Charlie had become proficient in what one of his trainers had named ‘dry-cleaning’ – a counter-surveillance technique to ensure he wasn’t being tailed. He made mental notes of anyone he saw more than once in a short timeframe and cars that slowed needlessly in his proximity. He avoided patrolling police and traffic officers wearing body-armour cameras. He ate his meals in a rotation of different cafes so as not to create a pattern and he mixed his outfits to keep his appearance varied. He checked to see who might be walking behind him using the reflections in shop and car windows or the paintwork of dark vehicles. And he also carried a spare set of jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers in his backpack for if he needed to change quickly. After each day of exploration, Charlie slept soundly knowing he and his secrets were safe.
The novelty of living in a plush hotel had yet to wear off, but he was aware that it wasn’t going to be conducive to a spiritually rewarding second life. He could afford to remain there for his five-year tenure, but he needed a purpose, otherwise he would be replicating one non-existence with another. Charlie knew that he performed better when he was in a routine and around others. A job would help.
Unable to access the internet on a device of his own, he had made use of Manchester Central Library’s community computers to search for employment. And there was one role in which he could utilise all he’d learned during training – a sector referred to as Monetised Mothering. For a monthly subscription, individuals and businesses hired personal mentors and coaches in just about any subject from life skills to gym instructors and educators. And clients didn’t need to leave their houses or offices to make use of them. ‘Virtual-reality systems bring the world to your door,’the advert read. ‘If you have the skills to help clients change their lives, then we want you.’
Following a Skype interview with an AI chatbot the following day, Charlie was offered training as a ‘positivity mentor’ and offered a temporary contract, to begin two days from now. To celebrate, he went against medical advice and rewarded himself with a pint of cider at La Maison du Court’s bar.
Each Minder had been implanted with a mandatory disulfiram-ethanol reaction device which, when in contact with alcohol, discouraged them from drinking. His first few sips tasted like nectar. But he’d not even downed a quarter of his glass before the first wave of nausea struck. He hurried back to his suite and twice vomited into the toilet whilst vowing never to break the rules again. And when he lost his grip of the glass of water he used to rinse his mouth out, it smashed against the porcelain sink.
‘Shit,’ he muttered, more out of habit than annoyance. He picked out the pieces, holding one up to the light. His intolerance to alcohol made him want to test another of his procedures. Charlie slowly unbuttoned his jeans, rolled them down to just above his knees, and glided across the surface of his skin with a shard. The first time he left only a faint scratch until he repeated the action with more pressure. A third time, he pressed harder until the glass was several millimetres deep. Blood oozed from the self-inflicted wound and dripped down his thigh until the denim soaked it up.
Then Charlie let go, allowing the glass to remain embedded inside him and wondering if, at any point, he would feel it. But the operation to null his pain receptors meant that physically, he felt nothing. If he was ever to be located, he could be tortured without feeling a thing and giving up his knowledge.
However, what Charlie hadn’t counted on was how little he also felt emotionally. There was no hesitancy or rush ofadrenaline from cutting himself, no initial panic and no remorse. For the last few years, fear, regret and anxiety had controlled him; they pulled at his strings and influenced just about everything he did. He’d often wished that he wasn’t ruled by his heart. Today, it seemed, he wasn’t.
He tested himself again by thinking of his friends, of the last time he’d seen them, how they had vanished from his life and how it had all been his fault. Typically, it was a guaranteed way to dampen his spirits. Only now, there was a vacancy where self-pity had once lived.
Charlie tried again, this time pushing himself further, considering what he knew about his country, its leaders, the secrets it didn’t want to share and the mistruths it spread. His memory flitted between homespun lies and international cover-ups, including the real perpetrators behind a summer Olympics bombing, the explosion of an unmanned Indian spacecraft on a mission to Mars and even a Eurovision Song Contest vote fix.
He should have possessed a level of conceit because after spending years surfing conspiracy-theory websites, he was now privy to all the answers. Or perhaps he should be dismayed by the world he lived in and what the people who controlled it were capable of. But again, there was nothing. There wasn’t even an urge to spill any answers to the online communities he once frequented. Instead, there was an absence.
Charlie tugged at the glass until it came free from his skin and pressed a towel against his leg to stem the bleeding. And he began to calmly wonder, if he couldn’t feel physical or emotional pain, just how much of his old self remained? Who was he now?
Chapter 17
BRUNO
Name: Bruno Yorke
Previous Name:
Age: 39
Previous Occupation: Stay-at-home parent
Dependents: One
Strengths: Analytical; methodical; focused
Weaknesses: Ruthless; passionate; loyal
‘You are going to fuck this up,’ the voice sneered.
‘Please be quiet,’ Bruno sighed, shaking his head. ‘Give me five minutes to myself without offering an opinion.’ He wrung his hands together tightly like a wet tea towel.
Bruno was surrounded by dozens of people inside the motorway service station’s central seating area. He tried diverting his attention towards the buzz of the chatter reverberating throughout the open space. But the voice demanded to be heard.
‘You should’ve told them you were struggling before you left the programme,’ it continued. ‘But you didn’t, didyou? And now,mi parri, you have me. You have us all.’ He broke into a laugh, swiftly followed by a hacking cough.
Bruno gritted his teeth, turned slowly and fixed his gaze on an elderly West Indian man with grey dreadlocks tied loosely together, resting on his shoulders. He wasn’t looking at Bruno, though. His head was cocked to one side, fixated by something on his phone. The object of Bruno’s irritation laughed again, and this time, Bruno looked at the man more closely. His lips were tightly shut. He was real, but the projection of a voice was not. Once again, Bruno had attached a voice in his head to a random stranger.
Bruno turned back in his seat, pulled the brim of his baseball cap down over his face and the glasses he didn’t need back up to the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure what annoyed him the most – the derision of someone who didn’t exist or the voice being correct. Hewasstruggling and if he wasn’t careful, hewasgoing to fuck this up.
He clenched his fists, curled his toes and concentrated on suppressing the stranger’s voice and all the others in the background discussing and criticising him.Echoeswas the word Karczewski used to describe them. ‘These voices are Echoes from the DNA implanted in you,’ he said. ‘Your brain personifies them by attaching images and voices to them even when no images and voices have been coded. They see you as their anchor. They’re harmless and our case studies show that almost all of the time, they’re eventually absorbed into a Minder’s subconscious.’ But Bruno wasn’t an ordinary Minder. He wasn’t like the others.
Think positive thoughts, he told himself now.That will keep them quiet. He recalled trips he’d taken as a boy to visit his mum’s family in Wales. He loved the adventure of a long car journey as it meant hours of streaming cartoons on the screen in the back of his mother’s headrest. The only interruption came from service-station stop-offs, like today’s location, only he wasn’t here to top up on snacks.
He dipped in and out of actual people’s conversations, picking up words here and there and fragments of sentences until calm and order slowly returned to his mind. And for the duration, he kept his view locked on one man sitting five tables away.
