Noah Begbroke stared at the digital menu above the bar for some time before he finally made his choice. At the Altered Consciousness Bar, or AltCon as the pink retro neon sign outside proudly displayed, there were so many concoctions to choose from. The spectrum ran from mellow to confident through to ecstatic, with various grades in between. There was even some kind of serotonin boost you could take home to replenish you the morning after.
He ordered Chilled & Confident mixed with grapefruit and mandarin juice. He’d decided his next drink would be the same but flavoured with aniseed and blackcurrant instead. It didn’t have to be fruit juice, of course. Many people drank the legal substances mixed with fruit teas, carbonated drinks, or even just water.
The bartender placed the glass down with a smile. The place was packed, the music low and soothing, the lights soft and welcoming. Hung around the walls were huge canvases of what Begbroke supposed were artists’ interpretations of different moods. His favourite was one of calm blues and purples in a swirling pattern. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the orange and red one. Everyone in there seemed to be smiling. It was exactly what he needed. He took a long drink and after a few minutes could already feel the AltCon doing its magic.
There had been great debate in the press about making alcohol legal again, but no one wanted to go back to his parents’ generation of hangovers and street fights. The government certainly didn’t want the huge costs of healthcare and crime it caused. There was still a call for it among older people in hidden corners of the city. Alcohol, apart from being toxic and addictive, had a roulette wheel of moods, but Begbroke much preferred to be able to choose how he felt and not suffer for it the next day.
He’d chosen a drink to take the edge of the vulnerability that had plagued him ever since the Aversion Therapy, an unfamiliar emotion for him. He turned his back to the bar and leaned against it, waiting for the effects to kick in further. When it did, it was powerful and welcome.
Maybe his grandma had been right and penance was good for the soul.
He didn’t recognise the man that he’d been when he’d launched that bottle of burning fuel through Corrina’s window. Whatever had motivated him was completely gone. He supposed it had been anger, jealousy, and if he admitted it… control. There was still work to be done on the causes of that behaviour. He quite looked forward to the group therapy with other men in his position, all trying to find a new way of being. To see there were others like him made him feel less of a monster.
Lost in his thoughts, he was surprised when the woman approached him. She was slim and attractive, wearing a pale blue dress. He usually went for brunettes, but tonight he wasn’t bothered. He recognised her straight away, but this was very different to the last time they’d met. He was a different man now.
‘Do you want to buy me a drink?’ she asked, brushing her hair back from her face.
He paused, uncertain. Another new emotion. She ran her fingers over the Tier Three tattoo on his wrist. It was still raw and stung under her touch.
‘I’m surprised you’re okay with that. Chatting up an ex-con.’
The woman smiled and relief washed over him. Maybe his post-Tier life was going to be okay after all.
He called the bartender over and pointed at the woman.
‘I’ll have Bold & Sassy with orange and passionfruit, please,’ she said. Before treatment he would never have gone for a woman who’d approached him, a brazen, assertive type. When he’d met her previously he’d considered her attractive enough, but now she really appealed to him. Was that another effect of his treatment?
‘How was it?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘You know.’
‘Better than going to one of those eco-rigs.’
‘My brother Lucas is on the rigs,’ he said.
She nodded solemnly and leaned against the bar, glass in hand.
‘Didn’t want anyone messing with his mind, he said. Worried that it would affect his virility. Kept his machismo intact and now he’s hand-peeling shrink-wrapped plastic and fishing for bottles in the North Sea for the next twenty years.’
‘Fair play to him.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘But you’re the one with your freedom.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me after… you know.’ He looked down at his tattoo again.
‘Most women like to change men. The hard work’s already been done for me,’ she said and smiled again.
Pointing over to a small table that had just become vacant, she said, ‘Why don’t you go and get those seats for us and I’ll bring over more drinks. You’ve nearly finished yours already.’
An hour later, Begbroke felt as though a whole new life had begun. He was free, a changed man, having a great conversation with a gorgeous woman. He didn’t even have to hide what he’d been through. Who would have thought after the last few months that things could turn around so quickly?
His head was swimming a little, but he could feel positivity flowing through him and he didn’t know or care if it was the drinks or just his circumstances. There was clearly physical chemistry, so it was no surprise when she cocked her head to one side and said, ‘Do you want to come back to mine?’
This was what he needed, to get back into his stride, to feel like a man again. Tonight, he would draw a line under his old life. He would begin again, his blue tattoo a reminder of what he’d left behind and what his new post-therapy life could offer him – the two-faced god Janus looking both to the past and to the future.
They took a cab back to hers. The lights of the city swum past in a haze as they chatted and laughed flirtatiously. Begbroke couldn’t ever remember AltCon having ever had such a good effect on him. He was lightheaded and more than a little woozy. Twenty minutes later, they pulled up at the house.
She fumbled with the key in the lock and he wondered if her hands were trembling because she was as excited as he was. Once in the kitchen, she took two bottles out of the fridge, pressed one into his hand and said, ‘Don’t drink it yet. Wait until we’re upstairs. Give me two minutes and then come up. Bedroom at the back.’
He watched her as she left the room, admiring her figure wrapped tightly in the soft blue material.
A few moments later, he moved clumsily up the stairs, feeling giddy and inebriated. His legs felt weak, he could hear his blood rushing in his ears. Holding the bottle in one hand, he reached out to push the bedroom door open with the other. His vision was slightly blurred now and he misjudged the distance, pawing at the air before finally making contact with the wood of the door.
She was already lying in bed, the covers right over her head. The blue dress was on the floor. Was this part of the fun? He pulled the cover back.
The woman was naked and still. Maybe she’d overdone it with the drink? She’d bought quite a few rounds. Disappointment reared. Maybe they’d be able to go out another night. Her hair looked a bit darker in the shadows.
He looked closer. This wasn’t the woman he had met in the bar.
He threw the cover over her again, his head fuzzy and confused. He went to take a swig from the bottle he was holding. But when he brought it close to his face he smelled something pungent, familiar, undrinkable.
Still inebriated from the AltCon, he leaned over the woman in the bed and prodded her clumsily. There was no response.
Something sinister was going on here and he needed to get out fast.
He stumbled towards the door to make his exit, but a police officer appeared from nowhere and blocked the way, pointing a semi-automatic at his chest. He was older than Begbroke, with silver hair and pale eyes. Behind him was a tall, dark-haired officer, leaning casually against the doorframe, arms folded.
‘We’ve been keeping an eye on you, Begbroke,’ the pale-eyed officer said. ‘Ever since you left Janus. And now we’ve had a call from a woman who said you threatened to kill her.’
‘No… no…’ Begbroke mumbled.
The woman who had brought him here had disappeared. He was beginning to doubt it was her house.
‘She told us you threatened to cremate her in her bed,’ the officer went on, nodding towards the prone woman.
‘I wouldn’t…’ Begbroke breathed, starting to feel nauseous, uncertain if his words were audible. ‘I’ve changed… I’ve been changed.’
The officer leaning against the door unfolded his arms, reached out and took the bottle from Begbroke’s hand. ‘I’ll take that.’ He held it carefully at the top with gloved hands and sniffed it, waved it under his colleague’s nose. ‘Smells flammable to me.’
Begbroke’s whole body began to shake, his heart felt as though it was beating in his head, a slow rhythmic toll. ‘It’s just a bottle of AltCon.’
The woman in the bed wasn’t the woman who’d brought him here. He looked back at her lying flat out in the bed. Was she even alive? Suddenly she turned her head and sighed deeply. Her eyes rolled in her head. Had she taken something? He could see her face now and recognition slowly burrowed though his dazed state. Lexi! This was the woman he’d dated before Corrina. What was she doing here? Was this her new place? What the hell was going on?
Begbroke turned back to see the dark-haired copper now standing closer to him, still holding the bottle, which now had a rag inserted into the neck. The man pulled a lighter from his pocket with his gloved hand and lit the rag, slowly returning the lighter to his pocket as he waited for the flames to get going.
‘No… no!’ Begbroke cried, shaking his head. His body felt beyond his control, as though his brain was sending the messages but they just weren’t reaching his muscles. He lurched forward, but the officer threw the bottle onto the bed then grabbed hold of Begbroke, his fingertips biting into the flesh of Begbroke’s arms.
The bottle bounced twice on top of the soft covers before the burning fuel came leaking out and soon there was a blanket of dancing flames covering the woman. She opened her eyes and started to wail, but appeared unable to move. The officer pushed Begbroke further into the bedroom and stepped back behind the other man who still had the gun trained on him.
Begbroke cowered and whimpered. The Aversion Therapy had done its job: his new-found fear of fire and whatever the other woman had put in his drink – where is she? – rendered him unable to run.
‘Help me,’ he cried, holding out his shaking hands, but the officers stood still and watched as the flames grew in intensity.
‘Help her…’ he whispered.
He looked back to Lexi, who was staring at him, terrified but motionless as the flames finally reached her.
‘What did you give her?’ he slurred and tried, in his fug, to reach out, but then pulled back as the flames suddenly engulfed her.
Soon, there was a revolting smell of melting hair and crisping skin which made him gag. The dark-haired officer suddenly dealt him a brutal punch to the temple and Begbroke fell across the bed, momentarily knocked out. The flames licked at him before gathering strength.
Mal ambled up the stairs and entered the bedroom, arm shielding his face against the rapidly growing heat.
‘You’ve planted the bottle, Bizzy?’ Mal asked. ‘I mean, they’ll know it’s him, but the more evidence the better.’
‘I know, I know!’ Bizzy said, irritated. ‘It fell off the bed, not broken, should be okay.’
‘Shall we go, Sarge?’ asked Mal.
‘Just wait, a few minutes more. Won’t be good if either of them survives.’
‘Them?’ asked Mal. ‘I thought she’d left already?’
‘I mean the other woman,’ Bizzy said.
‘There’s a fine line, lads, in waiting until we know for sure the fire has caught and waiting until the firefighters turn up,’ Sarge said. ‘And we definitely don’t want to be here when the real police arrive, do we?’
He grinned and Bizzy laughed.
Begbroke regained consciousness, his face close to Lexi’s charred and blistered one, just in time to feel the flames swallow him up.
‘I hope his screaming doesn’t wake the neighbours,’ Sarge tutted.
Mal looked at the bodies on the bed, but not for long as the heat hurt his eyes. For a split second he felt something he hadn’t felt before while he’d been with Diros – the name Sarge had given their gang: a flicker of doubt. More than a flicker. This should have been about Begbroke’s crime and arson – no one else should have been involved.
The trio stood watching until they could no longer take the temperature, and Sarge said, ‘Right, that’ll do. Some busybody neighbour will be phoning the emergency services now. Time to go, boys.’
And for the second time that week, Noah Begbroke experienced what it was like to burn.
But this time, it was for real.