Adaptive Consequences Page 13

  CHAPTER 12

  7th May 2062

  Odgerel_Zaye_Health_chip_data_report_15.05.37.doc

  JUN_XIE_16.05.37_01.30AM.MM

  Though Jun was sitting in her living room, as the motion memory played and showed her reviewing the old monitoring systems and assessing Odgerel’s health chip data, she was transported back to that version of her life. It was an apparition of the woman she was now.

  Next to her, Solo was hunched forward, leaning to get a better look at the Interface. Jun pulled her finger against the tightly woven thread and willed herself to remember, but she couldn’t. The MM vision was too fast to take everything all in. She could read the blood pressure, 170/101 mmHg and there were high levels of glutamate and adrenaline, but the MM played faster than her eyes could keep track of it.

  ‘Well, Dr Xie? Is it satisfactory?’

  Jun’s body numbed. Hearing Wei’s voice after all these years still seared like a flame against her skin.

  ‘Dr Wei there are some abnormalities in Zaye’s readings. Did you review these yourself?’

  Wei’s frown fell to his jawline. ‘No. Dr Markov and the Coroner assessed the information – what abnormalities?’

  His displeasure was palpable, and Jun felt herself, wiry and tense. Even Solo’s body next to her was on alert.

  Wei’s eyes were spiked with malice, which despite the years, still prickled in Jun’s throat – she had been in trouble. There was a long pause till she heard herself speak again.

  ‘The timings aren’t right… these results were recorded at 15.42pm, five hours earlier than Polzin said she died… and there’s high levels of Mepivacaine in her system. There’s no reason for an anaesthetic to be in her body.’

  There was a provocation in her tone.

  Wei looked away from her momentarily to the monitor. His eyes dashed over the screens before they were back on Jun, surveying her as if she were another monitor.

  ‘Thank you for alerting me,’ he said slowly.

  His mouth teased with every syllable as though he were playing with a piece of his liquorice root.

  ‘Even with the most capable department, it seems I still need to keep close to the studies.’

  ‘I’d like to go through the data myself,’ Jun said.

  He moved his hands from behind his back. ‘You’ve had quite the shock. You’re not in the right frame of mind to make a serious analysis of the data. It’s best if you go home and get some rest. Now we’re in this unfortunate position, you have no immediate duties.’

  ‘I would rather stay.’

  Her voice was tense, and Jun tensed with her old self.

  Wei took a small step closer to her.

  Jun and Solo both flinched.

  ‘I insist you go home, Doctor – I shall fetch Polzin, he will escort you. I’m sure you think I’m always reprimanding you, but you fail to take heed of my guidance. You have this notion that you can say and do as you please. You can’t.’

  He took another step closer to her, and his eyes squared hers.

  ‘I tolerate your idiosyncrasies because you’re gifted and you came highly recommended, but it won’t do, Doctor. It won’t do.’

  His voice rose, and despite the elapsed years, it surprised Jun how much her heart strained watching this.

  ‘Your other colleagues don’t behave this way – they work within the parameters I set out to manage an effective team. You’re determined to be obstructive, and I won’t have it.’ He placed a hand on each shoulder.

  Jun could almost feel him squeezing her like he was steering an old schooner, his thumbs furrowing into her tendons.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  Jun’s heart crept into her throat, and she realised what her answer had been.

  ‘Yes, Dr Wei,’ Jun said broken. ‘I understand perfectly.’

  The MM faded out, and Jun and Solo saw only their reflections on the screen.

  ‘Who was that?’ Solo said, inching away from Jun.

  Jun restrained herself from indulging in the grief of what she had just witnessed. She opened the diagnostic memory, which she had seen earlier in the folder. It contained a transcribe of the health chip data recordings.

  Reading through the data, it was mostly consistent with death by asphyxiation, until she came across an annotation of Mepivacaine, as she had heard from herself in the MM. Why would Odgerel have had an anaesthetic in her system? Jun couldn’t remember the exact time of death, but she and Fan had driven to the lab in the evening, it had been dark, and she had just woken up. Depending on when Odgerel was found – she couldn’t have been left long – that meant the time of death was likely in the evening, but these timings refuted that. Jun’s breath quickened, and she looked back to the screen. Why had there been an anaesthetic in Odgerel’s system, and why didn’t she remember?

  ‘Something’s not right, is it?’ Solo said.

  Jun swallowed hard, what was she supposed to say?

  ‘What was that memory about?’ Solo said slowly. ‘Tell me?’

  As the words hung in the air, the tri-click of the door went, and Fan and Kau walked into the hall.

  ‘Good evening Mr Li and Mr Li Junior. Dr Xie and Solongo Batkhuyag are in the living room. You and Dr Xie have no plans this evening.’

  ‘Who’s Solongo?’ Kau said as they stepped into the hall, and their eyes landed on the stranger in front of them.

  ‘I am,’ Solo said. She stood up and folded her arms across her body in a militant fashion. ‘Jun was just about to explain to me why she looks like she’s seen a ghost.’

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Fan said and walked over to Jun. His face searched hers, before falling on the Interface.

  He repeated the question, but as Jun tried to move her mouth, the words wouldn’t come. Finally, she was able to answer.

  ‘I picked up some files from the lab about Odgerel’s – Solo’s mother – case. I was given these but…they don’t make sense.’

  ‘What files?’ Fan said and put his hands on her shoulders as Wei had on the MM only a few moments ago. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense. I downloaded some memories, but I don’t remember them or what happened…’

  ‘I told you to leave it alone, Jun, but you wouldn’t listen!’ Fan paced the room, his fingers kneading the temples of his head.

  Jun held her breath; she had never seen him like this. Usually, he was unshakeable.

  ‘You wouldn’t be told!’

  ‘Calm down, Papa!’ Kau appealed.

  Fan forced the air out of his mouth and threw himself down on the chair. His body crumpled into the cushions. ‘What have you done?’

  Jun looked at the man she’d lived with and loved all these years but was afraid of what he was going to say next.

  ‘I suppose it’s time to talk about what you asked me to do, all of those years ago,’ Fan said, rubbing his mouth like he was erasing the words as he said them. ‘That is if you’re ready to listen?’

  CHAPTER 13

  22nd May 2037

  The Intuimoto slowed down outside the laboratory where Jun had been only four hours earlier. The sun, a puddle of honey, was yet to filter through the cotton clouds; the dawn chorus swelled in sporadic song, skylarks and thrushes enjoying the start of a new day. The whole world seemed to have renewed itself, except for Jun.

  She had woken too early. Her head had swum with the lack of sleep and thoughts of Odgerel, Dr Wei, and Markov. Like a motion memory on repeat, it kept playing through her mind.

  She arched her back to feel for Fan, but he wasn’t there. She turned; his body was teetering on the edge of the bed, twitching, and his arm jerked and landed clumsily near her. He jolted again. He must be having a bad dream, but it could be no worse than the one she’d woken up to.

  Last night he was distant when she needed him the most. He’d waited like he said he would. He’d hugged her, asked if she was alright, but his emotional availability was somewhere else. She looked at him on the other s
ide of the bed. Was it there, amongst the sheets in the white space between them? She hadn’t told him about Odgerel’s health chips and wasn’t sure why. He’d let her down, she supposed. Had she punished him by withdrawing too? She tip-toed off her cover and chided herself. A woman had died, maybe murdered. There were more important things to worry about.

  Jun pulled on the same clothes she’d worn yesterday, which she’d dropped in a heap on the floor before she’d crawled into bed. She figured the only way she could stop the loop playing on repeat, was to go back to the lab. Try and unpick their lies, if it wasn’t too late. She hated herself and them. Why hadn’t she insisted she stay with Dr Wei? She had been weak, scared and now who knows what results and data had been tampered with. No, it wasn’t just data, it was evidence. Neuroscience was supposed to expand lives, not end them.

  Looking at the behemoth building, that morning’s ideology seemed naïve now. Jun took a deep breath and convinced herself out of her car, checking the security desk for Polzin’s Officers. There were three of them, barely older than adolescents, grouped together and were amusing themselves with something on the Interface.

  ‘Dr Xie?’

  Her heart stopped all too familiarly. She recognised the voice, though it was raspier than usual. She spun around. The usually fleshy face was drawn and lined, puffy pockets sagged beneath the eyes.

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ he whispered through gritted teeth.

  Her face buckled under the thin veneer she’d coated.

  ‘Can we sit in the car for a moment?’ he said more softly. His eyes tracked around them.

  She unlocked it, and they both got inside. Whatever brought Pav here, he didn’t look good for it. His eyes were grey, diluted, and kept flitting around the Intuimoto like birds in a cage. It was no good, of course. They would have been tracked here, and with the CC equipment, there would be multiple records of them together already.

  Pav shrugged off her questions about whether he was okay and had enough water. As he asked if she knew Odgerel had died, his leg trembled. His anxiety wasn’t helping her own.

  ‘Do you know something?’ he asked, afraid of what he might say.

  He looked at her, his watery eyes now full of intent. ‘Out of everyone, I thought, hoped, you’d want to know. Do you?’

  Her stomach plummeted. She nodded, but she wasn’t really sure.

  ‘We need to leave here,’ Pav said quickly. ‘There’s something I want to show you. We should go in one car. Mine’s better. Older,’ he said inspecting her Interface and dashboard.

  Pav’s Intuimoto was hidden in the forest, concealed from the access road. He was right; his car’s battered dashboard and the rickety-looking display was more fit for the task than hers.

  ‘The Interface hyperframe is buggered. It functions, but without the tracking and nav GPS. The speakers are shot, thankfully, so nothing can pipe in, or out. It will have picked up your chips though. Nothing we can do about that.’

  As his Intuimoto coughed into life, Pav began his story. How he had been on the three-till-eleven shift and arrived at the base early to have his leftover Babka in the eatzone before he started. At about 2.00pm, Markov ran into the building, frantic and stressed. Knowing everyone’s schedules and when they usually arrived, Markov was a good hour-and-a-half early. Strange, but not a massive concern.

  Markov had called in sick to Jun, but that was another lie, of course. A picture was beginning to form, but it was still hazy. Who were these people she had worked with every day?

  As Pav spoke, the tenseness in his body dissipated; talking obviously helped. Twenty minutes into his shift, the second unusual thing had happened – the security alarm went off in the Cognitive Lab. It was from the portable device, but when he went to the lab, there was no one there. The alarm was on the floor near the bench. Markov arrived soon after, flustered and full of apologies, and said the alarm must have fallen off and activated by mistake.

  ‘Then I remembered. Subject Zaye had pressed her personal alarm before – a week ago. When she was outside for her daily exercise. She fainted, but Markov was with her, so I thought he’d take care of her. Do what was right, but now…’ he shook his head. ‘I only wish I’d…’

  A queasiness crept up in Jun’s throat, not helped by Pav’s unhinged car. It might hide them from detection or being recorded, but not having a functioning air conditioner meant that sweat streaked down her face.

  After re-stabilising the alarm, it was a few hours later, at half eight or thereabouts, Pav received a call to say there had been an incident, and the Police and emergency services were on their way. That Odgerel had died by suicide. The Police arrived, and dismissed them for the night, and said they would be contacted with the next steps.

  His drawn face told her there must be more. She had to load the bullets in the gun. ‘What is it that you want to show me?’

  His eye twitched at her. ‘It’ll change everything. Put you in danger. You sure you want to know?’

  ‘I have a feeling I already am…’ Her stomach kicked, and she just about managed to swallow whatever had vaulted up her throat.

  The sun had fully risen now, and they were feeling the effects. Pav had drawn the windows down to generate a breeze from the car’s propulsion, but it didn’t help much.

  They had been driving for about fifteen minutes, but it seemed much longer. The car gasped its way through the valleys and into the immediate low-lying plains, which belonged to the UA. It was only when the wild and undulating countryside began, did it signal public access. The road was lined with mini-jungles of Fringe Flowers; cloud-pockets of burgundy, interspersed with clumps of reedy grass, popping up like porcupines. Out in the distance, the hilled-crescents wore exposed patches of earth like tonsures; the promise of Lake Baikal only a whisper away.

  They choked onwards to a thicket, which trickled into a dark and shadowy forest. They stopped at a clearance amongst a throng of coniferous trees, concealing them from the main highway. Pav opened his door and got out, juggling the car’s suspension. Jun was reminded of his strength and size. Looking around, she realised how isolated she was. She followed him with small, cautious steps, as he stalked his way through the peppering of trees.

  They walked for three or four minutes until they came to a sheer rock face, which was about as tall as a house. He gestured for her to drop back a little and pulled emaciated branches and foliage up from the ground. They concealed a natural ditch, that sloped down beneath the rock face. A familiar outline appeared, and Jun took a few steps closer to get a better look.

  And then she saw them, but they didn’t look right. Their usually pristine casing had lost some of its lustre, and rusty browns and sallow smears pocked what was typically white.

  Pav planted a leg on one side of the ditch, and the other against the rock face. He lowered his torso and with a strained grunt, pulled Delun out and placed him on a patch of level ground next to Jun.

  ‘Dr Xie. It is encouraging to see that you are well,’ Delun said.

  Jun could have thrown her arms around him for the comfort of the routine-formality, but Delun instantly punctured the moment.

  ‘Do you know what happened to Subject Zaye?’

  ‘I’m starting to get the picture,’ she said. ‘Last night I managed to look at Zaye’s health chip data. There were discrepancies between the Police’s reported time of death, and her information. Her chips also read that she had Mepivacaine in her system. There was no reason a woman who died by suicide would have an anaesthetic in her body.’

  ‘They had prepped for a Synapticotomy, that’s why,’ Delun said.

  The board hadn’t agreed on the S-otomy, but clearly, they proceeded with it anyway. It all began to make sense now.

  Delun started again. ‘After your shift finished, Dr Wei was doing another unprogrammed test, the series that you and the rest of the team had no knowledge about – Jiazhen and I were under instructions not to tell you. Subject Zaye’s P-EP was failing in the testing, just
as it had with yours earlier that day. Dr Wei instructed me to go to Dr Markov’s office to analyse Zaye’s data for the week. Zaye’s overall neural efficiency had decreased by 45% this week alone – her corticocortical interactions and her EEG measurements were most alarming.’

  When Markov had sent his results to Jun to complete their evaluation, he hadn’t shared the corticocortical results. Now she knew why. It was worse than he’d wanted her to know. However questionable and sociopathic Markov’s morality was, he was a skilled neuroscientist. ‘If they knew that, why did they continue with the S-otomy? She shouldn’t have been touched with the volatility of these readings.’

  The tree’s branches seemed to loom towards her, blurring her vision; the ground beneath her rose up. She reached out for Pav’s arm to steady herself and drew in slow, deep breaths.

  ‘I motioned to the lab immediately to discuss the very same with Dr Wei. On my journey there, my sensors alerted a fault with Jiazhen’s software – his processor was powering down. As I entered the corridor, through the one-way glass into the Lab, I registered Dr Wei with Jiazhen. Subject Zaye had gone. Dr Wei’s hands were by Jiazhen’s Process Core Cavity, powering them down.

  ‘At that moment, I deduced there was a potential threat to my survival, so I quickly motioned back to Dr Markov’s room, where they would expect me to be.

  ‘Fifteen minutes later Dr Markov, this time, came to his office and requested my support for the S-otomy. They were going into surgery immediately. I recommended we undertake further study and analyses before we proceed, but he urged me to silence.’

  ‘On what grounds?’ Jun managed.

  ‘Dr Wei wished to proceed,’ they said. ‘By Dr Markov’s accounts, the North-Euro Province has a potential subject with similar capabilities, but we were ahead regarding data. Whoever was able to deliver their findings and theoretical recommendations for exploitation first, would receive a very healthy budget injection.’