Chapter Two

Quentin Campbell had learned from personal experience that with a good barrister and a thick arresting officer, you can cut your best mate’s throat with a broken beer bottle and only go to prison for a few years. The trouble is, afterward, you have to find a new best mate to pick you up from prison, and not many blokes want to be best mates with someone who cut their last best mate’s throat. Your new best mate might be an unreliable beaut like Edward Reid, who leaves you waiting five and a half hours outside Liverpool prison until he finally shows up, piss drunk. Though Quentin had built up a great deal of anger waiting for Edward, when he finally showed up in his seventeen-year-old Audi, Quentin felt relieved more than anything as he settled into the passenger seat. Anything to get away from the old man.

“So, how was prison?” asked Edward. He scratched his ginger beard, picked up a can of beer from the cup holder, took a swig, and passed it to Quentin, who finished it.

“Sound,” he said. Quentin looked out the window, but night had fallen, and he saw only his own reflection, his dull, brown eyes looking years older than they had when he’d first been locked up.

“Lettin’ you finish your sentence early on good be’aviour. Good be’aviour! Never seen you be’ave good in your life,” said Edward.

“I just wanted to get away from the bloody ol’ man.”

“The daft ol’ cellmate you was tellin’ me about?” Edward laughed gutturally, revealing his striking overbite and large gap between his two front teeth.

“Yeah, remember how the gov’nor kept on jokin’ about how lucky I was not to have a cellmate? I mean, I knew the ol’ man wasn’t all there, but he was bloody clingy.” Quentin crushed the beer can with his tattoo-covered hand and tossed it out the window.

“I thought you said he just sat around all day in his bed ramblin’ on about some nonsense.”

“Yeah, the bloke was ancient. His clobber was proper antwacky. And he kept on complainin’ about schoolchildren.”

“You’re startin’ to look pretty ancient yerself, fuckin’ greyin’ all over, like.” Edward tousled Quentin’s dark, curly hair aggressively. Quentin pulled away and shoved him back. The car swerved.

“But this fuckin’ ol’ man took a likin’ to me.”

“A bloody poof.”

“Followed me around everywhere like a bloody dog I’d have to shoot between the eyes.”

“What kind of a sick bastard shoots a dog?” Edward’s tone instantly changed from amused to stern.

“Even when I thought I’d lost him, he’d be right behind me shoulder, repeatin’ the same shit over an’ over. ‘Bad children must be punished.’ Clearly some sort of child murderer.”

“Or molester.” Edward laughed. “Show me on the doll where the ol’ bugger touched you.” Quentin shoved Edward again. The car swerved a little more.

“And he smelled like shit, too. Like rotten eggs. I couldn’t bloody stand it anymore and asked for a cell transfer. The gov’nor himself came to see me, looked at me like I was mad, said I was lucky and should shut it.”

“So you had to keep sleepin’ in the same room as your pedophile?”

“I told the gov’nor I couldn’t stand the ol’ man, that he was always hangin’ aroun’, pissin’ me off, sayin’ all this rubbish…”

It looked physically difficult for Quentin to finish telling his story, almost like it pained him; he locked his jaw, shut his eyes and took a deep breath before carrying on. Edward knew Quentin was a hard man who didn’t feel pain. Nonetheless, the visible struggle gave Edward a violent chill like someone had tossed a bin of ice water over him.

“Well, go on, then!” said Edward.

“So, as I was explainin’ me’self to the gov’nor, I noticed the fuckin’ ol’ man standin’ right behind him, shaking his bloody head but, slowly, like. And his fuckin’ eyes, mate, they’d gone completely fuckin’ white. But the worst part was what the gov’nor said.”

Edward remained silent, both hands gripping the wheel as best he could despite his increasingly sweaty hands.

“The gov’nor said, ‘What old man?’”

“You’re pullin’ me leg, you fuckin’ bastard, you’re pullin’…” But by the desolate expression on Quentin’s face, Edward knew Quentin was quite serious. He’d gone mad in prison, the poor bloke.

“The ol’ man bloody lost it after that. His eyes were always fuckin’ white an’ empty an’ he wouldn’t stop wailin’ an’ moanin’ about naughty children. I’d tell him to fuck off and it’d only get worse, he’d get louder, at night he’d be scratchin’ the bloody walls cryin’ how he had to get out to punish the children. Sometimes at night I’d wake up and he’d be right bloody there in me bed, face to fuckin’ face, empty white eyes starin’ at me, but then he’d be gone in a flash.”

“A real fuckin’ wanker.”

“And he kept fuckin’ hummin’ all day the same bloody evil melody, like this.” Quentin hummed a dark theme in a minor key.

“Your ol’ man’s got good taste. That’s Rachmaninoff’s prelude in C# minor.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow in reaction to Edward’s unexpected musical knowledge and carried on with his story. “I wanted to get out early on good be’aviour, you know? But the ol’ man needed to be put out of his misery.”

“The merciful thing to do at that point.”

“I took me toothbrush, sharpened the end, and kept it under me pillow. Next time the ol’ man would crawl into me bed, I’d take him out.”

“Fuckin’ ol’ man.”

“So, it’s the middle of the bloody night, and I fuckin’ hear him like his voice is comin’ from all the fuckin’ walls. He was hummin’ that bloody tune again. So I open me eyes, and he’s right above me in me bed, ’bout an inch away, eyes all white, his bloody mouth wide open, fuckin’ rotten teeth in me face, and his throat was like a bloody black hole or somethin’ and yet he’s still fuckin’ yellin’ about children an’ all that without even movin’ his bloody lips.”

Edward missed a stop sign despite his eyes being glued to the road. “Fuckin’ wanker.” His voice trembled.

“So, I went right for the jugular, but me bloody hand went right through his neck, like he was made of some fuckin’ cold, damp air, like mist or somethin’, but colder. And that made him real angry.”

“So, he wasn’t real.”

“He was a fuckin’ ghost, mate.”

“Fuck off.”

“After I tried to kill him, he grabbed me throat with his disgustin’ misty hand, and shouted, ‘Bad children must be punished!’”

“You’re so full of shit, mate. You can’t touch him, but he can grab you?”

“It’s a ghost. He’s got his own set of rules. But look, I’ve still got marks along me neck from where he grabbed me.”

Quentin pulled down the collar of his shirt, revealing a blue and black handprint, with five scars at the ends of each finger like nails had pierced him around the trachea. The surrounding area was a greenish, rotten colour.

“Looks boss.”

Quentin grabbed one of Edward’s hands and pressed it against the mark. It burned his hand frozen like it had been soaked in liquid nitrogen. Edward yanked his hand away and said nothing. The silence grew unbearable, and Edward turned on the radio. It played Rachmaninoff’s prelude in C# minor. He hurriedly changed the channel, but the prelude played on all of them, growing louder into an invasive crescendo. Quentin plugged his ears with his index fingers as the music grew louder. A sulphurous odour filled the car.

“Your ol’ man, he’s got empty white eyes, a long beard, an’ a crooked nose?” asked Edward.

“Is right, why?” Quentin looked out the windscreen. Only the dark road lay ahead.

Edward was unsure he would manage to respond due to the paralyzing fear taking over him. When he moved his mouth, it felt numb, as though he’d been injected with novocaine. “Just made eye contact with him in the rear-view mirror.”

The old man sprang forward from the back seat and seated himself between the driver and passenger’s seats. “Naughty children must be punished!”

Quentin and Edward jumped.

The old man vanished, and the car accelerated toward Stanley Wexler, who was riding his bike across Bowsell Street.

“Slow down!” Quentin commanded.

“I’m not doin’ anythin’!” said Edward.

Quentin yanked the emergency brake, which merely softened the blow for young Stanley, who was projected off his bike onto the side of the road. The boy’s helmet cracked as he struck the asphalt headfirst against the curb. Edward stopped the car, and the two walked over to Stanley’s motionless body.

“Should we call an ambulance?” asked Quentin, nudging Stanley with his foot. Stanley moaned, blood dripping out of his mouth.

“Way too bloody bevvied, mate. We’ll take him back with us, I’m sure he’ll be fine.” They picked Stanley up, lay him down along the back seats, and awkwardly shoved his bike in with him. They headed back to Quentin’s. Both men stared straight at the road ahead, not saying a word, with only Stanley’s erratic breathing breaking the silence. Edward wondered if the smell of metal in the car came from the bike or the child’s blood. He rolled down his window. Quentin reached toward the radio but stopped just before turning it on. He didn’t want to hear that bloody tune again. He looked at Edward.

“How the fuck does an arse like you know about Rachman-fuck-off’s prelude in C# minor?”

* * *

Karl Schmidt’s tea had gone cold. Dalton McGovern’s eyes were lit up and he smiled eagerly, awaiting a reaction from Karl, who felt like a slow pupil. Noticing his anxious enthusiasm, Karl attempted to process the information Dalton had unloaded onto him moments earlier.

“I don’t get it,” said Karl.

“I don’t see what is so hard to understand!” Dalton slammed the table. Karl stayed quiet, his eyebrows raised slightly. Dalton shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and continued. “I’ll try to make myself clearer. Using nanotechnology, I have figured out how to map a subject’s neural network and recreate the neural network in a simulated environment, essentially uploading the subject’s consciousness to a series of servers, or a cloud, if you will.” Dalton’s eyes lit up once more.

Karl nodded. “Neural… net… yes.”

Dalton was growing irritable again. Clearly Karl understood nothing. He got up and put the kettle on.

“How does this make me immortal?” Karl pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Because it sounds like you’d just be making a copy of my mind, but I myself would be quite dead. None of it would be real.”

Dalton’s enthusiasm slowly returned, realizing Karl had understood more than he’d expected. “It wouldn’t be a simple copy of you. What I am telling you, is it is possible to isolate your mind, your consciousness, and preserve it for all eternity. Death is the expiration of your body. But you know what happens to your consciousness when you die? It lingers in there. In a decaying body. Trapped in an empty void of non-existence until the last light of your brain burns out.” The passion in Dalton’s eyes faded with that last sentence, as he recalled his own recent experience.

“And how do you expect to get away with what will inevitably be a controversial, unethical project?”

Dalton brought the next serving of hot tea over to the table. “I’m a scientist, not a lawyer. I push boundaries, I don’t hide behind regulation that cannot keep up with progress.” Dalton poured precisely the same amount of tea into both their cups. He aligned them with one another, handle to handle. Karl had placed sugar cubes in a bowl, which Dalton placed in the centre of the table. He began rearranging the cubes, building a perfect pyramid structure. Karl felt a sudden urge to flick and scatter them. Instead, he took one and placed it into his tea. Dalton immediately fixed the pyramid.

“That’s just it though, you’re a computer scientist. What makes you think you have the expertise to achieve such a thing? You don’t know anything about human beings. You can’t even interact with them properly without insulting them.”

Karl flicked the sugar pyramid. The cubes tumbled down onto the table. Dalton gasped slightly, shut his eyes, and exhaled slowly. He opened his eyes and stared away from the bowl.

“A brain is a computer. Remember when your laptop broke, and you lost all your data? What did I say?” Dalton twitched slightly when he caught a glimpse of the sugar bowl in his peripheral vision.

“That I should have backed my files on a… drive… cloud… thing.”

“Very good. In case of a malfunction causing you to lose your data, you should always have a physical and/or cloud backup.” Dalton sipped his tea.

“Fine, the brain is a computer, but you still need to play with people’s brains. The average computer scientist can’t even locate the clitoris.” Karl laughed at his own joke, and Dalton shuddered at the thought of the female anatomy. “But please be realistic, Dalton. It’s all very fascinating, and I understand you’ve been in search of a purpose for a while and almost dying was frightening. But you can’t play with people’s brains based on a personal experience.”

“You don’t get it!” Dalton crushed one of the fallen sugar cubes against the table. “That’s that feeling I had, that my consciousness was lingering around, reaching for any last little spark of life it could grasp. That’s what I can recover and preserve.” Dalton sat back down. “With the nanotech I’ve come up with, it will be possible to capture and transfer the mind after death, rendering the subject immortal after living an ordinary life. The mind would then live in a virtual reality for all eternity, which I would create through quantum computer simulation.”

“I see. Even if you’re dead, your brain still has information you can recover, and you’ve figured out how to do it.”

“Precisely! The brain does not have to be continuously active to survive or retain memory. I can catch the mind at that perfect moment when activity has stopped, but before too much damage has occurred. People live their ordinary lives, die, and come back in the afterlife.”

“But what about resources… funding… support… I don’t doubt your abilities, but I fear these may be your greatest obstacles.” Dalton needed a purpose, and without wanting to discourage him, Karl did want him to lower his expectations.

“Oh, don’t patronize me. You think I’m just building myself up in my mind without a plan? I may occasionally have the odd… emotionally difficult moment… but I’m a man of reason.” Dalton took the sugar bowl, placed it back in the centre of the table, and began rearranging the cubes again.

“I didn’t mean to upset you—”

“There it is again! Upset! Like my reaction comes from emotion and not frustration due to your ignorance! I have a plan.”

And as the weeks went by, Dalton’s plan proved successful. The first weeks were spent on theories, equations, algorithms, some rubbish about Moore’s law and a black-box signal processing model of how neurons respond to nerve impulses. Karl and Darcy saw to the general maintenance of the apartment—and Dalton himself—as he finalized his plan. Next came the begging. Resources. Funding. And sure enough, some scientists from a research initiative based in Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne deemed Dalton’s plan worthy of starting a sub-project coordinated by the University of Liverpool. The Dean of the School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science told Dalton he could lead the project, but insisted he also teach an introductory linear algebra class.

And then came the animal trials. After a handful of dead rats—Dalton insisted it was all the neurosurgeon’s fault—finally, a rat by the name of Clyde survived the insertion of the nanotech into his brain. And when Clyde died a natural death, everyone except Dalton held their breath, waiting to see if he would come back in the simulated reality. Dalton wasn’t the least bit doubtful the rat would be back. The neurosurgeon had nothing to do with this part of the process, so surely it would work.

And it did. From a screen, they watched Clyde frolic about in the afterlife, which looked an awful lot like the Albert Dock.

“Don’t worry,” Dalton told a packed room of observers and reporters gathered at the press conference announcing the breakthrough. “We’re still developing the simulated reality. No one is spending all eternity at the Albert Dock.”

But Clyde didn’t seem to mind. Plenty of places to burrow about.

* * *

Stanley Wexler had been missing for the better part of a year. Assuming he was dead, Isidora Prentice tried to focus on her job. However, his mysterious disappearance always seemed to linger in the back of her mind and interfere with work.

Her latest assignment was to investigate a broken window. The cold rain pierced through her jacket as she stood in front of the damaged building.

“Not sure how long it’s been like this,” said the owner, who stood next to her. “Truth is, I don’t really go about fussin’ over every little scratch; probably some local lads messing around.”

Lads, thought Isidora. Lads like Stanley. She tried to focus on the building. Overall, it was poorly maintained. It was surprising he’d even bothered to report the damage to his insurer.

“Look, come inside, I’ll show you me’self what broke the window; I haven’t touched a thing.”

Isidora followed him indoors and observed that not only had he not moved anything around, he hadn’t even bothered sweeping up the shattered window glass.

“And it’s been like this for how long?”

“A few days, maybe a few weeks, or a month or two or more… Like I said, I don’t usually make a fuss… but look.” The owner pointed to a shoe on the ground. “That’s what did it. Some lad tossed his shoe right through me window.”

Isidora picked up the shoe. “It would take a very strong child to throw a little shoe like that hard enough to break a window.”

“Sounds like a hard lad!”

“Or rather, the child was not the source of the projection.” She ran outside, and the owner followed her, confused yet intrigued.

Isidora’s heartbeat quickened, as did her pace of speech. “Say you take a rather stupid child, who runs out of the house without tying his shoes. He gets onto his bike and when he’s about… here, he gets hit by a car that had been speeding and had slammed on the brakes a few seconds too late.”

The owner’s eyes widened.

“He’s projected forward off his bike, on a slight angle this way, rotating just over ninety degrees in the air, sending the shoe straight to your window.” The owner’s eyes followed the imaginary trajectory of the shoe to his window indicated by her pointed finger.

Isidora ran a few steps forward. “The child would have landed just about… here.”

She bent down and picked up a jagged piece of plastic sticking from a crack in the nearby gutter. She waved the owner over. He came and bent down next to her. She picked up the piece of plastic and showed it to him.

“Does this look like it could have come from a bicycle helmet to you?”

“Blimey! That’s from me mobile!” He pulled out his phone and showed her a chip on the side.

Another day of work meant another day of ridiculous theories for Isidora. After the broken window incident, she accused an arsonist of having killed her nephew in a fire and she suggested an automobile had not hit a pole, as the driver had reported, but rather her nephew. Complaints about Isidora’s theories began piling up and her employer was most seriously displeased.