Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (22 page)

LET THEIR WALLS TUMBLE DOWN

It’s a sampled archive recording of Lady Electric herself, the great Elyse Martingale. Leo checks his phone display.
Tumbledown (Tunny mix)
by
Martingale.
This has got to be a sign, this week of all weeks – when something’s at last been given to Leo. He doesn’t want to question.

He checks the permissions on the botnet server: all in order. He drops the telnet session and kills the window.

This Distributed Denial of Service set-up is the first of three gifts to land this week. The code and URLs arrived online one crazy Flamingo night. The second gift came the morning after in an unmarked Nissan Cabstar. Special delivery from the man who isn’t there. Leo glances to the corner of the lounge, where he’s stacked the four reinforced metal cases. Four cases is too many for him to carry alone. He’d need Winter to help him shlep that much kit to 404 City. She’s totally up for it obvs but Leo’s disruptive spirit means it always needs to be him and none other who does the deed. Him to see the opportunity; him to gizmo the warez to do the deed. It’ll be an hour – max – of screwdriver time to wizard the kit into just two cases. Then he can go it alone. He likes to always customise his shit, in any how.

The third gift is closest. He keeps it in the plaid breast pocket of his shirt, where he can feel its flatness and lightness. It’s a magic key. A secure swipe card that can get him exactly where he needs to be, come Friday night.

Everything is running in one direction, identikid’s way. Imagine the devotees he’ll have by Saturday. Imagine the cites. Imagine the proffers.

To Danieele Farr the slut of Parley. We represnt the real Parley and this is to tell you we dont like dirty cunts like you.

So get off Parley. We see you are still here on Parley. Well we are warning you now to get off here.

Be warned! You have been hacked little miss cunt. We are inside your computer and all your phones. We are inside your home and we can see you right now. We can see the filthy things you are doing and will post it all over the net. How do you liek that?

We will get you count on it. Have a nice day cuntface from all of us.

Five

‘Yes you fucking did! Shit, who else would do this?’

‘I don’t—’

‘No!’

‘Can I just—’

‘No, shut
up
,
Sam. Just shut up. I get to talk now.’

But she’s run out of anything to say.

They’re both breathless. The sound of their shouting hangs in the white air of the meeting room. She’s only now taking it in. A big wood table and mismatched chairs. A wood floor coated in chipped white paint. Arty pictures displayed around the walls.

‘I don’t know how to get past this,’ says Sam. ‘This anger.’

‘Yes sure I’m cunting angry,’ she says. ‘So what?’

‘It’s awful to see what’s happened today. I was hoping to talk to you, to say I can help.’

She snorts.

‘Bit fucking late for that. Really, really fuck you too late. Since you decided to do revenge porn on me.’

‘Jesus Christ, shut
up
!
Just shut up and think!’

He shocks them both into silence. He touches her arm but she flinches it away.

‘Don’t.’

She can’t find her edge, her anger. All her strong emotions have been sheared away. She walks away to put the table between them. Hunts for the fury.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘But Dani, Dani, listen: why would I do anything like this to you?’

‘Well I sure as shit don’t know anyone else who could, could turn the whole fucking media and Internet against me overnight.’

‘But why would I?’

She stares back at him. He’s serious. He can’t be serious.

‘I mean –’ she says.

She doesn’t want to be the one to mention it, but he’s so openly baffled.

‘– that email?’ she says.

He draws a long deep breath.

‘All right. God. I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your mail yet. It was—’

‘
Yet!
Like you were going to.’

‘I would have done but it was – well, come on, that was quite an email.’

Is he
blushing
? Does it change a thing if he is?

‘I didn’t know what to say to you,’ he says. ‘I don’t know now.’

‘Makes a shitting change.’

They look into each other’s eyes from across the room. They’ve known each other so long.

‘Mister always-knows-what-to-fucking-say.’

He makes an abrupt laugh.

‘Well, so I’m fallible,’ he says. ‘But really, I would never take anything out on you like this, or want to.’ He sits at the vintage table; she stays by the wall. ‘Listen. I do have a thought.’

‘Also makes a change.’

He ignores her.

‘I told you before about Bethany Lehrer’s office. How it would be in her interest to make Parley look bad? How she’d do anything to discredit the source of these leaks?’

Dani stares at him.

‘Fuck, what? Seriously, Sam? For real?’

Sam shrugs.

‘The
government
did this to me?’

‘Sic_girl’s allegations are getting very embarrassing,’ he says. ‘All of a sudden this. They’re capable of it.’

There’s a long silence. Dani lets out all her breath and does a kind of half-fall back against the wall. Her shoulder jars on something sharp and solid.

‘
Shit it!
’

She turns to find the offending object. A wooden frame, surrounding a rectangle of splashy graffiti.
FUCK YOU SHITCAKE
it says in ragged blue and yellow lines.

‘Sorry,’ says Sam. ‘It’s an artwork.’

She rubs her shoulder and gives him a look.

‘We rebooted the offices last year,’ he says, ‘and all the staff chose a work by a local artist.’

‘This?’

There’s a typed-up label beside the frame:
shitcake (oil and acrylic on cornflake box, 2004).

‘That one’s a bit Hoxton,’ says Sam.

‘It’s a piece of shit,’ she says.

He’s offended. Good.

‘Maybe this one’s more up your street?’

He turns his chair and points at the large print on the side wall. It knocks the wind from her. She hadn’t seen it in the noise. It draws her close. She’s seen the image before. Gray had it on the wall of his flat and it’s gone viral in the last few months – but this copy has a handmade feel so she guesses it’s original. A huge Obama-ed version of the classic photo of Elyse Martingale, posterised to clashing patches of green, orange, purple. Below Elyse’s face in typewriter font, the iconic words . . .
or we shall step around it . . .
A hacker’s mantra.

‘That one was my choice,’ Sam says from right beside her.

She turns loose-jawed and he smiles at her surprise.

‘I’m fascinated with how she’s become this icon to slacktivists and free data campaigners, with her dated twentieth-century slogans. Her uncompromising truthfulness gets to them. To me, too.’

‘
Huh.
Sure.’

His eyes tighten.

‘Don’t you think even a slimy PR guy is capable of kicking against the system? But through – other channels?’

He taps the glass of the Martingale print. Dani looks around with a new awareness. She was totally out of control when she blazed in here earlier: even by her standards. Screamed at the receptionist till Sam appeared. Hurled him into this meeting room. Actually beat his chest with her fists out of fury and frustration. She must have looked insane.

‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘It really is.’

He steps towards her, puts one hand on her shoulder, then the other. This time she lets him. She looks up at his lovely face. He squeezes just slightly.

‘Listen, Dani. Can you leave this with me? I’m going to chase it with Bethany’s office. My way.’

‘You mean with no mentalist screaming and hitting people?’

‘I do mean that, yes. Will you let me?’

She looks away, pushing hair out of her eye, and shrugs him off. He steps back, studying her.

‘Sam.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You definitely didn’t do this?’

His turn to give her the look. There’s more silence. The two of them occupy space in a plain white room in a simulation of life, of how people act in the world.

‘I don’t know whether to believe you,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I don’t think I do.’

He nods slowly.

‘OK. But you’ll let me do this? Prove it to you?’

After the slightest of pauses she nods, too.

¶saulgood

If Dani Farr is proffering this stuff she’s a hero. If not she is still a hot nerd chick. What’s not to like?

¶TheyWalkAmongUs

This: ¶cite saulgood: If Dani Farr is proffering this stuff she’s a hero. If not she is still a hot nerd chick. What’s not to like?

¶thebiggercheese

Tru dat. cite ¶TheyWalkAmongUs: This: cite ¶saulgood: If Dani Farr is proffering this stuff she’s a hero. If not she is still a hot nerd chick. What’s not to like?

¶98redballoons

lols! cite ¶thebiggercheese: Tru dat. cite ¶TheyWalkAmongUs: This: cite ¶saulgood: If Dani Farr is proffering this stuff she’s a hero. If not she is still a hot nerd chick. What’s not to like?

¶yourpalmike

haha! cite ¶98redballoons: lols! cite ¶thebiggercheese: Tru dat. cite ¶TheyWalkAmongUs: This: cite ¶saulgood: If Dani Farr is proffering this stuff she’s a hero. If not she is still a hot nerd chick. What’s not to like?

¶simon_carter23

Dani Farr trending global. cite ¶yourpalmike: haha! cite ¶98redballoons: lols! cite ¶thebiggercheese: Tru dat. cite ¶TheyWalkAmongUs: This: cite ¶saulgood: If Dani Farr is proffering this stuff she’s a hero. If not she is still a hot nerd chick. What’s not to like?

Six

‘So where are you?’

‘Krish, what’s—?’

‘If you’re not here and you’re not at Parley sorting out this shite, where the fuck are you?’

J-R covered his BlackBerry’s mic and mouthed,
Sorry.
Mark touched J-R’s arm briefly, shouldered his laptop bag and vanished into Waterloo Tube. J-R turned his back to shield his friend from Krish’s anger.

‘I’m on my way there now,’ he said. ‘Apologies, I had a personal appointment.’

‘Oh,
personal,
is it? That wouldn’t happen to be a
personal appointment
with a Mr Mark Dinmore by some chance?’

J-R stood in silence, the BlackBerry live against his ear. Across the street a cyclist hammered furiously on the driver’s window of a bus, screaming something over and over.

‘I’m taking this telling silence as a yes,’ said Krish.

‘I don’t understand. Is someone watching me, or—?’

‘Oh, don’t be a child. You do know we’ve the polis in here?’ Krish always became more Glaswegian when angry. ‘Well, you might want to know they’re scanning our email traffic. Past as well as present.’

‘Ah.’

‘Aye.
Ah.
’

‘Krish, I—’

‘I do not want to hear it. I want to know what you think you’re doing emailing confidential-marked documents to some freelance consultant.’

The bus driver nudged his vehicle forward in jolting steps, trying to force the cyclist back and pull out from the stop. The cyclist lifted his feather-light bike off the ground and held it in front of him as a traffic barrier. The back of his cycling shirt read
TAKEBACK
in stencilled capitals. The bus passengers were jolted back and forth as though riding a turbulent sea.

‘I have concerns I felt needed to be checked,’ said J-R. ‘With all the attention I thought it prudent to do this under the radar. Mark is a trusted friend. A Party activist.’

‘Concerns. And so you randomly email some guy. Why not come to me with these
concerns
?’

J-R gestured into the stream of traffic now forcing its way around the bus and cyclist; but he couldn’t find adequate words. His backpack slipped. He shifted it back up.

‘Of all the last things we need right now,’ said Krish. ‘You. I’d at least’ve thought I could trust you.’

‘You can. Of course you can trust me. But don’t you ever worry that we’re handing away people’s privacy to a corporation?’

‘Do I worry? Oh, Jesus, you monkey, I left you at Parley to keep you out of all this.’

The cyclist was sitting in the road now, holding the bike above his head. The bus, which had edged diagonally out of its stop, was now blocking both lanes of York Road eastbound.

‘Left me –?’ said J-R. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘Look, son, in spite of your nonsense, I want you to walk away from this. Here’s what you do. One, you say nothing more to Mister Dinmore. You don’t reply to his calls, his emails. You don’t know him. Two, get over to Parley and look as useful as you can. Three, sit tight. That is it. Can you do that for me?’

A symphony of car horns filled the road and surrounded J-R.

attention seeking whore fat filthy fuck her right in the pussy meatwallet rape is the last of your worries stink ugly Dani pushy bitch woman ur pathetic wet poontang rip your tongue out of yr suckhole die you worthless piece of crap bitch DaniFarr going to cut you ho a bomb has been planted outside your house rape u in every hole ovaries put the video all over the internet woman better watch your back stick my rip out cumdumpster go kill yourself bloodclot who does she pistol whip you over and over until you lose consciousness fat suck on this skanktwat witch eat the meat Dani Farr Dani Farr Dani Farr cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt

Seven

Dani hits the intersection with Shoreditch High Street, phone to ear, dodging the workday crowd. A Beijing haze blurs everything. On the bus stop poster site in front of her is the backlit image of an iPad, the keyboard showing on its screen. Facing the poster, a young boy vainly presses the static images of fake keys. He can’t understand why the image won’t type his words.