The Night Has Seen Your Mind

By Simon Kearns

Cutting across genres, The Night Has Seen Your Mind is a literary fusion of science fiction, existential terror and psychological thriller in the style of the 'New Weird'.

 

Tech billionaire, Mattias Goff, has invited five creative professionals - programmer, pianist, writer, actor, and photographer - f

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsewhen Press
• Release date: Jan 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781911409755

Simon Kearns

Simon Kearns was born in London in 1972 and grew up in Northern Ireland. In his teens he returned to London to study philosophy. At the end of 2004 he moved to the south of France where he lives with his partner and two children. His debut, Virtual Assassin, (Revenge Ink, 2010), explores personal responsibility in a corrupt society. It was followed by Dark Waves, (Blood Bound Books, 2014), about a powerful haunting and the scientist determined to debunk it. His stories have appeared in publications such as The Future Fire, Litro, The Honest Ulsterman, and on numerous websites.He revels in etymology, guitar, gaming, and the science of superstition.

Book preview

Part I

Anchorage

1

Open sea gave way to a series of white-capped islands that from thirty-four thousand feet looked like tiny clouds in a shale blue sky. On the inflight entertainment screen the plane’s icon edged off the Gulf of Alaska and onto the coastline, and when the mainland slid into view in the window, rapidly filling it, the enormity of his undertaking finally came home to Chris Allen.

A sigh of incredulity escaped him. Northbound, late November, he’d known there would be snow and mountains and ice, though he never imagined anything as awful as this. Beneath the plane spread a spiky wilderness of peaks, every one of them wreathed in snow and sharpened to a mean tip. A forest of broken teeth, far as the eye could see.

This is madness, he warned himself.

Sitting back in his seat, he took in deep, regular breaths and tried in vain to staunch the flow of precious resolve oozing from him. His pale lips thinned; his slight frame and large head trembled. Don’t give in. Breathe, just breathe.

Utter madness.

North was a direction rarely taken by Chris Allen. He was a child of the desert, Sonoran-born, his life governed by a prohibitive fear of the cold. Drafts distressed him; cool was unbearable. He didn’t swim, didn’t sweat, kept his air con off. In the course of his self-diagnostic research he had discovered that phobia of the cold is a common feature of OCD, which made sense to him for he knew that what he considered perfectionism – in his coding, his careful habits – others would label obsessiveness. From Palm Springs, the centre of his existence, the world was inflexibly mapped: east was dry and desert hot, west was wet with ocean, and the fragrant south was always damp and spiced. North was unnatural, a cardinal sin. Cold, dark, vast, hostile. To come this far had required a monumental effort, and he was still counting on the possibility, once landed, of getting on the first flight back to LA. Back to the sun. Back to common sense.

Leaning forward to gaze again at the severe crests and snow-choked troughs serenely scrolling beneath the plane, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining, and not for the first time, what it would be like to freeze to death. A slow shiver rippled through him. Flashes of snowbound struggle piled in his mind – white embrace, stinging fingers, the benumbing, stupefying, idiotic cold.

Breathe and be still, he commanded his delicate body. I am warm, I am safe, I have nothing to fear. But his reassurances rang empty for he knew that soon, very soon, a matter now of minutes, the airplane would swoop down to the frozen runway and he would be compelled to quit the heated cabin for the raw chill of Alaskan air.

I can’t, I won’t.

I will.

Only one thing could induce the fretful twenty-one year old to override his phobia and complete this trip into his personal hell. It wasn’t the five million dollars he stood to earn, and it certainly wasn’t the ‘stunning beauty and natural calm’ promised in the literature detailing the destination. No, what brought Chris Allen so far north was the chance to work with a genius.

The plane hit a patch of turbulence and new alarms went off in his mind – what if we go down right now, what if I end up on the side of one of those mountains, like, buried in snow, frostbite creeping up my limbs and into my gut? They say that in the final stages of hypothermia you get an irresistible urge to take off your clothes and lie down, that an intense, pleasurable warmth overcomes you and lulls you into a sleep from which you will never wake. That didn’t sound too bad. It was all the other stuff that terrified him, the appalling preliminaries: abject shivering, deadened extremities, the inching horror of paralysis.

Shuddering again, gnawing fiercely at a fingernail, he turned up the music in his fat headphones, shut tight his eyes, and attempted to comfort himself with the knowledge that tomorrow he would be meeting his idol.

Mattias Goff; programmer, visionary, iconoclast, recluse.

For the past ten years Goff had been a ghost, officially retired, a sighting here, a rumour there. His triple-A games studio no longer released titles and there were reports he was working in finance. Some said he’d orchestrated the leaks of Snowden and Manning, rigged the Brexit vote, had, for the lulz, made Trump president. Goff did not acknowledge these stories. For the last three years he had not been seen in public, had not issued any form of communiqué.

Three months ago, in late August, Mattias Goff broke his silence. He announced that he was engaged in something new, something that would change everything. In order to achieve his goal he would be consulting various experts across diverse fields, selecting them according to imaginative boldness and whisking them away, first class, to his Alaskan sanctuary to collaborate. Chris had been chosen, evidently thanks to his paper on Supra-Edge Computing. He had begun to believe that whatever else happened in his life, however long he lived, the Sup-Ed paper would be his greatest achievement. But now this. One month working hand in hand with a genius. Mattias Goff needed his help.

And that, he reminded himself forcefully, that’s why I’m here, flying into Alaska at the end of November like a madman.

The airplane dipped a wing and began to circle for its final approach.

Anchorage, a sprawling mass of black and grey, appeared like a great stain on the white of the landscape.

2

As if the turbulence wasn’t bad enough, now the whole plane was tipping to one side, capsizing in the air. Clasping her hands, Jenny Yiu bowed her head and prayed.

In the name of God I go on this journey. May God the Father be with me, God the Son protect me, and God the Holy Spirit be by my side. Amen. Oh Lord, amen. Dear Jesus, keep us safe.

The plane righted itself but the turbulence continued to jolt. Jenny opened one eye and checked the faces of those around her. There was no panic to be seen, no fear – these were seasoned travellers. I’m a seasoned traveller, she reminded herself, but her heart carried on full gallop. It was always the same: coming back down to earth terrified her. I’m not afraid of flying, she would quip after every arrival, I’m afraid of landing.

She released her hands from their knuckled grip and, having selected a particular track on her phone, she placed her palms on her thighs and began to tap out the notes with her fingertips. Goldberg Variation number three, an ever reliable palliative for her nervous disposition. By the second bar, as the third voice entered, the piece had worked its contrapuntal magic and her mind and body were hooked: the mind, in awe, skipping along the tripart melodies; the body ceding to muscle memory, fingers given over to tempo and accent.

One more massive thud shook the aircraft and, looking over the laps of her neighbours to the window, she realised they had landed. She slipped off her headphones to hear the captain welcoming them to Anchorage where the temperature outside was a bracing minus eight degrees. The local time was ten past three in the afternoon, and there remained just over an hour of sunlight. Despite his demand that passengers remain in their seats until the plane had come to a complete stop, people were up and opening the overhead baggage, retrieving padded coats that bubbled out of the compartments, pulling on thermal hats. Jenny hoped that the coat, hat, gloves, fleeces, woollen tights and socks she had purchased from a sports store in LA would be adequate for the local conditions. The shop assistant assured her they would. Good enough for the Arctic Circle? Yes, mam, good enough for the North Pole. The prices spoke of highest quality. She’d never bought such things and the expense was enormous. She had to remind herself that monetary concerns no longer applied – she was about to earn five million dollars for a month of piano practice.

It was a dizzying thought, five million. She tried to imagine the sum in banknotes and was taken by the notion of papering walls with them; how much of her family’s apartment in Melbourne would the money cover? All of it, no doubt, and many times over. Going out for dinner? Peel a handful of bucks from the wall. They would need a bigger apartment. And then it came back to her, like a child waking on Christmas morning, she could afford to buy whatever she wanted. A downtown flat, three-bedroomed, with a balcony, no, a roof garden and a pool. Why not a house? Two houses, one for Mother and Granny, the other for herself. A huge, open plan, single storey house, far from the city, with an ocean view – that was the dream.

With a ping, the seatbelt sign dimmed and she stood, her legs weak from the almost six hour flight, lifted her travel bag down and tidied away her headphones. The man beside her wanted out from his seat and she moved aside to let him pass, managing to step on the foot of another man behind her. A large man, a mountain of a man, full beard, blue tattoos up and down his wide forearms.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she blustered.

‘Didn’t even feel it,’ he answered in a Germanic voice, a smile half-hidden in his beard.

Jenny quickly looked away from the man’s hard green eyes. Was this Mattias Goff? Wasn’t he German, or was it Swiss? Was he that big? She had never seen a picture of him. Actually, she knew so little about her host for the next thirty days. So very little it was still a source of amazement that she had signed up for the project at all. Mother swore her to secrecy and pushed her to take the opportunity. The money was a gift from God. No one else knew where she was going: her church group assumed it was another concert tour, and Granny, her gummy mouth mumbling Mandarin syllables, was far beyond knowing anything.

Another unbidden scenario assailed her: Granny, swaying, muttering nonsense in the key of E flat; Mother, swaying in time, adding her own gibberish in G; herself developing the fifth with B flat protests. A three part harmony of insanity, all taking place in a large, gloomy, echoing mansion. Lord Jesus, she prayed, make it not so.

Chasing the abomination from her thoughts, she joined the line of passengers filing down the aircraft. Almost everyone had put on a thick overcoat. Hers was packed in her hold luggage and all she had for the moment was her Aussie winter raincoat with the quilted, tartan interior. Jenny caught the bemused expression of the stewardess as she assessed her outfit. Thankfully, a covered walkway had been set against the airplane and the queue progressed along it. All the same, a blast of cold air enveloped her and she shivered inside her thin coat.

At the luggage reclaim she stood to the side of the crowd, head down, waiting for the carousel to start. Her case was one of the first to emerge, the dark purple instantly recognisable. She struggled to get it off the belt and another man – so many men on her flight! – helped her retrieve it. She thanked him and he, tall, dark, stubbled and scruffy, gave her a wide grin.

‘That’s a heavy one. What you got in there? Kitchen sink?’

He was English, his voice warm but suggestive of slyness. His blue eyes were all over her.

‘Sorry. Yes. It’s the books.’

‘Travelling library, eh? You should buy yourself a Kindle.’

‘Yes, maybe,’ she answered and told herself to stop talking. Righting the case to its wheels, she backed away, bowing for some reason.

Now that she had her bag she realised she desperately needed the toilet and she searched the long room. There were none apparent so she followed the few people already with bags to the exit. The next ordeal was security. When she got to a desk the officer took her passport, scanned it, then peered at her.

‘What’s the purpose of your visit to Alaska, Miss… Yee ooh?’

She dismissed the urge to correct him – it’s pronounced you – and was about to reply when it struck her she had no idea how to answer his question. How does one explain it? ‘Yes, a billionaire hermit has invited me to stay at his remote property to practice piano for research purposes. For one month. For five. Million. Dollars.’

‘It’s… Sorry… I’m taking part in scientific research?’

Clearly, scientific research was a common motive for flying into Anchorage. Eyes already on the next passenger he handed back her passport with a half-hearted welcome to Alaska.

3

Cassian Carmine hoisted his rucksack from the carousel and turned to look for the cute oriental chick but she had disappeared. Shame, he thought, feeding his arms through the straps and adjusting the weight on his back. He had forgotten just how heavy his own bag was. Perhaps he would see her out in the arrivals hall, ask if she fancied a quick drink before he carried on with his journey. Perhaps she was one of the five. That would be nice. I wouldn’t mind spending a month in close proximity to her. The outsized glasses and clothes she wore yelled, ‘frump!’ but her face was pretty, and despite the shapeless coat she wore, he intuited a slender, toned figure beneath it. It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.

Visualising seduction and far eastern delights, he made his way to the security area, passport in hand. The pleasanter effects of the champagne he’d quaffed throughout the flight were wearing off, replaced by a keen thirst and heaviness behind his eyes. When the guard took his passport and read his name he looked up at Carmine with suspicion on his squashed, fleshy face.

‘Cassian Carmine?’

‘The very same.’

‘The writer? I’ve read your books. Heck, I’m a fan. You’re British? I always thought you were one of us.’

‘I prefer to write in American.’

‘Yup. Fooled me. You on a book tour?’

Carmine shook his head with authorial gravitas. As ever, his demeanour changed when he was recognised, and he became subject to a subliminal drive that sought to instil a seriousness in his image. The novels were action-packed, exotic, fantastical, strewn with sex and extreme violence. They were bestsellers. Yet still he felt the need to prove something: it wasn’t all fucking and fighting, he wanted to shout, I tackle themes, big ones.

Frowning now, taking back his passport, he paused before answering.

‘I can’t really say what I’m here for. It’s under the radar at the moment. But you’ll hear about it. You will hear about it when the time is right.’

‘Okay,’ said the officer, regaining his professional manner. ‘Okay. Well, have a great time in Alaska.’

Chest puffed out, Carmine strode into the arrivals hall.

The large, luminous room was buzzing with busy people in the midst of whom a stuffed polar bear reared forlornly in a glass case. High above, vintage aircraft hung from the ceiling, strangely serene. He scanned the row of suited and sign-bearing men and picked out his name. A nod from Carmine, a nod in reply and he followed the man to the exit and out into a gust of fierce cold. Here it is, he said to himself, the temperature for the next four weeks, better get used to it. Why couldn’t Goff have built his retreat in the South Pacific?

The sun had already slipped into the horizon and the sky was a splurge of orange. Something else to get used to, ridiculously short days. What was it? Seven hours of daylight in Anchorage, half that further north where they were going? Oh well, he answered himself, I’ve always been more of a night person.

The emailed instructions for arrival stated that an overnight stay in Anchorage would be required before the onward flight. So as to accommodate his guests, Goff had laid on a room for each of them at a five star hotel near the airport. A car pulled up, his bag was stowed, and off they went. A ten minute drive. Getting out, he was hit again in the face by the sharpness of the air. It stung the nostrils.

The hotel was lit up and looked rather grand and at the broad reception desk he was greeted by a tall, smiling blonde.

‘Hello,’ he said brightening, returning her smile with interest, ‘Cassian Carmine. I have a room reserved?’

‘Yes, Mr. Carmine. And on behalf of Mr. Goff, I’d like to welcome you to Alaska. Your room is ready. A wake up call has been arranged for eight in the morning, your next flight will be at ten-thirty.’ Her smile widened and she handed over a card key for the room.

‘Great. Have my bag brought up.’

Slipping the card into his back pocket he cast his eyes about the lobby as if looking for an old friend. ‘Now. Tell me, where is the bar?’

4

The room was large and sumptuous, easily the most exclusive he had ever been in. Door closed, Patrick Jallo dropped his bags and threw himself onto the king-sized bed. This was the style he wanted to become accustomed to. This was where he was aiming his career. For now, the bizarre circumstance of his being here would have to do. Five million dollars; not bad for a month’s work and, all being well, some decent coverage in the end. His face seen.

He immediately fell asleep and when he woke some hours later it seemed to him only a minute had passed. He was still dressed, still in his coat, and uncomfortably hot. Hurriedly he stripped and got into the black-tiled shower, setting the nozzle to full power and letting the jets massage his back. He dried himself in front of the mirror, studying his lean, muscled body, pondering his destination. Fifty miles inside the Arctic Circle, in the far north of this most northern state, and to do what? His initial elation at having been selected for the project had, over the course of the intervening months, evaporated, leaving behind a dry, itching doubt. What could Mattias Goff want from an actor? An unknown actor at that. Was it to help with the production of a virtual thespian, and if so, would he be helping to bring about the demise of his profession? He pictured himself dotted with motion sensors, performing basic movements: walk, run, punch, fall; close ups to capture the gamut of actorly tricks. He was glad to have a script with him. A movie script – seventeen lines of which were to be his. It was a minor part but in a big production, scheduled for filming in the new year. A bit more than a bit part, it was a giant leap for his career. He’d landed the job only three weeks ago and couldn’t shake the suspicion that Goff had been involved.

The script was fairly generic. His character was a criminal, a foot soldier in an east coast gang; a man whose fists were used to violence, whose voice was loud and abrupt. Most of his seventeen lines would be delivered to Kevin Bacon who was playing the role of a detective charged with taking down the kingpin. Patrick’s character was a snitch. Cops and robbers. Bread and butter for the big screen.

‘You got this,’ he said to his reflection. His reflection did not look convinced.

Dressed in a black suit and burgundy shirt, the smartest of the scant collection of clothes he’d managed to fit into two bags, he checked the fridge and found a pretty collection of miniaturised drinks. He selected a Jack Daniels and downed it straight from the tiny bottle, feeling like a giant. In the lift he looked over himself again, checked his collar and the back of his jacket in the lighted mirrors. All was well.

The hotel bar was an old world affair: seats of mahogany, velvet and leather, tiffany lampshades, a grand piano at one end and a wide painting of an Alaskan mountain behind the bar. The lighting was low, as were the voices of the few people engaged in conversation. Most of those in the room sat alone. Patrick ordered a beer. He handed over his room card for payment, assuming that if a billionaire tech god put one up in a five star hotel it was going to be all inclusive. He took his drink to the back of the room and sat in a corner from where he could watch everyone.

Get in character, he told himself. Which one? he answered back. This was no place for the two-bit gangbanger of the script in his luggage; this was boss territory. Top dog. Maybe his character was here to buy off a politician, or have a sit down with rivals. He took a careful sip of beer and looked over the room, assessing each person in turn. The elderly couple at the table in front of him were obviously civilians. The tall, unshaven man slouching at the bar was possibly an undercover DEA agent; he had the appearance of someone who put effort into looking untidy. The dark-haired woman in the opposite corner, thirties, harshly attractive, tired-looking but possessing an unmistakeable air of fearlessness, she was a potential player – his blind date? An assassin sent to kill him? At a table next to the piano two businessmen sat unspeaking, one checking his phone, the other a laptop. A youngish couple at the near end of the bar were whispering to each other excitedly. Honeymooners? Was Alaska in winter a honeymoon destination? Patrick guessed it could be; it was so cold outside there was little else to do but stay in bed.

By the time he finished his beer he was bored with his game. He hadn’t eaten since New York and the Jack Daniels and lager had gone to his head. He decided to go back upstairs for room service.

As he passed the bar he caught some of what the scruffy guy was blathering to the barman who listened with professional patience.

‘It’s hush-hush, you know? But it does involve a very rich and very famous computer guy. That’s all I’ll say. You probably know who I’m talking about. Right?’

Patrick glanced back at the speaker. An Englishman and obviously one of Goff’s five invitees. His face was soft in the muted lighting, the soft and heavy of a good few drinks. His jaw stubbled, his long, brown hair messily tied in a topknot. He looked familiar – another actor? Were all five of them actors?

The man must have intuited he was being looked at and Patrick immediately averted his eyes. He had no wish to get into conversation with anyone. Least of all one of the five. Not yet. He left the bar and crossed the lobby to the lifts.

Back in his room, back on the bed, he ordered room service and savoured a wonderful veggie sandwich: avocado and pesto in ciabatta bread. He munched sweet potato chips and washed it all down with another beer. Turning on the television, he found a just-started movie, a horror, and he propped himself up on a bank of pillows.

‘This is the life,’ he sighed.

5

She was dreaming of the smell of death when the call came.

The ring of the phone shocked her awake and she almost jumped out of bed. A dark and unfamiliar room, so stiflingly hot she forgot she was in Alaska and for some moments was at a loss as to how she had ended up back in the tropics. She breathed a concoction of clean sheets, hotel soap, the complimentary bouquet on the dresser, but the smell of her dream remained at the back of her nose.

Answering the phone brought location and itinerary back to Sarah Matthews – the Anchorage hotel, the next flight into the north, into the land of snow and night, a short stopover, then the helicopter to Goff’s remote property. And thereafter, the unknown.

She showered quickly, worried she would be found responsible for disrupting the finely calibrated logistics of the endeavour. The previous evening as she sat in the bar, people watching, she reckoned at least one of the men present was part of the five. Cassian Carmine she recognised from the publicity for his last book, but it was unlikely he was taking part. He must be in town for a book tour; no, not him, what could he have to offer the great Mattias Goff? Carmine had made clumsy eyes at her and she had curtly looked away. The youngish black guy in the burgundy shirt watching from the corner, he looked the type, handsome, confident, probably a representative for a tech giant. Or possibly the two suited men by the piano, busy on their gadgets. That was more likely.

Showered awake, scrubbed dry, she stood in the centre of the enormous hotel room and composed herself. Here we go, she goaded, let’s get this strange venture underway. She dressed in her travel clothes again, utilitarian chic: silken vest, deep-pocketed combats, pullover, fleece, also generously pocketed, a thermal beanie. Sarah had enjoyed shopping for the trip, for adventure, for the freezing top of the world. In her travel case were huge, down-filled mitts with suede palms; silk inners that were a delight to wear, as elegant as a pair of evening gloves. Beneath her trousers she wore thermal leggings; her feet were hugged by bulky woollen socks and packed into new, sturdy boots with good grip; and over everything a multipocketed, knee-length parka, insulated with duck down, the hood fur-lined. All of her clothes were either black or brown, except for the coat which was the brightest red she could find – so she could be seen. Out there on the tundra. In the long night.

Her body she had prepared well for the sub-zero environment, her mind less so. There had been an impulsive aspect in accepting the job. Five million was compelling enough, sure, but more than just the money, it was a deep end for the jumping. But now she was actually doing it – photographer in residence, here to catalogue the experiment but also take part in the experiment. The recording of brainwaves by EEG. The acronym supplied a fully formed mental image of a wig of wires feeding into a machine drawing jagged lines. She was unable to divorce the idea from that of a lie detector.

Sarah worked exclusively with photographic film and her professional methodology, from camera click to developed image, was to be an essential part of the process. Could she work plugged into a machine? In the darkroom?

Another thought intruded: what about my emotional baggage?

She swiped the thought aside and wheeled her case down the eerily quiet hotel corridor. Coming out of the elevator, she lifted her head with resolve and crossed the lobby, handed the key back, and went out into the cold. The air was instantly all over her face, seeping through her coat, tight on the ungloved hand that gripped the case. She could feel it against her eyeballs, stealing beneath her scarf, tensing