Recursion (20 page)

“Look over in the corner, Eva,” said the voice. “Look over behind the viewing screen.”

“Hello again, voice,” said Eva. “What do you want now?”

“I told you. Look behind the viewing screen. Didn’t you notice it when you came in?”

Eva got up and walked across the room, the plastic soles of her sneakers sticky against the vinyl floor. Behind the viewing screen was an old intercom. A small white rectangular box with a grille facing. Two grubby white wires trailed down the wall to vanish into the floor.

“It heard you,” said the voice. “It could hear you speaking.”

“It’s just an old box, left over from when they first built this place. It isn’t connected to anything.”

“How do you know? If I were the Watcher, I would be listening to all the old equipment. My ears would be pressed to every forgotten intercom, every CCTV camera, every pneumatic tube.”

“Every pneumatic tube? You’re making this up as you go along.”

“And you are arguing with me now. You’re not trying to pretend that I don’t exist anymore. Eva, be careful. You’re not escaping; you’re being led into a trap. The Watcher is cleverer than you. Cleverer than both of us.”

There was a huge rattle outside the room. The skies had finally opened fully and were emptying their load in vast grey sheets of rain that splashed and sluiced down the glass. Eva looked out of the window onto nothing but shades of grey. A gust of wind sent a grey wave bursting across the panes.

“Who are you?” she called above the noise of the rain. “How do you know all this? How are we going to be trapped?”

Her shouting alerted Peter, one of the orderlies, who appeared in the doorway to the lounge wearing a gentle smile. He relaxed a little when he saw who it was.

“Easy now, Eva. What’s the matter?” he said in his surprisingly soft voice.

Eva suddenly realized she had been shouting. She looked down at the floor, flustered and embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I was just…just…”

“This place isn’t a trap,” soothed Peter. “You know we’re only here to help you?”

“I know. But I wasn’t…”

He put his hand on her arm and led her back to her own room. “Come on. Why don’t you lie down for a while?”

Eva lay on her bed gazing at the ceiling. The rain had lost some of its earlier violence, but it still poured down in a steady stream that streaked and blurred the view from her window. She wondered if it rained harder out here in the middle of the countryside than it used to in the city. She remembered South Street rain as being either a tired and miserable mist, or huge fat drops that left sooty, greasy stains where they fell. There was none of this cold violence, this clear division between the inside and the outside. Eva had never felt so isolated in all her life, trapped in the cocoon of the Center, floating away on a grey sea, the rest of the world left far behind.
But isn’t that what I wanted?
she thought.
Isn’t that what I aimed for?

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” called Eva, but the door was already being pushed open. Alison walked in, closely followed by Nicolas. Eva could see Katie hovering in the background.

“I’ve come to say I’m sorry,” said Alison.

“What for?” asked Eva.

“Being so silly earlier on. I nearly blew the plan. I shouldn’t have spoken about it in the lounge.”

“That’s okay,” said Eva. She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Should you be talking about it in here?”

Nicolas gave a grin. “Safest place, probably. They wouldn’t dare tap our rooms unless they could prove it to be in our best interests, and then they’d have to let us know. They could be sued for malpractice.”

Eva sat up on her bed to make space for the others.

Alison sat down next to her. “Go and get yourself a seat from the lounge, Nicolas,” Alison said.

“Okay.” He walked happily from the room to fetch the chair.

“Don’t you want to sit down, Katie?” invited Eva.

“Katie will stay standing,” said Alison. She had washed her hair since that morning and changed into a pair of jeans and a cotton top. She stared at Eva. “I’m not being mean or bossy. I just know that Katie would prefer to stay standing, wouldn’t you, Katie?”

Katie nodded. She reached into a pocket of her jacket, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to Alison.

“We bought this in the village last week. Vanilla whisky. Some new thing they’re trying to put on the market. Alcoholic and incredibly sweet. I can’t imagine it ever taking off. Still, it makes you feel nice and warm, and there’s nothing else to do on a wet afternoon like this except drink and tell stories.”

Nicolas carried a chair from the lounge into the room, knocking it on the doorframe as he did so. He placed it in the middle of the room and sat down on it. Katie went to the window and looked out. Alison unscrewed the top of the bottle and looked around her.

“Cups,” she said.

“Here,” said Eva. There was a stack of disposable cups by her bed. She shook them apart and handed them out.

Alison poured them each a measure of vanilla whisky. The clear liquid smelled sickly sweet, and seemed to want to stay stuck to the plastic sides of the cup. The four conspirators looked around at each other. Alison wriggled back on the bed so that she leaned against the wall, her bottom on Eva’s pillow, her feet stretched out across the duvet. Nicolas sat in his chair in the middle of the room, sipping at his whisky, grinning at the two women on the bed and thinking heaven knows what. Katie lurked by the doorway—keeping watch, Eva realized.

Alison spoke first. “We’re escaping first thing tomorrow.”

“How?” Eva asked. “Where are we going?”

“We don’t know. We’ll toss coins to decide. It’s the only way we can be sure that we’re not being second-guessed by the Watcher.”

“You must have
some
plan.”

“Several excellent ones. All so perfect they can’t be ours. So we’re going to extemporize.” Alison smiled.

“Extemporize?”

“Make it up as we go along.” Alison wriggled again suddenly and messed up the duvet. She kicked her tiny feet up and down on the bed.

“Oh, I feel so much better than this morning. It’s amazing what a hot bath can do.” She flashed Nicolas a dirty look. “Or a shower, eh, Nicolas?”

“Oh yes,” said Nicolas. He looked at his feet, confused.

“Have you ever thought about what it must be like for the Watcher?” Alison said, glancing at Nicolas with a suppressed smile. “It can access all that information. It knows everything, and yet it’s impotent. What can it do?” She wriggled a little more on the bed, shifting her breasts beneath her cotton top. Eva noticed how closely Nicolas watched them.

“She does it deliberately, doesn’t she?” said the voice. “That’s how she keeps him following her around, like a pet.”

“I thought that was obvious,” Eva muttered.

“She’s doing it again,” said Katie from her position by the door. “Did you see her, how she relaxed and went all blank?”

“I did, Katie,” said Alison. She gazed at Eva. “You just heard the voice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Eva said uncomfortably.

“What did it say?”

Eva hesitated a moment.

“It thought you were right about the Watcher,” she lied.

“Too true,” said Alison. “Katie thinks it’s evolved in all those databases, all those computer networks and so on. It has become aware. Now it wants to stretch its wings, it wants to do things. But how? It’s far more intelligent than we are. It must be; it knows far more than we do. What if our machines and our senses are no longer enough for it? What is it going to do if it wants more powerful eyes and arms?”

“Build its own, I suppose,” replied Eva. “Oh. That thing on the news earlier today…”

“A mathematical expression that describes itself,” Katie said from the doorway.

Alison interrupted her. “And no one knows for sure where it came from. It just turned up on a computer.”

“Maybe that man; what was his name…?”

“Kay Lovegrove,” Katie said.

“Isn’t it possible that Kay Lovegrove wrote it?”

“It was the Watcher,” said Nicolas. “It’s beginning to shape the world into a fashion that suits itself. What does that tell you about us? About humans? What is it going to do to us?”

Alison stared at him. Outside the rain rattled against the windows and Eva stared out at the limes. She heard the voice.

“He’s right. What is the Watcher going to do to you? It’s watching you at the moment, you know. It can see you.”

“Eva! Speak to us, Eva!”

Suddenly, Alison was kneeling in front of the bed, gazing up at her. Eva didn’t remember her moving there.

“What’s the matter?” asked Eva, confused.

“I thought you were going to black out that time. What did it say?”

“It said the Watcher was looking at us now. It said it could see us.”

Katie was jumping up and down by the doorway. She seemed very excited.

“What is it, Katie?” Nicolas called.

Katie was having trouble speaking. Nicolas moved up beside her and put one hand on her arm. “Deep breaths, Katie. Deep breaths.”

“I think I understand!” Katie gasped. “Eva. Get off the bed. Go and stand over there.”

Katie was fighting for breath, such was her excitement. She pointed toward the opposite corner of the room.

Eva looked at Alison.

“Do it,” she said. Hesitantly, Eva obeyed. She moved across to the space by the tiny desk. Two magazines, bought for her at the village by one of the helpers, sat by her elbow. She looked at their glossy covers, embarrassed and confused.

“Ask the voice to speak,” said Katie, excitedly.

Eva nodded and coughed a little.

“Er, hello? Are you there?” she said. Nothing.

“I can’t hear anything,” she said.

“I know. We can tell,” said Alison.

“Now move back to the bed,” said Katie. Eva walked back to the bed.

“Look out the window.”

The voice spoke. “Katie has worked it out. I think I understand myself, now. I never knew before.”

Eva turned pale. She spun slowly around to face the room. The other three looked eagerly at her. “It says Katie has worked it out,” she said.

Alison and Nicolas looked at Katie. She gave a huge beam and spoke. “It’s the limes. She hears the voice every time she looks at the limes.”

Eva was shivering with fear. Alison and Nicolas jumped up from the bed and went to look through the window.

“It’s difficult to see anything through this rain,” said Nicolas. “One gust and they vanish again.”

“Why can’t we hear anything?” Alison asked.

“I don’t know,” Katie said.

“What is it then?” asked Nicolas.

“I don’t know that, either.” Katie was losing her shyness again, Eva noticed, now that she had something to concentrate on.

“Why don’t you ask the voice?” Alison interjected.

“Oh yes, that’s a good idea.” Katie and Nicolas turned to gaze at Eva. She shivered again.

“I don’t want to,” she said. “It frightens me.”

“Don’t be so silly. Turn and face the window.”

Katie was so uncharacteristically brusque, it took Eva quite aback. Hesitantly, she obeyed. She turned and looked out of the window.

“Who are you? Are you the Watcher?” she asked.

“No. I’m…I think I’m…I think I was your brother.”

“My brother?”

Katie began hugging herself with delight.

“Yes! I should have guessed. I’ve read about this. It’s your addiction. It’s the MTPH! You’re having flashbacks!”

“Flashbacks? No. It’s not my brother. He didn’t sound like that. Anyway, he would know me…”

Alison was impatient. “Why? You’re not taking the drug anymore, are you? It isn’t constantly regenerating the personality in your mind. But that doesn’t mean that you haven’t worn the habit of him into the paths of your brain.”

“Permanently altered the chemistry,” Katie interrupted.

“Whatever. Something in the sight of the limes out there is reminding you of him. Now what could it be?”

“I watched the limes as I waited for him to die,” Eva said softly. She felt strangely calm. She ought to be upset, but there was nothing.

“It’s your brother’s ghost,” said Nicolas.

“Oh, Nicolas. Have some tact!”

“No,” said the voice. “He’s right. Ghost is a good description. I’m not the man I used to be.”

Katie was grinning. “This is excellent. This is better than we could have hoped for.”

Eva turned to her in disgust. “Why?”

“Because this is something that the Watcher can’t measure. It may even be something that the Watcher doesn’t even know about. This can only aid us.”

Eva lost her temper. “No. I’m fed up with this. I’ve heard enough. I’m not playing along anymore. There is no Watcher, and if there were, there would be no way of escaping it. How would we do that? Four poor loonies, all trapped in a mental hospital in Wales, without a penny to their names.”

Her voice faltered as she saw Nicolas and Alison begin to smile at her.

“What? What’s the matter?”

Nicolas was looking at Alison and smiling, waiting for her to tell Eva the big joke.

“Speak to me. What’s the matter?” said Eva. She was becoming angrier. Katie was blushing with embarrassment. She seemed to be retreating back inside herself, the real Katie withdrawing from the room and leaving nothing but the body behind.

“Tell me what you’re laughing at!” demanded Eva.

Alison spoke first. She pointed at her friend.

“You don’t recognize her, do you? You don’t know who she is! That’s Katie Kirkham!”

“Katie Kirkham?” said Eva weakly. “It can’t be.”

But it was. No wonder Eva had thought she recognized her. No wonder they were laughing at her.

“Katie Kirkham.” Nicolas laughed. “The Poor Little Rich Girl.”

Katie Kirkham’s mother had written the Console Operating System. Practically every mobile phone in the world now used it. She had made her fortune by giving it away for free. All those useful functions: from health monitoring and global positioning, down to the address book and calculator, were available to users for nothing. The only charge she made was a fraction of a credit for interfacing the phone to the COSnet, a charge that was minuscule compared to the cost of the call itself. Virtually nothing. It was a good deal for everyone. Good for the customers, who got the COS for nothing, good for the telecom companies, who were saved the expense of development, and good for Henrietta Kirkham, who just sat back and waited for all those fractions of a credit to come rolling in.