Tag - A Technothriller (28 page)

Oche appeared at the touch of her thumb, standing back from the chair she was in and with his hands on his hips.

She said, “Zoom and rotate on my head,” and the image zoomed into her head in the Devscreen in front of her. She swung the image left and right, noting the highlights of blonde on top of the base of dark gold and straight, razor look of the two cent of hair sweeping back in an arc to a sharp cut off at the base of her skull, and in a half circle around her ears. It looked sensational.

“That’s great, Oche, thanks,” she said, and checking how much he had deducted from her cred, gave him a tight smile. He smiled sweetly back, and she switched off the hair Dev.

An hour later she walked out of the SingCom residence to her Bulgari T8. Getting in, she said, “Take me to UNPOL headquarters.”

Everything was in motion now. Her promotion to this role had been ordained in the tempering of her youth - the hammer blows to her sensibilities, each a strike on the path to this point when she, by virtue of UN law, would become the de facto head of all armed forces within the world, including the colonies.

Cochran smiled to herself as she settled back in the plush leather seat of the Bulgari. Her thoughts moved ahead to the day when she would hold absolute power. Knowing that this contribution was one of the most transparent, regulated and scrutinized positions in the world, she also knew she could and would control those who were supposed to be scrutinizing. Due to the nature of command, the command cannot function unless there is a singular head. She remembered Sunita’s words, spoken to her when she first left the Foundation, ‘With singularity there is opportunity’. And later when she had inducted her into the Hawks, ‘With the right set of circumstances, it is possible to rule the world. It is also possible that the right set of circumstances could be set in motion through careful planning and a span of time that obscures the origins of the source of the action. Blended, adjusted, tweaked, until the right constituents have formed.’ And that time was now. If their plans worked, within three months those circumstances would bear fruit.

As Cochran crossed the bridge from Sentosa, heading towards the West Coast Travway, the New Singapore skyline stood tall and proud. The sky was blue and dotted with white fluffy clouds, the outside temperature a hot thirty-one cel as the Devscreen on the console told her. Inside the Bulgari it was a cool nineteen cel. She wanted to feel cool, fresh. She turned to look at the traffic, the humanity around her in the auto-piloted family saloons, and thought of the Tag.

By this time next year most of you, perhaps all, by law will be wearing the Tag, and how many of you will be driving around? She thought it ironic that in New Singapore the Tag survival figure was pretty high. More than forty percent of the population would live. Hong Kong too would fare well with an even higher percentage surviving there, but then that was inevitable with the low population bases of these Geographics.

Her mind flashed back to the secret meetings held at the SingComm residence or Sir Thomas’s Env at the Marque. The selection committee, they’d called it. Because of the high concentration of UNPOL officials and corporate telcos and finance, New Singapore had received a lot of attention. The list had more exceptions than other lists and the number to be culled was less than three and a half million. They had debated long on what they called inclusions, people who should be included in the cull despite their passing the criteria for exclusion.

She pictured it in her mind, remembering with absolute clarity that moment at the Singcomm residence when Sunita had gone through the final agreed formula for the cull. Their ‘algorithm’, as it became known. After much debate they had decided to keep it simple.

First, all known Doves who had injected the Tag.

Anyone who would lose a significant number of their family and who would then be alone. It was kinder to include them and certainly made for more predictable behavior on their part.

Everyone with an Intelligence Score of one hundred or less .

Cochran's time for direct action was just three months away, when the Tag Law would be accepted. Shortly after, once they had reached seventy-five percent global acceptance, injection, and acquisition, they would trigger the cull and declare martial law.

She imagined herself in her uniform as UNPOL Director. Taking control as six point three billion people died within a week. Giving the orders to take control of the remaining humans: the brightest, the most intelligent, the quickest, a race unencumbered, a utopia, a true golden age of civilization for centuries to come.

The Bulgari swept down into the underground parking of the UNPOL Complex, and Cochran walked to the Lev port. “Governor’s Board Room, offline travel,” she told the Dev and the Lev port confirmed and started to ascend.

The Lev port opened into a large foyer approximately fifty meters deep and two hundred wide, with a door at either wide end. The foyer was made of titanium and granite, interlaid except where they competed in the two straight paths that led to the doors. She strode to the intersection of the paths and turned right, her arms down her sides held still, thumbs facing forward as she marched the one hundred meters to the titanium door. She said, “Agent Cochran, open.”

The door opened and she entered. The five members of the Board of Governors of the Office of the UNPOL Directorship were already there and sitting in black backed chairs, their backs to her, on an island in the middle of a dark pool. The path from where she was standing went right in a semi-circle. She followed it, walking at an even but swift pace, her three thousand cred Oche jumpers with metal studs up the back of the heel echoing in the hollow stillness of the room, until she was opposite the door she had entered. A path in front of her lead to a solitary chair on its own island separated from the Governors by the same dark liquid pool.

She walked to the chair and sat down facing the Governors, looking up at them on their raised platform. The light in the room dimmed until everything except the governors and the spot she was on went into blackness.

At the center of the Governors, Miles Tilling began to speak, with a slight forward inclination of his head, his hands folded over his stomach. He said, “Agent Cochran, it is the duty of this Board to determine who among us is most capable of filling the role of Director of UNPOL. In fulfilling that duty this morning, we assembled to vote on the choices we have been reviewing for the last week and by a split vote we decided that this position would be best filled by Assistant Director Dietrich Flederson of the Large Commercial Crimes Unit. We further determined, by unanimous vote, that you would be offered the position of being his second in command. Do you accept?”

She was scarcely able to speak. And felt that she might vomit the nourishment pills she had taken that morning.

“I accept,” she said in a quiet voice.

Margarine Wu, sitting last on the left facing Cochran, said, “Sharon, the Board made a further determination. We agreed that we would tell you the reason we chose Dietrich, and this is an exception to our common rule. However, we felt in the light of your continued and long dedicated contribution to UNPOL that you would be owed an explanation. The reason we settled on Dietrich, and it was a split vote, was purely experience. Dietrich is fifty-five to your twenty-eight, and that is the only reason we ultimately decided upon him. Under his guidance and with his full support we further determined that the position of Director would pass to you within three years.”

Saying this, she smiled at Cochran, and Cochran smiled back. Aware of the bio sensors in the room, she kept herself under control, coldly thinking, I’d like to pull your fucking face off – her mind spinning with the upset, thoughts racing. She was furious but stayed mindful.

“I’d like to thank the Board of Governors for your faith in my abilities and in providing me with this opportunity to further my contribution to UNPOL. I will be honored to serve as Assistant Director to Director Flederson.”

She stood up and saluted, the Governors nodded, and she about-faced, stepping around the chair that she had just been insulted in. She marched, her outward emotions under control now, her body temperature slightly lower than normal, retracing the one hundred strides to the door. Previous life images flashed through her, wondering what they were thinking about her.

She turned at the door, and gave a stiff bow to the Governors, arms at her sides, bending low from the waist – her eyes fixed on their backs. She was thinking, Which of you three, or was it four, voted against me? I will find out. She thought about doing a quick mind probe, but decided it was too risky - one of them might be a telepath. And then she spun and walked out of the door.

She had planned on checking the results of the Gang of Four, but changed her mind as she was still too bitter and twisted to face anyone. Her failure was a lump in her throat, heaviness in her stomach, with a center of acidic bile thrown in. She needed time to think, to get her thinking straight about what she was going to do about this problem. And that is it, she thought. This is just another test, a test that I will pass. It isn’t failure, it’s just another test – a problem to be solved.

She didn’t remember returning to the underground parking, nor getting in the Bulgari, but her mind returned to the present when she was already on the West Coast Travway heading back to Sentosa, and she awoke to her surroundings and her current destination. She must have told the EV to take her home, but now she needed to get back to Sunita quick and she told the EV to get up to the limit. She took out her Devstick from the pocket in the door of the Bulgari and said, “Sunita.”

A few seconds later her face appeared in the Devscreen, smiling, and before she could congratulate her, Cochran said, “I’m the new Assistant Director of UNPO.” The hint of a frown, like a swiftly passing cloud casting a shadow on the Earth, crossed the face in the small screen.

“Congratulations, that’s great to hear. Hurry home and we’ll celebrate.”

“I’m on my way.”

She thumbed off. Sunita had understood as she had known that she would. Understood her anger and her despair, and she would make it right.

The Bulgari T8 suddenly felt wrong to her. All that she had loved about it turned to hate within a single sweep of her eyes scanning its interior. It was too pretty. She wanted something harsher than this, something that looked and was lethal. It pulled up at the SingCom residence and she got out without looking at it. She said, “Drive to Luxury vehicles and park there. Wipe the Dev once you have parked.” Into her Devstick she said, “Give me a current list cred for a titanium Bulgari T8.”

The Devstick flashed back two hundred and forty thousand creds. She said, “Send message to Arthur Ballyntyne. Put the Bulgari on the market for two hundred thousand.” She looked at the Dev by the door and went up the steps as the door opened and Sunita Shido stood there, her hands on her hips.

“Get inside,” Sunita said. It wasn’t a request.

The door closed behind her as she walked past the stern-faced Sunita and a brown hand flashed in the corner of her eye. She felt the thin whippy crop bite deep into her back, and lifted her arms to protect her face as the blows rained down. The only sounds that could be heard were Sunita grunting as she laid the crop into Cochran’s back and legs, and the noise of the birds in the cage by the door as they flew helter-skelter, excited by the physical activity near them.

She went down onto the floor and curled into a fetal position as the crop swung again and again on her back and thighs. Sunita, standing over Cochran, placed one latex boot in the middle of her back, and reaching down grabbed the elegantly cut Oche UNPOL jacket and tore it along the gold etched seam that ran up its back, laying bare the skin that it covered.

Seeing Cochran’s flesh like a canvas waiting to be painted, Sunita’s flagging arm gained a reserve of power and the crop slashed down with a manic frequency. The bloody crop, the thin stick of hardened bull pizzle, thinned, and twisted to over a meter in length, sprayed a fine line of droplets of blood over the pale blue walls and light cream ceiling of the entrance hall. The sprayed droplets falling in thicker drops, and farther apart, as Sunita tired, the drops painting their own story that no one would ever see.

Cochran curled in the fetal position, her head protected by her arms, did not cry out or say anything. She just lay there as her skin was flayed off her back, her muscles gleaming white amid the bloody ragged mess.

Finally, as the corbacho, as it is called in Spain from where they had ordered it, dug deep into a muscle, she cried out as the pain cut into her senses. She had just been lashed over two hundred and fifty times and now and again had been unconscious, but this pain was deep and to her core, and she cried out.

“Sorry! I am sorry!” It was their safe word and immediately the whipping stopped.

She had only once ever used the safe word before and that was when she was still a novice. Just as she slipped into unconsciousness again she heard Sunita’s footsteps receding down the hall and the sound of the corbacho being dropped onto a side table.

***

Later she woke but kept her eyes shut without moving a muscle. She felt no pain. The room was silent except for the slow tick-tock of the Grandfather clock in their sleeping room. She kept her eyes shut and tested her senses, reaching out with her mind. She found Sunita looking down at her, sitting cross-legged on their large sleeper. She deliberately let out a sigh, her presence miniscule, indistinct in Sunita’s mind. The sigh a signal, Sunita laid a hand on Cochran’s cheek and brushed the angular bone that lay there upwards to the hair she had styled just that morning. Cochran sensed the pressure of the regen bag.

She tested her own mind. She was purged of her guilt. Tomorrow, with new and perfect skin, was a new day, a new beginning. She reached out with her hand and took Sunita’s lying between her crossed legs.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and lightly squeezed the hand she held, never opening her eyes as she slipped into the drugged sleep of deep regen.