Chapter 7

The captain had assembled the entire crew in the room behind the bridge that he called the afterdeck. Jeremy didn't pretend to understand why the room was called a deck. He just stood in the back of the room, which was his position among the rest of the crew. The senior crew got to sit up front.

The captain stomped into the room. "In a few minutes the first mate will hand out the assignments for docking. This is a four-day turnaround now because there is extra cargo to load. There will be plenty of work for all of you. Every cargo bin to be unloaded has already been tagged. Recife called ahead and we have a full load waiting at the docks for us already. We don't have to waste time scrounging and waiting for contracts.

"Three of you will be assigned guard duty on every shift. You will have rifles with live ammunition. Lagos is notorious and we have had to shoot thieves, thugs, and stowaways before. If you don't know how to shoot self-targeting weapons, see the second mate afterwards for target practice. Everyone does guard duty. If we lose a man, the guard responsible will join him. Understood?"

"Yes, captain," the men said with a seriousness they normally didn't show.

The captain sighed.

"Each man will be granted a twenty-four hour leave if he wants. The areas around the docks are bad. I recommend you find a taxi and bypass these areas for the upper town. Do not even think of walking back to the ship if you lose all your credits. You can lose a lot more than just your credits in this port, if you understand what I'm saying. My druthers are to stay on board and save my credits for our next port, Barcelona.

"The first mate will assign your leave time. For those of you who don't know our drills and our code words for trouble, you will have to stay for the first mate as well. That is all, gentlemen."

The captain walked out.

Jeremy had no choice. He had list of incidentals that he needed that he could only get from a store on shore. Moreover, he felt a nagging compulsion that he had to go to the bank. The impulse made no sense to him, just as the impulse to try the ACD in Sao Paulo had made no sense. He recognized the confusion inside his head, but he couldn't change it.

The ship docked by midmorning. Standing on deck, Jeremy could see that Lagos was a steaming pit of humidity and impoverishment. The tall walls with razor wire and cut glass were imposing and the shantytown on the other side was distressing. One wide road like a fat snake led from the port to the upper town on the hills overlooking the ocean.

Despite the captain's warning, most of the crew signed up to take their time on shore. Jeremy was scheduled to take the last leave as befit his standing among his fellows. He held the high-powered carbine in his left hand and waved to his departing fellow crewmembers with his right. The assholes never even turned back to see him wave.

Battered electric taxies waited at the pier for their eager fares. Jeremy watched them pass through the gates and then speed like demons up the white road with yellow stripes to the better part of Lagos. Suppressing his compulsion, Jeremy turned his attention back to the pier and the workers.

Sinking into his favorite chair before the digital screen that night, Jeremy appreciated the quiet in the room. Thinking ahead to his shore leave, he queried the search engine for banks in Lagos. A list of about thirty-five names appeared. Something was niggling his memory about the list, but for the life of him, he couldn't pin it down. The only path was to check out all of the listings.

He clicked on each bank. Two-thirds of the way through the list, he clicked on the Swiss-Duchamps Bank of Europe. Their emblem of a coat of arms with a roaring lion and a halberd slammed him between the eyes. Literally. His head was thrown backwards and a moment's nausea ran through his entire digestive tract. He had no clue where that visceral reaction had come from, but he wasn't going to ignore it either.

"I guess I'm going to the Swiss-Duchamps bank," Jeremy said aloud to an empty room.

He shut down the digital and dragged his tired body to his bunk. Everyone on board had to work a shift and a half to unload and load the cargo. Even with the locals running the crane, or maybe because of the locals running the crane, the crew was kept hustling. In the heat, the work was more draining than usual. He slept.

After a day and a half of impatience, Jeremy finally found himself walking down the gangplank. He nearly ran to an aging taxi. Not wanting to explain himself to another crewmember, he decided not to wait to share the fare for the trip. He tossed ten credits onto the front seat and told driver to go.

At the top of the hill, Jeremy directed the cab two blocks past to the bank. He wasn't sure what to do once he got there, but he waited until the taxi was out of sight to walk back. Outside the bank he tucked in his best shirt, which wasn't that good and walked inside.

The bank was small and there were only two windows, one of which was closed. In complete contrast to the outside, the bank was cool and comfortable. Every surface was polished wood except for the marble floor. Lush plants stood smartly in pots around the room. The place was elegant.

"Can I help you sir?" the young African woman behind the teller's window asked.

"Yeah," Jeremy said, not quite sure. "I have an account."

He wanted to say, "I think" but he swallowed it.

"The number, please," she said.

"Uh," Jeremy had the numbers still in his head but his tongue wouldn't waggle with them. "Do you have a..." and he wiggled the fingers on his right hand.

"Ah, a keypad," she said, sliding a small rectangle towards him. Jeremy input the first string. When she nodded his head, he input the second string. After a moment she gave him a nice smile.

"You have a message waiting for you, sir. Oh dear, it's marked private and only the manager has the encryption key. Let me inform him, and then I'll escort you to his office."

Jeremy didn't want to act too paranoid, but he listened carefully as the teller talked to her manager. With a slight tilt of her head, indicating that Jeremy should walk to his left, she led him through a door and up a flight of stairs. She said hello to a secretary and led him to a door behind the secretary's desk.

"Mr. Lunguto, this is the owner of the account."

The small, slight man rose and a genuine smile on his face. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. ah..."

"My papers read Mr. De Luca," Jeremy said as he shook the man's proffered hand.

"Please take a seat Mr. De Luca. I've got to retrieve the code and then you can read your message in the privacy of my office. The encryption code is kept in a safety deposit box in the vault and those protocols will take ten minutes. Lily will bring you some refreshment while you wait." With that Mr. Lunguto left his office.

The teller looked at Jeremy and asked him what he would like to drink.

"Oh, you're Lily," he said, wondering what he had set in motion. "Something cold to drink would be nice. And fruit or cake, something like that."

She left with Jeremy staring at her full butt in a tight dress.

Lily returned with a tray. Little cakes were stacked along with a small crystal pitcher of a fruit drink. Jeremy had downed all of it and was considering picking the crumbs off of the tray when the manager returned and took his seat.

"A moment, please," Mr. Lunguto said and he slid the thumb drive into a slot on his digital. "Mr. De Luca, please place your right hand on the pad next to the screen with your fingers slightly spread. The security on your message requires a scan of the capillaries of your palm."

"You are indeed the owner of this account," the manager said as he rose from his seat. "Take my seat and hit the long, thin key to read your message. He exited, closing the door behind him.

Jeremy rushed to the chair and hit the key.

"JEREMY, You have a lot of questions and most of them cannot be answered at this time, for your safety and for our own. In case you haven't figured it out, you were mindwiped and you are presently recovering your base personality and fundamental knowledgebase. Your brain is already rewiring itself for the next step. For full retrieval, an upload of an earlier imprint of your neocortex must be arranged. We will need a week to make such arrangements.

"If you cannot stay where you are, reply to this message giving a city with a bank branch and a date. Report to the bank.

"Bureau of Prisons security has been breached and someone has issued a bulletin seeking your detainment. This bulletin is not bureau protocol and we assume that your enemies are attempting to track you down. Take all possible precautions, including digital searches for your background, which could be monitored by those seeking you harm. Assume that all formats will be monitored. Any bank branch and its personnel will help you.