Page 225 of The Examiner

Dear Mae,

Thank you for your strategic letter. I would apologise for last night, but that would be inappropriate, given that you not only knew very well the AetherGen unit was taking this course, but also paid me to admit Cameron too. You wanted him to watch them, and intended them to find a dummy unit – one they thought was integral to RD8’s atmospheric defence technology that killed Jonathan’s mother and sister. When they ‘exposed’ this innocent tech, you wanted to humiliate their organisation.

Only they turned the wrong way and stole something else. A Dead Hand unit that held the power to destroy the world. Jem disabled it when she planted a tiny chip that generated randomised statements in Cameron’s voice. A trick designed to punish her fellow students. How lucky that she did. The group never knew what they had really stolen.

Hearing that voice changed the group. Cameron’s murder meant it wasn’t dismissed as a trivial curiosity, but was given shape, form and meaning. Call it mass hysteria in the wake of severe trauma. Scientists suddenly believed in the afterlife. Good, kind people found themselves on a pathway to the unthinkable, where every step led them further from their moral core. Those who claimed to hate capitalism considered selling the tech to aid their own escape. For a while they had to live in the moment, instead of thinking about the future of the planet. I wonder if they learned anything from that …

You know Cameron’s dead, Mae. He died working for you. Trying to recover the radio phase of the Dead Hand system that at one time might have launched a thousand nuclear weapons. All to keep your new atmospheric technology secret. And is that really because you don’t want the enemy to find out or because, if ordinary people knew, they wouldn’t want such destructive potential to exist?

A lot of ex-army men end up in the City. Cameron went from Iraq to Canary Wharf, but couldn’t handle the change in atmosphere, in the quality of risk. He called it burnout, but it wasn’t quite that. He longed for the danger of his former life. I wonder how his death will be covered up.

We’re not as secretive in academia as you are in business. Low-grade hacker and AetherGen’s puppet-master, Ben Sketcher, found it all too easy to pose as the external examiner and access course essays and event details. He knew exactly where his errant sleeper group would be. Patrick thought the external examiner would call the police and end the trap he found himself in – he gave Ben access to RD8. That’s why you think Cameron signed in and out.

Your incinerator was the group’s ticket to freedom. Finally a way to destroy the final piece of Cameron’s body and his phone, giving whoever had the unit a chance to escape. Of course the success of any new start depended on that unit being the long-lost Spiritfinder. A scientific endeavour to answer the ultimate question of life … and death. But of course it wasn’t, was it?

Mae, if you hadn’t wanted to discredit AetherGen, then none of this would’ve happened, because the Danners would never have got near the Dead Hand unit otherwise, far less steal and reactivate its devastating capabilities. It was your luck that a twenty-one-year-old art student had confidence, talent and cheek enough to save the world.

I learned a lot from this MA course. I underestimated Jem and Patrick, but Patrick the most. He decided to act – to stop what he thought he saw: Cameron attacking Ludya. How did something so simple become so tangled and awful? Because it seems Patrick paid for that mistake with his own life. I saw him enter the incinerator block with Ben. Then I led Jem safely to her dad’s car. I didn’t look back.

Which of them walked away? Patrick’s shop workers say he might have gone back to Ireland, but I can tell how worried they are. Now you say that he didn’t sign out, so I fear the worst.

All the time my group was coming into the art studio, working on their assignments and the final project, each of them had their own agenda, which changed shape as we went along. It’s all very poetic and beautiful in its own way, Mae.

When the police ask me, I’ll tell them everything. But you and I both know nothing will happen.

Gela

To: Gela Nathaniel

From: Lisa Hough

Date: 4 June 2024

Subject: Cameron Wesley

Dear Ms Nathaniel,

You may remember we communicated a few months back, when I was trying to locate my former husband, Cameron Wesley. The last I heard of him was that he’d enrolled on an art course at Royal Hastings, so of course you were the first person I contacted when he missed our son’s sports day.

I am very sorry to inform you that Cameron sadly passed away on a covert operation. They never tell you the details, so when and where this happened we’ll never know, but I see now that he must have left your art course to go on that final job. I’m sorry to contact you with such terrible news.

Your sincerely,

Lisa

To: Lisa Hough

From: Gela Nathaniel

Date: 4 June 2024

Subject: Re: Cameron Wesley

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for your email. I am so sorry to hear that sad news about Cameron. He was a lovely man, with genuine creative talent. I first met him at The Sanctuary when I was introducing everyone there to the therapeutic potential of art. We built up a close bond over that time. I will never forget him. Thank you for letting me know the sad news.

All my love,