She pulled off her knickers and got into the shower. She quickly read the instructions and started her transformation. Twenty minutes later, she examined herself in the bathroom mirror and was absolutely stunned.
She looked like an African. Quickly, she got back in the shower and tried to wash off some of the tan pigment. All she succeeded in doing was to create light patches. She tried both a loofah and an exfoliating glove.
At least, her face turned a little lighter. Unfortunately, she now also had a tanless patch on her cheek. She could cover that up with tan blusher.
Even so, she still called her best friend for advice.
“What did you say you were doing?” Sandra shrieked on the phone.
“We’re just having a coffee,” Jonna said, trying to be nonchalant.
Sandra chuckled. “From your tone of voice, I think not.”
“What tone is that?”
“It’s like a green light, darling.”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me, what do you think the green light means?”
“That you are excited.”
“I’m not a bit excited. I’m just tired.”
“Tired of being alone,” Sandra joked.
“Stop it. Tell me what to do about the patches instead.”
“The one on your face?”
“For starters. I’ve got one on my tummy as well.”
“Really, so you are planning on getting naked too?”
“What? Umm . . . no, not at all.”
“Sounds like a ‘dunno’ to me. Or maybe ‘with a bit of luck’? Do you want me to chaperone?”
“No!”
“On a scale of one to five, how good-looking is he?”
“Zero!”
“In other words, a five,” Sandra squealed.
Jonna could not keep up her act. Sandra was not going to stop. Once she got her teeth into something, she never let go.
“Fine, it’s a date,” Jonna capitulated, despite not being completely sure if it was a date.
“See, it wasn’t so difficult to admit it,” Sandra sighed and started to explain what Jonna should do, in exchange for hourly text status reports. This Jonna agreed to do, reluctantly.
Thirty minutes later, Jonna walked through the main door of the Lavazza Bean and sat down opposite one of the most sympathetic faces she had ever seen. A migraine was flashing in her head and her fatigue was making her surroundings seem a tad surrealistic. Even so, she intended to sit and chat until she collapsed from exhaustion.
Chapter 17
The old man
looked at Leo for a long time without uttering a word. “I don’t understand,” he said finally.
He turned towards the man with the accent to see an equally incredulous expression.
“I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth!” The old man lunged forward in a fit of rage. He kicked over the stool. “Liar! Tell me the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” replied Leo calmly.
“It’s impossible,” the man roared. “It can’t be done. It’s an absurd story created by your overactive imagination.”
Silence.
The old man’s breathing was laboured. He unbuttoned his coat and looked down at the concrete floor as if he was searching for an answer. His anger died down as quickly as it came.
“How did you succeed? What makes you different? Why didn’t others make this discovery before you?”
Leo knew that he had to take on the role of a teacher. Complex questions required simple answers.
“The science on human consciousness is primarily related to brain research,” Leo began. “Current knowledge of the brain’s thought processes has mainly been built up in the last twenty years. Not so long ago, it was possible to repair damage to the body’s organs only by surgery and medicines. Today’s DNA research gives us new possibilities. Psychiatry has also made progress, so that we know a great deal about the relationship between the mind and the body. Yet, a vital piece is missing – one of the most important building blocks.”
“What is it, then?”
“Our inner conciousness.”
“You mean, the soul,” the man with the accent said.
“Call it what you will.”
“Whatever makes a person unique.”
“Correct,” Leo said.
His kidnappers exchanged looks.
“What do you think makes you the unique person you are?” continued Leo.
“My physical traits and my personality,” the man with the accent answered. “A result of my upbringing by my parents and the environment I grew up in.”
“That’s just your behaviour patterns and the physical shell,” the old man interjected.
Leo nodded in agreement. “True. What specific component in your body makes you unique?”
“The soul,” the man repeated.
The old man shook his head, rejecting the notion. “No. The soul does not exist,” he said adamantly.
Leo ignored the old man’s comments. “So, what is the soul really?” Leo continued. “What is a human being’s soul?”
The man with the accent thought for a few seconds.
“The brain,” he replied, “or some part of the brain.”
“And what is the brain made of?”
“This nonsense is getting us nowhere,” the old man protested.
The man with the accent also ignored the old man.
“It’s a few brain cells, thought patterns . . .” he began.
“At first glance, you’re correct,” Leo said. “But the brain comprises so much more than mere tissue. It is a complex structure of nerves and billions of cells linked in a highly advanced network, where chemical substances and electrical signals control our behaviour and make us who we are. There is also a part of the brain which stores our race memory from past generations that we carry with us, as well as the experiences we accumulate as we grow up. Now I have another question.”
Leo met the old man’s piercing eyes. “When were you first aware of your own existence?”
The old man did not answer.
“In your mother’s womb?”
“Get to the point,” the old man snarled.
“What is the exact moment when the soul is created?” Leo continued. “Is it at fertilization when the first cell splits during fertilization of the egg? Or does it already exist . . . ?”
“No more questions,” the old man shouted, “or do I have to remind you who is being interrogated here?”
Leo shook his head dejectedly.
“There’s only one fertilization that concerns me,” the old man said sarcastically. “It is made possible because the mindless masses are allowing the establishment of an Islamic nation on soil that once was purely Christian.”
Leo sighed deeply. Where had he gone wrong?
“What possible use can we make of what you have told us? What did you actually research besides this nonsense about the ego?” the old man pressed him.
Leo knew he would have to lie. But the lies would have to be believable. “As I stated earlier, we succeeded in identifying the genetic code that makes it possible to clone what you call the soul,” Leo said.
“Code?”
“Günter Himmelmann developed a theoretical application, in this case a formula, that describes the connections between all the brain’s components from, shall we say, the soul’s perspective. By mapping complete DNA strings, using advanced data simulations, we succeeded in cloning the essential control mechanisms in the brain – those required to reproduce a state of consciousness that we called Nirvana. The same type of energy field that already exists in the brain.
“You mean that you made an identical copy of a soul?”
Leo nodded.
“How is that possible?” asked the man with the accent.
“You won’t understand the details,” Leo answered, “but I can say this: we succeeded in reproducing a human being’s inner consciousness – by applying the application to cloned brain molecules and then inserting them into unbroken DNA sequences. But that was not enough. We had to add energy too, to start the electrical impulses that control parts of the brain. Everything is interconnected in a sophisticated symbiosis, which Himmelmann translated into mathematical formulae in the same way as Albert Einstein developed his Theory of Relativity. You can compare it to writing a computer program, transferring the program to a small USB stick and then plugging it into another computer to run the same program.”
The man looked at Leo in disbelief.
“That’s just fantasy,” the old man sneered.
“What do you mean by theoretical application?” the other man asked. “Is it possible to calculate a human soul?”
“It’s possible to formulate anything,” the old man said. “From high and low markets to Nature’s own building blocks. With mathematics, you can simulate and replicate just about anything.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Leo agreed. “Some consider, for example, that the universe is not simply chaos, but built with strict mathematical formulae down to the smallest quantum particle. In other words, there are unchanging laws for our existence. We are not the result of a random Big Bang.”
“Maybe we are all created by God,” the old man said, sarcastically. “The great Allah perhaps?”
Leo observed the men in the room. Their expressions were becoming increasingly glazed. He knew himself how difficult it was to grasp this concept and its implications. Mankind was not ready to handle the responsibility of this discovery. He had had many long discussions with Günter. They could sit for hours, immersed in conversation about the ramifications of their work. Günter’s intellect had made Leo feel like a novice. He was always calm and had always had remarkable self-confidence. Sometimes, Leo felt that Günter already knew the answers. That their work was merely a demonstration to prove that he was right.
The man with the accent was the first to break the silence. “But this would mean immortality. Simply switch bodies.”
Leo smiled. “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said, as the pain started to return.
“It also means that there could be two completely identical souls. Actual kindred spirits.”
Leo nodded.
“But which is which? How will I know which soul is actually mine?”
“There is no ‘mine’ any more,” Leo said. “You would be both.”
“I don’t understand.”
The man paced back and forth over the concrete floor. The old man watched his colleague irritatedly.
“Which one is the original soul, so to speak?”
Leo smiled. “Both of them.”
“Enough of this nonsense,” said the old man, standing over him. “Let’s assume that you’re not lying. That everything you said is fact. What was the motivation for doing this research? To demonstrate how far science can go or to make all our souls immortal?”
Leo saw it bothered the old man. He was in a turmoil.
“Perhaps to lay to rest the myth that God and religion represent,” Leo said.
“You must know why,” the man with the accent said. “You were yourself a part of it.”
“What’s the goal of all science?”
“To better . . . almost anything,” the man suggested.
“Man is an inquisitive species,” Leo said. “Curious about the world we live in and also about that which we do not understand.”
“Why didn’t you stay in the project?”
“I had other things on my mind,” said Leo, looking down at the concrete floor. Images of Anna and Cecilia flashed before his mind’s eye. For a short time, he had stopped thinking about them. “In the beginning, I was driven by the science and the opportunity to work with Günter Himmelmann, which was a great honour. To answer your question, I can only say that I don’t know why I stopped, and that mankind is perhaps not ready for this discovery yet. Just as unprepared as it was sixty years ago, when the atom was split. Great discoveries demand great responsibility.”
The old man retrieved his stool and sat down again. His eyes were dull. “Who is behind the murders of Himmelmann and the others?”
Leo was silent.
“Why would he destroy all his research records? What was he trying to hide?” the old man went on.
Leo sank back onto his mattress. He knew as little as they did. Someone wanted them to fail. Someone in their midst. Why would Günter destroy all his research? So that it wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands? Leo was even more confused.
Günter was dead, but all he felt was emptiness. There was no more room for mourning. That was reserved for Anna and Cecilia.
Mjasník reverently assembled
his new Izhmash SV-98. The high-velocity sniper rifle was just as beautiful as it was lethal. The best Mother Russia could provide. So refined, yet so brutal. A masterpiece of engineering. He glanced once again at his laptop. The woman police officer was moving locally between insignificant addresses in Stockholm. The detective inspector hadn’t made any unusual movements either. After turning on his mobile phone, the detective inspector had kindly updated it with the covert tracking program. Mjasník was constantly amazed by people’s blind faith in technology.
The commotion surrounding the hostage-taking had evaporated as quickly as it had started. Although Mjasník could follow every step that both the police officers took, he was back to square one. But he had patience. Unlimited time and patience.
Walter had categorically
refused to be admitted to the A&E at Karolinska University Hospital, despite the doctor’s request. He was in good physical shape and his only problem was the duct tape stuck in his hair. A female colleague, who by her own admission cut her five-year-old’s hair, volunteered to help.
After a brief conversation with the specialists from the National Police Board’s counselling team, Walter asked Nilsson at Surveillance if the offer of a lift was still valid. He needed to get away from the circus and to his bed at home.
“Sure,” she said, looking at Walter sympathetically. “When do you want to go?”
“Now, before I fall asleep on my feet.”
Ten minutes later, he awoke in a daze outside his building’s street entrance. He took the lift and kicked off his shoes as soon as he closed his front door. He collapsed into the sofa and lay face down in a cushion. He didn’t have any strength left to think about the coming skirmish tomorrow with the SWAT commander. If Rolf Meiton had given the order to follow Walter, it would be revealed then. He hoped that it was not the case. Meiton was not someone who backed down from a fight. Neither was Walter.
He closed his eyes, thinking about Hedman and his decision. An idiotic decision, which had not benefited him or Hedman. Hedman had burned his bridges and Walter had seen his chance to get to Borg go up in smoke.