Proxy, page 33
“What is?”
“That Isaac created me, and now, in a sense, I’m recreating him.”
The proxy stood back, his hands, wrists and lower arms red with blood and his tattooed brow shiny with sweat. He stepped towards a sink set into a counter top and washed off the blood.
“That’s the worst of it over,” the proxy said over his shoulder.
Ray nodded wordlessly. The room stank of blood and horror and his every breath came fast and shallow.
The guard made a muffled grunt, and Ray looked over to see the man was staring at them both in absolute terror from behind his improvised gag. God only knew what he made of it all.
The proxy set the machinery suspended above the bed back into motion, and the multitude of filaments once again drooped down towards the exposed matter of Isaac’s brain. They twitched as they got closer to Isaac’s head, like hungry sea creatures hunting plankton.
As soon as they touched the exposed matter of Isaac’s brain, uncountable points of light sparked against the wrinkled grey flesh and Ray smelled burning meat.
“Zero,” Ray choked, “what the hell…?”
“This is why it’s known as a rapid destructive uplift,” the proxy explained, his voice tight.
Smoke rose up as the filaments rapidly burrowed inside Isaac’s skull, burning everything they came into contact with. “It’s the same method Markov used to upload himself,” Zero added, “but in this case the process, as I said, is greatly accelerated.” He glanced away from Isaac and at Ray. “I’m afraid this won’t be pleasant, Mr Thomas.”
It’s already seriously fucking unpleasant, Ray wanted to shout, but he bit back the words. The filaments twitched and slithered around each other, jerking and trembling as they obscured Isaac’s head from his sight.
Ray watched until he could watch no more, then turned away, pressing his forehead against the cool plaster of a wall. The filaments crackled and hissed, the sound echoing from the bare walls.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
RAY
“Mr Thomas?” the proxy said a minute later. “Markov’s house security are on their way. If you can, try and hold them off for at least another few minutes. We’re almost done here, but I need a little more time.”
Ray looked over at the proxy who, at that moment, was engrossed in studying a series of seemingly abstract images flickering across a screen at lightning speed.
“What about your other proxies?” Ray asked. “Weren’t they already taking care of that?”
“Several have been captured,” Zero replied. “A few under my control remain at large, but not in sufficient numbers to provide an adequate defence on their own.”
Ray slid away the chair he had used to wedge the door shut. Opening it cautiously, he was relieved to see the corridor was still deserted.
Checking the pistol he’d taken from the guard, he found it had precisely seven rounds left. Perhaps it would be enough.
He waited by the open door. Several minutes passed before he heard the stairs creak somewhere below and out of sight. Then he caught a barely audible whisper, and Ray held the pistol in a steady grip, its barrel pointed towards the stairwell.
Seconds later, a guard’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. Ray aimed high and fired a warning shot. The guard scurried back down the steps and out of sight.
“If anyone else comes up here,” Ray shouted, “we’ll kill Markov.”
It was as good a bluff as any, he’d decided.
“That won’t work,” Zero said from behind him. “David Markov’s virtual self is by now aware his physical form is deceased and will likely have instructed his men accordingly.”
“How about you do your fucking job and I do mine,” Ray snapped. “How much longer are you going to take?”
The proxy didn’t answer for long enough that Ray risked a glance back at him.
“There’s a problem,” the proxy said. “One that may require drastic measures.”
Ray shifted his attention back to the corridor. There was no sign of movement, no sound. Whatever Markov’s security were planning, he wished they’d hurry up and get it over with.
“What are you talking about?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I need to do something I almost certainly won’t survive.”
Ray twisted around to look over at the proxy. “Zero, what the hell are you talking about?”
“No time,” the proxy replied. “Goodbye, Mr Thomas.”
Ray heard a series of clicks, accompanied by an overwhelming stink of cauterized flesh. A high-pitched alarm sounded, filling the room.
Zero’s proxy blinked at Ray without apparent recognition, then stared around the room as if he’d never seen it before. His gaze finally settled on Isaac’s still form, even as the filaments continued to burn away at the scientist’s flesh.
“What the fuck?” the tattooed proxy cried, staggering backwards and nearly knocking over a wheeled tray. His voice sounded high and strangled. “What the bloody hell is going on?”
Ray stared at the proxy, the guards momentarily forgotten. “Zero? What happened?”
But it wasn’t Zero, Ray realized at last. Not any more.
Distracted as he was, Ray heard the sound of running feet a moment too late. Before he could react, someone slammed into him from behind with enough force to send him sprawling and the pistol spinning out of his grasp.
When he tried to get back up, a boot slammed into his lower back, flattening him against the floor with brutal force. The air flooded out of Ray’s lungs and he gasped for air.
The room filled with shouts and the crackle of walkie-talkies. The man who had until seconds before been Zero’s proxy shouted for help as Markov’s security manhandled him to the ground.
Before he could contemplate his situation further, Ray’s hands were twisted painfully behind his back and handcuffed. Hands gripped his shoulders from behind, and he was lifted up and onto his feet.
Drastic measures, the machine had said. But precisely what did that mean?
Maybe it didn’t matter, thought Ray, since they had so clearly failed to do what they’d come here to do.
Glancing around, he saw that all the screens had turned black. Isaac, his face partly hidden beneath grisly strips of cut-away flesh, looked less like a human being than some kind of anatomically correct doll.
One guard placed a baton against Ray’s throat while a second held him by his shoulders. They guided him back out into the corridor and down steps he couldn’t see with his head forced back. From somewhere behind him he could hear the man who had, until moments before, been Zero’s proxy shouting and struggling with two other guards.
They led Ray back across the downstairs hallway, through another door and down more steps. A boot connected with his spine and he landed face-first on a concrete floor.
He coughed hard and spat blood. The pain felt like something living that writhed in his back and chest, burning where it touched.
A door slammed shut, leaving him in darkness.
Ray stayed where he was for a long time. The only sound he could hear was his own ragged breathing.
Eventually he tried sitting up. The pain shifted, intensifying in some places and lessening in others. He moved his body carefully, following the contours of his own agony, before finally dragging himself upright with one hand on a wall. His skin felt hot and damp.
At some point he either fell asleep or passed out.
When he awoke, it was to the sound of footsteps and a door being unlocked.
Light spilled down the steps. The same two guards as before entered and lifted him back up by his shoulders before guiding him up the steps with considerably greater care than they had previously shown him. They guided him through the house and through broad patio doors that provided a view across the same gardens he’d traversed the night before in the company of Isaac and Zero.
Then they were outside. Ray squeezed his eyes shut against the harsh brilliance of the morning sun. Their journey came to an end at a cottage nestled amidst tall trees thick with foliage. One guard rapped on the door, then opened it in response to a muffled voice from within.
The second guard took Ray’s handcuffs off. The muscles in his shoulders and back protested as Ray slowly brought his hands back around in front of him.
“What’s in there?” he croaked.
The guard said nothing, instead motioning with his chin for Ray to go in. Ray stared quizzically at the man, then entered. If they were going to kill him, why hadn’t they done it already?
He found himself in a low-ceilinged living room. A couch and chairs faced an empty fireplace, while an expensive-looking rug lay over varnished floorboards. A man stood by a desk in one corner, his posture relaxed as he leafed through folders of documents and scattered printouts.
He looked up, and Ray saw to his shock that it was Raphael Markov.
Markov’s face split open in a delighted grin that was entirely lacking in malice. Ray’s confusion only grew when Markov walked up to him, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug.
“It’s me,” said Markov, seeing Ray’s confusion when he stepped back, still grinning. “I’m Isaac.”
“You’re…it worked?” Ray swallowed with difficulty, his throat as dry and dusty as the surface of the moon. “It worked...?”
As he spoke, Isaac gave him an up-and-down look. “My God!” he exclaimed. “You look like you’ve been through a war. Where did they have you before they brought you here?”
Ray realized then that Isaac had no idea where he’d had to spend the night. “In the basement,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “They handcuffed me and left me there.”
“I’m sorry about that, Mr Thomas.” Raphael—no, Isaac—shook his head. “I’d have been able to free you much sooner, but I only just got Raphael’s skin back here from London by air taxi. Everything’s been such a blur, but so much has happened already that’s incredible, too.”
Ray nodded, fatigue washing over him. He dropped heavily into an armchair by the cold fireplace.
Isaac regarded him with sympathy. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
Ray looked over at him. “You’re really Isaac?”
“The last thing I remember saying to you,” said Isaac, “is that our species needs to evolve.”
Ray nodded. “So you’re like Zero now. Is that it?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Isaac-in-Markov studied his hands. “I feel like Isaac Sizemore, even in this different body.” His smile became crooked. “Or maybe I’m a machine that only thinks it’s a deceased scientist.”
A memory emerged from the fog shrouding Ray’s thoughts. Something the machine had said.
“Zero said he had to do something he wouldn’t survive. Then the guards came in.”
Isaac’s expression became more sombre. “It took me a little while to understand just what happened.” He shrugged. “I’ll be honest, I’m still not sure...”
“Tell me,” said Ray.
“As far as I can tell, Zero sacrificed his own collective memories and experiences by overwriting my own on top of his,” Isaac explained. “It was the only way he could guarantee my survival following the death of my physical self.”
Ray stared at him. “You mean Zero is dead? I mean…assuming he was alive in the first place.”
Isaac sat in a chair across from Ray. “I think I already told you that Zero was modelled after my own neural pathways. In effect, he was me. I’m assuming, with Markov’s men on their way, he saw it as the only strategy left to him that had a reasonable chance of success.”
“And David Markov?” Ray asked. “I thought the idea was to overwrite him, not Zero. So what went wrong?”
“I believe,” said Isaac, “that the matrix within which David Markov recreated his intellect was too new and complex for Zero to transfer me to it—within the available time frame, at any rate. Simply wiping Markov’s centralised matrix of all its accumulated data and moving my uploaded consciousness to Zero’s own matrix proved to be a much more effective short-term solution.”
Ray’s tone was incredulous. “So let me get this clear. You replaced Zero, and David Markov is, what—deleted?”
Isaac nodded. “Precisely so. My first task, however, is to find a means to shift my core neural components into the now-vacant and far more advanced mainframe Markov and Finch constructed. Once that’s done, I’ll dedicate myself to restoring Zero.”
Ray squinted at him. “You mean bring him back to life? Is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” Isaac said truthfully, “but I must try nonetheless. Both myself and Stacy owe him our lives. I could do no less.”
Ray realized his fingers were gripping the arms of the chair with excessive force. It took an effort of will to relax his hands. “Then… you’ve become the same thing Markov wanted to become.”
“I don’t intend to abuse the power available to me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Isaac.
Not yet, anyway, Ray thought with a sudden chill. But who knew what priorities an immortal Isaac Sizemore might have?
“And Raphael?” Ray watched Isaac as he stepped back over to the desk. “What happened to him, if he’s not in his own body after all these years?”
“For the moment, I’ve shunted Raphael into a temporary proxy and placed him under the care of the Abbey Rush Treatment Centre,” Isaac replied. “As soon as David Markov’s natural body died, Raphael of course found himself back in his own body. However, it’s my understanding that he suffered a series of near-fatal convulsions. Hardly surprising, when you think how long he’d been trapped in his father’s failing body. I’m keeping him under heavy sedation until I can work out the best treatment for him.”
“Those guards out there,” said Ray, nodding to the door of the cottage. “Do they know anything about all this? Does anyone else?”
“No.” Isaac, in Raphael Markov’s body, shook his head. “Only you, me, Stacy and Mr Waits.” As he spoke, he sorted through several folders scattered across the desk, then picked one up with a nod of satisfaction and brought it back over to Ray.
“And they’re safe?” Ray asked, looking up at the other man from where he sat.
“They are now.” Isaac held the folder out to Ray. “I had this put together for you,” he said. “I think you’ll find it of considerable interest.”
Opening the folder, Ray found it contained ring-bound printouts of emails and what appeared to be transcripts of conversations.
“What is this?” he asked, looking back up.
“Evidence that you were framed,” Isaac explained. “More than enough, according to Raphael’s lawyers, to clear your name with the Metropolitan Police.”
Ray shook his head, dumbfounded. “Thank you,” he said at last.
“It’s the least I could do,” said Isaac. “You risked a lot, helping myself and Stacy.”
“Sure,” Ray agreed, “but it was a job. Amy Cotter paid me.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow. “We both know it was a lot more than that.”
Ray didn’t argue. “I can go if I want to?”
“Of course you can,” said Isaac, sounding taken aback. “I can have one of Markov’s men take you anywhere you want.”
Ray started to push himself back out of his seat, then stopped. “And what about you?” he asked. “I mean, apart from trying to fix Zero. What are you going to do?”
Isaac seemed to think for a moment. “I think,” he said at last, “I have a lot of swords to beat into ploughshares.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
RAY
When Ray stepped back out of the cottage a minute later with the folder of evidence tucked under one arm, he found a grey-haired man in an expensive suit waiting for him.
The man escorted him to an air taxi parked on a gravel driveway close by the house. By the time the taxi dropped onto the roof of a Telop building in central London most of an hour later, fatigue had taken a firm grip on Ray’s senses, and he was barely awake by the time a limousine delivered him to his newly rented flat.
He just about stumbled through the front door and into the bedroom before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
It was dark when Ray finally awoke some thirteen hours later. Everything that had happened over the last several days felt oddly unreal. Any niggling doubts, however, quickly vanished when he found the folder of evidence Isaac had given him where he’d left it on the kitchen counter.
And when he activated his data bracelet, he found a message from a law firm offering to represent him in a case against the police.
Ray had just enough energy to send a reply before collapsing back into bed.
He woke early the next morning and watched the news over breakfast. There was no mention of murderous gorillas breaking out of a zoo, or of isolated houses in the Kielder Forest undergoing a siege. Even the invasion of the Peartree Institute by Zero’s army of proxies had faded so entirely from the news that one could imagine it had never happened.
An hour later, showered, shaved and dressed in clean clothes for the first time in days, Ray caught a taxi to the law firm.
Two weeks later he listened in a courtroom as a series of computer forensics specialists demonstrated precisely how someone had hacked his accounts to make it appear as if he had been receiving bribes.
The compensation turned out to be enough to live off for at least the next couple of years. The Met even offered him his old job back. Ray said he’d think about it, although he doubted he ever wanted to work with proxy again.
Instead, he went on a trip, applying for and getting a visa to travel to Italy in person, fulfilling a lifelong dream. It meant a medical check-up, a renewed medical passport and sky-high travel and health insurance, but it was worth it.
Four weeks after the events at the Markov estate, Ray woke in a bed in the Grand Hotel Ritz Roma—one of the few hotels in Rome to survive all three pandemics—to the sound of a concierge knocking at his door.
