Dark Matter (22 page)

“
Touché
,” said Rasputin, and smiled
for the first time that day. “Okay. I give. I’m moderately interested, and I
promise not to dob on you.”

Sam cast the fedora onto his head. “Thanks.
What can I give you, if not beer?”

“Your phone number.”

Sam baulked, so Rasputin added, “I won’t
call you up every night for a deep and meaningful. It’s just in case I need to
reach you.”

Sam relented. “You need a pen?”

“No.”

“That’s the way,” he said, and recited the
number.

“Your number is three away from a prime,”
said Rasputin.

Sam frowned in confusion, turned and left
Rasputin leaning against the wall, wondering what the hell his head was doing
plucking prime numbers—those rare jewels of the limitless mathematical caves—from
phone numbers.

Rasputin stepped off the bus and into
an afternoon that wanted to make the mysterious shift to twilight. It was held
back, like the watched kettle, only by his observing eye. A moment’s pause to
resettle his backpack and hitch his pants was all the shy afternoon sky needed
to shrug its deep blue and slip into burning orange.

The bus stop was a mere hundred yards from
the dilapidated letterbox that tilted over the path in front of his flat. If
the box had lately borne more than bills and form letters he might have done
his tenantly duty and fixed it. But daily it gestated and birthed trouble, so
he had come to loathe it.

What caught his eye, though, was the sleek,
low shape of the Jaguar parked at the curb in front of it. A figure turned at
his approach, seeming to materialise from the half-light. Thorpe caught his eye
and strode to meet him as he reached the driveway. His eyes burned with the
twilight fire.

“Our deal was predicated on complete
honesty.”

“What are you talking about?” said
Rasputin, racking his memory for the source of the pang of guilt that struck at
Thorpe’s words.

“You lied during your assessment.”

Ah. Yes, that was true.

But curiosity overcame the sense of shame
that blossomed at the accusation.

“How did you know?”

“There is a pinpoint camera that monitors
the subject’s eye movement, and tracks which image is looked at. If a subject
recognises an image, he dwells on it first. The behaviour is almost involuntary
if one is not aware of being observed.”

 
Sneaky bastard, thought Rasputin, but couldn’t
help smiling. It was cunning.

“By mouth you got two-thirds right. By eye
it was a whitewash.” Thorpe stepped closer, pushing over the wall at the
boundary of Rasputin’s personal space. He seemed to grow a foot.

“But the point is: you lied to me. And I
can’t help you if you lie to me. The road to hell is paved with lies. Is that
where you want to go?”

The mention of hell recalled the images he
had been made to see. He rallied that stale anger to his defence.

“Alright. I wasn’t square with the test,
but why did you make me endure those photos?”

“What photos?”

“You know damn well what photos: the dead,
the dying, and the despised.”

Thorpe shifted his weight onto his back
foot, and was silent in that way that gave Rasputin to think he was choosing
his words carefully, like an artist colours from a palette.

“It is common practice to seed the images
in a memory test with...noise. In your case, disturbing imagery. It is like
asking someone to sort a deck of cards, when what you are really interested in
is what their legs are doing.”

“Lloyd didn’t seem to think it was ‘common
practice.’ He practically apologised.”

“Lloyd is a deck hand; I am the captain.”

And, thought Rasputin, in short order Lloyd
would be scrubbing the poop deck.

Sounding childish in his own ears, Rasputin
couldn’t help but add: “You could have picked another distraction. Sorting
cards would have been preferable. There’s enough crap in the world. I don’t
need to live in a toilet.”

“You’re right. And I haven’t told you the
complete truth yet.”

Rasputin’s ears pricked up.

“I could have chosen a different distractor,
but I chose those images for a reason. To kill two birds with the same stone.”

“I’m listening.”

“A common side effect of your condition is
depression,” he said, leaving the word hanging alone.

Rasputin jammed a hand into a pocket and
let his gaze roam the lichen-encrusted tiles of his flat.

“You needn’t have bothered. I can tell you
straight out I’m depressed. I owe money, and what job prospects I had are
crippled by a leg with a chronic identity crisis. Who wouldn’t be depressed?”

“You don’t owe anything anymore.”

“Yes I do. My debt just changed currency.”

“Feeling depressed isn’t the same as
depression
.”

“Depressed. Depression. Why do you care
either way? What’s it got to do with the time-bomb in my head?”

Thorpe’s gaze relented. He scuffed a leaf
from the driveway with an expensive leather shoe.

“Potentially, much.” He looked up and to
the east. Perhaps with those clear eyes he saw Venus, the Morning Star, waiting
in the wings for its curtain call.

“Depression is one symptom in the
constellation of woes that accompany the progression of ALS. The earlier I mark
the appearance of any symptom, the better I can gauge the trajectory of the
disease, and the more effective at the end are the steps we take now.” He
smiled at the sky. “Nudge a missile as it leaves the wing—just a child’s shove—and
see it fall wide of a village of children.”

For Rasputin, the thought of forestalling
his disease conjured a different image. He saw a butterfly beat opalescent
wings over tropical waters and invoke a cascade of chaos that grew into a
city-killing hurricane. He saw the heel of his shoe smear the insect’s gizzard
and avert disaster.

The scrape of shoes on pavement drew Thorpe’s
gaze. Someone approached. Rasputin turned to see Jordy walking from the bus
stop. One shoulder was pulled lower than the other by the weight of his
briefcase. A shirt flap hung over his pants, which were creased above his
thighs. The thin end of his tie was peeking out. His appearance was what
Rasputin called After-Jordy, what a day in the office did to Before-Jordy, who
he sometimes bid farewell to in the morning.

Jordy straightened up as he put the
briefcase down and greeted Rasputin, “Monk.” But his gaze was on Thorpe.

“Mr. Mitchell, I presume,” said Thorpe, and
extended his hand. Jordy took it, nodded, but said nothing. He held it long,
and Rasputin noted how the skin about their knuckles went white as they
compressed each other’s hand.

Their hands swung apart finally, and Jordy
said, “Why are you standing in the drive. Didn’t this punk offer you a drink?”

“I can’t stop,” said Thorpe. “I merely
called past to tell Rasputin he was a liar.”

Rasputin wasn’t sure if it was meant as a
joke.

“You could do me a favour, being his
flatmate, by keeping an eye on him.”

“Like a brother,” said Jordy, without
humour.

Jordy’s reply worked a curious, fleeting
change on the surgeon’s face. It was suddenly animated by distaste or
frustration. Whatever the cause, it stifled whatever else he had to say. He
rounded the front of the Jaguar and bent to open the door.

“What am I looking for, exactly?” said
Jordy, when Thorpe had one leg planted on the car’s floor.

“Irritability. Moodiness. Slurred speech.
Seizures.” He sank into the car. Its engine wound and caught. The car heaved
forward, as the engine whined up an octave, and was gone.

“Check. Check and Check,” said Jordy,
catching Rasputin’s eye.

“Seizures?” said Rasputin. “Shit.”

“Relax, Monk. He’s trying to get your
goat.”

“He already has my goat. In hock.”

“He’s just grumpy. It’s an occupational
hazard for surgeons. All those narcotic-propped hours. Plus the god-complex.”

It was the kind of thing Jordy said to
diffuse a situation, but it lacked the needed edge of humour. The net effect
was negative.

As Rasputin left the next morning, in
a rush to make his appointment with Lloyd, he nearly stepped on a package left
in front of the door. It was a yellow envelope about the size of a milk carton.
It lay in line with the mat’s WELCOME message, occluding the LCO.

“WEME to you too,” he said to the morning.
He stooped to retrieve the package and tore off the sealing strip. The weight
of the package lay at one end, so he tilted it. An object slid satisfyingly
down its length until it took flight into his hand. It was a mobile phone. He
jammed the envelope under the door, and kept walking, navigating by peripheral
vision while he examined the phone.

He wasn’t up-to-date on mobile tech, but it
looked shiny. He turned it on, and noted that it had signal and a full battery.
Someone had sent him a flashy phone that was ready to go.

He punched Sam’s number into it as he drew
level with the bus stop, and gazed back down the road in the direction the bus
would come as the call worked its way through the network, found Sam’s phone,
and blipped confirmation of the connection.

When Sam answered he sounded put out and
tense. “Yep.”

“Honey, could you pick up milk on your way
home from work?”

A short pause elapsed before, “Rasputin.
You promised me you wouldn’t dick around with my number.”

“True, true. First and last time unless the
situation is dire. I promise.”

“Go on.”

“Do you go in for hunches?”

“Did you say ‘lunches’ or ‘hunchbacks’?
Because that would be ‘yes’ and ‘no’ respectively. But I’m guessing I
misheard.”

“I was wondering, given you’ve opened a
file on Thorpe, if you knew if he has siblings. In particular, any brothers. No
biggie, but I’m feeling like cannon fodder, and it would be nice to have
something to return fire with. If it’s not too much to ask.”

“I’ll look into it. But please don’t call
me again unless it’s serious.”

“Okey dokey. And, hey, thanks for the
phone.”

As Rasputin snapped the phone shut, he
heard Sam’s tinny voice say something like “What?”

The office where Rasputin met Lloyd
was downright homely compared to the Media Room. Nestling a computer were
photos of a woman, presumably Lloyd’s wife, and two little-Lloyds. Lloyd’s
immaculate fingernails shone up at Rasputin from hands resting splayed upon an
open folder.

“So,” Lloyd said, drawing his hands up into
a shell under his chin. “Tell me about yourself. Start wherever you like.
Whatever comes to mind.”

“Thorpe admitted those photos were his
attempt to depth-charge some kind of latent depression.”

“Ah, yes,” said Lloyd. He had been briefed.
“He told me you asked about them. I thought you would. He also told me he
explained their dual purpose, to detect and
distract
.”

“I bought that when he said it,” Rasputin
said, and watching Lloyd’s face stiffen, regretted he wasn’t a smoker; it was
the perfect juncture to stub out a cigarette and enjoy a
beat
. That’s
what a screenwriter would have done. “But if that were true, you’d sprinkle
those photos through the test, not drop them in a glob at the end.”

“But your response is the pressing issue,”
countered Lloyd.

Rasputin wondered if Lloyd felt comforted
that he could easily shift to a career in politics if psychology failed.

“Okay. My dad never bought me a bike and
that makes me really sad.”

“Do you get on well with your father?”

“Like a house ablaze. When he’s around.”
Rasputin lifted his left hand to look at the faint freckles that patterned its
back. So familiar. He noticed a faint tremor in his fingers, something not
familiar, and gripped his cane to stifle it. He shot a glance at Lloyd to see
if he had noticed, but the psychologist was staring out the window. “He’s not around
much.”

“Oh. Where is he?”

“Abroad. With Mum. They’re in Europe now,
probably doing something with a vulgar boatman.”

“You know,” Rasputin continued. “It occurs
to me that it’s my parents you should be talking to. They’d be much more fun. I
mean, who just floats around the globe subsisting on novelty? That can’t be
healthy, can it?”

Rasputin sensed Lloyd was trying to seem
nonchalant as he spoke. “Why do you think they spend so much time away?”

The answer leapt into his mind, and nearly
from his mouth in the same instant:
to avoid me.
But that couldn’t be
true. They loved him. He knew that deeply. Why would you avoid someone you
loved? That didn’t make sense.