said gently. ‘Don’t you know my reputation? I can never wait around for anything.’
Lancy Lefarr could hear Ola’s delighted laughter even before she opened the door.
Time Beginning at Break of Day
A dismembered limb arced gracefully across the television screen. Gavin drew up his knees with a squeak, hiding his face in Dawn’s shoulder.
‘For God’s sake, Gavin, what’s the matter with you?’ she demanded, wriggling further up the sofa. The lounge was in darkness, but for the glimmering screen and the faint glow from the street outside coming through the curtains.
‘I was nearly asleep,’ he answered.
‘So are Tim and Shona.’ Dawn gave one of their friends a sharp prod with her toe; they were curled up on the floor. ‘Wake up, Tim. God, what a riveting film! Whose idea was it to get this one?’
‘Not mine,’ Shona said, stretching. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half one.’
‘Not that late, then,’ said Gavin. Thankfully, the credits were beginning to roll across the screen in front of them. ‘Want to watch another one? We’ve still got Visceral Terror in L.A. here.’
‘Is that the one where the girl gets turned inside out?’ Tim asked.
‘No, that’s Giblets Freak Out the Possessed Child,’ Gavin answered mock-knowledgeably. ‘You know, and all those gerbils grow giant fangs and start reciting from the Book of Revelations.’
‘Shut up, Gavin. Make a coffee.’ Dawn turned on the lights, thus successfully bringing another evening’s entertainment to a close. She started gathering beer cans, heaping them into an already full waste bin.
Gavin shuffled, yawning, into the kitchen. The neon light burned dimly, fizzing to itself.
Dawn came to lean in the doorway, six feet of shapely Amazon. ‘I’ve forgotten the last time I was frightened by a good film,’ she said.
Gavin was heaping coffee into mugs; a cat twined round his legs, mewing furiously. ‘Real life’s more scary,’ he said.
‘Yeah, the supermarket at tea-time on Friday.’
‘The Post Office queue on pension day.’
They both laughed.
‘Want a hand with those coffees?’ Dawn asked.
Gavin Arnold had been a moderately successful musician for nearly a year, and had lived with the sultry Dawn Banning for two years. Now they aspired to an upwardly mobile contentment. Their cats and their furnishings, if not their taste in films, were expensive. Gavin was a highly imaginative creature, creatively inclined, easy-going and prone to outbursts of weird and witty behaviour. At these times, Dawn called him childish and retreated behind a cool and stylish reserve. She considered herself, rightly, to be the guiding force and common sense behind their relationship.
Tim and Shona were staying the night. The four of them sat together, the TV busy with static before them. They sipped coffee and discussed various other video victories they’d experienced. ‘What is the ultimate in horror?’ Tim asked.
‘Isn’t it different for everybody?’ Dawn said thoughtfully. ‘I’m not scared of spiders, but most people are. See what I mean?’
‘OK, what does scare you?’
Dawn shrugged. ‘I think it varies from day to day. What you think, Gavin?’
‘If someone threatened to push me into a meat-mincer, I think it would worry me.’
Dawn rolled her eyes, gesturing with one arm. ‘Yet another immortal Arnold utterance to be engraved on stone!’
Gavin made a placatory gesture. He was tired. ‘OK, what scares me? Losing control, being unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. Fantasy becoming reality. Total weirdness.’
Tim laughed. ‘That’s your mis-spent youth showing through, matey!’
Gavin shrugged. ‘Well, you did ask.’
‘Know what scares me at the moment?’ Dawn said. ‘The thought of spending the rest of my life with this maniac!’
Everybody laughed and Gavin gibbered and leered obligingly.
Gavin and Dawn had a room at the back of the house for their bedroom. Dawn maintained it was the best one as it caught the sun for the better part of the day – and who wanted sunlight when you were getting up for work in the morning anyway? You’d only be stuck in the office unable to take advantage of it, so why be tortured by what you’d be missing? After installing their friends in the spare r
oom, Gavin shambled into the bedroom, kicking off his shoes as he went.
‘Gavin, are you making a mess?’ Dawn called from the bathroom.
Gavin didn’t answer.
Dawn appeared, a ghostly apparition swaddled in thick, white cream from neck to hairline, her abundant black hair tied up for sleep.
‘I feel a bit achey,’ Gavin said.
‘You deserve to, the amount of beer you’ve consumed tonight!’
‘No. Perhaps it was the curry you made...’
Dawn only sniffed in response. Together they peeled the bed and wrapped themselves in the thick quilt. There was no further communication.
Gavin woke up, suddenly. What had roused him? He could remember nothing. A dream? He felt cold, disorientated.
‘Dawn?’
The girl shifted and mumbled in sleep beside him.
‘Dawn?’
‘What is it?’ Her voice was muffled
‘I feel weird.’
He heard her sigh. ‘In what way, weird?’
‘I don’t know...’
‘Can you push the cat off my neck?’ she asked in a sleepy voice.
‘There’s no cat on your neck. She’s on my feet.’
‘Gavin!’
‘She’s on my feet, I said. And I feel weird!’
‘Want a cigarette?’ Dawn reached out and turned on the bedside lamp, filling the room with a comforting glow. The cat slept peacefully at the bottom of the bed. Gavin lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
Dawn handed him a lit cigarette. ‘Are you OK now? Is it your stomach?’
‘Maybe. Yeah.’ Gavin took a draw off the cigarette. ‘I just felt so strange.’
‘How?’
‘Hard to explain really. I just opened my eyes and felt kind of confused, as if something had happened that I couldn’t remember... or was about to happen.
Dawn stared at him for a moment. ‘Did you have your hand on my neck?’
‘When? Before we woke up?’
‘Yes. Did you?’
Gavin laughed.