10. The Canal-side Mill 

The hallway entrance to the apartment was warm and smelled of freshly filtered coffee. A light came on as Rosh pushed the door open. The alarm bleeped once and deactivated itself. Just before disconnecting the digital assistant in the car, Rosh had asked his domestic to ready a fresh pot of tea. Senga made her way into the kitchen, she wanted to get changed but needed a warm drink before she did anything.

"Coffee all round?" As with the hallway, a light came on as she entered. She reached for mugs hanging on individual hooks below a cupboard unit.

"Please." Rosh carried on along into the lounge. He was eager to get to his desk and interrogate the domestic further about the day's events. As with all modern accommodation, anything that could be linked electronically was. The entertainment system, the phone, the vid, the mail, the net, the lights the kitchen appliances. Everything. If it was powered, it was linked. It had been that was for years.

"Black, no sugar for me please Senga." Max slipped off his jacket and hung it on the wall hooks to his left. He followed Rosh.

 

The flat was larger than Max's, in fact, this was the largest unit on the North facing side of the Mill. They had been neighbors for three years and friends for a lot longer. The hallway lead into a long, relatively narrow lounge area which in turn, lead to a set of double patio doors. There were four doors off the lounge, two on the left wall and two on the right. The walls were stripped back to the bare brick of the original Mill. Or at least they looked that way. They were in fact, decorated with one meters square, poly-mimetic tiles that perfectly faked the brickwork. They `visually` faked the brickwork (or whichever effect that the owner desired), when touched they simply felt like smooth plastic sheeting. Rosh had purchased the tiles last year from a business acquaintance. He told Senga that he was tired of re-decorating every six months or whenever Senga had seen a new 'look' in one of her magazines. He had paid a small fortune for them, but had worked out how much work he had saved himself. Every time Senga wanted a change he simply visited a 'Mimetic Décor` site on the net and pulled off a few new designs. The Domestic handled the rest.

Rosh had a terminal desk halfway along the left-hand wall. Although there were a number of terminals around the apartment he used this one the most. He pulled out a black framed chair from beneath the desk and seated himself.

"Domestic, please display today's entries." He had viewed the activity list on the handheld in the car but now, he wanted to delve deeper.

Max seated himself in front of a log effect fire on the opposite wall to the desk. Like the wall coverings it was a fake. The hole in the wall was real, the logs and black, cast iron cradle were real and the heat was real. The flames were CG. It was real enough for Max. He lay back into the large, well-cushioned tan leather armchair, one of a set arranged around the room. He felt a strange movement as the chair adjusted to his shape.

The terminal on the desk in front of Rosh sprang to life and displayed the day's list again. Rosh pulled the curved black keyboard towards him. He reclined the chair, swung his legs up onto the edge of the desk and positioned the keyboard on his thighs. He scrolled down to the entry that detailed the information from the Mitsubishi.

Senga walked into the lounge carrying a tray of drinks. She had a plate of assorted biscuits and a couple of pieces of fruit. She pulled a small plastic table out from a nest of three. She placed it next to Max's and put the tray down. She took up one of the drinks and carried it over to Rosh, who indicated that she should put it on the desk. Moving back across the room she picked up a drink for herself and made her way to a chair that faced Max from the other side of the fire. She slumped into the large chair and let it fold around her. She felt it's synthetic muscles re-adjust to her pre-set. Bliss

Max picked up his own drink in one hand and reached for a small dark chocolate biscuit.  The food made him think of his empty fridge and unsent grocery list. The fridge was never empty before Lise had left him.

Senga turned to where Rosh had his back to them.

"Found out anymore Rosh?" She was calmer now. The apartment was her sanctuary, she always felt secure at home.

"Hmm," Rosh was reading from the thin screen, "Yeah, I got a full report from the Mitsu's onboard. It's still live now. It shows that it was pushed into a ditch five miles South of Rochdale. Hang on, it says that it was pulled over by a police vehicle after a twenty klik chase!” 

"So the police caught up with them then? The car thieves I mean?." Senga had a puzzled frown. "If the police did stop them how is it that it was pushed into a ditch. You did say pushed Rosh?"

Rosh was reading the cars report. The car kept a digital log of everything that happened to it after being stolen but he couldn't understand the sequence of events that he was reading. Even though most modern cars could report themselves missing he had never heard of a police unit responding immediately. That was the technological irony of modern things. The technology was available but the manpower to respond wasn't.

"Wait. Lets start from the beginning here." He scrolled the screen back to the start of the report.

"The car gets nicked for the Abra, right." Senga walked over to stand behind him.. She had her drink cupped in her hands. She studied the scrolling text and graphics that Rosh was scrutinizing." Rosh continued.

"Within seconds it reports itself stolen to the police. It says that there were two occupants, one male one female, neither registered. Obvious. It then proceeds northwards using the underways and PSV lanes. After half an hour it reaches the 6200 north express and heads out east towards Rochdale. It detects a police vehicle in pursuit as it hits the main drag. After nine kliks it leaves the express towards Rochdale center. Okay, this is the bit that confuses me. It says that it was pulled over after another few klicks. So, if it was pulled over first, why did it end in the ditch?" He lay back in the chair and put his arms behind his head.

Max leaned forward in the armchair "Maybe it wasn't the thieves who pushed it into the ditch."

Rosh angled his head to look at Max. Spinning back to the screen he scrolled further.

"Oh jesus. look at this." Rosh`s eyes were wide.

Senga bent towards the screen and read the end of the report.

"What does it say?" Max couldn't see the terminal with Rosh and Senga standing so close together.

"It says" Senga spoke slowly and deliberately "that I am in shit street without a taxi home".

Rosh turned to Max. "It says….. that the cops dragged them from the car and shot them where they lay on ground. Then pushed the car off road and torched it, that’s what it say." His pronunciation slipped as it always did when he was nervous.

The car was fitted with unobtrusive sensors all around its body and hidden in the interior. It could pick up temperature, weather conditions, current traffic density that it compared with commercial reports that it received from the networks. It had a number of pinpoint cameras concealed both internally and externally and it was the images from these camera that were on screen next to the text that Rosh had just been reading.  There were rear view images of the police car, internal photographs of the two car thieves and a number of very clear pictures of the police standing over the prone bodies holding guns at the back of their heads. The two officers were oblivious to the fact that the car may well have been recording the incidents or perhaps they simply didn't care?. The sensors in the car had stopped working after it was torched but the main processor, hidden away in the subframe was protected. It was still functioning and sending out information now that the car was a burnt out wreck. The last entry on the log before the sensors gave out indicated that the last of the flames were just dying down and that the car was beyond economical repair. It had even sent a summary of the damage to the insurance company.

"Why?" It was Max "Why kill the them?. They didn't even speak to them, they just dragged them out and shot them? It doesn't fit."

Rosh was looking up at Senga`s worried face. She couldn't take her eyes off the screen. It was still displaying the graphic of the police officers, black rain capes frozen in mid flap, standing over the two bodies aiming stubby black machine pistols at the two victims.

"It fits. It all fits." Rosh turned to Max. "They're cleaning up a mess!".

Max frowned.

Rosh continued, as he spoke he hit deftly fingered the keyboard to request a hard copy of the current image on screen. "They probably thought that Senga was driving at first. When they pulled the car over I mean. They must have realized what had happened and decided to clean up."

"You are joking right?" Senga exploded. "You are saying that they were after me because of the block incident, right?" She was shaking with emotion now, her drink spilling over the side of the mug onto the floor. "This is straight out of your conspiracy theory programs, science pissing fiction is what it is."

An image of the two policemen in capes dropped into the receiving tray at the side of the terminal.

"Okay." Rosh remained calm. He could see how worked up she was getting and he wanted to cool things down a little.

"Riddle me this. When you ever heard of a traffic unit responding to a stolen vehicle ten minutes after it's nicked? It doesn't happen does it?

"Rosh is right" Max joined in. "They just don't respond to stolen cars, they don't have the people. The traffic units never leave the expressways, there is always enough to keep them busy up there twenty four seven."

Senga moved back to the armchair facing Max. She slumped down and sat with her face buried into her hands. Rosh stood up and walked across the room. He squatted down next to her and gently put his arm around her shoulders. He lowered his voice.

"Listen. First thing tomorrow we can take a run over to Central and report all this to a duty officer. They can't all be involved and they can sort things out for us. We got the Mitsu's records. That guard that I crunched can back you up. When he gets out of casualty." Senga imagined Darrel hobbling into a courtroom on crutches and didn't get the feeling that he would be very helpful after what Rosh had done to him.

Max stood up "listen guys, I'm going to make a move. If you need me tomorrow, just buz, I will be in all day. The cars there if you need it."

"Thanks Max, you a good friend," Rosh stood and walked with Max to the door.  When they reached the end of the hall Max turned and whispered to Rosh.

"She be okay?"

"Yeah. She fine tomorrow. She hyper at the moment but hey, I'm getting there m`self"

"It stinks, the whole thing doesn't seem right." Max turned the release catch and slowly pulled the door open

"We need to get help to sort it out. It is all mixed up in my head tonight. Thanks Max, you been great."

Max left the apartment and made his way down the dimly lit corridor to his own place.

 

Rosh very slowly lifted his head from the pillow and looked over Senga`s shoulder to see if she was asleep. Her breathing was steady and relaxed. She had been lying awake for over an hour after coming to bed, Max had been able to feel the tension. He had made her use a sleeping patch but it was taking its time to act.  The room was dark, the only light coming from a wall lamp in the hall. Rosh turned away from Senga and looked at the little clock at his side of the bed. Four thirty. He very slowly lifted himself out of the bed and crept from the room closing the door after him. 

Something had kept him awake. Something kept nagging at him, something about the Mitsu report that wasn’t right. Sure, the whole deal wasn’t right but he felt like he had overlooked something. He made his way along the hallway into the lounge area.  The lights reacted giving just enough light to move around safely.

He sat at the lounge terminal that he had used earlier and pulled the keyboard forward. A few klicks later the screen was illuminated and entering the previous days reports.

Rosh had no idea what was troubling him so he decided to run through the whole report point by point. He read slowly through the days logs as he had done before,

“The party, the Mill vandals, yes, yes, blah blah….” He scolled on “Line rental paid, received mail…. Alarm deactivation 02.03am.” The last entry was the alarm deactivation when then entered the apartment. Where was the Mitsu log? The entry was missing. He scrolled back through the entries. Gone. His hand flew across the keys, he tried a number of searches to see if the entries had been filed away somewhere. Nothing. He searched for the last log from the Mitsu.

“Vax? A bloody Vax?” Rosh stared wide-eyed at the result of his search.  The last recorded entry from the car was eight thirty AM yesterday when it asked the Domestic to enter a date in Senga`s diary to have it cleaned.

He heard a noise over his right shoulder. The hairs rose on the back of his neck as he turned to look. Senga stood at the Window end of the lounge in the doorway to the hall.

“Rosh. What is it?” She walked over to the desk.

He relaxed a little. Why was he so jumpy?

“The Mitsu entries have gone. I can`t find a thing……look..” Senga bent over the screen. She reached for the keyboard and tried a few search strings.

“I did that. It just isn’t there is it?”

Senga stopped typing and turned her face to Rosh.

“The cleaners work late at Police headquarter these days! We`ve been burgled” She sank to the floor and rested her back against the desk. Her head fell onto the top of her knees.

“It’s not real Rosh, none of this is real.” She heard her own voice as if she was an observer listening in. And didn’t sound like her.

“What could have gone on in that Gemini room that would lead to all this?” Rosh felt helpless. He wanted to tell Senga that he would sort it all out and by morning they could laugh about it all. “Senga, it is re………….” He stopped

His nagging doubt leapt to the front of his mind and propelled him off his chair. He reached out to the receiving tray that lay in darkness at the side of the screen.

“Senga, the hard copy, look…..”

She span her body into a kneeling position facing the desk. Rosh had the picture of the two policemen laid flat on the desktop. He pulled the head of a large silver desklamp over the print and clicked it on. A circle of harsh white light surrounded the paper.

“They aren`t real, look!” He was pointing to the nearest officer.

“What do you mean not real? The image has been altered?” She frowned up at him perplexed.

“No…Look…the gun. The gun is an automatic pistol. See?” The stabbed his finger repeatedly at the image.

Senga looked blank.

“Police don’t use automatic weapons, remember…..Terminal Two, early twenties…..”

And then she remembered. Automatics had been banned after an officer had flipped and gunned down fifty people.  

“If they aren’t Police….” She slowly mouthed the words but didn’t finish the sentence.

 

 

 

 

10. The Canal-side Mill

 

 

The hallway entrance to the apartment was warm and smelled of freshly filtered coffee. A light came on as Rosh pushed the door open. The alarm bleeped once and deactivated itself. Just before disconnecting the digital assistant in the car, Rosh had asked his domestic to ready a fresh pot of tea. Senga made her way into the kitchen, she wanted to get changed but needed a warm drink before she did anything.

"Coffee all round?" As with the hallway, a light came on as she entered. She reached for mugs hanging on individual hooks below a cupboard unit.

"Please." Rosh carried on along into the lounge. He was eager to get to his desk and interrogate the domestic further about the day's events. As with all modern accommodation, anything that could be linked electronically was. The entertainment system, the phone, the vid, the mail, the net, the lights the kitchen appliances. Everything. If it was powered, it was linked. It had been that was for years.

"Black, no sugar for me please Senga." Max slipped off his jacket and hung it on the wall hooks to his left. He followed Rosh.

 

The flat was larger than Max's, in fact, this was the largest unit on the North facing side of the Mill. They had been neighbors for three years and friends for a lot longer. The hallway lead into a long, relatively narrow lounge area which in turn, lead to a set of double patio doors. There were four doors off the lounge, two on the left wall and two on the right. The walls were stripped back to the bare brick of the original Mill. Or at least they looked that way. They were in fact, decorated with one meters square, poly-mimetic tiles that perfectly faked the brickwork. They `visually` faked the brickwork (or whichever effect that the owner desired), when touched they simply felt like smooth plastic sheeting. Rosh had purchased the tiles last year from a business acquaintance. He told Senga that he was tired of re-decorating every six months or whenever Senga had seen a new 'look' in one of her magazines. He had paid a small fortune for them, but had worked out how much work he had saved himself. Every time Senga wanted a change he simply visited a 'Mimetic Décor` site on the net and pulled off a few new designs. The Domestic handled the rest.

Rosh had a terminal desk halfway along the left-hand wall. Although there were a number of terminals around the apartment he used this one the most. He pulled out a black framed chair from beneath the desk and seated himself.

"Domestic, please display today's entries." He had viewed the activity list on the handheld in the car but now, he wanted to delve deeper.

Max seated himself in front of a log effect fire on the opposite wall to the desk. Like the wall coverings it was a fake. The hole in the wall was real, the logs and black, cast iron cradle were real and the heat was real. The flames were CG. It was real enough for Max. He lay back into the large, well-cushioned tan leather armchair, one of a set arranged around the room. He felt a strange movement as the chair adjusted to his shape.

The terminal on the desk in front of Rosh sprang to life and displayed the day's list again. Rosh pulled the curved black keyboard towards him. He reclined the chair, swung his legs up onto the edge of the desk and positioned the keyboard on his thighs. He scrolled down to the entry that detailed the information from the Mitsubishi.

Senga walked into the lounge carrying a tray of drinks. She had a plate of assorted biscuits and a couple of pieces of fruit. She pulled a small plastic table out from a nest of three. She placed it next to Max's and put the tray down. She took up one of the drinks and carried it over to Rosh, who indicated that she should put it on the desk. Moving back across the room she picked up a drink for herself and made her way to a chair that faced Max from the other side of the fire. She slumped into the large chair and let it fold around her. She felt it's synthetic muscles re-adjust to her pre-set. Bliss

Max picked up his own drink in one hand and reached for a small dark chocolate biscuit.  The food made him think of his empty fridge and unsent grocery list. The fridge was never empty before Lise had left him.

Senga turned to where Rosh had his back to them.

"Found out anymore Rosh?" She was calmer now. The apartment was her sanctuary, she always felt secure at home.

"Hmm," Rosh was reading from the thin screen, "Yeah, I got a full report from the Mitsu's onboard. It's still live now. It shows that it was pushed into a ditch five miles South of Rochdale. Hang on, it says that it was pulled over by a police vehicle after a twenty klik chase!” 

"So the police caught up with them then? The car thieves I mean?." Senga had a puzzled frown. "If the police did stop them how is it that it was pushed into a ditch. You did say pushed Rosh?"

Rosh was reading the cars report. The car kept a digital log of everything that happened to it after being stolen but he couldn't understand the sequence of events that he was reading. Even though most modern cars could report themselves missing he had never heard of a police unit responding immediately. That was the technological irony of modern things. The technology was available but the manpower to respond wasn't.

"Wait. Lets start from the beginning here." He scrolled the screen back to the start of the report.

"The car gets nicked for the Abra, right." Senga walked over to stand behind him.. She had her drink cupped in her hands. She studied the scrolling text and graphics that Rosh was scrutinizing." Rosh continued.

"Within seconds it reports itself stolen to the police. It says that there were two occupants, one male one female, neither registered. Obvious. It then proceeds northwards using the underways and PSV lanes. After half an hour it reaches the 6200 north express and heads out east towards Rochdale. It detects a police vehicle in pursuit as it hits the main drag. After nine kliks it leaves the express towards Rochdale center. Okay, this is the bit that confuses me. It says that it was pulled over after another few klicks. So, if it was pulled over first, why did it end in the ditch?" He lay back in the chair and put his arms behind his head.

Max leaned forward in the armchair "Maybe it wasn't the thieves who pushed it into the ditch."

Rosh angled his head to look at Max. Spinning back to the screen he scrolled further.

"Oh jesus. look at this." Rosh`s eyes were wide.

Senga bent towards the screen and read the end of the report.

"What does it say?" Max couldn't see the terminal with Rosh and Senga standing so close together.

"It says" Senga spoke slowly and deliberately "that I am in shit street without a taxi home".

Rosh turned to Max. "It says….. that the cops dragged them from the car and shot them where they lay on ground. Then pushed the car off road and torched it, that’s what it say." His pronunciation slipped as it always did when he was nervous.

The car was fitted with unobtrusive sensors all around its body and hidden in the interior. It could pick up temperature, weather conditions, current traffic density that it compared with commercial reports that it received from the networks. It had a number of pinpoint cameras concealed both internally and externally and it was the images from these camera that were on screen next to the text that Rosh had just been reading.  There were rear view images of the police car, internal photographs of the two car thieves and a number of very clear pictures of the police standing over the prone bodies holding guns at the back of their heads. The two officers were oblivious to the fact that the car may well have been recording the incidents or perhaps they simply didn't care?. The sensors in the car had stopped working after it was torched but the main processor, hidden away in the subframe was protected. It was still functioning and sending out information now that the car was a burnt out wreck. The last entry on the log before the sensors gave out indicated that the last of the flames were just dying down and that the car was beyond economical repair. It had even sent a summary of the damage to the insurance company.

"Why?" It was Max "Why kill the them?. They didn't even speak to them, they just dragged them out and shot them? It doesn't fit."

Rosh was looking up at Senga`s worried face. She couldn't take her eyes off the screen. It was still displaying the graphic of the police officers, black rain capes frozen in mid flap, standing over the two bodies aiming stubby black machine pistols at the two victims.

"It fits. It all fits." Rosh turned to Max. "They're cleaning up a mess!".

Max frowned.

Rosh continued, as he spoke he hit deftly fingered the keyboard to request a hard copy of the current image on screen. "They probably thought that Senga was driving at first. When they pulled the car over I mean. They must have realized what had happened and decided to clean up."

"You are joking right?" Senga exploded. "You are saying that they were after me because of the block incident, right?" She was shaking with emotion now, her drink spilling over the side of the mug onto the floor. "This is straight out of your conspiracy theory programs, science pissing fiction is what it is."

An image of the two policemen in capes dropped into the receiving tray at the side of the terminal.

"Okay." Rosh remained calm. He could see how worked up she was getting and he wanted to cool things down a little.

"Riddle me this. When you ever heard of a traffic unit responding to a stolen vehicle ten minutes after it's nicked? It doesn't happen does it?

"Rosh is right" Max joined in. "They just don't respond to stolen cars, they don't have the people. The traffic units never leave the expressways, there is always enough to keep them busy up there twenty four seven."

Senga moved back to the armchair facing Max. She slumped down and sat with her face buried into her hands. Rosh stood up and walked across the room. He squatted down next to her and gently put his arm around her shoulders. He lowered his voice.

"Listen. First thing tomorrow we can take a run over to Central and report all this to a duty officer. They can't all be involved and they can sort things out for us. We got the Mitsu's records. That guard that I crunched can back you up. When he gets out of casualty." Senga imagined Darrel hobbling into a courtroom on crutches and didn't get the feeling that he would be very helpful after what Rosh had done to him.

Max stood up "listen guys, I'm going to make a move. If you need me tomorrow, just buz, I will be in all day. The cars there if you need it."

"Thanks Max, you a good friend," Rosh stood and walked with Max to the door.  When they reached the end of the hall Max turned and whispered to Rosh.

"She be okay?"

"Yeah. She fine tomorrow. She hyper at the moment but hey, I'm getting there m`self"

"It stinks, the whole thing doesn't seem right." Max turned the release catch and slowly pulled the door open

"We need to get help to sort it out. It is all mixed up in my head tonight. Thanks Max, you been great."

Max left the apartment and made his way down the dimly lit corridor to his own place.

 

Rosh very slowly lifted his head from the pillow and looked over Senga`s shoulder to see if she was asleep. Her breathing was steady and relaxed. She had been lying awake for over an hour after coming to bed, Max had been able to feel the tension. He had made her use a sleeping patch but it was taking its time to act.  The room was dark, the only light coming from a wall lamp in the hall. Rosh turned away from Senga and looked at the little clock at his side of the bed. Four thirty. He very slowly lifted himself out of the bed and crept from the room closing the door after him. 

Something had kept him awake. Something kept nagging at him, something about the Mitsu report that wasn’t right. Sure, the whole deal wasn’t right but he felt like he had overlooked something. He made his way along the hallway into the lounge area.  The lights reacted giving just enough light to move around safely.

He sat at the lounge terminal that he had used earlier and pulled the keyboard forward. A few klicks later the screen was illuminated and entering the previous days reports.

Rosh had no idea what was troubling him so he decided to run through the whole report point by point. He read slowly through the days logs as he had done before,

“The party, the Mill vandals, yes, yes, blah blah….” He scolled on “Line rental paid, received mail…. Alarm deactivation 02.03am.” The last entry was the alarm deactivation when then entered the apartment. Where was the Mitsu log? The entry was missing. He scrolled back through the entries. Gone. His hand flew across the keys, he tried a number of searches to see if the entries had been filed away somewhere. Nothing. He searched for the last log from the Mitsu.

“Vax? A bloody Vax?” Rosh stared wide-eyed at the result of his search.  The last recorded entry from the car was eight thirty AM yesterday when it asked the Domestic to enter a date in Senga`s diary to have it cleaned.

He heard a noise over his right shoulder. The hairs rose on the back of his neck as he turned to look. Senga stood at the Window end of the lounge in the doorway to the hall.

“Rosh. What is it?” She walked over to the desk.

He relaxed a little. Why was he so jumpy?

“The Mitsu entries have gone. I can`t find a thing……look..” Senga bent over the screen. She reached for the keyboard and tried a few search strings.

“I did that. It just isn’t there is it?”

Senga stopped typing and turned her face to Rosh.

“The cleaners work late at Police headquarter these days! We`ve been burgled” She sank to the floor and rested her back against the desk. Her head fell onto the top of her knees.

“It’s not real Rosh, none of this is real.” She heard her own voice as if she was an observer listening in. And didn’t sound like her.

“What could have gone on in that Gemini room that would lead to all this?” Rosh felt helpless. He wanted to tell Senga that he would sort it all out and by morning they could laugh about it all. “Senga, it is re………….” He stopped

His nagging doubt leapt to the front of his mind and propelled him off his chair. He reached out to the receiving tray that lay in darkness at the side of the screen.

“Senga, the hard copy, look…..”

She span her body into a kneeling position facing the desk. Rosh had the picture of the two policemen laid flat on the desktop. He pulled the head of a large silver desklamp over the print and clicked it on. A circle of harsh white light surrounded the paper.

“They aren`t real, look!” He was pointing to the nearest officer.

“What do you mean not real? The image has been altered?” She frowned up at him perplexed.

“No…Look…the gun. The gun is an automatic pistol. See?” The stabbed his finger repeatedly at the image.

Senga looked blank.

“Police don’t use automatic weapons, remember…..Terminal Two, early twenties…..”

And then she remembered. Automatics had been banned after an officer had flipped and gunned down fifty people.  

“If they aren’t Police….” She slowly mouthed the words but didn’t finish the sentence.