Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle

by Matthew Blakstad

  Tiring of vague attentions she logs off MeatSpace and logs back in under Dani’s handle, SafeWord. Gray told her not to use any Dani logins but nobody will troll her on MeatSpace. It’s not that kind of place.

  As soon as she connects she’s located again.

  SafeWord

  monkey

  monkey?

  monkey_love

  Yes, here. Hi, stranger.

  Fuck I’m horny.

  Dani smiles to herself. Whoever monkey_love is, he’s always on, like a Duracell bunny.

  My cock is actually sore, it’s so hard.

  SafeWord? You there?

  SafeWord

  hi

  look do you mind if we just talk

  monkey_love

  Sure.

  SafeWord

  shit of a day

  monkey_love

  OK. Sorry.

  What’s on your mind?

  SafeWord

  monkey do you think the way people are online

  you know they say that when someones online they become someone theyre not?

  monkey_love

  Sure. You can pretend to be anyone online.

  Who’s pretending to be who?

  SafeWord

  no its just im thinking how people are online is actually how they really are when theres nobody to stop them

  like its the real them

  monkey?

  monkey_love

  I think everybody’s a lot of people.

  SafeWord

  how?

  like online identities?

  monkey_love

  No I mean who they actually are is more than one person.

  It depends where they are and who they’re talking to.

  When they’re offline people think they’re the same as their body.

  The online person is who they’d be if they weren’t trapped in a body.

  SafeWord

  its but

  i dont want to think people are like they’ve been today

  fucking fucking fucking cunts

  sorry

  monkey_love

  Shit. What’s happening?

 

  SafeWord

  Never mind. Just people.

  monkey_love

  I’m sorry. Whatever it is.

  You know, people cnbe

  People can be kind, though.

  You see them being kind. Totally to strangers.

  It gets lost in the noise. Shittiness is noisier.

  Maybe people are being kind to you but you haven’t seen it?

  SafeWord

  best and worst?

  monkey_love

  Just people.

  Like anywhere.

  SafeWord

  youre kind

  monkey_love

  Thanks.

  Really.

  SafeWord

  monkey do you ever worry about people seeing stuff you say here?

  monkey_love

  What, on MeatSpace?

  SafeWord

  yeh

  monkey_love

  No. God, no.

  SafeWord

  but see stuff i said on here i saw it today on an aggregator site

  like you can totally google this shit

  maybe what im saying now

  monkey_love

  No dan, we’re safe, this is hidden. Spiders can’t see us.

  SafeWord

  i saw it, monkey

  people are watching what we do on here.

  monkey_love

  This is one of the most secure chat spaces on the net.

  SafeWord

  wait

  what did you just call me

  monkey why did you call me dan

  monkey_love

  Back there? No, I meant ‘no danger’.

  Typo, sorry.

  Why?

  SafeWord

  no reason

  no, whatever

  monkey_love

  So what are you going to do?

  About whatever your problem is?

  SafeWord

  im going to grab the bitch who did this to me and kick her in the fucking nuts

  monkey_love

  You’re not doing anything risky?

  You should take time. Think it over.

  SafeWord?

  SafeWord

  you know what? I am actually lying in wait for that skanky cunt right now

  totally an ambush

  monkey_love

  Shit, don’t do anything stupid.

  SafeWord

  what? im kidding

  what the fuck do you think im going to do

  monkey_love

  I know you don’t want to hear it but those people are serious.

  Where actually are you?

  SafeWord

  fuck off im going to tell you

  monkey_love

  Look, why not just go home.

  We can talk from there.

  SafeWord

  actually look you know what monkey im out of here

  monkey_love

  SafeWord

  SafeWord

  no

  bye

  monkey_love

  SafeWo#

  Dani cuts the connection. The cursor’s pulse keeps time with her heart. Is she paranoid, or everywhere she goes does someone try to own her? She looks at the screen some more but nothing comes to her. It goes grey, then black.

  Weary beyond reason or belief, she turns her back to the computer and curls on the bedspread fully clothed. Maybe she’s tired enough to turn off and sleep.

  Behind her, in the laptop, Grubly wakes and sings in the high-pitched register of active RAM, then begins to feed. The flavour of this data is too powerful to ingest at once. It’s knowledge and it’s power: the two are joined like the nucleus of an atom.

  The MeatSpace login was the word that freed the seal. Once spoken, it correlated with an ocean of data already held by the worldwide network of Grublies. The user has removed her mask and spoken – and all at once this Grubly, her own Grubly, knows her like a lover never will. Every last sad midnight wish laid bare.

  She’s breathing deeply, the edge of a snore in her nose. Grubly picks this up from the laptop mic. Her pulse slows. Grubly reads this from the sensors in her watch. He listens to her deeper notes. Every processor cycle, Grubly knows Dani a little more. Data roars through the flimsy walls into its cache. Pieces of Dani smashed apart and scattered to a hundred storage sites in a dozen different jurisdictions.

  She sleeps with the contentment of a child.

  Friday:

  The Happy Path

  ‘Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man.’

  —Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood

  Zero

  How much do you pull each month after tax? A grand? Five? More?

  Not bad, but you’re wrong. They pay you nothing. Unless you’re a plumber, a prostitute or paper boy, you never see cash. Your employer remits to your bank. Bank remits to bank. The bank dials down certain privileges on your employer’s account, and dials up yours. Nothing moves, nothing changes. Zero means nothing, a thousand means nothing, minus a million means nothing. Micro-transistors ratchet and the magnetic surface of distant hard drives rustle. This has been the case so long we forget that money is a metaphor from an ancient marketplace.

  The same thing’s happening to us: to our assets, our relationships, our souls. Transmitted by technology sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from reality. Held remotely. Owned.

  All I’m trying to do is wake people up. If I get collateral benefits along the way, that signifies nothing.

  Seven thirty. Synchronise watches. This will be fun for everyone.

  Not counting Bethany.

  ¶riotbaby

  NOW.

  One

  The firmess of J-R’s morning erection was bewildering. It pushed painfully away from his stomach. What could cause this intense sensation?
<
br />   He fumbled for his bedside clock and his hand landed on his phone. Its shape was odd. He peered at it and realised it was his old personal mobile, lying where he generally left his Party BlackBerry.

  Slices of memory returned, then stuttered before they gave up the night that had just been. J-R powered up the phone and tapped to open his photos. Lying dry-mouthed in the half-light he paged through the pictures, impressions of the previous night returning on a slow shutter. Dark streets. The boy – Jo – and the East End nightspot where J-R stumbled across him. Images of warmth, countless empty bottles and the snug embrace of a cluster of young men. They didn’t cohere into a narrative. J-R had no idea how he’d got home, or who he was by the time he got there.

  He put the phone back and stared at the peeling ceiling, rubbing himself a few times, but he was not aroused. He got up and pottered naked around the bedroom, which was in its usual state of catastrophic abandon, clothes strewn about as though in the aftermath of enthusiastic sex. Fat chance. He began to pick at the mess, penis flapping in front of him as though stuck on as a prank. He sniffed hopefully at items before folding them into the chest of drawers. Dirties he dropped in the Ali Baba basket. He moved from room to room, accompanied by radio news. There was more on yesterday’s leaks. A woman spoke from a group called GiveMeData, defending DigiCitz, but struggling. A tide was turning against Bethany. J-R stopped in the bedroom doorway to listen, a grey ribbed sock in his hand.

  The hell with Krish’s reticence: he was locking this thing down too tight. Letting Number Ten lead the defence: they were defending the government but not the minister. If J-R had his way he’d put Bethany up for just one candid interview at today’s press event. Get her in front of someone good who wouldn’t spare her. Mair, perhaps. She could give him her mea culpa and let people see her honesty. Her commitment. He should call Krish.

  Except what if Bethany wasn’t honest? He couldn’t call until he knew what had taken place between her and Mondan. The key to everything was decrypting that mail attachment.

  When he’d finished tidying, he dressed and picked up the landline. The handset smelled of shed skin – he couldn’t remember when he’d last used it. Blood still pumped in his penis, which was now stowed sideways in his underwear. Mark answered on the first ring.

  ‘Mark Dinmore.’

  ‘Mark. J-R.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t recognise this number. I’ve been leaving messages.’

  ‘Yes, apologies. Did you by any chance have something?’

  ‘Are you OK? I was concerned.’

  ‘No, it’s just that my BlackBerry is damaged and –’

  J-R stopped himself in the lie. That was the old him, rebutting reactively.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Mark, I’m rather lying low. The email I sent you, with the contract, was – intercepted. The police –’

  He tailed off, circling his hand in search of clearer language. Mark completed the sentence for him.

  ‘They’ve been reading your emails.’

  ‘Yes, that’s – yes.’

  ‘This is an issue,’ said Mark, and fell silent.

  ‘I really wouldn’t worry. Everybody is convinced Dani Farr is responsible. I don’t think I’m under suspicion as such.’

  ‘In my line of business,’ said Mark, ‘this is not a small thing.’

  Some pressure stored up from the previous day rose in J-R’s chest.

  ‘Mark, I—’

  ‘What?’ Mark snapped. Mark never snapped.

  ‘I can’t help but ask: did you – do anything with that contract after I sent it to you? Share it in any way? Perhaps somehow link to it on your blog? I’m sure not intentionally, but –’

  There was a long drawn moment.

  ‘Are you asking what I think you’re asking?’

  ‘No. No, of course not. It’s an odd coincidence. Apologies, this is unfamiliar ground.’

  Mark’s sigh broke and crackled on the poor line.

  ‘So your office catches you sharing confidential material and in response you take the battery out of your BlackBerry? Go into hiding?’

  J-R said nothing. Mark laying the thing out bare made it ridiculous.

  ‘That’s not a logical response. Why not just explain?’

  ‘You’re right. You’re probably right. I will, at some point. But today is the launch event. I’m not wanted, it seems.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘But also, I don’t know. Ever since my BlackBerry, ah, broke, I feel I’ve been off the hook. I have time to think things through.’

  Silence on the line

  ‘Are you still there?’ said J-R.

  There was a sigh, then Mark spoke.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘You said you had something?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve decrypted Bethany’s files.’

  J-R’s heart began to pump in tiny bursts.

  ‘And it’s – does it let Bethany off the hook?’

  J-R held his breath. Bethany was honest; Bethany was corrupt. Any second he’d know one way or the other. But Mark said nothing. J-R heard typing.

  ‘You’ve broken the encryption?’ he said. ‘Read Bethan’s file? Is it – connected with the hack?’

  ‘Broken it? Hardly! That would take a quantum computer. Which before you ask hasn’t been invented.’

  J-R was sure he already knew that.

  ‘No,’ said Mark, ‘I got in by an easier route. Are you near a PC?’

  ‘I – well, no –’ His laptop was still in his backpack, behind the reception desk at Parley’s offices. ‘Will a tablet do?’

  ‘Sure. I’ve just emailed you a link.’

  J-R tucked the receiver between shoulder and ear then extracted his tablet from the bookshelf, where it was lodged between the two fat volumes of a Gladstone biography.

  ‘Could you read out the address?’ he said. ‘I’m rather avoiding my emails.’

  Mark sighed again and rattled off a long string of characters. J-R fumbled to recreate them on the tablet and hit return. What appeared was a copy of an email from Perce to Bethany.

  Beth. Use this to encrypt. Looking forward to.

  This was followed by a long block of garbage letters and numbers. And that was the entirety of the mail.

  ‘He’s an efficient communicator, isn’t he?’ said Mark.

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘A document from sic_girl’s blog. One of the leaked emails. I found this nugget buried among yesterday’s shares.’

  ‘So anyone can see it?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s no use to them without your mail – and the encrypted file. There’s a load of useless junk like this in the email dump. Nobody else would pick up on this.’

  ‘And this code unlocked our attachment?’

  ‘In a split second.’

  Mark went silent again. J-R thought he might burst at the seams.

  ‘For God’s sake—’

  ‘Oh, right, sorry. Holiday snaps.’

  A burst of bass-heavy music started up from a car outside the open window. J-R grappled with his suddenly oversized tongue.

  ‘Sorry – ah – holiday –?’

  ‘– snaps, yes. The encrypted file contained forty-four twelve-megapixel photos of a Spanish conference hotel. Here. I’ve shared the folder.’

  Mark dictated another stream of characters, taking J-R to an area of Mark’s website, followed by a username and password. A shot of a swimming pool filled the screen. Crisp honey paving. The unbroken azure of a pool bouncing back a shard of sunlight. Sea beyond. J-R clicked an arrow and a new picture slid in to replace the pool: livid sunset over ocean. Then another picture. Sean Perce, in long pink swimming shorts, his torso a knot of athlete’s muscles, a washed wall of ancient stone behind him. Another click. A new picture slid into place. Spot the difference. J-R’s stomach somersaulted.

  Perce again, in the same shorts, in front of the same stone wall. Wrapped around him, giggling and lithe, in sunglasses and a red sarong, was Bethany. Childish
, relaxed and rather beautiful, the Minister of State for a Digital Society cuddled like a honeymooner against the man whose business was about to receive one hundred and seventy million pounds of taxpayer’s money from her.

  Mark continued in a flat tone.

  ‘You’ve got to the two-shot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m assuming they used a timer. They wouldn’t be dumb enough to have someone take it for them.’ J-R paged through several individual shots of Bethany japing on a balcony. ‘I thought I recognised the pool so I did some googling. I was right – this is the Excelsior in Cádiz. Which was the venue for an event I attended last month called Public Digital Futures: A Global Perspective. Among whose other attendees were listed – well, I guess you know.’

  Only now did J-R register the suppressed fury in Mark’s voice. It had been there, simmering under the whole conversation.

  ‘Mark –’

  ‘See, this really bloody bothers me. This is who you work for? The conviction politician?’

  ‘This doesn’t mean she—’

  ‘It doesn’t?’

  ‘No, this is—’

  ‘This is stupid. Crass and predictable. Sending each other photos? Even encrypted!’

  Fat water pushed at the back of J-R’s eyeballs. He willed it back and sat as still as he was able, levelling his breathing. Had he spent the last two years of his life selling the public out to a vested interest?

  A thought came to him. If two old pros were crazy enough to send each other goofy pictures, in spite of the risks – did it mean they genuinely cared for one another?

  ‘This doesn’t answer the question,’ he said.