The Good: A page turning thriller where politics meets future technology in a bid to control human behaviour

by Carl Andrew

  “There’s logic there in my opinion. It could just work. The main issue for me is, these people are prepared to act anti-socially so why would they then be prepared to hand over the penalty amount willingly? How do we enforce this?” Russell asked.

  “Aah, I agree and I challenged my team with the same query,” David replied.

  “They highlighted that the data is digital so it can also be recorded against someone’s record centrally. That means that the police can enforce the penalty if it’s not been paid on site.”

  “Basically, we have a central repository recording anti-social thoughts or behaviour.”

  “Wow,” Vanessa chimed in. “The civil rights people will have a field day.”

  “Let them,” David said with authority. “Surveys have shown that public opinion has moved away from concerns of breaches of privacy. People are so used to technology in their lives that they’ve become almost numb to fears of who has access to their data.”

  “The civil rights lot are fighting a losing battle and their credibility is fading as each digital innovation is released to the world.”

  “It looks as though we have a policy Prime Minister,” Vanessa stated.

  “Russell. Any thoughts,” David asked.

  Russell shook his head. “I’m excited by this David. I think this could present a significant breakthrough. I’ll work the policy up with your team and then strategise the launch plan with my communications team.”

  “Excellent thank you Russell, Vanessa. I can almost see a light at the end of the tunnel,” David said, turning to the window as he spoke.

  Chapter 20:

  Two weeks later - Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

  The cold was starting to subside as February introduced an air of spring to the country. The days weren’t warm but there was a freshness that was inherently inviting.

  Waking up that morning, Jennifer felt a sense of relief that the project was coming to a conclusion.

  Today marked the arrival of the test cases for the final series of trials over the course of the next week.

  The team, under the guidance of a Simon ‘growing in confidence’, had managed to produce the required prototypes to a much better standard than expected.

  One of the brave lab assistants had volunteered to ‘guinea pig’ the new liquid chips and the results were incredibly positive.

  Because of that, Jennifer was excited to get the final phase of testing underway.

  Driving to the Institute, she finally felt a sense of release after months of focus on the project. She noticed things she hadn’t noticed for a long time even though she was taking the same drive she took each day, shapes of trees, advertising hoardings, even birds.

  She arrived, checked her emails and gathered the team for a briefing an hour ahead of the test case arriving.

  Her conversation with Governor Voskov had gone as well as could be expected. He was an advocate of the research project and Jennifer knew he would be happy to oblige her request before she’d picked up the phone.

  The team were all ears as she laid out the plan for the week. As much as she enjoyed facing and defeating challenges, she wanted this week to go without a single hitch so she was meticulous in her preparation.

  The prison van arrived as it had before, exactly on time and perfectly in order. The guards escorted the test cases to their lodgings, as they had previously.

  Jennifer had agreed to let the prisoners have a few hours to themselves before diving into the testing phase. She spent a bit of time with each prisoner to answer any final queries they had.

  As expected, there was a strong showing of bravado in the group encounters but when she spoke with the men individually some displayed more concerned feelings. Her initial job was one of reassurance and calm.

  It was a skill she was gifted with. She had learnt it over years of calming animals before placing them in experimental scenarios. Humans at least had an additional degree of understanding so her time with each of the prisoners didn’t faze her in the slightest.

  After lunch, she assigned a lab team to two test cases each and the research project was able to continue.

  There were a couple of test cases who approached the ingestion of the liquid chip with trepidation. Fortunately, the brave lab assistant was on hand to take a placebo liquid chip in front of the research subjects to settle their fears.

  If it was ok for her to do it, then it was fine for ten big burley prisoners.

  As before, the week would be spent measuring the reaction of the test cases to a variety of scenarios to test and alter their mood in order to gauge a reaction.

  On first showing, the liquid chips were working perfectly. Data was seemingly seeping through the skin of each of the test cases and displaying as expected onto the screen of a mobile device.

  After about four hours of exercises and scenario tests, Jennifer called a halt to a very successful day.

  ------------------------------------------------------------

  A couple of days later - 10 Downing Street, London

  Night had fallen and the Prime Ministers’ administrative area was shrouded in darkness. It was the early hours of the morning and the house was quiet.

  A figure hidden in dark clothing with the appropriate permissions made his way into the Prime Ministers’ Office with discretion.

  He wasn’t noticed, he didn’t raise alarm. He was supposed to be in the building. He just wasn’t supposed to be where he was.

  The man quietly unlocked the personal filing cabinet of the Prime Minister and shuffled through the papers before him.

  He knew where the security cameras were, he knew the alarm system, and he knew how to slip in and out undetected.

  Finally, he happened upon his prize, took it from its nesting place next to other documentation of the utmost secrecy and slipped it into his pocket.

  Retracing his steps, he made his way back to where he should be undetected.

  The early morning turned into daylight and the buzz of the office returned as normal. No one was any the wiser of the visit by the man dressed in black to a place he shouldn’t have been.

  ------------------------------------------------------------

  End of the final testing week – Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

  The day had finally arrived. The week had gone without a hitch. Jennifer was in a position to inform the Government that they had a solution to their challenge.

  The testing for the liquid chip had provided results better than any member of the team could have expected.

  As the days went on and as each scenario and examination passed, there was an audible excitement among the lab team.

  Expectation turned to satisfaction, satisfaction to delight, delight to relief. They had achieved their Everest.

  Overall, the results were 99.9% accurate in detecting a bad thought or behaviour. The Government had set a minimum acceptance benchmark of 97% accuracy so this was well beyond.

  There were no ill effects to the test cases of ingesting the liquid chip, no one complained of stomach pains or nausea. It was the perfect conclusion.

  The week had flown by and before Jennifer knew it, the test cases were back in their van returning to their life as prisoners, albeit for a shorter remaining sentence than when they were convicted due to their participation in the research.

  After the usual cordial goodbye, Jennifer made her way to her office and picked up the phone to dial Vanessa.

  She had been keeping her abreast of the results throughout the week but this was a call she was particularly looking forward to. It was the concluding call.

  “Hi Vanessa, its Jennifer, I wanted to let you know that our test cases have resumed their normal lives and are on their way back to Leicestershire.”

  “Great, and did it carry on as positively as when we last spoke?” Vanessa asked.

  “99.9% accuracy and no side effects, you have your solution,” responded Jennifer with a sense of pride greater than she felt she would have fo
r a project that didn’t involve animals.

  “That’s really excellent news. Our heartfelt thanks and congratulations go out to you and your team. Please extend to them the gratitude of the Prime Minister. Their efforts are very much appreciated,” Vanessa said.

  “Thank you Vanessa. I will do. They’ll be delighted. I’m also going to send them all off on a long break away from this place. Good luck with the next phase and I’ll speak to you when we get to the bid process.”

  Jennifer’s team may have finished their engagement in this project but Jennifer herself had agreed to be part of the committee deciding which fortunate organisation would hit the budgetary jackpot of mass producing the liquid chips and accompanying software for public use.

  That process would be just a matter of weeks away now the prototype testing phase had been so successful.

  ------------------------------------------------------------

  A few days later - Finsbury Park, London

  February had produced one of those days where it felt like it would rain all day. Leon was thoroughly excited to have a quiet day ahead of him with no meetings scheduled.

  He was planning to wait a while before leaving his bed.

  Abby lay next to him. He still loved to listen to her sleep. Her gentle breathing sounded to him like a purr. He did wonder if it was a bit weird that he waited a few moments to listen to this calming noise before disturbing her awake.

  He didn’t have to worry this particular morning however, his phone broke the silence jolting him out of his awe.

  Leon felt the ring had the sound of trouble and hesitated a moment before answering.

  “Hello, Leon Bryant speaking,” he said in a tone that fibbed a far superior status of awake than reality.

  He heard a familiar noise coming back to him. Heavy breathing at first and then an almost timid voice he knew well.

  “Aah, my policeman friend. How can I help?”

  “I must admit it’s a concern you know it’s me before I’ve even spoken,” came a cautious response.

  “Apologies for my confidence, I’m in an industry where it pays to know from the first sound how a call is going to go.”

  “I understand. I can’t speak for long but I have something that the public need to know. I’m sending you a file from an anonymous email. What I’m sending you could potentially bring down the Government. Goodbye.”

  “Wait, hello… hello. I need more; you have to give me more!” Leon yelled down the phone line but it was too late.

  His shadowy advisor was long gone.

  Rushing out of bed, leaving Abby to wonder what the hell was going on, Leon made his way to the lounge to retrieve his laptop.

  He lifted the lid and the screen came to life. He navigated the cursor to his email icon and clicked to open.

  An anxious wait revealed fifty or so emails. Most of them were responses to previous posts or story ideas. A few were spam and then finally, he located an innocuous message from an unknown sender with an attachment.

  “This has to be it,” he said to himself.

  “What are you doing?” enquired Abby upon hearing Leon’s private exclamation. “And who was on the phone disturbing my sleep?”

  “I’m trying to find an email. That call was a very intriguing tip off from someone who has consistently been right in the past,” Leon replied

  “So, what does it say?” Abby was beginning to share some of Leon’s excitement.

  He clicked to open the email. The fan whirred on his laptop as it was requested to perform yet another process.

  “Ok, so it says ‘attached is a conceptual strategy from the office of the Prime Minister looking into the possibility of releasing liquid chips into the water system in order to control how people behave…’”

  He took a moment to allow his brain to register what he’d just said and then exclaimed: “Fuck me… what!”

  “Leon, did I just hear you correctly. This plan is without public knowledge or consultation,” Abby jumped in.

  “Surely not,” Leon was baffled. “Let’s just see what it says in the attachment. We can’t jump to conclusions.”

  He scrolled down to the bottom of the email and located the document in question. With a click of a button he opened it.

  A strategic plan popped up and filled the screen of the laptop. The header read: The Office of the Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street.

  It went on for numerous pages detailing a risk assessment of a plan to do just as was described in the email, release liquid chips into the UK water system.

  Leon honed in on one particular area…

  “Here, listen to this. It says Risk 10 – public awareness it talks about potential repercussions of the public finding out about the strategy and how to combat those. Are they serious? How the hell did they think they could get away with this shit?”

  Leon was apoplectic with rage. The more he read the more furious he became to the point where Abby took it upon herself to walk around behind him and gently rub his shoulders.

  “You’ve got to calm down. You need to think clearly about what you’re going to do now, how you’re going to use this. This is huge.”

  Leon knew Abby was right. That small display demonstrated why he held her in such high regard, why he loved her. She was the calm to his craziness.

  He needed her because of that, because of more than that, but at this moment - because of that.

  “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I need to think.”

  He got up, puffed the air out of his cheeks and rubbed his forehead.

  “Let’s say I post this. I write a story about this. What happens then?” He worked better when he said things out loud. It took her a few weeks after moving in together before she realised that he was also happy for her to speak up in response.

  “Well, you may be questioned where you got the information from. I mean, this is pretty fucking confidential stuff.”

  “Yeah but things get leaked all the time,” he came back immediately with a response.

  “But not something of this magnitude,” Abby countered.

  “So, I just say that someone wanted the public to know. I don’t know where it came from, it was sent anonymously.” Leon was starting to see things a little more clearly.

  “Ok, that could work. I mean that’s kind of how things went right.” Abby was acting as sounding board and conscience in equal measure.

  “Do you think you should give the PMs Office a right to reply? I mean after all you are about to release some pretty confidential material to the public,” Abby suggested.

  “To be honest, it’s the right thing to do Abby but I know they’ll try to scupper the story. I mean, it’s potentially the biggest story I’ve ever broken.”

  “Besides, I’m a blog. If I was writing for a newspaper then I’d have to provide that opportunity if only from a verification perspective.”

  He stopped and thought for a moment and then reconsidered.

  “Perhaps I should make Vanessa aware but I’ll let her know that I’m writing this anyway. I should do the right thing.”

  “But people should know about this right. I mean I have to write this don’t I?” Leon said, his words tinged with an element of doubt.

  “Leon, you’re a journalist at heart. You’ll be doing your job.” Abby responded reassuringly.

  “You’re right. To hell with the consequences,” he was focused now, much more certain.

  He pulled out his notebook and started planning out his post. Abby took this as a queue to make herself scarce.

  She went into the kitchen and started making some breakfast, busying herself to try and shift her attention elsewhere.

  Leon began reading the rest of the document with fervour noting down the salient points and forming an idea of a blog post in his mind.

  By the time Abby re-entered the lounge room, Leon was deeply entrenched in typing.

  Words filled the page and a story was formed…

  Prime Minist
er hatches plan to pollute water source with mind reading chip

  Just over an hour ago, The Day Today received an anonymous tip off from a source close to Prime Minister David Lawson about a plan to release a liquid chip into the country’s water source without public awareness or consultation.

  The chips are likely to be the results of the research project being finalised by Dr Jennifer Hopwood at The Institute of Behavioural Science on behalf of the Department of Social Behaviour.

  However, there is nothing in the information to say either Dr Hopwood or her team are compliant in this in any way.

  The aim of the project is to identify a way to manage anti-social behaviour by understanding why people make decisions.

  It is rumoured that the chips being developed are able to monitor people’s vital signs in order to ascertain when they think or act badly.

  The Day Today received an email with an authentic attachment from the Prime Minister’s Office detailing a risk assessment of the proposed plan.

  We can confirm that this is a proposal at this stage but the very fact that the person the public put their faith in and voted for to run the country would even consider such an act is highly contemptible.

  This news is sure to send shockwaves up and down the country and it will undoubtedly take a long time for this to be forgiven by a public that is surely quickly losing its patience with the Lawson Government.

  Either way, it will be interesting to hear the response from the Government who will undoubtedly try to deny this news and may potentially attempt to discredit this blog.

  We shall wait and see.

  Watch this space for further updates as we get them.

  As always, if you have any thoughts on this story please comment below or contact us at thedaytoday@blognews.com

  After he finished his article he picked up the phone to undertake his due diligence.

  The call connected and he waited for an answer.

  “Hi Vanessa its Leon Bryant here,” he said.