‘I don’t understand,’ she continued. ‘I saw them stab you and take your body away. How are you here?’
‘Because you saw what you wanted to see,’ he replied. ‘As you are doing now.’
Emilia looked at Flick for her reaction. But Flick continued to glare at her captor, looking equally rattled.
‘What do you mean I see what I want to see?’ Emilia asked.
‘You’re correct when you said you watched me die. I’m now what you used to refer to as “an Echo”. Perhaps not so much constructed by your data, but more accurately someone from your past who is bleeding through to your present.’
Emilia struggled to make sense of what he was saying. ‘Youaredead?’
‘Alas, very much so.’
She let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and shut her eyes tightly. When she opened them again, he was still there. Dead or alive, there was no question it was definitely Ted.
‘It wasn’t what I wanted, I promise you,’ she replied, as if urgently needing to clear her conscience. ‘But you’d lied to me about everything, about who you were, our marriage, my career and all I wanted was the truth. In return for bringing you to the lighthouse, they told me they’d get it out of you. But they didn’t tell me they were going to kill you. I didn’t want to work for the Hacking Collective but they left me no choice.’
‘You’re not working for them.’
Emilia’s eyebrows drew together. ‘I’m ashamed to admit that I have been.’
Ted shook his head. ‘I admit that I wasn’t completely honest with you because I believed that for your sake, it was better for me not to be. But you are also guilty of lying to yourself. You’re not working for the Collective and the night I died, there was nobody else on that jetty in Geneva but you and me.’
‘What? No, you’re mistaken,’ she exclaimed. Ted’s attention remained fixed on her. ‘Do you not remember seeingthe young woman with a child … a little boy … she came up behind us and before I realised what she was about to do, she stabbed you, and then others arrived in cars and a boat to take your body away.’
‘You’re rewriting your memories with an alternate version of reality that’s more acceptable to you. The people you think killed me are your projections. They weren’t there. They’re Echoes.Youkilled me.’
Emilia shook her head. She remembered it as clear as day: the assassin, the clean-up operation, Bianca and Adrian afterwards … that was how the series of events unfolded.
Wasn’t it?
Now a doubt was creeping in as she ran through the sequence of events again, the memory beginning to modify itself. This time, her recollection featured no killer, no boat and no strangers attempting to force her along the jetty. Suddenly all she saw was a long, sharp silver spike in her hand that she now recalled was a medical device called a Shroder, followed by an unsuspecting Ted glancing into the distance. Taking the opportunity to strike, she calmly embedded it with force into his skull. Then she rolled him into the water before running back towards the road and passing a woman with a pushchair.
‘No,’ Emilia said adamantly. ‘That didn’t happen. You’re doing something to me. You’re alive and you are screwing with my head. I didn’t kill you.’ She moved her aim towards Flick. ‘Tell him.’
‘Tell who?’ Flick asked.
‘The man I’m talking to! Tell Ted that I didn’t kill him.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘No, he’s fucking not!’ she yelled. ‘Look at him, for God’s sake, he’s standing right behind you! Who else do you think I’ve been having a conversation with?’
Flick turned to look behind her and then back at Emilia. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t see anyone but you.’
An angry Emilia’s aim alternated between Ted and Flick, her finger gradually putting pressure on the trigger. Suddenly something struck her. ‘Do you know who Ted is?’ she asked. Flick nodded her affirmation. ‘How?’
‘Because if you mean Edward Karczewski, then he trained me. He trained all of us. He trainedyou.’
‘To do what?’
‘You used to be one of us, a Minder, and he was head of the programme.’
‘And a Minder is what exactly? And what programme?’
‘It’s a coded name for someone with exceptional perception. We were specially selected, trained and medically manipulated to store the country’s most sensitive data inside our brains. And it remains inside us for up to five years or until the government has time to finish its plan to safeguard the UK from the threat of hackers. But taking on the role means turning our backs on anyone we know and love for that period of time.’
‘That sounds utterly ridiculous.’
