Tham Cheng-E - Surrogate Protocol

“Sorry for the trouble,” he says, shaking the matron’s hand. “This man is my cousin. He’s been on medication and I think he had a little too much of it.”

The matron looks visibly relieved. She acknowledges his explanation with a sombre nod and looks on as John escorts Landon through a contemplative audience of seniors; their gazes disapproving, their lips pinched.

John crosses a patch of lawn and Landon follows like a guilt-ridden child doddering after a fuming parent. “How did you find me?”

John marches on. He doesn’t speak.

“I said: how did you find me?”

John stops, whips about and jabs an accusing finger at him. “My job’s practically a living hell because you’ve been doing one stupid thing after another. You don’t stay hidden, you don’t stay alive, okay? It’s that simple.”

Landon steeps himself in silence and closes his eyes as breeze passes, hoping it would mollify his rage and appease his demented senses. But in the blackness Hannah’s face appears.

“You’re a wreck, Landon.” John looks him over. “Your eyes look like they’ve got hoods over them.”

“I haven’t been doing anything stupid.”

“Like visiting that doctor of yours? You don’t know what you’ll end up revealing.” John thrusts out his head at him. “Also, cut the profanities, especially to respectable old ladies back there. Profanities discredit you.” Landon says nothing in defence. He gets into John’s car and they cruise down Holland Road. John turns randomly onto an obscure, nameless street. There he pulls up the handbrake, dons his reading glasses and fingers through the contents of a brown envelope.

“How are your burns?” John’s tone suddenly softens.

“Light.”

“The Serum aids in the healing.”

“Good to know.” Landon stares out of the window. “The fire claimed a life and almost took another. Some bodyguard you are.”

“It wasn’t meant to kill you.”

“Sure,” Landon twists his lips to a sardonic scowl. “I’m caught in two explosions and I’m convinced no one’s trying to kill me.”

“One of them now has something to do with you.”

“How’s that?”

“Domestic gas is odourless, if you don’t already know.” John pulls out a satellite photograph and holds it to the daylight. “Vendors made it smell like rotten eggs so people will notice if it leaks. Someone pumped the café full of it and left out the stink.”

Landon tries to conceive numerous possibilities and finds sense in none of them. “I don’t see how someone does that without a murderous intent.”

“It was the café they’re after.” John pulls out another print and hands it to him.

It is a satellite photograph the size of copier paper, monochromatic and of high gloss. Its planar angle depicts something of a construction site, with grids of string or rope drawn across what appeared to be partly-excavated ground.

Landon turns it this way and that. “What am I looking for?”

“Those are archaeological grids,” says John. “We managed to capture it before it went under the tarpaulin. It’s Retrieval.”

“Whatever that means.”

“There are a few stages to a Chronomorph’s lifecycle,” John explains tolerantly. “Retrieval is among the last few. It means they’ve found something on you.”

“What’s the last?”

“Elimination.”

The word delivers a chill but Landon feigns indifference. John takes the photograph from him. “Collateral death is acceptable, so it wouldn’t matter if the fire killed you or not. The Other Side was willing to take a shot at that. I need to know what they were looking for and I was hoping you could shed some light.”

“I’m an amnesiac.”

“They must’ve found something from you. Try to recall if there was anything entrusted to you besides your house. Perhaps at the moment when you received the Serum?”

“I don’t even remember how I got this thing.”

“Please, try.”

Landon’s chest falls in a weary sigh. “It’s just my house.”

“The one at Clacton?”

“I have no other property.”

It’s all starting to feel like a dead end. John pauses, studies Landon’s disposition and finds little reason to doubt him. He force himself to consider the possibility that the Serum has been transplanted into him without any connections to the Unknown; and that whoever gave it to him hadn’t been one of the original Chronomorphs in the first place. Factor that into the equation and you get a real conundrum.

From the attention CODEX accords to a case like this it is obvious Landon isn’t the typical, bungling Transplant who had paid his way to longevity in the days when renegade operatives peddled the Serum on the black market as an elixir of life.

This one might turn out to be a rare epitome of the hypothesis that the Unknown isn’t just a myth. And the prospect of it actually excites him.

“How do you know it wasn’t me who saved you?” He couldn’t resist asking. “You know someone I don’t?”

The question appears to have surprised Landon, and John senses hesitation in him, as one yearning to confide but holds back for want of a better confidant.

“The papers said whoever saved me ‘refused accolade for the service he rendered’. That was quite noble of you.” Landon says.

“If this had been a regular job the Commissioner would’ve hauled my ass up to the cameras and made me into fine publicity material. Never believe the papers.”

“I thank you anyway.”

John returns to his documents. “It’s my job.”

“Just being curious,” Landon adds haltingly. “Do you get many— clients ?”

“There aren’t enough operatives to Chronies so each operative is usually assigned a few until one of them turns critical.”

“Turns critical?”

“When an SX for him becomes imminent,” John answers. “Sanctioned Extermination.”

Landon winces at the ugly term. “So how many Chronies do you babysit?”

“I had three.” He looks at Landon over his reading glasses. “Now there’s just you.”

The engine starts and they back out onto a larger street. Landon stares broodingly ahead of him. “I was expecting you’d come to the hospital.”

“Couldn’t risk exposure.” He stops at the lights. “You’re wasting your breath if you’re trying to get me to reveal anything. If I were you I’d come clean with whatever I remember. It makes my job a lot easier and lets you live a great deal longer.”

The remark visibly unsettles Landon.

“I have to set up surveillance at your home.” The lights change and he accelerates. “But first, let’s go eat. I’ve been thinking of dosa and sambar all day.”

THE SLUM, A maze of rotting wood and attap, was hemmed between Beo Lane and Bukit Ho Swee Road. Arthur peered over a ditch and there among the wooden stilts was an old, nameless grave submerged in a murky cesspool festering in the sun. The stench of excrement and sewage wafted on the muggy breeze.

Far away to the south, a plume of dark smoke grew against the blue sky—Arthur could see it over the fraying roofs of the ramshackle houses. But it seemed to be bothering no one.

In a coffee shop at Beo Lane loafing youths perched themselves on teak stools and watched the world like a pack of carrion vultures, harrying working-age men on suspicion that they might be a spies of a rival gang or gadfly officials from the Housing Council, seeking to evict families and demolish homes. Arthur was spared this because the lookouts knew him on account of a job he once held at a nearby warehouse.

“Bo dai ji la,” said one of them nasally, referring to the plume of smoke. He had a foot propped on the edge of his stool. “Si Kah Teng eh lang sio pun soh nia la. Bian knia. Wa nang kuah tau kuah beh kuah ho-ho eh.”