In the bridge of the long-hauler, Gabriel had his Devstick folded out on his lap, fingers and voice giving commands. On his Devscreen he had images of all the closed-circuit cameras and satimages that were focused on his route. The satimages he didn’t worry about as they could only see the top of the long-hauler and this was a regularly scheduled trip. The closed-circuit cameras were another matter, and those required the intervention of his actions. He had made his early living being a runner; it was his craft and he was one of the best. Each time they approached a camera, his intervention through his Devstick caused the digital signals to be changed — substituting the correct PUIs and the images from footage that they had captured from the same cameras that were now trying to track them. Normality is the hardest thing to detect, and everything about their profile was normal.
He checked the time: 8:55pm. In another five minutes they’d clear New Singapore and be on the Australasia Travway. Once there, the long-hauler would increase speed to six hundred kilos an hour. They’d be rolling through Jakarta by 10:30pm. At the Australasia Long-hauler park, just outside of Jakarta, they’d swap with the real drivers in the food court. He smiled and thought, three very wealthy drivers, and focused his attention on the upcoming main security zone for the on-ramp to the Australasia Travway — the huge eight lanes either way transport route running from Auckland to Osaka.
They reached the on-ramp and the long-hauler slowed in the queue of traffic waiting, attached now to the mag lev tracks set into the surface of the Travway. The traffic around them was mostly long-haulers with a few EVs, electric vehicles, in the far right lane. They were on the far left lane. The security zone had sixteen cameras. Gabriel had all the cameras up on his Dev. As each scanned the bridge of the vehicle, he altered the signal in the camera, sending the images he had on his dev of the real drivers. They moved up in the queue and a light on the Dev console of the long-hauler flashed green as their speed picked up and they went up the ramp. As they crested, Gabriel looked at the speed indicator on the Devscreen set into the console of the bridge, two hundred and fifty kilos and climbing. Home free.
Cochran checked, for the hundredth time. The time was 10:35pm. He’d escaped. She knew it in the marrow of her tired, defeated bones, and it cut like a hot knife in her gut. She showed no emotion and kept issuing commands, even though she knew it was futile. Rage and despair warred for dominance in her. Rage won. She wasn’t going to just capture this Jibril, she was going to kill him, but only after she’d made him suffer. She was as sure of that as she was that he had escaped. On her watch! The only ever escape from The Deep. The hot knife twisted. She sucked in, evil thoughts of revenge racing in her mind.
Chapter 8
Jonah’s Env, Unit A, 20th floor, Woodlands Envplex, Woodlands, New Singapore
Thursday 12 December 2109, 5:15am +8 UTC
As I woke up I realized that what had been nagging at the edges of my brain had worked itself out. I knew why I trusted Gabriel, or Jibril in Arabic. It was his eyes: they were like mine.
The escape of Jibril Muraz was reported on newsfeeds globally, and an UNPOL Blue Notice, Contain on Site, was issued. All the major newsfeeds carried it, and his image, this time clothed, was broadcast continuously with appeals for further information. The manner of his escape, however, was a closely guarded secret and known only to those who had to know in order to do their work.
I learned of it in my briefing with the Director, the evening of Gabriel’s escape. My part in the matter of Gabriel had not been released to the feeds. Whereas the bitch from hell, Agent Cochran, had her image repeatedly broadcast, and was reported as saying that Muraz would soon be contained and, ‘no further comment for the moment, thank you.’
I tried to keep busy but it was impossible to think of anything else except what I had been told in that exhausting mind conversation. I had a brief chat with Bill Scuttle, the Senior partner in the firm, and cleared with him that I was going to take a few days self-time and that I’d be back to contribute by Monday. I confirmed with UNPOL that there were no pressing pro bono duties, and I stayed in my Envplex waiting for the sign.
I thought about the sign all the time, worried about missing it. I also thought about my uncle, my so-called uncle. He had murdered my father and is was in a conspiracy to send the planet back into the Dark Ages. It sounded crazy, but I believed it. The fact that I believed it made me think I might be going crazy, but I believed it to my core.
I looked at the Devscreen next to the sleeper. 5:15am. I folded my arms behind my head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Usually I am good at waiting. I can be very patient — it’s part of being an arbitrator. But this wasn’t some spat between two corporate enterprises, Ents, raging at each other over infringed copyrights. This was my life. I had so many questions that I couldn’t ask. Who am I? Who is Sir Thomas? Why did he kill my father? What is the conspiracy? Was I under suspicion? Was I being more closely watched? Is my Env bugged? This last thought caused a quick surge of adrenalin and I sat up and looked around my Env. I let out a long slow breath. If it was bugged and I suddenly started looking for them, it would be suspicious. If they were there, the only thing I could do was act normally. As long as they can't tell what I'm thinking they can’t know what I know.
Lying there I tried to recall my first known memory. I was surprised that the earliest really solid memory was of when I was ten years old. On my tenth birthday I had boarded a flight. It was a holiday and I was flying to a summer camp in Italy from London. As I was an unaccompanied child, an Alitalia air staffer was assigned to get me on the airship. When she saw from my PUI on my Devstick that it was my birthday, she gave me a big smile and, putting her face close to mine with that big smile on it, proceeded to tug my right ear lobe ten times. It hurt. And I wished she would stop. That is my first real memory.
I can remember things from when I was five years old, but not clearly. They’re impressionist memories. But from ten years old, I can remember things quite clearly. People, events, the schools, knowledge learned, decisions made, these memories are more solid. My uncle had told me that my parents died just after I was born, and this is an impressionist memory. A sad little boy standing in front of his uncle, being told why his parents did not visit him like the other children’s parents. I feel and remember the sadness but the exact time, place and circumstances have faded.
Another reason I believed Gabriel is that Sir Thomas and I look nothing alike. And from what I had seen from the very scant images of my parents, I didn’t look much like my supposed father, Sir Thomas’s brother. If what Gabriel had said was true, and I chose to believe it was, then everything that had been told to me about the origins of my existence was a lie.
I have the images of their funeral service, but apart from that, only two other images of my parents exist. I am in none of them. I had always thought that strange. Don’t mothers always hold their babies and have an image taken? As a boy it was hard to build fantasies around such flimsy evidence of existence, but still I tried. I can remember that. Lying in my sleeper in the dormitory at night imagining that in the morning my parents would be there to take me home. I tried to remember what I dreamed about, after I turned ten, but drew a blank. I tried to remember what I dreamed about last week. I don’t dream, I realized. I have no dreams.
It was hard to frame Sir Thomas in my mind as an evil person. My inheritance from my parents, under Sir Thomas’s management until I turned eighteen, had grown substantially, and I didn’t need to contribute to earn cred. Sir Thomas had also seen to my education and placed me in different schools throughout my youth. He said in speeches that my circumstances were what led him to form the Oliver Foundation, a globally recognized scholarship program for orphaned children.