Tinker, Prisoner, Criminal, Spy

The Tinker was imprisoned within his own mind.

A simple procedure: a jab of anesthesia, then a cocktail of acetylcholine and sodium pentothal, a few moments on a cold slab while turquoise-gloved and -masked figures hovered overhead. A brief blackout, like a prolonged wink, and he woke up inside his own head.

He was in a small white cube with smooth white walls, solid white light from overhead, reflecting off a polished white floor. It was, the Tinker thought sourly, like being imprisoned inside an iPhone. Two white chairs whose curvilinear forms exhibited an extreme antipathy to right angles stood in the middle of the cube. The Tinker sat in one, and waited.

There was little to do but stare at the walls. Upon closer inspection he found them to be translucent, like thick, frosted glass. A shadow approached from beyond one wall, a vague umbral specter, growing larger and more defined as it advanced. The Tinker watched it nervously, wondering what monster of the imagination the judges had imprisoned with him.

The figure walked right up to the wall and, without pause, stepped straight through it as though it were made of vapor. The Tinker drew a sharp breath, then let it out when he saw that the figure was his wife. His wife in middle-age, after she’d cut her hair short. She was dressed in a crisp white pant suit, with a white shirt. She sat opposite from him, hands folded across her lap, and waited without a word.

“Nice day for it,” he smiled, and pointed to the unbroken square of light glaring down upon them.

She did not smile, just sighed and looked away.

“Okay, what did I do this time?” he asked.

“You have to remember,” she told the wall.

The Tinker scratched at his curly hair, as though that would stir the brain beneath into thought, but achieved nothing other than making his scalp even itchier. “Well, I’ve forgotten,” he said.

“Yes,” she nodded, looking back at him now. “That’s the point. They made you forget, so that you’d have to make the effort to remember.”

“Ah, making me wrestle with my conscience, eh?” He considered this prospect, the taste of it, swished it around inside his mouth like a mouthful of wine. He wasn’t sure he liked it. “What if I don’t want to remember?”

“Then you stay in here until you do.”

“Or if I don’t have a conscience?”

“You’d better develop one, if only as a survival mechanism.”

The Tinker rolled his eyes and then immediately regretted it, squinting against the searing light in the ceiling. He winced, blinked rapidly and looked down again. “Whose idea was this?”

“Yours.”

“What?”

“Yours.”

“No, that was a ‘what’ as in incredulity, amazement. This is bullshit. I’m such an idiot.”

His wife tilted her head and gave him a long, level look.

“Yeah, yeah, alright, I’m an idiot,” he flapped her gaze away with his hand. “I won’t do it, though. I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. Probably. No, definitely not. Bullshit, utter bullshit. I won’t do it. I refuse. You can’t make me. Or I can’t make me, whatever. I’ll break out. I’ll escape.”

“You can’t,” his wife said wearily. “You’re your own jailer in here. You can’t have any secrets or hidden plans. Anything you think of, the jailer thinks of too, because the jailer is you.”

“Am I?” his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Am I really? Or is that exactly what I want me to think?”

His wife shook her head and stood. “Think whatever you like, but whatever you think in here is exactly what you want you to think that you think. It’s obvious if you think about it. Either way, I’m leaving you.” She turned and strode for the wall, passed seamlessly through it, becoming a shadow, then dwindling to a sooty mark, then nothing.

The Tinker rose and went over to the wall, poked his finger against the hard and unyielding surface. “Bullshit,” he said to himself again, though he thought that he didn’t sound very convinced.

“She’s right, you know, you can’t get out until you let yourself out,” said a voice. It was the Tinker’s own voice, yet different, unmediated by his skull’s bone conduction, nasal and wet, his voice as heard in recordings and echoes and therefore disturbing in the same manner as nearly photorealistic CGI. Just the right degree of wrong to make him shiver.

“Oh, what do you know?” the Tinker snapped at himself.

“I know everything you do.”

“Exactly, and I don’t know anything.”

“Well, it’s never too late to start learning,” this voice told him equably. One of the walls thinned, grew increasingly transparent and then faded into air. “This way.”

The Tinker folded his arms. He wasn’t about to be ordered around by anyone, much less someone as unreliable, foolish and ill-informed as himself. “Shan’t,” he declared.

“Suit yourself.”

“What if I stay here, hm? What then?”

“You heard what she said. If you’re uncooperative, then you stay here for as long as it takes.”

The Tinker fumed and waited, and continued to wait, to predictably little effect. He tried waiting some more, then realized the futility of trying to outwait yourself. He would have exactly as much patience as he did. “Blind leading the blind,” he grumbled to himself, and shuffled out the opening.

“I knew you’d come around eventually,” the voice said, perhaps a little smugly.

“Don’t be childish,” the Tinker snapped. Then, under his breath to himself: “Smart-arse.”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

The space outside the cube was divided into a labyrinthian grid of featureless, colorless corridors, marking out a hive of frosted-glass cubes just like the one the Tinker had just stepped from. They extended in every direction, forward, back, left and right, compacting and darkening at the limits of vision into infinity.

Inside each of the translucent cubes the Tinker could see blurred and muted outlines, something back and boxy upon a table in one, someone standing rigid as a palace guard in another.

The air hummed briefly, and the Tinker turned to see the wall behind him thicken and solidify. When he turned back, the wall in front of him had vanished, sublimated into the air. Inside, his seventh-grade science fair project was sitting on the table.

It was supposed to have been a radio. It hadn’t worked. It hadn’t worked because he’d screwed it up.

The Tinker walked slowly forward and looked down at it, at the pathetic crudity of it, the failure of it, the plywood and solder destined straight for the garbage bin the moment the science fair ended. He stood there for a long time. “That’s it?” he asked the ceiling. “This is what I’m in for? Getting an F on a science project?”

The radio crackled to life, in precisely the way it had failed to in reality. “Oh, you little idiot,” said the Tinker’s seventh-grade teacher’s voice, in just the tone of disgust and disappointment he remembered so clearly.

The Tinker felt himself flush, grow hot, and shook his head violently as though to shake free of the memory. “Shut—” he clamped his jaw closed and breathed deeply through clenched teeth. At last, he said: “You’re probably dead now.”

“Ignoramus,” the teacher sneered, just as they had done and continued to do in every quiet eddy and pool of time in the Tinker’s life.

The Tinker lunged forward and ripped the speaker’s wires free. He hurled the tiny little speaker across the room. It did not shatter, merely clinked off the wall and slid to the ground, almost insouciantly.

“There a point to this?” the Tinker asked.

“Background, building up a profile,” his voice said. “That was very instructive, don’t you think?”

“Do I, fuck. What’s next, the Ghost of Science Fairs Present? Have you got Tiny Tinker stowed away here somewhere?”

“Great idea, wish I’d thought of it myself,” said the voice. “Oh, that’s right, I did.”

The walls repeated their transubstantiation trick, guiding him into another white-on-white cell. This one had a table and a person. On the table lurked a heavy, black metal cube, bristling with a hedgehog of shiny keys and rotors. It was called an Enigma machine. This was the real thing, genuine, near-mint, the actual encryption device used by the actual German military in the actual 20^th century to encode their messages. It had cost him over a quarter of a million dollars.

The person standing next to the table was his daughter. Still 13, the age she’d been the last time he’d seen her. Well, of course, this was all in his head, he couldn’t very well picture her as anything older. Still thin and delicate, thin ivory skin over tendrils of blue-green veins, too-large eyes in a too-narrow face.

“I don’t play fair,” the Tinker groused to himself.

“Would you, if you were you?” said the voice.

“Let’s get this over with,” the Tinker said by way of answer, and stomped into the room. “I suppose you’re here to guilt me over buying this thing,” he said to his daughter’s shade.

The big brown eyes lifted from the machine. “Do you feel guilty?”

“Plenty of people spend money on their hobbies. That’s no crime.”

“No, it isn’t.” She grew even paler, thinner. He could see the outline of the table through her forearm as she waved it over the machine. “Then again, most of their hobbies don’t cost as much as a detached two-bedroom in the suburbs. So much for my college fund. What was the attraction?”

“It always gave the right answer.”

“It turns plain language into unreadable garbage.”

“And back again, precisely, exactly, just the way it was meant to. There’s no guesswork, no fuzzy logic or parameters, just text in, correctly-encrypted code out.”

His daughter was almost gone now, a high-transparency overlay over the room, a hint of light and shadow. Her mouth moved but there was no air in her invisible lungs, no sound from her disappearing mouth. The Tinker watched the space where she wasn’t, and shrugged.

The next room was his cubicle at his first job. There was an L-shaped desk, a monitor, keyboard, telephone that he never used, empty cabinet. The walls were bare. He’d never had the time or interest to decorate them. Lines of code cascaded down the monitor screen.

“Babble Fish,” the Tinker said proudly, sliding into the office chair. “Voice changer software. Could make a man sound like a woman or vice versa, could make you sound like someone famous, could make you sound like anyone.”

A black window popped up in the lower right corner of the monitor.

“Looks like you’ve got mail,” said the voice. “Why don’t you open it?”

The Tinker stared at the square, remembering. “No.”

“Go on, it’s just an Email.”

“I said no.”

“Don’t be so stubborn. Very well, I’ll do it for you.” The screen cursor moved on its own, clicked the box, opening up the Email. The Tinker squeezed his eyes shut. “Oooh,” the voice said. “The GM wants a word. He doesn’t say what it’s about. Maybe a raise, huh? A promotion?”

The Tinker shot to his feet, turned his back on the monitor. Fists clenched at his sides. “It’s neither and you know it.”

“Just read the mail, come on, the only way to face this thing is by facing it.”

The Tinker bent, picked up the chair, whipped it around and hurled it against the monitor. It bounced off the screen without leaving a mark, and thudded to the white-on-white floor. Screaming incoherently, he picked it up again, swung it like a bludgeon, hammering it against the screen, the desk, the cabinet, the walls, doing nothing but wearing his throat raw.

He dropped the chair, fell to the floor next to it, exhausted, still fuming.

“Better watch that temper,” the voice chided. “Might get you into trouble one day.”

“Wouldn’t be a problem if people … had just shown me … a bit of … damned RESPECT.”

“There’s a word for people like us, you know. It rhymes with ‘agile white male.’ ”

The Tinker sat with his head in his hands for a long time, trying vainly not to think about, not to remember what had happened. Crimes required a mental and physical element, didn’t they? Whether intention or negligence, your mental state was part of the crime. Well, what if there was no mental state? He clapped his hands to his temples and squeezed, tried to wring the thoughts right out of his head.

“If you’ve quite finished, we’ve got one more little scene to revisit.”

In the next room was the research lab’s Christmas party. They’d had a Secret Santa. He’d drawn Caroline’s name, and given her a Japanese lacquered serving dish. She’d unwrapped it, held it in her hands for several long moments of silence, before putting it down on a desk with a mumbled thanks.

Harvey had drawn the Tinker’s name. Harvey was nemesis personified, and had evidently been bio-engineered to highlight every physical failing the Tinker had: Harvey was taller, younger, fitter, had whiter and straighter teeth, probably smarter, too. Harvey passed the Tinker his present, flat and rectangular and so patently book-like. The Tinker already knew which book it was, he remembered. The rest of the researchers were elbowing one another, winking, smirking.

The Tinker sighed. He ran his thumb along the wrapping paper seam, lifted the tape, and wiggled the book free. The title was “Everything Men Know About Women” with the word “Men” crossed out and his name Sharpied above it. It was a gag gift, of course, the kind of gag gift you give to bully people you don’t really like, filled with nothing but blank pages.

Harvey giggled, the others laughed and clapped.

“Aha, a blank book, very droll,” the Tinker held the book up with pages spread, so everyone could see and roar again with laughter.

“Aw, smile for once, learn to take a joke.” Harvey smacked him in the shoulder.

There was a dark stain on Harvey’s blazer, just above the breast pocket. “Careful with the wine,” the Tinker told Harvey, pointing at the spot.

Harvey looked down, then back at the Tinker and winked. “Oh, that ain’t wine.”

“What is it then?”

“You know.” The stain was larger now.

The Tinker took a step back and then another, shaking his head. “No,” he said, throwing up a hand as though to ward off a blow. “No, I. No.” He lurched backwards until he smacked the back of his head against the chamber wall.

“Careful with that knife,” Harvey said, walking slowly forward.

“What knife?” But of course, it was in his hand, held right in front of his face now.

The Tinker whirled frantically, and slammed the knife into the cloudy glass surface of the wall. It crackled and chipped. He struck again and again with maniacal energy, hearing Harvey draw closer and closer, until the wall came away in great jagged shards. He took a step back and launched himself forward, into the shattered wall, through it, out into the corridor beyond.

The Tinker lay, panting, bleeding, waiting for Harvey to follow. There was only silence. After a long while, he sat up, looked back and saw the ragged hole he’d made, the almost cartoon outline of a body he’d left behind. The room beyond was empty.

“I think we’re beginning to remember,” the voice said cheerfully. “Things definitely falling into place: introversion, hyper-sensitivity to criticism, social isolation, all given a concrete and specific target. And we haven’t even gotten to the really good part yet.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” the Tinker muttered. “I was provoked.”

“That’s right, these are your excuses. But you haven’t actually faced it yet. What you actually did. We’ll get there, you and I, and we’ll consider if your excuses really hold water. This is both revenge and rehabilitation, rolled into one you see? The only way to face it is by facing it. You have to confront the reasons you give yourself for doing what you’ve done, accept the responsibility, and rework your brain so that you won’t do it again. Otherwise you’re going to stay in here. Come, let’s review.”

The voice led back to the first room, where all the Tinker’s mementoes were now gathered, like exhibits in a courtroom. The Tinker looked at what his mind had assembled: A radio you couldn’t hear; A device for hiding the written word; A book you couldn’t read; Software for hiding the spoken word.

The Tinker slowly smiled to himself. He began to arrange the pieces together. A microphone, filtered through software, activating the Enigma machine, to write in a blank book. He stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“What is it?” the jailer asked.

“You know what it is,” the Tinker said. “I can’t think of anything you haven’t thought of. So come on, what is it?” He spoke into the voice changer, which converted his words into Enigma keystrokes. He watched it print nothing across the pages of the blank book.

“That’s odd. I seem to have forgotten.”

The Tinker covered his mouth with his hand, to hide the smile that spread right across his face. The device had worked. “Oh, what a shame,” he said out loud. Enigma keys chattered. The book spewed out another white page. “I’m sure it will come to you”

“What will?”

“The fact that I’ve created a device to erase memories.”

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Forget I said anything.”

“Right. Ah. So. Are we finished here?”

“Finished what?”

“Have you confronted the fact that your brittle pride, sociopathic disregard for others and inability to control your temper led you to murder your own co-worker over a joke book?”

“Sure did. Don’t you remember?”

“Hm. Ah, yes. Yes, I see. Very good.”

“Are we done?”

“Almost. Just one last person you need to talk to.”

The lab director, Adeline Chan, strode in at the center of a lab coat whirlwind, crackling with pure efficiency, black slate of a clipboard tucked under one arm. She quickly looked about the cell, then locked on to the Tinker and gave him the tight, professional smile of someone about to deliver a negative personnel evaluation.

“Have you reconsidered?” she asked.

“About what?”

She frowned and paused. Looked down at the notes on her clipboard. She flipped back through one page, then another, in a limp rolodex of frustration. From where the Tinker was sitting, he could see that every page was blank. Finally, she snapped the pages back down on the clipboard. Director Chan opened her mouth to speak, evidently running through a number of possible responses, before finally settling on: “Have you reconsidered the thing you were reconsidering?”

“Yes?”

Director Chan waited long enough until the pause became uncomfortable. “And?”

“I’ve reconsidered my decision to reconsider.” The Tinker nodded emphatically. Done and done.

Chan blinked. Looked down at the clipboard, as though seeing it for the first time and drew her hand cautiously, warily away from it. She looked at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, peered quizzically at the Tinker’s face.

“Fine. Good,” she said. Then shook her head abruptly, turned on one military heel, and strode quickly from the cell.

“How did that go?” the voice asked the Tinker.

“Don’t you know?” the Tinker probed. “Weren’t you watching?”

“I…” there was a long pause. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.”

“Oh, it went great. Much better than expected. Fully recovered, she said.”

“She did.”

“Yup. No trace of the old me to be found. One hundred percent reformed.”

“Well, good for you. For us.”

“Right, so, that’s it, isn’t it?” the Tinker rubbed his hands together. “The end, game over, el finito. We’re cured. Lessons learned. No more need for me to hang around here. Guess I should be on our way, hey?”

“It does seem that way.”

The Tinker touched two fingers to his temple and flicked them in a jaunty salute. “Toodles then, don’t be a stranger.”

“Just a sec here…”

The light in the ceiling pulsed once, then grew incredibly, intolerably bright, searing the Tinker’s eyes even though they were screwed tight shut. He cried out. “Whoops,” said the voice, then everything was plunged into absolute darkness.

The Tinker sat in nothing. He tried to call out, but could make no sound. He started to fear some trick, one last cruel betrayal, when a faint light appeared overhead, then widened into a hazy band, and expanded, wider and wider until

He was awake. He was lying, strapped to a gurney or bed or something, in the middle of a white room. He groaned to himself, oh not again, when he started to notice the differences. The ceiling was more grey than white for a start, and the light came from quite plain and ordinary light fixtures. The bed was surrounded by various boxy appliances mounted on trolleys, some with clear plastic tubes snaking down and up to the bed. There were strangers there, some people in hospital gowns and surgical masks, and over by the far wall, a woman in business wear, a teenage girl in a dark blue dress.

The Tinker sat up slowly. “How long was I out for?”

One of the masked figures consulted a readout, and looked up again: “By our clock, 623 milliseconds,” she said. “Must’ve felt like longer to you, though. How do you feel?”

“Better than ever,” he beamed. “Like a new man.”

He swung his legs off the bed, stood up and stretched his hands above his head. The woman and the teenager watched him apprehensively, so he gave them a reassuring smile and a wave. Odd that they’d allowed strangers in the operating room, but still, experimental procedure and all that, probably related to somebody on the staff.

“I’m reformed then? Rehabilitated?” he asked the staff.

“You wouldn’t have woken up if you weren’t,” a masked woman told him.

“I’m free to go?”