by Ken Saunders
...
‘Well?’ Taylor demanded when he opened the door.
‘Well what?’ Renard answered, a lacklustre opening return admittedly. However, there were a number of things Taylor’s ‘Well?’ might have covered. He didn’t want to answer on one she might not know about.
‘You told me you were going to Canberra for work.’
‘Yes.’ Not a sparkling reply.
Taylor said nothing for a moment. Words were being weighed and when she spoke next, her voice was very controlled. ‘When I called your office today to see if you were back, Geraldine answered and she told me that you didn’t work there anymore and that you hadn’t worked there since December.’
Renard said nothing. ‘Yes,’ seemed an unhelpful answer.
‘Who is she?’ Taylor suddenly demanded.
‘Geraldine?’ Renard shrugged. ‘Data analyst like me. You’ve met her.’
‘Not Geraldine!’ Taylor shrieked. ‘Who’s she?’ She flipped open her Gargantuan and dramatically projected the image onto Renard’s living room wall. It was Renard and the Melbourne Ned being interviewed yesterday.
‘That’s Ned Ludd,’ he replied weakly.
‘Oh … just Ned Ludd! This nude woman you hang out with in Canberra!’
Taylor throttled back a few decibels and reverted to her controlled voice. ‘Renard, you have never mentioned the Luddite Party to me before. You never told me you had changed your name. You never told me you lost your job. You slip off to Canberra, lying to me that it is work-related, and what do I find on the networks last night? You cavorting with your nude political friends in front of the whole nation!’
Her voice had accelerated during the short speech and appeared readying to shriek again. ‘You’ve lied to me for months and … and … will you put that fucking bag down while I’m talking to you?’ she roared.
Renard sensed this was not the moment to ask her if she could take a month’s worth of his pay in fifty-dollar notes and hide it somewhere in her flat.
‘You have nothing to say?’ The roar had dissipated. Taylor’s voice was worryingly soft.
‘I do,’ Renard replied. ‘I just … haven’t thought what it is yet.’
It was the worst possible reply. The door slammed and Taylor was gone.
...
It hadn’t surprised Aggie Posniak when she couldn’t log on to work. She had fully expected Autocar to sack her and quickly.
She had skills that made her employable when she needed a job again. For now, though, there was her campaign in Wills to organise and she had additional assignments for the Luddites nationally that would take up time. After nine years, now that the moment had arrived for the Luddites to campaign, it wasn’t clear to Aggie what her next move should be.
The doorbell rang. The next move, it seemed, would be to answer the door.
Two women were on her doorstep. ‘Aggie? Aggie Posniak?’ one asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Or should we say Ned Ludd?’ One of them beamed. ‘We’re from Bicyclism Australia.’
Aggie blinked. Bicyclism Australia, the fake organisation that Autocar had created solely to get Aggie on to the Royal Commission into Road Safety. Aggie was its president. She had also created its website and was e-newsletter editor under the pen name of Will Drury. These two were obviously members of the cycling public who had joined the organisation presuming it to be legitimate. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked.
‘It’s more what can we do for you,’ they replied excitedly. They let her know they were prepared to throw the full force of the imaginary organisation behind her campaign.
Aggie considered the offer. She could certainly use the help. ‘Let me check something,’ she said. She went to her computer to log in. Aggie Posniak could not access Autocar’s server anymore but Will Drury, it turned out, could still log on to the Bicyclism Australia website. When she had created Will Drury, she had given him all the same computer access privileges as she had. Aggie smiled. Through Will Drury, Autocar’s vast computing power and control of the Bicyclism website was still at her disposal. ‘This could be the start of a beautiful relationship,’ she told her two would-be supporters.
...
Amy Zhao set the last of what had seemed an interminable number of coffee cups in the rack to dry. The dishwasher at Compink Australia was broken, but had it been working, she would have been the one filling it, emptying it and putting up signs in the kitchen asking staff not to leave their dirty mugs in the sink. She went about this work uncomplainingly. Those of her fellow employees who paid her any attention presumed she did this strategically. No place of work was ever quick to lay off the one person who voluntarily cleaned up the staff kitchen. It was the way a lowly data entry clerk could keep her job—or so she wanted them to think. They would have been astonished to know Amy Zhao was actually the undercover deputy CEO of Compink Australia.
After the signing of the Tri-Ocean Free Trade Agreement, the Communist Party of China had recognised the enormous commercial advantages of turning itself into a corporation. The rest of the world might still resent the growing economic power of China, but Compink would from then on be protected by the might of corporate law. Any government that moved against Compink would end up in court and lose. Chinese embassies still reissued lost passports, but all the real work went on at Communist Party of China Incorporated, or Compink, as it had rebranded itself. ‘The K is here to stay,’ their English language rebranding guru had assured them to account for the aberrant spelling of ‘Inc.’ She had predicted (correctly) that the letter K would occupy the same role in the 2020s as the stray letter Z had in brand names earlier this century. ‘And when pronouncing the brand,’ she explained, ‘the “pink” softens the image of our Maoist, less business-friendly past.’
Compink China next broke up its international operations and had the component parts reregister as separate national entities where still greater corporate protections were to be had. Compink Australia, Compink Italy, Compink Brazil listed on the stock markets of their respective countries and were now legally considered to be Australian, Italian and Brazilian companies. If Compink Australia wanted to buy up some sensitive facility or vital infrastructure, the Australian government could no longer object. Not only that, but Compink Australia could issue stock and get Australian investors to front up with the money for it. Even ASIO was supposed to leave them alone, though Amy knew they didn’t.
What Compink China had not realised was that in creating these separate national corporations, they would create separate interests. What was good for Compink China was not necessarily good for Compink Australia. Amy’s CEO, Wilson Huang, ran Compink Australia fiercely independently of Beijing. They shouted him down at hologram meetings, they threatened—but with repeated share floats, they owned only 12 per cent of Compink Australia. Huang had the support of the board, which included the CEOs of Deutsch Compink and the formidable Compink Cayman Islands. Beijing could do little other than ungraciously accept the annual dividends he sent their way.
With Compink China antagonistic and ASIO ever snooping, Wilson Huang knew that all Compink Australia electronic communication would be monitored, all its data minable. Both agencies would attempt to infiltrate the ranks of his staff with spies. Yet somehow, Wilson had to find a way to run the business. It was to overcome these challenges he had recruited Amy Zhao as undercover deputy CEO.
Amy inserted herself as a data entry clerk. Her self-appointed role as dishwasher put her in the kitchen to overhear a lot. The initial task of discerning who was working for whom proved not terribly difficult. In their recruitment of spies, ASIO put too much focus on language. Their plants, usually second- or third-generation Australians, spoke excellent Mandarin and Cantonese. But they were Australian-educated and what they weren’t good at—and it was easy for Amy to find this out—was maths. They also too readily understood the rules of cricket when it was on the TV in the staff kitchen.
The spies from Compink China took longer to flush out. Th
ere would be a few months of diligent work, but with each passing pay period, the employee’s lunchtime conversation would show unusual levels of interest in the workings of long-service leave, leave loading, personal leave and all the other seductive aspects of Australian labour practices.
She left them in place. She’d rather Wilson supervised a nest of known vipers than have new ones trying to wriggle in. Through intermediaries, Amy established Paradox Consultants, an off-site office where all the real work of Compink Australia would take place. She employed no business people there, hiring graduates in gender studies, English literature and history, GPs, astronomers—highly educated people but largely unemployable. She wanted people who were both quick learners and grateful that anyone had hired them.
For electronic security reasons, Amy had them work exclusively on old manual typewriters. No one could hack into a manual typewriter. Amy quickly discovered to her surprise that this move proved to have unexpected productivity payoffs. On a typewriter, you actually needed to think about what you were going to write before you wrote it. It made the staff at Paradox Consultants not just analytical but succinct, whereas back at the infested head office, the ingratiating Compink China or ASIO agents could churn out forty-five pages updating the fire evacuation procedure and still not know the location of the nearest emergency exit.
Amy was officially paid only a data entry clerk’s wages and lived in a shared Sydney flat to keep up the guise. Wilson paid her deputy CEO salary directly into an offshore account. She met in secret with him only once a week, often for just a few minutes.
The dishes all done, she was eager to meet with her CEO that evening, but didn’t look forward to the security precautions. She understood that secrecy was necessary; Compink China had the head office completely bugged. It was why Wilson had originally set up the black holes, small businesses that existed completely off the grid where he could meet with reliable employees in confidence. That had been nine years ago and most of the black holes had been shut down as either too costly or unnecessary.
Amy would have predicted that CalliNail, the last of Wilson’s black holes, would have been the first to go bankrupt. Who, in a sensible world, needed calligraphy done on their fingernails and toenails? Yet here it was, still thriving, more popular than ever. Nowadays, Amy had to book ahead for an appointment.
Amy disliked having calligraphy on her nails but, of course, she had to leave it there for days afterwards as it was one of the few luxuries that Amy Zhao, data entry clerk, allowed herself. Sometimes, Amy felt annoyed with Amy Zhao, data entry clerk, who really should assert herself more … a process that could start with not doing everybody’s dishes for them.
She had long tired of explaining the miniature Confucian aphorisms on her nails to everyone she met. ‘Just give me something that won’t take long,’ she told the calligrapher at CalliNail. ‘Roman numerals will do.’
‘Do you want eleven to twenty on the toes?’ the calligrapher asked. ‘Or would you rather repeat one to ten on both fingers and toes?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Amy muttered. She never let anyone see her toes. She would wear socks with sandals if necessary to hide her ludicrous nails.
The calligraphy nail paint required twenty minutes to dry. The calligrapher, when she had finished the final tiny XX on Amy’s little toe, murmured, ‘Number seven’. Amy proceeded to the numbered drying booth and entered. Wilson Huang was already there.
‘The Luddites?’ Wilson asked.
‘Fitzwilliams damaged—only slightly,’ Amy assessed.
‘Network Nine.’
Amy paused. Over their years together, they had trimmed their conversations back to a bare scaffolding on which each knew how to hang the other’s meaning. Even if their conversation was somehow recorded, it would be hard for others to understand what was being discussed, let alone decided.
Compink Australia had a significant but complicated stake in Network Nine. The parent company of Network Nine was controlled by a French entertainment giant. Through a Liechtenstein shell company, the French corporation was mostly owned by Compink Uruguay. Compink Australia had a 40 per cent stake in Compink Uruguay.
‘The debate.’ Amy let the argument sink in.
Wilson nodded. ‘Three-way.’
Network Nine had bought exclusive rights to the election debate broadcast. In the old and bad days, the ABC would have covered it as well. However, according to the Tri-Ocean Free Trade Agreement, that would now constitute unfair government subsidised competition against a free enterprise.
What Amy had proposed was that Nine invite the Luddites to participate in the leaders’ debate with the Liberals and Labor. It would bring enormous viewing numbers. Everyone was interested in the Luddites. More importantly, Nine itself would be central to the story for insisting the Luddites be allowed to take part. The best way to cover the news, after all, was to be the news.
Labor would agree. Their leader, Roslyn Stanfield, needed every bit of exposure she could get. ‘Fitzwilliams,’ Amy pointed out. Fitzwilliams would certainly boycott if the Luddites were included in the debate. He was ahead. He didn’t need to come to Nine’s debate party.
Wilson considered the matter only briefly. ‘Loki,’ he suggested.
When she’d first recruited the mole Loki, he’d chosen his own code name. Wilson had liked it so much he’d named all his subsequent moles and spies after Norse gods.
‘Loki,’ she agreed. Loki was incredibly well placed. If anyone could arrange it, he could.
...
Renard sank into the chair. ‘Gruel,’ he called out to the owner. He had hidden five bags of fifty-dollar notes in his flat, reserving one to go out that night. It seemed appropriate to start this stint in the cash economy at Low Expectations. ‘Weak tea as well,’ he added to the order.
No job … or no job officially, he corrected himself. No girlfriend … well, no girlfriend that was speaking to him. No official job, no girlfriend that was speaking to him and he was waiting for gruel. This sort of thing just didn’t happen to James Bond.
The place was crowded. Three kids were working noisily on their looms. There were diners at several tables. Why did people keep coming here?
Kate rose from her loom when she saw him and slipped out the back of the shop. Renard did a double take. Kate had a Genie phone in her hand. A phone in Low Expectations? Kate returned a short while later and more customers came in. They were showing an old BBC version of Bleak House upstairs, it being Thursday Telly and Tea night. Renard couldn’t face Bleak House tonight. Another man entered and headed upstairs, this one coughing badly, his tubercular wheeze suiting the ambience of Low Expectations.
He hadn’t finished his gruel when Kate approached his table. ‘Come upstairs,’ she said.
‘I’m not in the mood for Bleak House,’ he answered. Normally, no one at Low Expectations cared whether you watched their dreary Dickens movies, but Kate’s eyes were both imploring and demanding at the same time. ‘All right,’ he agreed, curious as to why it should matter to her.
Upstairs, Kate brushed past the four people watching the movie and pulled open the door of a small office Renard had never noticed before. Inside there was no furniture save for three wooden chairs. A man, the man with the cough, was slumped on one.
He tried to speak, but that set off a bout of coughing. The man waved his arm to indicate he would speak as soon as he could. ‘Lad,’ the man managed at last, ‘I don’t have long to live.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Renard said. ‘Which novel is this? I don’t recognise it.’
‘What do you mean which novel is this?’
‘Which Dickens novel is this from?’ Renard hesitated, suddenly unsure. ‘This is a role play, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not,’ the man rasped, making it clear that he would be shouting at Renard if he could, ‘a role play of some damned Dickens novel.’
‘Oh,’ Renard said quietly.
‘Not long to live and yesterday you told the nation th
at I was a woman.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m Ned Ludd, the Luddite candidate for Sydney.’ Another wave of coughing ensued.
‘He’s not well,’ Kate pointed out, as if the detail could have escaped Renard.
‘Dying people often aren’t. I’ve waited for years for this election and now I’m not well enough to campaign.’ Outside the room, someone in the movie bellowed, ‘Shake me up, Judy!’
‘You’re laying it on a bit thick, Ned,’ Kate said with the casual callousness of a seventeen year old. ‘You might have another two, three years in you yet.’
Ned let out a Dickensian grunt. ‘What I do know is that I can’t campaign. I can’t speak—’ another round of coughing engulfed him ‘—and I don’t have the energy.’ He stared straight into Renard’s eyes. ‘Ned,’ he said, ‘I want you to run in my place. I can show you what to do, and I have all the forms for nominating with the Electoral Commission.’
Kate pulled Renard around to face her. ‘I want you to run.’ Her forcefulness surprised him.
‘Why?’
‘For my parents. They …’ She stopped herself. Her eyes sought Ned Ludd’s.
‘You can tell him,’ Old Ned wheezed. ‘He’s a Nineteener—one of the original Neds. He’s not some government spy.’
Renard deduced that the term ‘Nineteener’ must refer to someone who’d changed their name to Ned Ludd in 2019. Renard had changed his name to Ned Ludd in 2019, but a few months after the great mass renaming in April of that year. Old Ned did not appear to know that. Either the Luddites’ intelligence-gathering was weak or this Ned Ludd didn’t have access to it.
‘My parents were … they are—’ Kate sounded defiant ‘—GPs.’
‘I’m sorry,’ was all Renard could say.
‘You know what they do nowadays? They work out the back of homeopathy clinics and crystal shops, still seeing patients. Crystals and quackery! It’s like something out of the nineteenth century,’ she spat, her indignation somehow all the more impressive given her Dickensian rags.