Experiment With Destiny (19 page)

             
They carried three stretchers laden with bodies, covered over with bloodstained blankets that hid the faces. Ivan and Tufty watched silently from a distance as the bodies were loaded into the backs of the waiting ambulances. Then the police moved the crowd back and opened the cordon to let the paramedics drive away.

             
“We’re too late,” said Ivan. Tufty ignored him and walked up to the edge of the crowd. Ivan, aware of the weight of his bag, stayed where he was.

             
“What happened?” he heard her ask.

             
“Shoot-out!” said one of the crowd excitedly.

             
“Yeah! Fuckin’ Neo Nazis, someone said,” added another.

             
Tufty turned and walked past him. She was crying.

             
“What do we do now?” he asked. “What the fuck do we do now?” Ivan reached out to take her hand but she shook him off.

             
“How the fuck do I know?” she spat. “Did Simon tell you every fucking thing? Didn’t you ever think for yourself?” Ivan glanced around nervously, hoping her voice didn’t carry to the police further up the street. “I’m getting the fuck away from here and I suggest you do the same.” She walked away.

             
“What about us?”

             
“There is no ‘us’. Fuck off! I don’t ever want to see you again.”

              Tufty vanished along the High Street. Ivan stood in the rain and wept. He knew it was all over. They had removed three bodies from the den. There was a fourth body lying in a morgue somewhere in Cardiff. Scabies was dead. As far as he knew the others were also dead. It was only a matter of time before the police came looking for him too, a known associate. He could go on the run. Where would he run to? How long could he hope to run for? Ivan knew with a dreaded sense of finality that he could not escape. It was game over.

* * *

              Beneath the glare of the floodlights, Worcester City kicked off in front of a boisterous home crowd. The ground was filled to capacity, the modest non league stands holding every body that could be squeezed in. The Tuesday night sky glistened with rain, rain that fell relentlessly onto the patchy stud-torn pitch. It was scrappy end-to-end stuff, the heavy conditions taking their toll on both teams and chances were few and far between. The players huffed and puffed, tore and trampled the pitch, slipping and sliding in the mud as the heavens poured down on them.

             
A solitary moment of inspiration came with just a minute of stoppage time remaining before the game would be forced into extra time. The Martyrs’ keeper mis-kicked his clearance and the ball fell short of the half way line. Topper went for it but it bobbled in the mud and Worcester’s tall black centre-forward deftly collected it and swept easily past him. Merthyr had pushed everyone forward in search of a last minute winner. He only had the keeper to beat. Topper’s sank his head in his hands and slumped to the soggy turf as the ball sailed sweetly though the air, past the keeper’s outstretched glove and into the net where it curled up, rattling as it went.

             
The Worcester fans were on the pitch a moment later and the final whistle went. Merthyr’s dream of a lucrative third round FA Cup tie at home to Cardiff City were over.

              Ivan Berking watched the replay of the goal and then switched off the TV as the camera homed in on the tall black centre-forward’s gleaming white smile. In a moment the custody sergeant would come and retrieve the little portable, a concession for handing himself in and confessing everything last night. He felt the pain and anguish of defeat. He wanted to hurt somebody real bad. But the only potential victim in his police cell was himself.

* * *

Part 4

I’ve Got My Car And My TV

X

TALL against the horizon stood a man-made monolith. A daunting construction, it imposed an arrogant concrete magnitude the ancient skies. It was situated on the stark border of a deep forest and the open downs. In turn, the green fields gave way to dunes of white sand where the waiting sea rolled back and forth in anguish against a land it could not conquer.

             
The landscape was draped in a pall of humidity. It clung like a cloak to the seething forest, a burden to all within. Only a strengthening sea breeze offered relief, dancing promiscuously between the weary boughs, entertaining a promise of rain. It was evening, and in the amber twilight the forest canopy laboured with the preparations for nightfall.

             
Shrill cries heralded the approach of darkness and a multiplicity of creatures bustled toward their homes amid the treetops or in dark recesses beneath the undergrowth. High above the cacophony the heavens faded to deep blue and the first glimmers of stars peeped through an eternity of space. The sun, a shimmering pearl bathed in glory, dipped behind the inland horizon and set the earth’s rim ablaze with bloodied embers. Left behind, out to sea, was a fleet of bruised and sullen clouds, driven on a hungry wind to consume vast tracts of sky with monsoonal appetite. Their swollen lips curled with the chords of thunder, rumbling ominously like the drums of war. Lightning crackled and exploded. The forest trembled. The advancing armada blotted out the sky.

The silvery shape of the stealth craft spun away from the angry host and tumbled dizzily toward the treetops. It roared barely feet above the dripping leafscape, passing to and fro like a dragonfly over a pond. In the half-light of dusk the blue glow of its engine gleamed against the clouded sky, defining the vessel clearly in the narrow ravine between the storm and the forest. Strapped tightly inside the cockpit on a platform of instruments was an armour-clad pilot, masked and encased against the hostility of the elements. Amid the chaos of friction surrounding his aircraft he gripped the controls with the surety of experience and the conviction of a man who lived for the thrill of danger. Through the transparent fuselage beneath his feet he could watch the lush green canopy rushing by as he turned south to follow the artificial border created by axe and fire between the downs and the forest. To the west he could see the vermilion blaze of the disappearing sun. To the east lurked the sea where the atmosphere was fused with unbridled energy.

Fergus McFae strained to focus on the belt of greenery below. His helmet thundered with the roar of the wind and the turbine. He could almost feel the rush of air against the titanium hull. A red indicator flashed on his head-up-display (HUD). It warned him of a change in the surface level ahead. His attention dropped to the tree-line where he could discern a rapidly approaching incline of nearly 50ft. His gloved hand pulled gently on the joystick and his craft responded by surging like a champion hurdler over the obstacle.

As the vessel resettled on its course he checked the HUD for a reading on the distance to the ominous fortress ahead. His craft’s sensors were attuned to electrical and radio transmissions but the storm made it impossible to gauge. According to the instrumentation there was enough activity to account for a large city. The alloy scan fared little better, with readings well off the anticipated scale due to massive interference. He switched to life scan but that, too, struggled to provide a comprehensible measurement because of the incoming storm. Its sensitive antenna was unable to distinguish between human and non-human life in the forest ahead.

Fergus pushed delicately on the joystick and his craft dropped toward the forest roof. The storm was closing on him and the man-made fortress was still some distance away. He peered out through the right side of the canopy. In the deepening gloom he caught the ripples of lightning reflecting on the white foam as waves broke across the sandy shore. How much further? He was running out of time. Soon he would be forced to abandon his mission and break away to the west to avoid the storm.

He checked his HUD once more. At last! The sinister outline of the fortress was beginning to take shape on the long range visual scanner.

“Target in sight!” Fergus said aloud, to nobody in particular. His eyes searched the treeline but there was nothing to see except greenery and darkening skies. He was still peering ahead when a finger of electricity poked its way across the divide and cracked against the fuselage of his craft. Its immeasurable power seemed to instantly sap all the strength within his plane before snaking back to the storm from which it had emanated. There was an eerie silence.

Fergus listened beneath the weight of his armoured helmet. He could hear the storm and the air swirling around him. He heard the rattle of the wind beating against the reinforced panels of the craft. But there was no sound of turbine, no hum from the on-board computer.

Fergus felt like a tiny mollusc snatched up by a wave and hurled into the air, then dropping suddenly to be dashed on the rocks below. It was that mental image alone that inspired him to thrust the joystick toward the right. His stricken, helpless vessel spun away from the forest and was lost against the churning tide.

Wave after wave drank in the pebbled shore. It was twilight. Beneath the heavy clouds of a weighty autumn sky the sound of quiet steps on rounded stones crept across the empty beach. In the distance, tall against the foaming sea, was the headland, swept by wind and spray and draped with felt green slopes of soft grass. There, a deep ashen mist clung like gloom to obscure the cold reality of a cruel world.

Fergus stopped. The gentle clatter of stones fell hushed until only the wash of the waves sifted the shore with melodic regularity. It seemed he had reached the unfocused edge of ocean and land, where the forces of flux and intransigence battled to tear away each other’s crown. Dripping with salt wetness he watched the watery sentries war at his feet. What had become of the storm?

“This shouldn’t be happening!” His voice reverberated where it should have been lost to the vast scale of the panorama. “This isn’t in the bloody programme!”

He looked back to where, nestled slumberous against the ragged cliffs, the fishing village began its climb into the emerald hills. As the evening darkened it was becoming veiled in shadows. Thin whispers of smoke slipped away from the tiers of clay chimneys like vagrants before the dawn. The village seemed strangely familiar.

“This is bloody Wales again!” Fergus dragged himself further along the shore, his head shaking beneath the weight of his helmet. It was happening again, he thought to himself. Unreality was unravelling and the ugly features of his mundane world had become an unwelcome intruder. Virtual reality, mixed with a cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs, gave the scene something of a super reality. But there was no mistake. This was Port Eynon…or at least a hybrid of Gower villages where he’d spent long, tedious rain-soaked summers.

Stone-washed and solid, dotted with a hazy pattern of warm lights, the village offered a comfort he could no longer believe in. His faith ebbed away as the last clearing of angel blue closed beneath the darkened brow of night. He turned his back on the sleepy hamlet and faced the sea. Drifting toward him was the familiar sequence of lights, glowing through the deep water like the searchlight beams of a submarine.

“Should I? Shouldn’t I?” he asked aloud. The lights played among the waves – red, yellow and blue.

“Do you wish to continue with your programme, user?” The woman’s voice sounded garbled, as though filtering through the ocean’s waters.

“Yes…yes…I’ll stick with it for a while but I’m not happy…not the slightest bit happy!” His voice reverberated again, as though his head was contained within a steel bucket. His body started to become weightless and his arms began to ache; both familiar symptoms of a suspension in the programme. “It’s happening far too often. Are you sure there’s not some kind of fault…maybe a virus?”

“No virus has been detected by the background scan. Suspension was activated in auto response to metabolic changes indicating mental or physical distress.” The lights danced before him, shimmering in the salty sea. “Would you like to initiate a full extraction to allow a system check?”

“No. No. Just…let’s get on with it. Try again.” He felt irritable.

“Very well, user. Try to relax. Try to sleep as we re-boot.”

The voice faded. Fergus was alone.

The light of the stars seemed to be changing. The coldness of his world was suddenly less intense. He reached up, fighting the heaviness of his limbs, and pulled away the armour-plated helmet from his face. It fizzled into nothingness. He looked back toward the land. The village was gone. All he could see were stern cliffs. His world was changing again, taking on a new shape. It was the shape of his chosen fantasy…the one that had been meticulously programmed for him…one that did not feature dull, eventless Gower villages. His thoughts returned to the fortress as he turned once more and laboured across the sand, away from the encroaching tide.

* * *

Fergus McFae had returned home excitedly, parking the car on the gravel drive that swept round to the front of his parents’ impressive white mansion. His feet carried him swiftly to the towering oak door, which swung open at precisely the right moment to welcome him inside.

              The house was empty. His father was undoubtedly at some meeting or other, perhaps fending off questions from company shareholders or exploring new avenues of creative tax evasion with his team of accountants. Equally he could be leaning over his desk, pounding away at his blonde secretary’s pert little buttocks. His mother would be, more than likely, with her gaggle of hardened socialites, sipping pink gin and snorting crystalline trails of ExoDust with gusto from their powder puff mirrors. Beyond caring.

              Fergus visualised them both. His father, red-faced with animal lust, his mother’s blood-red eyes burning with the madness of the dust as she laughed hysterically at the engrossing details of a fellow inhabitant of the goldfish bowl in which they lived.

             
The door closed firmly behind him and he sailed across the grandiose foyer, between the cold marble Roman pillars and the polished stone miniature waterfall, toward the spiral staircase. The ServeBot watched him mount the first step. Its photoreceptive lenses had logged his arrival with a discreet retina-scan before switching from security mode to service mode. Its audioreceptors, voice-indexed to confirm identity, waited for a command. No command was forthcoming. Fergus disappeared from view. Its lenses dimmed and its stout polyplastic torso dipped forward into energy-saving ‘eco-idle’ mode.

             
Fergus had barely noticed the appliance, which his father had imported from Tokyo at enormous cost – one of only a handful in British Eurostate, as he made his ascent. He crossed the landing and made his way quickly to the end of the west wing, toward his own very private room.

             
A thousand gadgets littered the seemingly endless floor space, but none so imposing or impressive as the Virtual Reality Tank at the centre of his room. It was the ultimate in VR gaming technology. Like the ServeBot, it was the best money could buy – Fergus made certain of that before his father’s secretary arranged the purchase. The VR Tank guaranteed the most realistic synthetic experiences available - short of artificial memory implants, which were still illegal. Within its transparent confines waited an awesome sensory baptism…total immersion, literally, in the fantasy of your choice.

             
Fergus grinned. It was the smug, self-satisfied grin of someone who had been let in on a precious secret.

It wasn’t so long ago that the best video gaming experience relied on VR SkinSuits. They were essentially rubber wetsuits comprehensively wired from head to toe and prompted by a sub-programme in the game to generate artificial sensations that complemented the sounds and images projected into your VR Mask. SkinSuit technology was barely evolved from the outdated VR hand, foot and groin attachment accessories he’d relied on to enhance his gaming experiences during his early teens. Software and supporting audiovisual hardware had moved on apace since then, generating holographics and holophonics so realistic it was a challenge to tell them from the real thing. Sensory realism remained the stumbling block…until the arrival of the VR Tank.

Fergus was the only person he knew who had one.

The greeny-blue liquid within the VR Tank could replicate anything. The melting heat of a desert sun; the soul-biting wind of the North Pole; the lung-testing humidity of an Amazonian jungle; the crushing pressure of the ocean’s depths – all were within its gift. The blast of an explosion, the sting of a sword, the touch of a woman could all be translated into millions of microscopic chemical reactions that sparked against his naked flesh. It could even generate tastes and smells, though quite how baffled Fergus as his mouth and nose were covered by the VR Mask and fed oxygen from the mainframe.

It was, simply, the best…the ultimate trip. And, when mixed with some of the mind-bending hallucinogens available on his university campus, the VR Tank experience became so authentic that the boundaries between reality and unreality often became blurred. Fergus had experimented with a variety of substances, on their own and in cocktails. His favourite was Dream Weaver, a synthetic composite of opium and synthetic psilocybin. The opiate relaxed his body and allowed his mind to drift into a dreamlike state, unfettered by his subconscious and self-infuriating obsession with remaining in control at all times. The psilocybin accentuated the sensory illusions, a hundred or perhaps even a thousand fold. It was difficult to be scientifically precise about it.