Thirty Four Minutes DEAD (25 page)

“We could thus show an innocent person killing us - no problem if we stay alive, but rough justice on somebody if we did get killed. You may think that this scenario is a bit melodramatic Greg, but the point is I’ve established that there are potential flaws in MC project explorations - you see Greg, the Memory Camera could lie!”

Although Gregory Vain did feel that a wrongful murder conviction was unlikely to result due to mindsight ‘fall-through’, he had to admit that weak elements in the dividing membrane did present problems. He and Fearston talked into the small hours with regard to whether they should inform Leif Denison of Diana’s findings. Fearston felt that they should reveal the information pertaining to Subject 22, but Vain disagreed, feeling that the
déjà-vu
‘fall-through’ discovery could bring Denison down on them, and if revealed to a global audience it could give critics of the MC-project an angle for attack, illuminating the blemish of flawed visual storage. Akira Ying-Sun had been a powerful critic who had been impressively won over at the global MC revelation, but there were others like him who saw the project as an American-led neurological conspiracy, and they would find great ammunition in Fearston’s research if the results were exposed to a public audience.

As the senior front-line team leader, Vain could decide on the decision to be taken, but this presented him with a dichotomy, as the key factor involved whether the highest form of project command should be kept in ignorance of the discovery or not. If Denison were not informed, the pair would be in breach of their MC project duties and this factor had already ‘displaced’ some of their collective number. Vain eventually made a decision at just after three in the morning and he chose his words very carefully, so he wouldn’t dampen the enthusiasm and commitment of his able understudy.

“We’ve got to hang fire with your findings for the moment, Diana. If we break your conclusions to Leif now it could definitely go against you. Denison’s on the crest of a wave right now. The MC-project has been his baby for years and he has suffered each set-back like a personal body blow. Chicago nearly did him in, but he knew that global exposure wasn’t far away and this gave him the strength to carry on. Subject 22 did highlight a potential project flaw, but in the light of our overwhelming successes, it is not practical to build mindsight ‘fall-through’ to a level of comparative importance.

Mishimo Ko-Chai wanted to dwell on the Christopher exploration because it proved we were fallible and couldn’t explain everything that we encountered, but Denison pioneered onward rather than arrest the set back. It would be the same if we enlightened him about ‘fall-through’, but he might move on the attack, as you would have broken his neurological ‘Midas touch’! You see, you would represent the harbinger of bad news, an internal threat, temporarily soiling the flood of success. When he goes on the attack things happen, some people get ‘wiped’, some disappear and others are humiliated in front of the rest of the project ranks. I don’t want that to happen to you, Diana. So far there are only two of us that know about a membrane weakness and it’s better to keep things hidden right now, with me bearing responsibility for the decision under the auspices of my front-line authority. We might never have to inform him, but we have got to be very careful if we do. I obviously realise how proud you must be with regard to your research findings, you’ve made brilliant accurate deductions, but a hostile Denison could well say that your work represented personal research at the expense of MC-project gain. I know this isn’t the case, but I’ve crossed swords with Leif before and I felt the unified force of oppression close rank against me when I questioned the handling of the gunfight in Chicago. Anyone who upsets Leif Denison’s method of working seems to be cancerous to his dream. You and I should subsequently hold the ‘fall-through’ secret until any instance occurs where we have to reveal it. Remember, I will bear the responsibility for the delay in breaking your findings, and I will worry about any possible reprisal action if the time comes”.

Fearston was eventually won over, seeing the sense in waiting before exposing her research findings. She worried for Vain though, after he had decided to bear the responsibility for any late revelation that might have to be divulged. After he and Diana had finished their discussion, she took her leave and Vain drifted into a deep sleep.

The headlines of the morning press were going to surprise Gregory Vain, even though the previous day’s media encounter had been temporarily shelved in his mind due to Fearston’s enlightening research findings. As the papers were delivered to their points of sale the front-line leader slept on. Later that day he would have to get used to a new sensationalist identity - ‘The Gun-Ho Mindreader’!

Vain awoke to find that every newspaper in Britain featured him on the front page, and in the subsequent three weeks that followed, he was placed under curfew in Designation B for his own protection. Denison knew that now the press had detected two key members of the MC-project staff, they would pursue the pair like a pack of hounds if either of them surfaced outside the Designation confines. The security staff looking after Tanya and Vain’s children also increased considerably.

The favoured photograph carried by the majority of papers featured Vain brandishing the Uzi at the reporters who were laying siege to his car, and a series of sensationalist headlines supported its usage. ‘The Gun-Ho Mindreader’ was the headline that television echoed with regard to its coverage of the press exposure, and Vain’s career background was illuminated by both media forms with regard to what they could access. Levene was also illuminated and researched, with the majority of the tabloid press elevating her good looks in melodramatic language that remembered film with regard to the use of adjectives. The media interest created a global audience as the UK exposure was exchanged around the globe. Hundreds of reporters camped outside the gates of Designation B, and eventually Mr Fray and Mr Voight activated their security units to physically push the media ranks back in a bloody confrontation that left three reporters dead and injured scores of others. This act generated a media backlash that painted the MC-project in a sinister negative light, and this was maintained when leaked profiles of project members were fed through. Levene was labelled the ‘Vampire Ice-Maiden’ by the New York tabloids, and Denison was likened to a military dictator in certain parts of the world.

When Denison had softened some of the security repression associated with MC-project involvement upon the return to England, all staff had envisaged a more pleasurable working ethic to be developing. However, when the media interest avalanche showed no signs of abating, the autocratic style of the past returned with regard to certain post-Washington changes that had been implemented. The hard-line restoration involved all staff having to endure the Designation curfews of the past weekend. Project freedom subsequently faded into history. As the world’s media continued to uncover and profile more of the MC-project ranks, Denison extended an unusual offer to the staff who were ‘exposed’. This offer gave the exposed the chance to radically alter their appearance via plastic surgery, and whilst some ‘new’ faces did emerge in staff who accepted the offer, the majority turned the offer down, relieved that Denison had let them make the decision, and had not imposed facial change as a mandatory command.

Both Vain and Levene turned the opportunity of a new face down, preferring to take their chance with the world’s media when they would next appear out of the Designation confines. Denison had understood their decision, although he strongly advised the pair to stay apart from each other in the public domain. He didn’t implement any specific separation rules for the pair within the confines of the Designation, but he reminded them that their detection had offset the media avalanche, which put pressure on all staff, and subsequently he felt that any witnessed display of affection between the pair might incur the wrath of some of their fellow MC-project colleagues.

As the project ranks started to realise the negative implications that media exposure created, Denison decided to enable his staff to see the outside coverage develop. Television and radio were thus allowed into the Designation environment for the first time, although the Internet was still only made available to the select few. Newspapers had been the one media form that had been allowed on occasions in the past, and now a complete supply were readily made available. The MC-Project was naturally bigger in impact than the usual ‘nine day wonder’ features that the media favoured, and it thus received consistent front-page attention in the global press. A lot of this coverage was motivated by speculation, and as the press became more desperate in their efforts to include new project information, erroneous conclusions abounded. Television also featured some sensationalist programmes, but some of the documentary production on UK TV delivered quality as far as deductions were concerned. During the fourth consecutive week of Designation incarceration, project staff witnessed one such programme and the conclusions that were generated shocked MC-project staff.

The programme was called ‘Sinquiry’, and it focused upon investigating powerful organisations, by assessing the area of expertise they were involved with and the effect that their line of work could have for the masses. The Sinquiry documentary that assessed the workings of the MC Project typically had a specific line of investigation, and the project’s neurological breakthroughs were measured against UK murder statistics in the period after global exposure. The format of the programme involved pre-recorded material initially, and live-studio audience comments made up the last fifteen minutes. Sean Edwards was the reporter who fronted the documentaries and he would set the scene regarding the issue in focus each week. His pre-title words at the start of the ‘MC-Project special’ were typically aggressive in accent.

“When the world first heard about the Memory-Camera project, most people envisaged a more crime-free social environment for the years ahead. We had, after all, globally witnessed how one upper-crust murderer met his retribution in just a couple of days, because of the images that the project could access. The public knew that a new kind of visual proof would be available for use in the moral fight against crime on a worldwide level. This factor gave people the sense of security they had been looking for after years of shortcomings surrounding Western World legal practice. The future looked bright, until dramatic new criminal statistics started to emerge!

“Tonight, Sinquiry looks at startling new developments which suggest that MC-Project findings may actually be
creating
killers! We examine the evidence that now suggests the rapist of yesterday may well be turning into the terminal mutilator of today!”

After the dramatic introduction, the title music and credits started to hit the screen. Vain was watching the programme along with Levene in her private quarters, and both had been captivated by the hard-hitting claim in Edward’s scene setting.

Edwards began the pre-recorded exposure by highlighting a case study that concerned the violent murder of a nineteen-year-old girl in Reading. Emma Robertson had been a student at Reading University. She had been popular with her fellow students and the programme profiled her as ‘every father’s dream daughter’. Robertson went to a nightclub three days after the global exposure of the MC-Project, and as she walked through the University campus on her way back to her hall of residence, she had the misfortune to meet Mark Stevens. This 38-year old man had been sent to prison on two occasions in the past for attempted rape and repetitive stalking. Stevens was an individual who had a low intellect and poor social skills. He was a loner who moved around the South Eastern region of England, undertaking casual menial work. He was quite slight in build and although he had previously been imprisoned for attempted rape, his intended victim had said in court that she didn’t feel he would have carried out some of the stronger verbal threats he had made to her. After struggling to pin the victim down, he had lost interest, looking guilty and wandering away from his quarry. He had been arrested without a struggle.

Stevens had been released from prison after serving three years of the custodial sentence that he had received for his attempted rape. His prison report had stated that he had behaved like a model felon and his good behaviour had contributed to the shortening of his sentence. A month after his release, the global MC-project exposure occurred and the divulged neurological information had a profound effect on Stevens.

On the night he killed Emma Robertson, Stevens had packed a range of cutting implements into his workbag. A blunt kitchen knife, a Korean Machete and a large pair of scissors were amongst the contents. He asphyxiated his victim, but then tried vainly to decapitate the young woman using the blunt knife. Campus security personnel caught him when his workbag spilled its contents after he had panicked due to his futile decapitation attempt. Sinquiry screened a reconstructed portion of the defence testimony from the trial of Mark Stevens.

Defence
“Why did you hunt your victim with cutting implements in your possession?”

Stevens
“I had to take her head away with me”.

Defence
“But why?”

Stevens
“They can see in dead heads now. That project - they can see everything you know”.