Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (23 page)

‘I’m five minutes from Martlet Street,’ she shouts above the din into the phone. She mentally googles the quickest route to Parley. ‘Ten max.’

Around her head a canopy of seagulls cries for roadkill. News pages whip the air. This flying chipwrap is Dani’s enemy.

‘No. No, no, no. Listen to me. You are not coming in.’

Jonquil’s voice splinters and Dani hears her own breathing on the line. The duplex has failed. Fucking Shoreditch: too many callers hogging the air.

She waits. Jonquil’s voice returns.

‘You’re not going to be here period.’

‘As in what?’ says Dani. ‘I’ve got a mountain of data to sort from sic’s semantic. I emailed you the log. There’s something new.’

Dani pelts across on red. The honeysuckle taste of exhaust fills her mouth.

‘I’ve given that job to Graham,’ says Jonquil. ‘He’s got his own ideas. You go home.’

‘Gray? Gray doesn’t know the algorithms.’ Dani sharp-lefts down Holywell Lane. ‘Did you see what sic said last night? Fucking Christ, don’t you want to know what’s going on?’

She brakes hard by the fly-post cladding of a vacant lot. Silence on the line. She’s never sworn at Jonquil. Jonquil, who’s had her arse ever since the punch.

‘Danielle, this is not a debate. You are toxic today, girl. You’ve seen what’s going down. We got hacks snapping our heels.’

‘Am I – am I fired? I didn’t do any of that stuff they’re saying.’

There’s a long sigh from the remote end. The signal scatters and forks. Data crackles round Dani. Every second she stands here the air of the street learns more about her.

‘OK, God,’ says Jonquil. ‘Let me be real clear. You are not fired but you are in a world of trouble. Tomorrow you are going to be here in my office at nine a.m. Not a few minutes after. Not the bus was late. Nine on the nail. You are going to meet with me and the other directors, and you are going to account for yourself. I got to tell you, you think this is bad? If I get an ounce of evidence what I’m reading this morning is true – that you’re some kind of what, black-hat hacker? That you’ve been using my social network,
my
Personas, to PR your exploits, spread bullshit about a government ally? If a single word of this is true, girl, today is going to look like the best day of your life. All right?’

Jonquil
’
s
characters?
Jonquil
’
s
network?
PR
?
Dani’s feet scrunch fragments of car window on the pavement. Hackney diamonds.

‘I can talk to you today,’ she says. ‘If you really think I did this shit. I’m three minutes now.’

‘Today there’s too much noise. I have Westminster to deal with, and the media.’

There’s a heart-pattern mural on the building opposite. Graffiti across it:
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE GOODTIMES?

‘So, tomorrow? Nine?’ Jonquil asks again.

Dani nods into the phone.

‘Tomorrow.’

The call drops. What next? How to back out from this situation? Sam says he can help her but she isn’t sure she wants to be helped. This far from his orbit, his signal is fading. This is Gray’s terrain. It’s him she needs to see. Safest thing would be to talk online and keep away from Parley; but she wants to see him IRL. She kicks up Parley on her phone. Her data trail inflects as the app handshakes with a server and the screen clogs with a billion whispers, directed at her. She’s used to trolls and she’s used to screening them. But here she’s ramped by a rising tide of
pussies
and
stinking cunts.
Through the glut she spots a link to
Dani Farr naked in her bathtub .
There’s a crow trapped in her ribcage. She won’t click on the link.

She clicks on the link.

She shot these selfies on her phone, what, three years back? She was off her vulva on pills and vodka redbulls. She took them for that guy she sucked off one BDSM night at Chains, who said he’d call her back but didn’t. She cried her way through all the alcohol left in her kitchen cupboards and at three a.m. took these photos slobbering drunk in her empty bath. She thought they’d bring him crawling to her on broken knees but she never even got a reply. Each of the five shots is basically the same: her foreshortened arm extends from the bottom right of frame; her face, huge with pleading reddened eyes, stares straight up into the lens; her distorted breasts heave up in hope and desperation; unruly hairs squeeze out between tightly folded thighs.

How long have those images been online? And tagged as her? What else is out there?

She closes the link and watches fresh obscenities scroll her timeline without pause. She holds her breath and calls up a whisper, tapping the screen warily as though pushing a door smeared in shit.

Gray is online.

¶thegrays >> whisper -> ¶Nightshade

Sure thing. Shit about this, hey?

You ok? How far away?

¶Nightshade >> whisper -> ¶thegrays

yah. bad voodoo much

five minutes maybe?

¶thegrays >> whisper -> ¶Nightshade

I can meet you in the yard. Safely out of J-range. Come in via the meat.

¶Nightshade >> whisper -> ¶thegrays

im there.

From
The Electronic Radical

by Dr Elyse Martingale (1957, Gollancz)

The State shall attempt to maintain its hold on the levers of this system. There is a profound, and profoundly false, belief among those in power, who understand but a little of the computing machine, that its quantities will always be as limited as they are today; and, on this basis, they are convinced that they, along with their lackeys in the larger corporations, shall continue to control the flows of information that will dominate the coming era. These people shall shortly find themselves as disappointed as the monks who grafted each Mediæval book into existence were doubtless disappointed by the achievements of Mr Gutenberg.

When we control our own information, power shall cease to reside in the ancient apparatus of State.

Eight

The speaker-phone purrs. Sam eyes the Elyse Martingale print that somehow tamed Dani’s fury earlier. The remote phone picks up on the fourth ring.

‘Yeh, hello?’

‘Big Krish? Sam Corrigan.’

‘Sam. Look, great to hear from you, but—’

‘I realise. Busy day.’

‘Well, heh. Perhaps a wee bit more than usual. So listen—’

‘Hold on,’ says Sam. ‘I’m not selling. I have a proposition.’

‘Just a second there.’ Krish muffles his voice with a hand. ‘(Hen, would you take this in to her nibs, please. Uh huh, aye, the polis interview notes.)’ Then at full volume, ‘I’m listening.’

‘So,’ says Sam. ‘I’ve been at Parley these last few days, helping out. I was interested not to see more police presence there. Given the leaks.’

‘What kind of pitch is this?’

‘Not a pitch. So I thought it over – and I saw your dilemma. How do you discredit sic_girl without damaging Mondan – the day before Perce shares a platform with Bethany at the launch of DigiCitz?’ The conference phone hissed like a gas leak. ‘OK, silence on that point is fine. But given you need to soft-soap your attack, the papers and blogs today are providing a helpful distraction by crapping on Dani Farr.’

More static on the line, then Krish breaks his silence.

‘All right. And?’

‘Well, but the thing I wanted to tell you is, Farr is not your blogger. It’s bullshit. And when that comes out you’ll have no villain and trust will swing back against you. You need a better strategy.’

‘She’s not doing the sic_girl whatsits?’ asks Krish.

‘No.’

‘You’re the first bugger today to tell me that.’

‘She isn’t doing it.’

‘You know this.’

‘I know. This is someone I’ve been friends with since school.’

‘Ah hah.’ Krish is taking his time, but the hook is landed. ‘I take it you’ve seen the other stuff this lassie’s been putting out? That they can’t put in the papers?’

‘I’ve seen it.’

Bursts of office atmospherics. Sam taps his fingers on the table; waits.

‘This is your girl, Sam? Is that what this is?’

‘No, Dani is not my girl. She didn’t do it.’

‘Then who?’

‘I don’t have the answer to that, but Parley’s the place to look. So the proposition is, would you like me to do a little freelance sniffing while I’m there? See what I can dig up.’

‘I thought you weren’t selling?’

‘Non-chargeable. A return favour – if, that is, you’re willing to change your tack on Dani. Understood? There are better ways to damage Parley.’

‘I thought you were working for Parley?’

‘My firm is. This would be freelance. To get you off Dani’s back.’

‘I’m not getting something.’ Here it comes. ‘You’re offering this because you think we’ve been briefing against this lassie?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Ha. I have to say, that would have been a fecking good idea if I’d thought of it.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘We did not,’ says Krish. ‘It’s not all the dark arts here, you know, son. Sometimes we’re just floundering about in the dark with all the other eejits.’

‘You don’t deny you’re briefing against Parley?’

‘Let he who is without spin cast the first stone.’

Sam directs silence at the speakerphone. Waits for Krish to continue.

‘Come on, son. You just offered to spy for us – I could string you along. I’m telling you truth.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Krish.’

‘Look, you’re not talking complete pish. Parley is a problem just now and, aye, it’s difficult to go in hard. We have done nothing against Ms Farr, OK? But if I was to make calls now, distance us from this story – does your offer stand? You’ll do some asking for us?’

‘Well, yes. It stands.’

Sam is perfectly still. Does not punch the air.

‘Good man,’ says Krish. ‘So listen. One thing you can help with. Our friendly plods tell me there’s chatter on Parley. Digital anarchists – trouble. Is this something?’

‘Yes, we’re watching that. It’s pretty noisy.’ Sam foregrounds the social monitor on his iPad. ‘You guys are getting it in the chest.’

‘Ah hah. What are they about, this rabble? This is the same bawbags who defaced our webpage.’

‘And hacked your data?’

‘What data hack would you be referring to there, Sam?’

‘All right – if that’s your line. To be honest I can’t tell you much about them. They’re new to us, too. They popped up seemingly from nowhere a few weeks back – seemingly the merger of an anti-austerity group and a hacker collective – but they’ve immediately tapped a seam. Some of the big themes here: privacy; big government; mass surveillance; corporate power. You have to say, they’ve got a strong platform.’

‘I have to? Is that right?’

‘There’s real anger here; and Bethany is drawing fire. Bethany and Dani both.’

‘You’re saying because they’re women?’

‘Am I? Maybe.’

Sam flips through images on his iPad. One keeps coming up, of Dani posing gangsta with a pistol and a leather coat. The gun looks real but it’s clearly a party stunt. Someone has added the slogan
SIC THIS MOTHERFUCKER.

‘They’re getting very different medicine,’ says Sam. ‘Dani’s getting targeted by some of the grossest trolling I’ve seen but she’s, I don’t know: the rebel heroine in this story. Bethany’s squarely the villain.’

‘Ah hah. Great story. They don’t do nuance, your microbloggy types?’

‘This isn’t Westminster, Krish. Welcome to the Internet.’

‘And there’s talk of some kind of stunt tomorrow?’

‘That’s correct. Still no detail though. I can send you verbatims.’

Sam swipes to the morning cuts.

‘This is pish,’ says Krish. ‘Someone’s stirring the pot here. How are they doing it?’

‘That’s what I’m offering to find out.’

Sam counts to ten, regulates his breathing. This is the in. He needs to not get pissy.

‘And are the rabble going to give us grief tomorrow? At our launch event? Over – what? Over login details?’

‘Are you doing anything extra tomorrow?’ says Sam. ‘Security-wise?’

‘Conference hotel is putting up a couple of wage slaves in uniform. Do you think we need more?’

Sam looks at the phone a moment, thinks before he speaks.

‘No. I’m sure you’ll be fine. It’s noise. People will have their fifteen minutes, cite a pennant as though that means a thing, feel part of something. When it comes to marching in the rain, the ties aren’t so strong.’

‘So cynical for one so young. Look, be a pal and tip me the nod if you hear any more about tomorrow, will you? Or TakeBack generally. Or sic_girl. As a favour, right?’

‘As a favour.’

¶clickbait

This hot girl developer shared too much online – and what happened was awful fu.bar/je8n54

Nine

The carcass-smell is sweet. Dani slips around the clanging meat-trolleys like a battlefield ghost, ignored by the young Bengali men in blood-grimed overalls.

This row of loading bays and parked-up trucks runs down the side of Parley’s offices, linking Martlet Street to a network of yards at the rear. After the final bay Dani wheels left into a narrow quadrangle formed by the packing sheds, the back wall of Parley’s converted warehouse space and a corrugated iron fence. Rainwashed fag ends, paper cups and condoms are compacted into the tarmac like pressed flowers. This is where Parley staffers come for a sneaky fag or a fresher mobile signal than they can get in the iron-frame building; or for darker transactions in the shelter of abandoned sheds. This is where she and Gray played out the dog days of their relationship, the heady summer they launched Parley. For a month they barely left the building. Their whole world was crammed into project war rooms, their only escape this brick oasis.