GEORGIA PERKINS: I hear you Johnny! Hello everyone and welcome to the M25. Over one thousand students from a variety of universities and colleges across the United Kingdom have put their institutional rivalries aside and will come together this morning to make history. And as Johnny said, this remarkable event will be performed a few feet in front of the inner wall of the M25. In other words, this historic event is going to happen inside London.
The crowd goes wild with excitement. Several people are blowing whistles and trumpets in the background.
GEORGIA PERKINS: Now just before we continue, I want to address the current situation with Mr Apocalypse. Unfortunately that service is still down for the time being. The people upstairs have told us that there’s an emergency situation going on in the neighbourhood and that this has caused a technical glitch, which in turn has forced TFL to turn off the cameras for safety reasons. We’ll let you know more about this when we can but don’t worry – it’s being dealt with.
The camera cuts back to Johnny Castle in the Heli-Cam.
JOHNNY CASTLE: Now forget all about Mr Apocalypse, yeah? You lot are about to see something very special – something that you’ve never seen before. You’re about to see history in the making.
Chapter 22
Walker looked at Barboza. He’d been less frightened back at the river, staring into the yellowy-gold eyes of the suburban tiger, than he was now. There had been nothing hidden underneath the surface of that primal encounter – it had been man versus beast. Simple. An age-old battle of different species. And when it was over it was over.
But this was different. Now he was standing on the edge of a dark crevasse – looking down into the unknown. And Barboza’s words were the hands that would push him over that edge, tumbling into the deep fracture in the ice, towards his doom.
But he had to hear them.
“You better start talking,” he said to Barboza.
Barboza hung her head. She walked past him and sat down on the couch. There was an eerie calmness about the young woman now, far removed from the raw emotion that had been on display just moments earlier. Now she was little more than a mannequin speaking in quiet voice.
“What do you want to know?” she said.
“Everything,” he said.
She shook her head. “Everything? Are you sure about that Walker? Because this is your last chance to live in blissful ignorance. If I go now, that’ll be the end of it. Just forget what you heard and go back to living your life. There’s still time.”
“Everything,” Walker said.
Barboza sat up straight, almost formally, as if a job interview was getting underway.
“Okay then,” she said. “My name is Sharon Freeman. I come from Leeds originally, but I moved to Birmingham in 2015 to pursue my acting career. This – what I’m doing here – is a job. I was put here for several reasons but the most important thing was to get into your house.”
Walker tried to comprehend what he was hearing. But he felt lightheaded. He could see tiny white spots drifting aimlessly around in his field of vision. He wasn’t sure whether it was all the physical activity that morning or Barboza’s words alone that had triggered it.
Whatever it was, he decided to sit down on the armchair. As he looked across the room, he shielded his eyes from the sunlight pouring in through the window.
“What about the letter?” he said. “What about the rogues outside your house?”
Barboza was looking at the floor.
“They were actors too,” she said. She spoke in a dispassionate voice, like someone reading out the TV listings in a magazine.
“Oh Christ,” Walker said. He pictured himself walking across Langham Road in a pair of his mother’s high heels. “What about the one I killed at the river last week?” he said. “Was that an…?”
Barboza shook her head quickly.
“Actor?” she said. “No. That was the real deal. Why do you think they dressed the one outside my house like they did? They got the idea from your guy. Maybe they hoped that seeing the actor dressed in that way would convince you to help me because of what happened to you. Empathy or something – I don’t know. But no – you killed a rogue. A real one.”
Walker gasped with relief. He’d still killed a man of course, but the thought that he’d stabbed a working actor to death instead of some crazy bastard who was trying to eat his flesh, that would have made things a lot worse.
“The letter was planted,” Barboza said. “They dropped it here on the street so that you’d find it.”
Walker thought back to that day. He recalled finding the family of corpses several houses down and then, just as he’d been on the brink of leaving that house, hearing the sound of a car engine coming from the road. Walker had convinced himself that he’d imagined that sound – that the dead bodies had messed with his mind and that it was just one more thing on his list of reasons for being crazy.
“There was a car that day,” he said.
Barboza nodded.
Walker looked at her, sitting across from him. He wasn’t sure what to think of her. He wasn’t sure what to feel. Was he supposed to be angry? Was he supposed to hate her? If anything he was numb, in a dreamlike state where everything felt transient and without roots. It was only just dawning on him however, like a slow realisation, that she’d been deceiving him ever since they met. Since before they met. And yet here she was, spilling her guts, telling him all the forbidden truths that he was never supposed to find out. Whose side was she on? What chain of events had she set into motion with this sudden confession?
“You said they put you here to get into my house,” Walker said. “Why? What’s so important about getting in here?”
Barboza hesitated.
“Cameras,” she said.
“Cameras?”
“Listen to me Walker,” Barboza said. “This is what’s going on. You’re part of the biggest reality TV show that the world has ever seen,” she said. “All of you – everyone who still lives in this shithole of a city is a member of the cast. It’s called The Future of London. TFL for short.”
Walker sat motionless. He felt a shrill, icy sensation seeping into his soul. Was this what they called awakening? Enlightenment?
Barboza edged forwards in her seat. “About seven or eight years ago they started planting millions of high-tech, hidden cameras throughout the city,” she said. “Now they’re everywhere. And they use these cameras to film you and all the people doing whatever it is you do in a city with no laws, no government, no police – no anything. The people who watch – they can’t get enough of it. That’s why they pay for it.”
Walker sat back in the armchair, trying to process. “Go on,” he whispered.
“Think of it as a social experiment,” Barboza said. “At least that’s how they justify it to themselves and to us. They also say it’s a humanitarian thing – that they can use the cameras to find people and get them out. Surprise surprise, it hasn’t happened yet. You don’t hear many people talking about TFL’s original bring them home premise anymore. It’s entertainment and nothing else. We all know it and we’re all responsible.”
Barboza shook her head.
“There are cameras embedded in the streetlights, in the walls, in the trees, in the rocks, in the parks – they spent all those years filling up the city with electronic eyes. That’s what the techs call the cameras – Eyes. I didn’t know that until last week.”
Walker looked her dead in the eyes. “So you put a camera in here?”
Barboza nodded. She pointed towards a section of the living room wall, where an empty picture hook hung on a sea of white paint.
“See that hook?” she said. “It’s not the same picture hook that was here when I first moved in. I replaced it on the first night. Fortunately you’re not the type of person who notices little details like that.”
Walker stood up and went over to the wall. He leaned forward, staring hard at the mounted hook. At the top of the hook, front and centre
, there was a screw looking back at him, like the eye of a Cyclops. It couldn’t have been more than 3 millimetres in diameter.
“That’s a camera?” Walker said.
“Sure is,” she said. “The screw lens is one of the best ways to disguise it. They’ve got thousands and thousands of these scattered across the city. Pinhole spy cams – they use them too – but it’s probably the screw lens that you’re hearing out on the street. Only someone living in a quiet place like this would notice. I didn’t know anything about it until I got the crash course on how to install the screw lens. It was like research for the part you know? Same thing with capoeira. Good job I was already flexible or I would never have got the part.”
Walker was still looking at the picture hook. That tiny little thing?
“I’m sorry,” Barboza said. “I had no idea what it was like in here. You’re a good bloke Walker. You took that old woman’s bones and buried them with her dog. That was a nice thing you did.”
Walker glanced at the vintage record player on the floor.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Barboza said. “I can’t just sit here and let you think you’re crazy.”
“And I thought you were just thirsty,” Walker said. “The first night you stayed here I mean. But you were putting cameras up in my house, weren’t you?”
Barboza nodded.
“How could I have been so stupid?” Walker said.
Barboza smiled at him, trying to send something positive his way. “No,” she said. “It’s not your fault. How could you have imagined they’d do something like this?”
“So nobody in London knows they’re being filmed?” Walker said.
“I’m almost certain you’re the first,” she said.
“Incredible,” Walker said.
“You’re living in a contained apocalypse Walker,” Barboza said. “You’re entertainment. You’re an experiment. The government and a big media corporation called SKAM control your life. You make for good TV and that’s all there is to it. Ratings and money. That’s why you have electricity inside the M25 – because the studio must be lit at all times. That’s why helicopters and armoured vehicles bring maintenance crews into the city. It’s not for your benefit – it’s for them. You understand? They saw an opportunity in London’s suffering.”
“So they watch us?” Walker said. “They watch me? Doing nothing all day?”
“You’d be surprised what garbage people watch,” Barboza said. “No offence. People will pay to watch nothing. Some people can’t get enough of it. They’ve even given you a name to make you sound more exciting – Mr Apocalypse.”
Walker almost laughed out loud.
“What?”
“They ran a competition on I-9 to name you,” she said. “A little kid won. They paraded him around on TV and he gave you your name live on air – Mr Apocalypse. Because you live like you’re the last man on Earth.”
Walker looked again at the picture hook on the wall. “I-9?” he said.
“Social media,” Barboza said.
“Like Facebook? Twitter?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But I-9 gobbled up all the old websites. Rudyard Campbell owns them now – he owns SKAM TV too. Everything is on I-9 – news, family stuff, videos – everything like that.”
Barboza pointed to her shoes, a pair of black casual ballet flats.
“Look at these things,” she said. “Do they really look like the shoes of someone who’s been living inside the M25 for nine years? I’m a walking billboard. I get extra money for wearing these.”
“And what about the flirting?” Walker said, not even looking at the shoes.
Barboza looked away quickly.
“There’s a big audience for you Mr Apocalypse,” she said. “Somebody at TFL figured there’d be interest in a romance. So they invented Cristiane Barboza – the tough, exotic survivor chick. Brazilian girl. Good thing my mum was Spanish, eh? Not much chance of me losing this role to some dumb blonde girl with big tits.”
Walker didn’t respond. He was looking at the picture hook again.
“And to think,” Barboza said. “The casting people said I was perfect for the role. I picked up the capoeira moves fast. My accent was good. You’re perfect for the role, they said. I bet they’re not saying that now.”
“Take the camera out,” Walker said, nodding at the picture hook. “And any others that you put up – get them out too. Is there one in the bathroom? Has the entire world been watching me take a shit for the past week?”
Barboza’s face wore a grim expression. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t take them out.”
Walker glared across the room at her.
“You put them in,” he said. “Take them out and then get the hell out of my house.”
Barboza shook her head.
“It doesn’t work like that Walker,” she said. “Once the Eyes are activated they have to be switched off at the Control Station – that’s in Birmingham. It’s a way of protecting them from local interference. That is, if somebody in London does realise what they’re looking at someday, then they’re unable to disable it. It’s insurance.”
Walker turned back to the picture hook on the wall. He felt like his head was about to explode with all this new information. Not to mention the heat.
“Then I’ll cover it up myself,” he said. “Show me where they are and I’ll cover them all up. Fuck them and fuck you Barboza. You’re not driving me out of this house.”
He started kicking at the screw lens camera with the flat of his shoe.
“Fuck you!” he said.
With each kick, the walls of the house shook a little. It was a satisfying outburst, but it was too hot and Walker could feel himself running out of steam. He was breathing hard and his skin sizzling with an incandescent rage. His leg was sore and tingling.
“We don’t have time for this Walker,” Barboza said. “We have to get out of here. Don’t you understand? Now that you know everything you’re no longer safe here. You’re going to have to leave this house and never come back. Not if you want to stay alive.”
“No,” Walker said, ending another violent outburst against the wall. “This is my home. If my parents come back…”
“Your parents are dead!” Barboza yelled. “You know that.”
“I don’t know anything,” he said, turning to face her. “You could be full of shit for all I know. What if you’re lying to me – again? I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you.”
“You saved my life man,” Barboza said. “Now I’m trying to save yours. Listen to me Walker – you’re going to have to leave this house and everything in it.”
Walker pointed back towards the picture hook. “Are they watching us now?” he asked.
“The people who run the show are,” Barboza said. “The top brass. Not the public. They cut us off the moment I started talking.”
Walker closed his eyes. Wake up. Wake up now.
“We have to go Walker,” Barboza said. Her voice was trembling and urgent.
Walker opened his eyes. It wasn’t a dream. He could still feel the stinging sensation in his left arm. Real pain. This was real life after all.
“I can’t leave this place,” he said. “This is my home. You said it yourself – it’s my sanctuary.”
Barboza took a step forward and grabbed him by the wrist. He was taken aback at the strength of her grip and didn’t even try to pull away.
“I just told you the most twisted little secret in the world,” she said. “That makes me a traitor. And you in here, knowing what you know, that makes you a very dangerous individual. They’re coming for us Walker. If we stay here – we die.”
Chapter 23
TFL: Calling London! - Knife Bucket Challenge Special
Two SKAM Heli-Cams are filming from above:
One thousand students have gathered approximately twenty feet ahead of the M25’s inner wall.
The s
tudents – sitting in plastic chairs that run in fifty rows of twenty – are taking selfies and enjoying the ongoing festival-like atmosphere. There is laughter and nervous energy in abundance. Loud rock music is playing on a constant loop. All this in anticipation of the record-breaking challenge that’s about to be broadcast live across the world.
Most of the participants are under twenty-five. They grin and wave at the passing cameras, gesturing to both the audience at home and their friends and family who are gathered on the other side of the wall, watching on a large projection screen – twenty-three metres by ten – that has been erected in front of the outer wall.
A small military presence accompanies the one thousand participants. They have taken up position about fifty metres from the Knife Bucket Challenge area near the inner wall. Two armoured fighting vehicles are also on site, but remain stationary in the meantime. These eight-wheeled machines look like the product of some monstrous union between a tank and a truck. Both of them are drenched in traditional camouflage colours of dark green and tan. There is a single-piece circular hatch cover at the top rear of both AFVs, with a circular ring mounted around the hatch for attaching a machine gun to. A ramp door, which lies at the rear, and which gives access to the troop compartment, is open.
A small group of about thirty soldiers stands guard close to the AFVs. So far they appear relaxed and unconcerned by what is going on around them. History tells them that there’s little to worry about. It’s been a long time since any of the London natives dared to venture this close to the M25.
Georgia Perkins, Johnny Castle, and a small number of TFL crew, have joined the one thousand participants and are standing in front of the cameras at the inner wall.
The Future of London Box Set Page 34