Altered States (27 page)

Felicity saw me struggling. ‘Ten years have passed Aaron. There’s nothing more to say.’

I nodded, feeling like I’d failed, but being relieved all the same. She was right; there was nothing I could say. I turned to leave and it was Felicity’s turn to speak up.

‘She’s in a coma. Her doctors say it’s unlikely she’ll ever wake up. And if she does, she’ll probably have severe brain damage. So in every other sense of the word she
is
dead. She’s not part of this world any more. I just hope she’s part of a better one.’

And I left.

I didn’t waste any time in heading over to the GenieTec sales office – the New York transportation system took care of wasting it for me. The office was on the ninth floor of a Manhattan sky-rise. I took the elevator up and as I pushed through the frosted glass doors of the office I was almost dazzled by the gleaming perfection of its interior. Anything that couldn’t be made out of glass was coloured white, including the sharp-lined attire of the woman behind the desk. I felt like I’d soiled the place just by being there in my non-white garments. This image was presumably intended to imbue a sense of purity and wholesomeness. Maybe they felt that decking it out like the Pearly Gates would allay any fears of potential customers who were concerned that using this technology was acting against God’s very will. I didn’t let God’s will trouble me overly. I had my own agenda.

The neatly turned out woman was the only person in the room. She didn’t wait for me to approach but came around to greet me with a shake of the hand.

‘Would you like me to go through the levels of service we provide?’ She turned toward her desk and indicated for me to take a seat.

‘No,’ I said firmly, not moving. Clearly, she was the well-polished sales interface to this firm and I didn’t have time to parry her sound-bites all day. ‘Listen,’ I said sternly. ‘This is in connection with the death of a previous client. I can’t say any more. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish me to say any more. Unless you want to go on record for the company?’ I leaned forward. ‘I really think it’s best if I speak directly with Dr Venton.’

‘Umm, this is just a sales office,’ she explained apologetically. ‘All of our experts work out of our labs in Mountain View, California.’

‘Email address, maybe?’ I offered in a bout of benevolence, not bearing to watch her squirm any longer. She perked up a little. She fetched a business card from her desk and handed it over. It was semi-opaque plastic with the funky little logo you’d expect from a start-up genetics company; plus the name and email address of Dr Venton.

‘Thanks for your help,’ I said with a smile and turned to leave. Then stopped. ‘Oh, almost forgot,’ I said as I began fumbling in my pockets. ‘Can you put these on ice or whatever it is you need to do with them; and forward them to Dr Venton.’ I pulled out two plastic containers and held them to her. ‘Sorry, I don’t know how this thing works so I did one of each.’

The poor woman looked unsure what to say as I offered her two small pots containing samples of my blood and urine. Eventually, she managed one word.

I got a plane back to New Meadows. During the flight, whilst the guy next to me slept on my shoulder, I became aware of just how complicated things were becoming, especially for a guy that really should have such a simple life. I felt that by this stage everything should be coming together nicely, but everything really wasn’t. In fact, everything was diverging at an alarming rate. I had now collected another insurmountable conundrum. Gemma’s daughter seemed to exhibit at least some of my skills. This was entirely implausible for two very considerable reasons.

Firstly, Pearle was not my daughter. Trust me, this was an impossibility of gestation.

Secondly, my skills are self-taught through years of obsessive study and practice. So it’s not like anyone could inherit them anyway.

If there is one lesson I have learnt during my life that’s worth remembering it is this: if a whole bunch of weird things happen, then they are usually all related. After all, weird things, by definition, are not run-of-the-mill. They are rare, uncommon. Two weird things might just be a coincidence. But the more that occur, the more likely it becomes that they all stem from the same cause. I’d lost count of how many weird things had now happened.

Whilst I waited for Venton’s return, there wasn’t anything else to do but head back to New Meadows. It’s curious in a way that I actually left with the intention of returning. Normally, when I needed or decided to travel somewhere, I just moved on; but this time I didn’t even check out of my hotel room.

I knew why this was. There was someone in New Meadows who I could talk to about all this shit. And at the same time there was someone who offered me a distraction when I needed it. I was indulging myself, it was true. It totally violated my rules of conduct, my modus operandi. But maybe I was just tired of playing that game.

Intentions

Karla and I took a trip to Spain – it’s about halfway up the New Meadows Strip, on the left. There aren’t many really nice places to hang out in New Meadows, but out the back of this hotel it was quite pleasant. I’m no expert in Spanish history but as far as attention to detail goes, it appears the creators of this resort really went to town – well, a mock Catalonian village, in fact.

There was a chapel, a green, some aged knotted trees, and a set of gravelly boules courts, bustling with old men. Overseeing the proceedings were further elderly gentlemen sitting on a fake-old stone wall under the shade of a eucalyptus tree. They had golden leathery faces and gnarled walking sticks, and looked like they’d been sitting there a hundred years. I know from a previous encounter that these men didn’t even speak English, and they cast suspicious eyes over passers-by, just like
real
locals. In fact, they seemed so authentic I’m pretty certain they weren’t tourists at all but stooges shipped in from Spain by the resort owners – or deepest Central America at least.

On the far side of the square there was a whitewashed stone building that served as a local tapas bar. Inside the bar the walls were bare stone with random splotches of green paint. Irregular wooden benches were surrounded by chairs that were nothing more than lumps of tree trunk. Yet another great stab at authenticity. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that the owners had shipped the whole village in from Spain – brick-by-brick, person-by-person. That’s how much money was behind these places.

We got ourselves a drink from the bar and ordered a number of dishes, then made our way to a table outside. Karla seemed a little uneasy, on-edge, though I admit I still found it difficult to judge with her.

The food came presented on plates and dishes carved from wood, and was lovingly doused in artery-narrowing quantities of salt. The dishes consisted largely of seafood. The kind of seafood with more legs than I usually like my fish to boast, but which Karla seemed to prefer. The wine, though, we both enjoyed equally as we sipped it from white ceramic bowls.

Karla was quiet and as we ate in silence I casually glanced around the setting, studying people as is my wont. After we’d polished off most of the food and two carafes of sangria, Karla spoke up.

‘Well, my employer, Igneous, want to start a campaign to make counterfeiting anti-social and get establishments to ban it. Like smoking is anti-social in every other state, here they want to make wearing fake goods anti-social.’

‘Well, I got talking to someone quite high up in the company after a seminar they made us go to this week. He’s supposedly an expert in anti-counterfeiting measures. He was saying that whatever method they devise to ensure the authenticity of an item, the counterfeiters soon catch up. Whether it’s holograms in the label, or fabric watermarking, or electronic ID tags. The crooks are never far behind. They’re just too good. So, he was saying, there’s only one way forward. There is only one foolproof method of identifying whether a garment is fake. A method the counterfeiters can never foil.’

‘The industry is totally locked down these days. The stores don’t sell the fake stuff. So if you buy it, you know about it. It’s always cheap, and it’s always on the street.’

‘Okay, so the idea is to get establishments like BlueJay on board and ban fake goods. Make it just another part of the dress code. That would mean that anyone trying to pass through the doors covertly flouting the rule is going to be self-conscious about it. So, all they need is some mechanism for detecting this. Preferably, remotely and non-intrusively.’

She was right. I was starting to get interested.

‘If they could get this off the ground,’ she continued, ‘and the idea spreads, then imagine the impact. If you know you might set off alarm bells by strolling into your favourite restaurant with your knock-off Gucci handbag, then...’

‘Then you might just have to buy an
actual
Gucci handbag.’

‘Right. It could kill the rug trade dead. But it all hinges on implementing a successful detection system. Such a system would be worth literally billions of dollars to these companies.’

‘And do they know how to create such a system?’

‘No.’ She sipped from her glass with a twinkle in her eye. ‘But I know a man who could help.’ She smiled broadly at me.

She was right of course. In fact, somewhere buried deep in the internet was the encrypted source code for a system that was a long way toward the goal they sought – the Hide system that I had been instrumental in developing ... and destroying.

I didn’t say anything to Karla, and her reciprocated silence was a conspicuous departure from her usual chatty self. She excused herself from the table to visit the bathroom and I watched as she walked away. I couldn’t read her, not like other people. She didn’t exhibit micro-expressions; her skin didn’t flush when she lied or was embarrassed; she showed no involuntary responses to my prompts. But on a larger scale, I could see she was behaving differently. She seemed withdrawn: less eager to talk, yet less comfortable in silence. Only during the last conversation did she become animated.

Something was beginning to fall into place in my mind, though I hadn’t been aware anything was out of place. I tapped my finger slowly on the edge of the table as if timing the revolutions of my thoughts.

I could avoid the nature of the facts no longer. Whatever innocent context I tried to bludgeon them into they just wouldn’t fit. There was no escaping the reality. Suddenly this sunny day had turned dark and I had a feeling things weren’t going to get brighter anytime soon. My mind raced. There was no winner so it just kept on racing. Trying to reach the finish line. Trying to fathom how everything fitted together.