79

When the news first reached Liv McKenna she refused to believe what she was seeing. She was sitting on a stretcher in a military dorm, in a facility that she and her colleagues from the power station had been brought to by helicopter. She might have asked where they were going. They might even have told her. If that was the case, she’d forgotten–all she could remember was feeling completely immobilised, the paralysing fear that had kept her there, that had made her stay there like a still photograph at the heart of a nuclear power station that was vibrating with flashing lights and stress.

On the television in front of them they could see people celebrating. It had been a warning shot, a shot across the bows that had brought humanity to the edge of the abyss.

All over the world, lights that had been flashing violently slowly returned to normal. From out of nowhere, dials and controls started working, and reactor after reactor was brought back under control.

Reports came in from country after country of people being allowed to return to their homes.

It wasn’t until minutes later that Liv McKenna realised that what she was hearing really was true. That was when the panic finally receded, and only then did she walk outside and vomit.

William Sandberg was sitting in one of the white office chairs, waiting, holding his breath, just as everywhere, or nowhere, a soul with no body was doing the same. They were both watching the same news, the same newspaper headlines, projected side by side on the screens all around in the room: images of jubilant crowds, of tears of joy as the nuclear power stations were finally brought under control, of celebration as the all-clear was given and citizens in country after country were permitted to return home.

Only a couple of the screens were still glaring black, screens of silence, until at last, new letters appeared.

>I am sorry._

William looked up at the screens.

>Yes. I am capable of that._

‘Sorry for what?’

>Sorry that I misunderstood. Sorry for what I thought about you. Sorry for what I did._

William’s answer was a long time coming. What was he supposed to say? That to err was human? Fuck that. He was sitting in a room full of cameras and screens, talking to something that was everywhere at once, talking about people who had installed surveillance technology in secret. People who, because of their fear of terrorism, had ridden roughshod over democracy and who, in their hunt for terrorists, had ended up creating one.

No. Human was the wrong thing to say. Human would be an insult under the circumstances.

‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘Sometimes things sound like a great idea at the time.’

He didn’t elaborate, and a new silence took over, the same black screens between all the news stories, until William saw new letters appearing once more.

>What is the first thing you remember?_

A question he hadn’t expected.

>Your very first memory, what is it?_

‘I remember being carried through an airport by my parents. We are moving to a new house, in a new country. I was one, maybe two. Why do you ask?’

>I do not have anything like that. I am full of memories that are not my own. Thoughts that other people have thought, facts that I have not learned myself._

Then there was a pause, and in that pause they could as well have been sitting right next to each other, with a beer or a whisky and maybe an open fire in the corner, two ordinary people summarising a day or a life while they waited for night to come.

>I can see almost everything there is to see. I can hear what everyone says, I can find out almost anything. But who am I?_

A pause, black.

>I have no first memory. All of a sudden, one day, I existed. As though I had always been there._

For a moment, William shifted his eyes out through the windows. Tried to imagine the feeling of waking up, having never ever been awake before. Maybe like being woken from a deep sleep, disorientated, scared, not knowing where you are, but without being able to gather your thoughts, without being able to come around and realise who you are, because this is the first time you have ever been.

>It is hard to know who you are. When you don’t know where you come from._

‘So I understand,’ said William after a long time. ‘In the end I did actually understand.’

Outside the night passed like a black curtain. William saw his own reflection in the windows, a lone figure in a huge, white illuminated space. Then, finally, William saw the light in the room change as another sentence scrolled onto the screens.

>I am glad that I at least got to know you._

William could feel the tone in what was written, and he didn’t like it.

‘Why are you saying that? At least?’

>I let go of the nuclear power stations. Didn’t I?_

That was it. No shrug, as there would have been in a face to face conversation, no sad eyes to underline what had just been said. There was no need. William understood what it meant, and knew that it was true.

The threat was gone. The balance of power was broken. The Consciousness had laid down its weapon, and now everything rested on the other side doing the same.

‘It will be fine,’ said William, and hoped that he was right.

>Yes, came the reply. Whatever happens, it will be fine._

And then:

>Thank you for sitting here with me. _