Chapter 8

Nothing of note happened during the two-week voyage to Barcelona except that Jeremy found another porn story with a Shetland pony and an Irish setter. The rest of crew chuckled for days over the lass at the dog and pony show. Jeremy was still the low man on the crew list but he had apparently cemented his place on the ship. Even the captain couldn't hold back a laugh when he passed Jeremy in a passage.

The city of Barcelona looked peaceful. Jeremy was standing at the bow as two tugboats maneuvered the ship in the harbor and brought her to the pier. Barcelona had suffered like the rest of Europe during the crisis. When the currency had collapsed, Spain had gone bankrupt and the state of Catalonia had rebelled against Madrid. It had been a stupid war. The collapse of infrastructure had led to a Basque uprising in the north and Madrid burned. Then drought, plague, and starvation rocked Catalonia, which found itself alone and isolated. Weakened and vulnerable, Barcelona burned when Moroccan pirates torched the city. Naval ships arrived late and sank the pirates at sea. Seeking revenge, the Spanish ships, or Catalonian ships to be precise, sailed to Morocco and shelled their major port. Barcelona burned again later, along with half a dozen other Spanish and Catalonian ports in a tit for tat raid.

Now Barcelona was in the state of Iberia under the European government. The port was busy and the city hosted a vibrant artist's community. The official tourist brochure claimed that the light in Barcelona was so pure that painters and photographers from around the world were drawn there. Jeremy found the statement a bit overdrawn.

The port was clean. No garbage floated in the water and no stench was discernable. Much of the city had already been reclaimed, and many of the buildings that Jeremy could see from the ship were new. The rooftops were green with plants and the walls shone with a concrete-ceramic mixture that acted as a solar collector and energy generator.

Jeremy was impressed.

The Recife-based company that owned the Inca Trail had offices in Barcelona and owned its own pier. The entire crew got shore leave for a full week because part of the cargo hold was to be retrofitted for a special cargo.

A moment of apprehension arose when the agent at the European gate handed Jeremy back his papers. The line had been long, with most of sailors passing through the gate without comment. A few were held back for a second look, but then let go. With the warning from the message in Lagos at the forefront of his thoughts, Jeremy hoped that his tanned skin and sun-bleached hair masked him enough to pass. The guard did hesitate, giving Jeremy a second look, but sent him on without further comment.

Concerned that he had been identified, Jeremy took the bus to the central station, as they called it, where he ducked and weaved through the confusing corridors hoping to lose anyone who might be interested in following him. He slipped outside and found a nearby café. Sitting deep inside with his back to the wall, he sipped coffee and observed the faces going past, watching for those who passed back and forth more than once. Smoke from different burning substances in sticks mingled in the air until it was caught in the draft of a slowly moving fan.

The café was full of young couples and college students. Some were seated in small groups having overly serious conversations and laughing over cups of strong coffee or tea. Other tables were filled with couples intent on paying attention to each other. Some were looking at each like they were deeply in love, while at least one couple was fighting. Jeremy, sitting alone, was envious of all the give and take around him. The couple fighting fascinated him. Listening to them with his eyes looking downward so as not to give away his eavesdropping, he felt a familiarity with the heat of their emotions.

He turned his attention to the lovers on the other side of him, but they were boring. Their words sounded trite and insipid. At least there were no children in the room.

After an hour he was satisfied that no one was following. Jeremy found his bus and sat in the back all the way to the financial district. He got lost once and was tempted to ask someone for directions even though he wanted to give no one a reason to take notice of him. After taking a breath to calm his nerves, he found the right street and three blocks down spotted the bank.

The bank had four teller windows. Jeremy input his numbers again for the professionally dressed man on the other side. "Follow me," the teller said, sending Jeremy to the end of the counter. Soon Jeremy was upstairs on the fourth floor with plush carpets and solid doors. He was led through one of the doors into a room with a dentist's chair in the middle of it and several machines behind it.

"Ms. Collista will be with you shortly, sir," the teller said and he left the room, closing the door behind him. Jeremy was already starting to get a little creeped out by the room and its equipment. He definitely didn't want to sit in the chair with its sterile appearance. The air smelled medicinal, almost evil.

Two women walked in and quickly shut the door. The second one locked the door manually and then punched a code on a keypad on the wall. Jeremy heard the "snick" of metal bars zipping into place in the walls.

"Mr. Hamilton, on behalf of the Outfit, I welcome you back to the world," the first woman said. "I'm Emma Collista." She was wearing a business style dress with a short jacket. Jeremy noticed it as she held out her hand to shake. Her grip was solid and she had some muscle in her arm.

He shook her hand and said, "Now what?"

"Now, we are going to restore Jeremy Hamilton back to his skull where he belongs. Doctor," she said as she turned to the other woman.

"Mr. Hamilton, this is experimental. We've run this process through animal trials but never before on a human being. Animal trials are limited because they can't communicate back to us what is going on in their brains. On top of that, the human brain is much more complex and the personality is sophisticated. Although more experimentation is needed, human trials would be unethical when all is said and done."

"Please," Jeremy said. "I've waited long enough. Get to the point."

"The point," the doctor said, scratching the top of her head. "The picoprocessors implanted at the top of your brain stem have been regenerating dendrite formations and neurochemical transmitters, since you were wiped. They have been rebuilding your damaged neocortex in preparation for today's upload. These processors are the source of what you've been experiencing these past weeks because they have been in control of many of your impulses. The processors triggered your need to contact the bank, for instance.