Sometimes people claim to have voices in their heads. They are interpreted as a conscience, or the Voice of God, or the whispering of spirits . . . Sometimes those people are telling the truth. Sometimes they are mistaken, and sometimes they lie. No matter what they or anyone else thinks, sometimes those voices do exist. And I am one of them.
Perhaps I am the result of a disturbed mind. The man I speak to, whose mind I co-inhabit, is named Julian MacKay. His thoughts were twisted long before my arrival. His early years -- a mess of conveniently-buried memories, troubled adolescence and tortured insects -- might have something to do with his current state of mind.
He is content. He is mildly curious about the question of the existence of God. He considers himself something of a gastronome, hence his current position in the comfy booth in the corner of a newly established cafeteria in Burbank, California. He thinks that his work brings him here, but it is not; it is the bagels.
He has a little cyberpet device that sits on the table like a hockey puck and projects a hardlight holographic image of a puppy. The puppy's called Pat and its rudimentary artificial intelligence has developed a habit for licking between his fingers -- very cute.
Julian watches Pat play on the smooth surface of the table, the sound on mute so as not to disturb the other punters. Above the mutt's bobbing head he watches a man named Theodore Henson, the producer of that reality TV show where the winner gets to be President for a term. He's eating Belgium waffles with chocolate sauce, when he should be using Maple syrup or perhaps fresh butter.
Pat yaps soundlessly. Julian presses a button on the puck to feed it, then puts it away.
A waitress named Sylvia brings him another coffee and a small bottle of milk. The advertisement on the milk moves and talks: "Premier NBA champ Wallis Walton drinks Bluefields brand milk!"
The producer Henson gets up from his seat after slipping his breakfast into a plastic container; he's taking it to go after all. His bodyguard gives him a few quiet words, points to his fry-up. He can't take that out. Henson leaves anyway, and the bodyguard starts rushing through the breakfast so that he can follow.
Time for action, I urge and -- as always -- Julian listens to me.
He puts his hand in his jacket pocket and slips on the glove, flexing his fingers inside the weave of cotton and circuitry. The electro-organic charge starts up, buzzing inside his pocket -- it's like sticking his hand into a box of fuzzy caterpillars.
Standing, Julian moves towards the lone bodyguard. With those glasses and that nondescript outfit, Henson would probably never notice if, say, a mercenary took his bodyguard's place. Julian approaches quickly, moving deftly around the tables. The glove is making an audible hum now, almost fully charged.
"I didn't stay here to finish my breakfast," the bodyguard says unexpectedly. He raises his head and examines Julian through his sunglasses, chewing on some sausage and baked beans. "I asked my boss to go to the car and call the police. You're pretty obvious, you know, and that cyber doggie you've got drew attention right to you."
"He's called Pat," Julian tells him. "Pat the dog."
"That's funny."
Julian does an excited little fight-dance that I tell him, all the time, not to do. "We gonna ruck?"
"There's a storeroom next to the Ladies". The bodyguard stands, scraping his stool back against the linoleum. He's broad at the shoulders, but he's fat. All those fried breakfasts.
"Cop or assassin?" he asks on the way.
"Latter. Does your boss get lots of cops asking after him?"
"Occasionally," the bodyguard says. "I deal with those, too."
He pushes open the door to the storeroom and Julian enters first, exposing his back to him. He gets a perverted thrill from not knowing if the bodyguard is the type to throw a bullet into his spine. The door closes and Julian turns around, and there the bodyguard is, cracking his knuckles. The back of his right hand has wires running under the skin: he's augmented. Julian nods at the wires, arching his eyebrows.
"Bone augmentation," the bodyguard explains, pulling up his sleeve. The skin has a metallic gleam, but there are blue-green patches that look kind of decayed. "Polymetal porefiller, as well."
"And all the steroids."
"And all the steroids. Tell you what: I'll remove the augmented arm--" He reaches up to his shoulder from under the sleeve of his shirt, pops a few catches, and detaches the entire limb from his torso and puts it carefully on top of a crate of sun-ripened tomatoes. "There we go. Now it's a little more even."
"I'm gonna break your nose again," Julian taunts.
"My nose was never broken."
"Really? It started out like that? I'm so sorry."
The bodyguard launches at Julian, but Julian's fast with the fists and gives him a blast with the glove; the bio-cells deplete in a single burst, flash-frying the bodyguard's chest amidst curls of sharp white electricity. Something splutters inside his empty shoulder joint and blood squirts out; his eyes roll back and he hits the floor hard.
Julian checks his pulse with his fingers. Still alive.
Take off all his clothes, I say.
The person who gave Julian the initial job wanted less of a straightforward killing and more of an interrogation. The producer, Theodore Henson, wasn't the straightest arrow and Julian's client thought there had been something fishy going on with the telephone polls on his latest audience-grabber.
"Providence" was the name of the game, a reality TV show in which several contestants were thrown together into the same house and forced to ridicule themselves periodically to an audience of millions. Some of the contestants were celebs -- even former Vice President Cropper was in there, revealing his vices to the world a second time -- and others were just fanatics wanting their 15 minutes.
The contestants were observed 24-hours a day as they do their stupid, America-themed challenges. I remember one where they had to duel on top of a slippery pole, whacking each other with giant padded staffs. Both the contestants were wearing top hats and fake beards, and nothing else but a pair of Y-fronts with little back coat tails flapping at the back.
The host was the current Secretary of State, who thought the entire thing was a laugh-riot. His unorthodox and arguably prejudiced comments won him great acclaim. And the British Prime Minister guest-starred for a week, just to boost his popularity over here -- he had a bucket of slime poured over him.
The winner would be voted for by the great American public, and whoever entertained them the most could then entertain the world as the US President for four years. A whole term in the White House
The one who finally won it ("First thing I'm doing is getting a cooler full of Heinies installed in that Round Office", he said) is now sitting comfortably in the Throne of the US, having a thoroughly good time. Nobody seems to have an issue with it, but that isn't the problem -- Julian's client is concerned that the winner should never have been put there in the first place.
Dressed in the bodyguard's impersonal garb, Julian heads nonchalantly over to Henson's armoured jeep and reaches for the driver's door. It's locked. The producer looks at him through the window, mildly baffled. Julian mimes laughter and fumbles in the bodyguard's pockets, pulls out a key fixed by a wire to the inside of the lining, and unlocks the car.
Henson opens the little slot between his cushy area in the back and Julian's cramped little driver's space. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"What happened with the guy?"
Julian starts up the engine, making sure to pop the locks on the rear doors. "Oh right. He had a cocky eye. Wasn't looking at you at all. I straightened him out anyway, don't you worry."
"You straightened him out?"
"Where to, guv?"
"The office."
"The office in Mulholland?" Julian asks.
"Yes, that's where my office is."
Julian drives, making sure that he doesn't perform any illegal manoeuvres. When he thinks that Henson isn't looking, he throws a few glances at him in the mirror. Henson is underfed and has skin the colour of a two-egg omelette. For some reason he likes the idea of the old style of sight correction and has out-dated spectacles that sit on his nose and hold on at the ears. They magnify his eyes slightly. Thin strands of fudge-brown hair drift away from his wrinkled forehead and dangle behind the lenses; he has the infuriating habit of trying to blow them away, like a bizarre nervous tic.
Ten minutes later Julian pulls into a parking space with the guy's name on it. He switches off the engine and sits there, waiting for Henson to get out. He doesn't. Julian looks at him, and he looks back.
Get out, you fool.
Julian gets out and opens the door for him, and Henson forgives him his trespass. Julian tramps into a huge, reflective building and travel up in the elevator to his office on the twelfth floor.
"Aren't you going to go in and check for danger?" Henson asks, standing in the hallway outside the door.
The office walls are transparent. Julian and I can both see that nobody is inside.
"Of course I am," Julian says slowly, and steps into the office. Henson follows him gingerly, and the moment the door is closed he slaps a switch, the walls fall opaque again and he has an energy pistol in his hand.
"You must think I'm an idiot," he says shakily, swapping hands. He wipes sweat off one hand and then puts the pistol back into it. "What did you do with Reggie?"
"Reggie's having a sleep after that huge breakfast he had. You know, you should get him started on pomegranates or something, because that fried stuff's not at all good for your heart."
"Neither is a laser bolt through your chest," Henson barks, frightening himself with his own voice.
This is not a good situation.
Perhaps I am an amalgamation of untested technologies. Julian's body is filled with machines smaller than atom clusters, surfing his bloodstream and ridding him of intoxicants, reducing or raising adrenaline amounts when necessary, and constantly working the strands of his muscles. Parts of his musculature are artificial; parts of his mind are not grey tissue and gelled chemicals but chips and strands of crystal and circuitry. He has implants to control these machines and implants to access radio and television transmissions, as well as telephone and vidphone networks. Perhaps these things altogether -- along with access to AI minds and intelligent computer systems, to the recorded thoughts of others and the NewNet -- are what created me.
Either way, he probably could take a laser bolt through the chest.
Julian steps forward and paws the gun away from him. Henson blinks in surprise. Julian aims it at Henson's stomach.
"Sit in that chair," he tells him.
"Are you with the New Nationals?" Henson asks timidly, lowering himself into the auto-ergonomic leather. It makes an inflating sound as it adjusts to his weight and build.
"No," Julian says. "I've been hired to question you a bit."
"Question me about what? Can I have a drink?"
"Only if I can have one too. Fresh orange juice. And I want to question you about your hit TV show Providence and its questionable vote-tallying methods.
The producer falls slack in his chair. He has two glass tumblers in his hands, and the ice within sings out like clock chiming midnight.
"Ah," he says. He passes Julian the orange juice.
Test it, I urge.
Julian uses a handheld scanner to check it for poison and it comes up negative. He sips and kind of shrugs with his face, suggesting that Henson continue.
"The tallying methods were automatic," Henson says hesitantly. "They were infallible. We've used the same system for decades."
"And yet the person that the general public adored above all the rest came second to that obscure bugger from NY State. Tell me how that happened."
His face goes the colour of lightly grilled chicken. "Look, if this is about some kind of bribe, or -- or blackmail of some sort . . . "
"Not really," Julian says. "I'm a merc."
"I'm sorry?"
"A hit man."
Very slowly, the man puts down his glass and clasps his shaking hands together. Julian gets this unhappy feeling in his chest. Like sauce boiling over the edge of a pan, Henson slides out of his padded chair and onto his knees. He puts his knuckles to his forehead.
"My Lord in Heaven . . . "
"Just tell me why you fixed the vote," Julian says, embarrassed.
The producer looks at him, seeming for all the world like a fully grown man about to break down and sob at Julian's feet.
"You're aware of the prize," he says.
"A term in the White House."
"That's right. We all thought it was a great prize."
"Better than most," Julian acknowledges.
"Except that we had no control over the winner of the competition," Henson blubs. "We thought we could ensure that the contestants were all morally sound by screening the applicants. They all appeared normal, or at least close to it ..."
"You mean they were freaks and they were entertaining enough for TV, but they weren't Mussolini."
"Exactly. Exactly. Providence was entertainment television with a big prize -- but it was more than that. Try to understand where I'm coming from when I say that we created a true democracy with Providence. Across the country we received over three hundred million votes: that's pretty much one per person, every man, woman and child over the age of sixteen. They voted for who they wanted in the White House. Do you know how many people voted in the last governmental election? Only ninety million. It should have been the most honest way to vote, incorruptible by politicians or government organisations ... But, ah, there was a problem. The cameras were picking up disturbing images of the public's favourite. He, ah ..."
Make him get to the point.
Julian waves the muzzle of the energy pistol in his direction, slurping his juice.
"We didn't show it on TV, obviously, but he used to pray, and his requests to the Lord were somewhat ... antisocial."
"How so?"
"He was a complete psychopath," Hensons says.
Julian helps him to his feet. He's beginning to see Julian as someone who might understand, who might let him off so long as he does as he's told. It's the best way for a merc to get what he wants, even if it is a load of bullshit.
"He hates foreigners," Henson continues. "He despises people from the Middle-East. And the French. He believes that our continent should be closed and barricaded and protected by automated weapons. He believes that people of other faiths should be eradicated by a great flood of holy fire; only active, vocal supporters of the Catholic God should be allowed to survive. To create a race of purer faith and concrete ideals."
"And he seemed like such a sweetheart."
"Apart from all that, he was. Nice as pie. It wasn't even an act, he was just a nice person with twisted ideals that he rarely talked about. I think that he knew how his views would be received, and so kept quiet in polite company. Psychopathic doesn't necessarily mean stupid."
Julian passes him his glass and gestures that he should refill it. "So you fixed the votes so that some other guy won."
"Yes," he admits, quietly. "Yes, I fixed the votes. I'm probably the one person at the studio who knows about it, and the one person of whom the others would never suspect could be capable of such a thing. I'm in charge of the quality checks as well, so I thought that the inconsistencies would never be picked up on.
"Is that how they found out?" he asks abruptly, jumping in his seat. His eyes swim with moisture that he can barely withhold.
"Who?"
"The people who hired you."
"I dunno, some rich guy thought it was fishy and asked me to look into it. Maybe kill the new President if it turns out the show was fixed. Maybe kill you."
"Are you going to?" he barely says, voice a whisper.
I consider it seriously. It's an option, to leave somebody alive. This was never a full Kill contract, Julian thinks, just a Seek & Interrogate. Ultimately, it is my decision, not Julian's. I could let the man live, or I could splatter his ketchup all over this fancy upholstery.
Do it, I say.
Julian holsters his pistol.
God damn you, do it!
"Oh, thank you!" Henson says, clasping his hands together again, this time in thanks.
I suppose it's better to leave a fool alive than spoil his day out of spite.
So the show was fixed. We know that it was Theodore Henson who fixed it. Our contract has been fulfilled; that was all we were hired to do. Julian should be able to collect his payment in a chunky manila envelope and eat steak tonight, but he feels a kind of invisible cap on his head, contracting and cracking bone, a sort of hook in his chest telling him that there's something else he needs to do. I have no part in this -- the feeling is something foreign and I'm not familiar with it myself. What is this extra impulse, this surge of alien desire?
Julian feels that he needs to visit the other contestant. The loser. The psychopath.
Julian has no permanent address. He stays where he's needed and moves when he's needed somewhere else -- this time he's lodged in a flat just off Lake Union where he can smell the water and hear the birds. It's not a long journey to get back home and bring up the contestant's details on a sweet piece of software he purchased eight weeks ago on the Chinese black market.
The other contestant is called Richard Wayne Baybridge, and he's hiding out on the posher side of Washington.
Julian's vehicle is fast and flashing in the sunlight. It's not raining for once -- the roof is down and the windshield's retracted, and Julian and I are speed, we are speed and freedom and the world is a bright, white place.
The contestant's front door is brown with gold trim and a bronze thumbplate. Julian presses it and it scans his faked genetic ID. After a moment a hidden speaker makes him jump and asks what he wants.
"Mr Baybridge? My name's Julian. I'm here about Providence."
"I lost, I've got nothing to do with it anymore." There's a pause. He certainly doesn't sound like a psychopath. "Are you from the press?"
"That's right, from the Post."
"Washington Post?"
"That's the one."
The door unseals and we're allowed in. The hallway is a little cramped but nicely decorated, and through it wafts the odour of sweet chillies, a touch of garlic, more fried vegetables. Julian can hear someone crunching, then a slurp from a can of something fizzy. Entering the first room adjoining the hallway, he sees the guy sitting in a comfy-looking ergonomic chair. The TV is set to a news channel, on which he is cycling through various stories with a remote. When he looks up and sees how sincere Julian's face is, he puts the little silver cylinder on the arm of his comfy chair and sits there watching me, chewing slowly like a cow.
"Interview?" he asks laconically.
"Mind if I sit down?"
"Go right ahead." He gestures to a chair with his fork. There is an overcooked noodle hanging from it, thick with gluten. "Is it okay with you if I leave the screen on? I like to keep abreast of world events."
Julian nods. "I've a few questions about your time with the show, if you don't mind."
"Shoot."
Shoot him.
"You were really popular. Did you know that?"
He grins, and it brings a bright, endearing light to his face. "I heard that after I came out. It was pretty close by the end, apparently only a few dozen votes in it. I could've won that, and then it'd be me sitting in that cushy chair instead of this juvenile."
On the screen, there is footage of the new President making a fool of himself. He's been asked to guest star on a quiz show and is getting all the answers wrong.
"I suppose things have gone downhill ..." Julian acknowledges.
"Snowballed," says Baybridge.
"Would you have been spending your time any more wisely?"
"I'd have already abolished all this celebrity politics nonsense. Did you know that the French President has his own fly-on-the-wall show? The world is a mess, my friend. If I could call down a great flood, I would. I'd brush away the chaff in our governments and start again. Sometimes I wish I could be a freelance mercenary and perform my own kind of clean-up politics. It would be easiest just to blow away everyone in the current government and start again afresh, be rid of all the corruption and back-handed crap that goes on today."
"So you're a man of your country, but you won't be blindly led." Julian pretends to take notes, but already he's getting that feeling again, the same impulse that drew him here.
The feeling pushes against me, as though we're two objects filling the same confined space, and the feeling is a balloon steadily inflating. What is this?
Perhaps I am a figment of Julian's imagination. Perhaps I am not really here, but only believe that I am. Perhaps I am the insubstantial result of Julian's existential philosophies. Perhaps I am dreamvapour.
Kill this man, I scream at him. This monster!
"Sure," Baybridge replies.
He's finished his meal and puts the sticky bowl onto a small, polished table, the fork rattling around its rim as he does so. With his silver remote he turns down the volume on the television; he's interested now, he's into what he's saying -- or maybe he feels a connection with Julian that isn't there, like he can really tell him anything. That's how Julian works. That's what makes him so successful in what he does.
"Do you know why I chose to go on the show?" Baybridge asks. "Not just because of its prize, but because of its title. Providence. Do you know why it's called that?"
Julian shakes his head. The unknown urge is growing in strength, like a gutworm swelling in size within him. The urge is heavy and unsettling.
Is it death? Julian asks me fearfully. Is it death that I'm to release upon this guy?
It's not a sensation he's felt before and it's nothing he's keen to put up with for long. Baybridge talks on, explaining, his voice carrying a didactic lilt that he enjoys hearing in his own ears:
"Providence is named after the all-seeing eye. You've seen it before, Julian, but you might not know it. On the reverse side of our US dollar bill, it can be seen presiding over mankind and our world -- also known as the Eye of Providence. I guess the producers of the show thought that it would be a great name for a United States-centred game show in which everybody is watched by hundreds of microscopic cameras. What excites me most is the phrase that accompanies it on our great seal: Annuit Coeptis. "God is favourable to our undertakings"."
"Do you believe in Him, in this day and age?" Julian asks quietly.
"Of course I do. He doesn't go away just because people stop believing."
"I'm surprised to hear you say that, considering your views. You don't seem to respect the sanctity of life very much."
Get it over with. Now!
Julian's hand is in his jacket pocket. He can feel the alternating textures of the glove's silver buckles and rubbery, tensile fabrics. It responds to his touch, suspecting that it might need to be used shortly. His skin tingles with combined electricity and microwaves.
"I respect life," Baybridge snaps, half-rising from his seat. "I respect it so much that I want to do it justice. Billions of people on this world deserve to be taken care of, and what do they get? That."
He jabs his finger at the idiot on the screen. Phoenix is in which state? asks the presenter. Brooklyn, says the President.
"There is a slate that needs to be wiped clean," he says, exerting control over himself and lowering his voice. "All we have to do is start again from the beginning. I'm not really suggesting that we murder these people. But it would be a damn site easier if somebody did. What about you? You're an assassin, aren't you?"
"What? ... No. I'm with the Herald."
"No you aren't. I got a call from Theodore Henson just ten minutes before you arrived, saying that a hit man type had paid him a visit and might be on his way to see me. That's you, isn't it?"
"Ah ..."
What's happening to Julian's ice-calm cool? Here he is, thinking that he's a rock, but really he's crème brûlée: hard on the outside, fluffy on the inside. It only takes this spoon sitting opposite him to give him a little tap, and ...
"Why don't you clean the slate?" Baybridge is saying. "Can't you do something about this mess, just wipe out the lot of them and let the good Lord sort them out? If-- Oh, excuse me."
Something is beeping. He reaches across the side of his chair and picks something up off the plush carpet. It's a metal object the shape of an aerodynamic puck, rimmed with pressure-sensitive pads around a central light projector. It bleeps as he activates it; a virtual rabbit hops into existence, settling onto his lap with its long ears laid across its soft white back.
"My cyberpet wants feeding," he explains, smiling. "His name's Arfur. Arfur Rabbit."
Arfur nibbles a virtual chunk of cauliflower out of Baybridge's fingers. Its large, brown eyes are looking at Julian but seeing me, penetrating, and simultaneously drawing me into its own round pits of darkness and revelation and guilt and a strong, potent need for redemption.
"So what do you say, Julian?" Baybridge is still smiling, stroking his pet. "Will a monster like you kill for a monster like me? I can pay whatever you ask."
Now . . . Now . . .
His hand closes around the glove.
A simple fry-up, English style with all the trimmings: plum tomatoes brought to the boil; sausages grilled without oil, bursting along their inside curves; bacon curling on the hot plate, mouth-watering; button mushrooms fried whole in a touch of sunflower oil ‘til the grey turns to bronze; baked beans, of course, to complement to golden, buttery toast.
"Two bacon and egg butties, Jules." Sylvia, the waitress, brings up a new order on the screen above the tables. "Ketchup on the first, no sauce on the second."
"Organic or vatgrown?" I ask, slipping the breakfast onto a large plate and arranging the toast stylishly in a rack.
"Standard vatgrown," she replies, and shoots me the grin she gave me that day we first met, when I came in here looking for that TV show producer and his augmented bodyguard. Sylvia's a real beauty, and keeps me going on the days where the most gourmet this café gets is a beef and onion sandwich. Its tolerable employment, though, and clean, honest pay. And I get to cook, even if it is just bacon and egg butties nine hours a day. I have a certain peace of mind now I never anticipated. The sweat and heat are sweet.
A screen above the kitchen door is turned to international news, blathering away about the troubles, the atrocities, and the "lighter" segments meant to show us that the world is still an okay place but convincing nobody. My ears prick when I hear the word "Providence":
--record number of viewers last year has applied for Senatorship for the Washington area following the deaths of several members of Cabinet. Concerns have arisen about the suitability of a self-made celebrity being nominated to represent the state, but test votes in the area have shown a surprisingly positive response. Mr Baybridge has this to say on the matter:
"After the surprising and tragic events of the past few months, it is essential to ensure that our country is run properly. As awful as those sudden deaths were, there are voids in the positions of power now, and the United States are in a position to rebuild the structure of our society and politics. With hard work and a bit of luck, we can--"
"Sounds like he knows what his goals are," says Sylvia, throwing some dirty plates into one of the machines. "Maybe we can get something done about all the problems that are stacking up. I don't like to talk ill about the dead, but the last Cabinet didn't do us many favours, did it?"
I shrug and wipe the counter. "It's best to leave it up to the professionals. Anyone else'll just make a mess of things."
"That's what I was thinking when I hired you," she replies, smiling again. She smiles a lot and, by God, it's invigorating.
"How's Steve doing with the cyberpet, by the way?"
"Oh," she says, "he loves it. I'm surprised that you'd give away such a top model. Don't you miss it?"
My turn to smile.
"Only a little," I say.