What to do about Katrina, Ep. I, Act I, sc. 10
A few otherworldly personal details, if I may
A warm welcome if you just joined us. Although you may wish to start at the beginning. Here’s my intro, and here’s the first instalment. Or, as a matter of fact, you may find it really quite fun indeed to read this instalment and then go back to the start. Narrative theory calls that a privilege gap. I like privilege gaps. They are so very ripe for postmodern mischief.
For the previous instalment, click there. I should get into the habit of doing recaps, actually (on that note I have some editing of previous chapters to do - uh-oh more homework). Anyway, for a recap, having arrived back at the Embassy and deposited our Katrina back in the interview room, the beleaguered Tom from MI5 reported back to Peter from MI6, and has been denied freedom from Katrina duty. So now he has to take some personal details, meaning his strange day is not over yet, by any means. He is determined to remain professional and make the best of it, however. That kind of thing never lasts, though, especially when insufferable girls from parallel worlds are involved…
With Katrina’s meditation, it seemed to her that she didn’t have to wait very long at all.
She opened her eyes and looked up as soon as Tom came through the door, with a satchel over his shoulder. She wondered why he was smiling.
Between Peter’s office and the interview suite Tom had made a mental decision to just go along with the whole thing for now. If he was honest, it was actually Peter that was disconcerting him. He had a tendency to do that and Tom knew it was deliberate. Resisting it required a certain degree of mental discipline, reminders-to-self to snap out of it. He was less accomplished at that than he would have liked, however.
As for Katrina, on the other paw, now that he’d gotten a little bit more used to her and worked out that she wasn’t going to suddenly attack him with a blunt object he decided not to be nervous about her. Utterly irritating at times, insufferable, sure, but not threatening. She had suddenly become a curiosity. Even if Peter was right and she was a spy, merely pretending to be a little girl lost.
Besides, he’d also started thinking about dinner with Audrey.
He took a smartphone out of the satchel, waved it around for show and then handed it to Katrina. She took it gratefully and studied it as if it was some strange new object. Or some primitive alien artefact, even.
“Yours a bit more advanced, then, I take it?” Tom asked, sceptically.
“We don’t use mobile phones as much as you lot clearly do. We prefer human contact.”
Tom frowned and tried to ignore the jibe. Katrina switched it on and played around with it for a bit. “5G, is it?”
Tom tilted his head a little and tentatively nodded.
“We stopped all that 5G madness years ago. All that radiation is a dangerous weapon. Haven’t you heard of Havana syndrome? One reason why we’ve invested so much in QTC. Our 6G is safe, though. And we’ll be rolling out 7G soon enough. If that’s an indication of where we’re at?”
“Well,” Tom responded a little sarcastically, “I’m afraid that’s the best we can do for now. You’ll have to stick around a while if you want 7G.”
“Lol. I’m still only teasing, Tom. I’m still in cognitive dissonance dream mode. To be honest I don’t know why they’re bothering with 7G. It’ll be replaced by quantum teleportation before it’s finished. Only reason I can see is to make even more bloody money for deodorant guy.”
“Deodorant guy?”
“Elon Musk.”
Tom burst out laughing again. “So, is he the richest man in your world too?”
“Oh, he’s in this world too, huh? That doesn’t surprise me. He’s got his fingers in so many pies I should’ve known. He’s the richest man, sure, although not the richest person. Mainly thanks to the space race, I should add.”
“Space race?”
“It’s kind of ironic, really, seeing as it was my idea.”
“Now I’m even more confused.”
“And totally sceptical, obviously. Just go with it, Tom, is my advice. Humour me, like you have been doing. Well, to cut a long story short massive investment in space exploration was one of the Liberal Socialist Party’s policies, once they nationalised the banking system and took control over the money supply. If you have sovereign money creation you can create as much of it as you like. Anyway. I helped draft the Lizzies’ original manifesto in 1991, which included the space stuff. Fifty billion a year, to be precise. Same for fusion power.”
“I see. So this is, what, a race to the moon and back or something?”
“Are you taking the piss, Thomas?”
He shook his head, genuinely.
“So you are actually interested in space exploration?”
He shrugged. “I’m curious as to what you have to say about it, given you say you’re ahead of us.”
She sighed. “Hmm. Ok, well, you’re on the right lines with the moon, I suppose. What I advocated was abandoning microgravity as a dead end, and instead concentrating on using centrifugal force for artificial gravity.”
“Oh, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey?”
“Kind of, yeah. You’re getting warmer. That space station’s much bigger than ours but it’s the same principle. Anyway, as part of the reconciliation process with America John signed the Space Exploration Treaty in 2017, which was effectively cooperation between NASA and the Eurasian Space Agency. So America gets our Selene-Gaia space station technology and goes back to the moon, meaning they get to commercially exploit all that helium-3 for our fusion reactors, -”
“Hence Elon Musk’s richness, I take it?”
“Exactly.” She waggled her finger at him, “SpaceX. He’s basically getting all the NASA contracts. Well, him and that other fucker Bezos. Do you have Bezos? I bet you do, don’t you?”
Tom couldn’t help laughing. “Second richest man.”
Katrina frowned. “Fucker. What about that French luxury bloke? Arnault?”
“Yes. We have him too.”
“Right. I’d best not say anything about him here in Paris, though, eh? Especially not on Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. Anyway, they might get the moon but we get Venus, exclusive planet-hunting for ten years, with the J2B telescope, and we get to put the first man and woman together on Mars. Which is the Ares Project. The first stage of that, the Ares-Gaia space station, which is built according to Werner von Braun’s specifications, which is to say 76 metres in diameter as opposed to the 33 of Selene, had its first successful occupied test two years ago. So we’ll be on Mars by the end of next year, fingers crossed.”
“So it’s more of an agreement, than a race?”
“Hmm, well, kind of. The treaty also states that after a few years of Ares, exploration of the main bodies of the solar system will be joint, global enterprises. But everything else is up for grabs. All those asteroids, for example. And you know how much America loves commercial exploitation, don’t you?”
He nodded. “So you’re not a total socialist utopia, then? You’re saying America is still capitalist?”
“Sure.” She said it in hammy American and wiggled her shoulders. “Like sure.” Then she thought better and reverted to proper English. “That’s part of their cultural identity and tradition. But they have abandoned neoliberalism and gone back to the old fifties and sixties thing with mom and pop businesses, as they call them. Small businesses, basically. So it’s old-school capitalism. And they do have a welfare state now. I guess,” she concluded, soberly, “it’s really the end of globalism, that is what I’m really getting at here. America has accepted the multipolar world, and no longer tries to assert its hegemony. Which, I presume, is not the case in this world, right?”
Tom inhaled thoughtfully. “I think I see what you mean. Maybe you could fill me in on the details later. We have a few things to get through first.”
Katrina smiled. “Sure. And thank you very much for the phone.”
“Pleasure. Now say cheese.”
“You what?” Katrina looked up in alarm.
“I need to take a photo, for facial recognition?”
“Ah, sure. Go on then. Except you do a better smile if you say ‘sex’.” She put the phone down on the table, turned her head slightly sideways at him, narrowed her eyes just a little and left her mouth ever so slightly open in a come-to-bed kind of way. Then she affected a sardonic Marilyn Monroe voice, “I’m ready for my close-up now, Mister Tom.”
Tom burst out laughing and for a second wondered if Peter might have been right about the honey trap idea. “It has to be straight on and no sexy posing. Sorry.”
Katrina shook her head and smiled. “Killjoy.”
She did as she was told, however.
Tom checked the picture on the phone and raised his eyebrows. She noted his satisfied look with happy interest. “And do you mind fingerprints?”
She shook her head. She knew perfectly well if they wanted her fingerprints they could lift them any time they liked, and refusing would’ve been suspicious. “Not a problem. You can have some DNA too if you want. I’d be intrigued about that myself, to be honest.”
He smiled. “Erm, you mean you think you’ve got some, what, alien DNA or something?”
“Well,” she mused seriously, “I wouldn’t be surprised, as it happens. Statistically speaking, of course, I probably do have a few genes that are unknown in your world. That would definitely make me a scientific curiosity, eh?”
Tom laughed and took the seat opposite her, pulled it a little closer to the table and then, perhaps a little eager to show that his own world’s technology wasn’t as primitive as she’d made him think it was, fiddled around with the touchscreen for a while and then held the phone towards her. She looked up curiously, then smiled.
“Left thumb first. Just press and hold for a few seconds.”
Katrina showed no objection whatsoever, he noted. In fact she seemed to even enjoy it.
“That’s not a smartphone, Tom. It’s a spy phone, isn’t it?”
“Erm, no,” he was not in the least convincing. He checked it to see if the imprint had registered, which it had. Vain attempt at distraction. “It’s just one of our standard devices here in the Consulate.”
“Bollocks. It’s a spy phone. Admit it.”
Tom laughed. “I’m just a junior liaison officer, Katrina. They don’t let the likes of me have spy gadgets.”
“So that’s not a standard issue watch, then?” She pointed at his wrist. “The one with the microphone?”
Now Tom looked embarrassed. And just a little alarmed. Maybe Peter was right. “How would you know that?” His tone seemed quite serious all of a sudden.
“I’ve been in all the Bond movies since Goldeneye, Tom. And MI6 always send round some bloke to our script meetings. So as to enhance the realism, you know? And to insert in-jokes, for that matter.”
Tom chuckled, smirked a little, then threw her a sceptical look.
She sighed. “You have Bond movies too, right?”
“Sure.”
“And you do know MI6 send consultants round? Or was that news to you?”
“Erm, I suppose. I’d had heard something like that. Sure.” He couldn’t visualise her in Goldeneye, though. He tried to imagine what part she played, but failed and filed it away for the future.
“Well, watches with microphones in them are commercially available now anyway, aren’t they? The intelligence services are maybe, I don’t know, five to ten years ahead with their gadgets but as they become superseded they end up commercialised. So that’s a standard issue watch. The one with the microphone.”
“And you knew that in the restaurant, didn’t you?”
She smiled warmly at him. “I did notice, sure. But please don’t take that the wrong way, Tom. If I was your superior I would’ve done just the same. I show up raving about parallel worlds and bioweapons and all that so it would be, well, negligent of you not to do it, wouldn’t it? National security et cetera.”
Tom reluctantly admitted that was somewhat logical.
“Hence the standard issue watch. The one with the microphone.”
Tom looked up and around the room idly and then decided there was nothing for it but to just laugh.
However, “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
“Not that I can think of, honestly officer.”
He burst out laughing. She had a way of doing that. And if she was a spy, he concluded, he was almost certainly completely fucked.
She held out her left index finger. “Is it this one next?”
“Ah,” Tom waggled his finger at her. “No. Right thumb.”
Katrina chuckled and continued cooperating with the procedure. Neither of them said anything.
When that was out the way Tom put the phone back in the satchel, and got out a notepad. “I should take some family details, if that’s also ok?”
“With old-fashioned technology? Doesn’t your spy phone have Notepad?”
“Very funny. It’s just easier. Shall we start with your mum?”
Katrina smiled a little sadly then, Tom noticed. She hesitated. He didn’t say anything, just offered her an enquiring look.
She inhaled deeply. “Ursula Catriona Meyer. Born 05 December 1948. Do you want maiden names?”
“That would help. So you were named after your mother’s middle name?”
“Ah, no. That was just a happy coincidence. Sorry. It’s the Irish spelling.” Then she spelled out the letters for him. “And her maiden name is Sugrue.” She had to spell that out too. It had a silent ‘g’.
Tom finished writing it out, then asked for her father’s details.
“I was actually named after my great aunt, Katrina. My grandfather’s younger sister. She was killed in the bombing of Dresden. Along with her parents.”
Tom didn’t know how to respond to that one.
She spared him. “My father is Richard Johann Meyer, born 15 July 1949.” She watched as Tom noted it down. “His parents were Kristophe Johann Meyer, 30 June 1919, he was a POW in England, you see, and Anna Hope Terfel, 13 March 1917. She was originally from the Lake District.”
Tom looked up at her quizzically. “Terfel? As in your syndrome?”
“Yes. She was the first identified patient. 1970. Black is the surname of the specialist who described the condition.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Indeed. It’s a kind of recessive female trait. It only affects the girls in our family. It’s dormant in the boys.”
“I see. So does this mean she died around the menopause? Sorry to ask.”
“No need to apologise. Yes, she died 5 days after I was born. She wanted to see her first grandchild into the world. You know how it is.”
Tom nodded. “I can understand that.”
Katrina hesitated again and took another breath before continuing. “Although I’ve given you these details I want you to promise me not to tell them about me, if they exist in this world. Please?”
Tom inhaled deeply. “Erm, why do you say that?”
“Because they won’t know me at all. If they find out about this other possible life they could’ve led in a utopia then that’s soul-destroying, isn’t it? Think about it.”
He did consider it. Then he said, “And what if for example she is your real mother and she’s missing you?”
“That couldn’t be the case, Tom. My mother was born in 1948. This body is, what, edge of seventeen? She would’ve been well past the menopause by then.”
“What if she’s your grandmother, then? I don’t mean to upset you, but maybe this is a psychological issue? You know?”
Katrina sighed audibly. But she had to admit the possibility. She nodded slightly. “Ok. But I still want you to promise that contacting her would be an absolute last resort. You can use remote intelligence gathering first. If you’ve really exhausted all that, despite your technical capabilities, then, well, I suppose. But please talk to me about it first. I don’t want this world’s version of my mum, or anyone else who knows me, to find out about the better life they should be living right now. It’s not fair on them. Promise?”
Tom nodded. “Ok.”
“I mean it, Tom. You might not properly understand how important that is. And I don’t mean any offence by it, honestly.”
He smiled. “None taken. And for what it’s worth I think I do understand what you mean. If you say you live in a utopia, and we’re a dystopia. Not that I necessarily agree with you, but it does make sense.”
“Thank you.”
“But we have to reserve the right to look into it, just in case you are a missing person.”
“Absolutely. Use the photo to check facial recognition and against missing persons reports and so on. You could even post the picture onto the database of the lost too, I don’t mind that. See if anyone claims me as their wayward daughter, perhaps.”
Tom gave a short laugh. “Obviously you’re saying that’s not going to happen.”
“Actually,” Katrina mused, “I wouldn’t be surprised if a few chancers did try and claim me as their own. The DNA would soon disprove it though, if they even volunteer a sample rather than scarper the moment you demand one.”
Then Tom sighed sadly. “You do really believe you’re from a parallel world? This isn’t just memory loss or something like that?”
Katrina returned a serious, rational glance. “I’m sure it’s not just memory loss or disassociation or something like that. But if you wish I will gladly submit myself to a psychological assessment, if you can arrange that?”
“Erm,” Tom thought about it, then remembered he was supposed to call Malcolm, “actually, that may be possible. I’ll look into it. You really wouldn’t mind?”
“I really wouldn’t mind, no.”
“Not even if it turned out that, well, you are someone who really exists in this world? And you have a family who are worried about you?”
Katrina paused, glanced down sadly, then looked back up at him with her big brown eyes and said, “You know, Tom, if it turns out that I really am someone real in this world with a real family who love me then I would be more happy and relieved and joyful than you could possibly imagine…”
For next instalment, click here