Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle

by Matthew Blakstad

  ‘Apologies, ladies and gentlemen. The minister has been called away on an urgent matter. If you’ll excuse us now.’

  Bethany was bundled from the stage like a condemned woman from the dock.

  ¶sic_girl:

  Yep, let’s talk about Bethany Lehrer. Yay, Bethie! And her good friend Sean Perce. You know? The man with all your data? And with the hair? The guy Bethie never even spoke to last week?

  So, lovelies, you might be interested in these fa-a-ascinating communications between those two charming people.

  Oh deary dear. Might I wuz right about her lyings to Parliament last week? Maybe they shouldn’a diss me in the press next time, eh what?

  Just saying.

  More to come, dear hearts. Keep on keeping on.

  Eight

  ‘All right, folks. Can we please clear the room?’ Krish’s consonants cut the air of the windowless office. ‘Now is good. Yesterday better.’

  He waited for four event managers to file out, then strode in and filled the room with rangy energy, appraising its prefab desks, acetate ceiling tiles and utility carpet like a Secret Service man securing a route. He turned to beckon Bethany in.

  ‘This should do us for the now. Press can’t get to this level – organisers and speakers only.’

  Bethany nodded and moved to a chair.

  ‘So it’s the email?’

  She’d somehow known it would come out, almost wondered if Karen had leaked it to spite her after this morning’s meeting.

  ‘Emails, plural,’ said Krish.

  Bethany froze in the act of fishing her BlackBerry from her handbag.

  ‘Emails?’

  ‘Sixteen emails, posted just now on an untouchable blog site out of Somethingstan. Apparently sent between you and Mr Perce between the first of the month and last Wednesday. Mails to his work address. Mails to his home address.’

  Bethany found no words. So it wasn’t her email to the Cabinet Secretary. Mails between her and Sean. Christ, which mails?

  ‘Beth, I have to say –’ but for a short time, Krish said nothing. Then: ‘These mails – did you really tell Mr Perce, just before you spoke in the House, that,’ reading now from his BlackBerry, ‘“Doo-doo happens, Sean. You had a breach but you closed the door. We’ll weather that. Let’s dripfeed this in a managed way.” Doo-doo, Beth? Taxpayer’s private records are hacked? Doo-doo? You know it’ll be that word that kills you?’

  This was insane. The doo-doo comment was nothing to do with the hack. There’d been some kind of glitch on Sean’s systems that temporarily put the data in the wrong place. But with everyone screaming about a hack, who would believe that? She’d almost think someone had hacked their data just to make those mails look incriminating. Except that was a loopy, paranoid thought.

  Bethany put her head in her hands for just a moment then composed herself. Riding it. Staying fresh.

  ‘It’s real, then?’ said Krish. ‘Why in Christ’s name not tell me?’

  She shrugged. He let out a long, hard breath. When she started to speak, she had no idea if her vocal chords were going to work.

  ‘It’s not what it –’ Her voice was an analogue tape recording, copied too many times. ‘I didn’t know about a hack, Krish. These mails are unrelated. Please believe me.’

  His face was not ready to believe or disbelieve.

  ‘I’ve mailed you the link,’ he said.

  He moved to the door and eyed the corridor. She turned on her BlackBerry and found the emails, read through them with her breath held.

  She let the air out. This was awful but the mails were only business. She put the device away and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Why are they doing this to me?’ she asked. ‘We’re trying to do good.’

  ‘That’s not the question. Only three questions matter: who is doing this, how are they doing it, and how do we stop them?’

  His voice was unnaturally steady. He had a bullet-like directness in a crisis.

  ‘Hah,’ she said. ‘You know, I’m almost relieved in a way.’

  She pulled her compact from her bag and scanned the heavy skin of her face.

  ‘This rather takes the sting out of Karen’s threats,’ she said, ‘doesn’t it? No need to hedge. Everyone knows Sean told me about a security breach, but there’s nothing here about a hack.’

  ‘You think anyone but you is going to make that fine distinction? Focus, Beth, for chrissake. This is not some disaffected blogger throwing mud. Someone is reading our secure mails. This is sabotage. And this will not be the end of it.’ He held up his BlackBerry. ‘Central Office are calling the polis back in.’

  She snapped her compact shut.

  ‘You think someone’s reading our mail? The department’s? Not Sean’s?’

  ‘What does it look like to you?’ he said. ‘These mails are all sent to different addresses, different organisations. The only thing they have in common is your departmental account.’

  He stalked off, prowling around the airless room. Then stopped.

  ‘But you know what?’ he said. ‘You’re right. We need to think strictly plausible deniability. Those mails are great Parley fodder and you’re going to get two days’ worth of shit all over you—’

  ‘Oh, thanks. Charming.’

  ‘– but there’s no smoking gun. Yet. Yet. Christ knows what else they’ve got. Christ knows.’ He bore down on her. ‘We have a window. When you stand on that platform on Friday, make DigiCitz national, there’s no going back. This is your one chance to wake up and be honest about what you and Perce –’

  He stopped at that and peeled away, putting two fingers to his nose and squeezing its bridge till his glasses popped off. Bethany was pinned to her seat. Krish righted his glasses and continued more gently.

  ‘Look, now. I need to fix things up for us to leave. You’ll be right in here but,’ he pointed to the BlackBerry beside her on the table, ‘no mail. Not for anything confidential or – personal. It’s paper and landline from now. All right?’

  Bethany looked down at the device. Since when were they under siege? She looked up and nodded but Krish was already gone, the door standing open. The air con sounded from the low suspended ceiling. What the hell do you do backstage at a conference centre without email? She looked around the utilitarian room. Nothing but bumf and stand-up displays from past exhibitions. For the first time since making minister, she wished she had a Kindle in her bag.

  There was a cough in the hallway, and footsteps. A man. She waited a second, then stood and called Krish’s name.

  The footsteps paused, then began to approach. Bethany stepped back from the chair. What if this was press? What were her lines? She was out in the open. They hadn’t even begun to discuss her lines. She wished J-R was here.

  But it was Sean who appeared in the doorway. His eyes found her and he gave her his untidy boy’s grin.

  ‘Ha! Thought I knew that voice! What are you –’ He scanned the little room. ‘Just you? No minder?’ Beth shook her head, speechless. ‘Well, my God, every cloud.’

  He shut the door and was right in front of her, as if through a jump-cut. His hand grabbed the back of her neck, pushing up into her hair. The other seized her arm, pulling her in.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not now.’

  His scored face was inches from hers.

  ‘And if not now, when? Seize the day.’

  He pulled her harder, his breath sweet, as though he’d been chewing liquorice. She let yield the muscles in her back, allowing him to crush her into his chest. He kissed against her mouth. Heat flowed into her gut, where for days there had been only rock and resistance. Ever since Spain. She grabbed his head with both hands and bit into his lips. Her tongue raked the back of his teeth. Insane. She felt for the table and planted her buttocks on its edge, lifting her legs around him. With both hands on the small of his back she pulled him in, his trunk compact as a bull terrier.

  This is how it first exploded between them: hidden in public places, covert trys
ts inflaming them both.

  She rubs herself against the thickness of his cock, blatant under the light wool of his suit, twists to reach a hand down as he forces up her shirt. He grunts as she clasps him and begins to work him. He makes rippling motions over her breast, through her bra. She gasps: how can such a hard man be so tender? The sick smell rises. It inflames her. She wiggles back on the table to get both hands to his crotch and work the zip, set his cock free. He pulls back, expectant. She slides down from the table to take him in her mouth. Breathes in the smell of an animal’s lair.

  What a photo opportunity this would make.

  Subject: Ts and Cs

  From: johnrhys.pemberton@mintech.gsi.gov.uk

  To: mark@mdsecure.com

  Mark,

  As mentioned.

  Thanks again for agreeing to look through these. Attached are Terms and Conditions Digital Citizens sign up to. Also Mondan contract and Service Level Agreements. Trust you find them engaging bedtime reading! Suffice to say they might as well be in Sanskrit for yours truly.

  Fear you witnessed unexpectedly interesting talk by Bethany just now? We are currently sixes and sevens, as you may imagine. Wouldn’t mind a chat. Also about that other matter. Tomorrow am when you’ve read these docs?

  Best as always,

  JRP

  Nine

  ‘Parley is on borrowed time,’ said Sean. ‘It’s a net-loss-making hobby project which was good for grabbing attention – Look at us! We can manufacture celebrities out of data! – But it does nothing for my group balance sheet beyond maybe goodwill.’

  For a man who’d just been pleasured by a minister of state, Sean was in a businesslike frame of mind. As he paced the room, Bethany fixed her eyes on her little mirror, touching at her lipstick with an unsteady finger.

  ‘I’ve always seen it as a force for good,’ she said. ‘It’s democratic.’

  Sean stopped his prowling and stood in front of her chair.

  ‘Are you seeing it that way today? Really?’

  ‘Please, Sean. You know what I mean.’ She shut her mirror and tucked it into her bag. ‘Right now I’d happily see the whole bloody site pulled down in a second. But you can hardly blame Parley for the actions of this – whoever it is – that’s working so hard to make the two of us ridiculous.’

  ‘I can blame who I damn well want,’ he said. ‘I didn’t purchase that nest of overpaid hipsters at an inflated multiple to see them publish this sort of shit about me.’

  Sean strode around like a predator in a cage. All of him was a performance. He was ever spoiling for a confrontation. Though he’d nothing left to prove, he had the self-made man’s constant need for reinforcement of his success, his status. Well-fed cats still hunt for sparrows in the neighbour gardens, because they know no other way to fill their days. Bethany had always been excited by this extravagant fury, enjoyed facing off against it with a blithe front, letting his aggravation slide over her impregnable calm. Which in turn would fire him up still more. Their spats rarely ended in anything but sex. Now, though, Bethany was too much on edge. He must wonder where his tough girl had vanished to, today. How little he knew about her; but then, how little she ever showed him. Only Peter got to see the terror she felt, each day of her ministerial life.

  ‘Why, though?’ she said. ‘Whoever this is, why are they after me? After us? The Digital Citizen is a public good. We’re empowering people. This troublemaker is on the point of scuppering everything over nothing. Over piggies!’

  ‘Over Pigglies, I believe.’

  ‘Oh, God, Sean – whatever!’

  Sean lowered himself into a chair alongside her. He was very still. Thinking hard.

  ‘Bluntly, Beth – because I can’t see a reason to be any other way – you always were a single-minded bloody idiot, weren’t you?’

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Your empowerment,’ he said. ‘Are people allowed to have their own idea of what’s best for them?’

  ‘Yeah, fuck you, actually, Sean, I am not in the mood for this.’

  She stood and smoothed her shirt. Christ, the vomit smell was still there – along with the salt and musk of Sean.

  ‘We don’t have long,’ she said. ‘I need you to actually help me here. I need solid, written proof that the data breaches mentioned in those mails had nothing to do with the Pigglies hack – or whatever it was.’

  ‘Are you still on that? Do you really not know what you’ve signed your citizens up for? You should talk to your own people.’

  ‘I’m not trading in riddles today,’ she said. ‘I need something tangible, and I need it before the launch event. Before Friday.’

  Sean stood silently, glaring, then strode off.

  ‘Oh, what’s this, now?’ she snapped. ‘I stood up in the bloody House of Commons, you know, and flat out stated there was no risk to the data – on your say-so.’

  Sean affected to read some promotional bumf that had been left lying on a table by the wall.

  ‘And why the hell wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘How many ways do I need to say this? There was no hack.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how irritating it is when you’re deliberately obtuse? Thanks to whoever-she-is leaking my mails, the whole world knows you told me about these security glitches and now everyone believes I was lying my arse off – to the House. Do you even know what that means?’

  Sean dropped the brochure and turned to her in mock amazement.

  ‘Seriously? Those breaches were routine. I don’t know what Pollyanna notion you have about the net but it’s the Wild West out there. We get ten thousand would-be penetration attacks a day.’ He shifted his burly frame towards her, somehow growing larger as he moved. ‘And you’re up my backside because three times – three times – someone opened a hole in our defences, the size of your thumbnail?’ He found a particularly ugly way to poke his thumb in her face. ‘It was nothing!’

  ‘It’s become a hell of a lot more now you’ve let someone walk in and hack my data.’

  ‘Christ!’

  Bethany reared back from this sudden fury. All of a sudden he wasn’t sparring. His nostrils flared, bull-like, as he bore down on her. She took two steps back.

  ‘There has been,’ he spat at her, ‘No! Hack!’

  His fist was up, directly in front of her face. She stood her ground, head back, and for a second she thought he might actually strike her; but the fist wound slowly back down to his side. When he spoke again it was measured, controlled.

  ‘Even if – if – someone got through our defences, and read off every record in the DigiCitz database – which they did not – they wouldn’t be able to decrypt the data. How many times do I need to explain to you how encryption works?’

  ‘Maybe you should try using the English language once in a while? See how that goes.’

  ‘Christsake! Are you Minister for the Internet or some Mumsnet whinge? Grow a pair.’

  ‘Oh, great. That’s your message is it? Be more like a man? I have so had it with this macho crap.’

  Sean stepped back suddenly, looking straight past her, his face unreadable.

  ‘What. The. Hell?’

  A new voice. Male. Bethany turned to follow Sean’s eyes and found Krish. He’d stopped short a couple of metres into the room and was staring at them with the kind of fury she’d only seen him use on the press or the Opposition.

  ‘Are you both daft?’ he said. ‘Do you not know what’s all over the blogs? How d’ye think this is going to look when the fucking Mirror walks in here?’

  ‘Krish. Mate,’ said Sean from outside Bethany’s field of vision. ‘What a pleasure it always is. Sorry to have to dash.’

  He came back into view and put himself between her and Krish as he slid his jacket on. He touched her just above the elbow. She flinched but he grabbed her arm, hard. Christ: in front of Krish.

  ‘Listen to me. I’ll get you something by Friday, sure. And then I am taking this problem away for good. Trust me.’

 
She laughed once, short and hard. He read something from her eyes and nodded, turned and strode out of the door. Krish stepped aside to avoid being shoved, then turned his furious look on Bethany.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, holding up a finger. ‘Just don’t, all right? Do not.’

  They held this stand-off a few seconds more, then laughter broke from both of them. Krish came forward with arms out and Bethany let him squeeze her briefly before he stepped back, shaking his head and smiling on her.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ he said. ‘They’re burning you in effigy at Central Office just now, you know that? If we do go ahead with the launch on Friday, I’m feared it’ll be your heid up on the stage – on a spike, with Karen waving it.’

  In spite of everything, Bethany continued to laugh, feeling freer and more alive than she had in weeks.

  ‘Come on, hen. We’ve got you a safe way out, through the gym and the delivery bay. The car’s there now.’

  Bethany fetched up her bag, then stopped. What had Sean said before they fell into that argument? Talk to your own people?

  ‘Krish?’

  ‘Come on, now.’

  ‘No, just a second. This morning. With Karen. What did she want to talk to you about when I left?’

  He was still holding his arm out to guide her out through the door.

  ‘This is not the time,’ he said.

  ‘Was it to do with Mondan?’

  Krish sighed and dropped his arm.

  ‘She was telling me about some overnight polling with one of their groups. It does not look good for you and I’m to break the news. Looks like I just did.’

  She fixed him with a hard stare.

  ‘And that was all?’