The Lamplighters

by Frazer Lee

  Closing the blinds in her little room, Jessie carefully slid the laptop from out of its hiding place. The plastic casing actually creaked as she opened up the lid and wiped dust from the grubby screen. She hit the power button and the battered old machine’s hard drive made an alarming grinding sound as it booted up. She should have gotten used to the noise by now of course but the skittering growl, like that of an ancient pet cat, never failed to give her the willies. It was a deeply unsettling sound to her, the sound of the island’s only unauthorized laptop threatening to die horribly, taking with it her only hope of hacking into the network. She felt nervous, twitchy, and gnawed on one of her fingernails. Jessie hoped she’d been convincing enough about the party, that Marla wouldn’t suspect anything. Getting inside the Big House, all that was true of course, but merely a by-product of what was really at stake here. The machine’s tiny screen flickered into glorious life (if slightly burned out through the layer of grime)—the expanse of pixels lighting up her face with the red glow of The Consortium Inc. corporate logo. She’d been tempted to grab a different desktop wallpaper off the net, a picture of the New York skyline, civilization, anything—heck, even a picture of The Hoff in his Speedos would do. But to do so would be too high a risk; she needed to stay within the intranet parameters wherever possible, only straying outside at the last moment. She remembered the thrill of first hacking the communications protocols and finding the island’s satellite uplink. It had taken a week of solid decoding—all so Vera could make a call home. What a mistake that had turned out to be. Jessie tried to put such bitter regrets to the back of her mind and focus on with the job in hand. Even after months away from the mainland, her grasp of operating code had not diminished. In fact on an archaic machine like this, which forced her to learn everything all over again, she could genuinely say her coding had improved. She involuntarily crossed her fingers, willing herself to be lucky when the time came. She would only have a few minutes to hack in and she’d better be ready. The laptop had better be ready too. Jessie hissed through her teeth as the dirty glow of the screen dipped suddenly. She had almost forgotten to plug the power cable into the wall socket to charge the baby up. Quickly rectifying the problem, she flicked on the wall power. The laptop’s little yellow light came on, just below the border of the screen, to tell Jessie the battery was charging. She kicked back tensely and smoked a cigarette, waiting for the light to turn green.

  Chief of Security Fowler wrestled the pistachio nut from its shell and bit into it, never once taking his eyes off of the bank of monitor screens in front of him. The observation room, affectionately known as “The Snug”, was both his sanctuary and the nerve center of his entire security operation. He had as many eyes as a fly in this place, one screen giving him a view of sandy coastline, another floating high above the jetty. Dozens of cameras, dotted around the island, constantly feeding him visual intelligence about what the hell these goddamn Lamplighters (not to mention his own work-shy grunts) were up to. Still no goddamned sign of Anders. Fowler was beginning to suspect the worst. His best guy, washed out to sea or worse. What a waste.

  Flicking the pistachio shell into the wastepaper basket, he selected another nut without looking away from the screens for one second. Fucking blink and you’ll fucking miss it, the foul-mouthed Senior Prison Warden used to say to him. His old boss was a man with a sense of humor so dry you needed to take a glass of water with every joke. Fowler marveled at the clockwork precision with which the screens clicked from one scene to the next, on a never-ending cycle of pan and track back, pan and track back. Looking at the screens, the Chief was reminded of the three-sixty degree view of the watchtower at the Prison—Bentham’s Panopticon, a favorite invention of Fowler’s from the nineteenth century. It featured a central watchtower around which prison cells were situated. The effect was such that the inmates began to police themselves, as they were unsure when they were being watched—either by the guards or by each other. Rather like the Panopticon, the cameras not only served to monitor, but to subtly discipline the island’s inhabitants. The Snug was his very own watchtower, and he was so very pleased whenever he saw the fruits of his labors being projected onto the screens in front of him. Like right now, for instance.

  The Neuborn girl had surprised him by beginning a morning jogging routine, lasting exactly thirty minutes and therefore burning at least two hundred fifty calories. Give them a rulebook and they will learn self-discipline, it is in the nature of the subservient. He switched camera views, watching the girl working her way along the coast path, perspiration forming dark patches on her vest. He’d always liked to watch, to look. His eyes had done so from an early age—right from when he was a young boy. He recalled the time he’d been watching his mother from the garden, seeing her brushing her long black hair, unaware of his inquisitive gaze. His father had beaten him later that day with a thick leather belt. Fowler felt his cock stiffen as he watched Marla and leaned closer to the screen, biting into the pistachio nut. An unpleasantly sour taste filled his mouth like bile and, cursing, he spat the bad nut out into the waste paper basket. Wiping his mouth on a handkerchief he turned his attention back to the screen, which reflected the light of the room’s single light bulb. Marla was now a dark indistinct shape, like a trapped fly buzzing on the other side of his window onto the world. He reached out and touched the screen, a little frisson of static crackling against his fingers. Look, but don’t touch.

  As she ran, Marla found herself thinking of London again. Taking a deep breath of fresh sea air (in through the nose, out through the mouth), she remembered the stink of the city. Subway air had been her least favorite aspect of metropolitan life, the strangely metallic smell and stagnant closeness was overbearing especially during the summer months. Up on street level it hadn’t been much better. Even on her walks through the park she could still taste the fumes from the millions of car exhausts clogging up the arterial city streets. Whenever summer came, albeit briefly, Marla had enjoyed the sun but dreaded seeing the dense menstrual smog hanging over the tower blocks in her neighborhood. Then when the rain came to wash the last rays away, the streets felt like they were disintegrating into a mass of slime. Rotting garbage and leaf matter pounded by relentless acid rain became an indistinct gloopy mess. This in turn was replaced by the grim black and brown sludge that passed for snow during a London winter. Running past a palm tree, Marla glanced up at it and recalled a holiday poster campaign that had, for what seemed like an eternity, adorned every bus shelter and every billboard in town. “Who would live in the city?” the caption asked, emblazoned in bold letters over a split screen view of a polluted industrial cityscape giving way to a deserted island beach. Weren’t they always deserted and yours only, in the ads? Jogging here now on Meditrine Island in the middle of nowhere, Marla smiled to herself, realizing she had found that very place the adverts always promised but never delivered. Deserted, and hers only. If your average city dweller even got a taste of the clean air here, they’d probably go into a kind of reverse toxic shock. And the peacefulness, the soothing, lulling quiet of it all might drive them to hurl themselves into the sea—thrashing wildly in the water just to make some noise, desperate to make some city-sense of the place. Marla’s ears tuned in on the little sounds that when combined, formed the subtle background noise of the island. The insects chirping and clicking like tiny watch mechanisms, birds singing to one another, their chorus an agreement that this was indeed paradise. In the distance the shushing lullaby of ocean waves massaged the shore. No, this wasn’t background noise, thought Marla. This was background atmos—the very sound a masseuse or aromatherapist might try to recreate using a crummy recording. This was the real thing. As Marla finally came to halt, panting from her exertions, she wondered if she could ever live in the city again after this place. Stretching out the burn from her leg muscles, she looked out to sea. Perhaps there was something out there for her on the mainland, but what it was she didn’t know right now. Maybe she had to come here first, to th
e island, in order to find it. Wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead, she prepared herself for the jog back to the summerhouse—her temporary home here in paradise.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Practice runs over, it was time for the real thing. Marla wriggled into her shortest shorts and tightest vest, recalling Jessie’s school ma’am-ish instructions to look as hot as possible on the day of The Run. Arranging her hair in a loose ponytail, Marla checked herself in the mirror. She wasn’t looking bad at all, she had to admit. The dark circles under her eyes had been eradicated by a few days’ sunshine, and a few nights’ sound sleep. Her skin had begun to tan slightly and a rosy glow had sprung up where once there was only the pallor of a city girl who rarely saw daylight. If you are confident about yourself, you will be confident about the mission. This was the mantra Jessie had her repeat for what felt like a thousand times. She checked out her ass in the tiny jogging shorts. Hot damn. Yes, she was feeling confident about the mission all right, the clock was ticking and it was time to run.

  Marla was already short of breath by the time she reached the halfway point; it was an oppressively hot morning, with the sun beating down on her back and shoulders. She kept going, pushing herself through the dizziness towards the security outpost and the jetty that lay beyond it. Glancing up from her shadow on the path and into the trees she caught the glint of a security camera, panning with her movement as she passed it. Gasping for breath and feeling the beginnings of a stitch in her right side, Marla thought about Jessie sneaking through the trees on the other side of the island. Strangely, the thought amused her, and she cracked a smile as she ran towards the finish line.

  Breezing past a couple of surprised security guards, Marla ran down the steps leading to the jetty. Her footfalls made satisfying echoing beats as she padded across the platform at speed. Slowing her pace as she neared the edge of the jetty, she looked out at the sunlight glistening across the waves. It was a beautiful sight, and it felt good to be so close to the water again. Stopping still and stretching out, Pietro’s complaints about not being allowed to swim in those lush, inviting waves rang in her ears. She felt his pain, itching to dive in and feel the refreshing water enveloping her skin. But she had work to do. Bending over to give the guards a good view of her ass, Marla chuckled to herself; she was genuinely enjoying provoking them. Then, as she rose, the shouting started.

  Raised voices from the guards telling her to freeze, stand still, don’t move, turn around slowly with your arms raised. Marla was still laughing; surely they were just making fun, joining in with her little gym-tease. One of the guards barked the order again. She was wrong, dead wrong, he was being serious. The perspiration on her neck and shoulders went cold, giving her gooseflesh and hardening her nipples. Her heart beat as she raised her hands and turned slowly, just like the nice man told her to. Please be nice.

  Marla remembered her nightmare about the jetty as she turned around to find Adam pointing a gun at her. He was flanked by about a half dozen security guards. Not one of them was smiling.

  The guards had been so rough with her, Marla felt almost relieved to be finally shoved into Fowler’s office. As the door slammed shut she rubbed her wrists and forearms where they had grabbed her and frogmarched her off the jetty. Her skin was already red and mottled with fingerprint patterns from the guards’ rough hands; they would surely bruise, this was not cool. Then, seeing Fowler’s face she realized just how uncool this whole thing was. His eyes blazed from beneath his graying eyebrows and he looked for all the world like he wanted to murder, cook and eat her. It was a long time before he spoke, and when he did his voice echoed the same carnivorous aspect of his eyes.

  “The jetty is out of bounds.”

  “I’m sorry I…”

  “You don’t speak, Miss Neuborn. You listen.”

  Marla’s voice became a croak, then merely breath.

  “I don’t know what you think you were doing down there, but let me tell you this, you are lucky my men didn’t open fire. This could have been a messy incident today, very messy indeed. There are many places to run on this island, but the jetty, this compound—in fact anywhere the fuck near my security operatives and I—are out of bounds. Do I make myself clear, Miss Neuborn? Don’t speak, just nod.”

  She nodded. Security operatives and I. Pompous bastard.

  “Protocol dictates that I file a report on you, Miss Neuborn, send it back to the mainland and await further instruction from The Consortium Inc. I am going to do just that, because protocol is very important to me, and now it is of the utmost importance to you too. I will be monitoring your progress from here on in, and if you fuck up again I’ll make damn sure you’re off this island before you can even pack your panties. Do not piss me off again. Do I make myself clear? You can speak this time but keep it very short.”

  “Crystal.” She tried not to hiss at him.

  “Good. I suggest you get back to your chores, and spend some downtime studying the manual I gave to you on your arrival. Protocol, Miss Neuborn. Learn to love it, learn to live it, or get the hell off my goddamned island.”

  My island? Marla’s head began to spin with rage at the way he was talking to her, and at herself for being so green. Why had she agreed to run down to the jetty? Of course it was off limits. And why did Jessie ask her to do it if she knew Marla would get in so much trouble? Oh, wait a minute…

  “Dismissed.”

  She didn’t need to be asked twice. One thing was certain, she’d bloody well strangle Jessie when she saw her. Storming out of Fowler’s office Marla threw a murderous look at Adam, who swallowed hard and absent-mindedly fingered his gun holster. With just one look, Marla had virtually pointed a gun straight back at him.

  On the other side of the island, Jessie cursed at the laptop’s hard drive, which was creaking and groaning like the timbers of some old beleaguered ghost ship.

  “Come on come on come on, fucking stupid machine.”

  She could do without the threat of a motherboard crash; it had been stressful enough getting over here in the first place, she felt sure one or two of the cameras had caught her as she wriggled through the bushes. With her backpack, shades and khakis on she’d felt like Lara Croft—but crouched here now with The Consortium Inc. logo taunting her from behind the progress bar she just felt like a klutz. Then, her breath stopped in her throat as the hard disc’s disconcerting scraping sound picked up speed and the progress bar lurched towards the end zone. Something was happening, hopefully something good.

  Jessie punched the air. Tomb Raider. She was in.

  There was no time to lose, no time at all. Her fingers worked at the greasy track pad, tapped the keys, and began to unlock the floodgates to freedom.

  The march back to the house hadn’t cooled Marla’s blood any and neither had her shower. It wasn’t until she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor that her anger turned to shame and despondency. She always messed up, whatever job she’d had, even here on the island when all she really had to do was be a glorified cleaner for a few months. No, she couldn’t even get that right. She remembered her foster mother hitting her with the hairbrush, hitting her so hard that she couldn’t sit down for a while, yet sit she’d had to, while the crotchety woman angrily tore the spilled paint out of Marla’s tangled hair. Useless. Clumsy, useless girl. Nothing had changed. Marla started to cry. Her tears fell onto the sterile white surface of the tiled floor, almost invisible. Inconsequential, just like she was.

  She spent the rest of the morning curled up on the uncomfortable wicker sofa in her summerhouse, the discomfort of her seat acting as a kind of self-imposed penance. It was not long before her mind wandered back to thoughts of Jessie again. That stupid girl had ruined everything—sure, Marla shouldn’t have agreed to such an idiotic plan, but Jessie had been on the island longer than her. Did she want Marla to get into trouble? Want her off the island for some reason? Maybe she’d gotten so bored on the island that fucking with Marla was the only form of entert
ainment left to her. She wondered bleakly what else Jessie had been up to; she’d probably told Fowler all about the clandestine drinking and smoking too, making it all sound like Marla’s idea. She punched the cushion in frustration and got up off the sofa. There was only one thing for it, and Jessie’s place wasn’t such a long walk away. She might even bloody well jog over there, and when she did, she was going to get some answers.

  Carried on her wave of defiance, Marla made light work of the walk to Jessie’s place. Her stomach was growling by the time she got to the halfway mark and she realized she’d missed lunch. The acid in her empty belly frothed at the thought of all the food back at the summerhouse. Then, passing the place where she and Adam had seen the mutilated cat, her hunger quickly turned to queasiness. Her belly seemed to wince, writhing in its own juices as she recalled the animal’s ruined skull, fragments of bone jutting through the blood-slicked fur like dead fingers. Gritting her teeth, she pushed on towards Jessie’s summerhouse.

  Approaching the little path that ran through the garden, giving access to the main house, Marla stopped for a moment hearing Jessie’s unmistakable laugh. Scowling at the sound, she changed her route and headed round back. Giggling about me no doubt, Marla thought bitterly, and I’d like to know who’s in on the bloody joke. Passing through the shadows of the trees that towered over the house, Marla peered in at large dark windows realizing Jessie wasn’t inside the main building after all; the place was deserted. Then, a dark shape against the shutters near the patio door caught her eye. Creeping closer to investigate, Marla was horrified and puzzled in equal amounts by what she had stumbled across. A dead bird was pinned out with its back against the wooden shutter, wings splayed wide open. The aspect gave the odd impression that the creature had flown backwards in terror into the wall, killing itself. Flown in terror from what? It was clear someone had gone to some trouble to do this to the poor animal, as long metal nails had been driven through each wingtip to hold it in place. The nails had begun to turn the same angry rust color of the bird’s innards, which were visible through a puncture in its body the size of a small fist. Who could have done this to the poor little thing? And why? She peered at the bird’s blank, expressionless glassy black eyes. Whatever secrets it had witnessed, it wasn’t about to give them up now. Marla felt unease pricking at the fine hairs on the nape of her neck and startled at the sound of another distant shrill giggle. She welcomed the distraction from the horrid find and made a quick about-turn. Marla made her way back through the trees and ended up back on the little winding path to the summerhouse. She crept around the treeline and caught sight of Jessie through the window. Adam was inside with Jessie, tickling her playfully. Marla stood silently watching as the tickling gave way to passionate kissing. She stood, shocked, for a few moments then stepped backwards into the trees. She turned and ran into the anonymity of dark foliage, tears welling up in her eyes.