386 days ago
The key rattled in the lock of the front door. Joanna awoke on the sofa with a start, and looked around in that special state of bewilderment reserved for the suddenly woken. Why was she on the sofa? What time is it? Where the bloody hell was Alex? What is that abominable shite on the TV? She glanced at her watch and was greeted with the revelation that it was just before 6am, which meant that the gaudy celebnews vomiting from the screen was Breakfast TV on BBC1. She was on the sofa, she remembered, because she had waited up for Alex to come home from what he had promised was going to be “a quiet one with some of the lads from work.” And that key in the lock was, presumably, Alex attempting to make a stealthy return from his sedate evening’s fun.
She heard the front door slowly open. A few moments later, it closed quietly. She waited until she heard the creak on the stairs and shouted “Alex? Is that you?” Judging the immediacy of the creaking’s cessation, it was. A croaking voice confirmed it; “You’re up early. Are you okay?”
The fug of her awakening was blasted clear by burning fury. She leapt up from the sofa and stormed through into the entry hall to see a dishevelled, bleary eyed, and unmistakably guilty looking husband half way up the stairs. “Oh I’m fine Alex, just fine. I thought I’d wait up for my husband to return. And here I am. Alex, just what fucking time do you call this?”
Alex winced at his wife’s raised voice. He walked back down the stairs to come and face her. “Jesus…look, Joanna I’m really sorry. I’m sorry, I just…look I was going to come home I really was. It’s…well…” he sighed as his thoughts tailed off, and as he reached her he tried to cover for the non-existence of his answer by enveloping her small frame in a hug. “I’m so sorry Joanna; it won’t happen again I promise.”
Joanna put up with the embrace for a few moments before shoving Alex back. He gave her the look of a freshly kicked puppy as she did so. “WHAT won’t happen again Alex? Where exactly the fuck have you BEEN? You didn’t even call, I’ve been worried sick!” And true enough, she had been. When he hadn’t returned by midnight, she’d assumed he’d gone onto a club to continue his quiet and refined evening out. When the clock struck one and he hadn’t returned, she had begun to fret for him. She hadn’t dozed off until well after 4, which was a testament to just how hard she’d been working over the previous few weeks, because by that point she’d convinced herself that he might be lying dead in a gutter or awake in some other woman (in which case, the former would very soon become true).
Alex, eyes cast downward in a gesture of supplication, offered no immediate answer. Indeed, he seemed to be lost for words. Joanne felt a sliver of ice cold fear stab through her stomach and into her heart. She thought that she recognised the guilt of a man caught cheating in his face, and she fought to control the renewed surge of anger before asking in a voice strained with tension “Were you with someone last night?”
His head snapped up at this, and his eyes blazed through the misty beginnings of teardrops. “No. Joanna, Jo no I’ve not…shit is that what you think?” He searched her drawn face for confirmation, and took her continued glare as such. “Jo, I swear to you on my life that I wasn’t with another woman last night. It’s not like that.” He paused, then added with a curl of his lip “It’s a long way from being like that.”
Joanna looked hard at her husband for a few moments more until she was convinced that his face contained no semblance of a lie. In fact, she realised, it contained more than a few clues to self loathing. Newly concerned, she drew closer to him. “Alex…baby, what happened?” she softly asked him.
Something in the gentleness of her tone connected directly with the hot shame that Alex had been trying to banish from his mind since waking up in a cold, dark cell in a police station. He felt his body crumple, and for just a moment he gave in to the despair and disgrace he felt as tears began to streak down his face.
“Oh baby…” and Joanne moved forward to embrace her husband. At this, Alex stiffened a little and controlled himself, putting an end to he always thought of as shameful mewling. Collecting his thoughts, he returned Joanna’s embrace.
“Jo, I’m sorry. I was stupid. Can we go and sit down please?” Without waiting for an answer, he took her by the hand and led her back through to the living room. He sat on the brown leather sofa and Joanna sat beside him. Alex took a deep breath. “I got arrested last night.” He tried to keep hold of Joanna’s hand, but she withdrew it sharply.
“You got arrested?” She was genuinely shocked. She knew Alex had a dangerous habit of letting his mouth say whatever it felt was funny without reference to his brain when he was drunk, but he also had enough sense to know when to shut the hell up if he was pushing someone too far. “What did you do? Did you get into a fight or…what?”
“I got caught in the men’s toilets with a gram of charlie.” Alex risked a glance at his wife. She was struck dumb in what would otherwise have been an amusingly “mouth hanging open” sort of a way before looking away from him. “It wasn’t even mine. Steve brought it, and I’d bought a line off of him so…look baby, I’m really sorry. I was pissed and I was stupid.” In a somewhat quieter yet unmistakably regretful tone, he unwisely added “I didn’t even get the line.”
(It would probably have been some consolation to Alex to know that Steve was not, in fact, in possession of “top class gear” but rather of some bastardised combination of a tiny amount of speed and a rather larger amount of baby laxative).
Fortunately for him, his wife was lost in her own world of astonishment. She was shaking her head, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Alex sat quietly next to her, waiting to see just how this was going to play out. He hoped it would proceed with the minimum of recriminations followed by an extended visit to bed for make-up sex and sleep (not necessarily in that order). His head was pounding and his brain had that “dipped in liquid nitrogen” feeling that accompanied the Tequila hangover. He understood that his wife was going to be upset by his night’s absence and the reason behind it. He just hoped that it would be the kind of sadness that would be expressed gently and with a minimum of shouting.
His hopes were then dashed at about 80 decibels.
“WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING YOU STUPID SHIT?!” The colour had drained from Joanna’s face as she yelled into Alex’s. “Arrested for taking drugs? Alex, you could lose your job. Your job Alex!” Alex resumed his downcast stance on the sofa and began muttering platitudes of an “I know, I’m stupid and you’re right” tenor. Alas for his aching head, these were as much use as a Noct Immigration Request. “What were you thinking? Were you even thinking? Alex, what if your company find out about this? If you have a criminal record you’ll get sacked, you know that.”
“Jo, please calm down. Please. Look, I got a caution and that’s it. They only kept me in for the night because I was so drunk. I think they thought they were doing me a favour; I was a bit of a state truth be told. I’m not going to get sacked over a caution. Christ, Andrea will probably be laughing about it when I go in tomorrow.” The seeds of his attempt at levity fell on predictably stony ground.
“Yeah, but it’s not as simple as that is it Alex? Anything could’ve happened because you wanted to get high. I can’t believe you’d be so stupid! I know you hate your job but are you trying to get sacked?”
“What? No! Jesus, I don’t want to lose my job. I’m not that stupid Jo, I know we’ve got a mortgage to pay. I know we’ve got J-Accounts payments to keep up. I know I need to keep working and anyway, work has been getting better recently. I told you about the Vault-Tec stuff I’m working on?”
Joanna recognised the attempt at distraction. “What’s that got to do with anything?” Alex continued to try and throw her off this particular scent and onto the one labelled “Bedtime and a shag. Okay, maybe not a shag but definitely bed. And some paracetamol.”
“Well for one thing it’s about doing something I feel good about myself for doing. I’ve spent my working life pushing back nocts to whatever godforsaken hellhole they’re trying to escape from. Vault-Tec wants to start employing a lot of noct workers and I’m heading up the team working with them for that. I’m going to be doing something good Jo, and for the first time in my life I’m enjoying my job.”
Joanna remained resolutely unimpressed. “So that’s why you went out and did something stupid was it? You’re having such a good time at work that you decided to jeopardise your happiness there? Well done Alex, smooth move. I know I’ve been complaining about you working late so much but I don’t think I wanted you to make sure you’d be stuck at home permanently.”
And with that, Joanna uncorked the argument genie that had attending pretty much every one of their spats over the last month. Alex’s justification that his long hours meant more money toward a J-Account and the greater likelihood that they would both enjoy a much longer and happier life together which would more than make up for this lost time…well, it had grown very thin very quickly to Joanna. Curiously, despite the fact that such quarrelling was clearly borne from Joanna’s increasing sense of isolation from her husband and her desperation to keep alive their love for one another, Alex usually managed to completely fail to see things from Joanna’s point of view.
As a matter of fact, these disagreements of theirs were currently few and far between, but every single one of them eventually wound it’s way to Alex and the hours he insisted he had to work “to make things better for us.”. It frustrated Joanna to the point of wanting to scream. She had tried explaining that she didn’t care about a brighter, cloned future. That she wanted to have a husband in the here and now. And, unspoken by her thus far, that she didn’t want to watch the love she had for him whither and die in a succession of lonely nights whilst he toiled away slamming doors shut in the desperate faces of noct immigrants. They had only been married for a few years, but over the last 8 months she had begun to worry immensely for her husband and his mental health. He spoke less and less about his job; she knew he hated it and knew that every day destroyed him a little more. She thought that maybe the sensitive and caring man that she knew Alex to be was more haunted by the implications of his work than he ever let on to anyone, including her. But he steadfastly insisted that he could handle whatever his firm threw at him, and took on extra projects happily, almost hungrily. It was as if he wanted to prove to someone that he could master any task he was set. And if that meant taking on the Government contracts for Immigration work, so be it. If he had to fill his J-Account with noct blood, he would do so. And that, she thought sadly, was crushing the life out of this vibrant and compassionate man. It was as if he was dying slowly before her very eyes and it was becoming unbearable for her because whenever she tried to help, he shut her out.
She had tried to say all of this, but truth be told she rarely pursued these disputes to their logical conclusion because Alex…well, he frightened her when they clashed over work. It wasn’t that he was violent, or that he turned his sharp tongue on her. It was, she thought, silly to be scared of him when he was in what he later always referred to as his “big gay sulks”. And if she hadn’t been in his presence whilst they were happening, she would probably have laughed at herself for feeling any fear of the smiling eyed man that she married. He just seemed to slam shut emotionally whenever the subject of the hours he was working came up. And whether she harangued or cajoled, he wouldn’t respond. He just sat there, seemingly at the centre of a gathering storm cloud that he could will into exploding at her if the mood took him. Unlike the battering sarcasm he usually mustered when angry, he became silent and sullen. The features of his face were as those of a fresh corpse somehow given life and looking mightily pissed off to be in that situation, and the only sign of even listening that he gave came in the form of a few clipped words. Alex had protested when she first brought up her disquiet at his bouts of solemn fury, hugging and pleading with her to understand that, no matter what, he would never raise his hands to her. And she knew that to be true, felt horrified at herself for suggesting it and hating herself for the pain she caused her love by doing so. But she couldn’t entirely shake off the sense of danger that he emanated at times like that. And not the good “all the girls love a man with a dark side” kind of danger either. More the “husband and wife found dead in murder-suicide” brand of menace, and she braced herself for it’s creeping arrival.
But it did not materialise. Maybe it was because Alex was tired. Maybe it was that he admitted defeat in the face of Joanna’s undeniably valid point that he was idiotic to jeopardise the chance to actually do some work that he believed in. Had she asked, he would have told her that it was because the tequila hangover really was that unbearable and he would’ve gladly suffered any indignity in exchange for being allowed to stumble into bed, and to hell with the shagging. Once she had finished yelling at him for that, he might have let slip that he had also looked over a terrible precipice of guilt as he realised just how distraught his wife, his wonderful wife, must’ve been last night and just how much of an arsehole he thought himself for scaring her. And to Alex, this was the first time that he knew he really had scared her. He was aware that she had hinted at a fear of him previously, but had quickly dismissed this entirely. He would have been surprised at the depth of that fear, because to Alex’s mind, things between them were as they always had been.
Instead, he looked up and at Joanna. In that moment all thoughts of fearfulness left Joanna’s mind, chased away by the heartbreaking sight of her husband looking tired, broken, and more vulnerable than she could ever remember seeing him. He tried to tell her “I love you”, but the words stuck in a throat cracked with emotion, and his words formed noiselessly in his mouth like the silent miaow of a cat. A cat that stank of piss.
“Oh baby…” she took Alex in her arms and he sagged forward, breathing the heavy breath of a man determined not to cry. “Baby baby shhhh come on…it’s okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you it’s…I was worried about you Alex. I thought you were hurt or something had happened or…”
“No…no, it’s okay.” He sat up from her embrace and attempted a sheepish smile. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for Jo. You never have to apologise to me, not about anything. It’s me, it’s…I was stupid. You’re right, I was an idiot and I just…I just want to try and forget it.”
“I understand baby, I understand.” Joanna paused, some words clearly just having been bitten back. Alex recognised that something had gone unsaid. Being Alex, he wanted it cleared up to avoid any ambiguity.
“What?”
“It’s nothing, don’t worry.”
“No, come on Jo. You can tell me. What is it?”
“Well…will you promise me something?”
“Baby, of course I will. Anything.”
“I want you to promise you’ll never take drugs again.”
There was an moment which lasted exactly enough time to become an awkward pause.
“What, any of them?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, come on Joanna! Look, I work hard and I need…”
Joanna decided to cut it off there. She was happy about their earlier escape from the choppy waters of dispute and had no wish to see her husband navigate them both back into a tidal wave. “Well, okay not weed.” Alex visibly untensed. “But no more class A stuff. No one gets arrested for weed any more but the other stuff…it frightens me Alex. It frightens me that we could lose everything over some fucking…powder.”
Alex was already nodding before she’d even finished. “Of course baby, anything you want. I promise. No more pills and powders.” He took her hands in his as he said this, and tried to smile a reassuring smile, kidding himself that his lip wasn’t wobbling as he did so.
Joanna embraced him once more and held him tightly. Alex hugged back and they sat like that for a few minutes. Joanne was just beginning to think to herself “This could be the watershed; this could be the point where 8 months of deepening gloom stop and I’ll get my laughing, charming husband back!” When she heard Alex snoring gently into her ear.
Friday 27 July 2007
Wednesday 25 July 2007
Army of Me: Fourth chapter
Now
As Alex sat in his room packing his few belongings, he might have taken the time to acknowledge just how grateful he was that his Re-Orientation was finally over had he not been so overcome with the excitement of seeing his wife again. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the excellent food and luxurious accommodation or course. As a matter of fact, the Vault was better than pretty much every 5 star hotel in the land. Unfortunately, much like 5 star hotels, the clientele consisted almost exclusively of braying, mindless wankers who equated money with personality.
The past three days had been a hell of social manners for Alex. Whilst he recognised that the majority of the 9 other people who had been Revived on the same day as him as being of a higher class and wealthier than him, he had the nagging feeling that this in itself wasn’t enough to keep at bay the increasingly violent fantasies where he re-enacted their deaths with himself as the killer. He’d actually had a telling off on the second day, something that hadn’t happened to him since High School. He’d been sat eating his evening meal and chatting with the one Revivee who’s small talk didn’t make him want to puke blood through his eyeballs in order to provide an excuse for leaving the table. Ruth was a small framed and nervous looking lady in her mid 40s who had won the lottery some 3 years ago. Apparently one of her sons couldn’t wait for the inheritance and smashed her head in with a brick, hiding the body in a brilliant attempt to ensure his mother didn’t get revived. A superb scheme which he was fiercely proud of, it entirely failed to accommodate for the fact that her weekly D-NMA updates combined with her original DNA sample taken after winning were quite sufficient to bring her back. All things considered, Ruth was coping pretty well with the circumstances of her death. They were talking of their respective murders when, unannounced and uninvited, a nationally syndicated Radio show host plonked himself down beside Alex, and rode roughshod over the hesitant but friendly conversation that had been taking place.
“What about these Noct cunts bombing Paris again eh? Nasty little darkies eh? Dunno why we haven’t just conquered the NCT and kept the little buggers to do all our dirty job, eh?” His habit of seeking confirmation for his thought might have been endearing in other circumstance. However, judging by the lack of pauses in his flow of bile, the questions were merely implied rather than actually providing an opportunity for anyone else to talk. “Stand to reason really eh? No point in us sitting about waiting to get blown up and revived if we can just wade in and kill the bastards eh? Still, I suppose it keeps the herd thinned down eh? Country is too damn crowded anyway, maybe we should be thanking them for getting rid of some of our dead weight eh?” With that, the unpleasantly flabby man chuckled to himself and spent the next minute or so cramming a delicious and painstakingly prepared meal directly into his cavernous fat head. He did so in silence, with the chronically shy Ruth reverting to the silence it had taken Alex a day to penetrate, and Alex himself dumbstruck with the sheer charisn’tma that the man exuded with his every word.
His meal half disposed of, the vile man (who, Alex thought, resembled a volcanic red boil just prior to being lanced) let out a hearty belch and continued his one man show on the evils of Nocts and people poorer than himself. Alex wasn’t sure how long it continued for, and he’d planned to keep his head down and finish his meal so that he could get the hell away from him. This happy thought was interrupted by a nudge in the ribs from his unwanted dining companion. Evidently he’d realised that neither of them were actually listening to him, and the man’s ego demanded that restitution be made immediately.
“So, what happened to you then eh? Big business are you? Heart attack? Stroke? Too much hard work and not enough play I’ll bet eh?” He laughed rather too loudly at his own feeble joke. Even some of the more snootily inclined shitbags that Alex has studiously avoided were rolling their eyes by this point. Alex reluctantly turned from his dinner to face the human pustule next to him. “My parents set up a J-Account for me. I was murdered a couple of days ago.” He hoped the starkness of this information might embarrass the fat man into silence. He may as well have hoped for world peace whilst he was at it; that would at least have been the more realistic of the two wishes.
“Yeah? One of the herd got through the gates then eh? What about you?” As Alex was apparently not wealthy enough for him to talk to, he turned his loathsome gaze onto Ruth, who quietly replied “I’m a lottery winner, and…” She got no further. “Fucking Christ, am I sitting in the cattle pen here? Ask me, they’re letting any Tom Dick and Larry buy a clone these days eh?” The man stood, fixing both with the same expression seen on countless millions whenever they’ve stood on an unexpected dog turd and moved to leave. Absurdly, despite the prospect of imminent relief from the man, Alex found that his wounded pride was not happy at letting this ambulatory wart on the anus of humanity have the last word. He stood and took hold of the man by his shoulder, at which the man stopped and turned to face Alex.
“Well? What do you want eh?”
“What about you then? What vital and life changing work is that you do that places you on a higher plane of existence to the rest of us? A pioneering heart surgeon? A great philanthropist beloved of rich and poor alike? Or are you…aren’t you…well, aren’t you just a radio show host? In fact, aren’t you just another D list celeb who thinks high ratings give your life some sort of validation?”
The barb did its job. Such was his indignation that the man practically squealed “My ratings are number 4 in the country!”
“Oh, my apologies; number 4 in the country. It must be absolutely great to know that when the history books are written, you’ll be in there. Because all history books, well they don’t want to know about who the best is, do they? They don’t waste their time looking at the leaders in their field. No, they look in painstaking detail at those people who don’t even make the top 3. Why, every history book that ever there was just loves to spend time examining the also-rans, don’t they?”
Judging by the rising anger in his eyes and pounding vein in his temple, Alex was really hitting home. He would have left it there, but he noticed Ruth stifle a smile and that was permission to carry on in his book.
“I mean, just who the fuck do you think you are exactly? Here was me thinking you were a 10th rate shock jock whose revival was probably necessitated because of a chemical addiction to lard, but no. Apparently you’re the arbiter of world events and the worthiness of people. We should be as supplicants to your bilious teat as you squeeze endless moronic lactations for our delight.” He was getting wordy and arrogant again, a sure sign that Alex was actually quite ridiculously angry himself. “Well I’ve got news for you my friend. You’re a nothing. A no-one. No-one like you and no-one cares. Your studio figure it’s easier for you to eat and drink yourself to death then revive you later because it’s probably far less dangerous to them than trying to snatch a sandwich from your festering gob and keep your heart from bursting. Which, when it does, will probably generate the destructive energy of a nuclear fucking warhead. I mean for fuck’s sake man, is this undulating pile of flesh really you at your physical peak? You actually chose to get revived into a whale? Incredible. Now take your grand opinion of yourself and” Alex leant forward until he was nose to nose with the man who now looked deflated and upset. It lent him the appearance of a sagging skin bin bag filled with mince. “Just. Fuck. Off. Okay, eh?”
Alex had always had a talent for linguistic cruelty, and it was hugely satisfying to deploy it on so deserving a target. The man had shakily left the dining area, and later that evening Alex was treated to an informal chat in his quarters about the manners one should employ when speaking to such excellent clients as Mr Christopher, and would Alex mind awfully if he would stay away from Mr Christopher for the remainder of their Re-Orientation?
But none of that occupied his mind, which was full to the brim of thoughts of Joanna. Notions of packing to leave barely fitted into the few remaining nooks and crannies of his psyche. He found himself both excited and nervous. As far as he could recall, he’d last seen his wife over a year ago. He’d left her with promises that, no, he wouldn’t be out for a big session and yes, he’d be back by 11.30. And that was that; his last words to her were a lie. A white lie to be sure and a lie that allowed him to have an excellent night out, but a lie all the same.
But she wouldn’t remember that (or at least, he hoped not). What had happened in that year? Was she pregnant, or did they already have a squalling infant as their own? Alex rather hoped not; he had never been any good with babies. He’d always just thought of them as one might think of a pet dog that gradually learns how to talk. So it was probably a safe bet that his life would be child-free for now. But about Joanna herself? The image of her, her bobbed blonde hair and pale blue eyes, her smooth olive skin and rounded face, her body both pert and comforting to him…that image loomed large in Alex’s mind. Despite his existential angst about almost every thought that ever occurred to him, he couldn’t help but smile a big dopey grin as he thought of her. Whatever had happened in the last year, Joanna would tell him. And then they could continue to live as happily ever after as one could in a society where a person could count themselves fortunate to have more than 10 days paid holiday a year.
Not even the thought of work dislodged his grin. After all, Alex reasoned, he had 2 weeks before he had to return to work. This was a luxury that almost made it worth being killed and cloned on an annual basis had he the money.
He changed into the clothes that the Vault had provided him for on his release. They hadn’t returned the clothes he had been wearing on his death. Presumably because they had the good taste not to give Alex the knife-shredded clothing and expect him to wear it (although he mused that it could just as easily have been because red didn’t go with their walls). So he dressed himself in a plain (but reassuringly expensive) navy blue shirt, some jeans (also unremarkable and also out of his normal price range) and a pair of achingly fashionable shoes. They were the sort of shoes that had he seen anyone else wearing, he would’ve been unable to tell if they were an ultra-hip trendsetter, or one of the gays.
His briefcase and wallet, apparently having been stolen and ransacked then disposed of by his murderer, were absent. His mobile unit was there however, but as promised it had no power source. He put it in the pocket of the new jacket provided for him, quite ruining the cut of it by doing so. He’d have to remember to stop by a cash point once he was out. At least whoever had killed him hadn’t stolen his mobile; without that, he’d be unable to get money or make any transactions at all. Nor would he be able to phone anyone, or access the net, or just watch TV. He thanked heaven for such small mercies, rather ironically being as he’d have preferred the larger mercy of not having been horribly murdered.
All suited and booted, Alex took once last look at what had been a luxuriously appointed cell, and then left. He made straight for the lift and pressed the button to call it up to him. Grin still intact, he got into the lift and went down to the ground floor. Awaiting him at the front desk was the power cell for his mobile, which he gratefully took and fitted.
He then looked around the cavernous reception hall to find Joanna. He saw the throngs of people around some of the more major celebs that had been in his re-orientation. Apparently they felt their “Next of Kin” included the kind of entourage that acted as a walking advertisement of their employers’ wealth. Between three of his fellow revivees, he counted almost 70 people laughing and preening round them. They reminded him of buzzing flies round a particularly odious turd.
They also reminded Alex that he was not yet with Joanna. He walked around the hall but couldn’t see her anywhere. He did bump into Ruth who was enjoying a somewhat tense re-union with her daughter. Apparently Ruth was now rather more suspicious of her children than she had been previously, so where there should have been unfettered joy there was instead stilted conversation and defensiveness on both sides. She noticed Alex, and gave him a shy smile which Alex returned. He walked over to her and asked if she had seen Joanna at all.
Ruth frowned; “My height, blonde hair and dark skin, blue eyes, slim build you say? No…sorry Alex. Is it your sister you’re meeting?” A less pre-occupied man might have noticed the slightly hopeful note in Ruth’s voice. He would certainly have noticed her disappointment when he answered that Joanna was his wife. “Well…I hope you find her soon Alex.” A pause arose and became slightly more awkward as Alex tried to think of a way to leave mother and daughter to their private reunion. “Could I take your number?” Alex blurted out. Ruth looked dumbstruck. Her daughter merely smiled a cynical smile. “I’d like to meet up again sometime. It was really nice to meet you Ruth. I sometimes think I would’ve gone mad in Re-orientation if I didn’t have someone normal to talk to.”
Ruth, a sadder and more suspicious woman than she had been prior to her murder, had to struggle rather hard to hide her delight at the request. In the three days she’d spent in the Vault, Alex was the only one who didn’t treat her with ill-disguised snobbery due to her humble background. Although everyone was pretty much forbidden to talk about their outside life in much detail throughout re-orientation, she’d let slip to Alex that she was single. Come to think of it she’d let it slip 8 or 9 times. He was unfailingly courteous to her, and endlessly scathing about their companions. It was a combination that she’d found endearing to say the least.
“Yes, of course; have you got your mobile?” Alex nodded, and so Ruth took hers (one of the newer Nokia models), and pressed a couple of buttons. Alex switched on his (a rather older and less fashionable Sony), and saw that Ruth’s number had been added. He also noticed DS Marsh’s number as having been added a few days prior.
Alex thanked Ruth, promising that his wife and himself would definitely call her and meet for dinner sometime soon. He left the faintly perplexed Ruth to enjoy her reunion, made all the less tense by her daughter having something to tease her mother about, and continued to look for Joanna.
2 hours later, the hall was empty of everyone except Alex. He still hadn’t found her. He tried calling both their home and her mobile. There was no answer from either. In each case, the answermachine clicked in; “Hi, this is Joanna. I’m not here right now, please leave a message.”
He had checked outside the Vault main entrance a few times to see if she was waiting for him outside, but no; nothing. All he saw were the trudging, hollow eyed people making their way from work to whichever pub was their favoured locale for some serious brain cell annihilation, and later those same people whooping and cheering their way home to a drunken, black slumber.
Alex made his way to the reception desk of the Vault and asked confirmation for the fifth time that his wife had been told of his Revival. The response was the same (and just as courteously delivered as it had been the first time). Alas, Alex wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the first class customer service he was being treated to. He asked the receptionist to call him a cab to take him home.
Upset and preoccupied, for the second time in just a few days, Alex failed completely to notice the sallow faced and scowling man who had been watching him since his first brief, hopeful excursion from the Vault to the street outside. As Alex climbed into his cab, the man sighed and extinguished his 30th cigarette of the day. With a mutter of “About fucking time…” he hailed a cab of his own. To the very great regret of anyone who enjoys potboilers, he didn’t say “Follow that cab”. There was no need; he already knew Alex’s address.
As Alex sat in his room packing his few belongings, he might have taken the time to acknowledge just how grateful he was that his Re-Orientation was finally over had he not been so overcome with the excitement of seeing his wife again. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the excellent food and luxurious accommodation or course. As a matter of fact, the Vault was better than pretty much every 5 star hotel in the land. Unfortunately, much like 5 star hotels, the clientele consisted almost exclusively of braying, mindless wankers who equated money with personality.
The past three days had been a hell of social manners for Alex. Whilst he recognised that the majority of the 9 other people who had been Revived on the same day as him as being of a higher class and wealthier than him, he had the nagging feeling that this in itself wasn’t enough to keep at bay the increasingly violent fantasies where he re-enacted their deaths with himself as the killer. He’d actually had a telling off on the second day, something that hadn’t happened to him since High School. He’d been sat eating his evening meal and chatting with the one Revivee who’s small talk didn’t make him want to puke blood through his eyeballs in order to provide an excuse for leaving the table. Ruth was a small framed and nervous looking lady in her mid 40s who had won the lottery some 3 years ago. Apparently one of her sons couldn’t wait for the inheritance and smashed her head in with a brick, hiding the body in a brilliant attempt to ensure his mother didn’t get revived. A superb scheme which he was fiercely proud of, it entirely failed to accommodate for the fact that her weekly D-NMA updates combined with her original DNA sample taken after winning were quite sufficient to bring her back. All things considered, Ruth was coping pretty well with the circumstances of her death. They were talking of their respective murders when, unannounced and uninvited, a nationally syndicated Radio show host plonked himself down beside Alex, and rode roughshod over the hesitant but friendly conversation that had been taking place.
“What about these Noct cunts bombing Paris again eh? Nasty little darkies eh? Dunno why we haven’t just conquered the NCT and kept the little buggers to do all our dirty job, eh?” His habit of seeking confirmation for his thought might have been endearing in other circumstance. However, judging by the lack of pauses in his flow of bile, the questions were merely implied rather than actually providing an opportunity for anyone else to talk. “Stand to reason really eh? No point in us sitting about waiting to get blown up and revived if we can just wade in and kill the bastards eh? Still, I suppose it keeps the herd thinned down eh? Country is too damn crowded anyway, maybe we should be thanking them for getting rid of some of our dead weight eh?” With that, the unpleasantly flabby man chuckled to himself and spent the next minute or so cramming a delicious and painstakingly prepared meal directly into his cavernous fat head. He did so in silence, with the chronically shy Ruth reverting to the silence it had taken Alex a day to penetrate, and Alex himself dumbstruck with the sheer charisn’tma that the man exuded with his every word.
His meal half disposed of, the vile man (who, Alex thought, resembled a volcanic red boil just prior to being lanced) let out a hearty belch and continued his one man show on the evils of Nocts and people poorer than himself. Alex wasn’t sure how long it continued for, and he’d planned to keep his head down and finish his meal so that he could get the hell away from him. This happy thought was interrupted by a nudge in the ribs from his unwanted dining companion. Evidently he’d realised that neither of them were actually listening to him, and the man’s ego demanded that restitution be made immediately.
“So, what happened to you then eh? Big business are you? Heart attack? Stroke? Too much hard work and not enough play I’ll bet eh?” He laughed rather too loudly at his own feeble joke. Even some of the more snootily inclined shitbags that Alex has studiously avoided were rolling their eyes by this point. Alex reluctantly turned from his dinner to face the human pustule next to him. “My parents set up a J-Account for me. I was murdered a couple of days ago.” He hoped the starkness of this information might embarrass the fat man into silence. He may as well have hoped for world peace whilst he was at it; that would at least have been the more realistic of the two wishes.
“Yeah? One of the herd got through the gates then eh? What about you?” As Alex was apparently not wealthy enough for him to talk to, he turned his loathsome gaze onto Ruth, who quietly replied “I’m a lottery winner, and…” She got no further. “Fucking Christ, am I sitting in the cattle pen here? Ask me, they’re letting any Tom Dick and Larry buy a clone these days eh?” The man stood, fixing both with the same expression seen on countless millions whenever they’ve stood on an unexpected dog turd and moved to leave. Absurdly, despite the prospect of imminent relief from the man, Alex found that his wounded pride was not happy at letting this ambulatory wart on the anus of humanity have the last word. He stood and took hold of the man by his shoulder, at which the man stopped and turned to face Alex.
“Well? What do you want eh?”
“What about you then? What vital and life changing work is that you do that places you on a higher plane of existence to the rest of us? A pioneering heart surgeon? A great philanthropist beloved of rich and poor alike? Or are you…aren’t you…well, aren’t you just a radio show host? In fact, aren’t you just another D list celeb who thinks high ratings give your life some sort of validation?”
The barb did its job. Such was his indignation that the man practically squealed “My ratings are number 4 in the country!”
“Oh, my apologies; number 4 in the country. It must be absolutely great to know that when the history books are written, you’ll be in there. Because all history books, well they don’t want to know about who the best is, do they? They don’t waste their time looking at the leaders in their field. No, they look in painstaking detail at those people who don’t even make the top 3. Why, every history book that ever there was just loves to spend time examining the also-rans, don’t they?”
Judging by the rising anger in his eyes and pounding vein in his temple, Alex was really hitting home. He would have left it there, but he noticed Ruth stifle a smile and that was permission to carry on in his book.
“I mean, just who the fuck do you think you are exactly? Here was me thinking you were a 10th rate shock jock whose revival was probably necessitated because of a chemical addiction to lard, but no. Apparently you’re the arbiter of world events and the worthiness of people. We should be as supplicants to your bilious teat as you squeeze endless moronic lactations for our delight.” He was getting wordy and arrogant again, a sure sign that Alex was actually quite ridiculously angry himself. “Well I’ve got news for you my friend. You’re a nothing. A no-one. No-one like you and no-one cares. Your studio figure it’s easier for you to eat and drink yourself to death then revive you later because it’s probably far less dangerous to them than trying to snatch a sandwich from your festering gob and keep your heart from bursting. Which, when it does, will probably generate the destructive energy of a nuclear fucking warhead. I mean for fuck’s sake man, is this undulating pile of flesh really you at your physical peak? You actually chose to get revived into a whale? Incredible. Now take your grand opinion of yourself and” Alex leant forward until he was nose to nose with the man who now looked deflated and upset. It lent him the appearance of a sagging skin bin bag filled with mince. “Just. Fuck. Off. Okay, eh?”
Alex had always had a talent for linguistic cruelty, and it was hugely satisfying to deploy it on so deserving a target. The man had shakily left the dining area, and later that evening Alex was treated to an informal chat in his quarters about the manners one should employ when speaking to such excellent clients as Mr Christopher, and would Alex mind awfully if he would stay away from Mr Christopher for the remainder of their Re-Orientation?
But none of that occupied his mind, which was full to the brim of thoughts of Joanna. Notions of packing to leave barely fitted into the few remaining nooks and crannies of his psyche. He found himself both excited and nervous. As far as he could recall, he’d last seen his wife over a year ago. He’d left her with promises that, no, he wouldn’t be out for a big session and yes, he’d be back by 11.30. And that was that; his last words to her were a lie. A white lie to be sure and a lie that allowed him to have an excellent night out, but a lie all the same.
But she wouldn’t remember that (or at least, he hoped not). What had happened in that year? Was she pregnant, or did they already have a squalling infant as their own? Alex rather hoped not; he had never been any good with babies. He’d always just thought of them as one might think of a pet dog that gradually learns how to talk. So it was probably a safe bet that his life would be child-free for now. But about Joanna herself? The image of her, her bobbed blonde hair and pale blue eyes, her smooth olive skin and rounded face, her body both pert and comforting to him…that image loomed large in Alex’s mind. Despite his existential angst about almost every thought that ever occurred to him, he couldn’t help but smile a big dopey grin as he thought of her. Whatever had happened in the last year, Joanna would tell him. And then they could continue to live as happily ever after as one could in a society where a person could count themselves fortunate to have more than 10 days paid holiday a year.
Not even the thought of work dislodged his grin. After all, Alex reasoned, he had 2 weeks before he had to return to work. This was a luxury that almost made it worth being killed and cloned on an annual basis had he the money.
He changed into the clothes that the Vault had provided him for on his release. They hadn’t returned the clothes he had been wearing on his death. Presumably because they had the good taste not to give Alex the knife-shredded clothing and expect him to wear it (although he mused that it could just as easily have been because red didn’t go with their walls). So he dressed himself in a plain (but reassuringly expensive) navy blue shirt, some jeans (also unremarkable and also out of his normal price range) and a pair of achingly fashionable shoes. They were the sort of shoes that had he seen anyone else wearing, he would’ve been unable to tell if they were an ultra-hip trendsetter, or one of the gays.
His briefcase and wallet, apparently having been stolen and ransacked then disposed of by his murderer, were absent. His mobile unit was there however, but as promised it had no power source. He put it in the pocket of the new jacket provided for him, quite ruining the cut of it by doing so. He’d have to remember to stop by a cash point once he was out. At least whoever had killed him hadn’t stolen his mobile; without that, he’d be unable to get money or make any transactions at all. Nor would he be able to phone anyone, or access the net, or just watch TV. He thanked heaven for such small mercies, rather ironically being as he’d have preferred the larger mercy of not having been horribly murdered.
All suited and booted, Alex took once last look at what had been a luxuriously appointed cell, and then left. He made straight for the lift and pressed the button to call it up to him. Grin still intact, he got into the lift and went down to the ground floor. Awaiting him at the front desk was the power cell for his mobile, which he gratefully took and fitted.
He then looked around the cavernous reception hall to find Joanna. He saw the throngs of people around some of the more major celebs that had been in his re-orientation. Apparently they felt their “Next of Kin” included the kind of entourage that acted as a walking advertisement of their employers’ wealth. Between three of his fellow revivees, he counted almost 70 people laughing and preening round them. They reminded him of buzzing flies round a particularly odious turd.
They also reminded Alex that he was not yet with Joanna. He walked around the hall but couldn’t see her anywhere. He did bump into Ruth who was enjoying a somewhat tense re-union with her daughter. Apparently Ruth was now rather more suspicious of her children than she had been previously, so where there should have been unfettered joy there was instead stilted conversation and defensiveness on both sides. She noticed Alex, and gave him a shy smile which Alex returned. He walked over to her and asked if she had seen Joanna at all.
Ruth frowned; “My height, blonde hair and dark skin, blue eyes, slim build you say? No…sorry Alex. Is it your sister you’re meeting?” A less pre-occupied man might have noticed the slightly hopeful note in Ruth’s voice. He would certainly have noticed her disappointment when he answered that Joanna was his wife. “Well…I hope you find her soon Alex.” A pause arose and became slightly more awkward as Alex tried to think of a way to leave mother and daughter to their private reunion. “Could I take your number?” Alex blurted out. Ruth looked dumbstruck. Her daughter merely smiled a cynical smile. “I’d like to meet up again sometime. It was really nice to meet you Ruth. I sometimes think I would’ve gone mad in Re-orientation if I didn’t have someone normal to talk to.”
Ruth, a sadder and more suspicious woman than she had been prior to her murder, had to struggle rather hard to hide her delight at the request. In the three days she’d spent in the Vault, Alex was the only one who didn’t treat her with ill-disguised snobbery due to her humble background. Although everyone was pretty much forbidden to talk about their outside life in much detail throughout re-orientation, she’d let slip to Alex that she was single. Come to think of it she’d let it slip 8 or 9 times. He was unfailingly courteous to her, and endlessly scathing about their companions. It was a combination that she’d found endearing to say the least.
“Yes, of course; have you got your mobile?” Alex nodded, and so Ruth took hers (one of the newer Nokia models), and pressed a couple of buttons. Alex switched on his (a rather older and less fashionable Sony), and saw that Ruth’s number had been added. He also noticed DS Marsh’s number as having been added a few days prior.
Alex thanked Ruth, promising that his wife and himself would definitely call her and meet for dinner sometime soon. He left the faintly perplexed Ruth to enjoy her reunion, made all the less tense by her daughter having something to tease her mother about, and continued to look for Joanna.
2 hours later, the hall was empty of everyone except Alex. He still hadn’t found her. He tried calling both their home and her mobile. There was no answer from either. In each case, the answermachine clicked in; “Hi, this is Joanna. I’m not here right now, please leave a message.”
He had checked outside the Vault main entrance a few times to see if she was waiting for him outside, but no; nothing. All he saw were the trudging, hollow eyed people making their way from work to whichever pub was their favoured locale for some serious brain cell annihilation, and later those same people whooping and cheering their way home to a drunken, black slumber.
Alex made his way to the reception desk of the Vault and asked confirmation for the fifth time that his wife had been told of his Revival. The response was the same (and just as courteously delivered as it had been the first time). Alas, Alex wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the first class customer service he was being treated to. He asked the receptionist to call him a cab to take him home.
Upset and preoccupied, for the second time in just a few days, Alex failed completely to notice the sallow faced and scowling man who had been watching him since his first brief, hopeful excursion from the Vault to the street outside. As Alex climbed into his cab, the man sighed and extinguished his 30th cigarette of the day. With a mutter of “About fucking time…” he hailed a cab of his own. To the very great regret of anyone who enjoys potboilers, he didn’t say “Follow that cab”. There was no need; he already knew Alex’s address.
Army of Me:Third chapter
Re-Orientation Schedule for Mr Alexander John Atkinson
Welcome, Alexander, to your new life!
Here at Vault-Tec Ltd, we pride ourselves on a thorough and professional service that goes beyond mere cloning. We aim to provide each one of our clients with a full and personalised three day package which will assist you in your re-integration back into the society of your friends and family.
Over the next three days, you will enjoy a series of lectures and activities designed to fully re-orientate yourself back into the life you lead prior to your Revival, as well as inform you about cloning specific issues that you might like to know more about.
During this time, you’ll be housed in the Re-Orientation section of the London Vault, situated right here on The Isle of Dogs. You’ll find that your quarters are luxuriously appointed, and your meals will be of the highest standard. But don’t worry about the cost! Your J-Account has taken care of all of that!
Your first meal will be at 7pm this evening. Please note that all meals are carefully selected to provide the correct levels of nutrients for the recently revived. We have also taken every care to match the meals to your individual tastes.
Please take the time to look through your schedule. We strive to provide all the information that we believe you will need, but if there is anything missing from it then please don’t hesitate to let us know, and every effort will be made to accommodate you. Please also refer to the map of the facilities you will be using during your stay with us.
So then Alexander, just relax and enjoy your stay with us. This first evening will your own. You’ll note that there is no Screen in your room; this is so that you’re not overloaded with any information about the 384 days that have elapsed since your last Memory Specific DNA (D-NAM) update. Rest assured that all the information you need will be provided over the coming days. We’ve provided a number of books for your enjoyment; if you don’t find anything to your liking, please don’t hesitate to use the intercom and ask for the use of our well stocked library. Your Multimedia Unit will be returned to you upon your release.
Regards,
Matthew Moore
Head of Vault-Tec Revivals (London)
Day 1
0655: Alarm
0700: Breakfast in bed - Smoked Salmon and scrambled eggs, wholemeal toast, Olive oil spread, Darjeeling tea.
0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.
0800: Lecture #1 – The Legalities of Your Revival
This lecture will address the more immediate questions that you may have concerning the aftermath of your revival. Topics covered will include Employment Law (specifically the 2 week “grace” period following your Revival which requires employers to hold open your post for 14 days should you wish to return to your job), Probate and the validity of your will (you will be given advice on the new will that you are required to draft), as well as general matters such as your Death Certificate and new National Insurance Number.
We request that you do not discuss your recent memories with fellow revivees. Staff will be enforcing this request.
Please note that there will be a break for refreshments at 1030.
Lecturer: Jon Holyoak Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
1130: Lecture 1 Q&A Session
1200: Lunch – Lunch will be served in your quarters. There will be a starter of Tomato Soup and wholemeal roll. The main course will be Chicken in a Balsamic jus with steamed vegetables. Dessert will be Fruit cocktail. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.
1300: Lecture #2 – Recent History
This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the first of three lectures. In this lecture, we will look specifically at events outside of The United Kingdom in the 384 days since your update. Please note that this lecture covers both events in The Cloned Territories (CTs) and Non Cloned Territories (NCTs).
Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room
1430: Refreshment break. Please note that you are permitted to discuss recent memories pertaining to the previous lecture with your fellow Revivees.
1445: Lecture #3 – Faith and Revival
As an Atheist you may be wondering just how the world’s religions view you now that you have been revived. This lecture will discuss the attitudes of all major faiths towards the Revived. You will be happy to learn that, by and large, all faiths have shown great respect and tolerance toward the Revived. It will also discuss the impact of cloning upon faith, from the rules excluding the Revived from the Catholic Priesthood, to the enabling of a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestine Allied Territories.
Please note that this lecture will not discuss the beliefs and activities of The Church Of The Immortal Soul. This topic will be discussed in a later lecture.
Lecturer: Dr Clive Runcie Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
1600: Lecture 3 Q&A Session
1630: Lecture # 4 – A Background to Cloning and Finance
This short lecture will discuss the setup of your new J-Account. It will also provide some history behind Cloning, the finance of cloning (such as how the name “ J-Account” legitimised the previously used colloquialism, “Joanne May Account” used by the major banking corporations), and a brief audit of your previous J-Account.
Lecturer: Andrew Powell Location: Your room
1700: End of days lectures. You will have an hour to rest from the day’s activities. During this hour you will have access to the Leisure floor of the Vault, located on floor 38.
1800: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Grilled goat’s cheese with Mediterranean Vegetables. The main course will be Venison Forestier with Mustard Mashed Potatoes and steamed Green Beans. Dessert will be a selection of cheeses from our board. Coffee to follow dessert.
1930: You will have 2 and a half hours in which to make use of our Leisure facilities.
2200: We request that you return to your room to prepare for bed. Please note that all revivees must return to their own rooms .
2230: Lights out.
Day 2
0655: Alarm
0700: Breakfast in bed – Choice of Cereals, wholemeal toast, Olive oil spread, Darjeeling tea.
0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.
0800: Lecture #1 – Cloning and Crime
This lecture will look at the distinct strand of jurisprudence concerning what has come to be known as “Cloning Crime”. We will discuss the main cloning crimes; destruction of client DNA and Gene Splicing. In addition, we shall also consider the penalties for Cloning Crimes (deportation to an NCT-located Penal colony being the most common),the use of cloning as a judicial tool (primarily in the Revival of witnesses to a Capital Crime), as well as some of the limitations on the cloning process (such as the impossibility of cloning from dead tissue)
Please note that there will be a break for refreshments at 1000.
Lecturer: Prof Robert Sayer Location: The Huxley Lecture Theatre
1030: Lecture 1 Q&A Session
1100: Lecture #2 – Recent History
This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the second of three lectures. In this lecture, we will look specifically at events within The United Kingdom in the 384 days since your update. The focus will be on any major social and political changes, though we shall also discuss any matters relating specifically to you, your career, and your social life.
Please note that after this lecture, we will be notifying your next of kin of the end date and time of your Re-Orientation. If you wish, we will also pass on any messages that you may wish to give to your loved ones in advance of your release from The Vault.
Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room
1300: Lunch – Lunch will be served in the dining hall. There will be a starter of Shredded Aromatic Duck. The main course will be Penne Arabiatta. Dessert will be steamed Toffee Pudding. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.
1400: Lecture #3 – The Church of the Immortal Soul
Although this is your first Revival, you will doubtless have heard of the activities of The Church of The Immortal Soul. The lecture will examine the background to this cult, from their initial formation by an inter-faith group of clerics unhappy with their respective Church’s stance on cloning, to their spread throughout both CT and NCT alike, and finally to their current status as a banned organisation in CT.
We will also be discussing simple and affordable safety measures that you can take to avoid the unwelcome attentions of these fanatics. Whilst it is only the more extreme members of “The Immortals” who have murdered or attempted to murder Revivees in recent years, their prejudice against Revivees has regrettably infected the public domain.
This lecture will end with a Q&A session with a former Immortal, and for your convenience and safety we will also be providing you with a list of suspected Immortals in your local area.
Lecturer: Jamie Bell Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
1600: Refreshment break. Please note that you are permitted to talk freely with your fellow Revivees.
1630: Tour of Vault Facilities
Your day will end with a full tour of the Vault facilities. You will be shown the research labs where the D-NAM and DNA are combined prior to Revival, and taken round the many offices which comprise the bulk of the Vault facility and where our Corporate Division does most of it’s work. The tour will climax with a visit to the Underground Storage Chambers. Here you will be afforded an unparalleled opportunity to look at the chambers from whence you so recently came.
The chambers, all heavily fortified after the Indian and Pakistani launched their joint nuclear attack on Tokyo and Osaka in an attempt to force their way onto the CT Council of Nations, are rarely seen by the general public. Even media access has been halted since the attempted assault on the Manhattan Island Vault by a cell of Immortals. Once you’ve gone through the security screening, you will be rewarded with an experience that few can ever hope to see; you will witness the Revival of one of our clients!
We will also discuss some of the science behind cloning as well as some of it’s benefits and limitations (for example, the impossibility of cloning from dead tissue).
The tour will be conducted by Dr Roberta Wilson.
1800: End of days lectures. You will have an hour to rest from the day’s activities. During this hour you will have access to the Leisure floor of the Vault, located on floor 38.
1900: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Leek and Potato soup. The main course will be Monkfish served with seasonal vegetables. Dessert will be tiramisu. Coffee to follow dessert.
2030: You will have 2 hours in which to make use of our Leisure facilities.
2230: We request that you return to your room to prepare for bed. Please note once more that all revivees must return to their own rooms .
2300: Lights out.
Day 3
0655: Alarm
0700: Breakfast in bed – Full English Breakfast, wholemeal toast, butter, Darjeeling tea.
0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.
0800: Lecture #1 – NCT Relations
This lecture will address the social anxiety that attended the split in the United Nations between Cloned and Non Cloned Territories. It will examine some of the reasons behind the withholding of Vault Technology from NCT (made up of the entirety of the African, South American, and Central American continental nations plus Asia with the exceptions of the Russian Free Trade State and China) and how the subsequent series of CT-NCT border wars grew into the Nuclear devastation that was unleashed upon Japan by two NCT nations.
The lecture will also look at current CT attitudes towards NCT and its citizens. Whilst the various CT Immigration laws have removed almost all contact between CT and NCT peoples, this has not stopped a uniformly anti-NCT attitude becoming prevalent among the CT citizens (for example, the growth in popularity of the derogatory name for NCT citizens, Nocts, across CT).
Lecturer: Dr Phillip Naut Location: Huxley Lecture Theatre
1000: Refreshment break
1030: Lecture 1 Q&A Session
1100: Lecture #2 – Recent History
This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the third of three lectures. In this lecture, we will discuss any matters that you are curious about that have arisen from the previous lectures. We will also provide an inventory of items on your person prior to your Revival and would be grateful if you could confirm its accuracy. These items will be returned to you at the end of your Re-Orientation.
Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room
1230: Lunch – Lunch will be served in the dining hall. There will be a starter of Baked Feta and Pita bread. The main course will be cold roast meats with potato salad and crusty bread. Dessert will be a selection of Ice Cream. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.
1330: Lecture #3 – Politics and Society in the CT
This lecture will detail the political and social background to the creation of the CT. It will discuss the changes in the political landscape as well as the more solid social foundations that cloning has enabled. In particular, we will examine the CT Council, universally recognised as the finest system of Government in the long history of humanity.
We will examine the effect that cloning has had on our armed services and the laws surrounding cloning of military and certain civilian personnel and conditions for their revival (which are, broadly speaking, only activated if the person is Killed In Action).
As you have a career in Immigration Law, we will also spend the final hour with you in a 121 setting whereupon we will endeavour to update you as to any legislative and procedural changes that may affect your work. Please note that this 121 will be preceded by a refreshment break
Lecturer: David Carlton Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
121 Session: Derek Nairn Location: Your room
1630: Lecture 3 Q&A Session
1730: All items confirmed as yours earlier today will be returned to you. You will be afforded the opportunity to pack and prepare for your release this evening. Your Multimedia Unit will also be returned, although please note that its power supply will be returned to you upon your release.
1800: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Prawn Cocktail. The main course will be Medallions of Beef in a Red wine sauce with Creamed Sweet Potato. Dessert will be a selection of cheeses from our board. Coffee to follow dessert.
1900: Lecture # 4 – General Q&A
This short Q&A session will provide you with the opportunity to ask any other questions that have arisen over the previous three days. Should you have any questions outstanding at the end of the session, please feel free to stay and talk to our Re-Orientation staff.
Lecturer: All Re-Orientation Staff Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
2000: Please return to your room and collect your belongings. From there you will be escorted to the main entrance hall. Your Multi-Media Unit power source will be returned, and your next of kin will be there to greet you.
Congratulations Alexander Atkinson! You are ready to begin life anew!
Welcome, Alexander, to your new life!
Here at Vault-Tec Ltd, we pride ourselves on a thorough and professional service that goes beyond mere cloning. We aim to provide each one of our clients with a full and personalised three day package which will assist you in your re-integration back into the society of your friends and family.
Over the next three days, you will enjoy a series of lectures and activities designed to fully re-orientate yourself back into the life you lead prior to your Revival, as well as inform you about cloning specific issues that you might like to know more about.
During this time, you’ll be housed in the Re-Orientation section of the London Vault, situated right here on The Isle of Dogs. You’ll find that your quarters are luxuriously appointed, and your meals will be of the highest standard. But don’t worry about the cost! Your J-Account has taken care of all of that!
Your first meal will be at 7pm this evening. Please note that all meals are carefully selected to provide the correct levels of nutrients for the recently revived. We have also taken every care to match the meals to your individual tastes.
Please take the time to look through your schedule. We strive to provide all the information that we believe you will need, but if there is anything missing from it then please don’t hesitate to let us know, and every effort will be made to accommodate you. Please also refer to the map of the facilities you will be using during your stay with us.
So then Alexander, just relax and enjoy your stay with us. This first evening will your own. You’ll note that there is no Screen in your room; this is so that you’re not overloaded with any information about the 384 days that have elapsed since your last Memory Specific DNA (D-NAM) update. Rest assured that all the information you need will be provided over the coming days. We’ve provided a number of books for your enjoyment; if you don’t find anything to your liking, please don’t hesitate to use the intercom and ask for the use of our well stocked library. Your Multimedia Unit will be returned to you upon your release.
Regards,
Matthew Moore
Head of Vault-Tec Revivals (London)
Day 1
0655: Alarm
0700: Breakfast in bed - Smoked Salmon and scrambled eggs, wholemeal toast, Olive oil spread, Darjeeling tea.
0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.
0800: Lecture #1 – The Legalities of Your Revival
This lecture will address the more immediate questions that you may have concerning the aftermath of your revival. Topics covered will include Employment Law (specifically the 2 week “grace” period following your Revival which requires employers to hold open your post for 14 days should you wish to return to your job), Probate and the validity of your will (you will be given advice on the new will that you are required to draft), as well as general matters such as your Death Certificate and new National Insurance Number.
We request that you do not discuss your recent memories with fellow revivees. Staff will be enforcing this request.
Please note that there will be a break for refreshments at 1030.
Lecturer: Jon Holyoak Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
1130: Lecture 1 Q&A Session
1200: Lunch – Lunch will be served in your quarters. There will be a starter of Tomato Soup and wholemeal roll. The main course will be Chicken in a Balsamic jus with steamed vegetables. Dessert will be Fruit cocktail. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.
1300: Lecture #2 – Recent History
This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the first of three lectures. In this lecture, we will look specifically at events outside of The United Kingdom in the 384 days since your update. Please note that this lecture covers both events in The Cloned Territories (CTs) and Non Cloned Territories (NCTs).
Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room
1430: Refreshment break. Please note that you are permitted to discuss recent memories pertaining to the previous lecture with your fellow Revivees.
1445: Lecture #3 – Faith and Revival
As an Atheist you may be wondering just how the world’s religions view you now that you have been revived. This lecture will discuss the attitudes of all major faiths towards the Revived. You will be happy to learn that, by and large, all faiths have shown great respect and tolerance toward the Revived. It will also discuss the impact of cloning upon faith, from the rules excluding the Revived from the Catholic Priesthood, to the enabling of a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestine Allied Territories.
Please note that this lecture will not discuss the beliefs and activities of The Church Of The Immortal Soul. This topic will be discussed in a later lecture.
Lecturer: Dr Clive Runcie Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
1600: Lecture 3 Q&A Session
1630: Lecture # 4 – A Background to Cloning and Finance
This short lecture will discuss the setup of your new J-Account. It will also provide some history behind Cloning, the finance of cloning (such as how the name “ J-Account” legitimised the previously used colloquialism, “Joanne May Account” used by the major banking corporations), and a brief audit of your previous J-Account.
Lecturer: Andrew Powell Location: Your room
1700: End of days lectures. You will have an hour to rest from the day’s activities. During this hour you will have access to the Leisure floor of the Vault, located on floor 38.
1800: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Grilled goat’s cheese with Mediterranean Vegetables. The main course will be Venison Forestier with Mustard Mashed Potatoes and steamed Green Beans. Dessert will be a selection of cheeses from our board. Coffee to follow dessert.
1930: You will have 2 and a half hours in which to make use of our Leisure facilities.
2200: We request that you return to your room to prepare for bed. Please note that all revivees must return to their own rooms .
2230: Lights out.
Day 2
0655: Alarm
0700: Breakfast in bed – Choice of Cereals, wholemeal toast, Olive oil spread, Darjeeling tea.
0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.
0800: Lecture #1 – Cloning and Crime
This lecture will look at the distinct strand of jurisprudence concerning what has come to be known as “Cloning Crime”. We will discuss the main cloning crimes; destruction of client DNA and Gene Splicing. In addition, we shall also consider the penalties for Cloning Crimes (deportation to an NCT-located Penal colony being the most common),the use of cloning as a judicial tool (primarily in the Revival of witnesses to a Capital Crime), as well as some of the limitations on the cloning process (such as the impossibility of cloning from dead tissue)
Please note that there will be a break for refreshments at 1000.
Lecturer: Prof Robert Sayer Location: The Huxley Lecture Theatre
1030: Lecture 1 Q&A Session
1100: Lecture #2 – Recent History
This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the second of three lectures. In this lecture, we will look specifically at events within The United Kingdom in the 384 days since your update. The focus will be on any major social and political changes, though we shall also discuss any matters relating specifically to you, your career, and your social life.
Please note that after this lecture, we will be notifying your next of kin of the end date and time of your Re-Orientation. If you wish, we will also pass on any messages that you may wish to give to your loved ones in advance of your release from The Vault.
Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room
1300: Lunch – Lunch will be served in the dining hall. There will be a starter of Shredded Aromatic Duck. The main course will be Penne Arabiatta. Dessert will be steamed Toffee Pudding. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.
1400: Lecture #3 – The Church of the Immortal Soul
Although this is your first Revival, you will doubtless have heard of the activities of The Church of The Immortal Soul. The lecture will examine the background to this cult, from their initial formation by an inter-faith group of clerics unhappy with their respective Church’s stance on cloning, to their spread throughout both CT and NCT alike, and finally to their current status as a banned organisation in CT.
We will also be discussing simple and affordable safety measures that you can take to avoid the unwelcome attentions of these fanatics. Whilst it is only the more extreme members of “The Immortals” who have murdered or attempted to murder Revivees in recent years, their prejudice against Revivees has regrettably infected the public domain.
This lecture will end with a Q&A session with a former Immortal, and for your convenience and safety we will also be providing you with a list of suspected Immortals in your local area.
Lecturer: Jamie Bell Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
1600: Refreshment break. Please note that you are permitted to talk freely with your fellow Revivees.
1630: Tour of Vault Facilities
Your day will end with a full tour of the Vault facilities. You will be shown the research labs where the D-NAM and DNA are combined prior to Revival, and taken round the many offices which comprise the bulk of the Vault facility and where our Corporate Division does most of it’s work. The tour will climax with a visit to the Underground Storage Chambers. Here you will be afforded an unparalleled opportunity to look at the chambers from whence you so recently came.
The chambers, all heavily fortified after the Indian and Pakistani launched their joint nuclear attack on Tokyo and Osaka in an attempt to force their way onto the CT Council of Nations, are rarely seen by the general public. Even media access has been halted since the attempted assault on the Manhattan Island Vault by a cell of Immortals. Once you’ve gone through the security screening, you will be rewarded with an experience that few can ever hope to see; you will witness the Revival of one of our clients!
We will also discuss some of the science behind cloning as well as some of it’s benefits and limitations (for example, the impossibility of cloning from dead tissue).
The tour will be conducted by Dr Roberta Wilson.
1800: End of days lectures. You will have an hour to rest from the day’s activities. During this hour you will have access to the Leisure floor of the Vault, located on floor 38.
1900: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Leek and Potato soup. The main course will be Monkfish served with seasonal vegetables. Dessert will be tiramisu. Coffee to follow dessert.
2030: You will have 2 hours in which to make use of our Leisure facilities.
2230: We request that you return to your room to prepare for bed. Please note once more that all revivees must return to their own rooms .
2300: Lights out.
Day 3
0655: Alarm
0700: Breakfast in bed – Full English Breakfast, wholemeal toast, butter, Darjeeling tea.
0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.
0800: Lecture #1 – NCT Relations
This lecture will address the social anxiety that attended the split in the United Nations between Cloned and Non Cloned Territories. It will examine some of the reasons behind the withholding of Vault Technology from NCT (made up of the entirety of the African, South American, and Central American continental nations plus Asia with the exceptions of the Russian Free Trade State and China) and how the subsequent series of CT-NCT border wars grew into the Nuclear devastation that was unleashed upon Japan by two NCT nations.
The lecture will also look at current CT attitudes towards NCT and its citizens. Whilst the various CT Immigration laws have removed almost all contact between CT and NCT peoples, this has not stopped a uniformly anti-NCT attitude becoming prevalent among the CT citizens (for example, the growth in popularity of the derogatory name for NCT citizens, Nocts, across CT).
Lecturer: Dr Phillip Naut Location: Huxley Lecture Theatre
1000: Refreshment break
1030: Lecture 1 Q&A Session
1100: Lecture #2 – Recent History
This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the third of three lectures. In this lecture, we will discuss any matters that you are curious about that have arisen from the previous lectures. We will also provide an inventory of items on your person prior to your Revival and would be grateful if you could confirm its accuracy. These items will be returned to you at the end of your Re-Orientation.
Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room
1230: Lunch – Lunch will be served in the dining hall. There will be a starter of Baked Feta and Pita bread. The main course will be cold roast meats with potato salad and crusty bread. Dessert will be a selection of Ice Cream. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.
1330: Lecture #3 – Politics and Society in the CT
This lecture will detail the political and social background to the creation of the CT. It will discuss the changes in the political landscape as well as the more solid social foundations that cloning has enabled. In particular, we will examine the CT Council, universally recognised as the finest system of Government in the long history of humanity.
We will examine the effect that cloning has had on our armed services and the laws surrounding cloning of military and certain civilian personnel and conditions for their revival (which are, broadly speaking, only activated if the person is Killed In Action).
As you have a career in Immigration Law, we will also spend the final hour with you in a 121 setting whereupon we will endeavour to update you as to any legislative and procedural changes that may affect your work. Please note that this 121 will be preceded by a refreshment break
Lecturer: David Carlton Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
121 Session: Derek Nairn Location: Your room
1630: Lecture 3 Q&A Session
1730: All items confirmed as yours earlier today will be returned to you. You will be afforded the opportunity to pack and prepare for your release this evening. Your Multimedia Unit will also be returned, although please note that its power supply will be returned to you upon your release.
1800: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Prawn Cocktail. The main course will be Medallions of Beef in a Red wine sauce with Creamed Sweet Potato. Dessert will be a selection of cheeses from our board. Coffee to follow dessert.
1900: Lecture # 4 – General Q&A
This short Q&A session will provide you with the opportunity to ask any other questions that have arisen over the previous three days. Should you have any questions outstanding at the end of the session, please feel free to stay and talk to our Re-Orientation staff.
Lecturer: All Re-Orientation Staff Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall
2000: Please return to your room and collect your belongings. From there you will be escorted to the main entrance hall. Your Multi-Media Unit power source will be returned, and your next of kin will be there to greet you.
Congratulations Alexander Atkinson! You are ready to begin life anew!
Army of Me:Second chapter
Now
As he slowly made his way back toward consciousness, Alex became aware of a few things. Firstly, that he was not in his own bed. Secondly, that wherever he was, it was bloody cold. Thirdly, that he was naked. And finally, there were other voices, at least one of which was a woman, and 2 distinct male voices. Both men sounded like Londoners, with a rough Middle class twang to one of them. The other sounded rather more hesitant, leaping on the comments of the lead man as if he didn’t have the confidence to make any of his own. The woman’s voice sounded cold and clipped, businesslike. Alex became aware that if, as he was beginning to suspect, he was waking up after a serious drinking session, then he had possibly spent his money on an unremembered 3-way with a hard-nosed whore and 2 strangers. It was time to take a deep breath (which turned out to be a bad idea as he inhaled an exhilarating mix of stale cigarette smoke and antiseptic), open his eyes, and prepare the excuses. Longer term, it was probably also a good time to cut back on the tequila.
Alex hesitantly opened his eyes. At first he could see nothing; the lights were just too bright, and he let out an involuntary gasp as he quickly clamped his eyes shut again. That little gasp was enough to alert the woman to his awakened state, and he immediately heard her voice by his ear.
“Alex. Alex, are you awake now? Can you hear me Alex?”
The more confident sounding of the two men joined in; “Will he be able to remember anything doctor?”
“Doctor?” Alex mused to himself. Right; it’s definitely time to cut back on the tequila. Shards and fragments of the previous evening were starting to come back to him now. He’d been on a night out with Simon, Claire, Rob, and Andy and a few of the others from work. He had a dim recollection of telling his wife, Joanna, that he’d be back by midnight and that it was going to be a quiet one. Mind you, he also had a dim recollection of being hunched over a toilet in a club and feeling a meaty hand on his shoulder, being spun round, and coming face to face with a bored-looking bouncer enquiring about the provenance of the white powder arranged into 2 neat little lines on the toilet cistern.
Alex assumed he must’ve been arrested, and he thought he could recall being driven in a cramped van by 2 policemen (who, he deduced, must be the two men here now) to the station. He didn’t remember a damn thing after that though. “Presumably I’ve been arrested for drunk and disorderly too. Must’ve been a right state if they’ve had to call the doctor out. Aw Jesus, I’ve been a drunken prick again…” Alex was so busy reflecting on this that he failed to notice, as he cautiously re-opened his eyes, his total absence of hangover.
Prepared for the glare of the lights, he opened his eyes and squinted at the 3 figures gathered round him. As his eyes became accustomed to the halogen blaze, he took in some details of his surroundings. The 3 people were exactly as he had heard; a woman and 2 men. The woman was wearing a white lab coat, carrying a clipboard, wore some very expensive looking glasses, and was slim with long dark hair and, Alex noticed as she opened her mouth to say “Are you alright?” terrible teeth arranged brown and battlement-like in an otherwise kissable mouth. Standing further back from her, on either side of his…bed? Alex was dimly aware that it was more of a gurney than a bed. On either side of whatever it was stood the two policemen. Both were in plain clothes, and both had a bored expression on their faces. The one to the left was in his mid 40s, with lank brown hair, a paunch that indicated a love of cheap and plentiful food, and a roundness of face that indicated the same love of cheap and plentiful lager. He was the source of the days-old tobacco stench, and he chewed on what Alex could only hope was industrial strength mint chewing gum in what the whole room could tell was a vain effort to keep his breath fresh.
The second of the two was younger, perhaps only half the age of the first. He wore his reddish hair rather long and matched it with the faint traces of a beard that one can only imagine was the man’s pride and joy, because there was no other excuse for inflicting such a scarcity of downy fluff on one’s face in the name of having a beard. He was trying to match the other man’s gruff aloofness, though it was pretty easy to tell that, underneath that thin veneer, he was pretty excited to be here. Which worried Alex; why the hell would anyone be excited to wake a drunk and disorderly? Why was he in hospital? Had he choked, rock star-like, on his own vomit through the night? Had he provoked a fight and came out on the losing side? Had the police decided to take out a little anger and frustration on a gibbering drunk?
As Alex ran through those possibilities in his mind, he ruled them out one by one. He couldn’t have choked on vomit, because he didn’t even feel as if he had a hangover, let alone spent the early part of last night drinking a lake of cocktails. And he couldn’t have been beaten up because, sensitive eyes and the stench of someone else’s cig smoke aside, he felt physically fine. Better than ever in fact. Come to think of it, he felt in the best shape he had done for a while. But here he was in a hospital room wearing a pristine blue gown and a puzzled expression. What the hell had happened to put him in hospital?
“Alex, can you tell me what day it is?”
The doctor, now satisfied that Alex was indeed awake and could hear her perfectly well, looked at him expectantly and not unkindly. She had a pen poised over her clipboard as her eyes remained focused on Alex.
“I…well, uhh…well yesterday was Saturday 12th January so I guess today must be Sunday 13th. Look, am I in trouble here?”
As he gave the date, the doctor gave a satisfied little smile and made a little tick on her clipboard. The older of the two policemen rolled his eyes, and the younger was quick to follow him with a tutting noise. Some of the excitement dimmed from his eyes.
“What year Alex? You’ve said its Sunday 13th. What year are we in?”
This was a question that would normally have puzzled Alex. “What year are we in? Jesus, how drunk was I?” he would like to have thought. Instead that question came at about the same time that Alex realised he was not in a hospital. The room he was in was sterile, but the décor wasn’t exactly cheap hospital green and white. The look of the room was functional, yet deliberately expensive; the fittings and furniture were a chrome-and-wood mix. The gurney he was on lay parallel to a man-sized glass box which was strewn with wires and covered in display readouts. The room was windowless, and the air was recycled so he guessed they were also underground. Alex began to scan around the room looking for the confirmation that he didn’t want to find, and found it in the slow and deliberate voice of the younger policemen.
“’Ere, boss. I think he’s figured it out. Looks like ee’s shitting himself.”
The indelicate observation ended with a snorting laugh from both policemen and a look of supreme irritation from the doctor.
“Gentlemen, if you don’t mind! Awakening clients are always in a state of emotional tenderness, and he can do without crude jokes at his expense right now, so will you please be quiet!”
The doctor, or whoever she was, certainly had the bedside manner to go with the teeth. She turned back to Alex and favoured him with an open smile that he rather wished she hadn’t bothered with, and asked him the question again.
Alex answered. The policemen both sighed. The doctor’s smile remained. Under normal circumstances, this would have pleased Alex.
“Alex, do you know where you are?”
Alex looked round at all 3 of them, and reluctantly nodded.
“I think so…is this the Vault?”
The older policeman clapped his hands and exclaimed “Excellent deduction young man! Give that fella a coconut!” This time the doctor rolled her eyes, but was careful to keep her back to the policemen. She took a breath before she answered.
“Yes Alex, you’re in the UK Vault. We’ve just revived your clone, and it’s now Friday 18th April. Alex, its 15 months later than you think it is. That’s because the most recent D-NAM update that we could find dated from last January. Actually, it was the police who provided the D-NAM for us to…”
Alex received the news with a darkening expression and a tightening in his gut. There was pretty much only one reason that he’d find himself in this situation. Quietly he spoke, interrupting the doctor’s explanation.
“I’m dead, aren’t I? I mean…well, the real me.”
The doctor gave another of what she probably thought were her soothing open-mouthed smiles.
“Well, to all intents and purposes Alex, this is the real you. But yes Alex. The original you died 2 days ago. Look, this will all come as a shock to you right now; that’s perfectly normal for any revived clone. You’re bound to feel a sense of confusion and dislocation. Don’t worry; you’ll spend a couple of days here until we’ve got you adjusted back to today’s world.”
“And we will be spending a few hours finding out just why you were adjusted out of it in the first place.” The elder of the two policemen had obviously decided that it was time for him to stamp his authority onto proceedings.
Alex, still bewildered and frightened by this turn of events looked quizzically at the elder policeman. “Wh…what do you mean?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I must’ve been to a dozen of these revivals and you lot never get any less irritating, d’you know that? I mean you got murdered y’daft bastard. And me and Chris” he indicated the younger policeman, who acknowledged Alex with a mildly embarrassed nod, “are the lucky fellas who get to see if you know who and why.”
Alex shot a panicked look at the doctor. “But…look, I don’t remember what happened 2 days ago. This is…this is some kind of joke. Am I being set up here? Have those bastards at work done this? I don’t have enough money for a clone! This can’t be real…”
The last words came out mixed with the kind of laugh that, had it been anyone other than him producing it, Alex would have filed under “Mental”. Still, he gripped onto the slender hope that he was the target of that special brand of prank involving enormous emotional cruelty that had been so popular in TV shows for the last 50 years.
The elder policeman leant forward and put his face in Alex’s, who made a mental note to remind him to change his brand of chewing gum. “Don’t be so fucking stupid. This is not a game, and we’re not having a laugh. Do you see me smiling? No. Chris isn’t rolling around on the floor in a fit of mirth. Dr Wilson here isn’t mugging to some non-existent bloody camera. You died. The sooner you can deal with that, the sooner me and Chris can talk to you, and the sooner we can get the hell out of here and deal with something other than nursemaiding an open-and-shut case. Are we clear?”
Without waiting for an answer he back away and spoke to Dr Wilson. “Right, we’ll get one of your private rooms set up for interview. We’ll be ready in 10 minutes, by which time I’d like you to have the boy from Brazil here in a more lucid state.” Aware that he was now the focus of three equally quizzical stares, the policeman hesitated for a moment. “What? It was classic film night on BBC4 last night. Come on Chris.” With that, the two men left the room, leaving an irritated Dr Wilson and a bewildered Alex behind them.
“I’m sorry about that Alex. It’s not standard protocol to have anyone other than a doctor present at a revival, but as the police were the ones who provided the D-NAM they insisted. I understand that this is going to be extremely difficult for you. An unexpected death and such a long gap between D-NAM update and revival is pretty unusual these days. But we will be working with you to make sure that you’re ready to be re-introduced into your life, and it’ll be like you never went away.” Dr Wilson offered another of what she probably honestly believed were soothing open mouthed smiles.
“Now then,” she began. Alex recognised that sort of “Now then.” It was the sort of medical phrase that presaged a sensible talking to so that the patient would feel bludgeoned with the feeling that, if they didn’t get better, it was probably due to their own lack of moral fibre. They should also pay attention as there may be a test later. In return, the doctor got the chance to lord it over lesser mortals with their vast reservoirs of knowledge. “You mentioned that you weren’t able to afford a clone. That is perfectly correct. However, there was a provision in your father’s will for a secret trust containing a savings fund. This fund was put towards the purchase of a clone.” She looked up from her notes, “At this point I’m supposed to read out this” she held up a pamphlet “to explain what a secret trust is, but you’re a solicitor I believe, so would we be okay to dispense with that?”
Alex nodded his assent. It appeared that his legal training was very much intact, though the deepening tension fuelled knot forming in his stomach made a tentative suggestion that his emotional state was not all it could have been. The legal training prissily ignored such unpleasantness, and reminded Alex that a secret trust fund was a fund much like any other trust. It was run for the benefit of, well, the beneficiary. The only difference was that, aside from a document lodged with the solicitor or trustee confirming the basic details, there was nothing else to indicate its existence. No probate was involved (which, in these days of cloning technology, was a relief; probate law had gotten rather tricky when faced with the problem of sons suing their fathers for, essentially, not having had the decency to stay dead and allow them time to grieve in peace with their inheritance). And the trustee didn’t even have to notify the beneficiary. This had obviously been the case here.
“Fortunately for you Alex, the fund matured a little less than 1 week ago. The trustee transferred the money from the fund to a “J” Account 3 days ago. You really are a very lucky man Alex.” Lucky. Right. He’d been murdered and he was lucky.
Of course he was.
The gut-knot exploded. Alex snapped his head up from its post-revival loll, eyes blazing at the doctor, whose smile (thankfully) faltered and fell.
“So I’m lucky, is that correct? Tell me doctor; is that a medical definition of ‘luck’? Hm? Some definition that I’ve hitherto been unaware of, where one finds a shit in one’s drink and remarks on ones good fortune? Are you using an archaic term perhaps? Where one can consider to have truly been blessed with good fortune by the gods and shall be henceforth have shreds of ones robe torn away by pilgrims desperate to share in some of that divine favour, because you caught the fucking plague!?”
He should have left it there. Alex could always tell when he was losing his temper because legalese and volume crept into his speech patterns. But, fuck it; he’d been awake scarcely more than a few minutes and had found he had been murdered and resurrected, and was apparently missing a year of his life. He was understandably rather grumpy. And Dr Wilson was the only available target.
“This might be another day in the office to you, but call me old fashioned if I don’t consider being murdered and brought back to life the dictionary definition of ‘lucky’! I died, don’t you get that? Does that mean nothing to you? Have you given up on bothering with empathy? Is it as much trouble as brushing your teeth?! I died! I…I died.”
All of the conflicting powerful emotions that Alex had tried to use up by shouting were bubbling their way out as tears by this point. At the last word Alex spoke, his lungs decided to get in on the action by adding sobs that wracked his whole body. He bowed his head again and wept.
He had died. Someone, for whatever reason, had killed him. That he had no memory of his death was neither here nor there; someone had stolen his life from him. Literally had stolen it; he was apparently now living a year later than his last memories, and although he doubted much of any substance could happen in the space of a year, that was still one year of his life that was gone. Who knows what he and his wife had shared during that time. Had he experienced life-changing events, only to have that taken from him by the most life changing event of all? Would the world be the same?
Dr Wilson sat by his bed, though did not offer a comforting hand or soothing words as he wept. It could be that this was because she was a typical Vault doctor; as professional and efficient and compassionate as a thrown knife. Or it could be that she hadn’t appreciated Alex’s comment about her teeth. Either way though, she remained quiet for a while until the worst of Alex’s sobs had subsided.
“Alex” she began quietly, “It’s alright. It’s alright to cry; you’re experiencing PRS and Post Revival Stress affects every clone to a greater of lesser degree. This is nothing to be ashamed of, so just…just let it all out.”
Maybe she meant well, but the words sounded so stilted coming out of her mouth. Like the sort of thing she had learned by rote for this situation, and chanted as a mantra against crying patients. The lack of empathy in her words only seemed to drive Alex to a fresh bout of tears. Dr Wilson looked on awkwardly, aware that this was her patient but clearly uncomfortable in the midst of such emotion.
At this point the door was flung open to reveal the entirely unwelcome sight of the older of the two policemen.
“I said have him ready in 10 minutes. Sooner we get started, sooner we can finish and the sooner we’ll go.” Seeing Alex slumped on the bed in tears, the policeman rolled his eyes. “Oh for fu…look, doctor; is there anything you can give him to shut him up with that wailing? Me and Chris are due off in a half hour, and we ‘aven’t got a bleedin’ chance of any overtime, so…”
Dr Wilson stood. “Detective Sergeant Marsh. I think you’ll find that the Vault has been most accommodating with your demands so far. Most accommodating. Despite it being against Revival Protocol, we’ve allowed you and your colleague access to Mr Atkinson and we’re allowing you the opportunity to interview him in order to close of the case and allow you to, as you’ve repeatedly put it, ‘Get on with some real work’. However, I am NOT here to be swept aside by silly little men playing silly little games Detective Sergeant! You are a guest in our facility, and things will go at our pace.” She had moved towards DS Marsh during this, and was now face to face with him. Somewhat quieter, but with no less clipped venom, she hissed “Mr Atkinson is extremely upset; he’s going through a lot of stress which is exactly what we would expect from anyone in his situation, and I am not about to allow 2 grubby little legal journeymen make things any worse just so they can get to whatever squalid pub they like to waste their lives in. DO I make myself clear?”
The whole room jumped at the first word of the last sentence, yelled as it was at something like four times the volume of anything else she’d uttered. DS Marsh regarded her calmly. Whether she had lost her temper out of frustration at being in an emotionally charged situation that made her uncomfortable, or whether she was simply looking after the best interests of her patient, she had made it clear that it was her who was in charge of Alex’s immediate destiny. And bearing in mind their location, it looked like DS Marsh had been made undeniably aware of this too.
He looked over at the tear sodden wreck on the bed, sighed, and nodded. “Okay doctor, have it your way. I doubt he’s in the right mood anyway. Me and Chris will wait outside. Come and tell us when you’re done, and we can take him through for interview.” He paused, glanced over at Alex again, and then continued in a surprisingly soft tone “It won’t take long Mr Atkinson; 5 minutes tops, and then we’ll be out of your life and you can get back to living it, okay?” Alex looked up and through blurry vision saw Marsh standing by his bed, and didn’t see the smile he had offered. He nodded, and bowed his head in what was a rather belated effort to hide both tears and shame at his emotional state from the policeman.
“We’ll be a couple of hours here Detective Sergeant” said Dr Wilson, who had moved to the door and was gesturing for Marsh to leave as she spoke. “Alex will be ready when he’s ready, and not before.” Marsh left, and the doctor closed the door behind him.
“Sorry about that Alex. Now then, where were we?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As it was, Alex spent three hours with Dr Wilson. She went through the chronology of what had happened to him; the secret trust set up by his father was expanded upon. His murder was, to her knowledge, random and motiveless though the two policemen would doubtless tell him more later. His revival was put into doubt for a day as he hadn’t made any D-NAM contributions to the Vault, but their access to pretty much every database that both the company and the government use dug out his DNA swab taken during his inglorious arrest. Despite having already experienced the not altogether wonderful news of having been murdered, Alex had rather hoped that his memory of a squalid little arrest for bunging half a gram of cocaine and Harpic up his nose was as illusory as his death had turned out to be. Whilst he had began to accept the implications of his cloning, he had a harder time reconciling himself to whatever impulses had led him to almost risk his career on a weekend drugs binge.
Throughout the hours, Alex grew gradually calmer and less likely to burst into tears at subjects as diverse as the immortality of the human soul, and what kind of cereal he would be getting served during his few days of re-orientation. The former stemmed from Dr Wilson’s brief mention of The Church of the Immortal Soul, or The Immortals as they called themselves. They were regarded by damned near every faith on the planet as a fringe cult, yet Alex vaguely remembered reading something about how they had attracted members who had professed Mohammed, Moses, and Jesus Christ as their prophets. He had never really concerned himself too much with them, being as they were a cult that had started and spread with the advent of cloning. He couldn’t remember a huge amount concerning their faith, but made a mental note to pay really close attention to the re-orientation lecture on the subject. What he could remember involved less of the “Coffee mornings and biscuits” school of religion and more of the “Anyone standing in the way of God’s unstoppable Will shall find themselves dead in the name of His love” college of thinking.
Even as Dr Wilson delivered what was effectively a well delivered monologue punctuated with sobs, Alex’s mind had decided that enough was enough, and he needed to pull himself together and snap out of it! This was a way of thinking that was a gift from his mother. As he busied himself on snapping out of it he didn’t really have time to stop and think that it was his parents who were helping him survive his death and resurrection with their legacy apiece of a cloned body thanks to one and almost infinite self loathing because of the other. Of course, even if he’d had the time he wouldn’t have bothered. Alex rarely thought about his parents (and, he guessed, nothing would have really happened in a year to change that. Except for the clone of course). On the occasions that he did, he thought of a father who loved him in his fashion and a mother whom Alex hated in pretty much every other fashion. And then he started to feel like storm clouds were gathering in his brain, so he moved onto other subjects that made him feel less like dealing with the conflicting emotions in him by shouting at someone, and more like having a couple of drinks with Joanna and letting the day slide off him.
Alex asked about Joanna about 20 minutes into Dr Wilson’s mini-lecture. Thoughts of his wife had first occurred to him about 10 minutes in, but he spent the other 10 dealing with the guilt of not having thought of her immediately. Dr Wilson banished a momentary look of discomfort (which Alex took to mean that this was indeed a lecture she’d delivered many times before, and was probably on autopilot before the interruption) and explained that as his next of kin, his wife had already been informed of the revival. However, protocol dictated that they could not see one another until his reorientation was complete. Alex asked whom else had been informed of his revival, and was met with the answer that only next of kin are informed of revivals. “After all,” she explained, “what with the possibility of lawsuits from disappointed offspring, the Immortals, and the amount of money usually involved when a clone is revived,” Alex could’ve sworn she had enunciated ‘usually’ more than he’d have liked. “then it’s no surprise that our clients prefer some privacy.”
She offered another smile, natural for her but incongruous to Alex who could really have done without such a blunt assessment of the new and exciting hazards his life as a clone might face. After that, Alex offered few interruptions and allowed Dr Wilson to continue uninterrupted save for a few awkward pauses as the last of Alex’s emotional trauma was tearfully and tightly packaged away and consigned to the “Do NOT touch!” section of his psyche. By the time three hours had passed, Alex no longer felt he and his sense of what was happening to him were undergoing a minute-by-minute assault. Instead, he was simply numb. Numbness accentuated by spiky motes of anger. Someone had taken his life from him. Then he’d had a year taken from him. It was just too huge to take in, and he felt the mental defences snap into place to protect him from the impact. The numbness began to give way to calculation. “Take yourself out of the equation Alex. Find out why you were murdered. Find out what has happened in that year. You’ll not have lost a thing then, and you can deal with this once you’re ready and armed with everything you need.” It was the same cold rationality that had always insulated him from the implications of his work, and now it was keeping him safe from himself. He needed to know just what had happened, and Dr Wilson’s filled in some blanks on the events of the last year, with the promise of more to come in re-orientation. What he had almost no information on was his death, and he wasn’t going to get any of that from her.
Her talk having drawn to a close, Dr Wilson re-focused her beaming brown smile onto Alex and asked “Have you any questions Alex?” Alex composed himself, and climbed up from the gurney. He sat, legs hanging over the side of it, and looked Dr Wilson in the eye. “Yes Doctor. Could you tell me when I can talk to DS Marsh please?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As he sat in the cramped and bare room that VaultTec had given the police to use for getting his statement, Alex was aware of a certain atmosphere. He recalled DS Marsh making some allusion to babysitting him. He’d watched enough piss-poor cop shows on TV to know that this meant that DS Marsh and his young colleague were on what they would doubtless feel to be a rather demeaning task. Alex felt proud that, only a few hours on from being returned from the dead, his brain was already keeping him up to date on the subtext of the situation that he was in. Of course, his brain was helped in this by DS Marsh glowering at Alex like he was a smear of radioactive dogshit as Chris prepared his police-issue mobile phone for the taking of Alex’s statement, but nevertheless, Alex was pleased by his mental alacrity.
He attempted some small talk to try and lighten the oppressive mood within the room. “So,” Alex began, “Do you have to interview many corpses in your line of work then?” Not the most impressive opening gambit, but a one to which Chris responded eagerly. “God no! This is a first for us, innit Sarge? Midweek we’d usually be catching up on bloody paperwork. We jumped at this, didn’t we Sarge?” DS Marsh malignantly regarded Chris from his seat. “The sooner you get that fucking phone ready, the sooner we can start, and the sooner we can get back to some proper work.” Marsh flicked a glance to Alex, as if defying him to mention the contradiction between Chris’ account of how they came to be here, and his own theatrically expressed distaste for having to interview him.
Chris, chastened by his superior’s swift dismissal of his excitement, clumsily fiddled with the buttons on the phone for another half minute which was punctuated with the occasional curse and a quite spectacularly angry “For FUCK’S sake Chris!” from Marsh toward the 30 second mark. Chris meekly sat by Marsh and quietly announced “Ok Sarge, ready when you are.” Marsh nodded to Chris, who pressed a button on the small phone that sat unobtrusively on the side of the small table across which Alex faced the two policemen. A red light blinked to indicate that the audio and visual recording had begun.
“This is DS 4340 Marsh interviewing the newly revived Alexander John Atkinson. Also present is DC 7658 Smith,” Chris gave a nervous smile and a quiet hello at the mention of his name “Interview is being conducted in the offices of the London Vault, the time is now,” Marsh consulted his watch and furrowed his brow as he studied it. “Fuck me; we’ve been here nigh on 4 hours Chris! The time is now 1451 hours. Okay then Mr Atkinson. Do you know why you’re here?”
Alex almost burst out laughing. He held himself back from doing so as he realised that giggling in the face of an almost supernaturally unhappy policeman and his idiot man-child companion was possibly not the best way to get information out of them both as to what happened. Instead, he said “Is this a philosophical question Sergeant? Are you anxious to plumb my newly acquired knowledge about the afterlife? Or should I just enjoy the irony of what you’ve just said and relax?”
Then he burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it; the look on Chris’ face was too much, and Alex had always been exactly the kind of smartarse who enjoyed proving his superior intellect.
Rather than the explosion he had expected, Marsh greeted Alex’s slightly hysterical giggling fit with a long and baleful stare. Alex’s laughter died away, and Chris shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The laugh was replaced with stony silence, broken after what seemed like forever by Marsh.
“Chris, I owe you a fiver.” Chris smiled at this, and now it was Alex’s turn to look unsure. “He said you’d laugh first. I said you’d cry. Actually I said you’d wail like a mouse getting raped by an Alsatian. Shall we continue Mr Atkinson?” A suitably chastised Alex nodded.
“Okay then Mr Atkinson, I’ll repeat the question; do you know why you’re here?”
“Well…yes. I mean, I was murdered wasn’t I? A year from now. Well…not from now. From 2 days ago. Sorry; this is a bit confusing for me.”
Marsh maintained his glare. “Yes Mr Atkinson,” he spat, before lying. “I can sympathise with how difficult this all must be for you. Yes, you were murdered 2 days ago in Paki Alley.” Alex winced a little at the casual racism; both his job and his circle of friends demanded an avoidance of bluntly unpleasant racial language. The former because professionalism was required at all times when dealing with the thorny legal topics of keeping Nocts out of the country at all costs. The latter was more to do with the upper-middle class aspirations of pretty much everyone he know.
Marsh noted the wince and continued. “We’ve been able to piece together your movements over the hours leading up to your murder. It seems you left the office in a somewhat downcast mood, although our witness notes that this is ‘nothing special from him’. Marsh looked up from the statement he’d read from. “Probably you were so bloody miserable ‘cos of that rubbish you stuff up your nose. I hope to fucking Christ you got off that stuff this year young man, because if there’s one thing that boils my piss these days it’s watching young bloody idiots using ‘Oh, there’s no real hope for poor lowly us in the future’ as an excuse to sit around and take drugs and do bugger all with their lives.” Curiously, rather than the crescendo of righteous anger that Alex would’ve expected to accompany such a diversion, Marsh dropped his tone and spoke in a just-as-harsh but somehow more conciliatory tone.
“From the office, you proceeded to Tottenham Court Road tube station. You presumably got off at Hendon. Now, at this point most sensible people in London head home via Prothero Gardens, but not you Mr Atkinson. You took a detour through an area renowned for its lack of friendly white faces. What led you to the Alley on your way home? Stopped to buy more drugs?”
“What? No! Look, just what…” Alex was cut off by Chris. “Hey, if your memory is a year old, how d’you know that you weren’t going to buy drugs, eh?” And with that, Chris leant back with the satisfied look of a geek completing computer games on Heroic Setting and basked in the warm glow of his pertinent question. Alex’s voice began to gain in volume as he answered. “I know because that’s the same route I always walk home from work. Every day. Without fail. What time was my body found?”
Chris manfully hid his disappointment as he answered “We got a call at 1933 hours from a Mr Sanjay Singh saying that a white male had been stabbed in the street by another white male. Officers arrived on the scene at 1942 hours. Mr Singh was arrested on suspicion of your murder at 1944 hours, and forensics arrived at 2002 hours. You were identified as the deceased by your wife at 2145”
Jesus…poor Joanna had had to identify his body? He felt a burst of anguish as his imagination forcibly conjured the image of his sobbing wife seeing his broken, dead body. “So…so you’ve got the man that did it then? So…what d’you need me for? You’ve got your man; my last memories are from a year ago. What exactly am I doing here Sergeant?” Marsh, who had been watching Alex’s face throughout his exchange with Chris, leant forward to speak. “So can you confirm, Mr Atkinson that you have no memory of your final moments? You don’t have any information that could help us?”
“I…well, no. Sorry.” Alex held Marsh’s stare for a few moments, and then looked down. “Do you think he did it? The bloke they’ve arrested?” Marsh continued to stare at Alex. “So you don’t have any enemies then Mr Atkinson? You’ve not worked on a deportation that might’ve come back to bite you on the arse? Been involved in some shady dealings? Not shagged anyone’s wife have you?”
The explosion of temper that Alex had expected to happen since he walked into the room finally happened. Except that Alex had expected it to be Marsh shouting at him, not the other way around.
“Listen you jumped up fat fuck! Who the bloody the hell d’you think you are making accusations like that? Does your sordid little mind just conjure these up, or does Police school teach you how to act like an arsehole? No, Detective Sergeant, I haven’t deported any gangsters! Despite what you might think of me, I haven’t done any shady dealings. I didn’t go there to buy drugs, and I have not shagged anyone’s wife other than my own! Now if it’s all the same to you I think I’d like to end the interview right now!”
Alex was on his feet by this time, getting his face right into that of Marsh as he yelled at him. Satisfyingly, at one point a fleck of saliva flew from Alex’s mouth and spattered against the Marsh’s cheek. He ended his rant, eyes wild and cheeks flushed. Chris had shrunk back in his seat and was regarding the scene as a very self aware rabbit might regard a fight between 2 wolves.
After a moment, Marsh snorted an unexpected little laugh. “Okay, I am satisfied that Mr Atkinson has no information that is of use to us in the investigation of his murder. DC Smith, do you concur?” Chris was startled out of his timidity, and answered with a hesitant “Uh…yeah. Yeah.”
“In that case, I am terminating this interview at, oh let’s call it ten past 3 eh?” And with that surprisingly jovial tone, Marsh switched off the phone’s recorder. “So,” he asked Alex. “Was that the truth then?”
Alex, still standing, sat back in his seat and began to unwind from his unseemly show of anger. He quietly and shamefacedly answered “Yes.”
“Right, well…shame, but there y’go. Chris, get this bloody phone will you?” Marsh rose from his seat and took his coat from the back of it. “We’re sorry to have wasted your time Mr Atkinson. D’you wanna walk with me to the front desk, and we can leave to your re-orientation.” Chris picked up the phone from the small table and put it into his inside jacket pocket, whilst Marsh put his jacket on and then went to the door and opened it.
Alex was a little puzzled by the sudden warmth from Marsh, so he was a little hesitant before joining him outside. Chris followed, and the three of them began their walk through the maze of corridors in the Vault. Alex could see they were on the 28th floor (it was the big number 28 painted at regular intervals along the corridors that tipped him off to this), so they were presumably headed for a lift and then to the ground. From there…well, truth be known Alex wasn’t sure what would happen. He had to go through a few days re-orientation, whatever that entailed. He was also thinking more and more of Joanna; the sooner he can start his re-orientation, the sooner he can finish it and be with her again. Although in his own mind, he’d been away from her for less than 24 hours; it was days since she’d seen him.
“What must she be thinking right now?” were the general thrust of Alex’s aching thoughts of her. She’d seen her husband’s body, had a day or so to grieve, and now she’s been told I’m alive but she can’t see me for a few days? Jesus, this must be awful for her.” Whatever Alex’s many other faults, he loved his wife blindly, unconditionally, and with a depth that always felt unbreakable to them both.
Whilst working himself into the depths of misery by proxy, he hadn’t noticed that they had arrived at a lift. “Here we go. Well? C’mon Chris, press the bloody button!” He turned and smiled at Alex. “And how are we feeling Mr Atkinson? Getting back to reality yet?”
As Marsh asked the question, the section of Alex’s brain that had been screaming at him to pay attention for the past couple of minutes finally made itself heard. “Hang on…Sergeant, why is it a shame that I don’t have any information for you? You’ve got the man who did it, haven’t you?”
Marsh stared hard at Alex. There was an uncomfortable and brooding silence, which deserved better than to be broken by the cheery “ping!” that announced the lift’s arrival. Marsh walked into the lift, still looking at Alex. “C’mon then you two. Are you coming?”
Alex and Chris looked at one another, then joined Marsh in the lift. As the doors closed, Marsh began to speak.
“I’ve been a copper for 20 years now. I love this city y’know? And I want to keep it as clean as we can manage. Checks and balances, that’s how it works. I’ve been a DS for 12 years, and before that I spent 8 on the beat. Heh. That’s why Chris and I got the job of interviewing you. Paki Alley was on my beat for every one of those 8 years, and I know without even looking that you’re rolling your eyes at that, aren’t you? What’s the matter? Don’t get much coarse language in your day to day then? Doth the tongue of the fat fuck offend thee Alex? Heh,” Marsh waved away the beginnings of an apology from Alex. “Yeah, I know Paki Alley. I know that most of the people living there have got roots in India and Bangladesh, so I know how stupid that grubby little name sounds n’all. I know you weren’t going there to buy drugs because I know that every soul who lives where you died is a decent, law abiding citizen. And regardless of whatever kind of racist you might think me to be, I don’t believe for one second that Mr Singh killed you. And it’s a shame, Mr Atkinson, that you can’t give me any more help because with the way things are, helpful and law abiding Mr Singh will shortly be serving at His Majesties Pleasure for your murder.”
“Ping!”
Marsh sighed “So that makes you pretty much useless to me.” The doors opened and the three men stepped out. “Look Alex, I’ll get my number put onto your mobile. Call me if you do remember anything that might be useful. Something about this stinks and it’s not your breath. Come on Chris.”
With that, the two policemen made off down the main corridor to the front security desk leaving Alex in a rather stunned silence. His death, it seemed, had not been the cut and dried affair he’d thought it would be. So what was it?
He stood by the lift in a reverie for some minutes, until a middle aged and moustachioed man in a security uniform approached him. “Ah! The sergeant said you’d be by the lift Mr Atkinson. Would you like to come with me? I’ll take you to your room. There’s a full rundown of your re-orientation and there’ll be a meal in a couple of hours. Would you like to step this way sir?”
Alex, frowning at the interruption in his train of thought, gave a sigh. He wasn’t going to be able to get any more information about why he had been murdered until he could catch up on what had happened in the last year. And for that he would need to speak with Joanna, his friends, and his colleagues at work. For now, he had to endure his re-orientation and put his questions to the back of his mind.
As he slowly made his way back toward consciousness, Alex became aware of a few things. Firstly, that he was not in his own bed. Secondly, that wherever he was, it was bloody cold. Thirdly, that he was naked. And finally, there were other voices, at least one of which was a woman, and 2 distinct male voices. Both men sounded like Londoners, with a rough Middle class twang to one of them. The other sounded rather more hesitant, leaping on the comments of the lead man as if he didn’t have the confidence to make any of his own. The woman’s voice sounded cold and clipped, businesslike. Alex became aware that if, as he was beginning to suspect, he was waking up after a serious drinking session, then he had possibly spent his money on an unremembered 3-way with a hard-nosed whore and 2 strangers. It was time to take a deep breath (which turned out to be a bad idea as he inhaled an exhilarating mix of stale cigarette smoke and antiseptic), open his eyes, and prepare the excuses. Longer term, it was probably also a good time to cut back on the tequila.
Alex hesitantly opened his eyes. At first he could see nothing; the lights were just too bright, and he let out an involuntary gasp as he quickly clamped his eyes shut again. That little gasp was enough to alert the woman to his awakened state, and he immediately heard her voice by his ear.
“Alex. Alex, are you awake now? Can you hear me Alex?”
The more confident sounding of the two men joined in; “Will he be able to remember anything doctor?”
“Doctor?” Alex mused to himself. Right; it’s definitely time to cut back on the tequila. Shards and fragments of the previous evening were starting to come back to him now. He’d been on a night out with Simon, Claire, Rob, and Andy and a few of the others from work. He had a dim recollection of telling his wife, Joanna, that he’d be back by midnight and that it was going to be a quiet one. Mind you, he also had a dim recollection of being hunched over a toilet in a club and feeling a meaty hand on his shoulder, being spun round, and coming face to face with a bored-looking bouncer enquiring about the provenance of the white powder arranged into 2 neat little lines on the toilet cistern.
Alex assumed he must’ve been arrested, and he thought he could recall being driven in a cramped van by 2 policemen (who, he deduced, must be the two men here now) to the station. He didn’t remember a damn thing after that though. “Presumably I’ve been arrested for drunk and disorderly too. Must’ve been a right state if they’ve had to call the doctor out. Aw Jesus, I’ve been a drunken prick again…” Alex was so busy reflecting on this that he failed to notice, as he cautiously re-opened his eyes, his total absence of hangover.
Prepared for the glare of the lights, he opened his eyes and squinted at the 3 figures gathered round him. As his eyes became accustomed to the halogen blaze, he took in some details of his surroundings. The 3 people were exactly as he had heard; a woman and 2 men. The woman was wearing a white lab coat, carrying a clipboard, wore some very expensive looking glasses, and was slim with long dark hair and, Alex noticed as she opened her mouth to say “Are you alright?” terrible teeth arranged brown and battlement-like in an otherwise kissable mouth. Standing further back from her, on either side of his…bed? Alex was dimly aware that it was more of a gurney than a bed. On either side of whatever it was stood the two policemen. Both were in plain clothes, and both had a bored expression on their faces. The one to the left was in his mid 40s, with lank brown hair, a paunch that indicated a love of cheap and plentiful food, and a roundness of face that indicated the same love of cheap and plentiful lager. He was the source of the days-old tobacco stench, and he chewed on what Alex could only hope was industrial strength mint chewing gum in what the whole room could tell was a vain effort to keep his breath fresh.
The second of the two was younger, perhaps only half the age of the first. He wore his reddish hair rather long and matched it with the faint traces of a beard that one can only imagine was the man’s pride and joy, because there was no other excuse for inflicting such a scarcity of downy fluff on one’s face in the name of having a beard. He was trying to match the other man’s gruff aloofness, though it was pretty easy to tell that, underneath that thin veneer, he was pretty excited to be here. Which worried Alex; why the hell would anyone be excited to wake a drunk and disorderly? Why was he in hospital? Had he choked, rock star-like, on his own vomit through the night? Had he provoked a fight and came out on the losing side? Had the police decided to take out a little anger and frustration on a gibbering drunk?
As Alex ran through those possibilities in his mind, he ruled them out one by one. He couldn’t have choked on vomit, because he didn’t even feel as if he had a hangover, let alone spent the early part of last night drinking a lake of cocktails. And he couldn’t have been beaten up because, sensitive eyes and the stench of someone else’s cig smoke aside, he felt physically fine. Better than ever in fact. Come to think of it, he felt in the best shape he had done for a while. But here he was in a hospital room wearing a pristine blue gown and a puzzled expression. What the hell had happened to put him in hospital?
“Alex, can you tell me what day it is?”
The doctor, now satisfied that Alex was indeed awake and could hear her perfectly well, looked at him expectantly and not unkindly. She had a pen poised over her clipboard as her eyes remained focused on Alex.
“I…well, uhh…well yesterday was Saturday 12th January so I guess today must be Sunday 13th. Look, am I in trouble here?”
As he gave the date, the doctor gave a satisfied little smile and made a little tick on her clipboard. The older of the two policemen rolled his eyes, and the younger was quick to follow him with a tutting noise. Some of the excitement dimmed from his eyes.
“What year Alex? You’ve said its Sunday 13th. What year are we in?”
This was a question that would normally have puzzled Alex. “What year are we in? Jesus, how drunk was I?” he would like to have thought. Instead that question came at about the same time that Alex realised he was not in a hospital. The room he was in was sterile, but the décor wasn’t exactly cheap hospital green and white. The look of the room was functional, yet deliberately expensive; the fittings and furniture were a chrome-and-wood mix. The gurney he was on lay parallel to a man-sized glass box which was strewn with wires and covered in display readouts. The room was windowless, and the air was recycled so he guessed they were also underground. Alex began to scan around the room looking for the confirmation that he didn’t want to find, and found it in the slow and deliberate voice of the younger policemen.
“’Ere, boss. I think he’s figured it out. Looks like ee’s shitting himself.”
The indelicate observation ended with a snorting laugh from both policemen and a look of supreme irritation from the doctor.
“Gentlemen, if you don’t mind! Awakening clients are always in a state of emotional tenderness, and he can do without crude jokes at his expense right now, so will you please be quiet!”
The doctor, or whoever she was, certainly had the bedside manner to go with the teeth. She turned back to Alex and favoured him with an open smile that he rather wished she hadn’t bothered with, and asked him the question again.
Alex answered. The policemen both sighed. The doctor’s smile remained. Under normal circumstances, this would have pleased Alex.
“Alex, do you know where you are?”
Alex looked round at all 3 of them, and reluctantly nodded.
“I think so…is this the Vault?”
The older policeman clapped his hands and exclaimed “Excellent deduction young man! Give that fella a coconut!” This time the doctor rolled her eyes, but was careful to keep her back to the policemen. She took a breath before she answered.
“Yes Alex, you’re in the UK Vault. We’ve just revived your clone, and it’s now Friday 18th April. Alex, its 15 months later than you think it is. That’s because the most recent D-NAM update that we could find dated from last January. Actually, it was the police who provided the D-NAM for us to…”
Alex received the news with a darkening expression and a tightening in his gut. There was pretty much only one reason that he’d find himself in this situation. Quietly he spoke, interrupting the doctor’s explanation.
“I’m dead, aren’t I? I mean…well, the real me.”
The doctor gave another of what she probably thought were her soothing open-mouthed smiles.
“Well, to all intents and purposes Alex, this is the real you. But yes Alex. The original you died 2 days ago. Look, this will all come as a shock to you right now; that’s perfectly normal for any revived clone. You’re bound to feel a sense of confusion and dislocation. Don’t worry; you’ll spend a couple of days here until we’ve got you adjusted back to today’s world.”
“And we will be spending a few hours finding out just why you were adjusted out of it in the first place.” The elder of the two policemen had obviously decided that it was time for him to stamp his authority onto proceedings.
Alex, still bewildered and frightened by this turn of events looked quizzically at the elder policeman. “Wh…what do you mean?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I must’ve been to a dozen of these revivals and you lot never get any less irritating, d’you know that? I mean you got murdered y’daft bastard. And me and Chris” he indicated the younger policeman, who acknowledged Alex with a mildly embarrassed nod, “are the lucky fellas who get to see if you know who and why.”
Alex shot a panicked look at the doctor. “But…look, I don’t remember what happened 2 days ago. This is…this is some kind of joke. Am I being set up here? Have those bastards at work done this? I don’t have enough money for a clone! This can’t be real…”
The last words came out mixed with the kind of laugh that, had it been anyone other than him producing it, Alex would have filed under “Mental”. Still, he gripped onto the slender hope that he was the target of that special brand of prank involving enormous emotional cruelty that had been so popular in TV shows for the last 50 years.
The elder policeman leant forward and put his face in Alex’s, who made a mental note to remind him to change his brand of chewing gum. “Don’t be so fucking stupid. This is not a game, and we’re not having a laugh. Do you see me smiling? No. Chris isn’t rolling around on the floor in a fit of mirth. Dr Wilson here isn’t mugging to some non-existent bloody camera. You died. The sooner you can deal with that, the sooner me and Chris can talk to you, and the sooner we can get the hell out of here and deal with something other than nursemaiding an open-and-shut case. Are we clear?”
Without waiting for an answer he back away and spoke to Dr Wilson. “Right, we’ll get one of your private rooms set up for interview. We’ll be ready in 10 minutes, by which time I’d like you to have the boy from Brazil here in a more lucid state.” Aware that he was now the focus of three equally quizzical stares, the policeman hesitated for a moment. “What? It was classic film night on BBC4 last night. Come on Chris.” With that, the two men left the room, leaving an irritated Dr Wilson and a bewildered Alex behind them.
“I’m sorry about that Alex. It’s not standard protocol to have anyone other than a doctor present at a revival, but as the police were the ones who provided the D-NAM they insisted. I understand that this is going to be extremely difficult for you. An unexpected death and such a long gap between D-NAM update and revival is pretty unusual these days. But we will be working with you to make sure that you’re ready to be re-introduced into your life, and it’ll be like you never went away.” Dr Wilson offered another of what she probably honestly believed were soothing open mouthed smiles.
“Now then,” she began. Alex recognised that sort of “Now then.” It was the sort of medical phrase that presaged a sensible talking to so that the patient would feel bludgeoned with the feeling that, if they didn’t get better, it was probably due to their own lack of moral fibre. They should also pay attention as there may be a test later. In return, the doctor got the chance to lord it over lesser mortals with their vast reservoirs of knowledge. “You mentioned that you weren’t able to afford a clone. That is perfectly correct. However, there was a provision in your father’s will for a secret trust containing a savings fund. This fund was put towards the purchase of a clone.” She looked up from her notes, “At this point I’m supposed to read out this” she held up a pamphlet “to explain what a secret trust is, but you’re a solicitor I believe, so would we be okay to dispense with that?”
Alex nodded his assent. It appeared that his legal training was very much intact, though the deepening tension fuelled knot forming in his stomach made a tentative suggestion that his emotional state was not all it could have been. The legal training prissily ignored such unpleasantness, and reminded Alex that a secret trust fund was a fund much like any other trust. It was run for the benefit of, well, the beneficiary. The only difference was that, aside from a document lodged with the solicitor or trustee confirming the basic details, there was nothing else to indicate its existence. No probate was involved (which, in these days of cloning technology, was a relief; probate law had gotten rather tricky when faced with the problem of sons suing their fathers for, essentially, not having had the decency to stay dead and allow them time to grieve in peace with their inheritance). And the trustee didn’t even have to notify the beneficiary. This had obviously been the case here.
“Fortunately for you Alex, the fund matured a little less than 1 week ago. The trustee transferred the money from the fund to a “J” Account 3 days ago. You really are a very lucky man Alex.” Lucky. Right. He’d been murdered and he was lucky.
Of course he was.
The gut-knot exploded. Alex snapped his head up from its post-revival loll, eyes blazing at the doctor, whose smile (thankfully) faltered and fell.
“So I’m lucky, is that correct? Tell me doctor; is that a medical definition of ‘luck’? Hm? Some definition that I’ve hitherto been unaware of, where one finds a shit in one’s drink and remarks on ones good fortune? Are you using an archaic term perhaps? Where one can consider to have truly been blessed with good fortune by the gods and shall be henceforth have shreds of ones robe torn away by pilgrims desperate to share in some of that divine favour, because you caught the fucking plague!?”
He should have left it there. Alex could always tell when he was losing his temper because legalese and volume crept into his speech patterns. But, fuck it; he’d been awake scarcely more than a few minutes and had found he had been murdered and resurrected, and was apparently missing a year of his life. He was understandably rather grumpy. And Dr Wilson was the only available target.
“This might be another day in the office to you, but call me old fashioned if I don’t consider being murdered and brought back to life the dictionary definition of ‘lucky’! I died, don’t you get that? Does that mean nothing to you? Have you given up on bothering with empathy? Is it as much trouble as brushing your teeth?! I died! I…I died.”
All of the conflicting powerful emotions that Alex had tried to use up by shouting were bubbling their way out as tears by this point. At the last word Alex spoke, his lungs decided to get in on the action by adding sobs that wracked his whole body. He bowed his head again and wept.
He had died. Someone, for whatever reason, had killed him. That he had no memory of his death was neither here nor there; someone had stolen his life from him. Literally had stolen it; he was apparently now living a year later than his last memories, and although he doubted much of any substance could happen in the space of a year, that was still one year of his life that was gone. Who knows what he and his wife had shared during that time. Had he experienced life-changing events, only to have that taken from him by the most life changing event of all? Would the world be the same?
Dr Wilson sat by his bed, though did not offer a comforting hand or soothing words as he wept. It could be that this was because she was a typical Vault doctor; as professional and efficient and compassionate as a thrown knife. Or it could be that she hadn’t appreciated Alex’s comment about her teeth. Either way though, she remained quiet for a while until the worst of Alex’s sobs had subsided.
“Alex” she began quietly, “It’s alright. It’s alright to cry; you’re experiencing PRS and Post Revival Stress affects every clone to a greater of lesser degree. This is nothing to be ashamed of, so just…just let it all out.”
Maybe she meant well, but the words sounded so stilted coming out of her mouth. Like the sort of thing she had learned by rote for this situation, and chanted as a mantra against crying patients. The lack of empathy in her words only seemed to drive Alex to a fresh bout of tears. Dr Wilson looked on awkwardly, aware that this was her patient but clearly uncomfortable in the midst of such emotion.
At this point the door was flung open to reveal the entirely unwelcome sight of the older of the two policemen.
“I said have him ready in 10 minutes. Sooner we get started, sooner we can finish and the sooner we’ll go.” Seeing Alex slumped on the bed in tears, the policeman rolled his eyes. “Oh for fu…look, doctor; is there anything you can give him to shut him up with that wailing? Me and Chris are due off in a half hour, and we ‘aven’t got a bleedin’ chance of any overtime, so…”
Dr Wilson stood. “Detective Sergeant Marsh. I think you’ll find that the Vault has been most accommodating with your demands so far. Most accommodating. Despite it being against Revival Protocol, we’ve allowed you and your colleague access to Mr Atkinson and we’re allowing you the opportunity to interview him in order to close of the case and allow you to, as you’ve repeatedly put it, ‘Get on with some real work’. However, I am NOT here to be swept aside by silly little men playing silly little games Detective Sergeant! You are a guest in our facility, and things will go at our pace.” She had moved towards DS Marsh during this, and was now face to face with him. Somewhat quieter, but with no less clipped venom, she hissed “Mr Atkinson is extremely upset; he’s going through a lot of stress which is exactly what we would expect from anyone in his situation, and I am not about to allow 2 grubby little legal journeymen make things any worse just so they can get to whatever squalid pub they like to waste their lives in. DO I make myself clear?”
The whole room jumped at the first word of the last sentence, yelled as it was at something like four times the volume of anything else she’d uttered. DS Marsh regarded her calmly. Whether she had lost her temper out of frustration at being in an emotionally charged situation that made her uncomfortable, or whether she was simply looking after the best interests of her patient, she had made it clear that it was her who was in charge of Alex’s immediate destiny. And bearing in mind their location, it looked like DS Marsh had been made undeniably aware of this too.
He looked over at the tear sodden wreck on the bed, sighed, and nodded. “Okay doctor, have it your way. I doubt he’s in the right mood anyway. Me and Chris will wait outside. Come and tell us when you’re done, and we can take him through for interview.” He paused, glanced over at Alex again, and then continued in a surprisingly soft tone “It won’t take long Mr Atkinson; 5 minutes tops, and then we’ll be out of your life and you can get back to living it, okay?” Alex looked up and through blurry vision saw Marsh standing by his bed, and didn’t see the smile he had offered. He nodded, and bowed his head in what was a rather belated effort to hide both tears and shame at his emotional state from the policeman.
“We’ll be a couple of hours here Detective Sergeant” said Dr Wilson, who had moved to the door and was gesturing for Marsh to leave as she spoke. “Alex will be ready when he’s ready, and not before.” Marsh left, and the doctor closed the door behind him.
“Sorry about that Alex. Now then, where were we?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As it was, Alex spent three hours with Dr Wilson. She went through the chronology of what had happened to him; the secret trust set up by his father was expanded upon. His murder was, to her knowledge, random and motiveless though the two policemen would doubtless tell him more later. His revival was put into doubt for a day as he hadn’t made any D-NAM contributions to the Vault, but their access to pretty much every database that both the company and the government use dug out his DNA swab taken during his inglorious arrest. Despite having already experienced the not altogether wonderful news of having been murdered, Alex had rather hoped that his memory of a squalid little arrest for bunging half a gram of cocaine and Harpic up his nose was as illusory as his death had turned out to be. Whilst he had began to accept the implications of his cloning, he had a harder time reconciling himself to whatever impulses had led him to almost risk his career on a weekend drugs binge.
Throughout the hours, Alex grew gradually calmer and less likely to burst into tears at subjects as diverse as the immortality of the human soul, and what kind of cereal he would be getting served during his few days of re-orientation. The former stemmed from Dr Wilson’s brief mention of The Church of the Immortal Soul, or The Immortals as they called themselves. They were regarded by damned near every faith on the planet as a fringe cult, yet Alex vaguely remembered reading something about how they had attracted members who had professed Mohammed, Moses, and Jesus Christ as their prophets. He had never really concerned himself too much with them, being as they were a cult that had started and spread with the advent of cloning. He couldn’t remember a huge amount concerning their faith, but made a mental note to pay really close attention to the re-orientation lecture on the subject. What he could remember involved less of the “Coffee mornings and biscuits” school of religion and more of the “Anyone standing in the way of God’s unstoppable Will shall find themselves dead in the name of His love” college of thinking.
Even as Dr Wilson delivered what was effectively a well delivered monologue punctuated with sobs, Alex’s mind had decided that enough was enough, and he needed to pull himself together and snap out of it! This was a way of thinking that was a gift from his mother. As he busied himself on snapping out of it he didn’t really have time to stop and think that it was his parents who were helping him survive his death and resurrection with their legacy apiece of a cloned body thanks to one and almost infinite self loathing because of the other. Of course, even if he’d had the time he wouldn’t have bothered. Alex rarely thought about his parents (and, he guessed, nothing would have really happened in a year to change that. Except for the clone of course). On the occasions that he did, he thought of a father who loved him in his fashion and a mother whom Alex hated in pretty much every other fashion. And then he started to feel like storm clouds were gathering in his brain, so he moved onto other subjects that made him feel less like dealing with the conflicting emotions in him by shouting at someone, and more like having a couple of drinks with Joanna and letting the day slide off him.
Alex asked about Joanna about 20 minutes into Dr Wilson’s mini-lecture. Thoughts of his wife had first occurred to him about 10 minutes in, but he spent the other 10 dealing with the guilt of not having thought of her immediately. Dr Wilson banished a momentary look of discomfort (which Alex took to mean that this was indeed a lecture she’d delivered many times before, and was probably on autopilot before the interruption) and explained that as his next of kin, his wife had already been informed of the revival. However, protocol dictated that they could not see one another until his reorientation was complete. Alex asked whom else had been informed of his revival, and was met with the answer that only next of kin are informed of revivals. “After all,” she explained, “what with the possibility of lawsuits from disappointed offspring, the Immortals, and the amount of money usually involved when a clone is revived,” Alex could’ve sworn she had enunciated ‘usually’ more than he’d have liked. “then it’s no surprise that our clients prefer some privacy.”
She offered another smile, natural for her but incongruous to Alex who could really have done without such a blunt assessment of the new and exciting hazards his life as a clone might face. After that, Alex offered few interruptions and allowed Dr Wilson to continue uninterrupted save for a few awkward pauses as the last of Alex’s emotional trauma was tearfully and tightly packaged away and consigned to the “Do NOT touch!” section of his psyche. By the time three hours had passed, Alex no longer felt he and his sense of what was happening to him were undergoing a minute-by-minute assault. Instead, he was simply numb. Numbness accentuated by spiky motes of anger. Someone had taken his life from him. Then he’d had a year taken from him. It was just too huge to take in, and he felt the mental defences snap into place to protect him from the impact. The numbness began to give way to calculation. “Take yourself out of the equation Alex. Find out why you were murdered. Find out what has happened in that year. You’ll not have lost a thing then, and you can deal with this once you’re ready and armed with everything you need.” It was the same cold rationality that had always insulated him from the implications of his work, and now it was keeping him safe from himself. He needed to know just what had happened, and Dr Wilson’s filled in some blanks on the events of the last year, with the promise of more to come in re-orientation. What he had almost no information on was his death, and he wasn’t going to get any of that from her.
Her talk having drawn to a close, Dr Wilson re-focused her beaming brown smile onto Alex and asked “Have you any questions Alex?” Alex composed himself, and climbed up from the gurney. He sat, legs hanging over the side of it, and looked Dr Wilson in the eye. “Yes Doctor. Could you tell me when I can talk to DS Marsh please?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As he sat in the cramped and bare room that VaultTec had given the police to use for getting his statement, Alex was aware of a certain atmosphere. He recalled DS Marsh making some allusion to babysitting him. He’d watched enough piss-poor cop shows on TV to know that this meant that DS Marsh and his young colleague were on what they would doubtless feel to be a rather demeaning task. Alex felt proud that, only a few hours on from being returned from the dead, his brain was already keeping him up to date on the subtext of the situation that he was in. Of course, his brain was helped in this by DS Marsh glowering at Alex like he was a smear of radioactive dogshit as Chris prepared his police-issue mobile phone for the taking of Alex’s statement, but nevertheless, Alex was pleased by his mental alacrity.
He attempted some small talk to try and lighten the oppressive mood within the room. “So,” Alex began, “Do you have to interview many corpses in your line of work then?” Not the most impressive opening gambit, but a one to which Chris responded eagerly. “God no! This is a first for us, innit Sarge? Midweek we’d usually be catching up on bloody paperwork. We jumped at this, didn’t we Sarge?” DS Marsh malignantly regarded Chris from his seat. “The sooner you get that fucking phone ready, the sooner we can start, and the sooner we can get back to some proper work.” Marsh flicked a glance to Alex, as if defying him to mention the contradiction between Chris’ account of how they came to be here, and his own theatrically expressed distaste for having to interview him.
Chris, chastened by his superior’s swift dismissal of his excitement, clumsily fiddled with the buttons on the phone for another half minute which was punctuated with the occasional curse and a quite spectacularly angry “For FUCK’S sake Chris!” from Marsh toward the 30 second mark. Chris meekly sat by Marsh and quietly announced “Ok Sarge, ready when you are.” Marsh nodded to Chris, who pressed a button on the small phone that sat unobtrusively on the side of the small table across which Alex faced the two policemen. A red light blinked to indicate that the audio and visual recording had begun.
“This is DS 4340 Marsh interviewing the newly revived Alexander John Atkinson. Also present is DC 7658 Smith,” Chris gave a nervous smile and a quiet hello at the mention of his name “Interview is being conducted in the offices of the London Vault, the time is now,” Marsh consulted his watch and furrowed his brow as he studied it. “Fuck me; we’ve been here nigh on 4 hours Chris! The time is now 1451 hours. Okay then Mr Atkinson. Do you know why you’re here?”
Alex almost burst out laughing. He held himself back from doing so as he realised that giggling in the face of an almost supernaturally unhappy policeman and his idiot man-child companion was possibly not the best way to get information out of them both as to what happened. Instead, he said “Is this a philosophical question Sergeant? Are you anxious to plumb my newly acquired knowledge about the afterlife? Or should I just enjoy the irony of what you’ve just said and relax?”
Then he burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it; the look on Chris’ face was too much, and Alex had always been exactly the kind of smartarse who enjoyed proving his superior intellect.
Rather than the explosion he had expected, Marsh greeted Alex’s slightly hysterical giggling fit with a long and baleful stare. Alex’s laughter died away, and Chris shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The laugh was replaced with stony silence, broken after what seemed like forever by Marsh.
“Chris, I owe you a fiver.” Chris smiled at this, and now it was Alex’s turn to look unsure. “He said you’d laugh first. I said you’d cry. Actually I said you’d wail like a mouse getting raped by an Alsatian. Shall we continue Mr Atkinson?” A suitably chastised Alex nodded.
“Okay then Mr Atkinson, I’ll repeat the question; do you know why you’re here?”
“Well…yes. I mean, I was murdered wasn’t I? A year from now. Well…not from now. From 2 days ago. Sorry; this is a bit confusing for me.”
Marsh maintained his glare. “Yes Mr Atkinson,” he spat, before lying. “I can sympathise with how difficult this all must be for you. Yes, you were murdered 2 days ago in Paki Alley.” Alex winced a little at the casual racism; both his job and his circle of friends demanded an avoidance of bluntly unpleasant racial language. The former because professionalism was required at all times when dealing with the thorny legal topics of keeping Nocts out of the country at all costs. The latter was more to do with the upper-middle class aspirations of pretty much everyone he know.
Marsh noted the wince and continued. “We’ve been able to piece together your movements over the hours leading up to your murder. It seems you left the office in a somewhat downcast mood, although our witness notes that this is ‘nothing special from him’. Marsh looked up from the statement he’d read from. “Probably you were so bloody miserable ‘cos of that rubbish you stuff up your nose. I hope to fucking Christ you got off that stuff this year young man, because if there’s one thing that boils my piss these days it’s watching young bloody idiots using ‘Oh, there’s no real hope for poor lowly us in the future’ as an excuse to sit around and take drugs and do bugger all with their lives.” Curiously, rather than the crescendo of righteous anger that Alex would’ve expected to accompany such a diversion, Marsh dropped his tone and spoke in a just-as-harsh but somehow more conciliatory tone.
“From the office, you proceeded to Tottenham Court Road tube station. You presumably got off at Hendon. Now, at this point most sensible people in London head home via Prothero Gardens, but not you Mr Atkinson. You took a detour through an area renowned for its lack of friendly white faces. What led you to the Alley on your way home? Stopped to buy more drugs?”
“What? No! Look, just what…” Alex was cut off by Chris. “Hey, if your memory is a year old, how d’you know that you weren’t going to buy drugs, eh?” And with that, Chris leant back with the satisfied look of a geek completing computer games on Heroic Setting and basked in the warm glow of his pertinent question. Alex’s voice began to gain in volume as he answered. “I know because that’s the same route I always walk home from work. Every day. Without fail. What time was my body found?”
Chris manfully hid his disappointment as he answered “We got a call at 1933 hours from a Mr Sanjay Singh saying that a white male had been stabbed in the street by another white male. Officers arrived on the scene at 1942 hours. Mr Singh was arrested on suspicion of your murder at 1944 hours, and forensics arrived at 2002 hours. You were identified as the deceased by your wife at 2145”
Jesus…poor Joanna had had to identify his body? He felt a burst of anguish as his imagination forcibly conjured the image of his sobbing wife seeing his broken, dead body. “So…so you’ve got the man that did it then? So…what d’you need me for? You’ve got your man; my last memories are from a year ago. What exactly am I doing here Sergeant?” Marsh, who had been watching Alex’s face throughout his exchange with Chris, leant forward to speak. “So can you confirm, Mr Atkinson that you have no memory of your final moments? You don’t have any information that could help us?”
“I…well, no. Sorry.” Alex held Marsh’s stare for a few moments, and then looked down. “Do you think he did it? The bloke they’ve arrested?” Marsh continued to stare at Alex. “So you don’t have any enemies then Mr Atkinson? You’ve not worked on a deportation that might’ve come back to bite you on the arse? Been involved in some shady dealings? Not shagged anyone’s wife have you?”
The explosion of temper that Alex had expected to happen since he walked into the room finally happened. Except that Alex had expected it to be Marsh shouting at him, not the other way around.
“Listen you jumped up fat fuck! Who the bloody the hell d’you think you are making accusations like that? Does your sordid little mind just conjure these up, or does Police school teach you how to act like an arsehole? No, Detective Sergeant, I haven’t deported any gangsters! Despite what you might think of me, I haven’t done any shady dealings. I didn’t go there to buy drugs, and I have not shagged anyone’s wife other than my own! Now if it’s all the same to you I think I’d like to end the interview right now!”
Alex was on his feet by this time, getting his face right into that of Marsh as he yelled at him. Satisfyingly, at one point a fleck of saliva flew from Alex’s mouth and spattered against the Marsh’s cheek. He ended his rant, eyes wild and cheeks flushed. Chris had shrunk back in his seat and was regarding the scene as a very self aware rabbit might regard a fight between 2 wolves.
After a moment, Marsh snorted an unexpected little laugh. “Okay, I am satisfied that Mr Atkinson has no information that is of use to us in the investigation of his murder. DC Smith, do you concur?” Chris was startled out of his timidity, and answered with a hesitant “Uh…yeah. Yeah.”
“In that case, I am terminating this interview at, oh let’s call it ten past 3 eh?” And with that surprisingly jovial tone, Marsh switched off the phone’s recorder. “So,” he asked Alex. “Was that the truth then?”
Alex, still standing, sat back in his seat and began to unwind from his unseemly show of anger. He quietly and shamefacedly answered “Yes.”
“Right, well…shame, but there y’go. Chris, get this bloody phone will you?” Marsh rose from his seat and took his coat from the back of it. “We’re sorry to have wasted your time Mr Atkinson. D’you wanna walk with me to the front desk, and we can leave to your re-orientation.” Chris picked up the phone from the small table and put it into his inside jacket pocket, whilst Marsh put his jacket on and then went to the door and opened it.
Alex was a little puzzled by the sudden warmth from Marsh, so he was a little hesitant before joining him outside. Chris followed, and the three of them began their walk through the maze of corridors in the Vault. Alex could see they were on the 28th floor (it was the big number 28 painted at regular intervals along the corridors that tipped him off to this), so they were presumably headed for a lift and then to the ground. From there…well, truth be known Alex wasn’t sure what would happen. He had to go through a few days re-orientation, whatever that entailed. He was also thinking more and more of Joanna; the sooner he can start his re-orientation, the sooner he can finish it and be with her again. Although in his own mind, he’d been away from her for less than 24 hours; it was days since she’d seen him.
“What must she be thinking right now?” were the general thrust of Alex’s aching thoughts of her. She’d seen her husband’s body, had a day or so to grieve, and now she’s been told I’m alive but she can’t see me for a few days? Jesus, this must be awful for her.” Whatever Alex’s many other faults, he loved his wife blindly, unconditionally, and with a depth that always felt unbreakable to them both.
Whilst working himself into the depths of misery by proxy, he hadn’t noticed that they had arrived at a lift. “Here we go. Well? C’mon Chris, press the bloody button!” He turned and smiled at Alex. “And how are we feeling Mr Atkinson? Getting back to reality yet?”
As Marsh asked the question, the section of Alex’s brain that had been screaming at him to pay attention for the past couple of minutes finally made itself heard. “Hang on…Sergeant, why is it a shame that I don’t have any information for you? You’ve got the man who did it, haven’t you?”
Marsh stared hard at Alex. There was an uncomfortable and brooding silence, which deserved better than to be broken by the cheery “ping!” that announced the lift’s arrival. Marsh walked into the lift, still looking at Alex. “C’mon then you two. Are you coming?”
Alex and Chris looked at one another, then joined Marsh in the lift. As the doors closed, Marsh began to speak.
“I’ve been a copper for 20 years now. I love this city y’know? And I want to keep it as clean as we can manage. Checks and balances, that’s how it works. I’ve been a DS for 12 years, and before that I spent 8 on the beat. Heh. That’s why Chris and I got the job of interviewing you. Paki Alley was on my beat for every one of those 8 years, and I know without even looking that you’re rolling your eyes at that, aren’t you? What’s the matter? Don’t get much coarse language in your day to day then? Doth the tongue of the fat fuck offend thee Alex? Heh,” Marsh waved away the beginnings of an apology from Alex. “Yeah, I know Paki Alley. I know that most of the people living there have got roots in India and Bangladesh, so I know how stupid that grubby little name sounds n’all. I know you weren’t going there to buy drugs because I know that every soul who lives where you died is a decent, law abiding citizen. And regardless of whatever kind of racist you might think me to be, I don’t believe for one second that Mr Singh killed you. And it’s a shame, Mr Atkinson, that you can’t give me any more help because with the way things are, helpful and law abiding Mr Singh will shortly be serving at His Majesties Pleasure for your murder.”
“Ping!”
Marsh sighed “So that makes you pretty much useless to me.” The doors opened and the three men stepped out. “Look Alex, I’ll get my number put onto your mobile. Call me if you do remember anything that might be useful. Something about this stinks and it’s not your breath. Come on Chris.”
With that, the two policemen made off down the main corridor to the front security desk leaving Alex in a rather stunned silence. His death, it seemed, had not been the cut and dried affair he’d thought it would be. So what was it?
He stood by the lift in a reverie for some minutes, until a middle aged and moustachioed man in a security uniform approached him. “Ah! The sergeant said you’d be by the lift Mr Atkinson. Would you like to come with me? I’ll take you to your room. There’s a full rundown of your re-orientation and there’ll be a meal in a couple of hours. Would you like to step this way sir?”
Alex, frowning at the interruption in his train of thought, gave a sigh. He wasn’t going to be able to get any more information about why he had been murdered until he could catch up on what had happened in the last year. And for that he would need to speak with Joanna, his friends, and his colleagues at work. For now, he had to endure his re-orientation and put his questions to the back of his mind.
Army of Me: First chapter
Hello there.
The reason for the lack of updates recently is that I dun been writing a book. I'll put the first four chapters up for your consumption. This is my first real foray into fiction, and as I'm very much a nonfiction writer I know this is probably going to be a bit...well, shit. They're all very much first drafts, so any criticism or suggestions is entirely welcome.
Two days ago
Alex Atkinson had spent the last year watching the tiny kernel of hate that he felt for his job blossom and grow into an all-pervading sense of moral sickness and utter despair. That being the case, it was probably of very little consolation to him that his job was about to get him killed.
To the casual observer of course, there was no hint that they were looking at the features of a doomed man. Quite the opposite, Alex was a tall and strapping fellow in his mid-30s, and one might have thought that the worst care in the world that one could detect on that seemingly open, honest face of his was his receding blonde hairline and thinning scalp. His dark blue eyes were, as is the case in London, watching everything and seeing nothing. No eye contact was made with anyone in the tube carriage. It was full of people who would look at anything except the face of the person near them, although unless they’d brought a newspaper then there would be very little of value to look at, and even then…
Alex was hot and uncomfortable as he stood in the crowded carriage, and it was only the knowledge that he was 3 stops away from home that helped him suppress an irritated sigh as a plump, elderly man forced his way onto the tube at Brent Cross. The TV screens in the carriage continued its usual babble; breathless airheads discussing the minutiae of whichever recycled soap opera plot was currently occupying the hearts and minds of the chav classes. There were human interest stories, which usually consisted of a Z-list celeb (who’d probably begged and pleaded to get the job, hoping to add to their no doubt hopelessly under funded CT Savings Scheme) giving a hushed and reverent narrative over footage of Humanitarian teams picking over the irradiated rubble of Tokyo or Osaka. The shooting of the occasional disfigured survivor always raised a smile from even a jaded audience of tube passengers, so these were on a heavy rotation on the TV screens. And, of course, the ever present and always-shrill public service reminders about Noct Immigrants provided everything a man could want, as long as all he wanted was hysterical hyperbole and fear.
The latest anti-Noct reminder had only started showing a couple of days ago, and so there was more interest than was usual from the passengers. It started out with a shot of a woman’s face, an attractive redhead and probably not even out of her teens. She began talking about how all she wanted was a job. Her voice was joined by another, speaking in a foreign language. Alex could tell that most people on the carriage were unaware that it was Albanian, and that it was echoing the girl’s words. However, the sneers that appeared on the majority of faces at the sound of this second voice indicated firstly that everyone was aware that it was a Noct voice, and secondly that the reaction was the sort of thing that Pavlov would have been deeply impressed with.
The second voice was added to by another, then another and so on. After 20 seconds, one had to struggle to pick out the girl’s voice against a growing roar of different voices and different languages; Alex thought he heard Kiswahili dialects and Urdu mixed up in there, and wondered idly whether or not his own language skills (picked up from 9 years of stilted conversations with sad-eyed Noct Immigrants in pidgin-English and hand gestures) might be enough to get him this sort of work. God knows, there were few enough speakers of Noct languages left in the UK, so there were bound to be at least some jobs going, right? He made a mental note to look into it; if he carried on doing the kind of work he’d been doing over the last 8 or 9 months then he was headed for a nervous breakdown and who knows how many weeks or months out of work and with no financial support. To say nothing of the fact that his job would have gone to someone else if he was absent for more than a week.
The cacophony of voices from the screen increased in pitch and urgency until they were almost unbearable, then just as suddenly died away to leave the girl’s voice loud and clear; “All I want is to work. It’s my right. My birthright. Please, help me find a job.” The girl smiled a comforting, sincere smile whilst looking directly at the camera. Her smiling face filled the screen as an altogether sterner northern male voice added “A job is the birthright of every British citizen. Every job given to a Noct Immigrant robs someone of that right. It could be your wife. Your son. Your sister. Your father. You. Help us to help Britain to stay strong.” By now the smiling face had faded from the screen to be replaced by a telephone number for reporting illegal Nocts that most people knew by heart anyway.
Alex, lost in a daydream where he’d resigned from his current job in the Immigration Law section of Frost, Hutton and Peacock solicitors and was now a well paid and anonymous Noct voiceover in Government announcements barely even registered the end of the announcement and the beginning of the 6 o clock news. He had time to catch the newsreader’s grave tones greet the viewer with news of yet another bombing by Noct terrorists (it had been Paris today) before the tube pulled in to his stop. He pushed his way through the throng of dull-eyed humanity toward the exit, stepped on to the platform, and walked briskly from the station.
As he made his way home from the offices of the law firm where he had worked for just over 9 years, he was lost in a maelstrom of his own thoughts. None of these thoughts were what you might call cheery; he thought about his tattered marriage. He thought about the work colleagues whom he once called friends. He thought about the Anti-Noct rally that was taking place outside Westminster tomorrow that would doubtless see people with whom he could once share a drink and a laugh burning his effigy along with dummies of all the other “Noct lovers” working with or for the UK Vault company. He even thought about just how arrogant that last thought must make him. But mostly he thought about the crushing sense of helplessness and powerlessness that seemed to have consumed his life. It’s a shame that Alex was so intent on his self-indulgent navel-gazing, because if he hadn’t have been, he might have thought a little bit more about the gentleman who had been following him since before he had even caught the tube home.
It was a 15 minute walk from the station to his Flat in North London, but with a shortcut through what had colloquially and mockingly become know as “the Paki maze”, he would be home in 5. His work in Immigration meant that he didn’t have the fear of dark skin and accents that most people in London affected these days. The mockery in the name came from the size of this area of London; less than a few streets large, the maze was a shambolic collection of homes that housed those few people of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi descent who had been able to either convince Immigration officials that they and their parents were British born, or who had been able to bribe them to overlook that they weren’t. It was neglected, overgrown, and occasionally firebombed by thugs agitating for either the British Conservatives or National Labour parties. It made very little difference to the occupants as to who it was. Suffice to say that they had become steadily ghettoised over the previous years, to the extent that they didn’t even notice Alex as he walked through the estate. Noticing people meant that they might notice you, and no-one in the ghetto wanted to be noticed by a white man. You never knew if they might notice your existence and notice that they wanted to make it more difficult.
Alex strode through the quiet streets. There were no children playing; doubtless their parents had dragged them in on seeing his approach. Or maybe they’d all learned his routine, and knew to stay off the street at about 6pm. For all Alex knew, maybe their parents told stories about the white Boogeyman, who patrolled the streets looking for naughty children whom he’d send off to their NCT Homeland where they would be poor(er) and hungry(er) for the rest of their short lives. For whatever reason, there was (as always) no one else on the streets as he walked.
It was to his great surprise, then, that he became aware of another set of footsteps behind him as he walked. This was something completely out of the ordinary; had someone else decided to use his shortcut, emboldened against the deeply held fear of the ghetto’s inhabitants by his presence? After all, 2 white people would surely be safe together against any Asiatic horde (that, at least, was the kind of mindset prevalent these days). The quickening pace of the footsteps trying to catch up to him before he turned the penultimate corner in the ghetto confirmed this in Alex’s mind; whomever it was didn’t want to be out of sight of a countryman in a place like this. A bitter smile formed on his face, but was wiped away quickly as he turned to see which fine example of English Xenophobia was his companion on this daily journey home; an easy one for him, but no doubt clouded with danger in the mind of the average bigot.
He was unsurprised to see that the man approaching him was a picture of uncertainty and nebulous fear. The man stopped momentarily when Alex turned to glance at him, and began to blush slightly beneath his rather waxy looking face. Alex offered him a brief smile, and then turned to continue his journey home. Presumably the smile had comforted and calmed the man a little, as his pace slowed and he merely kept pace with Alex. He indulged himself in another bitter smile; this was what passed for compassion these days. A calming smile to a stranger in fear of a non-existent threat manufactured to keep people distracted and frightened. He shook his head and quietly chuckled at the ludicrousness of it all. The man behind him had picked up his pace once again. Alex guessed that he’d lost his nerve near the end of the estate, and was now making a panicked run for freedom.
“By the end of the evening,” Alex thought “that stupid frightened soul will be telling all of his friends of his close escape from the Paki Maze. Fucker will probably dine out on that story for weeks…”
It was only the sudden and literally breathtaking impact in his lower left back that indicated to Alex that maybe he had guessed wrong about the man losing nerve. He dropped his briefcase in shock, and tried to turn to face the man. His back suddenly radiated an explosive pain as he half turned and saw the man, eyes wild and waxy face flushed and sweating with terror, twist the knife that he’d just thumped into Alex’s back.
Alex reached out and tried to shove the man away from him. The knife was twisted further still and Alex offered a brief and wordless pained contortion of his features as it did so. He dropped to his knees, and the knife was yanked free. With its withdrawal, Alex began to get his breath back. He fell forward and, on all fours, began panting and crying in pain. He again tried to look at his assailant, hoping to plead with him. By now the man’s face had hardened from the panic he had seen earlier, into the wild cast of a man resolved to see an unpleasant task through. The man’s earlier fear had matured into a terrified determination.
Despite the pain it caused him, Alex threw up his hands to try and protect his face as the man closed in and began slashing at Alex’s face. The only effect that had was to irritate the man, and what might have been a quick and relatively easy death for Alex became a minutes-long ordeal of blood, punctured organs, and pain. By the time the man cried out in a mixture of anger and triumph, he had mutilated Alex’s hands to cracked stumps. His face was an eyeless gaping mess of crimson. As he drew his last breath, as the knife hammered through his ribcage and into his heart in what had become a frenzied orgy of stabbing, his lungs were already filling with blood.
As Alex was hacked to death by a stranger on a warm spring evening under a beautiful blue sky, a few frightened people watched uncertainly from behind their drawn curtains. They shrunk back as the killer gave his triumphant bellow. A lifetime of not being seen stood those watching in good stead, for the eyes of the killer didn’t notice any of the figures peeking through windows at the red tableau that he had created. The killer removed a mobile phone from his jacket and, hands shaking, dialled a number. Less than 2 minutes later, a small blue car had arrived. It drove slowly and deliberately to the man who had remained standing by Alex’s body. An observer who’d had the luxury of observing earlier might have noticed his fidgeting refusal to meet the eyes (or approximation thereof) of person nearest to him, and perhaps commented on how it was remarkably similar to Alex’s when on the tube. The car drew to a close and the passenger door was opened. The driver called out to the man, who jumped slightly as if he hadn’t even noticed its arrival. He paused and looked down at Alex’s body, as if the knowledge that he was imminently leaving the scene gave him the courage to do so. He paused like that for a few more moments until his wordless reverie was interrupted by another shout from the driver. At that, the man climbed in, and the car drove off.
It was over an hour before one of the people living in the ghetto called the police. For his troubles, he was immediately arrested as the prime suspect.
The reason for the lack of updates recently is that I dun been writing a book. I'll put the first four chapters up for your consumption. This is my first real foray into fiction, and as I'm very much a nonfiction writer I know this is probably going to be a bit...well, shit. They're all very much first drafts, so any criticism or suggestions is entirely welcome.
Two days ago
Alex Atkinson had spent the last year watching the tiny kernel of hate that he felt for his job blossom and grow into an all-pervading sense of moral sickness and utter despair. That being the case, it was probably of very little consolation to him that his job was about to get him killed.
To the casual observer of course, there was no hint that they were looking at the features of a doomed man. Quite the opposite, Alex was a tall and strapping fellow in his mid-30s, and one might have thought that the worst care in the world that one could detect on that seemingly open, honest face of his was his receding blonde hairline and thinning scalp. His dark blue eyes were, as is the case in London, watching everything and seeing nothing. No eye contact was made with anyone in the tube carriage. It was full of people who would look at anything except the face of the person near them, although unless they’d brought a newspaper then there would be very little of value to look at, and even then…
Alex was hot and uncomfortable as he stood in the crowded carriage, and it was only the knowledge that he was 3 stops away from home that helped him suppress an irritated sigh as a plump, elderly man forced his way onto the tube at Brent Cross. The TV screens in the carriage continued its usual babble; breathless airheads discussing the minutiae of whichever recycled soap opera plot was currently occupying the hearts and minds of the chav classes. There were human interest stories, which usually consisted of a Z-list celeb (who’d probably begged and pleaded to get the job, hoping to add to their no doubt hopelessly under funded CT Savings Scheme) giving a hushed and reverent narrative over footage of Humanitarian teams picking over the irradiated rubble of Tokyo or Osaka. The shooting of the occasional disfigured survivor always raised a smile from even a jaded audience of tube passengers, so these were on a heavy rotation on the TV screens. And, of course, the ever present and always-shrill public service reminders about Noct Immigrants provided everything a man could want, as long as all he wanted was hysterical hyperbole and fear.
The latest anti-Noct reminder had only started showing a couple of days ago, and so there was more interest than was usual from the passengers. It started out with a shot of a woman’s face, an attractive redhead and probably not even out of her teens. She began talking about how all she wanted was a job. Her voice was joined by another, speaking in a foreign language. Alex could tell that most people on the carriage were unaware that it was Albanian, and that it was echoing the girl’s words. However, the sneers that appeared on the majority of faces at the sound of this second voice indicated firstly that everyone was aware that it was a Noct voice, and secondly that the reaction was the sort of thing that Pavlov would have been deeply impressed with.
The second voice was added to by another, then another and so on. After 20 seconds, one had to struggle to pick out the girl’s voice against a growing roar of different voices and different languages; Alex thought he heard Kiswahili dialects and Urdu mixed up in there, and wondered idly whether or not his own language skills (picked up from 9 years of stilted conversations with sad-eyed Noct Immigrants in pidgin-English and hand gestures) might be enough to get him this sort of work. God knows, there were few enough speakers of Noct languages left in the UK, so there were bound to be at least some jobs going, right? He made a mental note to look into it; if he carried on doing the kind of work he’d been doing over the last 8 or 9 months then he was headed for a nervous breakdown and who knows how many weeks or months out of work and with no financial support. To say nothing of the fact that his job would have gone to someone else if he was absent for more than a week.
The cacophony of voices from the screen increased in pitch and urgency until they were almost unbearable, then just as suddenly died away to leave the girl’s voice loud and clear; “All I want is to work. It’s my right. My birthright. Please, help me find a job.” The girl smiled a comforting, sincere smile whilst looking directly at the camera. Her smiling face filled the screen as an altogether sterner northern male voice added “A job is the birthright of every British citizen. Every job given to a Noct Immigrant robs someone of that right. It could be your wife. Your son. Your sister. Your father. You. Help us to help Britain to stay strong.” By now the smiling face had faded from the screen to be replaced by a telephone number for reporting illegal Nocts that most people knew by heart anyway.
Alex, lost in a daydream where he’d resigned from his current job in the Immigration Law section of Frost, Hutton and Peacock solicitors and was now a well paid and anonymous Noct voiceover in Government announcements barely even registered the end of the announcement and the beginning of the 6 o clock news. He had time to catch the newsreader’s grave tones greet the viewer with news of yet another bombing by Noct terrorists (it had been Paris today) before the tube pulled in to his stop. He pushed his way through the throng of dull-eyed humanity toward the exit, stepped on to the platform, and walked briskly from the station.
As he made his way home from the offices of the law firm where he had worked for just over 9 years, he was lost in a maelstrom of his own thoughts. None of these thoughts were what you might call cheery; he thought about his tattered marriage. He thought about the work colleagues whom he once called friends. He thought about the Anti-Noct rally that was taking place outside Westminster tomorrow that would doubtless see people with whom he could once share a drink and a laugh burning his effigy along with dummies of all the other “Noct lovers” working with or for the UK Vault company. He even thought about just how arrogant that last thought must make him. But mostly he thought about the crushing sense of helplessness and powerlessness that seemed to have consumed his life. It’s a shame that Alex was so intent on his self-indulgent navel-gazing, because if he hadn’t have been, he might have thought a little bit more about the gentleman who had been following him since before he had even caught the tube home.
It was a 15 minute walk from the station to his Flat in North London, but with a shortcut through what had colloquially and mockingly become know as “the Paki maze”, he would be home in 5. His work in Immigration meant that he didn’t have the fear of dark skin and accents that most people in London affected these days. The mockery in the name came from the size of this area of London; less than a few streets large, the maze was a shambolic collection of homes that housed those few people of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi descent who had been able to either convince Immigration officials that they and their parents were British born, or who had been able to bribe them to overlook that they weren’t. It was neglected, overgrown, and occasionally firebombed by thugs agitating for either the British Conservatives or National Labour parties. It made very little difference to the occupants as to who it was. Suffice to say that they had become steadily ghettoised over the previous years, to the extent that they didn’t even notice Alex as he walked through the estate. Noticing people meant that they might notice you, and no-one in the ghetto wanted to be noticed by a white man. You never knew if they might notice your existence and notice that they wanted to make it more difficult.
Alex strode through the quiet streets. There were no children playing; doubtless their parents had dragged them in on seeing his approach. Or maybe they’d all learned his routine, and knew to stay off the street at about 6pm. For all Alex knew, maybe their parents told stories about the white Boogeyman, who patrolled the streets looking for naughty children whom he’d send off to their NCT Homeland where they would be poor(er) and hungry(er) for the rest of their short lives. For whatever reason, there was (as always) no one else on the streets as he walked.
It was to his great surprise, then, that he became aware of another set of footsteps behind him as he walked. This was something completely out of the ordinary; had someone else decided to use his shortcut, emboldened against the deeply held fear of the ghetto’s inhabitants by his presence? After all, 2 white people would surely be safe together against any Asiatic horde (that, at least, was the kind of mindset prevalent these days). The quickening pace of the footsteps trying to catch up to him before he turned the penultimate corner in the ghetto confirmed this in Alex’s mind; whomever it was didn’t want to be out of sight of a countryman in a place like this. A bitter smile formed on his face, but was wiped away quickly as he turned to see which fine example of English Xenophobia was his companion on this daily journey home; an easy one for him, but no doubt clouded with danger in the mind of the average bigot.
He was unsurprised to see that the man approaching him was a picture of uncertainty and nebulous fear. The man stopped momentarily when Alex turned to glance at him, and began to blush slightly beneath his rather waxy looking face. Alex offered him a brief smile, and then turned to continue his journey home. Presumably the smile had comforted and calmed the man a little, as his pace slowed and he merely kept pace with Alex. He indulged himself in another bitter smile; this was what passed for compassion these days. A calming smile to a stranger in fear of a non-existent threat manufactured to keep people distracted and frightened. He shook his head and quietly chuckled at the ludicrousness of it all. The man behind him had picked up his pace once again. Alex guessed that he’d lost his nerve near the end of the estate, and was now making a panicked run for freedom.
“By the end of the evening,” Alex thought “that stupid frightened soul will be telling all of his friends of his close escape from the Paki Maze. Fucker will probably dine out on that story for weeks…”
It was only the sudden and literally breathtaking impact in his lower left back that indicated to Alex that maybe he had guessed wrong about the man losing nerve. He dropped his briefcase in shock, and tried to turn to face the man. His back suddenly radiated an explosive pain as he half turned and saw the man, eyes wild and waxy face flushed and sweating with terror, twist the knife that he’d just thumped into Alex’s back.
Alex reached out and tried to shove the man away from him. The knife was twisted further still and Alex offered a brief and wordless pained contortion of his features as it did so. He dropped to his knees, and the knife was yanked free. With its withdrawal, Alex began to get his breath back. He fell forward and, on all fours, began panting and crying in pain. He again tried to look at his assailant, hoping to plead with him. By now the man’s face had hardened from the panic he had seen earlier, into the wild cast of a man resolved to see an unpleasant task through. The man’s earlier fear had matured into a terrified determination.
Despite the pain it caused him, Alex threw up his hands to try and protect his face as the man closed in and began slashing at Alex’s face. The only effect that had was to irritate the man, and what might have been a quick and relatively easy death for Alex became a minutes-long ordeal of blood, punctured organs, and pain. By the time the man cried out in a mixture of anger and triumph, he had mutilated Alex’s hands to cracked stumps. His face was an eyeless gaping mess of crimson. As he drew his last breath, as the knife hammered through his ribcage and into his heart in what had become a frenzied orgy of stabbing, his lungs were already filling with blood.
As Alex was hacked to death by a stranger on a warm spring evening under a beautiful blue sky, a few frightened people watched uncertainly from behind their drawn curtains. They shrunk back as the killer gave his triumphant bellow. A lifetime of not being seen stood those watching in good stead, for the eyes of the killer didn’t notice any of the figures peeking through windows at the red tableau that he had created. The killer removed a mobile phone from his jacket and, hands shaking, dialled a number. Less than 2 minutes later, a small blue car had arrived. It drove slowly and deliberately to the man who had remained standing by Alex’s body. An observer who’d had the luxury of observing earlier might have noticed his fidgeting refusal to meet the eyes (or approximation thereof) of person nearest to him, and perhaps commented on how it was remarkably similar to Alex’s when on the tube. The car drew to a close and the passenger door was opened. The driver called out to the man, who jumped slightly as if he hadn’t even noticed its arrival. He paused and looked down at Alex’s body, as if the knowledge that he was imminently leaving the scene gave him the courage to do so. He paused like that for a few more moments until his wordless reverie was interrupted by another shout from the driver. At that, the man climbed in, and the car drove off.
It was over an hour before one of the people living in the ghetto called the police. For his troubles, he was immediately arrested as the prime suspect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)