The Lucifer Code (22 page)

Carvelli pointed towards the bank of audio equipment and two microphones beyond the holopad. 'Well, that's what we plan to do next.'

The white sector canteen. Three days later. 11.18 p. M.

'Thought I might find you here, Miles. Had much sleep over the last few days?'

Miles looked up from his Caesar salad and gave Soames a weary grin. 'No, not much. But after I've eaten this I'm going to collapse in my room for at least eight hours.' It was late in the evening: Tripp and Bukowski had retired hours ago. He was almost too tired to eat.

Soames sat down next to him. On his tray he had a bowl of fruit, a can of Coke and a bread roll. He appeared eager to discuss Fleming's progress. 'So, how's it going?'

'Good.'

'Walter and Felicia been attentive?'

'Sure.' At times Bukowski had been almost too attentive.

'Walter told me you've finished the mods.'

'I've set up a small demo for you and Frank tomorrow.'

Soames's eyes lit up. 'Great. Good work.'

Fleming allowed himself a smile. He was satisfied with the progress they'd made in just three days.

It had taken over sixty hours, stopping only to eat and grab a couple of hours' sleep, for Fleming to arrive at this point. As he had suspected, the hardware in the spotless white and chrome laboratory was excellent, and the NeuroTranslator was superior to the prototype he had developed at Barley Hall. True to his word, Soames had arranged for Fleming to download his files from the database at Barley Hall. He'd spent hours wearing the Thinking Cap in front of the body surrogate, calibrating the NeuroTranslator so that it would correctly decode the complex patterns of neural signals that instructed even the simplest tasks. It had taken six hours alone just to fine-tune the device's interpretation of eye movements.

Once these early adjustments had been achieved to his satisfaction, the other body movements followed more quickly as the device's neural net learnt for itself. And, with the relevant calibrations made, this NeuroTranslator was so fast that there was no lag between thought and action. Immediately he thought about raising an eyebrow, the body surrogate did the same. In the pure world of the abstract it was perfect.

Movement control, however, had been a relatively easy precursor to the more difficult task of interpreting thought speech. Again he had started at the beginning, going through the basic vocabulary, feeding back glitches to Tripp and Bukowski, who had diligently obeyed his every order. Gradually he had enriched the vocabulary until the computer's neural net had taken over.

Earlier that evening, after Tripp and Bukowski had retired to their quarters, Fleming put on the Thinking Cap and powered up the NeuroTranslator for a final check. Scrolling up and down the screen he'd registered the standard brain waves spiking across the monitor: alpha waves, mu waves, theta and beta waves, as well as the others. Everything appeared to be in order. Every recorded wavelength was in evidence.

Except one.

Now that the new NeuroTranslator was up and running, he downloaded Amber Grant's neural scan with its unique wavelength from his Barley Hall files. By the time he'd done this and turned back to the NeuroTranslator a new line had appeared at the top of the screen, soaring above the highest megahertz band of the other wavelengths. And within a few hours of studying the soul wavelength he had reached an inescapable conclusion.

'How do you feel?' Soames asked.

'Dog tired.'

'I mean about the NeuroTranslator.'

'Pretty good. You'll see tomorrow'

For a few minutes they sat in silence, Fleming eating his salad, Soames drinking his Coke and picking at his fruit.

'How about your soul wavelength?' Soames asked. 'I mentioned it to the others and they're fascinated. You had a chance to look into it yet?'

Fleming frowned. He had only talked about the soul wavelength with Soames, and was unsure how he felt about involving the others.

Soames read his expression. 'They want to help, Miles. You're among friends here. Carvelli's a smart guy, and Walter and Felicia aren't stupid. Use all of us to bounce ideas off. That's what we're here for.'

Fleming felt a sense of release: it would be good to share his concerns and feed off their collective intellect and experience. 'Thanks.'

'So, you had a chance to look into it?'

'Briefly. It's early days, but I can already see two big issues I need to resolve.'

'Want to talk about them?'

Fleming was too tired. 'I'd welcome your opinion. I really would. But not now' He rose from the table. 'I'm sorry but I'm dead on my feet. My brain's frazzled and I've got to crash. I'd love to discuss it tomorrow, though, after the demo.'

'Sure.' Soames stood up and rested a hand on Fleming's shoulder. 'Get some sleep, Miles. Tomorrow promises to be a big day.'

*

Later that night

Sleep came as soon as Fleming had stripped naked, climbed into bed and placed his head on the pillow.

Hours later, however, Amber Grant intruded on his dreams about Rob and Jake. She was whispering in his ear, her hand brushing his thigh, her touch so light and sensuous it brought goose-bumps to his skin and made the hairs rise on his legs. Her cool fingers travelled up to his groin, gently massaging him until he became erect.

Night air cooled his skin as the covers were pulled back and someone slid in beside him. A soft form moulded itself to his, hot, sweet breath warmed his cheek, and the insistent fingers quickened their motion.

He moaned in his sleep as he felt hot breath move down his neck, to his chest and then his stomach. For a delicious moment a tongue licked his belly, while the fingers circling his straining erection slowed to a teasing feather-light caress. Surrendering to the sensation, he yearned for release and as the tongue moved lower he unconsciously clenched his buttocks, thrusting his pelvis upwards.

'Amber,' he groaned aloud, as the searing mouth enveloped him, waking him with a start. Then he realized instantly that it hadn't been a dream.

And that it wasn't Amber.

What the hell?'

Felicia Bukowski's blonde hair looked luminous in the glow from the illuminated alarm clock as her head gently bobbed up and down on him. And when she looked up her pale irises shone in the light like metallic discs. Every physical instinct told him to let her continue. But something compelled him to reach down and push her away. 'No, no. Stop. I'm sorry, but this is wrong.'

He wasn't sure why he stopped her, except that he knew he had to. Perhaps it was because of what he had seen in her glinting eyes: the flash of naked triumph that made him fear that if he yielded to her he would somehow surrender far more than he realized.

He suspected, however, that his compulsion had more to do with betrayal. It was irrational, particularly for a man who had hitherto placed so little value on commitment, but Fleming suddenly knew that he felt a strange allegiance to Amber Grant. So strong that, until he reached some kind of resolution with her, any other intimate relationship would be tantamount to treachery.

Felicia's eyes hardened but he saw no hurt in them. Only disappointment and anger. Saying nothing, she held him for a moment longer, squeezing him tight as if testing his resolve, and then she rose, put on her robe and left.

After she had gone, Fleming lay in the dark, listening to his pounding heart, knowing that, despite his exhaustion, sleep would elude him.

Unknown to Fleming, a few hundred yards away in the black sector, Amber Grant was also unable to sleep.

Over the last few days she had been recovering her strength and observing the guards, registering the time when they checked on her, the time when they brought her food and the time when they collected the meal trays. Looking for patterns in their behaviour, she watched and waited.

Plotting her escape.

*

The red sector.

The next day

Both Walter Tripp and Felicia Bukowski were at the demonstration in the red sector laboratory the next afternoon. Fleming had considered mentioning Bukowski's intrusion to Soames - how had she been able to gain access to his room? - but since it would serve no purpose he had said nothing. And now, in the light of day, he could almost convince himself that it had never happened. If he didn't mention it again he was sure she wouldn't. He hoped it wouldn't sour their working relationship. So far, aside from a discernible coolness, he was relieved to see that she was acting as if nothing had happened.

'That's fantastic,' Soames said, as the mannequin extended its right arm.

Making a point of staying still and silent, Fleming worked his way mentally down the body surrogate, starting at the mannequin's eyes and travelling down its body, flexing the shoulders, extending the arms, bending the torso and knees and finally wiggling its toes.

Frank Carvelli grinned from his seat beside Soames. 'You can do all that through thought?'

'Thanks to some help,' Fleming said, indicating Tripp and Bukowski standing by the Neuro-Translator. Tripp smiled. Bukowski lowered her eyes.

'Can it control on-screen images as well as the mannequin?' Carvelli asked.

'Absolutely. It can control whatever medium you like. The body surrogate is the hardest. On-screen or computer-generated images are much easier.'

'How about making it talk?' Soames asked.

'I'll show you.' To impress someone like Soames, who was as enthusiastic as he was brilliant, was a challenge. 'Making it talk isn't very convincing because its lip movements are so crude, but I can put words into its mouth. It won't look great but you'll hear the words clearly from the speaker in its head. What do you want it to say?'

Soames handed Fleming a sheet of typed paper he must have prepared for such an eventuality, a text from the Bible. 'Seemed appropriate,' Soames said. 'Creation. That kinda thing.'

Fleming tapped the screen above the NeuroTranslator, ensuring that communication mode was activated. Then he picked up Soames's text and read the first line in his head. Immediately he saw the words appear on the screen as the computer translated his thoughts into on-screen text. Then the body surrogate seemed to speak. Or, rather, words issued from the speaker embedded inside its smooth latex head.

'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.?

Amazing,' said Carvelli. He sounded genuinely impressed.

After two more equally successful exercises, Soames nodded in satisfaction. 'What about your soul wavelength?' he asked. 'Want to talk about it now?'

Fleming looked at their expectant faces. 'Sure. I need to study it some more but looking at the data from my brother's death and from Amber Grant's stay at Barley Hall there are a few obvious issues.'

'Such as?' asked Carvelli.

'Well, as we discussed when Bradley and I first met in San Francisco, in order to show that the soul wavelength doesn't represent evidence of an afterlife or a link to the other side, I'm trying to prove the opposite. And to prove that the soul wavelength isn't just a dying signal picked up momentarily by the NeuroTranslator at the point of death I need to maintain contact with the soul after death by finding a way to lock on to it, and so keep the soul wavelength open indefinitely. That's the first problem - proving the existence of the soul by tracing it after death. Incidentally, trying to find this locking frequency without Amber would require experimenting on countless people at the exact point of death until a lock-on was found, which, of course, would be ludicrous and unethical.'

'And the second issue?' said Soames, without a pause.

Assuming I could lock on to the soul of a dying person and prove the existence of an afterlife I still wouldn't be able to contact the soul of a person who has already died - such as my brother. To do that I'd need some kind of identifier - a unique address - that would allow me to page a particular soul, for want of a better way of putting it.'

'Okay' said Soames, stroking his chin. 'So you figure that if you could lock on and page individual souls, and use your NeuroTranslator and the soul wavelength to communicate with them, you'd prove their existence?'

Fleming was impressed with how quickly Soames grasped concepts that he was only just getting his head round. 'Or not, depending on what I discover. And that's why I need Amber. By studying her freak dreams of dying - when, in neurological terms, she does actually die - I might be able either to find a locking-on frequency to contact the other side or, as I hope, a more rational explanation.'

Carvelli frowned. 'How about your problem of identifying and paging souls who are already dead?'

Fleming smiled. 'I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Since, ultimately, I'm hoping I'll find no evidence of a genuine afterlife, the problem of paging souls should be of purely academic interest.'

And you're saying that you can't go any further without Amber?' said Soames.

'Yep,' Fleming said. 'I can tinker around the edges but without Amber I can't prove anything, one way or another.'

'Okay,' said Soames, with a thoughtful frown. 'That makes sense. In which case I suggest you get some rest while I see about contacting Amber.'