I’m in the process of moving my books to Draft2Digital, which will then handle publishing them on most of the ebook shops out there, including Amazon. The job means I’m going through folders I haven’t visited in years, and occasionally finding things I’d forgotten I wrote. Such as the snippet below.
It was in the Sounds of Soldiers folder, and says it’s from 2009. I haven’t a clue where I thought this story might go, but it looks like I was trying for a bit of a William Gibson vibe, with the wounded and rebuilt ex-military guy, unevenly spread future, and hints of corporate intrigue.
“I’m remembering things.”
“That is a good thing, yes? That is what the treatment is for.”
Miller wasn’t convinced by Sanjeev’s Goodness Gracious Me accent. The kid was a repat- New Raj, some called it- after all. Probably spoke broad Brummie when the punters weren’t around.
“No. I’m remembering things…..” it was hard to explain, “I’m remembering things I don’t remember forgetting.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Stuff that shouldn’t be in there. Stuff that doesn’t fit with how I got this lump of metal in my brain.” Memories. Bodies, charred, beaten, eviscerated. There was a lot of death in his past, he had been serving in the RanRaq theatre for a year before the explosion, but there was something about these images that unsettled him. Something he hadn’t remembered yet. “Can these things implant memories?”
“Not at all, not at all. The nanotechnology is about rebuilding the damaged pathways in the brain. You are suffering from, we call it, Past Shock. Many patients are disorientated when they remember things that happened years ago as if they are fresh. We have a drug regime, if it is getting too traumatic.”
“No. No need for that. It’s not that bad.”
“Very well. You are going out today? Before it gets too hot?”
“Yeah. The Lord wanted to talk about something.”
***
“Why the fuck couldn’t I have something they’d treat with stem cells?” The Lord waved his stick to shoo away a child beggar, “And why the fuck aren’t these little bastards in school? India’s knowledge capital my arse! If they don’t set up compulsory schooling this bubble’s going to burst.” Time was The Lord had needed two sticks to walk. Now he was upright and using the one he retained as a weapon.
“You look pretty good to me.” They had stopped to watch a solar powered sweeper try to work its way around one of the city’s holy cows. The long horned bovine was content to chew its cud and saunter in front of the machine every time it danced away.
“That, my boy, is part of the problem. Did I just call you ‘my boy’? I’m really sorry, sometimes I just want to play the role, you know.” He’d been knighted for services to British industry. No amount of titles could have secured the nano treatment in the UK, so he’d brought his cancerous brain out to Mumbai. “They want to kill me.”
“What?”
“The thing is, I never completely signed over control. I retained the option to come back, if the treatment was a success. And it was. But they’re off in a different direction, the sort of shit I avoided when I was in control. I’d have to oust the whole board, and they’re onto something a bit cushy there. Don’t want to leave.”
“So you think they’ve hired hitmen?”
“Oh, worse than that. Lawyers.”
The cow tired of its game and wandered away. The sweeper crabbed sideways until it found the pavement and carried on with its duties.
“What?”
“They’ve found a loophole. All the cells that are replaced in my head can be declared artificial. Once they get beyond a certain ratio they’re going to declare my brain an AI. If they file in the right part of the world they can have me turned off.”
“Fuck.”
“That’s what I said. If they’re successful I’m never leaving this city. I’ve filed counter suits, but it’s going to take forever.”
There was a tea stall. It had rolled up whilst the cow and sweeper had been doing their dance and the boiler was now fully charged. “Two English, yes? Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know. No offence, but if we start to need your expertise I’m really in the shit. But I’ll keep it in mind.”
