Identity X (4 page)

Ben was
dreaming.  He was
dreaming about gobstoppers. He kept eating them, shovelling the first into his
mouth, closely followed by the second, and then the third, until eventually
there was no room left for any more.  He could feel his jaw stretching and
aching under the strain of the bulbous chewy mass filling his mouth, saliva
running out in sticky streaks from the corners. Realising his error in judgment
he made an effort to spit them out, only to find that they were stuck, the
edges softened into his teeth, too pliable to lever out with his tongue. In his
dream he started to panic, frantically tearing away at the sugary and slippery
flesh of the slimy gobstoppers, trying to pick it out from his mouth piece by
piece.  He couldn’t breathe and his situation was becoming more and more
desperate and he was pulling and pulling and coughing and coughing, and then he
was gagging and before he knew it he was choking.

He woke in a start, the soft goose down
pillow stuffed inside his mouth.  He had no explanation if his dream triggered
the insertion of the pillow, or if indeed the dream itself was a sensory
indicator to wake up and remove the respiratory impediment.  His throat felt
drier than it ever had as he rolled onto his back, kicking his legs out from
the duvet.  His head was throbbing as if it had been gripped in a metallic vice
since the moment he had fallen asleep, and his mouth was as grainy as
sandpaper.  The light streamed in through the open curtains, and like a vampire
in danger of self combustion he closed his eyes and covered his body
protectively with the blanket, letting in snippets of light in the proceeding
moments to allow his eyes to adjust.

“Some celebration,” he offered into thin
air.  He sat forward a little and rolled himself towards the edge of the bed in
a desperate hunt for water, his head as heavy as a cannonball. As he peered
over the edge of the bed he saw a puddle of yellow looking fluid that looked
unpleasantly and suspiciously like vomit, which as he lent in closer was
confirmed from the overpoweringly insipid smell.  “Ah, shit.” He had no
recollection of throwing up, but he knew that there was no way that Hannah
wouldn’t have seen it.  Or smelt it.  Either way she had chosen to leave it
there, which meant that he was in trouble.  He reached towards the bedside
table, where there was always a carafe of water with a matching glass beaker. 
He took the beaker from the top, took hold of the carafe, and drank down the
water directly without any need for an intermediary object, spilling more than
a few drops onto his bare chest before they trickled over his muscles and ran
towards the sheets.  He had never felt such a thirst and no matter how much he
drank, it didn’t seem to satisfy his need.  It was only then that he saw the
red LED lights blinking back at him.  Ten thirty.  He was late. 

Avoiding the puke puddle, he skirted up
from the top of the bed and headed into the bathroom.  Even the usual soft pile
of the carpet seemed to grate against his skin and felt like wire wool
underfoot such was the enormity of his hangover.  Every footstep across the
deep wool pile, the selection of which had required an objectionable amount of
his attention, resonated through his body, striking his head as if it were the
bell atop a tower. Underneath his eyes sat two heavier than normal looking
bags, puffed up and dehydrated all at the same time. He stood under the running
water of the overhead rain shower, his face angled upwards and mouth wide
open.  He turned the water to cold, and as intolerable as the needle like
droplets felt to his tormented skin, it seemed in a sort of masochistic fashion
to help.  He considered Hannah, who would usually by this time have already left
for the day.  Today it seemed she hadn’t even bothered to wake him.  No nudge,
no coffee, no good morning.  She had just left him where he was.  Next to the
vomit.  As he dressed in his customary crisp white shirt and slim black tie, he
looked back at the bed.  Perhaps she had tried to wake him?  On second
thoughts, it didn’t even look like her half had been slept in. 
Definitely
in her bad books.

As he approached the top of the stairs he
could see the broken picture frames lying in shattered fragments of chipped
wood and smashed glass scattered about the steps, and he suddenly remembered
knocking them off the night before.  Hannah hadn’t even bothered to clean them
up.  He dodged past them, avoiding anything that twinkled as the light brushed
over it, and headed into the kitchen.  His congealed pasta dinner was still sat
there from the night before, and was starting to smell pretty ripe.  He picked it
up and tried to slide the leftovers into the bin, but it had become stuck to
the plate, reminding him of a stylised version of Caesar’s golden laurel
headpiece. 
Maybe Jesus’ crown of thorns.

“Screw it,” he said to himself as he
decided to drop the whole plate into the bin.  He ripped off a few tissues from
the wall mounted roll and placed them on top of the plate, covering the ring of
cheesy pasta and thus concealing the evidence.  As he pushed in the tissues he
could smell the same odour that was emanating from the puddle at the side of
his bed, confirming his suspicions that the puddle on the floor came from him. 
He threw in the tissue and slammed the door shut.  He dropped a pod of coffee
into the coffee machine and placed a small cup under the spout.  Picking up the
broom from the cupboard he approached the hallway in order to clear up the mess
on the stairs whilst he waited.  He swept the broken pieces into a single pile,
and retrieved his fallen certificates.  One of them was from the Board of the Genetic
Research Society.  They had nominated him as an honorary member several years
back, and it had been a particularly spectacular occasion.  He had been invited
to the head offices across the city.  They were situated in a remarkably leafy
part of the city centre and the building was a grand and ostentatious affair. 
There had been a presentation and champagne reception, but even the thought of
alcohol now was enough to make him shudder and his stomach lurched a little. 
He had been awarded a certificate and glass plaque thanks to his research into
the development of synthetic genes.  He had accepted the praise gladly, and
never once felt embarrassed by the constant stream of admiration and acclaim. 
In comparison, his previous findings up until this point were quite mediocre, but
this too would seem mediocre in a month or so, even though it was this very
night when he had first been approached by Bionics, the owners of his current
laboratory.  He was certain that his current research would change the world. 
Smelling that his coffee was ready, he headed back into the kitchen, tucking
his certificates under the small china dish on the hallway table on his way. 
Taking the freshly brewed espresso from the machine, he splashed in a few drops
of cold water and knocked it straight back.  It was good, and it was extra
strong.  God knows he needed it this morning.  He was already going to be over
three hours later than he should be.

The air was chilly outside despite the
sun, and it bit at his nose and his cheeks as his breath formed vapour clouds
in the air.  He could feel the blood being pinched out of his face with each
step he took into the oncoming wind that was bustling down his wide open
street.  His head was still pumping, and the current constriction of the small
blood vessels on account of the chill in the air was doing little to help.  His
road was an old Victorian Street that he assumed at one point in history would
have been cobbled and full of activity.  People would have socialized, hung out
their washing, or even held parties in the streets before the pavements were
lined with tarmac and parked cars which only got used at the weekend.  The
houses were big, but the front gardens were nonexistent.  Just a few steps down
from the front door, a path of a few feet, and he was through the wrought iron
railings and on the pavement.  His head throbbed a little harder with every
step he took as his well heeled shoes pounded the concrete slabs.  It was only
now, as his stomach gnarled away at him that he realised that he hadn’t eaten
anything.  He remembered the small bakery that sold pastries inside the
underground station.  You could always smell it from outside as the wind from
the passing trains whistled up through the corridors picking up the aroma and enticing
in the passersby.  It always reminded him of a trip he had taken to Paris as a
student.  His small hotel was located on a hilltop corner opposite a patisserie
that baked fresh croissants and
petit pain
every morning.  With the
oppressive heat of the city and nothing more than a pathetically inefficient
wall mounted fan for relief, he would leave the window wide open all night,
soaking in the busy sounds of city life where the girls would call out to the
locals as they cruised by to see what was on offer under the red glow of
Pigalle.  But with the beauty of sunrise the rich and silken aromas of daily
life would always return, and Ben woke the first morning to the sound of street
cleaning and the smell of fresh croissants.  Every morning for his five day
stay in the city which he considered as the most beautiful capital city of the
world, where he would practice his poor French and ignore the Parisian distaste
for his incapability, he would purchase something hot and crumbly from the
sweetest smelling patisserie he had ever encountered.

It was late morning by now, and there was
no queue for the entrance gate.  He took his identity card out from his inside
pocket and savoured the smell of fresh pastry.  He held out the card in front
of the small scanning screen and almost walked into the automatic door as it
failed to open, his own automaticity too quick to spot the failure.   He was
only just quick enough to bring up a hand to stop himself from walking face
first into the reinforced plastic panel door.  The momentary confusion cleared
and he stepped back to look at the screen.  Instead of the usual green light
and green letters greeting him with ‘Good morning Mr. Stone’, there was a
simple grey X.  He had never seen such a response displayed.  Only once before
had his card not granted him access.  On that occasion the green light had been
replaced by a red stop sign and a courteous ‘Please attend the Central
Government Office Mr. Stone’.  It had turned out that his pay check hadn’t
cleared after a breakdown with a particular server.  There had been chaos that
morning and there had been at least one hundred people in line all waiting for
the same thing.  It had been the governments fault, but there had been no
apology.  Ben had been particularly annoyed to read an article in the national
newspaper the next morning about the success of the identity card system and
the ease at which people were now able to streamline their lives.  One card for
everything: it was your identity, your money, your underground access, your
entrance ticket, your exit ticket.  It was everything you are, just on a piece
of plastic.  It stored biological data, a finger print, and retinal recognition
data.  You didn’t get anywhere without it.

He swiped his card again in front of the
screen and the same grey X was displayed, and this time he noticed that
underneath it there was in the place of the usual generic greeting another
word: Unregistered.

“What?” he said to himself.  He swiped
the card twice more, and each time he saw the same bewildering response.  There
was another gate to the left, and he walked over and held his card out in front
of the screen, concealing it from the view of the people behind him.  Same
thing.  He had noticed there was a security guard stood in the main doorway, whose
interest was starting to be pricked by the well dressed individual who was
struggling to get through the entrance gates.  Ben was drawing attention to
himself.  He stood back, and let the woman who was waiting behind him pass.  He
thought about trying to sneak through behind her as the gate opened, but if he
got too close to her and she caused a scene, that would be game over.  The
security guard would have him on the floor in seconds and that would be his day
over.  He would be hauled down to the Central Government Offices, and that was
if he was lucky.  If not, he’d get thrown in the cells of the central jail
where all crime was dealt with now.  There was no local police station anymore,
and identity card crime was taken very seriously.   Not dealing with an
identity card fault could be enough to land you with a fine and a month in
prison.  They didn’t rush to get you processed.  It was no
issue for them to let you languish in there for a month or so whilst you waited
in turn amongst the real criminals.

Snatching
at an idea, Ben took out his telephone and pretended to answer a call.  He
spoke in his loudest and most obnoxious voice, a tone which said
whatever I
have to say is more important than what you have to say,
making sure that
everybody around him, including the security guard, heard what he had to say.  

“Yes
I told you already that I would be there in court for midday.  I am your lawyer
and I will be there.”  Ben looked up and could see that the security guard had
registered the telephone call.  It was a good enough excuse not to carry on
into the underground station and go deeper where there would be questionable
signal and a high chance of dropping the obviously important call.  “I stopped
only to answer your call.”  Ben looked up briefly, and spotting that the
security guard was turning away from him he took his chance.  This was one of
the few stations where the security entrance gates still had low level walls
either side of them.  They hadn’t been raised as Whitegate was considered a
very desirable area in which to live.  It was thought that high walls in such a
station would have made the local passengers feel discriminated against,
targeted.