The Synapse Sequence Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Daniel Godfrey and Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

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  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Also by Daniel Godfrey and available from Titan Books

  NEW POMPEII

  EMPIRE OF TIME

  The Synapse Sequence

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785653179

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785653186

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: June 2018

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Godfrey. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  FOR

  ELIZABETH ANNE JEYACHANDRAN

  AND FAMILY

  THE PRODUCTION OF TOO MANY USEFUL THINGS RESULTS IN TOO MANY USELESS PEOPLE.

  KARL MARX

  THE ARGUMENT OF THE BROKEN WINDOW PANE IS THE MOST VALUABLE ARGUMENT IN MODERN POLITICS.

  EMMELINE PANKHURST

  PROLOGUE

  N’GOLO DURRANT STOPPED running just long enough to make another call for help. The AI answered quickly, but not so fast that it could be misunderstood: ‘What is the nature of your emergency?’

  ‘The girl,’ N’Golo said, his voice straining somewhere between panic and anger. He swept some wetness from his nose and winced. The pain where Connolly’s fist had connected was still raw. A long, sticky, dark red streak appeared on the back of his hand. ‘I told you before, they’re going to take her!’

  ‘Please remain calm. Are you in immediate danger?’

  N’Golo held his breath for a moment. Was he? Had he been followed? He couldn’t be far from the gap in the security fence; he could see the lights of his foster-home. He ought to be safe. But nothing was safe now. A soft squelch behind him, then silence. N’Golo spun round. Most of the farm track he’d been running along was lost in darkness, curtained between a tall hedgerow and a cluster of trees; only a few slivers of water shone back from the tractor ruts in which he’d just stumbled. The light wasn’t sufficient for him to see much else.

  He doubted they’d let him escape so easily. N’Golo thought back to the basement. Remembered how he’d tried to shrug past Connolly before the older man had grabbed at him and pulled him back.

  ‘Caller, please respond. Are you in immediate danger?’

  ‘No, not me,’ N’Golo replied. The house was right there; he’d be inside quickly once he’d found the gap in the fence. But he couldn’t tell them. He’d be shipped off to another home as soon as he opened his mouth, his foster-father’s opinion of him confirmed. He had to make the police understand – now. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I told you before… but I know it this time! It’s going to happen!’

  ‘Are you in immediate danger?’

  The emergency AI was locked into its preprogrammed routine, just as unbending as Connolly had always said. And this time it was also wrong.

  ‘Check your records!’ N’Golo hissed. For a fraction of a second he thought he saw some movement. A patch of darker shadow moving against the background black. He turned and started walking – fast – trying to ignore the growing stitch in his side. ‘You can do that, can’t you? You know what I’m asking you?’

  ‘Please remain calm,’ the AI responded.

  ‘I am fucking calm…! The girl…’

  ‘Who is the girl?’

  ‘Beth Hayden.’

  ‘A “Beth Hayden” lives with you at 19 Vicarage Lane, Amblinside. Is this correct?’

  The voice continued to be both patient and efficient. There was no apparent hurry, not when it could answer hundreds of calls simultaneously. And while it spoke, the AI would also be crawling through its databases for any and all information about him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And who has taken her?’

  N’Golo felt another rip of frustration. ‘Take her,’ he corrected. ‘I told you they’re going to take her!’

  ‘Is Beth in your vicinity? Can you see her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And do you believe Beth Hayden to be in immediate danger?’

  N’Golo stopped. There was something wrong. The conversation with the AI was caught in a circle. ‘I told you all this before,’ he said, his voice now quiet.

  ‘Please return to 19 Vicarage Lane. An investigative team has been dispatched.’

  Investigative team. Not the emergency boys. Not the bulldogs they sent when the heat was on. Certainly not the hunter bots. And that confirmed it. He was being ignored.

  N’Golo ended the call to the AI. That noise again, louder, echoing his own movements. The squelch of work boots on the muddy path. He risked a glance over his shoulder. The shadows shifted again. Or perhaps it was just one shadow that was moving, detaching itself from the surrounding darkness. Was it a man? Was it Connolly?

  He clenched his fists.

  He was so very nearly home.

  1

  ANNA GLOVER ALLOWED herself a thin smile of satisfaction. She’d been right. Nobody had known the man wearing the light yellow shirt had dropped into the café prior to heading to the entertainment plaza. Yet he stood just a few metres away, ordering a flat white. Anna watched him, not trying to attract his attention. Instead, she made a few mental notes about his actions and demeanour that she’d later try to fit into the overall puzzle.

  The man didn’t make eye contact with the female barista. Bu
t he did nod slightly as his drink was placed on the counter, then apologised as he tried to pay with cash. It didn’t appear to concern him she couldn’t offer any change; that most people now paid with a swipe of their wrist rather than using coins or notes.

  Anna kept still at her table, appreciating the irony of where he’d chosen to purchase his last drink. This was a relatively expensive place: one of the few that still employed people to operate the coffee machines rather than using a much cheaper, multi-armed swivelling bot. She’d taken up a position against the back wall of the café, right next to the toilets. The customers near her were mostly sitting in silence, all wearing the alert but distant expression of anyone connected to the boards. No one looked at her. She may as well have not been there. Which, of course, she wasn’t. At least, not when the events had actually occurred.

  She looked back to the counter. The guy with the flat white hadn’t moved. His drink remained in front of him, untouched. He seemed hypnotised by it. A young couple who’d come to stand just behind him were impatiently calling their order over his shoulder. Anna tensed. Maybe he was listening to the voice of his conscience – and yet, if indeed that was what was happening, it had been all too distant. All too quiet.

  He stood up.

  Anna got ready to follow him out on to the street – but instead he took his flat white and went to a nearby table. She relaxed again, checking her watch. Yes, it wasn’t quite time. It wouldn’t take him long to get to the entertainment plaza; a couple of minutes, max. So it was about to happen, and she would witness it all.

  Sure enough, the man didn’t allow the coffee to cool. Instead, he took heavy gulps, showing no sign of pleasure. She wondered why he was here. Perhaps it was just to take part in some sort of ritual. Just to take that last hit of caffeine before he did the unthinkable.

  Anna didn’t know. The man pushed his foam cup aside, his shoulders and neck stiffening. But he wasn’t accessing the boards, his attention hadn’t left the room. Instead, he wiped his brow. Fidgeted. His skin acquired a thin sheen of sweat that could only be associated with building nerves. He knew he’d soon have to make a decision. He was almost at the point where he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

  Or maybe he’d long since sailed past it. Maybe before he’d ordered the flat white. Before he’d even left his hostel. Maybe at the time he’d gone to sleep the previous night he’d known that, when he woke up, he’d be living through his last day. Drinking his last cup of coffee in a café his friends would later say they’d never known him visit. And yet would she catch the moment where he realised his path to destruction was set?

  In her previous job, she’d witnessed those horrifying moments all the time. Mainly from trained men and women who couldn’t see what they were doing was wrong until they could no longer do anything to correct it. Minor mistakes, effortlessly rolling into larger ones. But there was always that sudden, snapping moment when the brain can only summon up a single word: Fuck.

  The man with the flat white was nowhere close to that point yet. And the details around him were becoming less clear. When he’d been at the counter, the slowness of his order had been enough to draw the attention of the other customers. Now he’d begun to merge into the background. Forgotten, and softening into the nondescript.

  Two men dressed in suits stood and moved towards the door, further hindering her view. As they passed, the walls of the café blurred for a moment – and then the man with the flat white once more appeared in her eye line. He pushed himself from his chair and headed for the door.

  Damn.

  He really had been alone. Other than the interaction with the barista, he hadn’t spoken with anybody. That disproved one of her theories. Nobody had pushed him into action, or was cheering from the sidelines. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t pick out anything useful.

  She stood – took a steadying grip of the edge of her table and waited for the café to stop swaying. A few more customers were finishing their drinks and making their way back on to the street. As they left, they took with them further detail of the counter and the tables immediately surrounding it. It felt as if something was pulling her brain upwards while also keeping her feet clamped to the floor.

  A waiter was already clearing the flat white’s table. Anna stumbled over, but didn’t try to stop him. The grey laminate in front of her just held the foam cup and a couple of sachets of sweetener. But there was something on the floor. She stooped out of habit to retrieve it, and was again beaten by the waiter. He frowned, then crumpled the sheet and pushed it into the empty neck of the cup. It would soon be on its way to the recycling centre, but at least now Anna had seen it: a single giant fist emanating from the wrists of many.

  The café grew a little dimmer. Twisting, Anna saw that the couple she’d seen earlier were leaving, and she followed them out of the door. The other customers dispersed left and right, but she already knew she could only follow the pair heading towards the entertainment plaza. Anna hovered behind them, unnoticed, searching for the man who’d been drinking the flat white.

  She saw him ahead. He hadn’t gone far from the café door, which was just as the local CCTV had recorded. He lingered alone, blurred and anonymous, and then pushed onwards – always a few feet ahead of the couple.

  Anna couldn’t help but feel a tiny pull of regret. From the stilted and jarring rhythm of the conversation ahead of her, she could tell this relationship was still new. She wanted to warn them. Tell them to turn and run. But it was too late. The couple in front kept glancing at each other and, as they did so, more and more of the detail of the street became lost, blurring into nothingness even though the approaching plaza should have made everything more vibrant.

  They’d perhaps been the closest, but had actually seen the least.

  Right up until the first shot.

  And then Anna saw it. The moment. Written in large panicked letters across three different faces, as the street scene first exploded in more detail than Anna could possibly process, and then simply disappeared.

  * * *

  ANNA FLINCHED AND rolled onto her side. She lifted her head just as the first wave of vomit came into her throat, just about managing to direct most of the liquid onto the tiled floor rather than across her steel bench or disposable clothing. A learned response, after months working in the synapse chamber.

  The tuneless whistle of the hub technician, Cody Weaver, passed into her ears, but most of her consciousness was still on the street outside the coffee shop. Watching from the point of view of her witnesses, as the man who’d ordered the flat white had started to open fire.

  Cody pushed her gently back onto the bench, checking with a practised move that her airway was open and clear. Their eyes met, but they both knew she couldn’t answer his questions yet, no matter how desperate he was to find out what she’d seen. He moved out of her eye line, and soon began to whistle again.

  Anna tried to ground herself, concentrating on the chamber she was in now, not the place she thought she’d been just a few seconds ago. All her witnesses would still be attached to the sequencer, lying outstretched on their own stainless-steel synapse benches. The effects of the sedative would keep them submerged until the experiment was finished. Right now, she could hear from the whistling that Cody was checking each one in turn.

  Yes, she thought. She was at the hub. She was back from the street, and had never really been there. All she’d seen was a patchwork of memories. A series of recollections from those witnesses who’d agreed to take part in her experiment – all processed into a single reconstruction.

  Cody ambled into view again, pushing a string-headed mop ahead of him, which left a characteristic wet squeak as it swept the slick of vomit into a gulley beneath the beds. ‘Your heart rate, adrenaline, all stable,’ he said, his voice breaking into a nervous chuckle. ‘As if you were sitting at home, watching TV. Now, if you could just stop spewing everywhere…’

  Anna opened her mouth to reply, but her tongue felt heavy and thi
ck. Like a slug was filling her mouth, pushing up against her cheeks and lips.

  ‘Relax. Don’t force it.’

  Anna closed her eyes as she continued to reclaim her brain from the street outside the coffee shop. Sure enough, after a few minutes her tongue began to feel normal again. In a few more, her fingers would become less like bananas. The sensation from her legs would take the longest to return. ‘It doesn’t… get any… less… awful.’

  The vomiting was, of course, the one clear problem with the synapse sequencer, the thing that stopped most of its more commercial uses from being put into practice.

  ‘Were we right?’ Cody asked, his voice hopeful.

  ‘No.’

  His face clouded over, but Anna’s attention was on her own recovery. She attempted to push herself upright, and was rewarded with an unflattering view down the length of the muslin overalls which covered her normal clothes. Next, she tried to move her feet. Failed. Her nervous system needed more time, but she was impatient. She forced herself up, and sat looking around her, legs dangling uselessly over the side of the bed. The synapse chamber was large and mostly empty. Her steel bench was one of twenty arranged as spokes around a central unit. Most of the equipment required to transfer and merge the subjects’ memories was contained within the structure of the benches, which lent a certain cold efficiency to her surroundings.

  The witnesses from the coffee shop were still ‘asleep’. They’d all been sedated to oil the wheels of the process: a light dose for Anna, to keep her higher functions lucid while allowing her to slip into the other’s memories; a higher dose for the witnesses. It gave them no opportunity to think about different actions or alternative courses of events, kept the combined memory as steady as it could be.

  There were two notable absentees from the chamber: the man who’d ordered the flat white, and the young woman Anna had been walking behind just before the first shots had been fired. Her boyfriend, Marlon, was with them, though. His overalls were covered in orange liquid as he struggled on his steel bench, as though caught in a thick mud.

  ‘He’s bumped out,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yeah,’ Cody replied, drawing his mop along the tiles, cutting them clean. ‘I see him. Give me a second.’