The Passengers

by John Marrs

  Ms. Bradbury, whose husband, Patrick Swanson, is currently awaiting sentencing after admitting eleven separate counts of sexually abusing children, was accused during her ordeal of being complicit in covering up her husband’s crimes.

  The inquest at West London Coroner’s Court heard how a post-mortem discovered twenty painkillers and forty-three tranquilisers in her stomach along with lacerations to her arms and wrists. The prescription medication had been used for a long-standing problem with back pain.

  Recording a conclusion of suicide, coroner Bee Jones said: “While we have no evidence that Ms. Bradbury’s death was as a direct result of the accusations made about her by the man commonly referred to as the Hacker, it would not be a great leap of faith to suggest it played a role in her decision to end her life.

  “No note or letter was found, but from the footage of her final moments in the vehicle, it is clear that she was in a very agitated, emotional state. I believe this led to her decision.

  “Therefore, I have no choice but to record a conclusion of suicide.”

  Swanson has made many allegations about his wife since his plea, implying that not only did she voluntarily pay hush money to keep the families of victims quiet but that she may also have actively sourced and participated in the abuse of children, accusations that have yet to be substantiated.

  All five hospitals Ms. Bradbury actively raised money for have since distanced themselves from her name, and last night, online streaming services have confirmed they will no longer be broadcasting her work.

  Ms. Bradbury left £18.5 million in her will, split among her adult niece and nephew and her dog, Oscar.

  7,900 SHARES. 14,569 COMMENTS.

  CHAPTER 60

  NewswireUK.co.uk

  MOSCOW: RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER REFUSES TO DISCUSS EXTRADITION OF ANY RUSSIANS INVOLVED IN DRIVERLESS CAR HACKING. ALSO DISMISSES THREATS OF FURTHER DIPLOMATIC EXPULSIONS AND TRADE SANCTIONS.

  Thank you for joining us,” began Katy Louise Beech with a well-rehearsed smile. Her bright blue eyes stared into the camera with the red light flashing above the lens.

  “In an unusual move, Prime Minister Nicholas McDermott released a statement this morning attacking the mole who leaked preliminary findings of the investigation into the manipulated programming of artificial intelligence in driverless cars.” She lifted a tablet from the surface of the desk she was sitting behind.

  “He said, and I quote, ‘I completely refute allegations that any members of the current serving government had anything to do with influencing software in Level Five vehicles. We also vehemently deny that our party has “closed ranks” to protect those accused and awaiting trial. I am very disheartened by the number of damaging leaks emerging from the police investigation, and we urge them to get their house in order. And as that inquiry continues, along with our own internal investigation, we will be making no further comments until reports are complete.’”

  Katy Louise turned to the first of her two studio guests, and a stout man with a complacent expression, thick moustache, and matching eyebrows filled the frame. He leaned back in his chair.

  “David Glass, government spin doctor, or to use your official title, head of communications, what more do you think you could be doing to win back the public’s trust?”

  “We are doing everything in our power,” he replied firmly, “and I really do think we’re moving in the right direction. Our previous prime minister stepped down—despite there being no evidence he had any knowledge of what allegedly happened—and there has since been a complete cabinet reshuffle. And we have set up our own internal task force committed to rooting out any suspected rogue players. We have also halted the manufacture and distribution of Level Five driverless vehicles nationwide until the software can be patched and recalibrated. I believe we’ve gone beyond what has been expected of us by the people. I fail to see what else we could be doing.”

  “A lot more,” came a voice out of shot. A cameraman moved quickly to capture Glass’s opposition. Sitting next to him was Libby, dressed in a knee-length blue skirt and white sleeveless top, her legs crossed at the ankle and a pair of vintage Jimmy Choos on her feet. Her face was as confident as it was determined.

  “Enlighten me,” he scoffed. “Such as?”

  “The one thing your government can’t grasp is that all the public wants is your honesty. You can sack as many prime ministers and launch as many internal investigations as you like, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference until there is a non-partisan, independent inquiry that isn’t made of faces appointed by the old boys’ club.”

  “I assure you that is not the case—”

  “Then why do the police leaks reveal they’re being continually fed wrong information by your team and prevented from doing their job?”

  “As you have just heard from the PM, we will not be making any further comment on this until the police investigation is complete. These things take time.”

  “And that is time that’ll allow certain factions in your party to bury evidence and to close ranks even tighter.”

  Glass shook his head and rolled his eyes in pantomime disbelief. “You already have what you want, Miss Dixon! Employees of the car industry, the technology affiliated with it, and hard-working men and women who have created brand-new smart towns have all had their livelihoods ripped away from them because you and your mob wanted Level Five cars taken off the roads. Why do you want to keep punishing ordinary people?”

  Libby gave a droll smile. “Nice try, David, but don’t try and spin this to lay the blame at my feet. Everything that’s happened is as a result of what your colleagues did in the first place. Your government did not treat its people as equals. I didn’t want to see anyone out of work, and you know it.”

  “It’s clear that you had a hidden agenda way before the events of that day. The driverless-cars concept has been around since 1939’s New York World’s Fair, but people like you refuse to let innovation develop naturally because you are selfish. You think you’ll be forced to alter your lifestyle simply because you can’t be bothered to embrace change. We’ve all seen those clips of you marching in London against the Road Revolution bill.”

  “I have no problem with innovation. And the march was long before we learned artificial intelligence wasn’t the enemy, it was the people behind it. You seem to forget that more than five thousand people were killed or seriously injured across the country that day, most of them low-bracket earners, white-collar workers, homeless people, the elderly, the sick, the disabled—it was nothing short of genocide thanks to your software.”

  From the corner of her eye, Libby saw Katy Louise place her finger inside her ear. Libby had appeared on enough live television debates to recognise when a director was prompting their presenter with off-script questions. “What is it that you want, Libby?” Katy Louise asked.

  “Independent assurance and proof that new software will make unbiased decisions. It shouldn’t matter how much we earn, how well we’re educated, or how we live our lives. We all have a value to society, and it’s not for the government to decide precisely how much. It’s been just over six months since the single biggest terror attack our country has ever suffered. If a foreign country had been to blame, they’d have wasted no time in bombing the hell out of it. But because these attacks came in response to the actions of people within their own ranks, they have been shockingly slow to react.”

  “And in the meantime you are happy to watch our economy go to hell in a handbasket,” added Glass. “You should be ashamed.”

  “You did this yourself. The victims of this atrocity and their families need answers, justice, and cast-iron guarantees. When will you be able to offer them that?”

  It was in the arrogant way David Glass cocked his head that warned Libby of the direction his argument was to take. Every time she had an official on the ropes, their attacks vee
red towards the personal. And she was prepared for it.

  “We all saw the pathetic way you fawned over Jude Harrison, and we listened to how you tried to talk the world into saving his life; clearly you had feelings for this man. Should a woman who has demonstrated poor judgement with the man who played such a pivotal part in ‘this atrocity’ really be allowed to hold our economy to ransom?”

  Libby heard the camera turn to her. Out of shot, her toes curled and her fingers clenched, but she would not let Glass goad her.

  “Where do you live, Mr. Glass?”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant to my question.”

  “It’s no less relevant than what you’ve just said to me, so I’ll remind the viewers. It’s Cambridgeshire. Who did you vote for in the last general election?”

  “You are deflecting, Miss Dixon.”

  “You voted for your former MP Jack Larsson; you’ve admitted as much in past interviews. You’ve also been pictured at many social events and functions with him—in fact, didn’t you and your wife enjoy a cruise with him?”

  “How did . . . I don’t see the relevance . . .” he stuttered, flustered as Libby removed a photograph from a pocket inside her jacket and held it up to the camera. “This is you and Larsson, drinking from champagne flutes on the deck of a yacht sailing from Malta to the coast of Tunisia before the hacking. Now tell me, who is the poor judge of character?”

  Glass’s face reddened and his nostrils flared as he rose to his feet, tore off his microphone, and stormed off the set.

  Libby noticed the corners of Katy Louise’s mouth rise as she tried to suppress her joy at their head-to-head. Libby knew that within minutes, the clip would go viral and Katy Louise’s programme would garner huge publicity. It wouldn’t do Libby’s cause any harm either.

  “Libby, while we are discussing Jude Harrison, what do you feel when you hear his name now?” Katy Louise asked. Her question was not entirely unexpected.

  “Nothing.” Libby’s expression was impassive.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No.”

  “But you believe he was part of the Hacker’s organisation.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think his role was?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But you think he played a big part in it?”

  “It looks like it, yes.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  “Like I said earlier, nothing.”

  “What would you like to say to him now, if you could?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  Katy Louise paused as the camera remained awkwardly on Libby, drawing in closer on her face. But Libby wouldn’t give the presenter the sound bite she craved, and remained silent until finally Katy Louise spoke again.

  “Well, thank you for joining us, David Glass and Libby Dixon, spokesperson for pressure group TIAI, Transparency in Artificial Intelligence. Coming up next . . .”

  The floor manager indicated with a wave that Libby was no longer in shot, so she was led away into the green room by a production assistant and greeted with an enthusiastic hug from her friend Nia.

  “Wowee, girl, you were on fire!” she enthused.

  “I just want to get out of here,” Libby replied.

  “Honestly, Libs, you tore that arsehole a new one.”

  “Let’s just go,” Libby replied, and felt her hands trembling. In front of the camera she had learned to hide beneath a thicker skin. But behind the scenes, it was as thin as it ever was—and particularly when the subject involved Jude.

  The two made their way along a corridor and towards a set of glass lifts. Once at reception, they handed their visitors’ lanyards to the suited woman manning the security desk.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Nia. “Why is your face tripping you up? You handled yourself so well out there. Was it the Jude question?”

  Libby threw her bag over her shoulder and let out a puff of air. “It’s always the Jude question,” she replied.

  CHAPTER 61

  Libby was uncomfortable caught amongst the throng of London’s Oxford Street shoppers and tourists. “This way.” She pointed, and she and Nia turned into the less densely populated Rathbone Street.

  Soon after the hacking, Libby realised she had become public property. Her face had been beamed onto billions of electronic devices and television screens, making her instantly recognisable. Even now, she could barely make it halfway along a road without being stopped and asked for a selfie. Some people didn’t have the manners to ask; they just thrust their arms around her shoulder or waist, held out their phones, and clicked without so much as a “please” or “thank you.” She learned that if she wanted to avoid attention in her everyday life, she must steer clear of certain areas when they were at their busiest. Sometimes when she slipped out at night to grocery shop or go for a run, she felt part vampiric.

  Generally, the public was on her side. They had lived through the hijacking with her, and they had hoped for the same happy-ever-after outcome as her. But they too had been deceived by Jude Harrison. Nobody, least of all Libby, knew who he really was or where he had vanished to.

  However, there was only so much public sympathy Libby could tolerate. The media, columnists, and bloggers were keen to paint her as a victim, but she didn’t think of herself in that way. The real victims were the Passengers who survived their ordeal along with those who hadn’t. Compared to them, Libby was merely someone who had had her heart broken by a liar.

  “How about this one?” asked Nia, pointing to the entrance of a backstreet bar. Its dark windows made it difficult to see through from the outside.

  “Perfect,” Libby replied.

  Inside, and as Nia waited at the bar, Libby chose a private corner booth, sitting with her back to the wall so that she was aware of who was nearby at all times. She recalled one afternoon at a restaurant in Northampton having lunch with her mum, and how their entire conversation had been filmed and posted online by a blogger sitting one table away from them. Libby wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Every stranger was treated with suspicion.

  She thought back to how much her life had changed since that infamous Tuesday morning when she made her way into the inquest. Later, and spurred on by a need to stop herself from being considered another of the Hacker’s casualties, she seized an opportunity to put her fame to good use.

  Libby had been aware of pressure group Transparency in Artificial Intelligence before they contacted her. Up until the hijacking, they campaigned for the reasoning behind inquest decisions to be made public. But the government denied their requests on the grounds of national security, claiming hackers could potentially compromise its AI. The irony of what happened next was not lost on anyone.

  Following the hijacking, interest in the group’s work took off, and after a handful of meetings, Libby agreed to become their public spokesperson. Her role involved appearing regularly in the media and acting as a keynote speaker at pro-TIAI rallies. Libby had wanted to spread the message further by travelling internationally to warn of the potential dangers to other countries that had purchased the British model of a driverless-car nation. But with little funding behind them, TIAI’s reach was restricted.

  “I need this,” said Nia, placing two pint glasses of lager on the table. She held one aloft. “Cheers,” she continued, and their glasses clinked. “You didn’t say much on the way here. You’re thinking about Jude again, aren’t you? You get that faraway look in your eyes when he’s on your mind.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” Libby replied. “I’m still struggling to understand why they haven’t found him yet. Literally billions of people know exactly what he looks like, yet there have been no positive sightings of him.”

  “What did the police tell you in their last update?”

  “Nothing that I don’t know already. A
pparently, there are untraceable automated bots around the world flooding the internet and police forces with fake sightings of him, fake information on him, fake names, fake childhood pictures, fake relationships, fake employment records, fake birth certificates, fake wedding photographs . . . dozens and dozens of them every day both during and after the hijacking. At the rate that information is coming in, the investigators admitted it could take them years to sift through it all and get a proper identification. My gut instinct tells me they’re never going to find answers . . .” Libby’s voice trailed off.

  “And how much do you still want those answers?” asked Nia.

  “A lot . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Libby pinched at her eyes. “I know that he must have played a huge part in what happened, but it’s like somehow we are tied together with an invisible rope. I don’t understand it, but I need to know exactly what and who he really is. Crazy, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not crazy. It’s like you’re grieving. You hoped that if you two ever met again, you’d continue what you had that first night. You spent months trying to find that boy and when it happened, it was under circumstances that no one in a million years could’ve predicted.”

  “Apart from him.”

  “He doesn’t count. I think you’re grieving the man you thought Jude was.”

  “That first time I met him in the bar, do you think it was by chance or did he engineer it?”

  Nia placed her hand on Libby’s. “Honestly, I think he set it up. I think he knew who you were, what you witnessed in Monroe Street, he knew about your brother and his problems, what your job involved, and he played on your need to help people with deeper emotional issues. That’s why he sold you that lie about planning his suicide. It was only ever going to make you want to help him. He took advantage of your good heart.”

  Libby dabbed at her moistening eyes with a tissue. Nia hadn’t suggested anything that Libby hadn’t already considered. But hearing her best friend verbalise it made her feel even more foolish. She couldn’t admit it to Nia, but try as she might to hate Jude, she wouldn’t be able to until she had heard him admit in his own words the part he played in the attack. It was closure she was unlikely to receive.