Lie of the Land Page 4

  So, he said to himself, SCOPE is a communications system, and an extremely sophisticated one at that. There was no telling what it might be capable of.

  A police van splashed past the pub. The coppers were still okay, not like CivCon. In fact, the coppers he knew hated CivCon. Maybe they were jealous of the perks as well as the power. They got decent booze, for starters, not the Government pish.

  Carl looked at his watch. He had twenty minutes before the Central Business District checkpoints timed out and he’d have to chase up some digs for the night, another zonal default disappearing from his account. His account couldn’t take another hit. Plunging into the rain, he ran to Central Station for the last shuttle train to Queen’s Cross.

  •

  Standing in front of his wardrobe Carl wondered how much of an effort he should make for Eric and Lesley. News preferences were updating over his bedroom speakers: two guys shot while trying to break through the white rust biosec cordon around wheatfields in Wiltshire; the latest Citizen Vote results were narrowly in favour of neutrality on the Middle East; another big blackout in Eastern Europe.

  A bandwidth capacity warning flashed on his crowdmap. All his categories were nearly full and he would need to go through the feeds and delete the unwanted. Let them fill. Let the warnings flash.

  Carl picked up a shirt and sniffed it. He decided against wearing a tie or anything too formal. When in doubt, clean and neat was the best bet, and he always felt better after a shave. He swigged a cold beer and pulled another shirt from the pile on the chair. One night off the wagon wouldn’t do him any harm. Now where had he left the iron?

  ‘Music,’ he said out loud. ‘Favourites 17 to 21. Shuffle.’

  Carl shaved, showered, and put on the cleanest clothes he could find. Was he dressing to impress? Eric, for want of anyone else to fit the bill, was his best friend, as well as, technically, his employer. But Carl couldn’t shake the idea that Lesley was bored and looking for something, someone. Maybe she had a yearning for disorder, because disorder belongs to the young, and to be young is to be vigorous and passionate. Isn’t that right? Maybe she wanted to break out of the life that was fossilising around her. Having an affair would mean risk and freshness and discovery and stolen sex. Having an affair would also mean exploding the people you love into thousands of dagger-sharp fragments. And that meant Eric.

  But she was up for it, Carl could tell; the last time they’d met it had been obvious. He saw that this could go one of two ways: either he’d shag his boss’s wife or he wouldn’t. That is, essentially, what the situation boiled down to. As he showered, he felt himself harden. Best not to think of Lesley in that way. Much too complicated. Messy. And there had been too much of that.

  Eric was obsessed with his job. He was stressed and in his fifties, and stress could have that effect on a man of his age. It had consequences in all sorts of departments.

  6

  Sitting across from Carl, Lesley smoked a post-prandial fag. She had her bare feet up on the chair, curled under her, black skirt tight over her thighs, smoking and listening to the music, smiling to herself, three glasses of Cab Sauv down and sipping at a fourth. Carl sat on the L-shaped leather sofa, legs stretched out in front on the hard oak floor.

  Eric came back into the living room waving a single sheet of paper.

  ‘Here comes salvation,’ he breezed. He moved empties and an ashtray on to the floor and laid the sheet of paper out on the glass coffee table. It was a front-page mock-up: the splash was an exposé of CivCon brutality and the main photo was of a gesticulating Adolf Hitler. The headline read: ‘Brownshirts Batter Britain!’

  In the bottom corners of the page were two arrows, one pointing left and the other pointing right.

  ‘We’re saved, lad, I tell thee,’ smiled Eric, reaching out to touch the right-hand button. The text and photos on the front page immediately shimmered and turned to a perfect page two, even making a rustling sound as it did so. Hitler and his Brownshirts disappeared, and were replaced by some half-pissed celebrity getting out of a limo.

  ‘Wow,’ breathed Carl, sitting up, his head clearing of wine and whisky. Eric riffled forward a few pages using the right-hand arrow, then turned back to the front page.

  ‘Wow,’ said Carl again. He laid his hand on the page, felt it. ‘It’s not like newsprint. So this is what all the secrecy is about?’

  Eric glanced at Lesley, then tapped the sheet. ‘People keep this page and the next edition is downloaded the minute we send it. And look . . .’ He handed the page to Carl. ‘Try tearing it.’ After a fair effort, Carl made an inch-long rip along one edge. It wasn’t indestructible, but it was tough, durable, and it handled like ordinary paper.

  Eric smiled: the proud father. ‘Nanotube construction. Microtransducers – actually embedded in the paper itself. The upshot: we can practically give it away. A one-page 42-page newspaper, downloaded fresh every morning.’ He let Carl handle the page. ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘Well,’ began Carl, ‘so far as distribution and raw material are concerned, we’d save a packet. The content’s another matter.’

  ‘That depends on what you want to write about. Do you want to tell the truth for a change?’

  Before Carl could answer, Eric said, ‘Oil hit 300 euros a barrel today, and it barely registered a blip. Why? Because the media have been told to play it down. Sentinel can block everything negative online, except DeepNet where the geeks and criminals live. It’s the usual spin – pipeline shutdown or attack on a refinery. Supply chain pinchpoint. Whatever. But we can’t make a big deal of it any more. That’s the level of control the PLC is trying to squeeze us with.’

  He smoothed out the paper on the table. ‘With the new palmpods Eddie can get his hands on, you guys could file straight into the paper.’ He prodded the paper. ‘This paper – from anywhere. And the paper puts itself together, using preset protocols.’ He glanced at Lesley and then back at Carl. ‘No editing required. You see, if we carry on like this, there won’t be a paper any more. We both know that. Either that or you won’t have a job and it’ll be press officers from the Emergency Authority who take over.’ Eric laughed. ‘Some of the guys we had to sack the last time now work for them. Imagine them coming back as the ones in charge.’

  Carl snorted. ‘Maybe I’ll apply there myself.’

  Eric shook his head. ‘Come on, man. This is all you’ve known, this is what you are. What else are you going to do? Keep shelving real news?’

  Carl considered his empty glass. Eric poured a couple of fingers of whisky into it.

  ‘Countermeasures is big business, Carl, if you have the money or the contacts,’ he said. ‘We don’t have a huge amount of one, but we do have a very well-positioned other – Eddie.’

  Now the purpose of the evening became clear. It was a proposition, made all the more palpable after real meat and some lubrication.

  ‘The main man,’ said Eric. ‘Always one step ahead. This time it’s uncrackable quantum encryption, so he tells me.’

  ‘Except that nothing’s uncrackable.’

  ‘Correct. But he said it was good for six months.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Eric smiled. ‘Then Eddie and his . . . partners produce another set of encryption algorithms for the paying customers, for those who like their anonymity.’

  Carl considered the paper on the table. He realised Lesley was looking at him, and her skirt was now riding a little higher up her nyloned leg. Eric was watching him too.

  ‘So,’ said Carl, ‘what exactly are you asking me?’

  Sipping his whisky, Eric squinted across the coffee table. ‘I think you have a good idea about that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Call it guerrilla journalism. Filing on the hoof.’ He rapped his knuckles on the mock-up. ‘Eddie says that half the cameras on the South Side aren’t even working. The contractor hasn’t been paid for over a year to fix them. There’s a map of the broken ones, apparently, networked safehouses, new zombie uploading of
. . .’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Carl, getting to his feet. ‘Safehouses? Cameras?’ He shook his head, pacing the room. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? They’ll close us down as soon as we publish. And what about you? Where will you be when all this is going on – directing operations from a CivCon black site?’

  Eric sighed and put down his empty glass. ‘One more negative story and the helpful Mr Flitch-Pace hinted, pretty much said it really, that the Emergency Authority will step in and put their own people in charge.’ He looked up at Carl. ‘We’ll be finished as a newspaper, and so will all the noble stuff about speaking truth to power.’ He glanced at Lesley. ‘But the paper isn’t the only reason why I asked you to dinner.’

  For the first time in several minutes Lesley spoke. ‘We’re getting out.’

  Carl frowned. ‘Out?’ He tried the word one more time. ‘What do you mean out? Where?’

  ‘My sister,’ said Eric. ‘She works for the Ministry of Agriculture, in Brazil. There’s no white rust down there – not yet anyway.’ He tried a smile. ‘Travel is a bit easier for the diplomatic class. There’s this house by the sea and a job for me, one that doesn’t really exist. My sister’s arranged it all.’ He toyed with his glass, got up for a refill, taking Carl’s empty from his limp, compliant hand. A weight had been lifted from Eric’s shoulders. It was out in the open, and he felt better for saying it.

  Lesley held her glass up behind her head. ‘Thanks, darling, you’re so very kind.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Eric, taking her empty. ‘Sorry, love.’

  Carl got up and sat down across the room, on an uncomfortable cane chair that Lesley had insisted on bringing back from a holiday in Egypt, before the biosec shutdown. Apart from a single ‘fuck’ he was speechless. They left him to sit, digesting the shock news.

  After a minute or so he said, ‘When?’

  Lesley answered. ‘We applied four months ago. Transit clearance should come through in another six weeks or so, and our new passports. We were more or less given the green light this week by the Security Ministry. Just procedure to go through, that’s all. I think they’re glad to get rid of us.’

  Half an hour later, Carl was more or less over the initial surprise. He could see the sense in their leaving, and he wondered about Lesley, skirt riding high, and the looks, the suggestions, over the last couple of weeks. Was it a final fling she was after? He watched Eric dancing in his socks. Grown-up kids and a second marriage, and he can’t perform when and where it counts. Do animals suffer from impotence? Of course they don’t; there’s nothing to interfere with their programming so long as the stimuli are right. Psychopathology doesn’t come into it.

  ‘. . . the Emergency Authority know fine well what’s going on,’ bellowed Eric above the music, ‘no point pretending otherwise. CivCon aren’t gonna let go when all this is over, if it ever is over. Like fucking Pit Bulls they are. They’ve got their teeth into this thing and they’re not going to let go of us, not while there’s money to be made, and even when there isn’t they’ll probably do it for pleasure and just because they can. Isn’t that the way of it?’

  Lesley got up and went through to the kitchen. ‘Time for bed, tiger. Grab the bottle will you, Carl, before he sees the bottom of it.’

  She could be a cold bitch. But it must be hard for her, Carl thought, watching Eric trying to keep the paper afloat singlehanded, encased in his own space, his own struggle. A caveman trapped in ice. Anyone who still believed in the power of the press was a primitive, clinging on to some outmoded animist belief.

  Lesley stacked the dinner dishes in the washer. ‘Use the spare room if you want,’ she said. ‘It’s pretty late.’

  There was no denying that. At this time of night there was always the chance that if a CivCon patrol saw who they were dealing with they would put him through a full biometric, just to piss him off. That would take the best part of the night. But it was nothing too serious: not like in some places. People seldom disappeared never to be heard from again. Of all people, Carl had to stay ID- and zone-legal or they could pull him in and keep him. He watched Lesley wash the good wine glasses in the sink. He grabbed a dishtowel to help. A little potbelly at forty-seven didn’t constitute horrible deformity. Her perfume mingled with lemon fresh washing-up liquid.

  ‘Thanks for the offer,’ he said to her, drying a plate, ‘but I’ll take my chances on the street with the Brownshirts tonight.’

  Lesley was just about to speak when, from the sitting room, came the sound of Johnny Marr’s chiming guitar. Grinning and swaying on the spot, Eric was sloshing whisky onto the floor. He raised his glass, not quite in time to the music. One side of his shirt had come out of his trousers. Carl watched him for a spell while Lesley clattered dishes in the kitchen. She was pissed off. That’s what women do when they’re pissed off, they take it out on the dishes, or the bathroom floor, or . . .

  ‘People didn’t give a fuck in the old days,’ shouted Eric, the daft grin fading. He rambled some more about a pristine past that never existed.

  He stopped, stood still for a moment, then dropped his empty glass onto the dining table, glass on glass knocking hard together but nothing breaking, and collapsed onto the sofa.

  Carl went over to the sofa and stood, watching. He picked up Eric’s legs by the ankles and hoisted them onto the sofa.

  ‘The enemy within is the outsider, and we are all suspects,’ said Eric woozily. He smiled, his eyes closing. ‘Stay on the outside, eh?’

  ‘Yes, Eric,’ said Carl. ‘Whatever you say.’

  Within a minute Eric was snoring, mouth slack and sucking for air, flat on his back, one foot on the floor.

  ‘I’ll get a blanket,’ said Lesley. It probably wasn’t the first time that her man had ended up sleeping on the couch, pissed. It was now almost 11.30. Carl downed the last of his whisky and picked up his jacket, as Lesley came back down the stairs with the blanket.

  ‘You sure you won’t change your mind? The spare room’s there, if you want it.’

  He shook his head, afraid to catch Lesley’s eye. Sex gripped him by the guts, made his voice thick and uncertain. ‘It’s fine. My zonal credit is good until one. I’ll just head home, if that’s okay.’

  Why say that? She was standing next to her unconscious husband, waiting for something to happen, willing it.

  ‘Thanks for the meal,’ he said, pulling on his jacket in the lobby. ‘Best bit of flesh I’ve had in a long time.’

  Light-hearted. Easygoing. Saying goodnight to a friend. That’s all. Simple. Why the fuck use the word ‘flesh’?

  ‘Goodnight then.’ He stepped out into the warm summer night. The earlier rain had all but dried up; Byres Road was ten minutes away and he could grab a cab there. A quick peck on her cheek and he was gone, relief and desire churning within him. Usually, he would have given her a squeeze. But not tonight.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lesley said, watching the retreating figure. ‘Take care.’

  7

  Most of the office space in the St Vincent Street complex had not been let since it was built. The gleaming glass had lost its shine over the last twenty years and some of the upper floors on the east side had not been fully weatherproofed. It was watertight at the other end of the building, but lately the lights had begun to flicker every time the wind rose, and there was now a drip from the ceiling near the lift.

  Today, there were two large vans parked outside, half on the pavement. Eric had said Nigel at the PLC had arranged some building repairs, without any thought of a quid pro quo, of course. How nice of the man to think of the struggling newspaper without any thought of what he could get in return.

  The sudden thought of driving – no, zooming – along by Loch Lomond occurred to him, then he killed the image. Best not to get carried away. There were the biosec checkpoints to get through first. Once CivCon saw who was trying to leave the city they might get antsy, focus on a minor irregularity just to frustrate him. Carl might have to spend all day waiting at their Clydebank
compound for nothing, and end up back at the office without ever getting to enjoy the twists and turns of Loch Lomondside. They might just do that, the bastards, and enjoy every minute of it. He made his way down to the basement car park. The one and only company car, one tyre flat, hadn’t moved for months and no one had seen fit to throw a dust sheet over it. Carl ran his finger down the windscreen and drew a clear line through the dust. He blew his finger and wiped it on his jeans. Beeped the lock, chucked his rucksack on the back seat, and got into the driver’s seat. It still had that clean car smell, but the air was a little fusty.

  Sitting there, his hands on the wheel, all the functions of the car still to be awoken, it was hard not to think of the long road north, music blaring and the miles blurring past. Almost a year since he’d driven a car. The smell of the interior and the smooth curves, the seat adjustable to the perfect driving position; it was all there to command and enjoy.

  The stair door clanged shut and someone came walking across the car park’s bare concrete, clip-clopping a scatter of echoes. A stocky man in black biker’s leather, a man that wasn’t Eric.

  Carl got out of the car. ‘Christ,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s Santa Claus himself.’

  ‘How’s it going, big man?’

  ‘Fine, Eddie. Yourself?’

  ‘Not bad. Still fighting the good fight.’

  Carl smiled. ‘Yeah, if the price is right.’

  Eddie grinned, a gold tooth glinting. ‘Eric tells me you’re after a bit of anonymity.’ He took a slender black case, no more than seven inches long, from his inside pocket, the leather jacket creaking over his bulk. ‘Pop the bonnet, will you?’