The Last Resort(72)
Scott stops pacing. ‘Asking her what?’
Now all of them are staring at Amelia.
‘About her friend,’ Tiggy says. ‘Something to do with her friend.’
Amelia shakes her head, inching further away. ‘No.’ Her lower back hits the table and she stops.
Lucy advances on her. ‘What friend, Amelia? Who is your friend? What’s your friend done to Brenda and Giles?’
‘No.’ Amelia tries to take a step away from the table, but Lucy shoves her back. ‘This has nothing to do with me.’
Lucy laughs. ‘Nice try. Not buying it.’ She shoves her again. ‘Oh, you don’t like the shoving? You seem to have no trouble shoving us when it suits you.’
Scott is beside her now, and he gives her a little shove too. ‘Care to enlighten us, Amelia? Because I’d sure as hell like to know what in God’s name is going on here. Right now, I would like to get on that plane, fly back to where we came from, then get home to my goddamn normal life.’ He shoves her again, bouncing her against the table. ‘But it seems like you’re stopping that from happening.’
Though Lucy had been doing it herself, seeing Scott pushing Amelia snaps her awake. When did they become a pack of animals? She puts a hand on Scott’s shoulder, gently tugging him back.
Silent tears are sliding down Amelia’s cheeks. ‘Please,’ she begs.
‘Leave her alone.’ James has stepped to Amelia’s side and put an arm around her. He’s pulling her away from them. ‘None of this is her fault. I promise you that. If you want someone to blame, I—’
The familiar beep sounds, signalling that something is going to be projected. They all turn around in the direction of the sound. They’re not bothering to broadcast it through their trackers anymore. This house is clearly full of potential projection points. The image de-pixelates quickly, and a man’s grinning face fills the space. ‘Oh, but it really is Amelia’s fault,’ he says in a deep, accentless voice.
‘Who are you?’ Lucy demands. ‘I assume this is live now. You can see us. You can hear us.’
The man chuckles, then the image pixelates again. When it comes back into focus, it’s a different man – the first one had dark hair and glasses, but he’s blond this time, no glasses. ‘I’ve been watching and listening to you all day, my dear. My goodness, you are tedious.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Scott walks closer to the image. ‘Oh, hang on . . . I get it. There’s no mysterious “host”, is there? It’s a conglomeration. Of course no one person could be responsible for all the things you’ve claimed. Am I right?’
The image scrambles and unscrambles again, and this time it’s a young woman. Her hair is in a neat ponytail and she’s grinning with huge, too-white teeth. She laughs. ‘Nearly, Scott. You’re not as dumb as you look.’ Higher pitched, but the same accentless voice.
The image flickers, and then another face appears. A younger man, bald, with thick-framed glasses. ‘I’m going to stick with this one for the rest of the presentation,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to confuse you all any further.’ He grins, and his teeth glow bright – same teeth as the girl, Lucy realises. She looks closely at his eyes. Yes. Those too.
‘You’re just superimposing faces,’ she says, trying to sound unimpressed when actually she is.
‘Oh, just superimposing faces? Come on, now. Credit where credit’s due: this is some impressively deep faking.’ The teeth glow. ‘I ought to know,’ he says. ‘I pioneered the technology.’
‘Oh, whatever,’ Lucy says. ‘I’m getting bored now. Get to the point and then we can all go home.’
The man on-screen laughs. The sound of his laughter is still going when his face vanishes. Then a new visual appears in front of them.
It’s someone leaning over a toilet, emptying things from his pockets into the bowl, yanking on the flush over and over, but the tank isn’t refilling as quickly as he needs it to. There’s a banging on the cubicle door.
‘Come out of there please, sir. We need to have a word.’
Whoever it is swears under his breath. More emptying. More flushing – the water pours in this time, and whatever it is swirls away. ‘One minute . . . please. I’ve got a bad stomach. Something I ate, I think.’ His voice is ragged, frantic. He tosses in some paper, tries to flush again. Nothing.
‘Sir, we’re going to have to insist that you come out of there now, or we may have to use force. The club is being evacuated. There are health and safety concerns.’
‘One minute, please.’ The man turns from the toilet to the mirror over the sink. It’s Scott, looking a little younger but completely wasted.
Lucy looks over at him now. His expression is stony.
‘It’s OK,’ she says, her voice soothing. ‘We’ve all had to face it.’
He gives her a small smile, then turns his eyes back to the screen. She does the same, just in time to see Scott being escorted from the bathroom of what looks like a nightclub – he’s flanked by two police officers. The walls are bright pink, the strobe lights flickering. They walk into the body of the club, which is mainly deserted. The music is still playing, some thump thump dance music, while paramedics in yellow jackets help people outside.