The Edge Online - Fiction: Justina Robson

NOVEL EXCERPT

Silver Screen

Silver Screen, Justina Robson’s first novel, is a £9.99 Macmillan paperback.

It was with a mistaken sense of an era at its end that I found Roy Croft dead five years, four months and twelve days after we graduated.

I was in my office at work, on the orbital station Netplatform. I call it an office. It was one room out of several I could have chosen or roamed through. There was no desk or paper or anything like that, only myself and the comfortable furnishings of the Core Suite. I’d had a direct interface implant connected to my optic and auditory nerve in my final college year which would ensure I could make any calls, view any documents, connect to cameras or a vast array of devices and tools via a host server. When the emergency call came I was lounging in a recliner in the very light gravity, watching the activities of my host AI, 901, as it made ready to induce a cable-sink on the Yorkshire coast. I was supposed to monitor closely and note the AI’s behaviour for later study and analysis. In matters of importance people were reluctant to trust it.

A relay fed me the views from an aerial camera in situ, and an array of coloured icons raised in a head-up display allowed me to pick from a range of other options by staring for a moment at whichever pretty picture. The yellow digger gave me a view from the stationary robot which 901 had instructed to excavate a deep trench at the entrance to an exhausted potash mine. From its vantage point I could see the tankers arrive and tip their loads of pale substrate into this hole. Only half my attention was on this white liquid. The other half of me watched the rest of the camera’s range - beyond the site to the grey metal surfaces of the sea. I imagined the cool, cleansing feel of the wind in my hair, the rippling snap of the coat I would wear if I were there. The platform was no place for me with its long-distance reality. Computers may enjoy the freedom from gravity and heat but space is no place for people.

901 showed a brief map image to let me see the progress of the company’s other tankers at Fylingdales, Snilesworth, Westerdale, Helmsley, Arden, Wheeldale and Langdale. Each was riding smoothly towards its deep dug drop-off point. The driverless vehicles moved silently along the lanes, listening for the faint cricket’s rasp of 901’s broadcast from on high. I yawned. There was nothing wrong with 901’s behaviour that I could tell. There hadn’t been for as long as I had worked there. It was difficult not to be complacent. Not one slip was made so far and it looked set to stay that way. The yawn made me aware of the last cup of tea I had drunk. Made with station water, and re- – they say you can’t taste the age of it and the number of bodies it’s been through but it isn’t fit for drinking. My mouth was fuzzy and sour. I was bored but my shift was due to end shortly and I should pay attention because the committee would ask a lot of questions. I made a cross effort to concentrate and not fall asleep, pleasantly aware of my body relaxed and comfortable on its couch.

On the Staithes site the loading was finished. The tankers rolled away along the narrow service road, dripping white splashes, harmless as water but a real waste of production effort. I made a note about the valve system and sent it to the tanker company by lazily saying the words and letting 901 take care of the particulars. In the cut foundation the liquid had already settled into a smooth, even gloss – too thick for the onshore breeze to ripple. A few tiny heather flowers studded its surface and a leaf from some distant tree drifted down and stuck as I watched. 901 pulsed me a burst of reassurance into my nervous system. I knew that the material was okay.

A burly woman in blue overalls bearing the company logo – OptiNet – stitched in yellow on her breast pocket stepped forwards and unscrewed the top of a security sealed container. Blue solution poured out of it into the purity of the white base and vanished into the depths. A few faint whorls marked the surface when it was done. The woman returned the container to her car and the car told 901 who told me that the delivery was successful. 901 transmitted the keycode to the blue solution.

Nanotechnology was in its infancy but OptiNet wanted to lead the marketplace. This cable link for the transmission of power from the geothermal plant in the North Sea into the Northern Grid would prove its laboratories to be the first to successfully transform the raw materials of rock into a power-bearing landline. It was molecular engineering, executed by machines. If it worked then raw machine technology would stand to rival the best the biological engineers had to offer. And of course there would be even fewer jobs for anyone still left in the construction industry. I watched the next few moments with a mixture of anxiety and misgiving.

Already the biomechanoid constructions which were displayed as artwork in civil building enterprises were met with fear and loathing. They were vandalized with murderous rage in my hometown last time I was there. Now there was this blue solution, full of computers, and this white solution, full of construction machines, to contend with as well. I wondered what the breakers would do when they found out, and if my father would be with them again this time. I imagined him dancing his rage in a sky blue puddle, unable to see or to crush a single one of his tormentors.

The program activated and dispersed. The surface of the suspension became matt, a painted slash of colour against the grey rock, as microfine tremors shot through it. It flexed itself in a muscular way and strange flow patterns began to course through it. 901 reported that so far the machines were organising themselves as anticipated to prepare for cutting through the layers of stone, creating cable from whatever they encountered until they were linked with the energy plant’s undersea lines to the East and had spread themselves in mould-like streams through the dales to the new grid lines at Thirsk in the West. I caught a glimpse of dark skies from one of the tanker cameras as 901 and I switched locations. Over Rievaulx Abbey and the River Rye the clouds were sunk low and heavy in preparation for a long September afternoon of smothering rain. As I imagined the smell of the earth under such pressure my vision flashed red.

901’s vocal interface – a low, female tone – spoke urgently into my ear.

‘Quick! To Roy’s room! I’ve lost him.’

Without waiting for me to acknowledge the call 901 broke the links with Earth and turned up my room’s gentle lighting into a photon blast which almost blinded me. I could hear the seal-like bark of a medical alert klaxon in the corridor outside. 901’s voice rang in my ears as I reached the door, still shocked and stumbling. The first thing I knew was that it was not referring to one of Roy’s frequent hacking misdemeanours, in which he became so engrossed in his diving that he forgot to breathe – it was not exasperated. My vision sparkled as blood rushed around trying to do too much at once. My heart was pounding and sweat broke out on my face. Over rushed on adrenalin I pushed myself out of the room and across the hallway to where Roy’s door stood open.

I wondered where everyone was but loiter to find out.

Inside it was nearly dark. There were no windows and the lights were at their dimmest. The white strip lights in the hall made the tiny lenses of his holo-room glitter and dazzle my eyes. I thought of a nightclub singer I once saw in Halifax, his dapper jacket sewn with billions of diamond-bright sequins. At the same time I smelt the stuffiness of the air and saw Roy lying on his long-line reclining couch, face up and flat out. His stillness made my insides contract with apprehension and I hung onto the doorframe to keep myself steady. I had never seen a dead person. 901 said nothing.

His arm, nearest to me, was hanging in a limp-wristed, languid pose and there was a smile on his face. Only his half-closed eyes, rolled and dull, looked overtly abnormal. But on Roy this was hardly cause for alarm. He had looked much worse than that when I’d seen him wired into the deepest parts of the network, beyond the reach of English or any ordinary human language, his brain and the AI allied in a cocoon of mathematics. I squeamishly glanced to see if he had wet himself – that too was not unknown – but there was no evidence of it.

I hesitated, hoping for someone to appear, and the last traces of the Earth-link fell away from my mind. Breathing very lightly and on tiptoe I moved closer. Slowly. There was as yet no other sound from the corridor except for the woeful bark of the klaxon. For some reason the others on my shift had not been alerted the situation . . . I hesitated, experiencing a strong suspicion that this was a set-up of some kind, one of Roy’s practical jokes. The air conditioner in the ceiling clanged as warm and cold air clashed inside its paper thin walls and I jumped and swore. But Roy did not move.

‘Roy?’ I said quietly, vexed.

‘Body temperature is falling. Higher brain is inactive. Lower brain is inactive. Heart has ceased to function,’ 901 said directly into my own brain. This time it was not panicked. It spoke with wonder and calmness, something like resignation as of one who has suddenly seen themselves outmanoeuvred from a great distance.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, stupid with shock, ‘what’s happening? Can’t you stimulate his brain – do something!’

901 paused and I sensed a distinct unease about its silence.

‘I . . .’ it said, ‘his brain just quit. The rest followed. He’s dead. I lost contact.’ It was puzzled at the failure of the interface. ‘I tried to initiate an adrenal reaction but it was too late.’

A very strange feeling came over me, so strong that I thought my legs would not support me any longer, even in the light gravity. All my guts seemed to be sinking down towards my knees. A slow pain began in my chest and I was gasping for breath. Roy could not just be dead. I had seen him only an hour ago, perfectly normal, eating lemonade crystals and drinking water, jiving up and down the alley of the kitchenette to inaudible music as if he had Tourette’s. Only he didn’t have anything.

I concentrated on the couch. Roy’s blond, crew-cut scalp looked comfortable in its dished hollow. His whole body held a lax and happy attitude, arranged as if he were about to take a short nap. Only the paling of his skin, the faint greyish cast of it and the strange whites of his eyes, waning, gave him away. Nevertheless he looked so much like himself I couldn’t believe it. I bent over him, hand stretching out in dread to confirm the truth and wishing to find him warm, wishing him to leap up and yell at the top of his lungs and give me the fright of my life. I touched his wrist. It was cool, but not unnaturally so. It was still. No breath came from his nostrils.

As if to confirm it another look at his face, always laughing at me in the past, revealed that it had lost its aggravating quality. It was not put on to deceive me or make fun. It was simply there, without malice or goodwill.

A plunging sensation as if my heart was in freefall.

‘Why didn’t you run the emergency medical?’ I asked.

‘He asked me not to,’ said 901, ‘well, he code blocked me, actually.’

‘And the others?’

‘He only wanted you to find him. At first,’ came the reply.

So Roy was playing a game, I thought, happier, then bad again as I realised it wasn’t a funny one. His expression indicated that whatever I did now in an attempt to revive him would be futile. I should’ve known – that was the moment he always got me, when I started to play without realising what I was doing.

I glanced around the office, looking for anything to clue me in. The walls sparkled. The couch and the body were all there was in the room. Not even a snack pack on the floor. No smells of gas. The air was recirculated; if there had been an airborne plague of some kind then I would be dead by now.

‘What was he doing?’

901 listed a likely flow of transactions, pieces of programming, calculations, mostly work on the active nanotech project.

‘Did he leave any notes or messages? What did he say?’

A soft, muted noise at my back made me jump and turn around. The door, critically weighted, had closed itself, ‘Oh, god,’ I was saying in the let-down after the rush and at the same moment the holofacility came on.

The walls rippled with light.

‘Nine!’ I said, warning it of something dire, asking it what was going on. But we were already immersed in the past.

A hologram of Roy somewhere among the last minutes of his life moved like a ghost through and over the solidity of his inert body. The recorded image was so close to me and so vividly Roy that I took a step backwards in case he collided with me. As he moved he was festooned with his usual nervous, twitching movements. He sat on the couch and rubbed his sock-clad feet against one another. He played clicking, knuckle games with his long fingers. His head rocked arrhythmically from side to side, eyes glazed with the idiot stare of deep immersion. Beneath this the stillness of his corpse was artificial, but peaceful, waiting for him.

In the upper right of my vision the standard clock icon appeared, showing me the time of the recording, counting me forwards. There was nobody in the room with us. Roy broke off whatever job he was doing and rubbed his hands across the fur of hair on his head. He stretched, blinked and turned, slightly transparent like a cartoon soul. He looked straight at me. Eye contact.

Little shooting sparks of fear snapped through my legs.

‘O’Connell,’ he said, ‘I’m leaving you a message with Janey about something important . . .’ He turned away, just like that, gave some instructions to delete this recording and so on, said a wry farewell to 901 and then lay down and died on the dot of ten fifty one in the morning, GMT, nine minutes before his shift was due to end.

The clock vanished. The ice cave returned. The ghost was gone.

I stood there for about thirty seconds all told. I don’t think I breathed. I didn’t blink.

Finally the silence got too much. ‘Open that door!’ I snapped at 901.

The seal hissed gently and the door swung wide. The sudden brightness of the corridor made me wince. I stood outside and took some deep breaths. I told 901 to call security, medical, someone and leant on the wall, listening to the seal cough its worthless warning into the empty passages. It sounded like a kind of laughter.

I knew that the first call I should make ought to be to Maria, the team manager, but the idea of experiencing her anxious and endless reinterpretations of the incident was nauseating. She’d find out soon enough. For the time being the minutes of solitude it took the med team to arrive was full of Roy Croft. I saw Roy at school, at University lying drunk on his bed, wide-eyed and laughing. At me I thought. Maybe not. Roy at work, a dishevelled mess, screaming at people in high-level meetings because he considered them stupid and incompetent, that most heinous of crimes. People who did not have his vision. Then, as now, it was hard to decide if he were mad or brilliant. Which view you chose depended on what you wanted to see at the time. The company chose brilliant. So brilliant it was when we talked about Roy. But it was true to say that nobody understood how Roy worked with the complex programming systems nor how he calculated the final solutions to the nanotechnology problems which our labs could not solve. He was as tortuous and convoluted as a monkey puzzle tree. I wondered what message he had left, and why he had left it with Jane, and why for me.

Jane Croft’s stringy long hair sprang to mind. How I had wished all through our house-sharing days that she would at least wash it or tidy it up. Instead she seemed to like the way it hung down over her face. I felt guilt about Jane that I had not befriended her when she so clearly needed someone to take an interest, but always her contempt and my pride had proved too strong. Thinking about her now I did not care we were not friends. I felt sorry for her, a little bit, but she could have helped him and she didn’t. This, combined with the fact that she had bolted from a career even more gold-starred than Roy’s to join a hippy commune, made it easy and convenient to concur with popular opinion that she had gone mad due to burnout. She was a tragic case, pitied and not missed.

Voices, high with excitement. Hard objects clattered as a trolley was carelessly bashed on the narrow walls. I felt the vibration of it in my hands and looked up. Four medics negotiated a stretcher from the service elevator and into the corridor with a deal of inexpertise. They were all wearing full body cover with lensed headguards, gasmasks, the lot. They slowed down as they saw me and seemed to regroup like worried animals. From behind them another suited figure moved quickly towards me. I watched it come rushing up, thinking that at last someone was here to commiserate and assist but at the last moment I saw the glint of a patch needle in its hand as whoever it was gave me what, in other circumstances, might have been a heartening thump on the shoulder.

The quick acting anaesthetic took hold immediately, too fast for me even to speak. I was lowered to the floor, zipped into an environment bag and hauled away. The last thing I saw was the light fading through the cream and green film of plastic above me as my leg slid off the trolley and was heaved back on again by someone swearing in Hungarian. I thought, dizzily – the European mafia have killed me urely it must be a mistake and they think I’m Jane . . . and then there was nothing.

When I woke it was as if a chunk of time had simply vanished. My thought train was chugging full speed and I was attempting to figure out how they had conned their way onto the station in the first place or whether it was a conspiracy from within the company all along. Several minutes passed before I realised that I was lying in a bed in the medical centre, fully clothed and aching inside and out.

‘I should have warned you,’ 901 said apologetically into my synapses, ‘that they were prompted to go for the full contamination alert.’

I looked around, trying to pretend to be unconscious so that I could see what was going on before anybody paid attention. There were two empty beds in the room with me, a monitor reading something from a line taped to the back of my hand and an untidy pile of microdust separation equipment with the filter lid open. Through the glass panel opposite me I could see a huddle of green figures poring intently over what I assumed must be analysis of the filters. I looked at the sleeve of my overalls cautiously and from its unnaturally pristine state gathered that I’d been hoovered whilst asleep.

‘What did they do?’ I asked 901 in a whisper.

‘Blood analysis and immediate microanalysis of your hair, skin and clothes.’ It paused, ‘And they pumped your lungs. It’s terrible there’s still so much pollution in the atmosphere, some of it came out virtually black.’

That explained the sore throat and the feeling that I must have been inhaling pure chlorine for the last hour or two. The blackness could have been explained by telling 901 about my old smoking habit, but that wasn’t important. Maybe some good would come of it and now I wouldn’t get cancer after all. I felt so bad I decided to do nothing but wait and see who turned up to ask questions. If it was Maria, then that was low security. If it was the head doctor, that was bad news for my health. If it was anyone else then there was more afoot.

As the minutes passed I felt increasingly restless but with more than a tinge of nausea. I noted with irritation that the monitor reported that I was fine. ‘How did the cable thing go?’ I asked.

‘It’s working so far,’ 901 said.

‘And Roy,’ I added carelessly, ‘that all went okay did it?’

‘Roy was taken,’ it said, ‘not despatched by me.’

‘What do you mean, taken?’

‘He was read,’ it reported, ‘and in being read, lost.’

Scanned, it meant. A technology for mind-reading people that had never worked even when the chemical tracers used came down in toxicity. One of the things I used to wonder about was who the unlucky volunteers had been who had wound up dead in order to prove that synaptic patterns could be tracked in living patients, but only once, after which the gateways were blasted forever. It was a stupid experiment anyway – even with the patterns in front of you there was no way of telling what those thoughts were about. As for a weapon, there were many more ways of effectively killing someone like Roy and anyway the method was made illegal in 2061. I was still shuffling it around as an idea when the visitors arrived.

Maria came first, trailing her spectral Human-analogue-interface, Joaquin. Like most HughIes (stupid acronym) Joaquin was a kind of ornament as well as a method of communicating with the ubiquitous services of 901. Tall and Latin looking with long dark hair and black saintly eyes he was dressed as if he had just finished a particularly strenuous bolero. Maria waved him aside flirtatiously and he hung back. I smiled at the faint pout which appeared on his face and met Maria smiling, which threw her considerably so that she took a breath and said nothing for a second.

Maria was short and constructed like a small bird, made to dart and pry and hop. Her Hispanic features were worn but proud and her black hair was piled on her head and held with combs in the manner of her ancestors. She took a sharp breath at the sight of me and the hard lines on her face smoothed as she tuned into Sympathy No.5 or whatever role she had rehearsed in preparation for a situation like this one. Our team had long thought she should be in sales. But here she was, least wanted and trying to curb her famished curiosity. The clip of her polished shoes came to a neat halt closer than she usually stood. She held her arms outward a little bit in an offering gesture. The thought of hugging her chilled me to the core and I recoiled.

‘You found him?’ she asked, snatching her arms back with gratitude and reaching into her pocket for a thin stick of nicotine gum. Her voice fell between making a statement and inviting a collapse into tearful confessions. I gave her the facts, leaving out the bizarre hologram.

‘Are you sure that’s it?’ Maria sat down on the edge of the bed swung her foot. She glanced back at me and swallowed, wedging the gum in her teeth, ‘I . . . the thing is,’ she shuffled closer and clasped her hands together in an earnest way, lowering her voice, ‘The recordings are all jumbled.’ I kept listening. ‘Just in those minutes. Maybe a virus. Maybe just a mistake. I don’t know. The thing is . . . I need to reconstruct what happened, we all will because there’ll be an enquiry and I thought you might have got there just before and then you could remember it all, you know.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ I said, ‘and the anaesthetic is still making me feel sick.’ I tried to look as though I might throw up so she would retreat. There was an old score between Maria Van Doorn and myself although she didn’t know it. When I had first become a member of Green Team she had used all her showmanship on getting me to befriend her. I hadn’t learned to hide my weak spot, then. I confided in her with my worries. Too readily as it turned out – she was not above shooting her mouth off to anyone’s detriment when it was to her advantage. Now the banality of her play at being helpless made me hate her.

Maria nodded and smiled, ‘Well, never mind. Maybe later. Can I get you some drugs? Vaughn’s coming to ask you a couple of Qs.’ She glanced around and directed Joaquin to fetch an orderly with a medicine cabinet.

He tapped haughtily across the floor to pointlessly tell himself, in the form of another HughIe belonging to the MedCentre, about her request. The medical interface cast Maria a dark glance.

No tea and a nice lie down for the afternoon for me then. Vaughn was head of security. I surmised big trouble. But Maria was only offering what she would have thought of for herself; a quick tab of some benzodiazepine for the nerves and later, when signs of depression recur and sleep is long coming and still the fantasies of all-not-well come back to haunt the mind, a shot of chlorpromazine to fuzzy things nicely and bend the will into the form of the company’s reality once again. I knew her history more than I should have. I once glimpsed her notes open upside down on Dr Klein’s desk in the mental health unit and later that evening read it off the back of my eyelids during a very dull cheese-and-wine get together. I was cross to find that this knowledge made me pity Maria and so I only sighed.

Whilst we waited Maria had a tonic and vitamin booster, two aspirin and some eye drops which made her blink like a slow loris suddenly exposed to the light of day.

Vaughn appeared when she had gone to fetch me a drink. He squinted at me to check if I was really awake. Still staring he drew up a chair. His HughIe tiptoed out from behind him and sat down on a handsome piece of metal art nouveau which appeared magically for her in keeping with her flapper look. She produced a secretary’s pad and a shorthand pen and prepared to take elfin little notes, her cute way of signalling that 901 was to record the entire interview.

‘You called us? You found him? Was he already dead?’

Never one for preamble, Vaughn’s heavy features were hawk-like with concentration.

‘Very dead,’ I said, shaking the hand that he offered. He had a quick grip which pinched my hand between his thumb and forefinger, skin dry and papery.

His eyes narrowed slightly, ‘What made you come to his room?’

‘901 said it had lost contact with him.’ I saw no reason yet not to tell the whole truth but the strangeness of the situation made me want to keep as much as possible to myself, all the same.

‘He died of massive synaptic failure,’ Vaughn said, chin low, giving me a firm stare as if he would become very angry if I started to show that I was upset. Business was business, his platelike cheeks said, and no hysteria before it’s done. He might have been tripping over cadavers in every room.

I didn’t remind him about my implant and that he had no need to tell me anything. People without never liked to be reminded that you had a private channel straight into their information, particularly if you could get at more of it than they thought. ‘I thought scanning was illegal,’ I said, hoping he would reveal more.

It backfired on me. ‘I didn’t mention anything about scanning, O’Connell,’ he said. ‘What makes you suggest it?’

‘It’s the only thing I know that fries your head,’ I said.

‘And you have access to such technology?’

‘No,’ for a moment I actually thought he suspected me. ‘That is,’ I said to annoy him, ‘I know the theory, but I don’t think I could put it into practice without detection.’

Without intending to he made a face which clearly let me know his opinion of smug, elitist and over-educated eggheads like myself. I thought he was probably one of those who would be pleased that Roy was dead and determined to cooperate even less.

‘Where were your other team members at the time?’

‘In their private rooms. Peaches is preparing for transition to 902. Lula was analysing the latest material requests for 901’s development.’ It struck me how strange it was to sit here merrily chatting away when what had happened was that Roy was dead, probably murdered. I closed my mouth and all desire to irritate Vaughn faded.

Maria appeared with a cup of watery orange juice. After the lung cleaner it tasted bitter and burned my throat. Maria sat on the end of the bed and patted my foot through the covers, ‘You should get some rest.’ Obviously she’d been reading too many hospital romances on her day off. I could just see her imagining herself as the beautiful matron in a perfect white coat, floating around the wards and dispensing care and nurturing to the terminally ill, feeding like a vampire off the gratitude in their rheumy eyes.

Vaughn looked angry with her but stared at me instead. ‘We’ll be having further interviews with you,’ he said. ‘Hopefully later on today, after you’ve been discharged.’ He stood up and glanced at his HughIe. She smiled and stood and followed him out, her beaded dress swinging and clattering against the doorjambs. These simulations were getting damn good now. No wonder so many people reacted well to them even if they did tend to treat them like personal servants.

Maria rushed off after him with a brief goodbye, beckoning Joaquin after her like a grand stallion following a chicken. As he passed the bed I saw that his feet were several inches off the floor and when he reached the door the top of his head got cut off.

There was a moment’s peace, then Maria swung back around, ‘And you must do something about these bloody HughIes, Juju – there’s so many glitches . . . hello? . . .’ and she was finally gone.

I rested for a few minutes, feeling sadder with each one. To stop the descent becoming too rapid I said to 901, ‘Are you doing that on purpose?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Screwing up the HughIes.’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘I think you need a consultation,’ I said. ‘You think it’s funny now. You won’t if they get really irritated.’

Silence. I slept for a few minutes.

I was woken by one of the doctors in green. He was looking at my monitor.

‘You’ve tested negative,’ he said, ‘and free to go. How do you feel?’

I recognised Dr Jakes. We had done time together on the Mental Health Board.

‘Have you done an autopsy yet?’ I made no move.

‘Um . . . the body has been sent to the central labs. He was working with the nano technologists. May be some cross contamination or something, not really my area of interest. With a case like this . . . Mr Croft was well known as something of an anarchist and . . .’ he hesitated to say it, so I said it for him.

‘A terrorist. In the past.’

‘I’m sure you know better than I do,’ he was on the home run into non-committal land now. ‘It’s out of my hands.’

I assumed that there was already a veil of secrecy being drawn around the whole thing. Jakes looked uncomfortable so I let him off the hook and pretended to doze off. When he had gone I heaved myself out of the bed and staggered slowly homewards, calling Peaches and Lula on the way, but there was no answer from them. At home I made strong coffee and had it with a half a bar of white chocolate but neither revived me. I felt cold and abandoned and sat curled in the sofa, trying to think of nothing until a message came asking me to Vaughn’s office.

It was okay, being with other people. It was being alone that was bad. When there’s nobody there my defences vanish, inside and out. I wish they didn’t. And I wish that I could remove them when someone was listening, but they don’t seem to work that way. I once tried out therapy sessions with Dr Paige, my colleague, but I’ve let them lapse. I didn’t like the idea of seeming so weak to my superior. Maybe with Lula once or twice I’d let my tongue wag about what I really thought, but not often. A lot of it was about Roy Croft. Now with him gone . . . I should have talked to him when he was still alive was all I could think of now. But I didn’t.

Vaughn’s office was in the main administration complex and luxuriously appointed with plenty of space used for nothing but strange clay sculptures poised on octagonal pedestals here and there s as to discourage any kind of hurrying motion. Sometimes the sculptures looked like a deranged coconut shy and sometimes like shrunken heads. Today they were knotted figures, tightly curled in on themselves, giving nothing away. I guessed they were mood-attuned to him, a sort of semaphore to visitors. Or maybe I was just supposed to think that.

Vaughn was with his secretary. Maria took the most comfortable chair in his absence. Joaquin perched on its sturdy arm at her side. Unwillingly I sank into the mire of his fake leather sofa – brought up at who knew what silly cost from Earth – and tried to gather some wits.

Vaughn himself was not our superior. We had none as such and in that respect Maria did not govern me or any of the Core Teams. She was our facilitator, the Teams’ manager, as answerable to us as not. Vaughn was head of station security. We answered to him only if we were involved in something which directly concerned him. He knew little of Core AI Operations although I recalled that he would try to brief himself thoroughly when issues involving us came up at the Steering Committee responsible for authorising 901’s activities.

Now he came in, smoothed his suit over his short frame and sat down at his desk. His Hughie sat in the least prominent chair. Maria and Vaughn – Freddie was his first name – shared an uneasy and unconscious glance at my aloneness. It reminded them of my implant. It was a common theory that the direct interfacers were whisperers, information traders and unpleasantly secretive. Traditionally we thought Hughies narcissistic and phony. It made some conversations very difficult.

‘I’ve reviewed the story so far,’ Vaughn began, ‘but what happened in the corridor – did you hear anyone?’

‘I was immersed,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hear anything until 901’s alarm and the medical.’ It was a peculiar question for him to ask. I assumed the recording ‘failures’ must have included the whole Core Ops subunit, which really did look like serious sabotage.

‘And when you entered Roy Croft’s office, you saw nothing unusual?’

‘No.’

‘No mists, dusts, nothing in the air?’

Again this obsession with nanites. As if scouring my insides with glass paper wasn’t enough. ‘No, nothing like that. The air conditioner made a noise when I walked in. He liked to keep his room hot and the air outside was cooler but he was lying on the couch as the medics found him. It was quiet. There was nobody there.’

‘And the door to his room was open?’

‘Yes. I assumed 901 opened it on an override before I got there. The air was stuffy. It hadn’t been open long.’

‘I see,’ he nodded in the direction of his elf and she wrote earnestly, resting on her knee.

Joaquin and Maria had not moved.

‘Do you know why Peaches and Lula were not alerted?’ he asked then.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Why didn’t you call them as soon as you found Mr Croft?’

‘I assumed that 901 would have called them,’ I said, ‘I wanted to call medical first.’

‘But 901 did not call them.’

‘It set off the emergency alarm and that would have called them, if it wasn’t disabled in their rooms.’ I didn’t like his line. ‘If you want to know more, then ask 901.’

Vaughn looked at his Hughie and, in a strange unexpected moment, she and Joaquin shared a glance at one another as if they were real. So real were they to Maria and Vaughn that neither of them noticed. I concealed my start of surprise. Never mind a few inches off the top of the head, having them react like that was the kind of development that caught my interest. The idea that 901 might really be splitting itself down into them as individual sub-personalities darted across my mind.

‘Elanor,’ he said to his Hughie, ‘Will you answer?’

‘I did set off the alarm as soon as I realised the situation,’ she said, speaking as what she was, a figment of 901, keeping in character and turning immediately to him. Her light voice sounded childlike, ‘and I called Anjuli because she was the one with medical experience and knew him better. Ms Kipkete and Ms White were engaged in work I thought it unwise to interrupt at that stage. I would have called them, if I thought it would be of any help. But they would not have been able to assist.’

Vaughn nodded. He looked long at me and I saw that he was uncertain about 901 and how much he could trust it. I saw that he also wanted to hide it from the Hughie as if the knowledge would hurt its feelings. He cared for Elanor. It was touching, if schizoid.

‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘That will do for now. I imagine you would like to get some rest or be alone, see some friends perhaps? I am sorry about Roy. He was . . .’ he struggled for some non-contentious word, ‘useful.’

‘Mr Vaughn,’ I fought my way out of the sofa and shook his hand. Maria I left there. She and he had much to talk about if they were going to come out of this smelling of roses and no doubt she’d be on my back later when it was time to give account of Roy’s mental health. Feeling heavy and sad I wandered on foot down the levels until I reached the ground and then walked home along the meandering stream of Orion Parkway to my apartment on the high curve of the ring wall.

The Parkway was the only strip of grass on Netplatform. It ran a quarter of the distance around the circumference of the outer ring in a narrow band of green crisscrossed by the blue of a stream and several winding sandy tracks where you could walk. It was nothing like Earth or anywhere else and a great waste of space and money since there was clear air between it and the high roof instead of more apartments. At one edge of it the administration blocks rose pale and angular in an irregular tumble to the roof. On the other edge the paths wound away into little canyons between apartment blocks and the accommodation leapt up like a pink cliff in many terraces and patios. I lived high up, on the Earth facing wall with a window into space instead of down into the Parkway. I liked to watch the planet turn beneath us in its vast arena.

Now I lingered on the green strip, walking on the turf. ‘Call Lula,’ I asked 901, speaking only in my thought and not aloud but Lula was in an interview and not able to reply. This small effort cost me all my motivation at the time. Roy dead. It was strange, still shocking, and I felt distant from myself. I trudged up the stairwells of my area and along the winding grey lanes to my own door which opened as I reached it.

There was a carton of Dales’ Delight vanilla ice cream in the freezer but when I put a spoonful in my mouth it made no difference. Things are bad when the power of Dales’ Delight can do nothing. I put the spoon in the sink, the carton into the freezer, and opened a pouch of Calvados from my drinks box. There was enough for four glasses. I put half into a tumbler and moved around the narrow strip of the breakfast bar and onto my couch to sit for a while. I wondered what to make for dinner. Spaghetti bolognese or chicken tikka masala or maybe I’d just rehydrate a packet of mushy peas and stir some mint sauce into them. No. Lula wouldn’t eat that. She was a bit of a food snob. Where was the damn woman? I noticed my tumbler was empty but couldn’t be bothered to move.

Lula arrived two hours and some later.

I was chopping an onion and crying. When the door chime sounded I was so grateful for anyone arriving that I looked up and smiled beautifully through the tears and snot.

‘Hi,’ she said. Between the door and the oven she put down her toolbag, ripped a tissue from the overhead dispenser and took two packets of Devon Custard out of her pockets. She put the custard on the counter and wiped my face carefully with the tissue. ‘Hey,’ she said and hugged me.

‘What’s going on?’ I said, feeling her solid, square little body prop me up. Lula was shorter than me, ginger-haired, with brown eyes and a relentless practicality which always made me feel I could relax and let her take care of whatever was going on. She was in her work overalls and wiped her own nose on the cuff. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘what’re you making?’

‘Spaghetti. When did you find out?’

‘When Vaughn’s lot opened my door. I was just doing some admin. I didn’t even hear the klaxon. Roy must have jinxed the system . . . where’s the garlic?’

‘What? It’s here,’ I pointed at four cloves lying on the chopping board.

‘Ah,’ Lula pushed her way past me and picked up my knife. She placed the cloves under the flat of the blade one by one and then smashed them with great blows of her hand that made all the pots and cupboards rattle.

‘Better?’ I said, removing my hands from my ears.

She picked out the skins and put them in the disposal unit, ‘Not really.’ She paused and looked up. It was a tiny galley so we were eye to eye. ‘You know this whole thing doesn’t make any sense. You, me, Peaches and Roy agreed we would never take the case out.’

‘What?’

‘They didn’t tell you?’ She put her hands on her hips, ‘Maybe they didn’t find out until you’d gone home. When I was in Vaughn’s office word came through – Roy’s filed against OptiNet with the World Court of Human Rights.’

‘What?’ I said again.

‘Yeah. even he knew what trouble that would start. But he’s dead. So what the hell?’ As she was talking she turned to the counter and had picked up the knife. With rapid strokes she collected the garlic, poured some salt on, and began to grind it to a pulp. ‘Filed it yesterday, through some lawyer in Geneva apparently.’

Many times in secret our team had discussed The Case. As a natural consequence of our work in analysing and managing the AI 901 we had long since considered that it was a being in its own right, certainly conscious, emotional apparently (although not predictably or for certain) and probably deserved formal recognition, not least to protect its existence should the company choose to do something ill-advised. Not doing what Roy had done was a unanimous choice we had voted on, since once we had looked into the legalities it seemed that we could not succeed with it under current law, and the tide of popular opinion flowing strongly against AIs. Now it seemed that our little democracy had been rudely brought to an end.

‘We can’t let the company know we ever thought about it,’ I said, ‘He’s on his own.’

‘Damn straight,’ Lula took down the frying pan and scraped the garlic in, pouring olive oil on.

‘You should let the oil warm first,’ I said without thinking. She made a face and picked up my Calvados tumbler, sniffing it.

‘Where’s the wine?’

‘In the bottom of the air conditioner.’

I let her lever the cover off with a wooden spatula and pull out a wobbling sack of Cabernet Sauvignon. Beneath the outlet vent the temperature was perfect for reds. ‘We won’t win it,’ I said.

‘No, the company will. And then they can do what they like with 901. It goes against everything he wanted. And what the hell are we supposed to do about it? I just don’t get it. Ugh,’ she shook her head and unclipped the wine seal, poured two cups out, sealed it, threw the onions in the pan, tossed them rapidly until they were all coated. ‘Is the meat and liver in the mixer?’

‘Yes.’

We stood contemplatively as the blades whined and cut the steak and chicken livers together. Fresh food is heavy freight on the shuttle to Netplatform but I had little else to spend my pay on and so every week I had to go to the docking bay and haul a box of gold-dust groceries to my apartment. You have to get what pleasure you can. When they were ready I put them into the pan. Lu tossed them. She never spills. She’s bossy too but I was so glad she was there, even though none of the news was good.

‘I keep thinking I should have noticed something,’ I said as a delicious smell filled the room and the happy hiss of sizzling momentarily overtook the irregular mutter, clank and clang of the station structure.

‘Oh, I don’t think he went nuts,’ Lula said, fixing me with an arrow-sharp glance, ‘unless you count him always being nuts. There wasn’t anything to notice. Just Roy. As usual. This is par for the course. Herbs.’

I snipped open fresh frozen vacu-sealed pockets of oregano, basil and bayleaves. ‘I wish he hadn’t.’

Lula flipped the contents of the pan, shook them. ‘I don’t know,’ she sounded weary, ‘maybe it will turn out for the best.’

‘ ,’ I said. ‘Blast him. Do you think he did kill himself or was he done in by someone else? One of his deals went wrong and he was escaping?’

‘Don’t know,’ she bit her lip and picked up her glass. Her pixie face was solemn and the lines around her mouth deepened. There was no hint of a smile. ‘Here’s to the storm then.’

I picked up mine, ‘To Roy,’ I said, ‘rest in peace.’

‘Peace.’

We drank. We finished that pouch and after the bolognese we finished another. We slumped on the couch against the wall, put the screen on and watched The Maltese Falcon because it reminded us of Roy and in the semi-darkness you could pull any expression you wanted and not be seen. •

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