Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (44 page)

‘Let me set this out,’ she says.

‘All right.’

Sam leans back, supporting himself on his hands. The night air from the window bites into Dani’s flesh, helping her think.

‘First up,’ she says, ‘you did the Giggly Pigglies thing. Using tech skills you definitely do not have, you somehow hacked the data from DigiCitz and put the pig virus onto those people’s machines. The Pigglies were a stunt. PR. You used them to draw attention to the hack, make sure it got media coverage.’

‘The pigs were a story hook, yes.’

‘And since then,’ she says, ‘you’ve been sic_girl. She’s been you. You used your, again, non-existent skills to walk into Parley’s ultra-secure production environment. You took over my baby girl, ran her as your sockpuppet and used her to stir up the crazy and basically get Bethany Lehrer fired. I mean, you’ve actually brought down a government minister?’

‘Pretty much.’

He looks so weirdly fragile. Almost boyish. So proud of what he’s done, and so desperate for affirmation – from
her.
She reaches to stroke his cheek. He nuzzles against her hand. She pulls it away.

‘But
why
,
Sam?’

He fixes her with a cold gaze.

‘You work in the business,’ he says. ‘You know how this goes.’

They’re in Sam’s kitchen. She’s sitting on a high metal stool. He raises his volume over the boiling kettle.

‘What they’re doing,’ he says. ‘Tracking us all – CCTV tags, immigration status, crime, health. What we read, who we email. Every bit of us. People give up their data because they want their parking permit, or their disability benefit, and
ping!
they’ve been automatically profiled by MI5. First they know of it, a boot kicks in the door. They’re all in it together.’

He’s opening and shutting cupboards. He pulls out a box of gay tea.

‘They? Bethany Lehrer?’

He pours boiling water and gestures through the steam.

‘That’s not even a question. All of them. Government, business? No difference.’

She takes the hot cup. It smells like jizz and looks like dishwater.

‘Rooibos,’ he says.

‘You said it was Bethany who set the trolls on me and so I basically kidnapped her, Sam. But she said it
wasn
’
t
her. I believe her.’

Sam leans back against the counter, hands wrapped around his cup.

‘That was a
little
extreme,’ he says. ‘But yes. On that point – only on that point – she was telling the truth. I
thought
it was her, but—’

‘Thought.
Thought
?’

‘Yeah, but then I spoke to this guy I know, in her office, and traded for information. It wasn’t them.’

‘Traded.’

‘Right.’

She lets that go, too.

‘Then who did it, Sam? Who fucked up my life?’

‘Exactly.’

They’re out on a tiny balcony. She’s pulled on jeans, T-shirt and jacket.

‘I’ve been running TakeBackID for three months now,’ he says. ‘That’s all. When we started stirring trouble we were only shaking trees to see who jumped. Sometimes you set a fire but you don’t know which direction the wind will take it.’

He uses metaphors too much. It makes it hard to concentrate.

‘For instance,’ he says, ‘who knew Elyse Martingale would be such an awesome poster-girl?’

‘You didn’t start this,’ she says. ‘People are already proper angry.’

‘But are they
doing
anything? Other than a small clique of permanent protestors, people don’t get off their arses unless you make them. You need to tap the latent mood with something urgent enough or funny enough to move them.’

‘
Funny
?’

‘Sure. Lulz. Giggly Pigglies. Rubber masks. Getting your dick out on camera. Something that means you’ll be able to say:
it was totally awesome. I was there.
Motivation for a zero-attention-span world.’

Out in the streets there’s shouting. She eyes him. That lean sixth-former she once knew, talking like nobody else was in the room. She wants to bite his flesh.

‘You know what?’ she says. ‘That demo wasn’t you. It was Leo.’

‘Leo did what riotbaby told him to do. Riotbaby was me. He never listened when I spoke as myself. He told me I was full of shit and I should stick to club-night promotions. So I worked out who he
did
listen to, and it turned out to be this –
fake.
This
nothing.
Riotbaby! Huh
.
And not just Leo.
All the TakeBack crew hung on that robot’s every word. So I took it over.’

‘Took it over how?’

‘Riotbaby for the slacktivists,’ he says, ignoring her question, ‘sic_girl for the chattering classes. I put words in their hollow mouths. They’re the perfect spokespeople. They have no opinions of their own and they don’t ask for twenty grand per appearance. So don’t tell me it just happened. I planned it and I timed it.’

He’s looking out towards where the beacon of 404 City shines above the rooftops. When he speaks again he’s measured, controlled.

‘Have you seen what’s going on out there? You don’t get this kind of action over something as boring as data, as privacy. I needed a stronger narrative to stir people up. TakeBack is essentially brand extension. It started with benefit cuts and police brutality and student loans and whatever gets people to throw a brick. That hooked people in – got them so stirred up I could point them at something as meh as DigiCitz and they started drooling with anger.’

A scream echoes from nearby. Sam nods.

‘No one out there knows why the person next to him is setting fires,’ he says.

Dani hugs herself against the chill.

‘Who’s setting fires?’

Sam puts his cup down on the metal table, pulls an iPad Mini from his hoodie’s monopocket. Hands her a Parley screen.

‘Take a look at riotbaby’s continuity.’

Dani does, and double-takes at the speed of the proffers. Normally the Personas speak at a realistic human pace but this stream of trouble scrolls by almost too fast for Dani to read. Riotbaby is on autopilot.

‘Only thing the spectacle responds to,’ says Sam, ‘is spectacle. This is a cross-channel campaign. And a bloody well-executed one, if I say so myself.’

They’re back on the sofas and the vodka. It’s frosty and viscous.

‘The new capitalist realism tells us
There
’
s no alternative
,’ says Sam. ‘
Suffer it, bitches, because this is all you get.
But when did we start believing that?’

Things sound true when he speaks, but so does everything these days. Dani presses her legs together until she can’t feel the rawness in her arse.

‘It gets to feel inevitable,’ he says. ‘And that can give people an excuse to rant or – just as likely – do F all.’

An electronic buzzer sounds, low and hard. Sam doesn’t stir.

‘Someone has to make people give a fuck and
do
something,’ he says.

‘And this saviour of the universe is . . .?’

There’s a clank from the lift shaft.

‘Nobody’s who they say they are, Dani.
You
know that.’

She blinks. Has she missed part of the conversation?

The lift doors open. Dani half-stands. Surely you need a key-card to open the doors? Sam used a key-card, before. Out of the lift steps Gray. His T-shirt is zany purple. It reads,
IT
’
S A SMALL WORLD BUT I WOULDN
’
T WANT TO DEFRAGMENT IT
. He does a double take at Dani as the doors shrug shut behind him. He turns to Sam, who’s walking to the kitchen counter.

‘Hey, PR,’ he says, ‘don’t you ever answer your phone?’

Dani’s still half-elevated from the sofa.

‘It’s been off,’ says Sam.

He grabs the neck of the vodka bottle.

‘What. The. Fuck?’ says Dani.

Gray takes in the rest of the scene. His eyes rest on the knotted bedclothes, then on Dani, then on Sam.

‘Oh, what, no?’ says Gray. ‘Oh, you supercilious bugger, you never did?’

Dani moves into his eyeline.

‘Did?’ she says. ‘Like he just
did
me, Gray? Like I fuck who I want and you are not my boyfriend?’

‘Well,
you
’
re
drunk, Dan. Hello.’ He unshoulders his backpack. ‘Did you really schtup this streak of diluted urine? I do hope this is a one-off.’

He moves to hug her. She bats him away.

‘Oh, my fucking
God
what gives you the right?’

She wheels around, stamps over to Sam and presents her heavy tumbler to him. Better the devil you thought you knew – but actually didn’t – or something. Polish vodka rolls into her glass. Gray plants himself on a sofa and fishes in his bag.

‘I’m actually going to rise above whatever just happened here,’ he says. ‘I have information. Won’t wait.’

Sam shrugs, capping the bottle. Gray clacks on his laptop.

‘First thing,’ he says. ‘Leo’s gone missing.’

‘Leo?’ says Dani.

Does everyone she knows know everyone else? Gray ignores her.

‘He should have reported back two hours ago but his phone’s still off. However – yep, there we go. The Black Boxes are transmitting from inside the 404 City video hub.’ He looks up at Sam. ‘He did the job.’

‘Good.’ Sam walks to the sofa facing Gray and sits, unblinking. ‘Could this not wait till morning?’

‘OK,’ says Gray. ‘If that doesn’t grab you, secondly: as of noon tomorrow you don’t have a channel.’

That gets a frown from Sam but it’s Dani who speaks.

‘What do you mean, Gray? Is something happening to Parley?’

Gray replies to Sam.

‘See this is what happens if you don’t look at your phone.’ Then he registers what Dani said. ‘Wait, so you told her about Parley?’

‘She figured it out,’ says Sam.

Gray turns to Dani, radiant in a way that almost moves her.

‘Did you, Dan? That’s pretty cool. But then why be surprised when I walked in here?’ He laughs. ‘Holy God, you thought Sir Spin-A-Lot here hacked Parley on his own. Shit. Funny. Who do you think turned sic_girl? Who got access to all those Mondan emails? Who’s been running riotbaby all night while this guy gave you the deep clean? God, he has a way of selling a line.’

She hasn’t seen Gray on this kind of passive-aggressive bender for a long time. She sits down on the remaining empty sofa, halfway between the men.

‘OK. So it’s you, Gray. You’re the guy. So news us about Parley.’

Gray works his computer and speaks like a recorded message.

‘Sam and me monitor mail traffic in and out of the Mondan press office, among other things. At eight twenty-two tonight I picked up a draft announcement that’s going out on the wires tomorrow. Embargoed till noon.’ He scrolls. ‘They’re pulling the plug on Parley. Cancelling the service, binning the Personas, everything. In order to, quote:
bring an end to the controversy around recent proffers and prepare for an exciting new service announcement from Mondan Group.
’

Dani’s face is about to explode.

‘
What?
’

Sam sits forward.

‘Oh, now this is clever. They look like they’re acting responsibly, supporting their government client. But they’re cutting off our oxygen at a crucial time.’

‘Right,’ says Gray. ‘They know we’ll need time to switch channels.’

Dani puts up a hand.

‘Hold it—’

Gray talks over her.

‘But it’s cleverer. There’s a third thing.’

‘Fuck, Gray—’ she says.

Now Sam cuts her off.

‘Hold up. Graham, stop yanking my chain. Third thing what?’

Gray places the laptop open by his side, stretches out against the sofa back.

‘Data wipe.’

‘What?’ says Sam.

Dani stands up, too fast. The others take no notice as she wavers to the kitchen. Their talk goes muffled, like a childhood memory of parents’ voices from downstairs.

‘Mondan’s data security policy,’ says Gray, ‘is that no hard drive can leave one of their server farms until they Cillit Bang any trace of data from its surface.’

At the kitchen island Dani chucks the remnants of her vodka into the brushed chrome sink and lets freezing water gush into the heavy glass.

‘So they’re wiping Parley?’ says Sam.

Dani glugs water. The chill hits the roof of her mouth and ignites in her brain. Gray reaches for his laptop.

‘And suppose I tell you,’ he says, ‘they’re planning a little accident when they do.’

The water is good. Dani fills another glass.

‘Suppose I tell you Mondan’s standard practice is to wipe all hard drives in bulk, electromagnetic, like
Ocean
’
s Eleven
? And that the Parley servers just happen to be in the next-door rack to the DigiCitz servers?’

A frosty light forms around Sam. It’s slow and viscous like the vodka. It’s his voice.

‘Shit,’ says Sam.

‘Yes,’ says Gray. ‘They’ll blast the Parley servers clean and it’ll be,
Whoopsie daisy!
’ Gray puts on the appalling Cockney accent he uses to denote what he sees as a menial profession.
‘
We only went and wiped the DigiCitz servers, too. Silly old us! Good thing we have a backup.
Leaving no evidence of the hack – or the other breaches. Meaning your whole campaign is a waste of time and money.’

Light roars from Sam’s mouth, raising an arc from him to Gray. It buries itself in the keys and display cells of Gray’s machine.

‘Someone tipped them off,’ says Sam.

‘No,’ says Gray. ‘The pressure’s on them. We
put
it on them. They know it’s only a matter of time before Parliament orders an investigation into the hack. And oh, by the way, they also caught Co—’

His eyes move to Dani, then they move away.

‘I mean,’ he says, ‘they caught the guy who did the hack. He kept his mouth shut, but they know what he did. They know those servers are rotten with evidence of the hack.’

The light isn’t clean. Some kind of interference disrupts it as it wraps around the men. There’s a stone in Dani’s gut. Something is wrong. Sam nods slowly.