The Lucifer Code (9 page)

*

Barley Hall.

The next morning

'I'm telling you, Miles, I died again last night,' said Amber, looking pale and drawn.

Fleming frowned. 'The nurse said you had a nightmare.'

'It was no nightmare. I don't dream. Ariel used to dream but I never did. That was one of the things that separated us. What happened last night was so real. It was a repeat of the near-death experience 1 had on the operating table when I almost died. When Ariel did die.'

'But you're not dead, Amber. I'm a doctor. I notice these things.'

He sat behind his desk in his office and tried not to look at his watch. Rob's trial was due in less than two hours and Amber's cab was waiting outside to take her to the airport. This morning he had woken early and, after a jog along the river and a light breakfast, he had left home at about seven. His mother and Jake were staying with him and had arranged to come to the clinic later so that if the trial went well Rob could talk to them. It was an unusually sunny October day and he had left the top down on his ageing Jaguar sports car to speed along the flat fenland roads to Barley Hall. The weather was a good omen for Rob's trial and he had arrived hopeful, expecting to be able to spend the first few hours of the day preparing for it. But Amber had prevented that.

'Come on, Amber, I know you're upset by your dream, but listen to what you're saying.'

'It wasn't a dream,' she said stubbornly, rubbing her ear-lobe.

'Okay, tell me about this dream, this experience.'

'I already told you. I leave my body and rush through darkness to a bright light. I'm moving so fast I catch up with it. Then I'm part of it. And suddenly, as if I'm attached by elastic, I'm yanked back to my body and to life. The only way I can describe it is like a psychic bungee jump.'

'And Ariel featured in this?'

'Well, that's the weird thing. I never saw her but there was a kind of connection - although it's not easy to explain. Like magnets of the same polarity, the more we tried to come together the stronger the force that was keeping us apart became. It was like atoms that attract each other when they're a little distance apart but repel each other when squeezed into one another. We were two people stuck in a revolving door - however hard we pushed to meet up it just wasn't going to happen.'

Fleming smiled sympathetically: by consciously linking the headaches to her dead twin, Amber had unleashed a torrent of repressed memories and emotions from her unconscious, he thought.

'It sounds a lot like a dream, Amber, or a delayed memory. Look, Ariel still intrudes on your thoughts from time to time. Am 1 right?'

'Yeah.'

And yesterday when we discussed your headaches you were particularly focused on her. So it's understandable that your subconscious-'

It was more than that,' she insisted vehemently. Some part of her was searching for me, trying to reach me, consciously trying to warn me about something . . .' She trailed off, frowning, as if realizing how strange her words sounded. 'It didn't feel like a dream.'

'Dreams rarely do, Amber. Last night Frankie gave you a stimulant to help the NeuroTranslator get a better read off your neural signals, and that often has the effect of relaxing the subconscious -triggering dreams, even repressed ones. It's a good thing - it gives Brian more material to analyse so it can better understand what's going on in there. Amber, dreams are powerful and often seem more real than reality. As we discussed, I suggest you come back here in three or four days so we can complete the analysis. Can you spend up to a month away from your other responsibilities?'

Amber hesitated briefly, then nodded. 'Yes. I want to resolve this. I've got to resolve this.'

And we will resolve it,' he said. 'We'll wait for you to come back from California then let the NeuroTranslator finish its initial analysis. We can run any ancillary scans that might be necessary before analysing your brain while you're experiencing a phantom headache. I'll look at your base data results as soon as I can. If I see anything unusual I'll tell you immediately. Okay?'

'You'll at least think about what I told you?'

'Of course. I'll investigate every avenue fully. You've come to me to cure your phantom headaches. I'll look at anything and everything relevant to that. But I can tell you now, there'll be a rational medical explanation for this. There always is.'

Amber frowned, clearly unconvinced. 'Is there?'

'Yes,' he said confidently. 'Always.'

*

The Think Tank

By eleven o'clock Fleming was beside Rob's bed in the Think Tank. The team had assembled. Standing next to the NeuroTranslator was Greg Brown, a pale, bespectacled Australian who had studied computer electronics in Sydney and California before coming to Cambridge to work as Fleming's technical assistant and computer specialist. Frankie Pinner was by the bed, checking Rob's life signs on the surrounding monitors.

Fleming bent down to his brother. Rob's eye-activated communication screen had been removed for the trial and he was reduced to one blink for no and two for yes. 'Rob, you do understand what's going to happen today?'

He blinked his left eye twice.

Fleming and Brown had spent months calibrating Brian not only to amplify and interpret brain waves but also to correlate their patterns to words. For the last month Rob had been poring silently over selected text passages while Brian read his mind, correlating his thought patterns to the words he was reading and finding simple connections. By linking the machine to a voice synthesizer Fleming hoped to translate Rob's thought words into speech. And today was the day.

He decided to be direct. 'There are risks, Rob. You must understand that although this trial poses no direct threat to you, you're in a weakened state-particularly your heart - and any exertion may place a potentially fatal strain on it. We can still put off the trial. There's no pressure to carry on. I want and need to make that clear. Do you still want to go on?'

Rob's eye blinked twice.

'Rob, you know the drill by now,' Fleming said. 'Some words are going to scroll down on the stimuli screen, representing all the words the computer recognizes from your exercises over the last month. When that's finished, take your time and think each word you want to say. Concentrate on just the word you want. Keep it simple and don't worry about grammar. You understand?'

Two blinks.

'Excellent.' Fleming glanced at the others in the room. Frankie was checking the life-signs monitors-Fleming noted that the ECG was steady, showing an even heartbeat, additional oxygen was on hand and a back-up nurse waited by the door. Greg stood by the NeuroTranslator, monitoring the split sections on the plasma screen.

The upper half, displaying Rob's brain-wave activity, showed a grid covered with fine horizontal lines, oscillating and peaking independently. On the lower half, words scrolled down like the credits of a movie. They reflected the text Rob had input into Brian's neural net over the last four weeks. They were simple, help, love, go, need, play, ball, the vocabulary of a child a little younger than Jake. But they were words, vital building blocks to bridge the communication void between Rob and the world.

As each word flashed up Fleming saw the lines in the upper screen change - the pattern of wavelengths forming a unique thought signature for that word. Fleming watched the flashing words until the list was exhausted.

'Programming complete' appeared on the lower screen.

Fleming glanced at Greg and Frankie. 'Ready, everybody?'

They all nodded.

Then he turned to Rob. 'Ready?' His gaze fixed on his brother's left eye, and he waited for the double blink.

It didn't come.

Instead, as he stared at Rob's immobile left eye he heard a hiss of static come from the two speakers above the bed and then, in his peripheral vision, noticed movement on the upper half of the plasma screen. He turned to see 'Yes' flash on the lower screen. But what made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck was hearing an unmistakable voice issue from the speakers, saying the same word. Yes.

Not daring to look at the others, Fleming kept his eyes on Rob. He would try another closed question. 'Would you agree that I'm the better-looking brother, Rob?'

Again there was a pause, a longer one this time, and for a moment Fleming thought that the 'yes' had been a fluke. Then Brian's screen flashed. The lines on the top half pulsed and a word flashed on the lower half. Followed by three more.

'No,' said the voice from the speakers. 'No. No. Ugly'

A ripple of relieved laughter swept through the room.

It was time for an open question. 'Can you tell me how you feel, Rob?'

Another pause, then three words flashed up on the lower half of the screen. Almost immediately the disembodied voice spoke again from the speakers: 'Good. To. Talk.' Tears dripped down Rob's face and Frankie stepped forward to wipe them away. 'Like. I. Am. Climbing. Freedom.'

Fleming had programmed in a 'natural' speaking voice, so Brian's over-deliberate word-by-word utterances were less robotic than earlier voice synthesizers.

'It's working,' Greg hissed beside Fleming. 'It's goddamned working.'

Again the static followed by the lag. 'Yes. Good. Speak. Thank. You. Thank. You. Milo.'

'It's wonderful to hear you, Rob,' said Fleming. 'Mum and Jake are waiting down the corridor. Is there anything you'd like to say to them when they come to see you?'

Hiss. 'Love Jake. Love Mum. Love Dad. Love You Milo.'

'We love you too, Rob.'

'Talk. So Much Say. But Can't Say'

'Don't worry, Rob. Take your time. It's just you and me for now, and you can say whatever you want to me. You know that. Anything at all. Okay?'

'Feel Bad About Susan. And Jake. Feel Like Killed Susan. Feel Like Hurt Jake.'

Miles met his brother's eye. 'Rob, what happened was awful but it wasn't your fault. You suffered a stroke to your brainstem. There was nothing you could do.'

'No. No. No.'

'Rob, there was nothing you could have-'

But as the steady beeps of the ECG lost their rhythm and merged into a continuous alarm, Miles realized that Rob wasn't disagreeing with him. His brother was shouting in distress. 'No what, Rob?' he demanded, his own heart somersaulting in his chest. 'Talk to me, Rob!'

Static issued from the speakers and Rob's paralysed body began to shake.

'What's wrong, Rob?' said Fleming. 'Tell us what's wrong!'

Silence, except for the incessant alarms of the medical equipment.

Frankie leant over Rob, trying to hold down his convulsing body. Her calm voice was urgent. 'BP seventy over ninety. Breathing laboured. He's gone tachycardic and he needs oxygen.' She reached for the mask and placed it over his mouth.

The ECG flatlined.

'Charge up the paddles,' Frankie ordered. The other nurse rushed to the defibrillator. The life-support systems were flashing and beeping madly.

Frankie took the paddles. 'Stand back.'

Fleming stared at the ECG as the volts surged through his brother's paralysed body.

Nothing happened.

Frankie tried again.

The line stayed flat.

And again.

The line peaked erratically before flattening again.

She tried a fourth time.

Then Fleming heard static on the speakers followed by four distinct words that almost stopped his heart. 'Cut. The Rope. Milo.'

In that instant he was on the Eiger with his brother, looking down at Billy French. You're never more alive than when you 're close to death. But you're never more dead than when you're stuck with a life you don't want. If this ever happens to me, Milo, let me go. That's what I'd want. A little pain, don't mind that, a little fear and then nothing.

Fleming stared at the ECG line, which remained stubbornly flat after four attempts to restart his brother's heart. 'Rob, talk to me.'

'Cut The Rope. Milo,' his brother repeated.

We need the epinephrine!' Frankie barked at the younger nurse, who was fumbling with the vacuum-sealed foil packaging. She grabbed the pack and ripped off the foil, exposing the pre-prepped syringe of stimulant. Holding it like a dagger she prepared to plunge it straight through Rob's ribcage into his heart.

Before she could bring it down, Fleming reached out and held her wrist.

'What are you doing?

'Let him go,' he said gently. Tears stung his eyes. 'Let him go.'

'But, Miles,' Frankie objected, 'he's-'

'Let him go,' he repeated, as he watched the ECG and heard the flat tone of the alarm.

He lost track of how long they stood there before he released Frankie's hand and she said, softly, 'He's gone.'

The nurses and Greg stared at Fleming and he felt something sag inside him. Only a few moments ago he had witnessed an incredible breakthrough, and now it had all gone wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to help Rob speak and then, in time, get his body to work again. He was supposed to protect and save his brother, as his brother had so often saved him in the mountains. He wasn't supposed to stand by and help him die.

He stared at Rob on the bed. He seemed to be sleeping, but when Fleming looked closer his brother had become a stranger to him. The corpse looked exactly like Rob, but at the same time different, as if the essence of Rob had slipped away.