Shattered Minds Page 16

  A week passes. Another. They stretch into months. Second by second, the subjects are able to brain record for a little longer before they start to exhibit the more dangerous side effects. If they can get to forty-five minutes, then, Mantel promises, Roz can move forward to the next stage. Mantel keeps moving the goalposts. She keeps working on her second project on the sly anyway.

  Carina is the one who has identified certain brain patterns that are better for brain recording. Specifically, Subject B may have been one of the better candidates for long-term recording because of his reduced frontal lobe. Less empathy and compassion. If this recurs in other subjects with small frontal lobes, it could have some tricky complications. Some Zealot addicts would possibly be the best for Sudice’s latest product.

  Roz requested a certain type of criminal for Subject E. Mantel hesitated, but in the end, he agreed.

  It doesn’t take Carina long to figure out what Subject E has done. Roz works slowly on her own subject, watching Carina out of the corner of her eye.

  Her shoulders stiffen and she goes completely still. Her eyes shoot up, find Roz’s, and Roz can’t meet that stare. She adjusts one of her subject’s electrodes.

  At the end of the day, she expects Carina to come to her office and demand an explanation. She doesn’t. At seven o’clock, Carina leaves and goes home. She passes the office and doesn’t even give Roz a sideways glance. Roz feels very small, and then annoyed for feeling that way.

  Another few weeks drip by. The team makes good progress. A few subjects have had side effects – arrhythmia, migraines, reports of trouble sleeping and apnoea. Several are depressed, but are kept off serotonin in case it affects the results. A few have exhibited early signs of stroke, but with quick medical intervention from the robots, they have been all right. So far. She knows it’s only a matter of time until there’s another problem.

  They’ve managed to have most subjects successfully brain record for thirty minutes now. Today they’re aiming for thirty-six. Still so far from forty-five, but Roz will take what she can get.

  Mantel is growing impatient, but he won’t let her rush ahead. He’s a scientist too, supposedly, though his technical knowledge leaves much to be desired. He does little of the day-to-day running of the company. Though he’s personable and charming, capable of wining and dining the very best to put them at ease, he’s thirsty to prove himself, as desperate as Roz. He didn’t inherit the company from his father initially; his father passed it down to his protégé, Veli Carrera. Mantel had to oust the new CEO and possibly order a hit on him to bring the company back under his control. Roz can manage Mantel, but she’s wary. He’s someone who would throw her to the wolves if anything in SynMaps goes belly up – or just ensure she disappears.

  The scientists begin their brain recording for the day. Mark sits next to his subject, head bent so that only his shock of grey hair is visible. His subject, who has developed the unsurprising nickname of ‘Hollywood’, lies supine on the Chair, limbs relaxed. Hollywood has removed all his body hair except his eyelashes and he exfoliates daily, too rigorously, so he always looks pink as a newborn babe. He wears gloves. Even after being captured, he doesn’t like to leave any DNA evidence behind.

  Aliyah has the arsonist, aka Sparky. He’s your stereotypical arsonist – a troubled loner with low self-esteem. His notes show he isn’t self-reflective enough to know why he has to light things on fire, only that he finds it exciting in a way nothing else ever is. It’s similar to their deceased Subject B. They can’t control the urges. They don’t want to. Hollywood and Roz’s own subject, the thief she hasn’t given a nickname to, at least have other motives – monetary gain, mostly. Yet they both still, at heart, commit crimes for that same endorphin rush.

  The subjects look around, but don’t get up and move. Too much physical exertion can also impact the brain recording, as they learned with Subject B. For now, they’re meant to focus on different subjects within the room, let their thoughts and feelings go as normal. It means that when they play the recordings back, the scientists feel and think what their subjects do. Roz finds it intensely uncomfortable, and she arguably has the subject who’s done the least terrible crimes. Fraud is bad, but her subject’s thefts never even made a dent in the targets’ fortunes.

  The minutes pass. The fitful San Francisco sun shines through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay. The air is full of the soft whirrs and bumps of the machines. Ten minutes pass, inching closer to fifteen.

  Roz’s own subject starts to show signs of stress. Resigned, she turns off the brain recording. It happens next to Mark’s subject, then Aliyah’s. Carina’s new Subject E is still going, with no signs of stress. Roz finds her hopes rising.

  At forty-six minutes, Carina looks up from her code and gives Roz a deliberate gaze. She doesn’t blink, and looks as serene as a painting of a saint. Roz looks away first.

  Subject E begins to quiver, then shake. His heartbeat rises, his mouth opens in a silent scream, just like with the previous subject. Spittle collects at the corners of his lips, his eyes popping from his skull. Roz freezes, unable to think. The rest of the scientists watch in horror. Roz has grown complacent. She didn’t think to send the other subjects out of the room in case something like this happened, and they are just as horrified. Only the droid helpers are unaffected, and they move forward, surrounding the subject, providing medical aid even though it’s far too late for that.

  He flatlines.

  Carina’s eyes glitter, even if her mask is in place. She bows her head. ‘Too much stimuli,’ she says, voice distant.

  The robots congregate, working on Subject E as efficiently as they did on Subject B. Roz holds her breath. She can’t afford to lose another subject, not with Mantel breathing down her neck.

  The robots restart his heart. One beep. Silence. Another beep. A shorter silence. Soon, his sputtering heartbeat fills the room.

  ‘Subject stabilizing, but calling emergency services for immediate transport to hospital,’ Roz’s robotic virtual assistant, Vera, says. It’s just a program, but does she sense a hint of understanding in that mechanical tone? Vera would know what this means for her.

  One subject almost dying under Carina’s care could be chalked up to bad luck. Twice is suspicious. Carina looks at Roz, her gaze steady, as if she knows exactly what’s going through Roz’s head. As if she knows all her secrets.

  Again, Roz doesn’t confront Carina.

  She works feverishly for the rest of the night on her side project. They did inch past forty-five minutes, so Mantel reluctantly gave her the green light to move into the early stages of production. She’s already been working on it unofficially for months, running her side experiments. It’s as ready as it’ll ever be. She hasn’t eaten since lunch, and has that dull ache in her stomach and edge of faintness, but the thought of going through the motions of ordering something, picking up cutlery, chewing and swallowing seems far too complicated. Pouring herself some synth rum, she stands in the middle of the lab, overlooking the bay for a long time, letting her thoughts drift. The moon rises, the bay glows silver and green. In the deep stillness of midnight, all is quiet.

  Mantel is livid, but Subject E makes a full recovery and returns the next day. Roz gives the scientists and subjects an extra dose of Verve, telling them it’s to help them deal with the repercussions of the day. Really it’s so that, though it’s not the same as brain recording, she can go in and change how they feel about the day’s events. Reduce their horror, their trauma, until it’s barely a blip. They remember what has happened, but it no longer bothers them as badly. It’s a simpler way of recreating the emotional block she did on Carina in the early experiments. One by one, she treats all of them except for Carina. When she plugs Mark in, he looks at her as if he knows exactly what she’s doing, but in the end, he goes along with it, not wanting to feel that horror any more than the rest of them do.

  Roz arranges for a dinner with Mantel. Tells him what she has. What she needs
to do next. He lets her have her way. He always does, in the end.

  ‘This is your personal responsibility,’ Mantel says. ‘I can’t protect you if this goes south.’

  You won’t want to, she thinks. ‘I understand. Think of what we can finally achieve.’

  Mantel raises his glass, greed glimmering in the curve of his smile.

  TWENTY FIVE

  DAX

  The Trust headquarters, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  The Trust need a plan.

  From first thing in the morning until they can’t read any more, Dax and the others pore through the information they have so far. From their briefly planted Viper, they know they can remain undetected, but it’s not powerful enough to fully protect them from the Wasps. They’d have to release it from inside and let it move laterally.

  In the evenings, when they’re all tired from hours of reading and plotting, they unwind. Charlie’s urged people to leave the headquarters as infrequently as possible after Dax and Carina’s little walk through the park by Angel’s Flight. Sudice is looking for them – no camera drone is safe, a dead skin cell could land in the wrong place. No unnecessary risks.

  Cabin fever sets in within a few days. Everyone works out in the gym to release excess energy. Raf runs half marathons on the treadmill, complaining that it’s boring compared to outside, despite all the wallscreen programs. Charlie is into jiu-jitsu. Dax does his usual routine, designed to keep him at peak performance. Carina asks him for more muscle implants and avoids the gym. He asks her why but she shrugs, opting to stay in the other room and read instead. Dax doesn’t push it.

  Carina has told Dax that she’s been trying to unlock more images in her mind, to no avail. The first three happened relatively quickly, but the last two images of the drop of blood and the eyes don’t seem to be forthcoming. She’ll disappear into her room for hours, trying to find them, but no luck. The rest of the group will have to treat those remaining images as bonus information that would be beneficial, but they can’t count on it.

  Mark has locked up the images so tightly in her that Dax wonders whether they’ll ever be liberated at all. Carina has been made into an experiment – first by Roz and now by Mark. As far as any of them know, this much information has never been sent in this way before. What if Mark’s plan was only partly successful?

  Sometimes in the evening, they’ll play cards. Raf will even set aside the security bot he’s been dissecting in his spare time. Carina and Charlie are the best – Carina has the best poker face he’s ever seen – though in a room of clever people who don’t mind breaking the rules, cheating runs rampant. They bet with near-worthless replicated diamonds. Even Carina loosens. Sometimes she’ll let out a little laugh, though it feels practised and forced, as she accuses Raf of cheating and he gives her an innocent look in return. Dax looks forward to these games, where talk of hacking falls by the wayside and they are simply a group of people, laughing and trying to forget everything circling around them. The clatter of dice or the soft shuffling of cards, the clink of glasses or mugs set on the table, the smell of tea and whatever snacks from the replicator they’ve ordered. The soft dimness of the light in the living room, the stars shining through the fake windows of their underground bunker. Dax could grow used to these nights, though he knows, deep down, they will not last.

  Raf has been putting together pieces of a plan against Sudice on his own, possibly with Charlie’s input, but he won’t discuss it until it’s mostly formed. Finally, about three days later, with tensions running high, Raf decides to share.

  ‘I think we need to look for the simplest solution,’ he says. ‘We need to go somewhere remote and quiet, and I’ll mask the location. We can get in through a two-part plan.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Charlie asks, tearing her eyes away from the wallscreen.

  ‘Spear Phishing,’ Raf says, throwing a peanut in the air and catching it with his mouth, grinning as he chews.

  ‘Impressive,’ Dax says dryly, and Raf throws a peanut at him. Dax tries to catch it. He misses, the nut clattering into a corner.

  ‘I’ve got everything ready. I know where to go. We can do it now,’ Raf says.

  ‘You have everything you need?’ Charlie asks Raf.

  He cracks his neck. ‘Yep. We’re all good. I’ll lay it all out for you there. Can’t show you properly in here. Let’s go. Kivon’s probably already waiting for us.’

  They pack up their gear – concealed weapons, hacking kit for Raf’s VR, white noises and scrambler masks for extra protection.

  ‘Who’s Kivon?’ Carina asks.

  ‘Raf’s boyfriend. Police officer. He comes along as extra protection sometimes. Don’t think we really need him this time, but Raf misses him,’ Charlie says. ‘Kivon might have some info. He keeps his ears open. Runs searches for us.’

  ‘Another person on the inside,’ Dax says. ‘Doesn’t hurt. He’s like a half-member of the Trust, though he doesn’t know where the headquarters are.’

  Carina looks wary, as if she’s not up for meeting another stranger, but she hefts her backpack over her shoulder without another word.

  The Trust enter the hidden corridors, winding their way to the concealed hovercar.

  They take the hovercar to the Port of Long Beach, flying on the lane that leads over the old Vincent Stephen Bridge, which looks like a smaller, turquoise version of the Golden Gate Bridge. The hovercar speeds along, overlooking the sprawl. The Pacific Ocean stretches to the horizon, clear and grey, and the skyscrapers and floating buildings of Long Beach rise up to the other direction, where the San Gabriel Mountains are half-hidden in evening fog. In the port, endless shipping containers are stacked on top of one another like a giant’s toy bricks. Some companies are so busy that even old cranes have been brought online in addition to the slick hovercranes to help move product, despite the higher operating costs. This late in the day, most regular workers have clocked off, but there are still enough people about to make Dax nervous.

  Raf chose the location because it’s a mess of industrial debris, a maze that’s easy to hide in. There are so many signals in the air from the offices, theirs can easily slip among them. Most of the Trust’s work takes place in these edge lands – warehouses and their businesses, shipping containers or silos. Places most people pass without a second look.

  Before they took off, Raf lit up some of the side panels of their hovercar with the name of a company, Occamia. They land next to a cluster of squat, round tower silos, skirted with steel supports, with the same boring logo and company name. Occamia has been shut down for fifteen years, but your average person passing by won’t find it strange to see people crawling about long-abandoned silos.

  Kivon is waiting for them outside the largest silo. It’s been a while since Dax has seen him, but he’s unchanged. Six foot five inches tall, black, rippling with muscle, hair cropped close to his scalp. He has a strong, square jaw and thick brows, making it look like he’s always on the verge of frowning. He almost has to lift Raf up to give him a kiss. He nods to them in turn, reaches out a hand to Carina, which she shakes firmly. He seems wary of her, and Dax wonders exactly how much Raf has told Kivon about the newest member of the Trust.

  Charlie picks the lock to the door and they enter the silo. There’s plenty of room for their purposes, and it’s dusty but otherwise dry and sound. Dax sets up security cameras around the perimeter while Raf sets up the kit in the centre of the silo. Kivon and Charlie assemble the remote generators. Dax notices Kivon’s belt bristles with weapons, and he’s brought along a veritable arsenal of guns, smoke bombs, DNA bombs and tranquilizers. Dax shakes his head at it all. Kivon may be a man who will steal weapons from his employer or purchase others on the black market, but Dax knows that in low-crime Los Angeles Kivon has never had to kill on duty, nor while helping the Trust.

  Raf begins, his fingers dancing as the code projects around him onto the curved walls of the silo, creating elegant commands to move the Trust one step c
loser to breaking the company that tried to break them.

  Raf smiles. ‘Here we go.’ He sends the commands, and code scrolls, flashes, goes dark. An inbox appears. Unremarkable, full of boring corporate correspondence – meeting requests, stationery orders, general queries about some sort of charity.

  ‘The inbox belongs to a Mila De Costa,’ Carina says. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Mila is a very real charity organizer for Alacrity, which is for the rehabilitation of Zeal addicts.’

  Carina gives a snort.

  ‘I really, really wish I could say I did this on purpose, but it’s just a fortunate coincidence. In a few weeks’ time, Alacrity is holding a one-day party with some of the most exclusive Hollywood celebrities in Malibu. Super-swank, almost impossible to get an invite. It’s all been set up for months. Now –’ Raf flips to a different screen, and shows a snapshot of an unremarkable-looking man. He looks mid-forties, but that could mean he’s older. Thick hair, generically good looks, brown hair with a bit of strategic silvering at the temples, tanned skin, white teeth. A reassuring father figure who you’d trust with your investments and business decisions.

  ‘This is Harry Mitford,’ Raf says. ‘One of the many vice-presidents of Sudice, but pretty far down on the corporate ladder. Managed to eke his way into his spot by being excellent at accounting, but on the management side, being very good at looking like he was doing a lot when really he wasn’t doing much at all. My guess is he’s done some . . . creative bookkeeping for Sudice, and was rewarded for that, too. I found him through your Rose files, so thank you very much for that, Carina.’ He gives her a little salute.

  She returns it, only a little sardonically.

  ‘So what do we have in store for Mr Mitford here?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘I’m so glad you asked, Charlie. We’re not going to do a thing to Mr Mitford, at least not to start,’ Raf says. ‘For the moment, I’ve only cloned Mila’s email. Dead easy to hack into. Alacrity’s security is shit. Any emails sent between Mila and Harry will go straight to me, and I’ll be keeping track. So all we have to do is send an email to our Mr VP like . . . this one.’