Tag - A Technothriller Page 20

  She put the beer back in its temporary home in the holder on the Siteazy, and reaching across, her arms fully extended, placed her hands on my leg. She looked at me from under her fringe, and took a deep breath.

  “I can’t live a lie, no matter how convenient it may be and no matter how beautiful the circumstances. I can’t do it, and right now I’m living a lie and I’ve got to put it right. Are you ready for this?”

  I was scared by the intensity of her words and my mind was reeling, tripping through possibilities of what she could have lied about. But I hid this and with an inscrutable expression, said, “Yes, I’m ready.”

  She breathed out heavily again and straightened up, looking me in the eye, withdrawing her hands from my leg and placing them on her own knees again.

  “I didn’t meet you on the Moon by accident. I was flown to Shackleton to meet you and ordered to engage with you. On the flight home, I knew you’d been given a concocted Truth Treatment and I questioned you under orders from Senior Agent Sharon Cochran. I am contributing in SOE as I have told you. The reason I was in such a bad mood this afternoon was that Cochran had just warned me before we met up that since you were no longer attached to UNPOL, I could not reveal any UNPOL specific information to you. I told her that from a legal standpoint I could, since at the time I was cleared from the task of questioning you and you were cleared of the Blue Notice, you and I were both UNPOL-related and therefore both had access to the information.

  “That’s it. That’s my lie. It’s a beautiful lie, because it led me to you, but I can’t live with it and with you at the same time. One of you has to go. I hope it’s the lie.”

  My mouth had fallen open while she was talking and it remained that way as I looked at her, my head resting in the palm of my hand and the beer swaying gently to and fro. I didn’t say anything, couldn’t think of anything to say. All of a sudden I had no idea who she was.

  “Is Mariko your real name?” I finally asked.

  “Yes. Look, it was for those hours on the flight back from Shackleton only and my brief was to question you about your activities on the Moon. You set off an alarm in the trace center – it was the link between the Nineveh you booked and the Nineveh in the interview. The transcribe matched the two, but it wasn’t spotted until you were already at Shackleton and so they sent me up to intercept and question you. I didn’t know about the Truth Treatment until we were on the craft and then I received the order through my Devstick.”

  I tilted my head to stare at the ceiling, resting it on an arm folded behind me as I took a long pull of my beer. I breathed out heavily and let the bottle drop by my side. My voice flat I turned to her and said, “Did the lie stop when we woke up together?”

  Mariko looked at me as a tear rolled from her left eye. Her voice, caught on the edge of a sob, said, “The lie stopped at the Lev port on Changi.”

  After replaced the beer in its holder, I reached out with the same hand and held it in the space between us, palm upward, little finger curled in. She took my hand and I said, “Well that’s all right then.”

  Mariko sobbed out loud and came out her seat as if ejected from it, throwing herself lengthways on me, her arms encircling my neck as her tears fell on my throat. I pulled my hands from behind my head and placed them on the sides of her face, lifting her gently to look at me.

  “Please don’t lie to me ever again,” I said, gazing deep into her tear-brimmed eyes.

  Rising up on one elbow, she wiped tears away with her forearm, smiled at me and sobbed at the same time. I leaned forward and kissed her. She opened her mouth and probed with her tongue into mine, holding the sides of my face now and pulling me into her hard as if trying to swallow me. She disengaged her mouth and sat up on me with a wild look in her eye, her hair in disarray as she reached down with her hands and yanked up the chrome tank top.

  Chapter 22

  Auld Lang Syne

  The Marq V, Penthouse Env, Sir Thomas’s New Singapore Residence

  Tuesday 31 December 2109, 11:50pm +8 UTC

  In the bedroom of his Penthouse at the exclusive Marq V Envplex, Sir Thomas stood on the raised Dias next to his enormous sleeper, and looked out over the airships, ocean liners and private yachts tethered to spine-like piers and floating off moorings in the dark of the harbor.

  There was very little traffic in the harbor now that the hour was approaching midnight. It wasn’t raining for a change, and he told the door to the balcony to open, stepping out into the warm night and walking to the railing. The view was spectacular, looking out over the South China Sea, the ships with all their lights on in celebration of the New Year, lighting up the pitch black sea, the Moon a sliver of silver. He took in a deep breath of the warm sea air, although at this height the taste of salt was minimal – it had to be imagined.

  In another five minutes, his image would be broadcast for the world to see, and the culmination of a decade’s worth of planning would be put into motion. The hole cards were dealt, the river down, and now the betting and bluffing would begin. He clenched his fists in anticipation, turned, and walked along the balcony until he had reached the door to the living room which had been set up for the broadcast.

  Dressed in a blue shirt with the collar open at the neck and an old fashioned woolen jumper over khaki pants, complete with suede brogues on his feet and no socks, his ankles felt cool. He went indoors, sitting at the far end of a beige sofa. He checked his image in the Devscreen opposite him and rubbed his cheeks to put some color into them, a rosiness that led to the kind ‘Uncle Tom’ image that they wanted to portray.

  He looked at the time on his Devstick and then put it away and faced the camera Dev, smiling. A timer in the camera Devscreen opposite him counted down to midnight and a red light went on at top of the camera.

  “Happy New Year, my fellow humans, and welcome to year 2110. I have chosen this time to announce my resignation from the post of Director of UNPOL. I requested that my resignation be accepted by the Board of Governors and they have graciously acceded to my wish. I have requested only that I may be allowed to perform one last task: that of catching and stopping the terrorists who have sought to cast our world back into darkness with their actions in Paris and New Manhattan. My promise to the family and friends of those who were lost in those cowardly attacks will be honored and in this too the Board of Governors has been gracious in allowing me to achieve this last contribution to you, my fellow humans.

  “My years at UNPOL have been happy ones for me and I know that I will leave this fine organization in strong capable hands when the Board of Governors chooses its next Director. It is traditional that the departing Director offers words of advice for his replacement. I am going to break with that tradition. Instead, on behalf of the children of the Oliver Foundation, for their future, I am going to offer my advice to all of you out there on our beautiful planet.

  “My advice is simple but heartfelt, and please think of it as the wish of an old man passing into the twilight of his years, with no motive other than to see his fellow humans prosper in perpetuity. My wish is that you embrace the new Personal Unique Identification Law. Embrace it as brothers and sisters who have nothing to fear from each other, as it will exclude those who wish to create terror and unbalance this beautiful society we have built.

  “Thank you, my fellow humans, for allowing me to contribute as I have to UNPOL these many years. Thank you.”

  ***

  The clock on the Devscreen read 12:08am as I watched my uncle, my lips moving with the words he spoke.

  I lay on a futon in the living room of the beach house watching the Devscreen we had hung on the wall. Mariko lay with her head on my lap, yawning as she flipped the page of a book she was reading. She saw me and turned to look at the screen. She hadn’t been watching, absorbed in her book, ‘A Tail Of Two Zos’ by Nomis Elroy.

  She sat up, slapped my thigh lightly and said, “You wrote it?”

  “Wrote what?”

  “The speech he’s givi
ng. You wrote it, didn’t you? Waving the book at the Devscreen.”

  “Er, yes. But that has to be our secret. OK?”

  “Yes, of course, but how could you? I mean the Tag Law, you don’t support that do you?”

  “No, not support, but then I’m not against it either.”

  “Then how could you write that, if you don’t believe in it?”

  “Well, Sir Thomas asked for my help, and I could hardly turn him down could I? So I just imagined I was a slightly xenophobic conspiracy theory nut and went from there.”

  Mariko gave a full-throated laugh and then said, “That’s kind of cynical wouldn’t you say?”

  “I suppose it is, but they’re really his words, not mine. I just made them sound better.”

  “Yes, but you’re playing a pretty significant role in this. I mean what if the Tag really gets voted in?”

  “There’s a good chance it will from what I’ve seen on the surveys so far. This is just Sir Thomas’s last hurrah, another shining example of civic duty to be laid on the pyre when his time has come.”

  “Are you sure? He looks pretty serious about it.”

  “Oh he’s serious enough. I just think that it will happen irrespective of the speech. So writing it doesn’t make a difference”

  “Wow, that really is cynical. Of course writing makes a difference. What about Bo Vinh then? Was he just another guy, or did his writing change the world?”

  “No, you’re right. He wasn’t. He was a philosopher and a true leader, and without him there probably wouldn’t be any humans left to fight over.”

  “But that’s my point – by supporting something you don’t believe in then aren’t you corrupting the very ideals that Bo Vinh espoused?”

  I reached up and, stroking the back of her head, said, “Come on, let’s not get into an argument about my uncle or politics in the first hour of the new year. How about we go for a swim instead?”

  She smiled and said, “OK, but allow me one last comment. A woman’s prerogative, OK?” And she held her finger out in a parody of Sir Thomas.

  I laughed and said, “Sure, go ahead.”

  Mariko leaned in close to stare into my eyes, and said, “I don’t care about your uncle or politics, I’m concerned about you, and that’s why I’m a little upset. I like to think of you as my perfect hero, and thinking of you as cynical just doesn’t fit that image.”

  She leaned her body forward and gave me a hug, pushing her chest against mine. As I held her, I smiled and thought to myself, I am the luckiest man alive.

  She pulled back and reached down, stripping off her top outer. “Now let’s go skinny dipping.”

  I stroked my hand up her leg and kissed her, my other hand coming up to support her as I shifted my thighs and laid her back onto the futon. I whispered in her ear, nuzzling it at the same time, “I’ve got a better idea,” and brought my hand from her leg up to her breast, stroking the nipple with my thumb.

  She pulled my face from her neck, slipping away a little and looking into my eyes, and batted her eyelashes at me. I smiled, and suddenly found myself lying face down on the futon, with her knee in my back and my arm twisted up with her knee. Her lips teased the top of my ear and she said, “No, I think your first idea was better, wouldn’t you say?” giving my arm a little tug for emphasis.

  “Yes, yes, it was much better idea,” I said, starting to laugh.

  She released my arm and stood up, walking across the room to the open doors and out on to the deck that surrounded the beach house. She turned and looked at me lying on the futon, my head rested on one hand, gazing at her, smiling. She hooked her thumbs into her bottom outers and pulled down, stepping out one long leg at a time, straightening and hooking her thumbs into the tops of her inners. Turning to face me full frontal, she eased them down a few cents at a time. I rose and she dashed for the stairs that led down to the beach as I came through the doors to the deck. I watched as she sprinted down the beach and into the surf, not slowing down but powering in until she had reached deep enough to swim. I saw her diving in, disappearing.

  I stripped my outers off watching where she had gone in. She still hadn’t appeared. My heart beat faster and leaving my inners on I sprinted down the beach to where she had gone in and shouted her name.

  “Mariko, Mariko!”

  Suddenly my legs were taken from underneath me and I went down into the meter deep water. I put a hand out and felt her hair, as she twisted around me and, surfacing, pulled me up. I was angry.

  “I thought you’d drowned.”

  She grasped my jaw, thrust her mouth against mine, driving a salty tongue in and grabbing my cock through my inners. She said, “I’m the most dangerous animal on this beach, baby, and don’t you forget it.”

  Then she slipped out of my grasp and, twisting in front of me, pulled me off balance again. Taking me across her shoulders in a fireman’s lift, she straightened her legs up and dropped to one knee softly but firmly easing me onto the ground. She tore my inners off with a single harsh swipe of her hand, fingers extended into talons. With the same hand she reached down and grabbed my cock at its base before lowering herself onto me. The sudden warmth surrounding my cock unleashed something inside me, and reaching back with one hand, I pushed myself, my knees straightening and lifting us both. We surged back into the sea as she molded herself to me, wrapping her legs around my buttocks. When the water came to my thighs I held her close and toppled forward, taking my hands down to pull her waist into me. We twisted, joined together, in the sea, holding our breath, until kicking against the bottom I found purchase for us and we surfaced. With her legs wrapped around my hips, and her arms around my neck, she pulled me into another long kiss, and together we swayed with the ocean.

  “How does a Special Operations Executive feel about having children?” I asked her.

  She clasped her hands behind my neck, and leaning back to look in my eyes, said, “Well that would depend on who the father was going to be.”

  I ground against her and said, “I think I’d make a pretty good father.”

  “No, you’d make a great father. Now quit talking and get fathering will you?”

  Pulling herself up on my shoulders, she lightly bit my earlobe. I braced both feet in the sand, toes curled for extra purchase, as she plunged down with her pelvis, riding me hard.

  Chapter 23

  Swimming With Sharks

  Jonah and Mariko’s Beach House, Sisik Beach, Malaysian Geographic

  Wednesday 1 January 2110, 11:40am +8 UTC

  Sprawled in a tangle of limbs and blanket, I woke to the buzzing of my Devstick. I reached over, thumbed the Devstick to silent and closing my eyes tried to go back to sleep. But the Devstick had done its work.

  Disentangling myself from Mariko, I got up and walked over to the shelves that we had put up on the wall facing the jungle. I pulled out one of her batik wraps and wrapped it around my waist, tying it into a knot below my belly button as I’d seen the locals do. I turned around and faced the sea. Our sleeper, large enough for four people, was against the wall to my left, positioned in the middle. Two windows flanking the bed were now shaded by the Clearfilm shading I’d put up as a temporary measure. Against the opposite wall was the railing guarding the stairs until they reached their zenith a meter up. The kitchen, shower and outlet were on the ground floor.

  I went downstairs, treading lightly past Mariko, on the wooden floor that we had sanded together a couple of days ago, and walked over to the bench that we had put up that same day. It was temporary but served the purpose of holding the old-fashioned coffee percolator plus the other cooking machines. I filled the percolator with water and set it onto the electric heat pad. Searching the refrigerator I found some grapes and I ate those waiting for the coffee aroma to hit. As soon as I smelled the coffee I got out the cups and put them on a tray.

  I dug the croissants out of the fridge. They weren’t as good as those from the French bakery near our old Env, but they weren’t bad. I pu
t them under the heat and waited. The coffee percolated through and the croissants’ butter melted. I placed everything on a tray, added a tub of raspberry jam, and went back upstairs. Mariko was still sprawled out where I had left her, and I set the tray down on the floor beside the futon in front of the large Devscreen.

  I thumbed the Dev on and leant back against the cushions. The late morning sun lent a hard reality to the light outside the windows and I debated getting my eye shades. Laziness winning out, I let the daily data stream flush itself out on the screen.

  I flicked over to messages. There were several, mostly from acquaintances wishing me a happy New Year. But one stuck out: the subject was ‘wake up’. I thumbed it and the message read, ‘Jonah, Jonah, wake up’. I frowned and thought that’s weird but then dismissed it as a joke or spam – the sender wasn’t identified which, given that it had reached my personal contact messaging, was a surprise but not unheard of.

  I reached over and got the coffee off the tray. Coffee in the morning was a new taste, but I was already a committed devotee. The smell made me hungry and the sweet dark taste made me flick data streams back to the daily feed, my brain kicking into action.

  I frowned. Something bothered me but I wasn’t sure what it was. The feeling was like when you’re sure you’ve forgotten something but cannot remember what, and I couldn’t shake it. I spooned some raspberry jam onto a piece of croissant and popped it into my mouth. I felt fidgety. I picked up my Devstick to thumb the Dev again, keeping the volume down. The image changed and I was watching a roundup of global news.

  The restlessness grew and suddenly an image of a stark room flashed in my mind. It felt like a dream, only I knew this wasn’t a dream. With those, if I focused, I could recall the remnant images. With this, when I tried, the images hovered just out of reach. I flicked the Dev channel back to messages and scanned the received list again.

  I opened it again, and it said the same thing. ‘Jonah, Jonah, wake up’. That was it, the sender a series of numbers and an @ sign that made no sense. It was weird. Another flash hit me with searing clarity: throwing up into a recycler, a golf cart in a tube. I pressed my fingertips into my shut eyes and smoothed out over my eyebrows, pulling taut skin over my cheekbones and down my jaw, breathing deep. It wasn’t from a dream. They were memories, recent memories. Mariko gave a little snore, bringing me back to the present.