by Mark Reece
“Sorry, I don’t think I’m going to be able to with everything that’s going on at the moment.”
“You know best, mate.”
Ethan went into the conference room ten minutes early to go through his notes. Although he had managed many large projects and often felt that he was in charge of the department, it felt presumptuous to tell agents of the same rank what to do, and he wanted to be sure that he knew exactly what he was saying.
Jo came in first and sat at the other end of the table without a word, staring above Ethan. He looked away and someone shouted in his ear, making him jump, scattering his papers.
“Jesus.”
“Made you look!”
Alfie’s booming laughter was as loud as his voice had been. Ethan rubbed his ear.
“Come on! It is what it is. Come on!”
He was so incessantly cheerful that Ethan was eventually forced into a token laugh, shaking his head, after which Alfie crossed his arms and whistled, poking Jo every few seconds then pretending not to notice her expression.
Mohammed nodded at him when he arrived and sat in a corner. The only other person he had invited was Hugo, and at ten past, Ethan said, “Hugh’s in today, isn’t he? I’m sure I saw him this morning.”
“Yeah.” Jo said, the effort of speaking making her face screw up.
“Right, let’s see where he is.”
It’s like herding sheep in this place whenever you try to sort something out. Ethan went back to the office to find Hugo sitting at his computer, playing cards on the machine.
“All right?”
“Hi,” Hugo said, before turning back to the game.
“Did you get my e-mail about the meeting this morning?”
“Erm… can’t remember…” Ethan released his breath, which made Hugo look around ponderously, and with exaggerated movements, he minimised the game and looked through his e-mails, “… yeah, here it is. ‘Meet to discuss’, yeah I’ve got it.” He started playing the game again.
“Right, well, the meeting’s started, and we’re waiting for you…” Given the fury he felt, Ethan had no choice but to be exaggeratedly polite.
“Give me five then.”
Ethan stood there a moment in disbelief before going back to the conference room.
He did not turn up for another ten minutes, just as Ethan was about to go back and lose his temper.
“Right, thanks for coming. I’ve been given a project to do that involves going through some historical cases to look for various patterns, and to do that, I need help with a few bits. If I can give you this…”
He handed each of them two lists, the first comprising reference numbers of significant cases they had investigated, and the second containing various questions that needed answering, and paperwork that needed to be supplied for each one.
“… Right, it’s basically about cases you’ve done in the past. I wanted to go through it in a bit more detail ’cos it’s hard to explain in an e-mail…”
He spent twenty minutes going through what he needed in precise detail, feeling annoyed when seeing that Hugo was not taking any notes. It’ll be a fucking miracle if he gets it right, Ethan thought.
“… I know that’s a lot of work, but I’ve told you now so there’s plenty of time. Can I ask if you can get the stuff back to me a month from today please?”
“Has Pete agreed this?” Jo asked.
“Yeah, he knows about it.”
She looked away dolefully.
When he sat back at his desk, Mohammed folded his arms and stared at him, shaking his head.
“What?” Ethan asked.
“You Midlands Central types are all the same.”
“What are you on about now?”
“Another meeting you’ve been put in charge of. You must be loving it.”
“It would be better to have some piece and quiet once in a while. Anyone would think I am married, with all the nagging I’ve got to put up with.”
Mohammed rocked back to laugh.
“Seriously though, it’s good that Dan’s put you in charge of whatever this is. He obviously wants you to get experience of the management stuff as well as doing cases.”
“I suppose so. Changing the subject, I know it’s painful spending as much time together as we do, but do you fancy going to the cinema on the weekend? I’m not doing anything and there’s a few good films coming out.”
“I’ll check but I don’t think I can for the next few weekends. Hasna’s got a job interview and she wanted me to help her with some stuff. She gets nervous and has to memorise her answers. She’ll be able to do it no problem, it’s just a mental thing, you know what I’m saying? Maybe we could go the week after next?”
“Okay.”
Ethan was surprised by how irritated he was. It was usually Mo who asked him to go out; the one time he felt like doing something, he was busy.
“By the way, what’s the matter with Jo? She seems really depressed. More than usual, I mean,” Mohammed said.
“Dunno. She was supposed to have stormed out the office crying again the other day after you left. I wasn’t paying attention. Usual blah probably.”
“All heart you are.”
“We live in a world ruled by sentiment. A bit more cruelty would do everyone some good.”
Later that afternoon, Ethan received a message from a university friend asking him if he wanted to go out that night. He replied that he would, then wondered whether he should invite Aislin. She had met his old friends a few times, and they’d got on quite well. He spent a long time debating with himself before deciding not to.
Ethan paced himself for the rest of the day, knowing that he did not have enough to do, not starting his remaining jobs in case his workload was even lighter the following week. The bosses are so frustrating sometimes with how much time they waste. He left soon after his colleagues and went straight to the hotel conference room that his friends had hired for the night.
An MV projected holographic shapes and lights over the room. Alcohol was one of the few commodities that had become cheaper in the Eternal City in recent years while largely maintaining its taste. Licensing regulation had been progressively reduced although high rent prices had forced most pubs out of business. However, there had been a boom in small off-licences, universally known as ‘crammers’. They comprised mobile stalls that could be set up either in places of high demand or wherever was convenient for private clients.
Although they had of course all changed since university, some of them were working and one was married, their respective roles in the group had remained much the same since they had met as teenagers. His time with them was one of the few occasions when he was not defined by his status, which he simultaneously liked and disliked, as his childhood was foreign to him now.
When Ethan got home that night, he knew that he would still be drunk the next day, but was fed up enough to pretend to himself that he did not care. Alcohol exacerbated his sleep deprivation, and when he heard his alarm the following morning, he looked around suspiciously, as if someone was making the sound to annoy him. Ethan ambled around the house several times before ringing Aislin. It went to answerphone and she returned his call a few minutes later.
“Hi stranger, how are you?” she asked.
“Good thanks. What you up to?”
“Well, we thought we’d relive the past. I’ve booked an hour in the swimming baths to see if I can get out the shallow end.”
“You’ll be an Olympic contender again after ten minutes.”
“Those days are long gone. It was Daisy’s idea. I’m glad she said it actually ’cos I haven’t had time to do any exercise since I got back.”
“Well, that’s why I said before about the self-defence stuff.”
“Mmm.”
“You fancy coming over later?”
<
br /> “I’m sure we can squeeze you into the schedule.”
“What time?”
“Give us an hour.”
“Okay, see you later. Oh, by the way, did you get a parcel at work?”
“The certificate, you mean? Yeah.”
“Well done, it should have been just you.”
“Thanks. Right, I’ll be over soon.”
Ethan cleaned the house, doing jobs that he only usually did when he was on leave for more than a week, such as wiping the skirting boards and hoovering behind the sofas. He even put a fresh shirt on.
When they arrived, he kissed Aislin twice before she came into the house and nodded at Daisy. She wore a green top and combat trousers, the same as when he had last seen her. They sat on the sofa opposite him and were silent awhile.
He had wondered whether Daisy would have got rid of her braid, which, together with her red cheeks, had been his main targets for farmer jokes the last time they had met. However, she looked much the same as before, as if taking pride in the wholesomeness of her appearance.
“What’ve you been doing this morning?” Aislin asked.
“Nothing much. Watching the news, doing a bit of reading. I’ve needed to relax after how busy it’s been this week.”
“Have you put in the paperwork for a transfer yet?”
Aislin smiled ironically and Ethan frowned.
Daisy turned to her before he could reply. “Are you looking for something different?”
“Thinking about it. There are loads of jobs out there that pay more for shorter hours.”
“That’s a really good idea. There’s the social aspect of it as well, I’ve always been surprised that you chose this.”
Ethan sat up.
“What do you mean, ‘the social aspect’?”
Daisy turned her head with haughty effort. “I mean that there’s plenty of jobs out there that can benefit the whole society.”
“I don’t understand, more than what?”
“More than what you do.”
“Really? You come into my house and tell me that my job isn’t ‘socially acceptable’. It’s lucky for you that someone is willing to do it. I’d like to see what a mess we’d be in if no one bothered.”
“Okay. Whatever. Twenty years of being told when to sleep and blah blah blah.”
Her nonchalant tone infuriated him, and Ethan felt as if nothing but the two of them existed.
“No, what do you mean? You can’t insult me then just say ‘whatever’. First thing, we don’t tell people ‘when to sleep’. If you’ve not got a licence, then you’re allowed to sleep between eleven and seven. No one says you’ve got to. You can party through the night if you’d prefer. You just can’t sleep the rest of the time when you’re supposed to be working. Twenty years of trying to put things back together, more like it. Do you want the country to fall apart?”
“Yeah right. Like everything would stop if people could join whatever political parties they want.”
“Political parties? What are you talking about now? We’ve got nothing to do with political parties.”
“Yeah, like the Iklonians aren’t a political movement.”
Ethan laughed. “Political parties are the people talking bullshit on the MV. They don’t tend to blow up buildings or take out industry.”
“I don’t understand: ‘taking out industry’? How can they take out industry?”
“Daisy, there are people in India and China working twenty hours a day. Productivity in this country decreased every year for the sixty years before the Sleep Code was brought in. What were we supposed to do about it? Cross our fingers? Hope that something turns up? Why should people be allowed to laze around all day anyway? We’ve got to introduce discipline somehow and everyone knows that excess sleep is one of the main problems. I’m asking you now. What else can we do?”
“You go on as if… How am I supposed to answer that?”
“Exactly, you haven’t got another solution. You’re just someone who reaps the rewards of what we do but tuts about the methods. Do you think we can afford to subsidise everything as much as your farm?”
“How dare you…”
Daisy went red and for a moment, Ethan thought that she was going to cry. Aislin stood and walked to the door.
“I’m getting really sick of this. I can’t bring my best friend over to my boyfriend’s house without it turning into a debate on the future of civilisation. How many times have I got to listen to this? Why can’t you just both keep your opinions to yourselves? I’m going swimming, I hope neither of you have any objections to that?”
Ethan wanted to argue further but her angry tone made him think better of it. Daisy went outside and Aislin turned back to him.
“Why can’t we ever have fun? We can’t even talk about having kids because that might interfere with your plans to save the world. Are you going to say anything? For God’s sake.”
She took a step forward and Ethan breathed inwards at the thought that she might hit him. Aislin sighed then left the room.
He paced around the lounge, repeating his arguments to himself. Why has she left with her after the way she insulted me? It’s a fucking joke. Not for the first time, Ethan thought about whether he should put an entry about Daisy into Mirror, detailing her obvious sympathy towards the Iklonians. He only persuaded himself not to do so after several hours of going over the permutations of what might happen, when he thought that he might compromise Aislin. He felt like crying when realising that self-interest prevented him from doing his duty. He went over the situation again and again as if scratching a rash until it bled.
Aislin was very attractive when she was angry, when her eyes flashed and her hair whipped around her face. Ethan knew that if only she could be placed in situations where she would have to confront subversion, like at the airport, then she would soon regain her old enthusiasm for the job.
He was determined to wait for Aislin to apologise, or at least break the ice, but by the evening, he could not stand the tension any longer and sent her a message. She replied within a few minutes, and to his amazement, he also got a message from Daisy, saying sorry for her initial comments about the SDMA. Aislin must have forced her to send it. He replied telling her not to worry then deleted her details from his mobile.
Ethan felt stodgy for the remainder of the weekend, and everything he did seemed somehow unsatisfactory. His mind wandered even as he played on his computer and listened to music, which he rarely had time to do nowadays. It was as if he were waiting for something to happen.
Five
He took the train on Monday morning as driving seemed too strenuous. Even looking out the window was a chore, like chewing food that would not break down in his mouth. When he got off, waiting for a space to move into as people shuffled around him seemed part of an arcane game. He thought that there were no consequences to his actions, that it would not matter if he pushed someone on the tracks or jumped himself. He rubbed the corners of his eyes, which sharpened him momentarily before he drifted back into weariness.
He received an automated message from the SDMA, which started with a headline as if it were a newspaper article: ‘Home Secretary Clears SDMA of Unlawful Targeting of Protestors’, before summarising a redacted report that had recently been published. Ethan could not remember all the details but it was something about a demonstration that had turned into a riot a few years earlier, when they had been tearing down posters, breaking windows, and the rest. There had been accusations at the time that the SDMA had later targeted those responsible, on the basis that many of them had committed SC breaches after the event. Why do we bother replying to this stuff? The only people our press releases convince are our supporters. All they end up doing is giving the conspiracy nuts something else to shout about. He thought about whether to speak to someone from Communications when he got in before th
inking better of it. Criticising a decision without knowing who has made it is unwise.
When he walked from the station to the SDMA building, his steps seemed to make no impression on the pavement, such that his destination became further away the more effort he put in.
He managed to concentrate on his screen for two hours that morning before exhaustion blurred his vision and he had to hold his head. He yawned so often that Mohammed asked him what was wrong, to which Ethan replied “nothing”, feeling bored of the incipient conversation. He thought about booking more leave, but Hypnos hung on his shoulders like a backpack full of rocks. Bastards. This is what you get in this place for doing your job properly. Bastards.
The less efficient he became, the worse he felt and the longer he had to stay at his desk. That Thursday, he set himself the goal of finishing the first draft of a chapter of his report by the end of the week. However, his colleagues conspired against him; no one seemed to be able to access any system or solve any problem themselves; he walked miles around the office as people came to him with ill-defined queries, each of which was an adventure to resolve.
By the afternoon, he still had hours of work to do, and the thought of coming in the following day to the same problems made him close his eyes. He had a silent argument with himself about whether the overtime money was worth it. However, Ethan remained firmly in his seat, knowing that it was pointless to have even thought about it, because he had no choice but to do his duty.
Working alone at night was always surreal, but even more so in that state, when it seemed as if he were typing because of some monstrous punishment that mandated that he should always do so, the screen filling with more and more words in an unending sequence. He felt as if he were the only person in the city, that he had been ordered to maintain it after everyone else had been evacuated, and after a while, he thought he could discern mocking faces in the shapes of the letters.