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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
WELCOME TO MAKE-BELIEVE. YOU CREATE THE FANTASY, THEY CONTROL YOUR MIND. Cassie worked at Imagen, the tech giant behind the cutting-edge virtual reality experience Make-BelieveT, and she got to know the product well. Too well. But Cassie has been barred from her escape from the real world, and legally gagged by the company. Her dream job now seems to be part of a larger nightmare, and Imagen is not done with her yet. With Imagen holding all the cards, and personal and public freedoms at stake, how far will Cassie go to end the deception? Immerse yourself in a near-future world akin to Black Mirror and Vox with an all-too plausible slant on reality and fantasy for our 'connected' times.
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Seitenzahl: 492
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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A USER’S GUIDE TO MAKE-BELIEVE
JANE ALEXANDER
To my family
This morning I am ready if you are,
To hear you speaking in your new language.
– from ‘A Note to the Difficult One’ W. S. Graham
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Outside the Georgian townhouse where the meetings were held, Cassie hesitated. Scraped her thumbnail against a fleck of rust that had stuck to the sweat on her palm when she’d chained her bike to the railings, and tried to count the weeks since she’d been here last: ten, or twelve, or even more.
She had known it was here if she needed it.
The steps up to the open front door, their smooth-worn stone, were familiar under her feet. Inside, a handful of early arrivals was gathered by the refreshments table – placed, as always, at the point furthest from the door, so as to entice people all the way in. Once they’d made it this far, they were less likely to bolt. That was the theory, at least. She wasn’t sure it had ever been tested.
The woman pouring tea was someone she should know.
‘Cassie! It’s a good while since we’ve seen you …’
A motherly woman, middle-aged. A face that was wide with perpetual surprise. Her name had an ay sound, like May, or Tuesday, but it was neither of those and in the end Cassie fudged it with a ‘Hi there, nice to see you …’
‘Tea? Milk, no sugar?’
People didn’t ask, here. If someone disappeared for months at a time, you didn’t ask, Where have you been? What’s been happening with you? You waited, instead, for someone to tell; and in the meantime, there was tea.
‘Biscuit?’
Cassie had done the welcomes herself, a couple of times. It was nobody’s job. They took it in turns. She hadn’t been much good. Remembering names and faces: a lot of them struggled with that at the group, Cassie wasn’t alone. The woman on duty today was unusual; she was good, fetching up Cassie’s name with barely a hesitation. But it wasn’t just the memory thing. Though no one had said so, Cassie was distant, too closed, knew that about herself. She was better on washing-up. Still, she’d done her best: always pushed hard on the biscuits, like sugar and fat could make up for a basic lack of human warmth.
April. A full minute too late, the name arrived in Cassie’s head. April was looking over Cassie’s shoulder now, ready to greet the next body, so Cassie smiled her thanks and took her tea round the circle of chairs. She’d have gone for the seat nearest the door, but someone else had got there first. No one she recognised. She gave a brief nod, left a space empty between them. She needed company, not talk. She was here for steadiness. For a hit of routine.
She scalded her mouth with tea, then glanced round to check no one was watching her before she placed the mug by her feet. She didn’t want to invite concern, the kind of conversation that could only become awkward. Surreptitiously, she reached into her pocket and drew out the memorial card.
As soon as she had torn the envelope, she’d known what it must mean. A glimpse of black border, and her vision had blurred; she had leant against the door in her flat, blinking hard, the card half-out of its envelope moulding to the damp heat of her hand. Blinked, till the name had come into focus – and relief had knocked the breath from her.
In Loving Memory
Please join us for a memorial service honouring
Valerie May Lauder
Not Alan. Only his mother. It was only his mother who’d died.
The meeting was filling up now, April remembering names like nobody’s business. Late afternoon light fell from the tall windows, making slanted squares on pale walls, on the worn Persian rug with its pattern the same as always. The space was strange and familiar both at once, but most of all it felt safe.
Safe: as if the notion had summoned him, in walked Jake, folder under his arm and the old purple piggy bank clutched in his hand. He saw her and smiled, waved the pig in her direction, and she lifted her hand in return. It was Jake who’d been manning the welcome table her first time here, and it was Jake who usually led the meetings, in a calm, quiet voice. Facilitated, he preferred to say. Whatever he called it, people paid attention.
He sat, now, the chair child-sized beneath his bearlike frame. Opened the folder on his lap, and waited. Around him, seats were chosen. Conversations tailed off. There was a moment of quiet: Cassie felt a lift of anticipation, a tide of silent disappointment – a swing of feelings almost too fast to name.
Just as Jake started to speak, the door thumped open.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said a young man, looking not sorry at all, looking confident and tall. He glanced round for somewhere to sit, and because the circle was full there was a pause while another chair was fetched, and then they all had to scoot backwards to open up space for this guy – Lewis – whom everyone seemed to know.
Cassie kept her irritation concealed behind a neutral face, wondered if everyone else was doing the same. As the meeting got underway with the usual reminder of confidentiality – What we say here, stays here – she studied the new arrival. He was wearing shorts, two pairs – Lycra under cargo shorts that looked like they’d been ironed. His naked legs intruded a mile into the circle. Until now, Cassie hadn’t realised she had a prejudice against men in shorts. As Jake spoke, Lewis shifted in his seat – and something flashed, making her blink. Unbelievable: his turn-ups were specially equipped with reflective stripes. Cassie priced him in her head: a hundred quid for the shorts. Another hundred, at least, for the top of the range Dutch pannier stowed under his chair. He was one of those guys for whom cycling was a way of life, not of getting from one side of town to the other. He probably owned multiple bikes for slightly varying conditions of road and weather, and he’d never dream in a million years of using a hacksaw to liberate an abandoned frame from the stairwell of a low-rise council block.
She watched him, enjoying her dislike for him. Told herself not to judge, and carried on judging.
And then he lifted his hand, and gently touched his ear.
Cassie stared. The pad of his thumb, the side of his forefinger, rubbing the lobe and the curve of cartilage. She could see he wasn’t aware of it; his attention was fixed on the woman who was talking, on the progress of speech around the circle. You might think he was checking a new piercing. But there was no ring, no stud, and that wasn’t what it meant, that gesture. Still holding the memorial notice, Cassie’s own hand lifted – and she pulled it down again as she realised, suddenly, that he was staring back at her.
She snatched her gaze from his face. Felt her own face hot. It took all her willpower to stop herself checking whether he was still watching – because in the fraction of a second their eyes had met, she’d felt like she could see straight through to the back of his skull, or the back of her own. Like something was aligned.
He was like her. The same as her. Maybe – probably – had to be—The proof would be if it came his turn to speak – and he chose not to. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that be a sort of proof?
The purple pig moved round the circle, passed from hand to hand: when it reached you, that was your turn to talk. A woman with a dragged-down face said how tough it was to get a job. The fat man beside her explained how he was trying to rebuild a relationship with his sons. It’s hard, they said, everyone said. Even the people who’d had a good week. It’s always hard, but … right now – today – I’m doing fine. It was a kindness to those who were struggling, and a superstitious insurance. This week I’m alright, they were telling the group. Next week, I could be you. Cassie hurried them on in her mind. Watched as the pig came closer. Along with everyone else, she watched as Lewis took it. Shook his head. Handed it straight to his right.
His neighbour began to speak, but Cassie kept her eyes on Lewis. Was still watching when he raised his head and glanced at her.
The card forgotten in her lap, Cassie touched her hand to her ear; deliberately, slowly, holding his gaze all the while. A signal. She saw his eyes widen, then narrow – and she shouldn’t be doing this, was going to end up in trouble, in a whole lot more trouble than ever. She bent her head. It felt like she’d peeled off a layer of skin. She stared at the rug, stared so hard that the pattern blurred and danced.
When the pig reached her she didn’t touch it, just pushed a little further back into her seat, and waved it past. Didn’t look up to see if he was watching. Knew he had to be.
Once everyone had talked, or chosen not to, the pig arrived back at its starting point. Jake stood up, thanked everyone, and gave it a shake.
‘You know the score, as always, donations welcome; whatever you can manage helps keep us in biscuits.’
He set the pig down by the tea urn. People flowed round him with coins ready to slot into its back, and empty cups ready to be refilled. Cassie pushed the memorial card back into her pocket and counted out her change. 50p would mean £17 to last the rest of the week. Which was fine. Which was doable. Without looking, she knew where Lewis was in the room. She knew he’d dropped some coins into the piggy bank. Knew he was ready to go, but not going, fiddling instead with the straps on his bag, on his helmet.
By the time she reached the table, Jake was stuck in one-sided conversation with someone Cassie didn’t know. She made her donation, then waited her turn, hovering till eventually Jake manoeuvred his way round the talker.
‘Cassie, good to see you,’ he said. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Yeah, alright, I mean – you know.’ She shrugged. ‘Just, keeping on. And you?’
He pulled a face. ‘You’re lucky to find us here still. We lost the last of our funding a few weeks back.’
‘Oh, no …’
‘Well, we knew it was coming, but … We’re on the lookout for a new home, and we’re down to Sunday afternoons and Tuesday evenings.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s brutal out there. But what can you do? I’m glad things are going OK for you, anyway. Will we be seeing you back next week?’
‘Hopefully,’ said Cassie. Without meaning to, she glanced towards Lewis, curiosity pulling her gaze like a magnet. He was waiting by the door, just as she’d guessed he would: waiting to make it seem like they both just happened to be leaving together. Trouble. The word sounded inside her head, and when he tried to catch her eye, she stared right through him. Looked away – and felt herself reddening under Jake’s observant gaze. ‘Or – soon, anyway,’ she said.
Behind her, April was patiently waiting her chance for a word with Jake. Cassie stood aside, raised her hand in a farewell to the both of them.
Head down, she made for the exit. Keep going. Don’t stop. Walk away. She could feel Lewis watching her as she passed him; it took all her willpower not to look up. When she reached the street, she realised she’d been holding her breath.
Someone had left a bike overlapping hers, on the same stretch of railings. A sparkling clean road bike, double locked; when she pushed it aside to free her rear wheel, with a sharper shove than was strictly necessary, it felt weightless despite its extra-large frame. It had to be his. She felt the ancient rubber of her handlebars sticky against her palms, heard the complaint of her rusted chain, and shoved down hard on the pedals, building speed as fast as she could – till a sudden grating sound made her glance down, just as the pedals locked.
‘Shit!’
She jerked to a stop, hauled the bike back onto the pavement and crouched to examine it. The chain, stretched and stiff, had slipped off the worn-down gears, wedged itself between the crank and the frame. She grabbed hold of it and started to pull.
‘Oh, come on, you bastard …’ No matter how hard she yanked, it wouldn’t budge. If she had a pair of pliers, maybe – but she had nothing with her. She sat back on her heels, swallowing hard. It was a long walk home.
‘Need some help?’
Lewis: she looked up to find him towering over her.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, in a voice that didn’t sound it. She gave the chain a heave. ‘It’s just – a bit – stuck.’
‘Here, let me have a go.’
Defeated, she stood up, moved aside. Lewis squatted, turn-ups flashing. He wrapped one hand around the chain, and with a single sharp tug it came free. He looped it back around the gears, and stood back with a smile.
‘No way. How did you do that?’
‘You probably loosened it …’ He looked at his palm, striped dark with grease, and used his clean hand to open his pannier.
‘Well – thanks.’
‘No problem. Want one?’ He was offering her a plastic packet: the man travelled with a bumper pack of baby wipes, just in case. He probably had pliers in there as well. Spare inner tubes, plural. A multipack of Kendal mint cake. A sarcastic comment was poised on her lips – but when she looked up at him, there it was again. That dizzying sense of connection, of being aligned. Like the same thought was bouncing between them, back and forth.
She swallowed her sarcasm. Said instead, ‘You didn’t talk.’
He blinked. ‘Nor did you.’ For a moment they stared at each other, saying nothing. Then: ‘Do you want to go somewhere else and … not talk?’
She shrugged, thinking, Walk away. Thinking, too, of £17 to last her the week.
‘Coffee?’ he said.
‘You buying?’
‘Sure. Yeah. Alright.’
She nodded. Made a silent apology to the card in her pocket, the presence of Valerie, as she put off a little longer the call that was waiting to be made. Reached for a wipe, and started working oil and dirt from her hands.
As they wheeled their bikes back past the meeting house Jake was outside, locking up. She saw him recognise them, saw him stand for a moment, watching. He’d be thinking all sorts, Cassie knew. Making assumptions. He’d warn them both off, if he could. Intense personal relationships, he’d be worried about – two people in recovery. And he was right about the danger, and he didn’t know the half of it. Just how they were the same. Just how dangerous that might be.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q. What is Make-Believe™?
A. You tell us! Make-Believe™ is whatever you want it to be. This is virtual reality like you’ve never experienced it before, all generated by your own amazing brain. No clumsy headset. No motion sickness. No screens, lenses, suits or gloves. And with nothing to come between you and your dreams, no wonder our users tell us it’s better than real.
Ever wanted to fly? Visit ancient Rome, or take a tour of the solar system? Make friends with a dragon, or hang out with a film star? Become a rock legend, a martial arts master, or even a tiger hunting in the African savannah?
Whatever your fantasy, you can live it with Make-Believe™. Score the winning goal in the World Cup Final – or just tell your boss what you think of them.
Make-Believe™. It’s as wild as you want it. The only limit is you.
Make-Believe™ is a trademark of Imagen Research
CHAPTER TWO
‘So … that wasn’t your first time.’
‘My first time what?’ Cassie sucked coffee from her spoon, relishing the bitterness. She wasn’t sure what he meant. Didn’t want to answer a question that wasn’t being asked.
‘At the group, today. You obviously know them, Jake anyway.’
‘Ah, yeah. I used to come before. I stopped for a bit.’
‘And now you’re back.’
‘Well observed.’ When she held his eyes, the dizziness was gone; the coffee smell, heavy and rich, buzzed her brain with each inhalation. Keeping her straight. They were ordinary eyes, nothing astonishing about them, and certainly everything felt a bit more normal now she and Lewis were out in the everyday world. Dark eyes. Narrow. A hint of a slant, making him look amused. But his mouth was unsmiling, straight and wide; his jaw was set. She didn’t have the measure of him, not yet. She held him at a distance.
‘Why have you come back?’ he asked.
Straight out. How could he not know? That you didn’t ask? ‘Seriously?’ Cassie gave him the long, hard stare he deserved.
His flush was just visible. ‘No, well obviously you … I’m not asking …’ He gave up. Looked away. ‘Never mind.’
A silence. Cassie lifted her cup, but the servings were as tiny as they were strong, and already there was nothing left but foam. He hadn’t meant to pry. He was clumsy, not nosy. Dog-like. Something big and long-legged, a wolfhound or a deerhound, meaning well and causing chaos.
‘When did you start?’ she asked. ‘The group, I mean.’
‘Just a few weeks back.’ He was eager, grateful for another chance. ‘It’s good, I like it.’
‘You think it’s helpful?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, definitely.’
‘But what, you just don’t feel like sharing? D’you always pass on the pig?’
‘The pig …’ He laughed. ‘I guess I’m just more of a listener. Like you.’ Serious now: he held her gaze. A challenge, or maybe an invitation.
She shook her head. It was her turn to look away. If she was a listener, it was only because she had no choice. She couldn’t tell her story, talk of how she was feeling, which was why she’d stopped coming. She’d begun to worry that her presence was resented. If she could have explained herself … it wasn’t pride that kept her private. She wasn’t holding herself apart, judging the others as they revealed themselves. But since she couldn’t explain, she’d skipped a week instead; then two weeks, then a month, and then it wasn’t a place she went any more.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’d like to speak.’
‘But you don’t.’ His tone was easy, but suddenly they were in a high place – near the edge – and she wasn’t decided yet. Step back, be sensible; or inch on forward, lean, or tip, or leap—
Sideways seemed a good move. She tilted her head. ‘The guy sitting next to us,’ she murmured. ‘On our left.’ She’d noticed him as soon as he walked in. If she was right about Lewis, he would have noticed too.
Lewis turned to look, subtle enough. Turned back, eyes narrower than ever.
‘What do you think?’ said Cassie.
‘About what?’
She showed him what. A gentle pinch of her ear, between thumb and knuckle: the receiver the guy was wearing. A sleek new model, titanium.
Lewis nodded. He’d known, really. Had wanted, of course, to be sure he’d guessed right. ‘Ahh … I think he’s an idiot,’ he said, ‘wearing that outside – and I think if he gets mugged he’ll have no one to blame but himself.’
They were at the edge now, poised. ‘Did you never do that?’ said Cassie, softly. ‘Never wear yours outside?’
Lewis barely hesitated. ‘No. I didn’t.’ His hand was at his ear again; she would have bet her weekly budget he had no idea he was doing it.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nor did I.’
It was out; they were falling, and it felt more like floating – like a long, stuttering out-breath, like noiseless laughter.
Lewis was smiling now, a small smile that slanted his eyes even higher. She leant towards him, close enough to catch a trace of his scent: clean laundry, soap, sandalwood. ‘Bet I can tell you what you did,’ she said. ‘Your first time.’ This was a kind of party piece, one she hadn’t been able to use in a long time.
‘We’re not talking about the group now?’
She shook her head.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Guess.’
It was what they all chose: ninety-four per cent, if she remembered accurately. ‘Flying. Right?’
He didn’t have to admit it; his sheepish expression was all the confirmation she needed. She laughed. An easy guess, but she still felt pleased. She’d impressed him.
‘What about you?’ he said, and she laughed again, shook her head. ‘Go on.’
‘Guess. I’m sure you can guess.’
‘What – flying too?’
‘Of course.’ She shrugged. ‘Everyone does. Almost everyone.’
‘God, that’s depressing, isn’t it?’ he said, still smiling. ‘To be so predictable.’
Cassie could feel her face mirroring his, an unfamiliar lift in her cheeks. Only at the top level, she wanted to tell him. That was predictable, yes, but when you started to drill down – the subcategories – that’s where it got interesting. [Flight >> unaided, solo; winged; altitude: high; value: tranquillity; additional elements: Invisibility] was quite different from [Flight >> unaided, group; unsupported; altitude: various; value: thrill-seeking, velocity; additional elements: Interactivity], and so on … Anything Make-Believable could be subcategorised, but the branching trees were longer than you’d ever think, and the combinations were, theoretically, infinite. She wanted to tell him this so he’d think she was interesting, and clever – but she had to watch herself. For all they seemed to have in common, she didn’t know this guy. But then, he wasn’t pushing anything. And speaking, actually speaking to someone: it felt like the sun coming out.
‘I’ve never met anyone the same,’ she said. ‘I mean. I don’t know how much the same we are. I don’t know what happened with you. But you are …?’ She hesitated, wary of asking, of putting it into words.
Lewis helped her out. ‘Terminated? Yes: I’m barred, completely.’
They were leaning close to each other now, heads together. Speaking quietly.
‘I thought it was only me. That’s what they told me.’
‘In their interests, isn’t it?’ Lewis said. ‘Make us feel like we’re alone, like we’re the problem.’
It was more than the sun coming out. It was haar lifting. A view coming clear: a landscape she hadn’t guessed at. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes: because that’s what I’ve never got. How it’s not that way for everyone. They told me it was me, like basically I was unstable and that’s why I reacted how I did.’
‘Which was?’
‘Oh God.’ She peered into her empty cup, and before she could tell him not to Lewis was on his feet, fetching refills.
She was buzzing already, not used to the caffeine. A long time since she’d sat in a coffee shop, drinking pricey espresso. She gazed around as she waited; the place was tucked away in a basement, had a hidden feeling despite the other customers. Perhaps that’s why Lewis had chosen it. How did it keep going, a place like this, while the world around it fell apart? There were enough people who had kept their jobs, she supposed, who were doing alright, were happy to splash out on little luxuries. Lewis was clearly one of them.
‘Thanks,’ she said as he placed a fresh cup in front of her. She inhaled the spiralling steam. ‘D’you know, that’s one of the things I could never quite get. Coffee. Something about the smell. I used to try and Make-Believe it, but it was always a bit – off.’ She shrugged. ‘That and chocolate.’
‘What was wrong with the chocolate?’
‘The way it melts. It just – didn’t.’ She took a sip, and lowered her voice another notch. ‘You know we can’t do this. I can’t anyway, I can’t speak about it, they made me sign something. Did they – you too?’
He nodded.
‘But you weren’t an employee?’
He stared at her. ‘You – work for them? For Make-Believe?’
‘For Imagen, yes.’ She checked over both shoulders, wanting to be quite sure no one else was listening. ‘Not now, not any more. But, yes.’
He was quiet for a moment, absorbing this. Then: ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was a beta tester. I’m a web developer, and for some reason they offered us all a free trial, the whole tech team.’
‘Because you were connectors.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well-positioned to influence the behaviour of potential early adopters across extensive virtual networks.’ She’d impressed him again; it was slightly pathetic how pleased she felt with herself. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I wrote that marketing strategy.’
‘Ah.’ He considered. ‘So does that make it your fault, that I’m here?’
‘I suppose, technically, it does.’ She was pretty sure he was joking. ‘How did they make you sign? I mean, with me – they just, they had me. I was in breach of contract. I’d properly fucked up. But why did you agree to keep quiet?’
‘I, uh … I hacked the bioware.’
His expression was one of embarrassed pride.
‘You hacked … What and how, exactly?’
‘Because – I was so – it was just, my perfect world.’ She could see his gaze turning in. ‘I wanted to be there constantly, always – and it started to feel like two hours was just nothing, and every time the sessions ended, it was like – it was painful. You know, literally. Painful. To be yanked out, thrown back into the real – the grey, cold – nothing—’
Her face had gone soft as she listened, a tide of sympathy for him, and for herself. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Because, anyway, I know. I know exactly.’
‘Sorry.’ He closed his eyes for a few seconds. Mentally shaking himself. ‘Well, so what I did was I fixed my receiver. I hacked it so the—’ He paused. ‘How technical d’you want me to be here?’
‘I mean I know how it works, obviously I had to know all that. But I’m pretty far from a techie.’
‘OK: the antenna that picks up the data transmitted by Imagen – I modified it so it blocked the disconnect signals. So I could stay as long as I wanted. I could stay for hours at a time.’
‘Hey, clever!’ she said, genuinely impressed.
‘Not so clever, as it goes. It took them a while to notice, but when they did’ – his voice had gone lower, rougher – ‘they screwed me, totally. They banned me, of course. If I try to re-register, pretend to be someone else or whatever, my DNA’s on a blacklist so they’ll know straight away. I’d broken the terms of the service agreement, which meant they could have prosecuted. That was it, that was how they got me. I promise not to talk about it, and I don’t end up with a record. It was a no-brainer. I could have lost my job, could have been sued – I could even have gone to jail, I suppose, if someone had wanted to make an example.’ A pause. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I could have called their bluff. They wouldn’t have wanted it to go public, any of it: the fact that the whole thing is so addictive, the fact that the receivers can be hacked like that.’ He lifted his coffee, but didn’t drink. ‘And there must be more of us, you know? Otherwise, well – too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘Coincidence, like how?’
‘Us, meeting here, at the group. There’s no way it can be just the two of us, can it?’
‘No. No, I suppose not.’ He was right. The thought hadn’t occurred to her, though of course it should have. ‘That would be a ridiculous coincidence.’
‘But they’ve kept it pretty quiet, haven’t they. You don’t hear about people getting addicted. You don’t read about it, people don’t talk about it. And it’s right what you said, how they make you think there’s something wrong with you. But actually, I think it’s the opposite. I think you have to be really imaginative, and really’ – he stopped, searching for the word – ‘committed, I suppose, to Make-Believe a world you can’t bear to leave.’
She found herself nodding slowly. ‘Like the theory that it’s only the most determined people who become smokers? Because the first cigarette is so horrible, you have to really persist in order to develop a habit.’
‘Kind of like that, yeah. Which makes us pretty special.’
Cassie shrugged, noncommittal.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Going on a bit. I must really have needed to … not talk about it. So what about you? Can I ask now, without massively offending you?’ He was taking the piss, but that was OK. She deserved it, for being precious.
‘Can’t talk about it,’ she said. ‘Obviously. But actually, that aside, I don’t know how well I can explain it.’
‘Try?’
She took a breath, right down deep. How much did she really want to tell him? Her jacket was slung over the back of her chair, the memorial card still in the inside pocket. She wouldn’t talk about Alan. Wouldn’t talk about her family, either. Wasn’t going near any of that. ‘Well. The perfect world thing, and the yanking out. The painful stuff. That. All that was the same as you said.’
He nodded: understood.
‘It just happened,’ she said. ‘That I was staying longer. It was sudden, I remember the first time—’ Remembered the disorientation; the disbelief; how the world had flipped inside-out. ‘I honestly didn’t do anything to make it like that, I didn’t hack anything or fix anything, I wouldn’t know how; they said I must have altered my account privileges but I didn’t. So I still don’t understand, really. But fair enough – what I didn’t do, and I should have done, was to tell them. It got to the stage I was spending all night in Make-Believe, and going to work and just getting through it, finding somewhere to sleep for an hour if I could get away with it, at lunch in an empty office, then the next night, the same thing again. I must have looked like the walking dead.’ She laughed, though it wasn’t funny. ‘I could barely speak. They thought I was having a breakdown or I don’t know. And then, eventually, they realised what was going on. And’ – she smiled, spread her arms wide, a gesture of defeat – ‘they screwed me. Totally totally.’
‘And,’ he said, ‘is that it, is that why you’re at the group?’
‘Is there anything else, you mean? Yeah, well, afterwards – there was other stuff to deal with – or, not deal with.’ Other stuff. Her sister Meg, the kids, and the whole sorry aftermath. She shook the thoughts away. ‘So cos of that, there was a while where I was drinking too much, and other stuff, and – I didn’t have any money and I was kind of, actually in a lot of trouble and – it was hard.’
Finally: here she was, telling her story – and it was just the same as all the other stories. It was hard. Enough. She was boring herself.
‘You?’ she said. ‘Any other little addictions, or was it Make-Believe pure and simple?’
‘Make-Believe,’ he said. ‘Nothing else can touch it.’
Cassie was suddenly aware of a lack of music. Tables were being wiped around them, lights flicking off. They were the last two customers.
‘Suppose we’d better go,’ she said. ‘Let them get closed up.’
She waited as he gathered his things, his pannier and his helmet, and together they climbed the steps from basement to street level. The wide bright sky made her blink: it had felt late, tucked away down there. But then, it was late, after all. It was nearly June, and it would stay light the whole evening.
They began to walk back to the meeting house. There was more, lots more for them to not talk about. More she wanted to find out about Lewis. And there was something else she was curious about. His smell – its warmth, its spice – brought a memory, a feeling, almost within touching – and she couldn’t remember if it was real or Make-Believe, and she shook it off because he was real. Lewis was real, and the here and now was real in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time.
That layer of skin was still missing, the one she’d lost in the meeting when she’d raised her hand to give him a sign. What she needed now was another sign: something from him. Something to let her know what was happening inside his head or his body, behind his skin and the wall of his skull. She stole a glance at him, hoping for the dizziness back again, hoping to see into his thoughts. But his eyes were too dark. Too narrow. Unreadable.
They had reached the railing where their bikes were locked. She fished her key from her pocket, undid the chain. When she straightened up, she saw Lewis was smiling, like she’d done something funny.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Just surprised you have to lock it!’
She stared at him, eyebrows raised. So her first impression of him had been right after all. She stuffed the lock into her satchel, turned away to swing into the saddle. ‘Yeah, well. It gets me there.’
‘No, wait: I didn’t mean … Look, that front wheel seems a bit out of true. Does it steer OK?’
Cassie glanced back at Lewis. Shrugged.
‘If you want – we could go back to mine. I could fix it for you.’
She paused, foot poised to step on the pedal. To cycle back to her crummy bedsit, where she’d be kept up half the night by the music from her neighbour’s flat, by the trickle of customers chapping his door at all hours. Where she’d stare at Valerie’s memorial card, and think about Alan, alone. About the memorial service in five days’ time – how she couldn’t bear to go, and knew all the same that she must.
Or Lewis’s place. For just one night, to step out of her bleak reality, into the brief escape he seemed to be offering.
It was a risk, of course. Perhaps that was what made it irresistible. Or it was her curiosity about him; or else it was simpler than all of that. She had started to share her story with a halfway presentable man, after too long on her own, and that was all it took.
CHAPTER THREE
Lewis hadn’t imagined how it would feel to have another woman in his flat. How she would change the air around her, set the molecules vibrating in each room she entered.
But once he’d made a pot of tea, and they’d started to talk again, it didn’t feel too bad. It was Make-Believe they talked about, of course. Nothing personal. Nothing that mattered. She complained about what it had done to her brain, how she forgot things; he was the same, he said. She sat at the kitchen table, right-angled to him and close enough to touch, and she seemed quite comfortable – or no, that was the wrong word. There was nothing comfortable about her. He’d seen that as soon as he’d walked into the meeting this afternoon, how she’d held herself contained, compressed. He’d pretended not to notice her, had carefully let his gaze slide past her. But then he’d felt her watching him. And when he glanced up, he saw that she’d figured him out – though he hadn’t said a word. Because he hadn’t said a word. A sign, to show they were the same: it was as simple as that.
Outside the window, the sky turned midnight blue, then black, and then it began to rain.
‘Your bike …’ he said. ‘I could bring it inside, maybe. Take a look at it in here.’
‘Although … it’s pretty late.’ She paused. ‘You could wait till it gets light again. Look at it in the morning.’
She did that thing, that girl thing of dipping her head and looking up at him through her eyelashes, and he felt his stomach twist. He was out of practice, but still he knew you couldn’t invite a girl back to your place, couldn’t spend hours together in conversation, and not expect something to happen. Part of him must have wanted this.
Only, once her tongue was in his mouth, he knew that he didn’t. He didn’t want it. Even if it wasn’t technically cheating, it felt all wrong. Her taste was wrong, and her smell, her long trailing hair, and the whole situation – but when he pulled back, he could see her packing herself away, hear the locks turning, the bolts slamming home.
‘Sorry,’ he said, and that must have been the wrong thing to say because she stood up and folded her arms.
‘What for?’ she said. ‘My mistake.’ She was on her way to the door – he’d messed up everything—
‘No, wait,’ he said, following her. Reached out, placed his hand on her arm, and she stared like a bird had shat on her until he let go, but at least she was standing still. Waiting to hear his excuse. ‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I’m just – I’m sort of, recently out of a relationship. It’s a bit complicated but … I’m not ready, basically.’
She shrugged, like it didn’t matter, and perhaps to her it didn’t. ‘No law against changing your mind,’ she said, reclaiming her jacket from where she’d left it hanging over her chair. But if he let her go now it would be over before it had even begun. She wouldn’t want to see him again, not after he’d screwed things up like this. Once more he spoke without thinking, trying to rescue things.
‘Look – you should stay.’
She pulled a face. ‘Why would I stay?’
‘Because it’s late. Because it’s chucking it down out there. I’m not going to throw you out into the rain, am I, in the dead of night?’
‘How very gentlemanly.’
‘And also, I’d like to carry on getting to know you. I’ve enjoyed tonight. Talking about stuff.’ He saw her considering it. ‘Please. I’ll sleep on the sofa, you can have the bed.’
She sighed. ‘Alright, I’ll stay – just because, it does sound like it’s pissing it down and it’s, like, a forty-minute cycle. But I’m not stealing your bed. We can share it – if you’re ready for that?’
He would have preferred the couch, but he couldn’t say so. Couldn’t turn her down for a second time. ‘Deal,’ he said.
He lent her a T-shirt, and they took turns in the bathroom; she emerged bare-legged and unselfconscious, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he should avert his eyes. She was a strange mix: brittle defensiveness, with a kind of indifferent confidence that made him wonder if she did this sort of thing all the time. It made him feel less bad about the situation, the idea that she made a habit of sharing beds with strangers.
When he switched out the light, the dark came as a relief – except that every sound seemed so loud. The drag of the quilt as she turned her back on him. Her breathing, and his. He lay straight as a plank, wondering if she felt anything like as weird as he did. Expecting at any moment that she might move closer, might touch him. But it wasn’t long before her breath grew slower, deeper. He stayed motionless, ignoring the urge to change position, wary of waking her. Resigned himself to a sleepless night.
It was early when he woke, his dreams still clinging, and he must have been dreaming of Cassie: a tender dream that meant she didn’t feel, now, like a stranger. Her head on his pillow, her mass of hair. Blonde in the light, mouse in the dark, in-between in the half-light of dawn. It was the dream-residue that let him recognise her, reach for her. Let him pull her close, wrapping them both in the leftover feeling of comfort, of consolation. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but he breathed the warmth of her neck, the smell of her hair, and all those things about her that had been wrong the night before were somehow familiar. Were deeply, irresistibly right.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cassie waited for Nicol in their usual place, the grassy square that lay right at the heart of the university. The morning promised sun, an early haze just beginning to lift so the edges of things – of buildings and trees, of people – seemed to shimmer. The shimmering was inside her, too: an unsettled, buoyant feeling that threatened to tip her off balance.
She had gone to the meeting yesterday because she wanted stability. Familiar faces, the reassurance of ritual. And she’d come away with the opposite: with everything changed, and uncertain. But for a few hours, at least, she’d felt like she wasn’t alone.
Too much of a coincidence, Lewis had said, for the two of them to meet as they had. But coincidences did happen. They had talked, remembering fragments of their previous lives – how it had felt, that first time, to hover an inch off the ground, and then lift and lift and imagine yourself free from the anchor of gravity, and by imagining to become so, wind rushing through your hair and stroking the soles of your bare feet, soft wet of clouds veiling your skin – to spin and feel your stomach lurch, see the ground pitch and tilt, and to fly so entirely that the armchair or bed where you’d left behind the drag of your body, that was the place that became unreal … They had talked, and she’d almost felt safe. Because, for all that the company had left its traces irrevocably inside her skull, how could Imagen know what she was doing? There was surely no way for their words to be overheard. With Lewis last night, she’d felt safe enough to sleep in his bed, to sleep all the way through – or nearly. Just once she’d woken from a dream of him to find his hand on her hip, and she’d shifted towards him and he’d turned to spoon her and she could feel his erection against her back. Not so complicated now, she’d thought as she pushed back into him so his breath came faster, but he hadn’t moved his hand from the safe zone of her hip, hadn’t pushed back, and eventually he’d softened and she’d fallen into another welcoming dream. And when she woke again in the morning, it was from the most comfortable sleep she’d had in a long, long time.
But feeling safe was not the same as being safe. Cassie pressed her lips together, caught the lingering, bitter taste of the espresso Lewis had made with his fancy machine. Just because she’d felt it, didn’t mean that she was. Didn’t mean she should see him again.
She looked up from her thoughts as a shadow slipped across her face.
‘Morning, morning,’ said Nicol. Without taking his hands from the pockets of his hoodie he dropped his skinny frame onto the bench beside her. Leant back, eyes narrowed against the sun. ‘Nice day for it, eh?’
‘Here.’ Cassie delved into her satchel, handed him a package.
‘What’s this, then?’ he said.
‘Breakfast meeting. It’s breakfast.’ Lewis’s flat had been a lost world of ordinary luxuries. Spotless kitchen. Cupboards stacked with food. Fat soft kitchen roll in a special counter-top holder. Croissants for breakfast.
Nicol took his pastry, slightly misshapen, from its buttery kitchen roll wrapper. He looked baffled but pleased: breakfast had never been part of their arrangement. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Thanks, man.’
He should be able to see the difference, she thought: Cassie on Friday, and Cassie today. He should spot her shimmering edges. But he was oblivious. ‘This is good,’ he said, mouth full. ‘I’d forgotten about croissants.’
‘Funny,’ she said. ‘So had I.’
‘Don’t s’pose I can put in an order for the same again next time?’
She gave him a look. ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’
Nicol crammed the tail of the croissant into his mouth, swept pastry flakes from his hoodie and into the folds of his army cut-offs. Then he opened his bag and started to rummage. The backpack he carried was studded with logo pins, some of them familiar to Cassie (three downward-slanting arrows that stood for antifascism, the encircled A for anarchy) and others less so. She had asked him once to explain the more mysterious symbols: a reverse copyright symbol, a grid with five black dots. Copyleft, he’d said; means maximum freedom, free distribution, open source, all that. And the grid, that was a glider – a configuration of a particular two-dimensional cellular automata, and a means of transmitting information. Then he’d cracked a smile at her blank expression. Simpler version, he’d said: it’s kind of a hacker emblem. Means sharing is good. Co-operation leads to complexity. To the unpredictable.
Now, from the depths of the bag, he retrieved his memory card. ‘That’s Watts, Valencia and Tan,’ he said, his mouth still full. ‘Deadline for the other two’s Friday, right? I’ll have them done midweek.’
Cassie took her screen from her satchel. She skipped past the ads – one for easy credit, another for discounted pizza – then she clicked the card in and copied the files. It was an archaic format, but more secure than wireless transfer. ‘You’re a star,’ she said. ‘Hang on and I’ll pay you now.’
‘And mind you still owe me for the last lot …’
She clapped her hand to her head, tapped out the instruction. ‘There. All done.’
Nicol was her best employee, without a doubt – her best operative. That was how she thought of them, the PhDs and the postdocs, the unemployed graduates, the odd genius dropout fuck-up, all making pocket money working for her. Operatives: it made the whole thing feel like playing at spies. She chose them carefully, recruiting on word of mouth, tested them on dummy assignments before she let them go live; but still they ranged wildly in reliability. One or two, she’d no idea how they’d ever made it through their degrees. Nicol, though, was solid. He kept her on track when her system of lists failed her, reminding her about deadlines and payments. She paid him more than any of the others, a full fifty per cent.
Nicol was almost a friend.
‘There might be another coming up that’s in your ballpark,’ she said. ‘Third year history and philosophy of science. Sound like you?’
He shrugged. ‘Aye, could be.’
‘Deadline would be—’ She checked the message. ‘Next Monday. Would that work?’
‘Nae bother.’ He stood up, shedding crumbs. ‘Right then, duty calls. Later …’
She watched him amble off in the direction of the science buildings. His patch. She wasn’t sure how long Nicol had been at the university; the best part of a decade, she thought. His slow progress, she suspected, had nothing to do with a lack of intelligence, was more a consequence of time he spent on other, informal, commitments – not just the work he did for her, but the various activist networks he was part of.
For all that she saw him most days of her life, more than she saw anyone else, there was a lot she didn’t know about Nicol. He’d told her and she’d forgotten, or else she’d never asked. Wasn’t sure what, exactly, he studied, though she knew his specialist subjects – computer science, programming, artificial intelligence – and passed on assignments accordingly. If there was a module in conspiracy theories she’d have sent it his way too.
Of course, there was just as much he didn’t know about her.
In her pocket, Valerie’s memorial card was no longer sharp-cornered. Cassie studied the envelope, her name and address, wondering who had written it. Someone who didn’t know who she was, who had simply copied her details from Valerie’s address book. Not Alan, that was all she could say for sure. It was nothing like his spiky scrawl. Which meant … She shook her head. It didn’t have to mean the worst.
There was nothing on the card to say how or even when Valerie had died, no suddenly, or after a long illness. That was more for death notices. But it must have come unexpectedly. Otherwise, surely, she’d have been in touch. She would have asked Cassie to look out for her son, after she was gone. No matter that it was over a year since Cassie had really seen Alan; no matter how bad that looked. Valerie would have known – wouldn’t she? – that Cassie would always have Alan’s back.
She would go, of course, to the memorial. St Stephen’s: the church round the corner from where Alan and Valerie had lived, from the house where Cassie had lived too, aged sixteen to eighteen. Where she had been happy. It had been no real decision to move in with them: she’d been spending most nights there in any case, and when she did go home the house was still full of her mum’s stuff, pulled out and half-sorted for hand-ons and charity; was full of a thin grey fog that chilled every room, spreading silence and the sad smell of damp, so that when her dad had told her he was leaving – a fresh start close to his sister in Melbourne – she had thought of leaving Alan behind, and known there was no contest.
She did leave, of course – later. Did travel to the other side of the world, did leave him behind, even if she hadn’t meant to. But don’t think of that now. Think instead of that house of Valerie’s where she’d lived in all seasons, though somehow in her mind the leaves were always turning: the world turning gold, and Alan gold beside her, golden hair and freckles. Always Alan, right there at her side. The hills and woods around the house. Back seat of the school bus. Shared bed at night. There had been a conversation, very adult, around the kitchen table. Alan crucified with embarrassment, face burning, long legs kicking the table and catching her shins, Sorry, sorry, as he squirmed in his seat. His mum heroically rising above the awkwardness: I’d rather you do it safely under my roof than off somewhere in the woods … Hadn’t stopped them doing it off in the woods. Sixteen, seventeen. The smell of it still. Damp and deep. Heightened, and blurred. Grass honeyed into hay. Clover. Clover.
She hadn’t meant to close her eyes. Opened them, blinking. High above, a gull was coasting, drifting like a cursor across a screen.
She stood, pocketing the card. Routine. That was what she’d needed yesterday, and it was what she needed now. The streets around the square had filled with students and staff on their way to lectures and seminars, to the library and the labs. She fell in with the stream heading towards the library: swerved to avoid the bio-touch panels, and swiped her card instead through the visitors’ gate. A ‘borrowed’ visitor’s pass; a hefty tip at the 3D-repro shop, and she’d been able to get it duped, return the original before its owner reported it lost. All she’d needed then was for Nicol to hack the control system, altering her security clearance to allow access across the university estate and resetting the expiry date to ten years from now, and: freedom. It was as if she didn’t exist.
While he was at it, Nicol had loaded her pass with limitless print credit. Now, she logged in to an idle printer and, after a quick glance to check she was unobserved, ran off two dozen flyers. She had spent a long time on the wording, making sure the target market would understand what was on offer while the university authorities would find nothing irregular in her sales pitch. Bespoke academic editorial services, that was all. Support with writing essays on a wide range of subjects. Assignments to order: it had been a lucrative sideline back when she was a student, and in the year since Imagen had sacked her she’d gone back to what she knew. Help with meeting deadlines. Qualified experts. Improve your grades! Call now.
With the flyers stashed in her satchel, she left the library, taking a small pleasure in navigating the lobby so she walked straight through a 3D recruitment ad: a group of graduates talking and laughing soundlessly, looking forward to a bright future with a global corporation. The ads were new since she’d been a student. So much was new. In four whole years of study, she had thought for perhaps as many hours about careers. About money. About the future. Had she been lucky? Or stupid? She was the last of something. Last to have it so good, to live fully in the present – or to fail to understand that something important had changed. As she passed through the visitors’ gate she caught chatter in Korean or Mandarin, in US-accented English. The students looked like brand-new businesswomen and men: the boys in pale chinos, the girls in this year’s summer dresses, shifts and A-lines in bright fruit-chew colours. Groomed and glossy, advertisement-ready. In contrast, she doubted she could pass for even a mature student: face bare, clothes pre-worn from the charity shop.
She overtook a slow-moving clutch of women in headscarves, swiped in to Philosophy and worked her way up the building, checking the noticeboards on each floor. Though her flyers promised nothing illegal, week after week they disappeared, torn by disapproving staff from scores of noticeboards. It was cheating, of course, the service she provided, but still it frustrated her that her posters were targeted while those recruiting for night-shift dancers and medical guinea pigs remained untouched, week on week. From one department to the next, she slipped unobserved up stairs and along corridors, waiting for lobbies and hallways to empty before delving into her satchel. English Lit. Languages. Sociology. She targeted her promotion according to her own resources as well as client demand, and she had a wealth of arts grads on her books with no money and no prospects. Psychology – her own field, which reminded her she had an essay to finish for a waiting client. Environmental factors in addictive behaviours. She was in danger of becoming her own least reliable operative. The business school: her biggest frustration. There was potential to rake in the money, but business graduates tended to have prospects so recruitment was tricky. Certain modules she could manage herself – Advertising Theory and Practice, Consumer Behaviour, Contemporary Marketing. And some she could farm out to Nicol, though he sniffed a bit at Managing Technology. But if she could just get her hands on a qualified expert, she could make a killing. In the meantime she kept on advertising, building brand awareness.
Last on her circuit, the union. By now she was out of flyers, so she unpinned an old one from the board in the cafe and put it up in the bar. Her theory: wealthy students were likely to eat in regular cafes, and instead visit the union to blow their cash on booze. More money than brains, that was her target market. Or perhaps they weren’t brainless. Perhaps it was just that they saw nothing wrong with outsourcing the more tedious obligations of life. They would pay for a cleaner to mop up the mess of their New Town flats, a caterer to manage their pompous dinner parties. If you could pay someone to write your assignment, what was the difference? And that was fine – more than fine, for her own personal economy. Without the rich and the lazy, she’d have drowned by now in an ocean of debt. So she did try not to feel contemptuous towards them. Apart from anything else, if she despised her customers she’d have to despise herself too.
By the bar, three boys and a girl sat at a table loaded with drinks. All four had variations of the same haircut, styled to show off the receivers they wore as ornament: the boys cropped close on the right side of the skull, longer on top, and swept over to the left; the girl with a buzz undercut, her hair adorned with an assortment of clips that lifted it up and away from her face, her receiver full-stopping a line of earrings. Cassie shook her head at the sight. There was no rule to say you could only wear your receiver in the privacy of your own home, but it was common sense to be careful. Before you could sign up to Make-Believe, there were certain criteria you had to fulfil: income, prospects, mental health, criminal records. The technology was still aspirational, and scarcity created demand. If these kids wore their receivers beyond a small safe zone round the university hub, they were asking to get robbed.
‘Yeah, and then she woke up …’ said one of the boys, in a voice that carried – a shortcut to an in-joke – and they all brayed with laughter. Cassie felt her jaw clench. This lot, their whole lives would be made up of shortcuts and in-jokes. She was looking, in fact, at the effectiveness of her own Make-Believe marketing strategy. They’d be signed up for Basic accounts at the moment,
