Karczewski laughed. ‘As ridiculous as you having a conversation with a dead man? Or of not remembering that you killed him?’
‘If I am like her then why can’t I remember any of that data?’
‘Because your implant and data were removed in a procedure a year ago. Your training and skills remained; however, there was a complication that left you in a catatonic-hybrid state. The procedure damaged your brain.’
Emilia recalled the video footage she’d watched of herself twelve hours before she first awoke. She had been horrified to see herself being walked and fed by staff, as if she were a zombie.
‘The operation caused scarring and significant damage,’ Karczewski continued. ‘In the months that followed, you showed no response to external stimuli, no psychomotor activity and no interaction with your environment. Thenone day and without warning, your brain, well, simply restarted. It was as if you’d come back to life – and then you disappeared.’
Emilia shifted from one foot to another. ‘You made me like this – that’s the truth you didn’t want me to know.’
‘The truth is much more complicated than that. Your name is actually Dr Megan Jane Porter, although you prefer to go by MJ. Emilia is the codename you use to communicate with other Minders on message board. It’s a name taken from Shakespeare’sThe Two Noble Kinsmen. Andyouare responsible for this version of yourself becauseyouwere the neuroscientist who created the procedure to implant DNA data into human brains.’
Emilia let out a snort. ‘Me? Do you expect me to believe that?’ But her face crinkled as an image slowly returned; a painting or graphic swirling with shapes, numbers, musical notes and words. ‘I … I … I was a volunteer. That’s right, I solved a puzzle … yes, I remember it … it was a puzzle only a certain number of people could figure out.’
‘You didn’t solve it – you designed it. The puzzle and the programme were devised by you.’
‘This is bullshit. Bullshit! You’re a liar. I am not imagining you, you are here, right in front of me, no matter what Flick says.’
‘Then shoot me. If you’re not fabricating me, you’ll kill me.’
Without hesitation, Emilia pulled the trigger. A panicked Flick dived for cover under a pew as the first shot rang out, but Karczewski remained where he was. Twice more she fired and twice more he remained uninjured and upright.
Emilia took a step back, her mouth open and her hands trembling.
‘Do you believe me now?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. Thoughts raced around her head like hens in a coop breached by a fox. She couldn’t trustanything about herself any more. ‘Who am I, Ted?’ she asked.
‘You’re one of the country’s foremost neuroscientists and we worked together for the government in biochemical counter-espionage. It was your synaesthesia that gave you the idea to devise this DNA-storage project. But you admitted to me that your initial test results were flawed – memory bleeding and Echoes were serious side effects that had the potential to derail the programme. However, you believed they were temporary and would vanish once each brain settled. You manipulated the results of your clinical trials to get the answers you wanted and insisted on becoming a Minder yourself to prove your concept.’
‘What side effects was I covering up?’
‘Those related to episodes of schizophrenia, hallucinations, psychopathy, paranoia … in your absence, we came up with solutions for the second selection of candidates. At least, with some of them.’
Emilia frowned. ‘Second selection? Are the Minders I found not the first?’
Karczewski shook his head. ‘No, they’re not. Four of the first five were killed out in the field.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘Youhappened. With no monitoring or the safety net of the lab to keep you grounded, the Echoes convinced you the other Minders were enemies of the state and selling their secrets to the Hacking Collective. Back then, all five of you were able to communicate with one another, so you used their trust to get them to reveal where they were located. And one by one, you executed them with a Shroder, the implement that pinpoints exactly where the implants are and destroys them.’
Emilia’s eyes remained locked on Karczewski’s, searching for signs of deception. There were none. She directed her attention towards where Flick had been standing. ‘Get up before I start shooting again.’
Flick’s head slowly appeared, followed by her body, until she was facing Emilia.
‘Is what he’s saying true?’
‘I … I don’t know what he said …’
‘He said I killed the first handful of Minders. Is it true?’
‘It’s what it says in the data implant.’
Karczewski continued. ‘After their murders and for reasons you never explained, you appeared suddenly at the laboratory and told us what you’d done. I kept you hidden there, hoping the reversal procedure you developed would be successful and I’d get the old MJ back. But some of your procedures were flawed, leaving you temporarily catatonic. Then you awoke, created another false reality and escaped, and this time you believed you were being manipulated by Bianca and Adrian to track down the new Minders. But Bianca and Adrian don’t exist.’
‘Of course they do … this all started with them. They’re trying to find me now.’
