Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (18 page)

Sean stopped his prowling and stood in front of her chair.

‘Are you seeing it that way today? Really?’

‘Please, Sean. You know what I mean.’ She shut her mirror and tucked it into her bag. ‘Right now I’d happily see the whole bloody site pulled down in a second. But you can hardly blame Parley for the actions of this – whoever it is – that’s working so hard to make the two of us ridiculous.’

‘I can blame who I damn well want,’ he said. ‘I didn’t purchase that nest of overpaid hipsters at an inflated multiple to see them publish this sort of shit about me.’

Sean strode around like a predator in a cage. All of him was a performance. He was ever spoiling for a confrontation. Though he’d nothing left to prove, he had the self-made man’s constant need for reinforcement of his success, his status. Well-fed cats still hunt for sparrows in the neighbour gardens, because they know no other way to fill their days. Bethany had always been excited by this extravagant fury, enjoyed facing off against it with a blithe front, letting his aggravation slide over her impregnable calm. Which in turn would fire him up still more. Their spats rarely ended in anything but sex. Now, though, Bethany was too much on edge. He must wonder where his tough girl had vanished to, today. How little he knew about her; but then, how little she ever showed him. Only Peter got to see the terror she felt, each day of her ministerial life.

‘Why, though?’ she said. ‘Whoever this is, why are they after me? After us? The Digital Citizen is a public good. We’re empowering people. This troublemaker is on the point of scuppering everything over nothing. Over
piggies
!’

‘Over
Pigglies
, I believe.’

‘Oh, God, Sean – whatever!’

Sean lowered himself into a chair alongside her. He was very still. Thinking hard.

‘Bluntly, Beth – because I can’t see a reason to be any other way – you always were a single-minded bloody idiot, weren’t you?’

‘What the hell?’

‘Your
empowerment
,’
he said. ‘Are people allowed to have their own idea of what’s best for them?’

‘Yeah, fuck you, actually, Sean, I am not in the mood for this.’

She stood and smoothed her shirt. Christ, the vomit smell was still there – along with the salt and musk of Sean.

‘We don’t have long,’ she said. ‘I need you to actually help me here. I need solid, written proof that the data breaches mentioned in those mails had nothing to do with the Pigglies hack – or whatever it was.’

‘Are you still on that? Do you really not know what you’ve signed your
citizens
up for? You should talk to your own people.’

‘I’m not trading in riddles today,’ she said. ‘I need something tangible, and I need it before the launch event. Before Friday.’

Sean stood silently, glaring, then strode off.

‘Oh, what’s this, now?’ she snapped. ‘I stood up in the bloody House of Commons, you know, and flat out stated there was no risk to the data – on
your
say-so.’

Sean affected to read some promotional bumf that had been left lying on a table by the wall.

‘And why the hell wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘How many ways do I need to say this? There was no hack.’

‘Do you have any idea how
irritating
it is when you’re deliberately obtuse? Thanks to whoever-she-is leaking my mails, the whole world knows you told me about these security glitches and now everyone believes I was lying my arse off – to the
House.
Do you even know what that means?’

Sean dropped the brochure and turned to her in mock amazement.

‘Seriously? Those breaches were routine. I don’t know what Pollyanna notion you have about the net but it’s the Wild West out there. We get ten thousand would-be penetration attacks a
day.
’ He shifted his burly frame towards her, somehow growing larger as he moved. ‘And you’re up my backside because three times –
three times
– someone opened a hole in our defences, the size of your thumbnail?’ He found a particularly ugly way to poke his thumb in her face. ‘It was nothing!’

‘It’s become a hell of a lot more now you’ve let someone walk in and hack my data.’

‘
Christ!
’

Bethany reared back from this sudden fury. All of a sudden he wasn’t sparring. His nostrils flared, bull-like, as he bore down on her. She took two steps back.

‘There has been,’ he spat at her, ‘No!
Hack!
’

His fist was up, directly in front of her face. She stood her ground, head back, and for a second she thought he might actually strike her; but the fist wound slowly back down to his side. When he spoke again it was measured, controlled.

‘Even if –
if
– someone got through our defences, and read off every record in the DigiCitz database – which they did
not
– they wouldn’t be able to decrypt the data. How many times do I need to explain to you how encryption works?’

‘Maybe you should try using the English language once in a while? See how that goes.’

‘Christsake! Are you Minister for the Internet or some Mumsnet whinge? Grow a pair.’

‘Oh, great. That’s your message is it? Be more like a man? I have so
had
it with this macho crap.’

Sean stepped back suddenly, looking straight past her, his face unreadable.

‘What. The.
Hell
?’

A new voice. Male. Bethany turned to follow Sean’s eyes and found Krish. He’d stopped short a couple of metres into the room and was staring at them with the kind of fury she’d only seen him use on the press or the Opposition.

‘Are you both daft?’ he said. ‘Do you not know what’s all over the blogs? How d’ye think this is going to look when the fucking
Mirror
walks in here?’

‘Krish. Mate,’ said Sean from outside Bethany’s field of vision. ‘What a pleasure it always is. Sorry to have to dash.’

He came back into view and put himself between her and Krish as he slid his jacket on. He touched her just above the elbow. She flinched but he grabbed her arm, hard. Christ: in front of Krish.

‘Listen to me. I’ll get you something by Friday, sure. And then I am taking this problem away for good. Trust me.’

She laughed once, short and hard. He read something from her eyes and nodded, turned and strode out of the door. Krish stepped aside to avoid being shoved, then turned his furious look on Bethany.

‘Don’t,’ she said, holding up a finger. ‘Just don’t, all right? Do not.’

They held this stand-off a few seconds more, then laughter broke from both of them. Krish came forward with arms out and Bethany let him squeeze her briefly before he stepped back, shaking his head and smiling on her.

‘Oh, dear God,’ he said. ‘They’re burning you in effigy at Central Office just now, you know that? If we do go ahead with the launch on Friday, I’m feared it’ll be your heid up on the stage – on a spike, with Karen waving it.’

In spite of everything, Bethany continued to laugh, feeling freer and more alive than she had in weeks.

‘Come on, hen. We’ve got you a safe way out, through the gym and the delivery bay. The car’s there now.’

Bethany fetched up her bag, then stopped. What had Sean said before they fell into that argument?
Talk to your own people
?

‘Krish?’

‘Come on, now.’

‘No, just a second. This morning. With Karen. What did she want to talk to you about when I left?’

He was still holding his arm out to guide her out through the door.

‘This is not the time,’ he said.

‘Was it to do with Mondan?’

Krish sighed and dropped his arm.

‘She was telling me about some overnight polling with one of their groups. It does not look good for you and I’m to break the news. Looks like I just did.’

She fixed him with a hard stare.

‘And that was all?’

‘Yes, all. Now come on, Madame Minister, we have mebbe five minutes’ grace before the hacks spot the car.’

She let his outstretched arm guide her to safety.

Ten

¶sic_girl

Hello Mummy. Whoo. It’s been, yikes, ages.

¶Nightshade

im here now sic. you ok?

¶sic_girl

I’m sore, Ma. Sorry sore. Seriously.

¶Nightshade

sorry to hear that

can we talk?

¶sic_girl

Sigh. Let ’em talk. They all talk. At me to me through me. What’s a poor girl to do?

¶Nightshade

lets start with bethany lehrer

what do you know about bethany lehrer?

¶sic_girl

Ask me anything. I just wanna be your teacher’s pet.

¶Nightshade

tell me about bethany lehrer

¶sic_girl

Bethany is a town in the Bible. Whoo ain’t I the clevers? Lazarus lived in there. Sorry. I ain’t meant to show off. Oh.

¶Nightshade

concentrate sic.

tell me about bethany lehrer. the politician.

¶sic_girl

Ma, I want a rat. If you loved me you’d buy me a rat. Or two. I could have two rats. Or a mouse. Or a moose.

Why do I hurt#

The dialogue fractures under Dani’s fingers, a clay pot shaking apart on the wheel. Arse, arse and more arsing arse. Jonquil pulls back from her position flanking the chair and begins to pace and stretch, while Dani once more tries and fails to coax sic into common sense.

The thing about a semantic dialogue is it’s an art not a science. You can’t rush it. Three hours ago a bunch of Parley high-ups filed up to the Skunkworks expecting Dani to be ready to roll. And, in fact, the first time, it seemed it was going to run OK. She’d typed, hello sic its mummy – the dumb code-phrase Gray set up for Dani to ID herself to the Personas. At first, sic had been on good behaviour: but she quickly spiralled off the axis of the conversation, falling into word association and random sidelines. You realise how tentative the thread of meaning is; how easily it falls into chaos.

Since then, most times Dani’s tried to run a semantic, sic_girl has stayed indoors, locking them out with the message
Shh. I’m sleeping. The team peeled off one-by-one while Dani fiddled with settings. Gray had tried to help her debug the session but he kept giving her sideways bullshit about sic evolving or taking on a mind of her own or something she had no time to even think about; and eventually she snapped, ‘Who wrote this fucking code?’ After five more minutes of spatting he left, too. Now it’s her and Jonquil. Who has been pretty quiet; but now she speaks, making Dani lose her place in a long array.

‘Danielle?’

Because this is Jonquil, Dani bottles the swear and swings the chair round.

‘Remind me. You and Graham. Were you still an item when you worked together on Parley?’

Dani shifts in her chair. This is a very un-Jonquil line of questioning. One of the things she likes about her boss is her total lack of concern for anyone’s feelings. Touchy-feeling from a boss is very much a no.

‘When the project started, kind of,’ she says. ‘Not by the time we launched.’

‘Uh huh. It’s OK, though? The two of you working together now?’ This could seem almost sympathetic. ‘Because looking at you I would say it is not.’ No, not sympathetic.

‘He doesn’t like me being the boss of him?’

‘See if there’s one thing I won’t tolerate in the workspace it’s seething hormones and bulging crotches. Get over yourselves and get on with the job. Yes?’

Dani rotates slowly and silently back to her keyboard.

‘So. I have somewhere to be.’ Jonquil forces her tablet into her undersize handbag. ‘Just focus, OK? And this time, text or call when you get something. As soon as. On the
telephone,
OK?’

She waves her phone like a rattle before tucking it in her bag, which she shoulders before marching from the room.

The Skunkworks is quiet at last. All that’s happened since yesterday, it feels like a week. But here’s Dani, back where it started, and the calendar’s ratcheted forward just one day. Time is so random.

Deciding the best route forward is drink, she hops up to raid the Skunkworks drinks cooler: shit, only Miller. She gathers five in her arms and trots back to the desk before the fridge-wet bottles can slide from her grip.

She codes.

‘Hello?’

Silence. She tries again.

‘Hello?’

She’s sure she heard someone moving about in the stairwell. She should go and check but all she wants is to get the semantic running and then go home. She returns to her debugging.

She’s being paranoid. Ever since she sent Sam that idiotic fucking mail, everything’s been spooking her. She’s been hitting
Refresh
on her inbox every thirty seconds, yearning for and dreading a reply – but nothing. Every email that’s come in has made her jump like a car’s backfired. And something strange has started this evening. A ton of weird
Your details have been changed
mails keep dripping in from social sites and blogs. She hasn’t had a second to check them out. Also that Grubly
lurkware she thought she’d killed from her laptop – this evening it popped up again. And earlier, three missed calls and voicemail alerts – but when she checks, there’s no messages.