“No one is going to get hurt,” Jeeves said solemnly. “We’re a peaceful protest. Pacifists. Radical, technological, transcendental pacifists.”
“If you say so,” said Sam. “Anything I need to do?”
“Yesssss. Get your lovely, hungover, scrawny arse over here.”
“What for?”
“It’s time to record...the advert.”
“Brilliant,” Sam said. He downed the rest of his coffee in one go and left the room to get a refill.
“Don’t keep me waiting,” Jeeves’ face said, though the phone call had been abandoned, Sam’s cleverband left on the arm of the couch. “I’ve waited long enough.”
Chapter Eighteen
HOW SOON IS NOW?
Janus Jeeves and Montreal Maybury stood in the back alley behind a Tesco on Marlborough Road at 7:27 a.m., the dawn before the storm. From within and without Tesco, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. The barest trickle of shoppers came and went. This particular store was open twenty four hours. A waste of electricity, Jeeves had said, keepin’ all them meats cold that nobody’s gonna buy.
Montreal’s nerves showed on his face, lips set in a thin line and shoulders hunched up to his ears. Janus Jeeves, giddy as a schoolgirl, was unable to keep himself from moving this way and that, the gleam in his eyes obscured by the dark, oversized sunglasses he wore. The pinkish light from Belisha beacons reflected off his shades, creating a ping-pong effect off every nearby reflective surface.
“Yer bloody sunnies are blinding me,” said Montreal. “Watch where you point those things. Why’re you wearing those anyway? It’s dead dark and cold out here. Sunrise is slow this morning.”
“Ironic words from a former rock star,” Jeeves said. “Anyway, the light in Tesco hurts my eyes. I know we aren’t inside, but just being near it is bad enough.”
“You’re a kook. A kook who’s about to singlehandedly take down the financial system.”
“Not singlehandedly!” said Jeeves. “Oh no. Each member of our little family played their part. You, Bezza, Foxy, Jack and James and Jill and Joseph, Johnny and Jimmy and Shortie and Tallie. Everyone’s worked together for this moment.”
“Yeah, and I wonder how everyone will feel once the repercussions of what we’ve done come trickling down,” Montreal said, leaning back against the wall. “Wish I had a cigarette right about now.”
“I thought you quit,” said Jeeves from atop a bicycle rack, the big bright heels of his shoes balancing precariously against rusted metal.
“I thought I quit, too,” he said. “But then they pull ya back in.”
The brick walls in the alley were red and grey. It smelled like burnt sugar and alkaline; it smelled like a sewer. It sounded like dead eerie quiet save for the two veterans’ cold breaths. The street lamps above them illuminated dust particles in the silent air.
“So, why this method? Why force them to make the switch?” asked Montreal.
“You’ll see,” said Jeeves. He stood on one leg in an ungraceful arabesque, then dismounted in a loud leap from the shaky bike rack.
“This seems more like a statement than a solution,” Montreal said. The shadow he cast on the pavement was big and looming, twice his stature.
“The two aren’t mutualllly...exclusive. We’re just giving them a little shove in the right direction. The rest is up to them.” Jeeves’ shadow was narrow and shifting, a thin wisp of tightrope walker.
“The fans. The Arcana. One in the same?”
“They read our laws as soon as they log in. They log in as soon as they hear the music. You know nothing about kids, do you, old man?”
“Lot of blind trust, all I’m sayin’.” Montreal crossed his arms over his chest to block the cold.
“What do you think people are doing when they pay their taxes? Send their kids to school, leave ‘em with a neighbour, make purchases? Pray to god?”
Montreal sighed heavily, a stilted expulsion of air. “Maybe you’re right. You usually are, god knows why. Let’s head back soon; I’m freezin’ my arse off out here. No one but you would loiter at the scene of the crime just for kicks. We’re probably about five minutes from being arrested.”
“CCTVs will be off soon,” Jeeves said. “As you well know,” he said in a quieter voice. “Coppers are useless without ‘em.”
“Can’t see anything from here, anyway. No people screaming, no alarms going off, no central banks collapsing to the ground before our eyes.”
“I just like the feeling,” Jeeves said, offering no further explanation. “Indeed, there is work to be done back at headquarters. Foxy’ll be over soon.”
Jeeves rocked back on his heels, feeling like fire and electricity. Soon, retribution would take place. Soon, the tide would turn. Soon, the oppressed masses would rise. Soon sorry bastards would be sorry bastards and his army would rocket to the surface in a blaze of cobalt flame, no longer hidden in dark cellars behind LED-lit screens. Soon vague notions would burst forth into 17K-pixel clearer than a bug’s eye 8-dimensional sapphire-screen red-ray plasma A.I. UltraTouch so unfucking-believably real you’re too turned on to even salivate corporeal vision.
Finally, finally, finally. The time was now.
Whoever’s on shift during opening hours worked a near empty store. Any customers were either solely focused on the mission of finding whatever it was they needed to buy, or else had no reason to be there whatsoever and were merely hiding from the outside world, killing time wandering the aisles, distant and lost in a fog of too-bright lights, pre-packaged meals, and cheap plastic toys made in China for ages four and up.
Access codes were given to sixteen-year-olds who’d been employed for less than twenty-four hours. When supervisors’ backs were turned, an employee could pretty much do whatever he or she wanted as long as he remained invisible to the eyes of the CCTV.
At 8:06 a.m. that morning, a universal override was provided to all subscribed members of Saint Fox and The Independence’s fan base via the FoxDen app. Those members then hacked the WiDi displays of the CCTVs where they worked—at Tesco, at Argos, at Asda. The CCTV feeds began playing footage from exactly the right time, exactly the right day—one month ago, with an altered timestamp. Ninety-nine percent of the footage was of empty aisles anyway.
At 8:23 a.m., Tim Easton, an introverted, intelligent young man with an encyclopedic knowledge of mafia films, stared at his cleverband’s holo display, waiting for further instruction. Tim was a solid and devoted fan of Saint Fox and The Independence. He worked part time at Asda on Whitechapel Road to help pay for university, though his education was mostly funded by student loans he would later regret. There were only two customers at his Asda this Monday morning—an older gentleman wearing some sort of fishing hat who’d been staring at packaged luncheon meats for the past fifteen minutes, and a woman in the home bedding section who couldn’t decide what style of throw pillows she wanted—the ones with the tassels or the ones in sheeny satin. Neither of them noticed Tim Easton connecting his cleverband to the P.O.S. system through the network profile settings on his device, using passcodes that may or may not have been provided by one Mister Montreal Maybury.
Once the connection registered on his holo display, Tim didn’t have to wait long before receiving his next instruction. It came in the form of a personalised text message:
Hi, Tim! Tired of working the grind at Asda? A thankless mission, to be certain. It’s time your customers learned that we are all equals. The next step is easy...touch the big red icon below!
Underneath the message, a shiny, round icon pulsed up and down in ultra-photorealistic 3D animation. Tim couldn’t resist touching it. He was dying to see what would happen, and he believed in The Independence. The band thought like he did, were of his kind, their messages rallying against the one percent, those pulling one over on the populace for their own power and financial gain. Sam Numan had risen above the murk, the monotonous and mundane to shout “You’re not alone, they killed your dreams.
Gimme your hand and we’ll make a scene.”
When he touched the red icon, a little trill rang from his cleverband. The P.O.S. terminals at Asda on Whitechapel Road went black, and began to reboot.
Tim’s cleverband trilled again. A new message.
Congrats, Tim. You’ve never been more brave or brilliant.
Now remember, whatever you do, don’t use the P.O.S. terminals to make purchases yourself from here on out.
If you need anything, come to us.
Sincerely,
Saint Fox and The Independence
Chapter Nineteen
STRANGE MAGIC
At 9:01 a.m. on a Monday morning, shortly after the CCTVs went out, your regularly scheduled programming was interrupted by Janus Jeeves, appearing alongside Saint Fox from Saint Fox and The Independence, on every satellite channel across the nation.
Jeeves wore a black and white Renaissance frock over a pair of too tight burgundy corduroys. Before they were all set to record and transmit, he’d donned a top hat and monocle as well, but the accessories had been vetoed by his colleagues. He did want to look respectable, and so he appeared tame as a kitten to his own eye, albeit still a dandy eccentric to others, with his stringy, long brown hair and New Romantic wardrobe.
Saint Fox wore his signature black leather jacket—now swimming on him, and dark circles underneath his eyes.
The broadcast occurred straight from Janus’s Jeeves collapsed flat in South London, though Benson had rendered the source untraceable. The two gangly figures stood side by side in Jeeves’ living room, against a wall papered all in black.
Jeeves stepped forward, a little too close to the cleverband cam operated by Benson, who transferred the live feed to every home in the country via the emergency broadcast system that had been child’s play for him to hack.
“Greetings, and warnings, and heed me carefully, all ye young and old and about to be compromised for your own good...” Janus Jeeves began.
Sam placed his hand on Jeeves’ shoulder, halting him from his potentially confusing diatribe. When Sam had finally arrived here this morning he’d checked himself in the mirror. He’d looked alright—after all, strung out was how rock stars were supposed to look. Now he gathered his courage, momentarily filled with a sense of purpose—or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, whatever meds he’d taken last kicking in. It didn’t matter now. Right now, he really and truly cared. He’d been rehearsing for this moment, had all his lines memorised just like his lyrics, was itching to say his piece. He practically vibrated with excitement, or else just had the junkie shakes, out-twitching even Jeeves. Anyone watching might blame it on a handheld camera, but it was just the men.
Between half-answered questions batted to either Jeeves or Benson, Sam had finally managed to learn enough about their initial act of war to feel like he was onboard the rollercoaster, albeit with a faulty seat belt. The upset to the current financial system was a long overdue necessity that would be a temporary struggle for some, an overwhelming disaster for others. But the human instinct is to survive. They would survive. And to do so, they would have to learn to trust one another again.
Jeeves raised one eyebrow, staring expectantly at his young protégé. Sam cleared his throat and began.
“Hi everybody. I’m Sam Numan from Saint Fox and The Independence. Today I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Not sure how you’re gonna take it. Some of you will probably be delighted. Those that know me, that listen to the band, probably won’t be surprised. Many of you even helped, and you’ve helped us without knowing exactly what you were getting into, and we thank you for that. We thank you for trusting us enough to help us out and we just hope we’re doing the right thing.”
“We arrrrre, indeed,” Jeeves chimed in beside him with a wave of his arm. “Listen to this boy carefully.”
Sam glanced over at Jeeves, swallowed, then focused his attention back at the camera. “I’ll give it to you plain and simple, no beating around the bush. You can’t shop anywhere that takes the Dot anymore. Any shop that uses a Dot-sensitive sale terminal—Tesco, Argos, The Gap, pretty much all major and most minor retailers, online shops, the holo display on your cleverbands. The Dot is useless now. Not only that, it’s devastating.” He paused for effect, taking a deep breath.
“If you do use it to make purchases at any of these terminals, you’re going to get sick.”
Sam held up his index finger. A circular brown scar remained where the small magstripe had been removed. “We should never have had these installed in the first place. The sale terminals have been reprogrammed. If you use them now, it’ll alter your DNA in ways I don’t care to describe. Do not—I repeat—do not use the Dot.”
Beside him, Janus Jeeves pointed an accusatory finger at his audience, slowly shaking his head back and forth.
“If you need anything, you can come to us. We’re called the Arcane Society. We’ve put together some things to get you started, but the success of this really depends on you—the merchants and the consumers. The government has been interfering in your private business for far too long. It shouldn’t be like that. Just two entities exchanging goods and services—that’s it, that’s all there should be. Why should fat cats get a cut for work they didn’t do, things they didn’t make? Come to us. Bring what you’ve got and we’ll help get you started.”
“We’ve got a new system to replace the old one,” Jeeves said. “It’s verrrry basic. See this here?” He activated the holo display on his cleverband while Benson zoomed in. The display showed an app called GiveNGet, an image of a green coin with a happy face on it. “Download this app. If you already have the FoxDen app, open it now and you’ll see a link to it. GiveNGet is an app that starts everyone out with the same amount of cryptocurrency. 10,000 GGcoin. Everyone starts with 10,000—all the same. An even playing field, baby.”
“Multiple layers of encryption. Completely hack proof,” Bez mouthed quietly from behind his equipment.
“Right,” Jeeves said. “Multiple layers of encryption. One hundred percent hack proof. You decide the cost of whatever goods and services you can offer. For those who are self-employed, this won’t even make much difference, except now you get to keep all the money you’ve earned instead of forking over a heavy chunk to a government that doesn’t serve you anymore. If you work for a large corporation, well, your boss is having a coronary right about now, and now’s the time to brush up on any of those skills you learned that you never thought you’d use.”
“We realise some people might risk choosing to stick with the current financial system if they can’t work it out any other way,” Sam continued. “Here’s a list of some of the early symptoms of the viral program TAKEBACK embedded within the P.O.S. terminals: Headache, nausea, stomach cramps. Memory loss, disorientation, fatigue. Weight fluctuations, weakness in the extremities. Eventually you won’t be able to get out of bed.” Sam shifted from foot to foot, left hand in his pocket. “We don’t want this to happen to anyone. We want you to come to us.”
“Quite simply, if you buy, you will die,” said Janus Jeeves, managing a solemn expression. “Not right away, but slowly, as the virus takes hold.”
“Come to us,” Sam repeated. “Let’s build again from the ground up. The only people this is really going to hurt are the people who’ve been stealing from you your whole lives. They’ll be coming after us, too, so join us, and help us defend the right to live freely.”
The feed cut out. Shocked individuals seated in their living rooms heard the cheery strains of the intro theme to Good Morning Britain fade in as they turned to one another in bewilderment, trying to reconcile what they’d just heard. Many figured it had simply been some sort of prank, or perhaps a marketing scheme. Still, widespread paranoia, which had become a cultural mainstay, had them all wondering.
The fan army of Saint Fox and The Independence knew it was not a joke. They were prepared with emergency supplies; they frantically messaged one another on their cleverban
ds: It’s here.
Those who were members of the Arcana’s inner circle headed for Janus Jeeves’ collapsed flat on Stockwell Road.
On the balcony of said flat, underneath grey skies that parted to reveal a rare burst of sunshine, Janus Jeeves stood with his palms pressed together and his face to the sky, breathing deeply—in for eight seconds, out for eight seconds. To his followers he appeared always confident in his own mad genius, too caught up in manic energy to ever stop and question his own methods; he just kept moving forward at the speed of light.
When Jeeves was alone there were no affectations, no chameleon grins. He stood before the heavens and hoped to a god he had met once or twice that he was doing right by the people of this odd country he loved so much. If so, peace at last. If not, then perhaps he would move on to another century, another world. Start over, again. Or sleep forever.
Sam Numan stood in front of the sink in Jeeves’ horrifically-decorated loo, splashing cold water on his face. This’ll certainly hurt ticket sales, he thought dryly, not that being a rock star in this day and age was nearly as lucrative as it had once been, back when rock n’ roll ruled the world. Their success was a fluke, fulfilling a need the advertising agencies had missed. The caveat was that after paying for studios, crew, equipment, travel expenses, dividing amongst the band members, and putting money back into the Society, they had barely broken even. Sam still needed this revolution just as much as anyone else. He would keep a low profile while chaos ran loose just outside the door, would take a break from playing the rock star and align himself with the Arcana, learn how to survive and thrive within this new paradigm they had created.
He smiled crookedly at himself in the mirror, and swallowed two round, white pills with water from the sink, his second dose today.
The Rise of Saint Fox and The Independence Page 12