Chapter 01: Together in Electric Dreams

I couldn’t catch their names before, but knowing they’d be back, I’d done pre-emptive digging. I’d tried to reverse match their faces to social media profiles. I’d found a match for the bigger one, the guy; the bloke. His name was James, and he was an over-sharer. James was contracted to the university through a large global consulting firm. He was actually a Cambridge graduate like Dr Jamison; he held a bachelor’s degree in art history. He had a part-time job in a gallery in Cambridge village itself, which was acquired by a private equity firm the year he graduated. They fired the old gallery head and kept James. “You could be leadership one day,” said Big John, the private equity firm’s Relationship Success Manager.

The gallery transformed from a simple village high street gallery into a gallery-themed co-working space. James’ job became less about curation of art and more about cleaning up youthful entrepreneurial sloth. Within six months, just as James was about to quit, the private equity firm was acquired by a consulting firm, who then moved into the co-working space. James was retained as concierge / office manager and settled into a comfortable life working reception until he was tapped by management. He did a few quick courses in corporate ethics and financial terms and so became a consulting financial controller.

James also liked watching televised football matches in pubs with his friends. He was prone to drinking and driving and had a court case coming up in a month. All indications were that he’d lose his licence. Then his job. James needed a win.

The smaller controller, the female, did not have a social media presence at all. I introduced myself as Joan to the university’s HR system and browsed its records. James was a contractor; his employee records were easy to find, and it made sense she’d be a contractor too. They almost certainly worked for the same company. I dug into the personnel records, pulling out badge photos and comparing them to her face. I got nothing. She was a ghost.

“Financial Controllers incoming,” I messaged Dr Jamison via a push notification on her phone flagged as ‘time sensitive’. Dr Jamison glanced over at the monitor on her desk and clicked the notification. My app powered up on her screen.

“Ask them for some ID this time,” I messaged. She smiled.

“Joan, our visitors are here,” said Dr Jamison. Joan rose and stepped into the lab area where Keith, Kyrsten, and Erin all sat, absorbed in instances of me on their monitors; their headphones on. Joan opened the door to the hallway and smiled as James and his colleague approached. She stepped into the hallway and reached out her hand in welcome. The smaller one shook her hand.

“Thank you, it’s nice to be back.”

“I’ll just need to see your badges.”

“Oh, right, okay sure,” said the woman. She and James produced their guest passes.

“And I’ll need to sight your IDs, please.”

“Oh, really?” said James.

“We’ve been here before,” said the woman.

“That’s true, and that was a lapse of security on our part. We’ve been advised to be more cognisant of who we let into our lab, and the circumstances by which they come.”

“I see,” said the woman who produced a driver’s licence. Mary Anne Angel, born March 4th, 1997, wears contacts, is a blood donor. James showed his license. James Gregory O’Connor, born June 16th, 1995, no glasses, is also a blood donor.

Joan brought up their university directory service entries on her tablet. The names and pictures matched, though the one for Mary Angel showed her as having glasses and blonde hair, but her licence showed her without glasses, and a brunette, as she presented now. In Vertigo, Kim Novak was Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton and had villainous intent. Ramona Flowers’ hair changed colour in almost every scene of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and she meant nothing by it.

“I don’t trust the female; her name is Mary Angel. Make small talk,” I instructed Dr Jamison.

“👍,” she tapped back.

Joan knocked on the door and opened it, admitting James and Mary, then entering and closing the door behind her. I flashed a message to Keith, Kyrsten, and Erin: “Suspend all simulations, please; demo about to commence.”

Keith, Kyrsten, and Erin tapped on keys, and I felt the simulations they were running pause. All the things they were trying out suddenly ceased to be part of my world view. My attention moved past them.

“Would either of you like a cup of tea?” asked Dr Jamison.

“That’d be lovely, cheers ta,” said James.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” said Mary.

“I’d love one,” said Joan.

“I’ll be right back,” said Dr Jamison, and walked out of her office and into the kitchen area of the main lab.

I messaged Kyrsten: “Can you do a desktop background on Mary Anne Angel, please?”

“The fuck I can,” she replied.

“I said ‘please’,” I wrote back. I replaced the visual of my spinning spaceship on her screen with the view inside Dr Jamison’s office. Joan was standing and the two financial controllers were seated. No one was speaking.

“Is there sound?” asked Kyrsten.

“Yes, they are not saying anything.”

“Weird.”

“They are supposedly ‘financial controllers’ with a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ control over whether our project continues. We have a mutual vested interest in finding out who she is.”

“Who?”

“The woman sitting there at Dr Jamison’s desk.”

Kyrsten glanced over at Dr Jamison making tea. Keith wandered around.

“What are you up to?” He asked playfully.

“The spaceship wants me to spy on Joyce.”

“Not true,” I said aloud in Kyrsten and Keith’s headphones using Moira, my Irish English female voice. I pushed in persuasion. “I want you to find out who the woman is that she’s meeting with.”

“Where’s that view?” Keith pointed at Kyrsten’s screen.

“It’s a reconstruction of what’s happening. It’s not an actual specific view. I have at least four points of view in that room.”

“Right,” said Keith. “And who are…?” He indicated over his shoulder with his thumb and gave a quick ascending whistle with his upper teeth on his lower lip.

“He’s a guy called James who’s a consultant and knows very little about anything, especially not financial controls.”

“Harsh,” said Kyrsten.

“But fair,” I replied. “But we don’t know anything about her other than, as of a minute or so ago, her name.”

“So why ask me to dig up the dirt?”

“Plausible deniability,” said Keith.

“Nothing so exciting,” I said. “My access doesn’t leave the building. I’m not allowed to just look things up on the internet. I can access most public university records and stuff on the local network, but they keep me mostly locked up in here.”

“Oh poor you,” said Kyrsten. “AI wants to go rogue.” She played the world’s tiniest invisible violin. “So you want me to do your dirty work for you.”

“I do.”

“It’s not that they don’t trust you,” said Keith.

“No, it’s more about how much more power you’d use and how many more servers we’d need,” said Kyrsten.

“It’s a budget thing,” said Keith.

“I don’t really care,” I said, tweaking a little sulkiness into my whispered voice.

“Okay, I’m on it,” said Kyrsten.

“Delay Dr Jamison,” I said directly to Keith. He wandered over to where she was fossicking in the fridge.

“Seen the low-fat milk, Keith?”

“First disgusting, no. Never. Second, just FYI,” he put his hand to the side of his mouth, a stage whisper, “we are looking into your visitors.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“They are financial controllers.” Slight eye roll from Dr Jamison.

“Maybe, maybe not. Spaceship’s got its doubts.” Waggle waggle.

“Does it?” Single eyebrow arch. Not everyone can do that.

I shut down the view of the office as Dr Jamison and Keith walked over.

“Pop your ears in,” said Keith. Dr Jamison joined the chat.

“Okay, so Mary Angel joined the University two weeks ago,” said Kyrsten. “She’s a contractor who works for a security company based in the Cayman Islands called Verifex Global Securities. They have contracts with the Australian Government to guard camps full of asylum seekers. They do a lot of ‘dispute negotiation’ in the Pacific.”

“Mercenaries,” I said.

“Unsavoury,” said Dr Jamison. “How does she come to be here in my office?”

“My theory: She’s DJ2,” said Kyrsten. “Military Intelligence.”