The Lucifer Code (8 page)

Pam Fleming had followed her grandson through the swing doors. 'He was too excited,' she said, with a beatific smile. 'He couldn't wait to show them off'

Fleming turned to his brother and saw that even his good eye had failed him. Tears were leaking from it and he couldn't use it to choose his words on the screen. 'Save your words for tomorrow, Rob,' he said. 'You'll be able to say whatever you want then.'

*

The Think Tank

As Amber Grant closed her eyes, the video camera and Brian were watching over her. The Neuro-Translator never slept. As it scanned Amber's brainwaves it correlated them with the exercises she had done, comparing her thought patterns to its battery of data, seeking out new patterns that would indicate significant aberrations. All the time it was learning about her brain, mapping the electrical architecture of her mind. Using the Lucifer optical processor that powered its own brain, it performed all these analyses at the speed of light.

While Amber Grant was awake the Neuro-Translator discovered nothing unusual. Nor did it detect anything as she lost consciousness and descended rapidly through the first two stages of sleep. As Amber lingered in the third stage and her body twitched erratically, Brian still registered little outside its normal range. Even as Amber entered the fourth stage of sleep, and perspiration beaded her forehead, the humming mind-reader remained untroubled.

It was only when she entered the state characterized by rapid eye movement, REM, that Brian registered something unusual in the still uncharted unconscious governed by dreams.

She was sweating. Her forehead was covered with perspiration and her nightdress was saturated. Her lips moved and she mumbled, her words gradually becoming more coherent until she was calling her own name in a child's plaintive voice: Amber, Amber, where are you, Amber?'

As she fell into the dream state random movements of her eyeballs were visible beneath the lids. Her body shook as if in distress. Then it became still and her eyes opened.

Memories flashed before her like the jumbled shards of a broken mirror: Father Peter Riga in his Jesuit robes sweeping up Ariel and her in his arms; her father's proud smile when she graduated with top honours from Stanford; Bradley Soames on campus at Cal Tech wearing his tinted mask and protective clothing; her mother stroking her hair and kissing her cheek as she fell asleep; her sister squeezing her hand and whispering goodbye before the surgeon put them both to sleep.

She felt the blade cut into her head. Through white-hot pain she heard herself screaming, her voice mingling with Ariel's, both trying to hold on to the other as they were torn apart. Even now as her mind left her body Amber felt she was attached in some way to Ariel, still being ripped from her. But the pain was emotional not physical, fear, loss, grief and rage combining together. She tried again to scream but she had no voice.

She tried to struggle but she had no body. She was an amorphous entity, enveloped in darkness, rushing towards an unknowable void.

Ahead, a bright cone of light appeared, flickering in the dark, drawing her into its magnetic field. She was travelling so fast that she was soon inside it, a part of it. It appeared to stand still, its beam disintegrating into particles as she merged with it, becoming indivisible from it. Her being was no more than a collection of shimmering packets of light. The light evoked a memory and she waited for Ariel to join her again and lead her to the source.

Then, just as she thought Ariel might be there, the emotional pain spiked to new heights as the last raw connection pulled at her. She wished then that she could cut herself free and float peacefully away.

But there was no escaping the elastic grip that pulled her out of the light, back into the darkness, back to herself. . .

Her staring eyes closed and then opened again as Amber woke with a start. All the time the NeuroTranslator continued to monitor her. And now the night nurse was soothing her, mopping her brow.

She was so focused on her patient that she paid no heed to the pulsing wavelengths dancing across the top half of the NeuroTranslator screen as Brian's neural net assimilated the abnormal aspect of Amber's brain. She rearranged the disturbed bedclothes, relieved that her charge was calm now, and didn't register the twenty-six-second change in tone emitted by the humming device.

When Amber Grant went back to sleep, and the nurse retreated gratefully for a cup of coffee, the NeuroTranslator had returned to its even hum.

*

The Red Ark. Cape Town. 33deg 55' S, 18deg 22' E

Six thousand miles away, Xavier Accosta, the Red Pope, sat alone in his office on the upper deck of the Red Ark. The leatherbound book cradled in his hands looked even older than its hundred years, its spine cracked from being opened too many times at the same page. He let it fall open at the same passage it always did. Breathing deeply, he rearranged his scarlet robes and flexed his damaged left leg, allowing the pain to dissipate. Then he began to read, his dark eyes moving slowly across the page as he savoured each word of the familiar text:

Extract from the Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, Montpellier, France, 1905

Notes on the experiment between Dr Baurieux and the criminal Languille in which the doctor tries to communicate with the condemned man's severed head immediately after execution by guillotine.

Immediately after the decapitation, the condemned man's eyelids and lips contracted for five or six seconds ... I waited a few seconds and the contractions ceased, the face relaxed, the eyelids closed half-way over the eyeballs so that only the whites of the eyes were visible, exactly like dying or newly deceased people.

At that moment I shouted 'Languille' in a loud voice, and I saw that his eyes opened slowly and without twitching, the movements were distinct and clear, the look was not dull and empty, the eyes which were fully alive were indisputably looking at me. After a few seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and steadily.

I addressed him again. Once more, the eyelids were raised slowly, without contractions, and two undoubtedly alive eyes looked at me attentively with an expression even more piercing than the first time. Then the eyes shut once again. I made a third attempt. No reaction. The whole episode lasted between twenty-five and thirty seconds.

Dr Baurieux, Montpellier, France, 1905

whenever Accosta read these words he felt both disturbed and excited, imagining what Languille's eyes had seen as his soul departed.

He looked up at four high-resolution holographic plasma screens on the oak-panelled wall in front of him. Two were blank. One showed the looped video of his last service, with the sound turned down, and another the BBC's live coverage of the eighty-thousand tonne Red Ark departing Cape Town harbour to continue its pilgrimage around the world, its blood-red hull and white superstructure gleaming in the African sun. Panning round the pier the cameras captured the crowds straining for a glimpse of the physical embodiment of their Church, the Church of the Soul Truth, the floating city that housed the Red Pope's virtual cathedral, and all the administrative and technical staff that made the world's first e-Church possible.

But as the Red Ark set sail, Cardinal Xavier Accosta ignored the television screens and the spectacular views of Cape Town through the panoramic picture window to his left. He was impatient for the doctor's report on the Soul Project. Time was slipping away, and if the scientists couldn't achieve their goal, all he had achieved since breaking away from Rome ten years ago would be meaningless. And yet, although he wanted to hear from the doctor, he was anxious about Mother Giovanna Bellini. He looked down at the old book and tried not to think about her, but the more he endeavoured to put her out of his mind, the more she dwelt there.

A sudden knock interrupted his thoughts.

Accosta stiffened. 'Enter.'

Monsignor Paulo Diageo opened the door, his powerful body filling the frame. Diageo was similarly attired in scarlet, although his robes were trimmed with a single stripe of gold braid to Accosta's two. Unlike Accosta, who had fine, photogenic features, Diageo's face was heavy and brutish: a low forehead punctuated by dark eyebrows, heavy-lidded recessed eyes and a broad, protruding jaw. His fleshy, almost feminine lips were at odds with the rest of his face and gave his otherwise impassive features a cruel, petulant quality.

Accosta braced himself. 'Mother Giovanna? Any news?'

The Monsignor shrugged. 'It's been resolved, Holy Father.'

Like Monsignor Diageo, Mother Giovanna Bellini had been a loyal follower from the early days. When Accosta had first been promoted to the Vatican twenty years ago she was a lowly nun. She had served him so devotedly that when he was excommunicated a decade later and founded his own Church, she followed him. As a reward he made her one of his first female priests.

Nine months ago, after years of research on the Soul Project, it had been decided to test the technology on dying subjects. Terminal patients with no surviving family were selected from Church-run hospices around the world and pronounced dead before they were taken to the foundation to die. Since a priest was needed to deliver the last rites, and her devotion to Accosta was absolute, Mother Giovanna Bellini had been assigned to the patients on the understanding that she would ask no questions.

But of course she'd asked questions. And when she'd called Accosta, telling him that the doctor and other members of the Truth Council were murdering the subjects, he had already known that the terminally ill patients were being eased into death; it was the only way that the experiments could be conducted. He hadn't wanted to involve Diageo but her questions had complicated matters and the stakes were too high. Diageo had understood his problem, with barely a word needing to be said, and Accosta hoped that once Mother Giovanna recognized the full importance of the sacred mission she, too, would understand.

'So everything's in order?'

'I think so.'

'Nothing I should be concerned about?'

The smallest shake of the head. 'No, Your Holiness.'

Accosta tried to keep the relief from his voice. 'Very well.'

'Frank Carvelli's waiting on line.'

'Put him through.'

One of the holographic plasma screens facing him fizzed into life, and Accosta could see Frank Carvelli picking lint from his black cashmere jacket. He was the second member of the three-man Truth Council that had spearheaded the Soul Project. A delicate-featured man with smooth olive skin and suspiciously blue-black hair pulled back into a ponytail, he had a penchant for dressing in black. Although Accosta thought him vain and shallow, he was a brilliant communicator indispensable to the Church and the Soul Project.

Carvelli was the head of KREE8 Industries, which excelled in everything from communication and presentation software to movie production and public relations. KREE8 had been responsible for creating the holographic plasma screens on which Carvelli's image now appeared. It was also responsible for over 60 per cent of the computer-generated special effects used in Hollywood movies, and specialized in creating virtual movie stars and resurrecting dead ones.

But it was on the Optical Internet, or the Optinet, that KREE8 was supreme, bringing realtime virtual reality to the world. It had been KREE8, and Carvelli in particular, who had helped harness the power of Optrix's optical computer revolution to create Accosta's unique electronic Church. KREE8 WebCrawler headsets allowed millions of people to attend Accosta's services live, as if they were there in person.

Also, Carvelli understood the media. His contacts and muscle had helped make Accosta the phenomenon he now was. Accosta realized this, although he suspected that Carvelli was more interested in supporting him because of the power and exposure he gained from his association with the largest Church in the world than because of any deep-seated faith.

'Your Holiness,' Carvelli said, 'the new equipment is virtually complete. All we need now is a day of your time to upload your image and muscle movements, capture your voice profile and take a full body cast. Just tell me where and when and I'll arrange it.'

'You should speak to Monsignor Diageo about my schedule, but isn't this a little premature given that we haven't even successfully completed the first stage of the project?'

Carvelli nodded. 'A new development has made the Doctor confident of a breakthrough. He told me to get everything prepared so we could move fast when it comes.'

Accosta controlled his irritation. The Soul Project was sacred: it was his project and yet the head of the Truth Council, the man who insisted on being referred to by the anonymous sobriquet of the Doctor, was increasingly determining the agenda. 'What is this new development?'

As you know, the Doctor's a cautious man. He won't tell me until he's more sure but he's confident. And when the Doctor's confident, something usually comes of it. I'm sure he'll tell you more in the next update. I'll liaise with Monsignor Diageo about your availability for the upload.'

'Thank you, Frank.'

After Carvelli had gone off-line, Diageo knocked at the door again. 'Your Holiness, you asked me to alert you fifteen minutes before broadcast.'

Accosta rose from his chair. Straightening his aching body, he stretched to his full height of over six feet and thrust back his broad shoulders. His sixty-eight-year-old frame was still lean and imposing in the scarlet robes. As he felt the adrenaline flow through him, he steeled himself to address his faithful from around the world: the millions of followers who were already logging on to attend his virtual service.