Solomon's Keepers (8 page)

Five

Rees wakes up with the sense of being in motion, the body sense that lingers after too long in transit, but he’s lying in the same bed, propped up on soft pillows, and perfectly still. A rigid collar is pushing up under his chin. There are drips overhead, one transparent, one milky, and he can see a line into his lizard wrist.

He knows where he is when he sees Tekla again.

She heads past him to an electronic flower arrangement of monitors and flickering gadgetry over the next bed. She calls out good morning in a loud singsong voice. It’s a greeting that expects and receives no reply. He can see the outline of a body under the blanket, seemingly wasted. He’d take it for dead except for the rhythmic sighs of assisted breathing. The head is a helmet with wires that trail to a box on the floor.

She sees his eyes are open and says hello in a voice modulated for dialogue. ‘This is Mr. Turnbull here. He doesn’t speak. Or hear anything, unfortunately. He doesn’t move but he likes to play chess. Do you play? Perhaps when you’re ready that will be nice for you both.’ And then she says, loudly, to him, ‘that’s right, isn’t it, Mr. Turnbull?’

Brodzky passes by mid morning.

‘We have to be especially careful because you had some trauma to the head and neck – a few complications, hence the restraint. You’ve been lucky though. It seems your equipment took the brunt of it. If you’d been facing the other way it would have been a different story. So you’ll mend. And we’ll need to run some tests on Solomon too while you’re here. Any questions?’

‘Does Turnbull have Solomon too?’

‘Mr. Turnbull has some severe difficulties. He’s been on reserve for a while now. I’m afraid he can’t move or talk. But he’s stable and we’re working hard for him. Have faith, Rees. The worst is over, I promise you. Just rest, I’ll be able to talk to you tomorrow.’

Eva had found an apartment a few miles outside Bristol and only half an hour from the base. Her temporary job was close by. Rees’s schedule settled and they could steal a day together here and there. Once they managed a few whole days together on holiday in the Alps. He got into the habit of sneaking out to visit her at night. He kept a motorbike at the perimeter and if he drove at top speed he could spend several hours before returning and creeping in before first light.

At first it was a delicious intimacy, heightened by the risk he was taking. They needed no domestic preamble and would fall into bed together for a joyous few hours. It was borrowed heaven.

Both of them knew they were living a relationship on borrowed time but neither of them could stop it. They wanted to look forward, and neither of them could. Officially, he was on weapons training but little by little he gave away that he was committed to a special programme. He never explained what it was. He was too scared it would frighten her away or enrage her. He wasn’t sure of anything any more except wanting to keep on seeing her. Her three month job became indefinite. At some point she would go back to Spain and he would be assigned away. How long could that be put off? Sometimes, jokingly, they would talk about absconding together. But in reality he was committed and she was too.

Their last time he had arrived late in the evening. They had eaten a meal she’d prepared and gone to bed. In the early morning they lay together in silence. He hated having to go. Each morning seemed to foreshadow the inevitable separation. She didn’t speak when he got up; there was nothing to say. As he moved she pulled the duvet back and he knew she was awake.

There were new vehicles outside when he crept back to base. Something wasn’t right.

Tyler called them to order at breakfast. All he said was ‘Grab yourself a good breakfast and be nice to our guests. Looks like you’re out of here.’

Next thing a pretty woman called Danvers is collecting their mobile phones. She speaks with a southern drawl that Rees had only ever heard in the movies and she says that they won’t be getting them back. ‘This operation is moving up a gear,’ she says. ‘Y’all might want to think about any urgent messages you need us to send on your behalf because we are moving out in one hour and we are not coming back.’

And now here she is again, right by his bed. He recognises the blush complexion and tidy blonde hair and he immediately wonders if it’s more bad news. Danvers looks uncomfortable sitting there and strangely out of context. Instead of the uniform he remembers, she’s wearing a suede coat, striped shirt and jeans and sits in the chair, too low down, by his side.

‘Hello, Rees.’

‘Danvers? Day off?’

She smiles. ‘I wish. How you doing? Good to see you in one piece – looks like you’re holding together okay, considering.’

‘Mmm’

‘Successful, I hear. But nearly got yourself killed by the sound of things.’

‘I couldn’t claim the credit. I’m just glad we’re warming up on the easy stuff.’

‘Yes, well I heard about the SNAFU part too. I’m just glad you’re, you know, okay. We’ll have you up and out in no time at all. Brodzky doesn’t want to let go, still treats the Belvoir team as though they were his students, which I suppose they are really. I’m supposed to smooth feathers. But it shouldn’t be long. Anyway, how are you feeling?’

He has to think about that and so she presses on. ‘You know, it’s been a week. You’ve been under sedation and they’ve already done quite a bit of work.’

She smiles and waits to see his reaction, her eyes ranging over his face, picking up clues.

‘You didn’t really come all this way on my account, did you?’

‘She shrugs. ‘Couldn’t have you all on your own, could we? And I need to be here several times a year anyway. We have quite a lot to accomplish, a lot of changes coming at this facility. I’ve been here a few days. So don’t let it go to your head.’ She looks around her. ‘You take it easy.’ She gives the long smile and the sing song voice fades away.

Brodzky comes around in the mornings every day and he always wants to talk. He usually doesn’t get to know his charges and says this is a special opportunity. He asks about family, tells Rees he doesn’t have kids, noses a bit and tells him some of his regrets. His wistful tone seems to be going somewhere but Rees isn’t sure how to take it. After a couple of those chats he starts to respond in kind. He has to tell someone about Eva.

‘I left someone behind, a girlfriend. Well, more than that. I wasn’t supposed to be seeing anyone, I know that. But the shortlisting looked like it would go on forever and all the politics and nobody knowing anything. I know you’re not responsible but the whole isolation thing just seemed daft.’

Brodzky looks about as though someone else is listening.

‘Rees, this was always a programme for singles. Highly secret. You know that. Your feet don’t touch the ground. It wouldn’t be fair. Don’t tell me any more now.’

‘It happened. And I…’

‘It’ll have to unhappen. You know what these yanks are like about their security rules.’

‘I couldn’t say anything. That’s the worst of it and that’s what’s killing me. I just turned up one day at camp as usual and I never got to go back.’

‘I’m sorry. You just have to move on. It’s a big prize, it has a big ticket.’

But the next day on his rounds, Brodzky seems agitated.

‘You know, Rees, you’ve made a fast recovery and I can’t really hold your colleagues off any longer. They’re very keen to get you back.’

‘Have you been trying to hold them off?’

‘Well, I wanted to ensure you really were prepared, fully prepared. And there is a lot we can learn about how you’re responding…’

‘What is it you want to talk about? Is it the same thing Danvers is trying not to talk about?’

‘You’re very astute. I want to tell you something that I need you to promise me you will keep off the record.’

‘Okay, I promise.’

‘Rees, yesterday you confided something in me and I cut you off. Today I want to confide in you. I’m not sure whether you quite realize what the options here really are. I would like to help you and I need to know that you can keep this absolutely to yourself.’ His eyes flash up.

Rees looks at him steadily. ‘That’s okay, I will.’ He says. Brodzky still seems uncertain.

‘Listen son, What I’m about to tell you is difficult and if you react to it the wrong way I may not be able to help you. So I need you to promise me you’ll just hear me out and, however much you want to react, you will hold it in. Can you do that?’

‘I said I will,’ Rees says slowly. ‘I promise. What is it?’

He gathers himself. ‘Rees, you know I designed the Solomon chip, don’t you? I mean the architecture, the core of it. There were dozens of people who contributed – and the usual army of people available at the end to take the credit – but I was the principal designer on it.’

‘Yes, you told me that. I’ve already said my thank you.’

He smiles thinly. ‘Well hear me out. You know, your group wasn’t actually the first to achieve deployment. You won’t hear much about the earlier ones – and you won’t come across anything about what happened to the people involved, except from me.’

He needs another nudge.

‘I’m not going to like this, am I? But I want to hear it.’

‘Danvers wants to take you back. She’s gone away today but she’s coming back. There’s some kind of deadline. I really shouldn’t be telling you this…’

‘I said I’ll keep it quiet.’

He sighs. ‘Rees, I’m sorry, things are moving away from me. At some point people – you – need to face up to something. There isn’t a kind way to put this; Solomon can’t be reversed. It can’t be taken out or turned off, no matter what they may say. I know they talk about end of tour routines and plans to restore the status quo – and I’m just going to tell you that’s all bullshit. It may keep the welfare people and lawyers happy for the time being but the truth is that once it has grown in, been trained in as yours has, you can’t take it out. All you can do is disable the chip. That’s easy. But the brain grows accustomed to the chip and incorporates it into its normal functions. You know that, don’t you? You don’t think about Solomon any more, do you? You just think with it. It’s just a part of everything your mind is doing. You use it all the time. If you disable it after it’s been fully integrated then all you are doing is the equivalent of a crude… They just haven’t planned ahead. We didn’t know that at first. But I told them. We tried with poor Turnbull after he started having problems. We have never been able to bring him back. As we disabled the functions on the chip we thought we were only backing out the new, restoring him to what he had been. Yes, the brain has plasticity – it’s much more dynamic than people think – but you can’t just go messing around and pretending that the thing is recoverable. I tried to make them listen.’

He checks himself and looks around again with a nervous little laugh. A handkerchief appears from his pocket and he busies himself flapping it about his face as a distraction. A rush of adrenaline spooks Rees’s guts.

‘Surely, this is kind of basic, isn’t it? Just tell her! Lay it out for them. They’ll have to get it if you tell them.’

‘Rees, forget Danvers. She’s only a runner. The fact is it doesn’t suit her bosses to understand. They don’t want to understand – they need to not understand. You weren’t in a laboratory, Rees; you were on active service – because some very senior people pushed for deployment and told some other very senior people what they needed to hear. Not maybe, not nearly, not some important issues to resolve. No one wants to admit that right now they have no idea where this takes us, takes you, long term. The only thing they do know is that this programme has been very expensive to buy in after a lot of big talk and some people’s reputations depend on its success.’

‘Fuck their reputations! How does my coming under fire make this any less of a success?’

‘Let me try to put this simply. My role is coming to an end. They want it all in house. And they think you’re done. The control issues are the least of it. You’re not one of them. And nobody is going to be allowed to go civilian with this technology, nobody. They will disable the chip. Do you understand? They haven’t faced up to the consequences yet. They are in denial. Officially, it is all reversible. I can’t even publish anything that says otherwise. I’m sorry, Rees.’

All of a sudden he’s on the other side of an invisible wall. Rees tries to think clearly but finds his temples humming. ‘That’s why you put me next to Turnbull, isn’t it? Jesus, I don’t…I’m not a machine. My life isn’t on loan from the military – I’m not going back to the plant for recycling. I’m a human being for Christ’s sake! I’m here because I was willing to stand in front of the other side and get shot at – defending freedom or some such bullshit.’

‘I’m sorry, Rees. There’s one more thing that I have to tell you.’ Brodzky has a strange look about him. There is something absurd in his furtiveness.

‘Oh, shit. I’m ready for the good news now.’

Brodzky claps his shoulders with his big hands. ‘There is an alternative. But you have to understand that I never said this, okay?’

Rees thinks he’s going to ask for another promise but this time he just ploughs on.

‘There are people spending a great deal of money, investing in the right direction for this technology, the real opportunity. Forget about putting command and control in,’ he laughs that nervous laugh again, ‘which is the least effective part anyway and where all the problems are; no, concentrate instead on capturing everything going on inside and pumping it out!’