The alternative is to post a jolly good read and let the final chapter come next week!!!
Chapter 6
Julian woke up in his own bed. He had been completely undressed and put into his sleep shorts. All his clothes had been neatly folded and put away. He knew in his heart that this was never his doing, as under normal circ-umstances and in that condition he would have left a trail of clothing from front door to bedroom. The most disturbing revelation was the presence of his shawl next to him, as only he knew where it was hidden.
He sat up, his head was in agony and this was a hangover from hell. His mouth tasted awful, yet he realised that he had not had a cigarette all evening. He could not remember a thing from the night before as he carefully folded up the shawl and returned it to its hiding place.
The flat was spotless. He would have normally had a drink of water after an alcoholic session of that magnitude, but of the glass there was not a trace. He pulled back the duvet to remake his bed and something caught in the folds and flew across the room to clatter on the floor. It clattered against the wall and rolled under the bed on the parquet flooring. It must have been a small bottle of lemonade or something similar; mineral water that’s it, he argued to himself as he groped under the bed. He grasped the cylindrical bottle wondering where he would have purchased such a drink, maybe it came from the restaurant. He was in for a shock, because as the bottle emerged from beneath his bed he saw it was decorated with babyish characters of rabbits, frogs and teddies. Worse than that it had a huge teat clearly designed for an adult and far too large for a baby.
The drink that remained in the bottle was Ribena or some similar blackcurrant drink.
The surprise of it all made him collapse on the bed in a state of shock. He looked around wondering what to make of it all. His eyes fell on a note on the bedside cabinet.
“Dear Julian
Thank you for a wonderful night. I am sorry if I ordered too much drink, but I really enjoyed your company. We managed to bring you back in the lift and that nurse you bumped into had a bottle in her bag that she uses on her very severely disabled patients who cannot sit up. She said you could keep it. I will call you later to see how you are feeling.
Love
Elizabeth X”
Julian was happy for a moment, until he remembered that they had found his shawl. He suddenly felt very vulnerable.
He looked at his watch and groaned, it was the middle of the afternoon. He had slept for more half the day. Never had he done that before and never had he felt so awful. On reflection he realised that he had not drunk nearly enough to feel this bad.
Julian slowly pulled himself together and had a long shower. He dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, gathering together his clothes from the night before and from the laundry basket to do a wash. He carried the bundle into the kitchen and opened the door to the washing machine. It was not empty, for in the bottom of the drum was a cloth. He dropped the dirty clothes and took out the item. “What the f…” he started to say out loud “what the bloody hell”. For in his hand he held a large terry towelling bib with a cartoon teddy appliquéd in one corner and blue gingham edging and ties around the outside. More than that it was still damp around the neck with what was clearly blackcurrant juice.
Panic started to set in. He immediately went to his lap top and flipped up the lid. Instead of the normal Sony Vaio wallpaper on which his icons normally had as a background there was now a picture of substantial woman dressed as a nanny cradling the head of a large adult wearing a bib being fed a bottle. The large adult was Julian. In the background he could see Elizabeth with a grin on her face as large as any he had ever seen. There was more, he could make out other women similarly dressed in a reflection in the large mirror that hung by his bed.
He slammed down the lid of his lap top and picked up his jacket from the wardrobe, scooping all his usual bits and pieces from the table as he rushed out of his flat. He had to get out. Julian ignored the lift and rushed down the emergency stairs and pushed the fire doors open knowing that this would probably set off the alarms, but he was beyond caring.
He hailed a taxi that was passing and jumped in. “Oxford Street, Selfridges please”. Julian tapped numbers into his mobile phone. “Hank, thank god! I need your help buddy and I need it really badly” he gasped “there is something really strange happening to me and I need your help”.
Hank was best described as a geek, if it had a wire in it then Hank was your man. Software, hardware, anything that could go into standby was his domain from CCTV to hacking he was the man. He was a mountain of a fellow, hairy as a gorilla, built like a tank, far from athletic, but a brain with an IQ that was amongst the best in MENSA.
“Meet me at Selfridges at the side entrance” he ordered
In ten minutes the taxi was there, traffic was low on a Sunday. Hank had already arrived and looked as scruffy as he always did, but maybe a bit worse because it was the weekend. They went into the coffee shop.
?
Chapter 7
“I am in such a mess” started Julian “I am in such a mess. Some really weird things happened to me last night and I am totally freaked out right now”. Julian went through as many of the events as he could remember and Hank being a good friend listened without interruption and without comment. He tried not to grin at the babying bit of the story and failed. Julian looked at him really crossly.
“Give me your mobile phone” said Hank. Julian handed over his mobile and Hank with the precision of a surgeon had it apart in ten seconds. “Christ!” he exclaimed in a soft whisper “this is really top end of the market. This is a tracker and a relay loop”. He put his finger to his lips indicating total silence.
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a roll tied with tapes, he undid the bundle and opened it up. It was an operating kit with screwdrivers, cutters and all the bits and pieces you would need for delicate work. In a moment he had cut out two components from the phone.
“Okay” you can talk now” he said, throwing the two small bits onto the table “they cannot hear you now, nor will they be able to track you from now on, but we need to move. You remember that movie where they stole some guy’s life; well it looks like you are the same man. You are going to have to get rid of everything and I mean everything. Show me your watch”.
“It’s a Tag. No don’t open it you will invalidate the warranty” pleaded Julian as Hank produced a strange spanner and started to unscrew the back.
“It has already been opened” said Hank pulling out another coil from the watch “another tracker”. He threw it on the table. “Man you could be carrying loads of stuff”. Hank grabbed him by the arm and said “We’ve got to move. Now. Seriously Julian, this is a crack operation you have stumbled into. They are not short of money, because this gear is top of the market, I mean really exclusive government level.”
They paid the bill and went across Baker Street to Marks & Spencer. Hank picked up shirts, pants, socks, trainers, pair of jeans and a complete new kit of clothing. Julian looked on in amazement. “Pay the lady” said Hank “now go and change in the booth”.
Julian totally fazed by the speed at which things were progressing did as he was told. He came out of the changing cubicle clutching the bundle of his things. Hank took them and walked out of the store. A man down on his luck was setting up camp in a doorway outside. “These are for you mate” he said throwing every item removed by Julian”
“Those were expensive” wailed Julian
“Those were hot” explained Hank. “Come on we have to get back to my place, so I can check you out properly”. It took them half an hour to get there. Hank took no time locating a scanner similar to the one that they use at the airport, except that this one was looking for electronic bugs. He was thorough and when he had finished announced “You are clean as a whistle my friend. Let me double check your phone again”. He scanned the phone and handed it back. “Get a new one, they know your number”.
“What the hell am I going to do Hank?” he asked
“Nothing, you are going to stay here while I check out your flat” and with that he packed a rucksack with various metres and test equipment then left like a whirlwind.
Julian sat on the grubby sofa littered with electronic magazines, pizza boxes, circuit diagrams and a clutter that depressed him. He hated new clothes that had not been washed first as they always seemed to smell of formaldehyde or some other preservative. He looked round the sitting room and became a little more depressed. He put on the television and slipped off into a doze, whatever he had been drugged with last night was still in his system and he was now totally convinced that he had been set up.
It must have been about an hour he had been drifting in and out of sleep when the phone in the flat rang shrilly. He picked it up cautiously “Hello Hank’s phone” he said quietly
“Julian!” screamed the voice “your flat is not only bugged with listening devices, but there is not a single place you could move without being seen. This place was built with CCTV in every single corner. Man you could not have been watched any better than had you been in a top security prison mate. Anyway I am leaving as I speak…… Oh shit!... The bloody door won’t open…”
The line went dead. Julian did the only thing he could, he looked at the phone. “Hank? Hank are you there?” The phone whined at him, whoever had been on the phone was gone. He felt the panic begin to rise within him. All the shops were shut, he had what he was stood in and it was a working day tomorrow. He had to get a suit and the trappings of the “city slicker” he had become, but there was no way he could go back to the flat. He realised that if they had taken Hank that it would only be a matter of time before they would come to his flat.
He made a decision, he would run.
Julian took a bag from the top of Hank’s wardrobe and put his spare shirt inside. He could not go to a hotel with no luggage. He decided that the Sherlock Holmes Hotel was as near and central as any. Hank’s flat no longer felt secure. He took an anorak hanging on the hook by the front door, put it on and pulled up the hood. The door closed and locked as he left. Hank lived five floors up and Julian almost lost his legs in his eagerness to get out. As he approached the landing by the front door two women had just let themselves in carrying large soft handbags like the woman in the restaurant and the familiar pins on their lapels identified them clearly as his adversaries.
He slowed his pace and lowered his head, the dirty old anorak was a perfect disguise and they were not looking for somebody who appeared to be a poor student type. Julian hit the street and decided to walk away. He took his mobile and threw it onto the road as a bus was passing. It shattered into a thousand pieces.
He checked into the hotel and was about to leave his credit card as security when he realised that they could trace him. The hotel was not keen to take his cash, but he paid for the night cash in advance.
He turned on the television “…. Police are looking for any witnesses who saw an incident that took place in Baker Street, one hundred yards from Marks & Spencers. A vagrant was injected with sedatives, attacked and stripped of his clothes by four women dressed as nannies. The man of no fixed address was left wearing an incontinence garment and his old raincoat by the gang. He has been taken to …..”
Chapter 8
Julian had gone straight to a store and bought a new suit off the peg, as well as shirts, underwear and all the things he would need for the coming weeks. He took a risk and used his credit card. By the time he got to work he was over an hour late. He realised that they would catch up with him in no time, because they had his lap top, they knew where he worked and the likelihood was that they would catch up with him in no time at all. However, he had to work and he had to keep going somehow. He was worried about Hank who seemed to have disappeared. His mobile was dead. Calls to the flat went unanswered and he was not at work.
He organised new credit cards and rented a scruffy flat to act as a pied-a-terre, while he brought his act together. Amazingly nothing happened that day, nothing happened the day after. In fact life went on for two weeks with nothing unusual. He replaced his cell phone, changed his finances and kept a low profile avoiding any of his normal haunts.
It was when he was leaving the office that he saw Hank ahead of him in the street. However, it was a Hank in a form never known to him. The man before him was clean shaven, the great mop of hair had gone and was now short and wispy. He looked clean and polished in a rather juvenile lemon jacket that barely covered an even more juvenile white top with a picture of a princess or Barbie figure on it. He was wearing baggy pale lemon jogging bottoms and rather ‘girly’ looking trainers. He had lost a great heap of weight and had he not been such a dear friend Julian doubted he would have ever recognised him.
Hank hated any sort of jewellery and so it was with surprise that Julian noticed he was wearing a heavy silver bracelet on his wrist, to be precise it was exactly like a Christening bracelet you would give to young babies. In his ears were two studs that were the same shape as the links in Elizabeth’s necklace.
“Hank” started Julian “Hank, what the hell have they done to you?”
“Run you fool” said Hank covering the bracelet on his wrist “run for lord’s sake run” then without warning Hank doubled up apparently in some discomfort. Julian supported him by putting an arm around him. In such close proximity the unmistakable smell of baby powder was on his friend. “I am theirs now” he managed to say before clutching his crotch.
“What?” exclaimed Julian.
“I am wetting my nappy you dunce” he said clearly exasperated “those bloody women have turned me incontinent. That bracelet on my wrist can cripple me at a touch of their button. I am hot-wired into places you could never guess. They know where I am to within 3 feet and now they know where you are too you bloody fool.”
“They don’t want me” said Julian, “they have had two weeks to catch me and done nothing.”
“Look you silly bugger, the reason they have not caught you is not because they did not know you were living a block from here, not because you were safe at work, not because you thought you were smart to pay in cash. You are free today because they can only process one of us at a time. It takes two weeks to complete the initial work. Look out – Mary Poppins is coming, for God’s sake get out of here”.
Julian looked down the road and sure enough a rather muscular woman in the familiar nanny uniform was bearing down on them. He made a decision on the spot and decided that it was futile to run. He gave his friend a hug and helped him to stand up straight. “Shoulders back” he said “chest out”. Hank straightened up as two patches formed on either side of the tops of his legs.
“Bloody hell” he laughed ironically “they can wire me up like a computer, they can track me globally, but they cannot find a bloody nappy that doesn’t leak”. He started laughing and by the time the nanny had caught up to them, they were both crying with laughter. “Nanny McPhee” he shouted “sort me out you ugly bitch, or I’ll have to give you a damn good seeing to”. Nanny looked at him with contempt, took out a keypad and punched in some numbers, Hank gasped and clutched his stomach. “You are just going to love the anal dilator” he grunted as he had no option but to soil his already over-burdened nappy. He then fell to the floor in a fit of twitching and collapsed. The nanny punched her keypad again and the figure on the pavement came out of spasm.
“I am nanny Sarah” she said in an almost kindly voice “you can be good or you can be naughty. You can see for yourself what naughty means, being good will bring rewards later”. Julian frowned for a second.
“I’ll come quietly” he said “I don’t seem to have many options do I?”
At that very moment a private ambulance with frosted glass windows pulled up, three nannies alighted and helped Julian into the ambulance. He was ordered to lie on the stretcher as an injection was administered to his inner arm. In seconds he drifted into a deep and very heavy sleep.
Chapter 9
Julian awoke in his flat, in his bed and he had no idea how long he had been asleep. He had seen Hank on Tuesday, it was quite dark outside, so he guessed that it must have been about three or four hours ago.
He looked at the cube that was his bedside clock radio, the date told him he had seen Hank exactly two weeks and five hours previously. There was a note propped up against the clock from Elizabeth which simply stated “You are signed off work for the rest of the week.”
It came as no surprise to see that he had a Christening bracelet that was identical to the one he had seen on Hank. It was tight on his wrist and had clearly must have been welded on, because it had no obvious means of opening and no clasps or catches. The design was infantile but beautifully carved and peaking beneath the hidden surface against his skin he could see no flaws or secret panels or openings. It seemed solid silver, was marked as solid silver and apart from its size, was exactly the bracelet you would put on a young baby, but scaled to fit an adult.
He lifted the bracelet to his mouth “Julian calling Hank, Julian calling Hank, over”. He was surprised as his voice was just a whisper and he could barely talk at all. The next thing was even more bizarre.
“Hank calling Julian over”. The sound was in his head, it did not come through a speaker or from the bracelet but directly into his ear. “It’s okay old buddy, they made me a cog in the security part of the organisation. We can speak later. My advice is to do as you are told and stay cool, because these girls have some horrid things they can do to naughty boys”.
His bladder was aching and he got out of his bed to go to the toilet. He nearly fell because he was as weak as a kitten. He held on to various pieces of furniture in order to get himself to his destination. As he directed his stream into the white of the toilet he was shocked to notice that he was peeing mainly blood, indeed he was so shocked that he almost fainted at the sight of it.
He decided that if it did not get better in a few hours he would have to go and see the doctor. There was no pain just a feeling of numbness, almost bruising as if something had been prying in his inner parts.
He looked at his arm, it was punctured from the insertion of needles and cannulas and as a result had suffered a high degree of bruising. It was quite clear from his appetite that he had not eaten anything solid for the entire period. His throat felt sore and inflamed. An examination of the fridge showed that somebody had stocked it recently and everything was easy to swallow. In the freezer there was some ice cream.
It could have been worse he thought, they could have made me like Hank. As he ate the ice cream and drank the cold fruit juice, he realised that one or both had been laced with a sedative. He just made it back to his bed before he collapsed.
He woke up the next day and he had no idea whether it actually was the next day or what time it was because his bedside clock had disappeared. He felt like he had been asleep for a week. His lips were sore, but at least his throat no longer hurt. As he turned in his bed he realised with horror that he must have just wet himself because his bed was wet but it had not had time to cool. He threw back the duvet and was surprised to find that he had been sandwiched between two large protective bed pads and that there was a plastic sheet on his bed that had totally protected his linen. He was also relived to note that there was no pinkness in the stain, whatever had caused the previous concerns had cleared up.
Julian gathered up the mess and rolled it into a neat package and put it in a bin bag.
He showered and dressed
His wallet was on the table and he picked it up, the picture of his Auntie Jean was still poking out of the little pocket meant for his bank notes. He took it out to replace it back in his small photograph album. There was a small mark in the corner and he went to rub it off, he looked again, surely not… there was no possibility! He almost ran to the small desk in the lounge and pulled at the centre drawer to take out his magnifying glass. He trained the lens on the corner that had attracted his eye, there it was, there could be no mistake, it was the top half of a brooch, there was doubt in his mind that it was in the shape of a nappy pin.
Almost immediately there was a knock at his door but before he could open it, in rushed Elizabeth. Julian was spluttering and hyperventilating, his world turned on its head.
“You” he struggled to speak “you, you, you’re my Auntie Jean” he managed to exclaim. A wet patch formed on his sleep shorts as he slowly crumbled and crumpled to the floor. He wept.
Elizabeth sank to the floor beside him. “I’m sorry Julian, we had to create some comfort for you, because your life was so miserable. The trouble with you is that you are too curious, too questioning and too clever by far. You were never meant to see me in the café that morning; I had taken a chance going down a little earlier than normal. ”
A nanny came into the room with one of the soft handbags and passed it to Elizabeth. He looked up at her.
“Jessica” he said with total surprise “Jessica from the foreign desk. We had dinner here in this very apartment.”
“The very same” she said with a smile “you fell asleep on me; and we were having such a lovely date at the time as well.” Julian looked sheepish, for it was another of those occasions when his mind had become a total blank.
Elizabeth and Jessica tugged at his wet shorts and proceeded to clean him up with a large tub of baby wipes. Julian then noticed that he had no hair down there, but nothing could surprise him anymore. Jessica rubbed in a thick white cream to protect his skin and had him roll over on his tummy so she could protect him from both sides. As he rolled back to face them he realised they had placed a large terry nappy folded into the traditional kite shape. He was dusted with baby powder and then Jessica pulled the flap up between his legs while Elizabeth pinned the sides shut with two large nappy pins. He was not embarrassed, he was not ashamed, and it was as if he had been programmed to accept his situation.
He lifted his legs as Jessica shook out a large pair of protective plastic pants and she slowly worked them up his legs, which Julian noticed with a wry smile had also been denuded of hair. The two of them fussed about poking, patting and adjusting his new underwear until they were satisfied that the task had been properly completed.
“Cigarette?” asked Elizabeth. Julian felt an instant craving, he rubbed his lips with his finger and they still felt quite sore. He went to the place where he kept his box of Marlboro and picked them up. However, this was not a cardboard box, this was a plastic box with a cut out of the branded box glued to the front. He opened the lid, took out the contents and put it to his lips. He took a long drag on the tip and the rubber teat slipped into his mouth and the dummy began to bob in and out with the rhythm of his suc-king.
“There, I bet that is a lot better isn’t it? I told you I would stop you smoking, aren’t you pleased? Now you will not stink out the flat and all your clothes will smell lovely and fresh.” The two women looked at him with almost a glowing pride, as a small tear forms in the corner of Julian’s eye and slowly swelled until it was sufficient to roll down his cheek.
He sat down on the couch and the two women sat either side of him.
“Time for explanations” said Elizabeth “cuddle up and let me explain what is happening” she said taking his shawl out of the cushion cover and wrapping it over him. “Trust me, there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of, you are going to be cherished and loved as never before and you will want for nothing.”
Julian gave a sniff and appeared to cheer up a little.
Chapter 10.
“Your background was one of sadness” she started, stroking his hair as she spoke “Your memory of your parents was totally true, but the part of your Auntie Jean was woven into your life by me.”
Julian suc-ked on his dummy, although he did not understand why it brought him so much comfort.
“When you first looked at the flat, we know that you were exactly the type of person we needed in our organisation and although you will not remember this, you came back to us the following weekend supposedly to take measurements and sign contracts. In reality we put you out, put you under and began our treatment process. Did you know that you are a total natural for hypnosis? It took no time at all to weave this little story together, assemble some photographs and convince you that this flat was made for you.”
She looked into his eyes with kindness and Julian at that moment could not care where he was or how he got there.
“You had a good track record at Bingham and Bingham, our spy Jessica took no time at all to single you out as special. We make money here, in fact we make a colossal amount of money, not by selling the real estate, but by having an elite and crack team of financiers, IT men, computer specialists and all the support they need. You saw many of them in the restaurant. That time you managed to get in was so we could have a better look at you to see whether you would fit in. Clearly you passed that test.”
She paused for a moment to gain her thoughts.
“You remember Johnnie, he’s a systems analyst, but he had an idea that he was going to do a runner and join the competition which is something we never allow. He had an accident on the way to dinner, if you take my meaning and when he caused further trouble his problems became a little worse!” Elizabeth allowed herself a small chuckle. “Did you know that more industrial espionage happens under the name of recruitment than anything else?” The tablets I gave Anne would turn Johnnie into a very receptive zombie when they got him home and he could be “reprogrammed” to be better behaved and more committed.”
“The man you met outside the toilet, well that was Frankie and he is totally committed to the programme and sees his disability as nothing out of the ordinary, because that is the acceptance we instil in all of our associates. The nannies look after the associates and if they come off the rails then we put them back on again. All of them have bought apartments here at one time or another. These few floors are the “entrance hall” to our offices which extend all the way to the top of the building. Frankie is a neural pathway specialist and you will be meeting him again. All the flats are electronically controlled and monitored, but more than that we tamper with all your music, DVDs, sound systems, radio, so that you are continually exposed to subliminal messages. We drug your food, we have access to your strong box, locks, codes, electronic gadgets, in fact it is a total waste of time trying to hide anything because we see you tap in the codes and hear every word you say. When you sleep we sometimes come in and give you special hypnosis therapy that we later tell you to forget ever happened!”
“But the door is chained” mumbled Julian past his dummy.
“Who uses doors?” laughed Jessica.
“Another person you will be meeting soon is your friend Hank who would never have come into our radar had it not been for you. You will be working very close with him, because his hacking and computing skills are second to none. I have to say that Hank has taken very well to the regime and has totally accepted his situation, he too was very impressionable.”
“And now little one, it is time for you to go back to sleep, because you have so far to go.” Julian started to struggle but Jessica had already delivered the contents of the syringe into his arm and his eyelids drooped and quickly closed. Elizabeth put her hand on the front of his plastic pants and was rewarded by feeling the warmth of Julian wetting himself. “Yes, he is coming on very nicely” she said as he continued to suc-k peacefully on his dummy. “We never had one that was as orally as fixated as this one have we Jess? He seems to be totally addicted to his do-di already”.
“We did have that guy who would never take his bottle out of his mouth, I think we got him hooked up on the NUK5 didn’t we?”
“Yes, what was his name? Little Petie. It was a shame about him, he was really cute. I never expected it to turn out so badly for him”.
The door opened and four nannies came in. In a trice they had Julian’s bed was totally stripped and his sheets replaced with thick absorbent ones more suitable for a baby. Cellular blankets were used to replace his duvet and a more laundry friendly quilt was placed on top.
A footed sleeper was laid out on the bed and the women all lifted and manipulated Julian into the garment and zipped him in. A small lock secured the zip at the neck. They pulled up the hood and tied a terry bib around his neck as he had started to dribble with the constant suc-king of his dummy. They stood back to admire their work. He looked a little cherub in his bunny lamb sleeper, with a little lamb embroidered onto his fleecy chest and his nappies padding him out below, all beautifully set off with his pink bib and dummy to complete the ensemble.
“I want him in theatre tomorrow please” said Elizabeth
Chapter 11
The floors above Julian’s were extensive. The research facility took up an entire floor and was packed with servers, main frames and computers. At the heart of the complex was a transmitter that communicated through the silver bracelets. These were exceptionally complex in their construction and contained components that were incorporated into their fabrication as they were cast. Cochlear implants communicated through the bracelet, as did other components implanted throughout the host’s body.
Subliminal messages, instructions and other messages could be transmitted at ease. GPS satellite communication with the band meant that its position could always be found.
The worst implant was without doubt was the one located within the bladder that acted on the urethral sphincter. This could either open the gate to the bladder or seal it totally shut. The pain of not being able to release urine is probably one of the worst and what starts out as being an irritation can quickly build up to the pitch of agony. It was the uncertainty that the recipients found so hard to bear, because they can be totally continent and then at the push of a button a nanny can discharge the entire contents of their bladder. Not to wear protection was too great a risk.
On the other hand, they could go to the toilet and find that nothing happened, the urge was there but there was no flow despite the pressure being present. It was similar to having prostate troubles but with no hope of going if nanny had closed the valve. Trying to concentrate under these conditions was impossible and if held to the last minute the joy of going was always associated with a vast gasp and total dedication of thought and mind to the feeling of relief.
New recruits ensnared in this way could never leave unless they had the friendship of an available urologist who could operate immediately. However, in the unlikely event that such a possibility did exist, there was little to no hope that he would have the necessary equipment to remove the device cunningly anchored to the wall of the urethra without risking potential permanent incontinence. The scheme encouraged total obedience and loyalty with every employee in the same boat, which meant that there was little embarrassment involved.
However, Julian was destined for phase 2 of the programme and this went far beyond what might be considered acceptable, were in not for an amazing piece of luck.
Hank was not the tame little soldier they thought they had tamed to be stooge and puppy dog to command for their doing, this brute of a man may have looked like a convert, but that unruly brain of unrivalled IQ and unfathomable depth operated outside of the network they had assigned to him.
The scientific breakthrough was not in bulky hardware, it was in the communication through the bracelets which acted like an iPad or iPhone and each member of the team had their own identity. Every implant had its own address and unique code. Hank could control the whole system and he could almost do it by the power of thought, well by humming actually, because tones could be converted to numbers.
Hank had never really got on that well with Frankie, his constant boasting about his neural networking had truly got on his nerves. He hummed five notes and Frankie’s valve moved to the closed position and urine started to acc-umulate in his bladder. Frankie had been with the programme for a long time and so he was virtually incontinent anyway and would wet himself at the slightest build-up of pressure. He was a great advocate of hydration and drank endless bottles of stagnant mineral water to keep at maximum water balance. It only took an hour for him to be in panic mode. It was his nanny’s afternoon off and she had his control pad, although she never needed to use it. It would have made little difference because Hank had reassigned his number anyway and imprinted the device with a new code that he could easily remember (happy birthday!).
The whole centre went into panic mode, the company urologist was summoned, the theatre was re-assigned and Julian’s time on the table was cancelled. Hank knew he had to act fast as they he had been feeding Julian with numerous messages to love wearing wet nappies, to love suc-king his dummy, to want to be a baby and numerous other juvenile enticements. He had intercepted the entire bank of digital messages from central control and done his best to re-write them. He hoped that eight hours was enough to counteract the worst of the effects.
On another part of the network Hank had found the building’s power grid and was planning a total meltdown. It was not a brilliant plan but it might just get them enough time to make an escape.
He recorded twenty minutes of all Julian’s surveillance feeds and put them on loopback. Without appearing flustered he made his exit, just as Frankie was writhing on the floor in agony and screaming obscenities at anybody near him. He took the stairs down to Julian’s flat and punched in the entry code.
“Come on ol’ buddy, rise and shine” he said shaking Julian who he was pleased to see had spat out the infantile dummy. “You wet?” he asked
“Soaked” replied Julian.
“Good lock that one” said Hank who had a skeleton key and was picking the lock. It sprang open in seconds. “Take this silly stuff off and get some proper clothes on”. He looked in Julian’s wardrobe and luckily they had not taken out any of his clothes yet.
“I am incontinent” said Julian
“No you aren’t” said Hank, I have you locked off, but if you want to take a pee do it now, because I can open you up”.
Chapter 12
It took ten minutes to get Julian out of his baby things and into his city wear. Hank was still dressed in his childish garb but was not bothered. He hummed a whole series of notes, fiddled with the bracelet, barked out some commands and the whole building died. The air conditioning, all the motors that hummed and buzzed in the background stopped.
The door opened, the safe opened, everything in the building had fallen open as all security systems had been disabled. Data was lost from computers and chaos was upon the organisation. Frankie’s bladder ruptured.
Julian’s strong box fell open and they took all the money out.
They ran to the front of the building where Hank had organised a private car to take them to Manchester. He had booked them into the old Midland Hotel close to where he had some fellow geeks ready to help him out.
“Now look Julian, we are far from safe. I estimate it will take them at least eight hours to sort out the mess I have created, but I can’t be sure. These bracelets are a bloody liability but I need them to control the implant in you. This mini transmitter only has a range of 50 metres so do not wander too far away or get separated”.
The car stopped at the service station. Hank dashed out and met a man wearing an anorak who gave him a case. He handed him an envelope in return and dashed back to the car. “Go mate!” he ordered.
“What’s that?” asked Julian as Hank opened up the case. It contained some dull sheets of metal and a sheath of papers bound by a thick beige rubber band.
“Lead sheeting” he replied “we need to shield these bracelets until I can work out how to disable them. Whoever designed these was a genius, because all the components are cast into the metal and I have no idea exactly what is in there or how it works.”
“Why not cut them off?” asked Julian
“Because we have no idea what is inside, there could be a poison capsule, a high density emergency signal, a signal that screams to your ear implant. We just cannot take any risks. There are no records of taking one of these off, even the guy who died went to his grave with it on; and these things aren’t cheap at more than five thousand pounds each”.
“Died?” asked Julian
“Yes, his name was Peter, he was one of the earlier inmates. I have so much to tell you about him and more than that; I can tell you exactly what we are running away from”.
Hank sat back in the seat. He took some peanuts out of his pocket and gave a packet to Julian.
“They are working on neural networks. The brain has a vast capacity to calculate and analyse things, but it is cluttered by a million other distractions that spoil its efficiency. These mental cases are working to hook human brains into a network powered like wireless LAN and use them as superfast computers which possess intuition and the human ability to make weighted decisions. However, as I said the brain is cluttered by feelings, emotions and other things that it needs to do. Frankie had the idea that you could take most of the brain off line by taking it right back to the time when it was a baby. The only things it needs to do is breathe and run all the bodily functions and organs. If you keep the body warm, take away anything that requires thought, empty it of memories, and basically clean out the hard drive, then you have a vast capacity available”.
“You had an ideal brain for their system, Peter was a smart arse like you in the stock market, but he could not hook up and they literally burnt him out, he suffered an aneurism and died on the table”.
Julian looked at the bracelet more closely, it was more than an inch and a half wide for the metrically minded it was about 3 cm. It was about a third as deep. On the front it had a silver hallmark with three stamps he did not recognise, but that would be unusual argued Julian to himself because the bracelet is hollow and Hank had said it was cast? He knew the silver marks for Birmingham, Cheshire and London, but it was none of these. It would have had to have been assayed in situ and that would have meant the wearer being taken to the Assay Office! No, there had to be more. The pattern was intriguing, a series of interlinking squares like a Celtic cross or maybe even like a lover’s knot ring. No he was being a damned fool again it was the nappies on a line theme. There were two lines of nappies back to back, and he turned the bracelet on his wrist… that is unusual he thought, another set of hallmarks, but this time one has a different symbol. Hang about, they were not hallmarks at all, they are registration marks.
Hank in the meantime had cut two large strips out of the lead and tried to wrap Julian’s wrist. “No wait Hank” said Julian “wait a minute. Pass me that elastic band in your case and give me a pen”. He almost snatched the pen out of Hank’s hand. He drew a line of nappies around the band and showed it to his friend. Does that look familiar?”
“I have seen a necklace like that around the neck of Elizabeth” he said
Julian took the band and twisted it in half and aligned the two edges. “Seen one of these?” he asked with a huge grin.
“You clever bugger” said Hank “It’s the friggin’ bracelet”
“These hallmarks aren’t hallmarks at all, they are instructions” argued Julian
“Polarity said Hank, the bloody thing works like a security tag they put on a jacket in a store. We need a couple of magnets. They will have developed a special jig, but we should be able to manage without one”. He looked at the panel in the door “Sorry mate” he said to the driver “but I need your stereo for a moment” and in a moment had stripped out the speaker from its holder.
The driver was looking to pull over but on a motorway that was not possible. Julian stuffed £500 in his face “we will pay” he said. Peace was resumed.
Hank ripped out the one from the back seat, almost breaking his chair by leaning over the top.
“There!” he announced, “two super magnets. Now hold up your wrist Julian and let us see. Postive to negative and negative to positive to complete the circuit”. Nothing happened
“No you nitwit, positive to positive, like forces repel and we want to drive the forces holding this thing apart”, Hank swapped the magnets round. Nothing. The car hit a slight bump and the bracelet split into two strands and fell apart. The craftsmanship was exquisite, there were aligning pockets in the links which held small components. In fact the inside of the chain had gold contacts to improve skin conductivity. Hank passed the magnets to Julian who aligned them with the marks and on his bracelet then drew them apart forcing the inner locks to move.
They harvested the components embedded in what was now a necklace and wrapped them in the lead sheet.
“This is as good as Faberge said Julian, the work is absolutely exquisite. It must take hours to fit because there is so much to achieve. How am I going to take a pee now the bracelet is off? I thought you said the valve was locked shut.”
“I have a plan” said Hank, he muttered under his breath “I hope?”
Chapter 13
The car continued on to Manchester to the Midland Hotel (which is now called the Crowne Plaza!). They stopped round the back to avoid making too grand an entrance. The driver was a little fed up about his music system hanging in bits, but £500 meant he could buy a really nice system to replace it.
Julian was eager to use the bathroom, Hank had used his nappy. They had taken a chance on there being spaces and were fortunate that there were no conferences or exhibitions at the Metro Centre which the other side of the road to where they had arrived.
They asked for a room with two single beds. The receptionist thought they were gay, especially as Hank looked such a sissy in his feminine outfit. Julian was beginning to fidget, but he would never have leaked with the valve locked shut.
They made it to the room and Julian was starting to feel great pain. Hank unwrapped the lead sheet and took out the electronic pieces from the package. “This should be it” he said pressing the chip with a small wire hanging out onto Julian’s wrist. “Hold that there” he said pushing his friend’s finger on the component. He took another piece of circuit board and whistled four notes. “There, that should do it”
Julian flew into the toilet and was relieved when he let go of the muscle and was rewarded by a copious flow. “Thanks mate, that was really close. What are you going to do?”
“I think I can get my control back in a day or two. I just need to find some protection ‘just in case’ but what I really need is some decent threads. Look at this garbage they have dressed me in. So I am going shopping, then I am going to buy a laptop and get a couple of friends to come pay us a visit. I also need a new phone, some specialist equipment and then a chance to sit down with you and make a plan. Can I buy you anything?”
“I just need some jeans, boxers and t-shirt if you can manage it. Take the rest of the cash, there is probably close to a thousand left. How safe are we now?”
“Look I could have smashed all this stuff and we would have been totally safe, but if we need to get back in to their system at any time later then we need them to believe that these two bracelets are still in operation and about our wrists. We have a matter of hours to sort this all out.”
Almost two hours passed before Hank returned in what looked like second hand clothing. How did he manage to have such an iconic style? He cast the sissy stuff towards Julian “I thought it might look better on you!” He threw a second bag “failing that here’s some new stuff from M&S!)
There was a knock on the door. Hank looked through the spyhole in the door panel. “It’s okay its Spud and Willie”. The three of them hugged and threw punches at each other for five minutes, banging fists and doing high fives. They dropped two massive rucksacks on Julian’s bed, they were covered in dirt, oil and who knew what.
In no time they were sitting round the hotel room’s small coffee table and looking intently at the pieces of electronics out of the bracelets. The silver bracelet barely had a second look. The electronics were a source of huge respect.
“It’s a bloody ST1439 XLT transponder, my God that is unreal”.
“Powerful little baby; isn’t that the experimental chip from Intel that they decided was too expensive to produce commercially?”
“Oh shit, that’s the tracker they use at the top range Garmin, from a GPS point of view this is the king of kings”.
Julian decided that he was not going to be introduced to them in the near future.
“Haggie, bloody hell, Haggie, this is a tamper switch, this will be tripping out. There must be a battery cell in this bracelet. If all the bits are connected up then it will make a circuit, all apart like a necklace this chip will be singing. It’s a squealer and it will shout if the power level drops or the circuits are tampered with. We are going to have to rebuild these bracelets.
“Not a problem” said Hank we can do that, but I want to move the GPS. Do you remember that Bond film where they re-calibrated the actual position reported by the GPS?”
Spud looked wide-eyed “that is a really big job Haggie, do you know what you’re asking?”
“Look you set up a sub-station and bounce these bracelets off that beacon, so wherever you might be, the beacons are going to be somewhere else. But I want three or four beacons and I want them all to be mobile and I want the bracelets to communicate with them all intermittently”.
The rucksacks were unpacked and the three of them started to open up laptops, pull out components, circuit boards and the air was full of the smell of solder and flux. Julian opened the window in case the smoke alarms should be set off.
“Beer would be nice mate!” said Spud
“Beer”
“Beer”
“Three beers it is then”. Julian took three beers out of the mini-bar.
The team worked solidly, half the time they seemed to be speaking gibberish, the rest of the time they laughed at things that Julian did not understand. He realised that geek humour was an acquired taste and totally foreign to him.
“Brilliant Haggie” said Spud “we are all connected up, just need to house these sub-stations in these old hard drive cases. They will link to you and your mate every five minutes before switching off when the next one will cut in.”
“I have got a link through to the bracelets on the lap top, and this tells you the status of each of the components and also the status of the operations centre back in the London HQ. You did a bloody good job on that, they have just about restored the power, but all the doors are still unlocked. Good job man!” praised Willie. They high fived again and Julian raised his eyebrows.
Hank looked at the lap top and began typing furiously. “I left a backdoor into the system, actually I have three routes back into the system”. He laughed “silly buggers have not even taken me off the system yet, but I will go in the back door anyway.” He worked away for half an hour. “They are coming back on line in about an hour. There are quite a few bracelets starting to be registered on the system again”.
“Spud, Willie I want you to take one each of the sub stations and carry them around with you. If you are not on the move give it to somebody who is travelling around. That leaves one for me and one for Julian”
“Oh hi Julian!” said Spud with a grin “we’ve got to dash. …. and Haggie for gaud’s sake loose the bloody earrings, you look a right ninny.” Hank gripped his ear lobes, he had forgotten all about the jewellery stapled to his ears.
They left the room, clearing away every last piece of electronic evidence. Julian was amazed at how clean they had left the place.
“No evidence, got to be careful of the spooks!” explained Hank. “This is not a permanent solution you know, it just gives us five minute slots at a time. It will take an experienced surveillance expert maybe a week to track us down. We need to deploy our two sub-stations now and quickly. But first I need to get these little devils out”. Julian took the two magnets they had stripped out of the car stereo and put one either side and like magic they fell apart. “I don’t care what you say” he said “you have to admire the technology and the craftsmanship”. He ran his metre over each of the earrings but could not find a response. He took out a type of lens used by antique dealers and jewellers but there was no sign of an opening or any way in which a chip could have been concealed. He went to the toilet and took a length of toilet paper, wrapped them up and tossed them in the bowl and flushed. “Track that” he said.
They went down to front reception. “Brilliant” said Hank almost with glee “Japanese tourists”. He approached a middle aged man and to Julian’s complete and utter amazement started to speak to him in Japanese. “Domo a regato” Hank ended with a deep bow. The man smiled. Hank returned, “they are off to London Heathrow by coach in about ten minutes from where they are flying back to Narita airport from where he is going home to Tokyo, Shinjuku-ku to be precise! Guess what is going with him?”
We need to move fast now and get rid of your box. Sometimes luck can go your way for a change and as they were walking out the hotel they came across an old VW camper van totally loaded to the gunwales with a family in the process of returning home from a long camping holiday. They had had one night in the top hotel as a special treat, or more likely to have a decent bath. They had at least three children and one was a toddler, so the amount of kit and baggage was considerable. It was a simple matter to position the box in the camper and wave the family “bon voyage”.
Chapter 14.
“Sorry Hank, but one thing is really bothering me, where did you learn to speak Japanese? I mean; it is not the easiest of languages to pick up”.
“Anime and Japanese game shows mate, no better telly in the world, that and a Linguaphone course I hacked off the internet – well seemed a shame to waste it”. Julian looked at the man with a new found respect, not only smart but so smart he did not even realise it. “Damn it! I think I have just had an accident, maybe I am not quite as in control as I thought”.
The screen on Hank’s lap top showed six markers, four in red and two in green. “This is you and me and this is where all the others are at the moment,” he explained “now on this screen I have the various implants. The urethra valves are both on and in the open position, which is the way they were when we left. They can still turn them off and lock them shut and this is what I expect them to do, so I have altered the codes and written a sub programme that will report back that the action has been completed, but in reality all they have done is turn this light from green to red. Now I would expect them to do this in order to beat us into submission. The ear implants are completely disabled and any speech now comes through to my iPhone and you come through on this iPodTouch. We cannot afford to have the brain-washing start all over again! Nor can we afford to risk subliminal messaging. The bracelets are still wired as communicators and all speech from them will go via the sub-stations. Trust me, but in the very near future things are going to kick off. Keep speech to an absolute minimum, they have to be in constant communication, if you need to talk, we need to go into a different room. The other thing is that we need to avoid any area that has distinctive noises like airports, railway stations or places where there are distinctive bells like Big Ben for example!”
“I have an easier solution” suggested Julian “we play them music from a radio all the time”.
“That would be great, but we have to keep our ears open for communication. You have the earpiece in and let me know the second anything important is said”.
“What if they close the valve, the light goes red, but we do not react? What happened to Frankie by the way? You shut off his bladder valve.”
Hank tapped a few keys “his valve is still locked, he appears to be alive, but hold on…. there is a communication file. Oh that is bad luck, it seems that they had to open him up and remove the valve in a hurry. He is totally incontinent now and has no control at all. They had to sew up most of his bladder, so even a catheter would be of no use to him. In answer to your first question we have no answer right now.”
“What about lead screening?”
“Hmmm! Hardly a convenient solution”
“What if the component failed?”
“Both of them? Because they are going to shut me off as well.”
“We have to get back and put the plan that we don’t have yet into action!”
“No, I think they would want to find us first. I really do not believe that they would want to damage the merchandise and at the same time lose their investment. Besides two people going to an A&E department with this sort of hardware is going to raise too many questions”.
They decided to eat out and decided that China Town was less than the perfection it had been in the past, so went to the La Tasca Tapas bar in Deansgate. They were rewarded with the finest Spanish food and a bottle of red Rioja that was wonderful. Over the multitude of plates (where on earth did Hank put it all) they formulated a plan. Julian could swear that Hank had virtually put back all the weight he had lost previously, in the course of one day.
“Hey up” said Julian “incoming messages”. The lap top in front of hank had an array of green lights in all the boxes. The iPod and iPhone were both lit up showing the bracelets were active and that all the components were connected from the central control. Hank raised his finger to his lips. They put the two bracelets into the bum bag on Hank’s waist and threw in a gadget that made random noises. It sounded like the two of them were playing a very noisy video game. The noise was just enough to attract a nosy stare from their neighbours on the next table.
In hushed tones they made their final plans and by the time they had finished their coffees and sipped the Torres brandies they had the blueprint for revenge.
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Topic: City Slicker (Read 22098 times)
