KINDRED - Transmission 10
A strangely familiar prison.
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Aurelie awoke.
Drawn out of a sleep as thick as the blackest tar.
Her consciousness, thoughts, and senses pieced themselves together.
Lying—flat out.
A soft bed, but… clothes—not sheets.
The smell of ancient oak and savon noir.
The creak of central heating.
A splitting headache.
Each slow, pounding heartbeat unleashed a spike of pain from the base of her neck to the back of her eyes.
She groaned. Grit her teeth.
Shifting her weight, she pulled at one arm—her forehead throbbing. But… her wrists were stuck behind her back.
I must be lying on them.
She yanked first one, then the other.
Is that?
Thick, scratchy rope—her hands cold, devoid of feeling.
“Merde!”
Lucid, she opened her eyes - they were burning.
Blurred shapes and shadows.
She was lying on top of an undressed bed in a dimly lit room.
Still too blurry for details. Her heart quickened.
Where the hell am I?
She twisted her body to look in the other direction, but her ankles were bound as well—the same thick rope looped tight around the legs of her jeans.
What the fuck is going on?
Aurelie’s breath went short.
She rolled onto her knees—collapsed back onto the mattress. A second attempt was more successful, but the moment her head left the mattress it started spinning and she lost her balance and crashed back onto the bed.
Shit.
Just like me—so useless I can’t even sit up…
Her breath held for a moment.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Have I… have I been—drugged?
She blinked four times rapidly—squeezing her eyes tight each time. Clearing the fog.
Her head thumped. She opened her eyes wide.
“Quoi?”
The room was small. Compact.
Across from her was a tired bookcase sagging under the weight of a hundred thick, heavy volumes.
Next to that, a small, scuffed wooden desk—papers arranged squarely, three coloured pens.
A grey metal waste paper basket containing a single balled up sheet.
Opposite the desk—four steps away—a door with three ancient deadbolts.
A modest apartment. But a neat apartment.
Her apartment.
But… how did I…
The thesis. The metro. The cold night air…
The—Sorbonne..?
She closed her eyes tight again and lay motionless. Willing the whirlpool in her head to subside.
Aurelie sat. Unsteady, but propped up on the a-frame of her bound arms.
She squinted at the bookcase.
Alphabetic order… yes. But—two of the volume numbers were clearly out of place.
She pursed her lips, looked across at the desk.
The pens. Red, green, blue.
But I always write in blue, correct in red then add notes in green…
She huffed.
Someone had been through it—all of it… They’d gone to great pains to make it look like they hadn’t.
But it was obvious.
On a small nightstand next to her, a crooked lamp—the only source of light in the dim room.
Beside it a framed photo of her mother and brother, Theo. By the looks of his outfit, taken not more than 6 months earlier.
She smiled. He’d done it.
His Graduation. The ceremony. She’d been there. Taken this photo… or had someone else?
He’d been so proud—excited about his future. They’d spoken about lots of things—like his plans for…
When—when was the last time they’d actually spoken?
She leant closer to the photo. It was poorly taken, blurred. His face in shadow—not quite recognisable. But it was obviously him—his hair, his eyes…
Though—I… don’t remember framing that photo…
The drugs. Had to be the drugs.
The room shifted.
Her head started to droop when she heard a muted metallic clicking from the door. A heavy key in a worn lock.
She fixed the door and froze.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
Were her captors coming to get her? What would they do with her?
Who are they?
The handle turned quickly, and the door opened a crack.
An unattractive, unshaven male face appeared in its frame. This was followed by a hunched, but sturdy-looking torso, clad in an ill-fitting suit.
The man locked eyes with her for a moment. His gaze was fierce—devoid of emotion.
A beat, and he disappeared behind the still-open door.
“Boss, she’s awake—wanna talk to her?”
The man was definitely speaking English, but it was tarnished with a heavy accent.
A muffled murmur in reply.
The ill-fitting suit stepped entirely into the room. His gaze returned to her, a crooked grin splitting his face.
“He’s comin’ to see you now, mademoiselle. You better be on your good behaviours.”
Aurelie broke eye contact. Her palms were sweating.
Who’s coming to see me? What does he mean by—good behaviour?
She clenched her jaw and steadied her breathing.
One. Two. Three. Four.
A moment passed and the man known as boss stepped into the room. With a purposeful gait, he crossed to the side of the bed.
Mild relief.
He was well kept, in an expensive-looking suit cut in a distinctive English style. Sure enough, when he opened his vaguely reptilian mouth, the tall, well-built man spoke with a clipped, middle-class British accent.
“Good afternoon—or should I say morning? I don’t suppose you know what time it is, do you? It is, in fact four-twenty in the afternoon—though that’s not really important.”
The man spoke with a halting rhythm. Embarrassed, or—apologetic.
“By the way, you—don’t mind if I speak English, do you? I’ve heard you’re familiar enough with it, and my French is not what you’d call… parfait. It’s, uh—important that we understand each other precisely… If we’re to be able to work together constructively, don’t you think?”
Aurelie’s mouth stayed shut. Words wouldn’t come—or they weren’t yet ready.
But… that voice, was it familiar? Or the face?
Surely not.
Aurelie stared at her captor, holding her blank expression. The man shifted on his feet. leant back slightly.
“Ahh… Um, good. Well. So I suppose you’ve got some questions—the first one being why you’re here?”
The Englishman paused again. Eyebrows raised.
Aurelie held eye contact and her silence.
The man’s expression wavered. His posture uncertain—he didn’t look dangerous.
Aurelie noticed a bunch of papers in his left hand.
“Well, you see, I figured that you and I could help each other. You should know, I’m not usually involved in this kind of—thing—”
The man gestured at the bonds keeping Aurelie immobile.
“It’s just that I have a project that’s a bit, well—urgent. I’m sure you’ll understand…”
A mobile phone rang. The Englishman shot an intense, menacing look at his henchman.
The bent sidekick scuttled out of the studio and shut the door behind him.
The Englishman then turned back to Aurelie.
“You’ll of course recognise your surroundings. I felt familiarity was… important. So you could just get on with things.”
His hand swept around the room in a flowing gesture.
Aurelie’s chest tightened.
You could have at least put my pens back in the right order…
A smile started to soften the man’s face and his posture straightened.
“Now, I know you seem to have established yourself as somewhat of an expert on social connections and particularly social networks. We, uh, picked up that little thesis that you were carrying with you the other night—very thorough, I must say, well researched and well written. Good work.”
An empty compliment.
And… Bullshit.
A real expert—Moreau—would have seen the holes everywhere.
Aurelie tightened her jaw.
That was it, though—the thesis. She was going to meet Professor Moreau, when…
The drug’s aftereffects were lessening. Aurelie kept her gaze steady and her mouth shut.
“Of course, I’m anything but an expert, but—the work you’ve been doing here, your thesis, it’s become something of a personal interest to me recently.”
The man waved the papers in front of her, and Aurelie peered at them for the first time.
Her own handwriting.
The man was far too well turned out to be a psychologist or a psychoanalyst. He didn’t have a whiff of the academic about him.
So what the hell does he want with my thesis?
The Englishman regarded her sidelong—a smile gathering at the corner of his mouth.
“We’ve—ah—come into the possession of a certain Artificial Intelligence system… It’s through the work we’ve been doing with Campfyre—I think you are familiar with them?”
Aurelie peered at her captor through narrowed eyelids.
“They’ve made some—rather impressive progress in AI... Leveraging the fabric of their social network to drive deep insights. To—to predict people’s behaviour and actions… their very future…”
The man’s voice trailed. The radiator pipe creaked.
Who was this Englishman?
What were his connections with Campfyre—and how close was he to Alan… to Trent?
It was—everything Alan had spoken about—and more.
But… have they really done it?
She’d been all but ridiculed when she’d approached the Sorbonne Social Sciences thesis committee about changing her research subject.
Basing a doctoral thesis on the childish social interactions of a group of pre-adolescent social network users?
Being so bold as to completely rewrite the theories on which modern social psychology were based—all the while throwing the works of some of the greatest minds of the 20th century out the window?
It had been a risk; it still was a very serious risk. And—she was probably wrong… as usual.
But… if what this man was describing was even half accurate…
Aurelie stopped breathing. Her mouth dropped open. She looked up at her captor.
Precision clipped haircut. Thin pinstripes on his tailored suit. Athletically lined features. The glint in his eye that said… what?
If… I was right, then—that would mean—
“What... exactly are you... planning to do with me?”
Her voice was thin, hoarse. But loud enough to force a moment of silence.
The Englishman drew back; surprise, uncertainty.
Genuine?
When he started again, his voice was less intense, less sure of itself.
“You see, Aurelie… We have some—big ambitions for this little AI system of ours. Like you, I believe that our society—humanity as a whole—is on the cusp of an incredible transformation. Technology has enabled us to interact with, and to understand each other in ways that we never have before.”
Aurelie broke eye contact. Shifted her wrists and pulled at the bonds.
The man took a step towards Aurelie, his arms up in front of him.
“Now Artificial Intelligence is finally allowing us to make sense of that… To understand the very drivers behind peoples’ behaviour, their actions… their future…”
Aurelie blinked.
Put into words, it sounded implausible—laughable.
But she knew that underneath it was a kernel of truth. There was—or at least could be—a mechanism to do what he described.
Her theories described social vectors that could predict behaviour. If they were true—could be exploited—the fabric of modern society would be changed completely.
Familiar structures and hierarchies would cease to exist.
People would know the motivations and the future actions of all others.
What would such a world be like? Impossible to say for sure.
Once he’d opened up, Alan Maddox had been effusive.
He’d… dreamed.
… Unprecedented cooperation. A lasting golden age of scientific and cultural achievement. Communication that was immediate, clear and devoid of misunderstanding. Banishing war and conflict for good. Truly universal suffrage…
Just too convenient—just too perfect.
So she’d dug deeper. She’d challenged her theories, the data.
Sure, it was all conjecture—unproven and underdeveloped. Her simulations limited in breadth and scope.
But there was an undeniable, underlying, frightening trend.
This utopia would be balanced on a razor’s edge.
So many factors at play—and if just one didn’t turn out just right—the power, ideally shared by all, would fall to one group. Eventually to one person.
History itself taught the most basic lesson.
This power would be used to consolidate. To manipulate.
To enslave.
Aurelie’s heart was thumping. Her face flushed. But she held eye contact, her mouth clamped shut.
The Englishman regarded her through lowered eyelids—reading her state of mind.
When he spoke again, he weighed each word.
“But you see, Aurelie, we’ve got a few… issues with the system—it seems to be, uh, somewhat unaligned… We’d fix it ourselves, but—the mechanisms it uses are… complex. That said, with a little bit of the right kind of help—this is, of course, where you come in—we’ll soon get it back on track.”
He paused, leant forward. The animal odour of sweat, anxiety. Aurelie drew back.
“We—haven’t got much time Aurelie… This is urgent. There are… others who would take this power and use it for purposes that—I’m sure you don’t want to…”
His face darkened a shade as he trailed off.
A beat.
Then his smile flashed back, wider than ever.
“Imagine the wonderful future for humanity if your research turns out to be true!”
Merde.
Merde four times.
Aurelie’s head cleared, the effects of the drug melting away.
She was bound hands and feet. Prisoner in her own apartment. On her own bed.
The man in front of her was nothing but a simple criminal, entertaining his own megalomania.
How dare he imagine he can force me into anything?
She cleared her throat, thrust her chin forward.
“You can drug me and tie me up, I don’t care what you do to me—but you can’t force me to cooperate with you.”
She leant closer to her captor, narrowed her eyelids, and lowered the tone of her voice.
“Nothing will make me cooperate with you.”
The Englishman paused—peered at her. Then in an instant, all his pleasantness melted away—he bared his teeth at the corners of his mouth.
“That, my dear, is a very foolish thing to say.”
His voice was gravelly, an undercurrent of rashness. Aurelie’s heart rose again. Her captor wasn’t so uncomfortable with the situation after all.
“Do you think we weren’t prepared in the event you proved… uncooperative?”
The man held out another sheet of paper, this time in front of her face.
“There you can see a day in the life of—your little brother—Theo. As you can see, we know everywhere he goes, everything he does, and at exactly what time.”
Aurelie stared at it, reading a minute-by-minute itinerary of her little brother’s life.
The time he left home for prep school. How he got there. The time he spent at the guitar teacher’s house. And everything in between.
Frankly, she knew the schedule by heart. But the times—were they… no, it all seemed right.
There was no way they could know all this, not at this level of detail.
Dammit.
The Englishman was right. They had found a way to read the network. Found a way to connect together the multitude of elements—crack the code of people’s very behaviour, near-infinite in its intricacy.
But… what is he planning to do with this?
She shifted her hands—the rough hemp bit at her skin.
Her heart sank. The Englishman looked on, expressionless.
She’d detected weakness in him. She’d thought she’d be able to counter him, to refuse to help him.
But he had instead found her only weakness. The only person in the world that she connected with—that she loved.
Theo has nothing to do with this, dammit!
But what the hell could she do about it anyway?
Tears welled in Aurelie’s eyes.
The man held out another sheet of paper.
“And here is a very particular day. This Tuesday, in fact. You can see we know everything about him.”
Aurelie lifted her head as the Englishman held the paper up.
She regretted it immediately.
The feeble light from the shaded desk lamp cast cruel shadows across the man’s features. His face unreserved confidence—conceit.
She shivered.
Aurelie looked down at the paper and saw her brother’s normal routine continue throughout the morning up until he was leaving prep school in the afternoon—just like on the other page.
But there everything changed.
The paper described, in brutal and exacting detail, a horrific bus accident in which several passengers lost their lives.
One of them her brother.
His young body, twisted and broken, punctured and gashed—the other passengers crowding around him, shaking his lifeless corpse, screaming.
She closed her eyes. What the paper described—it… it felt so real. It felt like she was there—one of the distraught passengers. One of the survivors.
Holding him. Screaming.
Her tears staining his coat.
Her brother… Theo… dead?
No. Not yet.
Not if she could help it.
She lifted her head and stared at the man—tears streaming down her face, her whole body vibrating with stricken horror.
The man took a step back.
His expression wavered. A moment of pause.
Then his face hardened.
When it came, his voice was slow, but for the first time since she’d met him, assured, distinct.
“So you see, Aurelie, you have no choice.”
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