The London Project (Portal Book 1)

by Mark J Maxwell

  Maybe she could find some nice two-bed terrace for them to move to like the one she grew up in. She had fond childhood memories of playing out in the street with the neighbourhood kids. They’d even had a yard out the back with a patch of grass. In the summer her father would be in his shed tinkering with something or other and her mother would be gossiping with their neighbour, Mrs Trent, over the garden fence. She wanted the same childhood for Jess and Charlie, but did such communities even exist any more?

  It was wishful thinking anyway. When her parents died she was newly married and had sold their house not long after. Although she had managed to get the money back in the divorce, house prices had risen sharply in the meantime. Some newscasts regarded the increases as a property bubble but others were convinced it was an ongoing benefit of Portal and prices weren’t likely to decrease or even stabilise any time soon. For the time being she was stuck with the apartment.

  The wall screen was in its mirror state as she stood in the living room, sipping from her glass and staring at her reflection. She untied her ponytail and shook out her hair. When she had first met John, her hair had been long—almost reaching to the small of her back. The length proved awkward at work and she wanted to cut it but John kept saying how much he loved it, even though he had criticised it for being too dark. She had kept the length but dyed it a shade of light brown with blonde highlights. After the divorce she cut it to shoulder length and now it was as black as coal.

  It wasn’t just John and the house she lost in the divorce—invitations to social events had dried up surprisingly quickly. All their friends had been couples. No wife wants a single woman hanging around. She could imagine their whispered gossip—the poor, desperate thing—she would obviously be after one of their husbands. She wondered if her ex-friends were still inviting John to their dinner parties. Have they replaced me with Abigail? More fool them if they had. Abigail was a much bigger threat to their marriages than she could ever be, single or not. What husband wouldn’t look at John’s quickie divorce and attractive young wife and wonder why they couldn’t do the same?

  The woman in the mirror was smiling back at her, but to Louisa the smile appeared cruel and vindictive and she didn’t much like it. She reached for her terminal and banished the reflection.

  An array of twenty squares, each representing a newscast, appeared on the screen. She scanned through them quickly and, seeing nothing of interest, motioned with her hand, moving the screen onto the next batch. She focussed in on one of the squares and, recognising her attention, it enlarged to fill the screen, increasing the volume at the same time.

  The Portal CEO, Benoit Walsh, was being interviewed by Shirley Hawkins, one of the Portal newscast anchors. It was an official newscast so Louisa knew it would have a fiercely pro-Portal slant. These days it was difficult to come across any newscasts openly critical of the company. Louisa had recognised Benoit straight away. He was one of the most famous (and richest) men in the world since he had taken over Portal following the death of his father. Benoit was presentable enough, immaculately dressed and well groomed, but there was something of an oily aftertaste to the man. She found his ice-white smiles cloying and his fake laughs left her feeling cold. A stark contrast with his late father who had co-founded the company. Adam had been an affable geek who wore jeans and jumpers and had seemed genuinely friendly. She’d always enjoyed seeing him being interviewed on the newscasts. It had been hard not to get caught up in his boundless enthusiasm and energy. He passed away a year ago and Benoit had been in charge ever since.

  ‘So, Benoit,’ Shirley said with a smile, almost as if they were best friends and not boss and employee, ‘Portal’s share price rose sharply last week in response to its end of year profits forecast. Do you think you can meet the shareholders’ high expectations?’

  ‘I don’t doubt it for a second,’ Benoit said. ‘It’s been a good year, but we’re not resting on our laurels. Here at Portal we’re always thinking ahead to the next big challenge.’

  ‘And that would be?’

  ‘In a word—expansion. The London Project has proceeded flawlessly and we hope to mark the five year anniversary with a roll out across fifteen other cities throughout the UK.’

  ‘Do you think their city councils will be happy to sign up to Portal providing core network services? It took several years and changes in legislation for London to be even become eligible.’

  ‘I think people living outside London have gone without Portal’s lifestyle advances for far too long. Look at how London has flourished—thousands of new jobs, fantastic free services, and a dramatic drop in criminal activity. The question I’d ask the city mayors is: how long can they continue to deny their citizens all of the benefits Portal has to offer?’

  It would be a brave council that voted down a proposal to integrate with Portal. Before the London Project, Portal had been merely another global web success story. Portal approached the British government at a time when the economy was in the depths of a recession. The country was hundreds of billions in debt with millions unemployed and no signs of recovery on the horizon. Portal’s plan would not only eradicate the national debt with a massive one-off licence payment—it aimed to create a cutting edge centralised network infrastructure designed to restore London’s position as a world leader in business and finance. Portal started off slowly, providing services for global web access and telecommunications. When they proved to be a success the government integrated traffic management, health care and emergency services including police and fire response. Louisa herself had only just been promoted to detective when the Metropolitan Police began to transfer all their existing IT systems to the new MET Subnet.

  At first there was widespread resistance—the pro-privacy movement had been strong. Thousands marched to demand more transparency on the data Portal held. The CSCA alleviated most of their concerns but public opinion changed dramatically with one event: the release of the terminals. The nanoware-driven devices, within a citywide rollout period of twelve days, rendered every other type of portable communications device obsolete. At which point Londoners simply stopped using anything else for their communication needs and embraced Portal in its entirety.

  Louisa picked hers up. It was currently in its default physical state of ten by eight inches. The front was taken up by the screen, a black polished slate, which was partly reflective as the device was deactivated. It was quite thin, about an eighth of an inch thick, with a back similar to the front except it was dark grey in colour.

  The interview had cut to an advertisement break. Louisa felt herself cringe as she mentally prepared herself for the inevitable barrage of personalised commercials. It was bad enough the advertisements were tailored to your personal profile—products you purchased, activities you took part in and even your profession. But what she found most intrusive was how they inserted your face seamlessly into the advertisements. So you got to drink the beer, drive the car, and eat the breakfast cereal, not some nameless actor.

  Needless to say, the kids loved them. They got a real kick out of seeing themselves on-screen, placed in the short clips as if they were screencast actors. When they were all sitting in front of the screen together the adverts were mainly family oriented and their own smiling faces beamed back at them from whatever perfect life the advertisement had conjured up. They were missing a parent in the clips, of course, as the adverts accounted for John’s absence and edited out the father-figure.

  It was effective, Louisa conceded as she watched herself lying on a tropical beach soaking up the sun. A few taps on the terminal was all it would take to purchase the holiday. She did not, however, appreciate appearing in adverts for more private feminine products occasionally shown. But it was equally as bad for men. She smiled at the memory of John throwing a major hissy-fit when he witnessed himself starring in an erectile disfunction advert.

  The chat show came back on. The studio lighting had dimmed. The colourful hues of the studio background were more somber now
, adding an air of seriousness to the proceedings.

  ‘Let’s talk about your detractors, Benoit,’ Shirley said. Gone was the friendly camaraderie and smiles. Instead she adopted a firm expression as if planning to grill the Portal CEO. Louisa stifled a laugh at the obviously choreographed pantomime. She had no doubt the interview was well rehearsed. 'They contend Portal's revenue is excessive. How do you justify profits far in excess of those forecasted when Portal obtained the city's ten year service contract?'

  Benoit smiled. ‘It’s true we do retain a minute proportion of each financial transaction carried out using our services, but most of this is reinvested in infrastructure upgrades which help guarantee London’s position as a world leader in net communications. I’d like to point out that over a thousand Londoners became millionaires in their own right last year, purely from content they shared from their Portal profiles. As a screencast star can market themselves as a brand and make an income from that brand, Portal profiles allow everyone else to do the same.’ Benoit turned to look directly at the camera, which obligingly zoomed in. ‘By sharing your life with others you too can reap the rewards Portal freely offers, and maybe become famous at the same time.’ He raised his hands and interlocked his fingers. ‘Portal wouldn’t exist without the people who use its services. We form a synergy where the London Project will succeed only for as long as the residents of London flourish.’

  Louisa shook her head as Benoit’s face filled her living room wall. She resented Benoit’s insinuation you could become rich and famous by sharing out your profile. It was a dream the young and vulnerable clung to with an ever-increasing voracity. You needed millions of people resharing one of your videos or scans for you to make any real money. You had better odds of becoming a millionaire buying a lottery ticket. But it didn’t stop people sharing everything they possibly could on the off chance something they uploaded could make them rich.

  Louisa hadn’t accessed her sharing extension in years. She hated the condescending messages displayed after she hadn’t accessed it in a while. ‘We’re so happy you came back’, it would say to her, ‘look at all the wonderful things you missed and what all your friends have been up to’.

  She eyed her terminal. She was briefly tempted to look up Abigail’s feeds. In all likelihood they were public so she wouldn’t have to make a subscriber request in order to see them. It would feel too voyeuristic though, and besides, she’d probably suffer an extreme bout of depression at the perfect life Abigail’s profile would convey. Just for once I’d like to see some honesty being conveyed by someone’s profile. Something like, I’m having a shit day, I hate my husband and my kids are sucking the joy from my life. She giggled to herself at the thought. It would never happen. Everyone was having a wonderful life according to their profile and no-one wanted anyone else to think otherwise.

  Her thoughts drifted then to the collision she had narrowly avoided. She shuddered as she replayed in her mind the parked cars rushing towards her and the sick feeling in her stomach as she wrenched on the steering wheel. Underlying it all had been the strange, high pitched sound. It was almost as if she could still hear it.

  Louisa sat forward on the sofa and set down her glass on the coffee table. She could still hear it - the sound was coming from the wall screen in front of her. Then the wall screen started to distort and pixelate, just like before. Another glitch? It had been years since Portal had experienced any kind of widespread outages or defects. She wondered if anyone else was experiencing the same thing. Not good for Benoit. Especially with the big anniversary tomorrow. She reached for her terminal to change the feed, but the device had deactivated itself. She tapped the screen a few times but it remained unresponsive.

  The sound increased in volume. This is getting ridiculous. She got up to manually deactivate the screen. Abruptly the noise cut out, leaving her in silence apart from a faint ringing in her ears.

  It was then Louisa noticed Benoit and Shirley were gone. In their place was a grainy image of a corridor. At the end was a door with a green backlit exit sign above it. A series of fluorescent tubes overhead bleached the corridor white. No, not an image, Louisa realised, as it started to move: a video feed.

  The recording was moving strangely. It swayed and lurched along the corridor. Then it hit her. It was moving that way for a reason—it was a first-person capture of someone staggering towards the door.

  The door had a narrow glass window inset—one of those security panes reinforced with a wire mesh. As the person approached it, Louisa could see movement in the glass, but she couldn’t quite make out what it was. She leaned in closer to the screen.

  A pale face slid into view, staring directly at her. Louisa let out a small shriek and involuntarily took a step back, her hand clamping over her mouth.

  It was Claire Harris.

  Gone was the restful countenance the girl had exhibited in death. Her face was twisted in pain, her eyes radiating terror so strongly Louisa felt the emotion reciprocated deep within herself. A seed planted in her core that grew rapidly and with such force she opened her mouth to scream it away, but instead a lump formed in her dry throat and all she could manage was a strangled gasp.

  The screen flickered, then flickered again, and Claire’s face was gone, replaced by a grinning Benoit Walsh, back in the newscast studio. Louisa reached a trembling hand around the side of the screen and deactivated it.

  She snatched up her wine glass and took a large gulp. The liquid stung her throat on the way down. It had been Claire Harris, she was sure of it. The girl must have recorded a first-person feed before she died.

  Why had it appeared on her home screen? Someone wanted her to see it, but what did they have to gain? And how had they hacked into the video stream from her profile?

  She needed to call someone at work, to report what had happened. She picked up her terminal, noticing it had switched itself back on. She accessed her contacts and then stopped, her finger poised over the list. Who could she call? Someone had interfered with her profile. MET protocols demanded she report the incident to her immediate superior. She tried to rehearse what she would say to DI Fuller, but even now, so soon after the event, it sounded crazy. She had seen the victim of an ongoing investigation on her living room screen. She could imagine the DI’s response: ‘Did she feel under any undue pressure? Had she been drinking?’ She set her wine glass back down. He would organise a psych evaluation for her as soon as their call ended. She’d be off Claire’s case for sure.

  Louisa’s legs wobbled. She sat down hard on the sofa. In the quiet of the apartment her rapid breathing and the thudding heartbeat seemed abnormally loud. Louisa needed to keep this to herself until she got proof the whole thing wasn’t all in her head. She hadn’t imagined it though, had she?

  After a few minutes the silence grew so unbearable she reluctantly switched the screen back on. She tensed, almost expecting Claire’s face to appear again, but the standard array of newscasts flashed up.

  It was too late to do anything about what she had seen right now. It’ll have to wait until the morning.

  Louisa sat, motionless, staring at the screen without really noticing what was being shown. She wasn’t tired. She was too tense to feel sleepy. She kept expecting the noise to come back and the screen to distort once more, but it never did. At four in the morning Louisa forced herself to switch off the screen and go to bed. Sleep came eventually, but it was broken and corrupted by unsettling dreams of half-glimpsed dark shadows that chased her down long, never-ending passageways.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Access to MET Subnet Support in Scotland Yard’s basement was restricted, even for other MET officers like Louisa. It was best to log your intention to meet with one of their officers in advance. Otherwise you’d be stuck in a holding pen outside the lifts waiting for an authorisation token to be attached to your profile. Louisa logged a request on the way to work and thankfully it had been approved by the time she arrived.

  MET Subnet Support was formed
to manage the MET’s Portal integration and had started off with a handful of officers in a corner of Scotland Yard’s basement. It expanded quickly as an increasing number of the MET’s existing systems were transferred into the new subnet. Traffic management, fraud, money laundering, financial investigation and forensics were just some of the amalgamated units. Subnet Support now took up the entire floor, comprising around two hundred officers.

  Louisa passed through the security gates with a flick of her MET ID and headed for the corner of the open plan floor where SIU were based.

  Even though SIU’s skills were utilised by practically every criminal investigation the MET undertook, in-person visits by detectives were rare. Most made the journey to the basement once to have a look and satisfy their curiosity. Afterwards any requests for SIU officers’ time were made via a workflow built into the case file. Louisa felt differently. She regularly made the trip, especially if a new case file was opened and she didn’t know the assigned SIU officer. It helped to build a rapport with SIU, even if she only interacted with them through the case file from then on.

  SIU operated out of The Cave, an enclosed area they had constructed by stacking temporary partitions and storage cabinets. It was certainly cave-like—the wall of cabinets blocked light from the rest of the floor and SIU had disabled the overhead fluorescents to produce a gloomy atmosphere illuminated solely by Portal screens, terminals and desk lamps. It reminded her of the little forts Jess and Charlie built with their duvets around their beds when they were younger. She’d heard rather less than complimentary names for it from other detectives like ‘The Dungeon’, ‘The Crypt’ and ‘The Cesspit’. Louisa thought the last one unkind, but it did smell somewhat ripe as she passed over the threshold (a gap in a set of tall drawers). Heads popped up over partitions to peer at the interloper entering their private domain, but when Louisa waved a greeting they quickly ducked back down.