The Resurrected Man (27 page)

She knew instinctively that this was the call she had been both dreading and anticipating. It had come much sooner than she had expected.

Without saying anything, she stood and took the call where Jonah couldn't see her face.

Jonah watched Marylin suddenly get up and leave the room. He immediately comprehended that this was it: confirmation of the seventeenth murder in the series. He could understand her wanting to be alone while she took the news.

He had seen enough of the files to know how much the killings escalated in savagery from the first one to that of Yoland Suche-Thomas. A large part of him dreaded what they would find when they viewed the latest body. How much worse could it be? There was little the Twinmaker hadn't already done to his victims, including using the last body as a goad.

The bodies had been dumped, usually, in the homes of moderately well-off, law-abiding people who either leased or had professional access to a private booth. Never in public places. It was clear that the killer didn't choose his disposal sites at random, but until Suche-Thomas the MIU had preferred to assume that placement meant little.

Jonah wondered if the truth might be more complex; if the killer was the person who had put Jonah in the gel, then he might have been biding his time, waiting to bring Jonah back into the picture. During this time, the gaps between murders had been roughly three to five weeks, and the degree of violence had increased steadily—almost as though the killer had started out simply to murder his victims, but had
learned
to enjoy torture along the way. Now that there was no pressure to wait, for whatever reason, the killer could allow himself, not an increase in violence alone, but greater frequency and more significant placement. Jonah's apartment in
Faux
Sydney could be, he thought, just the first in a series of rapid strikes designed to confuse or even embarrass the investigators by catching them off-balance.

He wondered what could have happened to trigger the shift from murder to mind-games. Something in the killer's private life, perhaps: rejection, loss of status at work, the death of a loved one, even illness. There were many possibilities. Or an external influence. Politicians and publicity-seekers had been known to trigger violent episodes in others. That was just as much a possibility as anything else in this case. But Jonah didn't have the background knowledge to guess at what this might have been. Three years unconscious had left him seriously out of date with respect to world affairs.

The only significant change he could think of was the development of d-med—which demonstrated just how far behind he was. Every representative on the World Council could've been assassinated and replaced with CRE stars for all he knew. That would've been enough to drive anyone to murder.

The MIU investigators had been able to come to some conclusions
regarding the killer, or his accomplices. His intimate knowledge of MIU, KTI and GLITCH data, and activities, suggested either extraordinary powers of espionage or contact at high level on the inside of one or more of these organisations. He knew Marylin Blaylock, although he had never referred to her by name nor attempted to communicate with her until the alteration of the note. He liked implicating WHOLE in the murders by leaving its literature with the bodies he mutilated. And he was frustratingly fastidious. No genetic trace had ever been found on any of his victims.

The picture was hauntingly vague, and begged many more questions than it answered. Jonah, by nature, was more interested in
who
and
how
rather than
why
, but he guessed that the last two would be the key to the first. Motive and incriminating technical details would have to suffice, given the paucity of forensic data. He would've given back his sudden recovery in exchange for someone who could hack into Schumacher's hidden file for him…

He felt restless waiting for Marylin to return. “QUALIA? I'd like to move. Have you finished examining me?”

“Yes, Jonah, although I recommend you remain prostrate. You have a slight fever, the source of which I cannot determine without taking a physical sample.”

“Well, I
feel
fine.”

“That is unsurprising. Your body is producing natural opiates under the instruction of your overseer.”

“Why?”

“It will take some time before the grafts are fully absorbed by your body. Although the genetic match is perfect, the sudden acquisition of such a large mass of tissue requires significant restructuring of circulatory, nervous and lymphatic systems. This restructuring continues apace, performed by natural repair agents and nanomachines introduced to your body during the d-med procedure. The healing process would leave you moderately uncomfortable without some sort of pain
relief, hence your raised endorphin levels. Also, I recommend you eat solid food within the hour to avoid hypoglycaemia.”

“I can't stay in bed
and
eat,” Jonah protested. “And I can hardly ask Marylin to bring me food on a tray.”

“That would be the simplest solution,” the AI said matter-of-factly.

“You suggest it, then.” Jonah grimaced. “I'd rather go hungry.”

He sat up, provoking a wave of dizziness that took some seconds to subside. He felt around in the gloom for his dressing gown, and put it on. The sound of Marylin muttering under her breath came from the next room, a sign that she was still busy with the call. He thought he heard his name mentioned, but resisted the temptation to eavesdrop. While he was alone, there was one other place in the unit he wanted to look.

His legs supported him as far as the door to Lindsay's study—a vast improvement on even an hour ago, but still worryingly weak. He crawled the rest of the way on his hands and knees. When he reached the chair, he levered himself into it with a grunt then sat still for a few minutes to catch his breath.

Under the lip of the desk was a slight indentation that marked the entrance to Lindsay's private cache. He found it, and pressed hard. The fake wood resisted for a moment as a pressure-sensitive nanofilm registered his fingerprint, then clicked inward. A panel slid up and to one side, exposing the secret compartment. Free to fall, a slim, bound book dropped into his hand.

Jonah brought his father's diary out into the light with a feeling akin to guilt. Although Lindsay had told him about the cache—and, more significantly, to look inside it in the case of emergencies—Jonah had sworn he would never violate his father's privacy. Tempting though it had been at times, he knew that would have been the first step down a path from which he could never return. Emotional deprivation was no excuse for exploitation and industrial espionage.

He opened the diary. The spine crackled and gave off a smell of ozone. It obviously hadn't been activated for some time. Each of the six pages inside was made of thick plastic, the surface of which acted as a simple colour display. Molecules changed shape and colour at the application of microcurrents directed by the data stored in the flexible plastic, sending images and words scattering across the page. Only one side displayed an image while the back remained blank.

There were a number of such e-books on Lindsay's shelves, but Jonah hadn't looked at one since he had left his childhood behind and discovered CRE.

The title on the first page hinted that he hadn't left his childhood as far behind as he might have liked:

 

Observations and Reflections on a Growing Mind

(© 2066, L. A. Carlaw, sole licensee J. R. McEwen. See private

document #438 (Will and Testament): all rights to transfer to

J. R. McEwen in the event of the death of L. A. Carlaw.)

 

Introduction: The Missing Years (0—2)

Part One: Years 2 to 4

Part Two: Years 4 to 6

 

MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDED

 

He turned the page, and it continued:

 

Part Two: Years 4 to 6
(conclusion)

Part Three: Years 8 to 9

Part Four: Years 10 to 13

 

MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDED

 

He kept turning.

 

Part Four: Years 10 to 13
(conclusion)

Part Five: Years 13 to 16

Part Six: Years 17 to 20

 

MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDED

 

Part Six: Years 17 to 20
(conclusion)

Part Seven: Years 21 to 25

Part Eight: Years 25 to 30

 

On the fifth page was just one title:

 

Part Nine: Years 30—

 

Obviously Lindsay had continued his
magnum opus
until his death, at which point it had been cut short. Jonah didn't know how he felt about that. At that moment he surprised himself by feeling very little at all.

He moved on. The sixth and last page contained a calendar and one untitled file. Jonah opened the calendar and found what he had actually been looking for: his father's appointment diary, with comments scribbled in the margins in Lindsay's handwriting. Here was every event Lindsay had ever attended, every journey he had taken, every milestone in his career. Jonah skimmed through it with something approaching awe, noting how frequently his name appeared, stopping occasionally when an item caught his eye.

On May 14, 2036, they had flown to Katherine for his belated birthday party. (Lindsay had been at the SCAR lab on the 5th itself, and young Jonah had spent the day with friends.) He remembered the flight vividly, but not the actual party, nor what he and his father had done together that day.

On October 28, 2038, they had visited his dying mother. He had been too young to understand just how sick she was but could tell from the manner of the people around her that something serious was wrong. She had succumbed a week later, and the date was marked with a black cross in Lindsay's diary. Eight years later to the day, Lindsay sat him down and explained exactly what had killed her: a combination of a mutant nanomachine and a yeast infection. Jonah had cried that night, but Lindsay hadn't been there then.

In his early twenties, Jonah had professed a desire to quit study and go into business. Lindsay had opposed such a move, insisting that he had a long life ahead of him, and that there would be time, later, to try something he might regret doing sooner. But Jonah had become increasingly frustrated, until on August 18, 2057, he had left home in Darwin to seek employment elsewhere. He had ended up in a private security company, where he worked for six months, then freelanced for a mercenary army hired to seal a suburb in Greater Los Angeles. Through contacts made in the course of his work, he had gravitated to the field of data acquisition. Spurning large companies, like the privatised Interpol and other government agencies, he had moved from firm to firm for two years before finally settling down in a company run by an ex-cop from Seattle. The ex-cop, Vito Lenz, had fulfilled a badly needed mentor role in Jonah's professional life. Upon Lenz's shooting death in 2062, Jonah decided to move out on his own. Using capital he had saved, plus that raised by the sale of the unit he had purchased the previous year, he leased the office in Sydney and founded JRM Data Acquisition Services. He had initially planned to live on the premises, but had soon realised that, on his budget, an office wouldn't possess sufficient facilities to allow that.

On the day he had left home, Lindsay had written:
The phase-change has occurred, at long last. He has his freedom, and I guess I should have the satisfaction of watching him enjoy it. I wonder if he realises how easy it will seem in retrospect, this thing that has been so difficult now?

On the day Jonah returned, September 1, 2062, Lindsay corrected himself:
It still seems to have been difficult. I was wrong in that respect. This may explain why it is so easy to take him back. Or perhaps I am being sentimental. Either way, I am glad. The new place will feel like a home now.

The “new place” was the unit in
Faux
Sydney. Lindsay had moved in a month before, despite the patent absurdity of someone who hated d-mat living in a place that required great lengths to reach without it. Their cohabitation had been difficult, and became increasingly so as the years wore on. Jonah had remained while the business was struggling, determined not to leave until he could support himself fully, although, even then, that hadn't seemed the real reason.

As Lindsay himself speculated, on January 7, 2065, Jonah might have been seeking:
a paternal bond that threatened but never attained manifestation in any way other than the most vague.
It was an admittance in print of the fear of intimacy that both of them shared, it seemed; that the relationship between father and son could be strong despite lack of encouragement, or that either of them would still seek such a relationship despite all evidence to the contrary of its existence.

What would have happened had Lindsay not died would never, now, be known. They had been heading for something prior to then. Perhaps not a confrontation, but a realisation of the futility of trying to avoid one. Maybe another of Lindsay's “phase-changes” would have occurred, allowing Jonah to spin free again. And, had Jonah and Marylin remained a viable partnership, that might well have happened at some point.

But it hadn't. Jonah skimmed through the last few entries, avoiding her name. He didn't want to know what his father had thought of all
that.
Closer to the end, they alternated between verbose entries in which Lindsay agonised over some decision or other, or the briefest notes of appointments and projects. There was no mention of sabotage; WHOLE only appeared in asides. The main organisations Lindsay had been concerned with were SciCon and RAFT.

Then, on March 25, two weeks before his death, he had written:
It is decided. The final experiment will begin on the 10th. Do the means justify the end? Christ, I hope so
.

On the 10th itself, the only appointment listed was for 5:55 p.m. Just the time was listed, and it rang a bell. When Jonah checked with the housekeeping records, it matched the time of Lindsay's one and only known d-mat jump, to SciCon. That was the last entry.