Death & the City Book Two (47 page)

"I always thought this compartment was for smokers," I mutter, levering it up and finding the new equipment. "I hope you didn't pull this out of
Van Helsing's
ear. Don't know where he's been."

"When the toggle light starts flashing blue, you need to talk into the earpiece until it stops flashing and stays on," he says, as I find the earpiece's
On
button and press it, initiating the USB remote. "Just say anything you want. Recite a nursery rhyme, tell me a story - but don't sing, it gives a misrepresented version of your voice."

"So I can't do my Bruce Dickinson impression?" I say. The blue light starts to flash. "Okay, I can't think of a nursery rhyme and I don't know any stories off the top of my head, so I'll just tell you how my night went - seeing as nobody ever asks when I get home, because so far nobody's ever there. It was fine, thank you for asking, Warren. Didn't have any trouble, one or two First Aid cases, a kid on drugs - looking for Medieval dragons. I met a famous celebrity, Dr. Wang who wrote psychology books like
Free Your Mind
or whatever it was called, we had a nice chat. I thought about whether I should claim child support or give up my job, but then I think about giving up my job every night I'm stuck standing around looking at drunk people. I also thought about quitting playing
Hit-Man's Nemesis
today. I don't think I've got the right conscience for it. Okay, it's stopped flashing now. Actually it stopped flashing after I said thank you for asking, but I had a lot more to say than I thought."

"Good girl," says Warren, ignoring anything else I've just divulged for now. "Okay, nothing should happen when I say this on Speakerphone, but when you say it, you should get a response. Say: 'System status check.'"

"System status check?" I repeat automatically, without thinking. "Ow. It's beeping in my ear."

"Three beeps means it's 'On Standby.'"

"No, it was like five or six."

"That means it's one step ahead of you already, it means
probable target in range
, but that could be anything from a police scanner nearby, to a Gatso camera."

"Isn't it configurated for anything specific?" I ask. "Can I go back to using a baseball bat and skateboard? It sounds a bit indiscriminate."

"It's you that has to be specific. Ask it for system status 'surveillance.'"

I repeat the phrase with added 'surveillance' and report back three beeps.

"Means 'On Standby,'" he reminds me. "Not a surveillance target in range. Try 'offensive.'"

"System status offensive," I repeat, feeling like a Stormtrooper clone more than ever. I start thinking about hot chocolate for when I get home. I get six beeps in the ear. "Six this time."

"Means your target in range has a recognised arms signature," he tells me.

"Oh, good," I remark, with even more boredom in my voice than I was hoping to summon up. "Shall I carry on playing twenty questions with R2-D2? Like, is the target a man? Are they wearing a hat? Have they got glasses? Are they ginger? Do they have a beard? I'm not getting any responses from these, you'll have to give me a clue."

"You forgot to ask if it's human. It could be another remote device."

"System status human," I ask. It is just like a game of
Guess Who
, only more remedial. I get four beeps. "What does four mean?"

"Four means inconclusive. There might be body armour compromising a signal, or it might be simply a body."

"So either someone's learning lessons from what happened to the FTO and put on some padding, or a body's been dumped in a vehicle they want to get rid of somehow?" I reply.

"Yeah, okay, we're not jumping to conclusions, it's not like we want to stop them and ask for their details," Warren says. "We want it off the road."

"All at once, or one wheel-nut at a time?" I query. "I'm just wondering, what else I could ask this scanner to detect, other than human. Like non-human, considering whose car this voice recognition came out of, and his fantasy bounty hunter world."

"Well, you can play with it in your own time. Right now it's the arms signature that's the priority, not some hit-man's private life."

"I guess he's not talking yet, then."

"Oh, he's talking plenty. Just too much information to analyse under the influence of your boyfriend's truth cocktail. Got to filter out the fantasy from the reality."

"He's not my boyfriend. We've been on one date."

"What's he got to do, get on his hands and knees and beg?"

"Only if he's a target," I concede.

"I don't know what's worse, women who delude themselves too much, or women who refuse to be deluded at all," he remarks. "Both types are too much like hard work. All right, you need to catch up to the HGV ahead of you. We'll let you know what we pick up from the sensors."

"Is that the target, then?" I ask, touching down on the accelerator a bit.

"No, that's going to be your cover," he replies. "You're going to hang around loose in front and wait for the target to catch you up."

"Oh, okay - sounds like a plan."

"In the meantime you need to set up the A.I. You've got to ask it to download, unzip and then install a program called Response Version 7.1. You'll get a single continuous warbling tone after each command to denote it's operating, then if it's successful you'll get the 'standby' notification to move onto the next. If you get 'inconclusive' you have to ask it to confirm the operation, if it's still inconclusive you have to start the operation again. You'll get a spoken tutorial when it's installed. It's not interactive, just a recording, so don't go thinking anything in your car has a personality."

"Does that include me?" I grin hopefully.

"You can listen to the tutorial any time just by asking System Status for it," he says, as I ask System Status to download the file, and a very 1980's jingle-jingle tone starts in my ear. "And you can skip it at any time too."

"Why all the binary code and Morse noises?" I mutter. "Why not a Speaking Clock or Pythonesque sat-nav voiceover?"

"Well, it slows down operation, has to be translated for various territories, takes time to write and program, and users expect too much of it from watching too much
Transformers
and
Knight Rider
," Warren says, logically. "The simplest form of interaction has the least amount of things that can go wrong with it as well. You'll get an SOS Morse notification if the system is ever compromised or inoperable. Meaning you are then welcome to get out the old baseball bat."

"Awesome," I reply, with a nod. "Glad to hear I'm not tied inextricably to the onslaught of modern technology."

"Speaking of old technology, you've got Scud navigation built in now instead of the remote control drive. It's not set up yet either, you'll have to bring it in when we've got something suitable."

"Well, apparently, I'm going away for a week this Sunday - you're welcome to play with it," I say, and the system tells me it's On Standby again. "Er, system status unzip file."

"Be specific," Warren reminds me, as I get four beeps in response.

"System status unzip Response Version 7.1," I say, gritting my teeth and wringing the steering wheel in irritation. The warbling tone starts promptly, and I calm down again. Already expecting too much of it. I'll be dreaming about it giving me sartorial and dating advice next. Probably a good thing that it sounds like a ZX Spectrum. Never mind the N.A.S.A. Space Program. It's more like the Nishikado
Space Invaders
program.

The file unzips quickly and I give it the 'Install' command, as I overtake the HGV and pull into the lane a safe distance in front. I begin reducing speed to keep it in my rear view, settling to a steady cruising pace. The recorded tutorial suddenly starts in my ear with a very confidence-inspiring, motivational-toned 'Hello!' which makes me jump a mile - particularly as I'm sure it's either Robert Llewellyn, or Stephen Fry's voice.

As I listen, I wonder if either of them have appeared as entertainment speakers at one of head office's mysterious conferences. On the subject of 'Making Friends With New Technological Advancements.'

Soon as I get this thing near my own tools, I think to myself, this talking Morse-bot is heading straight for the toaster. See how it handles a few crumpets and a bagel…

Chapter 38:
Quality Time

I wake up on Saturday morning at home, with my usual deliberations over which of the so many versions of my dreams might have been the reality. Like, am I dead. But the familiar cobweb in the corner of the ceiling has a certain grounding presence, as I watch its blurry grey shadow move without apparent disturbance in its ghostly undulations, directed by God only knows.

I move to stretch, and find the rest of my bed unoccupied, so possibly only hormones and the fear of recent brainwashing meant I dreamt the one about Connor giving up on his self-control ideas. And the big-faced digital alarm clock, propped up in its compact black leather stitched wallet on the cluttered chest of drawers, wedged into the narrow space beside the bed, tells me by its very existence that I'm not one of the Borgias' recent dinner guests. Who, in my rapidly clouding dreamscape memory, were telling very rude jokes in Scouse accents at some Romanesque food-themed orgy. Where I avoided eating anything other than a breadstick, trying to climb out of the nearest pillared balcony when someone announced that pizza was on the way. I wonder if I stopped off at Crypto on the way home and found Elaine giving the whole of Red Watch a lock-in lap-dance in V.I.P, or whether that was a dream. Considering she was very primly appreciating her new guy last time I saw her. Was Niall Taylor really working in the same venue as me last night, talking about his girlfriend wishing he was a vampire, or was that a dream? And did Martha ring me in my sleep and ramble on about a wild horse rescue centre I had supposedly promised to make a contribution to? I hate those dream phone calls. My dream hands can't operate the keypad buttons, and nothing I mumble into it makes any sense, unless I talk Mandarin or Japanese. For some reason the person phoning me in my dream is always in a mood, and on about imaginary promises I haven't kept. I asked my counsellor about it once, during our short series of consultations years ago, and she said it was about unfulfilled goals that my subconscious had set a time-frame for achieving. I remember thinking back then, how inconsiderate it was of my subconscious to have so much expectation of me. Like having internal parents looking over my shoulder the whole time, tapping their wristwatches, tutting and shaking their heads regretfully.

An empty apple and watermelon JJ soft juice drink bottle is standing behind the clock. I stare at the empty glass bottle and its cheery fruit-shaped label, willing its solidness and reality to provide an earthing point for the strangely alive tentacles of alternate realities flailing out of my brain, somewhere between consciousness and sleep.

As often happens, my alarm goes off as I'm awake and looking thoughtfully at the clock-face, but not fully registering it. I stretch again, and try to encourage my body to feel motivated enough to sit up.

"Made you a cup of tea," Connor announces, walking in and putting it down next to me, pressing the button on the clock to mute the alarm. "Sleep okay?"

"Now I'm really confused," I reply, and rub my eyes. I notice that I slept in my uniform, which isn't unusual as my house only has one working storage heater, in the hallway of all places, and no double-glazing. So that definitely doesn't fit the dream I had. "I dreamt you were here. But I was pretty sure waking up just now that you weren't."

"I just got here," he confirms, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Just finished a late uniform shift. More tramps, more drunks, more hippy protesters, more escaped or missing animals. The usual."

He reaches out and teases a strand of my hair. I sit up, unsure how I feel about things, now my dreams have compromised a lot of my memories about him lately.

"How was work last night?" he asks me, as I reach over and idly move the JJ bottle before picking up my mug of tea. I recall vaguely putting the other drink in the fridge before coming to bed.

"Kaboom," I say, sipping my tea, the first word I can think of. I remember standing in the kitchen downstairs last night, holding the now-empty JJ bottle and a dolphin bottle-opener, not moving and staring at the wall saying 'kaboom' to myself like a self-hypnotic mantra. While my ears were still ringing, and the faint after-images burned into my retinas still danced around at the corners of my vision. "Fireworks."

"Fireworks, huh?" he smirks. I grin. I think I was probably grinning to myself last night in the kitchen as well. "Whatever lights your candle."