Web Site Story (7 page)

'I have two stomachs,' said Kelly. 'My dinner stomach and my pudding stomach. My pudding stomach's still empty.'

'I really couldn't face another wait at the bar,' said Derek. 'That old boy nearly had me insulting the barman again. It was a close-run thing.'

'I'll just have a Mars bar later then. How are your investigations going?'

'What investigations?' Derek asked.

'Into the missing patients.'

'I told you I was dropping that. And that sample I took from the bed in the ward turned out to be KY jelly. If it turns out that Dr Druid's butchered the patients, I'll cover the trial. I'm doing an article on the floral clock today.'

'You don't think that the bus crash and the vanishing patients might merit a bit more column space?'

'Mr Shields is dealing with that himself.' Derek now whispered. 'A little bird told me that the police raided his office last night. They confiscated all that computer equipment.'

Kelly teased at her golden hair. 'Why would the police raid his office?'

'I've no idea. But that's a news story in itself. But somehow I don't think he'll let me write it up. What are you doing today? What are all these computer printouts?'

'Just research. What do you know about Mute Corp Keynes?'

‘It's a dump,' said Derek. 'An urban wasteland. Crime City UK. I've got an aunty who lives there. She doesn't dare venture out at night without wearing full body armour. It's the only town in England where you can put up a sign on your house that says intruders will be met by armed response and do it legally. It's a police no-go zone. It's…'

'Not a very nice place, by the sound of it.'

'I wouldn't know,' said Derek. 'I've never been there.'

'Your aunty's going to get a real surprise when you turn up outside her door this afternoon then.'

'What?' said Derek.

They actually had a border post with barbed-wire fences and all. A guard with a clipboard waved down Derek's car. His car was a Ford Fiesta. It was a collector's piece.

'Wind down your window sir and don't make any sudden moves,' said the border guard, displaying an impressive array of armaments.

Derek wound his window down in a slow and easy manner.

'Anything to declare?' asked the border guard. He was a very big border guard, he bulged out of his uniform. 'Have you anything to declare?'

Derek knew better than to offer an Oscar Wilde. 'Nothing to declare,' he said. 'We're just visiting my aunty.'

The border guard looked in at Derek. 'You're not a very big man, are you?' he said.

'I'm big enough,' said Derek.

'I'll put you down as one-way visitors,' said the border guard. 'It will save me the paperwork later.'

‘I’ll only be an hour,' said Derek.

'Oh I see,' said the border guard. 'Well please excuse me, sir. I had no idea that you were a superhero. It's always hard to tell.'

'I'm a newspaper reporter,' said Derek.

'Aha,' said the border guard. 'Mild-mannered reporter for the
Daily Planet.
Welcome to Mute Corp Keynes, Mr Kent.'

'Can I just go through now, please?'

The border guard leaned in at the car window. 'Listen,' said he. 'I'm being serious now. This isn't a good place to be. People go missing here. Lots of people. If you go missing we have no jurisdiction to come in searching for you.'

'Damn this,' said Derek. 'Things are really
that bad
here, then, are they?'

'They're worse,' said the border guard. 'They keep it out of the papers because it looks bad for the Government. Mr Doveston wouldn't look quite so good if the public knew about this place. It's like a black hole of crime. I'm not messing with you. Turn back now. Take the young lady far away from here. They're animals in there, there's no telling what they'd do to her. Well actually there is.'

'We're going back,' said Derek.

'We're not,' said Kelly.

'Don't be absurd. I'm not taking you in there.'

Tm not afraid.'

'Well I hate to admit it, but I am.'

'Then I'll go in alone.'

'Why?' asked Derek. 'You don't even know my aunty.'

'This is nothing to do with your aunty, Derek. This is something big. And if there is one little ounce of manhood inside you, you'll come in with me. I'll go in alone, if you don't.'

'It's your funeral,' said the border guard. 'If they ever find your body, that is.'

'Back,' said Derek.

'Forward,' said Kelly.

Forward apparently had it.

Derek drove slowly through the deserted streets.

'I can't believe this place,' he said. 'I mean this is South London. I know South London can be a bit rough, but this is over the top. Look at it, burnt-out shops, burnt-out cars, the only buildings standing are barred up like fortresses. This can't be real. It can't be.'

'There is something very very wrong about this place,' said Kelly.

'Yes, I can see that plainly enough.'

'But can you feel it?'

'I feel very very afraid. I really need the toilet, but I think I'll wait until I get home.
If I
get home at all.'

'Pull up here,' said Kelly.

'Here? Why here?'

'Because there's a stinger strung out across the road ahead, under all that debris. You don't really want to drive over it.'

'Oh God,' said Derek. 'I never noticed.'

'You -weren't intended to.'

'Let's turn around and get out of this asylum. Before some sniper picks us off or we drive into a minefield.'

'Where does your aunty live?' Kelly asked.

'I really can't imagine that she's living any more.'

'Well, just in case. Where does she live?'

Derek checked his London A-Z and noticed for the first time the slim red line that ran around the not-so-new town known as Mute Corp Keynes. 'Second on the left, just past the burnt-out church.'

'Next to the burnt-out pub?'

'No past that. Opposite the burnt-out Citizens Advice Bureau.'

'You'd better drive on the pavement to avoid the stinger.'

Derek drove on the pavement.

His aunty's house was number twenty-two. The bungalow with the gun turret on the roof. The moat, the razor wire and the sign that warned of killer canines on the loose at night. Unlike the yard of the Brentford Tour Company, this was no idle warning.

Kelly observed the martial premises. 'Your aunty seems to have adapted well to the changing of the times,' said she.

'She was always pretty tough,' said Derek. 'She was in the SAS, only woman to ever make it to major. There's a lot of military in my family. I think I've always been a bit of a disappointment to them.'

'I really can't imagine why,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan.

There was a bell push on the iron gate that led into the moated compound. The sign above said knock down ginger on this bell and know the joy a bullet brings.

'Perhaps you'd care to ring,' said Derek.

'We are being laser-scanned,' said Kelly. 'I've a securiscan meter in my shoulder bag, I can feel it vibrating.'

'What?' went Derek.

'You'd better press the button. She doesn't know me.'

'Securiscan meter in your shoulder bag? I don't understand.'

'Just push the button please. We are also being scanned from across the street. I think we are about to be shot at.'

'Oh God, oh damn, oh me oh my,' said Derek, pushing the bell button.

Kelly pushed Derek suddenly aside. The deathly rattle of machine-gun fire came swiftly to her ears. Bullets ripped along the ground. And there was an explosion.

'Oh God!' screamed Derek, covering his head. 'We're going to die! We're going to die!'

Smoke and explosions, machine-gun fire mayhem and approaching death with no salvation? Off into the blackness of forever. Not to be borne up to The Rapture. Derek cowered and shivered and uttered certain prayers.

The lock on the gate clicked open. Kelly's hand reached out to Derek.

'Come with me, if you want to live,' she said.

Derek's Aunty Uzi (named after a product that cleans up in its own particular way) was what you would call a fine-looking woman. At least to her face, anyway. She stood all of six feet four in her holistic Doveston footwear, which she'd customized with a nice line of studs. For those who love a tattoo, her buttocks were the place to be. And for those who favour a duelling scar, her forehead was the business.

'On your feet, soldier,' said Derek's aunty. 'Falling asleep on parade, is it?'

Derek fussed and fretted. He was curled up upon a doormat that had long worn out its welcome, in a hallway where the angels feared to tread. Outside the gunfire was sporadic, with only the occasional bullet ricocheting from the armoured porch or bouncing off the titanium steel of the window boxes.

'He was always a cringing wimp,' said Derek's aunty to Kelly. 'Living the high life with the toffs in Brentford has softened him up even more.'

'People were shooting at us.' Derek remained in the foetal position, which seemed to suit him just fine. 'This is London in the twenty-first century. I knew things were grim here. But this…'

Derek's aunty rolled her eyes at Kelly. 'Would you care for a cup of tea, my dear?' she asked.

'Do you have anything stronger?'

'I can put two tea bags in your cup.'

'That should hit the spot.'

'Well, we girls will just leave you to your cringing, Derek. OK?'

Derek made silly whimpering sounds. Aunty Uzi led Kelly away into the kitchenette. 'They weren't even shooting to kill,' she said. 'They were just having a bit of fun.'

Kelly looked all around and about the kitchenette. It was grim as kitchenettes go, but kitchenettes always are.

A pokey thing is a kitchenette and this particular one was made all the more pokey due to the stacks of ammunition boxes and the grenade launchers which leaned against the cooker, beside the Mute Corp wonder mop and the Mute Corp sweeper.

'Is your water filtered?' Kelly asked.

'Oh you're good,' said Aunty Uzi. 'Very good.'

Kelly's hand moved up to her hair, but then moved down again. 'Good?' she said. 'Whatever do you mean?'

'Cool,' said Aunty Uzi. 'Very cool.'

'I try not to panic. Panic costs lives. Lost lives lose large battles.'

'You were in the marines.'

'I did my national service.'

Derek's aunty boiled up water and did what you have to do with it to make two cups of tea. 'Derek dodged his national service,' she said, stirring the tea with a four-teen-inch commando knife.

'I didn't know you could dodge national service,' said Kelly.

'Don't ever make the mistake of trusting Derek. He's a man who will always let you down.'

'I heard that,' called Derek from the hall.

Aunty Uzi handed Kelly a cup of something loosely resembling tea. 'So,' she said. 'Kelly Anna Sirjan, aged twenty-two, no convictions, no breaches of the civil code. Three degrees and a 12th Dan Master of Dimac. What's a lady like you doing hanging around with a jerk like my nephew?'

Kelly shrugged. 'I'm on attachment to the
Brentford
Mercury.
He's showing me around.'

'Still cool,' said Aunty Uzi. 'You're not going to ask me how I know all about you.'

'You securiscanned us as we stood at your gate. That's standard procedure in a high-risk area.'

'We'll let that one pass for now, then.' Aunty Uzi slurped at the tea. 'This tastes foul,' she said. 'But there's more to you than meets the eye. And what meets the eye has been carefully put together.'

'You haven't asked us why we're here,' said Kelly. 'I'm sure you're not under the mistaken belief that Derek felt a sudden pressing need to visit his aunty.'

Aunty Uzi grinned, exposing ranks of steel teeth. 'I assume that he brought you here at
your
request. You can ask me what it is you wish to know. You never know, I might even tell you.'

Kelly leaned upon the cooker. It was a Mute Corp Supercook, the 3000 series, looking a little the worse for wear.

'Tell me this,' she said. 'Why do you stay in this place?'

'This is Mute Corp Keynes. The town of the future, today.'

Kelly made that face that says 'Yeah right'.

'I bought this place in two-double-o-five,' said Derek's Aunty Uzi. 'My husband Alf and I were amongst the very first to move in. It was all here at a price we could afford. Fully integrated living accommodation. Everything online. State of the art. High tech, low cost. It was all going to be up-and-coming young professional. The dream town UK.'

'So what went wrong?' Kelly asked.

'Well, it was all bullshit, wasn't it? Nothing ever worked properly. The whole thing had been done on the cheap and we'd all signed up for our low cost twenty-year non-transferable mortgages. Folk couldn't sell up, so they moved away and sublet their houses. That wasn't strictly legal and the folk they'd sublet their houses to soon realized that they could get away without paying the rent. Neighbourhoods can go down pretty quickly. By twenty-ten this place was already a bad place to walk around at night. Now it's a bad place, period.'

'And your husband?'

'One day he went out and never came back. It happens.'

'I'm sorry,' said Kelly.

'Me too,' said Derek's aunty.

And the two of them slurped tea.

'This really
is
disgusting tea,' said Kelly. 'Yeah, let's drink some Scotch instead and you can tell me what it is you want to know.'

They now sat in the front sitter. Although the sunlight was joyous without, it didn't venture much within. The windows were shuttered by bulletproof steel. The table lights had ultraviolet bulbs. The glow they cast was of that order which is called crepuscular. Connoisseurs of naked-lady lighting wouldn't even have given it one out of ten. In a near corner, a long-defunct Mute Corp 3000 home computer, built into the fabric of the room, gathered dust and made a house for spiders.

Derek, arisen from his foetal position, sipped at Scotch. Aunty Uzi tossed hers back. Kelly merely turned her glass between her elegant fingers.

'So,' said Derek's aunty. 'What exactly
do
you want to know?'

'Search me,' said Derek. 'I didn't even want to come.'

Kelly took from her shoulder bag the printout map and placed it before her upon an occasional table. Which, had it suddenly been granted the gift of sentience, would have become aware that at last and quite unexpectedly, its occasion had finally arrived.

'Mysterious disappearances,' said Kelly. 'People vanishing without trace. This map shows the locations of those who have done so during the last two weeks. I think you'll find that it speaks for itself

Derek lifted the map from the table and held it up to his ear.

'If he says it,' said Derek's aunty, 'feel free to employ your Dimac. Smack him right in the balls if you wish.'

Derek replaced the map upon the table. 'I wasn't going to say anything,' he said.

Aunty Uzi took the map and gave it some perusal. 'I can't say that this fills me with too much surprise,' she said. 'Going missing is what people do around here.'

'Hang about,' said Derek. 'Let's have a look at that map.'

'Oooh,' said his aunty. 'A burst of sudden interest.'

'Where did you get this?' Derek asked, thumbing the map.

'At the police station,' said Kelly. 'I made enquiries. The number of people who have vanished recently in London is way beyond the norm. I felt that it was worth investigating.'

'Have you got a list of these people's names?' asked Aunty Uzi.

Kelly produced the list from her bag. 'It's a very big list,' she said.

Aunty Uzi leafed through pages. 'And it's a very inaccurate one,' she said. 'Most of the people listed as living round here moved away years ago. And, good God.
I'm
on here. According to this list 7 vanished without trace last Tuesday.'

'Oh,' said Kelly. 'I wasn't expecting
that.'

Aunty Uzi looked at her. 'You said that as if you
were
expecting something else.'

'This list was compiled by the national crime computer. I expected at least that would be accurate.'

'Good,' said Aunty Uzi. 'She is
very
good this woman of yours.'

'She's no woman of mine,' said Derek. 'No thank
you
very much.'

'Would you care to tell me what you
really
are, my dear?' asked Aunty Uzi. 'Whom you're
really
working for.'

'I'm just a student,' said Kelly. 'But I think that you'll agree that there's something very suspicious going on.'

'No,' said Derek. 'In fact, quite the contrary. My aunty
isn't
missing. The folk listed here as missing,
aren't
missing. They've just moved away. There's no mystery. Nothing suspicious. It's all a computer error.'

Aunty Uzi nodded. 'On this occasion,' she said, 'I am forced to agree with my idiot nephew. It's just a glitch. And when I speak of glitches, I speak of what I know. The computers in this district all crashed years ago. It's a dead zone around here when it comes to computer technology. The black hole of cyberspace. You're on a wrong'n, Kelly Anna Sirjan. You've been wasting your time.'

Kelly's hand was in her hair and strands were being twisted. 'I think we'd better be going,' she said.

'I'm pleased to hear that,' said Derek.

The border guard looked pleased to see them. He was smiling broadly as they came in his direction.

'No car?' he asked. 'Whatever happened to your lovely Ford Fiesta?'

Derek huffed and puffed the way that people do huff and puff, when they've been running hard and running very fast. 'They nicked my bloody car,' he huffed and puffed. 'That car was a collector's item.'

'That would appear to be correct,' said the border guard. 'It's definitely now an item in somebody's collection.'

Derek pulled out his mobile phone and huffed and puffed and pushed buttons.

'You won't get a signal,' said the border guard. 'You just don't around here. Sorry.'

'It's all too much,' and Derek flung himself down on the ground and drummed his fists in the dust.

'He must be a real disappointment to you,' said the border guard to Kelly, who stood looking very cool. Not huffing or puffing at all.

'I'm sure that he must have a use,' said Kelly. 'But so far I haven't found it.'

'Still,' said the border guard. 'Let's look on the bright side. It's a lovely day and the two of you are still alive. Rejoice and be happy, that's my motto. And never eat cheese after midnight.'

It was nearly midnight when the minicab dropped Kelly and Derek off in Brentford High Street. Well, it's a long and complicated route back from Mute Corp Keynes when you haven't got a car and you have to rely on public transport and there aren't any trains any more.

'Brilliant,' said Derek. 'What a brilliant day. I could have been writing an article about the floral clock. But no, I let you talk me into visiting Hell Town UK. I get shot at. I get my precious car stolen. I am mocked and ridiculed and then I have to pay your fares all the way back to Chiswick. And then your taxi fare back here. I don't mean any offence by this, but I truly wish to God I'd never met you.'

'I'd like you to do something for me,' said Kelly.

'What? You have to be kidding.'

'Look,' said Kelly. 'I'm very sorry about the way the day has worked out for you. But whatever your aunty says and whatever you think, there is something very strange going on. It could prove to be something that will make a name for you as an investigative journalist.'

'No thanks,' said Derek. 'I'll pass.'

'All right, then do this one thing for me and I promise I'll never bother you again. In fact I promise I won't even see you again. I'll keep well away from you for the rest of the time I'm here in Brentford.'

'Well,' said Derek thoughtfully. 'Does this one thing involve any danger to myself?'

'None whatsoever,' said Kelly.

'All right. Tell me what it is and I'll think about it.'

'I want you to take me home with you.'

'What?' said Derek.

'To your house.'

Derek gave Kelly a long hard look. 'Why?' he asked. 'It's not to have sex with me, is it? Only I've had a really rough day, I don't think I'm up to it. Although, well, what the heck. I'll give it a go.'

Kelly shook her golden head. 'I don't want to have sex with you,' she said. 'I just want to use your home computer. You do have a home computer, don't you?'

'Of course I do, everyone does. Well, perhaps not everyone in Brentford. But I do.'

'Well all I want is to use it for a while.'

'Why?' asked Derek. 'Don't you have your own?'

'Not with me. I have my palmtop, but that won't do. I -want to use one that is locked into a landline.'

'Why?' Derek asked once more. But for a different reason this second time.

'It's just a theory. Something to do with your aunty describing Mute Corp Keynes as the black hole of cyberspace and the fact that mobile phones don't work there.'

'All right,' said Derek. 'But if you're not going to have sex with me…'

'Derek, I'm never going to have sex with you.'

'All right. Then you will really have to promise that you will never see or speak to me again. Women like you are nothing but trouble.'

'I shall ignore that remark,' said Kelly. 'Take me to your house.'

Derek lived with his mother. Strangely this fact didn't surprise Kelly one little bit. Derek insisted upon a lot of creeping on tiptoe through the house and up the stairs to his room. It's a funny thing about men who live with their mothers, but they are always really proud to show off their rooms to young women. And they are really surprised when the young women they're showing their rooms so proudly to, stare about with their jaws hung slack, then turn upon their heels and take their leave at the hurry-up.

'Wallah,' said Derek when he and Kelly were in his room, the door was shut and all the lights were on. 'My private domain. My holy of holies. My inner sanctum. All pretty fab, isn't it?'