Early Riser

Dawn and the dead

My eyes flickered open, my temples throbbed, my mouth felt dry. For the briefest of moments I thought I was once again safely back in the Melody Black, but no. Clytemnestra was staring down at me with a look that was beginning to feel increasingly oppressive, and next to her, the portrait of me wearing Birgitta’s husband’s body seemed also to have changed – he was looking less like someone in love, and more like someone with severe wakestipation.

I stretched, downed the glass of water I’d left for myself, then swung my legs out and lowered my feet to the soothingly cold boards of the floor. Regardless of the weirdness, I’d enjoyed the dream. It looked as though I had created a narrative that had all the ingredients of a thriller: a good-looking young couple in love and working for a shadowy organisation, an agent in peril, a missing recording cylinder, an interrogation, loss, betrayal. And all with me centre stage. Perhaps this was subconsciously what I saw for myself, my dream-fuddled mind generating a sense of excitement and drama that so far had been absent from my utterly conventional life. If I had another life, I’d dedicate it to non-Morphenox slumber, with all the dreams that come – and the attendant dormelogical risks. Perhaps Shamanic Bob and his dreamers had something after all.

There was a knock at the door. I guessed it must be Aurora, and I was correct. Her left eye was staring off and up to the right, while the right fixed me with a keen sense of clarity. The abrasively offensive Toccata part of her was gone; she was back to her more ebullient self. I actually felt quite relieved to see her.

‘I was passing,’ she said cheerily, ‘and I wanted to check you were okay.’

I didn’t know what to say, so said what I was thinking.

‘I didn’t realise you and Toccata were—’

Aurora glared at me with such a look of hurt, anger and confusion that I stopped mid-sentence.

‘I was about to say,’ I began again, ‘that I was unaware you and Toccata were… so alike.’

She stared at me for a while, her good eye unblinking while her unseeing left eye twisted in its socket in a disturbing manner.

‘We are not alike,’ she said finally, ‘not even the slightest bit. Does that woman think we are?’

‘Well, no,’ I replied, truthfully enough.

‘Exactly. And that’s the way we’re going to keep it. Understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

I filled the empty pause that followed by offering her coffee.

‘You have some?’ she asked. ‘The real stuff, I mean?’

‘Sadly not,’ I replied with some regret. ‘Nesbit Value Brand.’

She shrugged, told me it couldn’t be helped and then walked in, quietly closing the door behind her. She took off her coat, dumped it on a nearby chair and jumped up to sit on the kitchen counter.

‘What do they call this?’ she said, tapping the work surface.

‘A peninsula, I think.’

I was no expert on kitchen furniture and was still confused over Aurora and Toccata’s insistence that they were two people.

‘Free-standing, it would be an island.’

She nodded thoughtfully.

‘I have one that connects from one side of the kitchen to the other,’ she said. ‘Would that be a kitchen isthmus?’

‘I’d say a counter.’

‘That’s what I thought. Isthmus would be more logical, though, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose, yes. Milk?’

‘You have some?’

‘Only powdered,’ I said, staring into the empty fridge.

‘That’ll do. Hey, listen: I heard you told the Chief we’d bundled.’

She said it as if it were possibly the funniest – and unlikeliest – thing she’d ever heard.

‘I had to say something,’ I replied. ‘She knew we’d met in the Wincarnis when I said we hadn’t, so I needed a good reason for lying.’

‘Did she believe you? I mean, did she think that the whole you and I scenario was plausible?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Ah,’ she said, deep in thought, ‘that says a lot about how she views me. But you kept your oath to me?’

‘I did. She had a message for you: Queen’s rook takes bishop’s pawn two – check.’

I didn’t think I’d repeat the rest of the missive.

‘What?’ exclaimed Aurora, and she reached into the folds of her jacket to produce a travelling chess set. She opened it, placed it on the counter and moved the pieces.

‘Damn and blast that woman to hell,’ she said. ‘Foiled. I think I may have to concede.’ She showed me the game. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’m not very good at chess.’

‘Nor me, it appears,’ she said, and snapped the set closed. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. She could tell something was troubling me.

‘What’s up, Charlie?’

‘Did you engineer the meeting with me in the basement yesterday morning?’

‘What possible reason could I have for doing that?’

‘I don’t know. Also: the lines were down to Cardiff so the stationmaster must have heard from someone on the train that I’d delayed it. Was that you?’

‘Is Toccata messing with your head?’ she asked. ‘Because she does that. Divide, cast doubt, dissemble. No, I didn’t tell the stationmaster anything. And strictly off the record, I understand that Toccata and Logan’s association went beyond intimacy – and into illegal activities. Farming, the unlicensed sale of body parts. We think that was the true purpose of his visit; nothing to do with viral dreams. We don’t trust Jonesy either. I’ll tell you why: do you know what happened to nightwalkers Tangiers and Glitzy Tiara? I left them tied to the back of my truck, and now they’ve gone.’

‘Jonesy retired them.’

‘Yes, I heard. But if so, then where did she dump them? There’s nothing in the night pit or the morgue. We checked. We’re not sure where they’ve gone – or why.’

‘Farming?’ I asked, knowing that Foulnap was up here too – and that Toccata knew he was. Glitzy Tiara certainly looked of childbearing age, and Tangiers, well, if they wanted to flog healthy offspring by post, they could farm him too.

‘It’s a strong possibility,’ said Aurora, ‘although we have no proof, as yet. Life in Sector Twelve is never what it seems, Charlie. Keep an eye out for me, would you?’

I told her I would, the kettle boiled and I poured the water onto the coffee granules.

‘So,’ she said in more friendly tone, ‘is the retrospective memory theory helping with the narcosis?’

I explained that it was, bizarrely.

‘I can feel a lot more relaxed knowing there’s a twisted logic behind what’s going on,’ I added, ‘but being narced and not knowing it is strange. The hectoring Mrs Nesbit no longer seems as fearful as she once did.’

‘What did she want?’

‘A wax cylinder – y’know, of the recording sort.’

‘What’s on it?’

‘According to my seriously overdramatic imagination, something that could seriously damage HiberTech – and I think I dreamed where it was… That’s what Mrs Nesbit wants. Only Mrs Nesbit doesn’t sound like Mrs Nesbit – she sounds like The Notable Goodnight.’

‘That sounds quite trippy.’

‘The dream is like that. Complex, confusing and as real as real gets – sometimes, more so.’

She took the coffee I’d made for her, and I tasted mine. Musty walnuts.

‘Okay, then,’ said Aurora after she’d taken a sip, grimaced, then tipped the remainder down the sink, ‘just remind yourself that dreams are nonsense, an overactive cortex attempting to connect the random meanderings of the mind. The cylinder seems to be highly central, though. Where did you say it was? In your dream, I mean?’

‘If dreams are nonsense,’ I said, ‘how could it matter that I saw where it was hidden?’

Aurora stared at me for a moment.

‘It doesn’t matter at all. I was just thinking that talking it out might help.’

‘They’re just dreams,’ I said, ‘as you stated – nonsense and random meanderings.’

She stared at me, cocked her head on one side and narrowed her eye.

‘Do you want to come and work for me at HiberTech?’

This was unexpected, and I asked in what capacity.

‘General duties,’ she said. ‘You seem like a bright kid and it would be good to have you around. Standard WinterPay Level III, but a five-thousand-euro handshake, unlimited pudding and a weekly Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut allocation. HiberTech Security have their own residential block inside the facility; very nice – faces the quad. The rooms are twice as big as these and you have your own redeployed valet. There’s real coffee and sushi on Fridays. We don’t like to slum it. Just resign when you see the Chief; I can have the paperwork completed in a jiffy – so long as you’re not working for RealSleep or any of their affiliates?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Is there anything embarrassing we might find in a background check? And we will do one, so no holding back.’

‘I did six weeks’ community service for Incitement to Deprive,’ I said. ‘Sleepy phone tennis that went wrong.’

‘Small beer, Charlie.’

‘…and bit off Gary Findlay’s ear.’

‘Biting off ears and stuff totally counts in your favour at HiberTech. You’ll take the job?’

I thought about Birgitta and her need for food.

‘Is the five grand in cash?’

‘Yes, if you want it, sure.’

‘I’m kind of settled here in the Siddons. Can I think about it?’

‘Sure,’ she said, surprised, I think, that I didn’t leap at the offer, ‘but don’t shilly-shally. There are others in the frame.’

She looked at her watch, then at me again.

‘That’s me done here,’ she said. ‘Agent Hooke was covering for me last night, and I need to unravel any problems he’s stirred up. His anger management issues actually have their own anger management issues.’

I waited for ten minutes after she’d left, then washed and dressed and made some sandwiches of whatever was left in the picnic basket. Taramasalata and toothpaste weren’t my first choice for a snack, but Birgitta wouldn’t complain and it was food, first and foremost.

I found Birgitta stuck fast in Rigor torpis when I let myself into her room. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, mid-sketch, pen poised.

Her overnight drawing efforts numbered eight. Four of them were the interior of her room and another of her and her husband on the beach with the parasol but seen from behind them. There was one of the interior of the basement car park depicting her first encounter with the other nightwalkers, and two others were general scenes of the town: the main square in Summer with the Wincarnis in the background and another of the bridge over the river, water running freely, but still with an articulated lorry stuck fast – only a different one, not the lorry stuck there now. It must be a regular feature of the town.

I placed the pictures on top of the wardrobe with the others and then, once Birgitta had risen out of torpis, fed her the taramasalata and toothpaste sandwich, and when that wasn’t quite enough, a large bowl of muesli.

Once I’d finished feeding her breakfast, I made sure she had access to pens and paper before leaving and locking the door behind me.

I had inventoried all my remaining food and figured I would probably run out tomorrow evening. I would be the first item on the menu when she got hungry, and if she couldn’t eat me, she’d either starve or try to escape – and that would be one more whole heap of trouble to deal with.

I headed off towards the elevator but stopped at the door to the apartment next to mine, room 902. It would be unoccupied, turned upside-down if the occupants were dead but still in residence, and removed completely once the corpse was removed. This room, I knew, was vacant. And since most ninth-floorers seemed to have blue-Buicked in some form or another – Moody, Roscoe, Suzy Watson, Birgitta, Porter Lloyd – it seemed prudent to have a look inside. Unaccountably, I suddenly felt a nervous knot that sat low in my stomach. A portent, if you like. The same thing I’d felt when going to repo Mrs Tiffen.

My Omnikey turned easily in the lock and the door opened on well-oiled hinges. But it wasn’t unoccupied, it was abandoned: the blinds were down, the mattress rolled up and tied with a cord. There was no furniture, blankets, food or carpets. The only thing in the room was a large steamer trunk pushed against our shared wall, the sort of thing roving hibernators used when travelling away to Longsleep. Unusually, the lock was pre-Omnilock, which dated the trunk from before 1931. Not illegal to own, as it was pre-legislation, but unlawful to lock and unlock – a legal peculiarity.

I walked into the bathroom and looked around but there was nothing here, either, just a single toilet roll and two empty coffee mugs. I was just about to leave when something caught my eye. Folded on the edge of the sink was a face flannel. I pressed a finger against the material, and instead of being hard and dry as I expected, it was soft, yielding and damp. The room had been visited recently.

The strip-lights in the bathroom flickered and the Charles I’d been in the dream remembered something new: I was in a lab somewhere, the smell of ozone in the air, blue light flickering from cathode tubes, myriads of flickering lights, the hum of machinery. To my left was a large inverted copper cone, similar to the one that I’d seen through the window of the lab at HiberTech, when Goodnight warned me about curiosity and what it did to the cat. I felt the sharp tip of the cone against my temple, a searing pain, and then the image was gone and I was once more alone in the bathroom.

I sighed, then washed my face in the basin using the flannel, and once I had, a thought struck me: just what, precisely, had Aurora been doing in the Siddons this morning? I didn’t suppose it was solely to see me – and it also occurred to me that when we led the three nightwalkers out of the basement the previous morning there had been fresh snow on Aurora’s command car, yet the morning had been clear and bright. She’d been at the Siddons at least part of the night on both occasions. And since she didn’t sleep, she must have been here on business. HiberTech business.

Aurora was right: life in Sector Twelve is rarely what it seems.