Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (34 page)

Jonquil had been planning to build up to the big reveal but she’d no choice now but to blurt it out.

‘We have evidence that sic_girl is gaining intelligence. She’s alive. This is the biggest thing since ever.’

Her hook delivered, she hovered over the phone and waited for Sean to bite. There was a long pause before he came back quieter and more measured.

‘Oh, Christ. This is what you have? Net intelligence? I thought you’d have prepped something more robust. That is so nineteen ninety-nine. God’s sake, the net is already intelligent. You know, I’m sitting in the Top Spot here –’

Jonquil rolled her eyes. Sean loved to call his top-floor office that. He’d be sitting by the glass plate wall watching giant displays flicker real-time content from a billion users.

‘– watching the screens. They see everything. Our personalisation and search are already twice as smart as our users and they know a thousand times more. Parley is a penny-in-the-slot clown. It doesn’t matter if your algorithms got a little smarter. I have better. I bought Parley as a pollen-flower to attract and track consumers, not to stir up the shit for important political contacts.’

‘Oh, get real. This isn’t because of sic_girl. This is because your data’s been hacked and you’re trying to divert attention by fucking with my business.’

Distortion on the speaker as Sean’s volume rose.

‘And
you
’
re
shitting on my doorstep when I have fifty million visitors about to land – courtesy HM Government. This is the big push and we need to bring together all our verticals, no mess.’

‘Dammit, Sean—’

‘No. Are you going to kill Facebook?

Jonquil bit hard on her lower lip. Sean continued on.

‘Are you going to kill Facebook?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Are you going to kill Twitter? Pinterest?’

‘Sean—’

‘No. Eighteen million users? Big in Germany?
Germany
?
What are we even talking about? All Parley has ever been is a moderately efficient data capture and research tool. And one enormous reputational risk. So listen. I need thirty good Java engineers to pick up what’s about to come in from the Digital Citizen. How many devs do you have?’

She waited – but Sean could always wait longer. She worked the button of her pen.
Clickety clickety clickety.
Silence. She folded.

‘Twenty-six.’

‘All right then. Once Parley is down you can give me those – I’ll find the other four by slimming other projects.’

‘One of the twenty-six is Danielle Farr.’

‘OK, so give me her. Have them here at 404 on Monday. Nine sharp.’

Clickety clickety clickety.

‘Sean. I am CEO here. I do resourcing.’

‘And yet it would seem that I’m your boss. How do you figure that?’

The chrome head of the pen snapped clean off in Jonquil’s hand.

¶AStrangeFish

i love a hotel breakfast but this is pants

they call this place The Pugin Lounge – more like Pukin lol

scrabbled egg = cavity insulation

bacon = peeled eczema

nom nom not

Three

‘A-a-and – run vt! A-a-and – the minister! Yay! Applause!’

Jodi (with an
i
) was account rep with The Pow-Wow Arrangers, the firm of event organisers brought in by the MinTech comms team to run the launch. She was also the most irritating person Bethany had met in her long political career – even taking into account constituency surgeries.

This afternoon’s surgery was a long way off. Right now, with just (Bethany checked her watch) two and a half hours until the launch event began, Jodi was holding front of stage for a rag-tag understudy rehearsal. Clearly they’d struggled to round up enough people to act as stand-ins.

dramatis personae:

Alex Kubelick (popular blogger and host of the launch event):
played by Nanci from the Pow-Wow Arrangers (also with an
i
)

Bethany Lehrer (an embattled minister and cheating wife):
played by Ziggy the assistant sound engineer

Sean Perce (a caddish entrepreneur):
played by Danny Notley, aka ‘J-R Junior’, Bethany’s junior spad

With the peppy energy of a CBeebies presenter, Jodi marshalled her ensemble. Levels were checked and cues confirmed. Bethany, though ostensibly going over her speech with Krish at the back of the hall, was transfixed by the sight of the vast Croatian sound man, Ziggy, lumbering onstage to the amplified strains of ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’
–
representing her. Loops of black flex swung from his belt as he cheerily waved a centimetre of rollie at an imaginary crowd. Nanci bounced at the podium clapping her hands with rather more enthusiasm than Bethany expected to see from the real Alex Kubelick, when the real Bethany Lehrer appeared onstage later this morning. For three days Kubelick had tried to wriggle out of the gig, prevented only by Krish’s wheedling, veiled threats and, eventually, out-and-out bullying.

‘A-a-a-and the minister speaks!’ announced Jodi, cueing her performer with a slender finger.

Ziggy descended upon the podium, sending Nanci flying like a sapling poleaxed by a bulldozer. He stared out across the empty hall, so deep in his role he’d forgotten the auditorium was empty. He leaned down and intoned into the mic in a dignified Eastern European drone.

‘My friends. I am happy. I am here.’

Jodi cut in.

‘Oka-a-ay, so we skip ahead to the minister handing back to Alex, and—’

But Ziggy was not about to surrender his moment in the limelight.

‘Dear friends, I thank you with my heart.’

‘OK, thank you, Minister,’ said Jodi.

‘Friends—’

‘Yes, thank you! Thank you, Minister! Thank you!’

For Ziggy, the penny dropped. He gave a grave nod and leaned into the microphone.

‘I thank you, friends.’

It was enormous fun. Perhaps they should use this bunch for the main event.

Krish called her back to the planet.

‘Are you OK that we don’t mention the leaks?’

‘
Leaks
?’ she said. ‘I thought they were
malicious and politically motivated online postings
?’

Not for the first time in the last forty-eight hours, Krish subjected her to a cold gaze. God, Krish, do we need to talk?

‘Does that not depend whether the
postings
are true or no?’

‘Don’t start,’ she said. ‘Not here, all right? Where were we?’

‘Just saying, like. OK. Information security, Mondan as industry leader.’

‘Brazen it out.’

‘Apparently.’

She mouthed the double-spaced words, trying them in her mouth. Krish read alongside her.

‘This is good,’ she said, ‘Better.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘We don’t mention cost.’

‘Why would we?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s only costing a hundred and seventy million?’

‘Right. A snap.’

He was probably right. Nobody wanted to hear about you spending public money.

‘Could Digital Citizen go on without me?’ she said. ‘In your opinion. Would it?’

She hadn’t meant to ask that. Krish gave her a very level look.

‘What do you think?’

‘Honestly? I think – oh.’

She dropped the pages to her lap and made a pushing down gesture with the butt of her hand. Flapped it in front of her face to wave back the flush. Got control back.

‘I think I’m being had,’ she said. ‘I think everything I do this week is to some pre-arranged dance I have to step through before – I think I want you to drag up something on Andrew wannabe-me Carpenter. Something we can get out that screws him – to the point the PM has no choice but to keep me on.’

Krish snorted.

‘Andrew, aye,’ he said. ‘Andrew Carpenter can’t wire a plug.’

‘No? For real? Krish, that’s amazing. That’s perfect. Can you get it out in time for the lunchtimes?’

Krish was giving her his level look. Oh.

‘You were speaking figuratively.’

He nodded.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You want to make this work?’

‘Of course, yes.’

She touched at the corners of her eyes; would need to check her make-up.

‘The speech, then?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

The corner of his mouth turned up just a little. She read on.

‘I like this,’ she said. ‘
Can anyone tell me how much sensitive public data went missing in the post this year? Ten thousand separate items. But public information lost from government websites? Anyone? Let me tell you. Nil. Not a single kilobyte.
’

‘Pause on that, let it hang.’

‘Good line. Was that you?’

A politician can spot the briefest hesitation. Why would Krish hesitate?

‘J-R. He emailed a rewrite first thing yesterday.’

‘Oh, good. Where is he? And actually, why the hell is my senior advisor briefing me on a speech instead of my comms spad?’

‘He’s – busy at Parley,’ said Krish.

‘Today? He’s at Parley while we’re launching a year of his work?’

‘He sends his apologies.’

It was her turn to give him the gimlet eye.

‘Do I need to worry about something?’

‘Worry about the speech.’

‘The speech is good. Do I need to worry about J-R?’

A blast of the Pointer Sisters singing ‘Totally Automatic’ shredded the air, cutting off any reply from Krish. At the front of the hall, Jodi waved gibbon arms towards the sound desk.

‘Thank you!’ she cried. ‘Thank you! Thank you!’

launch_proposal_FINAL MoS comments.docx

client:
ministry of technology

account executive:
jodi gartner

project:
digital citizen launch

The Pow-Wow Arrangers are thrilled to be given the opportunity to tender for this exciting opportunity and major event that will help shape the digital future of millions of citizens.

This proposal is based on a Key Thematic Proposition of ALWAYS ON. The Digital Citizen is ALWAYS ON. And so its launch event should be no exception. This proposal explains how this key benefit of 24/7 Government will be promoted at the Digital Citizen Launch.

In summary:

Four

That was a knock: faint but there’s no doubt. Frozen in the act of packing, Dani looks around the sealed room. Up to this moment this antiseptic hotel room has been a refuge. Now it’s a trap.

It has to be those Duffer stormtroopers. It’s twelve hours since she slipped away from them at the flat. By doing so, she good as confirmed it was her who did the sic_girl mischief. Crazy to run – and now they have her penned like a wasp in a glass.

But how
did
they find her? She paid for this room on Terry Salmon’s credit card, like everything else she’s bought since she ditched herself yesterday. Only Gray knows about the card and even he has idea zero what she’s planning.

Another knock: and she registers how tentative the sound is. Such a contrast to yesterday’s battering-ram. Lured by the softness she steps to the door and releases the catch. Watching herself do this she thinks,
really?
But she does it. The door swings in and standing stupid on the hotel carpet is Colin from the office. Dough-boy Colin Randell.

‘Oh, what?’ says Dani. ‘What the
fuck
?’

He can only stand and mumble,
sorry.
No trace of the cocksure dickweed she knows. They stand dumbfounded, then he gestures at the room and verbalises something like
cn I cm n?
She can’t think of a way that could make the situation any weirder so she steps back and lets his mass pass across the threshold. He moves to the centre of the room and hovers, agitated by the tumble of unmade sheets. She shuts the door. They eye each other along the little hallway created by the bathroom. As she walks towards him his bulk shifts slightly backwards. Small mass acting on large.