Shattered Minds Read online

  Mark took a risk, and it’s paid off.

  When it’s all over, she looks up blearily. She’s still attracting stares from people moving past her to the train platform. Not that long ago, homeless people might have slumped here, a hat or a battered cup held out for change. Now there are no homeless, so the sight of a dirty, unhealthy woman on the ground is not quite so easily ignored.

  She stands up, feeling worse than ever. Her body won’t last much longer. She’ll lose consciousness or have a seizure. With all the brainloading, she’s surprised she hasn’t had one already. With burning eyes, she looks at a map on her implants and figures out where she needs to go.

  The Trust headquarters looks like a normal, boring office building. It’s downtown, which is surprising. But then, there’s so much traffic and code floating around that it’s probably easier to hide what they’re doing here than if they’d chosen a hidden, out-of-the-way warehouse, where if the same people kept coming and going, it’d flag the camera drones.

  It lacks drama, though, this small, unremarkable building of white concrete and black glass, flanked by palm trees on either side. A sign out front says it belongs to the DeMille Corporation. A small building, only a few storeys high, wedged between two giant skyscrapers. Someone walks past and their eyes automatically slide from one skyscraper to the other. Many people come and go on the sidewalk, and hovercars zip overhead.

  The sun beats down on Carina as she stands outside the building. She needs to get out of sight before someone calls the cops on the obvious Zealot loitering outside a nice office building on Grand Avenue. She enters the security code Mark gave her in the second part of the Bee information, and the door whooshes open.

  Inside it’s air-conditioned and quiet. Carina feels incredibly out of place. She’s stumbling, and she can smell her own body odour. Her breath stinks and she really wouldn’t mind a shower.

  She passes some empty offices. Everything is clean and tidy, no clutter. No one actually works here. The building is listed as extra offices in case of overflow for the bigger branch a few blocks down, which is a real, bustling office. This is used for storage and for secrets.

  The inner door is at the back, and leads down to the basement. Once it was underground parking, but they’ve converted it to living quarters, heavily shielded and encrypted. It’s where all the planning happens, but little of the actual hacking occurs, for fear it could be traced. She opens the second door with the code and stumbles down the stairs. One last corridor. One last door.

  Barging in on them might be a bad idea, but they change the code here every twenty-four hours. Mark doesn’t have the next one because he’s gone. She rings the bell. They don’t answer, but they have to be there. Unless somehow they know Mark is dead, and they’ve flown the coop. Carina has only the vaguest idea of the people who are behind this door. All she knows for sure is that they must hate Sudice as much as she does.

  Ringing the doorbell again, she falls. She’s reached the end of her strength, and focuses her fading eyesight on the camera lens over the entrance.

  ‘I know you’re the Trust. The source sent me. I have the information you need to take down Sudice.’

  She faints.

  TWELVE

  ROZ

  The Luxe Hotel, Los Angeles, California, Pacifica

  Roz has no idea where Carina fucking Kearney has disappeared to.

  She hasn’t slept in eighteen hours. An entire team helps her, though Roz has very deliberately left Kim and Aliyah out of it. She’s been monitoring their implants, and so far neither of them appears to have reached out to Carina, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

  How is it that Carina has disappeared without a trace, when she looked so tragic and frail on the street? It’s embarrassing.

  She must have found a new identity, and it’d only take her putting her matted hair over her face to stop the cameras from identifying her features, if she hasn’t already gone to a flesh parlour.

  Roz switches the code circling her head like a swarm of insects, rubs her temples and releases more painkillers into her system. She’ll have to sleep and come back to it in the morning.

  It feels like defeat.

  Sitting down on the bed, Roz takes off her heels, peels off her clothes and lies back on the covers in her underwear, staring up at the ceiling.

  She found a little information in Mark’s files after she killed him. She pushes away the image of his lifeless eyes staring up at her as she rifled through his code and files. There’s no time for regret, even if Mark was once a good employee. A nice person. Too nice, in the end. Too concerned with morals, in a business where morals must be left at the door.

  She suspects Mark set the information up to dole out at different times, because doing it all at once would kill Carina. If Sudice catches her before it all releases, it’ll be much harder for Roz to extract. Very clever.

  Damn Mark Teague.

  He’s linked the five parts to Carina’s memories, and Roz thinks he’s used the same images she used in her own work. An extra little jab. She’s told Sudice to monitor implant data levels throughout Los Angeles. A spike in brainloading activity that high might show up on their systems. By now, though, Carina’s probably amended her implant code, rerouted it to ping from a different location.

  Idly, Roz draws up her files on Carina again. Opens her brain scans. Looks at all the dips and crevices of the woman’s brain. She remembers first studying it, back when Carina was only thirteen, young but not innocent. When Roz started seeing what memories the girl had lived already, she knew she could change Carina into someone stronger. Erase the pain the girl had internalized, protect her from more. Though the project had a different focus, in a weird way, she’d wanted to protect Carina, back then.

  How things change. Now all she wants to do is kill her.

  THIRTEEN

  ROZ

  THREE YEARS AGO

  Sudice headquarters, San Francisco, California, Pacifica

  Brain recording trials are about to begin. Project SynMaps has been resurrected.

  Roz feels a flutter of excitement, like a child on the first day of school. They’ve been preparing for this. Roz has worked so much overtime that HR keep threatening to lock her out of the building after 8 p.m. She hasn’t slept more than four hours a night, and most of that has been spent brainloading medical journals by the volume. She hasn’t gone on a single date, though she’d promised herself that this year she’d put herself out there more. Her entire life has been about these trials.

  She needs brain recording to work. It’s only the beginning, though the others don’t know that. If she can pull off her next goal, then her career is set. If anything goes wrong, she’s through.

  They all know what the SynMaps trials will be like. It won’t be easy, but they can’t flinch.

  The first round of volunteers is brought in. They have all signed the waiver forms. Roz and the others are not liable for anything that happens. Not that anyone would know – these people are as good as invisible.

  Roz can’t help but feel a little nervous. It won’t be pleasant, but her team shouldn’t be doing anything unduly dangerous, at least to start. There’s only so much that can be learned from AI humanoids. No matter how lifelike you make them, they’re not flesh and bone. They can never be as intricate a bio machine as the real thing. Cloning was outlawed long ago, and although Roz tried, Sudice has not been granted special dispensation in this case. So she found the next best thing. Risk using real humans and the government gives its blessing, if the people are deemed unimportant enough. Typical.

  There are four subjects to start with – one for each scientist. They each have a robot to assist them, and even though there’s one down in the lobby, Roz can’t get used to their blank, metallic faces and silver eyes. They are useful bodies for everyone’s virtual assistants to use. Roz was able to pull some strings from Sudice’s headquarters in China and convince them to send all the scientists the latest virtual assistants. Th
e AIs are widespread in Asia but haven’t made it over here, though it’s only a matter of time. They have more personalities than the operating systems run in the rudimentary robots here in Pacifica; Roz is growing to like Vera. Virtual assistants will make perfect helpers, she predicts. They don’t bicker. They don’t flirt. They organize your schedule, help point out your mistakes before you make them. Roz has no plans to give Vera up when SynMaps is over.

  The subjects – two men and two women – seem nervous and subdued. All are in peak physical health, ages ranging from twenty-five to thirty-four; a range of backgrounds; raised in different parts of Pacifica, with different income brackets.

  Today will be easy. They will map each of the subjects’ brains in even more depth than was done for the initial screenings. These will be the blueprints for her team. Soon they’ll know these people’s brains better than they know the palms of their own hands.

  It’s a long day. The subjects are antsy. Roz does not encourage the other scientists to use their real names. She doesn’t want them to bond – it could impact the data. They are called Subjects A, B, C and D. At some point she’s sure they’ll evolve nicknames, and she supposes she’ll allow it. Carina will stick by the rules, treating her subject like a chimp or a rat. It is her way.

  They’ll start simple: only recording a tiny aspect of the present memory in the laboratory, using a similar process to brainloading. Though people can take in hours of facts as they sleep, the information trickles in in such a way that not all of it is absorbed. Then the same information is sent over a few days, and gradually the brain takes in the information piecemeal. If the information was summarily brainloaded all at once, it could overwhelm the brain and cause seizures or aneurysms. It’s the same with memory recording, though at a much lower threshold.

  It’s like the brain only wants to remember so much, or only has so much bandwidth. Even those with eidetic or photographic memory can’t recall everything in as much detail as Sudice is trying to patent. This stage will prove useful. People never forgetting a moment. An eyewitness testimony infallible in court. No criminal able to escape their own memory.

  It’s still only the beginning.

  She watches her team perform their perfect ballet. The mapped brains float above the subjects’ heads, the neural dust scattered throughout their cortexes showing up as bright lights, like stars. All of them, except the robots, look up in wonder.

  The first day has gone well.

  Roz invites Carina for a drink. A chance to catch up out of the office. Carina agrees.

  They go to the exclusive Zenith club at the top of the TransAm Pyramid. Roz has been once before, just after she first moved to San Francisco, and enjoyed it. She’s always meant to go back, but there has never been time.

  The nice thing about hostess clubs is, yes, they’re more expensive, but you end up having a much better experience. The hosts and hostesses know that you either do not have friends or aren’t in the mood to interact with them that night. Sometimes you want guaranteed fun, to be coddled and pampered by strangers, and you’re willing to pay for it.

  Roz’s bonus has entered her account, and Carina has been working the same long, strenuous hours. She’s never mentioned other friends like former students from university. As far as Roz knows, Carina goes to the lab, goes home and comes back. They’re two peas in a pod.

  Carina and Roz part ways briefly. It’s been months since Roz has dolled herself up to go out, and she takes her time, choosing a red dress and applying her make-up with care, smoothing extra serum to erase the circles under her eyes, putting on ridiculously high heels she’ll regret halfway through the night. She examines herself critically. She could do with another trip to the flesh parlour once the trials are under way. The skin on her jaw is softening a little more than she’d like. But her eyes and forehead are still free of wrinkles, as smooth as a seventeen-year-old’s.

  Roz arrives at Zenith early, taking a table near the window, hiring a few hostesses for the evening to appear at their table once Carina arrives. Though this is pleasure, it’s business, too. This is an informal diagnostic, with hostesses around them to lessen the suspicion. She plans to probe Carina gently, see if there are any emotions breaking through from her own time as a subject in the lab. The faltering expression Carina wore just before she entered the lab the first time worries Roz. There shouldn’t have been any hesitation. Also, a week ago, Carina deviated from her home-lab-home routine and went to a Zeal lounge. That is also curious. She shouldn’t feel any desire for the drug.

  Roz was Carina’s mentor for years, and she made sure that aspects of the bond would stay strong in the girl’s memories. If anything goes wrong, Carina should hopefully come to Roz before anyone else at Sudice.

  The view from the sixty-eighth floor of the TransAm Pyramid is almost as good as the one from Sudice’s lab. The original TransAmerica building, the one that crumbled in the Great Quake of 2055, was only forty-eight floors, with the top floor a boring conference room, but since then they’ve rebuilt the iconic building larger and with modern materials. Before, the Crown Jewel of the TransAmerica Pyramid was blocked off, but now it’s suspended at the top of the steepled building, its harsh glare filtered through red-paned, unbreakable glass. The crimson gives the entire bar a warm, flattering glow.

  Roz stands holding her drink and looks down at San Francisco. The San Bruno Mountains, Treasure Island, the piers jutting into the glowing green water of the bay. The tops of the skyscrapers near the TransAm look almost dainty, their roofs topped with gardens, ponds in the middle glowing with algae. Several of them are greenhouse skyscrapers, filled with fruit trees, a different kind on each level, or loamy vegetable gardens, windows always cracked to release extra oxygen into the atmosphere. Sometimes, she can’t believe what a beautiful city San Francisco is.

  ‘Good evening,’ says a voice behind her.

  Roz turns to see Carina, dressed in a smart blue suit, the blazer unbuttoned, wearing a flowing, geometrically printed blouse and heels. Her hair is down in soft, blonde curls, and she looks utterly transformed from the focused, unsmiling scientist Roz sees every day.

  ‘You look great,’ Roz says.

  ‘Thank you. As do you.’ Carina produces a smile, and it’s just as plastic as the ones she tries on in the lab from time to time.

  Carina and Roz take their seats and the two hostesses arrive, glittering and model-perfect. They ask what Roz and Carina want and they scroll through the drinks menu on their implants. They both choose old-fashioned cocktails, made with synth alcohol. Roz goes for a Nikolaschka, with ersatz cognac, lemon, coffee and sugar. Carina chooses a Twentieth Century, with false gin, Kina Lillet, crème de cacao and lemon juice. The drinks arrive promptly, the hostesses delivering them with a smile. The hostesses access Roz’s and Carina’s public profiles, creating conversations from the interests they have listed upon arrival. Roz admires hostesses. They know so much about so many things, from hours and hours of speaking to people they might not necessarily find interesting. Yet you’d never know.

  If the government ever needs to recruit spies, they could do worse than looking right here at Zenith.

  Roz and Carina play along. Carina appears to be enjoying herself, and before long, they’re three cocktails in. But soon Roz sends the hostesses away with a generous tip. The ice has been cracked.

  As soon as the hostesses leave, Carina goes silent, looking down over San Francisco. Her face is still carefully blank, but Roz senses things going on beneath the surface. Roz hasn’t seen Carina in years before this project, and somehow she thought the girl would be . . . different. She can’t pinpoint how, but she has a strange sense of disappointment. It’s not an emotion she lets herself feel often.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ Roz asks.

  Carina gives her that empty smile. ‘Of course not. This is a lovely evening. Thank you for inviting me.’ Roz stops herself from tutting. Too robotic. She’s meant to be more convincing than that.

  ‘I
t’s nice to be away from the lab for an evening, sure enough,’ Roz says, taking another sip of her drink.

  ‘We’re on the cusp.’ Carina’s voice is distant.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘This is right before the project properly starts. We are about to pass the point of no return.’ Carina looks at her. She’s not blinking regularly enough. Another flaw – it makes other people nervous. Roz frowns. She’d noticed that when Carina was a teen, and thought she’d fixed it.

  Roz says nothing.

  ‘Does it bother you, what we’re likely to do to these subjects when we’re trying to find out how to record their memories? Do they really know what they’re in for?’ Carina’s head turns towards the bay as she takes another sip of her drink.

  She’s remembering, Roz thinks. She has to be.

  ‘It is regrettable that some aspects of the trials will be painful, but they have been well-briefed in what this will entail. They agreed.’ Roz pauses. ‘Does it bother you?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I feel like it should.’

  The first phase of SynMaps drifts between them, Roz remembering everything, Carina hopefully never thinking about it at all.

  ‘I’m grateful,’ Carina says, before Roz can come up with a response. ‘It’ll make it easier for me than, say, Dr Mata.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Roz says carefully. ‘I think for some of our team it’ll be difficult to treat the subjects objectively, especially as we spend more time with them. We’ve put measures in place so the others aren’t at risk of growing attached to their subjects.’ Another little pause. ‘I don’t expect it’ll be a problem for you.’

  Carina laughs and finishes her drink. ‘Yes. I’ve never suffered from an overabundance of interpersonal connections.’ She does not sound self-pitying. Simply factual.