The Relic Keeper (15 page)

Rei left the building and walked out into the dark wet night. The street lights were out again and the scaffolding made eerie shapes against the illuminated shop fronts opposite. It was not safe to leave via the front entrance, but the side exit led onto a dark alley, and it did not seem less hazardous at this time of night. Rei had seen groups of youths clothed in dark hooded jackets loiter here, their gait strange from the narcotics that they used, and their faces hidden by scarves. The corner of the passage smelt of the piss and vomit that never seems to wash away in the constant rain, and trash had built up by the old wooden fence to the far end of it. The route was closed at one end due to the repairs, although it left open the route that Rei needed, so she would not have to double back as she had last year when the other end had been closed off.

She started down the 200 metres to the main road, hurrying because of the rain and smell. Although the entrance to the apartment she was using was connected to the clinic, it necessitated her walking virtually the entire circumference of the block, which took about 15 minutes. Her head was full of ideas about Mathew’s exercises and ways to improve his routine. It must be dull for him to be locked in there all day. Perhaps she could take him out of the building somehow in a couple of weeks. He was certainly strong enough to walk on his own for a while. Suddenly through these thoughts a strange sense of foreboding grew. At first she felt stupid for thinking that someone may be following her, but the feeling became stronger and she could now hear footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace, and heard the steps do the same. Then they began running. She turned but couldn’t see anything. Instinctively she started running, all the time listening to the sound of her pursuer gaining. She was fit and quick, but the man was taller and stronger and grabbed her hair, yanking her to a standstill. She screamed but there was no-one to hear her. Then she felt herself spun around and a gloved hand cover her mouth. She was pulled towards the figure and could smell alcohol and tobacco on his breath. There was a bright point of light in front of her face that she realised was the light beam attached to a knife and a voice came out of the darkness.

“Empty your pockets.” She struggled as hard as she could. “Empty your fuckin’ pockets or I’ll cut you.” She could feel his weight on her, and his hand sliding down, unbuckling her belt.

She concentrated all her strength and energy as she’d always been taught, fought to control her breathing, timed her move and then slipped one hand up knocking the knife from her face and at the same time pulled her knee up as hard as she could into her assailant’s crotch. He winced and let his grip loosen for a second, but it was long enough for her to move. She swung a cupped hand against the man’s ear, and quickly hit him in the centre of the chest with her other hand, twisting her palm as it connected. She spun away and tried to run, but her head caught the steel bar of the scaffolding and she stumbled, falling amongst a pile of wood and tools. The man’s hand found her ankle and held her tightly. She fumbled in the darkness for a weapon and her fingers closed around a piece of metal. As she felt the man’s hand grab her waist and unbuckle her trousers she seized the machine in her hand and brought it down on the man’s head. He fell back slightly, then came again, punching her in the face. She felt her cheek swell immediately and her vision swam for a while. The hand now clutched her waist again and pulled her towards him. Unsure what she still held in her right hand she brought the device up and found a handle and finger cover. She recalled seeing a workman this morning using tools to fire nails into the boards on this section. That had to be what she held. She had no idea how to use it, but just brought it up and pulled the small trigger.

There was a whooshing noise and the man stopped and staggered back. Rei felt flecks of something warm and wet on her face. The hand on her belt released and she turned and ran. She kept running until she reached her apartment, where she bolted the door and collapsed sobbing into her chair. Only then did she let of go of the nail gun that she’d been carrying.

Philip sat in the bar waiting for Rei to arrive. Her message had been unexpected and hurried, but he guessed it was something serious. He just finished a call from Ravi, who was concerned that every other publication was taking a moralistic view on the Lyal story, and Philip’s was so far not much more than a brief scientific overview of the process and a short piece on the ways that creating a state of suspended animation could be used. This story seemed likely to finish Philip’s career at the moment, rather than being the scoop of the decade.

“Everyone’s going on the moral Crusade bandwagon with this, Phil. And we’re missing it. We’re wittering on about research and space travel.”

“I think our readers are able to make their own minds up, don’t you Ravi. We are not The Sun, we don’t have to do people’s thinking for them. And anyway, you’ve had a piece from me that you can use editorially.”

“Your copy was based on the waste of money of the whole process and how funds could be directed to towards public health. It’s a private clinic, for God’s sake; they can do what they like with their own money. And as for what our readers are thinking, I don’t give a fuck about what the people believe; I want to expand readership. They tell us what they think, then we confirm why they think it. Do you understand journalism at all? We don’t report what has happened, we give an opinion about it. Have you been paying attention over the last few days? Did you watch the debate? Public opinion is raging against this place and their Frankenstein experiments.”

Jesus, thought Philip, this guy really speaks in headlines. “Ok, I’ll speed my research up. But I’m sure I’ve got an angle that none of the others have on this.”

“An angle’s great, but if the story’s dead and buried by the time we get it, then it’s no fucking good is it. And it looks like that could well happen. Literally. This Lyal character may be relapsing. The latest from the hospital is that his condition is no longer stable and they’re not sure why. I’ll send you the report they’ve issued. So get something in. Like today! Tiente.”

The line went dead and then reopened immediately.

“Yeah, I’m on it, alright,” Philip barked.

“Hello,” came a female voice from the machine. He looked up and saw Rei on the screen.

“Sorry, thought you were someone else. What’s up?” It had to be something about Lyal’s condition, he thought.

“I need to see you. I don’t want to talk like this. I want to meet you immediately. I think it’s important. Meet me at the bar where we met before, in…..an hour?”

“Yeah, fine. How’s Lyal?”

“As far as I know Mathew’s fine. Meet me in 60 minutes,” and she disconnected.

And now he was left waiting for her, watching the con men on the street opposite. There was a crowd around a rather scruffy man who was shuffling three cups, under one of them was a small ball, and he was taking bets on which one it was. Philip had lost two-hundred dollars playing this in the Congo when he was in the forces, although he was much younger and more naive then. He watched as the man took money from a group of onlookers, one of whom won and received his payment, while the others tried again. Rei was late so he kept watching the scene being repeated, while sipping a glass of sickly tea. He gathered the scam as he watched. The same man always came back and was always the person who won. He was the plant to keep people convinced that they could beat the odds. And as he watched more intently and recognised the faces circulating around the crowd he realised that 3 others were always there, too. A short woman stood in the crowd and pushed forward to see, then a man came up behind her and took something from her, which was passed to a third man who walked continuously passed. They were successfully pulling jewellery, bracelets and wallets from the crowd, who were being dazzled by the handwork of the front-man. The scam worked in its own right and as a decoy, and Philip remembered a book he’d read on magic tricks. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The trick is to make people look in the wrong place, then no one notices the obvious happening beneath their noses. It was an old, but ingenious device.

“Mr Brading!” He jumped slightly at the sound. He’d been so engrossed that he hadn’t noticed Rei join him.

“Sorry, I was miles away. What’s happened?” he could tell she was distressed and her face was bruised. “Has someone attacked you?”

“No. Well yes, but that’s not the problem at the moment. I’ve been dismissed from the clinic.”

“Sacked? What for?”

“They’ve made something up. I went in today and I couldn’t get through the security check, it just read ‘authorisation declined’, so I got the security man over and he checked my status, and it came up as ‘terminated’, so he just wouldn’t let me in. I managed to get through to someone in Administrative Affairs and they said that they had a confirmed first rate complaint of misconduct and negligence.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means that there has been a major mis-compliance of regulations that is so obviously my fault that I can’t even appeal against it.” She shook her head and looked into Philip’s eyes. She was emotional and he got the distinct impression that this didn’t happen often. “They say I let someone die,” she said, choking on the words.

“Who? Lyal? How? I mean, I take it you haven’t.”

“Of course I bloody haven’t,” she cried, clearly irritated at the implication. “There’s a boy, George his name is. He’s had a huge problem with multiple organ failure and rejection of the pseudogenetic tissue that was used on him, which shouldn’t ever happen, we’re not sure why it did in this case, but, well, there were several attempts to realign his body to the new tissue, but it failed. It’s rare but it happens sometimes, especially in children. I was the junior on his case until I was moved onto Mathew’s case, but even then there was no further help for him. He died two days ago at his parents’ home.” She stopped and held her breath while she controlled herself. Philip knew better than to interrupt and let her continue in her own time. “Well, now they’re saying that the reason for the pseudogenetic rejection was because he was treated with an overdose of the coagulant that he was on. He was receiving three doses of 0.75 millilitres a day, and now they say that I was injecting 7.5 millilitres, but I wasn’t, I know I wasn’t. It is possible to make a mistake like that, but there is a big difference and I would have realised. They claim that the organs could not bond with the existing cell due to the thinness of the blood, and they’ve convinced the parents about this, but it’s not true. They’ve changed all the records, I know they have because I have seen them, but I don’t have copies, so I can’t prove a thing.”

“Why would they dismiss you on a trumped up misconduct case? I mean, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but I don’t understand why.”

“I don’t know either, but they have. I can only stay in the country while I have that job, so now I have the rest of the time on my visa, which is only 12 days if I’m not working before I have to leave, and they’ve circulated my status already, so no health centre of hospital is going to touch me. They made me move into one of the clinic’s apartments and give up the place I had been renting, and so I’ve had to move all of my belongings out. I have all of my things in a storage unit now. I haven’t any friends here; I have no job and no place to live. They’re forcing me to leave the country, in effect.”

Philip placed a hand on her shoulder and wondered what he should do. “It’s really bad of them,” he said, not meaning to sound as patronising as he did, “but what do want me to do?”

She looked up into his face, her eyes red. “There’s more to it. They have dismissed or moved everyone who worked with Mathew. All of them. And all today. Not one person who was working with him is still employed there.”

“Well, why the hell would they want to do that? Especially as his condition is worsening.”

Rei looked surprised. “What do you mean about his condition worsening?”

“It was announced earlier. It’ll be reported when the news gets updated later today.” He activated his messages and looked up the note that Ravi had sent him. “Here, this is what my editor’s putting out later, ‘Saturday the twenty-sixth of May, 2068. The Walden Clinic admitted today that the condition of their patient Mathew Lyal, the man resurrected from the twentieth century, has been deteriorating steadily over the past 36 hours. It is unknown for what reason this has occurred, but senior staff are gravely concerned for his life following the unexpected downturn. Consultant Dr Malik stated that the next 24 hours would be critical.’ I got that this morning. You don’t know anything about this do you?”

“No. Mathew’s doing fine. Well, he was when I left him yesterday. If anything he’s better than he’s ever been. I don’t understand that. It’s a mistake.”

“Maybe there’s something they didn’t tell you about? Something about his health?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t think what, and not within those timeframes. I was the main medical representative to him, they would have told me of anything life threatening so that I could deal with any emergency. It would be a disaster for the clinic if he died.” Her tears started to spill. “I feel so helpless that I can’t help him if there is something wrong. And after all the condemnation and criticism they have received over this. If something were wrong they would be more likely to cover it up than announce it. The case has been controversial, but it has boosted their kudos, and on a world scale this has put them in the spotlight. It would take an absolute miracle to rebuild the clinic’s reputation if something happened to Mathew.”

Philip pulled the girl close to him and drew an arm around her. He felt her warmth and silently chastised himself for enjoying the sensation. He looked up to where the conman had been set up across the road, but he had moved off for the day. Smoke and mirrors, he thought. He spoke gently to the girl in his arms:

“Rei, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Mathew.”

“That’s what I said to you.”

“Yes I know, but I think that there may be something else happening. I think I may have been looking at this from the wrong point of view.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think Mathew was just a decoy, and now they’ve finished with him. I don’t think Mathew was important to the clinic at all.”

“You think they’ll just release him?”

“No, I don’t. I think they’ll want to remove him completely. He’s no use to them.”

“Well then we have no choice. We need to get him out of there. If he is no longer of use they won’t keep him. They have already dismissed his care staff. I don’t think that they will be overly concerned with his welfare now.” She thought for a second then seemed to come to a decision. “I will have to find a way to bring him out of there. It will be easier if you would help me.”

“I don’t know about that, Rei. What would we do with him?”

“If we do nothing there is no one else in the world who will help, or even care if he dies. Don’t you see that we
must
do this? It is a matter of conscience. If you don’t help then I will do this alone. There is nothing left for me in the country now anyway. This is the last piece of good that I may be able to do here.”

“Well,” said Philip wondering if he was really about to agree to this ludicrous plan, “if you want to help him we need to act now, ’cos I think that they’re going to let him die. And I think you’re right. If you and I don’t do something, no one will. But we’ll need some help. And realistically there’s only one other person we can ask.”

Shit, he thought, what the hell have I just agreed to.