The 2084 Precept (44 page)

We walked back to the hotel and into the
meeting room in silence. It was easy to imagine a copious amount of
serious perusal and profound cogitation wafting its way noiselessly
through the atmosphere

"I would not like to think, "said Delsey's
boss after we had seated ourdelves, "what could be made to happen
if this capability were to be misused. If this extraordinary power
to influence others' minds were to fall into the wrong hands. Or
already
be
in the wrong hands. It is amazing. It is almost
impossible to believe."

"Indeed," I said. "But the problem would be,
would it not, which are the right hands? All kinds of people,
countries, would do anything to lay their hands on this, including
yourselves and whoever is running this country. A tremendous weapon
is what you have to be thinking. And we would never, ever use it,
not for anything, we would just keep it as a defence threat, we
would just lock it away and forget about it, wouldn't we, am I
right?"

There was another silence. They were all
looking at me.

"Was it Mr. Parker you called?" asked
Delsey.

"No it wasn't."

"Who then?" asked Delsey's boss.

"I don't know."

"But you knew the number. Know it."

"Yes."

"How?"

"Mr. Parker receives a number each time a
demonstration is required. The number cannot be traced and is
voided immediately after completion of the call in any case. Mr.
Parker provided me with the number for today."

Just part of last night's planning. Pretty
simple. But let it not be said that I am not giving full value for
money to Jeremy. You will never find me being lax or lazy when
fulfilling my side of a contractual agreement, well paid or not.
Not my type.

"Could you show us the number, please?"

"No, I was requested not to divulge it.

"By Mr. Parker?"

"By Mr. Parker."

"Then I am afraid we will have to request
the loan of your mobile for a while," said Delsey's boss.

"No, I'm afraid not," I replied. "For that,
you would require authorization. I have done nothing wrong. In
fact, if you want to get official about it, I have done nothing at
all except make a phone call. I can't imagine you trying to justify
your request as a necessary measure necessary to identify someone
who has apparently stopped the traffic in Piccadilly by means of
telepathy. Can you?"

Mr. O'Donoghue," he said, "you must be aware
of the fact that we are not going to let this matter drop. This is
an exceedingly grave situation. Monumentally grave. And well you
know it. You are not stupid. We are going to have to visit Mr.
Parker as well. As soon as we leave here. We know where to find
him."

"Oh no, you are not," I said. "First of all,
both he and I will deny everything. You will all be made to look
like fools. You sir, in particular, will be suspected of coercing
your colleagues here into supporting some impossibly wild idea of
yours. I wouldn't stake much on your career or your standing in the
force after that. And secondly, Mr. Parker won't let you get
anywhere near him if he doesn’t want to. He will have you or anyone
else stopped. Like the Piccadilly traffic. And what's more," I
added, just to cement things up, "have you considered the possible
dangers if Mr. Parker takes offence?" And to make sure the cement
had set, "And have you considered, and this is the most important
item of all, that you may be held personally responsible for
causing your country to miss out on some incalculably valuable
intelligence? Incalculably, I say?"

"Well, that may be, Mr. O’Donoghue, or it
may not be. In any case, Mr. Parker would have to arrange to stop a
large number of people if necessary. Now why don't we simply avoid
a lot of bureaucratic trouble and unpleasantness and you just give
me your mobile? We'll have it back to you within twenty four hours,
and that's a promise."

"Listen," I said. "You are missing the whole
point. I have told you that there is a matter of huge international
importance which needs to be discussed directly with your prime
minister and with no-one else. And what that matter is you will
never know unless the prime minister deems otherwise. Today's
happening was merely to convince you of that and nothing else. The
matter to be discussed with him has far wider consequences than
today's mind-influencing, if you can imagine that, which I don't
suppose you can. Which in fact I know you can't. And so I would be
grateful if you would treat me with a little more civility. This is
not a game, and certainly not a game to be played around with at
your level."

I paused. I considered what I had said so
far. Frankly, I might even have been convincing
myself
, if I
hadn't known that it was all a load of trash. An extra €400,000
load of trash, mind you. Except for the mind-hacking. That was
something. That was really impressive. That was awesome, scary,
inconceivable, no doubt about it. I still didn't know exactly what
to think about it. But I was changing my mind about poor mad Jeremy
being the big danger. It seemed to me that the big danger would be
if this capability were to be acquired by human beings. I mean, of
course, human beings other than Jeremy.

But my neurons were a calming factor. They
told me that that probably wasn't possible. Only Jeremy could do
it. He was a huge exception. And he wasn't going to allow anyone to
'acquire' either himself or his skills.

"I'll make it short and sweet," I continued.
"I understand your concern and interest regarding today's events. I
have therefore decided to give you my mobile. As a favor. Please
return it to reception here by 1 p.m. tomorrow. In return for that,
you agree to arrange a meeting for me with the prime minister. He
will presumably want to have others present including bodyguards.
That is O.K. But they shouldn't be able to hear what we discuss for
the first five minutes. That is all I ask. After that, the prime
minister can decide for himself."

None of them looked very happy. Delsey's
boss said, "As I have already explained, such a meeting will not be
possible. All I can do is agree to make an attempt, although the
outcome, in my view, is a foregone conclusion. That is all I can
agree to, I'm afraid."

I took my personal mobile out of my back
pocket, slowly so that everyone could see where it came from, and I
handed it to Delsey's boss. I still didn't know his name, and it
still didn't interest me in the slightest.

"I'll accept your offer to make an attempt,"
I said. "And no doubt you will contact me as soon as possible.
Please bear in mind that the matter is urgent. And hopefully we can
all agree that this meeting is now closed."

Hopefully.

Delsey threw a glance at his boss, who
nodded. "Very well," said Delsey, "but we will need to meet with
you personally again soon. Not going anywhere this week are
you?"

"Not until the weekend," I said. "I'll be
working, but I'll be staying at this hotel." After today's
experience, I thought to myself, they would be keeping more than a
close eye on me anyway.

And that was it. Off they went, taking my
mobile with them. And off I went up to my room. I pressed the green
button and called Jeremy, thanked him for his immaculate
performance and explained to him how the meeting had finished. I
plugged in my laptop and checked my messages.

And there it was, a message from Céline:
Darling Peter, I have been suffering terribly these last few
days. I got back to Rouen and found out that I am still very much
in love with my fiancé. I prefer not to elaborate on that and I
know that you will be as understanding of it as you can. You are
truly a wonderful man and I wish you sincerely, sincerely,
sincerely, a very wonderful and happy life. Whoever gets to share
it with you will be a fortunate woman indeed. A thousand thanks for
last weekend. Having met you is a memory I will cherish for the
rest of my life. Your (very sad) Céline
.

Well. 'Well' was the most suitable word for
it. It befitted my open-mouthed reaction perfectly. Speechless I
was, not that I had anyone to speak to. Total paralysis of the
neurons. Shock. Sadness. Despair.

For a minute at least. I re-read the
message. I re-read it a second time. And then those trusty old
neurons began grinding slowly back into motion again. Why the
exaggerated reaction, Peter, they asked me. Why the emotional
chaos? These things happen in the world, right?

Yes, these things happen. But they cause
emotional chaos if you happen to be a person with feelings. And my
feelings for Céline were so spontaneous and so intense and so
tender that my only sensation now was one of deep loss. Deep loss.
And so, dear neurons, you can shove your philosophical thoughts
about one-night stands and the sex was great right back into your
metaphorical and cynical ass. I am sad. I am deeply sad. And that
is all there is to say about it.

Of course, said my neurons, but life goes
on. And, if you take the decision not to swipe a sharp knife across
your throat, indeed it does. I went down to the street and hailed a
cab to take me to the En Passant. I walked up the decrepit stairs
and into the decrepit games room. The usual decrepit
taxpayer-subsidized players were there as always, but also plenty
of punters, businessmen or whoever else, whiling away their weekend
time. I looked at a couple of them who were standing around
watching other games. "Blitz?" asked one of them. "Fiver per game?"
I queried. And he nodded and we took one of the two tables not in
use and set the clocks.

I was sad and disoriented and angry—not with
Céline but with the emotional storm which had disrupted my peaceful
swim on the ocean's waves—and I was in no mood to do anything but
slaughter my opponent. I had the black pieces for the first game
and I played the Budapest Gambit. This is when White starts off
with e4 and the first three moves follow the Ruy Lopez, except that
Black's third move doesn't. Black plays f5. This is not a good
opening for Black and I would never play it in a
tournament—although, as far I am aware, it has never been refuted.
On the other hand, a good opponent is always going to obtain a
positional advantage as White and maintain it long-term. But this
is not a good opponent, it's a punter. And it's Blitz, five minutes
per game. And he doesn't know the best moves and he spends valuable
seconds trying to figure out the best one each time. Which he fails
to do anyway and I slaughter him.

After about an hour I have won twenty five
pounds and he has had enough. This is not money, not nowadays, but
it took care of most of my early meal in that steakhouse around the
corner.

Back at the hotel, Little Miss Ugly was one
of the two receptionists on duty. She was overjoyed to see me, and
although not in the mood, I stopped and made her day with a bit of
conversation. I learned that she was doing overtime today because
the Sunday moron no longer…er…works for us. Good. Serves him right.
Presumably tramping the streets looking for work at whichever
places interview morons.

I went up to my room and sent a message to
Céline:
Dear Céline, I understand. I will miss you a lot. I will
always remember you. Take care of yourself. Peter.
I could have
written a lot more, I could have written that I would miss her
forever, but no point. She wouldn't want to read a load of sickly
crap. I know I wouldn't, that's for sure.

Today's weather suited my mood, gray and
depressed. I sank some Lavazza but skipped breakfast. I smoked my
first cigarette of the day—always one of the most needed ones—and
drove out to Slough. I had no idea whether I was being tracked or
not, but they could have had an army following me and I couldn't
have cared less.

I spent a leisurely morning just checking up
on things. Joe was happy, enjoying the experience with his
suppliers. He was not sure we would meet our target of 8% but he
was confident we wouldn't be far off. Ron was also not sure that we
would meet our production target of 17,000 hours but he told me
that some fascinating possibilities were being identified. He
showed me some of them, and they
were
fascinating, and he
was also happy.

Before I left, I dropped into Fred's office.
He was not one of the happy ones but he was not unhappy either. The
works council had held their employee meeting this morning and had
presented the management message. This had resulted in a lot of
unhappy workers but they were going to take a formal vote on
Wednesday morning. To me, this was good news—if they were going to
reject the proposals outright, they would have taken that decision
already this morning. In my view.

And another day's fee had been earned; oh
yes, a consultant’s life is hard. I drove back to town down the M4.
This route was becoming boring, but who cares, it's my last week. I
parked the car in the hotel garage and walked up to reception. No
mobile. Instead there was a message from Delsey, sincere apologies,
my phone will definitely be returned by tomorrow morning. O.K., no
sweat, you can never trust a word those guys utter. They're the
same as the elected birdbrains. Open their mouths and all you get
is verbal diarrhea. Good enough to fool the masses, but not you and
I. The problem being, as usual, that you and I do not form the
majority. I walked into Piccadilly, along to the nice restaurant.
No table available, many profuse apologies. I understand the
problem, not only are they packed out, but I am a table for one,
not an economic preference at the best of times. This place must be
a goldmine, no difficulties with the Piccadilly rent.

In retrospect, it might have made me late
for Jeremy anyway. I took a cab to the Strand, picked up a
sandwich, smoked a cigarette, and entered the Obrix offices at
precisely 2 p.m. The dream, or Jane as she now is, wasn't there.
That was a good thing, I thought to myself, who wants to be looking
at something like that, and what's more something like that which
might actually be interested in you, at a time when no woman
interests you in any way at all. A time which will of course pass,
as sure as our star burns merrily away in the sky. But not today,
José.