The Acid Vanilla Series

by Matthew Hattersley

  Her role was simple. She was to monitor the webcams and inbuilt microphones of any laptop that ran Hadez, Cerberix’s ground-breaking new search engine. As this included the majority of the online world at this point, it was set to be an enormous project, especially as webcams could still be accessed when the computer was in sleep mode. That was the beauty of Clarkson’s invention. The initial contract was for one year, and at the same time as monitoring people’s data, the Watchers, as they called themselves, were building a global AI interface. This would take over the monitoring once the Watchers’ role in the project was complete.

  It was all highly illegal of course. But that was one reason Spook had been selected. She was a blue-sky thinker, a maverick. She understood, they told her, that whilst one might construe this work as a touch reprehensible, it was for the greater good. By watching users, Cerberix could provide a unique, tailored experience, able to cater for people’s true needs. No guesswork.

  “We’ll even save the world while we’re doing it,” the handsome, all-American Kent Clarkson expounded in a video message played for the Watchers on their first day. He went on to explain how the new technology would catch terrorists, quash fake news, and stop high school shootings before they happened. It was good what they were doing. The world would catch up soon enough.

  “You ready to go?”

  Kelvin appeared by her side. He was wearing a black hoodie that said Show Me The Beer across the front. Spook shuddered, wondering if it would destroy him if she backed out of the drink. Wondering if she cared either way. She swung her rucksack onto her back, too weary to do anything but go along with the plan.

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” she told him.

  Six

  Kelvin was a nice guy. But, boy, was he dull. And too nerdy even for Spook. The realisation of this had begun to dawn on her after beer number three when Kelvin had asked her what Harry Potter house she was in. She’d told him the truth: she wasn’t a fan. Which killed that conversation dead. But then Kelvin had doubled down, clumsily asking about her ethnicity (half-Malaysian – her mom.) Now on beer number five, he’d just hit the jackpot in the game of Questions Spook Hated To Be Asked.

  “Is Spook your real name?”

  “Yeah. It is. My folks were hippies. Thought it was apt.” Kelvin looked confused. “You know, Horowitz. Horror-witz. Spook. Horror.”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah. Man, you must hate them for that.”

  Spook was poker-faced. “They’re both dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. My dad two years ago. My mom last year. Both cancer.”

  Kelvin looked like he was about to throw up. They sat and drank for a few minutes while the silence grew heavier. Kelvin tried again, asking about her childhood, what the MIT was like, benign stuff, dull. But then the conversation drifted to past relationships, which Spook took as her cue to leave.

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” Kelvin said, as she pulled her coat on. “Let me buy you another drink.”

  “It’s fine,” she lied. “But it’s nearly two, and I was only going to have a couple of drinks. Besides, you’ve bought every round.”

  He giggled. “I guess I’m a typical Gryffindor. You know, chivalrous.”

  Spook grabbed her rucksack and got the hell out of there. She was drunk enough to opt for an Uber home rather than the night bus, and by the time she got home an hour later the drink had hit her hard. Five bottles of American Pale Ale on an empty stomach was never a good idea. Maybe that was Kelvin’s plan, Spook thought, as she slung her rucksack off her shoulder and unzipped it, pulling out her trusty laptop. The sensible move now, of course, would be to drink as much water as she could stomach and go to bed. Tomorrow was her day off. She could sleep in late, try and swerve the hangover. But no, here she was, making herself comfy and easing her laptop open. She logged in and immediately a notification slid in from the right at the top of her screen, informing her of a new article from Entrepreneur Magazine. She read the headline, almost sicking-up in her mouth as she did.

  Eugene Goldman becomes Applications Architect at Apecom Industries.

  Spook screwed her nose up. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Goldman had been her classmate at MIT – a pugnacious, rich kid from upstate New York who thought he was God’s gift to tech. He’d also been a real shit to Spook for the whole three years, culminating in him calling Spook and her mother slitty-eyed immigrants. So a real nice guy.

  Spook clicked on the article, getting angrier and more resentful with every word she read. Turned out Eugene had taken the position after leaving his business partner in the lurch and bankrupting their start-up. That figured. Goldman was one of those impenetrable Alpha-personality types. With the sort of confidence that only comes from being super privileged and wholly unscrupulous.

  She slammed her laptop closed and marched into the kitchen. A full bottle of red wine stood on the side. She poured herself a large glass and drank it one go. Then she poured out another and went back to her laptop. She’d had an idea. After logging onto the Watcher portal, she found her old classmate within seconds. There was only one Eugene Goldman in San Francisco. But if there’d been hundreds, Spook would have found him. She was good at her job.

  She clicked on the profile and entered her pin-code, granting herself access to the microphone and camera of Eugene’s MacBook. The screen went white for a second, then the webcam feed appeared on her screen.

  “Oh, man. Gross.”

  Spook looked away in horror at the image already burning itself into her eyes. Eugene with both feet on his desk and a deodorant canister shoved where deodorant canisters were not intended to be shoved. She quickly clicked off the feed and took another gulp of wine. It wasn’t the first time Spook had witnessed sordid displays on her computer screen, of course (you watch people using the internet all day, you see a lot of self-love) but she’d never seen anyone do it like that before.

  She was about to go to bed when she had another idea. What was Kent Clarkson doing right now? What did the big boss get up to behind closed doors? Spook typed his name and date of birth into the search feed:

  Kent Clarkson.

  Almaden Valley, San Jose.

  DOB: 21 July 1978.

  Founder/Chief Executive Officer: Cerberix Inc.

  Accessibility available: London, California, Berlin.

  Spook clicked on the London link and regretted it instantly, met with a blue screen and a screeching noise that was damn uncomfortable on the ears even through her laptop speakers. She clicked off the feed, angry with herself. Why didn’t she think of that? Obviously the man who invented the Watcher project would have scramblers on his own system. Spook once more considered the possibility of bed, but she was too on edge to fall asleep. The sight of Eugene was still there when she closed her eyes, and her bitterness at his unwarranted success still tightened her chest.

  She turned back to the screen. The Watcher database showed linked profiles for each subject at the bottom of the screen. Colleagues, family members, university friends. It was to help the AI with name and place recognition when analysing audio tags. As Spook scanned Kent Clarkson’s profile, one name stood out:

  Sinclair Whitman.

  Atherton, Palo Alto.

  DOB: 19 November 1959.

  Chief Financial Officer: Cerberix Inc.

  Accessibility available: California, Paris, London.

  Spook had met Whitman at the secret launch event for the Watcher project. He was a tall, willowy man with a thick head of white hair and an air of callous arrogance. An unlikeable man. Spook clicked on the California link to reveal the image of a beautiful beach-front apartment. Early evening there, just after seven. On the wall facing the webcam, above an ornate fireplace, hung what looked to be an original Pollack. But no sign of Whitman.

  Spook clicked on the Paris feed next and was presented with another lavishly decorated room. Clean lines, expensive fabrics, incredibly modern. But empty. She finished the wine. There was al
ways the London feed. Third time lucky. Spook clicked on the link, expecting to see more of the same. So when she was met with the image of a very pale and very naked Sinclair Whitman, she almost spat wine all over her laptop. She watched, open-mouthed, as he knelt over a low coffee table and greedily snorted a large line of white powder from a mirrored tray.

  “Someone’s a dark horse,” Spook whispered, as Whitman vacuumed up the last of the cocaine, exposing his bony ass to the webcam. Without missing a beat, she clicked on the ScreenCam app and clicked record. It was foolish, Spook knew that. But she also knew of the kudos she’d receive from her colleagues when she played them the recording. She’d prove to them all she wasn’t the shy, prissy little mouse they thought her to be.

  And it got better. A woman entered the scene. She was small and shapely, with blonde hair and a pretty face. She was also at least half Whitman’s age. Spook gasped as she slowly sashayed into the centre of the room and made a show of undoing the belt on her trench coat. How clichéd, Spook thought, as the woman slipped the coat off her shoulders and let it slide to the floor. Underneath, she was as naked as Whitman. Albeit less pale and a lot less wrinkly.

  Spook’s hand trembled on the tracking pad of her laptop. She shouldn’t be watching this. She certainly shouldn’t be recording it. Even if Whitman wasn’t her CFO, there were rules. Watchers weren’t allowed to digitally record anything in their work. Yet Spook was transfixed as the two bodies entwined. Kissing, stroking, exploring each other. Whitman guided the girl over to the couch and lay back as she got on top of him. More kissing, then Whitman placed a bony hand on the girl’s head and forced it down onto his groin. Spook turned her face away but kept on watching out the corner of her eye, as if this somehow might make the scene more palatable. It didn’t. It was like one of those awful videos she’d happen across by accident on 4chan or Reddit. The Faces of Death. But much worse.

  On screen the drama grew. Whitman was back on his feet, standing in the middle of the room with his back to the camera. He gesticulated wildly at the woman, her shaking her head in response and shouting, making weird faces. They were too far from the microphone, so Spook couldn’t make out what was being said, but the flailing arms and glared expressions said it all. Whitman was enraged about something, balling her out and raising a tight fist in the air. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to him before spitting in her face. Then he slammed his fist into the side of her head.

  “Woah.” Spook was unable to take her eyes off the screen. Whitman was a good foot taller than the girl and seemed deceptively strong. She struggled, trying to pull her hand away, but he kept hold, striking her with another fist, to the nose this time. And another. Then Whitman let go of her and she fell to the floor.

  Spook hoped that would be the end. The poor girl’s nose was bleeding profusely and a deep cut had closed her right eye. But if anything it spurred Whitman on. His face was red with fury as he kicked her repeatedly in the chest and stomach. Then he leapt on her. Put his big hands around her throat.

  “Oh shit.” Spook wanted to look away but couldn’t.

  Whitman was strangling her.

  He was actually strangling her.

  Spook sat there, powerless and frightened, as Sinclair Whitman, billionaire co-founder of Cerberix Inc., squeezed the life out of the poor woman. She struggled under him as best she could, but she didn’t stand a chance. She kicked around for half a minute or so, then her right leg shuddered. Then she was still.

  Spook stared open-mouthed at the screen. Her heart was pounding. She hadn’t taken a breath the whole time. She clicked Stop on the screen recording software, watching as the video rendered down and was saved onto her desktop. Then she closed her laptop, climbed off the couch, and threw up an entire bottle of red wine into the kitchen sink.

  Seven

  The apartment was cold as Acid Vanilla locked the front door and went through to the bedroom. She took off her leather jacket and flung it on the bed, retrieving Simon’s wallet from the inside pocket and checking the name on the cards. Simon Cooper. She chucked the wallet at the wicker waste bin in the corner, already overflowing with cotton wool balls and lipstick-blotted tissues. She looked around and blew out her cheeks. The room was a real mess. The bed hadn’t been made in weeks, and piles of clothes and bits of underwear covered every inch of the carpet. Even Acid’s prized vintage dressing table was awash with make-up and various bits of weaponry, magazine clips, bullets. She flirted briefly with the idea of tidying up, but it was getting late and, frankly, she couldn’t face it.

  Back through to the lounge, she headed straight for the drinks cabinet, hoping another Chivas would help settle her nerves. She sloshed some into a heavy-bottomed glass and took a long drink. Times like this she missed having a TV, something to distract her. She thought about firing up the stereo, some Velvet Underground perhaps, but she settled for the dull hum of the traffic.

  She moved to the couch and pulled her MacBook onto her lap, logging into the new dark web search program Raaz had created. Better than Google, apparently – for people in her line of work. In a few clicks you got ID confirmation, addresses, recent whereabouts. She typed Simon Cooper into the search box, followed by London and Photographer, and a profile flashed on screen complete with photo. Simon Cooper. He was a photographer, like he’d said. But for Best Home magazine. Not the cutting-edge figure he’d made out. The profile also said he was divorced and lived with his mother in Bethnal Green. Typical. He was full of shit. Didn’t know anyone. Not a threat in the slightest. Acid closed the laptop and lay back on the couch. She felt tired for once. Maybe she would get some sleep.

  Then the intercom buzzed.

  “Bugger.”

  She sat upright, her eyes wide and mind racing as to who it could be at this time of night. The best option was a delivery boy, buzzing the wrong flat, but something told her that was wishful thinking. The intercom went again.

  “All right, keep your knickers on.”

  She walked over and swiped at the screen, bringing up the camera feed and the face of Banjo Shawshank, distorted somewhat in the fisheye lens. He looked worried. He went for the buzzer a third time.

  “All right, calm down,” Acid snapped over the intercom. “Second floor. Number nine.” She unlocked the front door and returned to the couch.

  Two minutes later Banjo was pacing in front of her. “What do you think it means?” he asked. “Are we going to get eradicated?”

  Acid gave it a beat. Caesar calling them in for a meeting the day after a job wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare.

  “No, we aren’t going to get eradicated, dummy. If he wanted us dead, he wouldn’t do it at HQ, would he? And he sure as hell wouldn’t be giving us prior warning.” She sipped her drink. “He’ll want a rundown of what happened, that’s all. Ethel and Doris will have been stirring the pot. You know what they’re like.”

  Banjo was wired. “It was a real shitshow, wasn’t it? Thinking about it. I can see why he’d be pissed off.”

  Acid twisted her mouth to one side. She’d seen worse. Been at worse. Caused worse.

  Banjo went on. “He wants to see us first thing. 9 a.m. I was wondering if I could crash here for a couple of hours. Otherwise I’ll only be getting home before I have to set off again.”

  Acid gave him a look. “Fine. You’re here now. But don’t be getting any ideas.” Banjo stopped pacing. The hint of a smile appeared. Acid held up her hand. “Not a chance, sunshine.”

  “But think about it for a second. We’re both good-looking, healthy. Both a tad frazzled. I know I’d benefit from the release. No strings attached, of course.”

  “Aww, no then, sorry. I only like it with strings attached.”

  Banjo relaxed. “You’re terrible. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Stop flirting, the answer’s no.”

  “Well, what about a drink then? Settle my nerves.”

  Acid sighed. Sleep had been wishful thinking. “What do you want? I’ve got whisky, vo
dka, gin.”

  Banjo thought. “You got Amaretto? If so, I’ll have a Godfather. If not, make it a whisky. Large.”

  Acid didn’t have Amaretto. She fixed them both a large Chivas Regal and sat, gesturing for Banjo to do the same before he wore out her Kashmir silk rug. They both drank in silence a few minutes, maybe realising at the same time that they’d never had a proper conversation.

  “So, how did you get into this game?” Banjo asked, putting his drink down.

  “Come on, you know you don’t ask those sorts of question.”

  Talking about your past was against the rules. That and knowing anyone’s real name. Not killing the mark’s neighbour was probably in there somewhere too.

  “I’m only curious. We might both be in the Thames estuary by lunchtime tomorrow. What will it hurt?”

  Acid paused. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, we’ve got time. Tell me, who was your first?”

  “First kill?”

  “No, first crush. Yes, first kill.”

  Acid considered the question. She hadn’t talked about this in so long. She didn’t know if she could do it. Banjo was staring at her, waiting.

  “All right,” she told him. “It was a guy my mum knew.”

  “No shit. Like a boyfriend?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, not looking at Banjo but into her drink. “You see, it was only me and my mum, growing up. She was a dancer. Did some acting here and there. Until she fell down some stairs one night and that was her career over. After that, money was hard. We moved around a lot. Then Mum got into turning tricks, to help put food on the table. A couple of regular callers at first. But word got around. She was a good-looking woman.”

  “I bet she was.”

  Acid ignored him, took another long drink.

  “There was this one guy who’d visit her. A real vicious bastard. By this point I was fifteen, so I knew what was going on. Could tell when she was hiding bruises. One night I got back from a friend’s house to find her bloody and naked and this guy stood over her, holding a wine bottle… that he’d been…” She drained her glass. She could see it like it was yesterday. Could feel the anger bubbling in her stomach. “The police said I stabbed him seventy-two times in total. Almost decapitated him.”