– I’d better say yes, then, she mustered.
It came out gobbly and savage, like the noise the turkey made.
Leo Hurley must have been waiting, because as soon as Pike had powered off he was there next to her, clutching his drink, the crisp-crumb still sticking grimly to his beard. Hannah was popping the bubble-blisters, one by one, not caring now who saw her, her mind churning miserably.
– What’s up?
She gulped air. Forced herself not to look in Pike’s direction, so as not to stoke it up again, that awful invasive thing he’d done to her.
– Nothing. I don’t know. Some new project. I’m off the Munchies. Look, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s people-work. The words tasted like poison. – You said there was gossip.
Leo’s eyes slid sideways, and he coughed, then turned his body to shield them both from the rest of the room. The tall handsome man from the lift came to the table to reach for a drink. Odd, thought Hannah, the way he wore headphones at a party. Perhaps it was a field-associate affectation. The young man nodded distractedly at Hannah.
– I was in the Temple earlier, said Leo. His eyes were gleaming again. He looked slightly mad. – Just after the Festival.
The Temple was where the Boss was housed. On the top floor.
– And?
Leo lowered his voice.
– You mustn’t say anything. But she’s switched modes.
– How d’you mean?
Hannah wasn’t aware the Boss operated in modes in the first place.
– Altered focus.
– How? What to?
– Well, the last ten years, she’s been running in default mode. Democratic auto-pilot.
– And now? Hannah realised what had happened to his eyes, now. They were frightened.
– A new code’s kicked in. He licked dry lips, and swallowed. – I’m pretty sure she’s switched to damage limitation.
And then he was gone.
Damage limitation.
Next to Hannah, closer than she’d thought, the pale man with the headphones was pouring himself a drink.
– More tonic water? he offered Hannah.
– No thanks.
She’d popped all the bubbles by now. She’d have to go back to her apartment, and cut another strip from the roll. Or better still, go back to her apartment and climb into bed and try not to think about what Wesley Pike had said.
– We meet again, the man said, holding out a hand to shake. Benedict Sommers.
He’d got rid of the green gum somewhere. His eyes were the palest blue. Like swimming-pool water, the shallow end. She hated this. Leo understood, only because he was the same, or sort of. But no one else did. Benedict smiled, and held out a packet.
– Gum? he offered. Hannah shook her head.
– No thanks.
He put the packet away.
– I’m sorry, she blurted. But I can’t talk to people I don’t know. I just can’t do it. I have a sort of – allergy. It’s not you. It’s – me.
– Hey, he said. It’s been a long day. I understand.
And he flashed her a rueful smile. Hannah couldn’t think of anything to say, or any reason to say it, so she turned and walked off.
Benedict Sommers watched her.
Everyone knew about Hannah Park. The brilliant mind, blocked by the antisocial personality, and trapped in a body she hadn’t a clue what to do with. Not a bad body, in actual fact, he observed. But she wheeled it about like it was a trolley for her head. An interesting case, but not so unusual in Head Office. The Boss had a talent for targeting the right brains to fit the right task. The Munchies, in Hannah’s case. Her mother had used her as a proxy all through her childhood, apparently. There was something pitiful about her.
But if Hannah Park had problems, she wasn’t alone.
A bad attitude to authority, was the phrase being memo’d about, following his remark earlier today. The questionnaire was going to focus on that. The whole thing had been blown out of all proportion. But there it was, a black mark, and one that wouldn’t be erased easily. He’d have to work hard. Show willing.
Or bugger off altogether, he thought suddenly: leave Atlantica. Get rid of his terrible Munchie flatmate in St Placid and sell the place. Seek his fortune in the big wide world.
He adjusted his headphones thoughtfully.
Activating them at parties was a little game he played. Wear your surveillance gadgetry on your sleeve, and they all assume it’s something else. Even people who should know better. You get to hear all sorts of stuff.
Tonight, Benedict had picked up Hannah’s conversation with Leo Hurley by accident. But the content of it interested him. He knew about Leo Hurley. His screen-maintenance work gave him access to the nerve centre beyond the firewall. He’d be one of the few people who regularly saw the Boss.
A mode-switch, right on the heels of the Festival. That’s what he’d said. Damage limitation. And he was worried. Useful information, if you knew what to do with it.
Which Benedict didn’t. Yet.
But slowly, as the conversation between Hannah Park and Leo Hurley began to settle in his mind, the sense of possibility grew. It formed a ball of energy inside him, made him feel handsome, successful, proud. As he smiled, he felt the energy shine from his mouth like a child’s pumpkin blazing a serrated grin of fire. Outside, in the fading light, a glittering plane scraped the orange sky. It could be going anywhere, thought Benedict, weighing up the day. Anywhere.
He was getting steadily more drunk. From fast track to questionnairing, just like that. It wasn’t fair. Fine, OK, have rules, but hell –
He must have been thinking about Melissa subconsciously before she even touched him, because he got an instant erection when he felt the palm of a hand pressing in the small of his back, through his shirt. She was from Human Services. An appropriate department, for someone with her talents. Talents which he’d be more than willing to put to the test, now. Right now. End the day with a bang. He swung round, grinning, his mind still sore from the day’s defeat, his prick aching with greed. But it wasn’t Melissa.
– Think of me as your fairy godfather, said Wesley Pike.
A PLACE FOR IDIOTS
The ship’s Education Station is widely held to be a place for idiots, but I am drawn to it nonetheless. When I first came on board and was searching for the meaning of existence, I stumbled across a yellow philosophy book that contained a theory about the universe by some bloke whose name I can’t pronounce. It’s just a great big knitting machine gone haywire, he reckoned. Now, that makes sense to me. It’s a thing that gets started for no reason and reproduces itself in a mad and uncontrolled way. Like cancer, or the plastic bags in the cupboard under the sink. Ever since reading about this knitting machine, I’ve thought about writing a pamphlet called Power for the Powerless. Thought One: The more mysterious the system, the more the mystery excites you, the more it is bollocks. If it’s nice and simple and you can understand it, beware. And if you respect it, run a mile. Actually that’s three thoughts for the price of one, which is a typically Atlantican bargain.
Chew, chew, chew.
From what is old and ugly, bring forth the new. In the Bible or some such place, Judaea or Galilee or Aesop, a rotten old lion-carcass became home to a hive of bumble-bees, geysering up a glorious fountain of honey. From the strong came forth sweetness, di-da di-da. And likewise, from the dossiered evidence will come…
What? Vindication? Explanation?
No. Something more practical. A chess set. Sixty-four squares. Thirty-two pieces. Queen’s Gambit. Schliemann’s Defence. The Killer Grob.
It passes the time. I have already manufactured the sixteen pawns and all the main players except one, so I should be finished by the time we dock in Harbourville. Today I’m starting on the last black piece: Tiffany. She belongs on the front line of the opposition along with Pike, the Machine, Gwynneth, Geoff the stress dickhead, Keith the cat, Malt Fishook and Hooley the Social Adjustment associate. I decided long ago who’d be what. Tiff hasn’t the imagination to be a knight or the brains to be a bishop. She’s blinkered and defensive enough to be a rook, though. I haven’t forgotten my daughter’s face, and the angry hunch of her shoulders. A dumpy turret of a girl. I’ll give her a nice little portcullis, and make her the same height as the other main players, about twenty centimetres tall. The pawns are smaller. They’re just customers.