Long Division (19 page)

My mouth went dry. ‘W—what does it mean, James?’

His eyes locked, unwavering, with mine. ‘I have something you need to hear.’

I suppressed a groan. That was never good.

I had rather hoped to avoid James’s dark flat but, in the end it was inevitable. The appearance of Slater in our lives had changed things. I did, more or less, understand that now. James wasn’t simply speaking out any more without consequences.

As I entered James’s sitting room, I didn’t want to know what I was about to hear; didn’t know what to expect. Whatever Slater had done, it bloody terrified me.

‘What exactly am I doing here?’ I asked, following closely behind him as he strode towards his computer.

He flipped it open and his long fingers went flying over the keys as he typed in his password. I was slightly distracted. I hadn’t been in his flat since that night. Since when he’d wanted me to sleep with him, since he’d been so…lost. So childlike. So unlike himself—at least the version that I knew. It felt odd being here now, remembering that.

‘I’ve known about Slater for as long as I’ve worked for InVizion,’ James said. ‘He would come round sometimes, see what we were doing in the labs. Supervising, if you’d believe it. A man like that doesn’t know a damn thing about what we were working on.’ He began opening folders on his computer from a drive he’d plugged in. ‘Damien Fox, I think, was the first to begin to sense trouble.’

‘Wait, Fox?’

James shook his head impatiently. ‘No! His father, come, now, Mark, keep up!’ He began ticking on his fingers. ‘There were three top scientists who worked on the device: Karl Baker, a neuroscientist. It was his job to adapt what we were working on; his focus was, of course, brainwaves. And then there were Damien Fox and I, who were in charge of the technical side of things, creating a way for the technology to be integrated, no distinction between brain and device. Since this was Dr Fox’s and my area, we worked closely together, and he did, eventually, bring me into his confidence.’

I huffed my breath. ‘All right, what did he find?’ There were too many threads my head was tracing.

James waved a hand, still fixated with his computer. ‘Little things here and there. Things that no one would have paid attention to. Or should have paid attention to. He found…files.’

I resigned myself to a long visit and claimed the nearest chair. I was too deep into this shite to run now, anyhow. Whatever James was going to tell me, it wouldn’t matter. I already knew too much. Slater had chosen to bump into me, not James. They knew I was part of it. I had nowhere to hide. No excuse.

‘I imagine these files were rather…incriminating?’

James’s smirk grew dark with humour. ‘It was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg, but it was enough. InVizion conveniently sacked him not long after that. After he started…talking. Asking questions. I tried to convince him to keep his mouth shut, but by then…’

James’s eyes flicked over to me and he tapped on an audio file.

His voice dropped a pitch. ‘I apologise if it is a bit difficult to understand.’

Something about his tone, his expression, sent a gnawing fear snaking through me. ‘A—all right…’

The audio file opened in a new window of jagged bars rising and falling. As the recording started, the quality was bad, scratchy and distant. It was the voice of a man I did not recognise, but he was Irish. It was also one I could barely understand. There was several seconds of me working it out when I grasped the man must have had a stroke. His speech came choppy and hesitant and broken.

‘James? This is Dr Fox,’
the voice struggled to get out.
‘I don’t know how much time I’ll have. I need to speak quickly.’

I heard a heavy door slam shut and echo, then the sounds of footsteps. Stairs.

‘After what we spoke about yesterday, I know you’re right. I’ve been a fool, James, I know I have. I know they’re tracing my call. Slater found me yesterday. I apologise for my condition.

‘James, what I have found, it is beyond anything we imagined. The world will never be the same. The world will never—’

He let out a gasp of surprise that was terrible to hear. I looked sharply up to James but his expression did not change. I wondered how many times he had listened to this.

‘The small amount I was able to copy. I have it safe. You have to continue, James. Don’t listen to them. For God’s sake, never use Godlink!’

There was another gasp, this one much airier. Then the whistling of wind. And a nasty thud and a crunch. I still stared at James as the recording ended.

He very casually closed his computer.

‘Damian Fox had a severe stroke the day he and I spoke. That next day, he leapt off of a building to his death. Apparent suicide.’

I swallowed, but my throat seemed to have constricted, making me choke. My hands had begun to shake and I had to clamp them between my knees to make them stop. ‘When you say that…you mean he—he was pushed? By Slater?’

James’s head twisted to one side ever-so-slightly. ‘I don’t think he had to.’

My stomach did a slow, sickening flip. ‘Fuck…’ I shook my head wildly, brain apparently drugged by what I’d just heard. I couldn’t believe it. ‘No. No. I don’t see how that’s possible. How could Godlink
force
someone to commit suicide? That can’t be possible! Wouldn’t—wouldn’t survival instinct or something kick in after that? Shit!’

James was much too calm for my liking. Unnervingly so. He lit up a Benson.

I swallowed again. ‘Did…did the Godlink device…did it give Dr Fox the stroke?’

James nodded once, very slowly; then he sank down to the sofa, puffing smoke. ‘Yes, I have reason to believe so. I spoke to him the day before, and the next,’ he spread his hands, ‘well, you’ve heard for yourself.’

My hands were shaking harder. Was I getting a headache? Or was I just overreacting? I hadn’t even considered the possibility.

‘It was after Dr Fox’s death that incriminating evidence was found in my possession. I was…relieved from my job not long after that. His son avenging his father, at my expense…’ He drummed his fingers together. ‘Suppose it’s a good enough reason for why Fox and I don’t get on now. He blames me for his father’s death and I…well, I suffered unjustly from his revenge.’

I was hardly listening to that. I was still fixated on the sinister power Godlink was capable of. ‘James…is that going to…happen to everyone?’

He was quiet for a very long time, long enough for me to fear he would not answer. At last, he swallowed, so drily I heard his throat click. ‘It is possible,’ he said, very slowly, ‘that with time, there will be…regressions among…certain individuals.’

I swore. ‘I cannot believe this! How the
hell
could you go on working for them after learning something like that? How
could
you, James?’

James blew away some smoke. ‘I continued working because what other choice did I have, hmm? What else could I possibly do? What help would I have possibly been if I did not stay on? Did not continue
gathering information
?’

For several long seconds I did not move. I let out a frightened, choked laugh. ‘Oh, and that’s helping, is it? Developing the device that will eventually destroy the minds—or enslave the minds—of the entire world, and you call that
helping
?’

I wasn’t sure if he was even listening to me at that point. He was staring at the wall. At his equations.

‘James!’

His rounded jaw clenched, the only sign he’d heard my outburst.

I was on the verge of panic. And, honestly, how could I not be? I was young, I was in good health, I didn’t even
use
Godlink and yet I was just as much at risk as everybody else. I had to be. The bloody thing transmitted everywhere. It didn’t discriminate between those who used it and those who did not. Sure, it might not take as long, but really, in the end, how much time did I have compared to those who wore it addictively?

‘How much time?’

Finally he looked at me. ‘What?’

I was fuming. ‘You know
what
, James! How much time do we have before…before it begins to reverse?’

For once, he looked me in the eyes, and I could see the effort it took. I didn’t let him look away. I held his gaze angrily. He deserved this, damn it! He deserved to feel guilty, to feel some sort of remorse for what he’d done—if he was even capable of such an emotion. I’d not seen it from him so far.

He let out a deep breath and finally looked away, snubbing out his fag. ‘It will probably not become drastically noticeable for another year or so. But by then it won’t matter, everyone will be too far gone, so no one will care.’

I scrubbed my hands across my face with a groan, lost for something to say. We both sat in silence for a long time. James was back to starting at his wall. His fingers were ticking against each other in a steady rhythm.

‘What good—’ my voice broke. ‘What good will it do InVizion if everyone they are working to control is simply too brain-dead to do…whatever the hell they’re planning.’

His eyes closed. ‘It would only be a small percentage of the population who would be…severely damaged, I imagine.’

I plucked at a stray thread, spinning his words round in my head. He spoke about it so…clinically. It was maddening. It was insulting. I wondered to myself what part of that “small population” would have severe brain damage. Was I part of that? Was James?

‘So,’ I said at last, at a loss of anything else to say. ‘We’ve got a year. It’s not much, but it’s something.’ I spread out my hands. ‘That gives you time to think of something. Some way to stop them. More than just blog posts and chat shows dancing round the issue; being vague about the danger. You need to move on to more…drastic measures.’

James frowned. ‘Me?’ He laughed bleakly. ‘What exactly do you expect me to do? Slater is here, remember? You believe they’ll allow me to do
anything
but exactly what they want? They watch me too close as it is. They may not be pretending to be friendly any more, or hold my elbow as I walk across the street, but they’re still there. I try anything
drastic
and I’m through.’

‘I’m not asking you to put a gun to the chairman’s head! We tried the chat show and it went all right but we need to do more. Something to make people
believe.
We need to be those…Prophets of Doom Slater spoke of.’

James growled.

I clasped my hands tightly before me and looked down at my knuckles. Frustration bubbled up my throat in a tight clump. How could he just resign himself to nothing considering what was at stake?

‘What good is sitting back,’ I said slowly, carefully, ‘if in a year, your life will be over anyway? Isn’t it best to risk what you have now, for a chance to live?’

He was still staring at the wall. I wondered if he had thought at all about that. Did he ever think that far into the future? Did he worry about what was going to happen to him in the end?

His chest rose and fell in a deep breath.

‘You are asking me to take down a company that has the power to take over the world.’

I nodded my head slowly. ‘Yes.’

He swallowed hard. I watched his Adam’s apple bob. ‘If that is what you ask of me, Mark. Then that is what I will do.’

I wasn’t sure why my asking was what would convince him. But, if that was it, I would take it. I reached forward and put a hand on his knee, for he seemed to want the comfort; his whole frame drooped.

‘Right, then,’ I said, attempting to keep my voice light, ‘let’s get started.’

12:TS25

So much can change in five months. Technology, world events, relationships. And, for me, all of it did.

Life had sped up, it seemed, for everyone and the advancements with the Godlink were coming so fast it was difficult to keep up with. Each new day was a new wonder.

Miracles. That’s what most were saying. People with dramatic injuries were able to do things that would have been impossible just months ago. Abilities to the point of, well, gods, or very nearly; they weren’t James, after all.

Probably went without saying that any talk of the danger of using the technology at this point was the equivalent of social suicide.

Needless to say, James and I were on the outs with most of society.

We worked almost exclusively together now; late nights at his flat, tracing signals, watching digital towers rise round the world; seeing all the little pieces coming together.

That was my speciality. I had not thought, in the beginning, that I would have anything to offer, but it turned out that I had a special skill for which James Nightgood had no patience. Thanks to my dull years of working at a library, I knew how to search for details. I knew how to follow things back to their sources; and all of those new head chips and stations and—hell—even satellites, that were going up all over the world could eventually be traced back to one company: InVizion. Of course they went through other means, other companies, all nothing but façades; they were always there in the shadows.

I was rather proud of myself for figuring it out. James was not so impressed; he stayed glued to his equations and tracking of changing transmissions. With his mastery of the Godlink device he was capable of much greater disruptions than I could have imagined. He, along with the help of Fox, mentally hijacked internet radio shows chatting about the devices, spammed social network sites with warnings and on more than one occasion, took over all the signs in Piccadilly Circus, flashing his statements for hours till the problem was fixed.

In response, InVizion had been transmitting regularly, yet over all, the experiments were still small. Unfortunately, we still hadn’t found a way to make ourselves immune to it.

If we’d done that, there would be no reason for anyone to worry.

So, we both kept to our areas, not comprehending each other’s, and yet, we’d found a way to work together seamlessly. And having that…connection with him? It was addicting. I couldn’t get enough of it. And I wanted as much of it as I could.

My life was crazed, as everything else was. Ashley and I had been seeing each other on an irregular basis and, well, despite the impending end of the world, things felt good. I had a girlfriend, my depression seemed to have completely disappeared and I had a new obsession to occupy my free time.

That obsession…the obsession that pulled every bit of my life in like some gaping black hole. InVizion. Or James. I hadn’t quite figured out how to disentangle the two of them yet. They went together, one and the other, indistinguishable.

Admittedly, at times—when I had a spare moment to think about it—that did fuck with my head. Because, as entangled as James and InVizion were, I was just as wrapped up in that web as they were. All three of us together bundled up in a confusing jumble I couldn’t untangle in my head. Where James began and where I ended, and where InVizion was in it all simply made my head hurt. So I did my best not to think on it.

I looked up at him now, as he walked beside me. The fading light was hitting his profile in a striking way now making him sharp, brooding. Attractive.

James had had several of his odd fits since that first time. Those moments where he went completely slack and childlike, clinging to me for support. The nights I slept at his flat. Those nights were becoming upsettingly more regular and I wished, for his sake, it was for a reason other than his pain.

‘So, you think we’ll really have a week off from transmissions?’ I asked.

We rarely had nights off when we weren’t working like mad trying to figure out what the latest coded boardroom meeting was about, or working to crack into the newest model of Godlink, or attempting to figure out what the latest transmission would make us all do.

I rolled my tongue around my mouth, still tasting the last of my beer. James was getting better at the whole pub thing.

‘Yes,’ he said after a moment of thought. ‘They’ve clearly been increasing their signals with each transmission, building up to something more powerful. If they’re pausing now, it has to mean they have reached their goal. They’re gearing up. Calm before the storm.’

My stomach turned over, suddenly not taking too kindly to the alcohol it had ingested earlier. Gearing up. For what, I didn’t know. He hadn’t said.

We passed by a group of teens attempting to lift a bin off of the ground using nothing but their Godlink chips. The bin wobbled back and forth on the asphalt, but beyond that, showed no sign of ever leaving the ground. And that was with five people attempting it. I knew from experience James could raise it without his full concentration.

I followed him up the stairs to his flat, no longer taking notice of how regular an occurrence it was. He stopped so suddenly at the door that I, paying more attention to his backside than I should have done, nearly crashed straight into him.

‘James! What?’

He didn’t answer, and on the narrow step I could not see round him. After a moment, he opened the door and pushed it in. I then saw what had made him pause; what disturbance must have alerted him the second he’d seen his front door.

James’s flat had been ransacked.

I swore as I followed him inside, gaping at the disaster that was the interior of his flat. And I continued to swear, the more damage I saw.

Though James’s place was bare, it did not look so now. Books and papers were strewn across the floor; cushions were ripped, stuffing spilling out and drawers were overturned. His equations were smeared from the walls.

I felt all my insides cinch up uncomfortably. My own break-in came clearly back to mind.

Still, some sort of sense that I had to take control came over me. I didn’t see any signs of present danger. If someone was lurking here in the bathroom or James’s bedroom…I wasn’t the bravest of souls but I did a quick walk round, leaving James where he was. The flat was clear. Just torn apart.

James wandered about the space, arms shaking at his sides, making little babbling noises that weren’t exactly discernible. His hands started to rise to the sides of his head.

‘James?’

I watched in trepidation as his long fingers curled into his hair. He let out a high-pitched gasp and sank to his knees, unable to take in the shattered remains of his one safe place.

‘We have to call the police,’ I said, turning round and round in circles.

James finally turned to me with wide, red eyes. ‘No!’

I pressed fingers to my eyelids. My stress was reaching a dangerous level. I was dealing with a child, and I was close to losing it.

‘Have a reason
why
we shouldn’t alert authorities to this?’ I asked, voice tight, wobbling; I already knew, as I picked up a piece of crumpled paper and stared down at the content scrawled across it. Some half-brained scheme to seek out one of those damn new InVizion stations rumoured to be in Scotland and have a
look
at it. Completely illegal, what James had been planning there.

I felt more papers crunching beneath me. How many other scraps of paper had similar unlawful plots and data across them? How many board notes? Transmission signal codes? No, James was considered enough of a pot-stirrer as it was. Give people something like this and they would never believe another word he said. InVizion was making it difficult as it was on that front. He was a madman, and if they saw this, they’d think him a potential terrorist, too.

‘Who would have done something like this?’ I asked, letting my last question hang unanswered in the air. ‘InVizion? Is this Slater’s work?’

James had stood shakily too his feet and walked in an unsteady weave towards his wall. He tentatively put a hand out to steady himself against it.

Gone. All gone.

I could almost hear the words beating through his mind.

‘What were they looking for, James?’ I barked at last, unable to bear his whimpering silence any longer. He did not answer me. ‘JAMES!’

He swung back round to me, long arms flopping limply at his sides.
‘What?’

I closed my eyes again, trying to remind myself to remain calm. ‘What were they after, James? What did they take?’ I struggled to keep from yelling.

I wasn’t even sure what was safe to say out loud and what we shouldn’t. The possibility his flat may have been bugged was more than plausible. Surely those devices were listening to all we said. Wordlessly, James curled his fists and rested his head against the wall.

Time I gave up on him. I went about gathering a few meagre handfuls of papers of the many hundreds that littered the floor. I was taken by surprise at his footsteps as he came back across the carpet. I stopped myself from asking what to do about the mess as I caught a glimpse of something resting in the palm of his hand.

I straightened, my spine too stiff. I was on autopilot. I didn’t want to know what he had in his hand. It was the thumb drive. The same one that had resulted in our meeting all those months ago.

‘What’s on this?’ I asked numbly. ‘More…more than Dr Fox’s message?’

James swallowed. ‘This,’ he took a breath in through his nose, ‘the experiments. The recordings no one was ever supposed to see. They didn’t find it because I always keep it on my person. This is what they were after.’

It might as well have been some venomous thing, for I felt about as willing to pick it up as if it had been.

My mouth had gone dry. ‘And why haven’t you shown those to me? I’m the one who fucking returned it to you for God’s sake!’ I turned away from him and walked back to the sofa. I grabbed one of the tattered cushions and dropped it back to its proper place before sitting down. My frustration was thick in my voice and I didn’t bother hiding it. ‘What’s so dangerous about this that you’ve not brought it up till now? Why does InVizion want it back bad enough to tear up your flat—
and
mine?

‘I hope you know I’m properly pissed with you, James. You want me to help you, but it seems every time something happens like this, you bring in some new aspect that you just
failed
to mention for the last five bloody months! Do you just get off on dramatics or do you really enjoy keeping me in the dark?’ My tone had risen to a raw, shaking rage.

He was still standing where I’d left him, in the exact same position, seeming to just now realise I’d moved. He started and marched my direction, eyes shining.

‘I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t important!’

I threw up my hands, unperturbed by his rapid advance, till he was towering over me. ‘It is important or they’d not have broken in and torn our places apart!’ I roared back.

‘It isn’t important to what we were working on.’

I clenched my jaw and rose slowly. I was shorter than him by far and had to crane my neck, being as close as we were, to look him in the eye. My nose almost brushed against his chin. ‘Then why,’ I tried to lower my voice but it now had a worrying, slow waver to it, ‘are you showing me now?’

James dipped his head to look down at me, nose brushing against the bridge of mine in the process, absolutely oblivious to the intimate closeness between us. At this proximity I could see the freckles that dotted his pale skin; one small, curling eyelash on his cheek. His lips were slightly cracked, from his constant worrying at them. His lashes seemed too long, and he would not look me in the eye, giving his expression an almost sad, shy look; green eyes shielded behind drooping lids.

I was aware of a growing heat in my cheeks and ears.

God, he was attractive.

The very thought was enough to clamp my chest up tightly. His breath upon my face made me all the more aware of how quick my own had become. It took a significant amount of effort to not tear my eyes from his, to
not
look at those perfect, soft, prominent lips, to
not
look lower. Oh,
God,
I felt a slight rush of heat relocate through me at the very idea. That shouldn’t have happened.

James bared his teeth in an almost animalistic snarl, tearing my attention away from wayward thoughts and back to the dangerous growl of his voice. ‘To let you know,’ how was it possible for a human voice to rattle me to my very bones? How could a voice be so deep, penetrate through me like some physical force?
‘Exactly what you are dealing with.’

I lost hold over my senses at the firmness of his words. It tightened my spine, snapped my insides taut. That
voice!
I found my mind going foggy round it, wanting to focus in on the vibrations of it, so deep and oily and dangerous, like the tones of some finely tuned engine.

I got beyond it, pushed past my arousal to get back to the heart of it: my irritation with him. ‘What are we dealing with, exactly?’ I hissed, taking a step back. I bumped into the chair behind me and wobbled. My fist clenched stiffly at my sides, doing nothing to help my balance, because I’d be
damned
if I grabbed onto his arm.