Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle

by Matthew Blakstad

  Gray mobile:

  I’ve turned the bots away from Mondan.

  Terasoft’s UK web is about to go doooown.

  But omg – Sam, though? Terasoft?

  Everything’s gone all

  my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend.

  word

  ive almost lost track of who to hate

  Gray mobile:

  And Perce is definitely OK with me

  hacking his screens? I mean, I don’t want

  your friendly coppers beating my door

  down.

  bare sure – hes right here

  JR says the attack will be more real

  if it comes from takebackID, not from Sean

  its fuzzy

  ill explain later

  Gray mobile:

  OK. I guess.

  Tell everyone to watch the big screens.

  The main feature attraction is about to start.

  Eighteen

  weve got something to say

 

  The second the TakeBack pennant hits 404 City’s screens a colossal cheer rises from the encampment, relayed inside through rolling news and laptops. The building shakes. Here’s the takeover those hopeful kids were promised by the lying man.

 

 

  Turns out Dani, Gray and J-R are some kind of perfect, team-wise. The most unlikely group, shaken into collaboration, can sometimes form an efficient mechanism.

  watch this

  But this fusion – of Gray’s accelerated hacks, J-R’s instinct for words that will speak for themselves, and the sharp edge of Dani’s online persona – is seamless.

  dirty tricks

  Pace is everything. Dani animates words and images onto the giant screens, sliding them in great neon blocks. She mirrors them on the resurrected Parley.

  listen to me

  Names and pictures and puns and provocations.

  lies they told about me

  The circling beasts of mass attention turn and latch onto this narrative. It’s new, and it’s a perfect reversal-of-fortune story: what the hive mind loves.

  lies they told about identikid

  Much amaze. Perce, the villain, transformed to falsely accused hero. A cynical attack from a juggernaut of global tech. An attempt to wing a cocksure British entrepreneur. Outsider hero archetype. This is now the story.

  what they stole from you

 

  How swiftly the current of opinion turns. Gray scrapes proof points from Sam’s emails. J-R watches raw clippings flip onto the screen and dictates new eye-bait for Dani to proffer.

  who sold identikid?

 

  Inside, all around the atrium, the screens howl with overlapping content. The monster screens outside shimmer above the city with Dani’s supple magic. Moar secrets, cries the crowd below. Moar lies.

  J-R takes a new tack: he racks up verbatim clippings from Sam’s mails to Terasoft. Dani cherry-picks the choicest provocations.

  From: Sam Corrigan

  Date: TUESDAY

  Yeah, that’s right. We fed the Met an anonymous tip-off that an ‘activist’ under the AKA of sic_girl was holed up at Parley HQ and was a credible threat. Apparently they showed up armed :-/

  Dani feels a special burn of delight, releasing that nugget of intelligence.

  From: Sam Corrigan

  Date: WEDNESDAY

  These demonstrators don’t know what they want. Give them a cause and they rally round it like flies to dogshit.

  Perce will be their dogshit for today.

  Dani ices that one with a dancing line of poop emojis.

  And then:

  From: Sam Corrigan

  Date: THURSDAY

  Sure Mondan have done nothing wrong. But we’ve amped the message until people are too riled to notice there’s nothing there. People are dumb when it comes to it.

  Way to alienate a generation, Sam. Your turn to be the dogshit. Dani knows without seeing that down below, a couple-hundred demonstrators stand, feet planted, heads cranked back, to welcome this validation of their anger and suspicion. Righteous rage echoes in their proffers back. She throws the best replies onto the screens, beside Sam’s mails.

  From: Sam Corrigan

  Date: FRIDAY

  News flash: I just had a brainwave. I’ve shopped Leo Sandberg, my protest-monkey, to Krish Kohli, my contact at MinTech. Far as they know now, he did the sic_girl leaks. Way I hear it, the Met are hunting him down already. We’re in the clear, guys.

  Some words you can’t back out of. Once spoken, no return.

  hunting him down

  At some point Sean drags J-R away – something to do with the ministry. Dani doesn’t register. She’s in the code-freeze. The cites rack up. Trending doesn’t come close: this thing explodes.

  we’re in the clear, guys

  Is this for Leo, or for herself? She doesn’t know.

  Nineteen

  J-R rode the back seat of Perce’s silent-running car to Westminster. How had he ended here, in the plush interior of a mogul’s Mercedes? Beside him, Perce twisted his upper body to gaze through the rear windscreen. J-R turned, too, and together they watched Dani’s messages flick across the giant screens. When they could no longer make out the words, Perce faced front and dropped back into the seat’s deep padding. The interior was uniformly cream: unblemished, tight upholstery. Pine scent.

  ‘Danielle’s pulling up gold there. Glad Sam’s getting the brunt, and not me. Hell hath no fury, right?’

  As J-R untwisted into his seat, his raincoat belt became caught underneath him. He tugged on it as Perce kept talking.

  ‘Tell me that isn’t going to kill Terasoft. Could there be a better time to hit the Party with our counter-offer? I tell you, J-R, it was in the stars you’d walk in this morning. Karen still thinks she’s meeting me to squeeze me out of the contract. Huh! Fat chance of that.’

  The belt pinched J-R’s middle. He lifted his backside from the leather to loosen the restraint, but this only pulled his bonds tighter. The buckle must be caught.

  ‘All very well broadcasting your message up there,’ he said. ‘That’s getting you TV and it’ll bring in tomorrow’s nationals. And I’ve given your press office solid lines. But the word of protesters? Posted on your own screens? Not credible. You’ll need to feed the media an independent voice. A credible industry source.’

  He reached beneath the flesh of his bottom and wrestled the buckle, which had somehow hooked itself around the recessed metal clasp of the seatbelt. Perce seemed unaware of this struggle.

  ‘Good. Good,’ he said. ‘We’ll get GiveMeData to speak up.’

  ‘GiveMeData? The – ah – independent lobby group?’ J-R gave a nervy laugh as he dug behind himself.

  ‘Ha! Come on, you know astroturf when you see it. They’re us.’

  The buckle gave against J-R’s tugging. His hand shot sideways with the force of the pull, slapping the side of Perce’s thigh. Perce looked down in puzzlement.

  ‘But,’ said J-R, ‘GiveMeData makes submissions to government. They presented to the Commons subcommittee last month. There are – laws about that?’

  Perce returned a short lunatic laugh.

  Why was J-R here? Perce had insisted he come along to Party HQ – no, not insisted: assumed. And here he was. With Perce there was no drawn-out process of review, amendment and counter-correction. Here, one thought of a thing, then one did it. No steps in between. Already J-R had been able to land a blow on the obnoxious Terasoft. True, Perce was obnoxious too: but people like him were makers, creators of value. He offered a narrow corridor of possibility that others could follow, or be shut out for good.

  It had taken J-R no more than thirty seconds to persuade him to share the fabricated ‘Pig-gate’ evidence with the Party. Perce had turned to Dani, who had handed over a stack of electronics that Perce passed in turn to J-R. Perce would tell Karen Arbiter about the false data trails c
reated by Terasoft’s stooges and would let himself be judged. The slate-clearing evidence was currently at J-R’s feet.

  Was it now his lot to be the conscience the man beside him so clearly needed? Could he do more good staying the arm of the one who wielded the weapons, than in making the laws that failed to govern him?

  The car slid to a gentle halt. Perce unclipped his seatbelt with a smoothness that mocked J-R’s fumbling.

  ‘Here we are.’

  J-R bent to peer through the tinted glass. The windows of Party HQ raised metal eyebrows at him. The driver opened Perce’s door; he was already halfway out when he turned to J-R.

  ‘You are coming?’

  To be seen here with Perce, bolting the stable door so firmly? All J-R could do was follow the current of events. He picked up the case of hard disks from the footwell, taking care not to bash the condensed trust of a million citizens on his way out of the car.

  Twenty

  Dani flexes sore fingers and whispers with Gray on the rebooted Parley. The TV news is up on Sean’s plasma, showing a pierced and dreadlocked girl. She’s familiar. WINTER GREEN, says the caption.

  ¶Nightshade

  is that a name or a paint colour?

  ¶thegrays

  :D

  FRIEND OF DEAD PROTESTER LEO SANDBERG, says the subtitle. The girl flinches from the reporter’s mic. Behind her, a ramshackle camp nestles by a glass-and-steel wall, a giant A etched into the glass.

  ¶Nightshade

  girl is thin enough to snap

  ¶thegrays

  Ooh, mee-ow!

  The girl’s eyes are raised like a Virgin Mary to the screens that overwhelm the camp.

  ‘If what they’re saying up there is true,’ she says in a sorry rush, ‘Then this guy Sam Corgan – or Corrigan? He killed Leo. No doubt.’

  There’s a scuffle off camera as the reporter creams himself at this statement.

  ‘You blame Terasoft for your partner’s death?’

  ¶Nightshade

  its like J-R said: you start with the personal story

  then widen it

  ‘Totally,’ says the girl. ‘I totally blame them. They shopped him to the police. He only ever did good but they twisted it and turned the police on him and now he’s – he’s –’

  So much Dani can see and understand now. Being in the swill of events makes you wiser.

  ‘Terasoft did this?’ the reporter says again.

  ¶thegrays

  Christ, give it a rest, mate.

  But the girl wants to give as badly as the reporter wants to take.

  ‘Terasoft killed him. No doubt. They killed Leo.’

  And back to studio. Dani nods at the screen.

  ¶Nightshade

  i tell you gray

  perce isnt perfect but terasoft is like DO BE EVIL

  Cut to general views of the tents as the newsreader talks through all that’s happened this week: at least as much as these guys know. He says the protesters are moving their shit to Terasoft.

  ¶thegrays

  I guess. I’m having trouble adapting.

  ¶Nightshade

  *you* are?

  ¶thegrays

  ROFL

  Point.

  So what’s Perce offered you?

  ¶Nightshade

  a fuckload of money my friend

  and oh hey he wants to talk to you too

  says youve skills much

  ¶thegrays

  I like the man already.

  Terry’s phone starts trilling its head off. Dani checks the screen. It’s an 07-something: who? Nobody has Terry’s number. She’s three days old. Only Gray and one other person know it. And she’s already talking to Gray.

  Shit.

  ¶Nightshade

  g2g, sorry

  ¶thegrays

  OKCU

  She swipes to answer.

  ‘Hello, Sam.’

  Twenty-one

  ‘And here I was,’ says J-R, ‘thinking you cared about her.’

  ‘Cared?’ hissed Krish. ‘Do you really want me to lay out her bad choices for you?’

  Krish tugged J-R into a meeting room, away from Karen, Sean, and the staffers milling about in the reception area. He leaned his back against the closed door.

  ‘Try not to be a naïve prick, J-R. There was never any doubt where this would end.’

  Through the glass partition, J-R saw Sean vanish into the main office along with Karen’s entourage.

  ‘Do you know why I sent you on the Parley stint?’ said Krish. ‘So you didn’t go down with her. I’m a big boy and I can take it but you have bugger all alliances out in the Party. You’re a one-horse guy and your horse just fell at Beecher’s Brook.’

  J-R swallowed down hard.

  ‘Seeing her out there. Without lines. She was extraordinary.’

  Krish nodded, long and slow.

  ‘Have you spoken to her?’ he asked. ‘They have her up on first for a debrief.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘She’ll be leaving.’

  ‘I know.’

  Neither of them made any move to go. Time passed at the exhausted crawl of a party in government.

  ‘She doesn’t blame you,’ said Krish. ‘Me – she blames.’

  Through the glass, Bethany’s police escort returned to the reception area, slapped his palms together and spoke to the ponytailed intern at the desk. She replied and the policeman let out an open, straightforward laugh.

  ‘Does it bother you?’ asked Krish.

  ‘Bethany? Of course.’

  ‘Naw. Me chucking you in feet first with zero briefing.’

  A posse of researchers hastened past and jostled out onto the street. A week ago that would have been him.

  ‘No. That combination is pretty much what I’ve come to expect.’

  ‘OK, good, so.’

  What were J-R’s lines now, and on whose behalf?

  ‘Well –’ he attempted.

  ‘Aye.’ Krish had reached some conclusion. ‘So is it congratulations I should give you?’

  ‘As in, am I going to be Sean Perce’s mouthpiece?’

  ‘You’ve played this brilliantly for him, already. Terasoft are squarely fucked if you keep up the momentum. D’y’know, I felt not a little proud to see you roll up with your boy Sean. I give it ninety-five per cent we’ll sign with you as planned. Andrew is fucking livid.’

  J-R tugged at his earlobe.

  ‘I’m – not sure. There are things I need to consider.’

  Mark, for instance. What on earth would Mark say? Would he care? Were they even speaking?

  ‘Well, no rush, OK?’ said Krish. ‘There’s plenty here if you do come back. But it’d be back to the pumps, you ken? You’d need to catch the apron strings of another minister. You want my view? Go for it. Perce. When things are moving this fast you’ve best to be in the eye of the storm.’

  ‘Indeed,’ nodded J-R. ‘The trick lies in knowing where that is.’

  Twenty-two

  ‘Peter? Hello?

  ‘Oh, thank God, you – oh, so you saw it.

  ‘Thank you, babe, yes, it was totally off the cuff. Not quite what they wanted me to say.

  ‘Ha ha! Yeah, that’s right.’

  Bethany glanced at the frosted partition. There was movement outside. She needed to remember this was Party HQ. She was still in the wind-down, couldn’t be herself just yet. She tuned back in to the over-gentle voice of her husband.

  ‘Well, I’m – oh, God, I don’t know, Petey. Too soon, too soon. Ask me later.

  ‘Yeah, like three years later!

  ‘Actually, do you know, I think I am OK, weirdly. I’m looking forward to, you know. Spending more time with my family. If you’ll have me.’

  Holy hell, she was actually tearing up, from that dumb joke. Come on, girl, hold it together.

  ‘Yeah, of course. But now I really should go. Business to sort here.

  ‘Half hour tops.

  ‘No, I’ll h
ave to get a cab. No ministerial car any more, remember?

  ‘Yeah, that’s something else I have to start getting used to!

  ‘Yeah, totally. You too, babes.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I actually think it could be. And listen, babes, thank you. No, really, darling. I mean it.

  ‘Yes, we will most certainly “have that talk”. Good. OK. You too. Bisous. Bye. Bye.’

  She clicked off the phone and took three draughts of air. Not long now. Keep it real. And it’s – fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.

  OK, better. She balled fists into her eye sockets to push out any hint of emotion, shook herself by the lapels and left the little meeting room, walking straight into Sean, all grin and sleek silk tie. His eyes hit hers dead on, then slid back to Karen, who regarded Bethany for a moment then walked her visitor on towards the big glass doors at the end of the hallway, guiding him with a hand in the small of his back. A scuttle of Karen’s lackeys swallowed Sean. He didn’t look back.

  Bethany remained a moment in the vacated passageway, waiting for him to reappear. Suffice to say, he did not.

  A passing staffer caught her eye through the glass door, with a look inherited from Karen. Prick. Bethany directed a merry smile his way then swung on her heels towards the clear green promise of the Emergency Exit signs.

  Twenty-three

  ‘I’m listening,’ says Dani.

  On the news screen, the TakeBackID encampment is breaking up. The fun is over. Dani offs the TV. Sam’s voice crackles from the Bluetooth earpiece as she packs her bag.